ABSTRACT
In tackling the issue of morality as it relates to globalization, and vice-versa, I have repeatedly used the term humanity. It is time for additional reflection on the meaning of this term. It is interesting, for example, to ask when the word, and the idea, of “humanity” comes into existence? To answer this question, I have been arguing that it is a social construct, an imaginary community, emerging through historical vicissitudes as a form of selfawareness. In the terms in which I am addressing it, the notion of “humanity” is a recent invention, a novel conception, whose existence is correlated with the ending of World War II and the beginning of the present-day process of globalization. The tribunals following upon WW II attempt to define humanity legally; the processes of globalization give actuality to the notion of a common humanity.
