Description
This roundtable critically evaluates the possibilities and limitations of the concept of harm as a foundation for responsibility, accountability and liability in global ethics. Rationalist approaches to global ethics (Hutchings, 2018) such as consequentialism and deontology treat harm as an objective foundation: as something that can be measured, or as the content of a moral imperative. Contributors will be invited to consider but think past this, by building on Linklater's (2006) more intersubjective interpretation of harm as an 'essentially contested concept' (Gallie, 1956; see also Hoseason 2018, Karp 2020). This will be connected to substantive areas including business and human rights, migration policy, international criminal justice, racial/colonial capitalism, and hate speech. The roundtable begins a conservation between scholars ranging from established academics to PhD researchers. It fosters a discussion about how each contributor's research and professional experience in this area, as well as future research plans, can help to construct a larger collaborative research agenda about the ethics and politics of harm in IR.
