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CSCI102
Introduction to Computing 1B
Week 10 – Friday
Methods & Tools of Analysis
Bob Brown
SITACS
University of Wollongong
CSCI102
Ethics & Morality
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Ethics
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Morality
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From the Greek ethos
From the Latin mores
Both refer to character, habit and behaviour
 Ethics
is the Study of Morality
CSCI102
What is Morality?
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There is no agreed definition

Rules of human conduct
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Two kinds of rules of conduct
1.
Directives to guide individuals (microlevel)
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2.
Eg: do not steal, do not kill
Social Policies (macrolevel)
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Eg: software should be protected, respect privacy
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Moral Systems
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A system whose purpose is to prevent harm and evil
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… and should promote human flourishing
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Bernard Gert (1998)
Louis Pojman (2001)
Are Public & Informal, Rational & Impartial (Gert)
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PUBLIC:
everyone must know the rules
INFORMAL:
there is no authority enforcing it
RATIONAL:
based on the principles of logic
IMPARTIAL:
apply equally to all
CSCI102
Deriving & Justifying a Moral System
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Grounds for justifying a moral system
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Religion
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Legal
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Obedience to divine authority
Difficult in a pluralistic heterogeneous society
Obedience to a legal system
Laws not uniform across national boundaries
Philosophy
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Ethical theory
Appeal to logical arguments to justify claims and positions
CSCI102
Cultural & Moral Relativism
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Cultural relativity:
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Moral relativity:
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Different cultures may have different concepts of right &
wrong
Can right and wrong in a society only be determined by
members of that society?
Says, no universal standard of morality is possible because
different people have different beliefs about what is right &
wrong
Incommensurability
CSCI102
Why do we need Ethical Theories?

Why not just use the so-called ‘Golden Rule’ or
simply ‘follow your conscience’?

Golden Rule:
do unto others as you would have them do unto you


Assumes what you’d accept or desire is what others would
accept or desire!
Follow your conscience

Conscience is subjective, as is therefore neither rational or
impartial
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Structure of Ethical Theories

Must be coherent and comprehensive

Cannot contain ad hoc, patchwork components

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The “Bork Bill”
Proposed Victorian Firearms Ammendments,
pertaining to swords
CSCI102
Consequence-Based Ethical
Theories
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
Some argue the ends are the best test, as ethical systems are
designed to produce desirable outcomes
Utilitarianism: act for the greater good
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Act utilitarianism
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‘greatest good’ results for the majority may require very bad results
for a minority
Rule utilitarianism
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People desire happiness, happiness is therefore good
If one actions makes more people happy than another, it must be
better than the other
Establish ‘good rules’ to benefit society, and actions that lie within
that rule are acceptable
Critics dismiss utilitarianism because it is grounded in
consequences and happiness
… “I wont help you with your problem because it wont make me happy”
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Duty-Based Ethical Theories

Duty and obligation (Immanuel Kant 1724-1804)
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It is right that we must do our duty, even it it makes us
unhappy

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Humans are essentially rational in nature and can recognize
obligations to each other
Humans are an “end” in themselves – ie: no human may be
a “mean to an end”
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Contract-Based Ethical Theories
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Contractual agreements between individuals
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Social-contract theory criticized as minimalist – ie: only applies
where rules and formal contracts exist
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Rational beings see the advantage of co-operation to gain a better
life (Thomas Hobbes 1588-1679)
Leads legalistic behaviour, remember Tesltra and the
teletypewriter?
No requirement to do good, merely a rule to do no harm
Rights based contract theories
 Negative rights:
right not to be interfered with,
eg: right to own a computer ~ no one is oliged to provide one, but
no-one may orevent you from having one

Positive rights:
very rare! And controvertial …
eg: US right to receive an education … so does that mean they
must receive the tools and equipment etc? ‘net access?
CSCI102
Character-Based Ethical Theories

Virtue ethics.
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Being a moral person
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Focus on character development and acquiring good traits
from their habits (Plato, Aristotle c.400BC, Alasdair MacIntyre 1981)
Requires the right training to acquire the right qualities
Acquiring correct habits
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When ‘good behaviour’ becomes habit, it no longer requires
a conscious decision
Difficult to put in place in a large heterogeneous society
CSCI102
A Comprehensive Theory?
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James Moor’s just-consequentialist theory (1999)
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What kind of conduct do we want ethics to regulate?
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ID a set of ‘core values’ common to all cultures
A desirable objective of ethics is to support justice, rights and duties
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IF all we had to do was ‘do no harm’ and perform our duties, ethics
would be easy to understand … BUT … we have to be able to
decide between conflicting options
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Decision process has two steps:

Deliberation
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Use an impartial standpoint
Selection

Weigh the good and bad consequences of the choices
CSCI102
Tools for Evaluating Cyberethical
Issues

As we have seen, logic forms a basis for rational and
impartial theorising about ethics

We can begin to evaluate ethical issues by testing
the logical validity of claims and statements
CSCI102
Logical Arguments

Structure of a logical argument:
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PREMISE 1
PREMISE 2 (optional)
PREMISE 3 (optional)
…
PREMISE n (optional)
_________________
CONCLUSION
CSCI102
Identifying Logical Fallacies
 Fallacy
refers to “faulty reasoning”, not
“being wrong” … as a fallacious
argument can be constructed out of all
true statements!
 Next
we see ten ‘informal logical
fallacies’ to assist you to identify
fallacious arguments
CSCI102
Identifying Logical Fallacies

Ad hominem argument

Attack directed to the person rather than to the substance of
the person’s argument
CSCI102
Identifying Logical Fallacies

Slippery Slope argument- “edge of the wedge”
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“X could possibly be abused, so we should not allow X”
“swords can kill, so lets remove them all from society before
we all get killed”
Fallacy in assuming that the worst consequence will
inevitably follow … the argument itself contains to evidence
to that effect
CSCI102
Identifying Logical Fallacies

Fallacy of Appeal to Authority
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PREMISE 1: X is an authority in Y
PREMISE 2: X said Z
______________________
CONCLUSION: Z
An expert chef may have an opinion regarding a brand of
oven, but are they necessarily an expert in electrical design
etc?
CSCI102
Identifying Logical Fallacies

False cause fallacy
(post hoc ergo prompter hoc – after this, therefore because of this)

Just because X preceded Y, does not mean that X caused Y
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Circular logic:
the truth of the premise presupposes the truth of the
conclusion, rather than supplying the evidence for the
conclusion
CSCI102
Identifying Logical Fallacies

Begging the question
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The premise presupposes the truth of the conclusion it is
trying to establish (circular logic again)

Eg: “OO programming languages are superior to non
structured programming languages because OO languages
are structured”
CSCI102
Identifying Logical Fallacies

Fallacy of Composition
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Confuses the characteristics that apply to the parts of a
whole, with the characteristics of the whole itself
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Eg: “Brand X PC is the best because it has the fastest
processor and twice the RAM and comes with a better suite of
software than any other”
Eg: “this film has academy award winning stars in it – so it must
be an academy award winning film”
Fallacy of Division

Infers attributes that apply to the whole must apply to the
parts
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Eg: “This was voted the best computer in 2002, so it must have
had the most advanced graphics card”
CSCI102
Identifying Logical Fallacies

Fallacy of Ambiguity
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One or more terms used ambiguously
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Eg: “humans think and computers think, so computers are
human”
Eg: ‘Computers have memory. Memory allows us to remember
our childhood. So, Computers can recall their childhood”
NO – because the terms “think” & “memory” are ambiguous,
the ‘thinking’ each of these entities does is not the same thing,
and the ‘memory’ is not of the same kind
CSCI102
Identifying Logical Fallacies

Appeal to the People (Argumentum ad Populum)
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Assumption that there is strength in numbers
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“greatest album ever! 50 million Elvis fans cant be wrong!”
“slavery is cool, 100 million slave owners cant be wrong!”
“its OK to pirate music, everyone does it!”
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CSCI102
Identifying Logical Fallacies
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The Many / Any Fallacy
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PREMISE 1: many items of kind A have feature B
_______________________________________
CONCLUSION: any item of kind A has feature B
“There are many acceptable ways to travel from Sydney to
Hong Kong, therefore it is acceptable to travel from Sydney
to Hong Kong by bicycle”
CSCI102
Identifying Logical Fallacies
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The Virtuality Fallacy
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PREMISE 1: X exists in cyberspace
PREMISE 2: cyberspace is virtual
____________________________
CONCLUSION: X (or effect of X) is not real
Virus attacks?
Pornography?
Paedophilia?
CSCI102
Constructing an Argument

Arguments are used to justify things, to convince
people of things etc.

Generally arguments will succeed or not depending
on how well constructed they are, and on their
“argument strength”

How do we determine argument strength?

Need to understand difference between valid & invalid
arguments
CSCI102
Valid & Invalid Arguments


We can use an informal system developed by John
Nolte (1984).

Don’t need to know anything about the truth of the claims in
the argument, we determine if the arguments conclusions
would necessarily follow from its premises (when they are
all assumed to be true)

To demonstrate an argument is INVALID, we need only find
one counterexample
This isn’t enough though, we need to test IF the
premises are true in the real world …
CSCI102
Sound Arguments

Soundness is a test of the truth in the real world of
the premises in an argument.

A valid argument can be sound or unsound.
CSCI102
Invalid Arguments

Has at least one counterexample, even if the premises and
conclusion are true in the real world.

PREMISE 1: all CEO’s of major US software corp’s have been
US citizens

PREMISE 2: Bill Gates is a US citizen
______________________________________

CONCLUSION: Bill Gates is CEO of a major US software corp.

Try substituting “Julia Roberts” or “George Bush” ?
This is invalid because there are counter examples
CSCI102
Inductive Arguments


Not all invalid arguments are weak however
Some are inductive

These may not guarantee the truth of their conclusions, they
provide a high degree of probability for their conclusions.

PREMISE 1:“75% of people who own iMac’s previously owned
AppleIIe computers”
PREMISE 2: “my friends has an iMac”
________________________________
CONCLUSION: “My friend owned an AppleIIe”

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Clearly invalid, but the “75%” makes it far stronger than the Bill
Gates argument … (there are very few US software corp CEO’s,
but 250+million US citizens!)
Inductive invalid arguments can be stronger than valid, but unsound
arguments!
CSCI102
Argument Strength
Arguments
Valid
Unsound
WEAK
Invalid
Sound
Inductive
STRONG
Fallacious
WEAK