Gatherings | Seminars & Other Special Projects | NGO/UN Activities

1. As indicated in the letter of invitation of 19 January, the subject for discussion is Moral dimensions of the public discourse: the legacy of the Social Summit revisited. This meeting will build on the past discussions and extend to new ground. It will be recalled that the World Summit for Social Development, or Social Summit, was a United Nations conference that brought together in March 1995 in Copenhagen, 117 heads of State or Government. The adopted text formulates a comprehensive and demanding conception of social development, includes ten commitments, notably to work towards the eradication of poverty, the promotion of full employment and the fostering of social integration in free and safe societies, and has strong and explicit moral and spiritual orientations. It presents the reduction of poverty as a moral imperative and refers to the material and spiritual needs of individuals, their families and the communities in which they live.

2. During the course of this year, starting with a meeting of the Commission for Social Development at the beginning of February, the United Nations is reviewing the implementation of the commitments and recommendations included in this Copenhagen text. The Triglav Circle, created to pursue the reflection on the meaning and implications of the discourse initiated by the Social Summit, will make a contribution to this review. It has already made a statement to the Commission for Social Development and the possibility to organize, jointly with other interested organizations, a conference on the moral and spiritual dimensions of the work of the United Nations towards the end of 2005, will be discussed during this gathering of the Circle. This topic has to be considered in the context of the current cultural and political atmosphere. To this end the following four items are proposed for discussion:

• Moral philosophy and the spirit of the time

• Moral issues in the political discourse

• Relevance of the values advocated by the Social Summit, and

• Project of a conference in 2005

3. Some annotations on each of these items are presented below.

Item 1: Moral philosophy and the spirit of the time
4. As a discipline, moral philosophy practically disappeared in the course of the 20th century. The successive and cumulative influences of Marxism, existentialism, structuralism and various modes of deconstruction left the determination of the right and the wrong in human behavior to tradition, religion, psychology and psycho-analysis. Several important philosophers, including Sartre and Wittgenstein, expressed their intention to complete their work with reflections on ethics, but did not manage to do so, as if their intellectual demarche did not allow it. Overall, at least in the Western cultures, a mix of vulgar hedonism and positivism led to an emphasis on the self as the source of moral judgment. Lately however, there has been a marked renewed interest in morals and morality among academics as well as a strong “popular” interest in practical ethical questions, ranging from corporate behavior to the application of science on the reproduction of human beings. Hence a number of questions, including:

• What is the meaning and significance of this apparent preoccupation with ethical issues? Not unlike various forms of militant fundamentalism, to what extent are they manifestations of the search for ways to fill the moral and spiritual vacuum left by an extremely destructive 20th century?

• How are those sentiments and reactions shared in Asia, Africa, or Latin America?

What can be said, to day, about the foundations of morals? One of the great effort of the philosophers and essayists of the Enlightenment, from Hume to Voltaire and from Rousseau to Kant, was to ground morals on reason, or on a mix of reason and sentiments, in order to undermine revelation and dogma and to harmonize freedom and morality. They then referred to various versions of natural law, human nature, deism and “religion naturelle.” Even Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and their utilitarianism did not fully reject the notion of a human nature giving to the person a moral sense that will make socially right the pursuit of one’s own happiness. Long before, Aristotle, Confucius, or Averroes had comparable demarches. And, current references, including in the discourse of the United Nations, to “human decency” as the ultima ratio for deciphering the right and the wrong, emanate from the same assumption on “something” a-historical and universal to counter moral relativism. On which moral foundation(s) is, for example, the work of the Triglav Circle based? Is the foundation of morals necessarily to be sought in the spiritual realm? Is pluralism in this domain conceivable without moral relativism?

What is the current relevance of a moral of intention? For most philosophers and moralists of the past, proper motives alone made actions morally worthy and right. Even apparently good results of these actions, not only for the self but also for the community, were morally invalidated by intentions shaped by egoism, greed, power, or desire to be recognized and admired. A morality of results, of outcomes, of “outputs” seems to prevail in today’s dominant culture, whether for private or public actions. Has the Circle something to say on that matter?

Item 2: Moral issues in the political discourse
5. Moral pronouncements, injunctions or exhortations have always been part of the discourse of political leaders and have always shaped political doctrines and parties and political debates and controversies. And there has always been morally inspiring, morally mediocre, and morally degrading political discourses. Some have called on generosity, solidarity and the noblesse of the human spirit. Others have stirred hate, racism and aggressiveness. And, in any case, many of these discourses have shaped history, for the better and for the worst. This power of the word is compounded, at least in terms of speed and scope of its dissemination, by the present means and techniques of communication. Some political statements resonate throughout the world. And the world is made of nations and regions that are both increasingly interdependent and increasingly divided within and among themselves. Given this formidable power of the political discourse, the following questions might usefully be addressed:

What would be the features of a morally perfect political discourse? Beyond national specific circumstances, is it possible, and useful, to try identifying such ideal? Intellectual quality and moral quality should presumably be linked and mutually reinforcing. But persuasion, including for good objectives and causes, implies some disrespect for intellectual nuances. Or does it? And, criteria for judging “quality” imply a universal set of values and principles. But such effort at reaching the universal is precisely what characterized the Enlightenment, not only in 18th century Europe but for all civilizations at some point of their history. It would seem that a “renaissance of the human spirit” calls for the formulation of a political and moral ideal that the political discourse ought to approximate.

Are there moral issues that ought to be left outside of the political discourse? If, as any theory of moral philosophy would suggest, there is a continuum between the private and the public spheres of morality, is it nevertheless possible and useful to identify a domain of private morals that ought to be left to private individual conscience and judgment? This question is all the more important that calls for moral reform or respect for moral standards and rules quite consistently come from conservative or reactionary and usually authoritarian quarters. Liberal democracy seems to imply such distinction between private and public morality.

Or, returning to the ideal, are intellectual quality and moral prudence and moderation more important than the distinction between a private and a public sphere of morality? Moralism on the part of reactionary and authoritarian leaders is, or at least has been, paralleled with calls by revolutionary figures for moral servitude to a public cause. And liberal democracies have seldom avoided moral laxity and moral hypocrisy. Thus, is the use of reason, the sense of responsibility, respect for the audience in any circumstance, and overall benevolence, the only meaningful guideposts for a morally acceptable practice of the political discourse?

Item 3: Relevance of the values advocated by the Social Summit
6. In two of the eight short paragraphs of the preamble of the Charter of the United Nations, “We the peoples of the United Nations” express their determination “to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom” and, to that end, “to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples.” Inseparable from this, are ends and means pertaining to peace and security and to respect for fundamental human rights. The text adopted fifty years later by the Social Summit, as the texts of all major United Nations conferences held in the last part of the 20th century, reflects the same vision of the world and its desirable organization.

7. It is a vision expressing faith in the human capacity to progress towards ideals of peace, security and freedom, through the cooperation of nations that are unequal in power but enjoy the same rights and privileges. And it is not imprudent to assume that this vision would have met the approval of the great moral philosophers and juris-consults of the past. But the world seems to be heading for a new course, seen by some as a tragic impasse and by others as full of promises. The central question is whether the moral and political principles and values embodied in the text of the Social Summit and in the Charter constitute an ideal that remains valid and always difficult to implement, or whether they represent ideas of the past, rendered obsolete by the great transformation of the world ideological and political scene that was initiated in the 1980s. More specifically:

• What is the resonance, and appeal, of the idea that societies (our underlining) must address the material and spiritual (our underlining) needs of individuals, their families and the communities in which they live?

• What about the idea of progress?

• What are the conditions for an effective and respectful cooperation between “partners” with different power, interests and conceptions of society?

Item 4: Project of a conference in 2005
8. It would seem appropriate, and desirable, that, given its origins and its purpose, the Triglav Circle takes the lead in organizing a conference of sort before the end of the year to revisit the message of the Copenhagen Summit and the Seminar in Bled that preceded this Summit. This has been mentioned in the statement that the Circle made at the UN Commission for Social Development on 14th February. It will be elaborated in a Note that will be available to this gathering. There are four main issues to be discussed and worked out:

• The title of this conference/meeting and its focus

• The type of participants that would be sought, notably the desirable “mix” of activists (NGOs), academics and persons involved in public political institutions (national governments, international organizations)

• The organizations that could be the partners of Triglav on this occasion, and related to this, the relations of the event with the UN, notably its Secretariat

• The financing of the event, its venue and outcome.

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