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Cyberethics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace Richard Spinello. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2000. i65 pp. ISBN 0-7637-i269-8.
Deregulation and the Internet's expansion have brought with them decentralized control in communications and publishing. Individuals have gained extraordinary power in exercising free speech and, if they so choose, encrypting that speech to protect it. As this virtual space becomes a greater part of our lives, society is faced with readdressing the social issues of free speech, privacy, intellectual property, and security issues in the context of cyberspace.
Cyberethics does not profess to have the answers. It presents issues as a starting point for discussion. There is a need to go beyond law, norms, market place, and software code to find answers for regulating behavior in this new medium called cyberspace. We must also consider the fundamental principles of ethics, principles with a universal quality that transcend space and time. We must be cautious in our decisions to ensure that we do not sacrifice justice and human rights for the sake of the majority. Regulating through external forces can be e∂ective to some degree, but there is greater value in having fixed ethical values as the constraining force, values that promote an atmosphere where individuals can pursue their own well-being, a place where they can flourish. With this premise in mind (the need for an ethical groundwork when addressing the social issues surrounding the Internet), Spinello's work explores how the basic values of autonomy and privacy should be the core for those who would regulate cyberspace to ensure that decisions made will be fair and just.
Utilitarian rights promulgated by Mill and Bentham; the contractual rights of Locke, Rousseau, and Rawls; the natural rights of Aquinas and...