Professional Ethics and Responsibilities

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Professional Ethics and Responsibilities

• FIRE, Chapter 10

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Recapping Our Previous Discussion

• Ethics--A set of values that describe what is
  right or wrong, good or bad.
• Morality--A doctrine or system of ideas concerned
  with right (human) conduct.

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Ethical Systems

• An ethical system should be generalizable. It
  should hold for a broad range of cases.
• Although generalizable, conflicts will always
  arise between ethical principles.

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Naïve Egoism

• Not really a coherent well-developed view
• Essentially boils down to one principal, If we
  all follow the bidding of our egos, well be
  happy. (This is also essentially the
  materialistic philosophy of Ayn Rand.)
• -Taken to its logical extreme, this means egoists
  believe they can use others with impunity to
  realize their own ends. Might makes right.

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Naïve Egoism

• But its difficult to systemize and generalize
  egoism. (Whose might? Whose right?)
• -Some egoists try to broaden their approach by
  limiting naïve egoism by permitting contracts or
  institutional arrangements or sacrificing
  short-term interest for long-term ones.
• -This may not be a very workable philosophy for
  individuals, but what about companies? Or
  countries? (Libertarian Capitalism?)

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Utilitarianism

• Ethics of consequences
• Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and other
  British philosophers in the 1700s.
• Developed the goal of
• The greatest good for the greatest number.
• An alternative is the greatest happiness (most
  pleasure for the least pain).

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Utilitarianism

• Sounds quantitative. (Develop an algorithm!)
• John Stuart Mill developed Consequentialism,
• An act is morally right if it
• Produces a greater net value (benefits minus
  costs) than any available alternative.
• Is this the only way to calculate value?
• Hard to estimate (long-term) consequences
• Without additional principals, we can be
  overwhelmed by choices.

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Ethics by Principles

• This system rests on a few basic principles that
  we are duty-bound to uphold
• Eg. The Ten Commandments
• Immanuel Kant (German philosopher, late 1700s)
  tried to derive these principles from
  philosophical reasoning.

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Ethics by Principles

• If we have a system of a few principles that
  apply in all cases and are never contradictory,
  we have a clear and precise ethical system.
• But will this always be the case?
• Will all cases be covered?
• Will principles never be contradictory?
• (Maybe some utilitarian comparative analysis
  would be in order here)
• With a shared cultural background values
• The Kantian approach has its most impact.

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Ethics by Principles

• Such ethical systems are called deontological
  systems
• They emphasize duties and absolute rules, to
  be followed regardless of the consequences.
• Deontologists argue that logic or reason
  determine ethical rules and that actions are
  intrinsically good because they follow from
  logic.
• Kant said, Respect the reason within you.
• This implies we are all moral beings, to the
  extent that we are rational.

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An Ethics of Consequences and Principles

• Perhaps we can compromise and
• Develop an ethical approach based on principles
  that also considers consequences.
• (e.g., People, or nations, have the right to
  defend themselves, even if it causes injury or
  even death to the attacker).
• We will look both at principles and consequences
  throughout this course, and not only to develop
  ethical arguments.
• We will try to broaden principles for actions.
• And we will look carefully at consequences.

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Natural Rights

• These are rights that apply to all individuals
  (natural and inalienable)
• They can constrain utilitarianism and flesh out
  deontological systems.
• John Locke (British), Thomas Jefferson, Jean
  Jacques Rousseau (French), all active in the
  1700s, were philosophers of natural rights.
• This philosophy formed the basis of the shared
  cultural values of the U.S. founding fathers and
  thus the shared cultural values of most U.S.
  citizens today.

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Institutional Ethics

• Government
• Bill of Rights Declaration of Independence (We
  hold these truths to be self-evident...)
• These are expressions of an institutional
  ethics.
• Business
• The ethics and moral code for a business may be
  different than that of the government or an
  individual.
• Profession
• A professional group makes an ethical code.
• Not the same as an individual moral code
• Whose code trumps whom?

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Personal and Professional Ethics

• Of course, we should have our own personal
  ethics, and anything we do professionally should
  be subsumed in that.
• However, we may also subscribe to professional
  ethics that we have personally tailored to the
  specifics of our profession or that are generally
  accepted by our professional community.

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Personal and Professional Ethics

• In particular, computer ethics includes
• ethical issues faced by a computer professional
  as part of the job, such as relations with and
  responsibilities towards customers, clients,
  coworkers, employees, employers, and others who
  use ones products or services.
• ethical issues faced by people who are not
  computer professionals, but who manage, select,
  or use computers in a professional setting.

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Personal and Professional Ethics

• By considering computer ethics issues we may be
  able to refine ethical principles and come up
  with guidelines for behavior and
  responsibilities.

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Ethical Guidelines for Computer Professionals

• What are the difference from personal ethics?
• The professional is an expert in a field (e.g.,
  medicine or computing) that the general public
  may know little about.
• Customers from the general public rely on the
  knowledge, expertise, and honesty of the
  professional. To the extent that a professional
  advertises expertise, he or she has an
  obligation to provide it.
• To the extent that their work is widely used,
  computer professionals have a responsibility not
  only to their customers, but to the general
  public.

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Can or Should Organizations have Ethics?

• Most professionals today work within a company or
  organization.
• However, some philosophers argue that it is
  meaningless to speak of an organization as having
  ethics, since any acts are carried out by
  individuals with their own ethical
  responsibilities.
• Others argue that an organization that acts with
  intention and a formal decision structure is a
  moral entity.
• As a matter of law, a company is an individual
  (of a special type)

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Can or Should Organizations have Ethics?

• At any rate, companies do have policies and
  practices that lead to actions with ethical
  content.
• Businesses, especially bigger ones, have a
  corporate culture or personality.

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Can or Should Organizations have Ethics?

• People shape the corporate culture, especially
  those in management positions. Thus a managers
  ethical responsibilities includes his or her
  contributions to the companys ethical
  personality.
• Perhaps a professional code should deal with the
  responsibilities of managers and others in
  positions of leadership.

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Can or Should Organizations have Ethics?

• Whatever the ethical stance or obligation of an
  organization, it is clear that individuals still
  have ethical obligations when they see something
  that is wrong, especially if it can cause great
  harm. This obligation extends to citizens of
  countries and to the acts of their governments
  (e.g., principles established during the
  Nuremburg Trials).

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The Challenge and Dilemma for the Ethical
Individual

• Sometimes acting ethically can require courage
  and/or far-sightedness.

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Guidelines for Producing Good Systems

• These guidelines are pointed at software
  developers. Which also apply to others involved
  in technology (e.g., hardware developers or
  developers of electrical systems)?
• Understand what success means.
• Include users in design and testing to to provide
  safe and useful systems.
• Do a thorough, careful job when planning and
  scheduling a projecting and when writing
  contracts or proposals.
• Design for real users.

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Guidelines for Producing Good Systems

• Dont assume existing software is safe.
• Be open and hones about capabilities, safety, and
  limitations of systems. (Especially applicable to
  expert systems.)
• Require a convincing case for safety. How much
  risk is acceptable? In safety-critical
  applications, the policy should be to suspend or
  delay use of the system in the absence of a
  convincing case for safety, rather than to
  proceed in the absence of a convincing case for
  disaster.

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What Should be in a Professional Code?

• Should the previous guidelines, which are a set
  of generally accepted best practices, be in the
  professional code?
• There are some things that are inappropriate for
  certain professional codes.
• If the professional organization purports to
  represent all people in a given profession, it
  should refrain from specific political stances in
  its professional code.

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What Should be in a Professional Code?

• However, an organization with a particular social
  stance (e.g., Computer Professionals for Social
  Responsibility) might have a code of ethics that
  would be inappropriate for a general professional
  organization.
• Also, this does not meant that a professional
  organization should not take a stand on certain
  political issues that affect it (as long as the
  stand doesnt conflict with its own or generally
  accepted codes of ethics).

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Cases

• What are the kind of ethical situations can a
  computing professional can face?
• Cases might involve professional responsibilities
  to the general public, customers or clients, the
  employer, coworkers, and others.
• What role does personal ethics play?
• Are there general ethical principles that can be
  formulated and applied?
• Are there cases that require an approach that is
  more situational ethics?

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Cases

• Copying an Employees Files
• You are a computer system manager. An employee is
  out sick and another employee requests that you
  copy all files from the sick persons computer to
  his so he can do some work.

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Cases

• Insufficient Privacy Protection
• Your customer is a community clinic that works
  with problems of family violence. The clinic has
  3 sites and does numerous at-home visits. The
  clinic director wants a networked computerized
  record system for the 3 sites that contains
  patient records. She also wants a few notebook
  computers with patient records that would be used
  when visiting clients at home. At the shelter,
  staffers use only first names, but the computers
  contain complete records. There is no mention of
  passwords or encryption, and the clinic does not
  have much money for the project.

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Cases

• Going Public
• You are a member of a team working on a
  computer-controlled crash-avoidance system for
  automobiles. You think the system has a flaw that
  could endanger people. The project manager does
  not seem concerned and expects to announce
  completion of the project soon. Are you ethically
  obligated to do something?

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Cases

• Release of Personal Information
• You work for the IRS, the Social Security
  Administration, a medical clinic, or a large
  credit bureau. Someone asks you to get a copy of
  a persons file. He will pay you 500.

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Cases

• Conflict of Interest
• You have a small consulting business. CyberStuff
  plans to acquire a new Web-hosting system, and it
  wants to hire you to evaluate bids from vendors.
  Your spouse works for Networkx and did most of
  the writing for their bid. You read the bid, and
  you think it is excellent. Do you tell CyberStuff
  about your spouses connection with Networksx?