Comunicazione interculturale, etica e responsabilità

The possibility of founding a communication ethics and of defining the relevant concept of responsibility depends on that of locating value presuppositions which are universal and shared. These must furthermore be able to direct the communicative act or the judgement on a communicative act which has taken place already. In this contribution I attempt to shed light on theoretical problems that prevent or obstruct such a foundation. Especially I take into account the links between value and subjective interpretation, as well as between ethics and culture, in order to show that all ethical systems find themselves facing a paradox. As matter of fact, in order for an ethical system to be able to function as an exclusive reference system it must make use of application strategies which are non-ethical towards 'diverting' individuals. These problems are most serious in the case of an ethics of intercultural communication. I thus try to argue in favour of a situational (contextual) ethics, Which I believe would nake it possible to produce a notion of responsibility mo0re aware of differences.