| | |
Time: 40 hours
Level: Advanced
| | | | |
 Introduction Resource- Ethics is an established area of academic interest, but it is only fairly recently that the relevance of ethics to Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) started to emerge clearly outside philosophical...
| | | | | 1 Good, bad, right or wrong?
- 1.1 ‘People, not guns, kill people’? Resource
- Navigation, which, like oratory, saves not only people's lives from extreme danger but also the persons and property which belongs to them. Navigation is a modest art that knows her place; she does not...
- 1.2 Ethical examples Resource
- But is this a tenable position? In other words, is it only the people who use the technologies who carry the ethical burden? Conversely, is ethics of any interest to engineers, programmers and scientists?...
- 1.3 Your thoughts Resource
- What I have not done yet, however, is to say what ethics actually is! Before doing that I would like to give you an opportunity to collect your own initial thoughts on the matter and introduce some further...
- 1.4 What is ethics? Resource
- I'd like to introduce an idea of ethics based on the work of G. E. Moore, a Cambridge Don who died fifty years ago. Bearing in mind that concerns with ethics date back at least to the Ancient Greeks, you...
- 1.5 Reasons Resource
- One thing that reasons do is to provide explanations as to why someone acted in a certain way. If someone gives ‘wrong’ reasons, then doubts may arise about the quality of any deliberations undertaken...
- 1.6 Final vocabulary Resource
- Any ethical analysis has to be grounded on something, otherwise the analysis has no end. And since reasons will be couched in words, I think it is helpful to look at what the philosopher Richard Rorty...
- 1.7 Ideology Resource
- The notions of a final vocabulary and that of ideology are closely related. Anthony Giddens defined ideology as ‘shared ideas or beliefs which serve to justify the interests of dominant groups’ (Giddens,...
- 1.8 ‘Ethics’, ‘ethical’ and authority Resource
- There is some confusion over the uses of the terms ‘ethical’ and ‘ethics’. Often people use the adjective ‘ethical’ to signal things that they would expect virtuous people to do. That is they use the word...
- 1.9 Final vocabularies in context Resource
- As I discussed earlier, there are different ways of looking at things and valuing them, as there are different kinds of things we value. I also suggested that you might, in your arguments, try and value...
- 1.10 The story so far Resource
- Ethics is about ‘good’ and ‘bad’, but these terms are indefinable. In practice, there are alternative forms of justifications that can cause differences and disagreements. Other causes of differences are...
| | | | | 2 It's not all Greek to me!
- 2.1 Introduction Resource
- The first section introduced some basic ideas and vocabulary to get you started on thinking about ethics and ethical questions. In this section I would like to start using those ideas and vocabulary to...
- 2.2 Three Greek dialogues Resource
- Read the excerpts of Plato's Protagoras highlighted in the version attached below. Jot down a few ideas about the final vocabulary that Socrates uses in the dialogue.
- 2.3 Style and rhetoric Resource
- In the dialogues in Section 2.2, Plato, the author, is trying to point out convincingly the features of a ‘virtuous’ life and, therefore, offers templates for presenting a case with an ethical content....
- 2.4 Relationships and conduct Resource
- Socratic dialogues tend to involve Socrates and just one significant interlocutor at a time. In practice, we have networks of relationships, all of which we value in different ways and which are sustained...
- 2.5 The story so far Resource
- I have now established an understanding of ‘ethics’ as something related with ‘good’ and ‘bad’. There are other derivative words like ‘optimal’ that might also be used, and there are parochial words which...
| | | | | 3 Relationships, emotions and ethics
- 3.1 Introduction Resource
- In this section I would like to look at a complete play script to examine how ethics and ethical issues are dealt with. I've chosen this particular play because Katie Hims, the author, is particularly...
- 3.2 Relationships and ethics Resource
- Read the script of the audio play Call Waiting attached below. Jot down some answers to the following questions:
- 3.3 Emotions and judgements Resource
- As I suggested above, I am adopting Martha Nussbaum's view of emotions put forward in her dialogue ‘Emotions as judgements of value’ (Nussbaum, 1998). In the introduction she writes: ‘When you put a position...
- 3.4 Negotiation and adaptation Resource
- I suggested that one way out of our contradictions is to begin to negotiate. This implies that negotiation and what you do during negotiation is a part of the business of ethics. Ethical texts normally...
- 3.5 The story so far Resource
- I have been discussing ethics as related to labelling things as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or using more parochial words as substitutes. Different kinds of things could be said to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’, including means,...
| | | | |
- 4.1 Introduction Resource
- The main resource for this section is the play Last Call by Mike Walker, the play that follows Call Waiting in the BBC Radio 4 series. This is a text rich in ethical issues, and, as you will see, these...
- 4.2 The good, the bad and the loyal Resource
- Read the script of the play Last Call by clicking on the link below. Jot down some ideas on the main issues, you feel, the play suggests.
- 4.3 Can theft be right? Resource
- When Sara is on her mission to find out, to get to the bottom of things, she gets hold of some financial records, and Herrenvolk accuses Sarah of theft. Strictly speaking, this is theft, but she discovers...
- 4.4 Legitimacy vs rights Resource
- Another major theme in the play relates to the surveillance equipment. The general question about surveillance is raised as soon as we are told that the company is installing a system for that purpose....
- 4.5 Torture Resource
- The question of torture is also raised in the play. Herrenvolk claims that he does not do the torture; it is some Uzbekistan outfit that does it. He actually gives them a justification by saying, in a...
- 4.6 What matters? Resource
- When the laptop is confirmed to be uncompromised, it is interesting that none of the characters cheers, although they all seem to be relieved. In other words, when the statement comes up, ‘laptop is uncompromised’,...
- 4.7 The story so far Resource
- This section looked at the play Last Call. The play is very rich in ethical issues, and one of the most interesting points that are made is that, whilst there are many ‘big’ ethical questions worthy of...
| | | | | 5 Landscape with Weapon: an allegory
- 5.1 Introduction Resource
- In this section I want to introduce Joe Penhall's play Landscape with Weapon. Having read the play several times, I must stress that it is a text that is particularly rich in ethical issues. These issues,...
- 5.2 The characters Resource
- Read Act 1 of Landscape with Weapon and jot down some observations on the characters.
- 5.3 Ethics and ethos: ‘does mum know?’ Resource
- In Act 1 we are presented with a fairly naïve Ned, who initially believes himself to be in control. We discover he is very proud of his intellectual achievements and less concerned with money. He explains...
- 5.4 Intellectual property rights and value Resource
- Another important theme raised in the play is intellectual property rights (IPR). Ned's fortunes seem to rely on control of the IPR issues surrounding his invention. He challenges the rights of others...
- 5.5 Rhetorical devices Resource
- I talked a bit about Ned's motivations, but I am not quite sure about what he is trying to do to be persuasive. He has this interest in aesthetics, but in giving a detailed explanation of a military technology...
- 5.6 Identification Resource
- We end Act 1 with a clear understanding that it is actually too late for Ned to pull out, even if he wanted to: the weapon has been designed. If he were concerned about the military technology, he should...
- 5.7 The story so far Resource
- In Act 1 of Landscape with Weapon, Dan, the dentist, has been disturbed by the defence project that his brother is working on. Dan, however, is a fairly mercenary individual, so he feels that having had...
- 5.8 Rights Resource
- At the beginning of Act 2, Ned is quite explicit about not wanting to bargain over money. It is very clear he is bargaining over his right to control who uses what he sees as his technology, and his rights,...
- 5.9 Ethical reasoning Resource
- Now Ned's got three things. He's got the money that is presumably ‘good’. He's got his defence policy, which he thinks is ‘good’. Ros then introduces the well-being of the community. They are all ‘goods’...
- 5.10 Conscience Resource
- Ned responds with the use of another ethical concept. He feels what he is proposing is ‘right’, regardless of any relationships at play, and he refers to his ‘conscience’. This is perhaps a way of saying,...
- 5.11 Promises Resource
- Having tried various devices to persuade Ned, Ros resorts to her other ‘technical’ approach. She reminds him of his employment contract, which requires him to do his best to exploit his work. A contract,...
- 5.12 Interests Resource
- There is quite a lot to be said about the play, but in this unit I need to be selective. In the conversations that take place, one of the things that happens is that all sorts of interests unfold. There...
- 5.13 The final Act Resource
- In Act 3, Dan and Ned are back in Ned's flat and Ned is showing extreme signs of neurosis and paranoia. Dan can no longer bear Ned's rather dark and erratic behaviour, and he grabs the conversation by...
| | | | |
- 6 Conclusion Resource
- I hope you have found it interesting to look at the various plays I have discussed in this unit, not only because they are entertaining but, mainly, because they are instructive and, often, quite compact....
| | | | |
- 7 Unit summary Resource
- This unit presents an understanding of ‘ethics’ as something related with ‘good’ and ‘bad’. There are other derivative words like ‘optimal’ that might also be used, and there are parochial words which...
| | | | |
- 8 Next steps Resource
- After completing this unit you may wish to study another OpenLearn unit. Here are a few suggestions:
| | | | | References and Acknowledgements | | |
| |
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated, content on this site is made available
OPML Feed
