As with all activities linked to technological advances, the Internet is regulated by various standards. These can be of a legal, ethical, deontological, even aesthetic nature, or perhaps standards developed over time. The disparate nature and the diversity of rules applied to Internet use, however, create a problem which can be discussed in philosophical terms of normativity.

However, this observation - the diversity of norms - cannot alone settle "the issue of normativity" as such, as it is vague, equivocal, undefined. One reason is that it encompasses all aspects of our daily activities, whatever their nature, not just those linked to technological advances. All our activities, whether practical or intellectual - whatever we think, say or do - take place in a given normative context: we are supposed to think "clearly", to speak "well", or do "properly". Potentially at least, all our activities are expressions of technical, ethical, and/or intellectual rules, which are acted on more or less directly and consciously. Therefore to some extent,



there is nothing specific to be said about our network activities and their "normativity".

Now deciding philosophically on "the issue of normativity" really means considering the function of normativity as such, in other words the need to align a practical activity or thought with its accompanying standard(s), just as when lining up bricks in masonry, or when ensuring the rigueur of an argument made. As such, the heart of the question is not about the standard itself - whether legal, moral, traditional, technical, logical, and so on - but rather about the very correlation between the activity and the standard: What happens when we link an activity to a standard? Do we align the action to the rule, or do we progressively create rules which will determine our practice, for which a norm is still being drawn up? As far as understanding the Internet and its rules is concerned, this is the same as asking whether usage is subject t

📌 Philosophy and the Internet (Mangalore)
🏢 Sens Public
📍 Mangalore