Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Norbert Wiener and the Rise of Information Ethics
- 2 Why We Need Better Ethics for Emerging Technologies
- 3 Information Ethics: Its Nature and Scope
- 4 The Transformation of the Public Sphere: Political Authority, Communicative Freedom, and Internet Publics
- 5 Democracy and the Internet
- 6 The Social Epistemology of Blogging
- 7 Plural Selves and Relational Identity: Intimacy and Privacy Online
- 8 Identity and Information Technology
- 9 Trust, Reliance, and the Internet
- 10 Esteem, Identifiability, and the Internet
- 11 Culture and Global Networks: Hope for a Global Ethics?
- 12 Collective Responsibility and Information and Communication Technology
- 13 Computers as Surrogate Agents
- 14 Moral Philosophy, Information Technology, and Copyright: The Grokster Case
- 15 Information Technology, Privacy, and the Protection of Personal Data
- 16 Embodying Values in Technology: Theory and Practice
- 17 Information Technology Research Ethics
- 18 Distributive Justice and the Value of Information: A (Broadly) Rawlsian Approach
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- References
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Norbert Wiener and the Rise of Information Ethics
- 2 Why We Need Better Ethics for Emerging Technologies
- 3 Information Ethics: Its Nature and Scope
- 4 The Transformation of the Public Sphere: Political Authority, Communicative Freedom, and Internet Publics
- 5 Democracy and the Internet
- 6 The Social Epistemology of Blogging
- 7 Plural Selves and Relational Identity: Intimacy and Privacy Online
- 8 Identity and Information Technology
- 9 Trust, Reliance, and the Internet
- 10 Esteem, Identifiability, and the Internet
- 11 Culture and Global Networks: Hope for a Global Ethics?
- 12 Collective Responsibility and Information and Communication Technology
- 13 Computers as Surrogate Agents
- 14 Moral Philosophy, Information Technology, and Copyright: The Grokster Case
- 15 Information Technology, Privacy, and the Protection of Personal Data
- 16 Embodying Values in Technology: Theory and Practice
- 17 Information Technology Research Ethics
- 18 Distributive Justice and the Value of Information: A (Broadly) Rawlsian Approach
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
All successful technologies change our lives. Up until the last fifteen years, cars had changed things more than computers had. Mainframe computers by then had changed administration and management, production in corporations, and scientific research, but they had a minimal effect on everyday life. It was really only with the advent of the World Wide Web and the incorporation of computer chips in many common appliances that the lives of most people were changed by computer technology. One of the most important features of information technology (IT) today is its ubiquity. This ubiquity is a result of what James Moor calls the logical malleability of computers. Computers can be programmed to do a large variety of different things; route information packets on the Internet, simulate hurricanes, make music, and instruct robots. They can be adapted to many different devices and put to many different uses. They allow us to work online, shop online, relax by playing computer games interactively with people from all over the world, get our news, study for our degrees, and find most of the information that we require.
The technology has not only changed what we do, but also how we do it. E-mail, chat rooms, blogs, and other forms of computer-mediated communication have altered how we communicate, and with whom we communicate and interact. It has changed how we relate to each other and how we experience our relations with others.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Information Technology and Moral Philosophy , pp. 1 - 7Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008