A Brief History of Ethics

HCI & Ethics Seminar

Future Ethics
Cennydd Bowles

October 5, 2018, 11:30am-12:30pm, Gates B3

CS547 Human-Computer Interaction Seminar (Seminar on
People, Computers, and Design)
Technology was never neutral; its social, political, and moral impacts have become
painfully clear. But the stakes will only get higher as connected cameras will watch over
the city, algorithms oversee society’s most critical decisions, and transport, jobs, and
even war will become automated. The tech industry hasn’t yet earned the trust these
technologies demand.

Drawing on years of research for his new book Future Ethics, designer Cennydd
Bowles will illuminate the moral challenges that lie ahead for technologists, and discuss
how practitioners and companies can create more thoughtful, ethical products for
future generations.
 Ethical frameworks
•  National Society of Professional Engineers Code of Ethics
(https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics)
Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall:
–  Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
–  Perform services only in areas of their competence.
–  Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
–  Act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.
–  Avoid deceptive acts.
–  Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, ethically, and
lawfully so as to enhance the honor, reputation, and usefulness of
the profession.
(This is section 1; there’s a lot more)

•  ACM Code of Ethics (https://www.acm.org/about-acm/acm-

code-of-ethics-and-professional-conduct)
•  IEEE Code of Ethics (https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/
governance/p7-8.html)
 History of Ethics
•  Socrates (5th century BC)
–  Some problems are resolvable by data (e.g.,
geometry), while others are moral issues
(e.g., justice system)
–  Religious figures do not always act morally
(e.g., Zeus), and we are unsure if behavior is
good because it pleases the gods, or if it
pleases the gods because it is good
 History of Ethics
•  Plato (5th-4th century BC)
–  Justice is intuitive, and stems from personal
perceptions of forms (Platonic ideals)
–  Let’s give everyone the benefit of the doubt:
‘No one knowingly harms himself or does
evil things to others because that would
harm his soul’
 History of Ethics
•  Aristotle (4th century BC)
–  Ethics are based on reason guiding actions and
moral choices
–  Everything has a function, skill, and ultimate purpose
or end. The purpose of humanity is Eudaimonia:
human flourishing. This is accomplished through the
skill of justice
–  Humans must balance rationality and emotion
–  Counterpoint: Objectivism (e.g., Ayn Rand: “man as
a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral
purpose of his life, with productive achievement as
his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”)
 History of Ethics
•  Early Christianity
–  Ethics arises from generalizing personal
morality and sense of goodness
–  Do unto others as you would have them do
unto you; love your neighbor as thyself
•  Anarchism (e.g., Peter Kropotkin, 1842 –
1921: No one wishes to be ruled, and to
be ruled presupposes inequality, whereas
equality is the basic principle of the
golden rule)
 History of Ethics
•  Hindu ethics
–  Nonviolence (Ahimsa)
–  Qualities of virtue (self-restraint, inner purity, do not
covet, be truthful)
–  Ethics cannot always be derived from first principles
•  Confucian ethics
–  Focus on relationships
–  Inverse duty (parents = everything; strangers =
nothing)
•  Daoist ethics
–  Human nature is basically good
–  Passivity leads to self-realization
 History of Ethics
•  Thomas Aquinas (1275 – 1274)
–  “One's reason naturally dictates to him to act
virtuously” but not all virtuous acts follow from
natural inclination
•  Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679)
–  Nothing is objectively good or evil; what pleases
us we say is good. Social contract theory
•  David Hume (1711 – 1776)
–  Humans have an inherent sense of morality that
directs our interpretation of what is good or evil;
we need rules only due to our own limitations
–  Nativism v. empiricism: innateness? (Descartes)
–  Ethics derived from feeling, not rationality
 Who behaves ethically?
•  People raised to “do the right thing”, with external
reinforcement (Grossman F. 1984)
•  People who have previously performed an altruistic
act (Harris 1971)
•  Planned behavior: attitudes, subjective norms, and
perceived behavioral control typically account for
about 40 % of the variance in behavioral intentions
and 30 % of the variance in subsequent behavior
(Armitage 2001)
•  Internal locus of control (level of perceived control
positively predicts intentions) (Beck and Adzjen 1991)
•  Gender (weak), age (mixed), education (weak), length
of time working (mixed) (Chow and Choi 2003)
 Ethical Frameworks
•  Consequentialism/Teleology
•  Kant/Deontology
•  Hobbesian Social Contract
•  Virtue Ethics
 Consequentialism
•  Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873)
–  The ends justify the means
–  The moral worth of an action is judged by its
consequences, not its intentions
•  E.g.: Utilitarianism
–  The right act is that which provides the most good for the
most individuals
–  Preference utilitarians vs. hedonistic utilitarians
•  Can be achieved through the evaluation of individual
acts, or through rules about which behaviors
maximize the greatest good
•  Peter Singer (1946 - Present): Effective altruism.
People should not only try to reduce suffering, but
reduce it in the most effective manner possible
 Deontology
•  Humans have basic duties to follow ethical
rules
•  Good will or good intentions are still good
even if they cannot bring about good
consequences
•  Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): “An individual
ought never to act except in such a way that
he could also will (rationally desire) that his
maxim become a universal law.”
•  Human beings should be treated as ends in
and of themselves, not as means to an end
 Social Contract Theory
•  Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679): “[Humans in their
natural condition are subect to] continual fear,
and danger of violent death; the life of man [is],
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
•  To escape these conditions humans relinquish
power to a strong central authority in exchange
for protection (the social contract)
•  African systems of ethics: In general, African
systems of ethics are social or collectivistic rather
than individualistic and united in ideology.
Cooperation and altruism are considered crucial
 Virtue Ethics
•  Humans should act in accordance with
virtue (Aristotle, Confucius)
•  Stoicism (e.g., Epictetus, AD 50-135): Peace
of mind (realized through the
unconquerable will) is the highest value
•  Hedonism, Epicureanism (pleasure = virtue)
•  On the other hand, Arthur Schopenhauer
(1788 – 1860): humans act in accordance
with compassion, egoism, or malice
 Cognitivism
•  Ethical statements express propositions
that could either be true or false
•  Non-cognitivism: Ethical statements are
neither true nor false; they are the
expression of emotions or opinions but
not objectively true of the world
–  Moral relativism
 Scientific Ethics
•  Robert K. Merton (1910-2003)
–  Communality: public disclosure of results,
scientists “trade intellectual property rights
for recognition and esteem”
–  Disinterestedness: no personal interest in
result
–  Organized skepticism: scientific conclusions
always open to question
–  Universalism: pre-established criteria for
truth
 Science, technology, and society
•  Bruno Latour (1947 – Present)
–  Scientific knowledge is an artificial product of
various social, political, and economic
interactions, most of them competitive
–  Scientific facts are purely social constructions;
new theories, facts, techniques, and
technologies succeeded by marshaling
enough users and supporters to overwhelm
any alternatives, thus immunizing themselves
against future challenges
•  I’m working for a startup based on
technology that has never been
published or peer-reviewed. How do I
know I’m not working for a fraudulent
enterprise?
•  An error in my firewall intrusion-detection
software added a few extra detections
per month than were actually caught.
What do I have to do about this?
•  I’m making a financial app that tracks
spending and saving behavior, and can
automate tasks like bill-paying, repeat
purchases, transfers to savings, or
donations to charity. Which features do I
make opt-in and which opt-out?
•  My tool to show people a memory from
their childhood on this day is showing
some people pictures of their dead
relatives/friends.
•  Black people have a harder time finding
a house rental on my platform than
whites.
•  I make software that helps elderly people
book medical appointments. I have to
choose which market (city) to roll it out in
next. Is this an ethical issue?
•  I work at Facebook and I believe that data
we are collecting means I am capable of
creating a Muslim registry.
•  Is it ethical for a grant-making body to
fund multiple projects investigating the
same topic (e.g., effects of gold
nanoparticles for the treatment of
tumors), without asking the researchers
involved to collaborate and share
findings?
•  Is it ethical to be an ‘early adopter’
without knowing more about who has
made the technology, or how it will affect
its users?
 Goals of Professional Ethics
–  Inward facing goals:
•  providing guidance when existing inexplicit norms and
values are not sufficient
•  reducing internal conflicts
•  create generalized rules for individuals and organizations
that have responsibilities for important human goods
•  establish standards of behavior toward colleagues,
students/trainees, employees, employers, clients
•  deter unethical behavior by identifying sanctions and by
creating an environment in which reporting unethical
behavior is affirmed
•  provide support for individuals when faced with pressures
to behave in an unethical manner

Council for Big Data, Ethics, and Society (2014)

 Goals of Professional Ethics
–  Outward facing goals:
•  protect vulnerable populations who could be harmed by
the profession’s activities
•  protect/enhance the good reputation of and trust for the
profession
•  establish the profession as a distinct moral community
worthy of autonomy from external control and regulation
•  provide a basis for public expectations and evaluation of
the profession
•  serve as a basis for adjudicating disputes among
members of the profession and between members and
non-members
•  create institutions resilient in the face of external pressures
•  respond to past harms done by the profession