Each day we make judgements based on a set of ethical values. Our friends, colleagues, those we elect or support in positions of power and authority do the same. However, no matter how well we know, like or trust them – their value judgements will differ slightly or considerably from our own.
Sometimes we can live with the results. Others may haunt us for the rest of our lives.
In the end these must be personal judgements though influenced by personal values, cultural and religeous beliefs and societal needs.
You would have thought that over the millenia, regardless of the different pace of civilisation and moral sophistication, we humans as a race would have been approaching an ethical norm. Diversity, free will, creativity and socio/economic/environmental/philosophical influences aside…..
Why is it that we can experience such a range of feelings in reaction to the moral and ethical diversity of fellow humans.
I feel sick about
Leadership should be ethics based
I feel curious about
I feeel angry about
I feel frustrated about
I feel ambivalent about
I feel nothing about
Are we progressing to a higher moral and ethical plane.
What can we do to exert the moral ascendency that our humanity, ability to think, to imagine, to design and to collectively achieve should demand of us?
Can we create our future and shared destiny with a sense of common rightness.
The internet and social media may just provide an answer to these questions. I have just read a blog questioning the ethics of the Thai media to publish the death photo of David Caradine. It was the comments and philosophical exchanges that caught my attention. Points of view from people of different cultures, with different beliefs and values putting their case in a non destructive or aggressive way. A sharing and learning experience that rarely occurs outside of academia.
May be, just may be we can earn the the rights and responsibilities mankind has grasped and that fulfil our highest understanding of what is humanity.
Dare to be human play your part in creating a shared ethical ethos that we are proud of.
