Ethical Decision Making & Information Technology

1. Ethical Decision Making & Information Technology from Ethical Decision Making & Information Technology E. Kallman & J. Grillo

2. Objectives • Raise sensitivity to ethical circumstances involving IT that have the potential to harm individuals, organizations, or society • Provide a process for analyzing ethical situations and for making decisions in response to them • Instill readiness and willingness to accept responsibility for the ethicality of one’s actions

3. What are ethics? • Principles based on our understanding of what is good, right, proper, moral, or ethical. • Ideas of behavior that are commonly acceptable to society • Influenced by a variety of sources such as family, religious institutions, educational institutions, professional organizations, government, etc.

4. Why care about ethics? • Self-interest: • Some unethical actions are also illegal • Some can effect our careers and reputation • For the interest of the others • Some unethical decisions can hurt other individuals, the organization we work for, or society  ethical decision making is vital to creating a world in which we want to live.

5. Computer Ethics vs Regular Ethics • Is there an ethical difference between browsing through someone’s computer files and browsing through her desk drawer? • No difference • New technologies can make them seem different • Technology makes some unethical actions easier to take and easier to conceal.

6. What is Ethical Decision Making? • When faced with an ethical dilemma the objective is to make a judgment based on well-reasoned, defensible ethical principles. • The risk is poor judgment i.e. a low-quality decision • A low-quality decision can have a wide range of negative consequences

7. Two Types of Ethical Choices • Right vs wrong: choosing right from wrong is the easiest • Right vs right • Situation contains shades of gray i.e. all alternative have desirable and undesirable results • Choosing “the lesser of two evils” • Objective: make a defensible decision

8. Making Defensible Decisions • First step in ethical decision making is to recognize that an ethical dilemma exists • “defensible decision” • Two well-meaning individuals can examine the same situation and arrive at different courses of action • High-quality ethical decision: based on reason and can be defended according to ethical concepts • Ethical decision making is not a science. It is however a skill -- a survival skill

9. Law and Ethics An act can be: • Ethical and legal • Ethical but not legal • Not ethical but legal • Not ethical and not legal • If case in 1 or 4, decision is obvious • If case in 2 or 3, or if law is not clear then further analysis is needed. • If law provides answer, no further investigation is needed

10. Guidelines to Ethical Decision Making Informal Guidelines to recognize an ethical problem exist • Is there something you or others prefer to keep quiet? • The shushers test: who wants to keep things quiet? • The Mom test: • The TV test • The market test • The smell test: does your instinct tells you something is wrong?

11. Guidelines to Ethical Decision Making Formal Guidelines • Does the act violate corporate policy? • Does it violate corporate or professional code of conduct or ethics? • Does it violate the “Golden Rule”? • treat others the way you wish them to treat you. What if all above guidelines not helpful? • Look at ethical principles

12. Ethical Principles • Rights and Duties (deontology) • Consequentialism (teleology) • Kant’s Categorical Imperative

13. Rights and Duties (deontology) • Individuals have certain rights but they always come with duties and vice versa • E.g. based on your job contract you have the duty to work 40h/weeks and the right to get compensated with a weekly salary + benefits etc. • Your employer has the duty to pay you the agreed wage/salary + benefits and the right to the product of your work for 40h/week

14. Rights and Duties (deontology) • In the field of IT questions often arise about three rights: • The right to know: e.g. to what extent do we have the right to know and have access to information that relates to us? • The right to privacy: to what extent do we have the right to control information that relates to us? • The right to property: to what extent do we have a right to protect our computer resources from misuse and abuse?

15. Rights and Duties (deontology) • Each person has the personal duty: • To foster trust: other should be able to have confidence that our work is competent, timely, and will not cause harm • To act with integrity • To be truthful: other should be able to expect us to be truthful. • To do justice: our dealings with others are fair e.g. those who perform service are rightfully paid • To practice beneficence and nonmaleficence-- beneficence: help others improve themselves. Nonmaleficence: cause no harm to others • To act with appropriate gratitude and make appropriate reparation-- gratitude: thankful for the kind acts of others. Reparation: the act of providing fair recompense for wrongful acts to others • To work toward self-improvement : improve our mental and moral faculties

16. Consequentialism (teleology) • Judge the rightness or wrongness of an action by the outcomes • Minimize harm • Maximizing benefits

17. Consequentialism (teleology) Can be based on • Egoism: how the act effects me/my organization? • Egoism can be justified in certain circumstances (e.g. a company trying to increase its profit. Counter e.g. some takes action that harms others to protect his jobs) • Egoism is limited by other ethical principles • Utilitarianism: how the act effects me and others? • Our actions benefit others as well as ourselves • Action is justified if it max. benefits over costs for all involved. • Altruism: how the act effects others? • Our actions benefit others even at a cost to us/our organization • Can be misapplied: an employee gives company sw products for free??

18. Kant’s Categorical Imperative • Principle of consistency • Would everyone benefit (or would no one be harmed)- if everyone were to take the same action being considered? • Principle of respect: • Requires that we treat people with dignity • People are ends in themselves not means • E.g. slavery violates the categorical imperative.

19. A Four-Step Process for Ethical Analysis and Decision Making

20. Step 1: Understanding the situation • List and number the relevant facts • Which of these raises an ethical issue? Why? What is the potential harm? • List the stakeholders involved

21. Step 2: Isolating the major ethical dilemma • What is the ethical dilemma to be solved? • State it using the form: Should someone do or not do something.

22. Step 3: Analyzing the ethicality of both alternatives in Step 2. • Consequentialism • Rights & duties • Kant’s categorial imperqtive

23. Step 4: Making a decision and planning the implementation • Make a defensible decision • Based on the analysis of step3, respond to question in Step 2. • List the specific steps needed to implement your defensible decision • Show how the major stakeholders are effected by these actions • What other long-term changes would help such probs in future • What should have been done or not done in the first place to avoid this dilemma.

24. SAMPLE CASE • Please see textbook pp 35-56. • For your ethics presentation, you may choose one of the case in your textbook, do the 4-step analysis, and present it. • Need to turn-in all worksheet with you presentation. • Let me know ahead of time (by 10/13/05) which case you want to work on.