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  1. Home
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  3. Ethics in International Relations
  • Cited by 146
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
September 2009
Print publication year:
1996
Online ISBN:
9780511521706
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521706
Series:
Cambridge Studies in International Relations (45)
Subjects:
Politics and International Relations, International Relations and International Organisations, Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Information

Book description

Most questions commonly asked about international politics are ethical ones. Should the international community intervene in Bosnia? What do we owe the starving in Somalia? What should be done about the genocide in Rwanda? Yet, Mervyn Frost argues, ethics is accorded a marginal position within the academic study of international relations. In this book he examines the reasons given for this, and finds that they do not stand up to scrutiny. He goes on to evaluate those ethical theories which do exist within the discipline - order based theories, utilitarian theories, and rights based theories - and finds them unconvincing. He elaborates his own ethical theory, constitutive theory, which is derived from Hegel, and highlights the way in which we constitute one another as moral beings through a process of reciprocal recognition within a hierarchy of institutions which include the family, civil society, the state, and the society of states.

Reviews

‘Frost’s is one of those rare works which is ambitious theoretically and provides responses to some pressing concrete problems, all the while opening up fruitful areas for further thought. The book … stands in my mind as one of the most important recent works on ethics and world affairs.’

Source: International Relations

‘ … an important and distinctive contribution to the discussion of ethics in international affairs.’

Source: Peace Research

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