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Professional Ethics

CDT409

Ethics in Computing

Gordana Dodig Crnkovic School of Innovation, Design and

Engineering, Mälardalen University, Sweden

http://www.idt.mdh.se/personal/gdc/

Professional Ethics Course Web Page

Information about the course: http://www.idt.mdh.se/kurser/cd5590

Website provides extensive ethics resources.

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Ethics in Computing

Ethics in Computing*

-  Developed as a consequence of the development of

computer technology (education, business, government,

commerce, security, medicine, entertainment, etc.)

-  Norbert Wiener 1940s – new branch of applied ethics

“cybernetics” (today: study of regulatory systems) Books: Cybernetics (1948); The Human Use of Human Beings (1950)

4 * This topic is based on Axel Krings http://www2.cs.uidaho.edu/~krings/CS401/CS401-Ethics-1.pdf

Ethics in Computing

-  Walter Maner 1976 effect of computers in medical ethics.

Ethical problems “aggravated, transformed or created by

computer technology” Book: Computer Ethics (1976)

-  Book: Bynum, Terrell Ward, ed. (1985), Computers and Ethics

-  Book: Deborah Johnson (1985) Computer Ethics (textbook)

-  The “uniqueness debate”: Are these really wholly new

ethical problems?

-  James H. Moor. (1985) What is computer ethics?

Metaphilosophy, 16:266-75 “policy vacuums” 5

- Terrel Bynum 1986 founded Research Center on Computing and Society - Core values: life, health, happiness, security, resources, opportunities, and knowledge — are so important to the continued survival of any community that essentially all communities do value them. (Moor, 1990) - Core values used to examine privacy and security (Moor,1999) - Value-sensitive Computer Design introduced in late 90s

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Ethics in Computing

–  Environmental Ethics issues (warming, pollution, resources, …)

–  Medical Ethics (resource distribution, transplants, enhancements, …)

–  Genetic Ethics (gene manipulation, …)

–  Global Justice (consequence of global communications)

–  Open Source & Open Access

–  File sharing (Pirate Party in Sweden)

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Ethical Questions 1

–  Ubiquitous computing/ Ambient Intelligence/ Internet of

things

–  Nano-technology (production, use,…)

–  Autonomous, intelligent, adaptive, learning systems

–  Robotics, industrial/social

–  Social networking via web (Second Life, Facebook, Instagram,…)

–  Virtual worlds/ virtual economy

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Ethical Questions 2

–  Privacy/ Personal Integrity/ Databases/ Data mining/

Surveillance

–  Have a look at Mozilla’s Lightbeam Firefox tool shows

who's tracking your online movements http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/28/mozilla-lightbeam-tracking-privacy-cookies

–  Decoding mental states from brain activity http://worldsciencefestival.com/videos/it_sounds_like_youre_talking_about_mind_reading John-

Dylan Haynes research http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/mind_decision

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Ethical Questions 3

–  Medical Implants, Enhancements, Upgrades, Cloning –  Engineering Memories, Theodore Berger "Engineering

Memories: A Cognitive Neural Prosthesis for Restoring and Enhancing Memory Function” http://www.usc.edu/programs/neuroscience/faculty/profile.php?fid=23

–  Safety critical systems

–  Research ethics (publication, living research objects, informed consent)

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Ethical Questions 4

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Computing Curricula

Swedish Computer Science and Engineering education follows in many respects an international model, the American ACM/IEEE Computing Curricula recommendations:http://www.acm.org/education/curricula-recommendations

The education in Professional Ethics is a compulsory part of ACM/IEEE Computing Curriculum.

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Definition of Professional Ethics within Computing Curricula

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Computing Curricula, ACM/IEEE

–  Social context of computing –  Methods and tools of analysis of ethical argument –  Professional and ethical responsibilities –  Risks and liabilities of safety-critical systems –  Intellectual property –  Privacy and civil liberties –  Social implications of the Internet –  Computer crime –  Philosophical foundations of ethics

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How do we identify Ethical Issues?

Based on: Lawrence M. Hinman, Ph.D. Director, The Values Institute

University of San Diego

What is Ethics?

“There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost everything...is an inseparable compound of the two, so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.”

Abraham Lincoln

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Ethics and Morality 1 - Etymology

Morality and ethics have same roots, mores which means manner and customs from the Latin and etos which means custom and habits from the Greek.

Robert Louden, Morality and Moral Theory

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Ethics and Morality 2

Strictly speaking, morality is used to refer to what we would call moral standards and moral conduct while ethics is used to refer to the formal study of those standards and conduct. For this reason, the study of ethics is also often called "moral philosophy."

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Ethics and Morality 3

Morality: first-order set of beliefs and practices about how to live a good life.

Ethics: a second-order, conscious reflection on the adequacy of our moral beliefs.

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Ethics Fields

Descriptive ethics is the factual study of the ethical standards or principles of a group or tradition;

Normative ethics is the development of theories that systematically denominate right and wrong actions;

Applied ethics is the use of these theories to form judgments regarding practical cases; and

Meta-ethics is the analysis of the meaning and justification of ethical claims

Source: www.ethicsquality.com/philosophy.html

LAW

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ETHICS

Society, Values and Norms

MORAL

Identifying Moral Issues

Moral concerns are unavoidable in life.

They are not always easy to identify and define.

Moral issues within profession must be addressed

specifically within professional university education and

professional organizations.

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Ethics is an Ongoing Conversation

Professional discussions of ethical issues in journals.

We come back to some fundamental ideas again and

again, finding new meaning in them.

See http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/e/ethics.htm

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Ethical Issues in Engineering

Engineering as Social Experimentation

“All products of technology present some potential dangers, and thus engineering is an inherently risky activity. In order to underscore this fact and help in exploring its ethical implications, we suggest that engineering should be viewed as an experimental process. It is not, of course, an experiment conducted solely in a laboratory under controlled conditions. Rather, it is an experiment on a social scale involving human subjects.”

Ethics in Engineering, M.W. Martin and R. Schinzinger, 1996

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Ethics Contexts

Ethical problems arise most often when there are differences of judgment or expectations about what constitutes the true state of affairs or a appropriate course of action.

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Family (Private Sphere)

Global environment

Society/Nature

Engineering firm

Engineer Colleagues

Managers

Clients Consumers

Industry (Other firms)

Profession (Societies)

Ethics Contexts

A Framework for Ethical Decision Making

The ethical decision making includes the following steps: –  recognize a moral issue –  get the facts –  evaluate the alternative actions from various moral

perspectives –  make a decision –  act –  reflect on the results of the decision afterwards.

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A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory

The Virtue Ethics Approach Focuses on attitudes, dispositions, or character traits that enable us to act in ways that develop our human potentials. Examples: honesty, courage, faithfulness, trustworthiness, integrity, etc.

The principle is: What is ethical is what develops moral virtues in ourselves and our communities.

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A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory

The Utilitarian Ethics Approach Focuses on the consequences that actions or policies have on the well-being (“utility”) of all persons directly or indirectly affected by the action or policy.

The principle is: Of any two actions, the most ethical one will produce the greatest balance of benefits over harms.

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A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory

The Rights Ethics Approach Each person has a fundamental right to be respected and treated as a free and equal rational person capable of making his or her own decisions. The principle is: An action or policy is morally right only if those persons affected by the decision are not used merely as instruments for advancing some goal, but are fully informed and treated only with their informed consent.

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Why is Professional Ethics important?

–  Professional Ethics is a part of education for every socially important profession (medicine, law, media/journalism etc.)

–  Ethics is fundamental component of the professionalism!

–  The most important goal is to develop the ethical autonomy, i.e. the skill and the habit of thinking rationally and critically about the ethical issues.

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Codes of Ethics

ACM code of ethics http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics

IEEE code of ethics http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html

SE code of ethics http://www.acm.org/about/se-code

More codes: http://ethics.csc.ncsu.edu/basics/codes/

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http://ethics.csc.ncsu.edu Ethics in Computing "site map"

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References

Basic material: –  http://www.idt.mdh.se/kurser/cd5590 –  http://ethics.sandiego.edu/ –  http://www2.cs.uidaho.edu/~krings/CS401/CS401-Ethics-1.pdf –  James Fieser (2001) Moral Philosophy Through The Ages,

Mayfield Publishing Company –  http://www.idt.mdh.se/~gdc/Research.htm