ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents a critical analysis of both commonplace assumptions and dominant modes of reasoning about ethics in international relations. It attempts to work towards a new understanding of the nature and purposes of moral enquiry in the context of global social relations. The book then sets out in more detail the argument for a feminist international ethics based on the idea of a critical ethics of care. It also examines what the author see to be strong links—in terms of both ontology and value advocacy—between liberal contractarianism and rights-based ethics, on the one hand, and mainstream modernist approaches in international relations theory on the other. The book also explores arguments from critical theory and postmodernism, which offer some of the more promising responses in international relations theory to the problem of social exclusion on a global scale.
