Millennium Project
Updating the Global Challenges Facing Humanity
15. Global Ethics
How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?

This is the short description of the challenge as appears in the print version of the 2008 State of the Future report. The more complete version of this challenge along with actions to address it, graphs, and indicators to measure change is available on the CD-ROM included with the report. Please add your suggestions in the space provided after each paragraph and feel free to contact us with any questions.

We look forward to including your views.

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General Description

December 2008 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has stimulated more than 60 treaties to protect individual freedom and dignity and has inspired countless discussions about global ethics and human rights. The evidence is now overwhelming that increasing government respect for human rights correlates with economic development and that unethical business practices ultimately lower stock prices, productivity, and profits. Unethical decisions and corrupt practices are increasingly exposed via news media, blogs, mobile phone cameras, ethics commissions, and NGOs. Collective responsibility for global ethics in decisionmaking is embryonic but growing. Global ethics are also emerging around the world through the evolution of ISO standards and international treaties that are defining the norms of civilization. However, trivial news and entertainment floods our minds with unethical behavior, and each year over $1 trillion is paid in bribes, while organized crime takes in over $2 trillion. Although many socioeconomic statistics show global improvement, gaps continue to worsen within many countries.

The speed at which the fabric of life has begun to change seems beyond the ability of most people and institutions to comprehend, leading to ethical uncertainties. Do we have the right to clone ourselves, or rewrite genetic codes to create thousands of new life forms, or genetically change ourselves and future generations into new species? Is it right for humans to merge with technology, as one way to prevent technological hegemony over humanity? Is a genetics race to build a superior people possible? Experts speculate that the world is heading for a “singularity”—a time in which technological change is so fast and significant that we today are incapable of conceiving what life might be like beyond the year 2025. Meanwhile, is it ethical to allow one population to pay another for their right to pollute? Since the poorest create the least greenhouse gas emissions but will suffer the most from climate change, should not those who produced the most GHGs pay for adapting to climate change? Should information about how to make a roadside bomb or an epidemic-causing virus be posted on the Internet? What is the appropriate balance between security and personal freedom?

Please suggest edits to this paragraph:


Approaches to address this challenge

Globalization and advanced technology allow fewer people to do more damage and in less time, so that possibly even one day a single individual may be able to make and deploy a weapon of mass destruction. Hence the healthy development of anyone should be the concern of everyone. Such observations are not new, but the consequences of failure to realize their importance may be much more serious in the future than in the past. New technologies also allow more people to do more good than ever before, such as single individuals organizing worldwide actions around specific ethical issues via the Internet.

Public morality based on religious metaphysics is challenged daily by growing secularism, leaving many unsure about the moral basis for decisionmaking. Unfortunately, religions and ideologies that claim moral superiority give rise to “we-they” splits, yet spiritual education should grow in balance with the new powers given humanity by technological progress. The moral will to act in collaboration across national, institutional, religious, and ideological boundaries that is necessary to address our global challenges requires global ethics. More of the very rich could form global partnerships for development with the poorest 2 billion—as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are doing in health, Richard Branson is doing in climate change, and Ted Turner is doing with UN systems.

The Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption have begun implementing the treaty, and the World Bank is helping to strengthen national anticorruption units. Over 4,000 businesses in 120 countries have joined the UN’s Global Compact to use global ethics in decisionmaking. The International Criminal Court has successfully tried political leaders. Memes could be promoted, like “make decisions that are good for me, you, and the world.” We need to promote parental guidance to establish a sense of values, encourage respect for legitimate authority, support the identification and success of the influence of role models, implement cost-effective strategies for global education for a more enlightened world, and make behavior match the values people say they believe in.

Challenge 15 will be addressed seriously when corruption decreases by 50% from the World Bank estimates of 2006, when ethical business standards are internationally practiced and regularly audited, when essentially all students receive education in ethics and responsible citizenship, and when there is a general acknowledgment that global ethics transcends religion and nationality.

Please suggest other actions to address this challenge or edits to the ones above:

Regional Considerations

Africa: How much more suffering do the people in Sudan and Zimbabwe have to endure before moral outrage changes the situation? The South African special unit (the Scorpions) that has been fighting organized crime and corruption since 1999 may be eliminated. In eight African countries surveyed by Transparency International, 20% of those interviewed who had contact with the judicial system reported having paid a bribe. Kenya’s Egerton University hosts the UNESCO Regional Bioethics Centre. The Business Ethics Network of Africa has grown and hosted the 2008 International Society of Business, Economics, and Ethics in South Africa.

Please suggest edits concerning Africa:

Asia and Oceania: Should Myanmar’s refusal to accept international aid for its people following the cyclone in 2008 cause the international community to define when human rights or needs outweigh sovereignty of governments? A January 2008 report on Iraq found that “$8.8 billion had been disbursed from Iraqi oil revenue by U.S. administrators to Iraqi ministries without proper accounting.” The need to make so many decisions so quickly during Asian urbanization apparently leaves little time to consider the ethical implications. Some do not believe there are common global ethics and maintain that the pursuit to create them is a western notion.

Please suggest edits concerning Asia and Oceania:

Europe: UNESCO in Paris has opened a Global Ethics Observatory as a system of databases focused on ethics related to science and technology worldwide. The EU has criminalized xenophobia and racism. The European integration process is helping establish ethical standards, yet increased non-European immigration raises new ethical challenges. Russia has created anti-corruption committees in parliament and the government, chaired by the President, and has begun implementing a national anti-corruption plan.

Please suggest edits concerning Europe:

Latin America: The Guatemala Declaration for a Region Free of Corruption signed by Central American governments has made progress with public access to information. University courses in business ethics are beginning to be taught in Latin America. The Inter-American Initiative of Social Capital, Ethics and Development of the Inter-American Development Bank works to strengthen ethical values in the region.

Please suggest edits concerning Latin America:

North America: Increasing income divides and the number of medically uninsured are being discussed as issues of ethics in the political arena. Decisionmaking software could prompt users through the ethical considerations of their decisions, based on universal values of respect, honesty, compassion, fairness, and responsibility, according to research from the Institute for Global Ethics. New campaign finance approaches are needed to improve ethics in political decisionmaking, along with better real-time transparency to prevent corruption.

Please suggest edits concerning North America:

If you have a suggestion for a graphic representation to measure change on this challenge, please indicate the source(s) of data:

Additional Comments
Please suggest any additional comments concerning this challenge:



Thank you for your participation. The results will be sent to you in the next State of the Future.



Survey conducted by the Millennium Project of the WFUNA