Philosopher calls for world community

Although a successful, collaborative world government may be a hot topic these days, it is not what the world needs, speaker Predrag Cicovacki told about 55 students in his lecture in the Boston University School of Law Wednesday.

‘Even if it is possible, it is not needed,’ Cicovacki, a philosophy professor at the College of the Holy Cross, said. ‘What is needed is a world community, not a world government.’

Cicovacki spoke about the need for a world community that ranks morality above politics and economics in an ongoing lecture series hosted by the BU Institute for Philosophy and Religion.

In order to create this world community, Ciovacki called for attitude changes, as well as a different spiritual orientation. He framed his lecture by drawing on 1952 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer’s philosophy of reverence for all life.

‘What we call love is essentially a reverence for life,’ he said. ‘Life for Schweitzer is the essential ethical value.’

Cicovacki addressed the current political climate and said he changed his speech to reflect the mood of the recent inauguration. The 20th and 21st centuries were filled with conflict and disease, but there was also a dream of improvement, Cicovacki said.

The free market system, which ranks economics above politics and morality, has dominated the past century, Cicovacki said. He emphasized a severe need for morality to be at the forefront of activity and expressed concern for the lack of public debate regarding economic issues of morality.

‘The recent economic crisis should bring out analogous concerns,’ he said. ‘I already lost one-third of my pension savings.’

Cicovacki said governance should also strive for a shared humanity to help decrease social ills.

He cited Schweitzer’s hospital in Africa as an example of ‘the reforming power of an individual example.’

‘There can be no world community without a local community,’ he said.