Ethics is a Person-Based Thing

By Emily Claire Bowden

When we discuss ethics and what it means exactly to be ethical, one of the most important concepts seems to be personal responsibility. Ethics pertains to personally understanding how to make the right choice at the right time. It means doing the right thing every time, not just when you will receive credit for your actions. Being ethical means doing good even when no one is around to monitor you. To me, a huge part of being an ethical person has to do with personal responsibility and whether you can still do the right thing even when no one is around to hold you accountable. I believe the anonymity of the internet, especially that which can be found on Reddit, has led to a lack of personal responsibility and therefore an increase in unethical actions online.

Reading Antisocial, I noticed a connection between the ability to hide behind an online profile and then saying and doing whatever one wanted online without the backlash one would typically face if they were to express those same sentiments face-to-face. The internet provides a shield, something to hide behind, that allows people to say whatever they want without the immediate judgement of their peers. By removing identity, the internet seems to alleviate individuals of all senses of personal responsibility to do the right thing.

In Antisocial, the most prominent example is the blank page experiment set up by Reddit to see what people would draw when they thought no one was watching. While a lot of people drew harmless pictures, many used their anonymity as a chance to leave inappropriate and offensive messages and drawings.

Ethics is a very person-based thing. Everyone has their own set of ethics, but it is intrinsically connected to their personhood.  Computers don’t have their own set of ethics, nor do plants nor animals (at least that we know of). Being ethical and having a knowledge of what is good and what is bad is part of human nature, so if there is no “personhood” online, it seems that ethics suddenly take a back seat. If there is no person online, no human identity, how can there be a sense of personal responsibility? In order to be responsible for yourself, doesn’t their have to be a self? Anonymity, the loss of the person, severs the strong tie we normally have with our personal set of ethics. I believe that is what allows people to act differently on the internet than they normally would out in public.

Of course, anonymity online does not always lead to the loss of ethics. I’m sure the great majority of people use the internet for neutral purposes and are able to maintain a sense of personal responsibility while online. I am not saying anonymity always inspires evil. However, it is undeniable that the ability to leave one’s identity at the door of social media sites does provide people with the opportunity to abandon their sense of personal responsibility.