Juan A Lozada, 3 May 2012 A relevant reflection about the role of ethics in international relations and global society

should communicative practical solutions to contemporary ethical praxis. Appropriate clarification of the terminology and a short survey of the most salient ethical problems of the day should set the stage for an honest critique of the negligible role that academia has chosen to play on the dissemination of practical ethics beyond the halls of higher education. Understanding the concept of ethical fitness and the social benefits of encouraging the diffusion of ethical methods is an important component of any comprehensive proposal to expand the role of ethical analysis in todays global society. Furthermore, identification of the current deficiencies, which may be inherent to life on todays fast paced society, is a crucial part of articulating a solution. Ethical Fitness is the ability to ascertain moral responses to the wide variety of moral challenges that we encounter in our daily existence. Accomplishing a high degree of ethical fitness is a colossal feat that requires a trained and focused mind and an everlasting commitment to continuous moral growth. Ethical fitness sets the conditions for the development of moral courage, a state of deep rooted ethical praxis that is capable of overcoming the type of social pressures that can often lead to a diversion of moral standards. A climate of high ethical fitness is nurtured by the diffusion and regular application of a comprehensive, decision making methodology, a logical framework, with a certain degree of flexibility that can be applied to individual situations in order to promote a greater level of moral consistency. Ethics education is not normally part of the educational curriculum, yet, an ethically fit population is the key to the creation of a more equitable society. Ethical methodology to advance moral frameworks are often missing from the public discourse, the general public ,and most of its leaders, also lack the necessary background knowledge, about the global realities, which are required to properly apply ethical dilemma paradigms to these problems. The first step towards articulating a comprehensive moral response to some of our most pressing global ethical dilemmas calls for active engagement of those who are currently carrying out academic moral thinking and ethical debate. An obligation to take the discourse out of the halls of universities and into less restrictive social forums is quickly becoming a moral compulsion. Exclusively academic ethical debate in anathema to widespread praxis. The world of today, with its unrelenting race for technological evolution and ever greater interconnectnesses, presents significant moral challenges to the contemporary global citizen. The negative ramifications of unmoral decisions are no longer contained by geography; their reach rapidly expands through electronic networks with the potential of spreading global havoc in seconds. Nevertheless, those same networks could be exploited to deploy the

second component of the strategy to expand the forums of ethical debate. The effort to spread the use of ethical paradigms to the population at large involves the use of technology which aids at expanding the breadth and depth of knowledge of the average citizen. Non for Profit, Non Governmental Organizations should lead the effort; they should embrace the world of multi-media to target non academic audiences and use it to fully deploy a global ethical alphabetization crusade. Blogs and Social Medial could serve as a way of counteracting the unfortunate trends of mainstream media, where journalist have often compromise their ability to accomplish the primary mission/duty of properly disseminating throughout and relevant information to the public, by choosing to cater to a segment of the public that is not interested in critical analysis but instead, demands to be entertained at the expense of everything else. It seems as if anywhere we look, we are confronted with a widespread tendency to oversimplify, and this in turn leads to the reflective foreign policies that create a lot more problems that they resolve. The US has felt the unrelenting pressures of being a global superpower; a volatile Middle East continues to weigh heavily on the minds of Americans and continues to pose significant ethical dilemmas for US leaders. After the 911 attacks, neither the American public nor its leadership was adequately equipped to handle the challenges of framing an adequate and moral response to such attacks. Under the guise of safeguarding national security, America began to engage in what Howard Zinn has labeled as a savage brand of American Exceptionalism. This trend was partly encouraged by a worrisome sense of divine ordination. Americas global war on terrorism became a pennant of achievement of short term goals at the expense of the realization of positive and sustainable, long term objectives. The notion that America is exempted from the same legal and moral standards that bound every other member of the international community lead to the creation of the Bush doctrine, a policy position that oversaw the declaration of unilateral wars, summary assassination of enemy combatants, relaxation of the rules against torture, weakening of national sovereignty and aggressive expansion of the preemption doctrine. The power of the state has remained unchallenged thanks to a combination of general apathy information deficit and lack of ethical fitness. The general public must awake to the consequences of chronic misinformation, global hegemonic powers like the United States are experiencing and increased level of economic and political polarization The gap between rich and poor continues to widen in the United States and at a national policy level, Americans have become increasingly distrustful of their leaders. There is a growing sense that politicians in Washington no longer represent their interest. The 2010, US Supreme Court decision of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, has not helped to appease the fears that big lobby has greatly eroded the ability of regular citizens to influence public policy. The 2008 meltdown, trigger in part, by colossal ethical transgressions in Wall Street, should serve as a final warning

that greatly increasing our citizens ethical fitness is not an inspirational abstraction but a sine qua non for our national survival.

Appiah remind us that "We should take care to avoid creating honor worlds and honor codes that grant so much standing to the successful that they imply a disrespect for the rest of us." Pg 1887 An informed public The world is interconnected, individuals are facing newer, more complex problems, the ramifications of their choices are no longer isolated to a small geographical area Policing our government by demanding openness and pursuing depth Responsibility to Protect: States acquire domestic legitimacy by ensuring that they are able to protect the basic rights of individuals, from that perspective, regime are legitimate based on fulfilling their responsibility to protect their citizens did appreciate Mr. Garlasco's honesty, particularly when he acknowledged that during the bombing campaign in Bosnia, he was just a body filling in, without much knowledge about the targets and just going through the motions

The law and its evolution Appiah also warns us about the limitations of the legal system in changing social practices, this concept was well illustrated during the American civil right's movement, the civil rights act was passed to effectuate much needed radical change in our society but it took the collective will of many individuals to begin to make inroads into the culture of intolerance of the South The responsibility inherent in being a global hegemonic power

The Ethics of war US foreign policy while fighting the war on terror has squarely embraced an Amoral realism that denies morality and embraces the notion that the aim of going to war is to prevail, there are no inherent limitations in defeating the enemy. (Amstutz, 111).

The limits of cultural sensibility conclusion that our cultural norms and political systems are superior to everybody else's, also, I don't know that imposing our cultural values unto others would really work long term or even be advisable short term

1. would not armed you with enough information to be able to reach the type of unequivocal conclusion that
you seem to have reached. Now, I do apologize in advance if you in fact have a PhD in Chemistry, have read countless of Scientific Journal Articles on the subject and still reached the conclusion that global warming is just a big left wing conspiracy.

2. Under this rubric, our leaders would follows clear, logical and consistent standards, attempt to remain
impartial when attempting to undertake an ethical analysis, favor the existing international rules as the default position and develop procedures that protect impartiality among its subordinates and promote the free exercise of prudence in calculating results. (Amstutz, 40).

3. Amstutz rightly argues that a dismissal of ethical decision-making is simply not an option and, in fact, must
remain a pivotal part of global interaction (Amstutz, 15), if there are no moral standards everything is possible: Torture, genocide, slavery, etc.

4. Most of us support our government because we are not interested in truly engaging into an ethical analysis
or dissecting what we are doing and how we are doing it, someone hurt us (911) and now they must pay (no matter the cost). It

5. Amstutz acknowledges that moral norms rarely result in ethical action at all three levels , morality is often not
applied to goals, means and results (as it should be) and instead, tradeoffs among them is generally the norm (Amstutz, 17). However, Amstutz also understands that however imperfect the effort may be, we need to continue to work on the development of a moral foreign policy that governs our global interactions

6. conclusion that our cultural norms and political systems are superior to everybody else's, also, I don't know
that imposing our cultural values unto others would really work long term or even be advisable short term.

7. With that said, I am not implying that we should not do our best to promote human rights throughout the
world, I am just saying that this should be a gradual approach that builds on the similarities that we already have. I believe that some of the rights that you listed would probably be included in a list of rudimentary human rights but I think that your list could become a lot more rudimentary.

8. Ignatieff's contention that "human rights should not delegitimize traditional culture," has some merit, but
taking this concept to the point where it would keep the global community from intervening to stop practices like female circumcision (under the premise that "Western activist have not right to overturn traditional cultural practice, provided that such practice continues to receive the assent of its members") is a lot further that I am willing to go to legitimize traditional cultures.

9. I do believe that a corpus of universal human rights exists and I would align myself with the two stoic ideas
of the universality of moral reason and the priority of the universal community. (Amstutz, 89). I would include a right against rape, slavery, the right to be afforded

10. understand that Ignatieff hopes that at some point all countries will create the conditions in which individual
from the bottom are free to avail themselves of such rights, However, I do not believe that we can afford to wait for the world to change before we condemn these practices and fight with all our might until they are eradicated, so, in that regard I strongly disagree with Ignatieff

11. Appiah remind us that "We should take care to avoid creating honor worlds and honor codes that grant so
much standing to the successful that they imply a disrespect for the rest of us." Pg 1887. This assertion hits uncomfortably close to home, in the U.S. we worship success at the individual level over almost anything else. It is common to listen to talk

12. Appiah also warns us about the limitations of the legal system in changing social practices, this concept was
well illustrated during the American civil right's movement, the civil rights act was passed to effectuate much needed radical change in our society but it took the collective will of many individuals to begin to make inroads into the culture of intolerance of the South. Appiah illustrates the point well when he talks about the honor killings in Pakistan, what good is a legal system if nobody is willing to enforce it?

13. In my opinion, Preventive war does not fit within the Jus ad Bellum criterion of self defense, in fact, I believe
that is a dangerous overreach, The notion that you can strike to prevent a build up of military capabilities among potential rivals is nothing but the legitimization of voodoo pseudo science, it creates a readily available catch all justification for war and it erodes the existing set of international legal principles which is build under the premise of global pacifism

14. of CIA piloted programs (which you cannot know because you and most of us do not have a "need to know"
basis or simply lack a security clearance), without this information you are out of luck, it is almost impossible to estimate the consequences, thus, you could not legitimately reach the conclusion that these killings represent the greatest good for the greatest number of people

15. that is the problem you see, I am not claiming that there should be no secrets, I am just arguing that the CIA
does not have the legal authority (under international law) to do what they are doing, I am also arguing that we Americans cannot hold our executive accountable if we are in the dark about what is really happening

16. , I thought that we were just learning to perform true ethical analysis that does not make up new paradigms,
as world novice ethicist, we should presume that utilitarianism implies an universal focus and that greatest number of people, actually means, "greatest number of people." (notice that they are no qualifiers

17. US foreign policy while fighting the war on terror has squarely embraced an Amoral realism that denies
morality and embraces the notion that the aim of going to war is to prevail, there are no inherent limitations in defeating the enemy. (Amstutz, 111).

18. Even though terrorism is indiscriminate, unrestrained violence, it is not always inherently
immoral, in some instances, it could actually be considered an unusual, but legitimate, tool of warfare. The American revolutionary war and independent movement were labeled as terrorist movements by the ruling colonial power of the time yet most Americans would never picture George Washington as a terrorist

19. The current international framework is not perfect but it is the best that we have to preserve some level of
humanity in war. The temptation of fighting fire with fire

20. the US government needed to come up with a set of limited objectives and draft a strategy to neutralize the
group. Instead, the US came up with the Bush doctrine. This doctrine does not involved the achievement of limited objectives but proposes a new world order where the goal is no longer hunting Al-Qaida but bringing down governments that we label undemocratic, acting unilaterally and without much regard for the opinion of the international community and liberally using preventive war against non state actors

21. . My point is, even with our sophisticated law enforcement infrastructure we are unable to completely keep
some of our home grown groups from operating, how can we expect far less develop countries to accomplish

22. Bowden does not get to create the terms of the argument or to redefine international legal concepts, he is
stocked with what the black letter of the international convention against torture say and how they define it, engaging in torture violates international law and a government that professes adherence to the international law regime while engaging in an elaborated scheme to encourage a selective application of the practice could be eroding the very foundations of the framework that protects it and its people.

23. Responsibility to Protect: States acquire domestic legitimacy by ensuring that they are able to protect the
basic rights of individuals, from that perspective, regime are legitimate based on fulfilling their responsibility to protect their citizens

24. did appreciate Mr. Garlasco's honesty, particularly when he acknowledged that during the bombing
campaign in Bosnia, he was just a body filling in, without much knowledge about the targets and just going through the motions

25. Thomas Pogges conception of poverty as a moral challenge rests on the argument that we not only have a
moral duty to help people in serious distress but also a negative duty to rebel against acts of injustice perpetrated by the leaders of other countries on their own people. Pogge believes it is immoral to benefit from injustice and that we must work hard to create the conditions for everyone to be able to compete on a true equal footing. Pogges provocative argument advances the idea that rich nations are not competing in an equal race with poor nations, instead, they are benefiting from negative conditions that they created or helped to create in these poor countries