Gone are the days of truly isolated cultures and communities with their “unique” value systems and worldviews – if they ever really existed at all. Contemporary residents of planet earth live in an increasingly interconnected world where one’s values and actions influence and are influenced by others and by the emerging circumstances, we find ourselves within. As we all become more aware of our place within a global community our ways of seeing the world and of evaluating what is “right” and “just” in it are bound to be challenged – by others with alternate values and by new dilemmas or concerns that arise as life unfolds on a wider global scale. In fact, with so much hybridity and cultural mixing, we may even find ourselves of “two (or more!) minds” on a particular issue depending on what values we embrace and prioritize at a given moment or for a given reason. And, we may change our minds over time to boot.

This situation compels us to reflect anew on eternal questions of “what is right?” and “what is just?” and to do so critically and reflexively so that we can be better prepared to understand contemporary global ethical challenges and to act in an informed and thoughtful fashion. This course is designed to help make this process possible. It provides an introduction to the field of “global ethics,” a new and productive way of understanding the ethics and challenges of our global community. The course examines the theories that inform the “global ethics” perspective in order to help us develop a “toolkit” that can be used to better understand and engage with specific real-world concerns and issues – human scale injustice, suffering and threats. The goal is to gain an appreciation for the range of ethical responses people have to challenges we face in our globalized world and to use that appreciation to foster the development of an informed ethical position that conditions our actions. The first part of the course explores theories, approaches and perspectives, while the latter portion examines how this conceptual terrain frames our engagement with real-world concerns such as poverty, war, and gender inequality.