Professional ethics

Lecture 1
By Marriam Butt
 Ethics

► Greek word “ethos” means “habit” or a “character”.

► Ethics are the moral principles governed or practiced by a person or group of
people.
► Ethics is concerned with what is good for individuals and society.
► Eg, code of conduct set by a business.
► Computer ethics, including intellectual property rights (such as copyrighted
electronic content) privacy concerns and how computers affect society.
 Values vs norms

► Norms:
informal understanding among behaviors of a community

► Values:
Principles, important rules and regulations.
 Understanding society and its
perspectives
► Structural functionalism
► Conflict perspective
1. Race conflict approach
2. Gender conflict approach
► Symbolic interactionist approach
 Institutions of a society

►  family
► government
► economy
►  education
► religion
► health
► technology
 Types of ethics

► Normative ethics
► Meta ethics
► Applied ethics
► Utilitarianism
► Deontology
► Virtue ethics
► Ethics of care
► Egoism
► Divine command theory
► Natural law
► Social contract theory
► Rawls theory of justice
► Moral relativism
 Professional ethics
“These are the personal and the corporate standards of behaviors expected by the professionals.”
► These include:
✔ Honesty
✔ Integrity
✔ Transparency
✔ Accountability
✔ Confidentiality
✔ Objectivity
✔ Respect
✔ Obedience to the law
 Importance of professional ethics

► They are established in order to protect public and the reputation of the
professionals.

► Ethics are fundamental requirement of any profession. It is integral to the

success of the business as well.
 Information technology ethics

► It relates ethical issues arising out of the use and development of electronic
technologies.

► These ethics ensure that computer technology isn’t used in wrong ways which
can harm people, environment and society.
 Computer ethics

► Concept originated in 1950 by “Nobert Wiener”, an MTT professor and an

inventor of an information feedback system called “cybernetics”.

► His book “The human use of human beings”.

► Father of computer ethics.

 Computer ethics

► Computer ethics regulate the use of computers because as technology

advances, computers continue to have a greater impact on the society.
► It protects the personal and commercial information such as login and
password information; credit cards and account information and
governmental databases.
► Internal mails and ads (spam).
The end