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Morality and the Web

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

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Morality and the Web

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  1. Morality and the Web Jeroen van den Hoven Professor Ethics and Technology Delft University of Technology Scientific Director 3TU.Ethics The Hague

  2. 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

  3. Web • Connectivity • Communication • Interaction • Coordination • Transaction

  4. ICT • Information • Ubiquitous • Pervasive • Ambient • Constitutive • Confusing • Value laden

  5. ICT Constitutive Technology • Not merely Enabling • Constitutive • ICT Shapes practices, discourses, institutions

  6. Confused Democracy Trust Privacy Property Community Person Intelligence Life Democracy Work Health Friendship

  7. IT: more confused Electronic DemocracyE- TrustInformational PrivacyIntellectual PropertyCyber CommunityDigital PersonArtificial IntelligenceArtificial LifeDigital DemocracyTele WorkE- HealthNet Friendship

  8. Conceptual Vacuum “New Sort of Community” “New Sort of Privacy” “New sort of Trust” “New sort of Friendship” Conceptual Vacuum - Policy Vacuum & Design Vacuum

  9. Value Laden Technology

  10. Bias in Search Engines

  11. Torah Compliant (kosher) Search Engine

  12. 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..

  13. 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

  14. Designer is a choice architect

  15. Value Sensitive DesignETHICS AND TECHNOLOGY Express Implement Responsibility Privacy Accountability Agency Autonomy sustainability Computers Oiltankers Airplanes Reactors Roads Internet Electricity Grids Hospitals Values Norms Laws Ideals Code Architectures infrastructures Information Systems Ontologies Standards artifacts Evaluate,Justify Audit

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

  17. Some Moral Problems • Cyberbullying • Trolls • Happy slapping • Anorexia glorification • Cybersuicide (pacts) • Violent computer games • Child Pornograph and Pedophilia

  18. 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

  19. 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

  20. 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

  21. Moral Fog • Banality of Moral Wrongdoing • Wrongdoing is close, common • Wrongdoers exploit ambiguity; • Problem of relevant description

  22. Situationism in Ethics • Ethical behaviour to large extent dependent on situational and contextual factors • Milgram • Zimbardo • Trolley-research

  23. 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

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