By addressing the 14 previous Global Challenges through multinational corporations, governments, and a range of international organizations, we add ethical considerations to global decisionmaking. Contemporary entertainment floods our minds with unethical behavior, while news around the world cries out for more ethical interventions. At the same time, synergies of nanotech, biotech, info tech, robotics, genomics, and cognitive science promise god-like powers with ethical implications beyond current discourse. The speed at which we have begun to change the fabric of life seems beyond the ability of science and technology regulators to manage.

Previous moral campaigns by one religion or ideology tend to give rise to "we-they" splits, making it difficult to solve world problems. Collaboration across national and institutional boundaries, as well as religious and ideological ones, seems necessary to address the Global Challenges. Generating the moral will to act across such different systems may require acknowledgment of global ethics. The UN system, the International Organization for Standardization, Transparency International, and the Olympics are unique forces for global ethics. Whether such ethics are discovered or constructed, they are emerging as important to world trade, biotechnology, climate change, countering terrorism, poverty alleviation, etc. Globalization and advanced technology allow fewer people to damage more, in less time, than ever before, hence the welfare of anyone should be the concern of everyone. Such platitudes are not new, but the consequences of their failure will be quite different in the future than in the past.

The prevalence of government corruption, linked with organized crime and terrorism, has become a global phenomenon. Expanding surveillance technology, connected with education and communications systems and the use of universal and accurate lie detectors to counter a range of threats, forces many questions of ethics. An increasingly interconnected world and sophisticated media reporting are making it far more difficult today for unethical decisions to go unnoticed, which seems to call for a new sense of collective responsibility. Much of public morality was based on religious metaphysics, which is challenged by growing secularism; hence, traditional support for morality is weakening.

A global basis for public morality may be emerging, as evidenced by the establishment of the International Criminal Court, corporate ethics indexes, international inter-religious dialogues, UN commissions, think tanks, many ISO standards, and individuals who are organizing themselves around specific ethical issues via the Internet. Others explicitly try to develop global ethics, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNESCO's Universal Ethics Project, the Commission on Global Governance, and the Institute for Global Ethics. The largest gathering of national leaders in history issued the Millennium Declaration in 2000 from the UN Millennium Summit as a statement of global values. The UN Secretary-General has challenged business leaders to join the Global Compact by accepting nine principles of global ethics in decisionmaking. The ISO's Advisory Group on Social Responsibility submitted a set of recommendations for the development of deliverables pertaining to social responsibility. Transparency International publishes the Global Corruption Report. Educating children to become responsible citizens will influence adults and thus the entire population. UNICEF estimates that it would cost $7 billion a year over 10 years to educate the world.

 

A set of universal values or morals from all religions may not be enough to shock us out of our current behavior. Global ethics must not only correspond to the major religious morals, it should also engage both believers and nonbelievers in a new alliance that creates a sense of "being with" all humankind. Courses in ethics should be required for graduation for all levels of school. We have to find effective policies to counter corruption, encourage the will to act (including acting in the interests of future generations), control lobbying, reduce greed and self-centeredness, encourage honor and honesty, promote parental guidance to establish a sense of values, reduce the barriers to the freedom of inquiry, encourage respect for legitimate authority, support the identification and success of the influence of role models, and implement cost-effective strategies for global education for a more enlightened world. 

 

Africa: Africa is unable to raise its voice in global decisionmaking due to weak leadership and rampant corruption. A global process should be initiated that leads to an international code of conduct that empowers a multilateral body like the UN to monitor it, including enforcement of international treaties equally among all nations. Corporate boards of directors should be responsible to the community, not just to shareholders.

 

Asia and Oceania: The Securities and Exchange Board of India is considering a system that will provide corporate governance ratings for companies. Corruption in India is an ethical problem that has to be solved if democracy is to develop soundly. Developing countries want to catch up with the industrialized West, but many are uncomfortable with free market capitalism and with the West preaching but not leading by example. No serious attention to global ethics is given in Japan; some do not believe there are common global ethics, but that the pursuit to create them is a western notion.

 

Europe: The Wittenberg Center has established five areas of future impact by global ethics: sustainability and global governance, corporate citizenship and new alliances, globalization and international organizations, anti-corruption and integrity management, and discourse among cultures. About 20% of UK's top companies produce environmental and social performance reports, and France, Denmark, and the Netherlands require them by law. Wasting time is a reliable indicator of unethical approaches. Global ethics will become the next big issue after environment in the next 25 years. The European integration process will help establish ethical standards. There is a need to train decisionmakers on ethics and to limit brutality and violence on TV as well as advertisements offering only selfish consumption.

 

Latin America: A new ethical code has emerged involving ecological ethics, human rights, democracy, free-market ethics, and minority protection. But will a new religion be necessary to replace the moral force of old religions?

 

North America: Decisionmaking software could prompt the user through ethical considerations of their decisions. The Institute for Global Ethics lists five values identified around the world: respect, honesty, compassion, fairness, and responsibility. Socially responsible investment funds are growing. Ethics and values of the region are highly influenced by a tradition of competition and winning for its own sake. Changes needed include laws against nepotism within the ruling elite, full disclosure, and limits on large corporate and private donations to political fund-raising. Transnational organized crime is the greatest source of corruption.