Surmounting the information nexus: In order to lay out the ethical issues of the information age in business, we must give careful attention to an analysis of the concept of information and the related concepts with which it forms a whole. We can start by a simple analysis of information to see the virtues and the vices basic to it. A second step is to superimpose the analysis of information upon the analysis of industrialization to see how it changes production, exchange, advertising, conditions of employment, ownership rights, and so on. Each of these is transformed in the information age and the transformation requires new thinking about its effect on people.

If by "information" we mean not simply data but useful data, we see immediately that what we are interested in is useful information. Information, as generally used, stands for true knowledge in some area. Its opposites are disinformation, misinformation, and falsehood. Information is not simply data, but data that represents reality. It's true and not false.

Two virtues appear immediately. One is truth (and so truthfulness), the other is accuracy. It follows that the virtues necessary for the information age are not necessarily the same virtues as are or were necessary for the industrial age. In the latter, efficiency became paramount. As opposed to an agricultural age, punctuality became important and time took on critical importance. In the information age, truthfulness and accuracy take on special importance. For if the information is not accurate or truthful or correct, it is worse than useless. It's dysfunctional. It is ironic that truthfulness no longer seems to hold a place of honor in our society. We find people, including high government officials, lying. Truthfulness takes on more importance than ever.

False information is injurious to a system built on information. So we have truth as a necessary virtue and a presupposition, and distortion of the truth, lying, the spreading of false information, as vices to be guarded against. It is not only necessary for people not to lie or deceive or mislead; it's also necessary to represent reality as accurately as possible.

The enemy of accuracy is inaccuracy, which also leads to disinformation and error. These two virtues or values are basic to any system of information if it is to be socially useful and economically valuable for business," as well as for societies and the individuals within them.

Questions that immediately arise are: information of what or whom and for what or whom? Information about the world, or scientific information, is one kind of information. Information about societies, or social information, is another kind. Information about people and corporations is another kind. Important to all of them in an information age is ownership. Together with ownership goes power, and with it the dangers of control and manipulation. Truth leads to the concepts of enlightenment, education, and the potential freeing of individuals and of society. As individuals learn the truth, they are also in a position of empowerment.

Politically, this makes enslavement difficult and it promotes self-rule or democracy. Nonetheless, there remains the possibility of the domination of citizens by government and of employees by employers, as well as of one society by another - for instance, through the domination of the communication resources.

Ethics is about people and their relations, and it is with this aspect of information that we can also get some inkling of problems and potential pitfalls of which we should be wary. The computer, so prominent in the information age, has the capacity to change our concept of ourselves and others - our concept of what it is to be human. Computers as tools can free human beings to be truly human. Or, if computers become the models against which we measure humanity, they can dominate our thinking and lead us to see ourselves as computers: as storers and manipulators of information, as thinking machines or robots, devoid of dignity and freedom.

Information about individuals clearly raises the issue of privacy, and information about corporations leads to the comparable problems associated with trade secrecy and espionage. As information becomes a central marketing tool, we are forced to face the harm that we can do to ourselves, society, and social relations through abuses that technology makes possible. As information becomes more and more central, we will also realize the vulnerability of networks.

Unfortunately, sabotaging a corporate or national information network is easier than sabotaging the industrial network. The links are more fragile, and the interdependence greater. The need for safeguards against industrial and national information espionage and sabotage are profound and pressing.

To mention or raise these issues is not to solve them. But we can develop the analyses and begin better to understand the nature of the information age and its promises and pitfalls for individuals and for society. This is the beginning of an ethical analysis of the information age.

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