¹ Kung, Hans, Global Responsibility In Search of a New World Ethic (LondonSCM, 1991)Google Scholar, has recently proposed the project of formulating a global ethos on the basis of a dialogue of the world religions, which could create the milieu for the kind of ethic envisaged here. Kung succeeded in getting a 5,000-word document on “A Global Ethic” accepted by about 250 religious leaders at the commemorative World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago (August 28 to September 4, 1993), though reportedly not all were willing to sign it because it was too “Western” in conception.

² See Now Is the Time: The Final Document and Other Texts from the World Convocation on Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation, Seoul, Republic of Korea, March 5-12, 1990 (Geneva: W.C.C., 1990);Google Scholar and Kinnamon, Michael, ed., Signs of the Spirit: Official Report, Seventh Assembly, Canberra, Australia, February 7-20, 1991 (Geneva: W.C.C.; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991).Google Scholar

³ Chung's speech is reproduced in Kinnamon, , Signs of the Spirit, 37–47;Google Scholar see also May, J. D., “The Dance of the Spirit: A Theological Reflection on the VIIth Assembly of the W.C.C.,” Doctrine and Life 41 (1991): 305–11.Google Scholar

⁴ My conviction that one of the key tensions lies here grew out of a conversation with Anne Primavesi; see her From Apocalypse to Genesis: Ecology, Feminism and Christianity (London: Burns & Oates, 1991).Google Scholar

⁵ This misunderstanding is finally laid to rest by Nash, James A., Loving Nature: Ecological Integrity and Christian Responsibility (Nashville: Abingdon, 1991), chap. 3.Google Scholar

⁶ Fintan O'Toole, criticizing industrial relations practices in the environmentally friendly Body Shop chain of Roddick, Anita, in The Irish Times, 02 19, 1992.Google Scholar

⁷ Jones, Ken, “Getting Out of Our Own Light” in Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology, ed. Badiner, Allan Hunt (Berkeley, CA: Parallax, 1990), 183–90, at 188.Google Scholar

⁸ See the useful critical survey by Lebacqz, Karen, Six Theories of Justice Perspectives from Philosophical and Theological Ethics (Minneapolis, MNAugsburg, 1986)Google Scholar, and the discussion of ethical pluralism by MacIntyre, Alasdair, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, INUniversity of Notre Dame Press, 1988)Google Scholar The point of reference for much contemporary Western debate is Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (CambridgeHarvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar

⁹ See “Natural Law,” “Rights, Human,” and “Justice” in The New Dictionary of Theology, ed Komonchak, Joseph A, Collins, Mary, and Lane, Dermot A (Wilmington, DEMichael Glazier, 1987)Google Scholar, and “Natural Law,” and “Natural Rights” in A Dictionary of Christian Ethics, ed Macquarrie, John (LondonSCM, 1967)Google Scholar

¹⁰ The incompatibility of human rights language with a liberationist stance is pointedly expressed by Pieris, Aloysius SJ, “Human Rights Language and Liberation Theology” in The Future of Liberation Theology Essays m Honor of Gustavo Gutierrez, ed Ellis, Marc H and Maduro, Otto (Maryknoll, NYOrbis, 1989), 299–310Google Scholar

¹¹ See D'Sa, Francis X SJ, “Das Recht, ein Mensch zu sein und die Pflicht, kosmisch zu bleiben Interkulturelle Reflexionen zu Menschenrechten und kosmischen Pflichten” in Begrundung von Menschenrechten aus der Sicht unterschiedlicher Kulturen, ed. Hoffmann, Johannes (Frankfurt a.M.: Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 1991), 157–85.Google Scholar

¹² See Saverimuttu, Nicholapillai, “Menschenrechte in den ethnischen Konflikten Sri Lankas” in Hoffmann, , ed., Begründung von Menschenrechten, 187–200.Google Scholar In the second volume of papers from three symposia at the University of Frankfurt on the multicultural basis of human rights (forthcoming, ed. by Johannes Hoffmann), Sulak Sivaraksa, “Buddhism and Human Rights” (ms.), shows how the Buddhist dialectic of wisdom and compassion, change and suffering can take us beyond “the liberal conception of human rights” to one in which “man is never an end in himself” and the Platonic duality of superior and inferior in both the human and society is transcended.

¹³ See May, J. D., “Human Rights as Land Rights in the Pacific,” Pacifica: Australian Theological Studies 6 (1993): 61–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ See the very pertinent development of this idea by Lancaster, Lewis R., “Buddhism and the Contemporary World: The Problem of Social Action in an Urban Environment” in Radical Conservatism: Buddhism in the Contemporary World. Articles in Honour of Bhikkhu Buddhadasa's 84th Birthday, ed. Sivaraksa, Sulak (Bangkok: Thai Inter-Religious Commission for Development & International Network of Engaged Buddhists, 1990), 149–55Google Scholar, and the many-sided critique of the supposed universality of human rights in Hoffmann, ed., Begründung von Menschenrechten.

¹⁵ For useful surveys of the rights tradition in Western thought, see Nash, Roderick, The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989);Google Scholar and Passmore, John, Man's Responsibility for Nature: Ecological Problems and Western Tradition, 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1980).Google Scholar

¹⁶ See Ricoeur, Paul, “Love and Justice” in Radical Pluralism and Truth: David Tracy and the Hermeneutics of Religion, ed. Jeanrond, Werner G. and Rike, Jennifer L. (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 187–202.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Nash, , Loving Nature, 163.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid., 170. When Nash goes on, however, to argue that rights are more primary than responsibilities, I am inclined to agree with Jonas, Hans, The Imperative of Responsibility (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984)Google Scholar, that rights remain abstract unless the concept of responsibility itself is considerably expanded, as I shall argue later.

¹⁹ I first tried to formulate the place of meaning, identity, nature, the future, and collectivities in ethics in the context of the ethics of development (see May, J. D., “Towards the Development of Ethics,” Catalyst: Social Pastoral Magazine for Melanesia 17 [1987]: 235–51Google Scholar).

²⁰ See “Justice” in Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, ed. Lossky, Nicholaset al. (Geneva: W.C.C., 1991).Google Scholar

²¹ See Daly, H. E. and Cobb, John B., For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment and a Sustainable Future (Boston: Beacon, 1989).Google Scholar

²² Marcel, Gabriel, Being and Having An Existentialist Diary (New York. Harper & Row, 1965);Google ScholarFromm, Erich, To Have or To Be? (London: Jonathan Cape, 1978);Google Scholar and Staehlin, Balthasar, Haben und Sein Vom Wesen der zweiten Wirklichkeit der Natur ȷedes Menschen (Hamburg: Siebenstern, 1969).Google Scholar

²³ de Silva, Lily, “Insights from the Teaching of the Buddha for Promoting Justice and Peace in the Modern World,” Dialogue NS 16 (1989), 37–58Google Scholar, at 39.

²⁴ See Dharmasiri, Gunapala (“Bodhisattva and Social Service,” Dialogue NS 15 [1988]: 54–60)Google Scholar, who brings out the connection between the Bodhisattva ideal, no-self [anattā], and dependent co-origination (paticcasamuppāda).

²⁵ See Hanh, Thich Nhat, Being Peace (Berkeley, CA: Parallax, 1987), 63–64Google Scholar, Hanh, Thich Nhat, Interbeing: Commentaries on the Tiep Hien Precepts (Berkeley, CA: Parallax, 1987);Google Scholar and Jones, Ken, The Social Face of Buddhism: An Approach to Political and Social Activism (London: Wisdom, 1989), 105.Google Scholar

²⁶ See Halifax, Joan, “The Third Body: Buddhism, Shamanism and Deep Ecology” in Dharma Gaia, ed. Badiner, , 20–38, at 34.Google Scholar

²⁷ Sivaraksa, Sulak, “True Development” in Dharma Gaia, ed. Badiner, , 169–77, at 177.Google Scholar

²⁸ Jones, , Social Face of Buddhism, 157.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ Lafitte, Gabriel, “A Meditation on Buddhist History and Its Lessons for Today” in Radical Conservatism, ed. Sivaraksa, , 39–47, at 44.Google Scholar

³¹ Crawford, Cromwell, “The Buddhist Response to Health and Disease in Environmental Perspective” in Radical Conservatism, ed. Sivaraksa, , 162–71, at 167.Google Scholar

³² Sivaraksa, Sulak, “Building Trust through Economic and Social Development and Ecological Balance: A Buddhist Perspective” in Radical Conservatism, ed. Sivaraksa, , 179–98, at 190.Google Scholar

³³ Macy, Joanna, “The Greening of the Self” in Radical Conservatism, ed. Sivaraksa, , 53–63, at 61–62.Google Scholar

³⁴ Nash, (Loving Nature, 149, 181–82)Google Scholar rightly refuses to go along with ethicists such as Peter Singer who accuse of “speciesism” those who maintain the singular moral status of humans.

³⁵ Halifax, , “The Third Body,” 25.Google Scholar

³⁶ Lafleur, William, “Sattva: Enlightenment for Plants and Trees” in Dharma Gaia, ed. Badiner, , 136–44, at 137.Google Scholar

³⁷ Gutièrrez, Gustavo, On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987), 74.Google Scholar

³⁸ See Boff, Leonardo, Saint Francis: A Model for Human Liberation (New York: Crossroad, 1982).Google Scholar

³⁹ See Jonas, Imperative of Responsibility. In the German original, Jonas speaks of the Staatsmann rather than the Politiker, but in the interests of both inclusive and alliterative language I translate “politician.”

⁴⁰ Deicke, Carla, “Women and Ecocentricity” in Dharma Gaia, ed. Badiner, , 165–68, at 166.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Quoted by Halifax, , “The Third Body,” 35.Google Scholar

⁴² Jones, , “Getting Out of Our Own Light,” 185.Google Scholar

⁴³ Ibid., 187; also see 189-90.

⁴⁴ Kinnamon, , Signs of the Spirit, 55.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Ibid., 64. Further relevant texts may be found in May, “The Dance of the Spirit.”

⁴⁶ Batchelor, Stephen, “Buddhist Economics Reconsidered” in Dharma Gaia, ed. Badiner, , 178–82, at 180.Google Scholar