ABSTRACT
Every comprehensive system of ethics includes two sorts of binding moral demands: First, the perfectly universal demands of general morality that apply to all people vis-à-vis others independently from their specific social relationships, such as the commandment not to hurt or kill others without justification or the duty to help people in need, if such help is easily possible; and, secondly, the more limited demands of justice which are context-dependent in the sense that they refer to particular social relationships among the parties involved, such as the precept that contractual transactions are to be fair and the requirement that a punishment ought be proportionate to the committed wrong. Accordingly, it is assumed that a comprehensive system of global ethics will also include two sorts of demands concerning the relationships among nations and their individual members: Some perfectly universal demands of global morality, on the one hand, and certain context-dependent demands of global justice, on the other (Barry 1989).
