Why You Should Be Worried About More Than Just A Lawsuit

Engineers face ethical issues daily - in the workplace, in engineering classrooms, in student-teacher discussions, in the laboratory, and almost any place where discourse or work is carried on. Ethical issues are often different, however, than legal issues, and the good engineer should be aware of those differences. While engineers are sometimes more worried about "legal" issues because of the fear of being sued for infringing on intellectual property rights or otherwise being subject to liability for their actions, today's engineer has much more to worry about. To begin, an engineer must learn to differentiate legal and ethical issues.