Summary of the conference
a new global ethics

The topic of the afternoon programme was a New Global Ethics. Flora Lewis opened the session by stating that if we want to find a common basis for a global ethics, we should look to ecology. 'Ecology is non-dogmatic it appeals to our sense of sharing a destiny and it is based on the awareness that our actions here can have an impact on other people somewhere else.'

Riffat Hassan talked about global ethics from the perspective of Islam. She felt it was going the same way as the declaration of human rights of 1948 - 'a Western product that has nothing to do with the reality of the average Moslem'. She claimed to be much more interested in practice than in declarations. For the Moslem, the Qur'an is the highest source it already contains this ethical framework.

Hans Küng, a former priest, thought that a global ethics could result from a combination of elements of the different religions and philosophies, which all have many elements in common. 'It shouldn't be a substitute for religion or a new ideology instead it should contain a 'minimum of shared values and norms that all believers and, of course, non-believers can subscribe to'. It doesn't matter if this sounds like a sweeping generalization, Küng argued there has to be a global ethics. 'Suppose the Ten Commandments no longer existed. Surely they offer us something to hold onto.'

Küng closed the discussion on an optimistic note. 'Consciousness is changing on a global scale. Over the past thirty years everybody in this room has begun to think differently about matters such as armaments, ecology and relations between men and women. There is reason for hope.'