Zero Vision: enlightenment and new religion

Abstract

Abstract This paper traces Zero Vision as a product both of Enlightenment thinking (particularly in its aim to perfect humanity and society through measurement, science and rationality) and a continuation of traditionally religious promises that deliverance from suffering is achievable and morally desirable. It then explores how a Zero Vision might look in the twenty-first century, focusing on a limitation on top-down, rule-driven, centrally governed control over safety outcomes in the pursuit of zero; a switch to looking for and understanding our successes, rather than our shrinking number of failures; and a suggestion that secular organizations can commit to an alleviation of suffering as a morally acceptable and practically doable substitute for its eradication.