2
GLOBAL ETHICS –
SCENARIOS FOR THE FUTURE
Christoph Stückelberger, Switzerland
2.1 Roots of Global Ethics
All human beings have common basic needs such as water, food,
clothing, shelter, community and dignity. What unites us as humans
independent from gender, race and background leads also to some com-
mon fundamental values, best expressed in the Golden Rule of reciproci-
ty—that we should do to others what we expect from them. The Golden
Rule exists in all religions and philosophical systems. Therefore, the
search for universal values, a global ethics, is as old as humanity.
But also contextual, differentiated values are a reality and as old as
humanity. The context of different geographical conditions, ethnic iden-
tities, religious convictions, gender diversity, generational transfor-
mations, technological innovations and forms of organization of com-
munities lead to contextual values which can be in conflict to each other.
In the past seventy years, since the cruelty of the Second World War
and the Atomic Bomb, the search for common values for humanity to
overcome nationalism, war and mass killing was intensified. The Uni-
versal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations in 1948 was a
milestone for Global Ethics which cannot be underestimated. Accelerat-
ed Globalisation, pluralism and migration in the past three decades since