Philosophy, whether spam ought to be morally permissible under rule utilitarianism

In this paper I will make the argument that spam ought not to be morally permissible when evaluated under a rule utilitarian framework. First, we must define terms, chiefly for that which we are evaluating, spam. Commonly spam is defined as unsolicited bulk email. This definition is far to narrow as there are certainly more mediums than solely email through which people send and receive spam such as text messages, phone calls, social media, or physical mail. Others may define spam simply as any inefficient communication. This definition may have some merit to it but is far to extreme. The definition I of spam I will use is that spam is any kind of inappropriate, unsolicited, unwanted communication. We must also define rule utilitarianism for which I will borrow from the textbook, “rule utilitarianism is the ethical theory that holds that we ought to adopt those moral rules that, if followed by everyone, lead to the greatest increase in total happiness overall affected parties” (Quinn, 2020). Spam then, in a rule utilitarian framework can be examined morally by considering what the consequences would be if all parties in any environment were to spam each other. Again, borrowing from the textbook, and the example of Ann the Acme accountant who sent a mass work email to help her daughter sell Girl Scout cookies. Here we have a clear example of spam, it is unsolicited as nobody asked, it is inappropriate as she is using her and her colleagues’ work emails for something unrelated to work, and it is unwanted as most recipients were displeased to receive the email. In this case of “mini-spam” Ann is distracting her colleagues’ and wasting their time, causing a harm. It is not hard to imagine that if everyone else in her office were to similarly start spamming that this harm would only grow. Outside of the workplace and our professional lives many of us deal with spam in our personal lives as well, be it spam calls, spam texts, spam in our personal email, or junk mail. In these cases, as well, spam wastes our time, causes distractions or even anxiety in some cases, or is in general just cause for annoyance. A rule, or ruling that spam was morally acceptable, when followed by everyone would surely lead to more harm than good, a consequence of this rule would in all likelihood just be more spam, which causes more harm than good. Building from here and additionally considering cases of spam where the sender can be held accountable to some degree for the spam, and cases where the spam is deceptive I will be demonstrating that under rule utilitarianism neither accountability nor deceptiveness have any real impact on the consequences of spam. References: Quinn, M. J. (2020). Ethics for the Information Age (8th ed. ). Pearson.