by DAN CALLOWAY
Published August 23, 2009 at 12:15 EST; www.dancalloway.com
Dan Calloway
WEAVERVILLE, NC – Despite the explosion of Information Technology world wide over the past 20 years, little has been accomplished in the way of forming definitive literature that adequately addresses the ethical thinking of students, scholars, and practitioners as it applies to Information Technology. Even though there have been some pioneers that have explored the outer regions of IT ethics, no systematic literature has been forthcoming in this field as has been developed for business ethics, and the medical and legal ethics arenas.
Various assumptions that are made with regard to ethics and legality in Information Technology center on the area of computer security and privacy in the home, workplace and on the Internet.
Laudon (1995) describes four distinct rules of ethical thinking that have emerged over the years, which are classified as: (1) The collective rule-based way of thinking, (2) The individual rule-based way of thinking, (3) The collective consequentialist way of thinking, and (4) The individual consequentialist way of thinking. The collective rule-based school argues that the rules of ethical behavior should be followed by everyone and the rules apply universally. The individual rule-based school argues that the individual will eventually come to know what is right by looking inward at the universal and timeless truths derived from religious beliefs, intuitions, and self analysis. In contrast, the third and fourth schools of ethical thinking tell us that we should develop our ethical and legal ideals based on empirical understanding of the real world rather than relying on “rules” given to us for the situations that we face. The third school—that of collective consequentialist—began with Aristotle, who argued that by studying the actions, laws, and mores of differing people and cultures inductively, we could arrive at a universal set of actions, laws, and mores for everyone. And, lastly, the fourth school—that of individual consequentialist—tells us that good acts on the parts of individuals in any given situation have good consequences, wherein individuals examine one’s situation and maximize one’s potential after calculating one’s options and taking the best option.
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