Human Information Interaction

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Background and Aim: This paper aims at the analysis of the definitions and categorizations of the realm of “Information Ethics” to criticize assumptions and clarify points of departure for introducing a new definition and categorization.

Method: I used documentary research method and conceptual analysis approach. This method and approach is the best fits with the goal of pursuit roots of social concepts and their pre-assumptions. After collecting all literature of the domain of “Information Ethics”, I tried to extract core definitions and categorizations and analyze their assumptions and points of departure. Then, I used the concepts extracted from all definitions and some aspects of the “General theory of Practice” (Pierre Bourdieu) and “Deconstruction” (Jacques Derrida) to introduce new definition and categorization of the domain of “Information Ethics”.

Results: Results shows that 20 original definitions have been offered and two main stream point of departure have been adopted, however, some other views such as legal, societal, Islamic, Marxian, Habermasian approaches have been introduced too. I adopted “access” and “position” as original points for categorization and used Derrida’s and Bourdieu’s viewpoints to offer a new sociological definition. I categorized social groups by their valuation on information production and consumption on the basis of Fuches’ viewpoints. Four social groups distinguished as “information consumer”, “prosumer (information producer-consumer)” “information producer” and “information governor”. Freedom of expression, censorship and content conrol and filtering is questions of the individuals that put in to the “position” of “information consumer”. Information security and information piracy is the core questions of information producers and information governors. Eventually, privacy, intellectual property and plagiarism is the questions of information procumers & information producers. 

Originality/Value: originality of this paper is about its new approach in the definition of “Information Ethics”. By this categorization we can argue about the “access problem” in terms of the “position” of individuals or groups in the production, consumption or governance of information

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Background and Aim: This paper aims at conceptual analysis of epistemological pre-assumptions of the theory of “Information Ethics” to provide better understanding about this macro-ethics theory and offer a critical standpoint about some of its pre-assumptions.
Methods: A documentary method and a conceptual analysis were used. This research method and approach is best suited to explore pre-assumptions of philosophical standpoints and scientific concepts.
Results: Floridi’s epistemological position in the theory of “Information Ethics” is pan-informationism. This position originates from his “Informational Realism”. He argues that the ultimate nature of knowledge is structural. Structures, rather than entities, in his view, is aPriori and primal. He uses a metaphysical concept, namely “difference”, to argue for his position. In his view, in the existence of an object, the structure of “difference” is primal to the entity of that object because without difference, entities substantially could not be recognized. By this reasoning, he argues that we can see all things as information because all structures can be translated to data clusters in a selective level of abstraction. By viewing every things as information, they gain at least a minimum right to “being” that should be respected because the first informational structure of an entity is being/not being binary.
Conclusion: The value of this research lies in the exploration and explanation of epistemological assumptions of Floridi’s information ethics theory who tried to determine all objects as information to ethically save them from damage, by metaphysical development of the concept “difference”. This article also showed that how this conceptual development is obscure because of its epistemological reductions, emphasis on mind and neglecting bodies, and technological flexibility