Some of these slides are derived from Sherry Clark, A Gift of Fire; Prof. John Nestor, Lafayette College; Russell Gayle,UNC; H. Scott Matthews, Carnegie Mellon University, Michael J. Quinn, Ethics for the Information Age

Ethics – “philosophical study of morality”

Philosophy -- Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.

Ethics – “philosophical study of morality”

Morality – rules of conduct describing what people in a society should and should not do

Association of people organized under a system of rules designed to advance the good of its members over time

Rawls, A Theory of Justice

Apparent conflict between moral imperatives

New technologies can open up new social problems and new ethical dilemmas◦ Examples?

Can new technologies change morality?

Oz’s cycle of change:◦ Technological change => Ethical pronouncements

=> Discussion => Laws => (back to Tech. Change)

Two Different Approaches◦ Descriptive ethics: what people believe to be

right and wrong◦ Normative ethics: what people should believe is

right and wrong

Relationship between normative and philosophical ethics?

Examples where descriptive and normative ethics differ?

You are the senior software engineer at start-up developing software for handheld computers to help nurses keep track of patients

Sales force has promised product by next week

Product still contains many minor bugs No major bugs have been found, but QA

recommends another month of testing A competitor plans to release a similar

product in a few weeks If your product is not first to market your

start-up will probably go out of business

Should you recommend release of the product next week?

Who will benefit if the company follows your recommendation?

Who will be harmed if the company follows your recommendation?

Do you have an obligation to any group of people that may be affected by your decision?

Relativism in General◦ No universal norms of right and wrong◦ One person can say “X is right,” another can say

“X is wrong,” and both can be right Subjective relativism

◦ Each person decides right and wrong for himself or herself

◦ “What’s right for you may not be right for me”

Spammers say spam is good◦ Spam brings advertisements to the attention of

some people who want to buy their products◦ Spammers make money◦ Purchasers are happy to buy their products

Most spam recipients and ISPs say spam is bad◦ Spam wastes time and computer resources,

congests networks, slows processing of non-spam email

Pros◦ Well-meaning and intelligent people disagree on

moral issues◦ Ethical debates are disagreeable and pointless

Cons◦ Blurs distinction between doing what you think is

right and doing what you want to do◦ Makes no moral distinction between the actions

of different people◦ SR and tolerance are two different things◦ Decisions may not be based on reason◦ Not a workable ethical theory

What is “right” and “wrong” depends upon a society’s actual moral guidelines

These guidelines vary from place to place and from time to time

A particular action may be right in one society at one time and wrong in other society or at another time

Different social contexts demand different moral guidelines

It is arrogant for one society to judge another

Morality is reflected in actual behavior

Because two societies do have different moral views doesn’t mean they ought to have different views

Doesn’t explain how moral guidelines are determined

Doesn’t explain how guidelines evolve Provides no way out for cultures in conflict Societies do, in fact, share certain core

values Only indirectly based on reason Not a workable ethical theory

Good will: the desire to do the right thing Immanuel Kant: Only thing in the world

good without qualification is good will. Reason should cultivate desire to do right

thing.

Act only from moral rules that you can at thesame time will to be universal moral laws.

Question: Can a person in dire straits make a promise with the intention of breaking it later?

Proposed rule: “I may make promises with the intention of later breaking them.”

The person in trouble wants his promise to be believed so he can get what he needs.

Universalize rule: Everyone may make & break promises

Everyone breaking promises would make promises unbelievable, contradicting desire to have promise believed

The rule is flawed. The answer is “No.”

Act so that you treat both yourselfand other people as ends in themselvesand never only as a means to an end.

This is usually an easier formulation to workwith than the first formulation of theCategorical Imperative.

Proposed rule: ◦ I can send advertisements to as many email addresses as I

want Spammers want people to read their email and buy

their products Universalize rule:

◦ Everyone can send advertisements to as many email addresses as they want

Consequence◦ If everyone sent advertisements to as many email addresses

as they wanted to, email would be so clogged with spam that it would no longer be useful and people would stop using it

The rule is flawed -> spamming is not ethical

Spammers send ads for a product to many people, knowing only small number will be interested

Most message recipients will waste time and money

Spammers do not respect recipients’ time or money, and are only interested in using spam recipients to make a profit

Thus spammers treat recipients as means to an end

Conclusion: Spamming is wrong

Rational Produces universal moral guidelines Treats all persons as moral equals Workable ethical theory

Sometimes no rule adequately characterizes an action.

There is no way to resolve a conflict between rules.

Kantianism allows no exceptions to moral laws.

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill An action is good if it benefits someone An action is bad if it harms someone Utility: tendency of an object to produce

happiness or prevent unhappiness for an individual or a community

An action is right (or wrong) to the extentthat it increases (or decreases) the

total happiness of the affected parties.

“Greatest Happiness Principle”

Utilitarianism in General◦ Morality of an action has nothing to do with intent◦ Focuses on the consequences◦ A consequentialist theory

Act utilitarianism◦ Add up change in happiness of all affected beings◦ Sum > 0, action is good◦ Sum < 0, action is bad

Spam sent to 100 million people 1 in 10,000 buy product 90% of people who buy product are happy with

it, other 10% feel ripped off People who don’t buy product waste time and

money, get annoyed, etc. - unhappy Spammer makes lots of money and is VERY

happy 9001 happy people, 99,990,000 unhappy people Conclusion: 99.991% of people are unhappy, so

spam is wrong

Focuses on happiness Down-to-earth (practical) Comprehensive Workable ethical theory

Unclear whom to include in calculations Too much work Ignores our innate sense of duty Susceptible to the problem of moral luck

Sometimes actions have unintended consequences – Moral worth of action is dependent on consequences that may not be under control of moral agent

We ought to adopt moral rules which, if followed by everyone, will lead to the greatest increase in total happiness◦ Act utilitarianism applies Principle of Utility to

individual actions◦ Rule utilitarianism applies Principle of Utility to

moral rules

August 2003: Blaster worm infected thousands of Windows computers

Soon after, Nachi worm appeared◦ Took control of vulnerable computer◦ Located and destroyed copies of Blaster◦ Downloaded software patch to fix security

problem◦ Used computer as launching pad to try to “infect”

other vulnerable PCs

Proposed rule: If I can write a helpful worm that removes a harmful worm from infected computers and shields them from future attacks, I should do so

Who would benefit◦ People who do not keep their systems updated

Who would be harmed◦ People who use networks◦ People who’s computers are invaded by buggy anti-

worms◦ System administrators

Conclusion: Harm outweighs benefits. Releasing anti-worm is wrong.

Compared to act utilitarianism, it is easier to perform the utilitarian calculus.

Moral rules survive exceptional situations Avoids the problem of moral luck Workable ethical theory

All consequences must be measured on a single scale.

Utilitarianism ignores the problem of an unjust distribution of good consequences.

MAPS is a not-for-profit organization Contacts marketers who violate MAPS

standards for bulk email Puts marketers who violate standards

on a Realtime Blackhole List (RBL) Some mail relays refer to RBL list

◦ Looks up email host name on RBL list◦ If name on list, the email gets bounced back

All email from blacklisted hosts gets bounced, even email from non-spammers

Utilitarian evaluation:◦ ISP using RBL benefits by getting better network

performance, fewer angry users◦ But their users are unable to receive email from innocent

users of blacklisted ISPs, reducing their utility◦ Innocent users of blacklisted ISPs unable to communicate

with ISPs that user RBL◦ Conclusion depends on magnitude of benefit and ratio of

blacklisted innocent users to total email users Kantian evaluation:

◦ MAPS puts ISPs on RBL with goal of getting innocent users to complain and pressure ISP to drop spammers

◦ Innocent users are treated as means to an end◦ This violates Categorical imperative -> RBL is unethical

The Therac-25 was a software-controlled radiation-therapy machine used to treat people with cancer.◦ Overdoses of radiation

Normal dosage is 100–200 rads. It is estimated that 13,000 and 25,000 rads were

given to six people. Three of the six people died.

Problem: Therac-25

Problem: Therac-25

Problem: Therac-25

Therac-25 Radiation Overdose◦ Multiple Causes:

Poor safety design. Insufficient testing and debugging. Software errors. Lack of safety interlocks. Overconfidence. Inadequate reporting and investigation of accidents.

Q: What can be learned from this case?Q: What can be learned from this case?

Problem: Therac-25

In 1996 Ariane 5 Flight 501 exploded after launch.

Estimated cost of accident: $500 million

Video

The cause was traced to the Inertial reference system (SRI).

Both the main and backup SRI failed. Both units failed due to an out-of-range

conversion◦ Input: double precision floating point◦ Output: 16-bit integer for “horizontal bias”

(BH) Careful analysis during software design

had indicated that BH would “fit” in 16 bits So, why didn’t it fit?

Careful analysis during software design had indicated that BH would “fit” in 16 bits

BUT, all analysis had been done for the Ariane 4, the predecessor of Ariane 5 - software was reused

Since Ariane 5 was a larger rocket, the values for BH were higher than anticipated

AND, there was no handler to deal with the exception!http://www.ima.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/ariane.html

Q: What can be learned from this case?Q: What can be learned from this case?

http://www.acm.org/about/se-code◦ See “short version” at top of page for general

ideas◦ See “long version” below for more detail