The Law of Peoples by John Rawls

From the Publisher

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 economicconditions.

Library Journal

About one-quarter of this book is a reprint of Rawls's 1997 essay, "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," in which he sets out the principles of a well-ordered constitutional democratic society. The rest of the book is much revised version of his 1993 essay, "The Law of Peoples," which integrates those principles into an account of how decent societies should behave toward one another. The first two-thirds of this part is an ideal theory of peoples' interactions under a liberal conception of justice such as advanced in Rawls's A Theory of Justice. The last third concerns nonideal theory, i.e., how to prosecute the ideals, and discusses foreign policy, just war doctrine, disadvantaged societies, guidelines for assisting those societies, pluralism, tolerance, etc. A profound and absorbing book.--Robert Hoffman, York Coll. of CUNY Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Times Literary Supplement - Miller

[T]his is the most engaging and accessible book Rawls has written...[Rawls] could hardly have found a better way to ensure that his work continues to hold centre stage in debates withing political philosophy.

Thomas Nagel

The writings of John Rawls, whom it is now safe to describe as the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century, are very different. They owe their influence to the fact that their depth and their insight repay the close attention that their uncompromising theoretical weight and erudition demand.

The New Republic

Product Details

• ISBN: 0674005422
  
• ISBN-13: 9780674005426
• Format: Paperback, 208pp
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Pub. Date: January 2001
• Edition Number: 1
• Sales Rank: 98,985

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents