Technology is outpacing ethics in our society, said Villager Jack E. Brush, a former theology professor at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
Brush, who made a presentation on human rights Monday at the Savannah Center to members of The Villages Civil Discourse Club, said these trends have resulted in what he calls “ethical disorientation.”
Humans have developed nuclear weapons, for example, but the ethics of how and when to use them haven’t kept up. Televison has made great technological strides while its content hasn’t made the same advancements, he said.
“I have the impression we are better at a very narrow spectrum of thought,” he said.
Brush’s forthcoming book called Citizens of the Broken Compass has chapters on topics including atheism, same-sex marriage and human rights. More information is available at his web site, jackebrush.com.
A major problem with human rights, he said, is that there often are conflicts. An example is the rights of a mother vs. the rights of an unborn child.
“There are times we need to move away from human rights and talk about the common good,” Brush said.
But the common good also is open to interpretation. In Nazi Germany, for example, extermination of Jews was viewed as for the common good.
Brush said the concept of human rights dates back to the 3rd Century and the Greek stoics, who developed the idea of a conscience. Physicist Thomas Hobbes said in the 17th Century that all humans have the right to self-preservation.
Building on an idea by the astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei that everything is composed of atoms, Hobbes also said that the atom concept is a model for society with individuals as the atoms.
“There is a connectivity in the universe that is absolutely undeniable,” Brush said.
Our forefathers were concerned about human rights when they included “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence.
“What is considered a right in one society might not be in another,” Brush said.