Information ethics: On the philosophical foundation of computer ethics

The essential difficulty about Computer Ethics' (CE) philosophical status is a methodological problem: standard ethical theories cannot easily be adapted to deal with CE-problems, which appear to strain their conceptual resources, and CE requires a conceptual foundation as an ethical theory. Information Ethics (IE), the philosophical foundational counterpart of CE, can be seen as a particular case of “environmental” ethics or ethics of the infosphere. What is good for an information entity and the infosphere in general? This is the ethical question asked by IE. The answer is provided by a minimalist theory of deseerts: IE argues that there is something more elementary and fundamental than life and pain, namely being, understood as information, and entropy, and that any information entity is to be recognised as the centre of a minimal moral claim, which deserves recognition and should help to regulate the implementation of any information process involving it. IE can provide a valuable perspective from which to approach, with insight and adequate discernment, not only moral problems in CE, but also the whole range of conceptual and moral phenomena that form the ethical discourse.     

AI assisted ethics

The growing number of ‘smart’ instruments, those equipped with AI, has raised concerns because these instruments make autonomous decisions; that is, they act beyond the guidelines provided them by programmers. Hence, the question the makers and users of smart instrument (e.g., driver-less cars) face is how to ensure that these instruments will not engage in unethical conduct (not to be conflated with illegal conduct). The article suggests that to proceed we need a new kind of AI program—oversight programs—that will monitor, audit, and hold operational AI programs accountable.     

Kant and information ethics

We begin with our reasons for seeking to bring Kant to bear on contemporary information and computing ethics (ICE). We highlight what each contributor to this special issue draws from Kant and then applies to contemporary matters in ICE. We conclude with a summary of what these chapters individually and collectively tell us about Kant’s continuing relevance to these contemporary matters – specifically, with regard to the issues of building trust online and regulating the Internet; how far discourse contributing to deliberative democracy online may include storytelling and appeals to the emotions; and whether or not search engine algorithms should be made public. We further highlight how certain chapters – especially as they incorporate more recent philosophical traditions such as phenomenology and cognitive psychology – develop a Kantian approach (or at least one that is both inspired by while simultaneously transforming Kant) to ethical issues in ICE, including the ethical implications of the on-going blurring of the border between the real and the virtual; designing software in light of distributed ethical responsibility; and trust-building in e-Science collaborations.     

Digitalization and global ethics

The extensive use of digital and network technology has pushed mankind from the industrial era into the information and digital era. In the digital era, digits are becoming an extensive global phenomenon and force. The ethical culture of digital globalization has provided not only a new space for cultural exchange and␣integration among nations, but also a new environment for the formation of new global ethical principles and concepts. This article investigates a theme of scholarly concern, the theme of global ethics in the environment of the digital era.     

论技术伦理审查

参照当代技术哲学关于技术体系的主客观因素及工作界面的划分,从技术周期角度,分析技术人性化、技术生态化与技术科学化的伦理审查要求,以便提升技术价值,规避技术风险,促进技术良性发展。     

The ethics of information transparency

The paper investigates the ethics of information transparency (henceforth transparency). It argues that transparency is not an ethical principle in itself but a pro-ethical condition for enabling or impairing other ethical practices or principles. A new definition of transparency is offered in order to take into account the dynamics of information production and the differences between data and information. It is then argued that the proposed definition provides a better understanding of what sort of information should be disclosed and what sort of information should be used in order to implement and make effective the ethical practices and principles to which an organisation is committed. The concepts of “heterogeneous organisation” and “autonomous computational artefact” are further defined in order to clarify the ethical implications of the technology used in implementing information transparency. It is argued that explicit ethical designs, which describe how ethical principles are embedded into the practice of software design, would represent valuable information that could be disclosed by organisations in order to support their ethical standing.     

Computer ethics: Future directions

Changes in information technologylead to new topics and new emphases in computerethics. The present article examines a varietyof such issues, and argues that computer ethicsmust become more rigorous and develop astronger theoretical base. The articleconcludes with a discussion of ways to makecomputer ethics more effective in bringinghelpful changes to the world.     

我国医学期刊稿约中的医学伦理和出版伦理规范剖析

【目的】 调查我国医学期刊稿约中医学伦理和出版伦理规范的现状,分析存在的问题并提出相应的建议。【方法】 选取我国医学综合类和临床医学类40种优秀医学学术期刊作为研究样本,对其稿约中有关医学伦理和出版伦理的条目进行调研分析。【结果】 我国医学学术期刊稿约仍然存在稿约陈旧、稿约内容简单、停留在指导作者撰稿与投稿层面等缺点,没有根据医学伦理和出版伦理发展的需要及时进行调整。【结论】 稿约作为约定作者与期刊之间权利和义务关系的依据,具有法律效应,同时也是期刊的审稿依据,因此医学期刊应更加重视稿约对作者伦理学态度和行为的导向作用,以防范学术不端行为,加强医学伦理和出版伦理建设。     

Patents,practical ethics and scientists

Peter Drahos is a Professor in the Regulatory Institutions Network, College of Asia Pacific, Australian National University and holds a Chair in Intellectual Property in the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary, London University.     

对收费电子邮箱的网络伦理思考

收费电子邮箱的大量出现令网站不得不面对信任危机，商誉危机，对网络隐私权的侵犯，法律连带责任等众多社会伦理问题，进而影响到电子商务的进程。因此，应呼吁要在电子商务中重塑网络伦理道德，建立有序的规范，促进网络的正常发展。     

The ethics of designing artificial agents

In their important paper “Autonomous Agents”, Floridi and Sanders use “levels of abstraction” to argue that computers are or may soon be moral agents. In this paper we use the same levels of abstraction to illuminate differences between human moral agents and computers. In their paper, Floridi and Sanders contributed definitions of autonomy, moral accountability and responsibility, but they have not explored deeply some essential questions that need to be answered by computer scientists who design artificial agents. One such question is, “Can an artificial agent that changes its own programming become so autonomous that the original designer is no longer responsible for the behavior of the artificial agent?” To explore this question, we distinguish between LoA1 (the user view) and LoA2 (the designer view) by exploring the concepts of unmodifiable, modifiable and fully modifiable tables that control artificial agents. We demonstrate that an agent with an unmodifiable table, when viewed at LoA2, distinguishes an artificial agent from a human one. This distinction supports our first counter-claim to Floridi and Sanders, namely, that such an agent is not a moral agent, and the designer bears full responsibility for its behavior. We also demonstrate that even if there is an artificial agent with a fully modifiable table capable of learning* and intentionality* that meets the conditions set by Floridi and Sanders for ascribing moral agency to an artificial agent, the designer retains strong moral responsibility.     

Machines and the face of ethics

In this article I try to show in what sense Emmanuel Levinas’ ‘ethics as first philosophy’ moves our ethical thinking away from what has been called ‘centrist ethics’. Proceeding via depictions of the structure of Levinasian ethics and including references to examples as well as to some empirical research, I try to argue that human beings always already find themselves within an ethical universe, a space of meaning. Critically engaging with the writings of David Gunkel and Lucas Introna, I try to argue that these thinkers, rather than clarifying, distort our ethical understanding of how we stand in relation to artefacts. Drawing a distinction between how pervasive our ethical relationship to other human beings, and living animals, is and how the nature of artefacts is tied to us, I conclude by indicating that the aspiration to give artefacts an ethical face suggests a fantasy to avoid ethical responsibility and generates what I call a ‘compensatory logic’.     

Information technology, globalization and ethics

This paper illustrates the overlap of computer ethics and business ethics by examining two issues. The first is the lack of fit between digitalized information and copyright protection. Although there are moral arguments that can be used to justify protection of intellectual property, including computer software and digitalized data, the way that copyright protection has developed often reflects vested interests rather than the considered weighing of moral considerations. As a result, with respect to downloading MP3s, among other material, what is ethical is largely determined by the appropriately passed laws in each jurisdiction, and what is ethically permissible in one jurisdiction may be ethically impermissible in another. The second issue is the outsourcing of IT jobs from the U.S. While the practice has been politicized, examining it from an all-things-considered perspective, this paper argues it is ethically justified.I wrote this while I was a Resident at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study and Conference Center and I am pleased to acknowledge the support of the Foundation. I gave an abridged version of this paper at the Third World Congress of Business, Economics and Ethics in Melbourne, Australia, in July, 2004.