The Use and Abuse of Computer Ethics

Donald Gotterbarn

• Introduction
• Pop Computer Ethics
• Who Teaches Computer Ethics?

Pop Computer Ethics

The concept of “pop” computer ethics is very broad. The goal of “pop” computer ethics is to “sensitize people to the fact that computer technology has social and ethical consequences.”5 This is not a course in sociology which might use examples of the impact of computers in the workplace as a vehicle to talk about the impact of technology on organizational structures and employment demographics and the values associated with these areas. The type of pop ethics course I am concerned with generally consists of litanies of the evils that can be promulgated with the use of computers. “Newspapers, magazines and TV have increasingly engaged in computer ethics of this sort. Every week, there are news stories about computer viruses, or software ownership law suits, or computer-aided bank robbery, or harmful computer malfunctions.”6 “Pop-ethics” courses are justified on the grounds that it is necessary to sensitize people to the fact that computer technology can “threaten human values as well as advance them.” If we presume that our students are literate and read newspapers or magazines then they already have read the tales of the threatening computer. Even if they are not literate and only watch television, they will still have this knowledge. It looks, at first blush, as if “pop-ethics” might merely be an accouterment to the university curriculum dressing up its concerns with ethics. If it were only this, I would not be concerned with it; but I believe that such courses are in fact a threat to most of the objectives for computer ethics articulated above.

There is a common approach taken by pop ethics courses. The approach is primarily negative. Collections of stories used or discussed in these courses are entitled variously, “RISKS” or “Cautionary Tales.” This negative approach is the approach that was taken by Donn Parker in his first collection of scenarios. In that work he describes the principle used to select the scenarios. He says the scenarios were “written in such a way as to raise questions of unethicality rather than ethicality”.7 This negative approach has consequences for the prospective computer professional as well as for the student who does not intend to be a professional. Leon Tabak, in his excellent paper “Giving Engineers a Positive View of the Social Responsibility,”8 argues that such a negative approach fails for students who are interested in pursuing careers in computing. When they are interested in ethics, they are interested in the way they can positively contribute to the world and how they can apply their skills productively. The pictures painted of technology by such courses are essentially pessimistic. It puzzles everyone why this technology is singled out. Why not have a “gun pop-ethics” courses? I think the difficulty with this “pop ethics” yellow journalism approach is in fact more significant. I argue that this approach is also harmful to the general student population.

The types of issues singled out in negative pop-ethics courses give the impression that computer ethics issues are rare and irrelevant to the students. If computer ethics is concerned with catastrophes – e.g.,the failure of a program which controls the safety switches of a nuclear reactor – then I don’t have to worry about computing and values because the only computer I program is my microwave oven. How does the nuclear reactor story relate to the student who works part-time in the library programming the computer? All this catastrophe thinking has nothing to do with their work. One also might wonder what it has to do with ethics. If a problem is caused by a mistake – an unintentional act – then what does it have to do with ethical decisions? Other items discussed in such courses do involve intentions. They include: how easy it is to use a computer to commit fraud or to break into a hospital database. If computer ethics (the pop version) is about all of those immoral people who use computers to perpetrate evil, how does it relate to the individual moral student who always tries to do the right thing. These examples are interesting but irrelevant to these students. Major social issues are also discussed in these courses. For example, “Is it permissible to sell computers to nations which support terrorism?” The discussion of this is interesting and includes elements of geopolitics and questions about how and whether to propagate scientific discovery. For most students, however, such large questions are not within their present or future sphere of ethical decision making and are best discussed in social science or political science courses. There is not enough time in a semester to resolve such large issues. There is barely enough time to delineate all of the issues involved in questions of this complexity. The attempt to handle these questions in a single class trivializes the subject. The discussion of such complex large issues strikes many of the students as merely an “academic” exercise.

This brings me to one of my major objections to this approach, viz., the distorted impression of ethics and ethical reasoning that is often produced by a pop ethics course. These courses are not guided by a single coherent concept of computer ethics. Every piece of negative news involving a computer becomes a candidate for discussion in a pop ethics course. The breadth of the material included does not help the student get a clear concept of computer ethics. The degree to which this approach can mislead is evident in a recent work in pop-ethics. I think the authors are taken in by their own approach. They include subjects from the impact of video display terminals on health to the use of computers by organized crime and then they claim that computer ethics has no guiding principles or ethics from which we can reason.

The concept of computer ethics is further clouded by the emphasis on dilemma thinking. Under the guise of getting students to think through a complex problem, they are presented with an ethical dilemma. The following has been used as an example of computer ethics in a pop ethics course. A programmer’s mother was suffering from a rare but manageable disease which if uncontrolled will lead to a painful death. The medicine to control the disease is so expensive that the only way the programmer can pay for it is to commit computer fraud. What is the moral thing for the programmer to do? There are two problems with this type of example. First, this is not an issue in computer ethics. Although there are many ethical issues here such as the responsibility of children to their parents and the responsibility of society to make medicines available at reasonable costs, there is little here about computer ethics. To call this an issue in computer ethics because a computer is used to do the dastardly deed is like saying that beating someone to death with a law book is a problem in legal ethics. A second problem, more pervasive problem than the elasticizing of the concept of computer ethics, is that ethical issues are equated with dilemmas, i.e., issues for which there are no good resolutions. The programmer has to choose between committing fraud and allowing her mother to die. This example seems to require an action which is the rejection of one or another of our moral standards. Students do need to be made aware that ethical problems can be difficult, but the emphasis on dilemmas in these courses leads students to think that ethical problems cannot be resolved.

Not only does the structure of the pop-ethics course reinforce this no-solution view of ethics, but this view has been reinforced by the way some current literature has been constructed. For example, despite the fact that there was significant agreement on several scenarios used by Donn Parker in his early work, the only scenarios Donn Parker chose to bring forward into his new edition are those which generated the highest degree of diversity of opinion. The diversity of opinion generated by the Parker cases should not be surprising given the heterogeneity of the group rendering the opinions – lawyers, philosophers, computer managers, etc. There is significant evidence that, in professional ethics, there is actually a convergence of opinion about computer ethical standards.

From the view that there never is any agreement in ethics, there is a danger that students will conclude that it is a waste of time to think about ethical issues at all. Ethics as presented in these courses is not relevant to the student taking the course. It creates the impression that the issues of “computer ethics” are rare and that because there is no agreement, the discussion of computer ethics is useless. The emphasis on the negative side does not give the student any experience avoiding real computer ethics problems. Given the dilemma nature of the teaching, an attitude of surrender is encouraged. If ethics is a matter of opinion and all opposing arguments have equal weight, then the student will not expect support for what they consider to be a moral act. When they are placed in a situation which requires them to take a moral stand, then they are more likely not to “make a fuss” and not stand up for the moral choice.

The use of “yellow journalism” is sometimes an effective technique to fire up the masses. It presumes the existence of a set of accepted values which have been violated. The problems with this approach to computer ethics in the classroom are:

1. Portraying ethics simply as dilemmas leaves the student with the impression that ethical reasoning is fruitless. This is dangerous in computer ethics and is even more dangerous if the attitude spreads to other areas of their lives.

2. The reactive emphasis does not encourage proactive behavior. Students are encouraged merely to judge the morality of an act that has occurred rather than guide behavior to prevent or discourage immoral behaviors.

3. It encourages reactionary thinking rather than anticipatory thinking. The negative approach encourages actions against what is perceived as the value-threatening technology, rather than action to turn the technology in a value-supporting direction. For example, we are encouraged to make laws against nationwide databases rather than make laws which encourage the moral use of nationwide databases. Instead of praise for automatic teller machines, they are characterized as “… a good example of how a new technological device creates new opportunities for fraudulent activity.”

“Pop” ethics might have had a place when computing was a remote and esoteric discipline, but I believe that in the current environment that this approach is dangerous to the preservation and enhancement of values. This model of computer ethics does not forward any of the pedagogical objectives for teaching ethics cited above.

If one is to do anything like “pop” computer ethics, the typical approach must undergo some serious revision. One should look at the positive opportunities of computing and how computing technology can support our needs and further our values. If one looks at computing technology that works, one finds in many cases that it is the exercise and concern for values that had increased its chances of working. Good computing products have followed careful standards. They were built with the well-being of the computer user in mind. These revised courses should ask the students to think of new applications for computing which are consistent with their values and to evaluate the potential risks involved in such applications. They should talk about the minimal controls they would need for the development of these new applications. They should discuss some ethical cases which are real issues in computer ethics for which there are solutions. There are standards of good system design which should be discussed. Above all, students need some proactive guidance. There are effective standards for reaching ethical decisions in many situations. They should be discussed in this revised approach.

Back to the top

Go to: Who Teaches Computer Ethics?

Home > Teaching Resources > Teaching Computer Ethics > The Use and Abuse of Computer Ethics

HOME | IN THE NEWS | RESEARCH RESOURCES
TEACHING RESOURCES | STUDENT RESOURCES
LINKS | THE GALLERY | STAFF

The Research Center on Computing & Society
at Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent Street • New Haven, CT 06515
Director: (203) 392-6790 • e-mail: webmaster@computerethics.org

© 2000 – 2007 – Research Center on Computing & Society