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/
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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
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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)
* This topic is based on Axel Krings
http://www2.cs.uidaho.edu/~krings/CS401/CS401-Ethics-1.pdf
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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”
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Ethics in Computing
- 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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Ethical Questions 1
–  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 2
–  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 3
–  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 4
–  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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Computing Curricula
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Definition of Professional Ethics within
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/curricularecommendations
The education in Professional Ethics is a compulsory
part of ACM/IEEE Computing Curriculum.
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Computing Curricula, ACM/IEEE
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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
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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
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Society, Values and Norms
ETHICS
MORAL
LAW
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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
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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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Ethics Contexts
Industry
(Other firms)
Clients
Consumers
Profession
(Societies)
Engineering firm
Family
(Private Sphere)
Engineer
Colleague
s
Manager
s
Global environment
Society/Nature
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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:
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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
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