300+ TOP Professional Ethics Interview Questions [UPDATED]

1. Define Ethics?

• Study of right or wrong.
• Good and evil.
• Obligations and rights.
• Justice.
• Social and Political deals.

2. Define Engineering Ethics?

• Study of the moral issues and decisions confronting individuals and organizations engaged in engineering / profession.
• Study of related questions about the moral ideals, character, policies and relationships of people and corporations involved in technological activity.
• Moral standards / values and system of morals.

3. What Is The Need To Study Ethics?

• To responsibly confront moral issues raised by technological activity.
• To recognize and resolve moral dilemma.
• To achieve moral autonomy.

4. Differentiate Moral And Ethics?

MORAL:

• Refers only to personal behavior.
• Refers to any aspect of human action.
• Social conventions about right or wrong conduct.

ETHICS:

• Involves defining, analyzing, evaluating and resolving moral problems and developing moral criteria to guide human behavior.
• Critical reflection on what one does and why one does it.
• Refers only to professional behavior.

5. What Is The Method Used To Solve An Ethical Problem?

• Recognizing a problem or its need.
• Gathering information and defining the problem to be solved or goal to be achieved.
• Generating alternative solutions or methods to achieve the goal.
• Evaluate benefits and costs of alternate solutions.
• Decision making & optimization.
• Implementing the best solution.

6. What Are The Senses Of Engineering Ethics?

• An activity and area of inquiry.
• Ethical problems, issues and controversies.
• Particular set of beliefs, attitudes and habits.
• Morally correct.

7. Differentiate Micro-ethics And Macro-ethics?

Micro-ethics:
Deals about some typical and everyday problems which play an important role in the field of engineering and in the profession of an engineer.

Macro-ethics:
Deals with all the societal problems which are unknown and suddenly burst out on a regional or national level.

8. What Are The Three Types Of Inquiry?

Normative Inquiry – Based on values.

Conceptual Inquiry – Based on meaning.

Factual Inquiry – Based in facts.

9. What Are The Sorts Of Complexity And Murkiness That May Be Involved In Moral Situations?

• Vagueness
• Conflicting reasons
• Disagreement

10. What Are The Steps In Confronting Moral Dilemmas?

• Identify the relevant moral factors and reasons.
• Gather all available facts that are pertinent to the moral factors involved.
• Rank the moral considerations in order of importance as they apply to the situation.
• Consider alternative courses of actions as ways of resolving dilemma, tracing the full implications of each.
• Get suggestions and alternative perspectives on the dilemma.
• By weighing all the relevant moral factors and reasons in light of the facts, produce a reasoned judgment.

11. Define Moral Autonomy?

• Self-determining
• Independent
• Personal Involvement
• Exercises based on the moral concern for other people and recognition of good moral reasons.

12. Give The Importance Of Lawrence Kohlberg’s And Carol Gilligan’s Theory?

Kohlberg gives greater emphasis to recognizing rights and abstract universal rules.

Gilligan stresses the importance of maintaining personal relationships based on mutual caring.

13. Give The Need For Authority?

Authority provides the framework in which learning can take place.

14. What Are The Criteria Required For A Profession?

• Knowledge
• Organization
• Public Good

15. Give The General Criteria To Become A Professional Engineer?

Attaining standards of achievement in education, job performance or creativity in engineering that distinguish engineers from engineering technicians and technologists.

Accepting as part of their professional obligations as least the most basic moral responsibilities to the public as well as to their employers, clients, colleagues and subordinates.

16. Define Integrity?

Integrity is the bridge between responsibility in private and professional life.

17. Define Compromise?

In a negative sense it means to undetermined integrity by violating one’s fundamental moral principles.

In a positive sense, however, it means to settle differences by mutual concessions or to reconcile conflicts through adjustments in attitude and conduct.

18. Give The Two Aspects Of Honesty?

Truthfulness
– meeting responsibilities concerning truth-telling.

Trustworthiness
– Meeting responsibilities concerning trust.

19. Differentiate Self-respect And Self-esteem?

Self-respect:
It is a moral concept; refers to the virtue properly valuing oneself.

Self-esteem:
It is a psychological concept; means having a positive attitude toward oneself, even if the attitude is excessive or otherwise unwarranted.

20. What Are The Two Forms Of Self-respect?

Recognition self-respect

Appraisal self-respect

21. What Are The Senses Of Responsibility?

• A virtue
• Obligations
• General moral capacities of people
• Liabilities and accountability for actions
• Blameworthiness or praiseworthiness

22. When Will You Tell An Act As An Involuntary One?

• Act done in ignorance
• Act performed under compulsion

23. What Are The Types Of Theories About Morality?

Virtue ethics – Virtues and vices

Utilitarianism – Most good for the most people

Duty ethics – Duties to respect people

Rights ethics – Human rights

24. Differentiate Hypothetical Imperatives And Moral Imperatives?

Hypothetical imperatives are based on some conditions whereas Moral imperatives wont based on some condition.

25. State Rawl‟s Principles?

Each person is entitled to the most extensive amount of liberty compatible with an equal amount for others.

Differences in social power and economic benefits are justified only when they are likely to benefit everyone, including members of the most disadvantaged groups.

26. Give The Various Tests Required To Evaluate The Ethical Theories?

• Theory must be clear, and formulated with concepts that are coherent and applicable.
• It must be internally consistent in that none of its tenets contradicts any other.
• Neither the theory nor its defense can rely upon false information.
• It must be sufficiently comprehensive to provide guidance in specific situations of interests to us.
• It must be compatible with our most carefully considered moral convictions about concrete situations.

27. Give The Drawbacks Of Utilitarianism?

Sometimes what is best for the community as a whole is bad for certain individuals in the community.

It is often impossible to know in advance which decision will lead to the most good.

28. Give The Drawback Of Duty Ethics?

Duty ethics does not always lead to a solution which maximizes the public good.

29. Differentiate Ethical Relativism And Ethical Egoism?

Ethical egoism
– the view that right action consist in producing one’s own good.

Ethical relativism
– the view that right action is merely what the law and customs of one’s society require.

30. Define Ethical Pluralism?

Ethical pluralism is the view that there may be alternative moral perspectives that are reasonable, but no one of which must be accepted completely by all rational and morally concerned persons.

31. Define Religion?

A religion is any set of articles of faith together with the observances, attitudes, obligations and feelings tied up therewith, which, in so far as it is influential in a person, tends to perform two functions, one social and the other personal.

32. Give The Uses Of Ethical Theories?

• In understanding moral dilemmas.
• Justifying professional obligations and ideals.
• Relating ordinary and professional morality.

33. What Are The Conditions Required To Define A Valid Consent?

• The consent was given voluntarily.
• The consent was based on the information that rational person would want, together with any other information requested, presented to them in understandable form.
• The consenter was competent to process the information and make rational decisions.

34. What Are The Two Main Elements Which Are Included To Understand Informed Consent?

Informed Consent is understood as including two main elements:

• Knowledge [Subjects should be given not only the information they request, but all the information needed to make a reasonable decision].
• Voluntariness [Subjects must enter into the experiment without being subjected to force, fraud, or deception].

35. What Are The General Features Of Morally Responsible Engineers?

• Conscientiousness.
• Comprehensive perspective.
• Autonomy.
• Accountability.

36. What Is The Purpose Of Various Types Of Standards?

• Accuracy in measurement, interchangeability, ease of handling.
• Prevention of injury, death and loss of income or property.
• Fair value of price.
• Competence in carrying out tasks.
• Sound design, ease of communications.
• Freedom from interference.

37. Define Code?

Code is a set of standards and laws.

38. Enumerate The Roles Of Codes?

• Inspiration and Guidance
• Support
• Deterrence and Discipline
• Education and Mutual Understanding
• Contributing to the Profession Public Image
• Protecting the Status Quo
• Promoting Business Interests

39. Give The Limitations Of Codes?

• Codes are restricted to general and vague wording.
• Codes can’t give a solution or method for solving the internal conflicts.
• Codes cannot serve as the final moral authority for professional conduct.
• Codes can be reproduced in a very rapid manner.

40. What Are The Problems With The Law In Engineering?

• Minimal compliance.
• Many laws are without enforceable sanctions.

41. What Is The Need To View Engineering Projects As Experiments?

• Any project is carried out in partial ignorance.
• The final outcomes of engineering projects, like those of experiments, are generally uncertain.
• Effective engineering relies upon knowledge gained about products before and after they leave the factory – knowledge needed for improving current products and creating better ones.

42. Differentiate Scientific Experiments And Engineering Projects?

Scientific experiments are conducted to gain new knowledge, while “engineering projects are experiments that are not necessarily designed to produce very much knowledge”.

43. What Are The Uncertainties Occur In The Model Designs?

• Model used for the design calculations.
• Exact characteristics of the materials purchased.
• Constancies of materials used for processing and fabrication.
• Nature of the pressure, the finished product will encounter.

44. Define Risk?

A risk is the potential that something unwanted and harmful may occur.

Risk = Probability X Consequences.

45. Define A Disaster?

A DISASTER = A seriously disruptive event + A state of unpreparedness.

46. Give The Criteria Which Helps To Ensure A Safety Design?

• The minimum requirement is that a design must comply with the applicable laws.
• An acceptable design must meet the standard of “accepted engineering practice.”
• Alternative designs that are potentially safer must be explored.
• Engineer must attempt to foresee potential misuses of the product by the consumer and must design to avoid these problems.
• Once the product is designed, both the prototypes and finished devices must be rigorously tested.

47. What Are The Factors For Safety And Risk?

• Voluntary and Involuntary risk
• Short-term and Long-term risk
• Expected probability
• Reversible effects
• Threshold levels to risk
• Delayed or Immediate risk etc

48. What Are The Drawbacks In The Definition Of Lawrence?

• Underestimation of risks
• Overestimation of risks
• No estimation of risks