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This essay will discuss the general role of ethics within the Information Communication Technology (ICT) Field. Exploring how, if at all, ethics can help the ICT professional to make accurate choices in taking the ‘ethical point of view’ when making decisions.
Consideration towards ethical and moral problems is a constant challenge. ICT Professionals confront ethical dilemmas on a daily basis and solving them is not always simple. Initially, it may appear most logical that a set of rules could be gathered, which clearly define what professionals can and absolutely can not do. Bynum and Schubert believed that in a society that is reasonably just, it is possible to govern ICT professionals by creating a set of ‘policies for conduct’. Consisting of current rules outside and inside the computing community, these include Laws, Regulations, Professional codes of ethics and personal values. Bynum and Schubert believed that in the majority of cases these ‘policies for conduct’ would enable a computer professional to make a correct ethical decision. However, Moor (1985) argued that “a little reflection reveals a conceptual muddle. What is needed in such cases is an analysis which provides a coherent conceptual framework within which to formulate a policy for action.” Moor is arguing that using a fixed set of rules often proves impractical. It is not feasible to define specific ethical and moral rules or ‘lists of policies’ since with time they will expire and become unusable. Bynum admits that it is possible for the laws that make up these ‘policies for conduct’ to be unjust in the first place, the idea of using a set of rules in this manner is fundamentally flawed.
Does this mean that so much as endeavouring to use a code of ethics for computer professionalism is in turn futile, and that the majority if not all ethical decisions should be made using casuistic reasoning? Certainly Moors’ more thorough ‘case-based’ approach would appear better suited when...