Morals vs. Professional Ethics
Engineering-or "professional"-ethics differs from individual morality in several major respects. While both disciplines hold that individuals can and ought to arrive at right and proper decisions to act in the face of conflict, there are several general but significant differences.
Morality usually implies a set of internally held values, quite often (but not necessarily) deontological, or deity-based. Many moral belief systems c
enter on what are held to be intrinsic or universal values-Truth, Honesty, the "golden rule" or other measure of goodness. Ethics (in our sense of "professional ethics") on the other hand, is usually connected to a shared understanding of proper conduct guidelines among a group of people associated by means of their profession.
Morals are an internal barometer by which an individual may guide their personal beliefs and actions. Ethics provides an overarching structure by which professionals can act given a set of external conditions. By this overarching ethical structure, usually called a Code of Conduct or Code of Ethics, professionals share a commonly held set of guidelines as to how their fellow professionals can reasonably be expected to act in the same or similar conditions.
These ethical Codes of Conduct utilize a set of rules and guidelines that strive to be morals-neutral, although it is expected that each professional will be guided by his/her internal morals as well as external codes of ethics. Thus, an engineer may decide to pursue specific areas of work and commerce (e.g. genetic engineering, defense R&D) based on a set of individual morals, but regardless of his/her individual decision, their conduct will be assumed by other professionals to be in line with their engineering code of ethics.
Professional ethics allows diverse, multidisciplinary, indeed multicultural teams to work in unison toward common goals guided by their shared code of ethical conduct, where individual morals might under some circumstances impede or disrupt team efforts.
Ethics and morals might be discussed in the same sense as the First Amendment concept of separation between Church and State. Professional Codes of Ethics represent a means of self-governance by associated professionals that allows for a variety of moral beliefs.