Transcript Floridi and Spinoza on Global Information Ethics

The 3rd Asia-Pacific Computing and Philosophy
Conference, Chulalongkorn University, November 2-4,
2007
Floridi and Spinoza on Global
Information Ethics
Soraj Hongladarom
Department of Philosophy and
Center for Ethics of Science and
Technology, Chulalongkorn
University
Outline
Floridi on global information ethics
 Affinities with Spinoza
 Problems - relativism; naturalism
 How the problems are overcome.

Floridi on Global Information
Ethics
“… [B]iocentric ethics argues that the nature and wellbeing of the patient of any action constitute (at least
partly) its moral standing and that the latter makes
important claims on the interacting agent, claims that
in principle ought to contribute to guiding the agent’s
ethical decisions and constraining the agent’s moral
behaviour. The “receiver” of the action is placed at the
core of the ethical discourse, as a centre of moral
concern, while the “transmitter” of any moral action is
moved to its periphery.”
Now substitute “existence” for “life” and it should
become clear what IE [information ethics] amounts to.
IE is an ecological ethics that replaces biocentrism with
ontocentrism. It suggests that there is something even
more elemental than life, namely being – that is, the
existence and flourishing of all entities and their global
environment – and something more fundamental than
suffering, namely entropy. The latter is most
emphatically not the physicists’ concept of
thermodynamic entropy. Entropy here refers to any kind
of destruction or corruption of entities understood as
informational objects (not as semantic information, take
note), that is, any form of impoverishment of being,
including nothingness, to phrase it more metaphysically
(Floridi 2007, pp. 11-12).
Floridi, Luciano. (2007). Global information ethics:
the importance of being environmentally earnest.
International Journal of Technology and Human
Interaction 3.3, 1-11.
Infosphere
In another paper he states that there are four
principles of “universal information ethics,” namely
(1) “information entropy ought not to be caused in
the infosphere;” (2) “information entropy ought to be
prevented in the infosphere;” (3) “information
entropy ought to be removed from the infosphere;”
and (4) “information ought to be promoted by
extending, improving, enriching and opening the
infosphere, that is by ensuring information quantity,
quality, variety, security, ownership, privacy,
pluralism and access” (Floridi 2001, p. 4).
Ontocentric ethics
Capturing what is a pre-theoretical but very
common intuition, non-standard ethics hold the
broad view that any form of life has some essential
proprieties or moral interests that deserve and
demand to be respected, even if not absolutely but
minimally, i.e. in a possibly overridable sense. They
argue that the nature and well-being of the patient
constitute its moral standing and that the latter
makes important claims on the interacting agent
and in principle ought to contribute to the guidance
of the agent’s ethical decisions and the constraint of
the agent’s moral behaviour (Floridi and Sanders
2002, pp. 7-8).
Differences with Kant
At this point, two arguments support the attribution of
an intrinsic moral value to information objects. The first,
positive argument consists in showing that an
information-object-oriented approach can successfully
deal with the problem left unsolved by Kant. The
second, negative argument consists in dismantling not
only the Kantian position but also any other position
that adopts some other LoA [level of abstraction] higher
than the Kantian-anthropocentric one but still lower
than LoAi [level of abstraction provided by an
information analysis], like a biocentric LoA (Floridi
2002, p. 291).
Summary
An action is good so long as it promotes
the infosphere, and is bad otherwise.
 It is ‘ontocentric,’ meaning the center of
ethical value lies within ontology itself
and not human beings or even the
biosphere.
 The patient is taken as the ‘core’ of
ethical deliberation.

Spinoza
Floridi’s ethics has a lot of affinities with that
of Spinoza.
 Thoroughgoing naturalism.
 An action is good just in case it promotes well
being of the one Substance, or God, and is
bad otherwise.
 An action promotes well being of Substance
just in case it is in accordance with reason
and promotes Joy and eliminates Suffering.

Problem of the Lion
In the paper Floridi talks about
Wittgenstein’s “Problem of the Lion.”
We can’t understand the lion because
we don’t understand their language.
Their world is totally aline to ours.
 This may be the fate of intercultural
understandings (?)

Problems posed by
Globalization
Globalization puts various corners of the
world together, creating a lot of conflict.
 For value theory, the problem is
exacerbated by the juxtaposition of
different value systems.
 For Floridi, the way out is through
ontocentrism.

How Ontocentrism Helps
Even the lion lives in the same world as
we do.
 This provides a basic framework for
adjudicating different value systems
while allowing for a leeway for culturl
differences.
 Since we all live in the same ontological
reality, our values cannot differ too
much.

Problems
This is a naturalistic conception, thus
committing Moore’s ‘naturalistic fallacy.’
 Basing the universal framework on
ontology or metaphysics appears too
weak—difference groups of people
have different ways of conceptualizing
their objective reality.

The So-called Naturalistic
Fallacy
The fallacy occurs when there is an
attempt to argue for ‘ought’ from ‘is.’
 But cutting metaphysics from ethics
deprives the latter of a lot of force.
 The normative seems to be already
there in the natural. We have to look at
what the normative is for.

Spinoza
As far as good and evil is concerned, they also indicate
nothing positive in things, considered in themselves,
nor are they anything other than modes of thinking, or
notions we form because we compare things to one
another. For one and the same thing can, at the same
time, be good, and bad, and also indifferent. For
example, Music is good for one who is Melancholy, bad
for one who is mourning, and neither good nor bad to
one who is deaf.
But though this is so, still we must retain these
words. For because we desire to form an idea of man,
as a model of human nature which we may look to, it
will be useful to us to retain these same words with the
meaning I have indicated. In what follows, therefore, I
shall understand by good what we know certainly is a
means by which we may approach nearer and nearer
to the model of human nature that we set before
ourselves. By evil, what we certainly know prevents us
from becoming like that model. Next, we shall say that
men are more perfect or imperfect, insofar as they
approach more or less near to this model (Spinoza,
Ethics Part IV,1985, p. 545).
Spinoza’s System
Everything is included in the one
Substance.
 Things are good so long as they
promote the well being of Substance.
 The ‘model’ of human being accords
with Substance.

Spinoza’s System in Real Life
The US and the EU have different
conceptions and justifications of privacy
and intellectual property rights (Dan
Burk 2007).
 US --> more consequentialist
 EU --> more inclined toward the
deontological.

Who is Right?

Problem for naturalists:
 Both
sides can agree on the ontology, but
still disagree on the theory.
 So ontocentric ethics does not appear to
do the trick.

However,
 If
both theories in fact promote the
ontological goals equally well, then they
are equally good.
Who is Right?

Liberals have a hard time reconciling these
two positions; without any metaphysical
foundation, ethics becomes exercise in
rational deliberation.
 For Spinoza, this would be solved through
reliance on the goals—how much of the
ultimate goal of the flourishing of Reality itself
is promoted?
 Each position and theory enriches the one
Substance. Everything happens with a
reason.
Conclusion
Spinoza says that action that leads to Joy is a good one
and action leading to Suffering a bad one (Proposition 8,
Part IV — Spinoza 1985, p. 550). He officially defines
‘Joy’ in the Part III of the Ethics as “a man’s passage
from a lesser to a greater perfection,” and ‘Suffering’ in a
diametrically opposite way (Spinoza 1985, p. 531). So
whatever leads to more perfection is good and what
leads to more imperfection is bad. This corresponds to
Floridi’s idea of the good being what increases the
quantity and richness of the infosphere.
Hence, when one is confronted with two ethical systems
from two cultures, one way to test them would be to see
how much Joy or Suffering each incurs. This sounds like
utilitarianism, but actually it is not, for in utilitarianism the
emphasis would be one the pleasure of a quantifiable
number of people and the pleasure itself is quantifiable
too. Joy (Latin, laetitia) in Spinoza is an ethical concept
from the beginning, and it is also at the same time
metaphysical. Presumably the deontological conception of
the Europeans and the consequentialist position of the
Americans do work well in their respective environments.
In that case both do maintain and increase the integrity
and the ‘perfection’ of their own environments, hence both
are good in Spinoza’s conception, as well as Floridi’s. Joy
or happiness is inextricably bound up with perfection of
nature. The individual cannot extricate herself from her
own social and physical environment.
Since individual things in the world are all parts of the
one Substance, and since strictly speaking thee is only
one thing, namely the Substance, or God. Individual
things are only modes of God’s thought, or to put it
plainly individual things are only created and are
necessarily limited, and since all there is is only one,
the individual things are strictly speaking modifications
of the one Substance itself. This is a very important
vision, and it is a vision that played an important part in
many religious traditions of the East too.
So the system in which the individuals are
regarded as webs of relations is part of one
particular culture and has clear roles to play in that
culture, and the system that regards the individual
more atomically also has its own place in history,
but when we focus ourselves on the vision of the
one Substance, then these differences fade away.
This is definitely not to say that the differences are
not important; far from it, both are inalienable
parts of the one Substance. And if there is no
need to calibrate the two systems in one umbrella
system, then the two could be left as is, each
enriching the one Substance.