Utilitarianism Vs Duty Ethics

Introduction

Decision making has been a fundamental part of humanity since time immemorial. Human beings are confronted by opportunities and episodes in which they have to make a choice between varieties of courses of action, all of which have different consequences. Needless to say, different individuals would make different decisions depending on their guiding principles. More often than not, human beings have an easy time making decisions or choices between conflicting alternatives as the alternatives have clear-cut limitations, consequences and benefits. However, this is not always the case as there are instances when the alternatives have overlapping benefits and limitations thereby increasing the difficulty of decision-making. This is what has informed scholars to device varied theories that would guide decision-making. These may be used in the case provided to offer different course of action.

In the case provided, I am a director of customer service for a social networking site named Yourface, which has been allowing third party companies to have access to all the private information pertaining to the entire subscriber base. This is a breach to the privacy of subscribers especially considering that they place quite a lot of personal information in the network. So far, the breach has gone undiscovered, with the social networking site reaping enormous amounts of profits from this breach. However, some tech-savvy subscribers have recognized this breach and alerted my office on the same. This leaves me in a dilemma as to the course of action that I should take as each would come with some benefits and equally enormous disadvantages. I could send a mass message informing the subscribers on how they can change their security and privacy settings thereby foregoing the profits or leave things as they are. The course of action to be taken may be informed by different theories.

In line with utilitarianism, I would leave things as they are especially considering that it is only the savvy subscribers who may have recognized the breach in the subscribers’ privacy. This theory requires that I examine the consequences of any course of action, list their consequences and weigh those consequences so as to choose the one that results in the greatest good for the largest number of people. A close examination of the circumstances at hand reveals that taking no action would be the best choice. If I was to send a mass message to the subscribers, chances are that they would change their security or privacy settings, thereby making it difficult for the companies to access the information or data that they need. This would deprive the social networking site of the much needed profits, leading to layoffs or even the overall folding up of the networking site altogether. This would also be detrimental to the subscribers as they would lose a means for keeping tabs with their friends, family and others. The alternative would be keeping things as they are, which would yield enormous profits to the social networking site and keep the jobs of the employees. While the privacy of the subscribers may be at stake, it goes without saying that what they do not know cannot harm them. The application of this theory comes with a number of weaknesses. First, examining the consequences alone means that good ends would be likely to justify evil means. Needless to say, the breach of individual’s privacy is not morally right. However, the consequences of this course of action would justify such breach. Second, the theory comes as extremely dehumanizing as the subscribers would be used as a means to attaining an end. Subscribers would have their privacy infringed upon so as to sustain the company and retain it profitability. Nevertheless, the theory is extremely simple and easy to apply as it only involves an examination of the consequences and weighing them, thereby determining the most appropriate course of action.

Kant’s Duty Ethics

However, the same dilemma would be tackled differently if Duty Ethics theory was to be applied. According to the readings, this theory only examines the intentions with no consideration as to the consequences of the course of action. In this regard, I would be focusing on what is right or wrong and take the course of action that follows the morally “right” path irrespective of the consequences. In this case, I would choose to protect the privacy of the subscribers through sending a mass message to them alerting them about the breach and giving them information on how they can change their privacy and security settings so as to prevent this breach. This course of action would not consider that the social networking site would lose enormous amounts of profits from companies that would have accessed the private information thereby threatening the sustainability of the company. The theory comes with a number of weaknesses in it applicability. First, it seems to ignore human needs and wants. It does not consider the fact that while subscribers may need to have their information protected, employees and the social networking sites’ shareholders would want the site to be profitable and sustainable in the long-term. In addition, the readings state that the theory does not consider the pain in the real world. Of course, the question is whether the breach of privacy should be ranking higher than profitability and sustainability of the site. In fact, it ignores the fact that there is no universally correct course of action.

Personal perspective

While these two theories offer good alternatives, my course of action would not be restricted to either of them. In my opinion, the profitability and sustainability of the social networking site is extremely beneficial even to me as an individual. In essence, allowing the companies to mine the subscribers’ personal information would continue. However, proper safeguards would be put in place through examining the intentions of the companies. In this case, the companies that need data from the site would be carefully scrutinized so as to ensure that they use the information so used in a manner that does not jeopardize the security of the subscribers. On the same note, the subscribers would be advised to include a nickname (just as a precaution), which would be their primary identification.

In conclusion, decision-making is usually a complicated process involving choosing between conflicting alternatives. However, theories have been devised to ease the decision-making process. In the case provided, utilitarianism would involve examination of the consequences, in which case I would leave things as they are as it is more beneficial to the employees, shareholders and subscribers. However, following duty ethics theory necessitates that I send a mass message to the subscribers on how they can access their privacy settings irrespective of the fact that such course of action would have detrimental effects on the profitability of the social site. Personally, I would leave things as they are but investigate the intentions of such companies that seek personal data so as to ensure that the security of the subscribers is not in jeopardy. On the same note, I would advise them to use pseudonyms or nicknames as the primary identification.