This textbook takes the view that ethics is, primarily, a tool for description.

Ethics allows you to describe the same situation in multiple ways. Each of these different descriptions makes it possible to ask different questions about what is really going on, and what is the right thing to do, or alternately, how to reach a judgment about the right thing to do. These different questions, arising from the various descriptions, work as a system of checks and balances against each other.

Learning ethics is not about coming up with a list of right answers, or even a set of formulae for calculating correct answers. We are learning to ask questions that will help you to describe the difficult and complex situations in front of you, and to imagine in detail the effects of the solutions that you are considering. There are rarely perfect answers, only better and worse answers. Even those better and worse answers will usually be hard to generalize. The circumstances and goals of any individual situation matter at least as much as the larger principles. Furthermore, people with very different values or goals are unlikely to reach consensus about the best course of action in a particular situation.

If you’re coming from a STEM discipline that deals in “objective” facts, this lack of systemic right answers may make it seem as if ethics is largely a matter of personal taste or opinion. This isn’t quite true. The reality is that there are different kinds of facts that need to be taken into account than in an inquiry that operates within a closed system (such as a programming language) or an inquiry that is concerned only with tangible reality. In ethics, people’s beliefs and commitments, informed by their individual experiences, can be just as important as universally verifiable facts. Those beliefs and commitments shape the way that people understand the world around them. They influence both our descriptive and normative judgments, just as much as universally verifiable material realities. Those commitments and beliefs are still real even though they are not shared by everyone else.

The “social fact” of people’s beliefs and experiences is an essential ingredient in understanding ethics. People don’t always do what you think makes the most sense; they do what they think makes the most sense, for reasons that matter to them, even if those reasons don’t seem sound or important to you. Good ethical decision making will recognize and take into account those individual and social realities, as much as the “objective” ones.

It is certainly true that the individual agent’s values, character, and priorities will always influence her judgment of what is right in a given situation. But that individual will always be better able to honor her values and vision if she is skilled at observing the relevant facts, understanding the many different ways those facts can fit together, and asking how deep any possible change can realistically go.

In our present reality, technological systems manage our power grids, our supply chains, our entertainment and news intake, and our financial transactions. Robots help build our cars and perhaps vacuum our homes. Computational devices mediate our social interactions. In the near future, we may expect vehicles to drive themselves, robots and algorithms to dominate war, and many other realities that are beyond our conception. What could possibly go wrong?

Technology developers of all kinds, from mechanical engineers to computer scientists, have a lot of power in the digital age. They are able to navigate in a world whose rules are not intelligible to many people. Beyond their power in the world that already exists, students now training to become engineers and computer scientists, that is, you the reader, will have a hand in building the systems that will establish the basic conditions for social, economic, and cultural interactions in the near future. If you build systems that favor those already in power, that will serve only to increase the inequities of our current world.

In this book we use science fiction as both a hook and as a tool for thinking about ethics in context. It can be all too easy in ethical discussions to fall back on defending the perspective one already holds, without taking the time to grapple with other facts, perspectives, or foundational goals that might complicate the picture. Simply discussing ethical issues in class, in a group of students who do not share the same perspective, is a good start. However, there can be challenges in discussing only current events or hot button issues. It is tempting when discussing topical events to clarify your own judgment to yourself and stop short of contending seriously with other ways of approaching the issue or questioning the basic premises that have shaped your judgment. Additionally, talking about current events in a classroom setting can make it difficult for students whose experiences differ significantly to find common ground to discuss the phenomenon that they have experienced differently or to believe that finding this common ground is worthwhile. Additionally, those with minority experiences may feel vulnerable, and be less willing to speak up.

Having a work of fiction to discuss can help to mitigate a lot of these challenges!

First of all, it adds a depersonalizing layer: even though it can be helpful to cite one’s own experience in explaining an interpretation, nobody is required to talk directly about their experience if they are not comfortable doing so. Just as importantly, a work of fiction furnishes you and your peers with something like a common experience. Although everyone will come away with different observations, insights, and even recollections of the same story, it is possible to consult the text together to confirm, or refine, or reinterpret together. And finally, when there are divergent readings among your peers of the same story, that divergence can itself be a productive learning experience. You might be surprised to discover that your classmates have reached such different conclusions about something that seems obvious to you. And even more so when your classmate is as equally certain in their reading as you are in yours. These divergent readings can be an eye-opening experience and can give you valuable practice in working backward through your own reasoning processes to discover how a common text can lead to such different points of view.

Once you enter the workplace, you will probably not be reading science fiction stories (at least not at work!) But you will be reading articles, and you will face conversations and situations and experiences that demand to be “read” in the same way as these stories. In these situations, you will have to confront serious ethical dilemmas, and, we hope, do more than simply pick the side you like better, or the answer that seems most obvious off the top of your heads. You will have to take in many kinds of information without rushing instantly to judgment and figure out ways to ask new questions about it. You will have to be skilled at observing both broadly and carefully what is at stake, and at weighing the reflexive inclination toward their own benefit against the greater good.

These are very hard skills to teach. Even an excellent and thorough curriculum that raises students’ awareness of major issues in technology ethics will not necessarily impart those skills. By incorporating science fiction, this curriculum aims to give students practice in those crucial skills, which will prepare them for the task of grappling thoughtfully and sensitively with ethical challenges they encounter.

We are not giving you a rule book: we hope to equip you to think critically through thorny problems you cannot yet anticipate. Reading these stories and discussing them with your peers will give you an opportunity to develop the skills and capacity for attention that you will need later on when faced with complex situations.