The focus on cosmopolitan humanitarianism obscures the totality of morality in international politics, leaving the empirical study of morality in IR with two central blindspots. First, it focuses on moral conscience – our desire to do good for others – to the neglect of moral condemnation, our response to the perceived unethical behavior of others, not only against third parties but also against ourselves. In both everyday life and IR, the response is generally to morally condemn, and often to punish and retaliate. Second, the IR ethics and morality literature have not come to terms with moral principles that operate at the group level, binding groups together. When “our” group is engaged in conflict with another, we owe the group our loyalty and defer to group authorities out of moral obligation. These “binding foundations” are particularly important for IR since foreign affairs are a matter of intergroup interaction. Together this means that groups, bound by moral commitment, do not compete with others in an amoral sphere in which ethics stops at the water’s edge. Once we cast our moral net more widely, we realize that morality is everywhere, more striking in the breach than the observance.

This chapter describes some of the main areas of interaction, overlap, or mutual concern between the disciplines of anthropology and philosophy, primarily as these are reflected in contemporary moral and political philosophy in the Anglophone tradition. The discussion is focussed on three broad themes, each falling under one of the main branches of moral and political philosophy as conventionally understood, namely ‘moral theory’, ‘applied ethics’, and ‘metaethics’. Under the heading of ‘moral theory’, the focus of discussion is the relationship between ideas of the good, the right, and the virtuous. Under the heading of ‘applied ethics’, the focus is on ideas of equality, justice, and cosmopolitan ideals. Under the heading of ‘metaethics’, the focus is on debates about interpretation, difference, and relativism. In each case, an attempt is made to connect some of the most influential literature in recent moral and political philosophy with relevant work in social anthropology.

There are several types of law degrees in Greater China but no simple way to compare them or work out whether a single law school will provide you with a good (moral) legal education. We explain what makes a law school morally good and what questions to ask your preferred law school. We discuss how to manage your mental health as a law student and lawyer, and how this is connected to Confucius’ teaching about the ‘superior man understanding what is right’. We discuss Davd Luban’s insight that lawyers’ careful moral thinking is critical to the future of law and legal practice. Because professional conduct rules can only rarely be applied without reference to context and circumstances, there will always be a need for lawyers to use an underlying moral framework or methodology, when they encounter new or challenging decisions. Four global approaches to ethical decision-making are introduced – consequentialism (similar to utilitarianism), Kantian ethics, virtue ethics and Confucian teaching. At the heart of each of these approaches is a commitment to integrity and, in those circumstances when it is required, to open candour and frankness, irrespective of self-interest or embarrassment.

Chapter 8 reconstructs Kierkegaard’s ignored critique of consequentialism, a critique that is still relevant to ethics. It is argued that morality and religion require not only good intentions but also a good character. However, since moral character itself is not directly accessible, but only shown indirectly by words and deeds, Kierkegaard describes it in terms of hidden inwardness, which is only seen by God. Still, such inwardness neither entails a hidden, private domain nor “negative outwardness,” which “confines itself (in order not to be seen for what it is)” (Jack Mulder). Nor does it entail enclosing reserve (Indesluttethed), which is inwardness in deadlock. Instead, it represents an inwardness that strives to express itself in words and deeds. As a result, Kierkegaard’s moral psychology is more defensible and less problematic than often assumed.

This chapter outlines our dual value theory. At the most general level, the theory consists of two substantive values, a formal distributive principle, and a scope determining the set of beings with moral status. The two values are well-being and respect for rights-holders. The distributive principle is equal consideration for all beings with moral status. And the scope is the set of sentient beings. Although our approach confers equal moral consideration on all sentient beings, it does not regard all sentient beings as rights-holders. On the basis of these ideas, we specify mid-level principles pertaining to nonmaleficence, beneficence, distributive justice, and autonomy rights. We also explain the key respects in which our theory differs from the principle-based approach of Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, and comment on other types of ethical theory.

The Introduction to Morality as Legislation: Rules and Consequences explains the difference between a situated perspective where a person asks which act should be performed in a particular instance and a legislative perspective where one asks what rule should apply to a whole class of people in given circumstances. The legislative perspective seems to have advantages in terms of coming to more plausible moral conclusions but does not fit neatly into either consequentialist or Kantian categories as it uses consequentialist considerations to select among possible rules while being unable to explain why the question “which rule?” is the relevant question on purely consequentialist grounds. The Introduction describes four different dimensions along which conceptions of the legislative perspective can vary and two contextual dimensions as to where it is employed: political and nonpolitical contexts and legislative and nonlegislative contexts. The Introduction clarifies the goals of the book and provides summaries of the following chapters.

In Grotius, Cumberland, and Locke we see the basic elements of the theological version of morality as legislation. Grotius used a framework of evaluating the consequences of different possible rules for fallible, biased people as a way of determining what ought to be done. Cumberland provided a theory of right in which all the content of all divine laws could be traced back to one divine attribute, benevolence. Locke, while less systematically consequentialist than Cumberland, had a hedonistic theory of the good, an account of God that also emphasized benevolence, and (most interestingly) a willingness to press very hard on the legislative metaphor in order to establish the correct content of natural law when it was in dispute. Locke imagines God as a legislator using precisely the structure of rationality that a human legislator would use in contemplating which law to pass, including problems of biased and fallible execution of the law. Locke’s use is clearly counterfactual. It is probably not a coincidence that both Locke and Cumberland were strong supporters of new scientific theories that sought to understand nature by means of natural laws.

The best option for defending the use of the legislative perspective is a hybrid approach that includes both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist commitments. Given that the theory in its original theistic form combined nonconsequentialist religious commitments with weak consequentialist reasoning, a successful adaptation of the legislative perspective to appeal to contemporary secular audiences will need to address both types of moral commitments. The type of legislative perspective under consideration is one that is moderate in its strength, realistic, at least weakly consequentialist, and applies to counterfactual cases where one is not literally legislating. The six moral commitments that one must endorse in order to use the legislative perspective in the specified sense are plausible, but they require a hybrid approach that is neither solely consequentialist nor exclusively nonconsequentialist. The nonconsequentialist reasons that justify the shift to the legislative perspective are stronger in cases where people are making decisions in political contexts, even if those contexts are not legislative contexts.

Chapter 6 looks at three prominent consequentialist strategies that have been employed more recently to justify different forms of the legislative perspective as well as a fourth option that is Kantian. The first option, exemplified by Robert Goodin, Conrad Johnson, and Frederick Schauer, is to restrict legislative consequentialism’s scope to the design of rules, policies, and institutions. The second option, pursued by Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer, is to follow Sidgwick and accept a disjunction between moral rules and moral right (or between decision rules and the standard of right). The third option, used by Brad Hooker, seeks to justify a consequentialist legislative perspective based on its fit with our moral judgments using something akin to a reflective equilibrium approach rather than having consequentialism itself be the foundation. The chapter then considers a very different fourth option where the shift to a legislative point of view depends on Kantian claims as seen in the work of Thomas Hill, Jr. and Derek Parfit. Each of these approaches, however, includes serious drawbacks.