Leading scholars representing the world's five great religious traditions--Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--discuss fundamental philosophical questions on revelation and religious experience; analysis of faith; science and religion; the foundation of morality; and life and the afterlife.

This work examines the range of work in which value theorists are engaging in the first decade of the 21st century with essays illustrating the ways in which theorists from different parts of thw world draw on an increasingly broad range of intellectual thought.

Literature-Philosophy apprehends the encounter of literature and philosophy as an open dialogue, where the commonality of a specific distance with regard to ἐπιστήμη serves to open up discourse beyond knowledge and epistemology. This article serves the purpose to argue for reading in translation as a core element of the methodological toolkit and part of a study-focus on Literature-Philosophy in a curriculum of Global Philosophy. It will therefore start by sketching a contextualization of Tschuang-Tse. Reden und Gleichnisse, Martin Buber’s (...) poetic renderings of 莊子, to introduce into how and why his philosophy of dialogue in her educational form stays trapped within an aesthetically motivated hierarchy of explanation. Le maître ignorant by Jacques Rancière will provide a restructuring of the educational encounter as a kind of emancipatory literary poetics of subjectivation inquiry and experience that is political, rather than power-related. (shrink)

Literature-Philosophy apprehends the encounter of literature and philosophy as an open dialogue, where the commonality of a specific distance with regard to ἐπιστήμη serves to open up discourse beyond knowledge and epistemology. This article serves the purpose to argue for reading in translation as a core element of the methodological toolkit and part of a study-focus on Literature-Philosophy in a curriculum of Global Philosophy. It will therefore start by sketching a contextualization of Tschuang-Tse. Reden und Gleichnisse, Martin Buber’s (...) poetic renderings of 莊子, to introduce into how and why his philosophy of dialogue in her educational form stays trapped within an aesthetically motivated hierarchy of explanation. Le maître ignorant by Jacques Rancière will provide a restructuring of the educational encounter as a kind of emancipatory literary poetics of subjectivation inquiry and experience that is political, rather than power-related. (shrink)

Long before the multiculturalism and globalism became the well-known controversial slogans of our time, Michel Foucault in a brief and otherwise not important interview expressed a courageous idea, that the future of philosophy, finding itself in a deep crisis at present, might depend on its encounter with Asiatic thinking. In 1978 during his stay in Japan Foucault proclaimed the end of Western philosophy. According to him if any philosophy is to exist in future, it will have to come to existence (...) aside Europe or as a result of the encounter of European and Non-European thinking. One way or other, the author is deeply convinced, that it is from this encounter that the most shining future of philosophy is to expect. (shrink)

Religion is the most fundamental, comprehensive of all human activities. It tries to make sense out of not simply one or other aspect of human life, but of all aspects of human experience. At the core of every civilization lies its religion, which both reflects and shapes it. Thus, if we wish to understand human life in general and our specific culture and history, we need to understand religion. What is religion? As this comprehensive work shows, religion is an explanation (...) of the ultimate meaning of life and how to live accordingly, based on a notion of the Transcendent. Normally it contains the four "C's": Creed, Code, Cult, Community-structure. This volume looks at the ways we humans have developed to study religion. It also examines the new age in human consciousness that is now drawing. It also examines the new age in human consciousness that is now dawning: The Age of Global Dialogue, a radically new consciousness that shifts the ways we understand everything in life, including religion. This global dialogical way of understanding life does not lead to one global religion, but it does lead toward a consciously acknowledged common set of ethical principles, a Global Ethic. The book looks at these two movements -- the Age of Global Dialogue and inchoative Global Ethic -- in order to help readers understand what is going on around them, so they may make informed, intelligent decisions about the meaning of life and how to live it. (shrink)

In his article «A Vision for the Third Millennium, ‘The Age of Global Dialogue’: Dialogue or Death», Swidler attempts to show that humankind is in a crucial transition from a stage where monologue is the chief characteristic of rela- tions, to one where dialogue is the chief characteristic. Because of technological advances, dialogue is both more possible than ever before and also more necessary than ever before. The change from monologue to dialogue is a (...) change from a way of interacting modeled on confronta- tion to one modeled on listening. The change is being caused by a number of important parallel shifts, such as an increased awareness of the tenacity of knowledge and the shrinking of the world to a «global community». But while Swidler characterizes the change from monologue to dialogue as «the most fundamental, most radical and utterly transformative of the key elements of the newly emerging paradigm,» he warns that this change is not a guaranteed event. With the great technological advances that make dialogue more possible than ever come new opportunities for technological abuses. Therefore, he warns, we are faced with two choices: dialogue or death. (shrink)

Italian Constitutional Justice in Global Context is the first book ever published in English to provide an international examination of the Italian Constitutional Court, offering a comprehensive analysis of its principal lines of jurisprudence, historical origins, organization, procedures, and its current engagement with transnational European law. The ItCC represents one of the strongest and most successful examples of constitutional judicial review, and is distinctive in its structure, institutional dimensions, and well-developed jurisprudence. Moreover, the ItCC has developed a distinctive voice (...) among global constitutional actors in its adjudication of a broad range of topics from fundamental rights and liberties to the allocations of governmental power and regionalism. Nevertheless, in global constitutional dialog, the voice of the ItCC has been almost entirely absent due to a relative lack of both English translations of its decisions and of focused scholarly commentary in English.This book describes the "Italian Style" in global constitutional adjudication, and aims to elevate Italian constitutional jurisprudence to an active participant role in global constitutional discourse. The authors have carefully structured the work to allow the ItCC's own voice to emerge. It presents broad syntheses of major areas of the Court's case law, provides excerpts from notable decisions in a narrative and analytical context, addresses the tension between the ItCC and the Court of Cassation, and positions the development, character, and importance of the ItCC's jurisprudence in the larger arc of global judicial dialog. (shrink)

The main approaches to semiotic inquiry today contradict the idea of the individual as a separate and self-sufficient entity. The body of an organism in the micro- and macrocosm is not an isolated biological entity, it does not belong to the individual, it is not a separate and self-sufficient sphere in itself. The body is an organism that lives in relation to other bodies, it is intercorporeal and interdependent. This concept of the body finds confirmation in cultural practices and worldviews (...) based on intercorporeity, interdependency, exposition and opening, though nowadays such practices are almost extinct. An approach to semiotics that is global and at once capable of surpassing the illusory idea of definitive and ultimate boundaries to identity presupposes dialogue and otherness. Otherness obliges identity to question the tendency to totalizing closure and to reorganize itself always anew in a process related to ‘infinity’, as Emmanuel Levinas teaches us, or to ‘infinite semiosis’, to say it with Charles Sanders Peirce. Another topic of this paper is the interrelation in anthroposemiosis between man and machine and the implications involved for the future of humanity. Our overall purpose is to develop global semiotics in the direction of “semioethics”, as proposed by S.Petrilli and A. Ponzio and their ongoing research. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between globalization, care and migration, with specific reference to the ‘global care chain’ concept. The utility of this concept is explored in the light of its current and potential contributions to research on the international division of reproductive labour and transnational care economies. The article asserts the validity of global care chain analysis but argues that its present application to migrant domestic care workers must be broadened in order that its potential may be (...) fully realized. Accordingly, five ways in which the concept could be more broadly applied are outlined and applications of this expanded framework are illustrated through a case study of nurse migration in the Irish context. Finally, the discussion considers future directions for empirical and theoretical research into global care chains and suggests various lines of enquiry. (shrink)

The main approaches to semiotic inquiry today contradict the idea of the individual as a separate and self-sufficient entity. The body of an organism in the micro- and macrocosm is not an isolated biological entity, it does not belong to the individual, it is not a separate and self-sufficient sphere in itself. The body is an organism that lives in relation to other bodies, it is intercorporeal and interdependent. This concept of the body finds confirmation in cultural practices and worldviews (...) based on intercorporeity, interdependency, exposition and opening, though nowadays such practices are almost extinct. An approach to semiotics that is global and at once capable of surpassing the illusory idea of definitive and ultimate boundaries to identity presupposes dialogue and otherness. Otherness obliges identity to question the tendency to totalizing closure and to reorganize itself always anew in a process related to ‘infinity’, as Emmanuel Levinas teaches us, or to ‘infinite semiosis’, to say it with Charles Sanders Peirce. Another topic of this paper is the interrelation in anthroposemiosis between man and machine and the implications involved for the future of humanity. Our overall purpose is to develop global semiotics in the direction of “semioethics”, as proposed by S.Petrilli and A. Ponzio and their ongoing research. (shrink)

Faced with the ongoing tragedy of poverty, ethicists call for effective measures of global justice to set up just institutional structures. Their arguments for a transnational obligation to help however remain contested, one of the main reasons for that being the lack of motivational support for trans-national visions of global justice. This articles suggests that the debate will gain new and helpful insights if it studies the motivational mechanisms at work in the dominant religious and cultural traditions, asking: (...) How do these particular traditions conceive of social justice; how do they motivate their adherents to extend solidarity? And how can the similarities surfacing in their motivational strategies be informative for the quest to devise a motivationally saturated account of global justice? The article demonstrates the potential of such an concrete-universal discourse in an exemplary manner by staging a dialogue between public Christian Social Ethics and African Ubuntu Ethics. (shrink)

The main approaches to semiotic inquiry today contradict the idea of the individual as a separate and self-sufficient entity. The body of an organism in the micro- and macrocosm is not an isolated biological entity, it does not belong to the individual, it is not a separate and self-sufficient sphere in itself. The body is an organism that lives in relation to other bodies, it is intercorporeal and interdependent. This concept of the body finds confirmation in cultural practices and worldviews (...) based on intercorporeity, interdependency, exposition and opening, though nowadays such practices are almost extinct. An approach to semiotics that is global and at once capable of surpassing the illusory idea of definitive and ultimate boundaries to identity presupposes dialogue and otherness. Otherness obliges identity to question the tendency to totalizing closure and to reorganize itself always anew in a process related to ‘infinity’, as Emmanuel Levinas teaches us, or to ‘infinite semiosis’, to say it with Charles Sanders Peirce. Another topic of this paper is the interrelation in anthroposemiosis between man and machine and the implications involved for the future of humanity. Our overall purpose is to develop global semiotics in the direction of “semioethics”, as proposed by S.Petrilli and A. Ponzio and their ongoing research. (shrink)

The main approaches to semiotic inquiry today contradict the idea of the individual as a separate and self-sufficient entity. The body of an organism in the micro- and macrocosm is not an isolated biological entity, it does not belong to the individual, it is not a separate and self-sufficient sphere in itself. The body is an organism that lives in relation to other bodies, it is intercorporeal and interdependent. This concept of the body finds confirmation in cultural practices and worldviews (...) based on intercorporeity, interdependency, exposition and opening, though nowadays such practices are almost extinct. An approach to semiotics that is global and at once capable of surpassing the illusory idea of definitive and ultimate boundaries to identity presupposes dialogue and otherness. Otherness obliges identity to question the tendency to totalizing closure and to reorganize itself always anew in a process related to ‘infinity’, as Emmanuel Levinas teaches us, or to ‘infinite semiosis’, to say it with Charles Sanders Peirce. Another topic of this paper is the interrelation in anthroposemiosis between man and machine and the implications involved for the future of humanity. Our overall purpose is to develop global semiotics in the direction of “semioethics”, as proposed by S.Petrilli and A. Ponzio and their ongoing research. (shrink)

Since COVID-19 is a global-scale pandemic, it can only be solved on the global level. In this context, intercultural dialogues are of utmost importance. Indeed, different models of traditional ethics might be of assistance in constructing a new, global ethics that could help us confront the present predicament and prepare for other possible global crises that might await us in the future. The explosive, pandemic spread of COVID-19 in 2020 clearly demonstrated that in general, one of (...) the most effective tools for containment of the epidemics is precisely human and interpersonal solidarity, which must also be accompanied by a certain degree of autonomous self-discipline. The present paper follows the presumption that these types of personal and interpersonal attitudes are—inter alia— culturally conditioned and hence influenced by different traditional models of social ethics. In light of the fact that East-Asian or Sinic societies were more successful and effective in the process of containing and eliminating the virus compared to the strategies of the Euro-American regions, I will first question the widespread assumption that this effectiveness is linked to the authoritarian political traditions of the Sinic East and Southeast Asian areas. Then, I will critically introduce the Confucian ethics of relations, which in various ways has influenced the social structures of these regions, and clarify the question of whether and in which way the relics of this ethics had an actual effect on the crisis resolution measurements. The crucial aim of this paper is to contribute to the construction of theoretical groundworks for a new, transculturally grounded global ethics, which is more needed today than ever before. (shrink)

Recent discussions around education for global citizenship continues to retrace notions of cosmopolitanism first laid out in Europe. Ostensibly seeking global inclusivity, much of this work ultimately returns to a rather narrow set of ontological and epistemic themes, primarily Stoicism and Pauline Christianity. The Kyoto School offers a constructive reconstruction of these core premises of European cosmopolitanism. In resisting the ontologizing of autonomous individualism and abstract universalism, Kyoto School thinkers offered an alternative tripartite structure that drew greater attention (...) to the specific : individual and universal are inevitably mediated by the ‘logic’ of specific histories, languages, institutions, and communities. Rather than naïve nationalism, this view emerged within a radically relational worldview: ‘continuity-in-discontinuity’ emplaced within absolute nothingness. Kimura Motomori, a leading Kyoto School educational thinker, explicitly extended these Nishidian ideas to challenge Rousseau’s contracting individualism, Kantian abstract universalism, and Hegelian teleological temporality, thus offering a fresh vision of cosmopolitanism: self-aware citizens engaging concretely in the task of opening their specific societies. In conclusion, in part to demonstrate the very forms of critique we envisage, we trace historically the impacts of Kyoto School cosmopolitanism ideas on postwar policy in Japan and lament the recent regressive closing. (shrink)

This article tackles the theories of global justice whose “Chinese-style” cosmopolitanism is espoused by the notion of tianxia 天下. Specifically, I first examine the Chinese-style cosmopolitanism driven by the reinterpretation of tianxia. In doing so, I claim that it retains the very fallacy that can be found in liberal cosmopolitanism in failing to provide us with a regulative principle through which different justifications for justice can be steered toward a democratic deliberation between states. Second, through analyzing Dialogue on (...) Mount Uisan by Hong Daeyong 洪大容, I explore an alternative conception of tianxia in which all countries are placed on an equal footing rather than in a hierarchy. Finally, putting forward the ethics of differences in Dialogue on Mount Uisan, I will suggest a principle of reciprocity in which non-domination as a regulative principle can help better establish a discursive stance between states without a central hegemon. (shrink)

Cultural diversity and globalization bring about a tension between universal ethics and local values and norms. Simultaneously, the current globalization and the existence of an increasingly interconnected world seem to require a common ground to promote dialog, peace, and a more humane world. This article is the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Business Ethics regarding these problems. We highlight five topics, which intertwine the eight papers of this issue. The first is whether moral diversity in different (...) cultures is a plausible argument for moral relativism. The second focuses on the possibility of finding shared values and virtues worldwide. The third topic deals with convectional universalistic ethical theories in a global world and the problems they present. Fourth, we consider the traditional natural moral law approach in the context of a global world. The last topic is about human rights, as a practical proposal for introducing universal standards in business. (shrink)

The Global Ethic is the set of basic principles of right and wrong which in fact are found in all the major, and not so major, religions and ethical systems of the world, past and present. It does not go beyond the existing commonalities. However, this de facto existing broad basic agreement on ethical principles, unfortunately, is largely unknown by most religious and ethical persons. If they were aware of this commonality, that would provide a broad basis for serious (...) dialogue and collaboration among the adherents of all the religions and ethical systems of the world. Lacking that awareness, far too often different religions and ethical systems foster destructive, rather than constructive, relations. Hence, it is vital to foster a conscious knowledge of the de facto existing Global Ethic. The Movement for a Global Ethic - drafting of a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic and promoting knowledge and practice - was launched in 1991. Where did the idea of a movement for a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic come from? New ideas, new movements, don't just appear out of thin air. When "integrating" forces pointing toward something "new" gradually gather below the conscious level, they slowly reach a critical point, and then suddenly a "new" idea will "precipitate," like the "quality of mercy, which droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath." Thus, it also happened with the Movement for a Global Ethic. In this book, Dr. Leonard Swidler and 11 colleagues propose their perspectives on the Global Ethic from the vantage points of various religions. (shrink)

This volume for the first time brings the scholarly discipline of comparative religious ethics into constructive collaboration with the community of interreligious dialogue. Its design is premised on two important insights. First, interreligious dialogue offers to comparative religious ethics a new, more persuasive rationale, agenda of issues, and practical orientation. Second, comparative religious ethics offers to interreligious dialogue an arsenal of critical tools and methods which will enhance the sophistication of its practical work. In this way, both (...) theory (a dominant concern and strength of comparative religious ethics) and praxis (a dominant concern and strength of interreligious moral dialogue) are joined together in mutual effort, each contributing to the benefit of the other.The volume’s contributors share this vision of collaboration, drawing explicitly from both communities of discourse in a manner that crosses disciplinary and professional boundaries to deal creatively and constructively with important methodological and global moral issue. Although theory and practice cannot easily be separated in such a collaborative project, for the purpose of clarity, the volume is divided into two main parts. The first specifically engages questions of method, theory, and the social role of the public intellectual; the second, on substantive moral themes and issues, many of which were raised at the 1993 Parliament. Taken together, the volume’s essays articulate and illustrate new ways of approaching contemporary moral concerns cross-culturally yet with a rigor appropriate to our complex and pluralistic world. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to create an understanding of how the UN sustainable development goals can be used to steer stakeholder engagement for transformative change, meeting global challenges, and navigate a new business-societal practice driven by a values-based business model. The article is a conceptual study with case studies of the role that the SDGs play in multi-stakeholder dialog via the kind of sustainable business-societal practice that takes corporate social responsibility to the next level, where it is (...) embedded in a values-based business model, creating a new meaning to effect real business-societal transformation. Multi-stakeholder dialog implies interactive and communicative engagement with the full range of stakeholders in order to create value for all, employing a societal perspective and using the value network as a basis for effective decision-making. We explain our methodological approach by presenting multi-stakeholder dialog in practice, in the form of multiple case studies. These empirical settings consisted of two values-driven privately owned companies with a strong reporting mechanism and a clear transformation agenda based on the SDG challenges: IKEA and Löfbergs. The empirical study provides the basis for our proposed model. This article makes an original contribution to the study of the use of SDGs in management and service research. It investigates steering and navigating processes in specific contexts in order to determine what should be subject to legal enforcement and what comprises moral and/or ethical value, particularly at the societal level. (shrink)

This article introduces essays from a 2001 symposium on a global ethic and the issue of the spread of HIV/AIDS. The symposium began with the assumption that we can determine the possibility for such a global ethic if we both explore the potential of an interreligious dialogue and do so in the context of a science–and–religion dialogue. I argue that while the possibilities for a global ethic, in particular addressing the issue of HIV/AIDS, may be (...) debated, the results of this symposium suggest that the dialogue ought to be continued and that there is significant potential in the interfaith dialogue for creating models for both an ethic and specific strategies for action. (shrink)

Western moral and political theorists have devoted much attention to the victimization of women by non-western cultures. But, conceiving injustice to poor women in poor countries as a matter of their oppression by illiberal cultures yields an imcomplete understanding of their situation.

Abstract:While many readers know Aldous Huxley as the author of Brave New World, few know him as a philosopher. Even fewer readers are aware of his extensive knowledge of Eastern philosophy and the ways in which he perceives epistemological and ethical parallels between Eastern thought and Western philosophy. This essay freshly unveils this unexpected part of Huxley by investigating his dialogue with a classical Chinese philosophy called Taoism and the ways in which Taoism contributes to the formation of his (...) most important philosophical treatise The Perennial Philosophy (1946), written as a book of global philosophy. (shrink)

Businesses increasingly assume political roles, despite issues of legitimacy. The presented two case studies illustrate how businesses harness their political influence in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices through collaboration and dialog with stakeholders and civil society actors. These cases are set around issues arising in global supply chains in sourcing activities where the core problem is associated with businesses managing extended responsibilities under conflicting institutional conditions. The article seeks to provide empirical examples of Political CSR and illustrates the role (...) of deliberative democracy in contemporary business behavior. It adopts a Western business perspective, more specifically from an end-producer and retailer’s standpoint. Findings suggest that civil society is influential in driving these businesses to act responsibly. Joint collaboration is understood as key to strive toward holistic solutions. Political CSR theory remains an ideal, but offers fruitful grounds for speculating on what the political role of business is or could be and how this translates into pragmatic implications for businesses. (shrink)

The main approaches to semiotic inquiry today contradict the idea of the individual as a separate and self-sufficient entity. The body of an organism in the micro- and macrocosm is not an isolated biological entity, it does not belong to the individual, it is not a separate and self-sufficient sphere in itself. The body is an organism that lives in relation to other bodies, it is intercorporeal and interdependent. This concept of the body finds confirmation in cultural practices and worldviews (...) based on intercorporeity, interdependency, exposition and opening, though nowadays such practices are almost extinct. An approach to semiotics that is global and at once capable of surpassing the illusory idea of definitive and ultimate boundaries to identity presupposes dialogue and otherness. Otherness obliges identity to question the tendency to totalizing closure and to reorganize itself always anew in a process related to ‘infinity’, as Emmanuel Levinas teaches us, or to ‘infinite semiosis’, to say it with Charles Sanders Peirce. Another topic of this paper is the interrelation in anthroposemiosis between man and machine and the implications involved for the future of humanity. Our overall purpose is to develop global semiotics in the direction of “semioethics”, as proposed by S.Petrilli and A. Ponzio and their ongoing research. (shrink)

Provides an important step in the emerging movement toward global dialogue and peace. It is the belief of the book's contributors that human culture has entered a new age of Global Dialogue in response to increased inter-penetration of the world's cultures. In our emerging global village, guidance is needed, for as we have painfully seen, our century is not only the century of world culture, it is also the century of world wars, world famines, and (...) worldwide environmental destruction. In this inspiring arid challenging book, Prof. Leonard Swidler presents the next stage in the Global Ethic Movement. For All Life includes Professor Swidler's draft of a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic, followed by responses from religious scholars representing Christian. Buddhist. Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, African, Chinese, and Baha'i traditions. (shrink)

The world has changed in the last few decades. While the enforcement of international issues may once have been undermined by differences in transnational institutions, the onset of globalisation has led to a greater willingness amongst states to cooperate with each other. It is suggested that this could be a positive development for, amongst other things, gradually tackling climate change, global poverty and the greater realisation of human rights. What is needed is a period of reflection of how far (...) we have come and how we can use this to change for the future. (shrink)

Faced with the ongoing tragedy of poverty in our world today, many have long called for a common standard of global justice. Such a standard should not be tied to any one particular strand of justice conceptualizations and it should yet be in harmony with the central motivating beliefs of the various concerned moral worldviews. The article reframes global justice thinking by approaching a core problem, namely motivating people to care for distant needy strangers, in a concrete intercultural (...) manner: it sets out to study and compare the motivational underpinnings for an expansion of social justice, in an exemplary fashion, within two long-standing worldview traditions, namely Christian social ethics and contemporary Confucian ethics, in order to gain a more realistic impression of what a commonly shared and motivationally backed notion of global justice may look like. While the former expresses a universal concern for the poor, the latter has recently attracted interest, since Southeast Asian countries managed to lift millions of people out of abject poverty. As both traditions consider loving communal relationships to constitute the foundation of all justice considerations, the article inquires how this quest shapes each tradition’s way to motivate their adherents’ compliance with a vision of global justice. (shrink)

The problem of threat to international politics and global peace has undermined the effectiveness of the power of dialogue. The world seems to be in the condition of will to power derivable from the mutually assured destructive tendencies. Is it possible to extend global peace? How can this be achieved? In this paper, we posit that dialogue is a fundamental medium for conflict resolution and peaceful coexistence in a diverse world. We contend that monologue in international (...) politics understood in terms of might is right undermines the effectiveness of dialogue and often leads to violent conflicts within and between countries. Our world today is at a crossroads. Dialogue, however, foregrounds the medium of conflict resolution and the social consciousness of human communication. We present a hermeneutic understanding of dialogue that follows from relevant works of Hans Georg Gadamer and Jűrgen Habermas. This paper espouses the power of dialogue as a basis for the normative foundation of an emancipated social global order. The dialogical sequence has a cobweb of social interconnectedness and the ethics of global peace. We present a literal and philosophical understanding of dialogue and a contextual understanding of dialogue within the hermeneutic tradition. (shrink)

The impact of aesthetics is increasing again. For today's scholars, aesthetic theories are a significant companion and contribution in studying and ana-lysing cultural phenomena and production. Today's scene of aesthetics is more global than what it is in most disciplines, as it does not just include scholars from all over the world, but also keeps on applying philosophical traditions globally.

This article explores the concept of cultural competence and its relevance as an organizational resource in ethical disputes. Empirically, we aim to reveal the cultural competences that a global forest industry company, StoraEnso, and a global environmental nongovernmental organization (NGO), Greenpeace, utilized in forestry conflicts during 1985–2001. Our study is based on data which were collected from corporate and NGO communication outlets and which have gone through a detailed discourse-semiotic analysis. Our reinterpretation of the discourses identified three cultural (...) competences: (1) the ability to understand changing consumer preferences and values, (2) the ability to utilize culturally determined positions of expertise, and (3) the ability to maintain trust and credibility in the community through open communicative practices. We argue that these competences are relevant in industry–NGO disputes for both parties. However, maintaining them all simultaneously is a difficult task, since various discourses which aim at upholding them can sometimes have contradictory effects. (shrink)