Seminar on the Philosophical, Ethical and Cultural Dimensions of Health and the Environment
The Sawyer Seminar Program on Health and Environment in China and India
organized in cooperation with the Triglav Circle
Duke University
9-10 November 2007
The Sawyer Seminar Program held at Duke University is directed by Professor Dominic Sachsenmaier (history). Scholars, public intellectuals, representatives of intergovernmental organizations (IGO’s) and non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) have been invited to share in events related to this year long Program.
Agenda
While bearing in mind the urgent health and environmental problems of the two most populous and fastest growing economies in the world, this meeting will consider the following two themes:
I: Philosophical and cultural issues arising in tensions between the goal of development and the necessity to pursue social, cultural, and environmental sustainability.
II: Ethical and humanistic dimensions of the activities of transnational business, NGO, and IGO projects on local communities. Striking a balance between the need for global support structures and information with the importance of indigenous knowledge and the dignity of local inhabitants.
These two topics raise multiple questions. The following are a sampling of the types of questions participants might address to move the discourse on these subjects beyond the traditional debates on development taking place regularly in international and national forums, where the discourse is dominated by instrumental rationality and calculation. Participants are invited here to inject other sources of knowledge including intuition, pure logic, and poetic inspiration, and simply wisdom, into their consideration of these essential questions. This approach is particularly important when dealing with countries such as India and China whose histories and philosophies have much to offer the world, now seemingly immersed in an “age of global materialism.” Here “business as usual” threatens the planet and pandemics such as HIV/AIDS and malnutrition are becoming global phenomena.
Theme I: Philosophical and cultural issues arising in tensions between the goal of development and the necessity to pursue social and environmental sustainability.
This topic invites participants to give thought to the meaning of development. Does it infer that people in poor countries or in poor regions of vast countries (with large poverty stricken rural sections) are in a sense inferior to people in societies or regions with high per capita incomes? Are commonly established measures and benchmarks for “development” too crude to appreciate pre-industrial communities with stable social ties, high degree of literacy, and other factors?
In the reflections on these matters of development, sustainability and well-being of people, what would be the conditions for a greater use of different sources of knowledge – intuition, artistic and poetic perceptions, spiritual insights…- in complementing and orienting instrumental rationality?
It also evokes the need for criteria against which to measure development. There are many such criteria offered by international organizations today. PLQI, GNP statistics, Human Development Index, World Bank indicators and so forth. Those countries with the highest marks according to all these indicators are the western developed countries. Should these material standards and indicators alone serve as the measure of development? If the answer is yes, what would development become be if the planet’s resource limitations and the biosphere’s carrying capacity come to exceed the potential for technological adaptation to diminishing resources and space for waste accumulation? Should we not consider another measure of development, for example along the lines proposed by J.S. Mill’s vision of the steady state?
Also to be considered is the question whether there is a trade off between a type of development that transforms a nation’s culture and environment into a second rate model of another, and the happiness and security of the people derived from their own traditions, communal ways of life, and in general, their sense of rootedness and
happiness.
Theme II: Ethical and humanistic dimensions of the activities of transnational business, NGO’s, and IGO’s in or “for” local communities in materially poor countries or regions.
Among others, this topic raises the issue of public versus private goods. Is there still place for public goods in fast growing capitalistic societies? Or is the mark of an advanced country one that has liberated the society from communal spirit for the sake of rugged individualism in the pursuit of private wealth in every sector? Would health and the environment really thrive where profit is virtually the only motive for taking action? Who would pay for it?
What are the possibilities for a give and take between external knowledge and forces and the knowledge and wisdom concern health and nature in local and national communities?
What are the motivations driving NGO and IGO projects in local communities? Are they sufficiently empathetic with and respectful of the villagers? Or are their workers bound by ethnocentrism? Who should be directing the design and implementation of such projects in the local communities?
Through the idea of partnership and the “Global Compact” with transnational corporations, the UN appears to have accepted that the way forward for the developing world is mainly via joint ventures between national governments, indigenous businesses and foreign investors. Has the world forgotten the value of public goods? With this prevailing commercial mentality how will non affluent countries be able to finance facilities for general health care and prevention of further environmental damage> Neither of these areas of public need is obviously amenable to private profit making. Or are they?
Mobility, flexibility, adaptability, competition are among the concepts and values underlying the dominant culture and which are introduced by transnational corporations, NGO’s and IGO’s. Both for the health of people and for the protection of the environment, would it be useful, or even necessary to give more weight to values such as stability, harmony, wisdom and happiness? If so would these values be those to be preserved in the cultures of indigenous communities?
Tentative Program
Thursday, 8 November:
Evening: Informal reception and dinner for out of town guests
Friday, 9 November
9 AM– Coffee
9:30 Opening of Seminar
Remarks by
Dominic Sachsenmaier
Barbara Baudot
9:45 Introductions of Theme I
and Discussion
11:15 Coffee Break
11:30 Consideration of Theme I continued.
13:00 Lunch
14:30 Conclusions of Theme I,
Introductions of Theme II
and Discussion
16:00 Coffee break
16:15. Consideration of Theme II Continued.
18:00 Break
19:00 Dinner
Place of these events to be announced.