The Ethics of Outsourcing Online Survey Research

The increasing level of Internet penetration over the last decade has made web surveying a viable option for data collection in academic research. Software tools and services have been developed to facilitate the development and deployment of web surveys. Many academics and research students are outsourcing the design and/or hosting of their web surveys to external service providers, yet ethical issues associated with this use have received limited attention in academic literature. In this article, the authors focus on specific ethical concerns associated with the outsourcing of web surveys with particular reference to external commercial web survey service providers. These include threats to confidentiality and anonymity, the potential for loss of control over decisions about research data, and the reduced credibility of research. Suggested guidelines for academic institutions and researchers in relation to outsourcing aspects of web-based survey research are provided.

Cyber-Terrorism and Ethical Journalism

Terrorism has been a constant threat in traditional and contemporary societies. Recently, it has been converged with new media technology and cyberspace, resulting in the modern tactic, cyber-terrorism, which has become most effective in achieving terrorist goals. Among the countless cyber-terrorist cases and scenarios of only this last decade, the paper discusses four cyber-terrorism cases that represent the most recent severe cyber-terrorist attacks on infrastructure and network systems—Internet Black Tigers, MafiaBoy, Solo, and Irhabi 007. Regardless of the nature of actors and their motivations, cyber-terrorists hit very aggressively causing serious damages. Cyber-terrorists are rational actors who use the most advanced technology; hence, the critical need for the use of counter-threat swords by actors on the other side. Given that terrorist goals are mostly dependent on the media’s reactions, journalistic practices are significant and need to be most effective. A major tool that can help journalists in their anti- and counter-terrorist strategies with cyber-terrorists is rationalism, merged with the expected socially responsible conduct. Rational behaviour, founded in game theory, along with major journalistic ethical principles are fundamental components of effective media decision-making during times of terrorism.

Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing

Despite persistent government and industry efforts to stop the sharing and downloading of media such as files over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, this activity shows no sign of abating. This research investigated whether psychological reactance could account for variance in the intent to engage in, and the extent of such behaviour beyond that accounted for by the standard Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) variables. No support for psychological reactance as a predictor of P2P file downloading intent or behaviour was found in this paper. However, the results did indicate that attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control each accounted for significant variance in P2P file downloading behaviour, and that these relationships were fully mediated by behavioural intent. These findings are consistent with, and provide strong support for, the use of the TPB within this domain.

The Functional Morality of Robots

It is often argued that a robot cannot be held morally responsible for its actions. The author suggests that one should use the same criteria for robots as for humans, regarding the ascription of moral responsibility. When deciding whether humans are moral agents one should look at their behaviour and listen to the reasons they give for their judgments in order to determine that they understood the situation properly. The author suggests that this should be done for robots as well. In this regard, if a robot passes a moral version of the Turing Test—a Moral Turing Test (MTT) we should hold the robot morally responsible for its actions. This is supported by the impossibility of deciding who actually has (semantic or only syntactic) understanding of a moral situation, and by two examples: the transferring of a human mind into a computer, and aliens who actually are robots.

The Regulation of Gaze and Capture

The increasing use of the body for embedding technology as well as the convergence of multiple features in mobile telephony have made image capture an important phenomenon that presents new ways to capture events and their constructs, which cast new forms of gaze into everyday life. The ways in which one captures and gazes has increasing ethical, legal and social implications for societies. The civilian gaze through mobile recording devices can be empowering in terms of holding authorities accountable, but it can equally debilitate societies by transgressing privacy and enabling new forms of voyeurism and deviance. In recognition of this, many governments and authorities are restricting the ways in which we capture and upload images. This paper looks at how this image economy is creating new ways of looking and how the new rules are, for different reasons, seeking to curb this architecture of capture.

Material Cultures and Moral Mediators in Human Hybridization

We already are hybrid humans, fruit of a kind of co-evolution of both our brains and the common, scientific, social, and moral knowledge we have produced by ourselves starting from the birth of material culture with our ancestors until the recent effects generated by the whole field of technological artifacts and of information and communication technologies (ICTs). We all are “constitutively” natural-born cyborgs, that is biotechnological hybrid minds. Our minds should not be considered to be located only in the head: human beings have solved their problems of survival and reproduction, “distributing” cognitive and ethical functions to external non-biological sources, props, and aids, which originate cultures. The paper also illustrates the interplay between cultures and distributed cognition and stresses the role of some technological artifacts as moral mediators. The second part of the paper is related to the analysis of the interplay between cultures, morality, and cognition and of some consequences concerning the problem of intercultural communication in the light of the role of moral mediators, docility, and cyberprivacy. Finally, I discuss some suggestions concerning the problem of what I call the moral principle of isolation of cultures, with respect to the effects of ICTs.

Transhumanism and Its Critics

Transhumanism is a social, technological, political, and philosophical movement that advocates the transformation of human nature by means of pharmacology, genetic manipulation, cybernetic modification, nanotechnology, and a host of other technologies. The aim of this movement is to increase physical and sensory abilities, augment intelligence and memory, and extend lifespan. After providing some background on transhumanism, its philosophical heritage, and its goals, the author looks at three arguments against transhumanism, arguing that they are unpersuasive and should be rejected. This paper presents two arguments against transhumanism that have merit. The first argument is an argument from justice that addresses the distribution of benefits and burdens for funding, developing, and employing enhancement technology. The second argument examines a significant assumption held by many transhumanists, namely, that there is an essential “human nature” that can be transcended.

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying has become a major social concern because it raises questions about technoethics. It has been the subject of research, information and prevention activities for different groups to protect against the misuse of technology, and because of that, this paper is based on an exploratory study about the sociological phenomenon of cyberbullying among Portuguese university students. The paper stresses the connection between the concepts of bullying and cyberbullying while promoting a flexible epistemological model that highlights the emerging nature of these phenomena based on the theoretical contribution of Gregory Bateson. In the end, the authors present the main conclusions of the empirical study.

Ubiquitous Computing

In this article, the authors investigate, from an interdisciplinary perspective, possible ethical implications of the presence of ubiquitous computing systems in human perception/action. The term ubiquitous computing is used to characterize information-processing capacity from computers that are available everywhere and all the time, integrated into everyday objects and activities. The contrast in approach to aspects of ubiquitous computing between traditional considerations of ethical issues and the Ecological Philosophy view concerning its possible consequences in the context of perception/action are the underlying themes of this paper. The focus is on an analysis of how the generalized dissemination of microprocessors in embedded systems, commanded by a ubiquitous computing system, can affect the behaviour of people considered as embodied embedded agents.

Technology Traps

Technologies can have harmful effects on users’ psychological health, on society, and on the environment. “Technology traps” arise when users and societies become stuck with technologies and the harmful consequences produced by these technologies. In this paper, the authors describe five technology traps: incompetence, self-miscontrol, misbehavior, techno-centrism, and environmental degradation. The authors then examine the share of ethical responsibility for these traps among end-users, businesses, and government.