[Air-l] universal ethics?

[Christopher J. Richter]

Hello:
Though mostly a lurker here, I couldn't resist airing some thoughts on
this one:

>PT >> If there are universal ethics we can prove these on the Internet.
> >
> >
> RG> whose ethics will be universalised do you suppose? and what kinds
of
> > intolerances might that validate/legitimize?
> >
>Exactly the right questions - thank you, Radhika!
>And I would gently reply: I think we can propose an ethics that begins
in >part with the universal value implicit in the suggestion here that
>"universal" claims have all too often in the past served as excuses for
>colonialism, imperialism. . . .

I would like to suggest that it is not only the concept of "universal"
that we need to problematize in thinking about these issues, but the
concept of "ethics" as well.  Although the term can be traced back to
the ancient Greeks, ethics in the modern sense of "the science of
morals; the department of study concerned with the principles of human
duty" (OED) may have grow out of the erosion of tradition as the primary
guiding force of behavior beginning in the 14th or 15th century.

Thus, a concern with ethics is a concern with codes of behavior, and not
just with studying them (most of us in the social sciences study them,
in some sense), but with prescribing them.  And while the study of what
we call ethical issues certainly exists and has long existed in other
cultures, ethics per se, especially as separate from any sense of
religion or at least the spiritual, may be a particularly Western
abstraction.

In modern usage, ethics often seem to be conceived of as context
specific.  Thus, "business ethics," "environmental ethics," even "net-
or computer ethics."  And certainly, as much of the on-going discussion
here acknowledges, normative codes of behavior tend to be culturally and
historically situated.  Thus we should consider whether "universal
ethics" constitutes an oxymoron.

>Moreover, my more recent work (with the help, I must hasten to add, of
>many, many colleagues in these domains) on Information Ethics and
Internet >Research Ethics in countries such as China, Japan, Thailand,
and Korea also >offer grounds for optimism.  For example, two recent
examples of Internet >research in Japan demonstrate more or less perfect
consonance with the AoIR >guidelines recommendations regarding informed
consent, protection of >confidentiality, anonymity,  and personal data,
etc. 
>Indeed, emerging conceptions of privacy and data privacy protection law
in >these countries - while clearly retaining distinctive cultural
"shape" in >their conception and application - are nonetheless
recognizable cousins of >"Western" conceptions and laws.  This suggests
that even across the >considerable cultural differences, say, between
the U.S. and Germany, on >the one hand, and China, Japan, Thailand,
Korea, and Hong Kong, on the >other - there may be agreement on basic
(universal?) values such as >privacy,

Following my reasoning above, I have to ask: could it be that there are
similarities because of shared context that crosses cultural boundaries?
When I think about privacy, data encryption and the like, my thoughts
are also never far from government surveillance and trans-national
corporate capitalism--contexts indeed shared across many nations and
cultures.

>I would add: this tolerance is not unlimited.  Rather, I think it's
quite >possible to endorse tolerance as a universal value - but not
thereby be >committed to tolerating, say, fascist regimes and violent
repression of >women and minorities.  On the contrary, by proposing that
rights to >integrity, autonomy, cultural identity, and so forth are, at
the very >least, strong candidates for universal rights

Although I am sympathetic to being intolerant of intolerance, the
ramifications of this scare me if you are talking about the net
generally, as opposed to specific locales within it such as thus one.
Even if it were possible to police the entire net, who should the
ethical (moral) police be?  i.e.  who gets to decide what constitutes
intolerance? Likewise, who gets to define "violence"? Contrast, e.g.
Paulo Freire's definition of cultural invasion as violence with the
rhetoric of the anti-abortion movement in the U.S. on violence against
the unborn, if you think defining violence is unproblematic.  Finally,
is cultural identity ever linked to systematic intolerance (history of
the U.S. suggests this is the case!)?  If so, where do we draw the line,
and again, more fundamentally, who gets to decide this?

>Indeed, I think we make more progress towards some sort of shared,
humane >value system_s_ and ethics through such dialogues, rather than
giving up >the effort, however much previous failures and disasters
might tempt us to >do so.

The sentiment of this I can agree with (I think), but isn't dialogue, as
an act of synthesis, with its potential for compromise, and even
recognition of disagreement as opposed to consensus, fundamentally a
different process from that of seeking to uncover some essential ethical
nature that is already embedded in all of human culture, which seems to
be the process implicit in much of the rest of what you say?

Also, when talking about dialogue, it is important to remember, as Nancy
Fraser and others point out, the difficulty/impossibility of bracketing
status differentials so that those with less power come to the table "as
if they were equals" with the holders of power.  (Fraser, N. (1992).
Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually
existing democracy.  In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere
(pp.109-142).  Cambridge MA: MIT Press.)

Perhaps there is no better approach than dialogue, but that doesn't mean
we should let optimism become a cover for idealistic naivety (but
perhaps my one-time Midwestern optimism has dissolved into Southern U.S.
style cynicism).

Christopher J Richter, PhD
Assoc. Prof. & Chair, Communication Studies
Hollins University
P.O. Box 9652
Roanoke, VA 24020

Tel. 5403626358
Fax 5403626286
e-mail crichter at hollins.edu
www.hollins.edu