AUTHOR
Catherine Flick and Penny Duquenoy

ABSTRACT

Isis is a project with the aim of developing a set of ethical monitoring tools and frameworks to assist law enforcement agencies in policing Internet chat and file-sharing networks in order to protect children from abuse, particularly that of paedophile activity. The tools aim to automatically detect and identify files that depict child abuse, and the communities that distribute and collect these, and to also allow for identification of paedophile “grooming” behaviour in internet chat logs. The latter tool is planned for use on previously captured data by law enforcement (using official channels that are already in place for such data collection) and aimed at simplifying and reducing the workload for tasks currently performed manually by law enforcement agents. It will not be deployed “in the wild”.

With such a sensitive issue as child sexual abuse, it is particularly important for the designers and developers involved to be aware of their responsibilities to society. Thus it is important that the Isis project is developed in a socially accountable and ethical way, with definite boundaries on use, ethical development procedures, stakeholder input, and ethical review. This paper forms part of the ethical assessment of the Isis project.

The Isis project has been presented to several focus group workshops and ethics interest groups for reflection and input on the outcomes and processes of the project from an ethical perspective. It might be assumed that such groups would applaud a project aimed at the protection of children, reducing exposure of law enforcement agents to potentially troubling material, and more efficient processing of data in order for timely interventions. It has instead been met with varying degrees of rejection. In many of these groups, the question of whether the Isis project is needed at all was brought up, citing the severely problematic ethical side effects or dual uses of the technology behind Isis as compelling arguments for such technological developments to not be developed, and asking whether the problem of online child abuse was enough to warrant such a technological response. In this paper, we seek to address this question from an impartial standpoint: is there a significant problem with online child abuse? If so, what sorts of ethical responses are possible?

With the growth of the Internet in recent years has come a shift in the way society operates. Increasing amounts of our time is spent online, and we are now at the point where current generations of children have not known life “without the Internet”. With this growth and increasing ubiquity of the Internet has come a massive increase in the use of social networking and other social interaction tools, such as chat and file-sharing. The Internet has also enabled people with similar interests to connect with each other easily, share information, and chat about their particular interests, where in the physical world it might be difficult to arrange similar sorts of meetings. Although these sorts of groups are, in the majority, innocuous, social networking sites, chat channels, and file sharing networks have also become domains in which child sex offenders can operate in relative anonymity, sharing images of child sexual abuse, or grooming and exploiting children. Historically, child sexual abuse is not a new phenomenon. In more recent times, yet before the Internet was in popular use, child sexual abuse images and movies (often termed “child pornography”) were available, although it required a large effort to obtain and keep such material (finding a distributor, physical storage, etc.) (Taylor & Quayle, 2003). Thus it was mostly left to those who already had a significant sexual interest in children. However, with the increase in computer use, and the ability for people with diverse interests to easily share them online, crimes involving sexual exploitation of children have also increased. Online resources and tools allow for “predatory offenders to electronically creep into the bedrooms of our nation’s youth, where they engage in sexually explicit “chat”, “cybervoyerism”, and “cyberexhibitionism”” (Bourke & Hernandez, 2009).

Given the sensitive nature of this topic, there are large gaps in our knowledge when it comes to the perpetrators and victims of these sorts of crimes (Quayle, 2009). Amidst claims of moral panics, hysteria and media overreaction, there is an all-too-real problem, but this is often lost in the response. It is even, in some ways, somewhat unfashionable to be working for stronger child protection, since “in the present climate, few people would openly acknowledge this”, but “whilst the numbers involved are unknown, sexual interest in children is much more widespread than we might imagine” (Taylor & Quayle, 2003, p. 198).

In this paper, we will establish the background to the questions being asked by looking at the sensitive issues of child pornography and paedophile grooming behaviour, as researched by academics working in the field, to determine whether there is a problem that needs a response. This step allows us to identify the issues from an academic research perspective and to distinguish them from any sort of media reports or “moral panic”. We will then look at the implications of these findings for the Isis project, and discuss its place within such a socially and politically volatile and emotive area.

REFERENCES

Bourke, M. L., & Hernandez, A. E. (2009). The ‘Butner Study’ Redux: A Report of the Incidence of Hands-on Child Victimization by Child Pornography Offenders. J Fam Viol , 24, 183-191.

Quayle, E. (2009). Abuse images of children: identifying gaps in our knowledge. G8 Symposium: Examining the relationship between online and offline offenses and preventing the sexual exploitation of children. UNC Chapel Hill.

Taylor, M., & Quayle, E. (2003). Child Pornography: An Internet Crime. New York: Routledge.

AUTHOR
Matthew Edwards

ABSTRACT

1. Introduction

This paper is a follow up from Ethicomp 2010 which proposed that there is a core curriculum in technology education, and that industry could find a place within the public school system. This article will pursue an actual tie between industry interests and a State run university in the US. It is poised to have a positive worldwide effect.

There are arguments in education that address whether or not technology in the classroom is a help or a hindrance. For example, using a calculator for math computation in the classroom speeds up a student’s ability to quickly complete rigorous tasks and calculations, yet some argue this creates an unhealthy dependency on technology that will potentially damage the learning process.

From an industry perspective, technology allows those with basic skill sets the ability to accomplish complex tasks. For example, a person can run a cash register with complex transactions using credit cards, cash, or checks, and the cashier may actually have poor computation skills. They can do these tasks with amazing accuracy…most of the time, and as long as the power is up and going.

Using the basic concept that technology can be used to bring individuals to higher performance levels than would otherwise be possible, I will pursue the idea that the economy of underdeveloped countries can be changed for the better by introducing technologies that give illiterate populations the ability to perform tasks that have been heretofore out of their reach.

2. Background

I work as a professor at a university in the western United States. In the summer of 2010 I had an opportunity to pursue answers to an intriguing problem. The problem is the ever present state of poverty and lack of safe and energy efficient housing in underdeveloped countries. I felt that somewhere between modern technology and hard work lie answers to this perplexing dilemma.

I designed an inexpensive, fireproof, hurricane proof, and earthquake resistant residential structure and building system using modern technology, and discovered that I could simplify complex tasks using computer modeling, 3-D printing, and color-coded building plans, to deliver a visual training system that can be understood by illiterate populations.

By creating new innovations that allow the end user to participate without the extensive knowledge base that was once necessary, much of the world’s populations can now take active roles in stimulating the economy of their country. In many of the sub-Saharan countries of Africa the average daily wage of a laborer is less than 3 US dollars. Presently, an illiterate worker only completes tasks that are simple and of no profound effect; digging ditches, carrying materials, and in essence, doing only those tasks that would otherwise be done by basic machinery accept for the monetary savings had by using what is paramount to slave labor.

3. Project and Method

Using students from our CAD/CAM 3-D design department, and pulling a small team of professors including myself, one professor from CAD/CAM, and one from our CIS department, it became apparent that modern technology not only provided design tools, but also created a visual learning environment for the end user in the building industry.

Using university faculty, students, and a couple of individuals from industry, the formula and idea to utilize this new building process to help underdeveloped countries became more focused.

My methodology will focus on utilizing educational studies about adult illiteracy, economic statistics from underdeveloped regions around the world, but especially related to Native Americans in the United States. This phase of the data collection is based on both primary and secondary data which includes high school dropout rates, suicides rates, and the lack of economic development and societal segregation. I will also include research that pursues questions, concerns, answers, and ethical dilemmas surrounding the potential use of modern technology in underdeveloped countries.

4. Current Results, and future potential

So far my findings indicate that we can take modern technological innovations and move those applications into the building industry, bringing the less qualified end user more fully into the equation. As we have witnessed, the building industry is a major player in the world economy. When this industry is not flourishing, thousands of connected industries suffer, and the economy likewise falters. In Africa, there are millions of educated people who live in squalid and filthy conditions because there is no infrastructure supporting a middle class building industry. There are many factors, such as the lack of financing that contributes to this condition. However, there is not a wide gap in living standards between this “middle class” educated society, and the illiterate poor.

Many of these governments have desires to provide housing for their civil servants, professors, and military personnel, but without an infrastructure that can handle such an extensive task, it is not economically feasible. Part of the infrastructure is human ability, and must come from within to be economically sustainable. The other part is an inexpensive system to build structures that will provide safety from natural disasters, and provide privacy and aesthetics that basic dignity requires.

Our building would provide a method to deliver social networking opportunities to underdeveloped countries by facilitating a “safe cyber café” of sorts. This structure provides a somewhat bullet proof environment that is inexpensive.

This paper will expose current world conditions in underdeveloped nations, and will explore how the appropriate use of modern technology may be the answer to turning the tide of poverty. This is a significant contribution in the ethical use of technology in construction management since few studies of this nature reflect this topic.

AUTHOR
Massimo Durante

ABSTRACT

The theme of “the social impact of social computing” is a central, complex and unavoidable theme of reflection and discussion for our age. The formulation of the theme in terms of “impact” is indeed prudential since it leaves open whether this impact is either governed by the values, interests and decisions of human beings or is deterministically brought about by the technological evolution. However, it seems, in both cases, to rely on the epistemological and political foundation of modernity: the relation between the subject and the object (Serres, 2009). In the modern epistemological and political perspective, the object is always the societal reality, i.e. the national or the international world at large, whereas the subject has been represented either as a free, rational and autonomous or as a determined, irrational and heteronomous “human being”, both of them dealing with the ongoing technological evolution.

The subjects have been always represented as human beings. In the modern epistemological and political tradition of contractualism, these subjects have been represented as human beings enough irrational and heteronomous to be determined by their passions (i.e. by their want to possess everything and by their fear to be killed) and, at the same time, enough free, rational and autonomous, to decide to get out from the natural state and to stipulate a social contract. So represented, these subjects share three fundamental characteristics: 1) they are human beings; 2) they are subject to conflicts; 3) they are citizens, that is to say the only figures entitled with rights.

The hypothesis of the present paper is that the social impact of social computing is much deeper than expected and it concerns all these characteristics but in a very different manner, since it puts into discussion, according to us, the first and the third characteristic but it still maintains that the actors on the global scene of the networked Society of Information are essentially subject to conflicts.

Our main point is that the current technological evolution not only generates new conflicts but, first and foremost, it alters the distribution of powers that have been governing, up to now, the national and international conflicts and obliges people to rethink the assumptions on which the epistemological and political modernity has been based on. To take just one example, no longer holds the adage that all political sciences schools first teach: “l’Etat fait la guerre et la guerre fait l’Etat” (The State makes war and war makes the State). In our Society of Information, however counterintuitive it may appear, there is a crisis of the (military) puissance (Serres, 2009). The conflict is no longer or not only an armed conflict. Or, to put it differently, the armed conflict is no longer capable to govern by itself the networked space of the Society of Information. This goes along with a more general crisis of the whole vocabulary of the political modernity based on sovereignty, force, representation, citizenship and so forth.

The other side of the coin is that the most controversial and debated aspect of the networked Society of Information consists in the fact that its space is therefore perceived as an anomic space, i.e. a non-democratic space devoid of norms, a space requiring a new social contract. Is it still possible to speak of a social contract? And if so, who are the parties of this agreement and what should be its content? In the present paper, we try to defend three main points: 1) the relations between the actors of the global and networked Society of Information are still likely to be subject to conflicts (i.e. to be understood in terms of social conflicts); 2) however, the subjects of those conflicts (and of the interests and the rights thereof) are not only human beings; 3) a different political and legal sensibility should arise, in order to culturally account for the decentralization of human beings from the role of the exclusive beneficiaries of the social contract.

The paper will be divided in three parts. In the first part of the paper, we will expound an idea we have already presented elsewhere (Durante, 2007). The idea is that the social impact of social compu-ting does not obey to nor it can be explained in terms of any technological determinism. The global and networked Society of Information is made out of a plurality of different agents (be human or artificial), whose complex relations are not subjected to deterministic laws (Taylor, 2001). Rather, a key to understand the social impact of the ongoing technological evolution is in interpreting this impact throughout the social conflicts that this evolution is capable of generating or renewing. Needless to say that, in our opinion, those conflicts or competitions are inherent to the social character of agents but are not necessarily negative. On the contrary, they can spread out new energies and produce innovations (Benasayag M. – del Rey A. 2007).

Technology creates new possibilities. Not all of those possibilities are turned into real and imbedded in the society. When this occurs, those possibilities are likely to be turned into real powers which agents are provided with. In this perspective, the primary and general social impact of the technological evolution consists in modifying the distribution of powers that exists in the society (in our opinion, it is thus more a question of redistribution than of expansion of powers). From that redistribution of powers a number of conflicts is likely to arise. However, the role of conflict cannot be confined at the bottom of the technological process. The reason way some possibilities are turned into real powers and some other possibilities are not depends often on preexisting conflicts or competitions between interests, values or ideas already circulating across the society.

Conflicts or competitions play thus a crucial role in creating technological innovations and in selecting among the possibilities displayed by such technologies. They play hence a crucial role also in order to understand the social impact of the technological evolution and to understand the society as such. In this perspective, it is important to move from the analysis of the conflict that characterizes the Society of Information. The second part of the paper is devoted to this analysis: to this aim a special attention will be paid to the recent reflections that Michel Serres has consecrated to the stratified crisis that marks our own times (Serres 2009). The philosopher correctly remarks that, in the modern political tradition, the conflict is always a game between two players: “[…] the Master and the Servant, the Left against the Right, the Republicans against the Democrats, an ideology against another one, the green against the blue” (Serres 2009). This game is always played by human beings and in favor of human beings. There is not a real “third” in this fixed two-players game (“jeux à deux”), even though it is exactly the modern political tradition (of contractualism) that has given rise to the notion of the third (Hobbes [1651] 2008; in the social perspective: Simmel 1964).

However, in the tradition of contractualism, this third is always a projection of human interests (i.e. the legitimization of the Sovereign or of the civil society, etc.). The thirdness of the third should be thus rethought of in relation to a new concrete third, i.e. the world at large, which can be interpreted either in ecological terms (as in the case of Michel Serres who adds an epistemological and political dimension to the ecological stance) or in informational terms (as in the case of Luciano Floridi’s notion of infosphere [2003]). This requires people to establish a new and different social contract that challenges the “human narcissism” (Serres 2009) and defeats the political vocabulary of modernity centered upon the idea of citizenship. How this social contract should be structured is a work that has been initiated by different authors as those above mentioned (Serres 1995, 2009; Floridi 2007). What is of our interest is to understand what conceptual move we should accomplish, in order to account for the transformation of our conventional and enduring beliefs, practices and institutions, which are no longer expected to govern the cyberspace in the same way they have governed the (analogical) political space of modernity.

In the third and last part of the paper, we should try to sketch out what is this required conceptual move. Our hypothesis is that we should develop a political and legal sensibility capable to challenge the durable and accepted philosophical premises of the modern idea of the legal subject. This idea seems to us to be founded on three main assumptions: 1) the legal subjectivity is an exclusive property of human beings; 2) human beings are the only sources producing the politically and legally relevant information for the recognition and granting of rights and duties; 3) the legal subjectivity is, mostly, strictly based on the symmetry between rights and duties. All these assumptions need to be discussed and revised. And the grounds for this discussion and revision should be found, according to our understanding of the issue, in a theory of information, for the very simple reason that human beings are subjects that conti-nuously and relentlessly transmit, exchange and share information with non-human beings.

This also means that, continuously and relentlessly, human beings deal with information they receive from non-human beings. This simply overturns the epistemological division between subject and ob-ject since what is commonly meant to be “an object” is susceptible to produce, store and transmit information. This point is well stressed by Michel Serres: “[…] the things of Land and of Life, codified like us, are capable of receiving, producing, storing and treating information. […] This quadruple attitude does not design us as subjects nor designs them [i.e. the things of world] as objects. In the same way that we communicate, we understand and speak, we write and read, both non-living and living things produce and receive information, store and treat it. Asymmetric and parasitic, the old division subject-object no longer holds; every subject becomes object; every object becomes subject” (Serres 2009).

This philosophical consideration can provide us with the basis for a new understanding of the rela-tion between law and information, since human beings are no longer conceived, in this perspective, as the exclusive sources of the relevant political and legal information. There is no longer a pure and per-fect epistemological and political correlation between the subject and the object but only a relation of mutual implication (Durante 2011), according to which we depend from what depends from us since we are both codifying and codified things (Serres 2009) or, to put it in Floridi’s terms, since we are, qua informational objects, structuring structures (Floridi 2010).

REFERENCES

Benasayag M. – del Rey A. (2007), Eloge du conflit, Editions La Découverte, Paris.

Durante M. (2007), Il futuro del web: etica, diritto, decentramento. Dalla sussidiarietà digitale all’economia dell’informazione in rete, Giappichelli, Torino.

Durante M. (2011), “Rethinking Human Identity in the Age of Autonomic Computing: The Philosophical Idea of the Trace”, in M. Hildebrandt & A. Rouvroy (eds.), The Philosophy of Law Meets the Philosophy of Technology: Autonomic Computing and Transformations of Human Agency, Routledge, London.

Floridi L. (2003), “On the Intrinsic Value of Information Objects and the Infosphere”, Ethics and Information Technology, 4.4, pp. 287-304.

Floridi L. (2007), “Global Information Ethics: The Importance of Being Environmentally Earnest”, International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction, 3.3, pp. 1-11.

Floridi L. (2010), “The philosophy of Information as a Conceptual Framework”, in H. Demir (ed.), Luciano Floridi’s Philosophy of Technology: Critical Reflections, Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 23.

Hobbes T. [1651] (2008), Leviathan, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Serres M. (1995), The Natural Contract, transl. by E. MacArthur and W. Paulson, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.

Serres M. (2009), Temps des crises, Editions Le Pommier, Paris.

Simmel G. (1964), Conflict & The Web of Group Affiliations, Free Press, New York.

Taylor M. (2001), The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture, Chicago University Press, Chicago.

AUTHOR
Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa, Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva and Piotr Pawlak

ABSTRACT

During ETHICOMP 2008 the authors have proven that tourists’ locational privacy is a myth (Costa, Silva & Pawlak, 2008)! Hence, the aim of this manuscript is to shed some light over the lack of control of locational privacy, what is a desirable state of such, and a conceptual framework that allow citizens and governments to achieve a desirable condition.

Despite literature claim that a key feature of Web 2.0 is the ability of users to control their personal information O’Reilly (2005) through multiple applications (e.g. Norrie, 2008), the truth is that empirical evidences clearly demonstrate continuous violations to personal privacy (Brandimarte, Acquisti & Loewenstein, 2010) since informational existentialism reshapes Heidegger‘s concept of appropriation (being and time) (Costa & Silva, 2010). Considering that Web 2.0 applications are omnipresent in several recent technologies, as for instance iPad, iPhone, smartphones mobile phones, etc. it is feasible to claim that locational privacy is also at steak (e.g. Hill, 2011). Although is vital to address the concept of locational privacy, as well as its evolution.

According to Blumberg & Chase (2007) locational privacy is the ability of an individual to move in public space with the reasonable expectation that their location will not be systematically and secretly recorded for later use. Or, concerns the utilization of information with reference to an individual’s current location to grant additional relevant information and services to that individual, being a specific type of context-awareness (Duckham & Kulik, 2006). Bearing in mind again the complex interaction among global and local systems (stakeholders, technologies and regulations) emerges glocal privacy (Costa, Silva & Pawlak, 2008), which is consistent with Meyrowitz (2005) argument.

Eric Gordon (2009) claims that local information access is no longer restricted to the geographic location, due to the network configuration or distributed fluxes of information in spite of the undefeatable cultural barriers that glocality imposes; so, a desirable state of locational privacy must cluster peoples’ sharing willingness into categories (Olson, Grudin & Horvitz, 2005) even at a political level (Bellier & Wilson, 2000). The question is extremely difficult to answer unequivocally, because the ratio between center and locality is differently understood over the nations (Bomberg, Peterson & Stubb, 2008). However certain common values can be observed, accepted by most of societies, setting out a framework of privacy for both individuals and local communities.

In order to present a conceptual framework the authors will first draw their attention to the work of Pedersen (1999). Pedersen presents a consolidated model for the attainment of five privacy needs for each of the six types of privacy (figure 1).

Figure 1. Diagram of the types of privacy by privacy functions

The five privacy functions were autonomy, confiding, rejuvenation, contemplation, and creativity. In accordance with the model the users’ profiles describe six types of privacy (solitude, reserve, isolation, intimacy with family, anonymity, intimacy with friends). Both dimensions of the matrix will be under scrutiny into the light of web 2.0 applications and locational privacy as a way to develop a novel conceptual framework.

REFERENCES

Bellier I., & Wilson T. M. (2000). An anthropology of the European Union: Building, imagining and experiencing the new Europe. Oxford: Berg Publishers.

Blumberg, A., & Chase, (2007). Electronic tolling and locational privacy: How to make ez-pass preserve locational privacy. Online at http://math.stanford.edu/~blumberg/traffic/secureEZ.pdf (accessed 02 February 2011).

Bomberg E., Peterson J., & Stubb A. (2008). The European Union: How does it work. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Brandimarte, L., Acquisti, A., & Loewenstein, G. (2010, June). Misplaced confidences: Privacy and the control paradox. Paper presented at the Ninth Annual Workshop on the Economics of Information Security, Cambridge, MA.

Costa, G. J. M., & Silva, N. S. A. (2010). Informational existentialism! Will information ethics shape our cultures, International Review of Information Ethics, 13, 33-41.

Costa, G. J. M., Silva, N. S. A., & Pawlak, Piotr (2010). Network tourism: a fallacy of location privacy! In M. Arias-Oliva et al. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2010 (pp. 93-102). Tarragona. Spain.

Duckham, M., & Kulik, L. (2006). Location privacy and location-aware computing. In J. Drummond et al. (Eds.), Dynamic & Mobile GIS: Investigating Change in Space and Time (pp. 34-51). Boca Rator, FL: CRC Press.

Gordon, E. (2009). Redefining the local: The distinction between located information and local knowledge in location-based games. In A. S. Silva & D. M. Sutko (Eds.), Digital Cityscapes: Merging Digital and Urban Playspaces (pp. 21-36). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing.

Hill, K. (2011). Why your cell phone is more private in Ohio than in California. Online at http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2011/01/04/why-your-cell-phone-is-more-private-in-ohio-than-in-california/ (accessed 04 February 2011).

Meyrowitz, J. (2005). The rise of glocality: New sense of place and identity in the global village. In K. Nyíri (Ed.), A Sense of Place: The Global and the Local in Mobile Communication (pp. 21-30). Vienna: Passagen Verlag.

Norrie, M. C. (2008). PIM meets web 2.0, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 5231, 15-25.

O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is web 2.0- Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Online at http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html (accessed 04 February 2011).

Olson, J., Grudin, J., & Horvitz, E. (2005). Toward understanding preferences for sharing and privacy. In G. Veer & C. Gale (Eds.), Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1985-1988). Portland, OR: ACM.

Pedersen, D. M. (1999). Model for types of privacy by privacy functions, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 19(4), 397-405.

AUTHOR
Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa , Piotr Pawlak and Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva

ABSTRACT

A computer game is essentially a game activated by a computer, in which gamers control the items visible on the screen just for fun (Feibel, 2006). Is important to identify the unlike games philology, because computer games can be differentiated through several features, as for instance: scenarios, game mechanisms or groups of recipients (gamers) (Kücklich, 2003), existing technologies that allow playing (Filiciak, 2006), or even their bond with cultural and social elements (Jenkins, 2006).

Several computer game creators are legendary for their boldness and it frequently occurs that their products stir up debates, leading to the censorship of their content since these encourage racism, drug abuse, violence, cruelty, rape, mayhem, as Grand Theft Auto exhibits (Kutner & Olson, 2008). Thus, many computer games verge on being unethical or even illegitimate. The judiciary systems in US or Japan ruled on abundant cases of moral ambiguities, because interest groups seek to introduce special acts of law, which would govern computer game market (Jenkins, 2006).

Is among these ambiguities that literature has been approaching the psychological and social outcomes of playing violent games (Sanford & Madill, 2007), namely mayhem engagement (emotional connotation to violence) (Gotterbarn, 2010) and cognitive bias (effect upon social attitudes and decision making) (Kirsh et al., 2005). However, studies acknowledge paradoxical results (e.g. Durkin & Barber, 2002) regarding computers games addiction (Cover, 2006). Yet, a gigantic gap of research remains when the intent is to analyse if violent computer games negatively persuade gamers’ moral intensity and sensitivity, despite the vast work concerning moral development (Reynolds & Ceranic, 2009), or even moral competence (Podolskiy, 2008).

Following Jones (1991), moral intensity is the extent of issue-related moral imperative in a situation, and moral sensitivity is the individual cognitive process; and, moral competence is “the capacity to make decisions and judgments which are moral (i.e., based on internal principles) and to act in accordance with such judgments” (Kohlberg, 1964, pp. 425).

This manuscript endeavours to comprehend if violent computer games persuade negatively gamers’ moral intensity and sensitivity through mayhem engagement and cognitive bias. For that, the authors will reproduce at some extent the work of Schonlau, Fricker & Eliott (2001): questionnaire enabled in September and October 2010 in two geographical locations, Portugal and Poland.

Although, the authors will shed some light over the questionnaire sections and their questions:

• section 1- aims to understand the participant profile, namely its gender, age, number of gaming years, daily hours of gaming, what computer games categories plays, and if it plays violent games and how many hours (daily);
• section 2- intends to understand what is considered a violent game through the analysis of their characteristics, which are considered violent (list choice), if agrees with the present legislation concerning age categories for playing violent games;
• section 3- resumes violent game scenarios versus real life contexts in order to understand if the respondent sustains its moral decision. For that, the respondent has to order his moral decisions from 1 (immediate) to 6 (final decision) in both settings for extreme situations, as well as to justify their position through asks for agreement queries.

The numerical (multiple choice) and content analysis (ask for agreement queries) (Creswell, 2003) will promote a consistent retort about the latent relationship between violent computer games and gamers’ moral intensity and sensitivity, as well as a comparison among both countries. The first empirical results underline that:

1. Polish are less influenced in their decision making process, because in section 3 most of them has criticized the chosen scenarios contrarily to Portuguese respondents;
2. Polish respondents choice about the list of games that might be considered violent is much broader.

Although, a sophisticated analysis (numerical and content) will be presented throughout ETHICOMP 2011.

REFERENCES

Cover, R. (2006). Gaming (ad)diction: Discourse identity, time and play in the production of the gamer addiction myth, Game Studies- The International Journal of Computer Game Research, 6(1), Online at http://gamestudies.org/0601/articles/cover (accessed 12 January 2011).

Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Durkin, K., & Barber, B. (2002). Not so doomed: Computer game play and positive adolescent development, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 23(4), 373-392. Esposito, N. (2005). A short and simple definition of what a videogame is. In Z. K. McKeon & W. G. Swenson (Eds.). Proceedings of DiGRA 2005 Conference, Online at http://www.digra.org/dl/db/06278.37547.pdf (accessed 10 January 2011).

Feibel, T. (2006). Zabójca w dziecinnym pokoju. Przemoc i gry komputerowe. Warszawa: Broszurowa.

Filiciak M. (2006). Wirtualny plac zabaw. Gry sieciowe i przemiany kultury wspó?czesnej. Warszawa: Broszurowa.

Gotterbarn, D. (2008). The ethics of video games: Mayhem, death, and the training of the next generation. In T. W. Bynum et al. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2008: Living, Working and Learning Beyond Technology (pp. 322-333). Mantua: University of Pavia.

Jenkins H. (2006). Convergence culture. Where old and new media collide. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Jones, T. M. (1991). Ethical decision making by individuals in organizations: An issue-contingent model, Academy of Management Review, 16(2), 366-395.

Kirsh, S. J. (2005). Violent video games induce an affect processing bias. Media Psychology, 7(3), 239-250.

AUTHOR
Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa, Mary Prior and Simon Rogerson

ABSTRACT

Before unlock the guiding research issue for this manuscript the authors reveal their stimulus:

• The research project, PhD, of the first author about why link knowledge management, organisational culture and ethics, which has been presented into previous ETHICOMP conferences (e.g. Costa, Prior & Rogerson, 2010);
• And, organisational theory future developments (authors personal view) despite potential criticism and comments from scholars and practitioners, since debate is crucial.

As a result, this contribution outlines the concept of noetic organisations! However, is vital to address what key domains will structure the authors’ argument:

• 21st century managing requirements;
• Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy;
• Learning organisations;
• Organisational theory future developments (wise organisations and noetic organisations).

21st century managing requirements induce a collaborative approach in order to exploit unlike workers insights, instead of the traditional authoritarian, command and control attitude. People are a “natural” resource and an organisational asset to sponsor sustainable competitive advantage. Hence, the new managing orientation is also assuming innovation as a key ingredient for success and competitiveness (Liyanage & Poon, 2002). This entails increasing the innovative potential of the organisation by fostering novel ideas, harnessing people’s creativity and enthusiasm, tapping the innovative potential of workers, and supporting the dissemination of autonomy and entrepreneurship (Black & Porter, 2000).

DIKW hierarchy or continuum process has been widely approach in literature; although, until recently the attention devoted to knowledge was minor, and even less to wisdom (Small, 2004). Data are facts and messages observed by an individual or group, which may be considered elements of larger physical systems (Choo, 2005). Nonaka (1994) perceives information as a flow of messages, so schemas and mental models of the actor influence what meanings are constructed.

Knowledge is a result or product of knowing, information or understanding acquired through experience, practical ability or skill, and cognition (Oxford English Dictionary, 2008). Costa (1995, pp. 3) defines wisdom as a

“combination of knowledge and experience, but it is more than just the sum of these parts. Wisdom involves the mind and the heart, logic and intuition, left brain and right brain, but it is more than either reason, or creativity, or both. Wisdom involves a sense of balance, an equilibrium derived from a strong, pervasive moral conviction (…) the conviction and guidance provided by the obligations that flow from a profound sense of interdependence”.

Therefore is difficult to conceptualise and operationalise it, as the ongoing debate throughout Eastern and Western history demonstrates (Rowley, 2006). Given the purpose of this contribution the authors will devote their attention to knowledge and wisdom levels and their influence over organisational theory.

Since the expression “learning organisation” was referred by Senge et al. (1994), explanations have prospered in management literature. Yet, literature comprises a lack of accurateness about the concept itself. Ortenbald (2002) denotes that just a few authors have attempted to produce groups of learning organisations. Ortenblad also refers that a learning organisation encompasses four ontological dimensions: cultural values, leaders, communication, and knowledge workers. This complex relationship among the four dimensions involves a considerable amount of ethical issues and social challenges (Costa, 2011).

Learning organisations will become wisdom organisations due to the confrontation between neo-liberal tendencies and internal and external moral practices, so:

wise organisation must create time for the virtues that allow wise, practical judgements to be made. An organisation has a temporality where it remembers the past, accepts responsibility for it and uses that to devise a new space for itself in the future whilst acting now (Rowley & Gibbs, 2008, pp. 364).

These authors even argue that practically wise organisations seek to extend the following processes: understanding dynamic complexity; developing personal wisdom competency; deliberating towards ethical models; refreshing shared sustainable vision; group wisdom dynamics; deliberated praxis; and embodied learning.

Even so, is the authors’ go beyond Rowley & Gibbs (2008) outlook and to discuss the characteristics of noetic organisations. Considering that noetic research investigates the nature and potentials of consciousness as a way to understand the relationship between consciousness, soul and spirit; and, how they relate with the physical world (Noetic Science, 2011), it seems possible that these discoveries will influence organisational theory evolution because they may improve the development of personal wisdom.

REFERENCES

Black, S. J., & Porter, L. W. (2000). Management: Meeting new challenges. New York, NY: Prentice Hall.

Choo, C. W. (2005). The knowing organization: How organizations use information to construct meaning, create knowledge and make decisions. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Costa, G. J. M. (2011). Ethical evaluation of learning organizations: A conceptual framework. In G. J. M. Costa (Ed.), Handbook of Ethical and Social Issues in Knowledge Management: Organizational Innovation (pp. 250-277). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.