Sabrina Lopez

The Ethics of Big Tech: An Evaluation of Harm and Responsibility

Started Apr. 12, 2021

Abstract or project description

There are harms being perpetuated against users by so-called ‘Big Tech’ corporations. When harm is done, one feels naturally prompted to seek responsibility from the harm doer. However in my paper, The Ethics of Big Tech: An Evaluation of Harm and Responsibility, I reject the notion that corporations are fully moral agents capable of bearing moral responsibility, and argue instead that they are instead vicarious agents of the moral agents which helm them. I then defend that we nevertheless have duties to prevent these corporations from harming us. First, I disassemble popular arguments both in favor of and against corporate moral agency and find corporations to be non-moral, more specifically ‘vicarious’ agents which act as extensions of controlling, intentionally ‘interlocked’ moral agents. Second, I utilize a thought experiment in the form of an alien invasion to demonstrate the duties moral agents have towards harm avoidance in order to demonstrate a way in which harmed technology users might proceed following the qualification of corporations as non-moral agents. I conclude that while vicarious agents cannot themselves be held morally responsible, the corporation can and must be regulated-- as well as those morally culpable agents of which they are an extension held responsible-- by harmed moral agents in line with their duty to act in a manner pursuant to harm avoidance.