Global ethics for the digital age - flourishing ethics

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore an emerging ethical theory for the Digital Age – Flourishing Ethics – which will likely be applicable in many different cultures worldwide, addressing not only human concerns but also activities, decisions and consequences of robots, cyborgs, artificially intelligent agents and other new digital technologies. Design/methodology/approach In the past, a number of influential ethical theories in Western philosophy have focused upon choice and autonomy, or pleasure and pain or fairness and justice. These are important ethical concepts, but we consider “flourishing” to be a broader “umbrella concept” under which all of the above ideas can be included, plus additional ethical ideas from cultures in other regions of the world (for example, Buddhist, Muslim, Confucianist cultures and others). Before explaining the applied approach, this study discusses relevant ideas of four example thinkers who emphasize flourishing in their ethics writings: Aristotle, Norbert Wiener, James Moor and Simon Rogerson. Findings Flourishing Ethics is not a single ethical theory. It is “an approach,” a “family” of similar ethical theories which can be successfully applied to humans in many different cultures, as well as to non-human agents arising from new digital technologies. Originality/value This appears to be the first extended analysis of the emerging flourishing ethics “family” of theories.