AUTHOR
Philip Brey

ABSTRACT

In this essay, I will consider the question of method in computer ethics by reviewing the literature of the past decade and a half, and by analyzing the methodological approaches used in this literature. I will then propose a set of methodological guidelines that have consistently shown themselves in the past to be a prerequisite to good computer ethics research. In doing this, I will not only be looking at method in individual research, but also about the role of multidisciplinary collaboration and the structure of the field as a whole.

After an initial brief discussion of the aim of computer ethics research, I will follow Moor in claiming that the central aim of computer ethics is to formulate policy guidelines to guide individual and collective action in the development, management and use of computer technology. I will then consider the scope of computer ethics, i.e., its objects of analyis, which I define as individual and collective practices that somehow essentially involve computers, including the use, development, regulation, management, advocacy and advertisement of computer technology. Also included should be the products of such actions, e.g., computer systems and software, manuals, advertisements, and laws and policies regulating the use of computers.

I will then turn to questions of method. I will begin by analyzing various core research activities in past computer ethics research. I will distinguish three activities as central: developing moral theory, applying moral theory, and descriptive analysis. Within these categories, I will then go on to distinguish more specific component activities. The application of existing moral theory to particular practices is certainly one of the central activities in computer ethics. I will begin by analyzing ways in which ethical theory is applied in computer ethics research, and by analyzing some of the difficulties that are involved. Applying moral theory is only part of what computer ethicists do, however. As Jim Moor has pointed out, the changing settings and practices that emerge with new computer technology may yield new values, as well al require the reconsideration of old values. There may also be new moral dilemma’s because of conflicting values that suddenly clash when brought together in new settings and practices. It may then be found that existing moral theory has not adequately theorized these values and value conflicts. It is therefore part of the task of computer ethics to further develop and modify existing moral theory when existing theory is insufficient or inadequate in light of new demands generated by new practices involving computer technology.

So part of the work done in computer ethics is the development of ethical theory and its application to practices involving computer technology. Both these activities are normative, in that they are concerned with proposing, defending, analyzing or applying normative concepts and principles. I want to claim, however, that a large part of the research in computer ethics is not normative in this sense, but descriptive: it is concerned with describing aspects of reality and with proposing, defending, analyzing or applying descriptive concepts and principles. The importance of descriptive research has been noted to some extent by Jim Moor, who has claimed that “much of the important work in computer ethics is devoted to proposing conceptual frameworks for understanding ethical problems involving computer technology,” and who is aware that many of the concepts involved are descriptive. Moor still seems to presume, however, that computer ethics is in large part about solving preexisting moral problems. However, I want to claim that a large part of descriptive work in computer ethics is not about the clarification of practices that have already generated moral controversy, but rather about revealing the moral import of practices that appear to be morally neutral. Many designs and uses of computer systems, I will argue, have important moral aspects, that remain hidden because the technology and its relation to the context of use are too complex or are insufficiently well-known. It is part of the job of computer ethics to make computer technology and its uses transparent, in a way that reveals its morally relevant features. Indeed, I will show that much recent work in computer ethics is centrally concerned with this moral deciphering of computer technology. I will argue that although some conception of morality is presupposed in these studies, this conception normally does not draw explicitly from moral theory, which is often only applied after descriptive analysis.

Finally, I will use my analysis of core research activities in computer ethics to draw out implications for the structure of computer ethics as a multidisciplinary field. I will argue that computer ethics is a multi-layer interdisciplinary venture, in which computer scientists, social scientists and philosophers do research at various levels of analysis and often need to combine their expertise in doing descriptive analysis or applying moral theory.

AUTHOR
Marcus Breen

ABSTRACT

Recent developments have seen a determined move by computer industry representatives and some political activists to establish a tax free haven for computer mediated communication developments, especially electronic commerce. Such a position has been expressed by US advocates of the Internet Tax Freedom Act. “The Internet Tax Freedom Act is a law enacted in October 1998 to keep the heavy hand of government off the Internet. If you want information about how this new law will work to keep Internet access tax-free, to stop governments from imposing special or discriminatory taxes on the Net, and to keep foreign tariffs off of Internet commerce, you’ve come to the right place”.

Partly premised on the argument that taxes are an disincentive to investment in research and development and thus a limit on innovation and trade, computer industry arguments have been generally well received by federal and state governments in the USA. In fact, since 1996, the US government, together with its Japanese counterpart, has agreed not to impose taxes on companies undertaking specific innovations for new communications technology. The tax free “window” has been opened for 2-5 years, raising debate about the tax exceptions the industry has won. However, the idea of community is problematized by the victory of industry over government. In the past, prevailing liberal political philosophy has set acceptable thresholds for the imposition of government tax collecting as a means of maintaining the integrity of “the public” within the contingent meaning of the sense of community. To remove taxation is in effect to remove the contingent element of government. In other words, the agreement not to tax may mark the end of rational arguments for government.

For ethicists in political science and political economy, taxation and computer science, and policy analysts and policy makers in all those areas and more, the removal of taxation opens a Pandora’s box of issues. Some of theses issues can be theorized within the range of concerns defined by cultural studies. For example, what cultural issues and ideas are being exclusively articulated to emerging computer communications that need to be mapped. Furthermore, are the issues of certain vested interests being given precedence, within terms that are generally defined as libertarian. That is, do the ethical issues implicitly enumerated by anti-tax advocates reveal the unraveling of cultural and political systems of thought and behavior that may present a dramatic remaking of the political landscape. Deliberations on this issue are sure to continue as computer communication offers a borderless new world order, in which governments no longer rule and new methods of communication give new meaning to “the public interest”. This paper will consider the cultural issues that emerge from this development and how such issues problematize ethical considerations of the state and the public interest.

AUTHOR
Andrew Bissett and Geraldine Shipton

ABSTRACT

This current empirical study is conceived against a background of general concern with the falling number of women students enrolling on undergraduate IT courses over the last decade. There is a need to consider whether issues of gender impact on any given areas. For instance, if there is an increasing gender imbalance in the IT industry, then any relationship between gender and ethics will be increasingly obscured, and it would be false to assume that there is only one ethical perspective.

In this paper, Gilligan’s (1982) hypothesis that moral development is gendered is considered in relation to attitudinal differences of IT professionals to ethical issues specific to IT. Gilligan suggests that conventional assessment of ethical attitudes positions women as being of inferior moral development. For example, in Kohlberg’s authoritative evaluation (1973), females appear less mature because they are more reluctant to use abstract reasoning, take a less individualistic stance, and seem more contingent and diffident in their conclusions. Gilligan however proposes that men and women may take different moral stances that are complementary rather than to be judged as better or worse than each other. Gilligan locates the source of difference for girls and boys in their respective relationship to, and separation from, the mother. One outcome is that males tend to employ a moral framework of abstract rights, based on the premise that the individual is an inviolable monadic unit. This promotes a leaning towards deontic ethics (Forcht, 1994). By contrast, women’s moral outlook tends to be shaped by issues related to care of, and responsibility towards, others. This suggests a more consequentialist ethical framework.

Although Gilligan argues that men and women’s moral outlooks may differ and yet may be seen as complementing each other, Gilligan also suggests that moral maturity brings about a convergence of the two different perspectives. Both chronological age and life experience help this process of integration between the two outlooks.

Our paper describes and discusses the results of a questionnaire concerning ethical issues relevant to IT, returned by 83 IT professionals. The survey population consisted of 200 IT professionals who are studying computing at undergraduate and postgraduate level part time (in conjunction with their employment in industry). The questionnaire was designed to enable respondents to give their views in an open-ended way on three commonly occurring ethical dilemmas. The findings are analysed to determine whether any distinctive gender differences emerge.

The results of the survey are discussed in the light of Gilligan’s work, and implications for the development of an appropriate ethical outlook in the IT industry are considered.

References

• Forcht, K.A. (1994) Computer Security Management, Danvers Mass.: Boyd & Fraser Publishing Co.
• Gilligan, C. (1982) In A Different Voice, Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press
• Kohlberg, L. (1973) Continuities and Discontinuities in Childhood and Adult Moral Development Revisited, in Collected Papers on Moral Development and Moral Education, Moral Education Research Foundation, Harvard University

AUTHOR
Mohamed M. Begg, Simon Rogerson, Paul Luker and N Ben Fairweather

ABSTRACT

The phenomena of Personal Introduction Agencies has existed in the West long before the Computer Revolution. It has not been so popular in the Eastern countries and particularly in the Muslim countries where seeking help through such agencies is seen as for those who may be regarded as some sort of ‘rejects’ in the community. In Muslim countries finding a marriage partner for adult children is usually regarded as the duty of parents or family who are seen as ‘wise and know what is best for their children’. (Consent of the parties concerned is an Islamic requirement). Usually the elderly female members of a family act as brokers for potential couples and are seen as elders with a ‘vision’ of a lasting marriage. This traditional system does not work well for young Muslim males and females living in Britain, Europe, U.S.A. and Canada mainly because the Muslim families live too far apart and also because the young Muslims are under the influence of ‘Western styles’ of choosing a partner.

Despite the ‘freedom’ in the West, finding a reliable marriage partner conforming to some Islamic norms is a nightmare for most individuals and their families. All sorts of methods have been tried, Marriage Bureaus, Newspaper Advertisements (still very popular), word of mouth and going back to home country and ‘importing’ the partner into the country of residence. None of the methods have worked particularly well. Divorce rate is steadily on the increase.

With the Computer Revolution, young Muslims have come up with some innovative ideas, one of these being setting up Muslim Introduction Web-Sites through which young Muslim males and females place an Ad on the Web-site together with their e-mail address and await response from suitably interested parties directly without the involvement of parents. The COMFORT ZONE (www.ummah.net/comfort) is one such web-site which has raised hopes and controversy. More such web-sites are now accessible.

One of the most important question that immediately arises is whether these services will be provided by genuine providers who truly conform to Islamic principles and whether the users will also conform to such principles when placing an Ad, replying to an Ad and eventually when meeting the person in person. Professor Siddiqui, a Communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an Islamic scholar in U.S.A., argues that monitoring such a service is essential if it is to function within the Islamic moral framework. However, the question that arises immediately is: Who would monitor such a global service on the Internet? Will it be the Sunni Muslims or the Shiaite Muslims? Will it be the fundamentalists or the liberals? Does such a service cut across Islamic guidelines on choosing a marriage partner? Some hold the opinion that it will, while others believe that this is the only way forward particularly in the west.

This paper examines the impact of such Internet services on young Muslims within the local Muslim community in Leicester and its wider implications on the Islamic traditions/faith and the likely consequences of such services in future. Some effort will also be made to examine areas in which some ‘re-thinking’ is required by Muslim scholars and Muslims living in the West.

AUTHOR

Porfirio Barroso

ALSO PRESENTED AT

The Computer Ethics Conference, Linköping University, Sweden, 1997 (Taken from: Ethics and Information Technology, Edited by Göran Collste, pp 159-180, ISBN 91-7219-680-7)

ABSTRACT

The advent of information technology and computers in medicine three decades ago posed a new set of ethical problems. In recent years, these problems have been compounded by the increasing use of computers for supporting clinical decisions as well as record keeping and so on. And thus, ethicists, lawyers, computer scientist, clinicians, and patients must confront a group of ethical problems: In what situations is it appropriate to use a medical computer program? Who should use these programs and how should they be used? What is the ethical status of a computer program that provides medical advice? Can a proper balance be achieved between confidentiality of patient information and shared access to records by health care personnel? How can society, physicians, and patients determine if a program is safe for human use? Will programs be able to communicate with users well enough to prevent clinically harmful misunderstandings? Because few if any definitive answers are yet available the need to create Deontological Codes was defended, taking as an example the HIDEC Health Informaticians Deontology Code in order to avoid or try to solve these kinds of problems.

AUTHOR
Francesco Amigoni, Viola Schiaffonati and Marco Somalvico

ABSTRACT

The growing impact of computer science on human society stimulates several ethical considerations that are enriched and enhanced when we refer to a powerful and flexible machine, called agency [6], developed within artificial intelligence. An agency [4] is a machine composed of several cooperating inferential entities called agents, which are computer or robots. Agents are integrated in a communication network that represents the topology of agency. The purpose of this paper is to present some innovative ethical observations that arise from the adoption of agencies in the conceptual framework that conceives man as a bipolar subject [2]. More precisely, we consider, according to Bergson approach [5], the intellectual and interactive (with the world external to human mind) human activities as composed of creative activities, which can not be modelled nor emulated by any machine, and of fabricative activities, which can be modelled and emulated by information machines. In this epistemological position, we consider an agent as an information machine that roughly emulates the fabricative intellectual activities of a man, when the agent is a computer, or that roughly emulates the fabricative intellectual and interactive activities of a man, when the agent is a robot. Therefore, an agency emulates the cooperation phenomena that happen in a society of men. For this reason, we denote agency as cooperation machine. We conceive a man as a man-mind subject composed of two poles: man-body pole and man-machine pole. Man-body pole is the natural site of man’s body in which man immediately (without any medium) carries on both creative and fabricative activities. Man-machine pole is the artificial site of machine (made and made to perform by man) in which man mediately (with a medium) carries on fabricative activities.

The first ethical consideration that the bipolar condition of man stimulates is centered on the concept of culture, which is expressed by man-machine pole. In fact, every machine reflects human culture, since a machine is the result of the whole history of science and technology and of the efforts of contemporary men who work together in order to develop better and better artifacts. Moreover, when the machine is an agency, we can say that it represents human culture, because it roughly emulates a society of men, each one roughly emulated by an agent. Hence, human culture permeates every man, since man-machine pole is the result of human culture and, in the case of agency, it also represents human culture. We call universality the ethical property that expresses the pervasive dissemination of culture within the man-mind subject, not only abstractly within man-body pole, but also concretely within man-machine pole.

The second ethical consideration, called equality, can be introduced by observing the double role that an agent can play due to the particular nature of agency. A single agent can describe both the product and the producer of culture and, in particular, of scientific knowledge. In fact, as we have seen, agency represents the culture of several men (each one associated with an agent) when it describes, as a flexible and renewable machine, the product of human culture. In this case, it is called Product Dynamic Agency (PDA). Moreover, agency enhances each single bipolar man-mind subject, when he acts as producer of culture. In fact, agency, as man-machine pole, is the practical support for man in performing fabricative intellectual activities and, in this case, it is called Site Dynamic Agency (SDA). The ability of agency to describe both the product and the producer of culture [1] is called duality function and envisages the ethical concept of equality. In fact, it is equal to use an agent to describe the product of culture or the producer of culture, and, in general, to address different pragmatic goals.

The third ethical consideration involves solidarity that is centered on the circular nature of culture. We call circularity property [1] the synergic integration between the agency that represents the product of culture, namely PDA, and the agency that represents the producer of culture, namely SDA. This property is encountered when a “strongly flexible” agency, like dynamic agency [3], is adopted as man-machine pole. Circularity property clearly expresses the synergic and solidaristic interconnection between agents (each one roughly emulating a man) that play, in sequence, the roles of service and server.

A last ethical concept, called freedom, is envisaged by the adoption of dynamic agencies. Freedom is related to the bivalent nature of man who, when he interacts with a dynamic agency, can be considered from two different perspectives. A single man can be seen both as the user of dynamic agency and as the designer of the dynamic agency he uses. This is related to the particular nature of dynamic agency that can be automatically built by starting from a formalized initial exigency expressed by the user. Thus, by adopting dynamic agencies, man is free to design, develop, build and use machines that address the solutions of his needs.

Our conceptual perspective, in which machines (information machine, agency, dynamic agency), human dichotomies (bipolar condition, duality function, circularity property, bivalent nature), and ethical aspects (universality, equality, solidarity, freedom) are integrated, is summarized in a scheme called anthroparadigmatic tetrahedron.

References

1. F. Amigoni, V. Schiaffonati, and M. Somalvico. Dynamic agencies and creative scientific discovery. AISB’99 Symposium on “Artificial Intelligence and Scientific Creativity”, Edinburgh, 1999.
2. F. Amigoni, V. Schiaffonati, and M. Somalvico. Processing and interaction in agencies of robots. Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, 72(1), January 1999, p. 16-26.
3. F. Amigoni and M. Somalvico. Dynamic agencies and multi-robot systems. In: Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems 3, Lueth, T., Dillmann, R., Dario, P., Worn, H., (eds.). Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, 1998.
4. F. Amigoni, M. Somalvico, and D. Zanisi. A theoretical framework for the conception of agency. International Journal of Intelligent Systems, in press, 1999.
5. H. Bergson. Creative Evolution. University Press of America, 1984.
6. M. Minsky. The Society of Mind. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1985.