In this article, I argue that online echo chambers are in some cases and in some respects good. I do not attempt to refute arguments that they are harmful, but I argue that they are sometimes beneficial. In the first section, I argue that it is sometimes good to be insulated from views with which one disagrees. In the second section, I argue that the software-design principles that give rise to online echo chambers have a lot to recommend them. Further, (...) the opposing principle, serendipity, could give rise to serious harm, in light of the conclusion of the first section that sometimes we are better off being insulated from some content online. In the third section, I argue that polarization can be a useful tool for inculcating the appropriate attitudes in a person. (shrink)

In this panel, we explore the future of value sensitive design (VSD). The stakes are high. Many in public and private sectors and in civil society are gradually realizing that taking our values seriously implies that we have to ensure that values effectively inform the design of technology which, in turn, shapes people’s lives. Value sensitive design offers a highly developed set of theory, tools, and methods to systematically do so.

Despite the initial promise of social media platforms as a means of facilitating discourse on matters of civic discourse, in practice it has turned out to impair fruitful conversation on civic issues by a number of means. From self-isolation into echo chambers, to algorithmically supported filter bubbles, to widespread failure to engage politically owing to psychological phenomena like the ‘spiral of silence’, a variety of factors have been blamed. I argue that extant accounts overlook the importance of interpersonal relationships to (...) sustaining quality civic discourse on social media. Drawing on an Aristotelian account of friendship with an emphasis on the value of interpersonal difference plus the influence of interactions on individual character, I argue that a common scapegoat for the failure of civic discourse online—the variety of “unfriend” disconnection tools offered on various platforms—actually show promise at promoting better-quality civic conversation and overcoming the obstacles present on social media platforms. (shrink)

This dissertation explores energy transition from a philosophical perspective. It puts forward the thesis that energy production and consumption are so intimately intertwined with society that the transition towards a sustainable alternative will involve more than simply implementing novel technologies. Fossil energy sources and a growth-based economy have resulted in very specific energy practices, which will change in the future. Broader reflection is needed to understand how and in which direction such change is acceptable and desirable. This reflection is initiated (...) by articulating two pertinent problems with current energy practices that have thus far failed to receive appropriate attention in debates on energy transition: 1) the difficulty of dealing with intermittent sources in relation to the idea of cumulative accounting of energy consumption, and 2) the mismatch between expectations of ethical consumer behaviour in energy systems that discourage engagement. To move forward, instead of assuming that all consumption is equivalent and that more is better, we must develop a better informed and more nuanced idea of 'good' energy practices that actually contribute to our quality of life. One often overlooked aspect of this may be 'embodied engagement', which would suggest that automation of tasks through energy-consuming technologies may be convenient, but also tends to lead to a loss of appreciation for both the task and its result. Some things, like creating a cozy environment around a fireplace, or climbing a mountain, are better partly because they take effort. In such cases, the 'efficiency' of the technology (e.g. the heat-pump, or the automobile) is besides the point - the question is whether it gives us anything of value at all. (shrink)

In a special issue of “Ethics and Information Technology” (September 2012), various philosophers have discussed the notion of online friendship. The preferred framework of analysis was Aristotle’s theory of friendship: it was argued that online friendships face many obstacles that hinder them from ever reaching the highest form of Aristotelian friendship. In this article I aim to offer a different perspective by critically analyzing the arguments these philosophers use against online friendship. I begin by isolating the most common arguments these (...) philosophers use against online friendship and proceed to debunk them one by one by pointing out inconsistencies and fallacies in their arguments and, where needed, offering empirical findings from media and communication studies that offer a more nuanced view on online friendships. I conclude my analysis by questioning the correctness of the application of the Aristotelian theory of friendship by the critics of online friendship: in my view, the critics are applying the Aristotelian theory to online friendships in a rather narrow and limited way. Finally, I conclude my thesis by proposing that in the rapidly changing online landscape, a one-size-fits-all application of the Aristotelian theory on friendship is not sufficient to accurately judge the multitude of relationships that can exist online and that the various positive and valuable elements of online friendships should also be acknowledged and analyzed. (shrink)

I defend social media’s potential to support Aristotelian virtue friendship against a variety of objections. I begin with Aristotle’s claim that the foundation of the best friendships is a shared life. Friends share the distinctively human and valuable components of their lives, especially reasoning together by sharing conversation and thoughts, and communal engagement in valued activities. Although some have charged that shared living is not possible between friends who interact through digital social media, I argue that social media preserves the (...) relevantly human and valuable portions of life, especially reasoning, play, and exchange of ideas. I then consider several criticisms of social media’s potential to host friendships, and refute or weaken the force of these objections, using this conception of a distinctively human shared life. I conclude that we should use the shared life to evaluate features of specific social media and norms for users’ conduct. (shrink)

When we talk about things like the 'lost art of letter-writing' or the 'digital communications revolution,' what do we mean? What do we lose and what do we gain as we move towards digital ways of being in the world? Critically engaging with many of the canonical writers in the philosophy of technology , and following what has been termed the 'empirical turn' in that discipline, this thesis answers such questions by means of a philosophical, comparative study of epistolary technics (...) and praxis in the early nineteenth and 21st centuries, making use of Romantic era archival letters and related materials to compare and contrast our own, Internet-enabled experience of communicating over distance. In so doing, it seeks to contribute towards our understanding of the ways in which information and communication technologies influence humanity by taking a long-view of many of the more radical claims for the ways in which the Internet effects change in culture, society and self. The thesis is structured thematically, with chapters examining the experience of distance and presence in these two periods, the potential for meaningful engagements by way of communicative media, the technological reconfiguration of social networks, and shifts in the public/private distinction. In its conclusions it is broadly sympathetic to the somewhat pessimistic positions of Heidegger and Borgmann, finding evidence and supplying argument to support the notion that the Internet does in some circumstances serve to diminish our meaningful involvements with the world and each other. It is, however, critical of many of the more extreme arguments for the substantive impact of the Internet, which very often lean too heavily towards naive technological determinism, neglect the social shaping of technology, overemphasise the radical novelty of the Internet, or simply deny or downplay many of its undoubted benefits. (shrink)

There is an ongoing debate about the value of virtual friendship. In contrast to previous authorships, this paper argues that virtual friendship can have independent value. It is argued that within an Aristotelian framework, some friendships that are perhaps impossible offline can exist online, i.e., some offline unequals can be online equals and thus form online friendships of independent value.

Current research in Intercultural Information Ethics is preoccupied, almost exclusively, by moral and political issues concerning the right and the just These issues are undeniably important, and with the continuing development and diffusion of ICTs, we can only be sure more moral and political problems of similar kinds are going to emerge in the future. Yet, as important as those problems are, I want to argue that researchers' preoccupation with the right and the just are undesirable. I shall argue that (...) IIE has thus far overlooked the issues pertaining to the good life . IIE, I claim, should also take into account these issues. Hence, I want to propose a new agenda for IIE, i.e. the good life, in the current paper. (shrink)

The widespread and growing use of new social media, especially social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, invites sustained ethical reflection on emerging forms of online friendship. Social scientists and psychologists are gathering a wealth of empirical data on these trends, yet philosophical analysis of their ethical implications remains comparatively impoverished. In particular, there have been few attempts to explore how traditional ethical theories might be brought to bear upon these developments, or what insights they might offer, if any. (...) In attempting to address this lacuna in applied ethical research, this paper investigates the ethical significance of online friendship by means of an Aristotelian theory of the good life, which holds that human flourishing is chiefly realized through ‘complete’ friendships of virtue. Here, four key dimensions of ‘virtue friendship’ are examined in relation to online social media : reciprocity, empathy, self-knowledge and the shared life. Online social media support and strengthen friendship in ways that mirror these four dimensions, particularly when used to supplement rather than substitute for face-to-face interactions. However, deeper reflection on the meaning of the shared life for Aristotle raises important and troubling questions about the capacity of online social media to support complete friendships of virtue in the contemporary world, along with significant concerns about the enduring relevance of this Aristotelian ideal for the good life in the 21st century. (shrink)

It has become commonplace to hold the view that virtual surrogates for the things that are good in life are inferior to their actual, authentic counterparts, including virtual education, virtual skill-demanding activities and virtual acts of creativity. Virtual friendship has also been argued to be inferior to traditional, embodied forms of friendship. Coupled with the view that virtual friendships threaten to replace actual ones, the conclusion is often made that we ought to concentrate our efforts on actual friendships rather than (...) settle for virtual replacements. The purpose of this paper is to offer a balanced and empirically grounded analysis of the relative prudential value of actual and virtual friendship. That is, do actual and virtual friendships differ when it comes to enhancing our subjective well-being? In doing so, I will discuss a number of presuppositions that lie behind common criticisms of virtual friendship. This will include, among other considerations, their potential for replacing actual friendship, as well as the possibility for self-disclosure, trust, sharing and dynamic spread of happiness in virtual worlds. The purpose is not to arrive at a firm, normative conclusion, but rather to introduce a number of considerations that we should take into account in our individual deliberations over which role virtual friendships ought to have in our unique life situations. (shrink)

In this article I examine a recent development in online communication, the immersive virtual worlds of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). I argue that these environments provide a distinct form of online experience from the experience available through earlier generation forms of online communication such as newsgroups, chat rooms, email and instant messaging. The experience available to participants in MMORPGs is founded on shared activity, while the experience of earlier generation online communication is largely if not wholly dependent on (...) the communication itself. This difference, I argue, makes interaction in immersive virtual worlds such as MMORPGs relevantly similar to interaction in the physical world, and distinguishes both physical world and immersive virtual world interaction from other forms of online communication. I argue that to the extent that shared activity is a core element in the formation of friendships, friendships can form in immersive virtual worlds as they do in the physical world, and that this possibility was unavailable in earlier forms of online interaction. I do, however, note that earlier forms of online interaction are capable of sustaining friendships formed through either physical or immersive virtual world interaction. I conclude that we cannot any longer make a sharp distinction between the physical and the virtual world, as the characteristics of friendship are able to be developed in each. (shrink)

Based on a modern reading of Aristotle’s theory of friendship, we argue that virtual friendship does not qualify as genuine friendship. By ‘virtual friendship’ we mean the type of friendship that exists on the internet, and seldom or never is combined with real life interaction. A ‘traditional friendship’ is, in contrast, the type of friendship that involves substantial real life interaction, and we claim that only this type can merit the label ‘genuine friendship’ and thus qualify as morally valuable. The (...) upshot of our discussion is that virtual friendship is what Aristotle might have described as a lower and less valuable form of social exchange. (shrink)

A closer look at the theories and questions in philosophy of technology and ethics of technology shows the absence and marginality of non-Western philosophical traditions in the discussions. Although, increasingly, some philosophers have sought to introduce non-Western philosophical traditions into the debates, there are few systematic attempts to construct and articulate general accounts of ethics and technology based on other philosophical traditions. This situation is understandable, for the questions of modern sciences and technologies appear to be originated from the West; (...) at the same time, the situation is undesirable. The overall aim of this paper, therefore, is to introduce an alternative account of ethics of technology based on the Confucian tradition. In doing so, it is hoped that the current paper can initiate a relatively uncharted field in philosophy of technology and ethics of technology. (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of more widespread and systematic applications of a virtue-based normative framework to questions about the ethical impact of information technologies, and social networking technologies in particular. The first stage of the argument identifies several distinctive features of virtue ethics that make it uniquely suited to the domain of IT ethics, while remaining complementary to other normative approaches. I also note its potential to reconcile a number of significant methodological conflicts and debates in the existing literature, (...) including tensions between phenomenological and constructivist perspectives. Finally, I claim that a virtue-based perspective is needed to correct for a strong utilitarian bias in the research methodologies of existing empirical studies on the social and ethical impact of IT. The second part of the paper offers an abbreviated demonstration of the merits of virtue ethics by showing how it might usefully illuminate the moral dimension of emerging social networking technologies. I focus here on the potential impact of such technologies on three virtues typically honed in communicative practices: patience, honesty and empathy. (shrink)

Onderzoekers die kritiek willen leveren op de institutionele eisen die doorgaans aan hun werk worden gesteld, nemen meestal een visie op de zin en noodzaak van onderzoek als uitgangspunt. Ze laten zien dat een onderzoeker die ‘goed scoort’ volgens de maatstaven van publieke onderzoeksfinanciers, zoals in Nederland nwo, nog geen goed onderzoekswerk levert. En ze geven redenen om te betwijfelen dat een instituut dat zich een ‘topinstituut’ mag noemen niet per se mensen opleidt die in staat zijn om zelfstandig hoogwaardig (...) en vernieuwend onderzoek te doen. (shrink)

Philosophers have not paid much attention to the impact of remote work on the nature of work and the workplace. The overall aim of this paper is to contribute to further debate over the value of remote work by focusing on one important dimension of it – the effect on collegial relationships.I distinguish two types of collegial relationships. On the one hand, there are what I call “Kantian collegial relationships”, which have been outlined in a recent account by Betzler & (...) Löschke. These are colleagues who acknowledge and respect each other as equals, and provide relationship goods in a fair and distributive manner. On the other hand, there are what I call “collegial friendships”. In contrast to Kantian colleagues, collegial friends are emotionally supportive and show appreciation for each other for who they are, not just because they are equals. Both types of collegial relationship must be taken into consideration if we want to fully understand why we value our colleagues.I then show that there are reasons to believe that remote work will have a chilling effect on collegial friendships. Remote workers must interact online, which undermines forms of self-disclosure that are necessary for intimate relationships to form, like collegial friendship. Conversely, I suggest that remote work, for exactly the same reasons, will have a positive effect on Kantian collegial relationships. The proliferation of remote work forces us to consider whether this tradeoff is acceptable. (shrink)

How do social media affect interpersonal relationships? Adopting a Strawsonian framework, I argue that social media make us more likely to adopt the objective attitude towards persons. Technologically mediated communication tends to inhibit interpersonal emotions and other reactive attitudes. This is due to a relative lack of the social cues that typically enable us to read minds and react to them. Adopting the objective attitude can be harmful for two reasons. First, it tends to undermine the basis of interpersonal relationships. (...) In particular, I argue that friendship is a relationship between persons that requires the participant stance. Second, it is a morally risky attitude that makes us more likely to treat persons in problematic, thing-like ways. Some philosophers have rightly urged that social media are compatible with virtuous, Aristotelian friendship. Notwithstanding, I argue that the harms associated with the objective attitude are more pressing than they might appear if we restrict our focus to relatively virtuous people with the social competence to flourish in morally risky online environments. (shrink)

This paper considers the particular ways in which the familiar letter and twenty-first century technologies like the Internet differingly shaped and shape our experience of distance and presence. It follows Heidegger, Dreyfus, and Borgmann in critiquing the kinds of experience and action the Internet makes possible, and—by way of Benjamin’s concept of “aura”—argues that while mediated communication over distance might have never been easier, faster, or cheaper, this increase in our effective power comes at the cost of a diminution of (...) the affective power of the messages carried. (shrink)

This paper adds ammunition to recent arguments for the possibility of online character friendships in the Aristotelian sense. It does so by exploring sustained and deep email correspondence or epalship as a potential venue for the creation, development and maintenance of character friendships, and by drawing an analogy with a historically famous example of penpalship: that forged between Voltaire and Catherine the Great. It is argued that epalships allow for various technological extensions in the cyberworld of today that were not (...) available to Voltaire and Catherine; and that augmented with those extensions, there is even more reason for seeing epalships as potentially making the grade as true character friendships than traditional penpalships. However, despite being potentially categorisable as character friendships, mature epalships are vulnerable to the same problems and pitfalls as other examples of character friendships, and perhaps even more so: pitfalls that were mostly overlooked by Aristotle himself. (shrink)

Aristotle’s account of friendship has largely withstood the test of time. Yet there are overlooked elements of his account that, when challenged by apparent threats of current and emerging communication technologies, reveal his account to be remarkably prescient. I evaluate the danger that technological advances in communication pose to the future of friendship by examining and defending Aristotle’s claim that perfect or character-friends must live together. I concede that technologically-mediated communication can aid existing character-friendships, but I argue that character-friendships cannot (...) be created and sustained entirely through technological meditation. I examine text-based technologies, such as Facebook and email, and engage a non-text based technology that poses the greatest threat to my thesis—Skype. I then address philosophical literature on friendship and technology that has emerged in the last decade in Ethics and Information Technology to elucidate and defend my account by contrast. I engage Cocking and Matthews (2000), who argue that friendship cannot be created and sustained entirely through text-based contact, Briggle (2008), who argues that friendship can be created and sustained entirely through text-based contact, and Munn (2012), who argues that friendship cannot be created and entirely sustained through text-based contact but can be created and sustained entirely in immersive virtual worlds. My account discusses a certain kind of friendship, character-friendship, and a certain kind of technology, Skype, that these accounts do not. Examination of these essays helps to demonstrate that character friendship cannot be sustained entirely by technologically-aided communication and that character-friends must live together. (shrink)

Using the Aristotelian virtue of friendship and concept of practical wisdom, this paper argues that engaging in political discourse with friends on social media is conducive to the pursuit of the good life because it facilitates the acquisition of the socio-political information and understanding necessary to live well. Previous work on social media, the virtues, and friendship focuses on the initiation and maintenance of the highest form of friendship (Aristotle’s ‘ideal friendship’) online. I argue that the information necessary to live (...) well can come from non-ideal, civic friends in addition to ideal friends. In order to acquire this information successfully via social media, users should practice inclusive engagement, self-control, discretion, and audience-sensitivity in their cyber interactions. This argument is salient given the current concerns about ‘echo chambers’ or ‘filter bubbles’, in which users ignore or block out friends and news sources that support political perspectives different from one’s own. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to survey the moral psychology of emoji, time-restricted messaging and other non-verbal elements of nominally textual computer-mediated communication. These features are increasingly common in interpersonal communication. Effects on both individual well-being and quality of intimate relationships are assessed. Results of this assessment are used to support ethical conclusions about these elements of digital communication. Design/methodology/approach Assessment of these non-verbal elements of CMC is framed in light of relevant literature from a variety of fields, including neuroscience, behavioral (...) economics and social psychology. The resulting ethical analysis is informed by both Aristotelian and Buddhist virtue ethics. Findings This paper finds that emoji and other nonverbal elements of CMC have positive potential for individual well-being and interpersonal communication. They can be used to focus and direct attention, express and acknowledge difficult emotions and increase altruistic tendencies. Research limitations/implications This paper is conceptual, extrapolating from existing literature to investigate possibilities rather than reporting on novel experiments. It is not intended to substitute for empirical research on use patterns and their effects. But by identifying positive potential, it can help both users and designers to support individual and relational well-being. Practical implications The positive effects identified here can be incorporated into both design and use strategies for CMC. Social implications Situating ethical analysis of these trending technologies within literature from the social sciences on the effects of stylized faces, disappearing messages and directed attention can help us both understand their appeal to users and best practices for using them to enrich our social lives. Originality/value The paper uses empirically informed moral psychology to understand a deceptively trivial-looking phenomenon with wide-ranging impacts on human psychology and relationships. (shrink)

Public funding institutions are able to influence what aspects researchers take into account when they consider the future impacts of their research. On the basis of a description of the evaluation systems that public research funding institutes in the Netherlands (STW and SenterNovem) use to estimate the quality of engineering science, this article shows that researchers are now predominantly required to reflect on the intellectual merit of their research and on the usability and marketability of the technology it contributes to. (...) In addition, SenterNovem also mandates reflection on sustainability. Here it is argued that these requirements do not suffice. Funding institutions should also do more to enhance reflection during the research process on the “soft impacts” of technologies, which refer to the alterations that technologies may bring about in the quality of human life. To do this it is suggested that it is helpful to engage a specifically trained ethicist to monitor the research process and create a feedback loop from the ethicist to the funding institution. (shrink)

Arguments from analogy are pervasive in everyday reasoning, mathematics, philosophy, and science. Informal logic studies everyday argumentation in ordinary language. A branch of fuzzy logic, approximate reasoning, seeks to model facets of everyday reasoning with vague concepts in ill-defined situations. Ways of combining the results from these fields will be suggested by introducing a new argumentation scheme—a fuzzy analogical argument from classification—with the associated critical questions. This will be motivated by a case study of analogical reasoning in the virtual friendship (...) debate within information ethics. The virtual friendship debate is a disagreement over whether virtual friendships are genuine friendships. It will be argued that the debate could move away from its current impasse, caused by unproductive metaphysical and logical assumptions, if extant arguments are reinterpreted as fuzzy analogical arguments from classification, and subjected to a new set of critical questions which would replace the quest for facts of essence about friendship with an emphasis on empirical data, persuasion, and definitional power. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to aid in understanding and evaluating love online. The framework maps the territory of online love by identifying important issues and providing a mechanism for combining relevant theoretical perspectives.Design/methodology/approachInterdisciplinary literature is reviewed and related through normative and descriptive conceptual analysis.FindingsA diverse and complex set of practices, technologies, intentions, and behaviors comprise love online. Theoretical works on love and mediation can be combined to improve conceptual clarity.Practical implicationsThe framework provides a (...) simple but powerful tool for making sense of and critiquing the existing literature as well as outlining avenues for future research.Originality/valueThe framework puts diverse strands of scholarly work into an interdisciplinary discussion about an important phenomenon in new media societies. (shrink)