Types of Ethics

Professional Practices Lecture 2

Understanding of Different Ethics

Topics To Be Discussed

•Personal Ethics

•Social Ethics

•Religious Ethics

•Professional Ethics

•Business Ethics

Personal Ethics

•Personal ethics is any system that has been chosen in some way as a moral guide in the particular life style.

Social Ethics

• Standards that govern how members of a society are to deal with each other on issues such as fairness, justice, poverty and the rights of the individual.

OR

• The rightness of an action is based on the customs and norms of a particular society or community (e.g., the usual way things are done around here)

Religious Ethics:• Most religions have an ethical component, often

derived from purported supernatural revelation orguidance.

• According to Simon Blackburn, "For many people,ethics is not only tied up with religion, but iscompletely settled by it. Such people do not need tothink too much about ethics, because there is anauthoritative code of instructions, a handbook of howto live.“

Religious Ethics:• Ethics, which is a major branch of philosophy, encompasses

right conduct and good life. It is significantly broader thanthe common conception of analyzing right and wrong. Acentral aspect of ethics is "the good life", the life worthliving or life that is simply satisfying, which is held by manyphilosophers to be more important than traditional moralconduct.

• Some assert that religion is necessary to live ethically.Blackburn states that, there are those who "would say thatwe can only flourish under the umbrella of a strong socialorder, cemented by common adherence to a particularreligious tradition”.

Business Ethics

• Business ethics is the study of good and evil, right and wrong, and justand unjust actions in business.

• Although all managers face difficult ethical conflicts, applying clearguidelines resolves the vast majority of them.

• Ethical traditions that apply to business support truth telling, honesty,protection of life, respect for rights, fairness, and obedience to law.

• Eliminating unethical behavior may be difficult, but knowing therightness or wrongness of actions is usually easy.

SEVEN ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF A PERSONAL CODE OF COMPUTER

ETHICS

• 1. Honesty

• 2. Respect

• 3. Confidentiality (safeguard entrusted information)

• 4. Professionalism

• 5. Responsibility

• 6. Communication

• 7. Obeying the law

Why People Act Unethically• The person’s ethical standards are different from those of society as a whole:

• The person chooses to act selfishly.

• In many instances, both reasons exist.

An Example A woman was traveling through a developing country when she

witnessed a car in front of her run off the road and roll over severaltimes. She asked the hired driver to pull over to assist, but, to hersurprise, the driver accelerated nervously past the scene. A fewmiles down the road the driver explained that in his country ifsomeone assists an accident victim, then the police often hold theassisting person responsible for the accident itself. If the victimdies, then the assisting person could be held responsible for thedeath. The driver continued explaining that road accident victimsare therefore usually left unattended and often die from exposure tothe country's harsh desert conditions.

What should she do? What is the most ethical decision?

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Computer Ethics for Computer Professionals

• The field of computer ethics specifies ethical codes for computing professionals.

• The core of a computer professional’s code of ethics is to preserve and protect human life from harm.

CODES OF CONDUCT AND GOOD PRACTICE FOR CERTIFIED COMPUTING PROFESSIONALS

The essential elements relating to conduct that identify a professional activity are:

· A high standard of skill and knowledge

· A confidential relationship with people served

· Public reliance upon the standards of conduct in established practice

· The observance of an ethical codeExcerpt from the Code of Ethics of the Institute for Certification of Computing Professionals

© 2005 Prentice-Hall, Inc Slide 12

The ACM Code of Conduct

ASSOSIATION OF COMPUTING MACHINERY

• A computing professional:• Contributes to society and human well-being• Avoids harm to others• Is honest and trustworthy• Is fair and takes action not to discriminate on the basis of

race, sex, religion, age, disability, or national origin• Honors property rights, including copyrights and patents• Gives proper credit when using the intellectual property of

others• Respects other individuals’ rights to privacy• Honors confidentiality

© 2005 Prentice-Hall, Inc Slide 13

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How Does This Apply to Me?

Kaizen 2006 - 2007

Netiquette

• Netiquette refers to the guidelines that involveshowing respect for others and yourself while you areonline.

© 2005 Prentice-Hall, Inc Slide 16

Mailing List Netiquette

• Read the discussions for the past few days before posting questions.

• Read the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) list before posting questions.

• Don’t belittle people for grammatical errors.

• Don’t post inflammatory messages.

• Learn how to unsubscribe from the list.

© 2005 Prentice-Hall, Inc Slide 17

E-Mail Netiquette• Promptly respond to

messages.

• Delete messages after you read them.

• Speak of others professionally and courteously.

• Run your computer’s anti-virus program on any e-mail received or sent.

© 2005 Prentice-Hall, Inc Slide 18

E-Mail Netiquette (continued)

• Keep the message short and to the point.

• Don’t type in all capital letters.

• Spell check your message before sending it.

• Be careful with sarcasm and humor in your message.

• Be mindful of the recipient’s reaction when you request a return receipt. This feature can be annoying and intrusive.

© 2005 Prentice-Hall, Inc Slide 19

Internet Relay Chat Netiquette

• Listen to the discussion for a while before joining it.

• Learn the commonly used abbreviations.

• Don’t flood the channel with text.

• Don’t harass others with unwanted invitations.

• Be careful if you are asked to type in a command. It may have unexpected results.

• Use the ignore command when being bothered.

© 2005 Prentice-Hall, Inc Slide 20

Sources and Other Information

• Bynum, Terrell, "Computer Ethics: Basic Concepts and Historical Overview", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2001 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2001/entries/ethics-computer>

• Ethics in Computing: http://ethics.csc.ncsu.edu/

• Computer Ethics Institute http://www.brook.edu/its/cei/cei_hp.htm

Kaizen 2006 - 2007

Sources and Other Information (cont’d)

• Netiquette:• The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette –

Indexhttp://www.fau.edu/netiquette/net/

• Netiquette Home Pagehttp://www.albion.com/netiquette/

• Online Netiquette Home Page http://www.onlinenetiquette.com/

Kaizen 2006 - 2007