Professional Context of ICT INFO3020

1. Professional Context of ICTINFO3020 What is Computer Ethics?

2. Introduction • What is Computer Ethics? • Problems with Computer Ethics • Primary areas of interest • Definitions of Computer Ethics • Ethical Theories • Utiliterianism • Deontologism • Conclusions

3. What is Computer Ethics? • There are many views on what Computer Ethics comprises • Depends on perspectives and focus: • social • professional • universal activist • parochial • ethics only • multi-disciplinary

4. What is Computer Ethics? • Different starting points: • properties of computer technology • concept of computing • application of computing • the environment • the human value impact of computing

5. Primary areas of interest • Original Concerns: • Abuses committed with computers: • fraud, theft • Effects computers have on changing society • Issues related to the development of software systems • Order of precedence now changed: • Changes to society - impact of the Internet • Abuses • Software development

6. What is Computer Ethics? • James Moor • 2 key aspects: • the analysis of the nature and social impact of computer technology • the corresponding formulation and justification of policies for the ethical use of such technology • Computers are a special technology and raise special ethical issues through their properties of logical malleability and speed • pervasive alteration of social and cultural situations • There is a Policy vacuum about how computer technology is used

7. What is Computer Ethics? • James Moor - policy vacuums and conceptual muddles • analysis of nature and social impact of computer technology and corresponding formulation and justification of policies • new capabilities and choices of action through technology led to policy and conceptual vacuum • new values emerge • concerned with essential involvement • considers relationships among facts, conceptualisation, policies and values with regard to constantly changing computer technology • practical importance

8. Some Other Definitions • Deborah Johnson - a study into the way computers pose new versions of standard moral problems and dilemmas • Johnson & Millar - working on something new whilst drawing on something old • Spinello - any technology tends to create a new environment - concerned that it does not violate personal rights or the values of fairness and justice • Miller - software different from other manufactured products and thus raises different and difficult ethical issues

9. Ethical Concerns • Oz - speed of change left a big ethical vacuum • 3 categories of misuse • pre-existing offences facilitated by computers • offences against computers, equipment, software • invasion of privacy

10. Approaches to Computer Ethics • Maner - examines the ethical problems aggravated, transformed or created by computing • application of ethical theories used by philosophers • different from sociology of computing and technology assessment

11. Approaches to Computer Ethics • Terry Bynum (1992) - concerned with how to integrate computing and human values for the protection of human values • Takes a broader perspective - applied ethics, sociology of computing, technology assessment, computer law and related fields • Looks at the impact on human values • the goal • “To integrate computing technology and human values in such a way that technology advances and protects human values rather than doing damage to them”

12. Approaches to Computer Ethics • Rogerson & Bynum (1996) Information Ethics: the Second Generation • Dawning of a new era - mid 1990s • Conceptual dimension - theoretical development lags technology revolution. • Multi-disciplined approach • Application dimension - develop set of ethical instruments that promote good practice • Embrace professional practice, user and potential user concerns, policy and strategy formulation, technological impact • Realise democratic and empowering technology rather than an enslaving and debilitating one

13. Ethical Reasoning • “Gut feeling” or instinct: Intuition • Many decisions taken this way • Can’t always trust instincts • Sometimes no relevant intuitions SO • Break situation down into elements, apply moral theories Requires knowledge of ethical theories and techniques of moral argument

14. Ethics • Ethical theories • search for the ideal theory • criticism of theories • argument for particular theory • Normative ethics • quest for practical truth of how one’s choices and actions will be good and worthwhile

15. Universalism • What is right is right for everyone everywhere • What is wrong is wrong for everyone everywhere • Provided the circumstances are the same in all relevant ways • If it is right to do x in circumstance a, and wrong to do x in circumstance b • must be some relevant difference between a and b • explain why it might be right to do x in case a, wrong in case b.

16. Universal Moral Theories • 3 Ethical frameworks: • Consequentialism - teleologism • Duty based – deontologism • Rights based - deontologism

17. Consequentialism • Teleologism - greek word ‘telos’ meaning goal • Act is right if it is likely to have good consequences, and avoid bad consequences • Consequences for every person/thing of moral relevance • slight harm to 1,000,000 people, for large benefit of 1 • An action is right if it produces the most happiness for ALL parties affected by it.

18. Deontologism • There are a variety of types • Duty based • Rights based • Greek word ‘deon’ meaning duty/obligation • An act is right if it conforms to rule(s) of behaviour • Actions are intrinsically right or wrong regardless of the consequences • e.g. Deontological reason why you shouldn’t steal is that stealing is wrong • Not simply because it will make another person unhappy, or deprive them of needed things.

19. Duty based Deontologism • W D Ross • Spinello pages 26 - 28 • Immanuel Kant • Derivative theories - called Kantian • 18th century German philosopher • stresses fidelity to principle and duty • happiness is not always good

20. Duty based Deontologism • Happiness if not deserved: repellent • If happiness is denied when deserved: also repellent. • Similarly - loyalty: • when this is to cause evil it can be wrong • Duty - divorced from concerns about happiness or pleasure

21. Duty based Deontologism • Impartiality for Kant at the heart of ethics • Moral law (like science) must be rational and universal - not grounded in human nature but in a common idea of duty • Kant believed that • the principles that we would have to live by to not use others (formula of end in itself) would be precisely the same ones that would fit the formula of the universal law

22. Duty based Deontologism • “Categorical Imperative” • “Act only on the maxim through which you can at the same time will that it be a universal law” • (formula of the universal law) • this formulation entirely internal • consistent with you having different maxims from me • but there are still limits

23. Duty based Deontologism • Act according to maxim that fits the Categorical Imperative • ‘acting on a good will’ • where the act that everybody that held maxims fitting the Categorical Imperative (ie everybody with a good will) would have to do it • then to do it is to act according to duty • obligatory • failure to act in that way is forbidden

24. Duty based Deontologism Alternative wording of the Categorical Imperative: • “treat humanity in your own person or in the person of any other never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end” • (formula of the end in itself)

25. Duty based Deontologism • To treat another person purely as a means • use them as a tool • not as if they are able to think for themselves • not just to do things they have consented to but rather to do things it is impossible for them to consent to • E.g. a con-man’s victims cannot consent because they do not know what he is really doing • if they did know what he was doing they couldn’t consent to being deceived because they would know what they were consenting to not know

26. Duty based Deontologism • To treat another person as if they are able to think for themselves • must imply treating them not just as a means • but as if they are valuable in their self • an end in themselves • To treat somebody else as an end means: • enabling them to act • giving them support if needed • some support for their projects/aims • Can’t have a policy of refusing needed help (cf universal law formulation)

27. Duty based Deontologism • Demanding • but there are limits: • must treat self as an end too • obligation to develop own potential: to respect our own humanity • Because of this conflict (for Kant) it is impossible to live a fully moral life: • Crucial thing • minimise the amount by which we fall short

28. Rights based Deontologism • John Rawls • “A Theory of Justice” (1972) • Similar approach to Hobbes & Locke - focuses on justice as fairness and gives priority to the right over the good • Emphasises the fundamental rights or liberties which can never be suspended for any utilitarian considerations

29. Rights based Deontologism • Justice - 3 meanings: • to each according to his/her rights • eg a workman agreed to work for £1000: justice in this sense requires that he be paid when he has kept his side of the bargain • to each according to what is deserved • the work was only worth £100: justice in this sense only requires him getting £100 • to each according to need • the workman has a large family of a dead brother to support, and needs £1,500: justice in this sense requires him getting all that

30. A Theory of Justice • A way to find out what justice requires: • Imagine a group of people • logical • self interested • no generosity • no envy • gathered to agree rules they will use in a society they will form • Perhaps: uninhabited island they will colonise • “Computer Ethics” Deborah Johnson, pg 13 • Agreement: social contract to create a just society • what is called an “original position”

31. A Theory of Justice • Additionally individuals • don’t know what place they will hold • don’t know what their skills are • or how old they are • or if in a minority group • Behind “veil of ignorance” • You don’t know how you will do in the new society so you can’t rig the rules in your own favour

32. Principles of Justice • 1) Each person has an equal right to as much freedom as is consistent with others having that much • Rawls: gives • impartial legal system • freedom from arbitrary arrest • right to (some) property • political freedoms

33. Principles of Justice • 2) Distributive justice: fair equality of opportunity • People will have different ability and therefore there will be inequalities of wealth • Social and economic inequalities are allowed: • if even worst off in society are better off as a result of that inequality existing • So somebody can be paid more to do an important job that nobody wants to do (eg maintain the sewerage system)

34. Principles of Justice • First principle of justice always takes precedence: • no amount of riches can make up for a reduction in freedom

35. Criticisms • Some say: behind the veil of ignorance you would be more bothered about equality and less about freedom • What precise rules come out depends on the precise details of what we are allowed to know, what our psychology is like, or assumed to be like • The original position is contradictory • if justice = whatever is agreed in the original position we can’t know whether the rules of the original position are just, without having first been in the position.

36. A Test Case? • “Imagine discovering a continent so vast that it may have no end to its dimensions. Imagine a new world with more resources than all our future greed might exhaust, more opportunities than there will ever be entrepreneurs to exploit, and a peculiar kind of real estate that expands with development” (Johnson, 1994)

37. A Test Case? • “Imagine a place where trespassers leave no footprints, where goods can be stolen an infinite number of times and yet remain the possession of their original owners, where businesses you never heard of can own the history of your personal affairs, where only children feel completely at home, where the physics is that of thought rather than things, and where everyone is as virtual as the shadows in Plato’s cave” (Johnson, 1994)

38. A Test Case? • Barlow then goes on to explain that such a place exists: • “It consists of electron states, microwaves, magnetic fields, light pulses, thought itself - a wave in the web of our electronic processing and communication systems” (Johnson, 1994) • Eg: Computer technology = the “new territory”

39. Conclusions • Presumption • “we ought to create rules, attitudes, conventions and laws that will encourage the development and use of computer technology for the good of humanity”

40. Conclusions • Need to look at: • The role of the computer professional • Issues of ownership • Development of safe, reliable and useful software • Protection of privacy • How much security we want, at what cost? • Open system of on-line communication or limited access? • How will the rules be enforced? • How do we deal with those who violate the rules?