Science-Based vs. Traditional Ethics
— Engel, Ethics of Environment and Development, 1990

"Science-Based vs. Traditional Ethics." Pages 63-72 in J. Ronald Engel and Joan Engel, eds., Ethics of Environment and Development. London: Belhaven Press and Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1990. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37810

Do science-based values occupy a privileged position as criteria against which traditional cultural values are to be tested? Science-based values are plural and traditional values even more pluralist. Cases examined here cross a spectrum from conflict to complementarity and criticism. Authentic human life ought to go beyond both traditional cultures and science as we know it, reaching a global ethics. Respect for the community of life on Earth--ecologically and culturally--is the test of an ethic for the world.