Information Ethics (IE) has come to mean different things to different researchers working in a variety of disciplines, including computer ethics, business ethics, medical ethics, computer science and information science. The chapter explores what IE is and what counts as a moral agent and moral patient according to IE. It questions our responsibilities as moral agents, according to IE and the fundamental principles of IE. The resource-product-target (RPT) model, summarized in this chapter, helps one to get some initial orientation in the multiplicity of issues belonging to different interpretations of IE. The chapter also gives an overview of Information Ethics understood as a macroethics. Since the early nineties, when the author first introduced IE as an environmental macroethics and a foundationalist approach to computer ethics, some standard objections have circulated that seem to be based on a few basic misunderstandings.

Information Ethics is a recent alternative to traditional ethical theory to account for the moral phenomena and is the subject of further research to investigate how it can be made to bear upon the practical problems in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and to demonstrate that it has an explanatory and justificatory surplus compared to the traditional ethical normative theories. Floridi's Information Ethics provides a high-level value theory which applies to the ICTs domain, which at the same time allows for specification at the mid-level and lower levels of abstraction and specification. Mid-level theories may in turn be used as sources of moral arguments in the relevant empirical domains, where conceptual reconstructions have prepared the ground for their application. Reconstructed concepts, e.g. contestatory democracy, justice as fairness, privacy as data protection, function as high-level architectural principles for the design of information systems and ICTs applications.

This chapter gives a brief analysis of a model defended by Floridi and Sanders for examining foundational issues in computer ethics (CE).It proposes an alternative model, which frames CE's foundationalist debate in terms of three principal questions. The first question is regarding CE's legitimacy in the field of applied ethics. The second question is concerned with CE's uniqueness in a philosophically interesting sense. The third question is whether CE requires a new ethical framework. In analysing the questions, the chapter argues that CE qualifies as a legitimate field of applied ethics that warrants philosophical analysis and concludes that there were no convincing reasons to believe that computing technology has either (i) generated any unique or new ethical issues, or (ii) introduced any new ethical objects. It states that there are no compelling reasons to believe that a new normative ethical theory is required for CE.

This chapter concentrates on three important social issues in computer ethics: the question of intellectual property (IP), issues related to digital divides, and issues arising out of employment and work. It clarifies the philosophical underpinning of those social issues in computer ethics related to ownership and property in assets that have a form different from the physical entities for which the idea of property was originally developed. With regards to ethical issues raised by information and communication technology (ICT), two groups of intellectual creations currently constitute the main items of IP: software and content. The chapter addresses the ethically and philosophically interesting aspects of digital divides which develops the argument that digital divides share relevant aspects with other social issues of computer ethics. Work and employment issues are driven to a large extent by business interests, for example where ICT leads to a higher degree of employee surveillance or self-surveillance.

This chapter explores the role computer ethics and its implications on all applied ethical fields, in particular on media ethics, business ethics, criminal justice ethics, medical ethics, bioethics and environmental ethics. It discusses in particular the role played by information and communication technology (ICT) in a variety of contexts. Freedom of speech and expression are of central importance to both computer and media ethics, and because of the decentralized and global nature of the Internet, pornography, hate language and various illegal activities are much more difficult to control than in more traditional media. The chapter concentrates on two aspects where computers have made a significant difference: monitoring and surveillance in relation to privacy and trust, and biometrics. This chapter focuses ICT in medical contexts particularly data protection related to medical records and online consultation. It focuses on the role of ICTs in bioethics with a special focus on modern genomics.

This chapter examines some metaphysical assumptions of Aristotle and Wiener that can be seen as philosophical roots of today's information and computer ethics. It briefly describes Floridi's new 'macroethics', which he calls information ethics to distinguish Floridi's 'macroethics' from the general field of information ethics that includes, for example, agent ethics, computer ethics, Internet ethics, journalism ethics, library ethics, bioengineering ethics, neurotechnology ethics, etc. In his book, Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, Wiener viewed animals and computerized machines as cybernetic entities. Beginning in 1950, with the publication of The Human Use of Human Beings, Wiener assumed that cybernetic machines will join humans as active participants in society. In Moor's computer ethics theory, respect for 'core values' is a central aspect of his 'just consequentialism' theory of justice, as well as his influential analysis of human privacy.