Mining Morality

Employing “self-sharpening tools” found in the work of theologian and philosopher Bernard Lonergan, Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’, and international law, William P. George brings mining to personal and collective moral awareness by “prospecting for ethics” at selected sites: (1) Butte, Montana, “the Richest Hill on Earth,” once bound to Chuquicamata, Chile, by a company that spanned two continents and nearly owned a state; (2) the tiny island nation of Nauru, called Pleasant Island until it was devastated by phosphate mining and the breaking of a sacred trust by foreign powers; (3) the deep seabed, governed by the United Nations Law of the Sea, a “constitution for the oceans” that regards much of the resource-rich seabed as humankind’s “common heritage”; (4) Africa, with its uranium mines but also its conflicts over what “being nuclear” means in the wake of colonialism, apartheid, and Hiroshima; and (5) mineral-rich asteroids, speeding through space, where mining rights are contested, even as space entrepreneurs look to become the world’s first trillionaires. George introduces readers to remarkable moral miners––the women of Butte and Chuquicamata, a World Court judge from Sri Lanka, the Rocket Boys of Coalwood, West Virginia, to name a few––and leads them to consider not only the morality of mining––what’s good and not so good about resource extraction––but also the mining of morality, a venture that Socrates called “the examined life.”

William P. George has written a wise and penetrating book on the ethics of mining – underground, underwater, and in outer space. Deeply concerned about injustice and the ecological threat, he is not driven by ideology or pre-conceived solutions but invites the reader into careful reflection on an industry that has received too little attention in Christian ethics., Mining Morality is a remarkable and necessary book, yet an unexpected one. Remarkable, because it scrutinizes the ethics of five international mining cases within a unifying Christian vision; necessary because mining trails great international evils such as armed violence, trafficking, government corruption, and vast poverty; and unexpected because mining, as the author rightly notes, is daunting territory, to date left virtually untouched by theologians and philosophers. George’s analyses flash brilliance and expand horizons. Mining Morality should not be missed by any Christian social ethicist. Its concreteness and often personal tone will be a gift to students in undergraduate, graduate and seminary classroom.

William P. George is emeritus professor of theology at Dominican University.