Ethics Seminar: When Professional Obligations Conflict

The Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Regina are again pleased to present a discussion / seminar focusing on general ethical reasoning and principles applied to cases and issues of interest to professional engineers and geoscientists. Following a similar format but extending the discussion from last year’s highly successful presentation will be Professor Owen Clifton. Note: Registered attendees who are confirmed to be in the video call for more than 50 minutes, will receive a certificate of attendance with may be used for CPD credit with APEGS. Only registered attendees will receive the certificate of attendance. Abstract: Engineers and other professionals are subject to various ethical obligations. Sometimes, these obligations conflict: professionals can feel caught between, for example, their duty to maintain client confidentiality on the one hand and their responsibility to disclose risks to public safety on the other. In this seminar, we will discuss some cases in which these conflicts arise, what they reveal about the nature of professional responsibility,
and how they might be navigated.

Bio: Owen Clifton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Classics at the University of Regina, specializing in ethics and political philosophy. Dr. Clifton completed his PhD in philosophy at Queen’s University in 2024. In 2022, he was a visiting doctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and an early-career fellow at the University of Oxford’s Global Priorities Institute. At the invitation of the Global Priorities Institute, he returned to Oxford in 2023 as a visiting scholar. In summer 2026, Dr. Clifton will take up a research fellowship at the University of Graz, working with environmental lawyers and philosophers on ethical issues related to climate change.