Introduction to Ethics

Ethics for the information age

Michael J Quinn

Adapted from Quinn

Chapter 2
 The Ethical Point of View
 Communities
• Better lives than isolation
• Rule
- Prohibit & obligatory certain actions
- not following- punishments
 Everybody shares “core values” (face to face or virtually), such as:
• Life
• Happiness
• Ability to accomplish goals
 Society: It is an association of people organized under rules
that designed to advance the good for people over time.
 The Ethical Point of View
 Two ways to view world

• Selfish point of view: consider only yourself (own self) and ignore all
other core values
• Ethical point of view: consider other people core values and respect
their values

• Taking Ethical point of view- still may disagree over what is the proper
course of action to take in a particular situation.
 Defining Terms
 Morality
- A set of rules for society about what people (can do / cannot do)
in different situations.

- A set of rules for right conduct, a system used to modify and

regulate our behavior.

- moral values are generally shared values in a society, the degree

of sharing these values varies greatly.
 Defining Terms
 Morality: A set of rules for society about what people (can do /
cannot do) in different situations.
a set of rules for right conduct, a system used to modify and
regulate our behavior. It is a quality system in human acts by which
we judge them right or
wrong, good or bad.
 Ethics: It is a philosophical study (guidelines) of morality. It is an
evaluation of people’s behavior. It is wider than morality, it
includes:
 The higher- level activities evaluating moral problems.
 The creation of new ways of evaluating moral problems.
 Why Study Ethics?
1. Not everyone can do what they want to do.
2. Ethics: A way to decide the best thing to do
3. New problems accompany new technologies, such as:
• Email and spam
• Websites and pop-up ads
• Cyber attacks
• Social engineering
• Online fraud, etc.
4. Common wisdom is not always enough.
5. Common wisdom may not exist for the new technologies.
 Defining Terms
 Relativism Theory
No universal standards of right and wrong
E.g. one person can say “X is right,” another can say “X is wrong,”
and both can be right.
• Subjective relativism
Each person decides right and wrong for himself or herself.
“What’s right for you may not be right for me”.
 Case for Subjective Relativism
1- Well-meaning and intelligent people may have opposite opinions
about moral issues.
For example: Abortion in US.
• We don’t have to try to bring together the opposing views.

2- Ethical debates are disagreeable and pointless.

• Takes time on debates (more than 30 years-abortion –in US).
• May never reach to agreement
• If morality is relative, we do not have to try to reconcile
opposing views. Both sides are right
 Case Against Subjective Relativism
1- The line is not sharply drawn between what you think is right
and doing what you want to do.
- Provides an ideal space for justifying /rationalizing behaviour
- Questioning relativist: “ Who are you to tell me what I should
and should not do?”
 Case Against Subjective Relativism
2- Allowing each person to decide right and wrong for himself or herself,
subjective relativism makes no moral distinction between the actions of
different people
E.g. Adolf Hitler versus Mother Teresa
 Modification of the original formulation of subjective relativism
- I can decide what’s right for me, as long as my actions don’t hurt anybody else.
Need-agreement – defining “What it means to harm someone”- depends on others
- it is inconsistent with subjective relativism

3- We should not give legitimacy to an ethical theory that allows people to

make decisions based on something other than reason.
 Defining Terms
• Cultural Relativism
Ethical theory that the meaning of “right” and “wrong” rests with a society’s actual moral
guidelines. These guidelines vary from place to place and from time to time.
Cultural Relativism
• What is “right” and “wrong” depends on a society’s moral
guidelines. These guidelines vary from place to place and from
time to time.
• An action may be right in one society and wrong in other society.
• An action may be right at one time and wrong at another time.
• An action may be right in one society at one time and wrong in
other society or at another time.
• For example: Driving car with a friend and killing a pedestrian
(90% in Norway, 10% in Serbia, 50% in Mexico will not testify)
Divine (God) Command Theory
Divine Command Theory: is that what makes something morally
right is that God commands it, and what makes something morally
wrong is that God forbids it.
Thus:
• Good actions: those aligned with God’s will
• Bad actions: those against to God’s will
• Holy books (Quran, Bible, etc.) reveal God’s will.
• We should consider holy books as moral decision-making guides.
Categorical Imperative (1st Formulation)
Act only from moral rules that you can and will to be universal
moral laws.

For example: Make promises to break them? If universalized, there

is no mean for making promises.
Categorical Imperative (2nd Formulation)
Act: so that you treat both yourself and other people as ends
(destinations) and never only as a means to an end (just in the
way).

• Don’t “Use” people. “respect” them.

• This is usually an easier formulation to workwith than the first
formulation of theCategorical Imperative.
Plagiarism Scenario
Carla
• Single mother, works full time
• Takes two evening courses/semester
• She has a child and need some time to care about
History class
• Requires more work than normal
• Carla earning an “A” on all work so far
• Carla doesn’t have time to write final report
• Carla purchases report and submits it as her own work !
Question:
Can Carla get credit (marks) for her plagairised report? Why?
Plagiarism Scenario : Evaluation1
• Carla wants credit for plagiarized report
• Rule: “You may claim credit for work performed by someone else
if and only if the rule universalized” (public rule)
• Students knowledge: would not be credible (plaigirised).
• Professor Knowledge: would not give credit (plaigirised).

Conclusion:
It is wrong for Carla to turn in a purchased report (plaigirised).
Plagiarism Scenario : Evaluation2
• Carla submitted another person’s work as her own
• She attempted to deceive (retrayed) professor
• She treated professor as a means to an end
 End: passing the course
 Means: professor issues grade

Conclusion:
What Carla did was wrong, even she passed the course.
Principle of Utility (Greatest Happiness Principle)
An action is right (or wrong) to the extent that it increases (or
decreases) the total happiness of the affected parties.

Total sum of pleasure = It can be Negative or Positive

Question:
Why it can be any of both?
Highway Routing Scenario

• State in the US may replace a curvy stretch of highway into

straight one, which save ($39 million) in automobile driving
• New highway segment 1 mile shorter (cost $10 million)
• 150 houses would have to be removed (cost $20 million)
• Some wildlife habitat would be destroyed (cost $1 million)

Question:
What do you think building street is a good or bad action? Why?
Highway Routing Scenario : Evaluation
Costs Details
• $20 million to compensate homeowners
• $10 million to construct new highway
• Lost wildlife habitat worth $1 million
Benefits
• $39 million savings in automobile driving
Conclusion
• If benefits exceed costs, thus the building highway a good action
• Note that if costs exceed benefits, in this case the highway is a
bad action.
Rule Utilitarianism (Beneficiary rule)
We must adopt moral rules which followed by everyone, that will
lead to the greatest increase in total happiness

Act utilitarianism applies Principle of Utility to individual actions

Rule utilitarianism applies Principle of Utility to moral rules
Anti-Worm Scenario
• August 2003: Blaster worm infected thousands of Windows
computers
• Soon after, Nachi worm appeared
 Took control of vulnerable computer
 Located and destroyed copies of Blaster
 Downloaded software patch to fix security problem
 Used computer as launching base to try to “infect” other vulnerable PCs
(bad action).
Question:
If you can, would you create and release anti-worm application?
Anti-Worm Scenario : Evaluation
• Proposed rule: If I can write a helpful worm that removes a harmful worm
from infected computers and shields them from future attacks, I should do
so.
• Who would benefit : Little number of people who do NOT keep their
systems updated
• Who would be harmed :More people who (use networks, make bugs to
data or programs, and System administrators)

• Conclusion: Harm more over benefits, thus releasing anti-worm is

bad (wrong) action.
Kinds of Rights
1. Negative right: A right that another can guarantee by leaving you
alone, such as: Free expression.
2. Positive right: A right obligating others to do something on your
behalf, such as: Free education
3. Absolute right: A right guaranteed without exception, such as:
Right for life.
4. Limited right: A right that may be restricted based on the
circumstances, such as: in US, free education limited to 12th
grade because of under budgeting.
Social Contract Theory
Created by Thomas Hobbes
• It is “State of nature”.
• We implicitly accept a social contract to:
 Establish moral rules to govern relations among citizens
 Government capable of enforcing these rules

Created by Jean-Jacques RousseauIn

 Ideal society, no one above rules
 That prevents society from enacting bad rules
DVD Rental Scenario (using Social Contract Theory)
• Bill owns chain of DVD rental stores
• Collects information about rentals from customers
• Constructs profiles of customers
• Sells profiles to direct marketing firms
• Some customers happy to receive more mail order catalogs;
others unhappy at increase in “junk mail”

Question:
Is Bill right or wrong to sell the information?
DVD Rental Scenario : Evaluation
• Consider rights of Bill, customers, and mail order companies.
• Does customer have right to expect name, address to be kept
confidential? Privacy right.
• If customer rents DVD from Bill, who owns information about
transaction?
• If Bill and customer have equal rights to information, Bill did
nothing wrong to sell information.
• If customers have right to expect name and address or transaction
to be confidential without giving permission, then Bill was wrong
to sell information without asking for permission.
Facebook Social Media (using Social Contract Theory)
• American online social media and social networking service owned by Meta
Platforms.
• Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg
• In 2020, it made S86 billion (revenue) and $30 billion (net income) (Statista
Website).
• In 2020, Advertising represents 98% of FaceBook income.
• Users create accounts, visit some ads, then more ads are come in front of
you. It means selling your information.
Question:
Is FaceBook right or wrong to sell the information?
Remember the 3 parties (Users, Product Companies, FaceBook)
Any Questions?