Preproceedings 2006 - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Reflections on Ethics and Cultural Clash
Peter P. Kirschenmann, Vrije University, The Netherlands
1. Introduction
In commentaries on the recent uproar about the Danish
cartoons, many have called for an intensification of
intercultural dialogue. What they mean, of course, is a
civilized dialogue, abiding by the norms of mutual respect,
fair exchange of ideas, free of insults or threats. Although
as a procedural basis for ethics as a whole, such norms
have been articulated explicitly by discourse ethicists.
Other commentators submitted that we need to
reconsider our ethics. What, rightly, counts as a central
ethical issue is the question of free speech and its
limitations.
But we know that, even when an intercultural
dialogue or a reconsideration of our ethics would take
place, offensive words, threats or violent actions could, in
the real world, resurge at any time. Manipulation, power
play, verbal or physical aggression will then take over.
Ethical considerations will then seem to have to be
replaced by those of prudence or retaliation. Or do, or
should, ethical considerations not still play a role even in
war-like situations?
I shall discuss a few ethical issues involved in the
cultural clash in question, both its substantial ethical focus
and ethical aspects of the way it has been conducted. We
shall see that ethical considerations often are but feeble
factors in the tangle of predominantly non-moral motives.
2. Free Speech and Its Limitations
In Western democracies, the freedom of expression of
ideas is constitutionally guaranteed. It also figures in the
United Nations Charter and is part of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. It is one of the civil rights,
mainly meant to protect citizens, their autonomy and
dignity, against governmental interference and censorship.
This right has its limitations. In Germany, for instance,
expressions of opinions which tend to disturb the public
peace are excluded. In the US, there is the “fighting words
doctrine”, which prohibits “hate speech”. However, there is
a large grey zone of what is prohibited and what not. It is
telling that in just about all legal cases, the US Supreme
Court did not uphold any conviction for fighting words.
Quite generally, many moral norms of societies are
codified in their constitutional and legal systems. They can,
then, be legally enforced by penalties, which forms one of
the prerogatives of the respective state. Yet, there are
severe differences between such systems, particularly
between Western liberal democracies and Islamic
countries whose juridical system is based on the Sharia. A
glaring instance is the difference between freedom of
religion and the death penalty for one falling from Islamic
faith. Such differences form an influential background of
the cartoon conflict, the most pertinent one being given by
the Islamic traditions of prohibiting pictures of Muhammad
(and also people or animals), let alone satirical ones.
Within a given Western state, offended parties in
transgressions of the limits of free speech, apart from
expressing their moral disapproval publicly, can at least
have their complaint dealt with by its own juridical system.
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Especially in a globalized world with instant electronic
communication, the cartoon affair could not be contained
to Denmark. It has mainly been in other, Arab countries
that indignant parties acted out their protest.
Because of these circumstances, M. Zeeman (2006)
contended that, if “we are willing to take the vulnerability of
religious believers seriously ... then we must search for a
new ethics for a globalized world, ... for the relationship
between modernity and religion”. He means, we can no
longer haughtily insist that freedom of religion and its
undisturbed practice can only be granted on our
conditions. “Responsibility may then be preferable to
freedom. ... Self-control may here be much more
courageous than seeking out the limits of others’ tolerance
and of the legally permitted freedom of expression of
opinion.”
Strictly speaking, what Zeeman proposes is not a
new ethics, novel moral principles or values. He says,
firstly, in morally evaluating our actions, we cannot restrict
ourselves to considering only their consequences in our
own country, in the light of our own legal system.
Secondly, in such evaluations, we have the extended
responsibility of weighing the religious sensibilities in other
cultures very carefully. Thus, his suggestions seem to go
not really beyond standard utilitarian ethics. Yet, once the
“consequences” of our actions consist of fairly
unpredictable reactions of others, matters get complicated
– and there is no standard risk ethics. Note, finally, that
Zeeman seems to speak only about our ethics and the
new ethics we need. Should the “new ethics” not hold for
everyone – in line with the universality pretension of all
ethics?
The universality claim of documents on free speech
and on human rights in general, though, has all along met
with criticism. Countries stressing the importance of
community and tradition have criticized this claim for being
an expression of Western individualism, “Enlightenment
fundamentalism”, or just capitalist imperialism. Addressing
this tension, B. Oomen (2006) recently argued that human
rights should not be considered dogmatically as a “block of
granite”, but also not relativistically as holding only in
certain cultures. As a third way, she advocates a “process
approach”, borrowing the term from a Muslim human rights
activist. Human rights should be regarded as “an outcome
of a dialogue between parties”. They should, in
negotiations, find their translation into the vocabulary of
the respective cultural and religious convictions. Among
the examples given of successes of this approach is the
constitutional abolishment of the death penalty in South
Africa, based as it was on both human rights and African
religion. I do not doubt the possibility and value of such
convergences. Yet, certain oppositions will remain
unbridgeable, like that between human rights advocacy
and countries not prepared to abolish the death penalty.
3. Other Types of Freedom
Some Western constitutions expressly guarantee the
freedom of the arts and sciences. Also, in the US, free
speech has been broadly interpreted as freedom of
expression, be it verbal, non-verbal, visual, symbolic,
artistic. Now, I have seen no commentary discussing even