1. Professional Responsibility
Summary of different senses of responsibility

2. Reactive Senses of Responsibility
Causal
Physical motions produce an event
Role
individual stands committed to carry out common goods around which a social or professional role is oriented
Capacity
Determining the conditions under which someone can be held responsible for their actions
Blame
Praising or blaming someone for what they have done

3. Proactive Senses of Responsibility
Sharing Responsibility
Answering for the actions of others within one’s group. (Share action-causing attitudes)
Providing moral support to group members when they have gone astray.
Does not entail accepting blame for their actions
Responsibility as a Virtue
When responsibility becomes proactive and supererogatory (i.e., goes beyond what is minimally required)
Uncovering risk and preventing harm
Recognizing and taking advantage of opportunities to promote value,
Expanding range of control,
Caring for stakeholders and their goods, and …
Also indignation, shame, guilt, pride and other participatory, self-referential emotions
Developing overlapping role responsibilities

4. Where one falls below the moral minimum
Prerequisites for Blaming

5. Capacity Responsibility
Conditions that connect an agent with an action for moral evaluation
When one is capacity responsible, one is
…capable of acting freely and knowingly in a given situation

6. Acting Freely… When we act freely, we act without compulsion
Compulsion is the production of a state of mind or body independently of the will (F. H. Bradley)
Overwhelming fear compels me to do something that I would not do in a calm state of mind
When somebody pushes me, they create a state of body (my falling toward the floor) which runs contrary to my actual will (remaining standing)

7. Acting knowingly…
Acting knowingly means acting free from two kinds of ignorance:
Moral ignorance (Not being able to appreciate the moral quality of my actions)
Specific ignorance (Not knowing important details in the situation in which I am acting)

8. Moral Ignorance
Moral sense (the ability to appreciate the moral quality of my actions) includes…
bringing moral concepts, rules, and principles to bear on the situation (social injustice)
responding in an emotionally appropriate way to the situation (indignation and rightful resentment)
shaping one’s actions in accordance with moral understanding and moral emotion (opposing injustice with justice)

9. Specific Ignorance
One fails to act responsibly in a situation because one lacks crucially relevant situational details
I betray my sister’s secret
But I am not responsible because I did not know that what I told was in fact a secret
My ignorance of that crucial detail relieves me of responsibility in this situation

10. Not satisfying the knowledge and volitional conditions allows for excuses
Condition—Performing the action knowingly
Excuse—I didn’t know what I was doing or I couldn’t appreciate the moral quality of what I was doing
Condition—Performing the action willingly
Excuse—I was forced to do it (I couldn’t have done otherwise)

11. Exception for Excuses
Excuses based on ignorance and compulsion both have an important qualification
I am responsible for what I do under ignorance and under compulsion if I got myself into the excuse-generating situations in the first place
Examples:
My ignorance was caused by past negligence
My being compelled was caused by past recklessness (I recklessly took another drink and lost control)

12. Mitigating or exculpating conditions
Excuse Source
Excuse Statement
1. Conflicts within a role responsibility and between different role responsibilities
I cannot, at once, carry out all my conflicting role responsibilities.
2. Overwhelming situational constraints: hostile social surround or moral ecology
The moral ecology in which I act makes it impossible to act responsibly. (Central commitments exclude moral values)
3. Overwhelming situational constraints: Money and Time
I lack time and money to carry out my role responsibility.
4. Overwhelming situational constraints: technical and manufacturing limits
Carrying out my role responsibility goes beyond technical and manufacturing limits
5. Overwhelming social constraints: persons, societies, legal, and political
Personalities, societies, laws, or political climate set forth overwhelming obstacles to my carrying out my role responsibilities
6. Knowledge limitations: general and situation-based ignorance
I lack the knowledge (general or specific) to act effectively and responsibly in this situation.

13. When one runs out of excuses
Blame Responsibility
When one runs out of excuses

14. Blame Responsibility: Prerequisites
1. Untoward Event
A wrong or harm has occurred
2. Causal Connection
The agent identified is the one who has brought about the untoward event

15. Blame Responsibility: Prerequisites
3. Moral Fault
A moral fault contributed directly to the occurrence of the untoward event
The moral fault can be attributed to the agent in question
Examples of Moral Fault
Intentional Wrongdoing
Negligence
Recklessness

16. Blame Responsibility: Prerequisites
4. Capacity Responsibility
The agent satisfies the requirements of capacity responsibility
Acted free from compulsion
Action free from general and particular ignorance

17. Blame Responsibility: Results
Agent is answerable for the action and subject to punishment
Agent must answer for action by explaining it, justifying it, or excusing it
Obligation to responsively adjust to avoid action in future
Taking measures to prevent the act from reoccurring

18. A Brief Excursion on Moral Fault
Intentional Wrongdoing
Negligence
Recklessness

19. Moral Fault: Intentional Wrongdoing
Agent intends, through the untoward action, to bring about a wrong or harm
The intended harm or wrong contributes to the untowardness of the action
A disgruntled employee intentionally introduces a virus into the company’s computer system which causes the system to break down and produces severe financial harm

20. Moral Fault: Negligence
No harm or wrong is intended but nevertheless occurs because the agent did not exercise minimal care
A software program malfunctions producing harm. The programmer did not know of the error that produced the malfunction but normal testing would have exposed this error
The programmer failed to subject the program to normal testing and was, therefore, negligent

21. Moral Fault: Recklessness
Agent does not intend the harm but foresaw it and was willing to risk it in pursuit of another intention
French’s Example:
The pianist practices at 2:00 a.m. in his apartment with its paper thin walls
His primary intention is to improve his playing skills
But he is willing to risk disturbing his neighbor in pursuit of his primary intention

22. Feinberg on Negligence and Recklessness
“When one knowingly creates an unreasonable risk to self or others, one is reckless;
when one unknowingly but faultily creates such a risk, one is negligent.”
Joel Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, 193

23. Role Responsibility
Sources
Ties to Codes

24. Role Responsibility
Commitment to carry out common goods around which a professional or social role is oriented
Goods arise in relations
Example:
Relation—professional to public
Goods—well-being, health, and safety
Professionals should not deprive the public of goods, work to prevent others from depriving, and strive (through their work) to increase goods

25. Sources of Role Responsibilities
1. Explicit commitments such as contractual obligations and promises
2. Implicit commitments embedded in our social relations and roles
3. Legal Responsibilities
Due care, avoiding conflicts of interests, maintaining confidences, and faithful agency (law of agency)
Professionals: Due care
Employees: Faithful agency as specified under law of agency

26. Sources of Role Responsibilities
4. Job Description
5. Codes of Ethics (Professional and Corporate)
Arise from professional relations and the goods involved
Public, Client, Employers, Peers, Profession

27. Role Responsibilities arise out of key relations of computing professional (AMC/IEEE Code)
Public
Contribute to society and human well-being (1.1)
Protect fundamental human rights
Respect the diversity of all cultures
Minimize negative consequences of computing systems including threats to health and safety
Ensure that CT and CS are used in socially responsible ways
Accessed 10/14/10

28. Role Responsibilities in Code
Public
Avoid harm to others (1.2)
Injury or negative consequences
Generally accepted standards for system design and testing
Credible assessment of risk and responsibility
Report any signs of system dangers
May require whistle blowing

29. Other Responsibilities to Public
Respect the privacy of others (1.5)
Honor property rights including copyrights and patents (1.6)
Improve public understanding of computing and its consequences (2.7)

30. Responsibilities as Employees
Contractual obligations
Working hours
Job responsibilities
Codes of ethics
Position in org decision structure
HR issues
As Employees (law of agency)
Honor Employer interests
Follow legal orders
Avoid conflicts of interests
Maintain confidences

31. Responsibilities to Client
Exercise due care in carrying out interests of client
Due care defined in terms of professional standards
Avoiding bad faith, negligence or recklessness
Avoid conflicts of interests
Maintain confidences
When professional judgment is overruled, notify client of consequences
Includes dissent when issues of public health and safety are involved
May require that engineers do not approve plans even when public safety is not involved
Maintaining trust

32. Responsibilities to Peers
Give peers due credit for their work
Refrain from slandering peers
Share research and innovation
Refrain from disloyal competition

33. Responsibilities to Profession
Work to uphold the reputation and integrity of the profession
Support ethical professionals
Honor and support professional standards and professional codes of ethics

34. Proactive Responsibility
Going Above and Beyond the Minimum
Responsibility as a Virtue

35. Responsibility as a Virtue
Proactive
Future-oriented, focusing on preventing harm and realizing value
Supererogatory
Goes above and beyond what is minimally required for avoiding blame

36. Responsibility as a Virtue
Uncovering risk and preventing harm
Uncovering risk
Imaginatively reconstructing ordinary situations to produce scenarios in which normal events take on unusual configurations and produce harm
Preventing harm
Developing/designing effective counter-measures to these scenarios to prevent the latent harms from occurring

37. Responsibility as a Virtue
Recognizing and taking advantage of opportunities to promote value
Developing an expertise in participatory design methodologies
Working to uncover community needs
Creatively using one’s professional knowledge and skill to respond to these needs

38. Responsibility as a Virtue
Expanding area of control
Not giving way to the temptation to retreat from action in order to avoid blame
Extending knowledge and skills to fill in gaps that can lead to loss of control accidents
See Ladd, Perrow, and Reason for description of loss of control accidents
Perrow: Chain reaction metaphor
Reason: Disease metaphor
Ladd: Accidents caused by lack of care

39. Responsibility as a Virtue
Caring for stakeholders and their goods
Lack of care is at the root of many normal accidents
Boisjoly tests:
Is it safe enough for someone I care about?
Identify oneself with one’s designs and actions

40. Responsibility as a Virtue
Developing overlapping of role responsibilities
The scope or range of one’s role responsibilities overlap with others
One “takes up” task-responsibilities that others have “dropped”
Recognition that responsibilities can and should be shared
Hitting the volleyball between different players or between front and back row

41. Responsibility as a Virtue
Taking responsibility can be understood as a virtue
Publicity Test
Computing specialists choose actions and designs that reveal them as responsible
These actions and designs would be chosen by MECP (=morally responsible computing professional)

42. Virtue Ethics
Virtue comes from the Greek word, arete, which means excellence
Represent characteristics that exemplify human excellences
Stem from dispositions that are refined by moral reason and appropriate emotion
Especially suited to promoting the common goods around which professional roles are constituted
Preventing harm, Promoting safety & health, Enhancing well-being, Maintaining/promoting client trust

43. Virtue as the mean between two extremes
Aristotle characterizes virtue as the skill of identifying and acting from the mean between two extremes, excess and defect
Courage is the skill of identifying the mean between two extremes in facing danger
Recklessness—taking too great a risk
Cowardice—taking too little risk

44. Responsibility as a Virtue
Defect: Irresponsibility
Mean: Taking Responsibility
Excess: Carrying the World on Your Shoulders
1. Negligence and recklessness
2. Egocentric or egoistic attitude
3. Retreating to avoid blame
4. Apathy & Indifference
5. Mapping RR into separate domains
1. Uncovering risk and preventing harm
2. Recognizing and exploiting oppor-tunities to do good
3. Extending causal control
4. Attitude of care for region of RR
5. Overlapping mapping of RR
1. Paralysis of analysis and action
2. Telescopic Philanthropy
3. Trying to control everything
4. Too much care
5. Mapping includes everything