Technological revolutions are dissected into three stages: the introduction stage, the permeation stage, and the power stage. The information revolution is a primary example of this tripartite model. A hypothesis about ethics is proposed, namely, ethical problems increase as technological revolutions progress toward and into the power stage. Genetic technology, nanotechnology, and neurotechnology are good candidates for impending technological revolutions. Two reasons favoring their candidacy as revolutionary are their high degree of malleability and their convergence. Assuming the emerging technologies develop (...) into mutually enabling revolutionary technologies, we will need better ethical responses to cope with them. Some suggestions are offered about how our approach to ethics might be improved. (shrink)

Computer and information ethics, as well as other fields of applied ethics, need ethical theories which coherently unify deontological and consequentialist aspects of ethical analysis. The proposed theory of just consequentialism emphasizes consequences of policies within the constraints of justice. This makes just consequentialism a practical and theoretically sound approach to ethical problems of computer and information ethics.

Book reviewed in this article: Principles of Biomedical Ethics. By Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress.

This chapter contains sections titled: References and Further Reading.

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)

Developing technology that accounts for values has been achieved in many areas, including security, gaming, finance, engineering, and many more. The main methodological approach has been that of value sensitive design. But most of the work to date has been on the first of its three stages. The focus of this article is on advances related to its second stage, empirical investigation, and in particular the impact of contextual understanding in that stage. Although lessons can be learnt from other domains, (...) the specific context of dementia means that there are nuances to understanding values, including justice and autonomy, that differ from other areas. The integration of value considerations in the development of assistive technology in dementia is explored in two broad categories: the traditional and ongoing need for fixed decision support, and adaptable decision support technologies. For fixed decision support the A&D Benchmark is particularly useful in design. But for adaptable technologies, that benchmark requires further development, including consideration of the values of additional stakeholders, such as the general public. (shrink)

Purpose This study aims to explore how health informatics can underpin the successful delivery of recovery-orientated healthcare, in rural and remote regions, to achieve better mental health outcomes. Recovery is an extremely social process that involves being with others and reconnecting with the world. Design/methodology/approach An interpretivist study involving 27 clinicians and 13 clients sought to determine how future expenditure on ehealth could improve mental health treatment and service provision in the western Murray Darling Basin of New South Wales, Australia. (...) Findings Through the use of targeted ehealth strategies, it is possible to increase both the accessibility of information and the quality of service provision. In small communities, the challenges of distance, access to healthcare and the ease of isolating oneself are best overcome through a combination of technology and communal social responsibility. Technology supplements but cannot completely replace face-to-face interaction in the mental health recovery process. Originality/value The recovery model provides a conceptual framework for health informatics in rural and remote regions that is socially responsible. Service providers can affect better recovery for clients through infrastructure that enables timely and responsive remote access whilst driving between appointments. This could include interactive referral services, telehealth access to specialist clinicians, GPS for locating clients in remote areas and mobile coverage for counselling sessions in “real time”. Thus, the technology not only provides better connections but also adds to the responsiveness of any treatment available. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to add one further value to the previously articulated “universal values” and to describe the constituent components of three universal values.Design/methodology/approachThis interpretive/constructivist study of Australia's largest online community of seniors involved a 30‐month ethnographic investigation. After an initial period of 11 months of observing social interaction on the entire site, in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 30 participants, selected according to criterion sampling, a form of purposive sampling.FindingsFour key moral values were identified: equality, freedom, (...) respect and trust. All of them had been found in other studies, with equality and respect (as human dignity) identified as universal values. The findings from this study suggest that freedom is another universal value.Originality/valueThis study extends the understanding of universal values to include freedom. Further, it demonstrates the constituent components for freedom, and those of two other universal values previously identified in the literature, equality and human dignity, as well as revealing linkages between these three values. (shrink)

In his article "Disclosive Computer Ethics," Phillip Brey critiques mainstream computer ethics and argues for a disclosive computer ethic "which is concerned with the moral deciphering of embedded values and norms in computer systems, applications, and practices." 1 In this article I argue that DCE simply shifts the focus of MCE toward issues Brey deems important.