Implementing the Tenth Strand - Page 6 of 18

ES2: Basic Elements of Ethical Analysis

Three basic elements of ethical analysis that students need to learn and be able to use in their decision-making are:

1) ethical claims can and should be discussed rationally,
2) ethical choices cannot be avoided, and
3) some easy ethical approaches are questionable.

Because students will need to defend their opinions and decisions when they work within organizations and teams, they need to be able to discern the reasons behind their opinion and decisions and to evaluate them. Ethical analysis should be introduced in a module dedicated to the presentation of classical ethical frameworks and principles. The ethical dimensions of design and implementation decisions should be discussed in technical classes so that students will learn to view ethical decision-making as a crucial part of system development. Students will see that, in some cases, it is easy to determine correct behavior for a computer professional, and, in other cases, a careful ethical analysis is needed to identify best choices in situations that raise difficult ethical issues.

Recurring concepts: conceptual and formal models, tradeoffs and consequences, complexity, abstraction

Lecture topics (3 hours):

ES2.1 Ethical claims can and should be discussed rationally.
Because many individuals have strong emotional responses or moral intuitions about the ethical issues confronting computer professionals, discussions on these issues can quickly disintegrate into entrenched opinions or even hostility unless students realize that ethical claims can and should be discussed rationally. Even the most deeply felt emotional responses can, with careful analysis, be articulated in terms of their structure and supporting reasons. Reasons can also be evaluated in terms of criteria like consistency, logical coherence, agreement with accepted standards (e.g. codes of ethics), and applicability to a variety of cases. None of these criteria are infallible methods of evaluation, but they are rational. Because students will need to defend their opinions and decisions when they work within organizations and teams, they need to be able to discern the reasons behind their opinion and decisions and to evaluate them. Evaluation of ethical arguments helps one to be reasoned in the position taken, rather than simply letting personal preference, convenience, bias, or apathy determine an ethical position.

ES2.2 Ethical choices cannot be avoided.
Many students think that ethical choices are irrelevant to a computer science or engineering discipline, and that it is their job simply to do their assigned work tasks. Careful ethical thought involves recognizing that moral responsibility is an important aspect of computer technology and cannot be abandoned by choice. Courts of law, the military code, and many professional societies' codes do not allow voluntary moral retreat, and computing professionals should be aware of its dangers. We enter the realm of ethical choice in system development any time we make decisions that affect people. Ethical reflection should begin with the assumption that all design and implementation involves value choices.