Does “public” mean an engineer's nation?

Abstract

The questions considered here is: how should engineers interpret “public” in provisions of codes of engineering ethics? Should engineers interpret “public” as ending at the national or juridical border of their own country? Or are the obligations of an engineer to the public “international”, “global”, or otherwise “cosmopolitan”? My answer has two main parts. The first is that we should understand “public” to refer to all those whose lack of information, technical knowledge, ability, or time for deliberation renders them more or less vulnerable to the powers engineers wield on behalf of their client or employer - those whom, for convenience, I shall call “the innocent”. The second part of my answer is that “innocence” should not be limited by jurisdiction, citizenship, space, or even time.