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This misunderstanding of what is ethics is exactly why we need to be teaching it. Ethics is not about the moral compass of an individual, but it is about the m

This misunderstanding of what is ethics is exactly why we need to be teaching it. Ethics is not about the moral compass of an individual, but it is about the moral obligations of the professional community as a whole. What is and isn't Ethical has largely already been discussed and decided. It is up to us developers to learn about it and apply it to our field.

HarryHirsch 6y ago
Indeed, these ethics courses are not supposed to turn students towards the narrow path of goodness, rather the purpose is to enable them to spot temptation when it comes, because it will.
claudiawerner 6y ago
>What is and isn't Ethical has largely already been discussed and decided. I agree with your post, except on this point. Ethics is never 'decided' in the light of new axioms, new evidence, and debates on which principles apply to which cases. Morality is a matter of dialogue, and the idea that anybody (computer scientist or not) should accept without the possibility of debate any ethical point is tantamount to dogmatism. It is disastrous on two fronts: * It does not respect the student as a moral reasoner in many cases; the student is not taught to reason beyond the level of application if they are only taught principles, and the student is not taught to reason at all if they are only taught scenarios and analogies * It presents ethics as something "those other people" (i.e. academic philosophers) do, rather than something everyone does in dialogue with others. Such a presentation will not stand up if people (for non-moral, epistemic reasons) lose trust in that establishment. When you say "largely" you seem to acknowledge this, but I'd go further and say that certain edge cases impact on the whole. To teach ethics largely as something 'decided' is nearly equivalent to teaching that the best language for task X is Y, and and that the best langugaes for most tasks have already been decided, and your only reasoning should be when to decide when to use language Y, never to interrogate the language, to interrogate the use cases, or to interrogate other possible principles. Ethics isn't "anything goes", but it certainly isn't "listen to these principles. The only freedom you have is reasoning about when to apply them".
silicon2401 6y ago
> What is and isn't Ethical has largely already been discussed and decided By who? You're appealing to a non-existent, homogeneous "community" when you say > the moral obligations of the professional community as a whole. To take specific examples, maybe one community considers it a moral obligation to advance technology and knowledge no matter what, even if it has uses some people don't like such as crypto or facial recognition. Apparently the big-tech and silicon valley communities think it's okay to police speech on their platforms, whereas professionals who value free speech would consider that unethical. As an engineer I don't want my tuition going towards anything that isn't directly useful to me, or that aren't my free choice. Until there are ethics regulations or something that actually impact my professional life, I'm not interested in spending money on it.

HarryHirsch 6y ago

Indeed, these ethics courses are not supposed to turn students towards the narrow path of goodness, rather the purpose is to enable them to spot temptation when it comes, because it will.

claudiawerner 6y ago

>What is and isn't Ethical has largely already been discussed and decided. I agree with your post, except on this point. Ethics is never 'decided' in the light of new axioms, new evidence, and debates on which principles apply to which cases. Morality is a matter of dialogue, and the idea that anybody (computer scientist or not) should accept without the possibility of debate any ethical point is tantamount to dogmatism. It is disastrous on two fronts: * It does not respect the student as a moral reasoner in many cases; the student is not taught to reason beyond the level of application if they are only taught principles, and the student is not taught to reason at all if they are only taught scenarios and analogies * It presents ethics as something "those other people" (i.e. academic philosophers) do, rather than something everyone does in dialogue with others. Such a presentation will not stand up if people (for non-moral, epistemic reasons) lose trust in that establishment. When you say "largely" you seem to acknowledge this, but I'd go further and say that certain edge cases impact on the whole. To teach ethics largely as something 'decided' is nearly equivalent to teaching that the best language for task X is Y, and and that the best langugaes for most tasks have already been decided, and your only reasoning should be when to decide when to use language Y, never to interrogate the language, to interrogate the use cases, or to interrogate other possible principles. Ethics isn't "anything goes", but it certainly isn't "listen to these principles. The only freedom you have is reasoning about when to apply them".

silicon2401 6y ago

> What is and isn't Ethical has largely already been discussed and decided By who? You're appealing to a non-existent, homogeneous "community" when you say > the moral obligations of the professional community as a whole. To take specific examples, maybe one community considers it a moral obligation to advance technology and knowledge no matter what, even if it has uses some people don't like such as crypto or facial recognition. Apparently the big-tech and silicon valley communities think it's okay to police speech on their platforms, whereas professionals who value free speech would consider that unethical. As an engineer I don't want my tuition going towards anything that isn't directly useful to me, or that aren't my free choice. Until there are ethics regulations or something that actually impact my professional life, I'm not interested in spending money on it.