A Systems Ethics

A SYSTEMS ETHICS

Systems principles form an updated basis for a more comprehensive system of ethics.

MAINTAIN A WHOLE SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE, CONSIDERING ALL STAKEHOLDERS

A whole systems perspective provides a new framework for ethics.  Ethics should take into account everyone who is affected as a result of one’s actions. “Everyone” now includes a much broader spectrum of entities—not just other humans local in time and space.  It includes people in the future, preferably the far future.  It includes people all over the Earth.  It includes non-humans—the animals and plants with whom we share the Earth.  It includes the overall biosphere of our planet.

LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE

Endeavor to see matters from a macroscopic perspective.  Seek to avoid parochial considerations that favor one component of the system over the good of the larger whole.  Think in terms of the largest system.  What benefits the largest system in the case being examined?  In particular, prioritize the well-being of the Earth’s planetary ecosystems as the highest element in the values hierarchy.

TAKE THE LONG VIEW

Ethical considerations need to have a long-term perspective.  Act for what is the highest good in the long term.  Avoid actions that are irreversible.  Avoid actions where the consequences cannot be anticipated.

ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR CONSEQUENCES

Whatever you do will have consequences.  Take responsibility for those consequences as they play out over time.  Each of our acts affects the whole.  Responsibility for consequences includes both positive and negative consequences.  Strive to avoid or minimize negative consequences.  Accept responsibility for your actions and their consequences, whether you have anticipated and intended them or not.  Act with integrity.  Always apply to ourselves what we try to teach others.

LIVE WITHIN LIMITS

The era of limitless frontiers is over (if it ever really existed).  We have become painfully aware of the limits our small planet necessarily imposes on us.  We need to graciously accept those limits and adjust how we live to accommodate to them.

ACT FAIRLY AND JUSTLY

Do not take advantage of others.  Do not use a position unjustly.  Strive to play games in a win-win manner.  Avoid playing win-lose games.  Do not accept others acting unfairly and unjustly.

TREAT EVERYONE EQUALLY

Prevent the establishment of castes, aristocracies, and classes with differential privilege.  Preserve the principle that basic rights and opportunities are equal for everyone.  Privileges must be earned, through procedures that are transparent and regarded as fair by all.   They are not permanent, but are conditional on continuing to be earned.

HOLD PEOPLE, ORGANIZATIONS, AND INSTITUTIONS ACCOUNTABLE

Maintain the principle that everyone is accountable for their actions, individually and collectively. Ensure that crimes and other misbehaviors are identified, investigated, and penalized in an appropriate manner.

ACKNOWLEDGE WRONGS AND MAKE AMENDS

Acknowledge the wrongs that have occurred.  Accept responsibility for them.  Act to make restitution, to the degree it is possible.  Ensure that the wrongs do not continue.

CLOSE SYSTEM LOOPS

Balance benefits and costs, so that those who derive benefits pay their fair share of any costs.  Incorporate corrective system feedback loops for stability.  Avoid allowing runaway amplifying feedback situations that go out of control.  Promote virtuous cycles, avoid vicious cycles.

ACCOUNT FOR TRADEOFFS HONESTLY AND TRANSPARENTLY

Almost every action involves some form of tradeoff.  For every benefit, there is likely to be a compensating cost. Be clear who benefits, and who bears costs.  Be complete in the accounting, so that costs are not externalized to somewhere else, someone else, or sometime in the future.  Consider the tradeoffs honestly and transparently.  Do not hide externalities to bias the balance between benefits and costs.

PRACTICE GOOD STEWARDSHIP

Accept responsibility for the assets of humanity and the Earth that have been placed under one’s influence and control, and strive to exercise good stewardship for them.  Seek to pass on these assets to the future in as good or better condition than one received them.  Protect them from all manner of harm and depletion.

LINK RESPONSIBILITY TO PRIVILEGE

Ensure that those who enjoy privileges shoulder corresponding responsibilities and obligations.  Those with the greatest privilege should also have the greatest responsibility.

MINIMIZE HARM

Do not cause or allow needless harm.  Only be responsible for harm when it is outweighed by a higher benefit.  Don’t act in a manner that causes irreversible harm to the greater commons for one’s private good.  Do not tolerate predation, parasitism, vandalism, etc., either inside or outside the boundaries of the system.

COLLABORATE

Look for ways with which one can collaborate with others to obtain benefits for all.  Help other people to realize the common system goals all humans share.

BE TRUTHFUL

Do not communicate falsehoods.   Do not accept falsehoods communicated by others.  Strive to make the truth known.

PROTECT OTHERS

Don’t support cruelty and needless harm.  Don’t support social injustice and oppression.  Endeavor to prevent others from profiting from the suffering of others.  Strive for equality of access—e.g., to education, work, food, shelter, clean air and water, physical and mental health care, legal representation, political voice, etc.  Oppose political and economic systems that deny someone access to these.

FOLLOW THE PLATINUM RULE

The Golden Rule is typically expressed as, Do unto Others as You Would Have Them Do unto You.  The Platinum Rule makes an important change in this: Do unto Others as They Would Have You Do unto Them.  The Platinum Rule recognizes that what one regards as good and desirable for oneself is not necessarily what someone else regards as good and desirable for them.  Don’t assume that others share the same assumptions, beliefs, values, morals, desires, tastes, needs, and other motivations that have.  To act on their behalf, it is essential to attempt to see the world through their eyes.  If one operates from one’s own perspective only, one may do them a serious disservice.  Finding out what they truly want for themselves, and acting to provide it, is much more compassionate than giving them what one thinks they should want.  Only from this can you ask to be treated in an equivalent manner by others, to receive what you want.

WALK MINDFULLY ON THE EARTH

It is absolutely essential for humans to walk mindfully on the Earth now.  Recognize the direct and indirect impacts of one’s personal consumption on the global ecosphere.  Be mindful in all the ways one consumes.  For example, eat as low on the food chain as possible.  Recognize the enormous negative effects of industrialized production of meat.  Minimize one’s use of fossil fuel-powered transportation (particularly long-distance air travel).

Strive to ensure that every new human brought into the world is a wanted child, with parents able to support their development into healthy adulthood.  Strive to avoid waste of all kinds.  Strive to recycle wherever possible.  Recognize that when we try to throw something away, there is no “away”.  It always goes somewhere.  Minimize the consumption of non-renewable resources.  Minimize the transfer of wastes and byproducts into the environment.  Seek a lifestyle that is free from destructiveness, either directly or indirectly.

LIVE SO THERE WILL BE A DESIRABLE FUTURE

Seek to live in ways that enable a future for our children, our grandchildren, and their descendants for generations to come.  Always act from a long-term perspective, one that goes beyond your own lifetime and that of your direct relations.  Strive to act for the well-being of the largest whole.  Recognize that the fate of each individual human is inextricably joined to the fate of the human race as a whole.

SPEAK FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NO VOICE

Many entities are not able to speak for themselves in the halls where decisions are made.  These include future human generations, as well as non-human species of all types and the whole of nature itself.  Humans must represent their interests fully and appropriately.