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
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/Baumstruktur_nach_Website/Acatech/root/de/Publikationen/Projektberi
chte/acatech_STUDIE_Internet_Privacy_WEB.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
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Ethics
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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.
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Ethics
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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.
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Ethics
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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.
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Ethics
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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.
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Ethics
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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.
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Ethics
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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.
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Ethics
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Introduction

Trust is engendered by an understanding
of the otherness of the other(s)
self/selves, enabling new forms of
interplay between personal and sociocultural 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.
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Ethics
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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.”

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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.
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The Far East
Thailand
In Hongladarom’s 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.”

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Ethics
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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.
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Ethics
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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.”

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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.”
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Ethics
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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).
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Ethics
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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.
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Latin America
Latin American cultures came about through
the violent encounter between indigenous
traditions and nascent European
modernity.
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Ethics
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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.
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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.”
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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.”
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Ethics
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Latin America
The equivalent of “reciprocity” in Aymara is
ayni, “which means ‘the one obligated to
work for another who worked for him
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Ethics
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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’.
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Latin America
The Latin American ‘who’ is just as much an
indigenous person as an urban inhabitant.
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Ethics
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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.”
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Ethics
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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 one’s humanity by recognizing
the humanity of others and, on that basis,
to establish humane respectful relations
with them.
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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.”
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Ethics
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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).
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Ethics
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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).
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Ethics
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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.”
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Ethics
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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.
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Ethics
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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?
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Ethics
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Iran

What concepts of message and messenger
were used in the Arabic and Persian preIslamic and Islamic traditions?
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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
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Ethics
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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).
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Ethics
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Iran

What is angeletics? Persian translation by
Mohammad Khandan. In: Science
Communication. The monthly journal
of Irandoc. Vol. 45, September-October
2009.
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Ethics
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Iran
Rafael Capurro — John Holgate (eds.).
Messages and Messengers. Angeletics as an Approach to the
Phenomenology of Communication. Munich 2011.
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Ethics
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Iran
Darius I, the Great
‫هخامنشی یکم داریوش‬
c. 550–486 BC
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Iran
created the Persian Royal Road
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Iran
praised by Herodotus - Ἡρόδοτος
c. 485 Halicarnassus - 424 BC
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Ethics
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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
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Iran

Herodotus, History, Book 8, Urania:
98. [1] ταῦτά τε ἅμα Ξέρξης ἐποίεε καὶ
ἔπεμπε ἐς Πέρσας ἀγγελέοντατὴν
παρεοῦσάν σφι συμφορήν. τούτων δὲ
τῶν ἀγγέλων ἐστὶ οὐδὲν ὅ τι θᾶσσον
παραγίνεται θνητὸν ἐόν· οὕτω τοῖσι
Πέρσῃσι ἐξεύρηται τοῦτο.
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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”.
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Ethics
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Ethics
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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 one’s
own life shared with certain freely chosen
others.
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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.
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Conclusion
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Ethics
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‫متشکرم‬
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Ethics
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