To begin the task of drafting a revised code of ethics, we collected
the codes from similar professional associations including IEEE, IFIP, ISTE,
EDUCOM, ASIS, ICCP, and the Data Processing Management Association (DPMA). In
general we found these codes, including ACM’s, were deficient in several
ways. They tend to be difficult to read, excessively impersonal, needlessly
abstract, possess little sense of priority, more negative than positive, proactive,
and to forget the autonomy of the individual professional, to neglect audiences
other than employees, to offer little rationale, and to omit references to moral
principles. While it is impossible to overcome all of these deficiencies, in
drafting a revision of the ACM Code we sought to minimize them. The directions
taken are outlined below.
- Inclusiveness. All of the basic ethical principles from the ACM Code were
retained in the draft revision. Additional ethical imperatives were added
from the codes of other professional computing associations, such that the
draft revision encompasses all these codes with these exclusions: teacher-specific
items in the ISTE Code; several employer-oriented items in the DPMA Code;
and some items in the IFIP Code pertaining specifically to international law.
- Semantic simplicity. We found nearly universal consensus that Bylaw 17,
the ACM Code of Professional Conduct, should be restated in more informal,
less difficult language. The language, structure and format were borrowed
from the ABA Code of Professional Conduct. However, in 1983 the ABA changed
its Code to “Model Standards,” which include the “Model Rules
of Professional Conduct” and a “Model Code of Professional Responsibility.”
Neither statements use the categories “Disciplinary Rules” and “Ethical
Considerations” as a structure. In revising the Code, both the structure
of the code and specific phrases have been extensively revised in order to
make it simpler and more readable.
- International, Multicultural Orientation. Perhaps the most thorough code
of ethics for computing has been drafted by the IFIP Ethics Project. Under
the leadership of Harold Sackman, IFIP released an official Draft Code of
Ethics. This IFIP Code offers a model for resolving some of the issues that
face the computing community, particularly trans-national issues. The draft
revision of the ACM Code takes an international rather than a national perspective,
although the term “international” is not used extensively.
- Personalizing the Code. Some codes are unreadable except by lawyers or authors
of constitutions. Filling a code of ethics with formal expressions, such as
“I shall” in our judgment emphasizes the theoretical and exaggerates
the impersonal. We believe that the codes should be written in the first person,
so that the statement implicitly becomes a personal ethical commitment. Other
forms of expression imply that the principle applies to others and not necessarily
oneself. In the revised draft of the code the first person expression, “I
shall…” is stated only once within each section. Thus each principle
is stated both as a personal covenant or vow and as an imperative or directive.
The existing ACM Code is highly formalized in expression, and its language
is more consistent with the official ACM Bylaws. With the proposed change
in form of expression, the ACM Council may choose to publish it separately
rather than as one of the bylaws as the Code is now.
- Focusing upon moral principles. Typical ethical computing codes are so cerebral
that they may implicitly give us excuses to ignore the ethical issues. By
neglecting morality and human emotion, they seem to trivialize the consequences
of ethical violations. In drafting a revised code we attempted to rectify
this problem by organizing the main ethical principles around more basic moral
principles. Given this approach we have called the draft a “Code of Ethics
and Professional Conduct,” whereas the existing code is called a “Code
of Professional Conduct.”
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