The Future of Cyber Ethics

This paper presents a survey of the conceptual development of cyber ethics, locating the main assumptions of the field up to now, and critiquing those assumptions. I argue that cyber ethicists have failed to understand that cyber arises from a ‘machine’ attitude to experience, which has given rise to computer-related technologies. Such technologies tend to be unethical by default, in terms of value. This drives the creation and idealization of cyber, as an antidote to the originating devaluation. Section 2 considers definitions of cyber ethics and their adequacy. Section 3 discusses the history of the term cyber. Section 4 outlines some historical and contemporary approaches to cyber ethics. Section 5 redefines cyber and cyber ethics and then goes on to offer some practical suggestions for the future of cyber ethics.