Serialised book (with a progressively updated >>dashboard/ToC<< page). Part II: Philosophy of the Life Instinct

Book: Philosophy of Life Instinct: Chapter 24: Ethics

What should we do and not do?

Morality, like love, is not enough. Lovers need the right conditions and behaviour for the partnership to work, and society needs something more than morals. Ethics is this vital enabler.

To have a framework for clear thinking, we differentiated ethics from morality in Chapter 23. Let’s briefly recap the difference to set the context for our exploration of ethics.

Morality is our internal value system about right and wrong, good and bad social behaviour. Ethics is about the externally imposed rules of social conduct. Moral positions are subjective, being statements about beliefs, attitudes or emotions of the sort “I think murder is wrong” or “I would never cheat someone” or “I hate being lied to”. On the other hand, ethical statements are prescriptive or commanding, e.g., “We shall not kill” or “Do not tell lies.” In this sense, ethics is a subset of morality as ethical rules do not cover all moral positions.

Another distinction is that moral positions do not always turn into actions or have real effects, but there are always social and individual consequences in being or not being ethical.

In brief, Morality helps us personally answer the question — “What is right and wrong for our interaction with others?” and ethics answers for us — “What should I do in specific social situations?” And the answers may not always be in agreement.

Let us look at the development of ethical systems, common ethical standards, the law, the benefits of ethics, where they have fallen short, ethical conundrums and ways to accelerate ethical behaviour.

The development of ethics

Moral goodness is essential for society to exist. Still, as we have realised with several human capabilities, it is limited by the conflict between our selfishness and the need to maintain social associations. There are also genuine moral dilemmas in which no action seems good enough. We saw several of these in Chapter 23 on morality. So if we live purely based on our personal and subjective moral codes, humanity may survive, but it will be fractious, aggressive, violent and unhappy. We will also have far less power over the environment, and our numbers will dwindle to a fraction of what we have reached. Let’s assume that’s not a good thing.

In pre-historic times natural mating became marriage, learning became education, spiritual needs became religion, and work became industry. Similarly, we found the need to formulate a system of behavioural rules to get the best from our social interactions and behaviours.

Whereas morality arose instinctively from our interdependent nature and the fears and desires associated with it, ethics is a thought out system that we have codified, and in large parts, governed by law. Both are about others, but the ultimate beneficiary is the individual, which is natural, as individuals are where the Life Instinct resides (see Chapter 4 on Life and the Life Instinct).

Sources of ethics

The sources we saw for our moral beliefs are also those for ethical thinking, with one difference: in ethics, they guide behaviour instead of exploring values.

1. Community and culture

In its natural development as a social form of life, humanity settled in groups on the banks of lakes and rivers. The Life Instinct in the individuals encouraged joint and complementary work and mutual consideration, care and respect.

But humans are far from ideal creatures. Our moral thinking and understanding do not provide us sufficient self-control, and we end up lying, cheating and worse for our benefit. We would have observed this dysfunction and figured out the need to enforce what most of us accept as beneficial. It gave birth to the systematic identification of socially harmful actions and ways to prevent them.

The social groups in settlements of varying sizes provided themselves with rules of public behaviour and created laws to enforce good behaviour.

2. Social institutions

The development of social institutions could not have happened without the rules that underlie them. They would have begun with the rudiments and gone on to become more sophisticated and mature. Here are some of the ethics of three vital social constructs.

• Marriage is based on rules of fidelity, care and sharing.
• Industry adopts codes of professional care and fair competition.
• Education has rules of attendance, discipline and respect.

3. Government

As we saw in Chapter 20, governments manage society for the collective good and promote and protect the interests of individuals. Ethics has the same aims, and naturally, the essential functions of government are to create and enforce laws of ethical behaviour.

4. Religion

Neither early forms of community rules, government, nor ethical guidelines of marriage, work and education proved strong enough for large scale social cohesion. We needed something more potent. It is a crucial reason religion developed and became so strong in people’s lives. It took advantage of our fears and desires and put them to work to drive good social behaviour.

Ethical rules are a cornerstone of all religions. One may go so far as to say that the regulation of social behaviour is one of the two main aims of religions, the other being personal reassurance and salvation. They developed an elaborate framework of exhortations to meet this goal, with warnings and consequences for not following its rules and rewards for following them. We can outline the system as below.

1. Core rules of social behaviour as dos and don’ts.
2. Supporting rules of personal behaviour to show allegiance to the faith.
3. Supporting system of ultimate sources of knowledge, truth, promises, rewards and punishments.
4. Supporting declarations that followers are exceptional, others can enrol, and those who don’t are evil or lost.
5. Supporting stories of gods, devils, religious heroes, villains and supplementary characters to tie it all together and become memorable.
6. Supporting rituals, practices and a calendar of events for individual and group indoctrination and bonding.

It has served the purpose for several millennia by creating cohesive and cooperative communities of small to multi-country size. Thus, religious leaders such as Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Mahavira, Guru Nanak and Krishna (and those who contributed to their teachings) were ethicists.

Many of the ethical rules of all religions are similar. Given that their aims are the same, it is natural to make us work well with each other. So they all urge honesty, reciprocity, helping each other, sexual fidelity, charity, humility, and so on, and prohibit murder, theft, betrayal, etc.

(Please see the bibliography for the ethical teachings of a few major religions. In addition, we studied religion in depth in Chapter 11.)

5. Leaders of ethical thinking

There have been several philosophers, writers and secular leaders who have given deep thought to ethical problems. They have played a significant part in shaping personal and public attitudes and beliefs to right and wrong in our behaviour and interactions. Some notable examples are Plato, Aristotle (see, e.g., his Nicomachean Ethics), Confucius, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, Karl Marx, and Mohandas Gandhi.

Most people will not know the precise ideas of these leaders of moral and ethical philosophy, but their ideas have influenced political leaders, framers of constitutions and judges worldwide. Over time, they have become part of our collective human consciousness, beliefs and attitudes and guide our daily life in many ways.

Self-imposed ethical standards

There are two ways ethical rules are implemented worldwide — through codes adopted by professional and community groups and the law. We will look at the latter in the next section.

Many professional bodies have adopted codes of ethics to regulate the behaviour of their members, establish and maintain their reputation and gain public trust and work. A few examples are the Hippocratic Oath and code of ethics for doctors, Journalism code of Practice, Realtors Code of Practice, etc.

Organisations generally adopt two codes of ethics — Codes of Business (or Organisation) and Codes of Conduct. The former is about how the organisation will work with customers, society, other organisations, regulatory bodies, government and the law. Codes of Conduct are for the employees of an organisation or members of a profession and lay down their duties towards each other, the company, customers, etc.

Together they cover such areas as:

• Equal opportunity
• Discrimination
• Violence
• Safety
• Privacy
• Misconduct
• Insider trading and financial interests
• Employee political interests
• Financial interests in other companies
• Maintaining and disclosing accurate records
• Information security
• Protecting communication and information technology systems
• Protecting external communications
• Use of company property
• Use of intellectual property owned by others
• Protecting intellectual property
• Doing business with governments
• Receiving gifts and entertainment
• Loans, bribes, and kickbacks
• Interaction with competitors
• Relationships with customers
• Attendance and punctuality
• Absence without notice
• General harassment and sexual harassment
• Abuse of power
• Intimidation and bullying
• Reprisals for reporting transgressions
• Workplace romance
• Internet use at work

Ethics and the law

We realised long ago that mutual agreements on bad social behaviour did not suppress it sufficiently. The rewards and punishments of religion, like heaven, hell, karma, moksha, etc., added weight in making us all good but still fell short. So we developed the system of accusation, trial, judgement and punishment by citizens and government called law.

The law backs up many ethical rules. The main types are listed below in two categories, public and private law.

A. Public Law

Public law governs the relationships between individuals and the public, with the government representing the public interest. There are three types of public law.

• Criminal Law sets out rules to govern offences such as murder, assault, robbery, kidnapping, tax evasion, etc.
• Administrative Law lays down rules to govern the relationship between individuals and government departments, boards and agencies. E.g., health and safety, worker’s compensation, social assistance, etc.
• Constitutional Law is the mother of all laws. It governs the distribution and exercise of government powers in line with the constitution of the country. It overrides all other laws, limits government, executive and judiciary powers, divides power between the centre and states and interprets all other laws to ensure they follow the constitution.

B. Private Law (Civil Law)

Private law governs the relationships between individuals and between individuals and organisations. It is also known as Civil Law, and the consequences and settlements are primarily financial rather than physical punishment. It usually comprises the following.

• Family Law covers rules for marriage, property division after divorce, child custody, etc.
• Contract Law has the rules for agreements between individuals and businesses.
• Wills and Estates rules are for property division after a person dies, including the absence of a will.
• Property Law covers rules for ownership of property, including buying and selling of real estate.
• Employment Law sets down rules governing employee and employer relationships, including work hours, minimum wage, etc.
• Tort Law includes rules governing accidental or deliberate damage to persons or property in civil situations without contractual agreements. E.g., harm due to negligence or failure to discharge a reasonable duty of care, professional negligence, etc.

International Law

The former were all domestic laws. But we need rules to govern the behaviour and relationships of countries, and these are the ambit of International Law. It covers maritime and land boundaries, trade, financial transactions, extradition of criminals, defence agreements, environment and pollution-related agreements and numerous other areas of cooperation in the global society of nations.

(Please see the bibliography for further reading.)

What ethics has done for us

Ethics has provided the foundation for large-scale societies to develop and work in a well-oiled way. It has enabled all of humanity’s natural enterprise and intelligence to bear fruit. In some ways, it may even have increased our intelligence by creating the conditions for the free-flowing exchange of knowledge, ideas and skills in safe and dependable conditions. These create new neural networks and increase our capacity for imagination, memory, and adaptability as critical aspects of intelligence.

Ethics has ensured the dependable social cooperation that has led to the power we exercise over the planet and all other life forms on it, our massive population of 7.7 billion, the interplanetary trips we have begun, and all the products and resources we have created for ourselves as a species.

Of course, the side effects of our robust global and national cooperation have also damaged our planet's ecology and other life forms. We will consider this challenge for ethics in the section on further ethical developments later in this chapter.

Ethical shortcomings

Ethics has delivered a lot for human society, but it has fallen short in its consistency in individuals and organisations and inclusivity of the planet’s flora, fauna and ecosystems.

Crimes against others by individuals, groups and organisations is one of humanity’s shameful features. (We study its causes and future deeply in Chapter 26, on Imperfections of the Life Instinct.) Here is a quick survey of the different types of prevalent unethical and illegal behaviour.

Individual unethical behaviour

Crime by private citizens continues throughout the world, with variations between countries. We can see the rates of all the major crime types in this comprehensive resource, compiled by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). About half a million humans are killed in homicides by other humans. Rape and sexual assault are highly underreported worldwide, but at least a third of women have experienced it, mostly from intimate partners. Corruption in individuals, both grand and petty, including bribery, nepotism, patronage, embezzlement, money laundering, tax evasion, etc., is rampant worldwide, with a higher incidence where economic development and civil society are weak. It costs us hundreds of billions of dollars every year globally.

Unethical mob behaviour

A mob can often behave very differently from individuals. It can be uncaring, hateful, aggressive and violent. Lynchings, racial chants, property damage, rioting, looting, stampeding, and other herd behaviours occur worldwide. It has been studied in depth as mob psychology, herd mentality or crowd psychology. It is a primordial aspect of the Life Instinct and exists in most social animals, birds, fishes, bacteria, etc. It is rooted in there being strength in numbers. When a crowd of social animals realises it has reached a critical mass, which it estimates from direct and indirect communication, there emerges a mutual understanding it can achieve something that an individual or smaller group cannot. At this point, the mob members lose their sense of individuality and self-awareness. Their emotions intensify. They feel anonymous, transfer their sense of responsibility to the group, and allow themselves to accept actions they would otherwise consider immoral and unethical. An inciting mob leader can accelerate this.

Unethical business

Capitalism has been the most successful economic system for humanity, but it is prone to greed and corruption by its very nature. The desire for ever-increasing profit and ‘shareholder value’ drives the need for market dominance, which leads to lies about product quality and safety, tax avoidance, environmental disregard, stock exchange manipulation, bribery of governments and regulators, exploitation of workers, etc. Business corruption is estimated to cost between 2 to 3 trillion dollars every year.

Unethical militaries

There is a history going back thousands of years of atrocities committed by armed forces. Its roots are machismo, herd mentality, hatred and vengefulness multiplied by the power of arms and the physical training to maim and kill. Some of the worst examples are the slaughter of Armenians between 1915–23, atrocities committed by the Nazi war machine against jews and disabled citizens between 1939–45, Unit 731 of the Japanese army’s horrific human experimentation on Chinese and Russians between 1937–45, the savage Congolese civil war of the 1990s, and hundreds of such unbelievable episodes of human brutality.

Unethical politics and government

Political control and government posts are among the ultimate forms of power for individuals and their supporters in the human species. It is a natural roosting ground for unethical behaviour as the stakes are high and the politically ambitious are willing to achieve the ends by any means. Unfortunately, in many cases, those who end up in power are inept or harmful, to begin with, or start as good people, but the process corrupts them, or they create so much damage on the way to the top that it outdoes any good they do. Bribery, misuse of state machinery, snooping, covering up affairs, nepotism, threats, and so on seem to come with the territory. Some of the worst political scandals have been around Watergate, Francois Mitterand in France, Chen Shui-bian in Taiwan, etc.

Unethical law enforcement

Policing, the very institution meant to enforce ethical behaviour, is in many countries rife with bribe-taking, using excessive force, brutality, discrimination, wrongful detention, custodial harm, misuse by those in power, etc. Corrupt and weak policing affects a lot more than individual safety and protection as law enforcement covers even our most wide-ranging rules. It is a severe weakness in humanity’s ethical systems.

Unethical religious institutions

Religion was our creation for motivating good social behaviour but inevitably displays all our weaknesses. Church and temple systems are greedy businesses, and many priests prey on the laity in several ways.

Unethical behaviour as a species

Humans are the most dangerous animal on the planet. We have been a wrecking ball for nature and thousands of species of life on Earth. Here are some of our worst excesses.

• Over-consuming many species — Our intelligence and social cooperation led to great power over nature, animals and plants. We hunted into extinction species in historical times, such as mammoths, dodos, great auks, aurochs, Stellar’s sea cows, and passenger pigeons. In modern times, we are doing the same to the pangolin, beluga sturgeon, giant salamander, Angelshark, Red river turtle, European eel, and even primates such as the Eastern Lowland Gorilla, Red Colobus, and Indri lemur. We have brought five of the thirteen great whales to endangered status. General human activity threatens many species as a side-effect. In several parts of the world, we use animal parts for pseudo-medicinal or pseudo-aphrodisiacal purposes. Industrial livestock breeding has contributed significantly to global warming, affecting all plants, animals, and us. We need to reduce our dependency on meat and fish. There is enough evidence that reducing meat from our diet is not only acceptable for us but can also have several health benefits.
• Eliminating species dangerous to us — We have been selective in what we respect and what we consider fit to destroy, but there is a delicate balance between all forms of life. Mosquitos, tsetse flies, viruses, bacteria, rats, bats, spiders, snakes, etc., are dangerous for humans but have a role in ecosystems. We have a right to life and need to protect ourselves from them, but eliminating them or any other species we consider dangerous, pestilential, or infestation is not the answer. Instead, we should avoid, control and cull with restraint.
• Using animals for testing — The immorality and unfairness of exploiting other animals for our health and ideas of beauty are yet to completely sink into the mind of the species that considers itself the most advanced on Earth. We are self-centred and feel special, entitled and self-important compared to other life forms. So we continue full steam ahead with painful, torturous and murderous animal testing in the scientific medicine and cosmetics industries.
• Killing and mistreating animals for sport — We are still morally and ethically immature enough as a species to hunt animals and birds, enslave them, and make them unnaturally compete for our entertainment. It simply needs to be eliminated through the widespread enactment of laws and preventing such barbaric practices.
• Decimating many species of plants and trees — We have cleared much of the planet's forest cover for farming and converted vast tracts of land to growing fodder for industrial-scale meat industries. We have disregarded the needs of the previously inhabiting animals, birds, insects, trees and shrubs. The change in the green cover of landmasses has contributed to global warming and chain reactions of species loss.
• Unethical climate impact — By now, early in the 21st century, most educated and connected people in the world know about the global warming we have caused and the climate changes it has brought about. Many are also aware of its effects,e.g., flash flooding, deficient and excess rainfall, heat waves, forest fires, frequent and powerful storms, rising sea levels, loss of species, human conflicts, and war. The economic consequences are estimated at scores of trillions of dollars from property damage, agricultural losses, job losses, lower wages, industrial losses, and a higher cost of living.

We cannot consider ourselves morally and ethically mature until we actively start redressing the wrongs we have done to all other species and the planet’s biosphere. But, unfortunately, there is a long way to go, and we have not begun in earnest.

(Please see the bibliography for more information on these problems.)

Ethical conundrums

There are areas of human capability where it is not apparent what’s best for us to do. The main challenges are considered below.

Genetic engineering of humans, animals, plants and organisms

For thousands of years, humans have modified plant and animal genetics through selective breeding. It is a form of genetic modification that has provided us with plentiful food and various valuable domesticated animals. There are no problems with this. We can consider it the ethical use of our intelligence, as long as we are not cruel to the animals or disturb the ecological balance.

However, now we are taking our power further through genetic engineering, where we directly modify the gene sequences of plants, animals and microbes using biotechnology. It includes changes to the original DNA, genes from other life forms, and even synthetic materials or artificial cells.

The dangers of genetic engineering are pandemics, long term problems with human health, imbalances in ecosystems, impact on traditional farming, excessive corporate dominance and inequalities of global economic power. There is also the danger of human genetic engineering, or eugenics, for racial or military superiority, resulting in a horrific outcome.

Genetic engineering should be banned, without exception. It is a misuse of our intelligence, and the risks far outweigh the benefits.

Artificial cloning

Artificial cloning involves creating a genetically identical copy of a life form by replacing the nucleus of a female egg cell (oocyte) with one from a somatic cell (e.g., a skin cell) from an adult. Then, the oocyte is planted into the womb of an adult female to grow into a genetically identical copy of the donor of the somatic cell nucleus.

The ethical issues with cloning are the possibility of early death or malformations of the clone and the potential for human cloning, leading to individual, racial or military eugenics and problems of identity and individuality.

We should ban artificial cloning. The only exception can be cloning to recreate an animal or plant species made extinct by the activities of humans.

Stem cell use

Stem cells can be used for various medical treatments such as cancer, genetic syndromes, autoimmune disorders, etc. We can utilise both adult and embryonic stem cells, but the latter involves creating and destroying the embryo, and hence, life. Therefore, the use of the umbilical cord and adult stem cells for medical treatment should be allowed, but we should ban the use of embryonic stem cells.

Artificial organs

The therapeutic use of artificial organs to restore normal human body functions is an ethical use of our intelligence. However, if artificial organs enhance human capabilities beyond the normal, it gives an unfair non-evolutionary advantage. It can also be misused for military purposes. Another issue is affordability and accessibility, which may get limited to the wealthy and privileged, unlike other medical therapies, which are reasonably accessible to all humans.

So the use of artificial organs and limbs should only be allowed for therapeutic purposes.

Artificial intelligence, automation and robotics

AI has been like opening Pandora’s Box. Many ethical issues have emerged, along with some benefits. The critical problems of AI are below.

1. Increased unemployment
2. Dangers of incomplete and inaccurate AI
3. Lack of intelligibility and transparency of AI decisions
4. Potential for inserted bias
5. AI-based fake media and disinformation
6. AI in the hands of evil individuals and countries
7. Inequality and unfair advantage for businesses and individuals possessing superior AI
8. The potential development of robot soldiers that multiply the power of an army and kill mercilessly
9. AI machines becoming as intelligent as us, then surpassing us and producing superintelligent machines themselves. At this point, humans will lose control of AI development, and it will become unpredictable (this is known as the AI ‘singularity’). And there is no guarantee that superintelligent machines will be benevolent to life.

We cannot ban artificial intelligence, but setting limits on it is one of humankind’s biggest challenges.

Equality and difference

Humans are different from each other and have genders, and there is nothing wrong with either. On the contrary, both are necessary for the form of life we are and our evolution. The ethical problem is how we should treat differences. While we can have a default position that equality is good, we cannot apply it blindly, for it could be unintelligent and ineffective. For example, should women be allowed to enlist in the armed forces? Should transgender people be allowed in competitive sports? Must we have affirmative action in jobs for women and minorities? Should just as many men be homemakers? These are difficult questions. We can take guidance from the Life Instinct and look at three aspects for each case to answer them.

1. Does it meet the aspirations of the individual?
2. Is it fair to others who are affected?
3. Does it make the best use of our complementary abilities to benefit everyone?

Where the answer is yes or no for all three, the ethical code or law is obvious. The other cases will remain challenging. For example, it could be yes, yes and yes for a woman to be allowed to enlist as she may aspire to serve her country, meet the physical and emotional requirements, and bring a woman’s perspective to conflicts. The three answers could be yes, no, no for transgender people participating with cisgenders in sports, yes, no, no for affirmative action for jobs for minorities, and yes, yes, no for men as homemakers. The answers are left to the reader to mull over, but we need to apply this test to each question of difference and equality.

Privacy

The instinct for privacy arises from the need for safety and security innate in our Life Instinct. We don’t want others to know everything about us as they may take advantage of us or hurt us. So we instinctively keep things to ourselves and carefully decide whom to trust. The right to security, and hence confidentiality, is recognised as fundamental in many countries, either constitutionally or judicially. It extends to our right to privacy from the government also.

The problem arises when government bodies argue that they need to gather information about everyone, or a large mass of people, to protect us. So, ironically, a safety argument is made to breach our privacy, which is about our safety in the first place. Businesses and social media giants make a different argument — that they need our information to serve us better.

CCTV cameras are ubiquitous, we unavoidably allow data to be gathered about us when we shop or chat online, and our medical histories are all over. As a result, we have already given up a lot of our privacy in the modern world.

What is correct with regards to privacy? Here is a potential ruleset.

• We should always be made aware when information is being collected about us and what it comprises.
• Our public behaviour can be open to monitoring to an extent, giving us safety and redress from crime.
• Our consent must be taken to access our personal information such as our birth date, sex, address, phone number, email ID, marital status, sexual preference, property, finances, relations, etc. In addition, we should have complete information on how it will be used, how long it will be stored, who will have access, etc., and a right to ask for its excision from all records whenever we want.
• To observe our activities at home and workplace or enter them for investigation, the rights of government agencies should be highly exceptional and allowed only with a judicial warrant.

Globalisation

Globalisation is the easy and fast exchange and movement of human resources, goods, services, capital, technologies and businesses all over the planet. However, it has led to some ethical issues, e.g., exploitation and lack of care for low-wage workers abroad, misuse of lax work regulations in some countries, higher global warming from increased consumption of lower-cost goods, abuse of tax havens by multinational companies, etc.

But the Life Instinct makes us inherently a social life form. We have evolved to exploit the power of scale and our complementary skills and resources. It is the organic foundation of globalisation. Every free and democratic country naturally engages in trade for the exchange of supplies which rewards people everywhere.

Globalisation is not bad, but its associated unethical practices that harm people and the environment are wrong. What we need to do is minimise these negatives through global agreements and laws. The creation of one connected fluid world is inevitable and right for us.

Geoengineering

Geoengineering is large scale climate engineering or intervention. The current proposals focus on the reversal of global warming. It comes with the risks of unknown side effects and turning out ineffective yet expensive. However, its aims today are ethically acceptable, given we created the problem in the first place through negligence. Suppose it becomes a significant way of correcting our impact. In that case, we should apply it until it has moved us towards the goals, after which we should disallow it due to its inherent risks to the natural processes and systems that maintain the balance of the planet’s systems.

Animal and plant rights

Are we really a special form of life? Should we just believe the scriptures of religions that say God created everything and is unique, and he created us in his image, which makes us unique too? That would be convenient, self-centred, and childish nonsense. There is no rational basis for human speciesism. Not only do we not have any evidence of absolute value, purpose or speciality, but we are also a danger to other forms of life. If anything, our value should be questioned by any aware being. We find it hard not to consider other life forms as less important and at our disposal for three reasons.

1. We are still animals and instinctively exploit nature because we can, without restraint.
2. We are conscious about our separateness from nature and each other and demand explicitly or implicitly why we should consider other creatures essential but don’t get a convincing answer. (Some religions and cultures advocate care for other animals and nature itself, but in passing and not forcefully or comprehensively.)
3. Our power as a species makes us feel special. We have a massive advantage in intelligence, and there are no other life forms (yet) to compete against us and bring us to our senses.

Why should we care?

There are two reasons we need to be concerned about all life forms, both with their origin in the Life Instinct. (See Chapter 4).

1. As individuals and privately, we have considerable natural empathy for animals and plants and a distaste for pollution and waste. Life Instinct drives these feelings as they are essential for our survival and well-being. Most of us suppress or ignore these feelings and thoughts in daily life out of laziness and uninterest while knowing it is wrong to do so. Of course, we can assume that we humans also have a right to live and need not self-flagellate and die out. We have no absolute value, and neither do whales and dodos. But what we are talking about is the right of all life forms to live and be treated on par, whether Homo sapiens, Bufo bufo (common toad), Gallus gallus domesticus (chicken), Sus scrofa (pig), Rhizophora mangle (mangrove trees), or Sequoia sempervirens (Redwood trees). We have to balance the well-being of all living things. We need to listen to this voice we call our conscience for our own mental and physical happiness.
2. Society developed from our instinctive ability and need to cooperate, and we observe this with detachment and improve it. It’s led to a closely connected and interdependent world. This ‘global mind’ has a ‘global conscience’ that it is hearing faintly today. It’s there to save ourselves from ourselves, which is possible if global society accepts our total dependence on nature and that we have severely defiled animals, plants and the environment.

Population control

There is no doubt we have grown too numerous. Besides the joint damage we do to each other and the environment, our sheer numbers burden the planet and our future. There is no argument for having more humans as we are neither exceptionally beneficial to other species nor have any other cosmic purpose. It is absolutely fine if we are fewer, live better lives, and allow other animals and plants to live well. We cannot advocate increasing our population for our good while the quicksand of human speciesism closes over our heads.

We cannot envisage compulsory birth control as it opposes the very nature of life and the Life Instinct. Fortunately, the population growth rate is falling worldwide. There appears to be consensus we will have a peak population of about 11 billion by 2100 CE, after which it will either become stable or decline. (It is based on several plausible assumptions about human and environmental factors.)

But that is still 3.3 billion more humans, whereas 7.7 billion of us in 2021 are already a few billion too many. So it is only right and good for us and the whole planet to reduce the peak. We need the UN and other world organisations to work out a sustainable and reasonable human population, assuming we set aside half the planet to remain unaffected by humans and rewind the climate to how it was in, say, 1800 CE. If it should be 5 billion humans, we need to set a target year by which we will achieve that, perhaps 2300 CE. There should be no problems of ageing and lack of youth for labour, elder care, etc., as we are intelligent enough to overcome such challenges.

Abortion, Euthanasia and Capital Punishment

We considered abortion and capital punishment as moral issues in Chapter 23. However, we noted that humanity has more or less worked out the ethics and laws around them, so we will not take them as challenging ethical conundrums here but note that:

• Most countries allow a woman to abort a foetus less than 12 weeks old for medical or socio-economic reasons. It fundamentally recognises the greater rights of the adult woman compared to the as yet independently unviable foetus.
• More and more countries are doing away with capital punishment. The ethical arguments are that — we do not create life, so we have no right to take it away; we could be in error about the crime; retribution is immoral; it is cruel, inhumane and degrading and brutalises us; it is an ineffective deterrent and unnecessary; there is a possibility we do not have free will and are not responsible for our crimes.
• Passive euthanasia, where a person can refuse medical intervention, is legal in most countries. However, active euthanasia continues to be illegal in most countries as it is considered unnatural and potentially troubling for us to end someone else’s life, even if the person requests it.

Further ethical development

The Life Instinct has given us the freedom of choice that makes us both good and bad. But we don’t have to accept the bad part of us, whether small or big. Instead, we need to make better choices. And as we possess the Free Will we studied in Chapter 6, we must use it for our moral and ethical improvement.

How to increase ethical behaviour

We studied ways to develop our morals in Chapter 23, on morality. That also forms the foundation of ethical development, but there are some differences as ethics is about what we do, not just what we think, feel, and believe. So there are variations on the internal and external means we can apply to affect our actions themselves. Here are the steps we need to act better for everyone and everything.

1. Observe and understand our impact

The first step in improvement is the acknowledgement of problems. As individuals, communities, governments and world bodies, we have only recently begun studying the effects of our actions on each other and the world at large. We need to invest more money and our best minds to increase studies of the consequences of our collective unethical behaviour. These findings should be the key to shaping government and business policies and school education.

2. Apply internal drivers for ethical maturity

• Emotional Wisdom — we studied Emotional Wisdom in Chapter 13, and it was about how we can work well with others in our family, friends and networks. It strongly affects our ethics when we focus on the most crucial outcome of emotional wisdom— right actions. Concentrating on good behaviour has three excellent effects — it reduces the time available for destructive behaviour, creates positive feedback loops that further increase ethical behaviour, and motivates good behaviour in others.
• Self-actualisation — we saw in Chapter 23 how this is about noticing and understanding ourselves deeply to reach our full potential and achieve a state of graceful flow in life. Ethical thinking and behaviour are a source and outcome of self-actualisation.

3. Apply external drivers for ethical maturity

• Economic development —reducing poverty and joblessness, as they are among the very influential factors associated with high crime rates. Social prosperity reduces crime by allowing better policing, judiciary, education and living conditions.
• Better law enforcement — developing disciplined, well-trained, professional and consistent policing and speedy trials impacts crime reduction significantly. The law should change with evolving ideas of morality and ethics, e.g., decriminalising homosexuality, stringent punishment for environmental damage, etc.
• General education —ensuring classroom attendance and education is an influential factor in reducing unethical and criminal behaviour. Education reduces unethical behaviour in three ways: reducing idle time and time on the streets, which is a significant contributor to anti-social behaviour; making work more attractive than criminal activity for livelihood; increasing thinking, intelligence and self-actualisation. If we aim for 100% high school education and 50% graduation, at the very least, we are sure to see significant falls in crime rates.
• Ethics education — traditional sources of ethical rules such as religion, cultural norms, family rules and community practices have lost their hold in many parts of the world. Increasingly, we are being left to our own devices to behave well. Whereas it can work where people are economically well off, occupied and educated, it creates a sense of being adrift and directionless in many cases. It can lead to private depression and public maladjustment. The best way to address it is by substituting the old ways with a rational, enlightened and broadminded course of ethical studies in primary, secondary and pre-university education.
• Socio-cultural development — democracy, community activities, leadership and cultural norms play a significant part in shaping our morals and ethical behaviour. We cannot underestimate the effect of parents, community leaders, religious leaders, political leaders, owners and top management of companies and global bodies. Their integrity, transparency, communication, and motivation inspire us towards ethical behaviour. Ethics is for cooperation, but we are not cooperating enough for ethics. As individuals, too, we must add our drops of enthusiasm to the sea of good behaviour.
• Laws for ethical challenges — existing laws have just begun to deal with the most challenging problems of ethics, which we surveyed in the conundrums section earlier. We need laws for each of these areas — genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, robotics and automation, animal and plant rights, privacy, artificial organs, stem cell use, artificial cloning and geoengineering.

(Please see the bibliography for further reading on these factors.)

4. Extend ethics to all of nature

In recent decades, we have increasingly acknowledged the rights of animals and other life forms and the importance of nature. The time has come for broader action. Whether for moral reasons or human self-interest, we need to change. We are far off in this from where we need to be.

Here are the basic ethics and laws that can help us do right by animals, plants, and the environment.

1. Outlaw recreational hunting
2. Ban factory farming
3. Make trips to butcheries mandatory for all school children
4. Enforce strict limits on fishing and whaling
5. Ban the use of animal parts for medicinal purposes, clothing, ornaments, etc.
6. Ban animal testing
7. Ban artificial zoos
8. Set aside at least 50% of forests and oceans as protected zones off-limits for human activity
9. Stabilise the global human population at 8 billion or less
10. Adopt vegetarian and vegan diets widely
11. Create a measure of biological impact for any human activity. The example below shows the sort of scoring that can be done, with a cut-off score below which the activity will not be allowed. This metric should be further developed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Dedicated global and local bodies should evaluate any proposed governmental or business activity.

Conclusions

Our dealings with the world make the difference between life and death, happiness and grief, goodness and evil. Until now, we have got a lot right but also much wrong. News of crimes and disasters is always interesting, but we can’t live on negative entertainment.

We have miles to go in our behaviour and our treatment of all the denizens of our home planet. So let’s do justice to our good nature and future by enlarging and accelerating our ethics and laws.

© 2020 Shashidhar Sastry. All rights reserved.

(As each chapter of the book is published, its link is updated in the ToC below.)

Table of Contents

Part I Metaphysics of The Life Instinct

Part II Philosophy of The Life Instinct

Part III The Life Instinct and The Future

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