The Central Problem in Cyber Ethics and How Stories Can Be Used to Address It

The central problem in Cyber Ethics is: how do you establish ethical standards in a professional field that is defined by a rapidly evolving technology where the consequences of the technology and the impact of any ethical standards cannot be known in the time frame in which the standards must be established? Stories play a very important role in addressing this issue. This chapter explores the role of stories in Cyber Ethics. INTRODUCTION Several years ago, I was teaching an undergraduate computer literacy class and decided to liven things up a bit with a heated discussion on some current and relevant topic from the field of computer ethics. I thought I would start by asking if any of the students had “borrowed” software to do the homework assignments, 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200, Hershey PA 17033, USA Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com INFORMATION SCIENCE PUBLISHING This chapter appears in the book, Social, Ethical and Policy Implications of Information Technology, edited by Linda Brennan and Victoria Johnson. Copyright © 2004, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. The Central Problem in Cyber Ethics 275 Copyright © 2004, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. rather than go to the lab, and, if so, did that make them thieves? Or, I would ask if privacy on the Internet was really all that important. After all, doesn’t privacy restrict the free flow of information and hence represent a benign form of censorship? When I offered these ideas to the class I was confronted with the same intellectual lethargy that you get when presenting a topic which the students have already decided is irrelevant to their goals in life. I looked across the faces in the class with a combination of confusion and amazement. Personally, I think that discussions of this type can be intellectually stimulating and challenging. They involve complex issues, competing values, competing interests and often times important but razor thin distinctions. So, I asked the class why I had received such a lukewarm response to my suggestions. After the customary shuffling in their seats, avoidance of eye contact, and stalls that may allow somebody else to speak, a student offered the following insight—“Ethics are just a bunch of rules that tell you what not to do.” And therein lies a serious problem. Shortly after that, I was attending a conference at the Computer Ethics Institute in Washington, D.C. and had an opportunity to see the “Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics.” All 10 statements were stated in the negative. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t do the next thing. The student was right. Computer ethics really was just a bunch of rules that tell you what not to do. In fact, after reading over the “Ten Commandments,” I concluded that the most ethical thing I could do would be to get out of the computer field lest I transgress one of these daunting rules. How did computer ethics ever get into this dismal state? Certainly one of the reasons is that computer ethics (now Cyber Ethics) has been dominated by a collection of unchallenged claims prescribing ethical behavior, or at least behavior that is considered to be ethical by prominent voices in the field. We have all heard most of these claims: you must not copy software, you must not violate the privacy of individuals, you must not use computer technology to exploit workers, you must not allow society to evolve into technological haves and have-nots, etc., etc. And these values are often reinforced by empirical studies that show repeatedly that undergraduates, men and women and even professionals often come up short on ethical behavior (Kreie & Cronan, 1998, 2000; Prior, M. et al., 2002). The problem arises when you challenge one of these claims and ask—why is copying software unethical? Or why is it so important to protect privacy? The problem is that there seems to be little critical thought behind these positions. While these and many other similar issues are clearly important to both computing professionals and computer users, and are being discussed at length (usually from one side), I would argue that they are merely examples of a much larger issue that is not being discussed at all. I see the central problem in Cyber Ethics to be the means of determining ethical standards. Stated more clearly, the central problem in Cyber Ethics is: how do you establish ethical standards in a 18 more pages are available in the full version of this document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart" button on the publisher's webpage: www.igi-global.com/chapter/central-problem-cyber-ethicsstories/29318