What pluralism, why pluralism, and how? A response to Charles Ess

Abstract

In this critical response to Charles EssÕ 'Ethical Pluralism and Global Information EthicsÕ presented in this Special Issue of Ethics and Information Technology, it is firstly argued that his account of pros hen pluralism can be more accurately reformulated as a three layered doctrine by separating one acceptance of diversity at a cultural level and another at an ethical theoretic level. Following this clarificatory section, the next section considers EssÕ political and sociological reasons for the necessity and desirability of pros hen pluralism, criticising the former reasons as social scientifically problematic, while elaborating on the latter as more persuasive. In the last section, I discuss how pros hen pluralism may be realised, making three arguments in particular. First, EssÕ requirement for sensitivity to cultural diversity is to be interpreted as differentiated and extended sensitivity. Second, his discussion of shared responses to central ethical problems is ambiguous and needs further elaboration and clarification. Third, his focus on dialogue and Socratic education is persuasive, although excessive optimism is not reasonable.

Teaching Information Ethics

“…El pensamiento de Ess ha sido criticado en cuanto a que la tendencia hacia la unidad (pros hen) parece contradecir al concepto mismo de pluralidad en cualquiera de sus interpretaciones (HIRUTA, 2006). Ess parece además oponerse rotundamente a ciertas posibilidades éticamente intolerables como, por ejemplo, la pornografía infantil en internet, trabajando en base a un diálogo socrático con vistas a posibles posiciones teóricas y prácticas comunes, un diálogo que no es fácil ni a nivel académico ni, mucho menos, a nivel político.…”

Intercultural information ethics: foundations and applications

“…In many cases we should try to dig into deeper layers in order to understand where these claims originate or simply accept the limits of human theoretical reason by celebrating the richness of human experience. As Kei Hiruta rightly stresses (Hiruta, 2006), it is not clear what the points of shared ethical agreements are and how this call for unity fits with a call for diversity concerning the judgements of such ethical perspectives. According to Hiruta, the advocates of ethical pluralism would like to avoid the untolerable, such as child pornography in the internet, working on the basis of a pragmatic problem-solving strategy leading to "points of agreement" or "responses" on the basis of Socratic dialogue.…”

Cybernetic Pluralism in an Emerging Global Information and Computing

“…Indeed, the Buddhist striving towards Enlightenment (nirvana, the "blown-out" self) requires individual effort and responsibility -manifest, e.g., in the injunction to cultivate compassion towards others (Hongladarom 2007, 118). For Hongladarom, this means that Buddhist societies such as Thailand have a prima facie reason to protect the privacy of such (empiri-30 Kei Hiruta has developed an extensive analysis and helpful critiques and suggestions to my earlier work on pluralism (Hiruta 2006). I've attempted to acknowledge the saliency of those critiques in the development of this paper -primarily, by shifting away from the political justifications that he finds problematic.…”