It is commonly acknowledged that globalization has brought about greater human interconnectedness and that it has done so with paradoxical effect. While globalization has generated a profound centripetal concern with the unity of human kind, it has simultaneously increased an acute centrifugal experience with the innumerable differences that divide us.
This meeting gathered experts from philosophy, ethics, law, global affairs and sociology who share the idea that globalization makes reconsideration of the idea of the common good both valuable and necessary. If for no other reason, advocacy for global “goods” and the effective management of global “bads” is recurrently made in the name of common humanity or a shared planet, often as if there were some more robust and demanding ideal at work. Therefore, whatever one thinks of its possibilities or liabilities, the idea of a common good requires that we pay attention to the variety of cultural and ideological perspectives that support it and the institutions that strive to embody it.
