Journal article
Response to commentators of "a critique of positive responsibility"
Science and engineering ethics, v 15(1)
Mar 2009
PMID: 18941925
Abstract
It has been claimed that (1) computer professionals should be held responsible for an undisclosed list of "undesirable events" associated with their work and (2) most if not all computer disasters can be avoided by truly understanding responsibility. Commentators of "A Critique of Positive Responsibility in Computing" argue that this is not Donald Gotterbarn's view (Gotterbarn, JSEE 14(2):235-239, 2008) but that a critique of the view nevertheless raises significant moral issues within computing such as the ethical goals of a computing profession, the appropriate ethical stance toward bugs, and the public good with respect to computing (Miller, JSEE 14(2):245-249, 2008). Commentators also argue that "A Critique"'s "profitable misreading" demonstrates the "moral ecology" of organizations "dedicated narrowly to financial success" and that other "moral ecologies" that are customer or quality driven can be shown to be more important or preeminent (Huff, JSEE 14(2):241-244, 2008). It is argued here that (1) the hyper-inflated reading of Gotterbarn's and Ladd's views on positive responsibility persists despite Gotterbarn's explicit rejection of it, and that (2) such a reading of positive responsibility cannot be placed within a single moral ecology, nor can a single moral ecology be shown to be any more important or preeminent than others.
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Details
- Title
- Response to commentators of "a critique of positive responsibility"
- Creators
- James A Stieb - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Science and engineering ethics, v 15(1)
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- English and Philosophy
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000263181000004
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-59949094098
- Other Identifier
- 991019169000904721
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Engineering, Multidisciplinary
- Ethics
- History & Philosophy Of Science
- Philosophy