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Online Ethics Center: Guidelines for Engineers Dissenting on Ethical GroundsIf, after the failure of internal conflict resolution measures, you decide totake the matter outside the organization, whether or not you decide toresign, care must be taken in choosing where to go. In many cases, anobvious place is a cognizant regulatory or law enforcement agency. Otherpossibilities include Members of Congress (from one's own district orstate, or the head of a relevant committee), state or local governmentofficials or legislators, or public interest organizations. Of course somecombination of these might be chosen. Although it is usually not a goodidea to take one's case directly to the news media, they generally becomeinvolved eventually, usually in reporting actions taken by whatever entitythe engineer has contacted. One must take special pains to be accurateand clear when dealing with journalists so as to minimize sensationalismand distortion. When given a choice among media organizations, choosethose with reputations for fairness and accuracy.Guidance and support from one's professional society is potentially apowerful aid to engineers in the kinds of situations considered here.Efforts are under way within the IEEE to improve the machinery forproviding such support. Regardless of whether one obtains professionalsociety support, it would be useful to engage an attorney to advise on themany legal aspects of the situation. But in considering their advice, onemust take into account the tendency of attorneys to discourage any actsaccompanied by legal risks.Back to topConclusionsFollowing the above guidelines will often lead to a satisfactory resolutionof the problem at issue. However the situations treated here are inherentlydifficult. No tactics or strategies can guarantee a happy outcome. It takescourage and dedication to risk one's job, or even career, on ethicalgrounds. Many who have done so have suffered severe consequences, atleast in the short run. It is not uncommon for the engineer's position toprevail, while the engineer is fired. Sometimes, the immediate battle islost, but the result of the battle is that fewer such bad decisions are madein the future. Finally, one should also consider the personal consequencesof yielding on a matter of principle when the result may be severe harmto others. This can cause a lifelong loss of self esteem.Online Ethics Center Help-LineReturn to the Index of Codes of EthicsReturn to top.Help us evaluate and improve our site by taking this online survey.Copyright 1995-2004 Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science,Terms of Servicehttp://onlineethics.org/codes/guidelines.html (5 of 5)10/25/2005 9:15:59 AM