A Statement about AI and the Five Articles

In the first piece, titled “The AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park Asked the Wrong Questions,” Reijer Passchier raises critical questions regarding the nature, outcomes, and significance of the discussions held during an authoritative and therefore revealing expert summit on the threats of AI in November 2023. At this summit, Passchier observed a strong focus on the technological and communicative aspects of AI. These problematic technological aspects would need to be identified and corrected in order to prevent the threats that are gradually being felt worldwide concerning the “untamed” applications of AI. Passchier argues, however, that it is not the technological nature of AI itself that lies at the root of and drives its possible harmful applications. The main drivers of these applications are powerful international corporations, for instance Big Tech, that own all the property rights of the AI devices at stake. It is not AI that needs to be controlled and tamed. Instead it is the international mega-corporations that—in the current predominantly neoliberal political-economic climate—are given free rein to develop and carry out profitable projects that ultimately constitute manifold threats to societies, democracies, and individuals. This issue is further elaborated by Adam Satariano and Cecillia Kang (2023), who discuss how nations are losing the race to regulate AI. What is primarily needed regards the taming of international corporations. This, among other things, concerns revision of property rights, responsible corporate laws, and international laws working to the benefit of ordinary people, constitutionalism, and democracy. Governments should take the lead in this endeavor on behalf of their citizens: “As long as governments and other important societal actors continue to make themselves more dependent on a few commercial mega-owners—and welcome them as heroes as seen at summits like Bletchley Park—AI cannot possibly work for all of us,” Passchier concludes. Taming the spread of AI permeates all facets of personal and societal circumstances. Ignoring this essential fact would mean impeding the further development of the social quality of the circumstances of daily life.

The article by Anselm Adodo and Monica Imoudu from Nigeria presents a case study of the perceptions of rural dwellers in northern Nigeria regarding serious environmental hazards resulting from climate change. It also depicts the adverse impacts that people experience in the social quality of their daily lives. People suffer serious difficulties in their ability to secure their livelihood, food supplies, economic stability, welfare, and health. The insufficient living conditions are directly related to ever-increasing, long-lasting droughts, excessive unpredictable rainfall, decreasing biodiversity, deforestation, and people's weak capacities to adapt to these unpredictable and threatening circumstances. Naturally, poor farmers in particular are hit disproportionally. It is also demonstrated that a community development program - namely National Climate Change Policy Response (the NCCPR) - provides protection for rural dwellers. The resilience of farmers is significantly strengthened through this program, among other things by raising their awareness, know-how, and adaptive technical abilities to cope with environmental hazards. Based on an extensive literature review, it is concluded that the disasters that befall northern Nigeria also happen in other poor regions and countries in the world. It is argued that the misery inflicted on the people in poor countries around the world is caused by affluent developing and developed countries, which are responsible for unacceptable CO₂ emissions.

During COP 28 the president sultan Al Jaber, coordinating the management of the new global deal for the transition away from fossil fuels, explained that the oil company he leads was going to make a record investment in oil and gas production. He argued that his investment plans were viable while respecting the 1.5 degree Celsius limit (Harvey 2023a). Furthermore, documents uncovered in the corridors of COP 28 by the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting revealed that Saudi Arabia, the world's second-largest oil and gas producer,

is driving a huge global investment plan to create demand for its oil and gas in developing countries . . . Critics said the plan was designed to get countries “hooked on its harmful products.” Little was known about the oil demand sustainability programme (ODSP) but the investigation obtained detailed information on plans to drive up the use of fossil fuel-power cars, buses and planes in Africa and elsewhere, as rich countries increasingly switch to clean energy. (Carrington 2023)

Even if the criteria for CO₂ emissions are met in 2035—which is unthinkable if the plans for increased production in Brazil, Suriname, Venezuela, North America, and Northern Europe are included—the environmental hazards for the poor will remain for decades to come. A moral plea has also been launched by Nigeria, Pakistan, and many other states to urgently push forward with an “Adaptation Fund” to help poor countries to overcome their miseries. During COP28 the task was to start with a ‘lost and damage fund’ to deliver at least hundreds of billions of dollars. According to Fiona Harvey, “campaigners want rich countries to pay for their ‘historic responsibility’ for emissions. This would put the US on the hook for the lion's share of funding…...But the crucial tension is over the status of countries such as China, India, South Korea and other large emerging economies, and petrostates such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia and the host country UAQ. These countries were all classed as developing in 1992 and therefore had no requirement to provide funds to poorer countries. But they all now major emitters – emissions from China, India and Russia are now so large they approach the cumulative emissions of European countries – or have benefited massively from the sale of fossil fuels. (Harvey 2023b). The decision made during COP28 was to pave the way “for the approval of an ambitious New Collective quantified Goal by the end of 2024 (sic)” (Sgaravatti et al 2023).

From the Nigerian side two answers have already been given. First, at the instigation of many community groups, the high court in London decided in November 2023 that “thousands of Nigerian villagers can bring human rights claims against the fossil fuel company Shell over the chronic oil pollution of their water sources and destruction of their way of life” (Laville 2023). Second, it has been determined to strengthen the community development program (see above). This concerns the main subject of the authors. They discuss the origins of the adverse impacts experienced in northern Nigeria by pointing at national and international economic and political patterns. In developed and developing countries corporations are still given too much free rein to continue their high CO₂ emissions. In order to comprehensively discuss the influences of these political-economic patterns the authors deploy the social quality framework of the four societal dimensions. In doing so they refer to the affinity of this comprehensive approach with the indigenous African “holistic” perspective to understand apparent and hidden complexities of the world of which we are part.

The article by Timothy Cadman, Rolf Schlagloth, Flavia Santamaria, Ed Morgan, Danielle Clode, and Sean Cadman from Australia discusses the complexities involved in the struggle to preserve the koala in this country. These unique koalas are threatened with extinction. Formerly threatened by hunting and the expansion of agriculture, at present its survival is endangered by the impacts of climate change (deforestation, bushfires), expanding urbanization, and fragmentation of its habitat. Following the social quality perspective, the socioenvironmental and ecological, sociopolitical and legal, socioeconomic and financial, and sociocultural and welfare-based aspects of the koala “problematique” are carefully elaborated in this article by means of a case study concerning the creation of the Great Koala National Park. Here all elements of the problem come together. It is concluded that—despite the fact that the koala is a national and even international cultural icon—it is hard to turn socioeconomic interests into respect for cultural and natural values at the landscape level. In deploying long-term solutions, the involvement of local communities is emphasized as an essential sociocultural and sociopolitical element. The strategic option to nominate the Koala Park as World Cultural Heritage is most significant. The koala and its habitat would through this acquire a certain legal status, which implies particular rights. In our reflections below we will revisit this important legal aspect. As is discussed by Passchier regarding transforming existing property rights (e.g., for international AI corporations), granting new rights (for other parts of nature than human beings) is increasingly becoming an important aspect of creating a just societal and natural order.

The community involvement presented in the koala case study is not an isolated event. Among other things, it concerns one of the answers to the accelerated climate problems faced in Australia. The recent National Climate Risk Assessment Report concluded that “mitigation policies alone are not enough to stop the impacts of climate change from increasing. Australia needs to adapt” (Australian Government n.d.). The dominant neoliberal politics causes natural and human disasters. Daniel Hurst (2023) summarizes this report: “Australia must prepare for ‘devastating’ climate-fueled disruption in the Asia Pacific, including failed states, forced migration and regional conflicts over water shortages . . . [the report is] ‘likely to have said that the world is dangerously off track to meet the Paris Agreement goals’ . . . in the Asia-Pacific region, states will fail and climate impacts will drive political instability, greater national insecurity and forced migration, and fuel conflict.” The orchestrated studies and actions regarding the defense of the koalas touch the core of this problem and attempt to formulate a new positive answer to it. For responsible policymakers in Australia, this calls for a fundamental socioenvironmental paradigm shift that is also anchored in the three other societal dimensions mentioned in this study. Therefore, this study has a wider significance than Australia.

The article by Theano Kallinikaki from Greece describes aspects of the social quality of the daily lives of unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs) during their transit stay in Greece. The findings show that the children suffer a lot of stress, caused by feelings of uncertainty and loneliness, dislocation from their families, and the traumas of what happened to them before their arrival. Social workers (“co-navigators”) and participation in nearby communities are seen as important supportive pillars for the well-being of the URMs. The author observes that keeping up an acceptable standard of social quality for the children is becoming difficult. The pressure of a hostile societal environment is increasing. According to the author, in global, EU, and Greek political, legal, and cultural contexts, tendencies appear that clearly express an increasing hostility regarding refugees and migrants. The 2009 national economic crisis and the 2015/2016 refugee crisis have seriously undermined the Greek “national child and family policy and foster care framework.” The situation is getting worse, despite the existence of agreements in which the “best interest of the child” has been guaranteed. This is the case in the Greek Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UNCRC 1989 Convention, and many EU directives. The author judges that the present situation speaks volumes about the practical realization of ethical principles of social quality such as “human dignity,” “social justice,” “solidarity,” and “equal value.” It is concluded that—as a result of increasing sociopolitical and sociocultural (national and international) hostilities—tensions appear between these ethical principles and the practical realities of the experiences of URMs. URMs—the author states—should be seen as the “canary in the mine.”

This article concerns a specific research project. But its meaning goes far beyond this Greek case. For example, Mark Townsend et al. (2023) note that in 2023

vulnerable children who arrive in Britain by small boat are being placed in an adult prison that holds significant numbers of sex offenders . . . a growing number of cases have been identified where unaccompanied children, many of whom appear to be trafficked, have been sent to HMP Elmley, Kent, and placed among foreign adult prisoners . . . [a representative of the Human Rights Network says that the group has] worked with more than 1,000 age-disputed children and that those sent to adult prisons were among the most ‘profoundly harmed’.

What ethical principles underlie and cause this?

It can be added that according to Eli Murray et al. (2023), writing for the New York Times, nearly 750,000 migrant children have arrived in the US since 2012 and have been placed with sponsors. More than half of those children have arrived since 2021.

Many of these unaccompanied migrant children are coming from rural areas in Central America that were crushed by the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout. In the highlands of Guatemala, for instance, work dried up and food prices soared . . . A decade ago, most unaccompanied migrant children were released to their parents. But since 2017, that has changed; a majority of them now are going to non-parent sponsors. . . . Social workers, teachers and lawyers who work with migrant children in the U.S. estimate that a majority of these children end up working full time, often in dangerous jobs that violate labor laws. (ibid.)

The significance of the Greek case is that we can gain a better understanding of what unaccompanied minor migrants experience in Greece, the UK, the US, and everywhere else; for example, nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia (Belam et al. 2023).

Hannah Walker and Rachel Wamser-Nanney (2022) have created an impressive literature review about revictimization risk factors following childhood maltreatment. They identified 228 studies, using multiple databases. Their hypothesis is that

revictimization research, to date, has primarily focused on sexual revictimization, which resulted in a lack of understanding of trauma revictimization more generally . . . Prior research has suggested that posttraumatic stress symptoms are often linked with these other risk factors, and it is possible that the development of these symptoms following child treatment may be related to the development or maintenance of additional factors that increase the likelihood of revictimization.

The article by Delia Magherescu from Moldavia discusses various issues of “victimization” and “revictimization” of vulnerable people, in particular women and children who have become victims of criminal assault. It may be seen as complementary to this literature review. It concerns crimes of trafficking, (physical and mental) violence in various (domestic and public) situations, and terrorist attacks. The scope of the article includes the situation in Romania and in the European Union. In essence, it is observed that vulnerable victims are not adequately protected and empowered before, during, and after criminal acts and court proceedings. Therefore, an unnecessary risk of “revictimization” continues to exist due to this societal failing. This article in other words has a sociopolitical and legal point of departure and therefore offers a specific and indispensable addition to the abovementioned posttraumatic approach. It may contribute to the extension of “multiple risk factors.”

Various recommendations are provided to reduce this “revictimization,” including social empowerment of the victims, special courts of law with fair trials, and aftercare to strengthen the resistance against repetition. It is noted that in many countries legal frameworks have already been set up to protect the rights of victims. In the context of the EU it is recommended “to increase the victims’ access to compensations provided by the state, as is stipulated by the general framework of the national systems of compensations of Directive 2004/80//CE of the Council of 29 April 2004 on victims’ compensations.” Rightly, particular attention is paid to terrorist attacks. Considering what is happening in the ongoing wars in Israel and Palestine, in Ukraine, and in many places elsewhere globally, the adequate care for victims of terrorism is most relevant. It is evident that in cases of “revictimization”—and even more so in situations of war—ethical principles such as the “best interest of the child” and “human rights” aiming to protect youngsters and other vulnerable persons are grossly violated. This article may thus also be appreciated as an extension of the Greek case.

The last article, by Milena Schubertová and Mária Antalová from Slovakia, discusses aspects of working poverty from a social quality perspective, both in this country and in the EU generally. First of all it can be noted that processes resulting in working poverty should be related to those resulting in the ceaseless enrichment of the richest 1 percent of people on earth, while five billion people became poorer in the past decades. In a recent OXFAM press release it is explained that

[the] fortunes of the five richest men have shot up by 114 percent since 2020 . . . We're witnessing the beginnings of a decade of division, with billons of people shouldering the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation and war, while billionaires‘ fortunes boom. This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else . . . Runaway corporate and monopoly power is an inequality-generating machine: through squeezing workers, dodging tax, privatizing the state, and spurring climate breakdown, corporations are funneling endless wealth to their ultra-rich owners. But they ‘are also funneling power, undermining or democracies and our rights (OXFAM 2024).

The proposal to relate these processes referred to by OXFAM and processes concerning questions of working poverty is not addressed in this article. That will be a task for the near future, but it must already be kept in mind.

This article has, by following the configuration of social quality frameworks—as presented for the first time in the double themed issue, mentioned above (Nijhuis and Van der Maesen 2021)—achieved quite a comprehensive picture of the multifactorial and multidimensional workings of working poverty. Socioeconomic security, social cohesion, social inclusion, and social empowerment as conditional factors were included in the analysis. The authors thus reopen a discussion that was held two decades ago by social quality scholars on the theme of “employment and social quality” in a European perspective (Nectoux and Van der Maesen 2003). The authors take a new step by analyzing the influences on working poverty of processes based on the four dimensions of societal life, as part of the configuration of social quality frameworks. In this way they try to build a complete picture of the societal dynamics of the emergence and endurance of working poverty. Based on the outcomes of this new step it will be interesting to conduct a debate about the similarities and differences with the discourse on precarity (SUPI 2022, 2023). In the conclusion it is emphasized that since constitutional and normative factors were not systematically included in the analyses, the study does not reflect the whole configuration of the dynamics at work in the emergence, sustenance, and alleviation of working poverty. The authors point out the importance of including all factors by referring to the interpretation of Peter Herrmann (2005). This concerns the inclusion of subjective and normative factors as well, since the full interplay of factors is related to how “meaning” and “ethical conceptions” evolve. It allows developing the non-mechanical understanding of the complex structure of ‘the social’ and its ambiguities. Moreover, it also allows countering suggestions of mystifying ‘the social’ by way of subjectivation of meaning. By now it should be clear that meaning evolves and is defined as part of the interactive process rather than being part of a transcendental normative setting (ibid.: 289-299). This statement refers to the comprehensiveness needed to fathom the processes underlying the values driving human behavior. It is therefore most significant for advancing further explorations regarding the gap between accepted ethical principles and the reality of actual practices of human behavior, in which these principles are grossly trampled.

Considerations Regarding Cartesian and Spinozian Perspectives

In the following we present reflections concerning some critical aspects that permeate the above articles. The first regards the comprehensiveness of approaches that is pursued in order to understand the societal complexities in which the issues of study are embedded. The second feature—explicitly or implicitly part of all contributions—regards the critique and moral indignation concerning the observed gap between agreed ethical principles and actual practices of human behavior.

The articles on the impacts of climate change in northern Nigeria and the struggle for the survival of the koalas in Australia may present the most articulate examples of the need for and pursuit of comprehensiveness to understand the societal roots of the harm inflicted on nature. In the Nigerian article it is argued that indigenous African “holism” is an inspiring perspective for seeking comprehensiveness. From this perspective, single facts or appearances never stand on their own. There is always another reality, connected to the world that we can see. Appearances are intertwined with other—often hidden—physical, mental, societal, or spiritual realities. “Holistic” perspectives are often permeated with spiritual meanings and workings, and do not provide a scientific framework for research. Therefore, the social quality analytical and procedural frameworks were used to achieve comprehensiveness in discussing the findings. The socioenvironmental vulnerability of farmers in northern Nigeria is connected with global sociopolitical and socioeconomic realities as well as sociocultural issues. Neoliberal ideologies and practices prevailing in other countries are held responsible for the disasters that are inflicted on poor farmers. Under these political-economic ideologies, powerful private corporations are given free rein to do what they want to acquire financial profit and power. An appeal is launched to seriously push forward with payments from a “Restoration Fund”: its realization implies—and see the most resent OXFAM report (2024)—a change of political and economic power relationships.

In the same vein, the article from Australia transcends the reductionist trap of one-sidedly focusing on the environmental and ecological destruction of the koala's habitat. Climate change, as well as the complete spectrum of societal dimensions (sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and sociocultural), are critically analyzed and discussed to develop a comprehensive understanding of the persisting “problematique” of the koala and its habitat. In the sociopolitical dimension the emphasis that is put on the involvement of local communities is an indispensable condition. In the sociocultural sphere the option to grant the Koala Park “the rights” of being International Cultural Heritage is equally interesting. After all, the koala is not able to collectively organize protest or speak out in public space or even in court. Though it is not yet protected legally by law, this would enable groups of citizens and NGOs to take action in public space.

These reflections on the need for comprehensiveness also hold true for the notable opening statements of this issue regarding the current threats of AI. Here also the author avoids the trap of judging these threats one-sidedly from a technological perspective, as was the case in the AI summit discussed. In order to fathom the complexity of AI “problematiques” ample attention should be paid to the sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and sociocultural dimensions. In questioning the “ownership” of technologies that in their applications clearly have immense (public) impacts, on the credibility of media, the functioning of democracies, and the shaping of human identity, Reijer Passchier turns attention to the heart of the matter. This is the root of the “untamedness” of the multinationals that own AI.

In the same vein, ownership should be questioned concerning private corporations that play crucial roles in the causation and maintenance of the enormous adverse public impacts of climate change, as demonstrated in the Nigerian study.

Regarding the deployment of the four-dimensional approach as the core of the third framework of the social quality perspective, it is interesting to note that critiques of this theory and approach argue that it would fall short compared to the “human security approach.” This would apply to the threats of climate change, the lack of food, wars, streams of refugees, and the lack of education or basic healthcare (Gasper et al. 2008). The latter approach does not include the socioenvironmental sphere in its framework. These societal “problematiques” (in their multifactorial and multidimensional complexity), however, can be understood broadly and in depth precisely through the configuration of all three frameworks of the social quality perspective; the conceptual, the analytical and the procedural framework (Nijhuis and Van der Maesen 2021: xvii–xix). The move to four-dimensionality was strongly stimulated by the increasing attention of social quality scholars to pursuing “overall sustainability” of nature and human existence on earth (Van Renswoude and Van der Maesen 2012; Van der Maesen and Walker 2012). Considering topical discussions regarding climate change, four-dimensionality has been shown to incorporate significant added value for understanding the comprehensiveness of this “problematique.” The same holds true concerning wars, increasing flows of migration, forms of discrimination, economic exploitation of low-income groups and their children, and the increasing disparity between the richest 1 percent and the poorest 60 percent.

Each of the articles in this issue demonstrates the awareness required not to fall into the trap of reducing the complex questions at stake to singular, one-dimensional problems. Yet given the persistence of the reductionist tendency to picture and interpret “problematiques” such as climate change (and no less AI) in technological terms, it is significant to go back to the origins of today's “enlightened” modernist discourse. In contrast to “holistically” inspired traditional cultures, in modernity mankind does not appreciate his being on this earth as an integrated presence equal to other beings. His detachedness from the rest of nature is expressed in numerous ways, be it the physical environment, destroyed by CO₂ emissions, or the threatened survival of the koalas. Human detachment, in most instances of negligence, goes hand in glove with disrespect for living and nonliving nature. The radical detachment of man from nature that permeates modernist discourse, beliefs, and the behaviors of modern mankind is rooted in the radical divide that René Descartes conceived between two “substances,” namely “res cogitans” (spirit) and “res extensa” (matter). Only in humans are these substances combined, the pituitary gland being the linking organ. This divide tells us that mankind is a unique creature created by God. He should be conceived of as separate from and superior to physical reality. Because of his superior thinking qualities he should master the material world. Alongside this ontological notion Descartes introduced the idea that the only language through which reality can really be understood is mathematics. In the so-called “subject-object scheme” this radical separation has become one of the main foundations of modern “positivist” science and of technology. Baruch Spinoza, contemporary of Descartes, rejected the Cartesian radical ontological separation between man and nature (Israel 2023). He stated that there is only one “substance,” which should be conceived of as an integrated unity (“Natura”) in which the constituting “attributes” (like spirit and matter) are connected through universal laws. The human mind, biological phenomena, and physical and societal structures are interconnected parts of the universal whole of “Nature.” God and Nature also coincide (“Deus sive Natura”). Spinozian ontology clearly expresses the ontological essence of comprehensiveness. Through this it has affinity with “holistic world views” (Spinoza 1678). It should be noted that Spinozian “Natura” is an essentially different concept than the commonly used concept of “nature,” which exclusively refers to all (living and nonliving) reality “outside humans.”

The Cartesian scientific positivist scheme, without any doubt, has brought and still brings mankind much progress. Today, however, it is showing the world its dark sides too. The radical Cartesian superposition of thinking man above other beings not only permeates scientific discourse, it has also thoroughly infused the way humans in modernized societies look at and deal with nature. The distinction between the Cartesian and Spinozian worldviews is most relevant in fathoming the attitudes of modern humans and the ways they look at, value, and deal with each other and likewise with nature. Societal discourses implicitly or explicitly are inspired by—if not founded on—specific worldviews. These worldviews to a large extent stimulate, facilitate, and justify values and meanings that guide human behavior. The creation of motives for human behavior is quite a complex interplay of reciprocal processes, since it includes the creation of meaning and values in a manifold of processes: between humans and each other, as well as between humans and nature. As conceived in the social quality perspective, the creation of values implies a complex interplay of reciprocal factors and processes between constitutional and subjective, conditional and objective, and ethical and normative factors. In these intertwined complexes of processes, meanings and values are created that steer our thinking, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Ethical principles (“social justice,” “equal value,” etc.) in this context are collectively crystallized principles that are agreed upon in arrangements of varying degrees of formality in order to collectively pursue good behavior. The Cartesian detachment of humans from others and nature, over the course of history—through the aforementioned reciprocal processes—has taken shape in values that drive human behavior. In this journal, a start has been made to explore the question of whether the supposed ontological affinity between new ideas about evolutionary thermodynamics and the theory of social quality may function as a link between natural sciences and human sciences (Westbroek et al. 2020). The above considerations will stimulate the elaboration of this fundamental issue. Among others things, this will facilitate the deepening of the four-dimensional social quality approach.

Referring to the distinction between the Cartesian and Spinozian worldviews, some assumptions emerge that may be brought into connection with the substance of the articles. In the Nigerian and Australian articles “social justice,” “solidarity,” and “respect for nature” do not seem to inspire or steer behavior in the sociopolitical and socioeconomic dimensions. Instead values like “self-interest,” “financial gain,” “hedonism,” and “negligence of nature” seem to be prominent incentives. The worldview holding the detachment of man from nature—to say the least—does not put moral obstacles in place against the neglect and blind exploitation of nature.

In this context it is relevant to have a closer look at the self-evident, nowadays taken for granted notion that “climate change is man-made.” It is part and parcel of the evolutionary era of the “Anthropocene.” This notion refers to the idea that—since the modern technological revolution—the harm done to nature, including disasters resulting from climate change, is caused by mankind. Andreas Malm and Alf Hornborg (2014), in “The Geology of Mankind? A Critique of the Anthropocene Narrative,” introduce another argument to the popular idea of the “Anthropocene.” They argue that it is not mankind as a whole that is responsible for the emerging imbalances in “overall sustainability.” Instead, societal elites—operating from motives of self-interest, such as “financial gain” and “societal power,” supported by science and technology—have throughout history initiated and given direction to technological developments and their practical applications. The “Anthropocene,” they state, is a misleading concept, since it is not mankind as a whole, but asymmetrical societal relationships that have got us into troubles (ibid.). Here we are touching again on sociopolitical and legal and on socioeconomic and financial processes, resulting into the power of capital, and strengthening neoliberal societal forces that give free rein to corporations to do whatever they want to achieve maximal profit.

In these reflections we have focused on explorations of the deeper layers from which today's socioenvironmental, and ecological frictions emerge. We have also explored discrepancies between universally adopted moral principles on the one side and prevailing discourses, policies, and practices on the other. Because of our focus on environmental and technological issues we have not discussed the processes and forces underlying the other three, non-environmentally oriented studies in this issue. In the studies from Greece, Romania, and Slovakia, at stake are primarily the relationships between vulnerable victims on the one hand and political discourses, policies, and legal practices on the other. The discussion regarding historical backgrounds, ideologies, discourses, and processes of the creation of prevailing values, as drivers of dominant societal patterns, is most important to fathom the seemingly uncontrollable persistency of societal frictions, such as inequality and ecological imbalances. For example more studies are needed – as in the case of the issue of working poverty in the fifth article – to explore the differences and similarities between the social quality perspective and current views on the discussion of ‘widespread precariousness’ (SUPI 2023).

The above reflections are not meant to give final answers to the complex ethical dilemmas involved. They are intended to highlight the importance of the discussion and to inspire research and debate on the roots and workings of human behavior that continues to cause serious problems in today's world. This to us seems crucial to contributing to the effective and open communication as a “conditio sine qua non” for the dialogue about how we can change power relations and related behaviors and do better with the world.