This how the Anglican Bishops' pastoral letter on the 2015 General Election in Britain describes modern politics in Britain, and one may extrapolate this to all European politics. This ethical bankruptcy is not only traceable to politics in the strict sense but also to business, banking and the general approach by society in general. It seems that HSBC in the UK did not learn the lessons following the collapse of Lehmann Brothers some years ago, as the Swiss leaks report saga shows its unethical approach to help individuals avoid the social obligations imposed by the national exchequer in several European and other countries. Maybe the decline of its commercial performance worldwide underlines how this bank is badly interacting with the community and ranks poorly in ethical behaviour. It also shows that the bank needs to change its approach fast. People sense these issues and I believe that this bank is facing a public relations failure because of this, even in Malta.
The British government's decision to go ahead and legalise three parent babies for treatment of mitochondrial disease, thereby breaking all world protocol consensus on the veto of germ-line gene therapy, is another case in hand. This is not a simple issue of treating disease, which nobody questions. Accidentally introducing genes and diseases into the human gene pool in a less than perfect medical process that badly affects future generations, is too big a risk to take at the moment when the precision of the state-of-the-art technique is still relatively poor! Still, the British political and scientific establishments proceed at great risk to human dignity and health against all established ethical norms, even accepted ones, in medical ethics such as 'Primum non nocere' (First, do no harm).
The Bishops note that "with few exceptions, politicians are not driven merely by cynicism or self-interest but, nevertheless, the different parties have failed to offer attractive visions of the kind of society and culture they wish to see.... There is no idealism in this prospectus". The lack of political vision for modern society devoid of any objective ethical content has empowered a particular weak and fragmented community drifting towards social isolation and community breakdown where "we have become so used to believing that self-interest drives every decision, that it takes a leap of imagination to argue that there should be stronger institutions for those we disagree with as well as for those 'on our side.' Breaking free of self-interest and welcoming our opponents as well as our supporters into a messy, noisy, yet rich and creative community of communities is, perhaps, the only way we will enrich our almost-moribund political culture." The accent and importance on civil society and its institutions, as the glue which binds self-interest and social systems is underlined and considered as the political way forward to prevent society falling apart, fed by the ever voracious appetite of individualism and the ever greater failings of collective politics. The binary choice between state and market is a false one.
The Church, as an active member of civil society, has the right to enter the political arena by its discussion, criticism and contribution to debate without being charged with interference in purely temporal matters, or charged with trying to ram religious principles down secular throats. "The claim that religion and political life must be kept separate is, in any case, frequently disingenuous - most politicians and pundits are happy enough for the churches to speak on political issues so long as the church agrees with their particular line."
The danger of all this, the Bishops warn, is that people in general will lose interest in politics as a whole, as they feel let down by the political class. This can lead people to seek political solutions from fringe political groups or lose interest completely, if not indulge in anarchical social activity, leading to the undermining of the political democratic systems and freedoms which we all cherish and which many of our ancestors sacrificed their life for!
This exhortation is in line with several aspects of Catholic social doctrine such as those found in Caritas in Veritate released in 2009. It is significant that Catholic and Anglican social doctrine has reached consensus on issues of social-market and ethical political behaviour. The only part missing, in my opinion, is the underlining of the importance of the environment in the social-market economic model. It seems that Pope Francis will soon issue a new encyclical to rectify this matter.
What is the importance of this for us in Malta? The political models I see unfolding in our country seem to be following the same path, albeit slower, that the European political scene has taken, including Britain. Ethical and moral behaviour in politics is seen as a negative aspect which keeps parties and individual success in politics backward. It is manifestly being put on the back-burner to an established degree by the Labour Party (PL) in government, sometimes voiced to a lesser degree by certain exponents of the PN in Opposition in its effort to seem modern or to compete with the PL. The principle of hedonism or pleasure is now often extolled over the principle of reality, as Robert Spaemann would say, for quick political advantage. The interlocutor in maintaining the principle of objective reality intact in human affairs is through the faculty of human reason and natural law. Once this is jettisoned, natural law being a law that is immutable and trans-cultural, the slide to the lack of a political vision based on building community and civil action is not far off, with the consequences we are now seeing in the UK. Philosophy will never be able to provide answers to human problems. The Church in Malta should remain active in its promotion of and contribution to community and moral values that are important to Maltese society, especially through the emphasis of natural law and the attainment of the common good. There is also the issue of the completeness provided by divine revelation, which should not be discarded as a means for measuring the proper ethical behaviour by Maltese society and the political and social establishments.
This week, the worried mother of a medical student came to me and told me that her progeny had been instructed by some professors at the medical school that, once practicing as a physician, the refusal to refer a patient abroad for a requested abortion was not a professional option, as this would open up the doctor to legal repercussions if the patient had to mistakenly recur to a backstreet abortion! Not only is this advice illegal, but it assumes that we are all responsible for other people's moral and ethical decisions and choices, and also that we do not have the modicum of sufficient human reason to establish a hierarchy of values putting the value of human life at the forefront of this hierarchy when there is a value clash. There are signs that the social and ethical rot is setting in here as well. Can we learn from the experience of the UK and other countries?
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