The elea Way - Preview

elea’s FOUNDATION AND OPER ATING MODEL

74

to many basic goods and services, such as housing and healthcare, elec- tricity for lighting, education for employability, and mobility. They are not able to accumulate any significant cash surplus, because they have a multitude of pressing needs. Therefore, if anything adversarial happens, such as a bad harvest, an accident, a work conflict, or an illness, it means catastrophe and an existential struggle. In short, poor people do not have the liberty to shape their lives and to realize their potential. Liberty is, in fact, at the center of elea’s “liberal ethics” framework. 3 .1.3 Liberal ethics 5 Our global era challenges conventional ethical thinking and calls for new answers to the age-old ethical questions: What is a good life? What is responsible behavior? What is just/fair among people? So how can these questions be answered? Among secular ideologies, we distinguish between two categories of responses: an individual one and a collective one. Either an individual, in exercising her freedom, is concerned about leading a good and responsible life and behaving fairly, or this duty is assumed by a collec- tive entity, such as a state or another type of organization. Both categories exist, both can be justified, and in the real world they usually do not appear in black or white but rather in varying shades of grey. elea’s stance favors the individual dimension: we describe it as liberal 6 ethics. The starting point is individual liberty, with both its negative and positive meanings. In its negative connotation, liberty is about protecting individuals from unwanted interference by governments or society. Positively viewed, liberty represents the freedom of individuals to be their own masters and fulfill their own potential, including the possibility to choose their own individual ethical concepts. Classical political liberalism has focused on neg- ative liberty. However, we believe that our global era in particular, with its multiple new opportunities that could not even have been imagined by previous generations, demands a focus on positive liberty. In other words, people should be encouraged to explore the world with all of its breadth and depth to find and shape a good life (see [Berlin, 1969, p. 131] for the most prominent discussion of negative and positive liberty). While this sounds rather theoretical, it is of eminent importance in elea’s daily work. In our efforts to source new impact investments, we look for outstanding individual impact entrepreneurs on-site, who see