Ethics is a universal subject. Mankind have faced moral problems in all ages and in all cultures. Ethics is the reflection on moral problems.  Ethics is an old discipline. Examples of important teachers of ethics are the Chinese philosopher Confucius and the Greek philosopher Socrates, both living in the 5th century B.C. Socrates took ethics seriously: “we are discussing no small matter, but how to live ” he is said to have remarked and he lived himself accordingly. His teaching challenged the leaders of Athens to the extent that they condemned him to death. We can learn from Socrates that ethics requires both theoretical reflection and personal commitment.

Ethics has become a subject in demand in recent years. There is today in the West a wide public interest in ethics but also widespread uncertainty. Religion used to provide people with an ethical framework, but due to secularisation and modernity, religion has lost much of its influence.  There is in a modern, plural society no given answer to ethical challenges. However, the challenges remain. Let me give some examples:

In health care, the possibilities to save human lives both in the beginning and in the end of life; the neonatal baby born much too early, as well and the very old person with a severe disease, give rise to difficult ethical decisions; who should we save and who should we let die? 

Computerisation and information technology face us with new ethical challenges; how to secure privacy in the Information society?

Environmental problems compel us to re-examine our scale of values; how to balance environmental concerns and economic growth?

These are just some examples of moral problems raised in the modern society. When we reflect on moral problems, we find that ethical arguments rest on various preconditions. Ethics raises questions about what a good human life is and to our relationship to other people, animals and nature. 

We live in an age of globalisation. People travel to different places, news media reports from all over the world, migrants cross borders and companies are multi-national; overall, globalisation implies that our range of responsibility is widened. Thus, globalisation poses a challenge for ethics, and we need more knowledge about values and norms in different parts of the world. This book refers to different moral traditions and compares different ethical outlooks, although the author’s own European heritage puts limits to this ambition.