Some Notes on Reinventing the Social Contract: A Framework for Understanding Obligation and Responsibility in the Information Age

摘要

This paper discusses the notion of obligation and responsibility within the frames of the Social Contract and the Information Age. The essay raises the issue of a moral sense of taking responsibility for one's behavior and what this means to individuals or corporations living in the Information Age, and specifically the Age of eCommerce. In the literature of business ethics, there is a long tradition of discussion of the responsibility of corporations and individuals to the society of which they are a part. Corporate and individual obligations are derived from a sense of a social contract. The ethos of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and the Information Age contribute to and determine this sense of social contract. Social responsibility and obligation and business practices are linked in the social contract underlying corporate behavior. The Internet, as the interconnections of people and groups, is an ethos or cultural environment, as our interactions and our conversations demonstrate, even if they are electronic. Where there is a culture, there is a morality, and a sense of social responsibility and cbligation. The Internet is a moral context. The idea of virtual community is another way of speaking of the social contract when it comes to ethical behavior.