Some Issues of Ethical Regulation of “Digital” Society

Abstract:

The topicality of the study is driven by the need for a deeper reflection of the peculiar features and ethical problems of the modern stage of technogenic civilization, called the “digital age” due to the widespread penetration of electronic and digital technologies into all spheres of human life. The purpose of the article is to determine the causes and essence of ethical challenges with which modern society faces in the XX-XXI centuries. In accordance with this goal, the dominants of technosocial development at its various stages were studied; peculiar features of the digital age were revealed; the problems of ethical regulation of the “digital” society were identified. The research methodology is multidisciplinary, analytical, and philosophically and sociologically-oriented in its character. Based on the historical approach to studying the stages of technogenic society development and the content analysis of modern electronic sources, the areas of possible moral conflicts provoked by the characteristics of relationships in digital reality were determined. The article shows and substantiates a shift in the basic characteristics of the modern stage of the technogenic civilization development as a postindustrial age, then as information one, and then as a “digital” age at the beginning of the XXI century. Particular attention is paid to the possibilities and dangers of digital culture.