Ethical and Social Issues in the Information Age

Computer technology, barely fifty years old, has enormously transformed human society. The computer revolution, as many have termed it, is quietly but surely affecting every human being on earth in a multitude of ways. Both large and small institutions and indi­ viduals from all walks of life have come to rely on information, more so today than ever before. Although experiences on the whole have been positive thus far, troubling ethical and social issues are coming to our attention....
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Computer technology, barely fifty years old, has enormously transformed human society. The computer revolution, as many have termed it, is quietly but surely affecting every human being on earth in a multitude of ways. Both large and small institutions and indi­ viduals from all walks of life have come to rely on information, more so today than ever before. Although experiences on the whole have been positive thus far, troubling ethical and social issues are coming to our attention. The security of information we all have come to rely on is no longer guaranteed; individual norms of conduct and ethical behavior are changing. Computer technological development is outpacing the ability of our legal sys­ tems. Traditional ethical issues like security, privacy, integrity, responsibility, anonymity, property rights, and related social concerns are also greatly affected by our highly tech­ nological environment. Many ethical questions that used to be answered easily have become more compli­ cated. Like symptoms of a disease, if these concerns are not diagnosed and treated in a timely fashion, they may become untreatable and eventually wreak havoc on human lives. The book analyzes the effects of computer technology on traditional ethical and so­ cial issues. In particular, I explore the consequences of relatively new computer tech­ nologies such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and the Internet. * Chapter 1 defines and examines personal and public morality, the law (both conven­ tional and natural law), and the intertwining of morality and the law.