I Kant understands teh Intarwebs.
And it has nothing to do with the ridiculous spelling, whether it’s the LOLcats feigned ignorance, or the intentional crop-and-drop of letters. (I’m looking at you, Flickr and Tumblr.)
The mystery is in the origin of our online etiquette and morality.
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Source of Morals
“C’mon, Ike. You’re putting us on. The online world is pretty transparent.”
You’d think. But you’d be wrong.
Truth is, the vast majority of people slide right on through life without thinking about their moral traditions. They accept them for what they are, and maybe even study them in the abstract, but for some reason the dots never get connected.
The Judeo-Christian ethic is strong throughout American culture and the establishment of our laws. There were assumptions made, steeped in intentional knowledge. We don’t have to give it more than a moment’s thought, and we can trace the lines back.
So tell me? Where is the Golden Rule in online etiquette? Where is “Love your neighbor as yourself?” The closest you might find is the Reverse Golden Rule, found in Confucian (among other) traditions:
Do not do unto another that thing that you would not want perpetrated upon yourself.
Yet, look at the panorama of what we consider to be moral issues online:
- Plagiarism
- Trolling
- Link-baiting
- Spamming
- Bullying
- Black Hat SEO
- Phishing
Some of them involve criminal components, some involve loss of time and/or sanity. But they all seem to come from a similar strand:
What if everyone behaved this way?
Categorical Imperative
That question, “What if everyone did ________?“, is the engine that drives the Categorical Imperative. It’s not designed to be applied to anything that is a subset of a larger activity. For example, if everyone ate apples, then we’d all die of malnutrition, therefore eating apples is immoral? No — because there is a larger category that covers “eating” and “nutrition.”
Here’s a better example: Would it be right to go back in time and kill a baby Adolf Hitler? The Categorical Question has nothing to do with the “results” of Hitler’s legacy, but is phrased as “Is it moral to kill an infant for crimes it has not yet committed?” Well, if we killed ALL infants before they committed crimes, humanity would end… therefore it is immoral.
Immanuel Kant’s tool is useful in environments like the internet, because its design makes it instantly applicable to emerging issues and questions. “Is it okay to Reply-All on this email sent to 500 people?” Well… what if everybody did?
Its strength is also a weakness, because of our propensity to steer by the gutter when we ought to steer by the stars. (C’mon, I know a few of you are still calling for the head of Baby Hitler.) Pragmatism and Utility make for very strong arguments these days. But from what I can see, most of the lasting issues of etiquette are being boiled down into Categorical arguments. This is new territory for us, because as a primarily Judeo-Christian culture we haven’t spent a lot of time looking at Kant. It all depends upon your perspective.
The View from on High
And if your perspective is a Mountain View…?
It’s a little shocking to me, really, that no one has asked the question of Google:
“What is Evil?”
Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” has been hailed as a guiding corporate mantra. It’s a mandate to employees, and is to guide decisions from business acquisition to trading partners to electricity consumption to serving the needs of locavores in the company mess.
But what does it mean?
One who measures morality on a Utilitarian basis might make some very pragmatic arguments about issues of access, privacy, or net neutrality. A Kantian view might differ widely. One might place value on the freedom of the individual, where the other places priority on what it encourages across the online ecosystem.
“What is Evil?“
I can’t tell you. Neither can Google. But maybe we all are telling Google as we go.
Who’s to say there isn’t a server farm in Mountain View that churns through sentiments expressed online about issues of net neutrality? That there isn’t a scorecard that goes beyond a simple “poll” of our popular opinions at the moment — but one that measures what we are doing along with what we’re saying. Maybe we’re telling Google what will keep the ‘Net running at peak efficiency, even though not a single one of us knows.
All hail the Mighty Google. The Oracle Speaks.
An Oracle that doesn’t know Good from Evil, but defines as “Evil” those things that would make the internet less efficient and useful for our purposes. It’s the Utility of John Stuart Mill, folded into a Kant sandwich.
“What is Evil, online?“
I don’t know. Neither do Sergey Brin or Larry Page. We don’t know.
But I. Kant understands the Intarwebs.
What is evil, indeed?
I’m a PR professional turned academic, but also a lifelong utilitarian — one who makes moral decisions based on the consequences they bring. While this view often produces un-Kantian results, I’ve always been OK with “the greatest good for the greatest number.” To me, that’s justice, but I grew up in a union family, OK?
The Internet is slowly turning me into a rigid Kantian, because the Internet and its citizens seem to have no regard for rules — and in many cases, no common sense at all. Your list of offenses, from plagiarism to phishing, is evidence of the widespread abuses in this space. And for the most part, no one can or will police the community. And as we all know, the community can’t police itself.
Someone asked me what I see ahead for the social web: community or anarchy? Like you, Ike, I had to say, “I don’t know.” But I am stockpiling ammo, just in case.
Thanks Bill.
Like I said, I’m not advocating for Kant here… just recognizing that what civility and morality I *do* see online seems to come from a Kantian perspective — and that given its flexibility in application, it may be the only measure that can govern the future.
And Google isn’t helping anything with its undefined platitude. (Except its reputation for corporate responsibility and bottom line.)
You’ve couched it as an “on-line” issue, but as I know you believe, the issue is as broad as it can possibly be. Morality is rooted in either objectivitism or subjectivism – period. And those who adhere to subjectivism are – inevitably – committed to definition revisionism (what is “evil”? – whatever “we” say it is…), and proclamation of right/wrong via the moving target of cultural consensus. What we see on-line is simply a digital portrayal of individual and cultural conscience.
Yeah… but the online/offline division makes it in some ways easier for some people to start grappling with these thoughts. Particularly because there has never been an overt effort to regulate the internet through Jesusification.
I don’t think the best bet for Google’s answer to “What is evil?” is found in Kant. I think it is more likely found in US Supreme Court decisions regarding obscenity. Basically, I’m guessing that the answer would be “I know evil when I see it.”
Now this can be given a fine philosophical pedigree if you want to (“intuitionism” would be the place to start looking) but I’d rather stick to the conventions we’ve developed to deal with that ploy in our legal system. The main method is to appeal to “local standards” to figure out what counts as “acceptable to the community.”
So that means we have to think carefully about just what or who is the community that Google is part of these days. Perhaps this justifies your online/offline division, and they mean “do nothing the online community considers evil.” Or perhaps they meant “do nothing the major multi-billion-dollar industries consider evil.” (I doubt it, because it seems like they meant to distance themselves from other big companies…)
Plausibly, Google itself is helping make the world one great big community. If so, the “local community standards” test doesn’t work any more.
An interesting puzzle to ponder. Thanks for pointing it out.
Thanks, man.
I don’t know where Google would go for its definition, but we haven’t exactly asked them, have we?
Instead, we’ve glided along and imposed our own personal flavor and vision on Google. Which works up to a point, but it is doomed to fail when we reach issues for which there are no clear answers. My gut tells me this will break along an international dispute, given the number of spats with China and other nations that wish to impose their local mores.
We’ll see later — but it might help to ask now. (According to my server logs, I get regular visits from Mountain View, but they’re of the eight-legged virtual variety, and not the two-legged sentient kind.)
I’m on board with Wheaton’s Law:
Don’t be a dick.
…which still defines nothing.