constitutional law

First, some disclosure regarding my opinion of Rawls (may he rest in peace). I am no fan of Rawls' work, be it this work or his others. As such, my own views will no doubt influence my opinion, so keep that in mind as you read on.

This book is divided into two parts, the first dedicated to the "Law of Peoples," the second to public reason. In the interests of space, I will only concentrate on the first portion.

The Law of Peoples is Rawls' attempt to bring his notions of justice as fairness and the like into the international scene. Using a modified "original position," Rawls discusses the way the international scene would run, not only with liberal societies, but also "decent" and "outlaw" states (among others). Fine and good.

The problem lies (as it does with "Theory of Justice" and "Political Liberalism") in the acceptance of what the "original position" would result in. The original position requires that "comprehensive doctrines" be left to the side (read "Theory" for more on that). In other words, your (or a people's) worldview (or deep notion of the good) must be cast aside. This is problematic enough, but it gets worse. Rawls wants a "political, not metaphysical" notion of justice to prevail. By happy chance, that "political" notion just happends to be liberal, of a moderate left variety. Rawls would deny that he is slipping in his "comprehensive doctrine" into the works, but it does make things difficult.

So, say a people decides that they prefer their own comprehensive doctrine (a religion, an ideology of one type or another, etc.) to the "political" version of Rawls. Rawls argues that "reasonable" peoples will accept it, at least on some level, thanks to an "overlapping consensus" (very basically, that the political notion will overlap enough with the comprehensive doctrine, making it acceptable at some level). Both "reasonable" and "overlapping consensus" are argued at length in "Political Liberalism." The consensus idea has some merit. But who are "reasonable"? Why, they are the peoples who follow the original position's precepts, of course. How....convenient.

While Rawls would not agree, this system (like his national systems in "Theory" and "PL") is in practice the imposition of comprehensive liberalism by other means. When reading Rawls, it isn't a bad idea to have some critiques on his work handy (for instance: Michael Sandel, Robert P. George, perhaps Gutmann & Thompson, among others). Rawls is a giant in the field, whether one agrees with him or not. If one wants to understand contemporary political theory, he should be read - but read "Theory" or "PL". If you are interested in political theory as it involves international relations, read "PL", then read this, not because it's great, but it's popular.

John Rawl's "Law of People" is divided into two parts: "The Law of Peoples" (a paper based on Rawl's article by the same name published in 1993), and "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" (1997).

First of all, don't make the same mistake as I did by thinking that this short book (200+ pages) would be "a quick summer reading" - because it's not.

John Rawl's book is on a very high reading level. The amount of research that went into "Law of peoples" is quite evident from both its extensive endnotes, and the general wordiness.

I find the topic itself interesting, but I found the reading of this book as achingly dry as the Sahara desert at high noon. This is certainly not the book to bring for your weekend trip.

Still, "Law of peoples" contains much interesting stuff, and I imagine it would be a valuable read for the hard-core student of political liberalism/liberal democracy/related topics...

John Rawls believes that we can achieve something akin to a utopia. Although precious few utopian thinkers have escaped the disreputable taint of astonishing naiveté, Rawls has thought hard about the moral, religious, cultural, and historical nuances that so often make utopic claims tragically optimistic. His own vision of a realistic political utopia rests in his faith in the idea of a social contract; the essays collected in these volumes present Rawls' lifework as a consistent project of extending and radicalizing this venerable idea.

Earlier Rawls articulated several general principles--for example, "justice as fairness," and "public reason"--that he thinks justify political relations between members of constitutional democracy. In this book he presents an even more general principle, "the law of peoples," that he thinks would extends the social contract to include members of certain illiberal societies.

Readers interested in Rawls' latest views about the real-world prospects of his realistic utopia will welcome this short book. In addition to presenting a long essay about his most general political principle, that of the "law of peoples," this book also includes a shorter new essay on Rawls' influential conception of "public reason" within liberal democracy. In both, Rawls is very much concerned with showing how his lifelong project-to bring into fruitful synthesis our deepest communal insights about reasonableness and justice-justify his faith in a realistic utopia. Rawls' congenial prose style makes his dazzling vision accessible to all conscientious readers.