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Floridi's Philosophy of Information and Information Ethics: Current Perspectives, Future Directions
Abstract
In order to evaluate Floridi's philosophy of information (PI) and correlative information ethics (IE) as potential frameworks for a global information and computing ethics (ICE), I review a range of important criticisms, defenses, and extensions of PI and IE, along with Floridi's responses to these, as gathered together in a recent special issue of Ethics and Information Technology. A revised and expanded version of PI and IE emerges here, one that brings to the foreground PI's status as a philosophical naturalism—one with both current application and important potential in the specific domains of privacy and information law. Further, the pluralism already articulated by Floridi in his PI is now more explicitly coupled with an ethical pluralism in IE that will be enhanced through IE's further incorporation of discourse ethics. In this form, PI and IE emerge as still more robust frameworks for a global ICE; in this form, however, they also profoundly challenge modern Western assumptions regarding reality, the self, and our ethical obligations.
... A Figura 14 apresenta a distribuição dos estudantes por faixa de renda familiar, segundo tipo de curso. Os estudantes de Medicina são os de mais alta renda, seguidos pelos de Direito, o que é consistente com achados da literatura, em particular de Beltrão & Mandarino(2014). ...
... No entanto, a literatura internacional consultada assume o ProInfo, de 1997, como primeira política de uso de TICs na educação. Ver Valdivia(2014) eMorales (2015).Sunkel (2006) situa o Brasil entre os países com programas iniciados na segunda metade da década de 90, mas faz uma ressalva observando que a informática educativa já existia há muitos anos no país e resgatando o projeto EDUCOM e o programa Proninfe, ambos implementados na década de 1980. 8 "La creación de la red escolar buscaba instalar gradualmente una infraestructura que permitiese a alumnos y profesores conectarse mediante proyectos, intercambiar experiencias educativas y reducir el aislamiento de muchas escuelas." ...
Esse livro é o resultado de muitos anos de pesquisas e colaborações. O último de uma série de projetos financiados pelo International Development Research Centre (IDRC) e desenvolvidos pelo Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade da FGV, foi pensado em rede e costurado por muitas mãos. Ao olhar para os processos de digitalização, a série à qual esse livro pertence tentou entender desdobramentos e impactos de novas tecnologias na produção cultural em diferentes setores. Aqui apresentamos a última análise da série, trazendo debates e vozes do ecossistema de acesso à materiais educacionais no Brasil. A ideia de se olhar para o ecossistema e tentar entender seus atores e relações de poder nos ajudou a entrar em contato com a realidade multifacetada da produção, disseminação e acesso ao conhecimento científico no país. O Brasil vem passando por diversas mudanças, tanto nas políticas públicas de educação, quanto no fomento à pesquisa e inovação, o que tem incrementado a complexidade de algumas dinâmicas apresentadas neste livro. Outras, todavia, permanecem como um desafio para a sociedade civil, pesquisadores e formuladores de políticas públicas, como a defasada Lei de Direitos Autorais de 1998, cujos esforços acumulados em mais de uma década para sua reforma encontram-se dissipados. A relevância dos questionamentos apresentados aqui soma-se aos esforços da garantia de acesso (à cultura, ao conhecimento, à medicamentos), de liberdade de expressão e autonomia universitária. Reunimos diversos especialistas e atores do ecossistema que oferecem um importante panorama sobre pesquisa, legislação e políticas públicas.
... These concerns include the following: that the nature of privacy is being overcomplicated; that the human subject with its subjective view of the world is being lost in a focus on objective impersonal information; and that, since all informational entities have a moral value, it becomes difficult to deal with conflicting interests with respect to privacy. We suggest, following Floridi (2008Floridi ( , 2013 and Ess (2009), that the last point is easily dealt with; although it is true that all informational entities have a moral value, it is not an equal one, and choices and priorities can be established. The second point appears to be a misunderstanding due to an oversimplified view of Floridi's position, specifically the use of levels of abstraction; there is ample scope for consideration of the subjective personal viewpoint in this model. ...
... Tavani (2008a) suggests that it could incorporate other insights, such as Nissenbaum's "privacy as contextual integrity." This is a strong argument for Floridi's model, since it appears highly hospitable to, rather than competitive with, contextuallyspecific privacy models and concepts; see Ess (2009) for an early argument along these lines. Furthermore, the basic concepts within Floridi's model may be used to develop formal contextual models for digital privacy, using concepts of information accessibility, information gap, information flow, and ontological friction; see, for example, Primiero (2016). ...
This conceptual article argues for the value of an approach to privacy in the digital information environment informed by Luciano Floridi's philosophy of information and information ethics. This approach involves achieving informational privacy, through the features of anonymity and obscurity, through an optimal balance of ontological frictions. This approach may be used to modify models for information behavior and for information literacy, giving them a fuller and more effective coverage of privacy issues in the infosphere. For information behavior, the Information Seeking and Communication Model and the Information Grounds conception are most appropriate for this purpose. For information literacy, the metaliteracy model, using a modification a privacy literacy framework, is most suitable.
... 295). Στόχος του είναι µέσα από την κριτική προσέγγιση των διαθέσιµων θεωρητικών µοντέλων να προτείνει ένα νέο µοντέλο, τόσο θεωρητικό όσο και εφαρµοσµένο, για τη δηµοσιογραφική ηθική µέσα στις συνθήκες της παγκοσµιοποίησης (Seid, 2002), της σύγκλισης των Μέσων (Jenkins, 2006) και της ψηφιακής εποχής (Ess, 2009). ...
... Υπάρχουν όµως και προσεγγίσεις που αντλούν από το υπόδειγµα (paradigm) των Πολιτισµικών Σπουδών, όπως π.χ. οι στρουκτουραλιστικές και µεταστρουκτοραλιστικες, µεταφεµινιστικές και κοινωνικές κονστρουξιονιστικές που εστιάζουν στην πολιτισµική και φιλοσοφική διάσταση του θέµατος της ηθικής και αναζητούν τις ιστορικές, πολιτισµικές και πολιτικοκοινωνικές συνθήκες γύρω από το θέµα (π.χ.Ess, 2009; Consalvo & Ess, 2011.Η κεντρική συζήτηση του Ward σχετίζεται µε την πιθανότητα και δυνατότητα ανάπτυξης µιας παγκόσµιας ατζέντας για τη δηµοσιογραφική ηθική, την οποία και αναπτύσσει, αφού έχει προβεί σε µια σχετική ιστορική αναδροµή (πέντε στάδια εξέλιξης της δηµοσιογραφικής ηθικής) και σε µια κριτική συζήτηση των προσεγγίσεων της Κριτικής Θεωρίας. Η θέση του, ότι µπορεί να υπάρχει µια παγκόσµια ατζέντα δηµοσιογραφικής ηθικής, προϋποθέτει την ύπαρξη µιας κοσµοπολιτικής δηµοσιογραφικής προσέγγισης: Θεωρεί ότι µε την εδραίωση πια των διαδικτυακών Μέσων όλοι οι άνθρωποι -και βέβαια οι δηµοσιογράφοι-έρχονται και αποκτούν πολλές και διαφορετικές πολιτισµικές προσλαµβάνουσες. ...
This student book discusses issues of journalism ethics within a broader concept of how we understand, negotiate and embody ethics in western culture. The work of Charles Ess on ethics and digital culture as well as the work of Michel Foucault on governmentally have been influential in how the terms and debates discussed in this book are conceptualised.
... IS research has a long history of examining and ensuring the ethical use of computers and curating this knowledge (Chatterjee et al., 2009;Kallman, 1992;Stahl, 2008). Various frameworks, principles, and guidelines have been established to support researchers and practitioners in the ethical use of computers (Ess, 2009;Harrington, 1996;King, 1996;Sojer et al., 2014). Nonetheless, Stahl noted in 2008 that there were only a small number of IS papers dealing with ethics. ...
The ethical dimensions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) constitute a salient topic in information systems (IS) research and beyond. There is an increasing number of journal and conference articles on how AI should be designed and used. For this, IS research offers and curates knowledge not only on the ethical dimensions of information technologies, but also on their acceptance and impact. However, the current discourse on the ethical dimensions of AI is highly unstructured and seeks clarity. As conventional systematic literature research has been criticized for lacking in performance, we applied an adapted discourse approach to identify the most relevant articles within the debate. As the fundamental manuscripts within the discourse were not obvious, we used a weighted citation-based technique to identify fundamental manuscripts and their relationships within the field of AI ethics across disciplines. Starting from an initial sample of 175 papers, we extracted and further analyzed 12 fundamental manuscripts and their citations. Although we found many similarities between traditionally curated ethical principles and the identified ethical dimensions of AI, no IS paper could be classified as fundamental to the discourse. Therefore, we derived our own ethical dimensions on AI and provided guidance for future IS research.
... Research on the ethics of information systems also contributes to the understanding of ethical challenges in the intersections of technology, human beings, business, and society (Ess, 2009). Research in this area contemplates the ethics of information technology (Calzarossa, De Lotto, & Rogerson, 2009;Doss & Loui, 1995), computer ethics (Peterson, 2002), professional ethics (Haines & Leonard, 2007), piracy and file sharing (Hansen & Walden, 2013), corporate domain ethics (H. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is fourfold: first, to provide the first systematic study on the ethics of blockchain, mapping its main socio-technical challenges in technology and applications; second, to identify ethical issues of blockchain; third, to propose a conceptual framework of blockchain ethics study; fourth, to discuss ethical issues for stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs literature research, research agenda and framework development.
Findings
Ethics of blockchain and its applications is essential for technology adoption. There is a void of research on blockchain ethics. The authors propose a first theoretical framework of blockchain ethics. Research agenda is proposed for future search. Finally, the authors recommend measures for stakeholders to facilitate the ethical adequacy of blockchain implementations and future Information Systems (IS) research directions. This research raises timely awareness and stimulates further debate on the ethics of blockchain in the IS community.
Originality/value
First, this work provides timely systematic research on blockchain ethics. Second, the authors propose the first research framework of blockchain ethics. Third, the authors identify key research questions of blockchain ethics. Fourth, this study contributes to the understanding of blockchain technology and its societal impacts.
The individualistic lens refers to the understanding of problematic information as something that is clearly identifiable, with objective criteria of measurement. This article argues for adding a non‐individualistic lens for understanding information. The necessity for adding a non‐individualistic lens grows from that the existing individualistic lens appears inadequate to make sense of information phenomenon, in particular when it comes to understanding problematic information. Non‐individualistic is proposed as a complementary perspective, which needs to be further developed conceptually. To begin such development, this article directs information professionals' attention to the promising concept of information ecology. More specifically, this article pulls resources from philosophy of information (Floridi's infosphere) and information ethics (Capurro's Angeletics) to illustrate existing conceptualizations of information ecology. Information ecology appears to align with this sociotechnical view that information researchers have started to develop in the most recent years, though arguably information ecology may have an even broader scope. Lastly, this article also points out that the conceptualization of information ecology needs to be aware of, and cautious of the philosophical assumption that is relied on for understanding information.
This paper introduces the perspective to understand privacy via language as an intercultural information ethics (IIE) concept. This research perspective carries two goals: to understand privacy as an IIE concept and to do so via natural language. The paper suggests that studying privacy through language answers the challenge faced by IIE work; in addition, studying privacy as an information ethics concept through language seems most appropriate considering that language both embodies and shapes meaning. Specifically, this paper briefly discusses privacy and some of its language expressions in the Chinese and English languages, through which it hopes to reveal the richness and possibilities of using natural language as a research instrument to understand privacy in intercultural settings, which is an area of researching privacy that has attracted little discussion so far.
This chapter extends current discussions about excellence and proposes a look beyond the dominant line of e-resources research where transition cycles in information management, knowledge management, competences management, and performance management are the multi-contextual value creators for individuals and organizations. This is done by an extensive review of European policies (single information market, agenda for culture) in two steps: first, excellence triggers are analyzed, discussing digital agenda and consumer culture. Next, an integrated model of e-resources excellence management is presented. It locates the argument for the importance of convergence in excellence diversity where e-resources values are uniquely and contextually interpreted, requiring understanding, and assesses customer consumption processes as an experiential, social, and cultural phenomenon. A variety of informational behaviors, skills, and activities is the measure of the complexity of personal values possibilities and of excellence framework development, maturity, and sustainability.
A Ciência da Informação participa na promoção do termo ‘Instituição
de Memória’ como metáfora para a integração de bibliotecas, arquivos,
museus e centros de documentação. Uma das intenções assumidas foi
a de encorajar uma visão coerente sobre os recursos informacionais
que os acervos de tais instituições provêm. Em paralelo, a partir do
movimento em se integrar acervos digitalizados do campo da cultura
em rede emerge o acrônimo GLAM da língua inglesa, que integra
Galerias, Bibliotecas, Arquivos e Museus, e enfatiza a promoção do
acesso como missão principal. É justo afirmar que a demanda pela
interoperabilidade dos acervos dos diferentes domínios arquivísticos é
pautada pela possibilidade de integração dos conteúdos diversos via
web, cenário que propicia inovação no acesso e no processamento das
informações de patrimônio cultural pela sociedade. A partir de um foco
na reconstrução crítica de Richard Fyffe, sobre o papel do especialista
em CI na perspectiva da Infosfera de Floridi, buscamos identificar
como novos conceitos para o campo da Ciência da Informação,
derivados da FI e da Ética da Informação (EI) de Floridi, podem auxiliar
a compreensão de transformações radicais em curso no campo dos
acervos digitalizados de instituições de memória, e sua relação com as
questões éticas mais amplas no plano da Infosfera.
This paper argues that there are ethical issues inherent in information systems (IS) which preclude these systems from being managed in a traditional sense of the word. Following the critical research tradition, the paper discusses the conventional understanding of management as "heroic management". It subsequently analyses some of the more salient ethical issues of IS including access, privacy, and intellectual property. One way of addressing these ethical problems of IS can be found in the concept of responsibility. The discussion of responsibility will show that the typical understanding of the term, which usually sees management as directly responsible for the effects of decisions, is problematic. In order to overcome the problems of traditional responsibility a concept of reflective responsibility is introduced. While this idea promises to help overcome the moral and ethical problems of IS, it is grounded on participative ideas which in some respects contradict the tenets of heroic management. The paper concludes with a discussion of how management should be reconceptualised in order to avoid turning into the oxymoron indicated in the title.
This paper investigates the possibility of community under modern conditions of “worldlessness,” displacement, and disburdenment, conditions recently materialized in, and accelerated by, digital information and communication technologies. The paper engineers an encounter between two literatures: the body of philosophical writing that locates the phenomenon of worldlessness in the progress of modern technology generally; and the growing social science literature examining the character and dynamics of digitally-mediated community practices and forms. The paper begins with a theoretical exegesis of aspects of the work of three thinkers—Harold Innis, Hannah Arendt, and Albert Borgmann—who have made thoughtful contributions to our understand of the technological phenomenon gathered here as worldlessness. It then proceeds to reflect upon recent empirical accounts of digitally-mediated community, in light of the philosophical questions raised by these thinkers. The paper concludes by arguing that digital technology, as it is elaborated in the context of contemporary liberal capitalism, provides a material setting in which community is likely to thrive only in a particular, truncated form: as an infrastructure of convenience for instrumental communication between networked individuals.
First published in 1949 and praised in The New York Times Book Review as "a trenchant book, full of vigor and bite," A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for America's relationship to the land. Written with an unparalleled understanding of the ways of nature, the book includes a section on the monthly changes of the Wisconsin countryside; another part that gathers informal pieces written by Leopold over a forty-year period as he traveled through the woodlands of Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, Sonora, Oregon, Manitoba, and elsewhere; and a final section in which Leopold addresses the philosophical issues involved in wildlife conservation. As the forerunner of such important books as Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek , Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire , and Robert Finch's The Primal Place , this classic work remains as relevant today as it was forty years ago.
According to Searle, the brains are capable of causing mental phenomena with intentional or semantic content. Sometimes Searle calls the effect wrought by these causal powers original intentionality and sometimes he calls it intrinsic intentionality. This chapter discusses how strange, how ultimately preposterous, Searle's imagined causal powers of the brain are, and it explores the myth of original intentionality. The chapter discusses the first task by presenting a comparison of Searle's claim about the causal powers of the brain and a similar and much more defensible claim. According to Searle, however, only the mental phenomena exhibit original intentionality. The intentionality of an encyclopedia or a road sign or a photograph of the Eiffel Tower is only derived or secondary intentionality. This is certainly an intuitive and appealing first move toward a general theory of intentionality. A sentence considered by itself as a string of ink marks or a sequence of acoustic vibrations has no intrinsic meaning or aboutness. It has a structure, or syntax, but in so far as it acquires meaning or semantics, this is an endowment from its users.