All posts in category moral theory

Violating Your Own Ethical Standards

In another followup to a post about the absence of professional ethics in startups and blogging, Casey Johnson at Ars Technica has written a great piece about Marius Milner, the Google engineer who “collected personal data from WiFi networks, including e-mail addresses and passwords, with the company’s Street View cars between May 2007 and May 2010.”  According to the FCC, Milner’s actions were legal.  But, of course, lots of immoral things are legal.

What’s interesting here is that parts of what Milner did clearly violated the ethical standards that were developing among the “wardriving” community he was a part of.  Wardrivers drive around with wi-fi tools and computers trying to find open wi-fi networks that can be used to connect to the internet.  The location of open networks that wardrivers find are then shared so that people can use them.

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by Jim Caccamo on May 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in moral theory, trust
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Posted by Jim Caccamo on May 11, 2012

https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/05/11/ignoring-professional-ethics-another-case/

On Straw Men and Blogs

I’ve been engaged by Mathew Ingram at GigaOm recently. He’s had a couple of great pieces this past week. But he also wrote one I’m not so fond of. In this piece, he argues against Turkle and others that suggest that the technologies that we use have shaped our behaviors in ways that disconnect us from others (that’s more nuanced than he puts it, though).

What bothers me is not his opposition to something I tend to agree with. I work in the area of social ethics, so I get paid to disagree with people. No biggie. Rather, it’s the argumentation he uses. He does three things that bother me:

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by Jim Caccamo on April 27, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in love, moral theory
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Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 27, 2012

https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/27/195/

Seriously!?

“Case in point” regarding the absence of professional ethics in startups and blogging: painful piece entitled “Gangbang Interviews” and “Bikini Shots”: Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem at Mother Jones on sexism in the software industry.

The most telling aspect of these incidents, says veteran Seattle developer Christy Nicol, is that none of the company leaders involved appeared to realize initially that they’d done something wrong. They had simply crafted messages aimed at young men, apparently assuming: Who else would be drawn to programming jobs? “It was the mindset seated deep in the subconscious that programmers are male,” she says.

Or at least that all programmers want to be in on the joke.

A problem being dealt with at big companies, but among startups, not so much.

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by Jim Caccamo on April 27, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in charity, justice, moral theory
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Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 27, 2012

https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/27/gangbang-interviews-and-bikini-shots-silicon-valleys-brogrammer-problem-mother-jones/

Wherefore Art Thou, Professional Ethics?

Mathew Ingram had a nice piece over at GigaOm discussing some of this year’s winners of the Pulitzer Prize focused primarily on the fact that prizes are now going to writers who publish online. There is no real difference, he suggests, between bloggers and journalists. Given the success of many software developers at writing and selling software on their own, the same argument could easily be made about the distinction between hobbyist and professional programmer.

Which leaves us in a bit of a situation, professional ethics wise.

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by Jim Caccamo on April 26, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in hope, moral theory
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Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 26, 2012

https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/26/wherefore-art-thou-professional-ethics/

We Are All Borg

Great little piece by Erica Sadun at TUAW about technology and choice:

It was then I realized: I have been assimilated. I am become Borg. I have betrayed the trust of my fellow ex-librarians. (Although shelf-reading, book dusting, and card sorting are skills I hope never to re-acquire. Ever.)

Like it or not, practices don’t just reflect our commitments, they shape them.

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by Jim Caccamo on April 26, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in charity, communication, moral theory
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Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 26, 2012

https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/26/we-are-all-borg/

World Peace and the Difficulty of Virtues

I don’t want to pile on with commentary about Metta World Peace’s hit on James Harden this past weekend. It has already, as Bomani Jones at sbnation.com put it, hijacked news on a big sports news weekend. Two things, I think, bear noting in a blog on technology ethics.

1) People frequently act out of habit. We learn some way of acting, or talking, or responding. The we repeat it over years, and it becomes a part of us. That’s what the ideas of virtue and vice is all about. Vices (like lying, cheating, and stealing) are bad habits, habits that help us act poorly toward others, and in the process, make us less human. Virtues, on the other hand, are good habits that help us act well toward others, and in the process, help make us more fully human, more fully perfected. Classics here are prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude.

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by Jim Caccamo on April 23, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in moral theory, temperance
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Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 23, 2012

https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/23/world-peace-and-the-difficulty-of-virtues/

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