Commentary GLobal Ethics and the State of the Future

by Rushworth M. Kidder


"How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?"

The derisive answer, of course, is that they can't be. Even so noteworthy a Cold War diplomat as George Kennan opined that there is no place for "the carrying over into affairs of state of the concepts of right and wrong" -- because, he argued, "state behavior" is not "a fit subject for moral judgment."

But that was in 1952. As a register of how far we've come in 55 years, look at a report launched this week at the United Nations Bookstore by the World Federation of United Nations Associations. Titled "2007 State of the Future," by Jerome C. Glenn and Theodore J. Gordon, it centers on fifteen "Global Challenges." The eleventh in a series of annual reports, it reflects what the authors describe as "the cumulative and distilled range of judgments from nearly 2,400 participants" around the world.

Predictably present on this list of challenges are global sustainability, population growth, disease control, the gap between rich and poor, ethnic conflicts and terrorism, transnational crime, and the status of women. More surprising is number 15, abbreviated by the authors as "global ethics" and using, as its chapter title, the question quoted at the top of this column.

There's nothing goody-goody about this chapter's ethical analysis. While the tone of the overall report is in part optimistic -- noting that life expectancy, literacy, and gross domestic products per capita are increasing, while infant mortality and global conflicts are decreasing -- it is also sobering, warning of global warming, rising sea levels, the need to create more fresh water, the payment of more than $1 trillion a year in political bribes, and the presence of "more slaves in the world now than at the highest point of the African slave trade," most of them women in Asia.

In like manner the chapter on global ethics is clear-eyed. Some downside points:


"The speed at which the fabric of life has begun to change seems beyond the ability of most people and institutions to comprehend, leading to ethical uncertainties."

"Globalization and advanced technology allow fewer people to do more damage and in less time than ever before."

"Religions and ideologies that claim moral superiority give rise to 'we-they' splits."

"Some [in Asia and Oceania] do not believe there are common global ethics, and maintain that the pursuit to create them is a western notion."
But it also cites the rise of corporate ethics indices and civil society forums, along with the World Bank's effort to list unethical companies and the more than 2,000 businesses that have joined the U.N.'s Global Compact, pledging to "use global ethics in decisionmaking." It also notes explicit efforts to develop global ethics, singling out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNESCO's Universal Ethics Project, the Commission on Global Governance, and the Institute for Global Ethics. (Disclosure notice: Report co-author Theodore J. Gordon is an emeritus board member of IGE.)

How can global ethics be bolstered? The report's concise summary calls for "more effective ways to control lobbying, reduce greed and self-centeredness, encourage honor and honesty, promote parental guidance to establish a sense of values, reduce barriers to the freedom of inquiry, encourage respect for legitimate authority, support the identification and success of the influence of role models, implement cost-effective strategies for global education for a more enlightened world, make behavior match the values people say they believe in, and spread the Olympic spirit."

But if there is a single theme reverberating throughout the report, it is the need for better decision making. If, as the authors suggest, global complexity is outrunning the capacity of our current management systems, then new decision-making systems may be needed in the future. Today's national decision makers, however, "have not been trained in the theory and practice of decisionmaking," much less in any system that prompts them to contemplate "the ethical considerations of their decisions." Needed, say the authors, is "formalized ethics and decision training for decisionmakers," which they say "could result in a significant improvement in the quality of global decisions."

At bottom, however, the state of the future does not depend simply on better individual decision makers. It requires a wholesale evolution in culture. "It is increasingly clear," the authors conclude, "that cultural change is necessary to address global challenges." If this report is any indication, that change has begun already. In George Kennan's day, nobody would have thought to connect global decision making with ethical considerations. That connection is now central to what U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, describing this report, calls "invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its Member States, and civil society."
©2007 Institute for Global Ethics
Excerpted from Ethics Newsline ™
(www.globalethics.org/newsline/)
A publication of the Institute for Global Ethics

From the September 10, 2007, issue: