[Air-l] Google is watching ! - a few replies

Charles Ess cmess at drury.edu
Sun May 23 14:00:18 PDT 2004


ET wrote:

> This is what I am trying to deal with.
> If, as I stated, I take a look at this argument from a human rights
> perspective then the solutions are simple.
> I respect the privacy and rights of others as per the ICOCPR and the
> laws of the country I am living in.
> There are no ifs and buts in that equation. Its as clear cut as anything
> in life can be.
> I am free to research within those above constraints.
> And I am free of other individuals or groups trying to load higher
> burdens upon me as it is an infringement of
> my human rights to do so.
> Simple, clear.
I really wish you were correct about this - believe me, I do!
But, as I think several of us have tried to say now - for better and for
worse, the situation is neither so simple nor so clear.
The general statements regarding rights do not tell us
(a)  how we are to apply / map extant laws regarding specific rights (- and
from there, in the often international environment of online research, what
laws from what country, etc.) onto online contexts,
(b) what to do when there are competing or conflicting claims to such
rights.

<snip> 
> You, for example, see the world differently and wish to apply a higher
> standard.
> I respect completely your right to impose a higher standard - upon yourself.
> 
> I am happy to accept your view of the world for yourself.
> All I ask is that others accept my right to act lawfully, humanely, and
> according to my own set of moral values, which
> may, or may not, be higher than your own standards.
> Am I asking too much?
> 
In my view, yes.
First of all, I resist the notion that the AoIR guidelines are solely a
reflection of my personal ethical views.  In particular, I can cite a
significant number of researchers - both in print and in the two years (and
more) of conversations, both online and offline, regarding research ethics,
whose views on these matters are rather strongly consistent with and
supportive of the guidelines as they stand.
If anything, the guidelines might have been even more insistent on privacy
rights, etc. - have a look at the Norwegian NESH guidelines, for example,
which require researchers to consider not only the possible effects of their
decisions and actions upon a research subject, but also upon the subject's
close circle of relationships.

Secondly, it appears that you again want to make a relativist move here -
i.e., my values are fine for me, and your values are fine for you (as long
as both are within "the law", I realize, but that takes us back to the first
set of problems noted above).
The AoIR guidelines are quite clear, I believe, that in the end, ethical
judgments are precisely the concern of the individual researcher(s) in
dialogue with his/her oversight authorities and/or the research subjects
themselves.  The guidelines explicitly point out a range of possible
responses to specific concerns and issues, within which such judgment -
philosophers in Western traditions like to use the term _phronesis_ from
Aristotle for this - works out these matters.
But this is pluralism ("many things go"), not relativism ("anything goes").
Relativism suggests the ethical views and values of other persons are
entirely irrelevant to one's own - you do your thing, I'll do mine was the
1960s version.
If by saying
> All I ask is that others accept my right to act lawfully, humanely, and
> according to my own set of moral values, which
> may, or may not, be higher than your own standards.
you want to say something to the effect,
"it's not any business of the rest of us how you choose and act as a
researcher"
then I would resist that as well - if only for self-interested and
utilitarian reasons.
To repeat (but, I promise, for the last time, at least for a while) - what
one researcher does affects not only the research subject(s), but the larger
community of researchers as well.
If only for self-interested and utilitarian reasons - I think other
researchers have a justified interest in encouraging their sister/fellow
researchers to make decisions regarding treatment of and respect for
research subjects that will _not_ result in subsequent potential subjects
telling researchers, basically, to go to hell.

So, sorry to say, I think it is too much to ask that an individual - at
least as long as that individual wants to claim membership in some larger
community - be left to make his/her ethical decisions entirely on his/her
own, i.e., without interaction, dialogue, debate, and, ideally,
consensus-building, among the members of that community.
It is too much to ask because to do so, especially in the sort of relativist
move that I see here (perhaps mistakenly, and if so, my apologies), is to
ask to enjoy the privileges and support of the larger community, but without
acknowledging any need to be responsible towards that community in one's own
decision-making and behavior.

All that said - thanks for your provocations.  I like to think that this
thread of discussion has been very useful for the AoIR participants in a
number of ways.

All best wishes,

Charles Ess, Chair
AoIR Research Ethics Working Group
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/aoir/ethics
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies
Drury University
900 N. Benton Ave.                   Voice: 417-873-7230
Springfield, MO  65802  USA            FAX: 417-873-7435
Co-chair, CATaC: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/
"Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos.  Persons appear by
entering into relation to other persons." -- Martin Buber, _I and Thou_
"Ethics does not furnish recipes any more than do science and art.  One can
merely propose methods." -- Simone de Beauvoir, _The Ethics of Ambiguity_









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