In India there is a place called Gandhi Ashram. It is like a memorial to Gandhi and his life. I went to that place once with my friends. While all my friends were very impressed by the place and the displays, I found the whole setup to be rather dull and to a certain extent redundant and dead. I thought that the place stressed too much emphasis on the existence of Gandhi rather than the idea of him. In such a situation one is confronted with questions like “What do you mean by the idea of Gandhi?” “Is it even possibly to depict physically an idea, a notion which might as well differ from person to person?” These are the kind of questions that are, as Berlin [1] states, neither empirical nor formal.
The first question the skeptic asks is whether such questions are of any importance. What purpose do they serve? To what ends to they cater? How do they affect our existence our future and present?
While Berlin [1] goes to great lengths about how a certain section of inquiries cannot be placed in the hackneyed terminology of empirical and formal sciences, the paper fails to answer any of the above questions. What the paper seems to be concentrating on is to justify the existence of philosophy (maybe as a science) despite it qualifying as neither empirical nor formal. To that end the writer goes on to show how the modern branches of sciences are riddled with philosophical inquiries. The paper discusses the origins of ‘astronomy’ and how that used to be in the domain of philosophy and how with the advent of the space age it tried to unfetter itself of ‘the shackles of philosophy’ and go over to the realm of sciences, and how it still has leftover (as well as new) abstract questions which can not be solved by the scientific approach.
Then the writer uses a phrase no philosophers questions are physical, some physicists questions are still philosophical. Now while this statement is very cute, it is extremely irritating to a person of scientific disposition because it seems that philosophy and philosophers simply prey on the absence of observed and empirical data and the lack of clarity of the human mind, rather being serious and try to solve issues. Or to put it simply it seems that the purpose of philosophy is to muddle rather than elucidate.
I rather like the idea of philosophy because while we look at the same things what we see is totally different. A cliché example of this would be the half tumbler of water: one sees it as half filled and another as half empty. How do we resolve the conflict of ideas? And more importantly how do we resolve the conflict of facts? So many times trouble spews not from notions but facts. While men like Machiavelli will say the deceit and manipulation is the essence of stable and successful governance for the greater good, can science help us refute the treatise or guiltlessly embrace the same? No these shoes can only be filled by philosophy, which is like fluid and thus can mould itself according to vessel. Once poured however getting it to harden and explain the shape of the problem is not always that easy, or sometimes even feasible. However the way is not to give up on philosophy, by trying to fit the question to a science by scraping the surface and trying to fit the question to the answer instead of finding a fitting answer.
The trouble with philosophy is that by its very nature it is a gradient of grey. Its gossamer abstractions are hard to grasp. It is impossible to not be overwhelmed, sometimes to a degree of being suicidal like Umberto Eco and Nietzsche. Here I would quote an example from a Douglas Adams’ book where a supercomputer is set to the task of finding the ultimate answer. When the answer is discovered it turns out to be 42. The bamboozled reader is told that the people looking for the answer didn’t know question. Apart from being extremely droll, this situation holds a lot of truth. A lot of times in philosophical pursuits one loses sight of the question to an extent that one ends up with a bigger mess than what one began with. But this situation is not singular to philosophy. You can see it various branches of sciences. Only where philosophy is concerned it might be slightly harder to see the answers right away. The difficulty of the ordeal does not render it useless just makes it more daunting. And this is what the philosopher is left to deal with, all the while looking to justify this pursuit to the society (as in non philosophers). To that end Berlin [1] does do justice by expounding in very clear terms that philosophy is cumbersome to handle, as it does not provide with systematic or well-defined approaches to a problem. Picking on the terminology of Berlin himself, when dealing with philosophy one has to act like the fox rather than the hedgehog. This view is in slight contradiction with Science where everyone wants to do an Einstein and be a hedgehog. Picking on the writings of Kant, Berlin remarks that the difference in perception of any instance for between individuals, between cultures, between people of different religions means that one cannot have a single satisfactory universal answer, which is in contradiction to well the standard scientific notion (there are of course exception like the wave-particle duality, but then Berlin classifies that too as a philosophical question). This means that to resolve questions of liberty, justice, ethics etc. one needs to look to philosophy for answers instead of science. Thus I do agree with the writer that Philosophy is indeed important. However I do not agree with his approach of trying to justify or prove the preceding statement. I believe he glosses over a lot of questions while not even touching some of the more important ones. I believe the article is repetitive and redundant (just like this statement). But since the article is by Isaiah Berlin one wonders if one is in ones right mind to criticize it. (However the writer is supposed to have remarked that his reputation was based on the systematic overestimation of his abilities.)

References
[1] Berlin, I. (2000) “The Power of Ideas”, Princeton University Press Princeton, New Jersey.

Due to circumstances beyond my control I have been made to ponder over ‘Information Ethics’, ‘Computer Ethics’ and ‘Ethical Computers’. I will do a stack here. Ethical Computers??? What crap??? Hung over on science fiction movies with way too much free time Mr. Richard Lucas has lots to say on this. He goes on to say that very little work has been done in this area. ( At this point I would like to do a Dr. Cox and go “reaheaheaheaheaheahallllyyyyyy”) I mean this is toally a question of academic importance. He discusses Asimov’s three laws and HAAL. I mean for crying out loud… spare me thy not so droll musings.

Now we come to Computer Ethics. Moor [2,3] defines this as being an analysis of the nature and impact of computer technology on society and environment and then the formulation and justification of policies so as to ensure ethical use of the same. His primary concern seems to be regarding policy vacuum on computer ethics. Not only is there a policy vacuum but there is also a conceptual vacuum as in we have very little idea as to how we should go about formulating these policies. Now this problem is more tangible and more meaningful than the one dealt by Lucas [4]. While computers with ability to choose or refuse to choose are the stuff of science fiction, the increasing use of computers and related technology in our daily lives is not. The term Logical Malleability is an important contribution of this paper. It means that computers are sort of a universal tool and can be molded to fit any task. They can be used anywhere where information needs to be processed and since information is processed in more or less every process, they can be used everywhere. Then we observe as how computers go from being of ancillary importance to being the focal point of any process. This while improves efficiency, might lead to unforeseen situations. The example of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant should be an eye opener. We really need to define the boundaries for our acceptance of a computer’s judgment. With movies like Dr. Strangelove, we also need to consider the sanity of having automated retaliation or even deterrents in place. We need to ensure that such critical systems have no ‘invisible faults’. The concept of invisibility factors (abuse, programming values: intentional and unintentional, complex calculations) gives an interesting insight into the issues we are dealing with. Then he discusses how to go about filling the policy and conceptual void with regards to Computer Ethics. Two traditional approaches are discussed. The first one assumes that Computer Ethics is like anything else and we can just use traditional ideas and apply them to Computers. As Moor [2,3] rightly states, this approach doesn’t work. There would be many instances where there are no established precedents in the Computer-less world. In which case the second approach is proposed which is that everyone decides its own policies according to their culture, society etc. This does not work for the obvious reasons. While in the tangible world it is easy, you are governed by the laws of the nation you are present in, in the computer world that is not possible, because information, software etc. are constantly in motion, they are transient, they have no national, social or cultural boundaries. In this case what laws is the information to be governed by, by the laws of the originating node, the receiving node, or the carriers in between? I think that both the cultural and routine approaches are more or less the same. They both trivialize the notion of computer ethics. They both try to use preexisting information to apply it to computer related situations. They differ a little in practice yes but in theory they are equivalent, and thus equally unsatisfactory. Moors [2,3] then proposes the possibility of deciding the issues by figuring out the what is common between cultures, between, nations, what is common by virtue of us being humans. He proposes we use these common denominators to guide us. I am not sure I am too impressed by this observation. For one it is pretty obvious, it is pretty much the natural order of evolution for ethical theories. The bigger disappointment is the fact that he gives no solution to disparities that might occur despite of the common denominators. I think he shies away from the question itself. I for one am inclined to believe that his approach provides no answers, other than a hit and trial regime of hopefulness. His view is too narrow. His terminology confines itself to computers, and refuses to take a look at the larger picture. It looks at the subject but totally ignores the object (environment, not to be confused with nature) on which it acts.

This is where Floridi [1] steps in. Of all the three writers he has the best understands the magnitude of the situation we are dealing with. He does not restrain his view or his terminology to computers but takes it to information – Information Ethics, which should have been the focal point all along. The whole idea of computers changing everything is because they are information crunchers of enormous capacities. They make access, transmission, analysis, gathering and processing of information easier and cheaper. So what we have at hands is not a Computer revolution but an Information revolution. Moor’s analysis lacks this depth. Admittedly Moors model seems easier and practical when compared to Floridi’s. But then it is simplicity and practicality at the cost of usefulness. A spoon is easier to handle than a shovel, but one cannot use a spoon to plough land. The need to identify the right tools for the job is paramount, yes they are cumbersome (too abstract) to begin with, but they can be refined to make them more manageable (tangible).
Floridi starts by explaining the traditional way looking at Information ethics. The micro ethical RPT model is described and then criticized. Rightly so, as that too like Moor’s model excludes a lot of possibilities. The macro ethical model proposed later in the paper makes more sense. Because any entity in the Infosphere can at the same time be the producer, consumer and transmitter of information. He takes the theory to a higher abstraction by going from epistemological to ontological analysis. But then he has the sense to provide with tools like LoA to make the understanding and application of the theory much easier. The most important contribution of his paper however I think is the establishment of the notion that there can be moral agency without moral responsibility. He defines his moral agent as Interactive, autonomous, adaptable transition system that can perform morally qualifiable actions. This basically implies that the whole deal about intentionality and rationality and the likes is not needed which means a policymaker now takes into account more than just intelligent humans or anthropomorphic agents. If we look at Lucas, we will realize that Lucas was doing the exact opposite. Instead of trying to make a model to fit the equation, he was imagining equations to fit his model. Floridi however ensures that he sees things as they are and thus ends up resurrecting the ghosts of ethical computers and computer ethics. Finally he speaks of the intrinsic value of an informational object. Then the rules to define what is ethically correct are defined. This is the only chink in his abstraction and probably requires either further thought on the part of the author or deeper understanding on the part of the reader. Because the way he defines his entropy rules, they challenge the commonplace ethics of daily lives (which also come under Information Ethics, Floridi’s model is all embracing). For example awarding a student for merit might lead to increase in entropy by increasing jealousy amongst peers. I think we need to dig deeper to find a better definition of entropy itself. The feeble definition of the same by Floridi I believe is the root of this dilemma. Under the current definitions it just seems that Floridi is just advocating inaction. The interesting observation is that inaction itself would be a sort of action under certain conditions.

References
[1] Floridi, L. (2006) “Information Ethics, Its nature and Scope”, In SIGCAS Computers and Society Volume 36, No. 3.
[2] Moor, J. (1985) “What is Computer Ethics?”, In Metaphilosophy Volume 16, No. 4.
[3] Moor, J. (1998) “Reason, Relativity and Responsibility in Computer Ethics”, In Computers and Society.
[4] Lucas, R. (2000) “Why Bother? Ethical Computers – That’s Why!” In the proceedings of the 2nd Australian Institute of Computer Ethics Conference, Volume 1.
[5] Brown, J. and Duguid, P. “The social life of information