An Ethical Review Of On-Line Participation In Politics

The rapid development of Internet has not only changed people’s life widely and deeply, but also offered a very convenient platform and extremely important channel for people to participate in Politics. Originally, only a minority of elites can participate in the formulation of national policy and, according to Representative Democracy, only the government can make decisions on Politics. As a new way of democracy, the on-line discussion on Politics now breaks through these limits. Its openness, convenience, interactivity and universality asked for an improvement in citizen’s consciousness and political participation, which is helpful for promoting the development of democracy. Its spontaneity, groupment, virtuality and nature of non-regulatory produced a new ethical order of discussing Politics which is different from the mode of regulations. As the on-line participating in Politics is not only a political issue but also an ethical problem, studying it from the perspective of ethics has internal gist.The on-line discussion on Politics of our country is a deed that both common people and officials can participate politically. Its objects include political systems, government behaviors and officials’ virtue. As the on-line discussion on Politics of our country means that citizens express consciously their expectations, safeguard their own interests and take on the responsibility to their county, it is a deed that has ethical nature. It regards moral affirmation and moral criticism as its basic ways, the morality of political system, the improvement of national governance and objection to officials’ corruption its moral purpose. As a result, it has successfully produced some positive moral effects, such as the building of ethical idea, the optimization of democracy and improvement of citizens’ ethical quality. There is no denying that during the on-line discussion on Politics of our country, some negative moral effects also appeared. For example, the morality of Political system is criticized, the government’s credibility affected, and officials’ character questioned. These consequences is caused due to the slow transformation of governments’ function, the anomie of some officials’ behavior, lacking of in-place media supervision and the non-rationalization of net citizens’ network behavior. In order to prevent the occurrence of these negative moral consequences, moral regulations of on-line discussion on Politics must be finished through establishing its moral principles, perfecting its moral mechanism and optimizing its moral measures.