Comparative Ethics in a Global Age

Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series IVA. Eastern and Central Europe, Volume 30 General Editor George F. Mclean Comparative Ethics in a Global Age edited by Marietta T. Stepanyants Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Copyright © 2007 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Box 261 Cardinal Station Washington, D.C. 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Comparative ethics in a global age / edited by Marietta T. Stepanyants. p. cm. — (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series IVA, Eastern and Central Europe ; v. 30) Rev. ed. of Moralnaya filosofiya v kontekste mnogoobraziya kyltyr. Moskva: Vostocknaya Literatura, 2004, 320pp. Includes index. 1. Ethics, Comparative. I. Stepanyants, M.T. (Marietta Tigranovna). BJ69.C66 2006 2006030725 170--dc20 CIP ISBN 978-1-56518-235-6 (pbk.) Table of Contents Introduction 1 Part I. A Global Ethics Chapter I. Is a Global Ethics Possible? 13 Karsten J. Struhl Chapter II. Is Absolute Morality Possible in Modern Pluralistic Society? 31 Abdussalam A. Guseinov Chapter III. The Golden Mean as a Metaphorical Key to 41 Understanding: The General and the Particular in Moral Philosophy Marietta T. Stepanyants Chapter IV. Morality and Pathology: A Comparative Approach 51 Hans-Georg Moeller Chapter V. ‘The Science of Man’ and Moral Philosophy: 63 Relations of Facts and Values Roger Smith Chapter VI. From Religion through Philosophy to Literature: 75 The Way Western Intellectuals Went Richard Rorty Chapter VII. Global Ethics: Beyond Universalism and Particularism 87 Fred Dallmayr Part II. The Confucian Tradition Chapter VIII.VIII. Ne Confucianism a��nd Problems of Interpr��etation�� 109 Yelena Staburova Chapter IX. Cultural Crossings against Ethnocentric Currents: 121 Toard a Confucian Ethics of Communicative Virtues Sor-Hoon Tan Chapter X. The Genesis of Chinese Philosophy as an “Infantile” 135 Teaching of Destroying Death by Life Artem I. Kobzev Chapter XI. Confucianism and Deweyan Pragmatism: A Dialogue 141 Roger T. Ames Part III. The Hindu and Buddhist Traditions Chapter XII. Transmigration in the 21st Century, 161 or the Future of an Illusion Michel Hulin Chapter X��III��. Moral Values in the Multi-Cultural Conte�t: 179 A��n Indian Approach R.C. Pradhan iv Table of Contents Chapter�� XIV. ��n ‘Moral Right’ and ��the ��‘Morally Right’: 187 From Logical Right t��o Moral Right Rajendra Prasad Chapter XV. Good as a Category of Indian Philosophy 193 Vladimir K. Schokhin Chapter XVI. The Hard Task of Hitting the Mean: Aristotle’s 203 Mean (Mesotes) and Buddha’s Middle Path (Majjhimā Pañipadā) Viktoria Lysenko Chapter XVII. L. Tolstoy’s Non-Resistance Teaching and 217 D. Ikeda’s Idea of Non-Violence: A Comparative Essay Eguchy Mitsuru Part IV. The Islamic Tradition Chapter XVIII. The Philosophy of Power: Al-Mawardi and Al-Ghazali 229 Nur Kirabaev Chapter XIX. Al-Attas’ Concept of Ta’dib as True and 243 Comprehensive Education in Islam Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud Chapter XX. Moral Philosophy of Islamic Mysticism: 259 A Cursory Vie of the Ethical Teachings of Futua Yanis Eshots Chapter X��XI��. Dualism ��and�� Monism: How ��Really Different�� 271 Are the Two Versions of Sufi Ethics? Andrey Smirnov Chapter XXII. The Koran on Spiritual Pluralism 279 T. K. Ibrahim Index 283 Introduction As the orld enters upon a global age human actions and interactions are endlessly e�tended and interwoven. This takes place in the economic and political order, but even more in the order of information and communication. We no live and act together across the previous barriers of mountains, des- erts and seas. At the same time e have ever greater poer to oppress and destroy. Yet justice still refuses to be reduced to Thrasymachus’: ‘The just is to do hat is for the advantage of the stronger” (Republic, 341a1), i.e., might makes right. Peace ill elude us until the nature and modes of cooperation in the good can be understood, broadened and applied beteen ever more diverse peoples and cultures. In this urgent conte�t the present work takes on e�ceptional impor- tance. If circumstances ere unchanging and one could simply replicate an- cient wisdom, whether of the East or West, the North or South, the task of philosophy would be vastly simplified. In reality we hurtle forward into ever changing and opening horizons, engaging more deeply ever more diverse peoples and cultures. It becomes imperative then that ethics as the mode by hich peoples understand, evaluate and direct their action be enriched. First, it is necessary to develop better understanding of the ethics hich guide the peoples ith hom e no live; second, it is necessary to broaden our modes of evaluation in order to take into account not only our own path but those of others; third, it is necessary to coordinate the direction of action in ays that are cooperative and mutually promotive for all. This is the special, and the especially challenging, task of a comparative ethics in our day. It is as well the task which the authors of this volume have taken upon themselves, convoked by Professor Marietta T. Stepanyants, director of the Center for Oriental Philosophies Studies, of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Mosco. The studies carried out here appear to order themselves in four parts. Part I concerns the possibility of a global ethics and indeed of any ethics in these post-modern times. It serves to identify the elements and developments needed for ethics in global times. The subsequent parts search for these elements. Thus, Part II concerns the Chinese tradition ith its stress on harmony. In Part III Hindu and Buddhist cultures enrich this ith their sense of the interior life. Part IV reflects Islamic philosophy’s strong religious and meta- physical contribution. Part I “A Global Ethics” concerns the notion and possibility of ethics in general and of a global ethics in particular. On the one hand, Chapter I by Karsten J. Struhl, “Is a global ethic possible,” states the need for a global ethics, but sees this as depending on the development of a global culture hich is only now in the making and may always be “in process”. Yet this does not 2 Introduction mean that efforts at a global ethics cannot have heuristic value, subtly guiding or draing all in a convergent direction. Chapter II by Abdussalam A. Guseinov, “Is Absolute Morality Possible in Modern Pluralistic Society?” takes the argument a step further by conceiving morality as self-obligation and self-control. In these broad terms he ould see an absolute morality as essential and even as an antidote to the danger of elevating hat is only culturally relative to an absolute position. Chapter III by Marietta T. Stepanyants, “The Golden Mean as a Metaphorical Key to Understanding: The General and the Particular in Moral Philosophy,” turns to the golden means found in the various forms in the is- dom and ethics of most cultures. Perspicaciously, hoever, she distinguishes between: (a) the circumstances where this guides the person to new heights of humane global sensitivity, and (b) an imposed state ethics hich exercises a leveling influence toward a least common denominator. The latter is often the case where law, which can only place minimum obligations, is taken as the ethical standard. On the other hand, there are those ho ould see the search for absolute or global ethical guidance, even in the sense of a mean sought by each person, as pathological. Thus Chapter IV by Hans-Georg Moeller, “Morality and Pathology: A Comparative Approach,” turns to Daoism and Niklas Luhmann to describe the search for morality as infecting human discourse ith a de- structive distinction of good vs evil. This can set peoples against one another and destroy communication and cooperation. It is a rhetoric heard in the “ar against terrorism” and “evil,” all of hich are to be exterminated. Yet is not an inability to distinguish good from bad the ethical equivalent of the airplane pilot unable to differentiate up from don. The point is not merely rhetorical, for the modern Western aversion to metaphysics hich has removed the ability to speak of the good has undermined ethics of any sort. Thus Chapter V by Roger Smith, “‘The Science of Man’ and Moral Philosophy: Relations of Facts and Values,” and Chapter VI by Richard Rorty, “From Religion through Philosophy to Literature: The Way Western Intellectuals Went,” illustrate this loss of the ability to establish a normative ethics. They see a progressive passage first from religion as bringing moral guidance from above and then from natural science as providing knowledge of an objective human nature or state of affairs from belo. These authors turn attention rather to the ay in hich one constructs one’s life after the manner in hich one constructs a novel or narrative. Rorty sees this as leav- ing philosophy behind in the historical sequence of the search for the source of redemption first in religion, then in philosophy and finally in literature as a matter of human self-reliance and creativity. This directs our attention to the present quandary. For e have found ith Quine that the supposed basic objectivity of empiricism is based on to unsustainable dogmas. Moreover, e fear that a deontological ethics restrict- ed to abstract principles provides for ideology but does not help in the direction of concrete human action – and may even destroy attention to the unique dignity and freedom of persons. Hence, e must either abandon philosophy or George F. McLean 3 develop it in new ways.

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