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Norbert Bilbeny

Bilbeny (1953) is a professor of Ethics at the University of Barcelona in Spain and is the author of many books on moral and political philosophy. Bilbeny is also an abstract painter.

In the debate surrounding multiculturalism, Bilbeny defends a philosophical perspective that takes into account intercultural ethics. He, therefore, rejects both monoculturalism and differentialist multiculturalism as potential ethical framework.

Bilbeny believes that dialog and cooperation among citizens and between cultures should be possible on the grounds of the existence of universal cognitive and emotional patterns of the human mind and behavior. As a result, an at least minimally common morality, which is more than ever necessary in our frenzied world, could grow out of these shared human dispositions. It is our ethical duty to educate one another and to and transform these shared human dispositions into common moral values.

*See a critical introduction to his work in “The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U.P., 2005)

"Bilbeny tells us of the things he sees through his window to the world. Things pass before our eyes and often we find it hard to understand their significance. Surely, however, they always leave sediment in our blood that determines man's accumulated experience. The vision of these things and situations, seen from the perspective of an insightful and fundamentally prepared spirit, gives us a literary transcription that could certainly reach various aspects except vulgarity. Reflection is constant and is expressed directly, without being dressed up and (why not mention it?) contains a certain hope and enthusiasm for the didactic capacity of intellectual argumentation. That is to say, of the word."

JOAN PERUCHO