What is Global Ethics and How to Research It?

Transcription

1 1 st International Global Ethics Conference In collaboration with Research Community Labour What is Global Ethics and How to Research It? PLENARY LECTURES Abstracts and Biographical Notes

2 Prof. Dr. Gérald Berthoud THE ETHICS OF GLOBALIZATION: BETWEEN ECONOMISM AND MORALISM? Globalization is immediately perceived as a progressive unification of the world. But the very meaning of this process is, to say the least, unclear. Therefore, it is necessary to try to clarify such a notion. A notion so widely used that it is believed that humanity would be involved in a new era of its history. We tend to be subjected to the belief of an idealized future that would somewhat already be there, with slogans like «one world» or «one earth». Surely the earth is ecologically one, but human beings are not yet able to think and act as the responsible inhabitants of the planet. In a more realistic way, globalization can be conceived as an evolving world system, composed of two unequal parts, the world market and the international community. With the market principle, no distinction is made between what is near and far. Both are included within the domain of impersonal and contractual relationships, which are viewed as being objective and universal. In other terms, the world market seems to be a natural way to organize the whole planet. Strictly speaking, the question of a good and just society has not to be raised. Which means that the economic order as such has nothing to do with ethical requirements. «Trade not aid» is a revealing expression to evoke the idea that any kind of wealth redistribution would not be a good action. But what happens with those who are unable to show their market utility? The international community, with the United nations and their specialized agencies, is confronted with the challenge of poverty in the world. In numerous reports, the elimination of poverty is repeatedly presented as an ethical urgency. What is promised is a «better world for all», but within the limits imposed by the so-called natural forces of the market. Therefore both parts of the world system have the same objective, that is the infinite economic growth. The constant production of wealth appears as the very condition to establish a «good life» for all. The ultimate aim of existence would be, according to a diffuse utilitarian culture, the infinite search of happiness for the whole humanity. To question such an encompassing economic system, accompanied with the moral complement of the international aid, another look at human being, and society is necessary. At first, we have to renounce to a strict language of interest, to explain the whole human action. Human beings are represented as rivals within a world of scarcity. This individualist vision is a simplification of the complexity of any concrete human. There is no existence of oneself without coexistence within socially instituted contexts. On this basis, justice should not only be concerned with the satisfaction of individual needs, but it should include social recognition fo all against 1

3 various forms of economic exploitation and political domination. A fully human life cannot be equated to the unlimited expansion of needs ; it supposes a real participation, in order to effectively exist as a particular person and as an actual member of a definite political entity. But beyond these specific forms of recognition, an ethical globalization should insist on our common humanity. A real world society, viewed in all its internal complexity, should include three levels of sociality. First, the «modes of genuine relationships» or the interpersonal relations in which «individuals have a concrete knowledge from each other»(lévi-strauss). But this basic sociality is contained in a national unity composed of strangers linked functionally by market and administrative mediations. However, these strangers are more fundamentally interrelated by institutions that are objectifications of shared symbols. With globalization, what is imposed first is an apparently irrepressible tendency towards a market that is always more unified and autonomized, connecting mutually indifferent human beings. Nevertheless, for a viable world, the recognition of a common humanity imposes the development of institutions bringing together human beings as «moral strangers». But to avoid a simplistic globalism, a global ethics should considered seriously the complexity of the levels of sociality, with their corresponding values and their unavoidable entanglement. Gérald Berthoud is Emeritus Professor at the Université de Lausanne, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences. He was visiting professor at a number of European universities, as well as at the University of Niamey in Niger. Prof. Berthoud is one of the founders of the Mouvement Anti-Utilitariste dans les Sciences Sociales (M.A.U.S.S.), which is editing since 1981 La Revue du M.A.U.S.S., one of the first interdisciplinary journals, integrating perspectives of economic science, anthropology, sociology and political philosophy. He is the author of numerous theoretical publications in the social sciences. 2

4 Prof. Dr. Carol Gould THE NEW GLOBAL ETHICS AND ITS THREE FACES Global Ethics is distinguished from traditional ethics by its effort to take seriously three features of contemporary social life: the fact of globalization (in economic, communications, etc.), the interaction of diverse cultures, and the development of cosmopolitan norms such as human rights and democracy. These features in turn give rise to a threefold project for global ethics: 1) to articulate the new ethical issues that arise with globalization, e.g., corporate social responsibility and global ecology, and to consider how to deal with them whether with the older moral frameworks of deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics, or in new ways, in which the basic categories of applied ethics are reconceived; 2) cross-cultural approaches to ethics in which key moral terms like right and good, along with basic social understandings, are subjected to dialogue and debate from various cultural perspectives, and considers the conflicts in interpretations that may result; and 3) the development of a cosmopolitan ethics, especially of human rights, that specifies rights due to every human being on grounds of freedom and dignity, along with more transnational forms of democracy and of solidarity. After elaborating each of these components or faces of the new global ethics, the paper goes on to suggest some of the interrelations among them. Through this analysis, it will become clear that they are not incompatible or even separable projects (representing conflicting interpretations of global ethics) but instead are mutually necessary and reinforcing. Carol C. Gould is Professor of Philosophy and Government and Director of the Center for Global Ethics at George Mason University. She is Editor of the Journal of Social Philosophy, Executive Director of the Society for Philosophy and Public Affairs, and Vice-President/ President Elect of the American Section of the International Society for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. She has held fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Fulbright Foundation, as Senior Scholar in France and as Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the European University Institute in Florence. She is the author of Marx's Social Ontology (1978), Rethinking Democracy (1988), and Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2004), editor of seven books including Women and Philosophy, Beyond Domination, The Information Web, Cultural Identity and the Nation-State, and Gender, and has published over fifty articles in social and political philosophy, feminist theory, and applied ethics. 3

5 Prof. Dr. Thomas Mertens TAKING OUR GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITIES SERIOUSLY. HOW TO RUIN ONE S SUIT WHEN FACED WITH THE GLOBAL POOR? In his seminal 1972 article Famine, Affluence and Morality, Peter Singer argued that the inhabitants of affluent industrialized societies have the moral duty to help the millions of poor in undeveloped societies. The situation in which the rich inhabitants of this one world find themselves vis-à-vis the global poor is not much different from the situation in which one is confronted with a drowning child in a nearby pond. In the latter situation, one ought to help even at the cost of ruining one s suit in doing so. In the former situation, one ought to give away a large portion of one s income. If one can prevent bad from happening without making great sacrifices, one ought to do so. Despite Singer s seemingly convincing argument, the gap between the rich and poor in the world has not been narrowed since, despite the many efforts that have been made by him and by others to strengthen the argument. While Singer s argument is based solely on the utilitarian principle of benevolence, which in itself is strong enough according to him, others have now added to his plea by means of a rightsbased approach. The duty to help the global poor is not so much one of benevolence, it is argued, but is derived from the much stronger duty not to inflict harm on others. It is possible to invoke the harm principle because a causal relation exists between the well-being of affluent societies on the one hand and the poverty of the global poor on the other. It is thus not simply our benevolent duty to assist as in the situation in which a passer-by helps a drowning child. The reason why she is drowning is because we have thrown her in. Thomas Pogge makes a strong case for the causality thesis and argues that the following analogy argument then applies. In domestic private law, it goes without saying that one must compensate the damage done to others. In domestic public law, it goes without saying that institutions that systematically violate justified interests of parts of the population ought to be reformed. This, then, should also be the case in the global realm. Here, Pogge draws on concepts derived from Rawls s A Theory of Justice and argues that prevailing institutions in the global basic structure harm the global poor and should thus be replaced by new institutions aiming at preventing that harm and at a more just distribution of basic goods worldwide. However, the same 4

6 fate seems to befall Pogge s argument as Singer s argument earlier. The proposed institutional reforms are not even on the horizon. The contention of my paper is that there is something wrong with both Singer s and Pogge s argument. Although it is not easy to put one s finger on the problem most prominently because these proposals deserve our sympathy and arguments against them might easily be understood as justification for selfish behavior of the affluent I will try to draw attention to their flaws. Partly the difficulty has to do with, as others have argued, the nature of morality, e.g. the difference between the obligation vis-àvis the drowning child and vis-à-vis the global poor being that between a perfect and an imperfect duty, to use Kant s terminology; partly the difficulty has to do with the lack of clarity on how to go about implementing more just global institutions. How can the global rich ruin their suits? This leads us back to Rawls. Proponents of global ethics generally criticize the exclusively domestic focus of A Theory of Justice and the lack of an equivalent of the difference principle in The Law of Peoples. Yet, when taking seriously both our global responsibilities and the problems with cosmopolitan proposals, it might be appropriate to rehabilitate Rawls s approach, and to focus on small legal steps in line e.g. with Habermas s plea for a constitutionalisation of international law, rather than on grand ethical designs. Thomas Mertens (1955) is Professor of Philosophy of Law at the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He published several articles on Kant s practical philosophy and related issues, on issues concerning peace and war, and on legal theory, especially in relation to Radbruch and to the issue of Nazi legality. He has also translated Kant s Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten and Zum ewigen Frieden into Dutch (Amsterdam, 1997, 2004). 5

7 Prof. Dr. Asunción St. Clair GLOBAL POVERTY, ETHICS AND DEVELOPMENT One of the important ways to formulate research about global ethics is by addressing global problems as ethical questions, a task that requires reformulating traditional understandings by disciplines, traditional understandings of problems. In this lecture, I address the question of poverty from both a moral and an ethical perspective, and argue that this should be one of the fundamental tasks for a research agenda on global ethics. In particular, I argue that the merging of development ethics and global justice is a way to engage on global ethics, which I interpret to be related to discussions about alternative globalizations fairer and more inclusive especially to the poor. The relations between global poverty and globalization are very complex, not only because of causal relations of various kinds, but also because the ways in which people perceive and theorize poverty tend to be related to specific views about what globalization processes actually are and how to envision alternatives for the future. One of the fundamental drivers between contrasting views on globalization are value disagreements of various kinds; ethical ideas of what is worthy, who and why, and also cognitive values such as quantification or simplicity that leads us to focus either on aggregate data and abstract indicators or on people s actual lives. Our moral awareness of poverty tends to shape how we perceive views on globalization, its essence, main drives, dangers or hopes for the future: matters that shape the will to act. Vice versa, theories and conceptions of poverty and strategies for reducing it or to protect the poor can either promote awareness for the need for a fair(er) globalization or can be blind to questions of (global) justice and fairness for the poor. In general, moral awareness of poverty leads to more critical views on the dominant form of neoliberal economic globalization and to view transnational processes of all kinds as being under the control of human agency. We can change the future. My main point is that the ethical aspects of globalization are interrelated with an ethical perspective on knowledge and policy for poverty reduction, and moral understandings of poverty; perspectives among others investigated by the fields of development ethics and global justice. In addition, I suggest that poverty needs to be treated globally, and not as a social fact that occurs only in developing countries. This entails a critical engagement with literature and theories within the field of development studies including critical engagement with the ideas and policies generated and defended by development actors as poverty research is dominated by the knowledge and policies elaborated and espoused by development actors. Much can be learned from the merging of development ethics and global justice, but these 6

8 also have lessons to draw from globalization studies and vice versa. Cross fertilization between these fields may lead to stronger theoretical formulations for alternative globalizations, for a better understanding of the paths towards more fair global relations. This is, in itself, a contribution to discussions and research on global ethics. Dr. Asunción Lera St. Clair is Associate Professor at the section on Gender and Development, Department of Education and Health Promotion, University of Bergen, and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, Norway. St. Clair is Secretary of the International Development Ethics Association ( IDEA ). Recent publications include The World Bank as a Transnational Expertised Institution, Journal of Global Governance 12 (1); Global Poverty: The Co-Production of Knowledge and Politics, Journal of Global Social Policy 6 (1); How Can Human Rights Work for Poverty Reduction: An Assessment of the Human Development Report 2000, Lucy Williams (ed.), International Poverty Law: An Emerging Discourse London : Zed Books,

9 Prof. Dr. Rebecca Todd Peters JUSTICE IN A WORLD GONE MAD: ASSESSING THE ETHICAL LANDSCAPE OF GLOBALIZATION Globalization is not simply the proper name of the next era of human civilization like the Stone Age or the Renaissance. Globalization refers to the processes of economic and social integration that have been a part of our world since the first two tribes of people met, exchanged goods, and intermarried. However, the rise of technology has facilitated a new level of globalization that has brought with it new moral challenges. While it is true that our world is drawing ever closer together it is human ideology and decision-making that guides and shapes what that integration will look like in very particular ways. Technology, too, can be used in many different ways. It can be used to build up human civilization and well-being in ways that care for our planet, but it can also be used in ways that foster human greed and exploitation of the planet. Our economic ideologies play an important role in shaping what we regard as normative and, right now, profit reigns king at the expense of quality of life issues. As an ethicist, I am interested in drawing attention to the underlying values embedded in the ideological systems that guide our world. In this presentation I will offer a brief analysis of the moral vision of four theories of globalization - neoliberal, development, earthist, and post-colonial. I will then develop an alternative vision of globalization rooted in the Christian ethical tradition of social justice and discuss how religious communities can participate in the process of transforming current unjust models of globalization in ways that promote justice and sustainability. Rebecca Todd Peters is Distinguished Emerging Scholar and Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University (Elon, NC). She is also a member of the Environmental Studies faculty and offers courses in the Honors program and the Women and Gender Studies programs. Research and teaching areas include economic and environmental ethics, sexuality issues, and reproductive concerns. She has been active in young women!s leadership development through the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the National Council of Churches, and the World Council of Churches. She is a graduate of Rhodes College (B.A.), and Union Theological Seminary in New York (M.Div., Ph.D., Christian Social Ethics) and an ordained PCUSA minister. Her book, The Ethics of Globalization: Assessing the Moral Landscape of the (Post)-Modern World, won the 2003 Trinity Prize and she is a coeditor of an anthology titled Justice in a Global Economy that will be published summer

10 Dr. Christien van den Anker WHAT IS GLOBAL ETHICS? Global ethics as a field of study includes the subjects of global justice and global citizenship. In the debates on these two subjects the division between universal and contextual theories surfaces regularly. Universalists argue that global justice and global citizenship are best seen from the perspective of common humanity whereas contextualists argue that it is the (cultural) difference between people(s) that matters at least as much as what they have in common. The stand off between these two perspectives has not been resolved in favour of either position and both sides of the debate have shown the dangers of following either perspective to its limits. In parts of the literature, approaches have been suggested that would find a middle ground between the two. I would argue that there is quite widespread acknowledgement that a middle way, including the core concerns of both approaches would be the best way forward. This is sometimes viewed as an agreement on a minimum of common values or standards and is presented as a strategic choice in order to create the broadest coalition. However, I view the middle way as an acknowledgement of the importance of the core concerns in either perspective and not necessarily minimising these concerns. The precise conceptualisation of the middle way is important to debate still. In this paper I will investigate the respective roles of universalist and contextual theories of justice in global ethics by assessing their respective positions on the process of creating norms in global politics. I sketch how these approaches vary in their valuation of creating norms by different actors (from above or from below) and whether they view norms as based on ideals or on social practice. I use the examples of global justice and global citizenship to propose a balance between their core concerns. I end with a brief assessment of the extent to which liberal cosmopolitanism can keep its concern for global justice and global citizenship without buying into the historical roots of liberalism: sexism, racism and imperialism. This will lead to the conclusion that the project of Global Ethics shows parallels with the scientific revolution of the Enlightenment and contains both the risks of the excesses of that period and the excitement of its passions. Christien van den Anker is Principal Lecturer in Politics at the University of the West of England, Bristol, England. She is editor of the Journal of Global Ethics, editor of a book series on Global Ethics for Palgrave, and convenor of the British International Studies Association Working Group on Global Ethics. Previously, she was Deputy Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Ethics at Birmingham 9

11 University. She has led two EU-funded projects, on Women s rights (NEWR) and on Combating racism, xenophobia and related intolerances in South Eastern Europe, Southern Russia and the Caucasus (RIME). Recently, her proposal for a four-year study on Trafficking for forced labour in other industries than prostitution was awarded a grant through ESF. She is the author of a host of articles in international journals and is series editor on Women s Rights for Palgrave. Her recent edited collections include (ed with R. Smith) The Essential Guide to Human Rights, Hodder, 2005 and (ed.) The Political Economy of New Slavery, Palgrave, Her monograph on Global social justice is forthcoming with Palgrave for Spring