ABSTRACT
International politics seemed to have taken on a whole new flavor. Anything seemed possible, even a new world order managed by newly freed moral norms. In the United States in particular, more and more observers of international relations insisted that ethical and moral values do and should play a role in evaluating options in international politics and shaping foreign policy preferences for the future. Before World War II those who had placed ethics near the heart of foreign policy and international politics were called idealists. The history of concern for ethics in international politics is long and checkered. When scholars of international relations provide a history of an event or issue and the ethical questions surrounding it, they are writing history, but from a philosophical perspective, they are also practicing a form of descriptive ethics. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
