How we behave offline and online affects relationships, but virtual environments can desensitize us to these effects, most importantly regarding the quality of the human relationships that are created and nurtured through them. This is why we need to consider how we behave online, a topic we may call ‘ethics online’.
Ethics and Moral Virtue Online
The long-lived civilisations of the past observed an ethical approach to life rooted in a strong sense of moral virtue, which involved the development of one’s character, refined one’s personal conduct and pervaded everyday activities.
Conduct on the Internet should not be an exception, and indeed there was sensitivity to this in the early days among the Internet engineers:
In general, rules of common courtesy for interaction with people should be in force for any situation and on the Internet it’s doubly important where, for example, body language and tone of voice must be inferred.
Hambridge, IETF, 1995
As the Internet has become oriented to public consumption and competing markets, those responsible for Internet-based software are generally more devoted to rapid system implementation, where ethical considerations have tended not to look beyond issues of data security and privacy.
Indeed, with more personally owned or created content online, the nature of ethics has become information-oriented, a burgeoning field in the process of some consolidation (Floridi 2010). It has to a large extent displaced the netiquette cited above. As has been argued in conversation by Geert Lovink, a specialist in network cultures, at the time these rules were formulated, there was still a tradition of passing on the rules between Internet users, but these connections were generally lost in the subsequent explosive growth, precipitated by the rise of anonymous file sharing services (Mejias 2008).
Whilst our views and knowledge are markedly different now, as human beings we have fundamentally changed little over the millennia. And it seems that more time was available among great minds of the past in which to deliberate and meditate on ethics. There is potentially great benefit in applying these insights to tackling issues we have today and some disciplines are successfully incorporating findings – for example, in neuroscience1. So we should similarly avail ourselves of their wisdom in applying their ethics to our present day SNS. We begin to see stark contrasts emerge from Vallor’s study of virtue ethics among Greek Philosophers and Trafford’s application of sīla in the teachings of the Buddha, on which we now elaborate.
Communication
The Internet has been designed from the ground up to be about communication. The successor failure of relationships is usually dependent upon communication, so let’s get back to basics and consider the criteria for deciding what is worth saying.
Here is a view that theBuddha expressed about himself (referred to as Tathagata) in the Abhaya Sutta2:
[1] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial (or: not connected with the goal), unendearing & disagreeable to others, he does not say them.
Abhaya Sutta, MN. 58 Thanissaro bhikkhu trans.
[2] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, unbeneficial, unendearing & disagreeable to others, he does not say them.
[3] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, but unendearing & disagreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them.
[4] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial, but endearing & agreeable to others, he does not say them.
[5] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, unbeneficial, but endearing & agreeable to others, he does not say them.
[6] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, and endearing & agreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them. Why is that? Because the Tathagata has sympathy for living beings.”
In the majority of cases, there is restraint. Silence. This might suggest that theBuddha spoke little, but the many volumes of his discourses indicate otherwise.
The right conditions for saying something, with the appropriate mode of delivery, is summarised succinctly in the Vaca Sutta, which prescribes what may be termed ‘5 star’ speech.3
“Monks, a statement endowed with five factors is well-spoken, not ill-spoken. It is blameless & unfaulted by knowledgeable people. Which five?
Vaca Sutta
“It is spoken at the right time. It is spoken in truth. It is spoken affectionately. It is spoken beneficially. It is spoken with a mind of good-will.
“A statement endowed with these five factors is well-spoken, not ill-spoken. It is blameless & unfaulted by knowledgeable people.”
So how does the present crop of social media fare against these criteria with regard to the status update box, a primary organ of communication? The following table shows the typical state of affairs:
| Status Updates in Facebook, Twitter etc. | Vaca Sutta |
| Spoken at any time (and encouraged) | Spoken at the right time |
| May or may not be spoken in truth | Spoken in truth |
| May be spoken harshly or sweetly | Spoken sweetly |
| May or not be beneficial | Spoken beneficially |
| May or not be spoken with a mind of good-will | Spoken with a mind of good-will |
What is conspicuously absent in SNS is a system of guidelines. The interfaces are designed to make things instant and easy, going even so far as seeking “frictionless sharing” at a micro-level.
Yet not everything in the mass media is moving towards instant impact. For example, there is a trend in watching longer dramas and films4. Many people are desperate for space, room to breathe and reflect. Through reflection that one can discern deeply what friendship really means.
Notes
1 Darcia Narvaez, Human Flourishing and Moral Development: Cognitive and Neurobiological Perspectives of Virtue Development, University of Notre Dame. http://www.nd.edu/~dnarvaez/documents/NarvaezFlourishing2008.pdf
2 Thanissaro bhikkhu trans., MN 58: Abhaya Sutta, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.058.than.html
3 AN 5.198 PTS: A iii
243.
http://www.metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/4Anguttara-Nikaya/Anguttara3/5-pancakanipata/020-sonavaggo-p.html
A translation by Thanissaro bhikkhu is available from
Access to Insight at:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.198.than.html
4 Jon Kelly. Is slow TV taking over the airwaves?, BBC News Magazine, 17 November 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15757413