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13.2: NCEES Model Rules

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    142482

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    14.2 The Governing Framework — NCEES Model Rules

    The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides the ethical codes used in this course and serves as the basis for professional ethics standards across most US jurisdictions.

    The NCEES Model Rules establish three purposes for engineering ethics codes:

    1. Harm prevention — causing harm to people is ethically wrong.
    2. Public welfare promotion — engineering exists to serve the public, not just clients.
    3. Maintaining integrity and practice standards — the profession's credibility depends on engineers holding each other to a consistent standard.

    The primary obligation:

    "Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public."

    "Hold paramount" means this obligation is not weighed against other considerations — it overrides profit, employer pressure, project deadlines, and personal advancement.


    This page titled 13.2: NCEES Model Rules was last modified on Thu, 24 Sep 2026 17:38:39 GMT and is shared under a CC BY-NC license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by .

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