Human Rights in an Information Age: A Philosophical Analysis

How can we balance new information technology practices with human rights? In Human Rights in an Information Age, Gregory Walters analyses Canadian and global information highway policy and practices regarding the Internet, e-commerce, public health and safety, privacy and security, and information warfare from a philosophical, human rights framework that views freedom and well-being as the necessary conditions of human action. Walters situates the information age revolution within the broader historical and technological situation of modernity. Drawing on the action-based philosophical human rights framework of Alan Gewirth, Walters applies the Principle of Generic Consistency to a host of policy issues, and argues that values of mutuality, trust, and social solidarity are increasingly vital to the promotion and protection of human dignity and human rights in the information age.