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Global Justice (Phil 121)
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Lecture notes of 19 pages for the course Phil 121 at SFU (Notes)
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Phil 121 Lecture NotesStatism and Cosmopolitanism
- We can distinguish:
Statism
- The state is politically important: allegiances
- Materially/legally important: access to important goods such as education, health care,
and opportunity
- Methodologically: we talk about what states are doing primarily when we discuss
international issues, so it may be fruitful to put the state in the center of an analysis
- Statist positions on international justice tend to hold the view that international justice is
best understood in terms of the actions of states in their relation to one another
- Statists tend to think that the most im0ortant responsibilities that citizens have us to one
another
- And states have important responsibilities to it’s citizens
Note: The realist is a statist, but tends not to endorse much of what might be considered justice
between stats (but there is disagreement between and amongst them)
- The realist views the international arena as a competition and anarchy between states
understood as rational actors
Cosmopolitanism
- The idea that membership, belonging, and institutional (legal and political) behavior
extend beyond the nation state
- The idea is that we are seeing greater inconnectivitity at the international level: political,
legal and
- International justice can be realized:
-by creating supranational agencies (NATO) and political institutions
-working within state structure until the state can be transcended
Statism and Cosmopolitanism
- These positions look quite divergent- they diverge less or more depending on
commitments within their respective camps
- EG some statists are strong proponents of human rights and argue that states have a duty
to respect human rights of non-citizens
but matters differently
Where is Rawls in this general divide?
- Rawls is a statist- albeit with modification
- States (peoples) are the most important unit of analysis in his view
- And international justice is just the project of extending norms and values at home, into
the foreign policy abroad
- Is focused on states having an internal structure
,What is justice? Some more traditional thoughts:
- Consider Locke’s views
- A personality trait- a just character- giving to those what they are due?
- Various entities/relationships, but major component would be individual actors/actions
Justice: 3 Ideas
- Distributive -
- Compensatory
- Retributive
Compensatory and Retribution
- Both respond to wrongs visited upon others
- Retribution punishment! Make the wrongdoer pay for hams/debts to society
- Compensatory justice: restore persons to the position they were ex ante (to wrong or bad
brute luck)
Distributive Justice
- A justice associated with the social distribution of benefits and burdens of social
cooperation
not just stuff, but the conditions in which we regulate the distribution of stuff
2 principles of justice
- Rawls argues that from this idealized choice situation, rational individuals would agree to
build their social institutions and practices as subject to the following 2 constraints:
1) Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic
liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others (liberty principle)
2) Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both reasonably
expected to be to everyone’s advantage and attached the positions and office open to
all (difference principle)
These are arranged in order of importance.
First principle: Liberty pin
- Positions and officers should be open and available under equal opportunity under the
law and benefit the worse of
- It’s okay to have inequalities because that inequality will be reproduced
Justice as ‘fairness’ and the social contract
The original position
- Assume a basic equality among the members of society, no one able to impose her views
on others
- Assume all are self-interested in achieving the best outcome for themselves. Also assume
no envy
- Assume all are rational
- Assume no one knows specific details about their own tastes, position in society, personal
characteristics (intelligence, character) (Choice is made behind a veil of ignorance)
, May 22nd
The Difference Principle
- Rawls holds that economic inequalities can be justified only if they are reasonably
expected to be to everyone’s advantage
- How cold inequality potentially promote the interests of everyone?
- The focus of this principle is on the expectations of the worst off position in society.
Inequality favouring some has to be made acceptable to the position of the parties in the
least well off position
- Example: he suggests that those with lesser abilities might have a claim to greater
expenditures on education, especially in the early years of life, to compensate for their
unfortunate starting position
Right: thought it was too egalitarian. It would give an incentive for the talented to not to talented.
worried that this view sends the wrong message to the talented
Left: rawls blindly assumed that people would accepted his 2 principles of justice. Rawls hasn’t
taken social identity into consideration
Ralws
- The LOP derives from commitments to – method, liberal institutions and an appreciation
of difference (and recognition that liberalism isn’t the only successful or appropriate way
to organize institutions and foreign policy)
Method
- The international community consists of peoples (not states) who are assumed to be equal
- Theory is divided between ideal conditions and non-ideal conditions
- And principles are selected from within an original position behind a veil of ignorance
Ideal Theory
- Ideal theory consists of – liberal and decent
- Liberal peoples are liberal because of their commitments to equality and equal
opportunity
non ideal theory is where you get punishment, and civil disobedience
People’s not States
- Rawls rejects the traditional understanding of states
- that picture corresponds closely to realist readings of the state in which the state is a
rational actor seeking to maximize outcomes for its citizens
- such states have traditional been understood to have 2 forms of sovereignty
- internal: the moral and political right to govern its citizens as it sees fit
- external: the moral and political right to pursue its interest aboard without interference
- Rawld rejects the traditional picture because it affords the state too much power
- He sees the state as a moral person subordinate to the claims of persons and state activity
is disciplined by the moral claims of persons
- If the sate violates the rights of citizens, its actions are immoral • Rawls also rejects the
claim that states are obliged to do whatever it wants in pursuit of its interests – policies
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