Computer Ethics

Welcome! This site includes discussions on Computer Ethics.

Author: Rosanne Unciano Sadangsal

E-mails: ennasor22@hotmail.com

ennasor22@yahoo.com

University of the Philippines - Open University

Course: Master in Information System

DEFINITION OF ETHICS

A number of philosophical theorists have defined ethics.Some of the definitions are as follows:

Ethics focuses on the care for the soul.

The focus is spiritual. Unlawful, unethical, and immoral acts and forbearances are considered as elements of sins that contaminate the otherwise virtuous soul.

Cybersex. Online pornography. These are acts that are not good, and are therefore unethical.

Is woman's dignity that low, we let her sell it?

Is woman's honor that less, we let others buy it?

Prostitution is itself an unethical act. Using the newest technology to advertise it makes it even worse.

Ethics is the study and philosophy of human conduct with emphasis on the determination of right or wrong.

Human conduct may either be ethical or unethical. Software piracy is an example which illustrates this particular definition of ethics.

It is unethical for one to gain profit out of licensed software by illegal reproduction of it. How much more is that of someone who pirates the pirated copies?

Like Mark who owns shop in the nearby city. He sells and even displays pirated software in his shop. Whenever a customer chooses to buy the illegal copy, he makes another "pirated copy" (CD). The latter is given to the customer.

Ethics is the study of morality of human actions.

Ethics basically concerns human actions. An act is judged as ethical or unethical depending on the circumstances surrounding the same and based on certain standards generally accepted by a particular community or group of people.

An example is a real-life case, when Mr. Peter required his class in Operating Systems to design a program which would illustrate CPU scheduling, compute for the throughput, etc.

One group is led by Richmund. He and his members thought that the project was difficult, considering the limited time they have. They decided to copy, modify and pass their instructor's work.

What the group did was unethical.Using something, for our benefit (whether it be monetary or accomplishment), owned by someone else is never accepted in the society as morally good.

The case may be considered very trivial by others. But don't big things come from the little ones?

APPLIED ETHICS

While there is no universal definition of ethics, a relative perception of what is correct or not, or right or wrong, is usually adopted and used to guide people's actions in various human concerns. This is what we call applied ethics.

One applied ethics is Bioethics. It is the ethics of biological science and medicine. It deals with man's pursuit of preserving life.

One of its concerns is abortion.

An abortion is the premature termination of pregnancy ending in the death of the embryo or fetus.

There is what we call spontaneous abortion which is caused by natural accidents. Induced abortion on the other hand is subcategorized into therapeutic abortion (pregnancy poses risk to health of the mother) and elective abortion (decided due to other reasons than health risk).

Induced abortions have been considerably debated.

The central issue in the abortion debate is the conflict of what is presumed or perceived as right. The presumed right to life of the fetus or the mother's right to control her body.

Abortion debates are led by advocacy groups which fall into one of two sides - the pro-choice, and the pro-life.

The controversy over abortion remains a very emotionally charged issue, and difficult to resolve.

But as one who believes that life is sacred, I say the life of the unborn baby should therefore be saved.

My Ethical Norms

For me, an act is ethical when it is morally right. A morally-trained conscience will judge one if his act is ethical or not. On the other hand, an act is unethical when it is immoral.

There exist thousand, if not millions, of legal codes regarding one's behavior. But there is one code, above others: Divine Law.

For example: the ethical hackers. They are those we call 'guru' or 'wizards' in computing. They are being hired by companies to check for the vulnerable part of their systems; thus, giving them the freedom and right to have access of these. What they do is ethical, for they perform what they are asked to do. It is in fact, a challenging one.

They have to be cautious, though. Their knowing that overstepping their tasks is immoral, prevents them from doing so. Anything done against their will and conscience is unethical.

ETHICS AND THE LAW

Relevance of the Study of Law to Computer Ethics

Law does not only guide man. It actually governs him, at home, school, work, and wherever he is.

Since computer ethics deals with what is the right thing to do and which is wrong, it is best not just to know the concept of law but to live accordingly with it.

In anything man does, even in computing, a law is a must. But it has to be understood that law isn't ethics, ethics isn't law. Law dictates. Ethics guides.

There is one thing in common, though, with law and ethics. Any violation of a law or a rule is wrong.

If one violates any law, he would be LEGALLY CONVICTED. If he acts against an ethical principle, he would be judged as MORALLY WRONG.

Moral Law

Moral law consists of moral norms that ascertain and dictate what sort of behavior or conduct may or may not be expressed; or what sort of acts may or may not be performed within a particular community. It is a system of unwritten ordering principles based on good and virtuous conduct that governs human actions.

Physical Law

Human beings and other living creatures observe the order of sequence and uniformities involved in the operation of nature. Natural occurrences and phenomena are constant and regular, and can thus be depended upon as physical law, or "law of nature".

The above two laws govern computer use. The Divine and Natural Laws support these.

Among the popular moral laws are the respect to intellectual property, honesty and integrity. Even without any existing standard, one who lives accordingly with Divine law knows that most of the Godly principles support these.

The Golden Rule for example: "Do unto others what you want others do unto you."

Respect begets respect. Honesty rewards honesty. Integrity brings integrity.

Inherent to man is what we call 'written law in his heart'. By nature, there is his conscience which accuses or excuses him in anything that he does, did or will do.