The Ethics of Information

摘要

Luciano Floridi is well-known as the leading extant philosopher with a strong interest in information, and his latest book extends his contributions into the area of information ethics (hereafter, as in the book, IE). IE became recognised as a concept in the 1980s, through pioneering writings such as Koenig et al. (1981), as Floridi notes. However, a main theme of this book is that such treatments, and those which stemmed from them, lacked a full philosophical underpinning. This, he seeks to remedy: "Today, philosophy faces the challenge of providing a foundational treatment of the phenomena and the ideas underlying the information revolution, in order to foster our understanding and guide both the responsible construction of our society and the sustainable management of our natural and synthetic environments, In short, we need a Philosophy of Information. [This] investigates the conceptual nature and basic principles of information, including its ethical consequences" (p. (ⅹⅱ)).