AUTHOR
Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa, Mary Prior and Simon Rogerson

ABSTRACT

A new paradigm is sweeping the business environment across the world. In this emerging paradigm, terms like information, communication, knowledge, and learning have acquired a critical relevance to an understanding of the nature of contemporary business. The business world is moving from its tangible bases to intangible ones (Sonnenberg 1994).

In fact, knowledge management is a multifaceted discipline that requires culture, process, and technology to work together on a large scale (Moore and Birkinshaw 1998; Khanna, 1999; Wenger and Snyder 1999). However in our understanding, ethics should be a component of such discipline contrarily to the pure technological view.

Given the previous scenario knowledge management strategy should be part of a company strategy. To Michael H. Zack claims (1998) an organization strategic context helps to identify knowledge management initiatives that support its purpose and mission, strengthen its competitive position, and create shareholder value.

According to a recent industry survey (KPMG, 2000), 81% of the leading organizations in Europe and the U.S. say they have, or are at least considering adopting, some kind of knowledge management system. The majority of these firms get involved in knowledge management initiatives with the goal of gaining competitive advantage (79%), increasing marketing effectiveness (75%), developing a customer focus (72%), or improving product innovation (64%).

However, what does it mean strategy? And, does knowledge management strategy imposes new challenges? The word “strategy” is usually associated with activities and decisions concerning the long-term interaction of an organisation with its environment. While competitive-based and product-based strategy formulation generally makes markets and customers the starting point for the study the resource-based approach tends to place more emphasis on the organisation’s capabilities or core competences.

A knowledge-based strategy formulation should thus start with the primary intangible resource: the competence of people. People are seen as the only true agents in business; all tangible physical products and assets as well as the intangible relations are results of human action, and depend ultimately on people for their continued existence. People are seen to be constantly extending themselves into their world by both tangible means, such as craft, houses, gardens and cars and intangible corporate associations, ideas, and relationships. Plus, knowledge is a nonrival good par excellence and one that in the longer run is also difficult to maintain in an excludable form. Yet, in order to encourage innovation and promote dynamic efficiency, intellectual property rights are used to grant knowledge producers a temporary exclusive right to control the use of knowledge they generated. This limits the use of knowledge, and, without complementary measures, it entails inefficiency and challenges to people.

Due to the previous explanations we may state that a knowledge strategy incorporates unforeseen challenges, and therefore we could claim that ethics plays an important role on such analysis.

In accordance to Sveiby (2001) we can differentiate nine basic knowledge transfers/conversions, which have the prospective to create value for an organisation. Activities that form the “spine” of a knowledge strategy are to be aimed at improving the capacity-to-act of people both inside and outside the organisation:

• knowledge transfers/conversions between individuals;
• knowledge transfers/conversions from individuals to external structure;
• knowledge transfers/conversions from external structure to individuals;
• knowledge transfers/conversions from individual competence into internal structure;
• knowledge transfers/conversions from internal structure to individual competence;
• knowledge transfers/conversions within the external structure;
• knowledge transfers/conversions from external to internal structure;
• knowledge transfers/conversions from internal to external structure;
• knowledge transfers/conversions within internal structure.

Therefore, the aim of this paper is deploy the possible ethical and moral dilemmas that may arise through the creation of intellectual property rights and patents in a knowledge management strategy regarding, considering knowledge as a nonrival and common/public good.

The tragedy of the commons is usually referred to as a resource dilemma given that “collective cooperation” that leads to a serious threat of the depletion of future resources (Van Lange et al, 1992). Another type of social dilemma is the public good dilemma. A public good constitutes a shared resource from which every member of a group may benefit regardless of whether or not they personally contribute to its provision, and whose availability does not diminish with use (Olson, 1965).

According to several researchers of knowledge management (Wasko and Faraj, 2000; Connolly and Thorn, 1990; Connolly, Thorn and Heminger, 1992; Kalman, 1999; Monge et al., 1998), organizational knowledge can also be considered a public good. Since access to a public good is not restricted to contributors only, there is a temptation for individuals to free-ride, to enjoy the resource without contributing to its provision (Sweeney, 1973). After all, withholding from cooperating yields the best individual utility regardless of what everyone else in the group does.

If everyone else cooperates and I do not, I enjoy the good for free. If no one else or very few others cooperate, I will be saving a wasted contribution. For this reason, defecting, or not contributing, in a public good dilemma is technically considered a dominant strategy, which means a strategy that yields immediate positive returns to any participant at any time during the interaction, regardless of what other participants do (Dawes, 1980).

However, what characteristics have this social dilemma- knowledge creation and sharing? And what ethical and moral dilemmas impose? Are such dilemmas affected by the free ride theory?

REFERENCES

Andreoni, J. (1990). Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving, Economic Journal, 100, pp. 464-477.

Andreoni, J. and Petrie, R. (2002). Public Good Experiments Without Confidentiality: A Glimpse Into Fund-Raising. Working Paper. Madison: University of Wisconsin.

Connolly, T. and Thorn, B. (1990). Discretionary databases: theory, data, and implications in Organizations and communication technology. Fulk, J. and Steinfield, C. (Eds.), pp. 219-233. London: Sage.

Connolly, T., Thorn, B. and Heminger, A. (1992) Discretionary databases as social dilemmas in Social dilemmas: Theoretical issues and research findings. In Liebrand, W. Messick, D. and Wilke, H (Eds.), pp. 199-208. New York: Pergammon Press.

Dawes, R. (1980). Social dilemmas, Annual Review of Psychology, 31, pp. 169-193.

Fong, C. (2001). Social Preferences, Self-Interest, and the Demand for Redistribution,

Ghosh, R. and Soete, L. (2006). Knowledge sharing: a global challenge. Arrow-Nelson workshop, Turin, pp. 1-14.

Goeree, J., Holt, C. and Laury, S. (2002). Private Costs and Public Benefits: Unraveling the Effects of Altruism and Noisy Behavior, Journal of Public Economics, 83, pp. 255-276.

Journal of Public Economics, 82, pp. 225-246.

Kalman, M. (1999). The effects of organizational commitment and expected outcomes on the motivation to share discretionary information in a collaborative database: Communication dilemmas and other serious games. Doctoral dissertation. University of Southern California.

Khanna, D. (1999). The Competitive Advantage of Knowledge. Knowledge Management: Myth & Reality, May 10/11.

Kollock, P. (1998). Social dilemmas: the anatomy of cooperation, Annual Review of Sociology, 24, pp. 183-214.

KPMG (2000). Knowledge management research report 2000. KPMG Consulting Reports.

Marwell, G., and Ames, R. (1979). Experiments on the Provision of Public Goods I: Resources, Interest, Group Size, and the Free Rider Problem, American Journal of Sociology, 84, pp. 1335-1360.

Monge, P. et al. (1998). Production of collective action in alliance-based interorganizational communication and information systems, Organization Science, 9, 3, pp. 411-433.

Moore, K. and Birkinshaw, J. (1998). Managing knowledge in global service firms: Centers of excellence, Academy of Management Executive, 12, 4, pp. 81-92.

OECD (2000). Knowledge management in the learning societt. Paris: OECD.

Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Sonnenberg, F. (1994). The Age of Intangibles, Management Review, January, pp. 48-53.

Sveiby, K. (2001). A knowledge-based theory of the firm to guide strategy formulation, Journal of Intellectual Capital, 2, 4, pp. .

Van Lange, P. et al. (1992). Introduction and literature review’ in Social dilemmas: Theoretical issues and research findings. Liebrand, W., Messick, D. and Wilke, H. (Eds.), pp. 59-80. New York: Pergammon Press.

Wasko, M. and Faraj, S. (2000). It is what one does: why people participate and help others in electronic communities of practice, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 9, 1, pp. 155-173.

Wenger, E. and Snyder, W. (1999). Communities of practice: The organizational frontier, Harvard Business Review, January-February, pp. 139-145.

Zack, M. (1998). What Knowledge-Problems Can Information Technology Help to Solve?, Proceedings of the Association for Information Systems 1998 Americas Conference, Baltimore, August 14-16.

AUTHOR
Göran Collste

ABSTRACT

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was introduced within the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1994. Through the agreement literary and artistic works under copyright as well as patents for inventions and trademarks are globally protected. While the basis of the agreement is the protection of copyrights and patents, TRIPS are subject to a number of limitations and exceptions “…aimed at fine-tuning the balance that has to be found between the legitimate interests of right holders and of users” (WTO homepage).

The TRIPS agreement is controversial. Jan Aart Scholte writes: ”TRIPS has raised the cost of access to advanced technologies and medicines beyond the reach of many poor countries”. Especially three applications have raised controversies; patent for pharmaceuticals, patent for genetic material, e.g. plants and copyright to computer software.

TRIPS are legal rights, uphold by an international institutional scheme. Their underpinnings are both prudential and moral. TRIPS are in the interest of the inventor, the company that owns the rights and the home country of the inventor and company. However, TRIPS are also justified by moral arguments. One kind of moral arguments is right based. The legal right to intellectual property is based on a moral right. According to this argument, a person who has invented or created something, say a computer programme, also has the sole right to control his or her invention or creation, e.g. he or she has the right to determine what shall be done with the programme. Another kind of arguments for IPR is consequentialist in character. The purpose of intellectual property rights (IPR) is to encourage and reward creative work. Furthermore, as a consequence of IPR companies have incentives to develop new technology which in the long run will gain everybody.

The discussion of TRIPS indicates that their justification is questioned. For example, Oxfam argues that in the light of the global gap between rich and poor TRIPS will result in “…further excluding poor people from access to medicines, seeds, computer software and educational material.“ Hence, according to this objection, TRIPS are obstacles to the fulfilment of peoples’ rights to health care, food, information and education.

In particular, the TRIPS agreement has been criticised for limiting access to pharmaceuticals, e.g. medicines for HIV/AIDS treatment. According to the critique, as a consequence of TRIPS, the high price on HIV-medicines set by pharmaceutical companies would make the medicines unobtainable for the great majority of the population in poor countries, stricken by the HIV epidemic. In response to the critique the WHO Doha Ministerial Conference in 2001 decided that the TRIPS agreement should not prevent members from taking necessary measures to protect public health. In situations of national emergency and extreme urgency, compulsory licensing of necessary drugs is permissible, according to the declaration. Compulsory licensing means that a nation has the right to produce for example patented medicine without permission. Exemptions on pharmaceutical patent protection were for the least developed countries extended until 2016.

The decision in Doha in 2001 illustrates the prima facie character of TRIPS. The right to health was considered as more important than the protection of property rights. Hence, the TRIPS were seen as valid as long as there are no other values or rights that take precedence. The decision in Doha raises two relevant ethical questions; one theoretical and one practical. First, how can conflicting rights be reconciled in a coherent ethical system? Secondly, are there also other rights besides the right to health, for example the right to food or the right to information that can take precedence over TRIPS?

The Doha decision also raises questions of a practical ethical and legal nature. Given that, as in the Doha decision, the right to health limits the scope and application of IPR, are there perhaps also other important rights that may have the same implications? If TRIPS not only limit access to vital medicines for the poor, but also to vital crops and information resources, would that then justify exemptions on patent and copyright protection? An answer to this question presupposes a theory of vital needs and urgent rights.

AUTHOR
Sangmi Chai and H. R. Rao

ABSTRACT

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are an important support system enabling elderly people to enhance their knowledge, business transactions, and social connections (Selwyn et al. 2003, Selwyn 2004). Senior citizens are the fastest growing demographic group of online users, yet also amongst the most vulnerable. There are growing concerns with regard to information privacy and the risks of the aging population in this regard in the UK and Europe (Comyn et al. 2006, Social Exclusion Unit 2005).

In the Unites States, according to the Pew Internet American Life Project (2004), 22% of Americans 65 and older used the Internet in 2004, which went up from 15% in 2000. In 2006, 34% of Americans age 65 and older went online (Pew Internet Data memo 2006). “Wired” seniors use the Internet in order to do various activities: 66% looked for health or medical information; 66% conducted product research on the Internet; 60% visited Government websites; 47% participated in online shopping; 41% used the Internet for travel reservations; and 20% used Internet banking.

Senior citizens are especially vulnerable to privacy attacks. First, they tend to trust others because many grew up in a protected and more honest environment. Secondly, most seniors do not spend as much time on the Internet as younger consumers (“grey digital divide”) and are not as knowledgeable about Internet fraud (Millward 2003). For example, according to the testimony of David Jevans, chairman of the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), at the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging (http://aging.senate.gov/hearing_detail.cfm? id=271356&), the senior population makes appealing targets, and should be particularly careful of phishing attacks, because they potentially have the most to lose.

Given the significance and vulnerability of this demographic group, research on information privacy and security of “wired” seniors is paramount, yet, such research is quite limited. Most research regarding cybersecurity and information privacy is with respect to younger generations. According to prior research in technology adoption, elderly people experience more stress when they are faced with adopting new technology than younger people (Elder et al. 1987; Zeffane and Cheeks 1993). Elderly Internet users express less Internet self-efficacy and feel nervous when they adopt the Internet (Lam and Lee 2006, Selwyn et al. 2003). In the context of online privacy protection, a survey shows that elderly Internet users exercise less precaution in terms of their information security and privacy behaviors (The Pew Internet American Life Project 2006). They show fewer tendencies to use different web browsers, to stop downloading suspicious files, and to visit certain websites because of information security fears, than younger users. Another report from the Pew study pointed out that elderly Internet users usually are less aware of the existence of spyware so that fewer “wired” seniors take action to avoid risks from harmful spyware (http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/160/report _display.asp).

Yet, other than the Pew studies, this subset of the community has hardly been researched in the context of cybersecurity. As the first step in this direction, we propose to examine behaviors and attitudes of senior Internet users regarding online privacy in cyberspace. The proposed study will focus on “wired” senior citizens because existing technical solutions and posted privacy polices on websites may not be capable of being applied to such seniors who cannot be fast adopters of technology compared to younger groups, resulting in their becoming more exposed to various online privacy threats. The main distinctive issue that will be explored in this study is :

• What are the external and internal factors including socio-technical aspects affecting senior citizens’ online privacy behavior?

The research proposes to utilize behavioral decision making theory (Edward 1961, Simon 1959), social cognitive theory (Bandura 1986), trust-risk framework (Mcknight et al. 1998), and socio-technical system theory (Trist et al. 1963, Mumford 2000, Mumford 1996, Mumford 1995) in the study of demographic, socio-economic, and psychological/behavioral factors to understand elderly online users’ Internet usage behavior and online privacy awareness. Based on factors we figure out from prior literature, we will propose theoretical framework to understand older Internet users’ perception, attitude and behavior in the relationship between collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, and the legal issues surrounding them in cyberspace.

REFERENCES

Selwyn, N. (2004). “The information aged: A qualitative study of older adults’ use of information and communications technology.” Journal of Aging Studies 18(369-384).

Selwyn, N., S. Gorard, J. Furlong, and L. Madden (2003). “Older Adults’ Use of Information and Communications Technology in Everyday Life.” Ageing & Society, 23, 561-582.

Comyn, G., S. Olsson, R. Guenzler, R. Ozcivelek, D. Zinnbauer and M. Cabrera (2006). “User needs in ICT Research for Independent Living, with a Focus on Health Aspects.” Seville: Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, European Commission Directorate-General Joint Research Centre, EUR 22352 EN.

Social Exclusion Unit (2005). “Inclusion through innovation: Tracking social exclusion through new technologies.” Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: London, UK.

Millward , P. (2003).” The ‘grey digital divide’: Perception, exclusion and barrier of access to the Internet for Older People [online].” First Monday (8, 7). Available at: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_7/millward/index.html [Accessed 12 April 2007]

Elder, V., E. Gardner, and S. Ruth (1987). “Gender and age in technostress: effects of white-collar productivity.” Government Finance Review 3(6): 17-21.

Zeffane, R. and B. Cheeks (1993). “Profiles and correlates of computer usage: a study of the Australian telecommunications industry.” Computers in Industry 22: 53-69.

Lam, J. C. Y. and M. K. O. Lee (2006). “Digital Inclusiveness-Longitudinal Study of Internet Adoption by Older Adults.” Journal of Management Information Systems 22(4): 177-206.

Edwards, W. (1961). “Behavioral Decision Theory.” Annual Review of Psychology 12: 473-498

Simon, H. A. (1959). “Theories of Decision-Making in Economics and Behavioral Science.” The American Economic Review 49(3): 253-283.

Bandura, A. (1986). Social Foundations of Thought and Action. New Jersey, Prentice Hall.

Mcknight, D. H, L. L. Cummings, N.L. Chervany (1998). “Initial trust formation in new organizational relationships” Acad. Management Rev. 23(3): 473-490.

Trist, E. L., Higgin, G. W., Murray, H. and Pollock, A. D. (1963). Organisational Choice, London: Tavistock.

Mumford, E. (1996). Systems Design: Ethical Tools for Ethical Change. London: Macmillan.

Mumford, E. (2000). Socio-Technical Design: An Unfulfilled Promise or a Future Opportunity? In R. Baskerville, J. Stage and J. I. DeGross (Eds), Organizational and Social Perspectives on Information Technology. Boston: Kluwer

AUTHOR
Marina Campidoglio, Franco Frattolillo, Federica Landolfi

ABSTRACT

The progress in digital technologies and the popularity of the Internet have posed the problem of the copyright protection of digital content distributed on the web, whose solution has become a well-known and important research topic. In fact, people can easily and efficiently download digital content from the Internet, and the quality of digital content is not reduced after each time of duplicating. As a consequence, digital piracy causes a great economic loss for many consumer electronics manufactures and web-based content providers (CPs).

Among the main security technologies usually used to implement the copyright protection of digital content distributed on the Internet, digital watermarking [1], particularly that based on fingerprinting techniques [2], can be considered very promising. However, the goal of protecting digital copyright can be achieved only if digital watermarking is combined with watermarking protocols, which define the scheme of the interactions that have to take place among the entities involved in the processes of content protection and web-based distribution [5].

The research field of watermarking protocols is rich of relevant proposals [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. In fact, these protocols appear to be secure and robust, but most of them do not solve or at least address specific problems documented in literature, which end up making the protocols not suited to be used in web contexts [3, 4, 5].

This paper focuses on one of the unresolved problems concerning with watermarking protocols, that is the need to guarantee an adequate level of robustness and security to such protocols without limiting or only conditioning the web users’ right to preserve privacy during the e-commerce transactions by which users can purchase digital content distributed by CPs [5]. In fact, the problem arises because CPs have to identify users wanting to buy digital content in order to generate and insert the correct watermarks in the sold content. Such watermarks create perceptually invisible links between buyers and content. This means that CPs are allowed to collect sensitive data about buyers, and so they could also benefit from reselling them to other parties or making criminal actions.

To overcome such a drawback, many recent proposals in the field of watermarking protocols preserve the buyer’s privacy by adopting negotiation mechanisms based on digital certificates issued by certification authorities (CAs). More precisely, buyers can participate in the web transactions needed to purchase digital content by presenting anonymous certificates, which enable them to keep their identities unexposed [8, 9, 10, 11]. However, such proposals make the participation of buyers in watermarking protocols a difficult task, since digital certificates issued by CAs are widely used for e-commerce transactions by buyers who reside within specific areas, such as Western Europe, the U.S., and Japan, but their spread and adoption within many other geographical areas with high population densities are still a slow process. As a consequence, most potential buyers wishing to buy content in the Internet are usually not provided with digital certificates and do not know how they can obtain them from CAs. Moreover, they cannot often autonomously perform security actions that cannot be automatically carried out by commonly used web browsers. Therefore, CPs that require buyers to have such capabilities without supporting multiple negotiation mechanisms end up limiting their sale possibilities.

A possible solution to the problems concerning with the limited spreading of digital certificates among web users could consist in promoting awareness campaigns, conducted, for instance, by public or private entities, aimed at informing people about how to obtain valid certificates and how to use them in e-commerce transactions. Furthermore, public or government entities within each nation could also start specific institutional activities by which to autonomously release valid certificates to people so as to facilitate their participation in e-commerce transactions.

However, such solutions require carrying out slow and laborious procedures. As a consequence, they cannot be adopted in the short term. In addition, they give rise to a number of questions about the respect for the individual rights of web users: a user who wants to buy a digital content must possess a valid digital certificate. On the contrary, users would like to choose among different negotiation mechanisms [12].

Based on the considerations reported above, the paper addresses the problem of developing watermarking protocols able to adopt multiple negotiation mechanisms that carefully balance the need for security and the users’ right to preserve privacy. In fact, the paper discusses the negotiation mechanisms currently adopted by the major watermarking protocols existing in literature, and proposes a new design approach in which buyers, depending on the negotiation context [3, 4, 5] and consistently with the commonly accepted rules about privacy protection, are no longer forced to adhere to a unique and rigid identification method. Such approach allows buyers to come into the situation to accept tradeoffs between some of their goals, such as simplicity and anonymity.

REFERENCES

[1] I. Cox, J. Bloom, and M. Miller, Digital Watermarking: Principles & Practice, Morgan Kaufman, San Mateo, CA, USA, 2001.

[2] K.J.R. Liu, W. Trappe, Z.J. Wang, M. Wu, and H. Zhao, Multimedia Fingerprinting Forensics for Traitor Tracing, Hindawi, New York, USA, 2005.

[3] F. Frattolillo and S. D’Onofrio, “A web oriented and interactive buyer-seller watermarking protocol,” in Security, Steganography, and Watermarking of Multimedia Contents VIII, Proc. SPIE, E. J. Delp and P. W.Wong, Eds., San Jose, CA, 2006, vol. 6072, pp. 718–726.

[4] F. Frattolillo and S. D’Onofrio, “A model for the distribution of watermarked digital contents on mobile networks,” in Multimedia Systems and Applications IX, Proc. SPIE, S. Rahardja, J. Kim, Q. Tian, and C. W. Chen, Eds., Boston, MA, 2006, vol. 6391, pp. 639110–639110.

[5] F. Frattolillo, “Watermarking Protocol for Web Context”, IEEE Trans. Information Forensics and Security, vol. 2, no. 3, Sept. 2007, pp. 350-363.

[6] L. Qiao and K. Nahrstedt, “Watermarking schemes and protocols for protecting rightful ownership and customer’s rights,” J. Vis. Commun. Image Representation, vol. 9, no. 9, 1998, pp. 194-210.

[7] N. Memon and P.W. Wong, “A buyer-seller watermarking protocol,” IEEE Trans. Image Process., vol. 10, no. 4, Apr. 2001, pp. 643-649.

[8] C.L. Lei et al., “An efficient and anonymous buyer-seller watermarking protocol,” IEEE Trans. Image Process., vol. 13, no. 12, Dec. 2004, pp. 1618–1626.

[9] M. Kuribayashy and H. Tanaka, “Fingerprinting protocol for images based on additive homomorphic property,” IEEE Trans. Image Process., vol. 14, no. 12, Dec. 2005, pp. 2129–2139.

[10] J. Zhang, W. Kou, and K. Fan, “Secure buyer-seller watermarking protocol”, IEE Proc. Inf. Secur., vol. 153, no. 1, March 2006, pp. 15-18.

[11] C.-I. Fan, M.-T. Chen, and W.-Z. Sun, “Buyer-Seller Watermarking Protocols with Off-line Trusted Parties”, in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering, 2007.

[12] K. Rannenberg, “Multilateral security. A concept and examples for balanced security,” in Proc. 9th ACM Workshop on New Security Paradigms, Cork, Ireland, 2000.

AUTHOR
Terrell Ward Bynum

ABSTRACT

In the history of human thought, conceptions of human nature have typically provided a philosophical foundation for ethics. This has been true in the East as well as in the West. In ancient China, for example, Confucian and Taoist views of human potential and the place of humans in Nature provided philosophical underpinnings for Confucian virtue theory and Taoist accounts of a good life. In ancient Greece, Aristotle’s virtue ethics was derived from his biological and psychological theories of human nature; and in Europe during the Enlightenment age, renewed interest in the view of human beings as rational agents in charge of their own actions provided philosophical grounds for Kantian and Utilitarian ethics.

Contemporary information ethics theories, like those of James Moor and Luciano Floridi, are no exception. They also receive significant support from new accounts of human nature, and even from broader scientific theories about the nature of the universe. Of special interest in this regard is the view of modern physicists that the universe is made out of information and human beings are, therefore, exquisitely complex “information objects”. The beginnings of this “21st-century account” of human nature can actually be traced back to Aristotle’s theory of perception and human thinking.

The present paper briefly reviews Aristotle’s theory of perception and thinking, with special emphasis upon perception as a process in which animals – including human beings – take in information from the outside world by means of their sense organs, process that information within their bodies and, on the basis of such processing, initiate interactions with the world. Human beings have a special capacity to use information from their perceptions to form concepts, beliefs and knowledge about the world. This knowledge, in turn, enables them to envision alternative possible futures, favor some futures over others, and engage in actions chosen to bring about the kind of future that the person desires. Practical reasoning and ethical virtues are the results of special kinds of information processing within the human body.

The discussion of Aristotle is followed by an account of Norbert Wiener’s cybernetic theory of human nature. Wiener’s view of human nature is presented, in the present paper, as a 20th-century update of Aristotle, replacing Aristotle’s physics and biology with contempory biology, thermodynamics, and astrophysics. In Wiener’s view, a person’s body constantly exchanges matter/energy with the outside world; but it is the information encoded and processed within that body which constitutes human identity and thinking. People, said Wiener, are more like whirlpools or flames than static physical objects.

James Moor’s information ethics theory – including consideration of computer ethics, nanotechnology ethics and the ethics of genomics – is strongly supported by Wiener’s view of human nature, as well as the contemporary astrophysics account of the universe. The same can be said about Luciano Floridi’s theory of information ethics, including the ethics of artificial agents like robots, softbots and cyborgs. The present paper concludes with a discussion of the information ethics theories of Moor and Floridi and demonstrates the strong support that they receive from the cybernetic account of human nature.

AUTHOR
Mike Bowern

ABSTRACT

Electronic democracy is one of a number of terms which Michael Saward refers to as ‘prefix-democracy’, many of which are used in the academic literature. The purpose of the prefix is to define and describe a particular subset of the vast array of democratic theories and ideas.

In this paper I use an interpretation of democracy based on its literal meaning of ‘rule by the people’. In this interpretation, therefore, representative democracy is an oxymoron, and direct democracy a tautology. Industrial or corporate democracy are terms indicating specific areas where some theory of democracy might be applied, for example in the workplace or in a business. Prefixes, such as participatory, deliberative, and discursive, describe specific activities in a democratic system.

The term Electronic (or e-, cyber, digital, etc) democracy falls into its own separate category. The definitions of these terms typically include reference to the use of ICT in democratic processes, sometimes focussing on voting, for example electronic voting. Often there are specific references to the internet, and in these definitions they frequently imply on-line participation by citizens in their democracy.

I believe that electronic democracy has a tendency to focus on the ‘electronic’, rather than on ‘democracy’. For example, there is on-going debate about the problems of electronic voting machines, but there is little focus on the problems that electronic voting is trying to solve. We should be identifying ways to use ICT to improve democratic processes, that is to enable ‘rule by the people’ to be fulfilled. This paper proposes such an improvement, using an example from Australia.

Australia operates under a Constitution which defines the powers of the federal Parliament. The Constitution was voted for by Australian citizens, and it can only be changed by the people, through a national referendum. The Australian Constitution gives the Parliament the power to make and amend laws in specified areas. Some of these laws provide the rules for the administration and operation of the Australian democratic system, for example who is allowed to vote, and how elections are to be conducted. However, there are no democratic processes to enable citizens to comment on these electoral laws, or to give their consent to them.

This means that the elected members of parliament set the rules about how they are to be elected, and it is quite possible for this power to be abused. For example, as happened in Australia in 2006, the electoral act could be amended to close the electoral roll on the day an election is called, rather than waiting at least a week before closing it. This would result in a substantial number of citizens, particularly young people, being disenfranchised, because they could not get on the roll. The outcome of this could be to reduce the votes for one political party, thus benefiting another.

The objective of this paper is to describe a method, which includes the use of ICT, to curtail abuse of power by elected representatives, through the participation of citizens in setting the rules for running their democracy. This will be a democratic way to enable citizens to have more control over their representatives, and more participation in the decision procedures of their society.

In his paper Enacting Democracy, Saward argues that a different view of democratic theory is required, one which takes advantage of some of the ideas behind the wide range of models and theories of democracy. He proposes an approach, which draws on much of the previous work on democratic theory, to develop ‘binding collective decision-making procedures’. A collective decision-making process would comprise certain stages, namely: agenda setting; debate and discussion; the moment of decision itself; and the moment of implementation.

Each of these stages draw on what Saward calls devices, which are inherent in the various models and theories of democracy. A ‘device is a mechanism that plays a part in constituting a more or less formal procedure by which binding collective decisions are reached for a political community’. Saward gives a number of examples of devices, related to systems of representation and methods of voting; deliberation and other ways for participation; and methods of implementation and review of the decision. Some of these devices are well known and established, such as elections for representatives, and voting. Other devices, such as protected public spaces of civil freedom, and the need for pause or delay in the procedure, are less familiar.

Multiple devices are sequenced in a decision procedure, using the stages identified above, ‘so as to evoke and enact democratic principles’. Saward nominates four principles which are often invoked as being fundamental to democracy, namely: political equality; inclusion; expressive freedom; and transparency.

Saward’s approach provides a framework within which a specific decision procedure can be developed, to address a specific problem, such as government abuse of power; or an innovation, such as a citizens’ initiative for greater political equality.

In Saward’s paper there is no mention of technology, which is not to imply that ict does not have a role to play in new decision procedures. His focus is on the procedure itself, and the need to include democratic principles. When these are understood and defined for a particular issue, then the role of ict can be defined.

This paper applies saward’s method to the specification of a decision procedure to enable citizens to have a say in the legislation which defines their democracy. It identifies the issues to be addressed, the devices used in the various stages to implement this decision procedure, and the role that ICT might have in these devices, particularly to ensure that the four democratic principles are followed.