Computer Ethics and Its Issues That Concern IT Professionals Essay

Computer Ethics and Its Issues That Concern IT Professionals - Essay Example Computer professionals need to know the boundaries of using the confidential information to avoid invasion of the people's privacy. The basics still settles down into knowing what is good and evil. One of the most basic and the most significant requirement of man is ethics. In order for him to understand the nature of good and evil, he has to have ethics that would explain to him these two opposing ideas. Doing what is right and what is wrong is determined by a person's ethics. Bahm (1994) defines ethics as a science that involves theory and practice. The theories derived out of a person's behaviour should as well be tested and clarified based from the resulting situation. At the same time, both personal and social aspects of man are interdependent such that each individual has his or her own values that enable him to tell whether the choices he made are right or wrong. Because of his values innate in him - for which the concept of ethics was drawn from - is dictated by man's oughtness which "consists in the power that an apparently greater good has over an apparently lesser good, or an apparently lesser evil has over an apparently greater evil, or an apparent good had over an apparent evil, in compelling choices" according to Bahm. Thus, man's choices are dictated by his values for which ethics evaluates and judges, and eventually be practised by his oughtness. (Bahm, p 27, 1994) Ethics isEthics is used to criticise, defend, promote, justify and suggest moral concepts and to answer the questions that concerns morality. (http://www.galilean-library.org/int11.html, para 2, Sept. 21, 2006) Moreover, Baase's (2003) concept of ethics is as simple and as basic as "doing the right thing." Therefore, behaving ethically goes down to the most common and the simplest basis of human good - that is being honest, keeping promises, doing the job well, and not stealing. Ethics had become popular in studying philosophy even during the ancient times. Furthermore, it has been continuously studied and given as much attention since it plays a major role in the formation of man's personality and the society as well where man is a member of. The role of man in the society, therefore, made ethics an important issue that needs to be given as much attention. Since ethics is generally an extensive theme, philosophers break it into several branches that cater to the different aspects of life. Some of these branches of ethics are business ethics, medical ethics, educational ethics, law and order ethics, and so on. Depending on the nature of the ethical branch, a set of codes are identified. Computer Ethics A. History In the 1940's, during the World War II, MIT professor Norbert Wiener saw the social and ethical consequences concerning the technologies used at that time. Therefore, he decided to create a new field of research he called "cybernetics" - the science of information feedback system. He was well aware even before the atomic