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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 December 2016
In The Law of Peoples, John Rawls introduces a framework for realistic utopia, within which the limits of practicable political possibility are probed through the further development of his international theory. This essay addresses the apparent paradox of realistic utopianism within the context of, and in relation to, ideal theory, in an attempt to explore the scope and limits of Rawls’s theory. The ideas behind Rawls’s realistic utopia are discussed in detail, the concept is contrasted with ideal theory in order to assess to what extent Rawls’s framework for realistic utopia introduced in The Law of Peoples differs from other forms of ideal theory, and the limits of realistic utopianism are identified.
I argue first, that, in an attempt to address the potential feasibility constraint, Rawls tries to distinguish his framework of realistic utopia from that of more traditional ideal theory. I then proceed to examine the differences between realistic utopianism in The Law of Peoples and ideal theory in A Theory of Justice. I then conclude that Rawls only partially meets the challenge of establishing practicable political possibility. In actuality, Rawls’s focus on ideal agents in ideal as well as nonideal theory, together with his emphasis on societies as closed and self-sufficient, ignores the potential for noncompliance by liberal and decent societies, as well as interdependencies between societies that can cause or lead to injustice, conflict, and instability. I argue that despite these flaws, Rawls’s approach nevertheless provokes new insights into the function of the principles of the ideal theory framework as guidelines for real-world policies striving toward peace, stability, and justice.
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10 “Liberal societies” are societies based on the two principles of justice identified in TJ, constituted by free and equal, reasonable and rational, as well as fully cooperating citizens. Rawls in LP introduces “decent peoples” as “societies whose basic institutions meet certain specified conditions of political right and justice (including the right of citizens to play a substantial role, say through associations and groups, in making political decisions) and lead their citizens to honor a reasonably just law for the Society of Peoples” (Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 3).
11 Rawls, Justice as Fairness, 5.
12 Ibid., 9.
13 Annette Förster, Peace, Justice and International Order. Decent Peace in John Rawls’ The Law of Peoples (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 1–2.
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20 Ibid., 128.
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41 Brown, “The Construction of a ‘Realistic Utopia’: John Rawls and International Political Theory,” 12.
42 Rawls, Justice as Fairness, 87.
43 Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 44–45.
44 Simmons, “Ideal Theory and Non-Ideal Theory,” 34.
45 I am indebted to David Miller for bringing forward this argument.
46 Sen, The Idea of Justice, 104.
47 Ibid., 11; Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 141.
48 Samuel Freeman, “A New Theory of Justice,” The New York Review of Books 57, no. 15, nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/oct/14/new-theory-justice.
49 Jack Donnelly, “Human Rights,” in John S. Dryzek, Bonnie Honig, and Anne Phillips, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 611 [emphasis in the original].
50 Pogge, “Rawls on International Justice,” 248.
51 Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 37–38, 61–62.
52 Ibid., 78.
53 Schmidtz, “Nonideal Theory: What It Is and What It Needs to Be,” 776.
54 Rawls argues that “there is no single possible Law of Peoples, but rather a family of reasonable such laws” and that the “statement of principles is, admittedly, incomplete” (Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 4, 37).
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58 Macleod, “Rawls’s Narrow Doctrine of Human Rights,” 145.
59 Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 24.
60 Ibid., 53.
61 Ibid.; Rawls mentions overturning Allende in Chile, Arbenz in Guatemala, or Mossadegh in Iran.
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65 Macleod, “Rawls’s Narrow Doctrine of Human Rights,” 145.
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69 Pogge, “‘Assisting’ the Global Poor”; Pogge, “Rawls on International Justice,” 253.
70 Ibid.; Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 42–43.
71 Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 43.
72 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 489.
73 Ypi, “On the Confusion between Ideal and Non-ideal in Recent Debates on Global Justice,” 551.
74 Ibid., 538; Robeyns, “Ideal Theory in Theory and Practice,” 347.