Cyberethics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace (2nd ed.)

Citation

Gorman, G.E. (2004), "Cyberethics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace (2nd ed.)", Online Information Review, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 165-166. https://doi.org/10.1108/oir.2004.28.2.165.8

This is a joint review with Readings in Cyberethics and Electronic Information: A Festschrift for Stephen Almagno

Three new book on information ethics, all released at the end of 2002 – this is a slight replay of what happened less than a decade ago with a fistful of books on information ethics by Weckert, Severson, Rogerson and Bynum, and others being released almost simultaneously. Back in the nineties, however, the ethics titles seemed not to make much impact, whereas the current spate of releases is at least being reviewed and commented upon in many for a. (As an interesting aside, I note that sales of Weckert's book, probably the first and best in the previous wave of ethics titles, has increased dramatically in the last 12 months – perhaps our interest in information ethics has finally come of age.)

Ethics and Electronic Information is an eclectic collection of essays honouring Professor Stephen Almagno, who introduced the teaching of information ethics at the University of Pittsburgh many years ago. As a Festschrift, it includes the obligatory essays, biography and bibliography of Father Almagno – this constitutes the first part of the collection, An Homage to Stephen Almagno. The second part, Library Issues, consists of eight essays, some by well‐known professionals and academics such as Les Pourciau, Wallace Koehler and Paul Sturges. Their essays cover the ethics of electronic information in China and Eastern Europe, professional ethics and professional organisations, user privacy, ethical problems of UBC, etc. In the third part, Topical Issues (as if library issue were not topical), the seven essays – perhaps the most interesting in the volume in my view – cover the Internet and plagiarism, ethical hacking, social democracy and information media policy, unsolicited commercial email, etc. While the essays vary in quality, most of the serve as a stimulus to thinking and discussion, and a few rise new concerns not treated elsewhere. This is a good collection to be dipped into at odd moments; though not essential for professional collections, it would be a useful addition to collections serving LIS programmes.

A more organised and sustained discourse is immediately evident in the much larger collection, Readings in Cyberethics, edited by Spinello and Tavani. It should be noted that the editors differ from Almagno in that they speak of “computer ethics” rather than “information ethics”, so one might assume a somewhat narrower collection, and the appendices containing the ACM and IEEE codes of ethics might confirm this assumption. In fact this is not the case, as the six chapters and their readings quickly indicate: The Internet, Ethical Values and Conceptual Frameworks (eight readings); Regulating the Net: Free Speech and Content Controls (eight readings); Intellectual Property in Cyberspace (eight readings); Privacy in Cyberspace (eight readings); Security and Cyberspace (six readings); Professional Ethics and Codes of Conduct (six readings). The readings or essays are by computer scientists, philosophers, social scientists, legal experts and others – a catholic range of disciplines as appropriate for such a broad field, and all of the essays are reprinted from other sources, mostly from the late nineties and 2000. Each chapter opens with a useful introduction to the essays, some suggestions for further reading and helpful classroom discussion questions. Whilst some of the essays first appeared in European publications, the content is overwhelmingly American in focus, with many references to the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and US law. This sometimes detracts from the quality of the discussion for readers outside the USA, though the more philosophical musings (especially in Chapter 1) manage to be location neutral, and much more provocative as a result. The editors have put together an excellent collection of essays on key topics of concern to ethicists and practitioners alike – this is a collection well worth reading from cover to cover.

Some will see Readings … as a companion volume to Cyberethics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace – Spinello edited one and authored the other, and both volumes are from the same publisher. In fact, the chapters in this second edition roughly follow the chapters in Readings …; actually the second chapter in Readings … becomes Chapters 2 and 3 in the textbook, and the final chapter in Readings … does not figure in the text. Spinello writes well, but I fear that his first chapter, which offers a “crash course” in the principles of ethics, will turn student readers away in droves. How many will wade through Lessig, John Stuart Mill, Kant, contractarianism, normative principles, etc. without a struggle? Better, I should have thought, to draw the readers in by means of some key case studies. Other than this caveat, the remaining chapters are quite clear and detailed, with useful discussion questions, a glossary, a list of legal cases (again US in focus) and a bibliography. What is lacking throughout the work, however, is reference to the impact of cyberethics on libraries, including such key areas as intellectual property and privacy. This highlights the importance of people like Joseph Almagno, who work hard to keep libraries on the agenda – seemingly a thankless task.