and Electronic Engineers) and the British Computer Society publish a code of pro-fessional conduct or code of ethics. Members of these organisations undertake to follow that code when they sign up for membership. These codes of conduct are generally concerned with fundamental ethical behaviour.
The ACM and the IEEE have cooperated to produce a joint code of ethics and
professional practice. This code exists in both a short form, shown in Figure 1.6,
and a longer form (Gotterbam, et al., 1999) that adds detail and substance to the
1.2 Professional and ethical responsibility 15
Software Enslneerin, Code 0'1 Ethics and Professional Pradlce
ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Task Force on Software Engineering Ethic!; and Professional Practices PREAMBLE
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 hovv 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 cc,mmit themselves to making the analysis, specification, design, development, testing and maintenance of software a beneficial and respeCIted 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 consi!>1ent with the public interest.
3. PRODUCT - Software engineers shall ensure that their products and related modifications meet the highest professional standilrds possible.
4. JUDGMENT - Software engineers shall maintain integrity and independence in their professional judgment.
5. MANAGEMENT - Software engineering managers and leclders shall subscribe to and promote an ethical approach to the management of software development imd maintenance.
6. PROFESSION - Software engineers shall advance the intl!grity and reputation of the profession consistent with the public interest.
7. COLLEAGUES - Software e,ngineers shall be fair to and supportive of their colleagues.
8. SELF - Software engineers shall participate in lifelong leClming regarding the practice of their profession and shall promote an ethkal approach to the practice of the profession.
Figure 1.6ACM/IEEE Code of Ethics (©IEEE/ACM 1999)
shorter version. The rationale behind this code is summarised in the first two para-graphs of the longer form:
Computers have a central and growing role in commerce, industry, government, medicine, education, entertainment and society at large. Software engineers are those who contribute by direct participation or by teaching, to the analysis, spe -ification, design, development, cert-ification, maintenance and testing ofsoftware systems. Because of their roles in developing software systems, software engi-neers have significant opportunities to do good or cause harm, to enable others to do good or cause harm, or to influence others to do good or cause harm. To ensure, as much as possible. thaI their efforts will be used for good, software engineers must commit themselves to making software engineering a beneficial and respected profession. In accordance with that commitment, software engi-neers shall adhere to the following Code of Ethics and Professional Practice.
The Code contains eight Principles relau,d to the behaviour of and decisions made by professional software engineers, including practitioners, educators, managers, supervisors and policy makers, as well as trainees and students of
ltroduction
the profession. The Principles identify the ethically responsible relationships in which individuals, groups, and organizations participate and the primary obligations within these relationships. The Clauses ofeach Principle are illus-trations ofsome ofthe obligations included in these relationships. These obli-gations are founded in the software engineer's humanity, in special care owed to people affected by the work of software engineers. and the unique elements of the practice of software engineering. The Code prescribes these as obli-gations of anyone claiming to be or aspiring to be a software engineer.
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 prin-ciple, 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 organisa-tion or to resign in principle?Ifyou feel that there are problems with a software project, when do you reveal these to management?Ifyou discuss these while they are just a suspicion, you maybeoverreacting to a situation; if you leave it too late, it maybeimpossible 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 predefined criteria, these crite-ria may be too strict. The system may actually operate safely throughout its lifetime.
It is also the case that, even when properly validated, a 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.
You must make up your own mind in these matters. The appropriate ethical posi-tion here depends entirely on the views of the individuals who are involved.Inthis 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 (say). However, you should always tryto 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 mil-itary systems but not on weapons systems. Yet others feel that national security is an overriding principle and have no ethical objections to working on weapons systems.
Chapter 1 d!1 Key points 17