The Code For Global Ethics

Rodrigue Tremblay

Prometheus Books

One of the major conflicts facing the world today is not military. It is the fight to update our outmoded systems of human ethics based mostly on superstition and blind belief with a more rational model where the individual is empowered to think for themselves and question what they are told. With the individual properly empowered Humanists believe many of the world’s problems and conflicts can be solved by non-military means. This will require a major change in our thinking and a willingness to abandon the old beliefs that have cause so much grief. In the conflict between blind belief and scientific enquiry, blind belief is still hanging on, supported often by the human and corporate parasites who have much to gain from the status quo. Humanists believe that the rights of the individual come first and that society must restructure or face extinction..

Tremblay gives us ten Humanist principles that properly implemented could alleviate much of the world’s poverty and inequality. There are many obstacles to overcome first. Tremblay lists the principles and illustrates their need with many details from history. Let’s have a brief look at them.

Dignity and Equality

“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil, but for good people to do evil – that takes religion”…Steven Weinberg.

Like it or not, religions take away individual dignity and replace it with a set of irrational beliefs. Those beliefs can so easily be corrupted. In the Mosaic Ten Commandments we are told “thou shalt not kill.” Careful interpretation by “scholars” and leaders has led to this being hedged by exceptions and exclusions. It is OK to kill in war. You can even claim to have the deity on your side but, of course, so can your enemy. It is easier if they are different deities since your god is better than their god and it is therefore easier to vilify them. Sometimes there is an escape clause, such as in Islam where you can avoid slaughter if you convert to their religion. Otherwise, as an infidel you are fair game. Convert or die. This removes any chance of human dignity as you either fall into line or are eliminated. This attitude is most notable among the fundamentalist branches of religions.

Equality of men and women has always been an issue. For much of history women were chattels of their husband or father. This attitude is only partly based on religion but major religions have consistently supported the principle. In Islam, particularly, no woman can be said to be allowed personal dignity under the repressive religion.

In too many cases religions and the current rulers have worked hand-in-hand to support each other and maintain the status quo at the expense of individual dignity. The various English and Scottish religious wars, often supported by the Pope of the time, are an example. Because of this cooperation it was possible to claim against reason that the current ruler was either ruling by Divine Right (French kings) or was actually the current incarnation of God on earth (the Pharaohs). What hope is there of change against power cartels like these?

Respect Life and Property.

Unless, of course, you want to make economic gain for your own benefit. From a humanistic point of view there are cases where the greater public good may outweigh individual rights, such as resumption of land to build a new highway or a hospital.

A controversial area at the moment is patenting of gene patterns, both human and animal. Does decoding a particular gene sequence give you the right of ownership of the gene pattern, or even the whole animal? Yet this is currently being tried by some major corporations like Monsanto. If a cure for cancer should appear, based on genetic knowledge and manipulation, could a company claim to own all cancer cures because it had mapped that particular genome? Not according to Humanists. They may be able to patent or copyright the gene mapping technique but not the gene itself. The gene is not “property” but is naturally occurring.

Property rights from a Humanist perspective also include the right to enjoy your property and life free from pollution and ecological contamination. This one is being broken regularly, especially by corporations who often cannot be held responsible – a corporation has many of the rights of an individual but few of the responsibilities.

Two other major areas of conflict are the right to die with dignity (euthanasia) and abortion. These arguments are consistently led by religious authorities who cannot accept that people may have a right to control their own bodies.

Tolerance

“How people choose to live their lives is their own personal decision, provided they do not hurt others.” The “empathy principle” suggests that you should be able to put yourself in another’s shoes, to share their feelings and understandings, to see things from their point of view. It does not require that you agree with them, just that you respect their opinions and their right to differ with yours. By understanding their viewpoint we are left with “Do to others as you would have them do to you if you were in their place”. Blind belief systems do not allow this tolerance. Religious systems are going to be the hardest to convince, since much of their power comes from supporting intolerance in a juvenile “pissing competition” that implies that my religion / god / deity of choice is better / bigger than yours. The ultimate intolerance is the religious jihad.

Sharing The Wealth

Tremblay is on very solid ground as he is by training an economist. There is some hope here for there is evidence that people are supporting charities more strongly. On a government level this support is not as strong, on a corporate level it will usually only be applied if the corporation has something to gain – better public relations or economic advantages like tax breaks. The greed of shareholders knows no bounds and the corporations must cater to them.

No Domination, No Exploitation

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction” …..Blaise Pascal

Domination and exploitation did not finish at the end of the colonial era – it is still alive and active in such events as the invasion of Iraq based on George W Bush’s lies that they were an Al Queda base of operations and Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It was about securing oil supplies for an irresponsible and oil-hungry United States.

The principle also includes exploitation of workers (as cheap labour) and of a belief-driven public harangued by televangelists. Perhaps the ultimate irony here is the 10 million-strong Pentecostal Church of the U.S. whose motto seems to be “God wants you to get rich”. Exploiting people is immoral but once god is mentioned it is all OK. If you are not rich it must be because you don’t worship at the right church.

No Superstition

This is currently highly controversial in light of the attempts by U.S religions to have the myth of Creationism taught in schools. The separation of church and state guaranteed in the U.S. constitution is notable by the way fundamentalist believers keep ignoring it. Superstition may have had its benefits in caveman days to help tie a social group together. In the absence of any other theory and lack of scientific knowledge it was valid, but are we to still believe that two thousand years ago a bunch of Middle Eastern goat herders knew more about the workings of the cosmos than the best scientists of today? If there is no way of testing a hypothesis like creationism or the existence of a god, it is not a valid theory. Nor is blind belief in “science”. It is a mater of concern that in the United States today an increasing number of people profess to believe in creationism despite a complete lack of evidence in favour of that belief. Is the country becoming dumber?

Conservation

“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”

The Earth is a finite resource and we are already consuming more than is sustainable. Population control is essential although on the surface it seems to conflict with respect for life and property. Does it, though? It is a case where the greatest good for the greatest number comes into play and it allows no room for belief systems to override verifiable scientific fact. It also implies that those sustainable resources that there are must be shared more equally.

Violence, War and Peace

“In his youth he (the common soldier) he may have learned the command “Though shalt not kill” but the ruler takes the boy just as he enters manhood and teaches him that his highest duty is to shoot a bullet through his neighbour’s heart… simply because the ruler gives the word.”

There have been 118 inter-state wars since the 19th century. Demagogic leaders are at fault here, often on behalf of fundamentalist religions. Until these leaders are removed from office wars will continue. Again, the greatest good for the greatest number may be a substitute for a lack of respect for others.

It is sad but true that the worst and bloodiest wars have usually been either inspired or justified by religion. Surprisingly few have been begun by criminal lunatics like Idi Amin or Adolf Hitler without some sort of religious backing. A disturbing trend is the growth in religious terrorism directly urged by religious leaders. It is not a new phenomenon – the earliest I can remember is the Jewish group of dagger-wielding assassins, the Siccarii, who terrorised Jerusalem during the Roman occupation. A more recent example is Pope Urban II launching the Crusades against the Moslems. And let’s not forget George W Bush once again with his invasion of Iraq and claiming god’s support to do so..

Democracy

Totalitarian theocracy is the most dangerous form of government. By refusing to respect any other points of view its people are effectively disenfranchised and this makes change harder if not impossible.

“Only God who appointed me will remove me, not the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change, an opposition party), not the British.” …..Robert Mugabe, African dictator who has led (forced?) his country into poverty and starvation. Such men come to power gradually and insidiously until thinking people realise it is too late to remove them. Democratic elections and an informed public can stop their rise to power, but only if people can vote and can use their vote wisely.

A third factor has arisen in the last century – media propaganda. Before the last Australian Federal election we were treated to “news” about the Opposition leader in tight swimwear, the Prime Minster’s hair style and fashion sense and a well funded campaign by the mining companies that increasing taxes on their exploitative industries would cost jobs and investment. Such comments as there were on the parties’ policies were dumbed down to media debates carefully staged for maximum media effect rather than maximum information delivery. Media support in an election campaign is essential now, even though it mostly serves to peddle influence on behalf of media magnates. How is an individual to make an informed decision when the information is withheld or distorted by the media as unnewsworthy?

Education

The gift of learning is the greatest of them all and possibly the most important humanistic principle. “It is in countries that invest the least in education and have the lowest income per capita that one finds the highest proportion of people engulfed by religion”. People must be intellectually independent. Education must mean more than learning the Koran by rote.

How do you turn the situation around to give real people personal dignity and a say in their own lives? People must be trained to THINK, not blindly accept whatever is thrown at them, religious or otherwise. The education systems have failed badly here. People must have an avenue of non-violent resistance and a way to call the leaders to account. The courts and elections do not always guarantee this. Excessive concentration of wealth, power and resources must be curtailed, as must the attitude that it is alright to gain wealth at the expense of others. Religions, huge corporations with concentrations of wealth and power themselves, must be made more responsible in the battle to reduce poverty – not by raising more funds from the faithful but by using their own massive resources gathered by exploitation over millennia.

Can this happen? Although it won’t be simple or easy this book sets out the Humanist principles to aim for and suggests ways that they can be achieved. Tremblay’s writing is easy to follow and the many examples he uses to illustrate his comments are relevant and informational. By placing many of his examples in a historical context we can see how a belief-driven system has been foisted on us and continues to be accepted.

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