IDEA Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied

In this paper I critique the ethical implications of automating CCTV surveillance. I consider three modes of CCTV with respect to automation: manual (or non-automated), fully automated, and partially automated. In each of these I examine concerns posed by processing capacity, prejudice towards and profiling of surveilled subjects, and false positives and false negatives. While it might seem as if fully automated surveillance is an improvement over the manual alternative in these areas, I demonstrate that this is not necessarily the case. In preference to the extremes I argue in favour of partial automation in which the system integrates a human CCTV operator with some level of automation. To assess the degree to which such a system should be automated I draw on the further issues of privacy and distance. Here I argue that the privacy of the surveilled subject can benefit from automation, while the distance between the surveilled subject and the CCTV operator introduced by automation can have both positive and negative effects. I conclude that in at least the majority of cases more automation is preferable to less within a partially automated system where this does not impinge on efficacy.

Despite recent growth in surveillance capabilities there has been little discussion regarding the ethics of surveillance.  Much of the research that has been carried out has tended to lack a coherent structure or fails to address key concerns.  I argue that the just war tradition should be used as an ethical framework which is applicable to surveillance, providing the questions which should be asked of any surveillance operation.  In this manner, when considering whether to employ surveillance, one should take into account the reason for the surveillance, the authority of the surveillant, whether or not there has been a declaration of intent, whether surveillance is an act of last resort, what is the likelihood of success of the operation and whether surveillance is a proportionate response.  Once underway, the methods of surveillance should be proportionate to the occasion and seek to target appropriate people while limiting surveillance of those deemed inappropriate.  By drawing on the just war tradition, ethical questions regarding surveillance can draw on a long and considered discourse while gaining a framework which, I argue, raises all the key concerns and misses none.

It is often claimed that surveillance should be proportionate, but it is rarely made clear exactly what proportionate surveillance would look like beyond an intuitive sense of an act being excessive. I argue that surveillance should indeed be proportionate and draw on Thomas Hurka’s work on proportionality in war to inform the debate on surveillance. After distinguishing between the proportionality of surveillance per se, and surveillance as a particular act, I deal with objections to using proportionality as a legitimate ethical measure. From there I argue that only certain benefits and harms should be counted in any determination of proportionality. Finally I look at how context can affect the proportionality of a particular method of surveillance. In conclusion, I hold that proportionality is not only a morally relevant criterion by which to assess surveillance, but that it is a necessary criterion. Furthermore, while granting that it is difficult to assess, that difficulty should not prevent our trying to do so.

I wrote this paper in 2014 but pulled it from publication as I didn't have time to make some needed changes.  However, I think that there are some arguments here worth considering.

This paper analyses the ethics of using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) in three contexts: conventional war, counter-insurgency operations, and domestic use. In each case, I examine the ethical implications of using solely UAS, using UAS and people combined (typically soldiers or police), and not using UAS. I argue that the justification for using UAS depends on the context as well as the particular use within that context. Hence in the case of conventional war I suggest that it might be unethical not to develop UAS, while in counter-insurgency operations and domestic use there are ethical problems which do not exist in the conventional war context. Hence there is nothing wrong with operator-controlled UAS per se. However, the question as to whether to develop and use UAS in either of the latter contexts is more nuanced than in conventional war.

This paper seeks to find ethical problems with restricting research to correlation and failing to consider causation.  In the event, I'm not sure how successful it is, and I left it too long to publish so that the cases are no long novel. However, it might be of some interest.

Large scale data analytics have raised a number of ethical concerns. Many of these were introduced in a seminal paper by boyd and Crawford in 2012 and have been developed since by others (boyd and Crawford 2012; Martin 2015; Lagoze 2014; Mittelstadt et al. 2016). One such concern which is frequently recognized but under-analysed is the focus on correlation of data rather than on the causative relationship between data and results. Advocates of this approach dismiss the need for an understanding of causation, holding instead that the correlation of data is sufficient to meet our needs. In crude terms, this position holds that we no longer need to know why X+Y=Z. Merely acknowledging that the pattern exists is enough. In this paper I explore the ethical implications and challenges surrounding a focus on correlation over causation. In particular, I focus on questions of legitimacy of data collection, the embedding of persistent bias, and the implications of future predictions. My conclusion is that by failing to consider causation, the short-term benefits of speed and cost may be countered by ethically problematic scenarios in both the short and long term.

How should we understand the familiar demand that journalists ‘be objective’? One possibility is that journalists are under an obligation to report only the facts of the matter. However, facts need to be interpreted, selected, and communicated. How can this be done objectively? This paper aims to explain the concept of journalistic objectivity in methodological terms. Specifically, I will argue that the ideal of journalistic objectivity should be recast as a commitment to John Rawls’s conception of public reason. Journalism plays a vital role in the operation of all modern liberal democracies, functioning as the public watchdog, the fourth estate, or the conduit through which vital information flows to the citizenry. Journalism is, therefore, an institution that is best understood as part of the basic structure of society. In Political Liberalism, Rawls explicitly excludes media of any kind from the demands of public reason because he doesn’t think that they play a political role that is important enough to bring them under the official auspices of public reason. I will argue that overlooking the political significance of journalism is a mistake, but one that can be corrected while keeping within the spirit and most important elements of his theory. This revision will widen the scope for what counts as journalism beyond traditional outlets and forms of media but will impose the demands of public reason on anyone who intends to participate in the institution.

A common assumption is that paternalism generates a special, and especially grievous, insult. Identifying this distinctive insult is then presented as the key to unlocking the concept and determining its moral significance. I submit that there is no special insult. It is, rather, a particular form that a lack of recognition respect can take. Attempting to capture the special insult has led us into confusion. In particular, it has led theorists to abandon the idea that paternalists must act for the sake of the individual whose agency they supplant, and even the notion that paternalistic action requires a distinctive motivation at all. I argue that paternalistic actions must come from a place of care and concern for the paternalised agent and show that this explains the moral significance of paternalism since it tempers the general insult that such actions deliver and provides a partial defence when paternalism is misguided.

It should come as no surprise to anyone at this point that a lot of nasty and hurtful things are said on the internet. Of course, a lot of nasty and hurtful things are said offline as well, but social media is where we seem to feel comfortable turning it up to eleven. In this paper I want to take a closer look at a particularly contentious form of hurtful speech that is flourishing in this new technological environment. Public shaming occurs when large numbers of people engage in the collective shaming of some individual or organisation perceived to have done something morally wrong. Strong moral criticism is often warranted, and we know shame to be a powerful motivational force. But however effective it may sometimes be, it is clear that many targets find it to be a deeply distressing and degrading experience. Moreover, shaming campaigns sometimes result in egregious harms being visited on ordinary people for relatively minor offences.

We might frame the question as follows: is public shaming protected by the right to free speech or is this a case where our old norms and principles have simply been exposed as unfit for a new era? In this paper I take a different approach. The standard free speech defence for objectionable speech seems to me to have no hope of successfully sheltering a permissive approach to public shaming, because public shamings are just not political in the way that such an argument would require. Instead, I will consider another possible approach which builds on a significant political dimension that is apparent in many public shamings. Relatively powerless individuals and groups can use social media to achieve the critical mass required to deploy shame as a meaningful sanction for wrongful behaviour that the state either can’t, won’t, or shouldn’t punish itself. In particular, we can point to various kinds of structural injustices that the state is ill-equipped to deal with, especially when their manifestations are subtle and tangled up in other rights and liberties. So, could shaming on social media make a sufficiently important positive contribution that we should learn to live with its pernicious effects? Ultimately, I conclude that while we have strong reasons to find new ways to buttress political equality, we should not embrace public shaming on social media. In fact, drawing on the work of Martha Nussbaum, I will offer some reasons for thinking that social media is, in fact, uniquely ill-suited to deploying shame as a sanction for bad behaviour.