Computer ethics

Computer ethics is a branch of Computer and Information Ethics in the field of applied ethics which deals with the study and analysis of the impact of computer technology on society and human life, as well as caused by computers and computer networks, labored or solve modified ethical problems tries.

  • 6.1 General
  • 6.2 Computer Ethics as Professional Ethics
  • 6.3 Computer and responsibility
  • 6.4 computer networks and globalization
  • 6.5 Intellectual property and ownership of software
  • 6.6 bibliographies
  • 6.7 Other

Definition, tasks and methods

Going back in its spirit to Norbert Wiener's effort to cybernetics in the 40s, the computer ethics was given its common name today in the 70s by Walter Maner. To distinguish between them is in their above definition of the term synonymously named a computer ethics, which deals with the application as professional ethics, creation and development of codes of conduct for programmers and IT specialists. In principle, they should be distinguished from their obvious disciplines such as the Internet or cyber ethics, the ethics of the mass media or the ethics of library and information science. In practice, however, the interdependencies between these areas are strong, not always the ratio of two disciplines to one another is clear. Thus, the Internet ethics is the considered time as a neighbor, the other time as a sub -discipline of computer ethics.

The computer ethics as a discipline grounded in the assumption that the computer technology has brought a " fundamental vacuum " (after James H. Moors English term policy vacuum ) with it, the show in the failure of old patterns of behavior, principles and rules of action orientation. The central task of computer ethics is the OVERCOMING of this vacuum by developing a new system of principles, rules and practices, in which the computer technology finds its consideration and integration. Focus of these efforts, the protection and realization of the fundamental values ​​of human life - self-preservation, health, freedom, security, education, self-development, opportunities, etc. - or at least the avoidance of their impairment. To this end, it requires an exploration of the impact of computer technology on such values ​​as well as an analysis of the relationships between facts, concepts, principles of action and values ​​, so that the work of computer ethics identification, clarification and comparison ethically relevant cases, also the application of scientific theories and methods requires a wide variety of scientific areas and disciplines. Only after the identification of the policy vacuum, the elimination of concomitant concept confusion (after Moors English term "conceptual muddle " ) and the development of a deeper understanding of the connection between the computer and the individual or company could recognized for solving the cases laws, rules and practices revived or possibly new ones are formulated.

The relevance, uniqueness and scope of computer ethical issues

Does the computer ever the need for a separate ethics with itself, ie is actually caused by him a policy vacuum and a lack of action orientation? And if so, what these ethical relevance of the computer based? The appropriateness of an own computer ethics relevant considerations usually take their point of departure from the view that the relationship between computers and humans / society that would go beyond a mere means-end relationship. This would mean that the computer does not only old ways of acting or facilitates more efficient, but a transformation of human activities and relationships themselves, for example by entirely new options for action, draws with it. The prophecy of Norbert Wiener, the computer technology would eventually pulling out a " second industrial revolution " according to an overhaul of the company, is also a lot of today's computer ethicists background of their efforts. James H. Moor goes in his reflections addition to the reasons for the computer ethics beyond a mere Konstatierung this potential and offers his reflections on the nature of computer technology, an answer to the question why there is such a transformation of the social order by the computer and why these transformation of such ethical explosiveness is: with the invention of the computer as a " logically malleable " (logical malleable ) technology, the mountains due to the universal applicability of logic apparently unlimited application possibilities in himself, the man is a wealth opened to possibilities for action, to which had not previously been unthinkable. Because man has not previously had the opportunity to do so, he had not even been thinking about how these opportunities should be used or whether any of them is to be utilized. As the computer technology have brought this lack of guidelines with them, there must be also a separate branch of ethics, in which it undergoes special consideration.

What kind and how profound are the effects of computer technology on the individual life and the society now and how unique the associated problems with it, however, the subject of discussion is, like the question about the scope of the investigations and the results of computer ethics can be awarded. Walter Maner and James H. Moor, who argue a uniqueness of computer ethics problems that arises, for example, Deborah Johnson counter, only the modification of old problems sees in them, to which the computer technology have thrown a new light, and the localization of computer Ethics faced in the category of range or professional ethics Krystyna Górniak - Kocikowska with considerations in which the computer ethics, the potential for a new global ethic that can be compared in importance with the major ethical theories of the Enlightenment, have expected.

Problem areas

The spread of computer technology, the computer ethics opens a wide field of application. Her topics include:

  • Behavioral guidelines for programmers and IT specialists
  • Computers and Security
  • Cybercrime
  • Intellectual property and ownership of software
  • Privacy and anonymity
  • Computer and responsibility
  • Networks, virtual communities and globalization
  • Dependence on technology
  • Distributive justice
  • Democracy and Participation
  • Computers and education
  • Automation and work
  • Loading and Enthinderung
  • Bioelectronics
  • Robot Ethics

Institutions, conferences and journals

Institutions

Institute

  • Research Center on Computing and Society ( RCCS ), Southern Connecticut State University, USA
  • Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility ( CCSR ), De Montfort University, UK
  • Oxford University Research Group on the Philosophy of Information, University of Oxford, UK
  • Center for Digital Ethics and Policy, Loyola University Chicago, USA
  • The Online Ethics Center, Case Western Reserve University, USA
  • School of Information Sciences: Information Ethics, University of Pittsburgh, USA
  • Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Humboldt University, Berlin, DE
  • Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, Indiana University, USA
  • Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences ( Hogeschool van Amsterdam), NL
  • Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law School, USA

Associations and centers

  • Electronic Frontier Foundation
  • Association for Computing Machinery ACP / Special Interest Group on Computers and Society SIGCAS
  • Computer Professionals for Social responsiblity
  • Forum Computer Scientists for Peace and Social Responsibility
  • Society for computer science department of computer science and ethics
  • International Society for Ethics and Information Technology
  • International Center for Information Ethics

Regular meetings

  • Computer Ethics: Philosophiecal Enquiry CEPE
  • Computers, Freedom and Privacy
  • ETHICOMP

Magazines

  • Ethics and Information Technology
  • International Review of Information Ethics
  • The International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction
  • The ETHICOMP Journal
Media ethics Roboethics Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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