This paper presents the principal findings from a three-year research project funded by the US National Science Foundation on ethics of human enhancement technologies. To help untangle this ongoing debate, we have organized the discussion as a list of questions and answers, starting with background issues and moving to specific concerns, including: freedom & autonomy, health & safety, fairness & equity, societal disruption, and human dignity. Each question-and-answer pair is largely self-contained, allowing the reader to skip to those issues of (...) interest without affecting continuity. (shrink)

Information technology is an integral part of the practices and institutions of post-industrial society. It is also a source of hard moral questions and thus is both a probing and relevant area for moral theory. In this volume, an international team of philosophers sheds light on many of the ethical issues arising from information technology, including informational privacy, digital divide and equal access, e-trust and tele-democracy. Collectively, these essays demonstrate how accounts of equality and justice, property and privacy benefit from (...) taking into account how information technology has shaped our social and epistemic practices and our moral experiences. Information technology changes the way that we look at the world and deal with one another. It calls, therefore, for a re-examination of notions such as friendship, care, commitment and trust. (shrink)

Nanoethics seeks to examine the potential risks and rewards of applications of nanotechnology. This up-to-date anthology gives the reader an introduction to and basic foundation in nanotechnology and nanoethics, and then delves into near-, mid-, and far-term issues. Comprehensive and authoritative, it: -/- - Goes beyond the usual environmental, health, and safety (EHS) concerns to explore such topics as privacy, nanomedicine, human enhancement, global regulation, military, humanitarianism, education, artificial intelligence, space exploration, life extension, and more -/- -Features contributions from forty (...) preeminent experts from academia and industry worldwide, reflecting diverse perspectives -/- -Includes seminal works that influence nanoethics today -/- -Encourages an informed, proactive approach to nanoethics and advocates addressing new and emerging controversies before they impede progress or impact our welfare -/- This resource is designed to promote further investigations and a broad and balanced dialogue in nanoethics, dealing with critical issues that will affect the industry as well as society. While this will be a definitive reference for students, scientists in academia and industry, policymakers, and regulators, it's also a valuable resource for anyone who wants to understand the challenges, principles, and potential of nanotechnology. (shrink)

This paper examines workplace surveillance and monitoring. It is argued that privacy is a moral right, and while such surveillance and monitoring can be justified in some circumstances, there is a presumption against the infringement of privacy. An account of privacy precedes consideration of various arguments frequently given for the surveillance and monitoring of employees, arguments which look at the benefits, or supposed benefits, to employees as well as to employers. The paper examines the general monitoring of work, and the (...) monitoring of email, listservers and the World Wide Web. It is argued that many of the common justifications given for this surveillance and monitoring do not stand up to close scrutiny. (shrink)

This paper examines workplace surveillance and monitoring. It is argued that privacy is a moral right, and while such surveillance and monitoring can be justified in some circumstances, there is a presumption against the infringement of privacy. An account of privacy precedes consideration of various arguments frequently given for the surveillance and monitoring of employees, arguments which look at the benefits, or supposed benefits, to employees as well as to employers. The paper examines the general monitoring of work, and the (...) monitoring of email, listservers and the World Wide Web. It is argued that many of the common justifications given for this surveillance and monitoring do not stand up to close scrutiny. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the reasons behind unethical behaviour in the Australian Information and Communications Technology workplace. Design/methodology/approach – The study employed a qualitative research methodology. A total of 43 ICT professionals were interviewed during the month of February 2014 in six Australian capital cities. All interviews were conducted face-to-face and followed a semi-structured interviewing format utilising open-end questions and further probing questions. The purposive sample represented ICT professionals from large and small organisations, government (...) and private sector, different geographic locations, ages, genders, types of jobs and employment experience. Data analysis was completed with the help of QSR NVivo 10, a software package for managing qualitative data. Findings – Of the 25 reasons identified for unethical behaviour in ICT workplaces, 30 per cent of participants agreed on five major ones: pressure, bad management, greed, lack of respect towards ICT and communication issues. Practical implications – By focussing on the reasons behind unethical behaviour in the Australian ICT workplace, this article helps those identifying strategies for dealing with unprofessional behaviour to take into account the root causes of unprofessional behaviour. Originality/value – There is hardly any literature on reasons for unethical behaviour in the ICT workplaces. This article seeks to address this imbalance in the literature. Also, integrity systems in ICT are a new focus in collective, organisational ethics. Identification of and resolving unethical ICT workplace practice is an innovative contribution to the literature. (shrink)

Symposium on Animal Disenhancement: Introduction Content Type Journal Article Category Introduction Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s11569-012-0145-3 Authors John Weckert, Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University, Canberra, ACT, Australia Journal NanoEthics Online ISSN 1871-4765 Print ISSN 1871-4757.

Changes in information technologylead to new topics and new emphases in computerethics. The present article examines a varietyof such issues, and argues that computer ethicsmust become more rigorous and develop astronger theoretical base. The articleconcludes with a discussion of ways to makecomputer ethics more effective in bringinghelpful changes to the world.

The implementation of Responsible Research and Innovation is not without its challenges, and one of these is raised when societal desirability is included amongst the RRI principles. We will argue that societal desirability is problematic even though it appears to fit well with the overall ideal. This discord occurs partly because the idea of societal desirability is inherently ambiguous, but more importantly because its scope is unclear. This paper asks: is societal desirability in the spirit of RRI? On von Schomberg’s (...) account, it seems clear that it is, but societal desirability can easily clash with what is ethically permissible; for example, when what is desirable in a particular society is bad for the global community. If that society chose not to do what was desirable for it, the world would be better off than if they did it. Yet our concern here is with a more complex situation, where there is a clash with ethical acceptability, but where the world would not be better off if the society chose not do what was societally desirable for itself. This is the situation where it is argued that someone else will do it if we do not. The first section of the paper gives an outline of what we take technology to be, and the second is a discussion of which criteria should be the basis for choosing research and innovation projects. This will draw on the account of technology outlined in the first section. This will be followed by an examination of a common argument, “If we don’t do it, others will”. This argument is important because it appears to justify acting in morally dubious ways. Finally, it will be argued that societal desirability gives support to the “If we don’t…” argument and that this raises some difficulties for RRI. (shrink)

‘It is much more difficult than is often admitted to make a strong case for the ownership of computer software.’ This closely argued study of the strengths and weaknesses of the case for intellectual property rights and against software piracy is based on material contained in the author’s joint work with Douglas Adeney, Computer and Information Ethics, Greenwood Press, an imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, INC., Westport, CT, forthcoming May, 1997. The author is a member of the School of Information (...) Studies at Charles Sturt University, PO Box 588, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2650 Australia; tel 61 69 33 2372; fax 61 69 33 2733; email [email protected] wishes to acknowledge the contribution to this paper of Douglas Adeney of the University of Melbourne. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to examine incompetence in the Australian ICT workplace from the perspective of Australian ICT professionals. The data collection for this project included conducting a quantitative survey, conducting qualitative interviews and conducting focus group discussions with key informants. Of the 2,315 respondents who participated in the survey, the MRF analysis revealed that incompetence was ranked fifth from the top of a list of the 57 most common ethical problems experienced by ICT professionals. An inspection of (...) the results of the cross tabulations revealed that 34.8% described their occupational category as manager and 29.1% indicated they were consultants. The GLM has found a significant relationship between the choice of incompetence and occupation suggesting occupation, among other things, does predict the choice of incompetence. The findings from the qualitative interviews are consistent with the above findings. A cross referencing of the interviewees responses that addressed the issue of incompetence during the interviews against their occupation has revealed that consultants had more to say on the topic than any other occupation. This is followed by managers who accounted for 14.6%. These findings indicate that the experienced professionals have a greater concern about incompetence than others; an observation that the findings from the focus group interviews have also confirmed. Obtaining such findings would not have been possible had only one method been used. (shrink)

Our technologies have enabled us to change both the world and our perceptions of the world, as well as to change ourselves and to find new ways to fulfil the human desire for improvement and for having new capacities. The debate around using technology for human enhancement has already raised many ethical concerns, however little research has been done in how human enhancement can affect human communication. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether some human enhancements could change (...) our shared lifeworld so radically that human communication as we know it would not be possible any longer. After exploring the kinds of communication problems we are concerned with as well as mentioning some possible enhancement interventions that could bring about such problems, we will address some of the ethical implications that follow from these potential communication problems. We argue that because of the role that communication plays in human society, this issue deserves attention. (shrink)

The impact of the Internet on democracy is a widely discussed subject. Many writers view the Internet, potentially at least, as a boon to democracy and democratic practices. According to one popular theme, both e-mail and web pages give ordinary people powers of communication that have hitherto been the preserve of the relatively wealthy (Graham 1999, p. 79). So the Internet can be expected to close the influence gap between wealthy citizens and ordinary citizens, a weakness of many procedural democracies.

Claims have been made that the current COVID-19 pandemic is a message from nature to stop exploiting the earth to the extent that we have been. While there is no direct evidence that this pandemic is a result of human actions with respect to the earth, ample evidence exists that deforestation and other environmental changes, together with climate change, do make it more likely that viruses will cross from wildlife to humans. We humans are mammals and our welfare depends on (...) the health of the earth. We are not so different from other living creatures in this regard. It is in our interests to look after the earth, something that Indigenous Australians knew well. Mother Earth must be cared for if she is to care for us. Nature perhaps is sending us a message in the same sense that my car does if I do not maintain it. It stops functioning properly. We have to modify nature to satisfy our needs but we must be careful how we modify it. (shrink)

These comments claim that a shift has occurred between early discussions of online trust, where the focus was on the possibility of such trust and later ones, such as Ess’s, where the concern is more with the influence of the new communication technologies on trust in general. The comments, then, focus on affordance as examined by Ess, arguing that it is, indeed, a central issue in new communications and trust.

Legislation was recently introduced into theAustralian parliament to regulate the Internet. Thiscreated a storm of protest from within the computerindustry, where arguments against the legislationranged from those based on technical difficulties tothose based on moral considerations, particularly offreedom of speech and freedom to access information.This paper is primarily concerned with the moralaspects of Internet regulation, but within theparameters of current technology. It will argue thatsuch regulation can be justified, despite the factthat given the current technology there will bedifficulties with enforcement, (...) and reduction inInternet performance. (shrink)

In his recent publication On the Internet Professor Hubert Dreyfus makes some interesting criticisms on the effectiveness of Internet-based distance learning and on the use of the Internet in general. There is still relatively little written on the philosophical and social implications of the Internet that is both clear and cohesive. Professor Dreyfus' book is exemplary in this regard, and it has attracted many followers extolling its virtues. However, there are serious issues with both the metho d and the content (...) of his approach. His content is arguably restricted by a limited view of the Internet while his selective method of projecting the thoughts of long dead writers to a current phenomenon far from finished or even fully understood, may be considered a perilous undertaking for a system atic philosopher. For example, Professor Dreyfus offers the unusual suggestion that the Internet is the successor to the popular press of the mid-nineteenth century. It was the popular press that the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard derided for its instant opinions, anonymity, and lack of an ethical position. On the Internet applies Kierkegaard's criticisms to the Internet and further argues that hypermedia is hype. Dreyfus believes that Internet-based learning cannot develop mastery or convey a sense of presence of other people or of reality in general. This paper will investigate whether we can definitely view the Internet as analogous to Kierkegaard's enemy, the popular press, and if there are current examples where the Internet augments our understanding and experiencing of the world without us actually being at the `virtual' scene. (shrink)

There is a major transformation taking place in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are poised on the edge of a significant new social landscape. Called the Internet, this new frontier includes not only the crea tion of new forms of private communication, like electronic mail and chat, but also web-based forums, which for the first time enabled public discussions between males and females in this gender-segre gated society. This paper has been written as a result of an ethnographic study conducted in (...) Saudi Arabia during the period 2001- 2002. The purpose of the study was to understand how online communitie s in Saudi Arabia are affecting people. The results of the study indicate that while participants to a large extent used online communities in accordance with their cultural values, norms and traditio ns, the communication medium and the features associated with it, such as the anonymity and lack of social cues, have affected them considerably. For example, many participants became more flexible in their thinking, more mindful about the diverse nature of people within their society, less inhibited about the opposite gender, and more self-confident. Contrary to their cultural values, participant s neglected their family commitments, became less shy and some developed relationships that are based on interest alone. These findings will be highlighted in this paper. (shrink)