The Human Responsibility Movement - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

The Human Responsibility Movement

Sue L. T. McGregor PhD Professor

Mount Saint Vincent

University, Halifax NS Canada

2010

International Cultural Research Network Conference

Halifax NSSlide2

Finding a moral ground for a globalized world

Slide3

Four different philosophical positions within movement:

Responsibilities complement rights

Responsibilities infringe on rights

Responsibilities take precedence over rights

World is so different that new norms are neededSlide4

Powerful support and opposition

Bills or declarations of responsible humans have

powerful support

of luminary world leaders (emeritus politicians, faith leaders, scientists, artists, philosophers and Nobel Laureates)

BUT – also

strong opposition

from Western capitalistic nation states, some “developing- country” states, lawyers, and some non-government organizations (especially Amnesty International) Slide5

Global movement, with many initiatives (1993-2003)

1993

The

Carta of Human Duties

(International Council of Human Duties

1993

Declaration Toward a Global Ethic

(Council of the Parliament of the World’s Religions)

1995

Our Global Neighbourhood

(Commission on Global Governance)

1997

Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities

(The

InterAction

Council)Slide6

Responsibility initiatives continued:

1998

The Universal Declaration of Global Ethic

(Temple University)

1998

The Charter of Human Responsibilities

(the Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World)

1998

Universal Declaration of Human Duties and Responsibilities

(UNESCO Valencia)

1999

A Common Framework for the Ethics of the 21

st

Century

(UNESCO)Slide7

Responsibility initiatives continued:

2000

Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities

(former Hart Center UK)

2000

Earth Charter

(The Earth Charter Initiative)

2003

Declaration on Human Social Responsibilities

(UN Human Rights Commission (now the Human Rights Council)Slide8

Four initiatives in this paper

1993 Parliament of the World’s Churches

1997

InterAction

Council

1998 UNESCO Valencia Initiative

2003 UN Human Rights CommissionSlide9

Conceptual frameworkSlide10

Details of conceptual framework

Communitarian versus

faith-based

Western notions of individualism (rights) neglected responsibilities

Failure to give duties equal footing with rights caused today’s problems

Western notion of rights is not the only right’s perspective

Need a global ethical standard that reflects principles entrenched in world’s religions

Converse versus

correlative

duties

Responsibilities owed by individuals to society

Vertical duties that run upwards towards society

Responsibility of individual to respect the rights of other individuals

Horizontal duties that run between (across) actorsSlide11

Details of conceptual framework continued:

‘An ethic’ versus

ethics

A global ethic

represents shared ethical values, attitudes and criteria to which all nations and interest groups commit themselves – a universal ethical manifesto

Ethics refers to uniform ethical system (codes of ethics of which some are legally enforceable, norms)

Ethical versus

legal

responsibilities

Ethical responsibilities

are personally felt by a person who is internally motivated to accept the duty out of a sense of conscience, love and the dignity of humanity (duty towards others and the community)

Legal responsibilities

are duties that are imposed by an external body or authoritySlide12

Details of conceptual framework concluded

Transcultural

undertandings

and interpretations of core concepts

– the conundrum created when people of different languages and cultures try to agree on how to define and translate:

Duty

Obligation

Responsibility

NOTE –

Küng

(2005) observed most initiatives tend to use

responsibility

because it emphasizes inner responsibility (‘an ethic’) rather than external law (ethics); the term

responsibility

exerts a moral pressure but does not legally compelSlide13

Conceptual framework

Duties to Society

ResponsibilitySlide14

Main intellectual architects

1993 - Council of the Parliament of the World’s Religions (

CPWR

)

Hans

Küng

1997 -

InterAction

Council

Hans

Küng

1998 - UNESCO/Valencia

Richard Goldstone

2003 -

UNHRC

Miguel

Algonso

MartinezSlide15

Basic Models

CPWR

contains four irrevocable

directives (commitments or

affirmations

– ancient guidelines or ethical principles of humanity that underpin all religions)

IAC

contains 19 articles organized into six main topics/themes

Valencia declaration contains 41 articles organized into 12 chapters (akin to major rights housed in

UNDHR

)

UNHRC

contains 29 articles, with 17 of them pertaining to “every person” (no themes or chapters)Slide16

Exercise ...

Slide17

Insights from analysis

31 duties

in total across four initiatives

Common Duties/Themes (7 appeared in all four (22%), 13 appeared in three (42%), 5 appeared in two declarations (16%) and 6 appeared once (19%)

65% (n=20)appeared

three times or more

– evidence of fairly strong correlation

35% (n=11) appeared twice or less, and mostly in the communitarian approach

Relatively unique sets of duties in each initiative, with overlap

Different duties for faith-based versus communitarianSlide18

Insights continued

Titles included the concepts of

universal

and global (to ensure the

future of humanity

and the planet)

Universal means worldwide in scope, global means involving the whole earth – both terms refer to

not being limited to local concerns

Meet basic human needs and security of humankind through reciprocal responsibilitiesSlide19

Insights continued

Three aspire for eventual adoption by the

United Nations

Two of these are receiving a lot of pushback (UNHRC

and

InterAction

Council)

The third, the Valencia one, is under the radar

The one on global ethics has not had any pushback and was not intended for the UN

Pushback

– duties will morph into legal responsibilities that will weaken rightsSlide20

Insights final

Whether it is faith-based or communitarian does not seem to matter (one of each is getting push back – respectively,

InterAction

Council and the

UNHRC

Main focus is

to strive to reconcile

ideologies, beliefs, political views and cultural differences for the good of humanity and the earth –

become grounded

in ethical principals, values and aspirations as fellow humans