The Ethical Man
BBC has been producing some fascinating shows recently. The latest offering is Ethical Man, where reporter Justin Rowlatt will attempt to live an ethical lifestyle for an entire year.
The first episode is available online, and features a conversation at the end of the program weighing the benefits of individual action against collective action (such as legislation). In my opinion, it comes down to short-term versus long-term approaches, with the idea that the two approaches complement one another. As is said in the program, if you want to make a difference, there’s one surefire way of doing so: changing your own behavior.
Another point is that there are no definite answers. We’re dealing with the difficult realm of ethics (as the title of the show indicates) and perhaps what’s difficult about ethics is that there are no good guys and bad guys. Because this is completely counter to what television would so often lead us to believe, I’m curious as to how they will deal with this particular aspect.
You can write in with suggestions, advice, and tasks. Here’s what I wrote just now:
I’m currently working on an interaction design thesis dealing with sustainability (http://thesis.d4v3.net) and one of the books I’d recommend reading is Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse”. It seems to me after reading his book that adopting the long-term view is the most effective method of figuring out some difficult ethical problems. Doing so might not provide definite answers and plans for action in the short-term, but it does provide long-term goals and direction.
For example, if a particular type of fishing is ultimately detrimental to fishing stocks, then it’s probably unethical to continue such practices. Yet we need to feed people in the short-term.
This leads me to a point which I’m sure other people have raised: world population. I noticed in your program that you kept mentioning family sizes (yours, your sister’s), and I can’t help but think that this is part of the problem. Family planning is definitely a long-term decision, but it’s intimately tied into the issues of sustainability: more people need more resources to support them.
The best approach, in my opinion, is to take a long-term view while pursuing short-term action relative to that long-term view. Ask the question “What do you want your life to be about?” and you will see that it’s not a final destination, but a constant striving, a constant process composed of little things you do every day in pursuit of that larger goal. Ethical lifestyles are no different.