Abstract

Compromise plays a variety of roles in the ethics of international relations. As a morally permissible activity, compromise serves the need for a suitable means of conflict resolution and for the advancement of the desirable aims of international cooperation. At the same time, it offers to participants in international activities intrinsic values of mutual respect and fair dealing in negotiations as they seek to set out terms of agreement and preserve valuable relationships. ;Moral skepticism regarding international relations would, if accepted, undercut any ethical role of compromise in international relations. Moral skepticism in its predominant form as realism rests on a basis of flawed reasoning in international relations studies and on an indefensible philosophical argument put forth by Thomas Hobbes. Beyond the weakness of the skeptical arguments, a strong case for the influence of normative constraints on interstate action appears in a variety of sources, primarily in moral discourse, international law, and in the growing human rights regimes affecting other matters of international concern. ;Compromise derives its instrumental value in international relations from its effects in facilitating conflict resolution and cooperation. Given the scale of the dangers posed by international conflict in the light of contemporary technology, the trust obligations of those responsible for international policies can, in some instances, lead to the conclusion that resorting to negotiation and compromise is mandatory when crises in conflict threaten great harm to defenseless individuals who lack any control over international disputes. Conflict and its prevention and management present issues of moral obligation for interstate agents beyond their accepted duty of prudence, obligations to develop means for detecting and resolving conflict at early stages before crisis develops. ;Because international relations is political in the sense that much of contemporary international action bears on the development and maintenance of authoritative international frameworks, the analysis of the role of compromise in international relations has a parallel structure to the analysis of its role in domestic politics. Both areas reveal an indispensable role for compromise not only in the development and operation of institutions, but also in any notion of moral progress in international relations