Global Ethics

An Introduction

Heather Widdows

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317491743
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Global ethics addresses some of the most pressing ethical concerns today, including rogue states, torture, scarce resources, poverty, migration, consumption, global trade, medical tourism, and humanitarian intervention. It is both topical and important. How we resolve (or fail to resolve) the dilemmas of global ethics shapes how we understand ourselves, our relationships with each other and the social and political frameworks of governance now and into the future. This is seen most clearly in the case of climate change, where our actions now determine the environment our grandchildren will inherit, but it is also the case in other areas as our decisions about what it is permissible for humans beings to do to each other determines the type of beings we are. This book, suitable for course use, introduces students to the theory and practice of global ethics, ranging over issues in global governance and citizenship, poverty and development, war and terrorism, bioethics, environmental and climate ethics and gender justice.

1 WHAT IS GLOBAL ETHICS?

INTRODUCTION

Global ethics is a new term that has emerged over the past few decades. In an exceptionally short time it has become established as a recognized area of study: it has a particular approach to ethical dilemmas and some consider it to be becoming a distinct academic discipline rather than a subset of other disciplines. This dramatic growth means that global ethics is an exciting field to be in because those who enter it are committed to discussing, and more importantly to seeking solutions to, the most pressing contemporary ethical issues. Issues addressed in global ethics include the “war on terror”, rogue states, child labour, torture, scarce resources, trafficking, migration, climate change, global trade, medical tourism, global pandemics, humanitarian intervention and so on; the list goes on and on. Global ethics is not only topical – these are issues we are all concerned about – but also important. How we resolve (or fail to resolve) the dilemmas of global ethics will determine the framework of future global governance. This will shape and limit the possible relationships and opportunities of all global actors; moreover, decisions made now will affect future generations. This is true not only for problems of climate change, where our actions now determine the environment our children and grandchildren will inherit, but also for decisions about what it is acceptable and permissible to do to human beings. For instance, if we collectively decide that it is acceptable to torture or to buy body parts then we are making judgements about what human beings are, and these decisions will limit and shape what is possible or permissible for future human beings. This is relevant not just for those who are tortured or who buy and sell body parts, but for all of us. If such things are permitted, then human beings will become types of beings who have parts that can be bought and sold, or who can have pain and suffering (to the point of death) inflicted on them in certain circumstances. These things matter in terms of how we understand human beings now and into the future and are at the heart of creating a world where human beings are treated ethically.

Students of global ethics come from many and various backgrounds, including philosophy, politics, public policy, law, theology, international development and sociology. Importantly, students also come from “the field”, from policy-making and governance communities and from activist and NGO communities. In the past ten years, numerous monographs, textbooks and edited collections have been published on themes that fall within the broad field of global ethics, such as human rights, global justice, research ethics and environmental ethics. In short, the field is burgeoning and, in terms of ethics, global ethics is a good place to be.

USING THIS BOOK

This book will explore the whole sphere of global ethics. It will consider the most pressing global ethical issues facing the contemporary world, from poverty, through terrorism, to climate change. It will map the ethical responses to such dilemmas. It will consider what sorts of global ethics are currently available and being developed and their appropriateness for addressing global dilemmas. It will present and evaluate theoretical and practical approaches and explore the application of these in the light of key dilemmas.

Very crudely, the first part of the book sets out the theory necessary to understand and analyse the dilemmas of global ethics. These chapters provide the reader with knowledge of the main moral and political theories that are most useful in approaching these issues; together these theories make up the “ethical toolbox” of global ethics. As we shall discover, global ethics is not the kind of area or discipline where theory can be separated from practice. To address the ethical challenges facing the globe, theory, policy and practice must all combine. Unlike other philosophical approaches, global ethics is neither “top-down” nor “bottom-up”, but regards theory as necessary for successful practice and practice as essential for informing accurate theory. Accordingly, global ethics is both normative and applied and emerges from and influences policy and practice. The connection of theory and practice is fundamental for global ethics, and something we shall explore further later in this chapter. These early chapters are anything but dry and theoretical, ignoring the realities and limitations of real-world practice. Not only are the policy and practical implications of the theories considered throughout, but chapter 3, chapter 4 and chapter 5 (the most theoretical chapters) are also meditations on the practical cases studies of chapter 2.

The case studies detail some of the facts and figures of three controversial contemporary global issues: female genital cutting (FGC), the buying of body parts and torture. These case studies provide an overview of these practices and introduce primary sources, for example quotes from different viewpoints and core documentary evidence. The case studies can be used on their own as useful exercises in exploring these issues, or in conjunction with the early chapters of the book. They are analysed in detail in chapter 3, chapter 4 and chapter 5, respectively. This is useful in a number of ways. First, it helps in understanding how the theoretical approaches introduced in these chapters play out in practice. Second, it shows how theoretical standpoints colour and shape how the ethical concerns of any issue are seen. Theory is not neutral, but frames what is seen to be ethically important in any given situation; considering how different theories approach such controversial issues shows the importance of understanding theory, not only to make one’s own arguments but also to understand where others are coming from and the claims they are making. Third, it shows how global ethics is actually done and the complexity of negotiating these global issues. Exploring case studies helps one to develop one’s own position and to test it in light of real dilemmas; for instance, a theoretical approach might seem attractive on paper, but once what this would actually mean in terms of a real-world issue is considered, one might change one’s mind. This aspect of case studies is fundamental to global ethics because, unlike much philosophy, global ethics is not an academic endeavour where attempting to win an argument is a kind of philosophical game. Global ethics is concerned with fundamental real-world issues, real injustice, human suffering and global threats, so it cannot be regarded as a mere intellectual exercise; we would worry about the humanity of anyone who treated it as if it were!

The second half of the book looks at specific issues or areas of global ethics: issues of global governance and citizenship, poverty and development, war and terrorism, bioethics, environmental ethics and gender justice. Just as the early theory-focused chapters are full of discussion about policy and practice, so the later chapters on these issues show how theoretical approaches can clarify, critique and influence policy and practice. These chapters focus on some key global-ethics concerns: however, they are representative rather than exhaustive of the core concerns of global ethics. In a book of this size it is unavoidable that more has been left out than has been included, and there are numerous equally pressing global ethical issues that could have been the focus of chapters. For example, there could have been far more discussion about fossil-fuel consumption; scarce resources; international criminal activities such as people-trafficking and drug-trafficking; the role of religion and law and the supposed clash of cultures; business ethics, sweatshops and corporate social responsibility; the role of civil society, anti-capitalist and anti-globalization movements; new social movements and single-issue political campaigns; nuclear war and weapons of war. This list could go on. These issues, and no doubt many others, have claims to being “core” issues of global ethics and no doubt there will be arguments as to why these are more pressing than those that have been included. All that can be said in response is that in selecting these issues the aim is to show the range, complexity and connection of global-ethics issues, not to consider all important issues. To do so would be impossible given their number, breadth and complexity. Even those issues that are included are considered in very partial and limited ways. Whole books could be written on every chapter and the topic would still not be exhausted. Something similar must be said about the omission of many influential theorists of global ethics and global justice. Some key thinkers and arguments are absent for the same reason, and this is not in any way a comment on their import for the topic or usefulness in exploring the dilemmas of global ethics. This book is an introduction, and therefore merely provides a taste of the issues involved and the theories, policies and practices available to address these issues. It is hoped that the ethical toolbox and the illustrations of how global ethics is done will be just as useful when assessing issues not included in the book as for those included.

How you choose to explore these different aspects of the book will depend on your reasons for using the book. If you have a primary interest in one of the global dilemmas, for example contemporary conflict and terrorism, you may wish to focus on chapter 8 as an introduction to these topics. In addition, you will find the case study on torture useful in thinking about what is acceptable in contemporary conflict. You many also wish to dip in and out of other chapters; something that becomes clear as soon as you begin to examine these global dilemmas in any depth is that it is very difficult to separate one issue in global ethics from others. For instance, other sections that will be useful regarding conflict are found in chapter 7, where there is a discussion of humanitarian aid and conflict, chapter 10, where the increasing competition over resources is predicted to become a cause of conflict, and chapter 11, where rape in war is discussed. You will also wish to explore chapter 3, chapter 4 and chapter 5 if you are interested in how to understand the rights and wrongs of contemporary conflict, and chapter 5 will be particularly useful because the case study of torture is analysed using the rights framework set out in that chapter.

WHY GLOBAL ETHICS NOW?

Global ethics is a new and distinctive area of study, so the question is: why now? After all, ethics, understood as an attempt to answer the question “How ought we to live?”, goes back to Plato and the earliest philosophy. Likewise, as we shall see, some of the distinctive political approaches of global ethics, such as the cosmopolitan approach, which sees all people in some sense as citizens of the world, also go back to the Greeks. Given this, it would seem that global ethics is continuous with previous moral and political thinking. This is certainly true; but it is also true that there are new ethical dilemmas that arise in the context of globalization. Globalization, and the political, technological and social changes and advances that accompany it, raise new dilemmas, and global ethics is a response to these. For instance, pre-globalization ethical issues could primarily be regarded as local issues. In answering Plato’s question “How ought we to live?”, we would have been most likely to consider our duties to those known to us: those in our immediate family and community. There would be some duties beyond this and some institutional duties: to rulers (e.g. the king or lord of the manor, which might include taxes, labour and to bear arms); and to religious or cultural bodies (e.g. the Church and her representatives, tribal elders and sacred places). These institutions would also have duties to individuals and to those in the wider network or association, perhaps to a tribe, to a region, to a nation or even to an empire. Yet, before full knowledge of the globe and its people, and the processes of globalization that have made global knowledge and global duties possible, a global ethic would have been nonsensical. This is true, at least, in terms of policy and practice if not in theory. Theoretically there were, of course, candidates for ethics that were believed to be applicable to all, for instance all religious ethics. But recognizing the universal applicability of an ethic is not the same as believing that all ethical approaches should take the globe as the proper scope of ethics.

The key claim here is that globalization – the increasing interdependence of global society economically, socially, culturally and politically – has created truly global dilemmas that require global solutions. Global ethics, then, is the response to these new dilemmas. This approach is clearly correct in many ways. No one would deny the phenomenal growth in “global” ethical issues: issues that cannot be addressed within individual nation states or single jurisdictions. Into this “set” of global issues we can place all the topics we shall consider in this book: those of global governance and citizenship, poverty and development, war and terrorism, bioethics, environmental ethics and gender justice.

A GLOBAL ETHIC?

Global ethics is not attempting to promote a “global ethic”. It is not advocating a particular way of life with a single set of rules, nor is it the promotion of a single principle, set of principles or set of values. Global ethics does not have a solution that people can accept and sign up to; it does not require “moral conversion”. Some do wish to establish such a global ethic. For instance, Hans Küng, in his 1993 “Declaration Toward a Global Ethic”, presents a list of principles that he believes are shared by all religions (Box 1.1). In these shared values he asserts there is a basis for a global ethic: “a minimal fundamental consensus concerning binding values, irrevocable standards, and fundamental moral attitudes”; (1993b).

There have been many criticisms of this ethic, not least that it fails to consider those who are non-religious. In addition, it makes controversial and contested claims, for example that all religions support the equality of men and women. Yet even if it were uncontested that all religions did support such principles, this would not be sufficient on its own to recommend it as a global ethic; that would depend on whether the claims were justified and according to the various criteria of global ethics. There are a number of such solutions – global ethics – some of which we shall consider in the course of the book. Arguably, human rights is such an ethic (to which you sign up or not); as are liberal views that prioritize autonomy over other values. Global ethics explores and ...