Vol. II: Shaping Information and Communication ... - IMA,ZLW & IfU

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The constitution of any democratic community for example is meant to include a catalogue of
fundamental rights and rules which are to be followed in order for all members of the
community to respect each other and to live together peacefully. But the content of these rules
differs from community to community. These differences tend - in intercultural
communication - to produce disagreement about essential decisions. It is a major challenge
for all disciplines, but especially for Philosophy, to find answers in this field.
The task of ethics is to reflect and check on moral rules and regulations for human interaction
and by this critical approach to find reasonable ways of living together. Behaving morally
means to voluntarily and consciously follow certain rules and regulations. It thus necessarily
contains our responsibility and our ability of decision-making as human beings. Only living
together according to a sensible code of ethics can reach beyond the borders of cultural or
religious faith.
In Western philosophy, ethics as a subject of this discipline goes back as far as to the ancient
Greeks, to Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC., which is about Buddha’s time). Aristotle’s
considerations include the aspect of virtue or morale. He defines this aspect as the opposite of
actions motivated by ignorance or oppression. Moral behaviour thus means to follow our own
choice, our own measures, and our own reasoning. The questions which derive from
Aristotle’s approach do, even in times of globalisation, still remain the same: Are we - in our
modern living conditions - able to choose? Do we have the options to make our own
decisions? Only if these conditions are fulfilled, we are able to think in terms of ethics and to
act morally.
As a turning point in Western philosophy, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804, Germany), the
intellectual driving force in the process of enlightenment, subsequently started to consider
moral behaviour from the point of view of the individual. For him, the only possibility to gain
freedom of decision is for us to enlighten ourselves. He challenges us to emerge from the
situation of nonage, which is comparable to the position of children before they grow up, or
are coming-into-age. These children do not have the option to judge about right or wrong.
Instead, they are only following, but not yet reflecting the rules of social action. Only when
we dare to make these steps of critical reflection on our reasoning and actions, we can free
ourselves from determination by others, e.g. from religious, cultural or political oppression.
Kant’s appeal of enlightenment, thus, is the Latin ‘Sapere aude!’, ‘Dare to think!’.