Thinking ethically about the global in ‘Global Ethics’

Abstract

In what follows, I claim that the ‘global’ in ‘Global Ethics’ needs also to be thought about in a different way, not as the scope or object of ethical judgement but in relation to the worlds reproduced by the practice of ethical judgement itself. In summary, ethical reflection on the meaning of the ‘global’ in the practice of Global Ethics as a field of academic inquiry is what is required if the future of Global Ethics is to be something other than Ethics or Applied Ethics as traditionally conducted.

Keywords:

• ethic of care
• non-prescriptive ethics
• global ethics
• judgement

Notes on Contributor

Kimberly Hutchings is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics. She works primarily within the areas of critical international and feminist ethical and political theory. She is the author of many books and articles, including International Political Theory: re-thinking ethics in a global era (1998), Time and World Politics: thinking the present (2008) and Global Ethics: an introduction (2010). Her current work includes an ongoing collaborative project with Elizabeth Frazer on the relation between violence and politics in political thought.