ATTRIBUTION AND MODALITY OF RESPONSIBILITY IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY Cover Image

АТРИБУТИВНІСТЬ ТА МОДАЛЬНІСТЬ ВІДПОВІДАЛЬНОСТІ В ІНФОРМАЦІЙНОМУ СУСПІЛЬСТВІ
ATTRIBUTION AND MODALITY OF RESPONSIBILITY IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

Author(s): Svitlana Borysivna Zhdanenko
Subject(s): Ethics / Practical Philosophy, Communication studies
Published by: Національний юридичний університет імені Ярослава Мудрого
Keywords: responsibility; Information society; attribution of responsibility; crisis of responsibility; positive and negative responsibility;

Summary/Abstract: Problem setting. The current stage of development of society is characterized by intensive development and dissemination of information technologies, high level of technical power, global social and cultural transformations. This, along with a positive effect, creates many threats for future people. Only the assertion of responsibility as the principle of building social relations can counteract these threats.Recent research and publications. The results of the analysis of the latest publications testifying to the existence of a large number of studies of contemporary scientists and thinkers of the past devoted to the field of responsibility. As a multidimensional phenomenon, responsibility was considered in different modi: moral, social, legal, philosophical. At the same time, the authors analyzed responsibility in the field of determining the essence and development of approaches to its detection, as well as from the position of different subject areas. Nevertheless, in the domestic science the problem of responsibility examines primarily the areas of different branches of law.Paper objective. Given the insufficiency of scientific developments on the integrated analysis of responsibility in the information society, the purpose of the article is to update the problem of responsibility in the information society.Paper main body. Philosophical reflection of the phenomenon of responsibility involves clarifying the attributive characteristics of the idea of responsibility.In the classic positive sense, responsibility means awareness of the ability to be the cause of change in ourselves and the world and the willingness to accept the consequences of our free choice.Attributive characteristic of responsibility is subjectivity. The signs of the subject are intelligence and freedom. Reason is understood as the ability to understand and evaluate one’s actions, and to foresee their consequences. Freedom is seen as autonomy in determining the direction of its behavior and decision-making.A distinctive feature of the modern information society is the globalization of cultural values, based on Western transforming values. Freedom becomes not just the highest value, but an end in itself. In an effort to achieve maximum freedom, traditional bans are lifted and authorities are leveled. The mutation of freedom generates social tension, which can only be removed through responsible behavior.Positive responsibility is the recognition by the individual of his duty to society and other people, the performance of his duties in accordance with the requirements of society. It arises as a back reaction to the demands of society and concretizes itself in certain modi: moral, political, social. The peculiarity of the modalities of responsibility lies in the fact that they are based on a certain system of values.Moral responsibility is an indispensable element of moral choice and acts as an ability to consciously treat oneself, its activities, as moral competence to act within the moral requirements to achieve the goal, as the ability to foresee moral and practical results and to prevent negative results.Socio-political responsibility is directed at others: people, future generations, the social whole, the image of the social order. The information society is characterized by the depersonification of the subject of socio-political responsibility by including it in a collective subject or as a result of «leaving» into a virtual space, into a network communication.Legal responsibility is also been transformed, since the total deformation of values has led to the emergence of «double standards», while the same actions qualify differently depending on the status of the subject. The mass media create a distorted view of certain events, «appointing» the perpetrators before the court’s decision.Conclusions of the research. Responsibility is considered as a special social and moral-legal relationship of a person to society. This is the attitude of a person’s skill and ability in his moral choice, his actions, the consequences of which are connected with approval or conviction, with reward or punishment. At the present stage of the functioning of the information society, social and cultural contradictions have created a systemic crisis of responsibility. Traditional ways of being human need a significant correction.