Module 1

Question 1

What is Information Ethics?

Answer 1

Information Ethics is a branch of applied ethics that studies and analyzes the social and ethical impacts of information and communication technology (ICT).

Question 2

Good things to have come from the development of the Internet

Answer 2

Exercise our freedom of speech
Connect and stay connected with friends and family
Make new connections
Made life more convenient

Question 3

Bad things to have come from the development of the Internet

Answer 3

Negativity lives in this medium. Racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, violent thoughts, etc.

Question 4

Three areas that we are going to consider in this module are:

Answer 4

Ethical issues, cyber governance, and public policy.

Question 5

What is technological realism?

Answer 5

The capacity of free and responsible human beings to exercise some control over the forces of technology.

Question 6

What are the four constraints that regulate our behavior in real space?

Answer 6

Law
Social Norms
The Market
Architecture

Question 7

What are laws?

Answer 7

Laws are rules imposed by the government that are enforced through ex post sanctions.

Question 8

What are norms and how do they regulate behavior?

Answer 8

Norms - social norms- are expressions of the community.

Question 9

How does the market regulate our behavior?

Answer 9

The market regulates our behavior through the price it sets for good and services or for labor.

Question 10

How does Architecture regulate our behavior?

Answer 10

by “architecture” Spinello is referring to the many kinds of physical constraints placed on our behavior. Some of these are natural, like mountains and rivers, and others are man-made, like buildings and bridges.

Question 11

What is Software code?

Answer 11

Code is the program/s (the protocol) that make up the Internet. Code consists in a set of instructions. As such, code maintains a certain amount of control and constraint on our activities.

Question 12

What does it mean to say that ethical principles are prescriptive?

Answer 12

Ethical principles that make claims about how we ought to behave are prescriptive.

Question 13

What does it mean to say that ethical principles are descriptive?

Answer 13

Ethical principles that simply describe human nature are descriptive.

Question 14

What is ethical egoism?

Answer 14

Ethical egoism tells us how we ought to live our lives, specifically, it says that each person ought to pursue his/her own self-interest.
Ethical egoism is prescriptive.

Question 15

What is Psychological Egoism?

Answer 15

Psychological Egoism is not a normative ethical theory. It asserts that each person does in fact pursue his/her own self-interest alone.
Psychological Egoism is descriptive.

Question 16

Teleological Theories

Answer 16

In Greek, the word “tele” means end or goal. The idea here is that the rightness/wrongness of an action depends on whether it brings about the end in question, e.g., virtue, happiness, courage, etc.

Question 17

Deontological Theories

Answer 17

In Greek, the word “deon” means duty. The idea here is that duty and obligation rank as the most important; actions are either intrinsically right or wrong. Their rightness or wrongness does not depend in any way on the consequences that they effect.

Question 18

Utilitarianism - Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill

Answer 18

According to them, morality is simply an attempt to bring as much happiness into the world as possible.

Question 19

The Principle of Utility - Bentham

The Greatest Happiness Principle - Mill

Answer 19

States that whenever we have a choice between alternative actions (including social policies), we must choose the one that has the best overall consequences for everyone concerned.

States that the ultimate end is an existence exempt and as free as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments. The rule then is to act as to bring about the greatest happiness to the greatest number.

Question 20

What is Fecundity?

Answer 20

Fecundity is the tendency of an action to continue to produce sensations of the same kind that it produced during its performance even after the action has been completed.

Question 21

What is impurity?

Answer 21

Impurity is the tendency of an action to produce the opposite kind of sensation upon completion.

Question 22

What is the Calculus of Felicity?

Answer 22

The chart where you calculate which decision is better to make. Either for your own happiness, or for the greatest good for the greatest number.

Question 23

According to Mill, how can we assess the quality of pleasure? And relatedly, among two pleasures, how do we decide which one is more valuable than the other?

Answer 23

Answer: the Competent Judge Test

Question 24

What is the Competent Judge Test?

Answer 24

According to Mill: if we want to know which of two pleasures is better, we need to find people that are “competently acquainted with” both and ask their opinion.

Question 25

What does Mill mean when he mentions a person's "higher faculties"?

Answer 25

He means things like their intelligence, or their well-developed aesthetic sense.

Question 26

According to Mill: when we take the quality of our pleasure into consideration, does the decision rest in our hands?

Answer 26

The answer is no.

Question 27

Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan

Answer 27

Talks about the State of Nature - referring to what the world would be like if humans were able to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. State of Nature is what the human condition outside of organized society or civilization would be like.

Question 28

What is the social contract?

Answer 28

The social contract is an agreement between individuals outside of the organized civil society that stipulates fundamental principles of their association including their rights and duties. Rights are one side of a quid pro quo - we are guaranteed certain rights (e.g., life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) as long as we obey the laws and regulations of civil society. This contract is not real but hypothetical.

Question 29

A Theory of Justice - John Rawls

Answer 29

Rawls' Veil of Ignorance Choose principles of justice as though you don't know your interest group (race, gender, income, age, health, etc.) and conception of the good (religious, moral, and lifestyle preferences). Behind the veil, all individuals are specified as rational, free, and morally equal beings.

Question 30

According to Rawls:

Answer 30

Fair principles will provide for the highest minimum standards of justice in this society.

Question 31

Chapter 1: Section 3, "The Main Idea of the Theory of Justice"

Answer 31

He intends to carry, "to a higher level of abstraction," a conception of justice found in the social contract. Rawls wants to set up principles of justice for choosing among governments. The guiding idea is that the principles of justice for the basic structure of society are the object of the original agreement.

Question 32

Thomas Hobbes' Four Basic Facts About the Human Condition:

Answer 32

1. Equality of need. We all need the same basic things to survive: food, clothing, shelter. Although some differences could be listed among basic necessities, e.g., insulin shots for diabetics, essentially our needs are similar. 2. Scarcity 3. Essential Equality of Human Power 4. Limited Altruism

Question 33

Chapter 1: Section 4, "The Original Position and Justification"

Answer 33

Conditions for Principles of Justice: 1. No one should be advantaged or disadvantaged by natural fortune or social circumstances. 2. No one should tailor principles to fit his/her own case. 3. No one should know of their situation, i.e., his/her gender, race, social status, etc. 4. All parties are equal, free, and able to advance.

Question 34

Rawls offers two related ways to go about justifying these conditions:

Answer 34

1. We should make sure that these conditions are widely accepted, or as he says, we should use the "broad measures of agreement" to derive results from them. 2. We should see if the conclusions derived, match well-founded opinions in specific cases.

Question 35

Reflective Equilibrium and Wide Reflective Equilibrium

Answer 35

Reflective Equilibrium: when our principles and judgements coincide; it is reflective since we know to what principles our judgements conform and the premises of their derivation. Simply put: our general rules and principles are justified by bringing them into coherence with our particular moral judgements through a process of mutual adjustment. A) Particular moral judgements: consist in moral judgements about particular cases. E.g., it is wrong to pay women less than men. It is right to protest an illegal, immoral war. B) General rules & principles: these are the rules and principles all of us (or almost all of us) learn and absorb at early stages of our lives. E.g., don't steal, help others, share, etc.

Question 36

Background Beliefs and Theories

Answer 36

Philosophical, scientific, social scientific, and any other relevant beliefs and/or theories that might figure into moral arguments, For instance, beliefs about the nature of persons; the nature of the world as revealed by science and metaphysics, human psychology, sociology, and political and economic behavior; the nature of non-human animals, and so on.

Question 37

Wide Reflective Equilibrium (WRE)

Answer 37

Particular moral judgements, general rules and principles, background beliefs and moral theories

Question 38

Moral Duty (Pluralism) Selection from Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant

Answer 38

Categorical Imperative: 1. Act only on that maxim whereby one can, at the same time will that it should become a universal law. 2. Always treat people as ends-in-themselves, never as a mere means to an end.

Question 39

What does it mean to say that something is "categorical"?

Answer 39

This simply means that there are no exceptions to this rule.

Question 40

What does it mean to say something is "imperative"?

Answer 40

This means that it is absolutely necessary, it is something that is required that you do, and cannot be avoided. (Despite its necessity, please note, this imperative is still prescriptive)

Question 41

Can your private maxim be universalised?

Answer 41

The answer is no.

Question 42

Perfect Duties and Imperfect Duties

Answer 42

Perfect Duty: a duty that we ought always follow like truth-telling and promise-keeping. Imperfect Duty: a duty that may be more individualized.

Question 43

How does Kant define a rational being?

Answer 43

"Everything in nature works according to laws. Rational beings alone have the faculty of acting according to the conception of laws, that is, according to principles, i.e., have a will"

Question 44

Hypothetical Imperatives and Categorical Imperatives

Answer 44

Hypothetical Imperatives: represent the practical necessity of a possible action as means to something else that is willed. Categorical Imperatives: if it is conceived as good in itself and consequently as being necessarily the principle of a will which of itself conforms to reason, then it is categorical.

Question 45

How does Kant define happiness?

Answer 45

"The means to one's own happiness...is always hypothetical; the action is not commanded absolutely, but only as a means to another purpose."

Question 46

What does a priori mean?

Answer 46

A priori literally means, that which comes before.

Question 47

What is Virtue Theory?

Answer 47

Virtue Theory: sees being a moral person as having certain traits of character; being kind, generous, courageous, just, prudent, and so on. Theories of obligation, on the other hand, emphasize impartial duty: they typically portray the moral agent as one who listens to reason, figures out the right thing to do, and does it.

Question 48

The Ethics of Virtue: Virtue and Happiness (Arete and Eudaimonia)

Answer 48

Arete = virtue (sometimes excellence) Eudaimonia = happiness

Question 49

Modern Theories and Definitions

Answer 49

Ethical Egoism: each person ought to do whatever will promote his/her own interests. Utilitarianism: we ought to do whatever will promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Kantian Ethics: our duty is to follow rules that we could consistently will to be universal laws. Social Contract Theory: the right thing to do is to follow the rules that rational, self-interested people can agree to establish for their mutual benefit.

Question 50

Greeks asked: what traits of characters make one a good person?

Answer 50

Modern Ethicists ask: what is the right thing to do? We can think of this in terms of: right action vs character

Question 51

A theory of virtue ought to include the following:

Answer 51

1. An explanation of what a virtue is. 2. A list of specifying which character traits are virtues. 3. An explanation of what these virtues consist in. 4. An explanation of why these qualities are good ones for a person to have. 5. It should tell us whether the virtues are the same for all people or whether they differ from person to person. 6. It should provide an explanation of how one acquires and maintains virtue.

Question 52

Virtues are the traits we seek out.

Answer 52

It is by repeatedly acting rightly that we not only acquire but also maintain the right kind of character.

Question 53

Virtus vs Maximus Virtus

Answer 53

Virtus: a trait of character, manifested in habitual action, that it is good for a person to have. Maximus Virtus: virtues that it is good for everyone to have.

Question 54

True or False: Courage is a mean between the extremes.

Answer 54

True.

Question 55

True or False: Excess or deficiency destroys them.

Answer 55

True.

Question 56

Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle Book 1

Answer 56

The good, "Chief Good" This, he says, is the "complete end," it is the goal we are searching for.

Question 57

Aristotle on Eudaimonia

Answer 57

He tells us that this is an activity. It is an activity of the soul, an activity in accordance with virtue.

Question 58

Virtues of Intellect vs Virtues of Character

Answer 58

Virtues of character include things we think of as moral virtues, e.g., courage, generosity, fair-mindedness, etc. It also includes such dispositions as self-respect and wit. Moral virtue of character is acquired by repetition of the corresponding acts. It is, he says, a result of habit. Virtues of intellect include such things as knowledge, good judgement, and practical wisdom. Intellectual Virtue owes both its birth and growth to teaching. We start by having a capacity for some virtue, but it has to be developed by practice. Virtues we get by first exercising them. Virtue of character, therefore, has to be produced by training and discipline. The effect of training is to convert what is indeterminate into fixed habit. Virtue of character is a fixed state produced by habituation. It is by repeatedly acting rightly that we acquire the right kind of character.