a gift of fire social, legal, and ethical issues in computing, sara baase文档.pdf

Ethics and Information Technology 2: 241–247, 2000. © 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Book review A Gift of Fire: Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues Laws are fundamentally different from personal in Computing, Sara Baase. Upper Saddle River, choices and organizational policies because they NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1997, ix + 382 pp, ISBN: impose decisions by force on people who did not 0-13-458779-0 make them. Arguments for passing a law should be qualitatively different from reasons for adopting a A Gift of Fire is an extraordinary work by an personal or organizational policy. It may seem odd extraordinarily gifted mind. It is at once a textbook at first, but arguments on the merits of the proposal and a scholarly treatise. Its author has read everything, – for example, that it is a good idea, or is efficient, or but modestly displays her erudition only as needed. is good for business, or is helpful to consumers – are The text comes alive with vignettes, historical asides, not good arguments for a law. These arguments can anecdotes, and just-right quotations garnered from be used to try to convince a person or organization the scholarly, trade, popular, and classical literat- to (voluntarily) adopt a particular policy. Arguments ures, as well as from reports by journalists and all for a law must show why the decision should be sorts of on-line fora. The writing is elegant and enforced against someone who does not agree that graceful, the conclusions follow from the premises, it is a good idea.2 and everything is in its right order. What it must have ta