Bridging the Real and the Ideal in International Ethics

Abstract

Richard Price's new volume, Moral Limit and Possibility in World Politics, is the latest contribution to what Steve Smith called, in 1992, the “resurgence” of normative theorizing in International Relations (Smith 1992). Over a decade and a half later, that resurgence is stronger than ever, as IR scholars from an array of different theoretical and methodological stripes continue to weigh in on “ethics” and “ethical issues” in world politics. This new book, however, is a particularly valuable contribution to that conversation for at least two reasons: first, because it addresses international ethics from the perspective of “constructivism,” an increasingly popular theoretical approach which, in some forms, can speak to the American “mainstream” of the discipline; and second, because of its provocative yet crucial central argument regarding the need to understand the limits and possibilities for moral change through careful empirical analysis. The main aim of the volume is to demonstrate—both theoretically and through the use of specific cases—the contribution of constructivist approaches to understanding the role and influence of morality in world politics. Tied to this, however, is the more defensive aim of the contributors—especially the book's editor—of answering the charge that the constructivist literature in International Relations has failed to engage fully with “global ethics,” instead limiting itself to analyses of the causal role of “norms,” especially in influencing foreign policy. To this end, chapters one and two, by Price and Christian Reus-Smit, respectively, set out the main theoretical and methodological arguments of the book. The remaining chapters, written by an excellent collection of both junior and established constructivist scholars, tackle the “real life” ethical dilemmas in world politics, including sanctions, humanitarian intervention, gender equality and multiculturalism, and the recognition of indigenous peoples.