ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses two questions, namely, “Why global ethics?” and “What global Ethics?” At first glance these questions appear. if not unconnected. then at least separable. In this chapter I will suggest that they are necessarily related because how one answers the “What?” question fundamentally effects how one answers the “Why?” question. In particular, reasons for answering the “Why?” question depend upon one’s answers to the “What global ethics?” question. This is because, one needs to know what global ethics consists of in order to endorse global ethics and give reasons to the “Why?” question. In particular, many current critics, especially those from the non-Western world, have no reasons to answer the “Why?” question positively as they consider global ethics merely an imperialist version of Western ethics.1
