The Thesis of Peter Singers One World

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The Thesis of Peter Singers One World One
Atmosphere and Its Ethical Implications
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Discussion What is the main thesis of Singers
book?
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• According to Singer, what is the ethical
  significance of...
• linking planes slamming into the World Trade
  Center with SUVs
• Statements such as
• The American lifestyle is not up for
  negotiation. (George Bush I)
• We will not do anything that harms our economy,
  because first things first are the people who
  live in America. (George Bush II)

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What does Singer see as the key ethical
requirements of a global world?

• We have to move away from the absolute idea of
  state sovereignty
• We have to develop a new ethic based on the fact
  that we live in one world
• The book grapples with the complexities of
  figuring how to do that

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Recasting John Rawls Theory of Justice His basic
idea extrapolated to the global level Rawls
method..is to seek the nature of justice by
asking what principles people would choose if
they were choosing in conditions that prevented
them from knowing what position they themselves
would occupy. (p. 8)
How might this affect our thinking?
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Chapter 2 One Atmosphere(Environment) NPR
"Coltan and the Congo
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The Concept of Global Commodity Chains
Gary Gereffi Producer vs. buyer commodity
chains Where is the value-added?
The products we consume link us globally to
people and environments
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Increasingly retailers such as Wal-Mart
predominate over brand name companies like Nike
in buyer-driven commodity chains
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Bill Moyers Now Seeds of Conflict Genetically-mo
dified organisms as a global issue
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• Key points
• commodity chains and other environmental
  linkages are global in nature
• both the human and environmental issues they
  raise cannot be solved on anything other than a
  global basis
• an ethics of globalization is neededas a
  practical matter as much as a moral one