英文摘要 |
Mainstream International Relations (IR) studies were largely dominated by empirical studies and often ignored normative issues. After positivism was challenged by post-positivism, there have been more exchanges between IR and Political Theory (PT), which leads to the genesis of International Political Theory (IPT). The exchange is, however, largely one-directional in that students of IR often borrow unilaterally from PT. This article argues that the exchange should be two-directional, which can be done by focusing on the Ethics of IR as the locomotive of the development of IPT. In doing the Ethics of IR, students of IR can certainly learn from the moral theorizing of PT, but the job cannot be fully done without their own active contributions to this sub-field. This is so because the students of PT often do not have a full grasp of the empirical facts and explanations in international relations, which leads to biases that can be corrected by drawing on the studies of IR. To avoid arguing in the abstract, this paper uses John Rawls's The Law of Peoples as an illustration. It will points out that Rawls's appropriation of the democratic peace thesis creates a serious problem of exclusion/ inclusion, and this problem can be overcome by reworking Rawls's framework in light of the empirical studies of IR. By exposing the weaknesses of Rawls's theory, this article means to show that substantive studies in IR may also contribute to the progress of PT. |