Intercultural (communication)

Ethics
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND ETHICS

 Humans are socialized through values and norms of their culture

to think and behave in certain ways, and evaluate right from
wrong actions.
 Various institutions such as family, schools, churches, media
houses, political parties, etc do shape our value system and
conducts.
 Culture refers to learned systems of traditional values, norms and
shared meanings that foster a sense of belonging, identity, and
communication identity within that social system.
 This shared meaning system will frame our outlook, interpretation
and evaluation of an ethical concens.
 Ethical situations demand us to make choices by
considering the intention, action, process, consequences,
end goal, situation and the embedded cultural contexts of
each case.
 In intercultural decision making, one has to make difficult
choices between upholding ones cultural beliefs and the
values of other cultures
 Thus intercultural ethical communication creates tension
on whether ethical decision should be culture-bound or
indeed ethics should be freed from culture.
ETHICAL POSITIONS; ASSESSING PROS AND CONS
 There are two major perspectives of ethics in relation to
intercultural ethics namely moral absolutism and cultural
relativism.
Moral Absolutism/ (Kantian Ethics)
 Emphasizes the principles of right and wrong based on a set
of universally fixed laws despite cultural differences.
 There are definitive moral values and codes that apply to all
people catholicly (universalism/Categorical Imperative) and
that such rules constitute objective moral standards.
 This minimizes problems arising from cultural diversities
 Any cultures that act outside the universal moral code are
adjudged as being immoral.
Moral Absolutism Pros and Cons
 It helps resolve cross-cultural differences.
 It promotes intercultural coexistence and tolerance.
 It can however create symbolic violence by sustaining
power-relations and cultural domination (Bourdieu, 1989).
 It leads to marginalization of the vulnerable and cultures,
language, epistemologies and voices.
Ethical multiculturalism/ Cultural/ Moral Relativism
 The view that ethics are culturally and contextually
dependent and only applicable to specific cultures.
 Cultures differ in their practices, beliefs, and moral rules,
all of which depend upon each culture’s value systems and
practices.
 We should understand cultural context in which the ethical
decisions are being made.
 The wrongness or rightness of an act depends on the
culture of that area.
Ethical standards are subject to change because
culture changes due to several factors including time,
globalization and fusions.
Ethical relativism pro and cons
Each group counts since each cultural values are
valued.
Moral conduct is understood from cultural insider
lens.
culture is considered when making ethical decisions.
 It however emphases on cultural liberty hence ignoring ethical
principles lying beyond each cultural contexts.
 It promotes cultural, language and epistemological suppression and
epistemi-cide (Leibowitz, 2017).
 There is al also ethical Pluralism Theory which has been used to
compensate for these dilemmas.
 Ethical Pluralism suggests that moral evaluation requires knowing
underlying similarities across cultures and about the unique features
of each culture.
 It calls for hearing of all voices and affirmation.
 It demands equal power-relations among diverse cultural groups.
 Ethical Pluralism is limited because it is difficult to apply in many
 Note that in the real world, ethics maybe culturally relative,
in the idealized world, ethics maybe absolute.
 Note also that evil is independent of culture.
 Evil is created by humans not culture itself.
 As Victor Frankl an Austrian psychotherapist and
holocaust survivor argued, “ there are two races of human
kind: the decent and the indecent”
 Thus, “the indecent” are found in all cultures, while
unethical activities are acts of men not cultures.
ETHICAL ISSUES IN INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION
 Intercultural communication include topics such as global
operational standards and local justice issues, multicultural
cooperate power and responsibility in the local culture
scenes, cultural values, communication clashes,
intercultural training and research ethics, tastes imposition.
 Globalisation, technological infiltration, language
dominance, religious proselytizing, epistemic suppression
etc.
.
 GLOBAL OPERATIONAL STANDARD PROCEDURE AND LOCAL JUSTICE ISSUES

 Involves
multiple perspectives and multi-layered contexts that
frame the interpretation of an ethical issue.
Alder and Gundersen (2008) propose a Cultural
Variability Framework and applied it systematically to
resolve ethical dilemmas in these contexts. The maxims
included:
i) Problem recognition, ii) information search
iii) Alternatives construction, iv)choice
a) Problem recognition
 One learns to frame ethical issues from both global standards and local
procedural justice.
 Cultural variability choice may range from problem solving or changing
attitude to situational rejection and/or acceptance.
b) Information search phase
Emphasis is on how to design culturally inclusive alternatives that can
reconcile its cooperate values, and integrity policy with that of the local
cultures sense of justice and underlying values in the decision-making phase.
D) Implementation phase
 Emphasis is on whether the new global corporate policy should be
implemented from top-down global headquarters or involve the full
participation and feedback cycles from subsidiaries from different cultural
regions.
CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY AND LOCAL
CUSTOMARY PRACTICE
Concerns the economic (symbolic) privileged
position of a corporate culture when operating
in developing countries.
Issues such as child labour, women’s rights ,
human rights violations, working conditions,
corporate responsibility against local
discriminatory policies
CULTURAL VALUES CLASH AND COMMUNICATIVE
PRACTICE
 Itinvolves the cultural clash of universalism (Kantian) and
particularism (Relativism).
 Generally, morality takes precedence over particular details of
who is involved in a particular situation.
 ORIENTATIONS AND BEHAVIOURS TO BE ADOPTED IN AN
INTERCULTURAL SET UP

i) Be aware that communication triggers responses.

 Can be intentional or unintentional responses.
 It can triggers positive or negative responses and
reactions.
 Take responsibility of the consequences.
 Have good intentions when communicating with people
especially from different cultures.
ii ) Respect the other
 No-one likes being demeaned or discounted.
Every person requires respect, dignity and recognition.
Burbulies refers to such behaviour as “the Rule of
Reciprocity” in which one develops a reversible and
reflexive attitude and reciprocal regard for others.
In intercultural communication, this means that
reaching beyond ones own cultural norms, and respect
others cultures rather dismissing others cultures and
tastes.
iii ) Search for common grounds between people and cultures
 Do not overlook similarities among cultures because it is
those similarities that can act as an ethical guide.
 This search for similarity is an important component because
it enables one seek out important common ground that helps
decide how to treat each member.
 Similarities that unite people make everyone part of “the
global village”.
 For instance, every human being loves freedom and autonomy.
 All humans tend to love kids and their families, and these are
similarities.
 ) Respect Cultural Differences
iv

Respect cultural diversities and differences.

Become aware of the difference to gain an
intercultural ethical perspective.
“All people have the right to be equal and the
equal right to be different”- (President
Shimon Peres of the state of Israel)
 Accept responsibility for your behaviour
v)

 Be aware that our decisions, words and actions have

consequences for both ourselves and others.
Thus is there is a relationship between making ethical
choices and communication.
To effectively function in this globalized world, we
must accept our roles and responsibilities as adept
communicators.
The end