Reason and Emotion in International Ethics

Renée Jeffery examines the role played by the emotions in making moral judgments and motivating ethical actions in global politics.

Renée Jeffery (Author)

9781316633045, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 October 2016

264 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 1.5 cm, 0.39 kg

'It essential reading for scholars concerned with questions of ethics or motions within International Relations, as well as the intersections between the natural and the social sciences.' K. M. Fierke, International Studies Review

The study of international ethics is marked by an overwhelming bias towards reasoned reflection at the expense of emotionally driven moral deliberation. For rationalist cosmopolitans in particular, reason alone provides the means by which we can arrive at the truly impartial moral judgments a cosmopolitan ethic demands. However, are the emotions as irrational, selfish and partial as most rationalist cosmopolitans would have us believe? By re-examining the central claims of the eighteenth-century moral sentiment theorists in light of cutting-edge discoveries in the fields of neuroscience and psychology, Renée Jeffery argues that the dominance of rationalism and marginalisation of emotions from theories of global ethics cannot be justified. In its place she develops a sentimentalist cosmopolitan ethic that does not simply provide a framework for identifying injustices and prescribing how we ought to respond to them, but which actually motivates action in response to international injustices such as global poverty.

1. Ethics, emotions, and the human brain
2. Rationalist cosmopolitan solutions to the problem of world poverty
3. Moral sentiment theory
4. The demise of moral sentiment theory
5. What is an emotion?
6. Moral judgment after neuroscience
7. A sentimental solution.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Politics & government [JP], Social, group or collective psychology [JMH], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ]