Ethics and Communication

Global Perspectives

Göran Collste

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield International
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781783485994
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Ética y filosofía moral

How can ethics be communicated in an age of globalisation? Is it possible to overcome cultural differences and agree on common values and principles that cross cultural borders? How does globalisation challenge ethics and established moral traditions? How are human rights justified in a global context? This timely collection of essays responds directly to these questions. An international team of contributors pursue issues in ethics, information and communication that include both the classical question of the universality/contextuality of ethics and values, but also new challenges for communication relating to how values and norms are communicated and shared across cultural and political borders. The essays in this book explore theoretical questions of global ethics and ethical universalism, ethics and communication with reference to specific world views and religions, and the challenge of globalisation for ethical communication in particular social arenas.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Ethics and Communication – Global Perspectives

Göran Collste

Ethics requires empathy and communication. Why should we bother about what is right and wrong if we have no idea of how other people feel and sense? Our ability to identify with other people is an important starting point for ethics. A morally conscious person cannot remain indifferent and passive when human beings are exposed to suffering. There is a tacit demand to intervene when we encounter other peoples’ needs and suffering (Løgstrup 1997). A blunting of moral sensibility or cold-heartedness implies that a person lacks the ability to see and judge events from a moral perspective.¹

A person does not live his or her life in a moral vacuum. By our very existence, we are included in morally relevant relationships, and communication is thus a fundamental existential category. As humans, we are dependent on other people in various ways and on the natural world around us. Our actions – or our failures to act – affect in various ways other people; we can harm or succour. The aim of morality is to guide our actions so that we can take responsibility for our way of living and acting.

This view of moral responsibility seems to presuppose that ethics requires nearness between individuals. We must experience the other person’s vulnerability and suffering. What is then the impact of globalization for our moral responsibility? Globalization means that we are linked to people at a distance. Does distance exclude moral relations with the Other as some communitarian philosophers seem to assume?

Globalization implies that our actions have far-reaching reverberations. The dissemination of greenhouse gas leading to global warming is one example of this. Globalization also means that we are better informed about living conditions in different parts of the world; of wars, oppression, natural catastrophes and other things which challenge people’s lives at a far distance. This information can lead to involvement and commitment. The worldwide shockwave following the publication of the picture of the three-year-old Aylan Kurdi’s dead body at the shore of Turkey in 2015 shows that empathy can transcend national boundaries. We can identify with a distant victim, which inspires our moral engagement.

But how can we communicate our moral views across cultural and national borders? The aim of this book is to discuss and provide answers to this question. ‘Global Perspectives’ in the book title means that the book focuses on ethics and communication in an age traced by globalization. But it also means that authors with various cultural backgrounds coming from different parts of the world contribute in the search for answers.

In the wake of globalization, social practices such as politics, research, (social) media, health care, information and communication, education and business increasingly include actors from different parts of the globe. Ethics is of crucial importance for these practices, and hence, the question of how to communicate ethics across borders becomes acute.

How then is ethics communicated in an age of globalization? Is it possible to overcome cultural differences and agree on values and ethical principles across cultural borders? The overarching aim of this anthology is to respond to these questions. Comparative value surveys are often researched empirically with the help of sociological methods or pursued within communication studies (Ingelhart and Welzel 2005, Hall 2005). However, this anthology’s disciplinary point of departure is philosophy, and in particular ethics. Studies of ethics and communication entail both the classical question of the universality or contextual limits of ethics and values, but also new challenges for communication; how are values and norms communicated, shared and perhaps transformed in global interactions?

Ethical issues raise controversies in various fields. Through e-medicine, medical information and consultation are provided globally via the Internet. But ethical norms of medicine and health care are embedded in local health care institutions. The ethical principles guiding health care in Europe and United States, such as the four principles of patient autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice may be contested in other parts of the world (Beauchamp and Childress 2013; Fu-Chang 1999). So, which principles should guide globalized e-medicine?

Research is another social practice that has turned global. Established guidelines for research on human beings include principles of health, human dignity, integrity, right to self-determination, privacy and confidentiality of personal information of research subjects, and the conduct of research is based on ethical principles of integrity, honesty and trust (Helsinki Declaration 2013; Singapore Statement 2010). There are controversies of how to balance and prioritize principles of research ethics and challenges for participants in global research projects to come to agreements.

Gender equality is one of the basic goals for Swedish foreign aid. But is this goal interpreted in the same way by Swedish donors and the receiving countries?

Global warming illustrates how we are globally connected and how our collective actions have increasingly global reverberations. In order to come to grips with climate change, shared ethical principles have been articulated (UNESCO 2010), but it has also raised controversies regarding what is a just distribution of the burdens to limit climate change.

Questions of justice are also raised by migration from the global South to the global North. What are the rights of migrants and refugees and what duties do the wealthy countries have to open their borders?

These examples illustrate that globalization requires communication of ethics and new arenas for discussions of ethical issues. But are not cultural boundaries and traditions obstacles to communication and do perhaps conflicting social and economic interests stand in the way of global ethics?

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, ‘communication is the exchange of meanings between individuals through a common system of symbols’. An ‘exchange of meanings,’ in our case an exchange of ethical ideas (values, norms, rights, principles etc.), requires that the ideas are comprehensible for the receiving partner of the exchange. Otherwise, no exchange of meanings takes place, and agreements on ethical issues will be either illusory or based on misunderstandings. Hence communication requires first the possibility of mutual understanding. Second, communication also requires reciprocity and a willingness to listen. If the potential receiver of a message is not willing to listen, there will not be any exchange of meanings. This requirement becomes clear when we look at the etymological root of the word ‘communication’. Commmunication comes from the Latin word communis which means ‘common’ and ‘community’. So, communication requires a community, a shared social understanding and reciprocity.

Both requirements for communication – shared understandings and reciprocity – are contested. The possibility of a shared understanding of values and norms across cultures has been questioned by influential theories in philosophy and political theory. Reciprocity in communication is challenged when globalization implies economic and ideological domination of powerful actors and marginalization of weak voices, what Rajeev Bhargava calls ‘epistemic injustice’ (Bhargava 2013). In the following I will elaborate on these two requirements for the communication of ethics.

Is communication of ethics possible?

What then are the prospects for communication of values, norms and ethical principles in a globalized world? As we noted, communication of ethics requires that a receiver understands the moral language used by a sender, but is such a shared understanding feasible? Is communication of ethics across cultural borders really possible or are the moral languages so different that translation and mutual understanding are unattainable?

Before I discuss some theoretical approaches to the question of communication across cultural borders, a note on different levels of ethical thinking would help. We can distinguish between different levels of ethical thinking and ethical decision making. First, we have a specific moral view justifying a particular course of action, for example ‘do not secretly monitor Mr. Jones’. The next level is a norm that specifies a kind of action, for example ‘do not violate people’s privacy’. This norm is a premise in the argument for the specific moral view. It can, in turn, be warranted by a more general ethical principle, for example the ‘principle of human dignity’. Then, the principle of human dignity implies the norm to respect people’s privacy.

Communication of ethics can start on all levels of the moral discourse and we might agree or disagree on the different levels: the specific view, the norm or the principle. However, it is also possible that we agree on the specific view, for example that political authorities should not secretly monitor Mr. Jones. But we might disagree about which norm or principle that supports this view. On the other hand, we might also agree on the norm ‘do not violate people’s privacy’, but disagree on its application. For example, we might balance the norm ‘do not violate peoples’ privacy’ and the norm ‘protect public security’ differently, which will imply different positions with regard to the secret monitoring of Mr. Jones.

Some would argue that a particular moral case is the best starting point for ethical communication. According to moral particularism, each moral situation is unique and communication should be case based. Ethical communication is, according to this view, best achieved through narratives of specific cases.

But is really each moral situation unique? Yes, of course regarding time and situation-specific characteristics but not regarding the ethical aspects. Let me illustrate this with two cases. In the first case, a patient faces a choice of two different treatments for cancer. The patient is informed about the pros and cons of the treatments and she can then choose one. In the second case a person is asked to participate in a psychological experiment. She is informed about different aspects and can, based on the information, chose whether to participate or not. These cases are very different but they both actualise the same ethical principle, namely the principle of informed consent. The patient is informed about the treatments and has the right to choose one of them. The person facing the psychological experiment is similarly informed about the experiment and has the right to decide whether to participate or not. In conclusion the situations are unique but the ethical principle of informed consent is relevant for both.

Is then communication of ethics across cultural borders easier regarding specific moral cases or regarding ethical principles? Let us assume that doctors in India, Africa, Saudi Arabia and Europe are to decide on the interruption of a lifesaving treatment. Should the conversation between them start with the case or with the relevant ethical principles? Perhaps it is for pedagogical reasons better to start with the particular case to get a common understanding and agreement. However, the discussants will immediately face the questions of the salient moral aspects of the case. Why is it a moral problem at all? The answer depends on views on the other levels of the moral discourse; perhaps one discussant focuses on the dignity of the person, and another on the amount of pleasure or pain that the decisions will imply. For the first, the question of life-saving treatment is a moral question because a human life it at stake; for the second because it is about a human being’s pain and pleasure. Hence, ethical principles, for example the principle of human dignity or the principle of utility, are inherent in ethical argumentation.

The above reasoning could also be applied to virtue ethics, that is, ethical theories focusing on personal characters and practical wisdom. People with different cultural backgrounds could agree on what a virtuous person should do in a particular situation but they could still disagree on which virtues are cardinal and on the ranking of virtues.

The theoretical discussion on the possibility of the communication of ethics across cultural borders is multifaceted, and I will now present some different views.

The Incommensurability Thesis

One of the most influential and controversial contributions to the modern discussion on religious and ideological pluralism is Samuel Huntington’s book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order published in 1996. Huntington warns of a post-Cold War development characterized by conflicts rather than communication between the civilizations of the world.

What, then, is a ‘civilization’ according to Huntington? ‘Both civilization and culture refer to the overall way of life of a people, and a civilization is a culture writ large,’ writes Huntington (Huntington 1998: 41). Common language, history, religion, values and institutions are among the defining characteristics of a civilization, and a civilization provides a basis for the subjective identification of peoples; ‘Civilizations are the biggest “we” within which we feel culturally at home as distinguished from all the other “thems” out there,’ Huntington writes (Ibid: 43). Among the major civilizations are ‘Western’ Christianity, Orthodox Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism and Islam.

While civilizations differ when it comes to deep and fundamental social values and most people tend to identify with their civilization, clashes of civilizations are ‘interminable’ and endless, Huntington maintains (Ibid: 291). Are there then ways to avoid clashes and enter into dialogues and harmonious relations? Yes, Huntington argues, while civilizations also interact and ‘overlap’ (Ibid: 43), ‘peoples in all civilizations should search for and attempt to expand the values, institutions and practices they have in common with peoples of other civilizations’ (Ibid: 320).² This is, according to Huntington, the only way to avoid a clash of civilizations.

While Huntington stresses the conflicts of ‘civilizations’ from the perspective of political theory, philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argues for a contrast thesis from a philosophical point of departure. According to MacIntyre, there are serious obstacles for cross-cultural understandings of values and norms due to the contrasts between moral and cultural traditions. Today’s disagreements on moral issues are, according to MacIntyre, explained by underlying different conceptions of justice and rationality. There are ‘rival theories of justice’ and ‘rival rationalities’ (MacIntyre 1988: 1–2). He writes: ‘Doctrines, theses, and arguments all have to be understood in terms of historical context’ (Ibid: 9). Hence, there is little room for dialogue and mutual understanding between representatives of different traditions. As evidence for and illustration of his argument, MacIntyre refers to the differences between the classical traditions Hebraism, Platonism, Aristotelism and Augustinism. It is a failure of the post-Enlightenment ‘liberal individualism’ to assume first that its own point of view is neutral and not ‘imprisoned by a set of beliefs which lack justification in precisely the same way and to the same extent as do the positions which they reject ...’ and to assume second that there is a shared rationality across cultures and traditions (Ibid: 396).

Is there then, according to MacIntyre, any way to overcome differences between traditions and achieve a shared understanding of moral issues? Yes, but it requires first that one is cognizant of one’s own tradition and ‘first language,’ and second, that one through ‘empathetic conceptual imagination’ becomes so familiar with a rival tradition that it is mastered as a ‘second first language’ (Ibid: 394). ‘Understanding requires knowing the culture, so far as is possible, as a native inhabitant knows it, and speaking, hearing, writing, and reading the language as a native inhabitant speaks, hears, writes, and reads it’ (Ibid. 374). So, according to MacIntyre, intercultural ethics is possible but requires the toilsome process of putting oneself in the other’s shoes.

As we see, MacIntyre emphasizes the uniqueness of different traditions and the difficulties of translations. Let me take two examples from religious ethics that ...