In recent years, the empirical study of the politics of international inequality and the analysis of its ethical implications have become estranged. This paper will argue that it is possible to reclaim the evacuated space for middle range normative enquiry. Within the contemporary international order, deep structural inequalities coexist alongside a nominally pluralistic society of states which grants international personality to politically organised communities. In this context the actual international politics of inequality have taken the format of repeated challenges by the political representatives of the global South to the dominance of the advanced industrialised North. The normative dimensions of this process can be understood through a focus on this process of argument between unequals. Political argument is the normative contestation over the authoritative principles appropriate to govern a sphere of social interaction. Argument necessarily operates on a plane between pure moral principle and outright realpolitik. This paper will demonstrate that changes in patterns of normative belief, relative material power and forms of political organisation have historically shaped the terrain on which argument between North and South has taken place. This has given rise to a succession of normative orders characterised by different moral relations between unequals within the international system. Analysing the course of political argument over global inequality allows us to understand the moral possibilities and limits of alternative normative orders, revealing the true ethical and political challenges posed by global inequalities and the space for normative change.
