Explorations In Global Ethics

Inspired by the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions, this volume brings comparative religious ethics into collaboration with inter-religious dialogue. It is based on the dual premise that inter-religious dialogue offers to comparative religious ethics a new, more persuasive rationale, agenda of issues and practical orientation, and that comparative religious ethics offers to inter-religious dialogue an arsenal of critical tools and methods which will enhance the sophistication of its practical work. In this way, both theory (a dominant concern and strength of comparative religious ethics) and praxis (a dominant concern and strength of inter-religious moral dialogue) are joined in mutual effort, each contributing to the benefit of the other. Although theory and practice cannot easily be separated in such a collaborative project, the volume is divided into two main parts for the purpose of clarity. The first specifically engages questions of method, theory, and the social role of the public intellectual; the second focuses on substantive moral themes and issues, many of which were raised at the 1993 Parliament.
Taken together, the essays aim to articulate and illustrate ways of approaching contemporary moral concerns cross-culturally, yet with a rigour appropriate to our complex and pluralistic world.