Transcript Chapter-3

Computer Ethics
Chapter Three
Professional Ethics and Responsibility
Hassan Ismail
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.
6.2
Separate Category of Professional Ethics
(continued)
 Ethicists argue that some moral issues affecting
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.
6.3
Professional Ethics and Responsibility
 What is a profession?
 The notion of a regulated profession arises when the
practices of some recognized group have the potential for
significantly affecting the public good
 In particular, when the malpractice of the group has potential
for causing significant harm
 So, when considering whether an activity should become a
regulated profession one must ask these questions:
– Does the activity have the potential for significant adverse impact on
public welfare?
– Is there a well-defined notion of practice & malpractice?
– Is there a recognizable group of individuals performing the activity?
 Can you relate the activity of running programs on computers to the above
questions?
6.4
Cases of Professional Ethics
Conflicting Loyalties:
If an engineer feels that a project they are working on is
unsafe, do they have a moral responsibility to speak out
against it, even if it may jeopardize their employment?
System Security:
If an engineer is contracted to build a low-security system,
should they do so even if they feel the security level is not
adequate?
Conflict Of Interest:
Should consultants make it clear to clients if they have ties
to any software companies they recommend?
6.5
Why Professional Ethics..?
Acting in a professional role is special in several ways:
 Professional roles carry with them special rights and special
responsibilities (doctors, engineers, lawyers,…)
 Lay persons are neither allowed to do what doctors do nor
expected to help others in the way doctors are
 There are several professional roles that, like doctor, called
strongly differentiated, that gives the role-holder powers
and responsibilities that are exceptions to normal morality.
6.6
Professional Ethics context
 Professionals function in a specific, often highly complex
context
 Professionals have the power to affect the world because their
skill and knowledge give them the ability, and their jobs give
them the opportunity
 On the other hand, most occupational roles are not strongly
differentiated. they do not allow or require that the role-holder
act outside ordinary morality
 They are expected to adhere to the demands of ordinary
morality (e.g., refraining from using force, never performing
surgery or distributing drugs)
6.7
Computer Professional Role
 The role of computer professional is not strongly differentiated.
 That is, when you become a computer professional, you do not
acquire any special power or privilege by virtue of being a
computer professional.
 Nevertheless, when you are hired by a company, you may acquire
the power to make certain decisions within that company
 However, you acquire these powers & responsibilities by virtue of
being an employee of a company, not by virtue of being a computer
professional.
 When it comes to strongly differentiated professions, special ethical
analysis is required - to take into account the distinct ethical rights
and responsibilities that a member of such a profession has.
6.8
Professional’s Employment Context
 Here what is special is the employment context. Employees enter
into special relationships and take on special responsibilities
when they become employed.
 To fully understand moral situation of computer professionals we
must take the complexity of their professional/occupational roles
into account.
 Another way in which occupational roles have to be taken into
account in ethical analysis has to do with the efficacy of
individuals acting in employment roles (the power to affect the
world)
 Employed professionals often have some skills or knowledge and
they use this skill and knowledge to produce a product or provide
a service
6.9
Efficacy of Professionals
 They affect the world (they are efficacious) when they exercise
their skills and knowledge in a context in which their actions have
an effect.
 A computer professional, for example, may use his or her
knowledge and skill to create software used for medical imaging
or networking.
 The computer professional has efficacy because he or she works
in an institution organized in a certain way and supported by a
broader set of social institutions.
 This complex arrangement is what makes it possible for the skill
and knowledge of the computer professional to be transformed
into an effect on the world (good or bad).
6.10
Domain of Professional Ethics
 When it comes to analyzing the ethical dilemmas of computer
professionals, it is not sufficient to think of them merely as
individuals acting in complex situations.
 To fully account for the ethical dilemmas of computer
professionals, the domain of professional ethics must be
recognized.
 This means recognizing that the moral dilemmas of computer
professionals (as well as other professionals) are different from
those of lay persons.
6.11
Domain of Professional Ethics….Cont
 It means recognizing the moral complexity of the environments
in which computer professionals work as well as the special
efficacy that computer professionals have in those environments.
 While some professionals have special rights and
responsibilities (powers and privileges) by virtue of
being members of a profession, computer professionals do not.
 Computer professionals have special powers and privileges
by virtue of their skill and knowledge and the positions they hold
in organizations.
6.12
Characteristics of Professions
 Although, the term profession is sometimes restricted
to occupations that are strongly differentiated.
 More often, however, profession is used rather loosely
to refer to occupational groups that for one reason or
another have acquired higher social status and higher
salaries.
 But this term is more often used to refer to a subset of
occupations that, even if not strongly differentiated,
have a somewhat distinct set of characteristics.
6.13
Characteristics of a profession
Esoteric
Knowledge
Social
Function
Autonomy
Code of
Ethics
Formal Org
6.14
Characteristics of a profession
Mind Mapping
Esoteric
Knowledge
Social
Function
Autonomy
Code of
Ethics
Formal
Org
6.15
Characteristics often associated with Professions
 Mastery of an Esoteric Body of knowledge: usually acquired
through higher education
A member of the profession needs this body of knowledge
in order to practice
A related characteristic of professions is that they often
embrace a division between researchers and practitioners
 Autonomy: Professionals generally have a great deal of
autonomy, justified by having an esoteric knowledge
Professions typically have autonomy both at the collective
level as well as in individual practice
6.16
Characteristics often associated with Professions
 Formal Organization: Generally there exists a professional
organization that:
 Controls admission to the profession and sets
standards
 Involved in licensing & expelling its individual
members
 Code of ethics
There is a code of ethics & members of professions must
adhere to the code no matter what their employment
context (take an oath)
 Social function: Professions generally fulfill an important
social function
Medicine (promoting health), lawyers (justice)
6.17
Professional Ethics as a Paradigm
 These five characteristics are associated with a subset of
occupational groups that have typically been labeled as
professions (doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, accountants,
and clergy)
 However, the concept of profession is not hard and fixed.
Moreover, it would be a mistake to think of this as a simple
dichotomy
 These five characteristics are better seen as describing model or
paradigm against which various occupational groups can be
measured
6.18
Is Computing A Profession
 Where does computing fit in the process of
professionalization?
 What does the field of computing look like when
described in terms of the mentioned characteristics?
 The field of computing is so diverse and complex
 The range of those who are called computer professionals is
extremely broad
 Nothing in common except that, in one way or another, they
involve the use of computer
 At first glance, it seem that computing possesses all of these
characteristics, though in complex ways
6.19
Is Computing A Profession
 Are Computer Professionals “Professionals”?
Computer professionals have mastered an esoteric body
of knowledge
Computer professionals have varying degrees of
autonomy depending on where they work
There is no single organization governing the profession
of computing (ACM, IEEE)
Computing is an activity which supports social
institutions which in turn are aimed at fulfilling a variety
of social functions
Computing does not appear to be a 'profession' in the
strictest sense, the way law and medicine are professions,
but it is more of a 'profession' than many other
occupations.
6.20
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
 Software engineering appears to be one area of computing that
is emerging as a distinct profession within the field of
computing.
 This trend seems to have been created by the initiative of
individuals in the field concerned about the quality and safety of
the software being produced and sold.
 Developing software engineering as a distinct field involves
several of the activities.
 For example, it means identifying a unique body of knowledge that a
person must possess to be competent software engineer.
 It means developing educational requirements (curriculum) such that the
person who meets the requirements is more likely to produce a quality,
safe software than someone without training.
6.21
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
 It means developing mechanisms for licensing of members.
 This will include identifying or creating the proper
organization for issuing licenses and identifying
requirements for obtaining a license, such as passing an
exam or acquiring a certain number of years of experience.
 Another requirement for professionalization is a code
of ethics.
 The state of Texas has boldly taken the first steps in
this process and has established software engineering
licensing in its state.
 The Texas initiative is a serious attempt at setting
standards in the field.
6.22
PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
 When computer professionals take on jobs, they may enter into
relationships with any one or several of the following:
 An employer, a client, co-professionals, and the public.
 Each of these relationships have ethical parameters.
 Employer-Employee
 When a person accepts a job in an organization, he or she
enters into a relationship with an employer
 The moral foundation of the employer-employee relationship
is contractual. Each party agrees to do certain things in
exchange for certain things
 Each individual should be treated with respect and never
used merely as a means.
6.23
PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
 Thus, it is wrong for either the employer or the employee to
take advantage of the other i.e. that each party must be honest
 For professional ethics, one of the most difficult areas of the
employer-employee relationship has to do with what you
rightfully owe an employer in the name of loyalty
 loyalty has both good and bad aspects:
(1) it invites unfairness, (2) it prevents reliance on good reasons,
and (3) it invites irresponsibility.
 Nevertheless, we should not jump to the conclusion that
employees owe their employers whatever they demand in the
name of loyalty
 There are limits. The hard part, of course, is to figure out where
to draw the line
6.24
PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
 Clearly, employers cannot demand every form of behavior that
will serve the interests of the company (e.g. voting)
 Trade secrecy is one area where the line is particularly difficult
to draw (not taking a job at another company)
 The employer-employee relationship is more complicated and
less well defined than you might expect
6.25
PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
 Client-Professional
 As with the employer-employee relationship, the clientprofessional relationship can be thought of as essentially a
contractual relationship
 Each party provides something the other wants, and both
parties agree to the terms of the relationship
 The important thing to keep in mind about client-professional
relationships is the disparity in knowledge or expertise of the
parties
 The client needs the professional to make decisions that may
be crucial to the client's business
 He must trust that the professional will use his or her
knowledge competently, effectively, and efficiently
6.26
PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
 Different models have been proposed for understanding
how this disparity in knowledge in professional-client
relationships should be handled.
 Perhaps the most important models are:
 (1) agency (professional acts as the agent & implements
what the client requests)
 (2) paternalism (client transfers all decision-making
authority to the professional )
 (3) fiduciary-trust (both parties have a role and are
working together) – e.g. Leikessa & Juan
6.27
PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
 Society-Professional
 When professionals exercise their skills and act in their
professional roles, their activities may affect others who are
neither employers nor clients
 They have a relationship with those who may be affected.
For example, you may design a computer system that will be
used in a dangerous manufacturing process (put workers at
risk)
 This relationship is, to a certain extent, shaped by law in
order to protect the public interest (social contract)
 The only problem with this account is that it seems to simply
assert a correlation between knowledge and responsibility
without showing the connection
6.28
PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
 Professional-Professional
 Many professionals believe that they have obligations to
other members of their profession
 For example, professionals are often reluctant to criticize
each other publicly
 We can take the cynical view that professionals only unite
with one another to serve their shared self-interest
 The earlier discussion of loyalty is relevant here
6.29