Conclusion: Toward a Global Ethics for the Twenty-First Century

This volume set out to demonstrate that moral concerns and ethi­cal arguments can and have affected the behavior of important and powerful actors in contemporary global politics—including states and global corporations—but powerful forces pulling in the opposite direction ensure that the struggle for global ethics must continue. Accordingly, there is much work to be done to reveal and alleviate global injustices, ensure an environmentally sustainable future, and defend human security. Three main questions, collectively addressed by the contributors to this volume, animated this broad claim: How are we to think about global justice in the twenty-first century in light of “unknown” global injustices and the complex social and moral impacts of global corporations? What is the contribution of the sustainability discourse to the ethics and practice of contemporary global environmentalism and how should we move forward toward a new agenda for climate ethics? To what extent is moral progress being made in the ongoing struggle for human security? This concluding chapter will recount how each of the contributions to this volume have addressed these questions, and will suggest three broad lessons that these chapters collectively teach us about how to move forward to advance global ethics in light of the moral challenges that confront global society in the twenty-first century.