Hong Kong's Ethical Crisis

Ideas of morality and ethics have shaped the world we know today. Throughout history there have been wars, debates and power changes, which shaped nations and empires around their prescribed ideologies. Google, as the dominating search engine, is a tool almost everyone in current times has used. With the use of their data, we can discover how popular some philosophical theories are over others, and possibly gain insight over which ones are more desired by certain countries around the world.

For the purpose of consistency the data was only collected from countries which use English predominantly as their first language, as it is unknown if google translates its results from one language to the other.

In a historical sense, there have been many philosophical ideas which have clashed with one another, sparking debates between academics, the public and the state. For this reason, the study paired three opposing theories; Nihilism v Optimism, Utilitarianism v Socialism, and Selfishness (aka Egoism) v Altruism.

This is the reason for the initial findings of Utilitarianism which was pitted against Socialism in the first graph.

Definitions of Ethical Theories:

• UTILITARIANISM: A simplistic view on ethics as just pain and pleasure. Using this reductionist theory one can decide what is ethical for a large group of people using an algorithm.
• SOCIALISM: The ethical and political view which opposes capitalism in favour of society owning everything, as well as a strong democracy which isn't influenced by private business.
• NIHILISM: The belief that everything in life is inherently meaningless. It rejects traditional religious moral values.
• OPTIMISM: The belief that this world is the pinnacle of being and that good will ultimately dominate over evil.
• SELFISHNESS/EGOISM: The belief that everything in this world is done for personal gain. An individual never does anything unless it benefits themselves. Therefore the basis for morality is Self-Interest. This is the premise of the Social Contract Theory which influenced Utilitarianism.
• ALTRUISM: Opposite to Egoism, therefore having a firm belief that humans make decisions to benefit others, not just themselves. There is a concern for the well-being of others.

When comparing all the theories together, the obvious outlier was Socialism, probably due to socialist parties that could have been searched rather than the the actual ethical theory. Therefore, the others were used for search results for more accurate data findings excluding Socialism.

The results are as follows:

Examining these comparative results have lead to the definite outlier of Hong Kong, and their interest in the ethical theory of Utilitarianism.

As mentioned earlier, Socialism was an outlier because it's search results were incredibly higher than the others, except in Hong Kong.

In the first graph used in the article, you can see Utilitarianism was by far a higher interest than Socialism, the highest searched term of all the others in the countries used for the study.

This could be linked to the large population area of the neighbouring country of China, and the idea of the most pleasure and least pain for the majority of people could be seen (on a surface area) as useful for the government body as a way of control. Utilitarianism can therefore use an algorithm to determine which is the most ‘ethical’ course of action or outcome when making a decision. However, you can manipulate this system on a large scale.

Utilitarianism stems from the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes which is the creator of the ‘Social Contract’ theory which is based in Egoism or Selfishness, a negative view on humanity.

For Utilitarianism to work, what the population considers ‘pleasurable’ and ‘painful’ is manipulated by the government bodies so the outcomes are easier to come to and agree upon. It becomes a very strict and oppressive system which benefits the few while it keeps the public in the dark. For example, the decision makers in a Utilitarian system would prefer to keep the public in poor economic, educational and health conditions. Therefore, any decision made will seem pleasurable to the general population since they don't know better. Any small improvement to their well-being would be considered bigger than it actually is, while leaving the leaders of this system to benefit in profit and power.

In a book written by Liu Siu-kai in 1978, The author states that "utilitarianistic familism... is still the dominant ethos in Hong Kong."

What the data doesn't tell us is whether these searches are made to gain insight into this ethical crisis or whether they are in support of it.