ETHICS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: A NEED FOR AN INDIGENOUS APPROACH

Ethics by definition are a system of moral principles. The rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, drawn from culture and religion. In today’s world in essence ethics are about how to treat others with dignity and respect and recognizing and honoring the humanity in all others. In international relations, where interactions are studied with the focus on power and it is difficult to create distinction between facts and values, ethics emerge as a sub discipline and it is difficult to establish the fact that ethics should be everywhere. In a country like Pakistan, where external threats and internal issues intermingled it is very difficult to maintain a focus on the importance of ethics in international relations. The paper is an attempt to highlight the importance of ethics as a part of social sciences in general and international relations in particular to address the problems of positivist approach to inter and intra-state relations based on hard core empiricism versus morality and ethics based approach which is indigenous to the developing world. The discourse on ethics in foreign policy, in the contemporary world is dominated by the western thought and thrust which includes elements like democracy, human rights and free markets. It may even extend to abject use of force in the name of ethical intervention this has resulted in a lot of violence and a trust deficit in the world which was avoidable. The thrust of research would especially include:
Democracy and Ethics
Free Market and Ethics
The politics of Human Rights