Online Ethics Center: Topics Index:

Obligations

Clean Air Standards and a Government Engineer An engineer defies immediate supervisor because he believes supervisor's instruction would pose an environmental health hazard.
Engineer's Dispute With Client Over Design A client believes an engineer's designs are too costly, but the engineer fears that anything less may endanger the public.
Do Engineers Have a Right to Protest Shoddy Work and Cost Overruns? An engineer who is employed by a government contractor objects to a subcontractor's poor performance and is ignored and silenced by management.
Knowledge of Damaging Information An engineer has a conflict between honoring an agreement to an employer and reporting a hazard to protect the public interest.

Gorman, M. E. (1998). Transforming nature: Ethics, invention and design. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Other keywords for this book: trust, distrust; rights; responsibilities, general; design and the environment; design process; global environmental issues; chemical environmental issues; endangered ecosystems; engineering ethics courses, pedagogy.
Layton, E. The Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1986. Other keywords for this: professional societies: technical and scholarly societies; public safety; professional responsibility; code violations; ethical codes and guidelines from professional societies.
Daniel W. Mead, "Why a Code of Conduct?" in Baum and Flores, Ethical Problems in Engineering (Troy, NY: Center for the Study of the Human Dimensions of Science and Technology, 1980). Other keywords for this: responsibilities, general; ethical codes and guidelines from professional societies; professional responsibility; professional advice.