TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose– The purpose of this viewpoint paper is to provide an overview of three papers included in a Special Issue of the Journal of Information Communication Ethics and Society, entitled Ethics in the Virtual World.Design/methodology/approach– The papers were chosen because they reflect three key themes in computing, ethics and society. These are: the explosion in the number of opportunities for accessing sensitive data in the health sector; the risks inherent in designing information systems through technical procedures that fail to address the human character of the environments they are intended to serve; and the need to teach computing ethics to students of computing. All three articles draw on philosophical approaches to ethics and well as technical aspects of system use, system design and pedagogy, respectively.Findings– The papers demonstrate the interdisciplinary nature of computing ethics and the contested political issues at stake in using and designing information systems.Originality/value– This editorial viewpoint paper presents the hypothesis that the ethical issues once embodied in socio‐technical systems theory have a particular salience for the contemporary ethical debates concerning computing ethics.
VL  - 5
IS  - 1
SN  - 1477-996X
DO  - 10.1108/14779960710822647
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/14779960710822647
AU  - Strain John
ED  - John Strain
PY  - 2007
Y1  - 2007/01/01
TI  - Ethics in the virtual world
T2  - Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 4
EP  - 6
Y2  - 2024/04/20
ER  -