PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

Ethical issues in contemporary visual communication design practice increasingly demand a reflective approach that goes beyond the procedural guidelines and rhetoric of human-centred design. While empathy and inclusivity are often considered the foundations of design ethics, the cultural assumptions and interpretive limits of these concepts are usually under-examined. This study aims to explore how ethical reflection in design practice can be enriched through dialogue with culturally rooted moral traditions by examining Serat Wulangreh, a 19th-century Javanese literary manuscript. This study uses a hermeneutic approach to selected verses to identify the ethical orientations expressed in Serat Wulangreh's moral teachings. The analysis is supported by consultations with a Javanese cultural expert and a Javanese literary academic to maintain the accuracy of the historical and cultural context. The results reveal three dominant ethical orientations: humanity, empathy, and tolerance, understood as ethical dispositions based on inner discipline, relational awareness, and moral restraint in the context of Javanese court culture. Rather than offering a normative ethical transference, this study positions Serat Wulangreh as a contextual ethical interlocutor that complements contemporary design ethics discourse by emphasising intention, power awareness, and self-restraint. This study contributes to the study of communication and design ethics by demonstrating how non-Western moral texts can enrich ethical reflection through a dialogical approach sensitive to cultural context.