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Engineering and ethics

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-L122-1
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DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-L122-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/engineering-and-ethics/v-1

1. The profession of engineering

‘Engineering’ as an honorific term suggesting both precision and success is often used where it does not belong. The pyramids are sometimes described as ‘works of engineering’, though engineers had nothing to do with them. ‘Social engineering’, ‘re-engineering’ and even ‘genetic engineering’ – though technologies or applied sciences – are no more engineering than architecture or medicine is.

What, then, is ‘engineering’? Unfortunately, there is no wholly satisfactory answer. It is, of course, what engineers do, but engineers do many things. They design machinery, chemical plants, harbours, bridges, office buildings, electrical grids, and other complex systems, manage their construction, oversee their operation, and plan their disposal. Though other occupations may do such things too (for example, architects also design buildings), engineers differ from these others in how they do it. Engineering is a certain way of doing such things. This way of doing things has a history; it is that history, rather than any abstract idea, that defines engineering.

The English word ‘engineer’ comes from French. The first people to be called ‘engineers’ were soldiers associated with ‘engines of war’ (such as cannons and siege towers). They were engineers only in the sense that they operated (or otherwise worked with) an ‘engine’ (that is, a complex device for some useful purpose). In 1676, the French organized these ‘engineers’ into a special unit, the corps du génie. Within two decades, the corps was known all over Europe for unusual achievements in military construction. When another country borrowed the French word ‘engineering’ for use in its own army, it was for the sort of activity the corps du génie engaged in.

At first, the corps du génie was more like an organization of masters and apprentices than a modern profession. Only during the 1700s did the French slowly come to understand what they wanted in an officieur du génie and how to get it by formal education. By the end of the 1700s, they had a curriculum from which today’s engineering curriculum differs only in detail; they had also invented engineering as an occupation distinguished from that of other builders by its knowledge of modern physics, chemistry and mathematics, its skill in organization, and its concern with utility rather than beauty, and from the sciences by its focus on making rather than knowing. Civilian engineering is a branch of this (originally) military tree.

So far, this is a history of an occupation. The history of a profession tells how people engaged in a certain occupation organized to hold each other to standards beyond what law, market, and morality would otherwise demand. The history of a profession is the history of organizations, standards of competence, and standards of conduct. For engineering, that history tells of a slow shift from granting membership based on connection with large construction projects, practical invention, or other technological achievements to granting it based on two more demanding requirements. One requirement – a certain sort of knowledge – is occupational. This requirement is now typically identified with a degree in engineering. The other requirement – a commitment to use that knowledge in certain ways (that is, according to engineering’s code of ethics) – is professional (see Professional ethics).

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Citing this article:
Davis, Michael. The profession of engineering. Engineering and ethics, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-L122-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/engineering-and-ethics/v-1/sections/the-profession-of-engineering.
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