Ethics in International Relations

Journal of Global Ethics, 2005

Discussions of global ethics—about the types of normative claim made on individuals and groups, not only states, by individuals and groups around the world—have had to move beyond the categories inherited in the International Relations discipline. Many important positions are not captured by a framework developed for discussion of inter-state relations. The blindspots seem to reflect an outmoded expectation that (i) giving low normative weight to national boundaries correlates strongly with (ii) giving more normative weight to people beyond one's national boundaries, and vice versa; in other words that these two dimensions in practice reduce to one. The paper develops an enriched categorization. We need to recognize the separate importance of the two dimensions, and thus distinguish various types of 'cosmopolitan' position, including many varieties of libertarian position which give neither national boundaries nor pan-human obligations much (if any) importance.

Asian Journal of Social Sciences Humanities, 2012

Ethics by definition are a system of moral principles. The rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, drawn from culture and religion. In today's world in essence ethics are about how to treat others with dignity and respect and recognizing and honoring the humanity in all others. In international relations, where interactions are studied with the focus on power and it is difficult to create distinction between facts and values, ethics emerge as a sub discipline and it is difficult to establish the fact that ethics should be everywhere. In a country like Pakistan, where external threats and internal issues intermingled it is very difficult to maintain a focus on the importance of ethics in international relations. The paper is an attempt to highlight the importance of ethics as a part of social sciences in general and international relations in particular to address the problems of positivist approach to inter and intra-state relations based on hard core empiricism versus morality and ethics based approach which is indigenous to the developing world. The discourse on ethics in foreign policy, in the contemporary world is dominated by the western thought and thrust which includes elements like democracy, human rights and free markets. It may even extend to abject use of force in the name of ethical intervention this has resulted in a lot of violence and a trust deficit in the world which was avoidable.

2000

2013

Boston University International Law Journal, 2006

The European Legacy, 2002

Ethics & International Affairs, 2008

Studies in Christian Ethics, 2007

The choice of topic for the conference is a response to the acute question of whether there is a connection between 'ethics' in its specific meaning and the political task of working together and solving conflicts, which in many cases goes far beyond limited regions or states to affect the global or 'international' sphere. Discussion of the diverse phenomena of 'globalisation' makes it ever more urgent to think about our 'world' or 'globe' in terms of a political entity, whatever this entity should be or is hoped to be. This is of course not a new perspective. Any political theory or political ethics must approach the global world as a political unity to the extent that the global effects of any processes or actions are taken into account. This general understanding of unity is different, however, from P ' 1 These are some few selected contributions from the conference. A documentation of the whole conference will be available in the 'Jahresbericht 2006' of the Societas Ethica.

2006

'otherness' through their representationof differentiating and excluding the 'foreign' from the 'domestic', the 'inside' from the 'outside', the 'other' from the 'self. Foreign Policy, on the other hand, is how the disciplines of international relations (IR)5 and foreign policy analysis (FPA) generally conceive foreign policy: as a state-based practice towards that which is beyond the state's borders, that which is 'foreign' and not 'domestic' or part of the collective 'self. The capitalised Foreign Policy is therefore a 1 The terms 'ethical' and 'moral' are used as synonyms in this thesis, following Hutchings argument that the distinction drawn between the two by scholars such as Jurgen Habermas is untenable.