Information Ethics in a Different Voice, Or: Back to the Drawing Board of Intercultural Information Ethics.

Abstract

Within the information ethics community one can observe a mainstream discussion including some fundamental presuppositions which appear to be something like dogmas. The most important of these dogmas seems to be that we must create a new kind of intercultural information ethics. It is often argued that (comparative) studies have shown that different cultures, according to culturally determined norms and values, react in different ways to the impacts of ICT; it is stressed that an intercultural information ethics must take these cultural particularities into account. But in the paper at hand it shall be argued that taking cultural differences into consideration does not create a necessity to invent a new intercultural information ethics. On the contrary it shall be claimed that we already know several intercultural ethics which only have to be applied to ICT and its impact to societies.