James moore what is computer ethics

Computer ethics as a field of enquiry originates from the work of MIT Professor Norbert Wiener who first foresaw the revolutionary social and ethical consequences of information technology.

Wiener in his books Cybernetics: or control and communication in the animal and the machine and The Human Use of Human Beings first published in establishes the theoretical background for computer ethics. A decade later Donn Parker began to study unethical computerized activities and to collect various cases of computer crime. In his book Starter Kit in Computer Ethics he develops a pedagogical framework for computer ethics for both teachers and students.

In this article Moore provides a first definition of computer ethics and a complete presentation of the ethical problems in the information society.

Computers provide us with new capabilities and these in turn give us new choices for action. Often, either no policies for conduct in these situations exist or existing policies seem inadequate. A central task of computer ethics is to determine what we should do in such cases, i.

Of course, some ethical situations confront us as individuals and some as a society. Computer ethics includes consideration of both personal and social policies for the ethical use of computer technology. Ethics is usually regarded as one of the main branches of philosophy along with metaphysics, logic and epistemology; it is generally defined as the systematic study of morality.

This study involves questions of practical reasoning such as freedom, equality, duty, obligations and choice as well as the justification of judgments, rights and claims related to these terms. In general, ethics is related to the code or set of principles, standards, or rules that guide the actions of an individual within a particular social framework.

The aim is to provide us with a rational basis for moral judgments, enable us to classify and compare different ethical theories and defend a particular position on an ethical issue.

Furthermore, ethics is divided into normative ethics and metaethics. Metaethics is the study of the nature and the basis of ethics; it is a philosophical discussion about moral concepts, practices and judgement outside ethical practice, dealing with problems concerning ethics, not with problems within ethics. Normative ethics on the other hand is the study of the norms, rules, values and standards that should guide our moral decisions, in other words, how we ought or ought not to act and behave and what we ought or ought not to do.

The branch of normative ethics that deals with practical and everyday ethical issues such as environmental ethics, business ethics, bioethics and medical ethics and now computer ethics is called applied ethics.

It deals with the moral principles that help the individual to take the right decision in a specific ethical problem and on this ground to act responsibly. Computer ethics is commonly defined as the systematic study of the ethical and social impact of computers in the information society. The ethical and social issues under discussion involve the acquisition, distribution, storage, processing and dissemination of digital data in information systems and how individuals and groups interact with these systems and data.

According to Walter Maner [3] the ethical problems that arise from computer technology could take the following forms: 1 it may aggravate certain traditional ethical problems e.

Within this framework, the central problems that are discussed in computer ethics are the issues of: 1 privacy and anonymity; 2 intellectual property; 3 computer crime; 4 security and control; 5 reliability of computers; 6 integrity of data; 7 freedom of information; 8 equality of access; 9 authenticity; and 10 the dependence of humans on machines.

These issues are inter-related, underlined by the special nature of digital information, and so their social impact on human life extends from politics, economics, health, science, education and entertainment to other special areas such as psychology, environment, culture and legislation.

Computer ethics deals with practical problems and focuses on the nature of moral action and responsibility: how do I know whether or not an action is morally right or wrong? On a practical basis, individuals can draw upon some personal or codified ethics: 1 the law codifying moral principles with negative consequences for disobedience ; 2 codes of practice guidelines for employers to work within ; 3 professional ethics ethical principles relevant to the members of that profession ; 4 personal ethics values that influence the actions of individual, e.

However, individuals can draw upon the ethical theories that emphasise the nature of moral action and provide the moral agent with a particular ethical principle on which to act. Mark as duplicate. Find it on Scholar. Request removal from index. Revision history. Download options PhilArchive copy. From the Publisher via CrossRef no proxy dl. Configure custom resolver. Moor - - Ethics and Information Technology 7 3 Cyberethics and Co-Operation in the Information Society. Christian Fuchs , Robert M.

Herman Tavani - - Journal of Information Ethics 15 2 Computer Ethics as a Field of Applied Ethics. Herman T. Tavani - - Journal of Information Ethics 21 2 Technology and the Future of Computer Ethics. Marturano - unknown. Antonio Marturano - - Ethics and Information Technology 4 1 Merged citations. This "Cited by" count includes citations to the following articles in Scholar. Add co-authors Co-authors. Follow this author. New articles by this author. New citations to this author.

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