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If misapplied, it fosters ethical individualism, as the agent is more likely to mind only her own self-construction. If it is uncritically adopted, it can be intolerant, since agents and theorists may forget the culturally over-determined nature of their foundationalist anthropologies, which often have religious roots. If it fosters tolerance, it may still spread relativism because any self-construction becomes acceptable, as long as it takes place in the enclave of one’s own private sphere, culture and cyber-niche, without bothering any neighbour.

Wiener combined these assumptions with his extensive knowledge in philosophy, physics, biology, communication theory, information science and psychology. The result was an impressive philosophical and scientific foundation for today’s information ethics and computer ethics theories. ) Wiener’s assumptions about the ultimate nature of the Universe included his view that information is physical – subject to the laws of nature and measurable by science. The sort of information that he had in mind is sometimes called ‘Shannon information’, which is named for Claude Shannon, who had been a student and colleague of Wiener’s.

His ‘Kit’ contained curriculum materials and pedagogical advice for university teachers. It Terrell Ward Bynum 32 also included suggested course descriptions for university catalogues, a rationale for offering such a course in a university, a list of course objectives, some teaching tips, and discussions of topics like privacy and confidentiality, computer crime, computer decisions, technological dependence and professional codes of ethics. In 1980, Helvetia Press and the National Information and Resource Center for Teaching Philosophy published Maner’s computer ethics ‘starter kit’ as a monograph (Maner 1980) that was widely disseminated to colleges and universities in America and a number of other countries.