Ethics and Information Technology 4: 19, 2002.

2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Mapping the foundationalist debate in computer ethics

Luciano Floridi1 and J.W. Sanders2

1 Faculty of Philosophy, Sub-factulty of Computation, and Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, University of Oxford

Address for correspondence: Wolfson College, Oxford, OX2 6UD, UK

E-mail: luciano.floridi@philosophy.oxford.ac.uk
2 Programming Research Group, OUCL, University of Oxford
Address for correspondence: Wolfson Building, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QD, UK
E-mail: jeff@comlab.ox.ac.uk

Abstract. The paper provides a critical review of the debate on the foundations of Computer Ethics (CE). Starting
from a discussion of Moors classic interpretation of the need for CE caused by a policy and conceptual vacuum,
five positions in the literature are identified and discussed: the no resolution approach, according to which
CE can have no foundation; the professional approach, according to which CE is solely a professional ethics;
the radical approach, according to which CE deals with absolutely unique issues, in need of a unique approach;
the conservative approach, according to which CE is only a particular applied ethics, discussing new species
of traditional moral issues; and the innovative approach, according to which theoretical CE can expand the
metaethical discourse with a substantially new perspective. In the course of the analysis, it is argued that, although
CE issues are not uncontroversially unique, they are sufficiently novel to render inadequate the adoption of
standard macroethics, such as Utilitarianism and Deontologism, as the foundation of CE and hence to prompt the
search for a robust ethical theory. Information Ethics (IE) is proposed for that theory, as the satisfactory foundation
for CE. IE is characterised as a biologically unbiased extension of environmental ethics, based on the concepts
of information object/infosphere/entropy rather than life/ecosystem/pain. In light of the discussion provided in
this paper, it is suggested that CE is worthy of independent study because it requires its own application-specific
knowledge and is capable of supporting a methodological foundation, IE.
Key words: computer ethics, information and communication technology, information ethics, macroethics,
metaethics, microethics, policy vacuum, uniqueness debate
Abbreviations: CA conservative approach; CE computer ethics; IA innovative approach; ICT information
and communication technologies; IE information ethics; NA no resolution approach; PA professional
approach; PE pop ethics; RA radical approach.
Introduction
Computer Ethics (CE) stems from practical concerns
arising in connection with the impact of Information
and Communication Technologies (ICT) on contemporary society. The so-called digital revolution has
caused new and largely unanticipated problems, thus
outpacing ethical, theoretical and legal developments
(Bynum 1998; Bynum 2000; Johnson 2000 for an
overview). In order to fill this policy and conceptual
vacuum (Moor 1985), CE carries out an extended and
intensive study of individual cases, amounting very
often to real-world issues rather than mere mental
experiments, usually in terms of reasoning by analogy.
The result has been inconsistencies, inadequacies and
an unsatisfying lack of general principles. However,
CEs aim is to reach decisions based on principled
choices and defensible ethical criteria, and hence

to provide more generalised conclusions in terms

of conceptual evaluations, moral insights, normative
guidelines, educational programs, legal advice, industrial standards and so forth which may apply to
whole classes of comparable cases. So, at least since
the seventies (see Bynum 2000 for earlier works in
CE), CE focus has moved from problem analysis
primarily aimed at sensitising public opinion, professionals and politicians to tactical solutions resulting,
for example, in the evolution of professional codes of
conduct, technical standards, usage regulations, and
new legislation. The constant risk of this bottom-up
procedure has remained the spreading of ad hoc or
casuistic approaches to ethical problems. Prompted
partly by this difficulty, partly by a natural process
of self-conscious maturation as an independent discipline, CE has further combined tactical solutions with
more strategic and global analyses. The foundation-

L UCIANO F LORIDI AND J.W. S ANDERS

alist debate is an essential part of this top-down

development. It is characterised by a metatheoretical
reflection on the nature and justification of CE and the
discussion of CEs relations with the broader context
of metaethical theories. Can CE amount to a coherent
and cohesive discipline, rather than a more or less
heterogeneous and random collection of ICT-related
ethical problems, applied analyses and practical solutions? If so, what is its conceptual rationale? And
how does it compare with other ethical theories? Five
approaches to the foundation of CE that have emerged
in the literature can be explained as resulting from
different answers to those questions. Here they are
referred to as the no resolution approach (NA), the
Professional Approach (PA), the Radical Approach
(RA), the Conservative Approach (CA), and the
Innovative Approach (IA). The order in this list is both
historical and logical. In the rest of this article it is
argued that NA provides a minimalist starting point,
methodologically useful, which prompts the development of the other four approaches; that PA represents
a valuable professional approach to CE, which leads to
the adoption of a theoretical position when metaethical
issues are in question; that RA stresses the novelty of
CE; that CA connects CE to other standard ethics; and
that IA, relying on the previous approaches, succeeds
in providing a satisfactory answer to the foundationalist question, by presenting Information Ethics (IE)
as the theoretical foundation of CE.
The No resolution approach: CE as not a real
discipline
The expression no resolution view (or approach) is
introduced in Gotterbarn 1991:
The no resolution view has been reinforced by
some recent works. For example, Donn Parker 1981
uses a voting methodology to decide what is ethical
in computing. . . . He says, this work was not guided
by a concept of computer ethics nor was there an
attempt to discover ethical principles. . . . Not only
was there an absence of a concept of computer
ethics, but the primary direction was an emphasis
on proscribed activities. . . . Parker used the diversity
of opinions expressed about these scenarios to argue
that there was no such thing as computer ethics. And
a fortiori, that it could not be taught in a computer
science curriculum.
According to the no resolution approach (NA)
CE problems represent unsolvable dilemma and CE
is itself a pointless exercise, having no conceptual
foundation. NA is convincingly criticised in Gotterbarn 1991 and 1992, which analyses Parker 1981,

1982 and 1990. Empirically, the evolution of CE has

proved NA to be unnecessarily pessimistic. CE problems are successfully solved, CE-related legislation
is approved and enacted, professional standards and
codes have been promoted, and so forth. It is understandable, perhaps, that the view arose at a time when
both public and professionals were being alerted to
wide-ranging unethical uses of ICT. The reason that
Parker did not infer an almost opposite conclusion
(i.e., that CE is essential) from the emphasis on
proscribed activities is presumably his voting methodology. It is dangerous to infer, from inconsistent
replies to a question, that it has no answer. The same
reasoning might lead one to believe, after asking a
representative sample of supporters, that neither side
would win the test at Lords. NAs emphasis on the
wide variety of proscribed activities is characteristic.
Bynum (1992) has described such an approach as pop
ethics (PE). PE is characterised by usually unsystematic and heterogeneous collections of dramatic
stories, discussed in order to raise questions of
unethicality rather than ethicality (Parker 1981). Its
goal is largely negative, to sensitise people to the
fact that computer technology has social and ethical
consequences (Bynum 1992) and it is not neutral.
That is why it played a useful role at the beginning
of the development of CE, at around the time when
hacker became used disparagingly, for example. It
is comparable to early work done in business ethics:
it points to whatever goes wrong but fails to promote
a relevant, beneficial, professional ethos. Gotterbarn
comments:
Pop ethics might have had a place when
computing was a remote and esoteric discipline,
but I believe that in the current environment this
approach is dangerous to the preservation and
enhancement of values. This model of computer
ethics does not forward any of the pedagogical
objectives for teaching ethics [prescribed by PA]
(Gotterbarn 1992).
Nonetheless, PE offers advantages. Some sensitisation
to ethical problems is an important preliminary to CE.
There is little point in providing a solution to someone
unaware of the problem, particularly when the solution is not simple. Secondly, the variety of concerns is
vital to CE (professional, legal, moral, social, political,
etc.) and must be appreciated from the start. For this
purpose a variety of case studies helps. For instance,
Epstein 1997 provides an example of PE found by
many lecturers to be useful as preliminary reading for
a course in CE. The objection to PE is that it goes
no further than cataloguing examples, and that it is
frequently used to support NA. Methodologically, NA
provides a useful point of reference because it repre-

M APPING THE FOUNDATIONALIST DEBATE IN COMPUTER ETHICS

sents an ideal lowest bound for the foundationalist

debate, comparable to the role played by relativism
in metaethics. In terms of logical analysis, any other
approach can be seen as starting from the assumption that NA should be avoided, if possible. Positions
can then be ranked depending on their distance from
NA, whilst failure to defend any successful alternative
confirms NA as the only negative conclusion.

The professional approach: CE is a pedagogical

methodology
The first positive reaction to the policy vacuum has
been an appeal to the social responsibility of computer
professionals. This has meant, among other things,
developing a professional-ethics approach (PA) to CE,
which has stressed pedagogical need (for an overview
see Gotterbarn 1991, 1992). According to PA, CE
should:
introduce the students to the responsibilities of their
profession, articulate the standards and methods
used to resolve non-technical ethics questions about
their profession, develop some proactive skills to
reduce the likelihood of future ethical problems,
[. . .] indoctrinate the students to particular set of
values [. . .] and teach the laws related to a particular
profession to avoid malpractice suits (Gotterbarn
1992).
PA argues that there is no deep theoretical difference
between CE and other professional ethics like business ethics, medical ethics or engineering ethics, only
a variety of pedagogical contexts (Gotterbarn 1991,
1992). And since CE courses have the goal of creating
ethically-minded professionals not ethicists, it is not
necessary, and it may actually be better not to have
philosophers teaching them. After all
Philosophers are no more educated in morality than
their colleagues in the dairy barn; they are trained in
moral theory, which bears about the same relation to
the moral life that fluid mechanics bears to milking
a cow (Robert K. Fullinwider, cited in Gotterbarn
1992).
This argument is not uncommon in academe. Mathematics courses, for example, are taken by many
faculties, from Engineering to Economics. But should
the lectures be given by mathematicians, who are
presumably masters of the material, or lecturers from
the application area, who may appreciate better its
particular application? Apart from political and financial arguments, the latter view is often seen as reinforcing a sense of subject in the application domain,

whilst the less applied view of the former may be

seen as broadening an established subject with new
applications. The arguments concerning the lecturing
of Applied Ethics appear similar. It may perhaps be
argued that at university level such courses ought to
enable participants to solve new problems as they
arise (what are the fundamentals?), whilst in specialised professional institutions such courses are typically
under pressure to be more prescriptive:
In applied professional ethics courses, our aim is
not the acquaintance with complex ethical theories,
rather it is recognizing role responsibility and
awareness of the nature of the profession (Gotterbarn 1992).
PA has a number of major advantages. It stresses
the vital importance of CE education, taking seriously issues like technical standards and requirements,
professional guidelines, specific legislation or regulations, levels of excellence and so forth. It thus exposes
the risky and untenable nature of NA and places PE
in perspective, revealing it insufficient by itself. PA
defends the value and importance of a constructive PE,
by developing a proactive professional ethics (standards, obligations, responsibilities, expectations etc.),
favourable to value-supporting and welfare-enhancing
(development and uses of) ICT products (Bynum
1992; Gotterbarn 1992). Furthermore, PA defends a
realistic pedagogical attitude, pragmatically useful to
sensitise and instruct students and professionals. Its
ultimate aim is to ensure that:
ethical values, rules and judgements [are] applied
in a computing context based on professional standards and a concern for the user of the computing
artefact (Gotterbarn 1991).
One of the primary results of PA has been the elaboration and adoption of usage regulations and codes
of conduct in ICT contexts (libraries, universities,
offices etc.), within industry and in professional associations and organisations, as well as the promotion of
certification of computer professionals. PA addresses
mainly ICT practitioners, especially those involved
in software development, where technical standards
and specific legislation provide a reliable, if minimal,
frame of reference. As we shall see, PAs goals are
pedagogical not metaethical. Unfortunately, sometimes PA is interpreted as the only correct way to
understand the whole field itself, as if CE could be
reduced to a professional ethics in a strict sense:
The only way to make sense of Computer Ethics
is to narrow its focus to those actions that are
within the horizon of control of the individual moral

L UCIANO F LORIDI AND J.W. S ANDERS

computer professional (Gotterbarn 1991, see also

Gotterbarn 1992; Gotterbarn 2001 presents a less
radical view).
This strong view has further led to radically antiphilosophical positions (Langford 1995). However,
a strong PA is far too restrictive, for at least three
reasons. First, strong PA disregards the significant
fact that, contrary to other purely professional issues,
CE problems e.g., privacy, accuracy, security, reliability, intellectual property and access permeate
contemporary life. Although strong PA can rightly
argue that moral problems somehow involving ICT
(e.g., theft using a computer) should not be vaguely
confused with distinctively CE problems (e.g., software copyright issues), this restriction does not yet
justify the reduction of all palpably CE problems to
just professional issues. To be coherent, strong PA
could reply that any citizen of an information society
should be treated, to various degrees, as an ICT
professional, to whom some corresponding professional guidelines should apply; but this would mean
just accepting the fact that CE cannot be reduced to
a specific professional ethics without the latter losing
its perspicuous meaning. Strong PA becomes undefeatable but empty. Second, interpreting PA as providing a
conceptual foundation for CE is to commit a mistake
of levels. It is like attempting to define arithmetic on
the basis only of what is taught in an introductory
course. Without a theoretical approach PA is mere
para-CE, to use an expression coined by Keith Miller
and used by Bynum (1992) in analogy with paramedic, to describe a middle level between pop CE
and theoretical CE. Theoretical CE underpins PA and
requires a different approach from it. Finally, understanding CE as just a professional ethics, not in need
of any further conceptual foundation, means running
the risk of being at best critical but naive, and at worst
dogmatic and conservative. On the one hand, focusing
on case-based analyses and analogical reasoning, a
critical PA will painfully and slowly attempt to rediscover inductively ethical distinctions, clarifications,
theories and so forth already available and discussed in
specialised literature. On the other hand, an uncritical
PA will tend to treat ethical problems and solutions
as misleadingly simple, non-conflicting, self-evident
and uncontroversial, a matter of mere indoctrination, as exemplified in The 10 Commandments of
Computer Ethics approach. Deferring to some contingent normal ethics currently accepted within the
agents society, to adapt a Kuhnian expression, is itself
a very significant ethical decision at least because,
when normal ethics is methodologically coherent, it
limits itself to providing negative prescriptions, since
lists of donts are easier to implement, and much less

questionable, than positive recommendations. Moral

standards, values and choices are always legitimised
by ethical positions and arguments, at least implicitly. Applying normal ethics may then be sufficient
in everyday life; but it is only the first step towards a
mature approach that can uncover, evaluate, criticise
and modify at least some of the accepted presuppositions working in CE, and thus hope to improve them.
Thus, PA may be seen pragmatically as an historical
first step towards a more mature CE.

Theoretical CE and the uniqueness debate

Any applied or professional ethics must necessarily
make room for critical theorising, even if it does
not have to consider it one of its own tasks. PA
at its best distinguishes between pedagogical problems and metatheoretical research, descriptive and
normative questions, practical and theoretical issues,
commonsensical applications and conceptual criticisms of some normal ethics. Among the fundamental
questions that PA does not mean to address are:
Why does ICT raise moral issues? Are CE issues
unique (in the sense of requiring their own theoretical
investigations, not entirely derivative from standard
ethics)? Or are they simply moral issues that happen
to involve ICT? What kind of ethics is CE? What
justifies a certain methodology in CE, e.g., reasoning
by analogy and case-based analysis? What is CE
rationale? What is the contribution of CE to the ethical
discourse? PA programmatically avoids entering into
such investigations and coherently leaves them to theoretical CE. Theoretical CE can then be introduced
as the logical stage following pop CE, NA and PA.
Historically, it has developed along two lines, which
can be usefully introduced through the uniqueness
debate. This has aimed to determine whether the
moral issues confronting CE are unique, and hence
whether CE should be developed as an independent
field of research with a specific area of application
and an autonomous, theoretical foundation. The debate
arises from two different interpretations of the policy
vacuum problem, one more radical, the other more
conservative (Floridi 1999b is a collection of papers;
Bynum 2000; Tavani 2000 are two overviews).

The radical approach: CE as a unique discipline

According to the radical approach (RA), the presence of a policy and conceptual vacuum indicates that
CE deals with absolutely unique issues, in need of a
completely new approach (Mason 1986; Maner 1996,
1999). Thus, RA argues that

M APPING THE FOUNDATIONALIST DEBATE IN COMPUTER ETHICS

[Computer Ethics] must exist as a field worthy of

study in its own right and not because it can provide
a useful means to certain socially noble ends. To
exist and to endure as a separate field, there must
be a unique domain for computer ethics distinct
from the domain for moral education, distinct even
from the domains of other kinds of professional
and applied ethics. Like James Moor, I believe
computers are special technology and raise special
ethical issues, hence that computer ethics deserves
special status (Maner 1999).
In terms of logical analysis, RA presents several
advantages. It counteracts the risk run by NA of
under-evaluating CE problems. Taking seriously their
gravity and unprecedented novelty, RA improves on
the various pop versions of CE, including PA, by
stressing the methodological necessity of providing
the field with a robust and autonomous theoretical
rationale, if it wishes to deal with ICT-related moral
issues successfully. Nevertheless, RA is confronted by
at least four problems. First, to establish that CE is a
unique field, the argument quoted above (Maner 1999)
requires the explicit and uncontroversial identification
of some unique area of study (actually, the argument
appears to be of the form uniqueness only if special
domain and special domain therefore uniqueness.
It is rectified if only if is replaced by if; in the
original words, if there must be is replaced by it
suffices that there be, which at least renders the argument valid, if less plausible). Yet, RA seems unable
to show the absolute uniqueness of any CE problem.
None of the cases provided by Maner 1996 and 1999
is uncontroversially unique, for example. That is to be
expected. It would be very surprising if any significant
moral issue were to belong fully and exclusively only
to a limited conceptual region, without interacting with
the rest of the ethical context. It does not happen in any
other special context such as business ethics, medical
ethics and environmental ethics, and it remains to be
shown why it should happen even in principle in CE.
Second, in reply to the difficulty just seen, one could
argue that CE problems could be made, or become, or
discovered to be increasingly specific, until they justify
the position defended by RA. This reply runs the risk
of being safe but uninteresting because empirically
unfalsifiable. It certainly keeps the burden of proof
on the RA side. But let us suppose that a domain of
unique ethical issues in CE were available in principle.
The basic line of reasoning would still be unacceptable. The uniqueness of a certain topic is not simply
inherited as a property by the discipline that studies
it. On the one hand, specific moral problems e.g.,
abortion, or the profit motive may still require only
some evolutionary adaptation of old macroethical solu-

tions, that is theoretical, field-independent, applicable

ethics, to e.g., medical or business ethics. On the other
hand, specific disciplines, e.g., environmental ethics,
are not necessarily so because they are involved with
unique problems, for they may share their subjects
e.g., the value of life, the concept of welfare with
other disciplines, the difference resting, for example,
in their methodologies, aims or perspectives. The other
two problems encountered by RA are methodological.
Given the interrelatedness of ethical issues and the
untenability of the equation unique topic = unique
discipline, it is not surprising that RA is forced to
leave unspecified what a mature CE could amount to in
detail, as a unique discipline. Finally, by overstressing
the uniqueness of CE, RA runs the risk of isolating
the latter from the more general context of metaethical
theories. This would mean missing the opportunity to
enrich the ethical discourse.

The conservative approach: CE as applied ethics

Some of the problems just seen are neatly avoided
by the conservative approach (CA). CA defends two
theses:
a) classic macroethics e.g., Consequentialism,
Deontologism, Virtue Ethics, Contractualism
are sufficient to cope with the policy vacuum.
These theories might need to be adapted, enriched
and extended, but they have all the conceptual
resources required to deal with CE questions
successfully and satisfactorily;
b) certain ethical issues are transformed by the use
of ICT, but they represent only new species of
traditional moral issues, to which already available
metaethical theories need to, and can successfully,
be applied. They are not and cannot be a source of
a new, macroethical theory.
From (a) and (b) it follows that CE is a microethics,
that is a practical, field-dependent, applied and professional ethics. Thesis (a) is weaker and hence less
controversial than (b). To explain both, Johnson [2000]
introduces an evolutionary metaphor (see also Naresh
1999 for a similar approach):
Extending the idea that computer technology creates
new possibilities, in a seminal article, Moor [1985]
suggested that we think of the ethical questions
surrounding computer and information technology
as policy vacuums. Computer and information
technology creates innumerable opportunities. This
means that we are confronted with choices about
whether and how to pursue these opportunities,
and we find a vacuum of policies on how to

L UCIANO F LORIDI AND J.W. S ANDERS

make these choices. [. . .] I propose that we think

of the ethical issues surrounding computer and
information technology as new species of traditional moral issues. On this account, the idea is
that computer-ethical issues can be classified into
traditional ethical categories. They always involve
familiar moral ideas such as personal privacy, harm,
taking responsibility for the consequences of ones
action, putting people at risk, and so on. On the other
hand, the presence of computer technology often
means that the issues arise with a new twist, a new
feature, a new possibility. The new feature makes it
difficult to draw on traditional moral concepts and
norms. [. . .] The genus-species account emphasizes
the idea that the ethical issues surrounding computer
technology are first and foremost ethical. This is
the best way to understand computer-ethical issues
because ethical issues are always about human
beings.
Since CA presents CE as an interface between ICTrelated moral problems and standard macroethics, it
enjoys all the advantages associated with a strong
theoretical position. CA rejects NA. It accepts pop
CEs recommendation: CE problems are important and
significant, so much so that, for CA, they deserve to be
approached both pragmatically and theoretically. It is
compatible with, and indeed reinforces, PA since, for
CA, CE is an ethics for the citizen of the information
society, not just for the ICT professional. Being based
on a macroethic perspective, CA can both promote a
constructive attitude, like PA, and hope to adopt an
evaluative stance, thus avoiding a naive or uncritical
reliance on some contingent normal ethics. Finally,
CA avoids RAs untenable equation and corresponding
isolationism, because the development of an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary interpretation of CE
problems allows it to integrate them well within the
broader context of the ethical discourse. Is then the CA
position devoid of difficulties? Not yet, for CA is still
faced by four shortcomings.
First, CAs weaker thesis (a) is controversial. It is
at least questionable whether standard macroethics do
indeed have all the necessary resources to deal with
CE problems satisfactorily, without reducing them to
their own conceptual frames and thus erasing their true
novelty (Floridi 1999a provides arguments against (a)).
It may be argued that precisely the fact that CE problems were unpredicted and are perceived as radically
new casts doubts on the possibility of merely adapting
old ethical theories to the new context.
Second, CA is metatheoretically underdetermined.
The evolutionary metaphor incorporates the tension
between a radical and a traditional approach but does
not resolve it. New species of moral problem could

conceivably be so revolutionarily different from their

ancestors the digital instrumentation of the world
can create such entirely new moral issues, unique to
CE and that do not surface in other areas to require
a unique approach, as suggested by RA. Or they
may represent just minor changes, perfectly disregardable for any theoretical purpose, as the conservative
approach wishes to argue. The trouble is that CA,
left with the tension now hidden in the evolutionary
perspective, opts for the conservative solution to treat
CE as an applied ethics, but then it does not and cannot
indicate which macroethics should be applied. At best,
this leads to the adoption of some standard macroethics
to deal with CE problems, e.g., Consequentialism and,
when the choice is not arbitrary, this further justifies
the claim that, in terms of ethical theorising, there
is not much to be learnt philosophically from this
applied field. If new ICT-related moral problems have
any theoretical value, either by themselves or because
embedded in original contexts, this is only insofar as
they provide further evidence for the discussion of
well-established ethical doctrines. In this way, CA
approaches NA: there are no CE specific problems,
only ethical problems involving ICT. At worst, CAs
lack of commitment leads to a muddle of syncretic and
eclectic positions, often acritical and overlooking the
theoretical complexity of the problems involved. CAs
lack of an explicit metaethical commitment generates
a logical regress: having accepted CE as a microethics,
one then needs a metatheoretical analysis to evaluate
which macroethics is most suitable to deal with CE
problems. This logical regress tends to be solved by
appealing either to some common-sensical view or to
pedagogical needs. The former solution leads back to
the assumption of some contingent, normal ethics as
providing CE rationale (to simplify: I do CE by using
Habermas dialogue ethics because this is what my
society approves as normal ethics). It thus undermines
the critical and normative advantage that CA hopes
to have over other approaches. The latter solution (to
simplify: I do CE by using Virtue Ethics because this is
what my students find more intuitive), apart from being
equally arbitrary, represents the kind of unnecessary
intrusion of philosophy into professional matters so
rightly criticised in PA literature. Software engineers
should not be required to read the Nicomachean Ethics.
Third, CA is methodologically poor. This is a
consequence of the first problem. Lacking a clear
macroethical commitment, CA cannot provide an
explicit methodology either. It then ends by relying
on common-sense, case-based analysis and analogical
reasonings, often insufficient means to understand
what CA itself acknowledges to be new and complex
issues in CE.

M APPING THE FOUNDATIONALIST DEBATE IN COMPUTER ETHICS

Fourth, CA is metaethically unidirectional. Arguing for (b), CA rejects a priori and without explicit
arguments the possibility, envisaged by RA, that
CE problems might enrich the ethical discourse
by promoting a new macroethical perspective. It
addresses the question what can ethics do for CE?
but fails to ask the philosophically more interesting
question is there anything that CE can do for ethics?.
It thus runs the risk of missing what is intrinsically new
in CE, not at the level of problems and concepts, but at
the level of contribution to metaethics. A mere extension of standard macroethics does not enable one to
uncover new possibilities (Gorniak-Kocikowska 1996,
for example, argues that computer ethics is the most
important theoretical development in ethics since the
Enlightenment).

The innovative approach: Information ethics as

the foundation of CE
There is a third possible approach to theoretical
CE, which is neither conservative nor radical, but
innovative (IA; Bynum 1998, 2000 outline the need
for an innovative approach to CE). IA builds on
CAs advantages, but it avoids its shortcomings by
rejecting the conservative restriction made explicit in
(b). According to IA, CE problems, the corresponding
policy and conceptual vacuum, the uniqueness debate
and the difficulties encountered by RA and CA in
developing a cohesive metaethical approach strongly
suggest that the monopoly exercised by standard
macroethics in theoretical CE is unjustified. ICT, by
transforming in a profound way the context in which
moral issues arise, not only adds interesting new
dimensions to old problems, but leads us to rethink,
methodologically, the very grounds on which our
ethical positions are based. Although the novelty of
CE is not so dramatic as to require the development
of an utterly new, separate and unrelated discipline, it
certainly shows the limits of traditional approaches to
the ethical discourse, and encourages a fruitful modification in the metatheoretical perspective. Rather than
allowing standard macroethics to occupy the territory
of CE arbitrarily, as happens with CA, or exiling CE
in an impossibly isolated and independent position,
as proposed by RA, IA argues that theoretical CE
should be promoted to the level of another macroethics because it does have something distinctive and
substantial to say on moral problems, and hence
can enrich the metaethical discourse with a new
and interesting approach of unquestionable philosophical value. In previous work, we have defined this
macroethical perspective Information Ethics (Floridi
1998, 1999a; Floridi and Sanders 1999, 2001; Floridi

and Sanders forthcoming-c). Information Ethics (IE),

understood as the theoretical foundation of applied
CE, is a non-standard, environmental macroethics,
patient-oriented and ontocentric, based on the concepts
of information object/infosphere/entropy rather than
life/ecosystem/pain. The definition requires some
comments.
The interpretation of what is the primary object
of the ethical discourse is a matter of philosophical orientation. Some macroethical positions (e.g.,
Virtue Ethics) concentrate their attention on the moral
nature and development of the agent. They are
properly described as agent-oriented, subjective
ethics. Since the agent is usually assumed to be a
single person, they tend to be individualistic. Some
other positions (e.g., Consequentialism, Contractualism and Deontologism) concentrate their attention on
the moral nature and value of the agents actions. They
are relational and action-oriented theories, intrinsically social in nature. Agent-oriented, intra-subjective
theories and action-oriented, inter-subjective theories
can be defined as standard or classic, without
necessarily associating any positive evaluation with
either of these two adjectives. Standard macroethics
tend to be anthropocentric and to take only a relative
interest in the patient, the third element in a
moral relation, which is on the receiving end of
the action, and endures its effects. Ontic power,
however, brings with it new moral responsibilities.
One can respect only what one no longer fears, yet
knowledge is a process of increasing emancipation
from reality and, in a world in which humanity
can influence, control or manipulate practically every
aspect of reality, philosophical attention is finally
drawn to the importance of moral concerns that are
not immediately agent/action-oriented and anthropocentric. Medical Ethics, Bioethics and Environmental
Ethics are among the best known examples of this
non-standard approach. They attempt to develop a
patient-oriented ethics in which the patient may be
not only a human being, but also any form of life.
Indeed, Land Ethics extends the concept of patient
to any component of the environment, thus coming
close to the object-oriented approach defended by IE
(Rowlands 2000). Capturing what is a pre-theoretical
but very common intuition, non-standard ethics hold
the broad view that any form of life has some essential
proprieties or moral interests that deserve and demand
to be respected, even if not absolutely but minimally,
i.e., in a possibly overridable sense. They argue that
the nature and well-being of the patient constitute its
moral standing and that the latter makes important
claims on the interacting agent and in principle ought
to contribute to the guidance of the agents ethical
decisions and the constraint of the agents moral beha-

L UCIANO F LORIDI AND J.W. S ANDERS

viour. Non-standard macroethics place the receiver

of the action at the centre of the ethical discourse, and
displace its source to its periphery, and in so doing
they help to widen further the anthropocentric view of
who or what may qualify in principle as a focus of
moral concern. The development of ethical theories
just sketched provides a useful explanation as well
as a further, metatheoretical, justification of IE. The
various difficulties encountered by other approaches to
CE can be reconnected to the fact that, far from being
a classic, agent/action-oriented ethics, as it may deceptively seem at first sight, CE is primarily an ethics
of being rather than conduct or becoming, and hence
qualifies as non-standard. The fundamental difference,
which sets IE apart from all other members of the
same class of non-standard theories, is that in IE
information objects as such, rather than just living
systems in general, are raised to the role of universal
patients of any action (see Floridi, forthcoming-b for
a full defence of this view). Biocentric ethics usually
ground their analyses of the moral standing of bioentities and ecological systems on the intrinsic worthiness of life and the intrinsically negative value of
suffering. IE suggests that there is something even
more elemental than life, namely being, understood
as information; and something more fundamental than
pain, namely entropy. According to IE, one should
also evaluate the duty of any rational being in terms
of contribution to the growth of the infosphere, and
any process, action or event that negatively affects the
whole infosphere not just an information object as
an increase in its level of entropy and hence an instance
of evil. Without information there is no moral action,
but in IE information moves from being a necessary prerequisite for any morally responsible action
to being its primary object. The crucial importance
of this radical change in perspective cannot be overestimated. Typical non-standard ethics can reach their
high level of universalisation of the ethical discourse
only thanks to their biocentric nature. However, this
also means that even Bioethics and Environmental
Ethics fail to achieve a level of complete impartiality,
because they are still biased against what is inanimate,
lifeless, intangible or abstract (even Land Ethics is
biased against technology and artefacts, for example).
From their perspective, only what is intuitively alive
deserves to be considered as a proper centre of moral
claims, no matter how minimal, so a whole universe
escapes their attention. Now this is precisely the fundamental limit overcome by IE, which further lowers
the necessary condition that needs to be satisfied, in
order to qualify as a centre of moral concern, to the
minimal common factor shared by any entity, namely
its information state. And since any form of being
is in any case also a coherent body of information,

to say that IE is infocentric is tantamount to interpreting it, correctly, as an ontocentric theory. The
ethical question asked by IE is: What is good for an
information entity and the infosphere in general? The
answer is provided by a minimalist theory of deserts:
any information entity is recognised to be the centre
of some basic ethical claims, which deserve recognition and should help to regulate the implementation
of any information process involving it. Approval or
disapproval of any information process is then based
on how the latter affects the essence of the information
entities it involves and, more generally, the whole
infosphere, i.e., on how successful or unsuccessful it
is in respecting the ethical claims attributable to the
information entities involved, and hence in improving
or impoverishing the infosphere. IE brings to ultimate completion the process of enlarging the concept
of what may count as a centre of minimal moral
concern, which now includes every information entity.
This is why it can present itself as a non-standard,
patient-oriented and ontocentric macroethics.
It may be objected that, as the theoretical foundation of CE, IE places the latter at a level of abstraction
too philosophical to make it of any direct utility for
immediate needs. Yet, this is the inevitable price
to be paid for any attempt to provide CE with an
autonomous rationale. One must polarise theory and
practice to strengthen both (on IE as the ecological
ethics of the new information environment see Floridi
2001 and forthcoming-a). IE is not immediately useful
to solve specific CE problems but it provides the
conceptual grounds that can guide problem-solving
procedures in CE. Through IE, CE can develop its
own methodological foundation, and hence support
autonomous theoretical analyses of domain-specific
issues, including pressing practical problems, which
in turn can be used to test its methodology.
IEs position, like that of any other macroethics, is
not devoid of problems. But it can interact with other
metaethical theories and it contributes an important
new perspective: a process or action may be morally
good or bad irrespective of its consequences, motives,
universality, or virtuous nature, but because it affects
the infosphere positively or negatively. This is a
major advantage. Without IEs contribution our understanding of moral facts in general, not just of CE
problems in particular, would be less complete. The
foundationalist debate in CE has lead to the shaping of
a new ethical view.

M APPING THE FOUNDATIONALIST DEBATE IN COMPUTER ETHICS

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