Global Ethics

Global EthicsGE Lecture 1

New term in the last decade, recognised academically since 2005 (Widow)

Global

Worldwide scale commonality and interconnection, the first referring to the sense of "weness" in many fields of society, the second referring to the fact that any human action, individual and collective, affects the situation of others.

Ethics

Etymologically coming from the Greek word "ethos" and "ethikos" refers to the idea of character, habit and principle. Connection to morality, seen as the field of concrete human behavior, they could be used interchangeably.

Socrate: "acting for the good life" (Apology). Life is worth living if there is the engagement of reason and debating ourselves and others, connected of course to the idea that democracy is the best possible form of government because it engages the confrontation between two or more parties, mainly in the "boule," the parliament as the main space for deliberation in order to access what is acting morally well or wrong.

Ethical dilemma: Are you able to convince rationally the opposite component in the debate?

Characteristics

• Global in scope: All interests have to be taken into account, even though the response would not be necessarily possible
• Multidisciplinary
• Interrelation between theory and practice

GE Lecture 2

FGM: Female Genital Mutilation

Premises

• There are no right and unique studies, case studies are important to reshape our standards, leading to make evaluations of our arguments or the ones of our oppositors. In some cases where there is an ethical dilemma, also the best acceptable solution may not be entirely satisfactory.
• Initial emotional reactions are useful at the beginning of an analysis.
• Aristotle: It is just to feel anger towards some forms of injustice. If not, how would you ever challenge such injustice? Anger must not reach the point in which it overcomes our reason.

Case Study Language

Definition

Circumcision: sometimes comparable to the male one, although being more invasive.

• Clitoridectomy
• Excision
• Infibulation
• Other harmful procedures to the female genitals, including pricking, piercing, cutting, scraping or burning the area

Statistics

• More than 2 million women have undergone this procedure
• More than 3 million women are at risk
• Asia and Africa

No Medical Reasons

• No physical benefits
• Immediate complications
• Long-term damages
• There is the belief that the procedure is safer if medicalized

2016 Article in the Global Ethics Medical Magazine: demonizing important ancient traditions; change of the word mutilation to the term alteration.

FGM is a form of violation of human rights and gender-based violence, irrespectively to the degree of the harm caused (WHO).

Justifications

• Control of women’s sexuality: no self-determination
• Culture: religion, ethnicity (joyful rite of passage, increasing her chances of marriage, considered as the only means of survival)
• Hygiene and aesthetic: femininity and modesty

Issue of Awareness

• Societal dialogue: deliberation and the ability to tolerate uncertainty
• Female empowerment

Thursday 16th March

Universalism vs Relativism

Historically speaking, the basis of this contrast can be rooted in the way of thinking of the Sophists, considered to be the masters of relativism, in particular Protagoras.

Theoretically, we can say that moral values can be either subjective or highly conventional, meaning that generally speaking my reality is different from the one of the others. However, it could be argued that there are some ideas which are universally understandable. This last element is seen by sophists as a symptom of arrogance, which is highly promoted by universalists, which is aimed at homogeneity. This idea can be noticed in the so-called "western mission" at the base of the colonization system.

Universalism, on the other hand, claims that truth is not individual. The major supporter was Socrate. For him, truth was a collective good, in the sense that it is achievable only through the cooperation of all humans.

Different Forms of Universalism

• Monological: it is a sort of imperialist way of thinking which is incompatible with global ethics
• Dialogical:
• Normative commitment: out of the comfort-zone
• Interpretative perspective taking: empathy
• Social self-reflexivity: distant from cultural assumptions

Ethnocentrism is the core element of universalism. However, it is criticized to be a means of violence and oppression; hence, it is often questioned whether there is an alternative way of interpretation? The cultural critique of universalism by relativists is based on the objection that if there is really a potential universal understanding, then there should not be conflict.

On the other hand, relativism appeared to be highly tolerant: on a theoretical basis yes, however, in practice in this way morality is useless, because all actions can be justified. This attitude brings to an anarchic individualist society. Hence, the relativist premises may be good, but the conclusions rarely ended up to be so.

Applying relativism to FGM, the main argument would be "who are we to judge?"

Thursday 23rd March

Why Do We Need Ethical Tools?

We need them to justify our theory in a dialogical process with a counterpart, opposite to us. Aristotle claimed that the perfect mix for an ideal dialogue is flexibility + creativity + precise reasoning for our ideas. Ethics is about taking the right decision in each situation. The answer is normative ethics, which always take into account an agent, an action and an outcome.

The most important subcategory of normative ethics is consequentialism, which clearly focuses on the outcome of each action, engaging in a deep cost-benefits approach.

Types of Consequentialism

• Ethical egoism
• Group consequentialism
• Utilitarianism

The main element of the utility approach: making as many people as possible, as happy as possible. An important thing to take into account is imperialism: everyone’s happiness counts equally.

At this point in the discussion, it's important to find a potential answer to a universal question: what is happiness? For a reductionist, happiness is pleasure, in particular, it is about maximizing pleasure while minimizing pain at lower costs. This can be seen as a mental state theory. According to aggregate universalism, instead, the focus is on a sub-total amount of pleasure.

Following the desired satisfaction theory, it is important to focus on a relevant question: is happiness getting what you want? Besides engaging in a relativist field, this idea would soon escalate in the marginal utility theory: every additional unit gained results in less satisfaction.

If we accept the desires satisfaction theory, then we have to decide whether all desires are equally considered to be right. Socrate would answer that there are no worth desires, because we all want to be happy, but for the right reason.

The objective theory defines the necessity of being happy as an intrinsic element of humans, however, it draws a hierarchy of needs. On the base of such a pyramid, there could be noticed basic human beings, such as anger, sex or shelter. The more we go up the pyramid, the desires become more spiritual and intellectual; it seems that the more a society progresses, the more the pyramid becomes higher and hence happiness is more defined.