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
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Criteria for success of an epistemic practice
(Goldman, Thagard, e.a.)
Speed
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Power
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The cost of getting an answer
Fecundity
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The capability of an epistemic practice to get you answers at all
Economy
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How quick do you get an answer to your question
The number of people the practice can involve and reach at one time
Reliability
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The ratio of true beliefs to the total number of beliefs acquired re the topic of
a question
Web
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Connectivity
Communication
Interaction
Coordination
Transaction
ICT
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Information
Ubiquitous
Pervasive
Ambient
Constitutive
Confusing
Value laden
ICT Constitutive Technology
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Not merely Enabling
Constitutive
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ICT Shapes practices, discourses, institutions
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Confused
Democracy
Trust
Privacy
Property
Community
Person
Intelligence
Life
Democracy
Work
Health
Friendship
IT: more confused
Electronic
EInformational
Intellectual
Cyber
Digital
Artificial
Artificial
Digital
Tele
ENet
Democracy
Trust
Privacy
Property
Community
Person
Intelligence
Life
Democracy
Work
Health
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
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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.
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Gamma
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The all-powerful correlation parameter, which
reduces correlation to a single constant..
Values Built into Systems
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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 Design
ETHICS AND TECHNOLOGY
Responsibility
Computers
Express
Implement
Privacy
Accountability
Oiltankers
Airplanes
Agency
Autonomy
sustainability
Reactors
Values
Norms
Laws
Ideals
Code
Architectures
infrastructures
Roads
Internet
Information Systems Electricity
Grids
Ontologies
Evaluate,Justify
Audit
Standards
artifacts
Hospitals
The Web is also a bit of a Moral
Success
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Emancipates
Empowers
Equalizes
Enhances Accountability
………..
Some Moral Problems
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Cyberbullying
Trolls
Happy slapping
Anorexia glorification
Cybersuicide (pacts)
Violent computer games
Child Pornograph and Pedophilia
Exculpiating redescriptions
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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
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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
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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
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Banality of Moral Wrongdoing
Wrongdoing is close, common
Wrongdoers exploit ambiguity;
Problem of relevant description
Situationism in Ethics
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Ethical behaviour to large extent dependent
on situational and contextual factors
Milgram
Zimbardo
Trolley-research
Ethics & Design
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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