It’s the Principles, Stupid! Why We Shall Try to Find General Principles in Intercultural Information Ethics and Not Stop with Cultural Particularities

Abstract

In a recent paper (Weber 2010) I tried to challenge the very idea that ethics as well as social and political philosophy must incorporate social particularities like gender, religion, culture, and the like on the theoretical level. Of course, this description of my challenge is much too rough because in this simplistic form it is obviously false. Therefore, in what follows, I shall try to clarify what I exactly would like to challenge concerning what I think is currently the mainstream discourse in intercultural information ethics. After that, I shall argue that we must try to seek out the ethical principles behind culturally determined concepts like privacy. At the end of my paper I shall draw some conclusions concerning the compatibility of social and moral norms and values in different cultures.