One of my regular correspondents has commented last week about teaching ethics to engineering undergraduate students in order to reduce the probability of repetition of events similar to the Volkswagen emissions scandal (see my post on October 14th, 2015 on ‘Greed overwhelms ethics‘). My experience of talking to professional engineers is that there is nothing wrong with their ethical values but that they feel helpless in the face of corporate intransigence or worse. Many engineers feel unable to shift the moral compass of the organisation in which they work. Ethics is concerned with one’s personal values whereas morality is about what is permissible and forbidden in particular realms of behaviour, according to AC Grayling. The frequent revelations of scandals across a range of industries would suggest that we have a crisis of morality in our society. I don’t know how to resolve it but perhaps a first step would be for everyone, including the rich and powerful, to admit we have a problem.