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S P E C I A L I S S U E

A Critique of Information Ethics

Tony Doyle

Received: 26 April 2010 /Accepted: 20 May 2010 /Published online: 13 August 2010

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract Luciano Floridi presents Information Ethics (IE) as an alternative to

traditional moral theories. IE consists of two tenets. First, reality can be interpreted at

numerous, mutually consistent levels of abstraction, the highest of which is

information. This level, unlike the others, applies to all of reality. Second,

everything, insofar as it is an information object, has some degree of intrinsic value

and hence moral dignity. I criticize IE, arguing that Floridi fails to show that the

moral community should be expanded beyond beings capable of suffering or having

preferences. Next, I look at Floridi’s extended case against consequentialism

generally and utilitarianism in particular. I try to show that his criticisms are flawed.

Third, I argue that, for the most part, it is not clear what IE ’s practical implications

are. I conclude with a critical discussion of the one area of information ethics,

traditionally conceived, that Floridi has written about at length, privacy.

Keywords Consquentialism . Floridi . Information ethics . Inherent value .

Intrinsic value . Inherent value . Intrinsic worth . Privacy . Utilitarianism

1 Introduction

In a series of articles written since 1999, Luciano Floridi proposes radically

rethinking the nature of ethics. He calls his new conception Information Ethics (IE),

a general ethical theory offered as an alternative to consequentialism, deontology,

and contract theory. IE consists of the following two tenets. First, reality can be

interpreted at numerous, mutually consistent levels of abstraction, each with its own

ontology (Brey 2008). The highest is information. This level of abstraction, unlike

Know Techn Pol (2010) 23:163 – 175

DOI 10.1007/s12130-010-9104-x

T. Doyle

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 899 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY 10019, USA

T. Doyle (*)

Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065, USA

e-mail: [email protected]



the others, applies to all of reality. Second, Floridi wants to claim that everything,

insofar as it is an information object, has intrinsic value, and thus deserves at least

some moral respect. Thus, the moral circle should be all-inclusive: all of being, the

entire “infosphere,” to use Floridi’s term, is a moral patient. I discuss these claims

below in greater detail and argue that Floridi fails to show that the moral circleshould be expanded beyond beings capable of suffering or having preferences. Next,

I look at Floridi’s extended case against consequentialism generally and utilitarian-

ism in particular. I try to show that his criticisms are flawed. Third, I argue that it is

not clear what IE implies regarding applied ethical topics like medical ethics or the

ethics of punishment. I conclude with a critical look at Floridi’s position on privacy,

a mainstay of conventional information ethics.

2 The Basis of IE

As pointed out in the previous paragraph, Floridi claims that all objects can be

viewed at different levels of abstraction. For instance, at one level of abstraction I

can be conceived of as a human being, at increasingly higher levels as a primate, a

mammal, a vertebrate, a colony of eukaryotic cells, and a congeries of subatomic

particles. The higher the level of abstraction, the more inclusive it is. The highest

level is informational. Everything that is can be thought of in terms of the

information that it embodies. Everything at this highest level of abstraction can be

conceived of as an information object. Information is the one common denominator of all objects, both physical and abstract (Floridi 2008). This is the realm of IE, the

infosphere. As Floridi puts it, IE “is committed to a LoA [level of abstraction] that

interprets reality…informationally” (Floridi 2005a, p. 51). Why? Floridi believes

that information is intrinsically valuable. Since every object can be thought of as an

information object, everything in the universe has intrinsic worth. To the extent that

it does, it deserves at least minimum, although overridable, moral respect.1

IE is proposed as a general, field-independent ethical theory, a macroethics, to use

Floridi’s term. As Floridi sees it, a satisfactory macroethics should embrace

everything with intrinsic value. Since only IE does this, Floridi implies that it is

the only acceptable macroethics. From this theory of value he derives a conception

of right and wrong: “Right and wrong…essentially refer to what is better or worse

for the infosphere” (Floridi 1999, p. 42). Information is the “ primary object ” of “any

morally responsible action” (Floridi 1999, p. 43). Compare classical utilitarianism,

where promoting pleasure and preventing pain are the keys to evaluating all actions

in the “hedonosphere.”

Floridi’s case for his theory of value appeals to the so called expanding moral circle.

Time was when the moral community was thought to extend only to one’s tribe or ethnic

group. Since the Enlightenment, moral philosophers have sought to extend its

boundaries. For instance, Kant insisted that the realm of moral concern encompass all

1 However, this does not mean that everything is of equal worth. “Responsible agents,” that is, agents

capable of evaluating their actions in the light of moral principles, deserve the “highest degree of respect

because they are the only ones capable both of knowing the infosphere and improving it according to their

self-determined projects…” (Floridi 1999, p. 50).

164 T. Doyle



rational beings, Bentham and Mill all of “sentient creation.” Floridi thinks that the next

important step was taken last century by biocentric ethicists, who maintain that all life is

intrinsically valuable. The whole “ biosphere” has fundamental worth, not just its islands

of sentience (Floridi 2008). Floridi is even more enthusiastic about land ethics, which

attacks biocentric theories for their “ bias” against inanimate things (Floridi 2005a).This approach demands that “the state of inanimate objects [be] taken into account

when considering an action (e.g., how is building a certain freeway going to impinge

on the rock face in its path)” (Floridi and Sanders 2001, p. 62). Land ethics then

encompasses the entire natural world, dirt and all, within the moral community. Yet,

not even land ethics is radical enough, since it retains a bias against technology and

artifacts (Floridi 2008). Floridi sees “no good reason” for not expanding the moral

community to include all of being conceived at its highest level of abstraction,

informationally (Floridi 2008, p. 13). If we can consider life worth preserving

independently of human interests, why not all of existence? (Floridi 2002). It isinvidious to exclude the entities corresponding to any level of abstraction, including

the most general, the informational (Floridi 2002, p. 291). IE is an ethics of

everything, “an ontocentric, object-oriented theory,” to use Floridi’s phrase (Floridi

1999, p 43; see also Floridi 2005a). Asserts Floridi, “The time has come to translate

environmental ethics into terms of the infosphere and information objects” (Floridi

2002, p. 291). Information ethics embraces everything that can be in an “information

state” (Floridi 1999, p. 43), and this includes the inorganic world as well as all human

artifacts. Everything can be treated as an “information process” (Floridi 1999, p. 43).

Only IE achieves the impartiality and universality towards which moral philosophyhas been striving since the Enlightenment. IE is the first macroethics of everything

(Floridi 1999, 2005a). It “ brings to ultimate completion the process of enlargement of

the concept of what may count as a center of a (no matter how minimal) moral claim,

which now includes every instance of being understood informationally, no matter

whether physically implemented or not ” (Floridi 2007, p. 9).

As mentioned above, the entire infosphere has an intrinsic value or “dignity” and

hence deserves at least minimal respect (Floridi 1999, p. 44), although this respect

can be overridden (Floridi 2008, p. 13). Floridi calls this his “ontological equality

principle” (Floridi 1999 p. 44), and it is akin to the utilitarian principle that

everyone’s happiness (or interests or preferences) be weighed equally or to Rawls’s

assumption that the veil of ignorance ensures equality for the contractors in the

original position. Floridi’s principle means that every information entity — that is,

everything — has a presumptive and “equal right to exist and to develop in a way that

is appropriate to its nature” (Floridi 1999, p. 44; see also Floridi 2005a, b).

The mirror image of being, or information, is entropy. By entropy, Floridi has in

mind the term as it is used in information theory, not in thermodynamics. In this

sense, entropy is inversely related to the amount of information that a signal contains

(Dretske 1983). Entropy is the “destruction, corruption, pollution, and depletion of

information objects” (Floridi 2005a; see also Floridi 2008). An increase in entropy is

an “instance in evil” (Floridi 2008, p. 17). It is to IE what pain or unhappiness is to

classical utilitarianism. Yet, it is more fundamental than pain, since it can affect all of

reality, not just that tiny portion capable of suffering (Floridi 2005a, 2007, 2008).

Floridi makes a valuable point here about the expanding moral circle. He is right,

empirically, that humanity has come to see many earlier conceptions of the moral circle

A Critique of Information Ethics 165



as too exclusive. Few would oppose the overall trend. He offers a stern warning against

the kind of hubris that has characterized a lot of moral thinking in the past: “Perhaps, we

could be less pessimistic: human sensitivity has already improved quite radically in the

past, and may improve further. Perhaps, we should just be cautious: given how fallible

we are, it may be better to be too inclusive than discriminative” (Floridi and Sanders2001, p. 61). Earlier justifications of slavery, racism, and even speciesism can now be

seen as self-serving. And they should chasten those who would “trace” Bentham’s

“insuperable line” arbitrarily. The undeniable moral progress that humanity has made

over the last several centuries is part and parcel of the expanding moral circle. Floridi ’s

point is that the only safe way to draw the line is simply not to draw it at all. The only

satisfactory conception of ethics is one that is all inclusive.

Is it? Should ethics ascribe intrinsic worth to everything from a fully functioning adult

human being to a vat of toxic waste (Brey 2008)? Floridi is surely right to claim that the

Kantian conception of the moral community, to say nothing of pre-Kantian ones,excludes too much, since it leaves out beings incapable of acting with a good will,

those that cannot govern their behavior by the moral law. Kant notoriously infers from

this that we have no direct moral obligations towards non-human animals. But as

Bentham suggested, the capacity for suffering is relevant to morality in a way that the

capacity to act with a good will is not. But why go any further? The best Floridi can

do is cite an apparent trend in moral philosophy towards even greater inclusiveness.

Whatever the merits of this claim about the history of ethics since the mid-twentieth

century, it is not an argument for expanding the moral circle beyond Bentham’s

proposal or the contention among later utilitarians that what matters is whether a beinghas preferences that can be satisfied. Like any other intellectual trend, this one is only

as good as the reasons supporting it. And, so far as I can tell, the only reason that

Floridi offers for IE’s theory of value is — the alleged trend itself. I say alleged because

it is difficult to see this expansion of the moral circle as a real trend: most moral

philosophers today continue to resist biocentric and land ethics and have refused to go

further than including beings capable of having experiences or preferences.

If Floridi wants to make his case for treating all of reality, informationally conceived,

as intrinsically valuable, he will have to do better than point out that a handful of

philosophers on the margins have urged broadening the circle beyond what, say,

utilitarians would like. The reason for including all and only creatures with central

nervous systems in the moral sphere is that they seem to be the only beings that we know

about that have interests, interests tied closely to avoiding pain and seeking pleasure.

Surely, the fact that a being is subject to pleasure and pain at least makes it a strong

candidate for moral concern. Again, why go any further? How is being an information

object supposed to be any recommendation for moral concern? Why, as Floridi wants to

do, include amoeba and redwood trees? Mount Everest and the Grand Canyon? The

Pantheon and Van Gogh’s “Starry Night ”? My laptop and Univac? Floridi’s “argument ”

seems to be that, as information objects, they are intrinsically valuable and so deserve

respect and so, to the greatest extent possible, should be left alone to flourish

“independently of human interests” (Floridi 2002, p. 291; see also Floridi 2008).

This will not do. Take natural wonders first. What does it even mean for

something like Iguazu Falls to “flourish?” Presumably it means seeing that they are

in a state that enhances the infosphere. What state is this? The present state in which

their erosion continues unabated? Or partially dammed and thus more slowly

166 T. Doyle



eroded? I confess that I do not see how IE will answer these questions. Surely, the

more reasonable account for why we should not trash these natural wonders is the

pleasure that people get and will presumably continue to get from visiting them in a

relatively unspoiled condition and not because they have some kind of right to

flourish. The same goes for protecting non-human animals: We should protect themonly insofar as we and future generations value the notion of their continued survival

and insofar as the goods gained and harms avoided by conservation do not outweigh

the goods lost and the harms incurred by not devoting these resources elsewhere.

Non-human animal life has no intrinsic worth. It is literally meaningless, since, as far

as we know, non-human animals are incapable of thinking of their own lives as

having meaning. In fact, with the exception of recently extinct “higher ” hominids

like the Neanderthal, one could make a plausible case that the universe would have

been better off without such creatures than with them, given the colossal suffering

associated with their existence. I propose the same approach to artifacts. Take thegreat Maya pyramids or the temples of Angkor Wat. Their creators are long dead,

and thus nothing that we do now or in the future can affect their interests. If we all

woke up tomorrow not caring about these antiquities, and if we could be sure that

future generations would not care either, there would be no moral reason not to plow

them under and convert their grounds into casino resorts and golf courses.

3 Floridi’s Moral Precepts

To guide action, Floridi proposes four rules. They are:

0. entropy ought not to be caused in the infosphere

1. entropy ought to be prevented in the infosphere

2. entropy ought to be removed from the infosphere

3. information welfare ought to be promoted by extending (information quantity),

improving (information quality) and enriching (information variety) the infosphere

(Floridi 2005a, b, pp. 58 – 59; see also Floridi 2002).

In this section, I would like to focus on the first two rules in the context of

Floridi’s attempt to show IE’s superiority as a macroethics.

In Principia Ethica, G. E. Moore offers a thought experiment designed specifically

to show that hedonistic versions of utilitarianism are unacceptable. Moore asks his

reader to consider two worlds. Of the first world, he bids, “Imagine it as beautiful as

you can; put into it whatever on this earth you most admire…” (Moore 1966, p. 83).

The second, by contrast, is “the ugliest world you can possibly conceive. Imagine it

simply one heap of filth, containing everything that is most disgusting to us…”

(Moore 1966, p. 83). The thought experiment has one further stipulation: “The only

thing we are not entitled to imagine is that any human being ever has or ever, by any

possibility, can live in either, can ever see and enjoy the beauty of the one or the

foulness of the other ” (Moore 1966, p.84). Moore affirms that, despite the fact that no

human being, and by implication no rational being, will ever experience either, it

nevertheless would be better if the first world existed to the exclusion of the second.

Of the beautiful world he asks rhetorically, “Would it not be well, in any case, to do

what we could to produce it rather than the other?” (Moore 1966, p.84)




To illustrate the idea of entropy and why having more of it is intrinsically bad

Floridi devises a similar example and urges a Moorean conclusion. Imagine a boy

playing in a landfill. The kid is doing nothing but smashing up or defacing what

remains intact there. Floridi suggests that it would be wrong for the boy to do this

even if we suppose that no one would be adversely affected by the his antics (Floridi1999). What makes his behavior wrong is that it increases entropy in the infosphere

(see also Floridi 2002, p. 302).

Floridi explicitly uses this thought experiment to take a jab at rival theories. He claims

that other theories fail to explain why the kid’s behavior is wrong. I will restrict my

attention to why the thought experiment is supposed to show that utilitarianism is

unsatisfactory, since it seems to me that the utilitarian has a plausible rejoinder.

Utilitarianism counts actions as wrong only to the extent that they adversely affect the

interests of sentient beings. But none are adversely affected in Floridi’s thought

experiment. Since utilitarianism cannot distinguish morally between the world in whichthe boy engages in vandalism and the closest world in which he does not, the theory is

seriously flawed. If anything, overall utility is greater in the one world, since the boy is

getting his kicks from shattering windshields and spray painting junked cars there. IE by

contrast can make the relevant distinction: “We come then to IE, and we know

immediately why the boy’s behavior is a case of blameworthy vandalism: he is not

respecting objects for what they are, and his game is only increasing the level of entropy

in the dumping-ground, pointlessly…. He ought to stop destroying bits of the infosphere

and show more respect for what is naturally different from himself and yet similar, as an

information entity, to himself ”

(Floridi 1999, p. 54; see also Floridi 2002).Is this a genuine explanation? How exactly is the boy contributing to an increase

in informational entropy? Does Floridi think that the dump contains less information

after the escapade than before? How? If the boy were burning books or erasing hard

drives, then Floridi might have a case. But he is doing no such thing. How is

throwing rocks through a few panes of glass supposed to increase informational

entropy? Do the objects possess more information intact than in shambles? And

granting that they do, just how is this supposed to be morally significant? Floridi

does not say. It seems that he can only have recourse to his undefended claim that all

information objects have an essential moral dignity.

Anyway Floridi begs the question against utilitarianism. Utilitarians would gladly

admit that there is nothing wrong with the boy’s escapade, other things being equal, since

he makes no sentient being worse off. What else could possibly make his behavior wrong?

As I have already pointed out, aside from the argument from the expanding circle — which

fails — Floridi never argues for the claim that the landfill, conceived as a collection of

information objects, has intrinsic worth at all, let alone why those objects should be worth

more intact than in pieces. What we need to be told, and what Floridi never explains, is

why an information object, as an information object, is intrinsically valuable.

4 IE, Consequentialism, and Supererogation

Critics have charged, with justice, that, according to maximizing versions of

consequentialism, it is almost always possible to do better than what one does at any

given time. This gives these theories the counter-intuitive implication that no acts are

168 T. Doyle



above and beyond the call of duty and that even the most conscientious agents

seldom, if ever, act rightly. For many, this result amounts to a reductio ad absurdum

of consequentialism.

Floridi claims that a benefit of IE is that it avoids this problem: “In IE, this does

not happen because the morality of a process is assessed on the basis of the state of the infosphere only. So while Consequentialism is in principle satisfied only by the

best action, in principle IE prizes any single action, which improves the infosphere

according to the [four] laws specified above, as a morally commendable action,

independently of the alternatives” (Floridi 1999, p. 51). And elsewhere: “fighting

information entropy is the general moral law to be followed, not an impossible and

ridiculous struggle against thermodynamics…” (Floridi 2002, p. 300). But these are

merely assertions that IE avoids the problem; they are not evidence that it does. In

the light of the four moral rules presented above, it is hard to see why IE does not

confront the same problem facing consequentialism. Will it not almost always be possible to do more for the infosphere than what one in fact does? And if Floridi

responds that agents have no obligation to see that their actions are always in

accordance with the four chief precepts of IE, the critic can ask him why not. Why is

there not a standing obligation to act in accordance with all of them? Specifically,

why do agents not have a constant duty to maximize “information welfare”? On the

other hand, if we assume for the sake of discussion that IE does not have a problem

with supererogation for the reasons that Floridi gives, then neither does

consequentialism. After all, the consequentialist can just as plausibly claim that

actions that are not the best can still be candidates for praise if they do considerablegood and are better than most of the other alternatives. So giving half of my after tax

income to charity might not be the best I can do, but it is still laudable. Praise would

have more utility here than criticism, since the latter might actually discourage

generosity in this context (Singer 1993). According to Floridi, there is always some

entropy in the infosphere, and any act that tends to remove it is laudable (1999). Of

course consequentialists can say exactly the same thing about suffering and acts that

reduce it, even if the agent might have done better. So Floridi is either attacking a

straw man or his criticism applies equally to IE. In one place, he seems prepared to

concede as much: “the restraint of information entropy and the active protection and

enhancement of information values are conducive to maximal utility. We can even

rephrase the Utilitarian principle and say that: ‘Actions are right in proportion that

[sic] they tend to increase information and decrease entropy’” (Floridi 1999, p. 51).

If this is right, then of course IE will inherit whatever difficulties utilitarianism and

other forms of consequentialism might have with supererogation.

5 IE and the Ethical Challenges of the Digital Revolution

No doubt every major technological change brings with it new ethical challenges. The

digital revolution is no exception. The question is whether traditional ethical theories can

rise to the occasion or whether we need a revolution in ethics to match the one in

technology. Flordi thinks the latter, and he thinks that only IE is up to the job. Other

macroethical theories, he claims, lack the necessary flexibility. They insist on treating

computer ethics as just another kind of “carpentry ethics,” a new branch of applied ethics




raising no really new issues. In this section, I would like to look at several reasons why

Floridi thinks that the issues raised by digital technology are novel and can only be

treated fully by IE. I try to show in each case that consequentialism can measure up.

Floridi begins by claiming that, with regard to digital technology, “the virtual nature

of the actions in question often makes it impossible for them to remain completelyundetected and to leave no really perceptible effects behind” (1999, p. 40). It is true that

all digital actions deposit records and that these records can persist indefinitely.

However, these effects are either harmful or they are not. If they are, then they raise

potentially serious moral concern for any moral theory that considers the results of

actions relevant. If they are not, then they raise no moral issues.

Floridi’s next concern is that “even when 1 [that is, the reason given just above] does

not apply, ICT [digital information and communication technology] distances the agent

from, and hence diminishes his sense of direct responsibility for his computer-mediated,

computer-controlled and computer-generated actions” (1999, p. 40). At most, what thisshows is that digital ICT makes it somewhat more difficult to determine or ascribe

responsibility or that people feel less responsible for the harm that they might cause

when using computers than otherwise. Maybe, but this is nothing new. Meat eaters, for

instance, have long been insulated from the profound suffering that industrial meat

production causes to the animals involved. Being removed from the stockyards and

slaughterhouses might well diminish how responsible I feel when I slice into my steak,

but if there are good moral reasons against eating meat, it does not reduce how

responsible I actually am. Presumably, Harry Truman felt less responsible for his

decisions to drop the two atomic bombs than he would have had he stalked the streetsof Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to put a bullet in the head of everyone that

the bombs killed and into the legs of all who were maimed. Whether or not he was

less responsible is debatable.

Third, “ besides, the increasing separation of actions and their effects, both in

terms of the anonymity of the agent and in terms of conceptual distance, makes

‘moral sanctions’ (in Mill’s sense) ever less perceptible by the agent the more

indirect and obscure the consequences of his actions are” (Floridi 1999, p. 40). True

enough, but the consequences are still there. Radiation is tougher to detect than a

punch in the face, but the former ’s effects exist just the same and obviously can be at

least as harmful as the latter. If we can ferret out the source of radiation and

determine that someone is wittingly leaking it, then we should hold the party

responsible just as we call sucker punchers to account for broken noses and missing

teeth. Likewise those who do serious harm with computers.

Fourth, “the diffusion of responsibility [brought about by ICT] brings with it a

diminished ethical sense in the agent and a corresponding lack of perceived

accountability” (Floridi 1999, p. 40). This is true but fixable. If the action in question

causes considerable but avoidable harm, we need to bulk up the sanctions for such

conduct. This will provide a motive for people to take better account of their

potentially harmful actions. Think about how the laws regarding drunk driving and

the corresponding behavior have changed in recent decades. Consider even the bans

on smoking in indoor public places. The sanctions are mainly social; yet, they work.

Finally, “the increasing number and variety of computer crimes committed by

perfectly respectable and honest people shows the full limits of an action-oriented

approach to computer ethics: computer criminals often do not perceive, or perceive

170 T. Doyle



in a distorted way, the nature of their actions because they have been educated to

conceive as potentially immoral only human interactions in real life….A cursory

analysis of the justifications that hackers usually offer for their actions, for example,

is sufficient to clarify immediately that they often do not understand the real

implications of their behavior, independently of their technical competence” (Floridi1999, p. 40). Maybe these folks are not as respectable as we think, or maybe they are

like some slave owners who might otherwise have been decent people and were

simply going along with the prevailing norms. Again, if the crimes in question are

seriously harmful, we need to crank up the penalties. If hackers often fail to

understand the implications of their behavior, most of them would take more time to

do so if we stiffened the sentences for their misdeeds (Bentham 1948). The same

might have been said about early polluters, who failed to appreciate the great harm

they were doing. A robust combination of education, new laws, and strict

enforcement has altered considerably the behavior of their successors.So it looks like at least one of IE’s rivals can take on the kinds of cases that

Floridi thinks only his theory can handle. In fact, when it comes to more general

applications, IE does not seem to do as well. I turn to this topic next.

6 Applications of IE

In this context, it will be useful again to compare IE specifically with utilitarianism.

Critics have charged that the principle of utility is too general or abstract to be of much use. Or, to the extent that it seems to be applicable, it turns out to be all things

to all people, many accommodating the principle to their intuitions rather than letting

their intuitions yield to the principle. But the latter is not really a criticism of

utilitarianism. It just shows that some people sometimes misapply the theory (Mill

1967). As for the first criticism, it exaggerates the problem: utilitarians do broadly

agree about what their principle implies regarding secondary moral rules. All accept

for instance the general utility of promise keeping, truth telling, and institutionalized

punishment. Utilitarians will also widely agree about more controversial issues like

the legalization of marijuana, abortion, or the liberalization of the laws governing

euthanasia. Again, applying the principle of utility might be difficult in certain

circumstances, but in a broad range of cases its implications are generally clear.

By contrast, it is difficult to tell what IE will say about almost any textbook issue or

moral dilemma. How will IE weigh in on the controversies mentioned in the last

paragraph? What will its verdict be in the trolley cases and their variants? Will the theory

ever sanction the witting execution of an innocent person (McCloskey 1965)? Many

might not like the answers that utilitarianism gives in these cases, but at least, it is

reasonably clear what the theory will say. And IE? How would pushing one person

onto the tracks to save five affect the infosphere? Will it prevent more entropy than it

will create? I confess that I do not see how to answer these questions in the light of IE.

It is true that Floridi wants to say, with the rest of us, that torturing an innocent

child, for instance, is wrong. He also assures his readers that IE reckons killing,

stealing, betrayal, and so forth wrong (Floridi 1999). His reason is that these acts

“impoverish” the infosphere (Floridi 2005a, b, p. 59), that they “generate a net

increase in the level of entropy in the infosphere” (Floridi 1999, p. 48). How do they




do this? Floridi does not say. How is greater entropy relevant to moral wrongness?

The only reason that I find in Floridi’s work is his assurance that entropy is “evil.”

The reader can be forgiven if she suspects Floridi of first deciding what types or act

are right or wrong and then couching the justification in the language of IE.

Consider one more example, this one explicitly intended to show the superiority of IEover all forms of consequentialism: “…maintaining one’s dignity in a Nazi prison-camp

is simply no better or no worse than giving a lift to an unknown person on a rainy day,

not just because the two experiences are worlds apart, but because both agents have done

their best to improve the infosphere, and this is all that matters in order to consider their

actions morally commendable. If comparable at all, they are so only in the vague and

non-gradable sense in which a good knife is comparable to the goodness of a good

pencil. Consequentialism is not equally flexible” (Floridi 1999, p. 52). Sure it is. It

would only insist on asking the pertinent questions. Who is the stranger? How far

would he have to walk if I do not give him a ride? Would it be dangerous for him towalk? And so on. As for the moral value of the prisoner maintaining her dignity in the

prison camp, the consequentialist might ask some of the following questions. How

does maintaining her dignity benefit the victim herself? Does it make it easier for her

to stand up to the authorities? Does it make it more likely that she will survive? Does

her example increase the chances that her fellow inmates will survive? Once these and

like questions are answered, the consequentialist is able to hazard an informed guess

as to which world would be better: A, in which I give the stranger a ride but the

prisoner does not maintain her dignity or B, in which I do not give the stranger a ride

and the prisoner does maintain her dignity.When it comes to information ethics, conventionally conceived, Floridi has more

to say. Although it is not clear what IE implies about intellectual freedom or the

extent to which intellectual property should be protected (Mathiesen 2004), Floridi

has written at some length on privacy (Floridi 1999, 2005b; Turilli and Floridi

2009). I conclude with a look at his position on this topic. I will focus on the two

earlier articles, since it is only there that IE, as Floridi conceives it, bulks large.

His 2005 essay is full of keen insights on how the digital revolution has affected

privacy. Floridi accepts James Moor ’s contention that digital technology, although it

can enhance privacy in certain circumstances, raises potential threats that did not

exist in the pre-digital days. Moor points out that computers can store vast amounts

of information indefinitely and that they enable us to retrieve that information with

remarkably little effort. Moreover, once it is digitized information is “greased,” to

use Moor ’s own metaphor: it can move quickly to various “ ports of call” and is hard

to hold onto (Moor 1997, p. 27). So on the one hand, digital technology, by opening

new opportunities for surveillance and data mining for instance, poses an

unprecedented threat to privacy. It means that total strangers can have access to

our personal information in a way that was impossible before the digital revolution.

Furthermore, we might never discover this. On the other hand, digital technology

enables us to limit who has access to what information and hence can potentially

increase certain kinds of privacy. It enables us to do things at home, like shop, that in

the old days generally demanded public appearances.

Floridi’s essay is an attempt to find the right balance between information access and

privacy protection. Much of the discussion is couched in the language of IE. We are told

about the effects that privacy erosion or protection will have on the infosphere, and

172 T. Doyle



Floridi introduces the notion of ontological friction to characterize the checks on the

flow of information that privacy protection implies. Such friction can be created by

anything from digital security systems to thicker walls in apartments. The lower the

friction, the more personal information that is available. In other words, “informational

privacy is a function of the ontological friction in the infosphere” (Floridi 2005b, p. 187; italics in text). And digital ICT has unprecedented potential to lower the

friction in the infosphere and thus to erode privacy. But again, by controlling who has

access to what information, through encryption and passwords and so forth, digital

ICT can protect privacy in ways that would not have been possible in the analog age.

For instance, digitization of medical records enable us now, with far greater precision

than in the days of paper files, to determine who can have access to medical records

and when they can have such access (compare Culver et al. 1994). As Floridi puts it,

“informational privacy infringements can more easily be identified and redressed…

thanks to digital ICTs” (Floridi 2005b, p. 190).Floridi wants to reject a “reductionist ” account of privacy, where privacy is just a

“utility,” that is, a mere instrumental good. Such an account ignores the “informational

nature of human beings” (Floridi 2005b, p. 194). What is novel in Floridi’s account of

privacy is his claim that unjustified invasions of it are tantamount to attacks on

personal identity. Personal identity is part and parcel of informational privacy (Floridi

2005b), and he characterizes invasions of privacy as “digital kidnapping” of personal

identity (Floridi 2005b, p. 195). This follows from his informational conception of

reality. As we have seen, at the highest level of abstraction all is information, including

persons. At this level persons can be conceived of as information packets, their identity characterized by the information that they consist of over time (Floridi 1999).

A complete lack of privacy implies a lack of personal identity (Floridi 2005b; see also

1999). Floridi takes this to be an advantage of his “ontological” conception of privacy

over reductionist conceptions, where “consequentialist concerns may override respect

for informational privacy…” (Floridi 2005b, p. 195).

As mentioned, the 2005 article contains many astute observations about the

importance of privacy and the implications, good and bad, that digital ICT has for it.

But Floridi’s case against reductionism is only as good as his claims (1) that personal

identity is constituted by one’s information and (2) that unauthorized access to this

information erodes one’s personal identity. The first claim is controversial. It is akin

to the memory theory of personal identity and inherits all the difficulties of that

position. For the time being, I will ignore those difficulties and assume that

something like the informational conception of personal identity is true. I will

instead focus on (2) above in the context of the following thought experiment.

Suppose that, 20 years ago, a team of scientists made a clone of me and that I never

discover this. Imagine that this clone has been flourishing ever since on twin earth.

According to IE, the clone is equivalent to its, and my, information. On Floridi’s

view, my identity has been “kidnapped” and no longer belongs to me: “any

information about ourselves is an integral part of ourselves, and whoever has access

to it possesses a piece of ourselves, and thus undermines our uniqueness and our

autonomy from the world” (1999, p. 52). But am I really any worse off? Can I not

continue to act with the same degree of autonomy as I did before? Will I not find my

life as fulfilling as previously? As for my uniqueness, it might be that the cloning put

an end to it, but again, how am I any the worse for it? The answers to these questions




are far from obvious in the light of Floridi’s conception of privacy and his

informational account of personal identity. He wants to tell us that the cloning is an

act of aggression towards one’s privacy and ultimately towards one’s personal

identity (2005b), but without evidence of harm done Floridi’s position remains

undefended. Meanwhile it looks like the more plausible account is that privacy isafter all a “utility.” People have a strong interest in protecting it. However, if privacy

has only instrumental value, not all breaches of it are morally wrong. The cloning is

a case in point. I conclude that IE’s account of privacy is off the mark.

7 Conclusion

I have offered numerous criticisms of IE. I have argued that Floridi fails to show that

all objects, conceived informationally, have intrinsic value. So far as I can tell, theonly case Floridi makes for his novel theory of value is the argument from the

expanding moral circle. I have offered two objections to this argument. First, Floridi

exaggerates the extent to which there is a trend in moral philosophy towards all-

inclusiveness: most moral philosophers today are not willing to go even as far as

biocentrism, let alone beyond. Second, and more importantly, even if there were

such a trend, Floridi would need a separate argument to show that the circle should

be expanded as he envisages.

I have also interpreted Floridi’s defense of IE as, in part, a sustained attack on

consequentialism in general and utilitarianism in particular. I have tried to show that consequentialists can plausibly respond to his criticisms and that they can account

for the moral phenomena and challenges at least as effectively as IE. Finally, I have

discussed the practical implications of IE. I have argued that it is not clear what IE

will say about a broad range of moral issues and dilemmas, including many of those

in information ethics. Floridi’s discussion of privacy is an exception. However, if I

am right, his account of privacy is lacking.2

References

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2 I would like to thank Jane Carter for her comments.

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