6. The Parameters of Human Power

Safeguarding Humanity’s Rights and Freedoms At the start of the previous chapter we celebrated humanity’s exalted status as ruler of the earth and the impressive power over nature that humans have in the course of the centuries achieved. We need to ask now, therefore, what are the parameters of humanity’s power? Are there any? Are humans subject to any moral and spiritual laws that stand above them, that put a limit, not so much to what they can do, but to what they may do? Or does the acquisition of power itself confer on those that achieve it the right to exercise that power over nature and over their fellow humans as they decide best without any higher authority, moral or spiritual, to set limiting parameters to their use of power? We need to ask these questions, because humanity’s acquisition of power over nature has on the one hand conferred on us all innumerable benefits; but on the other our abuse of power has in time past undeniably wrought a great deal of damage. And now that we have begun to unlock the very secrets of life, the potential for good is enormous; so also is the potential for evil. This has been particularly true of the twentieth century, not to mention the ea...