Virtue Ethics in Technology
Cultivating Digital Flourishing
Virtue ethics offers a compelling framework for fostering authenticity and trust in technological environments. This essay explores how virtue ethics can guide the design and use of technology to promote human flourishing in digital spaces, while considering potential limitations of this approach.
Rooted in Aristotelian philosophy, virtue ethics emphasizes the cultivation of moral character through the practice of virtues. As Shannon Vallor1 argues, this approach is "ideally suited for managing complex, novel, and unpredictable moral landscapes, just the kind of landscape that today's emerging technologies present". In the context of technology, virtue ethics shifts focus from rigid rules to the development of virtuous dispositions guiding ethical behavior in complex digital ecosystems.
Virtue ethics shifts focus from rigid rules to the development of virtuous dispositions guiding ethical behavior in complex digital ecosystems.
Vallor's work on technomoral virtues provides a cornerstone for applying virtue ethics to contemporary technological challenges. Vallor identifies key virtues such as honesty, courage, empathy, and justice as essential for navigating digital spaces ethically. These virtues enable individuals to make nuanced ethical decisions in the face of novel technological dilemmas.
Consider the virtue of honesty in social media interactions. A virtue ethics approach would encourage designers to create platforms promoting truthful self-expression rather than simply prohibiting false information. For example, Twitter's Birdwatch feature, which allows users to add context to potentially misleading tweets, exemplifies this approach by fostering a culture of collective truth-seeking2.
However, critics like Mark Coeckelbergh3 argue that virtue ethics in technology may be too individualistic, neglecting systemic issues. They contend that focusing solely on individual virtues might overlook the role of technological systems in shaping behavior. For instance, social media algorithms that prioritize engagement over accuracy could undermine individual efforts to practice honesty online.
"Basic AI Virtues": Justice, Honesty, Responsibility, and Care
Addressing these concerns, proponents suggest that virtues cultivated at an individual level can lead to collective changes in technological ecosystems. Thilo Hagendorff4 proposes a complementary approach to principled AI ethics, defining four "basic AI virtues": justice, honesty, responsibility, and care. These virtues represent specific motivational settings that constitute the precondition for ethical decision-making in the AI field.
The intersection of virtue ethics and technology raises important questions about trust in digital interactions. How can we design systems that actively encourage the development of trustworthiness as a virtue? The blockchain technology underlying cryptocurrencies offers an interesting case study. By creating a trustless system that paradoxically engenders trust through transparency and immutability, it demonstrates how technological design can embody and promote virtues like honesty and reliability5.
The application of virtue ethics to emerging technologies like artificial intelligence presents both challenges and opportunities. How can we instill virtues in AI systems, and what role should human virtue play in guiding AI development? The development of "ethical AI" frameworks, such as those proposed by IEEE's Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, represents an attempt to embed virtues like fairness and transparency into AI systems6.
Virtue ethics provides a robust framework for addressing the ethical challenges of digital technologies, although it is not without limitations. By focusing on the cultivation of technomoral virtues, we can create digital environments that not only mitigate harm but actively promote human flourishing. Virtue ethics offers a compass for designing and using technology in ways that enhance our collective well-being and authenticity in the digital age.
My Personal Reflections
Vallor, S. (2016). Technology and the virtues: A philosophical guide to a future worth wanting. Oxford University Press.
Coleman, K. (2021, January 25). Introducing Birdwatch, a community-based approach to misinformation. Twitter Blog. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2021/introducing-birdwatch-a-community-based-approach-to-misinformation
Coeckelbergh, M. (2012). Can we trust robots? Ethics and Information Technology, 14(1), 53-60. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-011-9279-1
Hagendorff, T. (2022). A virtue-based framework to support putting AI ethics into practice. Philosophy & Technology, 35(3), 55. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-022-00553-z
Werbach, K. (2018). The blockchain and the new architecture of trust. MIT Press.
IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems. (2019). Ethically Aligned Design: A Vision for Prioritizing Human Well-being with Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, First Edition. https://standards.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/import/documents/other/ead1e-overview.pdf