Information Technology and Moral Philosophy

John Weckert is a Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University in Australia. He is editor-in-chief of NanoEthics: Ethics for Technologies that Converge at the Nanoscale and has published widely in the field of computer ethics. Jeroen van den Hoven is Professor of Moral Philosophy at Delft University of Technology. He is editor-in-chief of Ethics and Information Technology, a member of the IST Advisory Group of the European Community in Brussels, scientific director of the 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology in the Netherlands, and co-author, with Dean Cocking, of Evil Online.

• Introduction; 1. Norbert Wiener and the rise of information ethics Terrell Ward Bynum; 2. Why we need better ethics for emerging technologies James H. Moor; 3. Information ethics: its nature and scope Luciano Floridi; 4. The transformation of the public sphere: political authority, communicative freedom, and internet publics James Bohman; 5. Democracy and the internet Cass R. Sunstein; 6. The social epistemology of blogging Alvin I. Goldman; 7. Plural selves and relational identity: intimacy and privacy online Dean Cocking; 8. Identity and information technology Steve Matthews; 9. Trust, reliance, and the internet Philip Pettit; 10. Esteem, identifiability, and the internet Geoffrey Brennan and Philip Pettit; 11. Culture and global networks: hope for a global ethics? Charles Ess; 12. Collective responsibility and information and communication technology Seumas Miller; 13. Computers as surrogate agents Deborah G. Johnson and Thomas M. Powers; 14. Moral philosophy, information technology, and copyright: the Grokster case Wendy J. Gordon; 15. Information technology, privacy, and the protection of personal data Jeroen van den Hoven; 16. Embodying values in technology: theory and practice Mary Flanagan, Daniel C. Howe and Helen Nissenbaum; 17. Information technology research ethics Dag Elgesem; 18. Distributive justice and the value of information: a (broadly) Rawlsian approach Jeroen van den Hoven and Emma Rooksby.

'This collection of 18 essays is rich in ideas on the implications of information technology and morality. Variety is the collection's strong point, though there are certainly some common themes, including the nature of identity and agency … This work will appeal to scholars in several disciplines, including communication, political science, computer science, and philosophy. Summing up: recommended.' S. E. Forschler, Choice