Abstract
Information Systems (IS) plays an essential role in shaping almost all sectors of society, such as, commerce, politics, services, entertainment, information, relationships, among others. Digital technologies have enabled a new dimension of products, transmission, storage, and access to information. The outcome of this whole transformation process is intended to provide improvement and facilitating the lives and practices of individuals in society. However, we have also to face its negative impacts. We argue that situations involving both the design and the adoption or use of IS should be analyzed from the point of view of Ethics through a well-defined process that might help the professional and/or the citizen in making decisions in sensitive contexts when conceptual conflicts show up. To justify the definition of this process, we discuss the significance of the new technologies based on Andrew Feenberg's Philosophy of Technology. Grounded on this theory, we highlight the benefits and problems of the new technologies in the contemporary world. Finally, we present the process proposal and analyze the results of its application in the context of two well-known real cases and discuss the results in light of the theoretical foundation.
Highlights
From the 1980s onwards, we observed the development and popularization of digital multimedia artifacts, cell phones, video games, communication technologies, and the Internet
We argue that situations involving both the design and the adoption or use of Information Systems (IS) must be analyzed from the point of view of Ethics through a well-defined process that can help professionals and/or citizens in decision-making in contexts that have conceptual conflicts
For business or e-commerce applications, the integrity of transactions and defined rules must be implemented by computer professionals, assuring that the processes will be recognized by their users
Summary
From the 1980s onwards, we observed the development and popularization of digital multimedia artifacts, cell phones, video games, communication technologies, and the Internet. Focusing on Information Systems (IS), a central task would be to determine what we should do in those cases, i.e., to formulate strategies to guide our actions Another difficulty is that, a problem in Information Systems Ethics may initially seem clearly expressed, a deeper understanding may reveal conceptual conflicts. We argue that situations involving both the design and the adoption or use of IS must be analyzed from the point of view of Ethics through a well-defined process that can help professionals and/or citizens in decision-making in contexts that have conceptual conflicts. This would allow the development of ethical systems as well as the usage of them in an ethical approach.
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