Intermediate Examination Paper from the year 2007 in the subject Politics - International Politics - General and Theories, grade: 1.5, The Australian National University, language: English, abstract: Contemplating ethics, culture and furthermore their interplay in world politics might be a perpetual impasse devoid of a teleological clarity. Disregarding the two concepts on the other hand, as irrelevant to the study of International Relations (IR), as it is best carried out by Realpolitik and studied with scientific sterility ala Kenneth Waltz, would be myopic on a number of levels. Before framing the meaning of ethics and culture, and discussing their possible interplay in world politics, the following question is proposed to perhaps establish a conceptual link between the two: Can we find a fruitful starting point by perceiving morality as a connector of ethics and culture to world politics? Of all the areas of philosophy, ethics is the one that seems most significant to people, and it is no overstatement to say that everyone is engaged in ethical deliberation at every turn in life. Ethics, as a major philosophical branch, is derived from the ancient Greek term ethikos, or the meaning of living. Its primary focus is to discern between right and wrong ergo it aims to understand the nature of morality. Or put differently, the social quality of ethics forces each of us to feel that our identity is also defined by our relations to others. In a world which is transformed by a growing interconnectedness and intensification of relations, among states and societies summarized in the buzzword of globalization, the social quality of ethics calls for refinement. The veil of ignorance has been vigorously lifted from our eyes by the effects of global transformation, and it becomes an imperative to avoid limiting ethics to kin relationship or confined to territorial bounded Westphalian sovereignty. In short ethics is about humanizing the experience of the other, which is in its logical extension an individual moral choice to be righteous in a global as well as national and even local context. Thus sound moral values raise tough choices; and tough choices are never straightforward especially in the prevailing anarchical system of world politics. Just like ethics culture is not a singular thing, but rather a loose collection of [assumed] characteristics of a community.