The Limits of Ethics in International Relations

David Boucher is Professor of Political Philosophy and International Relations at Cardiff University, adjunct professor of international relations at the University of the Sunshine Coast, and Director of the Collingwood and British Idealism Centre, Cardiff. He has written widely on British Idealism, history of political thought, international relations theory, and popular culture. Among his books are The Social and Political Thought of R. G. Collingwood (CUP, 1989), The Political Theory of International Relations (OUP, 1998); British Idealism and Political Theory (EUP, 2001); and, Dylan and Cohen: Poets of Rock and Roll (Continuum, 2004). Among his edited books are, The Social Contract and Its Critics (Routledge, 1996); The British Idealists (CUP, 1997), The Scottish Idealists (Imprint Academic, 2005); R. G. Collingwood, The Philosophy of Enchantment (OUP, 2005, with Wendy James and Phillip Smallwood).

• Introduction ; 1. Classical Natural Law and the Law of Nations: The Greeks and The Romans ; 2. Christian Natural Law ; 3. Natural Law, The Law of Nations and the Transition to Natural Rights ; 4. Natural Rights and Social Exclusion: Cultural Encounters ; 5. Natural Rights: Descriptive and Prescriptive ; 6. Natural Rights and Their Critics ; 7. Slavery and Racism in Natural Law and Natural Rights ; 8. Nonsense Upon Stilts? Tocqueville, Idealism and the Expansion of the Moral Community ; 9. The Human Rights Culture and its Discontents ; 10. Modern Constitutive Theories of Human Rights ; 11. Human Rights and the Juridical Revolutions ; 12. Women and Human Rights ; Conclusion ; References

David Boucher's The Limits of Ethics in International Relations is the result of eleven years hard work. It shows a degree of ambition that is unfortunately rare in the current REF-driven environment, in terms of the period that it covers (from the Ancient Greeks to the present), the length of the book and the level of scholarship. The result is a deeply impressive achievement, containing a wealth of original and nuanced interpretation, especially in the chapters on modern political thought. The Limits of Ethics in International Relations is a remarkable book that develops an ambitious, intelligent, well-informed and original argument on a topic of fundamental contemporary importance.