Abstract
Online information and knowledge are especially generated in practical contexts, and as a social outcome they are linked to ethics, norms, and values. Since the ethical and social nature of virtual knowledge is also rooted in its practices, it is important to articulate the shift from the traditional notions of knowledge and justification to a new inquiry on online practices according to reconstructed criteria, which will allow us to talk in terms of genuine knowledge and justification in these cases too. This task requires a reflection on the very notion of online community, as well as to critically analyse how to, if possible, implement both ethical and normative codes in those communities.
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Notes
- 1.
Time, January 1983.
- 2.
Here I take Clark’s claim that we are cyborgs (2003, p. 5). Accordingly, what is special in the human brain and better explains the main features of our intelligence is just the capacity of our brain to be situated in complex relationships with respect to non-biological “constructs.”
- 3.
To this respect, see the interesting edition of Priest (1987).
- 4.
There is a realm that Kant does accept to be that of practices, namely the realm of law. By appealing to conventional attitudes in order to determine penal laws, Kant is not contradicting his view that morality is determined without appealing to practice or convention, since for him the spheres of morality and law must be distinguished. By reflecting on what laws need, Kant thinks that it is right to take consequences into account, although it is not the case of moral. Kant’s moral theory does not appeal to norms and social practices because his theory is a deontological one. If ethics must be a categorical and non-hypothetical discipline, then the determination of what ethics needs cannot depend upon sanctions and awards imposed by practice. And since Kant believes that legal theory, in opposition to moral theory, is pragmatic and consequentialist, he is consistent when is appealing to social practices in his doctrine of right.
- 5.
- 6.
Here I’m not going to compare epistemological theories of knowledge with those of justification, but anyway I recommend Langsam’s paper (2008) for an elucidation of the state of the art in the context of the debate between externalists and internalists.
- 7.
Another interesting reply that I do not analyze here is Ihde’s phenomenological view (Ihde 1990).
- 8.
Goldman proposes his veritism—understood as a social epistemic assessment—as an alternative option to other evaluative views, particularly to consensualism and expertism (see Goldman 1992, pp. 186–189).
- 9.
S knows that p iff (i) p es true, (ii) S believes that p, and (iii) S is justified to believe that p.
- 10.
See Zagzebski (1999), p. 100. In “double chance” cases, the subject has evidences that allow her to believe that p, despite evidences are not in fact related to the truth of p. However, chance makes p to be true.
- 11.
According to Goldman, perception, memory, a causal chain, or different combinations of these three items are good candidates to be a causal connection.
- 12.
Thagard invites us to compare a moderated newsgroup (http://sci.physics.research) with a non-moderated one (http://sci.physics) in order to see differences in quality and reliability.
- 13.
“Physics” file and “cognitive science” file (http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/) are two good examples.
- 14.
See van den Hoven (2000), pp. 129 and ff.
- 15.
Two examples are (non-) veracity in advertisement and fraud in electronic trade.
- 16.
“Netiquette” rules, rules of respect and conduct codes (say, “don’t plagiarize” or “be polite when writing e-mails”) are typically second order moral rules.
- 17.
For instance, “maximize the happiness of the greatest number of people” or “follow instructions.”
- 18.
There exist specific information on ethical codes in several texts, among which I’d highlight Berleur and D’udeken-Gevers’s (2001) article and the “Appendix V” in the 4th Volume of the Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics (Mitcham 2005), which provides a series of ethical codes organized by professions and countries.
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Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Spanish Government’s State Secretary of Research, Development and Innovation (research project: La explicación basada en mecanismos en la evaluación de riesgos) [FFI2010-20227/FISO] and partially by European Commission FEDER funds.
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Bengoetxea, J.B. (2015). Knowledge and Moral Responsibility for Online Technologies. In: Gonzalez, W. (eds) New Perspectives on Technology, Values, and Ethics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 315. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21870-0_5
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