6 Social issues in computer ethics

Bernd Carsten Stahl

6.1 Introduction

Social issues in computer ethics are manifold. This chapter will concentrate on three of them: the question of intellectual property, issues related to digital divides, and issues arising out of employment and work. This choice can be justified by the prominence that all three of them enjoy in current computer ethics¹ debates. Other possible issues, such as security (see Chapter 8), gender (see Chapter 9) or globalization (see Chapter 10), are discussed elsewhere in the book. All three of the topics developed in this chapter have in common that they are strongly influenced by economic or commercial considerations. They are, as a consequence, characterized by ethical issues arising from property, ownership, distribution and power, which will point the way to possible approaches to understand and address them.

6.2 Intellectual property

Intellectual property is a pervasive issue of ethical relevance that touches many aspects of modern societies. Questions include whether software or content can or should be owned, how they can be protected and how protection mechanisms can be enforced. On a day-to-day level, these questions raise numerous debates, which are played out in the media and courts of law but which are also heatedly discussed in classrooms, parliaments and pubs. The multitude of voices and sheer volume of debates often drown out the fact that, at the bottom of often very different discussions, there are important philosophical arguments. This section aims to clarify the philosophical underpinning of those social issues in computer ethics related to ownership and property in assets that have a form different from the physical entities for which the idea of property was originally developed.

6.2.1 Property

Etymologically, the term ‘property’ stems from the Latin ‘proprius’, which means one's own (Phillips and Firth 2001). There is no clear definition in English law of terms that delimit property such as ‘possession’ or ‘ownership’ (Goode 2004, p. 42). A frequently used definition of property, going back to William Blackstone, is that it is a bundle of rights, which include the rights to use, manage, possess, exclude and derive income (Spinello 2000, p. 74; Ladd 2000). Such rights need to be generally recognized in order to be viable. This raises the question why a society would want to recognize them, given that a world where there is no property, or at least no private property, is conceivable. The literature often distinguishes between two types of arguments for the creation of property rights: the natural rights tradition and the utilitarian tradition. The natural rights argument is based on the idea that there is natural property in some entities, notably oneself, which can be extended to other objects. This is often based on Lockean ideas where the original ownership is in one's labour, which then extends to the result of this labour (Johnson 2001). A similar argument can be made drawing on Hegel, where property in one's creation is an ‘expression of personality’ (Spinello and Tavani 2005, p. 12). Utility arguments, on the other hand, are based on considerations of overall utility and the main argument is that the institution of property rights is beneficial for society, as it will act as a motivator for creation, an incentive for taking responsibility and be conducive for overall efficiency (Donaldson and Dunfee 1999).

6.2.2 Justifications of intellectual property

Intellectual property (IP) can be defined as property in the products of the human intellect (Phillips and Firth 2001). It has always been closely linked to technology and this link has been strengthened through developments of information and communication technology (ICT), which offer new ways of creating, presenting and disseminating intellectual creations (McFarland 2001). Creations of the mind have characteristics that are different from those of physical entities. IP therefore needs to rely on regulations that are different from those that enshrine property in physical entities. In order to grant the bundle of rights in IP, the IP holder is granted a limited monopoly (Boyle 2001).

The arguments justifying the existence of physical property are reflected by the arguments put forward for IP (Van Caenegem 2003). The natural rights argument with reference to Lock and Hegel can be found with regards to intellectual creations (Warwick 2001). The labour desert theory, based on Locke, which holds that a creator has a natural right to profit from his work, is strong in IP (Spinello 2003). A different take on natural rights to IP relates to the human rights quality of property. Mason (2000), drawing on Rand, argues that the right to life requires a right to property, which can then be extended to IP.

Despite the plausibility of natural rights justifications of IP, they have to contend with serious problems. The idea of a natural order, from which natural rights can be deduced, tends to go back to a religious worldview, which is difficult to uphold in modern societies. Even agreement on the existence of natural rights does not answer the question about their formulation and enforcement. It is questionable whether one can still speak of a natural right if there is no way to define and implement it.

The dominant justification of IP is therefore the economic and utility-based one. It takes the utility-maximizing characteristics of property and explicates them using economic considerations. Intellectual creations are costly and resource intensive and creators will only engage in the process of creation if they know that they will be rewarded. Setting incentives to promote creation via IP will then lead to a (economically and intellectually) richer society (Ciro 2005). Such a consequentialist framework can be used to justify IP because of its general property of increasing well-being by stimulating production (Johnson 2000), promoting progress and innovation (Van Caenegem 2003).

6.2.3 Physical property vs. IP

The arguments in defence of IP have been well rehearsed. They have also been questioned intensively, particularly with regards to the relationship of ICT and IP. It has been pointed out that property regulations were developed for physical property or chattel (chattel is a legal term that denotes tangible and moveable property) and the idea of applying similar regulations to creations of the mind may be problematic (Ladd 2000). Similarities between physical entities and electronic embodiments of intellectual creations are limited. Using the same arguments in both cases can thus best be understood as the usage of metaphors, which may be problematic because the phenomena in question are incommensurable (Siponen and Vartiainen 2002). Barlow (1995, p. 16) captured this view when he said:

Certainly, the old concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context, based as they are on physical manifestation, do not apply in a world where there can be none.

There are at least two features of IP which are fundamentally different from physical property and which call into question the applicability of traditional property rules to IP. First, there is the issue of the reproducibility of intellectual creations. As Hinman (2002) points out, intellectual creations are not only reproducible, but infinitely so, to an extent that it is impossible to see a difference between the original and the copy. ICT has furthermore lowered the cost of such reproduction to the point where it is negligible in comparison with the overall cost of creation.

The second feature that is fundamentally different between physical and intellectual entities concerns the possibility of simultaneous use. One of the reasons why the unauthorized appropriation of physical property is deemed to be immoral to the point where it has to be made illegal (i.e. made the crime of theft) is that taking someone's physical property means to deprive them of its use. This type of argument does not work in the same way for intellectual property. Copying something that is the IP of someone else does not in the same way deprive the user of all possible uses of the entity (Maner, 2004). The consumption of IP is what economists call ‘non-rivalrous’, which means that the consumption by one individual does not lessen the consumption by another one (Lessig 1999).

6.2.4 Legal protection of IP

The arguments discussed so far set the background for the implementation of IP protection through laws as well as the ongoing critique of such protection. This book deals with ethical questions rather than legal ones and it is impossible to do justice to the complex subject of IP legislation in the brief space available. It is nevertheless important to touch upon the sources of IP law and the forms it takes because these reflect philosophical justifications. Knowledge of legal regulations is also important to follow current debates. One can argue that economic interests have become dominant in IP regulation (De George 1998, Severson 1997).

The international nature of ICT and potential use and misuse of IP means that IP legislation needs to be internationally consistent in order to be successful. It is therefore unsurprising that there are attempts to reach a uniform standard of IP legislation, most notably by the World Intellectual Property Organization (www.wipo.int). The WIPO is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It is dedicated to ‘developing a balanced and accessible international intellectual property (IP) system, which rewards creativity, stimulates innovation and contributes to economic development while safeguarding the public interest’ (www.wipo.int/about-wipo/en/what_is_wipo.html). This very brief statement indicates that while economic considerations are emphasized, a need to reconcile them with the public interest is also acknowledged.

There are a number of forms that the legal protection of IP can take. With regards to ethical issues raised by ICT, two groups of intellectual creations currently constitute the main items of IP: software and content. Content in the form of audio or video files is possibly less contentious because it has been protected by IP legislation for a long time. The traditional way of protecting IP in content takes the form of copyright. A more complex issue is that of protection of software. When software started to become a commercially viable product and ceased to be part of a support service for computer hardware, legal systems found it hard to classify it in a way suitable for existing IP legislation. Initially, it was debated whether the object code could be copyright. Legal disputes surrounded the question whether the look and feel of a piece of software can be subject to copyright protection. This was the heart of the famous Apple Inc v Microsoft Corporation, 35 F.3d 1435 (9th Cir. 1994) case, in which Apple claimed that Microsoft had infringed its copyright by copying the graphical user interface.

While copyright is now the dominant type of legal IP protection applicable to software and content, software producers have sought to extend the scope of IP. There are a number of examples of patents that refer to certain software functions. However, there is no international agreement on whether and on what grounds software or aspects thereof can be patented. There are a number of other forms of legal IP protection. These include registered and unregistered designs, trade marks, moral rights (i.e. the right not to be falsely associated with a piece of work) and the common law instrument of passing off.

An important development aimed at strengthening IP protection, used mostly by software vendors, is the use of licences. Licences are contracts between users and vendors and therefore allow vendors more flexibility in delimiting their IP claims. The legal status of many such licences remains untested. It has been argued, however, that licences run counter to the aims of IP protection in that they limit access to intellectual resources (Davis 2001). Another important development has to do with technical control over the use of IP. Technical devices aimed at giving IP holders control over the use of material realize what is called ‘digital rights management’ (DRM). Examples of DRM include technologies that limit the use of particular data, such as MP3 players that check the legitimacy of music files or programs that only display certain files (e.g. pdf files) whose legitimate origin has been ascertained. DRM can also enforce policies, for example by allowing only a certain number of copies of a file to be printed or limiting the number of times a song can be played. Such devices can only be successful if they cannot be circumvented. The development of legal protection for such systems which outlaws technical circumvention (e.g. the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US or the EU Copyright Directive) can thus be seen as an attempt to strengthen the rights of IP holders (George 2006).

6.2.5 Problems of IP

It is probably fair to say that most aspects of IP are contested. This refers to the different strategies of justifying it as well as its practical implementation. The utilitarian justification has been questioned on the grounds that many, if not most, creators (e.g. artists, scholars) are willing to create independently of the commercial rewards they may expect to receive (Stallman 1995). The economic justification has also been described as a self-fulfilling prophecy (Benkler 2001). Utilitarian support of strong IP protection often cites huge financial figures meant to show the severity of the problem of illegal use of IP (e.g. Moores and Chang 2006), but the empirical validity of such figures has been doubted. It is not clear that all or even any illegally downloaded material would have been purchased legally (Weckert and Adeney 1997). In addition, the entire field of open source software (OSS) seems to suggest that there are alternatives to current proprietary arrangements. While it is probably beyond doubt that artists and creative minds would continue to create music, literature, buildings or designs independently of remuneration, the significance of OSS is that it demonstrates that this is also possible in a much more technical and commercial sector, namely in software development. The relevance of OSS in the context of the IP debate is that it questions the empirical validity of a consequentialist justification of IP and at the same time shows an alternative conception that practically works (Stahl 2005).

The applicability of natural rights justifications of IP has similarly been questioned. A main argument here lies in the fundamental differences between physical and intellectual property. These are based on the different degrees of relative scarcity where physical property is based on finite resources, whereas IP is arguably not (Ciro 2005). A further problem of natural rights arguments can be found in their theological roots which render their practical status unclear.

While the theoretical justification of IP is thus contested, this is even more the case for its practical implementation. International sources of law such as WIPO are often perceived as lacking democratic legitimacy (Froomkin 2001). One can argue that recent strengthening of IP legislation is a result of a political process which emphasizes commercial interests (Torremans 2005). In some cases, one can show clear relationships between particular interests and legal activities (Spinello and Tavani 2005) which cast doubt on the impartiality of IP regulation. At the same time, non-commercial interests, as represented in fair use or fair dealings, are curtailed (Buchanan and Campbell 2005). Such observations, linked to the ongoing question of the appropriateness of IP regulations to at least some types of intellectual creation (i.e. software (Burk 2001)), has led many to question the legitimacy of current IP regulations. This is particularly true for developments that are perceived to circumvent the justification of IP, such as the use of digital rights management systems or the use of licences or one-sided contracts to strengthen IP (Camp 2003, Lewis 2004, Samuelson and Scotchmer 2002).

IP controversies are often linked with other ethical and social issues, many of which are discussed in this book. They include theoretical considerations of justice, fairness and moral rights (see Chapters 1, 3, 4 and 5), but they also touch on practical issues ranging from privacy to spam. A summary of the IP problematic that leads us back to the theme of this chapter is that it can be seen as a social problem, based on the fact that it is linked to competing interests that attempt to gain advantages for certain groups. There is a widespread view that current IP regulation reflects a dominance of commercial over competing interests. The struggle between the different interests is carried out on political and legal battlefields, but it is fought using ethical arguments on both sides. This brief characterization leads us to the next main point of the chapter, digital divides.

6.3 Digital divides

Digital divides, just like IP, constitute a huge field which has attracted much research from a range of disciplines which a section in a chapter cannot address comprehensively. This section will therefore attempt to tease out the ethically and philosophically interesting aspects of digital divides which will allow us to develop the argument that digital divides share relevant aspects with other social issues of computer ethics.

6.3.1 The concept of digital divides

Scholarly attention has been paid to digital divides since the middle of the 1990s (Hacker and Mason 2003). It has been pointed out, however, that the underlying concept is unclear. Warschauer (2003) highlights that the term implies a bipolar division between those who have access and those who do not, which is misleading as connectivity falls along a continuum. Walsham (2005, p. 9) has called the term ‘somewhat ambiguous and hard to define’ but points to the underlying problem of the gap between rich and poor, which may be exacerbated by technology. In the US, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has published a number of reports, some of which share the title ‘Falling through the Net’ (see www.ntia.doc.gov), which focus on digital divides within the country. Dewan and Riggins (2005) suggest five different categories of digital divides. The different viewpoints explain why it is more suitable to use the term digital divides in the plural form. They also indicate why some scholars have suggested dropping the term altogether in favour of a more telling one, such as ‘digital exclusion’ (Cushman and Klecun 2006, p. 348). In the rest of this chapter we shall use the plural ‘digital divides’ to denote instances where a difference in access or usability of ICT between groups or individuals leads to injustice or consequences that are widely perceived to be problematic.

6.3.2 Ethical issues of digital divides

Digital divides have an intuitive moral quality, which often seems to preclude explicit moral reasoning about them (Hacker and Mason, 2003). Part of the reason for this is that they seem to link with divides in the distribution of other goods or morally relevant items, such as chances to develop oneself. The fact that there is huge inequality in the world is undisputed and the disparity on a worldwide scale is staggering (UNDP 1998). Digital divides seem to be linked to such inequalities and they are sometimes perceived to be mutually reinforcing (Moss 2002). The perception that the gulf between haves and have-nots could be lessened but is often in fact deepened by ICT is a basic starting assumption of discussions of ethics and digital divides (Walsham 2001). It is not immediately clear, however, whether and why digital divides are really linked to offline inequalities and why this is an ethical problem. This is why philosophical investigations are called for (Rookby and Weckert 2007).

Digital divides have several links to inequality, apart from the association with inequality of distribution of goods and life chances. First, there is the issue of access. When it became apparent that new ICTs had the potential to overcome traditional inequalities but can equally well have the opposite effect, governments across the world decided that a necessary condition of more equality was widely spread access to such technology (Couldry 2003). As a consequence, governments and other organizations have spent considerable efforts in most parts of the world to improve the accessibility of new ICTs, in particular the Internet.

6.3.3 Problems of current discussions of digital divides

Digital divides raise a number of interrelated questions. These include conceptual, epistemological, methodological, but also practical ones.

There are several conceptual issues that render much of the debate on digital divides problematic. One has to do with the concept of information. The already-mentioned ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ are often also called ‘information rich’ and ‘information poor’. This terminology suggests that more information is always better than less information, which is patently false. There are many types of information not all of which are equally worth having access to. Being rich in some kind of information can include or even presuppose being poor in others (Hongladarom 2004). There is also a case to be made that in modern Western societies information overflow is more often a problem than lack of information. While, for some time, it may have been a status symbol to have technical access to information (e.g. via a mobile telephone), it is increasingly a status symbol to be able to disconnect. In addition, it is perfectly conceivable that individuals could consciously decide to remove themselves from information flow (e.g. by deciding no longer to watch TV or by having no email access at home), which would not necessarily impoverish their lives. Such views turn the traditional view of digital divides upside down.

A different question concerns epistemological issues of our knowledge of digital divides and research concerning them. Hacker and Mason (2003) argue that ethical concerns would have to be included more explicitly in digital divides research in order to come to a better understanding of relevant issues. At the same time, there is a dominance of positivist and quantitative research that focuses on demographic aspects, which can narrow the understanding of the problems and make them appear more static than they are (McSorley 2003). Couldry (2003) therefore suggests moving away from the concept of digital divides in empirical research and concentrate on issues, which have a stronger influence on the discursive design of ICTs.

These epistemological concerns are directly linked to the ontological framing of the concept of digital divides and their possible solutions. As already indicated, much work in the area of digital divides concentrates on issues of technology. A lack of access to technology is perceived as the (or at least one of the) root cause(s) of digital divides. This renders them a technical problem that calls for a technical solution. The simplest way of doing this is to provide people with access to technology. Indeed, this is an approach taken by many governments, whose main focus is the provision of infrastructure or in many cases even the provision of computers in households with the aim of allowing people to connect (cf. Stahl 2008a). Providing access to technology is nothing bad per se but it betrays an underlying technological determinism that renders the probability of success of such measures doubtful (Warschauer 2003). While lip service is often paid to the fact that access requires more than the opportunity to use a piece of technology, the fundamental difficulties this raises are often ignored in favour of a relatively straightforward provision of technology. High-profile projects like the MIT-sponsored ‘one laptop per child’ initiative that aims to provide a laptop for US$100 to every one of the world's poorest children are in constant danger of overemphasizing technology. Useful access which can overcome digital divides requires individuals to have education, high levels of literacy, and the ability to evaluate information gained through technology. These are conditions which are less often met by those without technical access. In order to overcome digital divides, these conditions would have to be fulfilled. In many cases, for example in countries with underdeveloped educational infrastructures, this would be an enormous task.

Another problem of digital divides linked to their ontological framing and the epistemological issues concerning research on such divides concerns their relevance in different social realities. The attention paid to digital divides can lead to a definition of normality that includes access to information via digital technologies, which then renders lifestyles that do not conform to this normality problematic. In this way, digital divides can become self-fulfilling prophecies, which come true because of the attention paid to them. The definition of normality can also be an expression of cultural imperialism. Whether and in what way technology can and should be used to address problems in different countries and cultures cannot easily be established a priori. The risk is that discussions of digital divides can become ways of extending unequal power structures of promoting particular technologies and processes in environments where they may not be appropriate (Walsham 2001).

A further problem worth mentioning concerns the question of how digital divides are to be addressed. Solutions, in order to be measurably successful, would need to be based on clearly defined problems, which are not given. However, even if one follows the dominant argument that the provision of access to technical means is at least an important part of the solution, then it is unclear how this is to be achieved. On an international level, ICT is seen as an important means of development but, at the same time, the recommendations to acquire ICT, develop market structures and engage in market competition may be unrealistic due to the contingencies of path-dependent development processes (Avgerou 2003). This means that particular problems or solutions may have arisen due to specific circumstances and are therefore not necessarily transferable to similar situations. Furthermore, it is unclear how technical provisions are to be implemented. The discussion concerning appropriate mechanisms of providing access is based on metaphysical convictions of what markets are and how they work (Stahl 2007). They are thus part of greater political and economic discourses, which render it unlikely that solutions to the problem of digital divides will be found soon.

6.4 Employment and work

Employment is a central political issue and a lack of employment is a problem that most political actors try to address. Loss of employment, as often discussed in high-profile cases where whole factories are closed, is seen as more than a purely commercial issue. At the same time, the use of ICT for most types of employment has the potential to change the nature and possibly the quantity of work available. It is thus reasonable to ask whether there are ethical issues arising from changes in the nature of work caused by computer and ICT use. This section will first ask whether work is destroyed or created and in a second step have a look at the changes in work caused by ICT. It will end with a discussion of some other issues where ICT and work can have ethical relevance.

6.4.1 Creation or destruction of employment?

It is beyond question that ICT can change what people do. It is almost inconceivable now that a chapter such as this would be written by hand or using a typewriter. Similarly, most other types of work, be they clerical or manual, are deeply affected. ICT contributes to the automation of many types of work, which means that many traditional forms of employment are becoming rarer in industrialized societies, whereas new types of work evolve. Such new types of work using ICT are often called ‘knowledge work’ and the mass of ‘knowledge workers’ are supposed to form the new ‘knowledge society’. It is probably not contentious to say that some types of work are newly created whereas others are either eliminated or outsourced. The question remains whether there is a net gain or loss of employment.

Some argue that ICT-enabled automation will lead to less work. This is not a new argument. Arendt (1958) made the argument quite convincingly over 50 years ago. Some argue that this is an inevitable development which may even lead us to view the artificial agents taking over our work as ethical agents (Brooks 2002). Others have held, against this, that there are strict limits to what technology can do and thus to what type of work can be eliminated (Collins 1990).

Wiener (1954) foresaw mass unemployment caused by the ‘slave labor’ of machines and referred to the great depression of the 1930s as being mild comparable to what was coming. The ethical evaluation of loss of employment is thus based on its economic consequences. Arendt (1958, p. 5) saw a different problem, namely the development of ‘a society of laborers without labor, that is, without the only activity left to them’. The problem here is that of a meaningful existence, which in modern societies often implies employment. This supports Floridi's (1999a) view that the problem of replacing human employment with technology is not so much a loss of income but the question of how one can fill one's time meaningfully.

In any event, the question of replacing human employment with technology has been an ongoing concern of scholars interested in the ethics of technology. One could argue that, in the end, it is an empirical question whether the fear of loss of employment through ICT is justified. Interestingly, the problems of measuring this seem considerable and it is hard to come to a clear empirical evaluation. According to Castells (2000, p. 280) ‘it seems, as a general trend, that there is no systematic structural relationship between the diffusion of information technologies and the evolution of employment levels in the economy as a whole’.

6.4.2 The changing nature of work

As it seems difficult to make clear quantitative statements about the changes of work due to ICT, it may be worthwhile exploring the qualitative changes. Bynum (1985), in an introduction to one of the classics of computer ethics (Moor 1985), voiced the fear that increasing use of computers would lead to a replacement of human work, in particular in ‘tasks that are thought to require judgement and wisdom’ (p. 263). This fear was not justified. In the time since, it has become clear that the ones whose jobs are most at risk, due to ICT, are the ones with lower skills and simple work that is easy to automate or offshore.

One consequence that the introduction of ICT in the workplace does seem to have is that it has supported a massive push towards higher flexibility. This flexibility of labour has developed in parallel to the increasing flexibility of worldwide markets in goods and finance. Together, these developments constitute an important part of globalization. While one can argue that globalization is a misnomer (as it excludes most regions of the world) and that it is not a reality for labour markets, it has consequences for employment. On the one hand, it can serve as an argument in debates between employers and employees, where employers can now plausibly threaten to move work abroad. On the other hand, markets and exchange mechanisms have, in many cases, become truly global. Thanks to ICT, even a small local organization can now cater to a worldwide market.

One example of this increasing flexibility is the concept of the virtual organization. Again, there may be debates about the definition or social reality of virtual organizations (Pennings 1998, McCalman 2003), but the concept has served as a useful referent in different debates. It is often introduced in a positive vein, emphasizing the ability to cater to client needs but also to provide employees with higher degrees of freedom and autonomy. At the same time, it changes our perception of work as well as the boundaries of work and leisure.

One way of organizing work that will increase due to virtual organizations, but also because of other ICT-enabled changes of work, is that of telework. The idea behind telework is that the employee is no longer confined to physical presence at the place of work but free to work from wherever (notably including home) at whichever time. This is one aspect of the ICT-based flexibility and one that seems to offer considerable promise, as it allows employees to combine professional and personal life in ways impossible before.

6.4.3 Ethical issues of the changing nature of work

Where people have less of a chance to make a living they consequently have less of a chance to lead a fulfilled existence. Interestingly, empirical research again seems to be ambivalent with regards to the factual consequences of the influence of ICT on employment. While ICT skills are now increasingly required in a wide range of jobs, the impact of ICT on wages is unclear (Dewan and Riggins 2005).

There are, however, other ethical issues linked to the increasing use of ICT in work, which may be less obvious than issues of sustainability of income, but which may have an even stronger influence on the organization of work. Central among these is the question of the relationship between employers and employees. ICT use may empower employees by giving them access to information and allowing them to develop their independence. At the same time, the use of ICT allows the collection of information about work in ways previously impossible. Such information can be used for the purpose of employee surveillance (Weckert 2005).

A good example of these ambiguous possibilities is the already mentioned emerging form of work called telework. Telework is often described in positive terms, with regards both to the organization and to the employee. As Jerrard and Chang (2003, p. 120) put it, ‘[t]eleworking is about trust’. They go on to say that technology is a means of granting members of a virtual team ‘independence and autonomy and enhancing their performance’. While such positive views are certainly possible, organizational realities often seem to develop in a different direction. Telework lessens employers’ ability to monitor employees’ input and forces them to increase control of output (Jackson et al. 2006). This requires employees to engage increasingly in self-surveillance, which means that they need to internalize employers’ requirements and accept them unquestioningly. Telework can have (ethically relevant) gender aspects, for example in that it often leads to the double burden of work and family responsibilities, which typically are shouldered by women. Moreover, telework removes the ability of employees to socialize and thus to organize. It thereby implicitly strengthens employers’ positions because it makes it more difficult for employees to bargain collectively (Greenhill and Wilson 2006).

6.5 ‘Social’ issues of computer ethics and ways to address them

This chapter set out to give a broad overview of social issues in computer ethics. It has focused on issues of intellectual property, digital divides, and employment and work. Of course, there are many other issues worthy of discussion under the same heading which could not be included. The question remains what these three main issues have in common and how ethical theories can help us address them.

One interesting aspect that they share and that sets them apart as ‘social’ issues is that they concern conflicts between and among social groups. The most important collective actor that shapes the social struggles is business. The entire debate surrounding IP is driven by business interests in strengthening IP protection with the aim of allowing IP holders to gain financially from them. Work and employment issues are also driven to a large extent by business interests, for example where ICT leads to a higher degree of employee surveillance or self-surveillance. Digital divides are partly results of differing levels of business activities, they are often described as impediments to successful business developments, and solutions to them are sought in business provision of technology. Commercial interests thus form a central aspect of the social issues discussed in this chapter.

It would, of course, be an undue simplification to describe business as a monolithic block with uniform interests. The struggles and conflicts that render social issues ethically relevant are often between commercial and non-commercial interests (e.g. copyright holders vs. music consumers; patent holders vs. poor, ill people in developing countries) but they are also often found among different businesses or business models (e.g. proprietary software developers vs. open source software developers). The observation that commercial interests are dominant is thus not to be misunderstood as a claim that profit-oriented organizations are morally bad, but as a sign that in capitalist societies commercial interests are a main cause of social disagreement. Social issues of computer ethics can thus to a large extent be understood as struggles over distribution.

Questions of competing interests and justifiable distributions in democratic states are never just ethical but they invariably gain political relevance. This is certainly true for the three examples discussed in this chapter. Different interests groups, who aim to promote their viewpoints, do this by influencing political processes and agents. As the political process often culminates in the creation of laws, such ethical issues then take on a legal quality. This is most obvious in the case of IP, where statutes and case law have a direct bearing on facts as well as their ethical evaluation. But also employment issues and digital divides find their reflection in legal procedures policies. Democracy, as the type of government that ideally allows all voices to be heard and acceptable solutions to be found, is thus the fighting ground on which social issues are decided. Ethical considerations can play an important role as the bases of arguments used to promote particular viewpoints.

This leads us to the question of appropriate ethical approaches to understand and address social problems of computer ethics. Much work in computer ethics focuses on individual and professional matters. The idea behind this is that computer professionals need to be aware of ethical issues, understand their role and pursue courses of action that are ethically justifiable. This happens within a professional environment, where professional bodies shape the perceptions of relevant duties and enforce shared standards, for example through codes of conduct or codes of ethics. This individualist approach is often taught to students of computing and it can offer valuable points of orientation. It has, however, also been criticized as one-sided and limited in its approach (Adam 2005). This is certainly a problem with regards to all of the issues discussed in this chapter. While individual actions can have relevance with regards to IP, digital divides or employment issues, they are unlikely to change the underlying structures that lead to the ethical relevance of these questions. There are, of course broader ethical theories available in computer ethics such as Floridi's (1999b) information ethics, Bynum's (2006a) flourishing ethics or Introna's (2007) disclosive ethics. However, none of these are particularly sensitive to the social nature of issues described here.

Some scholars have therefore suggested the use of more socially aware ethical theories to address ethical problems of technology (Devon 2004, Johnstone 2007). This is an important move towards ethical theories that are sensitive to social issues and the role of business in societal conflicts. One may argue (Stahl 2008b/c) that ‘critical theory’ or ‘critical social theory’ (Harvey 1990) provides a conceptual frame for understanding such social issues and, at the same time, has great sensitivity to competing ethical claims. It is to be hoped that a sharper awareness of social issues in computer ethics may develop, one which includes knowledge of the issues themselves and more importantly, an increased discussion of how computer ethics itself can develop to address them more successfully.

¹ While the title of this chapter refers to ‘computer ethics’, it is probably more fitting to speak of ‘computer and information ethics’, as not all of the relevant issues are always directly linked to computers. In addition, the term ‘computer’ is also rather narrow and somewhat difficult to define. In this chapter I will thus make more use of the term commonly used in the UK, namely ‘information and communication technology’ (ICT), which covers a wider range of technological artefacts.