PREFACE:
THE
CODE FOR GLOBAL ETHICS
"A man does
what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles
and dangers — and this is the basis of all human morality."
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) 35th U.S. President
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no
evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the
silliness of the majority of mankind, a wide-spread belief is more likely to be
foolish than sensible."
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
PREFACE
This book provides a moral compass
for anyone who seeks to follow its principles in order to think and act as a
humanist. In it, I develop the idea that rational
humanism provides an objective moral code,
and offers reasons for behaving morally, within the global context of a
shrinking world. Since our worldview affects how we interact with others, any
moral code must be judged as to how its adherents treat other people and
whether or not it improves people's lives. If the adherents treat others badly
and their moral code reduces people's quality of life, it is a bad moral code;
if the adherents treat others with dignity and respect and the code improves
people's lives, it is a good code of ethics. —This is the ultimate
pragmatic test of reality and results.
In December 2004, I was awarded the
Condorcet Prize of political philosophy by the Quebec Secularist Movement. On
this occasion, I was asked to give a short lecture on the origins and sources
of human morality (metaethics). During my research, while reading numerous secular
and religious books on morality, I was astounded to find how restrictively the
concept of morality has been applied throughout history. I was struck by four
major flaws in the ethics of organized religions.
Firstly, I was struck by the fact
that in most cases, especially as it relates to 'religious morality', the
principles espoused by organized religions were initially devised to apply to a
particular ethnic group, nationality, or to insiders of a religious
denomination, and were not at all meant to be universal in their application.
It seems that ancient religious or political leaders used religious laws and
precepts to increase the social and political cohesion and unity of their own
group or community, and its eventual survival, while at the same time
emphasizing their differences with, and often their hostility toward, other
groups and other communities. This is the main reason why I think religious
morality is fundamentally flawed. Too often, it leads to an ethnocentric or
hostile moral system.
One can easily arrive at such a
conclusion after reading the so-called 'holy books' that support the monotheist
religions of Judaism (the Torah), Christianity (the Bible) and Islam (the
Qur'an or Koran).
In these three 'revealed' books, one
discovers, for example, that while it is written, "do not kill", what is really meant is "do
not kill the insiders". Anything goes regarding the "outsiders"—the neighbors, the infidels, the non-believers, the
mecreants, the pagans, the enemies. Thus, in the book of Deuteronomy 20:16-17 (Bible: New King James Version), the
'chosen' Hebrews are ordered to commit the genocide of other tribes: "But
of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an
inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive,—but you
shall utterly destroy them: the Hittites and the Amorites and the Canaanites
and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, just as the Lord your God
has commanded you." Similar passages can be found in the Islamic Qur'an. This may explain
why some deeply religious peoples have no qualms about killing their enemies,
or anybody who does not belong to their group of insiders, however they define
themselves.
The second major flaw of religious
morality is the subtle distinction that it often introduces between individual
or private morality, and public morality. There is one morality for ordinary
people in their daily lives and another morality for leaders and government
agents acting in their official capacity. This moral dichotomy may explain more
than anything else why humanity is still saddled with murderous wars. There are
two recent examples of such moral ambiguity. The first is personified by Osama
bin Laden, the self-proclaimed religious leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist
movement, who harbors two moralities simultaneously: one drawn from the Qur'an
enjoining him "not to kill", and another one—also inspired by
the Qur'an—that says that it is good to kill certain innocent people "for
the cause of God (Allah)." The second example is a self-proclaimed deeply religious American
president, George W. Bush, who presumably still considered himself religiously
moral after ordering a war of aggression against Iraq, in 2003, an onslaught
that resulted in the killing of hundreds of thousands of people; men, women and
children.
Why such a morality à-la-carte? My answer is that the medieval
religious concepts of morality are fundamentally inadequate for a humanity
living in the modern integrated and multicultural
world and on an ever-shrinking Planet, a planet that requires global solutions
to global problems. They belong to another age, when each human group had a
circumscribed geographical horizon and when the moral rules for survival were
more primitive and more cruel. Over the coming centuries, moral rules must
adapt in order to maximize the chances of humanity's survival in the new
environment of global economic, political and cultural cooperation, and in the
face of the new challenges of global climate changes.
The third flaw of religion-based morality
comes from the fact that it relies on the fiction of an eternal 'hell' to
intimidate and demonize non-believers. This is a very immoral and unjust threat
because it condemns without appeal two-thirds of humankind to exclusion, and
possibly, to persecutions, religious wars and genocides. This is a very serious
defect of religion-based morality because this ideology of "hell" and
the hatred it may have encouraged against "the others", may have
caused, directly or indirectly, millions of deaths.
The fourth flaw of religion-based
morality arises from its philosophical stance about a hypothetical separation
between the human mind and the human body. Much of the negative religious
morality concerning the human body comes from this erroneous distinction.
Faced with such an entrenched but
flawed morality and considering the huge challenges that humanity must
overcome, it would seem that we need a new moral code of conduct, one that
transcends traditional religion-based morality and which adopts a posture of
global awareness and sensitivity to human problems. The rational humanistic
principles of morality can provide such guidance.
Some may argue that universal
humanistic principles of morality are self-evident and need not be presented in
an orderly fashion. —I disagree. I believe that such principles are
superior to any other system of moral principles, especially those based on the
flawed concept of ethical duality or of in-group morality. I believe these
principles should not only be proclaimed, they should also be compared to other
moral codes and taught to all the world's children.
Of course, none of the humanist ideas espoused here are completely new, but
they are emphasized and placed in a new context, the context of the
twenty-first century.
This
explains why I attempt in this book to represent and compare a set of ethical
values, as a direct extension of my Condorcet Prize acceptance speech. This set
of humanist moral principles are not inspired by narrow religious dogmas but
are based on universal humanistic values.
This book does not fall into the politically correct trend, because it openly questions some
long-held political and philosophical views. It is my contention that in
the twenty-first century we can no longer
depend upon old gods, ancient prophets and old books for guidance. We must look
into ourselves to discover the rules for living together in peace and mutual
understanding. We need a new moral code to fill the moral vacuum that exists
presently around the world. —Warning: This book may change your outlook
on life and transform your way of thinking.
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