Compared with other industries, ethical reflection in engineering is a relatively new problem. There is a specialized field of study called "engineering ethics," which was established in the late 1970s as an independent academic field in the United States and has developed into a distinct field elsewhere, for example in countries where professional organizations have published codes of ethics. The first code of engineering ethics was adopted in Britain in 1910, and civil engineers in the United States and many other countries followed. However, while many associations have adopted these guidelines, and continue to discuss and revise them periodically, in other areas, engineering ethics simply "exist."

While some observers question its rationale and methodology, others simply suspect that the professional activities of engineers may raise specific ethical questions. Few, therefore, seem surprised when philosophers and ethicists question some aspects of technological development that would be almost unimaginable without engineers. There are two established facts. First, technological development raises ethical questions. Second, engineers must contribute to the deployment of survival and technological development. For some, the contradiction forces them to raise ethical questions in engineering. For others, the ethical challenges of technology are not engineers' concern.

What is engineering ethics?

The concept of engineering ethics is sometimes difficult to translate into a language other than English, and subjects developed in English culture are difficult for others to understand.

In some places, as in France, the term "Profession" can refer to any Profession. In other countries/regions, including the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom, "professional" refers to a person who is widely recognized by the society and enjoys special trust and responsibility in a fixed field.

Definition involves understanding the concepts of engineering and ethics. In American education and academic circles, engineering is usually understood in terms of engineers. Engineering and engineer seem to be a pair of terms. It is almost as if ethics and moral came into their respective definitions in pairs. Davis argues that this is sort of a circular definition, where the definition directly or indirectly contains the defined item. How to define engineering is still controversial.

Generally speaking, there are two ways to understand engineering ethics, one is to view engineering from the perspective of science and technology, and the other is to view engineering from the perspective of profession and professional activities. The first perspective tends to lead to reductionism, which treats engineering as an applied part of technology rather than a relatively independent social practice with its own characteristics. In this view, engineering ethics will be dissolved into technical ethics, so there is no need to exist independently. For example, this idea was popular in American academia in the 1980s. The second perspective easily confuses engineering ethics with other professional ethics, thus obliterating the special status of science and technology in engineering profession. This kind of vision tends to attribute engineering ethics only to the professional ethics of engineers, but ignores the ethical dimension of engineering activities. Although this paper tends to understand engineering from the second perspective, we should regard engineering professional activities as a kind of social practice.
Clearly, engineering ethics is also related to a different understanding of ethics. According to Davis, "ethics" has at least three meanings. "The first is a synonym for what is often called morality. The second refers to a philosophical field (moral theory, which attempts to understand morality as a rational enterprise). The third is standards that apply only to the particular behavior of members of an organization. When it comes to engineering ethics, he argues, the "ethics" here are in the second and third senses.