Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic

by Hans Küng

"Highly intelligent... It is understandable while being scholarly and should be read by anyone seeking an overview of ethical history as it relates to the present". -- Church and Synagogue Library Association

Genres: Religion

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Hans Küng was a Swiss Catholic priest, controversial theologian, and prolific author. Since 1995 he had been President of the Foundation for a Global Ethic (Stiftung Weltethos). Küng is "a Catholic priest in good standing," but the Vatican has rescinded his authority to teach Catholic theology. Though he had to leave the Catholic faculty, he remained at the University of Tübingen as a professor of Ecumenical Theology and served as Emeritus Professor since 1996. In spite of not being allowed to teach Catholic theology, neither his bishop nor the Holy See had revoked his priestly faculties.

Reviews

[Elkaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wasn’t planning to read this book just yet, but found that I needed a book to read, while waiting for my medical appointments over one day, and this book was the only one on me, after getting it early in the morning, after getting it from a thrift – second hand store.
Why did I write this?
Anyway, this book was very easy to read, full of some very important topics that are very relevant today, about how ethics – morals fit into the increasing Global polices and leadership. It covered so many issues, from politics, philosophy and history, that left my brain thinking about this book, even now.
I felt the book is a little outdated, being written in 1990. So, much has happened since then, and we are starting to see the cracks and problems of the Global polices, this book speaks out. Anyway, I felt this book is a good one to start on, if you want to know about World Ethics, and a world, adapting to Global polices, that indeed shook up our older traditions and change humanity forever. But, was it for the better, or the worst?

[Sarah Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not entirely what I expected and turned out to be more of a explanation/basis of and outline/plan for the work I was hoping for (which also explains why the book is so short!). That said, it is a fairly useful summary of a lot of theological, historical and philosophical work around this subject and was quite thought-provoking in places.
The overall argument of the book would, I think, be quite useful for dissemination quite widely in Western Christianity. However, this book will not be appropriate to do that unfortunately because it is very academic in tone and unnecessarily complex in many places.