Morality and the Web

Jeroen van den Hoven

Professor Ethics and Technology

Delft University of Technology

Scientific Director

3TU.Ethics The Hague

The Web is an Epistemic Success Criteria for success of an epistemic practice (Goldman, Thagard, e.a.)

Speed How quick do you get an answer to your question

Power The capability of an epistemic practice to get you answers at all

Economy The cost of getting an answer

Fecundity The number of people the practice can involve and reach at one time

Reliability The ratio of true beliefs to the total number of beliefs acquired re the topic of

a question

Web

Connectivity Communication Interaction Coordination Transaction

ICT

Information Ubiquitous Pervasive Ambient Constitutive Confusing Value laden

ICT Constitutive Technology Not merely Enabling Constitutive

ICT Shapes practices, discourses, institutions

Confused

DemocracyTrustPrivacyPropertyCommunityPersonIntelligenceLifeDemocracyWorkHealthFriendship

IT: more confused

Electronic DemocracyE- TrustInformational PrivacyIntellectual PropertyCyber CommunityDigital PersonArtificial IntelligenceArtificial LifeDigital DemocracyTele WorkE- HealthNet Friendship

Conceptual Vacuum

“New Sort of Community”

“New Sort of Privacy”

“New sort of Trust”

“New sort of Friendship”

Conceptual Vacuum - Policy Vacuum & Design Vacuum

Value Laden Technology

Bias in Search Engines

Torah Compliant (kosher) Search Engine

The Formula that Killed Wallstreet   David X. Li's Gaussian copula function as first

published in 2000. Investors exploited it as a quick—and fatally flawed—way to assess risk.

Gamma

The all-powerful correlation parameter, which reduces correlation to a single constant..

Values Built into Systems Interfaces Infrastructures Algorithms Ontologies Code Protocols Integrity constraints Architectures Identity Management Systems Authorization Matrix Procedures Regulations Incentive structures Auction mechanisms Voting mechanism Monitoring and inspection Governance arrangements

Designer is a choice architect

Value Sensitive DesignETHICS AND TECHNOLOGY

ValuesNormsLawsIdeals

CodeArchitecturesinfrastructures

Information SystemsOntologiesStandardsartifacts

ExpressImplement

Evaluate,JustifyAudit

Responsibility

Privacy

Accountability

Agency

Autonomy

sustainability

Computers

Oiltankers

Airplanes

Reactors

Roads

Internet

Electricity Grids

Hospitals

The Web is also a bit of a Moral Success Emancipates Empowers Equalizes Enhances Accountability ………..

Some Moral Problems

Cyberbullying Trolls Happy slapping Anorexia glorification Cybersuicide (pacts) Violent computer games Child Pornograph and Pedophilia

Exculpiating redescriptions

Why did you do it? It was just…..no more than It was virtual…; it all seemed a bit unreal Because I could… It was private… It’s all new Everyone does it, no one told me it was wrong I don’t know I didn’t realize it caused so much grief I got further and further into it I became addicted

The Web and Moral Fog

Added to the conceptual confusion common to new IT (“is this a friend?” Is this “a community”?)

Moral Fog is created by the morally relevant features of the Web jointly

EVIL ONLINE, Dean Cocking & Jeroen van den Hoven, Wiley Blackwell, 2011

Morally relevant features of the Web Cascades (availability, information, reputation) Daily me, informational/moral homogeneity Physical Isolation Domestication of Wrongdoing Anomimity; feeling of anonymity, hiding in the crowd Virtuality Blurred public private boundaries and blurred boundaries of social

spheres; unclear jurisdiction Interpretative flexibility; problem of relevant descriptions Voluntariness of self-presentation; involuntariness in off-line

emotional responses and reactive attitudes is morally significant; reliable signals of moral motivation

Moral Fog

Banality of Moral Wrongdoing Wrongdoing is close, common Wrongdoers exploit ambiguity; Problem of relevant description

Situationism in Ethics

Ethical behaviour to large extent dependent on situational and contextual factors

Milgram Zimbardo Trolley-research

Ethics & Design

We design Large Socio Technical Systems (e.g. SNS)

We make moral mistakes in design; e.g. financial world, safety culture in oil industry.

Ethics is in an important sense situational Moral development, education, guidance and

character formation massively situated in Social Media Environments

We have to (think about) design for moral development and flourishing on the Web