Computer Ethics

What is Computer Ethics?

• Deborah G. Johnson: Respect for Proprietary Rights
• Richard Stallman: Sharing
• Eugene H. Spafford: Something irrelevant - the general public too uneducated
• Peter G. Neumann: Must be replaced by security
• John Weckert: A complex matter
• James H. Moor: A matter of privacy
• Swedish Banks: Good taste
• Krystyna Górniak-Kocikowska: Something global
• NSF–Ethics of Human Enhancements: Something that lags (far) behind
• Council of Europe: Computer ethics?
 James H Moor
• High speed computers- privacy
• Computers memory undercuts human fraility to assist privacy
• Greased information is available for any purpose
• Core values= a value humans and cultures need for survival.
Privacy is not a core value, but it expresses a core value
• Normative privacy-protected by ethical, legal conventional
norms
• Normative privacy often natural as well
 Views and principles
• Restricted access view:focuses what to concider when
developing policies for protecting privacy
• The publicity principle:rules and conditions that govern private
situations should be clear and known to the persons affected by
them
• The adjustment principle: If the private circum stanses justify a
change in parameters of a private situation, then the alteration
should be an explicit and public part of rules and conditions
that govers the private situation
 Ethics is implicit in this paper:

The harm caused by the discloser will be so much less

than the harm prevented that an impartial person would
permit breach in this and in morally similar situations
Ethics in this paper- implicit and ends up in
dilemman of what is best, right, wrong and so on
 Ethics of human enhancements
• Human Enhancement [HE]- technology into our bodies
• Definitions of HE: Changes the structure and function of the
body
• Discusses grey zones- when is it HE and when it is not?
• Questions what is morally problematic and what is not
• Uses the concepts ethic and moral without defining them
Ethics in this paper-just uses, no defintions
 Questions to discuss

What are the concequences of differences in

understandings of ethics?

Can technology and technology design be used to

increase ethical quality and reduce negative
concequences of differences in conceptual
interpretations?
 Old and new ways of thinking
• With the virtualization of data, the way we are
thinking and interacting with it changes.
• The question about harm that is done when
“violating” virtual property/artifacts is much harder to
answer.
– Those authors that try to find analogies in the material
world, struggle to make their argumentation coherent.

• Is a new ethical framework needed?

Perception of data

The issue of The issue of

privacy property

Personal Creation
Information