IS21.320. Ethical and Social Issues of Computing

Spring 2003:

Russ  Kleinbach, Ph.D.         

Phone:  O: 215-951-2606  &  H: 215-848-2308  ---   INTERNET: KleinbachR@PhilaU.edu

Office:  Room 308  Ravenhill Mansion--Hours = Wed: 10:00-12:00 & Thru: 1:00-3:00 

Texts:

            Computers, Ethics and Society.  M. David Ermann & Michele S., Oxford Univ. Pr. 2003
Preface to Economic Democracy by Robert Dahl. Berkley: Univ. of Cal. Press 1985.
Bulk Pack to be purchased from Professor. 

Course Description:  Ethical and Social Issues of Computing      3-0-3  
This course provides an understanding of the ethical and societal issues associated with the computing field. Students will learn the responsibilities of a computer professional, the basic elements of ethical and social analysis and the basic skills for doing ethical and social analysis, with application to computing issues. 

• Goals/outcomes = students learning the following;      

1.      Responsibility of the computer professional 

2.      Major ethical models (deontological, ontological & teleological) (e.g., Kant, Mill, Fletcher, Gilligan, Cobb, Singer)

3.      Codes of ethics and professional responsibility for computer professionals         

4.      Elements of a rational analysis of ethical claims (evidence, reason, experience, principles, rights, laws, consequences, dilemmas)

5.      Basic skills of ethical analysis, e.g., arguing from example, analogy, and counter example, identifying stakeholders and ethical issues in concrete situations, identifying and evaluating possible courses of action, and applying ethics to concrete situations

      6.   Basic elements of social analysis, e.g., the social context influences the development & use of technology, power relations are central in all social interactions, technology embodies the values of the developers, interests of diverse populations, and reason, empirical data, experience and principles are crucial to the design and development processes.

 Organization:  The course will be structured around the assigned reading, lectures by the instructor, student written work and class discussions.  We will read and study the assigned material and bring to class & post on Blackboard written and footnoted comments and questions on issues and categories, on which we wish to elaborate, expound, raise questions and/or disagree.  Thus a good deal of responsibility for what happens in the class periods rests with the students.  We will spend much of our class time in discussion; examining the assumptions, concepts and conclusions of the reading, and we will evaluate the reading in terms of issues which it addresses and the world view which it presupposes and/or projects.  We will try to probe the presuppositions and implications of what we read, and in so doing we will also probe the presuppositions from which we read.  NB: Students are expected to take notes on class discussions, films and speakers as well as on the textbook and lectures.

NB = nota bene (note well)

 Requirements:

(a) Contribution to class discussion, including written and footnoted comments and questions for each class session. (25% of grade)

(b)  Essay (6-10 pages) in which student explains his/her ethical framework and applies it to
(a) an ethical dilemma, which is likely to face a computer scientist and (b) a technology or plan for a technology which proactively manifests the best of the student’s ethics.
Written in three drafts. (25% of grade)

(c) Two essay exams on content of historical information, concept definitions, models, and codes, etc. (each 15% of grade)

(d)  Final cumulative essay exam on content of historical information, concept definitions, models, and codes, etc. (20% of grade) 

Exams must be taken and the paper turned in the day they are scheduled, except in cases of prior arrangement or personal emergency.  An unexcused make-up exam or late paper may be penalized 1/2 letter grade each day it is postponed.  Late exams will be make up at the convenience of the instructor! 

In class discussion, papers, and exams students should (a) demonstrate knowledge of the data of the subject, i.e., the available information, theories, problems and questions related to the subject, (b) demonstrate the student’s ability to be theoretical, i.e., to address the subjects in terms of the related abstract propositions and theories, (c) demonstrate the student’s ability to discuss the subject critically and reflectively, and (d) demonstrate the student’s ability to organize material coherently with a good balance of specificity, generalization and opinion.   

Exams will be short answer and essay questions, and will cover material in the readings, films, material contributed to the class by the students and the instructor, and possibly questions on this syllabus.   

Contribution to class meetings will be evaluated in terms of the following:  (a) the student’s critical evaluation and questioning of, and responses to the readings and comments of other students and the instructor, (b) the student’s contribution to the learning of fellow students and the instructor; this includes listening to and responding to others in such a way that all involved are encouraged to listen, to learn and to express our questions and views during class, and
(c) the student’s demonstrated knowledge of the material. Attending w/o active participation is the same as coming to take an exam and not writing anything except your name.  

Academic integrity and honesty is expected in all forms of course work.  Any dishonesty or cheating may result in the student failing the course, or being brought before the Student Conduct Committee, which could lead to dismissal form the College.  The primary forms of academic dishonesty to be avoided are (a) plagiarism:  taking the ideas or words of another without giving due credit to the source, and (b) cheating:  giving or taking information during an examination. 

"People make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please;  they make it under circumstances directly found, given, and transmitted from the past."  
Karl Marx.  The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, New York: International Publishers,
New World Paperbacks, 1963, p. 15. 

Spring 2003:   Tuesday / Thursday       

Tentative Schedule and Reading Assignments

Class:                                      

1    Thr    Jan       16  · Introduction to course and ethics.

2    Tue   Jan       21   · Ermann & Shauf:  1. “The Best Action Is the One with the Best         
                                    Consequences”  pp. 3ff.

3    Thr    Jan       23   · Ermann & Shauf:  2. “The Best Action Is the One in Accord with 
                                    Universal Rules”  pp 12ff.  
                                                · Universal Declaration of Human Rights                                              

4    Tue      Jan      28   · Ermann & Shauf:  3. “The Best Action Is the One That Exercises the Mind’s Faculties”  pp. 16ff
· John Cobb: “Ecology, Ethics, and Theology,” pp. 162-176.                                

5    Thr    Jan       30     · “Buddhism in India,” pp. 79-81,  · “Buddhist Responses to Violence . . .”                                 · “Buddhist Economics”           

6    Tue   Febr     04   · Kohlberg’s  “Stages of Moral Development” 
· In a Different Voice, by Carol Gilligan, pp. 72-73 & 98-105                                        

7    Thr    Febr     06     · Film:  “Democracy in a Different Voice”     

8    Tue     Febr     11    · Joseph Fletcher, Christian Situation Ethics, pp.. 26-33 & 57-64.  
  · Love & Charity

9    Thr    Febr     13     Exam                                                              

10  Tue.  Febr     18     · Ermann & Shauf:  4. “ACM Code of Ethics and Professional conduct”  pp. 23ff.
• Ermann & Shauf:  5. “Using the ACM Code”  pp. 31ff.

11  Thr    Febr     20     • Ermann & Shauf:  6. “Can We Find a Single Ethical Code”  pp. 42ff.
  • Ermann & Shauf:  7. “The Morality of Whistle-Blowing”  pp. 47ff.

12  Tue   Febr     25     • Ermann & Shauf:  8. “The Ethics of systems Design”  pp. 55ff.
  • Ermann & Shauf:  9. “Are hacker Break-ins Ethical?”  pp. 64ff.          

13  Thr    Febr     27     • Ermann & Shauf:  10. “Using Computers as Means, Not Ends”  pp. 74ff.
• Ermann & Shauf:  11. “Technology Is a tool of the Powerful”  pp. 85ff.
• Film: “The Ad and the Ego” 
•  Step 4 of the Essay Assignment Due to be handed in.

14  Tue   Mar      04   • Ermann & Shauf:  12. “A History of the Personal Computer”  pp. 91ff.
• Ermann & Shauf:  13. “Informing Ourselves to Death”  pp. 101ff.

15  Thr    Mar      06   • Ermann & Shauf:  14. “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”  pp. 110ff.
 • Ermann & Shauf:  15. “Boolean Logic”  pp. 123ff.

16  Tue   Mar      18     Exam

17  Thr    Mar      20   • Ermann & Shauf:  16. “Privacy in a Database Nation”  pp. 137ff.
 • Ermann & Shauf:  17. “The GNU Manifesto”  pp. 153ff.

18  Tue   Mar      25   • Ermann & Shauf:  18. “Crossing the Digital Divide”  pp. 162ff.
• Ermann & Shauf:  19. “Gender Bias in Instructional Technology”  pp. 171ff.

19  Thr    Mar      27  • Ermann & Shauf:  20. “Computers and the Work Experience”  pp. 184ff.
• Ermann & Shauf:  21. “Information Technologies and Our Changing Economy ”  pp. 190ff.  · Step 6 of Essay Assignment Due

20  Tue   Apr      01    • Ermann & Shauf:  22. “Music: Intellectual Property’s Canary in the digital Coal Mine”  pp. 202ff.
• Ermann & Shauf:  23. “The Case for Collective Violence”  pp. 214ff.

21  Thr    Apr      03     • Ermann & Shauf:  24. “Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism”                                          pp. 231ff.    · Film: “Life and Debt”

22  Tue   Apr      08     Dahl, Preface to Economic Democracy. pp. 1-110.

23  Thr    Apr      10     Dahl, Preface to Economic Democracy. pp. 111-163.

24  Tue   Apr      15     Dahl, continued

25  Thr    Apr      17     · Essay Assignment Due       · Film: Mondragon Experiment      

26  Tue   Apr      22     “Sustainable Development” and “Neo-Liberalism,”

27  Thr.   Apr      24     Discussion continued

28  Tue   Apr      29     Review                                         

        Finals Week:                  Exam  

Principles / Concepts: