Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: The Globalization of Ethics
- 2 Global Ethics and the International Law Tradition
- 3 Morality and Universality in Jewish Thought
- 4 Globalization and Christian Ethics
- 5 Buddhism and the Globalization of Ethics
- 6 Muslim Perspectives on Global Ethics
- 7 Confucianism: Ethical Uniformity and Diversity
- 8 Natural Law, Common Morality, and Particularity
- 9 Liberalism and the Globalization of Ethics
- 10 Feminist Perspectives on a Planetary Ethic
- 11 Ethical Universalism and Particularism: A Comparison of Outlooks
- Appendix: Key Documents on Global Ethics
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Morality and Universality in Jewish Thought
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: The Globalization of Ethics
- 2 Global Ethics and the International Law Tradition
- 3 Morality and Universality in Jewish Thought
- 4 Globalization and Christian Ethics
- 5 Buddhism and the Globalization of Ethics
- 6 Muslim Perspectives on Global Ethics
- 7 Confucianism: Ethical Uniformity and Diversity
- 8 Natural Law, Common Morality, and Particularity
- 9 Liberalism and the Globalization of Ethics
- 10 Feminist Perspectives on a Planetary Ethic
- 11 Ethical Universalism and Particularism: A Comparison of Outlooks
- Appendix: Key Documents on Global Ethics
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Two Kinds of Universalism
With regard to many of the standard ethical/philosophical questions, Jewish views are both complex and contested. But with regard to the universality of moral rules, there is general agreement on one simple proposition: all human beings live “under the commandments.” They don't all live under the same commandments: the 613 laws of the Torah are “laws” only for the people of Israel. They are a particularist code, but the particularism is limited to religious matters – rituals, holidays, physical purity, sacrifices, and so on – and then to specific legal elaborations and sometimes expansions of the moral rules. (Actually, the particularism extends also to the narrative in which the rules are embedded, but I will postpone that issue until later in my argument.) The moral rules themselves are common to humankind, and they have the same form as the religious code; they are divine commandments. There are Jewish writers who believe that morality is “natural” – that is, accessible to all rational beings. If the moral rules had not been revealed and commanded, they argue, we would have found them or constructed them for ourselves: “These are matters written in the Torah which, even if they had not been written there, reason would have required that they be written.” But it is a central feature of the Jewish tradition that the rules were in fact written; they were revealed and commanded – first to the “sons of Noah” (that is, to all humanity) and then to the people of Israel.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Globalization of EthicsReligious and Secular Perspectives, pp. 38 - 52Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007