Computer Ethics: A Practical Approach Towards Solving Ethical Dilemmas

Ethical problems are part of our daily lives. Individuals face ethical dilemmas in all disciplines such as business, medicine, engineering, and computer science. Hence teaching computer ethics became a mandatory course in most computer science curriculums. The syllabus of such a course usually introduces students to ethical theories such as Utilitarianism, Kantianism or Divine. Most of these theories and which have been developed to deal with ethical situations, are mainly the result of the work of philosophers. Hence, many computer science students look at the computer ethics course and these theories as intruders to the discipline because they are not applied. Computer science students are used to practical approaches towards problem solving and which depend on algorithms, procedures and well-defined steps. Meanwhile computer ethics theories introduce proportional and subjective solutions and which may differ from an individual to another for the same situation or dilemma. In this paper we introduce a computational approach towards solving ethical dilemmas. Our approach depends on using well-defined algorithms and scientific theories and which may be seen as practical and applied by computer science students, and hence closer to their modes of studies.