Online research in philosophy

The positive qualities of the Internet--anonymity, openness, and reproducibility have added a new ethical dimension to the privacy debate. This paper describes a new and significant way in which privacy is violated. A type of personal information, called virtual information is described and the effectiveness of techniques to protect this type of information is examined. This examination includes a discussion of technical approaches and professional standards as ways to address this violation of virtual information.

: What is truly beautiful? For Søren Kierkegaard the beautiful is to be found in an integrated self, one that is freely chosen. This article explores Kierkegaard's "aesthetic" stage of existence through the character of Augusto Pérez, the protagonist of Miguel de Unamuno's novel, Niebla. After establishing a solid link between Unamuno and Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard's "ethical" stage is used to critique the "aesthetic" stage on aesthetic grounds, on the basis of the beauty found in life's work, a calling. The conclusion is that the sphere of the "aesthetic" does not achieve Kierkegaard's "aesthetics" of an integrated, fully existing self.

This paper investigates the ethical issues surrounding the concept of Internet neutrality focusing specifically on the correlation between neutrality and fairness. Moving from an analysis of the many available definitions of Internet neutrality and the heterogeneity of the Internet infrastructure, the common assumption that a neutral Internet is also a fair Internet is challenged. It is argued that a properly neutral Internet supports undesirable situations in which few users can exhaust the majority of the available resources or in which specific types of applications and services cannot be developed or properly deployed. The solution offered to these shortcomings is based on (1) an environmental approach to the Internet, (2) the four guiding principles of Floridi’s Information Ethics and (3) a principle called ‘Information Diversity’. The paper is divided into six sections. Section 1 briefly presents the debate concerning the concepts of network and Internet neutrality. Section 2 poses a general and unifying definition of Internet neutrality based on the critical assessment of several domain-specific approaches to the problem of neutrality. Section 3 is dedicated to the analysis of the relationship between Internet neutrality and the ethical principle of fairness. Section 4 introduces Floridi’s Information Ethics, the definition of Information Diversity and an analysis of how they can be used to address the limitations of Internet neutrality. Section 5 summarises the ethics of Internet neutrality and Information Diversity defining their relationship. Section 6 reviews the arguments presented in the paper clarifying the foundational role played by Information Diversity and Information Ethics in Internet policy-making activity.

In this article, consultation via the Internet and the use of the Internet as a source of medical information is examined from an ethical point of view. It is argued that important ethical aspects of the clinical interaction, such as dialogue and trust will be difficult to realise in an Internet-consultation. Further, it is doubtful whether an Internet doctor will accept responsibility. However, medical information via the Internet can be a valuable resource for patients wanting to know more about their disease and, thus, it is a means to enhancing their autonomy.

The booming popularity of the Internet, and particularly increasing use of personal Web sites, social networking sites, and blogging, raises questions regarding the ethical use of psychology graduate students' personal online information for academic purposes. Given rising controversies such as use of such information to screen applicants, I refer to the principles and standards of the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association (2002) to examine ethical concerns associated with graduate students' personal information on the Internet, namely, the protection of privacy, use of informed consent, consideration of autonomy, and implications for students' clinical work. Finally, I make several recommendations for graduate training faculty and graduate students as they consider placing and using information on and from the Internet.

Anonymity is a form of nonidentifiability which I define as noncoordinatability of traits in a given respect. This definition broadens the concept, freeing it from its primary association with naming. I analyze different ways anonymity can be realized. I also discuss some ethical issues, such as privacy, accountability and other values which anonymity may serve or undermine. My theory can also conceptualize anonymity in information systems where, for example, privacy and accountability are at issue.

Heidegger is well known for his views on technology. What would he have to say about the crowning glory of digital technology, the Internet? This paper argues that he would not reject the new technology, which would be just as inauthentic as being delivered over to it. Instead, Heidegger would urge us to reflect critically on it to see how we could develop a free relationship to it. He would say that in order to have a free relationship to it, we need to avoid letting it serve to make us forget our Being as Being-in-the-world. An inauthentic relationship with the Internet occurs when we take to it because of the anonymity it affords, or because we mistake the wealth of information it makes available for real knowledge. For all that, Heidegger regards technology as having a “saving power,” or the potential to reveal Being. However, I argue that to be saved by technology’s saving power, we need to develop, on the one hand, what Foucault calls the “arts of existence,” and on the other what Habermas calls “human interests,” interests that will help realize the potential of the Internet.

If the rhetorical and economic investment of educators, policy makersand the popular press in the United States is any indication, thenunbridled enthusiasm for the introduction of computer mediatedcommunication (CMC) into the educational process is wide-spread.In large part this enthusiasm is rooted in the hope that throughthe use of Internet-based CMC we may create an expanded communityof learners and educators not principally bounded by physicalgeography. The purpose of this paper is to reflect critically uponwhether students and teachers are truly linked together as a``community'' through the use of Internet-based CMC. The paper usesthe writings of Kierkegaard, and Hubert Dreyfus's exploration ofKierkegaardian ideas, to look more closely at the prospects andproblems embedded in the use of Internet-based CMC to create ``distributed communities'' of teachers and learners. It is arguedthat from Kierkegaard's perspective, technologically mediatedcommunications run a serious risk of attenuating interpersonalconnectivity. Insofar as interpersonal connectivity is an integralcomponent of education, such attenuation bodes ill for some, andperhaps many instances of Internet-based CMC.

To understand why Kierkegaard would have hated the Internet we need to understand what he meant by the Public and why he was so opposed to the Press. The focus of his concern was what Habermas calls the public sphere which, in the middle of the 18th century, thanks to the recent democratization and expansion of the press, had become a serious problem for many intellectuals. But while thinkers like Mill and Tocqueville thought the problem was "the tyranny of the masses", Kierkegaard thought that the Public Sphere, as implemented in the Press, promoted risk-free anonymity and idle curiosity that undermined responsibility and commitment. This, in turn, leveled all qualitative distinctions and led to nihilism, he held.

I shall translate Kierkegaard's account of the dangers and opportunities of what he called the Press into a critique of the Internet so as to raise the question: what contribution -- for good or ill -- can the World Wide Web, with its ability to deliver vast amounts of information to users all over the world, make to educators trying to pass on knowledge and to develop skills and wisdom in their students? I will then use Kierkegaard's three-stage answer to the problem of lack of involvement posed by the Press -- his claim that to have a meaningful life the learner must pass through the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious spheres of existence -- to suggest that only the first two stages -- the aesthetic and the ethical -- can be implemented with Information Technology, while the final stage, which alone makes meaningful learning possible, is undermined rather than supported by the tendencies of the desituated and anonymous Net.