(puppy dog eyes)

I would have to agree with you - generally, consequentialist ethics aren’t very good to use in the v/blogosphere. There are just way too many factors, like you said.

I think for people to have an ethical framework with the v/blogosphere, it is a good idea to have an eclectic one. I haven’t found a set of ethics that works perfectly for every situation, and that is probably why philosophers are debating things ad infinitum! :)

A good example of an ethical quandary within the v/blogosphere is how do you handle trolls?

In some cases, ignoring the trolls does not succeed. In some other cases it does.

And for some, you just have to be harsh to make them stop trolling. For me, I weigh the long-term consequences on that. But I guess you are right about my strong lean towards deontological thinking, because I also have a sense of duty to stop something bad, if I can.

Great discussion here! :)

Long term consequences versus short term consequences - another great topic to ponder! Philosophers often refer to this as the issue of prudence, yet another topic you can also check out in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This excerpt briefly discusses that value of the virtue of prudence as viewed by Thomas Aquinas - check out section 3. http://plato.stanford.edu/entr.....-medieval/

Most ethical theories that use consequences as the measuring stick emphasize long term consequences over short term consequences; your philosophical intuition serves you well here. To illustrate with a simple example from medicine: the short term consequence of pain (harm) in setting a broken arm is outweighed by the long term benefits of having an arm with full functionality (or something close to it). Applying prudence here is fairly straightforward in a simple case like this since you are weighing the short term harm (pain in setting the broken arm) over the long term harm (having an arm that does not function well, perhaps having chronic pain as a result of the way the broken bone healed, and so forth).

The problem with consequentialist ethics is that it can get really complicated in a hurry once you start incorporating the consequences on all parties who are involved (including the possibility of future generations) and all of the variables therein. FWIW, I think that ethics of the blogosphere/vlogosphere is complicated enough without having to deal with the problem of future generations, but that’s just me. We COULD expand our discussion to include the effects of harm on future generations, say, the amount of resources (human capital, electricity, and so forth) expended on this discussion might be put to better use elsewhere for future and current generations. This is otherwise known as a variation on the “no-rest” objection to consequentialist thinking; in other words, there is a better use of your time - in terms of working toward consequences that result in more benefit/less harm than what you are doing now. :)

As someone remarked to me yesterday, “I took a philosophy class once; it made my head hurt!”

(Un)fortunately, there’s no panacea for headaches of the philosophical sort…