Moral Humility for a Complex World

Many of us in the modern world find ourselves implicated in massive, structural harms and injustices. We emit greenhouse gases, which—along with everyone else's emissions—are warming the planet. We buy products that result from bad labor practices. And many of us feel (appropriately, I think) s...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Rieder, Travis N. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2024
In: The Hastings Center report
Year: 2024, Volume: 54, Issue: 6, Pages: 2
Further subjects:B Humility
B Climate Change
B moral purity
B Responsibility
B catastrophe ethics
B ethical choices
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:Many of us in the modern world find ourselves implicated in massive, structural harms and injustices. We emit greenhouse gases, which—along with everyone else's emissions—are warming the planet. We buy products that result from bad labor practices. And many of us feel (appropriately, I think) some amount of guilt for our participation, but also find it difficult or impossible to fully extract ourselves from the problematic systems. I call this challenge of determining individual moral responsibility in the face of massive, structural problems "catastrophe ethics." In this Perspective commentary, I suggest that the ubiquity of catastrophe ethics cases in the modern world justifies adopting a position of moral humility, as we recognize that none of us is morally pure but, rather, we are each choosing our own version of impurity.
ISSN:1552-146X
Contains:Enthalten in: Hastings Center, The Hastings Center report
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1002/hast.4943