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On Rawls's the Law of Peoples and the Toleration of Decent Hierarchical Societies On Rawls's The Law of Peoples and the Toleration of Decent Hierarchical Societies Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Oberdick, William Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 29/09/2021 22:00:28 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/627723 ON RAWLS’S THE LAW OF PEOPLES AND THE TOLERATION OF DECENT HIERARCHICAL SOCIETIES By William Oberdick ______________ Copyright © William Oberdick 2018 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2018 2 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: William Oberdick 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible with the love, support and encouragement of many people. I would like to thank Laura Andrews, Tom Bonofiglio, Tom Sway, and my parents for all their help along the way. I would also like to thank all those from the University of Arizona Philosophy Department who assisted this project in one way or another. Thank you Rachana Kamtekar, Mark Timmons, Chris Maloney, Michael Gill, Connie Rosati, and Houston Smit. Special thanks goes to my Committee, Steven Wall, Jerry Gaus, and Tom Christiano. Thank you, Steve, for joining the Committee late in the game. Thank you, Jerry, for helping me to rethink my interpretation of Rawls’s argument. And I owe a special debt of gratitude to my advisor for all these years, Tom Christiano. Thank you, Tom, for helping me to see this project through to the end. 4 Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2: Rawls’s Aim, Framework, and Overall Argument .................................................................... 23 Chapter 3: The Society of Peoples ............................................................................................................. 50 Chapter 4: The Nature of the Argument for the Toleration of DHSs ........................................................ 70 Chapter 5: The Criteria ............................................................................................................................... 90 Chapter 6: The Original Position .............................................................................................................. 129 Chapter 7: Realistic Utopia and the Two Motivating Ideas ..................................................................... 134 Chapter 8: Alternative Interpretations .................................................................................................... 147 Chapter 9: Assessing Rawls’s Position ..................................................................................................... 176 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................................... 190 5 Abstract In the dissertation I offer an interpretation and assessment of Rawls’s The Law of Peoples and his position regarding the toleration of decent hierarchical societies (DHSs). I reject interpretations according to which Rawls maintains that DHSs have legitimate domestic political institutions and interpretations according to which the main reasons for toleration are pragmatic. Instead, I argue that DHSs are intended to be understood as reasonable, stable, and nearly well-ordered political societies, and that the grounds for toleration are all the grounds implied by this idea. I situate Rawls’s development of criteria for a DHS as part of his overall aim to develop a complete liberal political conception of justice, and in explicating Rawls’s constructivism I emphasize that Rawls has taken no official stand that liberal political principles are universally valid. This opens some room for the toleration of DHSs. The interpretation I develop also emphasizes that for Rawls “toleration” means much more than non-interference. It also includes a commitment to participation with DHSs in international institutions. But this opens his position up to a number of objections. Participation with DHSs may have external effects that makes regarding DHSs as equal participating members in good standing of a Society of Peoples impossible. 6 Chapter 1: Introduction The main topic for the dissertation is Rawls’s argument – though I use “argument” here rather loosely – that a certain kind of non-liberal society, a decent hierarchical society (DHS), would be regarded, on reflection, by liberal peoples (and their reasonable citizens) as equal participating members in good standing of the Society of Peoples, as EPMIGS. In the first main part of the dissertation, I offer an interpretation of Rawls’s argument, one that attempts to make sense of why Rawls proceeds the way that he does and which locates the “argument for toleration” in Rawls’s larger theoretical apparatus. In the second main part of the dissertation, I consider the merits of alternative interpretations of Rawls’s argument, though it should be noted that in some cases these alternatives aren’t so much different interpretations of the same argument as entirely different takes on what Rawls is up to. In the third main part, I will conclude the dissertation with an assessment of Rawls’s position on the interpretation I have worked out. 1.1 Why Interpret? I will introduce some of the main lines of my interpretation in a moment. It is worth pausing say why it makes sense to offer an interpretation. Why not just direct those interested in Rawls’s views to read The Law of Peoples (LOP)1? For one, the text is unclear in many respects and would seem to support, at various points, strikingly different readings. To mention one crucial ambiguity: to what extent or in what way does the argument for the toleration of DHSs, depend on considerations of promoting international peace? Do DHSs really deserve toleration so that, having established this, we merely check that the toleration of these societies is likely to promote international peace? Rawls certainly is concerned with the promotion of international peace, but he also suggests that DHSs deserve toleration: “[I]f liberal peoples require that all societies be liberal and subject those that are not to political enforced sanctions then decent non-liberal peoples – if there are such – will be denied a due measure of respect by liberal peoples.” 2 And: “It is important to emphasize that the reasons for not imposing sanctions [on a DHS] do not boil down solely to the prevention of possible error and miscalculation in dealing with a foreign people. The danger of error, miscalculation, and error on the part of those who propose sanctions must, of course, be taken into account; yet decent hierarchical societies do have certain institutional features that deserve respect, even if their institutions as a whole are not sufficiently reasonable from the point of view of liberalism or liberalism generally.” 3 1 In the dissertation LOP refers to The Law of Peoples (1999), “LOP” to the earlier article version of Rawls’s position (1993), and LOP to the conception of international justice developed in both of those works. 2 (Rawls, 1999, p. 61) 3 (Rawls, 1999, p. 84) 7 In the first passage, Rawls suggests that a DHS (one kind of decent non-liberal people) deserves toleration – that if it isn’t tolerated it will be denied a due measure of respect. 4 And in the second passage Rawls also comes close to this. Granted in the second passage it is only “certain institutional features” that deserve respect, but it may be reading the text too closely here to not see here the idea that DHSs deserve respect. Or is Rawls not primarily concerned with whether DHSs deserve toleration, but how they should be treated as a way to promote international peace and, more generally, the security of liberal democratic societies. This might be suggested by the following: “Certainly the social world of liberal and decent peoples is not one that, by liberal principles, is fully just. Some may feel that permitting this injustice and not insisting on liberal principles for all societies requires strong reasons. I believe that there are such reasons. Most important is maintaining mutual respect among peoples. Lapsing into contempt on the one side, and bitterness and resentment on the other, can only cause damage.” 5 In this passage the most important reason for toleration (for “not insisting on liberal principles for all societies”) is not that DHSs deserve toleration,
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