What is Cyber Bullying?
Cyber bullying can be defined as the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group that is intended to harm others. It comes in many forms such as racial hate and sexual harassment.
The Moral Issue and the Debate surrounding it
The moral issue of cyber bullying is that it is completely robbing innocent people of their dignity. When a person has no self respect, it can cause depression because of low self esteem. It can become so bad that the victim may cause suicide. The debate surrounding cyber bullying is that the government should make changes in the law structure keeping in mind the brutality of cyber bullying. What is being done about this sometimes fatal issue? Well the answer can be found just as easily as a cyber bully's victim: Websites. When anything to do on the topic of cyber bullying is typed into Google, Yahoo, and Ask, there hundreds of thousands of search results are shown. These sites are sites based on cyber bullying prevention. There are also sites that are listed about prevention of classroom bullying, workplace bullying, and endless amount of news stories on cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is something that is very frowned upon in any society. Nobody deserves to be cyber bullied.
How do norms function in the search to maintain good moral and social order?
- Norms are declared by authority
There are moral norms our society that in a way keeps our society in peace and order. The 10 Commandments can be considered as norms. These 10 norms are declared by God and He expects all humans to obey them. “Thou shall not kill” is one of the 10 Commandments. When a person commits suicide due to cyber bullying, I think it is considered the bully's fault.
- Norms involve our freedom
As such a privilege as freedom, we should be using freedom to do good. We are blessed with freedom, so we should bless others with it. By standing up against cyber bullying, we can put an end to it and that would save lives. This is morally normal to stand up and help others when they are being harassed. Our freedom is a resource of help when acting in the good.
Which basic principles of the catholic moral teachings can be applied to cyber bullying?
- Principles of double effect
This can easily be applied to this moral issue. There are four conditions of the double effect. The first condition is that the act must be morally good or indifferent. Second, the bad outcome must not be done on purpose, third, the good result may not be caused by the bad result, and fourth, the good result must be proportionate to the bad result. When the double effect happens, if these conditions are met, then the action is morally correct despite the bad outcome. Cyber bullying applies to this basic principle of the Catholic moral teachings because it does not, and never will meet any of the four conditions; therefore cyber bullying will never be morally correct.
- Natural law
The standards that govern human behaviour is natural law. Natural law was given to us by God. It is basically our conscience telling us right from wrong. Cyber Bullying is something that is done on purpose and goes against the natural law. The bully ignores their conscience; therefore they are vulnerable to do things that they don't think are wrong, like cyber bullying. The fact that the natural law is broken is morally incorrect. Breaking the natural law is like going against moral norms because it is just natural and normal to follow the norms and your conscience.
- Common good
The common good is something that benefits humans. We humans depend on the internet for information that benefits us. When people are abusing the freedom of the internet, it is ignoring the common good and can potentially harm people.
What did I learn from this?
Cyber bullying is actually very dangerous to society. I can ruin lives and actually kill people. I think the biggest thing I learned is that cyber bullying is a huge problem among thousands of innocent people. I also learned that there are millions of sites that give you advice on ways to prevent bullying in all of its forms.
