Digital media and connected technologies have brought about some new ethical challenges to the surface. Digital media ethics is the scientific and systematic study of ethical attitudes and problems in relation to the use of digital media. This paper discusses the role of digital media ethics in modern school education. First, it is argued that digital media ethics is best perceived as a dimension of digital competence more generally. Since the development of students’ digital competence is one of the central ambitions in modern school education, there is good reason to teach digital media ethics in school. Then, the authors go on to argue that there are at least three potential benefits from teaching digital media ethics: (i) students will increase their digital competence; (ii) students will develop their ability to use digital and connected technologies such as mobile phones for learning; and (iii) students will be helped in living a good life. Finally, the authors offer some reflections on challenges that might arise when digital media ethics is integrated in school education.
This paper argues that the "Argument from Moral Peer Disagreement" fails to make a case for widespread moral skepticism. The main reason for this is that the argument rests on a too strong assumption about the normative significance of peer disagreement (and higherorder evidence more generally). In order to demonstrate this, I distinguish two competing ways in which one might explain higher-order defeat. According to what I call the "Objective Defeat Explanation" it is the mere possession of higher-order evidence that explains defeat. I argue that this type of explanation is problematic and that it at best collapses into another explanation I call the "Subjective Defeat Explanation". According to this view, it is coming to believe that one's belief fails to be rational that explains defeat. Then I go on to argue that the Subjective Defeat Explanation is able to provide a straightforward explanation of higher-order defeat but that it entails that peer disagreement (and higher-order evidence more generally) only contingently gives rise to defeat, and importantly, that the condition it is contingent upon is very often not satisfied when it comes to moral peer disagreement specifically. As a result, it appears that moral knowledge is seldom threatened by moral peer disagreement.
Richard Rowland has recently argued that considerations based on moral disagreement between epistemic peers give us reason to think that cognitivism about moral judgments, i.e., the thesis that moral judgments are beliefs, is false. The novelty of Rowland’s argument is to tweak the problem descriptively, i.e., not focusing on what one ought to do, but on what disputants actually do in the light of peer disagreement. The basic idea is that moral peer disagreement is intelligible. However, if moral judgments were beliefs, and beliefs track perceived evidence, then moral peer disagreement would not be intelligible. Hence, moral judgments are not beliefs. The argument is both novel and interesting, but this paper argues that it fails to establish the conclusion. Beliefs are plausibly analyzed as constituted by dispositions to respond to what is perceived as evidence, but dispositions can always be interfered with. Provided a background explanation of why the disposition is not manifested, peer intransigence is quite intelligible.
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