The Use and Abuse of Computer Ethics

Donald Gotterbarn

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

Introduction

The creation of courses in applied ethics – business ethics, engineering ethics, legal ethics, medical ethics, and professional ethics – is a very fertile industry. In 1982 Derek Bok, president of Harvard University, reported that over 12,000 distinct ethics courses were taught in our academic institutions.1 As the emphasis on ethics has increased so has the number of such courses.

What is the pedagogical justification for these courses? There are different justifications for different courses. The justifications depend on the curriculum in which they are taught – liberal arts, business, engineering, medicine, or law. For professional schools and professional curricula the pedagogical objectives for these courses include: introducing the students to the responsibilities of their profession, articulating the standards and methods used to resolve non-technical ethics questions about their profession, and developing some proactive skills to reduce the likelihood of future ethical problems. The type of institution that supports the course – sectarian or nonsectarian, and the department responsible for the course – philosophy, religion, or computer science – affect the course objectives.

The methods chosen and the issues discussed will vary by the domain of the ethics course – business ethics, clerical ethics, computer ethics, etc. Specific objectives claimed by professors have varied from very general to quite specific, e.g., sensitize the students to values, teach a particular professionalism , e.g., indoctrinate the students to a set of values, and teach the laws related to a particular profession to avoid malpractice suits. Rarely do such courses take the approach that they are intended to discover values. These courses generally either start from an accepted set of values and apply them in particular contexts, or they start with a variety of moral theories and go through the exercise of applying them.

Other objectives for these courses come from nonacademic sources. In computer ethics some objectives are based on a concern to prevent computer catastrophes. It is hoped that computer ethics training will eliminate unethical computer activity. This view was first promulgated in response to significant media attention given several incidents of computer trespass. Another belief used to promulgate the teaching of computer ethics is that the errors in programs are attributable to immoral behavior. It is hoped that if we train people in the ways of ethics, they will produce error free programs.

In his paper, “Human Values and the Computer Science Curriculum,” Terrell Ward Bynum2 offers as a major objective of teaching computer ethics, that such courses make it more likely that “computer technology will be used to advance human values.” This is a laudable goal for any discipline. Indeed one goal of liberal education in general is to help the student develop a sense of human values.3

“Computer ethics” is a relatively new and developing academic area. There have been several attempts to define and categorize the field and how one ought to teach it. There have been courses and textbooks dealing with ethics and computing for more than ten years. In that time computing and its impact on our society have undergone significant changes. As in most areas that are under development, several directions are attempted until the best ones are found. It is a mistake however to canonize an approach simply because it was one of the approaches tried early in the development of an area.

There are two approaches to computer ethics which I believe are mistaken in that they do not forward any of the above cited objectives, and yet they are becoming canonized as the good and the right thing to do. The two positions I am concerned with are a) a method for teaching computer ethics which some have called “pop computer ethics,”4 and b) a position that the adequate teaching of such a course requires someone trained in philosophy or theology. The remainder of this paper addresses these two positions.

Go to: Pop Computer Ethics

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