Engineering responsibilities in lesser-developed nations: The welfare requirement

Increasing numbers of engineers from developed countries are employed during some part of their careers in lesser-developed nations (LDN’s), or they may design products for use in LDN’s. Yet determining the implications of professional engineering codes for engineers’ conduct in such settings can be difficult. Conditions are often substantially different from those in developed countries, where the codes were formulated. In this paper I explore the implications of what I call the “welfare requirement” in engineering codes for professional engineering conduct in LDN’s. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Engineering Foundation Conference on “Ethics for Science and Engineering Based International Industries”, Durham, NC, USA, 14–17 September 1997.