AUTHOR
Kazuo SAKAI, Ken KURIYAMA and Toshiyuki MIYAHARA

ABSTRACT

The Japanese universities developed by riding the demographic big wave which grew drastically from thirty million to one hundred and twenty million in the last century. The universities will experience a sharp downturn in population to one-half of the present population 2006 to 90 years after. This is caused by the declining birthrates which have led to a major drop in student numbers at Japanese universities. This leads to the following two diversities: (1) ages of student enrollment, such as high school graduates, adult and elderly students, (2) selection methods of entrance examination. The diversification of the selection methods brings the diversification of basic scholastic ability and lowering academic performance. These diversities of students involve the drastic environmental change to the Japanese universities.

In order to adapt this change, the universities have to diversify the educational activities according to the student diversification. This is done only by introducing some kind of complexity into the university organization. The e-learning is the best choice to introduce the complexity, because the e-learning is necessarily accompanied by many kinds of specialists which bring the complexity into the university organization. The specialists share the education activities which are thus far monopolized by single professor.

By introducing e-learning, the main concern is to implement educational reform of traditional large-scale universities with huge undergraduates. In order to diffuse the educational reform through the whole university, the education system of e-learning should be developed in a scalable manner. The scalability is guaranteed by the following points. The first is by reexamining the roles of five e-learning specialists such as instructional designer, contents specialist, instructor, mentor, and learning-system producer to ensure their own roles in a scalable point of view. It becomes apparent that the additional specialists are necessary to ensure the scalability under the condition sustaining their roles in which the five e-learning specialists hold their own roles. Besides the five e-learning specialists, it is shown that the following additional six specialists are required; tutor, learning concierge, service desk, help desk, liaison, intellectual property team, and mentoring team of counselor, psychiatrist, and lawyer. The second is by introducing appropriate resonance fields with e-learning specialists and relevant stakeholders in university such as students, professors and university officials. The existence of the resonance field is responsible for cooperative team activities, where members are resonant with each others in a spontaneous manner. The third is by connecting resonance fields and making communication loops so as to cover the whole education system. This whole communication loop is often called micro-macro loop.

These three conditions are corresponding to those of the health of organizations. Under these conditions, the spontaneous evolution of the organization should be expected. Especially, the micro-macro loop is a crucial condition, because this closed loop becomes self-mentioned system which gives rise to chaos. When chaos occurs (or chaotic attractor is formed), all possible orders are included in the chaotic attractor. Thus the self-mentioned system would bring the new order into the organization. This is the emergence effect by the micro-macro loop.

The e-learning specialists are divided into two functional parts. One of them is corresponding to the instructional activities for which the instructional designer is responsible, and the other is to the learning activities for which mentor is responsible. In the stand point of the instructional design, the mentor remains under the control of the instructional designer. But the learning activities should not hold a subordinate position to the instruction activities. These two activities are complimentary or rather compete against with each other. It is thus requires, instead of the mentor, a new independent specialist named `learning designer’ to the instructional designer. This means that the original role of mentor is divided into two parts of the learning designer and the original mentor. By introducing the learning designer, two kinds of the activities of instruction and learning become competitive with each other. This gives a driving force to evolve the organization if properly managed. In order to manage the competitive driving force, the supervisor should be introduced so as to manage these competitive activities. The superviros is responsible for the sound human communication in the resonance fields. This is named as `human-communication design’.

Thus, the e-learning strategy of organizational design is proposed in order to emerge the new university education for the next generation and is summarized as followings. This organizational design is named as the `educational design’ (ED) and is composed of the following three parts: (1) `instructional design’ (ID) for teaching and instructing by professors or instructors, (2) `learning design’ (LD) for learning by students, (3) `human-communicational design’ (CD) for emerging spontaneous evolution of total education system.

AUTHOR
Kazuyuki Shimizu

ABSTRACT

This study analysed the meaning and function of “fiduciary duty” and “deontic logic (Treuepflicht)” in the corporate governance (CG) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) systems in Germany, using Kantian’s epistemology[1]. A difference was found between logical empiricism = duty and apriori = deontology (Pflicht), especially with regard to the theory of property rights[2] and principal-agency theory[3], and also the moral hazard in financial markets. In this study four main aspects were analyzed, with particular reference to CG and CSR in Germany.

These were:

1. the development of “corporate control and balance theory” in relation to CG theory,
2. the development of CG in relation to CSR theory,
3. the difference between CG and German CG (Unternehmensverfassung) also CSR and German manager social responsibilities (gesellschaftliche Verantwortung der Unternehmensführung),
4. Moral hazard under German “universal banking” and enlightened shareholder value.

The results were as follows;

1. The “corporate control and balance theory” focuses on, ownership and share holding structure. In fact, the structure of share holdings has changed from block-holding to widespread holding, which “separated ownership from management“[4]. CG theory is focused on how to govern the powerful corporate managements in a social system. In particular reason is that Exit to Voice strategy especially of institutional investor.

2. There is different type of view point on stakeholders. In this study explore the physical relationship of each stakeholder’s entity, which is horizontal or vertical. In terms of the theory of property rights of stakeholders, the relationships between owners and labor are paratactic (horizontal) rather than subsidiary (vertical) in point of view at stakeholders.

3. German CG is a wider concept than just CG theory regarding the co-determination act “Mitbestimungsgesetz” in 1976, which gives owner and labor equal representation on the supervisory boards of all companies with more than 2,000 employees[5]. The previously mentioned two horizontally fixed stakeholders, owners and labor, could apply to the CSR system under deontic logic. Also there is a criticism of CSR under a powerful manager because they could get more authority despite of CG would govern.

4. Under the German “universal banking” system, banks can make equity investments as well as loans and vote their equity shares. In addition, the control rights of owner-banks are even further enhanced by the fact that they can vote the shares of other agents which they hold in “deontic logic” (auftragsstimmrecht), which is different from “fiduciary duty”. Moreover, their superior ability to control moral hazard suggests that, at the margin, German firms should find bank financing more attractive than capital market financing. This new type of moral hazard has produced the enlightened shareholder[6], which has developed with the emphasis on shareholders, also had more paratactic (horizontal) rather than subsidiary (vertical) in point of view at stakeholders.

REFERENCES

[1] W.M. Evan & R.E.Freeman, “A Stakeholder Theory of Modern Corporation : Kantian Capitalism”, in Beauchamp, T.L. & Bowie, N.E., Ethical Theory and Business, 3rd ed., Englewood Chiffs, Prentice-hall, 1988, 72-103p.

[2] Demsetz, H., “Toward a Theory of Property Rights, “American Economic Review, 57(2), 1967, 347-359p

[3] Jensen, M.C. and W.H. Meckling, “Theory of the Firm : Managerial Behavior, Agency Cost and Ownership Structure”, Journal of financial economics-3,1976,:305-306p

[4] Adolph Berle, Gardiner Means, “The Modern Corporation and Private Property”, Macmillan, 1932.

[5] Carl Christan von Weizsäker, “Mitbestimmung und Shareholder Value”, der Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, GMH 3/99, 177-184p

http://library.fes.de/gmh/main/pdf-files/gmh/1999/1999-03-a-177.pdf

[6]“White Paper of the Company Law Review (CLR)”, http://www.dti.gov.uk/files/file25405.pdf

AUTHOR
Masahiro Sato

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how ethical/unethical behavior of firms results in higher/lower customer satisfaction. The progress and widespread availability of information and communication technology (ICT) has brought about the business environment in which the cost of communication between firms and their customers has dramatically become cheaper. Therefore, customers have bigger power of influence over firms than before and are likely to choice “voice” rather than “exit” or “loyalty” when they consider that firms’ behavior is improper, and customer relationship management (CRM) has become more vital for many firms. Moreover, the advent of the Net society makes it difficult for any firms to keep their behavior covert. Hence, modern firms should be sensitive about how people including their customers evaluate their behavior.

Studies on customer satisfaction have focused on two types of customer satisfaction. The first one is customer satisfaction affected by corporate behavior related to provision of products and services by firms. For example, supply of high quality products at low price can achieve high customer satisfaction in general. Conversely, exaggerated advertisement should deteriorate customer satisfaction. This type of customer satisfaction is called the first stage satisfaction. When customers feel that quality of products and services provided by a firm declines, then they can take one of the following behaviors: exit and voice. Exit is a brand switch to the other companies or is to take the behavior that will not be bought at the next term. There are two patterns in the voice. One is a behavior that the customer satisfied with the product and service makes a further proposal as customer’s voice. Another is a behavior that the customer who has dissatisfaction in the product and service indicts the firms.

The second stage satisfaction, another type of customer satisfaction, is associated with corporate response to customer behavior, especially voice. When a firm is complained of its products, services or behavior by its customers who have chosen voice activity in the first stage, sincere response of the firm to the complaint would provide the customers with high customer satisfaction and then the customers might become supporters or even spokespeople of the firm. On the other hand, grudging response of the firm should deteriorate customer satisfaction and then even loyal customers would decide to choice exit behavior. Therefore,

In addition, by exploring the relation between this problem and Information and Communication Technology (ICT), it seems clear that the model of second stage for customer satisfaction will gain further importance in an information society. It is plausible this society aims at the construction of an interactive relation with the customer by the use of ICT. In fact, before the dawn of information society, though consumers had the intention to take a voice behavior, they were unable to know to whom they should address. Moreover, even in case of dissatisfaction, consumers were unable to communicate this information to other persons. However, the development of ICT, enabled consumers to easily take voice behavior, such as suggesting and complaining behaviors.

In addition, the advent of the Net society, in which ICT has become ubiquitous technology and people have adequate ability to transmit information as they like, has made the second stage satisfaction critical for many firms. As Toshiba “claimer” incident in 1999 revealed, improper corporate behavior, which most people consider unethical, cause significant damage to the firms’ reputation and trustworthiness. Because reputation and trustworthiness is the most significant intangible asset for almost all modern firms, they have to be sensitive to avoid any behavior which is not defensible in order to do their business successfully.

In short, if we consider the influence that an ethical behavior of the enterprise exerts on customer satisfaction under the precondition that the present age is an information society, we will say that the second stage satisfaction is more important than the first stage satisfaction.

AUTHOR
Chen Ru-dong, Harada Yasunari, Takeo TATSUMI

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we show that the studies of recipient ethics not only bear important theoretical significance but also entail important practical ramifications. In the practice of communication, settlement of social problems obviously presupposes sender ethics, but we must also realize that it also presupposes recipient ethics. In the global info-economic world of today, producers of commercial merchandise and senders of information are deemed responsible for whatever might or might not happen to consumers of such merchandise and/or recipients of such information. Before the advent and spread of the Internet, computer ethics emphasized professional ethics of software developers, hardware designers and system operators and touched upon procurers’ responsibility and/or liability, or lack thereof, for duplication of copyrighted materials. Consequently, as a new era arrived when any individual can be a publisher of information via the Internet, information ethics education had to deal with sender ethics for everyone, as was discussed by Takeo TATSUMI and Yasunari HARADA in the article “Why Information Ethics Education Fails,” (International Federation of Information Processing Working Group 3.4, International Working Conference, Educating Professionals for Network-Centric Organizations, pp. 55-63, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998). However, the import of recipient ethics in relation to internet communication was not fully explicated or extensively argued for as such in those discussions.

The formal studies about audience ethics in mass communication, which are not many, began in 1970s, when Richard L. Johannesen published a book entitled Ethics in Human Communication. He put forward two responsibilities for receivers, namely “reasoned skepticism” and “appropriate feedback.” James Aucoin published an important article about audience ethics, which was entitled “Implications of Audience Ethics for the Mass Communicator,” in which he stated that “Audience ethics focus on the responsibilities of audience members as they are exposed to experience, ideas, and facts presented by the mass media.” In recent years, Ru-dong CHEN published two books entitled The Ethics of Language and The Ethics of Communication (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2001, 2006.) and one paper entitled “On Audience Ethics of Communication” (in Chinese, Journalism and Communication Review of Peking University, Vol.2, Beijing: Peking University Press, 2006.) He summarized four moral principles of discourse comprehension and investigated audience ethics in communication of journalism, advertising, literature and the Internet, and summarized some moral principles of audience ethics in these communication areas.

Audience ethics is the audience’s moral components, moral rights of information reception and moral responsibilities in the process of communication. Audience ethics has both practical basis and theoretical gist. Audience members are ethical and they are endowed responsibilities as long as they are engaged in the communication process whether they engage in this process actively or passively.

Audience ethics should contain three aspects: ethics to audience of the society, ethics to the society of audience and ethics to audience themselves. (1) Ethics to audience of the society. Ethics to audience of the society refers to moral right that society endows audience. It is the right of information choice, gathering, obtaining, understanding, reception, separating out, acceptance, evaluation, giving feed back and free and fair use. In the opinion of universal moral, human should have the right of communicating and obtaining information freely and fairly. Any acts depriving the above rights all fall away from human nature and should be condemned. (2) Ethics to the society of audience. Ethics to the society of audience is the audience’s responsibilities for the society and communicator. It includes responsibilities for nations, nationalities, governments, organizations and various communicators. Audience should have responsibilities to keep information exchange fore-and-aft communication. (3) Ethics to audience themselves. Ethics to audience themselves implies moral elements of audience, responsibilities for audience themselves and responsibilities among audience to each other.

Audience ethics, communicator ethics and social ethics have close relationships. Audience ethics is the extension of ethics of communication. Communicator ethics and audience ethics reflect upon each other. Audience ethics and communicator ethics influence and promote each other. Audience ethics is one important part of social ethics. Some audience ethics are components of social ethics. Audience ethics construction is also helpful to the building of social ethics.

Audience ethics has significant communication value. It influences and restricts the communication efficiency and social cooperation. It builds and maintains the communication order and social order. Audience ethics studies have both important theoretical significance and definite practical value.

In this presentation, we discuss that audience ethics is the audience’s moral components, moral rights of information reception and moral responsibilities in the process of communication, as put forward on basis of theories and practice, and consider how this applies to the information exchange via the Internet and how education on information ethics should incorporate this aspect. Audience ethics education should contain three components: ethics to audience of the society, ethics to the society of audience and ethics to audience themselves. Audience ethics can be divided into audience ethics of different audience, audience ethics in different communication areas, audience ethics in process of communication and audience ethics in different media. Education of audience ethics should be integrated into education of communication ethics and education of social ethics in general. It is one important component of both communication ethics education and social ethics education. Establishment of audience ethics through education would improve communication efficiency, social cooperation and social morality in the global information society of today.

AUTHOR
Volkman Richard

ABSTRACT

In the course of discussion at the last Ethicomp, Don Gotterbarn suggested that it was possible for a good computer professional to cheat at cards. His point was that the scope of computer ethics is narrower than the entirety of ethics, and this shows why virtue ethics is not sufficiently focused on the specific problems of computer ethics to be an appropriate approach to a high-level, applied, and practical professional ethics. If our main goal in computer ethics is to offer guidance to future professionals, then virtue ethics distracts by involving us in issues that are tangential to computing—e.g., the ethics of cheating at cards.

Whatever the merits of his main point, Gotterbarn’s case illustrates vividly how and why a virtue ethics approach to professional ethics differs from deontological or utilitarian approaches. Specifically, the virtue ethicist does not regard delivering pat answers to questions of ethical significance as the consequence of proper ethical instruction. While it is possible for virtue ethics to deliver such “guidance,” this is only the smallest part of what proper ethical instruction needs to accomplish. In short, being a good computer professional involves a great deal more than mere obedience to any set of rules or policies. Virtue discourse captures what’s missing from policy discourse; therefore, a virtue ethics approach to computer ethics is far more likely to deliver on the real goal of computer ethics: creating good computer professionals.

In light of this, while it is surely a logical possibility that a good computer professional will cheat at cards, this bare possibility does not reveal anything about proper ethical instruction for computer professionals. It is highly unlikely that the good professional will cheat, and if she does, then, by hypothesis, her action must be out of character. According to the virtue ethicist, more important and interesting than what she does is why she does it and who that makes her. The good computer professional qua good computer professional does not cheat at cards. The case in which she cheats is not interesting precisely because it has nothing to do with who she is, which is the full extent of our proper concern. In part, this is because good character can be the very best predictor of right conduct without being a guarantee. This is the case, for example, if other means of guiding conduct are hopelessly flawed in the face of the constantly changing social and technological environment of computing.

This is especially apparent in light of Moor’s account of computer ethics as addressing the philosophical puzzles that arise when institutions are transformed by the use of new technologies. Since the character and quality of certain actions is different from or entirely without precedent, Moor suggests that the Computer Revolution issues in conceptual vacuums that in turn generate policy vacuums. To solve these policy riddles, we need to do some philosophy.

However, this focus on policy questions is in tension with the claim that our very concepts and institutions are transformed. As Gotterbarn has emphasized, if we regard problems in computer ethics as utterly unique and new, then we invite a skeptical attitude towards such problems. How could we hope to answer new ethical problems if our old ethical concepts no longer apply? Indeed, how could we even recognize them as ethical problems in the first place?

While not his intention, Gotterbarn’s critique of the “uniqueness” thesis itself reveals the limits of policy discourse. Since we cannot hope to resolve these policy matters by appealing to antecedent concepts or rules, and since the problem is the result of deep changes in the ethical environment and consequent changes to the meanings of human action, any solution needs to be equally dynamic and well-suited to the articulation and evaluation of new meanings. Moor has recognized the dynamic nature of computer ethics, but—like Gotterbarn—focuses on a legalistic discourse that by its nature requires some philosophical stasis to operate. To escape this dilemma, we need to learn how to see and judge well, how to become able ethical improvisers, rather than merely learning to apply antecedent rules.

Fortunately, virtue ethics is a rich, elaborate, and powerful account that does not focus on rules and policies. Virtue ethics is all about learning to see and judge well, and focuses on becoming the right sort of person. Any rules we teach today are liable to be transcended tomorrow. This means that computer professionals cannot simply abide by the rules and do their jobs well. Computing shares this feature with a wide range of other traditions. In general, one is not playing well or advancing the field or worshipping in faith if one is just following a formula. To really contribute something and actually be a good computer professional, one needs the “right seeing” of virtue ethics, not rational obedience to rules.

It should be emphasized that this dynamism is not to be lamented or escaped. To the contrary, it is a central point of the whole computing tradition. If the main point of computing is the discovery and application of new solutions to various problems, then one cannot reduce the field to something that obeys established rules. Gotterbarn himself has noted and criticized the “puzzle-solving” nature of the culture of computing, but it is not clear why this identifying commitment should be extirpated rather than sublimated to ethical projects. As with other dynamic traditions, merely following the rules is a recipe for unimaginative mediocrity at best, and perhaps even a more serious sort of bureaucratic wrongdoing. Far from distracting future computer professionals with matters at the periphery, the virtue ethics approach is the only solution to the problem of right action in the context of a dynamic tradition. Thus, educators best serve the students and the tradition of computing by nurturing and extolling good character.

AUTHOR
Lucas Richard

ABSTRACT

In this paper I discuss the attempt by Coleman (1996) to suggest a mechanism for attributing a Kantian morality to computers. This is part of a larger project of Coleman to posit the likelihood of computers being moral agents. Here I will provide an outline of Coleman’s account, show what I think is wrong with it, what I think is right with it, and, lastly, suggest an alternative approach to computers being Kantian moral persons

In my outline of Coleman’s account I provide a non-evaluative summary. Coleman begins her account with the thought that at some point we do need to stop and consider the moral status of computational machines. She goes on to say that a great deal of the literature on the subject misses an important point when authors show that computers can, or cannot, be moral in the human sense. That is, the authors try to attribute human moral characteristics to computers. She then goes on to give an account of Kant’s moral theory including his conception of realms. She separates the notions of freedom and autonomy and describes how Kant reconciles freedom with determinism by putting freedom in the intelligible realm. She then makes the analogy of Kant’s realms with that of the components of computers (hardware and software). Coleman presents a strategy for being able to (re)create the Categorical Imperative in computers. She then turns her attention to problem solving and considers a number of common problem solving strategies. She says that they all have logic as their basis and that computers are likely to be able to implement them, being the ultimate logic machine (for this she uses the idea of a Turing Machine) that they are. For this she takes a programming approach calling the programming of problem solving and introduces a number of programs, Prational, Papply, Putility and Pinterest for deriving moral principles. Eventually she concludes that computational personhood is possible.

After this summary I go on to critique her account. The shortcomings I find are: moral considerability vs moral persons, computer parts vs realms, freedom vs logic, understandability, with vs from, and, what she calls, missing bits. I will show why I think that these parts of her paper are problematic and introduce an alternative approach.

I claim that Coleman makes a straightforward mistake in conflating consideration with personhood. While all living (and possibly some others as well) entities are due moral consideration of some sort, this does not mean they are a person. We consider all sorts of entities (trees, dogs, etc.) when carrying out moral deliberation but none so far have claimed that trees are persons of any sort especially moral persons. So that cannot be what she means. This leaves the thought that the entity in question is considerable, that is, it is deserving of consideration. Coleman has something particular in mind when she says that an entity gains moral considerability, enough to make them persons. That something is the distinction between acting in accord with and from the moral law. This is the distinction that Kant thought made for moral persons.

In order to make the idea that computers might be Kantian moral persons seem more plausible, Coleman asks how a computer might fit in with Kant’s sensible and intelligible realms. She draws an analogy between the parts of a computer (specifically a Turing machine) and the realms. I show that the use of Turing Machines in this context is faulty. I also show that the hardware/sensible and software/intelligible analogy is flawed and offer an alternative interpretation.

Coleman also faces difficulties in her proposal of programs for implementing moral strategies. She suggests that a program, named Prational, be created to implement Kant’s moral theory. She then goes on to point out a clear difficulty with this and suggests a corrective: incorporating programs for deriving moral principles. But these correctives are not without their own problems, notably the stopping problem. As well there are more things missing from Coleman’s account. The first is any detail on what might constitute Prational. Much would need to be said to make the program seem possible. The second is that there is simply nothing about the different kinds of beings that could be considered to be rational.

Given that Coleman’s approach has its difficulties why have I bothered discussing it at all?

It turns out that there are some good things to take away from all this. Coleman has provided an interesting and initial sounding board from which to pursue Kant’s moral theory as it might be applied to computers. However much more needs to be said to cache out the ideas.

In the final part of the paper I introduce and sketch an alternative approach that can address some of Coleman’s shortcomings such as the moral considerability problem. I use Floridi and Sanders’ notions of Levels of Abstraction as well as Perry 6’s idea of a Ladder of Autonomy to propose a schema called artificial ethics (Æ) whereby agents can be assessed to determine whether they are indeed moral agents. This schema allows the possibility of any being to be considered for moral agency. This is done along a spectrum of 2304 possibilities and without having to resort to ascriptions of human moral agency. It also avoids the temptation of asking questions that make comparisons between differing moral beings. Questions such as: Are computers like animals? Are computers like human children? are rendered unnecessary, perhaps even pointless. I discuss the merits of my approach.

Moral beings can be, individually and independently, compared against the criteria to see where they fall. This is important because a moral being ought to determine its behaviour towards other beings based on the nature and extent of the moral concern that attaches to other beings. The mere fact of where something falls within the schema is of itself of no particular moral significance.