Ethical Issues Of Cyber Technology Research

Humanity has entered into the era of Cyber-technology, in which we have to face such an ethic dilemma: Cyber-technology has given rise to a series of brand-new social ethical problems along with great convenience it brought us, but these social ethical problems apparently can not all be handled appropriately enough on the basis of existing policies and regulations. Therefore, we should not only establish new rules to fill up those "policy vacuum" but also provide ethical and theoretical supports to those new policies. And what kind of ethical theories should be adopted as the basis for the solution of those ethical problems caused by Cyber-technology in a fair and evenhanded way has become the focus of discussion in contemporary ethics academic community.During the development of human society, ethical theories had been divided into two categories according to different purposes with which we deal with moral behaviors or different attitudes we hold toward happiness, welfare, benefits and needs -Deontology and Consequentialism. Given that Deontology and Consequentialism have profound influence on the effective regulation of human behaviors, they certainly become valuable theoretical source for reference when we are dealing with those ethical problems caused by Cyber-technology.The feature of Deontology can be characterized as below. It focuses attention on ethical motives and perceives duty or responsibility as the core concept. It sets the whole benefit of a society or a community and its distributional equity as moral standards. It focuses attention not only on the benefit and purpose of singular moral agents, but also more on those of all moral agents as a whole. Its pursuit of the effectiveness of regulations has always been based on universalism, or even on absolute morality. It can mainly be represented by Kantian ethics and Rawls' Social Contract Theory.Consequentialism viewpoints can be described as below. The value of a behavior is totally determined by its consequence; it is the consequence of a behavior that is valued a lot, not the motive of a behavior. It adheres to the appraisal principle of morality experience positivism, expressing strong morality empiricism or morality realism. Morality Consequentialism is more apt to an axiology thinking way of individual virtue or personality morality, seldom follow the deontology thinking way of society morality, and it frequently associates with morality axiology or morality eudaimonism. Because Morality Consequentialism puts emphasis on the motive value of behavior, it relatively depreciates the value of the means or methods used for purpose realization, and it therefore frequently associate with some forms of morality Utopia theory, even becoming the ethical basis of Social Utopia. The representative theory of Consequentialism is Utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism are the modern forms of classical utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism judges the validity of moral behavior based on the consequence caused by behavior itself and the difficulty facing it is how to evaluate the consequence of behavior itself precisely. Rule utilitarianism judges the justification of moral behavior in accordance with the consequence caused by universal morality rules observed by behavior.The history of ethical practice demonstrates that, though Deontology and Consequentialism had played an important directing role in human life, they have deficiencies respectively. There is a scene we constantly see: the conclusion we draw from analysis based on Deontology and that we draw from analysis based on Consequentialism are not in consistency with each other, and sometimes they contradict each other. Then which of the two conclusions derived from the two theories is more persuasive? This is the exact problem we have to face when we are analyzing those ethic problems caused by Cyber-technology on the basis of Deontology and Consequentialism. In other words, different ethic theories based on which we consider those ethic problems caused by Cyber-technology from different perspectives seem all possess some interpretative strengths. However, we can derive different or even contradicting analytical conclusions from the same problem or case, of which we can get a clear knowledge when ethic problems in issue of network information, Software Piracy and Dital Divide problems, and ethic problems about computer virus and Hacker are discussed in this dissertation. Apparently, sole application of Deontology or Consequentialism in solving those problems caused by Cyber-technology is not enough, no matter in terms of methodology or theoretical criteria of moral judgment.Therefore, this dissertation tries to advocate the integration or transcendence of traditional ethic theories through analysis of those ethic problems caused by Cyber-technology, in other words, realize Dialectical Unity of Deontology and Consequentialism by a fusion of the two. The approaches are: advocating fusion of Generallism and Particularism in morality methodology, maintaining necessary tension between Absolutism and Relativism, trying hard to transcend the dichotomy of the inside reason and the external reason, beyond the Rules Ethics and Virtue Ethics to achieve complementary, following the mainstream of contemporary practical philosophy, to revive Aristotleim, to improve Kantism as well as to correct Consequentialism.