The (im)possibility of ethics in the information age

This paper is concerned with the possibility that the ethical claim of the other, that sense of being bound to the other, may becoming more and more difficult to experience as information technology increasingly mediates our social being. The paper will support the supposition of Don Caputo that obligation does not emanate from codes, imperatives or moral arguments. Rather it will argue that obligation takes hold of us from within disaster. Obligation, our being bound-to, finds us when we come face to a face in disaster. The paper will argue that electronic mediation is inducing a sense of hyperreality into our world (Baudrillard). It will argue that this hyperreality is making our ethical sensibility nebulous to the point that we are not coming face to face with our obligations. An analysis of the Baring bank disaster will be used to demonstrate the point. The paper will show that Nick Leeson was in a hyperreal world in which he was not able to come face to face with the victims of the disaster. The electronic hyperreal world of financial markets, where traders deal in abstract numbers, movements on the screen, made it possible for him to look over and past the faces and proper names of the victims; their claim became diffused in the numbers on the screen, not real cash only numbers, not real people with faces and proper names, just numbers. If this supposition seems tenable what are we to do? The paper argues that we do not need more codes, imperatives or moral arguments, as such. Rather we need to keep our lives at the resolution, of faces and proper names—if obligation happens this is where it is likely to be.  2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.