The Importance Of Political Ethics In International Relations

They have to pursue the national interest. Niccolò Machiavelli Niccolò Machiavelli is often considered as the founding father of political science, specifically political ethics. He believed that a political leader may be required to commit acts that would be wrong if done in private, and that the highest purpose of social political life was to attain and hold power. Machiavelli is the first major thinker to judge actions solely in terms of their consequences. An action is good not because God commands it, nor because it comes from virtue, but because its consequences are the attainment and keeping of power. Most of The Prince is dedicated to explaining how we can measure consequences, and what princes can do to attain and hold their power.

‘Ethics in International Relations: A Constitutive Theory’.) Schools of thought with in international ethics include cosmopolitanism and anti-cosmopolitanism. Realism, Liberalism, and Marxism are ethical traditions that conceptually address moral issues in international relations, but within the current state of our driven society it seems to be rather that man 's morals are paralyzed when it comes to international conduct; that they are swept away and rendered impotent by larger and seemingly important factors. (Dewey. ‘Ethics and International Relations’.) Cosmopolitanism Within global justice, there exists a conflict between the claims of the nation state and citizens on one side, and the claims of all citizens of the world on the other. Traditionally, priority has been given to the claims of nations, but in recent years thinkers known as cosmopolitans have pressed the claims of all citizens of the world. Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human beings belong to a single community, based on a shared morality. This idea was started in the Cynic movement of Ancient Greece when Diogenes of Sinope was asked where he came from and answered with “I am a cosmopolite” meaning he was a citizen of the world, or

(Jackson. Classical and Modern Thought on International Relations: From Anarchy to Cosmopolis.) The idea of a global unity of human beings as one species living in a world society — together with notions of universal law and harmony has been expressed and morphed by many Enlightenment cosmopolitans — including Jeremy Bentham, David Hume, and Adam Smith, but it is widely accepted that the legacy of Immanuel Kant is the most significant in terms of the cultivation. Kant fused elements of republicanism and liberalism with a sense of moral universalism obliging individuals to think like citizens of the world. As a moral being each individual has a duty to obey and understand the bonds and principles that unite him or her with other humans. Kant’s theory of morality is summarized by the statement ‘treat everyone as ends in themselves rather than as a means to an