Do The Right Thing Research Paper

An act is only morally right if it does more to improve the overall well being than any other action a person could have done in a circumstance. Which leads to the idea that morality is based on moral calculations.

“Computer ethics is a branch of applied ethics that considers ethical issues raised or significantly amplified by computer technology.” Moor (2006). Its been stated in several works that computers give people power, which means people have the choice to use this wisely and ethically. While society has benefited from this “power”, there are still ethical concerns that need attention such as privacy of data, security, reliability of data, intellectual property, and accessibility. Mark D. Bowles, Deborah G. Johnson, and H. Lodewyckx all have given their points of view on this wide spread topic, that all seem to have a common ground when it comes to the basic concerns of ethics in computing.

Rights are the legal, moral and ethical principles that safeguards ones interests and allows freedom. Most theorists do not believe in there being such a thing as moral rights but often argue for the legal rights of nonhuman animals. Moral philosopher Immanuel

The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics (App A) was first created in 1992 by the Computer Ethics Institute and presented by Dr. Ramon C. Barquins in his paper “In Pursuit of a ‘Ten Commandments’ of Computer Ethics” as a means to create “a set of standards to guide and instruct people in the ethical use of computers.” (1) Computer ethics is about guidelines related to decisions made by computer designers to help lead their actions and assist in the decisions they make. The technological boom of the past three decades has surpassed traditional ethic beliefs; hence Dr. Barquins need to create the ten most important “commandments” for computer applications. As technology advances, initial focus is on learning the technologies and fine

The deontological theory claim that certain actions are naturally right or wrong, good or bad, and without regard for its consequences. The theory was derived from philosopher Immanuel Kant in 18th century. The theory states that social workers should always obey the law regardless of the consequences that would follow. It states that the law is the law. Deontologist state that rules, rights, and the laws are commonly guarded and sacred. The theory states that the end does not automatically justify the means, especially if they require breaking an important rule, right, or law.

Immanuel Kant is an influential figure of Deontological Ethics. He proposed three laws called “The Categorical Imperative” to decide whether an action is ethical or not:

A journey down the fine line of ethical concerns in computing. However there is a constant change in nature and in technology. Therefore, change creates a difficulty in what specific moral codes are to be followed when viewing the region of computer technology, moreover it is a necessity that ethics be considered when making decisions in this specific region. Computing or in other words the use or operation of computers (Bowles, M. D. 2013). Has created a whole new set of ethical concerns, different in its own way. For example, Software Theft were someone is utilizing software however did not go through proper protocol to do so like paying for it; unauthorized use of hardware or the use of computers to commit fraud, hacking, lacking rights to the product, virus used in the act of sabotage. There are more personal issues as well like making false claims on computer merchandise, responsibility for the reliability of output, and the degradation of work.

In Donald Gotterbarn's article, "Informatics and Professional Responsibility," he argues that "although informatics has been undergoing a rapid development, there has been no corresponding development in the concept of responsibility as it applies to computing practitioners" (107). Gotterbarn believes that computer professionals should be perfect and are responsible for any effects caused by their coding. I disagree with Gotterbarn on this matter. In this essay, I will show that Gotterbarn's thoughts and beliefs on professional responsibility in computer ethics are unreasonable and therefore should not be applied.

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) abides by a code of ethic which is to be followed by every member and employee of the association. There are eight outlining rules that create the overall acceptable professional work environment (Computer Ethics). These rules are not only important but should be followed in every learning, professional, or work environment. The first rule is “contribute to society and human well-being.” This rule recognize the respecting different types of people, diversity, backgrounds that are all brought together in a working

Deontological ethics holds to the principle that we should treat others as we would like to be treated. Kant proposed rules or Categorical Imperatives to help us follow ethical guidelines. Kant maintained that these should not be broken at any time. While some would agree, others maintain that under specific situations, even the Categorical Imperatives should be ignored for the greater good.

Morality is often defined as how an individual thinks about what is right and what is wrong and also think weather if what they are about to do is considered good or bad behaviour. Morality is also often drawn from temptation of the individual and also greed for example if an individual were to find a bag of money on the floor, would that individual take it or bring it to the police. Moralities also sometimes define as the good and bad intentions of an individual and the actions that they plan to do next which would determine if their intentions and decision are good or bad. Also according to Collin (1998), morality is also the moral principle of the individual and the conformity of that individual.

Many of our moral decisions are at the heart of a concept of a right. A right is defined as individual entitlements to freedom of choice and well-being. For example, when a person acts a certain way or how others act in certain ways toward others. Rights derived from a legal system which permits or empowers the way people act alone or toward others are defined as legal rights. Legal rights are limited to a particular jurisdiction within the legal system. Moral rights are derived from a system of moral standards independent of a legal system. As such, these rights are based on moral norms and principles that empower human beings to do something or to be entitled to have something done for them. Moral rights are considered universal as all human beings of every nationality possess them to an equal extent. Human rights are justifiable to every human being such as food, clothing, housing and medical care. All rights have the main purpose to enable individuals to choose freely and to protect those choices. Most legal rights protect human beings from committing harm or corruption or receiving the same. The same principles that protect us legally are derived from moral standards. They all together impact how we act and how we act toward others as well as how others act toward us.

There has been a legitimate distinction between the moral and ethical views behind computer scientists being responsible for the action that they take upon the problems that they can face from the systems that they design. They must be faced with the codes of ethics and the morality issues in order to acknowledge the user about the responsibility that they must encounter in order for the use of technology. In the case of the technological society, the IT technology must include security measures to avoid hacking and to be in line with legislations since it’s an important factor towards moral responsibilities. Several issues have been identified as a result to whether computer scientists perform their job role correctly or not. The failure to not meeting the correct responsibilities of their job could result in computer scientists exposing the perception of moral and ethical principles to the audience and the society incorrectly. The lack of effective analogy forces can discover the publicizing and anticipation with negative views and so shows the immoral aspects. Whereas, other evidence could should morality since it can help the community and society into developing and taking technology positively to a further level.

ated to address the various ethical issues that may arise in the field of software

Ethics are an important part of any profession and in order to be a morally upstanding professional one must follow a code of ethics. This is especially true in the field of software engineering, where the ability to create software that is malicious is easy and can be hard to detect. The ethical dilemmas faced by professionals aren’t always as so simple as whether or not to create a virus to infect someone’s computer and steal their private information, as this is clearly unethical. The decisions that are faced in industry are often more complicated such as choosing between benefiting your corporation greatly at the cost of introducing new risks for the consumers. Situations like these are why it is important to determine why a code of