Future Global Ethical Issues (Excerpt from the State of the Future report)

Similarly, their comments indicated value norms to be:

Some of the very interesting respondent comments are repeated below:

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  Would global ethical norms constrain the evolution of values?
  
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  Different cultures and religions may represent barriers for consensus and it is necessary to set these barriers aside.
  
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  A responsible global ethics shouldn’t allow impositions of the power of a few.
  
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  A distinction should be drawn between what people say they believe in terms of ethics and values and what they practice.
  
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  Collective judgment is better than individual judgment.
  
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  It is necessary to have a good definition of what is right and wrong.
  
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  There are no government sanctions or overwhelming public opinion that will stop someone from doing the unethical things listed here.
  
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  We have to have in mind the notion of ethical vigilance.
  
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  I think these questions will be argued on the basis of religion, so I expect them to be very divisive for large groups of people.
  
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  A basic theme is the continuing contest between group primacy and the rights of the individual.
  
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  There is a difference in outcome if societal changes happen rapidly or occur as slow transitions
  
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  There should better ways to change society than enforcement.
  
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  Large changes in world values will take more than 50 years.
  
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  I foresee things getting much worse before they get better.
  
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  Many humanitarian organizations exist; some satiate stomachs, others cure bodies, but who is going to heal souls?
  
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  What one has is a mosaic of differing local and global interests and views that must be solved locally in a global frame.
  
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  The consequences of the convergence of biotechnology, nanotechnology and information technology is a critical uncertainty in the continuing domination of human life form on earth, as will be the ethical underpinnings of the scientists who develop these technologies.
  
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  The developed world should understand that permanence is an illusion.
  
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  How can the substantial differences of religions, political models, and financial interests be resolved?
  
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  Some of the values principles e.g. "Do unto others,” utilitarianism, "Do no harm" are common but why not include other ethical systems? Categorical Imperative, Eastern thought, Authoritarianism, and religious belief?
  

There were extreme views about how the world might evolve, given these ethical issues. For example two respondents said:

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  I think that humanity will be better every year, will be more opened and compassionate, with great science and technology achievements in its favor and in favor of the planet. … That process is gradual; but the difficult thing will be to detect and support populations that suffer religious and ideological oppressors, whose tendency to grow is evident now in Latin-America and Africa, disguised very well in pseudo-democratic postulates.
  

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  The traditional nucleus of society- the family- will disappear; the concept of offspring will disappear, the human being will be seen as a couple of chemical reactions inside a bag. Birth and death will not be the basic points of life but singularities of machines. The machine society in which the human being is just another machine, that is the ethics of the future; no ethics at all as we see it today; no values at all as we see them today. Good and bad will have no meaning for the future generations.
  

Some major conclusions to be drawn from this work are:

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  The issue seen as most important changes over time:
  

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  2005-10: What is the ethical way to intervene in the affairs of a country that is significantly endangering its or other people?
  

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  2010-25: Do we have the right to alter our genetic germ line so that future generations cannot inherit the potential for genetically related diseases or disabilities?
  

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  2025-50: Do we have the right to genetically change ourselves and future generations into new species?
  

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  The issue seen as most difficult to resolve changes over time:
  

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  2005: Should religions give up the claim of certainty and/or superiority to reduce religion-related conflicts?
  

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  2010: Should a person be subjected to psychological, social, or cultural mechanisms for having the propensity to commit a crime?
  

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  2050: Do we have the right to genetically change ourselves and future generations into new species?
  

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  Some principles apply across time:
  

Human survival as a species is the highest priority.

People must be responsible for their actions or inactions.
Intolerance leads to hate and social disintegration.
Science and technology should serve society, rather than be just a pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.
Access to education is a fundamental human right.

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  The spread of operations research and religion- based principles is forecasted to grow very slowly while other categories spread more rapidly.
  

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  The more important an issue the more difficult it is to resolve.
  

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  Men and women saw the same issues as important and saw the same spread and shifts of principles across time.
  

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  Judgments by all regions about importance of issues and the spread of decision principles were similar across time.
  

We believe that it will be possible to extend this work in several directions. A third round questionnaire might ask, for example about answers to issue questions. Several respondents began in this direction from the very first questionnaire. A third round might explore an issue that one respondent brought up: the differences between personal adherence to ethical principles and observations about society’s adherence to the same principles. Finally a third round could explore the differences between beliefs and behavior: do people behave in accordance with values they profess to hold?

This work might be extended by creating ethics- based scenarios; some initial examples are:

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  The rise of trans-humanism
  
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  New attitudes toward death
  
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  The designed human
  
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  The stasis of religion
  
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  From ethics to law
  

It might be possible to test 15 challenges with resolution principles and to introduce the resolution principles to computer based decision algorithms. Finally it would be very interesting to compare the principles to classical philosophical teachings and law.

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