by Peter McOwan, Queen Mary University of London
Yesterday we published ‘Ethics – What would you do?‘ which had a poll at the end where readers could pick one of three options. If you’ve not selected your option you might like to do that first before reading on…
The answers
If you picked Option 1
1) Go ahead and launch. After all, there are still plenty of parts to the game that do work and are fun, there will always be some errors, and for this game in particular thousands have been signing up for text alerts to tell them when it’s launched. It will make many thousands happy.
That means you follow an ethical approach called ‘Act utilitarianism’.
Act Happy
The main principle of this theory, put forward by philosopher John Stuart Mill, is to create the most happiness (another name for happiness here is utility thus utilitarianism). For each situation you behave (act) in a way that increases the happiness of the largest number of people, and this is how you decide what is wrong or right. You may take different actions in similar situations. So you choose to launch a flawed game if you know that you have pre-sales of a hundred thousand, but another time decide to not launch a different flawed game where there are only one thousand pre-sales, as you wont be making so many people unhappy. It’s about considering the utility for each action you take. There is no hard and fast rule.
If you picked Option 2
2) Cancel the launch until the game is fixed properly, no one should have to buy a game that doesn’t work 100 per cent.
That means you follow an ethical approach called ‘Duty Theory’
Do your Duty
Duty theories are based on the idea of there being universal principles, such as ‘you should never ever lie, whatever the circumstances’. This is also known as the dentological approach to ethics (philosophers like to bring in long words to make simple things sound complicated!). The German philosopher Emanuel Kant was one of the main players in this field. His ‘Categorical Imperative’ (like I said long words…) said “only act in a way that you would want everyone else to act” (…simple idea!). So if you don’t think there should ever be mistakes in software then don’t make any yourself. This can be quite tough!
If you picked Option 3
3) Go ahead and launch. After all it’s almost totally working and the customers are looking forward to it. There will always be some errors in programs: it’s part of the way complicated software is, and a delay to game releases leads to disappointment.
You would be following the approach called ‘Rule utilitarianism’.
Spread a little happiness
Say something nice to everyone you meet today…it will drive them crazy
The main principle of this flavour of utilitarianism theory, put forward by philosopher Jeremy Bentham, is to create the most happiness (happiness here is called utility thus utilitarianism). You follow general rules that increase the happiness of the largest number of people, and this is how you decide what’s wrong or right. So in our dilemma the rule could be ‘even if the game isn’t 100% correct, people are looking forward to it and we can’t disappoint them’. Here the rule increases happiness, and we apply it again in the future if the same situation occurs.
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EPSRC supports this blog through research grant EP/W033615/1.
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