For ethical reflection, establish a clear technical foundation
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-07-2019-0071 |
| Pages | 292-294 |
| Published date | 12 August 2019 |
| Date | 12 August 2019 |
| Author | Chuck Huff |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
For ethical reflection, establish a
clear technical foundation
Chuck Huff
Department of Psychology, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, USA
Abstract
Purpose –This viewpoint aims to highlight the necessarily technical nature of ethics in software
development, propose a label(ethical bypassing) for ethical analysis that does notlead to ethical action and
introducea philosophical foundation for technicalanalysis that leads to ethical software development.
Design/methodology/approach –The methodological approach is one of technical analysis that is
aware of social scienceand philosophical knowledge bases.
Findings –The findings establish a clear technicalfoundation that is crucial to ethical analysis that will
actuallyinform software development.
Research limitations/implications –The idea that beginningwith technical expertise is the best way
to begin ethical reflection on a technical implementation has been often suggested, but not reallyempircally
tested. Research using cases orother qualitative approaches would need to be done to addcredibility to the
claim.
Practical implications –This approach suggests that collaboration between technically informed
ethicists and ethicallyinformed technical experts should begin with the explorationof the technical questions
rather thanwith ethical speculation.
Social implications –A common approach to ethicaleducation is to concentrate on ethical theory and its
application in technical contexts. This approach suggests that this may lead to ethical bypassing by the
student,the avoidance of the making technical decisions by extensive ethical reflection.
Originality/value –This paper introducesa newterm, ethical bypassing, to the literature on the ethics of
softwaredevelopment.
Keywords Ethics, Philosophy, Software development, Cyberethics, Ethics education,
Ethical bypassing
Paper type Viewpoint
The most delightful thing about this paper is that at first glance, it does not appear to be
about ethics at all. It is instead a technical review paper about issues with accuracy in
emotion recognition systems. A closer look reveals that the goal of the technical review is
grounded in an ethical concern for how people are treated when subjects of those systems
have their emotions “recognized”or when users of those systems are told a subject is
experiencing a particular emotion.Nonetheless, the paper primarily focuses on establishing
afirm technical foundationfor how one measures and makes inferences about emotion, past
attempts at softwaresystems that attempt to do so and present experimentation.
The paper thus provides a surprisingly informative case study that allows us to explore
the ways that ethical questions are embedded in technical systems. When we develop
software while paying attentionto ethics, we are often confronted with a puzzle –beginning
software development with traditional, philosophical, ethical reflections often leads into an
endless swamp of reflection. One begins with broad ethical guidelines taken from
philosophical systems,finds inevitable value conflicts that lead to further reflection on value
trade-offs and then to conceptual work on those values (Pincoffs, 1971). One mightcall this
cycle of reflective misdirectionethical bypassing, a kind of psychological defense mechanism
JICES
17,3
292
Received4 July 2019
Revised4 July 2019
Accepted19 July 2019
Journalof Information,
Communicationand Ethics in
Society
Vol.17 No. 3, 2019
pp. 292-294
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-07-2019-0071
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