The Law or the War of Peoples? Rawls versus Elshtain on Universal Justice
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25312/Keywords:
theory of justice, diverse society, polemics, Rawls vs ElshtainAbstract
Is it possible to establish equality, liberty and justice in a society composed of individuals whose good life conceptions are characterized by an enormous diversity, a diversity arising from philosophical, moral and religious disputes on character and content of human good? Theoretically speaking, political philosopher John Rawls’s magnum opus A Theory of Justice has become a groundbreaking answer to this question in delineating the procedures and achieved principles in order to establish a just and plural society of individuals enjoying equal liberties. This article also focus on Jean Bethke Elshtain, who also deals with the similar issues yet from very different perspective. Elshtain combines political theory with international relations, brings back an Augustinian just war tradition into global justice theories, while doing this, she offers an American nationalist interventionism and Christian theology for the world order. Given this framework, this article first delineates Rawlsian theory of justice at domestic as well as global settings. Second, it focuses on Elshtain’s scholarship in general and her religiously oriented political arguments on the world order in particular and finally it concludes by arguing that the Rawlsian wisdom and conscience still offers one of the best insights into global justice within the boundaries of liberal democratic tradition.
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