A Global Approach to Ethics Born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1946, and educated at the University of Melbourne and at Oxford University, he has taught at Oxford, La Trobe, and Monash Universities. Since 1999 he has been Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. From 2005 he has also held the part-time position of Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, in the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. Peter Singer first became recognized internationally after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975. Subsequently, he has written many books including: ; The Expanding Circle; How Are We to Live?; The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason); and most recently, The Life You Can Save. A NEw wORLD poration to pay to clean it up, and compensate when the United those affected. If that is a fair principle—that States and For most of the eons of human existence, people the polluter should pay, that those who cause the living only short distances apart might as well, problem are responsible for fixing it—then the de- Australia refused for all the difference they made to each other’s veloped nations should be paying the costs of to sign the Kyoto lives, have been living in separate worlds. A river, global warming. They are not only the biggest Protocol, they a mountain range, a stretch of forest or desert, a polluters now, they have been for the past cen- were making other sea—those were enough to cut people off from tury or more. Most of the carbon dioxide emit- each other. Over the past few centuries the iso- ted by the developed nations over that period is nations bear the lation has dwindled, slowly at first, then with in- still up in the atmosphere. These countries are burden of taking creasing rapidity. Now people living on opposite currently using far more than their fair share of the first steps sides of the world are linked in ways previously the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb their toward dealing unimaginable. This is not only because of the ob- waste gases. That statement holds true on any vious technological changes that enable us to fly plausible criterion of fairness. with the problem to the far side of the world in less than 24 hours, Suppose that instead of asking who is re- of global warming. nor the instant communication made possible by sponsible for the problem of global warming, the phone, television, and the Internet. It is, most we forget about the past, and focus only on the significantly, because almost everything we do, present. (This is very generous to the developed from clearing forests and raising cattle to driving a nations, because it effectively wipes the slate car, affects the climate of the entire planet and is clean, forgiving them for what they have done bringing changes that cause, in parts of the world so far to cause the problem we all face. It al- far from us, crops to fail, sea levels to rise, hurri- lows them to make a fresh start from now on.) canes to form with greater frequency, and tropical We might then compare the ethical problem of diseases to spread beyond their previous ranges. global warming to the familiar question of how Unfortunately our ethics has not changed in we should divide a cake if, say, there are eight keeping with this shrinking of distance. I will fo- people and each one would enjoy eating a quar- cus on two important aspects of this new close- ter of the cake. The most obviously fair way of ness, where we most urgently need to take a dividing the cake would be to give everyone an more global ethical approach: , equal share. By that rule, the US, Canada, and and our obligations to the world’s poor. Then I Australia take about five times as much cake as will conclude with some reflections on the need their fair share, and the European nations take to develop a new global political system. more than twice their fair share. So on this prin- ciple too, it is the developed nations that need CLImATE CHANGE AS AN ETHICAL ISSUE to cut their emissions most drastically. We could also consider another possible cri- If the world continues to increase the emission terion of fairness, one associated with the Ameri- of greenhouse gases at its present rate, the con- can philosopher John Rawls. Perhaps fairness sequences will be disastrous. The brunt of the requires that the better-off should sacrifice more impact will most likely be borne by the world’s to help the worst-off, and those who have the poor, who have less ability to adapt to change. greatest capacity to help should do the most? They will have nowhere to go if rising sea levels If we accept that view, then because the North inundate their land. If the rains on which they American and European nations, together with rely to grow their crops should fail, they will Japan and Australia, are among the richest na- have nothing to eat. tions in the world, they should be prepared to The United States, with less than 5% of the give up more in order to help those nations that world’s population, emits about 25% percent are worse off. of the world’s greenhouse gases. Australia and When the United States, under President Canada have similarly disproportionate emission George W. Bush, and Australia, under Prime levels. The nations of the European Union, taken Minister John Howard, refused to sign the Kyoto as a whole, have per capita emission levels that Protocol, they were—as the only two industrial- are only about half those of the United States, ized nations not to sign—making other nations but still much higher than the per capita emis- bear the burden of taking the first steps toward sions of developing nations. dealing with the problem of global warming. (Af- What does ethics have to say about this? When ter a change of government, Australia subse- a corporation pollutes a river, we expect the cor- quently signed the Protocol. As for the United

A GLOBAL APPROACH TO ETHICS PETER SINGER 259 States, President Barack Obama has said that regarded as 25 times more potent, in causing he accepts that the United States must be part global warming, than a ton of carbon dioxide. of the solution to climate change, but at the That makes methane highly potent, but this time of writing the United States has still not level of potency is heavily outweighed by the signed the Protocol or set limits to its green- very much smaller quantities of methane pro- house gas emissions.1 duced by ruminants, when compared with the The Kyoto Protocol was not, in itself, enough. quantities of carbon dioxide produced by coal- It was always intended as a first step, and did burning power stations. Hence methane emis- not bind China, India, or any developing nations. sions from ruminants are widely seen as being Eventually, these nations must also accept lim- of much less concern than burning coal to gen- its to their greenhouse gas emissions. But the erate electricity. developed nations must lead by example, ac- The reason why, over the next century, meth- knowledging that they have very high per capita ane will be only 25 times as potent as carbon di- levels of greenhouse gas emissions, and that this oxide in causing global warming is that it breaks is harmful to the entire world. They must make down much more quickly. Unless we find new it clear that they are serious about changing that ways of taking carbon dioxide out of the atmo- situation. In contrast, although China is now, by sphere—something not economically feasible at some calculations, the largest emitter of green- present—about a quarter of every ton of carbon house gases in the world, its large population dioxide we emit now will still be up there warm- means that it still has relatively modest per cap- ing the planet in 500 years. But with methane, ita emissions. India’s per capita emissions are two-thirds of it will be gone in ten years, and much lower still, although its large and growing by the end of 20 years, 90 percent of it will population, together with its increasing prosperi- have broken down. Suppose, however, that in- ty, means that it also has the potential to become stead of taking 100 years as our time frame, we a very major emitter in coming decades. asked which emissions will contribute to climate There are many ways for the affluent nations change over the next 20 years. Then the differ- to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Most ence in breakdown becomes less significant, and of them are moving away from coal-based elec- a ton of methane is not 25, but 72 times more tricity generation, because burning coal releases potent than a ton of carbon dioxide in warming vast quantities of carbon dioxide that, at least our planet. That dramatically changes the equa- at present, we have no economical way of cap- tion in terms of which gases should be the target turing. For this reason, some suggest a switch of our drive to reduce emissions. to nuclear power. But that carries significant Which time frame should we use, 100 years risks in itself, since we still do not know how to or 20? There are compelling reasons to choose safely store nuclear waste. Since September 11, the shorter period. Many scientists warn that 2001, the heightened risk of nuclear material we are in danger of passing the “point of no falling into the hands of terrorists, or of a terror- return” after which the planet will continue to ist attack on a nuclear facility, makes building warm no matter what we do. This is because nuclear power stations even more hazardous. warming can create feedback loops that rein- There is a much simpler way in which the de- force the warming trend. Snow and ice reflect veloped nations could reduce their greenhouse back the sun’s warming rays. As the arctic ice gas emissions. Among those who have followed cap melts, there will be less reflection, and the the debate about climate change, most now un- sun will warm the earth more than it does now. derstand that rumination—which is involved in Similarly, as the permafrost melts in Siberia, the digestive process of animals like cattle and it releases methane—which in turn will cause sheep—produces methane, and that methane more warming. If we are approaching the point is a potent greenhouse gas. But few understand of no return, at which catastrophe becomes in- just how significant a role reducing the number evitable, there is little point in focusing on what of ruminant animals could play in helping us impact the gases we are emitting now will have to avoid reaching the point of no return. This is in 2100. Twenty years is the right time frame largely because discussions about which human because if we don’t do something drastic by 1 activities contribute most to climate change are then it may well be too late. The methane figures are taken from the Inter- usually framed in terms of the impact those ac- Using the factor of 72 to convert methane to governmental Panel on Climate Change, Fourth Assessment Report, 2007, Technical Sum- tivities will have over the next century. Taking carbon dioxide equivalent dramatically changes mary, table TS.2 (see also Smith 2009). that perspective, a ton of methane is generally the balance between the contributions to global

260 THE mULTIPLE FACES OF GLOBALIZATION warming made by ruminant animals and by coal- …whatever a man has in superabundance is fired power stations. It means that for some owed, of natural right, to the poor for their countries, cattle and sheep are the most im- sustenance. So Ambrosius says, and it is also portant source of global warming. Australia’s to be found in the Decretum Gratiani: “The livestock, for example, produce 3.1 megatonnes bread which you withhold belongs to the hun- of methane. When we multiply that 3.1 mega- gry: the clothing you shut away, to the naked: tonnes by 72, we get 223 megatonnes of carbon and the money you bury in the earth is the dioxide equivalent—significantly more than the redemption and freedom of the penniless.” 180 megatonnes of carbon dioxide produced by Australia’s coal-fired power stations (AGO 2006). In the world today there are many people who Many other countries have very significant meth- “have in superabundance.” By which I mean that, ane emissions from livestock, including Brazil, after satisfying all their needs—for food, shelter, India, and the United States. warmth, clothing, health care, and education, for The importance of eating less meat, if we themselves and their children, and some provi- are to slow climate change, has been widely un- sion for those needs to be met in the future as derstood at least since 2006, when the Unit- well—they have money left over for items that ed Nations Food and Agriculture Organization are not, by any stretch of the imagination, needs. produced its report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, If you have money to spare for good restaurants, which said that livestock was responsible for concerts, vacation travel, books, CDs, DVDs, or more emissions than transport. In 2008 Rajen- clothing that you buy because you like it rather dra Pachauri, the chair of the IPCC, made an than because you need it, you are, in a word, explicit call to individuals, saying: “Please eat rich. Aquinas could never have envisaged the less meat—meat is a very carbon intensive com- kind of wealth many people have today—think modity… this is something that the IPCC was only of central heating and air-conditioning, of afraid to say earlier, but now we have said it” exotic fresh fruits from both temperate and trop- (ABC News 2008). ical lands delivered to your door, of being able to I am not suggesting that traditional herding visit all the wonders of the world. Aquinas would people who have no real alternatives to eating ru- have thought most middle-class citizens of in- minant animals should abandon their way of liv- dustrialized nations today to be unimaginably ing. But the numbers of animals they have is tiny rich, and the same goes for those able to live a compared to the vast hordes of cattle, and to a comparable lifestyle in other countries. lesser degree sheep, raised in the United States, We are very far from sharing our abundance Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Eliminat- with those in need. In the same world in which ing these animals could be a major step towards more than a billion people live at a level of af- slowing climate change. Moreover it is some- fluence never previously known, 1.4 billion oth- thing that is technically simple. Unlike phasing er people struggle to survive on the purchasing out coal-fired power stations, it does not require power equivalent of less than $US1.25 per day. replacement by either a technology that already (That is, they actually live on much less than exists but is dangerous or a technology that still $US1.25 a day. They live on what $US1.25 needs to be invented, like solar electricity gen- would buy in their countries. At official rates eration efficient enough to replace coal. We can of foreign exchange, it might be as little as 50 cease to eat ruminant animals right now, and US cents a day.) Most of the world’s poorest it will not bring our way of life to a halt. In fact people are undernourished, lack access to safe we’ll be healthier for it. Of all the ways in which drinking water or even the most basic health ser- people in affluent nations could rapidly reduce vices, and cannot send their children to school. their contribution to climate change, ceasing According to UNICEF, the United Nations Chil- to raise ruminant animals—essentially, cattle drens’ Fund, nearly ten million children die every and sheep—is the one we could most easily year—27,000 per day—from avoidable, - achieve within the next decade. related causes.2 In an article I wrote on this topic in 1972, at OUR OBLIGATIONS TO THE POOR the time of a humanitarian emergency in what 2 is now Bangladesh, I asked readers to imagine The poverty line is set by the World Bank, Let me now turn to the issue of global poverty. that they were walking by a shallow pond when which also calculates the number of people living under it. For the UNICEF figure on the Consider this quotation, from Thomas Aquinas, they saw a small child who has fallen into the deaths of children under five, see http://www. more than 700 years ago: pond and appears to be in danger of drowning unicef.org/childsurvival.

A GLOBAL APPROACH TO ETHICS PETER SINGER 261 our obligation (Singer 1972). In this situation, even though we wealth that should benefit them into a curse to the poor is not did nothing to cause the child to fall into the that leads to a cycle of coups, civil wars, and pond, almost everyone agrees that if we can save corruption. Research confirms that the more a one of providing the child at minimal inconvenience or trouble to developing country’s economy depends on natu- assistance to ourselves, we ought to do so. Anything else would ral resources the less likely it is to be a stable strangers, but of be callous, indecent, and, in a word, wrong. The democracy (Lam and Wantchkeon 2003; Jensen compensation for fact that in rescuing the child we may, for ex- and Wantchkeon 2004). ample, ruin a new pair of shoes, is not a good In this light, our obligation to the poor is not harms that we have reason for allowing the child to drown. Similarly one of providing assistance to strangers, but of caused, and are if for the cost of a pair of shoes, we can contrib- compensation for harms that we have caused, still causing, ute to a health program in a developing country and are still causing, to them. We need to stop to them. that stands a good chance of saving the life of a the actions that harm them, and compensate child, we ought to do so. them for the harm we have done up to now. Perhaps, though, our obligation to help the It might be argued that we do not owe the poor is even stronger than this example implies, poor compensation, because our affluence actu- for we are less innocent than the passer-by who ally benefits them. Living luxuriously, it is said, did nothing to cause the child to fall into the provides employment, and so wealth trickles pond. Thomas Pogge of Yale University has ar- down to the poor, helping them more effectively gued that at least some of our affluence comes than aid does. When the poor receive money, at the expense of the poor (Pogge 2004, 2008). however, they spend it too, and that is more likely He bases this claim, not simply on the usual cri- to assist others who are poor. The rich in industri- tique of the barriers that Europe and the United alized nations buy virtually nothing that is made States maintain against agricultural imports from by the very poor. During the past twenty years developing countries, but also on less familiar of economic globalization, although expanding aspects of our trade with developing countries. trade has helped lift many of the world’s poor For example, he points out that international cor- out of poverty, it has failed to benefit the poorest porations are willing to make deals to buy natural 10% of the world’s population. Some of the ex- resources from any government, no matter how it tremely poor, most of whom live in sub-Saharan has come to power. This provides a huge finan- Africa, have nothing to sell that rich people want, cial incentive for groups to attempt to overthrow while others lack the infrastructure to get their the existing government. For successful rebels goods to market. If they can get their crops to a are rewarded by being able to sell off the nation’s port, European and US subsidies often mean that oil, minerals, or timber. This gives them access they cannot sell them, despite—as for example to enormous wealth—truly incredible sums by in the case of West African cotton growers who the standards of ordinary people in developing compete with vastly larger and richer US cotton countries. They can divert some of it into their producers—having a lower production cost than personal accounts and use the rest for rewarding the subsidized producers in the rich nations. their supporters and strengthening their armed The remedy to these problems, it might rea- forces. The resources they are selling, however, sonably be suggested, should come from the belong to, and should be used for the benefit of, state. When aid comes through the government, the people as a whole, not whatever thugs man- everyone who earns above the tax-free threshold age to seize control of the country. contributes something, with more collected from In their dealings with corrupt dictators in those with greater ability to pay. But the amount developing countries, Pogge asserts, interna- of foreign aid given by the developed countries of tional corporations are morally no better than the world is, despite some recent increases, ex- someone who knowingly buys stolen goods— tremely small. The rich nations—that is, the donor with the difference that the international legal nations of the OECD—give on average only 0.43% and political order recognizes the corporations, of their gross national income, or 43 cents in every not as criminals in possession of stolen goods, $100 they earn. but as the legal owners of the goods they have In any case, the aid given by governments bought. This legal situation is, of course, ben- falls far short of the standard Aquinas has set. eficial for the industrial nations, because it en- But we cannot only blame it on governments. ables us to obtain the raw materials we need to What we ourselves do also falls far short of this maintain our prosperity, but it is a disaster for standard. It falls short, too, of what we would do resource-rich developing countries, turning the in the case of the drowning child in the pond.

264 THE mULTIPLE FACES OF GLOBALIZATION What, then, should we be doing? The Ameri- • To reduce by three-quarters the rate of ma- can investor Warren Buffett, one of the world’s ternal mortality. richest people—set an example when he pledged • To have halted and begun to reverse the spread that he would give $30 billion to the Bill and Me- of HIV/AIDS and to have begun to reduce the linda Gates Foundation, and another $7 billion incidence of and other major diseases. to other charitable foundations. Earlier Bill and • To halve the proportion of people without sus- Melinda Gates had donated nearly $30 billion to tainable access to safe drinking water. establish their foundation. This huge fortune is now at work primarily to reduce poverty, disease, A United Nations task force, headed by Co- and premature death in the developing world. lumbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, es- Philanthropy on this scale raises many ethi- timated the annual cost of meeting these goals cal questions: Does it do any good? Should we to be not more than $189 billion per year.4 This praise people like Buffett and Gates for giving so is really quite a modest amount. It would not much, or criticize them for not giving still more? even require the affluent nations to double their Is it troubling that such momentous decisions existing aid—which is, as we have seen, on av- are made by a few extremely wealthy individu- erage less than 0.5% of gross national income. als? And how do our judgments about them re- So increasing that to 1% would not make a dra- flect on our own way of living? matic difference to our lifestyle. Aid has always had its critics. Carefully planned In The Life You Can Save, I tried to work out and intelligently directed private philanthropy how much would be raised if the richest Ameri- may be the best answer to the claim that aid cans gave away amounts that seemed easily af- doesn’t work. Of course, as in any large-scale hu- fordable (Singer 2009, ch. 10). I started with the man enterprise, some aid can be ineffective. Aid richest 0.01% of Americans, each of whom earn organizations are increasingly accepting that they over $5 million, and imagined that they would need more rigorous assessment of the efficacy of give away a third of their income. Then I scaled aid programs, and there are organizations that this percentage down for those who were still rich, provide evaluations of aid programs.3 But pro- but not quite as rich, until I got to 5% for all vided that aid isn’t actually counter-productive, those in the richest 10% of Americans, who all even relatively inefficient assistance is likely to earn around $100,000 a year. Finally I added in do more to advance human wellbeing than luxury an average donation of just 1% of income for the spending by the wealthy. remaining 90% of US taxpayers—assuming that People sometimes suggest that giving aid to some would not be able to give anything, but oth- the poor is a bottomless pit—we can pour in more ers would be able to give more than 1%. When and more money, but it will never make much of I added up the total this would yield, it came to a difference. In fact, we have never really tried to $510 billion a year—all just from Americans, give the kind of amounts that could truly trans- with none of them giving amounts that would form poor countries. It might take less than we cause any serious hardship. think. One way of calculating how much it would Obviously, the rich in Europe, Japan, Aus- cost is to take as our target, at least for the next tralia, Canada and other nations should share six years, the Millennium Development Goals, with Americans the burden of relieving global set by the United Nations Millennium Summit in poverty. The US is responsible for roughly one- 2000. On that occasion the largest gathering of third of the gross domestic product of all OECD world leaders in history jointly pledged to meet, nations, so let’s take that as its fair share. On by 2015, a list of goals that include: that basis, extending the scheme I have sug- gested worldwide would provide $1.5 trillion • To halve the proportion of the world’s people in annually for development aid. That’s eight times 3 extreme poverty (defined as having less income what the task force chaired by Sachs estimated See, for example, www.GiveWell.net. than is required to meet their basic needs). would be required to meet the Millennium De- 4 • To halve the proportion of people who suffer velopment Goals. For the Millennium Development Goals, see from hunger. I believe, with Thomas Aquinas, that, for any- www.un.org/millenniumgoals. For the UN task force cost estimates, see UN Millennium Devel- • To ensure that children everywhere are able to one living in abundance, it is a serious moral opment Project 2005, Report to the Secretary- take a full course of primary schooling. failing to fail to do, at least, one’s fair share of General: Investing in Development: A Practical • To end gender disparity in education. reducing global poverty. It would, in fact, be sur- Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Overview, http://www.unmillennium- • To reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate prisingly easy for the world’s rich to eliminate, or project.org/documents/overviewEngLowRes. among children under five. at least come much closer to eliminating, global pdf tables 7 and 8, p. 57.

A GLOBAL APPROACH TO ETHICS PETER SINGER 265 poverty. It has actually become easier over the ing place.” Yet such gross and systematic vio- last thirty years, as the rich have got significantly lations continue to take place in Darfur today. richer. Of course, wars, both international and Annan has said that we need “legitimate and civil, will always cause some poverty, and climate universal principles” on which we can base in- change, the other great challenge we must face, tervention (Annan 1999). That means a redefi- could cause much more. But measured against nition of state sovereignty, or more accurately, our capacity, the Millennium Development Goals an abandonment of the absolute idea of state are far too modest. If we fail to achieve them— sovereignty that has prevailed in Europe since as on present indications we well might—we the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. have no excuses. The target we should be setting We have lived with the idea of sovereign states ourselves is not halving the proportion of people for so long that they have come to be part of the living in extreme poverty, and without enough background not only of diplomacy and public pol- to eat, but ending large-scale extreme poverty icy but also of ethics. Implicit in the term “global- throughout the world. That is a worthy goal, and ization” rather than the older “internationalization” it is not beyond our reach. is the idea that we are moving beyond the era of growing ties between nations and are beginning A NEw GLOBAL ETHIC to contemplate something beyond the existing conception of the nation-state. But this change In this final section I shall turn to the underly- needs to be reflected in all levels of our thought, ing issue of whether we can develop the new, and especially in our thinking about ethics. global ethic needed for living in this new world. One hundred and fifty years ago, Karl Marx Although perhaps we can agree, in some theo- gave a one-sentence summary of his theory of retical sense, that the value of the life of an history: “The handmill gives you society with the innocent human being does not vary according feudal lord; the steam mill, society with the in- to nationality, it might be said that the abstract dustrial capitalist” (Marx 1977). Today he could ethical idea that all humans are entitled to equal have added: “The jet plane, the telephone, and consideration cannot govern the duties of a po- the Internet give you a global society with the litical leader. Just as parents are expected to transnational corporation and the World Trade provide for the interests of their own children, Organization.” Technology changes everything— rather than for the interests of strangers, so too that was Marx’s claim, and if it was a dangerous in accepting the office of head of government, half-truth, it was still an illuminating one. As one takes on a specific role that makes it one’s technology has overcome distance, economic and duty to protect and further the interests of those social globalization has followed, for good and for living in the country one is governing. bad. In European supermarkets, fresh vegetables It is true that there is today no world political flown in from Kenya are offered for sale alongside community, and as long as that situation pre- those grown locally. Instant digital communica- vails, we must have nation-states, and the lead- tion spreads the nature of international trade from ers of those nation-states must give preference actual goods to skilled services. When I need to the interests of their citizens. But is the divi- help with my computer, my call is answered by sion of the world’s people into sovereign nations someone in India. a dominant and unalterable fact of life? Here The increasing degree to which there is a our thinking has been affected by the horrors single world economy is reflected in the devel- of Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo. In Rwanda, a opment of new forms of global governance, the United Nations inquiry took the view that 2,500 most controversial of which has been the World military personnel, given the proper training and Trade Organization, but the WTO is not itself the mandate, might have saved 800,000 lives (UN creator of the global economy. At the same time, 1999). Kofi Annan was UN Secretary-General the greater movement of people means that in- when the inquiry completed its report. As under- fectious diseases spread more rapidly around secretary-general for peacekeeping operations the world, and of course terrorism can also ex- at the time, he must bear some responsibility tend its reach globally, causing us minor an- for what the inquiry termed a “terrible and hu- noyance every time we travel by air, but leading miliating” paralysis. The experience changed some nations to much greater intervention in his views. As Secretary-General, he urged that the affairs of other countries. Indeed, from the “the world cannot stand aside when gross and broad acceptance of the US attack on Afghani- systematic violations of human rights are tak- stan after September 11, 2005, we can con-

266 THE mULTIPLE FACES OF GLOBALIZATION clude that world opinion and international law vassal, substituting an ethic in which the right now accept that every nation has an obligation to buy and sell labor is paramount. to every other nation of the world to suppress Our newly interdependent global society, with activities within its borders that might lead to its remarkable possibilities for linking people terrorist attacks carried out in other countries, around the planet, gives us the material basis for and that it is reasonable to go to war with a na- a new ethic. Marx would have thought that such tion that does not do so. If the Austro-Hungarian an ethic would serve the interests of the ruling Kaiser Franz Joseph could see this, he might class, that is, the rich nations and the transna- well feel that the world has come round to his tional corporations they have spawned. But the view. For what the US did to the government of rich nations do have an interest in the develop- Afghanistan is difficult to justify without also ment of a more global ethical viewpoint. They justifying the ultimatum that Austria-Hungary need this because a poor, undeveloped world pos- made to Serbia after the assassination of Arch- es many risks to their security—from the spread duke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914—an of diseases, from terrorism, and from waves of ultimatum that, at the time, was regarded by tens of millions of refugees whose livelihoods Great Britain, Russia, and France as an attack could be destroyed by climate change. on the sovereignty of the state of Serbia. I have argued that as more and more issues Marx argued that in the long run we never re- increasingly demand global solutions, the ex- ject advances in the ease with which we satisfy tent to which any state can independently de- our material needs. Hence history is driven by termine its future diminishes. We therefore need the growth of productive forces. He would have to strengthen institutions for global decision- been contemptuous of the suggestion that glo- making and make them more responsible to the balization is something foisted on the world by people they affect. That line of thought leads in a conspiracy of corporate executives meeting at the direction of a world community with its own the World Economic Forum, and he might have directly elected legislature, perhaps slowly evolv- agreed with Thomas Friedman’s remark that the ing along the lines of the European Union. most basic truth about globalization is, “No one There is little political support for such ideas is in charge” (Friedman 2000). For Marx that is at present. Apart from the threat that the idea a statement that epitomizes humanity in a state poses to the self-interest of the citizens of the of alienation, living in a world in which, instead of rich nations, many would say it puts too much ruling ourselves, we are ruled by our own creation, at risk, for gains that are too uncertain. It is the global economy. widely believed that a world government would Marx also believed that a society’s ethic is a be, at best, an unchecked bureaucratic behe- reflection of the economic structure to which its moth, and at worst, a global tyranny, unchecked technology has given rise. Thus a feudal econ- and unchallengeable. Those thoughts have to omy in which serfs are tied to their lord’s land be taken seriously. They present a challenge gives you the ethic of feudal chivalry based on that should not be beyond the best minds in the loyalty of knights and vassals to their lord, the fields of political science and public ad- and the obligations of the lord to protect them ministration, once those people adjust to the in time of war. A capitalist economy requires a new reality of the global community and turn mobile labor force able to meet the needs of the their attention to issues of government beyond market, so it breaks the tie between lord and national boundaries.

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