Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Ethics Of Facebook, Michael W. Austin

The Chautauqua Journal

In this paper, I offer a moral analysis of Facebook. What are the morally positive features of Facebook? What are its morally negative features? I will limit my attention to the personal and interpersonal aspects of the use of this technology, and set aside an ethical analysis of the business practices, both past and present, of Facebook. My analysis, then, is not comprehensive. I will argue for a particular thesis concerning Facebook, namely, that in many ways Facebook’s moral value for a person depends on the character of that person, though the structure of this technology is not morally neutral. …