Preface

Summary

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have profoundly altered many aspects of life, including the nature of entertainment, work, communication, education, health care, industrial production and business, social relations and conflicts. As a consequence, they have had a radical and widespread impact on our moral lives and hence on contemporary ethical debates. Consider the following list: PAPA (privacy, accuracy, intellectual property and access); ‘the triple A’ (availability, accessibility and accuracy of information); ownership and piracy; the digital divide; infoglut and research ethics; safety, reliability and trustworthiness of complex systems; viruses, hacking and other forms of digital vandalism; freedom of expression and censorship; pornography; monitoring and surveillance; security and secrecy; propaganda; identity theft; the construction of the self; panmnemonic issues and personal identity; new forms of agency (artificial and hybrid), of responsibility and accountability; roboethics and the moral status of artificial agents; e-conflicts; the re-prioritization of values and virtues…these are only some of the pressing issues that characterize the ethical discourse in our information societies. They are the subject of information and computer ethics (ICE), a new branch of applied ethics that investigates the transformations brought about by ICTs and their implications for the future of human life and society, for the evolution of moral values and rights, and for the evaluation of agents' behaviours.

Since the seventies, ICE has been a standard topic in many curricula. In recent years, there has been a flourishing of new university courses, international conferences, workshops, professional organizations, specialized publications and research centres.