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DIPLOMATIC ETHICS

- Chapter forthcoming In C Constantinou, P Kerr, and P Sharp

(eds) SAGE Handbook of Diplomacy, London: SAGE(2016) -

A b s t r a c t : The delegated source of authority of diplomatic agency protects diplomats

against ethical scrutiny, but their indirect exercise of power manifestly turns them into morally

accountable subjects. This chapter examines this puzzle in two steps. First, it argues that the

normative basis of ethical judgement of diplomats’ actions has historically revolved around the

principle of loyalty, first to the Prince, later to the State, and more recently to People. Each

loyalty dimension sets limitations for moral inquiry, which are rather difficult to address from

a theoretically abstract perspective. Second, the paper offers a contextually tailored framework

of ethical analysis centred on the concept of reflection-in-action by which diplomats seek to

align the practical requirements of the situation at hand with the normative imperatives

prompted by their divided loyalties. The context in which diplomats handle ethical challenges

through reflection and action is therefore a determining factor for understanding the extent to

which the actions taken by a diplomat are morally justifiable.

K e y w o r d s : diplomacy, ethics, loyalty, phronesis, reflection-in-action

I. INTRODUCTION

What does it mean to act ethically as a diplomat? What is the latter supposed to do when caught

in the horns of a moral dilemma? What kind of normative prescriptions is she required to follow

in morally ambiguous situations? Under what conditions can she break ranks and pursue a

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moral agenda? Should a diplomat, for instance, serve as a loyal deputy to the prince regardless

of the orders that he is being asked to execute, or as De Vera once pointed out he should be

ready to risk “his job, the favor of the prince and perhaps his life” (Berridge 2004) when he

judges the assigned mission to be unjust? Similarly, should a diplomat represent only the

interests of her government or, as Adam Watson argued, she should also consider the impact

the representation of these interests may have on international or regional stability (Watson

1984). Equally important, should a diplomat refuse to let considerations of pragmatic

expediency influence his moral stance on issues, or as Edmund Burke once observed, “a

statesmen never losing sight of principles, is to be guided by circumstances; and, judging

contrary to the exigencies of the moment, he may ruin his country forever” (Burke and Stanlis

1997). In other words, what normative challenges do diplomats face in their day-to-day work,

how do they handle them, and to what extent are they capable to shape or transcend the ethical

limitations of their profession?

Unlike the more systematic study of the constitutive role of moral principles in international

affairs (Rosenthal and Barry 2009), the question of diplomatic ethics has been rather sparsely

discussed in the scholarly literature. The few notable studies that have approached the subject

has sought to examine the space of compatibility between ethics and diplomacy (Toscano

2001), unpack the international legal constraints on diplomacy (Bolewski 2007) or discuss the

normative underpinnings of diplomatic conduct in contemporary international relations (Bjola

and Kornprobst 2013: 147-198). Building on these studies, this chapter seeks to develop an

applied conceptual framework for understanding the ethical imperatives and challenges of

diplomatic practice. In so doing, it aspires to advance the debate on diplomatic ethics from

more general assumptions regarding the ethical discourse in diplomacy as mentioned above, to

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more tangible conclusions about how moral principles concretely inform, regulate or constrain

the practice of diplomacy.

Diplomacy and ethics have always shared a controversial relationship, primarily because of the

competing moral constraints and responsibilities that diplomats have to juggle in their work.

On the one hand, diplomat’s capacity to exercise moral agency is limited by the very nature of

diplomatic agency. Diplomats do not represent themselves, but they always act on behalf of a

collective authority (primarily states, but also regional organisations or international

institutions). Diplomatic agency is thus the result of a conditional transfer of prerogatives from

the legitimate authority to the diplomat (Neumann 2005). It is this delegation of authority that

makes possible for diplomats to perform their traditional functions of representation,

information-gathering, and negotiation (United Nations 1961: Art 3). On the other hand,

diplomacy puts people in touch with power, albeit in a paradoxical manner: diplomats largely

live and work in the proximity of power, but they rarely exercise the power directly (Sharp

2009:58). However, as Diderot reminds us, power always comes with boundaries: it

“presupposes conditions which makes its exercise legitimate, useful to society, advantageous

to the republic, fixing and restraining it within limits” (Diderot et al. 1992: 7). In sum, whereas

the restricted scope of diplomatic agency partially protects diplomats against ethical scrutiny,

their exercise of power, even in an indirect manner, subjects them by necessity to

considerations of moral accountability.

The inbuilt tension between agency and power largely frames the terms of debate on diplomatic

ethics: to what extent are diplomats morally accountable for their actions given the limited

scope of agency they enjoy and on what principled basis should moral inquiry of diplomatic

conduct be pursued given the subdued manner in which diplomats exercise power? This chapter

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argues that the answer to the first question rests with the principle of loyalty, while the second

question could be most fruitfully addressed from a contextually based perspective. More

specifically, the way in which loyalty is understood in specific circumstances of diplomatic

engagement informs the scope of diplomatic agency and the ethical boundaries of diplomatic

use of power. I develop this argument in two steps. The first section provides an overview of

the evolution of the concept of diplomatic ethics from three distinct angles: Loyalty to the

Prince; Loyalty to the State; and Loyalty to People. The second part introduces the phronetic

method of ethical analysis and explains its added-value for understanding how diplomats

address ethical challenges as professionals and how to normatively assess their actions.

Key points:

 Diplomatic ethics concerns itself with the dual question of whether and under what

conditions diplomats can be held morally accountable for their actions;

 Diplomats are legitimate subjects of moral inquiry since despite having limited agency,

they exercise power via functions of representation, information-gathering, and

negotiation;

II. EVOLUTION OF DIPLOMATIC ETHICS

Loyalty refers to “the obligation implied in the personal sense of historical connection to a

defining set of familial, institutional and national relationships” (Fletcher 1995: 3). As a

principle of social conduct, loyalty goes beyond friendship, gratitude or respect and includes

“the willing, practical, and thoroughgoing devotion of a person to a cause “ (J. Royce cited in

Foust 2012:41). It also comes with a critical reluctance about hastily shifting one’s associations

when they fail to deliver on their initial expectations and with a willingness to bear the costs of

persistence (Hirschman 1970: 78). At the same time, loyalty must be distinguished from blind

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obedience and unworthy attachment to a misguided cause (e.g., an extremist ideology),

although this distinction is not always easy to draw in practice. As Ewin points out, the line

between loyalty and vice is often thin since both rely on different degrees of exclusion. Loyalty

to one’s country may occasionally mutate, for instance, into extreme forms of nationalism, in

which exclusion takes the forms of intolerance and injustice (Ewin 1992: 417). By shedding

light on how diplomatic agency and the exercise of power have historically shaped each other,

the loyalty principle offers a unique conceptual tool for understanding the evolution of

diplomatic ethics.

I pursue this line of inquiry from three different perspectives: diplomatic duty as Loyalty to the

Prince; as Loyalty to the State; and as Loyalty to People. For many classical theorists, the scope

of diplomatic agency in the early modern period was informed by the degree of loyalty of the

diplomatic representative to the ruler of the country. In his famous treaty on diplomatic

practice, Wicquefort remarked, for instance, that an ambassador is nothing less than “a public

minister dispatched by a sovereign prince to some foreign potentate or state, there to represent

his person, by virtue of a power, letter of credence, or some commission that notifies his

character” (Wicquefort 2004: 124, my emphasis). In the same vein, Vattel insisted that a public

minister “represents the person in whom resides the rights which he is to look after, maintain

and enforce”, but he cautioned against the minister being “regarded as representing the dignity

of his sovereign” (Vattel 2004: 179-180). This understanding of the diplomat as the loyal

minister to the prince took a variety of forms in the medieval period. For example, the nuncius

often served as a ‘living letter’ by communicating the prince’s messages “in a way that was as

near a personal exchange as possible” (Hamilton and Langhorne 1995: 24). By contrast, the

vicarii had the capacity to stand in the Pope’s place and perform official acts on his behalf

(Constantinou 1996: 105).

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Having the prince as the primary object of diplomatic loyalty had an important ethical

implication for how medieval diplomats performed their functions. It extended an aura of moral

protection on diplomats by removing considerations of personal honour from the way in which

they accomplished their mission in the service of the prince. Diplomats were not supposed to

feel ashamed if the ruler called upon them to lie or if they got involved in dishonourable actions

on his orders (Black 2010: 44). Remarkably, the line between loyalty and vice was defended

by the aristocratic code of honour that prevailed among diplomats at the time and by

professional considerations. Wicquefort, who was actually twice imprisoned for espionage

while working as a diplomat, agreed that “the ambassador ought to seek his master’s glory and

advantage on all occasions” and to that extent he could “conceal and dissemble his losses”. At

the same time, he insisted that a diplomat “cannot forge nor contrive false pieces without

dishonouring his character” (Wicquefort 2004: 132). Machiavelli concurred with Wicquefort

about the occasional necessity to “conceal facts with words”, but he also insisted that diplomats

should take great care to avoid earning a reputation of “being mean and dissembling” as that

could have negative consequences on their ability to perform their functions (Machiavelli 2004:

41).

The transformation of the international system from a dynastic- to a territorial-sovereign

principle of domestic legitimacy after the Peace of Westphalia (Hall 1999)shifted the object

of diplomatic loyalty from the prince to the state. Ideologically, this move was made possible

by the doctrine of raison d’état, which was intellectually prepared by Machiavelli’s reflections

on statesmanship, but was given a coherent structure as a guiding principle of foreign policy

by Cardinal Richelieu (Butterfield 1975: 11). The importance of the new doctrine on diplomatic

relations cannot be overstated. The idea that the “public interest ought to be the sole objective

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of the prince […] and preferred to all private gain”(Hill 1961: 76) shortly became “the

fundamental principle of national conduct, the State’s first Law of Motion” (Meinecke 1984:

1). An important part of the explanation for its success lay with the fact that it offered states a

way to establish and maintain international order in disregard of ethical considerations. What

mattered was no longer the religious orientation of the rulers, but the survival of the state

through the accumulation and rational use of power. At the same time, as Kissinger notes, the

concept of raison d’état had no in-built limitations as if everything would be permitted in order

to satisfy the interests of the state (Kissinger 1994: 66).

Raison d’état transformed diplomatic loyalty from a personal type of relationship between the

diplomat and the prince as in the early modern period, into an impersonal mode of affiliation

to a collective entity, the state. The implications of this move were subtle but far-reaching.

First, the scope of diplomatic agency expanded. The diplomat was still serving the sovereign,

but from the broader perspective of protecting and enhancing the stature of the state and not of

the prince. While this theoretical distinction would usually face no challenge in practice, it

would occasionally force diplomats to take sides. Talleyrand defended, for instance, his

controversial shifts of political loyalties during his diplomatic career on grounds that he sought

to protect France against Napoleon’s misjudgements (Talleyrand-Périgord 1891: 101). Second,

the raison d’état made the line between loyalty and vice more difficult to hold. If ethical

considerations are deemed irrelevant for the conduct of foreign policy and if everything is

permitted in the name of state survival, then what would stop diplomats from using their power

to breach international law and to even foment war as illustrated by the case of Third Reich’s

Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop (Salter and Charlesworth 2006)?

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The excesses attributed to raison d’état diplomacy were seen as determinant in the outbreak of

World War I. This prompted a rethinking of the diplomatic method in general, and of the

relationship between diplomacy and ethics in particular, to the point that the very basis of

diplomatic loyalty was called into question. Should diplomats represent only the interests of

their governments or should they also consider the impact the representation of these interests

may have on the international order? As Watson pointed out, states had not only an interest but

also a moral obligation to preserve international order and to make it work, a principle he

coined as raison de système (Watson 1984: 195). The new concept comes though with a thorny

corollary which places diplomats in front of a serious predicament: on the one hand, if they let

the principle of raison de système unrestrictedly guide their actions then they risk

circumscribing the autonomy of their sovereigns and, by implication, their own position. On

the other hand, if they unrestrainedly pursue diplomatic actions in line with the raison d’état

doctrine, then they risk undermining the ‘fabric’ of the system itself by demotivating other

diplomats from respecting the shared norms and rules that sustain international order (Bjola

and Kornprobst 2013: 150)

Raison de système takes the question of diplomatic loyalty to a new level of generalisation.

Unlike the principle of “Loyalty to the Prince” that keeps the object of diplomatic loyalty at

the personal level, or “Loyalty to the State” that favours the group, the concept of “Loyalty to

People” extends concerns of diplomatic ethics to humankind. In principle, this means that

diplomatic agency cannot be restricted to diplomats serving the prince or the state, but as the

English School long argued, diplomats are, in fact, custodians of the international society (Bull

1997: 176; Sofer 2007). In practical terms, this conception of diplomatic agency translates into

a commitment to an evolving set of international norms (sovereignty, non-use of force, mutual

recognition, continuous dialogue, reasonableness, equality of states) that are constitutive of

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international order. From an ethical perspective, this move leads, however, to a rather puzzling

situation. On the one hand, this cosmopolitan model of agency strengthens the moral profile of

diplomats as the set of universal standards of international conduct they help create and

reproduce is what makes international cooperation possible (Bjola and Kornprobst 2013: 131-

145). On the other hand, it puts them on a collision course with the other sources of diplomatic

loyalty. Guarding state interests while defending international norms is a challenging task that

invites suspicion and even disregard. As Sofer (1997) insightfully remarks, it renders diplomats

into “professional strangers” (Sharp 2009: 100)who cannot comfortably walk the line between

loyalty and vice in confidence their professionalism will never be called into question.

Key points:

 As loyal ministers of their sovereigns, diplomats benefitted from an aura of moral

protection in the early modern period; the aristocratic code of honour and professional

considerations served as counter-balances to ethical transgressions.

 Raison d’état shifted the object of diplomatic loyalty from the prince to the state; this

move offered diplomats a moral anchor for challenging the authority of the ruler, but it

also made their position more prone to moral abuse.

 The principle of “Loyalty to People” extends concerns of diplomatic ethics to

humankind. As custodians of the international society, diplomats face suspicions of

divided loyalties, but they also help create and reproduce the norms that makes

international cooperation possible.

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III. DIPLOMATIC ETHICS IN PRACTICE

Far from having only a historical character, the three traditions of diplomatic ethics discussed

above retain substantial relevance for contemporary diplomatic practice. Whilst diplomats now

share the stage with a broad range of actors and institutions, diplomacy remains a dominantly

state-centric profession (Hocking et al. 2012: 5). Heads of diplomatic missions are still

officially appointed by head of states and their core mission continues to revolve around

serving their countries while upholding international peace. The ethical principles subsumed

by the three forms of loyalty (to the prince, to the state and to people) are therefore constitutive

of diplomatic agency and they carry analytical weight for examining the normative value of

contemporary diplomatic interactions. It should be also noted that, as a method of sustainably

managing relationships of estrangement between political communities (Sharp 2009: 10),

diplomacy relies on the recognition of a certain degree of institutional and normative

heterogeneity, a condition which sits rather uneasily in the company of strong ethical

prescriptions. Therefore, attempts to advance a universalistic conceptual framework capable of

providing firm ethical prescriptions to every single aspect of the diplomatic lifeworld are rather

misplaced and contra-productive for diplomatic theory and practice. Hillary Putnam’s advice

that the “primary aim of the ethicist [is not to] produce a ‘system’, but to contribute to the

solution of practical problems” (Putnam 2004: 4) ought therefore to be heeded and acted upon.

That being said, what is a diplomat supposed to do when she faces a loyalty conflict? Should

she side with the head of state or government even when the latter is morally wrong, should

she pursue state interests as she interprets them even at the expense of her personal loyalty to

elected officials, or should she make sure her actions would not endanger international peace

even if that would contradict the official policy of her government? Echoing Putnam, I argue

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that conflicts of diplomatic loyalty are difficult to reconcile from a theoretically abstract

perspective. The contextually-rich environment of norms, rules and power relations, in which

diplomacy is embedded, is less amenable to scrutiny from Archimedean points of ethical

validity. What matters, I argue, is the diplomat’s capacity to professionally judge what moral

action is appropriate to pursue in a particular context by carefully balancing loyalty demands

against each other. Aristotle called this particular skill phronēsis – usually translated as

“prudence” or “practical wisdom”– a form of knowledge concerned with what is context-

dependent and particular, rather than what is abstract and universal. The phronimos, the one

exercising practical wisdom, is an experienced practitioner with strong perceptual and

intellectual capacity who can deliberate rightly about “getting other people's accounts right,

and perceiving the details of situations correctly” (Hursthouse 2006: 300).

While the principle of loyalty defines the nature of ethical challenges that diplomats may face

in their work, phronesis offers them a method for addressing these challenges as professionals.

For Ellett, phronesis coincides with the range and scope of “professional’ judgments”. Being a

good professional means “having not only the (cognitive) capacity to deliberate (judge) well

but also the appropriate (affective) attitudes and dispositions“ (Ellett_Jr. 2012: 17). Put

differently, being a competent practitioner, in the technical sense of being able to perform one’s

functions effectively, is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for becoming a professional

diplomat (i.e., a phronimos). To accomplish this, a diplomat must demonstrate technical skill

while taking on board the ethical constraints of his working environment. Drawing on Dewey’s

concept of “reflective thinking” (Dewey 1933), Schön develops the concept of reflection-in-

action for understanding how professional phronesis works. For Schön, practitioners

frequently face situations of “uncertainty, complexity, instability, uniqueness and value

conflict” (Schön 1983: 17), which are difficult to address from an abstract theoretical

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perspective. He instead argues that “doing and thinking are complementary. Doing extends

thinking in the tests, moves, and probes of experimental action, and reflection feeds on doing

and its results. Each feeds the other, and each sets boundaries for the other” (Schön 1983: 280).

Applied to the case of diplomatic ethics, the concept of reflection-in-action captures the

repetitive process of action and reflection by which diplomats seek to align the practical

requirements of the situation at hand with the normative imperatives prompted by their divided

loyalties. As Schön points out “it is the surprising result of action that triggers reflection, and

it is the production of a satisfactory move that brings reflection temporary to a close” (Schön

1983: 280). For example, during the Libyan uprising in 2011, diplomats at Libyan embassies

around the world, decided to resign from their posts or to disavow links to Gaddafi's

government on grounds that their actions on behalf of the Libyan leader could no longer be

reconciled with the ethical requirements of their positions: “We are not loyal to him, we are

loyal to the Libyan people" (Al Jazeera 2011). Their decision is illustrative of the conflicting

identities that diplomats carry with them between their professional Selves and that of the state

they represent (Faizullaev 2006). When facing such ethical challenges, diplomats may choose

to respond pragmatically through self-effacement (Neumann 2005), or they may decide to

express their dissent officially, as in the example above, or unofficially, if such channels are

available to them (Kiesling 2006). In each case, they activate reflection-in-action as a phronetic

instrument of ethical resolution.

Resolving ethical dilemmas using the process of reflection-in-action involves three steps. First,

as a result of a particular situation in which she finds herself, the diplomat experiences a

contradiction between her different layers of loyalty. She may choose to ignore this tension,

but that may lead to a loss of integrity, stress and possible breakdown depending on the

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intensity of the contradiction (Johns 2013: 28). When the latter crosses a personally defined

threshold, the diplomat may decide to do something about resolving the moral tension or at

least about not allowing it to grow. She will thus initiate, in the second stage, a reflective

conversation about the ethical trade-offs implied by her prioritizing of one level of loyalty over

the others. This reflective conversation does not necessarily involve an instrumental calculus

of the pros and cons of the different moral trade-offs she draws for herself, but it often relies

on an intuitive feeling about what is reasonable to do under the circumstances (Ellett_Jr. 2012:

16). The decision to follow from this reflective conversation shifts the diplomat’s attention

back to action. In the third stage, the diplomats suspends reflection and pursues a form of action

in line with the chosen moral trade-off. If the action taken fails to resolve the moral

contradiction, then the process of reflection-in-action resumes but from within a slightly

modified context.

Phronesis thus offers a different perspective for holding diplomats morally accountable for

their actions than theoretically-driven models of ethical analysis. Instead of relying on

exogenously defined criteria of moral validity, phronetic ethics focuses on contextually tailored

standards of normative inquiry. The context in which diplomats handle ethical challenges

through reflection and action is therefore a determining factor for understanding the extent to

which the actions taken by a diplomat are morally justifiable. Typical questions to ask from a

phronetic perspective would be: Does the situational context place the diplomat in front of a

legitimate ethical predicament or the latter can be reasonably ignored? Is the process of

reflection-in-action pursued in response to the ethical challenge guided by other reasons than

loyalty contradictions? Does the diplomat face unusual obstacles that prevent him from

properly reacting to ethical challenges (institutional resistance, low levels of experience,

extenuating personal circumstances)? Finally, does the chosen solution help mitigate the

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loyalty conflict? It should be also noted that a phronetic approach offers no definitive solution

to a moral predicament, as reflection-in-action is a dynamic process. Each action and reflection

slightly changes the context of normative inquiry. As a result, different configurations of ethical

trade-offs may become gradually available as the process of reflection-in-action repeats itself.

As a way of illustrating these insights, let us consider the case described by a former British

diplomat, Brian Barder, who served in Poland during the Cold War in late 1980s. As a result

of the Polish communist government engaging in acts of persecution of the Solidarity leaders

(the independent trade union federation), Barder found himself, alongside with other Western

diplomats, facing a moral conundrum. He questioned, for instance, whether the duty of

diplomats is to promote strictly his country’s interests and policies or to also stand for more

general values of freedom, civil rights and democracy. A reflective conversation followed

between him and other Western diplomats about the pros and cons of the different moral trade-

offs entailed by each option. From a pragmatic perspective, the Polish government, however

undemocratic, had a far greater capacity for damaging or supporting Western interests than

Solidarity. On the other hand, by protesting against the actions of the Polish government,

Western diplomats could have helped secure some degree of protection against arbitrary

harassment and persecution for ordinary Poles. Despite attracting a firm condemnation from

the Polish Government, the decision to deliver a démarche to the Polish foreign minister on

behalf of all members of the European Economic Community (EEC) was viewed as an

acceptable compromise between the two courses of action (Barder 2010: 290-2).

The core ethical contradiction experienced by Barder and the other Western diplomats was

essentially one between the principles of Loyalty to the State vs Loyalty to People. In order to

find out whether Western diplomats’ reaction to this challenge was morally valid from a

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phronetic perspective, we need to examine the context of the case. Was the ethical contradiction

legitimate in light of the circumstances? Without offering many details, Barder points to a

“particularly flagrant act of persecution” of the Polish government against a prominent

Solidarity leader (Barder 2010: 290), a fact that indicates the presence of a serious moral issue

that deserved diplomatic attention. Barder’s account also suggests that reflection-in-action was

primarily guided by concerns over how to reconcile the conflict between the two sources of

loyalties as opposed, for instance, to attempting to score Cold War propagandistic points.

Furthermore, there is no indication in the text about diplomats not being able to tackle the

ethical predicament due to professional or personal reasons. The moderately engaging

discussion among Western diplomats about the pros and cons of the two moral choices is

actually indicative of an institutional culture within Western diplomatic services reasonably

open to normative deliberation. Finally, the chosen solution (démarche) helped reduce the

original tension between the two sources of loyalty, albeit the extent of the relief remains, of

course, a matter of debate.

Overall, the reaction of Western diplomats to the Polish government’s repression of Solidarity

enjoyed substantial moral validity from a phronetic perspective. The loyalty conflict was

sufficiently intense to justify a response, reflection-in-action was primarily guided by

legitimate concerns, diplomats faced no major institutional constraints, and the final solution

helped to satisfactorily mitigate the original ethical predicament. By contrast, had they decided,

for instance, to pursue no action or to let their reflection-in-action be guided by Cold War

propagandistic motivations then their actions would have lacked moral legitimacy. While

bringing a temporary close to the tension between the two sources of loyalty, the decision to

deliver a démarche changed the context and prompted the Polish government to react by

describing the action of Western diplomats as an unacceptable interference in the country’s

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internal affairs (Barder 2010: 290). Fortunately, the statement of the Polish government was

followed by no immediate resumption of the prosecution of Solidarity leaders. Had that

occurred, then the ethical contradiction between the two sources of diplomatic loyalty would

have been rekindled, arguably in a more severe form, thus requiring diplomats to engage in

reflection-in-action on a different basis and likely with a different outcome.

The phronetic model of ethical analysis presented above calls attention to two important

research directions on diplomatic ethics. First, how the ethical challenges experienced by

diplomats as a result of conditions of conflicting loyalties influence their performance? As

every diplomat is likely to face such challenges in her career, it is important to understand the

conditions under which moral conundrums may undermine the effectiveness of diplomats in

fulfilling their functions. Second, what kind of training do diplomats require in order to

improve their capacity for ethical reflection-in-action? Generalized prescriptions of moral

behaviour have arguably limited value as professional guidelines for contextual action.

Ethical training must therefore take into account the uncertainty, complexity, instability,

uniqueness and value conflict that diplomats face in their day to day activity.

Key points:

 While the three principles of loyalty (to the prince, the state and to the people) define

the nature of ethical challenges that diplomats may face in their work, phronesis offers

them a method for addressing these challenges as professionals.

 The phronetic concept of reflection-in-action captures the repetitive process of action

and reflection by which diplomats seek to align the practical requirements of the

situation at hand with the normative imperatives prompted by their divided loyalties.

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 The intensity of the loyalty conflict, the nature of the concerns informing reflection-in-

action, the type of institutional or personal constraints diplomats face when engaging

in reflection-in-action, and the extent to which the diplomatic response action helps

mitigate the original ethical predicament are the key criteria of phronetic ethical

analysis.

 Future research directions on diplomatic ethics could explore the relationship between

ethical challenges and diplomatic performance and examine the type of training

diplomats require in order to improve their capacity for ethical reflection-in-action.

17 | P a g e
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