Searching for a Shared Ethics in an Interdependent World

The Ethical Imagination

Margaret Somerville

Searching for a Shared Ethics

• Everyone on the planet is linked by a Common Humanity and Universal responsibility.

• We’ve often pretend this is not true.

• In the past, this denial, resulted in oppression.

• Now, it harms all of us.

Searching for a Shared Ethics

• Bridge between vast differences in culture and religion.

• Fundamental values conflicts: Terrorism.• We live in a world in which when there is a

crisis somewhere, there is necessarily a crisis elsewhere, and sometimes a crisis everywhere. (Tony Blair)

Not Optional

• Finding a shared ethical base in a pluralistic, multicultural, and global society is not optional.

• It is crucial for our physical and moral survival.

• The challenge is to find consensus in diversity and difference.

Elements in the Decision Process

• Not necessarily a rational approach• May include stories, poetry, imagination,

myths, intuition (especially moral intuition), examined emotions, and the human spirit.

• Science is important, but not the only source of data.

• Use the full richness of human knowing to do ethics.

Two Concepts

• Developing a sense of the sacred that we can all share: the Secular Sacred.

• Starting with the Natural as the basis from which to start in building a shared ethics.

Something Sacred

• Deserves the deepest respect

• Nature and the Natural should be considered sacred.

• Define and defend our humanity

• Gives hope that is essential to humanity

The Innateness of Moral Sense

• Find innate principles that guide moral sense.

• We can find and agree on such principles whether or not we believe in the supernatural.

• Not only can we -- we must.

Crossing the Secular/Religious Divide

• Must be crossed in order to deal with the advance in science and technology.

• Reproductive technology

• Genetics

• Robotics

• Artificial Intelligence

Nature of Ethics

• A natural reality.

• Ethics and law are not just social constructs.

• Expressive of the deepest truths of human nature.

Techno-Science

• The right place to start looking for a shared ethics?

• Ignores the less developed parts of the world?

• --> Science knows no boundaries. <--

• The ethical issues that science raises on one country will likely effect others.

Techo-Science

• What one country does may have big effects on other countries.

• Difficult decisions about using new science in developing countries.

• Could be a model for finding a shared ethics in other areas.

Building Blocks for a Shared Ethics

• Imagination: the door to amazement.

• Imagination links many ways of knowing: scientific, mystical, spiritual, ethical, and moral.

• All are important ways of knowing.

Human Imagination

• Science does not help us understand many parts of human reality.

• We need other ways of knowing to get in touch with these parts of reality.

• Shared and individual imagination.

Stories

• Capture and express realities that cannot be put directly into words or expressed in any other way.

• Human universal: awe and wonder.

• Myths allows us to communicate about intangible realities that can’t be communicated in any other way.

Myths

• Not literally true.• Metaphorically true.• Often the only way to communicate the

truth they represent.• Picasso: Art is a lie that tells the truth.

By distorting the truth, art lets us see truths that are not otherwise obvious.

• More about meaning and purpose.

Questions that Myth Can Answer

• What does it mean to be human?

• What am I doing here?

• What is the meaning of life?

• What is my place in the cosmos?

Differences in traditions

• Finding what we have in common is crucial in searching for a shared ethics.

• However, finding differences in traditional knowledge, expressed through myths and stories, can be an important source of data for ethical consideration.

Going on Ethical Wallaby

• Walking from homestead to homestead following the tracks made by the wallabies.

• Aussie men looking for work during the Depression.

• Searching for scarce economic resouces.

Going on Ethical Wallaby

• Following our ethical sense to lead us to scarce ethical knowledge.

• May not be a straight line. • Somerville: dog tracking down a wallaby

– Zigs back and forth.– Following its nose.– Giving priority to one of its senses (nose).

Indirectness

• Indirectness forces us to exercise constraint and accept uncertainty, rather than seeking our goals through force and domination.

• “Art is a shy, crab-like, sideways movement towards tenderness, tenderness which connection makes possible.” -- E.M. Forrester.

Warning

• It would be a mistake to focus solely on myth (or any one kind of human knowing) in doing ethics, as much as it would be a mistake to focus solely on science.

• All ways of knowing must be held in dynamic balance.

Principles or Rights?

• Should ethics be based on some fundamental principles, or should it be based on rights of individuals?

• What about the universal obligation to respect every person?

• Rights-based approaches may help to implement this principle.

• Counteracts the over-legalization of ethics.

Respect for Persons

• Human Rights reflects the values of a particular cultural tradition -- a Western cultural concept.

• Responsibility is a more universal idea.• Not restricted to Western culture.• Talk of rights is not always the best tool

for the job.

What is a Shared Ethics?

• Not:– One, monolithic, universal ethics– Ethical pluralism

• We all accept everyone else’s ethics.

– Moral relativism• Anyone’s views about ethics are as good as anyone

else’s.

– Ethical cosmopolitism • equally concerned for, and bonded to, everyone.

Human Nature

• Humans have evolved to bond to:– special people– living beings– places

• We bond in a special way within these parameters and ethics should recognize and accommodate these bonds.

Human Nature

• There are parts of human nature that we should reinforce, and parts that we should not.– Anger, intolerance, jealousy, greed…

• A human ethics should maintain and promot human goodness.

Ethical Universals

• Respect for individuals

• Respect for all life

• Respect for community

• Recognition of the right to live fully

• Obligation for the needs of others

• Value for human imagination and play

Not Searching for Agreement

• Searching for common ground.

• This may result in many shared truths.

• Not all parts of the equation will overlap– May agree on the goal, but not on how to

get there, or the reason for doing so.

The Search for Ethics

• Is not a single event.

• Is a process that is ongoing.

• May involve different ways of knowing, and different values and emotions depending on the issue at hand.

What do we need?...What do we need?...

• ethical guidance• ethics requirements applicable to everyone• certainty and flexibility in application• international consensus• stimulate an ongoing international dialogue –

“ethics talk”• continuing ethics development and education