International Relations And Ethics

Where Ethics and International Relations Meet Abstract The purpose of this paper is to systematically present what I presume to be the relationship of ethics within the realm of international relations, and discuss my viewpoints where warranted. Included within this research and facts will be definitions relating ethics, political ethics, international relations, and finally international ethics; also included is a historical context and recent examples from philosophers and notable political theorists and scientists. Ethics Within philosophy there are four standard areas of study, of which are to include metaphysics, epistemology, logic and axiology; the last of which concerns itself with value theory, an area that is saturated with aesthetics …show more content…
The complete moral judgment we make of the politician combines at the same time elements of consequentialism and deontology. Consequentialists object that if the action is justified, then the politician is not guilty of anything. Deontologists object that if the action is truly wrong, the politician should simply not do it. Instead of asking only what conclusion is morally justifiable, political ethics further asks what conclusion should be adopted as policy and coercively enforced as law when citizens reasonably disagree about the values at stake, or when they belong to different communities and nations. The key problems in policy ethics are not conflicts between ends and means, or between the process and outcomes, but rather between the values of the ends or outcomes themselves. Many of the salient issues in policy ethics are driven by the general tension between partial and impartial claims or obligations. On the one side, the partialists give priority to the nation state, and require international transfer only to sustain domestic