Professional Domains
Engineering
The Engineering Ethics Professional Domain represents a specialized field where engineers navigate complex ethical dilemmas requiring the application of abstract principles to concrete situations. In this professional domain, professionals must balance their paramount duty to protect public safety against other obligations such as client confidentiality, employer loyalty, and professional integrity. Decision-making involves analyzing specific facts, identifying relevant ethical codes, resolving conflicts between competing principles through operationalization, and drawing analogies to precedent cases. This professional domain encompasses scenarios involving safety assessments, environmental impacts, product integrity, confidential information, and professional conduct, all within organizational contexts that include established hierarchies, procedures, and economic pressures that influence ethical judgments.
What are Professional Domains?
Professional domains represent specialized fields of practice where ethical decisions are made. They contain roles, principles, obligations, and other entities that form the framework for ethical scenarios.
Each domain is based on an ontology that defines the types of entities and their relationships. Domains provide the field-specific elements, rules, and constraints that shape the ethical decision-making process in professional scenarios.
When you create a domain, you establish the foundation for multiple scenarios that can explore different ethical challenges within that professional field. The domain defines what types of roles, resources, and conditions are available, while scenarios represent specific situations within that domain.