Riunione del Consiglio di Presidenza AESI
Circolo degli Esteri
23/6/2020
Approvazione del Tema
Seminari di Studio 2021
“Etica nelle Relazioni Internazionali”
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Prof. Massimo Maria Caneva – Presidente
Amb. Adriano Benedetti Vice Presidente
Prof Antonio Macchia Srgretario Generale
Amb. Franco Mistretta
Consigliere Presidenza
Amb. Gianfranco Varvesi Comitato Scientifico
On. Alberto Michelini Consiglio Presidenza
Gen. Vincenzo Camporini Comitato Scientifico
Amb. Gabriele Checchia
Comitato Scientifico
Dott. Alberto Pomponi
Consigliere Presidenza
AESI 2021
Study Seminars “Ethics in International Relations”
Meeting of the AESI Presidential Council
Foreign Club
23/6/2020
Theme approved for the Study Seminars 2021
“ETHICS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS”
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Prof. Massimo Maria Caneva – President
Amb. Adriano Benedetti Vice President
Prof Antonio Macchia General Secretary
Amb. Franco Mistretta – Presidential Advisor
Amb. Gianfranco Varvesi Scientific Committee
On. Alberto Michelini – Presidential Advisor
Gen. Vincenzo Camporini Scientific Committee
Amb. Gabriele Checchia – Scientific Committee
Dr. Alberto Pomponi – Presidential Advisor
The AESI Presidential Council has decided the Theme of the next 2021 Study Seminars: “Ethics in International Relations” We must aim to deepen with the new AESI students the themes of Ethics in the different realities of International Relations and therefore we will organize thematic Seminars: January 2021 Political Ethics and the European Union – February 2021: Ethics of Development Cooperation – March 2021: Ethics of Military Peacekeeping Interventions – April 2021: Ethics of the Solidarity Economy – May 2021: Ethics in International Organizations – June 2021: Democracies and Citizenship European
An “ought” can never follow from an “is”, because the two are situated on completely different planes. The reason for this is that in the meantime, the positivist understanding of nature has come to be almost universally accepted. If nature – in the words of Hans Kelsen – is viewed as “an aggregate of objective data linked together in terms of cause and effect”, then indeed no ethical indication of any kind can be derived from it. A positivist conception of nature as purely functional, as the natural sciences consider it to be, is incapable of producing any bridge to ethics and law, but once again yields only functional answers. The same also applies to reason, according to the positivist understanding that is widely held to be the only genuinely scientific one. Anything that is not verifiable or falsifiable, according to this understanding, does not belong to the realm of reason strictly understood. Hence ethics and religion must be assigned to the subjective field, and they remain extraneous to the realm of reason in the strict sense of the word. Where positivist reason dominates the field to the exclusion of all else – and that is broadly the case in our public mindset – then the classical sources of knowledge for ethics and law are excluded. This is a dramatic situation which affects everyone, and on which a public debate is necessary. Indeed, an essential goal of this address is to issue an urgent invitation to launch one. The positivist approach to nature and reason, the positivist world view in general, is a most important dimension of human knowledge and capacity that we may in no way dispense with. But in and of itself it is not a sufficient culture corresponding to the full breadth of the human condition. Where positivist reason considers itself the only sufficient culture and banishes all other cultural realities to the status of subcultures, it diminishes man, indeed it threatens his humanity.
