But because the Internet ("the Net") exists within societies that have long-standing traditions and laws, its rapid assimilation into the "real world" is provoking tensions and confrontations that are now being played out in the legal domain. Cyberenthusiasts sing the praises of the body electric, a global realm of freewheeling computer networks where speech is open and no restrictive rules apply. Peter Hyman and Julie Ziegler, members of the News Study Group, provided research help for this article. Individually or jointly, they have written about the Internet for American Heritage, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, and other publications. They are the authors of, among other books, The Spot: The Rise of Political Advertising on Television (MIT Press, 3d ed., 1992). STEPHEN BATES, a writer and lawyer, is a senior fellow at the Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies, a nonpartisan think tank. EDWIN DIAMOND is a journalist and director of the News Study Group at New York University. But as millions of settlers move into cyberspace, the new medium must accomodate the sometimes ill-suited legal restraints of civilization. This discursive approach based on transparency and confidentiality helps to further distinguish between ethical and unethical business behaviors.Īt the electronic frontier of computer networks, rules and regulations have been few. On the other hand, venal behaviors must remain confidential to hide the corresponding lack of consistency. We argue, however, that ethical business has an interest in demonstrating its consistency between communication and behavior by a transparent attitude. Because everyone prefers to communicate that they act ethically, ethical business remains ambiguous until some economic interest is actually sacrificed. Combining ethical concerns with economic interest, ethical business is in turn seen as an optimal form of rationality between venality and sacrifice. However, behaviors that are profitable but unethical, and behaviors that are ethical but not profitable, are all treated as rational (openness). Behaviors that are neither ethical nor profitable are considered irrational (non-arbitrariness). In order to express ethical dilemmas in a way which opposes economic interest with ethical concerns, we propose a model of rational behavior that combines these two irreducible dimensions in an open but not arbitrary manner. This paper argues that economic rationality and ethical behavior cannot be reduced one to the other, thus casting doubt on the validity of assertions such as ‘profit is ethical’ or ‘ethics pays’.
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