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Ethics of Information Technologies in Knowledge Society



Author(s)

Jacob Dahl Rendtorff

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DOI:10.17265/2160-6579/2016.04.004

Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

How should we define the ethics of information technology? It is not a new field of study in the sense that it requires an entirely new ethical thinking. Rather, it is a field where we can try to use our traditional philosophical notions and apply them to this field of computer technology, information science, and knowledge society in order to define responsibility and accountability. Although relations of causalities may be blurred and complex because of the auto-poetic development of computers and information systems we may still have to face the fact that human beings are fundamentally responsible behind the responsibilities of the computers. So we can say that the concept of reliability and accountability is related to human responsibility in the field of Internet technology. Indeed, issues of hacking, viruses and intervention in computers also pose the problems of responsibility and violation of property and copyrights and here we face similar issues as when we talk about physical property rights although what happens is going on in cyberspace. Also we face fundamental problems about transparency, power and democracy of society as the result of the information revolution in knowledge. This shows how it becomes more and more difficult for governments and organizations to hide information and that information is becoming more and more public. We can also talk about the present development as a technology-driven information revolution in knowledge society. The information overload is a result of this revolution that is expressed in the Internet and that changes the relation of human beings to society where human beings need to access information technology and tools in order to be able to live and work in society.

ethics, information technologies, communication, knowlegde, society, social responsibility, business ethics