The central dilemma facing today’s generation is the lack of and the inability to generate ethics – ethics for the emerging world of today.
If we are serious about our desire and the necessity to change our current way of interacting among each other within our communities and places of work, between and among our societal constituencies, and between countries, and if our wish is to create ways that are more hopeful – have more rightness and goodness within them – then the work we must take on is the developing of ethics… ethics that not only serve ourselves – the whole of humanity – but the whole of life itself. In essence, these ethics must embrace living on the planet earth.
It is the work and purpose of philosophy to generate ethics. In the absence of philosophy, we become unable – disenabled – to create ethics. Whereas morality seems to fall within the domain of faith, ethics and ethical behavior emanate from philosophy. Thus, when we work to generate ethics – planetary ethics – we must begin with the development and creation of philosophy, a philosophy whole enough and complete enough to embrace the requirement of dealing with right and good living on the planet earth.
Recognizing this work and the criticality and urgency for this work, what follows here are some thoughts that hopefully, will provide a basis for reflection and dialogue among all who, with good heart and spirit, join in the work of developing the ethics – the guides to our behavior – for living in today’s world on the planet earth.
When seeking to develop a living philosophy – one that is capable of being practiced in our daily life – we must come to grips with some critical questions and notions that not only determine the path we go down, but provide substantive resolution to both our hearts and minds – our conscience and our conscious intellect. For if we are seeking a philosophy that is sufficiently whole and complete to provide guidance for living on this planet earth, it is a necessity that we too can experience increasing wholeness and completeness as we work to develop the discipline – the ethical behavior – to carry out this philosophy in our daily living and working. We have to answer the following questions with heartfelt conviction – give a real YES or NO to these questions, and accept the answers we generate. Only answers true in our hearts are those which we will follow – answers that through reflection and our experience of life, ring true for us.
Is there a Source, an Ultimate Source of creation?
Is there intention in the ways of working of the ongoing creation?
In reality, in essence and in truth, are we not one people – one people of earth – sharing a common Source, sharing a common humanity, sharing a common membership in the larger community of life?
Do we – each and all of us – have potential as human beings?
Is there within us something enfolded that is not yet manifested – a good yet to be expressed?
When we are awake to our innermost self, do we experience an urge to become… to become better… to be more REAL to ourselves and others?
Is it reasonable to expect that we can discover the truths related to wholeness and life’s processes by examining separate elements or aspects?
Must our seeking turn to reflection and contemplation which work to see wholeness and the working of systemic elements within the whole?
Is it not the nature of life and the character of life’s members to have purpose?
Could not the discovering and working to fulfill our purpose be a means to realize our potential and a source of ongoing meaning in our life?
Does not life purpose, which emanates from the whole of life and its working, demand that any purpose, if it is to be true to life, reflect our work and obligation to larger wholes of which we are a part?
Must the ethics that we generate describe ways of honoring the wholeness of our fellow creatures of earth, and honor their way of working and their way of becoming?
Should not the philosophy that is the source of our ethics be, at a minimum, complementary with the essence of our living faith?
Should not our philosophy provide insights into and guidance for ethical exploration and manifestation of the life, material and energy worlds of our scientific endeavors?
Does not our philosophy demand that we accept our living nature and systemic connectedness to other life members, and therefore require us to take on a responsible role in the working and ongoingness of life’s processes on earth?
Does not our potential lie along the path of intention – our purpose, our essential reason for being?
Does not community have an essential role in our process of uncovering and realizing our potential?
Is not community essential to our fulfilling the intent for which we were created human beings?
Must we not have faith that within the scope of our humanness, there lies the means to create and the capacity to live and work in ways that are beyond sustaining ourselves and our lives as humankind – to live and work in ways that enable unfolding and realizing the potential of life, life’s community, and life’s members?
These questions are the beginning of a process to bring forth a perspective sufficiently whole and complete for the emerging world of today.
