Page 32 - The Ethics of ASEAN
P. 32

The Ethics of ASEAN


             modifications in today’s context to overcome historical biases on women, slavery and
             racism, as well as their lack of knowledge of contemporary science and practical ethical
             applications.
















                                Figure 1: Model of Five Types of ASEAN Ethics

                 The purpose of the ethical types model is to help the thinking person make sense of
             ASEAN ethical issues for understanding, discussion, policy-making and decision-making.
             In defining the contents of the model, I start with virtue ethics, then turn to rules-based
             and results-based ethics before turning to leadership ethics and emerging ethics.


             ASEAN’s Virtue Ethics

             The Greek philosopher Socrates captured the virtue of ethics for a meaningful human
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             life in his famous statement “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  This type of ethics
             representing a philosophy of how to live and be a responsible person (one’s identity)
             is called virtue ethics. In the development of ASEAN, virtue ethics constitute the
             foundations.
                 ASEAN’s virtue ethics go back hundreds of years and have been influenced by multiple
             migrations of ethical systems.  An example is the virtue ethics of Confucius, taught to
             disciples in China two thousand four hundred years ago. Confucius defined the superior
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             person as one who continuously self-develops through learning . He called this ethic the
             Way and underlined that ethics are in harmony with the universe. The Confucian value set
             on education has influenced cultures, family values and educational systems worldwide.
             Confucianism migrated across ASEAN, becoming the dominant ethical system in Vietnam
             and Laos but present through Chinese immigration in all ASEAN countries.
                 The Indonesian-born Singaporean historian Wang Gungwu described in his book
             Home is Not Here   how Southeast Asians actually possess multiple anchors for identity
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             and ethics. The book is illustrated by his personal sense of rootlessness and confusion
             as an ethnic Chinese in building what became a very cosmopolitan career. Wang’s

             2   The statement is found in Plato’s Apology (38a5–6). Socrates is sentenced to death for impiety and corrupting
                youth because he taught and debated philosophy publicly
             3   Confucius discusses the ethics of learning throughout the four Confucian classics and especially in the
                Great Learning. These books can be consulted online in English in the MIT collection http://classics.mit.edu/
                Confucius/learning.html retrieved 3 January 2023
             4   Home is Not Here by Wang Gungwu, NUS Press 2018 216 pages, ISBN: 978-981-4722-92-6

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