Shared Values in Communal Life: Provisional Skepticism and the Prospect of a Global Ethic

This article examines the prospects for the development of a global ethic in a pluralistic and morally fragmented world. Arguing that a set of shared values, such as those proposed by Leonard Swidler and Hans Kiing, must contend with the realities of human self-interest and social dislocation, the author seeks constructively to critique the project of a global ethic from a position of provisional skepticism. In the final section, he considers some ways of overcoming provisional skepticism, arguing finally in favor of the development of a global civil society, which can embody and channel the diversity of moral perspectives within a diverse society into a set of common goals