The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology 18 Massimo Durante Ethics, Law and the Politics of Information A Guide to the Philosophy of Luciano Floridi The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology Volume 18 Series Editors Bert Gordijn, Ethics Institute, Dublin City University, Ireland Sabine Roeser, Dept. Philosophy, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands Editorial Board Dieter Birnbacher, Institute of Philosophy, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Germany Roger Brownsword, King’s College London, UK Ruth Chadwick, ESRC Centre for Economic & Social Aspects of Genomics, Cardiff, UK Paul Stephen Dempsey, Institute of Air & Space Law, Université de Montréal, Canada Michael Froomkin, University of Miami Law School, FL, USA Serge Gutwirth, Vrije Universiteit, Brussels, Belgium Henk ten Have, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA Søren Holm, University of Manchester, UK George Khushf, Center for Bioethics, University of South Carolina, USA Justice Michael Kirby, High Court of Australia, Canberra, Australia Bartha Maria Knoppers, Université de Montréal, Canada David Krieger, The Waging Peace Foundation, CA, USA Graeme Laurie, AHRC Centre for Intellectual Property and Technology Law, UK René Oosterlinck, European Space Agency, Paris Edmund Pellegrino, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, USA John Weckert, School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, Australia More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7761 Massimo Durante Ethics, Law and the Politics of Information A Guide to the Philosophy of Luciano Floridi Massimo Durante Department of Law University of Turin Turin, Italy ISSN 1875-0044 ISSN 1875-0036 (electronic) The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology ISBN 978-94-024-1148-5 ISBN 978-94-024-1150-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-024-1150-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947052 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer Science+Business Media B.V. The registered company address is: Van Godewijckstraat 30, 3311 GX Dordrecht, The Netherlands Preface Ivan Locke, the eponymous hero in the film “Locke” (2013), is on an hour-and-a- half night drive towards his destiny, in the sole company of his inexorable sense of responsibility. As a construction foreman, Locke is well aware of the difficulties inherent to the building process: like forging one’s own life or assuming responsibil- ity for a life not yet born, it is a process fraught with formidable challenges and tragic moral choices. Living up to our moral obligations can be so taxing that we risk destroying everything: “Make one little mistake and the whole world comes crashing down”, as Locke remarks. The only recourse we have in dealing with moral choice is to take what Goethe called the “right path”. For Locke, this means journeying through the night, compelled by a sense of responsibility towards an urgent and inescapable moral call that cannot be postponed (as indeed most moral calls cannot). Locke spends the entire journey on his car phone with a series of invisible off-screen characters representing the real or phantasmal interlocutors of his moral life. While listening to these conversations, we come to realize that the process of creation – whether it be of a building or of a life – is not just about pro- ducing something ex novo but about becoming aware of our limits and assuming full responsibility for them. The film ends, significantly, at dawn, with some dra- matic release of tension. However, it offers no definitive resolution, for as in real life, responsibility is an endless journey, and moral life is a dawn that gives rise to an infinite series of new days. Like Locke’s incessant telephone calls, a book is also an attempt at creating a meaningful conversation with unseen interlocutors. A book is a response to those who have inspired us and addresses itself to our imagined audience, the readers, in order to further that conversation. As soon as a book has been written, it is the author’s turn to retreat from view, leaving space for the reader’s response. This, then, is what writers and readers do: by imbuing words with meaning, they exchange information with the absent other. Writing and reading are thus also about overcom- ing solitude and creating connections, for they impart our lives with meaning, the only true tie that binds. In this sense, people are made up of information. Information allows us to experience meaning that goes beyond and transcends the individual, drawing us into an overarching whole. Information lies at the core of our humanity. v vi Preface Humanity, however, is nothing more than the empty space across which we seek to communicate with one another, and every epoch has been concerned with a spe- cific, idiosyncratic perception of what humanity means. Our epoch is informational. It brings to completion our self-understanding as informational systems that pro- duce, process and exchange information with other informational systems in an environment that is constituted of information. Luciano Floridi was the first to rec- ognize the full breadth and depth of this assertion. What makes Floridi’s philosophy so remarkable is that he treats information not only as a means of deconstructing and understanding our reality but also, and above all, as a means of constructing and, it is hoped, of improving it. This is the reason for my long-standing engagement with the philosophical med- itation of Floridi. The present book aims to keep that conversation alive and to invite to it all of those willing to embrace these three notions: we construct our world and ourselves informationally; by constructing our world and ourselves, we thereby become aware of our limits; it is precisely these limits that make us become human beings. *** The long-standing theoretical conversation I have been engaged in with Ugo Pagallo and Luciano Floridi has always been, and continues to be, an enriching and inspiring intellectual experience, and I wish to thank them both. This book would not have been possible without them. To Ugo, I am particularly grateful for the constant reminder of Hegel’s claim that philosophy is its own time comprehended in thought and for impressing upon me that ours is the age of the technological. Luciano taught me the fundamental Kantian lesson that constructivism is the only way to hold together knowledge and responsibility without privileging either. Thank you for this. Great lessons are to philosophical enterprises what rafts are to castaways. Over the course of many conversations with Luciano Floridi, I have come to a better understanding of several crucial philosophical topics that have brought about major improvements to this book. I am also indebted to Patrick Allo, Pompeu Casanovas, Ugo Pagallo, Giovanni Sartor, Mariarosaria Taddeo and Herman Tavani for their insightful remarks, shared ideas and bibliographical suggestions. Many of the considerations in this work are also the outcome of fruitful interactions with graduate and Ph.D. students at the Law Department of the University of Turin. I would also like to thank the Springer editorial team and, notably, Christopher Wilby, Senior Publishing Assistant at Springer, for having encouraged me to com- mit myself to this project, for his input at several stages of the work and for his precious support throughout the entire process of producing the book. The anony- mous reviewers appointed by Springer provided me with valuable suggestions and kept me on the right track. My thanks also to Laura McLean for her linguistic revi- sion of the manuscript. Preface vii Finally, I would like to thank a bright young girl, full of life and joy, for having taught me a most important lesson. “I don’t like people who suddenly stop walking and then stand there looking at you, insisting that you need to stop, too”, she told me once. “I think people should keep walking together and looking straight ahead”. And she is quite right. The only way we can walk together is by moving forward as one and looking straight ahead, sharing this something yet to come, politics, love and democracy; it is not ours to know exactly what. This book is dedicated to her. Turin, Italy Massimo Durante 8 May 2017 Contents Part I Theoretical Tenets and Issues 1 Methodological Issues ............................................................................. 3 1.1 Introduction .................................................................................... 3 1.2 Technology as Constraining Affordances ...................................... 5 1.2.1 The Limits of Instrumentalism ........................................ 5 1.2.2 The Limits of Techno-determinism ................................. 6 1.2.3 The Limits of Empiricism ................................................ 7 1.3 The Epistemological Principle of Complementarity ..................... 8 1.4 Epistemological Levelism: The Method of Levels of Abstraction ................................................................................ 11 1.5 Informational Resources as Constraining Affordances ................. 14 1.6 Conclusions .................................................................................... 17 References ................................................................................................. 18 2 The Informational Environment............................................................ 21 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................... 21 2.2 The Infosphere ............................................................................... 23 2.3 The Laws of the Infosphere ........................................................... 28 2.4 The Principle of Ontological Equality ........................................... 31 2.5 Conclusions .................................................................................... 35 References ................................................................................................. 37 3 The Centre of the Universe .................................................................... 39 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................... 39 3.2 The Ontocentric Approach ............................................................. 42 3.2.1 The Process of Universalization of Moral Worth ............ 44 3.2.2 The Relation Between Freedom and Responsibility ....... 45 3.3 The Class of Moral Subjects .......................................................... 49 3.4 The Constructionist Values of homo poieticus ............................... 52 3.5 Conclusions .................................................................................... 56 References ................................................................................................. 58 ix x Contents 4 The Morality of Artificial Agents .......................................................... 61 4.1 Introduction .................................................................................... 61 4.2 Characterisation of an Agent ......................................................... 63 4.3 The Characterization of a Moral Agent ......................................... 67 4.4 Objections to the Morality of AAs ................................................ 72 4.4.1 The Teleological, Intentional, and Freedom Objections .................................................. 72 4.4.2 The Responsibility Objection .......................................... 74 4.5 Why Extend the Class of Moral Agents ........................................ 76 4.6 Conclusions .................................................................................... 79 References ................................................................................................. 81 5 The Informational Construction of the Self ......................................... 83 5.1 Introduction .................................................................................... 83 5.2 The Synchronic and Diachronic Unity of the Self ......................... 85 5.3 The Identification and the Individualization of the Self ................ 88 5.3.1 The Diachronic Identification of the Self ........................ 88 5.3.2 The Synchronic Individualization of the Self .................. 90 5.4 The “Three Membranes Model” .................................................... 91 5.5 Conclusions .................................................................................... 96 References ................................................................................................. 98 Part II Normative Implications and Challenges 6 The Value of Information as Ontological Pluralism ............................ 103 6.1 Introduction .................................................................................... 103 6.2 The Ontological Foundation of Information Ethics ....................... 104 6.3 The Informational Dimension of the Ontological Equality Principle .......................................................................... 106 6.4 Information and Informativeness ................................................... 108 6.5 Lack, Difference and Relation ....................................................... 109 6.5.1 Lack ................................................................................. 109 6.5.2 Difference ........................................................................ 110 6.5.3 Relation ............................................................................ 110 6.5.4 The Value of Information ................................................. 111 6.6 Ontological Pluralism .................................................................... 112 6.7 Conclusions: The ‘Nazi Example’ ................................................. 114 References ................................................................................................. 116 7 The Ontological Interpretation of Informational Privacy................... 117 7.1 Introduction .................................................................................... 117 7.2 Informational Privacy and Ontological Friction ............................ 120 7.3 The Transition from Old to New ICTs ........................................... 122 7.3.1 Agents .............................................................................. 124 7.3.2 Environment ..................................................................... 126