POL 044 - Ethics and International Relations

The objective of this course is to understand the relationship between International Relations and ethics. We will try to answer the question of what is responsible and ethical politics and how does it work, what is the role of ethics in foreign policy? To accomplish this, we will explore different topics over the course of the semester. First, we will try to understand the relationship between ethics and politics from different perspectives such as realism, liberalism and Islam. Students will be introduced to different ethical theories and concepts from different perspectives in IR. This will facilitate our comprehension of classical aspects of ethics and its application to society in general. Furthermore, this course aims to introduce the students to current issues related to ethics and foreign policy like what is a moral foreign policy? and the relationships between foreign policy and ethics. 

Another aims of this course is to conduct a critical analysis of the problem of Ethical Pluralism. We will investigate the scope of Pluralism in political theory today. We will try to think about how we can address ethical questions raised therein with concepts introduced in the beginning of the semester. This will facilitate pour understanding of how ethics functions in international society today. Alongside questions of Pluralism, we will explore issues of War and Peace and their ethical concerns. This includes issues of terrorism. The abovementioned topics are relevant to International Relations theory today.