About the Book
The Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by the United Nations in 2015, comprise an ambitious and sweeping agenda that unites economic, social, and environmental aims. What resources do the world's religious and secular traditions offer in support of these objectives? Which principles do these traditions hold in common, and how can these shared values help advance global goals?
This book presents an in-depth and deeply engaged conversation among interfaith religious leaders and interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners in pursuit of an ethical consensus that could ground sustainable development efforts. Drawing on more than two years of close-knit discussions convened by Jeffrey D. Sachs and Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, it offers an extensive and inclusive vision of how to promote human flourishing. The book features theological, philosophical, and ethical deliberations of great diversity and depth on the challenges of sustainable development, addressing questions of poverty, environmental justice, peace, conflict, and the future of work. It includes consensus statements on the moral imperatives of sustainable development, introductions to seven major religious traditions and their conceptions of the common good, and thematic reflections. Wide-ranging and urgent, this book represents a major contribution to interreligious dialogue and to the articulation of a shared global ethics.
The book features a foreword by Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
Table of Contents:
Foreword, by Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
Introduction, by Jeffrey D. Sachs and Owen Flanagan
Part I: Advancing the Common Good: Shared Virtues and Visions of Well-Being
1. The Vision and Values of the Sustainable Development Goals, by Jeffrey D. Sachs
2. A Social Movement to Make the Last First, by Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo
3. Virtue Across Traditions: Common Ground?, by Owen Flanagan
4. Secular Ethics, Moral Capital, and the Sustainable Development Goals, by Owen Flanagan
5. The Current Resurgence of Interest in the Civil Economy Paradigm, by Stefano Zamagni
Part II: Religious Traditions and the Common Good
6. The Confucian Conception of the Common Good in Contemporary China, by Anna Sun
7. Hinduism: “Consider the common good in all actions,” by Anantanand Rambachan
8. Judaism and the Common Good, by David Rosen
9. Buddhism and the Common Good, by Kyoichi Sugino
10. Greek Orthodoxy and the Common Good, by John D. Zizioulas and Jesse Thorson
11. Catholicism and the Common Good, by Daniel G. Groody
12. Islam and the Common Good, by Hamza Yusuf
Part III: An Ethical Consensus on Sustainable Development: Poverty
13. The Challenge of Global Poverty, by Jeffrey D. Sachs
14. Ethical Actions to End Poverty, by Anthony Annett
15. Community-Based Poverty Reduction, by Jennifer Gross
16. Judaism and Poverty, by David Rosen
Part IV: An Ethical Consensus on Sustainable Development: Peace
17. On Peace and a Moral Framework for Statecraft, by Jeffrey D. Sachs
18. Advancing Shared Well-Being as a Multireligious Vision of Positive Peace, by William F. Vendley
19. Building Peace: Strategies, Resources, and Religions, by R. Scott Appleby
Part V: An Ethical Consensus on Sustainable Development: Migration
20. The Drivers of Migration, by Jeffrey D. Sachs
21. A Muslim Perspective on Refugees, by Hamza Yusuf
22. Migration and Refugees: A Christian Perspective, by Daniel G. Groody
Part VI: An Ethical Consensus on Sustainable Development: Businesses as Agents of Sustainable Development
23. Toward a Laudato si’ Coherent Corporate Responsibility Management, by Klaus M. Leisinger
24. Sustainable Investment and Ethics in Action, by Kerry Kennedy
25. The Case for Business in Achieving the SDGs, by Jacqueline Corbelli
Part VII: An Ethical Consensus on Sustainable Development: Education
26. The Challenge of Education, by Jeffrey D. Sachs
27. What Will It Take to Meet the Sustainable Development Goal for Education?, by Radhika Iyengar
28. “Only Connect”: Neuroscience, Technology, and Global Literacy, by Maryanne Wolf
Part VIII: An Ethical Consensus on Sustainable Development: Climate Justice
29. Climate Disruption: A Personal Journey Into the Ethical and Moral Issues, by Veerabhadran Ramanathan
30. The Religious Case for Environmental Care, by Emmanuel Adamakis
31. Health Justice Is Climate Justice, by Ted Smith and Christina Lee Brown
32. Environmental Injustice: How Treaties Undermine the Right to a Healthy Environment, by Lisa Sachs, Ella Merrill, and Lise Johnson
33. Ethics in Action and Divestment, by Erin Lothes
Part IX: An Ethical Consensus on Sustainable Development: Modern Slavery, Human Trafficking, and Access to Justice for the Poor and Vulnerable
34. Actualizing Justice for the Poor, by Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo
35. Multireligious Action Against Modern Slavery and Trafficking, by William F. Vendley
36. Violence Against the Poor and Ethics in Action, by Sharon Cohn Wu
Part X: An Ethical Consensus on Sustainable Development: Indigenous Peoples
37. Care of the Earth, Care of the Soul: Indigenous Communities and Inner Climate Change, by T8aminik (Dominique) Rankin, Marie-Josée Tardif, and Daniel G. Groody
38. Practical Approaches to Sustainable Development in Indigenous Communities and Traditional Populations of the Amazon, by Virgilio Viana
Part XI: An Ethical Consensus on Sustainable Development: Corruption
39. Understanding and Combatting Corruption, by Sean Hagan
40. The Role of Institutions in Fighting Corruption, by Jermyn Brooks
Part XII: An Ethical Consensus on Sustainable Development: The Future of Work
41. Unions and the Future of Work, by Sharan Burrow
42. The Coming AI Revolution: Is This Time Different?, by Carl Benedikt Frey
43. Slow but Sure: Cooperatives and Integral Ecology, by Nathan Schneider
44. The End of Work as We Know It: A Muslim Perspective, by Hamza Yusuf
Conclusion: Toward a Moral Economy, by Anthony Annett and Jesse Thorson
List of Contributors
Index
About the Author :
Jeffrey D. Sachs is University Professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University as well as president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and he has been an advisor to three UN secretaries-general.
Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo is a Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Vescovio, Italy, and former chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences.
Owen Flanagan is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and codirector of the Center for Comparative Philosophy at Duke University.
William Vendley is secretary general emeritus of Religions for Peace International and vice president and senior advisor for religion at the Fetzer Institute.
Anthony Annett is a Gabelli Fellow at Fordham University and senior advisor at the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
Jesse Thorson is program manager at the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
Review :
In Ethics in Action for Sustainable Development, religious leaders of many faiths and scholars of many disciplines address the ethics of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Their message is timely and hopeful: the world’s great religious and ethical traditions share the common commitment to end poverty, assure social justice, and achieve environmental sustainability. The world can indeed come together to build the Future We Want.
I came away from this book with a lot of new information and ideas but also a sense of relief: maybe it isn't too late; maybe humanity and much of the other life on the planet is not irrevocably lost and without hope. Ethics in Action for Sustainable Development brings together a broad coalition of authors from disparate disciplines and shows how all of their work is connected to the pressing need to address environmental degradation.
