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EECS 690
Moral Issues in Computing
Technology
The MACIT
• (The Myth of Amoral Computing and
Information Technology)
• The MACIT has many distinguishing
features, which are as follows:
Abnegation of Responsibility
• “It’s the computer’s fault”
• “The computer won’t let me…”
• The belief that computer error releases
anyone and everyone from responsibility
for its consequences.
Category Mistake
• People assume that the application of moral
language and moral principles to computers is a
category mistake.
• This confuses a principle that is true with a
principle that is false.
– It is true that computers themselves do not behave
morally or immorally.
– It is false that what people do with computers, and
how people design, develop, use, and deal with the
consequences of computers is amoral.
Assuming computing tasks are
merely technical
• Even computing professionals are not
immune to the propagation of this myth.
• Many computing professionals see their
tasks as merely technical, and do not
consider that the choices they make may
have widespread impacts upon other
persons and thus ethical dimensions.
Policy vacuums are filled
inadequately
• Most policy vacuums are filled by means
of lobbying, limited legislative hearings,
and are passed by those who do not fully
understand the issues because those
people are under the impression that
these are merely technical issues.
Three factors add to the prevalence of the
MACIT in the general populace:
• The Ignorance Syndrome: Most computer
users know nothing of the internal
workings of the machine, and so they
cannot identify a fault when one occurs,
and tend to regard failure simply as the
price of using the technology.
The Complexity Syndrome
• Users have no way of knowing who is
responsible for certain failures because
many programmers are usually
responsible for each program, many
engineers responsible for each piece of
hardware, still more responsible for the
operating system(s), and nobody in charge
of making sure all of that stuff works
together.
The Virtual Reality Syndrome
• Computer users are proximally and
temporally isolated from those persons
who are impacted by their decisions. This
leads to a tendency not to consider those
persons.
“Doing” Ethics
• The purpose of ethical reasoning is to
make the best decision possible.
• Avoid becoming paralyzed by overanalysis, and avoid being intimidated by
the wide variety of ethical perspectives we
will explore. Remember, doing nothing, or
deciding not to make use of these
methods IS a decision.
Ethical Relativism
• The FACT:
– Different societies in
the past and present
have held a wide
variety of ethical
beliefs.
– This is a Descriptive
claim.
– This is probably true.
• The ethical THEORY:
– What is actually right
and wrong is
determined by the
society that you live in.
– This is a Normative
claim.
– This is almost certainly
false.
Problems with the Theory:
• Allows no moral comparison
• Allows no moral progress or those who advocate
it
• Is contrary to how we tend to use moral
language.
• Is internally contradictory:
– Stipulates that there are no universally binding moral
norms
– “Act as your society demands” is itself a universally
binding moral norm
Lessons to be learned from the Fact:
• Intercultural dialogs about morality are
likely to be very difficult.
• It might be YOUR culture that is wrong.
• Behaving as those around you behave is
no assurance of behaving morally.