February Response (3-2) -- Surveillance = Morality?

Article: Does surveillance make us morally better?
By Emrys Westacott

Thesis: Surveillance – although it could help us become a better person – is morally a bad thing because it inflicts our personal space and our conscience.

                From hidden cameras to noting everything you do, surveillance is a disturbance of our personal privacy. Emrys Westacott would agree in her article that surveillance makes us a better person, but besides that fact, it is ultimately bad as it affects our moral conscience. In her article, “Does surveillance make us morally better?” for the Philosophy Now magazine, she explains how surveillance won’t help make people a better person for long-term happenings; she uses her example of how the decision of what type of college you go to can help. I agree with Westacott because of two main reasons: The first being the outcome from Louis Lowry’s book, The Giver, and the second is George Orwell’s book, 1984.

                 Westacott explains what she believes an “ideal college” would be. She asks whether you’d choose to go to a college that monitors your every move, or rather to a college that trust in you and hopes that you can’t cheat. I believe that it is important to make this moral decision by yourself. Of course, in the first situation, the students won’t cheat because they’re afraid of getting caught; but learning that cheating is immoral, is something that needs to learned by yourself, thus cannot be taught.

                George Orwell, an English writer, wrote his book titled 1984, which is based on a society where everyone is monitored constantly to make sure that they follow the rules posed by the government. Along with most of their rights taken away from them, they are unable to do anything without the government knowing of it. This is an invasion of personal privacy and plays into the role of immorality directly. Over time, all the people of this society forget what right and wrong; the government affects their ability to think for themselves, and rather, makes the decision they feel is right. These people unknowingly became slaves to the government. Their morality was stolen from them and they were unable to decide what moral or not, what’s right or wrong.

                Similar to 1984, Louis Lowry sets up a utopian society in the book The Giver. Everyone is expected to follow a set of rules required to abide by the people living there. Everyone is looked after carefully until a point where they’re manipulated and changed in such a manner, and following the rules become part of their daily life. With rules such as not being allowed to have your own child, people became accustomed to what society expects of them. This society has a similar impact on its people; they are unable to think for themselves. With the government deciding what should be done for the best of the society, it allows for the creation of a several immoral ideas to rise.

                Gaining support from Louis Lowry’s The Giver and George Orwell’s 1984, I chose to agree with Emrys Westcott’s argument that surveillance impacts our ability to make moral decisions. In the future, it is up to us to decide what’s right and whether it’s necessarily moral or not. Surveillance does nothing more than take this ability away from us.