Professional Ethics

1
Professional Ethics

• In Chapter 1 we described "professional ethics"
  as one of the three main perspectives through
  which computer ethics issues can be identified
  and analyzed.
• When applied to computing, professional ethics is
  a field of applied ethics concerned with moral
  issues that impact computer professionals.

2
Why a Separate Category of Professional Ethics?

• The same ethical rules involving honesty,
  fairness, and so forth should apply to
  professionals as well as to ordinary individuals.
  
• So, if it is wrong for ordinary people to steal,
  cheat, lie, and so forth, then it is wrong for
  professionals to do so as well.
• Thus, one might conclude that a separate field of
  study called "professional ethics" is not really
  needed.

3
Separate Category of Professional Ethics
(continued)

• Ethicists argue that some moral issues affect-
  ing professionals are sufficiently distinct and
  specialized to warrant a separate field of study.
• Some also argue that professionals can have
  special moral obligations that exceed those of
  ordinary individuals.
• To grasp the arguments for this view, it is
  useful first to understand what is meant by the
  terms profession and professional.

4
What Exactly is a Profession?

• A profession can be understood in terms of the
  attributes and requirements of a professional
  practice, such as "calling in which special
  knowledge and skill are used in...the service of
  mankind." (Firmage, 1991)
• Greenwood (1991) believes that professions are
  occupational fields distinguishable in terms of
  five characteristics (i) systematic theory,
  (ii) authority, (iii) community sanction, (iv)
  ethical codes, and (v) a culture.

5
Who is a Professional?

• Professionals who comprise a given profession
  also tend to have certain defining attributes and
  requirements.
• Medical doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. find
  themselves in situations in which their decisions
  and actions can have significant social effects,
  and have roles and responsibili- ties that exceed
  those of ordinary individuals.
• Sometimes these roles and responsibilities
  differentiate professionals from others.

6
Who is a Computer Professional?

• A computer professional might be interpreted to
  mean anyone who is employed in the computer,
  information-technology, or information/communicati
  ons fields.
• Or a computer professional might be thought of in
  more narrow terms, in which case only software
  engineers would be included.
• There are various gradients in between the two
  ends of this spectrum.

7
Definition of a Computer Professional (Continued)

• A computer professional could be defined in such
  a way that, in addition to software engineers,
  software quality analysts, software technical
  writers, and software managers and supervisors.
• A software engineering team includes those who
  contribute by direct participation to the
  analysis, specification, design, development,
  certification, maintenance, and testing of
  software systems.

8
Do Computer Professionals Have Special
Responsibilities?

• Gotterbarn (1999) believes that because software
  engineers and their teams are have significant
  opportunities to
• (i) do good or cause harm
• (ii) enable others to do good or cause harm
• (iii) influence others to do good or cause harm.

9
Critical-Safety Software

• Gotterbarn suggests that the roles and
  responsibilities involved in the development of
  safety-critical systems is a differentiating
  factor.
• A "safety-critical system" is often used to refer
  to computer systems that can have a direct
  life-threatening impact.

10
Safety-Critical Software (Continued)

• Examples of safety-critical software systems and
  applications typically include
•  aircraft and air traffic control systems
• mass transportation systems
• nuclear reactors missile systems
• medical treatment systems.

11
Additional Safety-Critical Systems

• Bowyer (2002) extends the range of
  safety-critical applications to include software
  used in the
• design of bridges and buildings
• election of water disposal sites
• development of analytical models for medical
  treatment.

12
Professional Codes of Ethics

• Many professions have established professional
  societies, which in turn have adopted codes of
  conduct.
• The medical profession established the AMA
  (American Medical Association),
• The legal profession established the ABA
  (American Bar Association).
• Both associations have formal codes of
  ethics/conduct for their members.

13
Professional Codes for Computer Societies

• The computing profession has also has
  professional societies.
• The two largest are
• The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• The Institute for Electrical and Electronics
  Engineers Computer Society (IEEE-CS).
• Both organizations have adopted professional
  codes of ethics.

14
Purpose of Professional Codes

• Professional codes of ethics are often designed
  to motivate members of an association to behave
  in certain ways.
• Four primary functions of codes are to
• inspire
• guide
• educate
• discipline the members.

15
Criticisms of Ethical Codes

• Ladd (1995) argues that ethical codes rest on a
  series of confusions that are both "intellectual
  and moral."
• His argument has three main points.
• First, ethics is basically an "open-ended,
  reflective, and critical intellectual activity."
• Second, codes introduce confusions with respect
  to micro-ethics vs. macro-ethics.
• Third, giving codes a disciplinary function makes
  them more like legal than ethical rules.

16
In Defense of Professional Codes

• Gotterbarn argues that we need to distinguish
  between
• codes of ethics
• codes of conduct
• codes of practice.

17
In Defense of Professional Codes (Continued)

• Codes of ethics as "aspirational," because they
  often serve as mission statements for the
  profession and thus can provide vision and
  objectives.
• Codes of conduct are oriented more toward the
  professional and the professional's attitude and
  behavior.
• Codes of practice relate to operational
  activities within a profession.

18
Table 4-1 Some Strengths and Weaknesses of
Professional Codes
Strengths
Weaknesses
Codes inspire the members of a profession to behave ethically. Directives included in many codes tend to be too general and too vague.
Codes guide the members of a profession in ethical choices. Codes are not always helpful when two or more directives conflict.
Codes educate the members of a profession about their professional obligations. A professional codes directives are never complete or exhaustive.
Codes discipline members when they violate one or more of the codes directives. Codes are ineffective (have no teeth) in disciplinary matters.
Codes sensitize members of a profession to ethical issues and alert them to ethical aspects they otherwise might overlook. Codes do not help us distinguish between micro-ethics issues and macro-ethics issues.
Codes inform the public about the nature and roles of the profession. Directives in codes are sometimes inconsistent with one another.
Codes enhance the profession in the eyes of the public. Codes can be self-serving for the profession.
19
Conflicts of Professional Responsibility
Employee Loyalty and Whistle-blowing

• What exactly is employee loyalty?
• Do employees and employers have a special
  obligation of loyalty to each other?
• Should loyalty to ones employer ever preclude an
  employees "blowing the whistle" in critical
  situations?
• In which cases can whistle-blowing be justified?

20
Do Employees Have a Special Obligation to
Employers?

• Some believe we have a prima facie obligation of
  loyalty in employment contexts.
• In other words, all things being equal, an
  employee should be loyal to his or her employer
  and visa versa.

21
Does employee loyalty still make sense in the
context of a large computer corporation?

• Duska (1991) argues that in employment contexts,
  loyalty only arises in special relationships
  based on a notion that he calls "mutual
  enrichment."
• So in relationships in which parties are pursuing
  their self-interests, the notion of loyalty would
  not be applicable.

22
Duskas Argument (continued)

• Duska believes that employer-employee
  relationships at least where corporations are
  concerned are based on self-interest and not on
  mutual enrichment.
• He concludes that employees should not
  necessarily feel any sense of obligation of
  loyalty to corporate employers.
• Corporations like employees to believe that they
  have an obligation of loyalty to their employers
  because believing that serves the corporations
  interests.

23
Ladds Criticism of Employee Loyalty

• Ladd also believes that in the context of corp-
  orations, loyalty can only be in one direction.
• He argues that a corporation cannot be loyal to
  an employee in the same sense that employees are
  supposed to be loyal to it.
• A corporation's goals are competitively linked to
  the benefits employees bring to the corp.
• A corporation can be good to employees only
  because it is good for business, i.e., it is in
  the company's own self interest.

24
Ladds and Duskas Criticisms (Continued)

• Both Duska and Ladd cite corporate self-interest
  as an obstacle for a balanced employer-employee
  relationship that is required for mutual loyalty.
  
• Consider that corporations often go through
  downsizing phases in which loyal employees who
  have served a company faithfully for several
  years are dismissed as part of restructuring
  plans.

25
Sometimes Employers Have Been Loyal

• Consider a case in which an employer continues to
  keep an employee on the payroll even though that
  employee has a chronic illness, which causes her
  to miss several months of work.
• Also consider a case in which several employees
  are kept on by a company despite the fact that
  their medical conditions have caused the
  corporation's health insurance costs to increase
  significantly, thereby reducing the company's
  overall earnings.

26
Employer Loyalty (continued)

• Consider a recent case involving the owner of
  Malden Mills, whose physical plant in
  Massachusetts was destroyed by fire.
• The mill's proprietor, Aaron Feurestein, could
  have chosen to rebuild his facility in a
  different state or country where employees would
  work for lower wages.
• Instead, Feurestein continued to pay and provide
  benefits for his employees while a new facility
  was being built in Mass.

27
Do Computer Professionals Have Special
obligations of Loyalty to Their Employers?

• They have to balance their obligation of loyalty
  owed to an employer against other obligations of
  loyalty they also may have?
• Loyalty is not something that an employee must
  give exclusively or blindly to ones employer.
• Loyalty should also be seen as an obligation that
  individuals have to society as a whole,
  especially where safety and health issues are at
  stake.

28
Divided Loyalties

• Divided loyalties can result in serious conflicts
  for employees.
• In certain cases, the moral dilemmas they
  generate are so profound that an employee must
  determine whether to "blow the whistle."

29
Whistle-blowing

• Bowie (1982) defines whistle-blowing as "the act
  of an employee informing the public on the
  immoral or illegal behavior of an employee or
  supervisor."
• Bok (1997) defines whistle blowing as an act in
  which one "makes revelations meant to call
  attention to negligence, abuses, or dangers that
  threaten the public interest."

30
Whistle-blowing (continued)

• Whistle-blowing situations can arise in cases of
  overt wrongdoing (i.e., involving specific acts
  that are either illegal or immoral).
• They can also arise in instances of negligence
  where one or more individuals have failed to act.
  

31
When Should an Employee Blow the Whistle?

• Colleen Rowley, an FBI employee, came forth to
  describe the way in which critical messages had
  failed to be sent up the Federal Bureau's chain
  of command in the days immediately preceding the
  tragic events of September 11, 2001.
• Was it appropriate for this individual to blow
  the whistle on her supervisor?
• Was she also possibly being disloyal to her
  supervisor and fellow employees in doing so?

32
When Should an Employee Blow the Whistle
(continued)

• Should individuals in positions of authority in
  corporations such as Enron and WorldCom have
  blown the corporate whistle about the illegal
  accounting practices in those firms?
• One could argue that failing to blow the whistle
  in the Enron case resulted in thousands of
  individuals losing their retirement savings, and
  in some cases their entire life savings.

33
Cases Where Whistle-blowing Could Have Saved Lives

• Three cases
• Challenger Space Shuttle (O-rings)
• Ford Pinto (faulty gas tank)
• BART case (controversial).

34
Controversial Political Issues in Whistle-blowing

• SDI (Star Wars) Case
• Parnas blew the whistle on Star Wars because of
  three factors
• 1. The specifications for the software could not
  be known with any confidence.
• 2. The software could not undergo realistic
  testing.
• 3. There would not be sufficient time during an
  attack to repair and reinstall failing software
  (no "real-time" debugging).

35
Criteria for Blowing the Whis- tle in an
Engineering Context

• De George (1981) offers some specific conditions
  for when an engineer is
• (a) permitted to blow the whistle
• (b) obligated to do so.

36
When an Engineer is Permitted to Blow the Whistle

• 1) The harm that will be done by the product to
  the public is serious and considerable.
• 2) The engineers (or employees) have made their
  concerns known to their superiors.
• 3) The engineers (or employees) have received no
  satisfaction from their immediate supervisors and
  they have exhausted the channels available within
  the corporation, including going to the board of
  directors.

37
When an Engineer is Required to Blow the Whistle

• De George claims that two additional criteria are
  needed for requiring an engineer to blow the
  whistle.
• 4) The engineer has documented evidence that
  would convince a reasonable, impartial observer
  that his/her view of the situation is correct and
  the company policy wrong.
• 5) There is strong evidence that making the
  information public will in fact prevent the
  threatened serious harm.

38
Evaluating De Georges Criteria

• James (1991) believes that De George's conditions
  are too lenient.
• An individual has a moral obligation to blow the
  whistle when the first three conditions are met,
  as well.
• We have a prima facie obligation to "disclose
  organizational wrongdoing" that we are unable to
  prevent, which could also occur when De George's
  first three conditions are satisfied.

39
James Critique of De Georges Criteria
(continued)

• For James, the degree of the obligation depends
  on the extent to which we are capable of
  foreseeing the severity and the consequences of
  the wrongdoing.
• He worries that De George's model leaves us with
  no guidance when we are confronted with cases
  involving sexual harassment, violations of
  privacy, industrial espionage, and so forth.
• Also there is a problem with the word harm.

40
Alperns Criticism of De Georges Criteria

• Alpern (1991) argues that De George's model lets
  engineers off too easily from their
  whistle-blowing responsibilities.
• Alpern believes that engineers must be willing to
  make greater sacrifices than others because they
  are in a greater position to do certain kinds of
  social harm.
• He believes that these obligations come from a
  fundamental principle of "ordinary morality"
  viz., we must do no harm.

41
Ladds Defense of De Georges Criteria

• Ladd (1991) believes that requiring engineers to
  blow the whistle in non-extraordinary cases (such
  as in De George's conditions 1-3) can be
  undesirable from an ethical point of view because
  it demands that these individuals be "moral
  heroes."
• Engineers should not have to be heroes or
  "saints."

42
An Alternative Strategy

• De George and Ladd seem correct in claiming that
  engineers should not be required to be moral
  heroes or saints.
• James and Alpern also seem to be correct in
  noting that engineers, because of the positions
  of responsibility they hold, should be expected
  to make greater sacrifices.

43
A Compromise View

• McFarland (1991) argues that, collectively,
  engineers might be held to a higher standard of
  social responsibility than ordinary individuals.
• However, the onus of responsibility should not
  fall directly on engineers as individual
  engineers.
• Rather, it should be shouldered by engineers as
  members of the engineering profession.

44
McFarlands View (Continued)

• McFarland's model is based on the assumption
  that, as moral agents, we have a prima facie
  obligation to come to the aid of others.
• In describing the nature of this obligation, he
  uses a non-engineering analogy involving the
  infamous Kitty Genovese case.

45
McFarlands Argument (continued)

• The analogy for engineers, McFarland draws from
  the Genovese case is that when no other sources
  of help are available, engineers should take
  responsibility by banning together.
• If engineers act as individuals, they might not
  always have the ability to help.
• If they act collectively, however, they might be
  able to accomplish goals that would otherwise not
  be possible.

46
McFarlands Argument (continued)

• McFarland believes that an engineer's work must
  be seen in a wider social context, i.e., in its
  relation to society.
• Without that context, an adequate account of
  moral responsibility for engineers cant be
  given.
• Unless engineers work collaboratively on ethical
  matters, they will not be able to meet all of
  their responsibilities.

47
McFarlands Argument (continued)

• McFarland's model encourages engineers to shift
  their thinking about responsibility issues from
• the level of individual responsibility (at the
  micro-ethical level), to responsibility at the
  broader level of the profession itself (i.e., the
  macro-ethical level).

48
Responsibility, Liability, and Accountability

• Responsibility requires that two conditions must
  be satisfied
• causality
• intent.
• Some agent, X, is held morally responsible for an
  act, Y, if X caused Y.

49
Responsibility (Continued)

• A person could be held responsible even if he or
  she did not intend the outcome.
• Robert Morris, who launched the "Internet worm"
  in 1988, claimed that he did not intend for the
  Internet to be brought to a standstill.
• Morris was held responsible for the outcome
  caused by his act of unleashing the computer
  worm.

50
Responsibility (continued)

• Agents can also be held responsible when they
  intend for something to happen, even if they
  ultimately fail to cause (or bring about) the
  intended outcome.
• Suppose a disgruntled student intends to blow up
  a computer lab, but is discovered at the last
  minute and prevented from doing so.
• Even though the student failed to carry out his
  objective, we hold the student morally culpable
  because of his intentions.

51
Liability vs. Responsibility

• Liability is a legal concept.
• It is sometimes used in the narrow sense of
  "strict liability."
• To be strictly liable for harm is to be liable to
  compensate for it even though one did not
  necessarily bring it about through faulty action
  (e.g., when a someone is injured on a persons
  property).
• The moral notion of "blame" may be left out.

52
Accountability (vs. Liability and Responsibility)

• Responsibility is only part of what is covered by
  the notion of accountability. (Nissenbaum)
• Accountability means that someone, or some group
  of individuals, or perhaps even an entire
  organization is answerable.  
• ...there will be someone, or several people to
  answer not only for malfunctions in life-critical
  systems that cause or risk grave injuries and
  cause infrastructure and large monetary losses,
  but even for the malfunctions that cause
  individual losses of time, convenience, and
  contentment.

53
Table 4-2 Responsibility, Liability, and
Accountability
Moral Responsibility Legal Liability Accountability
Attributes of blame (or praise) to individuals. ________________________Usually attributed to individuals rather than "collectivities" or groups. ___________________ Notions of guilt and shame apply, but no legal punishment or compensation need result. Does not attribute blame or fault to those held liable. ___________________ Typically applies in the case of corporations and property owners. ___________________ Compensation can be required even when responsibility in a formal sense is not admitted. Does not necessarily attribute blame (in a moral sense). ___________________ Can apply to individuals, groups of individuals, and corporations. _____________________________ Someone or some group is answerable (I.e., it goes beyond mere liability).
54
The Problem of Many Hands in a computing Context

• Computer systems are the products of engineering
  teams or of corporations, as opposed to the
  products of a single programmer working in
  isolation.
• So "many hands" are involved in their
  development.
• It is difficult to determine who exactly is
  accountable whenever one of these safety-critical
  systems results in personal injury or harm to
  individuals.

55
The Problem of Many Hands (continued)

• Two problems for assigning accountability (e.g.,
  Therac 25 Case)
• (a) we tend to think of responsibility as
  something that applies to individuals but not to
  groups (or collectivities)
• (b) we tend to think of responsibility in
  exclusionary terms If X is responsible, then Y
  is not, and vice versa.

56
Assessing Risk

• Gotterbarn (2001) argues that "ethical risks"
  associated with the entire "software development
  life cycle" must also be taken into
  consideration.
• The life cycle of software includes the
  maintenance phase, as well as the design and
  development stages.

57
Risk Assessment (continued)

• Gotterbarn worries that the concept of risk has
  typically been understood in terms of three
  conditions, where software is either
• (i) behind schedule
• (ii) over budget
• (iii) fails to meet a system's specified
  requirements.
• Software can satisfy all three conditions and
  still fail to meet an acceptable standard of risk
  assessment (e.g. Aegis Radar System).

58
Risk Assessment (continued)

• Gotterbarn believes that failures like the Aegis
  System are due to
• (1) an overly narrow conception of risk
• (2) a limited notion of "system stakeholders."

59
Risk Assessment (continued)

• Gotterbarn argues that a model of risk assessment
  based solely on cost effectiveness, i.e., in
  terms of criteria such as budget and schedule, is
  not adequate.
• Instead, the notion of risk analysis must be
  enlarged to include social, political, and
  ethical issues.

60
Risk Assessment (continued)

• Gotterbarn also notes that the stakeholders who
  are typically given consideration in risk
  assessment models for software development are
  limited to (a) the software developers and (b)
  the customers.
• This limited notion of "system stakeholders"
  leads to developing systems that have
  unanticipated negative effects (Aegis case).
• We need a more robust model of risk assessment
  for software development.