MACHAKOS UNIVERSITY

CENTER OF OPEN, DISTANCE AND e-LEARNING

IN COLLABORATION WITH

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY.

SIT 180: COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY.

WRITTEN BY:

Mr. Martin Kimeu

Copyright © Machakos University, 2020

All Rights Reserved

OCTOBER, 2020
 LECTURE THREE

3.0 Introduction to ethics,

 In this lesson, we shall look at the introduction to ethics, Ethics in information society,
Ethical principles in information society and Moral dimensions of the information age.
The lecture covers:
1. Lecture objectives
2. Introduction to ethics
3. Ethics in information society
4. Ethical Analysis
5. Ethical principles in information society
6. Moral dimensions of the information age.
7. Key Technology Trends That Raise Ethical Issues
8. Learning Activities
9. Summary
10. Suggestions for further reading

3.1 Lecture Objectives

By the end of this lecture you should be able to:

1. Analyze the relationship among ethical, social, and political issues that are raised by
information systems.
2. Identify the main moral dimensions of an information society and specific principles
for conduct that can be used to guide ethical decisions.
3. Evaluate the impact of contemporary information systems and the Internet on the
protection of individual privacy and intellectual property.
4. Assess how information systems have affected everyday life.
5. Identify the principal management challenges posed by the ethical and social impact
of information systems and management solutions.
 3.2 Introduction to Ethics

-Ethics refers to the principles of right and wrong that individuals, acting as free moral agents,
use to make choices to guide their behaviors. Information systems raise new ethical questions for
both individuals and societies because they create opportunities for intense social change, and
thus threaten existing distributions of power, money, rights, and obligations.
- Like other technologies, such as steam engines, electricity, the telephone, and the radio,
information technology can be used to achieve social progress, but it can also be used to commit
crimes and threaten cherished social values.
-The development of information technology will produce benefits for many and costs for others.
-Ethical issues in information systems have been given new urgency by the rise of the Internet
and electronic commerce. Internet and digital firm technologies make it easier than ever to
assemble, integrate, and distribute information, unleashing new concerns about the appropriate
use of customer information, the protection of personal privacy, and the protection of intellectual
property.
- Insiders with special knowledge can “fool” information systems by submitting phony records,
and diverting cash, on a scale unimaginable in the pre-computer era.
-Other pressing ethical issues raised by information systems include establishing accountability
for the consequences of information systems, setting standards to safeguard system quality that
protects the safety of the individual and society, and preserving values and institutions
considered essential to the quality of life in an information society. When using information
systems, it is essential to ask, “What is the ethical and socially responsible course of action?”
Understanding Ethical and social issues Related to Systems

Ethics refers to the principles of right and wrong that individuals, acting as free moral agents, use
to make choices to guide their behaviors. Information systems raise new ethical questions for
both individuals and societies because they create opportunities for intense social change, and
thus threaten existing distributions of power, money, rights, and obligations. Like other
technologies, such as steam engines, electricity, telephone, and radio, information technology
can be used to achieve social progress, but it can also be used to commit crimes and threaten
cherished social values. The development of information technology will produce benefits for
many and costs for others.

Ethical issues in information systems have been given new urgency by the rise of the Internet
and electronic commerce. Internet and digital firm technologies make it easier than ever to
assemble, integrate, and distribute information, unleashing new concerns about the appropriate
use of customer information, the protection of personal privacy, and the protection of intellectual
property.

Other pressing ethical issues raised by information systems include establishing accountability
for the consequences of information systems, setting standards to safeguard system quality that
protect the safety of the individual and society, and preserving values and institutions considered
essential to the quality of life in an information society.

3.3 ETHICS IN AN INFORMATION SOCIETY

- Ethics is a concern of humans who have freedom of choice. Ethics is about

Individual choice: When faced with alternative courses of action, what is the
Correct moral choice? What are the main features of ethical choice?

Basic concepts: responsibility, accountability and liability

-Ethical choices are decisions made by individuals who are responsible for the Consequences
of their actions.

Responsibility is a key element of ethical action. Responsibility means that you accept the
potential costs, duties, and obligations for the decisions you make.

Accountability is a feature of systems and social institutions: It means that mechanisms are
in place to determine who took responsible action, who is responsible. Systems and
institutions in which it is impossible to find out who took what action are inherently
incapable of ethical analysis or ethical action.
Liability extends the concept of responsibility further to the area of laws.
Liability is a feature of political systems in which a body of laws is in place that permits
individuals to recover the damages done to them by other actors, systems, or organizations.
Due process is a related feature of law-governed societies and is a process in which laws are
known and understood and there is an ability to appeal to higher authorities to ensure that the
laws are applied correctly.

3.4 ETHICAL ANALYSIS

When confronted with a situation that seems to present ethical issues, how should you analyze it?
The following five-step process should help.

1. Identify and describe clearly the facts. Find out who did what to whom, and where,
when, and how. In many instances, you will be surprised at the errors in the initially
reported facts, and often you will find that simply getting the facts straight helps define
the solution. It also helps to get the opposing parties involved in an ethical dilemma to
agree on the facts.

2. Define the conflict or dilemma and identify the higher-order values involved. Ethical,
Social, and political issues always reference higher values. The parties to a dispute all claim to be
pursuing higher values (e.g., freedom, privacy, protection of property, and the free enterprise
system). Typically, an ethical issue involves a dilemma: two diametrically opposed courses of
action that support worthwhile values. For example, the chapter-ending case study illustrates two
competing values: the need to protect citizens from terrorist acts and the need to protect
individual privacy.

3. Identify the stakeholders. Every ethical, social, and political issue has stakeholders:
players in the game who have an interest in the outcome, who have invested in the situation, and
usually who have vocal opinions. Find out the identity of these groups and what they want. This
will be useful later when designing a solution.

4 .Identify the options that you can reasonably take. You may find that none of the
Options satisfy all the interests involved, but that some options do a better job than others.
Sometimes arriving at a good or ethical solution may not always be a balancing of consequences
to stakeholders.

5. Identify the potential consequences of your options. Some options may be ethically
Correct but disastrous from other points of view. Other options may work in one
Instance but not in other similar instances. Always ask yourself, “What if I
Choose this option consistently over time?”

3.5 CANDIDATE ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

Once your analysis is complete, what ethical principles or rules should you use to make a
decision? What higher-order values should inform your judgment? Although you are the only
one who can decide which among many ethical principles you will follow, and how you will
prioritize them, it is helpful to consider some ethical principles with deep roots in many cultures
that have survived throughout recorded history.

1. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (the Golden Rule). Putting yourself
into the place of others, and thinking of yourself as the object of the decision, can help
you think about fairness in decision making.

2. If an action is not right for everyone to take, it is not right for anyone(Immanuel Kant’s
Categorical Imperative). Ask yourself, “If everyone did this, could the organization, or
society, survive?”

3. If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to take at all (Descartes’rule of

change). This is the slippery-slope rule: An action may bring about a small change now
that is acceptable, but if it is repeated, it would bring unacceptable changes in the long
 run. In the vernacular, it might be stated as“once started down a slippery path, you may
not be able to stop.”

4. Take the action that achieves the higher or greater value (the Utilitarian Principle). This
rule assumes you can prioritize values in a rank order and understand the consequences of
various courses of action.

5. Take the action that produces the least harm or the least potential cost (Risk Aversion
Principle). Some actions have extremely high failure costs of very low probability (e.g.,
building a nuclear generating facility in an urban area) or extremely high failure costs of
moderate probability (speeding and automobile accidents). Avoid these high-failure-cost
actions, paying greater attention obviously to high-failure-cost potential of moderate to
high probability.

6. Assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are owned by someone else
unless there is a specific declaration otherwise. (This is the ethical “no free lunch” rule.)
If something someone else has created is useful to you, it has value, and you should
assume the creator wants compensation for this work. Although these ethical rules cannot
be guides to action, actions that do not easily pass these rules deserve some very close
attention and a great deal of caution. The appearance of unethical behavior may do as
much harm to you and your company as actual unethical behavior.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ETHICAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL

ISSUES IN AN INFORMATION SOCIETY

The introduction of new information technology has a ripple effect, raising new ethical, social,
and political issues that must be dealt with on the individual, social, and political levels. These
issues have five moral dimensions: information rights and obligations, property rights and
obligations, system quality, quality of life, and accountability and control.
The introduction of new information technology has a ripple effect, raising new ethical, social,
and political issues that must be dealt with on the individual, social, and political levels. These
issues have five moral dimensions: information rights and obligations, property rights and
obligation system quality, quality of life, and accountability and control.

3.6 FIVE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF THE INFORMATION AGE

The major ethical, social, and political issues raised by information systems
Include the following moral dimensions:
o Information rights and obligations. What information rights do individuals
and organizations possess with respect to information about themselves?
what can they protect? What obligations do individuals and organizations
 have concerning this information?

o Property rights and obligations. How will traditional intellectual property rights
be protected in a digital society in which tracing and accounting for ownership
are difficult and ignoring such property rights is so easy?

o Accountability and control. Who can and will be held accountable and liable for
the harm done to individual and collective information and property rights?

o System quality 'What standards of data and system quality should we demand to
protect individual rights and the safety of society?

o Quality of life. What values should be preserved in an information and

knowledge based society? Which institutions should we protect from violation?
Which cultural values and practices are supported by the new information
technology?

3.7 Key Technology Trends That Raise Ethical Issues

Ethical issues long preceded information technology. Nevertheless, information technology has
heightened ethical concerns, taxed existing social arrangements, and made some laws obsolete
or severely crippled. There are four key technological trends responsible for these ethical
stresses and they are summarized in Table below
The doubling of computing power every 18 months has made it possible for most
Organizations to use information systems for their core production processes. As a result,
our dependence on systems and our vulnerability to system errors and poor data quality
Numbering, Pacing or 3.7.1
Sequencing
Title Technology trends that raise ethical issues.
Purpose To enable you understand the Technology trends that raise ethical
issues.
Brief Summary of overall Information technology has heightened ethical concerns, taxed existing
task social arrangements, and made some laws obsolete or severely crippled.
There are technological trends responsible for these ethical stresses.
Spark or stimulator Do we have any ethical concerns raised by ever changing Information
technology?
Individual task Identify these trends and explain the impacts they have on the Ethical
concerns.

Interaction begins a) Briefly explain these trends and their impacts.

b) What are the major ethical, social, and political issues raised by
information systems in respect to moral dimensions in the
information age.
E-moderator interventions 1. Learners must be focused on the contents and context of
discussion
2. Stimulate further learning and generation of new ideas
3. Provide feedback on the learning progress
4. End of e-tivity

Schedule and time This task should take 20 minutes

Next Information rights: privacy and freedom in the internet age
3.8 Further Activities

1. In what ways are ethical, social, and political issues connected? Give some examples.
2. What are the key technological trends that heighten ethical concerns?
3. What are the differences between responsibility, accountability, and liability?
4. What are the five steps in an ethical analysis?
5. Identify and describe six ethical principles.
6. What is a professional code of conduct?
7. What are meant by privacy and fair information practices?
8. How is the Internet challenging the protection of individual privacy?
9. What role can informed consent, legislation, industry self-regulation, and technology
tools play in protecting the individual privacy of Internet users?
10. What are the three different regimes that protect intellectual property rights? What
challenges to intellectual property rights does the Internet pose?
11. Why is it so difficult to hold software services liable for failure or injury?
12. What is the most common cause of system quality problems?
13. Name and describe four quality-of-life impacts of computers and information
systems.
14. Should producers of software-based services, such as ATMs, be held liable for
economic injuries suffered when their systems fail?
15. Should companies be responsible for unemployment caused by their information
systems? Why or why not?
16. What is techno stress, and how would you identify it?
17. Name three management actions that could reduce RSI injuries

3.9 Summary

Analyze the relationships among ethical, social, and political issues that are raised by
information systems.
Information technology has raised new possibilities for behavior for which laws and rules of
acceptable conduct have not yet been developed. Information technology is introducing
changes that create new ethical issues for societies to debate and resolve. Increasing
computing power, storage, and networking capabilities—including the Internet—can expand
the reach of individual and organizational actions and magnify their impacts. The ease and
anonymity with which information can be communicated, copied, and manipulated in online
environments are challenging traditional rules of right and wrong behavior. Ethical, social, and
political issues are closely related. Ethical issues confront individuals who must choose a
course of action, often in a situation in which two or
more ethical principles are in conflict (a dilemma). Social issues spring from ethical issues as
societies develop expectations in individuals about the correct course of action. Political issues
spring from social conflict and are mainly concerned with using laws that prescribe behavior
to create situations in which individuals behave correctly.

Identify the main moral dimensions of an information society and specific principles for
conduct that can be used to guide ethical decisions.
The moral dimensions of information systems center around information rights and
obligations, property rights and obligations, accountability and control, system quality, and
quality of life. Six ethical principles are available to judge conduct. These principles are
derived independently from several cultural, religious, and intellectual traditions and include
the Golden Rule, Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative, Descartes’ rule of change, the
Utilitarian Principle, the Risk Aversion Principle, and the ethical “no free lunch” rule. These
principles should be used in conjunction with an ethical analysis to guide decision making.
The ethical analysis involves identifying the facts, values, stakeholders, options, and
consequences of actions. Once completed, you can consider
which ethical principle to apply to a situation to arrive at a judgment.

Evaluate the impact of contemporary information systems and the Internet on the
protection of individual privacy and intellectual property.
Contemporary information systems technology, including Internet technology, challenges
Traditional regimens for protecting individual privacy and intellectual property. Data storage
 and data analysis technology enables companies to easily gather personal data about
individuals from many different sources and analyze these data to create detailed electronic
profiles about individuals and their behaviors. Data flowing over the Internet can be monitored
at many points. The activities of Web site visitors can be closely tracked using cookies and
other Web monitoring tools. Not all Web sites have strong privacy protection policies, and
they do not always allow for informed consent regarding the use of personal information.

Assess how information systems have affected everyday life.

Although computer systems have been sources of efficiency and wealth, they have some
negative impacts. Errors in large computer systems are impossible to eradicate totally.
Computer errors can cause serious harm to individuals and organizations, and existing laws
and social practices are often unable to establish liability and accountability for these
problems. Less serious errors are often attributable to poor data quality, which can cause
disruptions and losses for businesses. Jobs can be lost when computers replace workers or
tasks become unnecessary in reengineered business processes. The ability to own and use a
computer may be exacerbating socioeconomic disparities among different racial groups and
social classes. Widespread use of computers increases opportunities for computer crime and
computer abuse. Computers can also create health problems, such as
repetitive stress injury, computer vision syndrome and techno stress.

3.10 Suggestions for further reading

i. Rajaraman, V. (2018). Introduction to Information Technology (3 rd
Edition). PHI Learning. ISBN 978– 93– 87472– 29– 7
ii. Essays, UK. (2013). Importance of Computers in Society Information
Technology Essay. ISSN1 1862– 5347