Related Documents

I. Declaration of a Global Ethic - Leonard Swidler

Professor Leonard Swidler, together with Professor Hans Küng in Tubingen, Germany, were part of the community of scholars and clergy who prepared to bring forth a discussion of a global ethic to the World Parliament of Religions in 1993. Professor Swidler's draft (see "Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic" below) was intended to be a template to help individuals and communities draft their own ethic in relation to their interests and concerns. Professor Küng's (see also below) was intended to be a draft to which persons would add their signatures. Both declarations are available here.

For more information on the Küng effort, please contact sekretarit@weltethos-institut.org. For an example of Professor Swidler's approach, please see the draft below written in 2008 by graduate students from Temple University's Department of Religion. For more information on drafting your own ethic as an individual or group, please contact the Dialogue Institute. As discussion continues, DI staff would be happy to engage in dialogue about the need for a global ethic.

Toward a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic, Leonard Swidler
Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic, Leonard Swidler
The Declaration of Human Ethic, William Cullinan, Per Faaland, Maria Kaplun, Rebecca Mays, Jessica Sitek (graduate students in Professor Swidler's 2008 seminar on Interreligious Dialogue, Temple University Department of Religion)
Philosophical and Religious Foundations of a Global Ethic, Ingrid H. Shafer

II. Declaration of a Global Ethic - Hans Küng

Commissioned by The Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago, Hans Küng drafted a global ethic to speak to issues concerning the global economy, ecology and politics. Against a backdrop of social disarray, marginalization of much of the world's population, tensions between the sexes and generations, religious strife and political collapse, he saw the world as experiencing a fundamental crisis.

So the resulting "Declaration of a Global Ethic" seeks to go beyond laws and prescriptions and touch the instinct for justice in men and women, and to bring about a change in the inner orientation, the mentality and the hearts of people, so that they find once again their lives' direction, values and meaning.

Without glossing over the serious differences among the individual religions, the document affirms that the ancient wisdom common to all religions can point the way to the future, and it seeks to proclaim publicly those things which we hold in common and jointly affirm, each on the basis of our religious or ethical grounds.