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China’s unwritten code of engineering ethics

Lina Wei1 ⸱ Michael Davis2

Abstract

For over a decade, Nanyan Cao and some other scholars have implicitly or explicitly claimed that

engineering ethics in China is importantly different from engineering ethics in the United States.

The evidence for that claim relies on examination of official documents or certain large features of

Chinese society (millennia of Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, or the like). Though not

uncommon approaches to studying engineering ethics in China, neither actually studies engineering

practice in China. This article does—or at least gets much closer. The authors have asked several

hundred (Mainland) Chinese engineers about what they do and why they do it. Their responses

suggest that Chinese engineers, or at least those surveyed, think about engineering ethics much as

American engineers do.

Keywords Code of engineering ethics · Ethical awareness · China · Engineers · Engineering

In three articles over the last fifteen years, Nanyan Cao and colleagues have built a case for the

thesis that the understanding of engineering ethics among China’s engineers differs in important ways

from that among America’s engineers (Cao, 2004; Cao, 2008; Cao, 2014).3 The evidence for that claim

is empirical, relying on examination of official documents (governmental, quasi-governmental,

organizational, and scholarly). Though Cao and colleagues have not themselves endorsed the thesis,

(almost) always limiting their conclusions to what their research actually shows, others have not been so

cautious. For example, Gui Hong Cao recently observed that:

Lina Wei

weilina12@163.com

Michael Davis davism@iit.edu

1 Department of Philosophy, School of Humanities, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China 2 Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, USA

3 These are in English. There are also two articles in Chinese covering much the same ground: Su and Cao, 2007;

and Su and Cao, 2008.

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With over 5,000 years of civilized history, China follows Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.

Thus, morally, Chinese science, technology, and engineering educations tend toward civilization

and public benefit, which are embodied implicitly in gong cheng [engineering] …. China has

established a happy medium and collectivism-centered mode, focusing on the big picture and small

sacrifices for the sake of big in order to achieve harmony. (Cao, 2015, 1621)

Cao (2015) reasons from large features of Chinese society (millennia of Taoism, Confucianism,

Buddhism, and so on) to the details of engineering ethics (“which are embodied implicitly in gong

cheng”). The assumption seems to be that what is true of China as a whole must be true of every part of

China. Cao (2015) did not actually study engineering practice in China. Cao thus seems to have

committed a fallacy of division—as if reasoning that because A is tall, every part of A must be tall (eyes,

feet, navel, and so on). That is not an uncommon approach to studying engineering ethics in China. For

another recent example, see Zhu and Jesiek (2015):

Confucianism, Marxism, and economic pragmatism together offer a fundamental ethical system

governing current Chinese engineering practice at both the macro- and micro-ethical levels. All

three traditions uphold some form of communitarian ethics, thereby countering the individualistic

ethics at the heart of most Western views of engineering as a profession. Although engineering in

China does not look like a profession in the Western sense, commitments by engineers to more

expansive values than simple bottom-line profit related to the three intellectual traditions may help

Chinese engineers make “professional” judgments, and hence could be viewed as constituting an

important kind of professionalism in the Chinese context. (Zhu and Jesiek, 2015, 165)

Though common, that is not the approach adopted here. In preparing this article, the authors have

instead asked several hundred (Mainland) Chinese engineers about themselves, their attitudes, and what

they do. The result of applying that method is a quite different picture of engineering ethics in (Mainland)

China. The Chinese engineers studied seem much more like American engineers (as commonly described)

than the official documents of Cao and colleagues suggest. (See, for example, McGinn, 2003.) Indeed,

one question this article raises is why such a gap exists between the ethics of China’s practicing engineers

and China’s official understanding of engineering.

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Introduction

For the purposes of this article, “engineering ethics” means (primarily) those morally permissible

standards of conduct that all engineers (at their most reasonable) want all other engineers to follow even

if their following those standards would mean having to do the same. Engineering ethics is morally

binding, when it is, because it creates a voluntary cooperative practice the violation of the rules of which

is a form of cheating (and, all else equal, cheating is morally wrong). Engineering ethics is distinct from

ordinary morality because engineering ethics (in this sense) is morally binding, when it is, only on

engineers, not on everyone (as ordinary morality is). In this respect, engineering ethics resembles law,

which also does not apply to everyone, but varies from one legal system to another. Engineering ethics

nonetheless differs from law insofar as law typically applies to people whether they want it to apply or

not, while engineering ethics presupposes agreement among engineers (at their most reasonable at least)

that the relevant standards should apply to all engineers (even themselves). The ethics of engineers may

be announced in a special document, often called “a code of ethics”, “code of conduct”, or “code of

practice”, or merely be implicit in technical standards, provided the standards in question are ones that

all engineers (at their most reasonable) want all others to follow even if that would mean having to do

the same (Davis, 2007).

Each of the three articles in which Cao and colleagues built the case for engineering ethics in China

being importantly different from engineering ethics in the United States (U.S.) had its own subject and

method.

The first of the articles (Cao, 2004) was a study of the published thinking of Chinese scholars and

education officials when engineering ethics was just becoming a subject of formal instruction in China.

The general trend in the thinking of those scholars and officials seems to have been to keep the long

required “two courses”, focusing one (Morality) on Chinese and Western understanding of morality, and

the other (Dialectic of Nature) on philosophy of technology.

The corresponding developments in the U.S. at that time were quite different. The U.S. lacked the

required “two courses” to build on but had constructed instead a single course called Engineering Ethics

(or called instead Moral Issues in Engineering, Engineering Professionalism, or the like). Though that

course might be taught by an engineer, religious ethicist, social scientist, or the like, it was most often

taught by a philosopher. Engineering Ethics (the course) relied on a new field of philosophy also called

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“engineering ethics”. That field was (more or less) distinct from both (general) moral theory and

philosophy of technology (though including a little of both). It studied engineering ethics (the special

standards) as a kind of applied or professional ethics (where “ethics” has the philosophers’ meaning: the

attempt to understand morality, or some part of it, as a reasonable undertaking). More than a decade ago,

then, there seemed to be an important difference between the way engineering ethics was taught in China

and in the U.S. In China, engineering ethics was taught as a kind of moral issues in technology; in the

U.S., as a kind of professional ethics.

The second article (Cao and Su, 2008) was a study of the “ethical awareness” of China’s

engineering societies. Cao and Su examined the constitutions of 46 national associations of engineers,

all members of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST)—and, where available, their

codes of ethics. CAST is a quasi-governmental organization of China’s scientific and technological

workers, funded and managed by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. CAST is supposed to serve as a “bridge”

between the Communist Party of China and the (Mainland) Chinese government, on the one side, and

the country’s scientific and technological community, on the other. In membership, the nearest U.S.

equivalent is probably the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS): the AAAS

membership consists of scientists and engineers most of whom are academics. In function, the nearest

U.S. equivalent is probably the national academies.

With only one exception, Cao and Su found very little evidence of ethical awareness in those 46

constitutions (and related documents). Indeed, with that one exception, they reported that none of the

societies in question had an official code of engineering ethics or anything much resembling one. Instead,

the provisions in their constitutions most like a code of engineering ethics consisted of “model” language

that the Ministry of Civil Affairs had mandated for the scientific societies as well as the engineering

societies: 1) comply with the State constitution and laws; 2) serve the economic construction of the

country and the development of science and technology; 3) enhance national and international academic

communion; and 4) insist on democracy in managing the societies. (Cao, 2008) There is nothing in this

model language much resembling what appears in most codes of engineering ethics in the U.S. Nor is

there anything in them much resembling provisions of any international code of engineering ethics, such

as the model code that the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (a UNESCO organization)

adopted in 2001.

The exception mentioned earlier was the China Computer Federation. It had a document that

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required “respecting intellectual property rights, respecting facts, evaluating work objectively, keeping

impartiality in peer review, forbidding duplicate publication, and so on.” The document sounds like an

American-style code of ethics, but a code of academic ethics, one any scientific society might have

adopted as well. There was nothing in it applying to engineering practice as such. So, it was one of those

“exceptions that proves the rule”. Cao and Su concluded:

Chinese engineering organizations lack [a] legible and comprehensive cognition about ethical

responsibility of engineering, and a moral ideal [pursued] in a morally-permissible way beyond

what law, market, morality, and public opinion would otherwise require in their written

constitutions... (Cao, 2008)

The third article (Cao, 2014) both updates Cao (2008), increasing the number of engineering

societies studied by two, and adds a new section on the history of codes of engineering ethics in China.4

The updated study of existing constitutions did not change the earlier results. The study of the history of

codes of ethics in China did. Though the first national association of engineers in China, the China

Engineers Society, was founded in 1912, it was not until 1933 that its successor, the Chinese Institute of

Engineers (CIE), adopted China’s first code of ethics for engineers, “the Chinese Engineer Credendum.”

It consisted of six rules, the first of which is, “[Engineers shall] not give up or be disloyal to duty”. Cao

and colleagues note that there is nothing in this code (except the title) that would identify it as a code of

engineering ethics. In any case, the Credendum was replaced just eight years later.

In 1941, the CIE adopted the “Chinese Engineer Creed,” a code apparently designed to help

mobilize Chinese engineers for the war with Japan. The difference between it and its predecessor is plain

from its first rule: “Comply with economic development policies of the country and the national defense

policies, to realize the industrial plan of the national Father Sun Yat-sen.” After the CIE retreated to

Taiwan in 1949, it made only one small revision in the code from then until it adopted an entirely new

code in 1996. The 1996 code differs only in small ways from contemporary American codes of

4 What explains the shift from 46 societies to 48? Cao and colleagues (2014) do not say. The 2008 paper did not

include a list of “engineering societies”, making it impossible to know how Cao and Su got 46, but the 2014 article

makes it possible to guess, since an appendix lists all 48. But there is no point to guessing here, since the main

conclusions Cao and colleagues drew do not depend on which two societies were added.

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engineering ethics. Meanwhile, “due to various historical reasons, to some extent, the engineer’s ethical

awareness in Mainland China has stayed on the level of the Chinese Engineers Creed from 1941 to 1976”

(Cao, 2014, 211).5

The advantage of the methods that Cao and colleagues used in their three studies is obvious. They

only had to examine a small number of readily available documents. The disadvantage is also obvious.

In (Mainland) China, those producing such documents are likely to be government officials and academic

scholars rather than practicing engineers. The inference to the “ethical awareness” of engineers

presupposes a belief that what practicing engineers think is determined, in large part at least, by what

they are taught in “the two courses” and what various official documents tell them.

Why this study

There are at least five reasons to doubt the conclusion that the ethical awareness of practicing

engineers on the Chinese Mainland is determined (even in large part) by what they are taught in “the two

courses” and the various official documents Cao and colleagues examined.

First, the Chinese Academy of Engineering was founded in 1994 as the highest honor organization

in engineering (and technology) in China. Its membership consists of distinguished senior academic

engineers. In 2004, it joined with the National Academy of Engineering of Korea and the Engineering

Academy of Japan to issue a “Declaration of Engineering Ethics”.6 The Declaration stated that all “Asian

engineers” have the same (minimum) responsibilities. The Declaration differs in only small ways from

the typical American code of engineering ethics. By 2014, Cao and colleagues should have been aware

of the Declaration and offered some reason to believe that its existence is not good reason to wonder

whether the ethical awareness of Chinese engineers might be different from what the official documents

they studied made it seem.

Second, Cao and Su (2008) and Cao and colleagues (2014) reported only one exception to their observation

5 Note that Cao and colleagues (Cao, 2014) seem to have gone beyond their evidence here (unless “to some extent”

saves them). Their evidence has little, if any, relation to “the engineer’s ethical awareness”, only to the ethical

awareness of their societies. But charity seems to require reading “societies” into this sentence.

6 Engineering Academy of Japan (EAJ), Declaration on Engineering Ethics (2004) “The First Ten Years: East Asia

Round Table Meeting of Academies of Engineering”, https://ethics.iit.edu/ecodes/node/5076 (accessed July 23,

2019).

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that none of the forty some engineering societies they studied had much ethical awareness, the China Computer

Federation. But there are other exceptions. For example, both articles mention the China Mechanical Engineering

Society (CMES) and Cao (2014, 205n5) even notes that the CMES constitution makes “people-oriented, seeking

social welfare” a purpose. What Cao and colleagues seem to have overlooked is that CMES has had a “Western

style” code of engineering ethics since 2003.7

Third, Davis and Zhang (2017) note that CAST members are typically academic societies. Su and

Cao did not study engineering societies not belonging to CAST, societies consisting largely of

practitioners rather than academics. There were (and still are) a significant number of these, including

the China National Association of Engineering Consultants, the China Engineering Cost Association,

and the Plant Consultant Engineers. Some of these had codes of engineering ethics well before 2008 (and

still have them).

Fourth, Cao and colleagues seem to have misunderstood what a code of engineering ethics must be.

When someone says “code”, most people, including most engineers, typically think of a short document

with the title “code of ethics”, “ethical guidelines”, or the like. Engineering has had formal codes of

ethics of this sort for at least a century. A formal code of ethics is a central feature of professions in the

U.S., Canada, Britain, and most other English-speaking countries—and also in an increasing number of

non-English-speaking countries, such as Norway, Japan, and Mexico.8 However, there can also be an

“unwritten” code of ethics implicit in the technical standards all engineers share. Such an implicit code

would be “unwritten” (in the sense of not being written in a single short document called “a code of

ethics”) and yet in writing (that is, available by interpretation of engineering’s technical standards). In

this way, Chinese engineers might still have an unwritten code (the one implicit in the technical standards

they share with engineers in the rest of the world) even if they have no formal code. Indeed, even if they

had a formal code of ethics (as American engineers do), much of their ethics might still be implicit in the

technical standards (as much of the ethics of American engineers is). (Davis, 2009) Whether Chinese

engineers actually have an unwritten code of ethics is an empirical question. What counts as evidence

for such a code is what Chinese “engineering practitioners”, engineers strictly speaking, do, how they do

it, and how they view what they do.

7 CMES code of ethics, http://www.cmes.org/index/education&train/zgrz/gdwd/2017214/1487058676282_1.html

(accessed July 27, 2019). 8 See, for example, codes of engineering ethics archived at http://ethics.iit.edu/ecodes/ethics-area/10 (accessed

August 5, 2019).

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Fifth, Robert McGinn (2003) has identified a “gap” between the engineering ethics taught in the

U.S. and the reported beliefs of practicing engineers. There is no reason not to expect a similar gap

between what is taught in China’s “two courses” and the engineering ethics of China’s practicing

engineers.

The work of Cao and colleagues thus seems to invite an attempt to study the ethical awareness of

Chinese engineers on the Mainland more directly than they did. This article reports such a study. The

article has four main parts (in addition to this introduction). The first part describes basic information

about the survey (who was interviewed, how, when, and so on). The second part explains some important

features of the survey’s questions (such as why certain terms were avoided). The third part reports and

interprets the results relevant to the presence or absence of ethical awareness in those surveyed. The

fourth part draws some conclusions.

The questionnaire’s rationale

The survey relied on a formal questionnaire. The questionnaire has two versions, the English and

the Chinese. The English version was prepared first, Davis and Wei working together. Once they were

satisfied with the questions in the English version, Wei translated the questionnaire into Chinese.

Professor Hangqing Cong and Associate Professor Jian Yuan helped to check the Chinese version, to

assure both its intelligibility and its accurately expressing (as much as possible) the meaning of the

English version. The English and Chinese versions should be close enough for the purpose of this Article.

Both are available at http://repository.iit.edu/handle/10560/4429 along with the (anonymous) raw data

and compilation of results.

The English words “profession” and “ethics” are much more complicated than the words typically

used to translate them into Chinese. The Chinese words (职业) and (伦理) may also have a different

emphasis. In order to avoid any confusion, or the appearance of begging any questions, the questionnaire

uses the words “occupation”, “work”, or “standards” in the English version and the Chinese equivalents

in the Chinese version wherever consistent with asking the right questions.

Once prepared, the survey was administered in this way. The Chinese version of questionnaire was

put online. At its beginning, Wei thanked the potential participants and explained that the survey was

investigating, among other things, the ethical awareness of Chinese engineers. The content of the

questionnaire (the interviewee’s responses) would only be used for academic study. The whole

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questionnaire would take about 10-15 minutes to complete. The interviewees were on-the-job students

of Zhejiang Polytechnic Institute in a post-baccalaureate degree program (professional master’s). They

attended Hangqing Cong’s course Engineering Professional Ethics. (It is an American-style course in its

textbook, use of cases, and issues studied.)

The course had its own Wechat group. (Wechat is a widely used free communication application in

China, providing an instant messaging service for users.) On May 25, 2019, Wei sent the link to the

questionnaire to Professor Cong, who then sent it to the course Wechat group with a covering note

thanking the potential participants and telling them that the survey was conducted anonymously and that

participation in the survey was voluntary (not a requirement of the course). The interviewees could click

on the questionnaire link to answer the questions anonymously on their computers or mobile phones at

any time. By the end of May 28, 2019, all the students had responded. The total number of the

interviewees was 204 and the number of effective interviewees was 191. All the interviewees answered

all the questions. 13 participants were discarded because they did not consider themselves to be

engineering practitioners or engineers at all. The study assumed that only those who claim to be engineers

can belong to the profession (and so, can be subject to its professional ethics). Those who did not claim

to be engineers did not count as engineers for the purposes of this study. Of the 13 discounted, one

identified as a student (rather than an engineer), one identified as an economist, one identified as a human

resources manager, and the remainder said they were not engaged in work at all or were not engaged in

engineering work.

The sample of Chinese engineers in this survey is not random but the distribution by age, gender,

and field seems varied enough to justify the expectation of a fair sample of students in a professional

master’s program. Finally, Wei collected the data, did the initial analysis, and translated the results into

English. Davis then gave comments and suggestions concerning what more might be learned from the

data.

The survey questionnaire consisted of thirty questions divisible into five parts:

· The first part, Questions 1-3, focused on the engineering background of the interviewees. For

example, Question 1 asked, “What is your type of work?”

· The second part, Questions 4-8, focused on how well the interviewees knew the registration

system, engineering associations or societies, their constitutions, and their codes of ethics. For

example, Question 8 asked, “How well do you know the code of ethics of an association or

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society of engineers?”

· The third part, Questions 9-14, focused on the interviewees’ understanding of engineering. For

example, Question 12 asked, “What do you think is the primary social function of engineering?”

· The fourth part, Questions 15-27, focused on the interviewees’ views of engineers and their

ethical awareness. For example, Questions 17 asked, “Do you actually follow engineering’s

standards of conduct in your work?”

· The fifth part, Questions 28-30, focused on the demographics of the interviewees. For example,

Question 30 asked, “What is the highest degree of education you have had?”

The questionnaire consists of 24 single-choice questions, 2 blank-filling questions, and 4 open-

ended questions. Open-ended questions asked the reason for the subjects’ attitudes or views once

they had answered a specific single-choice question. For example, Question 23 asked, “Why did you

answer question 22 the way you did?”

The survey

The survey ultimately included 191 self-identified practicing engineers. All (evidently) were literate

in Chinese (and were assumed to be Chinese from the Mainland). The interviewees were from more than

fifteen fields. About 39% of the interviewees were from civil engineering, 13% from computer

engineering, and 12% from energy and power engineering. Other fields included logistics engineering,

grain processing engineering, and so on. For details, see Table 1. All tables are available at the following

website: http://repository.iit.edu/handle/10560/4429.

The age distribution was from 22 years old to 43. 63% of the interviewees were between 22 and 30.

22% were between 31 and 35. (Table 2) 75% of our interviewees had 5 years or more of practice. 25%

were relatively new to engineering (4 years or less of practice) Average years of working experience for

the interviewees is 7.1 years. (Table 3)

The occupational titles of Chinese engineers can be divided into senior-engineers-at-the-researcher-

or-professor-level, senior engineers (deputy senior), engineers (intermediate), and assistant engineers

(junior). Perhaps because the interviewees were relatively new to engineering, 18% of the interviewees

did not have an occupational title with “engineer” in it. Of the rest, 40% were assistant engineers and 34%

were engineers. Only 8% were senior engineers. No one had the title of senior-engineer-at-the-

researcher-or-professor-level. (Table 4) This is one respect in which the sample is not fair.

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Since the interviewees were recruited from the students of Zhejiang Polytechnic Institute pursuing

their master’s degree, they are relatively well educated. About 83% of the interviewees have a bachelor’s

degree and 17% have a master’s degree. But none had a PhD (Table 5).

The gender distribution is about what would be expected in a general engineering course: About

74% of the interviewees were male and 26% were female. (Table 6)

Results and interpretation

The survey reported here asked the interviewees how well they knew the registration system for

engineers (Question 4), an association or society of engineering (Question 5), the constitution of such a

society (Question 7), and the code of ethics of such a society (Question 8). About 13% of the interviewees

said they had never heard of the registration system for engineers and 52% just claimed to know a little.

(Table 7) About 17% of the interviewees admitted to never having heard of an engineering association

or society and 64% claimed to know only a little. (Table 8) About 95% of the interviewees said they

knew a little or nothing about the constitution of an engineering society. (Table 9) About 95% of the

interviewees admitted to knowing little or nothing about the code of ethics of an engineering society.

About 4% claimed to know the constitution or code of an engineering society moderately well. Only

about 1% claimed to know one very well. (Table 10) About 94% of the interviewees said they were not

a member of any association or society of engineers. (Table 11)

These results suggest that most Chinese engineers know little or nothing of the constitutions of

engineering societies or the code of ethics included in the exam for registration (the equivalent of the

Professional Engineering exam in the U.S.). Therefore, a constitution of a national society like those in

CAST or a formal code of ethics like the Asian Declaration would seem unlikely to have much influence

on what most Chinese engineers think or do.

In order to know better how Chinese engineers do what they typically do and how they see

themselves and each other, Question 9 and Question 12 asked the interviewees’ views on the social

function of engineering. About 93% of the interviewees said engineering had a direct and vital impact

on the quality of life for all people. (Table 12) About 81% of the interviewees said “improving the

material condition of humanity” was the primary social function of engineering. 14% of the interviewees

said “promoting technological innovation” was. Only 5% of the interviewees said “enhancing national

strength” was. (Table 13) Question 10 asked the interviewees the primary focus of their engineering

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outcomes. About 41% of interviewees chose “safety”, 26% chose “reliability”, and 14% chose

“sustainability”. (Table 14) Question 11 asked the interviewees what they hold paramount in their work.

65% of the interviewees indicated that “the safety, health, and well-being of the public” was paramount

in their work. 17% of the interviewees put “employer’s interests” first. 13% of the interviewees put

“customers’ interests” first. (Table 15) These answers are all consistent with engineering’s moral ideal

(improving the material condition of humanity), though more of the interviewees at their most reasonable

might have preferred “the safety, health, and well-being of the public”. (Davis, 1998)

Question 13 asked the interviewees’ attitudes towards good engineering. About 93% of the

interviewees seemed to think that “good engineering” is not simply technically adept (though it is that)

but also morally good (in the sense of serving the moral ideal of improving the material condition of

humanity or the like without violating any justified moral standard). About 6% of the interviewees

seemed to have no opinion. Only 1% of the interviewees disagreed with the statement. (Table 16)

Question 14 asked the interviewees the reason for their answer to question 13. Some had more than one

reason for their answer, so the total number of reasons is more than 191. The answers to Question 14 can

be divided into three main types. (For details, see Table 17)

The first type consists of the reasons reported for strong agreement or mere agreement with the

description of “good engineering”: the interviewees reported that they thought the statement conformed

to the ideal and essence of engineering. For example: Interviewee 23 answered: “Because good projects

are ultimately for the benefit of the people.” Interviewee 32 answered: “The most basic condition of a

good project is both moral good and legal good, with good process and good results.” Interviewee 36

answered: “The ultimate goal of technology is to improve the material conditions of human beings. If

this requirement is not met, this technology will not be good technology.” Interviewee 117 answered:

“Because this is the basic quality requirement of engineers.” Interviewee 160 answered: “The ultimate

realization of the value of engineering is to benefit and improve human life, which is the basic function

and moral framework.” Interviewee 190 answered: “The quality of a project should be judged not only

by its technological advancement or economy, but also by its ability to satisfy the interests and rights of

most people in the present and future of mankind.” About 11% of the interviewees expressed their

agreement or strong agreement with the statement of what good engineering is but gave no reason.

The second type of reason for the answer to Question 13 supposed engineering as such to be morally

neutral. A few interviewees seem to have claimed that engineering is morally neutral because they did

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not distinguish between engineering and technology. They thought engineering morally neutral because

it is technology. More often interviewees said they desired good engineering, but that it is difficult to

implement. For example, Interviewee 1 answered: “Most of the time, technology is neutral. The key is

how you use it.” Interviewee 40 answered: “There will be different choices for different situations.”

Interviewee 114 answered: “I agree in principle, but it is difficult to achieve it completely.” Interviewee

185 answered: “Some things are hard to evaluate.”

It is not clear whether anyone strongly disagreed with the statement in Question 13. Only two

interviewees chose “Strongly disagree”. One of these, Interviewee 12, may just have marked the wrong

answer. His or her reason for that answer was: “engineering serves humanity, so we need to abide by

morality”. Interviewee 182 strongly disagreed with the statement but did not give a reason.

These results suggest that almost all of the interviewees consider engineering to serve a similar

moral ideal, namely, improving the material condition of humanity. They do not consider good

engineering to be simply technically adeptness (though it is that) but also to be morally good (in the sense

of serving the moral ideal of improving the material condition of humanity or the like without violating

any justified moral standard).

Question 24 asked the interviewees what the greatest achievement of an engineer was. 76% of the

interviewees chose “helping to meet human needs for engineering services and products” as the greatest

achievement of an engineer. 16% of the interviewees chose “guaranteeing the safety and quality of

engineering” as the greatest achievement; 4% of the interviewees chose “contributing to technological

innovation”. (Table 18)

As agents of the public, employers, and customers, engineers should (it seems) value technical

competence and fidelity. Engineers should provide competent and trustworthy engineering services to

the public, their employers, and their customers. Question 15 asked the interviewees whether engineers

should perform services only in the areas of their competence. 87% of the interviewees agreed. 9% of

the interviewees were neutral. Not quite 4% of the interviewees denied that engineers should perform

services only in the areas of their competence. (Table 19) Question 25 asked whether engineers should

serve with fidelity the public, their employers, and their clients. 84% of the interviewees said that

engineers should be faithful in their service to the public, their employers, and their clients. 13% of the

interviewees were neutral. Only 3% of the interviewees denied engineers should be faithful to the public,

their employers, and their clients. (Table 20)

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A profession is collective undertaking. Its members seek to earn their living by maintaining shared

standards of competence and conduct beyond what law, market, morality, and public opinion would

otherwise impose. To claim to be a member of a certain profession is to claim (in part at least) to adhere

to its standards. (Davis, 1996; Cao, 2008) A profession serves its chosen moral ideal by setting morally

permissible standards that everyone in the group (at their most reasonable) wants everyone else in the

group to follow even if the others following the standards would mean having to do the same. Typically,

the primary purpose of these standards is to offer non-members (clients, employer, or public) some

benefit or protection beyond what law, market, morality, and public opinion would otherwise require.

Professionals develop these standards because all of the profession’s members doing things the same

good way is better than each choosing a way he or she considers best. (Davis, 1994) Since many Chinese

engineering societies lack formal codes of ethics, and most Chinese engineers are probably unaware

of the formal codes that do exist, the attitudes of Chinese engineers toward the technical standards

or (informal) standards of conduct might be important embodiments of their “ethical awareness”.

Question 16-21 asked the interviewees’ attitudes towards engineering’s technical standards and

standards of conduct (the ones engineers share). This part includes both single-choice and open-ended

questions, because the focus of this study is not the attitude to engineering’s standards that our

interviewees report but their reasons for those attitudes (since a standard is not an ethical standard for

engineers unless they endorse it for the right reason). For open-ended questions, some interviewees gave

more than one reason for their answer, so the total number of reasons may be more than 191. About 80%

of our interviewees reported following engineers’ technical standards most of the time and 87% reported

following standards of conduct most of time. (Table 21-22) Question 18 asked the interviewees whether

they cared that other engineers followed technical standards and standards of conduct. About 87% of our

interviewees claimed to care about it (a lot or somewhat) and only about 4% said they did not care much.

(Table 23)

Question 19 asked the interviewees why they cared or did not care whether other engineers follow

technical standards and standards of conduct (the ones engineers share). The interviewees gave their

reasons. (Table 24) The most common reasons for caring whether others followed engineering’s

standards were: 1) Only when everyone complies with the standards can we make good (high-quality,

safe, environmentally friendly, etc.) projects (about 28%). 2) As an engineer, we should abide by the

standards (about 16%). 3) Compliance with the same standards is conducive to cooperation and

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efficiency (about 14%). 4) Standards are very important (about 11%). The most common reasons

reported for not caring whether others followed the standards were: One is unable to control others (about

7%). Some interviewees did not know whether they care or not (about 6%). Some interviewees did not

give a specific reason (about 10%).

Question 19 was also designed to see whether interviewees treated engineering standards (either

technical or behavioral) as internal norms or external impositions. In general, interviewees gave answers

consistent with viewing the standards as internal norms (ethics rather than mere regulation). For example,

Interviewee 32 answered: “As an engineer, we must take technical standards and behavioral standards as

the yardstick, which is the basic foundation.” Interviewee 51 answered: “We have an obligation to

supervise our own and others’ professional ethical conduct.” Interviewee 77 answered: “Other engineers

do not comply with technical standards and codes of conduct, which will bring chaos to the industry and

make it inconvenient for the work and for the development of the industry and society.” Interviewee 100

answered: “I hope that the whole industry will have a good moral atmosphere and healthy development.”

Interviewee 123 answered: “In engineering practice, only when everyone practices according to the

standard can a good project be created.” Interviewee 137 answered: “This is the basic professional ethics

of engineers.”

Question 20 asked the interviewees whether they like conducting themselves in a way beyond what

law, market, morality, and public opinion would otherwise require. About 34% of the interviewees said

they did. 55% of the interviewees chose to be neutral. About 5% of the interviewees said they moderately

disliked it and 6% of the interviewees said they hated it. (Table 25) Question 21 asked the reasons for

their attitudes. (Table 26) 8% of the interviewees just stated their attitude but gave no reason.

The most common reasons for liking to conduct themselves in a way beyond what law, market,

morality, and public opinion would otherwise require were: 1) meeting existing standards is the minimum

requirement. I have higher requirements for myself (about 17%); 2) engineers should have professional

ethics of pursuing excellence (about 6%); 3) high standards can ensure better engineering quality (about

5%); 4) high standards are conducive to enhancing the competitiveness of enterprise (about 4%). This

range of answers suggests that the question needs rewriting. Consider the reasons given for these answers.

The most common reasons for being neutral were: 1) it is good enough to meet existing standards.

(about 23%); 2) depending on the situation, the interests of all parties should be considered

comprehensively (about 14%); 3) excessive standards may result in high costs, inefficiencies or waste of

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resources (about 9%); 4) I want to pursue high standards, but it is difficult to implement them (about

4%); and 5) it is theoretically possible to pursue high standards, but it is difficult to implement them

(about 3%).

The reasons for disliking or hating conducting themselves in a way beyond what law, market,

morality, and public opinion would otherwise require are of two types. One type is much like the reasons

for being neutral, for example, excessive standards may result in high costs, inefficiencies, or waste of

resources. The other type seems to take “beyond what law, market, morality, and public opinion would

otherwise require” as “beyond what is allowed by law, morality and public opinion”. For example,

interviewee 83 answered: “Compliance with the law is paramount.” Interviewee 178 answered:

“Compliance with discipline and law.”

These results suggest that Chinese engineers, or at least those interviewed for this study, are eager

to pursue high-standard projects, but at the same time want to take into account the interests of all

stakeholders in the project and find a suitable balance within the scope of law, morality, and public

requirements.

Question 27 asked the interviewees whether engineers should act in such a manner as to uphold and

advance the integrity, honor and dignity of the engineering profession. 95% of the interviewees thought

engineers should act in such a way. (Table 27)

Question 22 asked whether engineers should consider seriously whether the projects in which they

are involved are good projects (for the safety, health, and well-being of the public, environmentally

friendly, and so on). 87% of the interviewees said that engineers should consider seriously whether the

project is good or not. Only about 11% of the interviewees were neutral. Only 3% said engineers should

not consider seriously whether the project is good or not. (Table 28)

Question 23 asked the reasons for the interviewees’ answer to Question 22. (Table 29) About 14%

of the interviewees just expressed their attitudes but did not give a reason. The reasons for seriously

considering whether the project is good were: 1) it conforms to the ideal and value of the project (about

20%); 2) engineers should have ethical judgment (about 15%); 3) it is social responsibility (about 14%);

and 4) it is ethical and moral (about 20%). For example, Interviewee 32 answered: “Engineers should

apply their professional competence to good projects for the benefit of mankind.” Interviewee 88

answered: “The implementation of the project should put public safety, health and well-being in the first

place, taking into account environmental protection, sustainable development and other factors.”

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Interviewee 129 answered: “Engineers should have lofty ideals and responsibilities.” Interviewee 152

answered: “The goal of modern engineering should be to strive for a better life for the people.”

The reasons for being neutral were: 1) engineers sometimes are involved in projects involuntarily

(about 2%); 2) it is the responsibility of the relevant functional departments to evaluate the quality of the

project (about 1%); 3) it is difficult to assess the quality of a project (about 1%). For example, interviewee

28 answered: “The quality of the project depends on the management and evaluation of the relevant

functional departments. Engineers need to keep their own bottom line and do their part well.” Interviewee

169 answered: “Adults are often faced with the pressure to support their families, and the so-called choice

of good projects is not available to everyone.” The reasons for disapproval of considering seriously

whether the project is good or not were: 1) “there are other factors” (Interviewee 177) and 2) “it is my

experience” (Interviewee 105).

Question 26 asked whether engineers should consider environmental impact and sustainable

development in the performance of their professional duties. 94% of the interviewees said they should.

5% of the interviewees chose to be neutral. Only 1% of the interviewees said they should not consider

environmental impact and sustainable development in their work. (Table 30)

The engineers in this study can be divided into two groups according the number of years they

have worked as engineers (ignoring those who have worked more than four years but less than ten). 47

of the engineers have worked for ten years or more (hereafter referred to as group 1) and 48 have worked

for four years or less (hereafter referred to as group 2). There are significant differences in the way these

two groups answered certain questions. The interviewees in group 1 claim to know the engineer

registration system for practicing qualifications much better than those of group 2 (Question 4). The

mean for group 1 is 2.6 while the mean for group 2 is 2.1. Group 1 also cares more whether other

engineers follow technical standards and standards of conduct (the ones engineers share) than group 2

(Question 18). The mean for group 1 is 4.6; for group 2, 4.2. Members of group 1 are also more likely to

agree that engineering has a direct and vital impact on the quality of life for all people than those in group

2 (Question 9). The mean for group 1 is 4.3; the mean for group 2, 4.0. The members of group 1 are also

more likely to agree that good engineering is not simply technical adeptness (though it is that) but also

morally good (Question 13). The mean for group 1 is 4.4; the mean for group 2, 4.1. These results suggest

that the interviewees developed their ethical awareness at least in part through engineering practice. That

they shared a single (American-style) course in engineering ethics can explain only part of their access

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to China’s unwritten code of engineering ethics. (For details, see Table 31-36.)

Conclusions

Few Chinese engineering societies in Mainland China seem to have a code of engineering ethics

and, in any case, few Chinese engineers seem to be members of an engineering society or to know much

about those codes. So, it is no surprise if the ethical awareness of engineers in China is not well reflected

in the constitutions or codes of engineering societies. What the constitutions and codes seem to reflect

(in large part at least) is government policy in which practicing engineers are likely to have had little or

no part in shaping.

Because engineers, on the one hand, and constitutions of engineering societies and their codes of

ethics, on the other, seem not to be on “speaking terms”, textual analysis of the constitutions or codes of

ethics of Chinese engineering societies, such as that Cao and colleagues performed, seems a poor way to

study the ethical awareness of Chinese engineers. But do Chinese engineers have an internal ethical

consciousness? Or are they—as Cao (2014, 206) put it—still at the stage of “doing the thing right”

(technically adept) rather than “doing the right thing” (ethical as well as technically adept)?

If this study gives a fair sample of the ethical awareness of Chinese engineers today, then they see

themselves as engaged in a common undertaking, engineering. They claim to take “improving the

material condition of humanity” as the moral ideal of engineering. Most of them say they agree (or

strongly agree) that engineers should engage in “good engineering”, which is not simply technically

adept but also morally good (in the sense of serving the moral ideal of improving the material condition

of humanity or the like without violating any justified moral standard). China’s engineers seem, on the

whole, to value human well-being and sustainable development.

Concerning technical standards and norms of conduct, these Chinese engineers seem to think of

themselves as a “we” (not just as unorganized set of individuals holding similar jobs), a “we” with special

standards transcending a particular employer (“serving a moral ideal in a morally-permissible way

beyond what law, market, morality, and public opinion would otherwise require”), a “we” they profess

(by “openly” serving that moral ideal, that is, identifying as engineers). They seem to believe that the

participation of each benefits the rest if all (or at least most) maintain engineering’s standards. The

benefits are internal to engineering itself. They wanted to be qualified engineers who engage in high-

quality and high-safety engineering projects, contribute to society and humanity, and deserve a good

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reputation for what they do and how they do it. In short, they view engineering’s standards as standard

they want all other engineers to follow so much that they are willing to do the same. Chinese engineers

(or, at least, the interviewees in this study) seem to have an unwritten code of engineering ethics that

resembles formal codes of engineering ethics in the U.S., Japan, or Germany, rather than the official

standards embedded in the constitutions of China’s national engineering societies.

This study depends on self-reports. There may, then, be a gap between what interviewees claim to

think and what they do think. There are at least two reasons not to worry about that gap here. First, the

engineers interviewed for this study—anonymously filling out an online survey—do not seem to have

much reason not to answer as they believe. Second, even if they did not answer as they believe, they had

to have the ideas to think what they answered. Insofar as this study is concerned with the “ethical

awareness” of Chinese engineers, not their beliefs or commitments, their answers are enough for the

purpose of this study. Ethical awareness is hard fake, especially in answering open-ended questions.

Trying to fake ethical awareness is something like trying to fake fluency in a language one does not know.

There was, of course, almost no unanimity in the answers reported here, though on many of the

crucial questions, such as 26 (whether engineers should consider environmental impact and sustainable

development in the performance of their professional duties), the answers were close to unanimous (94%

agreeing). That lack of unanimity does not undermine the conclusions drawn here for at least two reasons.

First, empirical research of the sort reported here is typically subject to a certain amount of “noise”.

Interviewees may misinterpret the question or, having interpreted it properly, not have thought through

their answer (not be at their most reasonable). Second, since this study is concerned with the “ethical

awareness” of engineers, the lack of unanimity merely shows (at worst) that some engineers are not

ethically aware, not that the ones who show ethical awareness are not ethically aware. At a minimum,

then, this study at least suggests that most Chinese engineers are ethically aware (in same way American

engineers are).

It is, then, worth pointing out here that the engineers in this study have little or nothing to say about

Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Marxism, economic pragmatism, or any of the other-isms scholars

writing about engineering ethics in China tend to appeal to when arguing that Chinese engineering ethics

differs in important ways from the ethics of other engineers. Instead, the ethical reasoning of these

engineers seems to track the statements in most codes of engineering ethics, whether Taiwanese,

American, or international.

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This study thus seems to invite other researchers to carry out similar studies in other countries

where the existence of a global engineering ethics is contested. If a culture is a distinctive way of doing

certain things (together with the beliefs, commitments, and feelings supporting that way of acting), then

China’s culture certainly is different from America’s. Perhaps it is even true that, all else equal, Chinese

engineers prefer social harmony to individual autonomy and American engineers do not. Yet, there is a

point that should be obvious but is often overlooked. Engineering is itself a culture, that is, engineers

have a distinctive way of doing certain things, such as keeping records, designing artifacts, testing

materials, ordering equipment, and so on. This culture is (in large part at least) what distinguishes

engineers from other technologists, such as architects, computer scientists, and synthetic chemists (Davis,

1998). Engineering’s culture must be global (in large part at least) because only its globalism can explain

what allows an engineer in Britain or Australia to read without difficulty (once translated into English)

the design, budget, or schedule prepared by an engineer in France or China. A claim for cultural

relativism within engineering should always be treated skeptically because it relies on the unstated

premise that geographical culture takes precedence over technological culture when, for engineering at

least, the evidence seems to point in the opposite direction. (Davis, 2015) Indeed, engineering’s culture

must be a more powerful culture than, say, Chinese (or any other national) culture. After all, it is easier

for a Chinese engineer who can speak English to work in an English-speaking engineering team in

Chicago or Berlin than to stay in China but switch from engineering to law, carpentry, or some other

skilled occupation. (Davis, 2009)

The lack of a formal code of engineering ethics endorsed by engineering societies in CAST

certainly, all else equal, challenges the claim that Chinese engineers share common ethical standards,

much more that they share those standards with engineers everywhere. But that lack does not settle the

question. It only invites, among other things, empirical research such as this.

Acknowledgements Thanks to Professor Hangqing Cong’s help in obtaining valuable interviewees for

this study, and to the support from the Major Project of the National Social Science Fund of China

(Research on Ethical Morphology of Chinese Engineering Practice, 15ZDB015), and the Special Task

Project of Humanities and Social Sciences Research of the Ministry of Education (Research on the

Cultivation of Engineering and Technical Talents，18JDGC003，18JDGC019).

21

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