Moderate morality: An interest-based contractarian defense & its applied result in the political ethics of international relations

What is morality's scope? Should all our actions be evaluated morally? Is it necessary to be causally responsible for harm to have a responsibility to reduce it? Is there a morally relevant distinction between those consequences of our actions which we intend or do and those which we foresee but do not intend or allow but do not do? Is helping others a matter of supererogation (i.e. beyond the call of moral duty) or a matter of obligation? These are crucial questions that need to be debated in normative and applied ethics. However, in spite of their antecedents, they have seriously and independently been put forward in the last decades of the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st century. There are different answers to the above questions. However, this paper defends the answers of an approach which is called "moderate morality." So, it briefly defines "moderate morality," and then tries to defend it based on interest-based contractarianism. Finally, it investigates one of its implications in applied ethics and tries to find a reasonable answer to one of the most vital questions in the political ethics of international relations in our globalized era.