Towards an ethical framework about Big Data era: metaethical, normative ethical and hermeneutical approaches

• Published in: Heliyon 2022-02, Vol.8 (2), p.e08926, Article e08926
• Main Author: Morán-Reyes, Ariel Antonio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Big Data; Disruptive technology; Information ethics; Interdisciplinarity; Metaethics
• ISSN: 2405-8440; 2405-8440
• DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e08926

The main ethical challenges that arise for Information Sciences (with the daily use in different areas of Big Data applications) are not about the reliability of its professionals to carry out tasks in the organization area in an impartial way or about the obligation to train themselves technologically in the area of Data Science. The most important problems are related to the concept of moral responsibility, especially from a metaethical perspective, in line with the reflection of the implementation of technology with respect to human autonomy. In this paper it is stated that the challenges of Big Data go beyond the individual spectrum of responsibility of a professional in Information Sciences (specifically, due to the negative social consequences), so that the changes brought about by massive data sets are essentially problems of a group ethics, so they require approaches from the theoretical postulates of these disciplines. In addition to this, the moral challenges in dealing with Big Data are usually approached from applied ethics (such as information ethics), but in this article it will be approached as a problem of metaethics and normative ethics (as a foundation for its application in professional codes), and also from some ideas of digital hermeneutics and the philosophy of technology. Metaethics; Big Data; Information ethics; Interdisciplinarity; Disruptive technology.