Globalization and Pluralism: New Challenges to Ethics

Throughout the years, globalization caused great renovation on the interactions of

communities or countries. From politics, economy to culture, every nation exchanges ideas
which actually shape local happenings. Consequently, the moral reflection on responsibilities
and obligations became more crucial for us to observe. Also, globalization opened the door for
the idea of pluralism (specifically the moral pluralism) to arise. Other challenges posed by the
globalization includes the imbalance in the concentration of wealth, losing of sovereignty and
problems in handling global environment (De Guzman, Aquino, Tomas, et al., 2017).

John David Lehmann Regina (2016) stated in his journal that moral pluralism, which is
also known as value pluralism, is a concept that recognizes contrasting moral views and how
they are all worthy to be respected. Furthermore, moral pluralism proposes that values are
incommensurable meaning they could not be ordered objectively in terms of importance. For
example, there is a burning building and a woman has an opportunity to save the child inside the
building. Howevever, doing such could put her life to risk and may leave her own child orphan.
A moral pluralist would definitely say that there is no absolute way to decide on which could be
the better one. Moreover, moral pluralists is on the neutral ground between moral absolutists
(there is only one right answer) and moral relativists (there is no wrong answer) as moral
pluralism admits the differences of moral values while giving all of them respect (De Guzman,
Aquino, Tomas, et al., 2017).

Seemingly, the concept of moral pluralism is unblemished and appealing. However, there
are still criticisms that are philosophically valid and analyzed. Moral pluralism, in other words,
shows being ethically irresponsible, gives no moral standard and offers no moral power. Being a
concept which proposes that values are incommensurable, moral pluralism simply says that there
is no real solution to ethical dillemas. Furthermore, it can be also concluded that all possible
answers are acceptable as long as they have underlying fundamental values. Some critics of
moral pluralism argue that moral pluralists were ignoring the fact that values are indeed
commensurable because of its comparability in terms of varying contributions towards human
good. Additionally, AE McGrath of Wheaton University stated that the combination of pluralism
in belief and moral could be a great disaster. For example the belief of an ancient Polynesian
religion that offering human sacrifices to a fish deity and the murder and gang rape committed by
practitioners of Satanism are all acceptable in the sight of a moral pluralist (De Guzman, Aquino,
Tomas, et al., 2017).

With all the ideas presented above, it can be clearly seen that a shared set of moral values
and standards are important in building global harmony and peace. In spite of ethical variations
carried out by different cultures all over the world, it is still possible to practice universal cultural
values such as truth, justice and love.

GENERATION Z

Who is the Generation Z?

 Generation Z as those born between 1995 to 2013. As such, Gen Z’ers may currently be
as young as four or just graduating college. Members of this birth cohort will have certain shared
experiences unique to this time period in history that may prove formative as they come of age
(What We Know About Gen Z, 2018).

Characteristics of Generation Z

According to Dolot (2018), the Generation Z is the C Generation and R Generation. In

which, Generation Z is connected, connected to the internet, computerized, content-centric,
community-oriented, changing and responsible individuals.

Like Millennials, Gen Z is also technology-based people. Meaning, they are always
online, surfing the internet, or simply, knows everything about technology.

How companies should prepare for Generation Z?

One Hope (2018) have a list on how companies should prepare for Generation Z.

1. More entrepreneurial than other generations.

Enable Gen Z employees to concentrate on the projects directly connected to the
company’s success.

2. Less money-driven than Millennials.

Provide Gen Z with the opportunity for advancement rather than high salary.

3. Prefer traditional methods of communication.

Even they grew up with technology, Gen Z like traditional methods of
communication like meetings rather than talking in phone.

4. Want employers to be honest and take them seriously.

Gen Z want to participate in executive meetings in order to give their ideas in the
said topic.

5. Need frequent feedback.

They want feedback because by giving feedback, you can show your care about
their career development.

6. Want to work individually.

Gen Z wants to work individually because by working alone, one can give his
best because he can create own concepts, ideas and they also want to be judge
individually.

Religion and Beliefs of Generation Z

Generation Z is the least religious generation. Gen Zs also less likely to attend church
even they are believers (What We Know About Gen Z, 2018).

According to a Barna study, although 58% of U.S. teens today self-identify as Christian,
just 4% of them have a biblical worldview as compared to 6% of Millennials, 7% of Gen X, and
10% of Boomers. Barna gauges a biblical worldview by teens’ 61 responses to seven statements
of belief, along with having made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in
their lives today. The report also highlights that teens are not necessarily confident in the beliefs
they claim to hold. For example, though 98% of U.S. teens who regularly attend church agree
that Jesus is the divine Son of God, only 63% say they are very sure about this.

According to What We Know About Gen Z (2018) , faith is declining at the same time
that teens are growing up in a culture of relativism where absolute truth is not necessarily a
value. These points to a growing minority of young people who seem to think that sincere belief
makes something true. In addition, only 34% of U.S. teens say lying is morally wrong, a
significant decline compared to previous generations (42% among Millennials and 50% of Gen
X).

The Religious Response: The Role of Religion to Ethics

What is Ethics and Religion

Although religion and ethics are two different entities there is an undeniable relationship
between these two in terms of morality. Religion is defined as the set of beliefs and rituals made
to worship and show faith in a deity or a supernatural being (Definition of Religion, n.d.) and
according to (Dow, 2014) understanding religion may help in addressing adaptive problems
wherein religion may serve as a basis for understanding complexity of different individuals and
cultures. On the other hand Ethics is defined as an organized way of comprehending what is right
and wrong that may affect the relationship between individuals (Butts & Rich, 2013). However
when these two terminologies are combined together Religious Ethics arises. Religious Ethics
are set of beliefs and practices that views what is right and wrong through the religious
perspective and it is believed to be a possible solution in order to cope with changes brought
upon globalization (De Guzman, Aquino, Tomas, et al., 2017).

Relationship between Religion and Ethics

On his book (De Guzman, Aquino, Tomas, et al., 2017) emphasized the important role of
religion in the ever changing globalized world through elaborating the “cut-flower thesis” by
Glenn C. Graber. The cut flower thesis of morality infers that once morality is removed from its
roots or foundation it will eventually fail and die (Meckler & Martin, 2012) which is the same
way in terms of religion and morality since religion is considered as the foundation of morality
because it teaches its followers or believers to know what is right and wrong based on the
teachings of their scriptures which may be Qur’an, Bible, Vedas, etc. (De Guzman, Aquino,
Tomas, et al., 2017). Furthermore, due to globalization the challenge for preserving morality is
getting more and more prevailing thus it is essential for people to uphold their belief to enrich the
roots of their morality. Although the cut-flower thesis believes on the relationship of morality
and religion it does not entirely contest that once a person leaves his religion his morality will be
entirely gone instead it gave an argument that for a person to have a strong moral foundation it
needs a specific basis for his actions.

Basis of Theistic Ethics

 Unlike any other type of ethics, the Religious or Theistic Ethics promotes the belief that a
supernatural being or “God” is the main source of moral laws and obligations of a person and
these moral laws are given by him through the use of sacred texts, divine human reason and
conscience. Most ethicists believed Theistic ethics because it can justify moral values and
explain moral accountability (De Guzman, Aquino, Tomas, et al., 2017). The belief that there is
a specific source of the moral obligations of a person makes the foundation of the morality
secured because a person will have a reason to practice the moral values since he believes that by
doing so he will please his creator who always watch over him; For an instance a person who
believes that there is a God who always watch his actions will have the conscience to do what is
right according to the commandments of the Lord because he believes that by living righteously
he will be rewarded in the afterlife.

Critique and disadvantage of Religious Ethics

However, there are also criticisms against the Theistic Ethics which usually came from
people who believed in its counterpart which is the Non-theism or disbelief in supernatural
beings as creators of life. The most common attack against the moral theism or theistic ethics is
the Euthyphro Dilemma. The Euthyphro dilemma arises from a socratic dialogue between
Socratés and a boy named Euthyphro who wanted his father to be arrested which surprised
Socratés because during that time the respect for parents is highly valued by the moral standard
of the society which then lead to the philosophical question by Socratés whether “Is a good thing
good because God desires it? Or does God desire it because it is already good” (Baggett, 1999)
thus contradicting the idea of theism that morality is dependent to God’s desire because if it is
then heinous crime such as rape and torture could be considered moral if God let it happen.

Another challenge to theistic ethics is the Religious fundamentalism which refers to the
own interpretation of one person to the origin of the religious creeds (Koopmans, 2015). Due to
the possible subjective interpretation of the origins of the creed the belief on what is good based
on scriptures became tainted.

Dealing with Eutyphro Dilemma

To deal with the Eutyphro Dilemma (Slick, n.d.) clarified that for a believer there is no
need to have a dilemma at all because the very nature of God (or the creator) according to
scriptures is already proven to be purely good. Thus the argument whether it is possible for
crimes to be considered moral is considered irrelevant because theistic ethicist believes that their
creator won’t ever agree to the commitment of such crimes because he is good.
especially