Diplomats and Scholars Convene for
Conference on Decision Ethics

Fordham hosted the First International Conference on Decision Ethics on April 21, bringing diplomats, scholars and politicians to the Lincoln Center campus to grapple with the ethical issues that lie beneath the daily newspaper headlines.

“In a discussion of ethical decision-making, one cannot escape difficult questions,” said Olene S. Walker, Ph.D., former governor of Utah. “One, does the end ever justify the means? Certainly that is a question I cannot answer, nor can anyone else, with certainty, but it seems to me the short answer is an unqualified no.

“We cannot afford any more global conflicts; we cannot afford any more world wars,” Walker told the crowd. “It is my hope that the United States recognizes that a form of leadership is helping other countries with poverty and human rights.”

The plenary panel featured presentations by United Nations representatives Mehdi Danish, Ph.D., of Iran; Yerzhan Kazykhanov of Kazakhstan; Sirodjidin Aslov, Ph.D., of Tajikistan; and Nurbek Jeenbaev of Kyrgyzstan. Also presenting were Walker; Mahmoud Mustafa Ayoub, Ph.D., professor of Islamic studies and comparative religion at Temple University; and Charles Randall Paul, Ph.D., executive director of the Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy.

Parviz Morewedge, Ph.D., adjunct professor of philosophy at Fordham and director of Global Scholarly Publications, coordinated the conference, in cooperation with John Davenport, Ph.D., associate professor of philosophy and associate chair of undergraduate studies at Lincoln Center.

“Global ethics doesn’t work. We don’t live in a global world; we live in a pluralistic world,” Temple scholar Mahmoud Ayoub said at the close of the plenary panel. “When we call for globalization, what we get is uniformity, a return to the Middle Ages. Democracy, my friends, is not one thing—it is many things. It is not democracy that rules, but justice. All religions are not the truth; they are all ways to the truth.”

Diplomats and Scholars Convene for Conference on Decision Ethics

Diplomats and Scholars Convene for
Conference on Decision Ethics