Global Ethic

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The Blue Marble was chosen as the symbol for his project on the cover of Küng's “Global Ethic Project”

The global ethic is the formulation of a basic set of ethical norms and values ​​that can be derived from religious, cultural and partly also from philosophical traditions of human history.

The Global Ethic project is an attempt to describe what the world religions have in common and to set up a common ethos , a concise set of rules based on the basic demands that can be accepted by everyone. The initiator of the project is the theologian Hans Küng .

Just like the international Earth Charter Initiative, the project tries to formulate the ethical foundations for a more humane and democratic world order in order, among other things, to avert impending ecological catastrophes .

Core beliefs

The basic beliefs of the Global Ethic project are

  • no coexistence on our globe without a global ethos
  • no peace among nations without peace among religions
  • no peace among religions without inter-religious dialogue
  • no dialogue between religions and cultures without basic research
  • no global ethos without a change in the consciousness of the religious and the non-religious

“This one world needs an ethos; this one world society does not need a uniform religion and ideology, but does need some binding and binding norms, values, ideals and goals. "

- Hans Küng, The Global Ethic Project

Golden Rule

An important example of the similarities in religions, but also non-religious views, is the principle of the Golden Rule . All religions and cultures know this principle of reciprocity. In the form of a German proverb from Judaism, it goes like this: What you don't want someone to do to you, don't do it to anyone else . The Global Ethic project gives the following examples of the individual world religions:

  • Hinduism : One should not behave towards others in a way that is uncomfortable for oneself; that is the essence of morality. - Mahabharata  13,113.8 sa 
  • Buddhism : A state that is not pleasant or enjoyable for me should not be for him either; and a state that is not pleasant or enjoyable for me, how can I expect it from another? - Samyutta-Nikaya (speeches of the Buddha) V, 353.35–354.2
  • Judaism : What you hate, you shouldn't do to anyone else either! ( Book of Tobit 4:15); later: Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you. - Rabbi Hillel , Sabbath 3a
  • Christianity : Everything you want people to do to you, you do to them as well. - New Testament, Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31 or love your neighbor as yourself. , Leviticus 19:18 AT, Luke 10:27, Matthew 19:19, Matthew 22:39, Romans 13.9, Galatians 5:14.
  • Islam : None of you is a believer as long as you do not wish your brother what he wishes for himself. - An-Nawawī , Kitab Al-Arba'in (Forty Hadith), 13. 256. Koranic verse No compulsion in religion : "In religion there is no compulsion."

Declaration on the Global Ethic

From August 28 to September 4, 1993, representatives of many different religions met in Chicago for the World Parliament of Religions to compile a set of rules that should ethically justify the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights. 6,500 people from 125 religions and religious traditions took part. In the Declaration on the Global Ethic, they agreed on four directives (You shall not kill, steal, lie and commit fornication), which were formulated in the guiding principles:

  • Commitment to a culture of nonviolence and awe of all life,
  • Commitment to a culture of solidarity and a just economic order,
  • Commitment to a culture of tolerance and a life of truthfulness ,
  • Commitment to a culture of equality and partnership between men and women.

A fifth directive was added to mark the 25th anniversary of the “Declaration on the Global Ethic”. This was preceded by a broad, month-long consultation process and the approval of the Board of Trustees of the Parliament of the World Religions in July 2018.

The basic requirement is: Everyone must be treated humanely! Furthermore, the golden rule applies as a common feature. as an “immovable, unconditional norm for all areas of life”.

In Judaism, for example, these demands are derived from the 10 commandments ; in Christianity too, whereby Jesus' interpretation of these commandments in the Sermon on the Mount is authoritative.

Foundation, endowment

The Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg Winfried Kretschmann at the 12th Global Ethic Speech on the subject of "Cohesion in times of upheaval" in Tübingen in February 2017

The project is run by the Global Ethic Foundation, headquartered in Tübingen . The foundation was established by the Baden-Baden entrepreneur Karl Konrad von der Groeben , who became aware of the topic in 1995 through the book Projekt Weltethos . He made a substantial sum available. Further work can be financed in the long term from the interest. The first president of the foundation was Hans Küng . In March 2013 (on Küng's 85th birthday) the President of the State Court of Baden-Württemberg, Eberhard Stilz , took over this position. The former Federal President Horst Köhler , who was initially planned, canceled .

Tasks:

  • Implementation and promotion of intercultural and interreligious research
  • Stimulation and implementation of intercultural and interreligious educational work
  • Facilitating and supporting the intercultural and interreligious encounters necessary for research and educational work

The goals are the implementation of human rights , freedom of people from oppression , freedom as such, elimination of world hunger , implementation of a just economic order , solidarity between people, sustainability to protect the ecosystem and peace on earth . This is to be achieved through dialogue between religions and the change in consciousness of everyone.

Since 1996 there has also been a Global Ethic Foundation in Switzerland, financed by Martita Jöhr-Rohr (1912–2008), the widow of Walter Adolf Jöhr . Global Ethic Foundations or similar structures have also emerged in Austria, the Czech Republic, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.

Since 2015 the foundation has been awarding the FRIEDOLIN - Youth Literature Prize every year for works in which aspects of the global ethic idea are thematized in a particularly successful way.

Criticism and reception

The Global Ethic project is criticized for the fact that the foundations for this common ethos stem from very Western ways of thinking and thus do not take the content of other religions into sufficient consideration. Another point of criticism is that the religions are losing importance compared to the global ethic and thus centuries-old knowledge and traditions could be forgotten. After all, the Global Ethic project addresses the (major) religions of the world and only marginally takes into account people who are far from religion or who are not religious. Various projects, such as the Ethify Yourself project, are opposing this .

The philosopher Robert Spaemann stood out as one of the sharpest critics of the Global Ethic project . For the philosopher Volker Zotz “the utopia of a unity resonates in Küng's thinking, whereby there is the danger of turning a blind eye to the real differences or at least taking them less important than the unifying factor.” Zotz sees in the Global Ethic project the “tendency to to take what is similar to one's own more important to others than differences. The awareness of a universality of the human, which does not want to divide peoples and cultures, leads here to resistance to perceiving others as fundamentally different from oneself. "

Siegfried Pflegerl formulates a constructively stimulating criticism from the perspective of an evolvingly new, scientifically and rationally founded concept of religion .

The legal philosopher Axel Montenbruck already understands the idea of ​​the global ethic as part of a western, secular civil religion of constitutions and conventions; at the same time he embeds the idea of ​​the global ethic in the idea of ​​a universal naturalism of justice , for example in the sense of sensible swarm behavior .

See also

Web links

literature

  • An extensive bibliography on the global ethic debate - compiled by Michel Hofmann - can be found in: Christel Hasselmann: The world religions are discovering their common ethos . Mainz 2002. ISBN 978-3786723745 . P. 300ff.
  • Hans Küng: Global Ethic Project . Piper Verlag, Munich 1990 Table of contents (pdf)
  • Hans Küng: Islam. History, present, future . Piper Verlag, Munich 2004
  • Hans Küng (Hrsg.), Dieter Senghaas (Hrsg.): Friedenspolitik. Ethical foundations of international relations . Piper Verlag, Munich, 2003
  • Hans Küng: Why Global Ethic? Religion and Ethics in Times of Globalization. In conversation with Jürgen Hoeren . Herder Verlag, Freiburg / Brsg., 2002
  • Hans Küng (ed.): Documentation on the global ethic. Piper Verlag, Munich 2002
  • Christel Hasselmann: The world religions are discovering their common ethos. The way to the declaration of global ethics . Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 2002 (with a foreword by Hans Küng)
  • Christel Hasselmann: Hans Küng's Global Ethic Project Intercultural Read , Intercultural Library, Traugott Bautz, Nordhausen 2005
  • Bernd Jaspert (Ed.): Hans Küng's "Project Global Ethic". Contributions from philosophy and theology. For the 65th birthday of Hans Küng (= Hofgeismar Protocols 299). Ev. Academy Hofgeismar, Hofgeismar 1993 (2nd edition 1996)
  • Robert Spaemann : Global ethic as a 'project' . In: Mercury. Journal for European Thought , Issue 9/10, 50th year, Stuttgart 1996, pp. 891–904 (a fundamental criticism of the Global Ethic project)
  • Hans Küng, Karl-Josef Kuschel (ed.): Science and global ethos . Piper Verlag, Munich, 1998
  • Hans Küng: Yes to the global ethic, perspectives for the search for orientation . Piper Verlag, Munich, 1996
  • Erwin Bader (ed.): Weltethos - Weltfrieden - Weltreligionen , ed. i. A. d. Global Ethic Initiative Austria, Vw. V. Hans Küng, LIT Verlag Vienna - Münster 2007
  • Erwin Bader (ed.): Weltethos und Globalisierung , ed. i. A. d. Global Ethic Initiative Austria, LIT Verlag Wien - Münster 2008
  • Siegfried Pflegerl: The Ethos of One Humanity - Critical Proposals for the Evolution of the Global Ethic Debate . E-Book from Internetloge.de, 2009 Download the entire book: 95 pages, PDF file 1.5 MB under: [2] (PDF; 1.5 MB)
  • Martin Bauschke: The Global Ethic Foundation . In: Michael Klöcker , Udo Tworuschka (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Religionen. Churches and other faith communities . Landsberg / Munich 19907ff. (Loose-leaf publication with four additional deliveries per year), (II-4.2.1.8.1), 32nd EL 2012, pp. 1–7.
  • Helmut Reinalter (Ed.): Global Ethic Project. Challenges and opportunities for a new world politics and world order, Studienverlag - Innsbruck 2006
  • Helmut Reinalter (Ed.): Ethics in times of globalization . With a foreword by Hans Küng, W. Braumüller - Vienna 2007
  • Helmut Reinalter (Ed.): Global Ethic Talks, Innsbruck University Press - Innsbruck 2014
  • Andreas Lienkamp : The responsibility of religious communities for nature conservation , in: Jürgen Micksch, Yasmin Khurshid, Hubert Meisinger, Andreas Mues (eds.): Religions and nature conservation - Together for biological diversity (BfN script 426), Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Bonn - Bad Godesberg 2015, pp. 31–47 ( ISBN 978-3-89624-162-7 )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Luther's German translation of Tobias 4:16 ( apocryphal ), which has become a proverb , there with “that” instead of “that”.
  2. ↑ Standard translation from 1980
  3. ↑ Declaration of the Parliament of the World Religions - The Global Ethic Declaration and its signatories. (PDF in Arabic, Bahasa Malaysia, Bulgarian, Chinese, German, English, French, Italian, Catalan, Croatian, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Turkish) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on September 30th 2013 ; Retrieved August 17, 2013 .
  4. ↑ Commitment to a Culture of Sustainability and Care for the Earth.
  5. ↑ Global Ethic Foundation Tübingen
  6. ↑ http://www.swr.de/nachrichten/bw/-/id=1622/nid=1622/did=10925744/667so1/
  7. ^ Küng, Hans: Handbuch Weltethos. A vision and its implementation. Page 138. Piper Verlag, Munich, 2012. ISBN 978-3-492-30059-9
  8. ↑ Global Ethic Foundation Tübingen , accessed on January 29, 2013.
  9. ↑ [1] (PDF; 163 kB) Heinzpeter Hempelmann : Intolerant tolerance. Hans Küng's “Global Ethic Project” as a Procrustean bed of religious claims to validity. accessed January 26, 2015
  10. ↑ ethify.org; Roland Alton: Ethify Yourself. Live and operate with nine values . Online book , chapter Outlook, last accessed March 20, 2011.
  11. ↑ Mercury. Journal for European Thinking, Issue 9/10, pp. 891–904.
  12. ↑ Volker Zotz: Confucius for the West. New longing for old values. OW Barth, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-502-61164-6 , pp. 41-44.
  13. ↑ The Ethos of One Humanity. Critical Suggestions for the Evolution of the Global Ethic Debate (eBook). (PDF; 1.5 MB) Accessed June 21, 2013 .
  14. ^ Axel Montenbruck: civil religion. A legal philosophy I. Foundation: Western “democratic preamble humanism” and universal triad “nature, soul and reason”. 3rd considerably expanded edition, 2011, p. 120ff (on justice naturalism in general), p. 132 ff (on Küng's global ethic), University Library of the Free University of Berlin ( open access )