Utilitarianism Theory
The chosen article “Data Collection: Harvesting Personalities Online” discusses whether the collection of data from the different online surveys are ethical or not. The data is collected from the online questionnaires associated with a particular survey. The companies make use of the surveys for harvesting the personalities of hundreds of Americans (University, 2018). Now the question arises whether the method of personality harvesting ethical or not. An ethical analysis will be made based on the topic chosen and the ethical situation will be evaluated in basis of four theories of ethics, which are Utilitarianism Theory, Deontology theory, virtue theory and contract theory (Gasper, 2016). The information that is generally collected from the surveys helps in gaining an insight to the behavior of the participants. The ethical dilemma that arises from the online harvesting of the behavior of a population is evaluated on basis of four ethical theories in the following sections.
Utilitarianism theory is based on analysis or morality of the action based on the consequences of the proposed actions. The ethics analysis of a particular situation should be evaluated on basis of the action (Hursthouse, 2013). However, according to the Utilitarianism theory, the rightness or wrongness of a particular action mainly depends on its consequences (Broad, 2014). This theory aims in achieving greatest happiness for the majority of the people (Singer, 2013). Therefore, according to this theory, a situation will be ethical if it ensures happiness of a major number of people.
The chosen case study when analyzed on basis of Utilitarianism theory, it is found to be unethical. The utilitarianism theory ensures greater happiness. The chosen case study is based on the data collection or harvesting of data online. The data that is collected is mainly used in the designing personalized advertisements (Dan-Cohen, 2016). The chosen case study mainly identifies the ethical dilemma that arises from the use of extrapolating technique to categorize or assume the personalities of the population that has not participated in the survey (University, 2018). It is clear that neither the action nor the consequence of the said act is ethical. This type of survey neither works for greater good not ensure that happiness of greater mass of people. Thus the current situation is unethical as harvesting the behavior of population online does not work for greater good.
The Deontology theory of ethics only deals with rightness or the wrongness of different actions instead of the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of the action unlike the Utilitarianism theory. The Deontologists says that whether a situation is good or whether the situation is bad can be only determined by the action behind the situation (Farseev et al., 2015). If the action is right, the situation will be ethical while if the action is wrong, the situation will be unethical. According to Deontology theory, the morality of the situation only depends on the action and not on the consequences. This is a bit tricky since the theory does not consider the consequences. It is not necessary that the consequences of a right action will always be right. This theory of ethics is therefore often termed as duty based or obligation based ethics.
Deontology Theory
In the current situation, the action that is performed may not be unethical. This is because the respondents are agreeing on participating in the surveys that collect behavioral data of an individual and are not forced into it (Ferrell et al., 2013). Since the participants are agreeing of providing data on the online surveys, the situation is not unethical (Broad, 2014). However, the consequences of this action is not ethical since the entire situation gives rise to the ethical dilemma associated with the preservation of privacy rights of the respondents who are participating in online surveys (University, 2018). However, on analysing the situation according to the deontology theory of ethics, the evaluated situation is not unethical.
The virtue theory of ethics is one of the three major approaches of normative ethics. According to this theory, a man who possesses a character of excellence will always do the right thing at a right time (Van Hooft, 2014). Moral advices can be obtained from virtue ethics and it recommends taking inspiration on how a virtuous person would act on a particular situation.
On analyzing the current situation on basis of Virtue theory, it can be said that the situation is not ethical. A virtuous person would have never indulge in the harvesting the behavior of a population by collecting the online data (Koven, 2015). This is particular because it involves a breach in privacy of the respondents who are sharing their personal information a survey (University, 2018). The chosen scenario further mentions that the different companies that are associated with the survey that harvests the behaviors of several Americans (Tännsjö, 2013). The ethical dilemma arises from the fact that the data which were supposed to be private are either publicly available or are being used for something that it was not meant for.
A virtuous person would have attempted to either not collect any personal data from the survey or would have attempted to advise the respondents before data collection that the data collected from the questionnaire will be used for target advertising, or targeting the political messaging. Thus it can be said that the situation is not ethical according to the virtue theory of ethics.
According to the contract theory of ethics, a situation is ethical when it is accepted by the majority of the people in society (Koszegi, 2014). The social agreement says that the situation will be considered as ethical only if the people living in the society agree to the morality of the situation. It is an old philosophy and according to the philosophy, the moral obligations associated with a situation mainly depend on the agreement of the majority of the people on the society.
On analyzing the situation on basis of the contract theory, it can be said that the situation is not ethical according to the contract theory (Broad, 2014). The use of confidential data for something about which the respondents are unaware of cannot be ethical. This situation will not be socially accepted and therefore the situation can never be ethical. However, if the respondents of the survey were informed about the same, the situation would not have been that complex or could have been accepted (University, 2018).
Conclusion
The report analyses an ethical situation on basis of four ethical theories, which are Utilitarianism theory, deontology theory, virtue theory or contract theory. The ethical dilemma arises from a situation that is based on online data collection and harvesting of the personalities online. The use of the data for something that is based on collection of the online data is not ethical. According to the chosen case study, it is found out that a number of companies have assessed personalities of the registered voters in United States that counts to more than 190 million, thus breaching the privacy. This is unethical and serious breach of privacy. The situation is analyzed on basis of four ethical theories which are utilitarianism theory, deontology theory, virtue theory and contract theory. On evaluation it is found out that the situation is unethical and it is an offence to breach the privacy of the participants of an online survey without their consent. In order to address the ethical issue, it is suggested that the respondents of the survey should be notified about the use of the data that is being shared on a public platform. The use of the online harvested data are often use for targeted advertisements or for understanding the behavior of the respondents. The unethical dilemma that arose from this situation will can only be addressed if the respondents of the survey are informed about the use of data that has been collected from an online platform. The participants of the survey need to know how their data is being used in an online platform. If the participants give the permission of making use of their data for targeted advertisements and other such use, it would not be unethical.
References
Broad, C. D. (2014). Five types of ethical theory. Routledge.
Dan-Cohen, M. (2016). Rights, persons, and organizations: A legal theory for bureaucratic society (Vol. 26). Quid Pro Books.
Farseev, A., Nie, L., Akbari, M., & Chua, T. S. (2015, June). Harvesting multiple sources for user profile learning: a big data study. In Proceedings of the 5th ACM on International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval (pp. 235-242). ACM.
Ferrell, O. C., Crittenden, V. L., Ferrell, L., & Crittenden, W. F. (2013). Theoretical development in ethical marketing decision making. AMS review, 3(2), 51-60.
Gasper, D. (2016). Ethics of development.
Hursthouse, R. (2013). Normative virtue ethics. ETHICA, 645.
Koszegi, B. (2014). Behavioral contract theory. Journal of Economic Literature, 52(4), 1075-1118.
Koven, S. G. (2015). Public sector ethics: Theory and applications. Routledge.
Singer, P. (Ed.). (2013). A companion to ethics. John Wiley & Sons.
Tännsjö, T. (2013). Understanding ethics. Edinburgh University Press.
University, S. (2018). Data Collection: “Harvesting” Personalities Online. Retrieved from https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/internet-ethics/resources/data-collection-harvesting-personalities-online/
Van Hooft, S. (2014). Understanding virtue ethics. Routledge.
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