Introduction  (Page 8/8)

In any situation where different people have different views and objectives you are likely to be faced with ethical dilemmas. For example, if you disagree, in principle, with the policies of more senior management in the company, how should you react? Clearly, this depends on the particular individuals and the nature of the disagreement. Is it best to argue a case for your position from within the organisation or to resign in principle? If you feel that there are problems with a software project, when do you reveal these to management? If you discuss these while they are just a suspicion, you may be over-reacting to a situation; if you leave it too late, it may be impossible to resolve the difficulties.

Such ethical dilemmas face all of us in our professional lives and, fortunately, in most cases they are either relatively minor or can be resolved without too much difficulty. Where they cannot be resolved, the engineer is faced with, perhaps, another problem. The principled action may be to resign from their job but this may well affect others such as their partner or their children.

A particularly difficult situation for professional engineers arises when their employer acts in an unethical way. Say a company is responsible for developing a safety-critical system and because of time-pressure falsifies the safety validation records. Is the engineer’s responsibility to maintain confidentiality or to alert the customer or publicise, in some way, that the delivered system may be unsafe?

The problem here is that there are no absolutes when it comes to safety. Although the system may not have been validated according to pre-defined criteria, these criteria may be too strict. The system may actually operate safely throughout its lifetime. It is also the case that, even when properly validated, the system may fail and cause an accident. Early disclosure of problems may result in damage to the employer and other employees; failure to disclose problems may result in damage to others.

The short version of the code summarizes aspirations at a high level of the abstraction; the clauses that are included in the full version give examples and details of how these aspirations change the way we act as software engineering professionals. Without the aspirations, the details can become legalistic and tedious; without the details, the aspirations can become high sounding but empty; together, the aspirations and the details form a cohesive code.

Software engineers shall commit themselves to making the analysis, specification, design, development, testing and maintenance of software a beneficial and respected profession. In accordance with their commitment to the health, safety and welfare of the public, software engineers shall adhere to the following Eight Principles:

1. PUBLIC: Software engineers shall act consistently with the public interest.

2. CLIENT AND EMPLOYER: Software engineers shall act in a manner that is in the best interests of their client and employer consistent with the public interest.

3. PRODUCT: Software engineers shall ensure that their products and related modifications meet the highest professional standards possible.

4. JUDGMENT: Software engineers shall maintain integrity and independence in their professional judgment.

5. MANAGEMENT: Software engineering managers and leaders shall subscribe to and promote an ethical approach to the management of software development and maintenance.

6. PROFESSION: Software engineers shall advance the integrity and reputation of the profession consistent with the public interest.

7. COLLEAGUES: Software engineers shall be fair to and supportive of their colleagues.

8. SELF: Software engineers shall participate in lifelong learning regarding the practice of their profession and shall promote an ethical approach to the practice of the profession.

You must make up your own mind in these matters. In this case, the potential for damage, the extent of the damage and the people affected by the damage should influence the decision. If the situation is very dangerous, it may be justified to publicise it using the national press. However, you should always try to resolve the situation while respecting the rights of your employer.

Another ethical issue is participation in the development of military and nuclear systems. Some people feel strongly about these issues and do not wish to participate in any systems development associated with military systems. Others will work on military systems but not on weapons systems. Yet others feel that national defence is an overriding principle and have no ethical objections to working on weapons systems. The appropriate ethical position here depends entirely on the views of the individuals who are involved.

In this situation it is important that both employers and employees should make their views known to each other in advance. Where an organisation is involved in military or nuclear work, they should be able to specify that employees must be willing to accept any work assignment. Equally, if an employee is taken on and makes clear that they do not wish to work on such systems, employers should not put pressure on them to do so at some later date.

The general area of ethics and professional responsibility is one which has received increasing attention over the past few years. It can be considered from a philosophical standpoint where the basic principles of ethics are considered and software engineering ethics are discussed with reference to these basic principles.

References :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering, http://cs.wwc.edu/~aabyan/435/intro.html, http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/AY2000/cs3802_fall/index.html, http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/CIS/course.des/cis375/lectures/