Western conceptions of a universal moral order

1978 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Vincent
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
The West ◽  
Western Values ◽  
The Individual

I Am not concerned in this paper to discover what is peculiarly western about western conceptions of a world moral order, but merely to assemble some ideas about morality that recur in western thought - which may or may not be features of other civilizations as well. It is my ignorance of other civilizations that prevents me from undertaking the seductively neat task of deciding what is unique about western values, but it is the same ignorance that saves me from making the mistake of arriving at what is essentially western by subtracting from its history that which it shares with other cultures. “Western Values in International Relations” is a field that has been pioneered by Martin Wight in such a way as to stay the hand of a glossator, but it is the word “universal” in my title that distinguishes the present undertaking from Wight's work. His aim was to follow some lines of thought derived from domestic politics in the West into the field of diplomacy and international relations. My aim is to pursue them further, beyond international society to world society, and to take into moral account not merely the state and the order of states, but also the individual and certain actors and institutions in world politics whose concerns have been regarded conventionally as falling outside the domain of ‘diplomacy and international relations’.

Forum Introduction: Is the state a person? Why should we care?

2004 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
International Society ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Precise Role

In 1959, Arnold Wolfers published an essay entitled ‘The Actors In World Politics’ in which he suggested that the importance of the state as an actor, although undeniable, needed to be submitted to ‘empirical analysis’ and clearer theorisation if its precise role was to be ascertained. Unfortunately, almost no one seems to have heeded his advice, and the question about what we might call the person-hood of the state virtually vanished from the agenda of mainstream International Relations (IR) theory. Realists, neorealists, neoliberal institutionalists, theorists of international society, and even many Marxists were content to treat states as, in effect, big people, endowed with perceptions, desires, emotions, and the other attributes of person-hood. Significantly, they persisted in these practices even though they often admitted that – in Robert Gilpin's words – ‘strictly speaking . . . only individuals and individuals joined together into various types of coalitions can be said to have interests’ and therefore really be actors.

Globalization and the social state

1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID ARMSTRONG
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Social State ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
Territorial Boundaries

One of the most common themes in the vast literature on globalization is that it is gradually undermining the state by making it meaningless if not obsolete. This article is a contribution to the growing body of literature that seeks to challenge that thesis. It does so by arguing that there are two distinct sets of processes at work in contemporary world politics: globalization and interstate interaction. While the former tends to break down territorial boundaries and replace them with new, uniform configurations of power, money and culture, the latter reconfirms territorial boundaries and the structures and processes contained by them. The interaction among states, which is often ignored by globalization theorists, may best be understood by situating it within the traditional international relations concept of an international society, provided that this is redefined to give it a more ‘constructivist’ orientation.

State Morality in International Relations

1923 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Williams
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Moral Duty ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
International Ethics ◽  
State Action ◽  
The Individual

Much has recently been said concerning the moral obligations of the state. It is not infrequently asserted that it is the moral duty of a state to assume some function in the interest of international society. The reaction against the philosophy which considered all state action as moral and which posited the realization of national aims as a paramount ethical end, has been followed by an increasing emphasis on the ethical liability of the state to interests in addition to its own.In attributing moral obligations to the state, the ethical standards of the individual are frequently invoked as applicable to state conduct, and upon this analogy judgment is often pronounced on problems of international right and wrong. The question, however, defies settlement by this simple identification of two moral entities essentially dissimilar in their nature. The ascription of ethical duties to the state, wholesome as it is readily conceded to be, requires considerable analysis lest an undue inference be drawn from the mere fact of its admission. To concede the state as a moral entity does not of itself suffice. The manner of its response to moral questions; its distinctive position in a society which yet lacks many of the elemental requisites for moral progress; the forces limiting the movement of international ethics to a higher level—an inquiry into problems such as these would seem more profitable than the constant reiteration of a principle which probably few persons would longer be disposed to deny.

Hobbes among the Classic Jurists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Boucher
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Complete Identification ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Hedley Bull ◽  
Hans Morgenthau

The classic foundational status that Hobbes has been afforded by contemporary international relations theorists is largely the work of Hans Morgenthau, Martin Wight, and Hedley Bull. They were not unaware that they were to some extent creating a convenient fiction, an emblematic realist, a shorthand for all of the features encapsulated in the term. The detachment of international law from the law of nature by nineteenth-century positivists opened Hobbes up, even among international jurists, to be portrayed as almost exclusively a mechanistic theorist of absolute state sovereignty. If we are to endow him with a foundational place at all it is not because he was an uncompromising realist equating might with right, on the analogy of the state of nature, but instead to his complete identification of natural law with the law of nations. It was simply a matter of subject that distinguished them, the individual and the state.

scholarly journals The hierarchical society: the politics of self-determination and the constitution of new states after 1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
New States ◽  
History Of

International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First, my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how different actors navigate these hierarchies.

Islamic International Relations Towards a Theoretical Framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gubara Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The World

The Western originators of the multi-disciplinary social sciences and their successors, including most major Western social intellectuals, excluded religion as an explanation for the world and its affairs. They held that religion had no role to play in modern society or in rational elucidations for the way world politics or/and relations work. Expectedly, they also focused most of their studies on the West, where religion’s effect was least apparent and argued that its influence in the non-West was a primitive residue that would vanish with its modernization, the Muslim world in particular. Paradoxically, modernity has caused a resurgence or a revival of religion, including Islam. As an alternative approach to this Western-centric stance and while focusing on Islam, the paper argues that religion is not a thing of the past and that Islam has its visions of international relations between Muslim and non-Muslim states or abodes: peace, war, truce or treaty, and preaching (da’wah).

scholarly journals Do attackers have a legal duty of care? Limits to the ‘individualization of war’

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janina Dill
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Duty Of Care ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Legal Situation ◽  
Legal Duty ◽  
The Individual

AbstractDoes International Humanitarian Law (IHL) impose a duty of care on the attacker? From a moral point of view, should it? This article argues that the legal situation is contestable, and the moral value of a legal duty of care in attack is ambivalent. This is because a duty of care is both a condition for and an obstacle to the ‘individualization of war’. The individualization of war denotes an observable multi-dimensional norm shift in international relations. Norms for the regulation of war that focus on the interests, rights, and duties of the individual have gained in importance compared to those that focus on the interests, rights, and duties of the state. As the individual, not the state, is the ultimate locus of moral value, this norm shift in international relations, and the corresponding developments in international law, are morally desirable. When it comes to IHL, the goal of protecting the interests of the individual creates strong reasons both for and against imposing a legal duty of care on the attacker. The enquiry into whether IHL does and should impose a legal duty of care therefore reveals that the extent to which war can be individualized is limited.

International Relations and Comparative Politics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vidya Nadkarni ◽  
J. Michael Williams
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Economic Interaction ◽  
Interstate System ◽  
The One ◽  
Cross Fertilization ◽  
Scholarly Inquiry

Both the political science fields of International Relations (IR) and Comparative Politics (CP) developed around a scholarly concern with the nature of the state. IR focused on the nature, sources, and dynamics of inter-state interaction, while CP delved into the structure, functioning, and development of the state itself. The natural synergies between these two lines of scholarly inquiry found expression in the works of classical and neo-classical realists, liberals, and Marxists, all of whom, to varying degrees and in varied ways, recognized that the line dividing domestic and international politics was not hermetically sealed. As processes of economic globalization, on the one hand, and the globalization of the state system, on the other, have expanded the realm of political and economic interaction, the need for greater cross-fertilization between IR and CP has become even more evident. The global expansion of the interstate system has incorporated non-European societies into world politics and increased the salience of cultural and religious variables. These dynamics suggest that a study of cultures, religions, and histories, which shape the world views of states and peoples, is therefore necessary before assessments can be made about how individual states may respond to varied global pressures in their domestic and foreign policy choices.

Foreign Policy and the Social Construction of State Identity

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Kowert
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
State Level ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
The State ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
State Identity ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

Foreign policy analysis benefits from careful attention to state identity. After all, identity defines the field itself by making it possible to speak both of policies and of a domain that is foreign. For some scholars, identity has proven useful as a guide to agency and, in particular, to agent preferences. For others, identity has served as a guide to social or institutional structure. Theories of state identity can be divided into three categories: conditions internal to agents, social interactions among agents, and “ecological” encounters with a broader environment. Internal conditions refer to either processes or constraints that operate within the agent under consideration. In the case of the state, these may include domestic politics, the individual characteristics of citizens or other internal actors, and the collective attributes of these citizens or other actors. Although internal causes are not social at the state level, they nevertheless have social implications if they give rise to state identity, and they may themselves be social at a lower level. The social interactions of states themselves constitute a second source of identity, one that treats states as capable of interacting like persons. This approach essentially writes large social and psychological theories, replacing individuals with the state. Finally, the ecological setting or broader environment is a third possible source of identity. The environment may be material, ideational, or discursive, and treated as an objective or a subjective influence.

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