Information Technology Professional Ethics Lecture Notes PDF

Information Technology Professional Ethics UCCD 3053 LECTURE 6 INTRODUCTION TO ETHICAL THEORIES ❑MORAL OVERVIEW ❑ETHICS OVERVIEW ❑INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND COMPUTER ETHICS ❑MAIN OBJECTIVES AND MAJOR THEORIES OF ETHICS Moral Standard → what people believe on the type of actions...

Information Technology Professional Ethics UCCD 3053 LECTURE 6 INTRODUCTION TO ETHICAL THEORIES ❑MORAL OVERVIEW ❑ETHICS OVERVIEW ❑INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND COMPUTER ETHICS ❑MAIN OBJECTIVES AND MAJOR THEORIES OF ETHICS Moral Standard → what people believe on the type of actions that they believe are morally right or wrong. ❑ Moral Quandary → Concerned with the judgment of the good or bad of human action and character. ❑ Moral Lesson → Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behaviour. ❑ Moral Obligation → Arising from consideration or the sense of right and wrong. ❑Moral Support → Having psychological support rather than physical or tangible effect 2 2 Characteristics of Moral Standard ❑ Involved with serious wrongs and significant benefits. ❑ May not be established by law/authority figures. ❑ Should be including self interest. ❑ Based on impartial considerations. 3 3  Normative Morality Descriptive Morality The study of ethical action The study of people’s views about moral beliefs Describes the behaviour of Concerned with what is people and what moral morally right and wrong standards they follow Analyses how people ought Analyses what people think to act is right 4  Correlation between Types of Rights ❑ Negative rights may include civil and political rights such as freedom of speech, private property, freedom from violent crime, freedom of worship, freedom from slavery and the right to bear arms. ❑ Positive rights may include other civil and political rights such as police protection of person and property and the right to counsel, as well as economic, social and cultural rights such as public education, national security, military, health care, social security, and a minimum standard of living. 5 5  Ethics vs Legal Issues Ethical and Legal ❑ Firing an individual who does not perform according to expectation or who fails to follow certain contractual obligations. ❑ Increasing the price of goods to reflect new material cost increase. ❑ Buying a software package to do accounting for clients. Ethical but Not Legal ❑ Copying copyrighted software to use only as a personal backup. ❑ Using civil disobedience to attract attention to a “just” cause. 6 6  Ethics vs Legal Issues Not Ethical but Legal ❑ Using an unlicensed software in a foreign country that has no software copyright laws. ❑ Not citing sources in a research paper. Not Ethical and Not Legal ❑ Making unauthorized copies of copyrighted software. ❑ Planting virus in someone else computer system. 7 7  Why Ethics? ❑Study of what it means to “do the right thing”. ❑Assumes people are rational and free to make own choices. ❑Rules to follow in our interactions and our actions that affect others. 8 8  Why Study Ethics? ❑ Not everyone can do what they want. ❑ Ethics: A way to decide the best thing to do. ❑ New technologies accompany new problems. ❑ “Common wisdom” not always adequate. ❑ Ethics: study of rational and systematic analysis. 9  Ethical Terms Society: ◦ Association of people organized under a system of rules. ◦ Rules: designed to advance the good of members over time. ◦ People in society compete with one another due to: ◦ Dividing limited benefits ◦ Companies fight for market control ◦ Rule of conduct describe what people ought and ought not to do in various situation called morality. 10  Ethical Terms Morality ◦ A society’s rules of conduct. ◦ What people ought / ought not to do in various situations. ◦ Conflict situation ◦ In multiple society, there are many rules of conduct, this may result in certain conflict of interest. Ethics Philosophical study of morality and rational examination into people’s morality. The ways to evaluate of people’s behavior. 11  The Ethical Point of View Two ways to view world ❑ Selfish point of view: consider only own self and its core values. ❑ Community point of view: respect other people and their core values. 12 12  Types of Ethical Issues ❑ Individual, a particular individual within a company and their behavior and decision. ❑ Corporate, an individual company taken as whole. ❑ Systemic, social system or institution within which business operates 13 13 THERANOS (Legal & Ethical issues) https://youtu.be/c8qRINmfIgo 14 Reasons Supporting Business Ethics ❑ Ethics applies to all human activities. ❑ Avoid bribes. ❑ Ethics is consistent with profit seeking. ❑ Customer and Employee care about ethics. 15 15  Objection of Business Ethics ❑ Business ethics is limited to obeying the law only to maximize profit. ❑ Employee most important obligation is to serve the company who is paying their salary. ❑ In a free market economy, the pursuit of profit will ensure maximum social benefits. 16 16 17 PFIZER (Legal & Ethical issues) https://youtu.be/_85fnjuC_zQ https://youtu.be/AjexZeFPTWY 18 18 Moral Dimensions of Information Age Major Issues in Information Systems (IS): ❑ Information rights and obligations. ❑ Property rights and obligations. ❑ Accountability and control. ❑ Quality of life. 19 19  Key Technology Trends that Raise Ethical Issues ❑ Computing power doubles every month. ❑ Rapidly declining data storage costs. ❑ Data analysis advances. ❑ Networking advances and the Internet. 20 20  DVD Rental Scenario ❑ Bill owns chain of DVD rental stores. ❑ Collects information about rentals from customers. ❑ Constructs profiles of customers. ❑ Sells profiles to direct marketing firms. ❑ Some customers happy to receive more mail order catalogs, others unhappy at increase in “junk mail”. 21  Evaluation of Social Contract Theory ❑Consider rights of Bill, customers, and mail order companies. ❑Does customer have right to expect name, address to be kept confidential? ❑If Bill and customer have equal rights to information, Bill did nothing wrong to sell information. ❑If customers have right to expect name and address or transaction to be confidential without giving permission, then Bill was wrong to sell information without asking for permission. 22 Reason Supporting Social Contract Theory ❑ Framed in language of rights (Individual rights). ❑ Explains why people act in self-interest without common agreement. ❑ Provides clear analysis of certain citizen/government problems. ❑ Workable ethical theory. 23  Reason Against Social Contract Theory ❑ No one signed contract. ❑ Some actions have multiple characterizations. ❑ Conflicting rights problem. ❑ May unjustly treat people who cannot uphold contract. 24 Knowledge Pocket 25