Etica, filosofia e mediazione linguistica: dall’Etica della filosofia occidentale al codice deontologico della mediazione linguistica

<p><strong>Abstract </strong>–<strong> </strong>Over the last few years, the issue of professional ethics has received much attention in the field of interpreting and translation, and in particular in the field of Community Interpreting (CI) or Public Service Interpreting (PSI). (In this chapter we will refer to CI or PSI in Italian as ‘Mediazione Linguistica’.) Today, ‘ethics’ figures prominently in the literature, in international conferences, in interpreting courses, in translation/interpreting mailing lists as well as in the working lives of professional interpreters. As an object of theoretical inquiry (meta-ethics) as well as a guide for human conduct (normative ethics), ethics has been a prime focus of Western moral philosophy since the time of the Ancient Greeks. This chapter situates the main ethical tenets of the CI/PSI interpreting profession within the framework of the main principles of moral philosophy, namely notions of ‘good’, ‘virtue’, ‘duty’, ‘responsibility’, ‘utility’ and ‘consequence of actions’. The three principal ethical tenets of CI/PSI discussed in this chapter, Accuracy, Impartiality and Confidentiality, were identified on the basis of a general literature review and more specifically from a variegated (and to some degree representative) sample of CI/PSI Codes of Ethics. The chapter argues that there is an underlying connection between the principal tenets of moral philosophy and those of the interpreting profession (which mirror similar ethical principles in other professions). The tenet of Accuracy could be seen as a ‘contract’ between interpreter and client, interpreter and source, interpreter and text/translation process/profession. The chapter situates the interpreter’s sense of duty and responsibility towards this tenet at an individual and collective level, within the Kantian tradition of Duty. The other two tenets – impartiality and confidentiality – safeguard the interpreter’s conduct towards the source (author/speaker), professional community and institution as well as towards the receiver (reader/listener).