The main domains in which ethics are defined are governed by a particular and definitive regiment of guidelines and “rules of thumb” called “codes of
ethics.” These rules, guidelines, canons, advisories, or whatever you want to call them are usually followed by members of the respective domains. For example your family has an ethical “set of rules” that every member of the family must observe. Your school has a set of “conduct” rules that every student, staff member, and faculty member must observe. And for example, college departments have sets of rules to which students using the university computers must adhere. So depending on the domain, ethical codes can take any of the following forms:
• Principles, which may act as guidelines, references, or bases for some document
• Public policies, which may include aspects of acceptable behavior, norms, and practices of a society or group
• Codes of conduct, which may include ethical principles
• Legal instruments, which enforce good conduct through courts
Although the use of codes of ethics is still limited to professions and high visibility institutions and businesses, there is a growing movement toward widespread use. The wording, content, and target of these codes differ greatly. Some codes are written purposely for the public, others target employees, and yet others are for professionals only. The reader is referred to the codes of Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and The Institute of Elec- tric and Electronics Engineers’ Computer Society (IEEE Computer), both professional organizations. The ACM code can be found at www.acm.org and code for IEEE Computer is at www.ieee.org.
Objectives.of.Codes.
Different domains and groups of people formulate different codes of ethics, but among them, they all have the following objectives (Kizza, 2002):
• Disciplinary: By instilling discipline, the group or profession ensures professionalism and integrity of its members.
• Advisory: The codes are usually a good source of tips for members
and offer advice and guidance in areas where there are fuzzy moral is- sues.
• Educational: Ethical codes are good educational tools for members of the domain, especially the new ones who have to learn the do’s and don’ts of the new profession. These codes are also a good source of renewal for the older members, needing to refresh and polish their pos- sibly waning morals.
• Inspirational: Besides being disciplinary, advisory, and educational,
the codes also should carry subliminal messages to inspire those using them to be “good.”
• Publicity: One way for professions to create a good clientele is to show that they have a strong code of ethics and, therefore, their members are committed to basic values and are responsible.
The.Relevancy.of.Ethics.in.Modern.Life
When Socrates made the statement “The unexamined life is not worth liv- ing” before the Athens’s court in 399 B.C., human life was as it is today in almost every aspect, except the quality. The essence of life has not changed much since Socrates’ time and now. We still straggle for the meaning of life; we work to improve the quality of life; and we do not rest unless we have love, justice, and happiness for all. Socrates spent all his life questioning the people of Athens so that they, together with him, could examine their
individual lives to find “what they individually ought to do” “to Improve the lot of human-kind.” Many philosophers and those not so schooled believe that this is the purpose of ethics.
The difficulty in finding “what I individually ought to do” has always been and continues to be for modern life the myriad of decisions that must be made quickly, with an overwhelming and quickly changing on-the-minute informa- tion, and must be done reasonably well. This is not a simple statement that can be quickly overlooked. We face these decision-making dilemmas every minute of every day. Under these circumstances, when we are faced with the need to make such decisions, we really need to have enough information and a strong enough backing in moral and ethical education to build an ethical framework on which to base our judgment for a sound decision. When the information at hand is not complete and when the necessary knowledge and understand- ing of the reality to be able to make the decision is lacking, then the ability to approximate the consequences of the decision many times leads to a bad decision. For a number of people, when the ingredients of a good decision- making process are missing, they rely on habits. Decisions based on habits are not always sound ethical decisions, and they are not always good.
The purpose of ethics has been and continues to be, especially for the modern technologically driven society, the establishment of basic guidelines and “rules of thumb” for determining which behaviors are most likely to promote the achievement of the “The Best,” over the long-term (Wilson, 1978). These guidelines and “rules of thumb” are the codes of ethics.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have defined morality and ethics, discussed the need for
both, but more so discussed the need for ethics education. In the next chapter, we are going to use this ethics education to build a strong ethical framework, which will form a basis for sound and ethical decision making as one of the techniques to make the information infrastructure safe.
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