Fairness in Professional Competition Violated by Advance Promise to Engineer A
P · Principle
Individual
http://proethica.org/ontology/case/117#Fairness_in_Professional_Competition_Violated_by_Advance_Promise_to_Engineer_A
Properties
Instance of
FairnessinProfessionalCompetition
http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#FairnessinProfessionalCompetition
Applied to
All qualified engineering firms excluded from consideration for City X future contract
Engineer C's procurement authority role
Balancing with
Loyalty to collaborating engineers
Recognition of speculative service contributions
Concrete expression
By promising Engineer A's firm the future contract in advance, Engineer C denied all other qualified engineering firms the fair and equal competitive access to which they were entitled, violating the relational fairness norm that governs public procurement
Confidence
0.9
Importance
high
Interpretation
Fairness in professional competition requires that no firm receive advance assurance of selection that forecloses equal opportunity for others; the promise to Engineer A structurally excluded all competitors before the process began
Invoked by
NSPE Board of Ethical Review
Tension resolution
Fairness to all competitors prevails over loyalty or gratitude to a specific prior contributor
Source Evidence
Source text
one must assume that the method would, at a minimum, involve public announcement along with free and open opportunity for all qualified and eligible engineers and engineering firms to be considered for the contract
Text references
one must assume that the method would, at a minimum, involve public announcement along with free and open opportunity for all qualified and eligible engineers and engineering firms to be considered for the contract
promising Engineer A in advance that Engineer A would be selected for a future contract without considering the qualifications, experience, and other factors is not consistent with either the spirit or the intent of the NSPE Code of Ethics
TTL
@prefix case117: <http://proethica.org/ontology/case/117#> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix proeth: <http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#> .
@prefix prov: <http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .
case117:Fairness_in_Professional_Competition_Violated_by_Advance_Promise_to_Engineer_A a proeth:FairnessinProfessionalCompetition,
owl:NamedIndividual ;
rdfs:label "Fairness in Professional Competition Violated by Advance Promise to Engineer A" ;
proeth:appliedto "All qualified engineering firms excluded from consideration for City X future contract",
"Engineer C's procurement authority role" ;
proeth:balancingwith "Loyalty to collaborating engineers",
"Recognition of speculative service contributions" ;
proeth:conceptCategory "Principle" ;
proeth:concreteexpression "By promising Engineer A's firm the future contract in advance, Engineer C denied all other qualified engineering firms the fair and equal competitive access to which they were entitled, violating the relational fairness norm that governs public procurement" ;
proeth:confidence "0.9" ;
proeth:discoveredincase "117" ;
proeth:discoveredinpass "2" ;
proeth:discoveredinsection "discussion" ;
proeth:firstdiscoveredat "2026-02-28T15:52:44.038907+00:00" ;
proeth:firstdiscoveredincase "117" ;
proeth:generatedattime "2026-02-28T15:52:44.038907+00:00" ;
proeth:importance "high" ;
proeth:interpretation "Fairness in professional competition requires that no firm receive advance assurance of selection that forecloses equal opportunity for others; the promise to Engineer A structurally excluded all competitors before the process began" ;
proeth:invokedby "NSPE Board of Ethical Review" ;
proeth:principleclass "Fairness in Professional Competition" ;
proeth:sourcetext "one must assume that the method would, at a minimum, involve public announcement along with free and open opportunity for all qualified and eligible engineers and engineering firms to be considered for the contract" ;
proeth:tensionresolution "Fairness to all competitors prevails over loyalty or gratitude to a specific prior contributor" ;
proeth:textreferences "one must assume that the method would, at a minimum, involve public announcement along with free and open opportunity for all qualified and eligible engineers and engineering firms to be considered for the contract",
"promising Engineer A in advance that Engineer A would be selected for a future contract without considering the qualifications, experience, and other factors is not consistent with either the spirit or the intent of the NSPE Code of Ethics" ;
proeth:wasattributedto "Case 117 Extraction" ;
prov:generatedAtTime "2026-02-28T16:01:19.957856"^^xsd:dateTime ;
prov:wasGeneratedBy "ProEthica Case 117 Extraction" .
Metadata
Extraction details
Discovered in case
117
Discovered in pass
2
Discovered in section
discussion
First discovered
2026-02-28T15:52:44.038907+00:00
First case
117
Generated
2026-02-28T15:52:44.038907+00:00
Attributed to
Case 117 Extraction
Generated
2026-02-28T16:01:19.957856
Generated by
ProEthica Case 117 Extraction