Middle-Ground Ethics and Human Rights in International Relations

Abstract

What is the discussion about middle-ground ethics (MGE) all about? How is it important for those who study international relations? Few would be interested in ‘far-out ethics’ or ‘foreground ethics’. What of interest is caught by the phrase ‘middle-ground ethics’? The answer I would suggest is that this phrase, like the phrases ‘communitarian ethics’, ‘Kantian ethics’, ‘utilitarian approaches to ethics’, and ‘deontological ethics’, can be used to refer to a well-known set of problems in the field of international ethics together with a well-known body of ongoing discussions directed toward seeking answers to the problems posed. It refers, we might say, to a problematique, to an ongoing set of ethical discussions. In the first part of this chapter, I wish briefly to set out the core features of what I see as the MGE problem. In the second part of the chapter, I shall offer a criticism of one constitutive feature of the discussion about MGE. I shall argue that taking note of this criticism is important for anyone concerned to understand the human rights discourse in contemporary international relations.