Brave New Worlds? The Once and Future Information Ethics

Abstract

I highlight several aspects of current and future developments of the internet, in order to draw from these in turn specific consequences of particular significance for the ongoing development and expansion of information ethics. These consequences include changing conceptions of self and privacy in both Western and Eastern countries, and correlative shifts from the communication technologies of literacy and print to a ?secondary orality.? These consequences in turn imply that current and future information ethics should focus on developing a global but pluralistic virtue ethics - one that may offset the anti-democratic dangers of such secondary orality.