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Article Excerpt
Abstract. This paper deals with intercultural aspects of privacy, particularly with regard to differences between Japanese and Western conceptions. It starts with a reconstruction of the genealogy of Western subjectivity and human dignity as the basic assumptions underlying Western views on privacy. An analysis of the Western concept of informational privacy is presented. The Japanese topic of "denial of self" (Musi) as well as the concepts of Seken, Shakai and Ikai (as analyzed by the authors of the companion piece on privacy in Japan) give rise to intercultural comparisons. The paper addresses the question of privacy in cyberspace and mass media. Finally the question of freedom of speech is related to the Japanese concepts of Ohyake and Watakusi.
Key words: autonomy, cyberspace, denial of self, freedom of speech, human dignity, Ikai, informational privacy, intercultural information ethics, Japan, mass media, Musi, Ohyake, privacy, Seken, self, Shakai, subjectivity, Watakusi, Western countries
Introduction
The present debate on privacy issues in Western societies has prima facie two origins, namely the security measures arising from terrorist attacks, particularly since 9/11, and new developments in the field of digital networking and mobile devices (ubiquitous computing), leading to what is being called a surveillance society. But in fact, this debate presupposes basic epistemological and moral concepts such as subjectivity, autonomy, data protection and the underlying idea of inviolable human dignity.
This paper deals with the question of how these concepts became part of our moral and legal self-understanding in Western countries and how far this view of ourselves and our selves, and consequently of privacy, can be understood by way of comparison with the Japanese perspective of Seken, Shakai and Ikai and particularly with regard to the topic of "denial of self" (Musi). My argument will be not just to oppose two apparently fixed conceptions of privacy but to reflect analytically and historically on the intertwining of our cultural and conceptual frameworks beyond the somehow simplistic idea of a general concept of privacy unaffected by cultural differences. The paper specifically addresses these issues in mass media and in the Internet, relating the concepts of privacy and freedom of speech to the Japanese concepts of Ohyake and Watakusi.
This paper started as an online dialogue with Makoto Nakada [N] and Takanori Tamura [T] (their article in this article volume). It is by no means conclusive. We are at the beginning of what I call intercultural information ethics, whose aim is not just to compare similar or dissimilar concepts by juxtaposing them, or to look for a conceptual or even moral consensus--but to become aware of our mutual biases on the basis of a nuanced understanding of similarities and dissimilarities beyond the simple dichotomy between "East" and "West."
Japanese and Western subjectivity
In his book Between Human Being and Human Being (translated into German by Elmar Weinmayr, a philosopher and Japanese scholar (1)), Bin Kimura analyses the structure of Japanese subjectivity as different from the Western one. According to Bin Kimura and Weinmayr, Japanese subjectivity is discontinuous and thus opposite to a classic Western view of subject and identity as something permanent and even substantial. "Discontinuous identity" means that subjectivity is the effect of a network of relations and situations. This would explain in some way why my colleague [N]'s students are so interested in getting information about the situation surrounding the Tutiura homicide (Nakada and Tamura, this volume). The meaning of the subjectivity of the murderer discloses itself, at least partially, when the situation is analyzed on the basis of a range of information--including information that, on the one hand, reveals more precisely about the network of relationships, but does so, on the other hand, only by violating Western conceptions of "privacy."
One main point of Bin Kimura's analysis concerns the aspect of feeling guilty. European and Japanese subjectivities are similar insofar as individuals feel guilty vis-a-vis a higher and meta-individual dimension or power. But in the case of European subjectivity, this power comes from beyond in a vertical sense, while in Japan it comes from a horizontal space between us. If we consider this experience of feeling guilty as a basic moral experience, then we have a key for an intercultural analysis of the Tutiura homicide as described by my Japanese colleagues. That is, if we operate within a (Western) society with strong or substantial subjectivities, which are continuous, then the meaning of "privacy" and respect for this "privacy" concerns basically this individuality, i.e., as a continuous, substantial something that should be protected, no matter the situation and no matter what happened. Indeed, respect for autonomy and individuality belong to the basic moral and legal norms in the West. On the contrary, if we are dealing with a (Japanese) subjectivity--one which is not permanent, but dependent on situations and networks of relationships--then there is no possibility for respecting "privacy" in the Western sense as a permanent quality of a substantial subject. The result is a world with clear rules--Japanese Seken--that are not based on the respect for permanent identities but on the respect for the space(s) and situations between individualities--Japanese Aida. This could be a reason why Western privacy rules remain Shakai to Japanese, i.e., not related to the structure of Japanese subjectivity. In sum, following my Japanese colleagues' analysis, the Japanese moral world--or ethos in Greek terms, i.e., the moral rules proper to a specific society--embraces three dimensions and their mutual relationships, beginning with Seken and its negation Ikai; Seken in turn is contrasted with a more Western Shakai; and finally, Ikai contrasts with Shakai as well. According to my colleague [N] and other Japanese scholars like Yoshihiko Amino and Masao Yamaguchi (this volume) Ikai is a dangerous but at the same time an attractive place similar to the Dionysian dimension of human existence as analyzed by Nietzsche. When we discuss these issues in a comparative way, we are dealing with what I call intercultural information ethics. (2)
Where do we dwell in the West?
One meaning of the Greek concept ethos is "to dwell" (for instance, in Heraclitus' (ca. 544-483 B.C.E.) famous dictum, ethos anthropoi daimon, or, following Heidegger's translation, "the (usual) place where humans dwell is the openness where the god (as the un-usual) can appear" (3)). If the Japanese ethos is three-fold, I would say that the traditional Western dwelling is two-fold or "meta-physical," namely the world of sensory experience and the world of sensible experience or, in Plato's (427-347 B.C.E.) terms, the topos aisthetos (sensory place) and the topos noetos (rational place). The modern version of this division is the Kantian conception that we are dwellers of two worlds, namely the physical world which is strictly deterministic and the world of "ends in themselves" or the "kingdom of ends" (Reich der Zwecke). The latter is the basis of what he calls "human dignity" (Wurde) as different from things that have just a value (Wert). Human dignity is grounded in the human capacity of going beyond our natural being because we are also "rational beings"--Kant uses the neutral term vernunftiges Wesen--by giving ourselves universalizable laws of action and by freely obeying them. (4) The moral excellence of human beings consists in being capable of acting on the basis of such self-given, universalizable reasons or "maxims." This capacity is grasped, following Kant, in the practical experience of the categorical imperative. Kant postulates the existence of such a place, the kingdom of ends, where rational beings dwell but which remains theoretically unknowable.
In today's Western secularized and naturalized societies, it is difficult to make plausible this topical division between the physical and the metaphysical, even in its Kantian version. In fact, this difference is stated mostly either as a dogmatic legal postulate or it is theoretically related to some presumed prerogative of human existence such as rationality, consciousness, or personality, making difficult to understand the original Kantian concept of dignity (Wurde). In many cases, a historical reason for acknowledging human dignity is given, namely the atrocities of World War II. In addition to philosophy and history, a third root of human dignity is the Judeo-Christian tradition with its conception of an immortal soul created...
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