The responsibility in the information society culture: a brief philosophical analysis

The culture of the modern society, the main feature of which is the information, global dissemination of new technologies, integrative nature, network logic of building of all social systems and processes, their economic determinism, is still in its formative stage. Formation of the new system of values is accompanied by the systemic crisis of responsibility of different types: economic, political, ethical, both at the individual and the society levels. The change of society''s attitude to such phenomena as consumption, poverty, violence, war, freedom, information, knowledge, is an indicator of devaluation of the aforesaid types of the responsibility. The social and impersonal information, continuously generated by the humankind, dissolves the knowledge. At the same time the structured knowledge transforms into the discrete one and therefore loses its continuity. In such circumstances, it is extremely difficult to determine whether the data is a truth or a lie, facts or a fiction. It is the prerequisite that becomes a breeding ground for deliberate or unintended substitution of knowledge with information, as well as the manipulation of public opinion. The responsibility is always associated with the freedom, including the freedom of choice, and the need to be responsible for this choice. Information makes it impossible to assess adequately the consequences of the decisions. Thus, the knowledge, not the information, is one of the indispensable conditions of the responsibility.