On 2/3/19 1:26 AM, Paul wrote: > Is there any evidence, or even anecdotes, suggesting that ethics courses > (in any form) work to make people act more ethically?
Main issue that I would see is how you measure ethics. Psychology studies seem to lack reproducibility. > I can see that someone who was already ethical might find something > they had missed, but it's hard for me (admittedly a cynical person) to > imagine that an ethics course can make someone ethical, any more than > one could expect an "empathy" course to make people empathetic. > Paul > In courses I taught that touch on ethics, I feel that it has made some impact. I notice that the position of students coming in tends to be: "We won't do anything unethical, because we are good people." Which is not what you want. I think I get them to at least think of the possible, including unintended, consequences of their actions. That may be the best you can do. A good text is: "The Case of the Killer Robot" it has lots of cases it presents with no clear answers and possible legal liability. Probably for a large segment of the population ethical activity is mainly trying to avoid litigation. Am concerned about autonomous systems ethics having devolved into a repeat of the trolley problems. In discussion with automotive companies, they tell me their answer: "Autonomous vehicle needs to save the life of the owner. Otherwise no one will buy the cars." -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest mode, or change password by emailing liberationtech-ow...@lists.stanford.edu.
