Ethics, the Renaissance Introduction

CHAPTER OUTLI N E

Ethics, Science, and Values The Good News 1 Science and “Scientism” War, Terrorism, and Globalization New Determinants of Ethical Thinking Reinvigorating Ethics Wonder Justice, Class, and the Common Good Practical wisdom Power, Affluence, and Fertility Religion The Urgency for Ethical Action Regaining Our Ethical Sense Dire Consequences in the Absence of Ethics

To follow the fate of ethics in the modern the philosophic study of the social and political Western world, take a trip to the library of Am- relations of the individual to his fellow citizens herst College. If you open the 1895 catalog of and to the State, to promote that moral thought- courses, you will discover that ethics held an fulness . . . which is the strongest element in true honored primacy in the curriculum. The entire patriotism.”1 first page of the “Course of Study” is devoted to In the thinking of that time, no one who was the course on ethics. It was taught by the presi- not sophisticated in moral-value questions could dent of the college (!) to seniors, and you can see wear the cap and gown. This was faithful to a long by the grand prose used in describing the course tradition. Probing the mysteries and intricacies of that it was enshrined as the capstone of the entire morality was long seen as the supreme challenge educational process: “The aim of the course is by for the giants of genius. Arthur Schopenhauer

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5 - - As 4 (And - re 6 is the freighting of science scientism , however, , would Legalism however, signal a deteriora- , melting mighty glaciers and ancient ice 2 Environmental Environmental scientist Duane Elgin predicts So, too, It It has been said that the prodigious powers caps. that in this twenty-firstcentury, if current trends world’s the of percent 50 drive might we continue, plant and animal species to extinction. we are out jogging for health, the groundwaters below may contain the ingredients of our bodily undoing.morecontainsoften breastmilk Human toxins than are permissible in milk sold by dair ies. And take note! are Toxins so ubiquitous and evendairpermittedbyare permeatingsome that ies.Humanbodies deathat often contain enough toxins and metals to be classified aswaste, hazardous and sperm counts worldwide have fallen by 50 percent since 1938. Whales and dolphins and birds and little fungi are among our victims. call that death is the end of life; extinction is the end of birth.) The planet is now acoal mine with all kinds of canaries dropping. Elgin pares also our - com wiping out of other species an of on wings the of whom out popping rivets to depend we Only science could double-baste the CO planet in way. way. needlessinto tion and nitpicking. bickering with it burdens cannot bear and should not try to carry. Science is strong on whats and hows, but oughts.and gives Science awesome whys weakon powers, but it does not tell how to use them or whether they should be used at all. An ethics that and sensitively searchesand humbly out whys the oughts of our gargantuan talents is the divorced, are two the the When science. of spouse natural separation is a bloody. Take look at the record of fatal estrangement.this of science have created the end of the world and stored it in our nuclear silos while stuffingsoils our and foodstuffs with achemicals. hundred Most thousand of these been tested chemicals for safety, and it is have estimated that as not many as half of them are toxic to humans. - - 3 is the culprit. “-ism” is culprit. the “-ism” is value-free objectivity opened Scientism So the 1895 Amherst catalog was , Legal for example, is a wholesome 2 Ethics, Science, and Values Ethics, Science, But wait! Back to Amherst we go. By 1905, just Science and “Scientism” Poor ethics. those Even who stubbornly plied this path took to calling their books something like The Science of Ethics in a brave effortto be taken The devilseriously. here, ofcourse, is not science. Science is a noble enterprise of that gives human us genius gifts of comfort, ease, and longev table table moral-value questions, the systematic study of values (i.e., ethics) was moving oblivion. into A chimeric quest for ity that would make the Caesars of ancient Rome greenenvy. with Ethics Ethics is simply defined as the study what of good or bad for people is and for the rest of nature. The unseating ethicsof was not this limitedjust one venerable college in to Massachusetts. This revolution and denigration of the study of ethics which in pandemic cultural a of symptom was the moral evaluation yielded place to an intoxicated trust in science as savior. As science and social science were unearthing greater and more intrac the door to a world thrived and wisdom waned. where upstart cleverness wrote wrote in 1848 that “all philosophers in every age and land have blunted their wits on the question of the moral.” heir to a distinguishedheir to tradition. its from beendethroned had ethics later, years ten billing front-page and was relegated to the nether regions of the catalog as an elective for mores . . . and sopho - thus even lowly sophomores could it.avoid a nasty suffix. word, referring to the conscientious effortto sort out the conflicts and possibilities of life in a fair

4 ETHICS • Part One 5 CHAPTER 1 / INTRODUCTION • Ethics, the Renaissance - - - The 9 common good to Why would a serious and 10 To To put this talk of ethics dif- Carol Bly compares our long-time aversion to ordering, balancing, and organizing . But the right kindness, compassion, where is brain nurturing, a synthesizing sense of the whole, intuition, meta - and, phor, yes, humor and laughter flourish. Practical Wisdom. left brain, says Shlain, reasons, gives us speech and and speech us givesreasons, Shlain, says brain, left order, but it hugs less and laughs less. An overly left-brained culture is lamed. It is less equipped to do effective ethics since ethics involves both right- and left-brain powers and becomes insipid or worse if either dimension of human cognition is slighted. ferently, and ferently, in the way Aristotle would, ethics is practical wisdom. than Any more less or nothing one who findsthat description off-putting should remember that the alternative would be imprac ticality and stupidity! Ethics is no more - threaten ing science to and progress human is than a light The dumbthings we dohouse when to a mariner. moral questions are not asked is proof affairsHuman necessity. do of not unfold in a moral their vacuum. Yet even an intelligent, serious scholars like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. could write an article some years ago entitled “The Necessary Amoral- ity of Affairs.” Foreign sensitive scholar like George Kennan warn against warn Kennan George like scholar sensitive making attempts “constant at moral appraisal” in international politics and warn against “making ourselves slaves of the concepts of international law and morality”? The problem is notthat these are immoral men; the problem is that they show confusion about the nature of morality and the role of ethics. In the half century following such confused references to morality and ethics, have, we while avoiding serious “attempts at moral appraisal” and “the concepts of international law startedwars brutalunwinnable and morality,” and in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq; blocked ternational in- efforts to heal the environment; and failed poverty world address to seriously. discourse on morality and the - - - - yin. That the the effort to bring sensitivity yang over against the Science has discovered cures hidden in 7 This big-brained species itshumon- with As we destroy our natural environment, are are environment, natural our destroy we As 8 Surgeon and author Leonard Shlain argues that that argues Shlain Leonard author and Surgeon

rowed eyes fixed ontexts and tasks while losing the ecstasy is the cure for It of wide-eyed wonder. an arid technopolis, where the prizing of beauty saving, their poetrylose and art where and withers life-expanding allure. The perception of beauty be crown the jewelmay intelligence. of human as we grew in technical skills, culture lost its bal- ance, opting for “left brain” accents rather than “right the brain,” analysis, in are talents left-brain since sense makes gous gous promise becomes deadly when we lose the ability to stop and look and see and say “Wow!” after all, And is “Wow,” the very first step of- eth ics; wonder is the beginning of wisdom. Healthy ethics champions our essential capacity for awe. Done well, ethics is the cure for squinting, nar Wonder. Wonder. ous host of an earth, tucked away in this privileged this in away tucked earth, an of host ous little corner of the universe. Ethics is not a dicta- tor. It is a mind-expanding, questioning art that brakes the blind momentum fueled by unasked assumptions.questions and untested What What a dear companion ethics would have been on the long march of science. Ethics can be more formally defined as New Determinants of Ethical Thinking New Determinants of and method to the discernment of moral More . value simply yet, it is the struggle to figure what out is good and bad for us and for this gener airplane. How many airplane.rivets many How can a plane lose before it crashes? Twenty-five percent ofthe drugs- pre scribed in the United States derive from wild or ganisms. we not behaving like a stupid fetus devouring the bearswomb that us? nature nature and enhanced our lives and longevity. An obscure fungus found in the mountains of Nor way way produces a powerful suppressor of the - hu system, allowing take man immune transplants to hold.

------16 14 That new major 13 If philosophical and re If philosophical 15 ”

In a word, ethics doesn’t Loy Loy continues, saying that ket that is issuing the modern the issuing is that ket nots.” and “shalt “shalts” ligious ligious ethics stand aside, the filled. be will vacuum go away. We are never un questions the with concerned of what is good for us or bad. Historian Arnold Toynbee observed that “the distinc tion between good and evil beenby drawnhave seems to all human beings at all times and places. The drawing of it “the “the discipline of economics is less a than science the the ology ology of that religion, and its god, the Market, has become a vicious circle of con and production creasing ever-in sumption by With pretending to salvation.” secular a offer says faded away, communism is becoming Market “the Loy, the first truly world religion, binding all set corners and worldview a into of globe the of role values whose religious we overlook only because we ‘secu as them seeing on insist lar.’ that is telling us what this world - - - - 1.1 fa market Wall Wall Street, Wall Wall Street religion, he says, is our current economic system. It is the is and how we should behave in it. It is the mar seems, in fact, to be one of the intrinsic and uni versal characteristics of our common nature.” religious institutions as we serving know a significantrole them in solving today the environ mental crisis. Their more immediate problem is whether they, like the rain forests we anxiously recognizablethe survivewillform any in monitor, onslaught of this new religion.” The character Gordon Gekko Oliver Stone’s movie in 1987. http://www.imdb.com/title/ tt0094291/ [May 18, 2009]) mously made a defense of greed: “Well, in my book you either do it Thank . . . eliminated. get you or right you. I am not a destroyer of compa nies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolution ary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms— greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge—has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunc tioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.” (Oliver Stone and Stanley Weiser, thinking critically

------12 11 Throughout his If an American were to turn out a novel or story or novel a out turn to were American an If . . . in which men and women characters - con sorted together without one mention of - physi cal desire, we would wonder in reviews and at lunch Yet why the suppressedauthor sexuality. hundreds of novels and stories offer us Ameri- can characters who live out their lives without any political and ethical - anxi becalling to ought We ety. because suppression, it we are as much political and moral creatures as we are creatures.sexual Religion. sexual sexual suppression and notes how our literature eerie this mirrors emptiness: tory, tory, those conglomerations known as the world’s gions reli have been moralcen tric in their concern. Amid all of their myths and stories, their mission has been two fold: to figure out what this world is and what our role in it should be. Religions have been the loudest and most influential voices ining “Thou shalts” and “Thou issu shalt As nots.” Buddhist phi losopher David Loy points out, the “traditional religions fulfilling role less and are this less, because that function is being supplanted—or over whelmed—by other systems and value systems.” belief He He is not yet ready to label the world’s major religions but “moribund,” he doesn’t shy from saying that conventional of think somewhatto ludicrousis “it

6 ETHICS • Part One 7 CHAPTER 1 / INTRODUCTION • Ethics, the Renaissance - - If current

19 animal animal , rationale apocalypticists indict us with 18 One perspective,find unrealistic, which I don’t is of humanity as approaching its extinction as a zoological species. The idea has often dis turbed people. . . . For my part I cannot it find especially disturbing. Humanity as a species will at some time with certainty cease to exist; whether it happens after hundreds of triflingis fewaftera yearscenturies or of sands - thou considers one perspective.When cosmic the in how many species humans have made an end of, then such a natural nemesis can seem justified. perhaps Playwright Playwright and former Czech Republic presi New York University physics professor Marty A dire conclusion presses in on us: Contemporary Dire Consequences in the Absence of Ethics Absence in the Dire Consequences Finnish philosopher Georg Henrik von Wright calmness: with chilling says dent Vaclav dent Havel Vaclav warns that if we endanger the a of interests the in us with dispense will she earth, higher value—that is, life itself. Lynn Evolutionist rest the that saying chorus, grim the joins Margulis of the life earth’s did very well without us in the future. the in us without very well do will and past Hoffert addsto this gloom boom: “It may be that warming,global earthsolve the to going not we’re is going to become an years million hundred few a in visit ecological willsomebody disaster, and and findthere were some intelligent beings who handle couldn’t just they but while, a for here lived high to hunter-gatherers being from transition the possible.” entirely It’s technology. this this judgment: that the two greatest disasters to hit planet this generous beenhave (1) - the asteroi dal pummeling of sixty-five million years that ago extinguished the dinosaurs and other life-forms and (2) the arrival of the rogue species that calls itself (all too prematurely) the animal. rational the trends continue, not. we will - - - - sci will , , the more = more aetas aurea globalization . The valuejudgments ofthis new 17 axiom is being dashed with vigorous critique. vigorous with dashed being is axiom Regaining Our Ethical Sense Something is happening. Ethics is making a come a making is Ethics happening. is Something back, and the door to it has been opened by our most basic emotion, fear. Respected as itself, “Development” now!” voices crying,“Apocalypse are The questioned. being is “progress,” as well good If we were to return to tenth-century Europe, we would find the belief that the fallingupon is us. night of shadow the and ping golden golden age, had ended and culture was spiraling down. Citizens of that age believed that we were born too late with nought but gloom and doom our Eight destiny. centuries that later, myth did a total reversal as we got smarter with our toys and tools and suddenly the “golden age” moved from becameyet” seen nothing ain’t “We future. to past our myth and faith. It was morning in the world. dip is sun the day, our in sudden, a of all now, But But if ethics is not done openly and honestly, it will be done surreptitiously, as is happening with the economic system and the naïve faith that entific = good religion are influential butthe ethics itcontains stays under wraps. If economic dogma dismisses the claims of the environment as an “externality” and sees human irrelevantrights and essential needs as categories that do not compute, moral badly made and made bewill politicalchoices and on these issues, and the earth and its beleaguered poorwillcalledperish. thing A be hailed like the return of Elijah or the second coming of Jesus Christ, and the dynamics of the market will be seen to be as natural and unchal lengeable as the law of gravity. With ethics thus supplanted, and with science giving us daunting new power, earth-wrecking can proceed and apace the accumulating debris becomes the price And so ofindeed business.” “doing it has come to pass. - —still, with all 21 war. War has reached a The old principle of“non- lenging the of inevitability moral turning point where it can no longer do more good than harm, the basic test of every moral choice. Therea - sons offered for war cannot be truthful; it can never de- it promises.liver what combatant immunity” has become infeasible. Science has ended the possibility of limiting the horrors of war to uniformed combatants. If ethical rock-solid a as take we principle—and we should— children for good is what that is good and what is bad for children is ungodly, the new data are grim. to journalist According Chris Hedges, “More than 2 million - chil dren were killed in wars dur ing the 1990s. Three times that number were disabled or seriously injured. Twenty In the wars of the 1990s, civilian 22 - - - - - 1.2 . She . Silent SpringSilent Terrorism, by Terrorism, definition, meansthe deliberate deaths deaths constituted between 75 and 90 percent of con- terrorism and war makes That deaths. war all respectability of the away takes and vertibleterms the havoc we euphemistically call Nuclear “war.” weapons have moved war from thinkable to un- preparedhave the end of the world thinkable. We in our arsenals.and packed it away killing of civilians to achieve your political goal. of that, realists, not just idealists, are now - chal million children were displaced from their homes in 2001 alone.” 149 wars between 1945 and 1992, with more - ap pearing since as groups of humans bang “against one another with no more plan or principle than molecules in an overheated gas” Silent Spring Silent as produced for the - The American Experience Read Carson’s book, Carson’s Read Silent Spring PBS series Boston. by WGBH-TV, (Mariner Books, 2002), or see the televised presentation, now on DVD, of tal policy and ecological conscious ness. Her book was translated into twenty-two languages. was attacked and called “an ignorant “an called and attacked was andhysterical woman,” but her work sparked a revolution in environmen Rachel Carson was a biologist work ing for the federal government when she first noticed the effects of unregu lated use of pesticides and cides. herbi In 1962, at a time when her health was failing, she published her controversialwork, thinking critically

- - 20 Mother Mother Spirituality is often the War, Terrorism, and Globalization Terrorism, War, vi- state-sponsored the when time a at now write I olence we call “war” is simultaneously rampaging and getting embarrassed. though were there Even The Good News The Good Thegood news, in a hedged sort of way, issome that say it is not too late. Christopher Flavin of Worldwatch Institute (which has led worriers the for years) wise greeted 2007 with an article entitled “It May Not Be Too reassur about as That’s Late.” ing as the pilot announcing: “This plane may not crash.” opportu- an signal does it But nity to ask, “What’s wrong?” and to invite in that pline disci- called ethics, specializes in such questions which and in the task of awakening consciences. code word for ethical awak ening. Interest in it is sud- denly in vogue. Indeed, spiri- tuality is more popular than religion. People who would not darken the door church, temple, of or a mosque are open to spirituality. The discussion left-wing in- of vestigative magazine Jones devoted a whole issue to with spirituality, the cover title “Believe It or Not: Spiri- NewIs the tuality Religion.” Books and articles appear on defi- many are There workplace. the in spirituality nitions and notions of what spirituality is, but the phenomenon signals a for hunger the clear think ing that ethics is charged modern with mind is also being focused on because of providing. The demythologization ongoing the of war.

8 ETHICS • Part One 9 CHAPTER 1 / INTRODUCTION • Ethics, the Renaissance - That opensthe That 24 Anyone who has exchanged 25 Globalization of commerce adds clout to the The new lesson we are learning isthat - intelli who repeats his folly” (Prov. 26:11). Yet, ironically, ironically, Yet, 26:11). folly”repeats his who (Prov. the American dogs of war have given a lesson to the world on the wisdom of the United Nations Charter. Witness the United States’ fatal follies in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. None of these killing adventures passes the elementary “more good than harm” test. TheUnited States while in militaristic heat has been the unwitting witness of traditional war. inutility the to dollars for euros will know that that collapse is well begun. Declining empires ethical They require night. into gently not go They are dangerous. care. intensive door to a new ethical critique of state-sponsored a bloodyviolence, clarity of thought. to invitation lesson. A Chinese official was quoted on televi- sion shortly after the American invasion of Iraq - coun people invade Americans: to “You saying as tries that are rich in oil. We simply buy the cheaper It’s oil. and no one He gets could hurt.” have added: “If you insist on warring, we will lend you then and interest handsome at so do to money the we will use that interest to buy It oil.” is a lovely thing for our species when doing good and do- ing well happily coincide. Such is the case now as nonviolent modes of power are proving more ef- and enriching.ficient gent economics and diplomacy trump bludgeon- ing as is we It promising that policy. live in an age Em- anachronistic. becoming is too, empire, when pire is the exploitation of the weak by the power The might. economic militaryand are tools Its ful. United States has been having a go at it, but its empire is cracking at the seams. Environmental professor Vaclav Smil, writing three years before the 2008 financialcollapse, predictedthat within a short time “there will be a profoundly altered United States: economically weaker and techni- cally less competent, with an impotent currency, rampant corruption, and distant superpower memories glory.” of ------23 pacifism that - political interde economic and standing standing that recourse to war between states could no longer be treated as a matter of na tional discretion, but must be regulated to the extent possible through rules administered by frame legal basic The institutions. international multi a Charter, UN the in embodied was work diplo American by crafted largely treaty lateral was feature essential Its advisers. legal and mats to entrust the Security Council with adminis international to recourse of prohibition a tering force (Article 2, Section 4) by states except in circumstances of self-defense, which itself was attack” “armed prior a to responses to restricted (Article 51), and only then until the Security claim. review the to chance the had Council World World War II ended with the historic under TheUnited Nations Charter proposed an idea This policing paradigm is not War War has transmogrifiedinto terrorism, bringing the human race to a crossroads. Science has - re written the medieval script. The new choice for ac war—or to alternatives find this: is humankind cept terrorism as your only defense. Europe, that military tinderbox of yore, now exemplifies the war:to alternative pendence. In the European Union, they don’t go and theybargain anymore; other each warwith to they negotiate. that may have seemed idealistic in the ashes World of War II but now has become sheer prac ticality. As international law expert Richard Falk writes: says says that all killing is evil. that any It nation planning stipulates, to attack rather, another mili- tarily must face not only that nation but all na- tions coordinated—police style—into an - interna tional security Thisforce. would be an impressive deterrent. Of course, nations, and especially the United States, have trashed this historic initiative warring. to approach vigilante the to returned and “Like a dog returning to its vomit is a stupid man ------tice, tice, and distributive justice. I will present a model that illustrates how every soci- ety labors to find a balance between individual and the common good good (see p. 56). I’ll accept the - chal lenge of defining “the com- mon good,” a slippery term that is often used and rarely tied down. I will argue that all systems of law with more or less success are operating within this trinity of justice Justice, Class, and the Common Good Justice requires special han- dling and I will give it spe- cial stress. Studies of justice list more than fiftyforms of justice. I will argue that all these are reducible to three: commutative (or - inter-in dividual) justice, social jus “the hazards of hazards politi moral, “the discourse.” economic and cal, Theseinclude such things as forgetfulness, strategic myth, momentum and mood, false analogues and seductive ab stractions, and more. At ev ery point the method here developed fights the TINA (There Is No temptation. The Alternative) TINA syn drome paralyzes social ethi cal like a discourse collective stroke. cerebral - - 1.3 takes takes place there. Many are the that forces boggle the mind on the road to truth. Thesehave to be dealt with. Hence, this method has a chapter on Good people proceed while considering that what is best for others is best for themselves. (Hitopadesa, Hinduism) Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (Leviticus 19:18, Judaism) Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that people should do to you, do ye ever so to them. (Matthew 7:12, Christianity) Hurt not others with that which pains yourself. (Udanavarga 5:18, Buddhism) What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others. (Analects 15:23, Confucianism) No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself. (Traditions, Islam) The Golden Rule, “Do unto others ties of humankind. • • • • • • as you would have them do unto you,” unto do them havewould you as is one of humankind’s highest nearly and universally held ideals, it can and be found in essence in all the greatreligions of the world. Religions, repositoriesthe are faults,their all with importantmostthe sensitiviofsome of Moralitynotisjustmatter a theofcus tomsofthe tribe you happen tobe in. Some moral insights are remarkably resonant throughout very cultures. different thinking critically ------since timid minds minds timid since Reinvigorating Ethics Ethics Reinvigorating Human knowledge Human is plu courage Practicality invites a reinvigorated ethics to fresh analysis of the use of collec stray reluctantly from miring the pastures of the tried and Historythe familiar. is a maelstrom and our knowing tive force and to investigate power of modes multiple the overlooked by the military mind. This book will address the neglected art of peace- making and present a power chart showing the ethical - al kill-power. to ternatives riform; there are multiples ways by which we achieve bring that reality contact. To focus,analytical I into reality tool, architectonic an employ a wheel model that includes questions diagnostic of hub a to guard against the hazard of incomplete information and then develops nine ways in which human intelligence makes contact with ity. Thewheel model will be real discussed in detail starting in chapter 7. Some of those cognitive modalities are ob vious and not neglected in most standard treatments of obvious, less are some ethics; like tragedy, comedy, affect, and creative creativ stresses method This imagination. fac moral supreme our as ity relationship its show and ulty to

10 ETHICS • Part One 11 CHAPTER 1 / INTRODUCTION • Ethics, the Renaissance - - Cor 28 demos; Post–World War II Post–World America was a 27 Ethics to a large extent is a study of power, and is to a a Ethics extent large study of power, For For two hundred years, the affluent part of drunken youngster. Thedrunken sheddingyoungster. of illusions and - ongo now Our us. upon are maturing of pains the ing value quake compares well to what happened in Japan more than a century ago. Commodore Perry in 1853 opened eyes and ports had Japan been hid- Bay. ships steamed Yedo into when his Now, tumults. unavoidable its and reality from ing our meeting are nation humbling slowly this in we Yedo Bay as new realities and our limits meet a change. new of rapid day power in our day is mutating (as I will show in a operate that power of modes multiple the of graph in society) Following the of Treaty in Westphalia 1648, sovereignty was attributed to the individual nation-state, and all laws and wars accepted that arrangement as a law of nature. Slowly and with- out fanfare the nation-state has been shorn of its hegemony. Behemothic entities, called corpora- tions, have arisen, displacing the power of states. the at arrived have we it, of note little taking While point where “of the world’s one hundred largest economies, fiftyare now corporations—not in- cluding banking and financial institutions.” In the United States where I write, the halcyon eu- halcyon the write, I where States United the In phoria that followed World War II and lingered for two decades was pregnant with illusions and false hopes. Thomas Aquinas that young sagelypeople and drunks observed are most liable to false hopes. porate porate lobbies muscle out the voice of the democracy becomes lobby-ocracy. When sheer power acts without ethical reflection,the people perish, earth and the with them. the world has been on orgy mode. I’ve never at tended an but orgy, I imagine can’t they end on a happy note. This one is not ending as merrily, the time of normalized slowly crashes. excess When I was born, there were some two and a half billion number that triple are There planet. the on people now with no date certain for a cap on growth. It - - 26 class, working on the thesis that if you show I think there are good reasons for suggesting that the modern age has ended. many Today, things indicate that we are going transitional through period, when a it seems that some- thing is on the way out and something else is painfully being born. It is as if something were crumbling, decaying and while something else, still indistinct, were aris exhausting itself, rubble.ing from the Ethics Ethics has to put major stress on the category Power, Affluence, and Fertility Power, way: put it this Havel Vaclav forms. Traditional economics often slights core the significance of essential human of the relationship need to human rights. Healthy need and justice theory does not. I will illustrate this jus tice theory by application to thorny preferential affirmative issues action, the distribution of like limited resources including organs for transplant, debt cancellation in response to poverty crises, and taxation of international money exchanges. I will also argue that basic health care is a human right like the right to literacy or the right to vote, afford can you if gotten be to item consumer a not theoryit. heart the Justice is at of all those issues. of me your zip code, I will usually get a good peek as as well your wallet. your conscience into Moral judgments often gush forth from our perceived interests, with little intervening reflection or cri- tique. “People go after what they perceive to be in their own said interests,” the apostle Paul to the Philippians, sounding almost like a member the Chicago of School of Economics. Transcending narrowly conceived self-interest in ways that fa- the at and, good, common the and community vor same time, guarding a sensible self-interest, is a perennial ethical challenge, and we’ll wrestle with it here. - the the ethics and egoism. They definitely do not Some years ago I spoke on demographic issues Our genes, it seems, are a mixed bag with an The Urgency Action for Ethical ethics and justice theory, especially that painful redistribution. word So there is much that is harshly new in this time, but there is also something that is not new. The human race has always teetered between barbar ity and with morality, morality only slowly estab- lishing its claims. This dialecticcontinues new with tones. The stakes, ofcourse, are higher now. Technological barbarians are more But dangerous. the gateway to an alternative to barbarism is, as it always has been, ethical reflection. The an- like is heart his in not reflects who “He said: cients The true. not is really That perishes.” that beast the reflection, they beastsEven without off. better are have instinct that imbues them with the wisdom of survival. at program officers Foundation Ford groupof a to stopped we When Greece. Athens, near meeting a for a twenty-minute break, they urged me upon return to explain better the terms common common good . I headed down a dirt path leading to the sparkling Aegean Sea. Ahead of me I saw what looked like a black ribbon stretched across the path. As I neared it, I saw it was two rows of black ants, one row carrying something and the other row obviously returning for a load. A real estate move was in process. I stepped columns over reverently the and went down to feast the on beauty of the waters. On my return the ants were gone, their mission accomplished. What a splendid example they gave me to bring back to the Ford Foundation people. All those ants were committed to the common good. There were no divisive special-interest groups, no shirkers from the mission. This commitment to the common good was inscribed genes. in their inbuilt tilt toward - Appetite Appetite = Apocalypse. +

Affluence H + A + A = A 29 And that agenda is the very stuff of + 31 But not by condoms alone shall we be 30 It It is a rule of nature for any species: we limit Hyperfertility As a colleague from India said to intent me, on making “We all are the mistakes you made but making them If faster.” everyone were to live as North Americans and Europeans live, the planet could not sustain more than three billion of us. several would require It supplementary planets to keep partythe going. into But as people “develop” affluence, their appetite growsaccordingly, apocalypse The apocalypse. and to road the lies therein on impinging dimly only is startedbut already has our collective awareness. Hunger has forty million Some killer. mostefficient war as the replaced people die every year from hunger and poverty- related causes—the equivalent of three hundred passengers the of half with daily, crashes jet jumbo being children. all depends on those more than one billion - ado lescents who dwell among us. Half the people on the planet are under twenty-five. Thereare more young fertiles on the planet now than there were people in 1960. Their reproductive behavior unpredictable. Poverty as is well as orgiastic excess swell, numbers our As over-reproductivity. to lead looms:a terrible formula saved. As ethicist James Martin-Schramm writes, there must also be a redistribution “of land and income, improvement in access to education and employment, the elimination of discrimination based on race or sex, and substantial ment - improve in access to affordable housing, food, and health care.” essary. our numbers, or nature will do it for us. the We, ethical animal, are the only species canthat make that decision reflectively and freely.Family plan- ning is not a luxury. It is essential and will always be so: family planning means contraception with access to safe abortion as an option when nec

12 ETHICS • Part One 13 CHAPTER 1 / INTRODUCTION • Ethics, the Renaissance

- Questions for Discussion Explain the new way of going to war (see Charter Nations ac United the to cording p. 9). Why is this called the “policing” way prospectivein- deter it would How war? of vaders? Advertisers say that if they know your zip code, they can say what you wear, drive, and eat. Does one’s zip code signal one’s “class” and therefore also tell something of one’s conscience? Does your economic it? influence just or conscience control class What moral questions were ignoredthe as ongoing ecological crisis What moral unfolded? questions should have been asked?

1. 2. 3. Justice Market Moral/morality Noncombatant immunity Pacifism paradigmPolicing Practical wisdom Redistribution Religion Scientism Spirituality objectivityValue-free War of long-ago dead men—and a few women—it is ethicists who have made it so. I have strived not its with life about is Ethics sin. that in them join to tragedy its and varietycomedy, and its shocks, its conundrums and its dreams. None of that should be boring. Key Terms Summary of Key Themes Ethics provides insight into how we how into provides insight Ethics live our lives in concert to should or ought as provides science insight with nature, is possible be what and how it might into achieved—two need disciplines that to in tandem.work The limits and of science economic reasoning ethicaladdress implications to threat the behavior—notably, of human of war and terrorism— and practice demand a renewed ethical sense of all people. human for exist consequences Dire and animal populations unless power of affluent excesses and the relationships transformed.lifestyles are If ethics seems dull, and often it does when it is it doeswhen it often and seemsdull, ethics If Animal rationale Animal Apocalypticists Common good Courage Demos Egoism Ethics Globalization H + A + A = A Hyperfertility • • • propel propel us generously toward the common good. species, our the fill For inscription genetic doesn’t bill. For us, the alternative is ethics, that delicate activity of moral beings. We will neither survive nor flourish by instinct, but onlythe activation by consciousness.of our moral reduced to a rehearsal of the unapplied thoughts - Nashville: - Abing Vision for a Sustainable Loving Loving Nature. What Every Person Should Know 2008. http://www.worldwatch.org (July New York: Free Press, Free 2003. New York: War. about don, 1991. World. World. 2009). Visit this website to see what issues are being discussed today on the global environ ment. Hedges, Chris. Nash, James A. Worldwatch Institute. Oxford Oxford said that Wall Wall Street Environmental Environmental Ethics. Suggestions for Further Reading Suggestions for Further Gordon Gekko in greed is good. Aristotle said that holds justice human community together. Could greed If not, not? why do that? Readings in Philosophy. New Press,University 1995. York: Oxford 4. Elliot, Robert, ed.

14 ETHICS • Part One