Foundational Issues in Information Ethics
PAPER ANALYSIS
FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION ETHICS
1. The paper is about the issues that arise in connection with the new information technologies and the author’s assessment of arguments. A number of theorists have tried to prove that the study of computer ethics is a field by arguing that computer ethics is unique in some theoretically significant way but they differ with respect to the way they think it is unique. By interpreting the uniqueness thesis, numbers of conceptualizations were made like
* One might argue that computer ethics is unique as as some acts involving computers has ethical qualities which no other type of act has. This is based on Meta-Ethical thesis, which claims that the meta-ethical foundation for general and applied ethical thinking is not sufficient.
* Existing ethical theories may be sufficient to solve problems in applied ethics but not sufficient when it comes to solving certain problems involving computer use. This is based on Normative thesis, which states that even a perfectly intelligent observer cannot solve all ethical issue using the existing first-principles.
* One more argument is that certain types of reasoning useful in applied ethics has limitations when it comes to computer ethics. The Epistemological thesis says that the techniques that frequently useful in seeing how existing normative resources apply to specific problems are inadequate to help us with problems in computer ethics.
* Finally some writers argue that computing machines instantiate ethically significant properties which no other non-living artifacts can instantiate.
The author has made some evaluations on this Uniqueness thesis. The existing ethical categories are insufficient in the way described by the meta-ethical thesis. There is no way to ground the idea in any existing theory that existing theories give wrong answers as claimed by normative thesis. The epistemological thesis has a problem that epistemic
FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION ETHICS
1. The paper is about the issues that arise in connection with the new information technologies and the author’s assessment of arguments. A number of theorists have tried to prove that the study of computer ethics is a field by arguing that computer ethics is unique in some theoretically significant way but they differ with respect to the way they think it is unique. By interpreting the uniqueness thesis, numbers of conceptualizations were made like
* One might argue that computer ethics is unique as as some acts involving computers has ethical qualities which no other type of act has. This is based on Meta-Ethical thesis, which claims that the meta-ethical foundation for general and applied ethical thinking is not sufficient.
* Existing ethical theories may be sufficient to solve problems in applied ethics but not sufficient when it comes to solving certain problems involving computer use. This is based on Normative thesis, which states that even a perfectly intelligent observer cannot solve all ethical issue using the existing first-principles.
* One more argument is that certain types of reasoning useful in applied ethics has limitations when it comes to computer ethics. The Epistemological thesis says that the techniques that frequently useful in seeing how existing normative resources apply to specific problems are inadequate to help us with problems in computer ethics.
* Finally some writers argue that computing machines instantiate ethically significant properties which no other non-living artifacts can instantiate.
The author has made some evaluations on this Uniqueness thesis. The existing ethical categories are insufficient in the way described by the meta-ethical thesis. There is no way to ground the idea in any existing theory that existing theories give wrong answers as claimed by normative thesis. The epistemological thesis has a problem that epistemic