A "universal code of ethics" is a system of ethics that can apply to every human being.
How can we work together to overcome the Babel of cultural diversity and help society establish a widely shared basic ethics?
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Many leading social commentators see the world today as going through a profound "shift", or change. One way to understand this change is through the lens of globalization. Boundaries everywhere are becoming more porous, intercultural encounter is an every-day thing, and the great diversity of the world's religious and spiritual people are meeting on the common ground of human experience.
This is an encouraging process, because it is breaking down the insularity of once-isolated cultures, and driving the entire world community towards a new world of universal values. We are getting to know each other, and learning to respect and learn from one another.
But in the USA, political polarization and "red state / blue state" animosity continue to damage the welfare of our nation. We don't trust each other, we don't like each other, and we are dangerously threatened by gridlock and an inability to act together on important questions.
As part of a broad intercultural outreach, we want to ask you: how does your faith perspective inform your view of the public square? What hope or insight does your philosophic or religious perspective offer us on this issue? How can the insights and energies of your spiritual or religious tradition lead us away from the dangers of gridlock and cultural polarization -- and toward a "world that works"?
In a national or global context of high diversity, where people from many different cultures and perspectives interact, how can we construct an ethical view of the world based on universal principles that might be shared by many traditions? How can we work together in the context of our differences?
We want to hear from you! Thanks for your input and insight!
Select ALL answers that are true for you (perhaps more than one).
If the options appearing here do not express your own view, you can add new options, which will be available to all participants.
If the meaning of any concept or term seems uncertain, follow your own personal interpretation.
Answer
1
We should clearly identify core ethical principles in our own traditions, or in our own personal moral/ethical perspective. From that basis, we can then build bridges towards a common center.
2
Semantics is always a source of confusion, even when people speak the same language and come from the same traditions. We might need a "wordless" basis for deepest agreement -- a basis, like the Tao, "beyond concepts".
3
There are basic ethical principles like the Golden Rule that are found everywhere.
4
If people practice virtue, respect one another, and remain humble -- rather than self-righteous and judgmental -- a basic ethics of universal understanding and trust might have a chance to flourish.
5
As citizens, we share a common responsibility for the well-being of our nation, and, as humans, for the well-being of civilization. One question that ought to draw us together is the nature of that larger responsibility.
6
Make it short and simple with basic core ethics common to all that also explains the why and what. Translate it into as many languages as possible and combine it all in one article and/or picture that can be shared.
7
The 3 core ethics of permaculture ... Care for the Earth, Care for the People, Share the Surplus (or Fair share) is a good place to begin. Effective organizing has to take place locally by creating local regenerative systems that satisfy our needs with minimal imports. Global capitalism shelved.
8
As perceptual mechanisms generated by the cosmos our purpose is to perceive potential pathways to its being, becoming and non being and in doing so we will find new ways to live, new lives and livelihoods for each one of us and a new world for us all.
9
I think the minimal number of words and concepts might be, "listen deeply to yourself, to others and to the cosmos..and respond accordingly. Act your age, you are at least 4 billion years old, made of the elements of stars. Critically trust in yourself and the benevolance of the universe....
10
Tao of Synergetic Polyculture Design: Optimize Continuous Cooperative Improvement of ecotherapeutic confluence and balanced harmony by minimizing competitive Exterior and Interior Landscape dissonance and coincidental loss of potential positive nutrients.
11
We need a live process, not another static code of ethics. My suggestion: a collective conversation between the genders and generations, governed by the collective voice of humanity as one.
