Course Code:Phil212

Ethics of Computer Usage

Computer ethics deals with the procedures, values

and practices that govern the process of consuming
computing technology and its related disciplines
without damaging or violating the moral values and
beliefs of any individual, organization or entity.

Deborah G. Johnson, Computer Ethics, 3rd Edition,

Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
 Chapter 1: Ethics and Morality
What are they?
What is ethics?
• The word itself is sometimes used to refer to the set of rules,
principles, or ways of thinking that guide, or claim authority to
guide, the actions of a particular group;
The terms ethics and morality are often used interchangeably
• indeed, they usually can mean the same thing, and in casual
conversation there isn't a problem with switching between one and
the other.
• However, there is a distinction between them in philosophy!
• Always Use Proper Computer Ethics

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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
 The Ten Commandments of computer ethics have been defined by
the Computer Ethics Institute.
• 1)Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people: If it is unethical to
harm people by making a bomb, for example, it is equally bad to write a
program that handles the timing of the bomb. Or, to put it more simply, if it
is bad to steal and destroy other people’s books and notebooks, it is equally
bad to access and destroy their files.
2)Thou shalt not interfere with other people's computer
work: Computer viruses are small programs that disrupt other people’s
computer work by destroying their files, taking huge amounts of computer
time or memory, or by simply displaying annoying messages. Generating and
consciously spreading computer viruses is unethical.
• 3)Thou shalt not snoop around in other people's files: Reading other
people’s e-mail messages is as bad as opening and reading their letters: This
is invading their privacy. Obtaining other people’s non-public files should be
judged the same way as breaking into their rooms and stealing their
documents.

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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
• 4) Thou shalt not use a computer to steal: Using a computer to break into
the accounts of a company or a bank and transferring money should be
judged the same way as robbery. It is illegal and there are strict laws
against it.
• 5) Thou shalt not use a computer to bear false witness: The Internet can
spread untruth as fast as it can spread truth. Putting out false "information"
to the world is bad. For instance, spreading false rumors about a person or
false propaganda about historical events is wrong.
• 6) Thou shalt not use or copy software for which you have not
paid: Software is an intellectual product. In that way, it is like a book:
Obtaining illegal copies of copyrighted software is as bad as photocopying
a copyrighted book.
• 7) Thou shalt not use other people's computer resources without
authorization: Multiuser systems use user id’s and passwords to enforce
their memory and time allocations, and to safeguard information. You
should not try to bypass this authorization system. Hacking a system to
break and bypass the authorization is unethical.
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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
• 8) Thou shalt not appropriate other people's intellectual output: For
example, the programs you write for the projects assigned in this course are
your own intellectual output. Copying somebody else’s program without
proper authorization is software piracy and is unethical. Intellectual
property is a form of ownership, and may be protected by copyright laws.
• 9) Thou shalt think about the social consequences of the program you
write: You have to think about computer issues in a more general social
framework: Can the program you write be used in a way that is harmful to
society? For example, if you are working for an animation house, and are
producing animated films for children, you are responsible for their
contents. Do the animations include scenes that can be harmful to children?
• 10) Thou shalt use a computer in ways that show consideration and
respect: Just like public buses or banks, people using computer
communications systems may find themselves in situations where there is
some form of queuing and you have to wait for your turn and generally be
nice to other people in the environment. The fact that you cannot see the
people you are interacting with does not mean that you can be rude to them.

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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
 New Possibilities and a vacuum of policies.-Introduced
by ICT(Information Computer Technology)
• New technology seem to pose ethical issues when
they create new possibilities for human action, both
individual action and collective or institutional action.
• The new possibilities created by technology are not
always good, often they have mixed values.
• New technology bring benefits as well as new
problems, as in the case of nuclear power and nuclear
waste, automobiles and air pollution etc.
• Enormous possibilities for individual and institutional
behavior have been created with computer and
information technology.
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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
• For example, we could not have reached the moon
without computers, nor could have the kind of global
communication systems we now have.
• The ethical questions surrounding computer and
information technology can be thought of as “policy
vacuums”.
• A 'Policy Vacuum' is the absence of specific policies
relating to a specific situation.
• Computer and information technology creates
innumerable opportunities. We are confronted with
choices about whether and how to purse these
opportunities, and we find a vacuum of policies on
how to make these choices.
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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
• The central task of computer ethics is to determine what
we should do and what our policies should be. This
includes consideration of both personal and social
policies.
• For example, Consider the lack of rules regarding access
to electronically stored data when computers were first
developed. Initially there were no formal policies or
laws prohibiting access to information stored on a main
frame computer. Today it is obvious that computer files
should be treated as private.
• New innovations, and the ethical questions surrounding
them, continue to arise at an awe- inspiring pace. Policy
vacuums continue to arise and are not always easy to fill.
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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
 Filling the Vacuum, clarifying Conceptual
Muddles.
• When it comes to figuring out what the policies should be, we
find ourselves confronted with complex issues. We find
conceptual muddles that make it difficult to figure out which
way to go. And as we begin to sort out the conceptual
muddles, often we find a moral landscape that is fluid and
sometimes politically controversial.
• Consider free speech and Internet. It takes some conceptual
work to understand what the internet is and it takes even more
conceptual work to figure out whether it is an appropriate
domain for free or controlled expression.
• So, figuring out what norms or laws apply or should apply is
not a simple matter.
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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
 Traditionalist Account
• Take traditional moral norms and the principles on
which they are based, and apply them to new
situations created by computer and information
technology.
• For example, when it comes to filling the policy
vacuum with regard to ownership of computer
software, lawyers and judges extended existent
property law- copyright, patent, and trade secrecy- to
the new thing, computer software.

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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
 The traditionalist account is important both as a
descriptive and as a Normative account.
That is, it describes both how policy vacuums are often filled
and recommends how policy vacuums ought to be filled.
• Descriptively the account captures what people often do
when they are 1st introduced to computer and information
technology.
• For example, when individuals first begin using e-mail, they
probably imagine themselves writing letters or talking on the
phone.
• The traditional account captures the idea that when we develop
policies with regard to computer and information technology,
we tend to draw on familiar social and moral norms, extending
them to fit the new situation.
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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
• The traditionalist account is also normative in that
it recommends how we should proceed in filling in
policy vacuums. It recommends that we make use of
past experiences.
• Make use of norms and principles from pre-computer
situations and see how they extend to the
circumstances of a computerized environment.
• The traditionalist account has two serious problems.
It oversimplifies the task of computer ethics insofar
as it suggests that extending old norms to new
situations is a somewhat mechanical or routine
process.

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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
• This hides the fact that the process is fluid and
synthetic. When it comes to resolving the ethical
issues surrounding computer and information
technology, often the technology is not a fixed and
determinate entity.
• The second problem with the traditional account
arises from its recommendation that we resolve the
ethical issues involving computer and information
technology by extending norms and laws from
situations in which there is no technology or old
technology.

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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
• The traditionalist account is a good starting place for
understanding how the ethical issues surrounding computer and
information technology are and should be resolved and how
policy vacuums are and should be filled, but it has serious
limitations.
• As a descriptive account, it does not capture all that is involved.
Filling policy vacuums is not only a matter of mechanically
applying traditional norms and principles. Conceptual muddles
have to be cleared up, often a synthetic process in which
normative decisions are invisibly made.
• As a normative account, the traditionalist position runs the risk of
not taking advantage of the new features of, and new
opportunities created by, computer and information technology.
Hence, we need to move beyond the traditionalist account.

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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
 Computers used in social context
• Clearing up conceptual muddles and filling policy
vacuums involves understanding the social context in
which the technology is embedded. It is developed
and used in a social context rich with moral, cultural,
and political ideas. It is used in business, homes,
criminal justice systems, educational institutions,
medicine, science, government and so on. In each of
these places, there are human purposes and interest,
institutional goals, social relationships, traditions,
social conventions, regulations and so on. All of these
have an influence on how a new technology is
understood and how policy vacuums are filled.
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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
• Social context shapes the very character and direction
of technological development.
• One of the reasons the study of ethical issues
surrounding computer and information technology
is so fascinating is that in order to understand these
issues, one has to understand the environments in
which it is being used.
• In this respect, the study of computer ethics turns out
be the study of human beings and society –
our goals and values,
our norms of behavior,
The way we organize ourselves and assign rights
and responsibilities.
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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
 Moral and Legal Issues
• To say that computer ethical issues arise because there
is a vacuum of policies leaves open whether the vacuum
should be filled with laws or with something else.
• Some vacuums are better left to personal choices,
institutional policies, or social conventions rather than
to the imposition of law.
• Law is neither the beginning place nor the ending place
when it comes to filling policy vacuums and addressing
ethical issues. Ethical analysis precedes law when it is
the basis for creation of a law. ie, our moral ideas often
give rise to and shape the character of our laws.
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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
 Analysis of Ethical issues using computer

• Are the ethical issues surrounding computer and

information technology new? Are they unique? Or,
are they the same old ethical issues that have engaged
the society for centuries?

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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3
 References
• Deborah G. Johnson, Computer Ethics, 3rd
Edition, Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-
81-7758-593-3

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Pearson Education, 2009. ISBN 978-81-7758-593-3