Whether Ethically It Is Right to Compile the Profiles of Online Players That Are Psychological by the Use of Two Ethical Theories - Coursework Example

Introduction This paper entails an analysis of the situation below in the sense of whether ethically it is right to compile the profiles of online players that are psychological by the use of two main ethical theories namely social contract and the Kantianism theory (Allingham, 2002). The paper puts into consideration the issues of social and ethical matters that are inherent as far as the scenario is concerned. It has involved some personal reasonable conclusions about if it was at all ethical to derive the conclusion through the method used. The following is the scenario. “In a patent filed in 2007 in the USA and in Europe, Google has detailed a scheme to compile psychological profiles of the players of online games. The patent suggests that information about an individual’s preferences and personality can be gleaned from tracking their online behaviour. These profiles could be sold to advertisers or used to customize game advertising for each player. The patent also states that the millions of people who play online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft or Second Life would be highly suitable targets for the scheme because they interact with other layers and make decisions that probably reflect their behaviour in real life. Similarly, decisions made by players within the game could provide information on whether they are a ‘risk taker, risk averse, aggressive, passive, intelligent, follower, leader etc. Ethical theories Ethical theories are the main ideas through which the all-human guiding principles to life are based. They are the theories that guide the human beings to be able to know the right way of doing things and the right way of behaving towards themselves and the people or the environment surrounding them (Allingham, 2002). The theories attempts being systematic and very coherent in that they are the way in which some very important questions in life are answered like what one ought to be doing or to do and how one ought to live his or her life. It is the ethical theories that brings about the ethical principles that gives people guideline on how to live (Rousseau, 1999). There are different set of ethical practices depending on the countries that are involved. The different is due to the diversity in cultural practices, literacy level and religious beliefs. They all represent the altruistic nature of the people involved and not their attitude and egoistic towards the human beings or the humankind. There is a difference between ethics and value and the two subjects should not be confused. Value refers to the standards that the human beings use to put a judgment on others. They are also the morals that people uses to promote things they feel are good and discourage the ones they feel are not very good. These are learnt by people at a young age through observation and religious practices above other ways. The ethical values are originally gotten from the ethical principles, which are also actions that are dependent on the ethical theories (Allingham, 2002). It is the principles that contain the moral rules that are observed by the human beings. Examples are the moral rules that are governing the way in which the patients should be treated in the hospitals as well as the ways in which the doctors would or should not conduct their services. Social contract theory with reference to the scenario This is a theory, which gives a notion of people surrendering their sovereignty to the authority like the government for the purposes of achieving, or ensuring there is the aspect of social order in the country or with one another especially the way they relate with each other. This is achieved through observation of some laid down social laws (Pettit, 1997). This theory is governed by the fact that for the human beings, ones actions are controlled by personal power, but constrained through their own conscience as well as the resistance form the outside (Allingham, 2002). This is a theory that is mainly used to avoid or rather control the occurrence or commission of most of the social crimes. This is because even though human beings are very much tempted to commit some crimes many are the times they avoid them because they have to honour the authority that is above them. It is that aspect that influences most of the people to follow the laid down ethics as far as this theory is concerned. According to Hobbes Thomas, the life of the human beings would really be very short and brutal were it not for the presence of different authorities. This is because o the fact that every person would be very free to rule and govern themselves meaning there would be no order in the world. It is the recognition of that fact that led to the development of the rights and freedom for the individuals. The rights of the people were therefore developed through different legislations as well as laws and constitutions. This is why it is very wrong for the scenario above to use the information of the people that are involved in the online games to learn their personality (Rousseau, 1999). One of the reasons as to why it is very wrong according to this theory is because their information is in use without their knowledge. It is one of the ways that their privacy has been invaded. According to the record, there are millions of people who are involved in playing the games with each other especially the games like the Second Life and World of War craft. These people get their social behaviours exposed to the world without their knowledge. According to that theory, the social justice in the form of the rights of the people is based on the mutual agreements between people or two parties (Pettit, 1997). This is not the case as far as the way in which the scenario is intended to collect information. The reason being the fact that the people getting involved in the online games are not told anywhere that the game will be used to check or to analyses their social behaviours. This means that their information is being taken down without prior knowledge of what is happening. This is very dangerous because of course this is just a behaviour analysis but then someone else can also decide to come up with his or her own way of collecting information from the people using the internet especially Google but in a very harmful way and without their knowledge. This will expose people in a form of injustice, which is not necessarily harmful, but it is afflicting since there is no mutual agreement between the two parties. This is a kind of injustice that people are involved in because it instils fear in the lives of people. According to this theory, each individual has a right to self-preservation. By this, it means that every single person has a right to his or her privacy. When people are collecting the information of the online players of the games without their knowledge then it means they are invading their privacy as well as they are not observing the rights of the players. The theory suggests that the power and authority can easily be taken back to the individuals and not to the set apart authority (Pettit, 1997). If the people involved in the monitoring of the games online are let to go on with the practice, then it means that at some point they will have power over the people who have taken part in the games. This is because they have their information with them and without their knowledge. This means that there should be punishments issued against such brutality towards humanity. This kind of scenario is controlled by people who are completely and totally led by their own self-interest yet there is individual right absenteeism (Allingham, 2002). This is because they are intending to use the information gained to advertise the games. There is a breach of the social contract between the citizens and the government that has laid down some rules to be followed as far as the rights and freedom of the citizens are involved. According to my own personal point of view, this kind of scenario is the wrong way to collect the information about social behaviours of the people playing the games with reference to the social contract theory since it is contrarily to the rights of the people involved. Kantianism theory with reference to the scenario This is a theory that reveals the kind of society human being live in which apparently is a kind of society where there is so much war, injustice and lack of rights. Everyday, people are taking each other to the court all because their rights have been invaded. This is also, what explains the reasons as to why the world has so much war. The setup in the world the human beings lives in is based on the rights and not necessarily the power (Pettit, 1997). This theory has clearly expressed the terms of agreement of the society in order for all of the people to live in peace. One of the things that are being expressed in this theory is the issue of the rights of individuals being protected in a way of logic and not for their own welfare. This is whereby the freedom of the people is in the form of the paternalism whereby the good of the people is being promoted by without their own knowledge. However, it should be noted that some of the solutions used for collective actions of problems could not be paternalism (McDermid, 2008). According to the scenario above, the use of the information gained from the players in the online games to make decision is not right. This is because there will be a tendency of describing a group of people with a certain characteristic in a certain way which could not be necessarily the truth. The scenario is mainly dealing with the adults and people from very different background meaning it is very wrong to use a particular conclusion to classify collectively people. This is because it is the adults and not children at least for the children’s behaviour of one child can be sued to analyse the behaviour of the rest of their age mates since they are likely to behave in the very same manner a particular age (McDermid, 2008). The theory also defines the equality of people with reference to other as being the subject of the state meaning there are no distinctions in terms of heredity. At least the scenario can be justifies through this fact because of the fact that the issue of heredity is not applicable here since it is people from all walks of life involved in the game. This theory demands that there should be some social sanctions put across for the sake of their moral justice. This means that before the website got involved in the game that deals with people’s personality must have had a legal go ahead to be able to deal with what they are doing. This is with reference to responding to the right for the people so that there can be protection of the citizens form negative form of consequences resulting from the action. It should be noted that according to this theory, the citizens have a right to refuse to participate in some of these activities, which are violating their rights (McDermid, 2008). This can be enforced externally by some of the laws laid down to ensure the rights of the people are protected. This theory mainly deals with the negative activities that are forbidden as compared to the positive ones. The theory deals mainly with the activities that are concerned with virtues. If this theory was in applicant by the people who developed the online games, then some aspects of negative consequences can be greatly avoided (McDermid, 2008). The theory also defines the difference between the duties of justice from the duties of virtue. The duty of virtue is controlled by the morals and not by constrain which are external. This means that if the people who are using the online for games are controlled by the morals then this kind of injustice could not be happening because of the fact that even with the existence of the external constrains. It is the duty of an individual to have some moral restrains from what is not healthy or good for the other citizens around them. Conclusion Ethical theories have been defined as the main ideas through which the all human guiding principles to life are based. They are the theories that guide the human beings to be able to know the right way of doing things and the right way of behaving towards themselves and the people or the environment surrounding them. This show that if the games owners were ethically guided could not at any particular moment be involved in the violating the rights of people in the sense that they were collecting their personal information without their knowledge. Reference Allingham, M. 2002. Choice Theory: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University McDermid, D 2008, Ethics in ICT: An Australian perspective, Australia: Pearson Education Australia Press. Pettit, P. 1997. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rousseau, J. 1999. The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Read More