Conscience

By: Jerry Han

Conscience is God's presence in Man.

- Swedenborg, Arcana Coelesta [1]

Conscience is defined in the Random House dictionary as "the sense of what is right and wrong in one's conduct or motives." [2] Of course, the problem becomes defining what is right, and what is wrong. There are many circumstances where morality would differ between two different people. An example of this would be whether or not it would be acceptable to kill your enemy in a time of war. However, a few basic morals can be accepted as a baseline; most people would have no trouble accepting the concept of "do as little harm as possible" in everyday life.

Now, with this framework, the question itself can be discussed; when do CS professionals have the right to protest an implementation? When can they say "My conscience is bothering me on this, and I have to say something?"

The easy answer is: "whenever such a protest is not frivolous i.e. the protest is a serious concern over safety issues involving lives." Implement a legal framework protecting these individuals from reprisal or "blacklisting", through law or professional association, and everything is nice and happy. There, the essay is done. QED.

Ah, but if it were only so easy! Even in this basic framework, there are assumptions that have been made. Not all decisions are "Choose A for Life, Choose B for Death." A typical systems design problem might go like this: Option A has a 80% chance of killing one person, and a 20% chance of killing five people, in two years. Option B has a 80% chance of killing nobody, and a 20% chance of killing ten people, in five years. Which option do you pick? What does your conscience tell you?

Even the assumptions made in the assignment question are suspect. For example, can the Nuremberg trials be accepted as a proper precedent for the "I was following orders" defence? Some historians have called into question the methods used by Allied War Crimes tribunal, and of the impartiality of the judges themselves. [3] Common sense dictates that there would be situations where "I was following orders", or "I was compelled to do so" would be a proper defence; for example death threats against one's family. Could blame be placed on a programmer who was forced to go along with a scheme at the threat of losing his/her job, especially given Society's current track record on protecting "whistle-blowers?" [4]

Thus, any CS professional in this social dilemma faces an extremely tough choice. Social responsibility faces off versus family responsibility, with self-preservation thrown into the mix. No legal code can protect them, for what protection is it to litigate against a company after you've lost your job? No ethical code imposed from without can help. Only their conscience can make their final choice. It is safe to say that most people, in these types of situations, would tend to follow the status quo. It takes great courage to choose a path under such pressure, perhaps more courage than can be reasonably expected. Regardless of our ideals, not all of us have the strength of a Gahndi, a King, or a Pearson.

It is then fortunate that most CS professionals will never have to face this type of dilemma. However, it is also extremely probable that individuals will have to face smaller dilemmas, concerning the intangible issues of honesty, and quality. It is not uncommon in the business world of Computer Science to misrepresent the capabilities of a product, and to ship inferior product in order to meet a time deadline.

These practices are the targets of software engineering, and other design paradigms, developed to insure CS professionals build reliable, standardized, maintainable code, delivered on-time and bug-free. However, shouldn't this also be the realm of conscience? Shouldn't the fact that CS professionals are being dishonest with their customers disturb us? Shouldn't the fact that CS professionals do not seem to keep comittments on an industry wide level worry us?

It appears the answer should be no. The problem with deadlines and inferior product has been with the computer industry for a long time, yet, very little has been done to address it. By way of analogy, no other industry would get the same amount of freedom that the Computer Industry gets away with. The public has acquiesced in the practice, and this gives industry no incentive to improve.

Conscience will not help here, for it has already been decided that inferior product shipped late is not a moral wrong. Thus, in the areas where change can be made relatively easy, it has been decided that change is not required. In areas where change can only be made after agonizing self-introspection, this is where conscience helps.

Codes of ethics and professional standards can be imposed without to attempt to improve matters (assuming there are people who believe that matters need improving.) This gives some professionals a target to aim for, a "common good" that should be maintained.

Of course, the assumptions problem appears again. What is the common good? What is a good set of ethics to apply to the computer industry as a whole? It could very well be that computer software, by its very complex nature, cannot reach the engineering goals for quality that other products comply with. There is also the problem of an individual's freedom to be him or herself, free of any sort of compulsion.

Thus, what appears to be a simple problem with a simple answer, turns out to be filled with pitfalls. Yes, a programmer has the right to say something about a product but everything else depends on the exact parameters of what's being said, how critical is the system, and what the programmer thinks is the proper moral behaviour given the response from management. It can't even be guaranteed that he/she will be protected from reprisal; as stated before, the precedents are not causes for optimism. Indeed, any sort of legal protection along these lines would be difficult to implement and monitor.

Finally, it must be remembered that programmers are not superhuman beings. They have their own hopes, fears, dreams, sorrows. To these people, a moral dilemma isn't an academic exercise, but a real-life challenge to be met, with only their conscience as their final arbiter. It is very easy to state that they must always do the "right" thing, even if it is difficult. It is very hard to actually do the "right" thing, especially if it is difficult. In the end, the important question is: are they happy with the choice they made?

From this point of view, perhaps this entire discussion can be reduced to the following statement:

"Happiness is looking in a mirror and liking what you see."

References:

1. Taken from The Pocket Book of Quotations, Ed. Henry Davidoff, 1952, Pocket Books, New York

2. The Random House Dictionary Ed. Jess Stein, 1978, Ballantine Books, New York

3. A fascinating and horrifying example of this is the account given in Hitler's Last Gamble (Trevor N. Dupuy, 1994, HarperCollins, New York) concerning the Malmedy Massacre and follow-up trial. While not a formal part of the Nuremberg proceedings, it does indicate the general attitude at the time. John Keegan has also expressed some concerns, in a series of lectures to the CBC. (My memory as to the historian may be faulty here.) These historians do not doubt that the Holocaust occurred, or that terrible things happened on the battlefields of World War II. What they state is the Allied conduct after the war is just as shameful, because the Allies had the opportunity to prove they were better than the states they had waged war against, and bungled that opportunity in the callousness of the trials.

4. An example of this would be the officers and the enlisted personnel court-martialed or "reassigned" after speaking to the press about current conditions in the Canadian Armed Forces. Just check the papers over the past year; you'll find examples concerning Somalia, Haiti, and here at home in Canada.

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