Hello, I have provided the instructions below. Please let me know if you have any questions. NO RESEARCH REQUIRED.
This semester, we have examined computer, we have examined ethics – and along the way, we have examined many other topics – but we have not directly paid attention to the question of society. After all, it would seem that we can only understand the roles of computers and ethics in society if we first understand (or at least have some hypotheses about) society. To think philosophically (which I recommend!), we need to develop the mental habit of considering all of our ideas as provisional – that is, all of my ideas, even my most cherished (and/or clung to) beliefs are not facts, but proposals. Therefore, without getting too hung up about it, I can examine them – ruthlessly – without debilitating myself psychologically. Again, this is a mental discipline, and takes time and attention to develop. Everyone feels free to criticize the ideas and beliefs they don’t share – philosophy is the practice of criticizing all ideas equally (at least, as equally as possible, given the nature of our unconscious conditioning, privilege, biases, etc. – thus, the philosophical practice of self-examination, which continues throughout one’s life).
What is society? Or, who are they? What constitutes a society, what is its “nature,” as philosophers are wont to say? Is society the same thing as community, as populace, as people, as state, as nation, as territory (etc.)?
Depending on our answers to these questions, we can go on to ask: what is/are the role(s) of computers in society (as we have defined it)? What is the role of ethics in this relationship between computers and society? What ethical theories work best to describe and/or regulate this situation, which, by all accounts, is novel in human history? How novel is it really?
