NOTE : this paper was delivered at the PDG Conference, Braziers Park, May 2000.
Roger’s question "What is Man for?" is much the same as "What am I for?", and deals with the subjective issue - How I should behave in certain circumstances? It deals with the moral problem of acting in accordance with one’s previous education and experience.
Here I take the objective, ethical, approach, and ask "What are People for?" What principles guide personal and public policies towards other people, both locally and globally? And, more fundamentally, what is the source of such ethical principles?
Are People Assets or Liabilities? What are they for? A working answer to this question is needed before (most if not all) the decisions of life, whether individual, community, national, or global, can be made in a moral or ethical way (NOTE : Although often used interchangeably, there is a distinction. Ethics = theory of right and wrong conduct - ethical principles - values one seeks to express in a certain situation. Morals = the practice / way of behaviour - the way one sets about achieving the end. Ethics = generality; Morals = particular). I am becoming increasingly certain that we lack such an answer, because our world is changing faster than our philosophies. The result is that we are adrift in a sea of moral uncertainties and inconsistencies.
At every level, actions so often take the form of crisis management, which often produces further problems, because we seem to lack broad ethical foundations for those policies. Let us consider this at various levels.
At the level of individuals
What are children for? - Why does a couple have children? - First, there is that part of the in-built nature of human beings to want to breed, and to do so to the limit of their physical capacity. Some moral / religious teachings seem to promote this idea (and some couples seem to do so anyway), but in most cultures various forms of moderation apply. Sometimes, especially in the poorest communities in almost all countries, children are an unwanted burden, at other times they are assets - labour to support the economy of the family.
But what directs the attitude of the average Western parents? The churches (or equivalent in other religions) in a traditional setting have always provided a moral purpose for children - "to grow up to do God’s work on earth, etc." and "to have dominion over nature" - and this generally meant the more people the better. But that is no longer wholly satisfactory in a globalised world
All this seems to leave the individual parents without an ethical basis for the children they beget. It shows in many ways - in dysfunctional families - in the split between parents and children - increasing tensions between the generations, especially as the latter become teenagers - a lack of pride in the family - the development of the child’s personality is left to the state via. the educational system ……So, - "What do they have children for?"
Educational Philosophy
Various aims of education (i.e. schooling)
[This will be discussed at the Braziers conference in October]
Social Purposes
Does a town or county regard an increase of population as a good thing, increasing its importance, etc., or as a burden, needing more houses, schools, roads, etc.?
Similar questions apply at the national level (e.g. in the U.K.). Do we welcome immigrants, asylum-seekers, returning expatriates? If not, would we welcome significant numbers of our present population emigrating?
What criteria are there for an optimum population? Are natural resources the main deciding factor? If natural resources are fixed, is it ethically better for a small number of people to share them, with a high standard of living, or a larger number living at a lower standard?
Is being selective an answer? Is it ethical to attract the young, fit, skilled, and to reject the old, infirm, unskilled, even from within the nation?
What are the moral answers to these questions if they are to apply globally?
The Problem at the National and International Level
The ethics applied to the question of the number of children, and hence the size of the population, varies, depending on the state of the local society and/or on national policy.
The extreme case is China, which (recently) set a limit of one child per couple by law. This is based on the principle that the country would be better off if its natural resources were divided among a smaller population. What is ethical basis for that policy? It is unpopular among the individuals affected - Chinese traditionally like large families, and even if a family’s share of wealth were fixed, they may well prefer to share it among a large group than a small one, provided this does not lead to a starvation level of existence. The policy may in fact be based on the well being of the state rather than of its inhabitants. People are beginning to be seen as liabilities rather than assets.
The situation was similar in India some years ago, when near-compulsory sterilisation was tried, but was rejected by the population. In other poor, underdeveloped countries, large families, especially of boys, are traditionally considered as assets, necessary labour for the maintenance of their economy, rather than extra mouths to feed. Girl-babies are regarded differently in both India and China. Attitudes are changing, partly under Western influence
We in the West have no doubt that the world is already over-populated, and is becoming increasingly so, especially by Third-World people. Economic arguments, supposedly based on sustainability, are often put forward in support of this view. In reality, I doubt whether this is the case. The West adjusts its ethical principles to suit the continued prosperity of itself. We see over population as arising in the Third World, and presenting a threat to our own way of life, which in the long run may well be true.
But this overlooks the massive increase in the population of European races which took place during the previous two or three centuries, and which expanded into the rest of the world, usually at the expense of the indigenous peoples. In Victorian England, large families were normal and favoured - they provided the labour for farms, mines and factories both at home and overseas, they supplied the army and navy, and they colonised all suitable territories they could acquire in the rest of the world. They made Britain "Great", and gave her an Empire of which they were all proud. Other European countries acted similarly, and the West that we know today is their direct descendant. During that period, therefore, it was accepted that empire building was ethically sound.
In recent times, we have been having doubts, and history is gradually being rewritten. But are our (i.e. the West’s) ethical principles any less biased now? We have invented the modern nation-state, and hence national boundaries, which we use our military power to police. Where once we had no hesitation in settling very large numbers of our surplus population in other people’s territories, we now show the greatest reluctance in allowing any of the latter into ‘our’ lands. The spread of Europeans into North America, pushing out and decimating the native Indians, in the course of two or three centuries, followed by strict immigration controls since then, is the prime example. The result is the massive differences in the use of natural resources, and hence in the standard of living, between the West and the Third World. Ethical foreign policies only nibble at the edges of this issue.
The Global Problem
Even if the inequalities between the West and the Third World were evened out, there would remain the major underlying ethical problem of how many people are to be brought into existence, globally. In the past, this problem did not arise, but recent scientific and technological advances have made it what is probably the prime ethical issue of our time. Given that the globe is limited in area and basic resources: -
The following are some of the principal factors involved -
Factors affecting numbers of people
Factors affecting attitudes
Conclusion
Ethical answers to the question "What are People for?" are needed which are applicable globally - by the peoples of the Third World as well as by the West - and at all levels.
And, finally, does Philosophy have the basic role to play in giving ethical guidance on these questions? - Or is it the role of religion? - If so, Which?
Leslie Haddow