AENG%20223%20Professional%20Ethics%20and%20Conduct

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AENG 223Professional Ethics and Conduct

• Lecture 1
• Computer Ethics

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Course Objectives

• Ethical behaviour.
• Ethical decisions.
• Ethical professional practices.
• Code of conduct.
• Public speaking.
• Interactive speaking.
• Assessment.

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Scenarios

• Should I copy proprietary software?
• Should my company make use of data mining
  technology?
• Freedom of expression.
• What is my professional responsibility?

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Ethical Issues

• Diverse character of ethical issues in
  information technology
• Property rights.
• Privacy.
• Free speech.
• Professional ethics.
• New ethics for the computer era or old ethical
  issues in a new guise?

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Ethical Issues

• Why computer and information technology gives
  rise to ethical issues?
• It is not the first technology to raise concerns.
• New technologies bring benefits as well as
  problems (nuclear power, nuclear waste).

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Computer Ethics

• Central task Determine what we should do and
  what our policies should be, both personal and
  social (Moor James, H.).
• Vacuum of policies surrounding computers and
  information technology.
• Cookies from a website?
• Data mining morally acceptable?
• Internet domain distribution.
• Slanderous newsgroups and bulletin boards.
• Reproduce images and data.

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Clarifying Conceptual Muddles

• Policies lead to complex issues.
• Moral landscape is fluid and sometimes
  politically controversial.
• Consider free speech on the Internet.
• Freedom of expression yields into a complex legal
  and political environment.

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Traditionalist Account

• All that is necessary is to take traditional
  moral norms and the principles on which they are
  based, and apply them on new situations created
  by the computer and information technology.
• For example apply the existing legal system.
• However it oversimplifies the task of computer
  ethics.
• Also in our effort to apply old legislation to
  new technology there is the danger of missing the
  new opportunities that accompany the new
  technology

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A Step Beyond

• The traditionalist account runs the risk of not
  taking into advantage the new features offered by
  information technology.
• The study of computer ethics can be seen as a
  window of studying through which we view society
  (activities, ideals, social, political and
  economic forces at work).
• Computer and information technology can be used
  as much to keep things the same as to cause
  change.
• Therefore policy vacuums cannot be filled without
  taking social context into account.

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Moral and Legal Issues

• Law is neither the beginning or the ending place
  when it comes to addressing ethical issues.
• Ethical analysis proceeds the law.
• What is needed is computer ethics to fill the
  vacuum of policies and in some cases laws and
  social conventions.