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Reconstructing Rawls's Law of Peoples

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Roger Paden
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Abstract

In his recent article “The Law of Peoples,” John Rawls attempts to develop a theory of international justice. Paden contrasts “The Law of Peoples” with Rawls's “A Theory of Justice,” reconstructing Rawls's new theory to be more consistent with the earlier work. Paden finds Rawls's new theory inadequate in its response to communitarian criticisms, those that advocate a different theory of good than that of liberal societies. Paden goes back to “A Theory of Justice” to state that all societies seek one good, that is, the protection of their just institutions. In so doing, he provides a more expansive view of the interests of societies, which, he argues, is more consistent with “A Theory of Justice” than “The Law of Peoples,” yet avoids the flaws identified in the original argument.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 11 , March 1997 , pp. 215 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1997

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References

1 Rawls, John, “The Law of Peoples,” in Shute, Stephen and Hurley, Susan, eds., On Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993 (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 41–82Google Scholar. (Further references to this work will appear as “LP.”)

2 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 377–79Google Scholar. (Further references to this work will appear as “TJ.”)

3 TJ, 302.

4 TJ, 8.

5 LP, 46.

6 LP, 44.

7 LP, 47.

8 LP, 47.

9 LP, 43, emphasis added.

10 Rawls, John, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 175Google Scholar.

11 LP, 65–66.

12 LP, 5l.

13 LP, 54.

14 LP, 54.

15 LP, 73.

16 LP, 56.

17 LP, 61–62, 68–71.

18 LP, 64.

19 LP, 49.

20 Tesón, Fernando R., “The Rawlsian Theory of International Law,” Ethics & International Affairs 9 (1995), 79–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 For example, see Pogge, Thomas, “An Egalitarian Law of Peoples,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 23 (1994), 208–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 See Barry, Brian, “John Rawls and the Search for Stability,” Ethics 105 (1995), 904–5Google Scholar.

23 LP, 54, 64.

24 TJ, 92.

25 TJ, 302–3.

26 TJ, 395–99.

27 TJ, 92.

28 LP, 47.

29 LP, 54, 64.

30 TJ, 92.

31 See Pogge, , “An Egalitarian Law of Peoples,” 197Google Scholar.

32 See Beitz, Charles, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 67–124Google Scholar, for a discussion of this point with respect to the standings of states. Moreover, it is not clear if states, even if they had the proper standing, exist in the kind of relationship (one characterized by the “circumstances of justice”) Rawls claims is necessary for principles of justice to apply. See Barry, Theories of Justice, 179–89.

33 Pogge, “An Egalitarian Law of Peoples,” 208–14, discusses some other objections from the liberal sideGoogle Scholar.

34 LP, 54, 64.

35 TJ, 3.

36 And, recall, not all liberals would accept this assumption. See Pogge, “An Egalitarian Law of Peoples,” 208–11Google Scholar.

37 It is not completely clear that Rawls is committed to the idea that justice is largely a matter of pro-cedure and, therefore, that just institutions do not require great wealth. An argument can be made that the liberty principle does not simply require that citizens be formally granted equal liberty; rather, it requires that the “worth” of this liberty be relatively equal for all citizens—that is, that society be arranged so that the poverty of the poor does not prevent them from exercising their basic liberties (see RawIs, Political Liberalism, 324–33). And this might require some substantial improvement in their position. Thus, even liberal justice could not be had “on the cheap.” However, it would seem that “the equal worth of liberty” is a relative concept, one that would require only that the rich not be so rich rel-ative to the poor that their liberties become (unjustly) more valuable than the poor's. If so, then, while the first principle will itself require some redistribution, it will not require the creation of new wealth. If it does require the creation of additional wealth, it would seem that it does not require a large addition, since Rawls argues that justice does not require “great wealth” (TJ, 290). If he is wrong about this, it only strengthens my argument that he made a mistake in adopting a satiating conception of primary goodsSGoogle Scholar.

38 Pogge, “An Egalitarian Law of Peoples,” 208–11, makes a similar point about (comprehensive) liberal societiesGoogle Scholar.

39 See the argument in Barry, “Rawls and Stability.”Google Scholar