Values and Technology: Ethical Values in Cyberspace

Professor Diane Michelfelder
California Polytechnic State University

Winter 1997

Course Description: Study of the ethical debates and issues connected to the rise of online communications and electronic information technology. The impact of these technologies on freedom of speech, privacy, property rights, and other democratic values. Effect of these technologies on the quality of personal and interpersonal life. 3 lectures. Prerequisite: Junior standing and ENGL 215 or ENGL 218.

Course Purpose: The primary purpose of this course is to increase your critical awareness of the ethical issues associated with the development of online communications and electronic information technologies such as the Internet. As these technologies increasingly impact both the individual and social aspects of daily life, the ethical issues associated with them come to bear on an ever increasing part of the population. With this in mind, this course has been developed for all majors, and is offered as a humanities course. We will thus for example be paying special attention to how the language we use to talk about online communications technology has the potential for shaping our expectations of these technologies in particular and our culture in general. We will also look at the effect of these new technologies on our concept of the self, and the implications of this effect on our ethical attitudes, values and choices.


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