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Taking an ethical position in life and work is essential for us to have some framework for healthy behaviour, which promotes individual and collective well-being, mutual appreciation, and respect. Take, for example, a company board of directors that holds firm to a sterile and materialistic ideal that ends justify means; they will stop at little to achieve the corporate goal, which is to make money. From a superficial and materialistic position, human beings and the environment are simply obstacles to be overcome. And it’s easy to see in our technological age as machines and AI become commonplace, that we have, and still do despite clever marketing initiatives, run riot over the natural world and one another in pursuit of profit or a basic living.

Take the oil sands in Canada, the destruction of the rainforest in South America, damage to the seabed by commercial fishing fleets, or any war throughout human history; they all stand as primary examples of our willingness to put aside moral and ethical principles for the sake of material gain, power and control. And it’s not solely corporations to blame. Ordinary people are also quick to drop their moral principles for the sake of profit or, indeed, a living.

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