Professional Ethics

Why a Separate Category of Professional

Ethics?
• The same ethical rules involving honesty, fairness, and so forth should apply
to professionals as well as to ordinary individuals.
• So, if it is wrong for ordinary people to steal, cheat, lie, and so forth, then it
is wrong for professionals to do so as well.
• So, we might conclude that a separate field of study called "professional
ethics" is not really needed.
 What is a Profession?
• Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins (2004) note that the term “profession” has
evolved from a concept that was once associated with people professing a
religious or monastic life to one that now has a more secular meaning.
• “Profession” was used to describe a person who made a public promise to
enter a “distinct way of life” with allegiance to “high moral ideals.”
• Later, the term came to refer to anyone who “professed to be duly qualified.”
• “Profession” has now come to mean an “occupation in which one professes
to be skilled in and to follow.”
 Who is a Professional?
• Professionals who comprise a given profession also tend to have certain
defining attributes and requirements.
• Medical doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc., find themselves in situations in
which their decisions and actions can have significant social effects; their
roles and responsibilities can exceed those of ordinary individuals.
• Sometimes these roles and responsibilities differentiate professionals from
others.
 Who is a Computer Professional?
• A computer professional might be interpreted to mean anyone who is employed in a
computer, information-technology, or information/communications fields.
• Or a computer professional might be thought of in more narrow terms, in which
case only software engineers would be included.
• There are various gradients in between the two ends of this spectrum.
• A computer professional could be defined in such a way that, in addition to
software engineers, software quality analysts, software technical writers, network
administrators, software managers and supervisors.
 Professional ethics
• Professional ethics includes relationships with and responsibilities toward
customers, clients, coworkers, employees, employers, people who use one’s products
and services, and others whom one’s products affect.
• Professional ethics is concerned with the standards and moral conduct that govern
the profession and its members.
• Professional ethics is concerned with the obligations and responsibility that arise out
of a particular kind of service performed for individuals or groups, and in that
sense approximate obligations arising out of contractual agreements.
 Special Aspects of Professional Ethics
• The professional is an expert in a field, be it computer science or medicine, that
most customers know little about.
• Most of the people affected by the devices, systems, and services of professionals
do not understand how they work and cannot easily judge their quality and safety.
• This creates responsibilities for the professional.
• Customers rely on the knowledge, expertise, and honesty of the professional.
• A professional advertises his or her expertise and thus has an obligation to provide
it.
• The products of many professionals (e.g., highway bridges, investment advice,
surgery protocols, and computer systems) profoundly affect large numbers of
people.
• A computer professional’s work can affect the life, health, finances, freedom, and
future of a client or members of the public.
• A professional can cause great harm through dishonesty, carelessness, or
incompetence.
• Thus, computer professionals have special responsibilities, not only to their
customers, but also to the general public, to the users of their products, regardless
of whether they have a direct relationship with the users.
 Professional Codes of Ethics
• They provide a general statement of ethical values and remind people in the
profession that ethical behavior is an essential part of their job.
• The codes provide reminders about specific professional responsibilities.
• There are several organizations for the range of professions included in the general
term “computer professional.” The main ones are the ACM and the IEEE
Computer Society (IEEE CS).
• They developed the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice
(adopted jointly by the ACM and IEEE CS) and the ACM Code of Ethics and
Professional Conduct.
• The Codes emphasize the basic ethical values of honesty and fairness.
• They cover many aspects of professional behavior, including the responsibility to respect
confidentiality, maintain professional competence, be aware of relevant laws, and honor contracts
and agreements.
• In addition, the Codes put special emphasis on areas that are particularly (but not uniquely)
vulnerable from computer systems.
• They stress the responsibility to respect and protect privacy, to avoid harm to others, and to
respect property rights (with intellectual property and computer systems themselves as the most
relevant examples).
• Managers have special responsibility because they oversee projects and set the ethical standards
for employees.
Professional Codes for Computer Societies
• The computing profession also has professional societies, which include:
• The Association for Computing (ACM);
• The Australian Computer Society (ACS);
• The British Computer Society;
• The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE);
• IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS).
 Purpose of Professional Codes
• Professional codes of ethics are often designed to motivate members of an
association to behave in certain ways.
• Four primary functions of codes are to:
• inspire,
• guide,
• educate,
• discipline the members.
 Criticisms of Ethical Codes
• John Ladd (1995) argues that ethical codes rest on a series of
confusions that are both "intellectual and moral."
• His argument has three main points:
• (1) ethics is basically an "open-ended, reflective, and critical intellectual
activity“;
• (2) codes introduce confusions with respect to micro-ethics vs. macro-ethics;
• (3) giving codes a disciplinary function makes them more like legal than
ethical rules.
 In Defense of Professional Codes

• Gotterbarn argues that we need to distinguish among three aspects of

professional codes, as:
• codes of ethics;
• codes of conduct;
• codes of practice.
 In Defense of Professional Codes
(Continued)
• Codes of ethics as "aspirational," because they often serve as
mission statements for the profession and thus can provide vision
and objectives.
• Codes of conduct are oriented more toward the professional and the
professional's attitude and behavior.
• Codes of practice relate to operational activities within a profession.
 Some Strengths and Weaknesses of Professional Codes
Strengths Weaknesses
Codes inspire the members of a profession to Directives included in many codes tend to be too
behave ethically. general and too vague.

Codes guide the members of a profession in Codes are not always helpful when two or more
ethical choices. directives conflict.

Codes educate the members of a profession A professional code’s directives are never
about their professional obligations. complete or exhaustive.

Codes discipline members when they violate one Codes are ineffective (have no “teeth”) in
or more of the code’s directives. disciplinary matters.

Codes “sensitize” members of a profession to Directives in codes are sometimes inconsistent

ethical issues and alert them to ethical aspects with one another.
they otherwise might overlook.
Codes inform the public about the nature and Codes do not help us distinguish between micro-
roles of the profession. ethics issues and macro-ethics issues.

Codes enhance the profession in the eyes of the Codes can be self-serving for the profession.
public.
Guidelines and Professional
Responsibilities
 Guidelines and Professional Ethics

• Principles for producing good systems which concerns software developers,

programmers, consultants, and others who make decisions about obtaining systems
for large organizations.
• There are many more specific guidelines in the SE Code and in the ACM Code,
which will be explained and defined in the scenarios.
• Principles:
• Understand what success means.
• Developers and institutional users of computer system’s must view the system’s role and their
responsibility in a wide context.
 Guidelines and Professional Ethics (cont.)

• Include users in the design and testing stages to provide safe and useful systems.
• Mistakes or accidents occur when technical people developed systems without sufficient
knowledge of what is important to users.
• Design for real users
• People make typos, get confused, or are new at their job. So, system designers and programmers
must provide clear user interfaces and include appropriate checking of input.
• Don’t assume existing software is safe or correct
• Software used from another application needs to be verified for suitability for the current project.
 Guidelines and Professional Ethics (cont.)

• Be open and honest about capabilities

• Emphasizing your best qualities and being dishonest is not always clear, but it should be
clear that hiding known, serious flaws and lying to customers are on the wrong side of the
line.
• Require a convincing case for safety
• One of the difficult ethical problems that arise in safety-critical applications is deciding how
much risk is acceptable.
• Ethical decision makers should always consider the balance of risk taken when undergoing a
project.
 Guidelines and Professional Ethics (cont.)

• Pay attention to defaults

• System designers should give serious thought to default settings as protection, ease of use,
and compatibility with user expectations is a priority.
• Develop communication skills
• Computer professionals have to explain technical issues to clients and coworkers.
• One’s presentations can be more effective by organizing information, distinguishing what is
important, and engaging the listener actively in the conversation to ensure the client is
interested.
 Guidelines and Professional Ethics (cont.)

• Example: You are a programmer at a bank and you found flaws in your
program which is used in ATMs. Would you tell your employer?

• Honesty includes taking responsibility for damaging or injuring others. If you break a
neighbor’s window playing ball or smash into someone’s car, you have an obligation to pay
for the damage.
 Guidelines and Professional Ethics (cont.)

• Solution: You have to be honest. Inform your employers and try to fix the
program.
• The consequences for hiding faulty programs would be worst than admitting
your mistakes.
 Scenarios
1. Brainstorming phase
• List all the people and organizations affected. (They are the stakeholders.)
• List risks, issues, problems, consequences.
• List benefits. Identify who gets each benefit.
• In cases where there is not a simple yes or no decision, but rather one has to
choose some action, list possible actions.
2. Analysis phase
• Identify responsibilities of the decision maker. (Consider responsibilities of both general ethics and
professional ethics.)
• Identify rights of stakeholders. (It might be helpful to clarify whether they are negative or positive rights)
• Consider the impact of the action options on the stakeholders. Analyze consequences, risks, benefits, harms,
and costs for each action considered.
• Categorize each potential action or response as ethically obligatory, ethically prohibited, or ethically
acceptable.
• If there are several ethically acceptable options, select an option by considering the ethical merits of each,
courtesy to others, practicality, self-interest, personal preferences, and so on. (In some cases, plan a sequence
of actions, depending on the response to each.)
 Scenarios -Example
• Developing a computerized record system for a community clinic. The
director says that the budget is small and wants to keep costs to a minimum.
• The director may be aware of the risks of losing sensitive client information, but she
may not know the possible risks of the computer system.
• You, as the computer professional, have an obligation to inform her of these risks and
how they are to be handled.
 Stakeholders
• Clients of the clinic
• Positive rights: To the privacy of their sensitive information
• Negative rights: To choose whichever clinic they want to go to
• You, the computer professional
• Negative rights: To accept or deny any job
• The director of the clinic
• Clinic employees
• Negative rights: To choose where they want or do not want to work
• The government
• Question: Can you think of any possible solutions?
 Possible Solutions
• The director realizes the risks of the computer system and agrees to pay for
the security measures.
• You develop the system cheap and vulnerable.
• Add the security features and do not charge for them.
• Work out a compromise and add a few features you believe are essential.

• Question: Which solution do you think is the best?

 Best Solution
• You help the director realize the possible risks of the computer system and
the consequences of these risks. She then agrees to pay for the extra security
features.
• Deontological point of view: The director is ethically obligated to choose this outcome
because there rules of privacy protection that she must follow.
• Utilitarian point of view: Everyone’s happy.
 Scenarios (Skipping Test)
• A team of programmers are working on a computer-controlled device for
treating cancerous tumors. The project is behind schedule caused by various
delays and the deadline is approaching. There would be no time for testing
the device. The system has been functioning well in the routine treatment
tested so far.
• As the project manager, you have to consider delivering the system on time without
proper testing or continue testing to make patches if the team finds any bugs.
 Stakeholders
• Clinic
• Positive rights: Ensuring patient’s safety
• Negative rights: Avoid using the machine

• Government
• Positive rights: Stop the use of the machine to ensure safety
• Project Manager
• Positive rights: Release the machine on time
• Negative rights: Release the machine without testing
• Patients
• Negative rights: To choose whichever method for recovery

 Question: As the project manager, what are some

solutions or decision he/she could make?
 Possible Solutions
 Continue with the full testing for bugs to avoid mishaps with the patients.
However, you have to take responsibility in having the release of the
machine delayed.
 Skip the testing and go on releasing the machine on time but risk having
patients succumb to the faulty machine.
 Quit the job and do not take responsibility for the outcome of the project.
 Analysis
• Who are the people affected by the use of the machine?
• Patients
• Hospital and clinics
• The company and the project manager
• Negative and Positive Impacts
• Aspects of human nature that can influence decisions
• Short-term effects
• Taking the easy way out
 Best Solution
 As the project manager, you should continue testing the machine completely
in order to find bugs to avoid mishaps with the patients but take
responsibility in having the release of the machine delayed.
 Utilitarian view: Happiness is maximized with the machine functioning properly
and people suffering less.
 Consequentialism: The decision to test the machine further is morally the right
act as it produces a better outcome.