[_delirium]

Having the computer science department, specifically, offer more ethics classes is controversial and has gone different ways at different universities. It may seem like an obvious win if you care about society, but many people interested in tech ethics (esp. those who don't consider themselves computer scientists) think it pushes in the wrong direction as far as systems and institutions go.

At one place I've taught, there was quite a bit of pushback from ethicists against the CS department expanding ethics education in its departmental courses. They viewed this as part of a "CS eats everything" trend that would hollow out humanities and social science departments, as well as diminish the role of a broad liberal education codified in the core non-major-specific curriculum. Instead, they preferred CS to stick to more technical classes, but simultaneously were pushing to include at least one ethics course as part of the gen-ed requirement that all students have to take, with ideally a 2nd course more tailored to type of major. In any case, courses taught by social scientists or philosophers, not by CS profs with a CS course number.

Some of this is just university turf warring, but I think some reflects real differences in opinion on how to structure things. Particularly in the U.S. version of university education, where majors are not as dominant a proportion of total course requirements as in some countries. (Depending on the university, courses in your major are something like 35-60% of the total.)

[npunt]

Interesting, thanks for the context. I get that its tough to find the right dividing lines on these in a university context, though I admit I'm partial to more integrated approaches. Like, I can't help but imagine teaching ethics within a tech context would be far more stimulating for CS students than a general ethics course.

I guess the good part about a general ethics course would be exposure to students in other majors that think a bit differently, which would hopefully open up CS students perspectives.

On the other hand, a CS specific course would be able to do something like assign students a project to build something, and then follow it up with questions of whether that should be built at all, because the thing in question was ethically problematic.

[jltsiren]

From my personal experience, the introductory ethics classes taught under philosophy often feel like "philosophy of ethics", with tenuous connections to anything taught elsewhere. Classes taught under science and technology studies are more useful, because the field is empirical. Even if none of the case studies are from your field, the ways STS approaches them are widely applicable.