A Compass for What Matters: Applying Virtue Ethics to Information Behavior

5.1 The Situationist Critique

Virtue ethics posits that we have virtues and vices that manifest in character and that these qualities are dynamically stable. For example, an honest person will tend to tell the truth. Starting in the 1960s, some psychologists began to cast doubt on whether people indeed have such qualities, suggesting instead that we respond much more locally to each particular situation – hence this became known as the “situationist” critique. For example, situationists would say there’s no such thing as an honest person; a person simply lies or tells the truth in response to the pressures and opportunities of each particular situation. Situationists argue that the empirical data support situationism and refute both virtue ethics and personality psychology (e.g., Harman, 1999).

However, the empirical claims of situationists have themselves been called into question. First, these claims rely on over-generalizations that are not supported by the findings that situationists cite (Wright et al., 2021, ch. 4). Moreover, the psychological studies that formed the basis of the situationist critique, such as those by Milgram and Zimbardo, have recently been revealed as dubious, if not fraudulent (Bregman, 2020; Le Texier, 2019; Singal, 2021). Next, more recent research demonstrates that even though there is situational variation in people’s actions, there are stable qualities that emerge over longer periods of time, just as virtue ethics would predict (Vallor, 2016; Wright et al., 2021).

Indeed, in a recent review, Wright et al. (2021, p. 17) emphasize that even perfectly virtuous people need not be infallible, as humans are by definition limited (we run out of time, suffer migraines, experience setbacks, etc.). Considering all this, Wright et al. offer a model of virtue that accounts for both the dynamism and stability of human behavior. This model draws on Whole Trait Theory from psychology, in which a trait’s expression is governed by three systems: inputs (occurrences in the environment and mind are interpreted as virtue-relevant or not); intermediate processing (inputs are interpreted with respect to virtue, including one’s motivations to be virtuous, the activation of goals, etc.); and outputs (based on the intermediate processing, a virtue is expressed or not through actions). This model suggests that a complete picture of virtue is found not only in an agent’s internal processing of events, but also in the correct perception of relevant stimuli and the expression of relevant thoughts and actions (Wright et al., 2021).

5.2 The Scalability Critique

Next, critics have observed that virtue ethics emerged in Antiquity, when the world was much different than it is today – societies were smaller, simpler, more closed, and more homogenous – and have suggested on these grounds that virtue ethics may no longer be actionable or useful. These critics, such as Luciano Floridi, suggest that virtue ethics doesn’t scale (Floridi, 2013). For instance, virtue ethics claims that morality can spread from particular individuals to families, communities, and societies through the bonds of learning and caring. Regarding this claim, critics may be concerned that though learning about the virtues may help any given individual, its mechanisms are not sufficient to spread virtue among communities and societies in today’s world, given the unpredictable emergent properties of complex and open societies (Floridi, 2013). This critique seems to overlook, first and foremost, the reality that human culture does spread, even in today’s complex and open world (perhaps especially so). Consider creative works (Harry Potter, Pokémon, and artistic styles) and social movements (animal rights, free software, and Black Lives Matter). If other cultural components can scale and spread, why should morality be uniquely unscalable? Indeed, Vallor makes an extended case that the openness and complexity of today’s world are precisely why virtue ethics is the best choice for guiding technology design compared to other ethical theories (Vallor, 2016).

As an outgrowth of the scalability critique, applied specifically to digital technology, we might make the observation that technology design and development today increasingly takes place at a few large companies within a corporate shareholder model, prioritizing short-term financial returns over the long-term social good. Observing this, adherents to the scalability critique of virtue ethics would suggest that cultivating virtue even among communities of consumers is not enough to ensure that emerging technologies will be conducive to virtue – that large-scale systemic change is necessary. Again, this critique may overlook the power of consumer choice in directing corporations’ product development as we “vote with our wallets” and advocate publicly. The proliferation of organic food and electric automobiles may serve as examples where this has been successful; purchasing power among a powerful few consumers was followed by government incentive and regulation as well as further corporate innovation in an upward spiral. Moreover, business leaders such as Jacqueline Novogratz provide a model for corporations that can make positive moral changes in the world while also being competitive and profitable in the market (Novogratz, 2020). The rise of “B Corporations,” which are certified for social and environmental performance, is also relevant along these lines (Kim, Karlesky, Myers, & Schifeling, 2016).

Related to the scalability critique is a concern about relativism. Given that virtue ethics has been developed in various civilizations and epochs, some touting different virtues as central, it may be impossible (or at least unjust) to expect the world to subscribe to one strand of virtue ethics (Floridi, 2013, p. 167). In response to this critique, Charles Ess has offered an analogy to technical standards. A global internet was only possible with shared protocols and other standards, even though local variation remains; in the same way, Ess argues, a globally interconnected humanity needs shared moral norms, local variation notwithstanding (Ess, 2006). Still, some may wonder if this is possible. On this point, Vallor writes:

Why should we think that [the global cultivation of shared virtues] is practically possible? Consider that the alternatives are to surrender any hope for continued human flourishing, to place all our hope in an extended string of dumb cosmic luck, or to pray for a divine salvation that we can do nothing to earn. … Moreover, if Aristotle had even some success in fostering the cultivation of civic virtues, if Buddhism has encouraged any more compassion and tolerance, or Confucianism more filial care and loyalty, what is to prevent a new tradition from emerging around the technomoral virtues needed for human flourishing today? (Vallor, 2016, pp. 56–57)

5.3 The Individualist Critique

Finally, because virtue ethics begins with the cultivation and activity of individuals, it may not seem appropriate as a global ethic when the most pressing moral issues are more collective than individual. Floridi suggests that the “genuine vocation” of virtue ethics is the individual, and it cannot readily apply to societies (but see the previous subsection); moreover, he suggests it is too Euro-centric to be appropriate for the whole world. Floridi worries that “if misapplied,” virtue ethics will foster narrow individualism, whereas what the world needs is broader moral cooperation and collaboration (Floridi, 2013, p. 167).

First, Jonas (1985) has noted that this critique stands for many ethical theories developed before the twenty-first century; such theories were meant to address moral questions that individuals face, not collectives, and in circumstances when that person’s actions would unfold within a foreseeable, stable present. More deeply, it seems that this critique is aimed at a straw-man version of virtue ethics. It is not the case that virtue ethics is narrowly concerned with a solipsistic individual, nor that it ignores systemic, situational, or environmental effects (MacIntyre, 1981). As Vallor writes, “virtue ethics treats persons not as atomistic individuals confronting narrowly circumscribed choices, but as beings whose actions are always informed by a particular social context of concrete roles, relationships, and responsibilities to others” (Vallor, 2016, p. 33). According to virtue ethics, we cannot cultivate virtue on our own; it takes a whole community, including parents, other family members, teachers, and friends – as well as designers, business and civic leaders, etc. Virtue ethics points to public morality just as much as to private morality, as “a civil person will have a strong interest in supporting and maintaining her fellow citizens’ capacities for excellence in public deliberation and action” (Vallor, 2016, p. 143). Critics such as Floridi ignore that virtue ethics flourished not only in ancient Greece; Confucian and Buddhist formulations of virtue ethics were always community-oriented. Even Aristotle, at the root of Western liberalism, described a virtue of civic friendship (Aristotle, 2014). As described in response to the scalability critique, virtue ethics is as much about infrastructure as it is about individuals’ character qualities.

5.4 Other Limitations of Virtue Ethics

As discussed earlier, virtue ethics calls for balance and prudence in navigating ambiguous moral situations. Following virtue ethics, moral agents must attend to the specifics of each situation – rather than, say, making decisions based on the type of situation. Moreover, virtue ethics suggests that people can become morally better over time through goal-setting, self-reflection, and practicing in the community. All this points to some inherent limitations to virtue ethics in addition to the challenges just discussed.

First, putting the virtues into practice may take time and deliberation. In a moral emergency, one may have to make a decision very quickly, without the luxury of time to reflect on every possibility. That said, virtue ethicists do acknowledge human limitations, such as finite time (Wright et al., 2021, p. 17). Virtue ethics asks us to do the best we can with the resources we have, rather than to take the objectively best course of action. Moreover, virtue ethics also suggests that our skills in applying the virtues grow over time, becoming more accurate and swift (Vallor, 2016).

Another limitation of virtue ethics is the absence of hard-and-fast rules, which may make it difficult to determine the right thing to do in any given situation. Virtue ethics discourages perfectionistic and broad-brush thinking, but it also may require deliberation (and therefore, as mentioned, time). Because of this characteristic, virtue ethics suggests that there is no single, best answer to what should be done in any given dilemma, just as there is no single, universal answer as to what qualities constitute virtues. Thus, uncertainties may arise – what if one’s reasoning is flawed? What if one is deluded into thinking something is moral when it is not? Still, other ethical theories may also not be ultimately satisfying; with consequentialism, for example, there may always be faraway domino effects that one does not see. In the end, I think, ethics always requires deliberation, and in the end, reasonable people may disagree.

A third limitation of virtue ethics is that it requires intrinsic motivation. Moral actors must desire to develop virtue within themselves. With other moral theories, it may be possible to enforce morality (e.g., a person could force others to follow a rule by threat of punishment), but virtue ethics requires that one’s motivations and justifications be in line with their actions. In short, people have to want to be good. Virtue ethics does suggest that morally good people also experience their lives to be better and therefore serve as exemplars to others, but others may not see these examples, or others may think what they are doing is good when it is not.

6.1 Moral Habituation

Virtue ethics contends that people become virtuous primarily through action, rather than thinking or reading about morality (Vallor, 2016). Over time, we get better at making moral decisions at the moment. The notion of moral habituation refers to this gradual improvement, as well as the ability to justify our decisions. With moral habituation, we have a reason for acting, the action is valued as good, and we repeat that action, which shapes our ongoing emotional states. This progress leads us to experience joy in performing moral actions, which in turn further strengthens our commitment to doing good (Vallor, 2016).

In the field of IB, the notion of habituation is best expressed with the information practice perspective. The practice perspective explains how social life is accomplished on an ongoing basis, and work in information practices suggests that much of our information-seeking and use is habitual in nature (Savolainen, 2008).

Information practices have not typically been connected to morality, but there are a few exceptions. For example, Potnis and Winberry (2022) use the information practice perspective to discuss information vulnerability, a lack of access to or inability to use high-quality information. Through a thematic analysis of the relevant literature, Potnis and Winberry identify seven information practices that people may use to alleviate information vulnerability, including becoming selective in choosing information sources and channels, building a support system, and sharing information. This work is not explicitly framed as information ethics, but it does show how through becoming habituated to these practices, people may better their lives and participate more meaningfully in community, ultimately becoming better moral actors. In that sense, it clearly resonates with the practice of moral habituation.

6.2 Relational Understanding

In virtue ethics, the human person is conceptualized as a fundamentally social being. We are formed through networks of relationships, and thus, we rely on others to help guide our actions. According to Vallor (2016), the practice of relational understanding is, first, the continual pursuit of a more precise and accurate view of our social relationships; and second, building the skill of acting upon this understanding in response to the moral exigencies of each particular relationship in each particular circumstance.

In IB, an exemplar of research demonstrating this perspective is Pam McKenzie’s work on the phenomenon of “keeping track,” which she and colleagues have explored in a series of publications. Most recently, McKenzie (2021) foregrounds the relational and moral components of keeping track of families. Through a multi-year empirical study of families, she finds that making and maintaining a family takes work that is supported by documents and information systems in many ways. “For example, physically distant family members may use text or phone calls to communicate in real time, and colocated family members may use notes, calendars, and lists in central locations like kitchens to share information over time” (McKenzie, 2021, p. 99). Family members are sometimes the objects of keeping track and sometimes collaborators in it, but they are eventually always beneficiaries of it. As McKenzie writes, systems for keeping track help create and communicate social relations within the family, and in turn, they also help family members choose actions with respect to those understandings that then strengthen the family.

6.3 Reflective Self-Examination

According to virtue ethics, moral principles are not one-size-fits-all. Rather, any moral decision must take into account our personal strengths and weaknesses. Assessing these accurately requires a habit of reflective self-examination. The goal of such examination is to discern how well we are conforming to the ideal moral self we aspire to be, taking into account our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and actions. Reflective self-examination engenders within us a sense of responsibility to correct our shortcomings – and eventually stirs up a sense of joy when we do so (Vallor, 2016).

The relationship between information practices and reflective self-examination goes back to Antiquity; Foucault (1988, 1997) writes of personal notebooks in Ancient Greece and Rome that were used to collect fragments of information, serving as a locus for self-reflection and personal growth.

In IB, some work has examined reflective self-examination. A good example is Siracky’s (2013) ethnographic study of spiritual journal keeping among Catholic students. She demonstrates how people’s journals facilitate personal and spiritual growth through their material form and the practices people cultivate with them. The time and attention that goes into selecting a journal, crafting its entries, rereading past entries, and so on, all constitute reflective self-examination.

Resonant with this, in the secular realm, Tholander and Normark (2020) present a study of bullet-journaling as a form of mindful self-tracking. While self-tracking generally connotes a sort of productivity and efficiency that is not necessarily linked with virtue, Tholander and Normark show how users of bullet journals may engage in reflection and even resistance against prevailing notions of efficiency.

6.4 Self-Direction

As humans, our actions are generally goal-directed. These goals may be big or small, long-term or short-term, implicit or explicit. However, we seldom consider why we have particular goals or wonder if we should have different ones, especially in the moral realm. But ethics is about intention and justification as much as action; and virtue ethics in particular asks us to generate a vision of our ideal future moral self – as Vallor writes, “the type of being that is worthy of my becoming in this world” (Vallor, 2016, p. 97) – to provide direction to our moral efforts. Without such insight, all the moral intentions and actions in the world may be fruitlessly misdirected. Indeed, virtuous development is said to be motivated in the first place by our observing moral exemplars in the community – those people we admire for their morality and thus seek to emulate (Zagzebski, 2017). The practice of self-direction entails courageous movement down the path we have chosen for our life. Because this is difficult, Vallor says that we must follow this path not for social gain but out of a true desire to cultivate righteousness for its own sake (Vallor, 2016).

Just as human activity in general is often goal-directed, much of the work in IB is, implicitly or explicitly, centered around goals. For example, work on how people seek and use information to accomplish tasks (e.g., Byström & Hansen, 2002) is implicitly goal-oriented. It is a truism in the field that people don’t want information per se, but they want to accomplish what they can do with that information.

The practice of self-direction considers oneself as the goal; and in the context of IB, this practice invites us to consider how we may change through working with information. This has been little commented upon in IB, but that is beginning to change. One example of work on moral self-direction in IB is the research on information experience (Gorichanaz, 2020), which explicitly theorizes the moral dimensions of self-construction with information. More recently, Ian Ruthven’s (2022) book Dealing with Change Through Information Sculpting theorizes how people engage with information amidst life’s exigencies – challenges, transitions, trauma and so on. Ruthven articulates three phases (understanding the shift, negotiating one’s change through that shift, and resolving one’s direction for the future) and the various information activities that characterize each phase. For instance, the understanding phase entails determining causes, the negotiating phase includes evaluating options, and the resolving stage includes creating narratives.

6.5 Moral Attention

Next, becoming virtuous requires understanding when moral action is called for. To do so, we must sensitize ourselves to the features around us that are morally relevant, which Vallor (2016) calls moral attention. At our best, we will be able to say not only that some feature is morally salient, but also why it is and what to do about it. Vallor offers a simple example of a hungry coyote stalking toward a defenseless toddler. Observing this, any person would understand the danger for the child and be stirred into action. But most situations are not so clear-cut. If we encounter a person on the street studying a map, we read their body language and facial expressions to determine if they need help, or if they’re just planning their route. If we see a bedraggled person watching us from a city bench, do we avert our eyes, cross the street, offer them some spare cash, bring them a new set of clothes, or invite them into our home for dinner and a wash? There are any number of subtle features of the situation that help us make these decisions. Indeed, we may make a decision that upon reflection we realize was the wrong one – hence the need for reflective self-examination. More difficult still are those encounters and situations that are protracted and dynamic: how best to act during an emerging pandemic, for example? Cultivating moral attention gradually helps us discern what each particular moral situation calls us to do; sometimes, this involves adapting or flouting social conventions or normative rules that otherwise would apply. In this way, we can respond flexibly to changing situations.

IB has long considered relevance a central concept. At heart, relevance is about attending to the various features of a document that make it suited or not to helping one achieve their goals. In the context of morality, the goals under consideration are moral ones – those related to getting along with each other well.

Recently, Haider and Sundin (2019) have proposed the concept of societal relevance to capture some of the moral aspects of relevance. As they write, societal relevance describes what information is beneficial to a community or society in a particular context. They argue for search systems that operationalize societal relevance as part of a strategy for strengthening the social fabric.

In addition to learning what to attend to, moral attention involves learning what to ignore. Anderson and Dourish (2005) described an information practice of “not noticing” as a moral issue. They studied seniors in an assisted care facility who were being tracked in various ways, ostensibly for their health and to aid communication with their family members. One of the findings of their study was that family members did not want to receive certain information that might damage the roles and relationships within the family – and how sometimes navigating this was challenging given the power dynamics and sociotechnical systems at play. When this navigation was successful, some information effectively became invisible. In terms of information, moral attention is about learning to find relevant and learning to render invisible information in ways appropriate to a given moral situation.

6.6 Prudential Judgment

Central to ethics is the question of making decisions and taking action, and likewise, Vallor argues that this list of practices would be incomplete without prudential judgment. This is “the ability to choose well, in particular situations, among the most appropriate and effective means available for achieving a noble or good end” (Vallor, 2016, p. 105), and having such an ability is necessary for acting in unanticipated or rapidly evolving situations. Prudential judgment involves interpreting our circumstances and emotions correctly, understanding our options and their possible consequences, and choosing the best among them. Prudential judgment thus unifies several of the practices listed above and focuses on the actions that one takes in response to those practices. For example, having clearly developed self-direction and moral attention, bolstered through reflective self-examination, equips a person to make the correct decisions in a difficult moral situation.

In IB, research on the outcomes of information seeking and the outcomes of information (often simply called information use; Kari, 2007) relate to this practice. Example of work in that area with a moral orientation is research by Mosier, Bartholomew, Meng, and Xavier (2007) on how people in an organization may use information seeking as part of their strategy to navigate an ambiguous moral situation, such as to help themselves become more sure of the situation.

6.7 Extension of Moral Concern

The final practice of cultivating virtue is extending a caring attitude beyond its initial scope. If the initial scope of our morality is to care for ourselves and our family, this practice asks us to care also for our neighbors, our fellow citizens, our fellow humans, our fellow creatures, and perhaps beyond (Floridi, 2013; Singer, 1981). This must be done appropriately, rather than indiscriminately – to the right degree, at the right time, to the right entities, and in the right way (Vallor, 2016). Vallor contends that this is the most powerful practice of these seven and also the most challenging.

In the information and computer sciences, Sukrit Venkatagiri and I have discussed the expanding circles of concern of IB an human–computer interaction (Gorichanaz & Venkatagiri, 2022). Our discussion shows how the scholarly concerns of these fields have expanded over the decades in terms of the human scale, social worlds, and phenomena under study, as well as in the diversity of methodologies used to study them and the ethical values implicit in the research. Across all these dimensions, IB research is becoming more diverse. Amidst this, many scholars are turning toward issues in justice (Jaeger, Shilton, & Koepfler, 2016), and morally laden concepts are beginning to have greater currency, such as information poverty (Britz, 2006) and information precarity (Wall, Campbell, & Janbek, 2017).

These comments are metatheoretical, in that they demonstrate the extension of moral concern occurring within the research community. However, there is an opportunity to examine whether and how everyday people and system users are undergoing extensions of moral concern as well, and how designers and developers might better help them to do so. This is particularly urgent as society continues to grapple with the unexpected consequences of new information technologies. To this end, Vallor poses a number of questions:

Are certain kinds of technology expanding or narrowing the scope of our moral concern, or do they exert no influence on this aspect of moral practice? Might some emerging technologies change how we express our moral concern for others? Might they allow some forms of care, compassion, and civility to be expressed more easily than others? Could some emerging technologies exacerbate moral tribalism, neglect, or incivility, shrinking the circle of our moral concern for others? Might other technologies have the opposite effect, encouraging the exercise of moral imagination and perspective-taking that enrich our capacities for moral extension? How can we drive more resources into development of the latter, rather than the former? What is the potential risk to human flourishing if we can’t, or won’t? (Vallor, 2016, p. 117)