ethics and professional responsibility for land surveyors
TRANSCRIPT
WHAT ARE ETHICS?•Well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues
•Moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior
•The moral correctness of specified conduct
META-ETHICS
“I have not increased nor diminished the measure, I have not diminished the palm; I have not encroached upon the fields.”
AUTONOMY
AUTONOMY IS THE PRINCIPLE THAT ADDRESSES
THE CONCEPT OF INDEPENDENCE• Allow the client to make their own decisions based on their own values
• Encourage your clients to listen to your recommendations but make their own decisions
• Always encourage your clients to fully understand how their own decisions will affect others
• Persons not able to make their own decisions should not be allowed to act autonomously
HOW DO YOU MAKE AN ETHICAL DECISION (AND LIVE
WITH IT)?
• Identify the problem
•Specify reasonable alternatives
•Use your ethical resources
•Propose and test possible solutions
•Make your choice
PROFESSION• A vocation or occupation requiring special, usually advanced, education and skill; e.g. law or medical professions. Also refers to the whole body of such profession (Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th ed.)
• The labor and skill involved in a profession is predominantly mental or intellectual, rather than physical or manual (Black’s)
• The term originally contemplated only theology, law, and medicine, but as applications in science and learning are extended to other departments of affairs, other vocations also receive the name, which implies professed attainments in special knowledge as distinguished from mere skill (Black’s)
WHAT IS RESPONSIBLE CHARGE?
• Responsible charge, in its most basic of terms, is the duty of a land surveyor to supervise the work performed by survey technicians and other non-licensed personnel
• Areas of responsible charge vary by state, but include direct or indirect supervision, fiscal and legal responsibility, and relationships within the company
• Many states define the type of work that must be supervised by a licensed professional including “research, field retracement, office calculations, boundary determination and mapping of land surveying work”
WHAT ETHICAL CHOICES WOULD YOU MAKE
IN THE FOLLOWING SITUATIONS…
MONOPOLY MONEY!
I had to create this section of the seminar because SO MANY SURVEYORS are charging EXORBITANT FEES!
CIVIL LIABILITY•Duty
•Breach
•Causation
•Damages
BINDING CASE LAW•Mandatory Authority: Primary sources that a court must conform with, including the jurisdiction’s constitution, statutory code, administrative regulations and binding court cases
•Persuasive Authority: any writing (see above) that influences or is used to influence the decisions of a court but are not binding upon it