Global Ethics: Beyond the Deficits of Knowledge and Care

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Global Ethics: Beyond the deficits of knowledge and care

Albert Celoza Executive Director of Arizona Interfaith Movement

Special to The Republic

Experiencing war first-hand exerts a powerful way of deeply impacting personal perspectives. For John Marc, being deployed with 4th Brigade 10th Mountain Division during its combat service in Afghanistan in 2010-2011, opened him up to being cared for by people who owed him nothing, indeed may have had every reason to fear him. What is most striking is his humility and realization that there is both a deficit of knowledge and a deficit of care, which causes the most violent and devastating conflicts in the world.

As a public scholar and an ethicist, he asserts that ‘even if we care, we don’t know or understand enough to care well and in ways that account not only for what we think is right, but for the ways that people and communities are ready to receive care. Even if we know and have the wisdom to know what to do, ‘to know the good is to do the good.’ Above and beyond understanding, it is imperative to truly care in order to act. The realization in the midst of war, the Golden Rule moments, has had an impact on the life of Dr. John Marc Sianghio, assistant director of Arizona State University’s Center for Religion and Conflict.

Though he came from a family who immigrated from the Philippines when he was just four years old, most of his life and education has been spent in Chicago. He was educated in political science and religious studies and later moved his family and life to Arizona. He found ASU’s Charter inviting and distinctive in that it is a ‘public research university measured, not by whom [we] exclude, but whom [we] include and how they succeed.’ Dr. Sianghio thinks that’s true, not just for ASU’s student body, faculty, and staff but also for its community, who are keenly intentional about their worldwide impact.

‘…We have an added responsibility, especially we scholars of religion, not to advance the singular interest of any one group or tradition. This doesn’t mean we can’t hold a perspective or that we’re ‘neutral’ in a negative sense, but to understand that we can and are meant to be a truly democratic space where multiple perspectives, faith traditions, ideologies, and methods of understanding the world can be respected, examined, and applied for the good of our common community and world.’

For Dr. Sianghio, ASU’s Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict brings people together and builds bridges, not papering over their differences to form a false sense of unity but understanding the value of diversity is to understand and celebrate those differences and to see the ways in which not just peace, but conflict can be constructive.’ He asserts that ‘this is a deep application of the Golden Rule that goes beyond ‘treating each other with basic decency.’

For him, celebrating difference, appreciating the fact of division, and still standing together in a democratic space, a public square, a public university that strives to seek knowledge and serve the community means that we look to know each other and respect each other beyond the superficial level. Quite profoundly, it is wise to heed his position that ‘we stand together in tension sometimes with those who we dislike, not asking them to shed parts of themselves that may make us uncomfortable, but to know them and engage with them deeply, sincerely, and fully as I think we all wish to be known and engaged with.’

For more information about Arizona State University’s Center for Religion and Conflict and Dr. John Marc Sianghio, visit https://csrc.asu.edu/.

John Marc Sianghio, Jr., PhD