February 18, 2026

“The moral rupture of today is the abandonment of the principles that guided leaders for the past 80 years. Power is effective only when it is kept within tolerable bounds, guided by principles—principles that prohibit certain practices and encourage others.” – Carnegie Council President Joel Rosenthal writing in his latest article, “A Moral Rupture”

As Rosenthal argues, today is a period unlike any other in recent history. A moment when both the political and moral dimensions of international relations are under significant strain. In this environment, next-gen leaders are inheriting a world at a tipping point, with new ethical questions emerging every day.

Applications Now Open for the Carnegie Ethics Fellowship

Calling all young leaders committed to empowering ethics across their personal and professional lives:

We invite you to apply to the Carnegie Ethics Fellowship, an exclusive two-year program curated by Carnegie Council to develop the next generation of ethical leaders from across sectors.

Are you an employer, mentor, professor, etc.? Be sure to share the Fellowship opportunity with your networks by forwarding this email or engaging with our LinkedIn post. Application window ends on April 24, 2026. 

Ethics in Action: Meet Our Current Fellows

In this special interview series, Council editor Alex Woodson connects with members of the 2025-2026 Carnegie Ethics Fellows cohort to unpack their value systems, career journeys, and the relationship between morality and power in today’s world.

A Conversation with Carnegie Ethics Fellow Ruth Nashipae Muigai

In the latest profile, Ruth Nashipae Muigai, founder and CEO of The Gender Initiative, discusses her work leading efforts for gender equality and inclusion in East Africa. She also details the “relationship of causation” between climate change and gender justice.

Ethics as an Antidote: Meeting the Geopolitical Moment   

Interested in learning more about how ethics can be used as a tool to address the critical issues of today? Be sure to sign up to attend our special quarterly event series, Ethics Empowered: Leadership in Practice.

Tailored for students and young professionals, each event explores a vital question at the intersection of ethics and geopolitics, providing attendees with exclusive access to leading experts and educational resources curated by the editors of Carnegie Council’s academic journal, Ethics & International Affairs.

Our next event, “Why Space Matters and How to Govern It,” will stream live on February 19 at 8:30am ET.

And be sure to watch your inbox: Invites coming soon for the following event, “The Ethics of AI Agents in Global Governance,” taking place on April 16 at 5:30pm ET, moderated by Eleonore Fournier-Tombs, chief AI officer, New York State and former research lead for the United Nations’ High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence.

Dive Deeper on Pressing Ethical Questions of Today and Tomorrow

Ethics & International Affairs journal is now open access! Whether you're a teacher looking to build a curriculum or a student wanting to explore the moral dimensions of geopolitical issues such as migration, AI, security, and climate, we invite you to visit the journal’s site to access recent editions, special roundtables, and online exclusive articles.  

Podcast: Explore Ethical Tensions at the Heart of Decision Making 

The Values & Interests podcast and event series takes a close look at the ethical tensions and tradeoffs at the heart of decision-making across geopolitics, tech, philosophy, and business. In this episode, Dr. Claire Yorke, author of Empathy in Politics and Leadership and senior lecturer at Deakin University, discusses why moral leadership grounded in empathy is necessary but insufficient on its own for open societies to thrive.

For access to all interviews, subscribe to “Carnegie Council” wherever you stream your podcasts.