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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
This revised edition of Kimberly Hutchings's best-selling textbook provides an accessible introduction to the field of Global Ethics for students of politics, international relations and globalization. It offers an overview and assessment of key perspectives in Global Ethics and their implications for substantive moral issues in global politics. These include the morality of state and non-state violence, the obligations of rich to poor in a globalizing world, and the scope and nature of international human rights. The second edition contains expanded coverage of pressing contemporary issues relating to migration, changes in the technologies of war, and the global environment. Hutchings's excellent book helps non-specialist students to understand the assumptions underpinning different moral traditions, and enables them to formulate their own views on how to approach moral judgement and prescription - essential in a world which, though it is shared by all, possesses massive cultural differences and inequalities of power.
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Seitenzahl: 491
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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Table of Contents
Title page
Copyright page
Acknowledgements
Preface to the Second Edition
Abbreviations
1: What is Global Ethics?
Introduction
Defining our terms
Global
Ethics
Ethics/Morality
Ethics/Politics
Doing Global Ethics
Do we already have an answer to the questions posed by Global Ethics?
Outline of the book
How to use this book
References and further reading
2: Rationalist Ethical Theories
Introduction
Utilitarian ethics
Contractualist ethics
Deontological ethics
Discourse ethics
Conclusion
References and further reading
3: Alternatives to Ethical Rationalism
Introduction
Virtue ethics
Feminist ethics
Postmodernist ethics
Conclusion
Questions about foundations
Questions about procedures
Questions about substance
References and further reading
4: Ethics of International Aid and Development
Introduction
Humanitarian aid
Development aid
Sustainable development
Conclusion
References and further reading
5: Global Distributive Justice
Introduction
Two faces of justice
Justice is not two-faced
Beyond the statist/globalist impasse
Questioning the global justice debate
The ethics of migration
Conclusion
References and further reading
6: Ethics of War
Introduction
Just war theory
Justice ad bellum
Justice in bello
Just and unjust wars
Twenty-first-century just and unjust wars
Ad bellum
In bello
Conclusion
References and further reading
7: Ethics of Making and Sustaining Peace
Introduction
Making peace justly
Transitional justice
Sustaining peace
Conclusion
References and further reading
8: Global Ethics in a Glocal Context
Introduction
Revisiting the ethical issues at stake
Addressing glocal ethical dissensus from a rationalist perspective
Addressing global ethical dissensus beyond rationalism
Conclusion
References and further reading
Glossary
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Start Reading
Chapter 1
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Copyright page
Copyright © Kimberly Hutchings 2018
The right of Kimberly Hutchings to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2018 by Polity Press
Polity Press
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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
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Suite 300
Medford, MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1394-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1395-6 (pb)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hutchings, Kimberly, 1960-
Title: Global ethics : an Introduction / Kimberly Hutchings.
Description: Second edition. | Cambridge ; Meford, MA : Polity, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017054074 (print) | LCCN 2018000699 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509513987 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509513949 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509513956 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: International relations--Moral and ethical aspects. | Globalization--Moral and ethical aspects. | Political ethics. | BISAC: PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy.
Classification: LCC JZ1306 (ebook) | LCC JZ1306 .H88 2018 (print) | DDC 172/.4--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017054074
Typeset in 10.5 on 12 pt Sabon
by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to several people and groups of people for enabling me to write this book. Thanks are due to David Held for encouraging me to do it, and to the two anonymous readers at Polity who gave me valuable feedback on the original proposal and on a draft of the text. Particular thanks are due to Joe Hoover and Henry Radice, who very kindly gave up their time to read and comment on a full version of the manuscript. Above all, I am grateful for the feedback of the many students I have taught on courses on global and international ethics over the years at Wolverhampton, Edinburgh and, most recently, the London School of Economics. Without what I have gained from all of those classes and tutorials, this book would not have been possible. Needless to say, any faults and errors are my responsibility alone.
Kimberly Hutchings
July 2009
Preface to the Second Edition
In the eight years since writing the first edition of this book, Global Ethics has become much more established as a field of ethical inquiry. The Journal of Global Ethics has become a key forum for the development of debates within the field, and several books and collections with the term ‘Global Ethics’ in their title have been published. Nevertheless, many of the fundamental arguments explored in the first edition remain foundational for work in Global Ethics. In preparing the second edition, I have introduced new material only when it reflects innovative theoretical developments, such as the growth of work in ‘non-western’, postcolonial and decolonial ethics, or where treatment of the literatures on particular topics, such as the ethics of climate change, migration or war, was in need of expansion. It remains the case that there are important topics within Global Ethics, such as trade, finance, digital communication, bioethics or health, that are not treated here. This is an introductory volume, a starting point for ethical thinking about an ever-broadening range of ways in which commonalities and interconnections are growing in the contemporary world. Such a book cannot be exhaustive in its coverage.
I am grateful to my students at Queen Mary University of London. The breadth of experience that they bring to thinking about Global Ethics has taught me a great deal in the last three years.
Kimberly Hutchings
October 2017
Abbreviations
ANC
African National Congress
FGC
female genital cutting
FGM
female genital mutilation
GDP
gross domestic product
ICTY
International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia
IGO
international governmental organization
INGO
international non-governmental organization
MDG
Millennium Development Goal
MNC
multinational corporation
NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
PMSC
private military and security companies
R2P
responsibility to protect
SDG
sustainable development goals
TRC
truth and reconciliation commission
UDHR
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
UN
United Nations
UNSCR
United Nations Security Council Resolution
WTO
World Trade Organization
1What is Global Ethics?
Introduction
The words ‘global’ and ‘ethics’ are familiar to most English-speaking people from everyday conversations about public events and private behaviour. We’ve all heard, read or used expressions such as ‘global warming’ or ‘globalization’ in the context of discussions about the environment or the world economy. We’ve all heard, read or used terms such as ‘ethical’ and ‘unethical’ in the context of people’s actions in their personal or professional lives. But what does the ‘Global Ethics’ in the title of this book mean? Global Ethics (always capitalized when used in this sense) is a field of theoretical inquiry that addresses ethical questions and problems arising out of the global interconnection and interdependence of the world’s population.
In contrast to other fields of theoretical inquiry that come under the broad heading of Applied Ethics, which are usually clear about the nature and reality of the field of application (for example, Professional Ethics, Environmental Ethics, Medical Ethics), within Global Ethics the term ‘global’ is deeply contested. Not only is its meaning debatable, but scholars also differ over whether it refers to something, i.e. globalization, which actually has happened or is happening. This means that theorists engaged in Global Ethics do not just disagree about ethical theory but also about what significance, if any, is to be attached to the term ‘global’. The purpose of this chapter is to sketch out the terrain, and some of the defining disagreements, of Global Ethics as a field of theoretical inquiry. Subsequent chapters will flesh out the arguments touched on here in much more depth and detail. The first part of the chapter will focus on the constituent terms of Global Ethics. First, we will examine debates over the meaning of ‘global’. Second, we will examine the term ‘ethics’, the distinction between ‘Ethics’ as a mode of philosophical inquiry and ‘ethics’ as sets of substantive principles and values, and the relation and distinction between ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’, ‘ethics’ and ‘politics’. Having done this, we will look briefly at the variety of understandings of Global Ethics and of the range of questions and issues that come within its scope. On this basis we will arrive at a working definition of the field of Global Ethics and its key concerns. We will then examine how world religions claim to provide answers to the questions raised by Global Ethics. We will conclude, however, that the questions and issues identified as the subject matter of Global Ethics cannot be resolved on the basis of religion. The chapter will end with an outline of the rest of the book and some advice on how to use this book as an aid to learning.
Defining our terms
Global
The word ‘global’ is generally used to signify something pertaining to the world as a whole. If something has global causes or global effects, then the suggestion is that either its causes or its effects are worldwide. This may mean ‘world’ in the sense of the terrestrial globe of the earth (as in global atmosphere), but it may also mean ‘world’ in terms of humanity, and the humanly organized terrestrial space of homes, villages, cities, nations, states and regions (as in global economy). The applicability of the term ‘global’ is a matter for debate amongst natural scientists when it refers to the earth, but it becomes a matter for debate amongst social scientists and philosophers when the reference is not simply to the material globe, but to people, and to the situation that people have constructed in relation to that materiality. People have always lived in a global world in the first sense, but there are ongoing arguments as to what extent and in what ways, if at all, their situation is, has been, or will ever be global in the second sense.
So, when global is used in the second sense, what does it signify? Here I suggest we can distinguish between two distinct but related dimensions of meaning. On the one hand global signifies a worldwide scale of commonality and, on the other hand, it signifies a worldwide scale of interconnection. In the first sense, when we are told that we live in a global (or globalized) world, we are being told that we live in a world in which all humanity shares a common situation. Whereas in the past, our scale of commonality with others may have been that of our tribe, our city or our state, we are now in a world in which there are significant commonalities across all borders of collective identity, linguistic, cultural, legal or political. Examples of this kind of claim for worldwide commonality across people and peoples include statements in which ‘we’ signifies humanity as such, such as: ‘we are participants in a world market’; ‘we are all subjects of international law’; or ‘all of us have certain basic human rights’.
Related to, but also distinct from, claims about global sameness or commonality is the second dimension of the meaning of global, in which it refers to the worldwide interrelatedness of humanity. The claim here is that humanity’s situation is a global one, because we are interconnected at a global level and therefore the actions (individual or collective) of people in one part of the globe affect, and will be affected by, the actions of people in other parts of the globe to an unprecedented degree. Another way of putting it is to say that human beings are now involved in interdependent and reciprocal relations with each other on a global scale. For example, my purchase of a shirt depends on the cheap labour that produced the shirt, which is in turn dependent in one direction on the international bank that finances the mortgage on the shirt factory’s premises, and on the other on the foreign child whose labour is so cheap. Each of these actors is in turn dependent on my actions as a British consumer. Economically, socially, culturally and politically, we are embedded in, and depend on, relations with strangers from all parts of the world.
A global world, therefore, contrasts with a world in which the economic, social, cultural and political relations between people are confined within discrete local communities. In a global world, local events are affected by global processes (for example, in the global financial crisis of 2008). But it is not just that the global affects the local; in a global world the distinction between the local and the global becomes much more difficult to draw. At the level of everyday life, from eating habits to religious beliefs, in a globalized world strangeness and strangers are no longer at a distance; they are living in the neighbourhood. And social, economic and political activities that originate locally have intended and unintended global implications. This phenomenon has led to the label ‘glocalization’ being used to describe the effects of globalization, which both transform and are transformed by local actors (Robertson and White 2003; Watson 2004).
At a commonsense level, then, the claim that we live in a global age is the claim that the earth’s human population shares a common situation in significant respects, and is deeply interdependent and interconnected. Within the social sciences, however, the meaning and status of this claim has been the subject of ongoing analysis and argument. Scholars have examined the nature and extent of globalization in different sectors of human activity, and differ fundamentally about whether our age is indeed global and, if it is, whether this is a recent development or not (Held and McGrew 2003; Robertson and White 2003; Wiarda 2007). There are those who argue that a technologically and economically driven process of globalization has undermined the significance of territorial distance, cultural difference and, most importantly, the political borders between states. On this view, the state has lost its salience as the key actor in world politics, and as the key mediator between the individual ‘inside’ the state and the international ‘outside’. Instead, multinational corporations, regimes of global governance and a variety of global civil (and uncivil) non-governmental organizations have risen in significance (Held 2004; Mathews 2004; Ohmae 2004). In contrast, others are more sceptical, arguing that the state remains the key mode of economic, political and social organization, and that great powers continue to set the agenda of world politics (Hirst and Thompson 1996). Many scholars, however, hold a more nuanced position, in which globalization is more or less advanced in different sectors (e.g. economic, political, technological, cultural, communicative) or for different regions, peoples or classes of people, and in which the implications of globalization undermine or reinforce state power depending on the particular state and region in question (Rosecrance and Stein 2006).
Reflective exercise
Write down the list of activities you engage in on a normal day. Do any of them suggest that your everyday life is globalized and, if so, in what sense? Think about this in relation to what you are wearing, what you eat and drink, what music you listen to, how you travel, with whom you communicate, how you communicate. Do you see your own life as more or less globalized than that of people in other parts of the world?
Ethics
Scholars may disagree about the nature and extent of globalization, but there is unanimity on the point that, to the extent that the human world is global, this necessarily has implications for human identity and human relations. It is here that ethical issues arise and that a link between ‘global’ and ‘ethics’ is formed. In everyday language, the word ‘ethical’ is sometimes used as the equivalent of ‘morally good’, implying that an ethical person is someone who does the morally right thing. In fact, ethics in its original meaning refers to codes of behaviour or sets of values that set out what it is right or wrong to do within particular contexts. An ethical person is therefore someone who aims to act according to such codes or values. When we discuss ‘professional ethics’ or ‘medical ethics’, we are discussing what the appropriate guidelines are for practitioners to follow in order to fulfil the aims and goals of their profession. So, for instance, we might raise the ethical question of what it is appropriate for doctors to do when the patient in their care is in a persistent vegetative state and they get conflicting instructions from their patient’s living will and their patient’s nearest and dearest. But, of course, the everyday meaning of ethics extends beyond the values and principles that should govern behaviour in a particular professional role; it gets applied to all aspects of human behaviour, so that one can ponder, and disagree about, what it is ethically right to do as a parent, a lover, a friend and so on.
Within moral philosophy, ethics has two meanings. Firstly, it is used in a way that reflects our commonsense usage to refer to substantive ethical beliefs, values and principles about what it is right or wrong to do (lower-case ethics). Secondly, it refers to the systematic philosophical investigation of the ground and nature of ethical principles and values (uppercase Ethics). In its latter sense, philosophical Ethics can be broken down into three distinct but related domains: Meta-Ethics; Normative Ethics; and Applied Ethics. Meta-Ethics is concerned with the most abstract foundational questions, such as the possibility of moral truth or the meaning of moral agency. Normative Ethics, which always relies on certain meta-ethical assumptions, is concerned with the elaboration and defence of substantive moral theories that provide answers about how to determine moral rightness and wrongness in general (see ethical theories discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 below). Applied Ethics is concerned with applying Normative Ethics to particular issues and situations (see Chapters 4–8 of this book). Within this book, we will be most concerned with Normative and Applied Ethics, but we will also encounter meta-ethical issues and questions along the way, since both Normative and Applied Ethics rely on meta-ethical assumptions about moral truth and moral agency (see Copp 2006, Singer 1993 and Lafollette 2000 for comprehensive mappings of the concerns of philosophical Ethics).
In general, Ethics aims to answer questions such as: why is a particular ethical claim convincing or persuasive, for instance, on what grounds should I believe that it is morally wrong to lie or steal (see discussions in Chapters 3 and 4)? What is or should be the substantive content of ethical values; for instance, should moral principles be based on giving priority to maximizing human welfare or human liberty (see discussions in Chapters 3 and 4)? Who carries moral responsibility for past or future actions, for instance how much of the responsibility for world poverty is carried by the world’s rich (see discussion in Chapters 4 and 5)? How should this or that ethical principle or value be actualized; for instance, if we think war criminals should be brought to justice, should this be done in an international criminal court or through a truth and reconciliation commission (see discussion in Chapter 7)?
Ethics/Morality
The everyday meaning of ethics clearly has a lot of overlap with the term ‘morality’, which we also use to signify matters that concern what it is good and right to do in our relations with others. As words, ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’ have similar roots. ‘Ethos’ refers to the character of a particular community’s way of life, and ‘mores’ to the customary values and standards embedded in particular ways of life. Traditionally, questions of such values and standards have been bound up in religious and cultural beliefs and customs as well as in the specific contexts of particular roles. As we will see, however, in the discussion of different theories in Chapters 2 and 3, ethics is, on some accounts, contrasted with ‘morality’. For some ethical theorists, morality is identified with values, rules and principles that tell us what is right or wrong at a general or universal level for human beings as such, whereas ethics concerns human behaviour only within particular roles and contexts.
The ethics/morality distinction has been subject to intense debate within Ethics as a branch of philosophical inquiry. For some thinkers, morality is embedded within ethics, providing a core of common beliefs, values and principles that operate across different conceptions of the good life (see discussion of Küng below). For others, morality provides a, separately derived, critical tool to assess different ethical values (see discussion of Habermas in Chapter 2). For others, however, the notion of a morality that exists over and above particular context is incoherent; there is no universal that transcends or underpins ethics, which means that moral issues are always embedded in ways of life (see discussion of MacIntyre in Chapter 3). As we will see, the question of whether there is a set of moral standards that is universally authoritative for humanity as a whole (or not) is crucial to much of the debate that comes under the heading of Global Ethics. Since the idea that there is, or should be, a distinction between morality and ethics is contested in the literature, within this book the terms will normally be used interchangeably, except where the work of a theorist who is committed to the distinction is being discussed (essentially the theorists discussed in Chapter 2).
Ethics/Politics
Ethical questions about what it is right and wrong to do are difficult to separate from political questions about the kinds of laws, procedures and institutions we should put in place to regulate and mediate human action. Moreover, ethical claims do not arise in a vacuum – they are articulated in political contexts of hierarchical power relations, and their implications are likely to have differential effects on different people’s interests. Ethics, therefore, in one way or another, always involves politics. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind the difference between studying Global Ethics as opposed to examining globalization from the perspectives of Political Science or International Relations. For scholars of Political Science and International Relations, the crucial questions are about describing, explaining and regulating the effects of globalization on intra-state and inter-state politics. These are very different questions from those posed by Ethics, where the focus is not on description or explanation but on ethical judgement. Studying Global Ethics means examining, assessing and defending judgements about what is morally right and wrong in our globalized world. You cannot assume that the implications of ethical argument will necessarily be easily realizable or in accord with predominant political realities. When engaging in ethical argument, you need to step back from assumptions about what actually drives political decisions and focus on what ought to be the values and principles underlying human interaction. To the extent that you think those values and principles are related to politics, you need to provide an argument for why that is, or should be, the case (see McGinn 1992 and Boonin and Oddie 2005 for examples of ethical reasoning and argument about a variety of issues).
Reflective exercise
Reflecting on your own moral beliefs, can you distinguish between ones that you think are relative to context, that is, to particular roles or cultural tradition, and ones that are universal, that is, are ingrained in your humanity as such? Does an ethics/morality distinction make sense to you?Think about an issue such as the possession and proliferation of nuclear weapons in conditions of globalization. Can you distinguish between what you think about the morality of nuclear weapons from your political views about current international policies for managing the nuclear arsenals of states? What is the relation, if any, between your moral and your political judgement?Doing Global Ethics
At the beginning of this chapter, Global Ethics was defined as a field of theoretical inquiry that addresses ethical questions and problems arising out of the global interconnection and interdependence of the world’s population. On this account, Global Ethics investigates and evaluates the standards that should govern the behaviour of individual and collective actors as members of, or participants in, a global world. However, some of the literatures that contribute to this endeavour do not describe their ethical theories as global, but instead use alternative terms such as ‘international’ or ‘cosmopolitan’. Within this book, both International and Cosmopolitan Ethics are treated as contributors to the broader field of Global Ethics for reasons explained below.
International Ethics is focused on investigating the morality of relations between nation-states as collective actors, and has a longer history than Global Ethics, especially in relation to moral debates about war and peace (see Chapters 6 and 7). Theorists are more likely to give priority to inter-state ethics, when they are not convinced by the argument that globalization processes have broken down the ethical significance, in principle, practice, or both, of the boundaries of political community. However, within this book, global is understood to encompass the domain of the international as one dimension of globalized social, political and economic relations, which include relations between collective actors such as states as well as relations between collectives and individuals and between individuals. One of the issues that fuels debates in Global Ethics is contestation over the effects of globalization on the ethical status and responsibilities of states. For this reason, theorists who are focused on the ethics of inter-state relations will be included within the field of Global Ethics (see discussions of Rawls, Nagel, Walzer and Miller in Chapter 5 and of Walzer in Chapter 6).
Cosmopolitan derives its meaning not, in contrast to global, from a connection to the earth and the commonality and interdependence of humanity’s earthly existence, but from a connection to the cosmos or universe, a material and spiritual order that transcends the actual social and material conditions of humanity. Moral cosmopolitanism or universalism existed long before anyone took the idea of globalization seriously. However, precisely because cosmopolitan ethical perspectives traditionally focused on the moral significance of all human beings, regardless of their specific status and identity, there are many who argue that approaches to ethics in a global world should be cosmopolitan (Brock 2015). This has led to the characterization of the field of Global Ethics in terms of a clash between two antithetical approaches: cosmopolitanism, essentially any form of moral universalism that takes the human individual as the foundation of moral value; and communitarianism, essentially any theory that argues for any form of moral particularism, in which morality is understood as relative to historical or cultural context (Brown 1992; Dower 2007). This contrast is also sometimes captured in the alternative language of ‘globalist’ versus ‘statist’ approaches (Held and Maffetone 2016). In what follows I have avoided using this classification as a primary ordering principle. It is certainly the case that clashes between moral universalism and moral particularism are important in debates in Global Ethics (see, for instance, the ways in which virtue, feminist and postmodernist ethics, discussed in chapter 3, challenge moral universalism). However, both moral universalism and moral particularism take many different forms, and debates between different kinds of universalism and different kinds of particularism are also enormously important (see the debate between utilitarianism and deontology, discussed in Chapter 2). In addition, many ethical theories combine, or claim to combine, universal and particular elements. As we examine different ethical traditions and theories, you will need to think about the way each of them is either universal or particular and to identify the fundamental grounds of disagreement between them (Browning 2006; Jones and Long 2015).
One of the earliest examples of a thinker using the term ‘global’ to describe a distinctive field of ethical inquiry was the theologian, Hans Küng. In his book Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic (1990), Küng argues: ‘without morality, without universally binding ethical norms, indeed without “global standards”, the nations are in danger of manoeuvring themselves into a crisis which can ultimately lead to national collapse, i.e. to economic ruin, social disintegration and political catastrophe’ (Küng 1990: 25). Küng bases his argument on the claim that there are economic, political and ecological challenges facing the world as a whole that can only be addressed by globally concerted action and that, for this to be possible, the world as a whole needs a shared ethical orientation. He goes on to argue that it is only in the world’s religions that one finds commitment to both the universality and absoluteness of our ethical obligations. He claims, therefore, that the way to establish a global ethic that will command the agreement of all people in the world is through dialogue between the world’s religious traditions which will identify and articulate common values that are fundamental to them all. Following Küng, there is now a growing literature on inter-religious dialogue as a way forward for Global Ethics (Sullivan and Kymlicka 2007).
For other theorists of Global Ethics, secular ethical theories provide the resources to address ethical problems inherent in globalization (see Ignatieff 2012; Rodin 2012). For example, Peter Singer (One World: The Ethics of Globalization, 2004) and Thomas Pogge (World Poverty and Human Rights, 2008) (see chapters 4 and 5 for further discussion of Singer and Pogge). For both of these thinkers, as for Küng, we already have the ethical perspectives needed for Global Ethics as a field of ethical inquiry; it is just that they have yet to be applied to the distinctive challenges of globalization. Frost offers a different argument for why we already have the resources to address global ethical questions. In his case, ethical perspectives are understood as reflections of existing or emerging social and political orders. This means that Global Ethics essentially involves tracing and applying the norms already inherent in international society (state sovereignty) and in global civil society (human rights) (Frost 2009). In response to such views about the theoretical basis of doing Global Ethics, a variety of other thinkers have argued that what is needed is a kind of synthesis between existing perspectives which involves bringing the moral universalism of thinkers such as Singer and Pogge together with the contextualism characteristic of Frost’s approach (see Dower 2007; Erskine 2008; Valentini 2011; Forst 2012). In contrast, there are thinkers who argue for the need for more radical theoretical innovation in Global Ethics (Journal of Global Ethics 2014). Theorists such as Anthony Appiah (Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, 2007), Fiona Robinson (Globalizing Care, 1999) and Bikhu Parekh (‘Principles of a Global Ethic’, 2005) argue that existing dominant cultural and philosophical traditions for thinking about ethics and morality are inadequate for dealing with the ethical demands posed by a globalizing or globalized world (see also Cochran 1999 and Hutchings 1999 for attempts to forge new theoretical frameworks for International and Global Ethics).
Each person you know about and can affect is someone to whom you have responsibilities: to say this is just to affirm the very idea of morality. The challenge, then, is to take minds and hearts formed over the long millennia of living in local troops and equip them with ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become. (Appiah 2007: xi)
Parekh argues that Global Ethics is neither the continuation of earlier traditions of ethical theory applied to contemporary global issues, nor equivalent to the investigation of existing institutionalized norms and values. He claims that there are two factors that render either of these accounts of Global Ethics inadequate to the challenge of globalization. Firstly, in a global world of plural values in which all are equally implicated in the consequences of globalization, there is no agreed normative or actual standard against which to justify the coercive imposition of some values over others. Secondly, the range of morally relevant players in a globalized world includes all kinds of collective, institutional actors (e.g. states, international non-governmental organizations [INGOs], international governmental organizations [IGOs], multinational corporations [MNCs]) as well as individuals. This rules out traditional moral theories that take the individual as the unit of moral concern and therefore do not take the collective dimensions of moral agency in our globalized condition sufficiently seriously. Although he dismisses religion as a source for a global ethic, Parekh shares with Küng a commitment to dialogue as the way forward to developing a global ethic. But whereas for Küng such a dialogue reveals an inner core of moral truths to which all of us essentially already consent, for Parekh, the dialogue is a messy and open-ended process which will produce, at best, compromise positions that may be agreed to for very different reasons by different participants (see Sen 2009 for another example of a philosopher interested in engagement between plural perspectives to enable innovative thinking about global justice).
Reflective exercise
Do you think Global Ethics should be about discovering or inventing commonalities of value? How important do you think existing religious traditions are/should be in this process?
All of the above thinkers are agreed that Global Ethics is necessary in order to think through and address the ethical problems produced or intensified by globalization. But what exactly are theorists of Global Ethics doing when they do Global Ethics? What sorts of question does Global Ethics address? Earlier on in this chapter we referred to the kinds of questions that have been the focus of philosophical Ethics. These encompassed why questions about the basis of ethical claims, what questions about the substance of ethical claims, who questions about ethical agency and responsibility, and how questions about the ethical issues raised by the prescriptive implications of ethical values and principles. Doing Global Ethics is about investigating these kinds of question with specific reference to issues of global concern. Throughout this book we will be examining and evaluating different ways of responding to these questions within the Global Ethics literature.
Why should we adopt or reject particular ethical values and principles to guide our actions, or the actions of other individual and collective entities, in contexts of global relations and interaction? This kind of question has always preoccupied moral philosophers, who have been concerned to establish the kind of ‘truth’ involved in claims about the right and the good. Unlike empirical claims about facts, or logical claims about inference, or aesthetic claims about taste, moral claims are about ethical values. But on what grounds should we accept one account of what are the correct ethical values over another? Within Ethics, there is an established set of arguments in response to the why question which ground ethical claims in a variety of ways, from theological arguments that trace the authority of moral principles and values back to a divinity, to accounts that derive from natural law, human nature, human reason, types of contract, dialogue and sentiment (see below and Chapters 2 and 3). In the context of Global Ethics, the question of what grounds ethical judgement and prescription is particularly difficult, given the extent and depth of the actual plurality of philosophical traditions involved when we are trying to formulate ethical principles that genuinely apply to everyone. For this reason, theorists of Global Ethics are often particularly preoccupied with the why question, about the grounds of validation of their substantive global ethical values and principles.
What is the substance of Global Ethics, what kinds of moral issue or moral claim counts as global? And what is the content of global ethical values and principles? If you examine the literature on Global Ethics, certain substantive issues are very clearly at the forefront. Dower, for instance, focuses on the following list: peace and war; aid, trade and development; and the environment. Singer identifies ecological issues, humanitarian intervention and issues of economic justice (Dower 2007; Singer 2004). Widdows includes global governance and citizenship, poverty, conflict, bioethics, environmental ethics and gender justice, and The Routledge Handbook of Global Ethics covers: conflict and violence, poverty and development, economic justice, bioethics and health, environment and climate (Widdows 2011; Moellendorf and Widdows 2015). If we examine the criteria by which a moral issue counts as global or not, then two factors seem to be particularly important: first, whether an issue crosses national borders in its origins and effects, a claim most often made for war/peace, environmental and economic issues in the contemporary world; secondly, an issue can count as global where there are obvious and deep disagreements between ethical values that have been brought together by processes of globalization, for example where international legal norms clash with local values, or where different cultural values clash within a particular local context. It should be noted that, if we accept that dealing with clashes of values that cross cultural borders is part of the concerns of Global Ethics, then issues that have traditionally been counted as part of ‘private morality’, the morality surrounding reproduction, sexuality and family life, are as much an aspect of the globalized condition as the morality of international aid. In what follows, different theories have different views about the range and depth of specifically global ethical concerns. But they all seek to specify a substantive response to questions about what values or principles are most appropriate for resolving or managing these global ethical concerns.
The who question takes us to debates, within Global Ethics, about the morally relevant actors within the global ethical field. This includes arguments over whether collective actors, as well as individual ones, have moral status. Such collective actors include most notably the state, which is clearly a being with considerable powers of collective agency in the field of world politics. But they may also include bodies such as transnational or multinational corporations, international governmental organizations, like the World Trade Organization (WTO) or the United Nations (UN), and international non-governmental organizations, from international charities such as Amnesty International, the Red Cross and Oxfam to transnational terrorist networks. Some theories are more concerned with some kinds of actors rather than others, but in all cases the who question is wrapped up with a series of further questions about the nature of the moral actor under consideration. Without some such account, theorists are unable to move from the who to the fourth, how, question. This final question asks how moral actors in the global ethical field relate to one another in terms of their ethical identities, entitlements, duties and responsibilities. If one has settled the question of the grounds and substance of global ethical claims and the potential set of relevant moral actors, then one needs to move on to settle the question of who owes what to whom – shifting the focus from philosophical questions about ethical judgement to the domain of prescription and action. Some theorists focus more on the how question in relation to individuals but for many the construction of global ethical principles entails action at an institutional, legal and political level.
In summary, in answer to the question about the nature and scope of Global Ethics, in this book it is defined as the systematic investigation of: (a) different accounts of how we are to ground the authority of moral claims about global issues (why); (b) different substantive answers to moral questions about war and peace, the global political economy, the global environment, clashes of incommensurate values exacerbated by globalized conditions (what); (c) different views about the identity and nature of morally relevant actors in the global sphere (who); and (d) different practical implications drawn from the above for the entitlements and obligations of individual and collective moral actors related to each other through conditions of globalization (how).
Do we already have an answer to the questions posed by Global Ethics?
As we have seen, theologians such as Küng, mentioned above, claim that we already have the resources to address the why, what, who and how questions of Global Ethics within existing world religions. Quite what counts as a world religion is contestable, but is normally seen to incorporate belief systems such as Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All of these religions articulate ethical values and principles that should govern human behaviour and, between them, account for a very large proportion of the world’s population, so it seems a reasonable starting point for efforts to arrive at global ethical standards. However, if we look more closely at the resources provided by religions for addressing the Global Ethics questions, then certain difficulties become apparent.
The first difficulty, which is underlined in Küng’s argument, derives from the fact that, in many cases, the claims of religiously based ethics are embedded in a range of other beliefs and practices that refer to modes of existence beyond the material world. This is particularly obvious in religions that, as with the Abrahamic faiths, posit the existence of an all-powerful God and make very clear distinctions between the divine and the human. The why question in religiously based ethics is not something that can be answered wholly through philosophical argument or empirical evidence; it also requires faith and trust in a divine authority, which is often seen as scripturally located and/or embodied in certain roles, such as that of a priest. Even where religious traditions do not straightforwardly invoke other-worldly authorities, such as in Confucianism or Buddhism, there is still an established tradition, carried through writings and precepts, that in and of itself carries authority for its proponents, without need to refer back to some other set of supporting arguments. This element of faith and trust in the authority of religiously based moral claims has been professed to give such claims a peculiar resonance and persuasiveness (Sullivan and Kymlicka 2007: 238). But it also raises the question of what resources are provided by religiously based ethics for resolving disagreements between religions. Either, it would seem, such arguments are settled on religious grounds, in which case they take us back to fundamental incompatibilities of religious belief systems that only divine or spiritual authority can settle, or they are addressed by reference to philosophical arguments about the nature, purposes and capacities of humanity, and operate within the same vocabulary as secular ethical theories.
The second difficulty to note about religiously based ethics arises from the fact that they not only differ from each other in terms of their nature and scope, but they are also internally contested. Even where religious traditions are explicitly universal in principle (as in Confucianism, Christianity or Islam), as a matter of practice they have historically distinguished between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ and the kinds of ethical values that should govern relations between members of the same religious community as opposed to members and non-members. In addition, none of the religions cited above is a singular, uniform entity; there are deep divisions within religions about what it is that the authorities of scripture or of tradition tell us about ethics. The arguments over ethics within religious traditions, therefore, engage with the same kind of issues and problems that we also find in secular ethical theories.
The third difficulty involved in attempts to establish a global ethic on the basis of religion concerns its substantive content. Following the ‘Parliament of the World’s Religions’ in 1993, which was inspired by Küng’s call for a global ethic, the claim was made by representatives of religious traditions that there was a moral core that was common to all those traditions, and that this provided a stronger basis for a global ethic than secular philosophical argument. In the ‘Declaration Toward a Global Ethic’ that the parliament endorsed, there is a list of ethical commitments that were identified as inherent in all religions (Sullivan and Kymlicka 2007: 236). The principles of this global ethic are outlined in detail in the Declaration. They include as a foundational starting point the so-called ‘Golden Rule’, that is, the principle that one should treat all other people as one would wish to be treated oneself. Further principles are: commitment to non-violence and respect for life; commitment to human solidarity and a just economic order; commitment to tolerance and truth; commitment to equal rights for all and equal partnership between men and women. When one examines the Declaration, however, two things become clear. The first is that many of the principles are specified so generally that one would need a great deal of further argument to determine how they should be interpreted and applied. Given lack of theological agreement, addressing these questions of interpretation and application would therefore require engaging in theoretical argument. The second is that the Declaration makes clear that there is a sphere of ethics that remains specific to each religion aside from the ground that they share. This suggests a distinction similar to the one between ‘morality’ and ‘ethics’ introduced above, but how does one work out what belongs to the universal and what belongs to the particular? Again it would seem that we are back in the realm of theoretical argument.
In summary then, I argue that Küng’s project of grounding a global ethic on the basis of consensus between the world religions necessarily involves engaging with the kind of theorizing which is the concern of this book. The religions do not provide us with a shortcut to answering the why, what, who and how questions of Global Ethics, although they do certainly provide one way into those questions. It is worth noting, for instance, that the theories with which we will be concerned in the next two chapters are largely derived from a western philosophical tradition that owes a great deal to the influence of Christianity.
Reflective exercise
Compare the 1980 ‘Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights’ (alhewar.com/ISLAMDEC.html) and the 1990 ‘Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam’ (http://www.bahaistudies.net/neurelitism/library/Cairo_Declaration_on_Human_Rights_in_Islam.pdf, accessed September 2017). Are the moral priorities of these two documents the same?Read the 1993 Parliament of the Worlds’ Religions’ ‘Declaration Toward a Global Ethic’ (http://www.weltethos.org/1-pdf/10-stiftung/declaration/declaration_english.pdf, accessed September 2017). How persuasive do you find the case for commonality between the moral cores of different religions?Outline of the book
Having sketched out the terrain of Global Ethics, it is now possible to explain and outline the structure of the rest of this book, and how it aims to introduce you to the various ways of addressing the why, what, who and how questions outlined above. There are two particular difficulties in keeping an introduction to Global Ethics accessible. The first is the extent and complexity of debates surrounding the why question in Global Ethics. Most of the contributions to Global Ethics take for granted a variety of reference points to moral theories with their own complex histories and internal debates. In order to grasp, and make judgements about, what differentiates two sides of a particular debate, it is often necessary to have a working knowledge of a range of moral concepts and perspectives, each of which is grounded in specific assumptions about the basis on which we can legitimate claims about right and wrong in the global context. The second difficulty is the sheer breadth of the subject matter. As you will see in the recommendations for further reading throughout this book, there are massive literatures devoted entirely to the ethics of global economic relations or the ethics of war, all of which in turn are dependent on a vast array of empirical as well as theoretical literatures. We can, of necessity, only touch the surface of these issues in the compass of a short book. The structure of the book aims to take these difficulties into account. But for any reader this should only be a starting point and further reading will be highlighted throughout the text (see advice on how to use this book below).
The next two chapters are intended to introduce you to the repertoire of responses to the why question in contemporary ethical theory that are pertinent to the Global Ethics literature discussed in later chapters. Chapters 2 and 3 set out ethical theories and point out some of the standard ways in which they have been used and criticized. The aim here is not only to inform you about moral theories with which you may not be acquainted but also to begin to get you to practise the assessment of such theories by weighing up their strengths and weakness. This in turn should help you to reflect on your own ethical assumptions and the grounds on which you make judgements about moral rights and wrongs. Having set out traditions of response to the why question in ethics, the remaining chapters of the book explore how different responses to this question have been brought together with arguments about what, who and how in contributions to debates in Global Ethics.
Chapters 4 and 5 will both focus on ethical issues arising out of global socio-economic relations. Chapter 4 will focus on the ethics of development and Chapter 5 on theories of global distributive justice. Chapters 6 and 7 will focus on the ethics of war and the ethical challenges posed by ‘peace’ respectively. As we will see, there are interconnections and commonalities between what is ethically at stake in the arguments explored in Chapters 4–7. In particular, I will suggest that five issues emerge as of particular significance for Global Ethics:
the nature and basis of the ethical status of the individual human being;
the relative ethical significance of the human individual as opposed to community or culture;
the ethical significance of past interactions in determining moral entitlements and obligations for individual and collective actors;
the relative ethical importance of procedure or process as opposed to outcome in responding to global ethical problems.
The ethical theories we will be considering in this book provide different answers and arguments in relation to the above issues. Adjudicating between these different answers brings us to the fifth issue, which is fundamental to all of the others:
the question of whether and how ethical claims made by theorists of Global Ethics can be authoritative for a global audience. In other words, why should anyone accept one account rather than another of the moral status of human beings, the relative moral significance of community as opposed to individual, the moral significance of past interactions, and the ethical importance of procedure in relation to outcome?
In Chapter 8, I will argue that the fifth issue, the ongoing problem of formulating and addressing ethical questions in a way that is authoritative for a genuinely global audience, is fundamental to the future of Global Ethics as a branch of ethical inquiry. In order to explore this problem, I will focus on the phenomenon of clashes of ethical value between different populations that have become particularly obvious and acute in conditions of globalization. I will suggest that meaningful debate within Global Ethics requires, above all, ethical ways of responding to such actual and potential clashes of ethical value. This leads me to argue that ethical perspectives that enable us to pay close attention to who and how questions of Global Ethics make a particularly important contribution to the field. Global Ethics will only flourish in the longer term if it is genuinely open to all of the earth’s human population to be participants in its debates, regardless of our particular identities and values.
How to use this book
This book is designed as an aid to teaching and learning. You will get the most out of it if you treat it as a starting point for further thinking, reading and discussion. The book is written as a continuous argument, with each chapter building on the previous one. In particular, Chapters 4–8 all assume that you have read and understood the material in Chapters 2 and 3. Each chapter makes suggestions for further reading and provides a brief comment on what each piece of further reading covers. The references are at the end of each chapter and include further introductory material as well as more advanced reading. You will only get a thorough understanding of the material covered in each chapter if you follow up on further reading. Each chapter also includes a series of reflective exercises. These exercises help you to check your comprehension of material covered and to develop your thinking about the issues explored in the book. Although many of the exercises can be done individually, they will often be most useful when used as the basis of discussion with others, inside or outside of the classroom. Where exercises refer to particular authors or theoretical perspectives, it will normally be helpful to do some further reading before you attempt them. The main point to bear in mind throughout the book is that to get a grasp of the complex ideas and issues that form the subject matter of Global Ethics, you need time to think and reflect. Global Ethics explores many difficult questions and a range of complex and fascinating ways of answering them. The purpose of this book is to guide you towards making up your own mind about the best way to respond to the ethical dilemmas of a global age.
References and further reading
Appiah, K. A. (2007)
Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
, London: Penguin. Argues that we need new modes of ethical thinking to respond properly to the changing nature of our ethical existence in a globalized world.
Boonin, D. and Oddie, G. (eds.) (2005)
What’s Wrong? Applied Ethicists and Their Critics
, Oxford: Oxford University Press. A Reader that includes a variety of examples of arguments in applied ethics putting the case for and against particular ethical positions on issues such as abortion, pacifism, euthanasia and so on.
Brock, G. (2015) ‘Cosmopolitanism and Its Critics’, in Moellendorf and Widdows (eds.),
The Routledge Handbook of Global Ethics
, pp. 61–71. A helpful account of the strengths and weaknesses of cosmopolitanism.
Brown, C. J. (1992)
International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches
, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Sets up the cosmopolitan/communitarian classification as a way of demarcating approaches to normative judgement in international politics.
Browning, D. (ed.) (2006)
Universalism versus Relativism: Making Moral Judgments in a Changing, Pluralistic and Threatening World
, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. A useful set of essays that looks specifically at the question of whether moral judgements can claim universal validity.
Cochran, M. (1999)
Normative Theory in International Relations
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Argues for a way beyond the cosmopolitan/communitarian debate drawing on aspects of Rorty’s and Dewey’s pragmatism.
Copp, D. (ed.) (2006)
The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory
, Oxford: Oxford University Press. A collection of essays covering the ground of Meta-Ethics and Normative Ethics; it includes a useful introductory essay by Copp explaining the distinction between Meta-Ethics and Normative Ethics.
Dower, N. (2007)
World Ethics: The New Agenda
, 2nd edn, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Explores the field of global ethics using the cosmopolitan/communitarian distinction as an organizing principle. The book argues for a ‘solidarist–pluralist’ cosmopolitanism in which there are universal values and responsibilities but these are compatible with sensitivity to cultural diversity.
Erskine, T. (2008)
Embedded Cosmopolitanism: Duties to Strangers and Enemies in a World of ‘Dislocated Communities’
, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Argues for a form of cosmopolitan ethical theory based on the extension of connections between communities rather than abstract universal principles, thereby creating a middle way between cosmopolitan (Pogge, Singer) and communitarian (Frost) alternatives.
Forst, R. (2012)
The Right to Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice
, New York: Columbia University Press. Forst uses the terminology of globalist versus statist in his account of debates about global justice, and uses his ‘discourse theory’ account of justice to overcome the distinction between them – see Chapter 2 for a discussion of discourse ethics, and Chapter 5 for how Forst employs discourse ethics in thinking about global justice.
Frost, M. (2009)
Global Ethics: Anarchy, Freedom and International Relations
, London: Routledge. Offers an account of global ethics in which global ethical values and principles follow from the ‘rules of the game’ of the current world order which, for Frost, is comprised of an inter-state society, governed by norms of (conditional) sovereignty and a global civil society governed by norms of human rights.
Held, D. (2004)
Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus
, Cambridge: Polity. Gives an overview of the problematic implications of economic and political globalization and an account of how they should be dealt with.
Held, D. and Maffetone, P. (eds.) (2016)
Global Political Theory
