Ethical Issues Surrounding Crowd Funding

What is crowdfunding? Well, crowdfunding is the collection of money from multiple sources to fund a venture rather than getting the funding from a single source. There are several ethical issues surrounding crowd funding: what people actually do with the money; how to deal with people who do not fulfill their promises; whether or not websites should limit funding to specified goals; whether or not recognized artists should be prohibited from participating, in effect competing against aspiring artists. Some of the ethical issues involved in crowd funding are there is no openness and transparency in crowdfunding like in other forms of traditional financing. Sometimes crowdfunding may be done to finance illegal activities.

Core Ethical Beliefs

What makes us human beings beside the chemical/biological formula, well we’re beings that can think – l it lead us to have ethical values. As human beings, we have our differences of beliefs but one thing that I believe are universal is ethical values. It doesn’t matter what religion we believe in we all accept that honesty is the best policy. My core ethical beliefs are honesty, fairness, equality, integrity, respect, obey the law, excellence, and accountable. The origins of these beliefs comes from my religion and upbringing, The Quran tells us not cheat or deceive ourselves and others but to be honest to ourselves and others. Honesty is very hard thing to do, but whom has honesty is one that has the virtue of integrity. Accountability is very important in my faith even my childhood it was empathized tremendously. What separate me from others is the belief of accountability. When you have a mother and father, even siblings telling you, to be aware of God or “Fear Allah” when you do something wrong, then it’s embedded into you to have the consciousness of God. I believe that having awareness of the higher being is important because nothing can tamper the ethical beliefs I have – because I’m accountable answering to that higher being of my actions: whether I was honest, fair, respectful, and so forth.

Ethical Issues Recognition

The ethical issues found in the crowdfunding case is the perpetration of dishonesty where Amanda Palmer did not fulfill those incentives she promised to her contributions, and says, “we will feed you beer, hug/high-five you up and down, give you merch, and thank you mightily”. Another ethical dilemma found in Palmer case is that the use of the funded money to her own personal expenses which is unethical because the contributions funded the project for her talent not for her personal issues that should have been different kick starter project. The kick-starter.com founders mission is to help bring creative projects to life. Things have taken a different turn for kick-starters; nowadays, they are supporting well known artists for the public to pledge for them and some of them are not fulfilling their promises. If the artist doesn't fulfill their promise they should stop funding them if they don't come with their due date. The whole point of this website is to help unknown artists to be know, it’s not for celebrities who are well off. Bringing in and helping known artists does good for the website but it ruins the purpose of the website.

Understanding Different Ethical Perspectives

In this section, I will explain all three philosophical views of ethical behavior identified in the Ethical perspectives for business article. Utilitarianism view- actions are ethically sound when they produce the greatest good for the greatest number. When one bends the rules for the greater good of the people. When someone makes a decision based on the majority of the people without considering the moral and ethical metric. For instance, let's say Amanda realized that everybody that has kick-starter deceives their contributors because everybody does that, so she justifies to deceive her contributors.

Justice view- demands respect for the dignity of every individual through the application of objective and impartial decisions, or actions: benefits and punishments are allocated by society based on equality of rights among all human beings. Includes distributive, retributive, and compensatory type justice. When someone makes the decision based on the fairness and equality.

Rights view- fundamental rights are accorded to human beings of all circumstance and backgrounds, such as the right to life, liberty, security of person, and freedom from enslavement. Someone makes the decision based upon the fundamental rights we have as human beings.

Application of Ethical Perspectives

When does someone realize that they’re in an unethical situation? For me, I get an unpleasant feeling. “I define an unethical situation as one in which I have to do something I don’t feel good about”. This is the best way to describe how I would feel if I was in Amanda Palmer circumstance. If I was in Palmer circumstance – where she decided not fulfill her incentives for her contributors. I would’ve chosen rights view, where I would’ve taking a strong position to oppose the unethical of breaking promises, I know very well that there are things to consider before making a decision. First, I know that being honest could make Kickstarter.com and Amanda Palmer to amend the money. Taken into consideration, my decision is final. The reason why I chose this path is because of my ethical beliefs, to be honest, and I weigh in more being accountable in this situation. I know, without a doubt that if I decided not consider the public view or criticism, or the backlash wouldn't bother me. But this way of thinking is the one that doesn’t belief accountability with the higher being. If Amanda Palmer has chosen rights view the risks may be given back the money. And, the benefit is Palmer gets to sleep peaceful without the feel of guilty. This is the kind of feeling we get when we choose the wrong over the right thing to do. Evaluation of different ethical perspectives to guide actions.

If I were the founder, we would have made our guidelines clear and understandable for both parties: the recipients and the contributors. What are these guidelines for the recipient, they must fulfill their incentives they promised to the people if it's attainable, and they don't fulfill then there will be some repercussions such as amending? A clear outline must be provided and proof (afterward), how the money will be used when they reach their goal amount. This brings us to how will we deal with if the amount of money surpasses of the asked goal. For instance, Amanda Palmer asked 100,000 for her project goal and surpassed that amount almost ten times of that where she received 1,000,000 Kickstarter money. In my view, I don't see any ethical issues with this long as they have a contingency plan if they surpass their goal amount how they would use that money. As for the contributors, if they want those incentives promised to be executed, they must make clear to the recipients that there's no room for excuses if it's attainable to reach those promises. Also, they should do a diligent research of the project and the person behind it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I never thought crowd funding would have ethical issues. Before I read the case, I presumed that people just being picky especially philosophers looking for a way to talk. But to my surprise, I realized that it takes a thinking mind to notice the ethical issues of crowd funding. The crowd funding of Amanda Palmer case, reminded me of a TV show that I watched years ago 20/20 from ABC, where they investigate assumed homeless guy but realized that he was well established: he had a nice car, beautiful home, and family. If this is a wrongdoing, and most definitely it should be unethical for celebrities such as Amanda Palmer, Veronica Mars, Zack Bradford, and etc. who are well off to do Kickstarter. This kind of project is taking advantage of the people.