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/Baumstruktur_nach_Website/Acatech/root/de/Publikationen/Projektberichte/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 Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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.” Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

12. 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.” Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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.” Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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.” Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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). Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

18. Latin America Latin American cultures came about through the violent encounter between indigenous traditions and nascent European modernity. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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.” Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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.” Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

22. Latin America The equivalent of “reciprocity” in Aymara is ayni, “which means ‘the one obligated to work for another who worked for him Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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.” Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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’. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

27. Latin America The Latin American ‘who’ is just as much an indigenous person as an urban inhabitant. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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.” Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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 one’s humanity by recognizing the humanity of others and, on that basis, to establish humane respectful relations with them. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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.” Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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). Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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). Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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.” Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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? Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

36. Iran • What concepts of message and messenger were used in the Arabic and Persian pre-Islamic and Islamic traditions?  Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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 Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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). Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

39. Iran • What is angeletics?Persian translation by Mohammad Khandan. In: Science Communication. The monthly journal of Irandoc. Vol. 45, September-October 2009. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

40. Iran Rafael Capurro — John Holgate (eds.).  Messages and Messengers. Angeletics as an Approach to the Phenomenology of Communication. Munich 2011. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

41. Iran Darius I, the Greatداریوشیکمهخامنشیc. 550–486 BC Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

42. Iran created the Persian Royal Road Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

43. Iran praised by Herodotus -  Ἡρόδοτοςc. 485 Halicarnassus - 424 BC  Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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 Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

45. 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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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”. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics

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 one’s own life shared with certain freely chosen others. Capurro: Intercultural Information Ethics