One World, by Peter Singer
Recent events have underlined the need for fresh ethical reflection on international issues. The likelihood that the United States will go to war against Iraq has suddenly and urgently placed U.S. foreign policy on the table for discussion. Environmental and economic policies are pressing concerns that quickly push ethical analysis beyond national limits. Many international friends and partner churches complain that despite the size and power of the U.S., the ethical perspectives of its people remain parochial. We need quickly to get up to speed. For this, Peter Singer's book is a good conversation partner.
Singer's premise is that changes in the material world are posing new ethical and organizational challenges that push both moral thought and human institutions in new directions--directions that transcend the nation state and make a new global ethic an urgent necessity. He builds his argument around four areas: the economy, the environment, international law and community. Since complex environmental questions such as holes in the ozone layer and global warming are not confined to individual nations, they cannot effectively be addressed by individual nation states. They require international ethical thought and the international cooperation of governments, scientists and citizens.
Exploring a number of ways to think ethically about environmental questions, considering principles of fairness, such as "he who harms pays," and finding ways to apply the utilitarian calculus of the greatest good for the greatest number, Singer concludes that "the United States and other rich nations should bear much more of the burden of reducing greenhouse gas emissions than the poor nations--perhaps even the entire burden." He points out that rich nations use a disproportionate share of the world's resources but can get away with not paying their fair share of the burden by "standing simply on their presumed rights as sovereign nations." Referring to the U.S.'s consistent refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, Singer argues for the need to "think about developing institutions or principles of international law that limit national sovereignty."
