Ethics, Politics, and

Democracy
FROM PRIMORDIAL PRINCIPLES TO
PROSPECTIVE PRACTICES
EDITED BY

JOSE V. CIPRUT

ETHICS, POLITICS, AND

DEMOCRACY

ETHICS, POLITICS, AND

DEMOCRACY:
From Primordial Principles
to Prospective Practices

Jose V. Ciprut, Editor

The MIT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England

The Mythical Act of Cosmic Purification shows Mithraliberty-coiffed

God of Light and Chastity, Foe of the Forces of Obscuritytrampling Sin,
Malevolence, and Evil (dog, scorpion, serpent), slaying primordial Might
(bull), and irrigating Earth with its blood.Ed.
Graphic: Roman Sculpture of Mithra Slaying the Bull.
The Art Archive/Corbis
Cover Concept and Design: Jose V. Ciprut

2008 Jose V. Ciprut

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic
or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and
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This book was set in Palatino by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong, and was
printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ethics, politics, and democracy : from primordial principles to prospective practices /
edited by Jose V. Ciprut.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-03386-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-262-53309-6 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
1. DemocracyMoral and ethical aspects. 2. Political ethics. I. Ciprut, Jose V.
JC423.E79 2009
172dc22
2008014044

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Josie,
with whom I share the intimate sentiment that some rights
are not just; and that dutiesnot obligationscan encourage being into becoming, from which a state of mind may
blossom, with a fragrance known as freedom to some.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good [wo]men do nothing.
Edmund Burke (17291797)

Dalgac Mahmut
.
I sim gcm budur benim,
Gkyzn boyarm her sabah,
Hepiniz uykudayken.
Uyanr bakarsnz ki mavi.

Captain Can-dos Conundrum

Deniz yrtlr kimi zaman,

Bilmezsiniz kim diker;
Ben dikerim

When the sea gets torn from time to time,

Youd never guess who mends it;
I do, else who.

Dalga geerim kimi zaman da,

O da benim vazifem;
Bir bas dsnrm basmda,
Bir mide dsnrm midemde,
Bir ayak dsnrm ayag mda,
Ne haltedeceg imi bilemem.

And once in a while I daydream a tad

Thats a duty of mine, too;
I think of a head inside my head,
I think of a belly in my belly,
I think of a foot in my foot, yet too bad,
I cant figure out what the heck to do.

Orhan Veli Kank (19141950),

Turkish poet

Daydreamer Mahmoud,
interpreted by Jose V. Ciprut

This is my job, its what I do:

Every single morning I paint the sky,
While all of you are sleeping.
You open your eyes and look up: its blue.

11 Criteria for Electing Konyas Representatives

to the Turkish National Assembly
(Compiled by Ali Akgn, journalist in Konya, in Turkish, around 1908)
Long-time residency in Konya; familiarity with its peoples interests & aspirations;
Capacity to want laws, to conceive/articulate bills, conducive to Konyas happiness;
Neither so ignorant as to discredit the nation nor a rake unworthy of Konyas trust;
Ability and fearless courage openly to address the States unjust or unlawful deeds;
Not bonded or open to handouts; not one to wink at lawbreakers/abusers of justice;
Neither a tear-shedding accomplice to crime, nor an alms seeking merciless official;
Not one to accept bribes, nor one to sell others rights, or inclined to destroy others;
No record or reputation for inflicting pain, for inciting to cruelty/torture on others;
Not inclined to, or adept at the unethical practice of two-facedness or double-speak;
Not led by a need to prove others wrong, to eavesdrop on others secrets, or to plot;
Skilled and/or wealthy enough to ensure autonomous livelihood after public service.

From Islam and Constitutionalism (1908) Konya: Yusuf Ag a Library,

Catalog 9521/2. Turkish to English translation by Jose V. Ciprut, 2008.

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

1.

Prisoners of Our Dilemmas

xiii
1

Jose V. Ciprut
2.

Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought

33

Barry L. Eichler
3.

On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice:

An Eighteenth-Century Voice

59

Paul Guyer
4.

Ethics, Modernity, and Human-Animal Relations

83

Adrian R. Morrison
5.

The Future of Genetics in Medicine:

Practices, Prospects, and Peril

103

Reed E. Pyeritz
6.

Ego and Ethos

135

David R. Williams
7.

Trust, Ethics, and Markets

159

Paul R. Kleindorfer
8.

Ethics, Morals, and the State: Rereading the Classical View

J. J. Mulhern

181

xii

9.

Contents

Ethics, Morality, and Religion: Directional Transitions

and Trends, East and West

201

Don Baker
10. Exclusion, Fear, and Identity in Emerging Democracies

227

Jeff Spinner-Halev
11. Politics of Ethics: Toward an Ethic of Egalitarian
Democracy?

251

Kevin Cameron
12. The Problem of a Democratic Ethic

273

Richard Schuldenfrei
13. On the Need and Requirements for a Global Ethic of
Communication

293

Thomas W. Cooper and Clifford G. Christians

14. The Long Road Ahead: A Mode of Democratic
Citizenship Inseparable from a Shared Ethic of
Responsible Freedoms

319

Jose V. Ciprut
About the Authors
Name Index
Subject Index

327
331
339

Preface and
Acknowledgments

At the intersection of religion, morality, and ethics, it puzzles one

to find neither serenity nor peace but disconcerting perplexities
borne by incessant dilemmas spawned by dichotomies at war: humongous archetypal struggles oft disguised in petty tensions, whether
between my virtues, your sins, I good, you bad, or us right, them
wrong, with rare if any durable reconciliations between extreme
ascriptions, short of oxymoronic concessions rendered convenient by
circumstances.
Many important people, at one time or another, have found reason
to comment on the true meaning of religion,1 on what is right and what
is wrong,2 and especially on the merits of doing the right thing for the
right reason3some, in their profound fervor, to the extent of seeing
no great difference between true ethics and true religion.4
Modestly, if determinedly, this little volume seeks to revisit the
origins of these certainties; to reexamine the modalities of our grumbling and fumbling practices in the present and, of course, also the
prospects for a more sagacious, more astutely inclusive approach to
transforming the globe into a more hospitable, more beneficent social
abode for one and all. This it sets out to do in fourteen intimately
braided, thematically relevant, and logically sequenced short chapters
insightfully penned by experts in pivotally pertinent disciplines, each
of which is discerningly aware of, and discriminatingly attentive to, its
1. The reflection that the true meaning of religion is . . . not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion is a double-edged sword pre-owned by Matthew Arnolds.
2. A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being
right, said once a pensive Thomas Paine.
3. In T. S. Eliots Murder in the Cathedral, one stumbles on this merciless judgment: The
highest form of treason: to do the right thing for the wrong reason.
4. Ethics thought out is religious thought; ethics felt out is religious feeling, and ethics
lived out is the religious lifethus spake William Channing Gannett.

xiv

Preface and Acknowledgments

others. Truthful adjectival modesty aside, we first visit the ethics of

self-governance, past and future; next we examine how the self has
almost concentrically evolved across eccentric transactional contexts
(household, market, state, and globe); then we problematize the ethics
of politics, with the future conditional of self-adjusting democratic
governance always in mind.
As the vivid harvest of my final annual seminar cycle, this book
completes my Cross-Campus Conversations at Penn. I am pleased to have
been informed that these seminars did change a life or two on campus
for the better; and I know, for having noted their emergence myself,
that they also inspired new course titles, encouraged expansions of
tired syllabi, and even led to a lavishly budgeted and staffed major
initiativean emulation wrapped in a gilded version of CCC@Punder an ever so slightly different acronym, for good taste. Indeed, as
I conclude my proofreading of this last volume, I notice with quiet
contentment the proliferation of similar ventures that seem to have
been encouraged, catalyzed, or galvanized into existencein spirit,
organization, and method as also in mindset, attitude, and dispositionon the very greens that between 1998 and 2005 served as
CCC@Ps intellectual turf, its pilot laboratory, for the then quite unusual
transdisciplinary faculty-student interface it first was designed to be,
and the strictly invitational interprofessional academic setting it had to
be quickly transformed into, in order to survive the wicked threats it
faced, thereby the more effectively directly to serve the One University
ideal it pursuedby casting bridges over time-honored conventional
barriers across full-fledged disciplines and professions at professorial
and expert levels only. This it did, meaningfully and successfully,
becoming remarkable (and envied) in a very short time.
Our thanks go to the usual suspectsparticularly those who help us
host our guests in the most hospitable surroundingsin this case, The
Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research of the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. We thank also the
staff of the Instructional Technology Services of the School of Arts and
Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania. We do value very much the
loyalty of our contributors, who stuck with us through thick and thin,
during this particularly demanding project: without these distinguished
colleagues become esteemed accomplices and true fellow pilgrims, this
volume would not have seen the light of day. For their magnanimous
solidarity and generous confidence, the expression of our appreciation
and gratitude iterated on this occasion is only natural.

Preface and Acknowledgments

xv

According to systems theory, regardless of whether undertaken by

one or more person(s), a system-wide innovation is at its purposive,
progressive, and productive best when its functions, structures, and
processes, inter-sustaining by design, relate so well to each others
practical and ethical justifications across time and space that, when the
constituents expose and attune themselves to the fast evolving exigencies of their individual contexts and to the vagaries of their forever
altering collective relational/transactional environments, they do so
in interconnected modes, as elements of a synergetic ensemble.
Manifest in concert, such self-orchestration is purported to be able to
transform a self-supporting enterprise into behaving almost as an autopoietic [an actively self-readjusting, continually (re)organizing, always
responsively readapting, and self-maintaining] operating system,
empowered to deploy more than the arithmetic sum of its wherewithal
as it learns and transforms itself. By definition, such an entity is expected
to survive hardships precisely because it is not a mere aggregation of
talents the sum performance of whichby resignationwould depend
primarily on the mechanics of transfer in clockworks vulnerable to
the very first particle of sand that poses a threat. This is why such an
enterprise is supposed to become its own magnificent reward: were it
because, as if miraculously, the orbits of theory and practice become so
teased to come closest to each other that even the mortal enemies of
such a systemic creation cannot, hard though they might try, disrupt
its purposely reorientable trajectory.
Everyday practice, however, often goes on to prove that the sort of
smooth perfection rendered possible by theory issimply putnot
quite of this world. Forming our Cross-Campus Conversations at Penn,
single-handedly forging the contexts in which they took life; and bringing the seeds of these efforts to blossom, fruition, and harvest proved
in practice as challenging as the ideational demands and the managerial exigencies that I had placed upon myself at the outset and also as
I kept ideating, designing, organizing, supporting, feeding, directing,
improvising, and translating each and all of these quests into outcomes
as a purposely interrelated ensemble, even if sometimes I had to do so
in defiance of the vicious obstacles placed, and in utter disdain for the
noxious adversities encountered along the way. In retrospect, the very
conditions in which each and all of these tasks were accomplished now
give me cause to consider myself that much more gratified, were it for
having been able to innovate against the odds, by devising ways to
make do with what I could muster and by inventing alternate routes

xvi

Preface and Acknowledgments

as means to reach the final destinationin other words, by constantly

readjusting and doggedly moving on without ado, and all the while
remaining impervious to inimical acts, or to cheap rivalry.
In the process, I found myself able to perceive new distinctions
between theory and practice and to discover new parallels twixt large
bureaucraciesmilitary, governmental, or academic: The more proximate the fit between theory and practice across time and space, that
more closed may tend to become a system gradually enamored with
(enslaved to) itself, the more predictable the existential connections that
it entertains within its operational and transactional ambits, and the
more mechanical its myriad interfaces with both internal agents and
external environments. Conversely, the less espousing the fit, the more
open the system in question, the less predictable the potential for serendipitous synchronicity and for corresponding isomerisms by the
system and by its statistically significant others in shared or impacting
environments. More plainly reworded: at one extreme one finds trains
that run on time, every time; aging practices that seem as immortal as
ever and cliques that self-perpetuate for the good of the massesa
Platonic universe in which there has been carved out a place for each
of the ten thousand things under the sky and where it is a hierarchical
obligation to see to it that every single one of these things is, indeed,
always, without fail, in its assigned place. At the other extreme: few
things that work, junk that accumulates, no garbage collection to speak
of, and practically no order; thereforesurprising for somealso no
fear, out of fear, in total absence of palpable legitimacy embodied in
tangible authority. It is not so much that old trainsassuming they still
are in running conditiondo not move, leave, or arrive on time, every
time; but more generally, that a sense of individual latitudes, of shared
collective responsibility for orderliness or of regard for the usually
unwritten rules of civic reciprocity are neither ingrained in the vernacular nor integrated to the culture. Somewhere along this nonfigurative
quasi-continuum that imaginably stretches from one of these two
hypothetical extremes to the other, and within the virtual bounds of
the labile zone in which principle and practice are often, in the minds
eye, perceived to be traveling companions sitting next to each other,
stands democratic citizenship under eminently ameliorable enlightened democratic governance. The exact locus of the ephemeral bliss
point in staged scenarios of alternate futures is often suspected to
depend mainly on the direction, frequency, and magnitude, if sometimes also on the deep qualitative content of an ethic of freedom that,

Preface and Acknowledgments

xvii

if/when at all, only fleetingly impacts the fragile democratic space,

with some luck more indelibly so than it touches any other. One might
ask, why frequently in some democratic spaces, yet only occasionally
in others? This is a valid question at the intersection of ethics, politics,
and democracy, one that might find itself rewarded with insights in
lieu of answers by the end of the contextualized explorations conducted in the pages ahead.
Jose V. Ciprut

Ich war ja kein . . .

I wasnt One . . .

Als die Nazis die

Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein
Kommunist.

When the Nazis came to

arrest the Lefties,
I kept my mouth at ease:
Hell, I was not
one of these.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,

habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein
Sozialdemokrat.

When they incarcerated

the Social Demies,
I kept my mouth at ease:
Well, of course; I was not
one of these.

Als sie die

Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein
Gewerkschafter.

When they rounded up

Trade Unionese,
I did not protest, fact is;
Why should Iwasnt
one of these.

Als sie die

Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein
Jude.

And when they grabbed

Yehudis,
I kept my mouth at ease:
Dnever been
one of these.

Als sie
mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr,
der protestieren
konnte.

Then thcame
me to seize;
With no one else left,
whos to speak up
for me please.

Poem (1976 original version)

attributed to Pastor
Martin Niemller (18921984)

Interpreted
by
Jose V. Ciprut

The poem reproaches the indifferent silence by German intellectuals when, upon
rising to power, the Nazis began purging targeted groups one after the other,
supposedly in that order: none of those not (yet) harassed would stand to
speak up for those purged, until there was allegedly no one left who could speak
for the self-engrossed whose turn had come. Unwittingly, the poem gives equal
pride of place to political incarceration and systematic murder. Its as if it saw no
moral difference between group imprisonment and system-wide genocide.Ed.

Prisoners of Our
Dilemmas
Jose V. Ciprut

A modern Western textbook on ethics and morals ordinarily would

begin by reminding us that these two notions boast European origins:
ethics, it might tell us, comes from ethikos, ultimately from ethos, Greek
for character; and morals, from moralis, ultimately from mos, Latin for
custom or manner.1 If the latter precision might create ambiguity, by
juxtaposing custom and manner when it refers to morals, the former
assertion might do injustice by failing to recognize the ancient nonWestern codes of customs and manners. With those, even the Greeks
and Romans themselves had become well acquainted as a result of their
exposure, through trade, fact gathering, and military expeditions,
which at different times extended to southern Russia, the Indus, North
Africa, Gibraltar, and thus into, across, and beyond Europe.
As mortals with duties to ourselves, commitments to our others, and
obligations to our life space as a whole, we may find ourselves all too
often hamstrung twixt what may look repulsively ugly yet is right and
what may seem attractively beautiful yet is fundamentally wrong. Our
inclinations to be just, and yet our pretensions to be right, each and
every time and in every situation, usually remain at loggerheads in the
minds of the many of us somehow still in touch with our conscience.
This sense of being torn apart can imprison us in our dilemmas, should
we linger for long to muddle through bravely, short of having to
choose between two opposite courses of action: inwardly surrendering
1. As the sixth edition of Thirouxs (1998, 3) EthicsTheory and Practice simplifies it
further: Nevertheless, in ordinary language, whether we call a person ethical or moral,
or an act unethical or immoral, doesnt really make any difference. In philosophy,
however, the term ethics also is used to refer to a specific area of study: the area of morality, which concentrates on human conduct and human values. . . . The important thing
to remember here is that moral, ethical, immoral, and unethical, essentially mean good, right,
bad, and wrong, often depending upon whether one is referring to people themselves or
to their actions.

Jose V. Ciprut

to our lust, while publicly proclaiming triumph as we bask in arrogance

whenever we find ourselves in the vicinity of success attained by any
means; or succumbing to pangs of conscience and precipitating a premature sense of failure by seeing in ourselves a losera condition far
worse than death in settings designed for winners only. None of the
opposing worldviews reflected by infamous film characters2 and by
virtuous one-liners3 so far have had epiphanic effects able to foster
lasting conversionswhether by the silently repentant, the boisterously
born-again, or the myriad others who, in large part unperturbed, believe
they simply must continue to prove to themselves and to the world at
large that nothing for too long can keep them from that rendezvous
with success at any cost to which they are destined. Human is as human
does. And that seems to be that.
The purpose of this book is three-pronged: to revisit some of the
earliest forms of relational ethics and morals; to reexamine the kinship
links with systems of belief; and to reappraise what basic tenets came
about, and how and why their evolved versions continue to shape the
values of humans, markets, and states. By these pursuits, we seek to
appreciate whether and wherefore some values have stayed on, while
others have vanished from the normative purviews of common practice over time and across space. We also try to gain fresh insights as to
the possible need and role for civic ethics in modern global settings
that necessitate farther- and farther-reaching democratic governance.
We begin by scrutinizing history, in an attempt to gain a more encompassing longitudinal overview of the evolution of human practice in
domains intimately linked with ethics and morals. We proceed from
antiquity in Mesopotamia, to Enlightenment in Europe, to modernity
in the United States, to metamodernity in a world still reinventing
itself, all the while keeping in mind that an omnidirectionally galloping
technoscientific civilization has only just inaugurated a millennium
during the first century of which human society will undergo relentless
and profound transformations triggeredand drivenby economiccultural, political-social globalizations of hitherto unknown scope and
speed.
2. Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed cuts through, clarifies, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit, insists Gordon Gekko, a pivotal character
in Wall Streeta motion picture featuring Michael Douglas as Gekko.
3. Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts
cannot necessarily be counted is a remark said to have been made by Einstein, for whom
the true value of a human being resided in the extent to which that human being had
managed to attain liberation from the self (see also Arcenas 2008).

Prisoners of Our Dilemmas

With that framework in mind, we reserve our first set of four chapters to law and morality in ancient Near Eastern social thought and
societal practice; to an ethic of peace grounded on justice in Europe
during the Age of Enlightenment; to ethics, modernity, and humananimal relations in twentieth-century U.S. society; and to genetics in
medicine, with particular attention to its current practice and special
focus on its attending prospects and perils in humanitys faster- and
faster-paced rush to unstoppable modernization.
We then move to a second group of four chapters, now dwelling on
levels of analysis that are just as intimately cross-linkedstarting with
the individuals ego and ethos; continuing with issues of risk, trust, and
markets; and proceeding with matters of ethics, morals, and the state;
before closing with discerning comparisons between creed, religion,
and morality from pertinent East-West ethical perspectives.
To conclude, we confront complex issues of ethics at theoretical
and practical levels of both domestic and international democratic
governance, in globalizing contexts. Our last four chapters therefore
offer an interlinked array of insights and appreciations with special
attention to exclusion, fear, and identity in emerging democracies;
to the politics of ethics and the prospects for egalitarian democracy
in a shrinking world; to the problem with a democratic ethic; and
to the need and requirements for a global ethic of communication
capable of transforming the world into a hospitable habitat for those
still barely alive and for those yet to be born. Our chapters address
their given topics head-on, also by latching on to each other across
history and geography through their sequentially developed thematic
cohesion.
Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought
Many of the deeply held cultural values of Western Civilization are
steeped in biblical tradition, which itself partakes of a human heritage
shared with other ancient Near Eastern cultures that as such hold the
cradle of civilization. Mesopotamian and Ancient Egyptian literatures
reflect central moral concerns for, and ideal standards of, propriety in
human conduct. When comparatively reviewed, they also reveal many
similarities between ancient Near Eastern and biblical thought in the
realm of social, sexual, religious, and personal ethics. Nevertheless,
significant differences, which stem from their deeply idiosyncratic
worldviews, are also apparent.

Jose V. Ciprut

The literature on ancient Near Eastern and biblical ethics and morals
covers many specific aspects with modern implications:4 proper
upbringing (Kieweler 2001), social and philanthropic ethics (Frisch
1930, Meyerowitz 1935), the genesis of moral imagination in the Bible
(Brown 1999), corporate responsibility (Kaminsky 1995), love and sex
(Biale 1992), murder (Friedmann 2002), land tenure (Fager 1993), and of
course, issues of good and evil (Reventlow and Hoffman 2004), among
them. Instead, as an Assyriologist specializing in the law of Akkad and
Sumer, the literature of Mesopotamia, and the ethics of Jewish law from
its earliest origins onward, Barry Eichler addresses his assigned title
by comparing the ethical and moral codes of three civilizations, the
Mesopotamian, ancient Egyptian, and biblical, from several angles.
Both ancient Near Eastern and biblical worldviews experienced and
viewed human society in cosmological terms. Hence ancient Near
Eastern conceptions of law and morality were intimately tied to
the cosmic order of the universe and to the realm of the divine. In
Mesopotamian and Egyptian thought, law and morality were regarded
as intricately interwoven concepts to be identified with the cosmic
principles that ordered the universe. The cosmic force is referred to as
kittum in Mesopotamia and as maat in Egypt, both terms connoting
that which is correct and true. Mesopotamian and Egyptian kings
were divinely mandated to maintain the cosmic order and to establish
a harmonious socioeconomic reality on earth. Hence they were inspired
with the perception of this cosmic force of Truth, which enabled the
kings to serve as its earthly agent by issuing edicts and rendering judgments that reflected the moral cosmic standard. In Mesopotamia and
Egypt the ultimate source of law and morality was thus rooted in the
cosmic forces of the universe to which both the gods and humankind
were subject.
Because of the radically different biblical conception of Deity as transcendent and sovereign over the totality of the natural and supernatural cosmic forces of the universe, biblical thought could not accept the
ultimate sanction of law and morality as being rooted in the cosmic
principle of kittum or maat. To the biblical mind, the Deity is the ultimate sanction of law and morality, both of which are conceived as
expressions of the divine will. Law is viewed as a set of revealed
instructions to serve as a divine blueprint for the conduct of human
society. Hence biblical law is conceived as a positive prescriptive code
4. See, for instance, Schnabel (1985), Mouton (2002), and F. Watson (2000).

Prisoners of Our Dilemmas

of ethical behavior, not a reactive means of redressing rights violated.

In contrast to ancient Near Eastern thought in which the moral cosmic
standard was an abstract impersonal force incapable of communicating
its will to humankind, biblical thought views the divine moral standard
as clearly articulated ethical ideals that are being translated into legal
norms. On the basis of a covenantal relationship between God and his
people, the entire community becomes responsible, individually and
communally, both for the observance of the law and for the maintenance of justice. Thus biblical thought broadened and democratized the
Mesopotamian notion of divine selection and covenant between Deity
and king by clearly positioning the people on par with the king. This
unique biblical notion of law as covenant, established upon a mutual
and reciprocal basis in which the people integrally join as one of the
covenanting parties, is a major contribution to Western thought.
Although the modern secular world cannot accept the basic premise
of ancient Near Eastern and biblical conceptions of law and morality
as reflecting an absolute moral standard, lessons gleaned from these
ancient civilizations would enhance discussions of modern ethics, were
it by providing historical and cultural perspectives of humankinds
incessant quest for an ethical and moral society. When one contrasts
biblical notions of law and morality with those extant in Mesopotamia
and Egypt, one sees that greater moral clarity enhances the sense of
personal responsibility, that greater societal valuation of the individuals role in upholding the social contract of law and fostering governance intensifies individual and communal commitment to act
responsibly. It is therefore imperative for modern democratic societies
to identify the common ethical values they hold to be true and also to
articulate clearly their moral standard, which serves as the cultural
wellspring of their societal postulates. This necessity is particularly
urgent at this time in human history, when, once again, basic moral
issues can no longer remain in the private or personal domain but must
be translated into legally enforceable norms that are apt to inform
societys decision-making policies and to define its actions, especially
those likely to have an impact on equity, peace, and justice.
On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice:
An Eighteenth-Century Voice
The eighteenth century was the epoch of the European Enlightenment, one of culture shocks abroad (Weber 2005), revolutionary

Jose V. Ciprut

thoughts at home (MacCormick and Bankowski 1989), and reconsiderations of criminal law and justice (Porret 1997), with attending social
aspirations (Lehmann et al. 2000) and legal limits (Bernard 1979). It was
also a century of constant warfare. It produced a number of ambitious
proposals for the establishment of peace among nations. The best
remembered was produced, late in his life (1795), by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (17241804), whoby synthesizing German,
British, and French sourcesmanaged to produce one of the definitive
philosophies of the Enlightenment and indeed of the whole modern
era. Yet while Kants little book Zum ewigen Frieden (Perpetual Peace)
is nowadays more widely read than ever, it continues to be enigmatic
in its content: itself written in the form of a peace treaty, it veers
between dead seriousness and irony, and seems to contain a fundamental tension. For example:
1. Kant holds personal freedom and the right to acquire property to be
the most fundamental among human rights; but freedom and property
can be enjoyed only with the consent of others, and indeed, on a globe
any point of which can be reached from any other, in principle with
the consent of all other human beings. Thus a condition of global peace
in which the rights of all are secure is understandably the ultimate
necessary condition of justice.
2. Kant describes natural mechanisms by which warring people will
be led to form republican governmentswhat we now call democracies with constitutional protections for the rights of those not currently
in the majorityand holds that as this form of government spreads
across the earth, the temptation for war will diminish, and that correspondingly (and hence, apparently inexorably) peace will emerge.
3. Yet Kants theory of human freedom insists that we always have the
liberty to choose between the better and the worse course of action. No
matter how strongly naturethat is, our natureitself inclines us in
the direction of the just and the good, we always have the power to
subvert it.
How then could progress toward peace be guaranteed by any natural
mechanism?
Historian of philosophy Guyers chapter argues that Kant did not
really contradict himself: his theory is that nature can guarantee the
availability of means that can be used toward peace as an end and, in
this sense, guarantee the possibility of peace, but that only the free

Prisoners of Our Dilemmas

choice of those in powerful positions in governments to use their power

as morality commands can actually bring peace about. This line of
thought remains as true today as it ever was.
But Kant also recognized that human beings are emotional as well
as rational creatures, and discerned that the rhetoric of guaranteed
progress toward peace can give us emotional support in our efforts to
secure peace even though our reason requires only the recognition of
the moral necessity of peace and the mere possibility of successful
efforts toward it. Kant saw that a successful strategy for justiceor for
any other morally requisite goalmust bring our emotions into
harmony with our reason; and this observation remains as true today
as it was then. One instance in which human reason and human emotions remain in a state of unresolved debate is, say, in the domain of
human-animal relations, dating from antiquity and likely to last for as
long as human civilization itself continues to exist.
Ethics, Modernity, and Human-Animal Relations
Human-animal relations have a very long history (Preece 2005), which
has led humans continually to rethink them (McKenna and Light 2004)
from many angles, including humanist (Matignon 2000), social (Barnett
2001), cultural (Knight 2003), anthropological (Knight 2000), civilizational (Lorenz 2000), ecological (Woodroffe, Thirgood, and Rabinowitz
2005; Quammen 2003), psychological (Akhtar and Volkan 2005), ethical
(Blakemore 2005), and interdisciplinary (Corona-M. and ArroyoCabrales 2002), as also along a variety of perspectives, including those
of domestication (Haraway 2003), hunting (Pelly 2001), experimentation with animals (Birke and Hubbard 1995), animal rights (Reichmann
2000), and alternative-practice proposals (Balls, van Zeller, and Halder
2000; Crabtree and Ryan 1991; OTA 1986; van Zutphen and Balls
1997).
The question of the human use of animals is one of todays most
contentious social issues, for it raises doubt on whether it is ethical to
interfere in the lives of other species in order to improve upon the wellbeing of ones own. Throughout human history, men and women have
had interactions with animals in ways both good and evil. A very active
animal rights movement seeks to destroy that relationship. The change
from an agricultural to an industrial society in Western civilization has
made that movements efforts easier: the majority of the citizens are far
removed from the natural world, most viewing animals as pets, even

Jose V. Ciprut

as members of their family. A small number of philosophers have

advanced ideas that would seriously affect the well-being of the human
species, and radical elements have striven to use these as tools. For
example, efforts to block biomedical research by legal, illegal, and even
violent means are a serious threat to any nations health program and
also a menace to the institutions working to ensure global medical
progress. Other human activities, too, have come under attack, modern
agriculture and hunting being two examples. Modern societies have to
examine their various uses of animals in a reflective, unemotional way
based on scientific inquiry in order to decide how human beings are to
act and interact with animals in the modern world.
Unlike most of the other chapters of this book, which consider the
ethical implications of human interactions in various fields, this chapter
explores aspects regarding human uses of animals. From the earliest
interactions of human beings with emerging domesticated speciesa
practice recognized at the time, and since, as a mutually beneficial
processto outright modern biomedical experimentation with animals,
including some of the domesticated species, we humans generally have
had the upper hand. However, with increasing social sensibilities,
mostly resulting from the deepening separation from the natural world
that has accompanied the process of urbanization, the self-serving
instrumental utilization of animals by humans has also come more
frequently into question. The most extreme expression of that concern
is found in the animal rights movements, which seek to remove animals
from all human control. Given that such an extreme solution is impractical in the eyes of all but a radical few, how is one to ensure the welfare
of both partieshumans and animalssince, as Morrison puts it,
animals have little say in the matter? This chapter hence reviews the
ethical implications of the continued use of animalsin entertainment,
hunting, intensive agriculture, basic biomedical research and the like
concluding that the complexities in each of these various uses demand
acquisition and assimilation of all the facts before deciding what is
proper and what is improper in the varied ways that we humans interact with other species. But, to begin with, how are we humans to heal
our own species in the future?
The Future of Genetics in Medicine: Practices, Prospects, and Peril
Following the recent success in identifying the human genome, the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. National Institutes of

Prisoners of Our Dilemmas

Health (NIH) had channeled 3 to 5 percent of their annually budgeted

outlays for the Human Genome Project (HGP) to studying the
ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) surrounding these genetic data
now accessible worldwide. What was the worlds largest bioethics
program has thus spawned also a model for ELSI programs emulated
around the world, to tap myriad related ethical issuesfrom the
clinical, reproductive, and psychological to the conceptual, philosophical, commercial, and well beyond. And the single most thorough
textbook on the practice, promise, and perils of the medical uses
of genomics is also one that happens to have been coauthored by
the contributor of chapter 5 (Rimoin et al. 2002). Otherwise, the question of what scientists engaged in the life sciences think and do
always has been and remains of great and growing interest (Stangroom
2005).
What Reed Pyeritz, chief of the Division of Medical Genetics at the
University of Pennsylvania Health System, is trying to sensitize the
reader about in his chapter for this book can be represented briefly as
follows: now that, at long last, the human genome has been almost
completely sequenced, the already quite substantial number and scope
of applications of genetics to medicine will burgeon. An area that is
already well established is the testing of characteristics of a persons
genotype for medical indications. Although such testing need not
involve DNA, it does reveal the fact that the high serum cholesterol
level of an individual does tend greatly to augment the chances that
the subject has a genetic predisposition to a defect in lipid metabolism.
Put differently, the sheer ability to sample and analyze a persons DNA,
in and of itself, has greatly expanded the opportunity for testing, among
other things, presence or absence of disease even in utero, as well as
carrier status for recessively inherited disorders such as cystic fibrosis,
while also enabling the screening of newborns for disorders that can
be treated very early in life and helping to determine an individuals
susceptibility to disorders that clinically might not occur until some
years later. Each of these indications has special and specific ethical
considerations. At the most fundamental level, most genetic testing
provides factual information not only about the person being sampled,
but understandably also about his or her close relatives. Furthermore,
the results of testing may not be as clear-cut as one might anticipate;
for example, analysis of a gene may reveal an unusual variant, the
consequences of which are unknown. All of this indicates that genetic
testing is different from most other testing in medical practice. A

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Jose V. Ciprut

number of closely related public policy issues of deep ethical import

are likely to arise in the years ahead. Already, at a minimum, health
care providers face the need to make publicly available pretest/posttest
counseling (which includes education) about the genetic test itself.
Pyeritzs chapter offers a detailed understanding of the why and wherefore of all these ethical considerations, with the future of men, women,
and children in a postindustrial civilization of globewide import constantly in mind.
Doubtless too, where and why in a democracy a citizen is tested, and
where and why such information may be (mis)used, raise legal and
moral and ethical concerns of their very own. Human rights issues may
come to the fore, where the practice is exercised, say, in coercive ways
in more autocratic, less democratic settings where the rule of law is
scant.
Having briefly scanned the history and geography of fundamental
ethical considerations with a select, theme-specific focus on humans
and their close relations with other human and nonhuman life forms
in the first four chapters, we next turn to the interconnected levels of
analysis encompassing the practical relational and situational ethics on
the planes of the self, the market, the state, and the globe.
Ego and Ethos
In the literature, the self is examined from a variety of angles that
includes the endogenously affected identity (Chowers 2004)that is,
the post-revolutionary (Goldstein 2005), the reshaped (Centrie 2004),
the experience-marked ego (Ireland 2004)as well as the exogenously,
and more specifically, social-mentality-driven, persona (Whybrow 2005).
Reflexivity and intersubjectivity provide extra insights on the ego
(Johns and Freshwater 2005), as does the repatterning of the selfsay,
for caring and healingas exemplified by the nursing profession
(J. Watson 2005), by an aesthetics of the self, treated through clothing
and the material culture (Kchler and Miller 2005), and by the beliefrelated aspects of the self (Shun and Wong 2004; Krumbein 2005;
Markham and zdemir 2005). The self is examined by an abundant
literature in ways conducive to even more polyvalent complex understandings by means of insights from alterity (Mensch 2003, 2005; Wall
2005; Fryer 2004) or literary (Kaster 2005), philosophical (Johns and
Freshwater 2005), and political (Parker 2004) viewpoints, as also from

Prisoners of Our Dilemmas

11

psychological (Dilman 2005), moral (Gardiner 2005), ethical (Davies

2000; Wenham 2000), and many additional perspectives (for example,
Badiou 1982, 1988, 2003).
Ethics concerned with the principles of human duty is normally
based on considerations that do not include the facts of the ordinary
everyday conscious experience of individual human beings. The
chapter by psychologist-psychiatrist David Williams (who did see
experiments with animals in B. F. Skinners laboratory, as a very
young student) hence advances the proposition that a reexamination
of ethics might profit from ones taking account of the most prominent
facts of human experience. The obvious elements of everyday human
consciousness are organized within the framework of existential/
humanistic psychology and placed on a Phenomenological Map relating them to mind, brain, and some other underpinnings beyond awareness, including the genomic and spiritual influences that give a sense
of direction to the very process of living.
Ego and ethos are united by the concept of ego identity, namely, the
first stage of adult ego development, and are applied to ethics through
the concept of ego integrity, specifically the final stage of that development. Here, Williams distinguishes two components of ego identity:
personal identity, an expression of the individuals unique genomic
and perhaps spiritual nature; and social identity, formed on the basis
of an individuals ethos. Ego integrity is attained through successful
management of the challenges to ego identity, which arise from opportunities for intimate and productive engagement that come to the fore
in the normal process of living.
The need for a reexamination of ethics comes from the threat that
technology poses to humanitys survival, both from weapons and from
defilement of the earth. The human response to the threat lies in the
emergence of a new ethos, along with an underlying ethic, that is
inconsistent with the self-destroying tendencies of current social
systems. To illustrate how a new ethos might arise, Williams proposes
an ethical principle based on ego integrity, and then explores the possibility of advancing it through practical empirical research. Williams,
with ensuing conviction, concludes that there is a path to a new understanding of ethics through behavioral research on constituents of a new
and nondestructive ethos that demands urgent exploration. How does
trust affect ego and ethos at both individual and small or large group
levels?

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Jose V. Ciprut

Trust, Ethics, and Markets

Some recent events have shaken the very foundations of American
capitalism. U.S. business, once traditionally heralded as the model for
the rest of the world, has recently taken some hits. Companies that were
considered leaders and innovators have become notorious for bad
management and even fraud. Enron, WorldCom, Lucent, Qwest, and
Xerox have all been toppled like idols with clay feet. Along with them,
auditors, once the most highly trusted of all professionals, have fallen.
Arthur Andersen has been disgraced and is now no more. These problems are not confined to the United States; large scandals are emerging
also in Asia and Europe, and a growing number of non-U.S. corporate
accounting scandals are becoming visible across the globe. The result
is that trust in the corporate sector has fallen to a new low. The same
loss of trust is not confined to the corporate sector, and has begun
spreading to institutions like churches and hospitals. And the problem
is not just with accounting and finance, but extends to other areas
where economic activity has fundamental impacts that extend beyond
the narrow confines of profit and loss, among them the environment
and product safety and security. In almost every aspect of business
activity, companies and their agents are no longer viewed as trustworthy. About the only objective that citizens are prepared to believe as
credible for the corporate sector, and for the market institutions that
govern it, is the unbridled pursuit of personal gain for those lucky
enough to occupy seats of higher power in large organizations. The
reproachful tenor and tone in current writings on the topic (Kassirer
2005; Kramer and Cook 2004; Rampton and Stauber 2001) in the United
States are very different from those adopted proactively (Garone 1994),
let alone much earlier in the United States (Lectures 1930) and even until
very recently abroad (Shionoya and Yagi 2001).
Kleindorfers chapter describes the serious problems that arise for
economic institutions if and when trust, the basic glue of social intercourse, disappears. After a brief introduction to the heart of the matter,
this risk analyst submits a few prosaic examples from recent American
corporate history, taken from his research in the energy sector and the
chemical industry sector. The author considers experimental evidence
to shed some light on determinants of trust in market-based transactions. These experiments underline the importance of fairness and
open communication in reinforcing trust. Analytical conclusions for the
state of trust in the corporate sector and in the people who manage it

Prisoners of Our Dilemmas

13

do not seem to be very uplifting at this point, but Kleindorfer finds

reason to think there are a few hopeful signs on the horizon. These he
takes to indicate a developing appreciation by many stakeholders that
without trust and good ethics there cannot be any realistic expectations
of, or even hope for, efficient markets at a time when relations between
markets and the state are changing.
Ethics, Morals, and the State: Rereading the Classical View
In this essay, which is indebted to the work of James Q. Wilson, classicist J. J. Mulhern, who teaches topics on comparative government, considers the rediscovery of character and its importance for the way
one understands the silent relation of ethics and morals to politics.5
Character has a long history in thinking about politics (Wilson 1995;
Garver 2004; Yu 2004). Indeed, for some Greeks, including Aristotle,
character (ethos) was the central issue in the study of human things. The
Greeks were concerned not only with character itself but also with all
the things that were related to it, especially the things that were caused
by character and the things that caused character to develop, for better
or for worse. These were their ethical things, or ethics. Thus, for them,
ethics was not a discipline, nor was ethical (ethikos) a concept for
expressing general approval, as opposed to, say, unethical. For some
Romans, including Cicero, the central issue rather appears to have been
custom, or mos. The Romans were concerned both with custom and
with the things related to it. These were their moral things, or morals
(moralia). Thus, at the outset, morals was not a discipline, nor was
moral (moralis) an expression of general approval, as opposed to, say,
immoral. Character, was something that belonged to individuals: it
was different from custom, which was shared by many; but both Greeks
and Romans did agree that custom could have an effect on character
development and, hence, that character could be embodied or reflected
in custom. In modern times, many thinkers have struggled with what
they describe as the relation of ethics or morals to the state, often in
ways that are not too helpful to the political actor, especially where the
5. I recently looked over McCain and Salters book, titled Character Is Destiny (2005), in
whichas their publishers suggestthe authors seek to illustrate these qualities with
moving stories of triumph against the odds, righteousness in the face of iniquity, hope
in adversity, and sacrifices for a cause greater than self-interest . . . by telling the stories
of celebrated historical figures and lesser-known heroes whose values exemplify the best
of the human spirit.

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Jose V. Ciprut

language of ethics and morals has long lost the precision it enjoyed in
its original classical descriptive form. Some moderns have spoken as if
there might be politics without ethics or morals, and ethics or morals
without politics. The rediscovery of character leads back to a tradition
in which ethics and politics are continuous because, as a matter of fact,
actions produce habits, habits are integrated into character, character is
reflected in customs or laws, and customs are embodied in institutions,
including political institutions or what is spoken of in modern times as
the state, and in which, likewise, these institutions reinforce customs,
customs mold character, character strengthens habits, and habits make
actions easier and more pleasant to perform. This tradition, though
neglected for many centuries, is helpful to the political actor, since it
provides an explicit way of thinking about the political actors work.
Both individuals and institutions, including the state as embodied in
the political actor, have an interest in promoting in people the kind of
character that disposes them to avoid criminal acts, dependency, and
intemperance. Might there be differences in ethics and morality and
their respective connection with religion, so different in East and West
as to have an impact on customs, manners, and approaches to politics,
governance, and attitudes to democracy?
Ethics, Morality, and Religion: Directional Transitions and Trends,
East and West
The literature on the connections among religion, morality, and ethics
is far-reaching. In the domain of applications, its reach extends from
considerations of war and peace (Dallmayr 2004) to biotechnological
concerns with decisions that may conflict with Christianity (Smith
2005). In the domains of philosophy, it encompasses such topics as reconsiderations (Dole and Chignell 2005), theological reevaluations (Lewis
2005), and newer reviews of Christian ethics, a Protestant ethic of work,
capitalist values, and Weberian revisitings of material success and religious temperament (Swatos and Kaelber 2005); novel observations on
the radical protestantism in Spinosas thought (Hunter 2005), on Maimonidean ethics (Cohen 2004), or yet again on ancient Egyptian maat
as a moral ideal (Karenga 2004); and even contemplations of value and
virtue in a godless universe (Wielenberg 2005). In a comparative mode,
alongside closer studies of discursive formations and of ethical emotions in Buddhist thinking (Griffiths 2004), one finds also lectures on
free thought (Wright 2004) and on theories of ethics (Graham 2004).

Prisoners of Our Dilemmas

15

And hundreds of additional items fall under a myriad other themespecific rubrics, from mysticism (Jones 2004) to just sex (Farley 2006).
It has been a common assumption in Europe and North America that
morality and ethics require a theistic religious foundation. But East
Asia has not shared that assumption. Instead, China, Japan, Korea, and
also Taiwan have given morality and ethics autonomy from religion
and have instead made religion subordinate to morality and ethics.
Instead of letting religion dictate the hegemonic moral principles and
ethical codes, the governments and peoples of those societies traditionally required religious organizations to accept and to enforce the secular
moral principles and ethical codes promoted by the secular state. That
stance has been slightly modified in the modern world, under the fresh
influence of the notion of religious freedom. Religious organizations
now are allowed to supplement and sometimes even to modify the
secular ethical injunctions promoted by their secular governments. The
peoples of East Asia, nevertheless, remain much more comfortable with
moral principles and ethical codes with no theistic religious connotations or foundation, more so than the peoples of Europe and North
America are. With such fundamental differences in the worldviews and
everyday ethics of peoples, North and South, and East and West, can
there ever be a worldwide ethics of communication conducive to the
globalization of a democratic mindset, of a mentality of social-cultural
inclusion, of a more balanced, more just political-economic interdependence, while fear and exclusion persist deep inside individual societies,
and among them too?
Having connected the various levels of analysis in a sequence of augmenting synthetic aggregation and, via cross-sectional means, thus
complemented the longitudinal overview preceding it, we next take a
detailed look at each of four multilateral concerns, each of which is
laden with values specific to issues of great pertinence to the just
conduct of democracy in ways indispensable to good relational ethics.
Exclusion, Fear, and Identity in Emerging Democracies
To the classic (traditional) issues of inclusion, exclusion, belongingness,
and marginality, the factor of fear6 has been able to impart qualities that
6. See, e.g., Ciprut, Editor (2000, 2001), Of Fears and Foes: Security and Insecurity in a
Globalizing International Economy, penned shortly before 9-11-01.

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Jose V. Ciprut

have very negatively affected domestic and international policies since

the fall of the iron curtain at the end of the 1980s, in Europe, and in the
aftermath of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, in the United
States, although internecine wars, genocidal outbursts, irredentist militancy in the third world, and excessive disparities between rich and
poor inside technologically advanced countries, as well as among
wealthy and deprived countries around the world, have complicated
matters further, for each and all, in ways seldom seen before. Thus the
extant literature, meanwhile, has also expanded to include fresher
investigations of traditional modes of exclusion in historical social contexts (Spina 2005; Coviello 2005; Carlisle 2005), while also dwelling on
the novel societal effects of fear and hatred (Lukacs 2005). Ensuing
challenges to urban cohesion (Kazepov 2005), resultant needs and measures for controlling borders in an enlarged Europe (Bigo and Guild
2005), the domestic impact on American democracy of the United
States global war on terror (Ivie 2005), the fear-control nexus (Siegel
2005), the globalizing effects of localized poverty-marginality issues
(Munck 2005), the particular attention now required by laggard regions
such as southern Europe (Calavita 2005), and myriad other topics are
now continuing to receive fuller coverage.
The chapter by J. Spinner-Halev, a political scientist with a strong
interest in issues of morality with regard to citizenship, focuses on
ethical problems related to democratization in societies with sizeable
religious minorities. The chapter is written with past, present, and
future in mind. The author examines why democracies, which are often
taken to be inclusive regimes, usually informally but sometimes also
formally exclude minorities from citizenship. His main focus here is on
religious minorities that often bear the brunt of such exclusions. For
example, there is increasing anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe, Muslims
in India feel besieged, and the advent of democracy in such places as
Indonesia has seen the onset of violence against Christians. The author
notes the psychological literature that suggests there is a strong human
tendency to identify as part of a group by contrast to other groups, a
contrast that often conduces to acrimonious feelings toward those other
groups. He finds this literature to be unfortunate but persuasive, regretting that, too often, theorists of democracy discuss citizenship without
noting this difficulty. Seeking to correct this oversight, Spinner-Halev
argues that this tendency to identify ones group in contrast to other
groups is especially dangerous in a democracy. Because the members
of a democratic society are supposed to share the very democracys

Prisoners of Our Dilemmas

17

sovereignty, when people identify themselves with cluster attributes, in

contrast to others cluster attributes, then democratic exclusion arises.
The first part of Spinner-Halevs chapter weaves this psychological
literature together with both democratic theory and the empirical
examples referred to already. And the last part of the chapter helps to
accomplish two goals: (1) it shows how, to their peril, some theories of
democracy and cultural pluralism overlook the democratic tendency
to exclude; and (2) it discusses what can be done about the democratic
tendency to exclude. Can then, in an imperfect world, a more egalitarian democracy ever be accomplished?
Politics of Ethics: Toward an Ethic of Egalitarian Democracy?
Inequality visits and revisits us in uncountable ways, often in different
guises. The more recent literature dwells on a broad range of investigations that cover dilemmas of inequality the world over (Tulchin and
Bland 2005); frameworks for theories of equality (Baker et al. 2004);
inquiries into inequality on grounds of religion (Hassan 2003), of race
whether by means of discrimination for job openings (Jonas 2005) or
by the very role the race factor plays in the nexus between equality and
sovereignty in, say, Cuba, of all places (Bronfman 2004)of sex and
gender differences, some of which are opposed by feminists (Andrew,
Keller, and Schwartzman 2005); studies of how race and class inequalities discourage and delay integration, in the United States for example
(Cashin 2004), and of how inequality can be brought about by the limits
to recognition, thus impacting issues of justice as well (Markell 2003);
and recognition of economic democracy as an avenue to liberty and
equality (Wilkinson 2005). By contrast, as a scholar of law and government, Cameron lets his chapter speculate on the possibility of an ethic
particular to egalitarian democracy.
Cameron submits that the ethical conflict at the heart of modern
democracy can be understood in terms of the two democratic traditions
that have evolved out of the historical emergence of democracy. These
two traditions are the libertarian and the egalitarian. The emphasis of
the libertarian tradition is on the rights and liberties of the individual
against the states public coercive power; by contrast, the egalitarian
tradition defends and champions the equality of citizens against the
coercive practices of private individuals, private groups, or private
institutions. Seen in these terms, the proponents of the former tradition
view the public sphere as the principal threat to democracy, while the

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Jose V. Ciprut

proponents of the latter tradition view inequality in the private sphere

as the main threat to democracy. Libertarians limit equality to political
equality, or equality before the law, but egalitarians promote economic
equality as well as political equality.
Accompanying the libertarian tradition is the argument that any
attempt to eliminate inequality in the private sphere will only lead to
the terror and suffering associated with the totalitarian state. In practical terms, this syllogism results in a form of blackmail against egalitarian political projects. To take a closer look at the makings of the
ideological mobilization against the very goals of egalitarian democracy, Cameron undertakes a psychoanalytic reading of Kantian ethical
theory. The outcome seems to suggest that egalitarian democracy offers
an ethic more truly universal than its libertarian counterpart. Unlike
its libertarian kin, egalitarian democracy starts from an appreciation
that the ethical dimension of society is found not so much in an abstract
universal principle, such as natural rights, but in the universal
principle of equality that is latent in concrete social relations. It is the
political goal of egalitarian democracy to indeed mobilize this concrete
universal good against the abstract universal good that supports
inequality. In this manner, argues Cameron, it can be said that essentially the ethics of egalitarianism lies in its Kantian duty to eclipse the
reality principle purported to support the libertarian worldviews
abstract universal. Analytically, then, egalitarian political projects represent a kind of intriguing and timely return of the long-repressed term
equality, which has remained latent in concrete, modern, globalizing
social relations. Would resolving inequality prove to be a conclusive
answer to the question of developing a democratic ethic? Or is there
more to the tricky question, and to the gist of all possible answers?
The Problem of a Democratic Ethic
The lifting of the iron curtain, the implosion of the Soviet Union, and
the almost immediate reaction by its former satellites, now anxious
instantly to convert to democratic rule, have sent most of the left and
some of the right back to the drawing board, to rethink their political
theory in general and their democratic theory in particular.
Much time has elapsed since Dahls provocative question as to who
governs (1961) and David Helds reintroduction of Critical Theory
(1980) through an overview of the evolution of that mode of thinking
from Horkheimer to Habermas, to be succeeded by Helds models

Prisoners of Our Dilemmas

19

for democratic rule (1987) and his essays on state, power, and democracy (1989). The main concern now is over the modalities and,
moreover, externalities of democratic governance in a globalizing international political economy. This newer focus is amply reflected by the
topics addressed in the latest literatureincluding the state of democratic theory (Shapiro 2003), of capitalism (Schweickart 2002), of the
challenges ahead (Carter and Stokes 2002), and of the prospects for
reflective democracy (Goodin 2003); issues of democracy and the rule
of law (Maravall and Przeworski 2003), of education for democratic
citizenship (Lockyer, Crick, and Annette 2003), and of ethics and politics in post-Marxist critical theory (Devenney 2004); regional concerns
with the quality of democracy (ODonnell, Vargas Cullell, and Iazzetta
2004); and questions of representationagain!(Ankersmit 2002;
Laycock 2004), as well as of democratic social choice and institutional
planning theory (Sager 2002), naturally not without a scholars guide
to pertinent research (Keman 2002).
More than 2,000 years ago, Plato developed a critique of democracy.
He suggested, first, that democracy would not be simply a political
arrangement, neutral, as between cultures, but that it would be a culture
as well, a least-common-denominator culture. He believed that a
democracy would be a culture characterized by people who sought
shallow pleasures, rejecting every form of nobility. Knowledge in such
a culture would take the form of mere means to the acquisition of
pleasure. In his chapter, philosopher Richard Schuldenfrei suggests
that those predictions have been borne out and that the evolution of
rights serves to inoculate democratic society against every attempt to
elevate its aspirations with any higher democratic ethic. Plato not only
believed that democratic aspirations were too low, but also believed
that they were unstable, and unprotected against degradation to the
point where they could no longer support democracy itself. He believed
that the pursuit of pleasure would lead democrats to choose tyranny
over freedom, if the former could better fulfill their desires. The author
argues in his chapter that none of the prominent contemporary philosophical/ethical theories contain the resources to provide enough security against such a possibility, and that hence Platos critique presents
an important relevant contemporary challenge to democracy. So what
do we need and when do we need it as demonstrators in the habit of
demanding everything, right here, right now usually chant, without
thereby always succeeding in communicating their frustration in convincingly constructive, palpably practical, response-eliciting ways?

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Jose V. Ciprut

On the Need and Requirements for a Global Ethic of

Communication
Questions concerning the ethics of communication have long retained
the interest of scholarly communities from various perspectives that,
among other things, addressed basic ethicsin human exchanges
(Johannesen 2002); communication ethics and global change (Cooper
et al. 1989); ethics in political communication (Denton 1991); media
ethics (Englehardt and Barney 2002; Solomon 1999); democratization
among the world media (Hackett and Zhao 2005); global electioneering
(Sussman 2005); dialogue, as a form of communication in education and
for community building (Shields and Edwards 2005); and even in theory
itself (McPhail 2006; Shepherd, St. John, and Striphas 2006).
Having elsewhere dealt with the importance of narrative in the social
ecology of human society (Krippendorff 2000), of languaging as a
means of reclaiming the voice of theorized others (Krippendorff 2001),
of the code theory of language (Clark 2008), and of language policy
and citizenship issues (Schiffman 2008), we now turn to the need and
wherewithal for a worldwide ethic of communication in a globalizing
international political economy: a topic of highest urgency for a worldwide ethic of democratic citizenship from now on.
Modern communication technology has already been successful in
linking societies and connecting cultures around the globe. What the
globe seems to be lacking now is a worldwide media ethic capable and
qualified to animate the planetary network already in place. Several
international models have been developed, or are under way, to that
effect. In this chapter, a philosophical and social ethicist with expertise
in journalism and international communication joins hands with a
media expert to conduct a thorough analytic synthesis of the needs,
ways, and means of addressing the dilemma raised by the query articulated in stylized format at the end of the preceding section.
On the empirical level, common values have been sought usually
either by comparing professional codes of ethics or by contrasting
media accountability systems within, between, and across countries.
On the theoretical level, universal models rooted in philosophical
reflection have been proposedinteractive universalism, linguistic
commonality, authentic communication in indigenous cultures, the
sacredness of life, and international human rights among them. These
universals are not abstract absolutes. They are preliminary presuppositions without which cross-cultural principles would be impossible.

Prisoners of Our Dilemmas

21

Normative formulas of universal scope build on the rich legacy of

communication ethics embedded in humankinds cultural histories.
Virtually all religions have served early dogma about communication
practices. Philosopher Mircea Eliade, rather, found the paradisiacal
myth rooted in truth telling, across history and around the world.
Alongside cultural diversity are cultural parallels, with Confucius in
the East and Aristotle in the West both advocating an ethics of equilibrium, for example. And Carl Jung has identified universal thought
forms that he chose to call the collective unconscious.
In addition to epochal theorizing and historical traditions, contemporary sociopolitical policies and mandates promote common ethical
practices. But agreements forged among nations and between institutions are not sufficient in and of themselves for providing a universal
framework. Media technologies change constantly and raise new issues
that need resolution. Hence, only a transdisciplinary and cross-cultural
approach on all levels will yield a universal mode of communication
ethics adequate to the twenty-first century, if it is done for the reasons
and using the distinct approaches toward the emancipatory practical
goals and higher objectives that are realistically discussed in this lucidly
written concluding overview.
*
Before closing, it might prove useful to critique these interrelated contributions: they all seek to enhance an understanding of practical relational ethics in ways that encourage deeper effective politics of
governance and broader and more inclusive purviews for egalitarian
democracy. They do so from consequentialist and nonconsequentialist
perspectives. In Guyers and Camerons contributions, for instance,
one can discern a tendency to emphasize more a nonconsequentialist
approach to peace-related and justice-specific ethics grounded, not so
much on consequences, but rather on a high standard that finds its
motivation in norm-based prescriptions of how humans ought to
behavenot according to divine command theory, but in accord with
Kantian duty ethics: Kants categorical imperative need not be mistaken for some version of divine command theory.7 Yet, part of the
7. Paul Guyer reminded us that if fifty years ago Elizabeth Anscombe infamously did
assert it was, the suggestion is untenable: Kant viewed the categorical imperative to be
inherent in human reasonthus recognizable by every human being implicitly and every
time that we as humans consider acting upon a principle of action (some proposed
maxim). Kant did hold thatto believe that the morality with which we are to conduct
our lives can be fulfilledwe humans, indeed, need to believe in God. Yet it is not our

22

Jose V. Ciprut

urgency inhering in the ethical conduct of democratic politics along the

dimensions discussed in this book is in a consequentialist mode of
thinking, in that some of the chapters seem to concern themselves
utmost with the outcomes, implications, and consequences of actions,
such as the ones that touch on ego and ethos (Williams), on trust and
markets (Kleindorfer), on ethics, morals, and the state (Mulhern), on
exclusion and fear (Spinner-Halev), and on the problem of a democratic
ethic (Schuldenfrei) or on the urgent requirements for a global ethic of
communication (Cooper and Christians). True, if heeded, these tenets
might be capable of bringing about a more just world in the course of
a new century that, sad as it is to admit, started with the deadliest of
all nondialogues between the blind and the hard of hearing.
In this editors opinion, intuitionistic decisions, taken on a case-bycase basissuch as act nonconsequentialists tend to undertake, the
more conclusively to decide what is the right thing to do under very
specific circumstancesare so subjective that a general theory of action
is far from achievable, to the detriment of theorizing with any universal
applicability. For if all stakeholders were to engage in what makes
them feel good, chances are that responsible democratic citizenship
would be the first casualty as a mode of lawful practice apt to conduce
to more egalitarian democratic governance. In a world where, for better
or for worse, faith-based organizations have begun to assume a newfound importance, and where the jury is still out on the makings of any
clashes of civilizations, the problem raised by a rule nonconsequentialist (i.e., consequence-indifferent) mode of thinking, however, resides
in its placing trust in divine command, conducive to the awkward
secular doubt as to whose Gods command prevails on issues of
public (not household) import. Clearly Kants categorical imperative
gains pride of place here, because it may insist on the basic immorality
of an act that is decided upon, and undertaken as is, on basis of a rule
(maxim) that is not universally acceptable to all stakeholders. One agrees
with Paul Guyer, however, that the contrast between consequentialism
and Kantian thought should not be overdrawn: for Kant, the moral
principle is a formal principle, at least in its first formulation; through
that principle, we are to treat all human beings as ends in themselves,
not as mere means to our very own ends. This certainly specifies a
blind faith but our own reason that enjoins those tasks upon us. And when it comes to
perpetual peace, Kant quite unmistakably leaves God altogether out of the picture: peace
is a state of affairs to be realized in human history, by means of human good will and by
the mechanisms of nature, but clearly not God.

Prisoners of Our Dilemmas

23

consequence of our actions, albeit in a way that says nothing about

happiness. In modern settings geared to the pursuit of happiness by
each and all, habitually in stances that often so closely resemble selfish
altruism, whether being treated as ends in themselves will allow human
beings to set and pursue their own ends (to the extent compatible with
everyone elses doing so) in ways that will assure the happiness of one
and all, is a very different question, however.
In the sense and to the extent that ones maxims for actions are not
to be merely applicable but, indeed, acceptable to everyone who could
be affected by themhence because it rules out the imposition on others
of principles they could not freely acceptthe categorical imperative
serves as a conduit to covenanted justice, not as a vehicle for coveted
joy, thereby offering but a beginning in its very own ends. Kant specifically distinguished the categorical imperative from the traditional
Christian rule. For him, doing unto others as thou would have them do
unto thee left out an important complement: not doing unto others
what they would not have done of themselves for themselves to themselves. It is therefore in the very amalgamation of these two complementary principles that resides the serenity offered by justice, on which
one just might found collective joy, and in which one also just might
find personal happiness. We do not do unto others what they would
not have done to them, and we do unto others what we would have
done to usto the extent that, in so doing, we remain true to, and also
consistent with, the first part of the principle, the limits and latitudes of
our resources, and the primacy of our most intimate aims (which we
should view as no more, if also as no less, worthy than anyone elses):
not exactly a garden variety of selfish altruism insofar aswhile it does
include the achievement of ones own aims among the aims of allit
allocates to ones aims no self-arrogating weight. Inside that mentality,
if in a somewhat different sense, the argument finds its echo in
Bourdieus suggestion that a point of view that perceives itself as such,
that is, as a view taken from a point in a space of contending positions,
is in a position of overcoming particularity (Bourdieu 1991, 384).
Our discoveries from this critically edited book thus resonate with an
almost-Kantian thinking that, while hoisting the categorical imperative
to a zenith, wants it not least to coexist symbiotically with reasoned altruism in a mode of ecumenical syncretismdos and donts because
already, and all too well, we can reason what is good and not bad
for one and all. For some, this might seem to amount to a much too
simple political ethic, although it does provide a basis for an eminently

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Jose V. Ciprut

nonsimplistic code of societal behavior that, through a practice of sagacious politics, may come closest in its wider effects to the uncommon
achievement of actually straddling religious charity and secular humanistic generosity, and therefore becoming conducive to liberty, peace,
and the pursuit of happinessalbeit in the company of ones others.
Buttressed with a robust dose of political free will, this code also should
help to dissipate any lingering languor, much residual reticence, and
many hampering hesitations to embark in ones humane duties to
buildhand in hand with ones othersa more humane world for one
and all, starting not a year from next epiphany, but right here and now.
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Watson, Francis (2000) Agape, Eros, Gender: Towards a Pauline Sexual Ethic, Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Watson, Jean (2005) Caring Science as Sacred Science, Philadelphia: F. A. Davis.
Weber, David J. (2005) Brbaros: Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment,
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Wenham, Gordon J. (2000) Story as Torah: Reading the Old Testament Ethically, Edinburgh:
T. & T. Clark.
Whybrow, Peter C. (2005) American Mania: When More Is Not Enough, New York: W. W.
Norton.
Wielenberg, Erik J. (2005) Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Wilkinson, Richard G. (2005) The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier,
New York: New Press/W. W. Norton.
Wilson, James Q. (1995) On Character: Essays, expanded edition, Washington, DC: AEI
Press.
Woodroffe, Rosie, Simon Thirgood, and Alan Rabinowitz, Editors (2005) People and Wildlife: Conflict or Co-existence? Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Wright, Frances [17951852] (2004) Reason, Religion, and Morals, Course of Popular Lectures,
Amherst, NY: Humanity Books.
Yu, Tianlong (2004) In the Name of Morality: Character Education and Political Control, New
York: P. Lang.

Law and Morality in

Ancient Near Eastern
Thought
Barry L. Eichler

The beginning of modern times is marked by the emergence of humanism and the European Enlightenment. These movements gave rise to
a strong belief in natural law and universal order, and in the ability of
human reason to discover universal principles governing humanity,
nature, and society. The traditional bonds linking religion, human
behavior, and governance began to tear asunder. The grounding of
morality on religious absolutes was called into question in ways that
mattered. Intuitionists and empiricists reflected on the nature of human
conscience. Questions of absolute good and relative good came to be
entertained. And, until this day, various attempts to establish an ethical
criterion evidently independent of theological considerations have continued to be debated. With the advent of modernity, old notions of the
interrelatedness of law and morality were no longer accepted on face
value. Law came to be deemed a social creation, enforced by judicial
authority, while morality came to be understood as an individual
concern based on a personal sense of obligation.1
More recently, the modern world has begun to question once again
the relationship between religion, law, and morality. As a result of
technoscientific advancements, along with sociopolitical emancipation
and cultural-economic development, modern societies are now grappling with the exigencies and attending dilemmas of giving legal
1. Throughout this chapter, I use law to refer to social norms that have been escalated
into legal norms because they are enforced by legal sanctions. I use the term morality
to imply personal norms that are based on a sense of individual obligation to do that
which is right and proper. And I use ethics to mean a system of priorities and values
that provide the theoretical framework within which an individual can exercise moral
judgment and make moral decisions. These words are foreign to ancient Near Eastern
thought, as these cultures had no special terms for morality or ethics. Therefore, I do not
distinguish between ethics and morals in a modern sense, or even along the GrecoRoman perspectives intimated by J. J. Mulhern in this book.

34

Barry L. Eichler

expression to moral issues of existential importancelife and death,

human dignity, individual responsibility and freedom,2 and the
equitable distribution of resources. It therefore would be useful to
revisit ancient Near Eastern notions of law and morality in order to
enhance discussions of modern ethics, by providing historical and
cultural perspectives of humankinds incessant quest for an ethical
society.
It is universally recognized that biblical thought3 has played a formative role in the development of Western thinking: many of the most
profound cultural values of Western civilization are steeped in the
biblical tradition. But biblical thought partakes of a shared heritage
with the other ancient Near Eastern cultures that form the cradle of
human civilization. For seminal characteristics of biblical notions of
law and morality to be more fully appreciated, one must situate them
within the cultural milieu of ancient Near Eastern thought. But before
doing so, it is even more important to set the discussion itself in its own
authentic intellectual framework.
The nonsecular ancient Near Eastern world experienced human
society in cosmological terms. Hence, conceptions of both law and
morality were most intimately tied to the cosmic order of the universe
and to the realm of the divine. Law and morality were viewed as intricately interwoven concepts. It should be also noted that ethicsin the
sense of a philosophical system of priorities and criteria meant to
provide the theoretical framework for exercising moral judgmentsis
wholly foreign to ancient Near Eastern thought. Nevertheless, a rudimentary notion of ethics may be gleaned from ancient Near Eastern
literary compositions that reflect central moral concerns and ideal standards of proper human conduct. After identifying the pertinent literary
sources, this chapter will briefly describe Mesopotamian and Egyptian
standards of proper human conduct, in order to explore the ties linking
them to biblical moral concerns.
2. For the ethical and moral issues and their ramifications, in the related debate on free
will, see Guyer, Indeterminacy and Freedom of the Will, (2008).
3. The term Biblical thought, as used throughout here, refers to the ideational legacy
of beliefs, conceptions, and thoughts derived from various literary genres and preserved
in the biblical canon. Biblical must be distinguished from Israelite. The latter defines a
historical and cultural reality, whose actual practices and beliefs may not always reflect
biblical thought. Biblical thought must also be differentiated from Jewish and Christian
thought, both of which are based on later, rather sectarian, interpretations of biblical
literature even though much of biblical influence on Western civilization has derived
from Christian thought, which shares core biblical conceptions with Jewish thought.

Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought

35

Mesopotamian Ethics
Most of the literary sources bearing on Mesopotamian ethics were part
of the Mesopotamian stream of tradition, representing a corpus of
texts transmitted by Sumerian and Akkadian scribes for more than two
millennia (from c. 2300 to 500 B.C.E.). These literary sources may be
grouped into law collections, wisdom compositions, religious texts,
and omen literature:
Mesopotamian law collections4 do not constitute royally prescribed
legislation but are more closely linked to royal inscriptions. The law
collections attest to the kings fulfillment of his divine charge to establish justice and equity in his realm. Hence some of the law cases within
the collections may represent specific royal ordinances and economic
reforms. Other cases, however, may reflect nonbinding Mesopotamian
principles of equity transmitted over the millennia by its scholarly tradition. Such cases would represent statements of ideals that do not
reflect the actual practice of law. Nevertheless, the law collections reflect
the kings moral sense of right and wrong and, as such, provide valuable insight into the Mesopotamian conception of justice and its taxonomy of social values.

Mesopotamian wisdom compositions5 are replete with proverbial

sayings and didactic instructions, which encourage a code of correct
behavior. The motivation for such behavior is based on pragmatic
and utilitarian considerations. The religious factor is apparent only in
Mesopotamian works of theodicy, which question the foundations
of correct behavior and explore the reasons for the suffering of the
righteous.

The theme of human suffering is also prevalent in religious texts.

Although Mesopotamian literature recognizes natural causes of illness,
it tends to view prolonged suffering and social adversity as signs of
divine displeasure. Mesopotamian penitential psalms and cultic rituals
were designed to release afflicted persons from their suffering. They
often contained confessionals, listing both social and cultic misdeeds
suspected to have precipitated the sufferers afflictions. Hence, these
4. English translations of Mesopotamian law corpora with introductory essays and notes
may be found in Roth (1997). For summaries of specific topics in Mesopotamian law, see
the relevant chapters in Westbrook (2003).
5. Buccellati (1981) discusses problems associated with the application of the term
wisdom to Mesopotamian literature.

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Barry L. Eichler

texts bring into focus what was deemed to be proper human behavior,
meritorious of the blessings of the gods, as well as improper human
behavior, doomed to incur divine wrath.

Within the corpus of Mesopotamian omen literature, human behavioral omens and dream omens are most relevant to the study of Mesopotamian ethics. In these omens, some human actions, committed
while awake or in a dream, bear a favorable or unfavorable divine
message. It has been assumed that these omens reflect speculations on
proper and improper human behavior. This assumption, however, is
complicated by the fact that although many of the socially accepted
behaviors are taken to be good omens, there exist behaviors deemed
clearly unacceptable in the law collections that, nevertheless, are interpreted also to be good omens.
Social Ethics
Since the preceding literary sources derive from the royal and the
scholarly elite in the employ of the palace and temple, the behavior
that they foster is geared to the preservation of the existing social order.
Hence one of the central moral concerns here is that of social ethics,
pertaining to the maintenance of the social hierarchy and the promotion of harmony inside the family and the community. The sources
stress filial obedience to parental authority. As is amply evident
from Mesopotamian adoption tablets, filial love and respect entail
both an economic responsibility and a social duty to care for ones
elderly and indigent parents. Filial obligation continues even after
death, with responsibility for ensuring proper burial and mourning
rites, and for maintaining offerings so that the ghosts of the deceased
will be at peace, and hence not endanger the realm of the living by ever
restlessly wreaking havoc within the society of the living. In turn, the
hierarchy among siblings is based on age and gender. Respect is
expected toward ones elder brother and sister. The filial respect
and loyalty owed to ones parents was a value that extended also to
ones superiors, including a master, public officials, the king, and ones
personal god.
Included within social ethics are the moral concerns that are essential
for a cohesive community. Human life is safeguarded by the prohibition of homicide, which, under certain circumstances, may be a capital
crime. Often the decision is left to the victims kin, who may demand

Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought

37

blood vengeance or blood money. An individuals right6 to private

property is another primary value of Mesopotamian society and a
major concern of the law collections. These texts deal not only with
violations against ones right to property, through theft or burglary, but
also with liability incurred for the destruction of property. The sources
also demand honesty in commercial relations. The use of false weights
and measures and the moving of a neighbors boundary stone are
considered to be serious misdeeds. Closely linked to issues of honesty
is the reliability of ones spoken word. This value is essential for the
proper functioning of society, especially in the realms of its legal and
judicial system, which depends upon the consistent veracity of accusations as also on the trustworthiness of testimony. The legal collections
deal with such moral infractions as false testimony, false oaths, slander,
and blasphemy. It is the legal contracts that specify heavy penalties for
breach of contract.7
Sexual Ethics
Much of Mesopotamian sexual ethics dealing with the violation of
women is closely related to the concept of property rights, since the
unmarried daughter is considered to be the property of her father; and
the married woman, the property of her husband. Thus the rape of an
unmarried woman of free birth and the rape of a slave girl are viewed
as a property offense, requiring monetary compensation to father or
master.8 Similarly, the adulterous relation of a man with a married
woman is an invasion of the husbands dominion, and at times may be
a capital crime. The decision rests with the aggrieved husband, who
may demand the death of the adulterer only if he is willing to acquiesce
also to the death of his wife. Hence the crown, unwilling to interfere
with the patriarchal authority of the paterfamilias, nevertheless
6. Individual refers to an adult free member of the society, not to a person in the
modern legal sense (cf. Edward L. Rubin, Right to Be, Privilege to Become: The Dangers
of Citizenship [2008], and also J. J. Mulhern, The Political Economy of Citizenship
[2008]).
7. For a fuller discussion of Mesopotamian social ethics and the other following categories with extensive documentation, see Ethics and Etiquette: Rules of Proper Conduct
and Correct Behaviour in Toorn (1985).
8. The master could (ab)use his property: slaves were deemed to have no right to
object or legal ground for complaint. But, although the Laws of Hammurabi (c. 1750
B.C.E.) did not directly punish the father who raped his daughter, the law did require
that he leave the city (Roth 1997, 154).

38

Barry L. Eichler

demanded equal treatment for his subject on par with the treatment of
the aggrieved husbands wife. In the law collections available to date,
abortion and male homosexuality are mentioned only in the Middle
Assyrian Laws (c. 1076 B.C.E.). The law case dealing with abortion
states that a woman who aborts her fetus shall be impaled and remain
unburied. The severity of the crime seems to be based upon her act of
insurrection, that is, by way of deliberately destroying her husbands
potential progeny. Otherwise, one who strikes a mans pregnant wife,
causing her to abort her fetus, usually pays monetary compensation to
the husband. The assailant is held capitally liable only if the womans
husband had no son. As to homosexuality, one who fornicates with his
comrade is to be sodomized and turned into a eunuch. It is unclear
whether the act is criminal for its homosexual nature or for being committed against someone of the same social standing. In the sexual
human behavioral omens, homosexual acts are deemed to be good
omens; and hence seem to be viewed and received in a more positive
light in the omen series than in the legal sources.
Religious Ethics
Mesopotamian religious ethics reflect principles that are similar to
those found in its social ethics. Although little is known about the role
of the common people in the practice of religion, it is clear that their
personal gods served as their intercessors before the great gods. Wisdom
literature and penitential prayers focus on duties toward ones personal
gods, who are viewed and treated as the divine parents of the worshipper. The gods are to be honored materially, with sacrifices; and verbally,
with prayers. Blasphemy by swearing false oaths is a serious act of
disrespect, since they swear by the lives of the gods. Other offenses
include the seizure of temple property and the wronging of temple
personnel, both estimated to be divine property. More is known of the
roles of the king and the cults functionaries in the state religion. The
major royal cultic duties were the maintenance of the temples of
the great gods, the support of their cults, and the observance of their
festivals. The performance of these duties was vital for the prosperity
and security of the land. The cultic functionaries had to follow a cultic
etiquette, requiring of them to be physically sound and otherwise
unblemished, and ritually pure. Physical cleanliness was demanded,
as was also the wearing of clean clothing. Washing of hands was
required before prayer, sacrifice, and the sacred meal. During certain

Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought

39

cultic times and rituals, food restrictions were in force, as recorded in

ancient Mesopotamian calendrical diaries.
Personal Ethics
Mesopotamian sources consistently extol virtuous behavior; they praise
the god-fearing person for his reverence, obedience, humility, and trust.
But more detailed information concerns royal rather than personal
ethos. Royal ideology demanded the moral perfection of the king, who
was divinely mandated to uphold the moral order. His duties were not
only to secure the borders of the land but also to maintain the socioeconomic well-being of its citizenry. As the faithful shepherd of his
people, the king was required to enforce justice, render true judgments,
protect the powerless, care for the weak, and support the helpless. He
had to be meek and humble in his devotion to the gods, fastidious in
the execution of his cultic duties, and always exercise utmost care not
to abuse his power. Hence, both king and subject had to be humbly
mindful of their subservient roles within the cosmos.
Egyptian Ethics
In turning to ancient Egyptian ethics, one must recognize that the
nature of the source materials available for the reconstruction of Egyptian civilization is very different from that of Mesopotamian primary
sources. The peoples of Mesopotamia recorded their life mostly on clay
tablets, which when baked became almost indestructible. Ancient
Egyptians, however, used papyrus as their primary medium, which is
prone to decay in humid climates. The Niles periodic overflows, cyclically inundating the ancient inhabited areas, have made it all the more
difficult to recover ancient Egyptian epigraphic remains. Most of the
excavated archaeological sites are located at the desert fringes of the
narrow fertile strip along the Nile, where the Egyptian kings had constructed their pyramid complexes. Thus most of the excavated cities in
Egypt are necropolises, the monumental inscriptions and texts of which
are closely associated with death, with funereal cults and practices, and
with the histories of those buried in the tombs. In contrast to Mesopotamian sources, therefore, one finds a dearth of legal, socioeconomic,
and administrative texts, without which it would be impossible to
reconstruct more fully the societal fabric of ancient Egypt. The lack of
copious legal documents from the actual practice of law in ancient

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Barry L. Eichler

Egypt and the absence to date of royal legal collections9 prevent a

detailed reconstruction of Egyptian standards of proper human comportment in terms of social, sexual, religious, and personal ethics. Still,
one may gain a vision of Egyptian ethical values by relying on autobiographies, wisdom literature, and religious texts dealing with the
judgment of the dead.10
Egyptian autobiographies11 are tomb inscriptions of royal officials,
which summarize the professional accomplishments of the deceased
and highlight important episodes in their careers. These texts are
attested from the middle of the third millennium B.C.E., and they continue to develop as a genre throughout the span of ancient Egyptian
civilization. In the period of the Old Kingdom (26502135 B.C.E.), these
historical autobiographies are supplemented with reflective autobiographies that offer a moral self-portrait of the deceased. Such texts
present the deceased as having been in perfect harmony with the ideals
of the upper class and with its social and moral responsibilities toward
the king, the gods, and the middle and lower classes as well. References
can be found to filial responsibility toward parents, nurturing children,
rescuing the weak from the strong, feeding the hungry, and clothing
the naked. More general assertions state that the deceased knew, spoke,
and did maat (truth, representing the cosmic standard of order in the
universe), as desired by kings and gods. The texts include denials of
grave misconduct, such as abuse of power, while positively expressing
the ideals of justice, fairness, honesty, mercy, kindness, and generosity.
These same ethical values appear also in later autobiographies,
together with themes of professional accomplishment and social
status.
Another source for ancient Egyptian moral concepts is Egyptian
wisdom literature. This literary genre comprises didactic texts for
propagating rules of conduct.12 In the personal and the political
spheres, these texts extol the practice of justice, honesty, and benevolence and stress the virtues of diligent labor and of loyalty to the king,
9. For a summary of what is known about ancient Egyptian law, its legal institutions
and practices, see the contributions of Richard Jasnow (2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2003d) in
Westbrook (2003).
10. Translations of Egyptian literature may be found in Lichtheim, vols. 1 (1975), 2 (1976),
and 3 (1980).
11. For a full discussion of this genre, its text types, and its literary development, with
bibliographical references, see Gnirs (2001), vol. 1, pp. 184189.
12. Instructions are the main texts in this genre. They are discussed by title of composition in Redford (2001), vol. 2, pp. 169175.

Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought

41

to superiors, to family, and to neighbors and inferiors. Some texts of

instruction also teach that oppression of inferiors, quarrelsomeness,
and greed bring calamity upon society. People should act with friendliness, care, and restraint, possibly by suppressing their aggressive feelings. These themes are carried forth into the first millennium B.C.E. by
didactic texts that stress the necessity of efficient and impartial governance for the maintenance of civic and individual security.
These wisdom compositions teach behavior compatible with maat.
They are thus thematically related to texts dealing with the judgment
of the dead (Quirke 2001, 211214). Beginning in the Middle Kingdom
(20401650 B.C.E.) and culminating in the New Kingdom (15501080
B.C.E.), a new conception of the judgment of the dead developed in
which, upon ones death, every individual was tried by a divine tribunal to determine whether or not that individual was deemed worthy
of eternal life. The Coffin Texts (Lesko 2001b, 287288) and the Book of
the Dead (Lesko 2001a, 193195) contain an appeal to the power of
magic; but it is in Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead that one finds
a judgment scene, describing specific behavioral wrongdoings. Included
in these are cultic crimes, such as blasphemy, theft of sacred property,
and defiling sacred space;13 economic crimes, such as moving boundaries of fields and using false weights and measures; criminal acts of theft
and murder; and social wrongs, such as the exploitation of the weak
and the orphaned, the infliction of injury and pain, adultery, lying,
slandering, eavesdropping, losing ones temper, and behaving aggressively (Ockinga 2001, 485). It is in these Egyptian sources that one
stumbles upon the most references to specific acts of illegal and unethical behavior.
From the foregoing brief survey of Mesopotamian and Egyptian ethics,
one cannot help noticing the similarities between ancient Near Eastern
and biblical ethical thought. It is premature, however, to address the
comparative issues at this juncture, without first gaining a more fundamental perception of the notion of ancient Near Eastern ethics. This may
be achieved by placing Mesopotamian and Egyptian moral concerns
within the conceptual framework of their distinct societal worldviews.
In the Mesopotamian polytheistic worldview, gods emerged from
a primordial realm that harbored within its midst all natural and
13. See the reference to a SufI mystics vulnerably accessible yet, since the days of
Ottoman Turkey, still inviolate tomb site, in the brief dedication to Freedom: Reassessments
and Rephrasings, Jose V. Ciprut, Editor (2008a).

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Barry L. Eichler

supernatural cosmic forces. These cosmic forces existed prior to the

creation of gods, earth, and humankind. Hence godslike mortals
were subject to the natural forces of biological existence, but also to the
supernatural forces of fate, destiny, and magic and to the other cosmic
principles ordering the universe. In Mesopotamia, law was conceived
as an aspect of the cosmic order; ideal standards for ethical conduct
were closely related in Mesopotamian thought to the Mesopotamian
conception of law. Law as the embodiment of cosmic order is called
kittum (truth, or that which is correct/right). Like all other cosmic
forces of the universe, kittum is not only eternal but also universal; and
hence it could never have originated with gods or with humankind.
Although the Mesopotamian sun god of justice (Shamash) was not the
source of kittum, he did serve as its divinely appointed custodian.14 It
was in this capacity that the sun god could possess its intimate knowledge of this cosmic force. Just as law is understood by the Mesopotamians to be an embodiment of the cosmic principle of kittuma precept
indispensable for maintaining social equilibrium in the worldso too
do Mesopotamian moral norms appear to reflect a cosmic standard of
propriety governing both human and divine behavior, with the intent
of achieving harmonious social intercourse. Thus the Mesopotamian
concepts of ethics and law seem to be subsumed en masse by the Mesopotamian cosmic principle of kittum.
Despite the many disparate physical and cultural elements that constitute the distinctive traits of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, ancient Egypt did share with Mesopotamia a polytheist worldview,
in which gods and primordial cosmic forces coexist. The Egyptians
recognized in the concept of maat an independent cosmic principle of
harmony, order, and stability, closely linked with their notions of law.
But this cosmic principle was not confined to truth and justice in terms
of legal administration. Almost like kittum in Mesopotamian thought,
maat in Egyptian thought refers to a complex and intertwined set of
just and proper relationships governing cosmic phenomena. Maat
staves off cosmic chaos (isfet) and is responsible for establishing universal order.15 So ancient Egyptian standards of moral behavior and,
14. Not all Mesopotamian gods were male. Female goddesses also were in charge of
things serious and important. The goddess Ishtar/Inanna, for instance, was a major deity
in the Mesopotamian pantheon.
15. In Egyptian religious thought there is a tendency to concretize abstractions. Hence
cosmic forces are often personified as deities. Like Fate, maat can be written with a deity
determinative. For maat as both cosmic force and goddess, see Teeter (2001, vol. 2,

Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought

43

indeed, the very conception of law, are rooted in the cosmic principle
of maat. Thus both the Mesopotamian and Egyptian polytheistic worldviews conceive of law and morality not only as complementary but
also as symbiotic aspects of a primordial cosmic principle that harmoniously orders both divine and human societies.16
Biblical Ethics
The biblical perception of ethics is distinct from that found in Mesopotamian and Egyptian thought, owing to the Bibles fundamental,
radically different perception of the divine. The biblical worldview,
usually termed monotheistic, is not mere belief in the existence of one
God. Rather, it is the idea that the Deity is transcendent and sovereign
over all. It differs fundamentally from polytheism in the absolute
freedom of the Godhead. Unlike ancient Near Eastern gods, who are
born into a primordial realm of natural and supernatural forces, which
precede them in time and transcend them in power, the biblical God is
there from the very beginning, and the forces of the cosmos are
all-inherent inside him. Thus the biblical Deity acts in total freedom,
unrivaled either by the will of other gods or by the cosmic forces of the
universe.
For this reason, biblical thought cannot accept the ancient Near
Eastern conception of the ultimate sanction of law and morality as
being rooted in the primordial cosmic principle of either kittum or maat,
both of which transcend all of the gods and all of humankind. Such a
conception is inconsonant with the biblical definition of the Godhead,
as the sole and unique source for all cosmic forces, and to whom
moral perfection is attributed. To the biblical mind, God is the ultimate
319321). Moreover, maat is both cosmic principle and mode of behavior: doing maat
(being moral, behaving ethically, promulgating and obeying laws and principled rules
imbibed by maat) sustains maat (the principle itself).
Both Mesopotamians and Egyptians believed that, also present in the universe, there
were negative cosmic forces that could interfere with the proper functioning of the positive cosmic forces. John Baines (1991, 125) states: Ordered creation has constantly to be
affirmed against the forces of disorder. Not only the king and humanity but also the gods
were involved in this enterprise. Mans moral actions played an important role in the
continuance of the natural order of creation, and his immoral behavior could weaken
and thwart the effectiveness of cosmic order in the created world.
16. Kittum was never personified like maat and therefore remained a more abstract
concept. Kittum seems to be more of a defining force, representing the ways in which the
gods and humankind were to create social order and stability.

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Barry L. Eichler

sanction of law and morality, both of which are conceived as the

expression of his will.17
Despite the fundamental ideological differences extant among the
biblical, the Mesopotamian, and the Egyptian worldviews, and between
their differing perceptions of law and morality, one must remember
that the bearers of the biblical tradition nevertheless were members of
a closely interrelated cultural complex known as the ancient Near
Eastern civilization. Thus the Bible contains many legal and moral
concerns similar in substance and in formulation to those found in
earlier Near Eastern literatures. As it is evident from the summaries of
Mesopotamian and Egyptian ethical considerations outlined previously, many an ancient Near Eastern legal and moral norm is also
echoed in the biblical literature. The two main sources for discerning biblical ethics are its wisdom literature and legal collections.
Similarities in form and content among the biblical, Egyptian, and
Mesopotamian didactic literatures establish biblical wisdom literature
clearly as integral to this international literary genre. Couched in practical terms, much of the biblical instructional wisdom literature clearly
notes the tangible blessings of proper conduct. Unique, however, is the
very emphasis that it places on the religious conviction that the fear of
God is, indeed, the mainstay of wisdom.18 But the biblical law collections, too, share many features of form and content with the cuneiform
law collections. It is, indeed, the very uniqueness of the biblical conception of law as the will of God that distinguishes the biblical law collections from those of Mesopotamia. Yet, despite the uniqueness that
creates these differences, biblical and ancient Near Eastern literatures
often share common ideals. The shared ideals represent aspects of
ancient Near Eastern thought that remained compatible with the biblical worldview, whereas biblical departures represent reactions to aspects
that were seen as inimical to biblical cultural values. In that light, it
would be instructive to highlight the major differences between specific
biblical and ancient Near Eastern legal and moral concerns, through
the formulation of biblical ethical considerations that follows.
17. Note that the most common designations for law in the Bible are references to Gods
mitsvah, commandment (Deuteronomy 11:13), torah, instruction (Genesis 26:5), davar,
utterance (Deuteronomy 4:13), and various nominal forms of hoq, decree (Leviticus
33:3), in addition to the term mishpat, norm (Exodus 21:1).
18. Psalms 111:10; Proverbs 1:7, 9:10; et passim. The fear of God is also prominent in the
wisdom strata of Deuteronomy (Weinfeld 1972, 274281). To be sure, the term fear of
the gods (palah ili) also occurs in Mesopotamian texts where it has important cultic
implications. Cf. Toorn (1985), p. 174, n. 373; p. 175, n. 374.

Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought

45

Social Ethics
As in Mesopotamian thought, one of the central moral concerns of the
Bible is social ethics, especially the maintenance of harmony within the
family and the community. Biblical law insists on filial respect and
obedience, emphasizing the affirmative obligation of honoring ones
parentsthe duty of supporting and providing for them in needand
raising the culpability for striking and cursing ones parents to the
status of a capital crime against society. This value of filial subservience
was extended to ones duties to ones leaders, and especially to ones
God, the cursing of whom is a capital crime (Exodus 22:27).19
As one moves from family concerns to those of society at large, one
must note thatunlike Mesopotamian societybiblical society envisions no legally defined social classes among free Israelites, except, that
is, in cultic matters. True, there exist clear economic asymmetries
between rich and poor and differences between natives and resident
aliens, as there also are legal distinctions between free Israelites and
slaves, men and women, adults and minors. But there is no evidence
of a developed class structure. Caring for the weak and the powerless
is an important element in Mesopotamian royal ideology, but only
biblical law attempts to ameliorate the conditions of the poor by prohibiting interest-bearing loans (Exodus 22:24; Leviticus 25:3537; Deuteronomy 23:20) and by imposing the charitable duty of offering a part
of ones agricultural harvest to the needy (Leviticus 19:910). As for the
resident alien, he is treated the same way as the native Levite, who also
does not own tribal territory in the land. Resident alien and Levite fall
in the category of the poor, qualified to receive charitable gifts from the
harvest. Generally, resident aliens are included in the purview of the
biblical law applicable to the Israelites and, as such, may partake of
religious and cultic observances. The admonition not to mistreat them
is motivated by the Israelite experience of being resident aliens in
Egypt (Exodus 22:20; Leviticus 19:3334). No such concern for the
welfare of strangers is to be found in Mesopotamian law collections.
Notwithstanding its general recognition and its quite ordinary institutionalization, slavery is deemed undesirable as a status for Israelites.
The kidnapping of Israelites for use or sale is a capital crime. Israelites
found to be enslaved to non-Israelites have to be redeemed. But unlike
Mesopotamian law, which considers the nonreturn of fugitive slaves to
19. Cf. 1 Kings 21:10.

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be a capital crime, biblical law forbids the return of a fugitive slave to

his master (Deuteronomy 26:13). Also, the Bible adjures Israelite society
to improve the circumstances of the slaves by remembering that Israelites had been slaves in Egypt. Although both Mesopotamian and
biblical laws state that debt slaves are to be freed at periodic intervals,
only biblical law requires the master to provide his freed slave with the
economic means of initial self-support (Deuteronomy 15:1314). Biblical law is also unique in its legislation of laws for the protection of the
body and the life of slaves from their masters abuse (Exodus 21:2021,
2627). Rather, Mesopotamian law addresses only issues of harm
caused to the slaves of others (Laws of Hammurabi 199).
Although biblical law reflects a patriarchal society in which minors
were under the jurisdiction of their fathers and upon marriage women
became subordinate to their husbands, both minors and women were
treated as personsnot as mere chattelbefore the law. A father
could not kill his rebellious son without first, accompanied by his wife,
duly petitioning the court (Deuteronomy 21:19). Not least, and in sharp
contrast with the Mesopotamian law collections, biblical law did not
sanction the punishment of children for the crimes of their parents or
the punishment of wives for the crimes of their husbands. Thus the
biblical principle of lex talionis is so iterated as to forbid vicarious punishment to be visited upon an offenders children or wife (Leviticus
24:1920).20
Moral concern for the safeguard and well-being of the individual
(essential for the cohesion of the entire community) is rooted in the
biblical worldview that humankind was created in the image of God,
thus rendering him unique to all other created forms of life. Since the
Bible views God as the promulgator of law, a religious evaluation permeates biblical law, as evidenced in its basic postulate of the inviolability of human life. Murder is an absolute wrongit is a sin committed
against God, hence a crime not subject to human arbitration (Exodus
19:13).21 The biblical postulate of the invaluableness of all human life
is set forth in Genesis 9:56.: For your own lifeblood I shall require a
reckoning: of every beast I shall require it; of man, too, will I require
a reckoning for human life, of every man for that of his fellow man.
Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed,
for in the image of God, did He make man. This clear cosmological
20. Cf. Deuteronomy 24:16 and Exodus 21:31.
21. Cf. Exodus 21:14 and Leviticus 24:21.

Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought

47

reference to the biblical concept of man is noteworthy. Because of the

sanctity of human life, the Bible views even the most innocent shedding
of human life as a criminal act: a beast that kills a man destroys the
image of God, and must give a reckoning for it. Thus in the case of a
goring ox, the ox must be stoned. The very prohibition of eating the
flesh of that ox is an unmistakably direct indication of the religious
rather than merely utilitarian appraisal inherent in the law that requires
the destruction of the ox.22
Acceptance of monetary compensation for homicide is expressly forbidden, as stipulated by the rule You shall not take a ransom for the
life of a manslayer, who is guilty of death; he shall surely be put to
death (Numbers 35:31). Ransom may be accepted only for negligent
homicide, not personally committed, as in the case of the goring ox
(Exodus 21:30). Although Mesopotamian law is protective of human
life and recognizes that a murderer is polluted with blood, it nevertheless does allow for monetary compensation to be made, with the
consent of the aggrieved family, even in cases of flagrantly intentional
manslaughter. This provision reflects an economic valuation of human
life quite consistent with the Mesopotamian worldview of mans place
and role in the cosmos. According to Mesopotamian cosmogony, man
was created in response to a divine labor crisis that caused great unrest
in the divine assembly. Humankind was created to serve the gods, in
their newly erected earthly temples, thus freeing the younger gods
from the endless toila task that had been imposed upon themof
feeding and caring for the great gods. This material economic valuation
of human life contrasts sharply with the Bibles religious valuation of
human life as a spiritual entity. This basic difference in itself accounts
for the disparateness in biblical and Mesopotamian attitudes toward
human life.
22. Cf. Exodus 21:2829: When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be
stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox is not to be punished. If,
however, the ox has been in the habit of goring, and its owner, though warned, has failed
to guard it, and it kills a man or a womanthe ox shall be stoned, as shall its owner also
be put to death. Cf. Laws of Hammurabi 250251 (Roth 1997, 128): If an ox gores to
death a man while it is passing through the streets, that case has no basis for a claim.
If a mans ox is a known gorer, and the authorities of his city quarter notify him that it
is a known gorer, but he did not blunt [?] its horns or control his ox, and that ox gores
to death a member of the awilum class [i.e., the ruling/noble/upper class, as distinct from
the Muskenum (the working class) and the Uardu (slaves)Editors note], he [the owner]
shall give 30 shekels of silver. For a discussion of the comparative issues raised by the
biblical and Mesopotamian laws of the goring ox, see Malul (1990, 113152).

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As is the case in Mesopotamia, biblical law is concerned with an

individuals right to private property, and it demands redress for the
destruction of property as also for violations against ones right to
property, ranging from mere compensation to multiple fines, but not
exceeding fivefold penalties. Yet, unlike Mesopotamian law, property
offenses can never be escalated to capital crimes, since human life is
never commensurate with property in biblical law. As an individuals
right to private property is of primary value in Mesopotamian society
(whose own worldview reflects an economic valuation of human life),
some of the property-targeting offenses are, indeed, punishable very
severelyeven by deathin the Mesopotamian law collections.23
Finally, both Mesopotamian and biblical law demand transactional
honesty in commercial relations and strictly binding reliability in ones
spoken word on legal and judicial matters.
Sexual Ethics
In both Mesopotamian and biblical law, the sexual violation of unmarried women is closely related to the concept of property rights, since the
unmarried daughter is considered to be the property of her father. The
rape of an unmarried woman of free birth, like the rape of a slave girl,
is a property offense that commands a just monetary compensation to
her father. But unlike Mesopotamian law, biblical law does not view the
sexual violation of a married woman as a private wrong to be dealt with
by the aggrieved husband in a way of his sole choosing. In biblical law,
an adulterous relationship between a man and a married woman is a
capital crime: if committed consensually, it is punished by the death
penalty for the woman as well. Adultery is a religious violation of a
divinely sanctioned matrimonial bond; hence, it is not up for punishment or pardon at the simple or sole discretion of the wronged husband.
Similarly, homosexuality and bestiality, deemed abominations, are
capital crimes against the establisheddivinemoral order of creation.
With regard to striking a pregnant woman during a brawl and occasioning a miscarriage, biblical law views the loss of the fetus foremost as an
offense against the husband, and thus prescribes monetary payment.24
23. See Laws of Hammurabi, 19 and 22 (Roth 1997, 85) for greater pertinent detail.
24. Cf. Exodus 21:22. Catholic interpretation follows the Septuagints translation of the
ambiguous Hebrew terminology, which understands the loss of a fully formed fetus to
be a capital crime. This difference in interpretation in part accounts for the differing positions in Jewish and canon law on issues of abortion (Feldman 1968, 258259; 268275).

Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought

49

Religious Ethics
In the realm of religious ethics, biblical law emphasizes the responsibility of the persons in divine service. Little attention is given to the role
of the king, whose religious responsibilities are so very central to the
Mesopotamian cult. The people are enjoined to observe the Sabbath, to
celebrate the festivals, and to honor God by providing, materially, for
the maintenance of cultic activities. The Mesopotamian cult centers on
king and priests in providing for the physical needs of the gods in
accordance with the reigning worldview. The biblical cult focuses on
the individual and the collective needs of the people to interact with
the divine, by requiring the people to present free will or sin and guilt
offerings, also by commemorating creation and celebrating discrete
national-historical events through cultic worship. As representatives of
the people, and not of God, and in divine service, priests in their capacity as cultic functionaries must adhere to a cultic etiquette that requires
of them to be morally unblemished, physically sound, and ritually
pure. As a result of the direct communication that exists between God
and the people, and the divine covenant between them, the biblical
worldview understands that every single worshipper is endowed with
some cultic status (Exodus 19:6).25 This raising of laity to some degree
of priesthood is evident in certain cultic etiquette incumbent also upon
the people, and most explicitly so in certain food taboos.26 But a biblical
worship of God demands more than a modicum of cultic service and
piety. For in the biblical worldview, it is not merely Gods omnipotence
(authority) but his moral perfection (legitimacy) as well that render him
worthy of the peoples worship. And hence, the people discover a religious obligation to abide by his will and to commit to his ethical
norms.
Personal Ethics
Underlying the first psalm in the Book of Psalms, whose message has
a wider application to the entire collection of psalms, is the basic biblical worldview that an individuals life is governed by a divinely
ordained universal moral order (Sarna 1995, 29). Thus fear of God
is a cardinal virtue, for it acknowledges a Supreme Being, who makes
25. Cf. Numbers 16:3.
26. Cf. Leviticus 22:8 in the context of v.2 with Leviticus 17:15 and Exodus 22:30.

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moral demands on human beings and holds each of them accountable

for their own actions. These beliefs are rooted in the Lords teachings;
therefore, the individual is enjoined throughout the biblical literature
to study these teachings. Thus knowledge of God (i.e., his teachings)
is yet another cardinal virtue, for these teachings serve as an authoritative guide to correct behavior. It is not God but the people who are held
responsible for creating a moral society. As such they are to act honestly,
pursue justice, provide for the needy, protect the powerless, and love
their fellow men. The first psalm not only affirms the triumph of a
moral individual in an immoral society but also implicitly proclaims
the power of the individual to transform society.
Other personal ethical/moral imperatives include the following
biblical statements: thou shalt do that which is right and good in the
eyes of God (Deuteronomy 12:28); thou shalt be unto Me a kingdom
of priests and a holy people (Exodus 19:6); thou shalt be holy for I,
the Lord your God, am Holy (Leviticus 19:2). This last statement is
understood as an imperative, in the form of imitatio dei, to mimic
(the better to fall in step with) the ways of God, possibly to emulate
his moral attributesincluding holiness, righteousness, humility,
mercy, and compassion. In no uncertain terms, these biblical urgings
point to a covenantal imperative to heed a supralegal standard of
ethic in the conduct of ones life along a code of behavior situated well
above the inadequacies of a servile human implementation of biblical
law.
Understanding the Legacy
Although the ancient Near Eastern and biblical worlds differ fundamentally from the modern secular world, both ancient and modern
societies are acutely aware of the centrality of moral concerns and ideal
standards of human conduct for achieving harmonious social intercourse. Our brief survey of concerns and standards of behavior that
find central expression in ancient Near Eastern literatures has attempted
to underscore the persistence of erstwhile commonly held societal
norms that are still manifest in the modern Western world. These
norms and related concepts are part of the cultural legacy of ancient
Near Eastern thought to Western civilization, transmitted through biblical mediation. It is therefore important more fully to appreciate ancient
Near Eastern and biblical conceptions of morality and their notion of
human responsibility for upholding moral order.

Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought

51

Although basic differences separate their conceptions, both the

ancient Near Eastern worldview and biblical thought conceive of
law and morality in absolute terms. For Mesopotamians and Egyptians,
the moral cosmic standardlike law, as well as each and all of the
many other natural and supernatural primordial forces of the universewas an abstract impersonal force that governed the universe
and to which both gods and humankind were subject. Because such
innate forces were not endowed with the power of self-expression,
however, neither the Mesopotamian principle of kittum nor the Egyptian principle of maat was ever capable of directly communicating its
will to humankind.
In Mesopotamia, the very gods that served as custodians of the primordial forces of the cosmos served also as a liaison or hyphen of sorts
between humankind and these metapersonal cosmic forces. And as
such, they inspired privileged human beings (the various elites) with
knowledge of the essence of these forces. Of all humankind, the king,
by dint of his divine selection, was thought to be the most inspired, for
he was the only one divinely mandated with primary responsibility for
establishing a harmonious socioeconomic reality perfectly and completely consistent with kittum. The Mesopotamian king was not the
source of law as embodied in the cosmic principle of kittum; he just
served as its earthly agent. But it was the Mesopotamian kings duty
nevertheless to author laws, to issue edicts, and to render judgments
that would reflect the moral cosmic standard. The responsibility of the
individual consisted in heeding the kings law. Yet unlike the Mesopotamian edicts and judgments authored by the king, and hence identifiable as enforceable legal norms, many of Mesopotamias moral maxims
seem to have remained in the realm of social norms. As such, they were
not enforced by the king or by any other group endowed with the legal
privilege of sanction. It was religious beliefs that helped bolster individual observance of the societys moral order, because inappropriate
human conduct was regarded as something doomed to disturb the
harmonious social order on earth, and at times even to jeopardize and
to undermine nothing short of cosmic stability. Hence, certain legal or
moral infractions would be considered acts of sacrilege and taboo. Such
ominous infractions were deemed punishable not only by legal force
or by social pressure, but also by religious (and even magical) retribution. But individual responsibility to uphold the moral order faced yet
another challenge. Mesopotamian sources appear acutely aware of
humankinds inability to comprehend fully the mind of the gods and

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Barry L. Eichler

the essence of the cosmic forces. The penitential psalms and the wisdom
literature stress the limited capacity of humankind to grasp what
pleases the gods or to distinguish between good and evil, hence to
comprehend clearly the cosmic moral standard. Mesopotamians
believed, however, that this lack of knowledge did not exonerate
humankind from blame or punishment for its misdeeds, since such
ignorance was viewed as mere insufficiency inherent to the imperfect
human condition.27 Nevertheless, this lack of certainty could severely
undermine the individuals resolve to live by predefined moral order.
In effect, however, individual moral responsibility does not seem to
have emerged as a significant, let alone dominant, factor within the
perimeter of Mesopotamian societyespecially when compared with
the overwhelmingly duty-laden central role of the Mesopotamian
king.
In Egypt, too, it was the king who bore the primary burden and
central responsibility for maintaining the moral order by upholding the
cosmic force of maat. The ancient Egyptian king, by virtue of his divine
status, manifested maat, and the peoples responsibility was to follow
the kings law, which fully conformed to the ideals of maat. Lichtheim
(1997,11ff.) notes that Egyptian royal officials describe themselves in
their autobiographies as active knowers and doers of maat. It seems
therefore that royal officials, too, had a personal knowledge of maat,
possibly for having learned it from the royal community and from
schooling in wisdom literature. Their actions are said to be firmly
anchored in this personal sense of right and wrong. Many Egyptologists think that a shift must have occurred during the development of
Egyptian moral thinking, from the primary association of maat with the
king in the Old Kingdom, to the primary association of maat with the
gods in the Middle Kingdom (Ockinga 2001, 484485). It is thought that
an apparent failure on part of the kingship to uphold order and to
sustain stability at the close of the Old Kingdom may have given rise
to a new understanding that next reassigned primary responsibility for
maintaining cosmic and terrestrial order to the gods. Humankind was
now instructed to do maat for sake of the gods; and if disorder should
prevail, it would do so because the gods did not make their presence
felt. But in the period of the New Kingdom, Egyptologists sense the
occurrence of yet another shift, in which personal piety comes to the
27. For detailed discussion, see Buccellati (1995) and Toorn (1985). Both works have
extensive bibliographical references.

Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought

53

fore (Ockinga 2001, 486487)though the moral standards upheld in

earlier periods seem to have prevailed, a successful enduring life and
an eternal afterlife now begin to be subordinated to ones private relationship with the gods. Success in life and the attainment of a blessed
afterlife are no longer viewed as a given, that is, as a consequence of
moral behavior in consonance with the cosmic principle of maat. These
human aspirations seem now to have become subject to the will of the
gods. But since ancient Egyptians seem to have been keenly aware of
the inscrutable nature of the gods and of their plans for humankind, a
deep sense of insecurity appears to have taken hold. Some Egyptologists have argued that it is this very sense of profound insecurity that
led to the expansion of self-centered personal piety, seeking automatic
atonement from the gods, which consequently became very notably
detrimental to Egyptian societal cohesion (Ockinga 2001, 486487).
Much in contrast to Mesopotamian and Egyptian thought, the Bible
conceives of law and morality as the expression of the divine will of
an omnipotentand caringsole Deity. The biblical God is not only
the ultimate source of law and morality but especially also the sole
author of biblical law. It is in his concern for the welfare of his creation
that God communicated his will to humankind.28 Law therefore is
viewed as a set of revealed instructions intended to serve as a divine
blueprint for the conduct of human society, whereby divinely ordained
moral and ethical ideals are translated into legal norms. Thus, for
example, the commandment to return lost property (Exodus 23:45;
Deuteronomy 22:14) represents a legal obligation meant to fulfill a
religious-moral duty. Here, biblical law is conceived as a positive prescriptive code of ethical behavior, not a reactive means to redress rights
violated. Considerations of duty become primary, while issues of rights
remain secondary.29 Also, any nonobservance or violation of biblical
law, even when it involves property torts or contract law, is not only a
civil offense against society but also a violation of Gods willan absolute wrongfor which the wrongdoer is directly accountable to God.30
28. Note Gods concern for communicating his will to Adam (Genesis 3:13) and Noah
(Genesis 9:117) at the very outset of biblical history.
29. Such a conception of law accounts for the didactic tone of the biblical law corpora
and for the frequency of motive clauses attached to biblical laws, for which see Sonsino
(1980).
30. Cf., among others, Numbers 5:58; Leviticus 19:2022; Genesis 20:6. For this reason,
biblical law does not distinguish fundamentally between cultic and noncultic offenses.
The fact that the biblical law corpora contain an intermingling of both social and cultic
matters (e.g., the Decalogue) is best understood in this context. Note that, since all cultic

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Barry L. Eichler

This biblical conception of law as the revealed will of God stands high
and clear, in stark contrast to the myriad uncertainties and innumerable
insecurities associated with Mesopotamian and Egyptian conceptions
of law and morality. In the biblical worldview, the divine moral standard is clearly articulated; individual responsibility for heeding a clear
standard is paramount. It is this appreciation of law, morality, and
human responsibility that permeates the biblical prophetic tradition,
characterized by its passionate demand for human equality and dignity,
its hatred of oppression, and its dream of universal peace, each
grounded on social justice. These ideals and the divine imperative for
humankind to try to actualize them have left an indelible imprint on
the consciousness of Western civilization.
But there is yet another important dimension to the biblical conception of law and morality. Biblical law, which God addressed directly to
the entire community of Israel,31 is conceived as the basis of a covenantal
relationship between God and Israel. Both the Sinaitic covenant and the
covenant of the Plains of Moab center on a book of law (Exodus 24:4,
24:7; Deuteronomy 29:11, 29:13, 29:20) containing divinely dictated
legislation. The book of law contains also elements of ancient Near
Eastern vassal-covenant stipulations that demand complete loyalty
and total allegiance to God. Unmistakably explicit is the affirmation
that God and Israel are bound in contract, whereby faithful observance
of the law guarantees divine prosperity and also protection, just as
violation of the law results in dire calamity and misfortune to the individual and to the nation (Leviticus 26:345; Deuteronomy 28).32 Of far
greater import and consequence here is the fact that now an entire
people becomes responsibleindividually and communallyfor the
observance of the law (Deuteronomy 11:1328), the maintenance of
justice (Deuteronomy 16:1820), and the punishment of offenders
(Deuteronomy 17:5 et passim). It is precisely this biblical covenantal
approach to law that underscores the uniquely heightened sense of
individual and communal responsibility for the observance of law and
offenses, social crimes, and civil torts are viewed as violations of Gods will, it would
not be meaningful for biblical law to draw distinctions between socioeconomic and
cultic-religious matters in the organization of its legal formulations.
31. Mosess intermediary role, as a messenger relaying Gods utterances to the people,
is viewed as a divine concession to the request of the people. See Exodus 20:1820 and
Deuteronomy 5:2331.
32. This conception of covenantal law remains a dominant theme throughout biblical
history, reaffirmed in the covenants of Joshua (Joshua 24), Josiah (2 Kings 23), Zedekiah
(Jeremiah 34), and Ezra (Nehemiah 910).

Law and Morality in Ancient Near Eastern Thought

55

moralitynot found in the ancient Near Eastern world.33 Biblical

thought could, in this way, broaden and democratize the Mesopotamian
notion of divine covenant between deity and king by clearly placing
the people on par with the Mesopotamian and Egyptian kings in the
upholding of legal and moral standards within society. This unique
biblical notion of law as covenant, established upon a mutual and reciprocal basis on which the people join as one of the covenanting parties,
represents a major contribution to Western civilization. Only a bilateral
covenant that cannot be unilaterally revoked and whose contents are
righteous, equitable, and compassionate (i.e., moral, or godly) can truly
safeguard the rights of the people. This biblical conception eventually
became a cornerstone of Western democratic political thought.34
Despite this legacy, the modern secular world for the most part
cannot accept the basic premise of ancient Near Eastern and biblical
conceptions of law and morality as one reflecting an absolute moral
standard.35 Secular thought has little interest in, and even less sympathy for, a biblical ethic that derives from divine command which is then
articulated in legal norms. There is no place for dogmatic ethical absolutes defined by theological systems of belief in the pluralistic multicultural societies of modern democratic states that declare commitment
to freedom, diversity, and tolerance.36 But lessons gleaned from ancient
Near Eastern and biblical conceptions of law and morality should not
be dismissed precipitously or all too lightly.
By contrasting the biblical conception of law and morality with that
of Mesopotamia and Egypt, this chapter sought to underscore the fact
33. This approach is responsible for the creation of Jewish law and forms also the foundation of Jewish covenantal ethics (Wrzburger 1994) as expressed in classical Judaism.
Also cf. Silberg (1961).
34. Cf. the essays of Konvitz (1978) and the more popular article by Cahn (1961). See
Meislins introduction (1976) on the colonial period, which documents the influence of
the Bible on American legal thinking in the formative period of American history.
35. In the modern secular minds eye, an absolute moral standard may be viewed as
robbing humankind of its autonomy and its ability to make authentic moral choices, and
thus as disallowing the validity of human intellectual moral growth. This position is
somewhat misleading, for both ancient Near Eastern and biblical conceptions of an
absolute moral standard recognize the importance of the human factor in moral development. The Mesopotamian and Egyptian notion of the absolute moral standard as an
innate cosmic force incapable of self-expression necessitates an incessant human quest
to discover moral truths as human ethical thinking evolves over time (see, for instance,
Lichtheim 1997, 9699, and Buccellati 1995, 1695). The biblical notion of the absolute
moral standard as a divinely willed mandate also necessitates human implementation
of a moral blueprint for human conduct as human society evolves over time.
36. See Botwinick (2008).

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Barry L. Eichler

that greater moral clarity does enhance the sense of personal responsibility; and that greater societal appreciation of the role of the individual
in upholding the social contract of law, citizenship, and governance
intensifies both individual and communal commitments socially to act
responsibly. True, relativism, deconstructionism, and especially postmodernism have enriched modern thought in many ways, but they
have also led to considerable moral confusion. Therefore, it is imperative for modern democratic societies to identify the common ethical
values they hold to be true and to articulate clearly their moral standard that must serve as the cultural wellspring of their societal postulates. Needless to say, this is a long, arduous, and often wrenching
process that must bring together the most diverse moral conceptions
of many different peoples, a process that must find commonality
without thereby trampling the rights of local or global minorities. It is
equally imperative that modern democratic societies clearly articulate
and strongly inculcate these common values in their citizenry. This
statement is especially true at this time in human history when, once
again, basic moral issues can no longer remain in the private or personal domain, but must be translated into legally enforceable norms
that inform societys decision-making policies and define its actions.
The task at hand is formidable. May we have offered the reader a contextualized grasp of the existential complexities that underscore the
myriad societal issues remaining to be faced and the attending ethical
questions meriting to be answered.
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[Alter Orient und Altes Testament, 227], Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzen & Bercker Kevelaer.
Meislin, Bernard J. (1976) Jewish Law in American Tribunals, New York: Ktav.
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of Citizenship, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Ockinga, Boyo (2001) Ethics and Morality, in Donald B. Redford, Editor, The Oxford
Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, vol. 1, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Quirke, Stephen G. J. (2001) Judgment of the Dead, in Donald B. Redford, Editor, The
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Redford, Donald B. (2001) The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, vols. 13, Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.
Roth, Martha T. (1997) Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, Society of Biblical
Literature Writings from the Ancient World 6, Atlanta: Scholars Press.
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Silberg, Moshe (1961) Jewish Law and Morals, Harvard Law Review 75:306331.
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Westbrook, Raymond, Editor (2003) A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law, 2 vols., Leiden:
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On an Ethic of Peace
Grounded on Justice: An
Eighteenth-Century Voice
Paul Guyer

At the end of a century that was supposed to be enlightened yet saw

constant warfare, the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant published
Toward Perpetual Peace. This text seemed to assert that the course of
nature, in the fullness of time, would guarantee the realization of perpetual peace. Such a claim was both historically implausible and inconsistent with one of the deepest claims of Kants philosophy: that the
radical nature of human freedom always gives us the choice between
good and evil no matter how propitious our circumstances might seem
for one or the other.
In fact, as Kants argument develops, it becomes clear that he does
not mean to argue that nature guarantees the realization of perpetual
peace, but only that nature must make available means that weor
more precisely the politicians who represent us, if they choose to be
moralcan freely choose to use for the sake of peace. Kants stronger
language of guarantees can be seen as having been addressed to our
passionate persona more than our rational nature, aimed at giving us
encouragement as real human beings rather than philosophers. The
lesson that, no matter how just, no social and political arrangements
by themselves can guarantee the realization of peace, apart from the
moral commitment of those who can use them, remains just as true
today as it was in 1795.
Historical Context and Societal Background
We tend to think of eighteenth-century Europe as the serene hub of the
Age of Enlightenment. Of course, this enlightenment began before the
calendar year 1700; perhaps the publication of John Lockes Essay concerning Human Understanding and Second Treatise of Government in 1690,
or the Earl of Shaftesburys Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit in 1696,

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Paul Guyer

could mark the start of the Enlightenment, at least from an intellectual

point of view. But from a political point of view, it is far from clear that
the eighteenth century represented a special period of enlightenment:
in 1701 the War of Spanish Succession started; in 1702 the Elector
Frederick III of Brandenburg crowned himself king as Frederick I of
Prussia and Charles XII of Sweden invaded Courland and Poland; and
upon her succession to William III in 1702, Queen Anne conferred the
captain generalship on the Duke of Marlboroughthe very same year
in which Prince Eugene of the house of Savoy, proudly in the service
of the Austrian Holy Roman Empire, defeated the French in Carpi and
Chiara.
Nor did the warfare of the so-called Century of Enlightenment end
in 1800, the year, after all, in which Napoleon established himself as
first consul in the Tuileries and the mighty French army defeated the
Austrians at the battle of Marengo; nor in 1801, the year of the not
entirely mutual Act of Union of Great Britain and Ireland, that of the
Prussians assault on Hanover, and the one that saw the assassination
of Russian Tsar Paul I. Further, the century of the Enlightenment would
witness the British capture of Gibraltar (1704); Marlboroughs conquest
of Spain and the Netherlands; the signing of the Perpetual Alliance,
between Prussia and Sweden; the vertiginous ascent of the British East
India and the New East India companies political power; the Prut
River War (1711) between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, and the curt
dismissal of Marlborough as commander-in-chief, that same year; the
Peace of Utrecht (1713), when Spain agreed to cede Gibraltar and
the islet of Minorca to Britain; the Mongol occupation of Lhasa (1717);
the beginning of a not so beautiful friendship (known as the Quadruple Alliance) among the Holy Roman Empire, France, England, and
Holland (1718), allowing Frances prompt declaration of war on Spain
(1719); the vorsichtig (foresighted) and tchtig (proficient) move to
establish a Ministry of War, Finance, and Domains by Prussia (1723);
the eventless birth of an ordinary baby named Immanuel Kant (1724),
the (alas sacred-to-none) alliance between the Holy Roman Empire and
a differently holy Russian Empire (1726) against the Muslim Turks of
the Ottoman Empire, for whom both adversaries were miserably miscreant; the first of many explosions of the Polish Succession War and
Frances declaration of war against Emperor Charles VI (1733); the
misleadingly short-lived war between the Ottomans and the Persians
(which, though waged officially from 1734 to 1735, would continue on
and off through 1743); yet one more conflagration (173639) between

On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice

61

Russia and the Ottoman Empire; the dispatch of British troops to

Georgia (not the one to the east of the Black Sea, but the one across the
Atlantic) to settle a border dispute with Spain and the sack of Delhi
by Persians under Nadir Shah, all in the short span of the same year
(1739); next, the First (174042), Second (174445), and Third (1756
1763) Silesian Wars (all of which were parts of the Austrian Succession
Wars and ended up becoming also an integral and central part of the
European-wide Seven Years War); the alliance between Austria and
Russia against Prussia (1746); the establishment as a fortress of Halifax
in Nova Scotia (1749); the Treaty of Madrid of 1750a quasi appendix
to those of Tordesillas (1494) and Saragossa (1529)revising earlier
papal facilitations of the division of the Latin American continent
between Spain and Portugal, now a tad more so in the latters favor;
the Anglo-French war over border disputes in North America (1754)
and the British defeat by the French in Fort Duquesne (where
Pittsburgh stands today); Chinas invasion of eastern Turkistan (1758);
Dutch explorer Jakobus Coetsees advances beyond the Orange River
in South Africa (1760); Britains capture of Martinique, Grenada,
Havana, and Manila (1762), and proclamation providing for government in Quebec, Florida, and Grenada; the confiscation of church lands
in Russia and the suppression of Jesuits in France (1764); the separation
by the Mason-Dixon Line (named after its British surveyors) of the
free North (Pennsylvania) and slave South (Maryland) regions in
colonial America (1766); the agreement between Russia and Prussia
about the partition of Poland and the quasi completion of Russias
conquest of Crimea (formerly in Ottoman hands) that same year
(1771)although it would take the Treaty of Kk Kaynarca for the
Ottomans to deign to pretend to recognize it, and twelve more years
for Potemkin to be seen to have consolidated it (in 1783); the American
Revolution (17751783); the war waged by Britain against the
Mahrattas in India (17791782); the capture of the Dutch settlement at
Negapatam (Madras, India) by the British (1781); the completion of
Floridas conquest by Spain (1782); Austrias declaration of war on the
Ottoman Empire (1768) and their capture of Belgrade in the same year
as the French Revolution (1789), even as the Austrian Netherlands were
about to declare independence in a revolution suppressed by the Austrians in Belgium (which would end up wrenching its independence
from the Dutch by a separation 41 long years later, in 1830); the assassination in the Stockholm Opera House of Swedens king, Gustavus III
(1792); and the beginning of the Reign of Terror (1793) and not least the

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Paul Guyer

banning of Catholicism in France, the same year, during which a coalition against France began to take form, French troops were ousted from
Germany, the Holy Roman Empire declared war on France, the United
States proclaimed its neutrality, and Toulon was taken by Napoleon.
Next, the French Revolution would devour its children as the Whiskey
Insurrection roared in Pennsylvania (1794). And the Third Partition
of Poland would accompany the abdication of the Polish King
Stanislas II even as the Dutch surrendered Ceylon (todays Sri Lanka)
to the British in 1795; next, Agha Mohammed of Persia seized Khorasan
and proclaimed Tehran the capital (1796). The elevation as shah of
Persia of Fath Ali and the nomination of Marquis Wellesley governorgeneral of India (1797); the proclamation of the Helvetian Republic in
Bern; the conquest of Egypt (1798) and of Syria (1799) by Napoleon,
who appointed Talleyrand Foreign Minister of France (1799), as Britain
now found reason to join the Russo-Ottoman alliance against France
(1799); and the British capture of Malta and Napoleons undisputed (if
temporary) hold over most of Europe would finally usher in the calendrical close of the official Century of European Enlightenment.
In the year 1795, just another annus horribilis in Europe, during
which bread riots created havoc and White Terror raged in Paris, while
Luxemburg capitulated to France, the French forces occupied Mannheim
and Belgium, the British seized the Cape of Good Hope, the Dutch
had to cede Ceylon to the British, and Napoleon was appointed
commander-in-chief in Italy, even as the third partition of Poland beckoned, two private events occurred in Germany that would acquire
protracted historical significance:1 Frederick Wilhelm IV of Prussia was
born, and Immanuel Kant published his Zum ewigen Frieden. That essay
was anticipated by earlier efforts by the Abb Saint-Pierre and JeanJacques Rousseau, and prompted by ensuing political events; but it was
above all an enlightened philosophers response to the century of strife
just chronicled. Remarkably, however, it seems to argue not just that
peace among nations is possible, but even that it is inevitable. Could
such a critical philosopher as Kant have meant to assert something so
implausible, or is the innate message of the work something else? If so,
what; and does it have anything still to say to us now, two centuries
1. In enumerating the more salient events of contextual pertinence to this thematic essay,
I have cited generously from The Timetables of HistoryA Horizontal Linkage of People and
Events, new third revised edition, by Bernard Grun (1991), based on Werner Steins Kulturfahrplan. I thank our editor, Jose Ciprut, for his generous provision of the material for
this section and for his helpful comments throughout the paper.

On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice

63

later, and particularly after the recent end of a century in which warfare
was perhaps not as frequent but more intense and on a much vaster
scale than what it had been in the eighteenth century?
On the Probabilistic Merits of Rational Hope
for a Morality of Peace
In his famous essay Toward Perpetual Peace (1795), did Kant (17241804)
really mean to claim that a natural process of political development
within and among different states can ever provide a guarantee of perpetual peace among them? He certainly seems to be arguing that
natural mechanisms inexorably drive nations toward republican government, and that a world of republics would have no occasion for war
with one another, thereby guaranteeing perpetual peace:
What affords this guarantee (surety) is nothing less than the great artist
nature . . . from whose mechanical course purposiveness shines forth visibly,
letting concord arise by means of the discord between human beings even
against their will; and for this reason nature, regarded as necessitation by a
cause the laws of whose operation are unknown to us, is called fate, but if we
consider its purposiveness in the course of the world as the profound wisdom
of a higher cause directed to the objective final end of the human race and
predetermining the course of this world, it is called providence . . . 2 (TPP 8:360
362; Gregor 1996, 331332).

Kant then proposes to examine the condition that nature has prepared for the persons acting on its great stage, which finally makes its
assurance of peace necessary (TPP 8:362363; Gregor 1996, 332), and
to examine how nature affords the guarantee that what man ought to
do in accordance with laws of freedom but does not do, it is assured
he will do, without prejudice to [his] freedom, even by a constraint of
nature (TPP 8:465; Gregor 1996, 334). And in these proposals, too, it
certainly sounds as if Kant thinks that nature will guarantee perpetual
peace by means of the following scenario: war drives human beings to
all corners of the earth, seeking safety from one another; but no part of
the earth is completely inaccessible to any other, so even once people
2. Toward Perpetual Peace, henceforth TPP. Kants texts are here cited first by their locations in Kants gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Royal Prussian (next, and successively,
the German and the Berlin-Brandenburg) Academy of Sciences, Berlin: Georg Reimer,
and subsequently, Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1900; and then, from Immanuel Kant,
Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor (1996), from which all translations are drawn.

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Paul Guyer

have been driven to all corners of the earth they will still be in fear of
one another, and thus make war upon one another; but the burdens of
war upon the populations that must carry them will be so great that
over time people will transform their governments into republics more
fully expressing their own interests than any other form of regime can,
and once people have transformed their own governments into republics they will not have any internal cause to make war on other nations;
so once all nations have become republics, thereby removing any external cause for one nation to make war upon another, all cause for war
will be removed and there will henceforth be no war. (This is a summary
of Kants account at TPP 8:363368, Gregor 1996, 332337.)
Political scientists have purported to refute this rosy scenario by
adducing historical cases in which republics have made war upon one
another.3 However, the empirical criteria for counting regimes as republics that some participants to this debate have usedfor example, that
30 percent of males have the franchise to vote4fall so far short of
Kants ideal conception of a republic,5 and it is so far from clear that
any actual regimes, let alone actual regimes that have made war upon
one another, have ever satisfied Kants ideal of republican government,
that it seems to me pointless even to discuss this objection. What I do
want to ask here is whether Kant himself could have thought that such
a guarantee of peace through natural mechanisms is consistent with
the basic principles of his own philosophy.
The answer to this question is clearly no. Indeed, Kants description
of the key mechanism by means of which nature is supposed to guarantee perpetual peace makes it clear both that it can do no such thing
and that Kant did not think that it can do any such thing. In expounding the First Definitive Article for Perpetual Peacenamely, that
The civil constitution of every state shall be republicanKant writes
the following:
3. This discussion began with Michael Doyle (1983), who defended Kants apparent
empirical argument for the inevitability of peace among republics. There have been
numerous critics as well as supporters of Doyles position; for a sample list, see Cavallar
(1999, 180181, notes 5 and 6).
4. See Ernst-Otto Czempiel, Kants Theorem und die aktuelle Diskussion ber die
Beziehung zwischen Demokratie und Freiheit, in Valerio Rhoden (1997, 99120), cited
in Cavallar (1999, 146147).
5. See TPP 8:349350, 352; Gregor 1996, 322, 324; Metaphysics of Morals (henceforth MM),
Doctrine of Right, sections 4548, 6:313316; Gregor 1996, 456460; and On the Common
Saying: That May Be Correct in Theory but It Is of No Use in Practice, 8:289296; Gregor 1996,
290296.

On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice

65

The republican constitution does offer the prospect of the result wished for,
namely perpetual peace; the ground of this is as follows. When the consent of
the citizens of a state is required in order to decide whether there shall be war
or not (and it cannot be otherwise in this constitution), nothing is more natural
than that they will be very hesitant to begin such a bad game, since they would
have to decide to take upon themselves all the hardships of war (such as themselves doing the fighting and paying the costs of the war from their own belongings . . . ); on the other hand, under a constitution in which subjects are not
citizens of the state, which is therefore not republican, [deciding upon war] is
the easiest thing in the world; because the head of state is not a member of the
state but its proprietor and gives up nothing at all of his feasts, hunts, pleasure
palaces, court festivals, and so forth, he can decide upon war, as upon a kind of
pleasure party, for insignificant cause. . . . (TPP 8:350; Gregor 1996, 323324)

This is not the language of guarantee, but one of probabilities. That

citizens who are collectively the sovereign of a republic may be highly
averse to risking their own lives or livelihoods in order to make war
and that sovereigns who are proprietors of absolutistic regimes may
not be especially averse to risking the lives and goods of their subjects
in order to aggrandize their own wealth or status do not guarantee that
the former will never make war or that the latter will always do so.
Nor could Kant, with his clear recognition of the difference between a
synthetic a priori principle and a mere empirical generalization, have
thought otherwise. Kants own language makes it clear that he could
not have thought that even the worldwide spread of republican governments could automatically guarantee perpetual peace any more
than we could believe this to be so.
In fact, Kant somewhat modifies his apparent suggestion that the
worldwide spread of republican government would or could guarantee the elimination of war in several subsequent statements, which
assert that the natural mechanisms he describes will only produce
gradual progress toward perpetual peace, not a prompt or full realization
of that earnestly desired as well as morally mandatory condition. Thus
in the conclusion of Toward Perpetual Peace, many pages after the bold
statements cited, Kant remarks: If it is a duty to realize the condition
of public right, even if only in approximation by unending progress,
and if there is also a well-founded hope of this, then the perpetual peace
that follows upon what have till now been falsely called peace treaties
(strictly speaking, truces) is no empty idea but a task that, gradually
solved, comes steadily closer to its goal (since the times during which
equal progress takes place will, we hope, become always shorter) (TPP
8:350; Gregor 1996, 323324).

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Paul Guyer

And in his brief discussion of the Right of Nations in the Doctrine

of Right of the Metaphysics of Morals (MM), published two years later
than Toward Perpetual Peace, Kant concludes his rsum of the earlier
work with the following comment: So perpetual peace, the ultimate goal
of the whole right of nations, is indeed an unachievable idea. Still, the
political principles directed toward perpetual peace, of entering
into . . . alliances of states, which serve for continual approximation to it,
are not unachievable. Instead, since continual approximation to it is a
task based on duty and therefore on the right of human beings and of
states, this can certainly be achieved (MM, Doctrine of Right, section
61, 6:350; Gregor 1996, 487).
Here it seems as if Kant has given up on the idea that there can be
any natural mechanism that guarantees the realization of perpetual
peace and instead has settled for the idea of a mechanism that would
produce ever-increasing progress toward this goal. But if his claim is
that the sorts of natural mechanisms he has described can guarantee
even merely progress toward perpetual peace, that conclusion still
seems to be more than is warranted by the thought that certain naturally occurring transformations of regimes would make perpetual
peace more probable. For probabilities guarantee nothing: that the probability of precipitation today is 90 or 95 percent does not guarantee that
it will rain today at all nor even that there will be a misty condition
approximating to full-blown rain. It just says that on (recorded) past
days with initial conditions like todays, it has in fact rained ninety or
ninety-five times out of a hundred. And just as in meteorology, where
some minor or even imperceptible difference between todays conditions and those prevailing on ninety or ninety-five similar days, when
it did rain, can undermine the inference from the probability of perception to actual precipitation today, likewise we know all too well that
some minor incident can precipitate an unpredictable chain of events
leading to war, even in conditions that we might otherwise have
thought were unfavorable to war. Therefore, natural conditions that
would make peace more probable would not seem to guarantee anything at all, be they the complete realization of perpetual peace or
merely an asymptotic approximation to it.
From Promoting Morality to Banning War
That Kant could not actually have meant to assert the existence of any
guarantee of either the complete realization of perpetual peace or even

On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice

67

constant progress toward it through any natural mechanisms may

follow arguably from something far deeper than facts about empirical
probabilities with which Kant was perfectly well acquainted. It seems
to follow from the fundamental premise of his mature moral psychology. What I have in mind here is Kants view, expressed in Religion
within the Boundaries of Mere Reason only two years before Toward Perpetual Peace and four short years before the Metaphysics of Morals: that
human freedom, understood at its deepest, transcendental level, is
always the freedom to choose between what morality requires and what
self-love suggests. So that, even in cases where natural mechanisms,
including natural inclinations, would seem to promise conformity with
the requirements of moralityand for Kant perpetual peace is the
ultimate such requirement (MM, Doctrine of Right, section 61, 6:350;
Gregor 1996, 487)human beings always are free to subvert such
natural mechanisms in the name of self-love, no matter how deluded
or shortsighted their conception of what would gratify their self-love
might be. What Kant calls radical evil is the concomitant of his
radical conception of human freedom: true freedom to choose what is
good is also true freedom to choose what is evil. Having made this
completely clear, just two years before publishing Toward Perpetual
Peace, after a lifetime of reflection on the problem of free will,6 Kant
could hardly be thought to have forgotten this fundamental point in
the subsequent work.
Before I pursue this issue a little further, let me be clear that I am not
making the point that, no matter how favorable to outward compliance
with a moral obligation, no natural mechanism can actually produce
complete satisfaction of such an obligation because that requires an
internal disposition, which can only be freely chosen, namely, the motivation to act out of respect for duty alone.7 To be sure, Kant claimed at
6. The problem of free will was a central problem in Kants earliest work in philosophy,
the New Exposition of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition, published in 1755, and
a central issue in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of
Morals (1785), and the Critique of Practical Reason (1788). Of course, Kants stand on the
problem underwent many changes before he settled on the final position toward it, which
he took in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (henceforth Religion); but the very
fact that he had considered so many options before settling on the position he finally
took in 1783 makes it all the more implausible that he could have forgotten what he wrote
in 1793 by 1795.
7. This may seem to be suggested by Volker Gerhardt, in Otfried Hffe (1995, 171194,
at 184). In the same volume, Pierre Laberge (Hffe 1995, 149170) argues that there are
three things that might be thought to be intended to be guaranteed by Kant: (1) the conditions that make peace necessary, (2) the means for the juridical condition of peace, and

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Paul Guyer

the very outset of the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals8 that the
only thing that is unconditionally good and truly estimable is good will
(see GMM, section 1, 4:393394; Gregor 1996, 4950). And he argued in
the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment that we can see
the whole of nature as a determinate system aimed at a unique end
only if we see it as aimed at a final end of unconditional moral value,
for only such an end would qualify as unique. Yet he also argued in
that work that we cannot see nature itself as producing anything more
than the culture of discipline over our inclinations, a discipline that
may be a necessary condition for the implementation of a moral disposition but that cannot be a sufficient condition for it (see section 83,
5:432 in Guyer 2000) for the simple reason that no operations of mere
mechanisms of nature, that is, of our own nature, can ever earn us true
moral worth or esteem. Further, Kant also makes it clear that although
the obligation to earn moral esteem is itself a human beings Tugendverpflichtung, or obligation of virtue as a motivation, that is, an internal
disposition, his Rechtspflichten, or duties of justice, by contrast, are
duties that we can satisfy entirely by outward compliance with the relevant moral laws, regardless of what sort of motivation we use in order
to get ourselves to do so, if only to avoid moral demerit. And that is
why juridical duties can admit of external legislation connecting them
to pathological determining grounds of choice, inclinations and aversions, but in fact, Kant continues, only by aversions. The mere conformity or nonconformity of an action with law, irrespective of the
incentive to it, is called its legality (Legalitt), its lawfulness (Gesetzmssigkeit); but that conformity, in which the idea of duty arising from the
law is also the incentive to the action, is called its morality (MM, Introduction, section 4, 6:219; Gregor 1996, 383). In Kants scheme, the duty
to seek perpetual peace is the ultimate juridical duty or duty of right
or justice (Rechtspflicht). The fundamental principle of right is the principle to perform only such actions as can coexist with everyones
freedom in accordance with a universal law (MM, Doctrine of
Right, Introduction, section C, 6:230; Gregor 1996, 387). In particular,
(3) the performance of peace as a duty; that nature, however, could supply items 1 and
2 but not 3. Laberge agrees with the view I take here; for, in his own words, The problem
treated in the essay on peace appears to be only juridical; its solution is not dependent
on the good will and the moral improvement of mankind (Hffe 1995, 164). But
Laberge seems to believe that Kant thinks nature could guarantee peace as an external
condition. Hence, he does not argue, as I will, that Kants commitment to the doctrine
of radical evil makes that outcome most unlikely.
8. Henceforth GMM.

On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice

69

the universal principle of justice requires one to make only claims

to the control and use of land and its products that are compatible
with the freedom of others to make such claims as well, hence claims
that can be considered to be endorsed by a universal rather than a
merely unilateral will (MM, Doctrine of Right, section 8 [Hffe
1995, 149170], 6:255256; Gregor 1996, 409). And thus, only in a true
condition of peace throughout the globe can rights to anything
external that is mine or yours . . . hold conclusively, rather than
as merely provisional (MM, Doctrine of Right, section 61, 6:350;
Gregor 1996, 487). In Kants view, then, one can only hold property
rightly and securely in a condition of perpetual worldwide peace, and
the intention to hold property rightly therefore entails the duty to
establish such peace. But precisely because such a duty is purely juridical, the motivation by means of which one fulfills it is of no juridical
interest; and thus from the juridical point of view it would be perfectly
acceptable, perhaps even highly desirable, if perpetual peace could be
assured by natural mechanisms. Of course, if we were to achieve the
condition of perpetual peace out of sheer free respect for duty itself,
there would be ethical merit in doing so. But that is a separate matter:
the achievement of peace through free choice or by internal disposition
is not a juridical requirement. In decisive words from Kants sketches
for Toward Perpetual Peace, The issue here is not promoting morality
or even happiness but merely banning war (23:162).
The Freedom to Choose Either Good or Evil
The problem then is not that something necessary for peace is missing
if it is achieved through natural mechanisms; the problem is rather that
the very nature of human freedom means that we can pervert any
natural mechanism that might by itself conduce to perpetual peace, no
matter how plausibly and reliably conducive to peace that mechanism
might have seemed. This is an inescapable implication of the doctrine
of radical evil that Kant expounded in Religion within the Boundaries
of Mere Reason. But does that doctrine then imply the very opposite of
what Toward Perpetual Peace initially seemed to offer: that is, does
the doctrine of radical evil imply a pessimistic guarantee that there
can be no perpetual peace? It does not, because Kants point in arguing
that evil is radicalthat it is due not to merely natural factors beyond
our own control but to our own free choicewas precisely that
conversion from evil to good is always open to us. In the political context

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Paul Guyer

this means that, while the radical freedom of human choice entails
that no natural mechanism possibly guarantees the just outcome of
perpetual peace, this very same freedom does entail that it is always
possible for us to use these natural mechanisms to progress toward that
peace.
Admittedly, this is hardly the place for a detailed exegesis of Religion
within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, but I will just briefly document
several key points: First, the work argues that although we have within
us an original predisposition to good, that is, natural predispositions
to humanity and personality (Williams, chap. 6 of this book) that can
lead to morally desirable outcomes (Religion, Part 1, 6:26; Wood and di
Giovanni 1996, 74), as well as a natural propensity to evil that manifests itself in superficially different yet perhaps morally not manifestly
distinguishable forms of frailty, impurity, and depravity (Religion, Part
1, 6:2930; Wood and di Giovanni 1996, 7678), whether any particular
human being is ultimately either good or evil cannot be explained by
either of these natural tendencies, but only by the free choice of a
human being to realize his predisposition toward the good or to pervert
that predisposition by giving in to the propensity toward evil. In Kants
words:
The human being must make or have made himself into whatever he is or
should become in a moral sense, good or evil. These two [characters] must be
an effect of his free choice, for otherwise they could not be imputed to him and,
consequently, he could be morally neither good nor evil. If it is said: The human
being is created good, this can only mean nothing more than: He has been
created for the good and the original predisposition in him is good; the human
being is not thereby good as such, but he brings it about that he becomes either
good or evil, according as he either incorporates or does not incorporate into
his maxims the incentives contained in that predisposition (and thus must be
left entirely to his free choice). (Religion, Part 1, 6:2930; Wood and di Giovanni
1996, 7678)

Kants argument here is that, if a person is to be given moral credit

for doing or being good, then his so doing or being cannot be the result
of merely natural predisposition, but must be the result of his own free
choice to incorporate that predisposition into his own principles or, in
Kants term, maxims. But if that choice is truly free, then the person is
in fact also free to choose to do evil, by perverting that predisposition,
thus to be evil by his own choice, and indeed, radically so. The possibility of radical evil is inseparable from the possibility of imputable
goodness.

On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice

71

Kants reference to maxims in the last passage manifests his view

that the choice between good and evil takes the form of a preference
between two fundamental maxims, on the one hand the maxim to
fulfill the dictates of morality even when they conflict with the demands
of self-love, and on the other hand the maxim to seek to satisfy the
demands of self-love even when they conflict with the demands of
morality.9 That is, Kant conceives the choice between good and evil as
the decision whether to subordinate self-love to morality or morality
to self-love, the decision which of the two one makes the condition of the
other (Religion, Part 1, 6:36; Wood and di Giovanni 1996, 83). That Kant
understands the choice between good and evil in this way reflects two
assumptions: the first, which might seem optimistic, that no human
being is entirely ignorant of the moral law, and thus no one ever does
evil in mere ignorance of the moral law; and the second, which certainly seems realistic, that no human being is entirely exempt from the
natural demands of self-love, and thus no one ever does good (or can
be called upon to do good) from a mere absence of self-love: The
human being (even the worst) does not repudiate the moral law, whatever his maxims. . . . The law rather imposes itself on him irresistibly.
. . . He is, however, also dependent on the incentives of his sensuous
nature because of his equally innocent natural predisposition, and he
incorporates them too into his maxim (according to the subjective principle of self-love) (Religion, Part 1, 6:36; Wood and di Giovanni 1996,
8283). What morality requires of us is not that we eliminate self-love,
which can have all sorts of morally permissible, or even requisite, consequences under the right conditions; it requires only that we subordinate our ineliminable tendency to self-love to the principle of morality,
which determines what the right conditions for acting upon self-love
are. The free choice not to do that, not the merely natural tendency
toward self-love, is the source of evil.
The second key point to take from the Religion, however, is that Kant
does not argue for the radical nature of human evil as a counsel of
despair. He does so, rather, the better to demonstrate that the possibility of conversion from evil to good is always within our grasp. Further,
Kant characterizes human evil as radical, not to prove that it is omnipresent, but rather to prove that is eliminable. This is a point that may
escape readers of the Religion when they puzzle over Kants apparent
argument that human evil is omnipresent. He simply says, We can
9. For a more detailed discussion, see Cameron (2008).

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Paul Guyer

spare ourselves the formal proof that there must be . . . a corrupt propensity rooted in the human being, in view of the multitude of woeful
examples that the experience of human deeds parades before us, and
then goes on to allude briefly to scenes of unprovoked cruelty in the
ritual murders among various aboriginal populations but also the
long litany of charges against mankind even in its supposedly civilized state, such as secret falsity even in the most intimate friendship, a propensity to harm him to whom we are indebted, and not
least the state of constant war among civilized peoples (Religion,
Part 1, 6:3334; Wood and di Giovanni 1996, 8081). As a proof of a
universal and necessary proposition that human beings are always and
everywhere evil rather than good, such an empirical wave of the hand
may seem woefully inadequate. But clearly the point of Kants argument is not to demonstrate that human beings are generally evil rather
than good, for that he takes to be obvious. His philosophical point is rather
that the widespread evil of human beings is radicalfor being the
product of their own free choiceand therefore reversible. In Kants
words, This evil is radical, since it corrupts the ground of all
maxims. . . . Yet it must equally be possible to overcome this evil, for it
is found in the human being as acting freely (Religion, Part 1, 6:37;
Wood and di Giovanni 1996, 83).
Mssen ist Knnen: Toward a Concept of Right with Efficacy
Kant illustrates this point in the Religion with nothing short of an
explicit allusion to perpetual peace: Philosophical chiliasm, which
hopes for a state of perpetual peace based on a federation of nations
united in a world-republic, is universally derided as a sheer fantasy as
much as theological chiliasm,10 which awaits for the complete moral
10. It is useful to recall that Chiliasm is the belief that Christ will return to establish a
glorious kingdom of peace on this earth for one thousand years. The term comes from
a Greek word that means one thousand, and arises out of the reference in Revelation 20
to a thousand-year period in which Satan is bound and the souls of martyrs reign with
Christ. Chiliasm is distinct from the present day premillennialism in that chiliasm does
not teach a secret rapture or emphasize dispensations. Some of the early church fathers
held to a form of chiliasm. But it died out in the church after Augustine came to
understand that the millennium is not a literal one-thousand-year period, but is the era
from Christs ascension to His second coming. Chiliasm was resurrected by the radicals
of the Reformation. Willem Balke (Calvin and the Anabaptist Radicals) asserts that in spite
of their differences, all of these Anabaptist groups [in Strasbourg] shared a common,
feverish longing for the advent of the kingdom of God. In his comprehensive study, The
Radical Reformation, George Williams concludes that the expectation of a golden age or

On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice

73

improvement of the human race (Religion, Part 1, 6:34; Wood and di

Giovanni 1996, 81). But his point is clearly that it is not a complete
fantasy, for the very fact that evil is a product of our own free choice
implies that goodness, thus perpetual peace, can also be a product of
our free choice. The very point of perceiving so much widespread evil,
including the state of constant war, as a product of free choice is precisely to remind us that we are also free to choose the alternative, thus
the state of perpetual peace. And this, I would argue, is the point of
Toward Perpetual Peace as well: Kants aim is not to provide a natural
guarantee of the actuality, or even the probability, of perpetual peace,
but rather a philosophical guarantee of the possibility of perpetual
peace, by which it can be proven that such peace, no matter how remote
it may seem, is something that is possible for us, and therefore that it
is rational as well as morally requisite for us to work toward it.
That this is Kants fundamental point in Toward Perpetual Peace should
in fact be apparent from the statement with which he follows his initial
description of nature as a great artist affording a guarantee (surety)
of perpetual peace: what he says is that the representation of the relation and harmony of artifices of nature with the end that reason prescribes immediately to us (the moral end) is an idea, which is indeed
transcendent for theoretical purposes but for practical purposes (e.g.,
with respect to the concept of the duty of perpetual peace and putting
that mechanism of nature to use for it) is dogmatic and well founded
as to its reality (TPP, 8:362; Gregor 1996, 332). This precision makes it
clear that Kant is not seeking to make a theoretical prediction based on
laws of nature, but rather, asserting something more akin to a postulate
of pure practical reason: that the end of perpetual peace commanded by
the moral law must be possible within nature, and achievable by means
afforded by nature, if those ends are used with a moral will.
If this point is not sufficiently clear from Kants opening remark, then
it surely becomes apparent in Kants first appendix, On the Disagreement between Morals and Politics with a View to Perpetual Peace.
This section begins with nothing less than a statement of Kants general
kingdom was not only a significant common thread among the radicals, it also accounts
for their rash and often violent behavior. He writes that the churches of the Radical
Reformation were sustained and emboldened by the conviction that they and their charismatic leaders were the instruments of the Lord of history in the latter days. (From
The Reformations Repudiation of Chiliasm, by Professor Russell J. Dykstra, Professor
of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. More at
http://members.aol.com/twarren14/reformedchil.html.)Ed.

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premise that a moral ought presupposes a can: Morals is of itself

practical in the objective sense, as the sum of laws commanding unconditionally, in accordance with which we ought to act, and it is patently
absurd, having granted this concept of duty its authority, to want to
say that one nevertheless cannot do it (TPP, 8:370; Gregor 1996, 338).
Kant reiterates the point a few pages later when he writes: If there
were no freedom and no moral law based upon it and everything that
happens or can happen is instead the mere mechanism of nature, then
politics (as the art of making use of this mechanism for governing
human beings) would be the whole of practical wisdom, and the
concept of right would be an empty thought. But if one finds it indispensably necessary to join the concept of right with politics, and even
to raise it to the limiting condition of politics, it must be granted that
the two can be united (TPP, 8:372; Gregor 1996, 340).
The central task of Kants critique of practical reason11 is to show that
it is always possible for us to act as morality demands, no matter what
the prior history of our conduct might seem to predict.12 Likewise, I
suggest, the chief point of Toward Perpetual Peace is then to show not
that there are natural mechanisms which make perpetual peace necessary, but rather that there are natural mechanisms which will make
peace possible if they are used, and freely so, with the distinct intent of
bringing it about.
This point needs to be carefully stated, however. For at the most
general level of his philosophy, if Kant could really prove that we
always are free to choose good instead of evilwhich would entail in
the context of international relations that we also always are free to
choose perpetual peace rather than constant warone may well ask,
why then should he need to argue that there are specific natural mechanisms or that they be used to tease progress toward perpetual peace?
Why should he not rest content with the general assurance of the Critique of Practical Reason that whatever our present conception of the laws
of nature inherent in human action might seem to predict we will do,
we (at the transcendental level) always are free to do what is right, and
can be assured that if we do choose what is right, then empirical nature
will reflect our noumenal choice of what is right after all? Why, as Kant
suggests, should not each who would work toward perpetual peace be
11. By this I mean to refer to his subject in both the third section of the Groundwork, which
is entitled The Transition from Metaphysics of Morals to the Critique of Pure Practical
Reason, and the eponymous work of three years later.
12. In the Critique of Practical Reason, see especially the Critical Elucidation of the Analytic of Pure Practical Reason (5:89106).

On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice

75

comforted with the thought that nothing is, for him, antecedent to the
determination of his will, but every actionand in general every determination of his existence changing conformably with inner sense, even
the whole sequence of his existence as a sensible beingis to be
regarded in the consciousness of his intelligible existence as nothing
but the consequence and never as the determining ground of his causality as a noumenon (Critique of Practical Reason, 5:9798; Gregor 1996,
218)? Once this has been said, what need is there to discuss specific
mechanisms in nature that might bring about perpetual peace?
The answer to this question is, I believe, of a complexity that ultimately reflects Kants own view of human beings as creatures who are
both rational and sensible. Even as purely rational creatures, we must
be assured that what we ought to do we also can do; and since the goal
of perpetual peace, though required by pure practical reason, is a goal
that must be achieved within nature, we must be assured that there are
means available within nature through which we could bring about this
goal. But as both sensible and rational creatures, we may need more
than an abstract argument to the effect that peace is indeed possible
within nature and that nature does afford us means by which we can
bring it about: our moral motivation to seek perpetual peace may also
need the concrete encouragement of a view of history that can make
the achievement of peace seem inevitable as long as we seek to cooperate with, rather than undermine, the natural forces that make it so.
The Free Use of Natural Means
Let me begin with the abstract point that even as purely rational creatures we must be assured that what we ought to do is also possible for
us to do. That Kant takes this point to be self-evident is clear, particularly in the Religion, where just in Part 1 he writes, for example, that
however evil a human being has been right up to the moment of an
impending free action (evil even habitually, as second nature), his duty
to better himself was not just in the past: it is still his duty now; he must
therefore be capable of it, that the command that we ought to become
better human beings still resounds unabated in our souls; consequently,
we must also be capable of it, and that duty commands nothing but
what we can do (Religion, Part 1, 6:41, 45, 47; Wood and di Giovanni
1996, 87, 90, 92).13 I will not worry whether this premise could actually
be demonstrated, but will instead consider what it implies for our
13. In Religion, Part 2; see also 6:62 and 66; Wood and di Giovanni 1996, 105, 108.

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present concerns. One might well think that all that is necessary to
show that some state of affairs is possible is to demonstrate that it is
not self-contradictory. That indeed would be a natural way to read
Kants argument in the third Antinomy of Pure Reason in the first
Critique, where he contends that freedom of the will would be inconsistent with the thoroughgoing determinism of the phenomenal world
that has been demonstrated by the Transcendental Analytic, but that,
nevertheless, the distinction between the phenomenal and the noumenal world also demonstrated in the earlier parts of the Critique
allows for freedom to be conceived as a property of our noumenal
rather than phenomenal selves (see especially The Critique of Pure
Reason, A 538558/B 566586, in Guyer and Wood 1998). But I would
suggest that we see Toward Perpetual Peace as aimed at demonstrating
what Kant generally calls real rather than merely logical possibility, or what he characterizes earlier in the first Critique as the objective
reality of the concept rather than merely the necessary logical condition of its possibility. To demonstrate the logical possibility of a concept
requires demonstrating only that in such a concept no contradiction
[is] contained; to demonstrate its real possibility or objective reality,
however, requires going beyond that exerciseto demonstrating that
the object of the concept can be also constructed within the form of our
personal experience. In the first Critique, Kant illustrates this distinction
with reference to the objects of geometry, arguing that in order to demonstrate their real possibility we must not only show that their concepts
are free from contradiction but also that these objects can be constructed within the a priori conditions of space and its determination
(Critique of Pure Reason, A 220221/B 267268, in Guyer and Wood
1998). I would submit that in the case of perpetual peace, demonstrating its real possibilitywhich is necessary, if only to make it rational
for us to seek to fulfill our duty to achieve itrequires not only showing
that its achievement is consistent with the forces working on human
populations in nature, but also and especially that nature itself affords
means that we can use, if we freely choose to do so, with the intent of
bringing about this conditionthe aim to construct it, as it were.14
Kant does not explicitly separate the two steps in principle necessary
to prove the real possibility of perpetual peace, perhaps because he
need not do so: demonstrating that nature affords means to achieve
14. This point does not conflict with my claim that the guarantee of Perpetual Peace is
intended practically rather than theoretically: the practical necessity of achieving perpetual peace requires nothing less than its real possibility.

On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice

77

perpetual peace if we freely choose to use these means would of itself

presumably entail that the realization of such peace is not incompatible
with the laws of nature. But Kant does suggest both steps of such a
proof, when he writes: It is just the general will given a priori (within
a nation or in the relation of various nations to one another) that alone
determines what is laid down as right among human beings; but this
union of the will of all, if only it is acted upon consistently in practice,
can also, in accordance with the mechanism of nature, be the cause
bringing about the effect aimed at and providing the concept of right
with efficacy (TPP, 8:378; Gregor 1996, 345).
This reasoning suggests that the achievement of what is laid down
as right among human beingsin the final analysis, perpetual peace
is not only consistent with the mechanisms of nature (in accordance
with them), but also remains to be achieved through the use of these
mechanisms which, if used with the morally right intention, can provide
the concept of right with efficacy.
If this is the sort of proof of the possibility of perpetual peace that
Kant aims to put before us as beings whose actions, though motivated
by pure practical reason, must nevertheless be carried out in the natural
world, the whole argument of Toward Perpetual Peace can be read in the
following way: First of all, as Kant establishes early on, natural mechanisms, above all war, provide the conditions that make peace necessary
by driving human beings to all corners of the earth, but still leaving
them in a position to threaten the property and security of one another.
Second, through the very same mechanism, namely war, nature can
also point human beings toward the form of political regime that is
necessary to eliminate war and to establish perpetual peace, namely,
republican government. That merely natural forces can drive us to
recognize that it is only through republican governments that we might
achieve peace is expressed by Kant also by means of his famous statement that the problem of establishing a state, no matter how hard it
may sound, is soluble even for a nation of devils (if only they have
understanding) (TPP, 8:366; Gregor 1996, 335),15 for even people
driven solely by self-lovewhich is what would make them a nation
15. Sometimes Kant uses the term understanding as a generic term for intellect, thus
as interchangeable with reason. Here he may be using it in contrast to reason to
imply that a race of devils can think in terms of self-interest but not take the universal
standpoint that Kant associates with reason in its practical form. He would thus be
making the same contrast that John Rawls makes between the rational and the reasonable, where the former is the merely self-interested, instrumental use of reason. See
Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory in Rawls (1999, 316).

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of devilscan see how a political system of checks and balances,16

which obtains only in a republic, could allow them to live with themselves and with neighboring populations in peace and certainty. But of
course, if we give in to self-love, as we can freely choose to do (the
choice that makes us radically evil), we will be tempted to undermine
the conditions of peace and security that nature has suggested to us for
the sake of what we think will be our private gain, and will pervert the
tendency of natures mechanisms toward perpetual peace. The only
thing that can prevent us from so doing is the free choice to use the
mechanisms of nature only for the morally mandatory condition of
perpetual peace rather than the choice to subvert them for what seems
to be in our personal interest. In other words, the mechanisms of nature
that can drive us toward peace will do so only if they are employed by
a moral politician, that is, one who takes the principles of political
prudence in such a way that they can coexist with morals, rather than
by a political moralist, who frames [his] morals to suit the statesmans
advantage (TPP, 8:372; Gregor 1996, 340).
Kants position is therefore not a fantasy that nature itself will
produce perpetual peace, nor is it the hopeless claim that only a state
of angels could achieve perpetual peace, because human beings, with
their self-seeking inclinations, would not be capable of such a sublime
form of constitution (TPP, 8:366; Gregor 1996, 335). He offers, in lieu
of both of these implausible positions, the realistic recognition that
nature does provide the means for perpetual peace, but just the means.
That Kant says the mechanisms of nature that can produce perpetual
peace will do so only if used by a moral politician rather than merely by
a moralist or a wholly moral person reflects a further important element
of realism in Kants political theory. This is his recognition that actual
states do not arise in conditions of moral purity, in some convention
where real people freely choose to form a republic, but rather, in conditions of violence and injustice, typically as the outcome of war or revolution. Politicians who have founded a state have never done so in a
strictly rightful way: for the only beginning of the rightful condition
to be counted upon is that by power, on the coercion of which public
right is afterward based (Religion, 8:371; Gregor 1996, 339), suggests
16. Kant himself does not think in terms of the three-way system of checks and balances
that evolved in the American republic between the ratification of the Constitution in
17891790 and Marbury v. Madison in 1803, and he at least sometimes seems to think of
the judiciary as a subsidiary of the executive power. But he does think of the legislature
as independent of the executive and empowered to check it if necessary.

On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice

79

Kant, although he does not really advance any argument that this must
be so. But a moral politician precisely is one who, however he might
have come to power, will take to heart the maxim that . . . an alteration
is necessary, in order to keep constantly approaching the end (of the
best constitution in accordance with laws of right) (TPP, 8:372; Gregor
1996, 340). This statement implies that however politicians may come
to power, it is only if they will freely choose to use the mechanisms
afforded them by nature for achieving the end of perpetual peace that
this goal can be achieved.
Through the image of the moral politician, Kant makes his point that
nature can at least but also at most provide us with the means to justice,
which can actually yield justice only if we freely choose to use them
toward that end, rather than to subvert them. The idea that nature
affords us means to a moral end, but that we alone can provide the will
to use these means to that end, of course, is not restricted to Kants
mature political theory. It is also adequately evident in his mature
theory of virtue, where he argues that natural feelings of sympathetic
joy and sadness are by no means feelings of which we should rid ourselves (as might have been suggested by his notorious examples and
even some statements in the Groundwork 4:398399, 428; Gregor 1996,
5354, 79); rather, he says, Nature has . . . implanted in human beings
receptivity to these feelings in order to use them as a means to promoting active and rational benevolence [as] a particular, though only
a conditional, duty, and we therefore have nothing less than an indirect duty to cultivate the compassionate natural (i.e., aesthetic) feelings
in us, and to make use of them as so many means to sympathy based
on moral principles and the feeling appropriate to them (MM, Doctrine of Virtue, section 34, 6:456; Gregor 1996, 574575). The duty to
cultivate and act upon sympathetic feelings is only conditional, of
course, because there are circumstances in which to act upon such feelings would actually violate the demands of morality.17 But it is still a
duty, because it is only by acting on such means when it is in fact right
for us to act upon them that we can achieve the end of beneficence
when we will to do so. Such feelings are the means that nature has
afforded us to achieve this virtuous end if we will to do, just as nature
17. Thus we have a duty not to act upon our sympathetic feeling when the person we
would help is himself attempting to violate the moral law. In Barbara Hermans famous
example, we have a duty not to act upon our natural inclination to help someone struggling with a heavy burden when that person is in fact an art thief struggling to carry his
booty away from the museum from which he has stolen it. See Herman (1993, 45).

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has afforded us both war but also the possibility of political reform, to
achieve the ultimate end of justice in the form of perpetual peace if we
will to do so.
The Will to Approach the Ultimate End of Justice as
Perpetual Peace
But if Kants real point in Toward Perpetual Peace is simply that nature
has made peace a real possibility by affording us the means to achieve
it if we have the moral will to use these means to that end, why does
he start the essay not simply by stating that nature can guarantee the
possibility of peace but chooses to use language that could be taken to
mean that nature can guarantee peace itself, or even continuous progress toward it? The only answer I can offer to this question is the suggestion that in so doing, he means to appeal not solely to our purely
rational nature (which requires demonstrability that what we ought to
do we can do, if our motivation to attempt such is not to be undermined), but especially to our sensible nature (where our wavering
motivation to do what is right, perhaps for being tempted by deluded
conceptions of self-love, might need buttressing by a sense that what
we ought to do is in fact that at which nature itself aims). As rational
creatures, the thought that nature makes it possible for us to do what
we know we ought to do should suffice; but as sensible creatures, the
thought that nature will push us toward that which we ought to do,
even if we are tempted not to do that on our own, could be of help.18
In all of his final works, from the Critique of the Power of Judgment of
1790 to the unfinished Opus postumum, Kant is intensely concerned
with the relation between our rational principles and our sensible
natures. But there are really two separate questions with which he is
concerned. One question is in a general sense the problem of judgment:
what do our general rational principles entail and require when applied
to the particular conditions of our sensible existence? This is the issue
that comes to the fore in the Metaphysics of Morals, where Kant investigates the duties of justice and virtue that result when we apply the
general principles of morality to the particular circumstances of our
lives as embodied creatures with physical needs, living on the finite
surface of a sphere any region of which may be reached from any other.
Here Kant shows that it is only when the general principles of practical
18. See Eichler, chap. 2 of this book.

On an Ethic of Peace Grounded on Justice

81

reason are applied to the particular circumstances of our embodied

existence that particular duties (say, the duty to make property determinate and secure and the duty to avoid drunkenness and gluttony, or
the duty to cultivate our talents) arise. But in a separate line of thought,
Kant also looks for sensible supports for our rational motivation to do
what we know to be right for creatures in our circumstances (see
chapter 4 by Morrison and chapter 5 by Pyeritz in this book). Kant
suggests that we can learn to love apart from our personal interests
from the experience of the beautifuleven to love contrary to our
sensible interests from the experience of the sublime (Critique of the
Power of Judgment, General Remark following section 29, 5:267, in Guyer
2000). He holds that we take pleasure in the existence of natural beauty
because it is palpable evidence that nature is hospitable to our moral
objectives (Critique of the Power of Judgment, section 42, 5:300301). He
even argues that we can look on the whole of nature as if it were a
system designed to promote our moral development (Critique of the
Power of Judgment, section 84, 5:434435). With these claims, I take him
to be suggesting that although in principle we can act out of respect
for duty alone and indeed earn moral esteem only for so doing, in fact
our first obligation is not to earn moral esteem but to do what morality
requires in any and every way that we can manage it, and that we
should therefore support our pure but wavering commitment to do
what morality requires of us by whatever means nature affords us.
Looking at nature as if it were pushing us toward perpetual peace on
its own might then well be one way to support whatever purely moral
motivation we might have to achieve such peace.
If this conclusion is accurate, Toward Perpetual Peace addresses its
readers as both rational and sensible creatures, as both thinkers on the
one hand and creatures of passion on the other, as willing yet willful
human beings. It addresses us as philosophers when it argues that what
justice requires is really possible, that nature itself affords us means we
can use to bring about perpetual peace if only we have the will to do
so. It addresses us as ordinary people when it tries to convince us that
nature is actually pushing us toward the goal that in our better moments
we know we must strive to achieve, but from which we can so easily
waver, out of frailty and self-love. Of course, each of us is both philosopher and ordinary person; that is, each of us possesses pure reason and
emotions. The encouraging rhetoric of a guarantee is aimed at our
emotions; and the argument for a putative but palpable possibility for
perpetual peace is aimed exclusively at our reason. As is also the case

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with the rest of what morality requires, the possibility of perpetual

peace ultimately demands of us that we achieve harmony between
our reason and our emotions: we cannot be governed by the former
alone, but neither can we allow ourselves to be governed by the latter
only.
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(The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant), Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
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Herman, Barbara (1993) The Practice of Moral Judgment, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Hffe, Otfried, Editor (1995) Zum ewigen Frieden, Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
Rawls, John (1999) Collected Papers, Samuel Freeman, Editor, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Wood, Allen W., and George di Giovanni, Editors and Translators (1996) Immanuel Kant,
Religion and Rational Theology, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Ethics, Modernity, and

Human-Animal Relations
Adrian R. Morrison

The question of the human use of animals is one of todays most

contentious social issues. How we should care for them, what
purposes are worthy of animal use, and whether they should be
used at all by humans are topics that regularly appear in the media and
in common conversation. The first two of these queries are old ones,
but the last is a product of modern life. At the same time, it is at the
heart of our discussion: Is it ethical to interfere in the lives of other
species? Inevitably, the answer has to be yes. This chapter will explore
why.
I should note at the outset that I am not a dispassionate commentator.
For more than twenty years, I have been countering what I know are
false charges against biomedical research, earning a damaging nighttime visit from the Animal Liberation Front to my laboratory in 1990
as a result. That visit heralded more than a year of harassment directed
at meas well as at my family and my close colleagues. As a scholar,
though, I strive to look beyond such personal problems in order to
examine the scientific and ethical issues surrounding the human use of
animals.
I also bring with me a particular viewpoint stemming from my
upbringing and my rural background. This background, in addition to
my veterinary training, provides me with extensive knowledge of
animals and their uses. Both my intimate personal background and my
formal professional knowledge color my thoughts on how animals may
be appropriately used, and this view may differ from those of many
readers. Those who disagree with some of my views, however, should
be certain that they have all facts available to them before they pass
final judgment.

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Some Fundamental Issues

Throughout history, humanity has associated with animals in ways that
have benefited human beings. Animals have been hunted for food and
clothing, accepted at our hearths for companionship, and brought into
our fields to produce food in various ways. Only until the latter twothirds of the nineteenth century could humans even think about living
without animals in their daily lives: all of us clearly depended upon
them for transportation and for working our fields. As the twentieth
century progressed, industrial advances and technological capabilities
rendered these once-obvious needs superfluous. And now, according
to some, we have no need, indeed no right, to interfere in animals lives.
This is the creed of the animal rights movement, which feeds on the
rationale of a small group of philosophers.
That we humans can live without using or interacting with animals
in various ways is simply not possible, but to a number in our society
a wealthy, developed society that can afford such notionsthe idea
rings true. The reason is simple: we, citizens, are no longer a rural,
agrarian people. Less than one in fifty of us entertain an association
with agriculture today, compared with one in four in 1930, and one in
two in 1880; for the most part, many know animals only as family
members (Strand and Strand 1993). And in answering the concerns of
the public about the use of animals in biomedical research, we must
deal with the fact that, in the West today, those younger than age fifty
comprise the healthiest population in history. Those born after 1950
simply cannot relate to the following quotation, in the words of Oxford
physician and pharmacologist Sir William Paton, speaking of the time
of his training in the 1930s:
One no longer sees infants with ears streaming pus, school boys with facial
impetigo, beards growing from heavily infected skin, faces pocked by smallpox
or eroded by lupus, or heads and necks scarred from boils or suppurating
glands. Drugs and a better diet have transformed haggard patients with peptic
ulcers. The languid, characteristically brown-skinned case of Addisons disease
of the adrenals; the pale, listless patients of chronic iron deficiency or pernicious anemia; and the cretin, or conversely, the young woman with pop eyes
and overactive emotional behaviordue respectively to thyroid deficiency or
excessare all being treated. The soggy hulk of a patient in the edematous
stage of chronic kidney disease is relieved by diuretics. As a result of polio
vaccine and the public control of tuberculosis, we see few crippled children: as
one walks behind a group of youngsters today, varied as ever in shape and
size, the marvel is how straight their limbs and backs are. The chronic arthritics

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with their sticks are being replaced with septuagenarians swinging along on
their plastic hips. And rare are these days, the patients that once were seen
dying from an infected mastoid, struggling for breath in the last stages of heart
failure, or dying from appendicitis, leukaemia, pneumonia, or bacterial endocarditis. (Paton 1993, 93)

We can thank the animals used in biomedical research for the scientific advances that abolished these horrific conditionsnot only
animals, of course, because a variety of methods have always been
needed and used. The suggestion that we are not justified in using
animals to alleviate our illsa pursuit promoted by a few philosophers, Singers (1975, 1994) and Tom Regans (1983) being the most
prominent among these claimsis nonsensical when viewed from the
perspective of a biologist like me. Conservation writer Richard Conniff,
writing on issues of wildlife management, offered this bold assessment:
Those espousing the view that humans have no right to interfere with
animal life have elevated ignorance of the natural world almost to the
level of a philosophical principle (Conniff 1990, 32). In other words,
there are times when philosophy just must confront biologic reality: all
organisms struggle to stay alive, and we humans will do so. To be sure,
one can joust intellectually with philosophers, but one must be careful
to keep in mind biologic reality, and to challenge all to do the same. I
will offer some answers to philosophical objections to the human use
of animals, but first I wish to say something about our relations with
them in the real world.
Humankind always has been intimately involved with animals, very
often in a nonbenign way. We have eaten them, and they have eaten
us. The latter is a rarity now, but the smallest of them (worms and
protozoa, and their primitive cousinsviruses and bacteria, often
carried to us by the larger animals around us) continue to sicken and
kill us. Think of rabid raccoons.
Animals, depending on the particular species, have, in turn, benefited from their association with us, beginning with the warmth of the
hearth and extending to the relief from disease provided by modern
veterinary medicine. Although we generally dominate the animals that
are of evident private and public ethical concernI speak of those we
regard as sentient and capable of suffering in some mannerwe are
not all-powerful after all: seemingly uncontrollable suburban deer
come readily to mind. And our ethical concern must ultimately extend
to all animals, for we hold in our hands the fate of countless species as
we advance our material interests.

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Thus ethical proposals dealing with human use of animals in

research, or in a number of other ways for that matter, have to consider
biology (a science), just as science itself must reflect on ethics. A professor of oncology from Wisconsin, Van Rensselaer Potter, proposed this
ideaand was belittled for it initiallycalling his melding of the two
fields, biology and ethics, more simply bioethics. Although this denotation later was confined to merely a medical connotation by the dominating Kennedy Center for Bioethics, Potters term had encompassed
a broader view: it had been proposed in order to emphasize the two
most important ingredients in achieving the new wisdom that is
so desperately needed: biological knowledge and human values.
. . . Mans survival may depend on ethics based on biological knowledge, hence [on] bioethics (Potter 1970, 128, 152).
My primary focus has been the ethical issues regarding the use of
animals for biomedical research in a scientific context, and I will consider them at some length in the last part of this chapter. But modern
life and modern sensibilities have forced consideration of other uses,
once taken for granted. Thus I will look at the ethical problems they
may present for some among us. I begin with a brief historical review
and look at animal use in a sociological and cultural context. I briefly
consider the challenges by philosophers to any use of animals whatsoever and next examine distortions of value and impacts on medical
progress by some medical professionals. Then I discuss a variety of
issues forced on us by modern life, moving toward concluding with a
retrospective of my own scientific use of animals in biomedical research
and the personal ethical dilemmas I have faced in the pursuit of my
professional responsibilities as a biomedical scientist.
Historical and Sociological Considerations
From the beginning, humankind has created roles for animals that suit
its worldly purposes: as food and clothing, hunting companions, instruments of war, sources of benign and malignant amusement, or appeasements to the gods and God, andway back from the time of
Aristotlealso as a means for understanding the biological world, my
major field of interest. Acceptance of the appropriateness of each of
these uses has varied over time and across cultures and religions. In
every case, though, the view was that animals are perpetual others,
doomed to have their interests represented to humans by other humans
(Jones 2003, 4).

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We cannot be too arrogant or patronizing, however, because animals

have not been passive instruments in their contacts with us. Evolutionary pressures have insinuated them into our lives. Domestication,
for example, has proved to be a two-way street. We began by hunting
animals, yet later, certain animal species developed characteristics that
allowed them to be domesticated and used for various purposes.
During the last Ice Age, humans and animals had limited and altering
resources as the ice cap receded. Those animals most adaptable to
these all too rapidly changing harsh conditions survived. In adapting
to varying conditions, some animals matured physically before
developing behaviors that made them fearful of and aggressive to
strangers, and aggressive but willing to accept care from familiar
humansalso a benefit for humans, to be sure. Ultimately, domestication ensured survival and good health among the descendents of these
animals.
The process by which physical and sexual maturation outpaces loss
of some infantile behavioral and physical characteristics is termed
neoteny. Just as evolutionary pressure used neoteny to create niches
among humans for various species, so do humans now employ this
technique in selective breeding. For example, careful selection for juvenile behavioral features could create animals adapted to perform a
herding task with animals born to be their natural prey. Fluffy sheep
dogs, artificially arrested in their development, thus retain certain puppylike physical features and behavioral tendencies, hence making them
playful around sheep yet appropriately aggressive when predators
succeed in penetrating the flock (Budiansky 1992).
However, we do not use animals as other animals use each other: We
think about it, and sometimes even worry about it. We alone, of all
species, have ethical concerns. A number of our uses of animals involve
harming and often sacrificing the animal for human well-being. This
practice is most obvious in the case of biomedical research. Indeed,
when animals must be killed for purposes of an experiment, we scientists refer to such acts as sacrificing the animals when speaking to
each other and even in our written papers. Animals are sacrificed in
some religious ceremonies and, I would argue, in the quasi-ritual activity of hunting, something foreign to many urban souls who eat what
they themselves do not have to catch, shoot, or steam live, to that
end.
Even pets are an issue these days. The keeping of pets is an ancient
and widely accepted practice for all but the extremists within the

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animal rights movement, who regard even this benign practice as

exploitation. Because we are so powerful, we can decide which
species will be pets and which of their fellows within a species might
be put to other uses, even eaten. Pigs, for example, can make wonderful
pets and no less wonderful food for the same pet owner: a case of different pigs with different designations. Dogs, important to many cultures as pets, are eaten in others. They also are used as fur. These
variations depend on the first ethical choice made by humankind: the
use of animals by humans is appropriate and natural in the grand
scheme of things.
Philosophical Challenges to Human Use of Animals
Two major categories of theory in moral philosophy, namely, the
utilitarian and the deontological, are represented by two philosophers
who have provided the philosophical underpinnings of the modern
animal rights/liberation movement: Peter Singer (1975) and Tom Regan
(1983). Other individuals could be mentioned in this discussion, but
these two men are dominant. While Singer professes utilitarianism,
Regan holds to rights theory. Regan is an absolutist. Singer, who dismisses rights as a human political construct, allows for some benign
control of animals. He places such constraint upon their use in laboratory experiments, however, that his position becomes absolutist as
well. Neither scholar places his body of thought in the natural world,
as Conniff succinctly has stated. Both can and should be judged
from the vantage point of the real world because both have forced
their ideas into the political arena (Regan and Singer 1985, 56).
That real world requires that philosophical demands of this sort
actually be practicable. As Cicero is said to have remarked, One can
defend any idea rationally, but that does not make the idea valid or
true.
Abandonment of animals for varied uses can put unreasonable and,
sometimes, even unthinkable demands on humanity. Biomedical
research offers a case in point. Stell (1995) has challenged those who
demand that research not be performed with animals. He argues they
should feel honor bound to refrain from benefiting from the fruits of
current medical research. That they should do otherwise is unethical
in his mind, and in mine. Many devotees of the animal rights/liberation ideology eschew the eating of meat because killing animals for
food is cruel in their eyes. But then their claim that biomedical research

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is cruel and useless, even as they continue to benefit from that research,
puts them in an ethical bind.
A number of scholars have countered both Singer and Regan (Fox
1986; Leahy 1994; Petrinovich 1999; Scruton 2000; Cohen and Regan
2001; Parker 2003), and I too have discussed their ideas at length
(Morrison 2001b); hence I need to comment only briefly here. It troubles
me that Singer has so utterly misrepresented the contributions of
animal-based biomedical research in his demeaning chapter in Animal
Liberation (Russell and Nicoll 1996; Petrinovich 1999). From a utilitarian
perspective, this was a clever ploy, helping to tilt the balance when
weighing relative benefits for different parties. Singer seems disturbingly ready to dispense with inconvenient forms of human life. For
him, a baby becomes a person protected under the law only after reaching around a month of age. He reasons that parents with a deformed
or mentally defective infant, one with hemophilia or Down syndrome,
to use his examples, would be justified in rejecting this nonperson
and then seeking to have a normal infant (Singer 1994, 212214). Human
culture can barely accept the deliberate termination of human life in
the womb; many believe abortion to be unethical; and deliberate infanticide, criminal. I would rather argue that an ethical society should
reject such facile solutions, even though I do recognize that severely
impaired newborns, as well as patients in a terminal state, are allowed
to die when all hope is vanished. The ethical society, though, resists
callously convenient solutions. Human beings have evolved as social
beings that owe their greatest allegiance to fellow humans. That is why
most are repulsed by the idea of rejecting central human needs in
response to the extreme demands of the animal rights/liberation
movement.
Concern for animal welfare and for antivivisectionist sentiments is
not new, of course. England led the way in the nineteenth century, promulgating and implementing laws to protect animals from gratuitous
cruelty and to regulate vivisection on animals. Ultimately, the fervor
against research with animals waned as the benefits to humanity became
more evident. Renewed concern arose in the United States in the latter
part of the twentieth century: it began, in particular, with an expos in
a prominent magazine by a supplier of dogs for research. The story
galvanized society into action, leading to the passage of the Animal
Welfare Act in 1966 (Parker 2003). But Singers publication, in 1975, of
Animal Liberation stimulated activism and raised a wave of extreme
thought that seeks removal of all animals from human control.

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Modern Issues
Following the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center
in New York by Islamist terrorists on September 11, 2001, search dogs
performed heroically, finding living victims and human remains. Many
of these animals suffered medical problems as a result. The conjunction
of that terrible event and the efforts shown by the tireless dogs forced
a startling question into my mind: Is it ethical to continue to use a
species that has done so much in the service of mankind in ways that
inevitably harm themsay, as in biomedical research? Think of
unmatchable guide dogs and helper dogs for the disabled, comforters
of the lonely, childhood playmates, and faithful guardians. Should we
cease using some of their fellows in research? Should we exempt this
special species? This is a dangerous ideaone that is potentially devastating for some biomedical research and that admittedly would never
have entered my mind as an eager young scientist.
Unfortunately, we simply cannot abandon the use of dogs in research,
for they have a number of diseases that are useful replicas of human
disorders. Studying these dogs will bring great relief to suffering
humans. I could not deny these ailing people that reward, professionallyand, especially, ethically.
Cats are common pets and now outnumber dogs in the ordinary
household category, judging from the caseload at our veterinary hospital. As someone with two of them at home, I am well aware that cats
offer the closest thing there is to living with a wild animal. Not being
pack animals like dogs, they do not readily adhere to their owners
wishes. Community ordinances today have drastically reduced the
number of dogs running loose. Not so in the case of cats thatsolitary,
and with wandering habits and negligent ownerseventually may
become feral animals, that is, domesticated animals that have reverted
to wild habits. These animals are intruders into the environment (as
well-fed pampered cats also can be), exacting a heavy toll as predators
on other creatures. Well-meaning people argue that the colonies formed
by these cats should be allowed to exist but that their members should
be captured and neutered as a way to control the problem they raise
for local wildlife. Is this the ethical thing to do? Would it not be even
more responsible to euthanize them for the sake of those animals that
quite naturally belong to that environment?
To what uses that inevitably harm animals may we subject them,
then, as reflective, ethical beings ourselves? The answer is not easy

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because different animals mean different things to various groups of

people, even inside our own Western culture. A conversation with a
colleague in the department of psychology at the University of Maine
vividly brought this fact home to me. He had just attended a forum on
animal uses, which also included members of the conservation department. Their representative spoke approvingly of hunting and trapping
while at the same time looking askance at what was happening to
animals in the labs of the psychology department. Imagine the same
forum at an urban university. Who would be put on the defensive in
that setting?
Clearly, both personal and cultural preferences andmore important
perhapsignorance of what a particular use actually involves constitute major factors in deciding what will be condemned. For example,
the thought of any use that requires deliberate harm to animals for sheer
amusement is abhorrent in our culture. Bear baiting and dogfighting
are outlawed and good riddance. Another culture, however, sees nothing
wrong with, say, bullfighting, an activity requiring that the neck muscles
of the bull be disabled by gouging before the matador looks it in the
eye. This prevents dangerous thrusts of the bulls head, thereby in fact
reducing the danger the matador faces. I disapprove, although I know
from personal experience that the bullfights are Sunday family outings
in Mexico. In contrast, a risky, clean kill, with the bull having all its
powers when confronting the matador, would be acceptable to me,
especially as the bull is ultimately used for food. Others in our society
might disagree, either because the bull would be slaughtered in public
or simply because it ended up being slaughtered. I speak, of course,
with the sensibilities of one from an other culture and worldview.
The sensibilities of an activist segment of one exogenous culture can
unethically, and seriously, interfere with another cultures endogenous
practices. For example, Inuit people of the north used baby seals as a
cash crop until several years ago when the outside world intervened
to stop this practice, thereby gravely affecting the economy of these
people. The method of killing, a quick blow to the head that causes no
suffering, made for great press coverage because of its seeming brutality and the subsequent sympathetic outpouring from civilized society.
That the activists used films of staged hunts to enhance the semblance
of unacceptable brutality makes the activists managed campaign only
more reprehensible (Herscovici 1985).
Using animals for food presents ethical problems beyond the basic
question, Should we eat them? For me, the question is one of what and

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how much is healthy to eat, not whether or not it might be wrongfor

the omnivores that we humans areto do what comes to us naturally.
Other principled individuals disagree, of course, and are or become
vegetarians. A dilemma that involves us all, however, is the one presented by the methods of modern agriculture, known as intensive
farming or, pejoratively and sensationally, as factory farming. Since
fewer and fewer farmers have begun to feed more and more of the
population, production efficiency has had to enter into consideration.
People have to make a living, and the world must be fed. Thus in the
mid-twentieth century animals were moved from barnyards into confinement housing where, though deprived of a bucolic atmosphere,
they did find protection from disease and from predators (Jones 2003).
The issues are complex, much more so than the animal-rights literature
bothers to portray.
The freedom we have gained from having a small proportion of the
nation engaged in the production of food has allowed U.S. society to
pursue to a greater extent other beneficial concerns, such as biomedical
research and education. The United States spends less than 10 percent
of its national income on food, allowing the other 90 percent to be used
for other acquisitions (David T. Galligan, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, personal communication). Less efficient use of animals would make it more difficult for the poorer segment
of the population to obtain proper nutrition. In this sense, the ethical
question presented is to what extent we strive for happy animals
versus better fed people?
Intensive agriculture, by being so efficient, has reduced the acres that
must be plowed under. Improved productivity allows more land to
remain undisturbed, thus preserving biodiversity. In this way, less
visible animals, such as field mice, can prosper. These animals are
ignored in arguments about animal rights. But, here, too, the issues are
not simple.
There is, as well, another ethical issue: the question of the biological
health versus the economic health of an animal. Indeed, a veterinarian
has always had to judge whether it would be more or less economical
to restore an animal to health or to cull it from a herd, that is, send it
to slaughter. Now, the need for optimum efficiency may require that a
healthy dairy cow be culled simply because she is an inefficient producer and is, therefore, not economically healthy. Killing such an
animal is hard to accept for anyone (say, most of the population) who
is not involved in agriculture. For example, some of our veterinary

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students lacking a farm background feel noble solving the biological

problems, yet immoral solving those dilemmas presented by
economics.
A fundamental question remains, however: How much of their
natural lives can we deny these animals in the name of economic
efficiency, recognizing that those natural lives often include lingering
death from injury, disease, or even malnutrition. Ethical behavior
demands that we seek answers. I believe very firmly that producers
must strive to balance their economic interests with the welfare of their
animalsand they are, in fact, engaged in that very effort. However,
they can only do so through scientific inquiry, and not by relying on
uninformed sentiments.
There are, as well, activities in our society that receive condemnation
from many, if not necessarily from myself: hunting, trapping, fur
farming, and rodeos to name some that have been targets of animal
rights activism. One reason that I oppose such attacks, most certainly,
is that I come from a rural background, while most of the negative
opinion resides in the cities and in the suburbs. Hunting is the example
I will use because it also touches on the question of our ethical responsibility to the environment as a whole.
Hunting is anathema to many. Yet, in my opinion, a fair amount of
the objection arises out of ignorance and prejudice. I am thinking here
of the disgust voiced by various meat eaters, who buy their meat
wrapped in plastic foil from spotless supermarkets. What hypocrisy!
In modern society, hunters often are depicted, by those opposed to
this activity, as beer-guzzling yahoos doing something without merit
and devoid of any moral foundation. In large measure, the truth is
quite different. Although never a hunter myself, owing largely to my
city-girl mothers fear of guns, I have eaten much game provided by
uncles and friends, good men all. I used to keep my waterfowl-hunting
friend Dave company during cold days in the Delaware marshes,
without a gun, but participating as much as I could by trying to call in
the geese, in return for the pleasures of his goose dinners. To put a
shotgun in my inaccurate hands would have been unethical: it would
not have been fair to the birds and would have endangered Dave
and me. I confess, though, that as I sat in the blind with Dave, and
even when walking in the woods alone, I did have a sense of incompleteness. I do not participate fully in an ancient and honorable
traditionhonorable, I would argue, even in todays modern society,
if correctly performed.

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Jan Dizard, a sociologist, can help me here. He can defend my stance

scientifically. He has compared characteristics and views of hunters
and nonhunters, using data from the biennial General Social Survey by
the National Opinion Research Center, primarily from facts gathered
in 1998 (Dizard 2003). The two groups are amazingly similar. They have
comparable income levels although more nonhunters (28 percent) have
achieved a bachelors or higher degree than have hunters (17 percent).
In terms of political views, 22 percent of hunters considered themselves
conservative or extreme conservative, while 18 percent of the nonhunters ticked that category: a statistically insignificant difference.
However, hunters were much more likely to favor the death penalty
and disapprove of gun control, no surprise with the latter. Both hunters
and nonhunters seemed comparable in their views on gender equality.
Also, hunters remarked that human nature is basically good (40
percent) slightly more often than did nonhunters (36 percent). There
are differences here and there, some of which are due to gender effect:
hunters are predominantly male. The image of hunters the survey
portrays, though, is not of a group living on the fringe of civilized
society.
Dizard notes that the practice of hunting always has been surrounded
by traditions and self-imposed rules and has involved only a minority
of the population. Rules have continued to hold. Killing an animal is
only part of the venture. From his analysis and those by others, it
becomes clear that hunters have a strong desire to be one with nature,
to participate in an ancient human ritual. He recognizes that there are
some bad apples among the hunting fraternity, as in any other interest
group. Yet, argues he, Self-restraint is deeply embedded in the culture
of sport hunting. It is practiced and reinforced, not as an abstract code
practiced for public consumption but . . . a deeply held conviction: selfrestraint is what crucially separates hunters from killers (Dizard 2003,
169).
Beyond hunting as a personal ritual activity, there is hunting to
redress imbalances in nature due to the complexities of modern life.
The most obvious example is hunting, or more accurately, killing by
hired sharpshooters, of white-tailed deer. Deer cause gross environmental destruction when the carrying capacity of a particular area is
exceeded. Worse than destroying our shrubbery, they can destroy
habitat for many other creatures and create concern about the safety of
plant species themselves. Deer die on Pennsylvanias highways at a
rate of about 50,000 every year, and this carnage commonly leads to

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human injury and death as well. Yet they are beautiful creatures with
soulful eyes and graceful movements. Walt Disneys film Bambi greatly
reinforced their image as cute creatures. Consequently, they have passionate defenders who try to impede culling of deer in parks. These
true defenders of deer believe this activity to be unethical, although
their objections are never voiced in ethical terms. They are a bit more
strident. It is a simplistic view, for they would sacrifice other species
that depend on a healthy forest for one kind. I think we cannot, ethically, simply walk away from the situation created by the deer. Neither
can those who object to deer culling ignore the possibility that their
homes may have encroached on the deers habitat, contributing to
crowding and ultimately therefore to the very disruption of the ecological balance.
In another magnificent book, Dizard (1994) analyzed the ethical
complexities of this issue in a case involving the protection of forest
surrounding a reservoir that supplies the city of Boston. In danger was
the quality of water, should the forest surrounding the reservoir be
degraded by overpopulation of browsing deer. The deer were engaging
in what comes to them naturally: reproducing rapidly. The outcome
had been exacerbated by the absence of natural predators, driven away
much earlier by humans. In essence, there arose two competing views
of nature: whether to let it alone, free of human interference, or to
manage it for the benefit of humans. The latter view does not, of course,
imply rape of the landscape. It requires a sense of responsibility, an
interweaving of science and ethics: both wise management and
restrained consumption, a true bioethics in Potters sense.
A Career in Retrospect
I close by considering my career in biomedical research, which has
constantly presented ethical problems to me. First, I must answer the
question of whether using animals to understand human disease or
disability is valid and productive. Only then can I begin discussing
ethical issues. If other methods would suffice and/or the use of animals
would not help medical advances, as a few medical professionals have
falsely claimed (Morrison 2002), then the answer would be a very clear
no! The answer, however, is a resounding yesa response that has been
amply corroborated (Bliss 1982; Carroll and Overmier 2001; Paton
1993). Unfortunate as it is, those opposed to this reality are very active;
and some are physicians, who grossly distort medical history while

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arguing that using animals in research impedes medical researchsad

examples of unethical behavior (Barnard and Kaufman 1997; Greek and
Greek 2000). Their rewriting of medical history is easily revealed
(Morrison 2002).
Of course, any humane person would like to eliminate use of animals
in research, were it possible to do so. However, animals will contribute
to medical progress for as far as we humans can see into the future, but
always in association with various other means, including careful clinical observations at the bedside, epidemiological studies, computer
simulations, tissue cultures, and many other laboratory methods.
In the final analysis, we have benefited through evolution (and
Gods grace for some) in developing a magnificent brain that puts us
above all other animals. Hence, only we humans can be held accountable in a court of law for our actions; only we are capable of making
laws and obeying them. We alone can think of the welfare of other
animals. And so, too, can we very easily do something to promote their
welfare when they are under our direct control. This is when our duty
to other species is seen in its starkest reality. Yet our duty to our fellow
humans outweighs such demands and hence justifies the use of animals
in biomedical research. As Petrinovich (1999, 34) states the case: This
position does not imply that any human whim should take precedence
over essential needs and deep welfare interests of nonhuman animals.
It only means that human interests should be read as high cards in any
game where costs and benefits are taken into consideration. Given our
omnipotent powers, we have an obligation to use animals fairly and
compassionately, most especially so in biomedical research. No words
capture this idea better than a passage I read long ago in a childrens
book, My Friend Flicka, and that I have not forgotten during my long
career working with animals. In that passage, rancher Rob McLaughlin
is speaking with one of his sons about a wild mare that had broken
loose from their corral with the noose of a lariat around her neck.
What if it did choke her? asked Howard. You always say shes no
use to you. Theres a responsibility we have toward animals, said his
father. We use them. We shut them up, keep their natural food and
water from them; that means we have to feed and water them. Take
their freedom away, rope them, harness them, that means we have to
supply a different sort of safety for them. Once Ive put a rope on a
horse, or taken away its ability to take care of itself, then Ive got to take
care of it. Do you see that? That noose around her neck is a danger to
her, and I put it there, so I have to get it off (OHara 1941, 5051).

Ethics, Modernity, and Human-Animal Relations

97

I have controlled animals in the laboratory for more than forty years.
During that period, I have damaged parts of their brains, implanted
various recording devices, or infused drugs, ultimately killing these
animals in order to study their brains in various ways. How could I, a
veterinarian, do this when my very concern upon admission to veterinary school was the fear that, sooner or later, I would be called upon
to euthanize the very animals that as a child I had loved? As I approach
the end of my active career in the laboratory, I ponder this question
ever more profoundly. I think the ultimate reason is this: I had an
intense interest in scientific discovery. Although it would sound nicer,
a desire to cure human medical problems is not the driving force
behind much research. Such a pristine ideal would not keep one going
through long, often boring, hours in the laboratory and in the face of
discouraging failures after tedious weeks of hard work.
H. L. Mencken, an American social critic, understood this fact and
proceeded to describe a committed scientists motive in a very amusing
way. He saw the scientist as one driven by curiosity: a boundless,
almost pathological thirst to penetrate the unknown and not some
brummagem idea of Service. His metaphor was not the liberator
releasing slaves, the Good Samaritan lifting up the fallen, but a dog
sniffing tremendously at an infinite series of rat-holes (Mencken 1982,
12). Mencken certainly describes quite accurately who I was during the
first half of my lengthy career as a neuroscientist. Although I still
possess that curiosity, my encounters with the animal rights movement
and the viciousness of the actions against scientists by some adherents
to the cause led me to reexamine what we scientists were doing. Looking
into medical history made me recognize how many good things scientists had accomplished. Then, as a spokesman for medical research, I
also encountered groups of patients, desperate for relief of their ills
and, as such, very supportive of biomedical research. Now, I am quite
focused on this charge: working against the medical ills of humanity.
Curiosity is truly in our nature, though. And we cannot be condemned for striving to unravel natures secrets. I believe that it would
be wrong, tantamount to an affront to the evolutionary process, to
waste our tediously developed, large human brains. But because our
brains allow us to be reflective, our curiosity must be accompanied
with concern for the consequences. In the case of animal-based research,
the primary consequence is harm inflicted on an animal.
Any caring scientist is ambivalent about what he does. In my case,
although I had a great desire to understand the workings of the nervous

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system, every now and then doubts would arise in my mind. Such
worry recurred every month or so for many years, and now with ever
greater frequency as the end of my scientific career nears. When using
cats in my research, the question that came to mind was Do I really
want to continue doing this [implanting electrodes in the brain,
for example] to cats? For we had cats as pets in our home as well. Yet
the answer to the question was always yes because joining my
unabashed curiosity was the idea (or hope?) that what I was doing
would provide a useful extra bit of information that might go toward
helping children, although I have yet to see that result. I am fortunate,
however, to have seen some of my basic research, indeed, lead to the
understanding of a sleep disorder, only recognized in 1986, which
occurs primarily in older men (Schenck 1993). Despite this comforting
result, I am living with the uncertainty of research: A particular experiment may rapidly prove very useful in an unforeseen way, just asand
more oftena very long and costly experiment may lead nowhere at
all.
When my curiosity begins to wane, assuming it ever could, then I
should sense I must stop. If not, I would probably be using animals for
not the best of reasons: whether to occupy my time, keep up my reputation as a scientist, or bring in grant moneya feat that my institution
would applaud. This would be unethical.
Who, then, is able to decide that it would be unethical to carry out
a particular experiment? Or, to put it another way, what evidence
should a scientist present to convince the skeptic that his experiment
should be performed? The law requires that such evidence be presented to an institutional committee before a scientist can perform any
experiment. This evidence must include demonstration that a method
not requiring the use of animals is not available. Of course, this procedure assumes that the scientist has the money needed to conduct the
experiment because, beforehand, he must have persuaded a group of
very skeptical scientists from other institutions, sitting on a review
board, that the project is worthy of grant funds (Morrison 1993). Trivial
proposals elicit no interest. Yet the burden rests primarily on the scientist, who must have personal integrity above all. The scientist is the one
who will be alone with the animal in the laboratory. Thus only ethical
behavior on his or her part can make sure that outside controls will
really work to an animals advantage. It is the individual scientist who
must decide what experiment to perform and on what species. Choices
may vary among scientists according to their individual sensibilities as

Ethics, Modernity, and Human-Animal Relations

99

well as their knowledge (see Guyer, chap. 3 in this book), and the rightness of a choice may be also determined by the current level of technology. To judge all too quickly another scientists choice would bespeak
arrogance (Morrison 2001a).
Competence is the second quality a scientist must exhibit. Competence includes technical skills that will minimize pain in an animal, but
also thorough knowledge of the field of study, so that unnecessary
experiments will not be performed. Since replication of data produced
by other scientists in order to generalize the data is the essence of
scientific progress, an experiment need not necessarily lead to new
knowledge in order for it to constitute an ethical experiment.
Ending an animals life is not a problem for me anymore if the reason
is appropriate and waste is not involved. Of course, no mentally healthy
individual can actually enjoy killing an animal. I have always sensed
great regret when having to sacrifice one of my partners in the experiment. We have no evidence that animals contemplate their future
beyond short-term basic needs, however: say, looking for the next meal,
the next mate, and a way to escape evident harm. Animals can be clever
in various instances, and they can plan to a certain extent, as when a
wolf pack stations itself to force prey into the jaws of a pack mate. But
reflecting on the future of their band or plotting their own destiny is
beyond them as far as careful research to date has been able to discern
(Hauser 2000).
The ethical dilemma arises, rather, when we inflict carefully controlled pain as we do in biomedical research. Although 90 percent of
the experiments conducted do not involve pain that is beyond the level
caused by a needle during an injection or that cannot be alleviated by
anesthesia and analgesics when warranted, the neural systems that
involve the sensation of pain need to be studied as well. No other way
is available for developing painkilling drugs. Such studies are designed,
however, to permit the animal to escape pain beyond a level that is
tolerable.
Chronic pain studies, so important to people suffering from such,
present an even clearer and more intense ethical dilemma, with no easy
answer. The requirements are clear, however: to be certain the experiment is necessary, to use the minimal level of pain, to minimize the
number of animals to the lowest number consistent with scientific
validity, and to perform experiments with great skillabove all, to
remember that only the greater importance of human life can justify
these critical experiments.

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Conclusion
The interaction between animals and humans is complex and at times
terriblein both directions. On the one side, one thinks of the slaughter
of the bison on the Great Plains in the nineteenth century or, simply,
the mistreatment of a little puppy. On the other side, there are rampages of hungry elephants destroying the fields of poor African peasants and the horrible consequences of a dangerous bite inflicted by a
rabid dog. Nevertheless, with our great brains we are the ones charged
with caring for all. Animal welfare should be a priority of ours. Nevertheless, human welfare is a legitimate and very often paramount
concern. Certainly it is in the case of biomedical research. Society must
carefully consider the risks to future health should research with
animals be overly impeded by activists actions, or even by their
demands, and sometimes by the craven responses of bureaucracies to
these. We are enjoined by our intrinsic allegiance to humanity to use
animals in research while dealing with the natural empathy almost all
of us feel for them.
In considering interactions with animals in nature, we humans must
determine whether or when our actions are good, bad, or neutral.
Why, for example, is it intuitively ethical not to intervene in the death
of a gazelle caught by a cheetah on the Serengeti Plain yet unethical
not to help ducks dying because of an oil spill caused by us? How many
of those who rail against the culling of a deer herd that is overrunning
a park live in the suburban houses that have forced those deer out of
their habitat and into that park?
Nowhere is the complexity of human-animal relationships more
evident than in the definition of a species as a pet. Why do some societies keep dogs as pets while others eat them? Which society is right?
How far can we go in breeding domestic animals to suit our special
needs, let alone our whims?
Moving to the use of animals for food, we must ask ourselves how
far we can push animals to provide us with an economic source of food.
When are the benefits they derive from proper nutrition and veterinary
care overbalanced by some level of confinement? How much is society
willing, or even able, to pay for something approaching a bucolic
existence?
The simple solution of the animal rights movementseparating ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdomwill not do. Better as a
guide are the relevant thoughts of Potter (1970, 127): We are in great

Ethics, Modernity, and Human-Animal Relations

101

need of a land ethic, a wildlife ethic, a population ethic, a consumption

ethic, an urban ethic, an international ethic, a geriatric ethic, and so
on, said he; and, All of these problems call for actions that are based
on values and biological facts.
References
Barnard, N., and S. Kaufman (1997) Animal Research Is Wasteful and Misleading,
Scientific American, 276(2) (February):8082.
Bliss, M. (1982) The Discovery of Insulin, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Budiansky, S. (1992) The Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Chose Domestication, New York:
William Morrow.
Carroll, M. E., and J. B. Overmier (2001) Animal Research and Human Health: Advancing
Human Welfare through Behavioral Science, Washington: DC: American Psychological
Association.
Cohen, C., and T. Regan (2001) The Animal Rights Debate, Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield.
Conniff, R. (1990) Fuzzy-Wuzzy Thinking about Animal Rights, Audubon Magazine,
(November):121133.
Dizard, J. (1994) Going Wild: Hunting, Animal Rights, and the Contested Meaning of Nature,
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
(2003) Mortal Stakes: Hunters and Hunting in Contemporary America, Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press.
Fox, M. A. (1986) The Case for Animal Experimentation: An Evolutionary and Ethical Perspective, Berkeley: University of California.
Greek, R., and J. Greek (2000) Sacred Cows and Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Experiments
on Animals, New York: Continuum.
Hauser, M. D. (2000) Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think, New York: Holt.
Herscovici, A. (1985) Second Nature: The Animal Rights Controversy, Montreal: CBC
Enterprises.
Jones, S. D. (2003) Valuing Animals, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Leahy, M. P. T. (1994) Against Liberation: Putting Animals in Perspective, London:
Routledge.
Mencken, H. L. (1982) A Mencken Chrestomathy, New York: Vintage Books.
Morrison, A. R. (1993) Biomedical Research and the Animal Rights Movement: A
Contrast in Values, The American Biology Teacher, 54(4):204208.
(2001a) Making Choices in the Laboratory, in E. Paul and J. Paul, Editors,
Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research, pp. 4977,
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(2001b) A Scientists Perspective on the Ethics of Using Animals in Behavioral

Research, in M. E. Carroll and J. B. Overmier, Editors, Animal Research and Human
Health: Advancing Human Welfare through Behavioral Science, pp. 341356, Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association.
(2002) Perverting Medical History in the Service of Animal Rights, in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 45(4):606619.
OHara, M. (1941) My Friend Flicka, Philadelphia: Lippincott.
Parker, J. (2003) Animal Research, Human Responsibility: Common Sense and Religious
Sensibility, unpublished manuscript.
Paton, W. (1993) Man and Mouse: Animals in Medical Research, Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
Petrinovich, L. (1999) Darwinian Dominion: Animal Welfare and Human Interests, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Potter, Van Rensselaer (1970) Bioethics, the Science of Survival, Perspectives in Biology
and Medicine, 14(1):127153.
Regan, T. (1983) The Case for Animal Rights, Berkeley: University of California.
Regan, T., and P. Singer (1985) The Dog in the Lifeboat: An Exchange, New York Review
of Books, April 25:5657.
Russell, S. M., and C. S. Nicoll (1996) A Dissection of the Chapter Tools for Research
in Peter Singers Animal Liberation, Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and
Medicine, 211:109154.
Schenck, C. H. (1993) REM Sleep Behavior Disorder, in M. A. Carskadon, Editor, Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreaming, pp. 499505, New York: Macmillan.
Scruton, R. (2000) Animal Rights, City Journal, Summer:100107.
Singer, P. (1975) Animal Liberation, New York: New York Review.
(1994) Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics, New York:
St. Martins.
Stell, L. K. (1995) The Blessings of Injustice: Animals and the Right to Accept Medical
Treatment, Between the Species, 11:4253.
Strand, R., and P. Strand (1993) The Hijacking of the Humane Movement, Wilsonville, OR:
Doral.

The Future of Genetics

in Medicine: Practices,
Prospects, and Peril
Reed E. Pyeritz

The Setting
In medical practice today, tests that probe the human genotype, from
germ cells to cells of the adult, living or dead, are being utilized with
rapidly increasing frequency.
The following are representative case examples of situations faced
by health professionals who utilize a genetic test:

As part of the routine testing offered by an obstetrician, a pregnant

couple has carrier screening for cystic fibrosis. The obstetrician receives
the results: they indicate that both partners carry genetic alterations at
the locus (CFTR) that encodes the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator protein, but he cannot interpret what the implications are
for the pregnancy. A referral is made for genetic counseling, but at a time
when counseling must be arranged hurriedly, decision making and
testing of the fetus must be rushed, and termination would be difficult.

An internist learns from a family history that a female patients

brother has hemochromatosis, an autosomal recessive cause of excessive iron accumulation, and orders a genetic test as part of her routine
blood work. The result is C282Y/H63D, indicating that she is heterozygous for one mutation in the HFE gene, C282Y, which is present in
two copies in most people with the disease, and for another mutation,
H63D, which is associated with disease much less frequently. Less than
5 percent of people who are C282Y/C282Y develop overt iron overload.
Nonetheless, the internist tells the woman that she has hemochromatosis, even though her iron indices are normal. The physician correctly
reassures her that she needs no therapy. However, this result and diagnosis become part of her medical record. When she changes jobs, she
is denied health insurance.

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A young man receives a mailing from a genetic testing company

advertising a test for susceptibility to Alzheimers disease. The man,
whose grandmother recently died at age eighty after an illness of
several years marked with progressive cognitive decline, asks his physician to prescribe the test.

A divorced mother learns that her ex-father-in-law has died of

Huntingtons disease (HD), an untreatable and progressive neurologic
deterioration that typically begins in middle age. She wants to know
if her five-year-old daughter has inherited a mutation for HD. Her
ex-husband refuses to be tested. The woman asks her daughters pediatrician to order the genetic test for HD.

A busy pediatric genetics clinic has evaluated hundreds of children

over three decades for diagnosis of a possible genetic cause of mental
retardation, absent other somatic abnormalities. In many cases, no
diagnosis was possible. Recently, a new gene was discovered that,
when mutant, causes nonsyndromic mental retardation. The clinic staff
is overworked as it is, and wonders if they should be contacting the
parents or guardians of previously evaluated retarded patients to
suggest reassessment.
The Dilemmas
Some health care professionals have allegiance exclusively to the patient
sitting in their office; primary care practitioners are good examples.
Others, exemplified by those involved in public health, have a much
broader allegiance. Medical geneticists can be found in both of those
extremes, and at all places in between. Indeed, some geneticists
may have to switch allegiances, perhaps subconsciously, during the
course of an average days work. This notion of allegiance defines in
large measure the types of ethical issues faced by medical geneticists
and any health professional likely to use genetic information (Lappe
1973). This chapter delves into some of the issues that can be fairly
called ethical. They seem to fall into two main categoriestermed
macroethical and microethical (table 5.1). The former pertain to
testing in the realm of public health (such as programs for newborn
screening), eugenic implications, philosophical issues (Is the genome
the secular equivalent of the soul? Does a clone have a right to its
individual genome?), and the meaning of words used in describing
genetic concepts (Does the use of the term genetic cause imply genetic

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105

Table 5.1
Examples of Macroethical and Microethical Issues in Genetic Testing
Macroethical Issues
Genetic determinism (Allen et al. 1978; Pyeritz et al. 1997; Pyeritz 1978)
The definition of genetic information
Ownership of genetic information (Marshal 1997)
Codes of professional ethics (Baumiller et al. 1996a, 1996b)
Directiveness of genetic counseling as a professional standard (Bernhardt 1997)
Geneticization of health care (Lippmann 1991)
Balancing research efforts and funds on determining individual genetic risks versus
reducing environmental risks for the entire population (Pollack 2002)
Choice of language and metaphors in considering and implementing policy (Searls
2002)
Maximizing cost of testing through patenting and restrictive licenses
Marketing predictive genomics panels of tests for generic conditions (e.g., heart
disease) when the actual risk associated with the genetic variation is not known
The use of population-based disease registries and DNA banks to validate genetic tests
(Ho et al. 2002; Mitka 2002)
Lack of consistency among specialty societies regarding standards of care or
approaches to specific testing situations
Determining when to begin a public health genetic screening program for a specific
disease (Petersen and Bunton 2002)
Determining the panel of mutations to be used in a screening program
Determining the populations to be offered screening
As policy, unfair discrimination in employment based on the results of genetic testing
As policy, unfair discrimination in insurance based on the results of genetic testing
(Zick et al. 2000)
Duty to recontact previous patients (Hirschhorn et al. 1999; Sharpe 2000)
Use of stored specimens for genetic research (Clayton, Steinberg, and Khoury 1995)
Microethical Issues
Dealing with nonpaternity detected serendipitously during genetic testing
Testing children for adult-onset genetic disorders for which no treatment exists
Protecting privacy and confidentiality of a patient and relatives
Preventing unfair discrimination against a patient and relatives
Informed consent for genetic testing
Directiveness of genetic counseling in an individual case:
Whether to undergo testing
How to respond to the results of the test

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Reed E. Pyeritz

determinism?). These more global areas typically are not the provinces
of the practicing physician. Rather, the concern of the physician is, on
a daily basis, with the microethical issues that pertain to single patients
and families. This situation may change, however, as technology brings
screening to the primary care physicians office. For example, a recent
review of population screening predicts, Over the next decade or
two, it seems likely that we will screen entire populations or specific
subgroups for genetic information in order to target interventions to
individual patients that will improve their health and prevent disease
(Khoury, McCabe, and McCabe 2003).
Our discussion will focus on the microethical issues faced by the
diversity of health care practitioners today and for the near future. We
would emphasize that not even the so-called expertswhether genetic
counselors or medical geneticistsare always clear about which ethical
issues pertain in a given circumstance or how to deal with them appropriately. More importantly, as genetics enters mainstream medical practice, the levels of sensitivity to the ethical issues and sophistication
about the additional requirements imposed by these ethical issues
will diminish considerably. The potential impacts of a lack of attention
to these time-consuming and nuanced details will require formal
assessment.
Background
Among the dozen wishes for the new year identified by the editors of
the Philadelphia Inquirer four years ago was that the pell-mell pace of
advances in genetic science will slow long enough for societys ethical
and moral understanding to catch up (2003). These days, in large part
stimulated by the report of the births of human children produced by
reproductive cloning, similar sentiments can be found in a host of references in both the popular and the scientific media. Such calls for a
slowing of the pace of scientific progress, including outright moratoria, have occurred repeatedly during the past few decades, most memorably in response to fears over recombinant DNA technology (i.e.,
genetic engineering) in the early 1970s (Judson 1996), and more
recently over stem cell research. Indeed, concerns about the use and
misuse of genetics, in all of its guises, have been among the major
stimulants to the emergence and development of the entire field of bioethics (Murphy, Butzow, and Suarez-Murias 1997). For example, when
the Hastings Center, one of the preeminent bioethics think tanks in the

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107

United States, was founded in 1969, its early work focused on four areas:
genetics, reproductive biology, death and dying, and consent.
A word much in the news today is genomics, a word coined in the
latter part of the twentieth century to mean the study of structure,
function, and interactions of all of the genes that constitute a species
genome. Genetics, however, is the study of inherited biologic variation,
and the term was coined by W. Bateson in the first decade of the
twentieth century. While genomics holds considerable promise for
applications to medicine, it is genetics that has both an instructive
legacy and direct relevance. We will examine the ethical issues raised
by one application of genetics in medicine, so-called genetic testing.
Even this seemingly narrow compass will emphasize a diversity of
ethical principles and practical dilemmas (Burke, Pinsky, and Press
2001; Burke 2002).
In the United States, formal applications of genetics to medical practice began in the 1950s at medical schools at Wake Forrest, Johns
Hopkins, the University of Michigan, and the University of Washington. Only some three decades later would the American Board of
Medical Genetics establish accreditation standards for training programs and toward certifying examinations for health professionals
in a number of disciplines: clinical genetics (for those with medical
degrees); human genetics (for those with other doctoral degrees);
cytogenetics; biochemical genetics; immunogenetics; and genetic counseling. Within a few years, clinical molecular genetics was added. And
by 1991, the American Board of Medical Specialties recognized medical
genetics as a primary medical specialty, the final step in the long
process of full recognition by organized medicine. By 2005, forty-eight
American medical centers were accredited to train M.D. clinical geneticists, and twenty-seven programs were accredited to train genetic
counselors, who typically receive a masters of science as their terminal
degree.
Growth of these specialties has been more than matched by growth
in knowledge (Beaudet 1999). To an important degree, for instance, the
ability to understand hereditary disorders has been driven by laboratory technology (cytogenetics, enzymatic assays, analysis of nucleic
acids) (Lindee 2002). The first edition of what has become the standard
textbook in the profession, Principles and Practice of Medical Genetics,
was published in 1983 and surveyed the field in 105 chapters and 1,502
pages (Emery and Rimoin, 1983). The most recent edition, the fifth
edition, published in 2007, contains 170 chapters and 3,871 pages

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Reed E. Pyeritz

(Rimoin et al. 2007a). The intellectual underpinnings of the practice of

medical genetics have been driven, to a substantial degree, by technological developments, especially in the analysis of chromosomes and
genes. This history has been reviewed, and it is not central to the
themes of this chapter (Boehm and Kazazian 1990; Kazazian 1990;
Pyeritz 1998, McKusick 2007). What is central here is the paradigm shift
in understanding the etiology and pathogenesis of disease: it has
occurred over the past decade (Boehm and Kazazian 1990; Pyeritz 1992;
Collins 1999; Murphy and Pyeritz 2002; Rimoin et al. 2007b). This shift
began in the 1990s, with the ascendancy of molecular medicine, and
it has accelerated tremendously with the sequencing of the human
genome and the rise of genomics. A rough draft of the genome was
published in 2001 (Lander et al. 2001; Venter et al. 2001) with the final
draft earmarked for April 2003, the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery by Watson and Crick of the double-helical structure of DNA (J.
Watson and Crick 1953).
The history of the evolution of the philosophical and practical ethics
of human genetics deserves critical review, but it is far beyond our
purview and the scope of this essay. The reader is commended to a
wealth of references (Royal College of Physicians 1991; Annas and Elias
1992; British Medical Association 1998; Burley 1998; Clarke 1998, 2002;
Thompson and Chadwick 1999). Much to our personal chagrin, the
intellectual underpinnings of human genetics in most Western nations
are rooted in the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century
(Haller 1963; Ludmerer 1972; Gillham 2001). Notwithstanding that
some regard our legacy as ancient history, many note the direct ramifications of the eugenics movement that occupy attention today
witness states continuing to apologize for their policies (Oregon
Governor Apologizes 2003)and examine the warnings from colleagues about eugenic implications of current practices (Garver and
Garver 1991, 1994; Wertz 1998, 2002a; Wilkie 1993).
Current Situation in the United States
Both the medical and the lay media contain frequent references to
genetic testing. Standard textbooks have multiple chapters dedicated
to the topic, professional societies are devoted to its practitioners,
the American Board of Medical Genetics and the American Board of
Pathology accredit training programs and certify practitioners, and the
federal and state governments have put in place elaborate programs for

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109

certifying clinical laboratories and mandating quality control and maintenance of proficiency. Today, genetic tests for more than 700 different
conditions are commercially available (GeneClinics 2003). Hundreds of
other conditions have had their cause identified at a molecular level,
and testing is being performed in research laboratories that are not
subject to governmental regulation and should not be releasing the
results to patients, although they often do. As we will discuss, genetic
testinghowever defineddoes place special responsibilities on health
professionals, most of whom are unprepared either to recognize the
nuances of a genetic test versus any other medical test or to conduct the
requisite pretest and posttest counseling. Nonetheless, in the United
States, as of September 2002, the first direct-to-consumers marketing of
DNA-based testing for hereditary breast cancer began.
A Primer on Medical Genetics and Genetic Testing
The nongeneticist, and the nonscientist, can easily appreciate the fundamental ethical issues that we will be discussing. The context of these
issues, however, generates misery, in large part because of the nomenclature and jargon involved. Sadly, we can offer neither the fundamental scientific and medical background nor the elaborate vocabulary
here. A brief glossary can be found in table 5.2.
There has accrued an increasing realization that in all disease
there dwells some degree of genetic contribution to etiology1 and to
pathogenesis2 (Pyeritz 2003). This is most clear for those disorders
caused in large part, if not wholly, by mutations in single genes
(called Mendelian diseases) and aberrations of chromosome structure
or number. For this reason, most genetic tests have focused on these
sorts of disorders, especially in children. However, common disorders
(that typically do not become evident until adulthood) have important
genetic causes, and the actual pathogenesis of these disorders often
has its onset in childhood. Thus there is tremendous potential to
identify, at a young age, people who are likely to develop serious
disorders later in life and to begin any of a variety of approaches to
reduce or eliminate those risks. It is important at this time to emphasize
that, for most disorders, this ability represents a potential benefit of
genetic testing. There are relatively few common disorders for which
1. The study of cause.
2. The pathologic processes.

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Table 5.2
Glossary of Genetic Terms
Allele an alternative form of a gene
Autosomes all the chromosomes except for the sex chromosomes and the
mitochondrial chromosome
Codon a three-base sequence of nucleotides that specifies an amino acid or
translational stop signal
Epigenetic nonmutational phenomena that modify gene expression, such as
methylation of a nucleotide
Exon a region of a gene that codes for protein
Genetics the study of biologic variation
Genomics the study of the functions and interactions of all the genes in the genome,
including their interactions with environmental factors
Genotype the genetic specification of an individual, reflected by the sequence of
nucleotides in DNA; can refer to all or part of the genetic information
Heterozygous having two distinct alleles at a specific locus
Homozygous having two identical alleles at a specific locus
Intron

a region of a gene that does not code for protein; usually between two exons

Monogenic caused by a mutation in a single gene; except for mitochondrial genes,

synonymous with Mendelian
Multifactorial caused by the interaction of multiple genetic, environmental, and
stochastic factors
Penetrance the likelihood that a person carrying a particular mutation will have an
altered phenotype
Phenotype evidence of the expression of a gene or specific genes, as modified
by other factors; can be expressed in terms of physical, intellectual, or laboratory
findings
Predictive value, positive the probability that a person with a positive test result will
have a phenotype (such as a disease)
Predictive value, negative the probability that a person with a negative test result
will not have a phenotype
Sensitivity

the percentage of those who are truly positive who test positive

Specificity the percentage of those who are truly negative who test negative
Validity with regard to a test, the conjunction of sensitivity, specificity, positive
predictive value, and negative predictive value
Source: Adapted from Guttmacher and Collins (2002).

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Table 5.3
Indications for Genetic Testing, with Common Examples
Reproduction
Prenatal (maternal serum screening for neural tube defects and Down syndrome)
Preimplantation (chromosome aberrations in a woman of advanced maternal age;
or selecting an embryo lacking a specific mutant parental allele)
Prefertilization (enriching for sperm bearing a Y chromosome)
Carrier testing and screening (Tay-Sachs disease in Ashkenazic Jews; or cystic
fibrosis among all couples)
Newborn screening (phenylketonuria)
Diagnostic (hemochromatosis)
Presymptomatic
Predictive (Huntingtons disease)
Susceptibility (BRCA1 and the risk of breast and ovarian cancer)

sufficient clinical and outcome studies have documented long-term

benefit.
Genetic testing can be performed for a number of indications and
therefore has clinical application in a number of settings (table 5.3).
Reproductive Genetics
Reproductive genetics has been the area of medicine in which genetic
testing has had the most consistent application since the development
in the late 1960s of amniocentesis (sampling fetal cells by removing
a small quantity of amniotic fluid during the second trimester of
pregnancy). The first indication was the detection of a fetus with chromosomal aneuploidy (especially, an extra copy of chromosome 13, 18,
or 21), the risk for which is significantly increased by advanced maternal age. The derivative of prenatal testing, offering the couple of a fetus
with a detectable defect the option of continuing the pregnancy or not,
has always confronted the ethical issues, and the sociopolitical implications, surrounding abortion.
One of the most troublesome situations faced by reproductive geneticists in the United States over the decades has been the couple that
seeks prenatal diagnosis for sex selection (Wertz 2001). In most
instances, typically for cultural reasons, couples have been intent on
insuring that only a male would be born. Once hesitancy on the part
of geneticists to facilitate the abortion of healthy female fetuses became
clear, couples often invented some genetic history as a tactical subterfuge. Thus the abortion issue hides both a biologic dimension
(skewing of the sex ratio in a population) and an ideological dimension

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(perpetuation of sexism and gender discrimination) as noted in the literature (Benagiano and Bianchi 1999).
Today, newer diagnostic techniques that take utmost advantage of
technology designed primarily to assist infertile couples (by way of in
vitro fertilization, for instance) enable these couples to obviate the
medical procedure of abortion by selecting embryos of a few dozen
cells (chosen for the lack of a particular defect) to be implanted.
However, such approaches do not assuage the ethical issues for those
who hold that human life begins with conception, whether in the
womb or in a petri dish.
Until recently, for all but the most common chromosome anomalies
and congenital malformations, it has not been (either technically or
economically) feasible to offer screenings to every pregnant woman or
couple interested in reproduction. In certain populations, generally
defined by ethnicity, it has been practical rather to offer screening for
carrier status (i.e., heterozygosity for a mutation that causes a recessive
disease) for specific disorders that occur at high relative incidence in
that population. For example, the standard of care today is to offer
testing to any Ashkenazic Jew interested in reproducing, to determine
his or her carrier status for Tay-Sachs disease and several other Jewish
genetic diseases (Massarik and Kaback 1981). If neither, or only one, of
the partners is a carrier, the couple is counseled that the risk of having
an affected child is quite low. For couples at a one-in-four risk of having
an affected child, many elect prenatal diagnosis and a consequent
termination of affected fetuses. The net result has been a marked
decrease in North American births of children with Tay-Sachs disease,
that is, children for whose health condition no treatment exists and who
die by the age of four years (Kaback 2000). The initial carrier screening
programs for Tay-Sachs disease were actively supported by many
Jewish congregations. The sociopolitical context and effectiveness of
carrier screening for a different ethnic disease, -thalassemia, has been
documented recently by a University of Pennsylvania faculty member
(Cowan 1993, 2008). A serious disorder of hemoglobin (anemia,
dependence on transfusions, resultant iron overload, reduced life
expectancy), -thalassemia is especially prevalent in the Mediterranean
basin. On the island of Cyprus, the costs of care of affected individuals
were staggering the economy and were projected to increase further
as newer treatments emerged. With the tacit approval of the Greek
Orthodox Church (for the southern half of the island) and the Islamic
clergy (for the Turkish northern half of the island), publicly funded

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carrier screening, counseling, and prenatal diagnosis programs were

developed. Compliance was so notably high as to suggest coercion.
Women found to be carrying an affected fetus were supported to leave
the island if they chose pregnancy termination. And the net result on
Cyprus has been notably a tenfold reduction in the births of affected
children; this experience has been replicated on the island of Sardinia
and also in other regions of Italy, with the tacit approval of the Roman
Catholic Church. It would seem that, as public policy, a utilitarian argument trumped one based on deontology in these instances (cf. chapter
2 by Eichler, this volume).
Virtually any medical textbook will describe cystic fibrosis (CF) as
the most common lethal hereditary disease among Caucasians. The
deadly disease causes defective transport of chloride ions across membranes. Among the consequences are poor ability to clear pathogens in
the lungs (leading to pneumonia and to chronic lung disease) and
impaired secretion of digestive enzymes and insulin by the pancreas.
One in twenty people of northern European ancestry carries one copy
of a mutation in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator gene (CFTR). Because CF is autosomal recessive, an affected person
must inherit a mutation from both mother and father. In 1999, the
Consensus Development Conference organized by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) concluded that carrier testing for CF should be
offered to several classes of people. Several of the recommended
classeswomen with CF and their spouses (men struck by CF are
invariably sterile), relatives of a patient with CF, for instance
routinely have been offered testing. A number of studies have demonstrated that offering carrier screening more broadly was met with low
uptake both by the providers of prenatal services and by pregnant
women (Loader et al. 1996).
However, the new recommendations from the NIH, which many
interpreted as establishing a standard of care by fiat, have included all
pregnant women and couples interested in reproduction (NIH 1999).
This was the first recommendation expanding carrier screening from
specific ethnic groups to the entire population. Practitioners were taken
by surprise and reacted quickly. Leaders of the American College of
Medical Genetics as well as administrators of the American College
of Obstetricians and Gynecologists were quick to recognize that such
carrier screening of massive numbers of people created both practical
and ethical concerns of a scale not seen in American medicine (Holmes
and Pyeritz 1998). Thus, because of resistance from the specialty

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societies, implementation of the federal recommendations was delayed

until a number of guidelines and tools could be developed (Haddow
et al. 1999; M. S. Watson et al. 2002). First, a panel of mutations in the
CFTR gene needed to be selected. But since CF is a disease much more
prevalent in Caucasians than seen in other ethnic groups, a variety of
ethical issues arose: in the minimum panel, should mutations be
included that are common in particular Native American tribes, even
though these individuals represent only a miniscule proportion of the
population to be screened (Grody et al. 2001)? In other words, should
screening be offered to all? To Caucasians only, while made merely
available to all others? Second, could the screening be provided by
obstetricians at their busy practices? Third, should the screening be
offered to the woman (who typically visited the obstetrician in the
absence of her partner) firstand only if she did test positive, offered
to the partner, too? Fourth, should formal informed consent for the
screening be required, and if so, how? Fifth, and finally, what educational material should be provided so that truly informed consent
might be obtained? Eventually, by late 2001, enough of the pieces fell
into place to permit a screening program to be publicly announced by
the specialty societies, although the very undertaking has yet to be
examined for the efficacy of any of its components.
Also, all the intense activity precipitated by the Consensus Development Conference occurred with scant mention of the endgame; that
is, what choices did parents make when they were faced with a fetus
carrying two mutations in CFTR that in turn indicated that the child
would develop CF? Would pressures, subtle or not, be placed by health
insurers on the parents to terminate the pregnancy because of the high
medical costs of caring for a person with CF during the three decades
or so of average life expectancy? Would couples that chose to refuse to
consider abortion under any circumstances resent the entire screening
process if they had not realized at least one of the likely potential outcomes of participation?3 The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and especially
its support group for adults suffering from CF, was a skeptical stakeholder but an active participant in the discussions among the specialist
health care professionals. The view was strongly expressed that parents
should be informed of a number of facts: that there exists improved
3. The constituency that had its eye on the abortion issue from the outset and that continually warned about coercion in favor of terminating affected fetuses was the one made
up of people affected with CF.

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medical treatment for CF; that many patients lead active, productive
lives into the fourth decade or longer; that females with CF are fertile;
and that gene therapy holds the prospect for an outright cure. Still,
tensions over related issues persist to date.
Newborn Screening
Newborn screening was implemented in the 1960s, when it became
clear that early detection of the rare inborn error of metabolism known
as phenylketonuria (PKU) could be treated by instituting a diet low in
the amino acid phenylalanine. If the diet was begun in the first month
of life, the profound mental retardation characteristic of the disease
could be prevented. The screening involves obtaining a blood specimen
from an infant during the first days of life and testing for elevated
phenylalanine. The test is designed to be sensitive but not specific:
many false positives ensue and those patients identified on the initial
screening have to be examined more carefully in follow-up testing. A
successful program requires near-total ascertainment and rapid laboratory testing, as well as effective communication with the pediatrician,
accurate testing of babies who test positive, and not least, long-term
management in a metabolic clinic of truly (table 5.4) affected children
(Millington 2002). The program for PKU has been shown to be effective
Table 5.4
Requirements for a Genetic Screening Program
The disease is a burden (illness, disability, death) in the population(s) to be screened.
The prevalence and burden should be quantified.
The screening test is sufficiently sensitive to detect the vast majority of cases.
Follow-up testing is sufficiently valid to eliminate false positives.
The positive and negative predictive values of the entire testing process are favorable.
The testing is relatively safe.
A program is in place to confirm the diagnosis in cases detected in the first screen.
Treatment is available to affect the clinical outcome favorably.
Treatment is relatively safe and well tolerated.
The entire program is cost-effective.
The entire program is acceptable to the population(s) to be screened.
Appropriate safeguards for the following are in place in advance of initiating the
program:
Informed consent
Freedom from coercion
Confidentiality
Discrimination
Stigmatization

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both clinically and costwise, as a model for newborn screening in

general (Meryash et al. 1981). In contrast, programs designed to detect
a rare but potentially lethal form of childhood cancer, neuroblastoma,
were abandoned when careful studies found them to be ineffective in
reducing mortality (Cunningham 2002). Today, all U.S. states mandate
newborn screening for PKU. A number of additional conditions have
been included, although there remains considerable variation among
U.S. states as to their specific mandated programs. Supplemental
newborn screening programs, ones driven by tandem mass spectrometry and other technologies, are being offered by commercial laboratories, and most hospitals in Pennsylvania subscribe to these; thirty-five
congenital and hereditary disorders are tested. The requirements for
including a new test in these and in any other screening programs, are
well established (table 5.4). One question involves equitability: why
should some infants benefit from extended screening in one state
and those born across the state line screened for no more than three
conditions (Newborn Screening Task Force 2000; McCabe, Therrell, and
McCabe 2002)?
Diagnostic Genetic Testing
Diagnostic genetic testing based on DNA has been available since
mutations were described. The first disease to be readily diagnosed was
sickle cell-anemia. Diagnostic testing was facilitated because all patients
have exactly the same mutation, a single nucleotide change in the sixth
codon of the beta-globin locus that results in substitution of a glycine
for a valine. Over the succeeding thirty years, the mutations that cause
many other disorders have been defined. In most cases, a given disease
can be caused by a number of different mutations, and even by mutations in different genes. Intragenic and intergenic heterogeneity greatly
complicates genetic testing. For example, although more than 900 distinct mutations have been shown to cause CF, only one specific mutation is most highly prevalent in people of northern European extraction:
one in twenty carries the so-called F508 mutation. For some disorders,
every family in which the condition occurs carries its very own
privatemutation; molecular diagnosis in such cases requires first
defining the specific genetic change(s) in that family before testing can
be applied to relatives.
Some genes are quite large, and this fact makes finding a mutation
technically difficult and expensive. For example, mutations in the

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gene encoding a large protein, fibrillin-1, cause Marfan syndrome and

several related disorders; more than 700 distinct mutations have been
described in the FBN1 gene, spread throughout the almost 10,000
nucleotides that make up the coding sequence. The coding sequence,
in turn, is spread over about 200,000 nucleotides of chromosome 15.
Only three commercial laboratories in the United States offer clinical
testing for FBN1 mutations, and the charge is around US$1,400 per
test.
In certain instances, however, genetic testing can be helpful in the
clinic. Hemochromatosis is a hereditary disease of abnormal iron
storage with a plethora of clinical problems that gradually accrue. One
in ten Caucasians is a carrier of a mutation in the HFE gene that causes
this disease, implying that one in 400 offspring of Caucasians (1/10
1/10 1/4) will carry two copies of the mutation. Luckily, only a fraction (somewhat less than 10 percent) of people with two copies of
the mutation develop clinical problems with iron accumulation. The
reasons for this lack of penetrance are still not clear. However, if a
patient reliably is found to have abnormal iron accumulation, hemochromatosis is certainly part of the differential diagnosis. Today, a
relatively simple genetic test of a patients DNA can confirm or disconfirm/eliminate that particular cause of the problem.
Predictive Genetic Testing
Predictive genetic testing pertains to disorders that are caused by
mutations in single genes and that do not become manifest until later
in life. The progressive neurological disorder Huntingtons disease
(HD) is an example. Most people with a mutation in the HD gene do
not develop symptoms until their fifth or sixth decade. However, if
there is a family history of an affected relative, it is now possible to test
relatives at risk for this autosomal dominant disorder. If a person carries
the mutation, s/he is guaranteed of developing the disease: this is
termed presymptomatic testing. Testing for HDa disease that currently still is untreatablehas raised many concerns over the past few
decades. For adults at risk, HD has been and still is the archetype for
the preeminence of autonomy; some people want to know if they will
develop HD, and some do not. But a host of very difficult issues can
arise. For example, an asymptomatic young adult man knows that his
paternal grandmother died of HD, but his father refuses to be tested.
If the young man is tested and is found to carry the mutation, then he

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knows automatically that his father also carries the mutation. Now,
have the fathers privacy and/or the very confidentiality of the fact
been violated? Should the risk of such a violation have precluded the
testing of the son? Is the primary-care physician capable of dealing
with survivor guilt in those found not to be carrying the mutation for
which they were at 50 percent risk (Huggins et al. 1992)? In another
real-life example, a couple has a ten-year-old child, and the mother has
just been diagnosed with HD; the parents request to have their child
tested. Legally, the child cannot give consent and is probably too young
to give informed assent. Moreover, if the child carries the mothers
mutation, how will that knowledge affect the upbringing of the child?
Has the childs privacy been violated in the process (Wertz, Fanos, and
Reilly 1994; Nelson et al. 2001)?
Assessing Susceptibility to Disease
Assessing susceptibility to disease is the final indication for genetic
testing. In this case, the person being tested may be at increased
risk for a disease that occurs with some frequency in the general population. If the person is found to carry a particular mutation, the risk of
developing the disease increases, but it rarely reaches 100 percent. Most
of the diseases for which genetic susceptibility has been defined at the
molecular level are so common that by chance alone more than one
case will have occurred in a single family during the three or four
generations recollected in a typical family history. Thus familial occurrence alone, especially if the affected relatives are distantly related, is
no guarantee that strong genetic risk is at work. Nonetheless, when
several close relatives have developed the same disease, especially at
a relatively early age, strong suspicion for genetic susceptibility should
be entertained (Welch and Burke 1998). Over the past few years alone,
an increasing number of genetic susceptibilities to common diseases
have been described also at the molecular level.
One field in which molecular explanations have generated intense
research, and have retained considerable attention by the media, is
cancer. Here, breast cancer has been at the forefront. When either of
her two genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 is mutated, there is statistically significant risk for a woman to develop breast and ovarian cancer; and
mutations in the BRCA2 gene cause 10 percent of all breast cancers in
men. There are a few relatively common mutations in Ashkenazic Jews,
but other patients can have any among hundreds of mutations that

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increase their susceptibility. Importantly, a patient may be found to have

a genetic change that has never been discovered in a patient who has
cancer. And as the implication of such a mutation is not clear, genetic
testing now can leave a person psychologically worse off than before
the testing was conducted. Much like FBN1, and as both of the genes
are large, testing is expensive: in 2005 it cost more than US$2,975 to
search both genes; and in the United States, insurance companies have
balked at paying for testing in the absence of disease and with no clear
way of preventing development of disease in those discovered at risk.
Studies conducted suggest that prophylactic mastectomy and oophorectomy can greatly reduce the risk that cancer will develop in breast
or ovarian tissue, respectively, and it is for this reason that many women
are finding it easier to have the costs reimbursed. However, some
women do not want their insurance companies to even know that
testing is being done; they prefer to pay for the test out of pocket, and
sometimes even use a pseudonym (Benkendorf et al. 1997). These
women fear facing unfair (social, economic, workplace, or employmentrelated) discrimination if formally found to be at heightened risk of
cancer.
The Notion of Genetic Information
Any definition of genetic testing depends in the first instance on what
we mean by genetic information. In the broadest sense, this term
refers to any test that informs about the genotype. The genotype and
its effect on health can be assessed at many different levels. The first
and most precise level, examining the DNA itself, is what most medical
and laypeople first think of upon hearing genetic testing mentioned.
And this chapter has already addressed the ways in which these assays
are performed.
However, the effects of alterations in the genotype can be also assessed
at the level of

the messenger RNA.

the product of the gene, usually a peptide or protein.

the functional protein, often a multimer of similar or dissimilar

proteins.

the metabolic pathway involving the gene product.

the effects of the genotypic change on cellular metabolism.

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the effects of the genotypic change on a tissue or an organ.

the effects of the genotypic change on the person.

The last of the levels of assessment involves the traditional skills of

putting together the patients medical history and conducting a physical examination.
The most important of genetic tests is one already known and,
hopefully, practiced by all physiciansthe family history (Pyeritz 1997;
Guttmacher, Collins, and Carmona 2004). The family history and the
pedigree analysis that derives from it are often the first tips that there
should be concern about a genetic condition or susceptibility.
In most cases, obtaining a detailed family history is time-consuming.
To some extent, this can be done largely by the patient. However, the
family history has a life of its own, and it needs to be updated and
amended periodically. Similarly, any adjustment to the family history
should prompt additional analysis and interpretation, which in turn
may lead to more investigation and intervention.
The Process of Genetic Testing
Genetic testing has several crucial distinctions from other kinds of
testing in medicine.

It provides information about relatives, not just the patient.

It requires special attention to pretest and posttest issues.

It raises concerns about privacy and discrimination.

The broad scope of the indications for genetic testing suggests that
it is not just for the occasional patient. The very recognition of this fact
raises a dilemma. If all of those who would qualify for genetic testing
should require pre- and posttest counseling, who will provide such?
Genetic counselorsthat is, masters-level, board-certified health professionalsare the obvious choice, but they are relatively few in number
(around 2,000 in the United States, in 2005). Thus the obligation must
fall to a large extent on other health care providers, especially the physicians who order the genetic tests. This fact alone makes it clear that
medical genetics is truly the province of all health care professionals.
Unfortunately, few health care professionals have been trained about
or have experience with modern genetic concepts and technologies
(Greendale and Pyeritz 2001).

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The Need for Pretest Informed Consent and Posttest Counseling

There is increasing consensus that the issues considered in the following sections, among others, need to be discussed with the patient
or the person seeking testing (the consultand) before ordering a genetic
test (James et al. 1998). Some have argued that a blanket informed
consentone usually buried in the forms one is made to sign at the
time and place of registration for an appointment with a physician
does not suffice. At the extreme, failure to inform a patient of the availability of a genetic test can lead to a legal claim of medical negligence
or malpractice. Wrongful birth actions, indeed, have been successfully
brought on behalf of children with severe disabilities.
Once a result of a genetic test is known, that result must be interpreted for the person tested, and options may be explained. On surface,
this requirement is no different from, say, a blood glucose value.
However, most practicing physicians realize they lack the requisite
knowledge to interpret genetic tests and do not have the time to retrain
or, if they did, to do a proper job of counseling because of time constraints (Caulfield 1999). In the few situations that have been studied
formally, nongeneticist physicians who order genetic testing and report
the results to their patients perform inadequately (Giardiello et al.
1997). Genetic counselors are adequately qualified for this function, but
there are still far too few of them around to address this growing need.
And, with few exceptions, they cannot even independently bill and
expect to be reimbursed for their services.
Genetic Counseling
Genetic counseling is a defined subspecialty of medical genetics typically practiced by masters-level, board-certified professionals, as
described previously. These specialists have an integral role in the
genetic testing process, particularly when the testing is ordered through
a genetics clinic. Counselors often provide the vast majority of the
pretest education (about the test and its implications) and obtain the
informed consent. Counselors are heavily involved in interpreting and
reporting the results.
When genetic tests are performed outside the genetics clinic, counselors are seldom involved, unless the result causes panic to the patient
or the physician does not know how to interpret the result.

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Standards for Genetic Tests

There is a surprising lack of documentation about fundamental aspects
of genetic testing that are well established for most other standard tests
in routine medical practice. The three fundamental questions used to
assess any medical test are the following:

Analytic validitydoes a specific test detect a specific genetic

change?

Clinical validityis a specific genetic change predictive of disease?

Clinical utilitydoes knowing that a genetic change is present assist

the patient?
Analytic validity is often viewed as purely a technical issue. However,
a variety of techniques can be used to identify any specific genetic
change, and the distinctions among the techniques (such as in accuracy,
reproducibility, and expense) are almost always invisible to those who
will utilize the tests (Grody and Pyeritz 1999). But this aspect constitutes the least of the concerns when a specific test is the issue. Yet as
medicine moves on toward a complete readout of a persons genome,
what rate of error will be tolerated? Currently the goal of DNA sequencing is to attain 99.99 percent reliability. At that level of precision, on
average, one error would be likely to occur in every 10,000 nucleotidesa rate that only seems low. Since there are 6.4 billion nucleotides
per diploid somatic cell, the number of errors per person would in fact
add up to more than 600,000 by the same token.
Clinical validity is inextricably linked to the biology of the disease
for which a test is developed. In many cases, different kinds of mutations in the very same gene produce widely variable conditions
(phenotypes), which may even bear different names. Particularly when
the gene is large and hundreds or thousands of mutations can occur,
simply finding a genetic change in that gene will not be diagnostic of
anything. Another common situation is a mutation that confers risk
(susceptibility) that is less than 100 percent (incomplete penetrance).
Only focused research will define what the penetrance is and what
other factors might affect it, such as age or ethnicity. But even if the
penetrance is well established to be, say, 60 percent, this fact needs
to be known by the requesting physician and also explained to the
patient.
Defining clinical utility requires what medical research has come to
call outcome studies. What good does it do the patient to know that

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a particular mutation exists? Will, accordingly, treatment be altered in

a beneficial way? Can relatives benefit from screening? To be fair, clinical utility should (but rarely does) incorporate the downsides of testing,
such as unfair insurance discrimination, which is much more of an
issue with some disorders (cancer susceptibility, for example) than
others (say, joint hypermobility).
There is little regulation of the genetic testing world, even in the
United States (Holtzman and Watson 1997). Most regulation pertains to
laboratories, which must meet certain state and federal standards, and
to laboratory directors, who must undergo proficiency testing. However,
there has been virtually no regulation of testing based on validity and
utility. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has shown little interest, except for regulating kits, a function which it fulfills under its
mandate to control devices. So-called home-brew tests, in which the
substrates for the test are made in-house, are not regulated.
Economic Issues
Many genetic tests are expensive to perform, especially those that are
based on analysis of DNA when the number of potential mutations is
large (Yuan et al. 1999). The costs of some genetic tests, especially those
that are considered research, are inconsistently reimbursed by insurance plans. Additionally, patenting and restrictive licensing have
worked to keep costs high.
Ethical Issues
We conclude with a consideration of some of the microethical issues
that concern us most of the time when we consider ordering a genetic
test.
Privacy and Confidentiality
A genetic test can provide information about a given patient. However,
unless the condition is the outcome of a new mutation (e.g., a new
chromosomal translocation, a new point mutation in a gene causing an
autosomal dominant condition), the results of the test provide information concerning (even implicating) relatives as well. And this is a fundamental distinction from other medical testing.
Often, relatives are not consulted about whether a test should be
performed in a patient, nor should they be. An exception here: the

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parents of a child who should be aware that whatever is found in the

patient may shed light on their own genotype. These issues of privacy
and confidentiality have not been explored for the vast majority of tests
available today.
The notion of privacy has important cross-cultural implications. In
the United States, a diagnosis of cancer was anathema fifty years ago,
and relatives did not discuss it. Physicians, had they tried to obtain a
detailed family history concerning cancer, as is routine to undertake
today, would have been hard-pressed to develop much useful information. In many parts of Asia today, people are quite reticent about illness
in their families, in part on account of a heightened sense of privacy,
and in part out of sheer fear of stigmatization.
Occasionally, genetic information not central to the issue for which
testing was indicated becomes apparent. The most frequentand troublingexample occurs when the purported father turns out not to be
the biologic father. Such an outcome exemplifies a potentially contentious and even socially devastating result of testing that has not only
required profound deliberation by a multidisciplinary task force, but
also rendered necessary a pronouncement by a specialty society meant
to give direction to practitioners: The American Society of Human
Genetics (1996) recommended that, unless the genetic test was done
specifically to determine paternity, false paternity not be revealed. The
ASHGs recommendation, however, might result in misinformation
about the risk of recurrence of a disorder, as well as in unnecessary
future testing, in the sole service of sustaining the subterfuge.
Autonomy
In most Western countries, people are permitted to do what they will
with information concerning their own genotype and that of their
unborn children. Potential conflicts arise when the desire of a person
to obtain as much genetic information as is technologically (if not economically) possible meets the beneficence (if not outright paternalism)
of a health care professional desirous of minimizing harm (e.g., prenatal sex selection).
Discrimination
Concerns abound about genetic information being used by insurance
companies to influence decisions about insurability (Billings et al. 1992;
Rothstein and Anderlik 2001). Policies covering health, life, and disability are all at issue. Hard data are difficult to find, and this fact has

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prompted claims that all such problems are overstated (Nowlan

2002). Nevertheless, abundant anecdotal evidence exists that the fear
of discrimination influences the willingness of people to make use
of genetic testing (Rothenberg and Terry 2002). In June 2008 the U.S.
Congress passed, and the President signed, the Genetic Information
Nondiscrimination Act, which takes effect in the subsequent 12 to 18
months. The hope is that fears of unfair discrimination in employment
and medical insurance will be allayed. The potential for unfair discrimination in health insurance has attracted political attention the
most, and a number of U.S. states have enacted legislation prohibiting
it. However, the U.S. Congress has yet to act, even though bills have
been introduced in each of the past half dozen years. As a result, many
patients continue to face the risk that health insurance policies may be
denied them or canceled should they have a genetic test that reveals a
conditionor even a heightened risk of a disease. A discussion of the
potential for such discrimination should be an integral part of the
pretest counseling for any genetic test. To be sure, the full extent of
the problem has been imperfectly assessed (Wertz 2002b)a point
made repeatedly by representatives of the health insurance industry.
One of the concerns by the industry is that a potential purchaser could
practice adverse selection based on his or her private knowledge of
genetic risk; that is, someone at increased risk could purchase more
coverage, hence to the detriment of others. In the area of health insurance, at the present time, the industry attempts to carve out from the
community those individuals who are at increased risk. Were we as
a society to adopt an enlightened perspective, we could argue that,
indeed, all of us are at genetic risk for some unwelcome surprise or
another, and thus provide exceptional rationale for community rating
for all. This, by the way, would provide additional support for universal coverage.
Cross-cultural issues need to be explored in this area as well. Certain
countries, such as China, encourage limiting family size and have been
accused of practicing negative eugenics, by which families with a worrisome family history are discouraged from reproducing.
One group of individuals that has expressed concern about discrimination, often solely through advocates, encompasses survivors with
genetic disabilities. For example, utilitarian and economic analyses that
support prenatal diagnosis for congenital disorders (such as Down
syndrome or cystic fibrosis) have engendered counteranalyses and outright hostility.

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Patenting and Licensing Issues

In 1980, two important legal events occurred that have had wideranging implications for genetic research, and some of these implications raise crucial ethical issues regarding the application of genetic
research to humans. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Diamond v.
Chakrabarty (1980) that a genetically modified bacterium was patentable. Second, the Bayh-Dole Act, which had been designed to stimulate
the development of products and processes that were developed in
private hands with federal support, became federal law (Rai and Eisenberg 2003). The U.S. Supreme Court ruling has opened a veritable
floodgate of applications aiming to protect discoveries (e.g., entire
human genes or specific mutations) and applications making use of the
nucleotide sequence information intrinsic to those genes or mutations.
The first and still primary beneficiaries of the Bayh-Dole Act are universities, and there has been an exponential increase in attempts by
these institutions to derive profit from the discoveries of their faculty
and staff, and concomitant augmentation in the attending ethical and
legal conundrums. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the
growth industry of offices and specialists devoted to declaring and
managing the conflicts of interest. Another consequence has been
increased reluctance by some investigators to share with other investigators data regarding the requirements of an industrial sponsor, along
with the need to protect the potential commercial value of resultsas
cited in 27 percent and 21 percent, respectively, of all cases involving
the withholding of postpublication information (Campbell et al. 2002).
With regard to genetic testing, one particular issue among many
deserves special attention, primarily because those who produce the
discoveries are largely unaware of the downstream consequences of
the actions of their institutions. Once an inventor enters in technologytransfer agreements with the host institution, the inventor generally
has little say from then on. The exception would be if the inventor
actually develops a start-up company to commercialize the invention,
with the university as a partner. However, invariably when a faculty
member discovers a gene or a mutation, the university takes over to
determine if the discovery has commercial potential. Typically, the
maximum of income can be generated by a restrictive license to sell a
test based on the discovery, usually with no strings attached to the forprofit entity that will produce, advertise, and market the test. Experience has shown, however, that the cost of the test is set to optimize
profits, and in the absence of any competition it can be so high as to

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limit access to only the best insured or the wealthy. Thus those with
the disease, the very persons for whom the test was intended, often are
left unable to access it. This situation becomes particularly galling
to patients, to their families, and to volunteer support groups of
individuals who originally contributed samples to the faculty member
in whose expert laboratory requisite fundamental research was conducted and who, in great part thanks to them, sees a quarterly royalty
check. In an attempt to minimize the impact of such situations (which
are the rule rather than the exception), several professional societies
have begun educating their members as to their need to be proactive
when discussing access with their institutions offices of technology
transfer.
Effects of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising
Many surveys suggest that consumers (especially women) demand
access to advances in genetics directly advertised even if their personal
physicians are ambivalent, neutral, or even opposed (Benkendorf et al.
1997). Some have argued that such advertising is, in essence, a denial
of a patients right to adequate health carein particular, to pretest
counseling felt to be essential to proper utilization (Wertz 1999).
What Is the Endgame?
On the occasion of receiving the 2002 Harold Berger Award from the
school of engineering of the University of Pennsylvania, Craig Venter
stated, I predict that within a decade parents will have the option to
get the genetic code of their baby on a CD-ROM. A number of comments are pertinent. First, his company has a stated business plan of
being able to provide such a genetic blueprint for US$1,000presumably in nominal 2002 dollars. Second, Venters suggestions that parents
will have the option of obtaining this information for a price have
led some to counterargue that, in the very interests of public health, of
preventive medicine, and of reducing long-term medical costs, such
information should not be optional. Third, so far no one has a clue as
to whether a decade from now the pediatrician will be able to deal with
a printout of 6.4 billion nucleotides any better than today. Fourth, the
educational programs required to empower the physician, even if we
knew what the information meant, are not yet in place. And finally,
even if our familys health insurance plan agreed to pay the US$1,000
in inflation-adjusted currency, would we really want them to?

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Ego and Ethos

David R. Williams

In this chapter, I intend to contribute to the reexamination of ethics by

developing a point of view based on three familiar features of ordinary
human experience: sentience, volition, and the belief that others conscious experience resembles ones own. It would be odd indeed if these
elaborate and ubiquitous aspects of the everyday human experience of
living were irrelevant to the way people conduct their lives. These
undeniable subjective phenomena are the fundamental fact at the heart
of Gestalt psychology and existential analysis, and in combination
with humanistic psychology, they stand as the basis of existentialhumanistic, or EH, personality theory.
Existential-humanistic theory is based on awareness of reality as it
consciously appears rather than any events conjectured to lie beneath
appearances. The humanistic contribution to the EH approach lies
mainly in an assumption, contrary to Freud, that human nature is creative, prosocial, and benign. The reexamination of ethics I will propose
rests heavily on this assumption. I will supplement the assumption
with a well-known model of adult ego development and add some
considerations from evolutionary psychology as well. It is worth noting
that the humanistic view is consistent with, but not derived from,
additional suppositions that have a theological origin or a spiritual
commitment.
It is also worth noting that EH personality theory differs radically
from psychodynamic theories of the kind first advanced by Freud.
Unlike the humanistic view, the Freudian outlook was avowedly materialistic, and Freuds postulation of an unconscious, out-of-awareness
antisocial id devoted to lust and aggression was at the heart of the
theories he formulated. Furthermore, Freuds views transformed the
phenomenological perspective into something superficial and rather
misleading, perhaps even naive. In the deterministic Freudian system,

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dutythe core concept underlying ethicshas no meaning: human

thought and behavior are as much a matter of cause and effect as the
arrival time of high tide, and a sense of duty or a commitment to an
ethical life is regarded as a hollow and meaningless operation of the
human machine. Although I will borrow elements of psychodynamic
practice as I develop the EH view of human nature, I find it necessary,
even welcome, to detach them from the theoretical system that is their
point of origin.
The Constituents of Human Awareness
Sentience is the capacity for sensing and perceiving. It is fundamental
to the phenomenological viewpoint: no sentience, no phenomenology.
There are four aspects of human sentience that are essential to the EH
perspective I am developing:
First, there is the perception of a world outside and around the individual. What is perceived to be outside of oneself is actually happening well within ones skull, an event occurring in the brain. Because we
are only aware of mental representations of things, we are much like a
pilot flying a plane on instruments: the instruments provide useful
information, but they do not depict the things represented. The blips
on a radar screen, for example, may be interpreted as birds or other
planes, and they permit adjustments that avoid collisions. But pilots
know that the blips on a radar screen do not depict blips outside the
plane. Pilots infer other sources and take appropriate action, never
confusing the blip with the thing that produces it. It is the same with
our mental representations of the world around us: they are useful
appearances that permit us to take appropriate action, but they are
constructions and not copies of their source.
Second, we are aware of a world within us, an inner world distinct
from the outer world or our senses. There is less agreement about the
nature of this world than there is about the outer world. Its contents
are private, and include a variety of elements designated by terms like
intuition, belief, feelings, and values. Vague though these terms are,
they typically cause little if any trouble in everyday talk. Many people
believe that the inner world provides membership in nonmaterial
realms of beingperhaps involving a soul, a spiritual essence, or even
a spark of the divine. While some people are more sensitive to the
apparent realities of the inner world than to the apparent realities of
the outer world, for others, the situation is the reverse: this observation

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137

was the basis of Jungs (1921, 44) original distinction between introvert and extravert. Despite the mystery of its origins and significance, most people assign some degree of importance to their experience
of a private inner world.
The third world of sentience is the world of meaningful thingsa
world of physical objects invested with subjective value based on what
they mean. Because outer and inner worlds converge on the objects of
this world, outer and inner realities are brought into subjective alignment by them. The physical form of meaningful things can mingle
outer and inner worlds palpably as lovers do or symbolically as flags
and sacraments do. Meaningful things bring outer and inner worlds
into alignment, and actions taken toward them have consequences in
both. The world of meaningful things commonly attracts a great deal
of our attention, because its objects often present options for action
whose significances in outer and inner worlds are hard to reconcile.
Head and heart are often at odds when it comes to choosing a course
of action, and it is for this reason that romantic attachments are wisely
deplored in the workplace: the power of ones very own inner-world
representation of a particular coworker detracts from ones professional evaluation of that coworkers job-specific capacity to perform a
task.
The fourth essential aspect of sentience is the experience of volitionof being able to will, choose, or initiate action. Volition makes no
sense in outer-world terms, where cause and effect apparently reign
supreme. As a phenomenon of private experience, however, volition is
a strong, salient, even prized aspect of our awareness. We feel, we
sense, we commit ourselves to courses of action both behavioral and
cognitive. We experience having a say in what our bodies do and a
voice in the issues that occupy our thoughts. To feel unwillingly out of
control of mind or body is upsetting; to believe one is a robot, a causeand-effect machine1 devoid of autonomous capacity for personal
responsibility for what we think or do, is a high sign of mental
disorder.
Just what underlies the sense of volitionwhether our ability to will
and choose is an illusion or reflects the reality of our private existenceis as hidden from us as is the true reality underlying the other
three worlds of our experience. Volition is a compelling perception, and
without it, duty and responsibility are meaningless. Absent volition,
1. See Guyer (2008).

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there is no need to reexamine ethics: it can be dismissed as a baseless,

illusory, and superfluous distraction.
These four aspects of sentience are wholly private qualities of conscious experience, yet we speak of them confidently and use them to
understand others lives and actions as well as our own. The ability to
represent in ones own minds eye anothers way of perceiving things
is at the heart of social relationships, and while empirically gratuitous,
it works reassuringly well, if not infallibly so: mind reading is a term
of opprobrium for those who speculate too much about us, hardly
listening and asking too little. The everyday success of our habit of
experiential attribution supports psychoanalyst Harry Stack Sullivans
one-genus postulation (1953, 32): he proposed that everyone is
much more simply human than otherwise. Interpreted phenomenologically, his postulate is a key assumption underlying our reexamination of ethics from the perspective of ordinary awareness.
A Map of Phenomenological Territory
Renditions of phenomenological territory in the form of images and
other representations are the stuff of art. They help us explore possibilities within our own conscious experience, essentially taking advantage
of the advice of a fellow traveler: the artist who provides us with unexpected views. The very success of arts accomplishment provides strong
support for Sullivans postulate. By contrast, a map of phenomenological territory brings out relations among the various components of
conscious experience without actually depicting them, just as the lines
on a roadmap indicate how roads and states relate to each other without
showing how they appear in reality. I have provided the phenomenological map in figure 6.1 to show how the worlds of experience are
related to the experiencer, on the one hand, and to the sources from
which phenomenological experience springs, on the other. Note that
neither the means by which the perceived worlds are constructed nor
the constituents from which they are derived are detailed on the map:
important as they are, these essentials are not phenomenologically
apparent, and hence are not included. After using the phenomenological map to suggest how ego and ethos combine in the worlds of an
individuals awareness, I will use it to dare suggest a basis for reexamining ethics.
The most important feature of the map is the large oval at the top,
labeled Sovereign Self and graced with a you are here dot. The

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139

Acting
Sovereign Self
Experiencing

= You are here

Awareness

ss

ss
ne
are

Aw

tion

Things perceived as meaningful

ne

Att
en

Enemy
Lover

en
Att

Friend
Partner

are

Flag
Self
Sacrament

Aw

tion

Attention

Perceived
inner world

Output to mind

Combiner module
Constructor module

Perceived
outer world

Mind
Brain

Spiritual

Body

Genomic

Physical

Figure 6.1
The Phenomenological Map and Ancillary Realms

oval designates the phenomenological self, the locus of immediate

experience where sentience somehow takes place and acts of will are
somehow initiated. A fuller elaboration of the Sovereign Self concept
will emerge in the discussion of the ego that follows.
Three pairs of arrows connect the Sovereign Self oval to three rectangles, labeled Things Perceived as Meaningful, Perceived Inner
World, and Perceived Outer World. The paired arrows honor the
possibility of voluntarily controlling the salience of the contents of each
of those worlds by altering the attention paid to them (outward-bound,
dash-dot arrow), so that awareness (inward-bound solid arrow) is
enhanced or diminished.
The large rectangle labeled Mind is depicted as responsible for the
three worlds that are consciously perceived. The mind itself does not
enter awareness; consciousness extends only to representations that the
mind produces. Because meaningful things are also constructs of the
mind, produced without awareness by combining information from
perceived inner and outer worlds, as depicted by the shaded arrows,
their synthetic character often escapes notice. Mind, Body,
and Brain are locatedwithout further differentiationin a single

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David R. Williams

rectangle to reflect the fact that, while a variety of distinctions regarding these entities are made by several disciplines, the distinctions are
not salient at the phenomenological level of the sovereign self, and thus
do not require further specification on a phenomenological map.
A one-way arrow connects the oval of the sovereign self to the shaded
rectangle of the mind. Labeled Output to Mind, this arrow represents
the impact of volition, of acts of will, on cognitive and behavioral processes.
The feedback loop between the sovereign-self oval and the mind rectangle is completed by the three perceived worlds of experience.
The Ego and the Map
The phenomenological map is not a map of the Freudian ego because
it makes a sharp distinction between the rectangle labeled Mind and
the oval labeled Sovereign Self. The distinction between mind and
sovereign self is at the heart of EH psychologys focus on sentience
and volition. While EH psychology does agree with Freuds goal
of understanding the mind/brain system physically and computationally, it departs from that commitment where the sovereign self is
concerned: neither sentience nor volition fits comfortably within any
physicalist or cause-and-effect scheme, and neither, a fortiori, does
phenomenology.
Might the difference in kind between the phenomena of awareness
(sentience and volition) and the rule-governed cognitive processes of
the brain be a matter of wishful thinking, some soft-minded, muddleheaded, and slightly pathetic hope that there is more to being human
than there is to being a machine? Might the distinction be gratuitous?
Maybe not: the architecture of contemporary computerslaptops to
desktops to mainframesoffers reason to think otherwise.2
The term computer implies a computing engine (say, a Turing
machine) andin complex modern machinesincludes the necessary
presence of a supervisor system. A desktop computers supervisor
system automatically adjusts the allocation of computing elements to
the demands of the problems presented to it. Larger machines, in addition to an automatic supervisor module, likely are subordinate to a
human system administrator, who controls resource allocations
directly. Some of the system administrators adjustments to the computing network reflect considerations that have nothing to do with
2. See Krippendorff (2008).

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141

efficient operation of the machine per se but reflect the politics of the
organization that owns the machine: the egos of management, the
perceived importance of problems, the expense of computer time, and
so on. Matters like these are outside of purely computational issues and
cannot be inferred from study of machine behavior alone.3 There is no
way to tell if adjustments to a computing network have been generated
wholly by modules within it or by a human systems administrator. And
there is no way of telling, behaviorally, whether the sovereign self is
just another mental module, as the materialistic Freudian view would
hold, or represents an entirely different type of administrator. Each
sovereign self is free to decide!
The important distinction between the computational engine and its
administrator is, surprisingly, captured in one of the working concepts
that have evolved from the practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy4the distinction between the observing ego and the participating
ego. Hopefully, the participating ego is the rational actor.5 The observing ego stands apart: it can report on what seems, consciously, to be
going on. In analytic sessions, both patient and analyst work primarily
with their respective observing egos. The patient uses the observing
ego to report the forces and feelings that lead to actions and decisionswhether perceived at the time as voluntary or habitualeven
as the analyst is using the observing ego to detect and manage the
countertransferences6 that are likely to arise in the course of the
analytic hour.
The concept of the participating ego extends to both mind and
sovereign self, because both play rolesalbeit rather significantly contrasting onesin behavior. Within the phenomenological system, the
3. The situation is exactly analogous to the glass part-full or part-empty conundrum
the question cannot be answered by physical measurement, but only according to the
interests of the perceiver. Whether emptiness versus fullness, pleasing versus poisonous, or tasty versus vile is at issue cannot be established by physically examining a
vessel and its contents. The framing of the question depends not on what is seen, but on
the mind of the beholder. The question begins in the mind of the observer, not the objective reality of whatever is observed.
4. A form of psychotherapy that embodies Freuds deterministic system and traces
current concerns to events that happened in the individuals past.
5. Specifically, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the part of the mind
which, acted upon by both the id and the superego (ego ideal), mediates with the
environment.
6. The term refers to the unresolved conflicts that the patient stirs up in the analyst.
When recognized, these provide the analyst with valuable clues about the forces at work
in the analysis.

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aspect of the participating ego included in the mind is, like all the other
functions of brain and computational mind, taken to be governed by
cause-and-effect rules and thus not truly voluntary. The aspect of participating ego included in the sovereign self involves true agency: the
capacity to initiate behavior for its own reasons. As the active agent
overseeing the minds operations, the sovereign self therefore is the
aspect of a person that can be held legally, morally, and ethically responsible for that persons actions. And like any other sovereign, of course,
the sovereign self has only limited power to govern events7 and has a
duty to take into account the expectable consequences of actions freely
chosen.
The division of the ego into observing and participating parts is a
functional distinction. Despite its origins in psychoanalytic practice,
this distinction is phenomenologically meaningful to most people
because it refers to familiar states of consciousness: self-reflection, on
the one hand, and active, truly voluntary engagement in the process of
living, on the other. Likewise, the incorporation of both ego functions
into a sovereign self that stands outside the mind, quite the way a
system administrator stands outside a computing engine, is also phenomenologically comfortable; it accords well with the everyday subjective experience that provides the perspective of this chapter. As
sovereign self is to mind, so is pilot to aircraft, rider to horse, driver to
car. And in each case, the functioning agentsovereign self, pilot, rider,
or driversometimes simply observes the goings on, intervening only
occasionally. From the phenomenological perspective, these experiencing and acting operations appear to be seamlessly coordinated.
There is no need to parse the territory of subjective experience further,
and indeed it may be impossible to do so.
Beyond Sovereign Self Experience
The three lowermost terms appearing in the box at the bottom of the
phenomenological map bear no specific relationship to each other or
to the contents of the mind region of the map. Hidden from phenomenological view, they impact the sovereign self only indirectly, through
7. As legend has it, King Canute, who commanded the tides to stand still, knowing all
too well that he would not be heeded, engaged in that act as a means of putting a halt
to the exaggerations of his sovereign powers by sycophantic subordinates. This myth
provides a suitable example, almost a graphic illustration, of my meaning in this
instance.

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their combined influence on the structures within the mind rectangle

and thereafter, directly on the perceived worlds.
Two of these terms represent influences studied in the physical
and biological sciences. The impact of things physical often appears in
the Perceived Outer World. The genomic influencethe effect of
genes on the brain and mind, representing the evolutionary origins of
human natureincludes much of what is instinctively human, from
abilities as basic as language and the capacity to self-reflect, to the
images and archetypes that are part of the inner worlds collective
unconscious (Jung 1917, 66). The referent of the third term, denoting
to the possibility of a spiritual influence on the brain (see Wilber 2000
for an extended discussion), remains an open question. In line with the
lack of theological or spiritual commitment underlying the EH view,
spiritual influence is given a place among the precursors of mind, but
not a more detailed functional significance on the phenomenological
map.
Together, these underpinnings of brain, body, and mind combine
to produce the genius of individuality that lies within each person.
In the phenomenological framework, these underpinnings somehow produce what Rogers (1951) has called an organismic valuing
process, a functional inner navigational system that provides
meaning, value, and significance to objects and possibilities, including
those that come to sovereign self-attention. The organismic valuing
process provides the native, endogenous, agenda of the sovereign self,
similar to the way information in the genome provides the native,
endogenous, agenda for building a persons phenotype at the cellular
level.
For Rogers, the organismic valuing process is the key to selfactualization,8 the master motive or basic tendency of all sentient
creatures to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing organism (Rogers 1951, 487). Maslow (1971, 311), like Rogers, names selfactualization as the product of living in accord with being values
and of respecting needs arising from ones private growth motivation. Other EH theoristsAdler (1935/1956, 206) and May (1958, 55),
for example, share with Rogers and Maslow the basic idea of a fundamental motivation to grow and develop throughout the life span,
honoring a potential for actualizing within whatever circumstances
8. The term, a commonplace of the EH psychologies, originates with Kurt Goldstein
(1939, 1940).

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(favorable or unfavorable) present themselves. The omnipresence of

an actualizing process is a central tenet of all EH theories, although
there is no general agreement about which specific sources produce it.
As understood in EH theory, the process of self-actualizing is continuous throughout life, and it is possible to honor ones personal
actualizing process at every moment of conscious experience, however
favorable or dire the particular moment may be. Doing so provides the
sovereign self with an inner sense or feeling9 of authenticity, of personal congruence, and of integrity. The feeling emerges as a gestalt,
as a consequence of the wholeness of the full worldview available to
the sovereign selfan Umschauung that includes the self as a meaningful object on which ones very own inner and outer worlds harmoniously converge to create a well-integrated whole.
The humanistic assumption is that when fully experienced, this
gestalt favors choice of actions that are both self-actualizing and prosocial. An implication of the assumption is that psychotherapy is largely
a matter of un-concealing all the elements of the gestalt formed by the
perception of self and circumstance.10 Its presence may be blocked in
some individuals, and perhaps may be entirely absent in others.11 Only
if a critical mass of people satisfy the assumption will the argument developed in the rest of the chapter make sense.
Ego: Identity and Integrity
The ego, for Freud, is the part of the mind that develops to manage
commerce with the external world, gratifying both the libidinal id and
the moral superego as rapidly and deftly as possible, while satisfying
the reality principle.12 In the Freudian system, the ego is responsible
not only for managing the physical world, taking account of cause-andeffect relationships among physical things, but also for responding to
9. This feeling, always welcome, may or may not be accompanied by a feeling of wellbeing, which depends more on circumstances.
10. Across the span of EH theories are many explanations of why potentially meaningful
objects might be concealed from sovereign self-awareness; for present purposes, it is
enough to draw attention to the humanistic assumption that denial or distortion of
meaningful objects detracts from the experience of welcome wholeness that accompanies
the gestalt.
11. A possibility that underlies the EH view of severe psychopathology.
12. The reality principle was Freuds acknowledgment of an individuals need to take
account of the real-world consequences of ones actions.

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the significance of things when they are perceived as imbued with

biological and social qualities that turn them into personally meaningful, not merely physical, things.
Two of the most important sources of meaning arise from the individuals actualizing process and from the individuals ethos. Ethos
specifies an array of available roles an individual can playfor example,
spouse, warrior, citizen, or thiefand includes instructions for how
they are to be played. The complex of roles that an individual accepts
constitutes the individuals social identity, an aspect of ego identity that
depends on the ethos. The way a sovereign self honors the actualizing
process in turn provides the individuals personal identity. There may
well be other sources of identity besides ethos and actualization, but
these two are the main influences on the reexamination of ethics I will
propose.
When ego identity is fully formed at the end of adolescence, the
individual is prepared to take on the responsibilities of adult life,
dealing with the central issues of intimacy and productivity (Erikson
1963, 263268) as expressions of both social and personal identity. In
the final stage of an individuals life, where the end of life is now undeniably closing in, time is all too short to take a Mulligan.13 In Eriksons
theory, a successful lifeone that near the end yields a sense of ego
integrityneed not follow a straight or simple path. As Erikson (1963,
268269) puts it: Only in him who in some way has taken care of
things and people and has adapted himself to the triumphs and disappointments adherent to being . . . may gradually ripen the fruit of [the
prior] seven stages. I know of no better word for it than ego integrity.
The integrity to which Erikson refers requires only that, in the view
of the individual reflecting on a lifetime, the one and only life cycle
is . . . accepted as the ultimate in life. To do so fully requires that the
individual
accept that it is too late to redo the life.14 Failure to accept produces
disgust and despair: the very opposites of ego integrity.

take responsibility for the personal identity that has been forged
voluntarily in a partnership between mind and sovereign self and that
must continue to be expressed in a way that honors the still-active
actualizing process, so that it may produce an experience that conveys
13. A polite name for amateur golfers redoing, and not counting, an errant shot.
14. Unlike, for example, at the time of the midlife crisis, when a makeover still may
seem possible for some.

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David R. Williams

some spiritual sense and world order, no matter how dearly paid
for.

find full and sufficient value in the ethos that played a role in the
individuals social identity: enough to acknowledge that the style of
integrity provided by it was adequate in guiding the individuals
moral paternity of the personal life voluntarily lived.

accept that an individual life is the accidental coincidence of but one

life cycle with but one segment of history; and that for him, all human
integrity stands or falls with the one style of integrity of which he partakes; that particular circumstancesmaterial, social, and spiritual
were mere accidents of time and place; that what brings the attainment
of ego integrity to an individuals life is the way circumstances were
managed by the sovereign self, honoring the actualizing process in the
context of whatever possibilities were present.
This quick summary of the way ego identity finds fulfillment in the
achievement of ego integrity does not detail the challenges that characterize the intervening stages of intimacy and generativity, nor does it
provide an understanding of how vicissitudes of livingtriumphs and
disappointments alikecontribute to its attainment. It, however,
does make more understandable Eriksons claim that in this final
consolidation, death loses its sting. For Erik Erikson, the fulfillment
of ones life results from the actualization of ones identity, personal
and social, inside the context, demands, and opportunities of ones
perceived inner and outer worlds, and the meaningful things they have
provided.
Erikson concludes his discussion of ego integrity by pointing to a
gift that can be conferred by those in the final stage of life upon
those occupied with the demands of the earlier stages. He submits
that healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity
enough not to fear death. The sagacious suggestion reveals how ego
can actively contribute to an ethos that nurtures fulfillment in those
still busy blazing their own trail through the yet-to-be-experienced
territory of their individual and conscious lives. But it also helps to
illustrate the kind of intergenerational support that successful cultures
require. Alternatives to Eriksons formulation may be found outside of
the EH framework; most prominent currently is Greenberg, Pyszczynski, and Solomons (1986) terror management theory, essentially the
idea that life is lived with the primary purpose of avoiding thoughts
of death.

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Eriksons theory15 (1963, 247274) still stands alone in providing a

view of human development that makes sense of all stages of life and
provides guidance for intergenerational relationships. It does not drag
a theological commitment with it in order to make sense of the human
endgame, and it fits well with the evolutionary considerations that
follow.
An Evolutionary Look at Ego and Ethos
In EH personality theory, the fundamental nihilism of the existential
outlook is tempered by the unrelenting optimism of the humanistic
view, particularly apparent in the concept of the actualizing process as
a human pursuit inherently proindividual and prosocial. Is this just a
pseudoscientific form of whistling in the dark, notwithstanding the
neutrality of EH psychology on whether spiritual input is null, negative, or positive? Whether there is a future for things humanimportantly among them, our ego, ethos, and ethicsmay well be decided
within the lifetime of the next generation or two.16 Recognition of our
capacity for self-destruction is more realistic than portentous, given the
technologies we have developed: simultaneously, groups of humans
whether nationalities, religions, or ethnicitiesare no longer separated
by natural boundaries of time and space, while their powerful destructive capacity becomes ever more inventively excessive: on the one
hand, the relatively slow defilement of the whole planets ecology; on
the other, the immediate destruction of each other by weapons of mass
destruction (WMD). Where once the shooting of an arrow was a highly
personal and skilled destructive act, these days activating the switch
on a doomsday machine is much simpler, depending at most on two
keys and one button, and requires no more attention or skill than
summoning an elevator. The destructive power individuals can now
15. Erikson was analyzed by Anna Freud, as she was being supervised by her father
Sigmund. Although a child analyst, Erikson formulated the central theory of adolescence
and extended his theorizing to cover the entire human life span. It is interesting that,
while Eriksons background and orientation were psychodynamic, his depiction of the
human life cycle fits remarkably well with the substance of existential-humanistic psychology. The fit is the result, in part, of Eriksons anthropological studies of Native
Americans, and also of his pioneering work in psychohistory. It evidently also grew from
the intuitive understanding he brought to psychoanalysis that there is a tad more to life
than just id impulses and their management.
16. Our editor once remarked that, as noted in the unpublished Dostoevsky, everything
now depends on the next century.

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command, whether by word or finger tap, can destroy the ecology of

the speciesan unintended if somewhat ironic consequence of mankinds desire to triumph over nature. The conditions that have provided safety in ages pastthe separation of clans and nations by
distance and time and human-sized destructive capacitiesare no
longer in force; they have been largely superseded.
Nowadays, we tend to fear the designs of societies at antipodes more
often than we can find reason to dread the vicious bite of our unfriendly
next-door neighbors pit bull. This is a new development in the history
of species, and it provides a context of urgency within which to consider the question of whether or not we (and biological fellow travelers)
are about to hit a dead end, as have so many other species before us.
From the EH perspective, the answer depends first on the specifics of
our organismic valuing process: Is there a sound humanistic core
present within individuals that can guide both proindividual and prosocial behavior? And second: If present, can such a core be used to
build an ethos within which individuals and their societies can flourish? The possibility is worth considering, in light of the dreadfulpossible and already emergingalternatives.
Robert Wright (2000), an expositor of Darwinian thinking, has formulated a position that supports the plausibility of mankinds ability
to develop the requisite personal and social identities. His vision
fits nicely with the EH paradigm and the view of human nature
represented by the phenomenological map. Though grounded on the
dynamics of evolutionary process, his stance is not less optimistic than
the humanistic view itself. He bases his argument on the following
points:

Evolutions arrow points in the direction of complexity. Evolution

proceeds toward complexity by cycles: stable state, then challenge to
stasis, then attainment of a more highly organized new stable state
represented by an emergent new species.

Typically, the new stable state involves the formation of a cooperative

alliance of specialized parts already present, and separately active, but
not yet coordinated to act in concert.17 Complex multicelled organisms
thus are regarded as communities of specialized parts. Every development uniting specialized parts into a new whole represents a solution
17. The merger of mitochondria-based and chromosome-based cell nuclei into eukaryotic
cells containing both kinds of nuclei within a single cell wall is a dramatic example. See
Wright (2000, 251261) for a full and accessible treatment of this and similar examples.

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to the challenge to survive that is based on the formation of a new,

more complex, entity.18

The parts of a complex entity are all in the same boatthey share
a common fate in terms of life and death, and reproduction. Wright
casts this view in game-theoretical terms, pointing out that the parts of
a whole necessarily relate to each other in non-zero-sum, cooperative,
fashion, and not in a winner-takes-all type of contention that may have
existed before the parts joined into a new, more complex, more internally more interdependent, whole. He remarks that iterative games
favor non-zero-sum relationshipsif individual gains and losses across
single repetitions are kept within broad, reasonable, and not extravagant limits.19

The human species itself is specialized for adaptation: we occupy a

wide range of physically diverse territories across the globe, in expanses
that may be dry or wet, hot or cold, and so on. We respond to competition for scarce resources (implying the ultimate engine of evolutionary
development) by developing effective technology that we can use as
extensions of our raw strength, of our fighting skills,20 and of those of
our social structures that organize and integrate the talents and abilities
of individual human beings.21

Our speed of adaptation, an enormous advantage in the competitive

struggle with other species, does not proceed primarily through genetic
modifications. Those take many generations and so (in our case) many
millennia. We humans do not adapt at the relatively slow rate of other
species; rather, through the development of symbolic thought and the
complex cultural legacy it permits, we can quickly create particular
ideas, mythic or scientific, that can exist in the minds of members of a
18. In the context of our evolutionary look at ego and ethos, it seems clear that the threat
of humanitys self-annihilation provides compelling motivation for evolution to a new
ethos, a new moral ordering of social relationships.
19. He bases this assertion on the remarkable work of Axelrod (1984). Comment: The
destructive power now at hand puts us all in the same boat: out-of-control WMDs can
sink the boat, drowning us all quickly, while out-of-control exploitation of planetary
resources can lead to the same end point, if only more gradually so.
20. Our next adaptation, which needs to happen rapidly, may well involve a new understanding of personal identity, nurtured by a new, nondestructive ethos.
21. The needed complexity arises, not from the need for new physical force, but
from the need for development of social structures that effectively synthesize competitive and cooperative elements of social interactions. This is not as hard to imagine as it
might seem. Is not competition in a game of tennis between friends subordinated to the
interests of both partners in playing the game for mutual enjoyment, by preagreed
rules?

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community or culture.22 Some of these ideas will be uniquely combined

into the personal identity of an individual, and others will be influential
in the formation of social identity and the particulars of ethos that
underlie it.
Wright also discusses, albeit more tentatively, the possible role of
human consciousness in bringing about the reorganizations needed
by the destructive power we have created. His outlook, though
stated in his own particular terms, is nonetheless analogous to the
notion of sovereign self as system administrator developed earlier in
this chapter. On either account, the question of significance for human
evolution is whether the destructive force we have created can still be
controlled. From the individual perspective, the answer will depend
on whether ego, in aspects pertinent to its sovereign self, can create an
ethos that will support an ethic, which provides the values and the
imperatives needed for the survival of the species as a whole. From
the EH psychological perspective, the answer turns on the traits and
characteristics of the actualizing process, the driving force behind ego
identity formation. Put another way, are we now prepared, thanks to
our genes and memes, to develop an emergent ethos that supports
our self-actualization while tempering the impact of our destructive
capability?
Speaking of Ethics
Ethics, in its contemporary meaning,23 first and foremost implies focal
concern with deontological principles of human dos and donts in daily
professional, relational, and situational contexts. Although, functionally, ethics is a body of principles that undergirds an ethos rationalizing
a set of standards of conduct to which a sovereign self is expected to
subscribe, discourse on all issues of ethics proceeds philosophically,
giving center stage not only to logic, aesthetics, and politics, but
today, not surprisinglyto morality and theology as well.24 The phenomenological perspective is not commonly part of the conversation:
the sovereign self is seen as subordinate to, not as progenitor of, ethical
22. The necessary schematic and conceptual ideas that exist in human minds and alter
human relationships are called memes, a term and concept first proposed by Dawkins
(1989).
23. Cf. the terms classical sense, and its original scope, as compared to morals, in chap.
8 by J. J. Mulhern, in this book.
24. See Donald Baker, chap. 9 in this book.

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principles. What is the point of adding sovereign self concerns to discourse on ethics?
The answer lies in the functional relation of ethics to ethos, and thus
in ethics relevance to the sovereign selfs task of taking ethos as well
as the individual actualization process into account as it forms a full
ego identity. Through ethics as a body of abstract imperatives transmitted by an ethos, the sovereign self represents these imperatives in the
particulars of social identity. When ethical imperatives are integrated
with the equally necessary demands of the individuals actualizing
process, the sovereign self has opened the way to satisfying the remaining tasks of ego development, ultimately achieving ego integrity. The
sovereign selfs demand on ethics, then, is that its principles be formulated in a manner that provides the ethos with behaviorally prescriptive expectations on all who share it. This satisfies the egos need to
take the consequences of actions into account.
If social identity is inconsistent with personal identity, the sovereign
self has a hopeless task: now elements of the two forms of identity are
at war, and the sovereign self must hence prioritize and adjudicate,
rather than reconcile and integratein essence, thereby, recapitulating
the similarly hopeless task of the Freudian egos need to adjudicate
between the interests of the superego and the id. By contrast, and in
concert with Eriksons view of ego integrity as the final sequel to individual identity formation, the EH system can offer a possibility that is
not hopeless at all: an ethical principle that is compatible with ego
integrity and capable of representation in an ethos that moderates or
eliminates the destructive alternatives that appear to be bearing down
upon us.
Social identitydrawn from ethos, the basis on which culture is
perpetuatedplays a clear role in the viability of the human species
and its capacity to adapt, survive, and overcome. Likely, it will be
formed around an ethical principle that guides the voluntary conduct
of individuals toward a society worth living in.
A Concrete Example
From a phenomenological EH perspective, based on the foregoing,
a reexamination of ethics would therefore focus on the possibility
of developing a prescription for ethical practice that might serve as
a prime constituent of an evolving ethos. As an example of one
such constituent, I will propose a principle that satisfies the ethical

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abstraction Kant formulated on the basis of reason,25 while adding to

it a stipulated duty to othersone consistent with the ever urgent need
to develop a sustainable intergenerational culture, which honors the
huge individual variations brought about by expressions of the actualizing process. Note that the soundness of the principle can be empirically probed, and it is open to supplementation or combination with
other principles, depending on experience gained over the way it operates in practice, beginning with pilot-laboratory context and, if successful, subsequently, within realistic cultural contexts as well. The principle
I will introduce next is proposed as a possibility,26 interesting not for
its logic but for its contribution to meeting the need to develop sustainable nondestructive changes in the ethos. It hence represents a direction
for social growth and evolutionnot a revolution against human
nature or a reaction to the cultural mores that have emerged this far.
The principle is practical because it takes advantage of an aspect of
human nature that, as understood in EH/Eriksonian theory, should
permit all in a human society to thrive.
Suppose, for concreteness, that we define as a primary duty our commitment to support the steps each individual takes, or attempts to take, in
the direction of ego integrity; and, for ease of reference, let us call this
duty the EH ethic of ego integrity. The principle falls under Kants
well-known categorical imperative27 and satisfies Kants further humanistic elaboration.28 Of course Kants categorical imperative does not
uniquely favor this particularization: its appeal rests instead on the
validity of the EH/Eriksonian theorys testable assumptions about
human nature.29 Thusand not insignificantlyas an expression of
EH theory, the principle is compatible both with purely evolutionary
and with foremost theological or spiritual commitments.
The EH ethic of ego integrity is an example of a tenet which, if
honored, points the way to a nondestructive ethos quite capable of
providing the basis of a social identity. Integrated with a personal
identity guided by the individuals particular actualizing process, the
EH ethic of ego integrity thus supports the formation of an ego identity
25. See Paul Guyer, chap. 3 in this book.
26. See Krippendorff (2008) regarding possibilistic systems.
27. That is, act so that the [determining motive of will] may be capable of becoming a
universal law for all rational beings (Ming 1908).
28. That is, act so as to use humanity, whether in your own person or in others, always
as an end, and never merely as a means (Ming 1908).
29. For an incisive critique in connection with modern sociopolitical civic contexts, see
Cameron (2008).

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153

compatible with both prosocial and self-expressive behaviorjust the

sort of synthesis that provides the gateway to further ego development,
and toward the ultimate attainment of ego integrity.
The ethos that supports the EH ethic of ego integrity might well be
expected to be stable and enduring, becauseas the culmination of a
fully developed ego identity that it isego integrity never is a scarce
resource but, rather, a richness available to each and every individual.
Living out this possibility in a community would also provide for a
contribution every older generation could make to the generations following, thereby adding to the enlivenment of each. The principle
simultaneously also would promote social relationships that include
acknowledgment and respect for each persons own identity and need
to mature through willing participation in the succession of life roles.
Most deeply, perhaps, the principle promotes sovereign-self awareness
and genuine respect for the actualizing processin oneself, but surely
also in others.
The EH ethic of ego integrity supports an ethos, and of course laws
consistent with it, that keep competitive interactions within a framework of gains and losses at magnitudes consistent with win/win solutions to iterative games30 and thus preempt the kind of humdrum ethos
that views competition and risk as inherently exploitative or distasteful. The job for an ethos and for the community that embodies it is to
keep the risks and gains of competition, as well as the magnitude of
gains and losses from competitive interaction, within humane and
sustainable bounds. In light of Axelrods remarkable findings, the magnitude of the task seems less than daunting: it is capable of regulation
by a system of laws similar to those already at work in many democratic societies.
What about greed, avariciousness, or covetous desire? Within the EH
framework, these and other inherently antisocial lusts, too, are regarded
as compensations for unexpressed portions of an individuals actualizing process, not as a fundamental part of the genome. Whether or not
it is realistic to view greed and many other overwhelming urges to
dominate as pathological expressions of stunted personal growth
(Maslow 1954) is at bottom a researchable question, albeit one that
cannot be answered without taking account of the ethos within which
sovereign self-activity takes place. From a rational point of view, it
would be better to gamble on the EH view of the actualizing process.
30. Axelrod (1984, chap. 3).

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David R. Williams

The rewards of a successful gamble are ample, and worth the effort,
while the penalty if the gamble is wrong is not likely to be worse than
the disaster that looms if there is no major effort to reformulate the
current ethos from which the destructive forces that confront us have
emerged.
Is This Example of an EH Ethic Realistic?
Little is gained by supposing that the EH ethic of ego integrity
embedded in an ethos and a supportive communityis less realistic
than the cataclysmic alternatives it rises to counter. This ethical principle provides a promising starting point from which a workable
ethic, of the kind that is needed now, can be developed: if anything
resembling the posited EH actualizing process can be identified and
supported in a substantial number of individual lives, the process
should prove capable of guiding individual growth from ego identity
to ego integrity, fulfilling the ethical principles positive promise of
contributing to an emergent and nonlethal social order. Whereas a
direct inquiry involving a multigenerational study in model cultures
would be repellant and grandiose, there fortunately do exist avenues
of research that could be pursued under much more modest requirements and circumstances.
Some examples of appropriate and potentially important areas of
inquiry could include the following interrogations:

Does the phenomenological map satisfy Sullivans one-genus postulate, and successfully describe some common features of the territory
of human awareness? Are these features recognizable in all stages of
adult life and in a wide variety of cultures? In other words, is the
phenomenological map generally descriptive of human experience?
Whatever implications might be drawn about the purpose of consciousness or human nature, if the mapping holds, is a separate questionthe implications of the phenomenological map could be developed
by investigation of further questions; some, like those that follow.

Is communication at the sovereign self level meaningful and engaging when it involves individuals situated very differently along the
spectrum of human talents and abilities? This question goes to the
feasibility of establishing a community of sovereign selves, each dedicated to empowering the others efforts to honor their individual
endeavors to self-actualize. One way to explore this would be to

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compare the effectiveness of task-focused groups that honor the sovereign self perspective of each member with the effectiveness of taskoriented groups that do not. It would be instructive reliably to assess
bonding among diverse categories of individuals within particular
communities as a function of whether or not each takes the sovereign
self perspective of the others seriously, as EH theory requires.

In task-oriented groups, is it important to take each members efforts

to self-actualize into account, so that participation is personally meaningful, or is it a distraction to do so? Do groups so organized turn out
to be more effective and productive than statistically and otherwise
comparable groups, whose members participate only for rewards that
are unrelated to the personal meaningfulness of their participation?
Probably, if rewards for participation were balanced between groups,
to equate overall effectiveness, the costs and benefits of personally
meaningful participation could be quantitatively assessed.

Does ignoring or inhibiting aspects of individuals actualizing process

have deleterious effects on an individuals experience of living and
capacity to contribute to others (as the EH position holds), or is it best
to hold at least some aspects of individual actualizing tendencies in
check (as psychoanalytic thinking would maintain)? Does despair
among the elderly arise exclusively when the individuals actualizing
process has been in part neglected, ignored, or suppressed? Does some
sort of danger for individuals or communities lurk in one or another
part of the fully developed actualizing process? More generally, when
the actualizing process is fully honored and respected, is the result
really dependably benign and prosocial?31
These and similar questions, appropriately formulated for empirical
inquiry, are well within the ambit of established research methodologies.
And the results they produce would enhance or diminish the plausibility of taking the familiar features of ordinary human awareness into
account when considering the evolution of ethos and its implications
for a reexamination of ethics. Rephrased, revised, or supplemented as
evidence indicates, if these propositions were not robustly affirmed,
31. There may be occasional problems with individuals whose actualizing process is
inadequate or dangerous. The question is not whether there are any exceptions to the
EH expectation, but whether there exists a substantial majority of individuals whose
actualizing process is waiting to be encouraged. The practical need to shield group
process from occasional malignant outliers is an obligation any social system must
meet.

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then the possible contribution of the EH ethic of ego integrity would

be in doubt. While there may be other paths to the goal of establishing
nondestructive relations among human beings as individuals and
among their social groupings, it is doubtful that EH psychology would
be a part of these other pursuits. To cope with a fundamentally malign
human nature, different means would be needed.
Research on questions like these promises to contribute to an understanding of whether the EH ethic of ego integrity has practical implications for governing the relations among individuals and their
communities by focusing on relationships at the sovereign self level.
Appropriate research could be designed to illuminate the strengths and
limitations of the EH-qua-Eriksons assumptions, thereby also running
the risk of destroying the plausibility of this approach. Although the
risk of falsifying premises is always a possibility through worthwhile
research, that very same risk is also a potential source of strength: for,
pari passu, evenhanded research has the capacity to make valid hypotheses more likely to be taken seriously.
Conclusion
I have approached the question of reexamining ethics from the point
of view of the apparent realities of everyday consciousness, summarized in a phenomenological map that treats these realities as the territory of subjective human experience. The main features shown on the
map are a sovereign self, where awareness in successive moments of
ones now somehow takes place; a region called mind that is involved
in producing these realities; and an array of underlying outside sources
of both sovereign self and mind that extend from the material to the
spiritual. In order to apply these features of human experience to questions of ethics, the map is to be used within the framework of existential/humanistic (EH) psychology, animated by Erik Eriksons theory of
adult human development and imparted purpose by Robert Wrights
analysis of the evolutionary challenge opposed to mankind by the
success of its technological achievements.
The phenomenological map depicts the outlook of an individual
going about the task of consciously managing his or her particular
human life. I have argued that the process of individual growth and
self-actualization, with its promise of the attainable satisfactions of ego
integrity, suggests the practicality of a community whose ethos is based
on an EH ethic of ego integrity, expressed as the duty of each to

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157

support the steps every member takes or attempts to take in the

direction of ego integrity. A community that successfully joins selfactualizing individuals would need to support a broad variety of pathways to ego integrity, from the highly competitive to the inner directed,
honoring each while coordinating (not in a sense of control, but in a
spirit of facilitation) their contributions to the whole.
Does the EH ethic of ego integrity imply a Pollyanna view of human
nature and require unrealistic support from a utopian polity? No:
instead, it calls for consideration of the neglected yet likely productive
resources available in the phenomena of awareness and the desire of
individuals to actualize the possibilities of their human nature, supported by a social context governed by practical preceptsof the sort
proposed by Axelrod. This is a workable combination of ego and ethos,
and as such also available for empirical exploration. Modified according to experience, it opens a path toward meeting the challenges to
survival that reveal the dark side of our spectacular technological
achievementsincluding and in particular our newfound prowess in
dual-use technologies.
The phenomenological view, expressed within the framework I
have advanced to support it, merits consideration as a step toward
not only a more successful but also a more humane social evolution,
along with the other views of the future of ethics that this book offers.
One thing is clear: humanity has a realistic and perhaps final chance
to develop an ethos built on the notion that each individual has an
obligation to permit every other individual to prosper and to thrive
according to his or her human potential. Failure to develop in this
direction points toward the dusk of our species, and of many others on
the planet as well. The habitually largely neglected facts of our
phenomenology point in an alternative, significant, and powerful new
direction.
References
Adler, Alfred (1935/1956) The Use of Heredity and Environment, in Heinz L.
Ansbacher and Rowena R. Ansbacher, Editors, The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler,
New York: Basic Books.
Axelrod, Robert (1984) The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.
Cameron, Kevin (2008) Beyond Ideology, Toward a New Ethic of Freedom? in Jose V.
Ciprut, Editor, Freedom: Reassessments and Rephrasings, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Dawkins, Robert (1989) The Selfish Gene, New York: Oxford University Press.

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Erikson, Erik H. (1963) Childhood and Society, New York: Norton.

Goldstein, Kurt (1939) The Organism, New York: American Book.
(1940) Human Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Greenberg, Jeff, Tom Pyszczynski, and Seldon Solomon (1986) The Causes and Consequences of a Need for Self-Esteem: A Terror Management Theory, in R. F. Baumeister,
Editor, Public and Private Self, New York: Springer-Verlag.
Guyer, Paul (2008) Indeterminacy, and Freedom of the Will, in Jose V. Ciprut, Editor,
Indeterminacy: The Mapped, the Navigable, and the Uncharted, Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press.
Jung, Carl G. (1917/1971) Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Collected Works of
C. G. Jung, vol. 7, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
(1921/1971) Psychological Types, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, vol. 6, Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Krippendorff, Klaus (2008) Four (In)determinabilitiesNot One! in Jose V. Ciprut,
Editor, Indeterminacy: The Mapped, the Navigable, and the Uncharted, Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.
Maslow, Abraham H. (1954) Motivation and Personality, New York: Harper.
(1971) The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, New York: Penguin.
May, Rollo R. (1958) Ontological Guilt, in Rollo May, Ernest Angel, and Henri
Ellenberger, Editors. Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology, New York:
Basic Books.
Ming, John (1908) The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton.
Rogers, Carl R. (1951) Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications, and Theory.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Sullivan, Harry S. (1953) The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry, New York: W. W.
Norton.
Wilber, Ken (2000) Integral Psychology, Boston: Shambha.
Wright, Robert (2000) Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, New York: Pantheon.

Trust, Ethics, and Markets

Paul R. Kleindorfer

The basic thought I would like to convey is this. In line with the work
of Francis Fukuyama (1995) and Adam Seligman (1997), it is precisely
at moments of uncertainty about the future and when extant norms
and existing obligations somehow appear to have lost traction in
predicting behavior that trust is essential. In the dynamic global
economy in which we live, new products and new services are emerging daily, driven by the great engine of innovation, modern capitalism.
Markets are the essential institution by which such products and services are financed, produced, and sold. To be sure, not every detail is
specified, let alone transparent, in a market transaction. A great deal
of what is necessary for markets to work efficiently arises from an
underlying trust on the part of market participants that the products
being produced and sold, as well as the methods of payment for
them, are governed by reasonably honest people who adhere to basic
principles of integrity. When the foundations of trust disappear,
markets themselves become unwieldy or cease to operate altogether.
The resulting erosion of the efficiency of markets and trade can significantly affect the global economy that produces the necessary output to
sustain the 6 billion souls on our planet, with huge consequences for
well-being.
These thoughts are not just abstract musings on my part. Many
researchers have pointed out the importance of trust and equity in
interpersonal relationships. Even economics, the dismal science,
has noted the import of trust as an essential element of social
capital, joining other elements of physical and human capital as the
building blocks of an economys ability to create and sustain value.
For example, Knack and Keefer (1997) use attitudinal surveys to
demonstrate empirically that certain measures of trust (derived from
their surveys) have surprisingly strong relationships with economic

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growth.1 Similarly, La Porta and colleagues (1997) show strong positive

statistical associations across countries in their sample between a
survey-based measure of trust and judicial efficiency, and strong negative associations between the very same measure and government corruption. Smith, Carlisle, and Michaud (2003) show that trust can be
very important in promoting regulatory changes in response to what
citizens may believe, rightly or wrongly, to be unfair adjustments in
prices or terms of trade. These results are all clear indicators of trust as
a key element of social capital.
Let us consider how important trust is in even the simplest business
transactions, such as purchasing household items at a supermarket. In
the process, the consumer uses money or credit cards to purchase items
manufactured by companies from around the world. What elements of
trust are inherent in such transactions? These include the presumption
that our money will be honored at the store, that the quality of the
product is reasonable, and that the prices charged by the store are sufficiently competitive for comparative shopping at other stores not to
be deemed worth the customers while.
Consider the fundamental role of trust in the use of money in these
transactions. Most of us no longer even think of the monetary infrastructure that assures the value of instruments such as money and
coinage that reflects the assumed current and the presumed future
rights embodied in it to the usufruct of the planet. In some parts of the
world, where political corruption and ineptitude cloud the value of
money, very different strategies have to be adopted by citizens to make
sure that they are able to continue to fulfill their fundamental needs for
food, shelter, and security. Money, in effect, is a symbolic source of the
rights of citizens to call on anonymous others to help meet these needs,
now and in the future. Undermine its value and you move citizens
several steps back from todays economy, where specialization and
narrow competence can be assumed to provide a secure existence,
toward more primitive economies where each citizen has to be individually responsible to sustain self and family.
Further elements of trust undergird the use of credit or debit cards
if these are used to pay for transactions. For example, we trust the store
owner not to set up a back-office operation to copy our credit card
information, manufacture credit cards corresponding to it, and sell
1. They show, in particular, that an increase of one standard deviation in the surveybased trust indicator they use is associated with about a one-half-standard-deviation
increase in economic growth across the same country sample.

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these to the highest bidder. The reader may argue that the reason for
such trust is the thought that if the storeowner did engage in such
tactics, law enforcement agencies would readily discover the misdeed
and exercise such severe sanctions on the owner that, in anticipation
of this result, no rational person (or owner) would undertake such
activities. This confidence (as Adam Seligman would define it) in the
institutions that govern the market is what allows us to go to stores
and supermarkets even when we do not know the owners or employees of these establishments. But note the key issue here. If we have to
rely on the credible threat of punishment for wrongdoing to assure
compliance with reasonable and fair business practices, and if this is
the only way to assure such practices, then the size of the regulatory
force assuring monitoring and compliance will have to be much larger
than it would under the rather more appealing scenario in which most
store owners can be trusted to do the right thing because of their sense
of moral obligation and the personal fulfillment they feel from acting
according to this sense.
Consider the issue of product quality and safety. We purchase canned
or packaged goods even though few of us, if any, think of the infrastructure that has been put in place under modern capitalism to assure
that the products we buy have met basic requirements regarding
health impacts in their manufacture and distribution. Of course, we are
aware that there are federal and state agencies that have this responsibility, but we operate under an assumption that somehow their reach
has been sufficient to assure the quality of each and every product we
buy. If trust in these institutions is eroded in the stores where produce
is sold, then only products with a well-known brand can be purchased,
with the general understanding that large brands have a huge stake
in maintaining their reputation and will therefore be forced by the
market to adhere to the strictest of standards in producing and selling
their produce. But that description does not come anywhere near the
nature of the economy in which we currently live, in which more than
half of the value added of the U.S. economy, and even greater percentages of the global economy, arises from goods and services sold by
small establishments with little or no brand image at stake. In this case,
too, we could rely on regulators to act on our behalf in attempting to
assure good behavior on the part of such establishments, but to do
so would set up a monitoring station for every transaction and every
establishment, effectively bringing the global economy to a standstill.
Instead, what we do is trust in our fellow citizens to exercise

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prudent and reasonable controls on their own, using monitoring

and regulatory sanctions only ex post in those instances in which the
few rogues who do not comport with such reasonable practices are
sanctioned.
But what happens when a general attitude begins to emerge that
there are more than a few rogues around? What happens, say, when
the public, around the world, begins to believe that we have lost our
rudder or do not need a moral compass, given the success of rogues
that run not just the corner grocery store, but now also some of the
largest companies and organizations in the world? The answer is yet
to be found, but surely it will call for additional monitoring and regulation. And, perhaps as a result, newer revelations of rogue behavior will
surface. Such a dynamic has the clear potential to lead to a graveyard
spiral if unchecked. To illustrate the dangers that confront us, I want
to consider the evolution of two salient examples from my research
indicating the delicate balance between markets, ethics, and trust, and
the severe problems that arise from an erosion of trust. The examples
are taken from the energy sector and the chemical sector. These sectors
illustrate different strands of the preceding supermarket story, in that
each is concerned with the centrality of trust, along with the consequences of eroding trust, for the companies and institutions that govern
market transactions in major sectors of the economy.
Energy: The Double Whammy of California and Enron2
The California electricity crisis did not start as a crisis of trust. It was
rather part of a more general failure of deregulation. Policies were
adopted that were relatively easy to adopt, while other policies that
were necessary for success simply were not followed. In principle, the
California restructuring that began in 1998 appeared to be a promising
development. It seemed to apply some of the recent theoretical developments in restructuring energy markets proposed by reputable economists, and it seemed on the face of it to offer the potential for greater
competition and incentives, and to encourage the California utilities to
become more efficient.
However, as it was implemented, the California approach made
many serious errors. Starting with the nuts and bolts, California failed
2. For a further discussion of the crisis of trust in energy markets, see Crew and
Kleindorfer (2002).

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to introduce efficient pricing schemes and smart metering, especially

for smaller customers. As a result, the price signals received in the
wholesale market were not transmitted to final consumers. Another
area of nuts and bolts was forecasting. True, the state of California had
built little capacity. But at the time of restructuring in 1998, it seemed
to have an adequate reserve margin of around 23 percent, which is why
any forecasts of capacity shortages were ignored. This attitude was
imprudent, not only because the low elasticities of electricity markets
have been common knowledge for many years but also because California, owing to its extensive use of hydroelectric power, is vulnerable
to drought. In the event of shortage, elementary economics says that
price must rise to very high levels. Moreover, the experience of the
United Kingdom with a bidding system that was similar to that proposed (and eventually adopted) in California was that market power
was easily exploited. All these lessons were ignored, and the industry
went headlong into purchasing all of its electricity on the spot and
short-term markets.
When demand started to outstrip supply in the summer of 2000 and
natural gas prices soared, the spot and short-term markets hit the roof,
and claims were made about generators exploiting the market power
that the bidding system made available to them. Since the utilities had
agreed to a price cap, which the California Public Utilities Commission
(CPUC) refused to raise, this process led to huge deficits for Southern
California Edison and the ultimate declaration of bankruptcy on April
7, 2001, by Pacific Gas and Electric. The CPUCs refusal to allow an
increase in price when there has been a major change in the price of a
utilitys major input was largely unprecedented. But the commission
had come under increasing pressure from California consumers, who
had begun to lose faith in the whole electric power restructuring exercise. The resulting financial problems for the states major utilities
created a massive funding problem for the state of California, which
took over the task of buying power for the failing utilities. Unfortunately, the state authorities responsible for buying replacement power
did so quite ineptly and thereby created a significant additional burden
for future generations.
Californias approach to its energy problems will be with us for a
long time. They have already cost the state of California, the utilities,
and consumers many billions of dollars, and the outflow will continue.
Many believe it was one of the primary reasons for the success of the
recall petition that ended up replacing Governor Gray Davis by Arnold

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Schwarzenegger in the fall of 2003. Unfortunately, now that these

general lessons about what went wrong are understood, and at a
moment when change is most needed, little is happening. Why is this
the case? The primary reason is that the entire California power market
and its institutions simply have lost legitimacy and the public trust.
This outcome occurred in part because the process was so badly
managed, but ineptness was also accompanied by revelations that
some generation companies made huge profits while distribution companies went bankrupt, and by a complete lack of transparency in the
operations of the market. The result has been finger-pointing and
adversarial mudslinging in the California Assembly and before the
CPUC, but nothing that would approximate an open discourse likely
to lead to a constructive outcome.
Add to this volatile mix the Enron story, including Enrons ultimate
declaration of bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, and you have in hand
the makings of a disaster for the entire energy sector. What made
Enron so disastrous was not simply its, say, twisted, accounting and
governance practices, or its virtual disappearance overnight from
the energy trading business for which until then it had provided the
backbone infrastructure. What struck most Americans about this
horrid affair was that Enrons demise took with it the accumulated
pensions and collective savings of thousands of Enron employees, as
well as of others whose companies had been purchased by Enron and
whose employee pension plans had been converted into Enron stock.
Overnight energy trading came to a standstill. As an acquaintance of
mine, long active in energy trading, said early in 2002: The trading
game is dead. There is no one to trade with; no one trusts anyone to
execute even cash-backed trades. The reason for this result is a collapse of confidence in the institutions set up to conduct the trading
business and a dissolution of trust that economic agents in this sector
will undertake even what is in their apparent self-interest to do. The
ripple effects of California and Enron together will be with us for some
time. In energy markets, post Enron, we see problems that would normally be overcome through a straightforward cost-benefit calculus of
alternatives. As noted by Smith, Carlisle, and Michaud (2003), the
problem is that public trust has been so eroded that this normal logical
course of action is met by skepticism at every single step, altogether
leading to a slowing down of adversarial confrontations of evidence
and counterevidence, and much cynicism about the motives of all
public, private, politicalparties involved. The result is inaction and

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increasing risk of knee-jerk governmental interventions with potentially negative consequences.

Environmental Justice in the U.S. Chemical Industry
Sustainability and corporate social responsibility have been important
themes in the global chemical industry, especially since the terrible
accident in December 1984 in Bhopal, India, and the grounding of the
Exxon Valdez in 1989 in Prince Edward Sound in Alaska. These events
galvanized the industry and led to pressures around the world on
chemical firms to clean up their act. As these tragedies occurred just
as the Brundtland Commission Report3 on sustainability appeared,
taken together, these events made for a powerful message on the importance of managing the environmental impacts of economic activity.
Now, a few decades wiser, we see from the global summits at Rio de
Janeiro in 1992 and in Johannesburg in 2002 that achieving a balance
between rich and poor and between this generation and the next in
using the resources of this planet will be difficult, indeed. Notwithstanding the lack of consensus about these issues and the confrontational nature of the debate about sustainability (see, e.g., Dryzek 1997),
some progress has been made in the area of promoting better environmental, health, and safety practices on the part of businesses, especially
the ones active in industrialized countries where nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) are capable of acting as surrogates for the public
in bringing pressure on companies and regulators to preserve the environment. A new appreciation has begun to develop around the idea that
two interconnected systems, the little e, the economy, and the big E,
the Earth, must function in harmony to promote responsible and
viable strategies for the long term, both for the planet as an integrated
whole and for the globes denizens as an indivisible constituency.
The little e, the economy, operates best in a decentralized mode in
which individual households and businesses daily interact in relatively
anonymous ways to trade labor for wages and salaries, to provide
investment capital, and to purchase the products and services provided
by businesses. The big E, planet Earth, however, requires more than
3. Chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, the World Commission on Environment and
Development (WCED), convened by the United Nations I 1983 to consider the consequences for economic and social development of the deteriorating status of natural
resources and the human environment, is often referred to by its chairmans name.
Ed.

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this laissez-faire approach to operate efficiently. Many of the attributes

of ecosystems, including air and water quality, the extent of biodiversity, and nonrenewable resource reserves, do not fare well when left
entirely to the mercy of decentralized market forces. The main reason
is that there are significant externalities associated with these public
goods, and markets are not effective at allocating public goods.
Achieving both efficiency and equity in the process of allocating public
goods requires centralized intervention by the government to specify
the rights, roles, and responsibilities of citizens and companies in preserving these public goods. This amounts to circumscribing the little
e activities in the political economy with regulations and prescriptions
specifying acceptable standards for company performance. The resulting balance between the little e and the big E systems is one in
which companies and citizens are encouraged to undertake decentralized actions, as made possible within the constraints imposed by norms
and regulations.
What has all this to do with trust, ethics, and markets? The basic
issue is this: Trust promotes and requires openness from parties with
interdependent actions and payoffs. Ethics requires a commitment to
established principles of action such as honesty and fairness. Markets
require a level playing field if they are to function properly at all. And
in the context of sustainable environmental practices, these three basic
ingredients, trust, ethics, and markets, are reinforced by social norms,
by formal regulations, or indeed by both. Without the monitoring and
enforcement incentives provided by espoused norms or regulations,
there remains a strong likelihood in environmental affairs of a graveyard spiral. Rogue companies giving no thought to their impacts on
the environment invade the market with lower costs that ultimately
drive out the companies that invest resources to reduce their negative
effects on the environment. This process leads to a perceptible erosion
of the basic standards of practice in industry and to further invasion
by even worse environmental offenders, with all the obvious long-run
negative outcomes. What will arrest this process is a commitment, by
the better players in this market, to environmental sustainability, evidenced by credible information on their performance, and reinforced
by social norms or regulations to assure that the less engaged and lower
performing companies face sufficient sanctions to discourage them
from entering or remaining in that market.
Trust enters into this equation in the sense and to the extent that a
society can justifiably begin to rely on its citizens and on company

Trust, Ethics, and Markets

167

executives to do the right thing rather than focusing on the narrow

calculus of inspections, fines, sanctions, and the other tools of governmental regulation to achieve compliance with environmental standards. Reliance on ethical behavior may be induced and reinforced by
informational regulation (Kleindorfer and Orts 1998) substituting information provision for traditional command-and-control regulation.
Informational regulation requires companies to provide audited information on environmental performance to external stakeholders, including the communities that host facilities of such companies. The idea is
to rely on local stakeholders and their surrogates for the monitoring of
the ethics of local companies, based on the information gathered, and
to bring pressure for improvements where stakeholders believe local
norms of behavior are not being respected.
Relying on exemplary ethical behavior and on volunteered factual
information rather than on traditional government-imposed regulation
can save a great deal of money, since clearly it should necessitate much
less infrastructurefrom inspectors and enforcement officials right up
to courtsfor adjudicating disputes. Thus simple information regulation is a more effective alternative when it works. The basic requirement for it to work, however, is that there be some trustby those at
risk of being adversely affected by any negative environmental actions
on the part of such companiesin the intentions of those running the
companies that can affect the environment. And there has to be also a
sense of trust by company management and shareholders that every
other company in the same sector will face roughly the same pressures
for environmental performance. Absent these ingredients of multilateral trust, the only remaining alternative is the hammer of governmental regulation, with all of its attendant inefficiencies.
Let me illustrate these points briefly with data from the U.S. chemical
industry. The tragedy at Bhopal in December 1984, followed by a subsequent release of aldicarb oxime from a production facility in Institute,
West Virginia, resulted in great public concern in the United States
about the potential danger posed by major chemical accidents. This
public concern was translated into law in section 112(r) of the 1990
U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments. Section 112(r) sets forth a series of
requirements aimed at preventing and minimizing the consequences
associated with accidental chemical releases. These requirements
are the basis of U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys (EPA) rule
Risk Management Programs for Chemical Accidental Release Prevention (hereafter the Rule). With some exceptions, the Rule requires all

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Paul R. Kleindorfer

regulated facilities to prepare and execute a Risk Management Program

(RMP), which captures certain details about the facilitys accident
prevention program, emergency response program, and hazard assessment, along with administrative information about the facility. The
Rule also requires the facility to develop worst-case scenarios and to
provide to the regulators and to the public a summary of the facilitys
five-year history of accidental releases.
Beginning June 21, 1999, the Rule (under section 68.42) also required
that regulated facilities submit to the EPA their five-year history of
accidental releases as part of their Risk Management Plan and update
their submission every five years, or periodically when significant
changes occur. The resulting data, including worst-case data, were
intended to be released to the public, along the lines of informational
regulation. The thought here is that releasing such information to the
public would promote a healthy exchange between companies, as well
as among their local communities and emergency response organizations, all together helping to promote long-term reductions in the use
of hazardous chemicals. These data have given rise to a host of studies,
on only one of which I want to report herenamely, a study of environmental justice and fairnessas a topic most germane to our discussion of trust, ethics, and markets in this chapter.
Environmental justice addresses whether health risks or environmental impacts from industrial activities are distributed in a manner
that befits basic cultural and social notions of fairness. An extensive
body of research in political economics, public policy, and public health
has noted associations between environmental and health risks arising
from industrial facilities and the socioeconomic status (SES) of communities hosting them. These statistically significant associations could
be caused by anticipation on the part of companies of lower levels of
collective action and monitoring in communities with lower SES, and
therefore by their preference to locate hazardous facilities there. They
could, however, also result from migration of groups of lower SES to
sites where such facilities have located, since property values may be
lower in such locations. Whatever the reason, a finding that particular
communities are at significantly greater risk than others raises fundamental questions for citizens as to the fairness and legitimacy of environmental regulation. These questions, in turn, can strongly affect the
trust that citizens place in their government. If they feel that the environment can be sold to the highest bidder, their trust in other transactional aspects within the purview of the governing body also wanes.

Trust, Ethics, and Markets

169

Empirical findings on the subject of environmental injustice have

been mixed. Brown (1995) found that African Americans and lower-SES
Americans are disproportionately likely to live near hazardous waste
sites, to be exposed to air pollution or other toxic releases, and not to
receive relief from regulatory decision or toxic cleanups. Perlin, Wong,
and Sexton (2001) found that African Americans lived closer to the
nearest industrial emission source than a white population did, that
African Americans were more likely than whites to live within a mere
two miles of multiple emission sources, and that children five years
of age and younger who happened to be of African American origin
were substantially more likely to live near one or more sources of
industrial air pollution than white children in the same age bracket.
Mitchell, Thomas, and Cutter (1999) found in their examination of
South Carolina chemical facilities that, indeed, there exist significant
negative correlations between the SES of host counties and the risk
imposed by chemical facilities, but that differences in risk across counties are primarily the result of migration patterns of lower-SES individuals to the vicinity of the facilities and not the result of the original
location decisions by facility owners.
Perhaps the most striking results on environmental justice are those
obtained from the RMP data. Using these data together with the 1990
census data, Elliott and colleagues (2004) looked for two main potential
impacts of community characteristics that would reflect two essential
sources of risk to surrounding populations: (1) risks associated with
the decision about where to locate hazardous facilities, better known
as location risk, and (2) risks associated with methods of operation and
standards of care used in existing facilities, which experts term operations risk. What these authors found was that larger-sized and more
chemical-intensive production facilities tend to be located in counties
with larger African American populations and in counties with high
levels of income inequalitythat is, counties with both higher median
incomes and higher levels of poverty. And even after adjusting for
location risk, substantial residual risk of accidents was in evidence in
the RMP data for facilities in heavily African American counties. (In
fact, on average, an increase by 90 percent in the likelihood of an accident was in evidence for facilities located in counties with a population
more than 20 percent African American compared to localities with a
population less than 1 percent African American.) Since these data
(covering the 19952000 period) are of recent vintage, this is a very
disquieting finding. It suggests the possibility that, in the United States,

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Paul R. Kleindorfer

societys risks from chemical accidents may be borne inordinately by

minority communities.
What are the likely consequences of this sort of finding in a democratic society? First, it is to be noted that the finding itself is the result
of open sharing of all accident data (and of the census data) arising
from the 112(r) Rule in the chemical industry. What will likely happen
is that these findings will lead to significant pressure to determine more
clearly the true reasons for this apparent inequity in the risks borne by
local communities from the siting and operations of chemical facilities.
In the ensuing discussion, we will see a new balance being struck
between the degree of openness of the chemical industry in sharing
information, the degree of trust of the public in allowing companies to
operate more autonomously, the degree of environmental regulation,
and the attending extent of enforcement that results from the government. In the process, a number of market areas will be affected by the
costs and structure of the resulting balance. These naturally include
product markets where chemicals are bought and sold, labor markets
that determine who will work for chemical companies, insurance
markets that face both the direct costs of disruptions from chemical site
accidents and liability suits from a now far better informed public, and
capital markets that will determine the amount and the price of capital
allocated to the chemical sector over time. All the participants in these
markets will be watching this gripping story as it unfolds, influenced
by the evolving information on the safety and environmental impacts
of companies in this sector.
Experimental Evidence on the Foundations of Trust and
Cooperation
Experimental evidence provides a large number of interesting insights
on the determinants of trust and their interplay with market settings.
Let me begin with a discussion of the classic results on cooperation in
so-called prisoners dilemma games. As will become clear, in the
present context I am thinking of cooperation as willingness between
two or more parties to enter into agreements that are executed by
sharing information and that are then equitably completed by dividing
the results ex post, in the manner originally agreed. This is to be contrasted with a more defensive posture, which may yield lower overall
results but may also protect one individual or party against opportunistic exploitation by another.

Trust, Ethics, and Markets

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Table 7.1
Payoffs for Classic Prisoners Dilemma Game
Player 1s Strategies

Player 2s Strategies
C2

D2

C1

4, 4

2, 6

D1

6, 2

0, 0

The basic point I want to make is that communication, fairness, and

low interpersonal risk are essential ingredients in promoting trust and
cooperation. And these very same ingredients are therefore important
in leading to sustainable markets.
Table 7.1 presents the simplest version of the classic prisoners
dilemma (PD) game.4 Here, one of the two players can either cooperate (strategy C) or defect (strategy D). This game has the following
story associated with it. Two thieves are caught, without the incriminating evidence of their booty, which has been hidden in a location known
only to them. They are held in different cells; hence they cannot communicate with each other. They each have two strategies: remain silent
(the C strategy) or turn states evidence and thereby incriminate the
other thief (the D strategy). If both remain silent, they are soon released,
hence able to split their booty, and to live wellwith maximally shared
utility payoffs of (4, 4). Should both incriminate each other, then both
receive light sentences, resulting in utility payoffs of (0, 0). And if only
one of them were to turn states evidence, then that prisoner would go
free and now be able to appropriate the others share of the booty, while
the other thief would be doomed to remain in prison and to serve a
full term, with a payoff of (2, 6), in comparison to (6, 2) for the snitch,
depending on who talks first. The individually rational solution to this
problem, for either player, is to choose D. It is a dominant strategy in
the sense that it assures the best payoff for one player, no matter what
the other player chooses. But if both players choose this individually
rational strategy, the outcome is (0, 0), clearly inferior to what they
4. See Kleindorfer, Kunreuther, and Schomaker (1993) for a fuller discussion of the gametheoretic foundations underlying this discussion. In particular, we illustrate this type of
game only for two players; similar results hold for more than two players. When n > 2,
the resulting games are referred to as commons problems or social dilemma games. They
illustrate the tension between individual rationality and the benefits of cooperation.

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Paul R. Kleindorfer

could have if only they chose to cooperate and, by keeping their mouth
shut, jointly attain (4, 4).
When might one expect a noncooperative solution to obtain (D1, D2)
rather than a cooperative solution (C1, C2)? This has been the subject
of continuing experimental work. The typical experiment proceeds as
follows. Subjects are paired but remain separated from one another
during the play of the game. They are presented with a series of
games of the general form of table 7.1 and asked to indicate their choice
of strategy for each. Their choices are then recorded, and they are
informed immediately of the choice of the other player and their resulting payoffs. In some experiments, subjects know they are playing
against the same player for the entire series of games; in others,
they know they are playing against different players each game;
and for some experiments, subjects do not know whether or not their
opponent is changing over the series of games. For each such fixed
constellation of knowledge, subjects are given a monetary reward
based on the payoffs they have accumulated at the end of a series of
games. The basic question of game-theoretical interest in these experiments is this: When subjects of a particular type (be it gender, age,
culture, etc.) play a series of PD games, what then determines how
frequently the cooperative solution (C1, C2) will be played relative to
the other three strategy combinations? Some of the major findings of
interest to our inquiry hereon trust, ethics, and marketsare the
following.
Communication and Reputation
The possibility to establish open communication between players,
even by insecure mail, leads to a significant increase in the frequency
of cooperative play. Face-to-face play leads to even greater cooperation.
The order of magnitude of likely increase even through simple communication is typically of the order of 30 percent cooperation for noncommunicating pairs, compared to more than 80 percent cooperation
for pairs that can communicate with one another, even when such communication is allowed for a limited period of time in the few initial
plays of the game and not thereafter. In the same spirit, if the identity
of a player is known and visible to all, then that player has further
incentive to engage in cooperative play in order to enhance his/her
reputation as a cooperative player (and thereby encourage others to
play cooperatively).

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173

Table 7.2
Payoffs for Classic Prisoners Dilemma Game
Player 1s Strategies

Player 2s Strategies
C2

D2

C1

4 + x, 4 x

2, 6

D1

6, 2

0, 0

Equity
Consider the slightly altered PD game in table 7.2 from Marwell and
Schmitt (1973). This game still has the PD property that the D strategy
is a dominant strategy for both players, as long as x is between 0 and
2. The larger x is, the more inequitable will be the cooperative solution (C1, C2), although it remains clearly preferable to the noncooperative solution (D1, D2). What Marwell and Schmitt found was that the
more inequitable the game was (the larger x was), the lower the frequency of cooperative play. Thus a sense of equity or fairness appears
to be essential in promoting cooperation.
Interpersonal Risk
Consider the game in table 7.2 again, but now with the subjects in
separate rooms with no communication at all ever allowed. They play
the normal PD game given in table 7.1 first. If either player plays the
D strategy, both players receive the payoffs given in table 7.1. If (and
only if) both players somehow select the C strategy, then player 1 may
push a take button and receive extra x units of payoff from player 2.
And this action gives rise to the payoffs in table 7.2, assuming that
player 1 actually does push the take button whenever this is feasible
(as would be rational for player 1 to do). This is a situation that Marwell
and Schmitt characterize as one now exhibiting interpersonal risk. In
their experimental findings, the larger the degree of interpersonal risk
(the larger the x) is, the less likely it becomes that subjects will play
cooperatively. Beyond the Marwell and Schmitt experiments, we also
see the clear impact of interpersonal risk in practice. For example,
before firms exhibit a willingness to commit large funds to joint projects, they may insist on performance bonds or other assurances that

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Paul R. Kleindorfer

their partners will not exploit them after they incur investment (or
sunk) costs. Williamson (1985) refers to these financial assurances as
(being tantamount to) hostages, a very old solution to assuring cooperation when palpable interpersonal risk may otherwise undermine
cooperation and thwart its benefits.
There are many other experimental approaches to the study of cooperation and trust, essentially modeled along the lines of the original
Marwell and Schmitt experiments. Glaeser and colleagues (2000), for
example, have used the following games as a measure of trusting
behavior: subjects are first paired and next meet their partner. They
are then separated and play the following game. Player 1 chooses an
amount (say, between $0 and $15) to send to player 2. This amount,
whatever it is, is matched by the experimenter, who then gives the total
to player 2. Player 2 then can return some portion of the money to
player 1. The amount of money player 1 sends to player 2 is a measure
of trust in that it puts player 1 at interpersonal risk for anticipating
that player 2 will return this money to player 1. Glaeser and colleagues
were interested in what the determinants of trust, so measured, would
be. They administered a survey instrument to the subjects in their
experiments three to four weeks in advance of the experiments. The
survey asked questions about the subjects attitudes toward trust and
their experience with past trusting behavior. Not surprisingly, a primary
determinant of trust, as measured in these experimental games, was
the degree of social connection (friends or acquaintances that played the
game exhibited higher levels of trust). A second determinant was that
subjects who were paired with a partner of different race or nationality
sent back less money to ones partner (this return behavior, denoted by
Glaeser and colleagues as trustworthiness, is the mirror image of player
1s forward trusting behavior). Glaeser and colleagues discovered also
that the education and the background of each player had strong associations with their propensity to trust.
A final set of experimental results that I wish to note bear on the
subject of fairness as an element of trust and markets. This is partly in
evidence in the foregoing discussion of Marwell and Schmitts findings
on equity, but also in the following experiments by Kahneman, Knetsch,
and Thaler (KKT 1986), which go beyond those in illustrating the
complexity of fairness judgments that affect market transactions.5
5. See also Kunow (2003) for a recent detailed discussion of various approaches to fairness and justice in market contexts.

Trust, Ethics, and Markets

175

Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler propose the following principle of

dual entitlement for market transactions: Transactors have an entitlement to the terms of the reference transaction and firms are entitled to
their reference profit. A firm is not allowed to increase its profits by
arbitrarily violating the entitlement of its transactors to the reference
price, rent or wage. When the reference profit of a firm is threatened,
however, it may set new terms that protect its profit at transactors
expense (KKT 1986, 729730).
Consider the experimental results in table 7.3.
Comparing the contrasting scenarios in table 7.3, we see the import
of KKTs notion of fairness based on reference levels of profits, price,
and other transaction characteristics. Evidently, what we consider
unfair is a significant departure from a reference point to the advantage
of one party at the expense of another, especially if it were feasible to
Table 7.3
KKT Experiments
1A: A landlord rents out a small house. When the lease is due for renewal, the
landlord learns that the tenant has taken a job very close to the house and is therefore
unlikely to move. The landlord raises the rent $40 per month more than he was
planning to do.
Fair (9%)
Unfair (91%)
N = 157
1B: A landlord owns and rents out a single small house to a tenant who is living on a
fixed income. A higher rent would mean the tenant would have to move. Other small
rental houses are available. The landlords costs have increased substantially over the
past year, and the landlord raises the rent to cover the cost increases when the tenants
lease is due for renewal.
Fair (75%)

Unfair (25%)

N = 131

2A: A house painter employs two assistants and pays them $9 per hour. The painter
decides to quit house painting and go into the business of providing landscape
services, where the going wage is lower. He reduces the workers wages to $7 per
hour for the landscaping work.
Fair (63%)

Unfair (37%)

N = 94

2B: . . . landscape services. With about the same time and effort, the former house
painters profits somehow fall significantly in his new business. In landscape services
the going wage is lower so he reduces.
Fair (67%)

Unfair (33%)

N = 220

2C: . . . landscape services. With about the same time and effort, the former house
painters profits somehow rise significantly in his new business. Nevertheless, in
landscape services the going wage is lower so he reduces.
Fair (34%)

Unfair (66%)

N = 213

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Paul R. Kleindorfer

maintain the reference point payouts. The worse the disparity between
the outcomes and the reference point, and the larger the degree of
opportunism reflected in the advantaged partys payoffs, the more is
the outcome judged to have been unfair.
These experimental results point to some intuitive aspects of trust
and markets, especially concerning transactions that involve some
degree of risk by one or by the other of the parties engaged in the
transaction. For such transactions to proceed to completion, it is thus
clear not merely that trust and fairness are key ingredients, but indeed
that these two central themes are intimately linked. Trust can be influenced by communication and enhanced through assurance of equitableor fairoutcomes, as also through credible information that
supports the reputation of a company as being fair, open, and trustworthy. A large number of the institutions of modern capitalism have
been directed toward reinforcing these basic characteristics of transactions. Companies large and small have made great efforts to foster
communication with their customers, investors, and all other stakeholders. Equitable outcomes are underlined by stable pricing and by
marketing campaigns that highlight the quality of the product proposed and that offer unconditional returns should the customer be
dissatisfied. Not least, product testing and quality verification by independent third parties (e.g., in the United States by Consumer Reports)
are important drivers of market demand and company image. Finally,
brand equity is a key aspect of marketing, for reflecting the various
reputational assets of the company that are placed at risk in each and
every transaction. In the face of these acknowledged foundations of
good business, which attempt to support the image of the company
and its representatives as trustworthy, how could the excesses and
accounting scandals reported in the introduction to this chapter ever
have materialized? This question is the subject of my concluding
comments.
Conclusions
The case studies, together with the noted experimental results from the
decision sciences, seem to many as compelling and intuitive. It is therefore all the more surprising how egregious the departures of corporate
behavior have been from reasonable standards of fairness in some of
the recent outcomes in the U.S. corporate sector. As noted earlier, what
post-Enron surveys found most troubling about the Enron collapse was

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177

neither the crooked dealings of the Enron executives nor the selfenriching tactics of their well-paid accountants and legal advisors, but
rather the damage done in destroying the pensions of employees. In
the language of Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler (1986), it has become
more or less expected that the reference point for senior executive
compensation is whatever these executives can convince their board of
directors to give them. Moreover, the reference point for corporate
accountants seems to have tolerated personal enrichment to become a
part of corporate accounting, possibly at the cost of cooking the books
from time to time. But the reference transaction for pension planning
most certainly does not allow for opportunistic behavior by executives
or accountants to lead to the destruction of employees life savings.
Based on Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler (1986), it is therefore not
surprising that it has been this aspect of the Enron affair that has given
rise to such great outrage, to new legislation, and to a view that wrongdoers in this affair should spend some time behind bars.
As a further compelling example of violations of the notions of trust
and fairness expected in market transactions, consider the matter of
CEO compensation. In the wake of Enron and WorldCom, this subject
has become something of a cause clbre. The reason can be summarized in one simple statistic arising from the study by the business think
tank, the Conference Board, which published a report in January of
2002 that surveyed the CEO salaries of Fortune 500 companies. Based
on options packages and other exotic so-called risk-based compensation instruments, CEO compensation grew from 51 times the average
Americans salary in 1980 to 542 times that same average Americans
salary in 2000. Coupled with well-publicized examples of some annual
salaries of top executives in excess of $100 million per year, the American in Main Street simply cannot believe the pious pronouncements of
corporate Americas think tanks about the road to reform. It all looks
like, smells like, and feels like pure greed to the proverbial average
American in the proverbial American street.
What is needed is a much more direct and a far more explicit
confrontation of the values held by corporate executives and by the
majority of ordinary citizens. If such values cannot pass the litmus
test of open discourse espoused by Jrgen Habermas (1973) in his
treatise on legitimation, they very likely will continue to evoke surprise, engender mistrust, and trigger a deep sense of illegitimacy when
occasional stories of the inner reality of corporations surface. Recent
commitments by companies and business schools to move toward

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Paul R. Kleindorfer

increased corporate social responsibility, improved transparency in

accounting and governance, and a more sincere espousal of ethical
behavior standards, all sound good. But there still remain too many
disturbing elements, constitutive of the current climate, suggesting that
corporations are perceived by many as mere citadels of greed that have
yet to connect to the basic ethical standards of fairness that are the
bulwark of trust in any society. If this perception is not reversed, it will
have clear, present, and lasting harmful effects on the efficiency of
marketsthe very instruments that are used to carry out the program
of modern capitalism. Markets operate on a presumption of trust and
anonymity, and once such basic presumptions are violated, the markets
themselves enter into a self-stimulating spiral of dependence on guarantors, government regulations, and other costly interventions. As
painful at it may be, therefore, we must begin to recognize and require
of our executives, of those who wish to become executives, and of all
the corporations that appoint them, a public and private commitment
to (re)establishing ethics and trustahead of prowess in finance and
transparency in accountingas the cornerstones of national, regional,
and global market economies.
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of Progress? Journal of Regulatory Economics (No. 1, January):522.
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Elliott, Michael R., Yanlin Wang, Paul R. Kleindorfer, and Robert A. Lowe (2004) Environmental Justice: Community Pressure and Frequency and Severity of U.S. Chemical
Industry Accidents, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 58:2430.
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Mitchell, Jerry T., Deborah S. K. Thomas, and Susan L. Cutter (1999) Dumping in Dixie
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Perlin, Susan H., David W. S. Wong, and Ken Sexton (2001) Residential Proximity to
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Ethics, Morals, and the

State: Rereading the
Classical View
J. J. Mulhern

In this essay, which is indebted to the work of James Q. Wilson, I consider the rediscovery of character and its importance for the way one
understands the relation of ethics and morals to politics. Character has
a long history in thinking about politics. For some Greeks, including
Aristotle, character, or ethos, was the central issue in the study of human
things. The Greeks were concerned not only with character itself,
however, but also with the things that were related to it, especially the
things that were caused by character and the things that caused character to develop, for better or for worse. These were their ethical things,
or ethics. Thus, for them, ethics was not an academic discipline, nor
was ethical (ethikos) an expression of general approval, as opposed to,
say, unethical.
For some Romans, including Cicero, the central issue appears rather
to have been custom, or mos. The Romans were concerned both with
custom and with the things related to it. These were their moral things,
or morals (moralia). Thus, at the outset, morals was not an academic
discipline, despite its apparent inclusion by Cicero as the subject matter
of one of the three parts of Stoic philosophy; nor was moral (moralis)
an expression of general approval, as opposed to, say, immoral. Character, as something belonging to individuals, was different from custom,
which was shared by many; but both Greek and Roman societies agreed
that custom could have an effect on character development and that
character could be embodied or reflected in custom.
In modern times, many thinkers have struggled with what they
describe as the relation of ethics or morals to the state, often in ways
that are not helpful to the political actor, especially where the language
of ethics and morals has lost its original classical descriptive use.
Some moderns have spoken as if there might be politics without ethics
or morals, and ethics or morals without politics. The rediscovery of

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character leads back to a tradition in which ethics and politics are continuous because, as a matter of fact, actions produce habits, habits are
integrated into character, character is reflected in customs or laws, and
customs are embodied in institutions, including political institutions,
and even the institution that is spoken of in modern times as the state;
and in which, likewise, these institutions reinforce customs, customs
mold character, character strengthens habits, and habits make actions
easier and more pleasant to perform. This tradition, though neglected
for many centuries, is helpful to the political actor, since it provides
an explicit way of thinking about the political actors work. Both institutions and individuals, especially political actors, have an interest in
promoting in people the kinds of character and custom that dispose
them to avoid criminal acts, dependency, and intemperance, for
example.
To those who understand this history, it may be jarring to realize that
many recent academic discussions that include terms such as ethics,
morals, and the state actually are of little interest to todays political
actors, who may use the first two expressions regularly in their ceremonial speeches, perhaps, but rarely in their day-to-day work. This situation is at variance with practice over much of history as we know it,
back to classical times. Political actors of other times and places apparently were accustomed to addressing in their own languages the things
that are identified in the ancient languages, distinctly, as ethics and
as morals. This striking difference might be explained and has been
explained by a change in standards and interests over time; it has been
suggested, for example, that modern political actors are less virtuous
and more self-interested than their predecessors were. It might be
explained (but has not been), however, in a quite different way: it might
be that, although our ethics and morals are derived from classical
words that look and sound somewhat similar to them, these ancient
words were being used in quite different ways from the way we use
their descendants. If we knew how the classical authors used them, we
might find out that todays political actors actually are interested in the
substance of classical ethics and morals but are not aware of this fact,
since the traditional language of ethics and morals has been diverted
to other purposes in a way that masks a substantive continuity of
ancient with modern politics (Eichler, chap. 2 of this book).
While Wilsons work on character owes much to the Scottish Enlightenment, it is indebted as well to Aristotle, whom Wilson reads not only
from a scientific standpoint, where the individual conducting an inquiry

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is primarily an observer of causes, but also somewhat from the standpoint of the political actor, where the individual conducting an inquiry
might be or become the cause.1 Wilsons position is that the traditional
understanding of politics was that its goal was to improve the character
of its citizens (Wilson 1995, 21). Wilson, however, did not go on to
explain that this traditional understanding is part of a more inclusive
classical conceptual system that links politics to human action. To my
knowledge, the more inclusive system never has been described in the
literature, not even in outline.
The present chapter attempts to describe this system. It thus addresses
the relations of the things that sometimes are named by ethics and
morals and the state by looking at the classical origins of our concepts of ethics, morals, and politics. After presenting an analysis of the
original concepts, it goes on to suggest that later views have been
faithful to the originals only intermittently at best, and it presents some
of the consequences of intermittent fidelity. It concludes that the state,
in the person of the political actor in Banfields sense (Banfield 1961,
5)the person who causes public events rather than merely observing
themtypically is concerned with ethics and morals in their classical
senses, even though the objects of this concern so often are misdescribed that todays political actor rarely if ever is able to recognize
them for what they are. They are important, as will be seen, because
the political actors ability to accomplish anything is limited at any time
by the character and customs of the constituents or subjects who may
be the intended objects of the actors influence.
Ethics and the Hellenic Tradition
Although we find ethical discourses in Greek writers earlier than Aristotle, it is Aristotle more than anyone else who gives us the language
and thus the concepts of ethics. The language is important because the
word is father, or mother, to the thought. The Greek for ethics occurs
prominently in three works that come down to us as Aristotelian
Nicomachean Ethics (EN), Eudemian Ethics (EE), and Great Ethics or Magna
Moralia (MM)as also in their traditional titles. A fourth workOn
Virtues and Vices (VV)while almost surely not by Aristotle, reflects the
position of his school.
1. For the ontological-epistemological implications of observer-observed relations, see
Krippendorff (2008).

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There remain complicated questions about the authorship and composition of the three main works and of the relations among them, but
their status as conveying an Aristotelian view is not a matter of serious
doubt. With all that has been written using the expression ethics,
however, there is precious little that attempts to tell us precisely what
Aristotle meant by it. I shall try to tell precisely what Aristotle meant
by it and then go on to morals and the state.
Classically trained readers will wonder why I have used Great Ethics,
which reflects the Greek tradition, along with the more familiar Latin
title Magna Moralia. My reason is that the Latin title perpetuates what
I conceive to be a confusion about ethika (ethics), with a long e, or eta:
this expression is to be distinguished from the term ethikos, written
with a short e, or epsilon, which is not used by Aristotle, although he
does use the noun form ethos, which often is translated by custom.
The confusion to which I refer is that of ethika, or things related to
character, with moralia (morals), or things related to custom. This confusion is clear in Sidgwick (1931), in his Outlines of the History of Ethics for
English Readers, 11, for example, which first appeared in 1886 and
remains in print: he says, The term moral is commonly used as synonymous with ethical (moralis being the Latin translation of )
[ethikos], and I shall so use it in the following pages. (More on this
later.)
Aristotle frequently uses the expression ta ethika, or, as we should
say, the ethics. This expression has the same sense as the matters of
character, as Joachim translates it (Joachim 1951, 113). Thus the ethical
things, or ethics, are the things associated with ethos (character) and
viewed from the standpoint of their relation to character. It follows that
there are two parts to stating precisely what Aristotles language about
ethics meant: these are saying what character or ethos is and identifying
the things that are related to itthe ethical things, or ethics.
The view that ethos is an appropriate starting place is preserved
clearly in the opening sentence of the Great Ethics, where the author
says, Since we are decided to talk about ethics, first it should be looked
at of what [science or ability] ethos is a part (MM 1181a2425). After
noting that ethos is a part of the political, Aristotle goes on to say that
without being of a certain kind, that is, having a certain character, it is
not possible to accomplish anythingto actin civic affairs; and he
gives being earnest as an example of character (1181a2628).
At this point, Aristotle appears to be connecting character directly
with action. He is suggesting that action is produced by character, and

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one might write this relation (with an eye to what follows) as Action
Character. Often, however, the connection of character with action
is not presented as direct; habit comes between character and action,
since actions are viewed as producing habits directly while habits
combine into character. In a passage referred to by Wilson, Aristotle
observes that we get the virtues [the aretai, which are habits or hexeis]
by being active beforehand. . . . And so we become just by doing just
acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, courageous by doing courageous acts (1103a31b2) (Wilson 1995, 23). This relation is immediate,
and it links actions and habits in a causal way. It may be represented
as Action Habit, and it is the best-known part of this analysis.
Actions produce habits. Further, Aristotle says that to be earnest, which
is to have a certain character, is to have the virtues (EN 1181a28b24).
Habits thus are the material (the stuff) of characterthis relation may
be represented as Habit Character. These passages give us enough
to begin to construct part of a system of causal relations, which will be
extended in describing the relation of ethics to the state. In sum, so far:
Action Habit Character. Here the causal relation is transitive,
in the same sense as that in which some relations are spoken of as
transitive in mathematics, where, for example, if a is larger than b, and
b is larger than c, then a is larger than c; the relation carries through.
Other passages make it clear that, for Aristotle, the influence not only
carries through, or is transitive, but also that it runs in both directions
or is symmetrical, as is the relation of equality in mathematics: if a is
equal to b, then b is equal to a (see, for example, EN 1104a331104b3 on
actions and habits, as also Poetics 1450a19). Of course, equality is transitive as well as symmetrical.
Note that although being earnest sometimes is spoken of as having
a virtue, it is spoken of also as having an ethos and thus as a way of
having multiple virtues (1181a28b24). This remarkabout having
virtuesis not a throwaway, since Aristotle says later that someone
who wants to be thought well of, with respect to character, would have
to pay attention to the mean of each of the passions (pathe, in MM
1186b3435)that is, approximately, to each of the ethical virtues
(ethikai aretai) or virtues of character. (Aristotle does not use ethical
virtue here, with ethical in the attributive position, but he does use
it elsewhere, for example in Politics 1260a15, 1718, and 20.) Further,
there is confirmation of this virtue-encompassing view of character in
the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle treats megalopsychia, which we
translate into modern English variously by magnanimity, greatness

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of soul, and pride, as a particular sort of character (Mulhern 2004,

315318).
Actions, habits, and passions, however, are not the only things that
are included among ethics or ethical things or ta ethika. These ethical
things include abilities (dunameis) as well (MM 1186a1011; and see EN
1105b2021); they might, indeed, include also deliberation (bouleusis,
EN 112b22) and judgment (hupolepsis, EN 1139b17) and all the other
things that either produce character or are found where character is
found, whether they are produced by character or are related otherwise
to it. These are the things that are treated in the three Aristotelian
works, and they are the ethicsta ethika. And of course the things that
must be distinguished from ta ethika sometimes are treated in these
works as well. This fact explains the contents of the works as well as
their titles. And so, at its origin, ethics is not a science or a field of study
or a code of conduct or anything of the sort; it is rather the things that
we study that are related, or that someone thinks are related, to ethos
or character.
In the classical scheme, the ethical things are not in a world of their
own but are related to the political thingsthe things closely connected
with the citizen (polites). The point of studying the ethics is not mainly
to understand them for their own sake, and Aristotle does not study
them in that way (EN 1095a56, 1103b2729). Instead, they are studied
by those who are expected to produce the appropriate character in the
citizensnamely, the political actorsand by the citizens themselves,
who want to develop or promote good character. The things that
Aristotle studies mainly to understand them are things that have causes
other than himself or other than the individual who studies themthe
physical things or physics, for example. The ethics are different because
they are the things that people cause and the things that cause what
people do; and sometimes the people who cause them also study
them.
A certain character or ethos, or rather attaining or producing a certain
character, is the point of studying ethics or the ethical things, for
Aristotle; he says in fact that the genuine political actor aims to make
the citizens good (EN 1102a9). Thus the concept of ethos is central to
ethicsso very central that the ethical things are denominated from it.
One can see this centrality in Aristotles remark that we shall know
the things about ethos better by going through them each by each (EN
1127a1517); the things about ethos here include the virtues or aretai.
It follows that other things cannot be central to the study of ethics or

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the ethical things; that, in these affairs, only one thingethoscan be

central (see Williams on ego and ethos, chap. 6 in this book).
Aristotle goes on to fill out his view of ethics and of the relation of
ethics to politics in the Nicomachean Ethics, especially in two other passages. In the first of these, Aristotle says, The appropriate character
loving the noble and hating the basemust belong [to the agent]
somehow before virtue does. It is difficult to be drawn rightly toward
virtue from ones youth up except by being brought up under laws of the
appropriate kind (EN 1179b2932, the italics are mine).
In this passage Aristotle begins by linking character and habit to one
another, since virtue is a habit. In the second sentence, he goes on to
connect custom, since Aristotle links law and custom, with virtue, omitting mention of charactera move that parallels his direct connection
of character with action in MM 1181a2425. Here, the resulting sequence
is Habit Character Custom (directional arrows represent the
flow of causation). This sequence is at the center of his system of ethical
things. But the ostensible direction of causality, running from custom
to habit, is not the whole story. Aristotles use of belong before (prohuparchein) and somehow (po s) suggests that character belongs to the
agent in the sense that it is able to be developed in the agent or that
the agent is disposed to develop itsuggesting that it belongs in the
way modern English Aristotelians would describe as potentially. If
this interpretation is correct, Aristotle is suggesting that, while character must belong to an individual potentially as a cause of virtue, virtue
still can be an actual cause of character.
A little further on, the picture is added toagain: When these things
have been studied we may perhaps be better able to see what sort is
the best politeia, how each is arranged, and what laws and customs
each uses (EN 1181b2122). Here Aristotle links institution, in the
form of the politeia or citizenship (Manville 1990, 5; Mulhern 2008), to
law (nomos) and ethos, with a short e, or epsilon, again, where the idea
apparently is that the institution grows out of the customs and that,
in the person of the political actor, the institution uses and strengthens
the customs to preserve itselfan arrangement which might be
symbolized by Custom Institution. As one can see from a remark
of Aristotles in the Politics, the Greek for institution is used for
both politeiai or citizenships and for other entities, including the
putative democracy in which psephismsdecrees or resolutions
that fail to reflect the basic institutions of a city, whether those institutions are recorded in writing or notgovern instead of laws; such an

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institution (Politics 1292a35), according to Aristotle, is not a democracy,

strictly speaking, and is not a politeia or citizenship at all.
These points concerning what Aristotle spoke and wrote about the
ethics are worth insisting on precisely because Aristotle has been misunderstood so widely and so thoroughly. In the English tradition, the
great Henry Sidgwick typifies this misunderstanding by suggesting
(Sidgwick 1931, 1), The derivation of the term [ethics] is to some
extent misleading; for Ethics () [ethika] originally meant what
relates to character as distinct from intellect. Sidgwick himself obviously was not misled. His own concern, however, was not with character, and he tried to appropriate the language of ethics for his own
use. As he wrote (Sidgwick 1931, 2), The primary subject of ethical
investigation is all that is included under the notion of what is ultimately good or desirable for man; all that is reasonably chosen or
sought by him, not as a means to some ulterior end, but for itself. Thus
Sidgwick was proposing to appropriate ethics to an academic discipline that might well be called, following his student Rashdall, the
theory of good and evil (Rashdall 1924, vi), or perhaps value theory.
This discipline paid little attention to character if a great deal of attention to the senses of good, right, and duty.
The move from ethics as things to ethics as an academic discipline was a challenging one for Sidgwick, not least of all because he
apparently knew that he was undertaking this move and that it was
chancy. He almost certainly knew, for example, that Lecky, in the
preface to the 1869 edition of his famous History of European Morals, still
was using morals to talk about things in the world rather than about
an academic discipline. Lecky was concerned with the degrees in
which, in different ages, recognized virtues have been enjoined and
practiced and with the relative importance that in different ages has
been attached to different virtues (Lecky 1910, I: vii). Thus Lecky was
addressing both ethical virtues, which are among the ethics, and practices widely shared or the customsboth ethics and morals as the tradition understood them. Working against this background, Sidgwick
had to develop an argument that ostensibly brought him from ethics
as things to ethics as a discipline. His argument was that Aristotle
himself had created the discipline in the very writings that we are
reviewing here because these writings went beyond the things
connected with character, especially beyond the virtues and vices. As
Sidgwick wrote, The qualities of character which we call virtues and
vices constituted only one element in the subject of the treatise [sic]

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of Aristotle which this term [ethics] was used to denote (Sidgwick

1931, 1).
But the qualities of character that we call virtues and vices could not
have been the only items addressed in Aristotles ethical treatisesif
those treatises were to be useful to their intended hearers and readers
because other items are related to character as well, possibly as causes
or effects of it, for example.
The Great Ethics shows that an argument along Sidgwicks lines had
been proposed in antiquity, and had been responded to in the Peripatetic school. As the pertinent text says, Someone may be in a quandary
and wonder because when we are speaking about characters and political business we talk about wisdom. First off, looking into this would
not seem to be foreign [to character], if it [wisdom] is a virtue, as we
say. And perhaps it is appropriate for a philosopher to look into these
things as well which happen to be in the same thing [i.e., the psyche].
And it may be necessary, since we are talking about things in the psyche,
to talk about all of them. But wisdom is in the psyche, so that it is not
out of place for us to talk about the psyche (MM 1197b2736).
This text shows how very clearly the Peripatetics understood that
Aristotles ethical books addressed not only the various qualities of
character but also the things that were related to them as causes or
effects or otherwise. And it suggests further that the ethical books had
to address (and that they did address) the things that needed to be
distinguished from the ethical thingsthe idea of the good, for example,
in EN 1.6but which sometimes were confused with them. This last
point goes to explain much of what is considered dialectical in Aristotles ethical treatises.
Sidgwicks preoccupation with the contemporary theories of egoism,
intuitionism, and utilitarianism, which are at the center of his own
theoretical work (Sidgwick 1907), may have made it more difficult for
him to see the relation of ethics and morals to the state as it was understood in antiquity and as it is described here. His concern was with a
range of other issues; he hoped especially to deal with the three apparently competing claims that the rational agent regards quantity of
consequent pleasure and pain to himself as alone important in choosing between alternatives of actions (egoism, Sidgwick 1907, 95), that
we have the power of seeing that certain kinds of actions are right and
reasonable in themselves (intuitionism, Sidgwick 1907, 200), and that
the conduct which, under any given circumstances, is objectively
right, is that which will produce the greatest amount of happiness on

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the whole (utilitarianism, Sidgwick 1907, 411). To the extent that his
work circulated widely, which it did and continues to do, his fateful
failure to deal sympathetically with the classical writings arguably has
helped to transport ethical discussion away from being of much interest to the political actor by shifting the focus from character and custom,
which the political actor must understand and be able to assess, to
items which the same political actor may not have to understand and
assess.
Returning now to Aristotle on custom: although it is necessary to
distinguish ethos from ethos in Aristotles writings, one may grant that
ethos is not to be translated by custom in each and every occurrence
in his works (Bonitz 1961, 216217). In some cases, habit might be
more appropriate in places where it is concerned with individuals. The
natural language of the Greeks was not always more precise than our
own. In English, one can say, for example, that an individual becomes
accustomed or habituated to a certain practice, or even that ones
custom is to do such and such. This latitude certainly is reflected in the
uses of the verbs etho (be accustomed or habituated) and ethizo (accustom). Aristotle himself says that the noun ethos signifies that it extends
from ethos, and thatby being moved often in a given wayone
becomes accustomed (EE 1220a39b2).
At the same time, one can say that one group adopted another
groups customsafter being conquered, for instance; and one can say
that a certain practice became customary, meaning that it came to be
observed widely. In very many occurrences of ethos, custom rather
than habit clearly is called for, because Aristotle is referring to widely
observed behavior rather than to the psychic condition of a single
individual. At Politics 1287b6, for example, Aristotle goes on to contrast
the laws that are customary (kata ta ethe) with those that are written
down (kata grammata). And in Rhetorica ad Alexandrum 1423a34, he
refers to the ancestral customs (ta patria ethe). Thus, while ethos sometimes can be translated correctly by habit when it has to do with
individuals, in many cases custom clearly is more appropriate because
it represents something that is shared.
With the addition of custom, and with the proviso that all the relations of causality are to be considered both transitive and symmetrical,
the basic system of the ethics and the politics can be now represented
in outline as follows:
Action Habit Character Custom Institution

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Here, of course, the two-headed arrows indicate mainly the direction

of the causalitythat, indeed, it can go in both directions. They do
not indicate the nature of the causality. Nor do they exclude the
possibility that some political actor might attempt to produce an effect
that fails to conform to this sequencefor example, by using an institution (say, the U.S. Department of Education) to affect directly the
actions of school students in a way that runs counter to established
customs.
As can be seen, the language of ethical things is reasonably exact and
also fairly coherent in Aristotle. A case can be made that this language
resonates with the language of earlier Greek writers, particularly with
Platos. In The Republic, for example, Socrates induces Glaucon to admit
that the politeiai or citizenships, which are institutions, originate, if not
from the ancestral customs exactly, from the characters (to n etho n) of
those in the cities (544E1), which both embody and help to form or
deform habits over time.
Although the causal relations in Aristotles system are, indeed, symmetrical and transitive, the causality works in different ways in different cases. While repetition of actions produces habits in an individual,
for example, possession of a habit disposes one to perform the corresponding actions. Here, too, if character requires that one have all the
appropriate habits, one can speak of habits as producing character, and
if character reinforces habit by integrating it in a certain way, as I have
argued elsewhere that it clearly does for Aristotle (Mulhern 2004), then
its causality is of a different kind. Similar observations can be made for
the rest of this system. Further, the two-headed arrows indicate only
that the causality can flow in either direction, not that it actually does
flow in both directions or in either, for that matter, in a given case. The
causal relations are contingent, and they depend on the initiative of
those outside the system who act and are themselves causes; thus the
system is a modal one, accommodating possibility as well as actuality
in these causal relations.
The political actor stands outside this system of relations; these relations present themselves to the alert political actor as avenues for
exercising influence. The political actor who is aware of this system will
know that there are several points at which the system can be entered,
perhaps more or less effectively given the circumstances, as in the case
of the Department of Education referred to earlier, for instance, where
the customs are considered intractable and hence useless for the production of a desirable character. An alternative avenue of influence

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might be to work directly to form the habits of children through institutions other than the schools.
Aristotles discussion of this system is not normative; it is descriptive, presenting as a matter of fact that the institutions and their customs
can and do affect character and thus also behavior, whether one likes
it or not. The issue thus is not whether the state as embodied in the
political actor will or should affect character and the ethics, but rather
how the political actor chooses to affect character and the virtues and
so onnamely, the ethics.
Morals and Latinity
The classical view may have been made less accessible to us, rather
than more so, by the very way the Romans received it from the Greeks.
While there are earlier Latin writers who discuss what we might call
moral things, it is Cicero who gives us the Latin language of morals.
Moralis comes into Latin when, at the beginning of the fragmentary De
Fato (On Fate), Cicero, writing near the end of his life, connects mos,
which commonly has the sense of custom, with ethos, with an eta
again. The opening words of the sentence in which he does so, though,
are missing, and his precise meaning is obscured somewhat by this
lacuna in the text. What is left begins with a causal clause using quia
or because: . . . because it [something?] refers to mores, which [something?] those [Greeks] call [ethos], we are accustomed to call this
part of philosophy de moribus [about mores], but it is appropriate for
one adding to the Latin tongue to name it moralem (1.1).
Some readers (Marwede 2003, 1) take the view that Cicero is suggesting mores as a synonym for ethos here. Indeed, the De Fato may be the
source of the lexicographers view that the plural mores has the sense
of character instead of customs, where, as before, character is understood as something that belongs to an individual and custom as something that many individuals share. However that may be, Cicero, if not
always, still often uses mores for customs rather than for character. In
the De Officiis (On Duties), for example, in another occurrence of mores
after refers to, Cicero observes that his predecessors have overlooked
no argument which refers to the laws, to the customs, and to the ordering of the res publica [public business] [qui ad leges, qui ad mores, qui
ad disciplinam rei publicae pertineret, 1.156]. Also in the De Officiis,
while Cicero clearly uses mos (the singular form) in the sense of custom
in the phrase with respect to custom and civil institutions [more . . .

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institutisque civilibus, 1.148], he just as clearly uses mores (the plural

form) in the sense of customs in the phrase nothing against customs,
laws and institutions [nihil contra mores, leges, institute, 3.63]. And
once again, in the Tusculan Disputations, when comparing different
ways of dealing with dead bodies, he certainly writes of the custom
(mos) of the magi (1.108); and in the De Re Publica, too, after quoting
the famous line of the early Roman poet Ennius, On ways and men
of old rests the Roman weal, he observes that neither men, unless a
city were provided with customs (mores), nor customs, unless men were
to protect them, would be able either to establish or to preserve for so
long a period of time a res publica which ruled so extensively (5.1). In
fact, then, while Cicero may use the plural mores for character, he most
certainly does not reserve mores for character only but often uses it as
we would use the plural customs (Merguet 1892, 588591).
Summing up so far: the meaning of moral or customary is not the
same as the meaning of ethical or characteristic, since custom is not
the same thing as character. And, if it is not, then moral is not an exact
equivalent for ethical, despite what Sidgwick says.
There is reason to believe, however, that mos may be central to Roman
thinking in somewhat the way that ethos is central to Greek thinking,
since the things related to it are denominated from it. If mos is central,
especially as it occurs in mos maiorum (the ancestral custom; see ta patria
ethe), then at a comparatively early date there may have been a shift
away from ethics to morals as another systematic way for the political
actor to view the central issues of human behavior (Gehrke 1994,
593622).
For Cicero, following the way the Greeks treated ethos and ethikos,
using mos and moralis alone does not indicate that a practice is good or
bad, right or wrong. For him, none of these expressions is evaluative.
In the first oration In Catilinam, for example, Ciceros O tempora, o mores!
[Oh the times, oh the customs, 1.2] does not suggest that something
is good or bad about mores themselves but that the customs that allow
an enemy of the republic such as Catiline access to the senate are
questionable.
Just as happens with ethikos and its translations, however, moralis and
its translations almost always come to be treated in modern times as
themselves evaluative expressions. Foucault, for example, speaks of
the ethical, moral character, where he fairly clearly is using ethical
and moral in place of good or another omnibus evaluative adjective
instead of using them in their authentic and revealing historical senses

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(Foucault 2001, 86). If Foucault had said the characteristic, customary

character, his words would have lacked their engaging ring. Even Sir
David Ross could write of moral action, i.e., . . . any action to which
either the epithet good or bad, or the epithet right or wrong, is applicable (Ross 1939, 192). Ross may have meant only that moral action
names actions that are susceptible of evaluation, not that every moral
action is good. But strictly speaking, from the classical standpoint, a
moral (that is, a customary) action is no more than an action associated
with custom, and the custom may or may not be good or bad, right
or wrong.
If ethikos (ethical) and moralis (moral) had been used as approving
evaluative expressions, surely they would have had cognate disapproving contraries in the ancient languages. In fact, however, there are
no cognate words in common use corresponding to unethical or
immoral in the classical languages. History deceives us by allowing
words like ethical and moral, which resemble their ancient antecedents, to remain in use while the conceptual schemes in which they
operated and from which they derived their meaning have been forgotten. Further, the loose treatment of both ethical and moral as omnibus
expressions of approval has made it easier to assume that they might
share the same descriptive meaning, an assumption that surely makes
accurate historical discussion of both ethics and morals more difficult
(see Cipruts footnote 1 in chap. 1).
Much recent academic writing is concerned not with ethics or morals
as I have described them but with professional disciplinary boundary
lines and their adjudication. The questions in this writing are whether
to identify the disciplines of ethics and morals or to assert that the disciplines have different subject matters or that one somehow includes
the other and the like (Annas 1992, I:329331). These academic questions would have been of no importance to an Aristotle or a Cicero,
since they would have provided little or no guidance for political action.
Nor are they of much importance to the political actors of today.
The State and the Political Actor
In many conscientious listings of departures from the classical understanding of politics, the modern concept of the sovereign state would
appear prominently. The state, as Jean Bodin, the learned French
academic and diplomat, defined it in the sixteenth century, is an
aggregation of families and their common possessions, ruled by the

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highest power and by reason (Respublica est familiarum rerumque

inter ipsas communium summa potestate ac ratione moderata multitudo, Bodin 1591, I: i, 1), as Dunning (19021920, 2:86) translates it.
And Bodin goes on, in a later chapter, to identify the highest power of
which he is speaking: Sovereignty is supreme power over citizens and
subjects, unrestrained by the laws (Maiestas est summa in cives ac
subditos, legibusque soluta potestas, Bodin 1591, I: 8, 102), again as in
Dunning (19021920, 2:96).
The Latin maiestas comes over into English as sovereignty in a
translation from Latin and French editions by a contemporary of
Bodins: Maiestie or Soueraigntie is the most high, absolute, and perpetuall power over the citizens and subjects in a Commonweale: which
the Latines call Maiestatem, . . . (Knolles 1606, 84).
The traditional theoretical language of the state and the concepts
associated with it still are used by some as if the state could be taken
for granted as the focal point for political analysis. But whether there
ever has been a state in this strict theoretical sense of Bodins is unclear.
Indeed, as is clear from his use of legibus soluta, Bodin himself was
perpetuating the medieval outlook, according to which, as he says,
absolute power [power unrestricted by the laws] extends only to
setting civil law aside, as we have shown above, and that it cannot do
violence to the law of God, Who has loudly and clearly told us by His
law that it is illicit to take, or even to covet, another persons goods
(Franklin 1992, 39). Certainly for most of history as we know it, there
has been no such state, and human affairs have been governed by
systems of overlapping influence, where influence is understood as
the ability to get others to act, think, or feel as one intends (Banfield
1961, 3). An example studied intensively is medieval feudalism, if
antiquity and American federalism do not provide enough examples
of their own.
Under systems of overlapping influence, the relations to one another
of ethics or morals, and of either to the state, would not become the
central issue, because character and custom and the things connected
with them would be related to a variety of institutions of varying
strengths, not just the state. As the convention of using the language
of the state led theorists and other people to think of themselves as
living in a putative state, however, and especially as the state inched
toward its developed quasi-totalitarian form, it apparently became
plausible to protest the notion of sovereignty and to look for limits to
sovereignty, and even to reject the notion of sovereignty altogether. The

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alternatives were to look for sources of actual observable behavior and

so to things such as the moral sense on one side, and on the other to
look for a theoretical device perhaps not closely linked to observable
behavior but still both attributable to individuals and arguably broader
in scope than any putative statesomething such as the Kantian will,
accompanied with its putatively universal deliverances. The concept of
the will certainly seemed useful for a time, partly because of its association with the notion of popular sovereignty. But the notion of popular
sovereignty, which has analogues throughout history, also has little or
no practical utility as a guide to the political actor, since it can accommodate any way of organizing politically and thus is apt to accommodate incompatible ways of organizing politically, as well.
Now that the language of the state no longer dominates debates and
discussions of politics, even among political scientists, it may be
possible to approach ethics and morals again, not from the modern
standpoint of protest against state sovereignty but in a classical and
historically sensitive way from the standpoint of the political actor. To
subordinate the concept of the state for analytical purposes is not to
suggest that the nation-states of today, which are not states in the strict
theoretical or sovereign sense anyway, are about to collapse or should
collapse into some multinational entity. That eventuality probably is
far off and may not be more desirable than the alternatives. The point
rather is that, once it is clear that one need not speak of the state as the
central point of reference, it becomes easier to understand that, over
the much longer haul, and under any kind of system, people whom we
may call political actors will emerge and will attempt to bend whatever
system may be in force to their own purposes and preferences in ways
that will affect and be affected by both character and custom. It is in
this sense that the state, in the person of the political actor, may be seen
or said to be concerned with both ethics and moralsthose things
related to character and to customin the classical way, even though
the very objects of this concern so often are misdescribed that the political actor is able to recognize them rarely at most. And so, mistakenly
but correctly, he regards what he sees presented under the rubrics
ethics and morals as of no importance.
Conclusion
If ethics are things related to character and morals are things related to
custom, the question is whether, so understood, ethics and morals are

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important to the political actor in any age. I conclude that they are. The
perennial tasks of the political actor are to protect citizens from external
threats and to restrain internal tendencies toward instability, all the
while maintaining ones own position; and the actors ability to do any
of these, not to mention the approach to be taken, depends heavily upon
the character and customs of the citizens themselves. Further, focusing
the study of human affairs on ethos or mos and the things that are related
to them makes it possible to conceptualize the relation of ethics or
morals to the state, in the person of the political actor, in useful ways.
What about the shift from ethos or character to mos or custom as the
focal point, if indeed such a shift occurred in Roman times as the
Romans struggled, as we know they did, to bring what they learned
from the Greeks together with their native tradition? While much more
work remains to be done on this question, it seems to me that the focus
on mos often tends to appear as part of an attempt at reform, as it certainly did in the time of the seditions and at the end of the republic
and in the time of Augustus.
Once the mores have slipped, it is doubtful that they can be reformed
by the political actors focusing directly on them. Instead, what may
be required is more comprehensive attention to their causes, and so to
ethics, in the classical sense directed toward more serious efforts to
develop good character in the young.
Bibliography
The references that follow include some classical authors for whom places and dates of
original publication are lacking. It is customary to cite these authors of enduring value
by referring to conventional books and chapters or to pages, sections, or columns, and
lines of critical editions that may have appeared many centuries after original composition and publication, whatever composition and publication may mean in dealing with
a classical author. Thus Aristotle often is cited by name of work and by page, column,
and line in column. Politics 1260a15, for example, is a citation of page 1260, column a,
line 15 of Aristotles Politics in the Prussian Academy edition Aristotelis Opera (1960). As
an alternative, when larger pieces of text are in question, his works are cited by work,
book, and chapter. Cicero, however, regularly is cited by work, book, and chapter, and
my references are to these as represented in the critical text of Mueller, listed as [Cicero] . . .
(18781905).
Modern lexicography is beginning to show that the conceptual frameworks of the
classical authors sometimes were quite different from our own and from those of our
more recent predecessors. Thus the most widely known translations may be unsuitable
for use in firsthand specialized investigations such as the present one, in which ethics
and morals are expressions whose sense is subjected to fairly radical testing rather than
being taken for granted in the usual nave way. It is not clear that discussions that use
the expression ethics, for example, can be of much value until they come to grips with
the history of this expression.

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References
Annas, Julia (1992) Ethics and Morality, in Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker,
Editors, Encyclopedia of Ethics, New York: Garland.
[Aristotle] Aristotelis Opera (1960) Immanuel Bekker, Editor, 2nd ed., Olof Gigon, Editor,
Berlin: de Gruyter.
[Aristotle] Rackham, H. (1934), Translator, Nicomachean Ethics, London: William
Heinemann.
Banfield, Edward (1961) Political Influence, Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Bodin, Jean (1591) De Republica Libri Sex, Paris, Richard Knolles (1606) Translator, London
[no publisher given].
(1992) On Sovereignty: Four Chapters from the Six Books of the Commonwealth, Julian
H. Franklin, Editor, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Bonitz, H. (1961) Index Aristotelicus, Olof Gigon, Editor, Berlin: de Gruyter.
[Cicero] M. Tullii Ciceronis, Scripta quae manserunt omnia, C. W. F. Mueller (18781905)
Editor, Leipzig: Teubner.
Dunning, William Archibald (19021920) A History of Political Theories, 3 vols., New York:
Macmillan.
Foucault, Michel (2001) Fearless Speech, Joseph Pearson, Editor, Los Angeles:
Semiotext(e).
Franklin (1992), see Bodin (1992).
Gehrke, Hans-Joachim (1994) Rmischer mos und griechische Ethik, Historische
Zeitschrift 258(3):593622.
Joachim, H. H. (1951) Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics, D. A. Rees, Editor, Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.
Knolles (1606), see Bodin (1591).
Krippendorff, Klaus (2008) Four (In)Determinabilities, Not One, in Jose V. Ciprut,
Editor, Indeterminacy: The Mapped, the Navigable, and the Uncharted, Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.
Lecky, William Edward Hartpole (1910) History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, 3rd ed., rev., New York: D. Appleton.
Manville, P. B. (1990) The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Marwede, D. (2003) Mos, Moralis, and Ciceros De Fato, 28th International Conference
on Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies, Villanova University, September 6.
Merguet, H. (1892) Lexicon zu den Schriften Ciceros, Zweiter Teil, Zweiter Band, Jena: G.
Fischer.
Mulhern, J. J. (2003) Patristic Uses of Ethos, Mos, and Their Cognates: The Classical
Background, 28th International Conference on Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance
Studies, Villanova University, September 6.

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(2004) [Candor] in Aristotle, in Ineke Sluiter and Ralph M. Rosen,

Editors, Free Speech in Classical Antiquity, pp. 313339, Leiden: Brill.2
(2008) The Political Economy of Citizenship, in Jose V. Ciprut, Editor, The Future
of Citizenship, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Patrologia Latina (18441855) J. P. Migne, Editor, Paris [publisher not given].
[Plato] Platonis Opera (19001914) John Burnet, Editor, Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press.
Rashdall, Hastings (1924) The Theory of Good and Evil: A Treatise on Moral Philosophy, 2nd
ed., London: Oxford University Press.
Ross, W. David (1939) Foundations of Ethics, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Sidgwick, Henry (1907) The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed., London: Macmillan.
(1931) Outlines of the History of Ethics for English Readers, 6th ed. (enlarged), Alban
G. Widgery, Editor, London: Macmillan.
Wilson, James Q. (1995) On Character, expanded edition, Washington, DC: AEI Press.
2. The Greek word is pronounced pharrhesia. Ed.

Ethics, Morality, and

Religion: Directional
Transitions and Trends,
East and West
Don Baker

The relationship between religion on the one hand and morality and
ethics on the other has been a thorny issue in philosophical debates
in the Western world for the last few centuries. Recently East Asians
have contributed to that debate over which comes first, the chicken
of religion or the eggs of morality and ethics, but from a different
angle.
Around one thousand years ago, Western Europe was divided into
a number of competing kingdoms. Above them all stood the papacy,
the one authority they all at least had to pretend to respect and obey.
On the other side of the Eurasian landmass, China, Korea, and Japan
were each united under centralized governments before whom religious leaders had to bow. Those contrasting political histories have had
long-lasting philosophical implications. Because in Western Europe a
religious institution claimed and often exercised supreme authority
over the secular realm for centuries, that same religious institution was
also granted the authority to define moral principles and to dictate
ethical commands. It was only when European states began to grow
large and strong enough to resist papal power, and when the unity that
had characterized Christianity in Western Europe began to fragment,
that a few people began to doubt the claim of religious authorities to
be the ultimate moral authorities as well.
East Asia has moved in the opposite direction. For most of recorded
history in East Asia, religious institutions were too weak to challenge
the moral hegemony of their powerful central governments. Instead,
they accepted the subordinate role of promoting adherence to norms
already proclaimed by their political leaders. However, over the last
century or so, as the notion of religious freedom penetrated East Asia
and forced governments there to acknowledge and allow more than
minimal autonomy for religious organizations, a number of religious

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organizations began to try to claim responsibility for defining moral

principles and for articulating ethical injunctions.
In the Western world, many people still assume that morality and
ethics are not possible without religion. First of all, they believe that
commandments that are explicit directions from the Supreme Being
provide the building blocks for moral codes and ethical imperatives.
Without that foundation of divine will, they believe, moral claims
would have no firm ground to stand on. Moreover, they assume that
people will not behave properly unless they have the fear of God in
them. In their view, without the threat of divine sanctions or the hope
of supernatural rewards, people would simply pursue their own shortterm self-interest without much thought for how their actions affect
other people or even how their actions might affect themselves in the
long term.1
In the seventeenth century, philosophers in Europe, stimulated by
the decline in papal authority and in Christian unity and by the first
stirrings of modern science, began questioning the authority of religion
to dictate moral principles and ethical injunctions. From the outset,
they thus sought to ground moral principles in human psychology
and/or in the laws of reason and logic, or in utilitarian calculations of
the benefits and disadvantages of various actions. However, by the
twentieth century, philosophers, led by G. E. Moore (18731958), had
begun to criticize all attempts to derive an ought from any sort of
is, whether the is be anchored to the existence and will of a Supreme
Being or the altruism presumed inherent to human psychology. Despite
the growing consensus among philosophers in the West that, analytically and philosophically speaking, morality is not dependent on religion, many men and women continue to be influenced by their cultures
history. Just as their ancestors did five to ten centuries ago, today, too,
they view religion, morality, and ethics as inseparably intertwined. If
you ask the person on the street in North America, even in Europe, if
they believe that a person can be moral without belief in God or some
sort of religious orientation, quite a few will say absolutely not.2
1. One recent particularly sophisticated version of the argument that the fear of God is
necessary for people to act morally appears in the work of the prolific sociologist of religion Rodney Stark, in which he argues that only religions with adequate conceptions
of the Gods are able to support morality (2003, 367).
2. According to a survey cited on page 3 of Americans Struggle with Religions Role at
Home and Abroad, a report issued by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life on
March 20, 2002, 47 percent of Americans said that belief in God is not necessary to be
moral.

Ethics, Morality, and Religion

203

You would not get the same results in East Asia. In China, Japan,
Taiwan, and North Korea the vast majority of people would not call
themselves religious, yet they consider themselves to be at least as
moral as the people in more religious countries such as the United
States. Moreover, even in South Korea, the only country in all East Asia
in which even a slight majority is willing to proclaim a specific religious
orientation, around 70 percent say that people do not need to hold any
religious beliefs to go to heaven after they die. Moreover, almost half
the South Korean population feels that the ethical rules imposed by
religious organizations on their members are just too strict.3 Clearly,
most East Asians do not share the common Western assumption that
religion provides the essential foundation for moral principles and
ethical rules.
The different histories of the Western world and East Asia are but
one reason for that difference in attitudes toward the connection
between religion on the one hand and morality and ethics on the other.
Another reason can be found in the nature of religious traditions in the
Western world and in East Asia. In the Judaic and Christian traditions,
God handed down commandments for human beings to obey. In the
Buddhist and Confucian traditions, which dominated religious and
philosophical discourse in traditional East Asia, humans discovered
for themselves the proper way to behave. They did not believe they
needed a God to tell them what to do. Since they did not need a God
to define morality and ethics, nor did they need religion to achieve
the same feat.
Defining Religion
Another reason the Western and East Asiatic perspectives on religion,
morality, and ethics differ so greatly is that the two cultural traditions
define these key terms differently. Religion, for example, is an
imported term in Asia, though before the peoples of China, Japan, and
Korea began using that term at the end of the nineteenth century they
did regularly participate in activities we would not hesitate to label
religious. They prayed to gods. And they performed rituals they
believed would influence supernatural beings. They also engaged in
disciplinary practices they believed would make them good, and even
3. These figures are taken from Gallup Korea, Hangugin ui chonggyo wa chonggyo. uisik
[The religions and religious attitudes of the Korean people] Seoul, 2004.

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better, human beings. However, three defining features of the traditional Western concept of religion were either absent or downplayed
in traditional East Asian religiosity.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, religion requires above all else a
belief in one Supreme Deity. That Supreme Deity is a Supreme Ruler
as well, one whose commands demand absolute obedience from His
human subjects. Moreover, those highest commands are found in
clearly identified sacred writings containing Gods explicit instructions
to humanity. Monotheism, sacred scriptures, and the notion of moral
commandments grounded in the will of the One True God have been
so important in the Western religious tradition that even today it is
difficult for many of those raised in the West to conceive of some religion worthy of respect that lacked any of those three essential characteristics. Rather, the indigenous traditional religions of Asia tended to
be polytheistic rather than monotheistic. They had pages and pages of
sacred writing, not one of which was ever awarded the unassailable
authority and infallibility the Bible has enjoyed. And they derived their
fundamental moral principles from nonreligious sources. In sum, they
did not have the theological concerns, the doctrinal focus, or the lawgiving authority so characteristic of traditional Western religions.
Folk Religions
The earliest religions of East Asia are so far from the Western definition
of religion that even today they are sometimes denied that label. One
reason for their exclusion from the category of religion is that Shinto
in Japan and the folk religions of China and Korea have little interest
in theological reflection. They assume the existence of supernatural
entities, some of whom are powerful gods, and others are merely troublesome spirits or the lingering presence of recently departed ancestors. However, practitioners, and even specialists in ritual, care more
for what those gods and spirits can do to and for them than they care
for what those gods look like or even who exactly they might be. They
believe those gods and spirits to have the power to interfere for good
or ill in human affairs: to bring rain to a parched field, or to deny it; to
cure a disease or to inflict one; to give us many healthy progeny or
deny us the children or grandchildren who comfort us in our old age.
However, those who look to those gods and spirits either for help or
in apprehension do not always agree on which gods or spirits exercise
what powers. Sometimes they do not even agree on which gods or

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205

spirits are the objects of their rituals or the guests revered in their
shrines. It would not be unusual in East Asia to see worshippers bowing
before the same sculpted representation of a supernatural being and
calling out that gods name, and yet disagreeing on which god that
statue represents. I have witnessed worshippers bowing side by side
before a statue and addressing that statue with two totally different
names. Such a cavalier attitude toward the names, traits, and powers
of individual supernatural entities is a far cry from the exclusive intense
focus placed on the name and defining features of the Supreme Being
who has occupied theologians in the Western world for so long.
Though they are not always sure who exactly the gods and spirits
are that have the power to influence their lives for good or ill, participants in folk religious traditions nevertheless try to make sure they are,
and remain, on good terms with those supernatural entities. Occasional
ritual is one way to do so. To make sure that those invisible personalities make their lives better and not worse, they try to humor them,
providing them with ritual offerings and even entertainment when
they appear to need or desire such. Moreover, they try not to offend
those powerful gods and spirits. Therefore, they sometimes have to
behave in certain prescribed ways. However, such behavioral rules are
not the sorts of divine commandments seen in the Western concept of
religion. They are more like rules of etiquette, telling us how to behave
if we want to please rather than anger powerful invisible neighbors.
Hence, when such gods and spirits do become involved in promoting
morality, they do so as supporters of already existing moral codes
rather than generators of moral codes that are identifiable as their
very own.
Though they are based on belief in the existence of gods and spirits
and on the related belief that ritual and proper behavior are two good
ways of maintaining beneficial relationships with those gods and
spirits, folk religious traditions lack theological focus, do not have
clearly defined dogma, and do not entertain a notion that moral principles and ethical rules are grounded in the will of a god or a spirit.
Therefore, their content does not look like what Westerners have traditionally expected a religions to look like. The ill fit between the traditional indigenous religions of Asia and the Western concept of religion
(which has been adopted by some people in East Asia, particularly new
Christians) is behind the ongoing controversy in Japan over whether
or not a visit by the prime minister to the Yasukuni Shinto Shrine is,
indeed, a violation of the constitutional separation of religion and the

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Don Baker

state or is simply an expression of Japanese cultural values. It is also

the specific reason religious studies departments in North America
may teach the highly organized religious and philosophical traditions
of Confucianism and Buddhism while tending to leave the folk traditions to the departments of anthropology.
Buddhism
Even though religious studies departments in the West may teach
courses on Buddhism, they nevertheless run into difficulties awarding
it the religion label. Hence Buddhism oft is taught as a philosophy
instead. One hurdle to referring to Buddhism as a religion is the
nontheistic orientation of many of its monks; another, the way that
most of their publications explain the basic principles of Buddhism.
Yet, the more philosophically inclined Buddhists are not atheists.
The possibility that God might exist is not so much denied by these
Buddhists as it is ignored. They prefer to concentrate on activating their
innate Buddha nature rather than debating theological issues. Suffice
it to look at the best-selling books by the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat
Hanh. You will find little discussion of God in them.
However, if you visit a Buddhist temple rather than a monastery, you
will see a different form of Buddhism. Most Buddhists around the
world do not share the nontheistic proclivities of their somewhat more
intellectually inclined coreligionists. The average lay Buddhist is a
polytheist, one who believes in many Buddhas and in many other
supernatural beings such as Bodhisattavas (the rough equivalent of a
Buddhist saint). Rather than focusing on their own innate ability to rise
above the problems of this world, they pray to a multitude of deities
in the hope that they thus will elicit and gain supernatural assistance
in overcoming those problems. It is because of such popular Buddhism
that Buddhism can be called as much a religion as the philosophy that
it is.
Whether nontheistic or polytheistic, Buddhists tend to share the
same view of the relationship extant between their religion and their
morality. The Buddhist understands that there are no ironclad commandments that all Buddhists have to follow simply because the
Buddha or one of the other Buddhist deities has proclaimed them to
be binding on all human beings. Instead, Buddhists are offered advice
on things they should and should not do if they want to wean themselves from their attachment to the things of this world, an attachment

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that is the root of human suffering. These guidelines vary from one
person to another, depending on a believers particular stage of spiritual advancement. For example, a monk is expected to follow a far
stricter set of rules than an average lay believer is. However, some of
the precepts apply to everyone. According to one sutra popular across
East Asia, The Awakening of Faith, anyone who wants to escape the cycle
of birth-death-rebirth that prolongs human suffering should take care
not to kill, to steal, to commit adultery, to be double-tongued, to
slander, to lie, or to utter exaggerated speech. He is to free himself from
greed, jealousy, cheating, deceit, flattery, crookedness, anger, hatred,
4
and perverse views.
Such actions are wrong, not because the Buddha has forbidden them,
but because to engage in such activities is to act in a selfish fashion,
putting your own wants and needs ahead of the wants and needs
of others. Why is it wrong to act selfishly? Because acting selfishly is
both based on and reinforces the illusion that you are a separate and
distinct individual. Such an illusion, the mistaken impression that
ultimate reality is composed of many such separate and distinct
individual beings, is dangerous. It is responsible for all human suffering, both because it is at odds with the true undifferentiated nature
of ultimate reality (or suchness, as Buddhist philosophers prefer to
call it) and because it blocks the harmonious cooperation with everyone and everything around us that is the only foundation for true
happiness.
Selfish action is wrong, not because it is against the will of a particular God but because it is ultimately self-destructive. Buddhist precepts
therefore are not commandments but suggestions for ways to behave
that will enhance the individuals ability to escape this realm of unavoidable suffering and to enjoy true happiness. We are free to ignore such
suggestions if we wish to do so. However, we will pay a price. In more
philosophical schools of Buddhism, that price is ones return after
death to live another life filled with suffering. In more popular forms
of Buddhism, various hells await those who violate the more important
precepts. No God condemns us to those hells, however. We place our
own selves there by our own selfish thoughts and actions.
In Buddhism, there is a close connection between religion on the one
hand and morality and ethics on the other, but it is not the same
sort of connection you find in theologically oriented religions such as
4. See Hakeda (1967).

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Christianity. Buddhism does not give orders; it only gives advice. Good
and bad actions are determined by the nature of ultimate reality rather
than the will of a God. Moreover, morality is simply the set of guidelines average individuals should follow if they want to minimize how
much they will suffer in the long term. Ethics, here understood as voluntary behavioral codes, stricter than a communitys behavioral expectations, is for those who want to reach nirvana and escape the human
realm of suffering once and for all. Such strict ethical regulations are
not binding on the average Buddhist. Only those who already are at a
higher level of spiritual advancement, thanks to their successful dampening of selfish thoughts and actions in previous lives, should even
remotely attempt to conform to such rigorous restrictions on their
thoughts and deeds. Those not prepared to meet such high ethical
demands will only be frustrated, and that frustration can add to their
5
suffering.
Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism
More than Buddhism or folk religion, Confucianismespecially the
Neo-Confucianism that dominated elite discourse in China, Korea,
and Japan in the centuries preceding the encounter with the modern
worldis even farther from the model of religion embodied by Judaic
and Christian practices of faith, as regards what religion is and what
the relationship between religion and morality should look like. There
are no gods in Neo-Confucianism. The closest Neo-Confucianism
comes to belief in invisible personalities is the respect and the deep
regard that Neo-Confucians are expected to show toward ancestors and
to great scholars and models of virtue from the past. However, NeoConfucians do not make the same requests of their late, great grandparentsor even of Confucius, their most revered sage himselfthat
practitioners of folk religion and popular Buddhism ask of their gods.
Neo-Confucians do not ask of the dead to cure the living or to make
them wealthy. Proper Confucian ancestor worship involves ritual
displays of respect and reverence with no expectations of any reward
for such displays (except perhaps a reputation for proper behavior). To
perform a Confucian ritual, or to adhere rigidly to the strict demands
of the Confucian moral code, in hope of some reward is to violate the
5. For a succinct discussion of the role of ethics in Buddhist thought and practice, see
Harvey (1990).

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209

Confucian moral code, simply for harboring the selfish motive of indi6
vidual gain.
According to the fundamental principles of Neo-Confucianism,
virtue (including the proper performance of prescribed ritual) is its
own reward. In the Neo-Confucian worldview, there is no room for a
supreme judge personally rewarding good behavior and punishing
evil.
In the formative stages of Confucianism, around 2,500 years ago,
there are hints of a belief in a supernatural personality overseeing the
human realm; but even that long a time ago the primary focus of Confucian discourse essentially was on morality. Neo-Confucianism, which
arose in China during the eleventh century, then spread to Korea in the
fourteenth and to Japan in the seventeenth century, wholly dismissed
any references to supernatural entities in revered texts as purely metaphorical. In place of theism, Neo-Confucianism constructed a comprehensive philosophy that can be best described as a nontheistic moral
metaphysics.
Neo-Confucianism can reasonably be called a moral metaphysics
because moral guidelines provide the basic building blocks of the universe. In the Neo-Confucian worldview, there are two formative forces
in the cosmos, li and qi (ki in Korean and Japanese). Like many key
terms in East Asian thought, li (pronounced as lee) is difficult to
translate into English, since there is no exact English-language equivalent for li. However, patterning principles comes close to describing
the role li plays in Neo-Confucian thinking. Li is written with a Chinese
character that originally meant the lines in a piece of jade an artist
should follow when shaping that piece of jade into a work of art.
However, li then expanded to mean the norms or guidelines human
beings should follow as they go about their daily lives, as well as the
patterns that define appropriate forms of interaction both in the natural
world and within the human community. Li is both singular and
plural. There is one all-encompassing li, the network-as-a-whole of
appropriate interactions that is the universe and everything in it. There
6. We can find some examples in Confucian and even Neo-Confucian texts of prayers
to heaven. However, Neo-Confucian philosophers make clear that the language in such
prayers should be understood metaphorically rather than literally. Heaven was to be
understood as the impersonal immanent governing force in the cosmos. Heaven was not
a supernatural personality like the gods of theism. Prayers could influence heaven only
to the extent that the supplicants sincerity and selflessness would resonate with broader
cosmic forces and restore harmony and proper functioning to the universe.

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are also individual li for each actor, or node(s) of interaction within that
network. For example, it is the li of the sun that it does rise in the east,
crosses the sky overhead, and then sets in the west. It is the li of a
human male that he obeys his parents when young, takes care of his
parents when they grow old, and pays proper ritual respect to them
after they have died. Both the movement of the sun and the actions of
sons are governed by the li innate in both physical nature and human
nature. The main difference between inanimate natural objects and
human beings is that human beings can forget that they are supposed
to act as parts integral to the cosmic network of appropriate interrelationships and instead act contrary to their li, harming not only themselves and their society but also the natural world in which they live,
by acting in an unnatural (against-the-natural-order) way.
Why would human beings act in such a way? Like all comprehensive
worldviews, be they religious or philosophical, Neo-Confucianism had
to answer that question and to account for the existence of evil. Buddhism blamed human ignorance. According to Buddhist doctrine,
human beings behave inappropriately and therefore suffer because
they do not understand the true nature of the world in which they live.
They live in a world of constant change, yet they crave permanency;
and they act as though the world around them could provide that
much-craved permanency. They also believe that the world is composed of separate and distinct substances, and act as though they
themselves are one such substance. Yet everyone and everything ultimately was one. Differentiation was nothing more than an illusion
created by our belief in, and desire for a separate, distinct, and eternal
existence. According to Buddhism, it was the conflict between the
desire for, and the belief in, permanency and individuality, on the one
hand, and the reality of constant change that undermined permanent
individual existence, on the other, that doomed human beings to constant frustration. The philosophical Buddhist solution was to renounce
attachments to the things of this world so that we become immune to
such frustration and can escape the suffering that Buddhists believed
was an inescapable consequence of the normal human ignorance about
the true nature of reality.
Neo-Confucianism arose as a Confucian response to almost 1,000
years of Buddhists preaching that this world of ours was an illusory
world: nothing in it was safe from change. Confucianism first appeared
in East Asia, well over 2,000 years ago, as an indigenous product of
Chinese speculation about how human beings should behave. For

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more than 1,000 years, Confucianism remained primarily an ethical

philosophy that focused on relationships among human beings on this
planet. As such, it remained an important part of Chinese culture even
after the importation of Buddhism from South Asia in the second
century. However, to deny the ultimate reality of this world, as
Buddhists did, was to deny the value of those earthly relationships
that were the core of Confucianism. It took Confucians centuries to
recognize how serious the Buddhist challenge was and to respond to
it. Finally, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they produced NeoConfucianism, itself a philosophical affirmation of the reality of this
world and therefore of the moral obligations incumbent on those who
live in this world. Neo-Confucians agreed with Buddhists that the
world was a realm of constant change. However, they insisted that
change, not claims that undermine reality, constituted reality. Reality,
according to the Neo-Confucian worldview, was simply the sum total
of the various patterns of appropriate interaction that constituted the
network in which we and everything else was immersed.
This was a denial not only of the Buddhist concept of reality but also
of the Buddhist explanation of the existence of evil. After all, if this
world of change is real, then to recognize that both change and the
world that change creates are real is wisdom, not ignorance. How, then,
do Confucians explain evil? They, too, blame ignorance, but for them
danger comes from ignorance of the difference between li and qi (pronounced chee). Li are the formative patterns constituting both the
ought and the is of the universe, directing the way people and
things act when they act naturally, and at the same time also defining
the way they should act. Qi is the basic stuff (both matter and energy)
out of which interacting things and processes of change are composed.
Li itself, according to the Neo-Confucian philosophers, is above the
realm of shapes, put in other words, formless. For li to become manifest, it has to guide and shape qi into individual material objects. Unfortunately, qi is often muddy and lumpy (Neo-Confucians never explain
where that mud and those lumps came from) and therefore not translucent enough for li to shine through that qi, unaltered. Because qi is
not always a perfect medium for li, what should/could have been
appropriate interactions are distorted and become imperfect. One
example would be a human being whose basic human nature is li and
who therefore naturally tends toward harmonious interaction with
other human beings but who nevertheless acts in a selfish manner
because his or her lumpy or muddy qi has misdirected his li.

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The Neo-Confucian solution to the perennial problem of how to

avoid evil and how to become a better human being is knowledge. In
the Chinese language with which Neo-Confucian philosophy was constructed, the word for mind is the same as the word for heart.
Therefore, the same psychophysical organ that is responsible for likes
and dislikes, and for the decisions that emanate from them, is also
responsible for knowing, including knowing what is right and what is
wrong. In other words, Neo-Confucians both think and decide with the
same bodily and mental organ. This fact creates a much closer relationship between knowledge and volition (see Williams, chap. 6 in this
book) than is posited by religions that instead distinguish between the
brain through which we learn and judge and the mind through which
we will and desire. Mainstream Neo-Confucians did not spend any
time pondering the question of why human beings sometimes act
improperly even though they know the proper way to act. In the NeoConfucian worldview, anyone who really knows what is proper will
act properly.
The standard Neo-Confucian approach to trying to be the best person
one could possibly be was twofold. First of all, people endeavored to
clarify their qi through meditation, self-discipline, and study. A common
way to refer to the task of cultivating a moral character is disciplining
the body. Second, they investigated things and events by which they
meant to read history, literature, and philosophy as well as observe the
world around them to identify those li they needed to align their
thoughts and actions with. Neo-Confucians believe this approach
should be easier than we might think at first, since those li are already
present in our mind-qua-heart and all we have to do is simply recognize the same li in the external world. As they would put it, all we have
to do is to illuminate the patterns in the world around us by shining
the light of our true inner nature on them, and then letting that light
reflect back on the patterns within our mind, further illuminating those
innate patterns in return.
In this mainstream Neo-Confucian worldview, there is no room for
God or gods. What does this fact tell us about the relationship between
religion, on the one hand, and morality and ethics, on the other, in the
moral philosophy that dominated elite thinking in China, Japan, and
Korea for centuries up until radical cultural transformation wrought
by modernization began in the second half of the nineteenth century?
Unless we define religion broadly enough to encompass the nontheistic

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moral metaphysics of Neo-Confucianism, religionthat is, folk religious traditions and Buddhismwas supposed to kneel as a servant
before morality and ethics. Neo-Confucians held that the moral obligations incumbent on human beings were the same basic patterns that
directed patterns of interaction in the natural world. No God or gods
could override such essential human obligations as filial piety and
loyalty without threatening the normative patterns that constituted the
whole universe. Instead, the role of religions and the spirits they
believed in, if those spirits actually existed, was to enforce already
existing moral principles and ethical injunctions. Religions could confer
extra obligationssuch as the requirement for Buddhist monks to be
celibate vegetariansbut such rules were treated as subordinate to the
moral principles Confucians believed were embedded in the very fabric
of both the universe and of the human mind-qua-heart. Religions could
7
not contradict such essential components of reality.
There are some who will argue that Confucianism itself should be
treated as a religion.8 After all, Neo-Confucianism was just as important
in shaping the values and in guiding the behavior of devout NeoConfucians as Christianity is for devout Christians. At the very least,
Neo-Confucianism should be regarded as a functional equivalent
of religion. If that is the case, then what does the relationship of nontheistic Neo-Confucianism to morality and ethics tell us about the
possible forms that the relationship between religion, on the one hand,
and morality and ethics, on the other, can take?
Since no one could ever say that Neo-Confucianism did not have a
strong moral component, Neo-Confucianism poses a powerful challenge to those who believe that only a moral code, reinforced by a belief
in a God or at least in gods, can be strong enough to guide human
behavior. Though they did not need to fear a God who would condemn
them to eternal punishment if they misbehaved, nor worry about
pleasing a God who could reward them with eternal life in paradise if
they behaved properly, Neo-Confucians nevertheless took their moral
obligations seriously. Chinese and Korean history are filled with examples of Neo-Confucian scholars who died in defense of their ideals or
otherwise sustained fidelity to the Confucian moral code at great
personal cost.
7. For a concise analysis of what Zhu Xi (11301200), the man who shaped NeoConfucianism into its orthodox form, had to say about Buddhism, see Fu (1986).
8. See, for example, Taylor (1990).

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Though Neo-Confucians did not fear divine punishment and did

not expect supernatural rewards, they did believe that immoral
behavior had serious repercussions. Because Neo-Confucian morality
was grounded in the very fabric of the universe, they believed that
immoral actions or even immoral thoughts threatened the harmonious
interactions both in the natural world and in the human community
that maintained the universe in its optimal state. As one Korean NeoConfucian philosopher wrote, paraphrasing ancient Chinese texts, If
there is a hairs breadth disparity [from what is right], Heaven and
Earth will change their places and the moral foundations of civilization proper will disappear.9 When the rules governing appropriate
interaction within the human community are an integral part of a
cosmic network of patterns of appropriate interaction encompassing
the entire universe, there is no need for a God above to enforce those
rules. The universe will provide enforcement enough, since interference
in the harmonious operation of the cosmos will result in malfunctions
such as drought, floods, or epidemics.
Because Neo-Confucian morality and ethics were grounded in the
physical universe and in human nature, Neo-Confucians were not concerned with the sorts of relations with God that are so important in the
Abrahamic (Judaic, Christian, and Muslim) traditions. There is no NeoConfucian sacred commandment that declares, Thou shalt have no
other gods before me, or, There is no other god but God and Muhammad is His prophet. In fact, Confucian moral rules do not talk about
gods at all. The primary moral relationships for Confucians, known as
the Five Relationships, are those between rulers and subjects, between
fathers and sons (alas for newly acquired Western precepts, daughters
are not given the same weight as sons in the Neo-Confucian patriarchal
moral code), between husbands and wives, between elder brothers and
younger brothers, and between friends and friends. As in all religious
traditions, however, Confucians did have certain ritual obligations.
They were expected to show respect for their ancestors and for the great
teachers revered in Neo-Confucianism. However, such ritual displays
of reverent worship should not be understood as Western-mode
worship. Confucians bowed before the spirit tablets of their ancestors and sages just as they bowed before living human beings they
respected but did not view to be gods or supernatural personalities
able to intercede in human affairs.
9. See Taylor (1990) and Kalton (1988, 178).

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Ethics, Morality, and Anthropocentrism in East Asia

The anthropocentric focus of Neo-Confucian ethics and morality is
obvious in the terms used for morality and ethics. Just as in European
languages, so also in the Chinese language that provides most of the
terminology for philosophical and religious discourses in East Asia,
the terms for morality and ethics overlap yet can be distinguished.
However, morality and ethics are not differentiated in the same way
they are in the Western tradition. In that European view and tradition,
morality can refer to the mores of a society and to the broader rules
that govern human behavior in general. Ethics, on the other hand,
when it is differentiated from morality (see Mulhern, chap. 8 in this
book), refers to specific codes of conduct that are incumbent on particular groups, such as the ethical codes for lawyers or those established
for physicians. The Confucian tradition, rather, understands those
terms in slightly different ways.
The modern word for morality in the Sinograph world (the East
Asian region, which relies heavily on Chinese-character vocabulary) is
a two-syllable term in which each syllable is a stand-alone character.
The first syllable is pronounced Dao (daw) in Chinese and literally
means a path for people to follow. Yet, although it still can carry that
meaning, Dao is also used to name the way everyone and everything
should behave and the way they would behave if they acted according
to their true inner nature. In that sense, it is often translated as the
Way. The second syllable, pronounced de (duh), is often translated as
virtue. Combined, dao and de together signify the virtuous way
of behaving, in other words, morality. Yet another way to translate
daode is goodness, in the sense of the Way operating as it should
operatewithout any distortion. Even when those two syllables are
combined, however, they still preserve their separate nuances. As an
early Neo-Confucian philosophical dictionary points out, In general,
the Way is what is common, while virtue is what is achieved in the self,
thus becoming ones possession.10 Nevertheless, they do share the
meaning of morality in general, of both the general disposition to act
properly and the state that generally prevails when everyone and
everything are behaving as they should.
The modern word for ethics, on the other hand, is a combination of
the Chinese character used specifically to mean appropriate human
10. See Chen (1986, 112115).

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relationships(the term for the five standard human relationships that

are the core of Confucian ethics) with the Chinese character li.
The result is a phrase that could be translated literally as the patterns
that define appropriate human interactions. However, this was not the
term used in most premodern texts. In premodern texts, li often stands
alone clearly to mean the particular rules that govern interaction in
specific situations. This is the same li we met, earlier, in the meaning
of cosmic patterns of appropriate interaction. When conceived in the
singular, it is no other than the Dao itself. Neo-Confucian scholars have
frequently explained that li and Dao are one and the same.11 However,
when a Confucian writer wants to focus on the specific rather than the
general, he tends to prefer the term li, patterning principles, rather
than Dao. What is quite important to note here is that both Dao and li
are immanent rather than transcendent. There is no God imposing
morality and ethics from above. Rather, the universe, including the
human community, provides its very own moral principles and ethical
rules.
The traditional religions of East Asia are anthropocentric in that they
focus more on human beings than on supernatural beings. Moreover,
among the elite, the trend over the centuries has been to move farther
and farther away from any concern with gods and spirits. The gods of
folk religion are much more involved with human affairs than the
deities of Buddhism are, at least in the minds eye of the philosophical
Buddhists. In Neo-Confucianism, gods are pushed even further aside.
In Neo-Confucian eyes, gods and spirits (except for the spirits of ancestors and revered teachers) are best ignored because they can become a
distraction from the important task of appropriate interaction with
visible entities, primarily other human beings. In such an anthropocentric religious culture, religion does not generate morality so much as
religion is morality. That fact becomes particularly evident in the case
of Neo-Confucianism, which in essence all in all is a philosophical
justification of Confucian moral principles.
Because behavior, particularly appropriate behaviorthat is, moral
behavioris central to the traditional religious culture of East Asia
whereas theology is not, East Asian folk religions and Buddhism, like
Confucianism, are primarily religions of action rather than of thought.
For them, ritual is more important than doctrine. What you do is more
important than what you believe. Mind-heart is behavior: strangely, a
11. For example, see Chen (1986, 112).

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pragmatism reminiscent of Deweys philosophy in the United States.

This tendency to privilege behavior over doctrine leads also to privileging morality over religionif religion is understood in the same
Western sense of theism, dogma, and sacred textsor at least to denying
religion the power to define the fundamental moral principles that
govern human behavior. This is almost the polar opposite of the traditional Judaic and Christian approaches, which have put religion in
charge of morality and ethics and even gone so far as to claim that a
morality independent of religion is not true morality at all.
These radically different understandings of the role of religion vis-vis morality and ethics led to tumultuous confrontations when
Christianity penetrated East Asia and began preaching that belief in
God required believers to obey the law of God at all times, even if that
law conflicted with community mores and the hitherto accepted ethical
injunctions. Such confrontations occurred across East Asia.12 However,
my own research interest has been Korea. Moreover, Korea is the only
country in East Asia where Christianity has managed to become a
major presence, with membership figures rivaling those claimed by
traditional religions. This fact makes it easier to compare those who
put morality first and those who give priority to theology, making
Korea an appropriate site to explore this important difference in greater
detail.
The Case of Korea
Before examining the religious and ethical culture of Korea today, we
should first go back a couple of centuries and see how this clash of
worldviews unfolded when Neo-Confucianism was much stronger
than Christianity in East Asia and was not yet supported by modern
Western economic and military power. In the eighteenth century,
Koreans began reading and discussing expositions of Roman Catholic
teachings that were brought back to Korea by diplomats who had traveled to Beijing. Those missionary-authored writings were written in
fluent Chinese and used a lot of terminology borrowed from Confucian
classics, which made them attractive to some Confucian scholars. In
the 1780s, a few young Confucian scholars took time out from studying
12. See Gernet (1985) for an in-depth study of the early Chinese Confucian reaction to
Christianity, primarily in the form of Catholic philosophical and theological writings in
Chinese. Elison (1973) provides an analysis of the reaction of the Japanese to the presence
of Jesuit missionaries on their soil.

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for their civil service examinations to read those books; they became
convinced that Catholicismthe teachings of the Lord of Heaven as
it was called in those publicationsprovided some ideas that might
prove useful in moral cultivation. Even before there were any foreign
missionaries on Korean soil, those few young men began organizing a
Korean Catholic Church, convinced that the belief in God that those
books promoted would be able to provide the personal grounding for
the Confucian ethics of interpersonal interaction that impersonal li
could not provide. At first, they found no reason to think they were
abandoning their Confucian heritage. First, they accepted the Catholic
missionary argument that Confucianism originally had been based on
the belief in a Supreme Ruler Above but somehow had wandered away
from its theistic roots over the centuries. They hence sincerely believed
they were returning to original Confucianism. Second, they also held
as true that belief in God, and the supernatural assistance God would
provide for those who believed in Him, would make it easier for them
to conform to the strict moral code of Confucianism.13 However, most
Korean Confucians did not agree with that positive assessment of
Christian theism. One who disagreed was the Neo-Confucian historian
and philosopher An Jeongbok (17121791).
An was one of the leading Neo-Confucian scholars of his day, yet his
son-in-law became one of Koreas first Catholics. Concerned about this
deviation from tradition and how that might affect his familys reputation, An penned a trenchant attack on his son-in-laws novel views in
which An criticizes Catholic moral teaching as essentially self-centered.
He presented the standard Neo-Confucian line that human beings
should simply do what was right because the li within their hearts told
them that was the right thing to do (cf. Guyer, chap. 3 in this book).
Unfortunatelyhe pointed outCatholics teach that we should look
to an external source, God, not only for ethical guidance but also for
rewards for our good behavior. To An, goodness was its own reward.
Any calculation of how moral behavior would benefit us personally
gravely tainted that behavior. As he saw it, the Catholic pursuit of
the individual reward of eternal life in heaven was selfish. Since selfishness, the pursuit of individual benefit, was the defining feature
of immorality for mainstream Neo-Confucianism, Catholicism was
unquestionably immoral.
13. For more on the appeal of Catholicism to that small group of Korean Confucians, see
Baker (2003).

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As a concrete example of Catholic immorality, An noted that those

Catholic books his son-in-law was reading taught that men should treat
their own bodies as an enemy, since physical passions often lead us off
the righteous path. However, An wrote, we receive our bodies from
our parents. If our bodies are an enemy, then those who gave us those
bodies must be our enemies as well. However, to view our parents as
our enemies is not only totally irrational but is immoral as well, since
such an attitude would undermine the filial piety that is one of the
cardinal virtues.14
Ans criticism of Catholic teachings was but a warning shot that
Koreas first Catholics did not heed. They continued to hope that their
new beliefs would prove compatible with Confucianism. However,
those hopes were dashed in 1791. In that year, the mother of one of
those Korean Catholics died. And since her son was a member of the
Confucian scholarly elite, he was required to honor his mother with a
proper mourning ritual. The ritual was supposed to include a spirit
table, a piece of wood on which the name of the deceased was written.
Part of the mourning ritual required the mourners to bow before that
tablet as a show of respect for the person whose name was written on
it. Catholic authorities far away in Rome had decided that bowing
before a spirit tablet constituted ancestor worship and forbade Catholics to take part in any such ritual. Though Korea still had no missionaries on its soil at that time, a letter arrived from the French bishop
in Beijing informing the nascent Korean Catholic community of this
Catholic doctrine. Paul Yun Jichung (Paul was his baptismal name)
followed the instructions of that bishop when he mourned his mother
after she passed away in the spring of 1791. He did not include a spirit
tablet in the mourning ritual. He was soon arrested, interrogated, and
executed.
Before his execution, however, Paul Yun engaged in a debate with
his prosecutors about the relationship between morality and God. His
prosecutors kept insisting that a moral human being would show
proper respect to a deceased parent in the way society and the human
heart told him he should. Yun countered that fidelity to Gods laws was
the best way to show that he was the sort of righteous son his parents
wanted him to be. This debate reveals two contrasting assumptions.
The Confucian prosecutors could not understand how commands from
a God could contradict the moral rules inherent to human nature. In
14. For more on An Jeongbok, see Baker (19791980).

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the Confucian worldview, only those ideas consistent with Confucian

moral principles were trustworthy. If belief in the sort of God described
by Yun led believers to neglect their basic moral duties and obligations,
then such a belief should be rejected. However, in converting to Catholicism, Yun had abandoned the Confucian assumption that religious
claims had to satisfy moral criteria in order to be deemed acceptable.
Instead, he accepted the Catholic premise that Gods will determined
right and wrong and that therefore belief in and obedience to God was
the foundation of moral obligations, and only moral principles that
were in accord with Gods laws were binding.15
Yun and his prosecutor were in reality arguing, on the one hand,
about the proper relationship between religion and morality and, on
the other hand, on ethics. In effect, the prosecutor personified the traditional East Asian assumption that religions role was limited to supporting the existing moral code and could not require violations of that
code. Yun represented an idea that was totally new to Korea at that
time: the notion that religious claims could override moral claims not
grounded in the will of God.
Though Yun lost that argument in 1791 and became a martyr to his
Christian faith, Korea has changed significantly in the more than two
centuries that have passed since his death. A totalitarian government
in North Korea continues to promote the traditional subordination of
religion to secular norms. However, the southern half of the Korean
peninsula enjoys religious freedom. South Koreans are not executed for
following religious convictions that are not dangerous to others. In fact,
even during the years of military dictatorship in South Korea (from
1961 through 1987), the generals running South Korea exempted religious pacifists from the normal mandatory requirement for young men
to spend time in the armed forces preparing to resist with weapons any
Communist invasion.
This relatively tolerant attitude does not mean, however, that South
Korea, any more than any other country in Asia, has abandoned the
traditional view of the relationship between religion and morality and
ethics. Instead, they have modified it to allow religious institutions to
preach their own ethical codes while maintaining the position that
society has to conform to certain universal moral principles which the
government has a responsibility to promote and to which all religious
organizations have to subscribe.
15. For more on Paul Yun, see Baker (1979).

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Secular Moral Education in East Asia

A 2004 Gallup poll found that 53.5 percent of all South Koreans say
they believe in a particular religion. That is the highest figure ever to
be reached in South Korea. Until the mid-1990s, more than half of
the population regularly told pollsters they had no religious beliefs.
According to the poll, 21.4 percent of the population were Protestant
Christians. Another 6.7 percent informed Gallup they were Roman
Catholicsmeaning that only around 28 percent of the South Korean
people have adopted a religion that puts God in charge of morality and
ethics. Another 24.4 percent said they were Buddhists. And less than 1
percent told Gallup they believed in a religion other than Christianity
or Buddhism, though a substantial percentage of the population continues to patronize the more than 100,000 shamans who still perform
folk-religion rituals.
South Korea is by far the most Christian country in East Asia. In
comparison, less than 1 percent of Japanese and perhaps 6 percent of
the people in Taiwan are Christian. There are no reliable figures for
China, although it has been estimated that around 5 percent of Chinas
population is Christian. Nevertheless, Korea shares with its neighbors
the traditional notion that the state should be the one to teach basic
morals and ethics: religions should play no more than a supportive role
in that endeavor. It is for that reason that, in South Korea, schoolchildren are required to take courses in morality and ethics through all
their twelve years of education before they enter universityusing
textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education. In elementary
schools, those courses are called learning to live a proper life. In middle
school, the name becomes morality. And in high school, those courses
are called national ethics.
In none of these courses taught in public schools is there any promotion of belief in God, gods, or religion. But religious schools are allowed
to add a religious component to the required morality and ethics curriculum. In public schools, the focus is on teaching Koreas traditional
valuesprimarily the values associated with Confucianismas well
as what is proper behavior for a citizen in a democratic society. Until
the first indications of thaw in relations between North Korea and
South Korea, the morality and ethics curriculum in South Korean
schools also had a strong anti-Communist component. Students
were widely taught that a truly moral person would oppose the immorality that Communism represents. Today, the emphasis is on training

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public-minded citizens, who will put the best interests of society as a

whole ahead of their personal self-interest. In order to train teachers to
teach those morality and ethics courses, schools of education in Koreas
public universities have departments of ethics education. Students in
those departments take courses both in Koreas traditional ethics and
in ethics of the Western tradition, including Judeo-Christian ethics,
but they are wholly aware that, if they end up teaching in public
schools, they will be teaching secular morality and ethics courses.16
Japan has a similar but somewhat more muted approach to morality
and ethics education. Japans Fundamental Law on Education, which
was promulgated in 1947 and is in effect today, declares in its article 1
that Education shall aim at the full development of personality, striving for the rearing of the people, sound in mind and body, who shall
love truth and justice, esteem individual value, respect labor and have
a deep sense of responsibility, and be imbued with the independent
spirit, as builders of the peaceful state and society. Obviously, this
would involve teaching values and moral principles. However, to
ensure that the Japanese government would not be accused of promoting any particular religion, article 9 of that Fundamental Law on Education states: The attitude of religious tolerance and the position of
religion in social life shall be valued in education. The schools established by the state and local public bodies shall refrain from religious
education or other activities for a specific religion. In elementary
school and middle school, students can take specific courses on morality, just as students do in Korea. At high school level, however, ethics
is not a separate subject: citizenship is taught instead, possibly out of
serious concern that the level of specificity in high school courses might
cause high school courses on morality and ethics to veer a tad too
close to specific religious or political ethical injunctions. Nevertheless,
Japanese aspiring to be teachers are aware that they will have to earn
university credits in moral education in order to be certified to teach
in Japans public schools.17
Taiwan has moved the farthest from explicit moral education in its
public schools, probably because for decades morality and ethics classes
were used to promote loyalty to the ruling party. As Taiwan has democratized, deep dissatisfaction with such politicized moral education led
16. For one example of how South Koreans think of moral education as education in
traditional secular values, see Joh (2002).
17. For an interesting survey of what has been taught in moral education classes since
Japan entered the modern era, see Hoffman (1999, 8796).

Ethics, Morality, and Religion

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to calls for changes. In 2004 the government put an end to the exigencies for special ethics education requirements in public schools. And
that action has led to expressions of concern from the general public
still expecting society, not religious organizations, to provide the moral
and ethical rules and regulations societies need to function well. Since
the state is the representative of society in general, many people in
Taiwan still expect the states schools to provide moral education. The
primary debate in Taiwan is over what the content of that education
should be.18 Few voices have been raised against the states involvement in teaching morality and ethics in favor of its handing over that
essential responsibility to religious organizations.
Across the Taiwan Straits, China has been much less reluctant to
combine traditional virtues with political ideology in its ethics class for
its students. In fact, such classes are called ideology and morality
classes. Modifications have been made in their content to reflect the
fact that China is quickly adopting the characterizing features of a
market economy and is granting greater freedoms also in nonpolitical
arenas to its citizens.19 However, the idea that the stateand not
religious organizationsshould be solely responsible for defining
and teaching fundamental moral principles and ethical injunctions
remains strong.20
Though South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China may differ in the
specifics of how they conceive moral education in public schools, they
nevertheless still hold firm to the traditional view that morality and
ethics are independent of religion. The only significant modification to
that view has been a willingness in the countries that have meanwhile
become more democratized to allow religious organizations to add
their own ethical teachings to what the state has already provided. But
the secular state still is expected to provide the foundation. However,
since the majorities in all of those countries do not have any particular
religious orientation, we could hardly expect people in those countries
to draw the same close connection Westerners have tended to draw
between religion and morality and ethics. To link morality and ethics
too closely to religion in East Asia would leave most of the people there
with no moral compass.
Therefore, the great divide, the conceptual gap between the North
American and European assumption that morality and ethics without
18. See Lee (2004, 575595).
19. Cf. deLisle (2008).
20. See Zhan and Ning (2004, 511532).

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a religious underpinning is too weak to have much influence over

human behavior and the East Asian assumption that morality and
ethics are too important to be left to religious organizations that do not
and cannot represent society as a whole, is likely to continue. Empirical
data are unlikely to bridge this difference, since crime rates in East
Asian countries with secular moral principles and worldly ethical
codes are no higher, and in many cases much lower, than crime rates
in countries with moral principles and ethical codes grounded in theistic religion. If we could peer into the future, probably we would not
see the marked difference vanishing under the homogenizing effects of
globalization in the decades ahead. Instead, mainly owing to growing
cross-cultural interaction, and therefore also to enhanced cross-cultural
understanding, more of us may come to appreciate the irony that
nations claiming to be religious now are leaving moral and ethical
education out of the public schools that a majority of their school-age
children are attending, while nations with a much smaller attachment
to organized religion continue to insist that their public schools teach
ethics and morality.
References
Americans Struggle with Religions Role at Home and Abroad (2002) Report issued
by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life on March 20, 2002.
Baker, Don (1979) Western Religion and Eastern Ritual, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic
Society, Korea Branch, No. 54:3358.
(19791980) A Confucian Confronts Catholicism, Korean Studies Forum, No. 6
(Winter-Spring):144.
(2003) Danger Within: Guilt and Moral Frailty, Acta Koreana, 4:125, esp.
1320.
Chan, Wing-tsit, Editor (1986) Chu His and Neo-Confucianism, Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press.
Chen, Chun (1986) Neo-Confucian Terms Explained (the Pei-hsi tzu-i), Wing-tsit Chan,
Translator, New York: Columbia University Press.
deLisle, Jacques (2008) Development without Democratization? China, Law, and the
East Asian Model,, in Jose V. Ciprut, Editor, Democratizations: Comparisons, Confrontations, and Contrasts, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Elison, George (1973) Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fu, Wei-Hsun Charles (1986) Chu Hsi [Zhu Xi] and Buddhism, in Wing-tsit Chan,
Editor, Chu Hsi and Confucianism, pp. 377407, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Ethics, Morality, and Religion

225

Gallup Korea (2004) Hangugin ui chonggyo wa chonggyo uisik [The religions and religious
attitudes of the Korean people], Seoul.
Gernet, Jacques (1985) China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures, Janet Lloyd,
Translator, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hakeda, Yoshito S., Translator (1967) The Awakening of Faith, Attributed to Asvaghosha,
New York: Columbia University Press.
Harvey, Peter (1990) Buddhist Practice: Ethics, in Peter Harvey, An Introduction to
Buddhism: Teachings, History, and Practices, pp. 196216, Cambridge, UK: University of
Cambridge Press.
Hoffman, Stuart D. (1999) School Texts, the Written Word, and Political Indoctrination:
A Review of Moral Education Curricula in Modern Japan (18861997), History of Education, 28(1):8796.
Joh, Jong-ho (2002) A Dilemma in Moral Education in the Republic of Korea: The
Limitation of Individualistic Cognitive Approaches, Journal of Moral Education, 31(2):
393406.
Kalton, Michael C., Translator (1988) To Become a Sage: The Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning
by Yi Toegye, New York: Columbia University Press.
Lee, Angela Chi-Ming (2004) Changes and Challenges for Moral Education in Taiwan,
Journal of Moral Education, 33(4):575595.
Stark, Rodney (2003) For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science,
Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Taylor, Rodney L. (1990) The Religious Dimensions of Confucianism, New York: State
University of New York Press.
Zhan, Wansheng, and Wujie Ning (2004) The Moral Education Curriculum for Junior
High Schools in 21st Century China, Journal of Moral Education, 33(4):511532.

10

Exclusion, Fear, and

Identity in Emerging
Democracies
Jeff Spinner-Halev

Democracy often is thought of as an inclusive form of government.

It is rule of the people, by the people, and for the people. While the
people often constituted a restricted setfree men in Ancient Athens,
property-owning men in the early United Statesin contemporary
times, many of the barriers to citizenship of years past have fallen and
the people are now defined in a more inclusive way. Slaves no longer
exist in democracies, while women and the propertyless now vote.
And yet almost all democracies are exclusive in some way, particularly
as they emerge. Even if a democracy does not formally exclude
insiders, the majority in it may still discriminate against minorities in
important ways. Further, outsiders who may want to come in are often
excluded. This exclusion can be traced to the way that most democracies, particularly emerging ones, are also nationalistic.
Nationalism often arises in democratizing states. Democracies often
feel a need to have an identity, which nationalism supplies (Anderson
1991). Moreover, both nationalism and democracy need to mobilize
masses of people. Political parties in emerging states must decide the
basis on which they will appeal to their supporters; a bid to lead their
nations interestsand not the interests of other national groups within
the stateis a strategy used frequently by elites to gain power (Snyder
2000). My interest is not mostly with elites, however, as I look at the
psychology and political philosophy of exclusion; as I will explain,
fear plays a large role in explaining why religious majorities tend to
cling to their state, to the exclusion of others. The idea of democracy
leads majority national groups to believe that the state is theirs, a
belief that justifies an ethic of discrimination and an ethos of exclusion.
I do not think this kind of discrimination and exclusion is usually
acceptable, although it is almost inevitable: almost all democratizing
states discriminate in notable and noticeable ways. This discrimination

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sometimes fades as the democracies mature. In other words, most

young democracies are illiberal, and some mature democracies are
liberal.
This observation also means that older democracies ought to temper,
though not necessarily silence, their criticism of younger and illiberal
democracies; these older democracies, earlier in their life, had their
moments of illiberalism as well, traces of which still can be found in
them. Nonetheless, many older democracies have become less exclusive and more liberal over timethough even these democracies
contain echoes of nationalism in varying degrees. This reality points to
the importance of figuring out the ways and means of making young,
exclusionary democracies more mature and more open. There are
many kinds of exclusion, as well as many kinds of nationalism. Though
part of my argument will apply to democracy and to nationalism, in
general, my particular focus here will dwell on religious nationalism,
since the ethic of exclusion associated with this kind of nationalism is
one particularly hard to unravel. This task is difficult partly because
religious nationalists think their views are sanctioned by God, but
since many religious nationalists are not devout, a God-centered
explanation is only a partial account of the tenacity of religious
nationalism.
I begin with the democratic tendency to exclude, focusing on democratizing states. I then turn to the particular case of religious nationalism, first explaining why modern religions have become more exclusive,
unlike earlier religions, which were often more inclusive. In the last
section, I examine what can be done to make exclusive states more
inclusive, noting along the way how this purpose is harder to accomplish in democratizing states marked by an ethic of religious nationalism. Four examples will run through my chapter: India, Israel, Turkey,
and Sri Lanka. These countries are democratizing in different degrees;
some have moved toward democracy, only to lurch back sometimes
toward a more authoritarian kind of government. Yet all these states
have at least some degree of freedom, and all have contested elections.1
These examples also cover states that are dominated by four very distinct religionsHinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism. There are
other religions in the world, but if the same traits can be found in these
1. Since 1972, when the Freedom House surveys began, Israel has consistently ranked
as free. India has moved between free and partly free, though lately ranked as free.
Turkey and Sri Lanka also move between free and partly free, but lately both have been
ranked partly free. The list is available online at www.freedomhouse.org.

Exclusion, Fear, and Identity in Emerging Democracies

229

four markedly different religious nationalisms, then it is surely possible

that the same or similar traits will appear in others as well.2
Democratic Identity
Democracies, especially those undergoing young democratization,
have strong tendencies to exclude. The marriage of democracy and
nationalism is not new; it pervaded nineteenth-century Western
Europe, where these two movements were not seen as exclusive, but
complementary to one another. Yet the coincidence of these two
movements means that these democratic processes were, in part, illiberal. The Western democracies may appear to be relatively liberal
now, but that was not always the case. The majoritys desire to make
the states identity its own is endemic to democracy, particularly in
newly democratizing states; this desire is not an irresistible force, but
it is a force that is hard to resist. Over time, however, as a democracy
matures and becomes more secure, its inclination to exclude often
fades.
It in theory may be possible to imagine a democratic state that so
disentangled itself from any particular group that the states symbols
did not celebrate a particular group of people, or the state did not celebrate any of the heroes tied to a specific group, but it is hard to do so
in practice. The implausibility of this idea is woven into the fashion in
which democratic states are born; and few are born peacefully or easily.
Peaceful democratic births usually occur when the democracy is mostly
homogeneous. Slovenia, Poland, and Hungary emerged from the fall
of the Eastern bloc mostly homogeneous and with little bloodshed or
ethnic turmoil. These countries had, of course, no reason to fight about
their national identity, which does not mean they did not celebrate one.
Quite the reverse: they could celebrate their national identity with few
or no dissenters at all. Conversely, Croatians, Serbians, Azerbaijanis,
Georgians, and Bosnians had quite different, and unfortunate, experiences. The observation that divided democracies experience struggles
over identity, while homogenous ones do not, cannot be shrugged off
as mere coincidence or happenstance. Such a common occurrence is
better understood as being part and parcel of democracy itself, particularly in democratizing states.
2. If there were more space here, I would include Great Britain, whose nationalism was
intimately tied to its Protestantism, as Linda Colley (1992) has detailed.

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Democratic and Collective Identity

The democratic tendency to exclude is based in the way democracy
politicizes collective identity, which it doesand more so than many
other forms of government do. A democracy is a government of the
people, and hence it must define itself in some way. A group of people
will feel that the state belongs to them; this feeling is exacerbated when
the majority thinks there are competitors who also want to make the
state their very own, or deems itself threatened by a minoritys desire
to make such entitlements completely neutral when it comes to cultural
and identity matters. Monarchies, to voice one contrast, do not belong
to the people; unless they are constitutional monarchies, the state
belongs to the monarch, and identity is not collectivized: Making the
political community all-encompassing marked the idea off from any
strong theory of kingship which conceived the country as the monarchs hereditary estate (Hont 1994).
Very few political theorists have looked at the way democracies
exclude the other; and the few that have point to language as the
culprit. This rationale was formed long ago also by John Stuart Mill,
who argued that the basis of democratic fellow-feeling is a shared
language (Mill 1991, chap. 16). Will Kymlicka has argued that language
is a key way for marking out different nations; each nation, Kymlicka
argues, ought to have some degree of autonomy (Kymlicka 2001, 312).
For Charles Taylor (1999, 138) what democracies need is a high degree
of cohesion, and thus a common identity.3 Cohesion is needed because
the citizens that make a people must be capable of listening to one
another in an effective manner in order for collective decision making
to work at all, and so the people need to speak the same language.4
It is surely right that democracies can be defined by language, but
there is little reason to think that language is the only way to define a
democracy. Taylor and Kymlicka, both Canadians, may be a tad more
influenced by the example of Quebec. The troubles in the former Yugoslavia perhaps came from differences in identity, but not because the
different groups could not understand one another, since Serbs, Croats,
and Bosnians all speak mutually intelligible languages. When Finland
became independent in 1918, its emerging democracy did little to drive
out or exclude its Swedish-speaking population, which makes up about
3. Both Taylor and Kymlicka are influenced by Gellner (1983).
4. See Schiffman (2008)

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6 percent of Finland. There are in fact many language minorities in

democracies. Some of them are threatened, but some are not. Belgium
is being tugged in two different directions by its two main language
groups, but multilingual Switzerland exhibits no such problems. The
worlds largest democracy, India, is wracked by communal divisions
and contains myriad languages, but there is little connection between
the two; indeed, the divisions seen in India rarely track linguistic differences.5 Religion is the largest divider in India, the divisions among
indigenous peoples being another source of tension. Language, while
not a completely benign issue in India, is but only relatively malevolent
(Brass 1990, chap. 5).
Democracies can identify themselves through language, but also
through nationality, religion, race, or ideology, though sometimes these
categories overlap, and also other categories may be used. The process
of democratization and the choosing of an identity6 are often linked
tightly together, since it is at the emergence of a democracy that it must
be determined who is the people becoming sovereign. This identity is
not merely abstraction. Democracies must define who is a citizen and
who is not; must choose their holidays, heroes, and symbols; decide
what they will teach as their history; and determine their official
language(s).7 When the history books of a new nation-state are being
developed, these do not start from the year the new state was founded,
which may have been a year or two ago, lest they provide a short and
shallow read. When a new state is founded, it is commonplace for a
commission to be created, for new history textbooks to be written to
celebrate the nation and its achievements far into the distant past. The
Turkish history books developed after the birth of modern Turkey celebrate the Turkish peoples past over centuries, and not merely beginning with the proclamation of the modern Turkish republic in 1923,
even if that very founding is obviously emphasized and proudly celebrated. The history textbooks of Israel celebrate the accomplishments
of the ancient Hebrews and mourn the setbacks of the Jews throughout
history, not just from 1948 onward. The Israeli flag contains the Star of
David, a Jewish symbol; and the Israeli national anthem lends voice to
the yearnings of the Jewish soul. Similarly, the Turkish flag features
crescent moon and star, Islamic symbols both. These are not politically
neutral matters, but are constructed to celebrate a specific people in
5. Cf. Aronoff (2008).
6. See Williams, chap. 6 in this book, and Williams (2008).
7. See Schiffman (2008).

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institutionalized fashion. The people celebrated could simply be the

people of the state, but more often the people celebrated are those of
the dominant nation in the state. There is no necessary reason why the
people being celebrated must speak the same languageas long as
they (as they must) share some identity that can be institutionalized in
a variety of ways that are acceptable to the majority.8
Fear and Identity
The identity that a democracy chooses as it emerges need not be permanent; identities can change over time. Flags can be redesigned, holidays altered, and textbooks rewritten. Nonetheless, the original identity,
chosen at the very outset, will certainly figure as the presumptive
identity of the democracy; and it is this identity that will have to be
overridden. This is one reason why the democratizing process is so
important; as a state becomes a democracy, it chooses an identity that
will shape the contours of the state for years to come. Rousseau notes
the importance of the founding when he discusses the lawgiver. True,
at the birth of a political society, it is the top leadership that shapes the
societys basic institutions, but after that, Rousseau says, it is the institutions that shape the leaders of the republic (Rousseau 1968, 84).
Changing a democracys identity is rarely easy, though certainly possible; how hard it will be to change the identity of a democracy will
depend in part on how deeply rooted and how largely institutionalized
its ethical foundations are.
The difficulty of change will also depend on how the democracys
relationship to its enemies has changed over time. The identity of a
popular state is often defined partly in contrast to others, who may
be inside or outside the state. If they are inside, the majority will act
on a sense of urgency, to make sure that the state is or remains theirs.
Ownership of the state becomes all too crucial in democracies when
two or more groups believe they are in competition with one another.
There is little question about who is in charge of a monarchy and who
owns the state. But in a democratizing state, when the definition of
the people is up for grabs, ownership often becomes a heated issue.
Few want to live in a state dominated and defined by those from a
different group; the fear of having to do so fuels much democratic
8. See Mulhern, chap. 8 in this book, for a classical version of the definition of the state
from an ethical perspective.

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violence. It is for this reason that the identity of the state matters so
much: it is not just what symbols, history, and holidays the state will
have, but whose. And this question has ethical implications and
consequences.
At the time of the partition of India and Pakistan, many Hindus
felt threatened by Muslim political demands and wanted to have a
Hindu-dominated state. They were the majority after all, and a Hindudominated India would not only accord with democracy but also
restore the faded Hindu glory, so very undermined by Islamic invaders
long ago. Muslim fears of Hindus have not calmed down during the
last six decades of Indian independence. The recent rise of Hindutva,
Hindu nationalism, has put the Muslim community on the defensive.
Communal riots are all too commonplace, with Muslims usually having
the worst of it. In the late 1980s the Muslim personal law system (family
law in India is controlled by the different religions) came under attack,
and many Muslims saw this as an attack on the ethical foundations of
their community.9 A mosque, the Babri Masjid, which Hindu militants
declared sat on a site that contained an important Hindu temple, was
actually torn down by Hindu militants in 1992, while Indian police
passively watched, making the Muslim community feel even more
besieged. That Muslims tend to be poorer and less educated than Hindus
adds to the Muslim feeling of being dominated by the Hindus.
Yet just as many Muslims fear Hindus, many Hindus fear Muslims,
even though 83 percent of Indians are Hindu and only 11 percent
Muslim. Some Hindus regard their history to have had a glorious past,
many centuries ago, followed by centuries of Muslim and then British
rule. These Hindus contend that the reason for this domination was
that Hindus have been divided, particularly by caste, and thus are relatively weak, whereas their enemies are united and strong. Whereas
Hindus, by their number, do dominate India, they view Muslim support
for religious family law as being part of a militant religious international Islamic revival. The fact that many Muslims go to the Islamicdominated oil-rich Persian Gulf countries to work, along with the mass
conversions of lower-caste Hindus to Islam that take place, only adds
9. The matter of personal law in India is complicated by the fact that the state has intervened in Hindu but not in Muslim personal law, which has made the former much less
discriminatory against women than the latter. Nonetheless, the perception of the Muslim
community was that the Hindu-dominated state was intervening in their community in
a way that threatened the ethical foundations of their identity. See also my discussion of
the complexity of India personal law in Spinner-Halev (2001).

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to these fears. But Hindu anxieties have been fueled also by massacres
of Hindus by Sikhs in the Punjab and by an influx of Muslim Bangladeshi immigrants into the Indian state of Assam (Jaffrelot 1996, chaps.
1 and 10).
Relations between Hindus and Muslims in India reflect a pattern that
is repeated again and again in other countries. Both Turkey and Sri
Lanka moved haltingly toward democracy, with some reversals, in the
second half of the last century. As the Ottoman Empire broke up, part
of what is now Turkey was occupied by France and Britain, and then
invaded by Greece, which had designs on Istanbul and the area of
Anatolia. The humiliation felt by many Turks, rulers of the once great
Ottoman Empire now not only in pieces, but occupied in its heartland,
was deep. Many Greek Orthodox Christians in Turkey, however, supported this invasion, some very actively and some more passively. The
Greeks were defeated, and that defeat led many local Greek Christians
to become fearful of losing their homes, lives, and livelihood (Alexandris 1983, 8283). Even if most did not entertain thoughts of serving as
fifth column, this fact did little to calm Turkish fears of the defeated
Greek minority. Emerging from war, unsure how complete the Greeks
perceived their defeat to be, many Turks saw the coast as populated
with too many untrustworthy Greek Christians, and they thought it
now needed to be populated with more trustworthy Muslims (Ladas
1932, 20), leading to the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Greek
Christians from the new Turkish state, and later to an exchange (Mbadele) of national minorities between Turkey and Greece by forced
reciprocal transfer.
Nonetheless, by the early 1950s the relationship between the Turkish
state and its Greek Christian citizens had improved, with the Greek
community enjoying something of a revival. But all this came to a
crashing halt with the emergence of the dispute between Turkey and
Greece over Cyprus. Once again, the local Greek community was
viewed as potential fifth column, a perception that led to anti-Greek
riots and further expulsions. By the early 1970s, the same Greek Christian community in Turkey that for several centuries had flourished
under the authoritarian but multinational Islamic Ottoman Empire
(which for many centuries ruled Greece itself) was down to a mere few
thousand souls, mostly elderly people, now living under the more
democratic, nationalist, and secular Turkish republic.
One might retort that this was not the consequence of religious
nationalism, but the Jewish (and Christian Armenian) communities

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also suffered in Turkey. The Jews did not suffer as much as the Greeks
did, but they nonetheless faced considerable discrimination (though
much of this discrimination has since faded). The newly born Turkish
state was for the Turksand not just any Turks, but Islamic Turks.
Though Atatrk maintained that the Turks were a nation before they
became Muslim, being Turkish and Muslim wereand areintertwined. Turkish leaders insisted upon the unity of their young nation;
they were no minorities within their midst, they insisted. They pressured the Jewish community into forgoing its status as a minority
group, a status the community was entitled to under an international
treaty that Turkey signed in the 1920s10 (Liberles 1984, 133). Yet even
as it denied having minorities, Turkey routinely discriminated against
its non-Islamic minorities.11 Islam was simply a crucial, perhaps main,
component of identity in the emerging Turkish state (Poulton 1997,
98). In the 1930s the press led an anti-Jewish campaign that led to antiJewish riots and even to the removal of several historic Jewish communities. During World War II, well-to-do Greek Orthodox Christian,
Catholic and Gregorian Armenian Christian, and Jewish men were
rounded up and sent to special camps where they were forced to work
for the state under harsh conditions (Poulton 1997, 117). Perhaps more
ominous was the capital or wealth tax imposed on non-Muslims in the
very early 1940s. A severe economic crisis lasting from 1939 to 1942 was
blamed on non-Muslim businessmen. The capital tax was levied on all
10. It was sovereign Turkeys perfectly legal prerogative after the Lausanne Treaty to
abrogate all of the so-called capitulations that the now-defunct Ottoman Empire had
signed with practically every major power. These were supposedly mere trading agreements that would permit the establishment of foreigners and their civil and criminal
judgment by foreign envoys under foreign law. Until 1583, when England obtained its
first capitulation, France had been the official protector of all Europeans established
in Turkey. Later, England would gain claim to protect the subjects of other nations as
well. The practical result of the capitulations in Turkey was to form each separate foreign
colony into a sort of imperium in imperio, to assail the local jurisdiction, and to abate the
sovereignty of the capitulating party even as the latter endeavored to become a modern
independent nation. Even the Ottoman Empires erstwhile vassals in the Balkansin
principle bound to respect the capitulations for as long as they remained part of that
empireabrogated these in practice by virtue of the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, long before
securing their own full independence. What modern state or government would have
tolerated incursions into its sovereign jurisdiction after 1923? Surely none in Europe:
hence nor did Turkey. The move was not directed at any one community in particular,
though all had to be dealt with, one by one, by the newly sovereign state.Ed.
11. The Kurds are Muslim and face ill treatment as well. But Turkish leaders hoped that
the Kurds would accept being Turksan offer never really extended to the non-Islamic
minorities. The persistence of Kurdish nationalism and the ensuing terror convinced
successive Turkish governments to oppose these with counterviolence as a last resort.

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citizens, but the tax on Jews and Christians was ten times the tax
imposed on Muslims, while Jewish converts to Islam had to pay only
twice as much. The result is reported to have led to a great impoverishment of non-Muslim communities (Poulton 1997, 117119; Liberles
1984, 134135). Secular Turkeys membership in the Organization of
Islamic Conference today is evidently not accidental.
Group identity, fear, and religion play the familiar role also in Sri
Lanka, where a religiously mixed population lives and the Buddhist
population, like the religious majorities in Turkey and in India, is the
clear majority. Sri Lanka comprises 74 percent Sinhala (most of whom
are Buddhist) and 12 percent Tamil Hindu (the rest are Muslims, Christians, and Hindus from India). As in Turkey and India, the different
religious groups historically shared one anothers practices. Although
there have been contentions between the religious groups, historically
the disputes in Sri Lanka were rarely about religion. Yet once again the
emergence of democracy has meant a spiraling of religious resentment,
discrimination, and violence, with Tamil Hindus feeling the sting of
discrimination by Sinhala Buddhists. Sri Lankas constitution declares
Sri Lanka to be a Buddhist state and calls upon the state to support
Buddhism while respecting all other religions. In 1957, Sinhala was
proclaimed to be the official language, replacing English; this was
widely seen as a move to ensure Sinhala ascendancy and put the Tamils
at a disadvantage, and although Tamil was later made the administrative language in some Tamil-dominated provinces, some Tamils have
responded with violence, to the extent of fighting for a separate Tamil
state in the Tamil-dominated regions of the island.
What is rather striking about Hindu, Turkish Islamic, and Sinhala
Buddhist nationalism is the need felt by substantial parts of the majority, a majority that is comfortably large, to assert themselves over the
minority. Part of the urge to assert themselves is fueled by fear. Just
look at the map, one Buddhist nationalist explains, and see how tiny,
how fragile Sinhalese Buddhist society is. . . . our Sinhala society is only
a teardrop, a grain of sand, in an enormous sea (Juergensmeyer 1993,
100). There are large Muslim countries near Sri Lanka, and of course
there is Hindu-dominated India. Tamil Hindus may be a small minority
in Sri Lanka, butjust to the norththere are tens of millions of Tamil
Hindus in south India. Similarly, the Turks did not just fear the Greeks
inside their borders, but those on the outside as well, just as some
Hindus today worry about a Pan-Islamic movement, and many Jewish
Israelis worry about the Arab world and not merely the Muslim Arab

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237

Palestinians. A majority that feels besieged and fearful will often view
the minority with suspicion and will rarely act tolerantly. Trust is not
the sole purview of the market;12 it is also a key factor in the making
of peoples and nation-states.
Believers and Heathens
My foregoing examples come mostly from democratizing states whose
identity is religious and nationalistic. Nationalism, of course, need not
be attached to religion, but religious nationalism is often more intractable than other kinds of nationalism. Religion often adds one more
layer, often a significant layer, of division between peoples, and so
makes the exclusion attached to religious nationalism harder to undermine. When religion is a point of division it prevents people on the
different sides from dealing with one another. Serbs, Croats and
Bosnians do not just have a different national identity; specifically,
they also have different religious identities (Orthodox, Catholic, and
Muslim). That Greek Christians are different from Turkish Muslims on
two important dimensions makes each side seem even more alien to
one another. Some religious nationalisms are simply based on religion,
as in Northern Ireland or India; here, religion does not add yet another
point of division between the peoples at conflict, on top of national
identity. Yet these religious nationalisms, too, are particularly hard to
tame, since people are more likely to think that their religion is sanctioned by God than, say, by their language or culture. Sometimes,
people may think that those who speak a different language are strange
but rarely will they think that speaking a different language implies
that someone is immoral or unethical.13
Giving up ones religion is often hard, since it is such a stark thing
to do. Religions are what Avishai Margalit calls an encompassing group:
if you are part of one, you cannot be part of another (Margalit 1996).
This generalization is not always true, as we will soon see, but it is
almost the case when religious identities become politicized and boundaries between them become too clear. It is hard, although possible, to
move between different religious communities. In contrast, one can
easily speak more than one language. One can speak Romanian in
public and Hungarian at home without betraying or changing ones
12. See Kleindorfer, chap. 7 in this book.
13. For a distinction between ethics and morals, see J. J. Mulhern, chap. 8 in this book.

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beliefs. It is hard though to be Christian in public and remain Muslim

or Jewish in private. The Marranos in Spain tried it, but not for
long.
Finally, the ethical dilemmas that secular nationalism poses for liberal
democracies have proven to be more manageable than those posed by
religious-nationalist states. A state can have one or two official languages, teach a certain kind of history, and celebrate its past in ways
that do not exclude14; this possibility does necessarily mean that some
people with different cultural identities may have to keep those identities out of sightnot something easy to do. One can be French and
Muslim or Jewish. But a state that is nationalistic in a religious way
raises higher barriers to citizenship. When religious nationalists hold
sway it means that to be truly Israeli one must be also Jewish; to be
a real Turk, one must be also Muslim; and to be a true Indian one
must be also Hindu. The characteristic attitude toward religion in liberal
democracies is that it is best kept in the private sphere. But making
religion private is hard to do when it is tied to the public identity of
the state. Even the more secular democracies, like some in Western
Europe, the United States, and Canada, celebrate Christmas as a national
holiday. It may be that every democracy will favor some groups over
others, but it is the magnitude of such favoritism that makes all the
difference: the more religious the state, the greater such favoritism
benefits the dominant religious group at the expense of the other(s).
Though religion is the cause of tensions and conflicts today, this was
not always the case. The ancient pagans rarely fought each other over
religion because, in their view, religions were sources of beneficence,
not morality, and had little to do with identity. If one had a different
religion it merely meant that you looked elsewhere for power or wealth;
that you had your gods to satisfy; and others, their very own to serve,
to the same effect, unless of course you had the same gods who had
different names. The Romans were quite flexible about their gods,
easily assimilating the gods of their many others: The first characteristic of Roman gods and goddesses to strike us must be the wide range
of different types, all accepted and all worshiped (Beard, North, and
Price 1998, 30).
With the advent of the monotheistic religions that prescribe morality,
however, we have two kinds of people: those who pray to the wrong
god(s) and have an immoral code of conduct, and those who pray to
14. See Kumar and Silver (2008).

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239

the right God and have a moral code of conduct. This dichotomy does
not mean that people must look down upon those with the wrong
beliefs as heathens, nor does it mean that they must adjudicate the lives
of the heathens as less important than their own, and surely not that
they must view the heathens as a threat to their moral or ethical code,
since members of their very own society might be tempted by the
heathens way of life. But a dichotomy that divides the world between
those who are moral and right as opposed to those who are immoral
and wrong certainly allows all of these things to happen far more
easily.
There is, however, an important paradox in religious nationalism:
many religious nationalist leaders and some of their followers are not
religious at all. The Indian Hindu right uses little Hindu ritual in its
organization (Jaffrelot 1996, 27; van der Veer 1994, 72; Juergensmeyer
1993, 8384). Many among the earliest Zionist leaders were not merely
nonreligious, but also implacable opponents of the Jewish religious
establishment, which, in part and to some extent, was itself staunchly
anti-Zionist. Under the Islamic Ottomans, more than a million Greek
Orthodox Christians flourished, mostly peacefully, in what is now
Turkey; Istanbul was more than 40 percent Christian when modern
Turkey was founded (Alexandris 1983, 50). Yet it was under the Turkish
Republic, which dismantled all state support for religion and outlawed
the fez and the arsaf (veil), that almost all Christians were either eased
or forced out of the country (Poulton 1997, 98).
When a democracy defines itself in religious terms, religion becomes
a societal identity, making the religious content of that religion less
important for some. When religion is an identity, it becomes a way of
marking one in the world and a way of contrasting one from others; it
becomes a source of pride, of self-respect, in the world. When these
things happen, one expects respect when ones own religion is respected;
one feels that ones fate is tied to ones religion. The advantage of
identity religious nationalists over devout religious nationalists
resides in that the former are often not as single-minded as the latter,
a point I shall return to. Although at times the two groups may assess
their interests differently, often enough their goals will converge and
may even coincide.
Turning religion into political identity can bolster political and social
boundaries. While the leaders of the monotheistic religions may look
askance upon others, followers do not always look upon nonbelievers
as immoral heathens. There is much religious sharing in the world:

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Muslims and Christians pay heed to Hindu gods, Muslims at times

frequent churches or pray at Christian shrines, Hindus bow to Muslim
saints, and even Christians believe in magic or astrology (Bayly 1989;
Dalrymple 1998; Thomas 1971; van der Veer 1994, 3343). Religion is
not enough to provide hard and fast distinctions between believers and
miscreants, but when religion becomes politicized, then the sharing of
religious practices dramatically decreases. If you are a Sinhala Buddhist
who thinks that Tamil Hindus threaten your nation, then you probably
will not pray to Hindu gods. In other words, when religion moves from
being part of a folk culture to becoming part of a high culture, then it
is quite likely that religious sharing will stop. Folk cultures are local
cultures that admit of broad variety; high cultures are fairly uniform
cultures maintained by a set of institutions like schools and policed by
elites with a fairly wide reach (Gellner 1983). There certainly is religious
animosity when religion is part folk culture, but the potential for religious divisiveness clearly increases when religion becomes part of an
ethic of high culture (see Baker, chap. 9 in this book).
Nevertheless, religious content is not meaningless in the modern
world, since it is quite important to many believers. Religious symbols
that will appeal to religious and nonreligious followers alike can be
used by political leaders. Religious nationalists may also use ambiguous symbols. The biblical hero David is represented by the Star of
David on the Israeli flag: David can be praised both by secular and
religious Jews alike. The movement in Sri Lanka to make Sinhala the
sole national language (thereby demoting the status of English and
Tamil) could be interpreted variedly as asserting Sinhala national
identity, as proof of Sinhalas role as a sacred language for Buddhists
in Sri Lanka, or as asserting Sinhala Buddhist identity. The use of
ambiguous symbols makes sure that the religious nationalist movement draws the broadest possible participation from the religious, the
partly religious, and the nonreligious. The religious content ensures
that some will take it to mean that God supports their nationalism,
giving religious nationalism an added ferocity that other nationalisms
will sometimes lack.
Toward Inclusion
That democracies often display an intolerant or illiberal ethic is
apparent enough. But not all democratic citizens hate or fear others.
There are people with a cosmopolitan view, who even aspire to be

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241

citizens of the world. Not everyone identifies very closely with a single
particular group; nor does every citizen in a democracy seek to carve
out an exclusive identity in the polity. Standing alongside many acts
of intolerance are acts of kindness and bravery. Hindu and Muslim
neighbors hide each other during riots; politicians and citizens speak
out against intolerance; Israeli Jews, Israeli Muslims, and Palestinian
Arabs hold joint programs together. When helping ones neighbors
is deemed kind and brave or where joint programs are viewed as
a reaching out, then people clearly are advancing against tides of
intolerance.
There are ways of decreasing exclusion.15 Fareed Zakaria, for one,
has argued that the key to protecting minorities is to be found in liberalism more than in democracy. His reminder that democracies are not
always liberal convincingly argues that it is constitutional liberalism
securing rights to all citizens regardless of identitythat protects
everyones rights. Zakaria maintains that without a background in
constitutional liberalism, the introduction of democracy in divided
societies has actually fomented nationalism, ethnic conflict and even
war (Zakaria 1997, 35). This pessimistic conclusion, dooming all new
democracies to endless conflict, is more pessimistic than Zakarias
argument warrants. Not all democracies, not even mature liberal
democracies, boasted at their inception the robust constitutional liberalism that they may display as a modern democracy. Such a backdrop
develops over time, often in the seedbed of illiberal democracy. Zakaria
says that mature liberal democracies can usually accommodate ethnic
divisions without violence or terror and live in peace (Zakaria 1997,
35). This statement begs a question, though: How does a democracy
become mature? Liberal democracies are not born mature; they too
must have their beginnings, and these beginnings are almost always
illiberal, at least in part.
It is all too facile to divide the democracies into good and bad, to
assert that we the lucky live in the good liberal democracies while
others live in the bad non-Western, nonliberal democracies, and then
to go on to criticize illiberal democracies. My argument over identity
and democratization here focuses on democratizing states in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but the same arguments about identity,
democracy, and exclusion apply equally to democratizing states in the
nineteenth century. Our good liberal Western democracies were once
15. See Kumar and Silver (2008).

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bad and illiberal. As these states democratized, they were invariably

particularistic and nationalist, often in aggressive and violent ways.
Take France, for example. Eugene Weber, in his description of how the
centralized French regime nationalized the periphery, argues that
turning peasants into Frenchmen was in many ways a process akin to
colonialism: Order imposed by men of different code and speech,
somebody elses order, is not easily distinguished from foreign conquest. Weber declares that France was created by conquest and colonization (Weber 1976, 487, 493). Similar arguments could be made
about the United States, Spain, England, Germany, and other presently
liberal democracies. Now that these older democracies have already
established the hegemony of a particular identity, they can graciously
become even more liberal and open. For Margaret Canovan, It is
unfortunately the case that a nation that is peaceful, secure and a
favourable site for liberal democratic politics now usually has a past
that no liberal democrat can comfortably look into. She suggests
that nationalism with all its faults . . . seems to be a necessary stage in
the evolution of nationhood (Canovan 1996, 104) and, I may add, of
democracy.16
The residual scent that past illiberalism has left in the liberal democracies of our day sometimes can be overpowering: discrimination
against immigrants, particularly Muslims, flourishes today in Western
Europe; discrimination against the non-Japanese is rampant in Japan.
Blacks and Hispanics and others face discrimination in the United
States. Still, discrimination in the mature liberal democracies is rarely
as violent or as massive as that in the less mature democracies. Mature
liberal democracies generally treat their minorities noticeably better
than do their democratizing relatives.17 Instead of merely criticizing
newer democracies for being nationalistic in ways that often are
reminiscent of the older democracies discriminatory pasts, however, it
is more useful to identify the ways in which illiberal democracies
can be made more liberal, and to see how immature democracies
can become more mature. Religion will make it harder, though not
impossible, to turn democracies toward liberalism (see Baker, chap. 9
in this book).
16. Cf. Schuldenfrei, chap. 12 in this book; see Aronoff (2008).
17. Bernie Yacks insightful argument that nationalism is an outgrowth of democratic
popular sovereignty does not take into account that democracies can be more or less
nationalistic, more or less exclusive (Yack 2001). Less is often better, sometimes a lot
better, than more.

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Reducing the Force of Religion

One way to decrease the force of nationalism generally is to develop
crosscutting cleavages. One of the secrets to Switzerlands success is
that it had two salient and crosscutting identities. The two main ethnic
groups are French and German, but each group has large numbers of
both Catholics and Protestants. Generally, if people have several salient
and hopefully crosscutting identities, it decreases the chances for an
ethic of intolerance. More specifically, a key to making nationalist states
more liberal is to tease the nationalism away from any religious foundations it may have. Western European nationalism has generally
become less violent as religion has become less important to the citizens
there. Catholic France and Protestant Britain are no longer at loggerheads; the lessening importance of religion for their citizens seems to
have helped ease this conflict. But it remains hard to know how to
decrease the salience of religion in matters sociopolitical or over purviews of democratic governance.
Fear No More
Removing fear is one obvious way toward an ethic of tolerance; when
the majority is no longer fearful of the minority, it will more readily
treat the minority tolerantly. Secure states will usually invest fewer
resources into maintaining their identity than insecure states, since
perceived threat has receded. Zakaria does not precisely define mature
democracies, but one element may be that they no longer face deep
security threats. Trade, not an ethic of bellicosity, marks their relations
with their neighbors. Consider the recent rise and rapid decline of PostZionism in Israel. After Israels independence in 1948, the Arab (and
mostly Muslim) minority was viewed with muted if considerable
apprehension by the Jewish majority. Sometimes their land was taken
away (Dowty 1998; Kimmerling and Migdal 1993, 161), they lived
under martial law until 1966, and they faced considerable explicit and
implicit discrimination, which has eased since 1948 but is still palpable.
Shortly after the Oslo peace accords were signed, the idea that Israel
should stop considering itself a Zionist and Jewish state and begin
thinking of itself simply as an Israeli state started being discussed in
earnest in Israel. It was time, the Post-Zionists argued, to bestow real
equal citizenship on Israels Arab citizens. Critical reexaminations of
Israels founding were made on film and shown on television. These

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self-examinations courageously investigated many of Israels founding

myths. The educational system was similarly changed to show not only
the Jewish narrative around Israel, but to include Arab and Palestinian
voices as well. There was even some discussion about replacing
the Jewish national anthem, which narrates the deep yearnings of the
Jewish soul.
The reduction of fear thus helped launch the discussions of PostZionism; the resumption of fear has helped end them. With the collapse
of the Oslo accords, the spate of suicide bombings in Israel, and the
attacks on Israeli settlements and settlers in the West Bank and in
Gazatriggering armed retaliations by the Israelis on Palestinians
the debates about Post-Zionism have almost completely stopped. The
education minister has called for a revamping of textbooks toward
emphasizing the Jewish narrative of Zionism once again. Debates about
the meaning of Israeli citizenship have become nearly silent. Hardly
anyone now raises the issue of the national anthem. Yet none of this is
surprising, since the threat to Jewish Israelis has made their identity as
Jews preponderant once again.
Increasing security can be difficult: oppressed minorities may be
security risks because of their oppression. True, visible attempts to
reduce their oppression just may increase their loyalty to the state, but
the majority may not want to take the risk of doing so, absent a very
reliable promise of positive outcomes. Hence, increasing security probably will involve a political settlement involving outside forces: better
relations between Pakistan and India, say, arguably are likely to encourage an ethic of cooperation, conducive to better relations between
Hindus and Muslims inside India.
While reducing fear is important toward enhancing tolerance, such
attempts probably might have to decrease fear much further for devout
religious nationalists than for others. If you think God has given you
this land, the presence of others on it will be always suspect. It is no
surprise that the people enamored with Post-Zionism were primarily
secular Israeli Jews for whom physical security is paramount: when it
appeared to them that security was increasing, Post-Zionism became
more important. The fear element for devout religious nationalists is
more than a matter of physical security, however; it is also a matter of
ensuring that their flocks ethic will not be contaminated by the ethic
of others. If members of other religions are immoral, if they have
harmful beliefs and practices, then you want your members to have
little contact with them. A sense of greater physical security will do

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little to dampen the zeal of devout religious nationalists. Here the distinction between the ethic of devout religious nationalists and the ethic
of identity religious nationalists is important. The latter may find the
boundaries marked by religious nationalism less important as their
physical security becomes more entrenched. If devout religious nationalists are a minority of religious nationalists, then reducing fear may
be enough to tilt the balance in the state to a more liberal attitudinal
ethic toward minorities.
Good Elites
Elite behavior sometimes can be crucial in helping determine the degree
of intolerance in a country. Elites can work to stir issues up or mute
them down. Bulgaria, a good example here, was one of the two European countries taken over by, or allied with, Nazi Germany, that nevertheless saved all of its Jewspartly because certain Bulgarian elites
sought to thwart the Nazi attempts to discriminate and kill Bulgarian
Jews (Todorov 2001). Fifty years later, many Bulgarian Turks became
victims of an intolerance campaign led by the Bulgarian leader, Todor
Zhivkov. Many were forced to change their names, and some were
expelled to Turkey. When Zhivkov was removed in a coup in 1989, the
new leaders reversed course: Bulgarian Turks were allowed to reclaim
their name; and those expelled, to return home.
Still, proper elite behavior cannot ensure a generalized ethic of tolerance. In neither of the Bulgarian cases was there much popular support
for the campaigns against Bulgarian Jews or Bulgarian Turks. Religious
nationalism often is fueled by an ethic of distrust or one of hatred of a
rival religion, making elite behavior less important:18 in India both
Nehru and Ghandi deplored the communal violence and intolerance
displayed around Indias independence. Ghandis death at the hands
of a Hindu nationalist, while fasting in protest of communal violence,
was deeply mourned by many Indians, although it did not stop the
violence. It is doubtful that a wholly different outlook on part of either
the Israeli or the Turkish leadership around the founding of their
respective countries would have ensured equality for their Arab or
Christian minorities, respectively, even though a more tolerant leadership then might have helped to dampen some of the intolerance subsequently exercised by their successors.
18. One of the problems with Snyders (2000) treatment of democratization and violence
is that it is perhaps overly elite focused.

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Electoral Arrangements
Sometimes the manner in which political institutions are formed can
help increase or decrease an ethic of cooperation among different
groups. Consociational arrangements may ease nationalist tensions by
giving two national groups an equal partnership in government. Such
arrangements, however, work only when the political community contains two groups of nearly equal size. If smaller minorities exist, then
the proportional representation (PR) system is preferred, as it encourages coalitions among a variety of groups and as it may give some
leverage to minority parties, some of which may be organized around
national or ethnic lines (Horowitz 1985, chap. 15). Alternatively, the
political parties in PR systems may directly appeal to minorities by
placing minority candidates directly on their electoral lists. Winnertake-all (or first-past-the-post) systems, like the one in the United States,
give the winning party little incentive to cooperate with minority
parties, since the winners are the majority and do not need anyone else
to form a coalition with. On balance, PR systems are usually more
favorable to national minorities, but PR systems do not necessarily
always lead to a thereby-increased ethic of tolerance. While the PR
system in India from time to time has given Muslims some measure of
influence on the government, that minority still faces considerable
discrimination. In Israel, Arab political parties officially never have
been part of a ruling coalition. While there have been occasions when
these parties unofficially have supported a government, they rarely
have been given much reward for their sporadic quiet support.
International Pressure and Economic Incentives
The international community can pressure a state to act with a more
pronounced ethic of tolerance. To take a nonreligious example, Estonia
passed laws that discriminated against its Russian citizens after it
became independent. But Estonia also coveted membership in the
European Union; and to become even an associate member, it had to
put a stop to these discriminatory laws, and it did so. Whether international pressure will succeed, either by way of subtle politics or coercion in the form of economic incentives and penalties, may depend on
how much the nation and its elites weigh their desire for economic
advancement against their reasons to want to maintain their discriminatory laws. Devout religious nationalists very well may prove to be

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more resistant to international pressure than identity religious nationalists. Given a choice between God and wealth, the devout believer
more likely will choose the former. Identity religious nationalists,
however, may take a more balanced approach to wealth and nation.
Their code of ethic may permit them to give up certain kinds of national
power in exchange for wealth.
Any external pressure that does succeed will be aimed usually at
securing formal civil and political rights and ensuring the security of
minorities. Security and formal rights guarantees can coexist with discrimination, however, as they very often do in a mature democracy. State
symbols and holidays can easily favor some groups over others, in the
mature and the immature democracies. Still, securing the rights and
security of all citizens is important for its own sake. An ethic of equal
rights will help also where the influence of devout religious nationalists
is weaker than that of identity religious nationalists. When you have the
profound conviction that God still approves of your sovereignty over a
space that is not just any piece of real estate, neither economic sanctions,
nor diminished security threats, nor denial of diplomatic recognition
will do much to stop your attempts to cling to the Land.
Yet religious nationalists, too, are a group with mixed motives. The
more devout in that group will not be enticed lightly into making
compromises with their faith. The less devout, who see religion as a
marker of identity at least as much as a matter of faith, very likely will
be more pliable, usually more willing to balance interests and more
amenable to negotiation and compromise, than their strictly more
devout religious nationalist brethren. Hence, when identity religious
nationalists predominate, there may be reason to hope that, with the
right kinds of pressure at the right moment, democratizing states will
treat their religious minorities with respect and ensure equal rights.
It is therefore this sort of regime, one based on human rights, that
may be what at best can be hoped for in emerging democracies. As they
become more mature and more secure, some of their cultural biases
will tend to fade, if not completely disappear: to date, there exists no
democracy that has deployed either the disposition or the capacity to
achieve absolute cultural neutrality. Moreover, there are reasons to
conclude that in a globalizing world, a state that is culturally biased
toward one particular group, yet also inclined to ensure the rights of
all, may be worth defending (Taylor 1992). But democratic nationalism
can very easily go astray, and any factual explanation of it must be
accompanied by an unmitigated awareness of its dangers.

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11

Politics of Ethics:
Toward an Ethic of
Egalitarian Democracy?
Kevin Cameron

Todays democratic society is marked by a posttotalitarian ideology,

according to which a radical political project of potentially emancipatory character can only culminate in some form of totalitarian control
and domination. This is tantamount to blackmail insofar as it holds that
even if the goals of a radical egalitarian political project may be just,
attempts to realize these will only result in suffering, misery, and terror.
The blackmail of totalitarianism banishes hopes for a greater good, by
foreclosing the possibility for radical politics from the outset. I want to
argue that in foreclosing that possibility, this preemption operates
against the ethical act as such. In accord with contemporary psychoanalytic theory, ethics here is not used to imply a proper characterreflecting system of behavior, fostering the good and preventing the
evil, but as a transgressive act in and of itself that seeks to break open
the manacles of ideological restriction and, thus, to free the individual
to the possibility of a political ethic. It is in this sense that I engage in
this chapter in a psychoanalytically motivated scrutiny of a social ethic
and of its likely compatibility with a political project of egalitarian
democracy.
The Two Democratic Traditions
In order to ascertain both the logic and the power of what I see as the
blackmail of totalitarianism, first we must come to terms with the two
traditions that have grown up side by side under modern democracy.
From its inception, the theory of democracy has linked together two
giant ideals: liberty and equality. Although both ideals are essential to
the promise of democracy, they are often incompatible. This historic
tension in turn has generated two separate traditions in democratic
theory and practice: the libertarian and the egalitarian. The first stresses

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the rights and liberties of the individual against the coercive power of
the state as the normative benchmark for democracy and finds its chief
proponents in Anglo-American thought and practice. The second,
chiefly characteristic of French and continental European thought and
practice, advocates a democracy that promotes the equality of citizens
as a defense against the coercive practices of private individuals,
groups, and/or institutions. These two traditions owe their respective
points of origin to the two great European revolutions that helped to
inaugurate modern institutional democracy: the Puritan Revolution of
the seventeenth century and the French Revolution of the eighteenth
century (Sabine 1952, 453). In the generations that followed these revolutions, the libertarian torch was picked up by liberals, and the socialists became the most prominent spokespeople for the egalitarian
tradition. Although liberty and equality may be inextricably linked in
any practice of democracy, these two ideals at times have given birth
to incompatible aims and methods.
That the libertarian mode of democracy has its roots in the Anglo
tradition entails that it outlines democracy largely in terms of the
pursuit of liberty. From its early development as a project, starting from
the Magna Carta in 1215, to the Puritan (16421649) and Glorious (1688)
revolutions, the libertarian movement aimed at enlarging and protecting liberties, first of the nobility then of the merchant middle class
(Lindblom 1977, 163). The English revolutions of the seventeenth
century and to some extent the American Revolution of the eighteenth
(17751781) sought to restore an English birthright that was viewed
as having been usurped by the illegitimate expansion of government
power. Above all, each of these revolutions sought to create, if not
to restore, individual freedoms of association and the pursuit of individual self-interestby establishing a constitutional framework that
should protect individual rights. This tradition argued that the sphere
of government influence ought to be legally limited and that there
exists a wide range of social, religious, and economic practices that are
best left to the voluntary associations of individuals. Any political
system that does not respect, protect, and preserve these presuppositions cannot accurately be called democratic.
Philosophically, the libertarian tradition is built on a strict separation
between the state and civilian society.1 The function of the state is not
to make moral rules for society as a whole, but to enforce the rights of
1. Cf. the classical notion of the state cited by Mulhern, chap. 8 in this book.

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individuals through impartial judgment and the application of formal

rules necessary to endow those rights with effect. The sphere of civilian
society precedes and commands preeminence over the needs of the
state. Within this civilian society, necessarily, there exist social classes
built on an economic division of labor. This division and the classes
associated with it are the natural outcome of the free exercise of the
different aptitudes that exist among individuals. Thus there is an inherently close connection between liberty and social position, since ones
position is determined by differences in natural aptitudes. These differences in aptitude are deemed to be natural, and not the outcome
of social forces. The libertarian tradition aims at the full development
of personal liberty, including the freedom to engage in trade, freedom
to establish enterprise and pursue economic gain, freedom of movement, and the protection of rights to own private property (Lindblom
1977, 454).
Both historically and philosophically, the libertarian tradition has
linked democracy to a market economy, with property rights serving
as the basis for individual liberty. Owing to its association with property rights, libertarian democracy has never sought to equate democracy with popular control. In fact, some of its spokesmen (Federalist
Papers 1961) sought to limit popular control in the name of liberty.
Under this principle, equality is limited to political equalityequality
before the law, so to speak. And since libertarians believe that social
differences arise from natural differences, they argue that any attempt
to equalize social and economic relations can only lead to a most direct
assault upon liberty.
Generally considered to have its roots in the thought of Rousseau
and the practices of the French Revolution, the egalitarian tradition of
democracy offers a much different view on the nature of inequality. The
Puritan Revolution sought to abolish the arbitrary practices of haughty
government, which were threatening the rights of Englishmen. Its
French counterpart pursued the abolition of the feudal privilege, which
had perpetuated an almost obscene inequality in social relations. The
French democratic insurgents sought to sweep away a vast and cumbersome system of status by replacing it with uniform citizenship
based on equal political rights (Sabine 1952, 462). Since their targets
were political and social status, the reforms of the French Revolution
were much more ambitious than those of the English revolutions with
regard to the complex transformation of the social relations that underlie the state. Committed to the basic idea of building social relations on

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equal citizenship, the principle of democracy that evolved out of France

was one that tended to view special interests in civilian society as
threatening to democracy. Increasingly, as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, socialists picked up the
egalitarian torch, and demand shifted toward the abolition of inequality in the name of freedom and democracy. A political system built on
such inequality in social relations, it was argued, was not one that could
be democratic.
Philosophically, the egalitarian tradition argues that status and hierarchy impinge upon citizens exercise of private liberty and civic duty.
This argument, in turn, is fashioned on the idea that individuals do not
exist as separate and distinct units, each possessing ones own natural
aptitudes. Rather, in this tradition, individuals are seen as intractably
social. What they are and what their potential is can only be fathomed
in terms of the social relations in which they find themselves. People
do not owe their freedom to some abstract postulate such as natural
rights. They develop freedom socially, by transforming society for
the purpose of meeting the needs required to develop into free beings.
It has been argued that, consequently, the egalitarian tradition does not
place the same constraints on public authority as the libertarian tradition does. From the egalitarian perspective, it is not the state or public
sphere that poses the primary threat to democracy, but the unequal
distribution of wealth in the private sphere. Economic inequality is
understood as translating directly into political inequality. In fact, as
Marx argued, the separation of state and civil society in liberal societies
merely serves to promote the interests of the economically powerful
over the interests of the weak (Marx and Engels 1978, 2652). The separation of the public and private spheres does not exist to enhance
liberty, as proponents of the libertarian tradition would have it, but to
enhance inequality. This inequalityof poweris directly attributable
to the private enterprise system and to the market relations thereof.
The goal of such a system is to preserve and to foster a class structure
that works to the benefit of one class over another. Individual rights
for the lower classes exist, according to the egalitarian argument, merely
to enhance competition in the labor market for the purpose of securing
the lowest possible wages for the worker. The rights and freedoms
offered by a liberal society entrench inequality by limiting the political
influence of the working people. The goal of the egalitarian tradition,
then, is not to limit political influence, since doing so serves only the
interests of the wealthy, but to expand itby harnessing the coercive

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power of the state, in order to restrict, perchance to abolish, unequal

economic and social relations, since no equality in a society augurs
no equality in the state.
The incompatibility of these two positions ultimately lies in the evidence that the egalitarian strain does not necessarily place limits on the
absolute authority of the state, so long as the state can claim to speak
for the people, while the libertarian strain can neither counter the ills
equated with the social stratification of the people nor guarantee
popular control by the people. It is within the ambitions of the egalitarian position that libertarians usually detect their fear of the rise of
totalitarianism. The very attempt to create equal conditions throughout
society opens the possibility for the state to spill over and to appropriate every facet of society within its care. This leaves the citizen with no
guarantee of liberty in the face of the state. Such an overwhelming
reach of the state becomes most apparent in the egalitarian ambition,
one promoted most vehemently by socialists, starting with the Industrial Revolution, to liberate citizens from economic necessity (Hayek
1994). In order to meet this somewhat dubious dream, the state would
have to quit protecting the individual in the name of the greater good
of the collective. This collectivization, where the staterather than the
individualbecomes responsible for economic and social well-being,
is the very basis for modern totalitarianism. Freedom from economic
necessity, in the end, amounts to absolute political subjection. The evil
of such projects can be witnessed in the terror and suffering associated
with Stalins collectivization projects of the 1930s and in the forced
ruralization program of the Khmer Rouge in 1970s Cambodia, just to
name the most extreme cases. Although many democrats agree that
any democracy in practice will need to find a balance between the
elements in both of these traditions, only the egalitarian has been
equated with totalitarianism. With the end of the Cold War, the equation of egalitarianism with totalitarianism has tended to become
increasingly pronounced, both in the narratives and in the practices of
democratic statesand especially so among those that continue to
dismantle their egalitarian policies. Today, increasingly, the liberal
trade-off seems to occur between the totalitarian threat viewed as
posed by egalitarian projects and the inequalities and everyday violence perceived to be displayed by liberal democracy. With the expansion of private trade with government consent, in an era of globalization,
the trend appears to be in the direction of even more limits on the
prospects of egalitarianism.

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The Blackmail of Totalitarianism

Viewed from the outline of this trade-off, totalitarianism exists both as
a historical phenomenon and as an ideological concept. In terms of
what I call the blackmail of totalitarianism, our concern here is with
how historical phenomena have been deployed as ideology, and what
purpose this deployment serves. In the subtle exploitation of a factual
historical reality for complex ideological purposes, totalitarianism now
becomes an ideological construct designed principally to sustain a
manipulative operationthe consolidation of liberal-democratic hegemony. As a vehicle for blackmail, the idea of totalitarianism ceases to
denote historical fact, connoting instead a phobia engendered by an
ideological device agitated for the central purpose of prohibiting certain
political strategies and suppressing the circulation of particular political
discoursesin other words, the use of the term totalitarianism as agitprop is intended to scare off egalitarian critiques of liberal democracy,
in preemption of any significant engagement into political debate (Zizek
2001, 3). The irony of this blackmail lies in the fact that instead of continuing to be the historical phenomenon that fed off and perpetrated
prohibitions on thought, totalitarianism now becomes a phenomenon
of ideological construction in a world where certain prohibitions on
thought just must be maintained. With regard to radical egalitarian
projects, this blackmail argues that any attempt to rethink such projects
in the light gained from the historical phenomenon of totalitarianism
can only reconfirm the intractable link between the two.
One of the telling consequences of this blackmail is the academic lefts
latter-day sanctification of the work of Hannah Arendt, the grand theorist of totalitarianism. Though not outright a libertarian herself, Arendts
theory of totalitarianism had been popularized by libertarian critiques
of egalitarian projects (Zaretsky 1997, 210). Up until a couple of decades
ago, leftist radicals dismissed Arendts arguments for lending themselves all too easily to the perpetration of false and misleading moral
equivalence between the noble ideals of egalitarianism and the disastrous practical consequences of totalitarianism as the key justification
for the Wests all-out ideological struggles in the Cold War (Jay 1985;
Pitkin 1998). In todays postcold war universe, however, many leftist
theoreticians now seek somehow to reconcile her work with their own
theoretical projects (Zizek 2001). In the end, this elevation of Arendt is
perhaps the clearest sign of the theoretical defeat of the leftof how the
left has surrendered to the basic coordinates of liberal democracyin

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a mock showdown featuring liberalism versus totalitarianism (Zizek

2001). In the mind, this amounts to the sacrifice of the egalitarian tradition of democracy on the altar of the libertarian tradition.
The lefts earlier enmity toward Arendt, rooted in her ambivalent
relation to Marxmore specifically, in her criticism of Marxs grasp
of the emancipation from labor (Arendt 1958)was grounded in
Arendts tripartite phenomenological division of the human condition
into labor, work, and action. Labor refers to those functions indispensable for the biologic perpetuation of the species, or the community.
It concerns those activities organized around necessity: production and
reproduction. Work entails those activities from which permanence is
derived from nature and is signified by means-end calculus. Action
refers to the activities carried out between humans in relation to each
other that do not entail the necessities of life. Since action is divorced
from necessity, it corresponds to the realm of human freedom. This
realm is the public spherean arena in which a free plurality of individuals, acting in regard to each other, build a world in common, by
way of the medium of speech. Action is synonymous with politics.
To set the table for critiques of Marx and of radical emancipatory
projects altogether, we must identify what is the key distinction between
the ancients and us moderns. The Hellenes and Romans delegated
action to the public sphere, relegating labor to the private. As labor
entailed the necessities of biologic life (the functions of animal laborens),
it had to be banished from the public sphere in order to safeguard
freedom of action. Labor, restricted to the private sphere, or the oikos,
became the function of women and slaves. It was of paramount importancein the ancient concept of freedomthat there be strict separation between the public and the private. Bleeding at the boundaries
would risk introducing necessity into the public sphere, and thus serve
to diminish the capacity for free action between equals. By the same
token, the private economic sphere, which must be segregated from
politics, allowed those pariahs who lived off the labor of others to
enter the public sphere and to act freely among their equals who, by
definition, were also relieved from the demands of labor. Thus, in the
ancient world, the public (politics) lived off the private (economics) but
was separated from it so that there could arise a realm occupied by a
few whose free activity was not impeded by the demands placed on
the rest of community by economic necessity.2
2. For detailed insights, see J. J. Mulhern (2008).

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In the modern world, the line between the public and the private has
become increasingly blurred. The infringement of the private upon the
public, on a mass scale, results in what Arendt calls the social. The
social amounts to nothing less than the concerns of labor and the basic
necessities of life hijacking the realm of action and, not least, thereby
supplanting the preoccupations of politics by the daily concerns of the
household. In this sense, it represents the transformation of the entire
society into one immense household (Arendt 1958, 4445). The obliteration of the line between the public and the private marked by the
ascendancy of the social results in the further obliteration of both
spheres altogether. The problem with this kind of transformation is that
the household is ruled by patriarchal domination (the lucky patriarch
is presumably the only one free to enter the public sphere in the ancient
world) so that any elevation of the social to the level of politics can
only result in some form of domination over the public sphere. The
basis of Arendts criticism of Marx then, lies in what she sees as the
latters fallacious assumption that overcoming the need for politics by
means of the mere emancipation of labor would lead to the magnificent
realm of freedom. Is it not through this rise of the social that the modern
world has already transformed politics into administration? The public
realm is no longer a space for action, but has turned into a place
for the bureaucratic administration of biologic life. This is the signature phenomenon of the modern world. It highlights the threat generated by the egalitarian attempt to promote freedom from economic
necessity. What Marx failed to understand is that creatures relegated
entirely to the realm of necessity will not necessarily be capable of free
action when they are no longer bound to that necessity, especially since,
as Arendts verdict on the twentieth century suggests, any such
action would hinder, and therefore also create problems for, the very
administration of things that make emancipation possible in the first
place. The goals of freedom from necessity would easily subsume the
space for political freedom. The emancipation that Marx advocates is
one that, ironically, forces the emancipated into a state of oppression.
The all-encompassing reach of this management across society, to
the point where there is no longer a distinction between the public
and the private, is synonymous with Arendts very definition of
totalitarianism.
The typical erstwhile leftist criticism of Arendt pointed to her Hellenistic definition of freedom, not so much for its phenomenological as

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for its structural formfor the fact that the realm of freedom was the
realm of the few.3 Echoing the libertarian critique of the egalitarian
tradition, Arendts criticism of Marxs notion of freedom is that it seeks
to extend the needs of the collective across the range of human relations. This obliteration of the distinction between public and private
creates the potential for equality on a mass scale. The radical criticism
of Arendt can travel in a number of directions at this point. Let us
investigate one in particular: It seems that, for Arendt, the social, like
any emancipatory project that accompanies it, seeks to overcome the
inequality between master and slave that makes possible her phenomenological understanding of politics, action, and freedom. In this sense,
the social is an egalitarian force. If one were to take seriously this notion
of the social and the dangers that it entails, it seems that one would
have to be led to the conclusion that the paramount political act left to
us moderns would be to dissolve the remaining boundaries between
masters and slaves, especially since today, according to Arendt, politics
works at the behest of economic performance rather than that of
freedom. This political act is especially necessary because todays
masters are not applying their status toward freedom as their ancient
predecessors once did (Arendt 1958, 6873). Absent a trespass of these
boundaries, there would be no chance ever of overcoming the grip of
the social. It appears therefore that Arendts notion of the social has
certain affinities with Marxs pointthat historically, freedom has been
sacrificed to economic power and to domination. The only way out of
this impasse for Marx was to overcome such domination. The libertarian tradition, in contrast, prefers to foreclose this act by way of marking
it as the midwife of totalitarianism. Yet if the ascendancy of the social
is as advanced as Arendt argues, then the radical project would seem
to be the only real political act left. The libertarian tradition cannot see
this point, if only because it presupposes economic domination to be
phenomenologically outside of politics proper. It seems that if the
modern world is indeed as the critics of egalitarianism describe it to
bea world where the social has come to dominate our livesthen
a politics of freedom that forecloses the radical act in advance, perhaps
by dismissing it as totalitarian in its intentions, is a political sphere
that seeks to limit its own content and, therefore, by definition, cannot
be free (Jay 1985; Zizek 2001, 3).
3. See McInerney (2008).

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The Ethical Act

Arguing against the liberal blackmail of totalitarianism recent psychoanalytic readings of Kant explore the idea that ethics is not about
imposing a set of guidelines designed to prevent evil, but rather, that
the ethical dimension proper resides in the act of transgression itself
(Zupancic 2000; Zizek 2001). The transgressive nature of the ethical act
rests in the fact that good and evil cannot be distinguished in its form.
The evil implied here is not evil in the Kantian pathological sensean
act committed against the injunctions of the moral law for the selfinterested advancement of the perpetrator. Rather, it is evil in the formal
Kantian sensean act committed in accordance with the moral law
without pathological motive, in essence a phenomenally free act.
Although Kant would define this as a free act, and therefore good, I
want to claim that because Kants moral law is purely formal, purely
good and purely evil acts are synonymous.4
In Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, Kant (1960) clearly outlines three different modes of evil: frailtywe yield to pathological
motives in spite of our will to adhere to the law; impuritywe adhere
to the law, but out of self-interest rather than out of respect for the
moral law; and wickednesswe make self-interest the sole condition for
obedience to the moral law. Almost as an aside, Kant adds a fourth
mode of evil to these: the diabolicalwhich he then quickly rejects as
being beyond the pale of human capability. Diabolical evil, Kant tells
us, entails the elevation of opposition to the moral law to the level of
a maxim (Kant 1960, 30). This means that one would make it ones
ethical obligation to violate the moral law even to the point of disavowing ones self-interest. With diabolical evil there is no pathological
motivation behind the subjects act. This lack of pathological motive in
conjunction with the lack of content in the law allows the diabolical act
to share the same structure with the purely good actan act that takes
the obligation to the moral law as its sole motive.
The conflation of good and evil in the Kantian act reveals that the
law has no a priori connection to any good that could serve as a motivation for the act. The very form of the actact as if the maxim of
your will can hold as a principle of universal legislationis the acts
unique motive and content. It is also the content of the law. If the law
4. Because of the purely formal nature of the Kantian law, the ethical act outlined in the
following paragraphs parallels Nietzsches understanding of beyond good and evil in
that it aims at overcoming moral limits.

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were to offer a presupposed good beyond this purely formal structure

of the act, then the maxim of ones will would be something other than
ones duty to the law. This something other opens the subject to
pathological motivation if only because it comes between the subject
and his/her duty. What is ethical to Kant is not ones conformity to the
law, but the very transformation of ones will into the law. This cannot
be a pathological (self-serving) transformation, since the maxim behind
a pathological act cannot hold as universal legislation. Because we
cannot test our maxims against some good outside the law, however,
the free act is always a potential threat to the social good. Kantian law
does not preclude the possibility that acts that transgress the social
good, nonetheless, can be ethical at the same time, because the Kantian
ethical subject makes the law and determines what is good by the
subjects very own act. Because a pure Kantian act is inherently transgressive, beyond pathological motivation, it enacts a change in what
is (Zupancic 2000). The act aims to break the subject from the moral
demands of the world from which it emerged. It is in essence this
transgressive element of the Kantian act that makes it evil and not an
a priori connection between the act and some empirical evil. A Kantian
act has no a priori connection to empirical evil, simply because it has
no a priori connection to experience as such. And to hold that it does
is to fail ethically.
What then is the relationship between the ethical act and reality as
such? We perhaps can explain this relation best in terms of Freuds own
understanding of the reality principle. For Sigmund Freud the reality
principle is that which regulates the pleasure principle (the very basis
for pathological motivation in Kant) by placing prohibitions and setting
constraints on what subjectively can be experienced as possible within
the symbolically constructed social space. The span designated by the
reality principle is but a sociocultural space that delimits what is possible as a motivating factor in the subject. The ethical act as I have outlined it is an act that not only is beyond the reality principle, but that
also invokes a change in the coordinates of the reality principle, precisely because the motivation behind such an act owes itself to the law,
and not to the social good. In terms of social reality, an ethical act
achieves the impossible by changing the parameters that designate
what is possible. It does so by transgressing the understanding of the
good supported by the prevailing ideology/reality principle. It is for
this reason that, from the perspective of the reality principle, it is quite
automatically equated with evil. In terms of Kantian ethics then, the

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ethical act does not entail a transgression of the prevailing ideological

good for the pathologicalout of self-interested reasonssince, by
definition, such self-interest can be gauged in terms of the prevailing
reality principle only. Because it is executed out of respect for duty, the
ethical act is undertaken out of nonpathological motivation. It may be
tantamount to doing the wrong thing for the right reason.
The obvious example of the transgressive act would be the standard
case of civil disobedienceone where the subject defies the legal order
in the name of some higher principle that places a greater obligation
on the subject. A superb literary case in point would be that of Antigone. But, as will be seen, Antigones case is more radical and, in terms
of the structure of the act we are discussing here, much more ethical
than the standard case of civil disobedienceprecisely because she,
unlike the civil disobedient, does not attempt to transpose one preconception of the good with another. One must remember here that Kants
ethical project is designed to prohibit the role of any presupposed
concept of the good from entering into the deliberations of the ethical
subject. This is because, according to Kant, any good that is not purely
formal can only be a product of theoretical dogma. The point of Kants
ethical project is to discover a basis for human freedom on nondogmatic grounds. One is merely called to act out of a duty that is universal
to all rational subjects and not out of obligation to any social construction of the good that determines ones duty in advance.
Herein lies the distinction between morality and ethics in Kantian
ethics. Moral acts are those beholden to some presupposed concept
of the good, which generally carries the force of custom, that is, the
laws of the land, divine edicts, and so on. Ethical acts, however, are
carried out without this legal or customary guarantee. Rather, as the
categorical imperative demands, they are acts done in the formal sense
of becoming the basis for legislation in their own right. Kants use of
the term moral law has nothing to do with the ancient sense of
referring to custom (the Roman moralia); rather it has to do with the
universal duty equated with reasonregardless of ones particular
social environment.
The Kantian law is not moral in the traditional sense (cf. Mulhern,
chap. 8 in this book). Instead, it is ethical in that it, and only it, can be
the basis for nonpathological motivation (freedom) in the subject.
Contrary to Kants ethical imperative, moral acts are those that remain
possible under the reality principle. The civil disobedient who transposes one good for another is moral, but not ethical. Kants point,

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however, was to discover an ethical justification that was not held

hostage to the good in any phenomenal sense, but only to reason and
human freedom thereof. Freedom, for Kant, entails an act that cannot
be determined by, or located in, any phenomenal chain of causality.
And this is precisely how Antigone acts.
In the course of Sophocles play, Antigone offers three reasons for
why she feels compelled to bury her brother Polynices. The first two
reasons are rooted in her perceived obligation to the chthonic (earthly)
laws. Here, as in the case with the civil disobedient, Antigone justifies
her transgression of the social good in her allegiance to a higher good.
At this point, Antigones position is merely moral. Her pathology is
witnessed in her impatient yearning for martyrdom. In Kantian terms,
this motive is impure. Conversely, the third reason that Antigone gives
comes after Creon chooses not to execute her, but instead to place her
in a rocky chasm somewhere between life and death. It is a reason that
no longer echoes the embarrassing clich of her allegiance to some
higher good/authority. Rather, in this final declaration, during a
moment of immense moral distress for herself, Antigone declares that
the reason she buried her brother Polynices is, because her parents are
dead, she cannot have another brother. Had it been a husband or a son,
she tells us, she would not have defied Creons edict because, unlike a
brother, they could be replaced (Sophocles 1967, 137). In this last
instance, what Antigone reveals is not only that her act does transgress
the social good embodied in Creons edict, but also that her sense of
duty is not motivated by a notion of the good susceptible to the reality
principle. In her distress, she goes as far as to damn the very gods
whose law she earlier had invoked in justification. Here, I think it is
accurate to say that Antigone does not counterpose one concept of the
good with anotherand this includes any pathological good. In fact,
her moral distress at this juncture can be linked to the loss of all pathological goods, including the martyrdom she very much desires. She
does not evade responsibility by claiming that her act was compelled
or determined by some higher forceas she had tried to do, earlier.
Rather, her act, particularly in the motivation it reveals, displays the
limits of the good and of the reality principle as such. It is this obliteration of the reality principle and not some obligation to any higher laws
that makes Antigone an ethical character. Had she somehow maintained her allegiance to the chthonic laws in self-justification, she never
would have moved beyond the scope of morality to penetrate the realm
of ethics proper. What Antigone reveals by her act is that there is no

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concept of the good that can adequately predetermine the ethical consequences for all acts. If there were such a good, the human condition
would lack the space for ethics. The ethical dimension of her act lies in
the fact that, once the act occurs, the coordinates of the goodand the
reality principle with itmust be reconfigured on new grounds.
In these terms, then, what distinguishes an ethical act from a moral
act is that the former is not one that realizes an already existing ethical
norm, but an act that opens the space for the possibility of a new ethical
norm to emerge. This very condition should be transposed with how
we generally think of ethical norms in terms of the interplay between
such norms and the empirical content to which such norms apply.
Generally we understand a change in ethical norms to occur when the
empirical situation becomes too complex to meet adequately the
demands of the norms. We have to invent new norms in order to meet
these conditionsas we see today in the proliferation of new ethical
categories, designed to deal with dramatic changes in modern technologysuch as cloning, organ transplant, and the like. New norms need
to be invented or old norms reconfigured the more adequately to confront the exigencies of a changing environment. These innovations
miss, however, the ethical dimension proper. A changing of norms in
order to meet the new demands of reality transforms those norms into
instruments designed to accommodate our pathological interests (Zizek
2001). Elevating empirical reality to create a basis for changing ethical
norms cannot itself be ethical. In contrast, an ethical act is one that takes
the ethical demand of the Kantian law seriouslyfor its own saketo
the point of wholly disregarding moral constructions of the good and
their association with empirical reality. It is this disregard that ignites
an ethical change in what is. By contrast, merely abiding to an existing
norm or retailoring norms to fit our pathological needs would amount
to conformity to the reality principle and to all the limits that such a
principle places on what is possible for the subject.
The ethic in the ethical act lies in its questioning of the very contours
of the reality principle. Antigone not only questions the higher authority of the gods and of their laws, but, in so doing, she undermines the
concept of the good that props up the reality principle. It is the absurd
rationality of her position that reveals a gap in the reality principle.
Under the prevailing social good, the word brotheras it applies to
Polynicesmust be foreclosed by the reality principle that marks him
as a traitor. Yet, by clinging so steadfastly to this very worda drive
substantiated by the fact that the good prohibits its reference to

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PolynicesAntigone demonstrates the utter inadequacy of the reality

principle itself. She demonstrates that, here too, the reality principle
pivots on what is excluded. Its status as a positive order of being is
built upon that which it denies from reality. By clinging to what is
negated, she reveals that there is nothing much behind the social good
other than the prohibitions invoked by the reality principle, which are
necessary to prop up the good. When she defies these prohibitions out
of a duty to the word brother, the reality principle and the good it
supports fall like a house of cards. By embracing that which is negated
by the reality principle, Antigone provides the basis for a new norm.
Upon her act, one cannot return to the moral injunctions with which
the tragedy had begun. In this light, now one can illustrate ethical
failure also in the terms of todays ethics of the lesser evil. In todays
liberal, moral universe, it is precisely the ethical act that is being foreclosed. All ideologically ethical constructions prohibit the transgressive
nature of the act by attaching some ill-boding empirical evil to it,
usually in the form of human suffering: Yes, it would be nice to realize
the dreams of the egalitarian tradition of democracy, but any attempt
to bring about such a world could only end in misery, suffering, and
terrora suffering inflicted on a population that must be fitted forcefully to uphold the parameters of those dreams: Here, too, the Soviet
Kulaks come to mind. What of the focus of todays ideological realism?
We live in an era of the end of great ideological projects, so lets be
realists, lets give up immature utopian illusionsthe dream of the
welfare state is over, one should come to terms with the global market
(Zizek 2001).
Thus the egalitarian tradition of democracy and the ethical duty that
it assigns to itself are foreclosed as unrealistic in the face of the moral
demands of the libertarian tradition. It is in this way that contemporary
ideology ties ones ethical hands by anticipation: The act behind radical
egalitarian projects is inherently evil, if merely because it aims to
transgress the ethical bounds delimited by the ideology of the day. It
is precisely for this reason that post-Cold War ideology attempts to
foreclose the thought of it, by arguing that it will only lead to evil in
the empirical sense. This warning of empirical evil hides a thinly veiled
hostility to the emergence of a new ethic beyond the reality principle
a hostility to the possibility of updating the good, as incorporated in the
transforming nature of the act. Todays struggle against evil is actually
a struggle against the emergence of a new ethic. It is a reactionary
struggle against the freedom of the Kantian act as such.

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Partisanship as the Ultimate Ethic of Egalitarian Democracy

Let us now apply this ethic theoretically by returning to the key differences between the libertarian and egalitarian views of democracy. Since
the central tenet of libertarian political theory is the separation of the
state and civil society, and since this separation is constructed upon
the natural rights of individuals, structurally then, the state is constitutionally limited to respecting and enforcing these rights so that
private persons, individually and voluntarily, may enter into the
widest possible range of social, religious, and economic exchanges with
one another. What we have here is a system in which an abstract universal (a natural right) stands aboveand yet, by means of formal
rules, is neutrally applied toa concrete and particular content (a
specifiable individual inhabiting society). The freedom of the libertarian subject is determined by the political limits imposed by the
universal principle of natural rights. The effect of this political limit is
evident in the social inequalities that arise from natural differences. If
universal freedom is to be preserved, this view contends, the concrete
inequalities in social relations must not be remedied by the political
apparatus of the statesuch meddling should open the floodgates of
totalitarianism. Under the libertarian premise, the equality that has
been promised in the abstract-universal actualizes inequality in the
concrete-particular.
The egalitarian principle offers a substantially different understanding of the relation between the universal and the particular. Unlike the
libertarians who argue for equality within the limited domain of the
state only, egalitarians promote equality in social relations as well. They
do so because egalitarians do not view inequality as natural, but as an
outcome of social forces. To view inequality as natural is but to abstract
the individual from that individuals concrete relations with others.
Egalitarians do not place the universal in the abstractin some disembodied neutral position such as the one occupied by natural rightsbut
in the concrete. Actually, the universal is a mode of concrete social relations. Marx (Marx and Engels 1978, 174) has clarified this point in his
general theory of revolution: The class making a revolution appears
from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a class, not as a
class but as the representative of the whole society; it appears as the
whole mass of society confronting the ruling class. It can do this because,
to start with, its interest really is more connected with the common
interest of all other non-ruling classes because under the present

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hitherto existing conditions its interest has not yet been able to develop
as a particular interest of a particular class.
The revolutionary class is a very particular concrete element of
society. It raises itself to the level of a new universal by representing
the general interests of society against the old universal, which itself
represents only a particular interest. From the egalitarian perspective,
any abstract universal such as natural rights is only the ideological
embodiment of the dominant interest in society. The true universal
does not stand outside or above concrete social relations, but emerges
from inside of them. The basis for this emergence is inequality. Inequality reveals the gap between the abstract universal and the concrete
particular of any given society. As long as inequality exists, a true universal remains inside social relations as a latent representative of the
general interests of society. The universal is not abstract, something that
regulates social relations. Rather, it is concrete, something that transforms those relations.
Let us apply these two positions to the difference, as outlined earlier,
between morality and ethics. On the one hand, the libertarian ethos can
be equated with our definition of morality in that it functions under
the rubric of an abstract universal principle, which determines the
legitimate makeup of the concrete. In this way, it mimics the reality
principle. Just as moral acts are determined in terms of their conformity
to a presupposed universal good, freedom in the libertarian tradition
is determined by the organization of concrete social relations around
the imperatives of the abstract universal principle of natural rights. The
egalitarian ethos, on the other hand, is founded on a concrete entity
that embodies the universal (the general interest of society)5 when it
emerges to struggle against the abstract universal. This concrete entity
embodies the universal when it seeks to remedy the contradiction
between the abstract universal promise of equality and the concrete
particular delivery of inequality. In this way, it can be said to mimic the
Kantian ethical act: for representing equality, it adopts the form of the
universal interest of society in the very manner that the Kantian ethical
subjects motive espouses the form of universal legislation. In that way,
the egalitarian act deliberately disavows the good embodied in the
5. My use of general interest here coincides with nonpathological interests. The ethic
that I am outlining is a formal and, therefore, timeless duty. In a sense, the general interest
of society evoked by egalitarianism does not have to coincide with the fickle, empirical
interests of society any more than the moral law has to coincide with ones pathological
interests.

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abstract universal in the name of a formal duty to concrete equality.

The concrete universal, unlike the abstract, embodies not its own good,
but the universal good of society. This is why for Marx (Marx and
Engels 1978, 482) the march of equality cannot end until the ascension
of the urban proletariat because, for being denied equality, only it can
embody the general interest of society. Yet the egalitarian principle is
also Kantian because only equality can guarantee universalthat is,
nonpathologicalpolitical motives. It demands that one sacrifice privilege in the name of the general good. It is important to understand that
equality is the goal not because it is morally good, but because it is
universal. In terms of ethics then, the paramount difference between
these two democratic principles6 is that while the libertarian clings to
the morality of the reality principle, a principle that structurally seeks
to limit political possibilities in the name of natural rights, the egalitarian seeks to expand political possibilities by breaking through this
reality and possibly introducing a new ethic.
Politically, these divergent democratic principles can be perhaps
explained by Lenins distinction of formal and actual equality. Formal7
equality is equality allowed within the coordinates of an existing power
relation, while actual equality designates the site of an intervention that
undermines these coordinates (Lenin 1992, 89). The libertarian principle offers formal equality: equality subject to the power relations
sustained by the abstract principle of natural rights. A common name
for this limit is the rule of law. Libertarian political theory advocates a
universal truth (natural rights) that sets clear limits on political intervention. For libertarians, politics is largely a matter of achieving effective compromise between conflicting interests in society, the more
enduringly to ensure that no particular interest usurps the position of
the abstract universal.
The egalitarian principle, however, promotes actual equality. This
entails the political freedom to act against the reigning universal principle in the name of something more essentially universal. The freedom
invoked here calls for the suspension of the rule of law. Egalitarian
political theory maintains that since the universal emerges out of the
6. And therefore also two kinds of democratization, embodied in the pursuit of either
of these two distinct democratic principles. For other kinds of democratization as well,
see Ciprut (2008).
7. Formal in the Leninist sense refers to abstract rather than concrete equality. His use
of formal should not be confused with Kants, since it refers to the formal moral (nonethical) contours of capitalist society. Actual equality encompasses the ethical element of
Kants theory in the formal sense.

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concrete, universal truth and partisanship are not mutually exclusive.

The universal becomes apparent only in the act of taking sides. It is not
something that stands above social relations or that neutrally regulates
them. The goal of politics is not compromise. It is partisanship.
The politics of egalitarian democracy demonstrates that objective
reality can be found only in the partisan act. Objective reality does not
exist in some abstract formula that organizes the meaning of concrete
relations; rather it only exists in terms of ones place inside those concrete relations. Since egalitarians believe that inequalities are the
product of social forces, they also believe that universal moral truths
and reality itself are products of social antagonisms. Only when social
antagonisms are overcome, that is, only when inequality ceases, will
the universal cease to be merely partisan.8 When libertarians claim that
attempts to remedy inequalities inevitably will lead to the next gulag,
this inevitability does not come from an objective point of view, but
from a position inside the social struggle itself. When heard from the
perspective of the egalitarian ethos, what this blackmail actually
conveys is, If you fail to comply with the limits set by natural rights
and by all the privileges accruing thereof, there will be suffering and,
yes, terror. Here, we can see that the causal necessity invoked in this
statement is not objective, but partisanthe logic of which owes itself
to social antagonism. Neutrality, let alone reality, is already an aspect
of taking sides. This is especially true when that neutrality promotes
inequality. The egalitarian remedy to such neutrality is to take the side
of equality against inequality, choose the side of the concrete universal
against the abstract universal. A politics of the concrete universal is
always a politics that is subversive of the reality principle.
The politics of the ethic of egalitarianism aims at the suspension of
the rule of law that serves as the support structure for the ruling class.9
This is justified by means of a duty to that very element in the concrete,
which is being denied access to the promise of the abstract universal.
Viewed from the perspective of concrete social relations, the abstract
universal is particular. Therefore, it can never be the basis for equality.
8. What makes egalitarian partisanship universal is that it embraces equality as an
ethical duty. This duty allows a universal basis for social relations to emerge out of concrete relations. Libertarian partisanship, in contrast, is designed to maintain inequality
by placing a particular and, thus, pathological principle over social relations.
9. This statement does not mean that the ruling class has to be wiped out physically. It
merely means that the pathological investment in social hierarchy must be suspended.
After all, if revolution is the ethical duty I am portraying it to be, then it is open to
everyone.

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The basis for equality, or the universal, then, must be sought for in that
which is excluded. Since it is equality that serves as the basis for the
universal duty promoted by the egalitarian principle, the central political struggle is always the economic struggle. All other forms of inequalityracial, ethnic, religious, gender, . . . eventually can (as well they
should) be overcome under the principle of natural rights. Only economic inequality, the inequality of class relations, cannot be remedied
by natural rights because it, and only it, holds as its remedy the end to
the distinction between the state and civilian society, built as that distinction is into the very concept of natural rights and of the protection
of those natural rights by the rule of law.
In addressing the problem of a democratic ethic, raised in this book
by Schuldenfrei (chap. 12)that democracies cannot simultaneously
support a right and a unified goodI would argue that, with equality,
democracies contain a good in themselves that is not inconsistent
with freedom. The egalitarian tradition understands freedom not
exactly in terms of the individuals right against society, but rather as
something experienced and fulfilled in terms of the equality that one
shares with others. It is consistent with Kants imperative that we see
others as ends and not as means. The problem is not so much that a
society committed most deeply to rights and freedoms . . . is very
likely to be a divided society (see Schuldenfrei), but rather that a
divided society is very likely to be one that tends to be committed to
rights and individual freedoms. It is the division,10 and not democracy
as such, that makes freedom and the good incompatible. Schuldenfrei
is correct in arguing that democratic freedom will always be at odds
with the good, if by that he, indeed, refers to an abstract universal
good. The politics of the egalitarian democratic ethic, however, aims at
putting an end to the economic division in societythe very division
that prohibits the emergence of the latent democratic good in its
concrete form.
Embracing the economically excluded (whether the homeless, the
ghettoized, or the permanently unemployed), not just as yet another
interest group under the liberal paradigm, but as the concrete universal
within which to fashion a new society, is to embrace a new ethic beyond
the reality principle. Politically, this amounts to moving beyond the
possible as determined by the limits imposed by the liberal paradigm
and by its consequent fear of totalitarianism. As we learned from
10. For comparative exemplifications, see Aronoff (2008).

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Antigone, a new ethic can only emerge by maintaining ones duty to

that which is excluded from the abstract moral universe. Pragmatically,
then, the egalitarian act seeks to suspend the rule of law in the name
of the concrete universalin our context, equality. Some might claim
that this attempt would open the door to totalitarianism. Yet, others
might suggest that it could lead to the freedom of the ethical act. Either
way, the truth behind the choice is not objective but purely partisan.
And this is exactly what being ethical means.
References
Arendt, Hannah (1958) The Human Condition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Aronoff, Joel Myron (2008) Democratizations in Fissured Societies: Retrospectives and
Prospects, in Jose V. Ciprut, Editor, The Future of Citizenship, Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press.
Ciprut, Jose V., Editor (2008) Democratizations: Comparisons, Confrontations, and Contrasts,
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Federalist Papers, see Madison, Hamilton, and Jay.
Freud, Sigmund (1961) Beyond the Pleasure Principle, New York: Norton.
Hayek, F. A. (1994) The Road to Serfdom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jay, Martin (1985) The Political Existentialism of Hannah Arendt, Permanent Exiles,
pp. 237256, New York: Columbia University Press.
Kant, Immanuel (1960) Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, New York: Harper &
Row.
(1996) Critique of Practical Reason, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Lenin, V. I. (1992) State and Revolution, New York: Penguin.
Lindblom, Charles (1977) Politics and Markets, New York: Basic Books.
Madison, James, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay (1961) The Federalist Papers, New
York: Mentor Books.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels (1978) The Marx-Engels Reader, Robert C. Tucker, Editor,
New York: Norton.
McInerney, Jeremy (2008) Freedom and the Free Man, in Jose V. Ciprut, Editor, Freedom:
Reassessments and Rephrasings, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Mulhern. J. J. (2008) The Political Economy of Citizenship, in Jose V. Ciprut, Editor,
The Future of Citizenship, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Pitkin, Hannah (1998) The Attack of the Blob: Hannah Arendts Concept of the Social, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Sabine, George (1952) The Two Democratic Traditions, Philosophical Review, 61:
451474.

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Sophocles (1967) Complete Plays of Sophocles, New York: Bantam.

Zaretsky, Eli (1997) Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of the Public/ Private Distinction,
Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of Politics, Craig Calhoun and John McGowan, Editors,
pp. 207231, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Zizek, Slavoj (1997) Multiculturalism, or the Cultural Logic of Multinational Capitalism, Socialist Review, 2851.
(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the (Mis)use of a
Notion, London: Verso.
(2002) A Plea for Leninist Intolerance, Critical Inquiry, 28:542566.
Zupancic, Alenka (2000) Ethics of the Real: Kant, Lacan, London: Verso.

12

The Problem of a
Democratic Ethic
Richard Schuldenfrei

According to the tradition, the Pythagoreans used to say that three

kinds of people came to the Olympic Games: those who came to watch,
those who came to compete, and those who came to make money. In
Plato, this notion was incorporated into an elaborate theoretical notion
of politics and ethics, one articulated most famously in The Republic
(Plato 1974). In part of his political theory, Plato was very critical of
democracy. I want to discuss his idea of the problems of democracy
under two headings, presenting two different but related aspects of
what I will call the problem of a democratic ethic. The first aspect is
what I will call the problem of democratic aspiration; the second, I will
call the problem of democratic stability.
Platos Theory of Character
In Platos hands, the Pythagorean observation became a theory of types
of character, of people who were typified or characterized by their
aspirations, or as Plato would have put it, by what they thought was
good. Plato believed that everyone actually desired the goodwhat
they (actually, if perhaps unknowingly) believed to be good, rather
than what they desired to be that which determined their lives. And
what they believed to be good was very closely connected to how they
thought, so that people with different beliefs about the good were
people with different ways of thinking. This theory contrasts with the
more common modern view that all rational people think the same way
when attempting to maximize efficiently the satisfaction of their
desiresonly with different desires. Their beliefs about the good
and as to how the good was connected to their most important traits
of character, and to those of their rulers as well, determined the
character of the society and of its politics. To understand Platos views

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on democracy, as well as about the ethical problems of democracy to

be discussed here, we must hence begin with a brief overview of Platos
taxonomy of character.
Plato believed there were five basic kinds of people (Plato 1974,
books 8 and 9). One was the wisdom lover. This kind of person subordinates all other interests to his interest in understanding the good.
That understanding, according to Plato, goes beyond rigorous scientific/mathematical understanding; it caps scientific/mathematical
understanding off with a dialectical understanding that is not based on
axioms or assumptions. The result is a deeply moral understanding of
the world, which according to Plato, reveals the appropriate place for
each thing as well as the appropriate fulfillment of other needs a person
has. It is a more scientific and rigorous understanding than our saints
are normally credited with, and a more moral understanding than that
of our scientists. Aristotle, Aquinas, and perhaps Einstein would be
possible exemplars. If such people were to come to rule, the regime
would be the best that humans could hope for.
The second type of person is the lover of honor/victory. Such people
are characterized by courage, loyalty, and particular tenacity. While
incapable of the highest sort of wisdom, they cling to the wisdom they
are taught when young and consider it dishonorable to abandon it or
the people whose lives it governs. They control their other desires on
behalf of their love of honor and victory. Their virtues are the virtues
that used to be associated with soldiers and athletes: team spirit, determination to win, fortitude, disciplinethe sorts of qualities Vince Lombardi, the famous U.S. football coach, might have admired. A society
in which they rule is not as well organized as the previous one (owing
to lack of depth of understanding), but it does have the stability of
firmness and the virtue of military strength.
The third sort of person, according to Plato, is the money lover. While
not primarily concerned either with wisdom or with honor, this person
leads an organized life in which impulses are controlled on behalf of
the efficient pursuit of wealth. He does not indulge himself. He thinks
in terms of efficiency, based on the calculation of profits and losses. A
society in which such people rule is devoted to commerce; and Plato
calls it an oligarchy.
The fourth sort of person, according to Plato, is a lover of freedom
and equalitythe democratic man. Like the money lover, he is not
concerned with wisdom or honor; but unlike the money lover, he is not
disciplined in the pursuit of money either. He regards all desires as

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equal and does not discipline the frivolous (unnecessary) to favor the
essential (necessary). He thinks impulsively, and he values the freedom
to indulge whatever he desires. The society governed by such values,
Plato calls a democratic society.
Finally, the fifth sort of person that Plato describes is the anarchotyrannical man. Such a man is such a lover of freedom that his life
is lawless, and he ends up being tyrannized over. He rejects any constraints whatsoever on his passions; as a result, he is dominated by the
strongest of them, say, sexual passion, drug abuse, or the like. A society
composed of such people inevitably comes to be dominated by a
tyrant.
The Problem of Democratic Aspiration
This taxonomy raises a problem. It is in the very nature of democracy,
according to Plato, that its collective aspirations do not include either
wisdom or honor. The logic of this point is clear enough. Both those
aspirations, if taken on collectively, require differentiating people in
terms of quality, and this is deeply at odds with equality, one of the
two basic values of democracy. People who regard all their desires as
equal, and have also no interest in controlling them, cannot be given
as much liberty as those who can control their passions, Plato believes;
hence, there would be unequal degrees of freedom.1 In this respect,
Plato would regard modern democracy as typical. It seems clear enough
that in the United States, for example, neither wisdom nor honor is as
highly regarded today as they have been either in other societies or,
earlier on, in the United States own history.
And this is the first of the problems of democratic ethics that I want
to discuss: Is a society that does not collectively admire wisdom or
honor a society with sufficiently high aspirations for human life? By
Platonic standards, democratic aspirations are not very high; and many
people who would not otherwise agree with Plato might agree on this
point.
Plato would probably not regard the United States as a paradigmatic
democracy, however. Democracy for him meant rule by those who did
not control their desires, which he assumed would be a large majority.
It was to be contrasted not just with rule by the wise and rule by the
1. Cf. Marxian and postmodern interpretations referred to in Cameron, chap. 11 in this
book.

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honorable, but also with rule by the wealthy,2 by the businessmen

who, he assumed, would be a small group. In the United States, he
would say, we have something of a mix between oligarchy and democracy. And that explains why we honor both money, on the one hand,
and freedom and equality, on the other. To a certain extent these are
at odds, of course. Left to itself, as if ever it could be, money does
not end up being distributed equally; and so love of equality is to an
extent in conflict with love of money. Also, the majority is not completely free to equalize the distribution of wealth or money; some have
seen this inability as an infringement on freedom, though, of course,
some others see the equalization of property as just such an infringement. To a great extent, these conflicts are the stuff of U.S. domestic
politics still today.
Even if, because of its oligarchic elements, U.S. democracy is not a
pure Platonic democracy, this fact does not dissolve the problem of
democratic aspiration, because aspiring to great wealth is surely too
crude a goal for a society. Now in the course of making money, modern
capitalist society has undertaken to conquer nature, using it to solve
problems, and in general molding it to suit the needs of human beings.
However, even the more exalted goals, of the conquest of nature and
of ultimate triumph over material obstacles, toward a more comfortably pleasant lifefor example, eliminating illness and povertyare
also insufficient. After all, achieving wealth or overcoming illness and
poverty seem more like means to something beyond those specific
ends. If we finally did succeed at these projects, what would we next
do? Would we thereby have achieved all that a society should hope to
achieve? Many people would say no.
And there is now this further point: while a great part of our economy
is devoted to meeting peoples genuine needs, an increasing proportion
of it seems to be devoted simply to providing comfort and pleasure,
including the unnecessary comfort and pleasure that Plato thought was
characteristic of pure democracy. If we were tempted to ask, Who says
it is unnecessary?the very asking would show how much we have
become like Platos democratic people, who will not and cannot distinguish between necessary and unnecessary pleasures. In fact, though
Plato believed a democracy would include significant diversity, he
nonetheless thought there would be a characteristically democratic
man and that such a man would be a pleasure lover. In light of this
2. See Mulhern (2008).

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277

belief, it seems clear that we need to ask, instead, whether and how
our collective aspirations can be raised.
But why is it the case that a society based on freedom and equality
turns out to be a society in which there is such a striking predominance
of concern with pleasure? Might the governments of such societies be
covertly violating their pledge to allow freedom and diversity? Platos
thought is, I believe, that a pleasure-oriented society need not be basically coerced in order to emerge. Pleasure is the default value of normal
human life. All that is necessary for pleasure to dominate (even if
incompletely and with only very small room for alternatives) is for the
culture not to aspire any higher than that. To take freedom and equality
for the good, according to Plato, will block the effects of the only antidotes to the human inclination to lead lives of pleasure or comfort:
people would follow their desires-qua-passions wherever those led.
Such people stood in contrast to oligarchic men, who would control
their desires for the sake of money; to men of honor, who would control
their desires (including the desire for money) for the sake of honor;
and to wise men, who would control all their desires for the sake of
wisdom.
The Obstacle to Raising Aspirations in a Free Society
To understand the difficulty of the problem, it will help to look back at
an aspect of the origin and basis of U.S. democracy. Apart from its
combination with oligarchy, U.S. democracy exhibits a number of quite
distinctive aspects relative to classical notions of democracy; these
aspects include the United States emphasis on individual and minority
liberties. Freedom of religion is a good example. What happened to
Socrates in democratic Athensnamely, being executed for impiety
would be quite out of keeping with the U.S. conception of democracy.
Some aspects of this particular conception of freedom find their origins,
to some extent, in the Reformation.
It is traditional to regard the people of the United States very much
as the direct descendents of participants in the religious wars of
seventeenth-century Europe, as does for instance John Rawls (1999) in
Justice as Fairness, Political not Metaphysical. Neither Catholics nor
Protestants had been able to establish the kind of consensus or hegemony that would have made religious freedom unnecessary; so the
alternatives were constant war or agreements to disagree. As the
diplomat-scholar Abba Eban has pointed out, the nations of the West

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are used to coming to the right solution for such problems, but only
after they have tried everything else. In this case, after fighting to the
point where the destruction was unbearable any longer, they more or
less agreed to disagree. Eventually, a consensus could arise about the
sheer inappropriateness of attempting to enforce religious consensus;
and freedom of religion became the norm.
It is important to keep in mind that the wars of religion were wars
over the things most dear to people: their notions of which kind of a
life is worth dying for and what kind of life people should lead. To
Europeans who had been used to living in at least nominal agreement
about these things, agreeing to disagree was quite a sacrifice. To some
it may seem that people had simply come to their senses, and that
fighting over religious differences now seemed just silly. Such thinkers
should rethink how silly it might have seemed to people to have to
fight wars with other countries in order to force or compel the adversary to adopt ones own way of government and/or to submit to a
wholly alien conception of rights, or to have to fight and die rather than
simply to accept such. Agreeing to tolerate different religions3 at the
time must have seemed to those peoples not much different from what
agreeing to tolerate cannibalism or the burning of widows would seem
to us today. In sum, religious tolerance then must have been viewed
by them in the way that religious intolerance would be regarded by us
now; it must have been considered to be tantamount to tolerating the
intolerable.
Learning to tolerate religious diversity was part of learning to live
in a newly fragmented world, a world that came in parts, which did
not necessarily fit into a meaningful whole, a cosmos. In science, it
meant that the world came to appear more like a mechanism than a
morally coherent structure. And in social life, it meant the recognition
that not just barbarians but your nearest neighbors could legitimately
see the world in different ways, and thus also entertain different values.
Whereas previously people could have relied on a certain basic agreement on what was good to hold society together, that was no longer
sufficient.
How to treat others can no longer be just a matter of whether they
are good. When people have rights, and I have to respect their rights,
I have to divide my judgment of them. As a person, I may judge
3. Cf. the perspectives offered in this book by Baker (chap. 9) and Spinner-Halev (chap.
10), as well as Doran (2008) regarding modes of tolerance here and there and then
and now.

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whether they are good. But, as a citizen and as the government, I judge
them also on the basis of whether or not they operate within their
rights. These judgments will not typically coincide. If they did, the
struggle that resulted in the institutionalization of rights would not
have taken place. That struggle came from disagreements over the
good. And so, freedom and goodness are in an important sense at odds.
There will be people who, by the standard of goodness, I will not find
reason to revere, but who, by the standard of political freedom, in our
shared capacity as citizens of the same polity, I must respect.
One way to talk about this change is to contrast the earlier society,
based on a shared conception of the good, with the society that ultimately emerges, based on a conception of freedom (or rights) but also
assuming a diversity of conceptions of the good (Rawls 1971, 446452;
see Sandel 1984, chap. 2). In such a society, rights and goods are to some
extent at odds, for it is always tempting to universalize ones conception of the good. But rights are obstacles to that intention. Hence, any
individuals conception of the good is in tension with his respect for
the rights of others. In this sense, even the individual himself is somewhat fragmented.
How much freedom? If freedom is a means to peace, then minimum
freedom is the amount that offers that peace. If the war is between
Catholics and Protestants, then peace necessarily will involve basic
freedom(s) for each. But the boundaries of freedom, somewhat like the
boundaries of a state, work best when they are drawn in defensible
places. Freedom for Catholics and Protestants might prove to be less
defensible a line than would be freedom of religion in general. Thus
more religions come to be tolerated on the very basis of the original
model of toleration.
And freedom expands also for other reasons. For one thing, the
model of removing divisive issues from the public domain, where such
is possible, can itself become a tradition, as also a vitally astute political
strategy. Moreover, freedom won at such a price, personal and/or
social, becomes valuable to people and to societies in and of itself, and
its exercise and extension are seen as valuable. Thus freedom goes
beyond religion and even conscience on to experiments in living, as
John S. Mill (1921) has called them, or lifestyles, as we would call
them today (Smart and Williams, 1973; Warnock 2003).
By the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, the
freedom of religion that was the outcome of the wars of religion and
the rights of Englishmen for which the American Revolution had been

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fought had been generalized into becoming the rights of man. By the
middle of the nineteenth century, J. S. Mill, in one of the great documents of liberty, was arguing that liberty should extend to everything
that primarily concerned a particular person rather than ones neighbors. Mill clearly meant to defend life as most U.S. citizens would
today: according to different conceptions of the good. And much of
Mills sensibility on these issues, especially about the extent of liberty,
corresponds to our contemporary sensibility, even though there still is
great controversy about particular important cases.
The function of this historical-philosophical overview for our purposes here is to help show how difficult a solution to the problem of
democratic aspiration would be. In a classic liberal democratic society,
it is essential that freedom have precedence over particular conceptions
of the good. It should be clear that in such a regime, appeals for higher
aspirationwhich are tantamount to appeals for a sort of shared notion
of the goodare very likely to clash with this conception of freedom,
for this vision of freedom concretizes itself as a resistance to any shared
notion of the good; so any proposal for a shared higher aspiration that
is not so abstract as to allow for indefinitely great individuality is likely
to be regarded as a blatant infringement on freedom. This clash is part
of the significance of the fight over diversityoften in the form of
multiculturalismin the United States in recent times. To propose a
consensus over aspiration to a democratic populace such as we have
in the United States today is not just to do unpopular work, it is
perhaps factually to conflict with our notion of freedom.
What then can there be to say about the problem of democratic aspiration? Perhaps, just this: there is a large literature about the price of
modern democratic life, and it is possible that the lack of agreement on
elevated aspirations is simply part of that price. Some would say that
individual liberty and material progress more than make up for the
otherwise lowered aspirations. Less respect for wisdom, as opposed
perhaps to pragmatically oriented science; loyalty to family and/or
tribe, as opposed to universality; fortitude and military-type virtues,
as opposed to say, universal compassion . . . may or may not be losses,
but in any eventespecially, in the eyes of modernitys many defendersthey are more than made up for by what has been gained. Low
aspirations are not in themselves a menace to democracy, and hence
not a threat to what will have been gained in the transition to modern
democratic life. Might then the very search for a higher collective aspiration in reality not amount to more than nostalgia? Perhaps in a world

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of individual liberty, as well as equality and material well-being, our

collective aspirations just have to be the least common denominator of
our existence; and our very highest aspirations, inevitably individual.4
If the problem of collective democratic aspiration can be dismissed as
a loss, or as an illusion of loss, may humans suffer as the species
matures?
The Problem of Democratic Stability
Platos conception of politics was not merely taxonomic. It had a
dynamic dimension as well. Plato regarded the regimes we have
described as being hierarchically ordered in the order we presented
them, and he believed that each was increasingly likely to decline into
the regime beneath it. The immediate significance of this belief for
our problem is that he believed that democracy was extremely likely
to decline/degenerate into anarchy/tyranny. Plato expects that, if
people give free reign to their desires, these desires will become more
and more demanding until they cannot be harnessed anymore with
reasonable restraint. He predicts that democracy will inevitably
descend into mob rule, with no respect for law, and then into a
tyranny headed by a champion of the people. De Tocqueville (1961)
proposed a variant of this view by suggesting that in a democracy
people might become so caught up in immediate personal gratification
as to have no capacity for participating in, supporting, or defending
free government.5
In the United States today we think of our freedom as being protected by the constitution, but the question this belief raises is, Who or
what will protect the constitution? Logically speaking, the flaw here is
that the constitution, which guarantees our freedom, guarantees it in a
way that leaves us free to become the kind of people who will not
defend our own constitution. This result could come about in any
number of ways. One is that we might become so flaccid as a people
that we are simply unable to defend the country from foreign enemies.
Or we might, in quite the same way, become unable to defend ourselves
from domestic factions. This outcome could occur with all the forms
of democracy still in place. Or yet, we could lose vigorous democracy
to apathysay, if we simply did not vote, or did not otherwise
4. Cf. Cameron (2008).
5. See also Guizots (1849) specific views on the matter in Ciprut (2008).

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participate in politics. Also, our constitution could come to lose its

meaning if it came to be interpreted in ways sufficiently different from
its true meaning.
This, in fact, is our second problem of democratic ethics. If the constitution that protects our freedom cannot protect itself, it would seem
that some supplementary ethics is called for, in order to help protect
that constitution and that freedom. The function of that ethic would be
to prevent the occurrence of precisely the kinds of events that we have
signaled as threats to the constitution. Such an ethic would have to
keep us vigorous, competently involved in politics, and adequately
qualified to interpret our own constitution in a way that sustains it
actively instead of degrading its meaning passively.
Here we need to distinguish between ethics and ethical theory. Ethics
is taken to imply an existing way of life embodied in a living community:
what Hegel (1952) called Sittlichkeit. By contrast, an ethical theory is a
theoretical formulation of a standard for a way of life. What is needed
in the first instance is an ethic; but the question that faces us is how to
bring about such an ethic.6 In a democratic free society, we can only
attempt to bring it about by proposing an ethical theory that is in fact
rationally persuasive to the majority. What we shall hence proceed to
do next is to examine the various standard kinds of ethical theory and
see to what extent they are potentially effective solutions to the dilemma
of democratic ethics. The crux of the issue at hand here is the extent to
which a democratic audience can be expected to be receptive to these
various ethical theories. We saw earlier that the conditions of freedom
did not make the democratic man receptive, collectively, to the arguments for specific exalted aspirations. That unreceptiveness may have
seemed optional in ways that the defense of freedom truly is not.
The Ethics of Freedom and Democratic Stability
The first category of ethical theories briefly to be discussed comprises
an array of ethicalrather than politicaltheories that emphasize
freedom. The first and most famous proponent of such ideas was
Immanuel Kant. Kant proposed freedom as a moral (his word for the
ethical), not merely a political, ideal. Many defenders of rights and
freedoms as moral ideals have drawn on Kant. The interpretation of
6. For different approaches across space and time in such quests for a higher ethic, cf.
Eichler (chap. 2), Guyer (chap. 3), Mulhern (chap. 8), Baker (chap. 9), and Cameron
(chap. 11) in this book.

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Kant we will rely on for our discussion here is based on his Foundations
of the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant 1964). This interpretation gives more
weight to Kants early, more rigorous, arguments and formulations
than to his subsequent, and more nuanced, speculations that recent
interpreters have preferred to emphasize.
This kind of theory emphasizes freedom as of morally direct importance. It claims that rights, as well as the concrete freedoms that they
provide for, are morally primary; in that sense, it imparts to rights and
freedom the essence of morality by seeing them as morally valuable in
and of themselves, not as a means to anything else. The political implication of such a theory is meant to be that we must have free institutions. Such theories are, of course, subject to criticism on serious
substantive counts, which we need not go into here (MacIntyre 1981,
chap. 4), since our task is not to engage in a general discussion of
various moral theories. But there is one problem with such theories,
which is specifically relevant to our problem of a democratic ethic.
As noted, our focus here is on the potential effective appeal of this
ethicas a solution to the threats to freedom and democracy. As also
noted, democratic culture is one of comfort and pleasure. And this is
exactly what constitutes the threat to freedom. The sort of thinking that
is done in a democratic culture is of a Humean sort. As opposed to
Platos wise person for whom reason determines the goals of life, for
Hume (1888, 415) reason as ideated in democratic society is and ought
to be the slave of the passions, because reason tells us the means to
acquire what we, independently of reason, want. So the appeal of rights
to a democratic society will have to be based either on an independent
desire for rights or on a claim that rights are a means to something else
that democratic (wo)man wants. Ironically, however, that something
else is just what this sort of theory is not prepared to provide. This
statement is equally true of Kants own theory, which addresses freedom
more generally rather than dwelling on rights more particularly. But in
whichever formulation of that theory, it is central that the nature of
freedom discussed not be viewed as a means to the fulfillment of some
desire. In Kants general formulation of the defense of freedom, it is
not a simple fact that freedom is not defended as a means to the satisfaction of desire; it is the very nature of freedom that it is not such a
means. If we ask what it is that is supposed, according to Kant, to bring
about moral action, if it is not that the action is the appropriate means
to an end, one illuminating answer is to compare it to Platonic courage/
fortitude, which specifically includes the ability to resist desire. In

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Kant, this quality takes the form of respect for [moral] law or respect
for duty (Kant 1964, 6869). Yet, in its original Platonic form, the very
absence of that attribute is one of the most defining traits (indeed,
characteristics) of democratic culture.
Earlier I observed that, rather than being a pure Platonic democracy,
the United States seems something of a mixa combinationpart
Platonic oligarchy and part Platonic democracy. This observation,
however, does not give us any help here. For example, what if the oligarchs have resources for resisting pleasure or comfort that democrats do not have, especially if they are of the type imbued with what
Weber called the Protestant Ethic (Weber 1958). But there is nothing
intrinsically democratic about the oligarchic ethic. The oligarchic
ethic has little about it to support equality; it supports freedom largely
for the economically successful rather than for just anyone and
everyone.
Benthamite Utilitarianism and Democratic Stability
There are other categories of ethical theory, which defend rights in a
different wayas part of a more general theory of value, so-called
utilitarian or consequentialist theories. In one of its very prominent
forms, notably Benthams (1973, 257290), this approach actually contained a direct attack on rights. Benthams point was that freedom is
based not on rights, but on utility. Freedom is the means to the maximum
satisfaction of our desires; and where it is not, it is not worth having.
Here is an approach whichunlike the Kantianhas a purchase on
the democratic man, because it defends freedom in a way that uses
reason in the form that the democratic man understands it.
Benthamite utilitarianism is characterized by its aspiration to utter
rigor. Bentham (1996) proposes, strictly quantitatively, to calculate the
pleasure that a policy brings to each person, and then to compare policies in the same way: he advocates choosing the one that maximizes
the total amount of pleasure. As in the case of all moral theories, there
are many problems worthy of (re)consideration, but here we shall
discuss only the ones with special relevance to our specific interrogation of the palpable grounds and prospects for democratic ethics.
One such relevant problem, which has played a sizeable role in the
repudiation of utilitarianism in favor of more Kantian political thinking
by many political theorists in recent times and particularly in the transformation of that domain by John Rawls (1971), has to do with equality.

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While utilitarianism insists on egalitarianism, in the sense that each

persons pleasure counts the same, it does not point to egalitarian outcomes because it allows a great deal of utility for some to outweigh
the fact that many others might not get very much at all. In other
words, if an upper class lives in sufficient luxury, this fact might persuade a utilitarian to overlook the poverty and misery of the lower
classes, as long as the numbers come out right. And since the worse off
might well be a majority, it is not clear how well this approach would
appeal to a democratic society over the long run.
A second problem is that Benthams defense of freedom depends on
freedoms effectiveness in producing happiness. In situations where
freedom and democracy had lost intrinsic appeal and the society could
be most economically productive without either, the defense of freedom
and democracy would be without support. Not so? Well try to imagine
a Benthamite defense of the Weimar Republic in a Germany of the early
1930s. In that sense, and to that extent, Benthams views are hardly a
candidate for an ethic specific either to freedom or to democracy.
But there exists an important third problem. Bentham was for the
dismissal of any distinctions between utilities that could not be quantified. This was an important part of the overall appeal of the objectivity claimed by his philosophy. And in a couple of ways, this is also a
great strength of his position. In a scientifically oriented age, objectivity
appeals in very important ways. Perhaps of even greater importance is
one, somewhat more oblique, consideration: the emphasis on calculation, maximization, and efficiency has about it a spirit that is more
businesslike than apathetic. Those who are actively engaged in
maximizing their pleasure or that of a society are not passive, but
actively engaged people. In this sense, the spirit of Benthams outlook
is helpful.
However, the other side of the coin of objectivityand hence of the
quantitativeis that Bentham was simply unable to give any reason
for preferring poetry to pushpin (a popular game in his time, or television today, for that matter) if someone derived more pleasure from
the latter. At first blush, this possibility would seem to be more relevant
to our first problem of democratic ethicsthe problem of low aspirationsand, indeed, it is. But it is also quite relevant to the problem at
hand, in the here and now. For if the greater quantities of pleasure can
be had from passive and/or nonpolitical engagements, then there
would seem to be nothing to stave off the apathy that de Tocqueville
was afraid of, or any of the sorts of self-indulgence that we feared

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would undermine freedom. What if it were to turn out that what made
people happiest was, say, to watch television all day? Worse still, what
if it turned out to be drugs like crack that gave people the most
pleasure? Is the latter not a proposition that the people have come
perilously close to exploring in real terms, across the United States, at
certain periods, in recent times?
Millian Utilitarianism and Democratic Stability
There is another version of utilitarianism, which was proposed by John
Stuart Mill. In addition to defending individual rights in his On Liberty
(Mill 1921) on a utilitarian basis, the success of which is a matter of
controversy, Mill handled the pushpin-poetry dilemma in his Utilitarianism (Mill 1957). He proposed to distinguish between pleasures
not just quantitatively, but qualitatively as well. By way of a criterion
of qualitative difference between pleasures, Mill has claimed that
between certain pairs of pleasures, particular ones were preferred by
all of those who had experienced both. The preferred ones he believed
to be higher-quality pleasures, chosen even when they were not
superior quantitatively. On this basis then, poetry was to be preferred
to pushpin. And since the criterion of quality is based on experience,
Mill believed it to be objectively grounded, even if it was not wholly
so quantitatively.
I find here something that speaks both directly and quite relevantly
to our problem. Mill can be understood as attempting to convince those
who are tempted by a life of television watching that they are missing
out on something else, which they would appreciate much more if they
would only give the latter a chance. True enough, such disposition may
require considerable effort, but the argument is that it surely would be
worth their while in a way that is in some sense on their terms. If it is,
say, happiness that the democratic population seeks, then people will be
making a mistake if they were to indulge themselves in these passive
or, lowerpleasures. This is an argument that can be understood by,
and even appeal to, democratic populations in no uncertain terms.
There is a serious weakness in this argument as an answer to our
specific problem, however. But in order to articulate it we need to
make a more general point first. If nearly everyone who has tasted
both vanilla and chocolate ice cream claims that the former is better,
that fact does not make it such in and of itself. It only proves that the
majority prefers vanilla to chocolate. In order for Mill to claim that he

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has identified something other than a preference by a set of more

experienced observers, he has to show that there is something objective
(innate to the products compared) lying behind taster-shared preference. This problem is exacerbated in our case by the following facts
regarding poetry and, say, television programs by the World Wrestling
Federation. The people on the two sides of the issuethose who
prefer poetry, on one hand, and those who prefer rougher pleasures,
on the othersurely differ also in numerous other ways. And not
necessarily because the former are likely to have had a higher
education, to belong to the middle classes, or to have more refined
tastes: the two categories may oppose neighbors who live different
lives, who enjoy different universes, neither of whom is able, inclined,
or willing to enjoy the pleasures dearest to the other. Different categories of people who, whether brought up similarly or differently,
prefer different thingsthe one unaffected by high culture, and the
other indifferent to the natural pleasures of rough comradeship or to
some kinds of brutalitycome to mind. Unless Mill convincingly
can rebut that argument, his views are likely to be perceived by democratically inclined audiences as heavily imbibed in class bias. He will
seem to be simply endorsing certain of the values of the refined and
educated classes with considerable indifference to those of the other
strata.
Practical Wisdom and Democratic Stability
The last of the categories we examine is not an ethic designed specifically to defend rights, but a type of ethic that independently of such
preoccupation supports a mode of ethical life that would not undermine rights. I am referring here to the Aristotelian tradition of what is
these days called virtue ethics, more specifically to the virtue that
Aristotle calls phronesis, or practical wisdom, in his Nichomachean
Ethics (book 6). It is the human ability to judgecorrectlyin regard
to things that could be otherwise. And it contrasts, primarily, with
sophia, or theoretical wisdom. Unlike theoretical wisdom, which
deals, according to Aristotle, with what is necessarily so, practical
wisdom is not infallible. It deals only with things that can be known,
but not with things that can be known with certainty. It is wrong to
keep what does not belong to you, but if an intoxicated friend asks for
his car keys back, it may not be wrong to keep them. How greatly
affected by the alcohol does he need to be to justify keeping his

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keys? This is a matter of judgment over which even the best of us can
be wrong on occasion; but there is, nevertheless, a correct answer.7
Perhaps this sort of judgment is the very virtue that we need to encourage, the better to protect our freedom.
This proposal raises the question Is there such wisdom, and what
does it say in any given case? Aristotle addresses this query head-on.
If you want to know what the wise judgment is in any given case, ask
the wise man. While this may seem to provide a trivial or circular
answer, it is actually illuminating in a most important way, for it reflects
Aristotles confidence in a consensus about who is a wise man. This
was a confidence based on the conviction that he lived in a society
where people agreed, not unanimously, but by and large, on what was
good and what was bad. And this belief was connected with other
convictions that supported it: for example, that man was a political
animal; that his society, namely the polis, was the natural unit of association; that human beings were so constructed as to be able to understand not just the natural but also the social world. We moderns do not
agree on such things. It is therefore not surprising that the notion of
practical wisdomembodied by phronesic mens worldviewcannot
play the same role in our society that in his time Aristotle envisioned
it to be playing in his.
To see how and why this statement is true, we can turn to the vexed
issue of abortion. The abortion issue does not lend itself to solution by
simple appeal to the enumerated rights of the constitution, because no
such rights are enumerated, and because both sides appeal to rights.
Nor does it yield to a broader appeal to freedom, since both sides
appeal to that as well. One emphasizes freedom in the form of the right
to life; the other places the accent on freedom in the form of the right
to the pursuit of happiness. The first sees in liberty the freedom to live
within traditional parameters, while the second interprets freedom as
the liberty to explore the limits of human individual life. Thus the abortion debate today (cf. Eichler, chap. 2 in this book) is but a concretization of two different conceptions of the good life, approached
differentlyalbeit right inside the one and same society: distinct democratizations within the very same polity.
In the United States this protracted controversy has plagued all the
branches of government, but most centrally the judiciary. In effect, the
7. Even though some things, degrees in qualities among them, do remain in the paradoxical domain to this day: see, for instance, Gross (2008).

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people have attempted to deal with it by allowing their judges to solve

it for them. But this approach has been quite unsatisfactory in the eyes
of many among the people, and it has resulted in a controversy about
the judges themselves. The opponents of abortion see the judges who
allow it, not as objectively wise men, but as mere partisans8 of a particular conception of the worldsometimes referred to as secular humanismwhich has a lot in common with what Mill (1921), in chapter 3
of On Liberty, described as pagan self-assertion. And because the
dispute over abortion is, at a deeper level, also a dispute over the nature
of a good life, and not just a dispute over this specific right, it often
finds itself elevated to the level of the old Aristotelian contention as to
who exactly is a wise person. These disputes then take the concrete
form of prolonged debate over who is fit to be a judge (wise). And
any prolongations of the sort can help spin enough rope to last for
years, quite substantially interfering with the exercise of government
the workings of the U.S. Senate, for instance. One may expect to see
such long-winded debates again, this time in regard to stem cell
research.
The problem with using practical wisdom arises in addition to two
other problems that should be also noted. First, Aristotle in person
never doubted that it would be only a small minority, a subset of
the best people, who could or would exercise practical wisdom. For
him, it was basically an elitist notion, hardly typical of democratic
populations. Second, despite its name, practical wisdom is not basic
reasoning of the means-ends sort. It is a kind of judgment about the
appropriateness of certain qualities to certain contextsfor example,
the ability to understand whether, in a given situation, it would be
courageous or rash to fight and cowardly or sensible to retreat. These
are not means-ends dilemmas for Aristotle. They are issues only for
people who are antecedently committed to courage. Like Kants own
respect for law, Aristotles practical wisdom in a sense finds its
analogue in Plato. And although there are some quite considerable
contrasts when compared to a Humean mode of means-ends reasoning, the Aristotelian notion of practical wisdom is more comparably
similar to Platos notion of wisdom; and as we saw, the very absence
of respect for that sort of wisdom is one of the defining qualities of
democracy for Plato.
8. On this activist aspect of the notion of partisanship, cf. Cameron, chap. 11 in this
book.

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Conclusion
The problem of aspiration that we thought useful to mention is not in
and of itself a mortal threat to democracy. It even might not amount to
much more than yet another simple fact about the modern world. In
contrast, the problem of democratic stability is just such a mortal threat.
We should note also that there remains considerable question as to
whether the problem of democratic aspiration should be looked at in
isolation. In the first place, all the approaches with which we hoped to
solve the problem of instability appealed in different forms to values
of wisdom and/or honor, the very absence of which in fact defined the
problem of democratic aspiration. Lest we forget, Plato himself had
argued that the decline he expected from democracy into anarchy/
tyranny was simply one stage of the decline that begins with the descent
from the regime of the wisdom lover to the regime of the honor lover,
continuing inexorably down to the money lover and on to the freedom/
equality lover. We may think that, if we do not aspire any higher, the
alternative would be to stay put where we are, but quite apart from
Platos philosophical argument on this score, there is the simpler point
that if a person circling a mountain halfway up does not concern
himself with going any higher, s/he eventually will yield to gravity
and end up even lower.
Men do not live by bread alone. Nor do they live by freedom and
democracy in a space devoid of everything else. Full-fledged human
beings, whose lives can sustain both democracy and freedom, entertain
a conception of what makes a life worthwhile. They may have fervent
faith in freedom and democracy, but, as mature human beings, they
will also have developed a conception of the good. The two major
problems of democratic ethics, discussed earlier, are in fact two aspects
of the separation of the right and the goodthe consequences of giving
social primacy to right over good. As noted, when we separate the
right and the good, we also disconnect the principles of political life
and the very precepts of individual life. A society committed most
deeply to rights and freedom, and not solely to the good, is very likely
to be a divided society, because its members must believe in something
else as wellthe nature of a good life. There is nothing in a free society
to assure that everyone will agree on such. Indeed, there is a strong
tendency to make the very absence of such an agreement (diversity)
a criterion of genuine freedom. History suggests that at least some such
disagreement is important for the idea of freedom to take hold. U.S.

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society, for instance, has long assumed that, at least nominally, it could
reach no agreement, attain no consensus, on the good life; and it increasingly is able to celebrate the very fact.
Hence, we should not be surprised, under those circumstances, that
we moderns are unable collectively to raise our sights or even jointly
to protect our freedoms by appealing to a consensus around some
ethical theory. If we did have such a consensus, our freedom would not
be so important to us, and surely its pursuit would not be such a fragile
undertaking.
Though we cannot appeal to a consensus about a central ethic in
order to protect our democracy, it does not follow that there cannot
obtain one such central code, or that we cannot aspire to creating one.
Such a consensus, however, would have to be about a conception that
was at once seriously unified and richly diverse. For, if it were not
unified, it could not mobilize our notions of the good in defense of our
freedom; and if it were not diverse, it would be significantly at odds
with freedom itself.
And so we are forced to keep struggling on, toward finding the
appropriate relationship between the freedom we seek and the good
for which we search. The struggle to find the correct relationship
between the freedom and the good is similar in certain ways to the
struggle to ensure the optimal relationship between unity and diversity, a form of struggle for which Plato is our first and best guide. And
as Plato makes clear, it is essential for our success in such struggles that
we do not assume that we have found the answer already, be it in detail
or in a basic outline. Specifically, that requires of us not to assume that
freedom around the world will take the form that it has espoused in
Western Europe, in North America, or in some other exceptional spot.
Perhaps an honest struggle of this tenor and magnitude is the best
recommendation one can make, in closing, in regard to an ethic of
democracy, a democratic ethic, or democratic ethics, at this time.
References
Aristotle (1984) Nicomachean Ethics, in Jonathan Barnes, Editor, Complete Works of Aristotle,
vol. 2, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Bentham, Jeremy (1973) Benthams Political Thought, Bhikhu Parekh, Editor, New York:
Barnes & Noble.
(1996) An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, James H. Burns
and Herbert L. A. Hart, Editors, Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.

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Cameron, Kevin (2008) Beyond Ideology, Toward a New Ethic of Freedom? in Jose V.
Ciprut, Editor, Freedom: Reassessments and Rephrasings, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Ciprut, Jose V. (2008) Pictures at an Exhibition in the Guise of an Epilogue, in Jose V.
Ciprut, Editor, Democratizations: Comparisons, Confrontations, and Contrasts. Cambridge,
MA: The MIT Press.
Descartes, Ren (1993) A Discourse on Method, 3rd ed., Indianapolis: Hackett.
Doran, Charles F. (2008) From Rule of Law to Freedoms to Enlightened SelfGovernment: Emplacement of Value in Democratization in Jose V. Ciprut, Editor,
Democratizations: Comparisons, Confrontations, and Contrasts, Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press.
Gross, Steven (2008) Vagueness, Indeterminacy, and Uncertainty, in Jose V. Ciprut,
Editor, Indeterminacy: The Mapped, the Navigable, and the Uncharted, Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1952) Philosophy of Right, Thomas M. Knox, Translator,
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Hume, David (1888) A Treatise of Human Nature, Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
Kant, Immanuel (1964) Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Herbert J. Paton, Editor,
New York: Harper & Row.
MacIntyre, Alasdair (1981) After Virtue, Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press.
Mill, John Stuart (1921) On Liberty, London: Longmans, Green.
(1957) Utilitarianism, 1st ed., Oskar Piest, Editor, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Mulhern, J. J. (2008) The Political Economy of Citizenship, in Jose V. Ciprut, Editor,
The Future of Citizenship, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Plato (1974) Republic, Georges M. A. Grube, Editor, Indianapolis: Hackett.
Rawls, John (1971) A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
(1999) Collected Papers, Samuel Freeman, Editor, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sandel, Michael (1984) Liberalism and Its Critics, New York: New York University Press.
Smart, John J. C., and Bernard Williams (1973) Utilitarianism For and Against, London:
Cambridge University Press.
Tocqueville, Alexis de (1961) Democracy in America, New York: Shocken.
Weber, Max (1958) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, New York: Scribners.

13

On the Need and

Requirements for
a Global Ethic of
Communication
Thomas W. Cooper and
Clifford G. Christians

Unique to this complicated age is technology on a worldwide scale, as

well as two most decisive technologies in fundamental contradiction:
Information hardware has helped create global communication systems
that potentially involve us all in each others lives. Military technology,
in contrast, threatens the human race with destruction. Our global era
has acquired the dialectical sophistication to unplug human life even
as it continues to plug nations into a worldwide information network.
The time is 1945, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Nuclear technology, in
principle, now was able to roast most species into extinction. In 1957,
Sputnik rocketed into space, and not merely as a satellite fired from the
USSR in secret; the whole world was watching.
For the late Marshall McLuhan (1974), Sputnik bound humankind
together electronically for the first time. The rumors of Lincolns assassination had taken months to reach the London streets; a century later,
Russian technology was paraded instantly before an admiring world.
And on November 24, 1963, the world participated as one body in
President John F. Kennedys funeral. Television, radio, and satellites
gathered us around the casket with the emotion and ceremony we
would reserve to the burial of someone intimately close. The parade
was taking place not down Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC,
USA, but on Main Street, in One World.
Since those heady days, the earths orbits have become crowded with
satellites, some for information and others for military purposes. Global
technologies stand in counterpoint. As information increases, we
presume it is facilitating global understanding. And when the nuclear
arms race is successfully curbed, these two technologies are thought to
follow their proper trajectory. Open information that is unfettered and
destructive technology that is restrained, together produce a working
formula for sustaining the globe at this auspicious moment of human

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history, although the correlation between improved information and

decreased danger is not always a positive one and can be reversible.
Communication has facilitated world affairs. The Berlin Wall fell and
Mikhail Gorbachevs glasnost took hold before the eyes of the world.
A new world order for communication, offering free and balanced flow
of news and information among nations, began to be touted as the Cold
Wars strategy of mutually assured destruction began to fade. At the
second MacBride Round Table meeting in Prague, in 1990, the world
media were urged to address the problems of social unrest, armed
conflict, violent fanaticism, environmental catastrophes, and economic
deprivation; they were encouraged to mobilize public opinion for a
resolution of these ills. Television, radio, and the Internet rallied the
nation in the United States on 9/11/01, nurturing empathy throughout
the globe. In electronic narrative, working-class rescue teams came
through as heroes for their evident national strength and resiliency, and
the media constructed an identity for terrorism. News coverage of Iraq
and Afghanistan helped keep the military accountable, making sure
the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison would not go unnoticed or be hushed
up. The Qatar-based Arab network Al-Jazeera refused to promote any
governments agenda. And thanks to the global media, it became
evident that winning a war and earning the peace, though both indispensable, are two different things.
In reality, only rarely do the media serve as democracys agent, and
not always as militarisms dissenter. Both the war in the Persian Gulf
and the invasion of Iraq witnessed the successful integration of electronic communication and military technology. The calibrated air raids,
the use of smart bombs, night vision targeting, the high-tech defenses,
and embedded reporters extending battlefields into our living rooms
made the war in Iraq a triumph of communication. And undoubtedly
the war on terrorism is communications driven as well. Al-Qaeda exists
as a cyber network: its battles are coproduced, by television and by
terrorists. On another front, the threat of cyber terrorism continues to
escalate, by making use of the information infrastructure to wreak
havoc on computer traffic, to threaten police safety operations and
military readiness, and to shut down financial transaction systems.
Meanwhile, electronic profiling of personal data and surveillance of
citizen activities continue to proliferate, typically by attribution to
national security, or under its painstakingly legitimated look-alike.
All these conditions raise the nonrhetorical question, Dont we need
a global media ethic? which therefore merits an answer. It is all too

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evident that the media do not exist in a vacuum. Their welfare is determined by their context. In the absence of an explicit normative foundation, the media take on the identity of the national, religious, ideological,
and technological world in which they live. In Jacques Elluls (1964)
terms, the communications media are the meaning-edge of the technological order, the arena where the latters soul is most clearly exposed.
Without well-developed ethics, mass media and social order are characterized by identical assumptions. They become an integrated set of
concentric circles, as if they were parts of the same whole interwoven
through similar social, economic, political, and intellectual constraints
that cut through them both.
Communication systems become a microcosm of the very society
they supposedly serve. The online world largely represents the regimes
of power that dominate society and culture offline. And in bloodstained hands, technologies of destruction and of communication can
serve an identical purpose.
Ethical thinking in the Anglo-American tradition has generally failed
to intercept this accommodation. By design and execution, media ethics
on the whole have been limited to perfunctory description and individual decision making. There are only tentative appeals to norms, and
a general suspicion of their status reveals itself in value-free science
and reporting. In the absence of some basis, substantively and universally normative, all parochial ethics will be stagnant, that is, commensurate and inconsequential. Thus the challenge: that the ethical domain
revivify the normative dimension to keep media technologies on track.
Our case study of these two global technologies in opposition seeks to
illustrate the larger truth that a substantive ethic is needed to enable
public communication to secure the common good. Without a concrete
commitment to norms, emancipative intentions are jeopardized. Parochial ethics without ongoing attention to norms benefit only the established system. All the ethical theorizing we do worldwide will be
stultified increasingly by petty interests and particularistic settings in
a world of violence, terror, fundamentalist hate, and warunless
ethical theory is brought to reexamination under a transnational lens
of universal ideals. (On the search for universals in matters of ethics,
see Eichler, chap. 2; Guyer, chap. 3; Baker, chap. 9; and Cameron,
chap. 11 in this book.)
Our hope has been that communication among the worlds peoples
would help to keep at bay the destruction and conflict among nations.
Meanwhile, the urgent need for a global media ethic that matches the

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pumped muscle of todays communication technologies has become

obvious. In light of the power of global media corporations and the
high-speed electronic technologies that now characterize the media
worldwide, it is becoming imperative that communicational ethics
become broad and strong enough to match the international impetus
and impact of these forces. Otherwise, we would be stuck with a subservient ethic, echoing the status quo and neither confronting nor if
need be contradicting it.
Several worldwide models have been developed or are under way.
The Eurocentric ethical canonessentially a monocultural, parochial,
and patriarchal oneis being replaced by cross-cultural, international,
and even transnational frameworks.
Theories of Universals
Transcendental metaphysical universals with presumptions of foundationalism have been discredited for being imperialistic. Today, scholars
doing credible work on universals understand norms to be historically
embedded, and neither abstract nor absolutist. Diversity in culture
does not constitute, or provide proof for, philosophical relativism. Relativism is subject to the naturalistic fallacy: that is, ought statements
cannot be derived from is statements, since these two categories represent different realms. What exists in a natural setting cannot itself
yield normative guidelines. Relativism faces the long-standing contradiction articulated by Karl Mannheim: those insisting that all cultures
are relative must rise above them, for it is in so doing that relativism
is nullified. The ethical frameworks described in this section, each and
all, emphasize cultural diversity even as they continue to search for
universals that are transcendent. The primary issue here is in identifying a different kind of universal, one that acknowledges and honors
the splendid variety of human life.
Kaarle Nordenstreng opened a pathway by accounting for common
values, but diversity no less, through professional codes of ethics.
Nordenstrengs The Mass Media Declaration of UNESCO (1984) served
as a path breaker in understanding professional ethics internationally,
by way of codes of ethics as constellations of media values. Subsequently, an inventory of thirty-one codes in Europe enabled the identification of journalists accountability to the public, and to their sources
and referents, as its primary emphasis (Laitila 1995). Christians and
Nordenstreng (2004) placed codes of ethics in the larger context of

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social responsibility theory. Thinking along the lines of social responsibility has been going on in various parts of the world, from the work
of the Hutchins Commission in the United States to the endeavors of
the MacBride Commission, the European Union, and public journalism. Codes of ethics contribute also in bringing society to the forefront,
if reoriented from media-centered professionalism to social responsibility as a citizen-based paradigm (see Ciprut 2008).
Thomas Coopers Communication Ethics and Global Change (1989),
with contributions by Christians, White, and Plude, became the first
comprehensive survey of media ethics conducted across cultures by an
international network of media professionals and educators from thirteen countries. Coopers study of professional morality identified three
protonorms as candidates for universal status. He concluded that one
worldwide concern within the apparatus of professional standards and
codes is the quest for truth, though often limited to objectivity and
accuracy. A second concern, grounded on the research data available,
is defined by Cooper as a desire among public communicators to work
responsibly within the social mores and cultural features in which they
operate. He finds freedom of expression to be a third imperative across
professional media practice. Although stated in different languages
and to different degrees, free speech is an important component in
maintaining accurate human expression.
Claude-Jean Bertrand (2000) advocates media accountability
systems (MAS) for enforcing ethical practices in the democratic media
worldwide. Media accountability systems examine every option in the
private sector that fosters the medias responsibility by pressuring them
to serve the public better, and thereby depriving the government of a
pretext to interfere. All available strategies and means for media regulation are carefully includedcodes of ethics, ombudspersons, news
councils (local, regional, national), in-house critics, journalism reviews,
citizen groups for accuracy and fairness, reader and viewer panels, and
research institutes. Media accountability systems have become indispensable, given the unprecedented privatization and deregulation of
electronic media worldwide. Media accountability systems designed to
emphasize freedom and qualitative excellence already exist in many
different forms across the globe, particularly in such countries as
Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Sweden, Israel, Estonia,
Portugal, and the United States (Bertrand 2003, 293384).
There are also several universal frameworks that step outside of
professional ethics and of media institutions, concentrating on general

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morality: while having an explicit communication orientation, they are

theoretical models rooted in philosophical reflection.
S eyla Benhabib (1992) has developed a principled interactive universalism, not subject to the criticism of postmodernists that grand
narratives are no longer possible. She defends universalist ideals in
moral and political life by addressing the contemporary assault on
universals. In the process, she reserves serious attention to the respective contributions of feminism and communitarianism. In her reformulation of discourse ethics, she depicts humans as dialogic selves
whose moral agency follows norms implicit in Habermass ideal speech
situation: universal moral respect and egalitarian reciprocity (Bracci
2002, 128130). Her idea of interactive dialogic rationality keeps
ethics close to peoples everyday experience, so that diversity in cultures is recognized and differences are not buried under an abstract
metaphysics.
Kwasi Wiredu (1996), in contrast, writes from an African philosophical perspective: the human species lives by language. Every language
is similar in its phonemic complexity, and though all of them serve in
functional roles, far more importantly they serve in culture formation.
It is through the intrinsic self-reflexivity of natural language that we
arbitrate our values and establish our differences and similarities.
Languages everywhere are communal, giving their speakers particularity; the shared lingual character of our existence makes intercultural
communication possible. Through the commonness of our biologiccultural identity as homines sapientes, we humans can believe that there
are universals, notwithstanding that concomitantly we live in our local
communities.
In a study of ethical principles in thirteen countries across three
continents, the sacredness of human life was consistently affirmed as
a universal value (Christians and Traber 1997). The rationale for human
action was affirmed to be reverence for life on earthrespect for the
organic realm within which human civilization is situated. Veneration
of human life represents a universalism from the ground up, and
various societies articulate this protonorm in different terms, which
they illustrate locally, although every culture can bring to the table this
fundamental norm for ordering political relationships and social institutions such as the media as well. There is at least one generality of
universal scope underlying systematic ethics. The primal sacredness of
life is a protonorm that binds humans into a common oneness. And
in our systematic reflection on this foundation of the social order, we

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recognize that it entails such basic ethical principles as human dignity,

truth, and nonviolence.
Thomas Coopers (1998b) strategy for understanding our universal
humanity was to expand the study of industrial societies to include
learning from indigenous groups. He lived with the Shuswap in
Canada, among Polynesians in Hawaii, and in the midst of the Rock
Point Navajo people to experience firsthand their moral perspectives
and modes of communication. He documents the umwelt, spirituality,
respect, and wisdom of native peoples for whom communication is a
release of power storedpotential energy becoming kinetic energy. He
observes that what outsiders call ethics are derivative from a singular ethic,1 inseparable from the Great Spirits law (1998b, 163). The
emphasis by native nations on communion and community, the multilayered character of truth in indigenous cultures, and their integration
of heart and mind demonstrate their fundamental commitment to
authentic human communication.
Cees Hamelink (2000) finds in international human rights the foundation for freedom, justice, and peace in the world, and thus for the
moral standards of the media as well. He estimates human rights to
provide the only universally available principles for the dignity and
integrity of all human beings. The world political community has recognized the existence of human rights since the adoption of the United
Nations Charter in 1945 and has accepted the attending international
legal machinery for their enforcement. Member states of the United
Nations have pledged to promote universal respect for, and observance
of, human rights; they have also committed themselves to upholding
the dignity and worth of the human person, to foster social progress,
and to safeguard the right of recognition before the law without any
discrimination. Core human rights include the right to life, to food, to
health care, to due process, andnot leastto free expression and to
open public deliberation. To ensure democratic participation, in principle and practice, therefore, all peoples have (or must have) the right
of access to communication channels in a manner independent of governmental or commercial control.
Universalist positions have discredited themselves over history by
breeding totalitarianism. Those who claim knowledge of universal
1. See Klaus Krippendorff, On the Otherness That Theory Creates (2000) and Ecological Narratives: Reclaiming the Voice of Theorized Others (2001), both on the systemic
inside/outside perspectives and sociolinguistic aspects of the singular communityembodying intracultural ethic.

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truth typically use it to control or convert dissenters. Universalism is

said to threaten diversity, whereas relativism is purported to liberate
us, and thus to enable us to reject all oppressive claims to truth. In the
face of this objection, it must be reiterated, however, that the universalist appeals, from Nordenstreng to Hamelink, are not foundational a
prioris. Interactive universalism, our common lingual identity, the very
sacredness of life, authentic communication in indigenous culture, and
international human rights in the theoretical models are not objectivist
absolutes. They are presuppositions to which we are committed inescapably; one cannot proceed intellectually without taking something
as given. Cartesian rationalism and Kants formalism both presume
noncontingent starting points. However, these primordial generalities
do not. Nor do they flow from Platonism, that is, from the finite participating in the infinite, and receiving its essence from it. Without
protonorms of universal scope, ethical theory and politics are trapped
in the distributive fallacy. Where one distinct part (typically an ideological bloc) presumes to speak for the whole (see Cameron, chap. 11
in this book).
A commitment to universals does not thereby eliminate crosscultural differences in thinking and belief. The only question here is
whether or not our values affirm the human spirit. The issue is whether
these theoretical models enable the media to build a civic philosophy
and thereby to demonstrate a transformative intent. This is worldview
pluralism, a pluralism that encourages us to hold on to our beliefs in
good faith and that allows us to debate them openly instead of making
us perceive ourselves constrained by a superficial consensus. The universal principles described so far do not obstruct cultures, nor do they
inhibit their development: they liberate us for strategic action, thereby
also providing direction for social change.
The Multicultural Heritage
In the light of the preceding theories, it is essential to acknowledge the
rich legacy of communication ethics already embedded within the
patchwork quilt of cultural histories. The universal models we have
described, which are close to the ground rather than removed and
abstract, feed on those resources and keep us from reinventing the
medicine wheel.
Historically, it is difficult to imagine a society, tribe, or nation that
did not have ethical teachings about communication. Indeed, some of

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301

the rules and norms listed in this section describe the roots of communication ethics and media law as we know them now. In many ancient
societies our current cultural distinctions between law, ethics, policy,
dogma, and norms were minimal or nonexistent. A religious teaching,
for example, might have served simultaneously as dogma, law, and
ethics instruction for children. In many cases it is impossible to know
how, let alone if, communication rules were ever enforced. Nevertheless in some instances records exist stating the rule and even the prescribed punishment. From Pritchards (1958) rendering of Hammurabis
famous code (circa 1925 B.C.) we find, If a seignior accuses [another]
seignior and brings a charge of murder against him, but cannot prove
it, his accuser shall be put to death (1958, 139). Here are the ancient
roots of libel law and reputation ethics cast in one sentence (see Eichler,
chap. 2 in this book).
Virtually all religions had early dogma, or guidance, about common
communication practices. Consider the Jewish Torahs and the Christian Holy Bibles (Old Testament) origins of the Judeo-Christian
ethic, as in Deuteronomy 5:20, Neither shalt thou bear false witness
against thy neighbor, and as in Exodus 23:1, Thou shalt not raise a
false report. And three of the Ten Commandments delimit communication by forbidding (1) a graven image (Exodus 20:4), (2) blasphemytaking the name of the Lord in vain (Exodus 20:7), and (3)
unconfirmed accusationthou shalt not bear false witness (Exodus
20:16).
Within the Islamic Kuran was written woe unto every backbiter,
slanderer (349) and Those who blaspheme His name shall surely be
recompensed (193). Eastern philosophies, too, are rich in guidelines
for communication, as in the Buddhas teaching about Right Speech
in the Noble Eightfold Path, referred to by Bresnan (2003, 235):
unflagging honesty and goodwill are the defining characteristics of
Right Speech: Buddha specifically warned his followers to be on guard
against the temptation to lie, to speak ill of others, and to engage in
idle gossip (235).
Of course, a communication ethic is automatically housed within a
larger ethic. For example, the Daoism of Lao Ze (Lao Tzu) (1988)
instructs, If you want to be a great leader, stop trying to control. Let
go of fixed plans and concepts, and the world will govern itself (verse
30). Inherent to the teaching is a communication ethic that avoids proselytizing, hard-sell advertising, and other persuasive attempts to
change the way life already functions.

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In the Hindu Bhagavad Gita (1985), Krisha, who is God and character,
proclaims that no one can obtain perfection by abstaining from work.
Indeed there is no one who rests for even an instant; every creature is
driven to action by his own nature (3:45). Implied is the sense that
an ethic of communication serves a larger ethic of action. In Confucianism, correct communication practices derive from the larger social
etiquette of li (respecting others dignity), the pursuit of personal jumzi
(living with integrity), and the expression of ren (compassion and
human-heartedness). And the communication of noble citizens must
reflect these attitudes.
Mowlana (1989) makes it clear that to understand Islams ethics of
communication, one must first understand four overarching Muslim
teachings (pp. 141145): tawhid (unification), amr bi al-maruf wa nahyan
al munkar (order beneficence and prohibit abomination), ummah (community of faith), and taqwa (fear from God). For mystics, human codes
of communication ethics have no meaning unless they derive from
Gods (Allahs) thinking. As Mowlanas explication of the doctrine of
tawhid, which implies unity, coherence, and harmony among all parts
of the universe, states: All human-made laws and ethical codes that
arrogate judgment to themselves, or to any authority or institution in
any way other than in obedience and enforcement of Allahs Own
Judgment, are void (p. 141).
Similarly, research about indigenous teachings the world over
(Cooper 1998b) suggests that communication ethics, albeit unique in
some ways to each tribe or nation, derive from a larger law or Way
of the Great Spirit(s), known by many names (Wonkantonka, Windwalker, among others). There are specific indigenous rules of communication (always be silent when elders enter the room; speak only of
what you have experienced, and so forth). In all of the known indigenous peoples there originally was an all-encompassing ethic of respectful communication. Depending upon the tribe, details in such practices
may have varied (the Shuswap asked permission of rocks and plants
before moving them; the Dine, of the Navaho, blessed each dwelling;
and so forth)but underlying all of them was the notion that life is
sacred and that therefore the entire earth and each species must be
addressed ceremonially.
Although ancient and indigenous practices inform modern-day
communication ethics, in some cases they seem in stark contrast.
For example, the research by Cooper and a team of scholars from fourteen countries (1989) determined that the order of values to which

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303

communication professionals aspire is (1) truthfulness (94 percent),

(2) responsibility (92 percent), and (3) freedom (63 percent), according
to their codes of ethics (1989, 3237). Yet the documents analyzed for
these data seldom mentioned respect. This finding would lead Cooper
(1998b, 94) later to write: While the authentic Native would honor
these three values, especially truthfulness, she or he would bemoan the
lack of emphasis upon respect. For most Natives, respect would be the
first value central to a communication code. A primary means for such
respect to be communicated is through silence, stillness and inner listening. That the Western explorer . . . interpreted this silence as stupidity, aloofness, or hostility is tragic.
Just as any Islamic communication practice must emerge from an
understanding of tawhid, even so any indigenous practice must derive
from respect for the Creator Force(s) and all that she/he created. In
short, communication ethics worldwidein teaching or in practice,
whether indigenous or imperialist, secular or sacredtypically
have derived from a larger cultural, where not a higher theological,
womb.
Scholars like Heinberg (1989) and Eliade (1967) suggest that our
multicolored millennium derives from a more monochromatic past.
Suggesting a possible universal cosmology of peoples, the reputed
scholar of mythology Mircea Eliade wrote, In more or less complex
forms, the paradisic myth occurs here and there all over the world
(1967, 5960). Heinberg in turn writes, The Hebraic Garden of Eden,
the Greek Golden Age, the Australian Aborigines Dreamtime, and the
Chinese Taoist Age of Perfect Virtue are but local variants of the universally recalled Time of Beginnings, whose memory has colored all of
subsequent history (1989, 3). Quoting everyone, from Tacitus and the
Torah to Chuang Tzu and the Mahabharata of India, Heinberg hence
implies that the combined global histories of humanity, often wrapped
and preserved in myth, suggest an original universal ethic of virtue in
which a communication ethic of truth telling and of respectful expression was pandemic.
What would seem significant here is that the greater confluence of
early documentationwhether mythic, historical, theocentric, or legalisticeither recorded or insinuated many similar communication rules
across times and peoples. Ancient documents, whether idealized or
accurate, project backward a prehistoric idyllic state of perfect communication and a utopian ethic of flawless truth telling within a life of
perfect virtue.

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Many cultures are not apt to accept what indigenous cultures believe,
namely, that myth is history and that the oral tradition is as accurate as
the written one. Yet, either way, the spirit if not the letter in paradigms
of communications ethic seems cross-cultural among the ancients. When
both oral and literate societies are taken into account, there is a shared
aspiration for honesty and respectful expression, with no room for
blasphemy and defamation, especially of elders, gods, and leaders.
It is commonplace for cultural differences to be emphasized; all cultures come from indigenous roots; and East and West often are portrayed as antithetical. This tendency did not prevent Christians and
colleagues (2001) from placing Aristotle and Confucius side by side as
equilibrium ethicists (pp. 1214). From Aristotle we hear, Moral virtue
is a fixed quality of the will, consisting essentially in a middle state, as
determined by the standard that a person of practical wisdom would
apply (book 2, chap. 6); and from Confucius (1991), that the superior
man embodies the course of the mean; the mean man acts contrary to
the course of the mean (vol. 1, 11.1; cf. Johnstone 2002; Byun and Lee
2002). The authors develop this correspondence between mean ethicists and between East and West, just as one could do it also between
or among thinkers, religions, and philosophies. The flip side of cultural
diversity is cultural parallelism. Cross-cultural parallels may be found
in both ethics and communication, as in this case with Aristotle and
Confucius, long before the twentieth century, when the United Nations
sought to forge common ground under the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
Not only do cultures, organically, share tributaries of ethical thought,
but they also participate in ethical systems which, whether by imposition or through inheritance, were infiltrated historically. For example,
a significant Japanese code of ethics called the Canons of Journalism
(1946), adopted by the Nihon Shinbun Kyokai, is essentially an adapted
American code of ethics implanted in Japan following U.S. victory in
World War II. Many ethics documents bear the mark of the conqueror
or of an influential, if not overpowering, neighbor.
In Empire and Communication, Harold Innis (1952) argued that the
communication technologies exported by imperialists have tended to
determine the character of knowledge and the ethical approaches of
the colonized peoples. Agents of changebe they missionaries, multinational corporations, generals, or immigrantsthus introduced the
ethics of dictators, popes, revolutionaries, and royalty, across numerous boundaries in an array of distant lands.

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Yet for psychologist Carl Jung (1968) shared memories of race and
moralities go far deeper than any of the external layers that are superimposed upon humanity by invaders: The collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of mankinds evolution born anew in
the brain structure of every individual (p. 152). Just as Freud (1978)
argued that there are globally universal taboos (parricide and incest,
for instance), Jung would conclude that there are also universal thought
forms deeply pocketed in all human consciousness, which he called
the collective unconscious. After all, humanity is not only connected
above, by common empires (and now by satellites that broadcast
uniform information), but also connected below, just as seemingly isolated islands are connected by hidden land mass deep beneath the
ocean. For Jung, people, just like islands, are actually peaks of submerged mountains that are all part of the same range.
In the aggregate, therefore, there are multiple modesorganic, imperial, mythic, theological, historical, and subconsciousin which the
constituent ingredients for a global communication ethic already are
present. Experience with the unlocking of anemnesis (or buried
memory) through archeology, anthropology, and oral history suggests
that multicultural boundaries connect as much as they divide but that
the world is covered by the branches of a single family tree. Across the
centuries and continents lie clues and cues for possible globewide
reunification.
Modern Multigroup Agreements
In addition to past wisdom and tradition, there are modern attempts
to create multinational and cross-cultural agreements and mandates
about ethical communication practices. These may take the form of (1)
democratic agreements, (2) representative agreements, and even (3)
imposed mandates. Democratic agreements come into existence when
every single member of a professional organization such as the European Association of Left-Handed Cinematographers (a fictitious group)
votes upon an ethics code or policy to be adopted by that association.
Representative agreements occur when elected or appointed representatives from particular countries or members of organizations such as
UNESCO adopt an ethics-related proposal intended to help govern,
guide, or inform their regional or global constituencies. Finally, imposed
mandates consist of dictatorial, religious, military, and other fiats.
Examples range from narrower (such as a papal instruction to all

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practicing Catholics forbidding them to see Jean-Luc Godards film Hail

Mary) to broader (such as an order from Hitler forbidding any criticism of German leadership throughout conquered Europe).
Many among the global policies of communication ethics may not
seem to be international in the same sense that the practices of multinational corporations and of not-for-profit organizations are. For
example, the codes of ethics of the Red Cross and of Time-Warner
Corporation might not benefit from the extent of visibility that a United
Nations document would command, even though they influence communication practices inside scores of countries and cultures.
Hundreds of documents meant to regulate or guide communication
ethics within and across cultures and countries have been created in
the past two centuries alone. Some of the better-known international
documents such as the Mass Media Declaration of UNESCO (1978)
and the International Federation of Journalists Bordeaux Declaration
of Journalists Duties (1954) have sought to bring cooperation to the
largest possible number of germane communication professionals.
Other documents, such as regional (e.g., Latin American), national
(e.g., Belgium), and cultural (e.g., indigenous peoples) agreements,
have brought both geographical entities and affinity groups together,
sometimes in spirit (through visionary statements) and sometimes in
letter (as binding accords).
Frequently, when offered in such format, communication ethics
somehow become enmeshed in another, broader, document. Just as the
First Amendment, which protects free speech and freedom of the press
in the United States, is part of the U.S. Constitution, many national and
international communication policies, rules, and practices are integrated within constitutions, bylaws, legal systems, and other master
documents. Very often, countries and groups may have multiple
systems for ordering communication practices. Also, a country may
generate simultaneously ethics-laden documents or dogma for newspaper editors, professional journalists, the citizenry, and members of
one or more religious groups. Moreover, such documents may overlap
and (in parts) even contradict each other. The delicate fabric of modern
and postmodern communication ethics is riddled with complexity.
Analysis of Ethics Already Present
There is no unique communication ethics document, let alone a single
moral system that is agreed upon either by all citizens of the world or

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307

by their representatives. Even if the United Nations were unanimously

to consent to such a central document, there is no guarantee that all
world citizens would abide by it or that nonmember nations of the UN,
which include, for example, the many indigenous nations and peoples,
and other nations as well, would be ready, willing, or able to conform
to it.
Moreover, ethics scholars such as Black and Barney (19851986) have
long argued that ethics codes may themselves be unethical to the extent
that they restrict, homogenize, or censor freedom of expression instead
of protecting it (pp. 2934). Paradoxically, even if ethics documents
could be enforced, they arguably would be deemed invalid, possibly
for restricting freedom. Yet if not enforced, they would be arguably
invalid for being merely rhetorical or simply impotent.
There are two types of communication ethics already available to the
world today: (1) external, so named for consisting of objects, and (2)
eternal, so named because religions and philosophies, which assume
these ancient norms to transcend human societies, view these as surviving periods of history and being passed from generation to generation by means of enculturation. In the world of today, neither external
(ratified or adopted agreements) nor eternal (ancient wisdom) communication ethics can be imagined to be fully binding upon all
peoples.
Many contemporary national populations find reason to question the
wisdom of ancient (cf. eternal) religions, which they view as having
become more secular and as having assimilated political and materialist philosophies. Even among religion-based cultures, some theocracies
and spiritual regimes have been known to battle over theology. It therefore has become impossible to argue that eternal verities are universally accepted or acceptable.
But external documents command no greater credibility and inclusiveness at the global level today. An ethics code or an ethics commission may be viewed as one more toothpaste contractone that
brightens the teeth of nations that devour other nations. Moreover, one
might question whether any document can be said to speak truly for
all groups, whether for children, the Amish, the Rapa Nui and all the
other remote peoples, the feminists, Shintoists, all humans and animals,
Zoroastrians, libertarians, and the disabled, among others. Beyond
these challenges lurk myriad others: to begin with, those who do agree
to study such documents cannot agree whether communication ethics
should more rightly emphasize freedom or responsibility, as described

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in Coopers (1989) paradigm dubbed the Nordenstreng versus Merrill

debate: even the experts, among themselves, cannot agree.
In sum, on the one hand, the elements of a global communication
ethic are everywhere to be seen; yet on the other hand, attempts to forge
these elements alchemically into a panacea for all comers have proven
to be too idealistic and unrepresentative on a global scale. Owing to
the strength of what exists, the theorizing of universals is credible. In
light of the reality of how much remains to be done, however, intellectual humility still seems mandatory.
Technically Speaking
A further complicating factor is that, unlike numerous other disciplinespecific ethics, communication ethics have been shifting their focus
because of the continual development of technology. Although legal,
medical, and business ethics, for example, have also been much
impacted by technical innovation, communication ethics is a field in
which, in very distinct ways, both the core and the gaze of the field
have shifted from people to machines. As early as 1988, a thorough
bibliographic study by Cooper and colleagues suggested that over 80
percent of modern writing about communication ethics focused upon
media ethics. Neither reason nor research exists to suggest that this
four-to-one ratio has decreased in favor of communication since.
Many ethicists over time have argued that external technologies only
amplify the presence of eternal ethical issues, hence making of media
ethics merely a communication ethics in disguise. However, a significant number of senior scholarsMumford (1934), White (1962), and
Giedion (1969) among themhave suggested that every technology
transforms society, and that many of these technologies might have
unintended consequences2including introductions of ethical issues.
For example, research on the effects of television triggers debate on
whether repetitive televised violence may contribute to everyday acts
of violence. Computers and satellites provide the possibility for invading national and global privacy in ways that the naked eye and ear
cannot. Arguments can be made to the effect that almost every medium
transforms previous ethical issues and introduces new ones.
Successively, Marshall McLuhan (1977), Eric McLuhan (1983), and
Barrington Nevitt (1985) claimed that there were specific laws of the
2. See Krippendorff (2008).

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309

media which, like the laws of nature, are all but indifferent to human
intention and action. Although Cooper (1997) found that there were
forty ethical issues associated with cybermedia by the end of the last
millennium, only three years later he claimed that there were already
fifty-two such issues (2000), and more recently he has identified twelve
more. Does speedup in the rate of implementing new technology imply
that there is also a speedup in the quantity and impact of ethical issues?
And if not, are such issues merely old wine in new bottles, if only
because there is nothing new under the sun?
With the advent of communication speedup, there are many invisible
technologies at work that the public cannot detect. The substance of
the research presented to the Foundation of Intelligent Physical Agents
at their annual conference in Dublin (1998) suggested that the creators
of new communication technology face the greatest ethical responsibilities (Cooper 1998a). Their hidden engineering systems may well be
tested in advance. But little attention is given to testing the possible
effects of these before, not after, the new technology has beenirreversiblyintroduced into society. Most of the public does not even remotely
know what intelligent agents are, let alone what their impact upon
individuals and groups can be. Now consider these technologies: It was
publicized that cellular phones may contribute to brain tumors only
after the phones were widespread. Companies did request that pregnant employees not use VDT screensbut only after computers became
ubiquitous. Most communication technologies are tested only for their
effectiveness and marketability, not for their possible psychological,
physiological, and social effects. The newer technologies risk introducing new ethical problems and amplifying existing ones before any
system of checks and balances is in place. For example, in the United
States, the Office of Technology Assessment, which was already too
tiny to monitor the rapid growth of new technologies, was dissolved
by Congress. There is no corresponding global office to pretest inventions and to evaluate the ensuing innovations in social and societal
context.
The Hall effect suggests that the interplay of technologies, software
upgrades, plug-ins, formats, and innumerable invisible devices is
most difficult to track. In his groundbreaking Food for Naught (1974),
the seminal Canadian biochemist Ross Hume Hall shows the hidden
effects of the interaction of food additives. Although tested in isolation,
the additives were left untested in combination by nutritionists and
government scientists. And so also with the new media ecologya

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multiplication of newer interacting species also enlarges the world

of hidden and observable ethical problems.
Whether the new media environment creates a cornucopia of novel
external issues or a virtual megaphone that amplifies eternal issues,
one thing it has proffered is the appearance, if not the reality, of dozens
of new genres of case study. A geometric increase in scholarly, professional, and popular literature about expanding issues of concern
privacy, confidentiality, obscenity, defamation, pornography, piracy,
puffery, sensationalism, deception, and monopoly, among otherssuggests that technology-related dilemmas now seem far larger than
human conundrums ever have been, whether they are the two sides of
one and the same coin or not. To observe this phenomenon is not,
however, to suggest that machines rather than people cause, or are
accountable for, ethical lapses and virtues. People invent and maintain
the machines, and thus they are responsible for them. But, let us face
it, a universe full of interactive talk machines that outlive the people
who invented them offers a world very different from those of Aristotle
and Confucius.
On the Need and Requirements
We live in an age that allows us intimately to interlink the information
instruments and weapons technologies of our design. And we have
learned that, if we are not willing to use communication technologies
for humane, prosocial purposes, there are those who will use such
technologies for their own darker purposes. Hitlers S.S. cameramen
used film not simply to record holocaust atrocities but also to document
proudly the excellence in systematic efficiency attained when accelerated methods of genocide could be introduced.
Given the concerns that are routinely expressed worldwide about the
digital divide, censorship, deceptive advertising, information flow,
propaganda, privacy, piracy, pornography, cultural erosion, racial and
national stereotyping, free speech, and other problems, there indeed is
a need for a global communication ethic. Research cited within this
chapter, other studies, and recommendations from Hammurabi to
Hutchins, all go to demonstrate that the human quest for responsible,
truthful communication practice transcends period and place.
Hence, the question of greater concern is not if, but how a global
communication ethic may be created and can be implemented. Innis
(1951) recommended that there be some balance struck between

On the Need and Requirements for a Global Ethic of Communication

311

communication technologies of space and time. A larger requirement

for a communication ethic is that there must be a balance between
eternal communication ethics (approaches transcending time) and
external communication ethics (approaches extending across space).
The notion of space by now must take ample account of technologies
and codes that leap over continents to form a multicultural mosaic.
Such technologies, at present, extend into inner space (e.g., into our
media-filled subconscious minds), crowd outer space (e.g., by means
of satellites), and cover global space (e.g., throughout the wired world
of seven continents and twenty-four time zones). A balance between
an ethics of space and an ethics of time is now required.
And other types of balance cannot be excluded when considering
building a communication ethic suited to the sensitivities of a new
millennium:
1) A balance between indigenous sagacity and the developed worlds
own wisdom and vision.
2) A balance between idealized codes that inspire renewal, and among
policies that accurately depict harsh global realities.
3) A balance between inputsfrom North and South, and East and
Westas when honoring both Aristotelian and Confucian ethics for
their respective contributions and authentic parallelisms.
4) A balance between universal principles and particular issues involving the idiosyncratic practices of localities or regions.
5) A balance between the professional and the academic; between the
latest technical media and the earliest deep-core origins of communicational ethics (including oral, aural, epistolary, and performancespecific ethics); between the political and the spiritual; between the
codified and the intuitive/mouth-to-ear traditions; among others.
In short, a balanced inclusiveness that honors cultural diversity in an
appreciation of togetherness in fact, not in lip service, is required.
Inside the technical world, homeostasis remains essential. New communication technologies that are implemented are primarily tested by
(1) engineers for effectiveness, (2) research and development staff for
competitive value, and (3) sales and marketing forces for target audiences. The teams that pretest not only technologies but also programming and information formats must be balanced (complemented) by
ethicists, scientists, policy experts, parents, and community leaders,
better placed to consider the potential impact of any new medium or

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product before it is introduced into society in general, and into a community in particular.3
Truly global inclusiveness must inform varied communication ethics.
Peoples such as the Rapa Nui, Zulu, Old Order Brethren, Amish, Dani,
and a wide variety of other populations are not usually consulted about
world communication policy. Yet they often provide a valuable perspective precisely because of their media blackouts, limitation to a
single-source media, freedom from any advertising stance, and other
atypical approaches or anachronistic appreciations, which can force
modernity to rethink its newfound wisdom.
Ethical issues often appear after a new technology, a novel program,
a communication genre, or a software platform is introduced into
society. Nefarious impacts might have been understood and prevented
if presearch (precautious research) had been utilized. To wit, before avid
marketeers first beam, then export feminine hygiene commercials into
the cultures of Pacific Islanders, they would need to know that many
island women watching TV will leave the room to avoid public embarrassment. Cross-cultural precautious research simply is necessary.
And before Hollywood producers make a film with seemingly harmless initiation rites likely to be imitated by scores of teenagers (several
of whom risk being killed), it is wise to involve teens and parents in
the early test screenings. Need one add that before introducing communication infrastructures based on fiber optics into the mainstream
and thereby unleashing related hazardous waste by-products, multidisciplinary presearch would be required, the better to study probable
toxic side effectsbefore these start imposing themselves on an unsuspecting humanity?
Consequently, a global communication ethic needs to be balanced
also between safeguarding the future with presearch and learning from
our mistakes in the past and present through case studies. A multidisciplinary, multicultural approach must seek and employ the wisdom
of many thinkers, professions, schools, and peoples. It must take into
account not only the original issues of rhetoric, such as defamation and
deception, but should by now also account for the far-larger-growing
index of technological issues, from cyberspam (virtual garbage) and
3. The reader may rest assured that the driving motive here is first and foremost preliminary socioecological quality assurance, not preemptive power-political censorship.
It is clear to all, of course, that there is a very hazy dividing line between the two mindsets
and approaches in most instances: hence the need for a balanced ethic.Ed.
Precaution is not being advocated here as a practice of principled a priori denial.

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313

flaming (electronic insult) to the Hall effect (defined earlier) within

an elaborate media ecology. The global communication ethic that is
required not only must be balanced, inclusive, and precautious, but
also must be based upon a solid foundation of cross-cultural values. A
synthesis of research to date suggests that the studies by Nordenstreng
(1984), Laitila (1995), Christians and Nordenstreng (2004), Cooper
and colleagues (1989), Bertrand (2000), Benhabib (1992), Bracci and
Christians (2002), Wiredu (1996), Christians and Traber (1997), Cooper
(1998b), and Hamelink (2000) provide a notable starting point for identifying the underlying values and protonorms that are necessary to
build such a unifying ethic.
When combined, an overarching analysis of both the Western and
the indigenous communication ethics research by these scholars yields
a list of sixteen primary values. Without these sixteen interhuman
essences and the many related values they imply, any global ethics
document would be doomed to remain strictly ornamental. Although
several of the values drawn from these authors overlap, and despite
the fact that a few other important values remain to be inferred from
the list, the group of sixteen stands as symbolic of exactly what large
global populations expect from individual and professional communication: accountability, social responsibility, truthfulness, free expression, implementation systems (comprising ombudspersons, codes,
news councils, and the like), gender and racial equity, community,
respect, reciprocity, spirituality, authenticity, human rights, integrity,
nonviolence, and not least, dignity; but, above all, honoring the sacredness of all life.
This list of sixteen values may be easily expanded or contracted into
a more detailed or quintessential foundation. In one sense, the most
recent commentary by Christians and Nordenstreng (2004), like the
previous work of Christians and Traber (1997), suggests the ultimate
contractionfrom sixteen into a single protonorm. One implication of
their thinking is that the sixteenth or final value provides a bedrock
omnifoundation capable of sustaining the cornucopia of the other
fifteen values.
This underarching primary protonorm, though listed as the final one,
might be summarized as a reverence for life, which is also strongly
affiliated with the indigenous emphasis upon respect for all life.
Christians and Nordenstreng have argued that nurturing life is a pretheoretical given that makes the moral order possible (2004, 20). For
there to be truth, freedom, rights, and each and all of the other fifteen

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basic values, there first must be the existence of life and an ethic committed to preserving it. The other values do not and cannot survive
without this foundational first principle.
Hence in a world increasingly filled with both instruments of destruction and tools of communication, for potentially constructive exchanges,
the latter must be committed to dissolving the former: to honoring and
preserving life. True, a communication ethic for the twenty-first century
must be rich in its ability to encompass complexity. Yet it must also
remain morally simple in its unequivocal purposethe nurturing and
the protection of the sacredness of life.
Behind this ethic stand the spirits of many peoples. From Martin
Buber (1965, 143) there is the commitment that when dialogue is
genuine, the speaker shall respectfully behold his partner as the very
one he is; from Mahatma Gandhi (1947) comes the teaching that you
must be the change you want to see in the world; from Chief Thomas
Littleben (1990) flows the advice to listen with all of yourself and only
speak what you know; and from Mother Teresa (1983) we received
the wisdom that among humans, there is no one who does not deserve
our caring communication.
A global communication ethic must be much more than a hollow
skeleton of worldwide codes and rhetorical declarations. It must add
up to more than naive notions astutely balanced over space and time;
it must be inclusive, preventive, and built upon a sixteen-layered foundation of values. To be effective, an ethics of communication of this
kind must be lived constantly, and breathed by people of every backgroundespecially by those who worry that, depending upon the
choices we humans make, our current modes of communication may
either guide destructive nuclear bombs or heal destroyed nuclear
familiesthose still unafraid to heed Horace Manns (1859) ultimate
challenge: Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for
humanity.
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Torah (1966) Rabbi H. Mariner, Introduction, New York: Henry Holt and the Jewish
Publication Society of America.
UNESCO (1978) Mass Media Declaration of UNESCO, Paris: UNESCO.
Velikovsky, Immanuel (1982) Mankind in Amnesia, London: Sidgwick & Jackson.
White, Lynn (1962) Medieval Technology and Social Change, Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press.
Wiredu, Kwasi (1996) Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Zimmer, Heinrich (1951) Philosophies of India, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

14

The Long Road Ahead:

A Mode of Democratic
Citizenship Inseparable
from a Shared Ethic of
Responsible Freedoms
Jose V. Ciprut

It is one thing to observe ant societies, to examine the social interactions

of birds or apes, and thus to depict notable similarities with the human
species. It is quite another thing to reach a level of mental acuity permitting one to define life and to hypothesize death in a semidetached
(if still rather controversial and eminently debatable) neo-Darwinian
mindset. In such a scientific view, the organism does not live for
itself; indeed, its primary function is not even to reproduce other
organisms; for a living organism in actuality merely reproduces
genes, and . . . serves as their temporary carrier (Wilson 1975). Besides
deflating humankinds self-arrogating pivotal gravitas in a godless
universe, such neo-Darwinian observations raise questionsof biblical
(The Universe began without Woman; will the World end without
Man?), deontological (If not I, then who?And if not now, when?),
and humanistic import (Can human society transform itself into a
humane consociation, with a shared sense of stewardship by responsible stakeholders conscious of cohabitating an intricately interconnected,
thoroughly encompassing network of social systems?). All three questions engage ethics, politics, and democracy, although the last (humanistic) question seems to command a particular urgency, since the
network of social systems that provides refuge to human and nonhuman beings is facing novel inhuman threats of extinction through
mindless, heartless pursuits and unconscionable acts on the part of
those so enslaved to their physical, social, and emotional ambits as to
oppose reformative stances toward any prospects for opening up and
expanding their relational and transactional environments.
Emancipative benefits from diversity cumulating in the world at
large hence remain shut out, thus suboptimized in their far-reaching
capabilities and effects; as are, unwittingly or otherwise, many of the
trickle-down awakenings possible through exposure to variety: novelty

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Jose V. Ciprut

is confined to circulation exclusively within, between, and among the

few innovating centers, having been decreed unworthy of the avoiders
by the hiders and the deniers who would rather vegetate in the proximate peripheries of modernity, yet cry foul and blame others if
confronted with realities when compelled to explain their unequal
development.
Beginning with the Renaissance and culminating in the European
Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, humankinds self-propelling aspirations aimed toward integrating the humanities with the arts and the sciences, toward cumulating undivided
knowledge that should permit appreciating and perchance also more
properly ameliorating what began to be perceived as a perfectible material world, a human habitat much in need of a more adaptive, more
proactively humanistic, relational-transactional ethic. Despite, as surely
also because of, the Industrial Revolution and the Communist Manifesto, the nineteenth century brought alas only more injustice, more
misery, newer wars, and false alliances that served to reshape the geography of domination and to reconfigure the contours of empire. And
in the twentieth century, the war to end all wars proved to contain
merely the seed of its own negation for unwittingly precipitating preparations for World War II, with all the consequent lessons of Hiroshima,
Nagasaki, and the Berlin Wall. The protracted period of Cold War that
followed went to prove merely that practically nothing much had been
learned about anything, other than the deterrent might of destructive
nuclear power. After the implosion of communism and the dismemberment of the USSR, the rise of anti-Westernism amid the masses fearful
of a modernity that, in their own scheming minds eye, purposely
threatens to leave them lingering even farther behind, is now further
retarding the humanistic project begun some four hundred years ago,
to the even greater detriment of those who, all the self-liberations
around them notwithstanding, continue to foment fear by means of
ever more violent defensive-offensive backwardness on planet Earth.
What kind of transformational ethic ought to be pursued in the
twenty-first century toward a broader-encompassing, worldwide more
humane mode of willed freedom and active associational democratic
self-governance for all? This question is asked at a time in history when
many begin to perceive the world itself to have become a huge citystate, still at the mercy of natural disasters and not-so-natural calamities yet, metaphorically speaking, complete with uptown/downtown
ethnocultural spaces akin to neighborhoods versus ghettos; slums,

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321

suburbs, or even dormitory towns; proximate outskirts; and fartherflung peripherieseach and all of which are in need of discerning
attention, audacious care, and sagacious incorporation toward a safer
and more felicitous future in a shared inclusive (one-planet-for-all)
mindset. The world as a giga-city?
In his Aristotles Politics, C. D. C. Reeve (1998, lviilix) summarizes
that philosophers views on political community embodied in city-state
as follows:
In Politics I, Aristotle characterizes the city-state in rather abstract ways: the
city-state is the community with the most authority; it is the most self-sufficient
community; one that is ruled in its own characteristic way, different from that
in which a master rules his slaves or a head of household rules his wife or
children. When he puts meat on these abstract bones, however, we see that an
Aristotelian city-state is quite like a modern state in these important respects:
it establishes the constitution, designs and enacts the laws, sets foreign and
domestic policy, controls the armed forces and police, declares war, enforces
the law and punishes criminals. . . . [D]etails aside, has Aristotle really shown
that we are . . . political animals, that we . . . perfect our natures in a specifically
political community, in a city-state? . . . What experience has taught us is that
there are many different human goods, many different good lives, many different ways to perfect ourselves, and much need for further experimentation
and discovery in these areas. That is one reason we admire somewhat liberal
states which recognize this fact . . . give their citizens a lot of liberty to explore
various conceptions of the good and to live in the way that they find most
valuable and worthwhile.

In Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of Political Organizations and Community in Ancient Greece, Brock and Hodkinson (2000, 1) remind us,
however, that the ancient lists of the works of Aristotle mention a
collection of 158 constitutions of statesdemocratic, oligarchic, tyrannic, and aristocraticand express surprise that Diogenes list omits the
good forms of democracy and monarchy, namely, polity and kingship,
which complete the list of six types of constitution (in Aristotles Politics
3.7). Remarking that the term citizen-state lays greater emphasis on
community (Hansen 1993) than does the orthodox use of city-state for
polis, these coauthors point out that Greek mainland and island poleis
(such as Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Miletos, Samos, Naxos, and Aegina)
were not alone in having a constitution. In addition to the major
powers (Syracuse, Akragas, Taras, Croton, and others) and smaller
ones (such as Troizen, Cynthnos, Melos, and Tenedos) in Magna Graecia,
there were those in the Greek world at large, from Massalia (Marseille)
to Cyrene (in Libya) to Soli (in Cilicia), those at best marginally Greek

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(Adramyttion and Kios in Mysia), and those not Greek at all (say, Carthage) that had their own constitution as well, not to mention the
numerous ethne (Achaeans, Lycians, and Thessalians among them) and
the communities in Cyprus and Crete, each of which pursued its happiness after its very own ethic: the less said about there having existed
one (exclusively Athenian) classic model of democracy, the better.
Yet for C. Farrar, authoring The Origins of Democratic Thinking (1988,
12) was one way of rediscovering the invention of politics in classical
Athens: the appearance of political theory during the very period
when democracy was being cobbled together in fifth-century B.C.E.
Athens, she finds, ushered in the democratic politics that prompted
citizens to construe their aims politically, and to reflect on their actions
in terms of general, relatively abstract considerations. For, Political
theory was part of democratic politics, self-understanding was political. Farrar suggests the following:
This dynamic synthesis of the concrete and the reflective was a striking achievementso striking, indeed, as to be practically unintelligible from modern perspective. . . . On the assumption that political theory must be abstract, scholars
have [reserved] the title of first theorists to those undemocratic and politically
alienated thinkers, Plato and Aristotle. And in the belief that democracy is a
matter of rules and procedures designed to safeguard human rights and express
the will of the people through its elected representatives, theorists have characterized the triumphant practice of direct, participatory democracy in Athens
as mob rule, or as the hollow creation of a slave-owning elite . . . at best as
admirable but outmoded.

But, submits Farrar, for all their differences [which help to reveal the
difficulty of maintaining a stable and integrated understanding of
democratic man and avoiding extremes of order or freedom], it is to
the itinerant sophist-rhetorician Protagoras, the historian Thucydides,
and the cosmologist-atomist Democritus that we must turn if we wish
to discoverin their similaritiesa coherent analysis and critique of
democratic man, [that is,] the possibility of achieving order and freedom
when all citizens, rich and poor, exercise autonomy. Farrars transdisciplinary leanings for gleaning a novel understanding of the classical
origins of Athenian democracy would seem well founded: when placed
under retrospective analytical-synthetic scrutiny some twenty-five centuries later, how better to grasp the yesteryear dynamics of evolving
ideas and the altering practices in the political-economic and the socialcultural contexts of any given consociation across its long war-torn
history than by reenacting the polyvalent and polyphonic intellectual

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323

effervescence of those times? And how better to do so, other than by

traveling back to that distant past, to the best of ones cognitive intellectual abilities, instead of contemplatively or speculatively reevaluating what was in terms of what is or by the standards of what will
be in a future rumored to be closing up on us faster than ever before.
The learning curve of democratically founded and democratically
inclined nations (Ciprut 2008a, 2008b), treading the proverbial cobbled
path to perfection and completion, is not always laden with rose petals;
more often than not it exacts a high toll and sometimes blood money
for safe passage both from constituents closest to the top and from the
less fortunate denizens farther below. If the indelible social scars that
the public hearings1 held beginning in the late 1940s by the U.S. House
Un-American Activities Committee (USHUAC) could have been discussed in the light of the (still incomplete and still imperfect, but
steadily advancing) social reforms brought about laterrespectively,
after the appearance of The Feminine Mystique (Friedan 1963), the Civil
Rights movement, the trauma from the Vietnam War, the sociopolitical
effects of the Watergate scandal, and the gradual appointment of Jews
as university presidents or as chairmen of the Federal Reserve Board,
of women to the Supreme Court, of African Americans as the secretaries of state and, at this juncture, even to the unanimous nomination by
a major political party of a young African-American senator to the
candidacy for the presidency of the United States of Americade Beauvoirs reflections2 on blatant racism, commonplace anti-Semitism, and
1. In 1947, the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), chaired by
J. Parnell Thomas, began an investigation into the Hollywood Motion Picture Industry.
In June, 1950, three former FBI agents and a right-wing television producer, named
Vincent Harnett, published Red Channels, a pamphlet that listed the names of 151 writers,
directors and performers who they claimed had been members of subversive organizations before the Second World War but had not so far been blacklisted. If people refused
to name names when called up to appear before the HUAC, they were added to a blacklist
that had been drawn up by the Hollywood film studios. Over 320 people were placed on
this list that stopped them from working in the entertainment industry. In October, 1953,
Senator Joseph McCarthy began investigating communist infiltration into the military.
Attempts were made by McCarthy to discredit Robert Stevens, the Secretary of the Army.
The president, Dwight Eisenhower, was furious and realized that it was time to bring an
end to McCarthys activities. On March 4, 1954, [Richard M.] Nixon made a speech where,
although not mentioning McCarthy, [he] made it clear who he was talking about: Men
who have in the past done effective work exposing Communists in this country have, by
reckless talk and questionable methods, made themselves the issue rather than the
cause they believe in so deeply. For a more complete account, see the source of this
borrowing, at http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthyism.htm.
2. See Simone de Beauvoirs (1948) LAmrique au jour le jour.

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Jose V. Ciprut

all too flagrant misogyny in lAmrique of the 1940s and 1950s might
have been framed quite differently; as no doubt would have been
rephrased also de Tocquevilles own memoirs, had the sociocultural
and political-economic results of the Civil War cast their light on perceptions, conversations, and notes from interviews held markedly
before 1865 with characters of great importance at the time.3 With
roots in the past and branches in the eternal present, ethics seem to
have ways of changing their continuity and continuing their change by
exhibiting almost imperceptible if always intriguing newer hues in
their perennial blossoms, whether nipped for decorative display in
public spaces or potted for breeding within the household.
The different modes of democratization, which took place in Germany
and Japan after World War II, the ones now being pursued in the formerly communist newer members of the European Union, and in a
very particular fashion even in born-again Russia itself, attest to the
existence of an array of democratic ethics throughout the world, a
variety that cunningly or simplistically is lumped together under a
one-size-fits-all label: Westernization, or ugly Americanization.
Yet each democracy, as well as every single mode of democratization,
pursues an ethic of its own, along contextualized processes, which
affect and are affected by functional structures that embody, reflect,
shape, and reshape myriad societal idiosyncrasies that endow it with
character even across changed time and space. Democracy seems perfectly capable of bringing into its fold the unfree of this world, in the
proverbial old-fashioned wayone culture at a timeby reconciling
the ethics inside with the ethics outside, however long it may take for
the two to take notice of each other and to begin to open up to one
another.
In this book, we examined the evolution of liberating ethics as they
traversed historical periods of societal transformation laden with political will for self-renewal. We saw how and to what extents, across time
and space, subjecthood can transmute into citizenship and many an erstwhile closed community will transform into a society open to the world
at large, although even in the long-transformed entities democratic
citizenship remains a project under construction. The interrogation as
3. See Pierson (1996). Alexis de Tocqueville lived from 1805 to 1859; Gustave de Beaumont, from 1802 to 1866; hence neither man could have written about, much less foreseen, the changes that the American Civil War (18611865) would unleash in the shorter
and longer runs. Indeed, the period covered by Pierson himself, tracing their connections
and their effects seventy-three years later, extends only from 1783 to 1865.

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325

to whether democracies are, or for long can, remain of, by, and for the
peoples they embody, absent an individually felt associational sense of
citizenship buttressed by a sincere spirit of civic ethics, is not a trivial
asking-about: it is one that is finding newer justifications to culminate
into questionings grave and urgent enough to merit deeper scrutiny,
worldwide, top-down and bottom-up.
In an increasingly interdependent world, the stark effects of the
global forces of integration and diversification arepolitically and otherwiserendered ever more unforgiving and more intractably complex
by the unrelenting torrents of the internally and externally displaced
and the summarily dispossessed in search of a better future elsewhere.
Matters sometimes are exacerbated by the misplaced senses of revenge
and hate detectable in the acts and the declared intents of only a few
of the vicariously traumatized, empathically motivated, emotionally
propelled, or otherwise vengefully disposed new citizens and their
diasporaic subcliques-in-the-making, apparently inclined to exploit
their late-found privileges and freshly minted freedoms, the fiercer to
act out the ethnonational mindsets or normative cultural exactions
from which they fled, and that much more fearlessly to wage their
ideological combats, at home and abroad, as if the rest of the world did
not matter at all. While sometimes, in certain cases, such movements
can and do help to bring about or to restore freedom in the countries
of origin, rare if deadly predispositions for violenceno matter where
they occurseem to reserve little concern and even less inclination for
taking notice of the mores and manners or the usually hard-earned
peace and order held so dear by a vast majority of those whose fellow
citizens such autistic claimants become in the receiving countries. The
fact that many of the exogenous forces of terror rely on the complicity
of their meanwhile safely endogenized kin, in the particular spaces
targeted for one heinous reason or another, is not exactly fortuitous
no matter how seldom the hurtful manifestation of their explicit consequences may appear or how exceptional it may be. One ought not to
forget the unfortunate fact, however, that some of the worst acts of
terror are committed by self-righteous autochthons of the very countries in which they inflict harm in the name of some superlative cause.
The daily ethical manifestations of democratic citizenship in pluralistic
societies seem to continue to acquire ever newly minted reasons to be
that justify urgent attention to and understanding of their compound
complexities. Would that this book may have been able to generate
sufficient insights as to make it realistically manageable for most of us

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Jose V. Ciprut

to contextualize, across time and space, the local, regional, and global
forces and counterforces at play, the more effectively to be able to confront the toughest of all challenges encountered yetthat of inspiring
an ethic of freedom in each individual, and in each and every people
yearning to partake in human dignity on this planet.
References
Beauvoir, Simone de (1948) LAmrique au jour le jour, Paris: P. Morihien.
Brock, Roger, and Stephen Hodkinson, Editors (2000) Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of
Political Organization and Community in Ancient Greece, Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press.
Ciprut, Jose V., Editor (2008a) Democratizations: Comparisons, Confrontations, and Contrasts.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Ciprut, Jose V., Editor (2008b) The Future of Citizenship, Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press.
Farrar, Cynthia (1988) The Origins of Democratic Thinking: The Invention of Politics in Classical Athens, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Friedan, Betty (1963) The Feminine Mystique, New York: Norton.
Hansen, M. H. (1993) The Polis as a Citizen-State, in Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre,
1:729, Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.
Pierson, George Wilson (1996) Tocqueville in America, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press. (First published as Tocqueville and Beaumont in America, in 1938, by
Oxford University Press.)
Reeve, C. D. C., Translator (1998) AristotlePolitics, Indianapolis: Hackett.
Wilson, E. O. (1975) Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press.

About the Authors

Don Baker (PhD, University of Washington), Professor of Asian

Studies, Director of the Center for Korean Research, University of
British Columbia; has taught Korean, Japanese, and Chinese history,
focused on Korean cultural history; has written on medicine, healing,
worship, religion, and the rise of civilian society; authored The Confrontation between Confucianism and Catholicism in the Latter Half of the Joseon
Dynasty and coedited the Sourcebook of Korean Civilization; member of
the Korean Studies Committee of the Association for Asian Studies;
President of the Canadian Korean Studies Association.
Kevin Cameron (PhD, State University of New York), political
theorist. After teaching political theory in the Government and Law
Department at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, he joined the faculty
at Chaffey College in California. His work, teaching, and research
straddle political theory and psychoanalysis. His writings have
reexamined the psychoanalytic underpinnings of the development of
the Early Modern democratic subject in the works of Thomas Hobbes
and the affinity between perversion and democracy in the works of
John Calvin and Alexis de Tocqueville. He has published articles and
also chapters for edited volumes on ethics and on freedom.
Clifford G. Christians (PhD, University of Illinois), Research Professor of Communications at the University of IllinoisUrbana Champaign, Director of the Institute of Communications Research, and Chair
of the doctoral program in communications from 1987 to 2001; holds
joint appointments as Professor of Journalism and Professor of Media
Studies; was a visiting scholar in philosophical ethics at Princeton
University and in social ethics at the University of Chicago; PEW Fellow
in ethics at Oxford University; prolific on the philosophy of technology,
on dialogic communication theory, and in the field of media ethics.

328

About the Authors

Jose V. Ciprut (PhD, University of Pennsylvania), an industrial technologist and an army reserve officer, with undergraduate studies in the
humanities and postgraduate degrees in the social sciences; was in
industrial production, also international industrial marketing development, in the Near East, Europe, and the United States, before returning
to academe. As a specialist in strategic planning, regional development,
comparative international political economy, international relations,
and peace and war economics, he has written on these topics and
edited Of Fears and Foes, The Art of the Feud, Indeterminacy, Democratizations, The Future of Citizenship, and Freedom. He ideated, organized, and
directed Cross-Campus Conversations at Penn.
Thomas Cooper (PhD, Univeristy of Toronto), Professor of Visual
and Media Arts at Emerson College. As copublisher of Media Ethics
magazine and editor/author of many ethics- and media-related publications, he addresses ethical issues in a variety of modes of communication: new media, film, radio, television, photography, journalism,
advertising, and speech. A young assistant to Marshall McLuhan and
former assistant speechwriter in the White House, he was one of the
pioneering producers of audio spacebridges among Soviet-U.S. communication professionals. He is a recipient of many honors and was a
nominee for the Nobel Prize.
Barry L. Eichler (PhD, University of Pennsylvania), Associate Professor of Assyriology, Associate Curator at the U. of P. Museum of
Archeology and Anthropology, founder and former Chair (19821995)
of the Jewish Studies Program at Penn, where he currently teaches/
researches the cultural linkages between the biblical and the ancient
Near Eastern civilizations. He focuses on ancient lawthe law of
Akkad and Sumer, the literature of Mesopotamia, the ethics of Jewish
Lawand has taught at Penn School of Law. He holds visiting appointments at Yeshiva University, which he will be joining full time. As a
cuneiformist, he rereads clay tablets in a search for understanding.
Paul Guyer (PhD, Harvard University), Professor of Philosophy and
the Florence R. C. Murray Professor in the Humanities at the University
of Pennsylvania. Having specialized in Kants thought, he has
(co)authored and (co)edited many articles, chapters, and books; he referees and consults for university presses, and serves as General Coeditor of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Kant. He is a member of
several learned societies and a recipient of many professional honors.

About the Authors

329

He teaches in the pilot curriculum and at all levels of learning. He

teaches, researches, and writes on aesthetics and on modern philosophy in addition to his well-known work on Kant.
Paul R. Kleindorfer (PhD, Carnegie-Mellon University), Anheuser
Busch Emeritus Professor of Management Science at the Wharton
School, Professor Emeritus of Business and Public Policy, newly
ex-Member of the Graduate Group in Economics, and former Codirector of the Risk Management Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
He has taught and conducted research in the fields of regulation and
managerial economies, advised corporations on how to restructure in
network industriessuch as energy and postal deliveryand worked
on risk management strategies for other industries, as well as on catastrophe coverage in the insurance field. He is now based in the EU.
Adrian R. Morrison (DVM, Cornell University; PhD, University of
Pennsylvania), Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience at the School of
Veterinary Medicine at Penn, with secondary appointment in the
Department of Psychiatry; a fellow of the Institute of Neurological
Sciences. His postdoctoral work in the Institute of Physiology at the
University of Pisa, Italy, introduced him to sleep research, on which
he has taught and written extensively since. As President of the
World Federation of Sleep Research Societies and Vice President of
the Pennsylvania Society for Biomedical Research, he was aware of
animal rights movements and has developed firsthand opinions on the
subject.
J. J. Mulhern (PhD, State University of New YorkBuffalo), Director
of Professional Education at the Fels Institute of Government and
Adjunct Associate Professor of Classical Studies and Government
Administration at Penns School of Arts and Sciences. He is a retired
Navy Captain, who has worked with many levels of the U.S. Government. Earlier, he directed the Executive Masters Program in Government Administration at the Fels Institute. He teaches Ancient and
Modern Constitution Making among other topics. His research focuses
on philosophical and practical aspects of ethics and government. He
has recently penned a chapter on the political economy of citizenship.
Reed E. Pyeritz (MD/PhD, Johns Hopkins University), Professor of
Medicine and Genetics, also Chief of the Division of Medical Genetics
at the University of Pennsylvania Health System. He studies and writes
on Mendelian disorders involving defects of connective tissue in the

330

About the Authors

cardiovascular system, Marfan syndrome (the gradual enlargement of

diseased aortas that dissect and lead to early death if untreated) in
quest of understanding pathogenesis, toward treatment and cure. He
has documented coronary artery disease cases usable as probands to
conduct family studies toward discovering new genetic risk factors. He
is prolific.
Richard Schuldenfrei (PhD, University of Pittsburgh), Professor of
Social, Moral, and Political Philosophy at Swarthmore College, where
he has served as Acting Chair and as Acting Dean. He actively participates in public and community services. He has written on a variety
of topics, published essays and reviews in specialized publications, and
presented numerous philosophical works at professional conventions
and institutions of higher learning. His teaching and research interests
encompass interdisciplinary pursuits in philosophy-psychology,
philosophy-politics, and philosophy-religion. He offers courses on
Freedom, Modernity, Judaic topics, and Plato.
Jeff Spinner-Halev (PhD, University of Michigan), Kenan Eminent
Professor of Political Science at the University of North CarolinaChapel
Hill; was the Schlesinger Professor of Social Justice at the University of
Nebraska; teaches normative and historical political theory, and
researches the history of political thought, democratic theory, and
ethnic and national identity. He has penned books and articles on these
topics; was L. S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow at Princeton Universitys
Center for Human Values, and Lady Davis Visiting Fellow at the
Department of Political Science of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
in Israel.
David R. Williams (PhD, Yale University), Professor of Psychology
emeritus, former Director of Clinical Training, and a licensed psychotherapist practicing at the University of Pennsylvania. As a young
Harvard undergraduate, he worked in B. F. Skinners laboratory, then
joined Miller and Sheffields laboratories as a Sterling Fellow at Yale,
seeking to pursue learning theory and human behavior in ways that
permit combining the psychology of brain and behavior with personality theory and clinical psychotherapy, and constructing an experimental psychology able to reach to the innermost layers of a persons
private experience and capacity for voluntary action.

Name Index

Adler, Alfred, 143

Akhtar, Salman, 7
Alexandris, Alexis, 234, 239
Ali, Fath, 62
Allen, E., 105
Anderlik, M. R., 124125
Anderson, Benedict, 227
Andrew, Barbara S., 17
An Jeongbok, 218, 219
Ankersmit, F. R., 19
Annas, G. J., 108
Annas, Julia, 194
Anne, Queen, 60
Annette, John, 19
Anscombe, Elizabeth, 21
Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl
of Shaftesbury, 5960
Antigone, 263265, 270271
Aquinas, Thomas, 274
Arcenas, Elvira, 2
Arendt, Hannah, 256259
Aristotle, 21, 86, 181192, 194, 274,
287289, 304, 310, 321, 322
Aronoff, Joel Myron, 231, 242, 270
Arroyo-Cabrales, Joaquin, 7
Atatrk, 235
Augustine, Saint, 72
Axelrod, Robert, 149, 153, 157
Badiou, Alain, 11
Baines, John, 43
Baker, Donald, 150, 201225, 240,
242, 278, 282, 295
Baker, John, 17

Balke, William, 72
Balls, M., 7
Banfield, Edward, 183, 195
Bankowski, Zenon, 56
Barnard, Neal, 96
Barnett, S. Anthony, 7
Barney, Ralph D., 20, 307
Bateson, W., 107
Baumiller, R. C., 105
Bayly, Susan, 240
Beard, Mary, 238
Beaudet, A. L., 107
Beaumont, Gustave de, 324
Beauvoir, Simone de, 323324
Benagiano, G., 111112
Benhabib, Seyla, 298, 313
Benkendorf, J. L., 119, 127
Bentham, Jeremy, 284, 285
Berger, Harold, 127
Bernard, Paul P., 6
Bernhardt, B. A., 105
Bertrand, Claude-Jean, 297, 313
Biale, David, 4
Bianchi, P., 111112
Bigo, Didier, 16
Billings, P. R., 124125
Birke, Lynda, 7
Black, Jay, 307
Blakemore, Colin, 7
Bland, Gary, 17
Bliss, Michael, 95
Bodin, Jean, 194195
Boehm, C. D., 108
Bonitz, H., 190

332

Botwinick, Aryeh, 55
Bourdieu, Pierre, 23
Bracci, Sharon, 298, 313
Brass, Paul R., 231
Bresnan, Patrick, 301
Brock, Roger, 321
Bronfman, Alejandra Marina, 17
Brown, Phil, 169
Brown, William P., 4
Brundtland, Gro Harlem, 165
Buber, Martin, 314
Buccellati, Giorgio, 35, 52, 55
Buddha, 207
Budiansky, Steven, 87
Bunton, R., 105
Burke, W., 107, 118
Burley, J., 108
Butzow, J. J., 106
Byun, Dong-Hyun, 304
Cahn, Edmond, 55
Calavita, Kitty, 16
Cameron, Kevin, 1718, 21, 71, 152,
251272, 275, 281, 282, 289, 295,
300
Campbell, E. G., 126
Canovan, Margaret, 242
Canute, King, 142
Carlisle, Clare, 16
Carlisle, Juliet, 160, 164
Carmona, R. H., 120
Carroll, Marilyn, 95
Carter, April, 19
Cashin, Sheryll, 17
Caulfield, T., 121
Cavallar, Georg, 64
Centrie, Craig, 10
Chadwick, R. F., 108
Charles VI, Emperor, 60
Charles XII of Sweden, 60
Chen Chun, 215, 216
Chignell, Andrew, 14
Chowers, Eyal, 10
Christians, Clifford G., 22,
293318
Chuang Tzu, 303
Cicero, 13, 88, 181, 192194, 197

Name Index

Ciprut, Jose V., 131, 41, 62, 194, 268,

281, 297, 319326
Clark, Robin, 20
Clarke, A., 108
Clayton, E. W., 105
Coetsee, Jakobus, 61
Cohen, Carl, 89
Cohen, Hermann, 14
Colley, Linda, 229
Collins, F. S., 108, 110, 120
Confucius, 21, 304, 310
Conniff, Richard, 85, 88
Cook, Karen S., 12
Cooper, Thomas W., 20, 22, 293318
Corona-M., Eduardo, 7
Coviello, Peter, 16
Cowan, F. S., 112
Crabtree, Pam J., 7
Creon, 263264
Crew, Michael A., 162
Crick, Bernard, 19
Crick, F. H. C., 108
Cunningham, G., 116
Cutter, Susan L., 169
Czempiel, Ernst-Otto, 64
Dahl, Robert Alan, 1819
Dalai Lama, 206
Dallmayr, Fred R., 14
Dalrymple, William, 240
David, 240
Davies, Andrew, 11
Davis, Gray, 163164
Dawkins, Robert, 150
deLisle, Jacques, 223
Democritus, 322
Denton, Robert E., Jr., 20
Devenney, Mark, 19
Dewey, John, 216217
di Giovanni,
George, 7073, 75
.
Dilman, Ilham, 1011
Diogenes, 321
Disney, Walt, 95
Dizard, Jan, 9495
Dole, Andrew, 14
Donan, Charles F., 278
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 147

Name Index

Douglas, Michael, 2
Dowty, Alan, 243
Doyle, Michael, 64
Dryzek, John S., 165
Dunning, William Archibald, 195
Dykstra, Russell J., 73
Eban, Abba, 277278
Edwards, Mark M., 20
Eichler, Barry L., 4, 3358, 80, 113,
182, 282, 288, 295, 301
Einstein, Albert, 2, 274
Eisenberg, R. S., 126
Eisenhower, Dwight, 323
Eliade, Mircea, 21, 303
Elias, S., 108
Elison, George, 217
Elliott, Michael R., 169
Ellul, Jacques, 295
Emery, A. E. H., 107
Engels, Friedrich, 254, 266268
Englehardt, Elaine E., 20
Ennius, 193
Erikson, Erik, 145147, 151, 156
Eugene, Prince of the House of
Savoy, 60
Fager, Jeffrey A., 4
Fanos, J. H., 118
Farley, Margaret A., 15
Farrar, Cynthia, 322323
Feldman, David M., 48
Foucault, Michel, 193194
Fox, Michael, 89
Franklin, Julian H., 195
Frederick I of Prussia, 60
Frederick III of Brandenburg, 60
Frederick Wilhelm IV of Prussia,
62
Freshwater, Dawn, 10
Freud, Anna, 147
Freud, Sigmund, 135136, 140, 141,
144, 147, 151, 261, 305
Friedan, Betty, 323
Friedmann, Daniel, 4
Frisch, Ephraim, 4
Fryer, David Ross, 10

333

Fu, Wei-Hsun Charles, 213

Fukuyama, Francis, 159
Galligan, David T., 92
Gandhi, Mahatma, 314
Gardiner, Stephen M., 1011
Garone, Stephen J., 12
Garver, B., 108
Garver, Eugene, 13
Garver, K. L., 108
Gehrke, Hans-Joachim, 193
Gellner, Ernest, 230, 240
Gerhardt, Volker, 67
Gernet, Jacques, 217
Giardiello, F. M., 121
Giedion, Siegfried, 308
Gillham, N. W., 108
Glaeser, Edward L., 174
Gnirs, Andrea M., 40
Godard, Jean-Luc, 305306
Goldstein, Jan, 10
Goldstein, Kurt, 143
Goodin, Robert E., 19
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 294
Graham, Gordon, 14
Greek, Jean, 96
Greek, Ray, 96
Greendale, K., 120
Gregor, Mary J., 6369, 7375, 7779
Griffiths, David B., 14
Grody, W. W., 114, 122
Gross, Steven, 288
Grun, Bernard, 62
Guild, Elspeth, 16
Guizot, M., 281
Gustavus III of Sweden, 61
Guttmacher, A. E., 110, 120
Guyer, Paul, 67, 21, 22, 34, 5982,
9899, 137, 152, 218, 282, 295
Habermas, Jrgen, 177178, 298
Hackett, Robert A., 20
Haddow, J. E., 114
Hakeda, Yoshia S., 207
Halder, M. E., 7
Hall, Ross Hume, 309310
Haller, M. H., 108

334

Hamelink, Cees, 299, 313

Hammurabi, 37, 46, 301
Hansen, M. H., 321
Haraway, Donna Jeanne, 7
Harnett, Vincent, 323
Harvey, Peter, 208
Hassan, Sana S., 17
Hauser, Marc, 99
Hayek, F. A., 255
Hegel, Georg W. F., 282
Heinberg, Richard, 303
Held, David, 1819
Herman, Barbara, 79
Herscovici, Alan, 91
Hirschhorn, K., 105
Hitler, Adolf, 310
Ho, J. W., 105
Hodkinson, Stephen, 321
Hffe, Ottfried, 6769
Hoffman, Stuart D., 222
Hoffman, Yair, 4
Holmes, L. B., 113114
Holtzman, N. A., 123
Hont, Istvan, 230
Horowitz, Donald L., 246
Hubbard, Ruth, 7
Huggins, M., 118
Hume, David, 283
Hunter, Graeme, 14
Iazzetta, Osvaldo M., 19
Innis, Harold, 304, 310311
Ireland, C., 10
Ishtar/Inanna, 42
Ivie, Robert L., 16
Jaffrelot, Christopher, 234, 239
James, C., 121
Jasnow, Richard, 40
Jay, John, 256, 259
Joachim, H. H., 184
Joh, Jong-ho, 222
Johannesen, Richard L., 20
Johns, Christopher, 10
Johnstone, Christopher, 304
Jonas, Gilbert, 17
Jones, Richard H., 15

Name Index

Jones, Susan D., 86, 92

Judson, H. F., 106
Juergensmeyer, Mark, 236, 239
Jung, Carl Gustav, 21, 136137, 143, 305
Kaback, M. M., 112
Kaelber, Lutz, 14
Kahneman, Daniel, 174175, 177
Kalton, Michael C., 214
Kaminsky, Joel S., 4
Kant, Immanuel, 67, 2123, 59, 60,
6281, 151152, 260263, 268, 270,
282284, 289, 300
Karenga, Maulana, 14
Kassirer, Jerome P., 12
Kaster, Robert A., 10
Kaufman, Steven, 96
Kazazian, H. H., Jr., 108
Kazepov, Yuri, 16
Keefer, Philip, 159
Keller, Jean, 17
Keman, Hans, 19
Kennedy, John F., 293
Khoury, M. J., 105, 106
Kieweler, Hans Volker, 4
Kimmerling, Baruch, 243
Kleindorfer, Paul R., 1213, 22,
159179, 237
Knack, Stephen, 159
Knetsch, Jack L., 174175, 177
Knight, John, 7
Knolles, Richard, 195
Konvitz, Milton R., 55
Korf, Bruce R., 9
Kramer, Roderick M., 12
Krippendorff, Klaus, 20, 140, 152,
183, 299, 308
Krishna, 302
Krumbein, Elyakim, 10
Kchler, Susanne, 10
Kumar, Rahul, 238, 241
Kunow, James, 174
Kunreuther, Howard C., 171
Kymlicka, Will, 230
Laberge, Pierre, 67, 68
Ladas, Stephen P., 234

Name Index

Laitila, T., 296297, 313

Lander, E. S., 108
Lao Ze (Lao Tzu), 301
La Porta, Rafael, 160
Lappe, M., 104
Laycock, David, 19
Leahy, Michael, 89
Lecky, William Edward Hartpole,
188
Lee, Angela Chi-Ming, 223
Lee, Keehyeung, 304
Lehmann, Hartmut, 6
Lenin, V. I., 268
Lesko, Leonard H., 41
Liberles, Adina Weiss, 235236
Lichtheim, Miriam, 40, 52, 55
Light, Andrew, 7
Lindblom, Charles, 252, 253
Lindee, M. S., 107
Lippmann, A., 105
Littleben, Chief Thomas, 314
Loader, S., 113
Locke, John, 59
Lockyer, Andrew, 19
Lombardi, Vince, 274
Ludmerer, K. M., 108
Lukacs, John, 16
MacCormick, Neil, 56
MacIntyre, Alasdair, 283
Malul, Meir, 47
Mann, Horace, 314
Mannheim, Karl, 296
Manville, P. B., 187
Maravall, Jos Maria, 19
Margalit, Avishai, 237
Markell, Patchen, 17
Markham, Ian, 10
Marlborough, Duke of, 60
Marshal, E., 105
Marwede, D., 192
Marwell, Gerald, 173175
Marx, Karl, 254, 257259, 266268
Maslow, Abraham, 143, 153
Massarik, F., 112
Matignon, Karine Lou, 7
May, Rollo, 143

335

McCabe, E. R. B., 106, 116

McCabe, L. L., 106, 116
McCain, John, 13
McCarthy, Joseph, 323
McInerney, Jeremy, 259
McKenna, Erin, 7
McKusick, Victor A., 108
McLaughlin, Rob, 96
McLuhan, Eric, 308309
McLuhan, Marshall, 293, 308309
McPhail, Thomas L., 20
Meislin, Bernard J., 55
Mencken, H. L., 97
Mensch, James R., 10
Merguet, H., 193
Meryash, D. L., 115116
Meyerowitz, Arthur, 4
Michaud, Kristy, 160, 164
Migdal, Joel S., 243
Mill, John Stuart, 230, 279280,
286287, 289
Miller, Daniel, 10
Millington, D. S., 115
Ming, John, 152
Mitchell, Jerry T., 169
Mitka, M., 105
Mohammed, Agha, 62
Moore, G. E., 202
Morrison, Adrian R., 8, 81, 83102
Moses, 54
Mother Theresa, 314
Mouton, Elna, 4
Mowlana, Hamid, 302
Mueller, C. W. F., 197
Mulhern, J. J., 13, 22, 33, 37, 150,
181199, 215, 232, 237, 252, 257,
262, 276, 282
Mumford, Lewis, 308
Munck, Ronaldo, 16
Murphy, E. A., 106, 108
Napoleon, 60, 62
Nelson, R. M., 118
Nevitt, Barrington, 308309
Nicoll, Charles, 89
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 260
Ning, Wujie, 223

336

Nixon, Richard M., 323

Nordenstreng, Kaarle, 296297, 313
North, John A., 238
Nowlan, W., 124125
Ockinga, Boyo, 41, 5253
OConnor, J. Michael, 9
ODonnell, Guillermo, 19
OHara, Mary, 96
Orts, Eric W., 167
Overmier,.Bruce, 95
zdemir, Ibrahim, 10
Parker, Glenn R., 10
Parker, James, 89
Paton, William, 8485, 95
Paul I, Tsar, 60
Pelly, David Fraser, 7
Perlin, Susan A., 169
Petersen, A., 105
Petrinovich, Lewis, 89, 96
Pierson, George Wilson, 324
Pinsky, L. E., 107
Pitkin, Hannah, 256
Plato, 19, 191, 273277, 281, 283, 289,
290291, 322
Pollack, R., 105
Polynices, 263265
Porret, Michel, 6
Potter, Van Rensselaer, 86, 100
Poulton, Hugh, 235236, 239
Preece, Rod, 7
Press, N. A., 107
Price, S. R. F., 238
Pritchard, James Bennett, 301
Protagoras, 322
Przeworski, Adam, 19
Pyeritz, Reed E., 910, 81, 103133
Pyszczynski, Tom, 146
Quammen, David, 7
Quirke, Stephen G. J., 41
Rabinowitz, Alan, 7
Rai, A. K., 126
Rampton, Sheldon, 12
Rashdall, Hastings, 188

Name Index

Rawls, John, 77, 277, 279, 284285

Redford, Donald B, 40
Reeve, C. D. C., 321
Regan, Tom, 85, 88, 89
Reichmann, James B., 7
Reilly, P. R., 118
Reventlow, Henning Graf, 4
Rhoden, Valerio, 64
Rimoin, David L., 9, 107108
Rogers, Carl, 143
Ross, W. David, 194
Roth, Martha T., 35, 37, 47, 48
Rothenberg, K. H., 125
Rothstein, M. A., 124125
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 62, 232, 253
Rubin, Edward L., 37
Russell, Sharon, 89
Ryan, Kathleen Ryan, 7
Sabine, George, 252, 253
Sager, Tore, 19
St. John, Jeffrey, 20
Saint-Pierre, Abb de, 62
Salter, Mark, 13
Sandel, Michael, 279
Sarna, Nahum M., 49
Schenck, Carlos, 98
Schiffman, Harold F., 20, 230, 231
Schmitt, David R., 173175
Schnabel, Eckhard J., 4
Schoemaker, Paul J., 171
Schuldenfrei, Richard, 19, 22, 242,
270, 273292
Schwartzman, Lisa H., 17
Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 163164
Schweickart, David, 19
Scruton, Roger, 89
Searls, D. B., 105
Seligman, Adam B., 159, 161
Sexton, Ken, 169
Shamash, 42
Shapiro, Ian, 19
Sharpe, N. F., 105
Shepherd, Gregory J., 20
Shields, Carolyn M., 20
Shionoya, Yuichi, 12
Shun, Kwong-loi, 10

Name Index

Sidgwick, Henry, 184, 188190, 193

Siegel, Marc, 16
Silberg, Moshe, 55
Silver, David, 238, 241
Singer, Peter, 85, 88, 89
Skinner, B. F., 11
Smart, John J. C., 279
Smith, Eric R., 160, 164
Smith, George P., II, 14
Snyder, Jack L., 227, 245
Solomon, Robert C., 20
Solomon, Sheldon, 146
Sonsino, Rifat, 53
Sophocles, 263264
Spina, Frank A., 16
Spinner-Halev, Jeff, 1617, 22,
227249, 278
Spinosa, Baruch, 14
Stalin, Joseph, 255
Stangroom, Jeremy, 9
Stanislas II, 62
Stark, Rodney, 202
Stauber, John, 12
Stein, Werner, 62
Steinberg, K. K., 105
Stell, Lance, 88
Stevens, Robert, 323
Stokes, Geoffrey, 19
Strand, Patti, 84
Strand, Ronald, 84
Striphas, Ted, 20
Suarez-Murias, E. L., 106
Sullivan, Harry Stack, 138, 154
Sussman, Gerald, 20
Swatos, William H., Jr., 14
Talleyrand, 62
Taylor, Charles, 230, 247
Taylor, Rodney L., 213, 214
Teeter, Emily, 4243
Teresa, Mother, 314
Terry, S. F., 125
Thaler, Richard, 174175, 177
Therrell, B. L., 116
Thich Nhat Hanh, 206
Thirgood, Simon, 7
Thiroux, Jacques, 1

337

Thomas, Deborah S., 169

Thomas, J. Parnell, 323
Thomas, Keith, 240
Thompson, A. K., 108
Thucydides, 322
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 281, 285286,
324
Todorov, Tzvetan, 245
Toorn, K. van der, 37, 44, 52
Traber, Michael, 298, 313
Tulchin, Joseph S., 17
van der Veer, Peter, 239, 240
van Zeller, A.-M., 7
van Zutphen, L. F. M., 7
Vargas Cullell, Jorge, 19
Venter, J. C., 108, 127
Volkan, Vamik D., 7
Wall, John, 10
Warnock, Mary, 279
Watson, Francis, 4
Watson, J. D., 108, 110
Watson, M. S., 114, 123
Weber, David J., 56
Weber, Eugen, 242
Weber, Max, 284
Weinfeld, Moshe, 44
Welch, H. G., 118
Wellenreuther, Hermann, 6
Wellesley, Marquis, 62
Wenham, Gordon J., 11
Wertz, D. C., 108, 111, 118, 125, 127
Westbrook, Raymond, 35, 40
White, Lynn, 308
Whybrow, Peter C., 10
Wielenberg, Erik J., 14
Wilber, Ken, 143
Wilkie, T., 108
Wilkinson, Richard G., 17
William III, 60
Williams, Bernard, 279
Williams, David R., 11, 22, 70, 135
158, 187, 212, 231
Williams, George, 7273
Williamson, Oliver E., 174
Wilson, E. O., 319

338

Wilson, James Q., 13, 181183, 185

Wilson, Renate, 6
Wiredu, Kwasi, 298, 313
Wong, David B., 10, 169
Wood, Allen, W., 7073, 75, 76
Woodroffe, Rosie, 7
Wright, Frances, 14
Wright, Robert, 148150, 156
Wrzburger, Walter S., 55
Yack, Bernard, 242
Yagi, Kiichiro, 12
Yu, Tianlong, 13
Yuan, B., 123
Yun Jichung, Paul, 219220
Zakaria, Fareed, 241, 243
Zaretsky, Eli, 256
Zhan, Wansheng, 223
Zhao, Yuezhi, 20
Zhivkov, Todor, 245
Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi), 213
Zick, C. D., 105
Zizek, Slavoj, 256257, 259, 260,
264265
Zupancic, Alenka, 260261

Name Index

Subject Index

abilities, ethics and, 186

abortion
in Mesopotamia, 38
practical wisdom and, 288289
reproductive genetics and, 111113
Abrahamic traditions, 214
absolute moral standard, 55
absolute power, 195
abstract universal, 266, 267271
accounting scandals, 12, 164165,
176178
action
character and, 184186
emancipation from labor and, 257
habits and, 185
nature of, 257
religions of, 216217
adaptation, 149150
adulterous relationships
in biblical ethics, 48
in Mesopotamia, 37
adverse selection, in genetic testing,
125
advertising
brand equity and, 176
brand image and, 161162
medical genetics and, 127
aesthetics of the self (J. Watson), 10
African Americans, environmental
justice and, 169170
agents of change, 304
agriculture
animals in, 8
factory farming, 92

Akkad, ethics in, 4, 3536

Alternatives to Athens (Brock and
Hodkinson), 321322
altruism, reasoned, 2324
Alzheimers disease, 104
American Board of Medical Genetics,
107, 108109
American Board of Pathology,
108109
American College of Medical
Genetics, 113
American College of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists, 113
American Revolution, 61, 252
American Society of Human
Genetics, 124
amniocentesis, 111
Anabaptist groups, 72
analytic validity, 122
anarcho-tyrannical man (Plato), 275,
290
ancestor worship, 208, 219
ancient Near East
Egypt, 34, 3941, 44, 4546, 5253,
55
law and morality in, 35, 3356
Mesopotamia, 34, 3539, 41, 44,
47, 5152, 55
aneuploidy, 111
Animal Liberation Front, 83
animal-rights movement, 83, 8789,
100101
animals as pets, 78, 8788, 90, 100
antivivisectionism in England, 89

340

animal-rights movement (cont.)

biomedical research and, 9799
fur and, 91, 92
human versus animal welfare and,
100
hunting and, 8, 91, 9395, 100
rights theory, 8889
See also human-animal relations
Animal Welfare Act of 1966, 89
anthropocentrism, in East Asia,
215220
anti-Semitism, 323324
Armenia, fear and identity in,
234235
Arthur Andersen, 12
Austrian Succession Wars, 61
autobiographies, Egyptian, 40
autonomy, in genetic testing, 124
Bambi (motion picture), 95
Bayh-Dole Act, 126
bear baiting, 91
behavioral research, 11
Belgium, collective identity in, 231
bestiality, in biblical ethics, 48
-thalassemia, 112113
Bhopal, India chemical spill, 165,
167168
Bible, the
biblical ethical thought, 34, 34, 41,
4350, 5355
conception of Deity in, 45
Jewish versus Christian thought, 34
monotheism and, 34, 34, 41,
4350, 5355
See also Christians and
Christianity; Jews and Judaism
biodiversity, 92, 166
bioethics, 86, 9697
biomedical research, 8, 11, 8386,
8890, 9599
achievements of, 8586, 96, 99
bioethics and, 86, 9697
challenges to, 8889
competence of scientists, 99
curiosity as basis of, 9799
See also genetics in medicine

Subject Index

bison hunting, 100

blacklists, 323
blasphemy, 38, 41
Bodhisattavas, 206
Bosnians, religious nationalism and,
230, 237
Boston, Massachusetts, deer culling
and, 95
brain research, animals in, 9699
brand equity, 176
brand image, 161162
breast cancer, 111, 118119
breeding, selective, 87
British Medical Association, 108
Brundtland Commission Report,
165
Buddhists and Buddhism
in East Asia, 1415, 203, 206208,
210211, 213, 216217, 221
multicultural heritage and, 301
religious nationalism and, 228229,
236237, 240
Bulgaria, elites in, 245
bullfighting, 91
California, energy markets and,
162165, 176177
Canada, as liberal democracy, 238
cannibalism, toleration of, 278
capital crimes
in biblical ethics, 45, 48
in Mesopotamia, 3638
capitalism, trust and, 1213, 176
capitulations, 235
categorical imperative (Kant), 2123,
152, 262
Catholics and Catholicism
banning in France, 6162
in Korea, 217220
papal authority and, 202, 305306
pregnancy termination and, 113
in Western Europe, 201, 202
cats
in biomedical research, 98
feral, 90
as pets, 90
causal relations, 191192

Subject Index

change agents, 304

character
action and, 184185
ethos in ancient Greece, 1314, 181
192, 193
habits and, 14, 185187, 190
kinds of people, 274275
Platos theory of, 273275
rediscovery of, 1314, 181182
in Scottish Enlightenment, 182183
virtues in, 185, 189
chemical industry, trust and, 12,
165170
children, in Mesopotamian law, 46
chiliasm
defined, 72
philosophical, 7273
theological, 7273
China
negative eugenics in, 125
religion in, 15, 201, 203206,
208214
secular moral education in, 221,
223
Christians and Christianity
chiliasm and, 7273
commandments and, 203, 204,
301
competing kingdoms in Western
Europe, 201202
fear and identity in Armenia,
234235
in Greece, 234, 237, 239
in Indonesia, 16
Judeo-Christian tradition, 203, 204,
214, 217, 222, 301
in Korea, 217220, 221222
morals and, 1415, 201202
multicultural heritage and, 301
pregnancy termination and, 113
religious nationalism and, 239240
in Western Europe, 6162, 201, 202
See also Bible, the; Catholics and
Catholicism
chronic pain studies, 99
citizenship
based on political rights, 253

341

democratic, 325326
education in East Asia, 222
citizen-state, 321
civil disobedience, 262263
Civil Rights movement, 323
Civil War, 324
clinical utility, 122123
clinical validity, 122
cloning, 106, 264
cluster attributes, 1617
codes of ethics, 20, 296297, 304, 306,
307
cohesion, in democracy, 230
collective identity, 230232, 255
collective unconscious (Jung), 2123,
143, 305
command-and-control regulation,
167
communication
analysis of ethics already present
in, 306308
globalization of, 3, 2021, 293314
Hall effect, 309310, 312313
media blackouts and, 312
modern multigroup agreements,
305306
modern technology of, 2021,
308312
multiculturalism and, 300305
needs and requirements for,
310314
in prisoners dilemma games, 172,
192193
See also globalization; language;
media
Communication Ethics and Global
Change (Cooper), 297
Communism, 221222, 320, 323
Communist Manifesto, 320
communitarianism, 298
computer, as term, 140141
concrete universal, 268, 269, 271
Conference Board, 177
confidentiality, in genetic testing,
123124
conflicts of interest, in genetic
testing, 126

342

Confucianism and
Neo-Confucianism, 203,
208214, 216219, 221
ancestor worship in, 208
filial piety, 213, 219
multicultural heritage and, 302
consciousness, 139140, 150
Consensus Development Conference,
114
consequentialist perspective, 2123
consociational arrangements, 246
cooperation, in prisoners dilemma
games, 170176
corporate social responsibility
accounting scandals and, 177178
in global chemical industry, 12,
165170
corporations
accounting scandals, 12, 164165,
176178
brand image and, 161162
chemical industry, 12, 165170
energy markets, 12, 162165,
176177
pharmaceutical industry, 99, 127
trust in, 1213
See also advertising
cosmic principles, 4
cosmology, in the ancient Near East,
34
covenants, 5, 5455
credit cards, trust and use of,
160161
criminal acts, in ancient Egypt, 41
Critical Theory (Held), 1819
Critique of Practical Reason (Kant),
7475
Critique of the Power of Judgment
(Kant), 80, 81
Croats, religious nationalism and,
230, 237
cross-cultural issues, genetic testing
and, 124, 125
Cuba, 17
cultic crimes, in ancient Egypt, 41
cultural diversity, 296, 304
cultural pluralism, 17

Subject Index

culture
folk, 240
high, 240
curiosity, as basis of biomedical
research, 9799
custom
Aristotle on, 190191
institutions and, 14
mos in ancient Rome, 1314, 181,
183, 192194
cybermedia, 294, 309
Cyprus
-thalassemia in, 112113
fear and identity in, 234
cystic fibrosis, 9, 103, 111, 113115,
125
cytogenetics, 107
Daoists and Daoism, 215216, 301
death
in ancient Egypt, 39, 41
of animals in biomedical research,
97, 99
of animals in nature, 100
ego integrity and, 146147
necropolises in ancient Egypt, 39
as penalty, 94
deer hunting, 9495, 100
De Fato (On Fate) (Cicero), 192
deliberation, ethics and, 186
democracy
Anglo-American thought and,
252
birth of democracies, 229
constitutional protections in, 6
defined in religious terms, 239
democratic agreements, 305
democratic ethic and. See
democratic ethic
democratic identity and, 229237,
246
egalitarian tradition in, 1718,
251271
exclusion of minorities and, 1517,
227247
French and continental European
thought and, 252

Subject Index

as inclusive form of government,

227, 240247
liberal democracies, 238, 241242
libertarian tradition in, 1718,
251253, 265267, 268
liberty and, 251255
moving toward inclusion,
240247
Platos critique of, 19, 276277,
281282, 284, 290
problem of stability of, 281289
property rights in, 227, 253, 276
religious nationalism and, 228229,
231, 232247
democratic ethic
origins of democratic thinking
and, 322323
Platos theory of character,
273275
problem of democratic aspiration,
275281
problem of democratic stability,
281289
democratic nationalism, 227229,
241242, 247
democratization
birth of democracies and, 229
democratic identity and, 229237,
246
different modes of, 324
elites and, 245
fear and identity in, 232237
inequality and, 1617
nationalism and, 227229, 241242,
247
practical wisdom and, 288289
De Officiis (On Duties) (Cicero),
192193
deontology
human-animal relations and,
8889
medical genetics and, 113
De Re Publica (Cicero), 193
diabolical, religion and, 260
diagnostic genetic testing, 111,
116117
Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 126

343

discrimination
in democracy, 1517, 227247
in genetic testing, 103, 124125
diversity
cultural, 296, 304
emancipative benefits of, 319320
fight over, 280
religious freedom, 277279
universalism as threat to, 300
divine selection, 5
DNA, 9, 106, 119
dogs
in biomedical research, 89, 90
community ordinances concerning,
90
dogfighting, 91
as food, 100
as helpers to humans, 90
as pets, 88, 100
rabid, 100
selective breeding of, 87
domestication of animals, 87
Down syndrome, 111, 125
East Asia
anthropocentrism in, 215220
religion in, 1415, 201224
secular moral education in,
221224
See also China; Japan; Korea;
Taiwan
ecology of the species, 147148
economic issues
as dismal science, 159160
economic exclusion, 270271
economic power versus freedom,
259
ethic of tolerance and, 246247
in genetic testing, 123
See also corporations
ecumenical syncretism, 2324
education
public schools of East Asia,
221224
secular moral education in East
Asia, 221224
efficient markets, 13

344

egalitarian tradition in democracy,

1718, 251271
ego, 144150
Eriksons concept of, 145147, 152
Freuds concept of, 135136, 140,
144145
in psychodynamic psychotherapy,
141142
See also psychological issues
ego identity, 11, 145147, 153
ego integrity, 11, 145147, 151,
152154, 156157
egoism, Sidgwick and, 189190
Egypt, ancient
exclusion of minorities in, 4546
Israelites and, 4546
law and morality in, 34, 3941,
44, 4546, 5253, 55
elephant hunting, 100
Empire and Communication (Innes),
304
ends, means versus, 67
energy markets, trust and, 12,
162165, 176177
England, antivivisectionism in, 89
Enlightenment, 57, 33, 320
as background for peace grounded
on justice, 5963
Scottish, 182183
Enron, 12, 164165, 176178
entertainment, animals in, 8
environmental issues
chemical industry and, 12, 165170
environmental justice, 168170
equality
democratization and inequality,
1617
egalitarian tradition in democracy,
1718, 251271
equity in prisoners dilemma
games, 173
universal principle of, 15
equilibrium, ethics of, 21
equity
Mesopotamian, 35
in prisoners dilemma games, 173
Estonia, discrimination in, 246247

Subject Index

ethical, legal, and social issues (ELS),

9
ethical thought
in ancient Egypt, 34, 3941, 44,
4546, 5253, 55
biblical ethical thought, 34, 34, 41,
4350, 5356
ethic of tolerance, 243
on genetics in medicine, 104106,
123127
in Mesopotamia, 34, 3539, 41, 44,
5152, 55
ethics
analysis of, in communications,
306308
in ancient Near East, 34, 3356
animals and, 78
in biblical thought, 34, 34, 41,
4350, 5355
classical origins of concept, 183
codes of, 20, 296297, 304, 306, 307
defined, 33
democratic ethic, 1819, 273291
derivation of term, 188
in East Asia, 215217
in Egypt, 34, 3941, 44, 4546,
5253, 55
ethical theory versus, 282
ethos (character) in ancient Greece,
1314, 181192, 193
Greek origins of term, 1, 1314
language of, 1, 182194
markets and, 1213, 159178
in Mesopotamia, 34, 3539, 41, 44,
4546, 5152, 55
morality versus, 223224, 262264,
267
mos (custom) in ancient Rome,
1314, 181, 183, 192194
personal, 39, 4950
philosophical definition of, 1
politics of, 181192, 193
religion and. See religious ethics
sexual, 3738, 48
social, 3637, 4548
state and, 1314, 194196
of tolerance, 246247

Subject Index

ethos (character)
in ancient Greece, 1314, 181192,
193
habits and, 14, 185187, 198
Eudemian Ethics (Aristotle), 183
eugenics, 108, 125
Europe
anti-Islamic sentiment in, 16,
6061
Christians and Christianity in,
6162, 201, 202
Enlightenment philosophy in, 57,
5963
religious wars of, 277278
See also specific countries
European Union, 297
evil, 210212
choice between good and, 67,
6972, 73
Kant and, 260263
as product of free will, 73
exclusion
democracy and, 1517, 227247
of Israelites in ancient Egypt,
4546
in Turkey, 234236
executive compensation, 176177
existential-humanistic (EH)
personality theory, 135157
case example of, 151156
collective unconscious (Jung),
2123, 143, 304
ego in, 135136, 140150
human awareness and, 136138,
140
nature of, 135136
outside versus inner world,
136138
Phenomenological Map and, 11,
138142, 148150, 154,
156157
psychodynamic psychotherapy
and, 141
self-actualization, 143144, 147,
152157
Sovereign Self and, 138144, 145,
150151, 154155

345

extraversion, introversion versus,

136137
Exxon Valdez, 165
factory farming, 92
fairness, in prisoners dilemma
games, 174176
fear
of designs of societies, 148
ego integrity and, 146147
ethic of tolerance and, 243
exclusion and, 1517, 232237
of God, 44, 4950, 202
identity and, 232237
removing, 243
federalism, 195
Feminine Mystique, The (Friedan), 323
feminism, 298, 323
feudalism, 195
filial piety
in biblical ethics, 45
in Confucianism and NeoConfucianism, 213, 219
in Mesopotamia, 36
Finland, collective identity in,
230231
Five Relationships, 214
folk cultures, nature of, 240
folk religions, 204206, 212213, 216
food
animals as, 9192, 9394, 100
factory farming and, 92
Food for Naught (Hall), 309310
Foundation of Intelligent Physical
Agents, 309
Foundations of the Metaphysics of
Morals (Kant), 282283
frailty, religion and, 260
France
French Revolution, 6162, 252,
253255
as liberal democracy, 242
freedom
as choice between good or evil, 67,
6972, 73
democratic stability and, 282284
economic power versus, 259

346

freedom (cont.)
human rights as foundation for,
299
Kantian free will, 67, 196
lover of (Plato), 274275
as nonpathological motivation, 262
right to life, 288289
Freedom House, 228
free will
evil as product of, 73
Kant and, 67, 196
French Revolution, 6162, 252, 253
255, 279280
fur, 91
fur farming, 92
game theory
prisoners dilemma games, 170
176, 192193
winner-takes-all, 149
GeneClinics, 108109
General Social Survey, National
Opinion Research Center, 94
general theory of revolution (Marx
and Engels), 266268
genetic counseling, 103, 120, 121
genetic engineering, 106
Genetic Information
Nondiscrimination Act, 125
genetics in medicine, 810, 103127
assessing susceptibility to disease,
118119
background on, 106108
basic concepts in, 109119
case examples of, 103104
diagnostic genetic testing, 111,
116117
dilemmas of, 104106
ethical issues in, 104106, 123127
genetic counseling, 103, 120, 121
genetic information and, 119120
genetic testing, 810, 103104,
107127
glossary of terms, 110
newborn screening, 9, 111, 115116
predictive genetic testing, 111,
117118

Subject Index

reproductive genetics, 111115

in the U.S., 810, 103104, 106127
genetic testing, 810, 107127
assessing susceptibility to disease,
118119
basic concepts in, 109119
case examples, 103104
concept of genetic information,
119120
diagnostic, 111, 116117
economic issues, 123
ethical issues, 123127
genetic counseling and, 103, 120,
121
glossary of terms, 110
nature of, 107
newborn screening, 9, 111, 115116
predictive, 111, 117118
pretest and posttest counseling, 10,
121, 127
process of, 120
in reproductive genetics, 111115
requirements for genetic screening
program, 115
standards for, 122123
in the U.S., 108109
genome, 89, 127, 143
genomics, 107
Germany
democratization in, 324
Nazi, 245, 306
Weimar, 285
globalization
ethic of communication and, 3,
2021, 293314
of international political economy,
19
God
covenantal relationship with,
5455
fear of, 44, 4950, 202
Israel and, 54
as promulgator of law, 46
good, choice between evil and, 67,
6972, 73
Great Ethics/Magna Moralia
(Aristotle), 183, 184

Subject Index

Great Spirit, 299

Greece, ancient
Christians and Christianity in, 234,
237, 239
definition of freedom, 258259
delegation of action to public
sphere, 257
ethos (character) in, 1314, 181192,
193
origins of democratic thinking
and, 322323
political community embodied in
city/state, 321322
politics of ethics and, 181192, 193
greed, 2, 153154
accounting scandals and, 12, 164
165, 176178
chemical industry and, 12, 165170
energy markets and, 12, 162165,
176177
Groundwork for the Metaphysics of
Morals, 6768
group identity
in Sri Lanka, 234, 236237
in Turkey, 234236
guarantees
in peace grounded on justice, 59,
63, 6568, 7374
habits
action and, 185
character and, 14, 185187, 190
Hall effect, 309310, 312313
Hastings Center, 106107
health insurance, genetic testing and,
103, 124125
hemochromatosis, 103, 111, 117
heterozygosity, 112
high cultures, nature of, 240
Hindus and Hinduism
fear and identity of, 233234,
236237
multicultural heritage and, 302
religious nationalism and, 228229,
233234, 239240, 241
historical autobiographies, 40
History of European Morals (Lecky), 188

347

Holy Roman Empire, anti-Islamic

sentiment in, 60
homeostasis, in technical world,
311312
homicide
in biblical ethics, 4647
in Mesopotamia, 3637
monetary compensation for, 47
honesty, in Mesopotamia, 37
horses, human relations with, 96
human-animal relations, 78, 83101.
See also animal-rights movement
animals as food, 9192, 9394, 100
animals damaging humans in, 47,
9495
basic issues in, 8486
benefits to animals, 85
bestiality in biblical ethics, 48
biomedical research and, 8, 11,
8386, 8890, 9599
deliberate harm to animals, 91
domestication of animals, 87
historical considerations in, 8688,
9596
hunting and, 8, 91, 9395, 100
modern issues in, 9095
pets in, 78, 8788, 90, 100
sociological considerations in,
8688
types of, 85, 86
wildlife management, 85, 90,
9495, 100
human conscience, 33
human duty, in ethics, 11
Human Genome Project (HGP), 89,
127
humanism
emergence of, 33
humanistic psychology and, 135
human rights, 10
as foundation for freedom, justice,
and peace, 299
religious nationalism and, 247
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, 304
human suffering, 207
hunting, 8, 91, 9395, 100

348

Huntingtons disease (HD), 104, 111,

117118
Hutchins Commission, 297
Ice Age, 87
id, 151
identity
collective, 230232, 255
democratic, 229237, 246
ego, 11, 145147, 153
fear and, 232237
group, 234237
personal, 11, 151
political, 239240
social, 11, 145146, 151, 152153
In Catilinam (Cicero), 193
inclusion in democracy, 240247
India
Bhopal chemical accident, 165,
167168
democratic identity in, 231,
233234, 246
relations with Pakistan, 244
religious nationalism in, 228229,
231, 239, 245
indigenous groups, 299
individual rights, 254255
Indonesia, exclusion of minorities in,
16
Industrial Revolution, 254, 255, 320
inequality, democratization and,
1617
infants
ethical issues concerning, 89
newborn screening tests, 9, 111,
115116
See also abortion
informational regulation, 167
Institute, West Virginia, chemical
spill, 167
institutions
customs and, 14
institutionalization of rights, 279
separation of state and civil
society, 254
intellectual property rights, genetic
testing and, 126127

Subject Index

international relations
choice of peace in, 74
See also warfare
interpersonal risk, in prisoners
dilemma games, 173176
intersubjectivity, 1011
introversion, extraversion versus,
136137
intuitionism, Sidgwick and, 189190
Inuit people, seal hunting and, 91
in vitro fertilization, 112
iron curtain, fall of, 16, 18
Islam. See Muslims and Islam
Israel and Israelites
biblical ethics and, 45
collective identity in, 231232
covenantal relationship with God,
5455
Egypt and, 4546
Post-Zionism in, 243244
religious nationalism in, 228229,
239, 241
See also Jews and Judaism
Japan
code of ethics, 304
democratization in, 324
nuclear technology and, 293, 320
religion in, 15, 201, 203206, 209,
222
secular moral education in, 221, 222
Jews and Judaism
anti-Semitism, 323324
commandments and, 203, 204, 301
covenantal relationship with God,
55
fear and identity in Armenia,
234235
genetic diseases, 105, 111, 112,
118119
Jewish law, 4
Judeo-Christian tradition, 203, 204,
214, 217, 222, 301
multicultural heritage and, 301
religious nationalism and, 228229
See also Bible, the; Israel and
Israelites

Subject Index

judgment, ethics and, 186

jumzi, 302
just, right versus, 12
justice
biblical ethics and, 5456
human rights as foundation for,
299
peace grounded on. See peace
grounded on justice
rights versus, 12
See also legal issues
Kennedy Center for Bioethics, 86
Khmer Rouge, 255
kingship
Egyptian, 3940, 5253
in the European Enlightenment,
6062
Mesopotamian, 35, 3839, 51
kittum (cosmic force), 45, 42, 43, 51
Korea
religion in, 15, 201, 203206,
208214, 217220, 221222
secular moral education in,
221222
See also North Korea; South Korea
labor
economic division of, 253
emancipation from, 257
nature of, 257
language
of ethics, 1, 182194
of exclusion, 230231
in philosophical perspective of
human species, 298
of the state, 194196
See also communication
law. See legal issues
legal issues
in ancient Egypt, 34, 3941, 44,
4546, 5253, 55
in biblical ethics, 34, 34, 41, 4350,
5355
in biomedical research, 9699
ethic of communication and, 301
in genetic testing, 103, 123127

349

Kant and, 260264

law, defined, 33
law and morality, 35, 3356
law as covenant, 5, 5455
in Mesopotamia, 34, 3539, 41, 44,
47, 5152, 55
rule of law, 268
li, 209, 210, 211, 212, 302
liberal democracies, 238, 241242
liberating ethics, 324325
liberation from the self (Einstein), 2
libertarian tradition in democracy,
1718, 251253, 265267, 268
liberty
in democracy, 251255
Mill on, 280
location risk, hazardous facilities
and, 169
lover of freedom (Plato), 274275
lover of honor/victory (Plato), 274
Lucent, 12
maat (cosmic principle of harmony),
45, 41, 4243, 51
MacBride Commission, 294, 297
male homosexuality
in biblical ethics, 48
in Mesopotamia, 38
Marfan syndrome screening, 116117
markets
in China, 223
democracy and market economy,
253
public goods and, 166
trust and, 1213, 159178
See also corporations
martyrdom, 263
Mass Declaration of UNESCO, The
(Nordenstreng), 296297
maxims, Kant on, 7071
means, end versus, 67
media
accountability systems of (MAS),
20, 297
as agent of democracy, 294295
media ethics and, 308
See also communication

350

media blackouts, 312

medical genetics. See genetics in
medicine
mental retardation, 104, 115
Mesopotamia
law and morality in, 34, 3539,
41, 44, 47, 5152, 55
property rights in, 37, 4546, 48
Metaphysics of Morals (Kant), 66,
6769, 8081
minority rights, in the ancient Near
East, 4546, 56
mob rule, 281
monarchy. See kingship
money, trust and use of, 160
money lover (Plato), 274
monotheism
believers and heathens and,
238239
in biblical ethics, 34, 34, 41, 4350,
5355
in Western religious tradition, 204
See also Christians and
Christianity; Jews and Judaism;
Muslims and Islam
moral action (Ross), 194
Moralis (Cicero), 192
moral metaphysics, NeoConfucianism as, 209214
morals and morality
classical origins of concept, 183
concept of, 184
in East Asia, 215217, 220, 224
ethics versus, 223224, 262264,
267
law and, 35, 3356
law and morality in the ancient
Near East, 35, 3356
morality, defined, 33
of reality principle, 261265, 267,
268
religion and, 1415, 201202,
201203, 204, 208209, 215224
Roman origins of term, 1, 1314,
192193
secular moral education in East
Asia, 221224

Subject Index

mores, as customs, 192193

mos (custom), in ancient Rome,
1314, 181, 183, 192194
multiculturalism, 280, 300305,
312313
Muslims and Islam
anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe,
16, 6061
fear and identity of, 233234
multicultural heritage and,
301303
religious nationalism and, 228229,
233234, 237, 239240, 241
My Friend Flicka (motion picture), 96
National Institutes of Health (NIH),
113
nationalism
democratization process and,
227229, 241242, 247
religious, 228229, 231, 232247
National Opinion Research Center,
94
Native Americans
genetic testing and, 114
learning from, 299, 302304
natural law, 33
natural rights, 254, 266, 267271
Nazi Germany, 245, 306
Near East
ancient, ethical thought in, 34,
3356
biblical ethics, 34, 34, 41, 4350
Egyptian ethics, 34, 3941, 44,
4546, 5253, 55
Mesopotamian ethics, 34, 3539
necropolises, 39
Neo-Confucianism, 203, 208214,
216219, 221
neo-Darwinian mind-set, 319
neoteny, 87
neural tube defects, 111
newborn screening tests, 9, 111,
115116
Nichomachean Ethics, The (Aristotle),
183, 185186, 187, 287288
nomos (law), 186

Subject Index

nonconsequentialist perspective,
2122
nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs), 165
North Korea
relations with South Korea, 221
religion in, 203
noumenon, 7576
nuclear technology, 293, 320
objectivity, 285
observing ego, 141142
oligarchy, in the U.S., 276
omen literature, 36
On Liberty (Mill), 289
On Virtues and Vices (Aristotle), 183
operations risk, hazardous facilities
and, 169
Opus postmortem (Kant), 80
organismic valuing process (Rogers),
143
organ transplants, 264
Origins of Democratic Thinking, The
(Farrar), 322323
other, in democracies, 230
Ottoman Empire
anti-Islamic sentiment in, 6061
democratization and, 234, 235, 239
outcome studies, 122123
Outlines of the History of Ethics for
English Readers (Sidgwick), 184
ovarian cancer, 111, 118119
Pacific Gas and Electric, 163
pain studies, 99
Pakistan, relations with India, 244
participating ego, 141142
partisanship, in egalitarian
democracy, 266271
passions, virtue and, 185, 186
patriarchy, in biblical thought, 46
peace grounded on justice, 57,
5982, 299
choice between good or evil, 67,
6972, 73
concept of right and efficacy, 7275
free use of natural means, 7580

351

guarantees and, 59, 63, 6568,

7374
historical context and, 5963
rational hope for, 6369
social background and, 5963
ultimate end of justice as
perpetual peace, 8082
pedigree analysis, 120
pension planning, 176177
Peripatetics, 189
personal ethics
in biblical ethics, 4950
in Mesopotamia, 39
personal identity, 11, 151
personality theory. See existentialhumanistic (EH) personality
theory
pets, 78, 8788, 90, 100
Pew Forum on Religion and Public
Life, 202
pharmaceuticals
biomedical research and, 99
impact of advertising, 127
Phenomenological Map, 11, 138142,
148150, 154, 156157
phenylketonuria (PKU), 111, 115116
philosophical chiliasm, 7273
phronesis (Aristotle), 287
pigs, as pets, 88
pleasure, pursuit of, 19, 277
pluralism
cultural, 17
worldview, 300
Poetics (Aristotle), 185
Polish Succession War, 6061
politeiai (citizenships), 191
political identity, religion and,
239240
political institutions
customs and, 14
electoral arrangements and, 246
political parties, 246
democratization process and,
227228
as ultimate ethic of egalitarian
democracy, 266271
political theory, 322323

352

Politics (Aristotle), 185, 187, 190, 321

politics of ethics, 1718, 181197
ancient Greeks and, 181192, 193
ancient Romans and, 181, 183,
192194
in modern times, 181182
moral politicians and, 7879
state and political actors, 191192,
194196
See also warfare
polity, 321
pollution. See environmental issues
polytheism
Buddhism and, 206
Egyptian, 4243, 5253
in folk religions, 204206, 212213,
216
Mesopotamian, 4143, 5152
Post-Zionism, 243244
poverty
biblical ethics and, 45
environmental justice and, 169170
poverty-marginality issues, 16
predictive genetic testing, 111,
117118
pregnancy
genetic testing and, 111115
See also abortion
pretest/posttest counseling, 10, 121,
127
Principles and Practice of Medicine
(Emery and Rimoin), 107108
prisoners dilemma games
communication in, 172, 192193
equity in, 173
nature of, 170172
risk analysis in, 173176
trust and cooperation in, 170176
privacy
cross-cultural implications of, 124
in genetic testing, 123124
private sphere, 257259
product quality and safety, 12,
161162, 176
property rights
in ancient Egypt, 4546
in biblical thought, 4546, 5354

Subject Index

in democracy, 227, 253, 276

in Mesopotamia, 37, 4546, 48
proportional representation (PR)
systems, 246
Protestant Ethic (Weber), 284
psyche, 189
psychoanalytic approach
Freud in, 135136, 140, 144145
Kant in, 18
psychodynamic psychotherapy,
141
totalitarianism in, 251, 260263
psychological issues, 1011, 135157
components of human awareness,
136138, 140
ego and, 144150
ethics and, 150156
existential-humanistic (EH)
personality theory, 135157
Freudian concept of ego, 135136,
140, 144145
humanistic psychology, 135
moving beyond self in, 142144
Phenomenological Map and, 11,
138142, 148150, 154, 156157
public goods, markets and, 166
public sphere, 257259
Puritan Revolution, 252, 253
pushpin-poetry dilemma (Mill),
286
Pythagoreans, 273
qi, 209, 211, 212
Quadruple Alliance, 60
Qwest, 12
reality principle, 261265, 267, 268
reasoned altruism, 2324
recessive inheritance, 9
Rechtspflichten (duties of justice), 68
recombinant DNA technology, 106
reflective autobiographies, 40
reflexivity, 1011
relativism, naturalistic fallacy and,
296
religion, 201224
in ancient Mesopotamia, 35

Subject Index

Buddhism. See Buddhists and

Buddhism
Christianity. See Christians and
Christianity
Confucianism and NeoConfucianism. See Confucianism
and Neo-Confucianism
Daoism, 215216, 301
defining, 203214
in East Asia, 1415, 201224
folk religions, 204206, 212213,
216
freedom of, 277279
Hinduism. See Hindus and
Hinduism
inclusion in democracy and,
240247
Islam. See Muslims and Islam
Judaism. See Jews and Judaism
morality and ethics and, 1415,
201203, 204, 208209, 215224
religious nationalism, 228229,
231, 232247
Shinto, 204, 205206
in Sri Lanka, 228229, 234, 236
237, 240
in Turkey, 234236
in Western Europe, 201202
Religion within the Boundaries of Mere
Reason (Kant), 6772, 7576
Religion within the Limits of Reason
Alone (Kant), 260263
religious ethics, 1415, 201203, 204,
208209, 215224
in biblical ethics, 49
in China, 15
in Egypt, 34, 3941, 44, 4546,
5253, 55
in Japan, 15
Kant on, 6772, 7576
in Korea, 15
in Mesopotamia, 34, 35, 3839, 41,
44, 47, 5152, 55
in Taiwan, 15
ren, 302
Renaissance, 320
repatterning the self, 1011

353

reproductive genetics, 111115

Republic, The (Plato), 191192
republican government
guarantees of peace and, 6568
Kants ideal of, 6465
nature of, 64
perpetual peace and, 7778
worldwide spread of, 65
reputation, in prisoners dilemma
games, 172, 192193
revolution
examples of, 6162, 252, 253255,
279280
general theory of revolution (Marx
and Engels), 266268
See also warfare
rights
animal. See animal-rights
movement
appeal of, 283
evolution of, 19
human, 10, 247, 299, 304
individual, 254255
institutionalization of, 279
justice versus, 12
minority, 4546, 56
natural, 254, 266, 267271
property. See property rights
risk analysis, 1213, 173176
Risk Management Program (RMP),
167168, 169
RNA, 119
rodeos, 93
rogue behavior, 162
Rome, ancient
delegation of action to public
sphere, 257
as liberal democracy, 238
mos (custom) in, 1314, 181, 183,
192194
Royal College of Physicians, 108
Russian Empire, anti-Islamic
sentiment in, 6061
seal hunting, 91
secular moral principles, 15, 55,
221224

354

selective breeding, 87
self-actualization, 143144, 147,
152157
self-indulgence, 285286
self-interest, 261262
selfish action, 207
self-love, Kant on, 71, 7778, 80
sentience
components of, 136138
defined, 136
Sovereign Self and, 138144, 145,
150151, 154155
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,
16, 90
Serbs, religious nationalism and, 230,
237
Seven Years War, 61
sexual ethics
in biblical ethics, 48
in Mesopotamia, 3738
Shinto, 204, 205206
sickle-cell anemia screening, 116117
Sinhala Buddhists, 236237, 240
Sittlichkeit (Hegel), 282
slavery
in ancient Egypt, 4546
in biblical thought, 4546
inequality between master and
slave, 259
labor of slaves in ancient societies,
257
in Mesopotamia, 37, 4546
in the U.S., 61
social capital, 159160
social classes
in ancient Egypt, 3940, 5253
biblical ethics and lack of, 45
economic division of labor and,
253
environmental justice and, 169170
in Mesopotamia, 36, 5152
social ethics
in biblical ethics, 4548
in Mesopotamia, 3637
social identity, 11, 145146, 151,
152153
social norms, markets and, 166

Subject Index

sophia (theoretical wisdom), 287

South Korea
relations with North Korea, 221
religion in, 203
sovereign identity, 231
Sovereign Self, 138144, 145
communication at level of,
154155
ethics and, 150151
moving beyond, 142144
nature of, 138142
sovereignty, concept of, 195196
Soviet Union, implosion of, 18
spirit tablets, 219
Sri Lanka
fear and identity in, 234236
religious nationalism in, 228229,
236237, 240
state
classical origins of concept, 183
ethics and, 1314, 194196
political actors and, 191192,
194196
separation of civil society and, 254
stem cell research, 106
Stoic philosophy, 181
suffering, 3536
Sumer, ethics in, 4, 3536
superego, 151
Supreme Being, 205
Supreme Deity, 204
Supreme Ruler, 204
Switzerland, collective identity in,
231
taboos, universal, 305
tahwid, 302, 303
Taiwan
religion in, 15, 203
secular moral education in, 221,
222223
Tamil Hindus, 236237, 240
Tay-Sachs disease, 105, 111, 112
technology
in communication ethics, 2021,
308312
cybermedia, 294, 309

Subject Index

genetic testing and, 126127

globalization of communication, 3,
2021, 293314
Hall effect, 309310, 312313
homeostasis and, 311312
nuclear, 293, 320
threats to humanity, 11
terrorism
cyber terror, 294
global war on terror, 16
self-righteous, 325
terrorist attacks (September 11,
2001), 16, 90
terror management theory, 146
theological chiliasm, 7273
totalitarianism
blackmail of, 251, 256259
egalitarianism versus, 1718,
251271
in psychoanalytic approach, 251,
260263
universal order and, 299300
Toward Perpetual Peace (Kant), 67, 59,
62, 6366, 6770, 73, 74, 76, 77,
8082
transformational ethic, 320321
trapping, 91, 93
Treaty of Berlin (1878), 235
trust
in biblical ethics, 50
in the corporate sector, 1213
credible threat of punishment for
wrongdoing and, 161
credit cards and, 160161
energy markets and, 12, 162165,
176177
environmental justice and, 165170
erosion of, 162, 164165, 176177
foundations of, 170176
importance of, 159160, 245
in interpersonal relationships,
159160
markets and, 1213, 159178
in Mesopotamia, 37
money and, 160
in prisoners dilemma games,
170176

355

in product quality and safety, 161

162, 176
during uncertain times, 159
truth, as cosmic standard of order, 40
Tugendverpflichtung (obligation of
virtue as motivation), 68
Turkey
Bulgarian Turks and, 245
collective identity in, 231232
fear and identity in, 234236
religious nationalism in, 228229,
234236, 237, 239, 245
Tusculan Disputations (Cicero), 193
unintended consequences, 308
United Kingdom
antivivisection in, 89
energy markets and, 163
United Nations
UNESCO, 296297, 305306
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, 304
World Commission on
Environment and Development
(WCED), 165
United States
accounting scandals in, 12,
164165, 176178
American Revolution in, 61, 252
animals as food in, 92
biomedical research in, 89
chemical industry in, 12, 165170
communication in, 306, 307
egalitarian democracy and, 1718
energy markets in, 12, 162165,
176177
environmental regulation in,
167170
freedom as protected by
constitution, 281282
freedom of religion in, 277
genetics in medicine and, 810,
103104, 106127
globalization of communication
and, 294
legal thought in, 55
as liberal democracy, 238, 242

356

United States (cont.)

Office of Technology Assessment,
309
pharmaceuticals industry in, 99, 127
practical wisdom and, 288291
problem of democratic aspiration
and, 275281
product quality and safety
regulation in, 161162
slavery in, 61
system of checks and balances in,
78
terrorist attacks (September 11,
2001), 16, 90
U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments, 167
U.S. Department of Education,
191192
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE),
89
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), 167168
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA), 123
U.S. House Un-American Activities
Committee (USHUAC), 323
U.S. National Institutes of Health
(NIH), 89, 113
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, 304
universal order, 33
abstract universal, 266, 267271
commitment to universals, 300
concrete universal, 268, 269, 271
principled interactive, 298
sacredness of human life, 298299
taboos in, 305
theories of universals, 296300
totalitarianism and, 299300
utilitarianism
Benthamite, 284286
democratic stability and, 284287
human-animal relations and,
8889
Millian, 286287, 289
religion and, 202
Sidgwick and, 189190
utility, clinical, 122123

Subject Index

validity
analytic, 122
clinical, 122
virtue
character and, 185, 189
passions and, 185, 186
theory of, 7981
virtue ethics, 287
volition, 137138
Wall Street (motion picture), 2
warfare
American Revolution, 61, 252
banning, 6669
Civil War, 324
destruction and conflict among
nations, 295296
Enlightenment as background for
peace grounded on justice,
5963
French Revolution, 6162, 252,
253255, 279280
globalization of communication
and, 294
perpetual peace versus, 62, 6369,
8082
religious wars of Europe,
277278
World War II, 320, 324
weapons of mass destruction
(WMD), 147148, 149
Weimar Republic, 285
wickedness, religion and, 260
wildlife management, 85, 90, 9495,
100
winner-takes-all game theory, 149
wisdom
concept of, 35
in Egypt, 4041, 44
practical, and democratic stability,
287289
questioning, 307
wisdom lover (Plato), 274
women
in biblical law, 46
labor of, in ancient societies,
257

Subject Index

work
emancipation from labor and, 257
nature of, 257
WorldCom, 12, 177178
World Commission on Environment
and Development (WCED), 165
worldview
biblical thought, 34, 34, 41, 4350
Egyptian ethical thought, 34,
3941, 44, 4546, 5253, 55
legacy of ancient Near Eastern,
5056
Mesopotamian ethical thought,
34, 3539, 44, 47, 5152, 55
See also religion
worldview pluralism, 300
World War II, 320, 324
Xerox, 12
Yugoslavia, former, collective
identity in, 230
Zum ewigen Frieden (Toward Perpetual
Peace, Kant), 67, 59, 62, 6366,
6770, 73, 74, 76, 77, 8082

357