How do we work towards an ethics for the Whole Earth? This is an imperative proposed by David Sloan Wilson, Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University in his new book, The View of Life. I share this based on a conversation between Dr. Wilson and Ken Wilber on www.integrallife.com. Dr. Wilson proposes we are evolving as individuals, societies and cultures, and not just our biology evolving. We will evolve towards an Omega Point or global consciousness.
What is the good we can all agree to? Helping the planet support life as we have experienced it? Helping humans adapt to a changing climate? It affects all the planet, so the time is ripe for developing a global ethic.
Do we want to allow Russia to shoot down another commercial airliner? Do we want a country like the USA to have a leader who is a climate denier? Do we want China to give up some of its world dominance strategies and work towards the good of all humans, and not just the Chinese? Can even the USA do this? Can the Russian Mafia be convinced to legitimately work towards a global good? We must somehow come to a consciousness that supports life, even if it is not our tribe or our countrymen. Do we allow hoarding of water and food supplies? Do we allow poisoning of the environment and what happens to those who are doing the poisoning?
Do we entomb our nuclear waste and weapons and plants, so it is not a further detriment to generations to come to have an environment that supports rather than is more hostile for them?
The meaning of complex adaptive system, per Dr. Wilson, means a process of selection. The kind of order we need is functional order at a large scale, and we need a way to select at the large-scale level.
The origin of life was due to the cooperation of many molecules coming together to form a life form. Makes sense that to survive we must come together and cooperate. What will be the dominant monad of these cooperating parts? It requires a physical boundary dropped around them. Do we have this as our environment, the planetary environment? We would see how an extinction event would drop this boundary around those who exist in such an environment. What if the components of the human existence are riddled with cancer vs health?
Global cooperative ethics. How will it be defined?