the ethical experience: offline/online

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mic hel .pue ch @

p aris -so rbo nn e.frAnnual Meeting of the

Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)October 9-12, 2013

San Diego, Calif.

The ethical experience: offline/onlineMichel Puech, Paris-Sorbonne University

made on a PC with LibreOffice

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digital (seamless) ethics

one ethical life, seamless, online and offline

we dramatically underestimate the ethical resources of online experiences

immanent education and self care resources

re-valuing online ordinary ethical skills

unifies the agency of the modern self

benefits from a new set of “virtues” (ethical skills)

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resist predigital assumptions“predigital” includes prehistoric as its main period and is sometimes meant as a mild version of “prehistoric”

the novelty

is not the existence of the digital sphere, as a compartment of our world

but the role it plays now, and more precisely:

its integration into the existential sphere

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poor predigital assumption: the offline/real must monitor the online/digital

online life is not monitored, ruled, or controlled by the ethical virtues acquired offline

better vision: seamless =not offline → online: good preventive moral instructions

not online → offline: bad influence of online experiences (piracy, violence, pornography) on real life

but online ↔ offline

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predigital assumptions → laments for the digital dereliction of morality

the moral black matter is no “missing masses of morality” as in Latour

the digital is an anti-matter for morality, with an ethical negative value (Böhme 2012: 122)

assumption: moral rules are learned in real life

the are applied by good (compliant) agents, in real life, but the context of digital technologies disrupts the initial ethical training

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main disruptive factor online: the anonymity (of publication and of access) in “virtual” space

a Gyges/invisibility ring in real life: what would happen?

→ (micro-)experiments, actions and their outcomes, then evaluation, and insertion in an envisioned moral destiny, a self-narrative that constitutes the substrate for ethical self-governing, self-care, self-history

how would you “prepare" (offline) someone to have a Gyges/invisibility ring?

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digital ethics assets:

state of the art in “virtual” studies : experiences of the virtual are real - and embodied

Turkle 1995, Markham 1998, Ihde 2001, Joinson 2003

Danah Boyd's seminal research (2008)seamless experience of teenagers

social networking websites / the offline management of relationships with parents, schoolmates, friends, adult strangers

= against the “separation” predigital model

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Francesco Varela's approach to ethical know-how ethical learning by micro-acquaintances and micro-experiences

ethics = basic behavioral skills, know-how and not know-that

an ethical know-how, acquired in ordinary experience, like language (W.V.O. Quine!)

“Furthermore, we acquire our ethical behavior in much the same way we acquire all other modes of behavior: they become transparent to us as we grow up in society.” (Varela 1999: 24)

now they grow up online too

digital literacy as a mother tongue → idem with online and digital ethics

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Lawrence Kohlberg's psychology of moral development

ethical “vernacular” education parallel to the natural stages of logical skills in children (Jean Piaget)

applies particularly to the idea of justice (Kohlberg 1981)

→ a seamless online/offline development of the perception of justice?

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methodological remarks

digital / online

different but merging, I take them as equivalent

games / online

different but merging, I take them as equivalentexample: World of Warcraft

Zagal 2010 suggests a gradual engagement: real moral experiences even in simple games

rich moral experiences in recent “'immersive” games

rich moral interpersonal experiences in multiplayer online games

games are ethical “sandboxes”, in the digital meaning of the term

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ordinary praxis and ethics

why “seamless” is important in the technoethical approach to online/offline

and how it goes with the underestimated significance of the ordinary

my point is not: online experiences are ethically significant

my point is: online experiences are immersed in the seamless flow of ordinary ethical micro-experiences and thereby produce (seamlessly) ethical skills

a new density of moral life caused by the density of connections

the fact that a lot of them are frivolous as to their content does not limit their psychological impact and the integral sum of these impacts on an ethical learning curb

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ordinary online ethical (emotional) experiencesemotional investment in digital connections (mails, social networking, smartphone, texting) → the psychological foothold for numerous and deep ethical experiences

trust or suspicion ← the design of a web site, the subject line of an email, the neutrality of a Wikipedia article

gratitude ← the help received from a forum to solve a small problem (i.e. error code on my phone)

disgust ← “graphic” images used to attract attention or to sell online

contempt ← “trolls” commenting on honest articles

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attachment ← being “texted”

importance of being reachable and available in attachment bonds and human relations (online → offline)

vulnerability ← Google/Facebook leads to something about me that I would prefer to conceal

...

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virtue ethics and technology of the self

Aristotelian simple argumentfor a good reason, Aristotle seems to be the most frequent reference for the ethics of online experience

Nicomachean Ethics, Book II: ethics is about praxis and acquired in praxis, in real behaviors and habits

“virtues” or human excellences are simultaneously acquired in praxis and the means to excel in praxis, in a continual process of self-improvement

now this praxis is seamlessly online and offline

→ primacy and enlargement of Foucault's idea: technologies of the self

through praxis, outsmarting the domination system that initially provided access to this praxis

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digital media ethics (Charles Ess)

a phronēsis problem: making judgments on particular real cases, with very specific parameters

≠ little abstract stories contrived as philosophical traps

the question of privacy is central → being a self and being online is the common condition

young people now meet online the questions of identity, exposure, authenticity, manipulation, social bonding

evident in Ess 2009: privacy problems appear at the online/offline interface

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virtue ethics (recent revival) as a resource for technoethics

typically: not traditional altruistic moral normsbut a common sense morality, practiced and not theorized, in which the agent allows herself more value

= rehabilitation of “self-regarding virtues” vs the obsessive others-regarding (religious) norms (Slote 1992)

detects a recent “healthy self-assertiveness on the part of moral agents” (Slote 1992: 18)

my hypothesis: it comes from the online empowerment of agents

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online/offline virtues (ethical skills)

ethical pluralism

from online realities comes the demand of ethical pluralism (Ess 2009) which is the main task for ethics (offline) today, I think

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health self care

e-health applications (Web and smartphones)diet and weight self-control

discreet encouragement for physical activity

online community support and comfort for chronic diseases

resistance to the over-medicalization of health – by better and independent patients information

field study in Luppicini Adell (eds) 2008: chap. 20“Engaging Youth in Health", a decade of research and action with TeenNet, a youth-focused research group, Toronto (smocking, HIV, gambling)

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collaboration – forums and open source initiatives

Yochai Benkler's model, examples and actions for social production

the Penguin (ref. Linux) / Leviathan (ref. Thomas Hobbes) opposition … is largely an online / offline affair (Benkler 2011)

how online ethics influences (for the best) offline realities

one step further: how new ethical skills appear in the ordinary hybridization of online and offline ethically significant experiences


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self-reliance ethics, from online to offline

resistance to marketing products, consumption habits

the Web and ordinary people online give advice and testimony

about ordinary life (with potentially strong economic impact)

coooking, laundry (using inexpensive white vinegar instead of commercial tablets as water softener), car sharing, couch surfing, second hand market between private individuals (“Le Bon Coin“ in France is a massive social tool - http://www.leboncoin.fr/)

new forms of political resistance from Indignados to Occupy movements

they are typically seamless online/offline (Castells 2012)

the growing social importance of indignation ← the resistive "moral sensitivity" of the Web

e.g. "Streisand effect"

http://www.leboncoin.fr/

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confrontation with deviance

sex, violence, irrational behaviors

online: imaginary exploration of deviance

can develop the skills necessary to deal with these components of human nature

Gyges/invisibility ring paradigm

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confrontation with non-human agency

online: ordinary confrontation with the agency of non-humans (Google's algorithm)

the mixed and hybrid agencies of humans and non-humans (amazon)

in typical hybrid uses online/offline

= field experiment with new skills in ethics, challenging but necessary for the future

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new acceptability or legitimation for transnational whistle-blowing and radical transparency

Julian Assange and Wikileaks, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden:

intense conversation online on the moral aspects of their behavior

a new ethical configuration is forming online, with heavy consequences offline

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global justice and sustainability issues

digital ↔ global: an underestimated resource

Jeremy Rifkin's hypothesis about global empathy, a decisive but neglected resource (Rifkin 2009)

to be connected with Kohlberg's analysis of moral development, applied to online/offline experiences

constructive but just wishful thinking?

http://youtu.be/l7AWnfFRc7g

http://youtu.be/l7AWnfFRc7g

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reconnecting

global justice perception, a showcase for seamless online/offline ethics?

constructive approach: the perception of justice in global issues as a theme for post-indignation ethics

digital moral sensibility reconnected with action potentials (online/offline) ↔ a new framework for the issues of global justice

environmental NGO are playing this card in their own way

action characteristics:non-institutional and post-political

a new mediation, not through the media-institutional (discredited) filter

Briggle and Mitcham 2009 digital online information corrects the experiential gaps = what is “disembedded” and disconnected offline reconnects online

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referencesBÖHME Gernot, Invasive technification: Critical essays in the philosophy of technology, transl. C. Shingleton, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012

BOYD Danah Michele, Taken out of context: American teen sociality in networked publics, PhD, University of California, Berkeley, http://www.danah.org/papers/TakenOutOfContext.pdf, 2008

BRIGGLE Adam, MITCHAM Carl, “Embedding and networking: Conceptualizing experience in a technosociety”, Technology in Society 31(4): 374–83

CASTELLS Manuel, Networks of outrage and hope: Social movements in the Internet age, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012

ESS Charles, Digital media ethics, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009

IHDE Don, Bodies in technology, Minneapolis, Mn: University of Minnesota Press, 2001

JOINSON Adam N., Understanding the psychology of Internet behaviour: Virtual worlds, real lives, New York: MacMillan, 2003

KOHLBERG Lawrence, The philosophy of moral development: Moral stages and the idea of justice, San Francisco, Calif.: Harper & Row, 1981

LUPPICINI Rocci, ADELL Rebecca (ed), Handbook of research on technoethics, 2 vol., Hershey, Pa.: Information Science Reference, 2008

MARKHAM Annette N., Life on line: Researching real experience in virtual space, Walnut Creek: Altamira, 1998

PUECH Michel, "Ordinary technoethics", International Journal of Technoethics, 4(2), 36-45, July-December 2013

RIFKIN Jeremy, The empathic civilization: The race to global consciousness in a world in crisis, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2009

SLOTE Michael, From morality to virtue, Oxford U.P., 1992

TURKLE Sherry, Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995

VARELA Francisco J., Ethical know-how: Action, wisdom, and cognition, Stanford U.P., 1999

ZAGAL José P., "Encouraging ethical reflection with videogames", in The videogame ethics reader, Zagal J.P. (ed), San Diego, Calif.: Cognella, 2010, 67-82, 2010

http://www.danah.org/papers/TakenOutOfContext.pdf

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more online

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the ethical experience: offline/online

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