ABSTRACT

This book suggests that current trends towards globalization are creating entirely new social and environmental problems which require cross-cultural dialogue towards the creation of a new “global ethic.” The central argument of the book is that such an ethic should minimally concern itself with (1) promoting ecological sustainability in degrees suffi cient to allow both human and nonhuman life to thrive; (2) achieving social justice both within and between cultures; and (3) maximizing human well-being in the sense of providing both for the material needs of individuals and for their full psychological, social, and cultural development. These proposals are based on a transactional view of the relationship between self, society, and nature, which sees each of these three poles as interacting with the others in dialectical ways. Rather than regard individual, social, and environmental concerns in confl ictual terms, a transactional approach attempts to harmonize them, while preserving a measure of autonomy for each.