The notion of a moral community is notoriously resistant to determination due to the many-sidedness of human pluralism and to differing systems of value with long, historical roots in many cultures around the world. The idea that the community of which one is a member is a moral community is appealing, though most likely relative to one’s standards of reference, unpersuasive to others, or even hopelessly vague, such as notions of the moral community of all living creatures or all God’s children. Hence, there are multiple notions of moral community reflecting local understandings, as well as different theoretical approaches rising to the highest levels of generality. The term “moral community” can be used descriptively to indicate a community believed actually to exist, or deployed as an aspiration, pointing to a type of community believed by some to be morally good, to have a quality of moral goodness to which we ought to aim. In both cases, there is a defining normative component.
Used...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Dunning J (ed) (2005) Making globalization good: the moral challenges of global capitalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Nussbaum M (1998) Cultivating humanity: a classical defense of reform in liberal education. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Pogge T (2007) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, Oxford
Rawls J (2001) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Scanlon T (2000) What we owe to each other. Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA
Singer P (2004) One world: the ethics of globalization, 2nd edn. Yale University Press, New Haven
Steiner G (2008) Animals and the moral community. Columbia University Press, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Babst, G.A. (2011). Moral Community. In: Chatterjee, D.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Justice. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5_328
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5_328
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-9159-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-9160-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law