Utilitarian and Deontological Responses

(A) Are there significant differences between the utilitarian and deontological responses or judgments regarding possible uses of SNSs (including no use at all)?

For example, you may find that deontologists, as concerned with privacy and IP rights, as well as insisting that human freedom must not be eliminated through commodification processes, would weigh in more on the side of moderate to no use of SNSs. Utilitarians, by contrast, might well argue more in favor of moderate use to a full embrace of SNSs.

(B) If there are differences, which responses come closer to your own current use and ethical sensibilities? That is, do you find your uses and ethical judgments agreeing more with the utilitarians or more with the deontologists?

(C) Either way, can you provide arguments, evidence, and/or some

other form of warrant that would argue in favor of your taking up either the utilitarian or the deontological approach here?

(D) Keep in mind that these preferences tend to be strongly shaped by our national and cultural backgrounds – for instance, with utilitarianism tending to be stronger in English-speaking countries, while deontologies, for example, tend to be stronger in especially Northern European countries. In this light, do your preferences for either utilitarianism or deontology “line up” with your national/cultural background?If so, do you have additional arguments, evidence, and/or some other form of warrant that would suggest that your preferences are not simply the result of your background and enculturation? If not, can you point to specific experiences, arguments, etc., that have encouraged you to take up an ethical framework perhaps somewhat at odds with those prevailing in your country/culture of origin?

Friendship online: Additional considerations As discussed more fully in chapter 6, virtue ethics provides a third framework for analyzing and resolving ethical issues. For many reasons, virtue ethics has become increasingly significant in the digital age. To begin with, as the above exercise may suggest, neither utilitarianism nor deontology alone may always “work” to help us resolve some of the ethical issues occasioned by digital technologies and networked communications. For example, both utilitarianism and deontology tend to emphasize the ethical responsibilities of human beings understood as primarily individual moral agents. But, as we have seen, our sense of selfhood in “Western” societies appears to be shifting from more individual emphases toward more relational emphases – and thereby toward more relational forms of shared or group privacy, as well as the distributed responsibility explored above. In both its ancient and contemporary forms, virtue ethics begins precisely with the view that human beings are also such relational or social beings, not solely individual ones. Hence, virtue ethics is especially well suited to serve as an ethical framework in the (post-)digital age, insofar as digital media and networked communications incline us in more sociable or relational directions. So we will see in chapter 5, for example, that virtue ethics approaches become increasingly useful in our efforts to respond to some of the ethical challenges clustering about sexually explicit materials (SEMs) online and violence in games, as well as robots and sexbots. And in chapter 6, we will further see how virtue ethics has become central to both European and international efforts to define an “ethically aligned design” for Artificial and Intelligent Systems – that is, by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), the largest professional and standards-setting organization in the world (https://ethicsinaction.ieee.org).

In fact, virtue ethics emerged early on as a primary approach to the ethics of friendship online. This is perhaps not surprising: recall the guiding questions of virtue ethics – namely, what capacities or habits must I acquire, practice, and develop with excellence in order to enjoy a life of contentment (or happiness – eudaimonia)? Again, for both ancient and contemporary virtue ethicists, such a life is always a relational or social one: hence, our sense of contentment or well-being (eudaimonia) is inevitably interdependent upon our relationships with others. Friendship is among the most important of such relationships: it is difficult to imagine a good life of flourishing and contentment without it, and so friendship is a primary focus of virtue ethics.

In these directions, Vallor has carefully examined how far SNSs may foster and/or hinder the capacities and habits (virtues) required for developing and sustaining deep friendships. The question then becomes: how far do our engagements with SNSs incline us to acquire and foster the virtues required for friendship – and how far might the very designs of SNSs instead discourage our acquiring and fostering these virtues?

Vallor focuses on the virtues of patience, perseverance, and empathy as requirements for deep, long-term friendships – as well as long-term intimate relationships, and, indeed, communication itself. We once learned these virtues in non-digital settings – say, a visit to an elderly relative when we were young. With no possibility of escape, we gradually learned how to engage with such Others, beginning with simple conversation. Such engagements require, and thus cultivate, precisely the virtues of patience and perseverance. These capacities are essential to sustaining most human projects, including those of close relationships:

In communication, perseverance manifests the willingness to push through conflict or misunderstanding to reconnect with one’s partner on the other side of the breach. But to be effective in maintaining the intimacy of the communication, such perseverance must be coupled with patience, the habit of “riding out” moments of irritation, boredom, or incomprehension rather than tuning out or abruptly changing the subject in an attempt to force the conversation into a more satisfactory state. Indeed, the richest joys of communication often come from being patient enough to actually grasp what is being said, to finally get the joke, or to hear a challenging truth.