Description:
This course addresses central normative questions that arise in international and global affairs, particularly concerning the scope and requirements of justice, democracy, and human rights, and the role to be accorded to cultural and national differences. The development of economic globalization, the persistence of nationalism, and the emergence of new forms of terrorism pose questions of the norms or values needed in this context and whether new forms of governance may be required. Topics to be considered include justice in war and humanitarian intervention; the problem of terrorism; harms to women and the relation of gender and culture; alternative concepts of cultural identity and the rights of cultural minorities; poverty and global justice; the social responsibilities of multinational corporations and the impact of new technologies; democracy across borders; and the preservation of the environment. The course gives special attention to human rights as a framework for approaching these issues and considers the tension between the recognition of diverse cultures on the one hand and cosmopolitan or universal frameworks of human rights on the other. Alternative ethical approaches will also be analyzed, including consequentialism, needs-based theories, and a care/empathy perspective, in their relevance to these new and difficult issues.
Course Objectives:
This course seeks to help students achieve a critical understanding of the range and complexity of ethical issues that arise in international affairs. It applies traditional and contemporary ethical approaches in this context. Philosophical controversies are discussed regarding the requirements of justice in the distribution of wealth and resources and students are expected to analyze alternative conceptions and to apply them to issues of development. An understanding of the crucial notion of human rights and theories of just war will be achieved through the study of the rich course materials. Beyond this, students are expected to develop a new sensitivity to the value questions that are associated with globalization, and to gender and cultural issues, in their significant role in international affairs. Technological and environmental questions and the interpretation of democracy worldwide are other important topics of analysis in this course. The demanding term paper will give students the opportunity to cultivate their research skills, and the required oral presentation will exercise their capacity for persuasive rational argumentation.
Books:
Required:
Charles Beitz et al., eds., International Ethics (Princeton Univ. Press, 1993).
Susan Okin et al, Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? (Princeton Univ. Press, 1999).
Joel H. Rosenthal, ed., Ethics & International Affairs, 2nd ed. (Georgetown Univ. Press, 1999).
Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism:
Examining the Politics of Recognition (
University Press, 1994).
Andrew Valls, ed., Ethics in International Affairs (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000).
Other readings available in WebCT (details to be announced).
Format: Seminar-style, with extensive participation and oral presentations.
Course Requirements:
Oral presentation. Analysis and critique of a course reading. 20%.
Research and analytical paper. 10-15 pages. One-page proposal stating problem to be addressed
and provisional thesis and bibliography, due one month before paper due date. 45%.
Take-home final. 20%.
Attendance and class participation. 15% of the grade.
Additional requirements:
Students must follow the GMU honor code at all times.
Students are expected to retain copies of all written material during the course and for
one month afterwards.
Possibilities for gaining extra credit may be available and will be detailed in class.
Course Outline:
Jan. 24: Introduction, ethical frameworks and some fundamental questions.
Is morality ultimately possible among nation-states?
The challenges posed by realism, relativism, and the diversity of cultures.
Approaches to international ethics: human rights; global distributive justice; consequentialist
theories; theories of needs; care theory.
Alternative perspectives in political philosophy, e.g., liberal individualism, communitarianism,
and feminist theory, as they apply to global affairs.
The idea of a cosmopolitan ethics. Is it realizable or even desirable?
Moral principles within and among states
Jan. 31: War, violence, and ethics. Are traditional just war theories applicable in contemporary contexts? New conceptions in just war theory—jus post bellum, etc. The normative status of the nation-state. Do states have to be democratically legitimate or respect human rights in order to have a right against intervention?
Nicholas Fotion, “Reactions to War: Pacifism, Realism, and Just War Theory,” in A. Valls, ed., Ethics in International Affairs, pp. 15-32.
Thomas Nagel, "War and Massacre," in C. Beitz et al, eds. International Ethics, pp. 53-74.
Michael Walzer, "The Rights of Political Communities" (from Just and Unjust Wars);
David Luban, "Just War and Human Rights;"
Michael Walzer, "The Moral Standing of States: A response to four critics;"
David Luban, "The Romance of the Nation-State;"
in C. Beitz et al, eds., International Ethics, pp. 165-243.
Feb. 7: Terrorism and ethics. Definitions of terrorism and relation to just war principles. Terrorism and international justice and law. Just response to terrorist activities.
Michael Walzer, “Five Questions about
Terrorism,” Dissent, Winter, 2002, 5-16,
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/netscape/frames_version/archives/2002/wi02/walzer.shtml
Andrew Valls, “Can Terrorism be Justified?” in Valls, ed., Ethics in International Affairs, pp. 65-79.
Robin Morgan, Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism, “Introduction to the 2001 edition.”
David Luban, “The War on Terrorism and the
End of Human Rights,”
Lloyd Dumas, “Is Development an
Benjamin Barber, “The War of All against All: Terror and the Politics of Fear,”
in War after September 11, ed. Verna Gehring (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003),
pp. 51-91.
Recommended:
James Sterba, ed., Terrorism and International Justice (
Feb. 14: Humanitarian Intervention. Is it justified to use force to prevent grave violations of human rights without the consent of the target state? Ethical issues regarding rescue.
Simon Caney, “Humanitarian Intervention and State
Sovereignty,” in Valls, Ethics in
International Affairs, pp. 117-134.
Michael Smith, " Humanitarian Intervention: An Overview of the Ethical Issues;"
Thomas Pogge, Global Justice, chapters 13-14.
Amir Pasic and Thomas Weiss, "The Politics of Rescue:
Humanitarian Impulse;"
Comments by Natsios, Winston, Destexhe, and Mapel
in Rosenthal, Ethics and International Affairs, pp. 271-355.
Recommended:
J. L. Holzgrefe and Robert O.
Keohane, eds. Humanitarian Intervention
(
Press, 2003), chapters 1-4.
Hard Questions: Universal Standards and Diverse Cultures
Feb. 21: Human rights, and wrongs. The scope of human rights and their regional and national enforcement within the framework of international law. The construction of human rights and the question of cultural relativism.
Richard Falk, "The Challenge of Genocide and Genocidal Politics in an Era of Globalization,”
Ken Booth, "Three Tyrannies,"
Chris Brown, "Universal Human Rights: A Critique,"
Bhikhu Parekh, "Non-ethnocentic universalism;"
in Tim Dunne and N. Wheeler, eds., Human Rights in Global Politics.
Nigel Dower, “Global Ethics,” in Nigel Dower & John
Williams, eds., Global Citizenship
(Routledge, 2002), 146-157.
Amartya Sen, "Human Rights and Asian Values;" in Ethics & International Affairs, 170-193.
Feb. 28: Women’s Human Rights. Do international documents need to be revised to explicitly include women’s human rights, or can existing rights be used to advance women’s equality?
Hilary Charlesworth, “Human Rights as Men’s Rights;”
Arati Rao, “The Politics of Gender and Culture in International Human Rights Discourse,”
Ann E. Mayer, "Cultural Particularism as a Bar to Women's Rights: Reflections on the
Middle Eastern Experience,"
in Julie Peters and Andrea Wolper, eds., Women's Rights, Human Rights, pp. 103-113, 167-175, and 176-188.
Rebecca Cook, “Women’s International Human Rights Law: The Way Forward;”
Rhonda Capelon, “Intimate Terror: Understanding Domestic Violence as Torture;”
in Rebecca Cook, ed., Human Rights of Women, pp. 3-36 and pp. 116-152.
Martha Chen, "A Matter of
Survival: Women’s Right to Employment in
March 7: Women’s equality and multicultural perspectives. The tension between diverse, and sometimes oppressive, cultural practices and universalistic norms. Can human rights be used to set limits to these practices? Cultural practices and women’s health.
Susan Moller Okin, with Respondents, Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?,
Okin article, pp. 9-24,
Comments by Will Kymlicka, Bonnie Honig, Azizah al-Hibri, Abdullahi An-Na’im,
Homi Bhabha, and Martha Nussbaum.
A. E. Lacsamana, “Sex Worker or Prostituted Woman?” in Women and Globalization, eds. Delia Aguilar and A. E. Lacsamana (Humanity, 2004), pp. 387-403.
Loretta Kopelman, "Female Circumcision/Genital Mutilation and Ethical Relativism,"
Second Opinion, 20, no. 2 (October, 1994): 55-71.
Nahid Toubia, "Female Genital Mutilation,"
Rebecca J. Cook, "International Human Rights and Women's Reproductive Health," in
Women's Rights, Human Rights.
March 21: The recognition of cultural identities. Alternative conceptions of national identity and national self-determination. The question of the justifiability of secession.
Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition;”
Michael Walzer, Comment,
K. Anthony Appiah, "Identity, Survival: Multicultural Societies and Social Reproduction,"
in Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism, ed. by A. Guttman, pp. 25-73, 99-103, 149-163.
Avishai Margalit
and Joseph Raz, "National Self-Determination" in The Rights of
Minority
Cultures, pp. 79-92.
Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism, chapter 7, pp. 140-167.
Omar Dahbour, “The Ethics of Self-Determination: Democratic, National, Regional,”
in Cultural Identity and the Nation-State, ed. C. Gould and P. Pasquino (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), pp. 1-17.
Allen Buchanan, "The Morality of Secession," in The Rights of Minority Cultures,
pp. 350-374.
March 28: Rights of minority cultures within nation-states. Justice in immigration, the treatment of refugees. The “Law of Peoples” and the issue of tolerating nonliberal peoples.
Darlene M. Johnston, "Native Rights as Collective Rights: A Question of Self-Preservation”
Chandran Kukathas, "Are there any Cultural Rights?"
Leslie Green, "Internal Minorities and their Rights,"
in The Rights of Minority Cultures, pp. 179-201, 228-256, 257-272.
Gil Loescher, Refugees: A Global Human Rights and Security Crisis,"
in T. Dunne and N. Wheeler, Human Rights in Global Politics, pp. 233-258.
Joseph H. Carens, "Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders,"
in The Rights of Minority
Cultures, pp. 331-349.
Pamela Goldberg, "Where in the World is there Safety for Me? Women Fleeing Gender-Based Persecution," in Women's Rights, Human Rights, pp. 345-355.
John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Harvard), pp. 3-88.
Global justice and poverty
April 4: International distributive justice. Is there a moral requirement for global redistribution of resources or wealth, and if so, what is its extent? Justice, benevolence, or welfare rights as grounds for dealing with hunger and poverty in developing countries. Is there an international difference principle?
Thomas Pogge, “Priorities of Global Justice,” in T. Pogge, ed., Global Justice (Blackwell, 2001),
chapters 1.
Peter Singer, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality;”
Onora O’Neill, “Lifeboat Earth;”
Charles Beitz, "Justice and International Relations;"
in C. Beitz et al. eds., International Ethics, pp. 247-311.
Henry Shue, "Solidarity among Strangers and the Right to Food;"
James Nickel, "A Human Rights approach to World Hunger;"
Amartya Sen, "Goods and People;"
in W. Aiken and H. LaFollette, World Hunger and Morality, pp. 113-132, and 171-210.
Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (Polity Press, 2002), chapter 1.
Economic, technological, and political globalization:
ethical issues
April 11: Economic globalization: transnational corporations and their social responsibilities; issues of global trade and development and their relation to conceptions of freedom; alternative directions for globalization; the analysis of “global care chains.”
Thomas Donaldson, "Moral Minimums for Multinationals,"
in Ethics & International Affairs, pp. 455-480.
Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents (W. W. Norton, 2002), 3-22, 214-252.
Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Globalization or Empire? (Routledge, 2004) pp. 31-60.
James Mittelman, “Alternative Globalization,” in Civilizing Globalization, ed. Richard Sandbrook, (SUNY Press, 2003), pp. 237-251.
Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, Knopf, 2000), 3-11, 35-53.
Arlie Russell Hochschild, “Global Care Chains and Emotional
Surplus Value,” in
April 18: Globalization and the Internet: issues of access and the digital divide; the possibilities for extending democracy through networks; rights of privacy and property, and potential conflicts.
Pippa Norris, Digital Divide (
Deborah Johnson, “Is the Global Information Infrastructure a Democratic Technology?” in
Cyberethics, eds. Robert M. Baird et al (Prometheus, 2000).
Anthony Wilhelm, Democracy in a Digital Age: Challenges to Political Life in Cyberspace
(
Andrew Feenberg and Darin Barney, eds., Community in the
Digital Age: Philosophy and
Practice
(
Deborah Stienstra, “Gender, Women’s Organizing and the
Internet,” in Technology,
Development and Democracy,
ed. Juliann Emmons Allison (
Jeffrey S. Juris, “The New Digital Media and Activist Networking within Anti-Corporate
Globalization Movements, Annals, AAPSS, 597 (2005): 189-208.
April 25: The globalization of democracy—the scope of democratic communities and their demarcation in political, social, and ecological terms—should they be limited to traditional nation-states and communities within them? Evaluating proposals for transnational decision-making, both regional and more global. The interrelations between democracy and human rights.
David Held, “The Changing Contours of Political Community: Rethinking Democracy in the
Context of Globalization,”
Michael Saward, “A Critique of Held,”
Richard Falk, “Global Civil Society and the Democratic Prospect,”
in Barry Holden, ed. Global Democracy: Key Debates, pp. 17-46 and 162-178.
David Beetham, Democracy and Human Rights (Polity, 1999), pp. 89-114.
David Held, Global Covenant (Blackwells, 2004), chapters 6, 9, 10.
Andrew Kuper, Democracy beyond Borders: Justice and Representation in Global
Institutions
(Oxford University Press, 2004), chapters 4. [Recommended—chapter 3].
Carol Gould, Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights (
Press, 2004), 156-216.
Ethics and the environment
May 2: Environmental ethics: normative bases for respecting the environment; obligations to future generations; ecofeminist approaches. What are environmental rights and should they be constitutionalized? Responsibilities for global environmental stewardship and the possibilities of international cooperation to protect the environment in the face of global ecological crises.
Peter Singer, “One Atmosphere,” in One World (
Barry Commoner, "Poverty and Population;"
Arne Naess, "Deep Ecology;"
Val Plumwood, “Ecosocial Feminism as a General Theory of Oppression;”
Robert Bullard, “Environmental Racism and the Environmental Justice Movement,”
Winona LaDuke, "From Resistance to Regeneration;"
in C. Merchant, ed., Ecology.
Vandana Shiva, “The World on the Edge,” in Global Capitalism, ed. by W. Hutton and A.
Giddens.
Tim Hayward, Constititional Environmental Rights (Oxford University Press, 2005), chapter 1.
Robert Goodin, "International Ethics and the Environmental Crisis,"
in Ethics & International Affairs, pp. 435-454.