A cross-Atlantic team of ethical experts decided to explore how and why some computer science experts incorporate ethics in their work. From that came some fascinating insights.

I was one of 24 the panel-selected interviewees subjected to lifestory profiling being interviewed over several days and answering questionaires trying to discover the motivations and background leading to peer-recogniced ethical behaviour.

From that came a fascinating article worth reading publiced in IEEE Technology & Society - quote (link below):

"In psychological terms, we are interested in understand­ing how individuals achieve con­tinued successful performance of ethical behavior in the field of computing.

In philosophical terms we might cast the question as how individuals attain and prac­tice the virtues of the computing profession. Certainly if we could learn something about this, it might influence the way we teach computer ethics to those who will become computer professionals.

One way to begin this inquiry is to follow the life stories of com­puter scientists who are known for their ethical commitment. We have documented 24 of these life stories in a series of interviews with mor­al exemplars in computing in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, people who are successfully inte­grating ethical concern into their practice of computing [17].

This is exploratory work, but it still gives us a multifaceted picture of how moral exemplars in computing structure their lives, make their choices, and implement their plans. "

http://ieeessit.org/technology_and_society/free_sample_article.asp?Artic...