Floridi and Spinoza on Global Information Ethics

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Floridi and Spinoza on Global Information Ethics
The 3rd Asia-Pacific Computing and Philosophy
Conference, Chulalongkorn University, November
2-4, 2007

• Soraj Hongladarom
• Department of Philosophy and Center for Ethics of
  Science and Technology, Chulalongkorn University

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Outline

• Floridi on global information ethics
• Affinities with Spinoza
• Problems - relativism naturalism
• How the problems are overcome.

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Floridi on Global Information Ethics
Biocentric ethics argues that the nature and
well-being 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 agents ethical
decisions and constraining the agents 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.
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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).
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Floridi, Luciano. (2007). Global information
ethics the importance of being environmentally
earnest. International Journal of Technology and
Human Interaction 3.3, 1-11.
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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).
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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
agents ethical decisions and the constraint of
the agents moral behaviour (Floridi and Sanders
2002, pp. 7-8).
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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-ori
ented 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-anthropocentr
ic one but still lower than LoAi level of
abstraction provided by an information analysis,
like a biocentric LoA (Floridi 2002, p. 291).
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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.

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Spinoza

• Floridis 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.

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Problem of the Lion

• In the paper Floridi talks about Wittgensteins
  Problem of the Lion. We cant understand the
  lion because we dont understand their language.
  Their world is totally aline to ours.
• This may be the fate of intercultural
  understandings (?)

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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.

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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.

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Problems

• This is a naturalistic conception, thus
  committing Moores naturalistic fallacy.
• Basing the universal framework on ontology or
  metaphysics appears too weakdifference groups of
  people have different ways of conceptualizing
  their objective reality.

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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.

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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.
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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).
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Spinozas 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.

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Spinozas System in Real Life

• The US and the EU have different conceptions and
  justifications of privacy and intellectual
  property rights (Dan Burk 2007).
• US --gt more consequentialist
• EU --gt more inclined toward the deontological.

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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.

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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 goalshow 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.

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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 mans 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 Floridis idea of the good
being what increases the quantity and richness of
the infosphere.
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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 Spinozas
conception, as well as Floridis. Joy or
happiness is inextricably bound up with
perfection of nature. The individual cannot
extricate herself from her own social and
physical environment.
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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 Gods 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.
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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.