The dilemmas brought on by impartiality

Impartiality frequently frustrates many decent things.

Singer's book, "One
World: The Ethics
 of Globalization".

Equally, it is also often the keystone in allowing less than favourable things to happen to individuals, the broader community and, in a wider and crucial sense, to the wellbeing of the planet.

Partiality among humans is immensely powerful among families and friends, but erodes as relationships between people become increasingly distant and then collapses completely to become impartial, even disinterested, once people become “the other”.

Writing in “One World: The Ethics of Globalization” moral philosopher, Peter Singer, said; “Our real desires, our lasting and strongest passions, are not for the good of our species as a whole, but, at best, for the good of those who are close to us”.

Singer wrote that more than a decade ago and although the challenges of climate change were then well known, they had not evolved to be so internationally divisive as they are now, but his observations were prescient.

Within Singer’s writings are the reasons for our disinterest, our impartiality, in how our behaviours are impacting on earth’s atmosphere.

Life, particularly for most in Australia, is pretty good and so with rare exceptions we imagine ourselves as distant from anyone or anything that is worsening climate change and so have little sense of how our behaviour contributes to what has be called the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.

We are, it seems, trapped within the paradigm that Singer discusses where he says that “Our real desires, our lasting and strongest passions, are not for the good of our species as a whole, but, at best, for the good of those who are close to us”.

Addressing the dilemmas and dangers of climate change demands that we explore and understand impartiality, and embrace it with an urgency that will hopefully allow us to act appropriately to mitigate the unfolding damage to our atmosphere.

Impartiality has been one of the great frustrations experienced by international support organizations and they have found that through reducing their appeal for help to a personal level by using an image of a sole person needing help, they made the connection between recipient and potential donor partial.

With the reason for funding now igniting our “real desires, our lasting and strongest passions”, the support sought was frequently forthcoming.

The damage to earth’s atmosphere is happening, by human standards, so slowly and its effects are frequently so remote from our daily affairs that most of us have a decided impartiality about climate change.

Many of us are unable to make the connection between our behaviour and what is happening with our climate and subsequent worsening weather it brings upon us because we are impartial and largely oblivious to anything beyond family, friends and immediate concerns.