Talk:Information ethics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Philosophy Portal This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received an importance rating on the importance scale.
Additional information: Related task forces (core areas): Ethics Related task forces (major fields): Philosophy of science

[edit] Definition

If information ethics is defined exclusively in terms of information technology (rather than a more general conception of information) then I cannot see why it is necessary to distinguish between computer ethics and information ethics. (Yes I know Dr Floridi suggests that the former term refers to a more practical study, while the latter term refers to a more theoretical study, but I don't think this justifies the use of two different terms. After all, there are many fields of study that have both theoretical and practical aspects.) However, if information ethics were to be defined more broadly - perhaps to include ethical issues related to libraries and archives and other social institutions, as well as the ethical questions raised by copyright and other legal and moral claims for the ownership of information - then I would accept the need for a distinction between information ethics and computer ethics. --RichardVeryard 13:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)