Ethics and Analytics: What We Mean By Ethics

By Stephen Downes
Oct 14, 2021
Transcript of Ethics and Analytics: What We Mean By Ethics

Unedited Google transcription.

Hi everyone. I'm Stephen Downes, with S's at the beginning and end of my name. Welcome once again, to ethics analytics. And the duty of care, we're still in module one. And this is the fourth video in module one and we're looking now at what we mean by ethics. And we're going to take a broad scope, look at it and try a narrowing.

What we think ethics actually means return ethics actually means for the purpose of this course. Now just stay a terminal. Logical. Note the word ethics. And within us, we could think of it as a singular. What is ethics? We could think about as a plural. What our ethics? We could talk about something like ethics is one of those subjects that each of us feels.

We have an understanding for, or we could say that ethics are important in a human life. Either way, we'd probably be grammatically, correct? So I'm going to be a bit indifferent on whether I treat. The word ethics singular or plural? It's really going to depend on contextually all. Default to the singular.

Ethics is a single subject but sometimes we'll talk about it in the plural as in the sense of there are many ethics to consider here. They really depends on context. So what are ethics? What is ethics as a subject? Well, it's one of those subjects that we all think we know what it is.

And usually for most of us, it involves some combination of integrity principles, morality honor choice, conscious fairness responsibility etc. But it's a volatile mix of subjects and it's not always a mix that we come to agreement on. And we don't think we have a pretty good grass on the rule that affects plays in life.

But again, some people cautiously seek out to live deeply, ethical lives. Well, others just notice that voice in the back of their head, reminding them what they should or shouldn't do, but it's not really a top priority. What we can say about ethics is that it's a subject, is 2500 year.

Olds years old or more. That's about how far the written record goes. There's a history of deep and often contentious discussion on the subject and that discussion continues to the stay.

What do we mean by ethical? There are different ways we can look at it. It can include or describe an outcome that wasn't ethical outcome, they can discover describe a type of process. It can describe the set of values that we hold or the percent of principles that we follow.

These are ethical principles.

Ethics can be arrived at or reasoned about in different ways. At first glance, we might just think, well, everyone knows what right is, and what wrong is. But the arising this understanding in different ways for some people, ethics is something that is discovered in the world. Maybe they're looking at the natural state of humanity, the way Russo did, maybe there looking at it, from a biological revolutionary perspective For others.

Ethics is something that we create JL Mackie. For example, writing as book ethics inventing right and wrong and maybe it is just something that we create in order to perhaps produce social, cohesion, or some other political purpose for others. Ethics is something that is revealed something that comes down quite literally on tablets from the mountain and there is no rational basis for ethics.

They're just is of sentence of, right? And wrong.

Ethics might find itself, applying to many different topics and coming from many different domains ethics might involve rights and fairness, justice equality, diversity access, or it might involve biology religion science, psychology humanities, law, numerous different subjects. They're all going to both be influenced by ethics and have an impact on ethics.

There's another entirely different stream of thought that describes ethics, as being based on virtual and character. Perhaps as described by Aristotle, the ancient Greece, and we think of the ethical person as the person who just plays such qualities as wisdom, courage, humanity, transcendence, justice, moderation, or pick your set of qualities reasonableness.

Rationality, kindness care.

Ethics also because we're not done. Yet is generally thought of as speaking to what actions to take and there are different ways of expressing this and these all correspond to different ways of thinking about ethics. It might describe actions. We should take should give to the poor. It might describe actions that we ought to take.

You ought to pick up after yourself in the cafeteria or sometimes it talks about actions. We must take. You must be fair in hiring decisions and counter to that ethics also describes or can describe the opposite of these things that we should not do things. That we ought not do things that we must not do ranging from simple and fractions like perhaps lying or leaving out aspects of a story to more significant fractions like stealing or killing or copyright infringement.

That was a joke that lasted just in case he didn't get it. We can also talk about what ethics is by talking about what it is not. And here, I'm following the last quiz SL 2009, but I agree with these. One thing ethics is not is that it's not the same as a feeling, for example, we would not say that, simply because something is repugnant or offensive.

It is unethical. Something can be repugnant or unethical. Like, for example, pugs without being an ethical repugnant or offensive without being an ethical. I'm making a joke about pugs, but I'm thinking about, you know, maybe a dirty trash in the back yard, the downstairs, part of an outhouse, etc.

All of these are repugnant and offensive but they're not necessarily on ethical and more of the point simply because we find them repugnant or offensive. It does not follow necessarily that they are unethical. We want a bit more of a story there, whatever. That story might happen to be but we want more of the story.

What else is what else is ethics? Not. Well, it's not the same as religion for one thing we think of ethics, as being broader than religion. In the sense that most people I think do not think that ethical behavior is limited to those of one particular denomination of one particular religion, nobody believes that only Zoroastrians can be ethical At least.

I don't think they believe that but there are also other reasons why we would say ethics isn't the same as religion. It's arguable as Kineilson argues that. We can be ethical without religion ethics without God, is the name of his book conversely. It seems to me, certainly possible that a person can be religious, but be unethical.

And even more to the point, the domain of ethics very often, it seems extends beyond the domain of religion, beyond the domain of spirituality. And you think of, for example, copyright, you wonder what the Bible would have said about copyright. And honestly, I don't think we know. So it's not the same, that doesn't mean that there are no religious arguments for or against propositions in ethics.

It doesn't mean there's not a religious dimension to the subject and there's certainly can be, especially for people who are religious, but they're not the same.

Ethics. Similarly is not the same as cultural culture or cultural norms. Again just like religion cultural norms. May influence our ethical decisions and our ethics may influence our cultural norms. Someone would hope that they do, but they're different Different cultures for one thing. Defining different define. Ethics differently. For example.

We can distinguish between compliance oriented cultural perspectives as opposed to value oriented perspectives as opposed to say libertarian perspectives, where it doesn't matter. Also arguably some cultural practices appear, obviously, wrong slavery is a good example, cannibalism is another human sacrifice. These are generally thought of as bad things at least, today by us in our society.

But there were cultures and times when these practices were deemed as ethically, okay? And indeed sometimes that even ethically required. Certainly to appease the volcano. It's the only right thing you can do, right? So there is a distinction to be drawn between what is normal in a culture and what is ethical?

Additionally, cultural norms may go. Well, beyond ethics, and our culture, it's normal to wear blue. Jeans, is it wrong to wear blue jeans? Not in our culture. Another cultures in other circumstances. It certainly is.

So ethics is not the same as culture. Ethics is not the same as science, either. And again, we have the situation where science may influence ethics and ethics. May influence science. Now certainly the evidence matters well, maybe I shouldn't say certainly. Maybe we can just sit here and just make up ethics or if they're revealed.

Ethics, perhaps the evidence doesn't matter. But arguably, the evidence matters certainly would were talking about ethics. We need to take into account, how we should regard evidence and what counts as evidence. But even that said, there's a longstanding argument in philosophy that what ought to be the case does not follow from.

What is the case? For example, someone might argue that it is against human nature to fly. It does not follow from that, that flying is ethically wrong. Now, you could substitute your own practice or behavior for the word fly. We still have the same form of argument here And the argument suggest that what is the case here does not inform what is ethically, right?

Or wrong one. Might say that. What is the case? Informs? What is ethically possible, and there's another dictum and athletics, the expression art implies can that if you ought to do something that can be true. Only if you can discontent you ought to say the drowning person. For example, only if you can say the drowning person and there's good argument for that and there's actually argument against that as well.

But we can see how what we know about science and what we are able to reasonably predict is consequences, can be something that informs what ethics apply in this particular case,

To wrap up in a final segment of this talk. Let's think about a few things that ethics might be and by by might be what I mean here is that maybe this is a good approach for thinking about ethics. Maybe it's not and it's the sort of questions. These are the sorts of questions that we're going to want to think about one that I see quite a bit is that ethics is a framework for making decisions.

So it's a tool essentially and the idea here is that analytics and related technologies pose dilemmas dilemmas for practitioners and ethics is a framework or a tool that allows them to make the right choice when they're facing these dilemmas whatever that might be.

Other people and here, I'm taking a meal. Someone but also many others, might argue that ethics is inherently political, and there's a point to me, made here. Certainly, there's a strong relation between ethics and politics and we would like our politics to be ethical, and sometimes we'd like, our ethics to be political.

Sometimes we'd like our ethics to inform policy. I think there's a divide between them. I don't think ethics should govern everything in politics and I don't think politics governs. Everything in ethics, there may be a cause effect relationship here, or there may simply be an overlap or a commonality of topics being discussed or categories being considered.

Ethics to wrap up. Might also be rational and, you know, that implies that ethics might also be irrational. We'll explore that. But certainly there's this sense the ethics in these includes some sort of sense of rationality reasonableness or decision making Certainly the philosophy of the manual. Can't makes that suggestion explicitly that ethics is within the domain of reason within the domain of practical reason.

And that the idea of being able to mate, the right or wrong decision about something is something that is inherent to rationality and indeed inherit should be a human being and in particular, a spiritual human being and we certainly use reason a lot when we're talking about ethics, and it's interesting because the topic of artificial intelligence or analytics also brings into question, the concept of rationality and others, right?

The concept of rational agents this central to artificial intelligence. So, ethics often depicts, it's subjects either us or machines or institutions or systems as rationally. Agents trying to determine reasonably in responsibly. What is right? And what is wrong. So my question, which I'll raise to wrap up this video is can we do that?

Is it reasonable to suggest that we use reason in order to address ethical questions? Or is there something more subtle at work here? And I'm going to suggest screw the weeks and months of this course that. Yeah, there is something a lot more subtle happening here. I don't think ethics really is any of these three things framework a type of politics or a branch of reason.

I think it's something different. And one of the things about the duty of care that appeals to me, is that it gives us a mechanism that allows us to get at that sense of what's different about ethics. Of course, we've got a lot of thinking and talking to do before we get to that point.

Force:yes