Thursday 29 July 2010

Surveillance and morality

Reading an interesting article on the effect on morality of surveillance, I start to get the point. Doing what's right because you fear being caught is still a moral loss: you would do it, but you are held back by intense self-interest. Conversely, wanting to do what's right is a moral win. With surveillance everywhere, our moral compass atrophies until all our actions are guided by fear of being caught - as the article says, we go on "moral auto-pilot". The end result, as I see it, would be people who don't even know what's right and wrong, so when faced with the choice in the absence of any surveillance will just choose at random or for greatest convenience. They're not doing wrong or doing right, they're just doing.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The mental image conjures up babies rather than psychopaths.
PPS - And that's the article's point: surveillance stunts our moral growth.

2 comments:

Charles said...

this article reminds me of my everyday life....

If i couldn't get caught... oh the places i'd go....


http://arealgoodblog.blogspot.com

John said...

There's a bit of a catch-22 with surveillance, morality and trust. If you're always watched, you'll never learn, but if you never learn, you always have to be watched.