Piracy There Are a Couple

¶ … Piracy

There are a couple of fundamental philosophical approaches that can be used to analyze the issue of whether or not Justin's parents should have been given his email after his death. One school is the deontological school, wherein the morality of an action is absolute, regardless of the outcome. The other is the consequentialist school, wherein the morality of an action is dictated by its outcome. This paper will examine the question of Justin's email in the context of each of those schools, from the perspective of Yahoo.

At the core of deontological ethics is the idea that actions have absolute morality. The outcome of the action is irrelevant to the question of that action's morality. Whereas many acts are outright immoral to most deontological philosopher's the morality of most human actions is subject to a certain degree of interpretation. The bounds of morality, therefore, are dictated by the moral norms. Within deontological theory, there are two main perspectives to consider -- agent-centered and victim-centered. (Alexander & Moore, 2007)

Agent-centered theory is based on the premise that the agent, in this case Yahoo, has a set of obligations and permissions that drive action (or inaction). Mr. Ellsworth's Yahoo email account came with a set of permissions and obligations, as outlined in the user agreement. From Yahoo's perspective, the agreement guides the morality of their actions. There is nothing from a deontological perspective that would suggest that Yahoo should not uphold that agreement, even in the event of Mr. Ellsworth's death.

Victim-centered theory focuses more on rights as a guideline for the moral imperative. The right of Mr. Ellsworth to privacy while living is enshrined in the agreement. In this case, however, there is the question of the time frame for those rights. It does not hold that Mr. Ellsworth maintains his privacy rights after his death, as the rights were bounded in a contract with Yahoo that, legally, expires when Mr. Ellsworth dies. However, if the parents are viewed as the other victims in this situation, it is then important to examine how their rights can set the moral imperative. Under deontological theory, the intent of the parents comes into question, in that good intent on their part aligns them with the inherently moral position. However, the parents never made any agreement with Yahoo, so in that way they never set any moral imperative with the company. Thus, Yahoo's agreement with Mr. Ellsworth would appear to trump the position of the parents with respect to the defining moral imperative of this situation.

Consequentialist ethics contends that the morality of an action derives from its outcome. This school derives from utilitarianism, wherein an act is only morally right if the positive outcomes outweigh the negative ones (Sinnot-Armstrong, 2006). Under our scenario, the parents suffer because they are denied access to their son's email. The son is dead, so is irrelevant to the question. Yahoo does not suffer from the decision and it would be relatively effortless to meet the parents' request. Taken in isolation, consequentialist ethics would dictate that Yahoo allow the parents access to Mr. Ellsworth's email.

However, in today's legal environment, such actions cannot reasonably be taken in isolation. If Yahoo sets a precedent, they will be asked to release this information time and again in this circumstance. They would also need to defend against abuse of this by demanding proof of death, and other such burdening verifications. While duplicating a right action many times over only yields multiple right actions, surrendering the account access could create a precedent by which privacy rights could be violated in other instances. If in those instances harm is done to living persons, then the consequences would flow back to that original decision, rendering it immoral. Thus, the morality of this decision is guided in part by the likelihood that this decision would start the company down this particular slippery slope.

Yahoo decided to wait for a court order to release the email. From a consequentialist perspective, Yahoo was uncertain of whether or not their decision would ultimately be a morally right one. Thus, they deferred the matter to the courts. The company's interest is to protect its shareholders, and upholding its contracts is a part of that commitment. Therefore, it would have been unreasonable for Yahoo to follow a consequentialist approach in this question at all. The consequences of breaking the privacy contract without court order could have led to a reduction in Yahoo's customer base, as other firms would be viewed as having better privacy integrity. Thus, Yahoo viewed their shareholders as part of the outcome equation.