Research: The Ethical Issues Related to Identity Theft (Essay Sample)

Ethics of Identity Theft
Student name
InstitutionEthics of Identity Theft
In this era of technological advancement, characterized by the internet and computers, there is an emergence of various issues regarding the ethical implications of identity theft. Briefly, identity theft is the use unlawful or transfer of another person’s personal information with the aim of committing criminal activities. The practice is done without the person prior consent, through manipulation, coercion and deception. Apart from the legal implications of identity theft, this practice bears many ethical implications. The role of ethics is to determine what is right or wrong, or good and bad for individuals and society by establishing a framework for moral judgment. This paper argues that identity theft is wrong because the perpetrator uses the victim as a mere means to achieve an end.
Even though ethics and law have limited connection, in many circumstances, the latter offers a rough idea of practices, as opposed to absolute standards, deemed socially acceptable for ethical reasons. The theoretical approach that will be used to analyze identity theft is deontology. One proponent of this approach is Immanuel Kant. According to the Kantian approach to ethical reasoning, doing right or wrong should be based on reason. Kantian approach requires that people should do the right thing purely for the reason of doing it but not because it helps attain some desired goals or interests. To achieve this goal, people must rely on reason rather than worldly facts or moral intuitions (Gensler, Spurgin, & Swindal, 2004).
Identity theft treats other human beings as means to an end rather than as an end. According to this approach, every human action reflects a person’s maxim(s). A maxim expresses a person’s an individual’s principle that informs a given decision or intent upon which the person acts. Hence, a person who decides to commit identity theft has a maxim for stealing. Whenever people act knowingly, they do so with at least one maxim. Therefore, to ascertain if an act is right or wrong, one should examine the maxims. The action should not treat any individual as a mere means but possibly as ends in themselves (Gensler, Spurgin, & Swindal, 2004).
People who commit identity theft go to great lengths in using their victims as means. For example, they steal addresses, names, bank records, and the social security number among other valuable personal information. Such individuals do this act because of financial gains or for the sake of hiding from the law to commit criminal activities (Dean, Buck, & Dean, 2014).
In this case, all this scheme of activities is committed without the consent of the victim. As such, the perpetrator of identity theft uses the victim as mere means. Identity theft is also committed on maxims of deception in such circumstances that a victim may be given false promises without prior knowledge. Since the individual being deceived into giving his personal information does not recognize the genuine maxim, they cannot in principle approve their part in the scheme of events. The victim being deceived is a mere means —a tool in the perpetrator’s grand scheme. In the Kantian approach, this maxim makes the act of identity theft wrong.
According to Kantian ethics, actions that are committed on maxims that call for coercion and deception, and hence cannot get the approval of other people, are inherently wrong (Gensler, Spurgin, & Swindal, 2004). Such a scheme is applicable in identity theft for various reasons. An identity thief can have the victim willingly disclose personal information through deceptive and soft coercive means (Haygood & Hensley, 2006). Furthermore, the authors stress that this low-tech technique known as pre-texting is very effective. Therefore, by acting on a maxim that is based on deception and coercion, the actions of identity thieves are both wrong and unjust.
In conclusion, ethical principals are vital for informing laws. However, there is consensus that laws cannot operate as an alternate to morality. Therefore, corporations and individuals are often required to judge not only the legal consequence...