Globalization, Moral Relations, and the Ethics of Care

This chapter explores the wider structural and institutional context of moral relations on a global scale, focusing on arguments from international relations theorists about globalization and the international system. It explores the actual conditions for moral relations in the global context and, specifically, for the development of a global ethics of care. The chapter examines the responses to arguments about globalization from normative theorists of international relations and moral and political philosophers. These responses are concerned not only with the social, political, and economic aspects of globalization but with how, if at all, globalization affects people's understanding of ethics and moral relations in the contemporary world. The chapter then explores two arguments which aim to link arguments about globalization—about economic interdependence and the emergence of a global civil society—with moral arguments about global justice and global responsibility.