The kind of love and the type of God in today's world of computing: An ethical relativist's account

A review essay inspired by Computer Ethics: Cautionary Tales and Ethical Dilemmas in Computing. MIT Press 1994 (1990) by Tom Forester and Perry Morrison, 2nd edition.

This review essay is supposed to be based on two books. The other book was The New Hacker’s Dictionary by Eric Raymond. This second book never arrived in my pigeon hole. It was dispatched by the publisher (MIT Press), along with Forester and Morrison’s book, but… it never arrived! This seems to be peculiarly apt. The New Hacker’s Dictionary, perhaps, got hacked off on route. Perhaps it was hacked off by a hacker (was ‘stolen’), or it might have been that the book itself got ‘hacked off’ (fed up, tired out) and opted out of the disciplinary procedure. It is probably out there playing around somewhere. Good luck to it.

But it might like to know that there are many different ways of disciplining something. Not all of them horrible. Some people go to yoga classes to discipline their mind/body/soul. Others join the army. Some people go to prison, others to university. The same word seems to serve equally well, but we all realise that under each different regime, a different kind of discipline is practised, and a different kind of relationship is practised between the disciples and the guide. That is, most yoga disciples can chose to stop being disciplined by simply not going to class. To choose not to be disciplined into the army might be an altogether more difficult thing (unless you happen to be British, or a Woman for example). At this level of discussion at least, we can all be sophisticated relativists: ‘discipline’ turns out to be relative to its time and place, and can be good and bad depending on your relationship to it. However, as Forester and Morrison are so quick to point out, the relativist’s position makes things complicated. If things change according to time and place (and probably a good many other things too), then how are we to draw up a universal moral code and enforce it (leaving aside for the moment whether the force is on ourselves, or others)? I shall quote a piece from the book in order to locate space and place for my review. This is the principle of the relativist reviewer:

“Ethical relativism, which says that there are no universal moral norms, need not detain us for long, for it offers no guidance as to what is correct behavior. Ethical relativists merely point to the variety of behaviors in different cultures and conclude that the issue of right and wrong is all relative. Ethical relativism is a descriptive account of what is being done rather than a normative theory of what should be done. While it is true that people in different societies have different moralities, this does not prove that one morality might not be the correct one or that one might not constitute the universal moral code. Ethical relativism is not much use when trying to decide what is the right thing to do in today’s world of computing.” (emphasis added) Forester and Morrison, p15.

And so, one long tradition of thought in this domain is introduced, described, and dumped. It took 11 lines of text on page 15. There are 259 pages in the main body of this disciplinary text. These other pages contain a wealth of poignant examples and careful questions situated in scanarios which are well placed to stimulate classroom discussions. My argument in this essay is that the ethical relativist is able to participate in this discussion. True: her point of view makes the picture complicated. But this is not good moral grounds for sending her out into the corridor on detention! There is a long tradition of moral superiority invested in hard work; it’s something to do with the choice between the wide, well-paved road, and the narrow, difficult, and overgrown path:

Facilis descensus Averni: Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis: Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras, Hoc opus, hic labor est” (Virgil: Aeneid, VI 126)

‘The way down to hell is easy. The gates of black Dis stand open night and day. But to retrace one’s steps and escape to the upper air - that is toil, that is labour.’ The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations, p405.

Perhaps this is a clue to where the Hackers have gone [Hack: to cut, chop or mangle. Chambers Etymological Dictionary, p216]. They are cutting a new path through the undergrowth, towards the Light, and the Good.

As Claes Gustafsson (1994) argues “the discourse of business ethics … is always built on the possibility of moral criticism or moral praise: some act being ‘wrong’ or its leading to a state which is ‘bad’” (p115). The Right and the Good and the Wrong and the Bad are the governing force of an ethical discussion, and of a discussion about ethics. All dichotomies seem able to take on the characteristic of this primary ordering (eg, Black White, Man Woman, Inside Outside). As soon as a pair is brought into discussion, the Good Bad couple comes through the door with it. The question remains, however, what kind of place shall they have in the debate? On page 203, Forester and Morrison offer a very simple, very useful example which can serve as a frame for the remainder of the discussion of this essay. Several McDonald’s restaurants (famous for their highly formalised and predicted work routines) have begun to employ mentally retarded people - “These people never come in late and are rarely sick” says the manager (p203). Depending on your stance, this practice can be made to seem both Good, and Bad. I don’t want to go through the steps of that argument, instead I want to draw a parallel with the problem in the programming office. Perhaps the hackers are hacked off with the boring, mindless, humdrum, that is produced by the kind of ‘efficiency’ which structures the McDonald’s work place as much as it does the modern system’s design office.

Swept along by the force of dichotomies, I shall now categorise discussions about ethics into two in order to pursue this theme through to my conclusion. In fidelity to the theme of my essay, I shall not tell you which one is Good and which one Bad. I assume that you are neither naive nor stupid. I assume, that is, that I cannot make you comply with my own moral order. I assume that you bring your own ethical practice to my text, and your judgement will be the result of that relationship.

The first kind of discussion about ethics is framed in terms of the problem of inventing a set of rules. It is essential that these rules can and will be written down (on tablets of stone if that’s what it takes to make them long lasting). They can then be displayed in various ways in order to demonstrate the goodness of oneself (whose behaviour can be seen to match the rules) and the badness of the other (whose behaviour can be described as contravening these principles). These rules are external to the subject (which can be read either as the human - disciplined - subject, or the disciplinary - disciplining - subject). This externality is important for two reasons. First, the rules are of course above discussion; they come from a higher order. Second, the subject matter has no ethic in itself; it might be said to be ‘inherently naive’ and therefore in need of superior guidance. Left to its own devices (!) it will get into all kinds of trouble.

An example of this kind of ethics might be found in the debates and practice of building Methodologies in computer system design. The two governing principles are implied in this practice like this. First Method makers must refer to a Greater Go(o)d. An essentially a-social body (often logic, or mathematics) in order to derive the laws. Second, undisciplined subjects in the office, writing programmes and designing system architecture are inherently naive, and left to their own devices will get (us) into all kinds of trouble. The problem for the disciplinarians is to find ways of persuading the undisciplined Masses to become disciplined, to persuade the naive to let go their innocence and get a little knowledge. (Naive: with natural or unaffected simplicity, artless, ingenuous, from the Latin natus, nascor, to be born, Chambers, p333).

Because this ethical stance has placed Good on a higher plane, the disciplinarians can rest easily and just invoke power and label all non-conformists as Bad: thou did not complete user design on time and in budget. Thou did not complete Technical Design before embarking on Technical Detail. The person nearest Go(o)d is able to declare who fits the discipline and who needs to be cut (down) to size. Having declared what is Right and what is Wrong, the problem in this realm of ethics is just a question of how to enforce it: how to punish, how to reward. The overall image is of an omnipotent, omniscient being ‘up there’, and the rest of us, like sheep or children, down here, waiting to be led.

The second kind of discussion about ethics recognises the impossibility of declaring once and for all what is Right and what is Wrong. It realises that ‘acts’ can be described in a number of different ways. The late delivery of the system was not a bad act, but a good act, because it enabled the project leader to take time off work to nurse her ailing mother towards a dignified death. The ethics of the action is derived from the actors who are produced by their relation to the action being judged. This second kind of ethical discussion does not presume to Know Right and Wrong. It does not presume to set itself as Judge, claiming to be on speaking terms with the Higher Order and therefore well placed to dispense punishment and reward. Instead it embodies the principle of thoughtfulness and deliberation.

One cannot (a moral principle) set out the rules first, before action. This is not to say ‘there are no rules’. This review is not atheist. She is agnostic. She doesn’t trust people who claim to speak directly to Go(o)d; she prefers to look elsewhere for inspiration. She likes to consider the implication of moving from -ic to -os. The ethos of a community is a much richer place to situate a discussion about its ethics. She wants to see if the Mother has anything to say that is different to the Father. If God the Father resides ‘up there’ and speaks in terms of universal rules, where might Goddess the Mother be? How might she speak? Clearly, she would have a different relationship with her subjects, it is implied in the word.

Mother Tongue. There are two parts of this review that I’d now like to review. First, I would like to complete this essay with an account of the quote I offered towards the beginning from Forester and Morrison. Second I’d like to address the implied lack of responsibility in my suggestion that I wouldn’t tell you how to judge because you would be bringing your own judgemental devices with you. Having taken up my position to speak in this manner (as reviewer in a publication), I cannot claim naivete or stupidity, but must take on the responsibility that defines me as an adult in this community. I’ll do this by addressing the second point first, because it relates to the relationship I have, as a relativist, to my Mother (Tongue).

I said “I assume you are neither naive nor stupid. I assume that you bring your own ethical dimension to my text and your judgement will be the result of this relationship.” Within this statement you could find the whole debate which gets rehearsed in many of our texts in STS (or whatever we call it). In general this debate is couched in terms of an either or choice (the Good/Bad moral order). EITHER. The text/technology contains the Goodness/Badness inherently. OR. The use to which it is put is inherently Good/Bad (see Kling 1992, Grint and Woolgar 1992, and Kling 1992a for a display of the steps involved in this dance). The kind of relativism I am trying to practise though, produces an alternative step to follow. Vis: there are relationships to consider. There is one between me and what I write, and one between you and what you read. The text/technology becomes our mediator in three ways: it is in the middle, it is the medium by which we communicate, and it mediates between the parties.

My relation to the text is to try to treat the words with respect, to recognise their place as my Mother. I am endeavouring to look into the words, the text, the situated discourse, to hear what she might be saying. This requires extra effort because her words (in the patriarchal order of things) are often drowned out or treated as irrelevant. I trust that what I am trying to argue does not need me to spell it out. My Mother is available for a dialogue.

Within the quoted excerpt I highlighted a number of words. In the following discussion of these words, I shall try to exemplify the ethic of my discipline. Forester and Morrison characterise Ethical relativism as ‘a descriptive account of what is being done rather than a normative theory of what should be done’. Descriptive accounts, in their moral order are Bad, whereas normative theories are Good. The Good should stick with the law as laid down by the Method Makers up there, and leave the Bad to tangle with stories about things that happen amongst the flock. Looking at what gets done won’t tell you what is Good, because the action is being done by naive subjects who are like unshepherded sheep, or like unschooled children.

To say “While it is true that people in different societies have different moralities,that these accounts might be ‘true’” is interesting. It implies that the descriptive account might have a close relationship with the action being described (to maintain the resonance between relativism and relationships I would like to draw your attention to the role of Truth in love: being ‘true’ in a relationship is a matter of fidelity, faith, and trust). To say that the account has pledged its truth to the action is to dignify the account with a Good morality. But to then say “this does not prove that one morality might not be the correct one or that one might not constitute the universal moral code” reveals the ethic of Forester and Morrison in a different moral order. The morality in question here, then, is not whether the account loves the action (is true to), but whether the account loves the Monotheos. If the account is not Monogamous with the Monolithic Go(o)d Up There, then the account must be Wrong. That is to say: Bad. Questions: who do you love? how do you love them? Finally, I highlighted the sentence “Ethical relativism is not much use when trying to decide what is the right thing to do in today’s world of computing”. The moral order of efficiency is used to shore up the moral order of this particular Monotheos. Forester and Morrison do not go into details about how to recognise usefulness when you see it, nor do they take the trouble to explain what purpose the use is supposed to achieve. The Ethic of their work is left obscured, it is not available for discussion, it goes without saying. My dictionary suggests that ‘Efficience is the power to produce the result intended’. Perhaps the Hacker knows what this result is, and has a Good reason for slipping out of that disciplinary machinery?

Without the New Hackers Dictionary I am not able to take this part of the argument much further. However, my old etymological dictionary has made a few suggestions which I would like to leave you with.

Hack: to cut, chop or mangle (see my earlier reference to the kind of action required on the Road to Heaven) Hack: a broken troublesome cough (perhaps they are off sick) Hack: Hackney, especially a poor and jaded one: any person overworked on hire: a literary drudge (and who wants to pursue that as an option?)

Hackney: adjective: Hired, to offer for hire, to use roughly (suggesting mis-use, rather than use) Hackney: noun, a horse for general use, especially for hire… to make commonplace. (not particularly respectful is it?) Hackney: let out for hire, devoted to common use: much used. (this is all beginning to sound a little like prostitution)

Actions embody moralities. Actions have consequences. Prophesies fulfill themselves. The Good need the Bad in order to know themselves as Good. Who do You Love? How do you Love them?

Bibliography

J M & M J Cohen, (1960) The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.

Findlater, A (ed) (The People’s Edition) 1905 Chambers’s Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. London: W & R Chambers, Ltd.

Grint, K and S Woolgar (1992) “Computers, Guns, and Roses: What’s Social about Being Shot”. Science, Technology and Human Values, v17 n3, Summer.

Gustafsson, Claes (1994) “Moralisation as a link between idealism and naturalism in the ethical discourse” in Lewis, A and Karl-Erik Warneryd (eds), Ethics and economic affairs. London: Routledge.

Kling, R (1992) Audiences, Narratives, and Human Values in Social Studies of Technology”. Science Technology and Human Values, 17 n3, Summer.

Kling, R (1992a) “When Gunfire Shatters Bone: Reducing Sociotechnical Systems to Social Relationships”. Science, Technology and Human Values, 17 n3, Summer.