Ethics And International Relations

Ethics and International Relations (IR), once considered along the margins of the IR field, has emerged as one of the most eclectic and interdisciplinary research areas today. Yet the same diversity that enriches this field also makes it a difficult one to characterize. Is it, or should it only be, the social-scientific pursuit of explaining and understanding how ethics influences the behaviours of actors in international relations? Or, should it be a field characterized by what the world should be like, based on philosophical, normative and policy-based arguments? This Handbook suggests that it can actually be both, as the contributions contained therein demonstrate how those two conceptions of Ethics and International Relations are inherently linked. Seeking to both provide an overview of the field and to drive debates forward, this Handbook is framed by an opening chapter providing a concise and accessible overview of the complex history of the field of Ethics and IR, and a conclusion that discusses how the field may progress in the future and what subjects are likely to rise to prominence. Within are 44 distinct and original contributions from scholars teaching and researching in the field, which are structured around 8 key thematic sections: Philosophical Resources International Relations Theory Religious Traditions International Security and Just War Justice, Rights and Global Governance International Intervention Global Economics Environment, Health and Migration Drawing together a diverse range of scholars, the Routledge Handbook of Ethics and International Relations provides a cutting-edge overview of the field by bringing together these eclectic, albeit dynamic, themes and topics. It will be an essential resource for students and scholars alike.

Lebow shows how and why foreign policies consistent with ethical norms are more likely to succeed, and those at odds with them to fail.

Ethics and International Relations, Second Edition, offers a comprehensive introduction to the philosophical issues raised by international politics. Presupposing no prior philosophical knowledge and deliberately avoiding the use of technical language, it is ideally suited for political philosophy, applied ethics and international relations courses. Revised and updated, new material includes coverage of the war on terror, the impact of globalization, and ideas of cosmopolitan governance. Clearly and thoughtfully organized, it proceeds logically from general morality and international relations to issues surrounding just war theory and global justice A crisp, analytical treatment presented with a student-sensitive approach and informed by real world issues Covers a wide array of subtopics

Discussing cutting-edge debates in the field of international ethics, this key volume builds on existing work in the normative study of international relations. It responds to a substantial appetite for scholarship that challenges established approaches and examines new perspectives on international ethics, and that appraises the ethical implications of problems occupying students and scholars of international relations in the twenty-first century. The contributions, written by a team of international scholars, provide authoritative surveys and interventions into the field of international ethics. Focusing on new and emerging ethical challenges to international relations, and approaching existing challenges through the lens of new theoretical and methodological frameworks, the book is structured around five themes: • New directions in international ethics • Ethical actors and practices in international relations • The ethics of climate change, globalization, and health • Technology and ethics in international relations • The ethics of global security Interdisciplinary in its scope, this book will be an important resource for scholars and students in the fields of politics and international relations, philosophy, law and sociology, and a useful reference for anyone who wishes to acquire ‘ethical competence’ in the area of international relations.

This volume brings together the recent essays of Richard Ned Lebow, one of the leading scholars of international relations and US foreign policy. Lebow's work has centred on the instrumental value of ethics in foreign policy decision making and the disastrous consequences which follow when ethical standards are flouted. Unlike most realists who have considered ethical considerations irrelevant in states' calculations of their national interest, Lebow has argued that self interest, and hence, national interest can only be formulated intelligently within a language of justice and morality. The essays here build on this pervasive theme in Lebow's work by presenting his substantive and compelling critique of strategies of deterrence and compellence, illustrating empirically and normatively how these strategies often produce results counter to those that are intended. The last section of the book, on counterfactuals, brings together another set of related articles which continue to probe the relationship between ethics and policy. They do so by exploring the contingency of events to suggest the subjective, and often self-fulfilling, nature of the frameworks we use to evaluate policy choices.

This provocative and original book provides a concise explanation of why global politics must be understood in ethical terms. Mervyn Frost illustrates the theory with a series of detailed case studies on the Iraq war, the war on terror, Iran, the use of private military companies, migration and terrorism and in so doing he forces the reader to confront their own necessary engagement as ethical citizens of a global society.

Universality Ethics and International Relations introduces students to the key debates about ethics in international relations theory. This book explores the reasons why grappling with universality and ethics seems to be a profound endeavour and where we end up when we do. By offering a new way of thinking about ethics in International Relations, Pin-Fat shows that there are several varieties of universality which are offered as the answer to ethics in global politics; the divine universality of Hans Morgenthau, the ideal universality of Charles R. Beitz and the binary universality of Michael Walzer. Taking the reader on a grammatical odyssey through each, the book concludes that profound searches for the foundations of universality can’t fulfil our deepest desires for an answer to ethics in global politics. Pin-Fat suggests that the failure of these searches reveals the ethical desirability of defending universality as (im)possible. An ideal text for use in a wide variety of courses, including ethics in international relations, international relations theory, and international political theory, this work provides a valuable new contribution to this rapidly developing field of research.

This volume offers a new dimension to realist theories about world politics. It questions both the theoretical and empirical foundations of much of traditional realist thought by offering realist-oriented analyses that emphasize the possibilities of cooperation and accommodation through agreement over common motivations and concerns. The articles in this volume demonstrate that moral considerations can and do play a significant role in shaping state behavior and that despair about the possibility of improving the systems and institutions within which we live is unwarranted. Specific points of normative convergence are raised in some detail, especially on issues of war, membership and authority, humanitarian concern and the social consequences of globalization. Three ethical concepts form the core of the 'realism reconsidered' argued for here, namely, the ideas of pluralism, rights and fairness.