Talk:Ethics for IT Professionals/What Is Ethics

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I think this book has a good start but the definition of Ethics needs to be further explored in relation to individual human action. One of the fundamentals of Ancient Greek philosophy is that all human action is directed towards a perceived benefit (Plato and Aristotle called it "some good"). For those that think this unlikely even war is perceived by those engaged in it as an action towards some good. This means every person shares the same fundamental belief that their right to act for their own good should suffer no interference. So ethics cannot be a universal code since individuals only act for their own good. A better definition of Ethics would be - "Ethics is a code of conduct that an individual will subscribe to when the benefit to themselves results in some good".

A good book to read is Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle which is in the Public Domain so a quick internet search will do. Just to show that this post is not my original thoughts on the matter of Ethics here is the first line from Nicomachean Ethicsː

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

--Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 15:47, 26 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I disagree, in the sense that you are making the point that ethical codes benefit the specific adherent individually. My view is that no ethical code can be selfish in nature, even when the rational behind puts the group that adheres to it above others it needs to be seen as intrinsically benefiting all affected. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 21:43, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Information Technology and Ethics Book Improvement Project
The Legal and Ethical Issues in Information Technology course, ITMM 485/ITMM 585, at Illinois Institute of Technology is working on improving this Wikibook by creating new chapters or improving existing chapters as a class project. If successful, this project will continue in coming semesters until the book is in an acceptable and useful state. Each chapter the class has worked on should be documented in the discussion page for that chapter. Please address any questions or suggestions to me at trygstad@iit.edu. Ray Trygstad (discuss • contribs) 04:03, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

The section on What is Ethics was edited in April 2016 by ITMM 485 undergraduate students in the Green team: Batool Al-Rifai, Jadelyn Donoho, Sebrina Neal, Neilabh Okhandiar, Sudarshan Pandey, and Kevin Punatar.