The Ten Principles

Behaviorism, through observation of animal behavior, strengthened beliefs in the power to change human nature by arranging conditions favorable to the desired changes. In the 1920s, behaviorism was broadly accepted in the United States, principally in theories of pediatrics and infant training and education in general. The greatest influence, however, was on thinking in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There, the so-called new Soviet citizen was developed according to behaviorist principles through the conditioning power of the rigidly controlled Soviet society. Soviet ethics defined good as whatever is favorable to the state and bad as everything opposed to it.

In his late 19th-century and early 20th-century writings, the American philosopher and psychologist William James anticipated Freud and Pavlov to some extent. James is best known as the founder of pragmatism, which maintains that the value of ideas is determined by their consequences. His greatest contribution to ethical theory, however, lies in his insistence on the importance of interrelationships, in ideas as in other phenomena.

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell has influenced ethical thinking in recent decades. A vigorous critic of conventional morality, he held the view that moral judgments express individual desires or accepted habits. In his thinking, both the ascetic saint and the detached sage are poor human models because they are incomplete human beings. Complete human beings participate fully in the life of society and express all of their nature. Some impulses must be checked in the interests of society and others in the interest of individual development, but it is a person's relatively unimpeded natural growth and self-realization that makes for the good life and harmonious society.

A number of 20th-century philosophers, some of whom have espoused the theories of existentialism, have been concerned with the problems of individual ethical choice raised by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. The orientation of some of these thinkers is religious, as was that of the Russian philosopher Nikolay Aleksandrovich Berdyayev, who emphasized freedom of the individual spirit; of the Austrian-Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, who was concerned with the morality of relations between individuals; of the German American Protestant theologian Paul Tillich, who stressed the courage to be oneself; and of the French Catholic philosopher and dramatist Gabriel Marcel and the German Protestant philosopher and psychiatrist Karl Jaspers, both of whom were concerned with the uniqueness of the individual and the importance of communication between individuals. A different tendency in modern ethical thought characterizes the writings of the French philosophers Jacques Maritain and Étienne Gilson, who followed the tradition of Thomas Aquinas. According to Maritain, “true existentialism” belongs only to this tradition.

Certain other modern philosophers do not accept any of the traditional religions. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger maintains that no God exists, although one may come into being in the future. Human beings are, therefore, alone in the universe and must make their ethical decisions with the constant awareness of death. The French philosopher and novelist Jean-Paul Sartre was an atheist who also emphasized the awareness of death. Sartre also maintained that people have an ethical responsibility to involve themselves in the social and political activities of their time.

Several other modern philosophers, such as the American John Dewey, have been concerned with ethical thought from the viewpoint of instrumentalism. According to Dewey, the good is that which is chosen after reflecting upon both the means and the probable consequences of realizing the good. Contemporary philosophical discussion of ethics in England and the United States is largely based on the writings of George Edward Moore, especially his Principia Ethica. Moore argued that ethical terms are definable in terms of the word good, whereas “good” is undefinable. This is so because goodness is a simple, unanalyzable quality. Philosophers who disagree with Moore in this regard, and who believe good to be definable, are termed naturalists. Moore is called an intuitionist. Naturalists and intuitionists regard ethical sentences as descriptive of the world, and hence true or false. Philosophers who disagree with this belong to a third major school, noncognitivism, in which ethics is not a form of knowledge, and ethical language is not descriptive. An important branch of the noncognitive school is logical empiricism, which questions the validity of ethical statements as compared with statements of fact or of logic. Some logical empiricists argue that ethical statements have only emotional or persuasive significance. Other contemporary American philosophers writing to indicate a concern with ethical considerations are Sidney Hook in his Human Values and Economic Policy (1967) and Mortimer Adler in The Conditions of Philosophy (1965).

The Ten Principles

The UN Global Compact's ten principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption enjoy universal consensus and are derived from:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The International Labour Organization's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work

The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development

The United Nations Convention Against Corruption

The UN Global Compact asks companies to embrace, support and enact, within their sphere of influence, a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labour standards, the environment and anti-corruption:

Human Rights

Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and

Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Labour

Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;

Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;

Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labour; and

Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Environment

Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;

Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and

Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

Anti-Corruption

Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16