Abstract

This essay considers the lessons about global ethics that John Dewey learned during his international travels, especially during the two years he spent in China, 1919–1921. I argue that Dewey’s naturalism, which is based on an appreciation of the ways in which the work of Charles Darwin can be applied within humanistic disciplines, provides models for cross-cultural discussions of ethics. I suggest that some of the impediments to appreciating Dewey’s contribution to global ethics lie in misreadings and misinterpretations of his work, such as those advanced by Roberto M. Unger. Finally, I suggest that it is unlikely that a global ethics will emerge until human beings transcend narrow supernaturalist and nonnaturalist dogmas and embrace naturalistic world views