Ethics at School

1. What is Ethics?
What does ethics mean to you?
Draw a picture or metaphor that represents how you see ethics

2. 6

3. Workshop Activities In one word - "What is Ethics?”

4. Individual vs Organisational?
What you think is the core difference
between individual and organisational responsibility?

5. Individual responsibility refers to the moral and legal obligation of a person to take
ownership of their actions and decisions, and the consequences that result from them. This
includes taking responsibility for one's own personal and professional development, as well
as fulfilling one's duties and obligations to others.
Organizational responsibility refers to the obligation of an organization, as a whole, to act
ethically and in accordance with the law, and to consider the impact of its actions on
society, the environment and its stakeholders. This includes issues such as diversity,
equity, and inclusion, environmental sustainability, and the treatment of employees.
An organization also has a responsibility to its stakeholders, including shareholders,
customers, employees, and suppliers, to act in their best interests and to ensure the long-
term success and sustainability of the organization.

6. "Accountability Ethics" - what does it means?
Think about the role of the teacher and the student, how are both participants accountable
to each other in a learning relationship?

7. Ethical Perspectives
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Personal ethics
• We possess personal values derived from the influence of our own culture and people
e.g.
• parents and other family members
• friends and peer groups
• respected authorities
• We practice personal ethics every day, as a member of our family, as a friend and as
a member of our community

8. Various Perspectives
continued …
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Professional ethics
• Defined and safeguarded by professional bodies such as the CPA, ACS, PMI,
PMBOK
• Defined in a Code of Ethics
• Safeguarded by disciplining members who fail to act according to the code
• Unethical behaviour by a member brings disrepute to the whole profession

9. Various Perspectives
continued …
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Ethics and the law
• Ethics has to do with responsible decision-making
• It is ethical to obey the law
• Ethics goes beyond the law as it usually involves a personal choice not covered by
law
• In very special circumstances it may be ethical to break the law, e.g. driving carefully
through a red light in an emergency
• Access information

10. Various Perspectives
continued …
12
Ethics and religion
• Religions normally have an associated moral (ethical) code
• Religion certainly has been and continues to be a strong influence in the exercise of
ethical behaviour
• A person does not have to be religious to be ethical

11. Various Perspectives
continued …
13
Ethics and philosophy
• Philosophers as a group have long been concerned with ethical behaviour and the
basis of ethical decisions
• The ethical theories have been developed over time by a philosophers in the Western
tradition
• -process of systematising, defending and recommending

12. Personal Values to Professional
life compassion freedom dedication
creativity accountability work religion
humour cooperation trustworthiness advancement
loyalty wealth security recognition
beauty professionalism morality patience
spirituality success responsibility power
respect honesty empathy integrity
justice health love faith
helpfulness knowledge wisdom independence
(icarevalues.org, 2005)

13. Activity: A definition
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Source: adapted from the Oxford English Dictionary
Ethics may be defined as:
a. set of beliefs about right and wrong behaviour or activity within a society
b. set of social conventions about right and wrong
–morality
c. rules that express how people should behave
–moral code
d. assumptions and convictions that are held to be true
–beliefs
e. the principles of conduct governing an individual or group
–code of conduct

14. Values
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Values may be defined as:
a. the inner judgements or beliefs that determine how a person behaves
b. habits that incline people to do what is acceptable
–virtues e.g. fairness , respect
c. system of rules that tell us what we can and cannot do
–laws
d. one’s personal beliefs about right and wrong
–morals

15. Ethics and Values Terminology
continued …
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• Ethics is a set of beliefs about right and wrong behaviour within a
society
• Values are the inner judgments or beliefs that determine how a
person behaves
• The terms ‘Ethics’ and ‘Values’ are NOT interchangeable => values
impact/drive our ethics
• Beliefs drive Behaviour
• Values influence Ethics
• Ethics lead to Actions

17. Advantages of Learning Ethics
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• According to Bok (1976)
• Helps to develop an awareness of issues that may lay in hidden
situations
• Develop a capacity for moral reasoning – right or wrong
• Clarify moral aspirations
• Professionals will set higher standards for themselves it they have
first encountered the moral problems in a learning environment

18. Activity 3: What are Ethics
When you ask "is it OK to ...?“, you are asking about Ethics…
• You have the opportunity to cheat on a test, you friend came to you and said he has the answers for
the exam, do you want them? And you’re thinking is it Morally ok for me to take this opportunity?
• Similar to downloading movies and songs from the illegal platform
• Downloading journal articles from XX website for learning purpose – is this a right thing to do?

19. Why Ethical Theories?
Tavani (2015) suggests ethical
theories
• Provide a framework for analysing moral
issues involving people, situation,
technology
• In science, provide general principles and
structures to analyse data
• Provide a coherent, consistent,
comprehensive and systematic approach
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20. Ethical Frameworks
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Frameworks derive from philosophy and provide other ways
to think about ethical dilemmas
Three important frameworks are:
• Virtue ethics
• Deontology
• Consequentialism (Utilitarianism)
Each of these is a huge and complicated field of study, we'll
skim the surface this week

21. Virtue ethics
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Virtue ethics suggests that being a virtuous person is
the pathway to ethical behaviour
Virtues are positive character traits
Roots in Ancient Greek philosophy
The ACS Code of Ethics is virtue-based
Honesty, Competence, Professionalism…

22. Deontology - Kant
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Broadly speaking, deontology means using rules to determine
morality
Also called "Duty-based ethics"
Behaving ethically means following the rules
A code of conduct is an example of a deontology
Various efforts have been made to create rules based on other,
more sophisticated ethical frameworks
There is some evidence that your own brain builds rules to make fast decisions

23. Consequentialism (Utilitarianism)
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Consequentialism asks you to think about the morality of an action
based on its consequences
"Utility" here is a way of describing how good the consequences of an action are.
The most popular type of utility is to maximize the greatest happiness
for the most people
An action is morally right if its consequences lead to happiness (absence of pain), and
wrong if it ends in unhappiness (pain)
Can you think of other measures of utility?
As with most consequence-based frameworks, in Consequentialism the
ends justify the means

24. Examples from different ethical frameworks….

25. Ethical decision making
• What are the difficulties with making ethical decisions?
• Have you ever made a difficult choice? How did you decide what to
do?

26. Why is the study of ethics important?
To understand whether and why our opinions are worth holding. Have you
examined your life? As an data scientist/computer scientist/cybersecurity expert,
what are your basic goals? Are they compatible with other values that you have? If
you need to choose between keeping a job and violating your professional
responsibilities, what would you do? When your responsibility to family clashes
with your responsibility to your job, how do you resolve the conflict?
To identify the basic ethical principles that can be applied to action. We must learn
the principles of ethics, which govern human behaviour, so that we can apply them
to the difficult ethical situations we face.

27. Ethical dilemmas
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Be warned! Ethical dilemmas do not always
have nice answers
That's why they're called "dilemmas"
Let's look at a classic ethical dilemma

28. Activity 5: Ethical Dilemma (Trolley Car)
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There is a runaway tram barrelling down the railway tracks.
Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable
to move. The trolley is headed straight for them.
You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a
lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different
set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on
the side track.

29. Trolley Car problem
Who's gonna get it?
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30. Trolley car
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You have two options:
Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the
main track.
Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track
where it will kill one person.
Which is the most ethical choice?

31. Activity 6: Hospital waiting room
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There are six patients in hospital waiting for organ
transplants. Five will die without organ transplants and
the sixth has a minor condition.
You are the Chief Medical Officer and note that you
could harvest the organs from the sixth patient to
transplant to save the other five.

32. Hospital waiting room
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You have two options:
Do nothing, and the five patients will die.
Order the harvesting of all organs from the
sixth patient to save the five.
Which is the most ethical choice?

33. Activity 7: Trolley vs Hospital
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Did you answer both of these in the same way?
What was different about these two scenarios?
And what makes that difference important
How would you respond if the numbers were different?
Instead of five, what if it's 50 people? 500? 5 million?
What if the one person was part of your family?

34. Are IT & Supervised Learning (AI/ML) ethics
unique?
Computers/IT/Supervised learning have several unique aspects:
Large scale data collection and analysis
Inevitable complexity and unreliability of software
They pervade many areas of our lives
They also create new entities, such as websites, video games, viruses and various miniaturised devices
Unique and clearly gives rise to situations which have never happened before
These raise many ethical issues including privacy and accountability
Artificial Intelligence is the broader "concept of machines being able to carry out tasks in a way that we
would consider “smart".
Machine Learning is "a current application of AI based around the idea that we should really just be
able to give machines access to data and let them learn for themselves."

35. A supervised learning algorithm
Humans often have biases and prejudices.
Example:
In 2014, Hudson (bank) approved 1,886 mortgages in the
market that includes New Jersey and sections of New York
and Connecticut, federal mortgage data show. Only 25 of
those loans went to black borrowers (minority).
A supervised learning algorithm, trained on this data, would
learn some of these biases.

36. Impact of Unethical
Practices
Unethical practices in computer science
can have far-reaching consequences,
including loss of trust, legal
repercussions, and societal harm. For
example, data breaches can lead to
identity theft and financial loss, while
biased algorithms can perpetuate
discrimination and inequality. It is
essential to address these issues to
ensure the ethical use of technology.

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Smart Devices / Wearables
Smart phones/ smart watches/cameras/videos (video blogging)
Jewellery (rings, bracelets, earrings – FitBit/Swarovski/etc for fitness tracking,
notifications and stress management)
http://getnarrative.com/ https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51706631

38. Example: Sharing your personal location?
Data about exercise routes shared online by soldiers can be used to pinpoint overseas facilities,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracking-app-gives-away-location-of-
secret-us-army-bases

39. Data and AI Ethics considerations:
• Privacy – smartphones, online activity, facial recognition
• Lack of transparency - AI-based algorithms bank loans, college
admissions, and job offers
• Bias and discrimination - Real-world bias can lead to algorithmic bias.
• Lack of governance and accountability – Who governs AI Systems and
data? Who authorizes data collection, storage, and destruction. Who
creates ethical standards and norms?
NEW OR CAN WE CAN WE USE REASONING WITH
BY ANALOGY OR NEED A NEW APPROACH?

40. SOME THOUGHT TO TAKE AWAY…
Ethics is the study of our morals, or values (or choose the definition you prefer)
Many of personal principles and our laws are based on ethics
For example, our criminal justice system, anti-discrimination laws
Ethics is fundamental to any society
It applies to basic aspects of social structure, such as the form of government and
other institutions
It also applies to specific issues on a daily basis
How we interact with others
Ethics has been studied for millennia, but is constantly being challenged as new
situations arise

41. ABOUT ASSESSMENTS

42. ASSESSMENT 1: Case Study Analysis
The University of Adelaide Slide 59
This assessment is worth 20% of your overall grade.
Due date: Monday, 3rd March 5:00pm (Week 5)
Word Limit: 650 - 1000 words (+/- 10%) excl. references
Mode: individual
Why?
The purpose of this assessment is to prepare students for further analysis and to
test knowledge of foundational material in the course. Students will develop their
skills in reviewing a scenario or case study. This will confirm that they are able to
apply knowledge of human factors and ethical issues and consider solutions that
take into account human and ethical factors.

43. START WORKING ON YOUR ASSESSMENT
#1 and SEE YOU IN NEXT TUTORIAL
We continue with appling your learning of the ethical principles:
• Ethics in media
• Digital footprint
• Profiling
• Ethics and disclosure