GEN 110-10: Freshman Seminar: Computer and Society

Dr. R. M. Siegfried

General Introduction to Ethics

Rabbi Hanina, the Deputy High Priest said, "Pray for the welfare of the Government, for were it not for the fear of it, man would swallow his neighbor alive."(Talmud, Ethics of the Fathers 3:2)

Every society has a set of rules that govern behavior in various situations. These rules comprise our morality or ethics.

Must ethics come from Divine Revelation?

Hammurabi, King of Babylon, received his Code for the sun god Shammash.
Moses received the Torah from G-d at Mount Sinai.
Christians follow the teaching of Jesus, quoted in the Gospels, augmented by the teaching of St. Paul, quoted in his Epistles.
Hindus, Jainites, and Moslem similarly follow the codes laid down in religious literature and teaching (e.g., the Koran).

The Divine Command Theory

Divine Command Theory is based on the idea that good actions are those that advance the will of G-d and immoralunethical actions go against the will of G-d.

The case against divine command theory:

There are many holy books and some of them have conflicting teachings
Can a multicultural, multi-denominational nation accept a faith-based morality?
Many moral problems are not addressed in scriptures.
Does G-d always equate with "good"?
The divine command theory is based on obedience and not on reason.

Is Morality a universal constant or is it relative?

Relativism means that there are no absolute, universal laws of morality; different people of different backgrounds, religions and other beliefs could hold different points of view on the same issue and both can be right.

Subjective relativism

The question becomes: "what is right for me?"

The case for subjective relativism:

Well-meaning and intelligent people can have opposite viewpoints about moral issues for perfectly good reasons.
Ethical debates can be quite heated and don't settle anything.

The case against subjective relativism:

With subjective relativism, there is no sharp line between right and wrong
Since everyone can decide what's right and wrong, there is no moral distinction between the actions of different people.
Subjective relativism and tolerance are different things.
Should we allow people to make deision based on something other than reason?

Cultural relativism

The question is what does our society call right and wrong?

A scenario - your best friend is at least 35 mph (the speed limit is 20). He hits a pedestrian. You are the only witness. His lawyer says that if you testify under oath that he was driving 20 mph, you will keep from jail. Do you lie or tell the truth?

90% of Norwegians would still tell the truth.
75% of Canadians and Americans would still the truth.
50% of Mexicans would tell the truth.
Only 10% of Yugoslavs would tell the truth.

The case for cultural relativism:

Different social contexts demand different moral guidelines.
It is arrogant for one society to judge another.
Morality is reflected in actual behavior.

The case against cultural relativism:

Just because two societies do have different views about right and wrong doesn't mean that they OUGHT to have different views.

Cultural relativism does not explain how an individual determines the moral guidelines of a particular society.

Cultural relativism does not do a good job of explaining how moral guideline evolve.

Cultural relativism provides no framework for reconciliation between cultures in conflict.

The existence of many acceptable cultural practices does not imply that any cultural practice would be acceptable

Societies do, in fact, share certain core values.

Cultural relative is only indirectly based on reason.

Kantianism

Kantianism - named for Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher (1724-1804).

Kant reasoned that the only unqualified good was good will, which is good in and of itself. Even if a person's best effort to do good causes some harm, the good will behind it is still good.

There is frequently a conflict between what we want to do and what we ought to do. The focus should be on what we ought to do. Our sense of what we ought to do is called dutifulness.

Immanuel Kant's moral philosophy can be defined in terms of his categorical imperative: "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should be a universal law." (An action that is not right for everyone is not right for anyone.)

Following this definition of morality, if I were to break a promise, would that be ethical or not?

The Categorical Imperative can be reformulated: "Act so that you always treat yourself and other people as ends in themselves and never only as a means."

Is it fair to hire employees who need to relocate for a job that will be relocated in a year?

Scenario - Carla is a single mother who is working to complete her college degree while raising her daughter. She works fulltime and takes 2 classes each term at night. She is taking a class in European History that requires 4 papers, each of which requires a lot of work and in the first 3 she has eanred an "A." Because of required overtime, she doesn't have time to research and write the last paper. She finds on the Internet a paper on her topic. Is it ethical for her to submit it as her own work?

Case for Kantianism

Kantianism is rational
Kantianism produces universal moral guidelines
All People are treated as moral equals

Case against Kantianism

Sometimes no single rule fully characterizes an action
There is no way to resolve a conflicts between 2 or more rules
Kantianism allows no exceptions to moral laws.

The guiding principle of utilitarianism - An action is right to the extent tht it increases the total happiness of the affected parties.

Act Utilitarianism

Act Utilitarianism judges an action to be good if its net effect is to produce more happiness than misery.

Scenario - imagine that a city builds a straight length of highway to replace one that has a lot of curves. Is building this replacement ethical?

Case for Act Utilitarianism

It focuses on happiness
It is down-to-earth
It is comprehensive

Case against Act Utilitarianism

When performed the utilitarian calculus, it is not clear where to draw the line, yet the line that we draw can change the outcome of our evaluation.
It is not practical to put so much energy into every moral decision.
Act utilitarianism ignores our innate sense of duty.
Act utilitarianism is susceptible to the problem of moral luck the moral worth of an action is beyond the control of the moral agent)?

Rule Utilitarianism

Rule Utilitarianism holds that we should develop ethical rules that, if followed, will lead to the biggest increase possible in world happiness.

Scenario - imagine that there is a worm on the Internet that to fix computer errors (or bug). Imagine that we write a computer virus of our own to design to fix the computer loopholes through which they enter. Is this ethical scenario, especially, when we consider computer viruses lawful, are they ethical?

Case for Rule Utilitarianism

Performing the utilitarian calculus is easier.
Not every moral decision requires the performing the utilitarian calculus.
Exceptional situation do not overthrow moral rules.
Rule utilitarianism solves the problem of moral luck.
It appeals to a wide cross section of society.

Case against Rule Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism forces us to use a single scale or measure to evaluate completely different kinds of scenarios.
Utilitarianism ignores the problem of an unjust distribution of good consequences.

Social Contract Theory

Social Contract Theory was based on the notion of a social contract between King and commoner.

Hobbes finds that a set of rules and a means of enforcing them is necessary to prevent our falling into the state of nature (social anarchy).

Rousseau believed in something similar, that is "noble savages" claiming land and thus creating the need to define a "general will", the common good of society reached through reason.

Scenario - Someone runs a video rental store and has constructed profiles of his /her customer's viewing habits. He then sells the list to Disney, who forwarded spam and mass mailings to his/her customers. Is this ethical?

Case for Social Contract Theory

It is stated using the languages of our inherent rights
It explains why rational people act out of self-interest in the absence of a common agreement.
It provides a clear, ethical analysis of some important moral issues regarding the relationship between people and government.

Case against Social Contract Theory

None of us signed the social contract.
Some actions can be characterized multiple ways.
Social contract theory does not explain how to solve a moral problem when the analysis reveals conflicting rights.
Social contract theory may be unjust to those people who are incapable of upholding their side of the contract.

Theory	Motivation	Criteria	Focus
Kantianism	Dutifulness	Rules	Individual
Act Utilitarianism	Consequence	Actions	Group
Rule Utilitarianism	Consequence/Duty	Rules	Group
Social Contract	Rights	Rules	Individual

Some scenarios:

A girl from a poor family goes to a nearby college's library to use the computer because their machines are faster than those in her school. When asked if she's a student at the college, she says "yes." As a result, she graduates high school with honors and gets into an Ivy League college. Did she do anything wrong? Did she get an unfair advantage over her classmate?
If only a baby or its mother will survive a difficult birth, whom do you save?
An organization creates a "black list" of ISPs from which a lot of spam originates, blocking legitimate users from sending e-mail to many of these ISPs' users. Did the organization do anything wrong?
A hacker breaks into your computer system and fixes a software bug that he finds. Are his actions overall ethical?

Michael J. Quinn, "Ethics for the Information Age", 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley, Boston, 2006, p. 53-95.

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