Ethics of Globalization

Since I posted about Ethically-Made Clothing, I have had many thoughts and unanswered questions on the topic which left me overwhelmed in trying to grasp the issue as only one person.

Only buying and convincing others to only buy from fair trade certified producers seemed hardly a viable option, especially considering tight budgets and whatnot. It seems only accessible to a very select group of wealthy individuals and unlikely to lead to significant change in practice. So what next?

Similarly, much as I feel vegetarianism is an inspiring stance, I find it difficult to see the connection to significant changes in farming practices, beyond important personal moral and health gains.

In their book entitled “Human Rights and the Ethics of Globalization” (2010), Daniel E. Lee and Elisabeth E. Lee lay down the ethics in a fairly straightforward way that I appreciated.

They talk about different ethical philosophies and attempt to establish how the concepts and principles gained from them could be applicable to Global Market ethics.

They are also more realistic about market as a place which necessitates profitable outcomes but inject a human element that may get lost in balancing budgets.
Chapter 1: Human Rights

Talking of rights is a challenging way of approaching ethics at all. It is often said that where one’s right begins, another person’s right ends, and defining the gray area in between is virtually impossible and significantly affected by situation.

As the book is written from an American perspective, Lee & Lee reflect on Thomas Jefferson’s U.S. Declaration of Human Rights where in the final version it was stated:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Lee & Lee consider the word “self-evident,” defined as evident of itself without proof. This has been critiqued many times, for sometimes one can feel so certain of something and yet realize that it was a false belief after the fact. Was it really so self-evident to begin with? Did the men who wrote this wondrous document in fact own slaves?

The point is not to say that Rights are not important, Rights and Human Rights are very important, but sometimes violations may not be so clear until after the fact, and, as Lee & Lee highlight, even for the cruelest offenses, the right to fair trial, such as was seen after the Nazi surrender, remains a crucial element of Global Ethics. The conclusion is that first and foremost is respect for human dignity.

Chapter Conclusions

1 – Right to live (important, this is not to be confused with life) is the most basic human right

2 – Right to live is best understood as a natural right (that each individual has independent of anything that government or any other social institution/individual might or might not do, can be violated but not taken away)

3 – Natural rights are best viewed as negative rights (rights not to do something or to not have something done to you, there are simply a lot more things you can do that what you cannot)

4 – In some cases, conferred rights (some argue that all rights are conferred, that is, that they are contractual agreements or by social institutions of some sort) many of which are positive rights (right to do something) are just as important as natural rights.

5 – Rights claims do not exhaust all there is to say about ethics, it makes more sense simply to talk about moral obligations, rather than attempt to subsume everything under the rubric of rights

More to come on this later.