Global Ethics: Protecting Our Commons

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Global Ethics Protecting Our Commons

• E 124 - Spring 2004

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What do we mean by Global Ethics ?

• Micro-ethics Ethical and moral behavior of
  individuals for professionals there is usually a
  code of professional conduct.
• Meso-ethics This usually refers to ethics at the
  group level, particularly governments and
  businesses.
• Macro-ethics This usually refers to the values
  we as a collective society hold, hence the term
  Global Ethics.

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Micro-ethics

• Ethical and moral behavior of individuals and may
  be
• Rule or principle based.
• Contextual or situational.
• Family values.
• Religious, ethnic or community values.
• Dictated by professional rules of conduct.
• Dictated by law.

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Meso-ethics

• Meso In the middle or intermediate with respect
  to position, time, size or degree.
• Governments National security economic growth
  and economic competitiveness assured food
  supply justice and protection of citizens etc.
• Businesses Obligations to shareholders (profit)
  obligations to workers (cash flow/payroll)
  protecting their social franchise etc.

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Macro-ethics Global Ethics

• This has come to mean protection of our
  commons. Current issues
• Social capital (population growth).
• Biodiversity (extinction of species).
• Soil and food security (hunger/malnutrition).
• Ocean fisheries.
• Global air quality and pollution.
• Global climate change.
• Global freshwater resources.
• Energy resources and global development.

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Some Definitions

• Organism (Biological) An individual constituted
  to carry on the activities of life by means of
  organs separate in function but mutually
  dependent any living being. (Philosophical)Any
  highly complex thing or structure, with parts so
  integrated that their relation to one another is
  governed by their relation to the whole.
• Sentient Capable of sensation and consciousness
  experiencing sensation and feeling.

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Definitions (continued)

• Environment The aggregate of all the external
  conditions and influences affecting the life and
  development of an organism including society and
  human behavior.
• Biosphere The sphere of living organisms
  penetrating the lithosphere, the atmosphere and
  the hydrosphere.
• Ecology The biology dealing with the mutual
  relations between organisms and their
  environments.

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What Is a System?

• A set of objects (parts, components or
  subsystems).
• The attributes of the objects (mass, on/off
  volume, temperature, charge, etc.).
• A set of relationships between the parts and a
  set of relationships between the attributes.
• (The set of objects defines a boundary around the
  system which may be physical or conceptual).

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Examples of Systems

• The earth as a system.
• The biosphere as an ecological system.
• An organism as a living system.
• An industrial system as an ecosystem.
• An engineered system such as a space shuttle,
  nuclear power plant, computer, robot, chemical
  process plant, civil structure or transportation
  system.