A Preface to Ethics

Global Dynamics and the Integrity of Life

Bibliographic Data

ID14760458
AuthorsWilliam Schweiker (0009-0002-7589-8364, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume32
Issue1
Pages13-38
Publication date2004-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Religious Ethics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0384-9694 • E-ISSN: 1467-9795
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.0384-9694.2004.00153.x
OpenAlexW2129600785
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited17

This essay outlines a new preface for ethics demanded by the massive developments of the global age. It does so in and through the comparative use of “myths” to explicate the lived structure of experience. The essay begins by isolating main features of global dynamics, including proximity, the compression of the world and the expansion of consciousness, and also global, cultural reflexivity. In the second step of the “preface,” it is argued that globality itself is a moral space in which peoples must orient their lives. It is a moral space defined by the massive extension of human power in the modern world. In light of the challenge that global dynamics and the extension of human power now pose, the essay then isolates, methodologically, options for developing a global ethics, and advocates a distinctly hermeneutical approach. This approach is practiced in the last section of the “preface” by engaging ethically the biblical “myth” of creation and its reinterpretation in an epitome of Jesus's Torah teaching. The intention is to show how current religious thought can speak to massive challenges in a distinctive way. It is, again, to offer a preface to ethics

Aesthetics · Consciousness · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Globality · Globalization · Political science · Power (physics · Reinterpretation · Sociology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Global History, Politics, and Ideology · Globalization and Cultural Identity · Law · Philosophy

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