Millennium Project
Global Challenges Facing Humanity


15. Global Ethics
How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?

Unethical decisions are increasingly exposed via news media, blogs, mobile phone cameras, ethics commissions, and organizations like Transparency International. Trivial news and entertainment floods our minds with unethical behavior, while over $1 trillion are paid in bribes, $2 trillion goes to organized crime, and the proliferation of terrorism cries out for global ethical leadership. It is estimated that 300,000 children in 30 conflicts are solders, sex slaves, porters, and sentries. How can more ethical decisions be reinforced like Brazil’s on AIDS? Or new ones stimulated like a U.S.-China alliance to cut CO2 emissions?

Public morality based on religious metaphysics is challenged daily by growing secularism, leaving many unsure about the moral basis for decisionmaking. 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 rewrite genetic codes, creating 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 there a balance between supporting free inquiry and making information available that could cause significant catastrophes? Could the technical means to prevent terrorism lead to e-fascism? 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.

Globalization and advanced technology allow fewer people to do more damage and in less time than ever before. Hence the welfare of anyone should be the concern of everyone. Such platitudes are not new, but the consequences of their failure will be quite different in the future than in the past. Yet new technologies also allow fewer people to help more than ever before as well. The Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption have begun implementing the treaty and the World Bank is helping to strengthen national anticorruption units. The proliferation of NGOs, global news media, and self-organizing Internet blogs are new forces for transparency, providing some checks on the abuse of power. The synergies among the more than 16,000 ISO standards improve the ethics in decisions around the world.

The World Bank lists unethical companies and individuals and produces indicators of good governance. Corporate ethics indexes, new journals, civil society forums, and multi-religious dialogues address global ethics in decisionmaking. Nine of 14 countries polled supported a tax on arms trade or oil to support the UN’s ability to act more effectively, and the UN is the key global body founded to incorporate ethical considerations into global decisions. Over 2,000 businesses have joined the UN’s Global Compact to use global ethics in decisionmaking. The International Criminal Court has tried political leaders.

Collective responsibility for global ethics in decisionmaking is embryonic but growing. Unfortunately, religions and ideologies that claim moral superiority give rise to “we-they” splits. The moral will to act in collaboration across national, institutional, religious, and ideological boundaries necessary to address the Global Challenges will require acknowledgement and practice of global ethics.

By addressing the 14 other Global Challenges through multinational corporations, governments, and a range of international organizations, we add ethical considerations to global decisionmaking. Some individuals are organizing themselves around specific ethical issues via the Internet. Others explicitly try to develop global ethics, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNESCO’s Universal Ethics Project, the Commission on Global Governance, and the Institute for Global Ethics. Successful ethical codes are the product of a social consensus, not a paternalistic imposition. Educating children to become responsible citizens will influence adults and thus the entire population.

Global ethics must not only correspond to major religious morals, it should also engage both believers and nonbelievers in a new alliance that creates a sense of “being with” all humankind—including “futurekind,” so that we act in the interests of future generations. Memes could be promoted like: Good for me, you, and the world. We need more effective ways to control lobbying, reduce greed and self-centeredness, encourage honor and honesty, promote parental guidance to establish a sense of values, reduce barriers to the freedom of inquiry, 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, make behavior match the values people say they believe in, and spread the Olympic spirit. A global process should be initiated that leads to an international code of conduct that empowers a multilateral body like the UN to monitor it, including enforcement of international treaties equally among all nations. Wasting time is a reliable indicator of unethical approaches.

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

Regional Considerations

Africa: How much more damage does Zimbabwe have to suffer before moral outrage changes the situation? Kenya’s treasury was looted of an amount equivalent to 20% of the nation’s GDP. Most of the lowest-rated governments by Transparency International are in Africa. Business Ethics Network of Africa, formed in 1999, began publishing the African Journal of Business Ethics in 2006.

Asia and Oceania: Some 3,500 corruption cases have been investigated in Iraq, of which 780 cases have been lodged in court but fewer than 50 have been tried. The rapid urbanization of Asia forces so many decisions so quickly that there is 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.

Europe: The EU has criminalized xenophobia and racism. The Wittenberg Center has established five areas of future impact by global ethics: sustainability and global governance, corporate citizenship and new alliances, globalization and international organizations, anti-corruption and integrity management, and discourse among cultures.

Latin America: Education, media, and religion are needed to reinforce ecological ethics, human rights, democracy, equitable development, minority protection, conscious awareness, happiness, social responsibility, and solidarity in order to balance the increasing effects of individualism.

North America: Corruption and ethics were the most important issues determining voters’ choices in the 2006 U.S. elections. Decisionmaking software could prompt users through 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. Socially responsible investment funds are growing. New campaign finance approaches are needed to improve ethics in political decisionmaking along with better real-time transparency to prevent corruption.

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