1. 1
michel.puech@paris-sorbonne.fr
Annual Meeting of the
Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)
October 9-12, 2013
San Diego, Calif.
The ethical experience: offline/online
Michel Puech, Paris-Sorbonne University
made on a PC with LibreOffice
2. 2
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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digital (seamless) ethics
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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digital (seamless) ethics
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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digital (seamless) ethics
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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digital (seamless) ethics
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 (seamless) ethics
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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digital (seamless) ethics
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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digital (seamless) ethics
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 equivalent
example: 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 praxis and ethics
ordinary online ethical (emotional) experiences
emotional 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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ordinary praxis and ethics
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 argument
for 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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virtue ethics and technology of the self
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 and technology of the self
virtue ethics (recent revival)
as a resource for technoethics
typically: not traditional altruistic moral norms
but 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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online/offline virtues (ethical skills)
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
online/offline virtues (ethical skills)
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online/offline virtues (ethical skills)
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"
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online/offline virtues (ethical skills)
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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online/offline virtues (ethical skills)
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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online/offline virtues (ethical skills)
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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online/offline virtues (ethical skills)
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
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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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references
BÖHME 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
