Why Show We Care about Ethics

1. Why Show We Care about Ethics?

2. What is ETHICS? The practice of making a principled choice between right and wrong. For a responsible person, ethical principles are an essential part of solving a problem. Using ethical principles as a basis for decision making prevents us from relying only on intuition or personal preference.

3. Why should we care about ethics? Is �computer ethics� (ethics regarding information technology) really different from �regular� ethics? Capabilities of computers lend special character to problems of ethics. Difficult, often, to identify the ethical issues: �I didn�t know I did anything wrong.� Computer ethics have a strong link to policy or procedure.

4. Competing Factors in Decision Making Biological level: guided by drives for food, shelter, love Guided by laws (government, church, culture) Guided by an understanding of what is good, right, proper, moral, or ethical.

5. At any one time, influences from several levels affect or behavior. These influences often lead to competing outcomes, which must be weighed before we make judgments about how to act. Decisions involving information technology incorporate many levels of influences: many shades of gray. A risk in situations involving ethics is the risk of poor judgment. Decisions made with poor judgment can have a wide range of problematic results. ETHICS is the practice of making principled choices.

6. Types of Ethical Choices Choosing Right from Wrong Stealing, lying, cheating Taboos of a commonsense morality Choosing Right from Right Situation is not clear; not black or white; contains some gray Complexity of ethical choice: the necessity of choosing a course of action from 2 or more alternatives, each having some desirable result. Choosing 2 or more goods / or lesser of 2 evils

7. Practical Approaches to Ethical Decision Making �Defensible decisions� Using Law to Make Ethical Decisions Legality versus Ethicality

8. The ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct http://www.acm.org/constitution/code.html Purpose: to foster understanding about information technology and standards for its use. Formal guideline to gaining a clear picture about a problem or dilemma, and beginnings of an ethical solution: Is the act consistent with corporate policy? Does the act violate corporate or professional codes of conduct or ethics? Does the act violate the Golden Rule? Does the act serve the majority rather than a minority?

9. Using Informal Guidelines to Make Ethical Decisions The Mom Test The TV Test The Smell Test The Other Person�s Shoes Test The Market Test

10. The Principle of Harm Minimization A common standard for deciding right and wrong Prescribes choosing the course of action that minimizes the amount of harm. STAKEHOLDER�s perspective: stakeholder is any person or organization with a stake in the decision. HARM: any act, physical or psychological, that denies a stakeholder his or her reasonable rights.

11. How Rights and Duties Relate to Ethics Deontology: the study of rights and duties Rights are inherent universal privileges The right to know The right to privacy The right to property

12. Considering Duties Feel compelled by a moral obligation-the action cannot be avoided Duties are basis for our definition of rights. If a person has rights, s/he also has corresponding duties�duties are expected of an individual in society The basic duty is harm minimization

13. Responsibility A concept closely related to duty is responsibility Responsibility is a duty that is usually well defined and specific to a profession. Information professionals have the personal duties we all have as individuals, as wells as professional responsibilities which are described in various codes of ethics.

14. Personal Duties Each person has the personal duty To foster trust To act with integrity To do justice To practice beneficence and nonmaleficence To act with appropriate gratitude and make appropriate reparation To work toward self-improvement

15. Professional Responsibilities Two factors apply to all professionals and influence their actions: Professional relationships Professional efficacy Confidentiality Impartiality

16. Consequentialism When we focus on the goals, ends, results, or consequences of an action, we are using the principle of consequentialism. We judge the rightness of wrongness of an action by the outcomes. Two major types: 1. egoism 2. utilitarianism

17. Egoism The concept of long-term rationality Enlightened self-interest or prudence If an action doesn�t help you in the long term, it is foolish, or imprudent. We use this ethical principle as justification when we do something that furthers our own welfare or serves our own advantage. �Good for me� principle or �ethics of arrogance� Self-interest, in form of company seeking to increase its profits, is a valid justification for many businesses Results in ambiguity, so egoism needs to be guided and limited by other ethical principles.

18. Utilitarianism When our actions benefit others as well as ourselves, we are operating in the public interest. We measure the usefulness, or utility, of our actions for all stakeholders. This is utilitarianism, which helps a person judge, through a form of cost-benefit analysis, whether an action is ethical. An action is right if it maximizes benefits over costs for all involved, everyone counting equally.

19. Kant�s Categorical Imperative 2 principles for examining whether a person has the right to act a certain way in a given situation: Consistency: would it make sense to force everyone to take the action being studied? Respect: We must treat people with dignity. People are ends in themselves, not means.

20. Summary In making ethical choices, answer the following questions: Does the action serve the public interest or, at least, not cause unnecessary social harm? Are any basic human rights violated? Are any commonly accepted duties abridged? The key to solving an ethical dilemma is to use as many logical approaches as possible to analyze the problem.

21. Ethics and Information Technology:Computers Don�t Have Ethics,People Do Difficulties posed by computers: Alters relationships among people Information in electronic form is more �fragile� � more easily changed and more vulnerable to unauthorized access: property rights, plagiarism, piracy, privacy Efforts to protect information integrity, confidentiality, and availability often conflict with desire for benefits of information sharing Lack of widespread means of authorization and authentication exposes IT to unethical practices.

22. Difficulties posed by People The Order-of-Magnitude Effect For each tenfold increase (an increase of one order of magnitude) in speed, our perception of what is going on changes dramatically. The Effort Effect The principle of unreasonable effort: if a task is not worth the effort, people will tend not to undertake it.

23. What is Unethical Computer Use? Social and Economic Issues Job displacement Work-related demands on computer professionals Power and access to power: civil rights Issues of Individual Practice Development Process Issues Issues involving Mangers and Subordinates Processing Issues Unreliability Untimely Output Unintended Data Use

24. (con�t) Issues Relating to the Workplace Ergonomics Monitoring Issues of Data Collection, Storage, and Access Data confidentiality, privacy, accuracy Issues About EMail Resource Exploitation Issues Vendor-Client Issues Issues of Computer Crime

25. Cases Case 3: Something for Everyone Case 12: The Engineer and the Teacher Case 13: Test Data Case 17: Code Blue