In this paper I ask whether mathematicians should swear an oath similar to the Hippocratic oath sworn by some medical professionals as a means to foster morally praiseworthy engagement with the ethical dimensions of mathematics. I individuate four dimensions in which mathematics is ethically charged: (1) applying mathematical knowledge to the world can cause harm, (2) participation of mathematicians in morally contentious practices is an ethical issue, (3) mathematics as a social activity faces relevant ethical concerns, (4) mathematical knowledge itself (...) may be ethically charged. I present a conceptual framework for oaths and discuss some empirical results on the effectiveness of oath-taking to foster morally praiseworthy behaviour. My findings suggest that enforcing oath-taking practices in mathematics is not currently a suitable means to foster ethically praiseworthy behaviour amongst mathematicians. Oaths can, however, provide needed edifying narratives about how to act ethically when acting as a mathematician. (shrink)

This project explored what constitutes “ethical practice of mathematics”. Thematic analysis of ethical practice standards from mathematics-adjacent disciplines (statistics and computing), were combined with two organizational codes of conduct and community input resulting in over 100 items. These analyses identified 29 of the 52 items in the 2018 American Statistical Association Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice, and 15 of the 24 additional (unique) items from the 2018 Association of Computing Machinery Code of Ethics for inclusion. Three of the 29 items (...) synthesized from the 2019 American Mathematical Society Code of Ethics, and zero of the Mathematical Association of America Code of Ethics, were identified as reflective of “ethical mathematical practice” beyond items already identified from the other two codes. The community contributed six unique items. Item stems were standardized to, “The ethical mathematics practitioner…”. Invitations to complete the 30-min online survey were shared nationally (US) via Mathematics organization listservs and other widespread emails and announcements. We received 142 individual responses to the national survey, 75% of whom endorsed 41/52 items, with 90–100% endorsing 20/52 items on the survey. Items from different sources were endorsed at both high and low rates. A final thematic analysis yielded 44 items, grouped into “General” (12 items), “Profession” (10 items) and “Scholarship” (11 items). Moreover, for the practitioner in a leader/mentor/supervisor/instructor role, there are an additional 11 items (4 General/7 Professional). These results suggest that the community perceives a much wider range of behaviors by mathematicians to be subject to ethical practice standards than had been previously included in professional organization codes. The results provide evidence against the argument that mathematics practitioners engaged in “pure” or “theoretical” work have minimal, small, or no ethical obligations. (shrink)