COMPUTER ETHICS: WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT? - possible contributions from philosophy of action, critical realism and modern hermeneutics

摘要

Computer ethics has become a common concern within business circles and applied research. What is expected of ethics? The present paper claims that it is necessary to revise current assumptions and to bring in breakthrough conceptual approaches able to grasp the intricacies of present reality, the reality of the knowledge economy of the information age. Ethics may then become an effective tool for societal development, at both organisational level as well as professional and personal level. As an alternative to traditional and current utilitarist and rationalist approaches to computer ethics the perspectives of philosophy of action, critical realism and modern hermeneutics is presented. These insights and theoretical formulations may be applied and developed in order to improve and further the understanding of current environments, thus enabling and informing policy design and computer ethics practices. The challenges of the information age crucially depend on the human capacity to work together and computer ethics defies human creativity and innovativeness capacity at its core and central level, that of re-framing, restructuring and recreating its long held assumptions and conventions. This paper consists in a minor step towards this goal.