Handbook of Research on Technoethics

Handbook of Research on Technoethics Rocci Luppicini University of Ottawa, Canada Rebecca Adell Eck MacNeely Architects, USA

Volume I

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Handbook of research on technoethics / Rocci Luppicini and Rebecca Adell, Editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “This book traces the emergence of the new interdisciplinary field of technoethics by exploring its conceptual development, important issues, and key areas of current research. Compiling 50 authoritative articles from leading researchers on the ethical dimensions of new technologies”--Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-1-60566-000-4 (hard cover) -- ISBN 978-1-60566-001-1 (ebook) 1. Technology--Moral and ethical aspects. I. Luppicini, Rocci. II. Adell, Rebecca. BJ59.H36 2009 174’.96--dc22 2008007623

British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book set is original material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.

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Editorial Advisory Board

John M. Artz George Washington University, USA Ginger Taylor National Research Council of Canada, Canada Gary Boyd Concordia University, Canada

List of Contributors

Akbari, M. / The University of Guilan, Iran......................................................................................439 Allan, S. / Bournemouth University, UK ...........................................................................................373 Anderson, A. / University of Plymouth, UK ......................................................................................373 Andrews, Cecelia / University of New South Wales, Australia .........................................................806 Bagheri, Alireza / University of Toronto, Canada ............................................................................ 112 Barger, Robert N. / University of Notre Dame, USA .......................................................................794 Bauer, Keith / Marquette University, USA ........................................................................................170 Billinger, Michael S. / Edmonton Police Service, Canada .................................................................44 Butt, Adeel I. / Simon Fraser University, Canada ............................................................................354 Butt, Arsalan / Simon Fraser University, Canada ............................................................................354 Candor, Jennifer / Gahanna Lincoln High School, USA .................................................................409 Capurro, Rafael / Stuttgart Media University, Germany .................................................................339 Cerqui, Daniela / Université de Lausanne, Switzerland .....................................................................32 Chan, Helen Yue-lai / Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China ...................................................316 Conger, Sue / University of Dallas, USA ..........................................................................................767 Charlesworth, Matthew / The Jesuit Institute, South Africa ...........................................................186 Córdoba, José-Rodrigo / University of Hull, UK ............................................................................712 Cortés Pascual, Pilar Alejandra / University of Zaragoza, Spain ..........................................222, 426 Cortez, J. José / Syracuse University, USA ......................................................................................651 Crowell, Charles R. / University of Notre Dame, USA ............................................................700, 794 de Vries, Marc J. / Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands ................................................20 Fait, Stefano / University of St. Andrews, Scotland ..........................................................................145 Fleischmann, Kenneth R. / University of Maryland College Park, USA ........................................391 Flicker, Sarah / York University, Canada .........................................................................................295 Fortwengel, Gerrhard / University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria ............................................................................................................................................126 Gearhart, Deb / Troy University, USA ..............................................................................................263 Gomberg, Anna / University of Notre Dame, USA ..........................................................................700 Guta, Adrian / University of Toronto, Canada .................................................................................295 Haghi, A.K. / The University of Guilan, Iran ...................................................................................439 Hongladarom, Soraj / Chulalongkorn University, Thailand ...........................................................496 Iannone, A. Pablo / Central Connecticut State University, USA ......................................................558 Ibrahim, Y. / University of Brighton, UK .........................................................................................512 Jones, D Gareth / University of Otago, New Zealand ......................................................................609

Kashmeery, Amin / University of Durham, UK ................................................................................752 Kaupins, Gundars / Boise State University, USA .............................................................................825 Klang, Mathias / University of Lund, Sweden & University of Göteborg, Sweden ..........................593 Lee, Joyce Yi- Hui / University of Bath, UK .....................................................................................623 Lewis, Edward / University of New South Wales, Australia .............................................................806 Luppicini, Rocci / University of Ottawa, Canada ................................................................................1 Macer, Darryl / Regional Unit for Social and Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific (RUSHSAP), UNESCO, Thailand............................................................................................................................85 Matthias, Andreas / Lingnan University, Hong Kong ......................................................................635 McMahon, Joan D. / Towson University, USA .................................................................................729 Miah, Andy / University of the West of Scotland, Scotland .................................................................69 Minch, Robert / Boise State University, USA ....................................................................................825 Mottaghitalab, V. / The University of Guilan, Iran ...........................................................................439 Murphy, Timothy F. / University of Illinois College of Medicine, USA ...........................................162 Nakada, Makoto / University of Tsukuba, Japan ..............................................................................339 Narvaez, Darcia / University of Notre Dame, USA ...........................................................................700 Nkala, Busi / Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, South Africa ........................................................328 Norman, Cameron / University of Toronto, Canada ........................................................................295 Ostermann, Herwig / University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria ............................................................................................................................................126 Pang, Samantha Mei-che / Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China ...........................................316 Panteli, Niki / University of Bath, UK ...............................................................................................623 Paterson, Barbara / Marine Biology Research Institute, Zoology Department, University of Cape Town, South Africa ...........................................................................................................736 Petersen, A. / Monash University, Australia ......................................................................................373 Pullen, Darren / University of Tasmania, Australia ..........................................................................680 Ribble, Mike / Kansas State University, USA ...................................................................................250 Robbins, Russell W. / Marist College, USA .....................................................................................391 Roberts, Lynne D. / Curtin University of Technology, Australia .............................................542, 575 Rogerson, Simon / De Montfort University, UK ..............................................................................752 Rouvroy, Antoinette / European University Institute, Italy .............................................................454 Rowe, Neil C. / U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, USA ....................................................................529 Rueda, Eduardo A. / Universidad Javeriana, Colombia .................................................................474 Ruzic, Fjodor / Institute for Informatics, Croatia ............................................................................843 Ryder, Martin / University of Colorado at Denver, USA ..................................................................232 Schnackenberg, Heidi L. / SUNY Plattsburgh, USA ........................................................................668 Sewry, David / Rhodes University, South Africa ...............................................................................186 Stahl, Bernd Carsten / De Montfort University, UK .......................................................................752 Staudinger, Roland / University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria ............................................................................................................................................126 Stuehlinger, Verena / University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria ............................................................................................................................................126 Sullins, John P. / Sonoma State University, USA ...............................................................................205 Thorseth, May / NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway .......................278 Vega, Edwin S. / SUNY Plattsburgh, USA ........................................................................................668

Visala, Seppo / University of Tampere, Finland ................................................................................103 Wallace, William A. / Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA ..........................................................391 Warner, Zachary B. / SUNY Plattsburgh, USA ................................................................................668 Warwick, Kevin / University of Reading, UK .....................................................................................32 Whitaker, Maja I. / University of Otago, New Zealand ...................................................................609 Wilkinson, C. / University of West of England, Bristol, UK ..............................................................373

Table of Contents

Preface ............................................................................................................................................... xxx Acknowledgment ............................................................................................................................ xxxii

VOLuME I Section I Theoretical Frameworks in Technoethics Chapter I The Emerging Field of Technoethics ..................................................................................................... 1 Rocci Luppicini, University of Ottawa, Canada Chapter II A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Technoethics ................................................................................. 20 Marc J. de Vries, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Chapter III Technoethics: An Anthropological Approach ...................................................................................... 32 Daniela Cerqui, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland Kevin Warwick, University of Reading, UK Chapter IV A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology ...................................................... 44 Michael S. Billinger, Edmonton Police Service, Canada Chapter V The Ethics of Human Enhancement in Sport ....................................................................................... 69 Andy Miah, University of the West of Scotland, Scotland Chapter VI Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures ....................................................... 85 Darryl Macer, Regional Unit for Social and Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific (RUSHSAP), UNESCO, Thailand

Chapter VII Planning, Interests, and Argumentation .............................................................................................. 103 Seppo Visala, University of Tampere, Finland Section II Research Areas of Technoethics Chapter VIII Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries .................................... 112 Alireza Bagheri, University of Toronto, Canada Chapter IX Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research .......................................................................... 126 Gerrhard Fortwengel, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria Herwig Ostermann, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria Verena Stuehlinger, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria Roland Staudinger, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria Chapter X Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology............................................................... 145 Stefano Fait, University of St. Andrews, Scotland Chapter XI Nanoscale Research, Ethics, and the Military..................................................................................... 162 Timothy F. Murphy, University of Illinois College of Medicine, USA Chapter XII Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age . ......................................................................................... 170 Keith Bauer, Marquette University, USA Chapter XIII Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics ............................................................................................... 186 Matthew Charlesworth, The Jesuit Institute, South Africa David Sewry, Rhodes University, South Africa Chapter XIV Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics ............................................................................................ 205 John P. Sullins, Sonoma State University, USA Chapter XV Ethical Controversy over Information and Communication Technology . ......................................... 222 Pilar Alejandra Cortés Pascual, University of Zaragoza, Spain

Chapter XVI The Cyborg and the Noble Savage: Ethics in the War on Information Poverty ................................. 232 Martin Ryder, University of Colorado at Denver, USA Chapter XVII Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World ....................................................................... 250 Mike Ribble, Kansas State University, USA Chapter XVIII Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century ................................................................... 263 Deb Gearhart, Troy University, USA Chapter XIX The Ethics of Global Communication Online .................................................................................... 278 May Thorseth, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

Section III Case Studies and Applications in Technoethics Chapter XX Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies: Reflecting on 10 Years of TeenNet Research Ethics and Practice ........................................................................................... 295 Cameron Norman, University of Toronto, Canada Adrian Guta, University of Toronto, Canada Sarah Flicker, York University, Canada Chapter XXI Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk ............................................................ 316 Samantha Mei-che Pang, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Helen Yue-lai Chan, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Chapter XXII Community Education in New HIV Prevention Technologies Research .......................................... 328 Busi Nkala, Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, South Africa Chapter XXIII The Public / Private Debate: A Contribution to Intercultural Information Ethics .............................. 339 Makoto Nakada, University of Tsukuba, Japan Rafael Capurro, Stuttgart Media University, Germany

Chapter XXIV Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country: Comparative Analysis of Pakistani and Canadian University Students .......... 354 Arsalan Butt, Simon Fraser University, Canada Adeel I. Butt, Simon Fraser University, Canada Chapter XXV Nanoethics: The Role of News Media in Shaping Debate ................................................................. 373 A. Anderson, University of Plymouth, UK S. Allan, Bournemouth University, UK A. Petersen, Monash University, Australia C. Wilkinson, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK Chapter XXVI Computing and Information Ethics Education Research ................................................................... 391 Russell W. Robbins, Marist College, USA Kenneth R. Fleischmann, University of Maryland, College Park, USA William A. Wallace, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA Chapter XXVII The Ethical Dilemma over Money in Special Education ................................................................... 409 Jennifer Candor, Gahanna Lincoln High School, USA Chapter XXVIII Educational Technoethics Applied to Career Guidance ..................................................................... 426 Pilar Alejandra Cortés Pascual, University of Zaragoza, Spain Chapter XXIX The Scholarship of Teaching Engineering: Some Fundamental Issues ............................................. 439 A.K. Haghi, The University of Guilan, Iran V. Mottaghitalab, The University of Guilan, Iran M. Akbari, The University of Guilan, Iran

VOLuME II Section IV Emerging Trends and Issues in Technoethics Chapter XXX Which Rights for Which Subjects? Genetic Confidentiality and Privacy in the Post-Genomic Era .............................................................................................................................. 454 Antoinette Rouvroy, European University Institute, Italy

Chapter XXXI Predictive Genetic Testing, Uncertainty, and Informed Consent ....................................................... 474 Eduardo A. Rueda, Universidad Javeriana, Colombia Chapter XXXII Privacy, Contingency, Identity, and the Group .................................................................................. 496 Soraj Hongladarom, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand Chapter XXXIII The Ethics of Gazing: The Politics of Online Pornography ............................................................... 512 Y. Ibrahim, University of Brighton, UK Chapter XXXIV The Ethics of Deception in Cyberspace ............................................................................................. 529 Neil C. Rowe, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, USA Chapter XXXV Cyber Identity Theft ........................................................................................................................... 542 Lynne D. Roberts, Curtin University of Technology, Australia Chapter XXXVI Walking the Information Overload Tightrope .................................................................................... 558 A. Pablo Iannone, Central Connecticut State University, USA Chapter XXXVII Cyber-Victimization ........................................................................................................................... 575 Lynne D. Roberts, Curtin University of Technology, Australia Chapter XXXVIII Spyware .............................................................................................................................................. 593 Mathias Klang, University of Lund, Sweden & University of Göteborg, Sweden Chapter XXXIX In Vitro Fertilization and the Embryonic Revolution ........................................................................ 609 D. Gareth Jones, University of Otago, New Zealand Maja I. Whitaker, University of Otago, New Zealand Chapter XL Inter-Organizational Conflicts in Virtual Alliances ............................................................................ 623 Joyce Yi- Hui Lee, University of Bath, UK Niki Panteli, University of Bath, UK Chapter XLI From Coder to Creator: Responsibility Issues in Intelligent Artifact Design .................................... 635 Andreas Matthias, Lingnan University, Hong Kong

Chapter XLII Historical Perspective of Technoethics in Education ......................................................................... 651 J. José Cortez, Syracuse University, USA Chapter XLIII Podcasting and Vodcasting in Education and Training ...................................................................... 668 Heidi L. Schnackenberg, SUNY Plattsburgh, USA Edwin S. Vega, SUNY Plattsburgh, USA Zachary B. Warner, SUNY Plattsburgh, USA Chapter XLIV Technoethics in Schools ..................................................................................................................... 680 Darren Pullen, University of Tasmania, Australia

Section V Further Reading in Technoethics Chapter XLV Moral Psychology and Information Ethics: Psychological Distance and the Components of Moral Behavior in a Digital World ................................................................................................ 700 Charles R. Crowell, University of Notre Dame, USA Darcia Narvaez, University of Notre Dame, USA Anna Gomberg, University of Notre Dame, USA Chapter XLVI A Critical Systems View of Power-Ethics Interactions in Information Systems Evaluation ............. 712 José-Rodrigo Córdoba, University of Hull, UK Chapter XLVII Ethical Issues in Web-Based Learning ............................................................................................... 729 Joan D. McMahon, Towson University, USA Chapter XLVIII We Cannot Eat Data: The Need for Computer Ethics to Address the Cultural and Ecological Impacts of Computing ............................................................................................... 736 Barbara Paterson, Marine Biology Research Institute, Zoology Department, University of Cape Town, South Africa Chapter XLIX Current and Future State of ICT Deployment and Utilization in Healthcare: An Analysis of Cross-Cultural Ethical Issues .................................................................................... 752 Bernd Carsten Stahl, De Montfort University, UK Simon Rogerson, De Montfort University, UK Amin Kashmeery, University of Durham, UK

Chapter L Emerging Technologies, Emerging Privacy Issues ............................................................................ 767 Sue Conger, University of Dallas, USA Chapter LI Ethics of “Parasitic Computing”: Fair Use or Abuse of TCP/IP Over the Internet? .......................... 794 Robert N. Barger, University of Notre Dame, USA Charles R. Crowell, University of Notre Dame, USA Chapter LII Simulating Complexity-Based Ethics for Crucial Decision Making in Counter Terrorism ............... 806 Cecilia Andrews, University of New South Wales, Australia Edward Lewis, University of New South Wales, Australia Chapter LIII Legal and Ethical Implications of Employee Location Monitoring ................................................... 825 Gundars Kaupins, Boise State University, USA Robert Minch, Boise State University, USA Chapter LIV New Ethics for E-Business Offshore Outsourcing ............................................................................. 843 Fjodor Ruzic, Institute for Informatics, Croatia

Detailed Table of Contents

Preface ............................................................................................................................................... xxx Acknowledgment ............................................................................................................................ xxxii

VOLuME I Section I Theoretical Frameworks in Technoethics In Section I, the introductory chapter, “The Emerging Field of Technoethics”, traces the development of Technoethics to its larger historical and theoretical context. This helps to situate the reader within the emerging field of Technoethics developed over the last forty years in a broad range of contexts. Chapter II, entitled, “A MultiDisciplinary Approach to Technoethics”, proposes that a multidisciplinary approach to Technoethics is required because technology is complicated and the cooperation of many kinds of experts is needed to ensure its ethical use. Chapter III entitled, “Technoethics: An Anthropological Approach”, adapts an anthropological perspective that views technological devices as the result of a designing and building process transmitting social values, the impact of which, can be properly assessed only once these values are understood. Chapter IV, “A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology”, expands on the anthropological approach to Technoethics by linking it to human variation. In a different area, Chapter V entitled, “The Ethics of Human Enhancement in Sport” outlines a Technoethics for sport by addressing the relationship between sport ethics and bioethics. This chapter attempts to establish the conditions under which a Technoethics of sport should be approached that takes into account the varieties and forms of technology in sport. In an effort to address a perceived need for international standard of ethics in Science and Technology, Chapter VI, “Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures” uses Lawerence Kohlberg’s moral development theory to explain bioethical maturity within a universal framework consisting of three stages of common interest. Finally, Chapter VII, “Planning, Interest and Argumentation”, discusses the challenges of reaching rationally motivated consensus within organizational frameworks. The chapter explores important communication issues in Technoethics through Rawls' theory of justice and Habermas' communicative rationality.

Chapter I The Emerging Field of Technoethics ..................................................................................................... 1 Rocci Luppicini, University of Ottawa, Canada This chapter traces the development of Technoethics to its larger historical and theoretical context. This helps to situate the reader within the emerging field of Technoethics developed over the last forty years in a broad range of contexts.

Chapter II A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Technoethics ................................................................................. 20 Marc J. de Vries, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands In this chapter, de Vries maintains that a multidisciplinary approach to technoethics is needed because technology is so inherently complicated. Furthermore, ethics has also to address production and design of artifacts, taking advantage of the cooperation of many kinds of experts in this endeavor. Chapter III Technoethics: An Anthropological Approach ...................................................................................... 32 Daniela Cerqui, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland Kevin Warwick, University of Reading, UK Cerqui and Warwick assert that in the ethics of technology, it is necessary to change our view on people and see them as ‘things’ in some contexts. The authors refer to Kant, for whom humans were to be seen only as ends, not as means (means being equated with things in this text). Moral mediators are then things that can acquire the same sort of appreciation as humans. Furthermore, the chapter shows that in our moral appreciation of technology we should take into account that humans and ‘things’ often make up ‘cyborgs’. Chapter IV A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology ...................................................... 44 Michael S. Billinger, Edmonton Police Service, Canada Billinger argues that the concept of ‘race’ is fundamentally flawed and that scholars have an ethical obligation to develop a solution which encourages us to rethink the ways in which we categorize human groups. This is a well-structured chapter which surveys a large body of literature, develops an effective line of argument and is appropriately referenced. The sections discussing the ethical dimension to the race problem and possible solutions are particilarly interesting. Chapter V The Ethics of Human Enhancement in Sport ....................................................................................... 69 Andy Miah, University of the West of Scotland, Scotland Miah describes a technoethical approach to sport. It focuses on the important relationship between sport ethics and bioethics. It reviews historical evidence on ethics and policy making with respect to sport technologies to help contextualise this work within the broader medical ethical sphere. It also provides useful examples of recent cases of hypoxic training and gene doping. Chapter VI Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures ....................................................... 85 Darryl Macer, Regional Unit for Social and Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific (RUSHSAP), UNESCO, Thailand

This chapter examines some of the cultural variation in the ethical factors associated with the use of science and technology. The issues discussed include access to technology, social justice, professional ethics, and value systems. The appropriate implementation of international standards in ethics of science and technology and bioethics is considered. There is global agreement that persons should be taught the ethics of science and technology, and discussion of new materials and methods is made. The goals of ethics education as explained in the Action Plan for Bioethics Education developed at the 2006 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Conference on Bioethics Education include knowledge, skills and personal moral development. Chapter VII Planning, Interests, and Argumentation .............................................................................................. 103 Seppo Visala, University of Tampere, Finland Rawls’ theory of justice and Habermas’ communicative rationality are described and compared in this chapter. The question of how to reach rationally motivated consensus within organizational development is addressed and interesting links are made to current work in the ethics of communication. Section II Research Areas of Technoethics In Section II, key areas of research in Technoethics are presented which focus on important ethical and social aspects of human activity affected by technology. Chapters VIII and IX focus on areas of research ethics connected to technology and its influence. Chapter X, “Ethics Review On Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries” provides a glimpse at a pivotal area of Technoethics and current research innovation. The chapter deals with the issue of ethical review of externally-sponsored research in developing countries with an emphasis on research protocols designed and/or funded in a developed country involving subjects recruited from developing countries. Chapter IX, “Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research”, provides an overview of Technoethics in biomedical research, focusing on key relations between the ethical, social and legal dimensions of such research. This chapter contributes to Technoethics by identifying general principles applicable to all biomedical research while remaining sensitive to varying ethical and social dimensions within specific research contexts. Chapter X, “Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology”, delves into an important area of Technoethics concerned with ethical issues associated with key areas of engineering and modern biotechnology, including, genetic engineering, gene patenting, chimeras, commodification of life, and genetic testing. The chapter frames the discussion within a historical review of eugenics. In Chapter XI, “Nanoscale Research, Ethics, and the Military”, ethical concerns are raised about the use of nanoscale Technology in Medical Research. Chapter XII, “Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age”, reviews current debates in telehealth and explores how telehealth ethical standards work to protect patient confidentiality, to improve healthcare relationship, and diminish instances of compromised access and equity in the healthcare system. In Chapter XIII”, Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics”, a historical perspective on the development of computer ethics is provided using of a number of ethical theories (Divine Command; Ethics of Conscience; Ethical Egoism; Ethics of Duty; Ethics of Respect; Ethics of Rights; Utilitarianism; Ethics of Justice; Virtue Ethics) with an eye to new theoretical contributions from Floridi and Sanders (2003) on information ethics. Chapter XIV, “Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics”, deals with the possibility of assigning artificial moral agency and responsibility to increasingly autonomous technologies. In Chapter XV, “Ethical Controversy Over Information and Communications Technology”, a theoretical analysis is conducted to discern positive and negative aspects of new Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). Chapter XVI, “The Cyborg and the Noble Savage: Ethics in the War on Information Poverty”, deals with technical and social barriers that define the so-called ‘digital divide’ with an emphasis on how the ‘One Laptop Per Child’ project addresses the problem of digital poverty. Chapter XVII, “Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World”, delves into

the topic of digital citizenship and offers insightful suggestion on how to define and promote digital citizenship. In Chapter XVIII, “Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century”, defines Educational Technoethics and explores key issues related to the use of Technoethics for educational administrative concerns. It also and provides suggestions on how teachers can improve instruction to address ethical issues. Chapter XIX, “The Ethics of Global Communication Online”, deals with ethical issues arising from employing online technology for communication that impinges on the development of “fundamentalist knowledge” through deliberation.

Chapter VIII Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries ................................... 112 Alireza Bagheri, University of Toronto, Canada Bagheri deals with the issue of ethical review of externally-sponsored research in developing countries, that is, on research following protocols that have been designed and/or funded in a developed country but involving subjects recruited from developing countries. The author emphasizes the issues which local ethics committees should consider when reviewing externally-sponsored researches involving local populations recruited in developing countries. The chapter calls for further empirical studies on the role of ethics committees with regard to such research. Chapter IX Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research .......................................................................... 126 Gerrhard Fortwengel, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria Herwig Ostermann, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria Verena Stuehlinger, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria Roland Staudinger, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria The chapter reviews biomedical research ethics, concentrating on the implications of ethical, social and legal dimensions of such research. The authors effectively delineate a number of core and peripheral ethical and social issues, while elucidating general principles applicable to all biomedical research. Chapter X Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology .............................................................. 145 Stefano Fait, University of St. Andrews, Scotland Fait addresses the ethical issues associated with modern biotechnology and genetic interventions to improve human life. The chapter explores key issues and concerns with the social impact of genetic engineering, gene patenting, chimeras, commodification of life, and genetic testing. Chapter XI Nanoscale Research, Ethics, and the Military .................................................................................... 162 Timothy F. Murphy, University of Illinois College of Medicine, USA Murphy explores the significance of nanoscale research for military applications including: new information systems, improved protective gear, improved performance of military personnel, and innovations in medical diagnosis and treatment.

Chapter XII Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age .......................................................................................... 170 Keith Bauer, Marquette University, USA Bauer examines key debates about the meaning of telehealth by examining ways in which new and emerging systems in telehealth ethical standards work to protect patient confidentiality, to improve healthcare relationship, and diminish instances of compromised access and equity in the healthcare system. The chapter also explores various emerging technologies to show how their implementation can ensure that their benefits outweigh their risks. Chapter XIII Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics ............................................................................................... 186 Matthew Charlesworth, The Jesuit Institute, South Africa David Sewry, Rhodes University, South Africa This chapter provides an excellent historical review and examination of the foundations for the study of computer ethics. To this end, the authors explore a number of key ethical theories (Divine Command; Ethics of Conscience; Ethical Egoism; Ethics of Duty; Ethics of Respect; Ethics of Rights; Utilitarianism; Ethics of Justice; Virtue Ethics) and offer a fresh perspective on new developments in computer ethics. Chapter XIV Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics ........................................................................................... 205 John P. Sullins, Sonoma State University, USA Sullins posits that artificial agents created or synthesized by technologies create unique challenges to current ideas of moral agency. The author explores how technoethics must consider artificial agents as artificial moral agents (AMA) that warrant moral concern. The chapter thus extends current notions of moral agency to include artificial agents. Chapter XV Ethical Controversy over Information and Communication Technology .......................................... 222 Pilar Alejandra Cortés Pascual, University of Zaragoza, Spain This chapter focuses on current perceptions of information and communications technologies (ICT) along with the dilemmas revolving around their use. The author provides a theoretical analysis of various ICT characteristics, and presents the results of two work modules conducted in the Observation Laboratory of Technoethics for Adults (LOTA) project. Chapter XVI The Cyborg and the Noble Savage: Ethics in the War on Information Poverty ................................. 232 Martin Ryder, University of Colorado at Denver, USA This chapter reviews work on technical and social aspects of the ‘digital divide’ and explores the recent ‘One Laptop Per Child’ project as one response to the problem of digital poverty. Ryder provides an

insightful look at the notion of cultural hegemony and how the imposition of new technologies should take local control and user agency into consideration. Chapter XVII Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World ....................................................................... 250 Mike Ribble, Kansas State University, USA Ribble examines digital technology’s uses and abuses and asserts that existing solutions to address such abuses are inadequate. The chapter then argues for the development of digital citizenship and offers an innovative model to help define and promote digital citizenship. Chapter XVIII Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century ................................................................... 263 Deb Gearhart, Troy University, USA Gearhart investigates key issues related to technoethics for educational administration and provides information that teachers can use to improve instruction of ethical issues. The author defines technoethics for education and also provides useful suggestions to guide teachers. Technoethics, for the purposes of ethical instruction, is defined as the study of moral, legal and social issues involving technology. Chapter XIX The Ethics of Global Communication Online .................................................................................... 278 May Thorseth, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway Thorseth addresses ethical implications of employing online technology for communication that contributes to the development of “fundamentalist knowledge” through deliberation. Instead, the chapter argues that it is preferable to develop internet technologies that stimulate imaginative powers to help combat power abuses.

Section III Case Studies and Applications in Technoethics Section III introduces a series of case studies in various areas of Technoethics. In Chapter XX, “Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies: Reflecting on 10 Years of TeenNet Research Ethics and Practice”, provides a case study on ethical challenges connected to rapidly changing online environments as a medium for dialogue and communication. This chapter draws on more than a decade of research and action with TeenNet, a youth-focused research group based at the University of Toronto. Chapter XXI, “Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk”, discussion of life-sustaining treatment preferences at the end of life”, explores the case of end-of life decision making in Hong Kong. It juxtaposes a discussion of traditional beliefs and principles with the results of an intervention designed to assist in making end-of life decisions. Chapter XXII, “Community Education in New HIV Prevention Technologies Research”, is a case study framed within the context of HIV Prevention Technologies. To this end, it examines the Belmont Principles and explores the importance of educating communities as a key strategy to support ethical research in this area. Chapter XXIII, “The Public / Private Debate: A Contribution To Intercultural Information Ethics”, examines cultural differences in Eastern and Western conceptions of “the public” and “ the private” in relation to the information society. This chapter discusses Japanese worldviews by drawing on the results of surveys carried out by the authors and providing a

Seken-Shakai-Ikai framework. Chapter XIV, “Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country: Comparative Analysis of Pakistani and Canadian University Students”, offers an interesting comparative analysis of perceptions on key factors connected to the urgent problem of software piracy. Chapter XXV, “Nanoethics: The Role of News Media in Shaping Debate,” examines the portrayal of nanotechnology in the media with a focus on the United Kingdom. This chapter draws on existing survey data to argue that the public must have better access to critical perspectives on the development and use of technology in order to participate in a more meaningful dialogue, socially and politically. In Chapter XXVI, “Computing and Information Ethics Education Research”, the importance of CIE (computer and information ethics) education for IT professionals is explored through a review of “famous” IT technology failures that caused accidents with losses of human life followed by a discussion on the topics of information ownership and privacy and an examination of one current system used to assist CIE teaching. Chapter XXVII, “The Ethical Dilemma over Money in Special Education”, a case is presented of one school districts use of technology to support students with special education needs. Through the use of a district case study, this chapter explores how funding for special educational technology has declined over time but also starts to make inference as to why this may have an ethical component. Chapter XXVIII, “Educational Technoethics Applied to Careers Guidance”, examines the concept of educational technoethics investigates the aim and means of technoethics. This case focuses on current activities within the Observation Laboratory on Technoethics for Adults (LOTA) as well as its implications for professional orientation. Chapter XXX, “The Scholarship of Teaching Engineering: Some Fundamental Issues”, provides an overview of critical factors likely to have a significant effect on the sustainability of engineering as a discipline. It introduces key issues such as learning and teaching methodologies, as well as the perceived effects of e-development.

Chapter XX Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies: Reflecting on 10 Years of TeenNet Research Ethics and Practice ........................................................................................... 295 Cameron Norman, University of Toronto, Canada Adrian Guta, University of Toronto, Canada Sarah Flicker, York University, Canada This chapter explores ethical challenges in using new technologies for health promotion. The authors synthesize more than a decade of research conducted by TeenNet, a youth-focused research group based at the University of Toronto. Chapter XXI Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk ............................................................ 316 Samantha Mei-che Pang, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Helen Yue-lai Chan, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong This chapter examines end-of life decision making in Hong Kong. To this end, the authors review traditional beliefs and discuss the results of an intervention model designed to assist decision making these difficult decisions. Chapter XXII Community Education in New HIV Prevention Technologies Research .......................................... 328 Busi Nkala, Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, South Africa Nkala discusses the importance of community education as a key strategy to support ethical research within the context of HIV Prevention Technologies and genetic research. The chapter presents a review and critique of the Belmont Principles and offers several strategies to advance work in this area.

Chapter XXIII The Public / Private Debate: A Contribution to Intercultural Information Ethics .............................. 339 Makoto Nakada, University of Tsukuba, Japan Rafael Capurro, Stuttgart Media University, Germany Nakada and Capurro explore cultural aspects of Eastern and Western conceptions of “the public” and “ the private” in relation to the information society. The chapter draws on a large body of existing scholarship as well as the results of surveys conducted by the authors themselves. Chapter XXIV Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country: Comparative Analysis of Pakistani and Canadian University Students .......... 354 Arsalan Butt, Simon Fraser University, Canada Adeel I. Butt, Simon Fraser University, Canada This chapter explores demographic, ethical and socio-economical factors connected to software piracy as a social norm among a developing country’s university students. The authors present a comparative study of university students from Pakistan and Canada. Their findings regarding software piracy behavior provide evidence of both unique and shared behaviors between groups studied. Chapter XXV Nanoethics: The Role of News Media in Shaping Debate ................................................................. 373 A. Anderson, University of Plymouth, UK S. Allan, Bournemouth University, UK A. Petersen, Monash University, Australia C. Wilkinson, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK This chapter discusses nanotechnology in the media, particularly the United Kingdom. The authors draw on survey data demonstrating that the media popularly emphasizes the benefits of nanotechnology, rather than social implications of technological advancement. The argument presented is that the public must have better access to critical perspectives on the development and use of technology in order to participate in meaningful dialogue and informed decision making. Chapter XXVI Computing and Information Ethics Education Research ................................................................... 391 Russell W. Robbins, Marist College, USA Kenneth R. Fleischmann, University of Maryland, College Park, USA William A. Wallace, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA This chapter discusses the importance of CIE (computer and information ethics) education for IT professionals. It reviews selected IT technology failures that caused accidents with losses of human life and explores current topics of concern including: information ownership, privacy, information quality, and CIE education. It also reviews a current computerized interactive system designed to assist CIE teaching.

Chapter XXVII The Ethical Dilemma over Money in Special Education ................................................................... 409 Jennifer Candor, Gahanna Lincoln High School, USA This chapter explores one school districts use of technology to support students with special education needs. A case study is conducted which demonstrates how funding for special educational technology has declined over time. It also explores the ethical implications of this and offers recommendations. Chapter XXVIII Educational Technoethics Applied to Career Guidance ..................................................................... 426 Pilar Alejandra Cortés Pascual, University of Zaragoza, Spain This chapter explores the concept of educational technoethics from two angles: the intrinsic values that technology and the means of communication include (the aim of technoethics) and their use as mediators of ethical values (means of technoethics). It also reviews the implementation of the Observation Laboratory on Technoethics for Adults (LOTA) and discusses its implications for professional orientation. Chapter XXIX The Scholarship of Teaching Engineering: Some Fundamental Issues ............................................. 439 A.K. Haghi, The University of Guilan, Iran V. Mottaghitalab, The University of Guilan, Iran M. Akbari, The University of Guilan, Iran This chapter sketches out key critical factors related to the sustainability of engineering as a discipline. It introduces a number of important issues includeing, learning and teaching methodologies, the effect of e-development, and theimportance of communications.

VOLuME II Section IV Emerging Trends and Issues in Technoethics Section IV discusses issues and trends in Technoethics. Chapter XXX, “Which Rights for Which Subjects? Confidentiality and Privacy in the Post-Genetic Era”, discusses the challenging position of the individual legal subject in the context of human genetics. This chapter discusses individuals’ right and confidentiality issues in genetic testing, along with predispositions and risks. It raises important considerations surrounding confidentiality, intrafamilial disclosure and familial management of genetic information. Chapter XXI, “Predictive Genetic Testing, Uncertainty and Informed Consent”, extends the discussion of genetic testing with a slightly different angle. It discusses legitimate ways for coping with uncertainties within the informed consent process of predictive genetic testing and presents a three dimensional model of uncertainty that includes the role of genes in pathogenesis and the convenience to patients for undergoing predictive genetic testing. In Chapter XXII, “Privacy, Contingency, Identity, and the Group”, presuppositions about privacy are examined. The chapter asserts that the concept of privacy based on the presupposition of the individual being and his/her right is not sufficient. The chapter addresses problems in genomics research and the emergence of the crisis of ‘privacy’ of certain ethnic groups. Chapter XXXIII, “The Ethics of Gazing: The Politics of Online Pornography”, examines the ethics of gaze, the politics of looking, and how this can violate moral and ethical boundaries in society. This chapter helps to situate current debates on online pornography, along with its ethical and legal implications for users and researchers.

In a different area, Chapter XXXIV, “The Ethics of Deception in Cyberspace”, focuses on issue of intra-familial disclosure and health practitioner’s challenges regarding patient’s confidentiality. This chapter addresses current conflicts between individual rights to confidentiality and privacy and duties to prevent harm to others. In Chapter XXXV, “Cyber Identity Theft”, This chapter explores current tensions between using technological solutions to reduce online identity theft and privacy and civil liberties. It does so by reviewing work in cyber identity theft its impact on governments, law enforcement agencies and individuals. Chapter XXXVI, “Walking the Information Overload Tightrope”, discusses the current state of information overload in society. This chapter provides a detailed look at the types and affects of increasing information in a technological society. In Chapter XXXVII, “Cyber-Victimization”, the author provides salient details concerning identity theft online and ways that various countries and organizations have used to counter it. Chapter XXXVIII,” Spyware”, reviews work on spyware and the problems it raises, and the related difficulties in characterizing privacy and spyware in a manner useful for addressing these problems. It describes and assesses ways of addressing the problems through technology and the courts, and the regulatory issues involved. It concludes that more information should be made available to those affected by spyware so that they can engage in the dialogue needed to develop sound ways of dealing with the problems. In Chapter XXXIX, “In Vitro Fertilization and the Embryonic Revolution”, recent advances in assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and in vitro fertilization (IVF) are discussed with an emphasis on their ethical dimensions. The chapter makes the argument that are two main conceptions of these types of embryonic technologies - public vs. scientific - which presents a profound challenge for researchers and ethicists. Chapter XL, “Inter-Organizational Conflicts in Virtual Alliances”, explores strategic and cultural aspects of inter-organizational conflict, along with key ethical implications. This chapter posits two interesting conceptual frameworks of conflict tendencies to illustrate important considerations within global virtual alliances. In Chapter XLI, “From Coder to Creator: Responsibility Issues in Intelligent Artifact Design”, the problem of dealing with the advent of technologies that are increasingly autonomous is explored and suggestions are offered. Chapter XLII, “Historical Perspective of Technoethics in Education”, provides historical grounding for Educational Technoethics and the promotion of the basic concepts of common good, citizenship, and democratic values connected to the history of public schooling. Chapter XLIII “Podcasting and Vodcasting in Education and Training”, the how and why to pod/vodcasting are addressed, giving special attention to legal and ethical dilemmas arising from this constantly evolving technology. Finally, in Chapter XLIV,” Technoethics in Schools”, the use of information technology in education is considered with special attention to the role of teachers and parents. This chapter provides a review existing work on the legal and ethical use of digital resources and materials. Recommendations are offered for greater teacher understanding of the many issues that surround the use of digital technology in schools and how to help students become technologically responsible.

Chapter XXX Which Rights for Which Subjects? Genetic Confidentiality and Privacy in the Post-Genomic Era .............................................................................................................................. 454 Antoinette Rouvroy, European University Institute, Italy This chapter addresses the right to know / not to know about about genetic susceptibilities and risks when genetic tests exist. It examines the assumption that more information necessarily increases liberty and enhances autonomy. It also explores issues of confidentiality and intra-familial disclosure of genetic information. Chapter XXXI Predictive Genetic Testing, Uncertainty, and Informed Consent ....................................................... 474 Eduardo A. Rueda, Universidad Javeriana, Colombia This chapter explores strategies for coping with uncertainties connected to informed consent procedures within predictive genetic testing. To this end, it covers a number of key issues including, dimensions of

uncertainty, the role of genes in pathogenesis, treatment of patients, institutional aspects, informational considerations, and the need for transparency within the informed consent process. Chapter XXXII Privacy, Contingency, Identity, and the Group .................................................................................. 496 Soraj Hongladarom, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand This chapter analyzes existing assumptions about ‘group privacy’ and ‘individual privacy.’ The chapter argues that the notion of individual privacy is inadequate to deal with complex privacy issues, such as, privacy concerns in genomics research and privacy of certain ethnic groups. Chapter XXXIII The Ethics of Gazing: The Politics of Online Pornography ............................................................... 512 Y. Ibrahim, University of Brighton, UK This chapter delves into the world of Internet pornography. The chapter addresses key issues and pervasive problems to help raise general awareness of Internet problems to help inform research and practice. Chapter XXXIV The Ethics of Deception in Cyberspace ............................................................................................. 529 Neil C. Rowe, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, USA This chapter examines the issue of intra-familial disclosure and the role of health practitioners regarding patient’s confidentiality. The chapter also explores pervasive ethical conflicts between individual rights to confidentiality and the duty to prevent harm to others. Chapter XXXV Cyber Identity Theft ........................................................................................................................... 542 Lynne D. Roberts, Curtin University of Technology, Australia This chapter reviews work on online criminal victimization within the broader context of crime, focusing on the victims rather than on the crimes themselves as well as using a broad concept of “cyber-crimes” that includes crimes provoked not only within cyberspace but also using digital technology. This matter has become more and more important as the Internet grew into a social platform. It is expected that the number of Internet users (and potential victims) will continue to grow. Chapter XXXVI Walking the Information Overload Tightrope .................................................................................... 558 A. Pablo Iannone, Central Connecticut State University, USA This chapter asks: What is information overload? At what levels of existence does it occur? Are there any features common to information overload at all these levels? What are information overload’s types? What are information overload’s current and future trends? What problems do they pose? How can they be addressed in both effective and morally justified ways? It argues that there is anarchy concerning the

meaning of information overload, that information overload’s precise characterization is best left open at this stage in the inquiry, that information overload occurs at the biological, psychological, and social levels, that it is relational, that there are at least two overall types of information overload—quantitative and semantic— involving various kinds and current and likely future trends which pose problems requiring specific ways of dealing with them. The essay closes outlining how to identify effective and morally justified ways of dealing with information overload. Chapter XXXVII Cyber-Victimization ........................................................................................................................... 575 Lynne D. Roberts, Curtin University of Technology, Australia This chapter provides an overview of criminal victimization online. The focus is on the impact of cybercrimes on victims and the associated legal, technical, educational and professional responses to cybervictimization. The focus on cyber-victimization is situated within the broader context of responses to victims of crime in off-line settings. The form of cyber-crimes will continue to change as new ICTs and applications emerge. Continued research into the prevalence, types and impacts of cyber-victimization is required in order to inform victim service provision and effectively address the needs of current and future cyber-victims. Chapter XXXVIII Spyware .............................................................................................................................................. 593 Mathias Klang, University of Lund, Sweden & University of Göteborg, Sweden It is well known that technology can be use as to effectively monitor the behavior of crows and individuals and in many cases this knowledge may b the motivation for people to behave differently than if they were not under surveillance. This internalization of surveillance has been widely discussed in privacy literature. This chapter argues that the integrity of the computer user is not protected under law and any rights the user may believe she has are easily circumvented. Chapter XXXIX In Vitro Fertilization and the Embryonic Revolution ........................................................................ 609 D. Gareth Jones, University of Otago, New Zealand Maja I. Whitaker, University of Otago, New Zealand This chapter examines recent advances in assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and in vitro fertilization (IVF). It then explores the ethical dimensions of a multidisciplinary dialogue on such technologies. The chaspter argues that there are two main conceptions of these types of embryonic technologies - public vs. scientific - which pose a difficult challenge for bioethecists. Chapter XL Inter-Organizational Conflicts in Virtual Alliances ............................................................................ 623 Joyce Yi- Hui Lee, University of Bath, UK Niki Panteli, University of Bath, UK

This chapter explores strategic and cultural aspects of inter-organizational conflict are well represented. To this end, it discusses various types of conflict that arise in virtuual inter-organizational alliances. Chapter XLI From Coder to Creator: Responsibility Issues in Intelligent Artifact Design .................................... 635 Andreas Matthias, Lingnan University, Hong Kong This chapter addresses the problem of dealing with harm caused by the advent of technologies that are increasingly autonomous. The chapter discusses vectors of increasing speed and complexity, along with the implications that these vectors are causing humans to lose control of their creations. Chapter XLII Historical Perspective of Technoethics in Education ......................................................................... 651 J. José Cortez, Syracuse University, USA This chapter explores the topic of technoethics as an applied field of ethics and research, viewed from a historical perspective of education in the United States and its embrace of technology. The underlying intent is to inform the readers’ understanding of the basic concepts of common good, citizenship, and democratic values that are the underlying precepts associated with the history of public schooling in the United States. Additionally, the author discusses the increasingly critical need for educators to address the social and ethical dilemmas associated with new technological developments and their application to educational settings. Chapter XLIII Podcasting and Vodcasting in Education and Training ...................................................................... 668 Heidi L. Schnackenberg, SUNY Plattsburgh, USA Edwin S. Vega, SUNY Plattsburgh, USA Zachary B. Warner, SUNY Plattsburgh, USA This chapter examines the the how and why of podcasting and vodcasting. It provides the reader with useful examples, along with a focused discussion of legal and ethical dilemmas including, ownership, lack of US government control, and future possibilities. Chapter XLIV Technoethics in Schools ..................................................................................................................... 680 Darren Pullen, University of Tasmania, Australia The chapter describes technical experience of stduents today and the role of teachers and parents in guiding the proper use of information technology needs. It provides a review of relevant literature on the topic and calls for teachers to enhance their understand of social, ethical, legal and human issues that surround the use of digital technology in schools.

Section V Further Reading in Technoethics Section V provides a useful collection of additional readings chosen by the editors for readers interested in deepening their understanding of selected areas of Technoethics. These chapters help shed new light in multiple areas where technoethiocal inquiry is being applied, including Psychology, information systems evaluation, web-based learning, computing, healthcare, national security, law, and e-business. A closer look at these additional readings reveals the ongoing expansion of Technoethics into important areas of human activity becoming increasingly intertined with new technologies.

Chapter XLV Moral Psychology and Information Ethics: Psychological Distance and the Components of Moral Behavior in a Digital World ................................................................................................ 700 Charles R. Crowell, University of Notre Dame, USA Darcia Narvaez, University of Notre Dame, USA Anna Gomberg, University of Notre Dame, USA The authors in this chapter examine ethical aspects of information technology and the problem of psychological distance from a moral psychology standpoint. A model is posited to help explain the complex interrelation of sensitivity, motivation, judgement and action within a technologically advanced society. Chapter XLVI A Critical Systems View of Power-Ethics Interactions in Information Systems Evaluation ............. 712 José-Rodrigo Córdoba, University of Hull, UK This chapter draws on the work of Michel Foucault to advance a critical systems view that addresses the role of power and ethics in guide information systems evaluation. The author provides useful strategies to improve current and further practices in information systems evaluation. Chapter XLVII Ethical Issues in Web-Based Learning ............................................................................................... 729 Joan D. McMahon, Towson University, USA The author focuses on key ethical issues connected to web-based learning, including, course integrity, advisory procedures, intellectual property, academic freedom, and succession planning. A number a useful strategies are offered to assist instructors, administrators, and researchers working in web-based learning environments. Chapter XLVIII We Cannot Eat Data: The Need for Computer Ethics to Address the Cultural and Ecological Impacts of Computing ............................................................................................... 736 Barbara Paterson, Marine Biology Research Institute, Zoology Department, University of Cape Town, South Africa

This chapter investigates the cultural underpinnings of computing. It discusses computing technology as a product of a Western tradition. The chapter asserts that computer ethics could advance understanding of computing and its influence on cultural diversity, non-Westernized traditions, and environmental conservation. Chapter XLIX Current and Future State of ICT Deployment and Utilization in Healthcare: An Analysis of Cross-Cultural Ethical Issues .................................................................................... 752 Bernd Carsten Stahl, De Montfort University, UK Simon Rogerson, De Montfort University, UK Amin Kashmeery, University of Durham, UK This chapter provides a cross-cultural analysis of new ethical issues created by the growing reliance on ICT use in healthcare. The authors offer the reader various scenarios to help situate the discussion in practical areas of healthcare. Chapter L Emerging Technologies, Emerging Privacy Issues ............................................................................ 767 Sue Conger, University of Dallas, USA This chapter explores the complex relationship between emerging technologies and new privacy issues created by these technologies. It does so by focusing on ethical issues connected to RFID chips, global positioning systems, and smart motes. Chapter LI Ethics of “Parasitic Computing”: Fair Use or Abuse of TCP/IP Over the Internet? .......................... 794 Robert N. Barger, University of Notre Dame, USA Charles R. Crowell, University of Notre Dame, USA The authors in this chapter address the ethical aspects of using TCP/IP Internet protocol to break up complex tasks and distribute processing across remote computers. Key ethical questions surrounding parasitic computer are raised. Chapter LII Simulating Complexity-Based Ethics for Crucial Decision Making in Counter Terrorism ............... 806 Cecilia Andrews, University of New South Wales, Australia Edward Lewis, University of New South Wales, Australia This chapter delves into current strategies and practices used by governments, military units, and other groups in the battle against terrorism. The authors put forth a systems planning approach intended to guide ethical decision making in counter terrorism contexts.

Chapter LIII Legal and Ethical Implications of Employee Location Monitoring ................................................... 825 Gundars Kaupins, Boise State University, USA Robert Minch, Boise State University, USA The authors in this chapter focus on a serious set of new legal and ethical issues connected to employee location monitoring. The gaps in international and American laws governing employee location monitoring are addressed and strategies are offered to help leverage understanding of key legal and ethical implications within the organizational context. Chapter LIV New Ethics for E-Business Offshore Outsourcing ............................................................................. 843 Fjodor Ruzic, Institute for Informatics, Croatia This chapter discusses corporate social responsibility in e-business. It explores ethical issues in one important area of E-business, namely, offshore outsourcing. An analysis of ethical aspects of technology in this domain is provided, along with useful suggestions on how to advance e-business ethical guidelines to assist individual companies within a increasing globalized business context.

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Preface

The Handbook of Research on Technoethics was inspired by innovative work carried out by a group of dedicated scholars from diverse academic backgrounds who share a deep concern with the rapidly expanding world of technology and the new ethical issues arising through its growing influence in society. Mario Bunge’s first attempt at articulating this field in the 1970s had an important influence on how the field has evolved. He contributed by raising important questions about the type of relationships that engineers and technologists ought to have with the technologies they create. This spurred work within the Philosophy of Technology and a variety of areas of Applied Ethics which helped shape Technoethics as a field of inquiry with a practical focus on all areas of human conduct affected by technological development. In 2005, the long awaited Encycolopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics, edited by Carl Mitcham, was another important work in the field. This was a four-volume publication with a vast list on contributing authors and entries. Although this work was limited to mostly short descriptive pieces, it attested to the widespread scholarly interest revolving around ethical issues in science and technology. It also raised awareness among scholars of the need for future work that provided more in-depth coverage of ethical issues focused primarily on technology. The rapid advancement of technology in contemporary society, combined with growing scholarly attention to its social and ethical implications, continues to raise new ethical considerations requiring special attention from this newly formed field of Technoethics.

OrganizatiOn It proved to be a protracted battle to present such a broad set of chapters in a way that best reflected developments in the field. The first strategy considered was to organize chapters based solely on existing areas of Applied Ethics with a technology focus. This had the advantage of demonstrating to the reader the broad scope of Technoethics and its connectors to existing work in Applied Philosophy. The disadvantage was that many branches of Applied Ethics share overlapping issues that need to be understood in their entirety (e.g. privacy issues are important in computer ethics and medical ethics). The second strategy, and the one adapted in this project, was to organize book chapters by kea area and by key issue in order to best represent the spirit of current scholarship in Technoethics. Introductory theoretical essays and practical case studies were also added to help situate the reader and provide detailed examples of how issues in Technoethics manifest themselves in specific real world situations.

ScOpe The Handbook of Research on Technoethics should be of interest to students, instructors, researchers, ethicists, and technology scholars who need expert knowledge about technology and ethics to inform cur-

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rent work in technology. This handbook is organized into five sections: Section I. Theoretical Frameworks in Technoethics, Section II. Research Areas of Technoethics, Section III. Case Studies in Technoethics, Section IV. Emerging Trends and Issues in Technoethics, and Section V. Further Reading in Technoethics. Section I introduces the reader to Technoethics and related issues. It provides an overview of various theoretical perspectives connected to work in Technoethics. Contributions from experts cover diverse conceptual and historical developments. Section II introduces key areas of research in Technoethics. Areas of research in Technoethics help group Technoethics in key areas of human conduct affected by technology. Section III introduces a series of case studies in various areas of Technoethics where research on ethical aspects of technology is taking root. Section IV discusses issues and trends in Technoethics. It addresses a number of emerging issues in Technoethics and new directions. Section V provides a useful collection of additional readings chosen by the editors for readers interested in deepening their understanding of selected areas of Technoethics. Because the issues related to technology and ethics are so broad, the Handbook of Research on Technoethics is necessarily selective. It attempts to advance in its own modest way a selective synthesis of key contemporary work on ethical aspects of technology to help guide future scholarship within a society shaped by and shaping technological developments. Despite the modest aims of this project, the editors realize that it is not possible to please all scholars, technologists, and general readers. It is hoped that this publication will stimulate the interest of sufficient numbers to continue developing this field. Critical comments and suggestions are welcome so that improvements can be made to assist the development of a second edition.

Rocci Luppicini and Rebecca Adell Co-editors

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Acknowledgment

Without the continual support of IGI Global, the Handbook of Research on Technoethics would not have been possible. Seminal works from the Handbook contributors played and continue to play a key role in shaping this evolving field. The authors would like to acknowledge the important contributions from Mario Bunge, a pioneer in Technoethics and Carl Mitcham, who helped ground the study of technology and ethics within Philososophy of Technology and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Thanks also go to Matthew Charlesworth, David Sewry, and Marc de Vries for their critical feedback on early drafts of the handbook introduction. The majority of the chapter authors included in this handbook also served as referees for chapters written by other authors. A special thanks go to all those who provided constructive and comprehensive reviews. Nonetheless, the co-editors take full responsibility for any errors, omissions, or weaknesses in this work. Furthermore, this volume marks the first dedicated reference work on Technoethics in the English language to date. It is hoped that this work provides solid grounding for developing future editions as the field continues to evolve. Sincerely, Rocci Luppicini and Rebecca Adell Co-Editors

Section I

Theoretical Frameworks in Technoethics



Chapter I

The Emerging Field of Technoethics Rocci Luppicini University of Ottawa, Canada

abstract Over the last 30 years, an amassing body of work has focused on ethical dimensions of technology in a variety of contexts impacting society. This purpose of this paper is to trace the emergence of this new interdisciplinary field by exploring its conceptual development, important issues, and key areas of current technoethics’ scholarship. The first part of this paper introduces key concepts and provides a skeletal description of its historical background and rationale. The second part of this paper identifies key areas and issues in technoethics in an effort to help inform scholarship in technoethics. This paper is based on the premise that it is of vital importance to encourage dialogue aimed at determining the ethical use of technology, guarding against the misuse of technology, and formulating common principles to help guide new advances in technological development and application to benefit society.

INtrODUctION The ethical use of new technologies is important in society today, particularly in areas where technological advances have a transforming effect on society. Moor (2005) referred to this transforming effect of technology as a technological revolution, which he argued was connected to growing ethical problems. Moor developed Moor’s Law, which holds that, as the social impact of technological revolutions grows, ethical problems increase

(Moor, 2005, pg. 117). This phenomenon is believed to occur not simply because an increasing number of people are affected by technology, but because revolutionary technology provides novel opportunities for action about which well thought out ethical policies have not yet been developed. What is important to note is the juxtaposition of technological growth with the growth of ethical needs. This phenomenon happens not simply because an increasing number of people are affected by technology but because revolutionary

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The Emerging Field of Technoethics

technology provides numerous novel opportunities for action for which well thought out ethical policies will not have been developed. From this perspective, technology is recognized not as a solution to existing ethical problems, but as an intricate part of societal development which fosters change and new ethical considerations to address. This highlights the importance of ethics within the context of technological growth. The relationship between ethics and technology is of seminal importance to society and raises questions that continue to challenge learned scholars from a variety of fields and academic backgrounds. For instance, new life-preserving technologies, stem cell research, and cloning technologies are redefining current work in bioethics. Similarly, the development of new forms of surveillance and anonymity are redefining privacy laws and the right of privacy. Increased scholarly attention to ethical issues arising from technological transformations of work and life have created a need for a new framework dedicated to ethical considerations of all aspects of technology. Under this framework that would become known as technoethics, old ethical questions of privacy and free speech are given new shape and urgency within a technologically advanced society. Beginning in the 1970s, technoethics first emerged as an interdisciplinary field. Although research in technoethics had been done earlier than this, official work under this heading began with Mario Bunge, the first scholar to coin the term “technoethics” (Bunge, 1977). Bunge viewed technologists and engineers as professionals closely connected to technology with increased moral and social responsibility for technological innovations and applications. In order to meet these increased responsibilities, Bunge advocated the creation of a new type of ethical and moral theories which highlight the special problems posed by science and technology (Bunge, 1977). For Bunge, technology was a broad term encompassing general technologies, techniques, applications, as well as social, conceptual considerations.



For this reason, Bunge believed technologists and other professional working with technology had a unique moral responsibility for the outcomes of technological progress. As stated by Bunge (1977) “the technologist must be held not only technically but also morally responsible for whatever he designs or executes: not only should his artifacts be optimally efficient but, far from being harmful, they should be beneficial, and not only in the short run but also in the long term.” In addition, to coining the name of this field, Bunge brought to the forefront the core idea that technology should be moderated by moral and social controls and that the pursuit of such technology related issues requires special consideration and expertise, what eventually would become the field of technoethics

rationale: Why technoethics and Why Now? The rationale for technoethics derives from efforts to provide a solid grounding framework for technology focused sub-areas of Applied Ethics distinguished from other areas of scholarship. It is also to guard against potential limitations that may threaten the sustainability of technology focused ethical inquiry. First, the advent of technology in many areas of human activity has given rise to a plethora of technology focused programs of ethical inquiry scattered across multiple disciplines and fields. Efforts to reach an understanding of ethical aspects of the various types of technology are challenged by the tendencies within academia to create silos of information in separate fields and disciplines. Technoethics helps connect separate knowledge bases around a common theme (technology). To this end, technoethics is holistic in orientation and provides an umbrella for grounding all sub-areas of applied ethics focused on technology related areas of human activity including, business, politics, globalization, health and medicine, and research and development.

The Emerging Field of Technoethics

Second, technoethics is an interdisciplinary field based on a relational orientation to technology and human activity which creats new knowledge and builds on technology focused areas of ethical inquiry. While existing technology focused areas of inquiry in applied ethics typically apply bio-centric ethical principles to situations with technology, technoethics is techno- and bio-centric (biotechno-centric). This represents a major distinction from traditional work in ethics and applied ethics, which highlight living entities (biological) as being the centre of ethical concern, what Floridi (2003) considers a limitation of biocentric theories which typically focus on applying principles to real world situations. Technoethics provides a unique theoretical foundation to extend existing scholarship on technology and ethics. This is because in technoethics, both technology and biology are central. This means that technology acquires a new status previously reserved for only living entities. In other words, technology can be assigned certain rights and responsibilities from the designers and developers of technology as well as those affected by it. technoethics recognizes that there are important ethical considerations when addressing the conduct of an individual with or without a specific technology. For instance, the ethical considerations associated with nations at war are drastically different in the pre- and postnuclear era. This is because our relationship with technology creates new opportunities for action and raises new ethical considerations that did not exist previously. This distinguishes technoethics from other branches of applied ethics while building on work derived from key sub-areas of applied ethics and technology studies concerned with ethical aspects of technology. In terms of field parameters, technoethics constituted by a variety of sub-areas of applied ethics (e.g., computer ethics, Internet ethics, biotech ethics, etc.) but is not reducible to any one sub- area (or set). Instead, technoethics treats technology and biology as a central organizing construct for

all existing (and potential) technologies in relation to human activity and other living entities, rather than equating technoethics with specific technologies (e.g., computers, Internet, nanotechnology). An important scholar in computer ethics, Johnson (1999), has argued that computer ethics will disappear as a separate discipline in the near future when computing becomes a mature technology and computer use becomes part of ordinary human action. As indicated by Johnson: What was for a time an issue of Computer Ethics becomes simply an ethical issue. Copying software becomes simply an issue of intellectual property. Selling software involves certain legal and moral liabilities. Computer professionals understand they have responsibilities. Online privacy violations are simply privacy violations. So as we come to presume computer technology as part of the world we live in, computer Ethics as such is likely to disappear. (Johnson 1999) Under the framework of technoethics, the disappearance of ethical issues surrounding ‘mature’ technologies is not the end of technology focused programs of ethical inquiry. Rather, it is a progression in technoethics where unresolved ethical questions get resolved or redirected as ethical standards. In this sense, technoethics acts as an important organizing framework for past, present, and future work in technology and ethics. While there may be some debate over how many areas are key areas of technoethics or how it should evolve as a field in the future, there is now sufficient interest in technoethics for it to be recognized as an emerging interdisciplinary field on its own. As expressed by Gearhart, (2008): However viewed, technoethics must exist as a field worthy of study in its own right and not because it can provide a useful means to endure as a separate field, there must be a unique domain for technoethics distinct from the domain for moral education, distinct even from the domains



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of other kinds of professional and Applied Ethics. Technology raises special ethical issues, hence technoethics deserves special status. The purpose of this chapter is to explore technoethics as a new field of interdisciplinary study. It attempts to demonstrate how technoethics emerged as a field focused on social and ethical issues arising from technological transformations of work and life. The main objective is to bring attention to the historical and theoretical groundwork for technoethics. This is accomplished in two steps: (1) providing a skeleton of relevant background information forming the basis for technoethics, and (2) discussing core sub-areas and issues that are currently defining the parameters of technoethics.

bacKGrOUND This section identifies key definitions and multidisciplinary roots that bear on an analysis of technology and key areas of applied ethics to help inform the reader about the development of this emerging field.

Definitions As a formal discipline, ethics refers to a branch of philosophy concerned with customs and values of people within society. It focuses on fundamental questions of right and wrong, good and evil, and responsibility and accountability. In the most general sense, ethical theories are theories and beliefs about moral standards and how they affect conduct. According to the Oxford Concise Dictionary, “Ethics are the moral principles influencing conduct” (p. 490). This entails that ethical considerations are connected to what people do and how they should conduct themselves in the world. Technology is a term defined in a variety of ways and, therefore, must be situated within the present discussion. Although the Greek root



of the word technology (techné) referred generally to art or craft, within the present context, technology is defined more closely in relation to human activity. This is because a great deal of what people do and how they do it depends on the use of technology, particularly in areas where technology contributes added efficiency and effectiveness to human practice. In this paper, technology is a relational concept applying to the design, development, or application of devices, machines, and techniques for human use. Technoethics has been defined in a variety of ways under various terminology. Bunge (1977) pioneered technoethics as a branch of technology study concerned with the special responsibilities of technologists and engineers. Hans Jonas (1985) defined technoethics (ethics of technology) as the ethics involved in the development of new technology and how technology alters the power of individuals. Galvan (2001) defined technoethics as the “sum total of ideas that bring into evidence a system of ethical reference that justifies that profound dimension of technology as a central element in the attainment of a ‘finalized’ perfection of man.” Bao and Xiang (2006) defined technoethics as the behavioral norm and ethical basis for the global community. For the purposes of this paper, technoethics is defined as an interdisciplinary field concerned with all ethical aspects of technology within a society shaped by technology. It deals with human processes and practices connected to technology which are embedded within social, political, and moral spheres of life. It also examines social policies and interventions occurring in response to issues generated by technology development and use. This includes critical debates on the responsible use of technology for advancing human interests in society. To this end, it attempts to provide conceptual grounding to clarify the role of technology in relation to those affected by it and to help guide ethical problem-solving and decision making in areas of activity that rely on technology.

The Emerging Field of Technoethics

Scholars in technoethics (many of whom do not call themselves technoethicists) tend to view technology in relation to human activity (and the activity of other living entities) and at the centre of ethical inquiry. Ursula Franklin’s ethical writings on technology and society in The Real World of Technology provide are in line with the view of technology conceptualized in terms of its relation to human practice (Franklin, 1990). As will be discussed later in the paper, technoethics provides an umbrella for an amassing body of interdisciplinary scholarship and sub-areas of Applied Ethics concerned with the ethical aspects of technology and its use. It also provides unique grounding for extending existing work within an emerging interdisciplinary field. This paper is based on the premise that it is of vital importance to encourage dialogue aimed at determining the ethical use of technology, guarding against the misuse of technology, and formulating common principles to help guide new advances in technological development and application to benefit society.

Philosophy of technology, technocritical scholarship, and applied Ethics Although, the philosophy of technology can be traced to early the Greek use of the term techne (art, or craft knowledge), 20th century philosophy of technology viewed technology in terms of tools and techniques. A number of scholarly works were contributed in this area, which are too numerous to describe in this paper focused on tracing the roots of technoethics. However, some key figures and works should be highlighted. In The Question Concerning Technology, Martin Heidegger argued that modern technology allowed new relationships to the world that were not previously possible (Heidegger, 1977). Heidegger viewed this type of technological relation between human beings and the world as a challenging one because it meant that entities in the world

(including people) were objects capable of being manipulated. This work foreshadowed the advent of networked objects and their complex relations. Subsequent writing expanding this body of work include: Autonomous Technology: Technicsout-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought (Winner, 1977), Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry (Borgmann,1984), Thinking Through Technology (Mitcham, 1994), Questioning Technology (Feenberg, 1999), Technology and the Good Life (Higgs, Light & Strong, 2000), and Readings in the Philosophy of Technology (Kaplin, 2004). This growing body of knowledge was extremely important grounding philosophical inquiry on the human side of technology, that is, technology as it bears on human work and life. Concerted efforts to connect ethics and technology began materializing through the work of Hans Jonas (Jonas, 1979, 1985) and recent publications within the philosophy of technology (Mitcham, 1997, 2005). In The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age (Jonas, 1979), Jonas explored ethical questions specific to the technological age in an effort to advance an ethics of technology. This work explored the role of ethics in the development of new technology as well as how the standard ethical questions are changed by technology. This work continued in On Technology, Medicine and Ethics (Jonas, 1985) by focusing attention on how medicine and other human endeavors are altered by the development of new technologies. In bridging the philosophy of technology into the interdisciplinary field of science, technology, and society (STS) studies, Carl Mitcham provided further grounding for a field of technoethics in linking ethics and technology. Thinking Ethics in Technology: Hennebach Lectures and Papers, 1995-1996 (Mitcham, 1997) is a noteworthy work applying philosophical inquiry to questions of ethics arising in science, technology, and engineering. This work was expanded in Mitcham’s edited Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics



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(Mitcham, 2005). Additional efforts to advance philosophical inquiry into ethics and technology are contributed by the Society for Philosophy and Technology (established in 1976) through the publication of an academic journal called Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology (1995 to present). Technology was also the locus of scholarly work within the social sciences and humanities through technocritical scholarship. Technocriticism emerged from critical theory and focused on the study of technological change. Technocriticism expanded the scope of technology studies into an examination of private and public uses of technology, along with the relations among these different uses. The Technological Society (Ellul, 1964) addressed technology from a deterministic standpoint, exploring technological control over humanity and its potential threat to human dignity and freedom. Ellul viewed technology (as technique) as “the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity” (p. xxv). This text helped map out some of the potential threats and injustices that could be created in the absence of critical discourse that goes beyond technological efficiency. In a slightly different vein, The Real World of Technology (Franklin, 1990) is framed within a feminist standpoint with the goal of advancing understanding of the way technology changes social relationships by redefining conceptions of power and accountability. One particularly important element in this work is the conceptualization of technology as a form of practice (ways of doing something). In this view, technology as practice is embedded in society within its various organizations, procedures, symbols, language acts and mindsets. This technocritical work highlighted the importance of contextualizing technology within societal structures, activities, and practices in the human world. To this end, Franklin advocates the need to advance an ethical framework for



guiding technological development in line with technoethics. Although the body of work derived from the Philosophy of Technology and technocritical writings is primarily concerned with how technology influences social order, the ethical considerations raised in this body of reviewed work help set the stage for the advent of technoethics in two important ways. First, this work encouraged scholars to invest special attention to key areas of technology in order to ground growing efforts to develop ethical guidelines for technology use in society. Second, this work bridged philosophical inquiry into technology with related work within the applied Social Sciences. It did so by drawing on empirical studies to help situate the discourse on technology and Ethics within the context of human activity. The outcome of this is that many scholars became more aware of the need to connect technological development to ethical considerations entrenched in how people live, work, and play. General areas of inquiry within Philosophy and the Humanities focus on issues such as technocritical determinism, ontology, the digital divide, power, and control issues. General questions include, “Is technology immoral?”, “Is the use of technology right or wrong?”, “Are there formal principles governing the rights and responsibilities of technology users?”, and “Should artificial intelligence have rights, and if so, what are they?” In addition to a basis in the philosophy of technology, technoethics has strong connections to applied ethics. Growing interest among philosophers and ethicists in applied ethics and its focus on practical problems was a key contributor in facilitating the emergence of technoethics. The types of questions raised in applied ethics focused on problems that affect people living in society. Does equality entail the elimination of differences in the sex roles, or could there be equal status for different roles? Is it acceptable to give advantages to members of marginalized groups because they have been discriminated

The Emerging Field of Technoethics

against in the past? What ethical obligations do citizens of rich countries have to those from poor countries? To what extent should people be responsible to safeguard the environment? What do people living in today’s society owe to those not yet born? What obligations do people have to uphold animal rights? In terms of contributions to technoethics, applied ethics further grounded technoethics by bringing philosophical inquiry into the context of real world human problems and bringing real events, practices, and research activity into focus. To conclude, ethical considerations arising from key areas of philosophy of technology, technology studies in the humanities, and specialty areas within applied ethics focusing on technology redefined traditional ethical questions by the ways in which technology increased or decreased the power of individuals, institutions, and society. This placed ethical questions related to technology on new ground requiring special status, which led to the emergence of technoethics. This set the stage for a number of areas of technoethics to evolve, which are discussed in the next section.

IDENtIFYING KEY arEas aND IssUEs IN tEcHNOEtHIcs There are challenges in any effort to delineate the broad interdisciplinary field of technoethics. One useful way to describe technoethics is by identifying its key areas of academic research and study derived from various branches of applied ethics and other areas of academic scholarship with a technology focus. This has the advantage of conveying to the reader the broad scope of technoethics and its strong connections to existing academic work. The disadvantage of this is that many branches of applied ethics have overlapping issues that need to be understood (e.g., privacy issues are important in computer ethics and medical ethics). In an effort to accommodate this overlap, the field is described in terms of the ethical issues

arising from technology and its use. Based on an extensive review of the literature and researcher experience, key areas of technoethics and issues are illustrated in Figure 1 and discussed below. Figure 1 illustrates how key areas of technoethics (countries) map onto to ethical issues (bodies of water) and challenges (cities) of fundamental human practices as they are altered by new technologies. For instance, health and medical technoethics focuses attention on questions that have been exacerbated by genetic research and challenges related to information protection and confidentiality. In Internet ethics and cyberethics, users are continually challenged by new forms of surveillance and cybercrime that threaten user privacy and anonymity. This suggests that issues such as privacy (flow through) are key concerns in multiple areas of technoethics. It is worth noting that this conceptual map is not exhaustive and that, as history demonstrates, maps can be modified and augmented as geographical boundaries are refined and new countries are named. An overview of key areas of technoethics and selected issues is provided below.

computer Ethics The origins of computer ethics can be traced to the work of Norbert Wiener who spearheaded cybernetics as the science of control and communication in animals and machines in the 1940s and 1950s (Wiener, 1948, 1954). These developments led Wiener (1948) to recognize both the good and evil inherent in artificial machines. In his seminal text, The Human Use of Human Beings, Weiner was the first scholar to explore basic questions of computer ethics (Wiener, 1954). In the 1970s and 1980s, work in this area continued through critical scholarship on the human aspects of computer use (Weizenbaum, 1976) and ethical guidelines for computer use (Moor, 1985; Johnson, 1985). Up until the mid 1980s, computer ethics may be best understood narrowly as the ethical considerations of computer use. Since the early 1990s,



The Emerging Field of Technoethics

Figure 1 Conceptual map of technoethics

the rapid development of information technology significantly influenced many aspects of life and the nature of computer ethics. Beginning in the mid-1990s, theoretical work in information ethics emerged as an outgrowth of work in computer ethics (and other areas). It focused on ethical issues arising from the development and application of information technologies used in computing. It is based on the notion of “infosphere”, a term coined by Floridi to describe the informational environment constituted by informational entities, including processes and interactions (Floridi & Sanders, 2003). Floridi and Sanders (2003) viewed information as “a necessary prerequisite for any morally responsible action to being its primary object.” In recent



years, the advancement of information technology, combined with work on information ethics, helped extend the boundaries of computer ethics to include the study of social and ethical impacts of information technology. Computer ethics is a key area of technoethics that focuses on the human use of technology in a number of areas including graphic interfaces, visual technology, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Some key questions of interest in this area include, “How do we gauge the ethical use of new computer technologies?”, “What are the ethical implications of allowing monopolies to control software and hardware development?” “What are the ethical considerations in computer production?” and “What are the responsibilities to stakeholders for those involved in computer technology management?”

The Emerging Field of Technoethics

Engineering Ethics Engineering ethics developed as a branch of applied ethics dealing with professional standards of engineers and their moral responsibilities to the public. This was particularly salient in areas where engineers applied new technical and scientific knowledge to provide solutions to conflicting societal needs. Important areas and applications of Engineering include: Aerospace, agriculture, architecture, bioengineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, construction, electrical engineering, industrial engineering, mechanical engineering, nuclear energy creation, and software design. Engineering ethics was a precursor and catalyst to the field of technoethics within the technoethics framework described by Bunge (1977) and a forerunner in professional technoethics (see below). Engineering ethics addressed concerns for the value dimension of engineering through technological innovation, public interest, and media attention. Many university degree programs in engineering require the completion of courses in engineering ethics. Johnson’s (1991) Ethical Issues in Engineering and Unger’s (1982) Controlling Technology: Ethics and the Responsible Engineer are two hallmark texts in this area and in professional technoethics. Some key questions of interest in this area include “Who should be responsible for the negative impacts of engineering on society?”, “How should the public be informed of engineering risks?”, and “How do we deal with the fact that many engineering applications can be used for evil?”

Internet Ethics and cyberethics Interest in Internet Ethics arose in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the advent of new challenges in computing revolving around the growth of the Internet and new computing technologies for the Internet (e.g., spyware, antivirus software, web browser cookies). One important event occurred in 1989, when the Internet Architecture Board

(IAB) created a policy concerning Internet ethics. This policy provided the first comprehensive set of general guidelines to guard against unethical activity including, gaining unauthorized access to Internet resources, disrupting the intended use of the Internet, compromising the integrity of computer-based information, and compromising the privacy of users (Internet Architecture Board, 1989). In a similar vein, cyberethics has advanced Internet research on serious ethical challenges and debates. One area of cyberethics, cyberdemocracy, focuses on whether or not the Internet is a democratic technology fostering digital citizenship construed as normative rules and practices for governing appropriate and responsible behavior when using technology (Ribble & Bailey, 2004). For instance, Regan (1996) explores ethical considerations derived from the ongoing debate over free speech versus censorship on the Internet, Adam (2002) examined the problem of cyberstalking, and Jenkins (2001) investigated Internet pornography and child exploitation. Other areas of research in cyberethics include, cyber identity theft (online theft of identity or knowledge of factual information that identifies an individual, identity fraud (online use of false and/or stolen identities to obtain money or other benefits illegally), and phishing (using Internet to ‘fish’ for credit card numbers, bank account information and other personal information to be used illegally). Other important work focuses on the creation of guidelines for Internet conduct commonly referred to as netiquette (Internet etiquette). Netiquette guidelines cover procedures for basic online behaviors such as posting messages and maintaining civility in discussions, but also special guidelines unique to the electronic nature of forum messages. Key questions in Internet ethics and cyberethics include, “How do we deal with Internet abuse and misuse such as piracy, pornography, and hate speech?”, “Who should have access to the Internet and who should be in control?”, “How should we



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protect young Internet users from unnecessary risks derived from Internet use?”, “What are the ethical responsibilities of Internet researchers to research participants?” and “What are the ethical responsibilities of Internet researchers to protect the identity and confidentiality of data derived from the Internet?”

Media and communication technoethics Media and communication technoethics is an area of technoethics concerned with ethical issues and responsibilities when using mass media and communication technology in communication. It has roots in media studies, discourse ethics, organizational communications, and communication theory with pioneering work contributed by leading scholars including Marshall McLuhan and Jurgen Habermas. On the media side, Marshall McLuhan was a leading communication theorist from the 1960s and 1970s who spearheaded scholarly work in communication media and media discourse which helped connect communication and technology considerations. McLuhan’s The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1961) was a seminal exploration of how various communication technologies influence cognitive organization, which impacts social organization. McLuhan (1961) argued, ”If a new technology extends one or more of our senses outside us into the social world, then new ratios among all of our senses will occur in that particular culture.” Although this work did not advance a moral character to technology, it highlighted the need for human awareness of technology’s cognitive effects in shaping individual and societal conceptions. This work was extended in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964) where he argued that media characteristics (rather than media content) affect the society in which it operates. His popularly quoted statement, “the medium is the message” helped demonstrate the need for an approach in studying communication that

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acknowledges how technological progress makes communications more pervasive and powerful than ever before with a wide range and diversity of media available. This provided grounding for a close connection between technology and communication studies. Another major contribution to media and communication technoethics was derived through connections made between communication and ethics, such as Habermas’s discourse ethics (1990) and his attempt to connect argumentative procedures used in everyday practice to the normative validity governing interactions. Based on Kantian deontological ethics, Habermas provided a unique analysis of communicative structures explaining the obligatory nature of morality rooted in universal obligations of communicative rationality. According to Habermas’ principle of discourse ethics, “Only those norms can claim to be valid that meet (or could meet) with the approval of all affected in their capacity as participants in a practical discourse” (Habermas, 1990). Other approaches to discourse ethics and online deliberation can be found in Benhabib (1992) and Thorseth (2006). This body of work is important to technoethics in that it situates ethical and moral inquiry within intersubjective processes of communication taking place in the real world of human practice. Since the 1990s, work under various communications research programs furthered connections between ethics, technology, and communication in a variety of communication contexts. Some key areas include: ethics in technical communications (Allen, & Voss, 1997), ethics in virtual organizations, netiquette and other ethical issues in online communication (Rotenberg, 1998). In line with Habermas’s work in discourse ethics, Allen and Voss (1997) explored ethics as values and designed procedures for addressing ethical issues in technical communications, such as identifying stakeholders and their interests, identifying relevant values related to the topic, determining any conflicting values and interests

The Emerging Field of Technoethics

that are in conflict, and weight the values and interests that are in conflict. In exploring implications for computer network design, Rotenberg (1998) addressed ethical issues related to online communications privacy, namely, confidentiality, anonymity, and data protection. Understanding the new ethical responsibilities and challenges in online communication is particularly important for researchers working in these areas (see Mann & Stewart, 2000). Some key questions of interest in this area include, “Is democratic decision making possible through online deliberation?”, “How does Internet filtering affect global communication?”, “How can virtual organizations resolve communication conflicts and satisfy stakeholder interests?”, and “What procedures should be followed to protect individual identity and anonymity in online communications?”

Professional technoethics Professional ethics within the framework of technoethics (henceforth professional technoethics) concerns all ethical considerations that revolve around the role of technology within professional conduct. As an important area of technoethics, professional technoethics deals with the issues of ethical responsibility for professionals working with technology. Although professional technoethics applies to any profession, there is more emphasis on professions that actively use new technologies such as, engineering, journalism, or medicine. Professional technoethics can be understood as identifying and analyzing issues of ethical responsibility for professionals working with technology. Among the technoethics issues considered from this perspective are those having to do with computer professionals’ role in designing, developing, and maintaining computer hardware and software systems and journalists’ role in protecting informant identity, accessing information, as well as presenting information for public viewing. Key questions include, “How will each technological innovation affect people

in the short term and the long-term?”, “What are the ethical responsibilities of professionals using technology to contribute to helping mankind?”, and “Do the outcomes of professional work with technology prioritize the rights of some individuals over others?”

Educational technoethics Educational technoethics is an area of technoethics concerned with the ethical issues and outcomes associated with using technology for educational aims. Much of the early work in educational technoethics emerged in the field of educational Technology through the work of experts like Nichols (1987, 1998) and Boyd (1991). Nichols (1987) explored the negative aspects of educational technology while attempting to derive moral guidelines for ethical use. In a slightly different vein, Boyd (1991) explored the idea of emancipatory educational technology as a means to foster positive educational values using new technology. The motivation behind this early work was to demonstrate that technology required an ethical examination in order to be employed suitably in education. One particularly influential work by Cortés (2005) provided a thorough examination of technoethics and the role of educational technoethics. Cortes recognized that because technoethics entailed an ethical purpose, this must be taken into account in examining the use of technology in education. Key topics in the current areas of research in educational technoethics include: The misuse of the Internet to commit plagiarism (Lathrop & Foss, 2000) and other academic offences (Underwood & Szabo, 2003). Current areas of research in educational technoethics include, access to educational technology, diversity issues in online learning, and educational technology uses and misuses. For instance, the popularization of the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) in the mid1990s contributed to student plagiarism within educational institutions. The Internet and the



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WWW provided students with easy access and new opportunities to cut and paste assignments (or portions of assignments) from other people’s work or purchase term papers online (Ercegovac & Richardson, 2004). This led to the development of a number of computer programs to detect the unethical use of research papers and deter Internet plagiarism (Turnitin, 2007). Underwood and Szabo (2003) review ethical problems in e-learning and individual propensities in cheating. Although technologies have been developed to detect plagiarism, there are ethical issues in how to deal with the situation. Some key questions of interest in educational technoethics include, “How do advances in educational technology affect access to new educational resources and the growing digital divide?”, “How do new educational technologies influence multicultural education and inclusion?”, and ”What are the ethical considerations in online plagiarism and how should such situations be dealt with?”

biotech Ethics Biotech ethics is linked to advances in bioethics and medical ethics. Bioethics emerged in the mid-1960s and early 1970s with the introduction of renal dialysis and in vitro fertilization (IVF). Bioethics evolved as an ethics of biological science and medicine relying on philosophical inquiry to help analyze important ethical issues. With a specific focus on medicine and medical practices, medical ethics dealt with ethical conflicts in medicine, health care, and nursing. With the advent of reproductive medicine and research in the 1970s, bioethics and medical ethics began dealing with important ethical issues complicated by new technologies including, abortion, animal rights, eugenics, euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, and reproductive rights. Also during the 1970s, biotechnology emerged as biological technologies began to be used in agriculture and food science to modify products for human use. In the early 1980s and 1990s, the use of biotechnologies spread



rapidly to medical research, health care, and industrial applications. Hans Jonas’s On Technology, Medicine and Ethics (1985) was a pioneering text dealing social and ethical problems in medicine created by technology. Another catalyst was the introduction of the Human Genome Project by the U.S. Department of Energy in 1986 to begin identifying all human genes and map out the sequence of the human genome (U.S. Department of State International Information Programs, 2007). This led to a number of technological advances which sparked debate and created the need for a biotech ethics to address ethical considerations arising in many areas of biological technology including, cloning, genetically modified food, gene therapy, human genetic engineering, drug production, reprogenetics, and stem cell research. New applications in biotechnology continue to advance work in many areas (e.g., genetics, biochemistry, chemical engineering, information technology, biometrics nanotechnology, and robotics) while raising new ethical questions to further ground biotech ethics as an important branch of technoethics (Schummer & Baird, 2006). Some key questions of interest in this area include, “Who should have ownership and control of harvested DNA, human tissue and other genetic material?”, “How should information from genetic tests be protected to avoid infringing on human rights?”, and “How do we deal with the fact that developing countries are deprived the same access to applications of biotechnology (biotech divide) available in other countries?”

Environmental technoethics Environmental technoethics is a newly emerging branch of technoethics based in environmental ethics and concern over technological innovations that impact the environment and life. Environmental technoethics can be traced to the domain of environmental ethics and growing interest among scholars in the 1960s and 1970s in the relationship of human beings to the natural environment

The Emerging Field of Technoethics

(Passmore, 1974; Rolston III, 1975; Stone, 1972). This early work helped direct attention to the ethical aspects of natural environments. It did not stress other types of environments influenced by technological innovation including, constructed environments, urban landscapes, and extraterrestrial environments. Although not directly focused on ethical considerations, Jane Jacob’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) raised technoethical concerns in her forward thinking critique of American urban renewal policies of the 1950s. This text highlighted the importance of environmental technoethics for guiding urban renewal. A recent collection of readings on environmental ethics by Schmidtz and Willott (2002) examines ethical aspects of technologically infused (constructed), such as the effects of cities on resource consumption, poverty in a global context, and growth of human population within a technological society. As a relatively new area of technoethics, environmental technoethics focuses on the human use of technology in a number of areas that that have a definite or possible connection with natural and constructed environments including transport, urban planning, mining, sanitation, marine contamination, and terraforming. For instance, the ethics of terraforming (Earth shaping) originated in science fiction writing in the 1940s (Williamson, 1942) and became popularized in later science fiction writing (Robinson, 1992, 1993, 1996). Some key questions of interest in this area include, “How do we help improve the lives of people living in cities suffering from infrastructural decay?”, “What are the rights of individuals in environmental construction and management?”, and “What responsibilities do we have to extraterrestrial environments and its living material?”

Nanoethics Nanotechnology broadly refers to the alteration of matter at the level of atoms and molecules. In the 1980s, Drexler’s (1986) Engines of Creation:

The Coming Era of Nanotechnology was an early scholarly work mapping out contributions in nanoscale research and development. The discovery of nanotechnology and its applications have contributed to the advancement of research in a variety of disciplines including, computer science, engineering, biology, and chemistry. Because of the health and safety issues and potential risks to the environment, nanotechnology has provoked serious public debate and a number of ethical concerns. Hunt and Mehta (2006) provide an up to date overview of key developments in nanotechnology risks and ethical issues connected to this potentially dangerous technological innovation. As such, nanoethics is a new area of technoethics concerned with ethical and social issues associated with developments in nanotechnology. Some key questions of interest in this area include, “What are the potential health and safety risks with nanotechnology applications and who is responsible?”, “What are the rights of individuals in affecting nanotechnology applications?”, and “What responsibilities do we have to protect society from the risks of nanotechnology advancement?”

Military technoethics Military technoethics derives from military ethics and the study of ethical aspects of military conduct. Within contemporary studies of the military, advanced technologies have become increasingly dominant in military action. This raises a number of new ethical questions regarding the appropriate use of advanced technologies in situations where the military must act. An edited edition by Smith (1985) was important in focusing scholarly attention on technological change within the military. This text helped to draw attention to the need to understand war-technology and how it redefined relationships. Another useful text by Hartle (1989) addressed ethical and moral governing military decisions from the perspective of an American army scholar. This type of technology oriented inquiry highlights military technoethics as an



The Emerging Field of Technoethics

interesting new area of technoethics in development. At this early stage, military technoethics is primarily concerned with ethical issues associated with technology use in military action. Some key questions of interest in this area include, “What are the actual and possible risks with nuclear weapons?” and “Who should be responsible for controlling advanced military technology?”

FUtUrE trENDs The future of technoethics is in the hands of scholars capable of discerning important connections between technology and ethics within a complex multidisciplinary framework. The complexity of technoethics is partly attributable to the variety of areas it encompasses(i.e., computer ethics, engineering ethics, educational technoethics, media ethics, communication technoethics, internet ethics, cyberethics, professional technoethics, biotech ethics, medical ethics, nanoethics, and environmental technoethics). Because ethical considerations within technoethics are embedded within rapidly changing domains of technology, discerning ethical issues requires considerable effort to be properly understood. For this reason, an important future trend in technoethics scholarship focuses on the development of new strategies for conducting research in technoethics. Moor (2005) suggests that an ethical approach to technology can be fostered by: (1) taking into account that Ethics is an ongoing and dynamic enterprise, (2) creating multidisciplinary collaborations among ethicists, scientists, and technologists, and (3) developing more sophisticated ethical analyses. Building on work from Tavani (2004), one practical approach to future research on ethics and technology focuses the identification of controversial practices as moral problems, followed by an analysis and synthesis of factual data associated with these problems. Depending on the orientation of the research, the outcome may lead to new prescriptive models for guiding



technology related decision making or new moral theories and principles related to technoethics. It is expected that technoethics will continue to expand with new areas added as technology progresses in the 21st century.

cONcLUsION Over the last 30 years, a growing body of scholarship in technoethics under a variety of labels has expanded the scope of this field, while, at the same time, building on the pioneering work on technoethics as a domain of professional responsibility for engineers and others working closely with technology (Bunge, 1977). In terms of development, efforts to address the ethical responsibilities of technologists and engineers within society are as much a part of technoethics today as was the case in the 1970s. Moreover, work in various areas of technoethics has extended the scope of technoethics beyond the context of engineering and professional ethics to other areas of scholarship in ethics and technology including computer ethics, internet ethics and cyberethics, media and communication technoethics, biotech ethics, and environmental technoethics, professional technoethics, and educational technoethics. Table 1 presents the main areas of technoethics, along with key figures and selected topics covered in this paper.

FUtUrE rEsEarcH DIrEctIONs One promising area of future research focuses on the intersection of computer ethics and cyberethics with questions revolving moral rights and responsibilities of artificial agents. As technological development allows us to automate many everyday operations under the control of artificial agents, we must decide whether to accept that nobody is responsible for the outcomes of automated processes or we must find some

The Emerging Field of Technoethics

Table 1. Key areas of technoethics Author

Technoethic Areas

Selected Issues

Sample Questions

Weiner (1948) Johnson (1985)

Computer ethics

Interface design Software Piracy

What are the responsibilities of technologists to those affected by their work?”

Bunge (1977) Johnson (1991)

Engineering ethics

Engineering conduct Quality assurance

How should responsible be assigned for the negative impacts of Engineering on society?

Internet Architecture Board (1989) Ribble & Bailey (2004)

Internet ethics and cyberethics

Privacy Cybercrime

What are the ethical responsibilities of Internet researchers to research participants?

Cortes (2005) Gearhart (2000)

Educational technoethics

Access to education Plagiarism

How do advances in educational technology affect access to new educational resources and the growing digital divide?

Jacobs (1961) Jonas (1985

Biotech ethics

Reproductive technologies Stem cell research

Who should have ownership and control of harvested DNA, human tissue and other genetic material?

McLuhan (1962) Habermas (1990)

Media & communication technoethics

Freedom of speech Online discourse

How can virtual organizations resolve communication conflicts and satisfy stakeholder interests?

Unger (1982) Johnson (1991)

Professional technoethics

Conflict of interest Professional responsibility

What are the ethical responsibilities of professionals using technology to contribute to helping mankind?

Jacobs (1961) Schmidtz &Willott (2002)

Environmental technoethics

Sustainable development Terraforming

How do we assign responsibility in environmental construction and management?

Drexler (1986) Hunt and Mehta (2006)

Nanoethics

Health and safety Environmental risk

What are the potential risks with nanotechnology applications and how should responsibility be assigned?

Smith (1985) Hartle (1989)

Military technoethics

Military technology Nuclear weapons

Who should be responsible for controlling advanced military technology?

way to assign responsibility and accountability to artificial agents as discussed in (Matthias, 2004). Preliminary work is already beginning to arise in this area. For instance, Stahl (2006) provides one approach for ascribing quasi-responsibility to computers independent of personhood or agency. Using a different angle, Johnson (2006) differentiates moral agency from moral entities, arguing that computer systems should be considered moral entities but not moral agents. This work is still in its infancy and raising a number of challenging questions for future research including, “Should artificial agents be held legally responsible for their actions, if so, how?”, “Are the conditions

for moral responsibility the same for people as for artificial agents?”, and “How does increased interdependence on technology affect personal agency and moral responsibility?” A second area of future research focuses on the advancement of ethical policies and laws in technoethics for dealing with the unique ethical issues arising from new opportunities for thought and action made possible through technological developments. This is particularly salient in the abovementioned areas of computer ethics and cyberethics where humans are creating more autonomous and self regulated technological innovations. In an effort to advance this work a preliminary



The Emerging Field of Technoethics

formulation for the Law of Technoethics is offered which builds on insightful work by Moor (2005). Moor’s Law holds that ethical problems increase as technological revolutions increase their social impact, ethical problems increase (Moor, 2005). As a biotechnocentric oriented field, technoethics views the relation between technology and living entities as paramount. The Law of Technoethics derived from this provides the following: The Law of Technoethics holds that ethical rights and responsibilities assigned to technology and its creators increases as technological innovations increase their social impact. The Law of Technoethics makes two important contributions. First, it addresses the need for accountability among professions who create technology. This follows Bunge’s (1977) prescriptions in the original conceptualization of technoethics. Second, it addresses the changing nature of technology and how it affects society. Future work may focus on how to assign ethical rights and responsibilities under various conditions and within different contexts.

rEFErENcEs Adam, A. (2002) Cyberstalking and Internet Pornography: Gender and the Gaze. Ethics and Information Technology, 4, 133-142. Allen, L. & Voss, D. (1997). Ethics in technical communication: Shades of gray. New York: Wiley Computer Publishing, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Borgmann, A. (1984). Technology and the character of contemporary life: A philosophical inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bunge, Mario. (1977). Towards a technoethics. Monist, 60(1), 96–107. Cavalier, R. (2005). The impact of the internet on our moral lives. NY: State University of New York Press.



Cortés, P. A. (2005). Educational Technology as a means to an end. Educational Technology Review, 13(1), 73-90. Drexler, E. (1986). Engines of creation: The coming era of nanotechnology. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday. Ellul, Jacques. (1964). The technological society. NY: Vintage Books. Ercegovac, Z. & Richardson, J. Jr. (2004). Academic dishonesty, plagiarism included, in the digital age: A literature review. College and Research Libraries. Retrieved June 30, 2007, from http://privateschool.about.com/cs/forteachers/a/cheating.htm Ethics. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved June 4, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/ eb/article-252578 Feenberg, A. (1999). Questioning technology. Routledge Press. Floridi, L. (1999). Information ethics: On the theoretical foundations of computer ethics. Ethics and Information Technology 1(1), 37-56. Floridi, L. & Sanders, J. (2003). Computer ethics: Mapping the foundationalist debate. Ethics and Information Technology, 4(1), 1-24. Habermas, J.(1990): Moral consciousness and communicative ethics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hartle, A. (1989). Moral issues in military decision making. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press. Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology. In Lovitt, W. (Ed.), The question concerning technology and other essays (pp.1339). New York: Harper and Row. Higgs, E., Light, A., & Strong, D. (2000). Technology and the good life. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

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Hunt, G. & Mehta, M. (2006). Nanotechnology: Risk, ethics and law. London: Earthscan Book.

Mitcham, C. (1994). Thinking through technology. University of Chicago Press.

Internet Architecture Board. (1989). Retrieved June 4, 2007, from http://tools.ietf.org/html/ rfc1087

Mitcham , C. (1997). Thinking ethics in technology: Hennebach lectures and papers, 1995-1996. Golden, CO: Colorado School of Mines Press.

Jacobs, J. (1961). The death and life of great american cities. New York: Random House and Vintage Books.

Mitcham, C. (2005). Encyclopedia of science, technology, and ethics. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA.

Jenkins, P. (2001) Beyond tolerance: Child pornography on the internet. New York University Press.

Moor, J. H. (1985). What is computer ethics. In T. W. Bynum (Ed.), Computers and ethics. Basil Blackwell, pp. 266-275.

Johnson, D. (n.d.). Ethical issues in engineering. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,

Moor, J. H. (2005). Why we need better ethics for emerging technologies. Ethics and Information Technology, 7, 111-119.

Johnson, D. (1985) Computer ethics. NJ: Prentice-Hall Johnson, D.G. (2006). Computer systems: Moral entities but not moral agents. Ethics and Information Technology, 8, 195-204. Jonas, H. (1979). The imperative of responsibility: In search of ethics for the technological age. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Jonas, H. (1985). On technology, medicine and ethics. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Lathrop, A. & Foss, K. (2000). Student cheating and plagiarism in the Internet era: A wake-up call. Englewood, CD: Libraries Unlimited Inc. McLuhan, M. (1962). The Gutenberg galaxy. Toronto: McGraw Hill. McLuhan, Marshall. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. Toronto: McGraw Hill. Mann, C., & Stewart, F. (2000). Internet communication and qualitative research- A handbook for researching online. London: Sage. Matthias, A. (2004). The responsibility gap: Ascribing responsibility for the actions of learning automata. Ethics and Information Technology, 6(3), 175-18

Nichols, R. G. (1987). Toward a conscience: Negative aspect of educational technology. Journal of Visual/Verbal Languaging, 7(1), 121-137. Nichols, R. G. (1994). Searching for moral guidance about educational tecnology. Educational technology, 34(2), 40-48. OLT, M. R. (2002). Ethics and distance education: strategies for minimizing academic dishonesty in online assessment. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 5(3). Passmore, J. (1974). Man’s responsibility for nature. London: Duckworth. Regan S. (1996) Is there free speech on the Internet? Censorship in the global information infrastructure. In R. Shields (ed.) Cultures of Internet virtual spaces, real histories, living bodies. London: Sage. Plagiarism.org (2007). Homepage. Retrieved June30, 2007, from http://www.plagiarism.org/ Ribble, M., & Bailey, G. (2004). Digital citizenship: Focus questions for implementation. Learning & Leading with Technology, 32(2), 12-15. Rolston, H. (1975). Is there an ecological ethic?, Ethics, 85, 93-109.



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Rotenberg, M. (1998). Communications privacy: implications for network design. In Stichler, R. N. & Hauptman, R. (Eds.), Ethics, Information and Technology Readings. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Schmidtz, D. & Willott, E. (2002). Environmental ethics: What really matters, what really works. New York: Oxford University Press. Schummer, J. & Baird, D. (2006). Nanotechnology Challenges: Implications for Philosophy, Ethics and Society. London: World Scientific. Stahl, B.C. (2006). Responsible computers? A case for ascribing quasi-responsibility to computers independent of personhood or agency. Ethics and Information Technology, 8, 205-213. Stallard, C.H. & Cocker, J.S. (2001). The promise of technology in schools: The next 20 years. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc. Stone, C. D. 1972. Should trees have standing? Southern California Law Review, 45,450-501 Swierstra, T. (1997). From critique to responsibility: The ethical turn in the technology debate. Society for Philosophy and Technology, 3(1). Retrieved January 12, 2007 from http://scholar. lib.vt.edu/ejournal/SPT/v3n1/swierstra.html Tavani, H. T. (2004). Ethics and technology: Ethical issues in an age of information and communication technology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Turnitin (2007). Turn it in. Retrieved January 12, 2007 from http://www.turnitin.com/static/home. html Underwood, J. & Szabo, A. (2003). Academic offences and e-learning: Individual propensities in cheating. British Journal of Educational Technology, 34(4), 467–477. Thorseth, M. (2006). Worldwide deliberation and public reason online. Ethics and Information Technology, 8, 243-252.



Unger, S. (1982). Controlling technology: Ethics and the responsible engineer. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. U.S. Department of State International Information Programs. Frequently asked questions about biotechnology. USIS Online, available from http://usinfo.state.govt/ Weizenbaum, J. (1976). Computer power and human reason: From judgment to calculation. New York: Freeman. Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics: Or control and communication in the animal and the machine. Cambridge: The Technology Press. Wiener, N. (1954). Human use of human beings. Houghton Mifflin, 2nd ed, Doubleday Anchor. Winner, L. (1977). Autonomous technology: Technics-out-of-control as a theme in political thought. Boston: MIT Press. Sparrow, R. (1999). The ethics of terraforming. Environmental Ethics, 21(3), 227-240. Zubrin,R. (1996). The case for Mars: The plan to settle the red planet and why we must ( pp. 248249). NY: Simon & Schuster/Touchstone.

aDDItIONaL rEaDINGs Bunge, M. (1967). Scientific research II: The search for truth. New York: Springer. Bunge, M. (1976). The philosophical richness of technology. Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Volume 2: Symposia and Invited Papers (pp. 153–172). Dreyfus, H. (2002). Thinking in action: On the Internet. London: Routledge Esquirol, J., ed. (2003). Tecnoética: Actas del II Congreso Internacional de Tecnoética. Barcelona: Publicaciones Universitat de Barcelona.

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Freedman, D. (2006). The technoethics trap. Inc. Magazine. Retrieved June 30, 2007 from http://www.inv.com/magazine/20060301/column-freedman_Printer_Friendly.html Galván, J. (2001). Technoethics: Acceptability and social integration of artificial creatures. Retrieved June 30, 2007 from http://www.eticaepolitica.net/ tecnoetica/jmg_acceptability%5Bit%5D.htm Kaplan, D. (2004). Readings in the philosophy of technology. Rowman & Littlefield. Moor, J. & Weckert, J. (2004). Nanoethics: Assessing the nanoscale from an ethical point of view. In Baird, D., Nordmann, A. & J. Schummer (Eds.) Discovering the nanoscale. (pp. 301-310). Amsterdam: IOS Press. Swierstra, T. (1997). From critique to responsibility: the ethical turn in the technology debate. Society for Philosophy and Technology, 3(1). Retrieved January 12, 2007 from http://scholar. lib.vt.edu/ejournal/SPT/v3n1/swierstra.html Winner, L. (1992).Technology and democracy. Dordrecht and Boston: Reidel/Kluwer.

KEY tErMs Applied Ethics: A branch of philosophy concerned with the use of ethical values within society. Artificial Intelligence: Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the creation of computer programs and devices for simulating brain functions and ac-

tivity. It also refers to the research program aimed at designing and building intelligent artifacts. Bioethics: Bioethics is an area of applied ethics open to interpretation with a variety of different views posited on the topic. Discourse ethics: Discourse ethics is an area of philosophical inquiry and communication study focused on rational communication and normative values underlying discourse. Ethics: Ethics is the study of moral conduct, i.e., conduct regarded as right or wrong, good or evil, or as what ought or ought not to be done. Law of Technoethics: The Law of Technoethics holds that ethical rights and responsibilities assigned to technology and its creators increases as technological innovations increase their social impact. Media Ethics: Media ethics is an area of applied ethics concerned with ethical principles and media standards. Medical Ethics: Medical ethics is an area of applied ethics concerned with moral values in medicine, particularly in situations where moral values are in conflict. Nanotechnology: Nanotechnology describes the alteration of matter at the level of atoms and molecules. Nanotechnology research is conducted in a variety of areas and disciplines. Philosophy of Technology: The philosophy of technology is a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of technology and its social implications.



0

Chapter II

A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Technoethics Marc J. de Vries Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

abstract In this chapter it is argued that a multidisciplinary approach to technoethics is necessary to do justice to the complexity of technology. Normativity pervades all aspects of technology, including technological knowledge. As a consequence, ethical considerations should guide not only the production of artifacts, but also their design and the research that is needed to acquire knowledge about the artifact-in-design. Experts from different disciplines should cooperate to identify relevant ethical issues related to the various aspects of the reality in which the artifact will function.

INtrODUctION: tHE cOMPLExItY OF tEcHNOLOGY If there is one lesson that engineers and society in general have learnt about technological developments in the past decades, then that is its complexity. In earlier days, such as the 1950s and 1960s, it seemed that technology was simply a matter of getting the technicalities worked out, so that the products would function well. The market would then absorb all new products and there was always an interest for the latest gadgets. There was not yet any concern about environmental issues, nor were there economic constraints. There was not

yet a need to set limits to technological developments by legislation, and aesthetical issues could easily be dealt with afterwards, once the product had already almost been completed. It was as the slogan of the 1933 Chicago World Fair suggested: Science Discovers, Technology Applies, Man Conforms. It was only later, since the 1970s, that industrial companies were confronted with critical consumers, governments that wanted to exert an influence on technological developments, economic constraints, and a growing concern about natural resources. Then it became clear that in technological developments a range of aspects has to be taken into account in order to

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A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Technoethics

bring about a successful product. Industrial companies have developed a whole range of methods to deal with this complexity, often formalized in ISO certification procedures (I have described these developments more extensively for the case of the research organization in the Philips Electronics company; see De Vries 2005ii). In all the aspects that create this complexity ethics is somehow involved. For instance, one can question what is ethically permissible when trying to please the customer, or when trying to conform to new legislation without too much effort. It seems, though, as if ethical debates still tend to be reduced to only a few aspects. Often this is the aspect of environmental effects. In other cases, such as in communication technologies, it is perhaps the aspect of privacy. It may seem as if other aspects are less relevant. In general one can state that ethical debates are often reduced to risks, and particularly to calculated risks. In that case the ethical debate is reduced to the numerical aspect of reality. In this chapter it will be claimed that a proper ethical debate needs to take into account reality in its full complexity. As a consequence, such a debate needs input from knowledge about these various aspects. In other words: contributions from different disciplines are needed to get a proper insight into the ethical considerations about new technological developments. A philosophical theoretical framework will be presented that is suitable for analyzing the complexity of technology and the range of disciplines that ought to contribute to ethical debates on technological developments.

bacKGrOUND Probably ethical considerations have always in some way or other accompanied the development of technology. But by the end of the 1960s ethical debates began to play a more explicit role, due to the fact that negative effects of technology started to become evident and social concern

about technological developments arose. This was also the period in which philosophers began to develop an interest in technology. Reflecting on the nature and effects of technology seemed to be a relevant contribution to discussions about how technological developments could be controlled socially. Until then this control had not been a great concern, as technology seemed to play a useful role in society and also its development was not held back by economic concerns. But once it became evident that technology’s role in society was less innocent than one had experienced before, critical reflection on technology emerged as a new field in philosophy. At that time, it was primarily Continental philosophers who developed this new interest. Analytical philosophy at that time had a different agenda. It should be noted here that the distinction between Continental and analytical philosophy is nowadays becoming more and more problematic. But in those days, the differentiation between philosophers who were concerned with critical and cultural debates and those who were concerned with analyzing the meaning of terms was still pretty much the same as that between philosophers working on the European continent and philosophers working in Anglo-American countries. Two Continental philosophers that stand out in their critical writings about technology are Martin Heidegger and Jacques Ellul. Both saw technology as a threat to humanity. Heidegger stressed the way technology narrows our perspective on reality: in stead of appreciating reality for its intrinsic value, through technology we tend to see it only as a resource, as something that still has to be processed to become valuable. Ellul pointed out that technology had become a system with certain autonomy. People felt that they had lost control over technology, and in fact they had. Even for an individual engineer it was no longer possible to control the development of technology in any substantial way. Both in the case of Heidegger and Ellul there is no ethics of any substance in their reflections. Although both pay much attention to the negative values that ac-



A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Technoethics

company technological developments (negative in their view, that is), they do not offer any practical guidelines for an ethics of technology. Well-known is Heidegger’s claim that “only a god can save us”, now that we have become so dedicated to technology and its narrow view on reality, and as he was agnostic, this is to be interpreted as a purely fatalistic expression. For Ellul there are hardly any possibilities to control technology, and therefore ethical guidelines would be powerless anyway. Not all Continental philosophers wrote about technology in a negative way. Karl Marx, for example, was very positive about the role of technology in bringing about a new communist society. As his view on history was fairly deterministic (the new society would come anyway), he, too, did not develop a clear ethics of technology. For him such an ethics was superfluous because the coming of the communist society was not dependent on proper ethical behavior thanks to the role of technology. So apart from Marx, the overall impression of Continental philosophical reflection on technology was not very favorable towards technological developments and their impact on society and culture. In most of these writings no difference was made between different technologies. The philosophers’ claims were quite general. Also they seemed not much informed by studies about the actual way new artifacts were developed. In the 1970s and 1980s a growing amount of empirical studies about technological developments became available. These studies were inspired by similar studies on science, since Thomas Kuhn’s famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). In that book Kuhn showed that there are much more human values involved in science than suggested by earlier (positivist) philosophy of science. Later other historians and sociologists started showing the same for technology. Out of this grew a whole ‘school’ called the Social Construction Of Technology (SCOT). The next step was that analytical philosophers took up an interest in technology. They realized



that the sweeping generalizations in the Continental philosophers’ writings left much to be desired in terms of a more accurate description of how technology really develops. They also realized that the empirical studies by historians and sociologists could serve as a useful resource for philosophical reflection aimed at analyzing the nature of technological developments. This could also create a more balanced view on the effects of technological developments that could replace the dark and gloomy images that had been produced by the majority of Continental philosophers. Mitcham indicated this approach as an ‘engineering philosophy of technology’, contrary to the ‘humanities philosophy of technology’ of the Continental philosophers (Mitcham 1994, p. 17). Some philosophers feared that this ‘empirical turn’ in the philosophy of technology (Kroes and Meijers 2000) might cause the whole issue of values, and related to that, the ethics of technology, to disappear, as the values were mostly hidden in the empirical studies. This, however, proved not to be the case. Analytical philosophers also took into account the normative aspects of technology. These aspects came into their reflections particularly via the concept of functions (Houkes 2006). Functions are what an artifact ought to do, not what it actually does. Ascribing the function of a screwdriver to a long and thin artifact with a wedged top means to make a normative claim about the artifact: it should enable me to drive a screw into a piece of wood. As a consequence, knowledge about this artifact also has a normative component (De Vries 2006). It is knowledge not about the things are they are (as in science), but about how they should be. This can also be recognized in the knowledge of norms and standards that is very much part of today’s engineering knowledge. This opened ways of introducing ethical considerations in the study of the nature of artifacts and technological knowledge. In Continental philosophy, too, later developments led to a greater appreciation for ethical

A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Technoethics

considerations than in the days of Heidegger and Ellul. Contemporary philosophers of technology such as Don Ihde and Albert Borgmann, who consider themselves to be followers of Heidegger, have developed ethical guidelines for technology. But still, these guidelines are fairly limited to the way we experience reality (in the realm of Heidegger). Others, that went more in the trace of Ellul, such as Andrew Feenberg and Langdon Winner, also paid attention to ethics of technology, but the view they developed is limited in that they primarily focus on the way technology influences social order. Although the empirical studies they all draw from made them more aware of the complexity of technological developments, this had only a limited effect on their ethical considerations. The empirical studies gave a more precise picture of technological developments than in the earlier Continentally-oriented analyses. It became clear that different technologies develop in different ways (Sarlemijn 1993). This is due to the fact that a whole range of aspects influence these developments. Two technologies may be similar if seen from a physics point of view, but different if viewed from a social or economic point of view, and therefore they may develop in different ways. This means that ethical consideration for those technologies should not be limited to one aspect one (for example, the physical, the psychic or the social aspect) but to the whole range of aspects that may have an influence. This demands a framework for analysis that captures this variety of aspects and indicates how ethics is involved in these aspects. In the next section such a framework will be presented.

a tHEOrEtIcaL FraMEWOrK FOr EtHIcaL aNaLYsEs OF tHE cOMPLExItY OF tEcHNOLOGY The framework that will be used here to analyze the ethics in the complexity of technology has been developed by a Dutch philosopher, Herman

Dooyeweerd. Dooyeweerd’s background was in law rather than in engineering, but his framework is quite suitable for analyzing the complexity of technology. He claimed that reality can only be described effectively in terms of a variety of aspects that can not be reduced to each other. Our direct and intuitive encounter with reality does not always reveal these aspects, as we experience reality as a whole. But human beings have the capability of separating out these aspects in an analytical stance. Thus they can consider the physical aspect of reality as separated out from reality as a whole. In doing that we start realizing that all things fall when dropped, often set other things in motion when hitting it, have properties related to heat and temperature, and can radiate or absorb light, just to mention some phenomena related to this aspect or reality. Humans can take a further step and examine these phenomena in a manner that sets more strict requirements for knowledge than ordinary daily-life beliefs abut these phenomena. That is what they do when they become involved in the scientific discipline of physics. Likewise they can focus on the economic aspect of reality and start realizing that all things can either be bought, buy or do both (when they are a slave). Doing this in a more systematic way brings them into the discipline of economics. In each of these disciplines certain regularities or ‘laws’ can be discovered. These are different for the different aspects. Even when there are similarities, such as in the case of the law of conservation, which holds both for energy in the physical aspect as in the economics aspect (“you can not spend your money and have it”), still the conservation of economical value can not be reduced to conservation of the physical means for payment (coins or bills). Based on such considerations Dooyeweerd concluded that the ambition of physicalists to reduce the scientific explanation of any phenomenon to physics (see, for instance, Seager 2000, for a more precise description of physicalism) is doomed to fail. His approach is very much a non-reductionist



A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Technoethics

approach. Analogies exist between the ‘laws’ in the various aspects, but this does not mean that they can be reduced one to the other. Dooyeweerd made an effort to spell out the various aspects. He ended up with fifteen aspects (Dooyeweerd 1969). The philosophical school that grew out of his ideas, reformational philosophy, has always recognized the ambiguity in that number. It is mostly seen as one way of spelling out the complexity of reality that is useful because it offers a perspective on the variety of aspects, yet without turning each phenomenon in reality into the basis for a separate aspect. To a certain extent the list of fifteen aspects was also based on the existing variety of scientific disciplines in his time (it was about half way the 20th century when he wrote his main publication). Table 1 presents the aspects as distinguished by Dooyeweerd himself. Dooyeweerd also made the observation that entities can act both as subjects and as objects in the various aspects. All entities can be subjects in all aspects. A tree is a subject in the biotic aspect (it lives), it can be an object in the kinematical aspect (it can be moved by the wind) and in the

development aspect (it can be cut down and made into planks). The tree can not serve as a subject in all aspects. For instance, it can be bought (i.e., serve as an object in the economic aspect), but not buy itself (serve as a subject in that same aspect). The same holds for animals. Only humans can be subjects in all aspects. Actions have consequences in each of the aspects. That is why only humans can be held responsible for their actions. There is a certain order in these aspects, as Dooyeweerd tries to claim. The higher aspects assume the existence of the lower aspects. To a certain extent this can be defended. It is not possible to conceptualize space without the concept of number (2-dimensional does not make sense without 2). Likewise motion is not possible without space. Life is not possible without a physical substrate. For the higher aspects Dooyeweerd’s order claim seems more speculative. For instance, does one need language to have social community or is it the other way round? But here, again, the analysis does not depend on the exact order, as long as we recognize that there is a transition from the psychic to the logical aspects in that from then on only human beings can serve as subjects

Table 1. Aspects of reality according to Dooyeweerd Aspect

Meaning

Example of discipline

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Numerical Spatial Kinematical Physical Biotic

Arithmetic Geometry Kinematics Physics Biology

6. 7. 8. 9.

Psychic/sensitive Logical/analytical Cultural/developmental Symbolic/linguistic

10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Social Economic Aesthetic Juridical Ethical

15.

Pistic/belief

Things are countable Things occupy a certain space Things can move or be moved Things can interact by mechanical cause-effect relations Some things live or are a part of other living beings’ environment People can observe things People can reason about things People develop things, make history People represent things by names or other symbolic representations People can live and work together People can buy and sell things People can appreciate things for their beauty People can make laws People can assess things and events from an ethical point of view People can believe and trust in other people, things or higher beings



Psychology Logic History Linguistics Sociology Economics Aesthetics Legal sciences Ethics Theology

A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Technoethics

(I here assume that animals are still capable of having ‘mental states’, but they are not capable of self-conscious analytical reflection on reality, which is necessary to serve as a subject in the logical aspect; if one does not ascribe mental states to animals, the break is already after the biotic aspect, as it is for plants; see Scruton 1994, pp. 299-302).

tHE MULtIDIscIPLINarItY OF tEcHNOEtHIcaL rEsEarcH Finally, Dooyeweerd claimed that each aspect is related to all the other aspects. This claim makes Dooyeweerd’s approach interesting for examining the systems character of technologies, and several studies have already indicated the insightfulness of applying the Dooyeweerd approach to systems in technology, for example for information and communication technologies (Strijbos and Basden 2006). For technoethics this means that the question whether or not a new technology is ethically acceptable is not only a question in its own right, but is also related to all the considerations related to other aspects. For instance, it is also related to the economic aspect: is it ethically acceptable to spend this or that amount of money on such a technology? It is also related to, for example, the juridical aspect: is it possible to transform ethical concerns in legislation for this particular technology? And, as a last example, it is related to the spatial aspect: is it ethically justifiable to use such and such an amount of space for this product (think, e.g., of the car taking away precious space in a downtown area)? The fact that the ethical considerations pervade all aspects is very much the core of what this chapter intends to make clear: if technoethics is to be an area for research, than it is necessary that this research is multidisciplinary, because it needs to take into account all aspects of reality. Dooyeweerd’s conceptualization in terms of aspect is meant to be an ontological one: the aspects exist in reality.

Therefore the aspects offer an ontological basis for the epistemological issue of multidisciplinarity. I will from now on use the term multidisciplinarity to indicate cooperation of experts from different disciplines. This is also the social approach that Margareth Boden (1997) takes in her taxonomy of multidisciplinarity (she uses the term ‘interdisciplinarity’, which for me seems more suitable to indicate a new sort of knowledge emerging from such cooperation; see De Vries 2005i, p. 46). One can not separate out the ethical questions and isolate them from all other concerns about a technology-in-development or a technology-in-use. To be able to give a scientifically supported answer to the question of whether or not it is ethically acceptable to spend a certain amount of money on the development of a certain new technology, the discipline of economics needs to be called in because of its knowledge of the ‘laws’ that hold for the economic aspect. And if we want to get scientific underpinning for an answer to the question of the possibilities to transform ethical concerns into legislation, the technoethicist must work together with the expert in legal sciences. And if we want to have a research-based answer to the question whether or not it is justifiable to let a product occupy a certain amount of space, we need the knowledge of the city planner, who has knowledge about the spatial aspect of cities. This list of examples can be expanded to all aspects of reality. This claim is important when one intervenes in reality, because then knowledge about all the different aspects has to be brought together. As we saw, Dooyeweerd claimed that our first and most intuitive knowledge of reality is an integral knowledge in which the aspects are not yet separated. This separation happens when we start analyzing reality and then specialize in a certain discipline, related to a certain aspect. But when acting in reality, all aspects come together again, and so should our knowledge of all the aspects. Then we have again knowledge of the reality as a whole, but now it is informed and enriched by



A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Technoethics

the knowledge about specific aspects that we have acquired in our disciplinary efforts. This notion makes us aware of the necessity to distinguish between engineering sciences, in which we focus on knowledge of certain aspects (e.g. the physical aspect, or the development aspect), technology as intervention in reality (the designing and making of things). In engineering sciences we can still afford to focus on certain aspects and leave out others, but in technology as the actual intervention in reality we must take into account all aspects. From this we can see that technoethical research must be multidisciplinary in nature in order to do justice to the complexity of reality, and more specifically, of technology. This, however, is by no means a simple matter. In general the experiences are that multidisciplinary research faces several barriers. In the first place, there is what C.P. Snow has called the “two cultures” problem. There is mutual mistrust and lack of understanding between researchers in natural sciences and those in social and human sciences. These two groups use different terminology and different research methods. Even in cases where the same term is used it has so different connotations that misunderstanding arise. An example of this is the term ‘correlation’. A psychologist finding correlations of 0.40 for scores on two different attitude scales will consider this to be a significant relation; but when she tells this to a physicist, he will not be impressed because for him only correlations of at least 0.98 are significant. This is because they have quite different research objects: if we see regularity in people’s behavior, it is regularity in the midst of a lot of seemingly irregular behavior. But of an electron we expect that is behaves exactly the same way when an experiment is repeated. A second barrier is the usual organization of universities and research institutes. Mostly the traditional disciplines are the basis for this organization. There are faculties of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering sciences, psychology, economics, sociology, and so on. Organizing or even applying for budget to do a



multidisciplinary research study is not an easy affair given such a disciplinary organization. To put together a multidisciplinary research group with each member having simultaneously other obligations in his/her own faculty can cause a lot of difficulties. A third barrier is directly related to Dooyeweerd’s claim that there are different ‘laws’ in the different aspects (although, as we noticed, sometimes laws in different aspects are similar, such as in the case of laws of conservation). Some of these differences have already been spelled out in the philosophy of science. One distinguishes, for instance, scientific disciplines, where the aim is to find laws that apply equally in all places and all times. These are called nomothetical disciplines (they seek to set general laws). Physics is a typical example of such a discipline. Other disciplines aim for knowledge that describes precisely the peculiarity of certain things or events. Historical sciences are an example of that. They do not necessarily aim at finding general laws that explain the chain of events, but rather seek to give a very precise description of what exactly happened at a certain place and at a certain time. Such disciplines are called ideographic. In a multidisciplinary research it may well be that disciplines from both categories need to work together. This means that knowledge with a highly generalized nature has to be combined with knowledge about specific situations. Another distinction is that between disciplines that study cause-effect relationships and those that study phenomena in which (human) intentions play a role. This differentiation is related to what William Dilthey called the difference between ‘erklären’ and ‘verstehen’ (see, e.g., Scruton 1994, p. 243-244). Physics is an example of the first category, as no intentions are ascribed to, e.g., electrons, and psychology is an example of the second category (al least, if one accepts that the old behaviorist ideal of explaining human behavior only in terms of cause-effect relationship has been abandoned). This is the reason why the law of conservation, which seems

A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Technoethics

to exist in both the physical and in the economic aspect, does not work in the same way in these two aspects. The law of conservation of matter and energy works in a very strict way. The sum of matter and energy in any process always remains constant. In economics, though, the value of things is dependent on human intentions, and therefore one needs to distinguish between a physical coin that one can only spend once, and one’s shares in stock markets that seems to change in the most random manners. Multidisciplinary research may involve the cooperation of disciplines from these two categories. From Schummer’s recent review of literature on multidisciplinarity (Schummer 2004) we can derive that there is not much philosophical literature on multidisciplinarity, in spite of its popularity in practice. Much of it is reductionist in nature: the search for unification of disciplines (e.g. in the direction of physics or evolutionary biology). Other references (such as Boden) take a sociological view rather than a philosophical (epistemological) one (they focus on cooperation between people from different disciplines rather than studying the content of the knowledge that is combined). Maybe the barriers sketched above are the cause of this lack of philosophical literature. Another cause may be the confusion that still exists with respect to the concept of a ‘discipline’ (Schummer 2004, p. 10/11). Whatever the cause may be, the outcome is that there is still not much known about how multidisciplinary research can be set up best.

FUtUrE trENDs: NaNOEtHIcs as a casE stUDY To offer a perspective of the way future technological developments can be accompanied by a rich ethical discussion in which the whole rage of relevant aspects can be involved, the example of nanotechnology will be elaborated here. Nanotechnology is a technological domain that is often

mentioned as one of the most important ones for the coming decades. Nanotechnology could be one of the first developments in which ethical debates are organized in the early phases of development (Roco and Bainbridge 2002). In other technological developments, ethical debates often arose once the technology had already been developed to such an extent that ethical debates could only be used to fine-tune the further development. But in nanotechnology there is an early awareness of the need to have ethical reflections on this technology, even though most of it is still in laboratory stage or even in the stage of speculations. This has even led to a new journal that is entirely dedicated to the ethics of nanotechnology (called Nanoethics, published by Springer). Nanotechnology is more an umbrella term than a concrete technology, but a common denominator is the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules as the ultimate way of building artifacts. This is opposite to the top-down approach in which small devices are created by breaking down larger ones. Nanotechnology is sometimes considered to be a mere extension of the existing trend of miniaturization, and most of what is in stage of production is not very different compared to existing technologies (only the layers that are deposited are only few atoms thick). Applications that are in production already are, for instance, coatings on sunglasses, and coatings on cloths to make them self-cleaning. Most of what is in laboratory stage is in two fields: electronics (integrated circuits at the nanoscale) and medicine (drugs that only release the active component near the organ or tissue where it is needed). Far reaching are the prophesy-like writings of Eric Drexler (1986) and other representatives of the Foresight Institute. They foresee an enormous impact of nanotechnology on society once we are able to compose every desired structure by building atoms as if the were LEGO© blocks. Thus structures with any desired property would become feasible, assuming that the problem of the huge number of assembly actions that are needed to build such structures will be



A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Technoethics

solved. According to Drexler this is possible by using general assemblers as an intermediate step: first we build machines that build machines that build the desired structures and devices. Drexler claims that this is the way nature has also solved the problem (ribosomes would be the prototype for the general assemblers; others, though, have rejected this idea based on the observation that ribosomes are not general, but highly specialized assemblers). Let us now examine how ethics works in all the aspects in which nanoartifacts can act. We will go through the whole list only briefly. The aim of this exercise is more to show the sort of research agenda that emerges from these considerations than to give a full account of the ethics of nanotechnology. Several of the observations we will make have already been written in research and policy documents, but usually each of these documents focus on specific aspects only. This analysis gives a more full and comprehensive impression of the complexity of nanoethics. Among the experts in nanotechnology many do not take Drexler’s writings seriously because according to them most of what he claims is not realistic and will never be realized. In our analysis, though, we will not limit ourselves to what is believed by all to be realizable, because the ethical acceptability of technologies-in-development does not depend on what can and what can not be realized. The past has shown that more appears to be realizable in the end than even experts had anticipated (well-known is the expectation in the early days of computers, that only few computers in the whole world would suffice). The direction in which one wants to go from an ethical point of view is at least as relevant as the distance one will be able to go in that direction. Therefore we will also take into account in our analysis such prophesies as Drexler’s. One of the most important problems in realizing the ultimate aim of nanotechnology as people such as Eric Drexler envision it is the enormous amount of atoms and molecules that



need to be processed in order to reach a structure at microlevel. This concerns the numerical aspect of reality. As we saw Drexler sees the solution in the use of general assemblers. But he noticed that in principle it is possible that this process will run out of hand and that the general assemblers will turn all matter in their environment into ‘grey goo.’ This raises the question of the ethical permissibility of manipulating such large numbers of individual atoms (note that this is different from manipulating large lumps of atoms together as it is done in traditional chemistry and physics). The spatial aspect is also important for nanotechnology, which is evident because the very name of this technology was derived from this aspect (the nanometer as the scale on which it operates). By definition nanotechnology works at a level at which we can not see things. The devices that are built are so small that we can not observe them. Already now people speculate about nanocameras that are so small that they can be totally undetectable. Is that ethically permissible? Privacy issues feature already for cameras that are detectable for a good observer; how much more pressing these issues become when things are really invisible? The kinematical aspect and the physical aspect deal with the behavior of the nanoparticles. Although we have learnt a great deal about quantum mechanics, much of the behavior of nanoparticles and nanodevices is not yet fully understood. Is it ethically OK to do such manipulations without this understanding? Note again the difference with manipulating large lumps of atoms, for which maybe the cause of the behavior was not always known (e.g. in the case of the development of steam engines), but the behavior itself was known. As for the biotic aspect, we do not yet know how nanodevices will interact with living beings. Already now the possibility of a new asbestos problem has been pointed out. These issues are all related to aspects in which nanoartifacts act as subjects (they come in numbers, they occupy space, they move and

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interact with each other and living beings). The biotic aspect is interesting in that respect because it raises the question if nanoartifacts can also be subjects in that aspect. In other words: can we claim that artifacts that have been built from scratch by manipulating individual (non-lining?) atoms live? That would assume a view on life as something that principally is not different from non-living because both are the result of physical processes. But it ethically correct to treat living tissue (assumed that it will be possible to derive living tissue from a process of manipulating individual atoms) as if it were a piece of cloth? Now we move to issues that are related to aspects where the nanoartefacts can only act as objects. The first of these is the psychic aspect: nanoartifacts can be perceived. But the way in which this happens is necessarily very indirect. Special devices called Scanning Tunneling Microscopes (STMs) scan the surface of layers of atoms and provide data that computers process into a pictorial representation of the layer. These pictures show ‘fields’ of bubbles and each bubble represents an individual atom. ‘Represents,’ because physicists know that the atom is not really a sort of small ball as the image suggests, but a cloud of statistical probabilities (the solution of wave equations). Such images illustrate articles on nanotechnology in popular magazines. The general public will think in terms of ‘What You See Is What You Get’ and therefore get a distorted image of what nanotechnology is about (‘playing’ with these tiny balls). How should one use such images in a manner that is ethically correct, i.e. that does not mislead people? Various problems relate to the logical aspect. Nanotechnology is so vaguely defined that any sort of analysis about it is hampered by confusion about what it is. This can be used in ways that are ethically questionable. In the developmental aspect it can be a question whether or not nanotechnology is merely a next step in the evolution of material sciences or if it is a revolutionary new technology. If the first is the case, the ethical implications are much less

fundamental than in the second case. In the symbolic aspect the name technology can give rise to ethical considerations, because it almost has a certain magic with it, that is often used to apply for research money that perhaps would not have been acquired if terms such as ‘materials research’ had been used. So what is an ethically correct way of suing the name ‘nanotechnology’? The social aspect makes us aware of the possibility of a new social divide of people that will and people that will not have access to nanotechnology products. The more impact nanotechnology will have on society, the more pressing this question will be. In the economic aspect we can pose the question of the ethical acceptability of investing in a technology about which there are still so many uncertainties. Should not the money be used on more ‘guaranteed’ outcomes of existing technologies for the most urgent social and environmental problems? For the aesthetic aspect the concept of harmony is important in Dooyeweerd’s conceptualization. The question of whether or not nanoartifacts will function harmoniously with traditional artifacts has moral implications. The juridical aspect gives rise to the question how ethically acceptable it is to develop a technology for which it is extremely difficult to guide the development by legislation, given all the uncertainties of its nature and effects. Finally there is the pistic or belief aspect. People such as Drexler express strong beliefs in the future of nanotechnology. This, in general, often serves as a driving force for technology (Schuurman 2003). How much belief in this technology can be justified ethically?

tEcHNOEtHIcs bEYOND ‘aPPLIED EtHIcs’: a NEW cHaLLENGE The example of nanotechnology shows that the aspect-oriented analysis of ethical issues results in a broad agenda for ethical debate. The aspectrelated considerations presented in the previous section are just a brief and fragmented sketch and each of them needs to be elaborated. For



A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Technoethics

this expertise from each of the aspects is needed. Therefore good nanoethics will be multidisciplinary in nature. Although the analysis presented above in principle will hold for any technology, the example of nanotechnology as possibly one of the future’s most prominent technology, par excellence illustrates the need for the multidisciplinarity of technoethical research. It will not be a simple matter to develop a truly multidisciplinary technoethics. In general, one can claim that technoethics is still in its infancy as an academic discipline. Most textbooks for engineering ethics merely apply the traditional ethical theories and approaches to the domain of engineering (see, for instance, Harris, Pritchard and Rabins 2000). Thus we get a deontic technoethics (consisting of codes of conduct), a utilitarian technoethics (leading to risk analyses) and a virtue-based technoethics (stimulating feelings of responsibility or loyalty to one’s company), and all we are told to do is just to find the correct mix of these approaches in specific situations. In particular the utilitarian approach is popular (for instance, this is the immediate translation of ethical issues in technology in Shrader-Frechette 1997). This, of course, is still way from an analysis of what makes technoethics different from ethics in other domains. Also the issue of whether multidisciplinarity is more important for technoethics than for ethics in other domains has not even been started to be studied. The considerations that have been presented here therefore should be seen as merely the beginning of a contribution to the development of a true discipline of technoethics. The Handbook in which this text is published hopefully will serve as a catalyst in that development. Technology has an enormous impact on our lives. Therefore it is very important to state the relevant ethical questions in an early stage of technological developments. A well-developed discipline of technoethics than becomes of great value.

0

cONcLUsION In this chapter I have proposed a multidisciplinary approach to technoethics, based on a conceptual framework derived from the Dutch philosopher Dooyeweerd, in which reality is studied from fifteen different perspectives, each of which is related to one or more scientific disciplines. I have used the example of nanoethics to show that such an approach leads to a rich agenda for ethical debates and goes way beyond the level of risk calculations. I have also argued for developing technoethics as a discipline that goes beyond the level of ‘applied ethics’. Hopefully this contribution will stimulate people to develop such a discipline.

rEFErENcEs Boden, M. (1997). What is interdisciplinarity? In Cunningham, R. (Ed.), Interdisciplinarity and the organization of knowledge in Europe (pp. 13-26). European Community, Brussels. Dooyeweerd, H. (1969). A New critique of theoretical thought, Vols I-IV (transl. from Dutch by D.H. Freeman & W.S. Young). S.l.: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company. Drexler, E. (1986). Engines of creation. New York: Anchor Press. Harris, C.E., Pitchard, M.S. & Rabins, M.J. (2000), Engineering ethics. Concepts and cases. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Houkes, W.N. (2006). Knowledge of artifact functions. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 37, 102-113. Kroes, P.A. & Meijers, A. (2000). Introduction: A discipline in search of its identity. In: Mitcham, C., Kroes, P.A. & Meijers, A.W.M. (Eds.), The empirical turn in the philosophy of technology (pp. xvii-xxxv). Stanford: JAI Press.

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Mitcham, C. (1994), Thinking through technology: The path between engineering and philosophy. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Vries, M.J. de (2005ii). 80 years of research at the Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium, 1914-1994. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Roco, M.C. & Bainbridge, S. (2002). Societal implications of nanoscience and nanotechnology. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Vries, M.J. de (2006). Technological knowledge and artifacts: An analytical view. In Dakers, J.R. (Ed.), Defining technological literacy. Towards an epistemological framework (pp. 17-30). New York: MacMillan.

Sarlemijn, A. (1993). Designs are cultural alloys. STeMPJE in design methodology. In Vries, M.J. de, Cross, N. & Grant, D.P. (Eds.). Design methodology and relationships with science (pp. 191-248). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Schummer, J. (2004). Interdisciplinary issues in nanoscale research. In Baird, D., Nordmann, A. & Schummer, J. (Eds.). Discovering the nanoscale (pp. 9-20). Amsterdam: IOS Press. Schuurman, E. (2003). Faith and hope in technology. Toronto, Ontartio: Clements Publishing. Scruton, R. (1994). Modern philosophy. An introduction and survey. London: Penguin Books. Seager, W. (2000). Physicalism. In Newton-Smith (Ed.), A companion to the philosophy of science (pp. 340-342). Oxford: Blackwell. Shrader-Frechette, K. (1997). Technology and ethical issues. In Shrader-Frechette, K. & Westra, L. (Eds.), Technology and values (pp. 25-32). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publ. Strijbos, S. and Basden, A. (Ed.) (2006). In search for an integrative vision for technology. Dordrecht: Springer. Vries, M.J. de (2005i). Teaching about technology. An introduction to the philosophy of technology for non-philosophers. Dordrecht: Springer.

KEY tErMs Aspects (of reality): Different perspectives for analyzing the behavior of entities in reality, each of which has ‘laws’ (regularities) of its own nature. Complexity (of technology): The manifoldness of functioning in different aspects by artifacts. Multidisciplinarity: Cooperation of experts from different scientific disciplines Nanotechnology: The technology of building structures and artifacts by manipulating individual atoms and molecules. Non-Reductionist Approach: The belief that laws in one aspect can not be reduced to laws in other aspects. Normativity (in knowledge): Reference to what should be rather than to what is. Reformational Philosophy: An approach in philosophy that was initiated by the Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd and that is inspired by Christian belief in the tradition of the 16th century church Reformation.





Chapter III

Technoethics:

An Anthropological Approach Daniela Cerqui Université de Lausanne, Switzerland Kevin Warwick University of Reading, UK

abstract Common ethical issues related to technology are formulated in terms of impact. With an anthropological approach, every technological device is considered as the result of a designing and building process, through which social values are transmitted. The impact can be properly assessed only once these values are understood. The question of privacy is used here to illustrate the approach. Then, it is shown how human beings and machines are defined in reference to each other, the latter being considered as superior. Therefore, human beings try to improve themselves by using technology.

INtrODUctION Most of the time it is assumed that the relationship between technology and society can be understood quite simply as the influence of the former on the latter. As a result, social and ethical issues related to science and technology are usually tackled in terms of impact. However, with an anthropological approach, it is important to take into account that technology is not just a starting point for good or bad consequences. It is also the result of a designing

and building process. Anthropology aims at understanding the values that are behind technology. The goal of this chapter is to show what an anthropological vision can bring to the understanding of the relationship between technology and society. By standing back from common ethical views, such an approach can provide an original framework with which to think about ethical and social issues in a different way. Therefore, by replacing technological development in its broad social and cultural background, this paper proposes a different view of classical ethical issues.

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Technoethics

aNtHrOPOLOGIcaL vErsUs cLassIcaL aPPrOacHEs tO tEcHNOLOGY Social and cultural anthropologists are involved in the study of differences between human cultures, and in the study of what human beings may have in common despite these differences. One common thing is the use of technology, as there is absolutely no human culture without it (Leroi-Gourhan 1993). Therefore, the study of the relationship between technology on the one hand, and society—and more fundamentally humankind—on the other hand, is a very relevant topic for anthropology. Most anthropologists are more interested in other cultures than in their own. Nevertheless, our western society deserves being studied at different levels. Understanding how technology is designed, produced, and used in our society is fundamental. The main anthropological questions are related to what kind of society we want to live in the future. This implies that we need to stand back from the classical visions of technology. Broadly speaking there are two different classical approaches. The first one considers that there is a technological determinism. It may be technophile determinism, and in this case the implementation of technology appears as necessarily synonymous with welfare, knowledge and prosperity for most people. Conversely there may also be technophobe determinism, in which case technology is considered as intrinsically dangerous, the fear being that its implementation will lead to a huge disaster. In the second position, technology is neither good nor bad, but simply neutral. According to this standpoint, there is a good use and a bad use of technology, the goal of the good guys being to promote the first one. In this case, it is assumed that the user is responsible for what will happen, good or bad. Those sharing that view use frequently a very simple example: if you take a

hammer to nail, it is good. If you take it to kill someone, it is bad. Moreover, we find very often a mix of neutralism and determinism in common speeches. A good example is the World Summit on the information society. Organized by a Committee established under the patronage of Kofi Annan, the summit was initially mentioned in a resolution of the International Telecommunication Union, in order to be organized by the United Nations. The first step was held in 2003 in Geneva. Its goal was to obtain a consensual point of view—that was not easy to group the interests of different states, the business world and the civil society—and to develop some operative action plans. The second step, held in 2005 in Tunis, was focused on the evaluation of the results. According to the World Summit on the Information Society web-site1, which explained the challenge: The modern world is undergoing a fundamental transformation as the industrial society that marked the 20th century rapidly gives way to the information society of the 21st century. This dynamic process promises a fundamental change in all aspects of our lives, including knowledge dissemination, social interaction, economic and business practices, political engagement, media, education, health, leisure, and entertainment. We are indeed in the midst of a revolution, perhaps the greatest that humanity has ever experienced. To benefit the world community, the successful and continued growth of this dynamic requires global discussion and harmonization in appropriate areas. Most positions defended during the meetings assumed that we have no choice (determinism) and at the same time that we have to do the right things if we want to reach the right goal (neutralism). Despite their obvious differences, neutralism and determinism have something in common: they assume implicitly that technology does exist, as a starting point, and that we just have to assess



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its consequences. This is a common view for the man in the street, but also for people who try to identify the social and ethical issues related to technology. Taking an anthropological viewpoint, this is just half of the task; of course, technology has consequences that need to be accurately studied. However, this question, closely linked with how we use technology, is only half of the problem for the anthropologist. When talking about impact, we consider technology as if it was a meteorite, fallen to earth by sheer accident. Then we consider the impact it will have on our lives, because we know it will have consequences even if we have absolutely no responsibility for it. This is certainly true as far as a meteorite is concerned, but technology is not a meteorite! We forget that it does not come from outer space. On the contrary, our main cultural values are embedded in all of our technological devices. As we are not always aware of these values, it is important to formulate them if we want to understand what kind of society, and more fundamentally what kind of humankind, we are building. By taking an anthropological view, technological devices have themselves to be considered as the result of a process. Behind technology, there are people who design and build them. The devices we produce are the concrete expression of our implicit vision of the world. All of us have an idea of what a human being and a life in society are. We also have an idea of what they should be in an ideal world and this is closely linked to our cultural, moral and ethical values. Through the designing and production process, these values become embedded in the capabilities of our technological devices. The anthropologist is interested in identifying these values as a starting point. Therefore the first question to be asked is: why or what do we develop the technologies all around us for? In a nutshell, we have first to be aware of the society we are promoting through the technology we produce—that is to have an idea of why. And then we can start wondering



which way we should use technology—that is to think properly about how. Fundamentally, both good and bad uses are rooted in very deep common values.

MEtHODOLOGY: HOW caN WE IDENtIFY tHE vaLUEs? Accessing the values in not an easy exercise, and the tools the anthropologist usually uses are mostly qualitative. Moreover, contrary to a deductive approach, in which the questions are deducted from theory, the anthropological approach is inductive: the questions arise from the empirical field and are theorized afterwards (O’Reilly 2005). According to the so-called grounded theory, introduced in the 1960s by Anselm Strauss and Barney Glaser (1967), the right questions arise from the actors. And in their view one should always start a programme of research without any preconceived theoretical assumptions. However, it is difficult to follow them to this extent, as the researcher has at least an indefinite idea of what he or she is looking for—as it seems that you never choose your field by chance : you already know something about it, and what you know is interesting enough to you to make you desire to know more. Anyway, the idea is to try to understand what the values of the actors are, without imposing any topic a priori, with a bottom-up approach, grounded in what people really do, and in the way they understand their own practices. First of all, observation of how people behave is a good indicator. If the anthropologist researchers can mix with the population they are studying, they have good access not only to the practices, but also to the meaning the actors give to what they do (see Arborio and Fournier, 1999; Pétonnet, 1982; Peretz, 1998, Schwartz, 1993). A second step consists of carrying out comprehensive interviews with the actors themselves, according to the method described by Kaufmann (1997). In his view, the researcher must become

Technoethics

deeply engaged in the interview. The result should be a real discussion, with no imposed direction, rather than a question-reply exchange built as a questionnaire. The social and ethical issues people feel really concerned about will, it is felt, appear spontaneously during the interviews. If the interviewer has an idea about something which has not been mentioned, he/she can suggest it at the end of the interview. Nevertheless, whatever the reply, he/she must take into account that this was not a spontaneously mentioned issue, and give to it its right place in the scale of the worries expressed by the actors. Hypotheses can then be formulated and the fieldwork can be completed with their confrontation. Later in the research, the researcher may use a quantitative approach to confirm on a large scale with a questionnaire what he/she was able to theorize (top down approach, with questions inspired by the theory). Considering the topic we are interested in here, the anthropological approach can be applied at different levels. First, at the level of the engineers who design and build technology. Such a field allows access to their representations of the world (Cerqui 2002). Secondly, it can also be applied to all the users. Clearly the overall assessment of reasoning behind technological development must be categorized with as much flexibility as possible. All kinds of social factors can effect the development of a particular brand of research and it may be extremely difficult to focus on the underlying reasons behind a programme being undertaken. As an example it may be primarily a funding issue, in which case emphasis may need to be placed on methods employed to obtain the funding and/or the secondary drive by the funder themselves. Conversely a programme of research may be undertaken for ‘purely’ investigative reasons, in which case the underlying social motivations may well be absolutely fundamental to the culture of the researcher from an early age and not immediately apparent in any form of questioning.

This is exactly what an anthropological approach aims at identifying.

bEING cOMMIttED When working in a cultural environment that is not his/her original one, the anthropologist faces values that are sometimes very different from his/her own. In such a situation, it may be very difficult to understand why people behave the way they do. On the contrary when working in his/her own society, the anthropologist has to stand back from his/her values in order to be able to properly understand them. As he/she shares these values, they seem obvious, almost natural, to him/her. In both cases, researchers in the social sciences sometimes feel that their duty is to understand and to describe the world, but not to act on it. Formally speaking, anthropology is an explicative science. However, for some of us, it is also very important to be committed, i.e. to make other people aware of the future all of them are collectively building, and to warn about the related risks. This paper results from such a position, and even goes one step further with a collaboration between the anthropologist and the field: the two authors are an anthropologist interested in the study of the relationship between technology and society, and an engineer involved in cutting edge research, for which he uses himself as a guinea pig. By physically merging with technology, he is actively promoting cyborgs as the next step in evolution. The anthropologist has spent more than two years in his department, trying to understand why he was doing what he was doing. An interesting dialogue was born between them, especially because they share common values while they disagree on other points. One of his experiments—in which he has merged his nervous system with a computer—will be described in the next section. It will be shown that the values behind such a kind of extreme experiment in reality are those of our



Technoethics

current so-called information society. This means that, to some extent, all of us share these values. Applied to a common issue in technoethics—the question of privacy—the reflection illustrates how the understanding of the deepest values (i.e. why things are done) can provide a new vision of classical matters (i.e. how to use technology in the best way).

PrEsErvING PrIvacY IN a cONNEctED WOrLD An ethical issue often discussed in relation with technology is privacy. It is taken for granted that privacy is important, and the question is how to preserve it. This is a never ending debate, mainly formulated in terms of impact, unless we stand back and try to understand what the problem really is. Privacy and individual freedom are old values in western society. However, we must be aware that they are contradictory with other important values. According to people with power over our political or economical lives as well as those from the scientific world - we are purported to have recently entered the information era, which is supposed to be synonymous with an improvement in all the fields. French discourse talks of the information society or the knowledge society, while English-speakers also refer to information highways. All these phrases express differently the same idea: we are supposed to live in a radically new kind of society. This so-called information society is often considered as an unquestionable reality linked with the emergence and development of Information and Communication Technologies.2 With such a point of view, globalization —defined as an extension of the Western information society to the entire world—has become a reality in order to obtain a better quality of life for everybody. Information is described as the most important source of wealth for individuals and for countries (see for example Gates, 1996



and Dertouzos, 1997) and it is expected to bring money and education to the whole world. This means that if, in the past, the industrial society needed efficient bodies to produce more and more, the information society needs nowadays efficient brains to deal with information. The keyword is: access. To be successful in such a society, you need to access information. And the quicker one can access, the better (Cerqui 2005). Computers are nowadays put everywhere in our environment. They are becoming ubiquitous. But, paradoxically, they are, at the same time, getting less and less visible and much smaller. Information technologies are also getting closer to the human body with each new breakthrough. Thereof, technological implants, brain to machine and brain to brain direct interfaces appear as the last logical step. If the device is implanted, there is no delay in accessing information. Even if it may still seem to be a science-fiction scenario for most people, implanting technological devices into the human body is now becoming reality. Pacemakers used for therapy are no longer the only application, and technology can now be implanted to enhance normal abilities. In 2002, the second author was described worldwide as the first cyborg in history, after a series of investigations involving the implantation of an electrode array, consisting of 100 silicon needles, into his nervous system. Linking the human brain, in such a way, directly with a computer brain opens up a variety of issues. Firstly as it creates a cyborg in the sense that the overall brain of the individual concerned is part biological, part technological—the original human brain will adapt, as it sees fit. Secondly the cyborg is endowed with abilities which are clearly not apparent in regular humans. Indeed the 2002 experiment was not solely therapy orientated, but more for investigation purposes to assess what enhancements of human beings are possible (Warwick et al. 2003; Gasson et al. 2002). The neural interface allowed for a bi-directional information flow. Hence perceivable stimulation

Technoethics

current enabled information to be sent directly onto the nervous system, while control signals could be decoded from neural activity in the region of the electrodes. In this way signals could be sent from the nervous system to a computer and also from the computer to be played down onto the nervous system with a signal transmission range of at least 10 metres. A wide range of experiments were carried out with the implant in place (Warwick et al., 2004; Gasson et al., 2005). Neural signals were directly employed to drive a vehicle around, to operate networked technology in order to switch on/off lights and other artefacts and to operate a robot hand across the internet. At the same time, because the implant was bi-directional it was quite possible for the human involved (the second author) to receive and comprehend incoming ultrasonic signals, to “feel” what the robot hand was feeling and to communicate, in a telegraphic way via the same route. Concretely, with a finger movement, neural signals on the nervous system were transmitted to a computer and out to a robot hand. Sensors on the hand’s fingertips were then employed to pick up signals which were transmitted back onto the nervous system. Whilst wearing a blindfold, in tests it was not only possible to move the robot hand, with neural signals, but also to discern to a high accuracy, how much force the robot hand was applying to an object being gripped. This experiment was carried out, at one stage, via the Internet with KW in Columbia University, New York City, but with the hand in Reading University, in the United Kingdom. What it means is that when the nervous system of a human is linked directly with the Internet, this effectively becomes an extension of their nervous system. To all intents and purposes the body of the individual does not stop as is usual with the human body, but rather extends as far as the Internet takes it. In this case, the brain was able to directly control a robot hand on a different continent, across the Atlantic Ocean.3

When using the Internet, all of us merge metaphorically with technology either in order to exchange data with people around the world, or to access information. The second author did it for real when he physically merged his nervous system with the network. According to Virilio (1995), the history of humankind has seen three major revolutions that point towards an ever-increasing speed in getting in touch with the world. The first one—in transportation—allowed humankind to master space by achieving the ability to move through it. The second revolution—that of transmission or communication—permitted a mastery over time, and allowed the elements of mankind’s environment to reach him faster than if he was forced to move himself in order to obtain them. And the third revolution—that of transplantation—shortens the process even more by directly incorporating the information into the organism. It is assumed that information technologies must by definition be transparent. Nevertheless, as far as privacy is concerned, it is obvious that transparency is contradictory with the respect of the private sphere. Until we are aware of that, we will never solve the problem, because each coin has two sides. In this case, either the information must circulate without any boundaries and everybody can access everything in real time, or we want our privacy to be preserved. But we cannot have both. We must choose between two important values that are no longer compatible.

HUMaN bEINGs aND MacHINEs Human beings and machines, especially robots, are defined in reference to each other: we build machines in our image, and we define ourselves according to them, in a never ending circle (Cerqui 1997). Neither the idea of building an artificial creature, nor the description of the human body as a machine are new, but they remained mainly



Technoethics

metaphorical during human history until recent times. Then, cybernetics, as it was defined by Norbert Wiener in the 1930s, gave the necessary theoretical background for such a vision of human beings and machines in reference to each other to be translated into concrete practice. According to cybernetics, identity is not given by the matter, but by the code organizing the material elements. As a result, you can change the matter without modifying identity if you respect the code. In other words, it is assumed that living elements and technological parts can be exchanged without any problem if they are organized in the right way (internally, and in their relationship with the environment). We find cybernetics’ thinking has a strong influence in the current trend to create bio-inspired robots, which can self-organise in order to give birth to a form of intelligence, or even life. In these fields, the researchers assume that life and intelligence are emerging properties in human beings, and they try to make the same sort of phenomenon appear in a machine (i.e., machines considered as living organisms). This philosophy is also behind implant technology, as it is with genetics and cloning, which imply that you are able to master the code of life (i.e., human beings treated as machines) (Cerqui to be published). Such a view of humankind is considered, by some authors, as a limit to traditional ethical reflection. For instance, according to Hottois, the anthropological difference, which is the foundation of intrinsic human dignity, is disappearing (1999: 57). He is not sure that we are still allowed to talk about a human ontological specificity now that we know we are made up of an arrangement of atoms like animals, flowers and stones. If living and nonliving elements can be exchanged with each other, there is however a hierarchy between them, as was shown in a survey made in 2002 at the Swiss national institute of technology (Arras and Cerqui 2003). 2000 persons were asked a series of questions related to their



perception of robotics. Robots were associated with almost “classical” qualities of machines: precision, reliability, rationality, whereas human beings were associated with words such as sensations or feelings. Moreover, robots were also considered as more perfect than humans, whatever perfection meant for the people interviewed. The survey corroborated that human beings are usually associated with warm qualities while robots are related to cold qualities. A closer analysis shows that perfection seems to be related to the possession of these cold qualities. Paradoxically it may well transpire that humans are better assessed, particularly in education, when they have more of the cold qualities normally linked to machines. From an anthropological point of view this means that the “warm” qualities are no longer those which are considered best in our society. In such a context, treating human beings as machines does not just allow us to reproduce the elements they are made of in the case of disease or disability. It also opens the way to the improvement of these elements in comparison with standard abilities.4 However, there is a conceptual difference between repairing and improving human beings, and that difference expresses two different conceptions which have existed for a long time concerning the perfect or imperfect dimension of human beings: if you just repair, it means that you are in a certain way happy with humankind as it is, that is when people are not disabled. In Leroi-Gourhan’s view, technology is almost biologically linked to the human body (LeroiGourhan 1993; Cerqui 1995). Essentially, when the human being stood up, his hands became free for an activity other than walking and technology appears to be the natural continuation of this. In this particular point of view, it follows that if one compares animals and humans as far as their respective technical abilities are concerned, it can be concluded that in general the animal has morphological specialisations; it has tools in its body. For instance, the crab is very good

Technoethics

at nipping or pinching: it is better at that than a human being. But it is limited to this activity; contrary to the human being who is able to do a lot more by using technology, the crab is only able to nip. Morphological specialisation gives important limits to animal activity. Humans, it is therefore surmised, have no similar sharp physical specialisations, but they have a specialised brain, which permits them to think of technology as an external specialisation. They are in a sense physically unspecified and technology is a natural extension because humans are planned by nature to think like this, thanks to their brain. For Leroi-Gourhan as for other authors (see for instance Bergson 1928: 151 or Le Roy 1928: 20), this makes humankind superior to other animals. In such a way of thinking, the human body does not need to be technically improved. Such a way of thinking can at the very most justify a medical restoring process. On the contrary, some authors consider the human being as a naturally imperfect being. For instance, in Gehlen’s (1990) view, the humankind needs technology as a prosthesis. Where LeroiGourhan sees an unspecified, but able to do everything being, Gehlen sees, on the contrary, a disabled being. For the former, the human being is free to specialise itself in everything thanks to its indetermination, while for the latter, it has to use technology because of its indetermination. It seems that this second point of view—which considers that humankind has to be (or is at least suitable to be) improved—is dominant in our western values.

HOW tO DraW tHE LINE? Ethics is by definition both prescriptive and relative. Which means that it depends on the cultural context, that is to say on the consensual values at a certain moment and in a certain place. For instance, French ethical committees usually insist on the indivisibility of the body and the person,

while American tradition considers that the person is the owner of the body (Hottois 1999: 61, 63). Naturally, positions taken on the same subject differ significantly from each other. Furthermore, in our western ideology technology has become the way to realise our aspirations and to give concrete expression to our values (for instance freedom and efficiency), which means that it is difficult to limit it. We could even argue that there is no place for such boundaries in our western contemporary values. Miquel and Ménard (1988) studied how technology was used in different societies. They concluded that we are the first society in which technology is not codified in boundaries defined by social values: technology is itself a social value and its specificity is that it does not have limits. In such a situation, it is very difficult to define ethical boundaries, because it runs counter to our values themselves. Contemporary ethics is not able to set long-term limits, because the idea of boundaries is a totally closed book to our technological system. That is perhaps the greatest problem with our current ethical reflection, and it appears clearly if we think about how ethical limits usually work in our society. They always lag behind technological developments and are only able to set a temporary boundary to something considered as dangerous at a certain moment, however it is only a short-term limit which does not destabilise the general movement. Ethical arguments can’t restrain science and technology in their general progression. That is especially true when we consider information technologies which are less discussed than biotechnologies. Concerning information technologies, those ethical reflections usually focus on subjects like: surveillance and privacy—human, and especially feminine, dignity in pornography and the Internet—author’s rights in the Internet diffusion of texts or pictures, and so on. In the ethical committees dedicated to biotechnologies, it is sometimes argued that a line has to be drawn between therapy and enhancement.



Technoethics

However, if science and technology give us the power to try to reach perfection, its criteria are never absolute. They continuously evolve in function of what is technically feasible and contribute to a continuous shift in what is considered as normal. The definition of normality evolves, depending on scientific and technological thresholds. Consequently, ethical reflection, which is supposed to draw lines, has to take into account that the boundaries of what is acceptable are continuously shifting. Therefore, reactive ethics is useless, as the ethics committees accept one day what was unbearable to them on the previous day. When Dolly the sheep was cloned, the debate was about human cloning versus non human cloning. A few years later, it was already about therapeutic human cloning versus reproductive human cloning. Human cloning, that was unacceptable a few years before, had become accepted, at least to some extent. Therefore, we may wonder how long human reproductive cloning will remain unacceptable to us. Cloning is one example of how we try to master life. And there is no reason to think that we will stop. Therefore, we should be able to think about the kind of society, and the type of human beings, we are building with our inability to put social boundaries to our technology. It seems that it is taken for granted for most of us that everything feasible ought to be done, whatever the results are. Our faith in technology is strong enough to let us think that all the problems can be solved with a new technological solution. It is now very important to develop a long-term ethical reflection. Ethics has for a long time been based on the implicit idea that human nature is one and is unchangeable. In this view, the human essence is constant and it is not an object for the techne (Jonas, 1990: 22). Ethics thus apply to things that we do to human beings and that we consider as bad—according to our conscious values and to an implicit and consensual definition of what a human being is. However, the human being has now become itself an object whose essence could be changed.

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In such a situation, where and how can we find the values to found our ethical arguments on? At this stage, should not we base our ethical reflection more on the ontological definition of humankind than on relative values? The implicit definition of humankind has to become explicit, because it is at stake. As Jonas (1990: 13-14) maintains, it is only if and when we are able to predict the deformation of humankind that we know how to protect ourselves from this deformation: in others words, we know what is at stake only when it is at stake. Jonas also suggests that we create the “ethics of the future” whose first principle should no longer be found in an ethic considered as a doing-oriented thought, but in metaphysics considered as a being-oriented thought (1990, 1998). Such a reflection should not make us forget our present obligations, but should anticipate the future (Lelièpvre-Botton 1997: 13). It is important to think of what we do to people, but it is important too to think about what kind of society—and what kind of human being—we are creating. As a result, we need to develop anticipative ethics. That means being able to understand which are our ultimate goals when developing technology, and to look beyond both good and bad uses. We must foresee plausible scenarios for the future, and assess them, before they happen.

KEY trENDs This entire chapter has been written on the basis that technology and its associated ethical values evolve hand in hand, colored by the cultural biases and societal tides that are pertinent in terms of both space and time, that is where and when. What has been referred to here is the emerging impulsive trend of machine intelligence, which will, over the forthcoming years, have more and more of a say itself, to the possible ultimate extent of humans being subject to the ethical constraints of machines rather than vice versa.

Technoethics

We have also considered the more immediate merger between humans and machines and the potential effects this will have on our value sets and regulatory decisions. Just who is meant by “our” is though the most important aspect—will it be a human value set or will it be the value set of a cyborg, an upgraded form of human. Managing the changes even now is difficult—how do humans deal with the possibilities of some people having extra senses or the ability to communicate by thought alone? Should technological development be stopped (we pointed out that this is not realistically possible)? Should we embrace the changes wholeheartedly and make commercial gain whilst we dramatically change (as if from a cocoon) into a more complex, more complete, more powerful individual? Technological evolution in the form of more intelligent machines, communication by thought signal, extrasensory input and direct neural control (by means of the internet) over extreme distances are appearing as this is being written. Our ethical basis for survival and growth must necessarily evolve hand in hand with this. Anthropologists need to evolve with their field.

rEFErENcEs Arborio, A-M., & Fournier, P. (1999). L’enquête et ses méthodes : l’observation directe. Paris: Nathan. Arras, K. & Cerqui, D. (2003). Do we want to share our lives and bodies with robots? Retrieved from http://asl.epfl.ch/index.htm?Content=member. php&SCIPER=112713 Bainbridge, W. & Roco, M. Eds. (2002). Converging technologies for improving human performance: Nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science. Arlington: National Science Foundation.

Bell, D. (1973). The coming of post-industrial society : A venture in social forecasting. New York : Basic Books. Bell, D. (1999). The axial age of technology. In The coming of post-industrial society. New York : Basic Books. Bergson, H. (1928). L’évolution créatrice. Paris : Alcan. Cerqui, D. (1995). L’extériorisation chez LeroiGourhan. Lausanne: Institut d’Anthropologie et de Sociologie. Cerqui, D. (1997). L’ambivalence du développement technique: entre extériorisation et intériorisation. Revue européenne des sciences sociales, 108, 77-91. Cerqui, D. (2002). The future of humankind in the era of human and computer hybridisation. An anthropological analysis. Ethics and Information Technology, 4(2), 1-8. Cerqui, D. (2005). La société de l’information, de la médiation à l’immédiat. In G. Berthoud, A. Kündig & B. Sitter-Liver (Eds.), Société de l’information : récits et réalités, actes du colloque 2003 de l’Académie suisse des sciences humaines (pp. 311-321). Fribourg: Academic Press. Cerqui, D. (forthcoming). Humains, machines, cyborgs: Le paradigme informationnel dans l’imaginaire technicien. Genève: Labor et Fides (collection Champs éthique). Cerqui, D. & Warwick, K. (2005). Can converging technologies bridge the gap? Proceedings of the CEPE 2005 Conference (Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry), University of Twente, Netherlands. Cerqui, D. & Warwick, K. (to be published). Prospects for thought communication: Brain to brain and brain to machine. In K. Kimppa, P. Duquenoy & C. George (Eds), Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics. Idea Group



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Dertouzos, M. (1997). What will be. How the world of information will change our lives. San Francisco: Harper. Gasson, M., Hutt, B., Goodhew, I., Kyberd, P. & Warwick K. (2002). Bi-directional human machine interface via direct neural connection. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 25-27 September 2002 (pp. 265-270), Berlin, Germany. New York: IEEE Press. Gasson, M., Hutt, B., Goodhew, I., Kyberd, P., & Warwick, K. (2005). Invasive neural prosthesis for neural signal detection and nerve stimulation. Proc. International Journal of Adaptive Control and Signal Processing, 19(5), 365-375. Gates, B. (1996). The road ahead. London: Penguin Books. Glaser, B. & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago: Aldine. Hottois, G. (1999). Essai de philosophie bioéthique et biopolitique. Paris: Vrin. Kaufmann, J.-C. (1997) L’entretien compréhensif. Paris: Nathan. Jonas, H. (1990). Le principe responsabilité. Paris: Cerf. Jonas, H. (1998). Pour une éthique du futur. Paris: Payot. Lelièpvre-Botton, S. (1997). L’essor technologique et l’idée de progrès. Paris: Ellipses. Leroi-Gourhan, A. (1993). Gesture and speech. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Le Roy, E. (1928). Les origines humaines et l’évolution de l’intelligence. Paris: Boivin. Miquel, C. & Ménard, G. (1988. Les ruses de la technique. Le symbolisme des techniques à travers l’histoire. Montréal: Boréal / Méridiens Klincksieck.



O’Reilly, K. (2005). Ethnographic methods. New York: Routledge. Peretz, H. (1998). Les méthodes en sociologie: l’observation. Paris: La Découverte. Pétonnet, C. (1982). L’observation flottante. L’exemple d’un cimetière parisien. L’Homme, 22(4), 37-47. Richta, R. (1969). La civilisation au carrefour. Paris: Anthropos. Schwartz, O. (1993). L’empirisme irréductible. In N. Anderson (Ed.), Le hobo, sociologie du sansabri (pp. 265-368). Paris: Nathan. Virilio, P. (1995). La vitesse de libération. Paris: Gallilée. Warwick, K., Gasson, M., Hutt, B., Goodhew, I., Kyberd, P., Andrews, B., Teddy, P. & Shad, A. (2003). The application of implant technology for cybernetic systems. Archives of Neurology, 60(10), 1369-1373. Warwick, K., Gasson, M., Hutt, B., Goodhew, I., Kyberd, P., Schulzrinne, H., & Wu, X. (2004). Thought communication and control: A first step using radiotelegraphy. IEE Proceedings on Communications, 151(3), 185-189.

KEY tErMs Cyborg: Cybernetic Organism, an entity that is part human/animal and part machine—in our viewpoint it is a mixed human/machine brain that is of interest. Extra Sensory Input: Sensory input beyond the spectrum of the human “norm”—this includes such as Ultrasound, Infrared and X-Rays. Here we are concerned with direct input to the human nervous system and brain and not in terms of conversion to a normal human sense, e.g. X-Ray image can be converted to a picture for visual input.

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Implant: Here the interface between the human brain and a computer. Typically a type of electric plug that is fired into the nervous system. Machine Intelligence: Mental attributes of a machine, as opposed to those of a human. Not a copy of human intelligence. Thought Communication: The ability to communicate directly, possibly electronically, from brain to brain. No need for laborious conversion to/from pressure waves, i.e. speech. 3

ENDNOtEs 1

2

http://www.itu.int/wsis/about/about_WhatlsWsis.html Contrary to what might be believed, such ideas are not so new. Some authors (see for example Richta, 1969) described the same concept without naming it or using another name many years ago: Bell was one of the first ones to theorize about that society while giving it a name: according to him, we are supposed to be in a post-industrial society (Bell, 1973, 1999). In his view, there are five fundamental criteria to define that society: (1) transition from a material goods production system to a service economy (mostly health, teaching, research and administration); (2) employment structures change with

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an increase in highly qualified professionals and technicians; (3) centrality of theoretical knowledge capable of generating innovation and economic growth ; (4) emergence of new technologies of the mind ; (5) an increasing mastery of technological and social developments. In short, Bell describes an extension of the service sector, whose main condition of existence consists in the fact that information must constantly circulate. That explains the importance given to the information technologies. It is interesting to point out that such an experiement can be understood in two different ways, opening a philosophical debate how the boundaries of the body are perceived (see Cerqui and Warwick, to be published). On the one hand, it could be argued that the body is considered as an interference, the goal being to connect directly the brain with the environment; on the other hand, it could also be considered that the body is extended by technology. There is for instance a series of reports produced in the frame of the american National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce in which it is clearly claimed that technologies must converge to improve human beings (Bainbridge and Roco 2002). It is very interesting to analyse their formulated and taken for granted criteria for improvement (see Cerqui and Warwick 2005).





Chapter IV

A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology Michael S. Billinger Edmonton Police Service, Canada

abstract Despite the fact that analyses of biological populations within species have become increasing sophisticated in recent years, the language used to describe such groups has remained static, thereby reinforcing (and reifying) outdated and inadequate models of variation such as race. This problem is further amplified when the element of human culture is introduced. Drawing on Mario Bunge’s work on technoethics, in which he asserts that technology should be subject to social and moral codes, this chapter argues that the ‘race problem’ should compel anthropologists to exploit technology in order to find workable solutions. One solution to this problem may be found in modern approaches to human skeletal variation using advanced computing techniques such as geometric morphometrics, which allows for the comparison of bone morphology in three dimensions. Coupled with more complex theories of social and genetic exchange, technologically advanced methodologies will allow us to better explore the multidimensional nature of these relationships and to understand how group formation occurs, so that a dynamic approach to classification can be developed.

INtrODUctION Despite the fact that the race concept has been vigorously critiqued by anthropologists for over a century, it remains both a conceptual and terminological artefact in contemporary studies of human variation. This is commonly known as the

‘race problem.’ Race not only has contentious sociological connotations, but the concept itself has been shown to be inadequate on a biological level (in terms of its classificatory or taxonomic utility), whether applied specifically to humans or to other geographically variable species. Nonetheless, the race concept continues to appear in a consistently

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A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

large minority of anthropological studies (Cartmill, 1998, p. 655). Do anthropologists therefore have an ethical obligation to abandon the race concept, or at least strive to find a workable solution? In order to answer this question, this chapter will focus on four subsidiary questions: (1) what is the role of race in anthropology; (2) is race solely an anthropological problem; (3) is there an ethical dimension to the race problem; (4) how can technology be used to solve the race problem? I will argue in this chapter that Bunge’s (1976, 1977) notion of technoethics—that technology has inherent moral codes—compels us to utilize technologically sophisticated methodology for the resolution of ethical dilemmas such as the race problem. The solution I propose is a combination of old theory and new technology, using the example of 3-dimensional (3D) imaging and geometric morphometric analysis of skeletal morphology to explore the multidimensional nature of human biological relationships, moving beyond the outdated race concept.

WHat Is tHE rOLE OF racE IN aNtHrOPOLOGY? The race concept in general, and the use of racial classification in anthropology in particular, are well researched as theoretical problems, and remain popular topics of academic inquiry. The race debate that was initiated by such esteemed anthropologists as Ashley Montagu and Claude Levi-Strauss in the 1940s and 1950s1 in response to the rising popularity of eugenics programs worldwide, seems to have reached its climax in mid-1990s, when much of the scientific world was appalled by the research coming out of the discipline of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychologists such as Herrnstein and Murray (1994) and Rushton (1995) argued that inherent intellectual capabilities could be predicted by racial group membership. Much of the criticism of the race concept at that time was aimed specifi-

cally at this type of research, which drew a direct correlation between race, intelligence, and social achievement. It was presumed that these correlations were demonstrated by both differences in average brain size between racial groups and scores on intelligence tests. Perhaps the most significant response to this line of argumentation was Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man (1996), in which he attacked the fundamental premise of such evolutionary psychologists: that measurable differences in average cranial capacities and/or brain size seen between so-called racial groups were indicative of differences in cognitive and cultural capabilities. Gould collected and analysed craniological data to demonstrate that the racial differences in cranial capacities that were claimed by the early craniologist, Samuel Morton (1839), were created by numerous flaws and errors in his methodology. This struck a huge blow for racial science as it clearly demonstrated that Morton had purposely manipulated his data in order to promote sociallybased theories of racial inequality. Similarly, Gould argued that evolutionary psychology is based on the same pre-conceptions found in Morton’s work—misunderstood or misapplied evolutionary theory—ignoring such issues as the relationship between cranial capacity and overall body mass, sex-based differences in cranial capacities, as well as the cultural and linguistic problems inherent in applying intelligence tests to diverse groups. Unfortunately, Gould’s work represents the pinnacle of the anti-race movement in science. The majority of critical perspectives on the science of race have served to shed light on the historical development of thought about human difference and the place of humans in nature while neglecting the development of methodological solutions. Rather than demonstrating the inadequacies of racial classification and proposing solutions for moving beyond the present state of stagnation in the race debate (Billinger, 2006), many contemporary approaches focus too narrowly on particular aspects of racism (as



A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

a sociological problem) as opposed to racialism (as a biological problem). As such, race remains a reality in the evolutionary sciences, including anthropology. Surveys of the current state of theoretically-based racialism in anthropological literature demonstrate that while attitudes have shifted significantly in favour of the rejection of racial categories, the use of race as an explanatory model is persistent. This is a particular problem in physical anthropology, in which analyses of skeletal morphology are used to map relationships between human groups. Cartmill (1998) reported that articles appearing in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (AJPA) dealing with human variation remained consistent over 30 years in their utilisation of the race concept, with it appearing in 34% of articles in 1965 and 35% in 1996. Lieberman et al. (2003) have challenged Cartmill’s results using a slightly different methodology, explaining that the initial attacks on the racial paradigm by Montagu in 1941 and 1942, Washburn in 1953, Livingstone in 1958, Brace in 1964, and Lieberman in 1968, saw the use of the race concept decline in the AJPA from 78% of articles in 1931 to 36% in 1965 and down to 28% in 1996. Lieberman et al. (2003) also surveyed American Anthropological Association (AAA) members in 1985 and again in 1999, asking respondents to agree or disagree with the statement: “There are biological races in the species Homo sapiens.” In 1985, 41% of physical anthropologists surveyed disagreed with the statement, increasing to 69% in 1999. Interestingly, 53% of cultural anthropologists disagreed with the statement in 1985, with that figure rising dramatically to 80% in 1999. Striking differences were also found in physical anthropology textbooks, which predominantly presented racialist models of human variation between 1932 and 1979, but showed an almost complete abandonment of the race concept as an explanatory tool between 1980 and 1999. These results prompted Lieberman et al. (2003, p. 112) to conclude: “Data indicate that the paradigm of



race has approached the point where its survival is in doubt. Even those who continue to use the concept have serious doubts about its utility.” It is also interesting to note that 42% of first authors of the included textbooks published in 1998–99 were AAA members, whereas only 4% of first authors of AJPA articles in 1996 were AAA members. Cartmill and Brown (2003) suggest that this difference in AAA membership indicates that the textbook authors are more representative of American anthropology, whereas the AJPA authorship is international; therefore, this may be more indicative of an American abandonment of the race concept, but a continued international usage. These two studies demonstrate a significant point: a sweeping philosophical trend occurred between 1931 and 1965, in which there was a 42–43% decline in the use of racial models in the AJPA, followed by a period of relative stability or slight decline between 1965 and 1996. I suggest that this represents a paradigm shift in American anthropology, but a shift that has been stunted by methodological stagnancy. While the race concept itself has been questioned or abandoned, methodology has not advanced, and no workable non-racialist models for explaining human population variation yet exist. Thus, while the concept of race has changed through time, the methodologies that utilise the concept remain static. The biological aspects of this problem are further illustrated by the disjunction in results between cultural anthropologists and physical anthropologists who answered Lieberman et al.’s (2003) questionnaires. In 1985, 12% more cultural anthropologists than physical anthropologists rejected the race concept, and 11% more (even after the marked increases in rejections by both groups) in 1999. Following Cartmill (1998), Wang et al. (2002a, 2002b) report that of 324 articles directly related to human variation printed in Acta Anthropologica Sinica, China’s only journal dedicated to physical anthropology, none questioned the validity of hu-

A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

man racial classification. Rather, several articles were mainly concerned with the biological differences among or between ‘major races.’ Wang et al. (2002b, p. 96) suggest that this focus can be considered a continuation of Weidenreich’s (1943) work in China, which emphasized regional continuity, suggesting Mongoloid roots extending back to Homo erectus. The irony of this focus on the so-called Mongoloid race is that studies of intra-group variation reveal that subdivision by north and south, and even further down to the ethnic or tribal level is possible (Wang et al., 2002b, p. 96). However, in China, race has proven to be a powerful political tool for uniting diverse groups within the country, since Chinese physical anthropologists have been portraying the Chinese (Mongoloid) people as a discrete biological group with a long evolutionary history. Results of studies of Polish physical anthropologists using questionnaires based on those developed by Lieberman et al. (1989) reveal a more encouraging picture of human variation studies in central Europe. The first study, conducted in 1999, revealed that out of 55 respondents, 31% agreed with the statement “There are biological races (meaning subspecies) within the species Homo sapiens,” while 62% disagreed, and 7% had no opinion (Kaszycka & Štrkalj, 2002). The authors explain that there are general trends in age: Polish physical anthropologists born before, during, or shortly after World War II had a much stronger sense of race, and racial typology was taught as a major university course in some universities until the 1970s, while younger anthropologists who received more modern training were much more sceptical about the existence of biological races. In a 2001 follow-up study, Kaszycka and Strzałko (2003) found that offering the respondents different racial concepts as options resulted in significantly different results. 75% of 100 respondents (of whom three-quarters had also responded to the 1999 survey) agreed that there are human races when allowed to choose between

races defined as geographical (17%), typological (13%), populational (35%), subspecies (3%) or a combination of two of these options (7%). The rejection of race by the majority of respondents of the 1999 survey versus the much lower rate of rejection in the 2001 survey suggests that race, when construed only as a subspecies, is more problematic (at least in the Polish context) than when the term is attached to other biological concepts (Kaszycka & Štrkalj, 2002, p. 334). The results of these studies indicate that in North America, the rejection of the race concept on an intellectual basis is more widespread amongst those who deal with it only as an organizing category (cultural anthropologists) than those who utilize race as an explanatory model (physical anthropologists) of how human groups vary biologically. In the Chinese example, race continues to be uncritically accepted by physical anthropologists, and the authors suggest that this is a result of socio-political context rather than scientific discovery. In Central Europe,2 the Polish studies suggest that there is general trend toward the rejection of race as a biologically meaningful concept in a strict taxonomic sense by physical anthropologists, but that it remains a persistent organizing principle in general. In terms of anthropological methodology, critical debate over the practical usefulness of racial categorisation was most prominently played out also in the 1990s in forensic anthropological literature (Sauer, 1992; Brace, 1995; Kennedy, 1995). Although many of its practitioners contend that more advanced methods of ancestral determination are necessary (Brues, 1992; Kennedy & Chiment, 1992), and that the race debates have only served to retard such progress (Sauer, 1993), arguments that racial categories are necessary to convey socially-understandable (identifying) information are persistently made. In failing to provide progressive methods of ancestral determination, and continually relying on outdated methods of racial determination, forensic anthropologists are neglecting the scientific questions that led to



A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

increased understanding of human variation and accuracy in their determinations.3

Is racE sOLELY aN aNtHrOPOLOGIcaL PrObLEM? The criteria used in racial classification depend upon the purpose of the classification itself (Molnar, 2002, p. 18), which may differ not only between disciplines, but also within them. We can see this in the different approaches to racial classification that are apparent between anthropological subdisciplines. Physical anthropologists are particularly influenced by both theory and method developed by colleagues in the fields of evolutionary biology and genetics, in which classification is argued to have a more objective (or pragmatic) purpose. Dunn (1951, p. 13), writing in the UNESCO publication Race and Biology, explains that “although there has been for some time a considerable measure of agreement amongst biologists about the concept of race in plants, animals and man, the word ‘race’ as used in common speech has no clear or exact meaning at all, and through frequent misuse has acquired unpleasant and distressing connotations.” While race is generally characterized as a contested term in anthropological discourse, the assumption that it has been unproblematically applied to intraspecies variation by evolutionary biologists is not at all accurate (Livingstone, 1962, p. 279; Templeton, 2002). Biologically, the race concept has equal application to plants, animals, and humans, both philosophically and methodologically. Evolutionary biologists typically refer to subspecies when discussing intraspecies variation, with the terms ‘subspecies’ and ‘geographic race’ being used interchangeably in the taxonomic literature (Mayr, 2002). In the 1940s, Ernst Mayr, perhaps the best known evolutionary biologist of the 20th century, defined a ‘subspecies’ or ‘geographic race’ as a “geographically localized subdivi-



sion of the species, which differs genetically and taxonomically from other subdivisions of the species” (1942, p. 106). However, numerous biologists found this definition to be unsuitably ambiguous when practically applied to intraspecies variation. Individuals within geographically localized populations can easily interbreed with individuals from neighbouring populations, resulting in gradients of the characters used in various classification schemes, created by continuous genetic flow. As such, subspecies designations became increasingly problematized in the 1950s, with biologists such as Wilson and Brown (1953; Brown & Wilson, 1954) arguing that the category should be abandoned altogether due to its highly arbitrary nature. The gradations seen in physical and/or genetic characters between geographic populations within species create a major obstacle that taxonomists have not been able to overcome. This is particularly true when attempting to classify human populations. Modern molecular genetics recognizes that when major human populations are classified as (geographic) races, the amount of genetic variation at the level of morphology, karyotype, proteins and DNA within each race is substantially greater than between races (Griffiths et al., 2000, p. 782; Keita & Kittles, 1997, p. 537; Lewontin, 1972; Mettler et al., 1988, p. 269; Templeton, 1999). This has been demonstrated time and time again in human genetics studies using various loci, from blood groups to proteins, and mtDNA (Barbujani et al., 1997; Dean et al., 1994; Excoffier et al., 1992; Latter, 1980; Lewontin, 1972; Nei & Roychoudhury, 1997; Ryman et al., 1983; Seielstad et al., 1998), showing that so-called racial variation accounts for anywhere between 2.8% and 28.0% of human variation, depending upon the method employed, with individual variation accounting for between 74.7% and 97.8%—the vast majority of overall genetic variation (Brown & Armelagos, 2001). In a survey of the geographic distribution of genes throughout historically-situated populations, Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994) produced nearly

A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

five hundred maps of numerous allele frequencies from genetic samples of individuals from nearly two thousand communities. The results reinforce earlier genetic studies and demonstrate four basic rules of human variation that are important considerations for physical anthropologists in discussing human evolution on a genetic level (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994): 1. 2.

3.

4.

Individual variation is much larger than group variation. In combination with the fossil record, it can be confirmed that Africa was the birthplace of humanity (i.e., Homo sapiens). Gene frequencies indicate a large genetic difference between present-day Africans and non-Africans. All Europeans are thought to be hybrid populations, with approximately 65% Asian and 35% African genes (attesting to the greater antiquity of African and Asian populations). Indigenous North American populations were found to be divisible into three distinct groups by blood type, representing three separate migrations from Asia.

The surprising result of these genetic analyses was that the map of world genetic variation shows Africa on one end of the spectrum and Australian aborigines at the other. What this tells us is that patterns of adaptation follow models of clinal variation,4 with Australian aborigines showing the greatest genetic distance from Africans, but the most similarity in terms of phenotypic constitution (i.e. skeletal morphology, and other superficial traits such as skin colour and hair texture).5 Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994) suggest that the morphological similarity seen between indigenous African and Australian populations is the simple product of adaptation to generally similar climates in regions of sub-Saharan Africa and Australia. This highlights another fundamental problem with the subspecies concept: where Mayr sug-

gested that subspecies should differ “genetically and taxonomically” from one another, we can see that analyses of genetic and morphological data can yield different results. In this instance, the results of Cavalli-Sforza et al.’s genetic analyses do not match the population distances derived from skeletal data. Craniometric data collected by Howells (1973, 1989, 1995) have been used to test the results of the Cavalli-Sforza et al. genetic study (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994:72; CavalliSforza & Cavalli-Sforza, 1995, pp. 116–118), but consistently grouping Australians (and Papuans) with sub-Saharan Africans as closely cognate populations. What this demonstrates is that subspecific or racial classification fails biologically in its assumption that evolution can be studied as (evolutionary significant) branching patterns that form phylogenetic trees. This requires that geographic groups be understood as evolutionarily significant ancestor-descendant sequences of breeding populations that share a common origin. This cladistic approach inherently favours the single-origin model of modern human dispersal: that modern humans originated as a racially undifferentiated population of modern humans in Africa approximately 200,000 years ago,6 migrating out of Africa and forming various (approximately) reproductively isolated breeding populations, which can be represented by branches on a phylogenetic tree. When human evolution is understood as a pattern of evolutionary branching, the terminal nodes of a phylogenetic tree represent extant (monophyletic) racial groups, whose historical lineages can be traced backwards to a common ancestor (see Andreasen, 1998, 2000, 2004; Kitcher, 2003). This can be highly problematic when two or more groups being studied have morphological similarities that are the products of environment adaptations rather than biological relationships. A hypothetical situation can further illustrate the fundamental problems with this monophyletic assumption, which causes classification at the level of subspecies to fail: group a and group b 

A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

are both isolated groups that traditionally lived in areas A and B respectively. Neither group has encountered the other or the other’s relatives in the past. Resources become scarce in both areas A and B, and in response, one-quarter of the families in group a decide to migrate in search of better food resources, and one-quarter of the families in group b do the same, at about the same time. Both splinter groups arrive in area C, which is equidistant to areas A and B, at about the same time, and they find adequate food resources. Both groups stay and decide to settle in area C and begin to intermix, becoming group c. Who would be the common ancestor to group c? In this case, group c would be of mixed ancestry. What if food resources were to improve over time and group c was to prosper in area C and eventually spread out and recombine with group a and/or b? Cladistic theory simply cannot adequately deal with this lineage. This example could apply to geographic groups within any biological species but the example becomes significantly more complex when humans are brought into the equation. This evidence should lead us to conclude that racial classifications are problematic in general, but are particularly problematic when the element of human culture is introduced. Genetic evidence has demonstrated that human mobility has resulted in a high degree of genetic mixing within so-called racial groups. Moore (1994, p. 931) uses ethnographic evidence to support the notion that human groups have complex and intertwined historical lineages rather than being unilineal ancestor-descendant sequences: The criticisms of synthetic theory currently being developed come largely from experienced fieldworkers and are based on the observation that the historical scenarios postulated by synthesists—in which ethnic groups split, evolve homogeneously within ethnic boundaries, and then split again in a cladistic manner—simply do not seem familiar

0

ethnographically or ethnohistorically. How many tribal societies are there in which all the members are monolingual in the same language, marry only among themselves, and are homogeneous in their traditions and material culture? Synthetic theories such as cladism, which have been used to explain relationships and geographical distributions of language, culture, and physical types are generally weak theoretically and not particularly suitable for the study of modern human groups (Moore, 1994). Moore (1994) contrasts cladistic with rhizotic theories, explaining that where cladism emphasizes historical parent-daughter (or ancestor-descendant) relationships, rhizotic theories emphasize the extent to which each human language, culture, or biological group is derived from or rooted in several ancestral groups or lineages, which he suggests is better characterized as the process of ethnogenesis. In Moore’s (1994, p. 927) view, ethnogenesis provides a logical alternative explanation for the global distribution of languages, cultures, physical types, and archaeological traditions, and he makes the important point that ethnogenesis stands in contrast to all hierarchical taxonomies, which, regardless of their aim or theoretical bases, are clearly meant to represent cladistic relationships. Such hierarchical models are based on the presumption, in contrast to the hypothetical example above, that once a daughter species (or subspecies, race, etc.) differentiates from its parent, it will not thereafter incorporate any genetic material from its siblings (Moore, 1994, p. 928). Cladograms and other hierarchical methods of phylogenetic reconstruction require that each terminal unit of a phylogenetic tree have only one parental unit, whereas rhizograms show the convergence of diverse roots (possibly from multiple parental stock) forming hybridized or amalgamated descendant groups (Moore, 1994, p. 930). In a survey of tribes in California, the Great Basin, Sonora, Tierra del Fuego, and Australia, Owen (1965) found that instead of ethnically

A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

discrete bands or tribes, that multilingualism, intermarriage across supposedly profound ethnic boundaries, and enormous cultural variation was the norm. Similarly, in a study of aboriginal band types on the Canadian plains, Sharrock (1973) found that there were three common types of interethnic social organization: alliance, intermarriage and polyethnic co-residence, and fused ethnicity (Moore, 1994, p. 936). Moore (1994, p. 938) believes that the essential difficulty between cladistic and ethnogenetic theory lies in the long term stability of ethnic groups: cladistic theory requires that ethnic groups remain stable for hundreds or thousands of years, whereas ethnogenesis attempts to understand the processes in which ethnic groups are transformed through time. While this contrast might not be as problematic as Moore suggests, the general point of incommensurability is that cladistics focuses on the biological fissioning of groups, whereas ethnogenetic theory deals with transition, which in many cases involves the rearrangement or fusion of groups. Traditional methods of biological classification simply have not accounted for the complexities of population biology at the local level, looking at how social networks constrain the follow of genes within and between biological groups.

Is tHErE aN EtHIcaL DIMENsION tO tHE racE PrObLEM? Although we know that racial classification has limited, if any, biological utility, we have no workable models to replace race-based models, which remain a basic starting point for discussions of intraspecies variation. A vast but underappreciated body of literature critical of biological subspecies classification has demonstrated the pragmatic problems of such classification schemes: that they are arbitrary due to the overlapping of morphological and/or genetic traits, which themselves show incongruent or inconsistent microevolutionary patterns. Nonetheless, the existing voluminous literature on race and/or racism is lacking due to

the almost exclusive focus on the historical development of the race concept rather than proposing alternative methods or taxonomic schemes. As a result, even in light of new scientific evidence, perspectives on human variation continue to be structured within the racial paradigm. Since race continues to be used as an explanatory model for human evolutionary schemes, the perpetuation of racial language gives the illusion that the race concept itself has real biological meaning. Thus, the race concept remains the basic starting point in discussions of human variation, despite ever-increasing evidence demonstrating the inability of the race concept to account for the patterns of variation seen below the level of species. In this respect, Stoler (1997, p. 198) explains that there are “fixities and fluidities” in racial discourse: despite our demonstration of the complexities of the patterns of human evolution and population biology, simple racial language has remained relatively static in our discussions of such patterns. As such, surveys of literature dealing with the changing perception of race as a biological concept provide significant proof that racial categories are fluid and not fixed, which confirms that “they can and should be undone” (Stoler, 1997, p. 198, emphasis added). This is the ethical aspect of my argument: the more we understand about population biology, the more apparent it becomes that the race concept is fundamentally flawed. The fact that the race concept has been inaccurately perpetuated for decades, provides absolute evidence that we have an ethical obligation to find a real solution, since we are well aware of the atrocities done around the world in the name of racism. While I do not equate racialism with racism, I believe that technological advancement in the analysis of human biological variation is giving us the tools to build workable non-racial models of human variation which, when widely understood, will have obvious profoundly positive results for anti-racism movements. Such a movement will find its legitimacy in the fact that it is rooted in basic biology, and not as an explicit attack on sociological race categories. 

A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

In terms of the relationship between technology and the ethical problems inherent in using the traditional race concept, the sparse but important literature on technoethics provides an important basis for moving forward in this discussion. For Bunge (1976, p. 155), the term ‘technology’ has broad and encompassing applications, extending to material, social, conceptual, and general technologies. For the purposes of this discussion, material technology (including physical, chemical and biological science), as well as social technology (including economic, psychological, and sociological science), will be the main reference, since they are implicitly tied to the discipline of anthropology. According to Bunge (1977, p. 100), “the technologist must be held not only technically but also morally responsible for whatever he designs or executes: not only should his artifacts be optimally efficient but, far from being harmful, they should be beneficial, and not only in the short run but also in the long term.” This is where ethics compels us to utilise biotechnology as a tool for developing new understandings of population biology. Racial models are neither optimally efficient nor are they beneficial from a biological perspective, since they simply do not work and only serve to mischaracterize the patterns of biological variation seen within geographically diverse species. In light of this technoethical argument, any researcher who continues to use outdated models despite the availability of new technologies allowing them to explore progressive theories and methods is doing a disservice to their discipline, and the scientific community as a whole. Technology should be subjected to moral and social controls (Bunge, 1977, p. 106). We have seen the negative personal and societal effects of the misuses of biotechnology which led to eugenic movements in Europe and North American starting in the 1930s, and which ultimately lead the Nazi Holocaust in the 1940s. In Western Canada, eugenic sterilization laws were in place from 1928 to 1972, resulting in a total of 2,832



adults and children being sterilized by government order (Wahlsten, 1997). Such atrocities were due to the lack of moral and social controls on the use of technology—even though there was a societal belief that technology was being used for the betterment of society, individual rights were widely ignored. The technoethical approach suggests not that we suppress scientific progress because of societal pressures, but that the misuses of good technology be corrected by promoting better technology and rendering it morally and socially sensitive. As such, the technologist must be responsible not only to his or her profession, but to all those who might be affected by his or her work. Furthermore, a technologist who strives to make a contribution to alleviating social ills (including public misunderstandings of science, as in the example of the perpetuation of racial language) or to improving the quality of life is a public benefactor (Bunge, 1977, pp. 106–107). The race problem remains unresolved because it is far too complex to be resolved by any single technologist, or group of technologists within a particular discipline, which has allowed simple answers to prevail. Racial models are remarkably simple in their explanatory powers and, as such, have general appeal in terms of relaying conceptual information to wide audiences. We are now well poised, in an age where interdisciplinary research is highly valued academically, to provide a comprehensive response to the race problem. According to Bunge (1977, p. 107), “Because no single specialist can cope with all of the manysided and complex problems posed by large-scale technological projects, these should be entrusted to teams of experts in various fields, including applied social scientists.” Similarly, and specifically in the context of the race problem, Eze asks (2001, pp. 29–30): “If geneticists have shown that ‘race’ is not a useful concept, it may be up to the social scientists to invent new ways of making this development available to the general culture.” Anthropologists, who deal with both the social and

A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

biological realms, are perfectly placed to make perhaps the greatest contribution to redefining human variation. As a discipline that has actively participated in perpetuating the myth of human races, this should be an obligatory goal. If the ‘race problem’ in anthropology can be redefined rather than simply re-articulated, then new ways of exploring human variation can be developed. Histories of racial thought have filled innumerable volumes, and they have served us well, but such treatments (Billinger, 2000; Brace, 2005; Smedley, 1999) should now simply provide a background from which a new line of argumentation will take shape. The goal, then, is to bring together progressive theory and method in the analysis of human biological variation. This should not be specific to any particular anthropological subdiscipline, but a concerted effort by all anthropologists along with our colleagues in biology, medicine, history, philosophy, sociology, political science and other related disciplines.

FUtUrE trENDs: caN tEcHNOLOGY bE UsED tO sOLvE tHE racE PrObLEM? In terms of anthropologists’ approaches to the analysis of human biological relationships, there has been a rapid evolution in the technological sophistication of methodological tools. However, traditional theories of cultural and ethnic interaction typically tend to be cladistic in nature, the problems with which have already been discussed. As such, the reliance on racial classification has resulted in the relationship between ethnicity and human biology being treated in far too simplistic a manner (see Billinger, 2007a, 2007b, 2006; Crews & Bindon, 1991; Chapman, 1993; Montagu, 1997). The complex system of ethnic relations proposed by Moore, as introduced earlier, is actually derived from a relatively old and underappreciated theory of ethnic biology that can be traced back over a century.

Deniker (1900) first introduced the idea that human biology is ethnically structured, and this notion was more clearly elaborated by Huxley and Haddon (1935). Although this ethnic concept was adapted by Ashley Montagu as a genetical theory7 in 1942 (which was further developed by Hulse in 1969), little is understood about how it can be applied to re-building human taxonomy. Moore’s critique builds on this body of work, and provides many facets from which his cultural approach can be modified into a strong theoretical basis for new methodological strategies. If we can understand how to conceptualize the flow and/or isolation of genes and the relation to endogamous or exogamous practices, and human mobility through time, then physical anthropologists can move much closer toward understanding both the patterns and processes involved in creating the morphological variations of prehistoric, historic, and contemporary populations. This should form one part of the proposed interdisciplinary project. I want to now use the example of how technological progress in the methodology employed by physical anthropologists can fuel this project, adapting multidimensional techniques for exploring biological patterns to fit the multidimensional theory of ethnic biology. Perhaps the most diagnostic area for study of human morphology and phylogeny is the skull. Anatomically modern humans show considerable geographic variation in the form of the facial skeleton. Howells (1973, 1989, 1995) was a pioneer in this regard, publishing a vast global data set for use in analyses of global and regional variation in craniofacial morphology. Howells was interested in taxonomy, but saw it not as a means to an end, but rather as tool for comparative description: as an exploration of genetic populations rather than racial types.8 As we will see, the primary factors determining the outcome of such analyses are the types of data available and the types of analysis applied to them. For instance, Billinger (2006, Chapter 5) uses Howells’ (1973, 1989) craniometric data,



A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

supplemented with further data for North and South American indigenous populations, to test the craniometric relationships of known world populations.9 Initially, a univariate method was employed in which each of the individual cranial measurements was treated by Mayr’s (1969, pp. 187–197) coefficient of difference (CD), a simple calculation that incorporates the mean values and

standard deviations of each trait for each group. Applying this measure to the data sheds light on whether, using the selected craniometric traits, the groups used in the analysis are differentiated enough to form a subspecies according to Mayr’s definition.10 Accordingly, a CD value of 1.28 reveals that 90% of individuals in population a are different from 90% of individuals in population

Table 1. Average coefficient of difference data matrix for group-by-group comparisons (from Billinger, 2006, p. 234) MALE Norse Zalavar Berg Egypt Teita Dogon Zulu Bushman Andaman Australia Tasmania Tolai N. Japan S. Japan Hainan Ainu Buriat Siberia Eskimo NWT Arikara Navajo Mexico Peru

Norse 0.00 . . . . . . .0 . .0 . . . .0 . . . . .0 . .00 . . .

Zalavar

Berg

Egypt

Teita

Dogon

Zulu

0.00 . . . . . . . . .0 . . . . .0 . . . . . . . .

0.00 . . . . . . . .0 . . . .0 . . .0 . . . .0 . .

0.00 . . . . . . . . . .0 . . .0 .0 . . . . . .

0.00 .0 . .0 . .0 . .0 . .0 .0 .0 . . . .0 . . . .

0.00 . . . . . .0 . . . . .0 . . .0 . . . .

0.00 . . . . . . . . .0 .0 . . . . . . .

0.00 . .0 . . . . .0 .0 .0 13.25 . . . 0. . .

0.00 . .0 . . . . 0. 14.64 14.49 . 12.90 . . . .

0.00 . . . . . . . . . . .0 .0 . .

0.00 . . . . . . .0 . . . .0 . .

0.00 . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hainan

Ainu

Buriat

Siberia

Eskimo

NWT

Arikara

Navajo

Mexico

Peru

0.00 . . . . . . . . .0

0.00 . . . . . . .0 .

0.00 . . . . . . .

0.00 . . . . .0 .

0.00 . . . . .0

0.00 . . . .0

0.00 . . .

0.00 . .

0.00 .0

0.00

MALE N. Japan S. Japan Norse Zalavar Berg Egypt Teita Dogon Zulu Bushman Andaman Australia Tasmania Tolai N. Japan 0.00 S. Japan .0 0.00 Hainan .0 . Ainu . .0 Buriat . .0 Siberia . . Eskimo .0 . NWT .0 . Arikara .0 . Navajo . .0 Mexico . . Peru . .

Bushman Andaman Australia Tasmania

Tolai

*Average calculated by taking the sum of the correlation coefficients for each group-by-group comparison for each craniometric trait.



A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

b, which is equal to 75 percent of individuals from population a differing from all individuals of population b. Table 1 gives the results of this analysis using group-by-group comparisons, with each result being multiplied by 10. The CD value of 1.28 should also be multiplied by the same factor. Therefore, results over 12.80 show a level of differentiation over 75 percent. Based on the traits used, only the comparison of groups on the extremities of the geographic range of populations give results over 12.80, those being Siberia-Bushman, Buriat-Andaman, Siberia-Andaman, and NWT-Andaman. The remaining group-by-group comparisons show a pattern of intergradations. The relationships between each of groups based on the results of the CD were treated by cluster analysis (Figure 1) and multidimensional scaling (Figure 2) for visualisation. The results seen are not unexpected based on ‘common sense’ racial

categories derived from skin colour (Andreasen, 2004, pp. 428–430). However, it should be noted that this method calculates the mean differences between each measurement and, as such, it represents a single correlation coefficient calculated from average differences in size. For taxonomic purposes, shape is considered to be of significantly higher value than size (Corruccini, 1973, 1987). According to Howells (1973, p. 3): Populations have been compared (normally two populations at a time) in one measurement at a time. Such estimates of difference, or distance, do not, however, allow consideration of the shape of the skull as a whole, as this is expressed by the relations between measurements (though of course two measurements have been commonly related in a ratio or index). As a result, there had been little consideration as to whether the measurements in

Figure 1. Cluster analysis dendrogram (average linkage method) plotting Coefficient of Difference results for each group in the global sample (from Billinger, 2006, p. 236)

Cluster Tree SIBERIA NWT ESKIMO ARIKARA BURIAT NAVAJO MEXICO PERU BERG NORSE ZALAVAR EGYPT HAINAN S_JAPAN N_JAPAN AINU TASMANIA TOLAI AUSTRALIA TEITA ZULU DOGON BUSHMAN ANDAMAN

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   Distances









A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

Figure 2. Multidimensional scaling of coefficient of difference results for each group in the global sample (from Billinger, 2006, p. 238)

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NAVAJO ANDAMAN N_JAPAN HAINAN S_JAPAN ZALAVAR SIBERIA EGYPT PERU NORSE BERG DOGON NWT ESKIMO MEXICO BUSHMAN ZULU ARIKARA AINU TEITA BURIAT TOLAI TASMANIA AUSTRALIA

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Figure 3. Cluster analysis dendrogram (average linkage method) plotting Penrose’s shape distance for each group in the global sample (from Billinger, 2006, p. 249)

Cluster Tree BUSHMAN ZULU TEITA TOLAI AUSTRALIA TASMANIA NORSE ZALAVAR EGYPT N_JAPAN AINU S_JAPAN HAINAN MEXICO DOGON ANDAMAN BERG PERU ARIKARA BURIAT SIBERIA NWT ESKIMO KENNEWICK NAVAJO

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0

0

0 0 Distances

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A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

use do in fact reflect the total configuration of the skull adequately for taxonomic purposes (although traditional lists naturally have attempted to cover many aspects of the skull and face). Methods of multivariate analysis such as those developed by Penrose (1954) allow for the study of shape variation by accounting for the relations between measurements, and represent a great advancement over univariate analyses. The second step in this study was then to apply a multivariate method for analysing shape. Figure 3 gives the resulting dendrograms created by cluster analysis of shape coefficients for each group, obtained using Penrose’s shape distance calculations for the same craniometric traits used in the univariate analysis. Figure 4 plots the shape coefficients derived from the Penrose method by multidimensional scaling. Note the discontinuities seen between the dendrograms and multidimensional scaling plots for the multivariate and univariate analyses—the difference between size

and shape-based data is readily apparent. This picture becomes increasingly complicated when attempting to place an individual into the scheme of world-wide variation for the purposes of forensic ancestral determination. In this instance, the aim was to determine the biological ancestry of the ‘Kennewick Man’ skull.11 The results show that the Kennewick skull groups with northern (Arctic) North American indigenous populations when compared to globally-distributed populations. However, when the Kennewick skull is compared only to regional American indigenous populations,12 also using Penrose’s shape distance, a very different (and more complex) picture of biological relationships appears (Figures 5 and 6). It should be kept in mind that biological distance calculated from morphological data does not give an accurate approximation of genetic distance—it gives only the phenetic distance between the average values for each population—which is problematic because biological distance is the

Figure 4. Multidimensional scaling of Penrose’s shape distance for each group in the global sample (from Billinger, 2006, p. 250)

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ANDAMAN

BUSHMAN

DOGON PERUZULUTEITA BERG HAINAN TASMANIA TOLAI S_JAPAN EGYPT AUSTRALIA AINU NAVAJO ARIKARA ZALAVARN_JAPAN MEXICO NORSE BURIAT SIBERIA ESKIMO NWT KENNEWICK

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-  Dimension-





A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

Figure 5. Cluster analysis dendrogram (average linkage method) plotting Penrose’s shape distance for each group in the sample of regional American indigenous populations (from Billinger, 2006, p. 256)

Cluster Tree PALEOINDIAN ESKIMO BJC KENNEWICK MEXICO PERU NWC ARIKARA GREENVILLE PRH NAMU HAIDA SIBERIA NWT TSIMSHIAN BURIAT NAVAJO

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Figure 6. Multidimensional scaling of Penrose’s shape distance for each group in the sample of regional American indigenous populations (from Billinger, 2006, p. 257)

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TSIMSHIAN BURIAT

NAMU HAIDA GREENVILLE SIBERIA PRH NWC NWT ARIKARA KENNEWICK ESKIMO PALEOINDIAN BJC NAVAJO MEXICO PERU

-  Dimension-



A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

main factor in determining taxonomic groups and hierarchical ordering. The calculation of morphological distance is entirely dependant upon the number and type of morphological features used for the analysis, and the number of populations included. These considerations are often dependant upon the availability of published data, which may be limited. Furthermore, the ordering of the cluster analysis can only be accurately interpreted in the presence of reliable historical data on the groups used in the analysis and should not be taken as a true representation of the cladistic affinity of populations, only as an idealized model. Standard craniometric methods do provide interesting results for studying the patterns of evolution and speciation—and the transition from univariate to multivariate analyses was a huge leap forward—but greater potential lies in moving beyond simple linear craniometric morphometrics into ‘modern morphometrics’ (Slice, 2005). Advancements in three-dimensional (3D) digital imaging provide new opportunities for progressive study of size and shape space through geometric morphometrics. Comparison of geometric morphometric coordinate data to traditional multivariate morphometrics show that although traditional caliper measurements can provide adequate results (Reig, 1996), 3D data produces more powerful statistics with higher correlation and lower probabilities of spurious results, providing a clearer picture of variation with more distinct clusters (McKeown & Jantz, 2005). Geometric morphometrics yield highly visual and readily interpretable results (Collard & O’Higgins, 2001; Vidarsdottir et al., 2002), offering multivariate techniques that cover all possible shape measurements of a region separately, exploring the patterns of their correlations with all possible shape measures of other regions in one single computation. Further, such analysis allows for the comparison of two distinct integrative factors—ontogeny and phylogeny—as they

apply to a shared regionalization within samples of modern Homo sapiens or prehistoric hominoid crania (Bookstein et al., 2003). Geometric morphometrics provides insight into the usefulness of various traits for taxonomic purposes through the analysis of allometric (size and shape covariation) and ontogenetic trajectories for determining homology (Bastir & Rosas, 2004; Humphries, 2002; Lieberman, 2000; Mitteroecker et al., 2004). Looking at homologies between species may provide the key to isolating important microevolutionary traits within species. These trajectories also give insight into the effects of age and sex related variation in population data. There remain, however, two fundamental questions to be asked regarding morphometric analyses and the relationship between continuously distributed morphological traits and their phylogenetic importance: can continuously distributed variables be used to make phylogenetic inferences, and can morphometric variables be used to test phylogenetic hypotheses (MacLeod & Forey, 2002)? Although the statistical complexity of shape distances lead Rohlf and Marcus (1993) to caution against assumptions that they can be safely used as measures of taxonomic distance, numerous recent studies attest to the potential for phylogenetic reconstructions using geometric morphometric data in modern humans and other hominid species. However, no studies have yet provided conclusive results. Bookstein et al. (1999) believe that refinements in methods of morphometric analysis will lead to new perspectives on phylogenetic and functional relationships among and within hominid species. The fact that 3D coordinate data collection has become much more feasible with the development of more economical portable digitizers should result in a rapid increase in the availability of data to answer these phylogenetic questions. Neanderthals provide an especially interesting case for studying inter and intra-species variation, since it is only recently that it has been demonstrated both (geometric) morphometrically



A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

(Harvati, 2004; Harvati et al., 2004) and through mitochondrial DNA (Currat & Excoffier, 2004; Serre et al., 2004)13 that the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) represent a distinct species and are not a subspecies of Homo sapiens, following years of bitter debate (Stringer, 2002). Such phylogenetic analysis may result in immediate practical advancements as well. The results of these analyses will be important in the context of forensic anthropology, particularly in dealing with subadult forensic remains. There is, at present, no way of reliably assigning subadult remains to ancestral groups based on skeletal morphology (Vidarsdottir et al., 2002). Bringing forensic anthropological methods into the realm of human variation studies will be a benefit not only for forensic identification purposes, but also for the perceived misrepresentation of human biological patterns by forensic anthropologists.

cONcLUsION Methodology must be developed on a strong theoretical basis, and as such, the methods of phylogenetic reconstruction will continue to suffer if they remain focused on unilineal patterns of evolutionary branching. Humans do not follow these simple theoretical patterns. I have argued elsewhere (Billinger, 2006) that: (a) humans follow ethnogenetic processes, and the study of these processes requires a much higher level of theoretical sophistication to decode the multiple and interlocking causation of patterns by which humans have grouped together— factors such as language, political divisions, religion, etc., not just by geography; (b) humans form ethnic groups, and such groups are fluid and historically contingent; (c) the degree to which physically or genetically distinguishable groups form is unlikely to be near a level warranting subspecies designations. This chapter has provided a summary of these arguments intended to reignite the race debate in the context of technoethical considerations. That the

0

fluid biosocial condition outlined in this chapter exists only in human populations is enough to dismiss the notion of race at least in reference to modern humans, and likely in general biological application. The main challenge it presents is that it is simply not enough to insist on the substitution of racial terminology for neutral referents, but a wholesale re-evaluation of human taxonomy may be necessary to get at the true patterns of variation. Eze (2001) quite correctly suggests that social scientists should assume the role of making genetic refutations of the race concept accessible to the general public. I believe that the key to destroying racialist thought is by dismantling its biological basis, which has served only to reify the race concept and obscure our understanding of the nature of group biology. However, this will not eliminate racism in its social manifestation(s). In order to adequately tackle this problem, we might find a solution in the language of human rights, which is fundamentally tied to the idea of human uniqueness as our unifying feature. This perspective implicitly ties humans’ social existence to our basically biology, and provides further evidence that there is an inherent ethical argument against the perpetuation of the race problem. Ignatieff (2000, pp. 39–40) suggests that human rights derive their force in our conscience from the sense that we all belong to a single species, and that we can recognize ourselves in every other human being we meet. In other words, “to recognize and respect a stranger is to recognize and respect ourselves,” since having an intense sense of one’s own worth is a precondition for recognizing the worth of others. Ignatieff (2000, p. 41) believes that to commit ourselves to this way of thinking about the relationship between human equality and human difference—that human equality actually manifests itself in our differences—is to understand our commonalities as human beings in the very way we differentiate ourselves (as peoples, as communities, and as individuals). As such, we humans are not simply

A Technoethical Approach to the Race Problem in Anthropology

biologically variable, but we also display astoundingly different ways in which we decorate, adorn, perfume, and costume our bodies in order to assert our identities as individuals and members of tribes or communities. According to Ignatieff (2000, p. 53):

Andreasen, R.O. (2000). Race: Biological reality or social construct? Philosophy of Science, 67 (Proceedings), S653–S666.

Marx was simply wrong when he claimed, in 1843, that rights talk reduces us all to abstract, equal individuals, held together by our biological sameness. The claim I would make is the reverse. If the supreme value that rights seek to protect is human agency, then the chief expression of human agency is difference, the ceaseless elaboration of disguises, affirmations, identities, and claims, at once individually and collectively. To believe in rights is to believe in defending difference.

Barbujani, G., Magagni, A., Minch, E., & CavalliSforza, L.L. (1997). An apportionment of human DNA diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, 94, 4516–4519.

It is this kind of inclusive thinking that should push anthropologists to lead the way toward progressive approaches to the study of human cultural and biological relationships. However, race and racism should not be confused with one another, and indictments against the race concept should not be based on a rejection of racist thought, but must be grounded in solid biological fact. The inconsistencies seen in various types of biological data should stimulate us to rethink the ways in which we categorize human groups. Once we have found a way to move beyond the racial paradigm in terms of the ways in which we conceive of human biological relationships, then we can start to rethink the ways in which we treat others not only as members of social or biological groups, but as individuals.

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Arsuaga, J-L., Slice, D.E, Rohlf, F.J., Recheis, W., Mariam, A.J., & Marcus, L.F. (1999). Comparing frontal cranial profiles in archaic and modern Homo by morphometric analysis. The Anatomical Record (New Anatomist), 257, 217–224. Brace, C.L. (1964). A nonracial approach towards the understanding of human diversity. In A. Montagu (Ed.), The concept of race (pp. 103–152). New York: Free Press. Brace, C.L. (1995). Region does not mean race: reality versus convention in forensic anthropology. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 40(2):171–175. Brace, C.L. (1996 [2000]). A four-letter word called ‘race.’ In C.L. Brace (Ed.), Evolution in an anthropological perspective (pp. 283–322). Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Brace C.L. (2005). “Race” is a four-letter word: The genesis of the concept. New York: Oxford University Press. Brown, R.A., & Armelagos, G.J. (2001). Apportionment of racial diversity: A review. Evolutionary Anthropology, 10, 34–40. Brown, W.H., & Wilson, E.O. (1954). The case against the trinomen. Systematic Zoology, 3(4), 174–176. Brues, A.M. (1992). Forensic diagnosis of race: general race vs. specific populations. Social Science and Medicine, 34(2), 125–128. Bunge, M. (1976). The philosophical richness of technology. Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Volume 2: Symposia and Invited Papers (pp. 153–172). Bunge, M. (1977). Towards a technoethics. The Monist, 60, 96–107. Cartmill, M. (1997). The third man. Discover, 18(9). Electronic document, http://www.discover.com/issues/sep-97/departments/thethirdman1220/, accessed April 4, 2000.



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Sharrock, S.R. (1974). Crees, Cree-Assiniboines and Assiniboines: Interethnic social organiza-



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tion on the far Northern Prairies. Ethnohistory, 21, 95–122. Slice, D.E. (Ed.). (2005). Modern morphometrics in physical anthropology. New York: Kluwer Academic. Smedley, A. (1999). Race in North America: origin and evolution of a worldview. Boulder: Westview Press. Stoler, A.L. (1997). Racial histories and their regimes of truth. Political Power and Social Theory, 11, 183–206. Stringer, C. (1996). African exodus: the origins of modern humanity. New York: Henry Holt. Stringer, C. (2002). New perspectives on the Neanderthals. Evolutionary Anthropology Supplement, 1, 58–59. Templeton, A.R. (1999). Human races: a genetic and evolutionary perspective. American Anthropologist, 100(3), 632–650. Templeton, A.R. (2002). Out of Africa again and again. Nature, 416(7), 45–51. Templeton, A.R. (2005). Haplotype trees and modern human origins. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 48, 33–59. Teschler-Nicola, M. (2004). The diagnostic eye: on the history of genetic and racial assessment in pre-1938 Austria. Collegium Anthropologicum 28(Supplement 2), 7–29. Thomas, D.H. (2000). The skull wars: Kennewick man, archaeology, and the battle for Native American identity. New York: Basic Books. Vidarsdottir, U.S., O’Higgins, P., & Stringer, C. (2002). A geometric morphometric study of regional differences in the ontogeny of the modern human facial skeleton. Journal of Anatomy, 201(3), 211–229.



Wahlsten, D. (1997). Leilani Muir versus the philosopher king: Eugenics on trial in Alberta. Genetica, 99(2/3), 185–198. Wang Q., Štrkalj, G., & Sun, L. (2002a). On the concept of race in Chinese biological anthropology: Alive and well. American Anthropologist, 43(2), 403. Wang Q., Štrkalj, G., & Sun, L. (2002b). The status of the race concept in Chinese biological anthropology. Anthropologie, 40(1), 95–98. Washburn, S.L. (1953). The study of race. American Anthropologist, 65, 521–531. Weidenreich, F. (1943). The skull of Sinanthrupus pekinensis: a comparative study on a primitive hominid skull. Acta Anthropologica Sinica, 5, 243–258. Wilson, E.O., & Brown, W.L. (1953). The subspecies concept and its taxonomic application. Systematic Zoology, 2, 97–111. Wolpoff, M., & Caspari, R. (1997). Race and human evolution. New York: Simon & Schuster. Wolpoff, M., & Caspari, R. (2000). Multiregional, not multiple origins. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 112(1), 129–136. Wolpoff, M., Xinzhi, W., & Thorne, A. (1984). Modern Homo sapiens origins: a general theory of hominid evolution involving the fossil evidence from East Asia. In F.H. Smith & F. Spence (Eds.), The origins of modern humans: A world survey of the fossil evidence (pp. 441–483). New York: Alan R. Liss.

KEY tErMs Allele Frequencies: A measure of the relative frequency of an allele (one of two or more alternative forms of a gene, which control the same inherited characteristic) on a genetic locus in a population

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Cladistic: System of biological classification that groups organisms on the basis of observed shared characteristics in order to deduce the common ancestors

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Ethnogenesis: The creation of a new ethnic group identity through the separation or combination of existing groups Homology: Similar evolutionary characteristics that are a product of descent from a common ancestor rather than a product of a similar environment Morphometrics: Measurement of skeletal morphological features, captured using calipers or 3D imaging

2

Ontogeny: The development of an individual organism from a fertilized ovum to maturity, as contrasted with the development of a group or species (phylogeny) Phenetic: System of biological classification based on the quatification of overall physical similarities between organisms rather than on their genetic or developmental relationships Phylogenetic: The development over time of a species, genus, or group, as contrasted with the development of an individual (ontogeny) Rhizotic: System of classification that emphasizes the extent to which each element (e.g. human language, culture, or population) is considered to be derived from or rooted in several different antecedent groups Skeletal Morphology: The form and structure of the skeletal system and its individual elements. Taxonomic: Relating to the practice or principles of systematic classification

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According to Montagu (1941, p. 243), “The idea of race is one of the most fundamental if not the most fundamental of the concepts with which the anthropologist has habitually worked.” Furthermore, Levi-Strauss (1958, p. 8) asserted, “The original sin of anthropology … consists in its confusion of the idea of race, in the purely biological sense (assuming that there is any factual basis for the idea, even in this limited field—which is disputed by modern genetics), with the sociological and psychological production of human civilizations.” See also Teschler-Nicola (2004) for a critical analysis of National Socialist race theory in Austria and central Europe, which also demonstrates the changing perceptions of human classification in the post-war period. To add to this problem, popular fictional novels and crime drama television programs have provided a wildly inaccurate image of the techniques uses by anthropologists in the analysis of biological variation and forensic identification. Clinal variation is the graded intensity of adaptive traits according to geographic distance. Thus, genetic distance and geographic distance are highly correlated (Templeton, 1999, p. 639). Patterns of clinal variation follow the socalled Bergmann-Allen rules. Bergmann’s rule explains that in warm-blooded species, as groups move geographically towards more polar regions, overall body mass is expected to increase. Similarly, Allen’s rule explains that as groups move towards warmer (equatorial) geographic areas, the length of the extremities increases. In recent human groups, this clinal variation shows a very strong negative correlation (.60) between body mass and mean annual temperature (Marks, 1995; Molnar, 2002, pp. 199–201). 

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Conflicting human evolutionary models remain unresolved in this respect (see Billinger, 2006, Chapter 2; Collard & Wood, 2000; Hawks & Wolpoff, 2003). The cladistic approach inherently favours the branching pattern of the Out-of-Africa hypothesis of human origins (Stringer, 1996; Templeton, 2002) over the Multiregional Continuity Model (Brace, 1996, p. 221; see also Wolpoff et al., 1984; Wolpoff & Caspari, 1997, 2000). For a discussion of the competing models of human evolution and phylogeny and how they relate to race or subspecies, see particularly Cartmill (1997) and Billinger (2000, Chapter 3). Montagu (1942, p. 375) was the only one of these authors to offer a definition of an ethnic group: “[O]ne of a number of populations comprising the single species Homo sapiens, which individually maintain their differences, physical and cultural, by means of isolating mechanisms such as geographic and social barriers. These differences will vary as the power of the geographic and social barriers, acting upon the original genetic differences, vary. Where these barriers are of low power neighboring groups will intergrade, or hybridize, with one another. Where these barriers are of high power such ethnic groups will tend to remain distinct or replace each other geographically or ecologically.” The populations chosen by Howells (1973, 1989) represent 6 major groups: Europe (Norse, Zalavar, Berg), Africa (Egypt, Teita, Dogon, Zulu, Bushman), AustraloMelanesia (Australia, Tasmania, Tolai), Far East (North Japan, South Japan, Hainan Island), America (Arikara, Peru), and Other (Andaman, Ainu, Buriat, Eskimo). Howells’ American data is supplemented by data for Navajo, Mexico, as well as Arctic (Siberia, Northwest Territories [NWT]), and the “Kennewick Man” skull (see Billinger,

9

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2006, p. 149). Only male data has been included here. Female data show similar patterns. Please refer to Billinger (2006) for the complete analysis. 10 craniofacial traits were used at this stage of the analysis: GOL (maximum cranial length), XCB (maximum cranial breadth), ZYB (bizygomatic diameter), BBH (basionbregma height), MAB (maxillo-alveolar breadth), NPH (upper facial height), NLH (nasal height), NLB (nasal breadth), OBB (orbital breadth), and OBH (orbital height). Mayr developed the CD as a method to quantify difference in response to critiques of his definition of subspecies as arbitrary. The ‘Kennewick Man’ skull, found on the shores of the Columbia River in Washington State, is one of the oldest known cranial specimens in North America, at 9500–9000 years old (Chatters, 2000; McManamon, 2000). This specimen is particularly interesting for this study because the assignment of ancestral affinity to this skull has been a highly contentious endeavour (Thomas, 2000; Morell, 1998). American/Arctic data (Arikara, Peru Navajo, Mexico, Siberia, Northwest Territories [NWT], Ainu, Buriat, Eskimo, Kennewick) has further been supplemented with the addition of Northwest Coast [NWC], Haida, Tsimshian, Greenville, Prince Rupert Harbour [PRH], Namu, Blue Jackets Creek [BJC], and a Paleoindian sample. Only 4 craniofacial traits were used at this stage of analysis, based on the availability of published data: GOL, XCB, ZYB, and NPH (see Billinger, 2006, p. 253). Templeton (2005, p. 52) finds the designation of Neanderthals as a separate species based on mtDNA evidence to be questionable, arguing that genetic, fossil, and archaeological data should be integrated in order to draw significant conclusions about evolutionary models.



Chapter V

The Ethics of Human Enhancement in Sport Andy Miah University of the West of Scotland, Scotland

abstract This chapter outlines a technoethics for sport by addressing the relationship between sport ethics and bioethics. The purpose of this chapter is to establish the conditions in which a technoethics of sport should be approached, taking into account the varieties and forms of technology in sport. It also provides an historical overview to ethics and policy making on sport technologies and contextualises the development of this work within the broader medical ethical sphere. It undertakes a conceptualisation of sport technology by drawing from the World Anti-Doping Code, which specifies three conditions that determine whether any given technology is considered to be a form of doping. In so doing, it scrutinizes the ‘spirit of sport’, the central mechanism within sport policy that articulates a technoethics of sport. The chapter discusses a range of sport technology examples, focusing on recent cases of hypoxic training and gene doping.

INtrODUctION If one examines the history of modern sport, the importance attributed to discussions about the ethics of technological development is unclear. This is surprising since, via the technology of performance enhancement, ethical discussions about sport technologies are among the most visible of topics politically and culturally. Instead, there is evidence of a struggle to implement a

specific ethical view on doping, which functions as an assumed, rather than contested ethical terrain. This struggle is exhibited through the rhetoric of anti-doping policy and the governmental processes that underpin anti-doping. For instance, in 1998 the World Anti-Doping Agency was conceived as a result of growing criticisms that anti-doping work should be separate from the International Olympic Committee. Between 1999 and 2002, one of the major struggles of WADA

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was to achieve the signatures and commitments of participatory governments and sports federations. In this instance, the ethical struggles were never about the soundness of anti-doping arguments, but the ethics of implementation and policy-making. The alleged ethical consensus that surrounds this anti-doping work shapes the conditions within which ethical debates about technology in sport have taken place and prescribes the limits of ethical inquiry that surround the governance of elite sports. As further illustration of this disinterest in the technoethics of sport, one can observe that nearly no research has been funded from sports organizations to investigate the ethics of technology in sport. Some exceptions include research conducted at the Hastings Center (New York) since the 1980s under the direction of its current President, Thomas H. Murray. Murray’s contribution as a long-standing contributor to various sports-related doping authorities is notable, though it is also exceptional. Despite the projects funded through the Hastings Center, ethical reasoning on this issue appears to be of limited interest to sports policy makers. The evidence suggests that there is nearly no political weight behind the interests to question fundamental ethical issues about performance enhancement. Rather, this kind of ethics functions as a form of rhetoric that seeks to endorse an already assumed ethical stance: that doping is wrong. These circumstances can be contrasted with the academic study of sport ethics and philosophy, which has developed steadily since the 1970s. The Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Human Kinetics) and the recent addition of the journal Sport, Ethics & Philosophy (Routledge) is evidence of a burgeoning community of ethicists who are interested in sport issues. Some of these authors have written about the ethics of technology (see Miah & Eassom 2002), though the majority of contributions have been focused on doping specifically. In recent years, this community has expanded into two notable areas of applied phi-

0

losophy—the philosophy of technology and the philosophy of health care, or technoethics and bioethics. In particular, the latter has developed an interest in sport via the doping issue, particularly to inform ethical debates about the ethics of human enhancement. Recent contributions from such prominent bioethicists as Nick Bostrom, Ruth Chadwick, John Harris and Julian Savulescu are some indication of how sport enhancement issues have reached the mainstream readership within bioethics.1 Accompanying these developments is a range of new technologies that promise to raise difficult questions about the ethics of performance in elite sports. For instance, over the last five years, there has been considerable attention given to the prospect of ‘gene doping’ (World Anti-Doping Code, 2004), the application of gene transfer technology to the athlete. Gene doping raises a number of new questions about the morality of (anti)doping and the parameters of the ‘drug war’ in sports (Miah, 2004; Tamburrini & Tannsjo 2005). Such technology places demands on sporting authorities that have, hitherto, not been encountered, calling into question the limits of the anti-doping movement. For instance, gene doping presents the possibility of enhancing athletes in a manner that is minimally invasive and sufficiently safe. If such conditions are met, then the rationale for anti-doping diminishes. Alternatively, in 2006, WADA investigated the use of hypoxic chambers that have the capacity to enhance an athlete’s performance in a similar manner to altitude training, by simulating different levels of altitude. The inquiry provoked a vast amount of criticism from within the science community, which disputed the inclusion of the technology within the World Anti-Doping Code. Arguably, as technology improves and as body and cognitive enhancements play an increasing role within society, the pursuit of anti-doping raises more ethical issues than it resolves. Consider, for instance, the testing of high-school students in the United States for doping substances. One might legitimately ask where such testing should

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be limited, at what age, and to what level of intrusion into people’s lives? In this context, it is necessary to reconsider the role of ethics in debates about technological enhancement in sport. This chapter discusses this role and the capacity of ethics to inform policy debates on doping specifically and sport technology issues generally. I will suggest how ethics is beginning to play an increasing role in the doping debate and in the study of science, medicine and technology, more broadly, which reveals how more effective ethical inquiry will be in discussions about emerging technologies, such as gene doping. I begin by considering the political history of the doping debate, which has given rise to a number of limitations and restrictions on the advancement of the ethical contribution to the issue. I then consider the development of the doping debate in the context of philosophy of sport and medical ethics and argue how their lack of connectedness has limited the advance of the doping issue. Third, I discuss a number of the substantive ethical issues that concern sport technologies. Finally, I argue how the relationship between sport and technoethics is changing via a number of new technologies that, now, consume the anti-doping movement.

MOraL rHEtOrIc & EtHIcaL cODEs While anti-doping began many decades earlier, the major collaborative efforts in anti-doping occurred in the 1960s from within the International Olympic Committee (IOC). In the 1960s, the IOC created a Medical Commission whose role was to address emerging concerns about the use of chemical substances in sport and began testing in the Olympics during the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. The IOC’s pursuit of anti-doping at this time can be understood as a reaction to specific cases, where it was believed that athletes were being harmed by substance misuse. Of particu-

lar importance was the death of cyclist Tommie Simpson, who died during the Tour de France in 1967. Arguably, the televised broadcast of Simpson’s death played a critical role in the political pressure to do something about doping and in raising the public profile of the concern, for better or worse. At this time, the influence of the IOC, as the guardians of elite sport, was considerable and the post-war climate along with the emerging reactions to drug abuse within society overshadowed the ethical debate about performance enhancement in sport. Indeed, this connection between drug use in sport and its use in society remains apparent. For instance, the United States government has recently re-asserted its commitment to fighting the drug war and there is considerable alarm about the use of doping substances in high-school sport within the United States of America. It has even been suggested that the doping debate should be approached and dealt with as a public health issue, rather than just a problem of elite sport (Murray, cited in Dreifus, 2004). The use of such substances as anabolic steroids for general for image enhancement and not performance enhancement in sports arises as one such substance that transcends the ethics of sport. This proposed model for approaching doping would signal a radical change to how it is dealt with on a global scale. Amidst this concern, the presumed harmfulness of various forms of doping remains contested and such disputes even extend to notorious doping substances such as anabolic steroids. While there are many strong convictions on this subject, there is considerable disagreement about whether many banned substances are inherently detrimental to an athlete’s health, or whether their particular application is what leads to the greatest risks. This is necessary to bear in mind, not because I wish to take any particular stance on the merits of these convictions, but because this contested status reinforces the claim that the ethics of anti-doping has relied on political justifications,



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rather than moral ones. One might legitimately ask whose interests are served by the ongoing absence of evidence surrounding this subject and whether these interests are also what prevents understanding more. The concern about the risks that doping poses to an athlete’s health explains the development of anti-doping much less than the pressure for an aspiring organization like the IOC to demonstrate a concern for the members of its organization. To date, there is considerable uncertainty about the effects of many methods of doping and this uncertainty is exacerbated by the fact that many doping technologies are experimental innovations for which there is only a limited amount of science about. As further support for the importance of politics in the 1960s doping debate, one might also consider the developing ethical conscientiousness during this period. After World War II, the moral concerns about eugenics and the abuse of humans in the pursuit of science were paramount. These conversations led to a series of ethical and legal instruments considered fundamental to any research or practice that involved human subjects. The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights (1948), the Helsinki Agreement (1964), the Nuremberg Code of Ethics (1949), were a significant part of this emerging moral consciousness (see World Medical Association, 2000). Moreover, given the interrelatedness of the medical professions to anti-doping, one might expect that the influence of these developments on how anti-doping evolved is of critical importance. However, there is no evidence that the world of sport was guided by these broader changes or that there was any crossover of discourses. Despite the disagreement over the harms of doping, the argument from harm remains central to the rationale underpinning anti-doping measures. Houlihan (1999) describes the way in which the athlete has been characterized as a subject of medical concern:



Once it is accepted that extreme physical fitness makes an athlete by definition a patient then there is already in existence a culture, professionally supported and promoted, that encourages the treatment of healthy athletes with drugs. (p.88) To this extent, the concern from the IOC was politically aligned with other social concerns about the use and abuse of science. In short, the need for an anti-doping movement seems much less to have been about the ethics of sport and much more about the potential abuse of athletes who might be subjected to state-funded programmes that were designed to produce ‘perfect athletes’. The case of the German Democratic Republic is a particularly good example of why there was a need for such concerns. Furthermore, it reinforced the inter-relatedness of state and sport, where the national interest to secure sporting victories was a considerable motivation to ensure athletes were likely to have a competitive edge over their opponents. Two insights into the role of technoethics in sport are possible to achieve from this set of circumstances. First, the incentive to develop an anti-doping policy arose from a concern about how the public profile of the IOC might be prejudiced as a result of failing to act. The IOC found itself subject to an institutional obligation to address the possible risks faced by its core community, the athletes.2 In particular, its concern was the possible corruption of the Olympic values that doping would entail. This pressure must also be seen in the broader context of governmental concerns about drug abuse more and the political interest of sports organizations to work in partnership with governmental priorities on sport. Second, one can argue that the ethics underpinning antidoping were not directly related to the emerging post-war ethical concerns about the medical and scientific professions. This latter conclusion is of particular relevance to our present discussion, since it assists in explaining the peculiar inconsistencies of how different technologies

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have been rationalised in the context of sport. In short, the medical community underpinning the development of anti-doping has been governed largely by a very strict notion of what is medically acceptable, but to the exclusion of conceptual developments and policy debates within medical ethics. This has limited the capacity to develop an adequate approach to the doping debate. Yet, more importantly, this is something that can be changed. Indeed, I will provide examples of how this is changing, with particular attention to ‘gene doping,’ which has become a critical part of this shifting dialogue.

tHE cHaNGING FacE OF sPOrt EtHIcs Despite the growth of sport philosophy, much of its work has been conspicuous by its absence in shaping the policy debate over doping. This is not to say that the publications of sport philosophers are not credible or that their arguments have been irrelevant. Rather, more modestly, the problem has been that the development of ethical debates on doping within the philosophy of sport have been institutionally divorced from critical ethical and policy decisions in the world of anti-doping.3 In defence of sport philosophers, applied debates in anti-doping have not really demonstrated an interest in problematising ethics. Moreover, there is a void between theoretical ethics and applied policy making, the former of which seems, more often than not, to have been the interests of sport philosophers as the discipline evolved to establish itself, first, as a credible subject of philosophical concern. However, some capacity to inform policy through ethical reasoning is provided in other sorts of ethical literature. As some indication of this, it is useful to contrast the sport ethics literature with work in bioethics, which is even more appealing for our present purposes, since the doping debate is closely connected to medical ethics. Medical

ethics and bioethics have a similar historical timeframe to the philosophy of sport. If one takes the long perspective, then it is possible to identify as much philosophy of sport within the works of Aristotle, as one might the philosophy of health. More recently, both sub-disciplines matured in the late 1960s and, again, each was closely allied with the post-war concerns about potential abuses to human subjects in clinical research. Yet, given their apparent interrelatedness, one might wonder how it is that the sport technology debates in the philosophy of sport have been largely unconnected to the ethical discussions in medicine. Rather than focus on explaining this, I will focus, instead, on how these circumstances can and should change. I will also provide evidence of such change, which should indicate how the role of ethics in anti-doping discussions could become more substantive. In 1983, Thomas H. Murray wrote an article about drug taking in sport for the Hastings Center Report, one of the leading medical ethics journals in the world. This was followed by Fost (1986), whose controversial pro-doping stance made its way into the philosophy of sport literature. Aside from these articles, nearly no conversations have taken place within the medical ethical literature about doping, despite concurrent debates taking place within the philosophy of sport literature. In contrast, if one examines debates in medicine, there is a clear connection between the ethical community and the applied policy and legal discussions.4 For example, if one examines human fertilization and embryology, both policy and law in the UK rely on the ethical debates utilized within the 1980s concerning the moral status of the embryo. Moreover, if one examines medical journals such as the Lancet, Nature, or Science, one frequently reads commentaries from academic ethicists about policy, law, or scientific issues (see, for example, Juengst, 2003).5 In contrast, the doping debate has not benefited from such a relationship with philosophers of sport, which is



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why there is an opportunity for sport philosophers to make more of a contribution. There are reasons to be optimistic about this relationship. For example, the inclusion of ‘philosophy of sport’ within philosophical and ethical encyclopaedia is some indication of the degree to which the contributions of sport philosophers are now being taken more seriously by a range of audiences (notably, by more established philosophical disciplines and medical institutions). The presence of sport philosophers in the World Congress of Philosophy, the IOC World Congress on Sport Science, and the European College of Sport Science, among others, all suggest that philosophers have an increasing role to play in the analysis of sport. Indeed, in the last two years, the philosophy of sport community has grown considerably in Europe, through the development of the British Philosophy of Sport Association. With respect to the relationship between sport ethics and bioethics, there are also further indications of growth. In 1998, The Hastings Center published a book resulting from a project about enhancement technologies, in which sport had a presence (Parens, 1998). Additionally, since 2002, the Hastings Center has been funded by the United States Anti-Doping Agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency on two research projects to investigate the ethics of performance enhancement in sport, during which time associations have been made between philosophers of sport and bioethicists. Moreover, in 2004, Thomas H. Murray was appointed Chair of the Ethical Issues Review Panel within WADA, which has included a number of contributors to the philosophy of sport literature, such as Angela Schneider, Gunnar Breivik and Sigmund Loland. Today, it is more common to find sport philosophers working in association with sports organizations and medical (ethical) associations. While there is some uncertainty about the effectiveness of these committees and their specific terms of reference, their existence at all is an advance on previous anti-doping organizations. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen



whether ethics will have a central role in many national anti-doping organizations, where what is ethical remains a straightforward implementation of international policies.6 Even within this context, it is important to clarify the nature of ethical concern from academics, since there appear to be at least two kinds of ethical criticisms of anti-doping. First, some ethicists are critical of the way that anti-doping has been handled, but, nevertheless, agree that it is a fundamentally desirable project to support. Such is the perspective of Fraleigh (1985), Murray (1983, 1984, 1986, 1987), Loland (2002), Schneider and Butcher, 1994), Simon (1985) among others, who argue that there are good reasons to prohibit the use of doping methods. Other authors have been critical of the ethical foundation of anti-doping and have advocated its re-appraisal, including arguing on behalf of a more permissive environment of performance enhancements (Burke, 1997; Eassom, 1995, Kayser et al. 2005, 2006; Miah, 2004, Tamburrini, 2000). These two different critical voices often overlap and allegiances shift depending on the specific technology under discussion, though they are not two parts of the same opinion. The former considers that there is value in established ethical protocols on the acceptable uses of medicine and seeks to ensure that good practice is maintained in sport. For example, such authors might argue that sports authorities compromise the position of sports physician, to such an extent that their actions within sport are dubiously described as medicine (McNamee & Edwards 2005). Alternatively, this perspective might argue that the amount of funding dedicated to tackling the problem of doping in sport has not been sufficient, or that its policies have been skewed too far towards detection and not far enough towards, say, education (Houlihan 1999). In contrast, the latter view argues that conventional medical ethical principles and protocols are not appropriate to map directly onto the world of sport and that athletes should be permitted to use whatever they please to alter

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their performances. This latter perspective would dispute the premise that sports medicine should operate under established medical norms. While the former of these views seeks a credible implementation of medical ethical protocols, the latter would argue that such standards are inadequate for the governance of medical interventions in sport. It is important to bear this in mind when trying to find some way of engaging with the medical professions on doping, since arguments on behalf of doping are often not dismissed as a matter of course by those within the world of sport. Indeed, one might again return to the literature in the philosophy of sport and wonder whether the overt philosophical liberalism expressed in many papers on doping has, in some way, alienated sport philosophers from the applied medical conversations. This does not mean that sport philosophers should limit their ethical inquiries, but simply suggests that radical views on doping must be accompanied by pragmatic debates in relevant journals, where questions about the legitimate ends of medicine can be discussed in critical and engaging ways. For example, discussions about creating superhumans must be accompanied by problematising the legitimate use of such substances as human growth hormone.

sUbstaNtIvE EtHIcaL IssUEs ON sPOrt tEcHNOLOGY While, individual sports federations have their own anti-doping guidelines, the vast majority of them are now governed by the World Anti-Doping Code. This code is instrumental in deciding whether or not any given technology—product or process—is to be considered a doping technology. The basis of this decision involves testing the proposed technology against three conditions, two of which must be engaged in order for WADA to consider a prohibition. These consist of the following:7

Does the technology have the ‘potential to enhance’ or does it enhance sport performance’? Does the technology present an ‘actual or potential health risk’? Does the technology ‘violate the spirit of sport’ as described by the Code?8 These three conditions are a useful place to begin unravelling the substantive ethical issues arising from the use of technology in sport. While their application can be criticised for being limited to exclusively doping technologies, they offer some explanation for why other technologies do not provoke the concern of the anti-doping community. Yet, it is important to bear in mind that these criteria do not constitute the breadth of the ethical foundation of sports, which are more carefully elaborated upon by broader constitutional documentation, such as the Olympic Charter. If one considers how a technological artefact that is not something that would fall under the Code is dealt with, it becomes clear why, nevertheless, the three criteria are a useful articulation of sport’s technoethical framework. For instance, what sector within the world of sport should respond to a new, lighter tennis racquet? Would one expect this to be described as a doping technology or, should the ethical issues it provokes be discussed elsewhere? How does it engage the three conditions of the World Anti-Doping Code? Such an innovation might allow for a different kind of swing which, subsequently, could present a different portfolio of likely injuries, many of which might be seen as more severe than those that were likely to arise with the previous type of tennis racquet. There are many similar examples in sport. For instance, a faster motorcycle could lead to greater risks being taken, or a greater likelihood of serious or, even, life-threatening injury. In short, the innovation can change the range of harms to health that an athlete experiences during training and competition.



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A new tennis racquet might also be performance enhancing; it could allow an athlete to achieve a faster speed of serve, or to impart greater spin on a ball. This latter example was engaged in the late 1970s when a ‘spaghetti strung’ (doublestrung) tennis racquet was introduced. Due to its performance enhancing capabilities, it was deemed illegal because it threatened the characteristics of tennis that are tested via its rules. In this case, too much spin, it would seem, diminishes the ability to test the kinds of tennis-related skills that are of interest. Perhaps a useful analogy is to a tennis shot that clips the net on its way over. While one might identify such a winning stroke as skill-based, it is generally recognised that athletes cannot be this precise with their strokes and that an element of ‘luck’ has led to the advantage. At least where serving is concerned, this is partly why tennis offers a ‘let’ (re-serve) when such clipping takes place. Finally, a new tennis racquet could engage the concern that the technology is against the spirit of sport, though to understand this further, it is necessary to inquire more into this concept, which is, arguably, one of the most contested ethical terms within sport. In our case of the lighter tennis racquet, its use might violate the spirit of sport if it is available to all competitors. In itself, this might be considered an unfair advantage, though if one conceives of technological innovation as an integral part of the athlete’s skill and knowledge base, this is a dubious position to take. In any case, it is useful to probe more extensively the concept of a ‘spirit of sport’.

the spirit of sport (technology) The World Anti-Doping Code does not provide a precise definition of the spirit of sport, though it does articulate a number of values that describe various sports values, such as ‘fair play’, ‘health’, ‘excellence in performance’, ‘character and education’, ‘fun and joy’, ‘teamwork’, ‘respect for rules and laws’, ‘courage’ and ‘community and



solidarity’. It would be fatuous to point out that the gruelling, commercial world of elite sports rarely demonstrates the experiencing of these characteristics and that, on this basis, the values proposed in the code have no resonance. The Code is not a well-worked through ethical paper designed to withstand the scrutiny of theoretical ethics. Rather, it must function across a range of legal, social, and policy contexts. Nevertheless, it is important to ask further how the spirit of sport is applied via the Code, since one might have concerns about consistency of practice.9 One of the most visible recent tests of the ‘spirit’ is the 2006 debate about hypoxic training technology, which involves the creation of an environment—usually the size of a room—that simulates varying levels of altitude in order to confer a performance advantage.10 In this case, WADA considered the technology’s legitimacy on each of the three criteria and its various sub-committees reported mixed findings. It was not possible to conclude that hypoxic training presented any potential or actual health risk or, indeed, that it was performance enhancing, though each concluded that these were not definitive findings.11 This, alone, would be enough to rule out prohibition, though of particular interest is the approach taken by the Ethical Issues Review Panel on whether the ‘spirit of sport’ was challenged by hypoxia. Specifically, the Panel attempted to grapple with the ‘spirit of sport’ in quite specific terms, arguing that the advantage gained via hypoxic training did not require the ‘virtuous perfection of natural talents’, a moral standard it used to establish whether or not the technology contravened the spirit of sport. Importantly, the argument could not, in itself, allow the Panel to conclude that hypoxic training should be banned, but it did imply an element of moral condemnation that is useful to dwell on when thinking about the contribution of technoethics to such debates. Moreover, this case is one of the most visceral attempts to articulate, in more precise terms, the spirit of sport and so it serves as a

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useful route towards greater elaboration. I will not detail the specifics of the Panel’s argument any further, though it is useful to note that the scientific community challenged the argument on scientific rather than ethical grounds and that the final recommendation was to maintain hypoxic training as a legal performance technology.12 Of course, this status could change, as it will remain subject to ongoing, scientific analysis. despite the outcome of this case, the ‘virtuous perfection of natural talents’ alludes to what the spirit of sport might be, as if it is important to ensure that athletes gain their advantages by having to work, rather than simply applying a technology. This is what some authors intend when they argue that the ‘means matter’ (Cole-Turner 1998). A less contentious articulation of the spirit of sport concerns the concept of cheating. While there are different kinds of rules in sport, different ways in which they can be broken, and different levels of moral condemnation that will arise from such violations, it is generally regarded that cheating is contrary to the spirit of sport, particularly as it relates to performance enhancement.13 Indeed, doping, by definition, is a form of cheating, since it is the utilization of means that the rules prohibit. However, the analysis of cheating can be approached on a number of other levels. For instance, in response to the argument that laissez faire approach to doping would eliminate the moral condemnation of doping as cheating—since everyone will be permitted to do whatever they want—it is sometimes argued that cheating will still have occurred, since the conditions of the competition will have been undermined. In this sense, the doped competitor achieves an unfair advantage over the sport, rather than the competitors.14 To the extent that sports are practices that are shaped and defined by its community’s members, one can envisage how such concerns develop moral significance—which again reminds us of the resistance to an ‘anything goes’ perspective on the ethics of doping. It also reminds us of the limits of ethics when they are

divorced from the practice community that is affected by the rules. Perhaps a final characterisation of the spirit of sport is its aspiration to ensure that sports competitions are tests of athletes rather than technologies. While I would argue that sports are constitutively technological, others would argue that there are types of technological integration that should be resisted—such as biological modification via pharmaceuticals. On this basis, one can observe varying degrees of moral concern that arise from different types of technological apparatus. The subject of concern here is articulated in various forms. Some authors have described it as the ‘dehumanizing’ thesis, while others write about the ‘deskilling’ of performance that it implies. In each case, the arguments resist such technological development, seeing it as antithetical to what sports competitions are supposed to be about—a test of human capacities. It is imagined that such technology would reduce the athlete’s role in performance and, in so doing, diminish the value of competition. This view of dehumanisation also emerges from a ‘mechanisation’ thesis that describes the scientification of sport as bringing about feelings of alienation—that is the manufacturing of athletes, for instance. Such an evaluation of contemporary elite sports describes the athlete as a product of a scientific or technological process, somehow automated in performance.

Human Enhancement Outside of sport Accompanying these challenges to the spirit of sport is the additional context offered via broader perspectives on bioethics and the culture of body modification. As I have indicated earlier, perhaps one of the more significant challenges to the current model of anti-doping comes from the general rise in body modification/enhancement practices. Very little is known about whether athletes would utilise elective reconstructive surgery to enable more effective sports performance, though there



The Ethics of Human Enhancement in Sport

seem obvious reasons for why an athlete might benefit from such modifications. Various anecdotal stories suggest body modifiers that could enhance performance, such as LASIK eye surgery to improve vision in sport. Various discussions about this technology took place when golfer Tiger Woods underwent this treatment. It is not difficult to imagine other such enhancements that could influence an athlete’s capability to perform and, yet, such modifiers are rarely forbidden via the World Anti-Doping Code. Moreover, if one talks further of image enhancement, the incentive for athletes to be attractive to sponsors and the entertainment industry generally is considerable.

Practical technoethics Transformations to technology in sport are also sometimes needed to accommodate other kinds of changes within any given sport. For instance, in the 1980s, transformations to the javelin were necessary since throwers were beginning to throw dangerously close to spectators. As such, the javelin’s transformation was a relatively pragmatic choice—it was considered more practical to change the technical requirements of javelin throwing than it was to change the length of all athletic arenas around the world. Technological changes are also able to elicit new kinds of ‘excellence’, which are often considered to be a valuable development on previous performances. For instance, also in the 1980s, the introduction of carbon-fibre pole for pole vaulting enhanced the activity by allowing a more skilled performance and eliminating the debilitating influence of toomuch rigidity in poles.15 Alternatively, one might think of the fosbury flop in high jump as a technical innovation that enriched the pursuit of identifying the highest jumper in the world. For each of these cases, it is not obvious that the decision to proceed with or retreat from a particular innovation is arbitrary. Indeed, an alternative example demonstrates how decisions about technological change in sport are also engage political economy of sports. 

In the late 1990s the International Tennis Federation endeavoured to address the dominance of the serve in the male pro-game. One of its concerns was that the inability of players to return powerful serves could make the sport less interesting to watch. In turn, this could translate into fewer spectators, less revenue, but perhaps more seriously, less of a grass-roots base of participants that would enable the sport to flourish. Each of these concerns is relevant when thinking about the use of enhancing technologies in sport, though they also raise potential conflicts of interest. For example, consider the influence of television scheduling on sports like marathon running. While marathon runners might prefer to run in the morning or at a time of day where the temperature is moderate, often television companies will expect scheduling to be guided by expected viewing patterns. This raises additional questions about the professional and corporate ethics of the sponsoring organisations of sport. These various aspects to the technoethics of sport reveal the layers of ethical engagement and analysis that operate across the sporting landscape. Resolution over such ethical problems confounds the sports communities, but there have been important developments in how the ethics of performance technology in sports have been addressed. For instance, one can identity the wider range of participants in the conversations as some indication of progress. Further evidence of progress is the World Anti-Doping Agency itself, which has achieved unprecedented participation in working towards the legal harmonization of anti-doping policy in the vast world of elite sports. Nevertheless, one might still raise questions about this process. For instance, it is unclear whether such power should be invested into such a singular and narrowly defined institution, given that it does not function at any inter-governmental level. However, its burgeoning agreements with UNESCO and other relevant authorities, strengthens its claim to occupying the shared ground of ethical concern. Yet, WADA relies on effective testing

The Ethics of Human Enhancement in Sport

methods through which it can claim to ensure a level playing field in sport. For some performance enhancing technologies, it is unclear whether the achievement of such tests is at all realistic given budgetary limitations, the fast-paced developments within science and the growing consumption of enhancement technologies.

FUtUrE trENDs Given what has been said about the relationship between bioethics and sport, future trends within the area of sport technology relate to the broader context of performance technologies within society. A number of emerging examples raise new questions about what sports or societies can do to curb the growth of human enhancements. For instance, the earlier LASIK example offering enhancements to vision can be accompanied by other body and mind modifications. Anecdotal stories surround the use of Tommy John surgery, which is practiced on the elbows of elite baseball pitches when injured. It is said that the reparative surgery has led to athletes returning to the field throwing harder and faster than before they were injured. In this sense, one can envisage a number of surgical procedures that contort the body into enabling an enhanced performance. In addition, a number of cognitive enhancements are becoming visible within competition. For instance, the drug ‘modafinil’ (Kaufman and Gerner 2005) is a cognitive enhancer used to treat patients with narcolepsy, yet its prevalence within elite sports far exceeds the proportion of the population that would require such a drug. It is likely that a range of cognitive enhancements become used increasingly within elite sports to assist with the psychological parameters of competition. The debates about gene doping are now flourishing and it is likely that genetic doping technologies consume the next twenty years of anti-doping interests (Miah 2004). Currently, tests are underway to detect gene doping, though

some scientists believe that it will never be possible to directly detect for all forms of gene doping. This problem is not dissimilar from the challenge of ‘designer steroids’, such as the 2003 discovery of tetrahydrogestrinone (THG). When a phial of this substance was left at Don Catlin’s United States anti-doping lab, it was unknown to anyone. It is likely that an increasing number of designer steroids emerges within competition, reinforcing the problem that, inevitably, testing methods will always be behind what the athletes are able to utilise. A further genetic innovation that is already beginning to influence sport is the development of genetic tests for performance (Miah & Rich 2006). In 2004, the first commercial test appeared on the market and it is likely that more will arise. Already, a range of institutions has reacted to this use of genetic information, questioning the scientific credibility of the tests and the legitimacy of using the information that they provide (Australian Law Reform Commission 2003). Finally, the emergence of ‘functional foods’ or ‘nutrigenomics’ (Chadwick 2005) that are optimised for performance will have a significant role in negotiating the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate methods of performance enhancement. By optimising the nutritional capacities of food, athletes will be enabled to perform at maximal output, without needing to resort to pharmacological substances.

cONcLUsION I began this chapter by suggesting that the circumstances of Tommie Simpson’s death in the 1967 Tour de France, particularly its televisation, were of considerable influence in creating a momentum for the anti-doping movement. Nearly 31 years later, a similar occurrence arose, once again, at the Tour de France. The scandals of 1998 were instrumental in the establishment of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which was also a consequence of the Lausanne Conference on



The Ethics of Human Enhancement in Sport

Doping and Sport (1999). Yet, despite the changes within the world of anti-doping, it has always been the responsibility of medical professionals to decide how best to protect against the nontherapeutic application of medical technology to sports performances. The principles underlying modifications to the anti-doping code rely on what is considered to be medically acceptable. However, this should be only a partial consideration, since what is medically acceptable varies and the basis on which we decide the legitimate ends of medicine are somewhat cultural. These explanations form the basis of the present analysis and questions arise about the legitimacy or relevance of the current technoethics within sport. Given the ways in which medicine is now ‘purchased’ for lifestyle choices, is it still reasonable to prohibit access to enhancing technologies for sport? Is the medical model applied to sport still relevant? What other alternatives exist? For many years, the scientific and medical profession have been discussing these questions like these. Today, it is necessary for philosophers of sport to acknowledge the applied nature of their work on doping and engage with the literature on the ethics of science and medicine. Indeed, there are some useful parallels within sport and bioethics. For example, discussions about personhood, dignity, excellence, autonomy, and respect have been central to medical discussions and have also surfaced as reactions to doping (see Miah (2004) for numerous examples). The political explanation of doping and ethics also demands that sport ethicists reach across to medical ethics and philosophy of medicine journals, to ensure that their work is influential in the capacity that would permit the advancement of ethical debate on this issue. However, further conceptual work is necessary when considering performance enhancement. A further criticism of the doping debate—both academically and professionally—is that it has

0

also misrepresented this matter and, understandably, but unfortunately, led to a skewed notion of performance enhancement. If the debate about ethics and doping has anything to do with the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate methods of performance enhancement, then there must be a discussion about other forms of performance enhancement. How, for example, does a running shoe or training technique challenge the technoethics of sports? Alternatively, how do examples, such as the fast skin swimming suit or altitude chambers alter how we make sense of sport? Also, it is necessary to situate such discussions in specific sporting contexts, rather than speak about a general technoethics for all sports. There are clear differences between the technoethics of different sports. For instance, the use of third eye technology to assist decision-making for umpires and referees takes a variety of forms across different sports. Discussions about doping must also broaden their focus to take into account ethical decisions made in relation to other forms of technology. Institutionally, discussions about these technologies have been separate from doping debates. Again, there is an explanation for this situation based partly on the health argument that gave rise to anti-doping—many technological innovations do not have a direct bearing on the health of an athlete, nor do they require the intervention of a medical professional. Yet, many technologies do have an indirect health impact, as our earlier tennis racquet example indicates. Nevertheless, doping and the issues arising from it are separate from the policy considerations about other technical modifications or enhancements. While there have been some indications of the prospect for change, greater closeness is necessary between sports ethicists, technoethicists and bioethicists to enable a more satisfactory contribution to this complex case.

The Ethics of Human Enhancement in Sport

rEFErENcEs Australia Law Reform Commission. (2003) Alrc 96: Essentially yours. Burke, M. D. (1997). Drugs in sport: Have they practiced too hard? A response To Schneider And Butcher. Journal Of The Philosophy Of Sport XXIV, 47-66. Chadwick, R. (2005) Nutrigenomics, individualism and sports. In Tamburrini, C. & Tannsjo, T. (Eds.), Genetic Technology and Sport: Ethical Questions. Oxon and New York: Routledge, pp.126-135. Cole-Turner, R. (1998). Do means matter? In Parens, E. (Ed.), Enhancing human traits: Ethical and social implications. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Dreifus, C. (2004). A lament for ancient games in modern world of doping. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes. com/2004/08/03/Health/Psychology/03conv. html Eassom, S. B. (1995). Playing games with prisoners’ dilemmas. Journal Of The Philosophy Of Sport XXII, 26-47. Editorial. (2007, 2 August). A sporting chance: Bans on drug enhancement in sport may go the way of earlier prohibitions on women and remuneration. Nature, 448, 512. Feezell, R. M. (1988). On the wrongness of cheating and why cheaters can’t play the game. Journal Of The Philosophy Of Sport, XV, 57-68. Fost, N. (1986). Banning drugs in sports: A skeptical view. Hastings Center Report, 16, 5-10. Fraleigh, W. (1982). Why the good foul is not good. Journal of physical education, recreation and dance, January, 41-42.

Fraleigh, W.P. (1985). Performance enhancing drugs in sport: The ethical issue. Journal Of The Philosophy Of Sport, XI, 23-29. Houlihan, B. (1999). Dying to win: Doping in sport and the development of anti-doping policy. Strasburg, Council Of Europe Publishing. Juengst, E. T. (2003). Editorial: What’s next for human gene therapy. British Medical Journal, 326, 1410-1411. Kaufman, K. R. & Gerner, R. (2005) Modafinil in sports: Ethical considerations. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 39, 241-244. Leaman, O. (1988). Cheating and fair play in sport. In Morgan, W. J. & Meier, K. V. (Eds.), Philosophic inquiry in sport. Illinois: Human Kinetics. Ledley, F. D. (1994). Distinguishing genetics and eugenics on the basis of fairness. Journal Of Medical Ethics, 20, 157-164. Lehman, C. K. (1981). Can cheaters play the game? Journal Of The Philosophy Of Sport, VII, 41-46. Levine, B. D. (2006). Editorial: Should ‘artificial’ high altitude environments be considered doping? Scandinavian Journal Of Medicine And Science In Sports, 16, 297-301. Levine, B. D. & Stray-Gunderson, J. (1997). ‘Living high—training low’: Effect of moderatealtitude exposure simulated with nitrogen tents. Journal Of Applied Physiology, 83, 102-112. Loland, S. (2002). Fair play in sport: A moral norm system. London & New York: Routledge. Miah, A. (2004). Genetically modified athletes: Biomedical ethics, gene doping and sport. London and New York: Routledge. Miah, A. (2006). Rethinking enhancement in sport. In Bainbridge, W. S. & Roco, M. C. (Eds.) Progress in convergence: Technologies to improve



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human well-being. New York Academy of Sciences, 1093, 301-320. Miah, A. and S. B. Eassom, Eds. (2002). Sport Technology: History, philosophy & policy. Research in philosophy & technology. Oxford, Elsevier Science. Miah, A. & Rich, E. (2006) Genetic tests for ability? Talent identification and the value of an open future. Sport, Education & Society, 11, 259-273. Murray, T. H. (1983). The coercive power of drugs in sports. Hastings Center Report, August, 24-30. Murray, T. H. (1984). Drugs, sports, and ethics. In T. H. Murray, W. Gaylin & R. Macklin (Eds.), Feeling good and doing better. Clifton, New Jersey: Humana Press. Murray, T. H. (1986). Guest Editorial: Drug Testing And Moral Responsibility. The Physician And Sportsmedicine, 14(11), 47-48. Murray, T. H. (1987). The ethics of drugs in sport. drugs and performance in sports. London: W.B. Saunders Company. Rosenberg, D. (1995). The concept of cheating in sport. International Journal Of Physical Education, 32, 4-14. Schneider, A. J. and R. B. Butcher (1994). Why olympic athletes should avoid the use and seek the elimination of performance enhancing substances and practices from the olympic games. Journal Of The Philosophy Of Sport, XXI, 64-81. Schneider, A. J. & Butcher, R. B. (2000). A philosophical overview of the arguments on banning doping in sport. In Tännsjö, T. & Tamburrini, C. (Eds.), Values in sport: Elitism, nationalism, gender equality, and the scientific manufacture of winners. London: E & Fn Spon. Simon, R.L. (1985). Response To Brown & Fraleigh. Journal Of The Philosophy Of Sport, XI, 30-32 

The U.S. President’s Council On Bioethics (2002). Session 4: Enhancement 2: Potential for genetic enhancements in sports. The President’s Council On Bioethics, Retrieved from http://www.Bioethics.Gov/200207/Session4.html Tamburrini, C. M. (2000). What’s wrong with doping? In T. Tännsjö And C. Tamburrini (Eds.), Values in sport: Elitism, nationalism, gender equality, and the scientific manufacture of winners. London: E & FN Spon. Wertz, S. K. (1981). The varieties of cheating. Journal Of The Philosophy Of Sport, VIII, 19-40. World Anti-Doping Agency. (2003). Prohibited classes of substances and prohibited methods. World Anti-Doping Agency (2005). The Stockholm Declaration. World Anti-Doping Agency. World Medical Association (2000). The World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. Retrieved 2003 from http://www. wma.net/e/policy/17c.pdf

KEY tErMs Doping: Doping is defined by the World Anti-Doping Code, as the occurrence of a ‘rule violation’. Often, the doping concerns of institutions relates specifically to the abuse of regulated substances, such as anabolic steroids. Notably, doping offences also includes the presence of substances that would mask the effects of other enhancing substances. Within the world of sport, a policy of ‘strict liability’ is employed to remove positive test cases from competitions. Recently, this policy has been expanded to include more circumstantial evidence, such that a non-analytical positive is now a possible route towards disqualification.

The Ethics of Human Enhancement in Sport

Gene Doping: Gene doping has a precise definition with the World Anti-Doping Code as ‘the non-therapeutic use of cells, genes, genetic elements, or of the modulation of gene expression, having the capacity to improve athletic performance’. However, the Code does not take into account the possibility of germ-line genetic engineering and how, subsequently, sports would deal with the possibility that people might be born with already genetically enhanced predispositions. Over the years, some athletes have been born with abnormal genetic conditions that have benefited them in competition. There is currently no way of dealing witch such cases, unless it is concluded that the abnormality makes an athlete unfit for competition. Hypoxic Training: The utilization of indoor environments that simulate varying levels of altitude by altering the density of oxygen within the area, as would occur by travelling to locations of varying altitudes. By increasing the endogenous production of erythropoietin, hypoxic training can increase the endurance capacities of athletes or, more properly, the capacity to carry oxygenated red blood cells to muscles. In 2006, the world of sport considered whether such environments should be considered as a form of doping and decided that they could not. The formula of ‘living high and training low’ is regarded to be the optimal condition for performance and hypoxic training allows athletes to capitalize more fully on this possibility. Nutrigenomics: The study of molecular relationships between nutrients and the genome. The contribution of nutrigenomics to elite athletes could be the growth of ‘functional foods’, which allow an athlete to optimize performance enhancements, without needing to resort to synthetic substances. The Olympic Charter: The foundation document to the Olympic Movement, which outlines the philosophy of Olympism. This Charter dis-

tinguishes the Olympic Movement from other sports-related organisations, revealing its character as an organisation that aspires towards the aspiration of non-governmental organisations, but which delivers through a commercial model funded by the selling of intellectual property associations. Spirit of Sport: The third criterion of the World Anti-Doping Code. New technologies are tested against this criterion to determine whether or not they should be permitted within the acceptable means of performance enhancement in elite sport. The spirit of sport is the closest definition of an ethics of human enhancement that is given within international agreements about the ethics of sport technology. Tetrahydrogestrinone: (THG; ‘the clear’). A designer anabolic steroid closely related to the banned steroids trenbolone and gestrinone. In 2003, it was added to the banned substance list after a sample of it was left at the United States Anti-Doping laboratory in California. The United States Anti-Doping Agency linked the substance with the Bay Area Laboratory CoOperative, which was subsequently linked to the distribution of prohibited substances to numerous leading athletes. Tommy John Surgery: Technically known as ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction (UCL), the procedure is named after the baseball pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers who first underwent the surgery. The procedure involves the replacement of a ligament in the medial elbow with a tendon from another part of the body. Today, there are strong chances of recovery, though at the time of John’s procdure, the probability was extremely unlikely—approximately 1%. Anecdotes indicate that athletes throw harder after the surgery, compared with their pre-injury ability, though it is thought that this improvement is more closely linked to the recovery therapy, rather than any transformation of the biological structures.



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World Anti-Doping Agency: The organization responsible for harmonizing anti-doping policy across all International Sports Federations. WADA began in 1999, taking on the role from the International Olympic Committee, where it was formerly located. The World Anti-Doping Code governs all Olympic events. 7

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More generally, the European Union funded ENHANCE Project features many of these authors. Political economists will point out that the stakeholders of the Olympic Movement are more likely to include sponsors and broadcasters than athletes, though the prominence of athletes is clearly visible in the rhetoric of these other stakeholders. It is also likely to be because the interests of sport philosophers extend beyond technoethics or even ethics generally. This is not to say that the arguments of medical ethicists are always received warmly or even taken into account by the medical professions, though one cannot dispute the fact that medical professions remain governed in quite prcise ways by principles of medical ethics. The same claim cannot easily be made of sport scientists. As an aside, I draw attention to Nature’s (Editorial, 2007) editorial that inquires into whether it would be sensible to legalize doping in elite sports. The editorial arose in part, as a result of the Tour de France doping scandals of 2007. In defence of this influence, WADA’s Stockholm Declaration (2005) on the ethics of

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gene doping was shaped considerably by such ethical work. Also, in 2007, the British Government published a pioneering report on Human Enhancement Technologies and Sport, which was also informed by a number of ethicists, including Nick Bostrom, Andy Miah, Mike McNamee and Julian Savulescu. This Code also prohibits substances that ‘mask’ other prohibited substances and methods. Direct quotations taken from the World Anti-Doping Code (2003). Perhaps the ‘spirit of sport’ should be seen to function rather like ‘reasonableness’ in medical law, the definition of which often relies on the standard defined by a reasonable expert in the field. For detailed explanations of the science, see Levine & Stray-Guntherson (1997). Actually, whether or not such training confers a performance advantage seems a matter of scientific opinion. One might argue that it is also part of the knowledge that athletes bring to their performance via their entourage, other examples of which might include nutrition advice, specific technique knowledge or mental preparation. For other articles that dwelt with this case, see Levine et al. (2006) and (Miah 2006). See Feezell (1988), Fraleigh (1982), Leaman (1988) Lehman (1981), Rosenberg (1995), Wertz (1981) for more on cheating. For elaborations on this argument, see Schneider & Butcher (2000). Such a criterion is discussed by Perry (1988) as a ‘performance inhibitor’ that is valuable to eliminate. The challenge arises when one begins to discuss natural biological states as ultimately inhibiting of performance.



Chapter VI

Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures Darryl Macer Regional Unit for Social and Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific (RUSHSAP), UNESCO, Thailand

abstract This chapter examines some of the cultural variation in the ethical factors associated with the use of science and technology. The issues discussed include access to technology, social justice, professional ethics, and value systems. The appropriate implementation of international standards in ethics of science and technology and bioethics is considered. There is global agreement that persons should be taught the ethics of science and technology, and discussion of new materials and methods is made. The goals of ethics education as explained in the Action Plan for Bioethics Education developed at the 2006 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Conference on Bioethics Education include knowledge, skills and personal moral development. The International Bioethics Education Network was initiated in 2004, and the creation of networks linking research into policy is a cornerstone of efforts for education of ethics at all levels, from local to regional. In the future the use of principles as expressed in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2005) will also be analyzed to broaden the description of bioethical reasoning. There needs to be extension of the evaluation methods and tools.

EtHIcs OF scIENcE aND tEcHNOLOGY At the beginning of this chapter we can ask, is there something unique about ethics of science and technology as opposed to ethics itself? All societies use technology, for clothing, housing, food, energy, health, and most other aspects of

life. The history and development of humankind is interwoven with the use of technology. Access to technology to advance quality of life is a long standing ethical issue, not distinct to social justice in general. The technical knowledge of a profession does however convey professional ethical duties upon the members of a profession and these are recognized such as medical ethics or engineering ethics.

Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

Science, the quest for objective knowledge of our universe, and the method of intellectual inquiry, experimentation and falsification is a more recent phenomenon. Are there some types of knowledge that are dangerous for humankind to learn? The knowledge of gunpowder, dynamite or atomic weapons is not something that we would want everyone to apply, and all have been misused to kill and destroy people and the environment. The knowledge of psychiatry, physiology, chemistry or even educational methodology can also be misused. Therefore there are also scientific ethical issues in the use and consequences of choices regarding science. Thus ethics for scientists again can fall into the realm of professional ethics, and the way that professionals relate to those who lack that particular form of knowledge. This chapter will not focus on the deeper questions that remain on whether humans should pursue knowledge about everything, but having a training in science ethics will make practitioners of science aware of some of these dilemmas to consider in their occupation. If we look at the way that societies have faced ethical dilemmas arising in medicine and technology we can see several important elements in their evolution. When many countries opened their doors (or their doors were involuntarily opened) to Western society in the 19th century, it led to the introduction of a newly emerging scientific paradigm, only part of the fabric of Western society. The ethical values of Western society were also imported in some aspects, including with Christian missionaries and democracies, however while there were different receptions to these value systems the pursuit of science and technology and economic growth were adopted. However, the ethics of use of science and technology are not intrinsically different to the ethics of use of technical knowledge that existed everywhere, in basic life support services such as housing, food, medicines and information sharing. Each country in the world today imports ideas and goods from other countries, and there is evolution of ethical reflection through the grow-



ing involvement of the public in discussion and development of the indigenous diversity of ethical traditions. As cultures evolve, it becomes impossible to separate which aspects were introduced from the different sources at what time.

GLObaL caLLs FOr EtHIcs EDUcatION In addition to the need for professional ethics, citizens of all ages need to make ethical decisions on how they use science and technology and its products. Opinion surveys in every country they have been conducted to show global agreement for the inclusion of more ethical and social issues associated with science and technology to be taught to students. Member states of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in the Universal Declaration on the Protection of the Human Genome and Human Rights (1997) declared such an educational need, and every member country of the United Nations endorsed this in 1998. This call was repeated by all member states when adopting the 2005 Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. These calls follow numerous academic works also calling for this (Reiss, 1999; Ratcliffe & Grace, 2003). There is global agreement that persons should be taught the ethics of science and technology, but there are not global methods. UNESCO has taken up some of the challenges of how to translate this global call for bioethics debate and discussion in culturally appropriate manners. The appropriate implementation of international standards in ethics of science and technology and bioethics is important, and there have been a range of responses by states to the three International Declarations on Bioethics unanimously accepted by UNESCO General Conference (Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, 1997; International Declaration on Human Genetic Data, 2001; Universal Declaration on Bioethics

Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

and Human Rights, 2005). Although bioethics education was called for by all states that signed the 1997 Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, in article 20, it is still to be realized: “20. States should take appropriate measures to promote the principles set out in the Declaration, through education and relevant means, inter alia through the conduct of research and training in interdisciplinary fields and through the promotion of education in bioethics, at all levels, in particular for those responsible for science policies.“ Freedom of expression is one of the working methods of critical ethical reflection. Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, upholds the “freedom to hold opinions without interference.” Article 21 of Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights 1997 reads “States should … also undertake to facilitate on this subject an open international discussion, ensuring the free expression of various sociocultural, religious and philosophical opinions.” We can ask how communities can be involved in discussion of ethics of science and technology. In all societies there is a transition from paternalism to informed consent to informed choice. Unless we can educate citizens the choices they make will not be informed. This transition from paternalism to choice creates the space for discussion in communities of what principles they consider important in making choices. We have to build capacity to ensure that the choices are more informed. We need to consider different life views each of us can have when confronted with moral dilemmas. Some believe that there is a right and a wrong choice to be made for a person’s action in each moral dilemma, and that they can also tell others what is morally right or wrong.

GOaLs OF EtHIcs EDUcatION

and technology should be incorporated into the long standing value education that is implicit in every human society. We learn how to relate to others as we grow up in families, schools and society (Rest, 1986). There have been different schemes elaborated for how we could define someone as being morally mature. There is agreement that the aim of teaching ethics is to develop the student’s ability to recognize and analyze ethical issues in order to be able to reach decisions on how to act ethically (COMEST, 2004). In discussions that have occurred in the International Bioethics Education Network in Asia and the Pacific there has been a consensus that the theory of moral development developed by Lawrence Kohlberg, and what has come to be called Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, does not universally apply when teaching bioethics. The problems are not only with non-Western students, but researchers in Australia and New Zealand have also found that it does not serve as a model. Kohlberg’s (1969) theory holds that moral reasoning, which he thought to be the basis for ethical behavior, has developmental stages that are universal. He followed the development of moral judgment beyond the ages originally studied by Jean Piaget looking at moral development throughout life, and created a model based on six identifiable stages of moral development (Scharf, 1978). It is still useful however to describe these stages, while recognizing that in different cultures the order of what we would call the most mature values differs. Kohlberg’s six stages were grouped into three levels: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional. He claimed it is not possible to regress backwards in stages nor to ‘jump’ stages; each stage provides new perspective and is considered “more comprehensive, differentiated, and integrated than its predecessors.” A brief explanation follows.

It is important that different nations develop concrete plans for how education in ethics of science



Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

Level 1: Pre-conventional The pre-conventional level of moral reasoning is especially common in children, and said to be up to the age of 9 in U.S. children he studied, although adults can also exhibit this level of reasoning. Reasoners in the pre-conventional level judge the morality of an action by its direct consequences. The pre-conventional level consists of the first and second stages of moral development, and are purely concerned with the self (egocentric). In stage one (obedience), individuals focus on the direct consequences that their actions will have for themselves. For example, an action is perceived as morally wrong if the person who commits it gets punished. In addition, there is no recognition that others’ points of view are any different from one’s own view. Stage two is a self-interest orientation, right behavior being defined by what is in one’s own best interest. Stage two reasoning shows a limited interest in the needs of others, but only to a point where it might further one’s own interests, such as “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” In stage two, concern for others is not based on loyalty or intrinsic respect. Lacking a perspective of society in the pre-conventional level, this should not be confused with stage 5 (social contract) as all actions are performed to serve one’s own needs or interests.

Level 2: conventional The conventional level of moral reasoning is typical of adolescents (age 9+ years) and adults. Persons who reason in a conventional way judge the morality of actions by comparing these actions to societal views and expectations. The conventional level consists of the third and fourth stages of moral development. In stage three, the self enters society by filling social roles. Individuals are receptive of approval or disapproval from other people as it reflects society’s accordance with the perceived role. They try to be a good boy or



good girl to live up to these expectations, having learned that there is inherent value in doing so. Stage three reasoning may judge the morality of an action by evaluating its consequences in terms of a person’s relationships, which now begin to include things like respect, gratitude and the golden rule. Desire to maintain rules and authority exists only to further support these stereotypical social roles. In stage four, it is important to obey laws and social conventions because of their importance in maintaining a functioning society. Moral reasoning in stage four is thus beyond the need for approval exhibited in stage three, because the individual believes that society must transcend individual needs. If one person violates a law, perhaps everyone would - thus there is an obligation and a duty to uphold laws and rules. As a cultural observation, this is a very common attitude in Asian and Pacific communities.

Level 3: Post-conventional The post-conventional level, also known as the principled level, consists of stages five and six of moral development. Realization that individuals are separate entities from society is important in North American society where Kohlberg developed his theory and so he judged it to be a higher level of morality. In that culture one’s own perspective should be viewed before the society’s is considered. Interestingly, the post-conventional level, especially stage six, is sometimes mistaken for pre-conventional behaviors. In stage five, individuals are viewed as holding different opinions and values, all of which should be respected and honoured in order to be impartial. However he considered some issues are not relative like life and choice. Laws are regarded as social contracts rather than dictums, and those that do not promote general social welfare should be changed when necessary to meet the greatest good for the greatest number of people (a utilitarian view).

Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

In stage six, moral reasoning is based on abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles. Decisions are made in an absolute way rather than in a conditional way. In addition, laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and that a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws. While Kohlberg insisted that stage six exists, he had difficulty finding participants who use it.

Implications After Kohlberg’s stage 4, the transition from stage four to stage five, people have become disaffected with the arbitrary nature of law and order reasoning and he said they become moral relativists. This transition stage may result in either progress to stage five or in regression to stage four. As has become clear during the bioethics education project, there is such a range of cultural, family and school value systems across the world, that students of one age in one country will most likely be in different stages at different times, even if all persons did follow this progression from stage 1 to stage 6 in moral reasoning, and not revert back to other levels. Stage six would correspond to a person that followed the textbook bioethics of Beauchamp and Childress (1995), or the longer list of principles found in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (UNESCO, 2005). Macer (1998) has argued that bioethics is love of life, and that principalism based on following the standard ethical principles alone is not sufficient as an explanation of why people behave the way they do. The role of religious values is also obviously important, as concepts like karma and removal of oneself from the matters of the world do affect the values systems people use when approaching moral dilemmas.

bIOEtHIcaL MatUrItY The goals are linked to the methods and criteria that will be used to evaluate the materials and

student responses, and evaluation is discussed below. One concept that has been used by Macer is whether students demonstrate “bioethical maturity” in some way. “Bioethical maturity assumes a certain level of recognition of weighing up the different arguments that can be used to discuss an issue, the different ethical frameworks that can be used, and comparisons and balancing of the benefits and risks of the dilemmas” (Macer, 2002). This process also gives an indication as to how many different ideas people have, and the way they understand the dilemmas, and methods to study this are developing in the behaviourome project (Macer, 2002; 2004b). Prior to considering other issues, setting the goals is central. A detailed listing of goals that are common between many educators is found in the Action Plan for Bioethics Education developed at the 2006 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Conference on Bioethics Education (RUSHSAP, 2006). There has been significant research that has shown that there are a number of goals of ethics education including those listed here: a.

b.

Knowledge Development of trans-disciplinary content knowledge Understanding the advanced scientific concepts Being able to integrate the use of scientific knowledge, facts and ethical principles and argumentation in discussing cases involving moral dilemmas; Understanding the breadth of questions that are posed by advanced science and technology Understanding cultural values Skills (capacity building in skill acquiring should be multi faceted or many sided, and the goals include) Balancing benefits and risks of Science and Technology Being able to undertake a risk/benefit analysis



Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

c.

Develop critical thinking and decision making skills and reflective processes Develop creative thinking skills Develop foresight ability to evade possible risks of science and technology Skills for developing “informed choice” The required skills to detect bias in scientific method, interpretation and presentation of research results Personal moral development Understanding better the diversity of views of different persons Increasing respect for all forms of life Elicit a sense of moral obligation and values including honesty and responsibility Being able to take different viewpoints to issues including both biocentric and ecocentric worldviews rather than only anthropocentric perspectives. Increasing respect for different people and culture, and their values Developing scientific attitudes, reflective processes, and an ability for holistic appraisal, while not ignoring the value for reductionist analysis. Knowledge about bias in the interpretation and presentation of research results, benefits and risks of technology and bioethical issues, and how to detect bias Exploration of morals/values (values clarification) Values analysis and value based utilization of our scarce natural resources. (RUSHSAP, 2006)

Many of these goals apply to ethics education and (education) development of critical thinking in general. Descriptive ethics is to describe the way people view life, their moral interactions and responsibilities. If we attempt to understand the way we as human beings think, then we must look at the views of all in a society – not just an elite of the “philosophers” or “politicians”, to have ethics for the people by the people. The evolution

0

of considerations of ethics has witnessed increasing importance being place on descriptive ethics approaches, as societies become more democratic. As persons realize that ethical concepts have ancient roots in all cultures of the world, and that many persons have interesting views on the questions, the field has become richer, and there is still a lot of human knowledge that can be applied to assist in discussing modern technology. Interactive ethics is discussion and debate between people about descriptive and prescriptive/normative ethics. Consensus is possible after recognition of the relationships between different persons, to try to preserve social harmony. This consensus building is seen even in countries that have structured paternalism affecting relationships between persons. Public discussion of the ethics of science and technology in many societies aided by the media. Participation of the public in the societal decision-making process regarding new technology is essential. Community engagement is not only a question of knowing what is going on, but for a new technology to be accepted by the public, it is crucial to perceive the choice and influence. How can ethics be central in a dialogue between common cultures of technophiles and technophobes? A persons’ ethic is developed based on their own and other people’s opinions that grows as we face various dilemmas through our life. To have a balanced opinion from the community, it is important to hear from persons in a range of positions with different occupations. This common social goal has developed hand in hand with the emergence of increased media attention in pluralistic democracies to display the divergent views on science and technology.

EMPOWErING EDUcatOrs The appropriate response to the call for ethics education in science and technology, and to the common goals, demands education of teachers

Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

to apply these culturally. There is a common goal to develop the decision making ability at all levels of society, to develop sound original research appropriate to each culture, and enable more informed policy-makers, so our society can evolve ethically with the demands of the times. All sectors of society are faced with ethical issues in the pursuit of their duties. Critical to building the capacity of society for this open reflection on bioethics are educators. The task of an educator includes empowering their students/learners to develop their maturity as individuals as well as being able to be cooperative members of changing societies. Learners, as we all should be, need to be prepared so they are able to apply knowledge to make good decisions during their life. How can we train educators and sustain their motivation to take upon this task? How can we create communities that are able to consider all sides of ethical debates? Practicality is essential if teachers are expected to continue teaching, and students will continue their interest in the matter. The turbulent times of today have challenged some of the traditional structures in the relationships between human beings within their society, with nature and God. How can we empower citizens to make a special contribution in the wider context of constructing a mature society? Mature means a person, or a society that can balance the benefits and risks of alternative options, and make well-considered decisions, and talk about it. A mature society is one that has developed some of the social and behavioural tools to balance these bioethical principles, and apply them to new situations raised by technology. Despite a growing interest in education of ethics, one of the major concerns that teachers have is the lack of suitable teaching materials for ethics education. Integration of scientific facts is also important in moral reasoning. Science educators discovered during the last few decades that the most efficient way to educate science is to discuss the science together with examples of technology and put the facts into the social con-

text. The science, technology and society (STS) approach to education, was developed based on research which found students learn more science when the science is placed in its social context (Yager, 1990; Ramsey, 1993). Advances in biology and medicine have led to another pressure upon educators, namely how students can be prepared to face the ethical dilemmas that the technology often raises. The ethical issues associated with biology are generally grouped under the phrase “bioethics.” Bioethics is one part of the approach of STS, and a survey of bioethics teaching is also one method to measure the extent that society issues are included (Macer et al., 1996; Macer, 1999). In general there are less teachers using STS approaches in Asia than in the USA (Kumano, 1991), and Australasia (Asada et al. 1996), but it is growing still. Even within one country, such as the USA, there are a diversity of views on how to deliver efficient education of social issues and even the science itself (Waks & Barchi, 1992). STS approaches are integrated into a broad participatory paradigm of education across all subjects. UNESCO is attempting to generate sustainable ethics teaching and promotion programmes, supported by developing comprehensive databases of experts, existing professional networks, international legal instruments, national legislation, codes of ethics, institutions, and current teaching curriculum and research activities in bioethics (ten Have, 2006). Networking partners in the development of ethics teaching in the region is ongoing, and the UNESCO Asia-Pacific School of Ethics was founded in 2006 to bring together many active institutions and individuals who are collaborating to develop research on ethics of science and technologies from a wide range of cultures. Half of the members are actively involved in bioethics education, including ethics of science and technology, environmental ethics and medical ethics. The assembly and maintenance of on-line free access teaching resources, adaptations and translations into different languages, and links to all regional



Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

laws and guidelines related to professional ethics, including environmental ethics, ethics of sustainable development, bioethics, science ethics and cyber ethics have been made at RUSHSAP. The lessons learnt provide some key areas for future attention and priority setting. There have been different materials produced for teaching ethics (Jarvis et al. 1998; Levinson and Reiss, 2003). A growing compilation of open access teaching materials in different languages is available (Macer, 2004a; Macer, 2006). There are a wide range of materials to teach ethics, and diversity is to be applauded from a cultural perspective. Even before calls for inclusion of ethics of science and technology made by UNESCO Declarations, in a variety of textbooks in India and Japan we can see numerous ethical issues being included, however, there was little depth to the materials (Bhardwaj and Macer, 1999). The World Commission on the Ethics of Science and Technology (COMEST) (2004) suggested that there be some core essentials including making students familiar with the structure of normative argumentation, basic ethical norms and principles, types of ethical theories, ethical issues arising in different fields of science and technology, and especially related to the expected profession of the students in the case they are pursuing a profession such as engineering ethics (Chachra, 2005), or medicine. It is also important to teach about research ethics, and in some countries that is compulsory for graduate students (Eisen & Parker, 2004), or for students using animals for example. There are also a range of levels at which ethics can be taught, with many countries requiring some ethics in high school science classes. For example already in 1993 it was found that ethics of science was being widely taught in science classes in Australia, Japan and New Zealand (Asada et al. 1996; Macer et al. 1996), India (Pandian and Macer, 1998), and in 1997 in Singapore chemistry classes (Macer and Ong, 1999). Universities are also introducing ethics subjects to varying degrees, from general courses to specialized



courses (Zaikowshi & Garrett, 2004). COMEST (2004) recommended that all universities introduce ethics teaching as elementary ethics for all students, advanced courses for specific subjects in postgraduate education, and courses that lead to postgraduate degrees in ethics. In the future we will also have consensus on the core values to be included in courses for professional ethics.

PartIcIPatION Moral dilemmas face every one of us. There have been numerous books written to explain moral theories and how these can be applied to dilemmas we face in medicine, daily life and a range of professions (Scharf, 1978). Interactive ethics classes with experts can be useful (Sass, 1999). Critical thinking capacity is essential for empowering persons to cope with changing times. Participation can promote the creation of ideas and individuality, which we all need in the era of globalization. Bioethics is not about thinking that we can always find one correct solution to ethical problems. A range of solutions to moral dilemmas are often possible, although there are some inappropriate solutions to moral dilemmas, such as to always believe you are right and others are always wrong. Ethical principles and issues need to be balanced. Many people already attempt to do so unconsciously. The balance varies more between two persons within any one culture than between any two. We can often hear complaints from teachers that there are too many students in a class so there is no way to let the students talk. While there are different ways to describe the participation of students, in a lecture for 800 students compared to 32 or 10 students, class-size is not an insurmountable barrier to participatory learning. In the case of large classes there are methods that can be used to improve the participation of students such as talking in pairs while sitting in

Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

the class, or working in small groups of three or more persons to discuss particular questions from the text. While if everything is equal we would prefer less students in a class, a student will probably learn more in a class that has other students than themselves. Interactive responses between students and teachers are important in learning, for not only those asking questions but for all those listening. Some moral exercises provide an opportunity for each person to clarify their thinking on the question being asked. At the end of the exercise the teacher can ask students how their views have developed over the course of the exercise. They also will have been able to listen to others’ views. There mare many interactive discussion methods that can be used in classes with many persons. One participatory method that can be used is to get students to stand in a line to form a continuum line based on their view between two extremes along a moral continuum. After some students give their explanations for why they are standing at that point in the line then students may move to the appropriate point in the moral continuum. Then after some time a modified question can be given and the students asked to move along the continuum to their new positions. This can include a transition from an abstract question, such as whether they support the use of reproductive human cloning, to a personal question, such as whether they would use reproductive cloning if that was the only way for them to have a genetically related child. The line could be in a U shape or straight. The U shape allows all students to see each other more easily (and listen to each other) in the case of a larger number of students. A series of examples can also be described on cards and these cards are given to groups of students to discuss and sort into a paper card continuum on their desk, and then explain the rationale to others. Student debates and presentation of reports can allow more in-depth analysis of issues by students,

whether as individuals or in small groups, and then the debates can occur within the same class, between different classes, institutions or even countries by the use of video conferencing.

EvaLUatION Researchers and educators need to work together to research into appropriate teaching methods for different target groups, to assess the effectiveness and impact (both positive and negative) of ethics education. Generating sustainable ethics teaching and promotion programmes is a method in itself, required by education planners. Developing evaluation methods for effectiveness of education of ethics of science and technology is urgently required in many dimensions such as: knowledge, skills, and personal values. There is needs to be continued research into appropriate assessment methods for the curriculum, as well as research into assessment methods for student learning outcomes, and research on assessment of practices including student, professional and public attitude towards bioethical issues (Van Rooy & Pollard, 2002ab). Evaluation should be authentic, comparative and ongoing to give a better estimate of the way bioethics is received in each group. It is better to use essays and creative writing, or oral debate, as an examination rather than multiple choice response questions that merely test memory. Moral dilemmas also often have more than one correct answer, making it difficult to judge one answer as correct and others as incorrect. For more than 60 years it has been recorded that both quantitative and qualitative data are important in social science research, as was said by Merton and Kendall (1946), “Social scientists have come to abandon the spurious choice between qualitative and quantitative data: they are concerned rather with the combination of both which makes use of the most valuable features of each. The problem becomes one of the determining at



Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

which points they should adopt the one, and at which the other, approach”. Thus an appropriate methodological tool should contain methods to utilize and assess both types of data. One important goal of teaching about bioethical issues is to get students to critically evaluate the issues (Conner, 2003). In a Mexican case (Rodriguez, 2005), bioethics classes were used as a way to improve the general behaviour and study aptitude of students. Each institution is likely to put a different amount of emphasis on each goal. Also, different activities are likely to enable some goals to be met and not others (Macer, 2004c). Therefore we do not need to assess all the institutional objectives when evaluating the success of the trials. Instead, case studies of how students and teachers responded were also sought to give a wider descriptive account of various approaches. Kohlberg used moral dilemmas to determine which stage of moral reasoning a person uses. The dilemmas were short stories that describe situations in which a person has to make a moral decision, yet they provide no solution. The participant is asked what the right course of action is, as well as an explanation why. This style is still commonly used as case-based ethics teaching. There is a need to develop more cases for dialogues between different cultures and cases in broader issues of technology ethics, although some have been compiled. A dilemma that Kohlberg used in his original research was the druggist’s dilemma: Heinz Steals the Drug in Europe. A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow



the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife. (Kohlberg, 1969) Should Heinz break into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not? Like many cases of bioethics, from a theoretical point of view, it is not important what the participant thinks that Heinz should do. The above case is quite relevant to global debates going on regarding the interpretation of the Doha Declaration on the compulsory licensing of generic copies of patented medicines, which raises conflicts between countries and the pharmaceutical industry. The point of interest is the justification that the participant offers. Below are examples of possible arguments that belong to the six stages. It is important to keep in mind that these arguments are only examples. It is possible that a participant reaches a completely different conclusion using the same stage of reasoning: •

•

• •

•

Stage one (obedience): Heinz should not steal the medicine, because he will consequently be put in prison. Stage two (self-interest): Heinz should steal the medicine, because he will be much happier if he saves his wife, even if he will have to serve a prison sentence. Stage three (conformity): Heinz should steal the medicine, because his wife expects it. Stage four (law-and-order): Heinz should not steal the medicine, because the law prohibits stealing. Stage five (human rights): Heinz should steal the medicine, because everyone has a right to live, regardless of the law. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine, because the scientist has a right to fair compensation.

Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

•

Stage six (universal human ethics): Heinz should steal the medicine, because saving a human life is a more fundamental value than the property rights of another person. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine, because that violates the golden rule of honesty and respect.

One criticism of Kohlberg’s theory is that it emphasizes justice to the exclusion of other values. As a consequence of this, it may not adequately address the arguments of people who value other moral aspects of actions more highly. His theory was the result of empirical research using only male participants (aged 10, 13, and 16 in Chicago in the 1960s). Gilligan (1993) argued that Kohlberg’s theory therefore did not adequately describe the concerns of women. She developed an alternative theory of moral reasoning that is based on the value of care. Among studies of ethics there is a tendency in some studies to find females have higher regard for ethics theories (Ford and Richardson, 1994). Gilligan’s theory illustrates that theories on moral development do not need to focus on the value of justice. Other psychologists have challenged the assumption that moral action is primarily reached by formal reasoning. People often make moral judgments without weighing concerns such as fairness, law, human rights and abstract ethical values. If this is true, the arguments that Kohlberg and other rationalist psychologists have analyzed are often no more than post hoc rationalizations of intuitive decisions. This would mean that moral reasoning is less relevant to moral action than it seems (Crain, 1985). In current assessment of students there is a trend from merely making lists of many examples, or listing the positive and negative sides of an argument towards making students exhibit their reasoning as well. One of the common goals of school education is that students can produce a good argument. Stephen Toulmin’s model has become popular in development of students’

argumentation skills (Toulmin et al. 1984). To create an argument a person needs to state their claim, then support it with facts (data) that are arranged logically. For each fact, they should give the evidence for the fact (warrant), and for each warrant, state the quality of its validity (backing). Then for each warrant and its backing, people should think of an opposing point of view (rebuttal). They then consider further possible warrants and backing for the rebuttals. At the end then they review, having argued the rebuttals, do they need to qualify their original claim? The mental mapping project, or human behaviourome project (Macer, 1992) identified 9 classes of ideas, and attempts to explain the linkages between ideas in the construction of moral choices by different persons (Macer, 2002). The practical applications of that model are yet to reach a stage at which teachers could simply assess the moral development of their students. The Ideas, Evidence and Argument in Science Education (IDEAS) project of Osborne et al. in the UK [http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/education/ideas. html], has as its goal the assistance of teachers in developing their skills to teach about ideas, evidence and argument in science. The materials they wish to develop include worksheets and video clips to enable teachers to teach children to develop and evidence scientific argument. The IDEAS project suggests the following criteria can be used in evaluating students’ arguments. Is there a claim? Does the argument have data to support the claim? Does the argument link the data to the claim? Are there further justifications to support the case? Is there any anticipation of a counter argument and how it could be opposed? Case studies have long been used in medical ethics teaching (Doyal et al., 1987). Ratcliffe and Grace (2003) outline the knowledge, understanding and skills that students studying ethical issues in science acquire and that can be used to design assessment questions. They listed several different levels of knowledge:



Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

•

•

•

Conceptual knowledge: Learners can demonstrate understanding of: underpinning science concepts and the nature of scientific endeavour; probability and risk; the scope of the issue – personal, local, national, global, political and societal context; and environmental sustainability. Procedural knowledge: Learners can engage successfully in: processes of opinion forming/decision making using a partial and possibly biased information base; cost-benefit analysis; evidence evaluation including media reporting; and ethical reasoning. Attitudes and beliefs: Learners can: clarify personal and societal values and ideas of responsibility; and recognize how values and beliefs are brought to bear, alongside other factors, in considering socio-scientific issues.

There is a consensus among many Western scholars that the balancing of four main bioethical principles, which are autonomy, justice, beneficence and non-maleficence, is central to making better decisions (Beauchamp and Childress, 1994). Autonomy includes ideas such as respect for privacy, respect for personal choice. Justice is to respect the autonomy of others, and to treat persons equally. Beneficence is to try to do good, and non-maleficence is to avoid harm. When solving or trying to reach a consensus about bioethical problems, these four main principles can be a good guide in balancing which ideas should be mostly weighed. One measure of bioethics education could then be whether students are able to use these principles in decision-making, which was examined by presence of these keywords in discourse (oral or written). Reaching a good decision is often difficult, which also may not be the same if made in different times and situations. Another approach that is common in education is to teach learners to break down ethical dilemmas into manageable problems, for example, the separation of action,



consequence and motives connected to a moral decision. This separation is reflected on the different bioethical theories. Utilitarianism is an example of a bioethical theory, which looks at the consequences of an action, and is based on the work of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. This principle asserts that we ought always to produce the maximal balance of happiness or pleasure over pain, or good over harm, or positive value over disvalue. Utilitarianism can be then broken down into rule utilitarianism, and act utilitarianism. “A rule utilitarian may use moral rules as authoritative instrumental rules, so the morally right action is conformity to a system of rules, and the criterion of the rightness of the rule is the production of as much general happiness as possible” (Macer, 1998a). Act utilitarians on the other hand, look at the particular act only, and object to moral rules to be only an approximate guides, which could be broken if maximal good is not obtained. Another example of a bioethical theory is rights based theories of Immanuel Kant, and human rights law (Beauchamp and Childress, 1994; Macer, 1998a). The use of utilitarian-style logic and rights arguments were also examined among the discourse.

NEtWOrKING The International Bioethics Education Network was initiated in 2004, and the creation of networks linking research into policy is a cornerstone of efforts in all levels, from local to regional. List serves function in English for educators and students, and persons from a wide range of countries have tried these resources, and contributed to this project over the past years: • •

Education listserve: Student listserve:

Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

Networking among teachers interested in ethics of science and technology is essential for improving the quality of the way that ethics is taught, and also strengthening the motivation of teachers who are still often isolated. There are many teachers who will teach ethics of science at early levels, and successful methods for 12 year olds have also been described (Macer at el., 1997). There are considerable challenges in teaching even topics with a long tradition of debate such as the ethics of biotechnology (Hendrix, 1993; Lock and Miles, 1993; Bryce, 2004).

FUtUrE NEEDs In the future the use of principles as expressed in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2005) will also be analyzed to broaden the description of bioethical reasoning. There will also be identification of other goals from not only modern Western society but other value traditions. As with the above examples of questions that Kohlberg used for the linkage of student arguments to moral stages of development, there are a number of ways that could be developed into evaluation tools for assessment of bioethics education. We need to repeatedly examine criteria that could be used to measure the success of education of ethics, and the effectiveness of different forms of education for making mature citizens. There needs to be extension of the evaluation methods and tools to look for presence of other concepts such as virtue ethics for example. Classroom observations, audio and video tape recordings, and written essays and homework done by the students can all be collected, but new methods for discourse analysis need to be researched. Text analysis of the reports for keywords was undertaken, extending categorization methods that have been developed (Maekawa & Macer, 2005). This feedback should be used to continually modify the texts and accompanying

questions and materials for teachers. Another way to assess the usefulness of the materials for developing ethical principles in making ethical decisions was to look for key words and concepts in the answers students give to oral questions. Knowledge that educators want to impart includes knowledge of the science/technology content, knowledge of reflective processes (individual views), exploration of morals/values (values clarification), knowledge about bias and how to detect it (values analysis), knowledge about political agendas, for example (Conner, 2004). Recently, Sadler and Zeidler (2005) showed that tertiary students frequently relied on combinations of rationalistic, emotive and intuitive knowledge as they worked to resolve scenarios about genetic engineering. Persons at all levels do mix ideas in different ways (Macer, 2002) and this was shown in the evaluation report that is an output of this project. Evaluation must be done ethically (Alderson & Morrow, 2003), and there are a variety of methods in research which can be applied for evaluation depending on the style of class and purpose (Cohen et al., 2003). It is very important to examine the future direction of bioethics education and how this might enable people to question scientific endeavours and what impact their moral decisions will have on them as individuals and upon their societies. The skills that are required to do this involve the ability to identify existing ideas and beliefs, listen to others, be aware of multiple perspectives, find out relevant information and communicate the findings to others. These skills cannot be ‘given’ to students through a didactic approach to teaching, where the teacher imparts the knowledge. Instead, students need to experience situations that will allow them to develop these skills through interacting with the teacher and with each other. This project allows sharing of cases and experience in a range of cultures as well. When bioethics is applied to professional behaviour, such as in medical ethics, methods



Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

to evaluate have included the way students conduct a patient examination (http://wings.buffalo.edu/faculty/research/bioethics/eval.html). In Buffalo University Bioethics program (Singer et al., 1993), they applied the technology of the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) (Cohen et al., 1991) using standardized patients to the evaluation of bioethics. Methods to evaluate the clinical-ethical abilities of medical students, post-graduate trainees, and practising physicians that have been used include multiple-choice and true/false questions (Howe and Jones, 1984), case write-ups (Siegler et al, 1982; Doyal et al., 1987; Redmon, 1989; Hebert et al., 1990), audio-taped interviews with standardized patients (Miles et al., 1990), and instruments based on Kohlberg’s cognitive moral development theory (Self et al., 1989). Pre and post teaching interventions are also a method that can be used (Oka & Macer, 2000). These can be applied to other professional ethics and research ethics guidelines. There can be monitoring of the behaviour of scientists who have completed courses, and examination of cases of misconduct to assess whether the persons felt they lacked some ethics education. The reliability and validity of evaluation methods have seldom been examined, and research into these elements also must be developed. Auvinen et al. (2004) applied the use of Kohlberg’s stages of moral development to assess ethics teaching in nursing students in Finland, and they found significantly higher ethical maturity when nurses actually had to deal with ethical dilemmas in their practical training in clinics.

cONcLUsION There are a range of goals of ethics education for science and technology. The goals of ethics range from increasing respect for life; balancing benefits and risks of science and technology; understanding better the diversity of views of different persons; understanding the breadth of questions



that are posed by advanced science and technology; being able to integrate the use of scientific facts and ethical principles and argumentation in discussing cases involving moral dilemmas; and being able to take different viewpoints such as biocentric and ecocentric perspectives. We do not need to achieve all goals to consider a class to be successful, and different persons, professions and communities put a different amount of emphasis on each goal. It is important at all levels we need to research how to evaluate whether the teaching is having any impact or not. Because investigating ethical issues is complex, the educators need to consider what knowledge needs to be developed in order for students to make sense of moral issues, to be able to critically evaluate them and to take more ethical action based on this knowledge. In experience with trying to get evaluation and feedback however, despite positive comments that teachers may provide in person, very few evaluation reports from student and teacher feedback are returned (Macer, 2006). There is still a need for analysis of reports and discourse in order to gain a greater impression of how student values changed, and a suggested coding frame is made. It can be extended case-by-case to add new keywords and concepts which are important for the specific research goals of the evaluation, as well as topic-specific goals. Pre and post questionnaire surveys about specific topics relating to the content of the lecture or teaching intervention (Maekawa and Macer, 2004) can be useful to measure change, however, report and discourse analysis may provide a more reliable judgment because the object is to see the use of ethical principles and moral reasoning all the time, and not just being written for tests by students. There are several different ways to assess learning in bioethics. There need to be assessment methods to map to the different goals. A mix of qualitative and quantitative methodology can help in the monitoring of ethical maturity, and qualitative discourse analysis will assist this (Dawson and Taylor, 1997).

Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

The Action Plan for Bioethics Education developed in 2006 in Asia and Pacific (RUSHSAP, 2006) addressed recommendations to educators, researchers, universities and government. There is room at all levels to develop a practical climate for greater education of the ethics of science and technology. In conclusion we can say that despite the overwhelming consensus that education of professional ethics is essential, we still have a long way to go to being confident that ethics education achieves the goals it is conducted for, and more research and trials are necessary in every culture and field of science and technology.

rEFErENcEs Alderson, P. & Morrow, V. (2004) Ethics, social research and consulting with children and young people. London: Barnardo’s. Asada, Y., Akiyama, S., Tsuzuki, M., Macer, N. Y. & Macer, D. R. J. (1996). High school teaching of bioethics in New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. Journal of Moral Education, 25, 401-420. Auvinen, J. et al. (2004). The development of moral judgment during nursing education in Finland. Nurse Education Today, 24, 538-46. Beauchamp, T. L. & Childress, J. F. (1994). Principles of biomedical ethics. Fourth Edition. New York: Oxford University Press. Bhardwaj, M. & Macer, D. (1999). A comparison of bioethics in school textbooks in India and Japan. Eubios Journal of Asian & International Bioethics, 9, 56-9. Bryce, T. (2004). Tough acts to follow: the challenges to science teachers presented by biotechnological progress. Int. J. Science Education, 26, 717-733. Chachra, D. (2005). Beyond course-based engineering ethics instruction: Commentary on “Top-

ics and cases for online education in engineering”. Science & Engineering Ethics, 11(3), 459-62. Cohen, L., Manion L. & Morrison K. (2003). Research methods in education. 5th Edition. London: Routledge Falmer. Cohen, R., Singer P. A., Rothman A. I., & Robb, A. (1991). Assessing competency to address ethical issues in medicine. Academic Medicine, 66, 14-5. COMEST (The World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology). (2004). The teaching of ethics. Paris: UNESCO. Conner, L. (2003). The importance of developing critical thinking in issues education. New Zealand Biotechnology Association Journal, 56, 58-71. Conner, L. (2004). Assessing learning about social and ethical issues in a biology class. School Science Review, 86(315), 45-51. Crain, W.C. (1985). Theories of development. New York: Prentice-Hall. Dawson, V. & Taylor, P. (1997). The inclusion of bioethics education in biotechnology courses. Eubios Journal of Asian & International Bioethics, 7(6), 171-175. Doyal, L., Hurwitz, B., Yudkin, J. S. (1987). Teaching medical ethics symposium: Medical ethics and the clinical curriculum: A case study. Journal of Medical Ethics, 13, 144-149. Eisen, A. & Parker, K.P. (2004). A model for teaching research ethics. Science & Engineering Ethics, 10(4), 693-704. Ford, R. C. & Richardson, W. D. (1994). Ethical decision making: A review of the empirical literature. J. Business Ethics, 13, 205-21. Gilligan, C. (1993). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.



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Hebert, P., Meslin, E. M., Dunn, E. V., Byrne, N., Reid, S.R. (1990). Evaluating ethical sensitivity in medical students: Using vignettes as an instrument. J. Medical Ethics, 16, 141-145. Hendrix, J. R. (1993). The continuum: A teaching strategy for science and society issues. American Biology Teacher, 55, 178-81. Jamieson, D. (1995). Teaching ethics in science and engineering: Animals in research. Science & Engineering Ethics, 1, 185-6. Jarvis, S., Hickford, J. & Conner, L. (1998). Biodecisions. Lincoln: Crop & Food Research Institute. Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage and sequence: the cognitive-developmental approach to socialization. Chicago: Rand-McNally. Kumano, Y. (1991). Why does Japan need STS: A comparative study of secondary science education between Japan and the U.S. focusing on an STS approach. Bull. Sci. Tech. Soc., 11, 322-30. Levinson, R. & Reiss M. J. (eds). (2003). Key issues in bioethics: A guide for teachers. London: Routledge-Falmer. Lock, R. & Miles, C. (1993). Biotechnology and genetic engineering: students’ knowledge and attitudes. J. Biological Education, 27, 267-72. Macer, D. R. J. (1994) Bioethics for the people by the people. Christchurch: Eubios Ethics Institute. Macer, D. R. J., Asada, Y., Tsuzuki, M., Akiyama, S., & Macer, N. Y. (1996). Bioethics in high schools in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Christchurch: Eubios Ethics Institute. Macer, D., Obata, H., Levitt, M., Bezar, H. & Daniels, K. (1997). Biotechnology and young citizens: Biocult in New Zealand and Japan. Eubios Journal of Asian & International Bioethics, 7, 111-114.

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Macer, D. R. J. (1998). Bioethics is love of life: An alternative textbook. Christchurch: Eubios Ethics Institute. Macer, D. & Ong, C.C. (1999). Bioethics education among Singapore high school science teachers. Eubios Journal of Asian & International Bioethics, 9, 138-144 Macer, D. R. J. (2002). The next challenge is to map the human mind. Nature, 420, 121. Macer, D. R. J., ed., (2004a). Bioethics for informed citizens across cultures. Christchurch: Eubios Ethics Institute. Macer, D. R. J., ed. (2004b). Challenges for bioethics from Asia. Christchurch: Eubios Ethics Institute. Macer, D. R. J. (2004c) Bioethics education for informed citizens across cultures. School Science Review, 86(315), 83-86. Macer, D. R. J., ed. (2006). A cross-cultural introduction to bioethics. Christchurch: Eubios Ethics Institute. Retrieved from http://eubios. info/ccib.htm, http://www.unescobkk.org/index. php?id=2508 Maekawa, F. & Macer, D. R. J. (2005). How Japanese students reason about agricultural biotechnology. Science & Engineering Ethics, 10(4) 705-716. Merton, R. K. & Kendall, P. L. (1946). The focused interview. American J. Sociology, 51, 541-7. Miles, S. H., Bannick-Mohrland, S. & Lurie, N. (1990). Advance-treatment planning discussions with nursing home residents: Pilot experience with simulated interviews. Journal of Clinical Ethics, 2, 108-112. Oka, T. & Macer, D. R. J. (2000). Change in high school student attitudes to biotechnology in response to teaching materials. Eubios Journal of Asian & International Bioethics, 106, 174-9.

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Pandian, C. & Macer, D. R. J. (1998). An investigation in Tamil Nadu with comparisons to Australia, Japan and New Zealand. In Azariah J., Azariah H., & Macer D.R.J. (Eds.), Bioethics in India (pp. 390-400). Christchurch: Eubios Ethics Institute. Ramsey, J. (1993). The science education reform movement: Implications for social responsibility. Science Education, 77, 235-58. Ratcliffe, M. & Grace, M. (2003) Science for citizenship: Teaching socio-scientific issues. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Reiss, M.J. (1999). Teaching ethics in science. Studies in Science Education, 34, 115-140. RUSHSAP (Regional Unit for Social & Human Sciences in Asia & the Pacific, UNESCO). (2006). Action Plan for Bioethics Education. Developed at the 2006 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Conference on Bioethics Education. Found at http://www. unescobkk.org/index.php?id=apse Rest, J. R. (1986). Moral development: Advances in research and theory. New York: Praeger. Sadler, T. D., & Zeidler, D. L. (2005). Patterns of informal reasoning in the context of socioscientific decision making. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 42(1), 112-138. Sass, H. M. (1999). Educating and sensitizing health professionals on human rights and ethical considerations: The interactive role of ethics and expertise. International J. Bioethics, 10(3), 69-81. Self, D., Wolkinsky, F.D. & Baldwin, D.C. (1989). The effect of teaching medical ethics on medical students’ moral reasoning. Academic Medicine, 64, 755-9. Scharf, P. (1978). Moral education. Davis, CA: Responsible Action. Siegler, M., Rezler, A. G., & Connell K. J. (1982). Using simulated case studies to evaluate a clini-

cal ethics course for junior students. Journal of Medical Education, 57, 380-385. Singer, P. A., Cohen, R., Robb, A., & Rothman, A. I. (1993). The ethics objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). J Gen Intern Med, 8, 23-8. Ten Have, H. (2006). The activities of UNESCO in the area of ethics. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 16(4), 333-352. Toulmin, S., Rieke, R. & Janik, A. (1984). An introduction to reasoning (Second edition). New York: Macmillan. UNESCO (1997). Universal Declaration on the Protection of the Human Genome and Human Rights. UNESCO. UNESCO (2005) Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. UNESCO. UNESCO. Ethics home page. http://www.unesco. org/ethics Van Rooy, W. & Pollard, I. (2002a). Teaching and learning about bioscience ethics with undergraduates. Education & Health, 15(3), 381-385. Van Rooy, W. & Pollard, I. (2002b). Stories from the bioscience ethics classroom: Exploring undergraduate students’ perceptions of their learning. Eubios Journal of Asian & International Bioethics, 12, 26-30. Waks, L. J. & Barchi, B. A. (1992). STS in U.S. school science: Perceptions of selected leaders and their implications for STS education. Science Education, 76, 79-90. Yager, R. (1990). Science/technology/society movement in the United States: Its origin, evolution, and rationale. Social Education, 54, 198-201. Zaikowshi, L. A. & Garrett, J. M. (2004). A three-tiered approach to enhance undergraduate education in bioethics. BioScience, 54, 942-9.

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Education of Ethics of Science and Technology Across Cultures

KEY tErMs Bioethics: This is a field concerned with ethical implications within medicine and medical research. Education: This describes the process and act of acquiring knowledge. Ethics of Science and Technology: This is a field concerned with ethical study of science and technology. Evaluation: This is a set of procedures designed to measure or account for changes in learning or performance.

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Medical Ethics: This is a field of applied ethics concerned with moral and ethical values in medicine. Moral Development: This concerns changes in individual values that occur during development. UNESCO: UNESCO is a specialised technical intergovernmental agency of the United Nations, focusing on promotion of education, culture, social and natural sciences, and communication and information.

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Chapter VII

Planning, Interests, and Argumentation Seppo Visala University of Tampere, Finland

abstract Within the organisational development people’s arguments rise from their personal or group interests, which in turn are based on the systemic differentiation of society and technology at a given time. We face a crucial issue: Must we accept separated group interests as inescapable circumstances, or can we reach out for universal human interests? This chapter addresses the issue combining Rawls’ idea of an original position behind a veil of ignorance with Habermas’ concepts of communicative rationality and discourse.

INtrODUctION Planners and decision makers encounter competing interests that emerge from the division of labour and of our economic system, but the interests do not provide any rationally motivated legitimation basis for planning. People’s arguments rise from their personal or group interests, which in turn are based on the systemic differentiation of society and technology at a given time. The group interests and the division of labour reproduce each other all the time, technology often being the major driving force behind the new division of labour. The choice between technological alternatives is an ethical issue because it affects

people’s rights and position in the organization in question, as well as through its products and side effects external society and, in the long run, also future generations. The focus of this chapter is inside organizations, but we briefly touch upon the broader perspective in the discussion on future trends. The theoretical background of rational planning has two main sources, the economists’ notion of rational decision making and the systems approach (March, 1982, Simon, 1982, Churchman, 1968). Planning theorists with a more practical stance have been looking for a theoretical basis for planning professionals. Planning theorists take into account the multi-agency view of decision

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Planning, Interests, and Argumentation

making, and the planner should bring different political and technical aspects of relevant alternatives into the open (Faludi, 1973), or even demand that the planner should take an active political role so as to defend the interest of the oppressed (Forester, 1989). We face a crucial issue: must we accept separated group interests as inescapable circumstances, or can we reach out for universal human interests? The situation is a challenge for rational argumentation, since, if there is a possibility of a generalized interest, it is only rational argumentation that can lead us out of the dilemma. By means of the accounts of two outstanding thinkers of last century we can address the problem of the universalisation of interest: Habermas and Rawls.

raWLs Rawls (1973) derives his theory of justice, justice as fairness, through a very simple but powerful concept of rational choice in an ideal ‘original position behind a veil of ignorance’. His aim is to derive principles of justice that equal, rational persons would agree on when they do not know their share of the utilities ensuing from the principles and their social circumstances or personal characteristics. The veil of ignorance guarantees the universalisation of the principles. When the participants do not know their social position or any personal characteristics, they are in a position to think of the principles from the generalised position of any rational decision maker. They can only make their decision with regard to the principles of justice, not their contingent natural fortune (p. 18). Rawls sees the original position as a procedural interpretation of Kant’s categorical imperative (p. 256). Their rational choice will then be to define justice as fairness. Rawls (1973) derives two basic principles of justice. (1) The principle of liberty says: “Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with

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a similar liberty for other” (p. 60). (2) The difference principle states: “Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity” (p. 83, also p. 302). Accordingly, the optimum configuration of economy is achieved at the maximum point of the least advantaged members. The principles are arranged by two priority rules: (1) According to ‘the priority of liberty’, liberty can only be restricted for the sake of liberty. (2) According to ‘the priority of justice over efficiency and welfare’, the equality of opportunities is prior to the welfare of the least advantaged (p. 302). Partly due to the criticism of his ‘Theory of Justice’, Rawls gave up the central role of the above two principles in his work Political Liberalism (1993) without abandoning the idea of the original position. (For discussion on Rawls, see Freeman, 2003). Rawls’ later work expanded the view from the rules of a democratic state to the rules of nations (Rawls, 1993) and between nations (Rawls, 1999), so his views have hardly been discussed at all in a limited organisational context, which is our aim in this paper. In his later work Rawls (1993) accepted it as a fact that people can adhere to different notions of freedom, due to, for instance, their religion. In this context we can leave the detailed debate concerning the above principles aside, although they are most interesting from the point of view of ethics in general. The second principle also addresses technology as it replaces Pareto optimality as the notion of efficiency. (An economic situation is Pareto optimal, if it cannot be changed for the benefit of anyone without worsening it for someone else.) Efficiency as a driving force of social development will be discussed briefly below, but we focus on Rawls’ idea of ‘the original position behind a veil of ignorance’. The notion of the original position was challenged by Habermas’ communicative rationality.

Planning, Interests, and Argumentation

HabErMas During the 1970’s Habermas worked out a theory of communicative action which was summed up in two volumes published in German in 1981, and in translations into English in 1984 and 1987 (Habermas, 1984, 1987). One of the basic notions of his theory is communicative rationality. Habermas (1984, 75) characterises communicative rationality in the following way: We can begin with the claim that the concept of communicative rationality has to be analysed in connection with achieving understanding in language. The concept of reaching an understanding suggests a rationally motivated agreement among participants that is measured against criticisable validity claims. The validity claims (propositional truth, normative rightness, and subjective truthfulness) characterise different categories of a knowledge embodied in symbolic expressions. The idea of discourse put forward by Habermas (1973 and 1984) can be summed up in the notions of an ideal speech situation, levels of discourse and validity claims which stand up with rationally motivated agreement. The ideal speech situation presupposes a certain kind of process and procedure according to which discussants conduct argumentative speech (1984, 25). The process guarantees the participants’ symmetrical and equal chances to express their opinions and raise questions about any issue (Habermas, 1973). Argumentation excludes all force but the force of the better argument. In a discourse “participants […] test with reasons, and only with reasons, whether the claim defended by the proponents rightfully stands or not” (1984, 25). Habermas’ idea of discourse comes close to Argyris and Schön’s Model II theory of action (Schön 1983, 230 ff.). Habermas’ theory partly emerges from the criticism of instrumental reason in the spirit of the Frankfurt school of thought (Habermas, 1968 and 1981, cf. Marcuse, 1968). Habermas’

theory of communicative action has raised discussion within one field of technology, information systems (Lyytinen & Hirschheim, 1989, Klein & Hirschheim, 1991). In accordance with the idea of communicative rationality, Habermas (1983) replaces Kant’s monological universalisation principle (which does not require a discourse to back it up), as expressed in the categorical imperative with the principle of universality that is based on formal conditions of discourse. His universalisation principle says (1983, 75) that any valid norm must satisfy the condition that the consequences which follow from the fact that individuals generally keep the norm when they strive for their particular interests must be submitted to the acceptance of all those affected. Habermas sees this universalisation principle as compelling each participant to take others into account as well, i.e. it leads to what Mead has called ‘ideal role-taking’. Each participant in the discourse must have an opportunity to express his or her ideas, so that consensus is a result of real argumentation. A discourse will bring about a consensus through the force of the better argument. We may ask, however, what it is that can provide moral discourse with better arguments. Rawls has given a plausible, at least a partial answer.

UNIvErsaLIsatION IN a rEaL DIscOUrsE Habermas (1983, 76) explicitly contrasts his notion of ethics with that of Rawls, and criticises the latter’s view of a fictitious original position and the monological basis of his ethics. Habermas has himself been criticised for assuming a fictitious situation in which all those affected could take part in an ideal speech situation (Ulrich, 1983). Not all people can be expected to meet formal requirements of rational argumentation, and future generations cannot in principle take part in decisions that influence their lives. It is obvious

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Planning, Interests, and Argumentation

that the ideal process in which everyone can take part (also an ideal assumption) does not guarantee rational motivation as such, nor does it serve as a better argument. In practice, a dialogue naturally has a greater chance of achieving a just solution than monological, theoretical contemplation. Rawls (1995) also directly denies Habermas criticism on monological ethics: “The point of view of civil society includes all citizens. Like Habermas’ ideal discourse situation, it is a dialogue, indeed, an omnilogue” (p. 140). Rawls explains this further in a footnote: Habermas sometimes says that the original position is monological and not dialogical; that is because all the parties have, in effect, the same reasons and so they select the same principles. This is said to have the serious fault of leaving it to “the philosopher” as an expert and not to citizens of an ongoing society to determine the political conception of justice. [Rawls refers to Habermas, 1983]. The reply I make to his objection is that it is you and I – and so all citizens over time, one by one and in associations here and there – who judge the merits of the original position as a device of representation and the principles it yields. I deny that the original position is monological in a way that puts in doubt its soundness as a device of representation. (Rawls, 1995, fn. p. 140). Already in his Theory of Justice, Rawls (1973) says that “one or more persons can at any time enter this position or […] simulate the deliberations of this hypothetical situation, simply by reasoning in accordance with the appropriate restrictions” (p. 138). So Habermas’ criticism misses the point of generalisation, but Rawls does not directly answer the question of real discourse versus private contemplation. For Rawls, universalisation is a consequence of freely choosing any citizen (untied by quantifier), which leads to the conclusion that principles decided by that citizen are valid to all citizens, whereas for Habermas the universalisation is more

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straightforward, because he explicitly refers to all citizens (‘ideal role taking’). From the logical point of view their expressions amount to the same result, Rawls chooses ‘any citizen’ and Habermas uses the quantifier ‘all’. We can think of the possibility of combining these seemingly opposing views within a given organisational context. From Habermas’ point of view the participants are known beforehand, although not necessarily all those affected by decisions, and the decisions can be reached through rational argumentation. From Rawls’ point of view we can recognise here a special case of the original situation: the participants do not necessarily know their position in the reorganised division of labour. This leads us to formulate the following principle of the universalisation of moral-practical discourse (modified from Visala, 1993 and 1996): Arguments assume a universal validity only to the extent that they do not appeal to personal interests; decisions are only backed up by arguments for the optimal total interest of the organisation and pass the tests for general human needs. The combining of Habermas’ and Rawls’ ideas strengthens them both. Rawls’ notion of original position provides Habermas’ communicative rationality with a principle of what counts as a better argument. The conditions of the original position are conditions of an ideal speech situation, even to the extent that they can be realised through the argument that biased personal needs do not count as a rational argument. Habermas’ idea of rational argumentation with the above supplementary principle provides Rawls’ notion of the veil of ignorance with practical implementation. The above principle works in a manner of Popper’s refutation principle: a universal proposition cannot be verified as true, but they can be refuted by one counter-example. How should we organise a discourse in order to reach rationally motivated consensus? A necessary

Planning, Interests, and Argumentation

precondition for this is that the participants share a common view of validity claims, i.e. what counts as a valid argument. Habermas (1984) identifies four types of validity claims: truth, rightness, truthfulness (sincerity) and authenticity. The first three of them are relevant in the organisational context of this paper. Rightness refers to the normative and ethical values of arguments, truthfulness to the sincerity of a speaker, who expresses his or her emotions or opinions. Authenticity refers to the aesthetic value of a piece of art. Truthfulness is a precondition of any serious talk. There is no way of checking the validity of subjective expression through argumentation (Habermas, 1984, 303). As regards rightness, the above principle provides a means to test the universality of a claim. Truth is at first sight the most obvious validity claim, but as the long history of philosophy shows, it is a controversial one. Toulmin (1958) has given a concise formulation of how to use arguments: a claim is a statement expressed with conditional modal qualifiers, based on data, warrant and backing (p. 104). The ultimate ground for any rational discourse is a life-world shared by the members of society. They must have some common ‘preunderstanding’ of what counts as an undisputable fact, for example. What is meant by this is described best by Wittgenstein (1979). We have discussed the philosophical foundation of the rationality of argumentation elsewhere at some length (Visala 1993). This discussion will not be repeated here.

tEcHNOLOGY aND PLaNNING The above universalisation principle can be used as a rule of argumentation, when there is a plan to re-engineer the organisation by means of new technology. The guiding principle for arranging a discourse is that participants first agree on those issues that will be used as a backing for other claims and are thus more general in nature. A new technical production concept should be

evaluated against efficiency objectives and environmental constraints, for example. The process view of an organisation makes it possible for us to encounter a situation in which the division of labour can be discussed without referring to any existing organisational positions. There are no particular interest groups yet, as new tasks have not been allocated to anyone. The participants are in a kind of real original situation, and they can divide the tasks and the benefits attached to them under a veil of ignorance. A planner could serve as a facilitator of discourse and, in a manner of speaking, hold the veil of ignorance in front of the participants. In accordance with Rawls’ difference principle, the participants may end up with unequal shares of the outcome of the firm, if they are a way to get better total returns, i.e. more to share between stakeholders. However, the participants may come to some other conclusion as well, due to their shared values, which have been agreed upon during the discourse, or – what may be a more realistic assumption – due to regulations imposed on them. For example, new technology may not improve the returns of the firm (in the short run), but it is chosen because it is less polluting. The purpose of this speculation is only to stress the point that Rawls’ original principles need not be assumed as necessary starting points for a discourse. (This debate could be continued further with the argument that non-polluting technology is chosen for the benefit of the future generations, etc.)

DIscUssION The above principle still remains as an ideal objective. There are two obvious reasons leading to doubts as to whether it can be implemented directly in modern organisations. The first one follows from the prevalent organisational culture of Model I (control and competition, Argyris, 1990). The second reason is the existing power

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Planning, Interests, and Argumentation

positions embedded in organisations that presume a certain inequality as a precondition for their existence. Argyris (1990, 13) sums up the Model I theory: “Model I theory-in-use instructs individuals to seek to be in unilateral control, to win, and not to upset people. It recommends action strategies that are primarily selling and persuading.” However, Model I cannot find its justification in economic efficiency. It leads to skilled incompetence that actually inhibits everybody from utilising all their energy and leads to malfunctioning in the organisation and defensive routines. These abandon the questioning of existing norms and values. Model I theory is not rational in economic sense, and hence executives should direct the organisation towards open discourse, i.e. Model II theory-in-use. The prevalent unilateral control ought to be replaced by bilateral control and power with competence and expertise (Argyris, 1990, 127). The second obstacle leads to the same irrational consequences as the first one, although it is based on legal rules of market economy rather than any organisational tradition. Owners could also take into account how business organisations can benefit from rational argumentation: the success of the organisation is a common interest, and it can best be achieved when all relevant opinions can be expressed freely. However, regarding the present globalization and the accelerating pace of (quartile) economy this hope for a rational discourse between workers and stock owners seems utopian. Firms calculate the economic optimum on the basis of the marginal utility of labour. There is not much use for the better argument, when agents step out of the sphere of discourse to the world of sellers and buyers. Money then serves as a disembedding token and a medium of the transactions between people (Giddens, 1990), but it is a substitute of language that does not allow rationally motivated consensus through agreement based on reason (Habermas, 1987).

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aDDItIONaL rEaDINGs We may never reach sufficient control over the world by means of rational decisions, as there will always be hidden social and natural interactions and unexpected consequences. This only means a longer learning cycle: some day nature will hit back, and then we will learn from experience. We will realize that we have had too tight a system boundary. Conflicts between rivalling interest groups may have to be put on one side, when mankind encounters the common threat of climate change, for example. There is a long road to such a consensus because of the present unequal division of wealth. Can technology provide a solution, or is it a threat as such? At least the global information network gives us a forum for discourse, and a chance to evaluate our own values against those of others. Senge’s influential work (2006) opens up yet another universalisation perspective of systems thinking in learning organisations and society in the large.

cONcLUsION This chapter has proposed an universalisation principle that combines Rawls’ notion of justice as fairness derived ‘behind a veil of ignorance’ and Habermas’ ethical doctrine that is based on discourse in an ideal speech situation. Technological development provides a special motivation for this principle, because it may give an opportunity to a new division of labour. The members of the organization are then in a manner of speaking behind the veil of ignorance, when they do not know their future position. Habermas’ theory of communicative action sets the rules for organising rational discourse which gives all members an opportunity to express their opinion in the matter, but without possibility of referring to their own special interests. Modern network communities provide another link to technology and one that may facilitate to expand the discourse

Planning, Interests, and Argumentation

over organisational boarders. The issue will be discussed elsewhere in this volume.

rEFErENcEs Argyris, C. (1977). Overcoming organizational defences, facilitating organizational learning. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, Churchman, C.W. (1968). The systems approach, New York: Dell. Faludi, A. (1973). Planning theory. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Forester, J. (1989). Planning in the face of power. Berkley, CA: University of California Press. Freeman, S. (ed.) (2003). The cambridge companion to Rawls, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press Habermas, J. (1968). Technik und wissenschaft als “Ideologie”. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Habermas, J. (1981). Erkenntnis und intresse. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Habermas, J. (1983). Moralbewusstsein und kommunikatives handeln. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action, Vol. 1: Reason and the rationalization of society. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1987). The theory of communicative action, Vol. 2: The critique of functionalist reason. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Klein, H.K. & Hirschheim, R. (1991). Rationality concepts in information system development methodologies. Accounting, Management and Information Technology, 1(2), 157 – 187.

Lyytinen, K. & Hirschheim, R. (1989). Information systems and emancipation, promise or threat? In Klein, H.K. & Kumar, K. (eds.), Systems development for human progress. Amsterdam: North-Holland (pp. 115 – 139). March, J.G. (1982). Theories of choice and making decisions, Society, 20(Nov-Dec), 29 - 39. Marcuse, H. (1968). One dimensional man. London: Sphere Books Ltd. Rawls, J. (1973). A theory of justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rawls, J. (1993). Political liberalism. New York: Columbian University Press. Rawls, J (1995). Political liberalism: Reply to Habermas. The Journal of Philosophy 92(3), 132 – 180. Rawls, J. (1999). The law of peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. Senge, P.M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art & practice of the learning organisation. London: Random House. Simon, H. (1982). Models of bounded rationality, Vol. 2: Behavioral economics and business organization. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Toulmin, S. (1958). The uses of argument. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ulrich, W. (1983). Critical heuristics of social planning. Bern: Verlag Paul Haupt. Visala, S. (1993). An exploration into the rationality of argumentation in information systems research and development. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Oulu,

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Visala, S. (1996). Interests and Rationality of Information Systems Development. Computers and Society, 26(3), 19 – 22. Wittgenstein, L. (1979). On certainty. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

KEY tErMs Categorical Imperative (Kant): “So act that the maxim of your will could always hold at the

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same time as the principle of universal legislation” (Critic of Practical Reason, A, 54). Veil Of Ignorance: A person makes his or her ethical choice without knowing his or her share of the utilities ensuing from the principles and his or her social circumstances or personal characteristics. Discourse in an Ideal Speech Situation: The participants have symmetrical and equal chances to express their opinions and raise questions about any issue.

Section II

Research Areas of Technoethics



Chapter VIII

Ethics Review on ExternallySponsored Research in Developing Countries Alireza Bagheri University of Toronto, Canada

abstract This chapter elaborates on some of the existing concerns and ethical issues that may arise when biomedical research protocols are proposed or funded by research institutes (private or public) in developed countries but human subjects are recruited from resource-poor countries. Over the last two decades, clinical research conducted by sponsors and researchers from developed countries to be carried out in developing countries has increased dramatically. The article examines the situations in which vulnerable populations in developing countries are likely to be exploited and/or there is no guarantee of any benefit from the research product, if proven successful, to the local community. By examining the structure and functions of ethics committees in developing countries, the article focuses on the issues which a local ethics committee should take into account when reviewing externally-sponsored research. In conclusion, by emphasizing capacity building for local research ethics committees, the article suggests that assigning the national ethics committee (if one exists) or an ethics committee specifically charged with the task of reviewing externally-sponsored proposals would bring better results in protecting human subjects as well as ensuring benefit-sharing with the local community.

INtrODUctION In developed and developing countries alike, biomedical research is an essential component of improving human health and welfare. However many developing countries are unable to address their

research-based health needs, due to the inadequate research capacity and healthcare infrastructure. These needs, along with some other factors such as accessibility of human subjects, lower costs of research and lack of a clear research policy and

Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

ethics review, cause them to be targeted as host countries for clinical trials. Early debates about ethics in medical research were sparked primarily in response to the ways in which medical research was conducted in developed countries and its limited relevance to developing countries. However HIV/AIDS-related clinical trials in Africa and South East Asia can be cited as a hallmark in debates on morality of conducting externally-sponsored research in developing countries. These studies that were sponsored by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control have fueled controversies and disagreements (The participants 2004). For instance, should standard of care be provided to participants in control groups in clinical trials? This was thrown into the international spotlight in 1997, when US-funded research into the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Thailand was criticized in The New England Journal of Medicine (Lurie and Wolfe 1997) and The Lancet (The Lancet 1997). Participants in the control group were given a placebo, rather than a long course of antiretroviral treatment, which had been demonstrated to be effective in developed countries. The critics argued that all participants should be provided with the best available treatment anywhere in the world to prevent the exploitation of those in control groups, regardless of where the research is conducted. However, other researchers and research sponsors argued that it was not always possible, affordable, or appropriate, to supply a “universal” standard of care in developing countries, and that the difficulties of meeting such a requirement would prevent beneficial medical research from being conducted. Another issue which became a focus of attention, particularly within the context of access to antiretroviral treatments for HIV/AIDS, is what should happen once a research project in a developing country is completed. Should the products of the clinical trials, new therapeutic methods, drugs, etc, be made available (and affordable)

to the local community in which the trial was conducted or not? To address these issues and concerns, several ethical guidelines have been developed by international organizations, e.g. Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS 2002), World Medical Association (Helsinki Declaration 2000), Nuffield Council on Bioethics (2002) and UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2005). In practice, applying these guidelines is often fraught with difficulty and some times provides conflicting advice (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2002). In addition, there is no documentation on the application of these guidelines, or how ethics committees in developing countries deal with externally-sponsored proposals (Bagheri and Macer 2005).

HIstOrIcaL bacKGrOUND The long history of medicine is glorified by the fight against diseases through new innovations, methods, and drugs which cure millions of patients. However the short history of research ethics started with scandals of abuse and exploitation of human subjects. The bitter history of clinical research is full of vulnerable individuals who participated in medical experiments unwittingly. Atrocities of Nazi physicians are widely known, and abuse in US government-sponsored research is also well documented (Moreno 2001). There are also less publicized scandals such as abuses of human subjects by Japanese physicians’ biological warfare research on Chinese prisoners during World War II (Tsuchiya 2000 and Powell Tia 2006). Despite the existence of international ethical guidelines such as the Nuremberg Code, some of this clinical research continued, e.g. the Tuskegee study which actually went on for 40 years (1932-1972), and radiation experiments on children at the Fernald and Wrentham schools (1943-1973) which violated ethical codes in research (West 1998). 

Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

Since the Nuremberg Code, the policies on human subject research have undergone a progressive transformation. Ethics is nowadays considered as an integral part in the strategies of scientific and technological progresses (UNESCO 1998). As Jonathan Moreno observes, the evolution of human research ethics is marked by the construction of ever stronger defenses to protect subjects. He divides the history of research ethics into three eras. The first is “weak protectionism”, in which researchers were largely trusted to oversee their own research. In the early 1980s “weak protectionism” was replaced by “modest protectionism”. It was characterized by modest external oversight of research. He characterizes the current situation as “strong protectionism” which tries to minimize clinical researcher’s discretion in governing their conduct with regard to human subjects (Moreno 2001). Despite all the sad experiences of exploitation, externally-sponsored research is welcomed by poor-resource countries. Why is that so? Due to inadequate research capacity and healthcare infrastructure to conduct relevant research for their own health needs, these countries are dependent on the interests of external sponsors. In such circumstances, developing countries may find it difficult to refuse offers by foreign sponsors, even if it is unlikely to benefit their populations at large. However, there are also accompanying incentives, in terms of improved healthcare facilities, training, joint publications etc. Therefore, there is enough justification for health authorities and research institutes in resource-poor countries to compromise the direct benefit to the research participants because of collateral incentives coming from collaboration with sponsoring institutes. It noteworthy that in some developing countries lack of appropriate governance mechanisms make ground for exploitation as well.



GLObaL INEqUItY IN HEaLtH rEsEarcH In different parts of the world there are different kinds of health problems and needs. What people in Asia or sub Saharan Africa are suffering from is different from the health problems in North America. While people in the developing world are suffering from infectious diseases which can be cured with inexpensive medicine, medical research in industrialized nations has its own priorities. Mainstream research activities in developed countries do not reflect the illnesses people in Asia are suffering. The so called 10/90 gap tries to draw attention to the fact that of all the funds invested in global health research by the public and private sectors, less than 10% is devoted to research into the health problems that account for 90% of the global disease burden (Global Forum for Health Research 2004). It has also been emphasized by the WHO Ad Hoc Committee on Health Research that the central problem in health research is the 10/90 disequilibrium. Namely, that of the US$ 50–60 billion spent world-wide each year on health research by both the private and public sectors, only 10% is devoted to the health problems of 90% of the world’s population (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2002). It is ethically problematic -from the perspective of justice- knowing that 90% of medical research has focused on health problems in industrialized countries such as obesity, mood enhancement, neurological disorders, and only 10% of research addresses the needs of poor people in developing countries. Making a difference could be possible by striking a balance between health needs in those countries with research activities related to those needs. Let us assume that by implementing the principle of “benefit sharing” which has been emphasized in the recent UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (UNESCO Declaration 2005), less developed countries will enjoy the benefits of biomedical research. But to change the global situation, the urgent health needs

Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

of less developed countries should be addressed too. This could, however, be remedied by giving special consideration to the health problems of poor nations and ensuring that fairness prevails in setting research priorities, in addition to ensuring that all people benefit from the outcomes of biomedical research.

ExtErNaLLY-sPONsOrED rEsEarcH Externally-sponsored research refers to research conducted, in whole or in part, by a foreign sponsor. It also can be part of a collaborative multinational or bilateral research project to be carried out in a developing country. The common feature of these projects is that the research protocol has been designed or funded in a developed country while human subjects are recruited from a developing country. The ethical issues raised in externally-sponsored research involving human subjects are certainly not new or unique. The abuse of vulnerable individuals in the name of the science, expanding the frontiers of human knowledge, good for the larger community has always been a concern from the starting point of human experimentations. As Claude Bernard, the pioneer of the experimental method, says: “The principle of medical and surgical morality consists in never performing on man an experiment which might be harmful to him to any extent, even though the result might be highly advantageous to science, i.e. to the health of others” (Greenwald et al 1982). Like developed countries, a very wide range of research related to healthcare is conducted in developing countries, but the majority of this is externally-sponsored research. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alone has recorded a 16-fold increase in the number of foreign clinical investigators conducting research on new medicines in the decade 1990–2000 (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2002).

The spectrum of sponsored research ranges from clinical trial on human subjects, laboratory research to determine the safety and efficacy of novel interventions, to behavioral research etc. External agencies, including other national governments, research councils, private sponsors, non-governmental institutions or agencies and pharmaceutical companies sponsor the majority of research related to healthcare in developing countries. In conducting externally-sponsored research, a concern is whether there is a real collaboration between researchers in sponsoring institutes and host institutes. However the nature of externallysponsored research undermines the notion of “research collaboration”. In any collaboration, the fear of exploitation will undermine a constructive effort, particularly in less powerful developing countries. Usually, in externally-sponsored research, the sponsoring institute has already drafted and finalized the proposal, and is only looking for a local body to assist on some practical issues. This can hardly be called “research collaboration”. In fact many researchers in developing countries are acting as a “sample collector” because every thing has been designed in the sponsoring institute and researchers in host institutes are responsible for collecting the biological samples and sending them to the reference laboratory which is in the sponsoring country, e.g. Harvard-Anhui case (Alliance for Human Research Protection 2000).

DEvELOPING cOUNtrIEs: a sOUrcE FOr sUbjEct rEcrUItMENt Since clinical research has increased dramatically, developing countries have become an “attractive and preferred” field for conducting clinical trials. It is important to elaborate the reasons why developing countries have been targeted as the host for clinical research. Several reasons have contributed to this current trend.



Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), one of the multinational pharmaceutical companies, explains why in their sponsored trials, GSK has extended patient recruitment into Eastern Europe, Asia and South America (outside the traditional centers of Western Europe and North America). The reasons for conducting clinical trials in developing countries are (GlaxoSmithKline Position Paper 2006): •

• •

•

•

•

•



Clinical trial capabilities in certain other parts of the world have improved and therefore the wider the geographic scope, the faster patients can be recruited, and the faster recruitment, the sooner new medicines will be available. The recruitment costs per patient in these [developing] countries can often be lower. Due to changes in living standards, many diseases of the developed world (e.g. hypertension, diabetes) are now global diseases. Patients in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and parts of Asia have often used fewer medicines compared with those in Western Europe and the US. This makes them good candidates for a clinical trial as it is easier to assess the effect of the products being tested. The overall amount of clinical trial activity in North America and Western Europe in many therapy areas makes it increasingly difficult to find experienced investigators who are able to start trials quickly as well as recruit suitable patients rapidly. To assess the relevance and applicability of some therapies within the local system of healthcare in developing countries (phase IV studies). To target diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries, including HIV/ AIDS, TB and malaria, clinical trial has to be carried out in those areas. For example, the incidence of malaria in the developed world is too low to design a scientifically

robust study to evaluate the efficacy of an investigational compound. As explained in the GSK’s position paper: “there are also some scientific and regulatory reasons why clinical trials are conducted in developing countries.” For instance some developing countries insist on the provision of local clinical trial data required as a prerequisite for product registration, such as China, Nigeria, South Korea and India which require significant data in local populations.

INtErNatIONaL EtHIcaL GUIDELINEs In response to the increase of sponsored clinical trials in developing countries along with the experience of abusing vulnerable populations, some international organization have developed and revised ethical guidelines for conducting biomedical research involving human subjects in developing countries. However these international guidelines and declarations have been criticized for focusing on an issue and eliding other important issues (Emanuel et al. 2000). The Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS 2002), World Medical Association (Helsinki Declaration 2000), Nuffield Council of Bioethics (2002) and UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2005) have developed international guidelines to guide researchers in conducting clinical research and some have specifically addressed externally-sponsored research in developing countries. Following are some of the related guidelines issued by these international bodies in conducting international research. World Medical Association, Declaration of Helsinki (2000): The benefits, risks, burdens and effectiveness of a new method should be tested against those

Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

of the best current prophylactic, diagnostic and therapeutic methods. (Paragraph 29) Even the best proven prophylactic, diagnostic and therapeutic methods must continuously be challenged through research for their effectiveness, efficiency, accessibility and quality. (Paragraph 6) The particular needs of the economically and medically disadvantaged must be recognized. (Paragraph 8) Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences: International ethical guidelines for biomedical research involving human subjects (CIOMS 2002): As a general rule, research subjects in the control group of a trial of a diagnostic, therapeutic, or preventive intervention should receive an established effective intervention. In some circumstances it may be ethically acceptable to use an alternative comparator, such as placebo or “no treatment”. (Guideline 11: Choice of control in clinical trials) Placebo may be used: (i) when there is no established effective intervention, (ii) when withholding an established effective intervention would expose subjects to, at most, temporary discomfort or delay in relief of symptoms, (iii) when use of an established effective intervention as comparator would not yield scientifically reliable results and use of placebo would not add any risk of serious or irreversible harm to the subjects. Ethical Considerations in HIV Preventive Vaccine Research (UNAIDS 2000): As long as there is no known effective HIV preventive vaccine, a placebo control arm should be considered ethically acceptable in a phase III HIV preventive vaccine trial. (Guidance Point 11: Control group)

Care and treatment for HIV/AIDS and its associated complications should be provided to participants in HIV preventive vaccine trials, with the ideal being to provide the best proven therapy, and the minimum to provide the highest level of care attainable in the host country in light of…circumstances listed. (Guidance Point 16: Care and treatment) However despite consensus on the major issues, there are some controversies and disagreements on some other issues for example the use of placebo controls in new drug trials. The policy whether to approve placebo control or not has a great impact on pharmaceutical companies in testing new drugs. Weijer and Anderson call this situation as the ethics wars over international research among international organizations. They say, “These disputes have become wars. Neither one could reasonably be described as an open and thorough examination of the thorny ethical issues at stake. Rather each side has joined a political struggle to rewrite the Declaration of Helsinki and the CIOMS guidelines in accordance with its own views” (Weijer and Anderson 2001).

tHE rOLE OF rEsEarcH EtHIcs cOMMIttEEs The main goal of research ethics, in all countries, regardless developed or developing, is to protect human subjects from unreasonable risks and exploitation. However the situation in developing countries and historical experiences in abusing research participants raised real concerns about the safety of participants in externally-sponsored research (Bagheri and Macer 2005). In addition, inequality in resources and imbalances in power between the stakeholders in research, e.g., multinational pharmaceutical companies, and vulnerable participants, increase the likelihood of exploitation of the more vulnerable party.



Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

In international clinical research, concerns about the standard of care, relevance of the clinical research to the community, procedure to obtain informed consent from research participants, the appropriate implementation of international and national guidelines on research ethics, benefitsharing, and the care provided to both research participants and the wider community once research is over, have been stated by many commentators (Emanuel et all 2000, Haydar and Wali 2006; Onvomaha, Kass, & Akweongo 2006). In fact, research ethics committees in many poor-resource countries have insufficient experience to address these issues. For instance, a survey of fifteen research ethics committees shows that more than 70% reported moderate, limited or no capacity to review HIV vaccine trial protocols (Milford et al 2006). It should be noted that in the United States, all federally funded international research is required to be reviewed by ethics committees in both the United States and in the host country. In contrast, research conducted by private (pharmaceutical) companies is regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration. This type of research is required to be reviewed by only a single ethics committee, but the regulation does not specify where that ethics committee must be located (Kass et al 2003). The concern about the safety and protection of human subjects who take part in clinical trials is not just an issue in externally-sponsored research but also the focus of research ethics regulatory framework and an obligation of ethics committees in developed countries as well to take it into account when looking into proposals. This has been reflected in several regulatory frameworks established by major sponsors such as NIH (Wichman 2006). However, when it comes to sponsoring research to be conducted among vulnerable people in developing countries, research ethics is more than a mere “protection” against potential harms. The issues of benefit-sharing, respecting local socio-cultural sensitivity, standard of care, and availability of the research product if proven



effective, are among others in which research ethics committees should look at and examine carefully. In the US, research ethics is dominated by the principle of autonomy and given the fact that research institutes and drug companies sponsor large number of clinical research projects in developing countries, it is not surprising that they try to apply the same ethical frameworks as exist within their own country. This may explain why provision of informed consent has been considered as necessary and sufficient for conducting clinical trials by research sponsors in externally-sponsored research. In other words the presumption is that, if the participants are informed and have consented to take part in a clinical trial, this is sufficient to address individual autonomy. In contrast, in nonWestern societies the role of family and community is very strong. For example in a society with a practice of family-centered decision making, such as China, family members should also be involved in the consent process. As Li observes in Chinese community, consent from the research participant alone is not enough and it is necessary to obtain consent from family members (Li 2004). In another study in Ghana Onvomaha Tindana and her colleagues show how community leader serve an important role in the consent process. In their observation, community leaders should be involved in consent process as gatekeepers. Their study indicated that in rural African setting only with the permission of the chief and elders of a community, researchers may invite individuals in that community to participate in their study. When leaders give permission for a study to go forward, community members may view this as an endorsement of the study, which in turn may significantly influence research participation (Onvomaha Tindana et al 2006). By posing the question, “what makes research involving human subject ethical?” Emanuel and his colleagues suggest that because of the preponderance of existing guidance on the ethical conduct of research and the near obsession with

Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

autonomy in US bioethics, “informed consent” is the answer most US researchers, bioethicists, and institutional review board members would probably offer to this question. They propose seven requirements which are necessary and sufficient to make clinical research ethical. These requirements are; (i) value, (ii) scientific validity, (iii) fair subject selection, (iv) favorable risk-benefit ratio, (v) independent review, (vi) informed consent, and (vii) respect for enrolled subjects. They believe that these requirements are universal, although they must be adapted to the health, economic, cultural, and technological conditions in which clinical research is conducted. (Emanuel et al 2000). However, the question remains of the degree to which they can be lifted off the shelf and applied in developing countries. The issue becomes complicated with different governance frameworks, existing or non-existing within developing countries. Regarding the procedure of ethics review, two approaches can be taken by research ethics committees (Bagheri 2001). In the first approach, there is a committee whose aim is to implement ethical codes in the form of a checklist, and the second, a research ethics committee that seeks to fulfill its obligations not only to protect the subject but also try to make sure that research subjects will benefits from their participation. In the later approach, they are aware that in reality it is possible that these ethical codes might be ticked, while still research subjects are at risk. There is no doubt that in order to ensure the rights and safety of persons and communities participating in clinical research the function of skilful and experienced research ethics committees are vital. As Peter Singer points out, revision of international ethical guidelines or any other research ethics code are unlikely to make research more ethical throughout the world without some means of strengthening capacity to promote and implement such standards. He continues by saying that strengthened capacity in research ethics is needed in both developed and developing countries,

though the need is particularly acute in developing countries (Singer 2001). The following paragraphs discuss some of the challenges that the research ethics committees should pay attention to while reviewing externally-sponsored research.

Fairness in subject selection It has been stated by many commentators that the selection of subjects for research must be fair. Ethical codes and guidelines for clinical research involving human subjects aim to minimize the possibility of exploitation by ensuring that research subjects are not merely used as means for the good of others. However the bitter history of clinical trials witnesses a breach into the well established ethical norm of “never simply use as means” (Beauchamp and Childress 2001), and shows that in some clinical research, human subjects were selected merely because researchers took advantage of their vulnerability, e.g., Tuskegee study and HIV/AIDS patients in Sub Saharan Africa. If we define vulnerability in the context of biomedical research, vulnerable people are those people who, for any reason, would be quite easy to take unfair advantage of and would not known or wouldn’t be able to resist or wouldn’t have any other better options. Fairness of subject selection at the micro level, concerns about inclusion and exclusion criteria in research methodology, and at the macro level, ethics review should be concerned about why this particular community or country has been approached for participation in clinical trial. Vulnerability raises a red flag as far as morality is concerned, however, it does not itself indicate any wrong and unfair practice. Research ethics committee in the sponsoring country should outline under what circumstances it is appropriate for research institutes to conduct research in resource-poor settings. Local research ethics committees should look at the primary basis for determining the subject group and reasons why this particular (vulnerable community)



Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

has been approached for this particular clinical trial. They should determine why this particular population has been chosen as research participants (especially if it is not related to their health need). They should make sure that the potential participants are not chosen merely because of their availability, vulnerability, and disadvantage. In another words they have to make sure that the “community” has not been chosen as “preferred research subjects.”

The Scientific Merit of the Clinical research This is another very important issue to which local ethics committees should pay careful attention. However, it is controversial whether scientific review should be done by an ethics review committee or a separate committee should be responsible for scientific review. For instance, in response to the EU directive on clinical trials, recent policy in the UK has distinguished between two type of review, scientific and ethical (Dawson and Yentis 2007). However science/ethics distinction is not required by international guidelines such as, the Helsinki Declaration (B.13) and CIOMS (Guideline 2) which do not suggest that a study’s scientific aspects should be reviewed separately. If one of the major responsibilities of research ethics committees is to assess the risks and benefits of the proposed research, it is necessary for those committees to evaluate the proposed research for scientific validity as well. This does not require the committee to undertake a peer scientific review. However, the committee, either through its own expertise or outside consultants, should understand the background, aims, and research methods sufficiently to address the ethical issues. Given the research infrastructure in developing countries, local ethics committees should be responsible for this task to review the scientific merit of externally-sponsored research. Obviously, if needed, they should seek external expertise on the research topic to make sure that the protocol is

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scientifically sound. For instance, a critical question would be under what situations randomization and the use of placebos are ethical, and how to balance scientific and public health needs with ethics requirements in choosing a study design.

Post-trial access to Effective Interventions Another controversial issue which hit the debate is post-trial responsibility of researchers and sponsors. The question of what happens when the research is over and post trial obligations of researchers and sponsors became the topic of the sixth annual meeting of the Global Forum on Bioethics in Research in 2005 in Africa (GFBR 2005). Lessons from the experience of AZT trials in Africa and Asia in 1990s (Macklin 2001) brought the critical issue of ensuring post-trial access to the interventions proven to be effective for the local community. As it has been stressed by international guidelines, researchers should endeavor to secure post-trial access to effective interventions for all the participants in the trial who could benefit (Nuffield Council on Bioethics, 2002). Moreover, paragraph 19 of the Declaration of Helsinki World Medical Association (WMA) reads as: “Medical research is only justified if there is a reasonable likelihood that the populations in which the research is carried out stand to benefit from the results of the research.” (Declaration of Helsinki, Paragraph 19, 2000). In a note of clarification, paragraph 30 of the declaration of Helsinki, the World Medical Association (WMA) gives the responsibility to ethics review committee to ensure that post-trial access is described to the study protocol. This paragraph lays down that at the conclusion of a study, every patient who is part of the study should be assured of access to the best proven prophylactic, diagnostic and therapeutic methods identified by the study (Declaration of Helsinki Paragraph 30, 2004).

Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

Although there is a general consensus that participants should benefit from taking part in research there is controversy over how long, who and how should post-trial access to the research outcome be provided. However Pharmaceutical companies raised this concern with the suggestion that research sponsors should be routinely obliged to provide treatments to participants when the trial is over (GSK Position Paper 2006). Local research ethics committees should determine what types of promises of future care or relationships ought to be in place and what types of benefits must be offered to a relatively disadvantaged population in order for the research to be ethical. As the products of clinical trials will be patented, ethics committees should pay special attention to the issue of intellectual property rights regimes. It is important that this be negotiated with the sponsors at the beginning.

the relevance of sponsored research to the National research Priorities There is a general consensus that research should be relevant to the population in which it is conducted. The relevance of research to the health need of the society is another important issue which has to be determined by the research ethics committee. However, many developing countries have a limited capacity to determine national health research priorities. One of the concerns is that the externally-sponsored research does not necessarily reflect the national research priorities in developing countries. In developed countries the priority setting in clinical research has been left to the funding agencies and their interests. Obviously there are enough compelling reasons for a pharmaceutical company to initiate a clinical trial in a resource-rich country. However this would be a task for ethics committee to find out whether an externally-sponsored research protocol would address the urgent health need of their society.

Most of the collaborative research undertaken by pharmaceutical companies in developing countries involves clinical trials. Priorities for national research may be of little relevance to a company that wishes to test a new medicine. In such circumstances, questions arise about the extent to which external sponsors are guided by national priorities when making decisions about research sponsorship. As many external sponsors fund individual researchers rather than national institutions, it is important to raise awareness about priorities for national research at the local level. Instead of research priority in host countries, pharmaceutical companies are concerned with the availability of suitable participants, the availability of high quality collaborators, and appropriate research infrastructure to conduct their clinical trials. The national priorities for research related to healthcare identified by a host country may have little bearing on if and where a company decides to locate its clinical trials. Many funding agencies have their own approaches for the identification of areas which merit support (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2005). It should be noted that the limited resources available within developing countries may exacerbate the problems faced. However, the research ethics committees should determine the priority for collaboration in the projects that align with national health policies of the respective countries

Risk/Benefit Assessment As the aim of clinical research is to find out new therapeutic methods, drugs and so on, this is not free from risks and subjects are exposed to potential harms. The assessment of risks and benefits, based on the principle of beneficence has been emphasized by international ethical guidelines (Belmont Report 1979). However, the critical point here is that, a research ethics committee does weigh “more benefits” or “avoiding harm” in their risk-benefit assessment. In other words,



Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

if they take “more benefits” to the larger population (society) as the standard in their assessment, then it will be readily justifiable to expose the subjects to harm under the pretext of more benefits for society. This approach may expose research participants to a greater risk especially in vaccine trials. As De Castro points out by putting some people at risk of harm for the good of others, clinical research has the potential for exploitation of human subjects (De Castro 1995). However, if a research ethics committee gives more weight to avoiding harm to the subjects instead of more benefits to the larger population in their risk-benefit assessment, then they will do their best to protect the subjects against impending risks and search for strategies to minimize the harm and try to identify alternative methods (Bagheri 2001). As suggested, research ethics committees should try to minimize the risks within the context of standard clinical practice, and also try to enhance potential benefits (Emanuel et al 2000).

cONcLUsION Ethics in research, especially dealing with externally-sponsored research, is a relatively new subject and under development in many countries. However, there is a lack of empirical data to show the functions of ethics committees regarding externally-sponsored research. In order to protect individual human subjects and local communities, capacity building in ethics review especially in research collaborations with other countries, is vital and it has to be included in ethics in research programs. However any initiative in this regard should be based on understanding of the current situation in ethics review of externally-sponsored research through empirical data. Capacity building is just as crucial for ethics committees in sponsoring (developed) countries in order to deepen their understanding and analysis of the ethical issues of research conducted in international settings.



Along with other more general issues in ethics review, research ethics committees should pay special attention to: fairness in subject selection, scientific validity, post-trial access, the relevance of the research question to the needs of the local community, and risk/benefit assessment while reviewing externally-sponsored research. Given the complexity of the issues, assigning the national ethics committee or an ethics committee specifically charged with the task of reviewing externally-sponsored proposals would bring better results in protecting human subjects as well as ensuring benefit-sharing with the local community.

rEFErENcEs Alliance for Human Research Protection. (2000). Harvard-Anhui case. Retrieved June 12, 2007, from http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/1200/20. php Bagheri A. (2001). Ethical codes in medical research and the role of ethics committees in the protection of human subjects. Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, 11, 8-10. Bagheri A, & Macer D. (2005). Ethics review on externally-sponsored research in Japan. Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, 15, 138-40. Bagheri A. (2004). Ethical issues in collaborative international medical research. Iranian Journal of Diaetes and Lipid Disorders, Supplement Ethics in Clinical Research, 4, 59-70. Beauchamp, T L., & Childress, J F. (2001). Principles of biomedical ethics. 5th ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Belmont Report. (1979). Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research. Retrieved June 12, 2007, from http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/belmont.htm

Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

Dawson A J., Yentis S M., (2007). Consenting the science/ethics distinction in the review of clinical research. Journal of Medical Ethics, 33, 165-167.

Kass N., Dawson L., & Loyo-Berrios N. ( 2003). Ethical oversight of research in developing countries. IRB Ethics & Human Research, 25(2), 1-10.

De Castro Leonardo. (1995). Exploitation in the use of human subject for medical experimentation. Bioethics, 9, 259-268.

Li B F. (2004). Informed consent in research involving human subjects, The Journal of Clinical Ethics, 15(1), 35-37.

Declaration of Helsinki. (2000). World Medical Association. Retrieve March 10, 2007, from http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm

Lurie P., & Wolfe S M., (1997). Unethical trials of interventions to reduce perinatal transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus in developing countries. New England Journal of Medicine, 337(12), 853-856.

Declaration of Helsinki, Paragraph 30. (2004). Retrieved June 12, 2007, from http://www.wma. net/e/ethicsunit/helsinki.htm/ Emanuel E J., David W., & Christine G. (2000). What makes clinical research ethical? Journal of American Medical Association, 283, 2701-2711. Global Forum for Health Research (2004). The 10/90 report on health research. (fourth report). Retrieved March 1, 2007, from http://www.globalforumhealth.org/Site/000_Home.php Greenwald R A., Ryan M K., & Mulvihill J E., (1982). Human subjects research: a handbook for institutional review boards. New York, Plenum Press. GlaxoSmithKline. (2006). Position paper on global public policy issue. A publication of GlaxoSmithKline government affairs, Europe & Corporate. Retrieved June 13, 2007, from http:// www.gsk.com/responsibility/Downloads/clinical_trials_in_the_developing_world.pdf

Macklin R. (2001). After Helsinki: Unresolved issues in international research, Kennedy Institute Ethics Journal, 11(1), 17-36. Milford C., Wassenaar D., & Slack C. (2006). Resources and Needs of Research Ethics Committees in Africa: Preparation for HIV vaccine trials, IRB Ethics & Human Research, 28(2), 1-9. Moreno J D. (2001). Goodbye to all that: the end of moderate protectionism in human subject research, The Hasting Center Report, 31(3), 9-17. Nuffield Council on Bioethics. (2002). The ethics of research related to healthcare in developing countries, London: Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Nuffield Council on Bioethics. (2005). A follow up discussion paper: The ethics of research related to healthcare in developing countries. London: Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

Global Forum on Bioethics in Research. (2005). What happens when the research is over? Post trial obligations of researchers and sponsors. Sixth annual meeting, Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.gfbronline.com/

Onvomaha P T., Kass N., & Akweongo P. (2006). The informed consent process in a rural African settings: A case study of the Kasena-Nankana District of Northern Ghana. IRB Ethics and Human Research, 28(3), 1-6.

Hydar A A. & Wali S A., ( 2006). Informed consent and collaborative research: Perspectives from the developing world. Developing World Bioethics, 6(1), 33-40.

Moreno J. (2001). Undue Risk: Secret state experiments on humans. New York: Routledge.



Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

Powell T. (2006). Cultural context in medical ethics: Lessons from Japan. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, 1(4).

Weijer C. & Anderson J A., (2001). The ethics wars; disputes over international research. The Hasting Center Report, 31(3), 18-20.

Singer P. (2001). Beyond Helsinki- A vision for global health ethics: Improving ethical behavior depends on strengthening capacity. British Medical Journal, 322, 747–8.

Wichman A., Kalyan D N., Abbott L J., Wasley R., & Sandler A L. (2006). Protecting human subject in the NIH’s Intramural research program: A draft instrument to evaluate convened meetings of its IRBs. IRB Ethics and Human Research, 28(3), 7-10.

Takashi T. (2000). Why Japanese doctors performed human experiments in China 1933-1945. Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, 10, 179-180. The Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) in collaboration with the World Health Organization. (2002). International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects. Retrieved March 10, 2007, from http://www.cioms.ch/frame_guidelines_nov_2002.htm The Lancet. (1997). The ethics industry. The Lancet (editorial), 350(9082). The National Bioethics committee. (1998). UNESCO, Division of the Ethics of Science and Technology, Paris, 20 May. The participants in the 2001 conference on ethics aspects of research in developing countries, moral standards for research in developing countries: From reasonable availability to fair benefits. (2004). The Hasting Center Report, 34(3), 17-27. UNAIDS: Ethical considerations in HIV preventive vaccine research. (2000). Retrieved June 12, 2007, from http://data.unaids.org/Publications/ IRC-pub01/JC072-EthicalCons_en.pdf Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. (2005). Retrieved March 10, 2007, from http://portal.unesco.org/en West, D. (1998). Radiation experiments on children at the fernal and Wrentham schools: Lessons for protocols in human subject research, Accountability in Research, 6(1-2), 103-125. 

KEY tErMs Clinical Trial: a prospective biomedical or behavioral research study of human subjects that is designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions (drugs, treatments, devices, or new ways of using known drugs, treatments, or devices). Clinical trials are used to determine whether new biomedical or behavioral interventions are safe, efficacious, and effective. Control Group: The standard by which experimental observations are evaluated. In many clinical trials, one group of patients will be given an experimental drug or treatment, while the control group is given either a standard treatment for the illness or a placebo. Externally-Sponsored Research: refers to research conducted, in whole or in part, by a foreign sponsor. It also can be part of a collaborative multinational or bilateral research project to be carried out in a developing country. The common feature of these projects is that the research protocol has been designed or funded in a developed country while human subjects are recruited from a developing country. Human Subject: a living individual about whom an investigator conducting research obtains: Data through intervention or interaction with the individual or Identifiable private information

Ethics Review on Externally-Sponsored Research in Developing Countries

Informed Consent: The process of learning the key facts about a clinical trial before deciding whether or not to participate. It is also a continuing process throughout the study to provide information for participants. Placebo: A placebo is an inactive pill, liquid, or powder that has no treatment value. In

clinical trials, experimental treatments are often compared with placebos to assess the treatment’s effectiveness. Standard of Care: Treatment regimen or medical management based on state of the art participant care.





Chapter IX

Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research Gerrhard Fortwengel University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria Herwig Ostermann University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria Verena Stuehlinger University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria Roland Staudinger University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Austria

abstract At the beginning of this section the authors provide a definition of biomedical research and an interpretation of the meaning of ethics and social values of research. They continue with the introduction of the risk-benefit approach as basic requirement for any biomedical research involving human subjects and illustrate the need for uniformity with respect to social and ethical issues. The differences and similarities between social and ethical research are described in the core section; social and ethical aspects are presented according to central and peripheral dimensions. In reference to specific areas of research in biomedical science it is exemplary shown that more general principles are not sufficient to cover all types of research, and that depending on research characteristics, the techniques used and the purpose of the research, other specific aspects might need to be considered as well. The chapter ends with a short conclusion calling for continued reflection and review of social and ethical issues speeding an age of fast changes in science and technologies to thereby ensure proper protection of the individual and the best future for society. Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

DEFINItION OF sOcIaL aND EtHIcaL asPEcts OF bIOMEDIcaL rEsEarcH This section focuses on the social and ethical dimensions of biomedical research and development. Biotechnology, including genetic engineering, as well as advances in areas such as but not limited to assisted reproductive technologies, organ transplantation, human genome analysis, gene therapy, and new recombinant DNA products do no longer belong to science fiction, but are our everyday reality and raise questions of social implications and ethics. All of these areas of biomedical research have added new dimensions to social and ethical issues and must be taken into consideration before evaluating their efficacy and safety and finally their benefit for the community. It is only possible to provide a basic introduction to social and ethical aspects of biomedical research and to some of its central issues. It is primarily intended to give an appreciation of the need for ongoing reflection on social and ethical aspects in this field of research.

biomedical research In general, the term “research” refers to activities that are designed to gain knowledge which can be generalized. Modified by the adjective “biomedical” indicates its relation to health. In the present context biomedical research should be recognized as research involving human subjects and does not include “pre-clinical” or ”post-marketing” research activities. Biomedical research is taken to mean specific actions conducted in a directed manner in order to gain knowledge in the field of biomedical science. Biomedical research comprises any study of specific diseases and conditions, either mental or physical. Those studies include detection of cause, prophylaxis, treatment and rehabilitation of subjects/patients. Biomedical research also means the design of methods, drugs and devices that are used for diagnosis and

to support the subject/patient after completion of study treatment for specific diseases or/and conditions. In addition, any necessary medical, scientific investigation to further understand the underlying life processes which might have an impact on the disease and the well-being of the subject/patient, such as cellular and molecular bases of diseases, genetics, and immunology, as well as laboratory investigations and/or exposure to environmental agentsa, should be understood part of biomedical research. Human individuality, the culture a subject belongs to, religion, and /or the rights and responsibilities of the individual subject are the natural boundaries to biomedical research. Those issues form the essential basis for the need to continuously reflect on social and ethical aspects whenever biomedical research is being discussed.

What Exactly is Ethics? Simply stated, ethics means the nature of morality, moral reasoning, and behavior, whereas morality is defined as the value dimension of human decision making and behavior. From a conceptual point of view a distinction is commonly made between meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Meta-ethics explores whether moral standards are relative and attempts to understand how values, reason for action, and individual motivation are connected. Normative ethics attempts to determine the content of morality and to provide guidance on moral behavior. Applied ethics deals with specific areas and attempts to identify criteria to be used as basis when discussing “ethical” questions coming out of those realms. Topics such as business ethics, engineering ethics, and bioethics are examples for applied ethics initiativesb c.

Ethics in biomedical research and Moral Pluralism Bioethics covers a broad spectrum of moral issues associated with (new) developments in biomedi-



Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

cal science. It is closely related to medical ethics, however, the scope of medical ethics is generally narrowed down to moral issues in medical practice. From a philosophical perspective on ethical implications of biomedical research one has to consider the nature of moral pluralism. Moral pluralism is the concept that moral values or moral judgments are not universal. Moral pluralism exists in a number of different forms. The commonly known form of moral pluralism is cultural relativism, which indicates that moral values and moral judgments differ between cultures. It further claims that no deeper or higher level of moral thinking exists to demonstrate any moral value of a specific culture to be wrong or less correct “which entails a rejection of foundationalism in ethics” [Holm, S. 2002]. A specific and viable form of moral pluralism is the so-called “negotiated universalism”. Whenever it comes to work with people from other, different cultures, values for a given context have to be defined as basis for the collaboration/cooperationd. With reference to biomedical research different types of documents exist, such as ethical codes or best practice guidelines, which are based on a negotiated universalism approach. Those guidance documents and/or guidelines do not always fully satisfy any moral philosophical requirement but constitute a set of shared values most parties involved can agree to. To establish bioethics models with global applicability is a demanding task, which requires aside from nuanced thinking continuous empirical investigations to observe real situations and to identity existing dilemmas.

the social value of biomedical research Discussions of the social value of any biomedical research project are based on the contribution to the well-being of society in general. Although it is widely agreed that scientific knowledge does not need any further justification and is valuable in itself, it must be considered that social values



compose a critical criterion for judging whether a biomedical research project should be funded when public resources are requested,. The Declaration of Helsinki, § 18 and 19, clearly states to give consideration to social value when evaluating biomedical research projects and requests a benefit from the results of the research for the population in which the research is carried out. It states further the research objectives have to outweigh the risks and burdens to research participants whereas it should be understood that the objectives include both scientific and social significance. The latter could be of particular importance in countries where clinical research is being conducted and subjects participating undergo additional risks and discomfort associated with the research, but e.g. the investigated drug is intended to be used elsewhere and is not aimed to benefit the researched populatione f.

The Concept of Risk - Benefit Any risks to subjects participating in research must be justified by anticipated benefits to the subjects or under specific circumstances to the society as a whole - the possibility for harm must not be as great as the option that individuals or society will benefit from the research. This requirement is clearly demanded in ethical codes associated with biomedical research and central to regulations and local lawsghi. Whenever the scientific merit and social worth of the research is beyond question, it must be demonstrated that the risks to the subjects/population participating in research are not disproportionate to an expected benefit of the research, even if this may not benefit the subjects directly. It should be noticed that the term risk is subject to two different interpretations. One simply refers to a numerical or quasi-numerical (1 in 100 and likely or less likely) probability that harm may occur. The second interpretation refers to the character of possible harm. However, expressions like small or high risk usually refer both to the

Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

probability as well as the magnitude and severity of the harm. The concept of risk-benefit and its relationship is described in different terms like “risk-benefit ratio” or “risk-benefit-relationship”; whereas the latter seems to be more appropriate as the riskbenefit relation, it is not strictly mathematical and rather to be taken as an assessment based on value judgment and general comparison categories commonly agreed uponj. Those categories include risks (potential harm) and potential benefits to be considered when assessing a research project. In general, benefit is defined as direct medical benefit to the research subject and/or as gaining further knowledge and major contribution factor to human health and well-being. Potential harm includes short term as well as long term physical harm, psychological harm, social harm, and economic harm. Thus, anxiety following a diagnosis of a genetic predisposition to an incurable disease may be considered psychological harm; the loss of confidentiality with regard to health conditions could lead to social harm; and the loss of insurance and/or employment based on research results are generally categorized as economic harm k. Ethical codes require a research project to be assessed between two extremes, a highly unlikely risk of small harm and a likely risk of a serious harm. The likely risk of small harm normally does not hinder the progress of a scientifically sound research project. The likely risk of serious harm is usually accepted if the research project is the ‘final straw’ for terminally ill participants. When a vulnerable population is involved, the nature and degree of risk is of significant importance aside from other variables which can demonstrate the appropriateness of involvementlm n. Finally it must be mentioned that a research project in humans should not be continued when the risks associated with the project are entirely unknown. Availability of reliable data on potential risks, either from laboratory studies and/or studies in animals, are essential prior to the initiation of research in man.

PrINcIPLEs OF sOcIaL aND EtHIcaL DIMENsIONs OF bIOMEDIcaL rEsEarcH From a social and ethical perspective, any biomedical research, using human beings as subjects, must be based on 3 key principles, purpose, conduct and evaluation; whereby purpose must be directed by increasing the knowledge about the human condition in relation to the health environment. Such research should be conducted in a manner that human subjects are treated conducive to and in consistency with their dignity and well being. Any such research has further to be subject to a regimentation at all stages, beginning with an independent careful review of the research proposal, the declaration of the research outcome after research completion, and any follow-up considerations thereof. These principles have equal moral force even when given different moral weight in particular circumstances. This section on social and ethical dimensions is directed at the application of these principles.

Differences and similarities between social and Ethical aspects The terms social and ethical aspects are often used to describe a variety of non-scientific issues in the evaluation of biomedical research. There is no clear-cut demarcation between the two areas; rather a third, a legal aspect needs to be added, and one has to be aware of the interaction between these three categories. As a matter of fact, legal issues are relevant to ethics, whereas ethical requirements are not always defined and controlled by legislation; just as many ethical issues have social relevance, but social necessities are not always morally relevant. In the present context social aspects are those that have an impact on community or cultural values and are likely to have an effect on the structure and relationships within a community. Ethical aspects refer to autonomy, respect for the subject, and beneficence, which is



Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

the obligation to maximize benefits and to minimize harm; non-maleficence refers to preventing harm to the research participants in particular and to the population in general, and justice is defined as obligation to treat each person in accordance with current, effective moral standards.

core and Peripheral Dimensions of social and Ethical aspects in biomedical research Based on the key principles, social and ethical aspects can be differentiated as core and peripheral dimensions. In doing so, it must be considered that according to categorization and circumstance their application may lead to a different course of actions. Tables 1 and 2 present the core and peripheral dimensions, as determined by the authors and their relationship to either social and/or ethical concerns, taking into account potential interactions between both areas.

Core Dimensions The following sections provide a brief background for each of the social and ethical dimensions de-

fined as core and peripheral dimensions by the authors, their use in practical and controversial discussion, and their direct application in biomedical research. Essentiality/Scientific Validity Any biomedical research entailing the use of human subjects must be absolutely essential and scientifically sound. Absolute essentiality and scientific value can only be defined after all alternatives based on existing knowledge in this area of research have been considered and after the biomedical research has been approved by an adequate authority as necessary for the advancement of knowledge as well as for the benefit of the communityo. The primary motive of research, a social activity, generally carried out for the benefit of society, must always be to maximize public interest and social justice. Generally accepted scientific principles form the basis of any biomedical research project involving humans. Those principles have much in common, but may differ depending on the specific topic of research. A thorough knowledge of scientific literature and other sources of information is essential to understand the scientific requirements and to

Table 1. Social and ethical core dimensions of biomedical research Core Dimension Essentiality/scientific validity

Social

Ethical

X

X

Ethical review

X

Informed consent / voluntariness

X

Non-exploitation / special populations

X

X

Benefit & precaution

X

X

Table 2. Social and ethical peripheral dimensions of biomedical research Peripheral Dimension

Social

Ethical

Privacy

X

Right of injured subjects to treatment and compensation

X

X

Responsibility, compliance and public interest

X

X

0

Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

comply with scientific principles applicable to research projects. As stated in The Nuremberg Code “The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful result … unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.” [The Nuremberg Code, 1949]. The Declaration of Helsinki (2004), section B 13, clearly requires that an experimental protocol include detailed information on design and performance of each research procedure. The question on how to verify essentiality and scientific validity can only be answered universally. A detailed protocol describes the objectives, design, methodology, statistical considerations, and the organization of the biomedical project p. A research project must be designed so it can produce statistically sound answers to scientific questions regarding the objectives of the research. An experimental protocol should furthermore provide background information and a rationale for the research enabling the scientific and ethical reviewers to understand the purpose and need for the research. Research involving human beings by nature raises questions of law and ethics and decision making regarding essentiality and scientific justification is a narrow path of weighing legitimate public concerns against possible scientific innovations for the benefit of the society. Ethical Review For some decades, Research Ethics Committees or Institutional Review Boards, the North American equivalent (EC/IRB) have played an important role in the assessment of biomedical research projects involving human subjects. Ethical standards have been developed and established in several international guidelines, including the Declaration of Helsinki, the CIOMS International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects, and the WHO & ICH Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice. Adherence to these guidelines, as well as to national legislation, is mandatory to protect the dignity, rights, safety, and well being of research participants

and that results of the research will be credible. Ethics committees must be multi-disciplinary and multi-sectorial to provide a comprehensive and complete review of the research proposal. They should include not only physicians, scientists and other professionals, such as lawyers and ethicists, but also lay persons as well as men and women in order to better represent all cultural and moral values of society. Whenever an Ethics committee has to evaluate a research proposal (e.g. a very rare disease involving specific populations, such as children or elderly), the EC might consider inviting relevant representatives or advocates to hear their points of views. Independence and competence are the two cornerstones of any ethical review of a biomedical research project. In order to maintain independence from the research team and avoid conflict of interest, any member with a direct or indirect interest in the research project must not be involved in the assessment. Although not common practice members of the EC should follow standards of disclosure with regard to financial or other interest that could lead to a conflict of interest. Based on the disclosure statement to be signed by each member of the EC appropriate action could be taken if needed. Methods to be used for an ethical evaluation must be appropriate to the objectives of the research and the procedure outlining the steps of the review process must be available in writing. It should be noted that scientific and ethical reviews can not be separated since scientifically unsound research by exposing human beings to risk without purpose is de facto unethical. Therefore it is the role of the EC to consider both the scientific and ethical aspects. If the composition of the EC does not include the necessary expertise, it must be ensured that a scientific review by a competent body of experts precedes the ethical scrutiny. The EC must then evaluate whether known or possible risks are justified when weighed against expected direct or indirect benefits, and whether the research methods as proposed in the research protocol will minimize harm and maximize benefit. After



Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

verification of these requirements, the proposed procedures for the selection of subjects and for obtaining their consent must be reviewed and evaluated for equitability. In addition, the qualification of the research team and the conditions of the research site must be assessed in order to ensure the safe conduct of the research project. The findings of this review prior to initiation of the research project must be outlined in writing for the research applicant; and the EC is obliged to keep appropriate documentation of the entire review process for a certain period of time, as outlined in the best practice guidelines or in accordance with the local regulations. After approval of the project until its completion the EC has a continuing responsibility to regularly monitor the project for ethical compliance. Such ongoing reviews according to the Declaration of Helsinki and other international guidelines for biomedical research, are so far not routinely or sufficiently implemented but are of great importance in order to safeguard the welfare and rights of research participants and community. In this context it must be mentioned that Ekes do not have the authority to sanction violations of ethical standards. However, the EC is empowered to withdraw ethical approval for a project when appropriate and thereby stop or interrupt a research project q r s t u v w x y. Informed Consent/Voluntariness The principles of informed consent and voluntariness are the basis for any biomedical research. Participating subjects must be fully informed about the research project and of the risks involved. There is also an obligation to keep the subjects informed about any new developments as they might have an impact on their decision whether to continue or withdraw from the study. Nature and form of the consent must follow international standards and local regulationsz. Consent is valid only when freely given, assuming that the subject understands the nature and possible consequences of the research. The subject’s consent must be obtained prior to any research related activity /



procedure. ICH GCP, section 4.8.10, details the obligations of the researcher in obtaining consent and clearly defines the areas to be covered in the information provided to the potential research subject; both, in writing and in verbal communication. Data privacy regulations are detailed in the European Data Protection Directiveaa and the HIPAA (Protecting Personal Health Information in Research)ab, such as which data relating to the subject can be processed and provided to other locations. The manner and context in which information about a study is provided is as important as the information itself. The written informed consent should be clearly written and the language used in oral discussion should be as non-technical as practical. The research project should be explained in an organized fashion rather than giving a ritual recitation of the written document, allowing the subject time for questions of concern. The researcher must convey the information in a language that suits the subjects´ capacity of understanding, bearing in mind the subjects´ age, his maturity, level of education and other factors such as temporary confusion, panic, fatigue, pain, underlying illness and possible effects of medication. It is critical to the consent process that the researcher not only responds to questions but also asks questions. Posing questions can help the subject to think carefully about the study, and can help the investigator to decide whether the person has adequately understood the study. It is most important that the study subject understands his right to withdraw the consent at any time during the course of the study without having to provide a reason, without penalty, and without loosing medical benefit. The consent form must be dated and signed by the subject and by the person conducting the interview. A witness may be required to date and sign the consent (e.g. in case the subject cannot read or write), thereby attesting that the requirements for informed consent have been satisfied and that consent is voluntary and freely given without any element of force, coercion, or undue

Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

influence. A witness must be an adult who is not a member of the research team and not a family member of the subject. The Informed Consent Process is outlined in standard documents, such as the Declaration of Helsinki and The Belmont Reportac, and Good Clinical Practices guidelines and is subject to local regulations. From a legal perspective, three prerequisites must be met before a consent can be declared valid: • • •

Does the person consenting have legal capacity? Was the consent given freely? Was the person sufficiently informed about possible risks?

The third element, whether sufficient information was provided to the subject prior to consent, will not be discussed in this context as any information given to a potential research participant is subject to ethical review which ensures a proper information sheet was developed. Legal capacity is based on respect for individual autonomy, the subject must be perceived as reasonable, rational or sensible who may make a decision based on his personal values and beliefs. Legal capacity is not an all or none faculty issue. The more difficulty the subject has to comprehend the less likely he will have the necessary capacity to decide. Depending on the complexity and gravity of a decision, different levels of capacity may be required. From a legal perspective, it is the researchers´ responsibility to ensure that each potential research subject is provided with adequate, understandable, and relevant information for her/his decision making. The barriers to gaining informed consent can be grouped into two categories: subject centered and process centered. According to Taylorad, subject-centered barriers include such issues as age, level of education and the subjects´ illness. These characteristics may diminish subjects´ capacity to understand, evaluate and decide, thus undermin-

ing their ability to consent. As the importance of age is obvious to autonomy and competence in decision-making, so is the level of education with respect to the ability to understand and recall informationae. Patients who are ill may be less able to provide adequate informed consent, as illness is often accompanied by other factors such as fear, stress and pain or by effects of current medical treatment; all of which may reduce the capacity to give consentaf. Process-centered barriers refer to the timing of consent, the way information is provided, and to the type and complexity of information made available to the potential research participant. The time allocated for discussion and for subjects to ask questions, the time allocated to make a final decision, as well as the readability, the content, and the quantity of the information provided may cause obstacles associated with the process. Having a choice and other options available is essential and forms the basis for autonomy and voluntariness. Consent is no longer valid if coercion, threats, fear, force, misrepresentation, and/or deception were involved in obtaining it. Voluntariness might be questioned when the potential study subject feels obliged to his/her physician or when there is a dependent relationship with the researcher (e.g. student-teacher, nurse-physician) or if the subject is a family member of the researcher. Such cases may be acceptable if the informed consent was obtained by a well-informed researcher or physician, who is completely independent and not himself engaged in the project Although payment to study subjects is generally undesirable, payments legally invalidate a subject’s consent only if obvious disproportionate to time and effort involved. Special attention must be paid to the consent process involving a legal representative of the subject. The term “legally authorized representative” is not applicable in all countries and whenever ‘vulnerable’ subjects are to be included in research, it should be detailed in the research protocol how the consent will be obtained. The proposed method



Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

is evaluated during the ethical review process, and any modifications needed/recommended by the EC/IRB are documented in writing as part of the approval/refusal letterag. Non-Exploitation / Special Population Involvement in biomedical research must be irrespective of social and economic status of the potential research participant, including literacy and level of education. As a cardinal principle biomedical research must exclude arbitrariness, discrimination or caprice. Beside the already mentioned aspects the following subsections concentrate on special subject groups. Pregnant or Nursing Women In general, pregnant and nursing women should be excluded from any kind of biomedical research, with the exception when the object of the research is to gain further knowledge on how to better protect the health of pregnant or nursing women or the fetus. The justification of participation of the pregnant women in biomedical research is more complex as two lives might be affected by risks and benefit. Whenever research is designed to potentially affect the fetus, the informed consent of the mother should desirably be accompanied by the fathers consent to accept any possible risks. Any research covering a realistic potential that fetal abnormality may occur as a consequence of the research is unethical per se and can only be justified by strong medical arguments to be decided upon by authorized bodies in a case-bycase approach. Special attention must be paid to the woman´s health in societies where the woman´s life is valued less than the well-being of the fetus based on cultural and religious beliefsah. Special ethical and legal safeguards might be needed to prevent any ethically unacceptable procedure to the expectant mother to enroll in this type of research. Research with regard to pre-natal diagnostic techniques and treatments are ethically limited (e.g., detection of fetal abnormalities or genetic disorders) but should exclude certain factors, such



as e.g. sex determination. Whenever a research protocol is designed to likely include pregnant women, the protocol should include specifications on how and how long the pregnancy and health of mother and child will be monitored. Biomedical research with the objective to terminate a pregnancy could be ethically acceptable under very limited circumstances as long as it meets predefined and ethically approved requirements and on the condition that the pregnant woman wishes to undergo a termination of her pregnancy. Timing and procedure must be based on the sole consideration for the mother’s safety and must not be influenced by potential use of embryonic or fetal tissue. With respect to nursing women a research project should not request women to stop breast-feeding, unless the harm to the child has been medically and ethically properly assessed and is adequately documented. Embryo / Fetus Any research related to human embryos has been and will remain a controversial topic. Individuals belonging to different segments of the society may have different opinions on this issue, based on their own value system and strong beliefsai. Ethical concerns include the acquisition of embryos and at what stage of development an embryo should be considered a human being. There are two options of acquiring an embryo; the use of embryonic tissue following termination of an unwanted pregnancy and the creation of embryos explicitly for research. Even if the first option seems to be ethically less problematic, there are specific compliance requirements which might be problematic, such as the donor’s informed consent and the ensurance of the donor’s privacy and confidentiality. With regard to the second option, embryonic state refers to days 15 to 8 weeks post-conception. Before day 15 the embryonic cells are not isomorph and the period is defined as pre-embryo phase. Embryos of 15 days (after fertilization) or older must not be used for research purposes by lawaj, excluding the period in which

Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

an embryo might have been frozen. Despite the fact that embryo research might have benefits and lead to new therapeutic options, particularly embryonic stem cell research, the use of human embryos is under strict regulations, however, discussions on the topic and the call for adapting current regulations continue. Research related to the human fetus is mainly directed at prenatal testing to detect abnormalities in the fetus. The acceptance of this type of research is self-evident if it is relevant to fetus or mother. From as social point of view pre-natal diagnostic research may help prepare parents for a disabled child, however human and financial resources must be considered as well. An aborted fetus which is alive is considered a person by law, independent from the gestational age, and consequently must not be used in biomedical research of any kind, and must not be kept on artificial life support for the purpose of research. Children / Minors Ethical and moral implications of the involvement of children in biomedical research projects have been controversialak al am an. In the present context the needs for children or minors must be specifically defined as age related development phases might have a significant impact on the results of biomedical research. Phases of child development are generally defined as followsao: • • • • •

Premature baby: Prior completion of 37th week of pregnancy Newborn: From birth until day 28 Infant: Day 29 until age of 2 Child:Age > 2 until age 11 Adolescent: Age > 11 until age 17

Biomedical research must consider the characteristic developmental physiology, pharmacology, and toxicology of each of these phases. Of major concern is a child’s competence and ability to protect his/her own interestsap. Children have been only rarely involved in biomedical research,

particularly in drug development, therefore, marketed drugs are often administered to children as off-label useaq, without sufficient safety and efficacy data, and without information of dosage regimens suitable to a child’s physiology. Today there is wide agreement that children must not be excluded from research and, that after carefully weighing risks and benefits, exposure to investigational drugs and/or various types of investigational biomedical procedures may be justifiedar, if such research has the potential to gain further knowledge relevant to the health and/needs of children in the age groups concerned. Children as vulnerable subjects are unable to give consent, therefore a research protocol designed to enrol children should clearly outline the role and responsibilities of legal representatives and the conditions and principles which apply. Functioning as legal representative implies acting in the best interest of the child and this certainly includes the protection from potential risks. The potential risks in participating in a research project must be weighed against the risks in taking medication that has not been sufficiently tested in the paediatric population. In the context of children participating in research it must furthermore be distinguished between consent, and assent when demonstrating willingness to participate in a project. While consent implies that the subject has given a´ fully valid declaration of intent, assent implies the declaration was given by someone with limited cognitive, and/or emotional capacities. This leads to the question at which age a child is regarded as competent to give consent; the answer differs considerably from one jurisdiction to another. A deliberate objection from an adolescent might be interpreted differently from the opinion of 5 year-old child. However from an ethical perspective the refusal of a child of any age to participate in research should be respected, if appropriate. Performing research in children dictates other requirements, such as an appropriate setting with psychological and medical support for child and parents, paediatric formulations to allow accu-



Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

rate dosing, facilitate consumption and enhance compliance, and protection of confidentiality (also from parents), particularly where adolescents are concerned or when social information is obtained. Children compared to adults take the highest risk but also have the most to gain; any intervention can have long-lasting harm or long-lasting benefit. An open dialogue directed by paediatric health care needs is required between all parties involved, including authorities, ECs, researchers, and subjects´ advocacy groups to further develop a secure environment for children participating in research. Other Vulnerable Groups The term “vulnerable subjects” in the present context refers to individuals who are incapable of protecting their own interests and who are unable by virtue of physical or mental capacity to give informed consentas, whereas incapability could be of temporary nature. From a broader perspective a vulnerable community includes persons or populations less economically developed with limited access to health care and treatment options, persons discriminated due to their health status, and any person in a dependent relationship, such as employees, patients, health care professionals, prisoners, students and service personnel who might have reduced autonomy when being asked to participate in a research programat au. The language and the content of the information provided and the procedure to obtain informed consent must be particularly sensitive to subjects belonging to a vulnerable sub-population. As a general principle subjects who by reason of cognitive and mental impairment are not capable of giving adequately consent, must not be included in any research that might equally be carried out on individuals not impaired in giving consent. Following the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (Article 17 [2] in conjunction with



article 16 of the addendum protocol) researching incapable subjects requires that the results of the research have the potential to produce real and direct benefit to the subjects´ health (therapeutic research), and the person concerned does not object. In case the research has NOT the potential to produce results of direct benefit (non-therapeutic research), the inclusion is permitted if: •

•

The research may benefit other persons in the same category or afflicted with the same disease or disorder. The research entails only minimal risk and minimal burden for the research individual.

Only minimal risk is involved if it can be expected that the research will result, at the most, in a very slight and temporary negative impact on the health of the person concerned. Minimal burden refers to the expectation that the discomfort will be, at the most, temporary and very slight for the person concernedav. If a subject is unconscious or the decision to make an objective choice might be affected or influenced by social, cultural, economic, psychological or medical factors, particular attention must be paid to ensure autonomy and voluntariness as fundamentals for a legally valid consent. This requires and stresses the importance of an ongoing monitoring by the EC, which would allow the earliest detection of any violations against those principles and the implementation of corrective actions as needed, thereby protecting the rights and well-being of the researched subjects. Benefit and Precaution As a principle rule it must be ensured that any research subject or those affected by it are put at minimum risk. Due care and circumspection at all stages and ongoing ethical review are the minimum precautions necessary. It becomes even more complex when considering that there is a fine line between (bio)medical practice and bio-

Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

medical research, which is not always clear. The well-being of the subject should be the primary objective, on the other hand is the importance of gaining further scientific knowledge. In most situations both goals are satisfied at the same time. As a matter of fact, this situation led to specific definitions of “therapeutic” versus “nontherapeutic” research. Therapeutic research refers by definition to an experiment with the potential for a direct benefit for the research subject. Nontherapeutic research is defined as research for the benefit of others. An even further distinction of non-therapeutic research has been introduced, the so called “group-benefit research”. These research projects do not provide any benefit to the researched subject but have a potential benefit for an entire group the test person might belong to, e.g. a group of persons with a specific disease or of a specific age. The concept of group-benefit is ethically difficult to accept. Critics point out that a test person cannot automatically take on a groupbased sense of solidarity with other research beneficiaries [Heinrichs, B., 2006]. Even if this topic is of significant value when discussing biomedical research involving minors, some general issues must be addressed to come to a common level of understanding. Healthy volunteers, participating in a biomedical research project, are participating by definition in non-therapeutic research, i.e. they will not benefit directly from the research. From an ethical perspective, the risk to which healthy volunteers might be exposed must be only minimal and the use of volunteers should not be excessive. Volunteers are prompted to enroll in biomedical research programs for various reasons including for scientific and idealistic motives. To comply with the basics of ethical conduct no overt or covert coercion must be involved. Some medical interventions performed as part of research projects must be defined as non-therapeutic such as e.g. surgery on live donors for organ transplant, or aesthetic surgery, which may be classified as therapeutic in case of psychological indications. In conclusion, the difficulties associated

with non-therapeutic research and the feeling of solidarity depends on legality. Changes in public policies allow such research under strict conditions as defined in local regulations and ethical standardsaw ax ay.

Peripheral Dimensions Peripheral dimensions should be seen as complementary to the core dimensions and as secondary criteria of the social and ethical aspects which form the foundation for a comprehensive perspective. Privacy Participation in research must ensure confidentiality at any stage. No disclosure of identity or personal data must be made available to any third party without written consent of the subject concerned (or his/her legal representative), even if deemed essential. Personal data includes the medical history of the subject provided during the initial interview, as well as information obtained through medical procedures, investigations, and the examination of body tissues. In the context of biomedical research collection of such data is subject to approval by an EC and the consent by the subject of research. Under specific circumstances data which has been routinely collected by public registries, such as data on death, could be of value to biomedical research, especially during followup programs. Disclosure of such data is generally governed by national legislationsaz ba. In the case of large epidemiological studies it may be impracticable to obtain consent from each identifiable subject for the planned data collection from medical or other records and an ethics committee may waive the requirement for informed consent as long as the collection of data is in accordance with applicable laws and confidentiality is safeguarded. Any research using biological samples requires either the subject’s consent or full anonymization of the sample. However, the subjects´ consent is essential whenever the result of sample analysis



Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

must be linked with the subject, even if encryption and restricted access is used. Right to Treatment and Compensation for Injured Subjects The topic concerns two distinct but related issues. The first one is the entitlement to free medical treatment for any accidental injury caused by procedures or interventions explicitly executed as part of the research. The second one is material compensation for death or disability as a direct outcome of research participation. Free medication and compensation is usually not provided for subjects who have suffered expected or foreseen adverse events/reactions to standard medical care with an investigational product or established diagnostic or preventive interventions. Implementing a compensation system for injuries or death related to research is certainly a non-easy task and the involvement of the ethical review committee is essential. It should be the EC´ responsibility to identify injuries, disability, or handicaps to be compensated with free medical treatment and respectively to define any injuries, disability, or handicaps for which no compensation is justified,. Those decisions are project specific and must be individually tailored. Ideally these determinations should be made in advance, but by nature there will also be unexpected or unforeseen adverse reactions. Adverse reactions should be defined per se as compensatable, but they should be referred at onset to the ethical board for review and confirmation. The subject must be informed of the detailed process and entitlement regarding free treatment and compensation (without any legal action to be taken) as part of the informed consent procedure. By no means should the subjects be asked to waive their right to compensation. The sponsor of the research project must seek appropriate insurance to cover compensations for risks. The insurance coverage must be carefully reviewed by an ethical board prior to providing the green light for the start of the projectbb.



Responsibility, Compliance and Public Interest Scientific and moral responsibility, based on internationally accepted guidelines and local regulations, applies to all who are directly or indirectly involved in a research project. The target group includes the researchers themselves who are operationally in charge, but also those responsible for funding, the institution where the research is being conducted, and any involved persons who might benefit from the research, such as individual sponsorsbc. Given the fact that human subjects are “used” as “research tools” and that the findings could have a wide impact on the provision of health services, social acceptance is of high value when planning biomedical research, supported not only by the research community but the society as a whole. Social acceptance can be increased through clearly defined roles and responsibilities of the involved operators and through clearly specified regulatory and ethical review mechanism to ensure efficiency and integrity of the research project. To gain greater public confidence appropriate information channels are of significance and can promote the understanding for the need of biomedical research. Publications of research findings must not raise false expectations in the society or any sub-population thereof; premature reports or advertising stunts are out of place. As important as free access is to the findings of research as crucial is the maintenance of privacy and confidentiality of subjects participating in the research. If the identification of a subject is of imminent importance to the publication, such as slides or photographs, prior consent from the subject must be obtainedbd be. Ongoing supervision by competent bodies is essential after initial approval to ensure the risk-benefit balance and that the research is performed as defined in the research protocol as approved by EC and health authorities. Changes in all aspects of research activity or conduct must be approved and/or submitted to the EC prior to its implementation. Any non-compliance with this requirement must be reported to the EC and may lead to further

Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

action by the ethical review board. Based on the nature of the violation, the ethical approval may be withdrawn and the project may be stopped. The interest of science and society should never take precedence over considerations for the wellbeing of the subjectsbf.

areas in biomedical research with a Need for Specific Considerations Aside from being subject to more general social and ethical considerations as outlined before, some areas in the field of biomedical research require a specific approach. The following section points out that social and/or ethical perception of biomedical research must be neither exhaustive nor static. While the principles discussed so far are applicable to the whole field of biomedical research there are concerns associated with specific research that must be more closely observed and controlled by Health Authorities and ECs in the best interest of the individual and society as a whole.

Genetics Research Certainly, there have been no greater ethical concerns in any other area of biomedical research than in human genetics. What are the additional considerations from a social and ethical standpoint? Harm might not be limited to physical harm, but genetic information may directly/or indirectly cause psychological harm, for the individual and society, such as anxiety and depression and associated sequelae. Genetic manipulation may have consequences and ramification to the community which cannot be foreseen at the time. Genetic information of individual subjects may also lead to a conflict of interest between the subject of research and society and requires therefore strict and carefully prepared guidelines. ECs are faced with additional challenges where expertise is needed for adequate evaluation. This leads to the question whether there needs to be

a ‘central’ approval for human genetic research by an ethics committee specifically qualified to assess this type of research.

Assisted Reproductive Techniques Research in this area covers any fertilization with gametes manipulated outside the human body and the subsequent transfer into the uterus, as well as embryos. From a social and ethical standpoint additional considerations must be given to research in assisted reproductive techniques. The ownership and use of any spare embryo, not used for transfer to the uterus, must be addressed as part of the informed consent process. After the consent has been obtained from the biological mother, the EC must decide whether or under which conditions these embryos may be used for research purposes, and whether they should be preserved or “destroyed.” From an ethical as well as from a social perspective it is a challenge who should have the decision on reproductive options, the future mother as care giver of the child alone; does her partner or her treating physician have a say, or are laws and regulations preferable without leaving room for individual decision. Nuclear transplantation or embryo splitting, so called cloning is already regulated by law which in most countries already strictly prohibits this technical option with the intention to reproduce a human being.

cONcLUsION aND OUtLOOK This chapter was not meant to provide answers to all questions, but attempts to provide a start to further investigate and increase the awareness of all perspectives of the social and ethical dimensions of biomedical research. All these social and ethical issues are of everyday concern and clearly central to biomedical research. They complement each other and make biomedical research to what



Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

we know it to be. New advances in science and medicine must be followed by continuous careful evaluation of risk-benefit in consideration of new and changing social and ethical dimensions. With regard to the nature and the complexity of the guidelines and regulations for biomedical research social and ethical issues need to be updated consistently according to the changes in science and technology. Further needs for social control mechanisms, methods of control over biomedical science by insiders and external professionals are under ongoing discussion. Insiders debate controls of adequate formal training and disciplinary boards and outside professional debate controls of government regulation, ethics boards, and judicial and state law. As biomedical science continues to advance as in areas of genetics and neuroscience, new issues may arise with regard to ethical acceptability of procedures and treatments and social responsibilities of the research itself; no ready-made answers exist to date. Some publicized issues are still subject to ethical and social controversy. Even if an ethical and social environment can be established in ‘developed’ countries, researchers may be confronted with ethical and social problems in resource-poor areas of the world, creating a conflict between their personal ethical beliefs and the specific needs in those countries. The balance between scientific and economic/political arguments combined with technical feasibilities in biomedical research on one hand and the individual and corporate morale combined with public needs on the other hand requires open-mindedness from both sides and human beings who take their ethical and social responsibilities serious.

rEFErENcEs American Academy of Pediatrics (2001). Human embryo research. Pediatrics, 108, 813 - 816. Amos-Hatch, J. (1995). Ethical conflicts in classroom research: Examples from study of peer 0

stigmatization in kindergarten. In: J. Amos Hatch (Ed.), Qualitative research in early childhood settings. London, Praeger/Greenwood. Califf, R., Morse, M., & Wittes, J. (2003). Toward protecting the safety of participants in clinical trials. Controlled Clinical Trials, 24, 256 - 271. Cannistra, S. A. (2004). The ethics of early stopping rules: Who is protecting whom?, Journal of Clinical Oncology, 22(9), 1542 - 1545. Choonara, I. et al (Eds.) (2003). Introduction to paediatric and perinatal drug therapy. Nottingham, University Press. Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) (1993). In collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO): International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects, Geneva. Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) (2002). In collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO): International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects, Geneva. Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) (1991). International Guidelines for Ethical Review of Epidemiological Studies. Geneva, CIOMS. Council of Europe (1997). Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with Regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine, Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine. European Treaty Series, No. 164, Oviedo. Council of Europe (2005). Additional Protocol to the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine Concerning Biomedical Research. European Treaty Series, No. 195. Strasbourg. Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. (1995). Of the European parliament and of the council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals

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with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. Daugherty, C. (1995). Perceptions of cancer patients and their physicians involved in Phase I trials. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 13, 1062 – 1072. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1979). The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research. Retrieved from http://history.nih. gov/laws/pdf/belmont.pdf Directive 2001/20/EC. (2001). Of the European parliament and the council of April 2001 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the member states relating to the implementation of good clinical practice in the conduct of clinical trials on medicinal products for human use, Section 3. Directive 95/46/EC. (1995). Of the European parliament and of the council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. Drazen, J. M., Curfman, M.D. (2004). Public access to biomedical research. The New England Journal of Medicine, 351, 1343. European Forum for Good Clinical Practice (1997). Guidelines and recommendations for European ethics committees. Brussels, EFGCP. Fauriel, I., Moutel. G. (2003). Protection des personnes et recherche biomedicale en France. La Presse Medicale, 20, 1887 – 1891 Fortwengel, G. (2005). Issues to be considered in the informed consent process. Paper/presentation and conference summary, Clinical Trial Summit, Munich. Fortwengel, G., Ostermann, H., Staudinger, R. (2007). Informed consent and the incapable patient. Good Clinical Practice Journal, 14(8), 18 - 21.

Gefenas, E. (2005). The concept of risk: Linking research ethics and research integrity. Presentation at the Responsible Conduct of Basic and Clinical Research Conference, Warsaw. Goldfarb, N. (2006). The two dimensions of subject vulnerability. Journal of Clinical Research Best Practices, 2. Heinrichs, B. (2006). Medical research involving minors. Retrieved from http://www.drze.de/themen/blickpunkt/kinder-en HIPAA - Privacy Rule at 45 CFR. Parts 160 and 164 and guidance. (http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa) Holm, S. (2002). Moral pluralism. In The ethical aspects of biomedical research in developing countries. Proceedings of the Round Table Debate, European Group on Ethics, Brussels. Hood, S. et al. (1996). Children as research subjects: A risky enterprise. Children & Society, 2, 117 - 128. Howell, T., Sack, R. L. (1991). The ethics of human experimentation in psychiatry: Toward a more informed consensus. Psychiatry, 44(2), 113-132. Iltis, A.S. (2005). Stopping trials early for commercial reasons: The risk-benefit relationship as moral compass. Journal of Medical Ethics, 31, 410 - 414. Indian Council of Medical Research New Dehli (2000). Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research on Human Subjects, 58. International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) (1996). ICH harmonized tripartite guideline for good clinical practice. ICH Kermani, F., Bonacossa, P. (2003). New ways to recruit trial subjects. Applied Clinical Trials, 38 -42. Levine, R. (1988). Uncertainty in clinical research. Law, Medicine and Healthcare, 16, 174-182.



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Mahon, A. et al. (1996). Researching children: Methods and ethics. Children and Society, 2, 145 - 154. Matthews, H. et al. (1998). The geography of children: Some ethical and methodological considerations for project and dissertation work. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 3, 311 - 324.

human subjects of research. Retrieved from http:// ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/belmont.html The Nuremberg Code (1949). Trials of war criminals before the nuremberg military tribunals under control council law, No. 10. US Government Printing Office.

OECD (2001). OECD health data 2001: A comparative analysis of 30 countries. Paris, OECD.

The World Medical Association (2004). Declaration of Helsinki, ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. Tokyo, WMA.

Parrish, D. M. (1999). Scientific misconduct and correcting the scientific literature. Academic Medicine, 74(3), 221-230.

The World Medical Association (2005). Medical ethics manual - Ethics in medical research. Chapter 5. WMA.

Protecting personal health information in research: Understanding the HIPAA privacy rule. Retrieved from http://privacyruleandresearch. nih.gov/pr_02.asp

World Health Organization (1995). Guidelines for good clinical practice for trials on pharmaceutical products. Annex 3 of The Use of Essential Drugs. Sixth Report of the WHO Expert Committee. Geneva, WHO.

Rose, K. (2005). Better medicines for children - where we are now, and where do we want to be? British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 6, 657 - 659. Seiberth, H. W. (2005). Pharmakologische besonderheiten im kindes-jugendalter. In Brochhausen, C., Seibert, H.W. (Eds.): Kinder in klinischen studien - Grenzen medizinischer machbarkeit? Lit-Publ. Solomon, R.C. (1970). Normative and meta-ethics, philosophy and phenomenological research. Vol. 31, 1, 97 - 107. Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ metaethics/ Taylor, H. A. (1999). Barriers to informed consent. Seminars in Oncology Nursing, 15, 89 - 95. The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1979). The Belmont report - Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of



World Health Organization (2002). Guidance for implementation. In Handbook for good clinical practice (GCP). Geneva, WHO.

KEY tErMs Compliance (in relation to biomedical research): Adherence to all research related requirements, such as research protocol and Best Practice Guidelines, and the applicable regulatory requirements. Confidentiality (in relation to biomedical research): Prevention of disclosure, to other than authorized individuals, of a research unit proprietary information or of a subject´s identity. Independent Ethics Committee: An independent body (a review board or a committee, institutional, regional, national, or supranational), constituted of medical/scientific professionals and non-medical / non-scientific members, whose responsibility it is to ensure the protection of the

Social and Ethical Aspects of Biomedical Research

rights, safety, and well-being of human subjects involved in biomedical research and to provide public assurance of that protection, by, among other things, reviewing and approving/providing favourable opinion on the research protocol, the suitability of the investigator(s)/researchers, facilities, and the methods and material to be used in obtaining and documenting informed consent of the research subjects. Informed Consent: A process by which a subject voluntarily confirms his or her willingness to participate in a particular research project, after having been informed of all aspects of the research that are relevant to the subject´s decision to participate. Informed consent is documented by means of a written, signed and dated informed consent form. Opinion (in relation to Ethics Committees and biomedical research): The judgment and/or the advice provided by an Independent Ethics Committee. Research Protocol: A document that describes the objective(s), design, methodology, statistical considerations, and organization of a research project. The protocol usually also gives the background and rationale for the research, but these could be provided in other protocol referenced documents. Vulnerable Subjects: Individuals whose willingness to volunteer in a biomedical research may be unduly influenced by the expectation, whether justified or not, of benefits associated with participation, or of a retaliatory response from senior members of a hierarchy in case of refusal to participate. Examples are members of a group with a hierarchical structure, such as medical, pharmacy, dental, and nursing students, subordinate hospital and laboratory personnel, employees of the pharmaceutical industry, members of the armed forces, and persons kept in detention. Other vulnerable subjects include patients with incurable diseases, persons in nursing homes,

unemployed or impoverished persons, patients in emergency situations, ethnic minority groups, homeless persons, nomads, refugees, minors, and those incapable of giving consent. Well-Being (of research subjects): The physical and mental integrity of subjects participating in a research project.

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OECD (2001) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Solomon, R.C. (1970) Holm, S. (2002) The World Medical Association (2005) The World Medical Association (2004) The World Medical Association (2005) The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1979) Council of Europe (2005) Iltis, A.S. (2005) Iltis, A.S. (2005) Gefenas, E. (2005) Levine, R. (1988) Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1979) World Medical Association (2004) World Health Organization (2002) European Forum for Good Clinical Practice (1997) International Conference on Harmonization (1996) Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) (1993) Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) (1991) Council of Europe (1997) World Health Organization (1995) World Medical Association (1994) Califf, R., Morse, M., Wittes, J. (2003) Fauriel, I.; Moutel. G. (2003)



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Fortwengel, G. (2005) Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (1995) HIPAA - Privacy Rule at 45 CFR Parts 160 and 164 and guidance The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1979) Taylor, H. A. (1999) Daugherty, C. (1995) Kermani, F.; Bonacossa, P. (2003) Fortwengel, G. (2007) Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) 2002 American Academy of Pediatrics (2001) Indian Council of Medical Research New Dehli (2000) Amos Hatch, J. (1995) Mahon, A. et al (1996) Hood, S. et al (1996) Matthews, H. et al (1998) Seiberth, H. W. (2005) Mahon, A. et al (1996)

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bb

bc bd be bf

Choonara, I. et al (2003) Rose, K. (2005) Minors are seen differently in the context of this section and are not included in the following. Howell, T., Sack, R. L. (1991) Goldfarb, N. (2006) Gefenas, E. (2005) Cannistra, S. A. (2004) Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1979), Article 27 Directive 2001/20/EC (2001) Directive 95/46/EC (1995) Protecting Personal Health Information in Research Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) (2002) The World Medical Association (2004) Drazen, J. M., Curfman, M.D. (2004) Parrish, D. M. (1999) The World Medical Association (2004)



Chapter X

Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Stefano Fait University of St. Andrews, Scotland

abstract In assessing the ethical implications of genomics and biotechnology, it is important to acknowledge that science, technology, and bioethics do not exist in a vacuum and are not socially, politically and ethically neutral. Certain technologies have a greater social impact, may require the State to intervene in the private sphere, and may be differentially accessible to users. Also, science and technology can change our relationship with other people and with our environment. Hence the importance of ethnographic, historical, and cross-cultural studies for the analysis of today’s thorniest bioethical controversies. This chapter discusses some of the most controversial issues surrounding the use of genetic technology in human procreation and gene patenting, including eugenics, genetic consumerism, animal-human hybrids (chimeras), the commodification of life, disability and genetic testing.

A breeder of people should possess a supermanly foresight. But it is precisely those persons who are ethically and spiritually superior that are conscious of their weaknesses, and would not volunteer for such a tribunal, much the same as earlier on it was certainly not the best people who pressed for the office of Grand Inquisitor (Oscar Hertwig, German cell biologist, 1849 – 1922).

What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame. (F. Nietzsche, Zarathustra’s Prologue, 3)

INtrODUctION Even a casual observer would not fail to notice the pervasiveness of bioethics in contemporary

Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

society. How did bioethics come to take on such significance in Western societies? This is a rather puzzling phenomenon given that, in a pluralist society, philosophy cannot deliver incontrovertible moral verdicts and the philosophers’ views are no more binding than those of the man in the street (Maclean, 1993). As logician Charles S. Peirce noted long ago, absolute certainty, absolute exactitude and absolute universality cannot be attained by reasoning and, in a world in which human reason and knowledge are socially, culturally, and historically embedded, it would be misguided to expect bioethicists to provide objective and rigorously codified precepts and indications. Their speculations can only tell us what they believe is right and fair, and their logical demonstrations must be first evaluated against the empirical evidence. Accordingly, this paper only provides one among many possible interpretations of the ethical issues involved in genetic technology, one that is rooted in a specific tradition (Continental/Mediterranean Europe), period of time (early twenty-first century), and discipline (political anthropology). Following an account of the history of the trans-national movement known as eugenics in the opening section, the chapter then proceeds to examine the future of eugenics as a consumer purchase (designer babies) and the limits of parental decision-making, epitomised by the upbringing of Francis Galton, the founder of modern eugenics. The third section, entitled “Human nature and speciation,” provides a brief outline of some of the issues arising from the Human Genome Project and also covers the debate, which is still in its infancy, on the possible redefinition of personhood and human nature that might be required by future applications of genetic engineering. Questions concerning the commodification of body parts are discussed in the third section. In the fourth section, entitled “Disabilities and genetic testing” I draw the reader’s attention to the impact that biotechnologies are likely to have on the life of people with non-standard bodies and minds. In



the concluding remarks I engage with libertarian bioethics, seek to identify some of its most glaring shortcomings and urge bioethicists in general to pay greater attention to social, cultural and political factors in their ethical deliberations.

a brIEF HIstOrY OF EUGENIcs The term “eugenics” was coined in 1883 by Sir Francis Galton (1822–1911), after the Greek εύγενής, meaning “wellborn”. The logo of the Third International Congress of Eugenics, held in New York in 1932, defined eugenics as “the self direction of human evolution.” Negative eugenics was concerned with the elimination of inheritable diseases and malformations and involved prenuptial certificates, birth control, selective abortion, sterilization, castration, immigration restriction and, in Nazi-occupied Europe, involuntary “euthanasia.” Positive eugenics would instead encourage the propagation of desirable characteristics via tax incentives for “fit parents”, assortative mating and, in the years to come, cloning and germline engineering. A combination of Eternal Recurrence – human beings as expressions of an immortal germplasm – and natural teleology of history – biology as destiny – stamped the arguments of early eugenicists and genealogy researchers, who linked folk hereditarian beliefs about the transmission of patrimonial and biological inheritance and the religious notion of the inheritability of sins. They fostered notions of evolutionary throwbacks and of populations as bundles of lineages, and arbitrarily equated genealogical perpetuation with social distinction. When these deterministic explanations of human behaviour were finally challenged, eugenics did not lose its appeal. Mainline eugenics gave way to ‘reform eugenics’, family planning and population control, characterized by a greater emphasis on environmental factors, birth control, the rational management of human resources, and the repudiation of an overtly racist language. This

Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

tactic made eugenics far more palatable and effective: if the impact of nurture was so important, then children should be raised in healthy home environments. In order to redress nature’s essential randomness and synchronize biological and socioeconomic processes, irresponsible citizens unable to meet the challenges of modern society would be forced, blackmailed, or cajoled into accepting sterilization or castration. Consequently, by the early 1930s, sterilisation programmes were in full swing. Following the moral panic generated by the Great Depression, few families were prepared to put up with the social protection of what was perceived to be a disproportionate number of dependent people (Paul, 1995). Some argued that, under exceptional circumstances, basic rights could be withheld and that social services should only be granted to those whose social usefulness and biological capability were certain. The theoretical foundation of constitutional rights were undermined by prominent legal scholars in North America and Northern Europe, who argued that the state was the source of a morality more in line with the demands of modernity, and therefore was not necessarily bound by constitutional principles and norms. Radically realist and functionalist jurists submitted that personal rights were not inalienable, for they really were culturally and historically relative legal fictions or superstitions, their existence being, to a large extent, contingent on the majority’s willingness to uphold them, that is, on considerations of general welfare and public utility. Enlightened governments, like good shepherds, would foster virtues and restrict personal rights for the sake of communal rights and civic responsibility (Alschuler, 2001; Bouquet & Voilley, 2000). This led to the paradoxical result that involuntary sterilizations and confinements were almost exclusively carried out in the most advanced and progressive democracies, the only exception being Nazi Germany. The following states or provinces adopted laws permitting the eugenic sterilisations

of their citizens: Tasmania (1920), the Swiss canton of Vaud (1928), Alberta (1928 and 1933), Denmark (1929 and 1935), the Mexican state of Veracruz (1932), British Columbia (1933), Sweden (1934 and 1941), Norway (1934), Finland (1935), Estonia (1937), Latvia (1937), Iceland (1938), Japan (1940), and thirty-one American states. In 1936, the ‘Lebensborn e. V.’ (‘Spring of Life, registered association’) was launched by the Nazis, which involved the selective breeding of ‘racially superior’ children and the kidnapping of ‘racially valuable’ children across occupied Europe. By 1914, in the United States, marriage restriction laws targeting “feeble-minded” citizens had been enacted in more than half the states and, by 1917, 15 states had passed sterilization laws. But “only” a few thousand sterilizations had been actually performed, mainly because nearly half of such laws had been struck down on the ground that they violated due process, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, and the equal protection clause. A second wave of eugenics laws followed the Immigration Restriction Act (1924) and Virginia’s Act to Preserve Racial Integrity (1924). In 1924, Virginia also passed a law authorizing the involuntary sterilization of alleged mental defectives. This law was upheld, 8-1 by the Supreme Court, in Buck v. Bell 274 U.S. 200 (1927). As a result of this decision, taken in a country that prided itself on its commitment to individual freedom but favoured scientifically unverifiable notions of social progress over clear constitutional principles, nearly half the U.S. states passed eugenics laws authorizing compulsory and non-voluntary sterilization. The ostensibly progressive civic religion of eugenics was seen by many as essentially fair and morally unassailable. Various representatives of the judicial branch became self-appointed guardians of the public morality and urged state governments to intrude in people’s private lives “for their own good”. Wayward citizens, namely those who could not be converted to an acceptable lifestyle, and whose behaviour remained



Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

unpredictable, were liable to being sterilized or institutionalized. This kind of society, at once ready to embrace an abstract notion of humankind and reluctant to put up with certain categories of human beings, was so insecure, apprehensive, and self-doubting, that it was willing to carry out self-mutilation in order to become risk-free, while refusing to consider the motives of the offenders and “miscreants.” In the United States, as in Sweden or Alberta, this Machiavellian interpretation of public law made ethics the handmaid of politics: rights could only be granted by law, and social utility overruled the “untenable notion” of human rights. Virtues, rather than rights, were the defining attribute of citizenship. Instead of protecting the citizens, law legitimized the persecution of certain categories of people, purportedly unable to enjoy freedom and to pursue happiness, by gradually stripping them of their rights and legal protections. Such policies were described as politically necessary and ethically indisputable. In a tragic reversal of roles, according to the dominant “discourse of truth,” those who violated the physical integrity of other citizens were fulfilling a constitutionally sanctioned civic duty, while the victims of involuntary sterilization and confinement were a social threat and, as such, subject to legally mandated sterilization or confinement “for the good of society” (Colla, 2000; Morone, 2003). Eugenicists were persuaded that what stood in the way of the modernizing process was the result of ignorance, parochialism, and backwardness. Those who questioned their ostensibly sophisticated and rational arguments were labelled as uncooperative or reactionary. In a burst of selfserving enthusiasm, they regarded themselves as modern, progressive and boldly experimentalist. This made resistance to ethical self-scrutiny particularly strong, because the project of a rationalist utopia was inextricably bound up with social systems that many believed were a model of humanitarian and enlightened administration, the embodiment of intrinsic benevolence and



farsightedness, and therefore eminently fair and morally unassailable. Explicit coercion was often unnecessary, as thousands of people genuinely believed, or were led to believe, that eugenics measures were desirable, and they had themselves or their family-members sterilized or confined. This should remind us that informed consent is not just a signature on a form but a two-way process involving information exchange, education and counselling. Most North American and Scandinavian laws were only repealed in the late 1960s and 1970s, even though the Supreme Court ruling in Skinner v. Oklahoma 316 U.S. 535 (1942) defined procreation “one of the basic civil rights of man” and sterilization an invasion of fundamental interests which, according to Justice William O. Douglas, “in evil or reckless hands,” could have genocidal consequences. As late as the 1980s, 44 percent of the American public was still in favour of compulsory sterilization for “habitual criminals and the hopelessly insane” (Singer et al. 1998). By contrast, in those same years, law-makers in Holland, Britain, in Latin American and Latin Rim countries1 objected to selective breeding, involuntary sterilization, the assault on the notion of free will, the spurious conflation of modernization and liberation, and the linear extension of natural laws into the social sphere.2 Eugenics, genetic fatalism, and the marriage between bureaucratic rationality and scientism did not resonate with every Western repertoire of values and symbols (Baud, 2001). This finding is of signal importance for the analysis of current trends in bioethics, social policy and biotech regulation.

EUGENIcs as a cONsUMEr cHOIcE Western societies are today on the verge of a eugenics revival in the form of reprogenetics, germline engineering, and cloning, a trend which is indirectly reinforced by courts’ recognition of

Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

wrongful birth and wrongful life claims, by the commodification of healthcare, by the diffusion of testing for genetic predispositions, and by the rhetoric of genetic responsibility, involving new forms of discrimination and exclusion. Medical, cosmetic, and enhancing technologies are being pursued to meet our needs, such as the self-imposed obligation to be fit, active, self-sufficient and responsible citizens, and an almost universal desire to control our own lives and possibly improve them. What measure of genetic and personality enhancement are we going to tolerate? In this section I explore continuities and discontinuities between past and future eugenics. Opponents of genetic engineering of the human germline and human cloning point out that a society in which parents can avail themselves of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) tests has no use for them. If embryos are affected by serious genetic disorders, they can be discarded and only the healthy ones will be implanted in the womb. Therefore, critics argue, the advocates of germline engineering and cloning do not have therapy in mind, or the noble goal of redressing genetic injustice, but species enhancement. Promoters of human genetic enhancement counter that it would be more sensible and economical to try and eradicate genetic conditions instead of treating them each generation. Their detractors respond that “simple”, single-gene disorders are very rare, and that most severe genetic conditions are complex, involving a combination of genetic and non-genetic factors. The risk of unanticipated inheritable negative consequences that the reconfiguration of human biology entails is simply unacceptable, even if germline manipulation could be made reversible, because the more complex the trait that is changed, the less simple it will be to undo the change. I will not object to these procedures on philosophical or religious grounds, nor will I dwell on the inevitable widening of the ontological and social gap between the rich and the poor that

they are likely to cause, including the prospect of a future caste of uninsurable and unemployable. These arguments have already been addressed “ad nauseam.” A different case against designer babies and the medicalization of childhood can be made, which draws on the life of Francis Galton himself, the father of modern eugenics. Galton (1822-1911), half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was destined to a life of fame and academic prestige, to fulfil his father ambitions (Sweeney, 2001). Persuaded that heredity was destiny, and given the outstanding pedigree of the Galton-Darwin-Wedgwood family-stock, his parents decided that he would be taught how to realize his full potential and become the genius he was meant to be. As a result, in the family diaries Francis is only mentioned for his educational achievements and intellectual exploits. Such were the forces at work in the shaping of the character of the proponent of the theory of hereditary genius: destiny was implanted like a programme into Francis, who would grow into a man “suffering considerable angst as a result of seldom achieving the heights of intellectual acclaim to which his parents had encouraged him to aspire and for which he had worked assiduously hard.” (Fancher, 1983). At the age of four, he was already saving pennies for his university honours and four years later he was encouraged to study French, Latin and Greek. But when he confronted the highly selective environment of Cambridge, he crumbled under the pressure of harsh competition and constant mental strain: dozens of exceptionally-gifted students made it exceedingly hard for him to excel and a sudden and severe nervous breakdown ensued (Sweeney, 2001). Little by little, Galton drifted away from his family and devoted himself to those fields of knowledge in which he felt he could stand out. He tried his hand at poetry, soon to realise that he had no literary talent, then he turned his attention to mechanics and devised a number of contrivances that were never patented or manufactured. Even his statistical calculation of the relative efficiency of



Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

sailing came to naught when the steam engine was invented (Forrest, ibid.). This series of failures brought him to a second and more severe mental breakdown in 1866. It’s easy to see where his unhappiness and frustration came from: not from state coercion, but from parental despotism (Forrest, 1974). Authorizing the creation of designer babies may have dire consequences, because embryo selection carried out for the sake of ‘quality control’ in reproduction is far more restrictive of a child’s freedom and places much more pressure on the offspring. Intuitively, one would expect that it would be more difficult for these children to develop into autonomous beings and to be free to choose not to fulfil the wishes and aspirations of their parents, irreversibly inscribed into their DNA, at least at a symbolical level. Even assuming that most of us would justifiably reject the fallacy of “Genes ‘r’ Us” determinism, “made-to-order” children would be hard put to do the same. As American sociologist W.I. Thomas once said, “if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” What would the consequences be, in terms of their development as nominally independent and responsible moral agents, if the alterations were of a non-medical nature? Would they take pride in their achievements in the same way as ordinary people do, even if their talents are inherited? Why, in a meritocratic society, should they feel they owe anything to the less fortunate? What could be their response to personal failure: would they assume that they are entitled to the best of everything? Finally, and more importantly, those parents so preoccupied with the uncertainties of life that they would rather have their children genetically engineered, how are they going to deal with the unavoidable challenges of parenting and the realization that control can never be complete? Are we going to rear children who cannot face life’s challenges without the help of chemical and genetic enhancers of mood, memory, cognition, sex life and athletic performances? If the goal

0

posts are constantly being pushed forward, how are we going to avoid that what was once regarded as unnecessary should become imperative? Victoria University ethicist Nicholas Agar (Agar, 1998) has argued that if a 6-year-old Mozart had mixed with children of his own age instead of performing in the courts of Europe, today we would not be enjoying The Marriage of Figaro or Don Giovanni. But we could counter that perhaps Wolfi might have preferred to play with his peers and live a longer and less tormented life instead of complying with the requests of his authoritarian and manipulative father. Even a strictly utilitarian perspective should not contemplate a scenario in which kids are sacrificed for the greater good and in the parents’ pursuit of reflected fame and status, to the point of transforming them into biological artefacts designed by others. Even though past government-sponsored coercive eugenics programmes have been discredited, the mere defence of reproductive freedom is not sufficient in itself to protect citizens from abuses and harm. Unfortunately, the history of libertarianism is replete with examples of citizens claiming liberties for themselves while demanding restrictions for other “less deserving” citizens. Also, there is no such thing as a government stubbornly refusing to cater to the demands of powerful lobbies. Apart from the fact that, under more strained socio-economic circumstances, democratic states may at some point be forced to recommend compulsory screening for certain genetic conditions, we might also want to consider the historical evidence pointing to a growing presence of the State in the family sphere in Western democracies, motivated by the imperative to better protect the children’s rights (Cavina, 2007). In point of fact, a proposal has been made in Texas, to the effect that the state should embark on mass presymptomatic diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in schoolchildren, followed by widespread prescription of psychoactive drugs (Rose, 2005). This should be a sufficient warning

Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

that the so-called consumerist eugenics will not be a democratic panacea: treating shyness and liveliness as biochemical imbalance, and medicalizing our children to make them well-behaved and cooperative, as though they were faulty devices - regardless of the unforeseeable long-term sideeffects of taking drugs at such an early age - is, for all intents and purposes, an experiment in social engineering on an unprecedented scale, and one which can only disempower parents and children and suppress human diversity. In sum, the language of autonomy, empowerment, choice, and rights ought not to obscure the fact that: a. it is a rather apposite way for medical professionals and the State to be released from their responsibilities vis-à-vis patients and citizens; b. the randomness of sexual fertilization is, alas, the closest thing to freedom (Sandel, 2007) in societies where choices are constrained by legal restrictions, social and gender-related expectations, obligations and imperatives, as well as by prejudices, ignorance, practical impediments, and huge economic and social disparities, which translate into a dramatic differential distribution of power and authority. A society where individuals are expected to responsibly monitor their health and lifestyle and to act on the available knowledge - “free choice under pressure” is a fitting definition of life in advanced democracies – will look on those who do not fulfil that obligation as reckless and uncaring. This is also what we gather from Nancy Smithers, 36, an American lawyer, and from her first-hand experience of how the line between care and desire is becoming blurred and how the range of human variability that is deemed socially acceptable is being inexorably narrowed: “I was hoping I’d never have to make this choice, to become responsible for choosing the kind of baby I’d get, the kind of baby we’d accept. But everyone – my doctor, my parents, my friends – everyone urged me to come for genetic counselling and have amniocentesis. Now, I guess I’m having a modern baby. And they all told me I’d feel more in control. But in some

ways, I feel less in control. Oh, it’s still my baby, but only if it’s good enough to be our baby, if you see what I mean.” (Rapp, 1988: p. 152).

HUMaN NatUrE aND sPEcIatION While Sophocles thought that “there are many wonderful things, and nothing is more wonderful than man,” Nietzsche famously defined man das noch nicht festgestellte Tier, “the animal which is yet undefined.” The Human Genome Project, an international collaboration to code the information contained in the human genome through DNA-sequencing and store the resulting information in databases, was heralded as the means whereby we would attain a more precise definition of human nature. The first working draft of a human genome sequence was published in 2001, but it is important to stress that the genome sequenced by the publicly funded Human Genome Project does not represent the genetic make-up of the human species. Based on blood and sperm samples submitted by several anonymous donors, it really is a statistical artefact, the abstraction of a non-existent species-being standing for all of us, individually and collectively, without being us. Therefore, genomes are benchmarks against which individual genotypes can be examined and described. This is because the genome is not a fixed essence that we all share in common. Each one of us possesses a unique combination of nucleotides and genes coding for proteins (genotype) and even the same genes shared by identical twins express different phenotypes under different environmental circumstances. In other words, we are at once very similar and very different from one another. Suffice it to say that while we differ from each other by 0.1 percent, humans are reportedly 98 percent genetically identical to chimpanzees, proving that such seemingly slight discrepancies have far-reaching consequences, when combined with environmental factors. In



Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

human beings, variation is the norm and, strictly speaking, by “human genome” we should refer to the sum of all genotypes in the human species, a goal that is currently beyond our reach. One of the outcomes of the Human Genome Project has been the recognition that genetic determinism is incompatible with the evidence provided by the preliminary analysis of the base pair sequence of the “human genome.” From a strictly deterministic point of view, defined by the single-gene single-biological function paradigm, our 30,000 genes, approximately twice the number of genes of a fruit fly and far fewer than most geneticists expected, are simply not enough to make us the way we are. We have not found the “secret of life” and are not anywhere near to being able to explain human nature, let alone control it. However, the finding that the human genome is a dynamic landscape has important ramifications. Assuming that the “genome” is, to some extent, malleable and adaptable without apparent adverse effects, those who still assume that a common genome plays an important part in the definition of human nature (and human rights) will be inclined to regard human nature as infinitely malleable and its characterization as too fluid to serve any meaningful legal, scientific, ethical, and political purpose. They might raise the question that if the social order reflects a society’s conception of human nature, and there is no fixed human nature, then who is to decide what is just and moral, and on what grounds? Traditionally, personhood has only been attributed to human beings: then, what would a valid criterion for species differentiation be if we are going to grant personhood to great apes and to create human chimeras, cyborgs, or a new posthuman species/race? The problem really comes down to what makes us human: if patients in permanent vegetative states and severely mentally impaired persons are human, then some commentators would argue that it would be fair to grant human chimeras the same status. In other words, we



need to clarify the defining criterion that we use to self-identify as humans: what we can do, what we are, or something else? In 1974, Joseph Fletcher, Episcopal minister, academician, and one of the founders of bioethics, published a controversial treatise in which he argued that certain “retarded children” should not be viewed as persons, that procreation was a privilege, not a right, and that devising ways to obtain chimeras and cyborgs to be put in the service of humankind would be a morally legitimate enterprise (Fletcher, 1974). In much the same way, in the early Seventies, a Rand Corporation panel agreed that genetic engineering would also be used to create parahumans, namely humanlike animals, or chimeras: these beings would be more efficient than robots, and would be trained to perform low-grade domestic and industrial work or else provide a supply of transplantable organs (Rorvick, 1971). Given the relative genetic proximity of chimpanzees and human beings, and the fact that the evolutionary split between the two species may have occurred fairly recently, it is conceivable that the first human hybridization would generate a humanzee, that is, a cross between a human and chimpanzee. But there remains the problem of the unpredictable consequences of interspecies transplantations at the embryonic stage, when bodies and brains are highly malleable and every new insertion of non-human stem cells is likely to cause random alterations in the development of the organism and, as a result, in the identity of the individual. Nobody can really anticipate the dynamic interactions of animal mitochondrial DNA and the nuclear DNA of a human embryo. It may even be the case that a chimera might look like a member of one species and behave like the members of the other species. Supposing that the procedure is successfully and safely applied and repeated, we should then broach various topics related to artificial hominization, and discuss the moral and legal status of these beings. If law only recognizes people (in-

Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

cluding juridical persons) and property, to which category will they belong? Will they be patentable, that is, could they be owned by a company? Will researchers need their informed consent prior to their inclusion in a medical study? Is personhood coterminous with humanity? Are we going to establish a juridical and moral continuum from inanimate things, to animals, semi-human beings (e.g. chimeras, replicant-like androids), and fully autonomous persons? The idea of a seamless gradient is reminiscent of the medieval notion of the Scala Naturae, or Great Chain of Beings, a linear hierarchy for the zoological classification of living beings which generated the visual metaphor behind the theory of evolution. Yet this model is not without its problems, for it was also employed to establish a pecking order of social worth and, simultaneously, thwart the extension of civil rights to certain categories of “diminished” human beings like women, workers, children, minorities, etc. (Groce & Marks, 2001). Modern advanced democracies will be compelled to blur the boundaries along the abovementioned continuum and make it as inclusive as possible. But this can only mean that many human chimeras and artificial intelligences with highly developed cognitive skills and selfconsciousness will be allowed to become our moral equals and, as such, enjoy the attendant legal protection. Ideally, the “borderlines of status” of “artificial human beings” will be removed, with no detriment to senile, foetuses, and the vegetative: human rights will no longer be the monopoly of Homo Sapiens.

tHE cOMMODIFIcatION OF LIFE “Does it uplift or degrade the unique human persona to treat human tissue as a fungible article of commerce?” was Justice Arabian’s rhetorical question in his concurring opinion in Moore v. Regents (1990).

For centuries, millions of people were enslaved on the ground that certain human beings could be assimilated to Aristotle’s “natural slaves.” Chattel slavery, that is the extension of market relations to the human person as a marketable property and human commodity (res commerciabilis) or legal tender, outside the domain of mutual obligations, was officially abolished only in the nineteenth century. In the United States, the Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, was ratified in 1865: it meant that no human being could be owned by another human being and, by extension, that people’s genotype cannot be patented. But isolated genes and partial gene sequences from human tissue samples can be patented for research purposes, provided that the applicant can “prove” that a “natural” object has been transformed into an “invention.” Ironically, mathematical formula are not patentable, because they are assumed to be already out there, like laws of nature or natural phenomena, whereas genes, which are verifiably part of nature, can be patented when they are discovered, regardless of the fact that the assignees may have failed to demonstrate a use for their discoveries. As a result of the 5 to 4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303 (1980), which determined that “anything under the sun made by man” is patentable, today more than 6000 human genes from all around the world are covered by U.S. patents (Lovgren, 2005), on the ground that the mere isolation and purification of genes from their natural state, by now a routine operation, allows an applicant to be issued a patent. This sentence and the Senate’s refusal to ratify the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD),3 which had been designed to protect the interests of indigenous peoples, have paved the way to “bioprospecting” (gene hunting), also known as “biopiracy,” of pharmaceutical companies in the developing world, so that U.S. private firms and public agencies are granted exclusive rights to decide who can use those cell lines that are prof-



Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

itable for pharma-business, and how much they will have to pay to do so. There are a number of remarkable analogies that can be drawn between today’s biopiracy and the nineteenth century westward expansion of the United States, when Native Americans were thought to be an inferior race incapable of fulfilling the moral mission of harnessing natural resources. The Doctrine of Discovery meant that the land inhabited by the indigenous peoples was terra nullius (no man’s land). The aboriginal occupants had no legal title to the land because they had no fixed residence and did not till the soil according to European standards. They could only exercise a right of occupancy, under the American “protection and pupilage.” White people had “discovered” the land - and nowadays the genes - and therefore they owned it. In a multibillion dollar market, enormous economic interests are involved in the search for “biovalue” (Waldby, 2002) and ethical considerations are not binding rules and are not always high on governments’ agendas. In the United States, where individual autonomy is oftentimes equated with the privilege of disposing of one’s body as one sees fit, there is a trend to extend market relations to DNA and body parts. Thousands of patents have been granted, mostly to private companies, on human genes whose function is still unknown. This process of parcelization allows companies to gradually take control of the human genome in the form of immortalized cell lines, and put a price on them, without violating the constitutional principle of the non-patentability of human beings. Today, advances in biotechnology raise new questions about the treatment of individuals and their bodies, which can now be seen - a vestige of Cartesian dualism? - as collections of separable, interchangeable, and commercially transferable parts. Bioscientists will, unwittingly or intentionally, play an increasingly important role in this process by introducing technologies that will facilitate the



exchange of body parts and DNA – now endowed with a social life of their own – in commercial transactions, and by selecting (PGD) or cloning donor babies, namely babies who can supply compatible tissues to treat sick siblings. This will raise a host of new questions such as: who is the owner of someone’s separated human tissue? If people are the owners of their cell-lines, should not they be entitled to share in the profits from scientific findings and commercialization? Are patent claims for intellectual property of DNA from indigenous peoples morally and legally justifiable? In general, who can demand a share of the profit from the commercial exploitation of human DNA? Most jurists and legislators of Continental Europe, where the intellectual establishment is generally opposed to the idea of the market as a civilizing and liberating force, will presumably continue to favour social cohesiveness, altruism, and an ethics of the good life (eudaimonia) (Gracia, 1995). The primacy of autonomy will most likely be underplayed for the sake of social justice and equality (Braun, 2000). Reasoning that it would be unrealistic to expect societies to be able to protect all citizens, especially the destitute and disenfranchised, from coercion and exploitation, it is to be expected that most will refuse in principle to regard the human body as a repository of economic value, a marketable property and a source of spare parts. They will stress that Western civilization, from habeas corpus to the abolition of slavery as commerce of “human commodities”, and to the emancipation of women, has developed in opposition to the objectification of the human body and to the idea that anything can be converted into a commodity and into an object of contractual relationships: the argument that human body was a res extra commercium4 was at the heart of the abolitionist movement, for there is no person without a body, and a subject cannot be the object of commercial transactions. Some will further argue in favour of the Kantian normative

Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

position, whereby one should always treat human beings as ends in themselves, that is, as having intrinsic value or worth (non-use goods), and therefore as the source of our valuation process, and not as the means to satisfy our values (use goods). They will point out that bodies, babies, and life are gifts, and money is no substitute for them (Crignon-De Oliveira & Nikmov, 2004), mostly because allowing market forces to define a scale to measure the value of all things would be degrading to our sense of personhood and to our values (Gold, 1996). Accordingly, Article 18 of the European Human Rights and Biomedicine Convention, signed in Oviedo in 1997, forbids the “creation of human embryos for research purposes”, while article 21 states that “organs and tissues proper, including blood, should not be bought or sold or give rise to financial gain for the person from who they have been removed or for a third party, whether an individual or a corporate entity such as, for example, a hospital.” Its proponents were preoccupied, among other things, that relaxing the restrictions on ownership of human body parts would lead to the proverbial slippery slope with companies legally owning potential human beings (or chimeras) from embryo to birth. In Europe, people cannot make their bodies a source of financial gain.5 While excised body parts, like hairs or placentas, are usually treated as res nullius, that is, free to be owned by the first taker, like an abandoned property, European civil codes prohibit the removal of a body part when it causes permanent impairments, unless it is done within a formalized system of transplant donations. The principle of market-inalienability has gradually replaced the former principle of absolute inalienability. It is now argued that people do own and control their bodies (and tissues) but have no right to sell them, for they cannot exist without them and their rights as human beings and as consumers cannot trump the right of society to attempt to stave off the process of commodification of human life.

Negotiating the economic value of bodies and body parts is therefore out of question, as it used to be in the late 1890s, when American insurance companies reassured their clients that “the term life insurance is a misnomer . . . it implies a value put on human life. But that is not our province. We recognize that life is intrinsically sacred and immeasurable, that it stands socially, morally and religiously above all possible evaluation” (Zelizer, 1978).

DIsabILItIEs aND GENEtIc tEstING In most societies, and especially those with a greying population, people with disabilities constitute the single largest minority group. Depending on how disability is defined, there are currently between 3 to 5 million Canadians, 50 million Americans, and 40 million Western Europeans with disabilities. In half the cases it is a severe impairment. Disability is therefore a fact of life, and the boundary between ability and disability is permeable. It is reasonable to assume that, at some point during one’s life, everybody is going to have to deal personally with a disability or to look after a disabled person, and that it is therefore in everyone’s interest that societies should strive to accommodate disabled people, instead of viewing them as “damaged goods” (Asch, 2001). This is all the more important now that biotechnologies are poised to make the boundary between “abled” and disabled even more porous: the notion of disability will be presumably extended to more individuals (e.g. alcoholism, obesity, predispositions to chronic diseases, etc.). How is this going to affect the social model of disability and the issue of status recognition? Are further adjustments to accommodate the needs of “asymptomatic ill”, that is, people with an “abnormal” genetic constitution necessary? Is it possible that that is going to magnify the



Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

problem in unpredictable ways (viz. proliferation of identity groups)? In everyday life, there remains an enduring tendency to view human beings as worthwhile not for who they are but for what they do and to confuse facts and values, is and ought. The status of physically and cognitively impaired persons – that is, people with non-standard bodies and minds – best illustrates one of the most glaring antinomies of advanced democracies: they classify their citizens by making up new social categories, labels, and group identities, and they attempt to maximise their potential in order to better include them but, in doing so, they cause the already marginalised to become even more vulnerable and less visible, and they also affect the common perception of what is normal, and therefore acceptable and appropriate, that is, normative (Hoedemaekers & Ten Have, 1999). Nevertheless, the boundary between “normal variation” and “genetic disease” is in part a social construction, because the notions of “normalcy” and “deviance” are historically and culturally relative. What is more, the consequences of physical impairments can be mitigated by the provision of personal and technical support. It follows that this classificatory exercise is completely out of place (Lewontin, 2001). No one, not even the State, can arbitrate normality (Rapp, 2000) and, it should be added, it is not at all clear that disability is a kind of harm that is qualitatively different from other socially constructed “harms”, such as poverty or race (Shakespeare, 1999). Historically, there is no such thing as a linear transition from discrimination to acceptance, as far as people judged to be abnormal and pathological are concerned. Instead, economic, social and political determinants (ideologies, cultural trends, and societal arrangements) have changed the experience of disability along an erratic course (O’Brien, 1999). Their dependence on an artificial environment has been a constant reminder of human imperfections and frailty, and of medical and scientific powerlessness. Furthermore, economic



setbacks have often resulted in growing concerns over the financial burden of social spending on people with disabilities. In the Twenties, when the German economy was in a state of collapse after WWI but prior to Hitler’s rise to power, it was revealed that a majority of parents with handicapped children would consent to their “euthanasia” if the medical authorities decided on this course of action (Burleigh, 2002). They sincerely believed that, under those circumstances, it would be best for their children. Unfortunately, too much insistence on the values of autonomy and self-sufficiency, coupled with cost-benefit considerations on how people might best contribute to production and bolster the economy, are likely to devalue people who are not self-sufficient. If detected abnormalities cannot be treated, prenatal diagnosis and subsequent selective pregnancy termination could still be regarded by many as a quick fix to an intractable social problem, namely society’s unfair treatment of the disabled. The mixed message that society is sending to people with disabilities is that they are mistakes that will hopefully be redressed by technological progress; yet they are still welcome. The two goals of trying to eradicate disability while steering society towards a more embracing and supportive attitude to diversity may well prove incompatible. We must also consider that prenatal genetic testing and, in the future, fetal therapy, that is, the medical treatment of babies in the womb, will not guarantee a “normal” baby. Even the systematic screening of foetuses cannot prevent all “defective children” from being born. This raises the issue of how they will be treated in a society which tends to value competence and intelligence more than anything else, that is to say, one where they would be “better-not-born” (Baroff, 2000). We are already witnessing the clash between constitutional equality and the inequality of bodies (Davis, 2002). It is a situation in which women’s rights are pitted against the civil rights of people with disabilities and of unborn children, while

Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

individual rights, values, and interests are played against those of the larger society. Today, prenatal screenings are largely performed by midwives and obstetricians. In some countries, these techniques have already reduced the prevalence of spina bifida and Down syndrome by 30 percent or more, and the incidence of neural tube defects, Tay Sachs, and beta thalassemia (Cooley’s Anemia) by 90 percent (Asch et al., 2003). Genetic testing, which can analyse thousands of mutations, is instead usually carried out by genetic counsellors and clinical geneticists. We might want to speculate about the range of possible short-term and long-term effects of the application of new technologies in the field of genetic medicine, albeit they cannot be predicted with certainty. Following the adoption of gene diagnostics (when there is an indication that someone might be affected by a genetic condition) and genetic testing in carrier screening (when no such indication is present), a new class of citizens could arise, which will include people who have been diagnosed as ‘asymptomatic ill’, that is at a higher risk of contracting certain illnesses. Passing specific legislation to prevent discrimination against them would paradoxically make them seem more different from other people than they really are. It has been suggested (Macintyre, 1997) that discrimination in insurance, employment, and healthcare provision – to contain the costs of healthcare benefits – could be the logical consequence of a double-bind whereby you will be treated differently whether you agree that you and your children should be genetically tested, and test positive, or you refuse, for in such case it will be assumed that you might be concealing some inheritable condition. The bottom line seems to be that an epistemological shift has taken place, so that whenever human life does not conform to increasingly high standards of health and quality, it is likely to be deemed a grievous miscalculation. Human dignity, a notion that law cannot define unequivocally, lies at the foundation of the human

rights doctrine, but it is also indissolubly bound up with the concept of quality of life, which is relative. Because of this, quality and equality are pitted against each other and developments in biotechnology could undermine the constitutional principle of equality of all human lives, which is the glue that holds society together. Finally, because prenatal screening is an expensive procedure, it is even possible that, in countries without universal healthcare, more and more people with disabilities will be born into poverty (Asch et al., 2003).

cONcLUsION Studying the ethical implications of the new biomedical technologies involves much more than simply assuming that totally rational agents, altogether free from social and cultural strictures and contingencies, and from their physicality, would arrive at the same conclusions, following a single, completely reliable deductive mode of reasoning or, alternatively, starting from some unverifiable articles of faith. A reality made of moral flexibility, discrimination, inequality, differential power relations and access to healthcare cannot be wished away for the sake of conceptual clarity and simplicity. Yet, historical, political and social issues – including the discussion of the common good, the unfairness of healthcare in the United States and elsewhere, and the sheer nonsense of applying the ethical standards of affluent societies in developing countries –, are seldom the object of critical investigation on the part of mainstream bioethicists. These “secular moral experts” understandably prefer to rely on hard logic rather than on the disputable evidence, multiple constraints, relative values, nagging contradictions, and subjective feelings of everyday reality. But that untidy reality, with its attending uncertainty, is the only one there is, at least for most of us, and this is why there can be no univocal, logically necessary solution to our moral quandaries. Condemning the tendency of ordinary



Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

people to cling on to their beliefs as a matter of course seems unwarranted. On various important ethical issues people trust their own judgment because they see that their views are widely shared and because they have strong reasons to believe that such a consensus is not going to vanish into thin air any time soon. Indeed, most of us generally subscribe to those moral precepts that have stood the test of time.6 It is our appreciation of the practical insights and moral expertise of those who came before us which, for instance, lead many to maintain that human dignity is important even though it is hard to define. Unfortunately, the haste with which common sense is waved aside as an inconsequential distraction, together with a rather strong measure of technological determinism, can only reinforce the impression that bioethics has the justificatory function of bringing the public around to the way of thinking of the most enlightened and glamorous elite and, by extension, of the bio-pharmaceutical industry. The fact of the matter is that a thin bioethics confronting the market and powerful professional and corporate interests is bound to be either crushed or to lend itself to the endorsement of an ideology of unbridled competition and rampant consumerism. Bioethicists would therefore be well advised to pay heed to the words of Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, who once said that “between the weak and the strong, it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free.”7

of disability studies (pp. 297-326). Thousand Oaks, etc.: Sage Publications.

rEFErENcEs

Crignon-De Oliveira, C. Nikodimov, M. G. (2004). A qui appartient le corps humain? Médecine, politique et droit. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.

Agar, N. (1998). Liberal eugenics. Public Affairs Quarterly, 12(2), 137-155. Alschuler, A.W. (2001). Law without values: The life, work, and legacy of justice Holmes. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Asch, A. (2001). Disability, bioethics and human rights. In Albrecht, G .L. (et al.) (eds.), Handbook



Asch, A. et al. (2003). Respecting persons with disabilities and preventing disability: is there a conflict? In S. S. Herr et al. (Eds.), The human rights of persons with intellectual disabilities (pp. 319-346). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bachelard-Jobard, C. (2001). L’éugenisme, la science et le droit. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Baroff, G. S. (2000). Eugenics, “Baby Doe”, and Peter Singer: Toward a more “perfect” society. Mental Retardation, 38(11), 73-77. Bouquet, B., Voilley, P. (Eds.). (2000). Droit et littérature dans le contexte suédois. Paris: Flies, 2000. Braun, K. (2000). Menschenwürde und biomedizin. Zum philosophischen diskurs der bioethik. Frankfurt/New York: Campus. Burleigh M. (2002). Death and deliverance: ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany, c. 1900-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cavina, M. (2007). Il padre spodestato. L’autorità paterna dall’antichità a oggi. Roma-Bari: Laterza. Colla, P. S. (2000). Per la nazione e per la razza. Cittadini ed esclusi nel “modello svedese”. Roma: Carocci.

Davis, L. J. (2002). Bending over backwards. Disability, dismodernism & other difficult positions. New York & London: New York University Press. Fancher, R. (1983). Biographical Origins of Francis Galton’s Psychology. Isis, 74, 227–33

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Fletcher, J. (1974). The ethics of genetic control: Ending reproductive roulette. New York: Anchor Books. Forrest, D.W. (1974). Francis Galton. The life and work of a Victorian genius. London: Paul Elek Gold, E.R. (1996). Body parts: Property rights and the ownership of human biological materials. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Gracia Guillén, D. (1995). Medical ethics: History of Europe, Southern Europe. In T. W. Reich (ed.), Encyclopedia of bioethics (pp. 1556-1563), Vol. 3. New York: Simon and Schuster Macmillan. Groce, N.E. & Marks, J. (2001). The Great Ape Project and disability rights: Ominous undercurrents of eugenics in action. American Anthropologist, 102(4), 818-822. Hoedemaekers, R. & Ten Have, H. (1999). The concept of abnormality in medical genetics. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 20(6), 537–561. Lewontin, R. C. 2001. It ain’t necessarily so. New York. New York review books. Lovgren, S. (2005). One-fifth of human genes have been patented, study reveals. National Geographic News, October 13. Retrieved May 5, 2007 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/ news/2005/10/1013_051013_gene_patent.html Macintyre S. (1997). Social and psychological issues associated with the new genetics. Philosophical transactions: Biological sciences, 352(1357), 1095-1101. Maclean, A. (1993). The elimination of morality. Reflections on utilitarianism and bioethics. London & New York: Routledge. Morone, J. A. (2003). Hellfire nation. The politics of sin in American history. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

O’Brien, G. V. (1999). Protecting the social body: use of the organism metaphor in fighting the “menace of the feeble-minded”. Mental Retardation, 37(3), 188–200. Paul, D. (1995). Controlling human heredity: 1865 to the present. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Rapp, R. (1988). Chromosomes and Communication: the discourse of genetic counselling. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 2(2), 143-157. Rapp, R. (2000). Testing women, testing the fetus. The social impact of amniocentesis in America. New York and London: Routledge. Rorvik, D. M. (1971). Brave new baby. Promise and peril of the biological revolution. Garden City, New York: DoubleDay & Co. Rose, N. (2005). Will biomedicine transform society? The political, economic, social and personal impact of medical advances in the twenty first century. Clifford Barclay lecture. Retrieved May 24, 2007, http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/ LSEPublicLecturesAndEvents/pdf/20050202WillBiomedicine-NikRose.pdf Sandel, M. J. (2007). The case against perfection. Ethics in the age of genetic engineering. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Shakespeare, T. (1999). Losing the plot? Medical and activist discourses of the contemporary genetics and disability. In Conrad, P. & Gabe, J. (Eds) Sociological perspectives on the new genetics (pp. 171-190). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Singer, E. et al. (1998). Trends: genetic testing, engineering, and therapy: Awareness and attitudes. Public Opinion Quarterly, 52(4), 633-664. Sweeney, G. (2001).“Fighting for the good cause” reflections on Francis Galton’s legacy to American hereditarian psychology. Independence Square, PA: American Philosophical Society.



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Waldby, C. (2002). Stem cells, tissue cultures and the production of biovalue. Health, 6(3), 305-323. Zelizer, V. A. (1978). Human values and the market: The case of life insurance and death in 19th-century America The American Journal of Sociology, 84(3), pp. 591-610.

KEY tErMs Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Is a mental condition affecting children and adults and is typified by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Hundreds of scientists and medical professionals in both North America and Europe claim that there is no clear evidence to support the existence of ADHD and contend that most cases fall within the normal range of variation in human behaviour. Base Pair: A structure made of two complementary nucleotides (strands of DNA molecules) joined by weak hydrogen bonding. The base pairs are adenine (A) with thymine (T) and guanine (G) with cytosine (C) for DNA and adenine with uracil and guanine with cytosine for RNA. This is where genetic information is stored. It is estimated that the human genotype contains around 3 billion base pairs which, together, give DNA its double helix shape. Chimera: Legendary creature with a lion head and chest, the belly and a second head of a goat, and with a serpent for a tail. In biology and genetics, a distinction is drawn between mosaics, that is, those plants and animals that contain different sets of genetically-distinct cells (e.g. humans with mismatched eyes, but also serious genetic conditions such as Turner’s syndrome) deriving from a single zygote, and chimeras, whose cell populations originated from more than one zygote. Animal chimeras are routinely experimentally produced, whereas the creation of part-human,

0

part-animal hybrids (parahumans) is currently unfeasible and illegal. Germline Engineering: The genetic modification of individuals whose alterations will be passed on to their progeny. It involves altering genes in eggs, sperm, or early embryos, by insertion (e.g. of artificial chromosomes), gene deletion or gene transposition. Germplasm: hereditary material (chromosomes and DNA) of living organisms. Sometimes it is also the name given to a species’ “genome”, namely the entire repertoire of that species’ genotypes. Human Cloning: If it were legal, reproductive cloning would be used to create children who are genetically identical to a cell donor. At present, it would be a very expensive procedure with a staggering rate of failures (about 90%). Therapeutic cloning refers to the creation of identical embryos and tissues in order to harvest stem cells for research and transplantation purposes. There are two main cloning techniques: (a) by embryo splitting (also known as artificial twinning, because it occurs naturally with identical twins): an embryo is split into individual cells or groups of cells that are then artificially prompted to grow as individual embryos; (b) by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), which is done by transferring genetic material from the nucleus of an adult cell into an enucleated egg, that is an ovum whose genetic material has been taken away. This is the technique used to generate Dolly the sheep. Hyperparenting: A form of child-rearing in which parents become too involved in the management of their children’s lives. In Vitro Fertilization (IVF): An assisted reproductive procedure in which a woman’s ova (eggs) are removed and fertilized with a man’s sperm in a laboratory dish (the Petri dish). Each IVF cycle is very expensive and has a success rate of no more than 30 percent. It is estimated

Ethical Aspects of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

that there may currently be about half a million IVF babies worldwide. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA): The portion of the maternally inherited cell DNA which is contained in the mitochondria, tiny organelles that generate energy for the cell by converting carbohydrates into energy. Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD): Cells taken from embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) are examined in a Petri dish. Embryos carrying harmful and lethal mutations are discarded and only “healthy” ones are subsequently implanted in her mother’s uterus. Reprogenetics: The combination of reproductive medicine and biology and genetic technologies. Embryonic stem cell research, the alteration of select genes, as in germ line therapy and in the genetic manipulation of early embryos, cosmetic gene insertion, human embryo cloning, and embryonic pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PDG and IVF) are reprogenetic techniques.

ENDNOtEs 1 2

Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France. In those countries, most scientists and social analysts correctly understood that Charles

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Darwin had historicized nature without closing the gap between nature, human history and society. Elsewhere, Social Darwinists, who held that the Darwinian revolution had paved the way to the naturalization of history, found a more receptive audience. In 2007, the United States, Andorra, Brunei, Iraq, and Somalia were the only countries that had not ratified this treaty. Meaning “beyond commercial appropriation.” This position finds expression in the principe de non patrimonialité du corps humain of the French civil code, in the Principio di gratuità (principle of gratuitousness) of the Italian civil code, and in the Article 3 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. As an aside, Article 25 of the Civil Code of Québec, states that: “the alienation by a person of a part or product of his body shall be gratuitous; it may not be repeated if it involves a risk to his health.” In the words of Spanish bioethicist Diego Gracia Guillén: “la historia es tambien el gran tribunal de la moralidad,” that is, as it were, “ethics is the daughter of time.” « Entre le fort et le faible, c’est la liberté qui opprime et la loi qui affranchit. »





Chapter XI

Nanoscale Research, Ethics, and the Military Timothy F. Murphy University of Illinois College of Medicine, USA

abstract Military researchers are working to exploit advances in nanoscale research for military uniforms, medical diagnosis and treatment, enhanced soldier performance, information and surveillance systems, and weaponry and guidance systems. These domains of research pose ethical questions in regard to the motives for this research, the way in which it is carried out, and its social effects, especially in regard to its medical aspects. Much of this research can be defended in the name of soldier protection and national defense, but close attention to the practice of research involving human subjects and nanoscale devices is nevertheless warranted because the military is governed in ways that sometimes put its overarching goals ahead of protecting the rights and welfare of individual soldiers. Moreover, the contribution of nanoscale interventions to a new kind of arms race should not be underestimated.

INtrODUctION Military theorists have not failed to appreciate the significance of nanoscale research when it comes to protecting soldiers and giving them advantages in military operations. Researchers working for and with the military work to identify ways in which emerging technologies can be put to their advantage for personnel, weapons, and operations. Specifically, militaries around the world anticipate that this research might lead to new information systems, improved protec-

tive gear, means to improve the performance of military personnel, and innovations in medical diagnosis and treatment. Nanoscale research does not occur in a scientific vacuum, and this research goes forward alongside other domains of research, including neuroscience research that works to describe and gain measures of control over sensation, neurological function, and human behavior. Some commentators expect that these domains of research might come together in ways that fuse biological function and nanoscale mechanical interventions. For example, it might

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Nanoscale Research, Ethics, and the Military

be possible to develop biochips that could “read” the sensory processes of neurons directly, in other words independently of the person whose neurons are involved. Or, these interventions might enable officers to control the emotional affect of personnel under their command. Even if there were no wars and no military operations, nanoscale research conducted for entirely civilian purposes would be of considerable ethical interest because of the way it stands ready to amplify powers of information and to extend control over human behavior. That this research also carries potential military applications makes these ethical issues all the more pressing because of those ethical issues unfold in the context of larger political and strategic purposes of military function, purposes that sometimes subordinate individual interests. For this reason, it becomes important to try and identify ethical standards by which to evaluate research and applications of nanoscale and neuroscience technologies, to identify ethical standards that help guide decision-making. The discussion here first identifies key domains in which nanoscale research is of interest to military theory and practice. It then offers some suggestions about principles by which to judge the value of interventions.

MILItarY INtErEst IN NaNOscaLE rEsEarcH

Nanoscale technology might enable the creation of biochip implants could also be developed to ‘read’ sensory input directly – without introducing the possibility of error – by a soldier who misunderstands or misinterprets exactly what he is seeing (for example, what type of missile or jet is approaching). The military and intelligence agencies also have an interest in knowing whether and to what extend nanoscale technologies could enable them to ‘read’ people’s minds, for example, captured enemy soldiers. Some technologies currently exist that are able to predict roughly what someone is thinking. On a more developed scale, this kind of technology would be extremely useful in interrogating captured soldiers, to learn the status of current operations. These technologies could even bypass contentious debates about whether or not torture is permissible in order to gain information that might be needed to avert imminent loss of death. They could also: • •

•

The military is looking to nanoscale research and technology in five main areas: (1) better information, (2) better weapons, (3) better uniforms, (4) better performance, and (5) better medical diagnoses and treatments.

better Information The military has an abiding interest in sensory mechanisms that can collect intelligence about the enemy and confirm whereabouts and status of its own personnel during operations.

•

Use biochips to track soldier movements in realm time via sensors. Insert microcomputers to relay sensory input: ‘Read’ raw sensory data via biochips or other technologies. For example: read the visual input of a pilot, transmit that input to a remote location, check it against profiles of enemy jets and make decisions about how to respond. Use microcomputers or biochips that evaluate health status of soldiers in real time (heart rate, temperature, secretions, etc.). Knowing the medical status of its personnel enables command to understand its strengths at any given time, or record and relay medical aspects of a soldier’s status. Desirable technologies of this kind are discussed in Better Medicine. Use biochip implants to distinguish the certainty of statements made by people under interrogation, which could eliminate need for harsh interrogations and torture of any kind.



Nanoscale Research, Ethics, and the Military

•

Create animal cell / computer hybrids for detection purposes. For example, connect animal olfactory cells to biochips to detect biochemical agents.

Neuroscience and nonscale research could augment this research considerably with the goal of targeting and incapacitation, hopefully with temporary effects.

better Weapons

better Uniforms

Current research initiatives include robotics, targeting capacity, non-lethal weapons, and weapons that may fall outside biochemical weapons agreements:

Soldiers carry considerable amounts of equipment, including bulky uniforms. Researchers are working to identify ways of using nanoscale devices in order to lessen physical burdens in the field. Moreover, these same kinds of technologies might be able to enhance physical performance. Among other things, researchers hope to:

•

•

•

Technologies that make weapons ‘smart’: That is, systems to identify targets by various kinds of artificial intelligence. For example, robotic weapons that could scan a crowd and fix on intended target. Build and deploy ‘smart’ ammunition: Namely weapons capable of identifying their target (a building, a specific person) without human evaluation or confirmation. These would be robotic in nature, and governed by artificial intelligence. Genetic bombs: Release a genetically engineered agent that works against specific human genotypes. This ‘bomb’ would work slowly and be hard to identify, depending on its outcome (for example, increasing rate of spontaneous abortion in a people or causing cancer in this population over time).

The military currently researches a variety of non-lethal weapons. These involve: • • • •



Sound: To induce nausea, vomiting, incapacitation Optics: Blinding lights disorient and even blind Biological: Induce respiratory and intestinal disorders Chemical: Induce paralysis, disorientation, incapacity

•

•

•

•

•

Magnify existing capacities to run, to jump, to react through exomuscular amplification. Use nanoscale technology to ‘weave’ uniforms from resistant materials. Protect against bullets, flame, radiation, etc. Use nanoscale technology to create bodyclimate controls: capable of detecting excess heat or cold and permitting either release of heat or retention of cold as appropriate. Develop mechanisms for the capture of body heat and water for redistribution or later use. Build medical diagnostics and treatment modalities into uniforms. (See Better Medicine for details.)

better Performance The way in which soldiers behave in combat is critical to their missions. It may be that research will identify mechanisms that offer greater control over the function and performance of soldiers. Enhance physical powers of service members through ‘exomuscle.’ Exomuscle involves structural amplification of existing capabilities of lifting, running, jumping, etc. For example, researchers foresee the day when technologies might be available that enhance per-

Nanoscale Research, Ethics, and the Military

formance through control of emotions, behavior, states of consciousness and sometimes through remote decision-making For example, stress often interrupts sleep that is necessary to optimally performing soldiers. If biochips could be used to control sleep patterns – put people to sleep during lulls in conflict and wake them up when needed again – this would contribute significantly to their strength and vigor on the field. Moreover, these techniques could be used to control sleep patterns during long jet flights. Some researchers predict the possibility that even more fine-grained control over soldiers might be possible: controlling their specific behavior via biochip control to, for example, reduce fear and anxiety during combat operations. Soldiers who are fearful may be less aggressive than desirable when it comes to a particular military objective. Soldiers who are not distracted by their own fears during hand-to-hand field combat would be presumably better at defending themselves and simultaneously working toward the specific military objective at hand. These same kinds of controls could perhaps even work the other way: to heighten anxiety in order to make soldiers especially alert to hidden dangers around them, when they might otherwise drift off into complacency. Biochips might also be useful over the haul of long operations, if they work to induce degrees of compensatory pleasure and sleep, for example. Some commentators have also speculated that commanders might be able to – from a remote location – direct soldiers to pull gun triggers or rocket launchers when key targets are in sight. There can be several advantages to this kind of control: soldiers who are reluctant for one reason or another to fire on a particular target might participate more wholeheartedly in search-andkill operations if they believed that the ultimate responsibility for killing rested not with themselves but with the commander who directed their behavior from a distance.

More speculatively, the military might use gene transfer techniques in order to insert copies of genes associated with intelligence, in order to increase soldier performance.

better Medicine Researchers hopt to develop technologies that could – perhaps in concert with better uniforms – improve diagnostic techniques: •

•

•

Build diagnostic modalities into uniforms. This might include diagnosis of exposure to biochemical weapons, in real time. Biochips could identify and confirm any agent whose molecular characterization is known. Build treatment modalities into uniforms. This might include (automatic) inoculations following exposure to pathogens in the environment. It might also include pressure applications (tourniquets) following detected blood loss. Remote medicine: The use of nanoscale technologies may be expected to increase the powers of remote treatment.

Some combination of neurological and nanotechnology might also be able to block the consolidation of traumatic memories, selectively removing painful events. There is increased use and accuracy of remote treatment: for example, in 2001, surgeons in New York operated on patient in France - entirely via robotics - to remove his gallbladder.

EtHIcaL IssUEs IN MILItarY NaNOscaLE rEsEarcH aND tEcHNOLOGIEs The ethical issues in nanoscale research with military applications can be broken out into three categories: those involved in the motives for the



Nanoscale Research, Ethics, and the Military

research, the process of the research, and the social effects of the research.

Motives In any ethical analysis, the logically first question is whether and to what extent researchers and the society that support them are justified in initiating and carrying out a particular line of research. What justifies choosing this kind of research from all possible domains of research? In one sense, there is nothing inherently objectionable about the basic research that underlies the drive for nanoscale innovation. In some cases, this science is merely doing what biology, chemistry, and physics have always done: try to understand mechanisms at the lowest level of causality and manipulate them to useful human purposes. Moreover, national defense and security are a core function of any government, and the military is one way to contribute to both. If this kind of research can contribute in meaningful ways to the military, then it is justified not only in itself but also in its effects. Researchers share with other citizens the burdens of national defense, including the costs of armed conflict, and to the extent their research can shoulder a portion of that burden, the efforts are morally justified.

Process of Once there is a clear and convincing rationale for a particular line of research, a variety of ethical questions arise related to the actual conduct of the research. How should military research involving nanoscale technologies and neuroscience proceed? At the present time, there is a structure for the review of research involving human beings (I am not going to be concerned with animal research here), whose primary purpose is to identify and deter objectionable research, namely research that ends in harm to the subjects involved. This system of oversight has seen some controversies



in military research, when there is debate about whether or not a particular intervention amounts to an experiment requiring, for example, informed consent from the soldiers involved. There can be disagreement about whether a particular intervention is experimental or not. This situation would likely continue as emerging technologies were introduced into the field, especially in combat theaters. A great deal of novel medical technologies are going to be experimental. In general, medicine in the military should observe as far as possible the moral standards important to civilian medicine. In general, the core principles of military medical ethics do not obstruct research and application of nanoscale research in these areas, but they do create cautions that are important to observe for moral reasons. These include undue loss of control over body and psychic functions, undue exposure to risks of unproven technologies, exposure to risk of unknown health hazards, and ‘dual agency,’ namely the extension of technologies from an acceptable use to an objectionable purpose. It may be that some research might need to bend to military interests. For structural and strategic reasons, the military can sometimes subordinate the healthcare standards that apply in civilian life to its own needs. One interesting development that might emerge from nanoscale technology is that it offers a way to bypass torture and harsh interrogations. Of course, countries signing the Geneva Conventions have agreed to give up torture, but the threshold of torture is sometimes a matter of disagreement, with advocates defending harsh interrogations they say do not rise to the level of torture. In any case, this debate might be bypassed if military and intelligence agents had available to them technological mechanisms that could ‘read’ answers to questions directly from a subject’s neurological system. This scenario presumes a fairly advanced level of science, of course, but the idea would be that this kind of ‘interrogation’ could be entirely harmless to a subject. The kind of technology

Nanoscale Research, Ethics, and the Military

would also make involvement of physicians less problematic, because existing ethical advisories forbid physicians from participating in torture and harsh interrogations. (AMA, 2.067). An ‘interrogation’ that consisted of implanting certain biochips might not be seen, by some, as ethically objectionable, thus opening the door for more direct physician involvement in the interrogation of captured hostile combatants. What is for sure: for the foreseeable future, a great deal of the interventions described here will be experimental in nature, and therefore raise important questions about what degree of oversight should be involved, what calculation of risk and benefit should be required before allowing an experiment to go forward, what kind of informed consent should be required, and what kind of monitoring for safety. These are some of the hardest and – as of yet – unanswered questions involving military applications of nanoscale technologies. It may be that existing standards are insufficient to oversee some of these interventions, for example, neurological interventions that attempt to secure for military commanders some degree of control over their soldiers’ emotional and cognitive states.

social Effects A great deal of U.S. discussion of military innovations involving nanoscale technologies suggests that the primary use of these technologies would be to the benefit of U.S. soldiers. But there is no way to know this in advance. It is unwise to assume that all technological developments in weaponry, uniforms, or healthcare will remain forever in the hands of the people who initially develop them. Indeed, there is likely to be strong demand for these technologies as soon as they are perceived as conferring a benefit on any one military force. In some cases, this demand will be strong indeed, driven as it will be by nationalism and other kinds of political fervor. One should not assume either that this demand will be con-

fined to national militaries, since a great deal of armed conflict in the world today is carried out by subnational groups. Therefore one key question will be to determine to what extent this research and its associated technologies should be available – if at all – outside the original research community. How should these technologies be controlled, if they can be controlled at all? The military frequently classifies information, and that might be one way to achieve some degree of control, but it may be that certain technologies cannot be hidden forever, especially if they are recovered by hostile forces during armed conflicts. In 2002, the World Medical Association adopted a professional advisory that puts it in opposition to all armed conflict. The merits of this advisory are a matter of debate, especially because it draws no distinction between defensive and offensive military operations. That issue aside, what is unresolved by that advisory is the extent to which participation in research that supports armed conflict is also objectionable. Some commentators do object to the participation of healthcare personnel in raising and sustaining armies, but these objections are overbroad.

cONcLUsION Thanks to the widely influential model of the Human Genome Project, a great deal of contemporary research tries to pay attention to the ethical, legal, and social implications of research as it unfolds, especially research expected to have profoundly transformative effects in one way or another. In ethics as elsewhere in life, however, it is never wise not to put too much cart before the horse. There surely are reasons to try and anticipate possible objectionable effects of research and blunt their effect through modified law and policy. However, in some instances, it may be difficult to foresee the effects that a research field may actually have. For this reason, one should be cautious about



Nanoscale Research, Ethics, and the Military

expecting that every effect of nanoscale research and technologies can be predicted and coped with beforehand: some effects will become evident only over time and some expected outcomes may never materialize. Nevertheless, it is clear from what we already know that nanoscale research may offer significant new tools to the military and it is important to bring those tools into line with existing norms or to develop new norms to cover dimensions of the technologies that are left hanging. A good deal of the discussion of the military implications of nanoscale research – better armor, better information, better medical tests and treatments – is couched in the language of protecting military personnel, about which there can be little argument. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of these tools across the globe may incite military conflict rather than tame it altogether. Certainly, the simple possession of these better tools will not guarantee strategic decisions about the use of troops and weapons anywhere. In fact, a nation or any armed group that is overconfident of its powers is in a position to blunder when making decisions to behave in ways that elicit armed conflict. It is unwise to foresee a global future in which only The Good Guys have access to these tools, and The Bad Guys never do. Military theorists and people concerned with the ethics of weapons research would do well to expect that at some point or another, a substantial number of nations and subnational political groups may gain access to the very systems emerging from nanoscale research. Moreover, one should not assume that these innovations will remain only and forever in the hands of benevolent nations who use them only in morally justified armed conflicts, and then only with the degree of force necessary to secure a benevolent objective. At the close of World War II, the handful of nations with nuclear weapons expected to keep them within that closed circle. Political interests around the world nevertheless worked to expand the number



of nations with nuclear weapons, in ways that are profoundly destabilizing to this very day. One way to frame ethical questions when initiating lines of research having significant military potential, then, is to ask what would happen if this research became common property? The answer to this question might force countries to reconsider whether or not they will engage in the research at all. More likely, however, these countries will try to ensure that any research that poses more risk to international security than benefit remains contained. Whether or not that approach can succeed, it is certainly worth paying attention to.

rEFErENcEs Altmann, Jürgen. (2006). Military technology: Potential applications and preventive arms control. New York: Routledge. Altmann, Jürgen, Gubrud, M. (2004). Anticipating military nanotechnology. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, (Winter), 33-41. Beam, Thomas A., Howe, E.G. (2003). A look toward the future. In Thomas Beam, Linette Sparacino (Eds.), Military medical ethics, vol. 2, 831-50. Falls Church, VA: Office of the Surgeon General. Gross, M.L. (2006). Bioethics and armed conflict: Moral dilemmas of medicine and war. The MIT Press. Jablonski, Nina. (2006). Skin: A natural history. Berkeley: University of California Press. Military uses of nanotechnology [summary of a UN committee report]. Retrieved from http:// ubertv/envisioning/clippings/2005/03/005882. html Moreno, Jonathan D. (2006). The role of brain research in national defense. Chronicle of Higher Education Review, Nov. 10, 2006, B6-B7.

Nanoscale Research, Ethics, and the Military

Moreno, Jonathan D. (2000). Undue risk: Secret state experiments on humans. New York: Freeman & Co. Website for Massachusetts Institute of Technology Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology. Found at www.mit/edu/isn

KEY tErMs Nanoscale Technology: This is an area of nanotechnology concerned with standard size tools used to create simple structures and devices.

Medical Diagnostics: This refers to methods for identifying a medical condition or disease. Military Necessity: This is a legal notion used in international humanitarian law to govern decisions about the use of military power. Uniforms: This is a set of standard clothing worn by members of an organization or group. Weapons: This is a technique or tool used to defeat an opponent or defend against an opponent.



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Chapter XII

Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age Keith Bauer Marquette University, USA

abstract This chapter reviews key debates about the meaning of telehealth and also considers how new and emerging systems in telehealth work to protect patient confidentiality, improve healthcare relationships, and diminish instances of compromised access and equity in the healthcare system. This chapter also looks at how these same telehealth systems could undermine those goals, making it important to assess the way in which these emerging technologies are implemented. Various technologies are examined to show how their implementation can ensure that their benefits outweigh their risks.

INtrODUctION The growing use of information and communication technology (ICT) is producing widespread changes in society. One area in particular that is quickly being transformed by ICT is the field of healthcare. This is evident in the relatively new field of telehealth, which utilizes the Internet, electronic patient records systems, hand-held computers, among other types of ICT. Telehealth has great potential to improve the quality and provision of healthcare services, but there are a number of subtle ethical issues that should be considered as society moves forward with its use.

The aim of this chapter is, therefore, to provide an ethical assessment of telehealth. The specific questions this chapter addresses are as follows: 1.

2.

What are the distributive justice implications of telehealth? Will medically underserved populations gain greater access to healthcare services? If so, what sorts of tradeoffs, if any, between access and quality will be required? What are the implications of telehealth for provider-patient relationships? For example, will an increase in the quantity of providerpatient interactions lead to a corresponding

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Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

3.

4.

increase or reduction in the quality of those interactions? What are the implications of telehealth for medical privacy and patient confidentiality? What are the future trends in telehealth and how will they affect patient care and the healthcare system in general?

bacKGrOUND In order to understand what telehealth is, it is necessary to understand its history and its meanings. The literal meaning of the word telehealth is health from a distance. Combining the word health with the Greek prefix tele, which means end, far off, or distance, produces this definition. We see similar combinations in the words telephone, which literally means, sound from a distance, and telegraph, which literally means writing from a distance. Various definitions of telehealth are currently in circulation within the healthcare community. One common view of telehealth makes it synonymous with two-way audio-video systems that allow for interactive consults between patients and healthcare professionals. However, other definitions are equally common and may include the use of ICTs (e.g., computers) that capture, store, manipulate, and display medical data but not include the use of interactive communications between patients and healthcare providers. Consequently, a fax machine used to transmit patient medical information or the telemonitoring of a cardiac patient would not count as telehealth under the first definition but would under the second definition (Denton, 1993; Preston, 1994). Although no universally accepted definition of telehealth exists, there is agreement that any definition of it must include at least three elements: (1) the use of ICT, (2) geographic distance between the participants, and (3) health or medical uses. On the basis of these three characteristics, the Institute of

Medicine (IOM) defines telehealth/telemedicine in the following manner: Telemedicine [telehealth] is the use of telecommunications and information technologies to share and to maintain patient health information and to provide clinical care and health education to patients and professionals when distance separates the participants. (Field, 1996, p. 27) The IOM’s definition can be made more specific, depending on whether (a) emphasis is given to a particular technology (e.g., video conferencing or Internet) (b) a distinction is made between clinical and non-clinical applications, and (c) whether telehealth is conceived of as an integrated system of healthcare delivery rather than a mere collection of electronic tools. Non-clinical applications of telehealth typically include professional education, healthcare administrative duties, management meetings, research, and the aggregation of health data, but usually exclude medical treatments and decisions for specific patients. Clinical applications of telehealth involve patient care and include medical decisions, diagnostics, and treatments for particular patients. This distinction, however, can be difficult to maintain because some ICT allow for the convergence of non-clinical and clinical activities, for example, when e-mail communications between patients and providers are automatically stored in a computerized record system. In addition, there are a number of ways in which clinical telehealth can be subdivided. One way is to classify clinical applications by the point of service or the patient’s location, for example, rural, correctional, and home. Another classificatory scheme common to clinical telehealth is to organize services by specialization, for example, telepsychiatry and telepathology (Peredina & Allen, 1995; Peredina & Brown, 1995). A third approach is simply to categorize telehealth services in terms of present and future healthcare reimbursement policies, for example,



Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

emergency care, follow-up care, consultation, and the transmission of diagnostic images (Grigsby & Kaehny, 1993). The IOM’s tripartite definition of telehealth-geography, ICT, and medicine—can be expanded upon when it is conceived as a system of healthcare rather than as the use of a particular ICT in a healthcare setting. According to one view, a telehealth or telemedicine system can be defined as follows: A telemedicine system is an integrated, typically regional, health care network offering comprehensive health service to a defined population through the use of telecommunications and computer technology. (Bashshur & Sanders, 1997, p. 9) When telehealth is defined as a system of healthcare, the distributive and integrative strengths of ICT to form a seamless healthcare network are highlighted. This definition, because it highlights the systemic nature of telehealth, also helps to illuminate many of its social and ethical aspects not readily visible in other definitions.

KEY EtHIcaL IssUEs Most evaluations of telehealth have not centered on its ethical dimensions. In what follows, I explore three key ethical concerns surrounding the growth of telehealth. I begin with an examination of the potential distributive justice ramifications of telehealth.

Distributive justice Much of the debate over healthcare justice in the United States remains focused on the lack of access to healthcare services and inadequate health insurance coverage. The reason for this is that there are approximately 42 million persons who lack health insurance coverage (Schroeder, 2001). At this time, there are about 700,000 physicians



practicing in the United States, which means there are approximately 275 physicians for every 100,000 persons. However, even with this doctorto-patient ratio, many citizens still lack access to adequate healthcare services (Marwick, 2000). From a public health perspective, this is a serious problem. For, as numerous empirical studies have demonstrated, there is a strong correlation between positive health outcomes and access to healthcare services (Davis, 1991). But the problem is even more serious for health profession shortage areas, as they tend to have higher percentages of poverty, elderly people, people lacking health insurance coverage, and people with chronic diseases. From a distributive justice perspective, this means that one of the least fortunate and medically needy populations in the United States faces the greatest burdens in gaining access to healthcare services. As a way of ameliorating these healthcare disparities, telemedical initiatives are being devised to meet the healthcare needs of underserved populations. The good news is that telehealth services have the potential to produce a more equitable or fair distribution of healthcare resources. The bad news is that the Internet and other telecommunication technologies are not yet universally available, which in turn raises an entirely different but related set of distributive justice concerns about the digital divide—the equitable distribution of ICT. However, before looking at the distributive justice pros and cons of telehealth, it will be useful to be more precise about what distributive justice in healthcare means. The general answer is that it pertains to questions about access and the fair allocation of healthcare benefits and burdens among populations. More specifically, distributive justice in healthcare requires the application of fair standards that make quality healthcare available and accessible to persons in an efficient manner (President’s Commission, 1982). It is these five elements—fairness, quality, availability, accessibility, and efficiency—that are typically involved when distributive justice in healthcare is at stake.

Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

But what do these elements of distributive justice mean and how should we understand them in the context of telehealth? A healthcare system is typically considered fair when (1) persons are not denied healthcare services on the basis of prima facie morally irrelevant criteria, such as class, race, and gender; and when (2) persons can secure an adequate level of care without excessive burdens (IOM, 2001). Because geography can create burdens for medically needy populations, geographic location, the place where one is born and lives, should not be used as a criterion for deciding who gets healthcare services. Rather, medical need should be the decisive factor. Next, quality in the distribution of healthcare means not only that services are delivered with an eye towards avoiding errors, but should also be provided in a competent, compassionate, and respectful manner (IOM, 2001). The problem for many telehealth services at this time is that it is not fully known under what clinical conditions ICT should be employed and when, if at all, they should supplement or replace face-to-face interactions between patients and providers, for example, online psychiatry with severely depressed or suicidal patients. Consequently, standards of care and questions of whether telehealth improves or decreases the quality of healthcare have to be better understood. The importance of availability and accessibility for distributive justice is that persons should receive services when they need it without undue burden. In some cases, services may be available within a geographical region but remain inaccessible because of inadequate transportation. The Internet along with advances in digital technology, for example, now make it possible to deliver some healthcare services to persons in underserved areas who would otherwise need to travel long distances. Telehealth technology, especially when located in the home, can make it easier to provide healthcare information and services over long distances and minimize the physical and financial

burdens and lost time of patients who must travel long distances to meet with healthcare providers (Ostbye & Hurlen, 1997; Bauer, 2001). Finally, efficiency is also an important variable in the distributive justice equation for telehealth. Because of limited healthcare resources and the high demand for them, the healthcare system should minimize inefficiencies such as duplicated services and errors to the greatest extent possible. For example, rather than replicating expensive services and technologies at different sites, a telehealth network could electronically link multiple sites to a centralized healthcare center where patients’ records are stored. Thus, efficiency, along with fairness, quality, accessibility, and availability, are the core elements of a general conception of distributive justice in healthcare and important to an ethical assessment of telehealth. If healthcare justice is to be a reality, no one of the aforementioned elements should be pursed to the exclusion of the other. A problem with this goal is that the five elements of distributive justice frequently come into conflict with each other. For example, improvements in the quality of some services may require placing limitations on the availability of other services because they lead to an unacceptable increase in the aggregate cost of healthcare and produce an unfair allocation of limited healthcare dollars. Also, ICT is likely to increase access to medical services, but the quality and confidentiality of those same services might not meet current standards of care established for traditional faceto-face medical encounters. Nevertheless, given the option of no healthcare services, telehealth, even if of lower quality, may be preferable. As more healthcare information goes online and as more telemedical services are made available to the public, the digital divide (i.e., the unavailability or inaccessibility to ICT) should also be viewed as a healthcare justice problem. The digital divide is relevant because persons who lack access to information technology or the skills needed to operate the same technology



Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

may have greater burdens obtaining telemedical services compared to persons who have training and access to the Internet and computers (AMIA, 1997). Therefore, those who are the least well off and have the greatest medical needs—disabled elderly persons who live in health profession shortage areas—will have greater burdens in obtaining online health information and telehealth services that rely on the Internet. Until this gap in digital services is filled, telehealth services will remain limited for this medically needy population (Borberg, 1995). But digital inclusion may not be the panacea that it appears to be for telehealth initiatives. If, as discussed above, digital inclusion becomes a reality in the near future for health profession shortage areas, there is the possibility that electronically mediated healthcare services will be of a lower quality compared to face-to-face healthcare services. If so, we will need to answer some important questions: When, if at all, should telehealth services either replace or supplement in-person services? What sorts of tradeoffs between access and quality are ethically acceptable and who gets to decide? Or, on the other hand, instead of pushing for digital inclusion and the establishment of telehealth systems, maybe a just healthcare system should require more effort and financial resources be devoted to enticing physicians and other healthcare professionals to practice in medically underserved regions.

Provider-Patient relationships Before looking at how telehealth is reshaping the provider-patient relationship, it is important to first identify the core goals and values that should be used to evaluate this relationship. For the purpose of this chapter, there are at least three major and overlapping healthcare goals and values that are central to an ethical evaluation of provider-patient relationships. These are (1) to achieve the best quality of patient care, (2) to balance the art of healthcare with the science of healthcare, and (3)



to balance patient autonomy with professional autonomy (Hanson & Callahan, 1999; Kaplan, 2000). As will be discussed subsequently, various telehealth services may advance or retard any one of the three aforementioned healthcare goals and values. First, quality of patient care refers to the ability of a new medical technology to improve patient care and health outcomes. Sometimes, however, acceptance of a new medical technology by providers has more to do with their belief in it than whether it can be demonstrated to improve the quality of patient care. For some, telehealth is a threat to the provider-patient relationship; to others, it is no threat at all. The reality is that until telehealth services have been adequately evaluated, we are left with competing speculations. Nevertheless, the belief that a new medical technology either harms or benefits the quality of patient care and the provider-patient relationship will play a large role in whether telehealth is accepted. Second, healthcare as both an art and science has an extensive history and is closely connected to the quality of patient care. The science of healthcare refers to standardized clinical practice guidelines, automated procedures, scientific evidence, and the employment of medical technology. As is the case with science generally, the science of healthcare is always changing as new discoveries are made and better techniques emerge. The art of healthcare refers to the individual clinical judgements and intuitions of healthcare providers. The art of healthcare also refers to the emotional dimension of the providerpatient relationship. When the art of healthcare is practiced well, providers are able to genuinely feel and express empathy and compassion for their sick and vulnerable patients. Unlike the science of healthcare, the art of healthcare encompasses what is likely a universal and unchanging aspect of the human condition—the experience of being ill, being vulnerable, being dependent, and being healed. The art of healthcare requires a deep

Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

moral sensitivity to the experience of illness. Concerning this experience, Edmund Pellegrino states the following: It [illness] is only in part defined medically as a concrete organic or psychological aberration. It is the perception of the change in existential states that forms the central experience of illness---the perception of impairment and the need to be made whole again---to be cured, healed, or cared for. (Pellegrino, 1981, p. 71). If Pellegrino is correct, then both the art and science of healthcare are desirable and necessary for the provision of technically sound and ethically appropriate healthcare services. Since Hippocrates’ day, however, there have been tensions between the science and art of healthcare. According to Pellegrino and Thomasma, modern medicine is characterized by an imbalance in which technology and the science of healthcare dominate the provider-patient relationship: The temptation to employ technology rather than to give oneself as a person in the process of healing is a “technological fix.” The technological fix is much easier to conceptualize and to implement than the more difficult process of a truly human engagement. The training and the skills of modern health professionals overwhelmingly foster the use of technological fixes. (Pellegrino & Thomasma, 1993, p. 124). At this time, some applications of telehealth have proven to be easier and cheaper. Although the verdict is out on whether telehealth is simply an instance of modern man’s proclivity for easy technical solutions to complex human problems, Pellegrino and Thomasma think, I believe correctly, that an overemphasis on technology and technical competence at the expense of compassion in medical education gives us good reasons to be concerned.

Autonomy is the final healthcare value basic to the acceptance of new medical technology and the provider-patient relationship. Modern healthcare, with its use of ICT, clinical practice guidelines, and research protocols, tends to give more weight to the science of healthcare and less weight to the expertise and judgments of individual providers. This is already the case in most healthcare settings where teams of providers, rather than individual providers, are more likely to care for a single patient. As such, the professional autonomy of individual providers is diluted because unilateral decision-making has given way to consensus building and shared decision-making. The rise of telehealth has intensified this trend. According to Douglas Walton: The Hippocratic treatises are quite right to cite excellence of craftsmanship as a central ethic of competence for medical treatment. But in modern terms this competence must be understood to entail a sharing of scientific knowledge. Hence a corporate and institutional notion of technology as the coordination of a team effort is necessary. It is futile to try to go back altogether to the model of the caring family doctor as the bringer of treatment. (Walton, 1985, p.60). Moreover, as telehealth evolves, it is likely that patients will take on more responsibilities for administering and regulating their own healthcare, thereby, further limiting the role providers have in direct patient care. As more patients self care with the aid of telehealth technology, providers will not only work in teams, they will work in virtual teams that are geographically and temporally decentralized, lacking, in many instances, any face-to-face interactions with their patients and colleagues. Consequently, more effort at coordinating patient care will need to be made. This, in turn, is likely to increase the responsibilities and autonomy of patients, but place new restrictions on the professional autonomy of providers.



Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

Changes in the provider-patient relationship are not new. A myriad of social, economic, and technological forces have continuously reshaped the provider-patient relationship since the dawn of medicine. Until relatively recently in medicine’s history, the provider-patient relationship has been characterized by a substantial imbalance of power between patients and healthcare providers. Within the traditional provider-patient relationship, providers, especially doctors, have had more control and authority than their patients have. In simple terms, providers have had a dominant and active role while patients have had a subordinate and passive role in healthcare decision-making. This unequal distribution of power is predominately a consequence of the medical expertise that providers have but patients lack but need in order to get well. Of course, imbalances in medical knowledge and power still exist within contemporary provider-patient relationships, but they are considerably less pronounced as they once were due to ICT. For some theorists, the gradual realignment of power within the traditional paternal providerpatient relationship is, and continues to be, the result of modernity, which consists of convergent social, economic, and technological forces associated with the process of industrialization. Cockerham has the following to say: Modernity promotes social relations that span the globe, moves social life away from traditional practices, and features the progressive use of knowledge to organize and transform society. In this context, medical science becomes increasingly accessible to laypersons. This situation, along with the desire of modern individuals to be in control of their lives, points towards a modification in the physician-patient [provider-patient] relationship in the direction of greater equality between the two parties. (Cockerham, 1993, p. 48). Cockerham does not explicitly mention telehealth, but the expanded use of ITC in healthcare



can also be seen as an elaboration of modernism. Telehealth, as a manifestation of modernism, raises a variety of ethical concerns. However, concerns about medical technology are not new. In fact, alarm over the increasing use of technology within patient-provider interactions also has a long history that includes the introduction of low-tech medical instruments such as the now commonly used stethoscope. When introduced, many physicians considered this device controversial because they believed it dehumanized the provider-patient relationship by putting physical distance between providers and patients. On this point, Evans has this to say: Many chroniclers claim that high-tech medicine has evolved at the expense of the doctor-patient relationship, that machines have created a cold and impersonal chasm between the healer and the patient. In their minds the doctor has become a mere technician, a “body mechanic,” who can treat disease but not the person. (Evans, 1993, p. 82). “High-tech” healthcare, however, does not have to be synonymous with an impersonal provider-patient relationship; it can also be associated with a personal and “high-touch” provider-patient relationship. This is possible because we need not accept, on the one hand, the view that medical technology is singularly responsible (i.e., technological fix) for the changes, good or bad, which have occurred within the provider-patient relationship. Nor need we accept that view, on the other hand, that the consequences of medical technology for the provider-patient relationship are tantamount to an endless stream of interpretations and rootless meanings. Rather, it is possible to adopt a middle course in which the meanings assigned to a new medical technology are as important as the technology itself in altering the provider-patient relationship. From this standpoint, technology, culture, institutional contexts, and the values

Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

and goals held by providers and patients all play a significant role in either the adoption or rejection of a new medical device. This was the case in the changed attitudes toward the stethoscope, which is now taken for granted as a basic and reliable medical tool. Thus, it would be premature to conclude that the high-tech of telehealth is inherently incompatible with a compassionate or high-touch provider-patient relationship (Turkle, 1984; Schement & Curtis, 1995). Although modernism and the introduction of new medical technologies have had the overall effect of reducing the authority of providers, it has also given them greater power in the relationship in other respects. First, unlike the vast majority of their patients, providers understand how sophisticated medical tools function. Second, many medical devices have modified provider-patient interactions by facilitating the creation of an objective scientific nosology (i.e., classificatory scheme) that allows providers to diagnose a patient’s disease independent of the patient’s subjective reports. Third, because of an objective nosology and the relatively simple and universal manner in which medical devices are used, doctors are now able to delegate timeconsuming activities to nurses and support staff, making doctors less directly involved in basic patient care. According to Evans: With medical instruments, doctors [healthcare providers] could subject patients and their symptoms to objective scrutiny. As doctors gained more data from instruments, the quality of the information related by the patient seemed less important. Doctor and patient shared less knowledge; there was less common ground between them. A medical instrument acted as a lens through which the doctor could see the disease unfiltered by the patient’s interpretations. Instruments thus altered the doctor-patient relationship, making the patient’s experience of illness less important. (Evan, 1993, p. 90).

Concerns about the impact of ICT on providerpatient relationships also have a long history. As early as the 1880s some physicians were lamenting the use of the telephone as a means of communicating with their patients. They were concerned that geographical distance and the lack of a hands-on approach with patients would undermine their ability to care for their patients. Before the telephone, the telegraph was subjected to similar criticism. Now, with the advent of modern-day telehealth the same worries have emerged. Like their ancestors, some contemporary healthcare providers and patients are apprehensive about the possible consequences ITC will have on the balance between the art and science of healthcare, professional autonomy, and the quality of patient care (Sanders & Bashsur, 1995; Wooton & Darkins, 1997). First, some speculate that as telehealth services become more commonplace, providers will be less adept at understanding their patients’ experiences of living with and dying from disease. One particular concern is that physical separation and electronically mediated communication may make the establishment of emotional connections between patients and healthcare providers more difficult. On the patient side, confidence, trust and dependence on providers may be diminished as patients increasingly obtain their medical information from websites, receive emotional support from on on-line support groups, and electronically communicate with their providers by means of e-mail and interactive video (Bero & Jadad, 1997; Eng & Gustafson, 1999). If this happens, there is concern that telehealth may deleteriously affect the quality of patient care. In support of these worries, a number of studies using randomized controlled trials have demonstrated that the quality of clinical communication is related to positive health outcomes. In other words, the more cumbersome and awkward provider-patient communication, the more likely patients will not get well (Kaplan & Greenfield, 1989).



Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

Second, although some telehealth applications have the capacity to enhance patient autonomy and well-being, they also have the capacity to undermine patient autonomy and well-being especially when, for example, telemedical tools are limited to automated telemetry-capable medical devices and computerized patient records (Beasly & Graber, 1984; Howe, 2001). The reason for this is that providers will have little or no physical contact with their patients, interacting only with abstract patient data sets that have been transmitted through electronic networks and stored as computerized patient records. On this point, George Marckmann argues that under these conditions healthcare providers may (1) fail to include patients in decision-making about the patient’s care and (2) inadvertently dehumanize their patients. He writes the following: Without the physical presence of the patient there will be an increasing probability of unilateral decisions by physicians, thus conflicting with the ideal of a shared decision-making between physician and patient. (Marckmann, 1999, p. 60). And later: If the personal consultation of specialists is replaced by teleconsultations, there will be an increasing risk that not the individual patient but just the digital data set-the gnostic analogue of the patient---becomes the object of diagnosis and treatment. Electronic patient records must be considered as a highly abstract, possible erroneous “artifact” which should not get a life of its own: not the data set but the patient needs treatment. (Marckmann, 1999, p. 60). If Marckmann is correct, then telehealth may modify the level of interconnectedness that exists between patients and providers and, thereby, detrimentally transform the provider-patient relationship. In brief, the concept of interconnectedness refers to the effects of ICT on social relationships.



Interconnectedness at the individual level has particular relevance to provider-patient relationships that take place within telehealth: At the micro level, individuals experience interconnectedness as a change in the nature of their social relationships. For most people, this means an increase in the number of relationships, but a decrease in their depth. That is, we are in regularif not frequent contact with more people, but we don’t know many of them very well. (Schement & Curtis, 1995, p. 47). Similar notions about the quality of social relationships are expressed in the theory of social presence. According to this theory, social presence is the feeling one has that other persons are involved in a communication exchange. The degree of social presence in an interaction is hypothesized to be determined by the communication medium: the fewer channels or codes available within a medium, the less attention that will be given by the user to the presence of other social participants. As social presence declines, messages become more impersonal and task oriented (Walther, 1995). Assuming that the concept of interconnectedness and the theory of social presence are accurate, the primary goal of many electronically mediated relationships may turn out to be neither the person nor the relationship, but the information. Of course, the accurate and timely exchange of information between patients and providers has great benefits in the diagnosing and treatment of patients and in the cost-effective management of healthcare organizations. Moreover, easy access to health information and healthcare workers via telehealth technology may enhance the autonomy of patients, reduce their anxiety, and provide for an overall better quality of life for them. However, an effective and ethically appropriate providerpatient relationship will most likely require more than the efficient accumulation of patient data; it will also require a patient-centered relationship

Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

infused with empathetic communication and an awareness of the patient’s existential state in the midst of illness.

Privacy and Confidentiality Defining privacy and privacy-related concepts such as confidentiality is not a simple task, as there is no universally accepted definition, theory, or justification for privacy within the philosophical, legal, and public policy literature. Because of this lack of agreement on the scope of privacy, identification and analysis of important privacy issues within telehealth can be difficult, if not entirely overlooked. It what follows distinctions among physical privacy, informational privacy, and confidentiality will be made and their relevance to telehealth discussed. Physical privacy generally refers to the restricted access that others have to our bodies, relationships, and living spaces. Physical privacy is ethically significant because it allows for intimacy, solitude, personal control, and peace of mind (Allen, 1995). Telehealth, especially when used in the homes of patients, is significant because it has the potential to reduce the number of unwanted in-person intrusions by healthcare workers. As teleconsultation and telemonitoring increasingly substitute for in-home visits, it may be possible for patients to gain more control over their homes, personal relationships, and daily schedules. On the other hand, these same patients may want to have more in-person visits than televisits, willingly sacrificing a measure of physical privacy for greater in-person social interaction. Whatever patients decide, the point is that telehealth services will give them options that don’t widely exist today. Informational privacy refers to the confidentiality and security of identifiable patient health information and clinical data found in patient records and in communications among healthcare professionals and patients (Allen, 1995). Confidentiality is the protection of private informa-

tion, once it has been disclosed by a patient to a healthcare professional (e.g., during a medical examination or taking of a medical history). In short, confidentiality requires patients to give up their informational privacy. Once the patient discloses medical information, it becomes confidential and is no longer private. Although there are exceptions to the maintenance of confidentiality, providers are legally and ethically prohibited from sharing patient information with others who are not directly involved in the patient’s care. Telehealth’s use of computerized patient records, electronic mail, medical websites, online support groups, and video conferencing tools create new threats and opportunities for the physical and informational privacy of patients. On one hand, patients can gain greater physical privacy, but, on the other hand, patients’ informational privacy may be a greater risk, especially when the security of socially stigmatizing health information is breached by hacking or the accidental transmission of patient information to unintended recipients. In such scenarios, patients may not only lose their informational privacy, they also may be subject to social ostracism, job discrimination, loss of insurance, and social control in the form of blackmail (Shea, 1994). Total informational and physical privacy is not realistic in telehealth and healthcare generally. First, other goods like medical research and public health require that limits be placed on the privacy of health information. Second, in order to treat and cure their patients, healthcare professionals must sometimes compromise the informational and physical privacy of their patients. Healthcare professionals must be able to touch their patients and obtain information about the intimate details of their patients’ lifestyles and personal habits. Hence, patients must give up some informational and physical privacy to achieve the benefits of medical expertise. Depending on the site or point of care (e.g., hospitals, ambulatory clinics, and patients’ homes), patients will have more or less informational and physical privacy.



Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

Unfortunately, much of the telehealth literature on privacy simply fails to distinguish between informational and physical privacy. Furthermore, even when distinctions among physical and informational privacy are acknowledged in the telehealth literature, the focus is more often than not on informational privacy and the confidentiality of identifiable health information (Field, 1996). When these distinctions are not recognized, many of the privacy issues of telehealth that should be considered will be overlooked. For example, electronic mail and video conferencing can enhance the physical privacy of patients by reducing the number of in-person visits from healthcare professionals. Yet, these same patients may increase their risks to their informational privacy as their physiological data and electronic communications stream through standard phone lines and over wireless networks. In short, if the distinctions between physical and informational privacy are minimized, then ethically significant conflicts between these kinds of privacy and the need for possible compromises will be missed and remain unarticulated in policies, laws, and procedures affecting telehealth services.

FUtUrE trENDs Before concluding, I want to discuss two future trends in the evolution of telehealth, which include the creation and use of smart homes and implantable biosensor technology. Smart homes refer to the use of ITC to augment the range of services that homes and other buildings can provide for their occupants, for example, using computers to turn lights on and off without human assistance (Bauer, 2007). More advanced forms of ambient intelligence and ubiquitous computing technology can even monitor the time, frequency, and variety of a person’s activities, including, for example, how often a person is waking up and walking, using the toilet, or opening his medicine cabinet to

0

take medication. Moreover, software is presently being tested that analyzes the various activities detected by sensors embedded in patients’ homes. This information is then used to assist either the inhabitants of the house directly or passed on to others, for example relatives and healthcare providers. The benefit of smart home technology is that it gives patients greater physical privacy and simultaneously allows providers to obtain real-time and comprehensive information about their patients’ activities and living environments without being physical present, and to do so in a non-intrusive manner. Moreover, even though smart home technology is ubiquitous in most cases, it is invisible by being architecturally integrated into patients’ homes. One type of smart home technology gaining use with dementia patients is object recognition systems that track certain objects when they’re put down. The system works by taking a picture of any object. Then, with cameras placed throughout the house, it goes and looks for the object. A patient uses the system by asking the computer where a specific object is located, for example, a pair of reading glasses, and the computer tells them where the requested object is located in the home. Another smart home technology being developed is the health detector. Like the recognition system above, this system is also made up of multiple cameras. These cameras, however, regularly take pictures of the patient’s face and body and compare those pictures to others taken previously. The aim of the health detector is to identify any changes in physical appearance that may indicate a decline in function or, for example, the presence of skin cancer or the loss of weight. As this system is part of a larger telehealth network, the collected data can be simultaneously transmitted to the patient’s healthcare providers to be analyzed (Coye, 2007). Although in limited use at this time, implantable biosensors are now increasingly being used (Bauer, 2007; Viseu, 2003). Unlike smart home ICT, these sensors go one step farther by

Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

embedding ICT directly into the patient’s body. In conjunction with smart homes, implantable biosensors are likely to facilitate independent living and continuum of care. Second, increased use of implantable biosensors is likely to make healthcare more proactive and preventative rather than reactive and episodic. These trends in telehealth are likely to help move healthcare delivery from institutional settings to non-institutional settings such as the home, giving patients more autonomy and a greater role in managing their own healthcare. Two specific uses of implantable biosensors that are on the rise in telehealth are prosthetic and monitoring functions. First, neurotrophic brain implants are now being tested as mental prostheses to compensate for a loss of normal function in persons unable to speak, for example, because of stroke, spinal cord injuries, or ALS (McGee, 1999; Kennedy & Bakay, 1998). As recently as 2004, the Food and Drug Administration gave approval to begin systematic clinical trials to implant microchips in the brains of paralyzed patients (CNN.com, 2004). A neurotrophic brain implant works by implanting an electrode into the motor cortex of the patient’s brain. Neurons in the brain then transmit electrical signals to the electrode, which, in turn, transmits the same signals to a receiver placed on the patient’s scalp. These recorded signals are connected to a computer and are used as a substitute cursor or mouse. As patients learn to control the strength and pattern of electrical impulses being produced in their brain, they are able to direct the cursor to a specific point on the computer as they wish. In doing so, patients are able to communicate and can even send email. Second, implantable biosensors are being used to monitor patients. For example, implantable cardiac biosensors that use wireless technology are being linked to sophisticated Internet-based monitoring networks that allow patients to transmit device and physiologic data to their providers without leaving their homes. Providers can re-

motely monitor the condition of their patients by logging into a secure website. Patients may also have access to the same website where they can obtain health-related information and personalized device data. In some locations, providers can access patient data by means of a handheld computer or personal digital assistant (PDA) (DeVille, 2003). What makes smart homes as well as prosthetic and monitoring bioimplants revolutionary is that they have the potential to create a continuum of care that is seamless and more proactive. How will these future trends in telehealth achieve this goal? The general answer is that these technologies will better enable the integration of the patient’s body with its immediate environment and the larger healthcare community. Since smart homes and implantable biosensors, like many other kinds of ICT, are interactive, they can help facilitate damaged or less than optimal person-environment interactions that are due to illness or environmental barriers (e.g., lack of transportation). The traditional view in medicine has been to view the purpose of technology as a way to fix persons, not environments. The problem with this view is that it construes persons as being distinct from their environments and overlooks the essential reality of person-environment interaction. As implants, smart homes, and other telehealth services become more commonplace in the provision of healthcare, this traditional view will and should dissipate. Second, as smart homes and implantable biosensors more fully integrate patient bodies with their environments, patient care is likely to become mobile and migrate from institutional to non-institutional settings such as the home (Medical News, 2005). Home sensors in concert with implantable biosensors will likely exhibit a collective, synergistic intelligence that not only monitors, stores, and transmits biometric data to healthcare providers, but also allows patients to more easily regulate their home environments and to travel anywhere at anytime with the peace of mind that they are under continuous



Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

medical supervision. By giving patients more control over their environments and lifestyles, implantable biosensors and smart homes have the capacity to enhance the autonomy and well being of patients. Third, much of the healthcare system today can be characterized as reactive and episodic, rather than proactive and preventative. As such, it is expensive and does a poor job of detecting medical conditions and preventing and responding to medical emergencies. Consequently, the present model of healthcare is less likely to maximize both the quality of patient care and patient health outcomes. In conjunction with external ICT, how might smart homes and implantable biosensors help us transition from a reactive to a preventative healthcare system? In answering this question, take, for example, the cardiac biosensors discussed earlier. These biosensors, which allow for the continuous real-time monitoring and transmission of a patient’s cardiac functions, can be coupled with desktop telehealth units and the Internet, which, in turn, can automatically alert an emergency call center in case of a cardiac event. Unlike a reactive and episodic approach that responds after a cardiac event is in progress, an automated telehealth system that incorporates implants and smart home technology is preventative because it can detect and report a cardiac event even before the patient knows what is happening. In doing so, not only are opportunities to prevent serious patient harms or death increased, the costs of treating and managing cardiac patients is likely to decrease. In concrete terms, a proactive healthcare system that can prevent emergencies is a healthcare system that is more likely to be more efficient and lead to better health outcomes for patients.

cONcLUsION Telehealth has its risks, but this author believes that the overall impact of telehealth is likely to



be positive for patients and healthcare providers alike. In closing, this chapter has explored how telehealth is substantially transforming our healthcare system, arguing that three key ethical issues should be examined as telehealth services are implemented: 1) distributive justice, 2) providerpatient relationships, and 3) privacy. This chapter also identified two overlapping and developing trends in telehealth—smart homes and implantable biosensors—that are likely to improve the continuum of patient care, facilitate independent living, and make the healthcare systems less reactive and more proactive in the future.

rEFErENcEs Allen, A. (1995). Privacy in healthcare. Encyclopedia of Bioethics (pp. 2064-2073). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. AMIA (1997). A proposal to improve quality, increase efficiency, and expand access in the U.S. healthcare system. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 4, 340-341. Bashshur, R., & Sanders, J. (Ed.) (1997). Telemedicine: Theory and practice. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, LTD. Bauer, K. (2001). Home-based telemedicine: A survey of ethical issues. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 10(2), 137-146. Bauer, K. (2007). Wired patients: Implantable microchips and biosensors in patient care. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 16(3), 281-290. Beasly, A., & Graber, G. (1984). The range of autonomy: Informed consent in medicine. Theoretical Medicine, 5, 31-41. Bero, L., & Jadad, A. (1997). How consumers and policy makers can use systematic reviews for decision making. Annals of Internal Medicine, 127, 37-42.

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Borberg, E. (1995). Development, acceptance, and use patterns of computer-based education and support systems for people living with AIDS/HIV infection. Computers in Human Behavior, 11(2), 289-311. CNN.com. (2004). Brain implant devices approved for trials. Retrieved July 2, 2007, from http://www.webmd.com/stroke/news/20040415/ Brain-Implants Cockerham, W. (1993). The changing pattern of physician-patient interaction. In M. Clair & R. Allman (Eds.), Sociomedical perspectives on patient care (pp. 47-57). Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. Coye, M. (2007) Jogging into the sunset. Retrieved July 2, 2007, from http://www.healthtechcenter. org/Common_site/news/docs/Molly _MostWired112906.pdf Davis, K. (1991). Inequality and access to health care. The Milbank Quarterly, 69(2), 253-273.

Grigsby, J., & Kaehny, M (1993). Analysis of expansion of access through use of telemedicine and mobile health services. Denver, CO: University of Colorado Health Science Center. Hanson, M., & Callahan, D. (Eds.). (1999). The goals of medicine: The forgotten issue in healthcare reform. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Howe, E. (2001). Should ethics consultants use telemedicine? A comment on Pronovost and Williams. The Journal of Clinical Ethics, 12(1), 73-79. IOM, (2001). Crossing the quality chasm: A new health system for the 21st century. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Kaplan, B. (2000). Culture counts: How institutional values affect computer use. MD Computing, 17(1), 23-26.

Denton, I. (1993). Telemedicine: A new paradigm. Healthcare Informatics, 10(11), 44-46, 48, 50.

Kaplan, S. & Greenfield, S. (1989). Assessing the effects of physician-patient interactions on the outcomes of chronic disease. Medical Care, 27, S100-S127.

DeVille, K. (2003). The ethical implications of handheld medical computers in medicine. Ethics & Health Care, 6(1), 1-4.

Kennedy, P., & Bakay, R. (1998). Restoration of neural output from a paralyzed patient by direct brain connection. NeuroReport, 9(8), 1707-1711.

Eng, T., & Gustafson, D. (1999). Wired for health and well-being: The emergence of interactive health communication. Washington, DC: Science Panel on Interactive Communication, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

McGee, E. (1999). Implantable brain chips? Time for debate. Hastings Center Report, 29(1), 7-13.

Evans, H. (1993). High tech vs. high touch: The impact of technology on patient care. In M. Clair & R. Allman (Eds.), Sociomedical perspectives on patient care (pp. 82-95). Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. Field, M. (Ed.) (1996). Telemedicine: A guide to assessing telecommunications in health care. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Marckmann, G. (1999). Telemedicine and ethics. Biomedical Ethics: Newsletter for the European Network for Biomedical Ethics, 4(2), 59-62. Marwick, C. (2000). National health service corps faces reauthorization during risky time. Journal of the American Medical Association, 283(20), 2641-2642. Medical News Today, (2005). Smart fabric to keep patients healthy. Medical News Today. Retrieved July 1, 2007, from http://www.medicalnewstoday. com/medicalnews.php?newsid=21338



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Ostbye T., & Hurlen, P. (1997). The electronic house call: Consequences of telemedicine consultation for physicians, patients, and society. Archives of Family Medicine, 6(3), 266-271. Pellegrino, E. (1981). Being ill and being healed: Some reflections on the grounding of medical morality. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 57(1), 70-79. Pellegrino, E., & Thomasma, D. (1993). The virtues in medical practice. New York: Oxford University Press. Peredina, D., & Allen, A. (1995). Telemedicine technology and clinical applications. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 273(6), 483-488. Peredina, D., & Brown, N. (1995). Teledermatology: One application of telemedicine. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 83(1), 42-47. President’s commission for the study of ethical problems in medicine and biomedical and behavior research. (1982). Making health care decisions: A report on the ethical and legal implications of informed consent in the patient-practitioner relationship. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Preston, J. (1994). The telemedical handbook: Improving care with interactive video. Austin TX: Telemedical Interactive Services, Inc. Schement, J., & Curtis, T. (1995). Tendencies and tensions of the information age: The production and distribution of information in the United States. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. Schroeder, S. (2001). Prospects for expanding health insurance coverage. The New England Journal of Medicine, 344(11), 847-852. Shea, S. (1994). Security versus access: Trade-offs are only part of the story. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 1(4), 314-315.



Turkle, S. (1984). The second self: Computers and the human spirit. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc. Viseu, A. (2003). Simulation and augmentation: Issues of wearable computers. Ethics and Information Technology, 5, 17-26. Walther, J. (1995). Relational aspects of computer-mediated communication: Experimental observations over time. Organizational Science, 6(2), 186-203. Walton, D. (1985). Physician-patient decisionmaking: A study in medical ethics. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. Wooton, R., & Darkins, A. (1997). Telemedicine and the doctor-patient relationship. Journal of the Royal College of Physicians, 31(6), 598-599.

KEY tErMs Art of Healthcare: Individual clinical judgements and intuitions of healthcare providers. Confidentiality: The protection of private information, once it has been disclosed by a patient to a healthcare professional (e.g., during a medical examination or taking of a medical history). Confidentiality requires patients to give up their informational privacy. Distributive Justice: A sub-field of ethics that deals with questions about access and the fair allocation of healthcare benefits and burdens among populations. More specifically, distributive justice in healthcare requires the application of fair standards that make quality healthcare available and accessible to persons in an efficient manner. Ethics: The descriptive and prescriptive study of what is right, wrong, good, and bad, of what ought and out not be done.

Healthcare Ethics in the Information Age

Implantable Biosensors: Sensors that are directly embedding into the human body to monitor vital signs and to provide prosthetic functions, often in concert with smart home technology and larger telehealth networks. Informational Privacy: Refers to the security of identifiable patient health information and clinical data found in patient records and in communications among healthcare professionals and patients. Interconnectedness and Social Presence: The quality and feeling of communication exchange with other persons, with or without ITC. Modernity: The social, economic, and technological forces that have shaped the contemporary provider-patient relationship. Physical Privacy: Refers to the restricted access that others have to our bodies, relationships, and living spaces.

Science of Healthcare: Standardized clinical practice guidelines, automated procedures, scientific evidence, and the employment of medical technology. Smart Homes: The use of ITC to augment the range of services that homes can provide for their occupants without human assistance, for example, monitoring the time, frequency, and variety of a person’s activities, including how often a person is waking up and walking, using the toilet, or opening his medicine cabinet to take medication. Telehealth/Telemedicine: The use of ICT to share and to maintain patient health information and to provide clinical care and health education to patients and professionals when distance separates the participants. Technological Fix: The temptation to employ technology as a panacea rather than to give oneself as a person in the process of healing patients.





Chapter XIII

Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics Matthew Charlesworth The Jesuit Institute, South Africa David Sewry Rhodes University, South Africa

abstract The development of cybernetics and digital computers prompted the need for a greater exploration of computer ethics. Information ethics, as described by Floridi and Sanders (2003), offers a conceptual basis for such an exploration. This chapter provides an historical perspective on the development of a foundation for the study of computer ethics. A brief explanation is provided of a number of ethical theories (Divine Command; Ethics of Conscience; Ethical Egoism; Ethics of Duty; Ethics of Respect; Ethics of Rights; Utilitarianism; Ethics of Justice; Virtue Ethics) followed by a number of perspectives on the development of computer ethics. The Innovative Approach proposed by Floridi et al concludes the chapter.

INtrODUctION The origins of computer ethics can be traced to the 1940s to the time at which cybernetics and digital computers were first developed. These developments prompted Wiener (1948) to recognise both the good and evil inherent in these artificial machines. Since then, attempts have progressively

been made to explore computer ethics from a variety of perspectives including that of computer ethics as not a real discipline, as a pedagogical methodology, as a unique discipline, as applied ethics, and as employing information ethics as the foundation of computer ethics. The increasing integration of information and communication technology (ICT) into society

Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics

has driven the need to understand and develop foundations for computer ethics. This chapter provides an historical perspective on the development of a foundation for the study of computer ethics. A simple case study (software piracy) is used throughout the chapter to illustrate points.

EtHIcaL tHEOrIEs IN brIEF Often we have to make decisions when all the facts cannot be known with certainty. In such cases we have no choice but to rely on the best information we have, and when we are not experts ourselves, this means deciding which experts to trust. (The Elements of Moral Philosophy, p. 9) Lawrence Hinman, Director of the Values Institute and Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego provides nine bases upon which moral or ethical decisions are made (Hinman, 2002, p.3-11).2

Divine command theories Divine Command Theory is an ethical theory that states that to be good one must do what God commands you to do. Teachings from the Bible, the Qur’an or other sacred texts are considered to present authoritatively that which leads to what is right. The problem of the Divine Command Theory is summed up in the Euthyphro Dilemma – in short, is it right because God commands it, or does God command it because it is right? With regards to the issue of piracy, one might say that in terms of the Judaeo-Christian commandment ‘thou shalt not steal’, piracy is proscribed.

the Ethics of conscience In this theory, what is right is defined by one’s ‘inner voice’. Whilst this can often have a religious source and operate out of a religious context, it may

also be founded solely on human nature. However, in both cases the conscience must be properly formed. In its negative dimension, conscience tells us what is not right and makes individuals feel guilty, facilitating the possibility of atonement. With regards to piracy, our conscience would compel us to feel guilty for doing something that is immoral, provided we recognised that piracy is illegal and a form of theft, and that we accept that violation of this illegality does not serve a higher good.

Ethical Egoism In this theory, each person ought to do whatever will best promote his or her own interests. Ethical egoism is often argued to be self-defeating in that, a society of egoists do worse for themselves than a society of altruists (see for example the classical philosophical game – the Prisoners Dilemma). Another fundamental objection is that it is inconsistent with the nature of trust and friendship that each party should be motivated solely by self-interest. With regards to piracy, an ethical egoist might pirate software because it would be in their own interests to acquire the software in the most expedient and efficient way to themselves (that is without paying for it). However, it could be argued that in the long-term, should one be caught, the consequences of pirating software are not in an individual’s own interests or indeed if pirating undermines the business it may undermine the egoists own interests in new up-to-date software.

the Ethics of Duty The ethics of duty begin with the conviction that ethics is about doing what is right, about doing one’s duty. Duty can be defined by a classical Kantian appeal to universal reason (our duty is to follow rules that we could consistently will to be universal laws – that is, rules that we would be willing to have followed by all people in all



Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics

circumstances), by professional role (A physician’s duty to care for the sick), or by social role (A parent’s duty to care for their child). The software is seen as an item which has been created, and in terms of one’s duty to the producer, and the greater economy, it would behove the consumer to purchase it if one should want or need it. If all computer users were to pirate software, there would be no incentive to create software. This argument, would not be different if one were to consider Open Source software (since it is ‘free’), because in that case the copyright (for example GPL) is still upheld. At the end of the day, one copyright has a price attached that is greater than zero, and the other a price that is zero. It is one’s duty as a consumer to honour the conditions attached to the use of the product, which includes purchasing the necessary licenses.

the Ethics of respect This theory grounds itself in the doing of what is respectful, for example the golden rule “do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” The difficulty lies in knowing what is respectful – as cultural factors can affect the judgement. In terms of this theory, if an individual A had produced a good that another individual B wished to use, and A expected payment, it would be in B’s interests to pay A so that when B had a product A wanted, B would be paid.

the Ethics of rights This theory is one of the most influential and prevailing ethical theories in our time. It has established a minimal condition of human decency and is often legislated for example “…all Men are created… with certain inalienable Rights.” Piracy is proscribed by legislation and one of the rights in force in the world today is that individuals (or corporations) have the right to not be the victim of intellectual property theft. Of course this issue of rights and intellectual property is highly



controversial e.g. the issue of private companies claiming rights of ownership to things like crops or water through mechanisms such as the WTO’s TRIPS agreements. The question to be asked is: What constitutes a right over something that is seen as essential or common? Does a common right to water overshadow other people’s or corporations private claims of ‘ownership’? Can software, or certain products by particular companies, be seen as essential and common, in the same way?

Utilitarianism This theory seeks to reduce suffering and increase pleasure or happiness. What is done, or ought to be done, should promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number. It demands a high degree of self-sacrifice, in contrast to Ethical Egoism, and demands that every consequence for each individual is considered. This theory distinguishes between two types of utilitarianism, act and rule. Act utilitarianism applies this principle of maximising happiness by focusing only upon the results or consequences of the act under consideration. Rule utilitarianism considers the effect of following a certain rule of conduct in terms of happiness for the greatest number. Utilitarians claim the purpose of morality is to make the world a better place. In light of monopolies making abnormal superprofits on software that have become necessities for individuals to transact in the modern world, it could be argued that it is in the interests of the ‘greater good’ for software to be priced differently, if at all. Conversely it could also be argued that the marginal loss of utility felt by the company or software author from the individual pirating is so negligible to be discounted in favour of the marginal gain in utility for the individual. This argument is subject to the same criticism that Utilitarianism is subject to, namely if one were to universalize this behaviour (that is software piracy) the situation (in this case the commercial software industry) would collapse due to a lack of incentive for software developers to create

Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics

software and an inflated cost to the consumer to cover the losses made within the industry.

the Ethics of justice At the heart of the Ethics of Justice is John Rawls’ proposition that Justice is Fairness. What is fair for one should be fair for all – this theory begins early in the family with fairness to all family members. Fairness in the sense of software piracy is best explained that if one producer is rewarded for his or her work, and another not, then that is not fair. Thus, if it is fair that an appreciation towards the creator of goods is based on market value for example computer hardware creators, the creators of computer software cannot be treated any differently. Since it is plainly obvious that theft of computer hardware is theft, it must also be the same for the theft of computer software. This distinction goes to the heart of computer ethics – namely the incorporeal nature of computer software and the ability to perfectly duplicate material without any degradation to the original.

virtue Ethics This theory seeks to develop individual character and assumes that good persons will make good decisions. Aristotle describes in his Nicomachean Ethics (Book II:6) that a virtue is “the mean by reference to two vices: the one of excess and the other of deficiency” (Baird, 2002, p. 390). Thus “Courage” is the mean between the extremes of cowardice and foolhardiness. Some virtues can conflict – for example when dealing with friends, Justice can conflict with Loyalty (this conflict is recognised by the law, for example in some countries a wife cannot be compelled to testify in court against her husband, and vice versa). In terms of virtue ethics, a good person will make a good decision. The essence of this question goes to what does one mean when one talks of ‘good’. It should not be forgotten that a good person might do something wrong and that a bad person

may do something right. In terms of the slippery slope, where if an individual hurts animals as a child, it is probable that the individual will continue to be violent later on in life3; similarly if one pirates software and breaks the law (even in such a ‘small’ way) it does not go towards creating a good character since the individual may be inclined to break other laws later on. In considering the above ethical approaches we are left with the following questions with regards to piracy. Can piracy be deemed not to be theft? Can we justify piracy in a particular instance to serve a higher good, and what would happen if that exception were to become the rule? Is it reasonable for a society to permit such self-interest to pirate to the detriment of the whole? Or should it be reasonable to allow piracy in situations where there is negligible or no detriment, e.g. in the case of super-rich monopolies whose profit-motive is generally recognised more as greed? Can piracy ever be described as the right course of action, and if not, would it ever be what a good person would do? After examining the above it becomes apparent that when making decisions about computers one cannot rely entirely on any of the above categories as each theory addresses only part of the issues involved in computer ethics. Discussion around whether or not computer ethics can adequately rely on previously conceived ethical theories, or whether it points to a need for its very own theory will now be discussed.

aPPLIED EtHIcs Before one examines computer ethics though, a brief comment must be made about applied ethics. Singer (1995, p. 42) notes that applied ethics has been a subject of discussion since the earliest of times, with the Greeks and Romans discussing in quite concrete terms how one is to live and die; how Medieval ethicists were concerned with such practical issues as abortion, war and whether or



Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics

not it is always wrong to kill; even Hume wrote an essay defending suicide and Kant tried to pursue a means to perpetual peace; and the Utilitarians in the 19th century were very much focused on applied ethics. In fact, as Singer points out (1995, p. 42), the first half of the 20th century is unique in their avoidance of addressing such applied ethics – though he believes this is due to the legacy of Logical Positivism that sought to merely perform meta-ethical study into the meanings of moral terms. Singer explains that this approach evoked little support during the 1960’s when philosophy students demanded courses that were “more relevant to the day” (that is to say courses which helped students deal with the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam and other such ‘hot-topics’ such as racial/sexual equality, the justifiability of war and environmental ethics). Until recently, bioethics has been one of the most prominent forms of applied ethics; with investigations into a more holistic approach that takes the entire environment (including man and the supporting ecological systems) into account. Another featured area of specialisation has been business ethics. In all cases the study of applied ethics has led to lively debate and to questions which challenge the traditional bounds of ethical discourse (Singer, 1995, p.42). One new such challenge is computer ethics which, some argue, has led to a new underlying macroethic, the philosophy of information or ‘information ethics’, however before we can examine information ethics, we must see how it developed from computer ethics.

cOMPUtEr EtHIcs Bynum explains that computer ethics had its nascent origins in the USA through the work of the MIT Professor Norbert Wiener who, in the 1940s, developed cybernetics4 which was to become the science of information systems (2003). Bynum cites Wiener noting how, upon considering together both the concepts of cyber-

0

netics and the digital computers of the day, he commented that: It has long been clear to me that the modern ultra-rapid computing machine was in principle an ideal central nervous system to an apparatus for automatic control; and that its input and output need not be in the form of numbers or diagrams. It might very well be, respectively, the readings of artificial sense organs, such as photoelectric cells or thermometers, and the performance of motors or solenoids ... we are already in a position to construct artificial machines of almost any degree of elaborateness of performance. Long before Nagasaki and the public awareness of the atomic bomb, it had occurred to me that we were here in the presence of another social potentiality of unheard-of importance for good and for evil. (Wiener, 1948, p. 27) Wiener continued to think about these social potentialities of integrating technology into society and a few years later in 1950 he perceptively laid the foundation for computer ethics that is still applicable today. He wrote a book, which many today consider to be monumental for its time, entitled The Human Use of Human Beings, in which he provided an account of the purpose of human life, explained four “great principles of justice” and conceived of a powerful method for doing applied ethics. His book also included discussions of the fundamental questions of computer ethics and some examples of key computer ethics topics (Wiener, 1954, p. 57). Bynum summarises Wiener’s methodology as follows (Bynum, 2003): 1. 2. 3.

Identify an ethical question or case regarding the integration of ICT into society. Clarify any ambiguous concepts or rules that may apply to the case in question. If possible, apply existing policies (principles, laws, rules, practices) that govern human behaviour in the given society. Use

Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics

4.

5.

precedent and traditional interpretation in such a way as to assimilate the new case or policy into the existing set of social policies and practices. If precedent and existing traditions are insufficient to settle the question or deal with the case, revise the old policies or create new ones, using “the great principles of justice5” and the purpose of a human life6 to guide the effort. Answer the question or deal with the case using the revised or enriched policies.

Bynum believes Wiener’s position (which was ahead of its time) would “require a multi-faceted process taking decades of effort.” He noted that this integration would involve the work place undergoing severe and radical change; government would need to adopt new laws and regulations whilst industry and business would find it necessary to draft new policies and practices. Codes of conduct would have to be (re-)developed within professional organisations and sociologists and psychologists would have to examine and interpret the new arising social and psychological phenomena. Philosophers would also be required to rethink and redefine old social and ethical concepts. Bynum believes that “the defining goal of computer ethics, then, is to advance and facilitate the good consequences of ICT while preventing or minimizing the harmful ones” (Bynum, 2003). Wiener’s important and complex work on applied ethics was not developed further until the 1960’s when Donn Parker of SRI International in Menlo Park, California took stock of, as Wiener had foretold, the important social and ethical consequences that computer technology had wrought. Prompted by an increasing number of computer-aided bank robberies and other crimes Parker published his concerns about computer crime and proposed to the Association for Computing Machinery (see Parker, 1968, p. 198) that they adopt a code of ethics for their members. The ACM appointed Parker to head a committee

to create such a code, which was subsequently adopted in 1973 and later revised first in the early 1980s and most recently in the early 1990s. (Bynum, 2001). Concern over computer-crime soon changed to concern over privacy as individuals in the mid 1960s began to discuss and propose new privacy legislation to legislatures in America as a result of privacy invasions by ‘big-brother’ government agencies. By the mid 1970s, Bynum notes that “new privacy laws and computer crime laws had been enacted in America and in Europe, and organizations of computer professionals were adopting codes of conduct for their members” (Bynum, 2001). Bynum notes further that during this period: MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum created a computer program called ELIZA, intended to crudely simulate ‘a Rogerian psychotherapist engaged in an initial interview with a patient.’ Weizenbaum was appalled by the reaction that people had to his simple computer program. Some psychiatrists, for example, viewed his results as evidence that computers will soon provide automated psychotherapy; and certain students and staff at MIT even became emotionally involved with the computer and shared their intimate thoughts with it! Concerned by the ethical implications of such a response, Weizenbaum wrote the book Computer Power and Human Reason (1976), which is now considered a classic in computer ethics. (Bynum, 2001) It was Walter Maner, then of Old Dominion University in Virginia, who, whilst teaching a medical ethics course, noticed that whenever computers were involved new ethically important considerations arose, and in the mid 1970s began to use the phrase ‘computer ethics’ to refer to “field of inquiry dealing with ethical problems aggravated, transformed or created by computer technology.” He attempted to, in a manner similar to medical ethics, focus attention upon the ‘tradi-



Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics

tional’ utilitarian ethics of Bentham and Mill, or the rationalist ethics of Kant (Bynum, 2001). Bynum explains that in 1978 Maner “selfpublished and disseminated his Starter Kit in Computer Ethics, which contained curriculum materials and pedagogical advice for university teachers to develop computer ethics courses. The Starter Kit included suggested course descriptions for university catalogues, a rationale for offering such a course in the university curriculum, a list of course objectives, some teaching tips and discussions of topics like privacy and confidentiality, computer crime, computer decisions, technological dependence and professional codes of ethics. Maner’s trailblazing course, plus his Starter Kit and the many conference workshops he conducted,” Bynum notes, “had a significant impact upon the teaching of computer ethics across America.” (Bynum, 2001). Parker, Weizenbaum, Maner and others (though sadly still not Wiener) had established the foundations of computer ethics and it was during the 1980s that these were extended and the discipline allowed to develop. The 1980s saw an increase in attention being paid to issues such as computer-enabled crime, disasters caused by computer failures, invasions of privacy via computer databases, and major law suits regarding software ownership. In 1985 Deborah Johnson wrote the first textbook on computer ethics and James Moor of Dartmouth College (in a special edition of Metaphilosophy entitled Computers and Ethics edited by Bynum) published his influential article (Moor, 1985, p. 266) and defined computer ethics in terms of policy vacuums (recall the discussion about Wiener’s policy and precedents): A typical problem in computer ethics arises because there is a policy vacuum about how computer technology should be used. Computers provide us with new capabilities and these in turn give us new choices for action. Often, either no policies for conduct in these situations exist or existing policies seem inadequate. A central task of com-



puter ethics is to determine what we should do in such cases, that is, to formulate policies to guide our actions. Of course, some ethical situations confront us as individuals and some as a society. Computer ethics includes consideration of both personal and social policies for the ethical use of computer technology. Terrell Bynum notes that during the 1990s universities around the world mounted new courses; specialised research centres were established; and an increasing number of conferences, journals, articles and textbooks dedicated to the subject appeared. In explaining the rising popularity he says that: A wide diversity of additional scholars and topics became involved. For example, figures such as Donald Gotterbarn, Keith Miller, Simon Rogerson, and Dianne Martin – as well as organizations like Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, ACM-SIGCAS – spearheaded projects relevant to computing and professional responsibility. Developments in Europe and Australia were especially noteworthy, including new research centres in England, Poland, Holland, and Italy; the ETHICOMP series of conferences led by Simon Rogerson and the present author [Terrell Bynum]; the CEPE conferences founded by Jeroen van den Hoven; and the Australian Institute of computer ethics headed by Chris Simpson and John Weckert. (Bynum, 2001) Early in the new millennium, a critical analysis of the debate on the foundations of computer ethics took place. Researchers at the University of Oxford contended that the focus of computer ethics has “moved from problem analysis – primarily aimed at sensitising public opinion, professionals and politicians – to tactical solutions resulting, for example, in the evolution of professional codes of conduct, technical standards, usage regulations, and new legislation” (Floridi and Sanders,

Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics

2003, p. 4). The same researchers noted that the “constant risk” of computer ethics’ development thus far has been the “spreading of ad hoc or casuistic approaches to ethical problems” and that this “bottom-up procedure” should be balanced by a “foundationalist debate” which in contrast is a “top-down development…characterised by a metatheoretical reflection on the nature and justification of computer ethics and the discussion of computer ethics’ relations with the broader context of metaethical theories” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 4). Floridi et al ask the questions: “Can computer ethics amount to a coherent and cohesive discipline, rather than a more or less heterogeneous and random collection of ICT-related ethical problems, applied analyses and practical solutions? If so, what is its conceptual rationale? And how does it compare with other ethical theories?” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 4) They have identified five approaches (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 5) to the foundation of computer ethics which have different answers to that question, and conclude with an affirmative position on the state of computer ethics as a coherent and cohesive discipline, grounded firmly with its very own conceptual rationale, information ethics.

the “No resolution” approach: computer-Ethics is Not a real Discipline Floridi describes this approach as the “ideal lowest bound for the foundationalist debate, comparable to the role played by relativism in metaethics.” He draws from Parker (1977), when he defines the approach to involve computer ethics problems representing unsolvable dilemmas and considers computer ethics a pointless exercise because there is no conceptual foundation. Floridi notes that Gotterbarn (1991, p. 26; 1992, p. 1) criticises the work of Parker (1981; 1982; 1990). Floridi comments that “empirically, the evolution of computer ethics has proved the no resolution approach to

be unnecessarily pessimistic” since “problems are successfully solved, computer ethics related legislation is approved and enacted” and “professional standards and codes have been promoted” (Floridi, et al 2003, p. 5). Floridi continues the discussion of this approach by recalling a phenomenon common amongst early proponents of computer ethics known as ‘pop ethics’ (Bynum, 1992) which involved the discussion of a variety of case studies that highlight problems and has been characterised by “usually unsystematic and heterogeneous collections of dramatic stories” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 6) collected together to “raise questions of unethicality rather than ethicality” (Parker, 1981). Floridi notes (2003, p. 1) the usefulness of pop ethics in the early years as it was able to “sensitise people to the fact that computer technology had social and ethical consequences” (Bynum, 1992). A criticism of pop ethics is that it is merely a collection of examples and leads one to believe that there is no solution, though as Floridi et al say “there is little point in providing a solution to someone unaware of the problem, particularly when the solution is not simple” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 6). An advantage of pop ethics though is its ability to explain the variety of concerns (for example the professional, legal, moral, social and political concerns) through the use of case studies (see Epstein, 1997) that refer to a particular situation. There is a similarity between pop ethics and the older practice of casuistry.7 The criticism of casuistry and other situation-based ethics is that it relies on a particular criterion, and the definition/appropriateness of that criterion can always be argued.

the Professional approach: computer-Ethics is a Pedagogical Methodology Gotterbarn’s view on computer ethics differed with Parker who held that there is no resolution (see above). For Gotterbarn the answer lay in



Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics

developing a ‘professional ethics’ approach. He says that faculty should: introduce the students to the responsibilities of their profession, articulate the standards and methods used to resolve non-technical ethics questions about their profession, develop some proactive skills to reduce the likelihood of future ethical problems,… indoctrinate the students to a particular set of values… and teach the laws related to a particular profession to avoid malpractice suits. (Gotterbarn, 1992, p. 1) Gotterbarn argues the ‘professional-ethics approach’ from a position where there is “no deep theoretical difference between computer ethics and other professional ethics like business ethics, medical ethics or engineering ethics” (Gotterbarn, 1991, p. 26; 1992, p. 1). For Gotterbarn, the goal of computer ethics courses would be to create “ethically minded professionals not ethicists,” and therefore, Floridi notes, it “may actually be better not to have philosophers teaching them” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 7) since as Gotterbarn says “in applied professional ethics courses, our aim is not the acquaintance with complex ethical theories, rather it is recognising the role responsibility and awareness of the nature of the profession” (1992, p. 1). A criticism of applied ethics understood in this way is that it is trying to be a soft form of law, rigidly legislating behaviour for certain circumstances, whereas ethics is more general, and should inform the law and help us realise where laws need to be ‘bent’, changed or created. Floridi notes that the advantages of the ‘professional-ethics approach’ have been the emphasis on computer-ethics education, looking at “technical standards and requirements, professional guidelines, specific legislation or regulations, [and] levels of excellence”. He concludes that the ‘professional-ethics approach’ “exposes the risky and untenable nature of the ‘no-resolution approach’” whilst at the same time defending the



“value and importance of a constructive ‘popethics’, by developing a ‘proactive’ professional ethics (standards, obligations, responsibilities, expectations etc.)” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 8). This approach has been largely responsible for the “elaboration and adoption of usage regulations and codes of conduct in ICT contexts (libraries, universities, offices etc.), within industry and in professional associations and organisations, as well as the promotion of certification of computer professionals” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 8). Floridi notes that this approach focuses mainly on “ICT practitioners, especially those in software development, where technical standards and specific legislation provide a reliable, if minimal, frame of reference” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 8). This is in keeping with the goals of the approach, which are stated by Gotterbarn to be pedagogical and not metaethical: The only way to make sense of “computer ethics” is to narrow its focus to those actions that are within the horizon of control of the individual moral computer professional. (Gotterbarn, 1991, p. 26; 1992, p. 1; and 2001 presents a less radical view) Floridi disagrees with this strong view of professional-ethics noting that it falls short in three areas: 1.

2.

Firstly, the problems associated with computer ethics (for example privacy, accuracy, security, reliability, intellectual property and access) permeate contemporary life unlike other purely professional issues (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 9). Secondly, Floridi notes that to interpret professional ethics as offering a foundation for computer ethics is to “commit a mistake of levels, similar to attempting to define arithmetic on the basis only of what is taught in an introductory course.” Floridi believes that without a theoretical approach,

Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics

3.

the professional-ethics approach is but only a “middle level” between pop-computer ethics and theoretical computer ethics. (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 9). Thirdly, Floridi et al believes that to accept that computer ethics is merely professional ethics, without any further need for conceptual foundation runs the risk of “being at best critical but naïve, and at worst dogmatic and conservative”. Floridi continues saying that to focus on “case-based analyses and analogical reasoning, a critical professionalethics approach will painfully and slowly attempt to re-discover inductively ethical distinctions, clarifications, theories and so forth already available and discussed in specialised literature; … whilst an uncritical professional-ethics approach will tend to treat ethical problems and solutions as misleadingly simple, non-conflicting, selfevident and uncontroversial, a matter of mere indoctrination, as exemplified in ‘The 10 Commandments of computer ethics8’ approach.” (though he admits that a methodologically coherent system of ethics can be expressed in a list of negative prescriptions (“thou shalt not…”), he does not believe computer ethics has matured enough to be able to do so and sees the ‘professional-ethics approach’ as the pragmatic “historical first step towards a more mature computer ethics” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 10).

One of the literature’s further criticism’s with the ‘professional-ethics approach’ (following on from the ‘no-resolution approach’ and ‘pop-ethics’) has been its failure to answer the following questions (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 10): 1. 2.

Why does ICT raises moral issues? Are computer ethics issues unique (in the sense of requiring their own theoretical investigations, not entirely derived from standard ethics)?

3.

4.

5. 6.

Or are they simply moral issues that happen to involve ICT? What kind of ethics is computer ethics? What justifies a certain methodology in computer ethics (for example, analogy and case-based analysis?) What is computer ethics’ rationale? What is the contribution of computer ethics to the ethical discourse?

It is at this point in the literature that a ‘Theoretical Computer-Ethics’ emerged – albeit along two lines, arguing for the ‘uniqueness’ of Computer-Ethics.

the radical approach: computer Ethics as a Unique Discipline The Radical Approach says that “the presence of a policy and conceptual vacuum (Moor, 1985, p. 266) indicates that computer ethics deals with absolutely unique ideas, in need of a completely new approach.” Maner argues that: [computer ethics] must exist as a field worthy of study in its own right and not because it can provide a useful means to certain socially noble ends. To exist and to endure as a separate field, there must be a unique domain for computer ethics distinct from the domain for moral education, distinct even from the domains of other kinds of professional and applied ethics. Like James Moor, I believe computers are special technology and raise special ethical issues, hence that computer ethics deserves special status. (Maner, 1999). Floridi believes, that the Radical Approach offers several advantages over the previously considered approaches. It does not under-estimate the “gravity and novelty” of computer ethics and it stresses the methodological necessity of providing the field with a robust and autonomous theoretical rationale” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 11).



Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics

Yet Floridi et al find four problems with the Radical Approach:

the conservative approach: computer-Ethics as applied Ethics

1.

The Conservative Approach holds that the classic macroethical theories – for example Consequentialism, Deontologism, Virtue Ethics, and Contractualism – are capable of handling Moor’s policy vacuum. Floridi et al note that these theories “might need to be adapted, enriched and extended, but they have all the conceptual resources required to deal with computer ethics questions successfully and satisfactorily” (2003, p. 13). The Conservative Approach also holds that “certain ethical issues are transformed by the use of ICT, but they represent only new species of traditional moral issues, to which already available metaethical theories need to, and can successfully, be applied. They are not and cannot be a source of a new, macroethical theory” (Floridi et al 2003, p. 13). One of the major proponents of this approach is Deborah Johnson who introduced the genusspecies argument9 and believes that “the ethical issues surrounding computer technology are first and foremost ethical” (Johnson, 2000, p. 1). Floridi et al believe that because this approach positions itself as “an interface between ICT-related moral problems and standard macroethics” it enjoys the advantages “associated with a strong theoretical position” (2003, p. 14). Aside from rejecting the No Resolution Approach, it extends the Professional Approach by saying that computer ethics is “an ethics for the citizen of the information society, not just for the ICT professional” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 14) and because of its grounding in standard macroethics, allows a constructive attitude (similar to that of the Professional Approach) and at the same time refraining from a “naïve or uncritical reliance on some contingent normal ethics” (2003, p. 14). Finally Floridi et al believe that the evolutionary development of this approach enables the Conservative Approach to avoid the ‘unique topic = unique discipline’ pitfalls of the revolutionary Radical Approach and to “integrate them well within the broader context

2.

3.

4.



Given Maner’s argument above, the Radical Approach would need, according to Floridi, the “explicit and uncontroversial identification of some unique area of study” (2003, p. 11), and Floridi declares that none of the cases mentioned by Maner are uncontroversially unique. Yet this does not surprise Floridi since he notes that neither in business ethics, medical ethics or environmental ethics (for example) are there any significant moral issues that do not interact with the rest of the ethical context. Floridi et al argue that to hold onto the Radical Approach because maybe, sometime in the future computer ethics problems “could be made, or become, or discovered to be increasingly specific, until they justify the position defended by the Radical Approach … keeps the burden of proof on the Radical Approach side” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 12), a situation they dismiss as “safe but uninteresting” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 12). Rather, they believe that if it is possible in principle to have a domain of unique ethical issues (and they believe in practice it is not) – they state that “the uniqueness of a certain topic is not simply inherited as a property by the discipline that studies it” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 12). Ethical issues are inter-related and cannot be reduced to the equation “unique topic = unique discipline” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 12). Finally, Floridi notes that to focus too much on the uniqueness of computer ethics “runs the risk of isolating [computer ethics] from the more general context of metaethical theories.” Floridi concludes saying that “this would mean missing the opportunity to enrich the ethical discourse” (Floridi et al, 2003, p. 12).

Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics

of the ethical discourse” (2003, p. 14). Floridi et al finds four problems with the Conservative Approach, namely: 1.

2.

3.

Firstly, that the position that classic macroethics has all the conceptual resources required to deal successfully and satisfactorily with computer-ethics is questionable given the perception that computer-ethics problems are radically new and unpredictable. Secondly, whilst the evolutionary approach finds an acceptable position between the extremist radical and traditional approaches, it does not adequately describe the degree of evolution that could occur in the genusspecies argument (that is at some point it could be a radical or a minor change) and the Conservative Approach errs, by definition, on the conservative side (that is, that the change is minor) without being able to suggest which standard macroethic to apply. Floridi et al note this forms the “logical regress” inherent to the Conservative Approach. If one accepts the Conservative Approach to computer-ethics saying that computer-ethics is a ‘microethics’ one still “needs a metatheoretical analysis to evaluate which macroethics is most suitable to deal with computer-ethics problems” (2003, p. 15). In Floridi et al’s view, users of this approach are left trying to apply some ‘normal’ ethics acceptable to society or to fall back upon an arbitrary choice of macroethics which would invite philosophy into an area of professionalism unnecessarily (as Floridi et al say, “Software Engineers should not be required to read the Nicomachean Ethics” (2003, p. 15). Thirdly, and as a consequence of point 1 above, Floridi et al note that this approach is “methodologically poor” because is lacks a “clear macroethical commitment” resulting in a reliance upon “common-sense, case-

4.

based analysis and analogical reasoning, … insufficient means to understand what the Conservative Approach itself acknowledges to be new and complex issues in ComputerEthics” (2003, p. 16). Fourthly, Floridi et al concede that this approach answers the question “what can ethics do for computer-ethics”, but laments the avoidance of what they consider “the more philosophically interesting question”, namely “is there anything that computerethics can do for ethics?” (2003, p. 16).

Floridi et al introduces Krystyna GórniakKocikowska, a colleague of Terrell Bynum, who believes that “computer ethics is the most important theoretical development in ethics since the Enlightenment” (2003, p. 16), clearly supporting his view that “computer ethics problems might enrich the ethical discourse by promoting a new macroethical perspective” (2003, p. 16).

the Innovative approach: Information Ethics as the Foundation of computer-Ethics Thus far, two theoretical approaches (the Conservative and Radical) have been examined. Bynum argues that an innovative approach to computer-ethics is required (2001). Floridi et al explains that the innovative approach, including the “Computer-Ethics problems, the corresponding policy and conceptual vacuum, the uniqueness debate and the difficulties encountered by the radical and conservative approaches in developing a cohesive metaethical approach, strongly suggests that the monopoly exercised by standard macroethics in theoretical Computer-ethics is unjustified” (2003, p. 16). They contend that ICT “by transforming in a profound way the context in which moral issues arise, not only adds interesting new dimensions to old problems, but leads us to rethink, methodologically, the very grounds on which our ethical positions are based. Although



Ethical Theories and Computer Ethics

the novelty of computer-ethics is not so dramatic as to require the development of an utterly new, separate, and unrelated discipline, it certainly shows the limits of traditional approaches to the ethical discourse, and encourages a fruitful modification in the metatheoretical perspective.” (2003, p. 17). The product of this ‘fruitful modification’ is information ethics, defined by Floridi 1998; 1999, p. 37; and Floridi and Sanders 1999; 2001, p. 55 to be “the theoretical foundation of applied computer-ethics is a non-standard, environmental macroethics, patient-oriented and ontocentric, based on the concepts of data-entity/infosphere/ entropy rather than life/ecosystem/pain.” This definition requires some explanation. Floridi et al explains that macroethical positions can focus on the moral nature and development of the agent (for example virtue ethics) or the agent’s actions (for example, Consequentialism, Contractualism and Deontologism). The former macroethic is ‘agent-oriented, subjective and often individualistic’, whilst the latter is a macroethic that is ‘action-oriented, relational and intrinsically social in nature’. Both are known as standard or classic macroethics and tend to be anthropocentric. Non-standard ethics on the other hand (such as medical ethics, bioethics and environmental ethics) attempts to develop a patient-oriented ethics in which the ‘patient’ may be not only a human being, but also any form of life (see Rowlands, 2000, cited in Floridi et al, 2003, p. 18). Floridi et al explain “that it [Non-standard ethics] places the ‘receiver’ of the action at the centre of the ethical discourse” and that the previously described problems with computer-ethics within the various approaches can be explained because in Floridi’s view computer ethics “is primarily an ethics of being rather than conduct or becoming” (emphasis mine) (2003, p. 19). The difference between information ethics and other non-standard forms of ethics (such as medical ethics, bioethics and environmental ethics) is that “information as such, rather than just life in general, is raised to the role of the universal patient of any action” (2003, p.



19). Floridi et al notes that their position, unlike biocentric ethics that “ground their analyses of the moral standing of bio-entities and ecological systems on the intrinsic worthiness of life and the intrinsically negative value of suffering”, is unique in that it suggests “that there is something even more elemental than life, namely being, understood as information; and something more fundamental than pain, namely entropy” (2003, p. 19). According to the theory, one should “evaluate the duty of any rational being in terms of contribution to the growth of the infosphere, and any process, action or event that negatively affects the whole infosphere – not just an information entity – as an increase in its level of entropy and hence an instance of evil” (2003, p. 19). Floridi et al identifies the crucial contribution of information ethics which is that move of information from “being a necessary prerequisite for any morally responsible action to being its primary object” (2003, p. 19) enabling an expansion within theoretical ethics of what can be considered to be the centre of minimal moral concern. In the past only living entities were capable of being the centre of some form of moral concern, and now, with information ethics, the limitation of the bio-centric theories to be biased towards ‘living’ entities is overcome and an entity’s state of being (it’s information state) is now capable of becoming the centre of moral concern and thus information ethics can rightly be described as a non-standard (not agent-oriented or action-oriented but) patient-oriented ontocentric (concerned with the metaphysical study of being) macroethic (2003, p. 20). Floridi et al concludes saying that the “foundationalist debate in computer ethics has lead to the shaping of a new ethical view”, information ethics (2003, p. 20). Floridi et al admit that information ethics places computer ethics “at a level of abstraction too philosophical” to make it useful, yet they respond saying that “this is the inevitable price to be paid for any attempt to provide computer ethics with an autonomous rationale. One must polarise theory and practice

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to strengthen both” so that whilst “information ethics is not immediately useful to solve specific computer ethics problems” they note that “it provides the conceptual grounds that can guide problem-solving procedures in computer ethics” (2003, p. 20). It is worth noting that this theory of information ethics is criticized by Mathiesen (2004), who draws on the earlier work of Van Den Hoven (1995), but is rebutted by Mather (2005). Floridi comments that this Mathiesen’s criticism is “undermined” by the problems of applying information ethics as a microethic instead of as a macroethic (Floridi 2006, p. 36). To return to our analysis of piracy then, in terms of information ethics, piracy could be seen to be a threat that would impede the development of future computer software and therefore, in the long-term, contribute negatively to the growth of the infosphere.

FUtUrE trENDs Computers and technology are advancing all the time, and with these advancements there will be a need to assess the ethical implications, for the developers and the users, the companies and the industries in which they are used and influence. In light of this recently discussed philosophical macroethic (information ethics), a reappraisal of computer ethics is needed. Beyond this, some possible future work could include examining the ethics of: • •

• • •

Privacy in the light of society post-9/11 Monopolies in software development and their effect on customers, competitors, and the market Hacking and viruses The production of computers and the management of that which is replaced The use (or abuse) of computers - viz. piracy, pornography, hate speech

•

The political/economic aspects - that is, who has access to computers/Internet and who is in control?

Relative to other applied ethics areas (such as medical ethics or business Ethics), the computer industry has only just started looking at ‘how to do’ ethics. The real question is finding a consensus for this new form of applied computer ethics and being able to situate it within the broader field of ethics, using this new theory of information ethics.

cONcLUsION This chapter examined the development of computer ethics and has suggested that Floridi’s Innovative Approach is more complete than the previous approaches and that it proposes that existence is more fundamental than being alive (that is things exist without necessarily being alive) and that the only proof we have of an object’s existence is that we have information about it. It has been shown that computer ethics has prompted a deeper philosophical debate and that information ethics, as described by Floridi, offers the conceptual basis for further rigorous academic study.

rEFErENcEs Baird, F.E. (2002). Ancient philosophy. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Beauchamp, T.L. (2003). The nature of applied ethics. In Frey, R.G. & Wellman, C.H. (Eds.), A companion to applied ethics (p. 1). Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Bunch, W.H. (2005). Ethics for evangelical christians. Chapter 13: Virtue Ethics, p. 2. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://faculty.samford. edu/~whbunch/Chapter13.pdf



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Bynum, T. W. (1992). Human values and the computer science curriculum. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.southernct.edu/organizations/rccs/resources/teaching/teaching_mono/ Bynum/Bynum_human_values.html Bynum, T. W. (2001). Computer Ethics: Basic concepts and historical overview. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Bynum, T. W. (2003). Norbert Wiener’s foundation of computer ethics. The Research Center on Computing & Society. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.southernct.edu/organizations/rccs/resources/research/introduction/Bynum_Wiener.html Computer Ethics Institute (CEI). The ten commandments of computer ethics. (1992). Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.brook.edu/its/ cei/overview/Ten_Commanments_of_Computer_Ethics.htm Epstein, R. (1997). The case of the killer robot. John Wiley and Sons, New York. Fieser, J. (2006). Ethics. In The Internet encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/ethics.htm Floridi, L. L. & Sanders, J. W. (2003). Computer ethics: Mapping the foundationalist debate. Ethics and Information Technology, 4(1), 1-24. Floridi, L. (2006). Information ethics, its nature and scope. SIGCAS Computer Society, 36(3) (Sep. 2006), p. 36. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1195716.1195719 Gotterbarn, D. (1991). Computer ethics: Responsibility regained. National Forum 71(3), 26-32. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http:// csciwww. etsu.edu/Gotterbarn/artpp1.htm Gotterbarn, D. (1992). The use and abuse of computer ethics. The Journal of Systems and Software, 17(1), 1. Retrieved May 30, 2007 http://www. southernct.edu/organizations/rccs/resources/

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teaching/teaching_mono/Gotterbarn02/Gotterbarn02_intro.html Gotterbarn, D. (2001). Software engineering ethics. In J. Marciniak (ed.), Encyclopedia of Software Engineering, 2nd ed. Wiley-Interscience, New York. Hinman, L. M. (2002). Basic moral orientations. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://ethics. sandiego.edu/presentations/Theory/BasicOrientations/index.asp Johnson, D. G. (2000). Introduction: Why computer ethics? Computer Ethics, 3, 1-256. Pearson Education. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http:// www.units.it/~etica/1999_2/Johnson.html Ladd, J. (1997). Ethics and the computer world: A new challenge for philosophers. Computers and Society, 27(3). pp. 8-9. Maner, W. (1999). Is computer ethics unique. Etica & Politica, Special Issue on Computer Ethics 2. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.units. it/~etica/1999_2/Maner.html Mather, K. (2005). Object oriented goodness: A response to Mathiesen’s ‘What is information ethics?’. Computers and Society, 34(4). Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.computersandsociety. org/sigcas_ofthefuture2/sigcas/subpage/sub_ page.cfm?article=919&page_number_nb=911 Mathews, S. & Birney, G. (1921). A Dictionary of Religion and Ethics. Waverley book Company, Ltd., London. Mathiesen, K. (2004). What is information ethics? Computers and Society, 32(8). Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.computersandsociety.org/ sigcas_ofthefuture2/sigcas/subpage/sub_page. cfm?article=909&page_number_nb=901 Moor, J. H. (1985). What is computer ethics? In T. W. Bynum (ed.), Computers and Ethics, pp. 266-275. Basil Blackwell.

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Pangaro, P. (1991). Cybernetics: A definition. In Macmillan encyclopedia of computers. Macmillan Publishing. Parker, D. B. (1968). Rules of ethics in information processing. Communications of the ACM, 11(3), 198-201. Parker, D. B. (1977). Ethical conflicts in computer science and technology. Arlington, VA: AFIPS Press. Parker, D. B. (1981). Ethical conflicts in computer science and technology. Arlington, VA: AFIPS Press. Parker, D. B. (1982). Ethical dilemmas in computer technology. In W. M. Hoffman & J. M. Moore, (Eds.), Ethics and the management of computer technology. Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain. Parker, D. B. (1990). Ethical conflicts in information and computer science, technology, and business. Wellesley, MA: QED Information Sciences. Rowlands, M. (2000). The environmental crisis - Understanding the value of nature. New York: St Martin’s Press. Scott, R.J. (2007). A new definition of software piracy. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http:// blawg.bsadefense.com/2007/04/a_new_definition_of_software_p.html Singer, P. (1995). Applied ethics. In T. Honderich (ed.), The Oxford companion to philosophy. 1st ed. Oxford University Press. Spong, J.S. (1977). The living commandments. Chapter 11. New York: Seabury Press. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.religion-online. org/showchapter.asp?title=540&C=620 Van Den Hoven, J. (1995). Equal access and social justice: Information as a primary good. In ETHICOMP95: An International Conference on the

Ethical Issues of Using Information Technology, Leicester, UK: De Montfort University. Weizenbaum, J. (1976). Computer power and human reason: From judgment to calculation. Freeman. Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics: Or control and communication in the animal and the machine. Cambridge, MA: The Technology Press. Wiener, N. (1954). Human use of human beings, Houghton Mifflin. 2nd edn. Doubleday Anchor. WTO (2007). Understanding the WTO – Intellectual property: Protection and enforcement. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.wto.org/ english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/agrm7_e.htm

KEY tErMs Applied Ethics: “The term ‘applied ethics’ and its synonym ‘practical ethics’ came into use in the 1970s when philosophers and other academics began to address pressing moral problems in society and in professional ethics (especially medical ethics and business ethics). Prominent examples, then and now, are abortion, euthanasia, the protection of human and animal subjects in research, racism, sexism, affirmative action, acceptable risk in the workplace, the legal enforcement of morality, civil disobedience, unjust war, and the privacy of information.” (Beauchamp 2003, p. 1) Computer Ethics: The area of ethics examining the use of computers on actions and operations that were possible before, or only possible because of, computers. Ethics: The science, or philosophy, or more modestly, the study of moral conduct. By moral conduct in turn is meant conduct regarded as right or wrong, or as what “ought” or “ought not” to be done; or as involving deliberation and choice

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between ends viewed as “good”. (Mathews et al 1921, p. 152). Good (opp. Bad): A term referring to the person who constantly strives to do right actions. Obviously, good persons may do wrong acts; we call these mistakes. But upon learning of the mistake, the good person will immediately admit it and attempt to rectify these mistakes because he or she is constantly striving to do right. In this line of thinking, a bad person is one who simply does not strive to do right. Calling a person good means that this person is striving to do the right; it does not mean that he or she has achieved it in every situation. The good doctor constantly strives to make the correct diagnoses and to develop the proper treatment plan. Unfortunately, the good doctor makes more mistakes than anyone would wish. But if they are good doctors, they will discover the mistakes and correct them (Bunch 2005, p. 2). ICT: An acronym for information and communications technology. Information Ethics: The theoretical foundation of applied computer-ethics - a non-standard, environmental macroethics, patient-oriented and ontocentric, based on the concepts of data-entity/ infosphere/entropy rather than life/ecosystem/ pain. (Floridi 1998; 1999, p. 37; and Floridi and Sanders 1999; 2001, p. 55) Macroethics (opp. Microethics): Ethics seen in macrocosm (Macroethics) or microcosm (Microethics), and that a hierarchical relationship exists between them. A macroethics (e.g. concerning society) is more corporate, encompassing and general than a microethic (e.g. concerning an individual) which is more specific (Spong 1977, p. 1). Computer ethics is frequently simply taken to be what is called microethics, that is, the kind of ethics that relates to individual conduct, the rights and wrongs of it, and the good and bad. (Ladd 1997, p. 8). In this chapter information ethics is argued to be a macroethic.

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Metaethics: “Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Metaethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves.” (Fieser 2006, p. 1) Right (opp. Wrong): “Rightness’ refers to the way of living and the specific acts that conform to the moral standard of the community. Moral theology is built on goodness and badness, not primarily on the rightness and wrongness of actions. This is because goodness and badness is concerned with the vertical relationship with God” (Bunch 2005, p. 2). Software Piracy: “Software Piracy is the distribution of counterfeit software and/or use or distribution of authentic software constituting the intentional violation of intellectual property laws.” (Scott 2007, p. 1). TRIPS: An acronym for the WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, negotiated in the 1986-94 Uruguay Round that introduced intellectual property rules into the multilateral trading system for the first time (WTO 2007, p. 1). WTO: An acronym for World Trade Organisation.

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The form “computer ethics” and “ComputerEthics” is used inter-changeably. Where an author is quoted who uses it in a particular form that form is kept. No difference in meaning is intended. The case of deciding to pirate or not pirate computer software as a computer ethics issue is illustrated for each theory.

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Whilst this is probable, Aristotle places a lot of emphasis on habit and it should be noted that whereas habits can be formed in youth and continued on into adulthood – it is possible, we must remember, that habits can, and bad habits should, be broken. The term itself originated in 1947 when Norbert Wiener used it to name a discipline apart from, but touching upon, such established disciplines as electrical engineering, mathematics, biology, neurophysiology, anthropology, and psychology. Wiener, Arturo Rosenblueth and Julian Bigelow needed a new word to refer to their new concept, and they adapted a Greek word meaning “steersman” to invoke the rich interaction of goals, predictions, actions, feedback and response in systems of all kinds. Early applications in the control of physical systems (aiming artillery, designing electrical circuits and manoeuvring simple robots) clarified the fundamental roles of these concepts in engineering; but the relevance to social systems and the softer sciences was also clear from the start. Many researchers from the 1940s through 1960 worked solidly within the tradition of cybernetics without necessarily using the term. (Pangaro 1991) “The Principle of Freedom” – Justice requires ‘the liberty of each human being to develop in his freedom the full measure of the human possibilities embodied in him.’; The Principle of Equality – Justice requires ‘the equality by which what is just for A and B remains just when the positions of A and B are interchanged.’; The Principle of Benevolence – Justice requires ‘a good will between man and man that knows no limits short of those of humanity itself.’ The Principle of Minimum Infringement of Freedom – ‘What compulsion the very existence of the community and the state may demand must be exercised in such a way

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as to produce no unnecessary infringement of freedom’” (Wiener 1954, p. 106). A good human life, according to Wiener, is one in which ‘great human values’ are realized – one in which the creative and flexible information-processing potential of ‘the human sensorium’ enables humans to reach their full promise in variety and possibility of action. Different people, of course, have various levels of talent and possibility, so one person’s achievements will differ from another’s. It is possible to lead a good human life in an indefinitely large number of ways: as a public servant or statesman, a teacher or scholar, a scientist or engineer, a musician, an artist, a tradesman, an artisan, and so on. (Bynum 2003) Casuistry acknowledges that new situations create new problems, however, it does not say that one should just ignore the old solutions. Rather that one should look at parallel cases perhaps in related areas and see how they have been resolved, and examine the basic principles or paradigms as opposed to the rules (since rules are: if x then y; whereas a principle is a suggestion; and paradigm is a form of guideline), within which one can develop an interpretation of the problem. Casuistry involves finding the appropriate guideline from a parallel example which then helps one to formulate an ethical response. 1. Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people; 2. Thou shalt not interfere with other people’s computer work; 3. Thou shalt not snoop around in other people’s computer files; 4. Thou shalt not use a computer to steal; 5. Thou shalt not use a computer to bear false witness; 6. Thou shalt not copy or use proprietary software for which you have not paid; 7. Thou shalt not use other people’s computer resources without authorization or proper compensation; 8. Thou shalt not appropriate other people’s intellectual

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output; 9. Thou shalt think about the social consequences of the program you are writing or the system you are designing; 10. Thou shalt always use a computer in ways that insure consideration and respect for your fellow humans. (computer ethics Institute (CEI) 1992). Extending the idea that computer technology creates new possibilities, in a seminal article, Moor (1985, p. 266) suggested that we think of the ethical questions surrounding computer and information technology as policy vacuums. Computer and information technology creates innumerable opportunities. This means that we are confronted with choices about whether and how to pursue these opportunities, and we find a vacuum of policies on how to make these choices. […] I propose that we think of the ethical issues surrounding computer and

information technology as new species of traditional moral issues. On this account, the idea is that computer ethical issues can be classified into traditional ethical categories. They always involve familiar moral ideas such as personal privacy, harm, taking responsibility for the consequences of one’s action, putting people at risk, and so on. On the other hand, the presence of computer technology often means that the issues arise with a new twist, a new feature, a new possibility. The new feature makes it difficult to draw on traditional moral concepts and norms. […] The genus-species account emphasizes the idea that the ethical issues surrounding computer technology are first and foremost ethical. This is the best way to understand computer-ethical issues because ethical issues are always about human beings. (Johnson 2000, p. 1).

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Chapter XIV

Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics John P Sullins Sonoma State University, USA

abstract This chapter will argue that artificial agents created or synthesized by technologies such as artificial life (ALife), artificial intelligence (AI), and in robotics present unique challenges to the traditional notion of moral agency and that any successful technoethics must seriously consider that these artificial agents may indeed be artificial moral agents (AMA), worthy of moral concern. This purpose will be realized by briefly describing a taxonomy of the artificial agents that these technologies are capable of producing. I will then describe how these artificial entities conflict with our standard notions of moral agency. I argue that traditional notions of moral agency are too strict even in the case of recognizably human agents and then expand the notion of moral agency such that it can sensibly include artificial agents.

INtrODUctION The various technosciences of artificial agency such as, artificial life (ALife), artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics present a rather challenging problem to traditional ethical theories whose norms rely on an explicit or tacit notion of human personhood since these entities will share only some, but not all, of the qualities of the humans they will interact with. The field of technoethics must disentangle this problem or be faced with the charge of inco-

herence. This is due to the fact that technology extends the biological limits of the human agent in such a way that it is often difficult to draw a clear line between the human agent and the technologies she uses. Artificial creations such as software bots, physical robots, and synthetic biological constructs are unlike anything we have encountered yet and in them something like individual agency is beginning to evolve. This quasi-individual agency is already placing these entities in conflict with the goals and desires of human agents, creating apparently moral

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interrelations. What is the nature of these moral interrelations? We have three possible answers to this question (see Sullins, 2005). The first possibility is that the morality of the situation is illusory, we simply ascribe moral rights and responsibilities to the machine due to an error in judgment. The second option is that the situation is pseudo-moral; a partially moral relation but missing something that would make the actors fully moral agents. A final possibility is that even though these situations may be novel, they are still real moral interrelations. I argue that technoethics must address this latter possibility.

bacKGrOUND It is not an obvious move to grant moral concern to the nonhuman objects around us. It is common to hold the view that the things we come into contact with have at best instrumental value and that only humans have moral rights and responsibilities. If some nonhuman thing elicits moral concern, it does so only because it is the property of some human through whom these rights extend. This all seems very straight forward and beyond question. But here is my worry—we have been mistaken in past about our definition of what it takes to be a human moral agent. Historically women, low caste men and children have been denied this status. We have come to regret these past indiscretions, it is possible that that our beliefs about moral agency are still misguided. Some people may be willing to grant moral rights to animals, ecosystems, perhaps even plants. If machines were shown to be similar to these things might they not also be reasonable candidates for moral rights? If so, what happens if these entities acquire agency similar to that of a human, then must they also bear moral responsibilities similar to that of a human agent? The answer to the latter question is simple; of course anything that displays human level agency enough

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to satisfy even harsh critics would be a candidate for moral rights and responsibilities because it would have undeniable personhood and all persons have moral worth. The possibilities for this happening any time soon though are fairly low. But, they have made some progress on attaining interesting levels of agency, so what we need to inquire into is whether or not these meager qualities are enough to grant moral agency and worth to artificial agents.

What is an Artificial Agent? The term “agent” has a number of related, but potentially confusing, meanings. An agent is most simply; a thing that exerts power and is the opposite of a patient which only reacts to or receives the consequences of the actions of an agent. Thus it may be used to talk about a person or a thing that has some causal effect on its environment or other agents. Commonly, it is used to refer to persons who act on others behalf. These slightly different meanings converge in the definition of the term “artificial agent”, which I will use to refer to any technology created to act as an agent, either as a locus of its own power, or as a proxy acting on behalf of another agent. So an artificial agent might have its own goals that it attempts to advance or, more likely, it is created to advance the goals of some other agent. Certain criteria are used by technologists to distinguish autonomous (artificial) agents from other objects: An autonomous agent is a system situated within and a part of an environment that senses that environment and acts on it, over time, in pursuit of its own agenda and so as to effect what it senses in the future. (Franklin and Graesser, 1996) This definition could be used to describe a wide range of artificial entities, some of which could be very minimal and philosophically uninteresting. Franklin and Graesser (1996), go on to list a num-

Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics

ber of additional qualities that these agents may or may not posses, which leads to a much more complex and interesting taxonomy of artificial agents. Ideally, the agent should be a continuous process that monitors its environment, be able to communicate with its user or at least other simple agents, have some sort of machine learning, and be mobile in its environment or able to move to other environments, as well as be flexible in its reactions to stimulus in these environments. It is also a bonus if the artificial agent is affective in its character in order to interact with a realistic personality that will ease communications with human agents. These additional qualities are not necessary for artificial agency but the more that can be added to the technology the better it will be at interacting with its environment and other agents. Franklin and Graesser (1996), use these criteria to outline a taxonomy of autonomous agents that will be useful for our purposes here. I would like to add to their taxonomy the additional caveat that the autonomous agents under consideration are artificial; that is a product of technology, in order to add focus to our discussion.1 Artificial autonomous agents can be separated into three categories: synthetic biological constructs, robots, and software agents.2 Synthetic biological constructs are not very common today, with the only real examples being the attempts at creating wet ALife entities through synthetic biology (see, Rasmuseen et al., 2004). Wet ALife is still a long way from achieving the complexity required for full autonomy, these entities are more like single artificial cells than robust agents but as this technology grows we may see more philosophically challenging agents evolve (see, Sullins, 2006). Some robots are already interesting autonomous agents. All robots can be separated into two broad categories; autonomous robots and telerobots, the distinction being that in a telerobot some level of human control of the robot is maintained and in an autonomous robot the machine’s pro-

gramming is in control of the robot’s actions. Each of these classifications can be further subdivided into; automatons, mobile robots, and affective robots. Automatons are things like industrial robots or simple entertainment robots, which lack almost all of the criteria for agency listed above. As such, automatons are unlikely candidates for autonomous agency. Mobile robots can display autonomy, continuous monitoring of their environment, motility, modest levels of communication and flexible machine learning. Affective robots are like mobile robots except they attempt to simulate emotions and expressions in order to enhance communication with the human agents it interacts with. An example would be the robot Kismet that interacts well with humans (Brazeal et al., 2004, Brazeal 2002, 1999, Sullins, 2008). This makes mobile and affective robots artificial agents and also makes them potential candidates for artificial moral agency. Finally we turn to software agents, which are AI agents that are autonomous programs that inhabit fully virtual environments; be that on a physical computer, a virtual machine,3 or in some form of web technology. Software agents can be broken into these subcategories; task accomplishing agents, entertainment agents, viruses and ALife agents.4 For example, the infamous Clippit the animated office assistant that came bundled with Microsoft Office 97 to 2007, was an artificial task accomplishing agent that attempted to autonomously interact with human users of Microsoft Office, but its failings in understanding the needs of the user along with its overtly artificial and saccharin personality lead to its eventual demise. There are legions of such programs in use today that are designed to help human users but some are consciously designed to cause harm, such as computer viruses and other malware. These agents are already significantly impacting the lives of those humans that interact with them. A final distinction worth noting in ALife agents is the difference between so called hard and soft

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ALife. Soft ALife uses software agents to model interesting characteristics of living systems and hard ALife is the quest to create software entities that are functionally alive in the way that a biological creature is said to be alive. Hard ALife, to the extent that it succeeds in its stated goal, is the most interesting for our purposes here, but robust soft ALife entities can be considered autonomous agents given our definition above.

What is an Artificial Moral Agent (aMa)? We can now turn towards a working definition of artificial moral agent (AMA). Simply put, an artificial moral agent is an artificial autonomous agent that has moral value, rights and/or responsibilities. That is easy to say but I must acknowledge that no traditional ethical theory takes this notion seriously. Still, there are three possible openings for the heresy I am espousing here. The first is the growing field of animal and environmental ethics where philosophers, inspired by the work of Peter Singer, famously argue that utilitarian theories must take into account all the repercussions of one’s actions on all those impacted, even animal agents and failure to do so is due to speciesism (see Singer, 1974; 2006). The second theory that seems to open the door for nonhuman moral agents is found in John Rawls’ original position thought experiment, where he asks us to build our theory of justice as if we were rational disembodied minds designing a society that we would have to then inhabit as human persons, but we are to do so under a veil of ignorance where we will not know beforehand which exact embodied humans we will become (see chapter III in Rawls, 1971). The original position is most likely just a literary device for Rawls, but they certainly are nonhuman, purely rational minds that do count as at least theoretical moral agents in his theory of justice.5 The third potential ally for the position taken by this chapter can be found in evolutionary ethics.

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In this field we are beginning to find compelling evidence that suggests that our moral reasoning is at least in part the product of evolutionary processes that can be found in nonhuman species and most likely was present in our hominid ancestors. The primateologist Franz DeWaal provides much empirical evidence to support the notion that primates have a kind of rudimentary moral reasoning process (DeWaal, 1996, 2006). And the philosopher Elliot Sober and the theoretical biologist David Sloan Wilson have shown that certain proto-ethical behaviors such as altruism can be seen to be rational from an evolutionary standpoint (Sober and Wilson, 1998). This suggests that, at least in principle, moral reasoning may have an evolutionary function and therefore this adaptation could be found in other species, which would be nonhuman moral agents. If you take these three ideas and mix them together and squint just right while looking at the product, we can start to see a theory of artificial morality taking shape. Peter Singer and his allies give us a forceful argument that animals should be seen as moral patients at the very least. So we have a case for natural nonhuman moral patients. DeWaal along with Sober and Wilson help us build a case that moral reasoning, or at least moral instinct, reaches down the phylogenetic tree to species related to humans, blurring the distinction of moral agency being a feature of humans only. This means that at least some of our nonhuman relatives could be more than just moral patients but agents as well. Of course these are still natural non-human moral agents so we need to take a further step. Finally, if we take moral reason to be functional in some way that does not entirely depend on specific human embodiment; in the manner of Rawls who suggests we can think about moral values like justice as if we were not a particular human agent, then it is possible that this moral reasoning process could be found in some other natural or artificial entity and function in some way congruent with that of humans. So it is logically possible that artificial moral agents

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could exist. These would be artificial autonomous agents that exhibited some functional artificial morality. The philosopher Peter Danielson (1992), describes artificial morality as: ...the class of entities that can be moral agents is determined by their functional abilities. This basic functionalist doctrine is widely accepted for other capacities, for example, there are functional prerequisites for calculating. The fossil-filled stone I use as a paperweight would make a poor computer. It contains lots of silicon but not in a form that can change and retain states easily. Similarly, we may ask: what sorts of things make good—that is rationally successful—[moral] agents?6 I will take up this question and the implications of its answer later in this chapter. But now we need to ask if it is possible for us to transform some of our technology in such a way as to create artificial moral agents as I have described them?

Our technology, Ourselves At the turn of the last century, John Dewey built his theory of inquiry on the instrumental uses of technology writ large to include not only common tools and machines but logic and language as well, all of which we are in a transactional relationship with in the discovery and construction of our world (See, Hickman, 1990). We should take this cue from Dewey and explore the relations and transactions between humans and their artifacts and their ontological similarities. The philosopher John McDermott explains this move thus: Artifacts, then, are human versions of the world acting as transactional mediations, representing human endeavor in relational accordance with the resistance and possibility endemic to both nature and culture. (McDermott, 1976, p. 220) Artifacts, then, have meaning neither over and above human meaning, nor in opposition to human

meaning, but instead their value is in relation to that of humans as informed by the natural and cultural world. In this way, technological artifacts create a space separate from nature that allows for human values to be seen in distinction from the dictates of natural necessity. With technology we can pursue goals that are solely our own. But modern information technologies are changing and not only does technology provide a tool for inquiry and thought, but it is becoming a locus itself for inquiry and thought. Dewey could see the trajectory of industrial technology but could only dimly imagine the coming postindustrial world of information technology. Technology is no longer simply a tool for thought but actually thought itself. McDermott (1976) argues that, “...the wider range of consciousness, becomes concretized by the presence of electronic media, with Telstar performing as a global cortex” (p. 221). If this argument was evident in the seventies, how much more so this argument rings true in light of modern web technologies and the various artificial agents being built via, AI, ALife and robotics? Technoethics asks us to consider the special impact technology has had on issues of ethical concern. In this way it is a similar stance to that taken by Dewey, who argued that solving problems in ethics is similar to solving a problem in algebra, it is a practice as much as a theory (Hickman, 1990, p. 111). Mario Bunge wrote his 1974 essay, Towards a Technoethics, in order to bring ethics under the notice or even the purview of technologists. Contrary to my position, he does state unambiguously that he believes that technological instruments are “...morally inert and socially not responsible” (Bunge, 1974, p. 98). What he is worried about is that technologists working in a distributed industrial setting have a tendency to see themselves as merely instruments in a technological process making them immune from having to share in the blame for any social impact the technology they devise might have. Such claims have always

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rung hollow and Bunge set out to show the error of this belief. He argues that technology is about gaining power over various processes and it is not the case that having power over something is a neutral good, since some interests are served at the expense of others. This means that there are no morally neutral technologies; or technology just for the sake of technology, each technology is built to extend the power and interests of some group or other. Thus technologists are caught up in ethical situations weather they want to think about it or not. “Because of the close relationships among the physical, biological and social aspects of any large-scale technological project, advanced large-scale technology cannot be one-sided, in the service of narrow interests, short-sighted, and beyond control: it is many-sided, socially oriented, farsighted, and morally bridled” (Bunge, 1974, pg 101). So we see that the technologist is certainly a moral agent with rights and responsibilities but he goes further to claim that technologists provide an interesting model for moving from scientific theory to practical applications, which is something ethicists may learn from. The technologist does not make: ...categorical imperatives but conditionals of the forms If A produces B, and you value B, chose to do A, and If A produces B and C produces D, and you prefer B to D, choose A rather than C. In short, the rules he comes up with are based on fact and value, I submit that this is the way moral rules ought to be fashioned, namely as rules of conduct deriving from scientific statements and value judgments. In short ethics could be conceived as a branch of technology. (Bunge, 1974, pg 103). It is clear that what Bunge means by the term technoethics, is the study of ethics as a kind of technology. I would like to extend this argument beyond what Bunge intended. Since Bunge (1974), argues

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that we should see human goals (G), and the means to them (M), and any side effect(s) to the means (S), as factors in a moral formula: IF M then G and S, which would be non-arbitrary and based on natural or social law with the results either certain or based on some “fixed” probability. These sorts of laws could be used to form rules such as: To get G and S do M; to avoid G and S refrain from doing M. This shows that ethical norms can be rationally produced through the construction of the right set of conditional statements. If one follows Bunge’s argument this far, then contrary to what Bunge himself states, it opens the door to the possibility that at least some of the products of technology can themselves have moral agency because some forms of technology, notably information technologies, are particularly adept at executing instructions such as the conditionals we just mentioned. Given some goal, a properly programmed machine could deduce the means to achieve that goal mitigated, of course, by cost benefit analysis given the potential side effects of the means employed. A machine such as this would be an artificial moral agent, an agent that might operate beyond the control of the technologists that created it. So, briefly put, if technoethics makes the claim that ethics is, or can be, a branch of technology, then it is possible to argue that technologies could be created that are autonomous technoethical agents, artificial agents that have moral worth and responsibilities—artificial moral agents.

IMPLIcatIONs In this section we will look at how artificial moral agency conflicts with traditional conceptions of moral agency and attempt to deal with the various possible counterarguments to ascribing moral agency to things of human construction. We will then conclude this section by looking at arguments from other writers in favor of the more liberal interpretation of moral agency that

Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics

would include some AI, Alife, and robotic agents as real moral agents.

a Dilemma and its resolution Personhood and all that that word implies is a common prerequisite for ascribing moral agency, any dictionary of philosophy or introductory text will tell you that a moral agent is a person with moral reasoning capabilities. Is it right to presuppose personhood in the way this definition does? Will technologies have to be ‘persons’ to be considered moral agents? Let’s look at this argument closely. The foundational premise is this: an entity is a moral agent only if it is a person with free will and a sound mind. This sounds perfectly reasonable and it would be hard to find arguments to the contrary of this assertion. Many millennia of philosophical and theological tradition rest on the assumption that humans and perhaps God(s) are the only moral agents, so human moral agents must also be persons with free will and a sound mind. Furthermore, autonomous artificial agents, as we have described them in the previous section, may be many things but it is a stretch to grant them personhood. Autonomous artificial agents do not seem to be the legal nor moral equal of human agents, perhaps even being of lesser status then animals and even plants. Their actions are the direct results of programs interacting with inputs and their environment, so it would be impossible to claim any sort of free will for these agents. They also lack the capacities of mind that we so value as humans, such as self-consciousness, experience, and nuanced learning. This has an unfortunate consequence for the status of artificial autonomous agents as moral agents. Since artificial autonomous agents do not possess personhood, freewill or a human equivalent mind, then by simple deduction they are not moral agents. Case closed; or so it would seem.

There is a problem in that concepts such as personhood, freewill, and mind are all notoriously difficult to define and each has its own constellation of writers furiously composing new hypotheses regarding each topic resulting in a voluminous literature that would be impossible to survey here or anywhere else. Regardless of where you stand on each of these particular debates, you must consent that reasonable people can disagree on these topics making it difficult to come up with a definition that will be generally acceptable. We have a tough time determining the status of human fetuses and humans suffering from persistent commas as persons. Additionally, the more we find out about the cognitive apparatus that produces our thoughts and actions the less likely it is that humans’ possess radical free will (see Libet, et al, 1999). One might argue, as Daniel Dennett (2003) does, for a kind of compatibilist free will as he describes in his book, Freedom Evolves, which maintains moral responsibility while acknowledging the findings of modern cognitive and neuroscience. But there is nothing about his theory that could not apply to a certain class of artificial agents as well. Lastly, the criterion of possessing a ‘human equivalent mind’ must refer to the agent’s ability to reason and to possess good reasons for the behavior it exhibits. I think it is a difficult task to determine if a human possesses these abilities, as evidenced by the numerous court cases and trials attempting to determine guilt and culpability of defendants. It is a task that stretches the ability of modern psychology since we, as yet, cannot decipher the inner workings of the brain and have to rely on external behavior and induce the root causes of these actions. So it would seem that it is not fully warranted to believe that one might even be able to claim personhood, free will and a sound mind to human agents, thus leaving us with the uncomfortable position of having to deny that there are any human moral agents. Given this absurdity we



Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics

have to weaken our original claim and remove the requirement of personhood, free will and a sound mind from the list of attributes of a moral agent. This move will allow us to maintain our belief that humans can be moral agents, but it will also open the door for certain other things to be considered as moral agents as well.

chemistry, etc. It must be the case that the philosophical requirement for robust free will, whatever that turns out to be, demanded by Bringsjord, is a red herring when it comes to moral agency. Robots may not have it, but we may not have it either, so I am reluctant to place it as a necessary condition for morality agency. (Sullins, 2006)

some counterarguments

An interesting twist on this type of argument comes from Daniel Dennett who claims that artificial agents could be built that had mens rea, or a guilty state of mind, which includes: motivational states of purpose, cognitive states of belief, or a non-mental state of negligence (Dennett 1998).7 So an artificial agent might be programmed that could be well aware of its guilt in some negative moral act that it committed, but in order to be a full moral agent he requires that the agent also posses “higher order intentionality,” meaning that they can have beliefs about beliefs and desires about desires, beliefs about its fears about its thoughts about its hopes, and so on (1998). Under this view, artificial moral agency is a possibility, but a remote one as we are nowhere near capable of building such machines. While it is certain that an agent with higher order intentionality as described by Dennett would indeed be a moral agent, as with free will, it is not so easy to determine just what is required from an agent to justly claim that it has higher order intentionality. Would we be able to achieve it by simply having the machine recursively reconsider the “beliefs and desires” its lower programming developed and alter them in light of new ethical considerations? This does not seem impossible. It is also the case that many humans do not properly consider their own actions, in fact it seems like only a small minority ever do, so again I am reluctant to place this as a necessary condition for moral agency since these restrictions may eliminate most humans as well as all artificial agents. Bernhard Irrgang (2006), argues that that, “[i]n order to be morally responsible, however, and act needs a participant, who is characterized by

The most obvious counterargument to ascribing moral agency to artificial agents is based on tradition. This argument finds it implausible that so many theorists in ethics from the beginning of the discipline to now would incorrectly determine the necessary and sufficient criteria for moral agency. All the heavy hitters in moral theory, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume, Kant, etc., place special emphasis on human agency in their theories of ethics. Reviewing the traditional literature will lead one to conclude that free will, consciousness and the ability to understand concepts like right and wrong, good and bad, are prerequisites for moral agency, and these assets are only found in God and humans (Bringsjord, 2007, Himma, 2007, Irrgang 2006, Drozdek 1995). Bringsjord and Himma both recognize the power and possibilities of artificial agents but they argue that these entities are, and will always be, non-moral agents given their lack of free will. Any moral agency they appear to have is there only through the actions of human programmers, so at best an artificial agent is just an extension of human moral agency. The argument is simply that if the entity in question has free will then it has the ability to be a moral agent; an entity without free will then is not a moral agent. This move presents a worse problem then the one it is trying to solve since, as I have argued in another paper: If Bringsjord is correct, then we are not moral agents either, since our beliefs, goals and desires are not strictly autonomous, since they are the products of culture, environment, education, brain



Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics

personality or subjectivity.” Irrgang distinguishes between purely artificial agents and humans that have become cyborg through extreme body modifications through technology. He believes it is not possible for non-cyborg robots; that are purely artificial agents, to attain subjectivity, making it impossible for artificial robots or other computational agents to be called into account for their behavior (Irgang, 2006). Irrgang opens a crack in the door though which he rightly allows for cyborgs to be moral agents. One does not lose their status as moral agents by having a pacemaker implanted or when they put on glasses or any of the myriad other technological enhancements we place in and around our bodies. So this leaves Irrgang with having to state at what point do technological enhancements move one from the status of cyborg to fully artificial entity, and hence the point where one losses her moral agency. I agree that personality and subjectivity are important, especially in human equivalent moral agents but again these are philosophically loaded terms that one can equivocate on easily, so I would rather look at the details of how an agent expresses perceived personality and subjectivity and make my decision there rather than rule the agent out of court simply based on its artificial origins. As we will see in the next section, there is a credible alternative method to making these judgments based exclusively on the ontology of the agent under consideration.

Floridi and Sanders’ on Artificial Moral agency The most extensive literature in the philosophy of information technology and artificial moral agents that supports artificial moral agency can be found in that of Luciano Floridi (1999, 2002, 2003), and Floridi with Jeff W. Sanders (1999, 2001, 2004) of the Information Ethics Group at the University of Oxford. Here I would like to briefly note the highlights of their research, as they are able to move us beyond many of the

counterarguments to artificial moral agency raised in the last section. Floridi (1999) argues that issues in computer ethics strain our traditional philosophical conceptions of the issues faced in ethics and morality. Due to this friction, computer ethics has caused us to see that what is needed is a broader philosophy of information that will allow us to confront these traditional conundrums in a new light (Floridi 2002). Floridi (2003) sees this as recognition that information is a legitimate environment of its own that has its own intrinsic value something like the natural environment and the acknowledgement of this makes information itself worthy of ethical concern. Technoethics can be seen it as an attempt to use technology to advance the study of ethics similar to the way that Mario Bunge used simple logic to sketch a possible model of ethical analysis. Floridi (2003) helps extend that notion by providing us with a more satisfying model of moral action using the logic of object oriented programming. His model has seven components; (1) the moral agent a, (2) the moral patient p (or more appropriately, reagent), (3) the interactions of these agents, (4) the agent’s frame of information, (5) the factual information available to the agent concerning the situation that agent is attempting to navigate, (6) the environment the interaction is occurring in, and (7) the situation in which the interaction occurs (Floridi, 2003, p. 3). Note that there is no assumption of the ontology of the agents concerned in the moral relationship modeled. To understand this move we have to look at Floridi’s use of levels of abstraction (LoA) when considering a moral action. Anytime we determine a moral agent and patient, the nature we ascribe to them will be dependant on the LoA we adopt: Suppose, for example, that we interpret p as Mary (p=Mary). Depending on the LoA and the corresponding set of observables, p=Mary can be analysed as the unique individual person called Mary, as a woman, as a human being, as an animal,



Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics

as a form of life, as physical body and so forth. The higher the LoA, the more impoverished is the set of observables, and the more extended the scope of analysis. As the Turing Test shows, ‘erasing’ observables raises the LoA, until it becomes impossible to discriminate between two input sources.... At the LoA provided by information analysis (LoAi), both a and p [agent and patient] are information objects. In our example, this means that p=Mary is analysed as an information object that interacts and shares a number of properties with other information objects, like a digital customer profile. It does not mean that a and p are necessarily only information objects. (Floridi, 2003, p 4) Floridi is aware that the danger here is in opening the door to information objects to be treated as moral agents through abstracting the LoA, one is in danger of abstracting out all morally relevant details leading to the possibility of a highly relativistic ethical theory that sees moral worth in just about everything, “...this would clearly fail to make sense of a whole sphere of moral facts and the commonly acknowledged presence of worthless and unworthy patients” (Floridi, 2003, p 39). To account for this, Floridi and Sanders (2001), have an account of negative moral evaluations of information objects, which they describe in their paper Artificial Evil and the Foundation of Computer Ethics. Floridi and Sanders (2001), argue that we need to make room for a notion of artificial evil, to describe the maleficent actions of artificial agents, and to some extent also acknowledge the evil that can be done to artificial agents themselves. This notion would extend our traditional notions of moral evil and natural evil commonly found in ethical theory that are used to distinguish actions that harm others that are caused by other human agents, moral evil, from those that are caused by natural disasters or accidents, natural evil. Actions of artificial agents, they argue, are not comfortably placed as acts of moral evil since they lack



the qualities of human agency normally required, nor are they acts of nature, such as a hurricane, etc. due to their ontology. This, of course, resonates with the early thinking in technoethics, if a bridge collapses, for example, many years after its initial construction, who is to blame? Is this an act of moral evil with prosecutable human moral agents or natural evil in which no one is to blame? If you will recall our earlier discussion of Mario Bunge, he argued that technologists were the locus of moral evil in these sorts of situations, even though they liked to isolate themselves from the long-term effects of a failed design. Floridi and Sanders (2001), find a similar defect in Bunge’s position as we found earlier in this chapter when it comes to extending this idea to artificial computational agents. To clarify their position they hold that moral evil is any evil caused by a responsible natural autonomous agent; whereas natural evil is any evil caused by natural heteronomous agent such as a flood, earthquake, nuclear fission, and or by any natural autonomous agent that is not directly responsible for the evil act; artificial evil is evil produced by a artificial autonomous or heteronomous agent. The question is whether or not this is a distinction without any real content, are acts of artificial evil just the expression of moral evil or perhaps natural evil in another medium? Floridi and Sanders (2001), note that this is the move made by Bunge when he claims that technologists are morally accountable for the technologies they create and that these technologies are at best a tool or intermediary for the expression of the moral intentions of their makers (pg. 19). They note that this is similar to the problem of evil found in theological philosophy where we are unable to make a distinction between moral evil and natural evil if one posits a divine designer of nature who must be finally responsible for the world this ultimate agent has created. If we see the force of that argument then by analogy Bunge’s argument must be valid as well since it has the same form as the problem of evil argument

Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics

(Floridi and Sanders, 2001, pg 19). It is not easy to counter this argument but Floridi and Sanders agree that when one is talking about artificial heteronomous agents working in conjunction with human agents, then it is appropriate to pass the buck of moral blame to the human agents in the system. But we cannot do this when the agent is an artificial autonomous agent as described earlier in this chapter. Since these agents: …whose behaviour is nomologically independent of human intervention, may cause AE [artificial evil]. In this case, the interpretive model is not God vs. created universe, but parents vs. children. Although it is conceivable that the evil caused by a child may be partly blamed on their parents, it is also true that, normally, the sins of the sons will not be passed onto the fathers. Indirect responsibility can only be forward, not backward, as it were. (Floridi and Sanders, 2001, Pg. 20) Here the charge of false analogy is likely to be leveled at Floridi and Sanders, how can they go from talking about artificial autonomous agents, which include very meager entities like software bots and malicious software agents and then equate them analogously with children who are clearly robust human agents? This does seem like a stretch in reasoning that needs to be explained. I believe Floridi and Sanders are not trying to make the case that there is an exact one to one correspondence between these analogies, instead they are pointing out that under a reasonable level of abstraction, there are two key similarities; autonomy and unpredictability, that both children and artificial autonomous agents have in common. They are not suggesting that Artificial Autonomous Agents have the personhood, free will, and robust intentionality that one might ascribe to children. Floridi and Sanders (2005), want to get away from the notions of free will, personhood and robust intentionality in regards to artificial autonomous agents as they tend to be a conversation

stopper. Instead they argue for what they call a ‘mind-less morality,’ which would enable us to bypass these tricky traditional notions of moral agency that, as we have discussed at length in previous sections, have proven problematic to ascribe even to humans. They argue instead that at the proper level of abstraction, if we can see that the artificial autonomous agent’s actions are interactive with their surroundings and influenced by state changes internal to the agent that cause the agent to be adaptable to new surroundings, then that is all that is needed to ascribe a functional moral agency to the agent in question (Floridi and Sanders, 2005). What is important is that when the actions of an autonomous artificial agent pass a certain threshold of tolerance and cause harm or evil, then we can logically ascribe a negative moral value to the agent itself and not simply its creator, just as we would do for a child who commits an immoral or evil act. Certainly, we would ask the parent or caretaker of the child or autonomous agent to control their wards, and we can admonish these caretakers for neglect of this duty if harm is caused by their wards, but the moral blame for the harm or evil done outside of the caretaker’s control can only be blamed on the agent that directly propagated it. This needs more explanation but before we get to that it must be added that autonomous artificial agents do hold a certain appropriate level of moral consideration themselves, in much the same way that one may argue for the moral status of animals, environments, or even legal entities such as corporations (Floridi and Sanders, 2005). This seems to be a far less contentious claim but could be challenged in the same way some challenge the moral worth of anything but human agents. Floridi and Sanders (2005), provide an important caveat to all of this speculation; the artificial autonomous agent must be unpredictable or set in an environment that keeps its actions unpredictable. An artificial agent whose actions can be predicted with a great deal of accuracy, lacks the autonomy needed for moral agency. So, if we



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imagine a program that is finely crafted so that it does exactly what the programmer intended, then of course it is the programmer that deserves the moral praise or blame for the actions of the program itself (Floridi and Sanders, 2005). So for Floridi and Sanders, the artificial autonomous agent is a moral agent certainly deserving of moral concern, but also, if the agent has true autonomy, meaning its actions within a given environment are determined by state changes internal to itself and further that the agent is unpredictable since at the normal level of abstraction of those other human and artificial agents interacting with it. If those internal state changes are somewhat inscrutable to casual observers, then the artificial agent is quite capable of deserving moral responsibility as well and is a true artificial moral agent.

Artificial Moral Agents are the Only Moral agents Possible The final, and most radical position that can be taken of this topic is the argument that humans are deficient moral agents at best and a fully rational, artificial moral agent is the only thing sufficient to achieve full status as a moral agent. There are a number of people that espouse this position, but I will pick only a few paragon examples for our discussion here. Peter Danielson (1992), in his book Artificial Morality: Virtuous robots for virtual games, explores the ages old question of whether or not it is rational to be moral, but uses the relatively novel tools of computer modeling to shed new light on this problem. Danielson’s book is largely about using computer models to shed light on game-theoretic puzzles regarding the rationality of moral decision making, trying to get beyond the apparent paradox that asks; why be moral when the payoff for immorality seems higher? He does this by building models and model worlds that show that, “…there are moral agents which are rational in the following sense: they successfully solve social problems that amoral



agents cannot solve” (Danielson, 1992, p. 4). He achieves this by conducting multiple experiments using well know problems like the iterated prisoners dilemma, and shows the increased fitness of artificial moral agents in these scenarios over artificial amoral agents. The results of these experiments strengthen Danielson’s position that rational moral agents are more fit, meaning better at solving social problems, than irrational or amoral agents. There is, however, a sinister modus tollens lurking here; if rational moral agents are able to solve certain social problems, and we are unable to solve those problems, then it follows that we are not rational moral agents. Danielson admits that it is possible that his theories apply best to artificial moral agents and might be only extendable to other artificial agents such as organizations, corporations, etc., and therefore only indirectly applicable to human agents. For Danielson, humans are lacking certain qualities necessary for rational moral agency: First, we humans evidently are not cognitively transparent. Second, we may lack the discriminating means of commitment that rational morality requires. Third, we humans cannot readily adapt our commitments, as our emotional mechanisms for fixing dispositions tend to have high inertia and momentum. (1992, p. 200) We may have certain psychological patterns that limit our commitment to, or even our ability to engage in rational contemplation of moral situations. Similar concerns are raised by the philosopher Eric Dietrich who argues that evolutionary psychology has shown that we have evolved some very nasty behaviors that are clearly immoral like sexual abuse, racism, sexism, warfare, etc. We know these are acts of moral evil but even so they have not disappeared despite millennia of top-notch moral philosophy and religious interventions. If anything, our technology has increased our capacity for creating harm but Dietrich argues technology also holds the potential

Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics

solution to these problems. “… [L]et’s build a race of robots that implement only what is beautiful about humanity, that do not feel any evolutionary tug to commit certain evils, and then let us – the humans – exit stage left, leaving behind a planet populated with robots that while not perfect angels, will nevertheless be a vast improvement over us” (Dietrich, 2001, p. 324). Hans Moravek (1998), the prominent robotics researcher, also argues in his book, Robot: Mere machine to transcendent mind, for a similar potential future in which humans upload only the best of their science and moral theories into rational machines which will then supercede us humans and take only the best we have to offer into future millennia leaving our evolved evil tendencies as just a historical relic. The obvious counterargument here is the worry that machines, even machines of loving grace, are not free and therefore not moral even if their actions of beneficent, couldn’t they just as easily be programmed to be the avatars of ultimate moral evil? The physicist Joseph Emile Nadeau counters this argument by claiming that on the contrary, an action is a free action if and only if it is based on reasons fully thought out by the agent and that only an agent that operates on a strictly logical theorem prover can thus be truly free (Nedeau, 2006). If free will is necessary for moral agency and we, as humans have no such apparatus operating in our brain, then using Neduau’s logic, we are not free agents. Androids, robots and other artificial agents, on the other hand, are programmed explicitly in this manner so if we built them, Nadeau believes they would be the first truly moral agents on earth (Nadeau, 2006 ).8 This moral rationalist position is simply the belief that the more rational and cognitively capable the agent, the more moral that agent’s actions will be, since moral actions are rational actions: …[T]he reason we have gotten better is mostly because we have gotten smarter. In a surprisingly

strong sense, ethics and science are the same thing. They are collections of wisdom gathered by many people over many generations that allow us to see further and do more than if we were individual, noncommunicating, start-from-scratch animals. The core of a science of ethics looks like an amalgam of evolutionary theory, game theory, economics, and cognitive science. (Hall, 2007). It is not necessary to make the leap that given the truth of this proposition it follows that humans are irretrievably evil and need to be replaced by artificial moral agents, one might instead take Peter Danielson’s next step and conclude that, “[a]rtificial morality may lead us to discover techniques of communication and commitment that are morally effective but unavailable to unaided humans” (1992, p. 201). Thus humans are not morally bound to self-destruction but should work to use technoethics to technologically enhance their primitive, but not insignificant, moral inclinations.

FUtUrE trENDs There has already been some small success in building artificial moral agents such as those programmed by Peter Danielson and others for the exploration of simple moral problems. As this field progresses we can expect more and more robust artificial moral agents that will take the form of household and other service robots that will coexist with us in our living space, synthetic biological agents, and software agents that will act together with us online. If these technologies are to operate in an intelligent manner, then they must take note of the behaviors, wants, and desires of their owners. This personal data might include sensitive or embarrassing information about the user that could become known to anyone with the skill to access that information. So it is imperative that these agents be programmed with the ability to act



Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics

as competent moral agents in order to navigate the tricky social situations they will find themselves in. Mark Weiser, one of the early researchers in ubiquitous computing, suggested that when designing artificial agents that will work closely with human operators, “…we must work with a sense of humility and reverence to make sure these devices enhance the humanness of our world, advancing our cherished values and even our spirituality, rather then just focusing on efficiency, and obtrusive sterility (Weiser, 1999).9 Successful artificial moral agents will also begin to be more than just tools to those who interact with them. Because of this, these agents must be designed in such a way that they can act in a sociable and friendly way.10 Neil Gershenfeld of the MIT Media Lab has sketched out the proper relationship we should have with the information technology around us. He claims that, (1) we should have the information we need when, where and in the form that we want, (2) We should be protected from sending and receiving information we do not want, and (3) we should be able to use technology without attending to its needs (Gershenfeld, 1999, p. 102). Additionally, things have the right to, (1) an identity, (2) access to other objects, and (3) the right to detect the nature of their environment, “[t]aken together, these rights define a new notion of behavior, shared between people and machines, that is appropriate for a new era (Gershenfeld, 1999, p. 104). It is clear that more work needs to be done in order to determine just how to achieve these goals. Colin Allen, Gary Varner and Jason Zinser (2000) explain the problem clearly in their paper, Prolegomena to any future artificial moral agent: Attempts to build an artificial moral agent (henceforth AMA) are stymied by two areas of deep disagreement in ethical theory. One is at the level of moral principle: ethicists disagree deeply about what standards moral agents ought to follow. Some hold that the fundamental moral norm is the principle of utility, which defines right actions and policies in terms of maximizing



aggregate good consequences, while others hold that certain kinds of actions are unjustifiable even if a particular token of the type would maximize aggregate good. The other level of disagreement is more conceptual or even ontological: apart from the question of what standards a moral agent ought to follow, what does it mean to be a moral agent? This chapter and other similar works have clarified what a moral agent is and what it takes for an artificial autonomous agent to become one, but the question of exactly which moral standards should program these moral agents follow is still open. This question now has its own field of study called machine morality, and we can look for many new developments here in the near future.

cONcLUsION In this chapter I have carefully outlined the issues surrounding the acceptance of artificial moral agents. As we have seen, technoethics provides us with all the conceptual tools we need to open the door for the possibility of accepting the reality of artificial moral agents. I argued that technoethics must address this possibility earnestly if it is to be anything more than just an unsurprising extension of traditional ethical systems. If we do take it seriously, then technoethics stands to be an important plank in the new information ethics.

rEFErENcEs Allen, C., Varner, G., & Zinzer, J. (2000). Prolegomena to any future artificial moral agent. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 12(2000), 251-261. Brazeal, C., Brooks, A., Gray, J., Hoffman, G., Kidd, C., Lee, H., Lieberman, J., Lockerd, A., & Mulanda, D. (n.d.). Humanoid robots as coop-

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erative partners for people. Retrieved, August 2006 from, http://robotic.media.mit.edu/Papers/ Breazeal-etal-ijhr04.pdf Brazeal, C. (2002). Designing sociable robots. Cambridge: MIT Press. Brazeal, C. (1999). Robot in society: Friend or appliance? Proceedings of the 1999 Autonomous Agents Workshop on Emotion-Based Agent Architectures, Seattle, WA, pp. 18-26. Bringsjord, S. (2007): Ethical robots: The future can heed us. AI and Society, (online). Retrieved Tuesday, March 13, 2007, from http://www. springerlink.com Bunge, M. (1977). Towards a technoethics. The Monist, 60, 96-107. Danielson, P. (1992). Artificial morality: Virtuous robots for virtual games. London: Routledge. Dennett, D. (2003). Freedom evolves. New York, New York: Penguin Books. Dennett, D. (1998). When HAL Kills, Who’s to Blame? Computer Ethics. In, D. Stork (Ed), HAL’s legacy: 2001’s computer as dream and reality (pp. 351-365). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. DeWaal, F. (1996). Good natured: The origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DeWaal, F. (2006). Primates and philosophers: How morality evolved. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dietrich, E. (2001). Homo sapiens 2.0: Why we should build the better robots of our nature. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 13(4), 323-328. Drozdek, A. (1995). Moral dimension of man in the age of computers. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. Floridi, L. (1999). Information ethics: On the philosophical foundation of computer ethics.

ETHICOMP98 - The Fourth International Conference on Ethical Issues of Information Technology. Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.wolfson. ox.ac.uk/~floridi/ie.htm Floridi, L. (2002). What is the philosophy of information? Metaphilosophy, 33(1/2). Floridi, L. (2003). On the intrinsic value of information objects and the infosphere. Ethics and Information Technology, 4(4), 287-304 Floridi, L. & Sanders, J. W., (1999). Entropy as evil in information ethics. Etica & Politica, Special Issue on Computer Ethics, I.2. Floridi, L., & Sanders, J. W., (2001). Artificial evil and the foundation of computer ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 3(1), 55-66. Floridi, L., & Sanders, J. W., (2004). On the morality of artificial agents. Minds and Machines, 14(3), 349-379. Franklin, S., & Graesser, A. (1996). Is it an agent, or just a program: A taxonomy for autonomous agents. Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages. Springer-Verlag. Gershenfeld, N. (1999). When things start to think. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Hall, J. S. (2007). Beyond AI. New York: Prometheus Books. Hickman, L. A. (1990). John Dewy’s pragmatic technology. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Himma, K. E. (2007). Artificial agency, consciousness, and the criteria for moral agency: What properties must an artificial agent have to be a moral agent? In L. Hinman, P. Brey, L. Floridi, F. Grodzinsky, & L. Introna (Eds.), Proceedings of CEPE 2007: The 7th International Conference of Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry (pp. 163180). Enschede, the Netherlands: Center for Telematics and Information Technology (CTIT).



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Irrgang, B. (2006). Ethical Acts in Robotics. Ubiquity, 7(34). Retrieved from, www.acm. org/ubiquity

Sullins, J. P. (2006 a). Ethics and artificial life: From modeling to moral agents. Ethics and Information technology, 7, 139-148.

Libet, B., Freeman, A., & Sutherland, K. (eds). (1999). The volitional brain: Towards a neuroscience of free will. Thorverton, UK: Imprint Academic.

Sullins, J. P. (2006 b). When is a robot a moral agent? International Review of Information Ethics, 6(December), 23-30. Retrieved from http://www. i-r-i-e.net/

McDermott, J. J. (1976). The culture of experience: Philosophical essays in the American grain. New York: New York University Press.

Sullins, J. P. (2005). Artificial intelligence. In C. Mitcham (Ed.), Encyclopedia of science technology and ethics. Rev Ed edition. MacMillan Reference Books.

Moravec, H. (1998). ROBOT: Mere machine to transcendent mind. Cambridge: Oxford University Press. Nadeau, J. E. (2006). Only androids can be ethical. In, Ford, K. and Glymour, C. (eds.), Thinking about android epistemology (pp. 241-248). Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press (American Association for Artificial Intelligence); Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Rasmussen, S, Chen, L, Deamer, D, Krakauer, D, Packard, N, Stadler, P, & Bedau, M. (2004). Transitions From nonliving and living matter. Science, 303, 963-965 Rawls, J. (1999, 1971 original publish date). A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Singer, P. (1974). Animal liberation: A new ethics for our treatment of animals. New York: Avon. Singer, P. (Ed.). (2006). In defense of animals: The second wave. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Sober, E., & Wilson, D. S. (1998). Unto others: The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sullins, J. P. (2008). Friends by design: A design philosophy for personal robotics technology. In P. E. Vermaas, P. Kroes, A. Light, and S. A. Moore (Eds). Philosophy and design: From engineering to architecture. Dordrecht:Springer.

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Weiser, M. (1999). The spirit of the engineering quest. Technology in Society, 21, 355-361.

KEY tErMs Artificial Autonomous Agent: An autonomous agent whose ontology is removed significantly from the natural world but who nevertheless resembles natural autonomous agents in its ability to initiate events and processes. Artificial Moral Agent (AMA): A moral agent whose ontology is removed significantly from the natural world. Level of Abstracton (LoA): The level of complexity from which the observer views the system under consideration. Higher levels of abstraction provide the observer with fewer dietails while lower levels of abstraction provide much more detail of the operations of the system. Malware: Software or software agents that are consciously programmed and set lose to create evil affects in the operation of information technology. A computer virus is an example of malware. Moral Rationalism: The philosophical position that holds that moral agents must be fully and completely rational in order to maintain their status as moral agents. Typically, those who hold

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this position deny that human agents can achieve this requirement, meaning that only AI or Alife agents could be true moral agents. Synthetic Biological Constructs: Artificial Life entities created by basic chemical processes, an example would be synthetic living cells created entirely from basic chemical processes and not via genetic engineering.

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With biotechnology the distinction between natural and artificial may appear blurred, is a human that has had some sort of new gene therapy to remedy some biological malady now an artificial agent? I would like to set that question aside for now as I believe it is unproblematic to see such a person as still a moral agent regardless of their status as a natural born human. I am breaking with Franklin and Graesser here; they call the third category “computational agents” under which they list software agents as a subcategory. It can be argued under computationalism that all of the artificial agents discussed so far are computational in the broadest sense, so in order to be less confusing I have changed the taxonomy to reflect this.

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A virtual machine is a computer simulated on a computer, essentially all software are virtual machines but these can be multiply embedded, software that runs embedded in other software, etc. This is largely taken from Franklin and Graesser (1996), but I have altered their classification a bit dropping ALife agents a level below software agents and changing task specific agents to task accomplishing agents in order to account for everything from search bots that come the web to complete some specific task to mixed initiative agents that provide more multivariant assistance for their users. For more discussion on this see Danielson, 1992. I am certain that Danielson means ‘moral agents’ here and is not switching the conversation to agency in general as the original text ‘agents’ might suggest. The following arguments are modified from Sullins (2006 b). This section paraphrased from Sullins (2006b). This section paraphrased from Sullins (2005). For a more complete discussion of this point see, Sullins, (forthcoming).



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Chapter XV

Ethical Controversy over Information and Communication Technology Pilar Alejandra Cortés Pascual University of Zaragoza, Spain

Abstract ‘What positive and negative aspects are perceived of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT)?’ and ‘What dilemmas arise regarding these technologies?’ are the two questions addressed in this chapter. First of all, we have conducted a theoretical analysis comparing various ICT characteristic from two different perspectives: the positive and the negative ones of ICT. Secondly, we present the results in two work modules conducted in the Observation Laboratory of Technoethics for Adults (LOTA) project, already explained in the previous chapter, with an inference towards intervention.

to my nephews

Introduction It is important to determine (Edwards, 1997; Rumbo, 2007) what type of learning society we want, that is: a manner of socialization of community rules and practices (to distinguish between advantaged and disadvantaged students); a way of providing competitive individuals to the neoliberal labor market; or a network of continuous learning influenced by information technology. And before

these three stances, a possibly eclectic one, in our opinion, might be a learning community based on educating all people to become future citizens and adapt to the labor situation and in this regard, ICT can help achieve this aim. It is not a matter of presenting an entirely positive or negative situation regarding ICT, although considering both sides allows an ethical reflection of these technologies which is necessary (Hogue, 2007) in different fields such as we are invited to do by, for example, UNESCO, which has considered this a priority since 2002

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(Ten Have, 2006). Although the medical field is the one that has worked the most on the topic of healthcare ethics and bioethics, the lack of studies has also been criticized (Marziali et al., 2005). Also, nanotechnology, such as the current scientific revolution applied at a nanoscale to technologically manipulate molecular structures and atoms, is also provoking certain axiological controversy (Ebbesen et al., 2006) in areas such as: genetic engineering, research of stem cells and transgenic products. This reality leads to proposing the need for a deeper understanding of the being and acting of ICT.

The yin and yang of ICT Martins and García (2003) are of the opinion that ICT can facilitate the passage from the knowledge society to wisdom. A dilemma surrounding ICT between technology optimism and pessimism. Obviously the third environment or space for ICT presents a series of risks (Echeverría, 2004) in various areas: technological, economic, military, political, social, legal, ecological, moral, religious, aesthetic, epistemic and basic, although, extending the author’s thesis, it also provides relevant macrosocial and individual possibilities. This seems interesting and perhaps we should aim for an intermediate Aristotelian position which would be wise indeed. Certainly, the exclusive and extremist principle of absolute precaution before ICT (Luján and López, 2002) is not the right course, but rather a more eclectic one should be adopted. In this regard, for example, García (1998a, b) proposes 7 “virtues” and 7 “sins” of ICT (the basis for the first activity proposed in this chapter). It is also very interesting to review the ERIC base (2007), with references to the benefits and the detrimental aspects of technologies, as well as the paper by Luján and Told (2007) based on the perception of citizens themselves to analyze the relationship between the role of science and technologies and values.

ICT are a service that is spread worldwide, but not yet reaching all or not all reaching them in the same manner (Benadou, 2005), that is, here too there is social inequality, which Castells (2002:22) has summarized in two ideas: first, “web connection and flexibility allow connecting with that which is valuable and reject that which is valueless, either people, companies or territories”; and second, “the extreme underdevelopment of technology infrastructures in most parts of the world is an essential barrier towards development”. If in 2000, only 3% of the world population used the Internet, by 20071 the figure was 16.6%. This increase is positive, but certain clarifications must be made such as that in Canada or the United States the percentage reaches 70%, yet in most countries in Africa it barely amounts to 4%. Or that Asia (35.6%) and Europe (28.6%) present the highest percentage compared to the rest of the world. Although discrimination can be observed, for example, by gender2, since in childhood girls (76%) use computers more than boys (71%), but in adulthood this trend is reversed (60% of women and 70% of men) due, to a great extent, to the greater family obligations for females, which condition the time available compared to men to devote to ICT. In Spain, for example, the profile of an Internet user is male, between 35 and 36, residing in a province capital, and only 10% access the Internet through broadband, according to 2006 data.3 All this evidences a digital gap which, in our opinion, must be overcome in order for the country to progress equally both internally and in relation to other countries. We refer to Castells (2002) and his Marshall Plan proposal for the Information Era with various strategic recommendations such as, for example, a social economy based on high technology for expert on-line systems on healthcare, distance education, avoiding the bottleneck on information and technology education or preventing the brain leak of developing countries by extending quality networks worldwide.

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Let us now analyze the use of ICT. This is represented by the following line which, at one end, indicates their abuse, and at the other, their underuse (see Figure 1). Obviously, the best is a balanced use of ICT, that is, in the middle of this line. Nonetheless, humans can fall on any point along this line. Thus, cases of addiction have been detected (Fisher and Wesolkonski, 1999), especially in people with a certain psychological profile: insecure, with low self-esteem and obsessive. In adults primarily, an individual has been detected who before others appears in control and adopts all the latest technologies. The authors point out that 10% of technology users are addicted to it. Also, to a certain extent, as a result of this, when there are technological problems (not being familiar with certain software, loss of an electronic document, etc.) they feel frustrated (Lazar et al, 2006). At the same time, despite being connected, ICT users can fall into personal isolation. Indeed it is a paradox that among the various social networks or sites for social gathering, there are over 300 million people surfing worldwide. Especially in MySpace (Murdoch) and YouTube (Google), youths and adults communicate through a real or imaginary identity and yet, they cannot establish the slightest personal relationship. However, the media and the Internet also act as channels to establish friendship and love relations, and to create another personality or alter ego in order to play in the web as, for example, in Second

Life4, where every day over a million people lead digital lives. Other issues that may arise with ICT are that they take time away to conduct other activities, such as reading or physical exercise, or that they decrease users’ creativity. In any case, there are diverse conclusions in this regard, like for example, on the influence of television on viewers (Medrano and Cortés, 2007), on which there are studies that refer both to the positive and the negative aspects of this medium. On the other hand, with regard to underuse, people who decide not to employ ICT, are missing an option to find information quickly and abundantly, under certain flexible time-space coordinates, relevant features of these resources. At the same time, some individuals may have difficulty finding a job or being promoted if they lack technical and methodological skills regarding technologies, so relevant nowadays (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2005). Technologies have also made working life easier through e-learning or telecommuting. ICT also imply philanthropic initiatives as they expand. For example, that of Michail Bletsas, who has developed the OLPC (One Laptop per Child5) project, endorsed by the MIT education center, and the companies Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. It entails enabling disadvantaged children to obtain a low cost laptop (XO solidarity laptop), through Governments and Non-Government Organizations. It is starting to be implemented

Figure 1. Some of the consequences of ICT use Abuse -Addiction -Isolation -Passivity -Takes time away from other activities -Diminishes originality

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Underuse -Missing information -Labor problems

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in Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Libya, Rwanda and Thailand. Or the objective of raising 1 billion dollars for 1 billion people in five years of the World Ahead program (2006-2011), carried out by Intel to reduce the digital gap. So far we have presented a brief overview of the positive and negative aspects of technology and media resources, and what is important is that we are aware of this double perspective. Some practical proposals reinforce this line. Sadler and Zeider (2005) work with university students of genetic engineering on how to apply moral reasoning (through dilemmas) to experiments conducted in class, in order to ensure that as well as scientific reasoning, emotional and ethical elements are also considered. Sadler et al (2006) explore the use that science professors make of ethical aspects. For this, they interviewed teachers of 22 high schools in the United States and classified them in several profiles: from those least committed to the relation between science and ethics, to those closest to this link. Another practical association is the one conducted by the Integrating Computer Ethics Across the Curriculum Workshop project6 (Ben-Jacob, 2005), where various teachers address, through educational modules, ethics and technology in various areas: business and cultural studies; interdisciplinary; legal studies; health science; computer science and engineering; mathematics, the natural and physical sciences; and social sciences and humanities. We also consider another interesting proposal from a site in Sweden (Alexandersson and Runesson, 2006), where secondary school students analyzed international wars through the Internet, or another educational practice developed in the Business Administration Colleges of the United States (Leonard and Haines, 2007) that virtually present five dilemmas on technological situations which students must decide on.

Main focus Finally, a series of critical conclusions with ICT are proposed, and at the same time others holding them blameless and making individuals responsible for an ethical and proper use of technologies and communications. After all, as Luppicini states (2005), technology reflects the values of those who make and use it. And certainly, we defend that the various centers and educational levels should offer a course, either in the classroom or online, on technology and ethics, along the lines advocated by Olcott (2002). The understanding and balance of ICT are issues that formal and informal education must address because these resources are a part of people’s everyday life.

Future trends: dos módulos de intervención desde el “Observational Laboratory on Technoethics for Adults” (OLTA)7 This project was already explained in the previous chapter. OLTA developed a series of modules, and here we describe two of them: “Debate on the positive and negative aspects of technologies” and “ICT-related dilemmas.”

Debate on the Positive and Negative Aspects of Technologies In the first module, in which 79 adults participated (46 males and 33 females), an itemized analysis was conducted which was very significant (by listening to the voice of those involved), of 15 ideas on ICT, on which they had to individually express their level of agreement or disagreement and the reason for the option chosen. Thus: 1.

They generate or enhance social inequality. 77% agree and 23% disagree. The reasons given were the following: they agree because

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technology discriminates between those who have money and those who do not; between the educated and the uneducated; and they disagree because ICT help developing countries quickly reach the level of developed ones, they make life more affordable and there has always been discrimination. They are at the service of globalization. 65% agree and 35% disagree. The former, because they encourage monopoly and profits and business benefits only for the rich. The latter, because they also help the poor develop, and can end the capitalist view. They encourage passivity. 55% agree and 45% disagree. The former because people become “zombies”, they encourage uncertainty, real disinformation, exaggerated comfort, mental alienation and an inability to select information. The latter, because they help to find a job, resolve everyday problems easily, favor mental activity. Immobility depends on the person. They are bestowed with a special magic. 63% agree and 37% disagree. Those who agree feel they lead to deception, favor financial profits, increase disinformation, abuse power to mobilize masses, there is a feeling of being fabulous for using ICT, and they create more problems than they solve. Those who disagree feel people have the capacity to decide, they help educate people and people are capable of controlling the machine. They enhance personal frustration. 65% agree and 35% disagree. The former agree because there is a lack of technical training, they affect diminished self-esteem and encourage isolation from private life. The latter disagree because when you learn how to use them, frustration vanishes. They are too attractive and therefore, take up too much time and limit socializing. 74% agree, while 26% disagree. The former because they perceive they have fewer personal contacts when they use and abuse ICT. Those

who disagree consider the situation is under control and they can determine when and how long to use ICT. 7. They promote isolation or individuality. 62% agree and 38% disagree. In the first case, adults agree because they generate a technological vice, waste time and take away family time, promoting direct lack of communication with others and enhancing loneliness. Those who disagree say they help people communicate and learn independently. 8. They are an easy resource for people with socialization problems. While 67% agree, since you shut yourself in your own world, 33% disagree, because they also help people with socialization problems. 9. They are not used to the fullest advantage. Their full potential is not materialized and they end up being a routine. 48% agree and 52% do not. Thus, the first group reason that they promote boredom, do not teach properly and with all their potential , they make users waste time. And those who disagree say they make work easier and help meet people. 10. They are a means to communicate political power. 62% agree and, on the other hand, 38% disagree. The former because there is a subliminal control by politicians’ will, using mainly the mass media. And the latter say they also help some citizens learn about the political landscape. 11. They make subjects feel they are always outdated. 75% agree with this idea, although 25% do not. The former explain that ICT demand a constant technological renewal, progress and an extreme eagerness to be up to date. The latter reason that in reality there are not that many breakthroughs brought about by ICT, but rather they are the same contents under different formats. 12. They take away time from important human development activities. 68% agree and 32% disagree. The first case is justified because

Ethical Controversy over Information and Communication Technology

they create addiction and since they are so easy, they make people move less and carry out more intellectually complicated tasks. The second group base their disagreement on the fact that technology is also a very useful activity which can be compatible with other less sedentary activities. After all, it depends on the person. 13. If you are not a part of the Information Technology Society you feel you are not of this world. 55% agree, while 45% do not. The former agree because we have become so dependent that if we are not a part of ICT we seem outcasts. Whereas those with a different view point out that technology can be dispensable and that it depends on personal decisions. 14. They encourage alienation. 69% concur, since there are already some technologies we could not live without, and 31% feel the opposite because they make life easier, especially in aspects that seem tedious. 15. They limit creativity and originality. 55% share this idea, because users stick to what they know and do not want to learn any further, and 45% disagree because they offer tools to work cognitive and creative competences which is more difficult to do with other means. In general, we can state that the first idea is the one with the most agreement, that is, technologies do not reduce the differences between groups, but rather increase them, since economic development marks the boundary between developing and developed countries, which is stressed with technologies. In second and third place, they agree with the feeling of being outdated, and that they take time away from socializing. They do not agree with the idea that they are not used to the best advantage. And above all, worth highlighting is the opinion expressed at times that it depends on the person.

ICT-Related Dilemmas In the second module on “dilemmas related to ICT” they were presented, through interviews, with a hypothetical dilemma and later asked for a real one, to which 82 subjects replied (52 women and 30 men). The hypothetical dilemmas served as a pretext for subjects to approach what is a sociocognitive and socioaffective conflict forcing them to choose one of the values opposed, that is, a dilemma. The situations were the following (Cortés, 2004).

John, His Father and the Internet When a boy named John gets home, the first thing he does is turn on the television and then go to his room to play on the computer and surf the Internet. One day his father suggested going for a walk to visit a relative, but John had arranged to chat with friends on the web. John decides to stay home to “talk to his friends”. 1. 2. 3.

Should John go with his father? Why? Should John stay home to chat on the computer? Why? Is it a good or a bad thing that he stays home to chat with his friends? Why?

Sonia and Computers There is a teacher called Sonia who, when she does not know what to do with her students and she wants to do something innovative and motivating, takes them to the computer room or to watch a video without any guidelines. Sonia knows it is not the right thing to do, but she does not dare to admit she does not about information technology applied to education, nor does she know how to use videos properly. 1.

Is it right or wrong for Sonia to do this with her students? Why?

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2. 3.

Should Sonia bring up her situation with the school’s heads or staff ? Why? What reasons could she have for not wanting to talk about it?

Patricia’s Advertisement Patricia is an advertising executive who needs to do a television commercial on a new videogame, of high commercial impact, whose character is a fabulous hero. The creators of the videogame demand that some of its features be magnified, almost lied about. Patricia feels she should be more objective with the product, but on the other hand, she is a part of the fantastic and iconic world of advertising and television. 1. 2.

3.

What should Patricia do? Why? Is it right or wrong for Patricia to do the ad under the conditions established by the advertisers? Why? Do you think that because it is a commercial, one can be subjective and deceive consumers?

The results of the above dilemmas are not presented here, but we do provide those described by the adult students themselves. The real dilemmas were classified, with an interjudge analysis among 3 people, into five categories: (1) Credibility of MCS (dilemmas contrasting values of objectivity vs. subjectivity or sensationalist manipulation of the mass media), with 37%; (2) Quality of life at work (contrasting values on whether time is wasted or gained for work tasks with ICT), with 27%; (3) Health (whether to use ICT or not because of the effect of technology waves on humans), with 18%; (4) Social discrimination (questioning whether ICT are a synonym of power or they can enhance equality because they help everybody, that is, they are for the whole of humanity or only for the enrichment of a few privileged ones), with 10% and; (5) Usefulness of the Internet (whether or not to have Internet at home or at work due to

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questions about its efficiency, speed, ease of use, etc.), with 8%.

Conclusion: A proposal to work on technoethics in education Throughout this chapter we have strived to record essentially three connected concepts: first, the importance of a realistic perception of ICT; second, the user’s responsibility and; third, inclusion of technoethics education (for example, provision of the two modules explained in the OLTA project). With the first concept we advocate that although it is objective that ICT do not reach the world population in an identical manner, there are supportive initiatives seeking equality in this regard, and it is also interesting to analyze how subjects use these technological and virtual resources. This use may be problematic or not in two areas: underuse and overuse, and this depends in most cases on user autonomy regarding ICT. In order for this critical and selective autonomy to exist regarding the how and the why of information and communication technology media, technoethics education is endorsed, which gradually builds up knowledge and praxis (Sadler and Zeider, 2005; Ben-Jacob, 2005; Sadler, 2006; Alexandersson and Runesson, 2006; Leonard and Haines, 2007). More initiatives in secondary and higher education are observed, but we advocate for them to reach all other levels, such as adult education (Cortés, 2005). In this regard, the two practical contributions of the modules can be used by educators to apply with students as is or adapted to the recipients. This emphasis on technoethics, focused essentially on ICT, must also be linked to an axiological analysis of technoscience, understood as the impact of technology advances on science according to Echeverría (2001), since, as expressed by this author, an action or artifact is good (metavalue) if, among other aspects, it respects ecological,

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human, political, social and legal values (privacy, security, autonomy, spread of knowledge, etc.); and, what we are most interested in, ethical values (freedom of conscience, dignity, respect for beliefs, honesty, etc.). In any case, in this chapter, as in the other one (Educational technoethics applied to career guidance) we have tried to present contents to help situate the discussion and provide resources for researchers working in this area.

Edwards, R. (1997). Changing places? Flexibility, lifelong learning and a learning society. New York: Routledge.

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Alexandersson, M. & Runesson, U. (2006). The tyranny of the temporal dimension: Learning about fundamental values through the Internet. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 50(4), 411-427. Benadou, R. (2005). Inequality, technology and the social contract. Handbooks in economics, 22, 1595-1638. Ben-Jacob, M.G. (2005). Integrating computer ethics across the curriculum: A case study. Educational Technology & Society, 8(4), 198-204. Castells, M. (2002). Tecnologías de la Información y de la Comunicación y desarrollo social. Revista de Economía Mundial, 7, 91-107. Cortés, P. A. (2004). Una mirada psicoeducativa de los valores. Seminario aplicado a las nuevas tecnologías de la educación. Prensas Universitarias de la Universidad de Zaragoza: Zaragoza. Cortés, P.A. (2005). Las preconcepciones sobre la tecnoética en los adultos. Revista Mexicana de Psicología, 22(2), 541-552. Ebbesen, M., Andersen, S. & Besenbacher, F. (2006). Ethics in nanotechnology: Starting from scratch? Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 26(6), 451-462.

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Leonard, L. & Haines, R. (2007). Computer-mediated group influence on ethical behaviour. Computers in Human Behavior, 23(5), 2302-2320. Luján, J.L. & López, J.A. (2003). The social dimension of technology and the precautionary principle. Política y Sociedad, 40, 53-60. Luján, J.L. & Todt, O. (2007). Precaution in public: The social perception of the role of science and values in policy making. Public Understanding of Science, 16(1), 97-109. Luppicini, R. (2005). A systems definition of educational technology in society. Educational Technology & Society, 8(3), 103-109. Martins, H. y García, J.L. (2003). Dilemas da Civilização Tecnológica. Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciencias Sociais. Marziali E., Serafini, J.M.D., McCleary L. (2005). A systematic review of practice standards and research ethics in technology-based home health care intervention programs for older adults. Journal of Aging and Health, 17(6), 679-696. Medrano, C. & Cortés, P.A. (2007). Teaching and learning of values through television. International Review of Education, 53(1), 5-21. OECD. (2005). Informe de la organización para la cooperación y el desarrollo económicos (OCDE). Retrieved April 15, 2007 from http://www.oecd. org/home/0,2987,en_2649_201185_1_1_1_1_ 1,00.html. Consultado en diciembre de 2004. Rumbo, B. (2006). La educación de las personas adultas: un ámbito de estudio y de investigación. Revista de Educación, 339, 625-635. Sadler, T.D. & Zeider, D.L. (2005). Patterns of informal reasoning in the context of socioscientific decision making. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 42(1), 112-138. Sadler, T.D., Amirshokoohi A., Kazempour,M. & Allspaw, K.M. (2006). Socioscience and ethics in science classrooms: Teacher perspectives

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and strategies. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 43(4), 353-356. Ten Have, H. (2006). The activities of UNESCO in the area of ethics. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 16(4), 333-351.

Key terms Abuse of ICT: addiction; isolation, passivity, takes time away from other activities and diminishes originality. Alter Ego: Another personality to play in the web. Dilemma: Sociocognitive and socioaffective conflict forcing them to choose one of the values opposed. Nanotechnology: The current scientific revolution applied at a nanoscale to technologically manipulate molecular structures and atoms Marshall Plan (Castells, 2002): Proposal for the Information Era with various ethics strategic recommendations. Underuse of ICT: Missing information and labor problems.

ENDNOTES

1



2



3



4 5

Source http://www.internetworldstats.com/ Internet use world statistics in 2007. Source http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu Eurostat Data 2007 (European Commission). Source http://www.mityc.es/Telecomunicaciones/Datos de 2006. State Department of Communications. Source http://www.secondlife.com Source http://olpc.org; www.intel.com/intel/

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6



7

worldahead; http://www.50x15.com; www. powerfulideassummit.com Source en: http://www.mercy.edu/IT/ ethics/ A project approved by the Aragón regional government (Spain) in the calls of 2003 and

2004, directed by Carlos Sanz, director of the Concepción Arenal centre (Zaragoza), and coordinated by the present writer. Isabel Segura (Teruel) also collaborated.

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Chapter XVI

The Cyborg and the Noble Savage:

Ethics in the War on Information Poverty Martin Ryder University of Colorado at Denver, USA

abstract This chapter provides a brief summary of the technical and social hurdles that define the so-called ‘digital divide’ and it considers the celebrated ‘One Laptop Per Child’ project as one response to the problem of digital poverty. The chapter reviews the design of the XO laptop with particular interest on the ethical territory that is traversed in the implementation of a low-cost computer intended for millions of children in underdeveloped nations. The chapter reviews how XO designers negotiated between ethics and feasibility as they confronted numerous problems including infrastructure, power consumption, hazardous materials, free vs. proprietary software, security, and the cost of labor. Apart from technical considerations, this review of the XO evaluates the notion of cultural hegemony and how the imposition of such technology as an educational tool might be balanced by considerations of local control and user agency.

INtrODUctION The digital divide is the white man’s burden of the present era. As technically advanced people become enriched by the knowledge they create, there is a consciousness that millions of disconnected people lack the ‘freedoms’ associated with modern civilization. In this digital age, the billions who survive without computer technology are

seen as languishing on a globe that can no longer sustain hunter-gatherers or subsistence farmers. The technical world of automation, manufacturing and mass consumption is increasingly hostile to the simple folk who live directly from the land. Modern humanity’s ability to dominate nature has imposed serious consequences on pre-modern societies that depend completely upon nature for their sustenance.

Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

The Cyborg and the Noble Savage

Kipling’s White Man’s Burden captured the prevailing ethic of a colonialist society that justified conquest of non-Western cultures in the name of ‘civilization’. It was a noble enterprise to lift savage populations from their ‘simplicity’ and hopeless poverty. This transformation began with skills of reading and writing. Literacy came first in the form of religion, then it flourished under the tutelage of commercialism. Today, the medium of literacy has migrated from parchment to silicon and the electronic well of knowledge is deep and boundless. Those who draw from the well continue to enrich it as they are enriched by it. But most of the world’s people remain disconnected from this knowledge source. They do not speak its language, they are unaware of its powers, and they are completely consumed by the more urgent necessities of daily living. The focal point of this chapter is the celebrated OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project founded in 2005 by Nicholas Negroponte and a core team of the M.I.T. Media Lab. OLPC is an aggressive project that addresses the core issues of information poverty head on. The stated goal of OLPC is “to develop a $100 laptop – a technology that could revolutionize the way we educate the world’s children.”1 In working toward this goal, the designers have grappled with problems of technical feasibility, organizational pragmatics, social and political considerations, and the overarching problem of cultural hegemony. Negroponte’s non-profit team has wrestled between government ministries (as customers) and corporate interests (as suppliers) over questions of content, connectivity, power sources, the user interface, privacy, licensing, component sources, manufacturing, distribution and scores of related issues. What has emerged is a very novel technology at a very low cost with the potential for wide distribution in equally novel markets. The ethical issues that we confront in this chapter are as numerous, complex, and varied as the science of ethics itself. They traverse several major traditions of ethical theory including natural

law, utilitarian theory, and deontology and the applied fields of environmental ethics, engineering ethics and computer ethics. The very fact that we are addressing this issue - the digital divide - places us immediately into a state of anguish associated with Sartre’s existential ethics. While embracing the new powers that we inherit from information technology, we accept responsibility for ourselves in the use of these powers. And yet, as a free people, we also accept responsibility for the impact of our choices upon those who do not possess such power. Can a moral person ignore the growing knowledge gulf between our present-day civilizations? Who of us is justified in raising the question of digital poverty? Can the Western mind presume to understand a life of survival without technology and then dare to suggest a technical solution? In advancing our technologies to the farthest reaches of humanity, what are the unintended consequences of our actions? Do we, as Albert Borgmann (1999) suggests, risk the possibility of forever losing touch with nature? This chapter will address some of the salient ethical issues associated with the digital divide and the moral implications of one specific intervention: the OLPC project. We will briefly consider some of the engineering ethics associated with the design and world-wide distribution of a child’s laptop computer. We will also consider the issue of cultural hegemony that is unavoidably associated with this project and observe the manner in which the designers have consciously addressed this concern.

bacKGrOUND The notion of a ‘digital divide’ was coined during the second half of the Clinton administration. The expression is a spin off of the ‘great divide’ theory of Jack Goody (Goody and Watt, 1968) (Goody, 1977) (Goody, 1986). The Goody thesis portrays literacy as a necessary precondition for abstract



The Cyborg and the Noble Savage

thought and a fundamental component of modern human cognition. According to this theory, societies have a tremendous intellectual and cognitive advantage wherever they can leverage the rich interactions of literate individuals. Numerous theorists in the ‘60s ‘70s and ‘80s studied claims of how specific technologies such as writing or print could affect the nature of thinking and the formation of a modern worldview. (See for example McLuhan, 1962; Havelock, 1963; Finnegan, 1973; Eisenstein, 1979; Scribner and Cole, 1981; Ong, 1982.) A number of researchers have also focused on the close connection between literacy practices and power relationships. An ethical dimension to literacy is introduced in these models. Brian Street (1993) proposed an ‘ideological model’ to the study of literacy (p.7) in which he identifies a tension between power and authority on one hand, and resistance and creativity on the other. Street suggests the conceptualization of literacy as ideological practice “opens up a potentially rich field of inquiry into the nature of culture and power, and the relationship of institutions and ideologies of communication.” (p.12) For years, literacy had been a common indicator of modern social capital (Bourdieu, 1983; Coleman, 1988). By the 1990s the propagation of knowledge by means of information computing technologies (ICTs) had significantly raised the bar that defines what it is to be ‘modern’. The cognitive divide between modern and pre-modern peoples is more pronounced than ever and the solutions required to close this gulf are more formidable. Where Goody’s cognitive divide called for interventions of literacy and basic education, the interventions facing the global digital divide are more complex and daunting. They mandate infrastructure for electricity and communications (Kling, 1998), an army of highly skilled technicians (Korman, 2003; Barton, 2007), an enormous translation effort (Auh, 2001; Martindale, 2002), the dismantling of social barriers (Warschauer, 2003) and political barriers (Norris, 2001). The chances of closing this digital gap hinge on eco-



nomics and the ability to deliver ICTs to populations in the most backward and depressed areas of the world.

tHE OLPc PrOjEct Scores of projects have been spawned since the late 1990s to better understand the global digital divide and to respond to the challenges it poses. Among the most aggressive was unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2005 by Nicholas Negroponte, chairman emeritus of the MIT Media Lab. Stated simply, the goal of One Laptop Per Child is “to give all children in the developing world laptop computers of their own.”2 The hurdles for achieving this goal are daunting, but it is exactly the kind of challenge for which the Media Lab was created. According to Negroponte, the Media Lab’s charter is “to invent and creatively exploit new media for human well-being and individual satisfaction without regard for present-day constraints.”3 OLPC designers accepted the challenge to create a powerful lap-top computer that can operate reliably in regions that have no electricity, that can network with peers in regions without telephone cables or cellular hubs, that can endure rough handling in dusty or humid conditions, that can display information clearly in sunshine or in shade, that can capture and record photographs or moving pictures with sound, that offers tight security adjustable to the user’s needs, that is rich with multi-media resources for communication and for learning, that is immediately adaptable to eight different languages with four different alphabets – and that can do all of this for a price point of $100! The name of the children’s machine is “XO”, christened for the childlike icon that is presented to the user interface. The computers themselves require no external power source. They are intended to communicate with each other in a wireless mesh network4 within a locality that ide-

The Cyborg and the Noble Savage

ally includes a central server5 at a local school or community house. What follows is a summary of the specifications for the XO. As you review these features, notice how each one addresses a specific technical hurdle that guards the digital frontier: •

•

•

•

CPU: 433MHz AMD Geode LX07006. This processor consumes less than one watt, a minute percentage (2%) of the electrical energy consumed by a standard microprocessor in a typical desktop PC. A power management facility in this chip shuts down the CPU when active processing is not actually needed. This effectively keeps the processor in a passive, power-off mode 98 percent of the time. Memory: 256 MB DRAM. Nothing unusual here. This is par with most current laptop systems, but it suggests that the XO is no mere toy. Storage: There is no hard drive on the XO1. The idea is to preserve power and keep the cost low. Essential disk functions are handled by a 1GB flash memory chip7 and data compression, offering the equivalent of 2GB of local storage. Unused space on peer computers can be shared across the local mesh network. The child’s own work can be uploaded and stored on a central server in the vicinity, and applications can be downloaded as needed from that local server. Display: The graphics display poses the greatest challenge to the design of a low-cost, energy efficient computer. A typical laptop display costs around $120 and consumes more than a hundred watts of power. In her design of this innovative display, Mary Lou Jepsen8 manipulated the pixel layout using high resolution TFT LCD9 technology and she eliminated the use of costly color filters. Jepsen introduced a bright black and white mode for use in sunshine and a color

•

•

mode for visibility in shade10. The chip that controls the display has its own memory. This allows information to remain live on the screen even when the processor is not active. The XO display uses one-seventh the typical power consumed by a traditional screen. With these innovations, Jepsen was still able to trim the cost of the XO display to one third of that for a standard display. Network: The reliance on a wireless mesh network11 in lieu of a commercial copper or fibre infrastructure is another innovation of the OLPC project. The XO is equipped with an embedded wireless (802.1112) network chip and two small antennae that enable network communication for distances beyond one kilometer. Each computer serves as a router13 for network traffic, passing data from one child’s laptop to the next. In conventional PCs, the tcp/ip14 software that controls network communications is the part of the operating system. What is unique about the XO is the use of an embedded chip that runs wireless network communications independently of the operating system. On the XO computer, network communications is handled completely from an outboard chip15. This allows a child’s computer to continually forward network traffic for neighboring computers, even at times when the computer itself is in a suspended mode! School Server16: The laptops themselves are generally self-sufficient, but they lack ample storage capabilities and they have no Internet connection. These services can be provided by a more conventional computer situated in a school or community building with electricity and access to the Internet. Where electricity is lacking, the school could be equipped with a photovoltaic solar panel and storage batteries to power the server day and night. The school server is a hub for the local mesh network and it serves as a network router bringing Internet services



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•



to the local network. One important basic service of the school server is an online library of learning materials written in the language of the local community. In many countries, the cost of the computers will be justified on the basis of this material, eliminating the need for textbook distribution. Instructional materials developed by local teachers and students would be stored on the school server. The local server will retain registration data for each child’s laptop in the local mesh network, providing basic security services for each node. Security: The OLPC project presents some unusual security challenges. The XO computers are prime targets for malicious viruses and theft. The designers chose a security strategy26 called bitfrost27 developed by Ivan Krstic. This strategy places the laptop owner in complete control of the system. The system ‘bonds’ to its owner from the moment of first boot. The initial security program asks the child for his or her name. The new laptop machine then takes a picture of its owner and generates a UUID28 that is unique to that child. Once the ownership is established, bitfrost registers the child’s picture, the UUID, and the serial number of the machine with the local school server. Thereafter, each time the XO is powered on, it first checks in with the school server for permission to run. If a machine has been reported stolen, the school server will instruct the child’s unit to deactivate. Bitfrost was designed for young children. With day-to-day operation, the system will ask the user her name, but it will not require a password. Security operation is based on a system of ‘rights’. Each time the user attempts an operation, whether to accesses the camera, microphone, internal memory, or the network, bitfrost will grant the right of access, but will deny any combination of rights that suggest malicious use. The

laptop’s owner, however, has authority to override certain levels of security. The educational goal is to give each child the ability to manipulate his or her own computer as the child continues to discover the computer’s internal workings. For those so inclined, the designers expect some children to master complex technical skills. In the process, the designers anticipate inevitable mistakes that can incapacitate the machine. Full system restore29 functionality is provided from the school server, allowing fail-safe protection for the young experimenter. •

•

Power: The XO computer runs at about 12 watts of power when fully operational. This is less than one fifth the power required by a typical laptop PC. The designers chose a nickel metal hydride (NiMH)17 battery in lieu of the conventional nickel cadmium (NiCd)18 for multiple reasons. NiMH can store three times the charge of an equivalent size NiCd battery. NiMH batteries are friendlier to the environment avoiding the toxic waste problems associated with cadmium19. And unlike NiCd, NiMN batteries don’t suffer from the memory effect20 that requires full discharge and recharge cycles. The battery life is twelve hours between charges when running at full use and six days between charges when in suspended mode. In regions where electricity is not available, the battery can be recharged by a hand crank generator supplied with the machine. Human cranking time requires about six minutes for every hour of use at maximum CPU consumption. Operating System: The Linux21 2.6 kernel22 and the GNU23 operating system comprise the software infrastructure for the XO. The designers were careful to select public domain software because of its zero cost and because of its freedom from license restrictions that would limit ongoing changes

The Cyborg and the Noble Savage

•

•

and deviations. The fact that the code is nonproprietary means that it can be changed by anyone anywhere, anytime. Free and open source software is a prudent choice for long term maintenance of the XO. A custom graphical user interface (GUI) called sugar24 was developed as a deliberate variation from the standard “office/desktop” paradigm that holds little meaning for children in remote villages. In contrast to files and folders, the icons on the XO signify people and objects. An icon of the child herself is at the center of activity. It is the first complete re-design of a user interface since Apple launched the MacIntosh in 1984. Credit for the GUI design is attributed to Chris Blizzard.25 Enclosure: The XO-1 enclosure is made of ABS plastic,30 chosen for its durability and shock absorbency. The design is light and colorful, intended to appeal to the aesthetic mood of a child. The case can be manipulated into the shape of a standard laptop, or it can fold into a tablet or e-book. The rounded edges of the XO are child-friendly and the enclosure provides a rounded handle for the 1.5kg computer. Environmental impact: Even though this computer is targeted for regions outside the European Union, the XO designers have chosen to comply with the strict Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS)31 directive of the EU. This directive requires circuit boards and electronic components in the unit to be free of heavy metals or other toxic materials that would otherwise pose long-term environmental threats when the units are discarded by their owners.

The MIT Media Lab’s charter to invent the future seems well represented in the XO-1. It will be no surprise to find these innovations creeping into mainstream designs for personal computing. The XO computers and the mesh network require no external communication or power infrastruc-

ture. Picture, sound, and text messages from the central server or from any laptop can reach the entire community by bouncing from one computer to the next. A security model requires no password for the owner. The child simply enters her name and she is in complete control of her own machine, but an alien user will have serious difficulty. As of this writing, the first so-called XO models have not achieved the $100 target. When early units were shipped in the Spring of 2007, the unit price was $176. But Negroponte is counting on sheer production volume to bring the price down.

tHE cOst OF LabOr A dominant factor in the manufacture of any durable goods is the cost of labor. The XO developers have exploited automated manufacturing processes wherever possible and they have designed mechanical components for quick and easy manual assembly. Such technical solutions bypass32 a multitude of labor concerns and thereby avoid the ethical implications associated with cheap labor. In selecting the company that will manufacture these machines, Negroponte and his team negotiated the fine ethical line between low-cost units for impoverished children and minimal living wages for XO assembly workers. The manufacturing contract for XO-1 was awarded to Quanta, a Taiwan based corporation, the largest outsource manufacturer of laptop computers in the world. Quanta set up an assembly plant for XO manufacturing in Jiangsu province on China’s mainland. This move was strategic. China’s urban unemployment rests at 4.6%.33 The pool of surplus labor34 on the Mainland attracted Quanta to set up a plant in the city of Changshu, enabling the company to lower manufacturing costs by 20%.35 The minimum wage in Jiangsu ranges from $60 to $88 per month.36 Recent labor abuses by other manufacturers37 prompted the Chinese govern-



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ment to institute overtime laws requiring timeand-a-half pay for work beyond forty hours.38 While the workers who assemble the XO make only pennies per unit, their employer, Quanta, seems to have no difficulty operating within the local parameters of fair labor practices. In an unlikely partnership, the Taiwanese company became China’s second largest exporter of goods by value.39 Quanta promoted China’s status to the world’s largest base for laptop production.40 This rising star of computer production can rightly boast of its contribution to boost employment in Changshu. While remaining insensitive to the real lives of the workers and their families, Quanta prefers to emphasize their contribution toward elevating the skills and knowledge of the province’s factory workers. And the OLPC project can do little but rationalize the necessity of cheap labor in their grand philanthropic scheme.

FrEE aND OPEN sOUrcE sOFtWarE The use of free and open source software in the XO was a firm decision of the OLPC development team. Free software was chosen for philosophical reasons as much as it was to lower costs. “Our commitment to software freedom gives children the opportunity to use their laptops on their own terms.”41 While it is unlikely that the vast majority of children will find themselves changing the computer code, it is a safe bet that many children will exercise some degree of technical curiosity with their laptop, and the OLPC designers insist on the educational value of such pursuits. For this reason, the goal of the developers is to use free and open software exclusively on the XO. The free software movement began in the 1970s as an informal community of programmers who were drawn together to share ideas, strategies and computer code in the context of solving real problems. These software enthusiasts became formalized by the mid-1980s, primarily



through the efforts of Richard Stallman (1985) who founded the Free Software Foundation.42 The FSF provided a formal face for a broad community of programmers who shared an ethic of collaboration and participatory development. The spontaneous collaborative organization of programmers and independent technical experts arose in response to a predictable corporate trend toward copyright protections and restricted access to computer source code. Proponents of copyright insist that protections are needed as a means to preserve profits - the driving force behind innovation. By contrast, Stallman’s copyleft movement has advocated the preservation of free and open source code as the long-term guarantee toward continual improvement and evolution of software. We can hear the classical voices of Rousseau and Locke in these contemporary debates. From a Lockean view, the value derived from labor is the laborer’s exclusive property (Locke, 1690, book-2, Ch-5, sec-27). “Government has no other end but the preservation of property” (Ch-7). Contemporary interpretations of Locke’s theory extend the definition of property to include productions of the mind: intellectual labor. In recent years, multinational arrangements43 have emerged to ensure that intellectual property rights will survive beyond national boundaries (Correa, 2007). John Locke’s social order is alive and well in the age of global trade and economics. By contrast, the philosophical descendents of Rousseau recognize the social nature of knowledge and society’s increasing dependence on intellectual artifacts. Human knowledge, they argue, is an immense ocean of collective interaction. No single idea can be conceived in isolation of a larger scheme of social cognition. To lay exclusive claim to any portion of the commons and to expel others from that territory is tantamount to robbery (Rousseau, 1762, Book-1, ch-9). Software is very much a social artifact and few, if any, so-called ‘original’ algorithms are entirely original. As technical mediations seep into every crevice of modern life, mastery of the machine becomes a principle

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source of power (Feenberg, 2002, p65). The role of software is looming toward a controlling factor behind daily human existence. Keenly aware of this trend, the ‘copyleft’ movement promotes a ‘software commons’ that will ensure the advance of technology in the interest of the public good. The quest of the Free Software Foundation is to create a vast, open library where programmers can draw from public-domain source code and add to this library with each new development effort. To lose control of software and to become dependent on the private property of others bears the risk of relationships that are antagonistic to the common good. In 1762 Rousseau warned that, “nothing is more dangerous than the influence of private interests in public affairs.” (Book III, ch 4). Stallman’s (2001) refrain declares “the biggest political issue in the world today is resisting the tendency to give business the power of the public and of governments.” From this perspective, the free software movement is seen as an expression of political resistance (Maxwell, p 281). What does free and open source software mean for the OLPC project? It insures the possibility that the computer’s life span can extend far beyond the designer’s vision. Maintenance of the XO will fall in the hands of the open source community. The ranks of that community will be augmented, no doubt, by technically motivated children around the world who discover novel uses for their own XO and who learn how to develop authentic applications that are adapted to their own situation. If, in this analysis, we employ Heidegger’s phenomenology of action (Wakefield and Dreyfus, 1991), we can view the XO from the standpoint of its implementer, the young child who possesses few artifacts in addition to this magical machine. As long as the XO continues to function, the child will hold on to the machine and value it as one of very few possessions. The instrument in the hands of a motivated child will enjoy a life span that is much longer than typical PCs in the West. Even though this computer was shaped by an alien

rationality, it will not be long before the young experimenter will learn to reshape the instrument for his or her own purposes. Brent Jesiek (2003) argues that open source software extends a degree of control to the actors (in this case, the children and their local technical mentors). While it is unlikely that a typical child will become adept at changing or rewriting the software, it is very likely that many children will learn the intricacies of the machine and will develop their own rationality for the instrument. It is no stretch to assume that the laptop users will create implementations that the designers have never envisioned. Free and open source software enables this possibility.

a LEarNING MacHINE The XO computer is intended as a learning instrument. It is designed for use by children in rural regions of developing countries where access to school is limited. But what model of education should be implemented in the XO? What philosophy of learning should be applied? Modern education, or “schooling”, follows two traditions with two distinct learning paradigms, each with its own history and each with its own conception of knowledge. The dominant tradition has its roots in medieval Europe when books were rare and expensive, and texts were highly revered. In 14th Century university settings, holding a lecture meant reading a book, sentence by sentence, interjecting occasional commentary as pupils transcribed the information. The reading was central. The pupil’s role was to capture the textual content and never interrupt the delivery. In grammar schools, students were taught by rote from Latin texts, mostly scripture. The young pupils were not allowed to interrupt, and those who did were beaten with a birch rod. Whether in grammar school or the university, knowledge was an entity that existed apart from the learner and detached from the present context. The medieval approach that places content at the center



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of learning has survived Western education to the present day. Jean Jacques Rousseau was the first modern philosopher to criticize this model of education. In a fictional account, Emile (1762), Rousseau seized the opportunity to describe what education might be like if emphasis were to shift away from instructional content and steer instead toward the learner’s own experience. By allowing young Emile to learn what he wanted to learn, Rousseau envisioned a system of education in which intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic coercion could direct a much more rewarding learning experience. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that student-centered alternatives to medieval education were actually introduced in public education. John Dewey formalized an educational model based on direct experience (Dewey, 1938). Experiential education places the learner in an active role to investigate the issue under study, to draw upon available tools, to seek out relevant information and collaborative assistance, to resolve any problems that get in the way, and to reflect on the overall experience. In considering the computer as a learning technology, it is possible to implement both of these educational traditions. The XO is an e-book that can deliver scores of texts written in the local language. Where local schools insist on a prescribed curriculum and didactic content, the XO can faithfully transfer teacher-prepared instructional content from the school server to a child’s laptop as the curriculum demands. Where educators are available to develop content in the local language, ample support is offered by the OLPC project with a rich set of development tools. But the XO can also respond to child-initiated learning activities. It provides tools and an infrastructure that allow a young learner to initiate interactions directly with the machine, with peers, with a teacher, or with the Internet as the child is motivated from genuine curiosity. Each laptop is equipped with wiki44 software, downloadable from the school server. This tool 0

enables children to create their own content with ease and make it accessible to all others from a web browser. OLPC content president Walter Bender explains: The wiki really is a way of taking the knowledge that exists in the world and putting it in a form that makes it transformed and realizable by the children in a very different way. In a wiki, every page also has a commentary, a discussion. The idea is, whatever the children are reading, they’ll be able to write margin notes into that, and share those margin notes with other people; engage in discussion about the content. (Bender, 2006). The programming language logo45 is part of the XO educational package. Logo is an easy-tolearn language intended for young children to discover the elements of computer logic and basic algebraic and geometric principals in an engaging, entertaining, and non-intimidating fashion (Papert, 1980). Logo was an outgrowth of Seymour Papert’s constructionist philosophy.46 For Papert, constructionism is the idea that children develop their own sophisticated knowledge structures as they “engage in the activity of constructing a public entity, whether it’s a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe” (Papert and Harel, 1991). An object-oriented47 variant of logo called, etoys48, is also available on the XO-1. This is a mediarich language that extends logo’s constructionist possibilities by allowing children to manipulate complex objects, generate multi-colored patterns, or create music (Kay, 2007).

tHE qUEstION OF HEGEMONY The thought of distributing millions of Westerndesigned computers to children in remote villages, in barrios and ghettos across the world suggests the possibility of hegemonic concerns. Hegemony is a form of cultural domination imposed by one segment of society over another. Forms of hege-

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mony can so permeate social life that they seem entirely natural to those who are dominated. One oft-cited example is in feudal society where peasant revolts were conducted in the name of the king. It was well understood that the chain of power descended from God through the king. So when peasants revolted against their noble oppressors, they did so in the name of the king. Andrew Feenberg explains that today’s chain of power descends through technocratic rationalization and the key to cultural power rests in the design of technology (Feenberg, 1999, p86). He adds that modern forms of hegemony are based on the technical mediation of a variety of social activities (including education) and that democratization of society must include democratic control of the technical sector. Hegemony is never completely solid, but porous. Within any society under cultural domination there is always room for agency and resistance (Kincheleloe and McLaren, 2000). Feenberg describes how new forms of resistance inevitably emerge through new technologies in what he calls a “subversive rationalization”. This concept describes the manner that technological innovations are followed by novel implementations in the hands of agentive users, and these uses spawn new opportunities for the transformation of technologies toward democratic ends (Feenberg, 1998). The Brazilian, Paulo Freire is particularly noted for his views of power, hegemony and domination in the educational space. But it is doubtful that Freire would find displeasure in the OLPC project since the open communication and collaborative technologies on the XO appear to be aligned with Friere’s own constructivist philosophy of education. According to Freire, the ethical response to hegemony in education is a learnercentered pedagogy that introduces possibilities for active and honest inquiry. Inquiry starts from the learner’s own experience in confronting an authentic problem. “Problem-posing education” (Freire, 1970, p 60) brings teacher and student into a collaborative relationship as peers. The teacher

is no longer an authoritarian oppressor, but she partners with the student in genuine conversation (see Pask, 1975 and Bakhtin, 1935). M. Scott Ruse raises the issue of unavoidable dependencies on allied technologies leading to hegemonic control. A certain technology itself may not pose a threat, but it may draw upon other technologies that do. Ruse argues that technologies form a web of dependencies, bringing with them a complex set of political, social, and economic relations. For instance, “telephones depend upon parts made by both the metal industry and the plastics industry. The building of communication networks depends upon the transportation system, which itself depends upon the petrol-chemical industry, etc” (Ruse, 2005). The knowledge that the XO provides its own electrical and communications infrastructure might ease Ruse’s mind. By the same token, the XO mesh network can provide a needed infrastructure upon which other applications could likely attach dependencies. Where no other form of telecommunications exists in a certain region, the XO mesh network will undoubtedly serve for multiple uses beyond children’s education. This type of dependency describes the actor-network49 phenomenon of translation and enrollment (defined by Michael Callon, 1986), but it does not appear to be the hegemonic threat suggested by Ruse. The OLPC project is a Western solution to a problem defined from a Western perspective. Martin Heidegger in his (1977) essay, The Question Concerning Technology points out that problems typically show up as already requiring technical solutions. To a carpenter with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To the finest minds at MIT, there is a digital solution to the problems of illiteracy. And in the design of the particular solution, certain cultural interests are included and others are excluded. If we are to evaluate the ethics of this technological manner of being, we must look for arguments that justify a particular balance of values or rights over and against other possibilities (Introna, 2005).



The Cyborg and the Noble Savage

FUtUrE trENDs Whether OLPC succeeds or fails on the grand scale that is planned or whether it has any hope of significantly narrowing the digital divide, this aggressive project has set new directions that will benefit the developed world in two fundamental domains: computer architecture and educational technology. From the standpoint of computer architecture, energy conservation is the primary innovation of the XO. Typically the three greatest power consumers in a personal computer are the disk drive, the display, and the CPU. The XO computer confronted all of these hurdles head-on. It replaced the disk drive with flash memory and shifted the role of mass storage to a central server in the mesh network. This provides the XO with all of the computing resources that are associated with any well-equipped PC, but access to these resources comes by means of the mesh network, not from a local disk drive. In the display, the traditional cold cathode fluorescent lamp is replaced by low power LEDs to provide efficient back lighting for indoor viewing of the color display. Traditional color filters50 that subtract from the light source are replaced by a low-cost plastic diffraction grating51 to provide ample color saturation with 85% less power. And no attempt is made to project a bright color display in full sunlight. Instead, a reflective black and white imaging strategy provides high resolution images with virtually no energy consumption in sunlight. Finally, CPU power is the remaining target for energy savings. Realizing that computer CPUs remain idle most of the time, the XO designers and their AMD supplier explored possibilities of eliminating idle-time power consumption. This innovation reduced overall CPU power consumption by more than 90%. All of these energy-saving innovations have already taken root in next-generation designs for mainstream computer products. The current trend in business and industry is to deliver essential computing resources from a single, well-



equipped central server. In contemporary office environments, we see power-hungry desktop PCs being replaced by thin client52 terminals that include a simple keyboard, monitor, and mouse remotely connected to a central server delivering all of the resources required for data storage and heavy processing activities. With thin-client technology in a high-speed network, a single fullyequipped server can extend abundant computing resources to multiple users at a fraction of the cost for equipment, software, and energy. And personal computers themselves are undergoing significant design changes to save energy. The idle-and-sleep power saving mode of the AMD Geode and the “deep power down technology” of Intel’s new generation Penryn CPU53 promise low power consumption with the next generation of computing products. In a similar vein, designers are implementing methods to adjust CPU clock speed to match an application’s needs as a further effort to save energy54. At a time when three million new users join the global network each week55, energy conservation becomes an ethical imperative in computer design. In the domain of educational technology, the OLPC’s orientation toward constructivist learning suggests a shift away from traditional schooling and didactic instruction toward self-directed and peer-collaborative learning. According to Walter Bender, the OLPC educational package is designed with the assumption that children are social and expressive beings, and they can act in roles as teachers as well as learners. “In practice this means wikis rather than just document viewers, music composition tools rather than just MP3 players.” (Quoted in Rowell, 2007). This 21st Century educational package seems to conform to the model that social critic, Ivan Illich, advocated in 1972: A good educational system should have three purposes: it should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives; empower all who want to share what

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they know to find those who want to learn it from them; and, finally, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known. (Illich, 1972, p75)

domain, the constructivist approach to education encourages each learner to actively shape and refine our common base of knowledge.

The basis for such a system is found today within a local network of learners armed with collaborative information technologies, enhanced by a free and open Internet. In educational theory, we see a trend away from the individual view of “learning” toward a holistic view of development and change. Science educator, Jay Lemke, asserts that learning is not a cognitive process, but an “ecosocial” phenomenon:

sUMMarY aND cONcLUsION

Learning is not an internal process. People participate in larger systems and those larger systems undergo developmental processes; in interaction with their own relevant environments, they create the conditions for their own further change along evolved, type-specific and individuating trajectories. Some things change inside the people as they participate in these processes, and other, internal developmental processes of the same kind are going on within us among our own subsystems, coupled to our participation in these larger processes. What fundamentally changes, what we call learning, is how people interact with and participate in the larger ecosocial systems that sustain them. (Lemke, 1993) For Lemke, the learner, the learning community, the artifacts that interconnect the community, and the environment are all interdependent. Lemke sees a network of human-machine organisms (cyborgs) in which humans are shaped by their interaction with machines and machines are shaped by the manner which they are adopted into this sociotechnical network. A change in any human or machine component will impact all other components. Just as the free software movement encourages each programmer to continually adapt and improve the software that we use in the public

In the opening lines of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle observed that “Every techne and every inquiry, and similarly every praxis and pursuit, is believed to aim at some good.” Ethical considerations of modern technology look at the physical objects in contexts of health, safety, and ecological concerns. They evaluate technology’s ability to free rather than to constrain human creativity. And they raise questions about the effects of technology on human identity and on the environment. Ethical inquiry becomes a complicated matter by the diversity of ways technology can be applied and understood (Mitcham, Briggle, and Ryder, 2005). The success or failure of Negroponte’s MIT project has yet to be determined. As of this writing, the XO is not yet for sale in developed countries and is available only at cost to requesting governments for educational purposes. Government ministries currently hold the decision making power over the future of this project. Some of these decision makers are elected, others appointed, and some are self-appointed. They all understand that new technologies bring with them unpredictable effects. They are keenly aware of the power of information technology to effect social change. Some will consider their decision purely on the basis of partisan bias and whose interests will be served. Others must evaluate the ethical choice of purchasing laptop computers in areas where children lack basic aliment, clean water, and health services. And some will view this opportunity as a means to advance the youngest among their populations on a trajectory of knowledge and learning to the benefit of the larger society. What good or ill might emerge out of this effort cannot be framed in reference to a child, or a school, or a



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nation, or the developing world, or the developed world, or even humanity, but the good of the whole (Lemke, 1993). Humanity must evolve toward a general consciousness that it lives and dies along with other species in a fragile ecosystem. The key question is whether technology is an indispensable component toward the establishment of this collective consciousness.

rEFErENcEs Auh, T.S. (2001) Language divide and knowledge gap in cyberspace: Beyond digital divide. Accessed online May 27, 2007 from http://www. unesco.or.kr/cyberlang/auhtaeksup.htm Bakhtin, M. (1935/1981 trans.). The dialogic imagination. Translation by K. Brostrom. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Barton, J. (2007). New trends in technology transfer: Implications for national and international policy. Issue paper No. 18, International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development. Accessed online May 27, 2007 from http://www.iprsonline. org/resources/docs/Barton%20%20New%20Tren ds%20Technology%20Transfer%200207.pdf Bender, W. (2006). OLPC talks. From a seminar entitled, Ars Electronica, September, 2006. Posted online and accessed May 27, 2007 at http://www. olpctalks.com/walter_bender/walter_bender_ ars_electronica.html Bijker, W. (1995). Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs: Toward a theory of sociotechnical change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bloor, David (1976) Knowledge and social imagery. London: Routledge. Borgmann, A. (1984). Technology and the character of contemporary life: A philosophical inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.



Borgmann, A. (1999), Holding on to reality: The nature of information at the turn of the millennium. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bourdieu, P., (1983) Economic capital, cultural capital, social capital. Soziale-Welt, Supplement 2, pp. 183-198. Coleman, J.S. (1988). Social capital and the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, supplement, S95-S120 Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of S./Brieuc Bay. In Law, J. (Ed.), Power, action, and belief: A new sociology of knowledge? Sociological Review Monograph, 32, 196-233. London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul Clynes, M. and N. Kline (1960) Cyborgs and Space. Astronautics, September, 26-27, 74-75. Correa, C. (2007) Trade related aspects of intellectual property rights: A commentary on the TRIPS agreement. Oxford University Press Dewey, J. (1938/1997). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan. Eisenstein, E.L., (1979). The printing press as an agent of change. Cambridge University Press. Feenberg, A. (1992). Subversive Rationalization: Technology, Power, and Democracy. Inquiry, 35(3/4). Feenberg, A. (1998). Escaping the iron cage, or subversive rationalization and democratic theory. In R. Schomberg (ed.), Democratising technology: Ethics, risk, and public debate. Tilburg: International Centre for Human and Public Affairs. Feenberg, A. (2002a). Transforming technology: A critical theory revisited. New York: Oxford University Press. Feenberg, A. (2002b). Democratic rationalization: Technology, power and freedom. Published in

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the online journal Dogma. Accessed online May 27, 2007 from http://dogma.free.fr/txt/AF_democratic-rationalization.htm

Jesiek, B. (2003). Democratizing software: Open source, the hacker ethic, and beyond. First Monday, 8(10).

Finnegan, R. (1973). Literacy versus non-literacy: The great divide. In Horton & Finnegan (Eds.), Modes of thought. London: Faber and Faber.

Kant, I. (1781/1787) Critique of pure reason (trans. N. Kemp Smith in 1927 as Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason). London: Macmillan Co. Ltd.

Friere, P. (1970/1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education: Culture, power and liberation. Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Goody, J. & I. Watt (1968). The consequences of literacy. In J. Goody (Ed.), Literacy in traditional societies (pp. 27-68). New York: Cambridge University Press. Goody, J.(1977). The domestication of the savage mind. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Goody, J. (1986). The logic of writing and the organization of society. New York: Cambridge University Press. Haraway, D (1991) The Cyborg Manifesto, extracted from Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. Havelock, E. A. (1963). Preface to Plato. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology (W. Lovitt, Trans.). In M. Heidegger (Ed.), The question concerning technology and other essays, pp. 1-49. New York: Harper & Row. Illich, Ivan (1971). Deschooling society. New York: Harper & Row. Introna, L. (2005). Phenomenological approaches to ethics and information technology. In The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Accessed online at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethicsit-phenomenology/

Kincheloe, J.L. & P. McLaren (2000). Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. In K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research. 2nd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kling, R. (1998). Technological and social access to computing, information, and communication technologies. White paper for the Presidential Advisory Committee on High-Performance Computing and Communications, Information Technology, and the Next Generation Internet. Accessed online May 27, 2007 from http://rkcsi. indiana.edu/archive/kling/pubs/NGI.htm Kay, A. (2007). Children learning by doing: Etoys on the XO. Draft document published on the OLPC web and accessed May 27, 2007 at http://www. laptop.org/OLPCEtoys.pdf Korman, R. (05/12/2003) Geeking in the third world. O’Reilly Media. Accessed online May 27, 2007 from http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ news/ethan_0503.html Lemke, J. L., (1993). Education, cyberspace, and change. Originally published in the Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture, 1(1). Archived as ERIC document #ED356767 Accessed online Sep. 23, 2007 from ERIC: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/13/b5/9d.pdf Locke, John (1690). Of civil government: Second treatise. Accessed online May 27, 2007 from http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtreat.txt Martindale, L. (11/01/2002). Bridging the digital divide in South Africa. In Linux Journal. Ac-



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cessed online May 27,2007 from http://www. linuxjournal.com/article/5966 Maxwell (2006). Tracing the dynabook: A study of technocultural transformations. Accessed online May 27, 2007 from http://thinkubator.ccsp.sfu. ca/Dynabook/Maxwell-DynabookFinal.pdf Mitcham, C., A. Briggle, & M. Ryder (2005). Technology overview. In The encyclopedia of science, technology, and ethics. Stamford, CT: Thompson and Gale. Norris, P. (2001). Digital divide: Civic engagement, information poverty, and the Internet worldwide (communication, society and politics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Papert, S. (1980) Mindstorms: Children, computers and powerful ideas. New York: Basic Books Papert S. and I. Harel (1991) Constructionism. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Pask, G. (1975). Conversation, cognition and learning. New York: Elsevier. Piaget, J. (1968) Genetic epistomology. Columbia Univesity Press. Rand, A. (1957). Atlas shrugged. Random House. Rousseau, J.J. (1762). The social contract or principles of political right. Translated by G. D. H. Cole, public domain. Accessed online May 27, 2007 from http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon. htm Rousseau, J.J. (1762). Emile, or on education. Trans. Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1979. Accessed online from Columbia’s ILT Web May 27, 2007 http://projects.ilt.columbia. edu/pedagogies/rousseau/ Rowell, L. (2007). Reinventing the PC. In ACM Networker, 11(2).



Ruse, M.S. (2005). Technology and the evolution of the human: From Bergson to the philosophy of technology. In Essays in Philosophy, 6(1). Schribner, S. & M. Cole (1981). The psychology of literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stallman, R. (2001). Copyright and globalization in the age of computer networks. MIT Communications Forum. Accessed online May 27, 2007 from http://web.mit.edu/m-i-t/forums/copyright/ transcript.html Street, B. (1993). Cross-cultural approaches to literacy (Cambridge studies in oral and literate culture). New York: Cambridge University Press. Wakefield, J. & Dreyfus, H. (1990). Intentionality and the phenomenology of action. In Lepore E, van Gulick R (eds.), John Searle and his critics. Oxford: Blackwell. Warschauer, M. (2003). Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide. Boston: MIT Press.

KEY tErMs Constructivism: Constructivism is a philosophical position that views knowledge as the outcome of experience mediated by one’s own prior knowledge and the experience of others. In contrast to objectivism (e.g. Ayn Rand, 1957) which embraces a static reality that is independent of human cognition, constructivism (e.g. Immanuel Kant, 1781/1787) holds that the only reality we can know is that which is represented by human thought. Each new conception of the world is mediated by prior-constructed realities that we take for granted. Human cognitive development is a continually adaptive process of assimilation, accommodation, and correction (Piaget, 1968). Social constructivists (e.g. Berger and Luckmann,

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1966) suggest that it is through the social process that reality takes on meaning and that our lives are formed and reformed through the dialectical process of socialization. A similar dialectical relationship informs our understanding of science (e.g. Bloor, 1976), and it shapes the technical artifacts that we invent and continually adapt to our changing realities (e.g. Bijker, 1995). Humans are shaped by their interactions with machines just as machines evolve and change in response to their use by humans. (Lemke, 1993). Cyborg: A compound word formed from the words: ‘cybernetic organism’. The term was coined by two medical researchers (Clynes and Kline, 1960) to describe a cybernetic augmentation of machines with the human body toward the goal of achieving super-human capabilities of survival. The term has been adopted in popular literature to describe a synthesis of organic and synthetic parts, and is widely used to convey the melding of the human mind with computer technology to achieve super-human cognitive powers. Dona Haraway frames the expression in context of techno-political supremacy as “the awful apocalyptic telos of the West’s dominations,” (1991, p. 150). Digital Divide: This expression arose in the digital age to describe the information gulf that exists between peoples and societies. The perceived gulf is the result of the dramatic rise of information technologies that evolved exponentially in the developed countries during the latter half of the Twentieth Century. The expression connotes the idea that information is a potent source of power, and those who enjoy access to information technologies have the potential to wield significant power over those who have no such access. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS): This is software that is available to the general public not only to be used, but to be changed and adapted as local usage patterns may dictate. Sometimes referred to as ‘freeware’, the design documentation and human-readable source code are openly published and not constrained by in-

tellectual property restrictions that would limit how and where the software will be used or how it might be improved or adapted to a particular need. Recognizing the social nature of knowledge and the constructivist nature of technology, participants in the free and open software movement routinely collaborate and share information with peers and they assert no exclusive claims to the software designs and code implementations that result from this wide collaborative praxis. Hegemony: Hegemony describes the political, economic, and cultural domination of one class of people over other classes. Hegemony comes about, not by means of forceful repression over those who might resist domination, but through the passive consent of subordinate classes who eventually accept the social order as a natural state of affairs as it is manifested in virtually every social institution. Hegemony is most pronounced in societies where the dominant class controls the information sector including mass media, education, and the market supply chain. Subversive Rationalization: Coined by Andrew Feenberg (1992), subversive rationalization describes the constructivist nature of technology. In particular, it denotes the manner that technologies undergo a metamorphosis through the process of adoption and use over time. While such changes may undermine a designer’s intentions, the transformations result in a democratizing trend that may convert a given technology from an instrument of social control to one that is guided by democratic social forces and human values. The final shape of an instrument is determined, not by the designer, but by the cultural logic of the human actors who adopt and use the technology.

ENDNOtEs 1

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MIT Technology Review, Nov. 13, 2006. http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=17722 MIT The Tech, 110:40, October 5, 1990. http:// www-tech.mit.edu/V110/N40/media.40n. html A mesh network is a self-sufficient network that requires no interconnecting infrastructure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_ network The school server is a conventional computer with ample disk storage and Internet access. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/School_server The Geode series from AMD is a very low power, high performance microprocessor. http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/33358e_lx_ 900_productb.pdf Flash memory is read/write memory that retains its data even while powered off. http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory Mary Lou Jepsen is Chief Technology Officer of OLPC. http://www.spectrum.ieee. org/feb07/4900 Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TFT_LCD See http://www.olpcnews.com/hardware/ screen/dual-mode_display_details.html See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Mesh_Network_Details IEEE standard for wireless network communications. http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/802.11 A network switching device that determines the proper path for data packets. http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Router The standard protocol for network communications. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Internet_protocol_suite See http://www.physorg.com/news2627. html See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Server_ Services

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A non-toxic rechargeable battery using a hydrogen metal alloy anode. http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_metal-hydride A traditional rechargeable battery whose anode is made of cadmium. http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Nickel-cadmium_battery See http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/cadmium/ This type of battery must be fully discharged before recharging. http://www.batterybank. com/page18.html An open source operating system kernal developed by Linus Torvald. http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux The kernel is that part of an operating system that manages memory, i/o and other system hardware. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_%28computer_science%29 A broad set of open-source operating system utilities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ GNU See http://www.olpcnews.com/software/operating_system/olpc_sugar_ui_linux.html See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Blizzard See OLPC Development Site: Bitfrost. http://dev.laptop.org/git.do?p=security;a=b lob;hb=HEAD;f=bitfrost.txt See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Bitfrost Universally unique identifier. http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUID See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Human_Interface_Guidelines#Restore Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene plastic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styrene See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoHS The problem of labor is not really solved by this approach, merely bypassed. See Norbert Wiener’s (1950) The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society People’s Daily, Oct 25, 2005. http://english. people.com.cn/200510/25/eng20051025_ 216705.html

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See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_ labour DigiTimes, Aug 23, 2006. http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20060823PR205.html China Labor Watch, Jul 24, 2006. h t t p: // w w w. c h i n a l a b o r w a t c h . o r g / 2006%20Editorials/07-24-2006%20Mini mum%20Wage%20Chart.htm The Inquirer, Jun 26, 2006. http://www. theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32644 China CSR Nov 13, 2006. http://www.chinacsr.com/2006/11/13/846-jiangsu-limitsovertime-work/ Wall Street Jour nal, June 9, 2005. ht t p://onli ne.wsj.com /public/ar ticle/ SB111825761813954442-d4x_lQnm5A2G O O1N R6 Wi _ DBAy y s _ 2 0 050 70 9. html?mod=blogs People’s Daily, Jan 8, 2004. http://english. people.com.cn/200401/08/eng20040108_ 132140.shtml OLPC Web. http://www.laptop.org/laptop/ software/ See http://www.fsf.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreement_ on_Trade-Related_Aspects_of_Intellectual_Property_Rights See http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki

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See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) See http://www.papert.org/articles/SituatingConstructionism.html See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectoriented_programming Laptop Wiki: Etoys. http://wiki.laptop.org/ go/Etoys An approach to social research that considers both human and non-human agency in shaping human activity. http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Actor-network_theory Filters that are used to block certain colors while passing other colors. http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_grating See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client Tech nology@Intel Magazine: May, 2007. http://www.intel.com/technology/ magazine/45nm/coremicroarchitecture0507.htm http://www.cs.pitt.edu/PARTS/papers/koolchips00.pdf http://www.sustainableindustries.com/commentary/3469281.html



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Chapter XVII

Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World Mike Ribble Kansas State University, USA

abstract In todays changing global society, digital technology users need to be prepared to interact and work with users from around the world. Digital technology is helping to define this new global society. Being part of a society provides opportunities to its citizens but also asks that its members behave in certain way. This new technological society is drawing users together to learn, share and interact with one another in the virtual world. But for all users to be productive there needs to be a defined level of acceptable activity by everyone, in other words a digital citizenship. The concept of digital citizenship provides a structure for this digital society, by conceptualizing and organizing appropriate technology use into a new digital culture. Anyone using these digital technologies needs to understand the parameters of appropriate use so that they can become more constructive digital citizens.

INtrODUctION In the last five years, there has been evidence of an increasing pattern of misuse and abuse with respect to technology. This pattern of technology misuse and abuse has been documented in hundreds of articles, texts, and countless news broadcasts. Some examples include: websites to intimidate or threaten users, downloading music illegally from the Internet, plagiarizing information off the web, using cellular phones at inappropriate times

(e.g., during movies, at church, or in a meeting). This situation has created users “who want to enjoy the benefits of digital technology without making the effort to use it responsibly” (Harmon, 2004). Organizations have created standards or Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs) concerning how people are to use technology appropriately often without providing knowledge of what all the issues may be. In the article Online Ethics Should Begin in Classroom, Educators Say, February 16, 2000 issue of the New York Times the author

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Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World

states “although most schools have ‘acceptable use policies’ outlining correct behavior online, educators said documents are often either flawed or insufficient to teach young people responsible use of computers” (Mendels, 2000). How individuals behave as members of a digital society has become a critical issue for technology users, and the focus of digital citizenship. What is digital citizenship? Digital citizenship has been defined as the norms of behavior with regard to technology use. Ribble and Bailey (2004) defined digital citizenship to address the complex issues of technology use, abuse, and misuse. The focus in this context when describing norms are those technology uses that considered as acceptable through the consent of its users. The focal point is more on the acknowledged responsibility of the technology users than on setting standards. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) developed technology standards dealing with students’, teachers’, and administrators’ knowledge of using technology (http://cnets. iste.org). Through a process of gathering information from various interest groups and then building consensus, ISTE created the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for Students, Teachers, and Administrators (ISTE, 2003). In each of these NETS, ISTE has a section related to the Social, Ethical and Human Issues (Teacher and Administrators – Standard VI, Students – Standard 2). With these standards, ISTE provides structure for students, teachers, and administrators how to use technology in a responsible way. By implementing these standards ISTE has shown the importance of appropriate use of technology in education. By 2004 the NETS had been used or aligned to by 49 states, showing the importance of technology standards as a part of the educational curricula. In 2007 ISTE has begun a process of updating and evaluating the NETS for students to stay current with the changes in technology. At their annual meeting in the summer of 2007 this updated draft of the

NETS for students was accepted by the organization. Replacing social, ethical and human issues was the new standard of digital citizenship to encompass these ideas of ethics in the educational setting. As new digital technologies emerge and evolve, it becomes more difficult to create a framework of codified principles for acting responsibly in using these technologies. Some laws have been enacted, and some groups and organizations have created rules or policies. Unfortunately, there is no universal agreement on how users should act when using digital technologies. The purpose of focusing on digital citizenship is to create a dialogue among technology users on the issues of misuse and abuse of technology. Digital technology provides great improvements in society and continues to change how users work, learn, and play. However, users should ensure that digital technology continues to enhance our society. The benefits it provides should outweigh the problems it creates.

DIGItaL IssUEs GrOWtH aND tHE NEED FOr DIGItaL cItIzENsHIP Too often, new digital technologies have been made available without providing support for the users. As with all fields of study, education has been affected by the expansion of technology. Bork (1993) noted that schools bought the hardware, told the teachers to teach the programs, but did not provide the proper support to make their teaching effective. This same cycle has been seen in many other disciplines. Cuban (1986) suggested a parallel between unprepared schools and the use of untested drugs to release mentally ill patients out into the public. Just like the untested drugs, technology was sold as a miracle drug [italics added] for education. Although the consequences were not the same, the parallel of how technology was oversold in education was similar.



Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World

With the increase in numbers of computers, there was also a growth in the technical issues that the users were unprepared to handle. Along with additional computers, software packages were purchased with the intent to help users utilize the technology more efficiently. Bork (1993) argued that the technology tools were seen only as a means to an end. Tools such as the Internet have provided new avenues of communication and interaction between users. With these new communication methods it also has provided opportunities for misuse and abuse. The Internet, having no governing body, provides no established rules for communication. As problem arise (e.g., harassing other users online, defacing others information), the users or organizations have created their own rules. These rules, often referred to as “netiquette,” became the decree for online technology users. Yevics (1999) explained how netiquette provided boundaries for those using the Internet. Netiquette helped some users realize how they should act while on the Internet, but not all users knew or understood netiquette well enough to make a systemic change. As technology began to grow in the 1990’s, users recognized that there needed to be a structure to what was considered appropriate and inappropriate use of technology. The interest in computer ethics grew rapidly during the 1990’s. Moor (1995) defined computer ethics as “the analysis of the nature and social impact of computer technology and the corresponding formulation and justification of policies for the ethical use of such technology” (p. 7). Users who supported the need for computer ethics believed there was a continuous cycle of inappropriate behavior that was happening with technology. Something new was needed to help break this cycle of misuse and abuse. One way to help provide structure to this question is digital citizenship. The idea of digital citizenship is not a new concept in the field of digital technologies. The concept has been used to define different pro-



grams. Drake University created a program on digital citizenship dealing with service learning and the digital divide (Shulman, Beisser, Larson & Shelley, 2002). The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) with Junior Achievement (JA) created a program of digital citizenship that focused on copyright and digital piracy (Motion Picture Association of America & Junior Achievement, 2003). However, these programs and other programs failed to provide users with a comprehensive definition of how to act appropriately in a digital society. Researchers both in education and other fields have evaluated the issues of ethical problems with the use of technology. In the study by Ellis and Griffith (2001) they found implications to both education as well as business. digital citizenship has been introduced to help users better understand the topics of misuse and abuse of technologies by dividing the concepts into nine elements. Mason (1986) had come up with four main keywords in his work. These were privacy, accuracy, property and accessibility. But after reviewing the literature of misuse and abuse over the last four decades other theme areas became evident. The nine key theme areas for digital citizenship that emerged from the current research were: (a) Digital Access, (b) Digital Commerce, (c) Digital Communication, (d) Digital Literacy, (e) Digital Etiquette, (f) Digital Rights & Responsibility, (g) Digital Law, (h) Digital Health and Welfare, and (i) Digital Security. These elements provide a way for users to better understand where issues may arise. It also provided a way to not only recognize these issues but also provide resources to modify the attitude of the user.

DIGItaL OPPOrtUNItIEs WItH DIGItaL cItIzENsHIP When talking to people who use the digital technologies, it often seems as if they have a language all their own. They speak about podcasting, blogs

Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World

and wikis as well as other topics loosely defined as “Web 2.0.” In 2001, an influential article by Mark Prensky (2001) identified two distinctive groups of technology users: “Digital Natives” and “Digital Immigrants.” Digital natives are defined as those young people who have grown up around digital technologies and seem to instinctively understand the technology (p.10). Digital immigrants (the majority of users), may be fascinated by and may have adopted many aspects of the new technologies, but by not growing up with these digital tools, don’t use them as instinctively as the natives. While some users view this concept as controversial because there are adults who are more adept at technology than most children, the focus of the issue is availability of the technology. Students today have grown up in a society surrounded by technology; because of this, adults make the assumption that they already know everything there is to know about technology. Most adults perceive young users as digital natives and many do not even feel as competent as an immigrant; often only consider themselves a digital tourist (only happy with the technology when everything works like a well planned vacation). But the truth is not all children are as technologically savvy as adults might assume. And even when these young adults are comfortable using technology, they may not be using it appropriately. For everyone to use technology effectively, all users need to become “naturalized” members of a digital citizenry. How do users become digital citizens? First, there is the need to explore and come to understand the technology currently being used or how it could be used in the future. Next, users should realize what the technology can do, and its possible effects on them as well as others. Finally, after using the technology, there is a need to evaluate how it was used. Clearly children can be expected to make mistakes when using technology, but through modeling and direction these young adults should not make the same error as often. The focus of digital citizenship should not just be on the technology itself, but on how to use the

technology appropriately. digital citizenship is a process where all users of technology can learn what is considered acceptable use and in what situations. It provides a framework in which all users can begin to ask what they should be doing with respect to technology. digital citizenship is an attempt to provide a consistent message to everyone what he or she needs to do to be productive users of digital technologies. So, how can digital citizenship be explained? Digital citizenship is the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regard to technology use. As a way of understanding the complexity of digital citizenship and the issues of technology use, abuse and misuse, nine elements have been identified that together make up the foundation of digital citizenship. After five years of searching for the issues pertaining to technology appropriate use, nine elements were identified to encompass these issues: 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7.

8.

9.

Digital access: Full electronic participation in society. Digital commerce: Electronic buying and selling of goods. Digital Communication: Electronic exchange of information. Digital literacy: Process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology. Digital etiquette: Electronic standards of conduct or procedure. Digital law: Electronic responsibility for actions and deeds Digital rights and responsibilities: Freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world. Digital health and wellness: Physical and psychological well being in a digital technology world. Digital security (self-protection): Electronic precautions to guarantee safety.



Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World

The nine elements provide a lens for technology leaders to help users understand the issues related to becoming a digital citizen. Many people are already using the technology; but now users need a structure to help them understand how to use the technology appropriately.

tHE NINE ELEMENts OF DIGItaL cItIzENsHIP To help users, the nine elements digital citizenship need to be further defined and additional explanation to their meaning provided. The nine elements were identified after evaluating varied media to determine general concepts related to technology misuse and abuse. After looking at articles, books, and other research the nine elements began to emerge as important issues. These elements focus on issues relevant today but provide the flexibility for changes with future technologies. The nine elements provide a framework for understanding the issues related to technologies that are important to everyone. By providing a structure for technology use within these elements, a foundation is provided for users to focus on those areas that are important to them.

Digital access Full electronic participation in society. Technology provides opportunities for users to communicate and interact rapidly and over great distances. However, not everyone has access to all of the tools of this new digital society. Because of socioeconomic status, disabilities, location, etc. these opportunities are not equally available to everyone. Groups that are disenfranchised by lack of technology access include families who do not have the financial ability to have technology in the home, communities that have too few public computers, and rural areas that lack access to high-speed Internet connections. Communities



need to evaluate their access to technology to everyone. Do all members of the community have adequate access throughout the day to technology? In communities where users do not have access to technology in the home, opportunities such as open computer labs in the evenings, access in libraries and community organizations need to be offered and publicized so that users are aware of this access.

Digital commerce Electronic buying and selling of goods. Online purchasing has increased exponentially over the last five years. Often users are making purchases on the Internet without understanding of the potential problems which can occur with online transactions. Teaching users to become intelligent consumers is important for everyone in a society. As more people go out and accumulate debt, the entire economy is affected. As more users buy, sell, bank and pay bills online there needs to be a familiarity of issues that could affect them such as identity theft, phishing scams, and viruses. Technology users need to be provided additional information to more inform of the possible hazards of online commerce.

Digital communication Electronic exchange of information. Cell phones, Instant Messaging (IM), videoconferencing and e-mail have changed the way technology users communicate. These forms of communication have created a new social structure governing whom, how, and when people interact. Digital communication provides users with instant access to others on an unprecedented level. Many users prefer e-mail to phone calls because of its ease of use and providing a record of the conversation. Users forget, however, that even though they may delete a message it is usually

Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World

stored on a server or backup for future review. Because of this, users need to think about what they say and how they say it. As with any technology, there are times when these technologies can be used inappropriately. Too often e-mails are sent without considering who might see them or how they might be interpreted. It is too easy to write the first thing that comes to mind then send it before thinking of the long-term consequences. There are also times when speaking to someone face-to-face can solve a situation faster than multiple e-mails. Users need a way to decide when using a technology is appropriate to the situation. Many users are provided the technology without being informed on how and when it should be used.

Digital Literacy Process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology. Technology-infused learning is becoming more commonplace every year and becoming as transparent as the chalkboard and pencil. However, the training of instructors on how to use this technology appropriately has not grown accordingly. Learning with technology does not always include knowledge about the potential issues related to the technology. Too often, the focus is on learning the technology, and very little is discussed about how to integrate the technology into the learning. Schools have more technology than ever before. According to National Educational Technology Plan (Paige, 2004) there is one computer in schools for every five students in the United States. But where are these computers; are they in students’ hands? Too often, they are placed in a “computer lab” that is understaffed and under funded. Technology is often seen as another class that students go to as opposed to being an integral part of the larger curriculum. As people begin transitioning more and more into new careers their needs to be a vehicle of

how to provide knowledge “just in time.” Digital Literacy can provide the conduit if there is an understanding of how to use it appropriately.

Digital Etiquette Electronic standards of conduct or procedure. Responsible digital behavior makes every user a role model for others. New technology users observe how others are using the technology and assume if others can use it in that manner, so can they. The problem with instruction of digital technology is that few rules have been established for proper use of these devices. The proliferation of new technologies has created a steep learning curve for all users. Some are more proficient than others, and those that lag behind often do not understand the subtle rules that have emerged among early adopters. In the past, it was up to parents and families to teach basic etiquette to their children before they reached school age. With the new technologies parents often do not have the knowledge of what is appropriate or not. Adults will often look to others for cues of how to use the technology. As a digital society, it is time that users step forward to provide direction on what is considered appropriate and what is not.

Digital Law Electronic responsibility for actions and deeds. The Internet has made it easy to locate and access information. Often users do not consider what is appropriate, inappropriate or even illegal when downloading information from the Internet. Users often remark, “We did not think it was wrong, all we were doing was using the technology.” This ability to easily find material is one of the strengths of the Internet. However, it also raises issues of intellectual property rights and copyright protection. The issue was exposed when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) fined users for downloading



Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World

music illegally (Wired News, 2003). This action has caused technology users to begin thinking about what is appropriate and illegal with respect to online file sharing. Ironically, a 2003 survey done by Ipsos (a market research company) for Business Software Alliance indicated that twothirds of college faculty and administrators said it is wrong to download or swap files while less than one-quarter of their students felt the same way (CyberAtlas, 2003). There will always be people who do not follow the rules of society and who engage in activities that are counter to the ideals of society as a whole. Consequences must be established for those who do not act as true digital citizens, and instead steal others’ information, hack into servers, and create and release viruses. If members of the digital society do not determine policies, those with little understanding of that culture will impose laws without the users’ contribution.

Digital rights and responsibilities Those freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world. When discussing the rights of an individual user they often identify the rights or privileges that come with of membership of a group. When someone is given rights there is an assumption that they will act in accordance with the rules that govern membership in the group. This is true for Digital Rights and Responsibilities, because its purpose is to provide content while protecting its members. In the digital world, users expect that if they post information to a site (whether it is a poem, a picture, or song) that others can enjoy it without utilizing it for their own use (unless so designated). Members in a digital society should be afforded certain rights. Citizens also have certain responsibilities to the others as well. When becoming a member of a digital society, people must agree to live according to the parameters that are set down by the others in that society. These boundaries



may come in the form of rules or policies, and they often constrain the freedoms of others. There needs to be some guiding principles on appropriate ways to act in a digital society. If following these rules provides an advantage for those living in it, then most would follow those ideals.

Digital Health and Wellness Physical & psychological well being in a digital technology world. Everyone needs to be aware of the physical and psychological dangers that are possible when using technology. According to Alan Hedge, the director of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Research Group at Cornell University, “carpel tunnel syndrome isn’t the only injury to worry about when working at a computer” (Manjoo, 2003). Eyestrain and poor posture are not uncommon in technology-related activities. Another aspect of Digital Health and Wellness that is just now coming to the forefront is technology addiction. Some users are becoming so dependent on using technology that they become disabled. When any technology use is taken to the extreme, this can cause problems not only psychologically but physically as well. Too often the concern is for the safety and security of equipment and not on the physical safety and security of the users. Sometimes computers are set on furniture that is too high or too low for the user. Too often users do not think of the long-term effects of using mobile technologies. If this attitude continues, there could be cumulative damage caused to the user that could last a lifetime.

Digital security (self-Protection) Electronic precautions to guarantee safety. As more and more sensitive information is stored electronically, there needs to be a corresponding strategy to protect that information. Users need to learn how to protect their elec-

Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World

tronic data (e.g., virus protection, firewalls, and backups). The idea of protecting what we have should not be foreign to anyone. People put locks on their doors, and fire detectors in their homes, and some have security systems to protect their families and possessions. A users’ computer should have as much (or more) security on it. Why is there a need for this additional protection on computers when there are locks on the door? The reason is that technology intruders today are not coming through the front door, but through the wires of users’ homes. Without security measures information is available to anyone who would hack into their computers, and by doing so inviting thieves into their homes. How is this happening? By not having virus protection (with up-to-date virus definitions), by being connected 24 hours a day 7 days a week without any firewall protection, and having wireless setups without encryption is inviting more problems.

the Nine Elements reviewed The nine elements were created to help users understand the various aspects of digital citizenship. It is also worth noticing that digital citizenship does not set down a set of rules, but instead is to be used as a way of focusing on the issues that all technology users face. These elements also provide a starting point for users to begin preparing to be digital citizens. digital citizenship addresses the fact that users have different degrees of knowledge when dealing with technology. Depending on their awareness and understanding of technology, users can focus more deeply on a specific element, while keeping the others in mind. As new digital technologies emerge, a framework of codified principles will be harder to create. Yet, society needs guidance on how it should act with respect to technology. Laws and policies have tended to fail to focus on a central aspect of inappropriate use of technology in a digital society – lack of knowledge. Users need

to have a grounded understanding of the technology and how it is to be appropriately used. To this point, there has been limited universal agreement on how users should act in relation to digital technologies. digital citizenship begins that discussion. Coming to a consensus on how everyone will deal with digital technology will be difficult, at best. However we must begin the discussion somewhere and digital citizenship sets this framework. Technology has brought society into a digital world. This technological world has changed how we behave and function as citizens. Today, users live and work and interact with not only the “real” physical world, but in a digital, virtual world as well. Citizenship today takes on a whole new meaning, beyond our understanding of states and countries to one of bits and bytes. This new citizenship will encompass more than working with our neighbors but how we will work with others around the globe. Our children will have to learn how to work with other users in India, China and Russia to be effective in the coming century. In Thomas Friedman’s book The World is Flat he underlines the desperate need to begin preparing our children for this new world. A world that will have new rules, with this there needs to be a guiding beacon such as digital citizenship. By having a common framework such as digital citizenship, will provide us all a starting point for everyone to understand each other. This new citizenship goes beyond knowing the rules and polices to understanding how the individuals perceive the technology. Users should not look at technology as a collection of toys or gadgets, but as tools to communicate and interact in this new world. Users need to see themselves as a member of a community and by realizing this acting in a way reflecting this knowledge when using the technology. It is often difficult to separate the technology from the users today. But this is the importance and challenge of digital citizenship – to balance both technology and the users.



Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World

In schools, students are taught how to be good citizens of a country, what their rights are as well as their responsibilities as members of that society. Children need to begin preparing today to develop this same responsible behavior in this new digital society by engaging them in discussion of these nine elements. Everyone needs to learn how to become good digital citizens in a new digital society. Users may not be aware of the challenges that they may face every day. It is believed that having knowledge of the nine elements and the issues that accompany them will allow users to interact about these issues. As these discussions about technology arise, digital citizenship can act as a cornerstone of that discussion. The technology of today will quickly give away to new technologies so children need to be taught how to think about appropriate use of all technology, both today and in the future. The question is “how should users proceed into this new society”?

a rEFLEctION MODEL OF DIGItaL cItIzENsHIP How can users begin thinking about these nine elements their daily technology use? By employing a reflection model, users could—and arguably should—seek its help each time they use digital technology. As users become more aware of their actions when using technology they should realize the consequences and the implications of those actions. This model will help users begin to formulate how they should use digital technology for the future. There are four stages in the reflection model to enhance the understanding and development of digital citizenship: (1) awareness, (2) guided practice, (3) modeling and demonstration and (4) feedback and analysis. These stages are used provide a framework for helping users to understand why being good digital citizens are important.



By using this reflection model a discussion of the issues that are happening with respect to technology to help focus on using technology appropriately.

stage One: awareness Awareness means engaging users to become technologically literate. The awareness stage goes beyond just basic knowledge or information of hardware and software. Users need to focus on examples of misuse and abuse of technology. Everyone needs to learn what is appropriate and not when using different digital technologies.

step two: Guided Practice Following awareness activities, there needs to be additional opportunities (i.e., guided practice) to focus on appropriate use of technology. Users should be able to utilize technology in an atmosphere where exploration and risk taking are promoted. During this same time users will need the support of knowledgeable technology users when mistakes are made and guided direction provided. During this stage the new user needs to realize the issues that are related to the appropriate use of the technologies.

step three: Modeling and Demonstration Once users have had the opportunity to learn and practice the skills of the technology use they need to model appropriate use to others. Users need to think about how others see their technology use and how it affects others. All users need to be positive role models for being good digital citizens so others can follow their example. Young technology users need to have numerous technology role models to gain a through understanding of digital citizenship.

Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World

step Four: Feedback and analysis Users should discuss their use of technologies with others to see how they can use it more appropriately. Technology users need to provide constructive criticism on how technologies should be used in all parts of society. Users should analyze and explore why they should use technologies in a certain way. Users need a forum to illustrate specific examples and why these behaviors are inappropriate. This final step involves providing users feedback on their technology use. It can be difficult to reflect on one’s actions after they occurred, but it is a necessary part of the process. Without providing opportunities for self-reflection or self-contemplation, the inappropriate behavior will be repeated over and over in the future.

FUtUrE trENDs Digital citizenship recognizes that users understand and follow the laws, rules and policies that have been created, but stretches beyond this. digital citizenship means having digital technology users understand that there are reasons for having such conventions. digital citizenship attempts to help provide a framework for users to think critically about what is acceptable, and by doing so will lead them to do the right thing. The goal of digital citizenship is to create a citizenry that will learn these justifications early in their life, so that later they will not have to think about whether something is appropriate or not, but they will have the tools to evaluate digital technology situations and come to the reason-based conclusions. Just like shoplifting, downloading illegal items from the Internet may seem easy and fun. But individuals often discover that both can have consequences that may not be enjoyable. Users of technology need to have a strong foundation in digital citizenship if there is an expectation that their use of technology affects themselves as well as those around them. Digital

technology users must begin evaluating their own technology use to be productive members of a digital society. This society may have laws and policies on technology use, but users understanding of the technology and how it will be used in a digital society will define how effective they will be in the future.

cONcLUsION It is becoming apparent that misuse and abuse of technology is more prevalent in society than ever before. The development of digital citizenship will provide an invaluable resource for technology leaders. digital citizenship will provide a framework for how experienced technology users should explain the need for appropriate use of technology. It also provides a foundation for technology leaders to organize teaching and learning while using technology. Technology provides many opportunities for users to access growing amounts of information, but without having a systematic way of using the technology appropriately these opportunities may be curtailed (through more laws and policies). Technology leaders need to have a firm knowledge of the issues that are at stake, and digital citizenship provides that foundation. This topic suggests that there is a need for strong technology leadership within the all aspects of society. digital citizenship can provide a foundation for how technology leaders can begin defining how they will share this information with others. But beyond this there must be a process of planning, implementation, and evaluation of the digital citizenship process. Technology is creating many changes in society. The last 40 years has seen a transition from a few isolated computers to a society dependant on technology. The infusion of these digital technologies has changed how users work, play and learn. When users misuse technology it causes issues for everyone who enjoys the freedoms technology provide. As technology become more and more



Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World

prevalent so do the issues of misuse and abuse. It is only through the knowledge of how to use technology appropriately will everyone be able to maintain the rights we currently enjoy.

rEFErENcEs 4teachers.org. (2004). Dictionary main page. Retrieved February 22, 2004, from http:// www.4teachers.org Bork, A. (1993). Technology in education: An historical perspective. In R. Muffoletto & N. N. Knupfer (Eds.), Computers in education: Social, political & historical perspectives (pp. 71-90). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Cuban, L. (1986). Teachers and machines: The classroom use of technology since 1920. New York: Teachers College Press. CyberAltlas Staff (2003). Colleges a gateway to software piracy. CyberAtlas. Retrieved September 30, 2003, from http://cyberatlas.Internet.com/big_ picture/ applications/article/0,,1301_3078901,00. html Ellis, T. S. & Griffith, D. (2001). The evaluation of it ethical scenarios using a multidimensional scale. The Database for Advances in Information Systems, 32(1), 75-85. Friedman, T. L. (2006). The world is flat: A brief history of the 21st century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. International Society for Technology in Education. (2003). ISTE NETS main page. Retrieved December 10, 2003, from http://cnets.iste.org/ index.shtml Johnson, D.G. & Nissenbaum, H. (1995). Computers, ethics & social values. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

0

Harmon, A. (2004, February 5). Geeks put the unsavvy on alert: Learn or log off. New York Times. Retrieved February 6, 2004, from http://www. nytimes.com/ 2004/02/05/technology/05VIRU. html?th=&pagewanted=print&position= Manjoo, F. (2003). Carpel study stress syndrome. Retrieved October 15, 2003, from http://www. wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,44400,00.html Mason, R.O. (1986). Four ethical issues of the information age. MIS Quarterly, 10(1), 5-12. Mendels, P. (2000, February 16). Online ethics should begin in classroom, educators say. The New York Times, Technology section. Merriam-Webster. (2004). Dictionary main page. Retrieved February 18, 2004, from http://www. m-w.com Moor, J. H. (1995). What is computer ethics? In D.G. Johnson & H. Nissenbaum (Eds.), Computers, ethics & social values (pp. 7-15). Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Motion Picture Association of America & Junior Achievement (2003). What’s the diff? JA.org. Retrieved July 21, 2004, from http://www.ja.org/ programs/programs_supplements_citizenship. shtml Occupational and Environmental Health Center. (2004). Ergonomic technology center. Retrieved September 18, 2006 from http://www.oehc.uchc. edu/ergo/index.htm PC Webopedia. (2004). Dictionary main page. Retrieved February 26, 2004, from http://www. pcwebopedia.com Paige, R. (2004). Toward a new golden age in American education. National educational technology plan website. Retrieved May 25, 2005, from http://www.nationaledtechplan.org/ Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizonm, (9)5, 10-15.

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Ribble, M., & Bailey, G. (2004). Digital citizenship: Focus questions for implementation. Learning & Leading with Technology, 32(2), 12-15. Shulman, S., Beisser, S., Larson, T. & Shelley, M. (2002). Digital citizenship: Service-learning meets the digital divide. Drake.edu. Retrieved April 14, 2004, from http://www.drake.edu/artsci/faculty/ sshulman/ITR/ digitalcitizenship.htm Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. (1996). Criteria for accreditation. Commission on Colleges, Decatur, GA. TechWeb. (2004). Dictionary main page. Retrieved November 15, 2004, from http://www. techweb.com WhatIs. (2004). Dictionary main page. Retrieved March 5, 2004, from http://www.whatis.com Wired News Staff (2003, May 1). Students fork it over to RIAA. Retrieved May 1, 2003, from http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,58707,00.html Yevics, P. (1999). Netiquette – what it is and why should you care? The Maryland State Bar Association, Inc. Retrieved September 28, 2005, from http://www.msba.org/Departments/Ioma/ articles/officemngmt/netiquette.htm

KEY tErMs Acceptable Use Policy (AUP): Policy set up by the network administrator or other school leaders in conjunction with their technology needs and safety concerns. This policy restricts the manner in which a network may be used, and helps provide guidelines for teachers using technology in the classroom (4teachers.org, 2004). Computer Ethics: Analysis of the nature and social impact of computer technology and the corresponding formulation and justification

of policies for the ethical use of such technology (Johnson & Nissenbaum, 1995). E-Commerce (Electronic-Commerce): Buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, especially the World Wide Web (WhatIs, 2004). Ergonomics: The science of fitting the workplace to the worker—involves reducing exposures to physical trauma, redesigning tools and workstations, and preventing and treating Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTDs), such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Tendonitis (Occupational and Environmental Health Center, 2004). Information Literacy: Ability to locate, evaluate, and use information to become independent life-long learners (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, 1996). IT (Information Technology): Pronounced as separate letters, the broad subject concerned with all aspects of managing and processing information, especially within a large organization or company. Because computers are central to information management, computer departments within companies and universities are often called IT departments. Some companies refer to this department as IS (Information Services) or MIS (Management Information Services) (Pcwebopedia, 2004). Netiquette (Internet Etiquette): Etiquette guidelines for posting messages to online services, and particularly Internet newsgroups. Netiquette covers not only rules to maintain civility in discussions (i.e., avoiding flames), but also special guidelines unique to the electronic nature of forum messages. For example, netiquette advises users to use simple formats because complex formatting may not appear correctly for all readers. In most cases, netiquette is enforced by fellow users who will vociferously object if you break a rule of netiquette (Pcwebopedia, 2004).



Becoming a Digital Citizen in a Technological World

Plagiarize: To steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own : use (another’s production) without crediting the source: to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source (Merriam-Webster, 2004).





Chapter XVIII

Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century Deb Gearhart Troy University, USA

abstract Are we developing a (global) society where our youth think it is ok to copy and paste whatever they see on the Internet and turn it in for homework; where writing an English paper would include BTW, IMHO, LOL among other emoticons; where downloading a song or movie that they can pirate from the Web is perfectly ok? We would certainly hope not. However, theses concerns are just the tip of what is happening in our society. When looking at the social impact of technology in on our society it becomes clear the importance of instilling ethical behaviors and practices in the members of our society. Where is the best place to instill these ethical behaviors? This author contends it is within our education system but is our education system prepared to deal with the ethical issues being raised by our use of technology known as technoethics? Currently our education system is not. This chapter defines technoethics for education and provides suggestions for technoethics in our education system.

INtrODUctION Freedman (2006) commented that determining what is ethical is difficult to do under any circumstance; it is even harder in this Internet age. He noted that we are dealing with all types of issues including privacy issues, free speech, racial and cultural issues. Swierstra (1997) looked at technology changes in relation to survival of society over the years and commented that the technology of

this era has had more impact on society than any other technology change. It is no longer a matter of survival but of the quality of life and having a good life. Galván (2001) noted that technology is not an addition to man but is, in fact, one of the ways in which mankind distinguishes itself from animals and has provided added value to mankind. These comments are from some recent research on technoethics. As students enter the public school systems, the youth of our society

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Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century

are fully entwined with technology and learning potential bad practices in using and learning with technology. From elementary education on, we need to instill ethical, legal and moral practices of using technology to our youth. Growing up with technology our youth should learn all aspects of using technology. As with many societal norms, we cannot expect that such values will be learned in the home. Defining technoethics and reviewing the literature on how it has developed is important to demonstrate how education must rise to the occasion. Chapter Objectives: • • •

To define the concept of technoethics To review pertinent literature and research on technoethics in education To provide recommendations on how technoethics can be handled in our education system

bacKGrOUND Defining Technoethics Floridi and Sanders (2001) proposed that the ethical issues surrounding computer and information technology are a new species of traditional moral issues; based on the idea that computer-ethical issues can be classified into traditional ethical categories such as personal privacy, harm, taking responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions, putting people at risk, and so on. On the other hand, the presence of computer technology often means that the issues arise with a new twist, a new feature, a new possibility. The new feature makes it difficult to draw on traditional moral concepts and norms. However viewed, technoethics must exist as a field worthy of study in its own right and not because it can provide a useful means to endure as a separate field, there must be a unique domain for technoethics distinct from the domain for moral education,



distinct even from the domains of other kinds of professional and applied ethics. Technology raises special ethical issues, hence technoethics deserves special status. According to Bao and Xiang (2006) technoethics should be the ethical basis for the world or global community. Technoethics should be a behavioral norm for all those who are active in the global community, such as international organizations and nations, as well as other groups and individuals. Technoethics can be a new principle, or a variation on past research findings. Technoethics provide principles geared to the needs of the digital era. For the purposes of this chapter, technoethics is defined as the study of moral, legal and social issues involving technology. Technoethics examines the impact of technology on our social, legal and moral systems, and it evaluates the social policies and laws that have been framed in response to issues generated by its development and use (Tavani, 2004).

Literature review Sloan (1980) noted that reviewing the teaching of ethics over a hundred year period shows that ethics has been uniquely and inseparably connected with the most important issues of modern higher education. No wonder there is an emphasis on technoethics now in the information age. Technology has become one of the most important issues in higher education, and in education in general. According to Sloan, academic freedom lies at the heart of ethics and responsibilities for members of the academic community. Ethics and responsibilities are at the core of reconstructing a sensible and defensible rationale for the preservation of academic freedom. With these thoughts in mind, the literature review is designed to introduce a basic understanding of ethical theory, understanding the development of the use of technology, and understanding the major ethical issues related to technology use.

Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century

Brandon (1980) commented that ethical and technological developments have always proceeded hand-in-hand, because ethical rules of conduct only make sense if man has some control over his environment. As environmental control has become increasingly sophisticated, through developing technology, so have the ethical codes become more elaborate. If we continue our technological development in the face of the present pressures of increasing population and limited resources, we need to balance technology with the environment so that future societies can lead better lives. Brandon (1980) contends that if control over the environment isn’t exercised, then mankind is due to meet the fate of the dodo and the dinosaur – an evolutionary dead end unable to adapt to change. Reviewing the above discussion on the affect of technology on society, it is important to understand what technology is. Brey, Flordi and Grodzinsky (2005) noted there are currently a mobile and wireless revolution, the ubiquitous computing revolution, as well as revolutionary new uses of information technology in biomedicine, education, the fight against crime and terrorism, entertainment and other areas. It is their contention that ethical reflection on information technology occurs at various stages. Sometimes ethics focuses on entrenched information technology; systems and software that have been accepted by a community of users, which have engendered effects on users and society at large. Sometimes, ethics is focused on information technology that is still in its introductory stage: technology that exists but is still somewhat unproven, used by early adopters but not by a large community, and that can still develop in different directions. At yet other times, ethical reflection focuses on information technology which is still in development or even anticipated future developments, at a stage when consequences are still unclear and the technology may still take different forms. Evidently, ethical reflection will not be the same at these different stages. When technologies have not yet been fully

formed, ethics will have to be more speculative and more concerned with plausible scenarios and consequences than when the technology is fully entrenched. Also, while technology is still being developed, there is more room to reflect morally on technology design as opposed to technology usage. Moor (2005) commented that technology is ambiguous. He explains technology through a technology revolution. However, to understand a technology revolution, we must first understand the terminology Moor uses. According to Moor, a technological paradigm is a set of concepts, theories and methods that characterize a kind of technology. A technological device is a specific piece of technology (Pg. 111). Technological devices are instances or implementations of the technological paradigm. Technological development occurs when either the technological paradigm is elaborated in terms of improved concepts, theories, and methods; or the instances of the paradigm are improved in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, safety etc. But in some cases technological development has an enormous social impact. When that happens, a technological revolution occurs. Technological revolutions do not arrive fully mature. Moor (2005) goes on to explain that we can understand a technological revolution as proceeding through three stages: the introduction stage, the permeation stage and the power stage. In the first stage, the introduction stage, the earliest implementation of the technology are esoteric, often regarded as intellectual curiosities or even as playthings more than as useful tools. In the second stage, the permeation stage, the technological devices are standardized. The devices are more conventional in design and operation; the number of users grows; the costs come down, training is available and technology integration begins in the society. In the third stage, the technology is firmly established and is readily available. A technological revolution has a large



Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century

scale transforming effect on the manner in which a society functions. According to Moor (2005) to identify a technological revolution one must consider the technological paradigm, the technological devices that instantiate the paradigm, and the social impact of these devices. The paradigm will evolve and be articulated in new ways over time but will be identifiable as alterations of the original version of the paradigm. A technological revolution will have many technological developments within it. A sub-revolution is a technological revolution that is embedded in another. The sub-revolution will have a more specific paradigm that is a restricted version of the general paradigm and will have devices that instantiate its more specific paradigm that will be special cases of the more general revolution. The sub-revolution will move through the stages of technological revolution at the same time or at different times. Examples of sub-revolutions in the computer revolution include cell phone technology and the World Wide Web. Moor (2005) then states that technology, particularly revolutionary technology, generates many ethical problems. We are confronted with policy vacuums. We need to formulate and justify new policies (laws, rules, and customs) for acting in these new kinds of situations. What makes the technological change truly evolutionary is its impact on society. Ethical problems can be generated by a technology at any of the three stages, but the number of ethical problems will be greater as the revolution progresses. According to this model more people will be involved, more technology will be used, and hence more policy vacuums and conceptual muddles will arise as the revolution advances. Thus, the greater our ethical challenge will be during the last stage of the revolution. This argument is forceful for technology in part because we can see the dramatic effects technology has had and the ethical problems it has raised. Convergence of technology may occur with one technology serving as a component of another.



Thus, convergence may involve one technology enabling another technology as a tool, as a component, or as a model. The convergence of developing technologies make revolutionary outcomes discussed above likely. Revolutionary outcomes make ethical considerations ever more important. The number of ethical issues rises with the development of a technological revolution. In the introduction stage there are few users and limited uses of technology, but there will still be ethical issues arising. During the permeation stage of a technological revolution users and uses grows and more ethical issues are expected. Then, as expected, the power stage has the increased number of ethical issues. From this explanation of a technology revolution, Moor developed the Moor’s Law: As technological revolutions increase their social impact, ethical problems increase (Moor, 2005, pg. 117). This phenomenon happens not simply because an increasing number of people are affected by the technology but because inevitably revolutionary technology will provide numerous novel opportunities for action for which well though out ethical policies will not have been developed. The ethical issues that we will confront not only come in increasing numbers, but will come packaged in terms of complex technology. Such ethical issues will require considerable effort to be understood as well as a considerable effort to formulate and justify good ethical policies. Moor (2005) suggests three ways to improve our ethical approach to technology: 1.

2.

3.

We need realistically take into account that ethics is an ongoing and dynamic enterprise. We need to establish better collaborations among ethicists, scientists, and technologists. We need a multi-disciplinary approach. We need to develop more sophisticated ethical analyses.

Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century

Barbour (1993), in an early look at technology and technoethics, noted that some see technology as a source of higher living standards, improved health, and better communication. Others are critical of technology, holding that it leads to alienation from nature, environmental destruction, the mechanization of human life, and the loss of human freedom. A third group asserts that technology is ambiguous, its impacts varying according to the social context in which it is designed and used, because it is both a product and a source of economic and political power. Barbour proposes that technology be seen in three lenses, as a liberator, as a threat and as an instrument of power: •

Technology as a liberator: The benefits of technology 1. Higher living standards 2. Opportunity of choice 3. More leisure 4. Improved communications

•

Technology as a threat: The human costs of technology 1. Uniformity in a mass society 2. Narrow criteria of efficiency 3. Impersonality and manipulation 4. Uncontrollability 5. Alienation of the worker

•

Technology as an instrument of power 1. Technology and political power 2. Redirection of technology 3. Social construction of technology (Pgs. 3-4)

With this explanation of technology, we move on to understanding the ethical theory related to technology. Table 1 (from Tavani, 2004) is designed to provide the advantages and disadvantages of the basic ethical theories. Tavani (2004) goes on to explain that technoethics, as a field of study, can be understood as a branch of applied ethics. Applied ethics, as opposed to theoretical ethics, examines practical ethical issues. It does so by analyzing those issues from the vantage point of one or more ethical theories. Whereas ethical theory is concerned with establishing logically coherent and consistent criteria in the form of standards and rules for evaluating moral problems, the principal aim of applied ethics is to analyze specific moral problems themselves though the application of ethical theory. Understanding technoethics as a field of applied ethics (that examines moral issues pertaining to technology) is an important first step, but applied ethics for technology also needs to be looked at from the perspective of professional ethics. The field of technoethics as professional ethics can be understood as identifying and analyzing issues of ethical responsibility

Table 1. Four types of ethical theory Type of theory

Advantages

Disadvantages

Consequence-based (utilitarian)

Stresses promotion of happiness and utility

Ignores concerns of justice for the minority population

Duty-based (deontology)

Stresses the role of duty and respect for persons

Underestimates the importance of happiness and social unity

Contract-based (rights)

Provides a motivation for morality

Offers only a minimal morality

Character-based (virtue)

Stresses moral development and moral education

Depends on homogeneous community standards for morality

Used with permission of the author



Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century

for professionals working with technology. Among the technoethics issues considered from this perspective are those having to do with computer professionals’ role in designing, developing, and maintaining computer hardware and software systems. Conducting research in applied ethics has three stages of methodology: 1. 2.

3.

Identify a particular controversial practice as a moral problem. Describe and analyze the problem by clarifying concepts and examining the factual data associated with that problem. Apply moral theories and principles in the deliberative process in order to reach a position about the particular moral issue (pg 14).

Now that we have looked at the social implications of technology and ethical theory, particularly in the area of applied ethics, we will now look at some of the ethical issues related to technoethics in education.

Ethical Issues One of the distinguishing features of information, and one that makes it of revolutionary significance for global development and betterment, is that fact that technology is shareable. It can be given away without the original possessor being deprived of it. To be useful, of course, information must be accurate or true, for false information or disinformation will hinder, rather than produce positive effects on the world and people’s lives (DeGeorge, 2006). DeGeorge discusses the ethical issues of how technology affects the ownership of information known as intellectual property. Information has become more and more important in technological development, so the desire for the protections of intellectual property by profitmaking organizations has become stronger. Two areas are particularly instructive – one is computer



software; the other is peer-to-peer technology and its use. The first raises the issue of copyright; the second relates copyright to technology. However, this is a sensitive issue for education, where fair use of intellectual property is critical and keeping abreast of copyright laws related to technology is difficult. According to DeGeorge (2006) if someone expends a certain amount of time, money or energy into developing some expression or application of an idea – be it in the form of a written work, or of an invention-it is unfair for some else to copy and profit from its sale before the original author or inventor can do so, especially if doing so prevents the original author or inventor from reaping any beneficial rewards because it is akin to stealing the results of another’s labor for one’s own benefit at the expense of the originator. However, computer programs and software are considered copyright rather than intellectual property. So the copying or sharing of computer programs and software are considered copyright violations. DeGeorge goes on to note that although the practice of lending programs is fairly common, (especially in education) and although producers complain that such sharing costs them millions of dollars, they rarely take legal actions. The action of copying and lending violates copyright law, and so performing those actions is unethical. They are civil, however, and not criminal offenses. Fair use could easily be written to include individual trades, selling a disk, or lending a disk to a friend. Such use is to be distinguished form copying and selling the program and from making the program available, for example, on the Internet, to anyone who wishes to download it, which are unethical irrespective of the law. The present content of the U.S. laws is not ethically derived and so not ethically mandatory for all to adopt. Copyright laws are very confusing and for educators, determining what is fair use and what can be copied and used in the classroom and in computer labs, presents many ethical issues for use of technology in education.

Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century

DeGeorge (2006) goes on to describe the second concern of peer-to-peer technology and notes that two issues have been confused in discussions about peer-to-peer technology. One is the issue of the technology itself. The second, which dominates most discussion, is the use to which such technology is put. The most popular and most widely used peer-to-peer programs are freeware freely downloaded and freely shared. The second interesting aspect is that the illegal uses to which the technology is being put in causing producers of copyrighted material to change their ways of doing business, sometimes to the advantage of the consuming public. These issues are illegal, hence unethical. The major issue is the sharing of copyrighted music, with a growing capability of sharing copyrighted movies, TV tapes and other products. Downloading the programs in any case is not illegal, nor is using the programs for file sharing of noncopyrighted material that is an issue. It would be unethical besides illegal when both sender and receiver are in jurisdictions covered by applicable copyright laws. Even in jurisdictions where the copying is illegal, the ethical argument comes under two kinds of attack. The first attack is from the dictum that an un-enforced law is not binding. The main point is that, although it might be abused and used for unethical purposes, the technology itself is not unethical and so developing it is not unethical. The fact that it is easier to outlaw the technology than enforce the copyright laws by going after specific offenders is not sufficient justification for legally restricting the development of technology. Tavani (2005) discussed how education deals with the intellectual property and copyright issues described by DeGeorge in an article which looks at the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA, which restricts the way that information in digitized format can be accessed and used, also has significant implications for the information commons. Despite the fact that digital technology has made information exchange easy

and inexpensive, the DMCA has made it more difficult to access information that either resides in or is converted to digitized form, a big issue for educators. Rotenberg (1998) discussed ethical issues related to communications privacy including: •

•

•

Confidentiality, which refers to the expectation that information will be moved between two parties without disclosure to a third party. Anonymity, the right of an individual to decide whether to disclose his or her identity to another. Data protection, which refers to those principles regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information.

Rotenberg reviewed a study by the New York Public Service Commission which identified four factors that contribute to growing concern about communications privacy. These are (1) the growth of electronic transactions, (2) the accelerated collection of personal information, (3) the dramatic increase in the number of communications carriers and service providers, and (4) the growing use of technologically unsecured conduits for communications traffic, such as mobile communication. The study then made several recommendations for future service offerings: (1) there should be no enforced reduction of network intelligence to protect privacy; (2) there should be adequate privacy protection for all users; (3) privacy promoting technologies should be encouraged; (4) users with special needs should be provided it “premium privacy;” (5) privacy risks, particularly involving the disclosure of personal data, should be made known to users; and (6) organizations that collect personal data should operate a “trustees” and protect the privacy rights of customers. Finally, in this literature review we will look value analysis of ethics in order to establish an understanding of how ethics can and should be



Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century

Conscientiously shared values: Religion, political parties, and so on Important shared values: Family, hard work, loyalty, compassion, financial security Critical shared values: Honesty, respect for property, respect for law, keeping promises, physical integrity (pg. 27)

incorporated into personal value systems. We also have a list of ethical issues developed by researchers, to sum up what educators deal with using technoethics. Allen and Voss (1997) discussed ethics in terms of values and provided steps to value analysis. By their definition an ethical value is a belief or principle rooted in moral behavior, based on a sense of what is right; an unethical value is a belief or principle rooted in immoral or amoral behavior, based on a sense of what is wrong or, at least, of consciously disregarding what is right and a non-ethical value: a belief or preference that is not related to right and wrong. Allen and Voss provided six steps in value analysis:

Ess, (2002) noted that the domain of Internet research ethics contains a considerable diversity of views and approaches; includes a host of particular ethical dilemmas. He provided a list of central ethical issues developed by the Committee for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility (CSFR):

1.

1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

6.

Define the issue and identify the stakeholders. Determine the stakeholders’ interests. Identify the relevant values that bear on the issue. Determine the values and interests that are in conflict. Apply a model to rank values according to importance, to weight the values and interests that are in conflict. Resolve the conflict in favor of the higher (more important) value (pgs 20-21).

Allen and Voss contend a good rule of thumb for addressing ethical issues is to picture yourself as an impartial mediator who is paid to weigh all sides of an issue objectively and choose the best path of action. The analogy is not perfect, because mediators by definition are usually seeking to forge a compromise between contending parties, in value analysis, if a clearly ethical value is in conflict with a clearly unethical one, there is no room for compromise. Value analysis clarifies ethical conflicts into four areas, with the emphasis that honesty is still top priority: •

0

Personal preference values: Sports, music, diet, smoking, and so on

• •

•

2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Respect for persons (as foundational value for all the rest) Privacy Confidentiality Informed consent Anonymity/pseudonymity as these – along with 1-4 – are complicated in Internet venues Risk/benefit to participants Risk/benefit to social good Public vs. private space Subject compensation Justice (i.e., the fair distribution of the benefits of research) Cross-cultural issues Special/vulnerable populations Deception Non-disclosure Conflict of interest Research misconduct

This list not only includes the range of values and acts dependent upon respect for persons, i.e., treating human beings as autonomous beings, whether as human subjects and/or as researchers. From this literature review, providing the background to ethical theory, applied ethics and

Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century

ethical issues related to technoethics, we move to the main area of this chapter, discussing how education can deal with technoethics for the twenty-first century.

tEcHNOEtHIcs IN EDUcatION Now we will begin to look at the technology related issues for education and establish how educators can use technology to prepare students with the skills to use technology ethically in the twenty-first century. According to Strike and Ternasky (1993) ethics can be applied to education in three principal ways: assisting in educational policy making, assessing the school’s role as a moral educator, and informing standards to govern the conduct of educators. This section deals with administrative and policy issues. Doctor (1998) wrote a paper where he presented views on the legislative inequities of access to information from the Internet for education, particularly for K-12 schools. Clarifying legislation has been detrimental to schools. Doctor recommended providing information to empower communities in our society including: •

•

•

•

Providing assistance in learning about and obtaining needed social services, including employment information. Providing access to information repositories and resources that otherwise either would not be available or would be difficult to locate or obtain. Enhancing education opportunities and effectiveness by linking parents, teachers, and students, and expanding the repertoire of teaching tools for K-12. Creating new and effective communication links with local public officials in an effort to provide a more responsible and helpful government.

•

•

Providing open and free communication as equals with others in the community; serving as an organizing tool for people with common concerns. Creating a sense of community spirit and individual belonging and providing information about community activities (pg. 237).

It is critical in developing twenty-first century skills for our students to develop the communication links described by Doctor, particularly for enhancing educational opportunities and providing the tools needed in the K-12 system. Newman (1990) described research which supports the comments by Doctor. First, Newman described a concept know as appropriation, demonstrating how a tool can, in fact, have quite a different interpretation for the child and the adult. It is important for a student to understand how to use technology appropriately. Seeing that the student’s action is appropriate provides the student with an analysis of task as the teacher understands it. Thus, knowledge is actively constructed in the social interactions where the meaning of an action can be changed retrospectively by the actions of others that follow it. The concept of appropriation then applies to the educational system’s adoption of technology. The changes that take place when technology is appropriated by an environment may appear to be minimal if the tool fits into the existing structure. Although the school must appropriate the technology in order to use it at all, under some conditions the school can appropriate a technology that, in turn, helps to change the educational environment. This process may result in a new interpretation of he tool as well as a constructive change in the classroom activity. Secondly, Newman (1990) discussed research on the concept of educational environment in relation to technology use in our educational system. The term educational environment refers to the social world in which any such technology func-



Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century

tions. Newman looked at computers in schools as the technological environment. The increase in the number of school computers makes their impact on classroom organization, an increasing concern for educators. An educational environment combined with a theory in which learning is social and mediated by technological tools suggested a methodological approach in which the technology is put to use in actual instruction. Barbour (1993) developed a method for assessing technology that assists in developing policy. Educators should, but often do not, look at the ethical side of developing policy, often not developing technology policy at all. The lists below are the areas Barbour commented that should be addressed in assessing technology and then the methods used to do so: •

•



Assessing technology: Cost-benefit analysis. 1. Distributive justice: Who bears the costs? 2. Discounting the future: Benefits current or future ones? 3. Environmental values: Technology reduces costs but at the detriment of the environment? 4. Human values: Benefits at the cost of human resources? 5. Institutional biases: Institution generally overstates benefits and understates the costs 6. Role of the expert: Biases of the expert in assigning monetary values to technology Technology assessment methods. 1. Early anticipation: Technology assessment is an attempt to anticipate consequences beforehand rather than waiting for them to become evident. 2. Diverse impacts: A wide range of impacts are considered, beneficial as well as adverse, social and political as well as environmental and economic.

3.

4.

Diverse stakeholders: In the past, representatives of institutions have presented benefits of new technology, whereas people who may have to face the indirect costs often have had no effective voice. Alternative policies: Assessments not only trace current trends but also analyze the effects of alternative policies.

Tavani (2004) through his research provided a strategy for approaching technoethics issues which can be can be used by educators: •

•

•

Step 1: Identify a practice involving technology or a feature in that technology that is controversial from a moral perspective. 1a. Disclose any hidden features or issues that have moral implications. 1b. If the issue is descriptive, assess the sociological implications for relevant social institutions and socio-demographic groups. 1c. If there are no ethical/normative issues, stop. 1d. If the ethical issue is professional in nature, asses it in terms of existing codes of conduct/ethics for relevant professional associations. 1e. If one or more ethical issues remain, go to step 2. Step 2: Analyze the ethical issue by clarifying concepts and situating it in a context. 2a. If a policy vacuum exists, go to step 2b; otherwise go to step 3. 2b. Clear up any conceptual muddles involving the policy vacuum and go to step 3. Step 3: Deliberate on the ethical issue. The deliberation process requires 2 stages. 3a. Apply one or more ethical theories to the analysis of he moral issue, and then go to step 3b.

Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century

3b. Justify the position you reached by evaluating it against the rules of logic/ critical thinking (Pgs. 23-24).

Allen and Voss (1997) proved four guidelines for dealing with value conflict faced by educators when dealing with ethical issues in the workplace:

to an ethical dilemma must consider the act, the intention, the circumstance, the principles, the beliefs, the outcomes, the virtues, the narrative, the community and the political structure. In his teaching Nash uses codes of ethics as board normative guidelines for behavior, rather than as definitive specifications for ethical decision-making. Nash provides the following rules/guidelines for good moral conversation and ethics for his class discussions:

1.

Communicate the issues to other colleagues or superiors. Analyze the issue to do the greatest good for all parties concerned. Personalize—trust your judgment on what’s right and wrong. Escalate work up the chain of command until the ethical issue is resolved.

•

Allen and Voss mention personalization and trusting one’s own judgment, Nisbet (1977) also provided information that related to personalization and the teaching of ethics. The ethics of teaching is quite clearly the effort to understand and implement those actions that stimulate individual growth through cooperative effort. Teaching is the value-laden moral enterprise par excellence. Given the combination of intellectual and social capacities, the teacher’s behavior is unethical if it destroys the students’ and teacher’s opportunities to become more than they are. Nash (2002) discussed the best way to teach ethics ethically. Nash notes that there are no surefire answers to complex moral issues but that objective ethical analysis is possible. He uses a philosophical approach with ethical theories, which he believes is a practical tool any professional can use to develop ethical practices. Nash’s rules in his class includes finding truth in what you oppose and finding error in what you espouse; basically looking at, at least, both sides to every situation. According to Nash, every resolution

•

teaching Ethically

2. 3. 4.

• •

•

• •

• • • • • •

Make an effort to read and understand the course materials. Have an acute awareness that you have moral biases and blind spots. Keep an open-mindedness that you will learn something from the materials, the instructor and your peers in conversation. Have a willingness to improve your current moral language. Make a conscious effort to refrain from advancing your own current moral language as it if were the best one. Make a conscious effort to listen intently to the meaning of others’ moral truths. Agree that clarifying, questioning, challenging, exemplifying, and applying ideas are activities to be done in a self- and otherrespecting way. Do not force premature closure on a moral conversation. Find truth in what you oppose. Read as you would be read; listen as you would be listened to. Speak with, not at or separate from each other. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. Find and express your own voice, but also find the right time to lower your own voice so that others might find theirs (pgs 25-26).

Callahan (1980) noted that the goals of the teaching of ethics can be divided into three general classes: 

Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century

1.

2. 3.

Those that are important for all courses in ethics, whatever the educational level or context. Those that are doubtful for all courses. Those that will, as special topics, be either optional or important, depending upon the context.

He goes on to describe the important goals in the teaching of ethics: • • • • •

Stimulating the moral imagination Recognizing ethical issues Eliciting a sense of moral obligation Developing analytical skills Tolerating – and reducing – disagreement and ambiguity

Callahan concludes that once students complete an ethics course, they should meet the following objectives: 1.

2.

3. 4.

5. 6.



An understanding of, and ability to analyze, ethical concepts (e.g., rights, justice, liberty, autonomy). Familiarity with the history of the development of ethical theories and with the examinations to which those theories have been subjected (e.g., utilitarianism and the objections leveled against it). Familiarity with metaethical issues (e.g., the justification of moral judgments). An understanding of the general cultural, social, and political context that can lead to, and sustain, particular ethical theories and modes of ethical reasoning, and which help to explain the particular moral rules, mores, and practices of a given historical period or culture. Familiarity with the general theories and findings of moral psychology. Familiarity with those aspects of sociology and anthropology that are concerned with

the development of ethical and value systems and practices (Pgs. 72-73).

FUtUrE trENDs How will we know that that we are preparing our students for technoethics? This chapter has explained how teachers can provide ethical knowledge to students. There have been a limited number of studies that have demonstrated students’ knowledge of ethical practices with technology. The studies have primarily used survey to determine the understanding of ethical behavior. Gearhart (2005) reported on survey data collected at Dakota State University (DSU). The students were asked “How often do students at your institution copy and paste information from the WWW/Internet into reports/papers without citing the source?” First year DSU students reported forty-seven percent did compared to twenty-seven percent of their peers nationally. DSU seniors reported fifty-five percent compared to thirty-two percent of their peers. However on the DSU graduate and employer surveys reported students and employers found overwhelmingly that the graduates were able to use information ethically in the workplace. If the questions on the NSSE survey are an indicator of the ethical judgments of students’ use of technology then responding affirmatively to the graduate survey would present a discrepancy in ethical behaviors of the students and their perceptions of their own ethical behaviors. This presents an area to be further researched. Do students understand what ethical behavior is, especially ethical behavior when using technology? Are the students also prepared with ethical research practices for the Internet? In the future other studies should be competed to determine if our schools are adequately preparing students to use technology ethically.

Technoethics in Education for the Twenty-First Century

cONcLUsION The chapter has discussed the role that new technology should play in schools and in society. Generally computer and associated technologies have a positive effect on society. However, technology can have negative effects on the population. It is important to use ethically not just correctly. Schools will need to provide a serious form of technology education; more than just instruction on how to use the technology. Also, our society needs to be aware of the claims that technology will equalize learning opportunities. There is still a digital divide. We do not want our students to be winners and losers based on access to technology (Postman, 1998). Sichel (1993) contends that professional teacher ethics primarily concentrates on improving an individual teacher’s ethical reasoning and judgments. Accordingly, a teacher should be an autonomous moral agent who individually makes and carries out ethical judgments. The existence of a just, human and caring school is dependent on each teacher becoming just, human and caring. These researchers help sum up the goal of this chapter. Technoethics is a growing form of applied ethics. Defined as the study of moral, legal and social issues involving technology, technoethics is becoming an important issue for the twentyfirst century. Our students need to understand the moral, legal and social ramifications of using technology. The literature review provided a basis for understanding ethical theory and it explained how technoethics is applied ethics. The literature review also explained the concept of technology. Finally the chapter goes on to explain the issues related to the use of technoethics for educational administrative concerns and provides information that teachers can use to improve instruction for ethical issues. Our students must be prepared for the ethical use of technology throughout the twenty-first century. Today’s students are the leaders of tomorrow and if our society is to prosper ethically

with technology, today’s teachers must practice and teach technology ethically. Working in education for over 20 years, the author has seen the increase of cheating, plagiarism, and other ethical issues brought on by technology innovations. Many students comment “I didn’t realize I couldn’t cut and paste…or I thought everything on the Internet was ok to use”. It is amazing who is cheating, pastors, attorneys, people on would expect ethical behavior from. If educators do not clamp down on students behaviors with technology early on in their education and teach students what ethical behavior is, our society will continue to experience major ethical issues related to ever growing technology use. By the time students get to higher education, where the author is an educator, it is often too late to correct poor ethical behavior.

rEFErENcEs Allen, L. & Voss, D. (1997). Ethics in technical communication: Shades of gray. New York, NY: Wiley Computer Publishing, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Barbour, I. G. (1993). Ethics in an age of technology. San Francisco, CA: Harper San Francisco. Brandon, D. G. (1980). The partnership of ethics and technology. In Kranzberg, M. (Ed.), Ethics in an age of pervasive technology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Brey, P., Floridi, L. and Grodzinsky, F. (2005). Ethics of new information technology. Ethics and Information Technology, 7, 109. Callahan, D. (1980). Goals in the teaching of ethics. In Callahan, D. and Bok, S. (Eds.) Ethics teaching in higher education. New York: Plenum Press. DeGeorge, R. (2006). Information technology, globalization and ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 8, 29-40.



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Doctor, R. (1998). Justice and social equity in cyberspace. In Stichler, R. N. & Hauptman, R. (Eds.), Ethics, information and technology readings. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Ess, C. (2002). Introduction. Ethics and Information Technology, 4(3), 177-188. Freedman, D. H. (2006). The technoethics trap. Inc. Magazine. Retrieved January 12, 2007 from http://www.inv.com/magazine/20060301/column-freedman_Printer_Friendly.html Galván, J.M. (2001). Technoethics: Acceptability and social integration of artificial creatures. Retrieved January 12, 2007 from http://www.eticaepolitica.net/tecnoetica/jmg_ acceptability%5Bit%5D.htm Gearhart, D. (2005). Topic: The ethical use of technology and the Internet in research and learning. Presented at DSU Center of Excellence Symposium, April 2005. Moor, J. H. (2005). Why we need better ethics for emerging technologies. Ethics and Information Technology, 7, 111-119. Nash, R. J. (2002). Real world ethics: Frameworks for educators and human service professionals, second edition. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University. Newman, D. (1990). Opportunities for research on the organizational impact of school computers. Educational researcher: A publication of the American Educational Research Association. 19(3), 8-13. Nisbet, L. (1977). The ethics of the art of teaching. In Hook, S., Kurtz, P. & Todorovich, M. (Eds.). The ethics of teaching and scientific research. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. Postman, N. (1998). Education and technology: virtual students, digital classroom. In Stichler, R.



N. & Hauptman, R. (Eds.). Ethics, information and technology readings. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Rotenberg, M. (1998). Communications privacy: implications for network design. In Stichler, R. N. & Hauptman, R. (Eds.). Ethics, information and technology readings. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Sichel, B. A. (1993). Ethics committees and teacher ethics. In Strike, K. A. & Ternasky, P. L. (Eds.). Ethics for professionals in education: Perspectives for preparation and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, Columbia University. Sloan, D. (1980). The teaching of ethics in the American undergraduate curriculum, 1876-1976. In Callahan, D. and Bok, S. (Eds.) Ethics teaching in higher education. New York: Plenum Press. Strike, K. A. & Ternasky, P. L. (1993). Ethics for professionals in education: perspectives for preparation and practice. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University. Swierstra, T. (1997). From critique to responsibility: the ethical turn in the technology debate. Society for Philosophy and Technology, 3(1). Retrieved January 12, 2007 from http://scholar. lib.vt.edu/ejournal/SPT/v3n1/swierstra.html Tavani, H. T. (2004). Ethics and technology: Ethical issues in an age of information and communication technology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Tavani, H. T. (2005). Locke, intellectual property rights, and the information commons. Ethics and Information Technology, 7, 87-97. Zonghao B. & Kun X. (2006). Digitalization and global ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 8, 41-47.

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KEY tErMs Education: Process of training, cultivating, and developing the mind through teaching. Ethics: Human character and conduct, the understanding of right and wrong, and one’s obligation to society.

Moral Judgment: Using one’s ethical values in decision-making Technoethics: The study of moral, legal and social issues involving technology. Technology: Within a society, the application of knowledge and the use of tools, process, and/or skills in a manner to resolve problems.





Chapter XIX

The Ethics of Global Communication Online May Thorseth Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

abstract The purpose of this chapter is to discuss important ethical aspects of online communication of global scope. We focus particularly on procedural fundamentalism as the most significant threat to free and open communication today. By contrast, it is argued that deliberation models a desirable form of communication, based in both Habermasian discourse ethics, but also rhetoric along with a plurality of communicative styles, as long as they satisfy procedural constraints of deliberation. The importance of judgments that transcend purely private conditions is discussed by reference to reflective judgments aiming at enlarged thinking - to think from the standpoint of everyone else. It is concluded that it is preferable to develop Internet technologies that stimulate imaginative powers in order to make people better informed of knowledge of counterfactual circumstances. Such knowledge may work as an impediment against fundamentalist knowledge.

INtrODUctION The purpose of this chapter is to discuss important ethical aspects of online communication on the Internet. The significance is particularly related to the discussion of fundamentalism as the most important threat to free and open communication today. The topic relates to technoethics by examining information technological impact on communication. The ethical analysis of communication technology focuses on the question

how online communication could promote open discourse in a manner that would impede fundamentalism. A sketch of an answer is offered in the final sections of the chapter. Fundamentalism as applied in media is most often envisaged as internally linked to religion. Opposite to this view, it is argued in this chapter that we need to disconnect the conceptual linkage between religion and fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is here characterised in terms of procedural traits of communication rather than

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The Ethics of Global Communication Online

by its particular contents, such that any values might appear to be fundamentalist, whether they relate to religion, gender, sex, ethnicity or others. This approach to fundamentalism diverges from mainstream accounts in much of the global communication of fundamentalism in media, as fundamentalism is often identified in terms of its substantive contents. Fundamentalism might be conceived as suppression of challenges of particularity, whether a particular cultural practice or a story that is put forth with a claim to approval or condemnation without questioning. To make this concrete, we shall pay attention to a particular story from Nordic media. In January 2002 Swedish-Kurd Fadime was killed by her father in Sweden. The reason why she was killed was that she had a Swedish boyfriend. The murder was referred in media as a murder of honour, and it was seen as an expression of contest of the cultural norm forced marriage, a norm that is extensive in many Muslim societies. The murder and the debate following from it have necessitated a public reflection of a claim to participate in the public debate, and also reflection on referring to immigrants in terms of representative groups. Immigrants are often conceived as groups in the light of ethnicity, culture and identity. Additionally, these “groups” are considered to be represented by their leaders in accordance with Western, democratic principles. The contested practises of forced marriage and murder of honour do, however, separate the members within the minority societies just as well as separating minority groups from the society at large. The murder of Fadime and the debate in Sweden and Norway following from it clearly demonstrates that Muslims in these two countries cannot and should not be defined on the basis of a uniform group concept. Fadime was killed by her father because she loved a Swedish man, and because she spoke her opinions of love and marriage openly in media. She argued against arranged marriages, in favour of the right to choose a partner of one own. We might formulate this

case as a problem concerning the relation between the particular and the general, in cases where particular arguments are considered to be justified with respect to “the others”, whereas not looked upon as acceptable “for us”. We may ask: what is it that appeals to general circumstances, and how do these appeals relate to something beyond the particular, something of universal scope? We may further ask how to describe the case above, what description is the correct one? No matter how we describe it – as an act of murder of honour or something else – our description will on any occasion be a normative act. This is because we look for solutions to the problems that we raise. This act could be considered a murder of honour – Fadime’s father wanted to rescue the family’s honour – or it could be judged to be a sick man’s misdeed as Fadime’s sister Fidan claimed (Eriksson and Wadel 2002). In describing this act as a murder of honour a particular appeal is thereby made to particular circumstances about a particular culture. As a result, the description might easily be exploited for both criticism, but also for justification of murder of honour, as was seen in the public debate. Whether this particular description is used for criticism or justification, it will nonetheless encourage segregation. To describe the same act as the misdeed of a sick man, does not, however, appeal to culturally specific circumstances to the same extent as the concept ‘murder of honour’ does. The fact that some people commit sick actions because they do not function well in society might strike down anyone, and it is not necessarily related to ethnic or cultural status in particular. If the act in question is considered as a sick person’s misdeed, it is turned into something for which we may raise a more general appeal. By contrast, an act that is described in terms of a particular cultural or religious norm of a particular society cannot be defended by many. The justification by appeal to a particular religious norm in this case endangers by mobilising disgust within the society at large. Appeals to particular religious/



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cultural norms devoid of a universal appeal are easily turned into fundamentalism. What we need to establish in order to avoid particular appeals being turned into fundamentalism, is to establish a link to a universal appeal that transcends what is embedded in the particular or culturally specific norm in question. What we should aim at establishing is a mutual respect for each other’s circumstances. Misdeeds as such may transcend culturally embedded norms, whereas culturally defined misdeeds do not. The Fadime case above is an illustration of how argumentation might be characterised as fundamentalist. We shall elaborate fundamentalism further in a while. One aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how worldwide deliberation online might work as an impediment against fundamentalism.1 A fundamental opposition between global democracy on the one hand and fundamentalism on the other is a basic assumption of the main argument. In this chapter we will consider fundamentalism from different perspectives, and put forth some arguments why fundamentalism is most adequately linked to the lack of procedural constraints by which we define fundamentalism. This view is contrasted to the claim that certain ethical systems are fundamentalist per se. Before we move on to the topic of fundamentalism we shall have a brief look at global communication and deliberative democracy.

GLObaL cOMMUNIcatION The approach to global communication is here closely linked to the idea of deliberative democracy. The global aspect is contained in the vision of communication that transcends borders of all kinds, not least geographical, whereas the deliberative aspect might best be conceived as direct communication aiming at qualifying arguments and opinions. The outcome of deliberation might be a change of preferences and opinions, due to access of opposing views of the matters

0

discussed. We shall have a brief look at some projects aiming at deliberation in the sense just described. Deliberation has on some occasions been carried out as a controlled trial ahead of elections, like the PICOLA project in the USA.2 The theory underlying this project is labelled deliberative polling, and it has been developed by James Fishkin.3 This issue of online polling is also discussed by Coleman & Gøtze (2004), and by Dag Elgesem (2005).

Democracy Unbound Democracy Unbound is a huge research project named, carried out by an international interdisciplinary research group if which I am a part. The project is mainly based in Sweden, consisting of scholars from philosophy, psychology, law and history.4 Some of the questions raised by this research group are normative. For example, what form of democracy, if any, should we try to bring about at a supranational level? After all, there are different notions of democracy, some of which are more demanding than others, e.g., regarding the participation and influence of the citizens. The significance of this question is illustrated by the ongoing debate about the appropriate role of the European Parliament within the EU. Other questions are empirical, and rather concern the possibility of a successful implementation of democratic institutions at a supranational level. Thus, the main objection to the idea of a global democracy has been, not that it is undesirable, but that it is utopian and unrealistic. In order to assess objections of this kind the project aims at identifying obstacles as well as factors that could prove favourable relative to the aim of bringing about a genuine supranational democracy. My piece of work in this project deals more specifically with online communication, and the question of feasibility of global communication – or worldwide deliberation – across boundaries, across stereotypes of which fundamentalism is an example. My philosophical interest relates to

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public use of reason online. As yet, there are no conclusive reports supporting the assumptions that communication online moves in a more democratic and unbound direction. As we shall see, there are reports underpinning the democratic and borderless potential of this new technology (Wheeler, 2005; Coleman and Gøtze, 2004), but there are also reports of the opposite (Sunstein 2001). Rather than discussing these opposing reports in any detail, I shall focus on the kind of communication that is contrasted to fundamentalism. Thus, the main objective of this chapter is to demonstrate why online communication might work as an impediment against procedural fundamentalism.

Deliberative Democracy There are different notions of democracy, some of which are more demanding than others, e.g., regarding the participation and influence of the citizens. Democracy might be representative or direct, and the scope may vary (local, national or federal, supranational, global). The most basic characteristic is, however, the plurality of voices upon which opinions and decisions are based. How should we make sure that policies pay attention to the plurality of parties concerned, and how should we safeguard the procedures at work? Within the Democracy Unbound project Robert Goodin (2007) has argued in favour of enfranchised all effected interests, while he psychologists in the project group, Henry Montgomery and Girts Dimdins have carried out an experimental study of egalitarian vs. proportional voting, claiming that proportional voting is preferable (2007). 5 The notion of deliberative democracy pays particular attention to the kind of communication involved. Deliberation relates to discursive democracy as discussed by John Dryzek (2001), and it is partly based upon Jürgen Habermas’ idea of practical discourse (1990). The ethical norm of a free and non-coerced mode of communication, free from both external and internal obstructions,

is basic. A necessary prerequisite is a plurality of parties and opinions, and their accessibility. Further, the final arbiter is public reason itself which is the only legitimate authority in policy making. From this it follows that not only political decision makers, but any public opinion or decision should be exposed to open and critical debate. This is the normative basis for the argument of this chapter.

DELIbEratIvE POLLING OFF- aND ONLINE Deliberative Polling The core idea of deliberative polling is to contribute to a better-informed democracy. The method, as developed by Fishkin (1997), is to use television and public opinion in a new and constructive way. A random, representative sample is polled on the targeted issues. One among many examples is the national deliberative poll of the USA on health care and education. Results are also available from deliberative polling in different other countries around the world, among others, China, Greece, Italy and Northern Ireland.6 After the fist baseline poll, members of the sample are invited to gather some place in order to discuss the issues, together with competing experts and politicians. After the deliberations, the sample is again asked the original questions. The resulting changes in opinion represent the conclusions the public would reach, if people had opportunity to become more informed and more engaged by the issues.

Deliberative Polling Online The project Public Informed Citizen Online Assembly (PICOLA) has been developed by Robert Cavalier.7 It takes its point of departure in the theory of deliberative polling as developed by Fishkin. PICOLA is primarily a tool for carry-



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ing out deliberative polling in online contexts. One objective of this software development is to create the next-generation of Computer Mediated Communication tools for online structured dialogue and deliberation. An audio/video synchronous environment is complemented with a multimedia asynchronous environment. A general gateway (the PICOLA) contains access to these communication environments as well as registration areas, background information, and surveys (polls). The PICOLA user interface allows for a dynamic multimedia participant environment. On the server side, secure user authentication and data storage/retrieval are provided. Real-time audio conferencing and certain peer-to-peer features are implemented using Flash Communication Server. Mobile PICOLA extends the synchronous conversation module and the survey module. The former provides a true ‘anytime/anywhere’ capability to the deliberative poll; the latter allows for real time data input and analysis. And with realtime data gathering, it becomes possible display the results of a deliberative poll at the end of the deliberation day, thereby allowing for stakeholders and others present to see and discuss the results as those results are being displayed. The interface relations made possible by this technology is of vital importance to the deliberative process, as it allows for synchronous conversation in real time. Thus, it appears to come very close to offline interface communication. Several other reports on online deliberation are discussed by Coleman and Gøtze (2001). Some of their examples are drawn from trials of deliberation between local politicians and their electors. By and large a main conclusion seems to be that the dialogical and responding structure of communication is obtained between the parties involved. However, it seems to be a clear tendency that there is a decline in deliberation as soon as the period of the trial has ended. Besides, the scope of the experiments discussed is of limited/local scope, and thus they are not comparable to a global



level of communication. The empirical reports on online polling are not conclusive, then, but the technology as such seems to offer a potential for worldwide communication.

FUNDaMENtaLIst KNOWLEDGE The most dangerous threat to deliberative communication is fundamentalism. Fundamentalist knowledge is here defined in procedural terms. At the outset it is not rooted in any particular value system, whether religion or others. This does not, however, entail that every value system can evade fundamentalism, as some value systems tend to be less open to public criticism. First we shall mention argumentative closure towards counterarguments and absence of critical reflection on preferences as characteristic of most instances of fundamentalist knowledge. Last year’s reactions among many Muslims towards the dissemination of ironic Mohammed cartoons may serve as an example. This example is of course complex, but the core problem of this case was refusal to take up the criticism underlying these cartoons. The simple fact that the topic has entered the public and politic arena is itself a proof that the issue does not any more belong to a private or religious area that should be protected from argumentative intervention. This issue is contested among Muslims themselves, and thereby demonstrates that there is no “Muslim” interpretation that is immune to argumentation. Second, absence of mediation and dialogue is another procedural trait of fundamentalist knowledge. Western feminists have been accused by Muslim feminists that the latter are suppressed by males because they prefer to wear the hijab, or because they defend arranged marriages. The lack of dialogue between the defenders of the two branches of feminism has made both parties fail to see that they obviously share the most important values they want to defend, while avoiding

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a real dialogue about the institutions or dressings in question (hijab, miniskirts, etc.). Third, relativism might be another source of fundamentalist knowledge. We will not get deeply into the topic here, since it is a huge field of philosophy and ethics themselves. The main point I would like to draw attention to might be stated very simply by an illustration: If we accept utterances like “my culture made me do it” when someone has committed a murder, arguing that the act can only be interpreted relative to culture/religion/a particular value system, then we have, by the same token, accepted that there is no standard by which we could criticise the act in question. The legitimising of the act is done by appeal to culturally imbedded values considered to be beyond criticism, as defenders of murder of honour did in the Fadime case. This may also be seen as suppression of challenges to particularity, thereby supporting mistaken stereotypes. Both critiques and defenders of murder of honour in the Fadime case committed themselves to relativism in the sense that both accepted a culturally internal definition of the act. The killing by a Muslim father of a daughter who objected to arranged marriage and other Muslim institutions was at the same time a perfect example of a stereotype that many Muslims object to, among them, Fadime’s family who rather referred to the misdeed as a sick man’s act. The latter characteristic neutralises the culturally imbedded stereotype contained in ‘murder of honour’. Instead they appeal to particular circumstances that might strike down anyone, independent of one particular religion as opposed to others. This brings us to the next issue in discussing how to prevent fundamentalist knowledge: the need for knowledge of particular circumstances. In order to be able to see that the murder by Fadime’s father does not necessarily adhere to cultural or religious stereotypes, or something that fits a definition applied to an aggregated group level, we need to know more about the particular circumstances of this individual. Those

who applied the label ‘sick man’s act’ rather paid attention to the fact that this was a person who was not well integrated in the society at large, he felt alienated and socially unsuccessful, without a proper job etc. How should we understand these circumstances as a source of the act committed? By focussing on marginalisation due to lack of access to welfare goods rather than focussing on a Muslim traditional institution, it is easier to judge the act in different terms, and to prescribe a punishment or a cure when needed, dependent on what circumstances are brought to the fore. So far, we have arrived at a possible dilemma that has to be resolved. On the one hand, we have defended a procedural approach to fundamentalism, which rules out a focus on particular contents of particular cultural or religious norms. On the other hand, we have recognised a need for knowledge of particular circumstances in order to transcend culturally embedded judgments of acts like the crime discussed above. How could these seemingly opposing suppositions fit together? In the following we shall discuss how a universal appeal might be possible in judgments of particular circumstances. We need a position that allows us to judge values not only relative to particular norms, but rather to state that all values are not on the same par.

PartIcULar aND UNIvErsaL aPPEaL IN jUDGMENts According to Onora O’Neill “[o]nly communication that conforms to the maxim of enlarged thought can reach the ‘world at large’ ” (O’Neill 1990).8 This quotation refers to the idea that public use of reason has the world at large as its scope – as opposed to private use of reason which is considered to be more limited in scope, e.g., communication filling the roles of clergy, officers, and civil servants. This definition of the distinction between public and private stems from Immanuel Kant (1970). Addressing the world at large is a



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core idea in deliberation, as well, which clearly diverges from the aim of fundamentalism. Rather, the aim of fundamentalism is often to make supporters adhere unquestioningly, and to frighten non-adherents. Within these frames the aim of deliberation is to improve the public (as opposed to private) use of reason. The Kantian concept of public reason is internally related to communication itself. The rationale underlying this assumption is that “the world at large” accepts no common external authority. Attaching this authority to reason itself requires submitting one’s own arguments to free and critical debate (O’Neill 1990:38). A core idea is that there is an internal link between public reason and toleration of a plurality of parties. This idea is based upon the maxim of preservation of reason which means that one should not merely be led by others’ judgments in forming one’s own. Hence, it follows that there is a need for a plurality of parties in public reason and deliberation. The plurality of parties in public reason is a challenge to deliberation and democracy formation of our time. One central condition for plurality is autonomy, and I want to draw attention to the need for autonomous parties in deliberation. The kind of autonomy that is embraced in the Kantian tradition is put at a risk to the extent that deliberation tends to reduce the plurality of autonomous voices. One such threat has been regarded to follow from the problem of filtering on the Internet (Sunstein 2001). Whether online deliberation increases the problem of filtering or not is yet an open question that we shall approach later in this chapter. Public use of reason has the world at large as its scope, as noted above. An important notion contained in public – as opposed to private – use of reason is that what is communicated is publicizable (O’Neill, 1990:33). This presupposes intellectual freedom in the sense that there is no particular authority restricting the speech. An example of shortcoming with respect to intellectual freedom was the fundamentalist banning of



the Islam cartoons mentioned above. According to O’Neill’s account of public use of reason there is only one authority that is legitimate, namely reason which is contained in communication itself (1990:35). This conception of public reason rests on a Kantian understanding of it: [I]f reason will not subject itself to the law it gives itself, it will have to bow under the yoke of laws which others impose. (Kant 1970, 145-6; 303-4, quoted in O’Neill 1990:37). The verdict of reason is always the agreement of free citizens to be permitted to express objections without hindrance (O’Neill, 1990:37). Two important conditions for the authority of (public) reason, then, are the plurality of parties thinking for themselves, and the ability to think from the standpoint of everyone else. The latter is called “the maxim of enlarged thought” in Kant (Critique of Judgment, cited in O’Neill 1990:46). This maxim applies in particular to our judgment of particular situations. The idea of “enlarged thought” is elaborated in several other philosophical works, as well. In Kant’s work this mode of thinking is related to judgment, and as such it is different from subsuming something particular under some universal law. In Seyla Benhabib’s words: “Judgment is not the faculty of subsuming a particular under a universal, but the faculty of contextualizing the universal such that it comes to bear upon the particular” (Benhabib 1992:132). The main point to be drawn from this view on enlarged thought is to take account of the possible judgment of others. Hence, this enlarged way of thinking – or reflective judgment – cannot be carried out in solitude or isolation, it needs the presence of, or potential communication with others. In Kant’s work this mode of thinking is restricted to establishing intersubjective validity in the aesthetic domain. Hannah Arendt and Benhabib, on the other hand, want to extend this mode of

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validation to the domain of ethical and political faculties of thought, as well. Part of the reason for this extension concerns the linkage between the particular and the universal. A moral judgment of a particular action depends upon the liberation of the particular from “subjective private conditions” (Arendt 1961:220-1, quoted in Benhabib 1992:133). This kind of validity is dialogically established through its appeal to something of common concern that transcends the particular case in question. As an example, a regime that obstructs free speech is condemnable due to common concern for the importance of free speech in general and not only in the particular case. By the same token, Seyla Benhabib, argues in favour of bridging the gap between what is good and just, that is, the mediation between the ethical and the political. In order to understand the perspectives of those who differ from us, it is necessary to extend our moral and political imagination through actual confrontation in public life (Benhabib 1992:140). This implies that we need to take into consideration the presence of voices and perspectives of those who are strangers to us. Unlike Kant who believes that the standpoint of everyone else can be obtained in vacuum, Benhabib believes that this standpoint “entails sharing a public culture such that everyone else can articulate indeed what they think and what their perspectives are” (Benhabib 1992:141). In this sense she reformulates Kantian moral theory in terms of a dialogic procedure of enlarged thought in a public culture of democratic ethos. Thus, the rationale for enlarged way of thinking fits with our conception of deliberation, and it also rules out procedural fundamentalism. Public reason in deliberation requires communication between people who would otherwise remain strangers to each other. The main purpose has much to do with the ideals underlying deliberative democracy itself, i.e., to qualify arguments and opinions through a public test. There is no unequivocal understanding of deliberative democracy, except for the belief in unconstrained and

free speech very much in line with discourse ethical ideals of Habermas (1990), Benhabib (1992), Dryzek (2001), Regh (1997) and many others. Very briefly, the main idea is that everyone should in principle be able to put forth their opinions and arguments without being obstructed by power relations or other instances of lack of symmetry between the parties. Those who share this basic condition for deliberation as a means to promote public reason often differ in their view on modes of communication in deliberation. We shall pay attention to one of the contested topics, namely the role of rhetoric in deliberation. Judgment of particular situations requires reflective judgment or enlarged way of thinking, i.e. the ability to think from the standpoint of everyone else. Through imagination we are requested to put ourselves in the position of everyone else. How could that be obtained? In the following we shall give an account of some aspects of communication discussed in the philosophical literature on deliberation.

rhetoric and Universal appeal in Deliberation An important aspect of deliberation and public use of reason is related to the question whether rhetoric should be considered a constituent part of communication itself. The role of rhetoric might be formulated as a controversy between Aristotle and Plato – and later Kant. Whereas the Platonic-Kantian tradition tends to look upon rhetoric as incompatible with reasoned discourse and autonomy, the Aristotelian tradition does not. The key question, then, is whether rhetoric as part of persuasion should be looked upon as part of reason or not. Some authors have argued that public deliberation not only relies upon rhetoric for reasons of persuasion; they also stress that this is for the good. John O’Neill is a defender of this approach to rhetoric when arguing that trust and credibility plays an important role in deliberation (O’Neill 2002:257). The core idea



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of reason’s dependence upon trust is nicely expressed by O’Neill in the following utterance: “[S]cience itself is a co-operative enterprise that involves the acceptance of testimony of others” (2002:258). In other words, even in science which is normally considered to be highly motivated by public reason, we still have to rely upon others’ testimonies. Because we cannot confirm all basic knowledge-claims ourselves, we have to rely on judgments about the credibility and reliability of sources. Credibility does to a great extent rest on the trustworthiness of the speaker (ethos) and the emotions of the audience (pathos). In this chapter I draw upon several authors who believe that the appeal to emotions – along with the appeal to other basic rhetorical features of communication – is intrinsic to reason and rational persuasion in deliberation. Thus, emotions become a constituent part of public reason. Deliberative democracy theorists believe that rationality – or reason – is immanent to argumentation. The Habermasian account of rational argumentation distinguishes between three levels of argumentation: logical products, dialectical procedure and rhetorical process of communication (Habermas 1990:87-92, Regh 1997:360). The logical level concerns cogency of arguments based on the relation between conclusion and supporting evidence and claims, while the dialectical level is about competition for the better arguments. Both the logical and the dialectical levels make an appeal to truth claims. The rhetorical level is by Habermas considered to concern arguers’ search to gain the assent of a universal audience. There are two separate questions that are raised here: the first one is the fundamental question whether rhetoric should be allowed to enter deliberation at all, whereas the other concerns in which way rhetoric might play a significant role in deliberation. We will leave aside the more specific discussion on Habermas, and have a closer look at Regh’s analysis of rhetoric, still from a discourse ethical perspective. He emphasises the intrinsic role of ethos and pathos in cogent argumenta-



tion in addition to the rational standards of logic and dialectic. While the logical and dialectical standards relate to the possibility of reasonable assent, the rhetorical level relates to actual rational motivation (Regh 1997:367). Between these general standards and participants’ actual positions lie the various contextual contingencies that tip the scales in favour of one set of arguments: [T]hat logical consistency and dialectical responsiveness in open debate have made it possible for them to adopt a given position but that various contingencies traditionally associated with rhetorical effectiveness have led them actually to adopt the position. This opens the door to a normative account of argumentation in which rhetoric plays an intrinsic role. (Regh 1997:367). Regh identifies an important role for rhetoric (ethos and pathos) in the process towards making judgments, in defining argumentation as “a process of cooperative judgment formation” (Regh 1997:368). If argument is to issue in judgment the rhetorical aspects are basic: proofs of the speaker’s character (ethos) and appeals to the audience’s emotions (pathos). This view on rhetoric goes back to Aristotle (Lawson-Tancred 1991). The main point to be made in our discussion of rational deliberation is that the plausibilities of a certain outcome are judged differently among the participating parties. This point can be demonstrated very briefly: we have to rely upon others’ verdict for many of our suppositions, both ethically and politically, as well as in science. A medical example mentioned by Regh illustrates the point nicely. The case in question is a dying, comatose patient and different judgments among doctors and nurses on the question whether they should scale back treatment. The parties disagree over the estimation of a number of uncertain facts, like chances of recovery and what the patient would have wished. Regh’s conclusion is that “[p]recisely because the problem calls for such a judgment, it is rational for the participants to make two kinds

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of persuasive rhetorical appeals in addition to the arguments themselves” (Regh 1997:369). Evidence of someone’s capacity to judge possibilities responsibly is internal to the arguments’ rationality. In addition, we should also ask whether the emotions that are evoked by rhetorical means are appropriate or not. To the extent that the rhetorical means of pathos is appropriate, it is also rational. As an example, it might be appropriate for a politician to alert the audience by stirring up a fear for a danger that is otherwise believed by the politician to be ignored by the audience. And sometimes it is necessary to introduce passionate communication for the end of democratic and rational deliberation. One case is presented by Gutman and Thompson where they refer to a discussion in the U.S. Senate in July 1993. The debated topic was on routine renewal of a patent of the Confederate flag insignia. The only black member of the chamber tried to argue that the insignia was a symbol of slavery, and she provoked the audience by shouting and using tears to move the Senate members to take the issue seriously. With this provocation she turned the routine into the notable. After a three-four hours period twenty-seven senators reversed their earlier vote (Gutman and Thompson 1996:135). This case demonstrates that communication is a process of cooperative judgment formation where rhetoric plays an intrinsic role. The grounds for trusting fellow participants are internally linked to the quality of arguments themselves. Whether actual consensus is received is another question that I will not discuss here. In the particular case just discussed, we saw that the rhetorical means of shouting and crying contributed rationally by motivating officials to discuss an important question. This incidence can be viewed in two different ways: either to look upon rhetorical means as non-deliberate, but acceptable as means to democratic deliberation (like Gutman and Thompson do), or to consider the rhetorical aspects as intrinsic to rational deliberation, as

Regh and Young (2000) do. We shall leave this part of the debate for now. There is a division line between a PlatonicKantian and an Aristotelian account of the appeal to emotions which is prevalent in rhetoric. The former tends to oppose rhetoric to deliberation, whereas the latter takes rhetoric to be intrinsic to all kinds of discourse, as we have seen. In Iris Marion Young’s words: “[n]o discourse lacks emotional tone; ‘dispassionate’ discourses carry an emotional tone of calm and distance (2000:65, my emphasis). Young further argues that the appeal to emotions, i.e. affective, embodied, and stylistic aspects of communication involve attention to the particular audience of one’s communication. The appeal to emotions is not only compatible with deliberation on this view; rather, it is a necessary condition of it. Aristotelian rhetoric considers emotions to be crucial to moral maturity, showing itself in a person’s ability to have the right kind of emotion on the right occasion. Thus, emotions are important to gain practical knowledge. Contrary to this, Plato (Gorgias) and the Kantian tradition view rhetoric as persuasive means without providing knowledge of any kind. Still, there is an interesting link between Aristotelian moral maturity and Platonic emotions in Kant’s thinking, as well, as pointed out by O’Neill (2000:251). To have maturity (Aristotle) and to be courageous (Kant) is to use one’s own understanding and judgment. Thus, emotions do have a role to play here, as well. The Aristotelian understanding of moral maturity which is to have the right emotion at the right occasion, equals the Kantian concept of moral courage which is to judge in an autonomous way. Both traditions do appeal to rationality of emotions for making mature moral judgments, and they both attach emotions to judgment about particular cases. As we have seen, Iris Marion Young discusses the role of rhetoric in deliberation as part of a criticism of a mainstream mode of communication based in the ideal of discourse ethics, which is



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envisaged as calm and dispassionate. The requirement is that free and non-coerced communication must be based in a mode of communication that is apt for empowering those who are disempowered, like minorities of different kinds. Therefore, rhetoric, storytelling and testimony should be allowed to enter the deliberative arena, according to Young (2000). Against this, John Dryzek has convincingly argued that any mode of communication might be hierarchical and, thus, advantage some while disfavouring others (Dryzek 2001). The main point to be drawn from this dispute is, however, that individual and particular circumstances and emotions do play a vital role in enabling the plurality of different and opposing opinions to be publicly accessible, as deliberative democracy surely requires. Another important aspect of this is captured in Young’s distinction between external and internal exclusion. While external exclusion demarcates how people are kept outside the process of discussion and decision-making, internal exclusion is about being ignored or dismissed or having ones statements and expressions patronised. Internal exclusion concerns ways that people lack effective opportunity to influence the thinking of others even when they have access to places and procedures of decision-making (Young 2000:55). This brings us to an important aspect of judgment: it cannot be a priori, that is, independent of communication with those we make judgments about. Judgment of particular acts and values is a dialogical enterprise. The universal component of the judgment is, however, basic – it takes its point of departure in moral claim to judge from the perspective of everyone else. That is, the judgment must take into consideration that the subjective conditions in question do not only apply in the particular case in question. As such, it transcends the particular subjective conditions or circumstances. Unless the appeal is accessible to others, it cannot make a claim to validity beyond the particular context.



rEFLEctIvE jUDGMENts ONLINE? As yet, it is an open question whether the Internet and online communication technologies facilitates deliberation and reflective judgments. In the following we shall summarise some aspects concerning both feasibility and limitations/constraints.

Feasibility of Online Global communication? As we have seen above, from the reports on online polling, the Internet obviously does offer a venue for free and non-coerced communication across barriers of different kinds. Online communication makes it possible for people worldwide to deliberate both systematically (cf. the PICOLA project), but also in a variety of other ways.9 Even if most of the experiments that have been carried out bear witness to a rather limited scope of organised deliberation on public and political issues, there is no doubt that the Internet itself offers people worldwide access to a wide range of opinions and knowledge of others’ particular circumstances. Hence, it is probable that such encounters, even if not organised as deliberative polls, still make many people more willing to change their judgments of culturally embedded norms. One optimistic report in this direction comes from Deborah Wheeler (2005). She has done very interesting empirical research in the Arab world on female Internet users. The Middle-East and North Africa are contexts of particular interest because they are among the most resistant places in the world to institutionalised democracy. Wheeler has observed democratic growth due to technological coordination on the Internet, mentioning, among others, mass public demonstrations against Syrian troops in Lebanon. Her report demonstrates some important features of the Internet’s contribution to democracy: there is a movement from bottom up, and there is a link between communication

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online and political actions offline. Like many deliberative democrats Wheeler also emphasises the importance of the particular context for empowerment and engagement. Another example of democratic action on a broad scale, thanks to information technology, is the organisation moveon.org, an initiative that started by two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs in 1998.10 The founders, Joan Blades and Wes Boyd were frustrated because the Clinton-Levinsky affair drew all attention away from political affairs. They launched an online petition to “Censure President Clinton and Move On to Pressing Issues Facing the Nation”. Within a week more than 100 000 people signed the petition online, and it extended to 500 000 in some weeks. The petition was delivered, and thousands of email messages were forwarded to individual Senators and members of Congress. Additionally, there are also some other indications that online communication contributes to more pluralism and modes of communication, e.g. open source movements, Facebook, and other similar venues for open and free discourse. The flow of information in such contexts is, of course, beyond control. Still, there are proofs that some of this unstructured communication clearly does have an impact on political issues offline. As an example, we may think of the Mohammed cartoons that were released by a small Danish newspaper in 2006. In very short time the issue was discussed worldwide thanks to the Internet, and it was not only a matter for those who first entered the stage. This case demonstrates what has been argued above: (a) different modes of communication do play an important role in public deliberation on political issues of global scope, and (b) the emotional aspect is essential to reflective judgment or enlarged thought in the ethical and political faculties.

LIMItatIONs aND tHrEats tO GLObaL cOMMUNIcatION ONLINE? As stated earlier in this chapter, there are no conclusive proofs that the Internet works as an impediment against fundamentalism, in favour of global democracy. However, there are several reports strengthening the belief that online discussion of particular cases are brought out into the open, and thus, they become subject to public scrutiny by an extended plurality of people worldwide. The organised trials of online polling no doubt work as intended – they do qualify opinions and arguments better by facilitating the participants’ access to improved knowledge of particular matters. Still, they are limited in scope, and they tend to decline as soon as the trial has ended. There are perhaps even stronger proofs that much of the less organised movements contribute even more in supplying people with a plurality of judgments of particular issues. Hence, we might be optimistic about the feasibility of broadening peoples’ capacity to think from the standpoint of everyone else. Still, there are some obvious limitations to a conclusive opinion of the matter. Some of them are much discussed in the literature, and has to do with more general considerations on the digital divide. Other kinds of limitations concern online deliberation more particularly, like the threat from filtration and group polarisation discussed by Cass Sunstein (2001). The idea is that people do not have access to an unlimited range of opinions because they only visit places and people they want to see online. Hence, they get only what they want, and not what is required for deliberation and possible change of preferences. The problem of group polarisation is closely connected to the problem of filtering: the outcome of deliberation might be more rather than less extreme opinions, since the argument poll is limited. This threat has to be modified by Fishkin’s deliberative polling which seems to prove that it is possible to diminish the



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risk of polarisation (Fishkin 1997). The idea was to measure how people’s preferences are shaped through deliberation. As mentioned earlier, the refinement of Fishkin’s model of deliberative polling is not only to measure what people think ahead of an election or important political decision, but rather to do some counterfactual polling, in measuring what people would have thought if they had the time to consider the issue more closely (Fishkin 2003, referred in Elgesem 2005:65). I would like to draw attention to a serious threat to deliberative democracy and reflective judgment in the ethical and political faculties that stems from lack of interest and participation. In non-democratic societies we have seen examples of Internet communication working as means of empowerment and political mobilisation for offline political action (Wheeler 2005). What about democratic societies? Here we observe rather different usages of online communication. Facebook, as an example, has become a means for many people to spot friends on issues like how many friends they have, who they communicate with etc. Some use it for genealogy, and many use it for fun. Members of Facebook obviously do get well informed on many questions they raise about their friends, but hardly of a kind that is important to deliberative democracy. Or how should we judge it?

FUtUrE trENDs There has since long been a focus on the potential of online polling as a means of broadening people’s mind, and thus turn public opinion into less fundamentalist positions. There are, however, diverging reports of the result of trials of the kind that Fishkin and others have undertaken. The impact appears to be limited both in scope and time extension. Additionally, there is a huge literature on methodological problems about online research that has not been discussed here. Despite many methodological limitations the underlying idea of

0

this chapter is that the flow of information will in the long run have a positive impact on broadening peoples’ minds by contributing to more enlarged thought on a global scale. The basic assumption is that information technology offers a room for displaying imaginative powers. The virtual realities online have a key role to play. I believe that research on online deliberation will continue to be important. Additionally, there is a need and a huge potential for research focussing on virtuality which has not as yet been sufficiently researched. This aspect of technology should be examined for anti-fundamentalist purposes. The idea is that potentiality, virtuality and counter factuality are means of exceeding the subjective and limited scope of actual conditions as discussed by Kant, Benhabib and Arendt. Thus, we would welcome more empirical research on the impact of people visiting virtual realities online. In our opinion this is the place to dig deeper when researching technoethics related to global communication online. I believe that Internet communication of different kinds – polling, blogs, virtual realities like Second Life – contribute to improved conditions for reflective judgment due to the following experiences: (1) the public cannot avoid awareness of different tastes and judgments, from which it follows that (2) it becomes harder to ignore the differences of tastes and opinions of others. From this follows that (3) Internet activities as mentioned above do have an impact on public reason. Still, there is a concern that lack of regulation or structure weakens democracy in the public domain. The main problem, related to blogs in particular, is that even if they are democratic, they often lack structures for discussion of community affairs, and hence there is a risk of a cacophony of voices. Against this conclusion it may be argued that there is no proof that this very cacophony is a problem. Rather, it is likely to be for the good. We may even envisage a two step procedure towards more organised deliberation: the first step starts with increased awareness and openness of the public

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for instance by participating in blogs and virtual realities like Second Life. The next step may be to participate in more structured communication, for instance by online deliberative polling.

HYPOtHEsIs aND cONcLUDING rEMarKs Based on the preceding, we cannot conclude whether online deliberation serves global democracy. Simultaneously, there are many indications that peoples’ awareness of circumstances that are different from their own does play a vital role to people’s judgments of themselves and others. Maybe their basic opinions and preferences are not easily changed, but I do believe that their imaginative faculties are affected by different kinds of online communication – sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. This indicates a need for ethical and political control of the technology. We do want people to be more tolerant, to understand conditions and circumstances different from their own, but we also want to eliminate imaginative powers that turn people into terrorists. In short, it is preferable to develop the technology such that the imaginative powers make people curious about knowledge of counterfactual circumstances. The reason why, is because such knowledge may work as an impediment against fundamentalist knowledge. The idea is that we could take advantage of the potential of virtual realities that are available online, in utilising the Internet for deliberative purposes. This idea is an extension of the concept of deliberation such that it both includes many different modes of communication, but also an extension to the virtual world. This brings us to the distinction between real and virtual which does not correspond to the distinction between on- and offline, as many people tend to presuppose when discussing the impact of the new technology on real life affairs. An argument that has often been put forth is that the Internet is damaging because many people are moved to criminal acts due to the

impact of the virtual world online. What matters is how people actually act, i.e. that they remain decent citizens rather than commit damaging acts towards others. In the attempt to stimulate the imaginative faculties in desirable directions it is less important whether the means belong to a real or a virtual world. Maybe access to virtual realities that are populated with avatars is just as efficient as meeting real people in experiencing a plurality of scenarios when deliberating about the best among worlds.

rEFErENcEs Arendt, Hannah (1961). Crisis in Culture. In Between past and future: Six exercises in political thought. New York: Meridian. Aristotle (2004). The art of rhetoric. London: Penguin Classics. Benhabib, Seyla (1992). Situating the self. Cambridge: Polity Press. Coleman, Stephen & Gøtze, John (2001). Bowling together: Online public engagement in policy deliberation. Hansard Society, 2001. Online at bowlingtogether.net Dryzek, J. (2001). Deliberative democracy and beyond: Liberals, critics, contestations. Oxford: Oxford UP. Elgesem, D. (2005). Deliberative Technology? In Thorseth, M. & Ess, C. (eds.), Technology in a Multicultural and Global Democracy (pp. 6177). Trondheim: Programme for Applied Ethics, NTNU. Eriksson, C. & Wadendal, I. (2002). Pappan: Det var inget hedersmord. Svenska Dagbladet 29(1-02). Fishkin, J. (1997). Voice of the people. Yale UP. Girts, Dimdins and Montgomery, Henry (2007). Egalitarian vs. proportional voting in various



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contexts: An experimental study. Paper presented at the Workshop Democracy in a Globalised World in Oñati, Basque Country, April 20. Forthcoming in Hart publication. Goodin, R. (2007). Enfranchising all affected interests, and its alternatives. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 35, 40-68. Gutman, A. & Thompson, D (1996). Democracy and disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1990). Moral consciousness and communicative ethics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kant, I. (1964). The critique of judgment. Transl. J.M. Meredith. Oxford: Clarendon. (n.a.) (2005). IT, multiculturalism and global democracy – ethical challenges. In Technology in a Multiculrural and Global Society. (eds.) Thorseth, M. & Ess. Trondheim: Programme for Applied Ethics, NTNU. O’Neill, J. (2002). The rhetoric of deliberation: Some problems in Kantian theories of deliberative democracy. Res Publica, 8, 249-268. O’Neill, Onora (1990). Constructions of reason: Explorations of Kant’s practical philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Regh, W. (1997). Reason and rhetoric in Habermas’ theory of argumentation. In Walter Jost & Michael M. Hide (eds.), Rhetoric and hermeneutics in our time. New Haven/London: Yale UP. Sunstein, C. (2001). republic.com. New Jersey: Princeton UP. Thorseth, M. (2006). Worldwide deliberation and public reason online. Ethics and information Technology, 8, 243-252. Wheeler, Deborah. (2005, November 19th – 24th). Digital politics meets authoritarianism in the Arab world: Results still emerging from Internet cafes



and beyond. Paper presented at the Middle Eastern Studies Association Annual Meeting, Mariott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington D.C. Young, Iris Marion (2000). Inclusion and democracy. Oxford: Oxford UP.

Links to Websites Democracy Unbound Project: http://people. su.se/~folke/index.html#om_projektet Fishkin’s Deliberative Polling: http://cdd.stanford. edu/polls/ PICOLA project: http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/picola/ index.html

KEY tErMs Deliberation: Dialogical communication that induces reflection upon preferences in noncoercive fashion. Deliberators are amenable to changing their judgments, preferences and views during the course of interactions. Deliberative Polling: J. Fishkin’s model of deliberative polling measures what people think ahead of an election or important political decision, and also to do some counterfactual polling, in measuring what people would have thought if they had the time to consider the issue more closely. Democracy Unbound: Global democracy that might be representative or deliberative, egalitarian or proportional, enfranchising all affected interests, or other models. Fundamentalist Knowledge: Procedurally defined, characterised by argumentative closure towards counterarguments, absence of critical reflection on preferences, absence of mediation and dialogue, and suppression of challenges to particularity.

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Global Communication: Borderless, worldwide deliberation across boundaries of all kinds (nations, religion, gender etc.). Reflective Judgment: Judgments that transcend purely private conditions and receive their validity from enlarged thinking, i.e. the capability to think from the standpoint of everyone else. Reflective judgment is thus not the faculty of subsuming a particular under a universal, but the faculty of contextualizing the universal such that it comes to bear upon the particular. Rhetoric: Persuasive means of communication that particularly bears upon the ethos of the speaker and pathos of the audience. Rhetoric – and the right emotions (Aristotle) or courage (Kant) are essential to judgments of particular circumstances and contexts.

ENDNOtEs 1

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The issue of deliberation is discussed in further details in Thorseth 2005. See http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/picola/index. html

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See http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/ http://people.su.se/~folke/index.html#om_ projektet This is one among the papers presented at a workshop in Oñati in April 2007. Along with the others, it will appear in an Oxford Hart publication in 2008. The paper is accessible here http://people.su.se/~folke/dimdins. pdf More information on the method and different trials are accessible at http://cdd.stanford. edu/ Visit Cavaliers homepage here http://www. hss.cmu.edu/philosophy/faculty-cavalier. php. More information of the PICOLA project is accessible here http://caae.phil. cmu.edu/picola/index.html Discussion of the relation between particular and universal appeal is also discussed in Thorseth 2006. Different chatrooms, Facebook and many other modes and venues contribute to worldwide encounters of different kinds. The example is discussed in Dag Elgesem (2005), pp. 71-72.



Section III

Case Studies and Applications in Technoethics



Chapter XX

Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies: Reflecting on 10 Years of TeenNet Research Ethics and Practice Cameron Norman University of Toronto, Canada Adrian Guta University of Toronto, Canada Sarah Flicker York University, Canada

abstract New information technologies are creating virtual spaces that allow youth to network and express themselves with unprecedented freedom and influence. However, these virtual spaces call into question traditional understandings of private and public space and open up new tensions for institutions (e.g. schools and law enforcement) trying to maintain safe spaces. For adolescent health researchers, these virtual spaces provide exciting opportunities to study youth culture, but also challenge the utility of ethical guidelines designed for a non-networked world. At issue are tensions between the realities of ‘natural’ interactions that occur online, often in full public view, and creating ethical research environments. These tensions and issues will be explored within this chapter, through an overview of the TeenNet project, a discussion of anonymity and confidentiality within social networking technologies and software (including Friendster, Facebook, and Myspace), and a discussion of ethical considerations for researchers engaged in adolescent health research and promotion. Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

INtrODUctION Time Magazine broke with tradition and named “You” its 2006 Person of the Year. The magazine’s cover featured a glossy computer monitor that reflected the reader’s own image, as if displayed on the Internet for all to see. This was an acknowledgment of the unprecedented way in which contributions from individuals around the world are expanding our knowledge, providing entertainment and enhancing our problem-solving capabilities through networked media and linked information technology. The ubiquity of hardware applications (such as laptop computers and wireless handsets) blended with social media tools (like wikis and blogs) has resulted in a mix of text, image, sound, and video allowing people with limited technical skill to become part of a wider landscape of information producers and consumers – or ‘prosumers’ (Wurman, 2001). This rapidly changing environment provides an unprecedented medium for dialogue and communication, yet also introduces profound ethical questions regarding the risks and benefits that these media present. This is particularly so in the area of health information. This chapter explores these ethical challenges through the lens of engaging youth, a population on the forefront of using these new technologies, in health promotion. We draw on more than a decade of research and action with TeenNet, a youth-focused research group based at the University of Toronto. Adolescence is the developmental period during which complex decisions about health issues are first independently made, requiring skills to manage risks and negotiate options (Gardner, 2005). It is also a social time of life when peer influence is high and life experience is relatively limited. Many of the behavioral patterns initiated in adolescence become lifelong habits. While most move through this stage without serious problems, some gravitate towards riskier behaviours, have fewer supports and options available, and experi-



ence the consequences of poor decision making well into adulthood (Hutchinson & Stuart, 2004). This potential for lifelong harm has contributed to the perspective of viewing youth as a vulnerable population and thus, from a research and care perspective, to be treated as a group in need of special protections (Tri-Council of Canada, 1998; United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2005). For example, Canadian regulations stipulate that “subject to applicable legal requirements, individuals who are not legally competent shall only be asked to become research subjects when: the research question can only be addressed using individuals within the identified group(s); and free and informed consent will be sought from their authorized representative(s); and the research does not expose them to more than minimal risk without the potential for direct benefits for them”(Tri-Council of Canada, 1998). This model views young people as lacking the competence to make informed decisions pertaining to their wellbeing with regards to research and, implicitly, for health treatment, including procurement of health information. And yet, with more than 80% of young people regularly using information technology for health and communication (Lenhart et al., 2003) the supposed safeguards provided by these guidelines become problematic. The proliferation of new technologies is creating contested spaces that allow for unprecedented creative youth expression and networking. However, these new spaces also challenge the utility of ethical guidelines designed for a non-networked world. At issue are tensions between the realities of ‘natural’ interactions that occur online, often in full public view, and creating ethical research environments. These tensions and issues will be explored below and discussed with reference to the work done in connection with TeenNet research projects.

Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

tHE tEENNEt ExPErIENcE In 1995, Dr. Harvey Skinner, then professor of Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto, established TeenNet with the aim of providing a living laboratory to develop, evaluate and disseminate youth-friendly tools for health promotion using emerging information and communication technologies (ICT) (Norman & Skinner, 2007; Skinner, Maley, Smith, & Morrison, 2001; Skinner et al., 1997). TeenNet’s approach to research is predicated on the idea that engaging young people in all aspects of health promotion planning – from identification of needs, to the design and delivery of programming – produces more authentic, relevant, useful and attractive tools to support positive youth development (Blum, 1998). This process is guided by five principles: • • • • •

Participation of youth in all stages of development and delivery. Relevance – focusing on personal, social and health issues that are identified by youth. Autonomy support and respect for individual freedom. Active learning and fun Access, which includes addressing both absolute access and quality of access (Skinner, Biscope, & Poland, 2003), while fostering the eHealth literacy skills required to fully utilize ICT’s for health (Norman & Skinner, 2006b).

This health promotion approach emphasizes self-determination and is informed by established models for community engagement and health behaviour change. The overall style of engaging youth through dialogue reflects the critical pedagogy of Paulo Friere (Freire, 1970, 1973), which posits that listening must precede dialogue, which then precedes action, and suggests that only through authentic dialogue in which all parties have equitable voice can true informed action take place. The engagement process by which

this dialogue takes place occurs in five steps and is captured in a model called EIPARS, developed by TeenNet as a model for sustainable action with youth (Figure 1): 1.

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

Engage is about connecting interested youth and motivating them to work in a peer relationship on an action project in their community. Identify involves the youth exploring and identifying issues that concern them in their community Plan focuses on choosing one issue and developing a strategy for addressing this issue. Act is about implementing the project according to the plan the group developed. Research, Reflect and Reward is where youth evaluate the effectiveness of the action project and reflect on the outcomes of the group processes. Sustain considers ways to sustain the group and its action. This is as well a motif throughout the model.

The EIPARS model has been used successfully to engage diverse youth groups in Canada and internationally (Bader, Wanono, Hamden, & Skinner, 2007; Ridgley, Maley, & Skinner, 2004) to create and sustain social action projects on a variety of health issues such as HIV/AIDS, youth violence, and smoking. Essential to the success of these projects is the cultivation of authentic partnerships between youth and adults (Camino, 2000; Ginwright & James, 2002; Zeldin, 2004; Zeldin, Camino, & Mook, 2005). Through implementing the EIPARS approach and the STAR model, TeenNet created a series of engagement platforms for health promotion in a number of areas, particularly tobacco control and HIV/AIDS: 1.

The Smoking Zine (www.smokingzine. org): A five-stage program on tobacco use prevention and cessation that operates as



Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

Figure 1. EIPARS model

2.

3.

4.



a stand-alone intervention or as part of an integrated school-based program (Norman, Maley, Li, & Skinner, submitted), and has been translated and culturally adapted into six languages. The Virtual Classroom on Tobacco Control (http://www.takingitglobal.org/tiged/ projects/tobacco/): an online classroom that includes the Smoking Zine and other digital and paper-based tools for teachers and students to learn about tobacco use on a global scale. Global Youth Voices (www.globalyouthvoices.org): A set of tools and information resources to promote engagement and action both locally and globally around a variety of broad social determinants of health (Bader et al., 2007). YouthBet (www.YouthBet.net): an interactive resource to educate youth and promote socially responsible approaches to gambling (Korn, Murray, Morrison, Reynolds, & Skinner, 2006).

5.

6.

7.

TiGXPress (http://en.takingitglobal.org/ tiged/projects/tigxpress/): a toolkit and resource package for teachers and students that draws on the potential of media technologies to undertake HIV/AIDS education based on social justice, transnational communication and global solidarity among youth. Smoke Free World (www.smokefreeworld. org): a freestanding resource on framing tobacco within the context of globalization and social justice. LivePositive (www.livepositive.ca): A virtual space designed by youth living with HIV for youth living with HIV to help support treatment decision-making and reduce social isolation.

To address the unique challenges for health promotion that engagement using internet and communication technology poses (Street & Rimal, 1997), TeenNet developed an iterative design process called the Spiral Technology Action Research (STAR) model. It is a multi-stage methodology involving cycles of dialogue with

Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

rapid evaluation to allow development of relevant, timely and evidence-informed tools for youth that keeps products on the leading edge of innovation (Skinner, Maley, & Norman, 2006). This process has been central to the development of each of these methodologies, blending EIPARS with evidence-informed usability and development best practices (National Cancer Institute, 2000). Yet, through this process and the products that have been created, unique ethical problems have surfaced.

HOt taLK: tENsIONs WItH MEssaGE bOarDs, cHats aND cONNEctION Youth, more than any other group in society, gravitate towards technology as a medium for self-expression, communication, and information (S. Flicker, Haans, & Skinner, 2003; Lenhart, Madden, & Hitlin, 2005). Harnessing the power of interactive technologies for research and health promotion purposes creates dilemmas about how to negotiate the boundaries that these technologies traverse between public and private spaces. There is a paradox in that young people are among the most likely to use the Internet and be familiar with its social dynamics, yet among the least likely to self-censor online. They also appear to be less likely to appreciate the long-term consequences of living in a surveillance culture created through online activity (Montgomery, 2007). Thus, while trying to exploit the Internet’s ability to foster social identity through creating content, they unwittingly expose themselves to the risk that such information will be applied to other contexts of their life due the absence of any effective privacy on the Internet. A young person who seeks to divulge information about risk behaviours may be speaking authentically; however, the implications for how that information may be used in the future – particularly with politically charged topics such as drug use or

sexual behaviour – may not be fully appreciated when it is posted online. Indeed, this lack of awareness of boundaries is reflected in three recent cases that emerged in Toronto, Canada, where disciplinary actions were taken against high school students who had made disparaging remarks about teachers or fellow pupils using the social network site Facebook, which they had considered to be private conversations (El Akkad & McArthur, 2007). In these circumstances, discussion content normally reserved for face-to-face banter among students is suddenly transformed into potentially libelous rhetoric on a global scale when placed in an online environment such as Facebook where anyone can view it. For many, these groups are considered private spaces even though they are universally accessible and the manner in which this ‘privately public’ space is negotiated has considerable ethical implications for its inhabitants and visitors alike. TeenNet faced similar challenges with the use of online bulletin boards, a precursor to the virtual ‘walls’ created within Facebook, with its Hot Talk feature of the website CyberIsle. Although CyberIsle featured games, quizzes and a variety of interactive informational experiences, in the late 1990’s the Hot Talk board was by far the most popular feature on the website. The attraction was due in part to CyberIsle’s ‘by youth for youth’ approach, which meant that the discussions were not moderated and youth could say what they wanted so long as it was done within a culture of respect for the rights and dignity of other participants. The community was governed by a set of community values and hosted discussion threads on topics such as smoking, sex, body image, music, and racism. From a research perspective, this environment provided opportunities to understand youth communication, but in doing so introduced challenges for researchers and participants alike in negotiating the boundaries between private and public space. From the process of studying Hot Talk, a set of ethical guidelines was developed to inform further project work and published to



Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

aid other researchers (see Table 1)(S. Flicker et al., 2003): 1.

2. 3. 4.

Supply a readily available link to the individuals and institutions responsible for the research project. Describe study aims, potential benefits, and harms. Provide information about what data will be collected and how it will be used. State clearly what kinds of services you are (and are not) able to provide.

5.

Identify any commercial or competing interests. 6. Offer direct contact information for the principal investigator and/or study coordinator so that participants can get their questions answered. 7. Seek informed consent. 8. Grant users who do not consent to be part of the research a comparable service. 9. Be explicit about steps taken to preserve confidentiality and anonymity. 10. Create policies and procedures to ensure the well-being of the community (e.g., pro-

Table 1. Ethical guidelines for researching Internet communities Situation

Issues

Resolution/ What we did

Study Group Enrollment: Enrollment of study participants needs to be facilitated online.

• Guaranteeing informed consent from study participants • Ensuring that eligibility criteria are met • Differentiating between service delivery and research agendas in an online context • Ensuring accuracy of information

• Information about study aims and procedures is provided online • All users coming to the site must register; consent is obtained during registration • Youth users are given autonomy to consent; parental consent is not required • Users are asked for their date of birth at registration; only those between the ages of 10 and 24 are considered eligible • Users not consenting still have access to all parts of the site, but their data are not used in analyses

Protecting Participants From Risk and Harm: All research participants need to be protected from any unintended harm resulting from the research process; special attention needs to be paid to ways in which online research might create unintentional harm.

• Protecting users of the site from other users and themselves • Limiting use of the data for research purposes and service delivery • Making sure reported results do not breach confidentiality or cause embarrassment or more serious harm to participants

• A privacy page tells users what type of data is collected, what we do with it, and how it is used and not used • The TeenNet Project monitors the site daily for messages requiring immediate attention and removes those that are deemed inappropriate • Web server information is password protected and stored in a locked research office; linked data are made available only to the research team

Linking “Public” and “Private” Data: Discussion board (HotTalk) includes postings by youth who might or might not have consented to our research; including some messages in analyses and excluding others becomes problematic.

• Requiring consent from posters on “public” message boards • Determining which individuals consented to be part of the study group • Analyzing conversations where some message posters are study group members • and others not

• Assumed that all data were private and only those posters who consented to be part study group could be explicitly quoted in analyses • Used web server logs to determine study group membership; although messages are publicly available, registration information is attached for data analysis purposes only • Used postings of nonconsenters only as contextual in analyzing conversations; do not quote them in analyses

From: Flicker S, Haans D, Skinner H. Ethical dilemmas in research on Internet communities. Qualitative Health Research 2003.

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Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

tocols for maintaining community values, moderating the site and managing crisis); make policies public and transparent. 11. Limit the ability of search engines to access message boards directly to safeguard privacy. 12. Gain approval from a credible human subjects ethics review committee. Although originally popular, the discussion board format soon lost favour among youth. They gravitated to new technologies, particularly live chat tools such as ICQ, MSN chat, and AOL Instant Messenger. As these gained favour, public message boards became more problematic as both youth and unwelcome adult visitors were drawn to these boards. For TeenNet, protecting youth’s anonymity was becoming problematic when adults could easily pose as young people. Although TeenNet never actively moderated the board, it did monitor it for adherence to community standards, which included inappropriate posts by those who clearly appeared to be adults. However, as the challenges increased and as youth were self-organizing their social dialogue around new peer-to-peer technologies, Hot Talk was eventually disabled. Yet, as researchers deeply concerned about ethical integrity, we remained challenged by questions such as balancing anonymity and privacy with informed consent to participate. Vulnerable youth, such as those living with HIV (Sarah Flicker et al., 2004), are desperate for connecting anonymously with others who might share their experience. Initially, TeenNet endeavored to provide such safe spaces, while studying the role that these spaces played in promoting health and providing support. This practice challenged us ethically to balance multiple community norms. On the one hand, youth gravitated towards online environments so that they could interact freely and anonymously without undue interference. On the other, we worried about how we could protect

young people from harm or contact a young person who might need help without breaching confidentiality. In other words, what were the moral, legal and ethical implications of having a platform for young people to talk about risk behaviours on a university-sanctioned space without the necessary supports available around supervision? For TeenNet, these challenges were simplified by the fact that these issues were confined to a specific space (Hot Talk). With the rise of new technologies such as Facebook and MySpace that are open not only to youth, but to the world, these challenges proliferate exponentially.

aNONYMItY aND cONFIDENtIaLItY IN tHE Era OF FrIENDstEr, FacEbOOK & MYsPacE The popularization of instant messaging represented a new type of peer-to-peer interaction for young people that displaced, but did not eliminate, online message boards. Yet, the inherent limitation of tools such as MSN and Yahoo! Messenger, Skype, and iChat is that they are essentially one-toone means of communicating even though group chats are possible. They also pose difficulties for people who want to meet others with common interests and for communicating across time zones. It was this temporal flexibility and public space that made bulletin boards so popular. Building on the strengths of both approaches, a new class of tools emerged in the early 2000’s that enabled people to chat, share and join groups around shared interests. Tools like Yahoo! Groups, Friendster, MySpace and Facebook created new possibilities to connect, but also amplified the challenges that bulletin boards faced because unlike most boards, these new environments enabled people, ideas and content to be networked in real time.

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Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

social Networking sites: What Youth Do and the Information they Exchange Internet-based social networking sites enable users to create an individualized profile and connect it to other profiles, forming a larger personal network. This “social technology” or “social software” includes “various, loosely connected types of applications that allow individuals to communicate with one another, and to track discussions across the Web as they happen” (Valkenburg, Jochen, & Schouten, 2006). Integration between different media is the core feature of this new software platform (Al-Ghorairi, 2005). A prime example is YouTube, a service that enables users to easily convert video files and upload them into a widely accessible format on the Web, comment on them, and share these works through links. While debates over the legality of some of this

content continue, many of the most discussed videos have been homemade. They can be viewed on computers and increasingly via mobile devices such as wireless phones and PDA’s. Indeed, you can always post a link to your YouTube video on your Facebook profile. A recent Pew Report (2007) indicates 55% of online teens aged 12-17 have created their own profile. While these rates vary by gender, race and household income, almost 70% of American girls between the ages of 15 and 17 report having created an online profile (see Table 1). Young people are embracing these technologies en masse, and are leading the drive for innovation among services competing for advertising revenue dollars. Corporations are recognizing the power of peer influence and are happy to provide youth with free access to music and images to upload to their profiles, especially if they are linked to others and visited hundreds of times daily. A few years ago,

Box 1. Teens who create profiles online

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project. Teens and Parents Survey, Oct.-Nov. 2006. Margin of error is ±5% for profile creators. * indicates statistically significant differences. In (A. Lenhart & M. Madden, 2007)

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Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

music companies were suing individual teens and their parents for downloading and trading music; now they are happy to give them access through their profiles as a free marketing. When considering the impact of these technologies on the lives of youth, a distinction must be made between using the Internet for simple information seeking (e.g., doing homework) and communication (e.g., networking through these sites), with the latter having important implications for the social self-esteem and well-being of adolescents (Holloway & Valentine, 2003). Youth experience social systems differently than adults, and through technology they may exert substantially more power than in their everyday lives. This has created a condition in which some youth choose to live a substantial part of their lives in a virtual medium. A young woman whose protective parents restrict her personal freedom can spend all night chatting with friends around the world from the relative safety of her bedroom; or a young man prevented by parents from listening to explicit music or viewing violent films can view and upload this same content without being dependent on parental permission or financing.

Information sharing and the Myth of Privacy In trying to prove a subjective expectation of privacy in a user’s profile, the inherent nature of the action or its everyday use works against any notion of an expectation of privacy. By signing on to Facebook or MySpace and providing personal information for others to see, a user is, in effect, not seeking to preserve the information as private, but is instead making a choice to publicize this information for others. (The Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, 2007) Although youth participate heavily in online conversations, web-cams, profiles and networks, they often view these as private domains (Holloway & Valentine, 2003; Twenge, 2001, 2006).

As such, there is little self-censorship around sensitive topics (Montgomery, 2007), particularly when the process of disclosing personal information motivates interaction between members of networks and may result in an increased sense of bonding. For adolescents in the midst of critical developmental changes, this is particularly important. These online interactions may provide the only social support they have (or believe they have). The desire to share private thoughts and feelings in order to receive acceptance and validation from peers is a strong urge during this phase. Unfortunately, what may have started as a desire to stay connected with close friends can soon transform into a vast network that includes hundreds of strangers. The potential consequence of young people sharing personal information with strangers has drawn attention from social service agencies. Recent public service campaigns highlighted the situation in a series of vignettes (The Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, 2007). For example: A young woman pins a suggestive photograph of herself on a school bulletin board. The photo is taken by classmates and replaced each time it is taken and subsequently passed around the school. Finally, the young woman tries to take the photograph down herself, but each time it reappears. A young woman is seen leaving her school with a group of friends. As they walk through various settings, strange men and boys address her by name, but she doesn’t know who any of them are. The nature of their comments become increasingly suggestive, as one asks her when she will post something new, and another what colour underwear she is wearing that day. These public service announcements are designed to bring awareness to young people, particularly females, and their parents about the potential for privacy violations on the Internet.

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Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

Barnes (2006) notes the “privacy paradox” inherent in the generation gap, with many adults becoming increasingly hesitant to share their personal information, while their children post their most intimate details on the Internet, and “because schools, college admissions officers, and future employers are checking these sites, personal information and pictures revealed online can directly influence a student’s educational, employment and financial future.” Jean Twenge has observed an increase in sense of entitlement and narcissism amongst this generational cohort, see (“Narcissistic, but in a good way,” 2007; Twenge, 2001, 2006). Young people are increasingly expressing not only their musical and aesthetic preferences, but also their emerging sexuality, provoking concerns about access to pornography and sexual solicitation (Fleming, Greentree, Cocotti-muller, Elias, & Morrison, 2006; Mitchell, Wolak, & Finkelhor, 2007; Peter & Valkenburg, 2006). Youth’s perceptions of anonymity online encourage the sharing and discussion of sexuality and sexual behavior, with the greater perception of anonymity resulting in increased sexual selfdisclosure (Chiou, 2006). Sexually diverse youth in particular have embraced these technologies (Simonette, 2007), as they provide opportunities to “come out”, share sexual information, and form intimate relationships in spaces potentially safer than actual home environments (Hillier & Harrison, 2007). However, these sites are unable to guarantee confidentiality among users, and for young people, especially those in school, this causes a number of problems. What is also becoming evident is the blurred distinction between on- and offline behaviours, exemplified by the rising concern over cyber-bullying, the scope of abuse suffered by victims, and the difficulty of managing these spaces (Chaker, 2007; “Cyber bullying: understanding and preventing online harassment and bullying,” 2006; DeWolfe, 2007; Miller, 2006a, 2006b; Pack, 2006; Rubin, 2005; Shariff, 2005; Splete, 2005; Stover, 2006). Young people are exploiting the

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information and images shared by their peers, and using it to harass and terrorize them online and in the hallways. School Boards and educational institutions have scrambled to create policies on the use of these sites and to discipline students as a result of misuse (Kovach & Campo-Flores, 2007; Shariff, 2005; Stone, 2006; Trotter, 2006), some even regulating use by teachers and staff (Stewart, 2006). The impetus for school board intervention has often been the posting of illegal activity (pictures of underage youth drinking before the school dance) or inflammatory remarks about teachers or administrators (Boyle, 2007; Coyle, 2007). Sexually diverse youth flocking to social networking sites as safe spaces to come out may find themselves “turned in” by fellow students, which has translated into situations such as expulsion from religious education institutions (Dukowitz, 2006). In Canada, the Ontario Safe Schools Act, reflecting an overarching provincial policy covering school boards on matters of discipline, has recognized the need to include cyber-bullying as a punishable behaviour alongside more traditional forms of harassment (Ministry of Education, 2007; “The Ontario Safe Schools Act: School Discipline and Discrimination,” 2003). Particularly concerning is when youth post information that could put them at risk of exploitation and violence. Consider the young person who casually posts that their parents will be out of town for the weekend. Combined with a history of other personal information (neighbourhood or exact address), this creates a situation in which potential predators have information fed to them, sometimes over lengthy periods of trust building. MySpace, in particular, received considerable backlash following high profile cases of predators meeting youth on their site, resulting in regulatory investigation and a movement towards improving safety on their site (Andrews, 2006a, 2006b; Lehman & Lowry, 2007; Newman, 2006). However, does MySpace constitute any more risk than other “spaces” frequented by youth (e.g., parks or recreation centres)? Are the issues it brings up

Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

(sexual coercion and violence) not omnipresent in society (Rickert & Ryan, 2007)? Lost within much of the debate about information and privacy is a discussion of youth agency, and their ability to understand and negotiate the various words and images with which they are inundated. A Pew Internet and American Life report examined strategies used by teens to negotiate and moderate the information they share, including: restricting who can see their full profile and limiting or falsifying the information they include (A. Lenhart & M. Madden, 2007). In recognizing youth’s ability to push these social technologies to their limits, we must also recognize their ability to protect themselves as active agents in the process of constructing these online communities and networks. One example of this was a grassroots petition by users (almost exclusively youth and young adults) to have the social network site Facebook remove from the site a feature that tracked and posted their every move when users logged into their profile (Romano, 2006; Schmidt, 2006; Warren & Vara, 2006). TeenNet has aimed to address these issues by promoting critical appraisal skill development in schools and community programs (Norman & Skinner, 2006b), and also sought to promote active engagement in media development to raise awareness of both the social and health consequences (and potential) of using the Internet for health (Lombardo, Zakus, & Skinner, 2002; Norman, Maley, & Skinner, 2000; Norman & Skinner, 2007). Youth are using these technologies to do more than just entertain themselves; for example, exploring advocacy interests. Organizations ranging from political parties (all 2008 Republican presidential hopefuls) to advocacy organizations (Planned Parenthood) have MySpace profiles. The goal is to attract youth and young membership. Adding an organization to one’s profile or speaking for a cause, while requiring minimal effort in these media, may be telling of lifelong political patterns. Never before have young people had the ability to interact about issues locally and globally

in such an instant and unrestricted way. Yet, while this movement has achieved global engagement of youth, there is relatively little we know in any systematic manner about what happens online, in part because of the ethical issues presented here. TeenNet has attempted to leverage this political potential through providing young people with the technical skills and online space to develop their own platforms and advocacy strategies (Bader et al., 2007; S. Flicker et al., 2004). The Society for Adolescent Health published guidelines to help researchers negotiate through the maze of problems that doing work with young people presents (Santelli et al., 2003; Society for Adolescent Medicine, 2003). The guidelines, published in 2003, resemble many other such documents in that they stress the need to ensure privacy and provide support services to those who require it as a result of research-related intervention. Framed in terms of relative risk, such guidelines make assumptions that the risks are known or even knowable. In online environments that evolve so quickly, this may not be possible as the technology advances far faster than the professional codes of conduct that regulate research on it. What is especially interesting to adolescent health researchers is the “peer-to-peer” element of these sites, providing observers unprecedented insights into the processes of socialization and documentation of the lived experiences of users in real time (Moinian, 2006). Corporations are already mining this data to explore the habits and interests of young people. Should researchers not be monitoring those same discussions for insights into health and risk taking behaviour? However, researchers wishing to meet youth on their own ‘cyber territory’ walk a precarious line. The legal and ethical implications of working with youth around such important health issues as sexuality may serve to silence and restrict both researchers and participants (Curtis & Hunt, 2007; Sarah Flicker & Guta, Under Review), serving neither community.

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Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

Although anyone can troll through online communities for information on individuals, doing so for research purposes changes the way such interactions are viewed. Should researchers be expected to disclose their identities when reading items posted on the Internet? Is this information not in the public domain, and are these not public spaces? In Canada, the Tri-Council statement notes, “due to the need for respect for privacy, even in public places, naturalistic observation raises concerns of the privacy and dignity of those being observed” (Tri-Council of Canada, 1998). The time-tested recruitment strategies of posting an invitation flyer at the local recreation or community centre may be becoming obsolete and irrelevant – with young people more likely to check the “bulletin” board on their own MySpace profile. However, this poses a number of ethical challenges as these publicly accessible boards are now located on ‘private’ personal pages. One example of a recruitment strategy was to use a “pop up” when youth signed onto their accounts to solicit participants (Valkenburg et al., 2006). Is this any different than recruiting through traditional forums, or does recruitment through a young persons’ personal profile represent an invasion of privacy or possible harassment? Should youth expect such intrusions as part of online life? Or are such intrusions expected when such solicitations are commonplace in online marketing, where there is no request made for permission to communicate?

crEatING cONtENt ONLINE: FINDING tHE ‘rIGHt’ MEssaGE IN tHE aGE OF WIKIPEDIa Social networks and peer-to-peer communication tools are part of a larger phenomenon known as Web 2.0 (Wikipedia, 2006b), which describes a class of technologies that facilitate user-created content with little to no technical knowledge required. Unlike static webpages, these new

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technologies, such as blogs (online web logs or diaries) (Wikipedia, 2006a) and wikis (easily customizable webpages) (Wikipedia, 2006c), have gained popularity with youth, with 31 % of teens and 41% of young adults reporting using blogs and other content creation technologies (Lenhart & Fox, 2006; Lenhart, Horrigan, & Fallows, 2004). Although the World Wide Web was considered highly democratic in that anyone with a hosted website could create content online, this option was limited to those who had the technical expertise to program and the requisite financial means. Blogs and wikis have come much closer to realizing this early democratic vision, enabling individuals to create Web content without the need for programming knowledge or the means to own and control webserver space. Rather than passively ‘consuming’ information, this new model establishes users as ‘prosumers’, creators and consumers of knowledge (Wurman, 2001), allowing them to have a greater influence in shaping public discourse than ever before. Although users can create and modify content with relative ease, such dynamic and distributed authorship models pose unique challenges for consumers of this content beyond issues of privacy. While participatory electronic environments facilitate authentic expression, they do not provide safeguards against inaccurate, incomplete or inaccessible posts that may have real consequences for those who choose to use that information to guide health decisions. Approaches to addressing quality in consumer health information fall largely within two major theoretical frameworks: a consequentialist (or moralistic) framework and a deontological (or common morality) framework. The former emphasizes ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ decisions based upon their health consequences, while the latter emphasizes consumer autonomy and the need for consumers to make informed choices based on the information provided (Entwistle, Sheldon, Sowden, & Watt, 2001). These frameworks underlie two approaches to

Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

promoting quality assurance in consumer health information: credentialing and critical appraisal skill development. Third-party credentialing is an informationcentred strategy that typically involves reports from expert reviewers or ‘seals of approval’ to validate information online. For third-party credentialing to be successful, the credentialing process must be legitimate and perceived to have an appropriate pedigree. Seals of approval such as the Health on the Net code (http://www.hon.ch) strive to achieve this (Health on the Net Foundation, 2007). However, for a seal of approval to be effective, it must have public trust and recognition. In the absence of a clearly identifiable, transparent process in place for consumers to see, such seals of approval are unlikely to be effective in reducing information quality perception problems. The most significant challenge facing seals of approval is largely one of volume and the speed of change: there is no reasonable way to rate content sites like wikis where information posted on millions of sites changes without a means of centralized control. Indeed, it is the absence of control over the content that makes this strategy the most problematic in a Web 2.0 environment. The second main approach involves a consumer-centred strategy whereby individuals are taught critical appraisal skills to evaluate information quality on their own. These skills can be taught through specific courses (Sheppard, Charnock, & Gann, 1999), dissemination of professional guidelines (Gustafson et al., 1999; Winker et al., 2000), or providing interactive online evaluation checklists (Youth Voices Research, 2008). This approach typically employs rating tools to emphasize specific criteria that have been identified as the best (or better) practices for online health information. These criteria typically include accuracy, reliability, currency, author affiliation and authority and some design factors in their assessment of a particular website (Kim, Eng, Deering, & Maxfield, 1999).

TeenNet has taken up this second approach to addressing quality in its work and developed a tool and training site for young people to evaluate health information online using criteria developed both from the professional literature and youth-specific criteria developed through a youth working group (Youth Voices Research, 2008). The four areas of concentration are: (1) access – both in absolute terms and in relation to having privacy and comfort to explore social issues (Skinner et al., 2003), (2) credibility and security of the environment; (3) personal fit, such as youth-friendly language and learning style; and (4) interactivity or the ability to engage the material beyond passive consumption. From this work the concept of eHealth literacy and its related measurement tool, the eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS), was first formed (Norman & Skinner, 2006a, 2006b). This meta-literacy reflects the varied skills needed to make sense of health information in a changing context, such as literacy in computers, science, media, information, and health in addition to basic reading and writing skills. What this work suggests is that there is some ethical imperative for health information providers to consider these issues in developing content for youth audiences. Placing content within a context for evaluation becomes more challenging with each evolution of the technologies used to drive Web content. Stability is an attractive feature of most webpages and print media, enabling people to bookmark content to enable contemplation of the quality and relevance of the material in relation to other sources. However, with tools such as wikis (Wikipedia, 2006c) content may change multiple times between viewings and in the case of highly trafficked sites like the user-authored online encyclopaedia Wikipedia (Wikipedia, 2007) this may occur often, particularly on contentious topics. This poses a problem for issues such as health, where the implications for decisions made on inaccurate, misleading or incomplete information are critical (Eysenbach, 2002) and there is no

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Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

explicit ‘owner’ of the information to influence, but rather a conglomeration of independently contributing authors. Although user-created content may be problematic in terms of quality in some cases, there are others where this may be less so. In the case of Wikipedia, there may be some reason to trust the information that is posted on it. In a special report prepared for the journal Nature, the reliability of Wikipedia was compared against the electronic version of Encyclopaedia Britannica and found to be nearly as accurate and complete, but also more current (Giles, 2005). The reason for this success may lie in the way that networks form around a critical mass and the ability of these groups to make informed decisions based on information gleaned from those connections (Ball, 2004). Surowiecki (2004) examined the phenomenon of group-decision making and found that groups tend to make better decisions as a whole than even small clusters of experts working together in decisions based on simple polls or topics where there is a coordinated, decentralized effort. Thus, a site like Wikipedia that has millions of contributors is likely to produce a higher quality product than one that has far fewer contributors. Yet, in areas with less traffic, where relatively few quality electronic resources exist in a format that is relevant to their concerns, this poses a substantial problem because this critical mass is rarely achieved. Web 2.0 technologies introduce challenges to both consequentialist and deontological frameworks for evaluating health information quality. Consequentialist frameworks are unlikely to find wide purchase in an environment where respect for diversity is so widespread and there is a resistance to centralized authority. However, while deontological frameworks recognize different viewpoints, to be effective there must be some common ground or morality in which individual opinion can be built upon. In a globalized world, where technologically amplified diversity comes both from within and beyond the boundaries of

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the community, such common ground may be hard to find or at least to negotiate in diverse Web communities. This reinforces the need to foster an ethic of empowered consumer participation at both the individual and social levels. At the individual level, this includes fostering eHealth literacy skills through education and providing youth with opportunities to exercise choice in making health decisions. At the social level, it means promoting mechanisms to encourage deliberative dialogue among youth in safe, open spaces to develop shared social norms. For health service professionals seeking to use this approach in eHealth promotion or service delivery (e.g., Web-assisted tobacco interventions), user-generated content introduces questions about treatment fidelity and liability. Without controls on information content, adherence to the core ethical principals of nonmaleficence (do no harm) and beneficence (do good) in service delivery become more difficult. One potential option used by services like Wikipedia and You Tube is to have individuals assigned to monitor posted information for adherence to community standards. This system however, is labour intensive and relies heavily on members of the community reporting problems to sufficiently identify problematic content. For health researchers, user-centred social media pose an opportunity to engage the public in health issues, but also surrender much of the control of the message content that is essential in positivist science models. In order to understand how social media like wikis and blogs contribute to the sense making process in health matters, a more developmental, iterative process for researching and evaluating eHealth interventions is required. This means both consideration of more qualitative methodologies for understanding context and adoption of flexible quantitative model development through such processes as developmental evaluation and forms of action research . Although these ethical issues have been identified, there is not yet a body of research that has

Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

looked at how young people make decisions, evaluate information, and manipulate content for health in the new Web 2.0 world. Without this understanding of how young people are using these resources for decision making about health, researchers, practitioners and policy makers alike are limited in their ability to provide practical strategies to best address the ethical challenges that these tools pose and, potentially, to develop helpful options. And those options may themselves inspire users to create new norms.

NEW FrONtIErs: MOvING tHE FIELD FOrWarD There has been much debate over allowing youth to consent to health research. The standard for including adolescents in research remains focused on obtaining consent from the parent(s) or guardian(s) of anyone under the age of 18. Consequently, the literature shows researchers are often hesitant to include adolescents in their studies because of fears associated with navigating ethical review, and in turn, youth are hesitant to seek health service and participate in research when parental permission is require . The underlying assumption is that parents have the ability to understand research and assess harms, over and above that of their adolescent children . Consequently, young people are often excluded from participating in research and initiatives that may serve to improve their lives. However, many of the aforementioned technologies are readily accessible to youth, and provide opportunities to engage in ‘risky’ online behaviour. Over 60% of teens aged 12-16 regularly frequent social networking sites such as MySpace. com, with the majority posting some content on either a daily or weekly basis (A. Lenhart & M. Madden, 2007). What are the ethical issues of not engaging in research to understand how youth use these technologies? Are there strategies that we can employ that balance the need to

protect young people from exploitation through research with the desire to understand what risks and benefits youth experience from using these communication tools? Parents are often unaware of what their children are accessing, except when the consequences become unavoidable; e.g., teens implicated in Web-based terrorist activity, cyber-bullying, and, in extreme cases, meeting with online contacts resulting in kidnap and assault. Can we create ethical frameworks that enhance the opportunity to promote health, while respecting the rights and freedoms of youth to self-expression and experimentation in a dynamic environment? We have moved from an environment where adults hosted websites (created the playground) and were in a position to dictate the rules, to a generation of young people creating their own online spaces. Here the rules are ever changing. To understand these rules and their implications, TeenNet has viewed youth engagement within a latticework of personal and social contexts of which information technology is but one environment of interaction . This process is about fostering youth engagement in not just creating the tools, but also in developing frameworks for understanding how to research these tools, their use, and their social impact. While ethical frameworks are important, so is the related technoethics research. For a phenomenon that is so popular, global and pervasive, we know relatively little about how people interact, how they make decisions, what information they use to inform their actions, and what the influence these spaces have on action. It is perhaps ironic that the solution to developing ethical guidelines for research is research on technoethics, symbolizing the paradox that has become the modern information landscape.

acKNOWLEDGMENt We want to credit Harvey Skinner, our mentor and the founder of the TeenNet Research group, for his

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Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

leadership in this area. In addition, we recognize the entire team of TeenNet staff and investigators who contributed to the rich intellectual environment that prompted these discussions and debates. Finally, we are indebted to David Flicker for his editorial genius.

rEFErENcEs Al-Ghorairi, M. (2005). The rise of social software: What makes software “social”? Oxford Brookes University. Andrews, M. (2006a). Decoding MySpace. U.S.News & World Report, 141(10), 46-58. Andrews, M. (2006b). Make it predator-proof. U.S.News & World Report, 141(10), 52. Bader, R., Wanono, R., Hamden, S., & Skinner, H. A. (2007). Global youth voices: Engaging Bedouin youth in health promotion in the Middle East. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 98(1), 21-25. Ball, P. (2004). Critical mass: How one thing leads to another. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Blum, R. W. (1998). Healthy youth development as a model for youth health promotion: A review. Journal of Adolescent Health, 22, 368-375. Boyle, T. (2007). Pupils punished over Facebook comments: Five Grade 8ers bumped from end-ofyear trip after ridiculing their teachers. Toronto Star. Camino, L. A. (2000). Youth-adult partnerships: Entering new territory in community work and research. Applied Developmental Science, 4(Supplement 1), 11-20. Chaker, A. M. (2007). Schools act to short-circuit spread of ‘cyberbullying’. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), D1, D4.

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Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness. New York: Continuum Publishing. Gardner, M. L. S. (2005). Peer influence on risk taking, risk preference, and risky decision making in adolescence and adulthood: An experimental study. Developmental Psychology, 41(4), 625635. Giles, J. (2005). Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature, 438, 900-901. Ginwright, S., & James, T. (2002). From assets to agents of change: social justice, organizing, and youth development. New Directions for Youth Development, 96, 27-46. Gustafson, D. H., Hawkins, R., Boberg, E. W., Pingree, S., Serlin, R. E., Graziano, F., et al. (1999). Impact of a patient-centered computer-based health information/support system. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 16(1), 1-9. Health on the Net Foundation. (2007). Home page. Retrieved May 4, 2007, from http://www. hon.ch Hillier, L., & Harrison, L. (2007). Building realities less limited than their own: Young people practising same-sex attraction on the internet. Sexualities, 10(1), 82-100. Holloway, S. L., & Valentine, G. (2003). Cyberkids: Children in the information age. London: RoutledgeFarmer.

Kovach, G. C., & Campo-Flores, A. (2007). The trail of cheers. Newsweek, 149(3), 17. Lehman, P., & Lowry, T. (2007). The marshal of Myspace; How Hemanshu Nigam is trying to keep the site’s ‘friends’ safe from predators and bullies. Business week (4031), 86. Lenhart, A., & Fox, S. (2006). Bloggers: A portrait of the Internet’s new storytellers. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project. Lenhart, A., Horrigan, J. B., & Fallows, D. (2004). Content creation online. Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project. Lenhart, A., Horrigan, J. B., Rainie, L., Allen, K., Boyce, A., Madden, M., et al. (2003). The evershifting Internet population: A new look at Internet access and the digital divide. Washington, DC: The PEW Internet & American Life Project. Lenhart, A., & Madden, M. (2007). Social networking websites and teens: An overview. Washington, DC: PEW Internet and American Life Project. Lenhart, A., & Madden, M. (2007). Teens, privacy & online social networks: How teens manage their online identities and personal information in the age of MySpace. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project.



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Lenhart, A., Madden, M., & Hitlin, P. (2005). Teens and technology: Youth are leading the transition to a fully wired and mobile nation. Washington, DC: PEW Internet and American Life Project. Lombardo, C., Zakus, D., & Skinner, H. A. (2002). Youth social action: Building a latticework through information and communication technologies. Health Promotion International, 17(4), 363-371. Miller, C. (2006a). Cyber Harassment: Its Forms and Perpetrators. Law Enforcement Technology, 33(4), 26, 28 - 30. Miller, C. (2006b). Cyber stalking & bullying: What law enforcement needs to know. Law Enforcement Technology, 33(4), 18, 20-22, 24. Ministry of Education. (2007). McGuinty government doing more to make schools safer [Electronic Version]. Retrieved June 2, 2007 from http://ogov. newswire.ca Mitchell, K. J., Wolak, J., & Finkelhor, D. (2007). Trends in youth reports of sexual solicitations, harassment and unwanted exposure to pornography on the Internet. Journal of Adolescent Health, 40(2), 116-126. Moinian, F. (2006). The construction of identity on the Internet: Oops! I’ve left my diary open to the whole world! Childhood, 13(1), 49-68. Montgomery, K. C. (2007). Generation digital: Politics, commerce, and childhood in the age of the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Narcissistic, but in a good way. (2007). 199864 (983), 6-6. National Cancer Institute. (2000). Researchbased web design usability guidelines. Retrieved 06/02/2004, 2004, from http://www.usability. gov/guidelines/index.html Newman, M. (2006). Internet site hires official to oversee users’ safety. The New York Times, C3(L).



Norman, C. D., Maley, O., Li, X., & Skinner, H. A. (in press). Using the Internet to initiate and assist smoking prevention and cessation in schools: A randomized controlled trial. Health Psychology. Norman, C. D., Maley, O., & Skinner, H. A. (2000). CyberIsle: Using information technology to promote health in youth. CyberMed Catalyst, 1(2). Norman, C. D., & Skinner, H. A. (2006a). eHEALS: The eHealth Literacy Scale. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 4, e27. Norman, C. D., & Skinner, H. A. (2006b). eHealth literacy: Essential skills for consumer health in a networked world. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 8(2), e9. Norman, C. D., & Skinner, H. A. (in press). Engaging youth in eHealth promotion: Lessons learned from a decade of TeenNet Research. Adolescent Medicine: State of the Art Reviews, 18(2), 357-369. Pack, T. (2006). Keeping cyberteens safe. Information Today, 23(4), 37-39. Peter, J., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2006). Adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit online material and recreational attitudes toward sex. Journal of Communication, 56(4), 639-660. Rickert, V. I., & Ryan, O. (2007). Is the Internet the source? Journal of Adolescent Health, 40(2), 104-105. Ridgley, A., Maley, O., & Skinner, H. A. (2004). Youth voices: Engaging youth in health promotion using media technologies. Canadian Issues, Fall 2004, 21-24. Romano, A. (2006). Facebook’s ‘news feed’: [International Edition]. Newsweek, International ed. Rubin, G. (2005). Cyber bullying. The Times Educational Supplement, F11.

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Trotter, A. (2006). Social-networking web sites pose growing challenge for educators. Education Week, 25(23), 8-9. Twenge, J. M. (2001). Birth cohort changes in extraversion: A cross-temporal meta-analysis, 1966-1993. Personality and Individual Differences, 30(5), 735-748. Twenge, J. M. (2006). Generation me : Why today’s young Americans are more confident, assertive, entitled-and more miserable than ever before. New York: Free Press. United States Department of Health and Human Services. (2005). Code of Federal Regulations. Title 45: Public Welfare -- Part 46: Protection of Human Subjects. www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.htm Valkenburg, P. M., Jochen, P., & Schouten, A. P. (2006). Friend networking sites and their relationship to adolescents‘ well-being and social self-esteem. CyberPsychology & Behaviour, 9(5), 584-590. Warren, J., & Vara, V. (2006). New Facebook features have members in an uproar. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), B1-35. Wikipedia. (2006a). blog. Retrieved 23 Sept, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog Wikipedia. (2006b). Web 2.0. Retrieved 23 Sept, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2 Wikipedia. (2006c). wiki. Retrieved 23 Sept, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki Wikipedia. (2007). Wikipedia home page. Retrieved 3 May, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia. org Winker, M. A., Flanagin, A., Chi-Lum, B., White, J., Andrews, K., Kennett, R. L., et al. (2000). Guidelines for medical and health information sites on the internet: principles governing AMA web sites. American Medical Association. JAMA, 283(12), 1600-1606.



Wurman, R. S. (2001). Information Anxiety 2. Indianapolis, IN: QUE. Youth Voices Research. (2007). Cyberhealthliteracy home page. Retrieved July 2008, from http://www.ehealthliteracy.ca Zeldin, S. (2004). Youth as agents of adult and community development: Mapping the process and outcomes of youth engaged in organizational governance. Applied Developmental Science, 8(2), 75-90. Zeldin, S., Camino, L. A., & Mook, C. (2005). The adoption of innovation in youth organizations: Creating the conditions for youth-adult partnerships. Journal of Community Psychology, 33(1), 121-135.

KEY tErMs Critical Appraisal: Can be understood as the ability to filter and decipher evidence which is presented, and evaluate it for its merits and limitations. Youth accessing information technologies and social technologies may not have developed and refined these skills, and therefore uptake incorrect information and/or may not know how to effectively use correct information. Cyber-Bullying: Is a growing phenomena in which youth, but also adults, use information technology to harass others. This can take seemingly endless forms, and often maximize the potential of many applications; including posting hurtful comments about other people on one’s own site, about them on their site, hacking into and altering their personal profile, sending insulting text messages to mobile devices, and even filming embarrassing and/or illegal actions and uploading them onto the web. eHealth (electronic health): Can be understood as the host of emerging information technologies related to accessing and/or exchanging health

Engaging Youth in Health Promotion Using Multimedia Technologies

information; be it within formal health systems (transferring patient records within a hospital), or between independent users (exchanging treatment information through an on-line support group). Mining (or data mining): Can be understood as the collection and analysis of information accessed and shared on the web. This can take the form of tracking how many people clicked on a certain web site, or searching for how many people list a certain musician in their individual profile. This information is often collected, without users’ knowledge, and sold to marketing firms. Privacy Paradox: Is a consequence of the competing demand to use information technologies (including social technology and social software) and have an on-line persona, which simultaneously having to guard against potential threats to personal safety and privacy resulting from the misuse of available information. Prosumers: Are individuals who actively engage in accessing, viewing and creating content on the web. This is an important shift from the passive consumer who simply views content, as is a limitation of other mediums. Social Software: Can be understood as the growing number of applications which run on computers and portable devices, allowing users

to access and connect to individuals or networks of people. Examples of these (as discussed in the chapter) include Friendster, Facebook and Myspace, and can be connected to other services such as YouTube Social Technology: Can be understood as the physical hardware (cell phones, iPod’s, high speed data servers) on which networking software is supported. In many cases, these are small and highly portable devices which are themselves connected to powerful wireless networks. Web 2.0: Can be used to describe the numerous interactive applications which have been developed to provide individuals with greater access and control in web based environments towards greater collaboration and information/resource sharing; these include social networking sites like Facebook, as well as information resources like wikipedia. Youth Agency: Can be understood as youth actively engaging with systems, institutions, and technologies towards finding space for expression and resilience. Youth are often constructed as passive in debates about the use and abuse of technology, despite their demonstrated desire to participate in its development and evolution.





Chapter XXI

Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk Samantha Mei-che Pang Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Helen Yue-lai Chan Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

abstract In Hong Kong, end-of-life practice ideally adheres to values that include respect for the patient’s selfdetermination and an understanding shared by and consented to by the patient, the family and the healthcare team. However, consensus about end-of-life care is seldom reached within this trio before the patient become critically ill or mentally incompetent. This chapter examines the customary belief, protectiveness in medical care, which hinders Chinese patients and families in their discussion of lifesustaining treatment; challenges the practice in question; and discusses the possibility of engaging frail nursing home residents in dialogue by using the “Let Me Talk” advance care planning program.

MaKING trEatMENt DEcIsIONs at tHE END OF LIFE Medical technology has a powerful allure, yet there is distorted clinical evidence concerning its relevance for end-of-life care. As imminent death approaches, the clinical attractions of advanced technology lose their charm. Examples include the once routine practice of resuscitation of patients regardless of disease severity and prognosis, the institution of mechanical ventilation for patients

with advanced and progressive chronic respiratory disease, and the provision of artificial feeding for patients in persistent vegetative state or with advanced dementia. Arguably these treatments have questionable utility because of predicted improbable outcomes, improbable success, and unacceptable benefit-burden ratios (Beauchamp & Childress, 2001). Post-resuscitation studies have shown that the survival to discharge rate of adult resuscitation was 14.6%, the rate decreased if associated with

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Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk

sepsis, malignancy, dementia, coronary artery disease and physical dependence (Ebell, Becker, Barry & Hagen, 1998). In addition, neurological and other sequelae are often found among survivors after prolonged resuscitation. Finucane and associates (1999) conducted a systematic review of tube feeding in the care of patients with advanced dementia and found little evidentiary basis for the practice. Instead of preventing suffering, instituting tube feeding can cause more suffering, such as problems with diarrhoea, clogging of tubes, and the tendency of patients with dementia to pull out tubes with consequential physical restraint. The complexity of making life-sustaining treatment (LST) decisions can be characterized by competing views regarding prognostication and clinical outcomes in the context of the varying personal, professional, legal and ethical responsibilities of decision makers. Over the past few decades, several broad areas of legal consensus surrounding the withholding and withdrawal of LST at the end of life have emerged in European and North American countries, as well as Hong Kong. First, LST refers to all treatments which have the potential to postpone the patient’s death, and includes, for example, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, artificial ventilation, specialized treatment for particular conditions such as chemotherapy and dialysis, antibiotics when given for a potentially life-threatening infection, and artificial nutrition and hydration. Second, there is no ethically important distinction between withholding and withdrawing LST. Third, the patient’s preference should be taken into account when such decisions are made. Fourth, a surrogate can make end-of-life decisions for mentally incapacitated patients. Such decisions are based on the surrogate’s perceptions of the patient’s previous wishes or the patient’s best interests (Hospital Authority Hong Kong, 2002). Overarching the broad areas of consensus is the patient’s right to decide. Often such decisions are made when the patient becomes imminently terminal, but are implemented, regardless of men-

tal capacity, at a later moment of life. The verbal or written advance directive of the patient, stating a preference for treatment limitation, should be respected (Law Reform Commission Hong Kong, 2006). In situations where the patient’s preference is not known, a surrogate can make decisions based on the perceived best interests for the patient. The surrogate can be a family member of the patient or a legal guardian (Hospital Authority Hong Kong, 2002). To facilitate better decision making, professional guidelines for informing local practice have been formulated. It is noteworthy that different places vary in their interpretations. Examples are the legal rights of next of kin when consenting to or refusing treatment. In the U.S., the consent of the next of kin is required (Pang, Volicer & Leung, 2005c), while the next of kin’s consent is regarded as important but not determinative in Hong Kong, where physicians and legal guardians bear responsibility for the decision. In accordance with Hong Kong Hospital Authority guidelines on life-sustaining treatment for the terminally ill (2002), it is ethically and legally acceptable to withhold or withdraw LST when (a) a mentally competent and properly informed patient refuses LST, and/or (b) the treatment is futile. The decision-making process, except when the treatment is physiologically futile and thus not an option, should basically be a consensus-building process among the healthcare team, the patient and the family. However, it is doubtful to what extent these good practice guidelines, which uphold the patient’s right to self-determination and shared decision-making between the patient and clinician with family involvement, are articulated in actual practice. Most patients often become too ill to take part in the decision making, or that doctors solicit family members’ support without involving patients in conversations about end-of-life treatment options. In both situations, the patients’ right to self-determination is undermined and their wishes are not well presented in the deci-



Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk

sion-making process, except in rare cases where patients have had prior discussion with family members about their LST preferences. One might ethically justify such a practice by making reference to some common beliefs that Chinese people place higher value on family-determination than on self-determination (Pang, 1999). However, opinion survey findings on Hong Kong people’s attitude towards advance directives reveal that the majority of Hong Kong people favor stating their own LST preference in an advance directive (Pang et al., 2006). In this regard, how to respect the patient’s right to selfdetermination in LST decision making invites further inquiry into the practice in question if Hong Kong society takes the value of autonomy in medical care seriously. In order to explore problems surrounding the discussion of end-of-life care with Chinese patients and their families, this chapter has three sections. The first section examines the customary beliefs of protectiveness in medical care that prevent both healthcare professionals and patient families from involving patients in making LST decisions. The second section challenges the validity of these beliefs by using local evidence drawn from patients themselves. The third section discusses how patients’ LST preferences can be communicated to family members and/or healthcare professionals through the “Let Me Talk” advance care planning (ACP) program.

PrOtEctIvENEss IN MEDIcaL carE The Chinese doctrine of protectiveness in medical care comprises two major concerns: trying one’s best to protect life, and protecting the patient from harm. Both beliefs caution against forgoing LST and involving patients in treatment-limiting decision making. What follows is an exposition of this protective doctrine in the light of Chinese medical ethics tradition. The information is pri-



marily drawn from the first author’s book, Nursing Ethics in Modern China (Pang, 2003). In line with the Hippocratic medical tradition, respect for life is highly valued in traditional Chinese medical ethics, as explained in Sun Simiao (AD 581? – 682)’s treatise entitled On the Absolute Sincerity of Great Physicians. A physician is obliged to “commit himself firmly to the willingness to take the effort to save every living creature”. He should “protect life and have compassion for it” even at his own expense. To this end, Sun mandated that a great physician should possess “absolute sincerity”. Gan Zuwang (1995) suggested that “absolute sincerity” connoted the two core virtues and five criteria for ethical practice. The two core virtues are jing in technical competence and cheng in relation to patients. The five criteria for ethical practice are (1) to demonstrate understanding of the patients under their care, and be compassionate with regard to the patients’ suffering, (2) to master the necessary skills for treating patients, so as to help them recover from illness, (3) to have a high sense of responsibility, (4) to treat all patients equally, and (5) not to emphasize one’s reputation and praise only one’s own virtue (Gan, 1995). To maintain jing, or refinement in practice, medical practitioners are required to devote themselves to medicine and be diligent in work and study. They need to constantly update their knowledge and refine their skills. The common English translation of the word cheng is sincerity (Legge, 1971; Unschuld, 1979). The meaning of cheng as embedded in the Chinese cultural context may be commensurate with the meaning of sincerity, but it is not identical. While sincerity means freedom from deceit or falseness, honesty, trustworthiness, and truthfulness, the character cheng is made up of two Chinese words, one meaning “speech, talk, or words”, and the other meaning “finish, complete, or accomplish”. The meaning of cheng can be illustrated by a Chinese saying, which reads, “What is said must be done,

Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk

and what is done must be brought to fruition”. This notion of cheng has a strong moral connotation—not only should people keep their word and demonstrate good intention in their deeds, but it is a fundamental principle which should guide all human actions. As the Doctrine of the Mean explains: Sincerity [cheng] is that whereby self-completion is effected, and its way is that by which man must direct himself. Sincerity is the end and beginning of things, without sincerity there would be nothing. On this account, the superior man regards the attainment of sincerity as the most excellent thing. The possessor of sincerity does not merely accomplish the self-completion of himself. With this quality he completes other men and things also. The completing himself shows his perfect virtue. The completing other men and things shows his knowledge. Both these are virtues belonging to nature, and this is the way by which a union is effected of the external and internal. Therefore, whenever he—the entirely sincere man—employs them,—that is, these virtues,—their action will be right. (Legge, 1971, pp. 418-419) A person who possesses the virtue of cheng understands the nature of things, self, and other people. This enables the person to see into others, to foresee the good and the evil in things, and to acquire the right ways in relating to others. In this regard, the healthcare worker who possesses “absolute sincerity” places patients deep in mind as if they were family members. This is represented in the popular Chinese saying, “a person who professes medicine should have a father’s and a mother’s heart”. This point is missed in Unschuld’s translation of Sun Simiao’s treatise. He translated the sentence as “he should always act as if he were thinking of himself” (Unschuld, 1979, p.30). The correct translation is “he should always act as if he were thinking of his significant others” (Gan, 1995, p. 313).

This moral imperative of respect for life and treating patients with parental love is further elaborated with a sense of urgency, as if one were rescuing someone from a deadly crisis. Lu Chih’s (754–805 AD) treatise on medical ethics maintains that: When someone suffers from a disease and seeks a cure, this is no less crucial than if someone facing death by fire or by drowning calls for help. Physicians are advised to practice humaneness and compassion. Without dwelling on [externals such as] tresses and a cap that fits, they have to hasten to the relief of him [who asks for it]. This is the proper thing to do. Otherwise accidents such as burning or drowning take place. (Unschuld, 1979, p.35). It is noteworthy that “Rescue the dying and heal the wounded” and “Treat the patient as your family member” are upheld as ethical mandates for healthcare professionals in China today (Pang, 2003). Medical practices such as forgoing LST that go against the mandate of life preservation are thus denounced as misconduct. The second concern of protectiveness holds that the psychological link between the patient and his or her disease is so significant that patients should be protected from all unpleasant stimuli that might retard the healing process. The duty of healthcare professionals is to mobilize all the strengths of the patient to fight the disease—including helping the patient develop a positive outlook (Qiu, 1982). Maintaining patients’ confidence in therapeutic regimens and hope in recovery is one of the most important ethical obligations for healthcare professionals. They would find themselves at risk of committing an insincere act if a patient were to lose hope and confidence after making an informed decision on LST limitation. As far as nursing is concerned, protective care has been practiced since its early development in China. In Yao Changxu’s list of role requirements for nurses (1939), she put much emphasis on the



Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk

nurse’s duty to protect the patient from harmful effects by all means, including protecting the patient from unpleasant messages, and using kind words to cultivate hope of recovery. Under the doctrine of protectiveness, where healthcare professionals are expected to protect life at all costs and to protect the patient from loss of hope in recovery, it is not surprising that healthcare professionals prefer to solicit patients’ families’ views and vice versa rather than talking directly to the patient should LST-limiting decisions need to be made in the reality of the clinical situation. Furthermore, in the Chinese ethical tradition, healthcare professionals have a moral obligation to treat patients with cheng. Cheng is regarded as both a cardinal virtue to be cultivated and the guiding principle among healthcare professionals. This notion of cheng in the customary medical practice carries a strong sense of parental protectiveness. Healthcare professionals are expected to act as if they were patients’ family members, protecting patients from harm, and bearing the patients’ burdens of illness, to the extent of making medical decisions on behalf of the patient without the patient’s knowledge, as illustrated by Huai Yuan’s writing in his A Thorough Understanding of Medicine in Ancient and Modern Times: Medicine is applied humaneness. To see other people suffer rouses compassion and pity within myself. When the ailing themselves cannot make any decisions, I will make them in their place. I always put myself in their place. (Unschuld, 1979, p.102). We contend that this customary practice of parental protectiveness to the exclusion of the patient in making his/her own treatment decisions actually deviates from the authentic meaning of cheng as expounded in the Doctrine of the Mean. As the fundamental principle in relating to others, a person who acts with cheng has to understand self, things and others. How can a person assume

0

understanding of what is best for the person without directly communicating with the person concerned regarding his or her thinking?

PrOtEctIvE MEDIcaL carE IN qUEstION Many would agree that the primary concerns in end-of-life care are shifted from life preservation to symptom control, alleviation of suffering and optimization of a caring environment for preparing patients for a dignified and peaceful closure of life. Medical technology that sustains life, or, negatively framed, prolongs dying, would not match the goals of care. However, this shift in goal of care does not happen spontaneously. The findings of two prospective case studies on the decision-making patterns of forgoing tube feeding for patients with advanced dementia and their emergent ethical dilemmas typified in Boston and Hong Kong reveal that only when a paradigm shift of the values underpinning medical practice has occurred will forgoing tube feeding in the context of palliative care be considered ethically acceptable. This shift in goal of care can only happen by actively involving the patients and their families in advance care planning (Pang, Volicer & Leung, 2005c). However, as expounded earlier, with protectiveness as the predominant value underpinning medical practice, open conversation within the patient-family-healthcare professional trio is unlikely to occur. Avoiding LST discussion with patients does not necessarily mean that they are unaware of their condition. Studies suggested that many patients have tacit understanding of their prognosis and are able to come to terms with their impending death (Pang, Leung, Pang & Shi, 2005b). On the other hand, the avoidance of open communication on the part of family members might lead to unwarranted assumptions of what would be in the patient’s best interests, with tragic endings. Failing openly to acknowledge patients’ concerns and needs might

Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk

lead to wrongful acts, which could bring harm to patients as well as their families, as illustrated in the following high-profile case. In 2004, two adult daughters were prosecuted for murdering their father in Hong Kong because they removed the breathing tube from their dying father without prior discussion with the attending physician in a private hospital. The 84-year-old man was unconscious as a result of recurrent stroke and required mechanical ventilation. After several court hearings, the Department of Justice dropped the charges against the accused because there was insufficient evidence to show that their father’s death was related to the withdrawal of life support. The case sparked wide public debate on the moral cause of the two adult daughters and whether their behavior strayed from the filial devotion due to their parent. Some held the view that the two daughters’ act was justifiable because it alleviated the dying father’s suffering, and some held that such an act should never be performed to one’s parent by a filial child. This case could have been better settled for the good of the family if there had been prior LST discussion between the father, his children and the attending physician, with the LST-limiting decision made in accordance to the professional guidelines (Hospital Authority Hong Kong, 2002). Three questions remain: is it possible to engage patients in LST discussions, when is it best to start this sensitive and value-laden decision-making process, and how can an environment for fostering a decision-making process that can best represent the patient’s values, wishes and preferences in endof-life care be provided?

Is It POssIbLE tO ENGaGE PatIENts IN INFOrMED Lst DEcIsIONs? To answer whether a conspiracy of silence is in the best interests of the patient and whether engaging patients in LST decision making would

be beneficial, our research team conducted an ethnographic study which examined the treatment-limiting decision-making pattern of 49 hospitalized patients with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in the unpredictable but progressive dying trajectory through a 1-year documentary review. Nineteen of them were followed up in subsequent longitudinal case studies to understand their experiences, concerns and values pertinent to LST decision making and thereafter (Pang et al., 2004). Having lived with the disease for years, coupled with recurrent exacerbations, its debilitating and possibly life-threatening nature was undeniable among the patients. Many of them had witnessed the death and dying of other patients, noticed the worsening of their illness and had near death experiences themselves, so they were aware that their life would come to an end in the near future. Death was less a taboo than a reality to them. Hence, some of them took a more proactive stance in making explicit their LST preferences to their family and healthcare team. We also noted that although some patients did not initiate the treatment-limiting discussion themselves, they had already formed their views on LST before their physicians discussed the matter with them. LST discussions with them were conducted in an open, spontaneous, relaxed and positive atmosphere. This echoes an earlier empirical study that had nurses share their care experiences (Pang, 1999). It was reported that disclosing the terminal diagnosis to patients helped them to comply with their therapeutic regimen, alleviated their psychological burden, and prepared them for the impending death. Our ethnographic study also revealed that the deep-seated deviation in the understanding of protectiveness had prevented patients from receiving adequate pain medication and acquiring knowledge about the alternatives to LST, and resulted in neglect of their major concerns in the last phase of life. The insufficient LST discussion largely explained the misunderstandings



Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk

and difficulties involved in delivering the best possible end-of-life care in accordance with the patient’s wishes. In this regard, we developed an instrument – Quality-of-life Concerns in the End of Life Questionnaire (QOLC-E) – to assist healthcare professionals in identifying their needs and concerns (Pang et al., 2005a). Older people are often viewed as another vulnerable group that cannot bear the emotions entailed in LST discussion. In contrast, Hui and her associates (1997) suggested that most of them wanted to be involved in the LST decision making and to decide for themselves. The discrepancy between the traditional view and the survey result sparked our interest in expanding the focus to the older population. We wanted to examine the possibility of initiating LST discussion with older people, and also find out if the discussion could take place at an earlier time, before they become critically ill. Grounded on these inquiries, we conducted a survey study with nearly 300 elderly residents from ten nursing homes. Although some of them burst into tears when sharing their experiences and concerns during the interviews, they appreciated it as an opportunity to share their thoughts and vent their feelings. Overall, no undesirable emotional reaction was reported. A considerable proportion of them were able to articulate their LST preferences and wanted to be involved in the medical decision-making process (Chan & Pang, 2007). Contrary to the customary belief that life should be saved at all costs, our study showed that most of the respondents preferred that the goal of care be shifted to maintaining comfort rather than extending life through LST if they were critically ill with a grim prognosis. Death was accepted by them as inevitable and not far away, and having an unburdened death seemed preferable to them. Chinese society has long been regarded as a familial society in which family sovereignty is extended to the area of medical decision making,



but the family was the least preferred party in LST decision making among our sample (Chan & Pang, 2007). One possible reason is that the older people supposed that their family might request LST to prolong their life unnecessarily. Otherwise, the connection between the older people and their families might be weaker since they moved into the nursing homes. A considerable number of them regarded themselves as playing the most crucial role in the LST decision-making process even though their LST preferences were seldom elicited in the current practice. Most respondents wanted the physician to be involved in the medical decision making, due to their clinical knowledge and expertise. Their decisions were also considered to be the most important by nearly half of the respondents. This demonstrated their trust in the healthcare team. We can conclude that open discussion of LST and death and dying did not bring about emotional distress in the patients and older people as was traditionally perceived; indeed they wanted to have a voice in their LST decision-making process. The question raised is how to enhance their participation in the medical decision-making process, taking into account the complexity of their relationship with the family and healthcare team in the context of the protective medical care culture? We therefore suggest that ACP would be instrumental in enabling patients to articulate their LST preferences and the underlying values, and in encouraging communication among the patient, family and healthcare professional at an earlier time. The following section is based on a feasibility study of an ACP program entitled “Let Me Talk” among 50 nursing home residents aged 65 or above, partially dependent in the instrumental activities of daily living and with at least one moderately to severely impairing health problem. The program was conducted between June 2006 and January 2007.

Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk

LEt ME taLK: aN acP PrOGraM FOr cHINEsE FraIL NUrsING HOME rEsIDENts The “Let Me Talk” ACP program aims to elicit the LST preferences of frail nursing home residents and their underlying personal values. Its design was grounded on the literature review and experience gained in the survey study mentioned previously (Chan & Pang, 2007). The implicit mode of communication prevailing in the Chinese culture urges the need for an intermediary to clarify older peoples’ attitudes toward death and dying and to bridge the communication gap between them and their families. In view of the difficulties ensuing from open discussion of a potentially taboo topic, nurse who equipped with medical information and communication skills is in an ideal position to provide support to older people and their families. Nurse can be a vehicle leading them to break from the traditional customary beliefs by initiating and intermediate the LST discussion. The relationship between the nurse and the participant was the cornerstone for in-depth communication of these subjects. A good nursepatient relationship is half of the success. In line with the theme of understanding the patient, the program did not move straight to LST discussion, but first let the nurse gain a brief understanding of the older person’s background and illness experiences. The whole program had four themes: Life Stories, Illness Narratives, Life Views and End-of-life Care Preferences. The themes were introduced on an individual basis over several encounters. A storytelling approach was used to thread their thoughts around the themes. In the Life Stories part, participants were invited to share their most memorable life experiences. The inclusion of a reminiscence activity into the ACP was intended to enhance the nurses’ understanding of the older persons and facilitate their exploration of the values underlying their LST preferences. One assumption was that

personal values can be reflected from particular events or persons that are held to be important. Looking back on one’s own life is one of the common themes among older people when they discuss end-of-life issues. Stories recounting the impact of medical disorders or disability on them were categorized under the Illness Narratives theme. The objective of this theme was to explore their understanding of the illness, how they had lived with the illness and what they had learnt from these experiences. Healthcare expectations, embedded in these stories, also helped to explain their personal beliefs. These would be a useful guide for the family and caregivers in seeking to understand the underlying reasons for certain behaviors, such as the reasons for non-compliance with medication or the use of complementary therapies. Drawing on their life and illness experiences, the nurse elicited their views of life. Evaluation of one’s own life, attitude towards death and dying, influence of religious beliefs and final wishes were the foci of the conversations. After several encounters, the nurse was able to explore the participants’ concerns and worries and assess their readiness to talk about death-related issues. Participants who were ready to discuss their end-of-life care were invited to talk about their funeral preparation, LST preferences and identification of proxies. During the conversation, the nurse observed the older person’s interest and understanding in the topic, and shaped the focus of the discussion accordingly. For instance, after eliciting the general views toward LST and reasons for their preferences, if the participant did not find the topic uncomfortable, the nurse then introduced a more specific scenario for detailed discussion. The nurse would spend more time discussing mechanical ventilation if the participant was already suffering from respiratory problems. To conclude each conversation, the nurse edited a personal “Let Me Talk” booklet summarizing the participant’s life story and documenting their



Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk

healthcare concerns and their LST preferences. The participants could add in any information they wished to include, or remove information if they felt uncomfortable showing it to others; the participant was considered to be the author with the final say in content and design. The booklet was read out to the participant for verification if they were illiterate, to ensure their involvement. As individuals may be afraid to initiate LST discussion with their loved ones, thus the booklet served as a means of communication between the participant and their family or caregivers. In due course, invitation letters were issued to their families asking them to join a family conference. Among the 50 participants, 31 had made their LST preferences explicit in the booklet. Five wished to be given a trial of LST, while 26 did not wish to receive any kind of treatment to sustain their lives in the event of critical illness. Reasons for wishing to receive LST were mainly that they believed that one should try when there is a chance, but most of those who did not wish to receive LST believed they were old enough and did not want their lives be extended through artificial means. Three participants who were able to articulate their LST preferences had invited their family members or close friends to join in the family conference to discuss their preferences. Most of them found the discussion fruitful in terms of facilitating mutual understanding. Another six participants said they were interested in letting their family read the booklets but failed to invite them to the family conference. The quality of communication between these participants and their families could not therefore be monitored. Seven participants were indecisive about their preferences and wanted to rely on either their family or their physician in medical decisions. Eleven participants had no prior thoughts of their LST preferences should they become critically ill. Only one participant was uncomfortable with talking about death and dying, and declined the discussion.



DIscUssION This study has demonstrated that engaging frail nursing home residents in end-of-life care discussion is plausible. The essence of the process lies in the trusting relationships between the nurse and the residents. In developing the close relationship, it is important for the nurse to act as an active listener. The nursing home residents seldom had the chance to vent their innermost feelings and concerns because of the customary notion of protectiveness. To the contrary, they were encouraged to voice out their particular concerns and thoughts in the Let Me Talk program. The nurse got to know the participants through listening to their life stories and sharing. We started the ACP program by introducing the topic, giving information, followed by eliciting the LST preference, tailoring the modality of planning and recording the wishes. During the process, the nurse assessed their readiness to be involved with the LST decision making. Nursing home residents with deficient medical knowledge were often at a disadvantaged position in ascertaining their treatment preferences. The nurse provided them with information in simple language, and clarified any misunderstanding if necessary, to assist them in making choices. If the nurse noticed that the participant was not able to comprehend the sophisticated advanced medical technology, she then shifted the emphasis to the generic goal of end-of-life care rather than specific treatment choices. The merit of this type of facilitated discussion is that the process is flexible enough to accommodate individual deliberation and needs. Participants who were more certain about their care preferences are encouraged to make explicit their wishes to their family members. In the care conference, the nurse facilitated the communication so that the participants and family members were able to share their thoughts openly.

Ethical Challenges of Engaging Chinese in End-of-Life Talk

However, not all people are able to envisage the end of life situation and some may not be prepared for the discussion, thus they may like the care decision to be left to the healthcare team or family. Delegation of the decision right is an individual choice which should also be honored. The nurse’s role in the discussion here is to assist the participants in identifying and preparing a surrogate to face the anticipated situation. They can talk about their values within a broader context which helps to shape their preferred goal of endof-life care rather than specific LST preferences. It is believed that prior discussion can relieve the family stress and increase their confidence in exercising the substituted decision making. The underpinning concept of advance care planning is to assist the nursing home residents to exercise their right to self-determination in healthcare decision as proposed by Gadow (1980) in the theory of existential advocacy. Yet, the idea may not necessarily be accepted universally. Thus, the nurse had paid attention to her way of phrasing and presenting the information in the planning process to avoid they have been influenced by her own thoughts, attitudes and prejudices. The participants’ rights were retained as can be seen that some participants had withdrew from the discussion rather than being forced to join in if they found it uncomfortable and some other participants could still opt for the use of LST as they preferred in the planning process.

FUtUrE trENDs Given the difficulty of predicting the trajectory of chronic illness as well as defining medical futility in the era of technological advances, discussion of LST preferences with the patient is of paramount importance. Since previous studies have unmasked that most local patients and older people have forethoughts about their future care and wish to be informed and to participate in their medical de-

cision, a “Let Me Talk” advance care planning program was designed. It was found to be well received by most of the residents in the nursing homes. The nurse played a crucial role in initiating the discussion, providing medical information, clarifying any misunderstanding, eliciting their care preferences and the underlying personal values on a voluntary basis and setting a platform between them and their family or care providers for further dialogue. Perhaps the most challenging issue in the area of end-of-life care discussion is how to have the family members be involved. Many participants have articulated their LST preferences but failed to invite their family members to the conference. Most of them explained that their family members were upset when they tried to express their preferences to them. The participants were often told by their family members to live in present and that it is meaningless to think too much about the “future” as one cannot control it. We believe that both the notions of protectiveness and right of self-determination are stemmed from patient-centered beneficence, although they were expressed as two extremes in terms of information disclosure and decision making authority. The positive experiences reported in this chapter shed light on how to engage older people in endof-life care talk, however it is naive to think that the myth of protectiveness can be banished right away. The culture for open discussion can only be fostered through an orchestrated effort of the healthcare providers in the nursing homes as well as public education and social policy. Nevertheless, it is not within the scope of this paper to provide an extended discussion of how the Chinese in both mainland China and the Diaspora with various cultural contexts approached end-oflife issues. Further research would be needed to identify the pattern of end-of-life care discussion in other Chinese communities and how it has been influenced by the ancient Chinese values.



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rEFErENcEs Beauchamp, T.L. & Childress, J.F. (2001). Principles of biomedical ethics (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Chan, H.Y.L. & Pang, S.M.C. (2007). Quality of life concerns and end-of-life care preferences of aged persons in long-term care facilities. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 16, 2158-2166. Ebell, M.H., Becker, L.A., Barry, H.C. & Hagen, M. (1998). Survival after in-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation: a meta-analysis. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 13(12), 805-816. Finucane, T.E., Christmas, C. & Travis, K. (1999). Tube feeding in patients with advanced dementia: A review of the evidence. Journal of American Medical Association, 282, 1365-1370. Gadow, S. A. (1980). Existential advocacy: philosophical foundation of nursing. In S.F. Spicker & S. Gadow (eds), Images and ideals: opening dialogue with the humanities (pp.79 – 101). New York: Springer. Gan, Z. (1995). Critical biography of Sun Simiao [Sun Simiao ping zhuan]. Nanjing: Nanjing University Press. In Chinese. Hospital Authority Hong Kong. (2002). Guidelines on life-sustaining treatment in the terminally ill. Hong Kong: Hospital Authority Head Office. Hui, E., Ho, S.C., Tsang, J., Lee, S.H. & Woo, J. (1997). Attitudes toward life-sustaining treatment of older persons in Hong Kong. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 45(10), 12321236. Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong. (2006). Report on substitute decision-making and advance directives in relation to medical treatment. Hong Kong Government. Legge, J. (1971). Confucian analects, the great learning and the doctrine of the mean. New York: Dover. 

Pang, S.M.C. (1999). Protective truthfulness: The Chinese way of safeguarding patients in informed treatment decisions. Journal of Medical Ethics, 25, 247-253. Pang, M.C.S. (2003). Nursing ethics in modern China: Conflicting values and competing role requirements. Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi. Pang, S.M.C., Tse, C.Y., Chan, K.S., Chung, B.P.M., Leung, A.K.A., Leung, E.M.F. & Ko, S.K.K. (2004). An empirical analysis of the decision-making of limiting life-sustaining treatment for patients with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Hong Kong, China. Journal of Critical Care, 19(3), 135-144. Pang, S.M.C., Chan, K.S., Chung, B.P.M., Lau, K.S., Leung, E.M.F., Leung, A.W.K., Chan, H.Y.L. & Chan, M.F. (2005a). Assessing quality of life of patients with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the end of life. Journal of Palliative Care, 21(3), 180-187. Pang, M.C., Leung, W.K., Pang, L.Z. & Shi, Y.X. (2005b). Prognostic awareness, will to live and health care expectation in patients with terminal cancer. Chinese Medical Ethics, 18(5), 28-31. Pang, M.C., Volicer, L. & Leung, W.K. (2005c). An empirical analysis of making life-sustaining treatment decisions for patients with advanced dementia in the United States. Chinese Journal of Geriatrics, 24(4), 300-304. Pang, M.C., Wong, K.S., Dai, L.K., Chan, K.L. & Chan, M.F. (2006). A comparative analysis of Hong Kong general public and professional nurses’ attitude towards advance directives and the use of life-sustaining treatment in end-of-life care. Chinese Medical Ethics, 3(107), 11-15. Qiu, R. (1982). Philosophy of medicine in China (1930-1980). Metamedicine, 3, 35-73. Unschuld, P.U. (1979). Medical ethics in Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Yao, C. (1939). Methods of nursing the sick [Bing ren kan hu fa]. Shanghai: Shang wu yin shu guan. In Chinese.

KEY tErMs Advance Care Planning (ACP): This refers to an ongoing communication process exploring the patient’s end-of-life care wishes and discussing these wishes with surrogates and healthcare professionals. By the end, the patient can record their treatment preferences by means of advance directives, but the focus of the communication is to ensure that the trio will understand the personal values underpinning the patient’s care wishes and preferences. Advance Directives: This refers to documentation of a person’s will regarding his/her preferences for life-sustaining treatment at the end-of-life. According to the recommendation of the Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong (2006), this document would be signed by the person with a doctor and another person as witnesses. This document would ensure that if or when such a medical situation was to occur, the medical doctor would follow the person’s advance directive in making medical decisions. Customary Belief: This refers to mental acceptance of a proposition which has been

established for a long time, but such belief does not necessarily hold the truth of a fact and is not necessarily grounded in evidence. End-of-Life: This refers to the period when an individual experiences disability or disease that progressively worsens until death. In other words, it is a transitional stage prior to death. The worsening of the condition may be due to aging, or to the advanced stage of a chronic illness or terminal disease. Death is not imminent, but it is approaching and not distant. Frail: This refers to a decline in physiological reserves resulting in increased vulnerability to adverse outcomes, such as falls, injuries, dependence, disease, institutionalization and death. Life-Sustaining Treatment (LST): This refers to all treatments which have the potential to postpone the patient’s death, and includes, for example, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, artificial ventilation, blood products, pace makers, vasopressors, specialized treatment for particular conditions such as chemotherapy and dialysis, antibiotics when given for a potentially life-threatening infection, and artificial nutrition and hydration. Surrogate: This refers to a person being assigned as having authority to make decisions in relation to medical treatment on behalf of the patient if he/she becomes mentally incompetent.





Chapter XXII

Community Education in New HIV Prevention Technologies Research Busi Nkala Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, South Africa

abstract An estimated 39.5 million people are living with HIV worldwide. There were 4.3 million new infections in 2006 with 2.8 million (65%) of these occurring in sub-Saharan Africa with important increases in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where there are some indications that infection rates have risen by more than 50% since 2004. In 2006, 2.9 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses (UNAIDS, 2006). The continued increase in new HIV infection is a call for concern. It is imperative that more innovative ways of combating the infections are found sooner. There is an enormous body of evidence that HIV infection is caused mainly by sexual contact. There is also undisputed evidence that there are other contributing factors such as extreme poverty, survival sex, gender inequality, lack of education, fatalism, religious barriers and others. This chapter seeks to support the need to do more research in finding new technologies and innovative ways of dealing with the spread of HIV. The chapter suggests that the involvement of researched communities be effectively involved. Involving communities in finding solutions will help, in that research protocols and health programmes will take into account the cultural acceptability of the new technologies and systems and ensure that recipients of health services become effective organs of change. The chapter seeks to highlight the fact that, if the recipients are involved in all stages of development of health programmes, including technologies, we may begin to see changes in how new technologies are taken up or may shift toward getting technologies that are acceptable. There are various suggested and implemented ways which aid in achieving the protection for individuals and communities; such as community involvement, community participation and community education (Collins, 2002; Gupta 2002), this chapter will focus on community education and a proposal for a community principle.

Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Community Education in New HIV Prevention Technologies Research

INtrODUctION The world is currently faced with challenges that are brought about by increase in diseases and the complexity involved in disease management. There are differences in the nature of diseases and associated challenges between the developing and developed world. This chapter focuses on the HIV epidemic in a developing country. HIV is a very complex disease which brings along very complex manner in which to deal with; one of such complexities is the different strains in different regions and its socio-economic linkage. Counseling, testing, use of the male and female condom remains the only currently available technologies proving to be good options for HIV prevention. However there is continuing evidence of ongoing transmission of HIV despite active promotion and distribution of condoms. While the reasons for effective technologies not resulting in clear interruption of transmission in public health setting is complicated it is the argument of this chapter that when these stated technologies were introduced into the health service the communities were not well prepared for the lifestyle change which comes with use of condom and behavioural adjustment. This makes the continued search for a safe and effective HIVpreventive technology seem reasonable. Thus it is imperative that the scientific community pursue new ways of preventing, identifying and treating HIV. This effort requires a great expansion in what is known and what can still be learnt in order to deal with the situation. However there is a need to streamline how these new technologies are brought into the health care service. The expansion of knowledge and introduction of the new technologies starts at the research stage. The expansion of knowledge cannot be divorced from the advancement of technology. Some of the technologies that are currently under research are the Diaphragm (cervical barrier), Microbicides (topical vaginal barriers) and Vaccines (systemic barriers). The ongoing HIV epidemic raises the

need for improved intervention strategies through improved knowledge. Research forms an integral part of the development of technologies that can be applied to health problems in order to improve health. Improved interventions require improved technology which in turn may raise new ethical challenges. With the expansion of knowledge through advancement of technology comes additional responsibility for recognizing and dealing with ethical issues (Goldner, 2002). The conduct of research is guided by codes and regulations (international, national and local) which were developed due previous ethical lapses. Such guidelines are revised from time to time to keep pace with social change and advancement in science. A reliance on guidelines alone is not sufficient to bring about ethically sound research. Community involvement in research is a critical aspect in ensuring that the community concerns are taken into consideration. Biotechnology is relevant to the health needs not only of rich nations, but also those of the world’s poor. This chapter focuses on the techniques of preparing communities for change; that is brought about by the investigation or application of new technologies. Appropriate community engagement can facilitate cultural acceptability of change and thus ensure that researched communities become effective advocate for change within their respective societies. The purpose of writing this chapter is to: •

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Highlight the importance of biotechnology in improving HIV prevention in developing countries. Offer guidance and influence the development of community education in research.

bacKGrOUND Biotechnology has been seen as a way in which health can be improved throughout the world. Some scholars have strongly advocated for more



Community Education in New HIV Prevention Technologies Research

research into technologies that could help improve health in developing countries (Daar, 2002). Research is concerned with advancement of science thus improving knowledge (Goldner, 2000), and technology is part of the knowledge we seek to improve. In the field of HIV, there are a growing number of promising new HIV prevention technologies that are in different stages of clinical trials. There is also a growing need for human beings to be prepared for these technologies which brings about changes and adjustments. Clinical trials are conducted on these new technologies with the hope and perceived potential for the technologies to reduce the burden of HIV/AIDS around the world (Global HIV Working Group, 2006). The following are the promising approaches to HIV prevention which are currently in clinical trials: •

•

•

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Microbicides: Several efficacy trials are currently underway. A number of newer generation products are in early stage trials. Cervical barriers: An efficacy trial of the diaphragm in South Africa and Zimbabwe has been conducted to assess if the diaphragm can provide additional benefit to women against HIV and other sexual transmitted infections, but has shown no benefit of the addition of the diaphragm to the provision of condoms (Padian, 2007). HIV Vaccines: There are 30 vaccine candidates that are in clinical trials, including two in advanced efficacy or “proof-of-concept” trials. Male circumcision: This procedure involves removal of the foreskin of the penis (Reider, 2006). A highly publicized study conducted in South Africa, reported its results in 2005 showing that circumcised men were 60% less likely than uncircumcised men to become infected with HIV (Cohen, 2005). Two additional trials have been reported

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and showed very similar levels of efficacy (Rennie, 2007) Herpes suppression pre-exposure prophylaxis with antiretrovirals are among the other HIV prevention trials currently underway (Global HIV Working Group, 2006; UNAIDS 2006).

These trials and other work not included in this chapter are very important in that, if these trials prove these technologies to be effective; there will be the potential for great improvements in health. Because of the burden of disease, the importance of finding solutions for developing world health issues and easy access to the population in the developing world justify that research be conducted in developing countries (Guidelines for GCP, 2000). In recent years there has been an intensification of research activities in the context of HIV/AIDS (Health Research Policy in South Africa, 2001, Ethical Consideration, 2000) and other infectious diseases. A concern is that large economic disparities exist in communities that are affected by HIV/AIDS in the developing world. Such disparities may make individual vulnerable and therefore open to exploitation. According to UNAIDS vulnerable population are “communities having some or all of the following characteristics: Limited economic development; inadequate protection of human rights and discrimination on the basis of the health status; inadequate community/cultural experience with understanding of scientific research; limited availability of health care and treatment options; limited ability of individuals in the community to provide informed consent” (UNAIDS, 1999). Vulnerability to exploitation in medical research has raised the challenge of extending protection of individual human research participants to the protection of communities (Weijer 1999). The very point of departure is the recognition that communities should be treated as equal partners in decision making on research that impact their lives. Through partnerships, community capacity

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building, education and skills development, real benefits to communities can be achieved. The process enhances respect for different values and customs while reaching agreement about what can be changed and what can be left out (Masahiro Morioka, 1994). Communities can only be defined as equal partners in research if they are empowered to understand research and appreciate that the development of new technologies will bring about positive changes for the population. Historically there has been greater concern for balancing the demands of science and rights of individuals in the conduct of research. Through individuals choosing to participate in research make choices that impact the well being of the larger community or society. Ethical guidelines typically involve moral autonomy, which places an onus on individual to go beyond self interest and acknowledge the larger social aspect of moral autonomy (Khan, 1991). While protection is currently ensured by ethics approval and informed consent, this should not be done because is a requirement by codes. It is important for predominant ethical theory in research (Beauchamp, 2001; Medical Research Guideline, 1993; CIOMS, 1993) to be widely known, interpreted and reviewed. Three principles are particularly relevant to biomedical research involving human participants; respect for persons, beneficence and justice. Originally articulated in the Belmont Report, lack of respect involves refusing to accept person’s judgments; denying individual to act on their considered judgments and withholding information necessary to make to make considered judgments when there is no compelling reasons to do so. Respecting the judgment of the participants based on the fact that they have been given information can further be optimized when there is ongoing education. Closely linked to respect for an individual is the principle of beneficence. The Belmont Report specifies two rules: do no harm and maximizing possible benefits and minimizing possible harms. The need to avoid wrongs and harms, assuming

that participants understand what is asked of them without attempting to educate them, will wrong them; this may translate to social, psychological, economic or even physical harm. The principle of justice states that harms and benefits should be balanced and that benefits of the research must out weigh the harms. Guideline 8: CIOMS, states that research involving human subjects must be responsive to the country where research is conducted with special mention of underdeveloped communities. Some scholars have proposed an additional principle: “respect for communities” although with the rise of stem cell research there is greater advocacy to look into protection of communities. Some guidelines highlight the need for community engagement and considerations (CIOMS, 1991), Australia and Canada have a special clause that considers the protection of Aboriginal communities (Tri Council Statement, 1998; McNeil 1993).

DIscUssION Technology development is firstly done to improve the health and lifestyle of the community. Whatever the nature of development, it will impact on how people live and die. This development, while positive toward preventative health care, comes with its own ethical challenges. By involving and educating the communities throughout these stages of development, the communities are then better prepared to deal with these life changes and technological developments. The community education needs to also highlight the fact that development has to happen, giving examples that the entire world around us is changing because of new technology. It is also necessary to caution about how technological advancement can be used to the detriment of the very society is trying to improve. However it is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the negative procedures that can result from use of technology. The need to



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conduct education on research is greater than the challenges and limitations noted above. In line with recommendation 2.2 of the National Bioethics Advisory Committee (NBAC), that host country representation should have a strong voice in determining whether a proposal is appropriate, is an emphasis from both the local and international community that research conducted in countries must be responsive to the health needs of those being engaged in research (US National Bioethics Commission, 2001). This can be realized when communities participate as equal partners in all stages of research and not merely in protocol development. This means that communities need to be empowered such that they can realize health issues within their communities and proactively approach scientists/research institutions/relevant government departments to highlight problems and identify research questions that need to be answered. Communities need to be consulted prior to protocol development rather than to be consulted in order to legitimize the process. There are two broad bases for embarking on education for community, practical and substantive. As per NBAC there are two types of ethical requirement, first it is a procedural requirement to ensure that the legitimate bodies assess that standards of ethical requirements are complied with. If individuals and communities are empowered to make decisions about participation and are able to ask question they can give input in research priority setting and can participate as suggested equal partners. The second is substantive where the education is interpretation of the research principles; respect for person, beneficence, justice (Belmont Report, 1979) which provide the analytic framework for understanding not all but many of the ethical issues in research. These principles need to be further informed by the perceptions and experiences of community. Education and the establishment of dialogue will help achieve the following: (1) raise awareness about research and development, (2) improve protection, (3) build trust between researchers,



public and policy makers, (4) promote open dialogue, (5) build capacity of research participants and community representatives, and (6) increase accountability of organizations (research institutions and hospitals) involved in research to the general public. Interaction between the public and research community will help advance the ethical principles used in human participants research (CIRCARE, 2002). •

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Awareness raising: It is widely documented that research participants, when approached by their doctor/health care provider asking them to participate in research, often cannot differentiate between health care provision and research. Education will serve to inform the public that there is research continuously being conducted. The education needs to highlight the importance of research, which is that research is the pursuit of knowledge in the best interest of science and society which may not always be compatible with best interest of the patient, research participants or community (Levin, 1983). By sharing information with the public about the research projects that are taking place and research that may be conducted, individuals and community are more informed to make decisions, be it in participating in research, being involved as representatives of the community or advocates. When potential research participants are aware of the distinction between participating in research and receiving health care (Goldner, 2000), they are empowered thus do not just blindly comply with the request to participate in research. Protection: Any new technology, including drugs, is thoroughly researched in the laboratory, in animals then in human beings. Throughout these stages issues of safety and effectiveness are established (Deciphering AIDS Vaccine, 2006). Prior to conducting research several measures are taken to ensure

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that any possible benefits and risks of trial participation are identified, this includes review of protocols by research ethics committees (REC) and/or independent research boards (IRB). The codes, guidelines and research review communities are in place in order to ensure that human participants are protected from exploitation and abuse. Researchers are acting in the name of science and humankind; they may not be objective judges of their work’s scientific merit and ethics (Snow 1998). Communities that have received education will have representation that is better positioned to inform the design of the protocol such that individuals are protected from stigma and abuse. Individuals themselves can be better equipped to understand that there are risks and benefits involved in research and can be in a better position to ask the researcher about these. Education will help inform about the processes followed to ensure that individuals and communities are protected. If problems are experienced, they can then be in touch with researchers, advocacy groups, and community representatives and even directly with ethics review boards. Building trust: The scientific and clinical research communities have a lot of bad press to overcome (Vazquez, 1992). There is a need to share information about the past research experiences, both bad and good. Education may assist in clarifying misconceptions and explaining the things that may not have gone the way that was expected. In interactive educative sessions the participants may also voice what they expect. The education messages, just like the guidelines, are continuously being updated and this will help update what the public know and help the research community also gain insight of the public’s perspective. If there is a proactive way of sharing information with the public the public will

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better understand that research is in most cases done in good faith, this will help build trust between the research community and the researched communities. Openness: Closely linked to trust is openness. Openness about the processes and procedures in research to ensure that the research is conducted ethically allows for those invited to participate and to engage fully. The community representatives and advocates can be better equipped to think about issues and to assess what input they can make, how it will influence decisions and how it will impact on the actual conduct of research. On the other hand, individuals will have a much better understanding of how decisions are arrived at, what their contribution means to research and how best they can use themselves to answer the research question. Transparency which is brought about by openness legitimizes the research and research process (Simelela, 2002). Capacity building: Research capacity development has been highly selective, serving the interest of a limited part of the population. Research participants and their representatives were never in the picture until recently with HIV/AIDS research. With the demand by advocacy groups to be involved in protocol planning, designing and implementation (Collins, 2002) it became more than necessary that these groups were educated about research, with the education taking into consideration ethical issues as understood by community members and as documented in the ethics guidelines. The more people who receive the education, the more there will be a pool from which informed community representatives and advocates can be pulled. Education about research and ethics will promote equity between the marginalized disciplines and groups. The participants can also be empowered to decide on who they



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want as their representatives or advocacy, and there will be an increase of informed participants who can volunteer to take up this position especially where it is difficult to identify community representatives. Well informed potential participants and communities will be involved in all stages of decision making as true partners and not as mere tokens or an after thought (Tan-Ud, 2002). Their involvement will not depend solely on the information from researchers, as is the problem currently with lay members in ethics committees, where they rely on opinion of study investigators regarding when and what grounds study procedures should be changed or consent be amended (Dickens 2001). Accountability: When the public is aware of the processes involved in the conduct of research they understand the issues of feedback and publication better. Their expectation of how results of the study are going to be handled will be informed by the understanding which they gained from receiving research education. Also, an informed public will be aware when there are procedures that are not followed in the protocol which they were part of designing, for example misleading recruitment messages. They will recognize this and rightfully demand explanation. The researchers will be accountable to the general public either directly or through their representatives, the representatives will be accountable to those they represent, and the ethics committee will also be informed of misconduct by any of the parties. Accountability includes giving feedback to the communities about the research which they approved, accommodated and supported by participating (Dickens, 1991).

Education can achieve the above if delivered to the intended recipients and the recipients are



empowered to enter into dialogue in all stages, from recognition of health issues, identification of research question, working toward answering the research questions and influencing policy to ensure that products which have been found to be safe and effective are placed in the health care delivery system. The main aspect is that of educating participants to prepare them, prior to an interaction with a researcher that research is different from health care provision. This will maximize protection (coercion and undue influence) and volunteerism (enter into research voluntarily with adequate information). This is also in line with Guideline 3: CIOMS; which cites that the investigator has an obligation with regard to informed consent and the participants must be given an opportunity to ask questions. It is only possible to ask question when the potential participants and the researchers have an understanding of the issue at hand. It is currently not well defined as to how much participants understand, with their engagement in a non health care provision form of interaction when they volunteer to participate. Avoiding harm requires learning what is harmful; it has been argued that this cannot be left in the hands of researchers and research ethics committees alone. An educated community may give some insight on how a proposed research may wrong or harm individuals or community, and educated individuals may give their perspective on how they see the research as impacting on their lives. Educated communities can be able to assess, together with researchers, the reason why some communities are selected over others for the conduct of research. Failing to educate the participants deny them the opportunity to take part in weighing their own and societal benefits and harms. In an African context respect for communities will involve a practice of understanding which is founded in humanity, commonly described by the concept of “ubuntu”. Ubuntu emphasizes that only by understanding the actions and feelings of other people in the social group can all human

Community Education in New HIV Prevention Technologies Research

behaviour, fortune and misfortune be understood. This principle will help researchers understand communities where they intend conducting research, in that as much as individual’s autonomy is a strongly held principle; they need to understand individuals and also their actions and feelings of others in their social groups. Based on the fact that health concerns in this context are socio-economic and cultural in nature, adoption of this principle can enhance the relationship of researcher and communities. The principles will bring about realization and enforce communal involvement. It is the principle that inspires individuals to open themselves to others and learn of others as they learn of themselves (Ubuntu). Disease is one of the social factors which contribute to the struggle for change. Adoption of this principle in the ethics of research of health service provision will emphasize that researchers need to learn from the researched or targeted communities for research while they also help these communities learn from them. Dialogue between community representatives, the general public and research community can best be achieved when communities have a clearer understanding of issues involved. The current situation is such that the power and knowledge is concentrated at the hands of privileged few. Dialogue should not be limited to the formation of community advisory boards (CABs) in AIDS research (such as HIV vaccine research) but be adopted for all research projects and service provision programmes. CAB members, just like research ethics committee members, need to receive education on the ethics of research and their education should not be limited to the protocol at hand. There is no documented research ethics education currently conducted for the general public, there is a need to start on a small scale. Medical Research Council, South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative SAAVI) is conducting education in the communities where vaccine research is being conducted. The teaching aims to educate communities about the process involved in vaccine research and development, and specifically about

clinical trials and clinical research to enable them to make informed decisions at community and individual level. (SAAVI, 2007). The proposed community education seeks to look into research in general and not only vaccine. Targeting community structures, organizations, media and community representatives may form a base for wider community involvement.

cONcLUsION Public education in ethics of research and service provision has a role to play in contributing to understanding and improving the relationships between research community and researched communities. While research has a role to respond to advancement of science it should also promote human rights, and specifically personal rights, of research participants. The need to share and exchange knowledge and skills with vulnerable populations can never be over emphasized. The three basic principles, among those generally accepted in our cultural tradition, and an additional principle of “Ubuntu” are particularly relevant to medical ethics involving human subjects and can best be achieved where individuals understand them and can interpret them to their own situation. Persons are to be treated in an ethical manner, not only by respecting their decisions and protecting them from harm, but also by making efforts to secure their well-being. If communities are involved throughout the research and development of products the hindrances in using can be identified on time and be dealt with. If the communities are involved in development of the product they take ownership and no one would like to waste what s/he believes is his/hers.

rEFErENcEs Abdallah S. Daar, Halla Thorsteinsdottir, Douglas Martin, Alyna C. Smith, Shauna Nast, & Peter



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Singer. (2002). Top ten biotechnologies for improving health in developing countries. Nature Genetics, 32.

as the next best solution to the abolitionist approach. Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, 28, 379-404

Beauchamp TL and Childress JF. (2001) Principles of biomedical ethics. Fifth Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.

Guidelines for Good Practice in the Conduct of Clinical Trials in Human Participants in South Africa. (2000). Clinical trials guidelines. Republic of South Africa: Department of Health.

Citizens for Responsible Care and Research. (CIRCARE) (2002) A human rights organizations. April 17. Cohen J. (2005) AIDS research: Male circumcision thwarts HIV infection. Science; 2005: 860. Collins C. (2002) AVAC announces appointment of new director of education and outreach: Ford foundation make two year award to AIDS vaccine advocacy coalition for community education and mobilization. June 25, New York. Retrieved from: avac.org/press releases.htm Collins C. (2002) Thai-WRAIR phase III HIV vaccine trial. AIDS Vaccine, Advocacy Coalition. July 8, avac.org reports and documents. http://www.avac.org/index.htm Deciphering AIDS Vaccine. (2006) An anthology of VAx and IAVI report articles explaining key concepts in AIDS vaccine research and clinical trials. July 2006. Dickens BM. (2001) The challenge of equivalent protection. Commissioned Paper. Dickens BM. (1991) Issues in preparing ethical guidelines for epidemiological studies. Law, Medicine and Health Care, 19(3-4), 175-183 Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans: Tri Council Statement. (1998). Ethical consideration for HIV/AIDS clinical and epidemiological research. (2000). Department of Health, HIV/AIDS/STD Directorate, Republic of South Africa. Goldner JA. (2000) Dealing with conflict of interest in biomedical research: IRB oversight



Gupta GR. (2002) Assuring access to AIDS vaccine by talking to the experts. International Center for Research on Women. International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. A satellite Meeting Prior to the XIV International AIDS Conference. 6 July 2002, Barcelona. International guidelines for ethical review of epidemiological studies. (1991) CIOMS, Geneva. International ethical guidelines for biomedical research involving human subjects. (1993) CIOMS. Health research policy in South Africa. (2001). Republic of South Africa: Department of Health. Khan, KS. (1991) Epidemiology and ethics: The people’s perspective. Law, Medicine and Science, 19(3-4), 202-206 Levin R. (1983) Informed Consent in Research and Clinical Practice: Similarities and Differences. Archive of Internal Medicine. 143: 1229-1231 Masahiro Morioka. (1994). Toward international and cross-cultural bioethics. Proceedings of the Third International Bioethics Seminar in Fukui, Eubios Ethics Institute, 293-295 McNeil PM. (1993) The ethics and politics of human experimentation. School of Medicine, University of South Wales Cambridge University Press. Medical research guidelines on ethics for medical research. (1993). Found at http://www.mrc. ac.za/ethics/epidemiolgical.htm

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New approaches to HIV prevention: Accelerating research and ensuring future access. Global HIV Prevention Working Group, August 2006. http://www.paho.org Padian, NS., van der Straten, A., Ramjee, G., Chipato, T., de Bruyn, G., Blanchard, K., Shibsoki, S., Montogomery, ET., Fancher, H., Cheng, H., Rosenblum, M., van der Laan, Jewell, N., & McIntyre, J. (2007). Diaphragm and lubricant gel for prevention of HIV acquisition in southern african women: A randomized controlled trial. Lancet, DOI: 10: 1016/50140 – 673 (07) 60950-7 www.thelancet.com Reidar K Lie, Ezekiel J Emmanuel, & Christine Grady. (2006) Circumcision and HIV prevention research: An ethical analysis. Lancet, 368, 522 – 25 Rennie S, Muula AS, Westreich D. (2007) Male circumcision and HIV prevention: Ethical, medical and public health trade offs in low-income countries. Journal of Medical Ethics, 33, 357-361 Smith W. (1992) A process: Framework for teaching bioethics. Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Simelela N. (2002) The South African Government on HIV/AIDS. Science in Africa. Snow B. (1998) Consenting adults: The challenge of informed consent. Bay Area Reporter, June. South African AIDS Initiative (SAAVI) (2007). The community and the scientist: A Synergistic relationship. http://www.saavi.org.za Tan-Ud P. (2002) Community involvement in the Thai phase III trial. Thai Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS. 2002 International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. A satellite Meeting Prior to the XIV International AIDS Conference. 6 July 2002, Barcelona. The Belmont Report, OHSR. (1979). Ethical principles and guidelines for protection of human

subjects. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, USA. Ubuntu. Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu. A South African peace lesson. Social Studies, Grades 7 – 12. http://www.ivow.net/ubuntu.html UNAIDS (1999). Gender and HIV/AIDS: Taking stock of research programmes. Joint National Programme on HIV/AIDSA, Geneva, Switzerland. http://www.unaids.org UNAIDS/WHO. (2002) AIDS epidemic update: December. Geneva: UNAIDS/WHO; 2002. ISBN: 92-9173-253-2. UNAIDS (2006) Report on global AIDS epidemic, executive summary. A UNAIDS 10th Anniversary Special Edition. http://data.unaids.org US national bioethics advisory commission ethical and policy issues in international research: Clinical trials in developing countries. Vol. I, Report and Recommendations: Executive Summary, i-xv. Vazquez R. (1999) A discussion of community concerns. National Cooperative Vaccine Development Groups for AIDS Meeting. August 1992. Original: AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, 9(1). Ann Liebert Inc., Publishers Weijer C, Goldsand G, Emanuel EJ. (1999) Protecting communities in research: Current guidelines and limits of extrapolation. Nature America Inc. (Commentary) http://www.nhrmrc.gov.au

KEY tErMs Cervical Barriers: Diaphragm is an object that covers the cervix. It has been used for decades as a method of preventing pregnancy, and is an approved contraception when used with spermicidal.



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Community: A community is a social group of organisms sharing an environment, normally with shared interests. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness. Community Advisory Board (CAB): Is a group of individuals, generally made up of no more than 20 people who serve as primary liaisons between the community and the trial researchers. Often a senior scientist or physician and/or other member of the trial staff will attend CAB meetings on a regular basis, a sign indicative of the CAB’s importance in the trial process. Community Education: A process whereby learning is used for both individual and community betterment. It is characterized by: involvement of people of all ages, the use of community learning, resources and research to bring about community change, the recognition that people



can learn through, with and for each other to create a better world. (Canadian Association for Community Education) Community Involvement: A process where communities work collaboratively with the research team in decision-making, problemsolving and implementation of projects and programmes. Community Participation: Is one of the key ingredients of an empowered community. It entails active citizen involvement in all aspects of strategic plan development and implementation of project and programmes. Microbicides: Topical substances such as gels or creams that could be applied to the vagina or rectum to reduce HIV transmission. HIV Vaccines: Preventive vaccines enhance the body’s immune defenses, enabling the immune system to fight off diseases that it cannot naturally control.



Chapter XXIII

The Public / Private Debate: A Contribution to Intercultural Information Ethics Makoto Nakada University of Tsukuba, Japan Rafael Capurro Stuttgart Media University, Germany

abstract In this article we give an overview of the range and characteristics of intercultural information ethics (IIE) focusing on the public/private debate in the so-called information age. IIE is a relatively newly emerging field which addresses a variety of issues such as similarities and differences of views on the public/private spheres in different cultural and social traditions, the comparative analysis of moral norms of communication in global information network(s) or the Seken-Shakai-Ikai trichotomy as a specific typology of structures underlying today’s Japanese information society. We examine these problems, in particular the public/private debate, from a perspective in which cultural differences arise from the underlying dimension of sharing with others a common world and with special reference to the differences between Japanese and Western culture(s).

INtrODUctION Intercultural Information Ethics (IIE) deals with the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on different cultures as well as on how specific ICT issues are understood from different cultural traditions. The main purpose of

this chapter is to consider the range and characteristics of IIE focusing on the public/private debate as one of the most crucial issues in the so-called information age. IIE is a relatively newly emerging field which includes a variety of problems such as similarities and differences of views on the public and private spheres in different cultural and so-

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cial traditions, the comparative analysis of moral norms of communication in global information network(s) (Capurro, 2006a; Capurro, Frühbauer, & Hausmanninger, 2007; Hongladarom & Ess, 2007; Sudweeks & Ess, 2004), differences of justifications of privacy as an intrinsic good in Western countries and as an instrumental good in Asian countries (Ess, 2005), cultural and historical backgrounds behind the difference between direct speech and indirect speech in the ‘Far East’ and the ‘Far West’ (Jullien, 1982, 1985, 1995; Capurro, 2006a), ‘Seken-Shakai-Ikai’ trichotomy as a different typology of structures of the life-world in Japan of the information age depending on different perspectives on values and meanings of this world (Nakada & Tamura, 2005). According to the authors these problems are crucial for our lives in a common world where we are facing a danger reflecting split attitudes towards universalism and cultural relativism. We also believe that the consideration of these problems is tightly related with the understanding of our own existence, selfidentity and mutual human relations. Therefore the analysis of cultural differences concerning for instance the public/private debate should not be divided from our attention to the perspective of a common shared world. In this respect, Heidegger’s ontological conception of ‘being-in-the-world’ (‘In-der-Welt-sein’) (Heidegger ,1976) seems to us crucial for a transcultural understanding of what being public means in an ontological or structural sense as a basis for an intercultural dialogue on ethical issues of the information society (Nakada & Capurro, 2007). In this chapter we explore various conditions affecting people’s understanding of public/private related problems on the basis of the world as a shared world openness with special regard of the differences between Japanese and Western culture(s).

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tHE PUbLIc/PrIvatE DEbatE FrOM aN IIE PErsPEctIvE the Problematization of Privacy What is privacy? What are the relations between ‘the public’ and ‘the private’? Contrary to the popular belief in undoubted acceptance of the concrete and stable definitions of ‘the public’ or ‘the private’, most of the scholars in the fields of IE (information ethics) or CE (computer ethics) may admit that the definitions in these respects somewhat or to a great extent remain ambiguous. In fact, the recent debates on the meanings of ‘privacy’ or the relations between ‘the public and the private’ in dominant academic journals such as Ethics and Information Technology seem to reflect this ambiguity of ‘the public’ and ‘the private’. These recent debates include such as: (1) the debates on the natures of values consisting of the highly evaluated meanings of privacy (‘the values of privacy are intrinsic ones or instrumental ones?’) (Johnson, 1994; Rachels, 1975; Moor, 1989; Moor, 1997); (2) the debates on the validity or usefulness of the concepts of privacy in the information age (‘the term “personal security” is better than the ambiguous term “privacy”?’) (Thompson, 2001); (3) the debates on the validity of the presuppositions (such as subjectivity or individualism) behind ‘privacy’ in the age of everyday surveillance through IT (Lyon, 2001). These debates about ‘privacy’ or ‘the public and the private’ reflecting the ambiguous meanings of these concepts endorse the necessity of discussions related to IE (information ethics). According to our own definition, IE means the problematization of information morality (Capurro, 2006b). In the process of ‘problematization’ we try to doubt or reinterpret something at least superficially clear or undoubted. The debates cited above are some of the concrete examples of such problematization particularly with regard to ‘privacy’. As one of the authors (Capurro) suggested elsewhere (Capurro, 1995, pp.97-114), the birth of philosophy

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in Greece is related to problematization of the concept of message or angelia (Capurro, 2003). Our understanding of ethics as problematization of morality follows Foucault’s discussions on parrhesia (Foucault, 1983). What we can extract from them is one of our fundamental presuppositions with regard to the definitions and necessities of IE, namely that it arises when a given information morality becomes problematic. In this sense, there is no doubt about today’s problematization of privacy along with the problematization of IT and of the information society altogether, facing various problems such as everyday surveillance (Lyon, 2001), the reconsideration of the meaning of the human body for initiating and maintaining inter-subjective bonds among people in the cyberspace (Anderson, 2000,p.153) and the like.

the Problematization of Privacy from an IIE Perspective We believe that the necessity of the problematization of privacy is due, along with the problems cited above, to concerns between people with different socio-cultural backgrounds particularly in online communities. Within these artificial realms, IT, particularly the Internet, is believed to enable people to “transcend the spatial and temporal limitations of his or her body, and, to some extent, his or her cultural milieu with its parochial structures, perspectives, prejudices, and social hierarchies” (Anderson, 2000, p.1). In this respect, Charles Ess, one of the organizers of the conferences on ‘Cultural Attitudes Towards Technology and Communication’ (CATaC), rightfully pointed out the importance of intercultural dialogues as follows: “Given the global scope and influences of information technologies, such a global dialogue is critical—especially if an information ethics is to emerge that respects and fosters those elements of specific cultures that are crucial to their sense of identity. In particular, as we will see, ‘privacy’ intersects with basic conceptions of the human person as refracted through notions of individu-

ality and the larger collective.” (Ess, 2005, p.1). Ess’s remarks on this point have a lot in common with our own definition of IIE as dealing with the comparative analysis of norms and morality of communication (Capurro, 2006a).

PrEsENcE Or absENcE OF PrIvacY IN tHE ‘Far East’? Privacy in the ‘Far East’ traditons of collectivism It is one of our fundamental assumptions that people’s attitudes towards ‘privacy’ in Japanese culture, Chinese culture and other Asian cultures are (or supposedly) different from those of ‘Western’ cultures in several basic respects. First of all, it seems that the value of the concepts of privacy or the evaluations of the right to privacy in the ‘Far East’ are supposed to be comparatively at lower levels or remain an ambiguous issue (Nakada & Tamura, 2005). Secondly, as several scholars in Asia point out, Asian cultures seem to lack the recognition of privacy as something intrinsically good (Lü, 2005, p.12). There seem to be various important reasons behind these situations in Asia including people’s orientation to ‘collectivism’. According to Lü Yao-Huai, due to the drastic and rapid changes in contemporary society of China, some of today’s dominant ideas including ‘free individualism’ and ‘privacy’ are quite different from the ones in the immediate past (Lü, 2005, pp.7-8). However, in spite of these changes in regard to privacy and human relations, Lü insists, most of the Chinese scholars discussing and positively evaluating ‘privacy’ still remain in the traditions of collectivism. In fact, the scholars usually point out that maintaining the right to privacy is not only a problem concerning ‘the individual’, but also an important problem concerning ‘the society’ (Lü, 2005, pp.11-12). The situations are similar in Thailand in fundamental aspects. According to Krisana Kitiyadisai,



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in spite of the strong influence of informatization, economic expansion, globalization upon Thai cultures and also despite the change of Thailand in the direction of a modern, industrialized and cosmopolitan outlook, many aspects of cultures in Thailand including people’s understanding the meanings of privacy still remain in the cultural traditions leading to respects for social harmony, social order, family-oriented life, or ‘keeping one’s (social and status-related) face’. Behind these cultural traditions lies Thailand’s long history influenced by feudalism, family systems, scarcity of personal life space along with Buddhism (Krisana Kitiyadisai, 2005, pp.17-19). As these scholars suggest, we have to take into consideration the meanings of individualism or the relations between collectivism and individualism in case of comparison of positions on privacy in the ‘Far East’ and the ‘Far West’. According to Krisana Kitiyadisai, people in Thailand are aware of the necessities of avoiding invasion of someone’s privacy just as the people in ‘Western’ culture(s). But this is because of the importance of keeping or not insulting someone’s social face or because of the common tendency to avoid interference with private affaires leading to denial of master’s or lord’s hierarchical positions within a household (Krisana Kitiyadisai, 2005, p.18). Esyun Hanaguchi, a Japanese scholar dealing with collectivism in Asian culture(s), insists that most of the undoubted criticisms of ‘weak individualism’ in Japan reflect a rather stereotyped presupposition under influence of ‘Westernized views’ leading to non-criticized ‘worship’ of rationalization, objectivism, individualism, division of human mind into reasons and senses or into reasons and emotions as well as other values imported from modernized ‘Western’ cultures (Hamaguchi, 1993). While doubting this sort of presuppositions or uncritical ‘direct’ import of ‘Western’ concepts, Hamaguchi tries to draw our attention to collectivism as not being biased by the undoubted acceptance of ‘Western’ values. In these respects, his understanding of collectivism



in Japan has similarities and differences to those two scholars cited above. Hamaguchi’s evaluations of Asian collectivism, and particularly of collectivism in Japan, are fundamentally affirmative ones. He says that Japanese culture and society in modernized era can’t be explained adequately or fully without a consideration of collectivism as consisting of “principles or basic values leading to high evaluations of mutual human relations, mutual reliance and regard for inter-personal relations not as a means of some purposes but as a valuable end in itself.” (Hamaguchi, 1993)

Privacy and the Equilibrium between collectivism and Individualism in japanese culture The data of the recent research surveys by one of the authors (Nakada) (in 2005) in Japan may endorse the contents of discussions of the scholars cited above, namely the important position of collectivism in the ‘Far East’. (These studies cited here are ‘2005G’ and ‘2005S’. The former was designed as quota sampling with 500 survey monitors of 20-50 years old. ‘2005S’ was done for 459 undergraduate students.) Table 1 shows the percentages of the respondents who gave affirmative responses to views or opinions related with ‘collectivism’ and ‘individualism’. These figures clearly suggest that there is a certain sort of equilibrium between collectivism and individualism in the minds of Japanese people. This finding is in accordance with the discussions of the Asian scholars cited above in fundamental respects. But at the same time, when we examine this equilibrium between collectivism and individualism in a more detailed way (through factor analysis), we get two different types of ‘collectivism’ along with a set of ‘individualism’: ‘belief in collectivism’ and ‘other-oriented type’ (see Table 1). This means that in Japan ‘collectivism’ consists of more complicated or broader meanings than it might generally imagined.

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Table 1. Individualism and collectivism in Japan (1a) Doing your best for other people is good for you.

73.8%(73.7)

(1b)The important thing for maintaining good social conditions is for us to

86.0%(87.6)

be kind to each other and to put the comforts of the others before one’s own convenience. (2a) I usually adjust my thinking to the expectations of the others around me.

38.8%(45.6)

(2b) I usually prefer adjusting my roles to the anticipations of the others

31.8%(34.5)

around me to persisting in showing my abilities. (3a) We can get the better results, when we don’t depend upon the others’

24.4%(26.3)

judgments and when we determine to do something by ourselves. (3b) To assert one’s demands and desires is very important for social life.

42.4%(45.8)

(The percentages are added figures of ‘strongly agree’ and ‘somewhat agree’. The figures without brackets show the findings of ‘2005G’ and those within brackets show the findings of ‘2005S’.)

Concerning the relations between ‘privacy’ and equilibration of ‘collectivism’ and ‘individualism’, our study results gave us interesting findings: ‘Individualism’ and ‘other-oriented’ have almost no relations with ‘concerns for the violation of privacy (‘abuse of security camera’, ‘abuse of information on private e-mail address’ and others)’, while ‘belief in collectivism’ has relatively stronger relations with ‘concerns for the violation of privacy’. These findings show that a naive distinction between individualism and collectivism might lead us to misunderstandings at least in Japan. (Concerning ‘2005G’, ‘2005S’ or related researches, see: Nakada, 2005; 2006; 2007).

Privacy in Diverse spaces of Meanings: Seken-Shakai-Ikai in japan As our research data show, at least in Japan, ‘concerns for privacy’ have practically no relations with ‘individualism’. This means that the generally accepted (Western) dichotomy between the pubic and the private as well as the undoubted

presupposition about the relations between privacy and individualism might be influenced by an unconscious cultural bias. When we try to find out a set of ‘factors’ or ‘values’ that might be related to ‘belief in collectivism,’ we get a list of views, attitudes, values, and ways of feeling as shown in Table 2. As discussed elsewhere (Nakada & Tamura, 2005; Nakada, 2006; Capurro, 2005), some of these views, or ways of thinking and feeling, i.e., (5), (6), (7), (8), (9) could be included in a network of meanings called Seken. In order to understand what we mean by this we have to analyse this concept in its relation with Shakai and Ikai. Japanese culture in modern times consists of three different aspects or networks of meanings, namely Shakai, Seken, Ikai. Shakai is a modernized aspect of Japanese culture which includes modernized worldviews, rationalized ways of thinking and feeling largely influenced by thoughts imported from Western cultures. Seken is the aspect of the world consisting of traditional and indigenous worldviews or ways of thinking and feeling derived from Buddhism, Confucian-



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Table 2. Various views, ways of thinking, and ways of feeling related with ‘belief in collectivism’ (data: 2005G) (1) Acceptance of the view: ‘I sometimes feel that to have friends with whom we can talk together about our private life including memories of shame, sorrow or bad conscience would be a wonderful experience.’ (2) Positive interests in politics. (3) Positive interests in environmental problems. (4) Denial of the view: ‘Voters are powerless.’ (5) Acceptance of the view: ‘Within our modern lifestyles, people have become too distant from nature.’ (6) Acceptance of the view: ‘People will become corrupt if they become too rich.’ (7) Acceptance of the view: ‘People have a certain destiny, no matter what form it takes.’ (8) Acceptance of the view: ‘In our world, there are a number of things that cannot be explained by science.’ (9) Acceptance of the view: ‘The frequent occurrence of natural disasters is due to scourge of heaven.’

ism, Shinto, Bushido (Samurai moral and ethics), traditional views on nature, orientation towards solidarity and so on. In fundamental respects, Seken is a shared imaginative world of meanings that includes morals, social ethics, criteria of value judgments, common sense, desirable aims of life, beliefs in respectable behaviors and the like. Compared to Shakai and Seken, we don’t have enough research evidence about the third aspect tentatively called Ikai. But we believe that consideration on Ikai as a ‘hidden’ but influential aspect of Japanese culture can provide us with deeper views on meanings and values lying outside Seken and Shakai as ‘approved or justified’ dimensions. One of the most important findings from the analysis of data shown in Table 1 and Table 2 is the difficulty in understanding the meanings of privacy in Japanese culture even if we ‘borrow’ the views from Western cultures leading to the undoubted acceptance of ‘individualism’ or the uncritical distinction between the public and the private. As Table 1 and Table 2, along with the related findings, show, Japanese concepts of privacy are far more closely tied with ‘belief in collectivism’, than ‘individualism’. This collectivism, in turn, has strong or fairly strong relations with a wide range of meanings. To put it another



way, Japanese privacy lies within a set of meanings called Seken. Without doubt, Japanese people highly evaluate privacy on the one hand, but on the other hand this high evaluation is based on a different value system from that of Western culture(s). As we stated above, information ethics deals with the problematization of morality in the information era. Our discussions on privacy provide a concrete example of such a problematization of information moralities.

tHE PrObLEMatIzatION OF tHE PUbLIc/PrIvatE DIcHOtOMY IN tHE ‘Far WEst’ some ambiguous Positions of Individualism and Privacy in the ‘Far West’? According to Bin Kimura, a Japanese psychiatrist, the structure of Japanese subjectivity is different from the Western one in that Japanese subjectivity is discontinuous and thus opposite to a classic Western view of subject and identity as something permanent and even substantial (Kimura, 1972). Discontinuous identity means that subjectivity is

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the effect of a network of relations and situations (Capurro, 2005, pp.37-38). Kimura’s explanation of the characteristics of Japanese subjectivity is in accordance with our research data. It is also useful as an interpretation of Japanese privacy. But, on the other hand, Kimura’s discussions might reflect the generally accepted presuppositions about the simplified difference between the ‘Far West’ and the ‘Far East’. Our research data suggest that ‘collectivism’ in the ‘Far East’ includes a wider range of meanings than it might be usually imagined. As the scholars cited above pointed out, in accordance with some philosophers in the filed of the so-called post-modernism, ‘privacy’ and other fundamental concepts such as subjectivity and individualism are now within the scope of ethical problematization also in the ‘Far West’. In the following, we take a look into the range of debates about these problems in the ‘Far West’.

Dwelling Places of People in the ‘Far West’ If the dwelling place for Japanese people is threefold (Seken-Shakai-Ikai), we might say that the traditional Western dwelling has been usually imagined to be two-fold: the world of sensory experience and the world of sensible experience. If we follow Immanuel Kant’s concepts and terminology, we might say that people in the ‘Far West’ are dwellers of two worlds, i.e., the physical world and the world of ‘ends in themselves’ (Reich der Zwecke). While the former is strictly deterministic, the latter is the basis of what he calls ‘human dignity’ (Würde) as different from things that have just a value (Wert). According to Kant, human dignity is grounded in the human capacity of going beyond our natural being (homo phaenomenon). This is because of the characteristic of human beings as ‘rational beings’ (homo noumenon) (Capurro, 2005, p.38). This kind of postulate about a two-fold dwelling or dichotomy of places of meanings in the ‘Far West’ has, as we know, other expressions such as private vs. pub-

lic sphere, individual vs. community, autonomy vs. heteronomy, identity vs. difference. It seems that within these kinds of dichotomies there has been a constant tendency to give primacy to the individual and not to the community. But at the same time it can’t be denied that there has been a set of different interpretations of these dichotomies in the history of debates about privacy or individualism in Western culture(s). In fact, the meanings of ‘private’ seem to be not so stable than we might usually expect, and concomitantly the distinctions between ‘the public’ and ‘the private’ seem to be rather blurring. Hannah Arendt’s discussions provide us with a useful outline of this problematization (Arendt, 1983). According to Arendt the sphere of privacy as a ‘sphere of intimacy’ arises (in Western civilization) in Modernity (Arendt, 1983, p.38). In Antiquity, privacy was seen as a situation of deprivation of political activities that were considered as the highest ones. We do not ‘hear’ any more this meaning of privacy because modern individualism brought a positive valuation of the private sphere. This conception of privacy was not in tension with the public sphere but with the social one. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the first one to conceive a theory of privacy as intimacy. Rousseau’s fight was not against the government but against society that was supposed to deteriorate human hearts. Society and the ‘intimacy of heart’ are much more difficult to determine than the political sphere because they are more ‘subjective’. Modern individuality is born out of this romantic rebellion of the hearts against society (Nakada & Capurro, 2007). The political principle of social equality that conceives the nation as built by equal individuals is less important in this regard than the view of society as a big family that arises as a substitute of the family that came into decline. The conception of equality refers now to a situation in which there is a despotic power, the one of the family head, under which all members are ‘equal’. The



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problem is, according to Arendt, that this monarchic principle turns out to be substituted by ‘nobody’ in the case of the economic sphere as well as in the salons of the ‘fine society’. But this transformation was by no way less despotic since ‘nobody’ could be identified as the incarnation of the family head or, to put it paradoxically, ‘nobody’ was a neutral or non-personal incarnation of such a head. A special form of this despotism of ‘nobody’ is bureaucracy. Society excludes ‘action’ and allows only ‘behavior’ according to rules that prohibit spontaneous actions as well as high achievements. Arendt describes the development of modern society as a process in which people are substituted by bureaucracy or the ‘domination of nobody’ (Arendt, 1983, p.45). Modern society has a tendency to expand into the sphere of private household. This leads to the paradox that although there is a positive view of this sphere with regard to Antiquity, society as representing the unity of humankind tends to dominate it. Arendt defines ‘public realm’ as ‘the common’. ‘Public’ has two different meanings. Firstly it refers to what everybody can see and hear from what comes out of other’s intimate life, his/her feelings. There are some kind of things, such as love as distinct from friendship, that, following Arendt, are not appropriate to appear in such a brightness. The decline of the public realm might lead to a retreat into the intimate sphere of ‘the own four walls’ (Arendt, 1983, p.51). The second meaning of ‘public’ is the world itself as it concerns what is common to all of us and different from the place we call our ‘private property’. It (the common world) is the world as a product of human interactions or of what is ‘in-between us’. It is the world in which we live together and in which things are literally between us, connecting and separating us from each other at the same time. It is easy to see the influence of Heidegger’s ‘In-der-Welt-sein’ in this second meaning of ‘public’ as the common place in which we originally



live. ‘In-der-Welt-sein’ means, from this perspective, being public in an ontological or structural sense. We, as humans, are structurally worldly or public beings sharing together a common world of meaning or an open semantic and pragmatic network ‘in-between’ us. A mass society is, according to Arendt, difficult to tolerate because it has a tendency to even physically discard what is ‘in-between’ us.

On the relation between our being in the World and IIE Arendt’s inquiry about the relations between the public and the private makes clear that the positions of privacy and individualistic subjectivity are (have been) far more ambiguous in the ‘Far West’ than it might be usually imagined. This problematization urges our consideration of the characteristics of our being in this world, which is originally, as Medard Boss following Heidegger shows, a being in the world with others dealing with common things and sharing the world-openness (Boss 1975). We believe that the discussions about the relation between individualism and collectivism in the ‘Far West’ as well as in the ‘Far East’ need to be related with this ontological structure of human existence as a basis for intercultural dialogue in information ethics. According to Kurt Goldstein (Goldstein, 1934) and Merleau-Ponty (Merleau-Ponty, 1942 and 1945), the patient of aphasia and agnosia whom Goldstein and Merleau-Ponty analysed in their books is unable to do many things: to imitate soldiers’ salute; to understand metaphors; to understand verbal orders and to obey the orders (for example, to touch some part of his body by obeying someone else’s verbal commands); to take a walk without particular purpose; to classify things with abstract rules. And according to Japanese psychiatrist Takeshi Utsumi (who follows the tradition of S. Freud), mental patients of schizophrenia can’t relate things (for example, his experiences) in two separate points: the present

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time and the past. According to Utsumi, for the ‘ordinary’ (not afflicted by mental illnesses) people, the meanings of things are written in two different points of time. To put this in another way, one (if he is not schizophrenic) can see things from two different aspects: the present and the past. Utsumi says that one’s subjectivity lies in this divided space between the present and the past (Utsumi, 2005). If we follow Foucault’s interpretation in one of his earlier articles, these phenomena of mental illnesses are due to contradictory combination of the patients’ retreat into the isolated private sphere (‘privacy’) and falleness (Verfallen) into the inauthentic world. To put it another way, the phenomena of the patients of mental illnesses analysed by Goldstein and Foucault are cases of ‘fallenness’ into the worst individualistic (isolated) subjectivity and at the same time into the worst objectivity (Foucault, 1954). Here we can combine these explanations by Foucault with our own interpretations, by repeating the central contents of one of the author (Capurro)’s discussions on this world: the world as a common place and as world-openness (Capurro, 2006b). According to Heidegger’s analysis in “Being and Time” (Heidegger, 1976) Being itself is groundless making possible all theoretical understanding and practical orientation. In this sense, we can refer also to the term ‘unmarked space’ used by the Niklas Luhmann following George Spencer Brown (Luhmann 1987; Spencer Brown 1973) that points to the original indeterminacy of Being (Capurro, 2006b). What Medard Boss following Heidegger calls ‘world openness’ is this ‘unmarked space’ of our existence as an open and finite context of given possibilities, past, present and future ones, in their partial and socially mediated disclosure (Boss, 1975). Human existence is characterized by its ‘being-outside’ sharing implicitly or thematically with others the ‘sense’ and ‘meaning’ of things in changing contexts. The concept of communication addresses this original sharing together a common world.

Communication using artificial media presupposes both phenomena, namely our openness to Being as the ‘unmarked space’ and the process of making concrete or ontic differences. Our bodily existence differs, as Medard Boss remarks (Boss, 1975, pp.271-285), from the mere physical presence of things in that we exist as temporal and spatial three-dimensional beings exposed to the indeterminateness of Being. The limits of my bodily existence are, paradoxically speaking, identical to the ones of my world-openness (Boss 1975, p.278). The source of morality as the possibility of going beyond our self-interest can be found in this de-centered nature that manifests itself also as being able to give only a finite response to the necessities of bodily life. Even if we can discuss the possibility of the moral status of digital agents (Floridi & Sanders, 2002 ), it is clear that we have to take into consideration the characteristics of our world understood at the ontological level as the precondition enabling the alleged moral status of digital agents in the socalled infosphere to be realized. In these respects, that is, ‘the world as openness’ and ‘the world as a common place sharing implicitly or thematically with others the “sense” and “meaning” of things’, we can distinguish two types of discussions in IIE namely one at the ontological or structural and another at the ontic or concrete level. The discussions on IIE at the ontic level deal for instance with the concrete differences we make when we separate the public from the private sphere. The discussions at the ontological level deal with the underlying conceptual and existential presuppositions regarding our awareness of our being in the world, the interpretation of our bodily and social nature or the view on our finitude.

Problematization of Privacy in the Information society Human existence is characterized by its ‘beingoutside’ sharing implicitly or thematically with



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others the ‘sense’ and ‘meaning’ of things in changing contexts (Boss, 1975). The intercultural discussions about privacy or the relations between the public and the private need to be discussed, if they want to be productive, on the basis of the interpretations of this common ontological presupposition. Following Foucault, the common world is fundamentally an ambiguous place where the intentions of the individualistic self and the intentions of the others meet together. This meeting together is not fixed but changeable dependent upon various conditions or situations such as (a) fallenness (Verfallen) of our existence into the inauthentic world, (b) the presuppositions of our understanding the characteristics of this world that might be influenced by socio-cultural situations and traditions or our ways of living in this world, (c) the possibility of human relations affected by information technology and specific types of computer mediated communication. We’ve already dealt with some of the topics related with (a) and (b). In the rest of this chapter, we will pay attention to (c) while discussing some phenomena tied with the potential influence of blogs or SNS as well commercialized media upon privacy or upon the relations between the public and the private. Most of the TV-advertisement of Japan today (probably in the ‘Far West’ too) rarely compel people to understand the contents of TV-ads in a specific way. Instead, what the producers and senders of ads do is to provide people with halfdigested sources (for example, ‘a face of a famous actress’ and ‘a picture of a bottle of perfume of a famous brand’) and ‘the space of metaphorical combination of matters’ (the space where people metaphorically combine things presented in ads together). People are not forced to understand the meanings of ads in the way intended by the senders and producers but once they are interested in the things presented in ads, they are involved in the process of completing a half-constructed structure of ads. People can interpret und under-



stand the meanings of ads in ‘original’ ways as they wish but at the same time their interpretation and understanding occur only within the space of metaphorical understanding presented by TV or commercial advertisements-senders. This means we are facing the phenomenon of blurring the distinctions between the realm of ‘me’/ ‘the private’ and ‘others’/‘the public’. The phenomena of blurring the distinctions ‘the private’ and ‘the public’ are also problematized with regard to blogs or SNS. Mixi is a very popular form of communication for Japanese youth these days. Mixi is a typical type of SNS. One of the most remarkable characteristics of mixi is the way of limitation of access to one’s bloglike diary. The writer of that diary can decide the range of readers, i.e., who can read his/her diary. In addition, affiliation of mixi is permitted only by introduction of the old members. These kinds of conditions of affiliation or permission of access to one’s diary characterize the fundamental natures of the communication within this networked community, particularly with regard to anonymity. It seems that what stimulates the readers’ interests when reading mixi’s contents rests upon some kinds of spirits of Musi (denial of egocentric self). It is clear that some kind of narcissism influences the contents of mixi’s blog-like diaries but at the same time the evaluations about mixi’s contents seem to depend on some kinds of Musi. To put it another way, the majority of the writers in mixi’s blog-like diaries as well as the majority of writers of blogs in Japan are trying to make the contents of their diaries or blogs ‘transparent (pure)’ or free from one’s arbitrary interpretation of things they encounter in everyday’s life in spite of the fact that these diaries or blogs are filled with the writers’ personal experiences. But a paradox arises here. In spite of the characteristics of Japanese blogs filled with an atmosphere of purity or Musi, this atmosphere appears to be ‘invaded’ by commercialism in several aspects. First, mixi itself is managed by a commercialized company. Secondly, the members of mixi can share the per-

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sonal reviews of books, movies or music and they can also order these personally reviewed pieces of books, movies or music through Amazon or similar companies. In addition, the writers of these blogs seem to borrow ‘the key concepts used for description of moods’ or ‘the styles of narrating one’s experiences’ from commercialized popular songs: ‘Look at me! I am here!’ This phrase is a kind of cliché used in Japanese popular songs (Jpop) very often. One of the most popular themes in J-pop is a combination of a feeling of ‘disappearance of one’s original or authentic place’ and of sharing ‘pity’ or ‘sorrow’ coming from this disappearance. ‘Look at me! I am here!’ is often used to express this kind of feeling. It seems that the majority of the writers of blogs are influenced by the ‘popular’ theme of commercialized ‘popular’ songs (Nakada, 2005). According to one of the authors (Capurro) these phenomena are part of a broader problematization arising from the paradoxical nature of ‘networked individualities’ (Capurro, 2005, pp.40-41). We say ‘paradoxical’ because this concept is somehow an oxymoron, i.e., the two terms contradict themselves or seem to be contradictory. As already stated, our sharing a common world with others is an original dimension of human existence prior to the modern idea of an individual separated from the ‘outside world’. Due to global networking, the modern subject conceived as an autonomous individual is changing. But the fact of being ‘networked’ is, we believe, not enough to describe the present (and future) world situation. There is a paradoxical tension between the ontological or structural sharing of a common world and the ontic possibilities arising particularly from global digital networking, the former being a condition of possibility of the latter. We seem to be networked and divided at the same time and we change the concepts and conceptions of private and public on basis of new ontic experiences. We are now in the situation in which people want to make public many of the things (private letters for instance, now called blogs) that one

hundred years ago were considered as private. Of course, the essential point is the consent but it seems as if people don’t even care too much about this, particularly with regard to what the state power or private companies are doing with their data. We have a new global situation of this controversy that cannot be solved only on the basis of political modern philosophy that is nation oriented. It is clear that IT has brought not just technical changes that influence the new definition (where to draw the line?) of what is public and what is private, that condition our different kinds of ‘housing’ in a common world. According to Heidegger’s interpretation, modern technology “un-conceals” a new possibility of our relation to the world that was not previously there as in the case of, say, medieval technique (Heidegger, 1953). Heidegger calls this new kind of technological relation between man and world a “challenging” one in which everything, including ourselves, becomes an object capable of being manipulated. In our opinion, modern information technology is deeply ambiguous and, contrary to what Heidegger thought, it un-conceals or makes possible a ‘weak’ or ‘networked’ subject which is at the same time an object of all kind of ‘relations’ and (commercial) exchanges. It is a commodified subject but it is also a subject that re-presents himself/herself in an open space of relations sharing ‘techno-logically’ with others a common world.

FUtUrE trENDs There is an ongoing debate on the philosophical foundations of IIE as well as on specific topics. The philosophical debate deals with concepts such as ‘infosphere’ and ‘digital ontology’ (Capurro, 2008; Floridi & Sanders, 2002; Capurro, 2006b). The impact of ICT on different cultures as well as the cultural perspectives on specific ICT are object of recent studies focused particularly on the comparison between Europe, USA and some



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Pacific states such as Japan, China and Thailand. The dialogue with African cultures started in 2007 (Capurro, 2007). Latin America, the Arabic world, Eastern Europe and other cultures of the Pacific region are underrepresented. The public/private debate is only one main topic of IIE today. Other topics are: intellectual property, online communities, governmentality, gender issues, mobile phones, health care, and the digital divide (Capurro, 2008; Hongladarom & Ess, 2007). Due to the introductory character of this chapter we have chosen this topic from a Japanese/Western perspective. We are aware that the ‘Western perspective’ is partial as there are other representatives of traditional Western thinking with regard to the public/private debate or to the more general question on individualism vs. collectivism, such as Karl Marx or Max Weber, that are not mentioned in this contribution. We are also aware that there other important topics dealing with the comparison of the ‘Far West’ and the ‘Far East’ such as ‘direct speech’ and ‘indirect speech’ (Capurro, 2006a) or the comparison of Seken-related meanings in Japan with collectivism and other fundamental values in other Asian cultures. The intercultural dialogue in the field of information ethics has just begun along with a variety of these topics.

cONcLUsION Karl Baier, specialized in the dialogue with Buddhism and particularly with the Kyoto-School (a group of Japanese scholars reflecting on the relation between Eastern and Western thought) has pointed out recently to the importance of the place of ‘moods’ or more precisely of ‘basic moods’ for a common world disclosure underlying cultural differences (Baier, 2006). This topic is developed by Baier following the analysis by Klaus Held. According to Held there is a transcultural experience, common to all human beings that concerns our awareness of the common world. This expe-

0

rience is based on the awareness of our finitude which includes the awareness of the uniqueness of the world as well as of our own existence. We experience our finitude in the mood of ‘Angst’ and the open possibilities arising from the fact of being born in the mood of ‘astonishment’ and ‘shyness’. This insight into the role of moods corresponds to the generally accepted meaning of Japanese Seken. According to Mineo Hashimoto, the concept of ‘Ukiyo’, understood as life in this transitory world accepted with resignation (Ukiyo being thus another name for Seken) is the hidden source of Japanese attitudes towards the meanings of various activities in everyday life including labor and work (Hashimoto, 1975). According to Hashimoto Japanese traditional view on this world as expressed in the concept of ‘Ukiyo’ is fundamentally associated with a basic mood through which people can see their lives in this vulgar world from a more sacred or purified standpoint. In fact, as our empirical research shows, the minds of Japanese people are filled with certain kinds of moods supposedly tied with ‘views on destination’ or ‘denial of material wealth’ although this doesn’t necessarily mean the overall submergence of Japanese minds into pessimistic moods. If our presuppositions are adequate, as we believe they are, the ontological perspective that arises from our common being in the world enables us to see this deeper stratum common to different cultures and allowing a productive dialogue between them without neutralizing their differences. As we suggested above, the relations between the private and the public spheres need to be analyzed on the basis of this deeper stratum of common awareness of the contingency and uniqueness of the world and of human life.

rEFErENcEs Anderson, T. (2000). The body and communities in cyberspace: A Marcellian analysis. Ethics and Information Technology, 2, 153–158.

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Arendt, H. (1983). Vita Activa oder vom tätigen Leben. München: Piper. Boss, M. (1975). Grundriss der Medizin und der Psychologie. Bern: Huber. Baier, K. (2006). Welterschliessung durch Grundstimmungen als problem interkultureller Phänomenologie. Daseinsanalyse, 22, 90-109. Capurro, R. (1995). Leben im Informationszeitalter. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Capurro, R. (2003). Angeletics – A message theory. In H. H. Diebner & L. Ramsay (Eds.), Hierarchies of Communication, 58-71. Karlsruhe: ZKM Verlag. Retrieved October 1, 2006, from http://www. capurro.de/angeletics_zkm.html Capurro, R. (2005). Privacy: An intercultural perspective. Ethics and Information Technology, 7, 37-47. Capurro, R. (2006a). Ethik der informationsgesellschaft: Ein interkultureller Versuch. Beitrag zur Tagung. Shapes of Things to Come, HumboldtUniversität, Berlin (15-17 February 2006). Retrieved October 1, 2006, from http://www.capurro. de/db.htm (printing in Japanese translation). Capurro, R. (2006b). Towards an ontological foundation of information ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 8, 175-186. Capurro, R. (2007). Information Ethics for and from Africa. International Review of Information Ethics, (7). Capurro, R. (2008). Intercultural information ethics. In K. E. Himma & H. T. Tavani (Eds.), Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics. Wiley & Sons (forthcoming). Capurro, R., Frühbauer, J., & Hausmanninger, T. (Eds.) (2007). Localizing the Internet: Ethical aspects in intercultural perspective. München: Fink Verlag.

Ess, C. (2005). Lost in translation? Intercultural dialogues on privacy and information ethics (Introduction to special issue on Privacy and Data Privacy Protection in Asia). Ethics and Information Technology, 7, 1-6. Floridi, L., & Sanders , J. F. (2002). Mapping the foundationalist debate in computer ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 4, 1-9. Foucault, M. (1954). Maladie mentale et personalité. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Japanese translation by Nakayama, G., (1997). Seishin shikann to paasonarithi. Tokyo: Tcikuma-syobou Foucault, M. (1983). Discourse and truth: The problematization of parrhesia. Presentation at University of California at Berkeley, OctoberNovember. Retrieved October 1, 2006, from http://foucault.info/documents/parrhesia/ Goldstein, K. (1934).Der Aufbau des Origanismus. Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Hamaguchi, E. (1993). Nihongata moderu to wa nanika (About the characteristics of Japanese culture and society). Tokyo: Shinyosya. Hashimoto, M. (1975). Ukiyo no sisou (Ways of thought based upon views on this transitory world with resignation). Tokyo: Koudansya. Heidegger, M. (1976). Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Niemeyer Verlag. Heidegger, M. (1953). Die Frage nach der Technik. In Gesamtausgabe Band 7. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann Verlag. Hongladarom, S., & Ess, C. (Eds.) (2007). Information technology ethics: Cultural perspectives. Pennsylvania: Idea Group. Jullien, F. (1995). Le detour et l’accès. Stratégies du sens en Chine, en Grèce. Paris: Grasset. Jullien, F. (1985). La valeur allusive. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.



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Jullien, F. (Ed.) (1982-). Revue extrême-orient extrême-occident. Presses Universitaires de Vincennes. Kimura, B. (1972). Hito to hito to no aida. Tokyo: Koubundo. German translatation by E. Weinmayr. (1995). Zwischen Mensch und Mensch. Strukturen Japanischer Subjektivität. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Krisana Kitiyadisai (2005). Privacy rights and protection: Foreign values in modern Thai context. Ethics and Information Technology, 7, 17–26. Lü Yao-Huai (2005). Privacy and data privacy issues in contemporary China. Ethics and Information Technology, 7, 7–15. Luhmann, N. (1987). Soziale Systeme. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Lyon, D. (2001). Facing the future: Seeking ethics for everyday surveillance. Ethics and Information Technology, 3, 171–181. Johnson, D. (1994). Computer ethics, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1942). La structure du comportement. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945). Phénoménologie de la perception. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Moor, J. (1989). How to invade and protect privacy with computer ethics. In C. C. Gould (Ed.), The Information Web (pp.57-70). Boulder: Westview Press. Moor, J. (1997). Towards a theory of privacy in the information age. In J. van den Hoven (Ed.), Computer ethics: Philosophical enquiry. Department of Philosophy, Erasmus University. Nakada, M. (2005). Are the meanings of japanese popular songs part of Seken-Jinseikan meanings?



Ronsyuu-gendaibunnka-koukyouseisaku, 1(1), 105-130. Nakada, M. (2006). Privacy and Seken in Japanese information society: Privacy within Seken as old and indigenous world of meaning in Japan. In F.Sudweeks, H. ,Hrachovec, & C. Ess (Eds.), Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication 2006 (pp.564-579). Perth: Murdoch University. Nakada, M. (2007). Japanese traditional values behind political interests in the information age: Japanese political minds within Seken as old and indigenous world of meaning in Japan. In T. W. Bynum, S. Rogerson, & K. Murata (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2007(Globalization: Bridging the Global Nature of Information and Communication Technology and the Local Nature of Human Beings (pp.427-435). Tokyo: Meiji University. Nakada,M., & Tamura, T. (2005). Japanese conceptions of privacy: An intercultural perspective. Ethics and Information Technology, 7, 27-36. Nakada, M., & Capurro, R. (2007). The public/private debate between the “Far West” and the “Far East” (2007) (Unpublished six month e-mail debate between Rafael Capurro and Makoto Nakada. This debate provided the authors with theoretical foundations and the empirical material underlying this chapter. This debate will be published on Capurro’s website: http://www. capurro.de/ ) Spencer Brown, G. (1973). Laws of form. New York: Bantam Books. Sudweeks, F., & Ess, C. (Eds.) (2004). Cultural attitudes towards technology and communication. Perth: Murdoch University. Thompson, P. (2001). Privacy, secrecy and security. Ethics and Information Technology, 3, 13–19. Rachels, J. (1975). Why is privacy important? Philosophy and Public Affairs 4, Summer, 323-333.

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Utsumi, T. (2005). Tougoushityousyou no seishinryouhou kanousei ni tsuite (About the possibility of psychiatrical treatment for schizophrenia). Seishin-Ryouhou, 31(1), 9-18.

KEY tErMs IIE (Intercultural Information Ethics): Problematization of topics such as the relations between the public and the private in the information era from the ontological viewpoints and also from the views motivated by comparison of people’s ways of life in different cultures. Ikai: The hidden or forgotten aspect of Japanese culture from which negative meanings tied with evils, disasters, crimes, and impurity emerge – along with freedom and the sources of energy related to art and spiritual meanings.

Ontological Perspective of IIE: The perspective on intercultural information ethics as arising from our common being in the world with others sharing the world-openness. Seken: The indigenous aspect of Japanese culture reflecting Japanese attitudes towards nature , denial of material desires, destiny, purity of minds, denial of selfishness. Shakai: The modernized aspect of Japanese culture strongly influenced by ‘Western’ culture(s) of modern era. The IIE Public/Private Debate: The debate about different interpretations of the relations between the public and the private spheres as arising from different cultural perspectives particularly with regard to individualism and collectivism.



s; g



Chapter XXIV

Ethical, Cultural and SocioEconomic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country: Comparative Analysis of Pakistani and Canadian University Students Arsalan Butt Simon Fraser University, Canada Adeel I. Butt Simon Fraser University, Canada

abstract Consumer software piracy is widespread in many parts of the world. P2P based websites have made it easier to access pirated software, which has resulted in an increased emphasis on the issue of software piracy in both the software industry and research community. Some factors that determine piracy include poverty, cultural values, ethical attitudes, and education. Earlier empirical studies have looked at software piracy as an intentional behaviour. This study explores the demographic, ethical and socioeconomical factors that can represent software piracy as a social norm among a developing country’s university students. The authors have conducted a comparative analysis of university students from Pakistan and Canada, two countries that differ economically, socially, and culturally. The results of the study indicate that software piracy behaviour is different in both groups of students, but that there are also some similarities. Future research directions and implications are also presented.

Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively posses as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Invention then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. -Thomas Jefferson Congress shall have power … to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. -The Constitution of the United States, Article 1, Section 8, 1788

INtrODUctION Ethicist Richard Mason (1986) identified four main ethical issues of the information age: privacy, accuracy, property and accessibility. It has been suggested that Mason’s work was very significant in the field of Management Information Systems ethics (Freeman & Peace, 2005). Mason (1986)

considered intellectual property (IP) “as one of the most complex issues we face as a society” (p. 9). Mason identified bandwidth as the real threat in the digital world and viewed it as a scarce and fixed commodity at the time. However, with the rapid progress of hardware and software technology, bandwidth has increased immensely and has therefore made peer-to-peer (P2P) technology possible making e-file sharing a matter of few mouse clicks. According to Husted (2000), knowledge and information are now more important factors in a national economy than the traditional physical assets that used to indicate economic well-being. Therefore, the protection of intellectual property (IP) has received increased attention in the recent past. Intellectual property refers to “the results of intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields” (Forester & Morrison, 1990, p. 31). A government plays its role to protect the rights of owners by preventing unauthorised use of this intellectual property for a limited period of time (Seyoum, 1996) by using different measures such as copyrights, trade agreements and patents. Legality aside, there are ethical and moral issues that have risen from the use of software and its unauthorised copying both at the consumer and commercial level. The concept of Technoethics1 deals with such aspects of technology. “It designates that portion of ethics which deals with questions arising from technological development and activities. More precisely, technoethics deals with moral questions governing or resulting from the conception, production, distribution and the use of artifacts or technological systems” (Findeli, 1994, p. 50). In our chapter’s context technoethics or ethics refers to the moralities and ethical values presumed or perceived with the use and copying of commercial software. Software is a form of intellectual property and its unauthorized duplication is a crime. However, the practice of making illegal copies of software amounts to high rates in various parts of the world and in environments such as universities,



Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

businesses, and government, the behaviour has become socially acceptable (Sims, Cheng, and Teegen 1996; Cheng, Sims, and Teegen 1997; Hinduja 2001; Christensen and Eining 1991). Cheng et al (1996) and Husted (2000) suggested that economics play a vital role in determining software piracy. Other studies have however shown that low national income and low personal incomes are not the only reasons for which software is pirated. Swinyard, Rinne, and Kau (1990) observed that attitudes towards software piracy are affected by cultural standards and customs. Hence, “the neglect of culture as an explanation of software piracy seems odd given the fact that cultural values have such a significant impact on a wide array of business practices in different countries” (Husted, 2000, p. 200). Thus, this chapter will not only look into the relationship between economic factors and software piracy, but will also reflect on the cultural and ethical values and social norms that affect the trends of software piracy amongst students.

rEsEarcH qUEstION This study focuses on software piracy amongst university students – specifically with regard to its occurrence over the Internet, sharing (copying or borrowing) software on physical media such as floppy disks and CD-ROMs and buying pirated software from retail outlets2. This research explores the question whether software piracy behaviour among university students of a developing country can be conceptualized in terms of social and cultural norms rather than in terms of intentions as has been described (for piracy amongst university students) in most of the literature (e.g. Kwong & Lee, 2002; Rahim, Seyal & Rahman, 2001; Limayem, Khalifa & Chin, 1999; Tang & Farn, 2005; Gopal, Sanders & Bhattacharjee, 2004).



rEsEarcH jUstIFIcatION Empirical studies have been done on the subject of software piracy in different countries such as Saudi Arabia (Al-Jabri & Abdul-Gader, 1997), Thailand (Kini, Ramakrishna & VijayaRama, 2003; Leurkittikul, 1994), People’s Republic of China (Wang, Zhang, Zang & Ouyang, 2005) and India (Gopal & Sanders, 1998). Other empirical studies include those done by Gan & Koh (2006); Ki, Chang & Khang (2006); and Mishra, Akman & Yazici (2006). Although Husted (2000) and Proserpio, Salvemini & Ghiringhelli (2004) included Pakistan as one of the countries in their respective analytical studies, empirical studies on software piracy issues of Pakistan do not exist in the literature. A comparative study can provide a means of highlighting differences and possible similarities of software piracy determinants between a developed and a developing country. Therefore Canada was chosen for this purpose as it is culturally and economically in contrast with Pakistan. Moreover, there hasn’t been any recent Canadian scholarly literature3 in this context. This research can therefore help fill a part of that void and the results can provide a better understanding of a developing country’s software piracy issues that can help the policy makers to address the problem more effectively.

LItEratUrE rEvIEW Intellectual Property and its Protection According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law, intellectual property (IP) is a “property that derives from the work of the mind or intellect”. Basically IP “refers to a legal entitlement which sometimes attaches to the expressed form of an idea, or to some other intangible subject matter” (Wikipedia, 2006, para. 1). Moreover, IP law “regulates the ownership and use of creative

Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

works, including patent, copyright and trademark law” (Nolo, 2006). Simply put, intellectual property is a realization of someone’s idea or thought. Composed music, lyrics, paintings, published written work, and software are the intellectual property of the artists or the professionals that produced or developed them. Several authors, however, still debate the justifiability of the intellectual property laws (Siponen, 2004; Hettinger, 1989; Ladd, 1997; Stallman, 1995; Weckert, 1997). Although detailed discussion on their arguments is out of the scope of this research, it is important to have a broad view of some of the important concepts. There are several IP protection organizations across the world, such as Business Software Alliance (BSA), Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft (CAAST), International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Many countries have their own intellectual property laws protecting the rights of individuals and organizations alike. The Copyright Act of Canada (Department of Justice Canada, 2006) provides protection to intellectual property in Canada. It considers computer programmes (or software) to be literary work and therefore has several laws controlling their unauthorized copying and distribution. Similarly, computer programmes are considered literary work under the Copyright Ordinance, 1962 of Pakistan. A significant amendment was made to this ordinance in 1992 called the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 1992. This amendment addressed the copyright issues of computer software in more detail than the original Copyright Ordinance. However, some laws are also considered debatable. For example, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is usually seen as a controversial law approved by the U.S. Congress in 19984 (SearchCIO.com, 2006). With society’s transition to a digital world, copyright protection has become an important

area of IP law (Blanke, 2004). It is evident from the discussion above that intellectual property rights hold immense importance in today’s world but justification of IP rights and laws continues to be a debate among the subject experts. “On one hand are those who believe that anything they conjure up, anything that transforms an idea into form, is intellectual property. On the other are the individuals who believe just as passionately that the entire notion of intellectual property is at best a farce, at worst just another way to suck profits out of the ether” (Gantz & Rochester, 2004, p. xxiii). For example, Hettinger (1989), Ladd (1997), Stallman (1995) and Weckert (1997) view software as an intangible commodity and therefore favour its copying. Weckert reflected on intellectual property rights concerning software as unjustifiable. Hettinger holds similar views on IP rights and their protection. Hettinger suggested that patents and trade secrets are more difficult to justify than copyrights which “restrict only copying an expression of an idea” (Hettinger, 1989, p. 52). Siponen however argues that “it is fair and just for people to claim financial rewards for their creations” (Siponen, 2004, “Concluding remarks” section) and that respecting IP laws and rights is necessary for the society to live in harmony.

software Piracy Sims et al (1996) define software piracy as “the illegal copying of computer software” (p. 839). Copying software is easy and can be carried out in many forms. Moores (2003) identified common forms of software piracy as counterfeiting, Internet piracy, and softlifting. He further noted, that “counterfeiting and Internet piracy both involve creating bootlegged copies of licensed software for sale or distribution. Internet piracy makes use of the Internet to distribute the software, and has become a particular concern for vendor organizations” (Moores, 2003, p. 208). Softlifting is also a very common type of software piracy among businesses that install single-user licensed



Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

software on multiple machines (Rahim, Seyal, & Abdul-Rahman, 2001; Simpson, Banerjee, & Simpson, 1994). Another kind of software piracy involves software installation by retailers onto the hard disk drives of customers’ personal computers (PCs) in order to encourage the sale of hardware.

Can Software Piracy be Justified? As is the case with intellectual property, issues surrounding software piracy are debated as well. For example, worldwide software piracy figures reported by BSA are cited by almost every published article on software piracy.5 However, many authors consider BSA’s methodology for calculating the levels of software piracy and the amount of reported monetary losses incurred as highly controversial (Locklear, 2004; The Economist, 2005). Even IDC (www.idc.com), an organization which has worked for BSA on the latter’s several world software piracy reports, has commented that the conclusions presented in the 2004 BSA study were exaggerated (Locklear, 2004). Some authors, however, have argued that software piracy increases the popularity of the product itself as suggested by Slive and Bernhardt (1998) that “a software manufacturer may permit limited piracy of its software. Piracy can be viewed as a form of price discrimination in which the manufacturer sells some of the software at a price of zero” (p. 886). A similar opinion was voiced by Microsoft Founder, Chairman, and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates in 1998. Gates reportedly said, “Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don’t pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade” (CNN.com, 2001). This may also suggest that software manufacturers can allow initial piracy of their product as a strategy



to enter or monopolize the market by making consumers attached to a particular software only (as could be the case for Microsoft’s operating system Windows), since the purchasing power of the average consumer does not allow him/her to purchase the legal product at full price. Bill Gates faced a lot of criticism for his comments as Microsoft itself is probably the strongest advocate of the anti-software piracy campaign, the company’s products being widely pirated all around the world. Givon, Mahajan and Muller (1995) stated that “software piracy permits the shadow diffusion of a software parallel to its legal diffusion in the marketplace, increasing its user base over time. Because of this software shadow diffusion, a software firm loses potential profits, access to a significant proportion of the software user base, opportunities for cross-selling, and marketing its other products and new generations of the software. However, shadow diffusion may influence the legal diffusion of the software. Software pirates may influence potential software users to adopt the software, and some of these adopters may become buyers” (p. 1). LaRue (1985) also suggested that software publishers could eventually benefit by adopting a shareware marketing strategy of their software. This strategy is currently adopted by many software manufacturers and as Karon (1986) noted, the idea of such marketing strategies has also been supported by the president of an education software firm who believes that some pirates may eventually buy their products due to value-added benefits. Slive and Bernhardt (1998) also stated that piracy of software by home users can be viewed as a price discrimination strategy by the manufacturer (selling software for free) which will eventually increase the demand for the software by business users. According to The Linux Information Project [LINFO] (2006), the critics of the concept of software piracy argue that the terminology associated with this concept is deliberately manipulated by the major commercial software developers. “That

Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

Figure 1. Can software piracy be justified?

is, use of the term piracy itself is also highly controversial in a software context” (The Linux Information Project [LINFO], 2006, “Inappropriate Terminology” section, para. 1). And “this is also because it implies that people or organizations that create or use copies of programs in violation of their [end user licensing agreement] EULAs are similar to pirates. Pirates are violent gangs that raid ships at sea in order to steal their cargoes and rob their crews; they also frequently injure or kill the crews and sink their ships. Critics of this terminology claim that it was chosen for its dramatic public relations value rather than because of any relationship to the traditional use of the word” (LINFO, 2006, “Inappropriate Terminology” section, para. 2). Another factor that has been shown to associate directly with computer abuse is called the Robin Hood Syndrome (Forester & Morrison, 1990; Perrolle, 1987; U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1989a, 1989b). Harrington (2002) describes the Robin Hood syndrome as “the belief that harming a large organization to the benefit of an individual is the right behavior” (p.

180). In her study of software piracy, Harrington found that people high in Robin Hood Syndrome are more likely to pirate software as this syndrome allows an “individual to neutralize ethical judgments about software piracy and copy software offered for sale by large organizations” (p.181). The Robin Hood Syndrome could be applied in the context of developing countries as well, where software piracy is justified on the grounds “that it is unfair to charge prices in low income countries that are comparable to those in the higher income countries, and thus virtually unaffordable by most citizens and many businesses in such countries” (LINFO, 2006, “Reasons and Justifications For” section, point 4). The purpose of this research is not to justify software piracy in a developing country such as Pakistan or any other part of the world. The authors believe that software piracy in any form is illegal and an unethical behaviour. However, it is equally important to stress the fact that depending upon the circumstances, individuals either inevitably have to indulge in this behaviour, reasons for which will be discussed later; or they have the



Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

option of pirating software, that is to say they do it because they can. Another important clarification that needs to be established at this point is that this research mainly focuses on individual piracy rather than commercial piracy (organizations producing pirated software on a large scale for selling purposes) which is purely done for profit. Commercial piracy however is a crucial element that creates a piracy facilitating environment in a society and will therefore be discussed where relevant. However as stated earlier, the focal point of this research is individual piracy by university students.

software Piracy in Pakistan and canada Developed nations such as U.S. or Canada have anti-piracy policies and organizations to control unauthorized publishing or copying of software. However, “developing countries are passive in addressing computer ethics in general and intellectual property rights in particular” (Al-Jabri et al., 1997, p. 335). Al-Jabri et al. also suggested that developing countries lack interest groups that combat software piracy. However, it has also been observed that even the presence of these organizations and the existing copyright laws of

the country cannot make a significant difference in developing countries (IIPA, 2004). According to IIPAA (2006) Canada also falls short in meeting the objectives laid down in the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT). IIPA notes that the Canadian government introduced Bill C-60 in order to comply with these treaties but the bill eventually died as a result of a call for federal elections in November 2005. IIPA further points out that “Canada remains far behind virtually all of its peers in the industrialized world with respect to its efforts to bring its copyright laws up to date with the realities of the global digital networked environment. Indeed, most of the major developing countries have progressed further and faster than Canada in meeting this challenge” (IIPA, 2006, p. 2). As per the IIPA recommendation, Canada remains on the Watch List of countries. As indicated in Figure 2, the software piracy rates have remained nearly constant over the past few years in Pakistan and Canada.

rEsEarcH MODEL Theory of reasoned action (TRA) suggested by Fishbein & Ajzen (1975) and theory of planned

Figure 2. Software piracy levels in Pakistan & Canada (Source: BSA 2005, 2007)

Piracy rates

comparison of Pakistan & canada 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Pakistan Canada

000

00

00

00 Years

0

00

00

00

Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

behaviour (TPB) later developed by Ajzen (1991) have been used extensively in the literature to explain software piracy behaviour and intentions. Both of these theories look at behaviour as an intentional act. While it is true that the literature on software piracy (significant portion of which is based on TRA and TPB) has helped in understanding various aspects of the matter, there have been no empirical studies to prove that software piracy can be conceptualized as an unintentional behaviour or as a behaviour that is the product of the social and cultural environment within which the behaviour is carried out. The model developed for this research6 is shown in Figure 3. It includes social norms as one of the variables. The basic structure of this model has been adopted and modified from a model that was used by Proserpio et al. (2004). Their model was based on a multi-causality approach to determine software piracy factors in 76 countries (including Pakistan and Canada) and is therefore appropriate for this research.

rEsEarcH HYPOtHEsEs Economic Development According to Marron and Steel (2000), intellectual property rights encourage novelty and economic

growth. In a study on the relationship between national economy and piracy levels, they concluded that a strong inverse correlation existed between piracy rates and the income level of the country. Bezmen & Depken (2006) also found a negative relationship between software piracy and income, tax burdens, and economic freedom. Therefore, it is hypothesized that: H1: Income will have an inverse influence on piracy intention of subjects. H2: High price of original software will have a direct influence on the piracy intention of subjects.

Culture Culture has been defined as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another” (Hofstede, 1997, p.260); yet culture is a very broad concept, and has little power if it is used as a residual category (Child, 1981). Marron & Steel (2000) and Shin et al. (2004) concluded that the collectivistic culture is to blame for the high software piracy rates. Therefore, social norms and culture will be taken into consideration and the following is hypothesized.

Figure 3. Software piracy behavior model (Source: Butt, 2006)



Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

H3: Social/Cultural norms will have a direct influence on the piracy behaviour of subjects.

Other Piracy Facilitating Factors Besides the effects of social and cultural norms and poor economy on software piracy, the availability of pirated products is a very important factor that could be significantly related to higher piracy rates. For instance, Rainbow Market in Karachi, and Hafeez Centre in Lahore are two of the biggest and best-known hardware and software malls in Pakistan. Each of these malls comprises hundreds of retailers selling pirated software. The Canadian software market’s situation is totally different from the one described above. There are few, if any retailers openly selling pirated software. However, according to a CAAST news release (CAAST, 2005), forty seven percent of the surveyed students admitted to pirating software. Moores & Dhaliwal (2004) suggested that high availability of illegal software, absence of legal punishments and high cost of legal software reflect the high piracy rates of the regions being studied. Simpson et al. (1994) also included the element of legal factors in the piracy model they proposed, and found that these factors have an effect on the ethical decision process, which leads to the actual piracy behaviour. The following is therefore hypothesized in regards to the availability and legal factors. H4: There will be a positive influence of the availability of pirated software on the intent of subjects. H5: Legal enforcement will have a negative influence on the piracy intent of the subjects. H6: Legal enforcement will have a positive influence on the social norms. Previous studies have also suggested that gender is an important demographic factor that affects



one’s intention to pirate software. In a survey of moral intentions towards software piracy, Kini et al. (2003) found that males were more inclined towards pirating software, and similar results were proposed by Higgins and Makin (2004). Therefore, the following is considered as the null hypothesis for gender. H7: There will be no difference between males and females regarding their software piracy behaviour. “People’s perceptions of a particular behaviour are shaped by the existing value system of the society” (Lau, 2003, p. 234). The decision-making model proposed by Jones (1991) suggested that an individual’s attitude toward ethical issues will affect the individual’s ethical judgement and then their ethical behaviour. It is therefore hypothesized that: H8: There will be a direct relationship between attitudes towards piracy and the piracy behaviour of subjects. The discussion that has been presented so far in this research elaborates on the fact that current literature regards piracy behaviour as intentional. To conform to the current literature, the following final hypothesis is made. H9: Intention to pirate software will have a positive influence on the actual piracy behaviour of subjects.

rEsEarcH MEtHODOLOGY site selection As is the case with many research projects, this study also had limited resources in terms of time and money. The sites for the study were therefore chosen with these factors taken into consideration.

Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

For the Canadian part of the study, the authors’ home university was chosen. For the Pakistani study, the city of Lahore was chosen since it has one of the biggest pirated software markets in Pakistan and also has several IT institutions. Five universities were chosen in Lahore.

sampling characteristics Students were chosen as the target population in order to conform to the existing research, most of which is based on samples of college and university students. Students at both undergraduate and graduate levels from information technology and computer science departments were included in this study.

Pilot & actual studies A self-administered survey instrument/questionnaire was developed. This questionnaire consisted of closed-ended questions that were used to collect demographic details about the research participants. The questionnaire also consisted of, 31 items, each rated on a 5-point Likert scale to assess respondents’ attitude towards ethical, economical and demographic implications of software piracy. Negatively worded items were included to detect response patterns. Various items in the questionnaire were adopted from current literature including Moores & Dhaliwal (2004), Siegfried (2005) and Al-Jabri et al. (1997). Based on the feedback of pilot study (conducted in Canada), minor changes were made to the format and content of the questionnaire, and it was also modified to make it adaptable in Pakistan. While conducting the study in Pakistan, hard copies of the questionnaire were physically distributed at the same time in four classrooms and one computer laboratory at each of the five universities. The questionnaire at the university in Canada was administered through the Internet with the use of a secure program written in PHP/CGI to capture responses.

Data aNaLYsIs Descriptive statistics The online survey conducted at the university in Canada returned 208 responses out of which 196 were usable. Most of the Canadian respondents were under the age of 26 (n=172, 88%).7 There were 122 (62%) males and 74 (38%) female respondents. The survey in five Pakistani universities returned 365 responses out of which 339 (n=339) were usable. As was the case in Canadian data, most of the respondents were under the age of 26 (n = 325, 96%). There were 221 (65%) males and 118 (35%) female respondents.

Hypotheses testing For testing hypothesis, the questionnaire items in both Pakistani and Canadian questionnaire were grouped together to make the statistical tests feasible. The groupings (Table 1) were made based on (1) the face validity, i.e. interpretability; (2) factor loadings; and (3) reliability aka Cronbach’s alpha. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with LISREL was used to test the relationships between the above groups/variables. Based on composite scores, the ‘Norm-attd’ group in the Pakistani data was further split into ‘socnorm’ for ‘social norms’ and ‘attit’ for ‘attitude’. In the SEM for the Pakistani group, a latent variable called ‘sociomor’ was created which was composed of ‘socnorm’ and ‘attit’.

Fitting Data on structural Models In addition to fit statistics, structural equation modelling (SEM) produces estimates for partial regression coefficients (referred to as path coefficients), standardized regression coefficients and estimates of squared multiple correlations” (Wagner & Sanders, 2001, p. 165). LISREL was used to fit the data on a structural equation model.



Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

Table 1. Composite variables in the study8 Pakistani Study – Variable (Group) Names

Canadian Study – Variable (Group) Names

Availability

Availability

Legal

Legal

Intent

Intent

Norm-attd (i.e. Norms and socially or culturally mediated attitudes grouped together)

Ethical beliefs and Attitudes

Price

Price

Piracy Behaviour

Piracy Behaviour

-

Norms

The resulting path coefficients for Pakistan and Canada are shown in Figure 4.9 The structural models developed in this research represent the direction and strength of independent variables’ relationship with dependent variables. In the Pakistani model, the price factor (price  piracy behaviour, 0.03) does not seem to have any effect at all on the piracy behaviour, therefore rejecting hypothesis 2. Price also has a fairly strong negative relationship (-.047) with the intent variable, thus contradicting hypothesis 1. In the Canadian model, price has very weak relationships with intent (.01) and piracy behaviour (.02), therefore rejecting hypotheses 1 and 2 for Canadian students. Legal issues have a fairly strong influence on intent (0.54) and not so strong (although it is in the right direction) on the sociomor variable (0.40) in the Pakistani model. Hypothesis 5 and hypothesis 6 are accepted and rejected respectively. The Canadian legal construct has a weak relationship with intent (0.07) and a fairly strong relationship with ethical beliefs and attitudes (0.46), thus rejecting hypothesis 5 but accepting hypothesis 6. The gender piracy behaviour paths in both models have very weak coefficients indicating no difference in piracy behaviour between males and females, thus accepting hypothesis 7. The availability of pirated software has a very small effect on the intent of Pakistani (0.13) and Canadian (0.23) students rejecting hypothesis



4. Intentions in the Pakistani model have a very high negative relationship (-0.76) with the piracy behaviour. Hypothesis 9 is therefore rejected. The sociomor construct, despite having a positive relationship (0.39) with the piracy behaviour, is not strong enough to accept hypotheses 3 and 8 in the Pakistani model. As far as the Canadian model is concerned, the norms variable has a strong influence (0.52) on ethics and attitudes toward piracy but negligible effect on piracy behaviour with a path coefficient of 0.05. Intent on the other hand shows a relationship in the correct direction (though not very strong) with a path coefficient of 0.34 with the piracy behaviour of the students.

DIscUssION This research has focused on the cultural dimension of software piracy and its effect on the behaviour of university students. Two structural models that incorporate social and cultural norms, economic conditions, ethical attitudes towards piracy and the availability of software piracy have been developed and tested. Since Canada and Pakistan are culturally and economically different, they were chosen to provide a contrasting view of the software piracy phenomenon. The IT industry in Pakistan is progressing, though not at a rapid pace. Still in its infancy, it began in Pakistan with the introduction of

Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

Figure 4. Pakistani and Canadian SEMs

the Internet in 1996. The analysis of economic factors (high price of legal software and low income) in this study provides a rationale for the reluctance of Pakistani government in enforcing intellectual property rights. Despite being aware of the rampant software piracy, governments of countries such as Pakistan are aware of the economic conditions of the mass population. People (students, in the context of this research) in the developing countries need to have cheap access to resources (software) in order to keep up with the rapid pace of technological advancement in the developed world. It can therefore be assumed that governments of developing countries are aware of this and therefore are always reluctant to enact and enforce strict IP protection laws. The empirical evaluation provides support that social norms and positive attitudes towards piracy are correlated with the actual piracy behaviour of Pakistani students.10 This finding is similar

to that of Proserpio et al., (2004), Seale et al., (1998) and Al-Jabri, I. & Abdul-Gader (1997). Intentions proved to be stronger predictors of piracy behaviour of Canadian students and this finding conforms to the literature which regards piracy behaviour as intentional. The achieved results indicate that software piracy behaviour in Pakistan cannot be regarded as purely intentional. It should rather be conceptualized as a consequential behaviour resulting from various elements, with customs or social norms being the strongest of them all. This also indicates that in two culturally different countries, the conditions that are responsible for creating a piracy-favouring environment are essentially different. Due to a lack of IP related awareness (unlike the developed world), this culture of copyright infringement is deeply rooted in the Pakistani society in such a way that students buy or share pirated software without even realizing that their action might



Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

be considered illegal and/or unethical. It is an established norm: a custom; the way an act is supposed to be normally carried by a member of the society. Gopal and Sanders (1998) correctly identified the need for a behavioural model for software piracy activity that would help software publishers gain insight into the behavioural dynamics of software pirates. However, as they also found that their economical model was appropriate for the U.S. and not for India, caution should be practiced in all future research that attempts to study piracy behaviour. This study was an exploratory, cross-cultural investigation of piracy in two very different cultures. The applicability of Western constructs such as ‘attitudes’ and ‘intentions’ to collectivist societies must always be critically examined. Future research should look at the questions left unanswered by this study. Subjects from more countries should be included in future cross-country studies of software piracy behaviour so that the results of this study could not only be generalized for the general student population but also to the population at large. Authors of this chapter feel necessary to reflect upon the fact that a discovery or invention of a new technology cannot be blamed for its eventual uses. Albert Einstein reportedly said, “My name is linked to the atomic bomb in two different ways. Almost fifty years ago I discovered the equivalence of mass and energy, a relationship which served as the guiding principle in the work leading to the release of atomic energy. Secondly, I signed a letter to President Roosevelt, stressing the need for work in the field of the atomic bomb. I felt this was necessary because of the dreadful danger that the Nazi regime might be the first to come into possession of the atomic bomb” (Nathan & Norden, 1960, p. 569). Einstein however considered signing the letter a “great mistake” (Tobar-Arbulu, 1984). Technology itself can therefore not be blamed for its eventual uses.



FUtUrE trENDs Findeli (1994) correctly argued that technoethical issues have been continuously rising from the unparalleled developments in technology. One could argue that such issues can act as catalysts to invoke other socio-political and ethical dilemmas. It is not only in software or computer technology that further development will raise ethical questions, but other walks of life such as medicine, engineering, journalism, etc. can have equally grave issues: human cloning, embryonic stem cells research, and inappropriate use of media to shape public opinion during conflicts (e.g. in a war), are only a handful of examples. It is a matter of time before such conflicts will give birth to new unforeseen technoethical issues.

cONcLUsION This study has found that there are more ways than one of understanding piracy behaviour across different countries. Although poor national economy plays a substantial role in software piracy rates, culture is also part of the equation. This study has also suggested that software piracy behaviour in a developing country such as Pakistan should not be conceptualized in terms of intentions alone. Caution should be practiced in all future research that attempts to study piracy behaviour as the applicability of Western constructs such as ‘attitudes’ and ‘intentions’ to collectivist societies must always be critically examined. Subjects from more countries should be included in future cross-country studies of software piracy behaviour so that the results of this study could not only be generalized for the general student population but also for the population at large. There is also a lack of longitudinal research and also of other forms of electronic piracy, such as the availability of pirated e-books on the Internet. Future research could therefore attempt to study both of these domains as well.

Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

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Harrington, S. J. (2002). Software piracy: Are robin hood and responsibility denial at work? In Salehnia, A. (Ed.), Ethical issues of information systems, (pp. 177-188). Hershey, PA: IRM Press. Hettinger, E. C. (1989). Justifying intellectual property. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 18(1), 31-52. Higgins, G. E. & Makin, D. A. (2004). Does social learning theory condition the effects of low self-control on college students’ software piracy? Journal of Economic Crime Management, 2(2), 1-22. Hinduja, S. (2001). Correlates of internet software piracy. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 17(4), 369-82. Hofstede, G. (1997), Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. New York: McGraw Hill. Husted, B. W. (2000). The impact of national culture on software piracy. Journal of Business Ethics, 26, 197-211. International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA). (2004). 2004 special 301 report: Pakistan. Retrieved November 20, 2005 from http://www. iipa.com/rbc/2004/2004SPEC301PAKISTAN. pdf



Ki E., Chang B., & Khang K. (2006). Exploring influential factors on music piracy across countries. Journal of Communication, 56, 406-426. Kini, R. B., Ramakrishna, H.V. & Vijayaraman, B. S. (2003). An exploratory study of moral intensity regarding software piracy of students in Thailand. Behavior & Information Technology, 22(1), 63-70. Kwong, T. C. H. & Lee, M. K. O. (2002). Behavioral intention model for the exchange mode internet music piracy. Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences -Volume 7, 191. Washington, DC, USA. Ladd, J. (1997). Ethics and the computer world: A new challenge for philosophers. ACM Computers & Society, 27(3), 8-13. Lau, E. K. W. (2003). An empirical study of software piracy. Business Ethics, 12(3), 233-245. LaRue, J. (1985). Steal this program. Library Software Review, 4(5), 298-301. Leurkittikul, S. (1994). An empirical comparative analysis of software piracy: The United States and Thailand. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Mississippi State University. Limayem, M., Khalifa, M., & Chin, W. W. (1999). Factors motivating software piracy: A longitudinal study. International Conference on Information

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0

Weckert, J. (1997). Intellectual property rights and computer software. Journal of Business Ethics, 6(2), 101-109. Wikipedia - The free encyclopaedia. (2006). Intellectual property. Retrieved March 16, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

KEY tErMs Culture: Source: Hofstede (1997): “The collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.” Individualism and Collectivism: Source: www.Geert-Hofstede.com, An individualistic society is one in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The word ‘collectivism’ in this sense has no political meaning: it refers to the group, not to the state. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world. Intellectual Property: Source Forester & Morrison (1990): Results of intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields. P2P: Source (www.tech-faq.com): Peer-topeer (P2P) file sharing is a system of sharing files directly between network users, without the assistance or the interference of a central server. Software Piracy: Unauthorized duplication of computer for personal and/or commercial purposes. Types of software piracy addresses in this chapter (Source: www.siia.net):

Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

a.

b.

c.

d.

Softlifting: It occurs when a person purchases a single licensed copy of a software program and loads it on several machines, in violation of the terms of the license agreement. Typical examples of softlifting include, “sharing” software with friends and co-workers and installing software on home/laptop computers if not allowed to do so by the license. In the corporate environment, softlifting is the most prevalent type of software piracy - and perhaps, the easiest to catch. Hard-Disk Loading: It occurs when an individual or company sells computers preloaded with illegal copies of software. Often this is done by the vendor as an incentive to buy certain hardware. CD-R Piracy: It is the illegal copying of software using CD-R recording technology. This form of piracy occurs when a person obtains a copy of a software program and makes a copy or copies and re-distributes them to friends or for re-sale. Although there is some overlap between CD-R piracy and counterfeiting, with CD-R piracy there may be no attempt to try to pass off the illegal copy as a legitimate copy - it may have hand-written labels and no documentation at all. Internet Piracy: It is the uploading of commercial software (i.e., software that is not freeware or public domain) on to the Internet for anyone to copy or copying commercial software from any of these services. Internet piracy also includes making available or offering for sale pirated software over the Internet. Examples of this include the offering of software through an auction site, IM, IRC or a warez site. Incidences of Internet piracy have risen exponentially over the last few years.

ENDNOtEs 1

2

3

4

5

6

7 8

9

For a detailed discussion on technoethics, see Tobar-Arbulu (n.d.) and Findeli (1994). These types of software piracy are defined at the end of this chapter. There was only one Canadian empirical (scholarly) study found in the literature (see Limayem et al., 1999). This study however relied on 98 research participants only and therefore cannot be considered very extensive. For more discussion on the controversial aspects of DMCA, see http://www.eff. org/IP/DMCA/20020503_dmca_consequences.pdf; http://chronicle.com/free/v48/ i47/47b00701.htm This chapter also cites BSA figures but does not rely on any one of them as a major argument. It is important to emphasize here that the model shown in Figure 1 presents a very basic structure which represents the theoretical base of this research. All percentages are rounded off. Factors with Cronbach’s alpha >= .70 were only retained. The positive paths between two variables indicate a positive relationship between them and vice versa. The closer the coefficient is to 1, the stronger the relationship. Authors feel the need to emphasize that the structural models were modified until an acceptable fit was achieved. The model was modified because (1) some of the independent variables had significantly non-normal distributions and (2) the relatively small sample size in the Canadian case made parameter estimation in more complex models more difficult. This is due to the under-identification problems that often arise when the number of degrees of freedom—a function of sample size and number of free parameters—is small. In SEM, structural coefficients between ob-



Ethical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Factors of Software Piracy Determinants in a Developing Country

served variables and latent variables and between latent variables and other variables are parameters to be estimated. For these reasons as well as for parsimony, a less complex SEM model was adopted.



10

Absence of very strong relationships in SEMs can be attributed to small sample sizes in both studies. Nonetheless, the direction of relationships supported the underlying hypothesis: intentional vs. un-intentional piracy behaviour.



Chapter XXV

Nanoethics:

The Role of News Media in Shaping Debate A. Anderson University of Plymouth, UK S. Allan Bournemouth University, UK A. Petersen Monash University, Australia C. Wilkinson University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

abstract Recent evidence on genetically modified crops, cloning and stem cell research suggests that the news media play a significant role in shaping wider agendas for public debate about ‘the rights and wrongs’ of newly emergent technologies. This may prove to be especially pertinent to nanotechnologies, which currently register low public visibility and yet are predicted by many scientists, policymakers and other stakeholders to have far-reaching implications in the years ahead. This chapter, drawing upon data from the authors’ British study on nanotechnologies and news production, examines how the press may influence the terms of public debate about such ethical issues as the dangers posed by particular applications, who has access to the technologies, and who is likely to benefit or be disadvantaged by developments. Efforts to enhance public deliberation about the ethical implications of nanotechnologies, it is argued, must attend to the complex ways in which journalists mediate between contending claims about their benefits and risks. Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Nanoethics

INtrODUctION The field of nanotechnologies poses a significant challenge for ethics and governance, especially in relation to how information about technological innovation is communicated during early phases of development. Levels of public knowledge of the substantive issues raised by nanotechnologies, including possible benefits and risks, will likely depend on how this information is portrayed in the media, how widely it is disseminated, and under what circumstances. At present, applications of nanotechnologies have achieved relatively low public visibility, with their attendant media representation subject to fairly routine forms of negotiation amongst interested stakeholders. In the years ahead, however, it is anticipated that questions regarding how pertinent issues are configured in and by the media are likely to be increasingly important for the formation of public knowledge about (and responses to) these technologies. This chapter discusses the role of the newspaper press in shaping portrayals of nanotechnologies, recognising as we do that this process influences competing agendas for public debate about its ethical implications during a period of growing scientific and policy interest in this field. It focuses particular attention on the role of stakeholders in this process, such as with regard to their efforts to affect the ways in which journalists frame the relevant issues. Informing this chapter’s discussion are findings drawn from our case study into the production and portrayal of nanotechnology news by British newspapers.a The study was conducted in the wake of widespread media coverage – and intense public controversy – about bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and genetically modified (GM) food and crops (see also Allan, 2002), accompanied at the time by growing concerns among science groups and policymakers about a public backlash against virtually any emergent technology associated with scientific uncertainty.



We argue that the ways in which the significance of nanotechnology risks are recurrently framed during the early stages of their growing public visibility is likely to be crucial to how citizens understand and subsequently respond to the technologies, whether they believe the benefits outweigh the risks, and whether they trust experts and information concerning ethical issues. The dynamics of news reporting figure only rarely in discussions about the ethical implications of new technologies, and yet given the significance of the media in influencing the terms for public debate about technology issues, we contend, it deserves a more central place in deliberations in this area in the future. The discussion begins with a brief account of what we mean by ‘nanotechnologies’, their convergence with other ‘new’ technologies, and some of their current applications. Next, it outlines certain key concerns highlighted in the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering (2004) Report Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties. On this basis, the chapter proceeds to situate nanotechnologies in relation to the literature on representations of science and technology so as to enable comparisons to be made with earlier biotechnology controversies. Questions raised include: what, if anything, is novel about the framing of nanotechnologies? In particular, what part do the media play in shaping public discourse about the ethical implications of their applications? It is against this backdrop that the chapter presents and discusses relevant findings drawn from its case study. In so doing, it considers several pressing implications for the study of nanoethics, as well as future avenues of research.

PUbLIc aWarENEss aND trUst Nanotechnology, the design and manipulation of matter at the level of atoms and molecules is, according to Friends of the Earth, “…set to be one of the defining issues of our time.” (Friends of the

Nanoethics

Earth website, 2006) It is neither new nor a single technology; rather, it involves the fusing together of elements of chemistry, physics, biology and materials science (Wood et al., 2007); hence, the commonly adopted ‘nanotechnologies’. Cutting across a number of different fields of science, the very definition of ‘nanotechnology’ is itself the subject of considerable debate since older technologies are increasingly being repackaged with a nano-prefix in the fierce competition to attract funding. While still in its infancy, there are currently in excess of 1,400 nanotech related companies and over 400 nano based consumer products available on the market including: sun creams; cosmetics; razors; condoms; toothbrushes and toothpastes; wound dressings; food and beverages; food containers; air purifiers; fridges; computer hard-wear; stain-resistant clothing; selfcleaning glass and window sealants (Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, 2007). At the same time, however, there are serious concerns about a lack of adequate regulatory control (Michelson & Rejeski, 2006). Moreover, the convergence of nanotechnologies with related technologies -- such as biotechnology, artificial intelligence, information and communication technologies – is deemed likely to generate new configurations of risk. Ethical questions, as Jotterand (2006) suggests, are intrinsic to the conduct of scientific research. ‘The social and ethical issues raised by science and technology,’ he contends, ‘are no longer the responsibility of a “relatively closed bureaucratic-professional-legal world of regulation,” but are relocated within the public arena which is characterized by competing models of scientific justification and political legitimation’ (2006: 661). Science and technology exist within a social context and the power to define what counts as a ‘social and ethical’ issue is crucial (Lewenstein, 2006). Efforts to separate social and ethical issues from ‘pure scientific’ ones are seriously problematic since they are likely to conceal the way in which power operates across a wide range of areas. Indeed, as Khushf argues:

Through critical reflection on the scientific and engineering enterprise itself, the values and core ideals of nanotechnology need to be made explicit, so that a more sustained form of ethical reflection can be developed which might accompany the research at the most preliminary stages. This…is probably the single most important development that needs to take place…Without this, nanotech will continually struggle with the kind of polarization of scientific and ethical analysis that characterize other areas of science, and, especially in the more controversial areas of nano, this is likely to provoke a public debate like that associated with GMOs and nuclear technology, where there is poor integration of the realities of scientific practice and the public perception of what is at issue. (cited in Jotterand 2006: 663-664) In the case of nanotechnologies, there are particular ethical concerns over the possible health hazards of nanoparticles (these can enter the body via the lungs, intestinal tract and skin, although the skin acts as a more complex barrier (Hoet et al., 2004)). To date, relatively little research on the health and safety implications of nanotechnologies has been undertaken. The potential misuse of nanotechnologies in medical research raises many of the same ethical issues arising from stem cell research. While acknowledging the risks, advocates argue that nanotechnologies could bring about a range of medical benefits including better targeted drug delivery and super-hard, light implants. Communication and information systems could be improved by faster micro-processors alerting people in developing countries about new outbreaks of disease (Hunt, 2006). From an environmental point of view, nanotechnologies are seen to carry both risks and benefits. There is considerable uncertainty about the effects of nanoparticles on the environment, but some emerging evidence suggests that they may cause biological harm (Colvin, 2003: Preston, 2006). On the other hand, proponents argue that nanotechnologies could have a range



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of environmental benefits through, for example, enhancing cleaner energy technologies, such as wind and solar power, to increase environmental efficiency. Ethical concerns also arise over privacy issues (eg use of the technologies in surveillance, more advanced medical records databases made possible by faster microprocessors) and intellectual property issues (eg conflicts over ownership rights between industry and academic research departments). The development of an information tracking nano-device in the human body could raise fresh concerns over the potential misuse of people’s personal information. Military applications, in particular, are likely to contribute to concerns - especially regarding the potential deliberate misuse of nanotechnologies for purposes of military aggression. In this regard questions arise over where the line is drawn between offensive and defensive military objectives. Moreover, the potential for a ‘nano-divide’ is considered to raise further issues, given that developing countries are competing on unequal terms and applications are likely to exacerbate the gap between the rich and the poor. Responding to these debates, some bioethicists, together with environmental pressure groups, have called for a moratorium on all research until the apparent gap between the science and ethics is closed (Mnyusiwalla et al., 2003; ETC, 2003). Meanwhile, as nanotechnologies are steadily becoming more commonly used in everyday products (including sun creams, cosmetics, sports items, paints, cars, clothing and computer hard drives), the portrayal of the risks and benefits is emerging as a key issue for public debate. A number of recent science reports grant a privileged role to the news media where the public understanding of nanotechnologies is concerned (HM Government, 2005; Nanoforum, 2004; RS/RAE, 2004). However, these reports tend to ignore the framing processes that influence public debate; indeed, in some cases the media are simply viewed as public relations conduits for science.



This neglect of the media occurs in a context where, as noted above, there is very low public awareness of nanotechnologies to begin with. In the case of the research conducted as part of the UK’s Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering Enquiry, it was found that only 29% of respondents had heard of the term and only 19% could provide a definition (RS/RAE, 2004: 64). The benefits associated with nanotechnologies were judged by the authors of the Royal Society and Academy of Engineering Report to be considerable, including advancements in disease diagnosis and drug delivery, engineering and environmental sustainability. Possible risks were viewed as ‘non-unique’ with regard to health and safety, though ‘uncertain’ in relation to the toxicity of (and exposure to) nanoparticles and nanotubes. The report stated that some applications, especially in the medium (5-15 years) and the longer term (over 20 years), are likely to generate significant social and ethical concerns (2004: 56). It was acknowledged that some of these will involve governance issues, such as ‘who will decide and control developments and who will benefit from their exploitation’ (2004: 81). The report highlighted the prospect of a potential nano-divide, suggesting that there are significant risks that some short-term developments could simply benefit the wealthy and powerful. Indeed, a number of commentators on this report expressed their concerns that a public backlash could result, especially were the media to amplify the possible risks in an irresponsible manner (see International Risk Governance Council, 2006; Mills and Fleddermann, 2005; Renn and Roco, 2006). Although there have been attempts in the UK to assess and incorporate public attitudes and perceptions in an ‘upstream’ manner (Involve, 2006; Kearnes et al., 2006; Wilsdon and Willis, 2004), the contribution of such strategies to policymaking remains unclear. Given the report’s acknowledgement of the potential of the media to undermine trust (2004: 62), which many scientists and science bodies see as a key issue in

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relation to nanotechnology, it is surprising that so little attention is given to the dynamics of media influence in the UK. Similarly, studies conducted in the US indicate a lack of public awareness of what nanotechnology entails in scientific terms (Bainbridge, 2002; Cobb and Macoubrie, 2004; Gaskell et al., 2005; Kahan et al., 2007; Renn and Roco, 2006; Waldron et al., 2006). Tellingly, however, these same studies raise media-related concerns when they suggest that US publics tend to be more optimistic about potential applications compared with Europeans. Should stakeholders fail to engage with the ethical issues, Sandler and Kay (2006) maintain, they may end up impeding development in certain areas of nanotechnology. In this context, the involvement of diverse publics in decision-making is crucial, given that the values at stake in nanotechnologies need to be discussed and debated by expert and non-expert alike. In their words: …knowledge of what can and cannot be done, and of what is and is not required to do it, is quite different from knowledge of what ought and ought not be done. What ends should be prioritized, how resources should be allocated in pursuit of those ends, and constraints on how those ends ought to be pursued are ethical and social questions to be addressed in the public sphere, not economic and technological ones to be worked out in boardrooms or laboratories. They depend on value judgments and conceptions of the good regarding which business acumen and scientific knowledge afford no special privilege or insight. So while scientists and industry leaders may be “elite” in their knowledge of the science and business of nanotechnology, this status does not imply that they are “elite” with respect to the SEI [social and ethical issues] associated with nanotechnology, and it in no way justifies marginalizing the SEI concerns raised by researchers and the concerned public. (Sandler and Kay, 2006: 679-680)

Sandler and Kay’s (2006) intervention is part of an emergent set of investigations into the moral and ethical dimensions of nanotechnologies, several of which recognise the important ways in which different types of institutions – economic, political, cultural as well as scientific – mediate between these contending perceptions (see also Baird and Vogt, 2004; Cameron, 2006; Gordjin, 2003; Grunwald, 2005; Jotterand, 2006; Khushf, 2004; Mnyusiwalla et al., 2003; Roco, 2006; UNESCO, 2006; Weil, 2001). In our judgement, the importance of the news media amongst these institutions is deserving of much closer attention than it has typically received to date. Press coverage, we suggest, is not a simple reflection of different public attitudes and cultural values; rather, it has been demonstrated to play an important role in framing scientific issues and contributing to agenda-building, especially where there is marked uncertainty over the implications at stake for society. By framing nanotechnologies in particular ways, the press helps to set the preferred terms in which questions about possible problems and potential solutions are defined (Scheufele, 2006). These include, for example, who is likely to own and have access to these technologies? Moreover, who is likely to be advantaged or, alternatively, suffer discrimination as a result of their use? In contextual terms, it is worth noting that several of the biotechnology controversies that preceded nanotechnology has led to increasing recognition among scientists and policymakers that public acceptance of their work cannot be taken for granted. As Kulinowski (2006) observes, the enthusiastic emphasis upon revolutionary benefits associated with nanotechnologies, the “wow factor”, is bound to create controversy and could quickly turn into a “yuck” response. In particular, salutary lessons have been learnt from the intensive consumer backlash against GM foods, widely referred to in the national press as “Frankenstein foods”. This illustrates how the deficit model of the public understanding of sci-



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ence posed a major barrier for institutions which had responsibility for assessing and regulating the technology. Indeed, there remains the very real possibility that controversy in one issue realm may spill over into another, thereby undermining trust in the regulatory processes. Public attitudes, it follows, may become less optimistic if the risks associated with nanotechnologies gain greater visibility. Macoubrie’s (2006) study of informed adults’ attitudes to nanotechnologies in the US found concerns focused on long-term environmental and health effects, as well as the apparent lack of adequate regulation. This preliminary research suggests ‘industry and government appear to be creating a disaffected public through what individuals expressed as “a rush to profit before risks are known”’ (Macoubrie, 2006:235). This and other related research suggests that as nanotechnologies acquire a higher profile within press coverage, the ensuing debate may become much more sharply polarised, possibly reflecting a shift from predominantly scientific frames to increased concern with ethical implications (see Anderson et al. 2005; Te Kulve, 2006). To the extent that ethical issues have been incorporated into funding initiatives in the early stages in nanotechnology research (see Hunt, 2006; Nano Ethics Bank, 2007), critics have been heartened. However, it is more typically the case that nanotechnologies tend to be framed in science reports and surveys in more narrow, administratively calculative terms. As Wilsdon and Willis (2004) observe, ethical issues have usually been couched through a utilitarian approach to ‘benefits’ and ‘risks’. This diverts attention away from unforeseen or unknown effects, by their nature difficult to anticipate, and neglects to give publics a practicable opportunity to express their perceived social and ethical concerns. Such an approach assumes that identified problems can simply be tackled through enhanced regulatory procedures and further research, thereby overlooking the social complexity of nanotechnolo-



gies, the exercise of power in problem definition and the vested interests involved in particular ‘framings’ of issues (see Petersen, et al., 2007). In the case of nanotechnologies there is a real opportunity to address social and ethical issues early on in the process of technology development and to open up the debate to involve a multitude of perspectives.

NEWs rEPOrtING: sOME EtHIcaL cONsIDEratIONs The news media play an important role in defining what may be regarded as ‘social and ethical issues’ in relation to nanotechnologies. Just as science and technology operate within a social context and are to some degree value-laden, so is the process of news-making (Anderson, 1997: Edgar, 1992; Kieran, 1998). Newspaper reports are inevitably selective, reflecting numerous factors such as: time and space constraints; the nature and type of social relations that journalists develop with their sources; news values; editorial policy, ownership and ideological cultures; the extent of policy activity in the field; advertising pressure; and a journalist’s own personal knowledge of the topic and perspective on it (Allan, 2002; Anderson, 1997). Journalists tend to be guided by the ideal of objectivity, together with professional commitments to fairness and balance, leading to an emphasis on verifying the ‘facts’ often through approaching authoritative sources before searching out conflicting perspectives. Part of the professional orientation of journalists is to cultivate ‘trustworthy’, ‘credible’ and ‘legitimate’ sources in the field, not least to safeguard their integrity as reporters. This ‘strategic ritual of objectivity’ (Tuchman, 1978) tends to advantage powerful institutional stakeholders in the battle to gain prominence as sources within science reporting (Stocking, 1999). On a routine basis they gain material from a variety of sources, including press conferences,

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press releases, information and public relations officers, professional society meetings, scientific journals, and interviews (Nelkin, 1995: 105). However, journalists often lack the time, means or expertise to seek out independent verification of facts (Dunwoody, 1999; Miller & Riechart, 2000), sometimes being overly dependent on prepackaged information over which they have little control (Goodell, 1986; Petersen, 2001; Logan, 1991; Manning, 2001). A tendency to accept press releases on their own terms often leads general reporters, in particular, to make exaggerated claims - a problem acknowledged in the development of nanotechnology communication guidelines for reporters in the US (Bell, 2006). Complex scientific debates are often simplified and given a human interest slant in the press in an attempt to make them more appealing to readers. Metaphors and popular analogies are used extensively in news reports to assist in this process of simplification; to connect with what readers already know (Petersen, 2001). The extensive use of fictional imagery, such as ‘designer babies’ in reports about embryonic stem cell research (Petersen, et., al., 2005), or ‘nano-subs’ and ‘nanobots’ in coverage of nanotechnologies, however, serve to blur the lines between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’. Scientists often take exception to such imagery, seeing them as ‘distorting’ or ‘misrepresenting’ ‘the science facts’ (Petersen, et al., In press), notwithstanding that scientists themselves employ such imagery in their own work (Petersen, 1999). News reports may also hype the issues and raise false expectations about nanotech through visual images as well as news reports and features (Losch, 2006; Pitt, 2006). In previous biotechnology controversies a ‘cycle of hype’ has been identified (especially evident in the popular press), with significantly more attention devoted to benefits compared to risks (Brown, 2003; Caulfield, 2004b). To some extent this reflects funding pressures on both scientists and industry; indeed, the source of the spin can often be identified as originating from

scientists and research institutions themselves (Caulfield, 2004a). Increasing public relations pressure often results in sensationalised news stories that make exaggerated claims. Placing the blame solely on the news media ignores the contribution of a wider range of factors including news sources themselves (Kitzinger, 2006). As sources, scientists potentially exert a significant degree of control over the news production process. Indeed, a considerable amount of material is source generated – some estimates put it as many as half or more newspaper stories, so scientists are able to strategically package news items for journalists (Nisbet & Lewenstein, 2002: 362). Although journalists may select the topic for a news item scientists have the opportunity to help define the boundaries from which story choices are made (Dunwoody, 1999: 63). Industry also exerts a significant influence on the news reporting of nanotechnologies and lessons from past controversies over emergent technologies have underlined the importance of attending to public perception (e.g., see Meili, 2005). Commercial pressures encourage newspaper organisations to connect themes that are likely to be familiar and relevant to readers. Issues deemed to be controversial are usually viewed as especially ‘newsworthy’ (Hansen, 1994). The factors discussed above serve to ‘frame’ stories in ways that are likely to relate to readers’ interests, but sometimes appear to non-journalists to ‘distort’ or ‘misrepresent’ science and technology. By controlling the timing of news releases, and by choosing particular language and metaphors, scientists may seek to shape public discourse and influence the direction of policy. With controversial issues, scientists have an opportunity to play a significant role in shaping understandings of science, especially through their ability to adjudicate between contending voices of expertise seeking to define what is at stake. They may turn conflicting opinion and uncertainty to their advantage, not least by using the opportunity to highlight the validity of their own work and the



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uncertainties of others with whom they disagree (Dunwoody, 1999: 73). This has led some writers to suggest that journalism and science occupy two separate cultures, which are composed of distinctly different views and aims. The corollary is that science reporting involves a process of translating or popularising science fact for lay readers/audiences. However, critical research on science reporting suggests a more complex set of interaction processes. Important in this regard is the need to avoid overlooking the ways in which scientists, and other stakeholders, may attempt to control news at various stages of its production. This may occur, for example, through the regulation of the flow of information (e.g., press releases, news conferences, news ‘leaks’), and the promotion of preferred imagery, language and rhetorical devices. Also, any assumed separation between ‘science’ and ‘popularization’ needs to be resisted, especially when it denies the input of popular views into the research process and the simplification that is an intrinsic part of scientific communication (Hilgartner, 1990: 523-4; Lewenstein, 1995). Journalists, it is important to acknowledge, are often specialists in their field, some of whom are trained scientists themselves. Risk communication studies often tend to make the assumption that the media influence the public in a simple, direct, linear manner. However, there is little evidence to support early thinking that media messages were akin to a hypodermic needle being injected into audiences who respond in predictable patterns. Research highlights the complexity of media effects; publics react to the same media texts in a multitude of contradictory ways, reflecting a range of factors such as their cultural capital, extent of prior knowledge, and their own personal experience. The Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF) is based on the idea that the problems arise from the distortion of expert knowledge that is transmitted to publics leading to false or exaggerated perceptions (Anderson, 2006; Hornig Priest, 2005a). However,

0

this is overly simplistic since it tends to assume a linear flow of messages between media and audiences. As Murdock et al. (2003) observe, it is not simply a case of examining how much coverage is devoted to particular issues or social actors. It is vital to consider the discursive parameters within which this coverage is inflected, and the extent to which power may be exercised to suppress as well as to publicise controversial issues. A media-centric focus tends to overlook the behind-the-scenes struggles between competing news sources, all of whom are vying for media attention to varying degrees. While limited short-term media-framing effects in relation to nanotechnologies have been found by some experiment-based studies (e.g., Cobb, 2005), it is likely that longer-term more subtle effects are more significant (Hornig Priest, 2005b). The national press has been shown to play a formative role in framing scientific issues and contributing to agenda-building, especially where there is considerable uncertainty over potential risks (Nisbet & Lewenstein, 2002; Nisbet et al. 2003). Frames, in this context, may be conceptualised as ‘principles of selection, emphasis and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens, and what matters’ (Gitlin, 1980: 6). News frames set up antagonistic patterns whereby complex scientific debates often become simplified and individualised through aligning news sources in a manner that accentuates their differences. Where there are considerable uncertainties about long-term implications and risks, issues of credibility and trust become crucial in making sense of competing truth claims. Stigma, which occurs when the potential of a technology becomes tainted or blemished by discourses of risk, is remarkably difficult to overcome once it takes root (Gregory et al., 2001; Wilkinson et al., 2007). A series of studies in the US, Canada and the UK suggest that publics have little trust in government or industry to manage risks (Michelson & Rejeski, 2006). Given that nanotechnology is in the early stages of public

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visibility, citizens are only just beginning to make sense of the implications, benefits and risks. Research suggests that to a large extent, the news media are tending to rely upon ready made scripts drawn from previous reporting of biotech controversies (see, for example, Faber, 2005; Friedman and Egolf, 2005; Gaskell et al. 2005; Lewenstein et al. 2004; Lewenstein 2005; Stephens 2004, 2005). Related studies have drawn attention to the initial hyping of new technologies in the national press, partly brought about the growing commercial pressures placed on scientists in university research centres (see Caulfield, 2004a). In relation to nanotechnologies, a study undertaken by the authors, to which we now turn, highlights how the news media may emphasise certain aspects of nanotechnologies, particularly the science and the beneficial applications, and neglect other key issues, including the attendant social and ethical implications.

tHE stUDY Our study focuses on how developments associated with nanotechnologies were framed in the British newspaper press during the formative period of debate when a number of related issues began to gain public salience. These include extensive coverage of Prince Charles’ purported comments on the so-called ‘grey-goo’ scenario, which preceded (and which likely played some influence on the establishment of) the aforementioned Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering (2004) enquiryb. The study sought to gain fresh insights into how the initial terms of debate were established and how scientists and journalists saw their respective roles in the news production process. Here we focus on the content analysis of findings, though these were supplemented by an e-mail survey followed up with in-depth interviews with scientists and journalists (see Petersen et al., in press; Wilkinson et al., 2007)c.

the Methods The sample of national newspaper coverage included all pertinent news items over the period April 1, 2003 to June 30, 2004. A pilot study of three newspapers was undertaken which established that the keywords ‘nanotechnology’, ‘nano’, ‘grey goo’, and ‘nanobot/nanorobot’ were sufficient to identify relevant news items. For the main study the sample included ten national daily newspapers and eight national Sunday newspapers, in order to establish a comparative evidential basis. The daily newspapers were The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Financial Times, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Daily Mirror, The Sun and The Daily Star. The Sunday newspapers were The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph, The Independent on Sunday, The Mail on Sunday, The Sunday Express, The Sunday Mirror and The News of the World. In order to ensure that the sample was comprehensive news items were identified via Lexis Nexis Professional and NewsBank Newspapers UK search facilities. This resulted in a total of 344 newspaper articles. Each item was analysed using a coding schedule, which recorded quantitative details including newspaper, date, page number, author attribution, and sources cited or referred to. It also enabled qualitative aspects of the data to be examined. Each news item was coded for its leading news ‘frame’ and ‘tone’, with the help of a schedule developed by Stephens (2004) in his analysis of the newspaper framing of nanoscience and nanotechnologies in the US. In addition, we also sought to identify additional frames specific to the UK context. A sample of 12 percent of the newspaper articles was coded separately to ensure inter-coder reliability. Electronic copies of each news item were stored using an N5 database so that relevant news articles could be kept in their entirety, but also categorized according to their dominant news frame for the purposes of analysis. We also took hard copies of each item which



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Table 1. News frames News Frame

Frequency

Science Fiction and Popular Culture (e.g. reviews of books, TV, films, radio)

55 (16%)

Scientific Discovery or Project (e.g. molecular motors, micro-aircraft, computing)

54 (16%)

Business Story (e.g. Polaron flotation, Nanotechnology Index)

52 (15%)

Prince Charles Interest (e.g. specific focus on perceived attitude/concern of Prince Charles)

39 (11%)

Other (e.g. competitions, interviews)

33 (9.5%)

Social Implications and Risks (e.g. discussions of regulation, impact on developing countries)

32 (9%)

Funding of Nano (e.g. DTI funding pledges, Research Council announcements)

27 (8%)

Educational or Career Advice (e.g. Closure of Chemistry departments, City and Guilds reports) Medical Discovery or Project (e.g. ‘nanofabricated’ joints, ‘nanoshell’ targeted cancer treatments) Celebratory (e.g. Royal Society of Chemistry Awards, The Foundation for Science and Technology Dinner) Total

allowed us to gain a ‘feel’ of the original article, which can sometimes be obscured when using electronic versions alone (Hansen et al. 1998).

Findings and analysis The content analysis found that coverage of nanotechnologies during the sample period was concentrated in a relatively small number of elite newspapers. Eighty-six per cent (n=296) originated from the ten sampled daily newspapers and 14 per cent (n=48) from the eight sampled Sunday newspapers. Of the daily newspapers, the great majority of articles (n = 255, or 74 percent) featured in the elite press (mostly broadsheet) which have relatively low circulation figures, while the remainder (n = 89, or 26 percent) featured in the more popular (i.e. mostly high circulation) newspapers. The Guardian carried the greatest number of articles (n=81, or 24 percent) of the daily newspaper coverage. This was followed by The Times (n=65, or 19 percent), The Financial Times (n=47, or 14 percent), The Independent (n = 36, or 10 percent), and The Daily Telegraph (n = 26, or 7 percent).



26 (7.5%) 20 (6%) 6 (2%) 344 (100%)

Our study found that the newspaper press during this period tended to emphasis the benefits of nanotechnologies and to focus on the scientific and science fictional aspects of developments, in comparison providing relatively little coverage of the risks, implications and uncertainties of nanotechnologies. The social implications and risks of nanotechnologies as a content theme appeared in only nine per cent (n=32) of the coverage (see Table 1). Stephens (2005) examined a sample of US and non-US newspaper coverage of nanotechnologies over the period 1992 to 2004 and found a tendency for non-US newspapers to emphasize social and ethical implications to a greater extent than US newspapers. However this may reflect the particular inflection that The Guardian gave to nanotechnologies over the period, given that this was the principal newspaper used in the comparison. Our study, which included all the principal national UK daily newspapers, found that frames were far from uniformly spread across the press and there was considerable variation reflecting their different ideological positions and readerships (see Anderson et al. 2005).

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The highest proportion of all articles in our study featured a science-related frame, which indicates strong news interest in the scientific implications or applications of nanotechnologies. However, the publication of an approximately equal number of articles with the ‘science fiction and popular culture’ frame and the ‘scientific discovery or project’ frame indicates some uncertainty about whether nanotechnologies can be most adequately contextualised within the realms of science fiction or science fact. The ‘business story’ frame was similarly prominent which suggests strong news interest in economic implications. News frames were also found to vary over time. The highest single number of news items appeared during the first quartile, April to June 2003. Following this the coverage declined, but remained at a reasonably steady level for the rest of the period. By far the greatest amount of the news items on ‘social implication and risks’ appeared during the first quartile from April to June 2003 (20 of 32, or 62 percent). This phase was dominated by Prince Charles’s comments on nanotechnology which were interpreted by some newspapers as lending support to the ‘grey goo’ scenario, although overall his input gained little credibility. Rather than draw attention to possible social, environmental and ethical issues this ‘celebrity’ involvement instead meant coverage reverted between a political tone (surrounding unnecessary royal intervention in a scientific matter) to a humorous tone (surrounding Prince Charles’ abilities to comment). Our analysis of the attribution of benefits and risks found that the greatest number of news items presented benefits as outweighing risks. However, a significant number of articles featured concerns over the uncertainties about potential benefits or risks: • •

Benefits outweigh risks (n=132) Risks outweigh benefits (n=38)

• •

•

Risks/Benefits need to weighed but unclear if a benefit or risk (n=56) Technical limits to progress, not limits associated to ethical, legal or social implications (n=16) Not applicable (n=102)

Again there were some interesting variations between newspapers. Most of the sampled newspapers devoted more coverage of benefits outweighing the risks, whereas the mid-market Daily Express and Daily Mail were found to most often offer a balance of risks and benefits. In terms of the benefits and risks identified, these covered a diverse range of factual and fictional imagery, from existing market products to the ‘grey goo’ scenario, nanosubs and nanobots. Issues surrounding nanoparticle safety contributed to 15 of the 32 articles focused on social implications and risks, all of which came from the ‘quality’ newspaper coverage. Interestingly, in the accompanying interviews with journalists and scientists involved in coverage, it was the issue of nanoparticle safety that was most frequently identified as an area warranting further research – and more sustained media attention (Wilkinson et al., 2007). Our study also revealed that scientists were dissatisfied with much of the coverage, especially that involving references to ‘grey-goo’, ‘nano-submarines’ ‘nanobots’, and so on, which they saw as ‘misrepresenting’ the science, although they did acknowledge that some media (e.g., the BBC) provided a ‘better’ or more ‘accurate’ portrayal of issues (Petersen, et al., in press). In summary, during this fifteen-month period of study, media coverage was found to be largely limited to relatively few (the ‘elite’) newspapers which have a restricted readership and to be portrayed in a generally positive light, with relatively little coverage of social and ethical implications and risks. The high coverage of science fictional aspects (e.g., references to films, TV, radio programmes) may however suggest growing public curiosity about the implications of nanotech-



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nologies and growing receptivity to discussion about their applications and impacts. Although it is difficult to know what impact this coverage has engendered, the limitation of reporting to the ‘elite’ newspapers and, a particular, narrow framing of issues, may serve to restrict public discourse about the social and ethical implications of nanotechnologies and about the direction of the science itself. A mostly uncritical portrayal of science (as pre-social and separate from ‘ethical’ considerations) and the relative absence of attention to implications and risks, we contend, is likely to work against reflection on the moral ‘rights and wrongs’ of developments. Although this study included only the British newspaper press, and covered a relatively short period of time, it highlights some of the ways public perceptions of problems and solutions may be influenced. If publics are to have a say about the direction of nanotechnology developments, and in so doing be able to properly assess the benefits and risks of particular innovations, then new, more meaningful conceptions of dialogue must be secured.

NaNOEtHIcs aND tHE MEDIa IN tHE FUtUrE While it can be argued that it is not the role of journalists to provide a forum for debate about the social and ethical implications of new technologies, precisely how news coverage influences public perceptions of the benefits and risks of technologies needs to be addressed as a matter of pressing concern. In our view, there needs to be greater recognition of how news is socially produced and how different stakeholder groups – their respective positions stratified in relation to power relations – strive to establish their preferred representations of issues in ideological terms. In the UK, controversies surrounding GM crops and food (like the fiasco surrounding GM Nation), along with the BSE crisis, have profoundly affected scientists’ and policymakers’ approaches



to engaging ordinary citizens. The consequent ramifications for nanotechnologies have not been adequately acknowledged. A perceived decline in public trust in science and its regulatory institutions has shaped responses in a number of technology fields, a dilemma which becomes especially acute when it is recognised that nanotechnologies is a field that has been largely defined by its attendant uncertainties. Establishing trust, or managing mistrust, has become a key issue in policy development and risk assessment, but not to a sufficient extent in this context. Familiar questions concerning how the news media frame the significance of emergent technologies are being re-shaped by nanotechnologies. The ways in which the parameters of debate, particularly in relation to the ‘rights and wrongs’ of developments, will be of critical importance for future policy developments and for how publics respond. Anxiety about the risks associated with nanoparticles, for example, could lead to the stigmatisation of nanotechnology, a condition that is very difficult to overcome once established. We suggest that as nanotechnologies acquire a higher profile within press coverage, and there is little doubt that they will do in the years to come, the debate is likely to become more polarised, possibly reflecting a shift from predominantly scientific frames to a greater concern with social and ethical implications. This partly reflects journalistic news values where controversial science is concerned (conflict, drama and novelty being perceived as necessary to keep interest in issues alive), as well as an increasing range of social actors engaging in intense debate as its public policy significance becomes more apparent. In the UK context, a number of engagement activities with a focus on nanotechnology are presently coming to fruition (Involve, 2006; Smallman and Nieman, 2006). Deliberations over their impact provide an opportunity to reflect on the potential contribution of the news media to future policy making, and thereby invite a thoughtful consideration of how journalists may better convey the uncertainties

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and risks inherent to all technologies in an ethically responsible manner.

rEFErENcEs Allan, S. (2002). Media, risk and science. Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press. Anderson, A. (1997). Media, culture and the environment. London: UCL Press. Anderson, A. (2006). Media and risk. In Walklate, S. & Mythen, G. (eds.), Beyond the risk society, (pp. 114-31). Maidenhead: Open University Press. Anderson, A., Allan, S., Petersen, A. & Wilkinson, C. (2005). The framing of nanotechnologies in the British newspaper press. Science Communication, 27(2), 200-220. Bainbridge, W. S. (2002). Public attitudes towards nanotechnology. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 4(6), 561-70. Baird, D. & Vogt, T. (2004) Societal and ethical interactions with nanotechnology, Nanotechnology Law and Business, 1(4), 391-396. Bell, T. E. (2006). Reporting risk assessment of nanotechnology: A reporter’s guide. http://www. nano.gov/html/news/reporting_risk_assessment_of_nanotechnology.pdf Brown, N. (2003). Hope against hype – accountability in biopasts: Presents and futures, Science Studies, 16(2), 3-21. Cameron, N. (2006). Nanotechnology and the human future: Policy, ethics, and risk. Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 1093(Dec), 280-300. Caulfield, T. (2004a) Nanotechnology: Facts and fictions? Health Law Reform, 12(3), 1-4. http://www.law.ualberta.ca/centres/hli/pdfs/hlr/ v12_3/12-3-01%20Caulfield.pdf

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support for technological innovation in Europe and the United States. Public Understanding of Science, 14(1), 81-90. Gitlin, T. (1980). The whole world is watching: Mass media in the making and unmaking of the new left. Berkely: University of California Press. Goodell, R. (1986). How to kill a controversy: The case of recombinant DNA. In S. Friedman, S. Dunwoody & C. Rogers (eds.), Scientists and journalists: Reporting science as news, (pp. 70181). Free Press: New York. Gordjin, B. (2003) Nanoethics: From utopian dreams and apocalyptic nightmares towards a more balanced view. Paris, France: UNESCO. Available at http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/ev.phpURL ID=6603&URL DO=DOTOPIC&URL SECTION=201.html. Gregory, R., Flynn, J. and Slovic, P. (2001). Technological stigma, In Flynn, J., Slovic. P. and Kunreuther, H. (eds) Risk, Media and Stigma: Understanding Public Challenges to Modern Science and Technology, (pp. 3-8). London: Earthscan. Grunwald, A. (2005). Nanotechnology – A new field of ethical inquiry? Science and Engineering Ethics, 11, 187-201. Hansen, A. (1994). Journalistic practices and science reporting in the British press. Public Understanding of Science, 3, 111-34. Hansen, A., Cottle, S., Negrine, R., & Newbold, C. (1998). Mass communication research methods. London: Macmillan. Hilgartner, S. (1990). The dominant view of popularization: Conceptual problems, political uses. Social Studies of Science, 20(3),519-539. HM Government (2005). The government’s outline programme for public engagement on nanotechnologies. August 2005, HM Government in Consultation with the Devolved Administra

tions. http://www.ost.gov.uk/policy/issues/programme12.pdf Hoet, P. H. M., Bruske-Hohlfeld, I. & Salata, O.V. (2004). Nanoparticles: Known and unknown health risks. Journal of Nanobiotechnology, 2, (12). Hornig Priest, S. (2005a). Risk reporting: Why can’t they ever get it right? In Allan, S. (ed.) Journalism: Critical Issues, (pp.199-209). Maidenhead and New York: Open University Press. Hornig Priest, S. (2005b) Commentary: Room at the bottom of Pandora’s box: Peril and promise in communicating nanotechnology. Science Communication, 27(2), 292-99. Hunt, G. (2006) The global ethics of nanotechnology. In Hunt, G. & Mehta, M. (eds.), Nanotechnology: Risk, ethics, law, (pp. 183-95). London: Earthscan. International Risk Governance Council (2006). White paper on nanotechnology risk governance, June. Geneva: International Risk Governance Council. Involve (2006). The nanotechnology engagement group. Policy Report One. March 2006. London: Involve. Jotterand, F. (2006). The politicization of science and technology: Its implications for nanotechnology. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Winter, 658-666. Kahan, D. M., Slovic, P., Braman, D., Gastil, J. & Cohen, G. L. (2007). Affect, values, and nanotechnology risk perceptions: An experimental investigation. In Nanotechnology risk perceptions: The influence of affect and values. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Center Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. Kearnes, M., Macnaghten, P. & Wilsdon, J. (2006). Governing at the nanoscale: People, policies and emerging technologies. London: Demos.

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Khushf, G. (2004). The ethics of nanotechnology: On the vision and values of a new generation of science and engineering. In National Academy of Engineering, Emerging Technologies and Ethical Issues in Engineering. (pp 29-56) Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Kieran, M. (1998). Objectivity, impartiality and good journalism. In Kieran, M. (ed.), Media Ethics, (pp 23-36). London: Routledge. Kitzinger, J. (2006). The role of media in public engagement. In Turney,J. (ed), Engaging science: Thoughts, deeds, analysis and action, (pp. 45-9). London: Wellcome Trust. http://www.wellcome. ac.uk/doc_WTX032706.html Kulinowski, K. (2006). Nanotechnology: From “wow” to “yuck”? In G. Hunt & M. D. Mehta (eds.), Nanotechnology: Risk, ethics and law, (pp 13-24). London: Earthscan. Lewenstein, B. V. (1995). Science and media. In S. Jasanoff, G. E., Markle, J. C., Petersen, & T. Pinch (Eds.), Handbook of science and technology studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Lewenstein, B.V. (2006). What counts as a social and ethical issue in nanotechnology? In Schummer, J. & Baird, D. (eds.), Nanotechnology challenges: Implications for philosophy, ethics and society, (pp. 201-16). London: World Scientific. Lewenstein, B.V., Radin, J. & Diels, J. (2004). Nanotechnology in the media: A preliminary analysis. In M.C. Roco & W.S. Bainbridge (eds.), Societal implications of nanoscience and nanotechnology II: Maximizing human benefit. Report of the National Nanotechnology Initiative Workshop, December 3-5, 2003, Arlington, VA, Washington DC, National Science & Technology Council and National Science Foundation. Logan, R. A. (1991). Popularization versus secularization: Media coverage of health. In L Wilkins & P. Patterson (eds.), Risky business: Communicating issues of science, risk and public policy. (pp 43-59). Greenwood: New York.

Losch, A. (2006) Anticipating the futures of nanotechnology: Visionary images as means of communication. Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 18(314), 393-409. Macoubrie, J. (2006). Nanotechnology: Public concerns, reasoning and trust in government. Public Understanding of Science, 15(2), 221-41. Manning, P. (2001). News and news sources: A critical introduction. London: Sage. Meili, C. (2005). The “ten commandments” of nano communication – or how to deal with public perception. Innovation Society. http://www.innovationsgesellschaft.ch/images/publikationen/ Ten%20Commandments%20of%20Nano-Communication.pdf Michelson, E.S. & Rejeski, D. (2006). Falling through the cracks: Public perception, risk and the oversight of emerging technologies. IEEE Report. http://www.nanotechproject.org/reports Miller, M. M. and Riechert, B. P. (2000). Interest group strategies and journalistic norms: News media framing of environmental issues. In S. Allan, B. Adam & C. Carter (eds.), Environmental risks and the media, (pp.45-54). London: Routledge. Mills, K., & Fledderman, C. (2005). Getting the best from nanotechnology: Approaching social and ethical implications openly and proactively. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 24(4), 18-26. Mnyusiwalla, A., Daar, A.S. & Singer, P.A. (2003). Mind the gap: Science and ethics in nanotechnology. Nanotechnology, 14, R9-R13. http://www. utoronto.ca/jcb/pdf/nanotechnology_paper.pdf Murdock, G., Petts J. & Horlick-Jones, T. (2003). After amplification: Rethinking the role of the media in risk communication. In Pidgeon, N., Kasperson, R.E. & Slovic, P. (eds) The social amplification of risk, (pp. 156-78). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.



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Nano Ethics Bank (2007). Nano ethics bank. Retrieved May 17 2007, from http://hum.iit.edu/ NanoEthicsBank/index.php NanoForum report (2004). Benefits, risks, ethical, legal and social aspects of nanotechnology, June. http://med.tn.tudelft.nl/~hadley/nanoscience/references/nanoforum1.pdf Nelkin, D. (1995). Selling science: How the press covers science and technology. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company. Nisbet, M.D. & Lewenstein, B.V. (2002). Biotechnology and the American media: The policy process and the elite press, 1970 to 1999. Science Communication, 23(4), 359-91. Nisbet, M., D., Brossard, & A. Kroepsch (2003). Framing science: The stem cell controversy in an age of press/politics. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 8(2), 36-70. Petersen, A. (1999) The portrayal of research into genetic-based differences of sex and sexual orientation: A study of “popular” science journals, 1980-1997. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 23(2), 163-182. Petersen, A. (2001). Biofantasies: Genetics and medicine in the print news media, Social Science and Medicine, 52, 1255-1268. Petersen, A., Anderson, A. & Allan, S. (2005) Science fiction/science fact: Medical genetics in fictional and news stories. New Genetics and Society, 24(3), 337-353. Petersen, A., Anderson, A., Wilkinson, C. & Allan, S. (2007). Nanotechnologies, risk and society: Editorial. Health, Risk and Society, 9(2), 117-124. Petersen, A., Anderson, A., Allan, S., & Wilkinson, C. (In press). Opening the black box: Scientists’ views on the role of the mass media in the nanotechnology debate. Public Understanding of Science.



Pitt, J. (2006). When is an image not an image? In Schummer, J. & Baird, D. (eds.) Nanotechnology challenges: Implications for philosophy, ethics and society. (pp. 131-41). London: World Scientific. Preston, C. (2006). The promise and threat of nanotechnology: Can environmental ethics guide us? In Schummer, J. & Baird, D. (eds.), Nanotechnology challenges: Implications for philosophy, ethics and society. (pp. 217-48). London: World Scientific. Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (2007) Project on emerging nanotechnologies. Retrieved May 17 2007, from http://www.nanotechproject. org/ Renn, O. and Roco, M.C. (2006). Nanotechnology and the need for risk governance. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 8(2), 153-91. Roco, M. C. (2006). Progress in governance of converging technologies Integrated from the nanoscale. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 1093, 1–23. Roco, M.C., and Bainbridge, W. S. eds., (2001). Societal implications of nanoscience and nanotechnology. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. RS/RAE (2004). Nanoscience and nanotechnologies: Opportunities and uncertainties. London: Royal Society & Royal Academy of Engineering. Sandler, R and Kay, W. D. (2006). The national nanotechnology initiative and the social good. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Winter, 675-681. Scheufele, D.A. (2006). Messages and heuristics: How audiences form attitudes about emerging technologies. In J. Turney (ed.), Engaging science: Thoughts, deeds, analysis and action (pp. 20-25). London: The Wellcome Trust. http://www. wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTX032706.html

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Smallman, M. & Nieman, A. (2006). Small talk: Discussing nanotechnologies. November 2006. London: Think-Lab.

Wilsdon, J. & Willis, R. (2004). See-through science: Why public engagement needs to move upstream. London: Demos.

Stephens, L.F. (2004). News narratives about nano: How journalists and the news media are framing nanoscience and nanotechnology initiatives and issues. Paper presented to Imaging and Imagining Nanoscience and Engineering Conference, University of South Carolina, March 3-7.

Wood, S. Jones, R. & Geldart, A. (2007). Nanotechnology: From the science to the social. A Report for the ESRC. http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ ESRCInfoCentre/Images/ESRC_Nano07_tcm618918.pdf

Stephens, L. F. (2005). News narratives about nano S&T in major U.S. and non-U.S. newspapers. Science Communication, 27(2), 175-99. Stocking, S. H. (1999). How journalists deal with scientific uncertainty. In S. M. Friedman, S. Dunwoody, & C. L. Rogers (eds.), Communicating uncertainty: Media coverage of new and controversial science, (pp. 23-41). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Te Kulve, H. (2006). Evolving repertoires: Nanotechnology in daily newspapers in the Netherlands. Science as Culture, 15(4), 367-82. Tuchman, G. (1978). Making news. New York: Free Press. UNESCO. (2006). The ethics and politics of nanotechnology. Paris, France: UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001459/145951e. pdf Waldron, A. M., Spencer, D., & Batt, C. A. (2006). The current state of public understanding of nanotechnology. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, online publication. Weil, V. (2001). Ethical issues in nanotechnology. In M.C. Roco, & W.S.Bainbridge (eds.) Societal implications of nanoscience and nanotechnology. (pp. 244–251) Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer. Wilkinson, C., Allan, S., Anderson, A & Petersen, A. (2007). From uncertainty to risk? Scientific and news media portrayals of nanoparticle safety. Health, Risk and Society, 9(2), 145-157.

KEY tErMs Convergence: The multiple ways in which nanotechnologies will combine together with other technologies in the future. Deficit Model of Science Communication: The notion that public scepticism towards science and technology is mainly caused by a lack of adequate knowledge about science, and that this can be overcome by providing people with sufficient information to fill this gap. Ethical, Legal and Social Issues (ELSI): The ethical, legal, and social issues associated with the Human Genome Project. Framing: The processes of selection and emphasis through which journalists adjudicate over competing truth claims. Nano-divide: The potential for nanotechnologies to increase the gap between the rich and the poor countries and reinforce global inequalities. Nanoparticle: Particles of less than 100nm (i.e., a nanometer) in diameter that exhibit new or enhanced size-dependent properties compared with larger particles of the same material. Nanotechnologies: At its simplest it is the manipulation of matter at the level of atoms and molecules. However, it is an umbrella term to describe nanoscale research conducted in a range of different disciplines, each with its own



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particular methods, underlying values and scientific discourses. News Values: Journalists’ typically takenfor-granted assumptions about what constitutes a newsworthy story. Social Amplification of Risk (SARF): A model developed in the late 1980s by North American scholars that aimed to provide an integrative theoretical framework for a fragmented range of risk perspectives in the growing field of risk communication and risk perception. It sought to explain why certain risk events, defined by experts as relatively non-threatening, come to attract considerable socio-political attention (amplification), and other risk events, defined as posing a greater objective threat, attract relatively little attention (attenuation). Stigma: When the potential of a technology becomes tainted or blemished by discourses of risk. Upstream Public Engagement: The problematising of social and cultural dimensions of scientific knowledge, and proper consideration of public views and values, at an early stage in the development of an emerging technology.

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2

3

This chapter draws on the findings of an ESRC funded project examining the production and portrayal of news on nanotechnologies in the British press (RES-00022-0596). Prince Charles intervened into the debate in April 2003 expressing concerns about potential risks associated with nanotechnologies. This was characterized by some newspapers as a forthcoming ‘grey goo’ crisis, although it should be noted that the Prince did not actually use this phrase. The grey goo scenario refers to the notion that self-replicating nanobots could run amok, consuming the biosphere and turning all matter into ‘goo’. For a more detailed overview of the findings of the media analysis, see Anderson, et al. (2005).



Chapter XXVI

Computing and Information Ethics Education Research Russell W. Robbins Marist College, USA Kenneth R. Fleischmann University of Maryland, College Park, USA William A. Wallace Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA

abstract This chapter explains and integrates new approaches to teaching computing and information ethics (CIE) and researching CIE education. We first familiarize the reader with CIE by explaining three domains where information ethics may be applied: Information Ownership; Information Privacy; and Information Quality. We then outline past and current approaches to CIE education and indicate where research is necessary. Research suggestions for CIE education focus upon developing a deep understanding of the relationships between students, teachers, pedagogical materials, learning processes, teaching techniques, outcomes and assessment methods. CIE education exists to enhance individual and group ethical problem solving processes; however these are not yet fully understood, making research necessary. We then discuss CIE education research results to date and suggest new directions, including applying insights from the field of learning science as well as developing dynamic computing and information tools. Since these tools are dynamic and interactive, they will support collaboration, iteration, reflection, and revision that can help students learn CIE. Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Computing and Information Ethics Education Research

INtrODUctION The primary purpose of this chapter is to indicate the need for research regarding the education of computing and information professionals about ethics. We start by first abstractly describing computing and information ethics (CIE), but then we provide three concrete examples of contested CIE issues. We then move to discuss the progress to date in developing and implementing CIE pedagogy and material. In our last section, we describe new research directions for CIE pedagogy and explore how computing and information technology can support CIE teaching and learning. We also discuss research results that can enhance our ability to apply computing and information technology to support CIE education.

cOMPUtING aND INFOrMatION EtHIcs EDUcatION: FOcI CIE foci include concerns about who [using computers] should create, provide, own, access, use, transform, manage, or govern information. Foci also include considering consequences of creating, providing, owning, accessing, using, and transforming information (Bynum 1985, Johnson 1985, Moor 1985, Mason 1986, Weiner 1954) as well as discussions about the rights and responsibilities of individuals, groups, and societies as they interact with information. Finally, CIE foci include issues of equity, care, and virtue as information is used to transform our world. Does anyone who creates a computer program have the right to accrue economic benefits related to use of that program? Should the program be owned by society? What best serves the individual and society? Does an economically disadvantaged youth from an urban area have a right right to use the Internet in order to learn? If so, what responsibilities do governments, corporations, not-forprofits, you as an individual, or we as a society have to provide this access? What responsibility



do we have to support access to information for individuals in China? Alternatively, is the Chinese government’s censorship of the Internet appropriate? How can a multinational corporation based in the US support the right to earn a living in an information economy for young [non-emigrant] Indian citizen software engineers while concurrently maintaining its commitments [for its US employees] and [to its stockholders]. When are the social benefits derived from use of private personal information appropriate? These are just some of the questions considered in CIE. Is there one answer to each question? Or are there multiple answers for different people in various situations, using different techniques and criteria? To introduce the reader to information ethics, and its importance to society and individuals, we now discuss three currently unresolved CIE issues below: (1) who should control procedural information (i.e., software)—information ownership, (2) who should control personal information—information privacy, and (3) information (i.e., software and data) quality.

Information Ownership “In the information age, there may be no more contentious issue than the scope of ownership rights to intellectual property” (Spinello and Tavani 2004, p. 247). Intellectual property (IP) is an idea, invention, process or other form of property created by use of the mind or intellect; alternatively, IP is the right to control the tangible or virtual representation of those forms of property. The argument for the ethical appropriateness for intellectual property and legal supports (e.g. trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, patents) follows. Software is invaluable to our information economy. The development of unique software that solves problems is intellectually involved and time-consuming, and therefore very expensive. This first unit of software is very expensive, while copies of that software, after development, are

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very inexpensive, due to the low cost of media and hardware such as compact discs (CDs) and personal computers (PCs). If return on investment (supported by control of leasing or sale of the software) is not provided by governments, in the form of copyrights, patents, etc., individuals and corporations will not invest in developing new software, damaging the economy and depriving society of the benefits of new software products. However, a new paradigm is developing. Software can be developed [with the same quality as that developed under intellectual property protections] by individuals and corporations interested in robust, need-fulfilling software; this is as opposed to an interest in software predominantly because it is a commercial product leading to corporate revenue. This paradigm is known as open source development (Mockus et al. 2002). One argument for open source follows. Software essentially provides a service to those using the software. Intellectual property laws focus companies on the development of software, as opposed to the support of software. However, the continuing support of software (bug fixing; upgrades, training) is essential to software fulfilling the service that it was leased or purchased to perform. Because legal mechanisms related to intellectual property such as patents and copyrights ensure economic benefits to software companies via the non-introduction of similar products and services, software companies have no incentive to provide strong support (in terms of help desks, bug fixes, new versions, etc.). Because these organizations have no incentive, they typically pay only lip service to support and service after the sale (Quinn 2006c, p. 188). As a result, companies that paid for software may not be able use software to its fullest extent. Further, the benefits of open source code development are: Users are able to improve the software by fixing bugs, creating new functions, or determining how it might otherwise be used. Because users are involved, more people are

working on the code: when more people work on the code, it evolves more quickly. Since there are no copyright or patent infringements, users don’t need to worry about the conflict between choosing to pirate software—perhaps in pursuit of another objective—that is ethical, by sharing a copy or allowing another to install your licensed version of the software, and [thereby] breaking the law (e.g., infringing upon a copyright). Finally, in the open/community source paradigm, since the user base “owns” the software, as long as the user base is interested in maintaining and evolving the software, the software remains available. With commercial software, if the company that “owns” the software, and licenses it to users decides to stop evolving or supporting the software, the user [individual or company] is caught in a difficult position (Quinn 2006c, p. 189-190). Some organizations, because of the reasons just cited, have embraced open source. The Sakai community (a consortium of universities and colleges) has developed educational software to support electronic learning. These universities found that available commercial software products did not fulfill their educational needs (i.e., the software was buggy, did not evolve quickly, and was not adequately supported). Their success has been so self-evident that some of the participating universities are considering starting open source projects for their financial systems (Baron 2006). The question about who should “own” software remains open.

Information Privacy “Our challenge is to take advantage of computing without it taking advantage of us” (Moor 1997). CIE not only considers who should control software (procedural information) and reap its benefits; it also considers who should control personal information, and who may be hurt when it is possessed/used by the wrong parties. Consider the ubiquity of our ability to capture, store, and study information: Commercial and



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government databases; data mining; radio frequency identification; transportation, mall, and cell phone cameras; key, membership, and credit cards; GPS; ATMs; cookies; thumb print readers; and facial recognition systems. Information professionals are called upon to support this infrastructure daily. How they support this infrastructure is not simply technical but also ethical. Where is surveillance appropriate? How should surveillance targets be notified? Should data be combined? How can prospective personal damage be forecasted? When information is used, and people are hurt, who is responsible? While some research has been performed to balance the need of the person for control of information about them with the need of society for commerce and security, the questions are still open (HodelWidmer 2006). The globalized economy and multicultural society create further disagreements regarding privacy (Capurro 2005). Society needs to handle information about individuals carefully. While academic, political, and legal arenas help with privacy-related strategy and policy, the operational aspects of privacy fall squarely on information professionals.

Information quality The final example CIE issue discussed here involves questions about the quality of procedural information (i.e., software) or declarative information (i.e., data). Considering the quality of software includes understanding the levels of robustness, performance, recoverability, reliability, flexibility, configurability, reusability, and portability of software. Dimensions of data quality include accuracy, reliability, believability, objectivity, relevancy, timeliness, completeness, volume, interpretability, understandability, consistency, and conciseness (Fisher et al. 2006, p. 43). It has been shown that poor quality of information systems software has caused loss of life; one example is the Therac-25 electron accelerator accidents (Birsch 2004). Consider the following:



Between 1985 and 1987, six accidents involving Therac-25 machines occurred in the United States and Canada. These accidents produced large patient overdoses that resulted in four deaths and two serious injuries. The accidents were caused by a series of factors including two errors in the software. (Birsch 2004, p. 241) It has also been shown that poor quality information systems data has caused loss of life; one example is the USS Vincennes/Iran Air Flight 655 disaster, in which 290 passengers were killed (Fisher and Kingma 2001). On July 3, 1988, a team aboard the USS Vincennes, an anti-air warfare cruiser, using the Aegis battle management system, on its Captain’s order, shot down Iran Air Flight 655 (an Airbus passenger aircraft), believing it was an attack aircraft. Fisher and Kingma (2001) explain how data quality (specifically, inconsistent data) played a role in the disaster. One major issue was that the software recycled a set of identifiers for aircraft presented within the user interface. The identifier TN4474 was used twice; once for the airbus (Flight 655) and once for an attack aircraft (an A6 Intruder). Flight 655 was subsequently assigned TN4131. The captain asked for the status of TN4474 and was told it was an attack aircraft; but the crew had been discussing Flight 655. The Vincennes crew subsequently then shot down Flight 655. The quality of the data was inconsistent; leading to confusion as to which aircraft should be targeted. Another issue with data quality in the USS Vincennes/Iran Air Flight 655 disaster was that the data that the crew and captain received was incomplete. White half-diamond “dots” indicated hostile aircraft; white half-circle “dots” identified friendly aircraft. White lines projecting from the dots indicated course and speed. Using relative length of these white lines to indicate speed hampered using relative length to indicate aircraft size; an Airbus is much larger than an attack aircraft. Note that the quality of the data

Computing and Information Ethics Education Research

identified by Fisher and Kingma (2001) as poor was actually manipulated by software that had poor quality as well. These three sample CIE foci (information ownership, privacy, and quality) can be affected by information professionals or users, and hence, society. Other CIE domains exist, such as the digital divide (van Dijk 2005). Finally, future computing and information professionals will face new types of CIE problems. They may resolve issues that arise when humans become more dependent upon embedded-withinthe-human artificial systems that enable life. Current examples include cochlear implants, cardiac defibrillators and pacemakers, and robotic limbs. It is easy to imagine more information technology continuing to join the human body. As this occurs, it seems likely that individuals will use information ethics in order to deal issues raised by medically-oriented information-intensive extensions/replacements. This is not the only potential CIE domain. If and when autonomous machines surface, CIE will become especially important (Moor 2006). Thus, as the speed of [information-oriented] technological change increases, developing an understanding and appreciation of and solutions to CIE issues are clearly of significant and increasing importance to society. As a result, it is very important that the educational experiences of computing and information professionals include sufficient preparation in methods to consider CIE issues.

cOMPUtING aND INFOrMatION EtHIcs EDUcatION: aPPrOacHEs Why is computing and Information Ethics Education Important? Teaching courses in CIE as part of information –technology, -systems, -studies, -science, -management, and –policy and computer science

programs is essential to deepen and broaden the ethical perspectives of computing and information professionals. Computer science graduates develop software. Information technology graduates administer software. Information systems graduates design/install software. Information science graduates support search/access to information. Information management students enable their organizations’ use of information and information policy graduates suggest best uses and enablers of information. In order to make our discussion more tangible, we present a potential ethical scenario for one type of information professional (a software engineer) next: Imagine that you are a computing or information professional with a consulting business that helps other companies develop new software products. You have just accepted a contract with a software company, based in Greece, to assist in the development of a software product. Early on, you discover that their software appears to violate the patent of a rival company, based in India, whose software you are also involved in developing. How can you resolve this situation to protect the interests of both of your clients without violating (1) the non-disclosure agreements that you signed with each of these companies, (