Ethics for Nerds

Ethics for Nerds (Winter 2024/25)

Time: Wednesday, 14-16 
Place: Lecture hall 001 in E1 3

First Meeting: 16 October at 15:00 (!)
(no preparation needed for the first meeting)

TL;DR: Ethics for Nerds is a philosophy course for everybody¹. Unlike previous iterations, it will be in an inverted classroom format this time: you will prepare some reading and we will do a tutorial-style, interactive class on Wednesdays. Attendance is not mandatory but recommended. There will be small assignments and a project.
¹terms and conditions apply (see "Prerequisites" below)

Many computer scientists will be confronted with morally difficult situations at some point in their career – be it in research, in business, or in industry. Ethics for Nerds equips you with the assets that enable you to recognize such situations, and to devise ways to arrive at a justified moral judgment regarding the moral problems you will encounter. For that, you will be made familiar with moral theories from philosophy, as well as different Codes of Ethics for computer scientists. Since one can quickly get lost when talking about ethics and morals, it is especially important to talk and argue clearly and precisely. In order to prepare you for that, Ethics for Nerds also covers what is usually known as "Critical Thinking". We will also touch on many other topics from philosophy that will be useful for thinking about morally relevant problems in computing (such as knowledge, fairness, or autonomy). So, some people say that the lecture should rather be called "Philosophy for Nerds" instead of "Ethics for Nerds". In the end, you will be able to assess a morally controversial topic from computer science on your own and give convincing arguments for your assessment.

Ethics for Nerds is intended to always be as clear, precise, and analytic as possible. What you won't find here is the meaningless bla-bla, needlessly poetic language, and vague and wordy profundity that some people tend to associate with philosophy. You will, however, get many interesting insights into philosophy, ethics, and computer science – or so we have been told.

This course counts as an Advanced Lecture and worth 6 ECTS-points. All bachelor and master students (of all subjects) are welcome! :)

Prerequisites

We expect basic knowledge of propositional and first-order logic, an open mind, and interest to look at computer science in ways you probably are not used to. (If you come from a subject of study that usually does not cover logics, you can nevertheless take the course. Just get in touch with us before.)

The lecture and all its materials are in English, but if you feel more comfortable to write assignments and exams in German, you are invited to do so. For this course you should at least have a level of either German or English that is equivalent to a C1 level (see here for further details). We do not need any formal proof that you fulfil these requirements, but we recommend taking them seriously. If you are in any doubt whether this course is suitable for you, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.

Organization

This year, there will be an inverted classroom format: you will read a chapter of the lecture script at home and then you can come to a tutorial-like session on Wednesday afternoon. Attendance is not mandatory, but recommended. These Wednesday sessions will include exercises, polls, discussions, Q&As, and small mini-lectures. But don't worry: the fun parts of the original lecture (such as paper plane contests and money giveaways) will stay! It will just be a bit different now. There also will be regular office hours where you can ask questions.

In order to get the exam admission, you will do small assignments and a project in which you will become part of a fictitious Ethical Review Board. Your final grade will be determined by the exam (or the re-exam).

Bringing the exam admission from previous iterations

If you took Ethics for Nerds once and want to take it again because you failed the exam or did not participate in the exam: don't worry, you will not have to do the project again. You will need to do some very small assignments, though. The total amount of work for the renewed exam admission should not exceed about five hours over the course of the whole semester. So, while you will have to do something, it won't be much. There is nothing that you have to do in addition. You can just transfer the exam admission from a previous year. I also advice you to read the script that will be issued this year. While the content will be very similar to the contents of the last years, reading it is still is recommended for exam preparation. Of course, if you did not pass the exam the first time, it also makes sense to actively participate in the tutorial sessions. If you have any questions about your specific situation, feel free to get in touch!

Literature (not mandatory)

Upon request, we added some literature that may be interesting to read before the course. Reading this, however, is not mandatory! We will cover everything that you will need to know during the course (except for the presuppositions above). You will not have a disadvantage if you do not read any of the literature that follows:

1. Moor, J. H. (1985). What is computer ethics?. Metaphilosophy, 16(4), 266-275.
   A rather old paper that is nevertheless still very relevant today. Available here.
2. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
   This is the wikipedia of philosophy. Many (though not all) of the articles there are high-quality. Among others, the following articles are relevant for Ethics for Nerds and are relatively easy to understand without a philosophical background:
   • Computing and Moral Responsibility
   • Privacy and Information Technology
3. Another resource of material can be the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, in particular the following articles:
   • Argument
   • Deductive and Inductive Arguments
   • Validity and Soundness
4. Rosenberg, J. F. (1984). The practice of philosophy: A handbook for beginners.
   If you are very much into philosophy, you can also dive a little deeper into the daily business of philosophers by having a look at this all-time-classic introduction to being a philosopher. Sadly, the English edition of this book is usually very expensive, but you will find the book in the SULB and in the philosophy library. The German translation is equally good as the English original.