Calling the sleeper to wake: An ethic of the common good for information technology.

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In this dissertation, I argue that the Christian ethic of the common good, as expressed in Roman Catholic social teaching and practically applied by contemporary theologians and ethicists, can serve as a hermeneutic in the field of information technology ethics, offering a more substantial foundation to address pressing controversial issues associated with this burgeoning field and function as a guide for future developments in this industry. The common good, I suggest, can supplement the operative ways of appealing to law and business ethics to address crime and abuse associated with the internet and World Wide Web with a specifically Roman Catholic paradigm. These two approaches presently in place often suffer both from an insufficiently broad understanding of the societal-wide context of certain information technology impacts and for their tendency to employ deontological or utilitarian approaches of ethical analysis that can allow an individualist bias to creep into the evaluations offered.;I seek to rectify these problems in two steps. First, I will attempt to thicken the description of the impact of information technology by examining the works of leading theorists who provide a basis for evaluating the adequacy of various common contemporary approaches to doing information technology ethics. Second, I will engage this more closely grained picture of information technology and its impact with the ethical perspectives of the Roman Catholic tradition's emphasis on the priority of the common good. I examine this tradition in both its traditional magisterial expressions and as it is developed by a number of leading Catholic thinkers in the last two decades.;This dissertation anticipates contributing to social ethics first by the construction of an ethic for information technology rooted in the common good, specifically from a Christian perspective rooted in the Roman Catholic ethical vision. Secondly, in an engagement with leading information technology theorists, it shows how the contemporary business ethics approach employed by information technology ethicists can have inherent limitations and fails to address the full range of issues associated with information technology that deference to the common good could. While recognizing the ambitious nature of such an undertaking, it thirdly demonstrates the possibility for all to flourish in a common good, richly expanded by cyberspace, can become a reality not only in a localized environment through self-accountability but also on a worldwide scale through collaborative strategic policy efforts in the legal, government, business and private sectors of the global village.