Ethical Analysis: Applying Ethical Theories to Technology-Related Issues - Prof. Phillip W, Quizzes of Computer Science

Download Ethical Analysis: Applying Ethical Theories to Technology-Related Issues - Prof. Phillip W and more Quizzes Computer Science in PDF only on Docsity! ECS 188: Ethics in an Age of Technology UC Davis — Earl Barr April 12, 2006 1 Rights Quick’n Dirty Ethical Analysis Howto Earl Barr This howto outlines how to analyze the morality of an action under each of the schools of ethical thought that we have studied in this course. Regarding English usage, William Strunk Jr. said It is an old observation that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation. Unless he is certain of doing as well, he will probably do best to follow the rules. After he has learned, by their guidance, to write plain English adequate for everyday uses, let him look, for the secrets of style, to the study of the masters of literature [6]. This observation is also true of ethical analysis. You will not find John Stuart Mill making utilitarian analyses in the form presented here. What you will find is a clear, concise, if slightly schematised presentation of each school’s approach to ethical analyzes which, once you have mastered them, you are free to discard. My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. Ludwig Wittgenstien, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [7]. 1 Rights Definition 1.1. A right is a justified claim or the moral property of humans. Definition 1.2. A negative right imposes a constraint on the actions of others. Definition 1.3. A positive right imposes a duty to act upon others. For some action X under consideration, 1. Identify the right or rights that are relevant to X. 2. Where it’s not obvious, make clear whether the rights you’re using are positive or negative. 3. Argue that your rights are in fact rights. There are two ways: argue that your right is a natural right or that it is derived from the social contract: (a) Natural It’s extremely hard to argue that a right is a natural right. Prominent philosophers struggle with this problem, and often end up simply assuming a right to be natural. In this class, you should only assert a right is a natural right if you can cite a prominent philosopher who agrees. (b) Social contract Rights derived from a social contract can be teased out of the common denominator of rights asserted and claimed by peoples and cultures throughout history. The Kairys reading quotes the US Supreme Court making this sort of argument for the right to freedom of speech [4, p144]. 1 ECS 188: Ethics in an Age of Technology UC Davis — Earl Barr April 12, 2006 1.1 Example The right to privacy is an example of a difficult right to assert, since it has not been asserted or even mentioned much throughout history. Indeed, one could argue that people in many societies had little or no privacy historically. You could, of course, argue that privacy is a right to the extent to which it is linked to the right to freedom. One way to argue that a right is based in the social contract is to appeal to attempts to codify an existing social contract, such as The Constitution of the United States, The Universal Declaration of Human Right of the United Nations, The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, etc. The trouble with these documents is that they’re relatively recent and assert some rights that have not been historically asserted. This calls into question whether these rights are really fundamental and begs the question: why now and not before? 4. Use your rights to analyze X. X is immoral if your analysis shows that it violates one or more rights. 1.1 Example Is the Great Firewall of China (GFC) moral? The implicit action is whether the government of China should filter and control Internet traffic using the GFC. Two relevant rights are freedom of speech and the right to public safety, which is an easy derivation from the negative right to life. The GFC appears to balance these two rights against each other. However, their opposition is only apparent: there is no reason to suppose that freedom of speech will undermine public safety. In fact, freedom may reduce social tensions and decrease the probability of endangering public safety. Thus, the GFC is immoral because it violates humanity’s right to free speech. Note this argument is meant to be illustrative, not decisive. 2 Consequentialism “Rearing the fabric of felicity can be a bloody business,” Onora O’Neill [5, p342]. In this class, we are concerned with that form of consequentialism known as hedonistic utilitarianism, whose principle is “Act so as to maximize happiness.” For some action X under consideration, 1. Identify the stakeholders; 2. Analyze the happiness that each would gain or lose under X; and 3. Make an argument, in light of #2, about the aggregate happiness that will ensue under X. X is moral if you have shown that executing it maximizes happiness. Note that “happiness” is central to hedonistic utilitarianism, so it must appear in your analysis, or you must clearly state that you are using another form of consequentialism and define its utility principle, especially what that principle seeks to maximize. 2 ECS 188: Ethics in an Age of Technology UC Davis — Earl Barr April 12, 2006 3.2 Second Form 3. something that, while it may have appeared possible, turns out to have been impossible for contingent reasons1. Kant calls a maxim that creates a state of affairs in which the maxim itself becomes meaningless “self-defeating”. Kant’s example of such a maxim is of borrowing money secured with a lying promise to repay, which Kant asserts would, if it became a universal law, render promises meaningless and thus the maxim as well. Such self-defeating maxims are an instance of attempting to will the impossible. If a GM can be consistently willed, it is universalizable and, by the catgorical imperiative, morally sound. 3.1.2 Relevant Maxims Feldman leveled two critiques of Kant’s first formulation of his categorical imperiative: scoping such that a generalized maxims is, in effect, no longer general and the problem the first form of the categorical imperiative classifies as immoral some routine actions that intuitively appear to have no moral content. First, I can identify scoping tricks and will not accept maxims that employ them as valid. Likewise, we will avoid the second problem by only considering maxims with moral import. This will not always be easy to do: in this case, our analysis must expand to consider the question of whether or not a maxim has moral import, before applying the categorical imperiative. In other words, we will resort to the dialectic to find morally relevant maxims. 3.1.3 Example Suppose I want to release a good worm that removes other worms and patches known holes in the systems it infects. Generalize to GM: “Whenever anyone wants to remove worms and patch systems, that person should release a good worm that performs these tasks.” Can GM be a universal law? No, GM is “self-defeating” since there can be no such thing as a “good worm”, since worms propograte without control and violate the properties rights of others. What if I reformulate the generalized maxim as GM’ as “Whenever anyone wants to remove worms and patch systems, that person should release a worm that performs these tasks.” GM’ is not impossible, nor does it require will two opposed actions at the same time. However, if we agree with Locke that property rights are natural, then we can argue that GM’ fails the second will test since it requires us to will the opposite — the violation of property rights — that everyone must will. This preliminary deontological analysis implies that our action fails to universalize. We could continue to explore the morality of good worms by deriving other maxims for the action, but we will simply stop here. References: Feldman’s Kantian Ethics. 3.2 Second Form “Never treat another human being merely as a means but always as an end.” Note the merely. This is the escape hatch for employers. In other words, it’s OK to use someone as means, just not merely or solely as means! 1Feldman’s example is willing to be in Boston on Monday and San Fransicso on Tuesday, which because of foul-ups at the airport, turns out to have been impossible. 5 ECS 188: Ethics in an Age of Technology UC Davis — Earl Barr April 12, 2006 4 Pojman’s Moral Objectivism 3.2.1 Analysis For some action X under consideration, 1. Derive the X’s maxim. 2. Justice Reject maxims that use others as mere means; 3. Beneficience Act on those maxims that treat others as ends in themselves. Maxims that pass both tests are moral. We use others as mere means if what we do reflects some maxim to which they could not in principle consent. For example, consider a false promise. The person lied to must be deceived, or the false promise is no longer a false promise. If deceived, there is no way in which that person can truly consent. In general, maxims that depend on deception, violence, or coercion are out. Problem of power imbalance: maxims that would be just between equals may be coercive when the relative power of the parties is asymmetric. The weaker party to any arrangment must have a genuine option to refuse the fundamental character of proposal [5, p338]. Justice is a perfect duty: we must obey it at all times. Every cooperative scheme of action (such as employee/employer) uses others as means, but not necessarily as mere means. Humans are finite rational beings: 1. We have only a partial list of available actions and of those actions we perceive, we have a partial view of their likely consequences. 2. We have limited autonomy: physical barriers as well as mutual and/or asymmetric dependence. Given these constraints, treating others as ends means that we base our actions on maxims that sustain and extend one other’s capacities for autonomous action. For example, hunger, great poverty, and powerlessness undercut the possiblity of autonomous action, so Kantian must act in accordance with maxims that act to end these evils. Beneficience is an imperfect duty: we cannot share or even support all of other’s maxims all the time. Reference: Onora O’Neill’s “Kant’s Formula of the End in Itself and World Hunger” 4 Pojman’s Moral Objectivism Similar to rights. For some action X under consideration, 1. Identify the relevant moral principles you will use. 6 ECS 188: Ethics in an Age of Technology UC Davis — Earl Barr April 12, 2006 5 Virtue 2. Argue that your principles are objective moral values by showing how they meet the needs and promote the most significant interests of persons. 3. Use the principles you have identified to analyze X. Actions that violate one or more objective moral principles are immoral. Example: See the rights example above. 5 Virtue For some action X under consideration, there are two approaches 1. Be like a person who has faced a similar situation well. (a) Find a saint or virtuous person who confronted a similar situation Y. (b) Show that X and Y are similar. (c) Exhort your audience to follow the saint’s example. If a virtuous person would not perform X, it is not morally sound. 2. (a) List the vices and virtues related to the action. (b) Analyze X in terms of these vices and virtues. (c) X is sound if it maximizes the virtue and minimizes the vice of the actor contemplating X. References [1] Standford encyclopedia of philosophy. [2] Fred Feldman. Ethical Theory Classical and Contemporary Readings, chapter Kantian Ethics, pages 323–334. 3rd edition, 1998. [3] Deborah Johnson. Computer Ethics. 3rd edition, 2001. [4] David Kairys. The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique, chapter Freedom of Speech, pages 140–171. 1982. [5] Onora O’Neill. Ethical Theory Classical and Contemporary Readings, chapter Kant’s Formula of the End in Itself and World Hunger, pages 335–345. 3rd edition, 1998. fix year. [6] William Strunk. Elements of Style. Bartleby.com, 1995. [7] Lugwig Wittgenstein. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1922. 7