Alexander Satola (Somerville): 'Agree to Disagree: International Pluralism and the Law of Peoples'
Abstract:In The Law of Peoples, John Rawls argues that global justice requires that the international order be structured according to principles that are equally acceptable to liberal peoples and decent nonliberal peoples. The fact ofinternational pluralism—i.e., the fact that there exists an international plurality of incompatible and conflicting comprehensive moral and political doctrines—is supposed to commit liberal peoples to respect the deep disagreements that exist on matters of value and justice. Acting justly towards nonliberal peoples, on this view, requires liberals to refrain from claiming that any particular comprehensive doctrine, including liberalism, is true or false, sound or unsound, etc. when debating the foundations of the international order. In this talk, I argue, drawing on Joseph Raz's critique of political liberalism, that it does not follow from the fact of international pluralism that the principles of international relations should be neutral between differing conceptions of global justice. International actors, e.g., states, corporations, NGOs, and individuals, have an interest in acting for the right reasons. If the Law of Peoples refrains from asserting or denying whether its principles conduce to this interest while exempting the stable peace from moral criticism, it is not a theory of justice so much as an asset to an unjust international status quo.
