The development of ethics codes in professional engineering began in the late 1800s and continues into the present. It has been influenced by the development of ethics codes in other professions, especially medicine and law, but exhibits its own dynamics and characteristics. This historical dynamics is particularly apparent in the United States, in a movement toward responsibility for public safety, health, and welfare. Outside the United States the movement is not as well documented, but modest comparisons can be made between professional engineering codes in different countries.

Engineering Ethics Codes in General

A code of ethics—also known as a code of conduct—is the public expression of guidelines for behavior by a professional organization enforced in some manner by that organization. A professional code is, as it were, regionalized legislation. What law—as a set of rules for behavior articulated and enforced by...