Everyday ethics in international relations

Nicholas Onuf

pp. 81-109

in: Hakan Seckinelgin, Hideaki Shinoda (eds), Ethics and international relations, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001

Abstract

Ethical conduct reflects what we feel we should or must do, given available standards. Ethics begins with the reasons that we give for our conduct. This paper begins where people do: with the way that we justify our everyday conduct by invoking standards that are immediately and abundantly available. When pressed, we look for more acceptable reasons and more general standards. While philosophers look for universal standards and seek to justify them, all of us live in a world of everyday ethics.