Biraj Bista COSC 418 10/15/2015 What are morals? Morals are the values that govern which are right and which are wrong. Morals can be for all of society or an individual’s beliefs. Morals are usually consistent ,although can change if an individual’s beliefs change. The great moral values such as truth,freedom,charity,etc have one thing in common. When they are functioning correctly, they are life protecting. Even the Marine Corps core values of honor, courage and commitment require examination in this context. Courage can become foolish martyrdom, commitment can become irrational fanaticism, and honor can become self-righteousness, conceit and disrespect for others. Morals are more abstract, subjective and often personal or religion based. Morals are the practice of ethics. In past generations it was rare to see couples that lived together without the benefit of a legal matrimonial ceremony. In today’s world couples that set up household without marriage are nearly as more as traditional married couples. As society moved into this modern era, the earlier system of laws became more and more eroded. Moral values are derived form within one’s own self. If a child has been forbidden to touch or take a certain object early on, they will look after us making sure that if somebody is watching and then go ahead touch it.This kind of behavior are instinctive. The choices that are made by an individual from childhood to adulthood are between forbidden and acceptable, kind or cruel, generous or selfish. Religion is another source of moral values. Most religions have built in lists of do’s and don’ts.Individulas who are followers of a particular religion will generally make a show of following that religion’s behavioral code. A person whose religion provides for polygamy will experience no guilt at having more than one spouse. Likewise a Christian set of moral values go beyond society’s mores and selfish instincts. What are ethics? The rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group or culture. They come from social system externally. We do it because society says it is the right thing to do. Ethics tend to be consistent within a certain context but can vary between contexts. Ethics are governed by professional and legal guidelines within a particular time and place. A person whose morality is reflected in his willingness to do the right thing even if it is hard is ethical. Ethics are more value in action. They are principles of right conduct. Ethics are practical, conceived as shared principles promoting fairness in social and business interactions. Ethics are science of morals. For instance if a person take money form a company he is supposed to regulate is an ethical problem. Philosophers nowadays tend to divide ethical theories into three areas meta ethics which deals with the nature of moral judgement,normative ethics which is concerned with the content of moral judgments and applied ethics which looks at controversial topics like war, animal rights and capital punishment. Human beings often behave irrationally ,they follow their gut instinct even when their head suggest a different course of action. Ethics provide us with a moral map, which helps us to find our way through difficult issues. It help us to eliminate confusion and clarify the issues after that it is upto each individual to come to their own conclusions. Ethics can give several answers often there isn’t one right answer. There may be several right answers and the individual must choose between them. Ethics is concerned with other people’s interest. It is not only about the morality of particular courses but it is also about goodness of individuals. Ethics come from different sources. It might be from god or religion, human conscience and intuition, a desire to be the best for people in each unique situation and so no.There are various ways of looking at ethics like from supernaturalism point of view, which makes ethics inseparable form religion which teaches that the only source of moral rule is god. Similarly from intuitionism point of view in which good or bad are real objective that cannot be broken down into component parts. Something is good because it is good, it’s goodness does not need justifying. Is there a need for a course on cyber-ethics or is it just ethics? There is a need for a course on cyber-ethics. As we are depending on almost everything on cyber space, which bring us to a stage on prime setting the rules and regulations so that everything will be taken care of in the way, it should be. Cyber-ethics is the most talked about subject matter these days. The necessity of cyberethics can be seen in today’s market society. One should disagree that when we have our ethics why do we need cyber ethics but the answer is cyber-ethics is for the betterment of its field being focused on that particular subject. As more technological advancement is growing up so rapidly. The need of cyberethics too is needed in an alarming rate. People from different cultural background and different mentality can only be confined in one particular topic is through cyberethics. Cyberethics should be designed in such a way that it includes all the general ethics plus its extra needed cyber-ethics to run that system. The course in cyberethics should be in a way that it teaches every individual to come to one common platform .If we will be able to get every individual to a common ground utilizing cyber ethics our mission will be completed. Donald Miko Online assignment 1 Donny Miko 1) What are morals? I think there are a ton of different definitions that I could put down here. However, according to dictionary.com, the first definition they list are morals are your ideas of, relating to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong. I think this is a pretty solid definition and personally my favorite but the second one says “expressing or conveying truths or counsel as to right conduct, as a speaker or a literary work,” the third one says “founded on the fundamental principles of right conduct rather than on legalities, enactment, or custom,” and the fourth one says “capable of conforming to the rules of right conduct.” So while the definitions may be somewhat similar, they are not always the same and there are different opinions as to what it means. Since I like the first definition the best, I’m going to explain what I think morals are based off of that. We already know the definition of morals (at the beginning of this question). Morals are in everyday life, literally if you think about it your morals come into play every single day of your life. Whether I want to skip an event that I was invited to and act like I was sick, cheat on a test, cheat on a girlfriend, beat a kid up for bullying a nerd, anything (I DON’T DO ANY OF THESE THINGS HOWEVER)! A more complex example: Say you’re the governor of Maryland and some nutcase proposes a bill that the Chesapeake Bay should be a trash or waste fill because all of the landfills are full. You, as the governor can make two choices, support for the bill or go against it. You can support it and ruin not only the homes of the animals who live in it, but also the homes of the people surrounding the bay. You are also ruining people’s careers, those who make their living on the Chesapeake Bay, whether it be commercial crabbers, or fisherman, not to mention ships won’t be able come from the ocean into the harbor which will destroy our state’s economy because ships will have to go elsewhere. Or you could vote against it and none of that will happen, depending on your morals you could make either decision. 2) What are ethics? I used dictionary.com again for this one and again, there are multiple definitions for it. The first definition is “a system of moral principles,” the second definition is “the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc,” the third definition is “moral principles, as of an individual” and the fourth definition is “that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.” So again, we have different definitions of ethics although they are similar for the most part. To me, ethics are pretty much the same thing as morals and if I were to propose the same situation in number 1 I could simply replace the governor’s morals with the governor’s ethics. I have heard things like morals are how you treat people you know and ethics are how you treat people you don’t know. I really don’t understand that statement at all to be honest. Who’s to say ethics are how you treat people you know and morals are how you treat people you don’t know? I’ve also heard that ethics are more for your “business life” and morals are for your “personal life” in that when your ethics are being used, you don’t really care about others, it’s just about getting the job done. Whereas with morals, it’s about your friends and family and making them happy, being a good husband, etc. I can understand that but I still don’t really get why they couldn’t be replaced with one another. 3) Is there a need for a course on cyber-ethics or is just ethics? I believe that there isn’t really a need for a course on cyber-ethics or ethics at all. Honestly, your ethics and morals are created by how you were raised and your surroundings and frankly, a 3 month class isn’t going to change a thing. If you were to say to me “this is how it should be done or it’s wrong.” I’m going to simply brush it off and think to myself I like my way and I’m going to keep doing it that way. Learning definitions of fallacies, and giving my opinion on different matters in the cyber-world or the world in general, is not going to “change my ethics for the better.” I don’t really even understand the goal of the course. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind coming to class because you as a teacher are honestly fun to listen to and interact with and I think you’re a very smart lady and have very similar views as I do, but I don’t think this class is doing a dang thing for anybody. I guess one could argue that being introduced to different cyber issues that involve people’s ethics could possibly introduce some new thought into our heads that might sway our opinions a little bit, but I really can’t see it having much of an effect. That being said the class is interesting and I’d much rather take this than some BS English class or something else so hey I’m not complaining. I just don’t truly see the purpose of the class. So in the end, I say no I don’t believe there needs to be a cyber-ethics course, or an ethics course in general. That being said I do enjoy the class and have nothing against it so what the heck, might as well keep it around rather than having us take a class that has nothing to do with computer science at all. Richard Stankiewicz Morals and Ethics Discussion Richard Stankiewicz Ethical and Societal COSC 418 9/15/15 What are morals? The definition of morals has been a question itself there are many different versions of what morals can stand for. But according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary there are four meanings to the word morals. These definitions are, first “concerning or relating to what is right and wrong human behavior”, the second definition is “based on what you think is right and good”, the third definition is “considered right and good by most people”, and the final definition is “agreeing with a standard of right behavior”. As you see the definition is not always clear, it is what you perceive what is right from a combination of these definitions all together. Another reason why there is so much controversy on what is the correct version is because there are multiple moral theories that describe how those theories perceive what morals are. The first is consequentialism theory, which assume that only the consequence or the outcome of the actions performed matter morally. So in the instance of this theory all call to actions are considered morally right, now the outcome of that action is its own and either is considered right or wrong depending on what the outcome produced. The main form of consequentialism is utilitarianism, which are the actions are morally right if and only if they maximize pleasure or minimize suffering. Meaning due to the action taking upon if the outcome makes the majority of the people happy then the action is considered morally right. Again the action is considered morally wrong if the majority of the people are hurt by the action. An example that was viewed was a dam was going to build on a river in the amazon; the dam is to help a nearby town/city of 15,000 people. The dam would affect the native tribes though and cause them to move, there were only 1,000 tribe members. Due to these results the action to build a dam is morally right because the happiness of the majority outweigh the happiness of the minority. The other main theory of morals in deontology, which morals are based on certain duties and claim that certain actions are in intrinsically wrong or right, regardless of the consequences of the outcome of the actions. But what is it that makes the action itself morally right or wrong in consideration to deontology? The answer is what is the overall moral norm, so we have a call to action to the moral norm. This is the difference between deontology and utilitarianism is that one considers the thoughts of the action, the action itself as morally right or wrong, where the other only considers the outcome of the action to be morally right or wrong. What are ethics? Again same as morals there are multiple definitions, because there are multiple theories on the way we should consider is ethics. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary there are seven definitions to ethics they are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. The discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation. A theory or system of moral values The principles of conduct governing an individual or a group A guiding philosophy A consciousness of moral importance A set of moral issues or aspects A belief that something is very important There is an ethical theory that will be discussed as found in Ethics and Technology textbook. This theory is character based ethical theories. The first one is “Being a Moral Person vs Following Moral Rules”, and it is said to be a moral person “it took the proper training and acquisition of good habits and character traits”. For example some moral virtues that could be achieved “is temperance and courage that are needed to live well”. And in the development of virtue ethics it is believed that if you are a moral person, is that you don’t think between a decision of what is right and wrong, it automatic that the choice you make is right (good). Whereas someone just following moral rules will question their own judgement and the choices they make even though the choice might be morally wrong. See as a moral person you need the character traits that do not even allow that kind of thought or would be in a position of where there ethics come into question . Is there a need for a course on cyber-ethics or is it just ethics? I believe that there is no-particular reason why there is this course; I believe it should be a chapter or two in and all around ethics class. I have taken an ethics class before at the other college that I have attended in the past and we have talked about the same things besides the topics we have discussed on websites, and fraud that has happen online. And so far in the book it has been just regular ethics and morals. As I answered before in our class exercise, that cyber-ethics is not on its own it is a sub-topic of ethics, and that we are still making all the choices and decisions behind a screen.
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