Human Survival and Development: Our Urgent Need for a Reflective Universal Morality

We are in very deep trouble. This is not the pompous royal “we”, nor is it the “we” which may embrace our families, fellow citizens, or even our groupings of nations. It is the “we” of the human species — the universal, collective “we”, past, present and future. For the first time “survival”, as well as “development”, is the focus of international social work meetings. Survival is obviously a necessary but, as social workers especially know, certainly not a sufficient condition of human well‐being. The prophets of impending doom multiply in our midst, sometimes peddling their own particular brand of salvation, more often spreading cynicism and despair, foreshadowing a likely future that we do not want to know about or take responsibility for. “The future is no longer what it used to be” captures the current mood and reality.