Ethics is the formal study of morality. Morality is a behavior by which a person should act. An engineer's code of ethics outlines the moral guidelines by which an engineer should act. The IEE lists 10 codes of ethics that can be summarized as: Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Prioritize the safety, health and well-being of the public Avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest and disclose them to stakeholders Be honest and realistic by making data-driven claims Reject corruption in all forms - Improve understanding of technologies conventional and emerging Maintain and improve one's technical competence Seek, accept and offer honest criticism of technical work and acknowledge corrections and accept criticism Treat all people equally regardless of factors such as race, etc. Avoid injury to others, their property, reputation or employment through false or harmful actions. Assist colleagues and collaborators in professional development. An engineer is responsible for always acting correctly and in line with the above code of ethics. However, responsibility and morality, although similar, have different meanings. There are three main forms of responsibility of an Engineer; Reason: The operator Role: Role or task assigned or virtue of the position Legal: Legal branches for which one can be sued Legal responsibility and code of ethics are easily confused. Just because an engineer is not legally responsible, does not mean that he is not morally responsible. Morals can be shared and are focused on future actions. It should be noted that many of the codes of ethics listed by the IEEE will not result in any legal consequences. For example, a senior engineer has the responsible role of passing on his specialized knowledge to a young graduate engineer. Sharing knowledge is a key characteristic of a responsible engineer. This cannot be achieved without the willingness to learn. An engineer has the responsibility to continuously strive to learn and it is the balance between learning and teaching that makes an engineer accountable. VW emissions scandal The Volkswagen scandal emerged in September 2015, when the company admitted that nearly 600,000 cars sold in the United States had been fitted with "defective devices." These "defective devices" were actually a software system that turned on when the car was subjected to emissions testing and turned off when it was driven on the road [2]. This resulted in VW cars emitting much higher emissions during commercial driving than VW claimed and what had been tested. The situation arose in early 2006 when Volkswagen realized that it could not produce a diesel engine that would give customers the performance they wanted and that would meet stringent U.S. emissions standards. What is ethically worse than the fraud itself is the cover-up. US Attorney General Loretta Lynch stated that "VW obfuscated, denied, and ultimately lied" [2]. The engineers specifically stated that the device should absolutely not be used in the United States, and that some engineers raised objections to the device in late 2006 [1]. The software cover-up reached the top of VW and former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn was charged with conspiracy and wire fraud [3]. The entire scandal cost the company approximately $29 billion. That said, any damage to the company's reputation appears to have been at.