Ed is not a worthy role model for professional responsibility. The safety of society depends to a great extent on a professional engineering community that takes its responsibilities much more seriously than Ed Addison does. Were this not so, there would be far more failures of engineered facilities and products. This statement is absolutely untrue. Thus, the engineer's ethical responsibilities extend far beyond the employer and the client.
Engineers are more than employees of a corporation.
Perhaps it should be noted here that other professions may operate under entirely different ethical guidelines. This concept could have disastrous implications for public safety, should it be adopted by the engineering profession. Ed Addison would like to avoid failure. The danger in this attitude toward failure is that it confuses liability with professional responsibility. The engineer who is motivated merely by the desire to avoid liability may simply address the problem by writing contracts that transfer responsibilities to others, and by purchasing more insurance to insulate the firm from the economic impact of failure.