The Translator . V olume 7, Number 2 (2001), 139-154 ISBN 1-900650-50-9Proposal for a Hieronymic OathANDREW CHESTERMAN University of Helsinki, FinlandAbstract. Four current models of translation ethics are described,based on the ideas of representation, service, communication and norms. There are problems with all these models: they are in severalrespects incompatible, and have different ranges of application. An alternative approach is therefore offered based on Alasdair MacIntyre’s ideas about virt ues and the deontic force of excellencein a social practice. This leads to a fifth possible model, an ethicsof professional commitment, comparable with Maria Tymoczko’ssuggestion that translation is a commissive act. At the centre of such a model there might be an official oath, comparable to the Hyppocratic Oath for the medical profession. I end with a pro- posal for a Hieronymic Oath for translators.In the Hopi Indian culture, the Spider Grandmother is the mythical figurewho oversees the spiritual development of humankind. She gave two basicethical rules, not just to Hopis but to all humanity. “She said, ‘Don’t go aroundhurting each other,’ and she said, ‘Try to understand things’” (Heat-Moon1984:187).These two ethical principles – one negative and one positive – may takeus a long way toward an ethics of translation. This paper first offers an analy-sis of the current state of affairs, and then offers an alternative proposal.1. Four current models of translation ethicsI will start by crystallizing the multiplicity of ideas about translation ethicsinto four basic models. There are overlaps between some aspects of thesemodels, but I will mostly disregard them here.Ethics of representation. This model of translation ethics goes way back tothe ideal of the faithful interpreter, and to the translation of sacred texts. Theethical imperative is to represent the source text, or the source author’sintention, accurately, without adding, omitting or changing anything. Acontemporary manifestation of this ethic is to be found in the EU translationservices: political reasons dictate that EU documents in whatever official EU language are legally equivalent to any other language version, perfect repre-sentatives of each other, and that no single version is privileged as a sourcetext, in theory (for a detailed discussion of the EU translation situation, seeKoskinen 2000a).Another line of inheritance of this ethic has to do with the long traditionof representing the Other, the relation with alterity. It comes to the fore par-ticularly during the German Romantic movement and in subsequent theoreticalcontributions stressing the value of allowing the Other to appear in its ownlight, without being domesticated: cf. the general arguments of Schleier-macher, Berman (e.g. 1984) and Venuti (e.g. 1995). These theoretical positionsstress that every translation is an interpretation and inevitably incorporatesdifference. The translator ’ s ethical dilemma is then how to choose and trans-mit a good – or the best – interpretation. To represent is to interpret.If a translation mis represents the Other, the result may be a prejudiced,biased, ideologicallysuspect version, which has unethical consequences forintercultural perceptions and relations. An ethics of representation thushighlights the values of fidelity and truth: the translator must represent thesource text, or source author ’ s intention, or even the source culture, faithfullyand truly, like a good mirror. So-called ‘ abusive fidelity ’ (Lewis 1985) allowsthe Other to appea r as Other, as different, in a foreignizing or minoritizingtranslation. Postmodern approaches problematize the possibility of faithfulrepresentation and stress the ambivalence of the relations between sourceand target texts and cultures (see, for example, Koskinen 2000b), but heretoo the central ethical problem is fundamentally one of representation, of something ‘ standing for ’ something else. In this sense, the representationmodel of ethics is actually a semiotic one: a translation is a sign of the original.Ethics of service. A very different kind of approach is based on the conceptof translation as a commercial service, performed for a client. This is thekind of ethics that underlies (usually implicitly) much of the thinking onfunctional models of translation, especially those of Holz-M äntt äri (1984)and the Skopos theorists. A translator is deemed to act ethically if thetranslation complies with the instructions set by the client and fulfils the aimof the translation as set by the client and accepted or negotiated by thetranslator. A prime quality of good translator-servants is thus loyalty; theyare loyal above all to the client, but also to the target readers and to the originalwriter (cf. Nord 1991:29). They are also efficient (they do not waste time ormoney –especially the client ’ s), and perhaps also as invisible as possible.They provide a commercial service, and clients expect value for money. Anethics of service also underlines the value of time, of meeting deadlines, etc.Ethics of communication. This general model of ethics has received moreattention during the late 20th century, for example in the work of Levinas.Here the emphasis is not on representing the Other but on communicating with others. To recognize the Other as a ‘ subject ’ , with whom one can in-deed communicate, is a primary ethical act, for Levinas, because this steptakes you out of your own ego-confined world (for an accessible but verybrief introduction to Levinas, see Melby 1995:119f.; see also Levinas 1982,1987). In translation theory, the focus is naturally on communicating acrosslinguistic or cultural boundaries.A recent contribution that highlights the ethical aspects of such commu-nication is that of Pym (1997, 2000; for a detailed critique see Koskinen2000b). For Pym, the goal of cross-cultural communication is the mutualbenefit deriving from cooperation, and the ethical goal of translation is tofurther intercultural cooperation between parties who are “ Other ” to eachother. An ethical translator therefore translates in such a way as to optimizethis cooperation. (An ethical translator might also decide, notes Pym, that itwould sometimes be more beneficial not to translate at all, but recommendsome other means of eventually communicating, such as learning the otherlanguage.) An ethical translator ’ s primary loyalty, on this view, is to the trans-lator ’ s profession, situated in an intercultural space, and hence to the wholesystem that makes cross-cultural communication possible, rather than to sourcetext or culture or to target readers or culture. For Pym, the investment intranslation (by client or translator) should not exceed the eventual mutualbenefits accruing – here his position is similar to that taken by an ethics of service.From the point of view of communication, the ethical translator is a me-diator working to achieve cross-cultural understanding. Understanding of what? Of each other, ultimately. But this is achieved via an understanding of texts, messages, signs, intentions, meanings, etc. There is a well-known con-ceptual minefield here, which I will not explore in this context, but with respectto translation we can usefully speak of understanding in the following sense:understanding a translation means arriving at an interpretation that is com-patible with the communicative intention of the author and the translator (andin some cases also the client), to a degree sufficient for a given purpose.Norm-based ethics. This model of translation ethics has arisen either explic-itly or implicitly from descriptive translation studies and norm theory.Following Toury (e.g. 1995), descriptive translation studies investigates thenorms that determine or influence translation production and reception. Thesenorms state what acceptable translation products should look like, and howthey vary from period to period and from culture to culture. The norms thusrepresent expectations, mainly in the target culture, about what translationsare supposed to be like in that culture at that time. The norms are generallyaccepted (in a particular culture) insofar as they appear to serve prevailingvalues, including ethical values such as truth and trust (see Chesterman1997:169f.). Behaving ethically thus means behaving as one is expected tobehave, in accordance with the norms, not surprising the reader or client.Any major breach of these expectations – for instance, a translation that isclearly more literal than the reader might expect, or one that has a specificideological slant, or is abridged or extensively adapted – should, on this view,be signalled overtly by the translator, for example in a preface. One of thecentral values underlying this model is that of trust: if translators behave inpredictable, norm-conforming ways, it is easier to trust them – and the pro-fession as a whole.2. ProblemsThere are several reasons for the current unease in translation studies aboutquestions of ethics. One is the lack of compatibility between available mod-els. Each of the four models outlined above highlights different ethical values:truth (representation), loyalty (service), understanding (communication), trust(norm-based). Are some values higher than others? In the sense that somemay depend on or promote others, the answer to this question is perhaps ‘ yes ’ . People who speak the truth are more likely to be trusted than thosewho do not. People who are loyal are also likely to be trusted by those whomthey are loyal to (but not necessarily by outsiders; indeed, an outsider mighthave good reason not to trust them). Truth and trust may lead to understand-ing. However, none of the models is very clear about what the appropriatelyethical action might be in a situation where values (or loyalties) clash. Onwhat grounds can we simply say: choose this model when it seems appropri-ate, and that model at other times? Would such a solution itself be ethical?The different models do nevertheless have different scopes and limita-tions of application: some models have been applied more to literary or Biblicaltranslation, others to technical or administrative translation. The representa-tion model is vulnerable to arguments about the impossibility of totally truerepresentation, about the relative status of originals and translations, aboutthe illusion of perfect equivalence. How might it be applied to translationtasks that call forradical rewriting or adaptation or improvement to the text?For some scholars, the representation model nevertheless seems to be theonly one, since ethical problems are sometimes discussed almost entirelyfrom this angle (for example, Lane-Mercier 1997).The service model stresses the translator ’ s expertise, but also seems tomake a virtue of translatorial invisibility, weakening the translator ’ s autonomyto some extent. One might even argue that it can promote a mercenary atti-tude and a meek and passive habitus. How might it be applied to a freelancetranslator initiating the translation of an avant-garde Italian poet?The communication model risks expanding the translator ’ s responsibilityto cover aspects of cross-cultural relations that may have more to do withclients and readers than with the translator. Suppose the cross-cultural un-derstanding and cooperation is successful but promotes evidently unethicalends, as for instance in the task of translating instructions for making a cheap nail-bomb? Is this also the translator ’ s responsibility? How do we apply com-munication ethics to an EU situation in which a document may not betranslated in order to be actually read by anyone, but simply in order to existlegitimately, for political and ideological reasons, in another language?The norm-based model seems unduly conservative, underplaying the pos-sibility of change or improvement; but norms do change over time, partly asa result of translatorial action. How might it be applied to a situation where atranslator – perhaps even as requested by the client – seeks to surprise thereaders, to challenge their expectations, and wishes to strengthen this effectby declining to include a warning preface?A further difficulty is the way different models focus on different levelsof ethics. The norm-based model and to some extent the representation modeloperate mainly on the micro-ethical level, concerning the relation betweenthe translator and the text. The other models look more to the macro-ethicallevel, at the relation between the translator and the wider world. How are weto decide where the ethical responsibility of the translator stops – or does itstop at all? Translators are of course responsible for the words they choose towrite, but to what extent are they responsible for the effects these words mayhave? On what readers? Readers may be other than intended ones, after all;and readers of some future generation may react very differently to the samewords. Many scholars over the past few years have pointed to the wider cul-tural and ideological implications of translatorial decisions. How do we definethe limits of the translator ’ s responsibility?And what of the world ’ s responsibility towards translators? This aspecttoo might be considere d to belong to a general ethics of translation andtranslatorial behaviour (see, for instance, UNESCO ’ s Nairobi Recommen-dation). However, I shall not pursue this theme in this article.Our four models also differ with respect to the basic kinds of ethics theyespouse. The service and norm-based models are both examples of contrac-tual ethics. That is, ethical decisions here are based on prior agreements,contracts, expectations, either explicit or internalized; unethical decisions arecriticized because they break a norm or contract. So I act like this becausethis is the norm, because this is the way the provider of a service shouldbehave, this is what the translation instructions say. On the other hand, therepresentation and especially the communication modelsare examples of utili-tarian ethics. That is, ethical decisions are based on their predicted results;unethical decisions can be criticized because of their undesired results. So Iact like this because I want to facilitate communication, or to improve cross-cultural relations: I want to have this kind of effect on you, the reader.A good illustration of the problem of incompatible ethical models is to befound in the different interpretations of the value of clarity. For many trans-lators, clarity is an ethical value that they seek to promote in their work. It isan ethical value for many theorists too, myself included; and even for trans-lation service administrators –see, for example, the current ‘ Fight the Fog’campaign in the EU, which seeks to promote clarity both in original docu-ments and in translations. To be unclear is felt to be a betrayal of loyalty tothe reader, and also to the client, who presumably wishes readers to under-stand a translation. Popper (1945/1962:308) has even argued that clarity is aprecondition for all rational communication, without which society cannotexist. But what is meant by clarity?Different interpretations are offered by our different models of ethics. Inthe representation model, clarity means transparency: the translation shouldbe such that the original is clearly visible, the Other is clearly present, repre-sented as such, undistorted. This would usually lead to some kind of foreignizing translation. On the other hand, if the desired representation is of the author ’ s intention rather than the source text as such, it is this intentionthat should presumably be made transparently visible, and the result mightwell be a domesticating translation. Returning to the mirror metaphor, claritymeans that the mirror must be clean and non-distorting, reflecting whateverit is intended to reflect (intended by whom?).In the service and commmunication models, clarity is interpreted as ac-cessibility. This is a textual quality determining the ease with which readerscan understand a text, its meaning, the message, the author ’ s intention. Aclear translation, in this sense, is one that can be understood without unduetime and effort. Here, the degree of clarity affects the relation between trans-lation and reader, not translation and original.In the norm-based model, clarity is relativized to target culture expecta-tions: the form and degree of the required clarity depends on theseexpectations. Critics of suggestions that clarity is a universal communicationvalue usually interpret cl arity as meaning ‘ directness ’ , i.e. the absence of features such as irony or understatement. These critics then accuse Grice orLeech, for instance, of making Western Protestant discourse values intouniversals. None of our ethical models seem to take this view of clarity, how-ever. Indeed, the norm-based model specifically rejects it. This model says:be as clear as the situation demands, in the way that your readers will expect.In other words, do not be so unclear that your text is unacceptably inaccessi-ble to the people whom you would like to read it. The model stresses that theimplementation of the value of clarity is context-bound and also culture-bound.All in all, these four models are only partial ones; each covers only part of the general ethical field of translation, and each seems therefore inadequateon its own. Maybe we should go back to the beginning and start again. Thefollowing section explores an alternative route to an ethics oftranslation.3. The deontic force of excellenceWe might start with virtues rather than values. This is the position taken bythe philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre (1981), who argues interestingly against founding a general ethics on values, or indeed on rights, because of the irrec-oncilable conflicts between values and the lack of any rational way of prioritizing one right over another. MacIntyre ’ s suggestion is to return to thenotion of a ‘ virtue ’ , which he analyzes in terms of social roles. Social roles,in turn, are embedded in social practices – and this is where his ideas seemhighly relevant to any attempt to construct an ethics for a profession.MacIntyre defines a practice (not, it must be admitted, very clearly) asfollows:By a ‘ practice ’ I am going to mean any coherent and complex formof socially esta blished cooperative human activity through whichgoods internal to that course of activity are realised in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriateto, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the resultthat human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended. (1981:175)Let ’ s unpack that a bit. The key ideas are cooperative human activity and astriving for excellence . Paraphrasing, we could say that a practice is the kindof cooperative activity that involves the desire to get better and better at it.Examples given by MacIntyre are football, chess, architecture, farming, phys-ics, medicine, painting, music, politics. Thus defined, all practices involvehuman relationships.Excelling in a practice brings a sense of satisfaction in its own right (whatMacIntyre calls ‘ internal goods ’ ), quite apart from any external benefits.Entering into a practice means entering into a relationship with its historyand tradition (its narrative, in fact) and its contemporary practitioners. It also means accepting the authority of prevailing standards of excellence (at leastinitially), and striving to achieve them, even to exceed them. Achieving thisexcellence not only enriches the person involved but also the community atlarge. Roughly speaking, a virtue can then be defined as an acquired humanquality that helps a person strive for excellence in a practice (MacIntyre1981:178). Such virtues include trustworthiness, truthfulness, fairness, and the courage to take risks in caring for others. Apart from virtues, practicesalso involve purely technical skills. And they need institutions to support them.How does this point of view help us in searching for a professional ethicsof translation? Some would argue that translation is not a true profession inthe first place, because it does not seem to have a monopoly on a value goal that is not shared by other groups (compare medicine, with the value goal of health; law, for justice; teaching, for human growth; and the police, for secu-rity) (Airaksinen 1991/1993). After all, the values of cross-culturalunderstanding and cooperation are also shared by such people as diplomatsand language-teachers. But translation is clearly a practice. As such, it is cooperative, involves technical skills, is increasingly institutionalized, andseeks its own improvement via quality control systems and the training andaccrediting of recruits. Its institutionalization serves to some extent to pro-tect it and limit its legal accountability.On the other hand, its authority to restrict accreditation is very limited:anyone can set themselves up as a translator – another reason why it is diffi-cult to speak of translation as a true profession. When we speak of an ethicsof translation, do we mean to include amateurs as well as ‘ professionals ’ ?One way of answering this question would be to distinguish between some-one ‘ who is a translator ’ and someone ‘ who does translations (sometimes) ’ .Iwill focus in what follows on the first category, on the practitioner ratherthan the practice.Consider now how this notion of a practitioner naturally leads to the deonticlevel. If I say Louis is a translator, I imply that Louis therefore ought to dowhat a translator ought to do. I further imply that Louis should know what atranslator ought to do, i.e. what a good translator would in fact do; Louis thusmust have some conception of excellence in the practice of translation, somemental image of ‘ a good translator ’ . If I wanted to deny this further implica-tion, I would need to say explicitly that Louis is a bad translator. MacIntyreargues that in this way, with respect to “ functional concepts ” , ‘ ought ’ canindeed be derived from ‘ is ’ (see also C hesterman 1993). Different translatorsmight of course have different mental images of ‘ a good translator ’ , but any-one who calls themselves a translator must have some idea of what translatorsought to do.I have elsewhere shown how a simple deontic logic can be applied totranslation ethics (Chesterman 1997:172f). Roughly speaking, you discoverwhat you ought to do by assessing the outcome of a possible action in termsof the values that are thereby promoted, and comparing this outcome to whatwould probably happen if you did not take the action in question. You thendo whatever leads to the best prospective result: either that particular action,or not. In that analysis, I proposed that the relevant values guiding translatorialdecisions were truth, clarity, understanding and trust; and I showed how eachof these values governed a general translation norm. In the present context, Iwould like to focus not on the values themselves, which act as regulativeideas steering the process of ethical decision-making, but on the qualities of the decision-maker.What virtues must our ethical decision-making translator possess in orderto make the best ethical decisions? Following MacIntyre, I suggest that themost important virtue is simply the desire to make the right decision; that is,the translator must want to be a good translator, must strive for excellence inthe practice of translation. It is interesting to compare this point to the answerMacIntyre (like many others) gives to the perennial question about how tolead a good life: the good life is a life spent seeking the good.Then there are the general virtues I have already mentioned, such as fair-ness (the comparative value assessment of alternative actions must not bedeliberately biased), truthfulness (the assessment must be as honest as possi-ble), and trustworthiness (the translator must be able to defend the decisionstaken, to give evidence of reliability). To these we might also add empathy,i.e. the ability to put oneself in someone else ’ s place –the reader ’ s, the origi-nal author ’ s, the client ’ s – so as to imagine the possible effects of alternativeactions. Then there are the virtues of courage and determination not to giveup until a good solution to a translation problem is found.Other necessary qualities are not virtues as such but play a supportiverole in the striving for excellence. The translator must have adequate knowl-edge of the alternatives available: this meansobvious language skills, includingcontrastive linguistic and cultural knowledge, in order to assess the potentialeffects of different choices, in the widest sense. The translator must also haveadequate technical and research skills in order to discover and evaluate pos-sible alternatives.A first conclusion to be drawn from this approach is that it allows us torestrict the scope of professional ethics to the practice in question. Louis canbe an ethically good translator even if he is not a member of Amnesty Inter-national, Animal Rights, or the Labour Party. This means that the politicalengagement of the translator, which may affect the choice of texts to be trans-lated and also ways of translating them (see Tymoczko 2000), lies outsidethe realm of professional ethics. A translator may be actively engaged insupport of a worthy cause, and may translate in such a way as to support thiscause, but these are factors that are additional to professional ethics proper,not part of them. If Louis is an anti-fascist, and subverts the fascist texts hetranslates, he is allowing his personal ethics to dominate his professionalethics. Fair enough: we must acknowledge that there may sometimes be moreimportant things than professional ethics. It is part of a bus-driver ’ s profes-sional ethics to observe the Highway Code of traffic rules, but in an emergency,to save a life, these might be broken. Professional ethics, thus understood,govern a translator ’ s activities qua translator, not qua political activist orlife-saver.A second conclusion is that translation ethics might be defined in termsof excellence in this practice. I now want to explore a further aspect of thisexcellence, an aspect that characterizes the relation between the practitionerand the values that inspire the practice. This is the notion of commitment.4. An ethics of commitmentI take commitment to be the glue that binds practitioners to the values of thepractice. It is thus alsoa virtue, supporting the striving for excellence, the wanting to be a good translator. A commitment is often stated overtly, as a promise or oath –in the marriage service, for instance. Oaths are quintessen-tially statements of contractual ethics: they constitute contracts, bindingpromises; but they may also have utilitarian aspects, such as reference todesirable or undesirable results. Let us look at two examples of oaths of com-mitment to a practice. The first example is one of the oldest of all –the medicalprofession ’ s Hippocratic Oath. Here it is in full, with paragraph numbers added:The Hippocratic Oath(1)I swear by Apollo the healer, by Aesculapius, by Health and all the pow-ers of healing, and call to witness all the gods and goddesses that I maykeep this Oath and Promise to the best of my ability and judgment.(2)I will pay the same respect to my master in the Science as to my parentsand share my life with him and pay all my debts to him. I will regard hissons as my brothers and teach them the Science, if they desire to learn it,without fee or contract. I will hand on precepts, lectures, and all otherlearning to my sons, to those of my master and to those pupils duly ap-prenticed and sworn, and to none other.(3)I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judg-ment; I will abstain from harming or wrongdoing any man by it.。
