Information, Knowledge and Wisdom: Groundwork for the Evaluation of Digital Information and Its Relation to the Good Life

As such, the concept of wisdom, as a type of meta-knowledge, allows for a direct evaluation of the axiological and eudemonic aspects of information in relation to a conception of a good life. Following on from parts (1) and (2), part (3) will provide a brief theoretical outline by way of offering a methodological approach of how different types of some major practical manifestations of digital information (henceforth information) can be normatively evaluated in relation to a conception of a good life through the application of the concept of wisdom as developed in section (2).The paper provides a general meta-philosophical groundwork for the theoretical and applied normative evaluation of digital information in relation to the good life. The overall general aim of the paper is to address the question how computer ethics can be expanded to more centrally include the issue of the quality of life or the good life, for individuals and for society. In offering this groundwork the paper, due to constraints of space and time, will not provide a detailed examination and evaluation of specific normative issues, which arise in the production, dissemination and use of digital information. It will, however, provide a methodological approach of how different types of some major practical manifestations of digital information (henceforth information) can be evaluated using the meta-theoretical framework proposed in this paper. The paper comprises three inter-related parts. Part (1) provides a summary of an argument I presented at CEPE 2007 (San Diego) whose primary aim is to demonstrate a meta-philosophical model, the Dual Obligation Information Theory (DOIT) to be used in the analysis and evaluation of digital information in terms of a cluster of normative categories. Those categories are the epistemological, the ethical, the axiological and the eudemonic. The overall objective of Part (2) is to examine and evaluate the theoretical and practical relationship between information, knowledge and wisdom. Crucially, this is a new and the innovative focal direction that this paper will take, using the meta-philosophical analysis provided by DOIT. Wisdom understood as a form of meta-information or meta-knowledge provides a direct conceptual and practical link between the concepts of information and the good life and more generally a direct link between computer ethics and the good life.