The Law of Peoples

by Rawls, John

• ISBN13: 9780674005426
• ISBN10: 0674005422
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-03-02
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

This book consists of two parts: the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," first published in 1997, and "The Law of Peoples," a major reworking of a much shorter article by the same name published in 1993. Taken together, they are the culmination of more than fifty years of reflection on liberalism and on some of the most pressing problems of our times by John Rawls. "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" explains why the constraints of public reason, a concept first discussed in Political Liberalism (1993), are ones that holders of both religious and non-religious comprehensive views can reasonably endorse. It is Rawls's most detailed account of how a modern constitutional democracy, based on a liberal political conception, could and would be viewed as legitimate by reasonable citizens who on religious, philosophical, or moral grounds do not themselves accept a liberal comprehensive doctrine--such as that of Kant, or Mill, or Rawls's own "Justice as Fairness," presented in A Theory of Justice (1971). The Law of Peoples extends the idea of a social contract to the Society of Peoples and lays out the general principles that can and should be accepted by both liberal and non-liberal societies as the standard for regulating their behavior toward one another. In particular, it draws a crucial distinction between basic human rights and the rights of each citizen of a liberal constitutional democracy. It explores the terms under which such a society may appropriately wage war against an "outlaw society," and discusses the moral grounds for rendering assistance to non-liberal societies burdened by unfavorable political and economic conditions.

Table of Contents

THE LAW OF PEOPLES	1	(11)
Introduction	3	(8)
Part I The First Part of Ideal Theory	11	(48)
The Law of Peoples as Realistic Utopia	11	(12)
Why Peoples and Not States?	23	(7)
Two Original Positions	30	(5)
The Principles of the Law of Peoples	35	(9)
Democratic Peace and Its Stability	44	(10)
Society of Liberal Peoples: Its Public Reason	54	(5)
Part II The Second Part of Ideal Theory	59	(30)
Toleration of Nonliberal Peoples	59	(3)
Extension to Decent Hierarchical Peoples	62	(9)
Decent Consultation Hierarchy	71	(7)
Human Rights	78	(4)
Comments on Procedure of the Law of Peoples	82	(3)
Concluding Observations	85	(4)
Part III Nonideal Theory	89	(32)
Just War Doctrine: The Right to War	89	(5)
Just War Doctrine: Conduct of War	94	(11)
Burdened Societies	105	(8)
On Distributive Justice among Peoples	113	(8)
Part IV Conclusion	121	(8)
Public Reason and the Law of Peoples	121	(3)
Reconciliation to Our Social World	124	(5)
THE IDEA OF PUBLIC REASON REVISITED	129	(52)
The Idea of Public Reason	132	(8)
The Content of Public Reason	140	(9)
Religion and Public Reason in Democracy	149	(3)
The Wide View of Public Political Culture	152	(4)
On the Family as Part of the Basic Structure	156	(8)
Questions about Public Reason	164	(11)
Conclusion	175	(6)
Index	181