Big Data in Philosophy and Ethics Classes

Abstract

As digital transformation spreads into more and more areas of life, processing and analyzing information using big data is the cornerstone of the changes taking place. The manipulative potential of big data is increasingly generating public debate about the ethical implications for individuals and society. This shows the need to raise awareness among people, especially youth, on this issue. Mo­dern young people tend to spend a lot of time interacting with various digital de­vices and technologies. But the answer to the question of whether they know what data their gadgets collect and what can be done with that data is usually a mixture of ignorance and disinterest. Hence the motivation to give young peo­ple the opportunity to think in a comprehensive and varied way about the conse­quences of processing large amounts of data in modern society. The purpose of this work is the didactic preparation of big data as a topic for classes in philo­sophy and ethics. A methodological three-step approach, including technological foundations, ethical analysis and didactic practice, explores how this goal can be achieved. It shows that by understanding the technical and ethical aspects and using constructivist learning theory, it is possible to methodically design a lesson for use in the learning process. The complexity of the big data phenomenon is driven by rapidly changing circumstances and requires teaching examples. This work can be considered as a contribution to further didactic research in the field of big data ethics.