I realise that, even with the way I have titled this blog entry, I have shown bias on the matter of schools "spying" on students. However, my aim is to assess this situation as methodically and unemotionally as possible, in order to eliminate any emotional or otherwise bias. So, here goes!
THE SITUATION
The IT Manager at my school created a false facebook account, with a false name and identity, in order to befriend other St Peter's students and essentially keep tabs on the stuff they were posting on facebook. This blog will discuss the ethical (or otherwise) nature of this behaviour.
THE DISCUSSION
There are really only two positions to take on the actions of the St Peter's IT Manager: That the behaviour is ethical, or that it is not. Here is an argument for each side.
The Behaviour is Ethical
A school must protect both its students and its reputation. In order to do that, school's must keep an eye on the behaviour of the students who have a stake in that reputation. So, if the students must essentially be spied on to keep them and the reputation of the school safe, why shouldn't they?
Surely it is ethical to monitor the facebook profile comments and pictures etc. of the school's students to achieve saftey for both the students and the schools reputation. Such a small sacrafice in terms of privacy and honesty is worth the potential disaster such actions divert.
In a tossup between privacy/honesty and student safety/reputation, surely safety and reputation wins.
The Behaviour is Not Ethical
Every human has a number of basic rights that are afforded to them no matter what the circumstances. Privacy is one such right, and a school should not be able to breach this right, even if it's reputation could be at stake. Plain and simple.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
The above discussion is based on the assumption that the IT Manager of the school is using a false profile to befriend other students just to see if they are doing or saying anything they shouldn't - which is what he is doing.
However, if there was already some kind of indication that the student or students in question had said or done something on their facebook page that put the school or themselves in danger, would the actions of the St Peter's IT Manager be ethical then?
CONCLUSION
It is my judgement that the IT Manager (or anyone else, for that matter) spying on students on facebook by creating a false identity and befriending them, is unethical. Every human has a right to privacy, and nothing, school or otherwise, has a right to breach that - at least not without some indication of wrongdoing.
The philisophical side of the above discussion is all very well and good, but in practice the kind of spying discussed goes on every day. I can't see change coming there - schools, employers and other people will continue to use facebook as a means to assess their student/potential employee or whatever else.
Hopefully, this breaching of privacy will not become any more prominent or serious.
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February 08, 2011
February 07, 2011
TOK Journal #15, Date of Writing: 01/02/10, Topic: Absolute Distinctions Between True and False
As a practice task for my TOK class, we were all given an essay topic to plan individually. Here are my thoughts on the topic, after discussion with Bradley Joubert. They are a little disjointed, but interesting none the less...
TOPIC: "There are no absolute distinctions between what is true and what is false."
-I could discuss the difference between reletive and absolute certainty.
-Is absolute certainty impossible? Is it only reletive certainty that can be achieved?
-Reletive certainty always has an aspect of doubt to it. Does the possibility of doubt about something, no matter how small the posibility, mean that absolute truths are impossible and thus there can be no absolute distinctions between true and false?
All of my thinking so far, though, has been dependant on the assumption that truth is particular to the individual. This assumption itself, however, can be bought into question.
Wikipedia's Epistemology page states that "...epistemology defines knowledge as being of the truth..." This would indicate that knowledge cannot exist without truth. From the definition, one can extract that truth is particular to the individual - otherwise, how is it possible that knowledge can exist, even when it is based on what we now know to be incorrect?
An example of this kind of knowledge would have been of people "knowing" the earth was flat. Back many years ago, this knowledge was justified, true and belived. According to Plato's definition of knowledge, it is possible for knowledge (a justified, true belief) to exist, even if the "true"ness of that knowledge changes from person to person.
This is all a fairly shaky foundation, but a foundation none the less, for drawing the conclusion that, in fact knolwedge is particular to the individual.
So, now that we can assume that knowledge and therefore truth is particular to an individual, and we know that no human can be absolutely certain of anything (only reletively certain), it can be said that there are no absolute boundries between truth and falsity.
This proves correct when truth is particular to the individual due to the unattainability of absolute certainty as discussed above. Because there is always room for error, there is always a hazy line between true and false - nothing is absolute.
Does this theory prove correct for the idea of "universal truths" as well? Assuming we define "universal truth" as something that is true independant of human input, perhaps not. Why? Because maybe certainty, reletive or absolute, is something manufactored by humans. but, thats another discussion. For now, adios!
TOPIC: "There are no absolute distinctions between what is true and what is false."
-I could discuss the difference between reletive and absolute certainty.
-Is absolute certainty impossible? Is it only reletive certainty that can be achieved?
-Reletive certainty always has an aspect of doubt to it. Does the possibility of doubt about something, no matter how small the posibility, mean that absolute truths are impossible and thus there can be no absolute distinctions between true and false?
All of my thinking so far, though, has been dependant on the assumption that truth is particular to the individual. This assumption itself, however, can be bought into question.
Wikipedia's Epistemology page states that "...epistemology defines knowledge as being of the truth..." This would indicate that knowledge cannot exist without truth. From the definition, one can extract that truth is particular to the individual - otherwise, how is it possible that knowledge can exist, even when it is based on what we now know to be incorrect?
An example of this kind of knowledge would have been of people "knowing" the earth was flat. Back many years ago, this knowledge was justified, true and belived. According to Plato's definition of knowledge, it is possible for knowledge (a justified, true belief) to exist, even if the "true"ness of that knowledge changes from person to person.
This is all a fairly shaky foundation, but a foundation none the less, for drawing the conclusion that, in fact knolwedge is particular to the individual.
So, now that we can assume that knowledge and therefore truth is particular to an individual, and we know that no human can be absolutely certain of anything (only reletively certain), it can be said that there are no absolute boundries between truth and falsity.
This proves correct when truth is particular to the individual due to the unattainability of absolute certainty as discussed above. Because there is always room for error, there is always a hazy line between true and false - nothing is absolute.
Does this theory prove correct for the idea of "universal truths" as well? Assuming we define "universal truth" as something that is true independant of human input, perhaps not. Why? Because maybe certainty, reletive or absolute, is something manufactored by humans. but, thats another discussion. For now, adios!
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