SPRING, 1998

PHIL 290 – Philosophy of Cyberspace

      Cyberspace changes daily, rendering textbooks out of date almost before they are available. To cope with this incredibly rapid rate of change, this course will use two traditional texts, Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen (Simon & Schuster, 1996) and Victor Vitanza's CyberReader (Allyn & Bacon, 1996) and make heavy use of the Internet, especially of the links on their web sites. The URLs are: http://www.abacon.com/cyber/public_html and http://web.mit.edu/sturkle/www/.
      Philosophical issues such as the following will be critically examined: Is it true that "information wants to be free" and that it is morally wrong to charge for information delivered over the Net? Does the ready availability of explicit material prove that the Net is "out of control" and in need of censorship and stringent governmental regulation? Special emphasis will be placed on the following ethical concerns: Are there unique ethical principles governing cyberspace or do "standard" ethical theories suffice? Is there a right to correspond anonymously, to develop an alternate identity or persona, and to use encrypted, private electronic communication? The course presupposes no knowledge of computer programming; both expert and novice computer users are welcome.