II. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AS AN ETHICAL CHALLENGE
How
can
we ensure that the benefits of information technology are not only
distributed
equitably, but that they can also be used by the people to shape their
own lives? The first part of the question refers to legal and
institutional
aspects. The second part goes further, and asks not only for living
norms
but also for living forms. All three aspects include questions of
truth,
power and desire, that is, they include individual and social options
concerning
these questions (Capurro 1992a). Under these premises we can ask How
can
we ensure that institutional, normative and "life-forming" options
remain
open? My answer is that a legal control of information technology is
not
enough, but that these normative aspects should rest not only on a
"code-oriented"
but also on a "self-oriented" morality.
Foucault's
distinction between code-oriented and self-oriented morality does not
imply
a contradiction between moral rules on the one hand and individual
freedom
on the other. It stresses, on the contrary, their complementarity. In
order
to become moral subjects, it is not enough to have a code of ethics and
to act according to it. There is another aspect concerning the
different
options through which we can put rules into practice within the context
of our personal lives and within the cultural and historical context of
different kinds of communities. In this case we are not simply agents
but
we become, as individuals and as communities, moral subjects of our
actions.
We
are not an unchangeable "I" or "we," but an intersection
of possible
choices in a process of becoming, individually and socially, ourselves
within a field of linguistic and institutional practices [Dreyfus and
Rabinow
1983]. The "self" is not the abstract subject invented by
epistemological
theories but a dynamic intersection of traditions and life projects
through
which individual and social identity is permanently created and
questioned.
But the ethical quest for authenticity is not only a process through
which
we become different by mutually recognizing our differences. It means,
more radically, to be interpellated by the other, "face to face," as
Emmanuel
Lévinas (1961) says, particularly by the have-nots. The quest
for
our "selves" is ethically preceded by the questioning through the
other,
and the care of the self would be completely misunderstood if it were
not
interpreted as the intersection where we take care of our mutual
relationships
in the face of anonymous rules, practices, and institutions.
On
this basis we can ask once again: How can we ensure that the benefits
of
information technologies are not only distributed equitably, but that
they
can also be used by people to shape their own lives? At the
institutional
level, this may be done not only through "National and Regional
Institutes
for Information Democracy" as Ronald Doctor (1991) suggests, but also
through
global activities such as an International Institute for Information
Democracy.
Institutions and codes of morality are indeed a necessary condition for
the construction of social reality (Dahlbom 1991).
But
both should be
related
to our possibilities of questioning them. Otherwise they may become an
instrument of oppression. In other words, it is through institutions as
well as through moral and legal codes that we can ensure the right to
access
and to work for more equitable distribution in order to bridge the
information
gap between the "information poor" and the "information rich." But this
can degenerate into a purely bureaucratic process if we do not insert
our
institutional and code-oriented activities in the framework of
technologies
of the self. This is not a plea for anarchy as it does not negate the
role
and necessity of norms and institutions, but it is a plea for ethical
care
of the uniqueness of our individual and social being.
Elsewhere
I have suggested (Capurro, 1990) that we need something like an
"information
ecology" in order to cope with the disastrous impact of information
technology
on individuals and society such us:
- the
increasing
gap between the "information rich" and the "information poor"
- the
technological
colonialization of the life-world
- the
cultural
alienation of groups inside societies as well as of societies (and
groups
of societies) as a whole
- the
oligarchic
control of information resources.
It
would
be a misunderstanding to interpret the ecology metaphor as an intent to
apply categories of nature to the social field. We dwell ("oikos" =
house)
originally (but not identically) in language as well as in nature. The
impact of information technology on our "logos" is at least as
far-reaching
as the impact of our technological "logos" on nature.
The
computer scientist Christiane Floyd (1992a) has suggested that in order
to assume ethical responsibility, scientists and engineers have to
overcome
silence, i.e., they have to speak in public about values. She
contrasts
an "authority-mode" with an "authenticity-mode" of dealing with values.
Whereas the former is based on hierarchy, authority, law, universality,
command, obedience, and control, the latter encompasses networks,
choices,
situatedness, invitation, commitment, and mutual support. Floyd
develops
what she calls a "healing vision" based on the following concepts:
individuality,
which presupposes self-limitation; variety, which presupposes respect;
relatedness, which aims at reconciliation; and balance, which she
associates
with the healing attitude of care. This paradigm shift from the
authority-
to the authenticity-mode is very similar to Foucault's distinction
between
code-oriented and self-oriented morality. I think it would be wrong to
interpret this distinction as a disjunction.
Ethics
understood as the
art
of living is not an alternative to universalistic code-oriented
morality.
It takes up the classical question of goals of practice again and
embraces
moral questions within different life projects. It is not a
prescriptive
but a deliberative ethics (Krämer, 1992). It is a challenge to
information
society to be able to see information as belonging to the heart of an
ethics,
as an essential part of the deliberative process of human practical
reason
and of the creative process of human imagination. I believe that it is
therefore possible and sensible to develop an information science as a
rhetorical discipline, with ethical, aesthetic and political aspects as
basic parameters (Capurro 1992).
If
we conceive information society as a deliberative and an imaginative
one
where the practice of advising and consulting plays a key role, as
should
indeed be the case in democracies, information networks could become
the
artificial marketplace for different kinds of deliberation, dissent and
advice, according to the insight that "in designing tools we are
designing
ways of being" (Winograd and Flores 1986 p. xi). We have to learn not
just
to store, retrieve, and manage information but to become aware that
what
we primary do is to handle with biased knowledge, i.e., that
our
basic ability in an information society should be a hermeneutical one,
which includes such critical arts as interpretation, aesthetic or
creative
design, and responsibility towards our lives. In other words, we need
information
technology and technologies of the self: the art of friendship, the art
choosing, the art of silence and the art of laughter. Let us try to
think
about these technologies of the self and about information
technology.
The
Art of Friendship in the Face of Power.
In
a "healing vision," information technology should be questioned insofar
as structures of power and oppression do not allow its transformation
by
people who try to help themselves and to help each other in shaping
their
lives. This transformation means a radical change of perspective:
information
technology is not just the subject that transforms us and our world,
but
at the same time, we have to incorporate it within different projects
for
saving and promoting the variety of life on this planet (Capurro,
1991).
We have been developing modern technology under the banner of mastery.
Nature is giving us a last chance to do it under the banner of
friendship.
Hans Jonas (1984) has shown that we cannot limit friendship to our
present
world but have to extend it to the generations to come.
The
Art of Choosing in the Face of Oppression.
Information
technology gives us means for reality construction, but it would be
fatal
if we did not make our choices dialogically, that is, through awareness
of and respect of people and other living beings. As Christiane Floyd
(1992b)
writes, "An important aspect of computer science is that it deals with creating
reality: the technical reality of the programs
executed
on the computer, and the conditions for the human reality which unfolds
around the computer in use. Therefore, the conceptual categories 'true'
and 'false' it relies on are not sufficient in themselves. We have to
go
beyond them by finding categories for expressing the felicity of
our
choices, for distinguishing 'more or less desirable' as we proceed
in making distinctions and decisions in communal design processes. This
is essential for dealing with quality in software development and use"
(p. 20).
The
Art of Silence in the Face of Verbosity.
Information
technology is a loquacious technology. We have to learn the art of
silence
in order to hear what others say and have to say and to be able to
overcome
the art of taboo-silence issuing from the old paradigm of value-free
science
and technology. We need a universal ethical "logos" for coexistence in
a common world. But this "logos" may remain monologic when it takes the
technological shape of mass media. We have to learn to hear the
differences
between the "logoi" and to respect them. And we have to learn to hear
our
silent dimensions, namely finitude and suffering. To learn the art of
silence
means, on the one hand, to learn to confront ourselves with
nothingness, i.e., with this nothingness we call our existence
(Goguen, 1992),
and, on the other hand, to feel responsible for the suffering of
others,
particularly when they are just a picture on the TV-screen.
The
Art of Laughter in the Face of Fear.
Technology
possesses some of the characteristics of religious belief. In his
famous
novel The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco has shown that the art
of
laughter is a dangerous art for all dogmatic beliefs. Just as there are
many senses of silence, there are also many kinds of laughter. I am
referring
now to a kind of laughter as an expression of insight into the basic
weakness
of all our technological projects. In Antiquity, laughter was
considered
a sign of madness as well as wisdom. The art of laughter means our
ability
to question our personal and social identity.
It
is a sign of our
personal
or social openness for what we are not, or for what we do not
understand,
for the Other. This gives us an opportunity to question our values from
a not just "political" but also "poli-ethical" perspective (Capurro,
1992a).
An "ethics of care", as Thomas Froehlich (1991, p. 299) remarks, cannot
be blind to the individuality and contextuality of problems and needs,
by using Rawls' technique of a "veil of ignorance". To care is, of
course,
not the same thing as to be fair (Rawls 1971). We should make sure that
the practices of information become part of the practices of
deliberation,
advising, and dissenting; they should become part of our
self-questioning
so that they do not give rise to a new form of power, which strengthens
the discourse of the panopticon into a super-panopticon (Poster, 1990).
CONCLUSION
I
have
tried to show that the impact of information technology on society can
be transformed through the ethical perspective of technologies of the
self.
The "self" is not the "ego" but the intersection of natural and
artificial
dimensions through which we shape our identities, I mean, our
differences.
I call our being aware of the relationships between man, world and
technology, i.e., being aware of the fallacies of humanism,
naturalism and technicism,
synthetic thinking.
The
"care of the
self" is synthetic thinking in the
sense that we positively acknowledge our mutual dependencies:
dependency
of man on nature and technology, of technology on nature and man, and
of
nature on man and technology. How can we ensure that the benefits of
information
technology are not only distributed equitably, but that they can also
be
used by people to shape their own lives? I think that the technologies
of the self are an essential part of the answer to this question.