Future Global Ethical Issues (Excerpt from the State of the Future report)
AUTHORS AND THINKERS: RECENT GLOBAL ETHICS PUBLICATIONS AND IDEAS
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- FURTHER LINKS: GLOBAL ETHICS DATABASES
AUTHORS AND THINKERS:RECENT GLOBAL ETHICS PUBLICATIONS AND IDEASDavid Bohm -philosopher -the system of global ethics involves overcoming the present worldview that divides the world into groups, parties, states, etc.
-American futurist, economist, philosopher and general systems theorist -wrote that human betterment is the end toward which we individually and collectively should strive -“betterment” is an increase in the "ultimate good," that which is good in itself -Four great virtues make up this ultimate good: (1) economic adequacy - "riches" in contrast to poverty; nourishment rather than starvation; adequate housing, clothing, health care and other essentials of life; (2) justice - in contrast to injustice; equality rather than inequality in access to work, education and health; (3) freedom - in contrast to coercion and confinement; and (4) peacefulness - in contrast to warfare and strife. -these values might be considered universal values William Braud, Rosemarie Anderson (editors)recommended by Frank -Transpersonal Research Methods for the Social Sciences: Honoring Human Experience; Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications, c. 1998 David Brooks of The Weekly Standard -incredible boom of Christianity in Africa, Latin America, and Asia has created a more charismatic, conservative form of Christianity that attests to the end of an era of secularism Colleen Carroll -member of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. -interviewed nearly five hundred youths in America regarding, the rebirth of religious orthodoxy among a significant segment of young “Generation X” adults
-wrote Making Globalization Good: the Moral Challenges of Global Capitalism, 2004 -explores the ethical challenges of instituting “responsible global capitalism” (RGC) and urges a buttressing of each of RGCs four constituents—markets, governments, supra-national agencies, and civil society—upon a “strong ethical ethos” -in order for global society to better organize itself, its constituents must embrace an agreed set of core values, accept the need for a degree of cultural diversity and tolerance in regards to the interpretation of these values, and recognize that solutions to the global ethics dilemma must be a product of feedback from all systems (including capitalism, ethics, and faith) R. Buskminster Fuller -futurist -global ethics must be based on a holistic worldview with the transition from the current, entropic, stage of human evolution to a more syntropic stage and proposed design science to make the world work for everyone as the embodiment global ethics
-there are rational or "scientific" methods to formulate core values -one method starts from evolutionary theory with an implicit value of "fitness" or "viability", applied humanity as a whole, and then examined for more concrete factors -another, more empirical, method assumes that the basic value that drives most human behavior is the quest for “happiness”, or, in its more technical formulations: life satisfaction, (subjective) well-being, or (subjective) quality of life Barbara Marx Hubbard -normative futurist -we have to develop our mental and spiritual powers commensurate with our technological powers through recognition of the concept of “conscious evolution” in which humanity consciously decides together how to improve the future
-wrote Ethics and Global Politics, August 2004 -text offers a participatory approach to teaching ethics in global politics -compiles classroom-tested exercises for use in courses related to world affairs Ahwa Ong, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley and Stephen J. Collier, Core Faculty member of the New School University Program in International Affairs -wrote Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems, August 2004 -anthropological perspective of globalization, examining globalization through a specific range of indicative phenomena rather than broad structural transformations
-wrote Corporate Governance in Global Capital Markets, July 2004 -Professor of Law at the University of British Columbia -in recent years the failures of Enron, WorldCom, and other large publicly traded corporation have catapulted the issue of corporate governance onto the international stage William Schweiker -Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of Chicago -urges a fundamental re-thinking of ethics in the face of the challenges faced by the modern and globalized world -optimistic ethical outlook in Theological Ethics and Global Dynamics: In the Time of Many Worlds (2004), “we need to reframe the arena in which moral questions are asked and answered” Peter Singer -famed bio-ethicist -proposes a transitional step towards a federal global government in his 2004 book One World: the Ethics of Globalization—transforming the U.N. General Assembly into a World Assembly of democratically elected delegations from every nation, proportional to the country’s population -if a country, however, did not allow the U.N. to conduct free and open elections to the Assembly, then that country would only be granted one representative George Soros -at "Global Ethics: Illusion or Reality?" conference: “After the Kosovo crisis, there can be no doubt that global ethics is a reality” Wayne Swan -was a candidate of Australian Labour Party for Parliament -was also shadow Minister for Family and Community Services and a policy analyst for the Office of Youth Affairs -“ the pre-eminent issue facing families in western countries is their declining number…families perform a social good” -issues of repairing the family should be a major concern for global ethics projects
-more cautious view, arguing that globalization’s compression of time and space conflict, and often denigrate, cultural history and place increasing pressure on the role of the state “from above;” i.e., from transnational and international organizations Allen Tough of the University of Toronto -“Another principle is emerging: the ongoing survival and flourishing of human civilization” -necessary and urgent value that can guide many ethical decisions -principle is ‘what is most likely to contribute to humankind’s ongoing survival and flourishing’ or ‘what is best for future generations’ rather than what is best for certain individuals or for the greatest number of (already born) individuals” FURTHER LINKS: GLOBAL ETHICS DATABASESThe Center for Applied Ethics. Applied Ethics Resources on the WWW: http://www.ethicsweb.ca/resources/ Links to ethics organizations by type of ethics studied. The Georgetown Business Ethics Institute: http://www.msb.edu/prog/gbei/resources/Subjects.htm Links to ethics-related literature by subject. The Ethics Web Bookstore: http://www.ethicsweb.ca/books/ Largest ethics bookstore in the world, listed by topic. The Center for Business Ethics: http://ecampus.bentley.edu/dept/cbe/research/surveys.html Compiled list of many ethics surveys that have already been conducted. North Carolina State University’s Web Clearinghouse for Engineering and Computing Ethics: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jherkert/ethicind.html Wonderfully extensive database of ethics literature, projects, codes, mailing lists, and many other things pertinent to ethics. 2 The numbers in the second row are total of the columns; the numbers in the third row are percentages. Future Ethical Issues Download 3.09 Mb. Share with your friends:
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