lnglobal justice and domestic.pdf

Global Justice and Domestic Institutions
1. Introduction
In The Law of Peoples, John Rawls contrasts his own view of global distributive
justice—embodied principally in a “duty of assistance” that is one element in the law of
peoples—with so-called cosmopolitan theories of distributive justice (., the views of
Pogge and Beitz). The latter views, he says, are concerned ultimately with “the well-
being of individuals and not the justice of societies“(119). The contrast is misleadingly
put, but indicates a real difference in theoretical approach. I say that it is misleadingly
put, because the cosmopolitan will say that he/she is concerned with the justice of the
global system of cooperation and not simply with the welfare of individuals, but because
the global society is ultimately a form anized cooperation among individuals, the
standards of justice for that system require attention to the well-being of persons, and
not simply to how societies fare.
Still, the distinction Rawls describes is important. There are real differences
between the views both in the conception of the agents in the global society and in the
standards of justice that apply to that society. For Rawls, the agents in the global
system (the society of peoples) are peoples not individuals: not only does the law of
peoples apply to peoples; pact that determines the content of principles of
global justice (the law of peoples) is pact among those peoples, just as the
compact that determines the principles of domestic justice is pact among
individuals, conceived of as free and equal persons. Moreover, the content of the duty
of assistance, agreed to in the pact, reflects the idea that political
Global Justice, April 7, 2003, 2
boundaries—here understood as boundaries between peoples—matter in determining
what people owe to one another: such boundaries have fundamental moral significance,
from the point of view of political morality. How so?
2. Duty of