I am a technical professional, researcher, and academic instructor. I had no contact with professional ethics associations, or with ethics as a discipline, until one day I read an advertisement that said Illinois Institute of Technology "is interested in collecting material from anyone who has experimented with developing a curriculum which includes ethics in a technical course in engineering." I answered, writing about my previous spontaneous action: during my regular technical course, Introduction to Robotics and Automation, I had told my students about the importance of professional ethics and about the IEEE ethical code. I received a reply from IIT encouraging me to write an article for Perspectives.

This has forced me to think why I had told my students about professional ethics. Why did it seem important in a course on robots and automation? My tentative answer follows.

Ethical problems have gained significance in post communist Poland, as in other Eastern European countries. One can observe the growing influence of religion in the place of Marxist doctrine. Ethical problems occupy a central position in religious systems. At my university, in the eastern region of Poland, two religions, Catholicism and the Orthodox rite, are dominant. We have two nonobligatory academic courses explaining ethical problems-Catholic and Orthodox. But religious systems focus on general problems of ethics. Professionals, engineers among them, need more detailed advice for solving the everyday problems of professional life. In addition, we engineers, who are in the habit of building our machines our own way, while respecting general laws, feel the need to build our professional code in the same way. Precedent based, living conclusions of professional ethics seem to be particularly attractive for someone from Eastern Europe, subject to various doctrinal influences and stresses.

The integrating aspect of professional ethics is also a matter of great moment. The professional activity of engineers has an international, and even inter-cultural, character, especially in developed, technologically advanced countries. It is not unusual for people of different cultural backgrounds-from Africa, America, Europe, India, Japan-to take part in a team working on an advanced engineering project. Often one can find such a team authoring technical papers. This suggests that there are some common ideas and values, which create a common base for common activity. Professional ethics can be a significant component of this base.

In Eastern Europe, separatist trends are distinctly perceptible. They are, among other things, a response to the "decreed internationalism" of the communist period. In such an environment, professional ethics can serve engineers both as a tool and as a condition of joining the West with its integrating trends.

Professional ethics can serve as a tool because the international activity of engineers really exists in the West; the base of such activity with its ethical component must be effective; so it's necessary for us to use such a tool for building this kind of activity here.

The existence of a common ethical component is also a condition for us to join the Western professional community. I am convinced that we can join it bringing our own ethical values and ideas. What might these be?

An earlier issue of Perspectives was organized around two important questions: "What is Good Science?" and "What is Good Engineering?" The Polish philosopher Tadeusz Kotarbinski(1886-1981) gave these a more general formulation: "What is Good Work?" and made answering that question the central object of the philosophical system he named praxiology.

Praxiology, or the general theory of efficient activity, or rational activity logic, descends from the idea of "Technologie Generale," formulated by the French philosopher Alfred Espinas in 1890. Kotarbinski and his disciples have developed a full system of praxiology that deals with two main problems: (a) description and analysis of elements and forms of activity; and (b) formulation of praxological principles of conduct, valid in every area of rational human activity. Tract on Good Work, "Traktat o dobrej robocie" in Polish, originally published 1955 by Lodz Scientific Society, is Kotarbinski's principal work. Kotarbinski's praxiology approximates ethics. His focal ethical concept is being trustworthy or reliable for others.

The problem of the sociological analysis of scientific activity with its ethical implications was attacked by another Polish philosopher (and sociologist) Florian Znaniecki (1882-1958). Znaniecki divided his lifetime between Poland and the USA, working at Poznan University and at Columbia University. His important work, The Social Role of the Man of Knowledge, was first published in 1940 by Columbia University Press.

Znaniecki emphasizes that a wise person understands that his own tasks are only a part of human tasks as a whole, and that his tasks can be fulfilled only if others fulfill their concurrent tasks; everyone's activities can be significant and fertile only in connection with the activities of others.

I have come to believe that the importance which professional ethics has for me results also-maybe first and foremost-from the vividness of its problems in real life, from the possibility that an ethical choice of a professional can produce enormous effects on other people. It is important to me that I can bring elements of the cultural heritage of my nation to professional ethics, and that one day this contribution may have such a positive effect.