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Monday, June 7, 2010 For a More Ethical Civilization
"When
plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society,
they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that
authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." Frederic Bastiat
(1801-1850), French economist "The
world today is as furiously religious as it ever was. ... Experiments with
secularized religions have generally failed; religious movements with beliefs
and practices dripping with reactionary supernaturalism have widely
succeeded."
Peter Berger, Desecularization
of the World, 1999
“I think that on balance the
moral influence of religion has been awful. With or without religion, good
people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do
evil—that takes religion.” Steven Weinberg,
1979 Nobel Laureate in Physics There has never been more talk about ethics
than today, not only in private lives, but also in government
circles, in business boardrooms and in the media. That is because most people
realize we are living a very corrupt
period. In 2009, the United States ranked 19th in a worldwide
corruption index, way below New Zealand (1st) or Denmark (2nd). Indeed, more
than three quarters of Americans believe that we are living at a time of
declining moral values. A recent
Gallup poll found
that 76 percent of Americans think moral values in their country are getting
worse, while only 14 percent believe they’re getting better. This would
seem to be paradoxical, since other indicators show that the United States is
getting more religious and pious. More religion and less morality? For instance, it
has been observed that teen birth rates are the highest in the most religious
states. That may be because poor
people tend to be more religious compared to the
rich and tend to be less educated and less well informed.
Consider also that it has been observed that religious people are more
racist than average. Morality is a
complex issue, but that is no reason to sweep it under the rug of
indifference. In a new
book, I attempt to tackle the issue of ethics and its sources.
I have arrived at the conclusion that humanity needs a new worldview—a
new moral code— a new objective standard of right and wrong, because
our prevailing sources of morality are at best inadequate, and at worse,
perverse. This is
because many of our problems today are not only technical in nature, but they
also have a moral underpinning, and are thus much more difficult to solve. It
may also be because our scientific and technological progress seems to be
advancing much faster than our moral progress, with the consequence that
problems arise faster than our moral ability to face them and to solve them
can cope. Indeed, our problems are more and more global in nature, while our
moral worldview is still essentially parochial. We thought
that wars of aggression
(or pre-emptive wars) had been abolished with the adoption of the United
Nations Charter on June 26, 1945 and the issuance of the Nuremberg Charter on
August 8, 1945. But
wars of aggression persist. —We also thought that financial crises
and the severe economic recessions and sometimes depressions they provoked
were a thing of the past, thanks to a protecting net of financial regulations designed to
control greed and prevent a repeat of the past. Well, twenty years of
wholesale deregulation has brought us back to an era of anything goes and
financial collapse. We also thought that the problem of poverty
in the world could be alleviated, but abject poverty persists in many parts
of the world. There seems to
be a pattern here, and it is that humanity seems unable to break out of a
cycle of wars, economic crises and endemic poverty. And, these
throwbacks to an unpalatable past seem to coincide with other developments,
such as the spread of nuclear weaponry, the persistence of ignorance, growing
social and economic inequalities, disregard for basic democratic principles,
the rise in global pollution, and an increasing religion-based willingness to
kill and terrorize. With the current
globalization of our problems, we need to extend our circle of empathy and
view humanity as a worldwide extended human family. As long as we refrain
from facing that challenge, divisiveness and unsolvable conflicts will
persist. The
contradiction between modern problems, new scientific knowledge and the
inadequacy of our prevalent source of morality or of ethics, led me to ask
what kind of values would be required to face the new challenges. What would
our civilization look like if we were to adopt them? In such a such a
civilization, • All
human beings would be equal in dignity and in human rights. • Life on
this planet would not be devalued and seen as only a preparation for a better
life after death, somewhere beyond the clouds. • The
virtues of tolerance and of human liberty would be proclaimed and applied,
subject only to the requirements of public order. • Human
solidarity and sharing would be better accepted as a protection against
poverty and deprivation. • The
manipulation and domination of others through lies, propaganda, and
exploitation schemes of all kinds would be less prevalent. • There
would be less reliance on superstition and religion to understand the
Universe and to solve life's problems and more on reason, logic and science. • Better
care of the Earth's natural environment—land, soil, water, air and
space—would be taken in order to bequeath a brighter heritage to future
generations. • We
would have ended the primitive practice of resorting to violence or to wars
to resolve differences and conflicts. • There
would be more genuine democracy in the organization of public affairs,
according to individual freedom and responsibility. •
Governments would see that their first and most important task is to help
develop children's intelligence and talents through education. Yes we can, if
we try. * Drawn from notes for a conference by Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay at the
American Humanist Association's Annual Meeting, San Jose, California, Friday,
June 4, 2010. For the complete text of the conference, please click HERE. Rodrigue Tremblay
is professor emeritus of economics at the University
of Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com. He is the author of the book "The
Code for Global Ethics"
at: www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com/ The book “The
Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles”, by Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay, prefaced by
Dr. Paul Kurtz, has just been released by Prometheus Books. Please visit the book site at: www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com/ See it on Amazon
USA: See it on Amazon
Canada: See it on Amazon
UK: or, in Australia
at: Please ask your favorite bookstore and
your local library to order the book: The Code for Global
Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles, by Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay, prefaced by Dr.
Paul Kurtz, Prometheus Books, 2010, 300 p. ISBN: 978-1616141721. *****The French version of the book is also now
available. See: www.lecodepouruneethiqueglobale.com/ or on Amazon
Canada _____________________________________ Posted, Monday, June 7, 2010, at 5:30 am Email to a friend: http://www.TheNewAmericanEmpire.com/tremblay=1125 or click on Blog at: www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com Send contact, comments or commercial reproduction
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