Morality is moribund topic to most people, one that brings yawns and disinterest and a change of topics in conversation. The reasons for that are fairly obvious to me, traditional morality does not make much sense, seems illogical, and only seemingly related to our everyday lives. That situation exists because traditional morality does not present us with a values-based system of decision-making. It has no ideological or rational integrity, and never has. That is about to change.

“Organic Morality” Simply Means —

“Organic morality” simply means that the values illustrated on page 9 are organic to Homo sapiens and have been the decision-making criteria that have successfully sustained humans for approximately 200,000 years. Those innate values form the backbone of a humanist morality that is not associated with religions or social institutions. Because those values are organic and universal to everyone who has ever lived, who lives now, and who will ever live, they provide the basis for a uniform code of decision-making, an “organic morality.”

Because of the universal and timeless nature of these seven values, we as individuals, groups, families, communities, societies, and nations will be able to define and answer these questions for everyone:

• What is fair?
• What is just?
• What is merciful?
• What is social justice?
• What is social equity?

What is more important than defining WHAT those terms mean is having the capability of knowing HOW to fulfill their definitions. Because there is no existent, uniform, and universal morality in the world, no one really is able to know how to fulfill those terms, except by the use of authority, control, and power. Because those are not universal, the 99% does not know HOW to initiate social action programs or political action programs for their share of social, political, and economic resources.

A Universal and Timeless Morality. With a morality that is based on the values that have sustained our species, we know that such a morality is —

• Universally applicable to all people of every nation, culture, race, ethnicity, society, and gender;
• As relevant and applicable 5,000 years from now as it is today;
• An ideology that would be easily accepted by all people, without the implicit or explicit implication of a foreign agenda;
• A positive, constructive way of thinking, speaking, and acting by every individual at all levels of society or position of authority;
• The hope of improved quality of social relations between individuals, organizations, and governments;
• Easily understood and useful to almost anyone, literate or not;
• Proactive to promote peace, social stability, and the social evolution of individuals, families, communities, societies, and nations to become socially sustainable.

Untapped Potential. When these values become embedded in social, political, and economic organizations as the basis for their operational decision-making, they will create a bridge of symbiosis that links individuals to their long term goals and to their survival. Social, political, and economic option-development, choice-making, decision-making, and action-implementation then set the stage to capitalize on the untapped potential of millions of citizens as a “natural resource” that can be developed to create a qualitative expansion of every democratic nation’s economy.

Make it about decision-making. The organic morality of social sustainability is a “value-adding” decision-making process that sees each individual as a “social asset” whose value to society can be increased. As a value asset, the value of the individual to society can be increased by teaching them how to make decisions that are in agreement with the values that have sustained our species for thousands of years. When individuals have been trained do make those decisions, they will carry that same decision-making ability with them into their jobs, careers, advisory boards, into their families, and apply them in their parenting and child rearing skills — teaching their children how to use those values in the same way.

Sustaining, symbiotic responsibilities. The social sustainability of a society and civilization is dependent upon the shared symbiotic social responsibilities of individuals and organizations. To fulfill those shared responsibilities, personal and corporate/governmental daily decisions need to contribute toward the social sustainability of each other. This can only occur when a proactive morality provides a consistent and integrated decision-making methodology that is applied by organizations and individuals.

Organizations. We understand what an “individual” is and is not, but what is an “organization” as it is used here? “Organization” is inclusive of all associations of individuals who have some function together. Examples of “organizations” would include schools, businesses from a sole proprietorship to multi-national corporations with a local and global footprint, all branches of governments and their agencies whether a one-person city office or a national government, all foundations and philanthropic organizations, association of organizations, and all other “organizations” whether they are organized, or unorganized groups of people with a common interest. “Organizations” does not include the police, military, or fire/rescue.

The symbiosis will be fulfilled when organizations and individuals focus their decisions through the lens of the organic moral code to make choices, decisions, and actions that support the social sustainability of individuals and the whole of society. While the moral code aids individuals to make moral decisions that support their own life and that of others, the same moral code will lead all organizations to make moral decisions that aid the social sustainability of communities, societies, and themselves.

A socially sustainable moral code supports the social sustainability of a society with two primary functions.

First, to define the proactive behavior of individuals and organizations to promote positive moral behavior that contributes to the social sustainability of individuals, families, communities, and societies.

Second, to clearly define immorality as behaviors that violate social sustainability and

1. destroy the potential of (an)other citizen(s) to make a positive contribution to the sustainability of themselves, their family, community and society;

2. diminish the capacity of a citizen(s) to make a contribution to society;

3. squander the resources of society as it works toward social sustainability; and

4. behavior that require society to come to the aid of an injured citizen to recoup their capacity to make a contribution to the sustainability of themselves, their family, community, or society; or, support them in their incapacity for their lifetime or until they are healed.

Social predators are those individuals and organizations that take actions (1-4) that violate the morality of social sustainability. They create an immense drag on society’s forward inertia to achieve social stability and peace. Their actions are in opposition to the efforts of society to aid the social sustainability of individuals, families, and communities. How they are dealt with by courts that have adopted the morality of social sustainability is something citizens of states and the nation will have to determine. Whatever sanctions are meted out must work to fulfill society’s intent to become fully socially sustainable.

The Moral Contract—

The moral contract is very simple. Individuals are short-lived, while societies and civilizations are long lived. Because societies provide a context for the welfare of future generations of individuals, their survival and sustainability are paramount to those future generations.

The moral social contract includes two clauses:
1) The larger society will provide individuals and families with the capability of fulfilling the three primary values of social sustainability — quality of life, growth, and equality; and,
2) individuals will make decisions that support the sustainability of other individuals, families, communities, and society; and will sacrifice themselves in times of social upheavals in order to aid the survival of the larger society and the sustainability of future generations.

This contract breaks down when the larger society fails to add value to the sustainability of its citizens, and when it also fails to act responsibly to curb all detrimental influences to the social sustainability of its citizens. This contract breaks down when individuals and families fail to socialize and enculturate their children to become socially sustainable members of their community and society.

As we will discuss, the moral duty of individuals, organizations, corporations, governments, and organizations of organizations that have chosen to become socially sustainable is to provide positive, or minimally neutral, support for social sustainability.

Moral Duty —

Do no harm to another that impairs their ability to survive, exist, and become socially sustainable;

Be proactive to make decisions that contribute to the social sustainability of individuals, families, communities, and society.

The Individual. Because the individual provides the base for the existence of all societies and a sustainable global civilization, their responsibilities and actions are toward self, family, community, state, nation, and global community. The individual becomes a value-asset of society as she or he is able to contribute to the sustainability of their family and community.

Primary Moral Duty: Preserve life; do no harm directly or indirectly to another.

Explanation: Protect the social and material assets, existent and potential, of social sustainability — the future of that society. Protect and develop those social assets (gene pool, infants in utero, infants and children, and adults) so there is added value given to each person who has the potential to make a contribution to the sustainable future of society and civilization;

Secondary Moral Duty: Make a social contribution to the social sustainability of self, family, and community.

Explanation: The first purpose of an individual’s life is to make a meaningful life of their own existence; second, to make a meaningful contribution to the sustainability of their family, community, society, and to civilization. Each individual is responsible to protect, develop, and utilize social resources to make social sustainability possible for this and all future generations.

The emphasis is not only on the survival and existence of themselves and society, but the sustainability of that individual and society — a society of sustainable individuals in a sustainable social context — enjoying a sustainable quality of life.

Organizations. Because organizations provide the foundation for the creation, existence, and maintenance of societies their responsibilities and actions are aimed toward self and toward family, community, state, nation, and global community. In a community or society that has chosen to move toward social stability and sustainability, organizations then become value-assets of the nation as they are able to contribute to the sustainability of their host communities and societies.

In order to fulfill their pivotal role in the social, political, and economic evolution of a nation, organizations must be informed, educated, and trained how to accomplish they new role. Universities and other educational institutions that provide social, business, and economic degrees then become the socializing and enculturating institutions for organizations.

The moral duty of civil government is to move toward social sustainability by generating its vision, intention, operating philosophy, mission, and objectives that not only aid the survival, existence, and operational maintenance of society, but also supports the development and evolution of that society into a sustainable society. The community and larger society become a value-asset to social sustainability when they act to preserve, protect, and develop the social sustainability of its citizens as social assets, and remove individuals, associations of individuals, and organizations that violate the social sustainability of others.

Primary Duty: Protection and preservation of the integrity of family organization and functions, and then the community of that family.

Explanation: The emphasis is on the survival, existence, and sustainability of the individuals of that society to ensure the sustainability of their society. The individual makes a contribution with their life to that end; and, society aids the individual to have a meaningful, purposeful life that empowers that contribution. It is a relationship of symbiotic sustainability, where the social forces of the individual and society are joined, and both benefit without being used by the other for their separate ends. Both have an intention for their mutual benefit.

While this may seem utopian to readers in the early 21st century, it is based on necessary pragmatic moral decisions by each individual and by public agencies that enable social sustainability to develop in a family, community, and national society. Individuals accept the sustainable morality of learned behavior that was given to them through the socialization and enculturation processes by parents and educational organizations — the same as is done today — for the additional purpose of engendering personal responsibility for ethical and moral behavior that supports moral social sustainability.

Secondary Duty: To discharge its moral obligations that the public is not morally capable as individuals.

Explanation: At the level of societal morality, civil government has as its responsibility and obligation to carry out social level moral actions that at the personal level of morality would be considered immoral if carried out by individuals.

3. Associations of Organizations. The moral duty of nations and the community of nations is virtually the same as that of “Organizations.” Because of that there is little need to duplicate what has already been said.

Minimal Moral Duty —

In the frame of three simple proscriptive definitions:

• No individual shall diminish or impede the social sustainability of another person, organization, or association of organizations without moral justification.

• No organization shall diminish or impede the social sustainability of another organization, individual, or association of organizations without moral justification.

• No association of organizations shall diminish or impede the social sustainability of another association of organizations, organization, or individual without moral justification.

Pro-Active Value-Adding Moral Decision-Making —

The three primary values provide the criteria for a socially proactive sustainable moral code to improve the quality of life of each individual to become a more valuable asset by learning how to make socially sustainable moral decisions that aid the social progress of society.

It is a proactive morality because as the individual makes decisions using these values they that add sustainable value to their own life and their community. The same applies proactively when organizations make decisions in accord with these seven values. Cultures that understand this symbiosis will be well prepared to engage social sustainability because they are integrative in nature, where the individual is seen as capable of influencing the whole as much as the whole influences the individual. This type of thinking values the circular, systems integrity of the family, community, and society. The individual exists in a relationship of connectedness, integration and inclusiveness, rather than separation and exclusiveness.

Quality-value based thinking, (Ref. illustration, LINK), offers individuals the option of giving organic interpretations to their world. People are valued because they have the capacity to add quality-value to their community and society. Being valued, the community and society provide services to the individual and family all along the continuum of life to improve the capability of their decision-making. With the above in mind, it becomes easier to see how this morality acts not only to preserve the quality-value of everyone, but proactively provides a more supportive social environment that adds value to the individual as an asset to their communities and societies. To increase the value of an individual’s contribution to society that individual must be seen as an asset whose value to society can be increased. The individual is an investment, an asset who can develop a “return on that investment” to his or her family, community, and society.

By investing in the social sustainability of the family as the primary socializing and enculturating social institution in every community and society, the child-becoming-adult is prepared to use a code of sustaining morality. Investing in the social sustainability of individuals, beginning even before conception and continuing through the age of separation from the family, will assure the family, community, and dominant society of becoming socially sustainable.

Conscious, intentional social evolution. With such a moral code, it becomes very apparent that enculturating pre-parenting couples and then their children is a highly important development in the evolution of a socially sustainable society. Seen from the opposite point of view, when children are not prepared to live in a socially sustainable society, they are in effect denied the possibility of adding value to their life without the consciousness to decide: A socially UNsustainable immoral act of omission.

The possibility of integrated social systems of societies is a major shift in culture, and the thinking of individuals. As population increases beyond the quantity needed to sustain a society, the less quality of life is available to everyone equally, and the less value each new citizen to that nation and the world. This is contrary to our historic moral roots where the value of each person is seen as being unique and valuable as they are. The reaction we have seen in middle and upper-middle class families who have fewer children is the increased value-investment made in each child, while the value-investment of economically marginalized children decreases. To think about the value of individuals is evidence in more socially conscious groups of recognition of the integral wholeness of our society. We are beginning to give value to the integral wholeness of our society, even as we witness the disparate aggregation of racial, ethnic, national, and religious social groups tear our societies apart politically.