IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2021 - 43

process for incorporating ethical values into system
requirements engineering and design is IEEE P7000
[8]. (The term " P7000 " refers both to a single standard
under development and to a series of additional
standards under development, named P7000, P7001,
P7002, and so on. The series of standards are related
by their objectives: they all address aspects of the
design of ethically aligned autonomous and intelligent
systems. In this article, only the single standard
is meant.)
Such a process for value-based system design
will either use implicitly or state explicitly an axiology,
a philosophical account of values. The axiology
will answer questions such as [9]: What is a
(ethical, human) value? What is good (is highly to
be valued)? What is evil (highly to be disvalued)?
Where do values come from? Under what circumstances
and by what criteria can values be compared
or ranked? Are values completely relative, for
example, culturally determined, or are there universal
values with global applicability? How do values
affected by corporate or group activities relate to
the personal values, philosophies, and religions of
the individuals who take part in or are affected by
those activities?
The axiology implied or chosen by a VBD process
is of practical importance, not just of theoretical
interest. For example, it determines how values
that can be affected by the artifact being specified
and designed [called here the system of interest
(SoI)] are to be identified. It impacts the manner in
which conflicts (apparent or real) between values
are to be resolved by making choices between values
or ranking values. The axiology drives the manner
through which the process says values can be
transformed into system requirements. The axiology
will also be one important factor that determines
the acceptability of the VBD process to those who
engage in the process. This is because the axiology
will either be aligned with and support organizational
values or generate irreconcilable conflicts
with them. Likewise, the axiology and its realization
in the design process may provide means for the
individuals who engage in the process to put their
personal philosophy, values, or religious ethics into
practice, leading to increased personal fulfillment
and integration and greater engagement with their
nonwork communities. On the other hand, the
axiology and its realization in the process could
September 2021
conflict with such individual commitments, yielding
the opposite outcomes.
IEEE P7000 explicitly adopts an axiology, the
material value ethics (MVE) of Scheler [10] and its
partially successful unification with that of Hartmann
by Kelly [11]. However, MVE is not well known in
the English-speaking world: most of the primary
texts were written in German, Polish, or Spanish and
either not translated into English or have translations
that are not highly regarded.
Let us take stock of where we are and where this
article is heading. VBD is an approach to engineering
and software design where human values are
considered from the beginning. P7000 is a standard
under development that provides a process
for teams to do VBD. MVE is an account of values
that P7000 uses to talk about values in that design
process. The goals of this article are to provide
introductions to MVE and P7000 and to examine
how MVE is used in the values-based system design
process envisioned by IEEE P7000. This examination
uses two methods. One method is to look at
how MVE is used in the P7000 text. The other is to
view the P7000 process itself as a way of bringing
into being of value-bearing technological systems
from the perspective of MVE's phenomenology of
human perception of values and acting so as to realize
them. Previous discussions of the role of MVE in
P7000 include a brief summary in an annex of the
standard itself [8] and in [6].
P7000 summary
IEEE P7000 is a draft standard for a process that
yields an ethically aligned design for an SoI. Its activities
are in addition to usual design activities, not
replacements to them. The participants in the P7000
process include the design team, their management,
and participants that some design processes already
have: a user advocate and a risk manager. A new
design team role is that of the value lead. This person
focuses on " the identification, analysis, and prioritization "
[8] of values and facilitates discussions
bridging gaps between technical, organization, and
ethical perspectives.
There are four core stages in the P7000 process.
For simplicity of presentation, here they will be
described as being performed sequentially, though
in certain circumstances, such as with Agile development,
this may not be the case.
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