Digital Ethics

Today in class we talked about digital ethics. Ethics are what we consider morally right and wrong. Questions like what makes a good person and why we need to be ethical were asked by philosophers hundreds of years ago. There are different opinions on ethics and people make ethical decisions for different reasons. One of the ethical models was that if your decision would help the most number of people in a good way, then it was an ethical choice. Another way that we talked about was that if you could imagine that everybody in the world would make the same decision you would make, then it was ethical.

In the new digital age where people interact with other people using computers and other technology, ethics take a shift. Because there isn't a direct personal feeling with people people seem to forget about ethics. One of the big ethical issues being discussed right now is software and music piracy. Most people wouldn't think it's ethical to go into a store and steal a music CD. However the same person might not have a problem downloading the music on a P2P network without paying for it. It's just as bad as stealing, but it seems to be different because your'e not physically going into a store and stealing the music. Many people try and rationalize piracy with different reasons. For example they might say that they can't afford the software so it's ok for them to pirate it. However we can't just start stealing whatever we want just because we can't afford it.

Another example of digital ethics is computer viruses. Most people wouldn't consider it ethical to go into someone else's house and ruin their property. However computer viurses can get inside your computer and destroy all your important files. The person who wrote this virus may not have broken into a house, but he probably didn't think it was a problem to write a virus. Again, because the hacker didn't think of the computer as someone else's property they didn't have a personal feeling and therefore they forgot about ethics.

Technologies such as DRM are being put into place to stop piracy and unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material. However some times there comes a situation whether something may not be illegal but not morally correct. After understanding the circumstances you need to make the decision.