Engineering Ethics

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owners or lies about the current condition of the apartment, he may face legal issues. Public: The future owners living in the apartment are also greatly affected if mechanical and electrical standards are breached as it could result in injury.

Deliberations

The issues in this scenario are the actions Metzler must take in order to fulfil his duties as an ethical engineer. These issues raise the conflict between two basic yet ethical obligations of an engineer. The first obligation of an engineer is to be faithful to the client and to not disclose confidential information related to business affairs of a client without the consent of that client, and the second obligation which is a fundamental principle to any engineer is to regard public safety and health. Two actions may be taken in order for Metzler to fulfil his duties to Smith and IPENZ while remaining as an ethical engineer.

Action one – Involve a third party: This third party could be another engineer who specialises in mechanical and electrical inspections to see if these standards are up to the requirements and if not, the deficiencies shall be fixed. In order to do this, Metzler must ask for permission from Smith or either persuade Smith to see the money benefits and risks avoided by carrying out these inspections. While there may be a few downsides by involving another engineer such as cost, the safety of the public is paramount.

Action two - Report the matter: If Smith does not want to involve another engineer or does not want to tell the future buyers about the standards that could be potentially breached, this poses safety threats to the public. Since the health and safety of the public is at risk, Metzler can report the issue to IPENZ.

Assumptions: In order to report this case, assumptions were made. An assumption made was Metzler just mentioned the consequences of not repairing the apartment but did not mention getting a third party involved to Smith. Additional information required will be what Metzler wrote in the report about the inspections, details of the conversation and if Smith will tell his future buyers about the mechanical and electrical issues.

Actions

The two options would be to either get help from another engineer who will give a professional opinion and to fix the defects or report the case to IPENZ. Only first action may require permission from the Smith to maintain confidentiality.

It would be recommended to select the first option, this way Metzler gives Smith an option and the choice to do the right thing. It will also allow for Metzler and Smith to maintain a strong client and partner relationship while honouring the ethical codes of maintaining confidentiality and taking reasonable steps to safeguard health and safety of the people. If the problem is still not resolved, Metzler should report the issue to IPENZ.

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