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Over the last few decades information and communication technology has come to play an increasingly prominent role in our dealings with other people. Computers, in particular, have made available a host of new ways of interacting, which we have increasingly made use of. In the wake of this development a number of ethical questions have been raised and debated. Ethics in Cyberspace focuses on the consequences for ethical agency of mediating interaction by means of computers, seeking to clarify how the conditions of certain kinds of interaction in cyberspace (for example, in chat-rooms and virtual worlds) differ from the conditions of interaction face-to-face and how these differences may come to affect the behaviour of interacting agents in terms of ethics.
List of contents
Preface. I The basic premise. 1. Ethics in Cyberspace. 1.1 Introduction. 2. The basic premise revisited. 2.1 Shortcomings of the basic premise. 2.2 The basic premise. II Action, explanation and cyberspace. 3. Actions and explanations. 3.1 Actions and reasons. 3.2 Explaining the basic premise. 4. Interaction in Cyberspace. 4.1 Cyberspace: Infrastructure and interaction. 4.2 Key properties of cyberspatial interaction. III Explaining the basic premise. 5. Belief and particularity. 5.1 Structure of analysis. 5.2 The three hypotheses. 6. Belief and reality. 6.1 Hypothesis I: Reality and determinateness. 6.2 Hypothesis II: Reality, causality and life-world. 6.3 Hypothesis III: Reality and vulnerability. 6.4 Hypotheses I to III: Beliefs and evidence. 7. Belief and evidence. 7.1 Evidence in cyberspatial interaction. 8. Belief and action. 8.1 Belief, reality and ethics. 8.2 Explaining the moral difference in interaction. 9. Concluding remarks. 9.1 Alternative explanations and interpretations. Bibliography. Index.
Report
From the reviews:
"This book will interest students of modern ethics, psychology, and the human factors of cyberspace. ... Ploug's work is best suited for a graduate seminar. ... if there is a need for face time in ethics and human interactions, this book is a valuable first step." (Brad Reid, ACM Computing Reviews, October, 2009)
"A book on the ethics of interactions in cyberspace is both timely and important. ... written in three sections, nine chapters and is designed to appeal to different readerships. ... Ploug ... more interested in ethical theory. His interest is in the logical relationships between different properties in cyberspace, how we establish and act on our beliefs about others, our beliefs about the world ... . To my mind, these are all important questions of epistemology, including for phenomenologists." (Erich von Dietze, Metapsychology Online Reviews, Vol. 14 (12), March, 2010)
