Representation, Accountability and Sustainable Futures
The paper reflects on current and past research on ethics and identity and explores the following questions: 1. How can intersubjectivity and expanding our relationships across self-other and the environment change our attitude towards representation, accountability and sustainable futures? 2. What is compassion and why is compassion vital for our survival on this planet? 3. What is the link between compassion and the avoidance of hubris (based on making godlike decisions without considering the views of others)? 4. Where do we draw the lines of inclusion and exclusion when we consider rights and responsibilities for sustainable futures? Our environment shapes us and we shape the environment in ongoing recursive cycles. Human animals are not the only toolmakers and not all human animals can make or use tools. Learning through testing out ideas and tools within an environment leads to the evolution of species. Powerful tool makers and users dominate the less powerful and the environment to extract profit and short term gain. Discrimination and frailty can make human animals as vulnerable as other creatures. Expanded pragmatism (as opposed to narrow pragmatism) considers the consequences for self, others and the environment in the short medium and long term of protecting the interests of the powerful at the expense of the powerless. Democracy and governance requires more than social choices made by voting within national boundaries for a limited term, if it is to be representative, accountable and sustainable. It requires open channel processes that are responsive to ongoing socio-political, economic and environmental changes and the identity shifts that occur over generations. It requires caretaking that is extended beyond social contracts to include human rights and the rights of sentient creatures. Living a life at the expense of others (including the next generation) and at the expense of the environment is unsustainable. A caretaking approach to the next generation of life requires an identity shift. The state and market need to be held to account by global citizens who act as caretakers of the next generation of life.
Keywords: caretaking; compassion; design of inquiring systems; expanded pragmatism; intersubjectivity
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 January 2010
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content