The Outlooks of christian morality in the context of intercultural information ethics
ENThe breakthrough and development of digital-electronic communication technology in recent decades is related to the changes of the so-called human lifeworld (Lebenswelt). These changes for some time are the area of multidisciplinary research of media theorists. The Oxford philosopher Luciano Floridi has coined the term “infosphere”1 to capture this point (Floridi, 1999). The Uruguay and German media philosopher Rafael Capurro - one of the most famous current theorists - has presented the theoretical model of intercultural information ethics as a constructive proposal to regulate and to control interactions in cyberspace ethically that is dealing with problematic field of media ethics. Intercultural information ethics addresses questions concerning these intersections such as: how far is the Internet changing local cultural values and traditional ways of life? How far do these changes affect the life and culture of future societies in a global and local sense? Put in another way, how far do traditional cultures and their moral values communicate and transform themselves under the impact of the digital “infosphere” in general and of the Internet in particular? In other words, intercultural information ethics can be conceived as a field of research where moral questions of the “infosphere” are reflected in a comparative manner on the basis of different cultural traditions. The Internet has become a challenge not only to international but also to intercultural information ethics. What is the role of Christian ethics in such circumstances?.It is clear that the dissemination of the information in the global space of the Internet poses new challenges: the problem of quality of information and its organization tools, the problem of information producers, distributors and consumers’ goals and motives, and finally, the problem of media consumer’s/creator’s moral responsibility etc., these problems largely constitute the ethical field of human actions and especially of specific human, as a member of “networked” digital society, behavior on the Internet. These and similar issues of human behavior in the “networked” digital society covering a variety of ethical conflicts and human rights violations in a broad sense. The article states that model of intercultural information ethics by Rafael Capurro is not complete theoretically because: 1) model is largely based on Western cultural practices and values, while too little emphasis on validation of inculturation process and on cross-cultural interaction and reflection; 2) consensus which is an essential condition for a model of intercultural information ethics has been reached in constructive intercultural dialogue, and such consensus as a vision of empowerment of this model is hypothetical and too optimistic, because it does not see the threats of conscious destruction, terrorism, violations of cyberspace and other virtual crimes as well as management schemes. The article states that greater emphasis on applying the principles of Christian ethics in developing the model of intercultural information ethics could lead to unexpected and positive results. Therefore this article is analyzing the application of Christian (thomistic) ethics principles to media as a theoretical experiment, separately analysing the problem of media consumer’s/ creator’s moral responsibility including a broader context of intercultural media ethics.
