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Call for Publications Theme: What Philosophy Can Tell You about WikiLeaks Publication: Edited Volume by Christian Cotton and Robert Arp Deadline: 20.6.2017 __________________________________________________ From Wikipedia: “WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organisation that publishes secret information, news leaks (unsanctioned release of confidential information to news media), and classified media from anonymous sources. Its website, initiated in 2006 in Iceland by the organisation Sunshine Press, claims a database of 10 million documents in 10 years since its launch. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder, editor-in-chief, and director.” According to its website, the goal of WikiLeaks is to “bring important news and information to the public.” The folks at WikiLeaks also note: “One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth.” 'What Philosophy Can Tell You about WikiLeaks' will be a volume of twenty-five to thirty short essays, written for a non-scholarly readership but displaying some philosophical insights. We expect that authors may exhibit strong political preferences, but we do not want chapters that merely vent those preferences in predictable ways. We naturally expect that there will be some chapter authors who approve of WikiLeaks, others who disapprove. We will be looking for chapters that contain surprising new ideas, ingenious ways of tackling the topic, novel applications of philosophical techniques, challenging new insights, and entertaining speculations. Submissions Submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to Christian Cotton at: corv...@gmail.com Abstracts due: Friday, June 30, 2017, but you can send them in sooner Notification of accepted abstracts: Sunday, July 9, 2017 First drafts of papers due to Christian Cotton at: corv...@gmail.com: Saturday, October 1, 2017 3,000 to 3,500-word philosophy papers are written in a conversational style for a lay audience. Topics Any relevant topic considered, but here are some possibilities to prompt your thinking: - Leaking… definition, nature, and types - Freedom of information and the public’s “right to know” - The “Information Wants To Be Free” movement - Governments, transparency, corruption, and leaking - Effects of secrecy and leaks on democracy - Leaks as checks on the extreme behavior of governments - How governments and intelligence agencies respond to leakers - Terrorism and the threat to national security - National security as an excuse for unnecessary secrecy - Possibility of manipulating the leaks to favor a particular party or point of view - Control of information/narrative - Access to information - Classification types: FOUO, Secret, Top Secret - Gatekeeping - Does leaking make people less safe? Does it actively endanger people? - Does it chill the leaking of information? Does it make people less likely to come forward? - Hacking... definition, nature, and types - Is there a moral difference between leaking and hacking? - Are hackers heroes or villains? Breaking and entering? - Hacking and virtue theory - Hacking and leaking from a consequentialist perspective - Hacking and leaking from a deontological perspective - Governments, transparency, corruption, and hacking - WikiLeaks and snitching - The ways our society and culture treat whistleblowers - Is there such a thing as “too much information”? - Is some degree of secrecy desirable, even justified? - Are secrecy and transparency compatible? - How valuable is the truth? - On the significance of “You can’t handle the truth!” - How do we know what’s true and what’s not in the digital age of information? - Can leaking be trusted as revealing authentic sources and not “false flags”? (Epistemology) - Is it stealing if the documents don’t actually belong to a person? - Is it sufficient that information only *not* belong to you? - Releasing others’ private information for free vs selling others’ private information for money - Are leaks noble or ignoble? - There’s nothing noble in leaking; it’s all *really* selfishly motivated - Assange as (anti)hero - Is Manning a hero or a villain? What about Snowden? - Can one be a hero if the enterprise is immoral? - WikiLeaks and the Doctrine of Double Effect - WikiLeaks as a Trolley Problem - WikiLeaks and privacy: how far does privacy extend? - Is there an expectation of privacy in a digital age? - Is WikiLeaks an excessive use of arbitrary power? - On the title of Gabe Rottman’s article in *The Hill* (5/9/17): “Is WikiLeaks intelligence porn, or legitimate news?” 'What Philosophy Can Tell You about WikiLeaks 'will be a book in the 'What Philosophy Can Tell You about' series published by Open Court Publishing Company, similar to 'What Philosophy Can Tell You about Your Lover', 'What Philosophy Can Tell You about Your Cat', and 'What Philosophy Can Tell You about Your Dog*' (http://www.opencourtbooks.com/books_n/what _philosophy_dog.htm). Contact: Robert Arp, PhD Phone: +1 (703) 946-4669 Email: robertarp...@gmail.com Web: http://robertarp.com __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: https://interphil.polylog.org InterPhil List Archive: https://www.mail-archive.com/interphil@list.polylog.org/ __________________________________________________
