Courses/CS 301/Spring 2009

From CSWiki

1 Week 1. March 30
2 Week 2. April 6
3 Week 3. April 13
4 Week 4. April 20
5 Week 5. April 27
6 Week 6. May 4
7 Week 7. May 11
8 Week 8. May 18
9 Week 9. May 25. Memorial Day. No class
10 Week 10. June 1
- 10.1 Mandatory Survey
11 Finals Week. June 8

Grading

This is a discussion class. We will discuss many ethical issues related to computing and society. I don't expect you to be ethical experts. I do expect you to take seriously the job of thinking about the issues, presenting them, and discussing them. I also expect you to attend each class. If you do all of these things you will receive a good grade.

The official time is here.

UPDATE: How we'll run this class This class is set up as a lab class rather than a lecture class. That means that we have a lot of time to talk about the ethical issues raised by the textbook.

Typically we will divide the class time into the following segments.

9:50 - 11:20. Discuss this week's chapter. A group of 6 students will split up the current chapter. The rest of the class will participate in a discussion. The six of you will decide on the 6 most important topics/issues covered in the chapter. Each team member will present one of them. Each of those presentations will have a 15 minute time slot: 10 mintues for presentation; 5 minutes for class discussion.

The presentation should consist of 3 or 4 slides.

Title slide: the name of the topic/issue and the presenter's name
One or two slides: the main arguments related to the issue.
- Focus on the arguments, not the people who originated them.
- If the issue is a two sided issue, this might be done in two slides. If it is an important but non-controverial topic, it should be done in one slide.
- Make your slide(s) concise and to-the-point.
A final conclusions slide with your conclusions about the issue.

The course website includes PowerPoint slides that you can use to get started. It's unlikely, though, that any of those slides will be exactly the slides that you will want to include in your presentation.

11:20 - 11:50. Everyone will look over next week's chapter.
11:50 - 12:20. Select next week's presentation team and allow the team to begin discussing how to present next week's chapter.

Textbook

Herman Tavani, Ethics and Technology (2^nd ed.)

Table of Contents and resources for each chapter
- Slides
- Zip file of all slides

I realize that this will be the first time that many of you will be presenting material in front of a class. I don't expect polished presentations.

A primary goal of the course is to discuss the material. Do your best to present the important points in a way that encourages discussion. (The book's PowerPoint slides help.) One way to feel more comfortable when doing a presentation is to realize that the presentation is not about you; it is about the material you are presenting.

Nonetheless, I realize that it is difficult for some people to stand up in front of a group and make a presentation. Be aware that you will each be presenting twice during the term. Be kind to each other.

As the term progresses you will begin to feel more comfortable. A secondary goal of this course is to give you experience doing presentations and to help you feel more comfortable when you do them.

Please be respectful of your classmates. Do not use your computers, e.g., for reading your email, during class.

[edit] Week 1. March 30

Video

[edit] Week 2. April 6

Video

Chapter 1. Hubert Tsang, Edwin Panameno, Areg Abcarians, Ernie Laverdi

Chapter 2. David Ballardo, Jacob Pacheco, Tin Wong, Julian Bouzanquet

[edit] Week 3. April 13

Video

Chapter 4. Phu Kieu, Wilson Tran, Raudel Mayorga, Jie Chen

David Brooks of the New York Times has a column that's worth reading. Here's an extract.

As Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia memorably wrote, “The emotions are, in fact, in charge of the temple of morality, and ... moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as a high priest.”

The question then becomes: What shapes moral emotions in the first place? The answer has long been evolution, but in recent years there’s an increasing appreciation that evolution isn’t just about competition. It’s also about cooperation within groups. Like bees, humans have long lived or died based on their ability to divide labor, help each other and stand together in the face of common threats. Many of our moral emotions and intuitions reflect that history. We don’t just care about our individual rights, or even the rights of other individuals. We also care about loyalty, respect, traditions, religions. We are all the descendents of successful cooperators.

The first nice thing about this evolutionary approach to morality is that it emphasizes the social nature of moral intuition. People are not discrete units coolly formulating moral arguments. They link themselves together into communities and networks of mutual influence.

The second nice thing is that it entails a warmer view of human nature. Evolution is always about competition, but for humans, as Darwin speculated, competition among groups has turned us into pretty cooperative, empathetic and altruistic creatures — at least within our families, groups and sometimes nations.

The third nice thing is that it explains the haphazard way most of us lead our lives without destroying dignity and choice. Moral intuitions have primacy, Haidt argues, but they are not dictators. There are times, often the most important moments in our lives, when in fact we do use reason to override moral intuitions, and often those reasons — along with new intuitions — come from our friends.

The rise and now dominance of this emotional approach to morality is an epochal change. It challenges all sorts of traditions. It challenges the bookish way philosophy is conceived by most people. It challenges the Talmudic tradition, with its hyper-rational scrutiny of texts. It challenges the new atheists, who see themselves involved in a war of reason against faith and who have an unwarranted faith in the power of pure reason and in the purity of their own reasoning.