Common/shared values
I have been thinking about these again. I feel that often people talk about shared values without articulating them very much. Google the phrase and you get some quite different views on what they might be. Some take a more secular approach. Liberty, the human rights group sees human rights themselves as an expression of shared values. Click here to watch some of their short videos on these. The Guardian Newspaper ran a series on something called citizen ethics with contributions from scholars and writers. These took a rather more critical and virtue based approach. Neither of these say very much about religious and philosophical differences however and the perceived sense of civilizational clash. Other approaches seem more inclusive of religious perspectives. Runzo has written something interesting here. There is an interesting Scottish attempt called values in harmony and there is the statement by the Parliament of World Religions called Towards a Global Ethic.
Environmental Ethics at York St John
I enjoyed meeting the students who came to the Thinking Conference at York St John University last week. The questions were good too. I had talked a little about applying theories to environmental ethics . I had mentioned that I though Kant’s centrality of the person and the necessity of universalizability was helpful in understanding why we should be just in not pursing industrial policies that harmed others living in low lying parts of the world which suffer from rising sea levels. It seems to me that the Categorical imperative is a really helpful way of thinking about about responsibilities, our duties to others, and the need to follow ourselves the rules about how we develop. I think Kant wants us to think foreward to the Kingdom of Ends and so the future matters. So we must not only think about the here and now. But I still think we need habit forming ethics to help deal with the practical problem of how to get people to live more simple lives.
You can download the talk here.
In one of the feedbacks someone raged about Gaia theory. If you are out there and want to make a point, this is what this site is for.
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