The Significant Role of Higher Education 39There is a need therefore not only for a strong academic, but also
for an ethical rating of institutions of higher education.
4) Technology: Information and Communication Technologies
(ITCs) represent a huge potential for higher education and are
obviously the back bone of open and distance learning education.
The advantages and future potential are still huge. But each
technology is ambiguous when looked at from an ethical
perspective. It can be used for good and for bad, to save lives and
take lives, to democratise knowledge and to control or centralise
knowledge. Excellent distance learning possibilities are improved
with ICTs but at the same time cybercrime is increasing and
cyber security decreasing. The ethical and legal development^12 is
always behind technological development. That is why ethics in
higher education needs to look at the ethics of technologies,
especially ICTs.^132.6 Which are the Values for a Global Ethical Culture?
A global ethical culture is based on common values. Before we
divide human beings by colour, race, sex, religion, wealth and class, we
have to remember that all human beings have similar basic human
needs: physical needs such as food, water and housing, development
needs such as the freedom to decide and implement, orientation needs
such as education, social needs such as community and security,
emotional needs such as respect, dignity and justice (fair treatment),
spiritual needs such as a belief system that gives life meaning, energy
for motivation, forgiveness for failures and dealing with major life
12
See e.g. the many challenges listed at the international conference on
Cyberlaw, Cybercrime and Cybersecurity in Nov. 2016 in New Delhi.
http://cyberlawcybercrime.com/ 13
See: Globethics.net (Ed.), Ethics in the Information Society. The nine ‘P’s’. A
discussion paper on the WSIS+10 process 2013-2015, Globethicsa.net Texts no
4, Geneva 2013. Free download here: http://www.globethics.net/texts-series