Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Modern Technologies and How They Go With Morals and Ethics
I think today the main point that I saw brought up was how technology has influenced/changed our morals and ethics today. In the socratic, the overall consensus seemed to be leaning towards morals and ethics are naturally worse due to social medias, but also people's sense of ownership to social medias having to be relinquished. I have been thinking about this idea for the rest of the day, whether technology has made a positive or negative impact on our ethics and morals as a whole. Going back to the articles we read at the beginning of the year on rape, teenage drinking, and internet bullying etc, I believe that teenagers and young adults morals and ethics have become worse because of the internet and social medias. Younger people especially believe that they can get away with more on the internet, which stretches their morals of what they are willing to post online, especially on anonymous sites. While some people do not believe in bullying, this could change because of popular opinion amongst a group of people they hang out with, as well as less consequences that can go along with cyber bullying anonymously. The internet and social medias are more dangerous because there are less consequences that go along with our actions, which ultimately stretches our morals and ethics to larger boundaries than what we would say through a text message or in person. I believe that people today set morals and ethics for themselves and their communities more out of fear than out of belief in most cases. With the lack of consequences (fear), there are fewer moral standards that people abide by while on the internet.
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I think you brought up a really good point, Carina. It's always interesting to see what the other class discussed. You made me think of the difference between morals and ethics. From what we learn in class, morals are your own set of judgement and it can overlapped with others, but it is independent. However, ethics depends on a group of people.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that some people actually have good morals, but because of social pressure, they feel like they have to abide by their ethics even though it's morally wrong to them?
One of the example I can think of that would support the idea that morals and ethics are set out of fear more than out of belief makes me think of Nazi Germany. You could say that the Nazi's morals and ethics were based on their fear (and/or respect) for Hitler; hence, they were not so sympathetic to the Jews. Many people
But there are many people, who were afraid of the Nazi and Hitler, but still helped the Jews out. They would help make false identifications for Jewish children. A good example of this would be Irena Sendler. In Germany-occupied Poland, it is punishable by death to give any aid to Jews. You could say that although there are lots of fear that could influence her morals and ethics, but it didn't.
I think that although people today can become immoral by participating in cyber-bullying, it is probably for another reason such as low self-esteem or problems of their own.
I completely agree with you on the point that morals and ethics are sometimes influenced by outside causes, like Hitler and Nazi Germany for example. The point I was trying to make is that because we can be anonymous on the internet on some social media sites, I believe that we let go of the ethics society has taught us and say whatever feels right in the moment, despite not realizing the consequences it could potentialy have on other poeple.
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