Halcyon curates the most significant ethics-related content from carefully selected sources. Please contact us if you'd like our help with ethics-related challenges.
In spite of spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers - Martin Luther King
This evolving paper will examine the overall Ethical Development Goals (EDGs) that Halcyon is developing to complement the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Introduction
The EDGs are inspired by the SDGs, officially known as ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, an intergovernmental set of aspiration Goals with 169 targets.
Please see below selected recent ethics-related change.
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June 2019
Since the cave we have tried to make the old gods smile. Each year we fail and winter comes. #CLNolan
"Wings are for flying, not frying" ...nice quote, nice sentiment. Animal-friendly consumerism could be a major future trend. Until 12 years ago I too gorged myself on turkey every Christmas Day, Boxing Day, 27th...and my mouth watered long after at the remembered taste of turkey soup on the 28th or 29th, a meal which constituted one of the culinary highlights of my year.
This is a work in progress...
What is The Commons?
As explained in Jeremy Rifkin's website for The Zero Marginal Cost Society, the emerging Internet of Things is speeding us to an era of nearly free goods and services, precipitating the meteoric rise of a global "Collaborative Commons" and the eclipse of capitalism. Rifkin expanded on these ideas at the RSA in April 2014 (see video).
A professor and former dean at the Saïd Business School at Oxford University argued in a 2013 book that corporations should restructure around three key principles:
Spanish runner Ivan Fernandez Anaya is still receiving attention for a race he lost in December 2012. El Pais explains how Anaya was in second place, some distance behind race leader Abel Mutai. As they entered the finishing straight, he saw the Kenyan mistakenly pull up about 10 metres before the finish, thinking he'd already crossed the line. Anaya quickly caught up with him, but instead of exploiting Mutai's mistake to speed past and claim victory, he stayed behind and, using gestures, guided the Kenyan to the line and let him cross first.
Two paths to the "good society". One allows individuals and groups to select their own beliefs and values (within the law); the other insists that beliefs and values should be imposed top down. The former is a pluralist society; the latter a fundamental or totalitarian one - John Cornwell, Sunday Times books, 02/10/06
There are a few countries which have in their central government a House or Ministry of Ethics. The US is one of them. There should be such ministries in all governments as well as a World Committee of Ethics at the top in the United Nations and in all its agencies - Robert Muller
The sixth step of the Eightfold Path is Right Effort, meaning to abstain from all evil states of mind and to foster and maintain virtuous states of mind: compassion, pity, sympathy, calmness and tranquility - http://www.amidabuddha.org/news/01May2007.html