Intercultural Information Ethics

1
Intercultural Information Ethics

• Rafael Capurro
• International Center for Information Ethics
  (ICIE)
• Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC)
  and Regional Information Center for Science and
  Technology (RICeST)
• Shiraz, Septermber 30, 2014

2
Introduction

• The following presentation is based on
• Chapter 2 of Rafael Capurro, Michael Eldred and
  Daniel Nagel IT and Privacy from an Ethical
  Perspective Digital Whoness Identity, Privacy
  and Freedom in the Cyberworld. In Johannes
  Buchmann (ed.) Internet Privacy. Acatech Studie,
  Berlin September 2012, pp. 63-142.
• http//www.acatech.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Baumst
  ruktur_nach_Website/Acatech/root/de/Publikationen/
  Projektberichte/acatech_STUDIE_Internet_Privacy_WE
  B.pdf
• Abridged version of Rafael Capurro, Michael
  Eldred and Daniel Nagel Digital Whoness
  Identity, Privacy and Freedom in the Cyberworld.
  Frankfurt 2013. Extensive parts ca be
  previewed here
• As well as on my Notes on Greek, Latin, Arabic
  and Persian Roots of the Concept of Information
• http//www.capurro.de/iran.html

3
Introduction

• Recent research in information ethics shows that
  the notion and practices of privacy vary in
  different cultural traditions, thus having an
  impact also on digitally mediated whoness and
  freedom.

4
Introduction

• This intercultural discussion is still in its
  initial stages with regard to the Far East and
  also to Islamic, African and Latin American
  cultures, just as it is in comparative studies
  between, for instance, Europe and the United
  States as addressed, for instance, by Helen
  Nissenbaum and Beate Rössler.

5
Introduction

• How and as whom we reveal and conceal ourselves
  and our selves is not just an abstract conceptual
  matter, but is always concretized and rooted in
  cultural traditions.

6
Introduction

• What is common and what is different shines forth
  from different perspectives that in some cases
  appear to be incompatible, although not
  necessarily contradictory.

7
Introduction

• But even in these cases, as we shall see in the
  following analyses, various options for common
  practices and regulations are possible. The
  emphasis on the latter should not overlook,
  however, the deeper cultural layers as well as
  the foundational narratives on privacy and
  publicness.

8
Introduction

• We are still far from a global digital culture of
  mutual respect, validation and appreciation based
  on trust with regard to such cultural
  differences.

9
Introduction

• Trust is engendered by an understanding of the
  otherness of the other(s) self/selves, enabling
  new forms of interplay between personal and
  socio-cultural whoness and opening new spaces of
  freedom to show ourselves and our selves off and
  also withdraw from such selfdisplay in both the
  cyberworld and the physical world.

10
The Far East

• Japan
• Before addressing the key issue of denial of
  self (Musi), Nakada and Tamura analyze the
  framework that enables a proper understanding of
  the Japanese self or Japanese minds, and of the
  view of privacy and publicness from this Japanese
  perspective. They start by explaining a
  dichotomy between Seken and Shakai in Japanese
  minds.

11
The Far East

• Shakai means the principles and values adopted
  from the Far West, i.e. from Western modernity,
• Seken means the traditional Japanese customs as
  shaped by Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism.
• Ikai which is the aspect of the world from which
  evils, disasters, crimes, and impurity emerge.

12
The Far East

• Thailand
• In Hongladaroms view, the fact that Buddhism
  rejects the individual self does not mean that it
  rejects privacy.
• Privacy as practised in everyday life is not
  denied in Buddhism. It is in fact justified as an
  instrument for the end of living harmoniously in
  line with democratic ideals.
• But from the ultimate perspective of a Buddha,
  privacy just makes no sense whatsoever.

13
The Far East

• Violations of privacy are based on the three
  mental defilements (kleshas), namely greed,
  anger and delusion, the antidote being to
  cultivate love and compassion.
• Compassion is the basic mood of Buddhist
  experience of the uniqueness of the world and our
  existence that we have to care for.

14
The Far East

• China
• The Chinese ethicist, Lü Yao-Huai, writes, In
  the Chinese cultural tradition, ethicists pay
  special attention to the concept of Shen Du.
  Shen Du means that a superior man must be
  watchful over himself when he is alone.

15
The Far East

• According to Lü, Shen Du is a key notion when
  dealing with the question of the self,
  particularly within the context of the
  cyberworld, since it addresses the question of
  reducing proactively the number of online
  activities that violate legal frameworks.

16
The Far East

• Lü points to the influence of Western
  individual-oriented thinking on privacy with
  regard to respect and informed consent, while at
  the same time the right to privacy from a
  traditional Chinese perspective is conceived as
  being based on social requirements (security of
  society, stability of the social order).

17
The Far East

• A basic issue common to Far East cultures
  involves the practice of indirect speech, i.e. of
  the self concealing and at the same time
  revealing herself through language or, more
  precisely, through silence.

18
Latin America

• Latin American cultures came about through the
  violent encounter between indigenous traditions
  and nascent European modernity.

19
Latin America

• Indigenous collectivism faced premodern,
  particularly scholastic thinking, that praised
  the individual as a person no less than liberal
  traditions do, which are based on the idea(l)s of
  work, private property, competition and
  technology.

20
Latin America

• As the Argentinean philosopher, Rodolfo Kusch,
  writes, The ways of life of the Indian and the
  well-off city dweller are impermeable to each
  other. On the one hand, the Indian retains the
  structure of an ancient form of thinking, a
  thousand years old, and on the other, the city
  dweller renews his way of thinking every ten
  years.

21
Latin America

• This ancient form of thinking can be grasped
  with regard to the concept of reciprocity.
  Indigenous people were not properly remunerated
  for their work, because everything was taken by
  the cacique (or mallkus) the indigenous
  worker is only repaid with food.

22
Latin America

• The equivalent of reciprocity in Aymara is
  ayni, which means the one obligated to work for
  another who worked for him

23
Latin America

• If the indigenous worker was obliged to give
  everything he produced to the Inca, but not to
  the Spaniards, there was nevertheless a
  reciprocity from the side of the Inca, namely the
  obligation to refrain from interfering with the
  stockroom of the domestic sphere.

24
Latin America

• This dichotomy between the public and the private
  sphere in Inca culture has a parallel in the
  Greek dichotomy between agora and oikos.,
  objectified world.

25
Latin America

• The domestic sphere of the Inca worker was no
  less important for his self that the obligation
  to give his powers and the products of his work
  to the mallku, or chief.

26
Latin America

• The system underlying this reciprocity was not
  contractual, but based on the pacha or mother
  earth as something prior to the separation of a
  subject from an outside.

27
Latin America

• The Latin American who is just as much an
  indigenous person as an urban inhabitant.

28
Africa

• The African philosopher, Mogobe Ramose, maintains
  that ubuntu is the central concept of social and
  political organization in African philosophy,
  particularly among the Bantu-speaking peoples. It
  consists of the principles of sharing and caring
  for one another.

29
Africa

• Ramose interprets two maxims to be found in
  almost all indigenous African languages,
  namely Motho ke motho ka batho and Feta kgomo
  tschware motho. The first maxim means that to
  be human is to affirm ones humanity by
  recognizing the humanity of others and, on that
  basis, to establish humane respectful relations
  with them.

30
Africa

• Accordingly, it is ubuntu which constitutes the
  core meaning of the aphorism. The second maxim
  signifies, that if and when one is faced with a
  decisive choice between wealth and the
  preservation of life of another human being, then
  one should opt for the preservation of life.

31
Africa

• A detailed analysis of the relationship between
  ubuntu and privacy was provided by Olinger et al.
  They write, The African worldview driving much
  of African values and social thinking is
  Ubuntu (Broodryk, 2004).

32
Africa

• The Ubuntu worldview has been recognized as the
  primary reason that South Africa has managed to
  successfully transfer power from a white minority
  government to a majority-rule government without
  bloodshed (Murithi, 2000).

33
Africa

• The South African government will attempt to
  draft a Data Privacy Bill and strike an
  appropriate balance within the context of African
  values and an African worldview.

34
Africa

• According to Broodryk, ubuntu is an African
  worldview based on values of intense humaneness,
  caring, respect, compassion, and associated
  Africa is culturally a complex continent. The
  issue of privacy in Africa from an ethical and
  intercultural perspective is only now being put
  on the agenda. This applies especially to the
  Arab countries in North Africa.

35
Iran

• What were the major changes in the principles,
  norms and values of communication in pre-Islamic
  and Islamic Iran and how were and are such
  changes reflected in ethical thinking in Iran
  today? Is there an information ethics in Iran in
  dialogue with other ethical traditions and vice
  versa?

36
Iran

• What concepts of message and messenger were used
  in the Arabic and Persian pre-Islamic and Islamic
  traditions? 

37
Iran

• Information Technology and Technologies of the
  Self. Persian translation by Mohammad Khandan.
  In Journal of Librarianship. A Quarterly Journal
  on Academic Librarianship. Vol. 39 (Spring
  Summer) 2005, pp. 77-93

38
Iran

• Angeletics a message theory. Persian
  translation by Mohammad Khandan. in Mohammad
  Khandan (Ed.) Epistemological Explorations in the
  Realm of Information Studies. Tehran Chapar
  (2010).

39
Iran

• What is angeletics? Persian translation by
  Mohammad Khandan. In Science Communication. The
  monthly journal of Irandoc. Vol. 45,
  September-October 2009.

40
Iran

• Rafael Capurro  John Holgate (eds.). 
• Messages and Messengers. Angeletics as an
  Approach to the Phenomenology of Communication.
  Munich 2011.

41
Iran

• Darius I, the Great?????? ??? ??????? c. 550486
  BC

42
Iran

• created the Persian Royal Road

43
Iran

• praised by Herodotus -  ???d?t??c. 485
  Halicarnassus - 424 BC 

44
Iran

• "There is nothing in the world that travels
  faster than these Persian couriers. Neither snow
  nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these
  couriers from the swift completion of their
  appointed rounds"... "sometimes thought of as
  the United States Postal Service
  creed." http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Road 

45
Iran

• Herodotus, History, Book 8, Urania98. 1
  ta?t? te ?µa ?????? ?p??ee ?a? ?peµpe ??
  ???sa? ???e????tat?? pa?e??s?? sf?
  s?µf????. t??t?? d? t?? ??????? ?st? ??d?? ? t?
  ??ss?? pa?a???eta? ???t?? ???? ??t? t??s? ???s?s?
  ??e???ta? t??t?.

46
Conclusion

• Homi Bhabha, director of the Humanities Center at
  Harvard University, has proposed a global ethics
  that extends hospitality to all those who lost
  their place where they belong due to an
  historical trauma, injustice, genocide or death.

47
Conclusion

• Privacy understood from the perspective of
  whoness in the digitized cyberworld calls for an
  ethics of reciprocal hospitality, not only with
  regard to diverse ethical norms and principles,
  but also with regard to those who are
  marginalized in a global society in which digital
  technology has a dominating presence.

48
Conclusion

• Intercultural information ethics adopts a
  critical stance toward all kinds of destruction
  of the human habitat in the world, particularly
  such ways of thinking and life-practices that
  exclude others from their use or impose on them a
  particular way of playing out the interplay of
  whoness, thus thwarting their becoming free
  selves.

49
Conclusion

• The thoughtful and practically oriented search
  for common values and principles should not
  overlook or forget the complexity and variety
  of human cultures that are a genuine expression
  of humaneness, and not something to be overcome.

50
Conclusion

• This concerns, in particular, the notion of
  privacy conceived as what is proper to human
  self-understanding in being able to withdraw from
  others gaze and lead ones own life shared with
  certain freely chosen others.

51
Conclusion

• An intercultural view of privacy must pay
  attention to what is in between cultures,
  allowing the individually and socially moulded
  self to transform and enrich its identity through
  the cultural interplay both within and between
  cultures.

52
Conclusion

53
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