A recent panel on Information Ethics^¹ helps generate an initial map of what Information Ethics can entail. To begin with, and at a more abstract level, Luciano Floridi has developed a notion of Information Ethics that begins, classically enough, with ontology - but with a novel and centrally important turn: Floridi’s information ontology takes as its primary elements concepts of information objects in an infosphere - roughly equivalent to the “stuff” (hyle) of the ancient PreSocratics. This ontology is expanded to include nothing less than a cosmic awareness of entropy as the degradation of information as a starting point - coupled with an emphasis on autopoeisis as a way of developing an account of the cosmos as self-organizing. Floridi argues that these theoretical - specifically ontological - foundations of information ethics lead to an applied computer ethics (CE) which focuses on the “patient” or recipient of the consequences of our ethical choices more than traditional CE (which focuses, by contrast, on the agent or actor of ethical choices).

Terrell Ward Bynum argues that Floridi’s Information Ethics in turn fits with the more historical framework for CE that Bynum finds articulated in the foundational work of Norbert Wiener. Wiener argues, for example, that computers should: contribute to human flourishing; advance and defend human values (life, health, freedom, knowledge, happiness); and fulfill “the great principles of justice” drawn from Western philosophical and religious traditions. Bynum provides a range of examples that show how computational technologies do just this, e.g., as they allow a human being otherwise paralyzed to talk, send and receive email, surf the web, create documents, control his/her local environment, etc.. Bynum sees these examples and the larger parameters of Wiener’s CE to fit with Floridi’s notion of an Information Ethics that specifically benefits the infosphere, minimizes entropy, and fosters the flourishing of information objects. In addition, Bynum sees Wiener’s framework of a clearly applied Computer Ethics to be consistent with other significant figures in CE:

Deborah Johnson’s development of CE in terms of deontological duties to help others, in conjunction with consequentialist considerations;

Philip Brey’s focus on disclosing risks and/or advantages hidden or embedded in technology;

Helen Nissenbaum’s account of CE as centering on “designing technology and related practices that are sensitive to human values”; and

my own emphasis on using computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies in ways that preserve “thick” or local cultures.

Bynum further refers to James Moor’s classic account of CE as filling “policy vacuums” and clarifying conceptual muddles that arise as new technologies raise new ethical quandries.

Despite this exception, if Bynum is right, then a striking convergence emerges here between Wiener and Floridi one that is generally characterized by

What Bynum calls the Wiener/Floridi approach thus appears to be broad enough to encompass virtually all methods, styles, and subdivisions of CE.

Consistent with but distinct from these broader approaches to CE is what may be generally construed as professional ethics. Professional ethics seeks to define the duties and responsibilities of the practitioners of specific disciplines - psychologists, sociologists, and, in our case, computer scientists, specialists in information systems, etc. In turn, two different emphases can be discerned in here.

To begin with, Kay Mathiesen and Wallace Koehler take up CE as a version of professional ethics that seeks to apply extant ethical frameworks and professional codes to problems raised by computing technologies. Like Deborah Johnson, Kay Mathiesen sees CE as an extension of traditional ethics, now applied to new problems occasioned by (but not unique to) Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Echoing Moor’s notion of “policy vacuums,” Mathiesen notes that new technologies show us gaps in traditional approaches by raising new issues that Information Ethics may not be able to immediately solve - e.g., in areas of privacy and copyright - but that require us to rethink our traditional conceptions. At the same time, however, Mathiesen argues that Information Ethics constitutes a very old area of inquiry - using here as her example Plato’s Republic, as Socrates argues that the Guardians are better off without certain kinds of information. This approach leads to an applied ethics focus on familiar issues in computer ethics, e.g., intellectual property, access rights, censorship, the rights of native peoples to own and control information about them, etc.^² Mathiesen’s approach, finally, is an example of a “classic” philosophical approach to ethics insofar as she explicitly invokes ontology as part and parcel of her reflection on ethics.

Similarly, Wallace Koehler seeks to develop CE as a syncretic code of ethics that cuts across several professions and disciplines. He draws on a comprehensive overview of sources of ethics, ranging from the Hippocratic Oath and the Bill of Rights to extant codes of professional ethics, including the Association of Computer Machinery and the American Library Association. While recognizing that these codes can be abstracted to the point of meaninglessness, his syncretic code (based especially on national library association codes of ethics) of ethics reads:

Whether or not this code is fully sufficient for all approaches to CE - beginning with what Bynum has called the “Wiener/Floridi approach” is an important analysis to pursue. (For Koehler’s more complete remarks, see An Information Ethic for All Information Professions – A Syncretic Code?)

A second approach to CE is manifest in the work of Bernd Carsten Stahl and May Thorseth. This approach emphasizes dialogue between ethicists, on the one hand, and the computing disciplines and professions, on the other hand (e.g., information scientists, computer scientists, design practitioners, etc.) May Thorseth seeks to foster such dialogue first of all within the university context - in part, by taking up an applied ethics whose primary task and goal is to develop ethical competence in different disciplines, both within philosophy and the relevant disciplines and professions outside philosophy. The dialogue is mutually helpful. While ethicists may contribute important analyses and approaches, these are informed and supplemented by the insights, contexts, and concrete issues at the focus of research and discussion in the disciplines and professions of computer and information science. In particular, Thorseth suggests that drawing on a third discipline - that of communication theory - may help us foster these critical dialogues in the university setting, where otherwise we encounter the contemporary equivalent of C.P. Snow’s famous “two cultures” (i.e., the humanities and the sciences) observed to split academic and intellectual life more than 50 years ago. (For her more complete remarks, see her Information Ethics and Philosophy of Information: Emerging Landscapes?)

For his part, Bernd Carsten Stahl offers a specific concept intended to help bridge and thereby foster dialogue between these two domains - namely, his notion of reflexive responsibility. This conception is at once exceptionally well grounded in a synthesis of German and French moral / ethical traditions - and as basic and “recognizable” ethical concept in the professions as one could ask for. That is, it is a concept that can be immediately understood and appreciated by scientists and engineers otherwise too busy for extensive and abstract ethical reflection (much less ontology). We can further note that this notion is prima facie consistent with what Bynum has characterized as the Wiener/Floridi approach, as one of its central questions is whether or not an ethical choice promotes the good life? Even more fundamentally, Stahl argues that reflective responsibility coheres with Aristotle’s notion of phronesis or practical judgment as it mediates theory and practice and accommodates the uncertainty inevitably characteristic of difficult ethical choices. (See Stahl 2004, and <http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~bstahl/publications/2004_CAP.ppt>)

My thanks to these panelists and their further work and generosity in making their remarks available in this electronic format.

Koehler, Wallace and J. Michael Pemberton. 2000. "A Search for Core Values: Towards a Model Code of Ethics for Information Professionals," Journal of Information Ethics 9, 1: 26-54.

Stahl, Bernd Carsten. 2004. Responsible Management of Information Systems. Hershey, Pennsylvania: Idea Group Publishing.

1“Information Ethics and Philosophy of Information: Emerging Landscapes?” (Charles Ess, chair), North American Computing and Philosophy Conference, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 5, 2004.

Of course, this panel is only an initial collaboration and effort at establishing a much broader understanding of what Computer / Information Ethics includes and entails - one that would obviously include much more representation from Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, etc. Nonetheless, it is offered here precisely as an initial sketch.

2For “classic” and characteristic readings in this sort of applied / computer ethics, see R. Spinello and H. Tavani (eds.), Readings in CyberEthics, 2^nd ed. Sudbury, Massachusetts: Jones and Bartlett, 2004.