Using an alternative ethical paradigm for analysis: an example regarding e-mail privacy issues

ABSTRACT

This paper suggests that a less-traditional ethical analysis of computer-based technological issues might be rewarded by unexpected and useful results. As an example, this paper offers an ethical analysis of e-mail privacy issues within the framework of ethical principles based on the work of Habermas.

REFERENCES

• 1: American Management Association Survey (AMA, 1997). Many major US firms check employee calls & e-mail or videotape workers on the job. Employee testing: Law and policy reporter, 23 May 1997.
• 2: R. N. Barger (1993). A metaethical analysis of computer ethics. Paper presented at the Second annual computer ethics institute conference, The Brookings Institute: Washington, DC.
• 3: O. Boyd-Barrett, and C. Newbold (eds.) (1995). Approaches to media. New York: Vintage Books.
• 4: B. S. Brennen, and D. Primeaux (1997). Public or private? E-mail and the ethics of privacy. Convergence, 3, 3, pp. 21-26.
• 5: Federal Guidelines for Searching and Seizing Computers (FGSSC, 1994). Criminal Law Reporter, 56, 12. Also found at http://www.intnet.net/pub/CRIME/ Fed.guide.search.seize.computers.
• 6: J. Habermas (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere (Translated by T. Burge). Cambridge: MIT Press.
• 7: J. Habermas (1990). Moral consciousness and communicative action (Translated by C. Lenhardt, and S. W. Nicholson). Cambridge: MIT Press.
• 8: C. E. M. G. Joad (1937) Guide to the philosophy of morals and politics. New York: Random House.
• 9: I. Kant (1929). Critique ofpure reason (Translated from the second edition {1787} by Norman Kemp Smith). London: Macmillan.
• 10: S. M. McMurrin (ed) (1987). Liberty, equality, and law. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
• 11: D. Primeaux, and B. S. Brennen (1997). Ethical considerations related to the accumulation and sale of data within the global communication community. Paper presented at the 47th annual conference, International Communication Association: Montreal.
• 12: J. Rawls (1987). The basic liberties and their priority. In McMurrin (1987), pp. 1-87.
• 13: J. B. Thompson (1993). The theory of the public sphere. Theory, culture and society, 10, 3, pp. 179-87, reprinted in Boyd-Barrett and Newbold (I995), pp. 252-59.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.1 Public Policy Issues
          Subjects: Ethics

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS
      H.4.3 Communications Applications
          Subjects: Electronic mail

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.1 Public Policy Issues
          Subjects: Privacy

General Terms:
Human Factors, Security, Theory