Global challenges as inspiration: A classroom strategy to foster social responsibility

Social responsibility is at the heart of the Engineer’s Creed embodied in the pledge that we will “dedicate [our] professional knowledge and skill to the advancement and betterment of human welfare...[placing] public welfare above all other considerations.” However, half century after the original creed was written, we find ourselves in a world with great technological advances and great global-scale technologically-enabled peril. These issues can be naturally integrated into the engineering curriculum in a way that enhances the development of the technological skill set. We have found that these global challenges create a natural opportunity to foster social responsibility within the engineering students whom we educate. In freshman through senior-level materials engineering courses, we used five guiding principles to shape several different classroom activities and assignments. Upon testing an initial cohort of 28 students had classroom experiences based on these five principles, we saw a shift in attitude: before the experience, 18% of the cohort viewed engineers as playing an active role in solving global problems; after the experiences, 79% recognized the engineer’s role in solving global-scale problems. In this paper, we present how global issues can be used to stimulate thinking for socially-responsible engineering solutions. We set forth five guiding principles that can foster the mindset for socially responsible actions along with examples of how these principles translate into classroom activities. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 conference, Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology, Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 9–10 June 2005.     

Dynamic shifts of pigeon local/global attention

It has previously been shown that pigeons can shift attention between parts and wholes of complex stimuli composed of larger, "global" characters constructed from smaller, "local" characters. The base-rate procedure used biased target level within any condition at either the local or global level; targets were more likely at one level than at the other. Biasing of target level in this manner demonstrated shifts of local/global attention over a time span consisting of several days with a fixed base rate. Experiment 1 examined the possibility that pigeons can shift attention between local and global levels of perceptual analysis in seconds rather than days. The experiment used priming cues the color of which predicted on a trial-by-trial basis targets at different perceptual levels. The results confirmed that pigeons, like humans, can display highly dynamic stimulus-driven shifts of local/global attention. Experiment 2 changed spatial relations between features of priming cues and features of targets within a task otherwise similar to that used in experiment 1. It was predicted that this change in cues might affect asymmetry but not the occurrence of a priming effect. A priming effect was again obtained, thereby providing generality to the claim that pigeons can learn that trial-by-trial primes predict targets at different levels of perceptual analysis. Pigeons can display perceptual, stimulus-driven priming of a highly dynamic nature. Electronic Publication     

Literature on the future and its bearing on futures research

Abstract

The role of international organizations like the IMF, World Bank and GATT in the management of global risks are discussed. Special attention is paid to problems caused by the need to recycle funds from the developed countries to the Third World. The ever‐increasing macro‐economic uncertainty concerning foreign exchange rates, interest rates, and relative prices places heavy demands on corporate planning on both the commercial and financial sides.     

EDUCATION IN A GLOBAL SOCIETY: MEETING THE NEEDS OF CHILDREN IN A SOCIALLY TOXIC WORLD

The education of future generations of citizens is the one common theme that connects otherwise culturally, linguistically, ethnically, and politically diverse communities and countries in an increasingly global society. Social systems foster socially toxic environments, instilling a culture of fear while ignoring the importance of preparing youth for advanced citizenship in a global civil society. The author examines the role of education in relation to global events and explores the purposes of education in meeting the needs of tomorrow's children in an evolving, global society. Specifically, education is examined in relation to creating a safe and socially just society.     

A Planetary Crisis of Consciousness: The End of Ego-based Cultures and Our Dimensional Shift Toward A Sustainable Global Civilization

This essay presents central themes from my forthcoming book, The Awakening of the Global Mind. This book seeks to open a new frontier of Global Consciousness that has been long emerging in human evolution through the ages. When we step back from our more localized perspectives and expand into a more integral, holistic, and global space through the awakening of the global mind we are able to discern striking mega-trends in cultural evolution across diverse cultural and religious worldviews and perspectives through time. One striking finding through this global lens is that the collective wisdom of humanity is quite clear that we make our living realities through the conduct of our consciousness: our technology of minding. And when we make ourselves and worlds through egocentric patterns of thinking we get polarized and fragmented worlds that are not sustainable. This essay joins a growing chorus of visionary thinkers and futurists which recognizes that in the 21st Century we face grave planetary crises and that our ego-based cultures are at a tipping point and not sustainable. The primary crisis on the planet now is a crisis of consciousness, and our global wisdom suggests that humanity is in a painful transformation toward a more healthful integral technology of mind that ushers in a new sustainable global civilization wherein the whole human family may flourish together on our sacred planet.     

EFFECTIVE GLOBAL GOVERNANCE WITHOUT EFFECTIVE GLOBAL GOVERNMENT: A CONTEMPORARY MYTH

Although the recent collapse and dissolution of the Soviet Union has significantly reduced the near-term probability of nuclear disaster, it constitutes wishful thinking to imagine that meaningful and effective global governance is possible in today's world. The term “global governance” suggests and implies a degree of order and control in the international community far beyond that which presently exists, and that in fact could only be achieved by means of a global government. The global governance myth has emerged to help people cope with the uncongenial and presumably unavoidable reality that we are living in a world in which global government is impossible, and in which therefore the international condition is most accurately described as “international anarchy.” A dysfunctional myth is a belief that not only is false, but that discourages and deters thought and action toward overcoming uncongenial realities which are not, in fact, unavoidable. Global governance, in all likelihood, falls into the category of dysfunctional myth.     

Chapter 14: The Caleb Affect: The Oldest-Old in Church and Society

SUMMARY

Persons in North America who are over 80 years of age are generally overlooked by religious leaders. They are, however, the fastest growing cohort in society. This age crescendo promises to be a significant factor in the future ministry of the rapidly increasing number of graying churches and synagogues.     

Philosophy Unbound: The Idea of Global Philosophy

The future of philosophy is moving towards “global philosophy.” The idea of global philosophy is the view that different philosophical approaches may engage more substantially with each other to solve philosophical problems. Most solutions attempt to use only those available resources located within one philosophical tradition. A more promising approach might be to expand the range of available resources to better assist our ability to offer more compelling solutions. This search for new horizons in order to improve our clarity about philosophical issues is at the heart of global philosophy. The idea of global philosophy encourages us to look beyond our traditions to improve our philosophical problem‐solving by our own lights. Global philosophy is a new approach whose time is coming. This essay offers the first account of this approach and an assessment of its future promise.     

Liberal internationalism and global social justice

Theories of global justice have moved from issues relating to crimes against humanity and war crimes or, furthermore, ‘negative duties’ with respect to non-citizens, towards problems of distributive justice and global inequality. Thomas Nagel's Storrs Lectures from 2005, exemplifying Rawlsian internationalism, argue that liberal requirements concerning duties of distributive justice apply exclusively within a single nation-state, and do not extend to duties of this nature between rich and poor countries. Nagel even argues that the demand for global equality is not a demand of justice at all. In the present article I will try to offer a normative basis for the criticism of such a view. Following Kant and more recently Philip Pettit, I locate this normative basis on political freedom conceived as non-domination. Such a conception opens up the possibility of a political cosmopolitanism, which is based not on an empirical interdependence among people at a global level, but on a normative interdependence. Subsequent cosmopolitan duties extend both to the elimination of domination everywhere in the world and to the equal enjoyment of non-dominated choice. Thus, it will be argued that modern republicanism is falsely identified with a particular, bounded community, but supports a political, not simply a moral, cosmopolitanism. This kind of cosmopolitanism conceives of sovereign states neither as useless constructions, nor as mere instruments for realizing the pre-institutional value of justice among human beings. Instead, their existence is what gives the value of justice its application. Cosmopolitanism is not after all about the abolishment of all boundaries, but about the essential capacity to draw and redraw them infinitely under conditions of global justice.     

Equality,priority and global justice

Derek Parfit has argued that prioritarianism “naturally” has global scope, i.e. naturally applies to everyone, irrespective of his or her particular national, state or other communal affiliation. In that respect, it differs from e.g. egalitarianism. In this article, I critically assess Parfit's argument. In particular, I argue that it is difficult to draw conclusions about the scope of prioritarianism simply from an inspection of its structure. I also make some suggestions as to what it would take to argue that prioritarianism has either global or merely domestic scope.