Catalog Description
Professionalism, ethics, legal issues and social impact
and role of computer technology.
Prerequisite: senior standing.
(2 units)
Goals
To help improve your long term survival in
computing by increasing your knowledge, awareness,
and thinking about non-technical problems facing a
computing professional. To help you to act better
when faced with difficult choices.
Note. Many ethical dilemmas arise with no notice and so this class will include some surprises.
Prerequisites
Ideally you have completed nearly all of the
Computer Science degree before taking this class.
You need to be able to read articles, books, and
papers -- both online and hard-copy. You need be
able to write essays. You need to be able and willing
to take part in discussions. Critical thinking is
important in this class.
Work
(Text): CyberEthics: Morality and Law in
Cyberspace by Richard A. Spinello. You will also be
expected to read articles and papers in newspapers,
magazine, professional journals in the library and on
the Internet. You must find and read the course home
page
[ http://www.csci.csusb.edu/dick/cs488/ ]
as soon as possible and then once a week or so to see
if anything has changed. You may also need to spend
time searching for information on the World
Wide Web and Usenet(Google groups).
(Participation): 30 points maximum(6%). Each class
meeting is structured as a business meeting. You are
required to prepare, attend, and take part in the
exercises, discussions, and other activities. Extra
material(for example: news items, case studies,
videos, ...) may be introduced and studied in class.
Attending and being active contributes 3 points
maximum in each class.
(Tests): 200 points (40%). At the end of all but the
first and last classes there will be a 30 min. written
exercise/quiz that will earn a maximum of 25 points.
The questions will require essay answers and
typically will describe a situation and ask for your
ethical analysis of it. Questions on the final will be
similar to these essay questions. They will be graded
and returned by the next class. I will be looking for
thoughtful and balanced responses.
(Assigned Work): 72 points max(14.4%). Read the
pages assigned in the schedule in preparation for each
class meeting (except the first) - see schedule below.
Prepare a set of personal and informal notes (1 or 2
sheets of paper should do it). Hand in for grading (8
points max) at the start of the class. It will be
returned as soon as possible. Notes can be used in
the final.
(Final): 200 points (40%). Closed book, open notes.
The final will be comprehensive and be made of
essay questions requiring thoughtful and balanced
responses. You will be required to answer precisely 4
of the given questions and each is worth 50 points.
Similar questions will be set as written exercises and
tests in class meetings.
(Bonuses): You may be able to make up lost points!
I may award up to 10 bonus points if you bring an
article from a news paper, magazine, journal or the
WWW that fits the topic assigned to the meeting and
present it to the class - in a professional manner.
(Grading): See my generic syllabus.
[ Assessment in syllabus ]
Unethical and Unprofessional Behavior
Unethical and unprofessional behavior is direct
evidence that you should fail this class. It will be
treated more seriously in this class than specified in
the generic syllabus. You can fail this class by
acting unethically even if you score 100%!
Pretending that someone else's work is your own and
any form of computer abuse are examples of such
behavior.
Schedule
[ schedule.html ]
Agenda For First Meeting
Welcome to CS488
Distinction between Formal Essays and Informal Notes
Surprises and Earning Bonus Points Factors to Consider in Thinking About Ethics.
Grading: Any answer is better than none. I'll be using a more refined version of the essay grading. My main interest is in your ability to think and then express your thoughts well. Each paragraph in each part of a question will be given a holistic score ( 1..10 ). The average of these scores will be multiplied by maximum score on the part and rounded to the nearest whole number. For example, a 50 point question with 1 A + 3 B's is worth round( 50 * (1*10+3*9)/40)= 46 points or 92%(an A-). I will take rough notes into account if you do not complete a question.
How I grade Essays and Papers
I read the whole paper and assign a letter grade
(A,B,C,D,E,F) to each paragraph based on both its
style and its content. This grade is allocated
holistically. It depends on how well written and
thought out it is. Roughly like this:
The first and last essays do not count towards the final grade in the class but is for your information.
Please put your Student number at the start of an essay and your name at the end of the essay!
I was taught a useful technique for writing essays. It helped me pass exams with both essay questions and mathematical problems. It may improve your essays, so you might like to try it out in this class.
First, in pencil, roughly jot down your thoughts on the topic, in your own personal way. Let the ideas flow unblocked and note phrases to remind you of them. Then go back and link the phrases into some kind of sequence or fit them into a pre-existing structure. Ignore any that you don't want. This gives you a plan for the essay. Switch to pen. Write the essay crossing out notes as you include their ideas.. Finally (1) review it for spelling mistakes, missing words, added words, and other gross mistakes. (2) cross out the rough notes.
I ignore rough notes and working when I'm grading.
In the final I may give them some credit if the essay is
Notes on the Philosophy of Ethics.
(1) Some philosophers talk in terms of the consequences of actions (teleological/consequentialism) and others (deontological) argue that acts in them selves (independent of consequences) are ethical or unethical. Neither model stresses motivation. Some cultures use motivation in determining the ethics of an act. Some legal systems put stress on "Why" a person does something rather than the act or its effects . For example: the difference between "Murder" and "Manslaughter" in USA/UK law. Motives need to be considered in ethical judgements.
(2) Consequentialism. In practical ethics it helps to start by identifying the stakeholders. These are the people who are likely to be effected (positively or negatively) by the act in question. For example, developing a program in a company may involve the following stakeholders: customer/client, boss, team, company, other programmers, society as a whole. Once you've listed stakeholders you can try to imagine how the act and its consequence appear from each stakeholders point of view. There will be exercises on doing this in class. Essay questions may involve listing stakeholders.
(3) Kant's Categorical Imperative is subtle but I like it. It is a test of rules of behavior (maxims) rather than a test of individual behaviors. Moral behavior is based on believing that others are like oneself. So Kant argues that any rule you adopt must remain consistent if everybody adopts it as well. In practice, ask: what would happen if every body acted in a like this?
(4) The book doesn't mention some controversial and misunderstood theories developed by 20th century social and natural scientists. For example: if you observe a behavior pattern (a meme) in a society then it will tend to contribute to the survival of the society and so in turn preserves the meme. Some biologists noted that animal behaviors often contribute to a species's survival not the chance of the individual surviving. Others theorized that memes tend to promote the survival of genes(not individuals). For example you can calculate the effect of "altruism" where an individual sacrifices themselves so that a number of relatives might survive rather than vice-versa. If altruism saves enough relatives, the act tends to promote the spread of the individual's genes, because relatives have a similar genes. These biological and social theories should not be seen as normative. They just explain how a morally neutral biological or social system can evolve ethical behavior.
(5) Using Alta Vista on the WWW I found 4 thousand pages referring to "computer ethics" and 34 thousand pages referring to "Ten Commandments". Some links are more serious than others. Examples: Biblical http://www.avenue.com/v/ktheten.html Computer Ethical http://www.eema.org/netiq.html Web page Design http://ecco.bsee.swin.edu.au/text/web-designer/ten.html C Programming http://www.csci.csusb.edu/doc/C.commandments