THE PHILOSOPHY OF POLITICAL LIBERALISM, THE GLOBAL ORDER AND THE QUESTION OF JUSTICE

ABSTRACT

The issue of transnational justice was made popular in the 20^th century by the American liberal philosopher, John Bordley Rawls, who tries to evolve a conception of justice that would be applicable at the transnational level. Unfortunately, his liberal prescription for transnational justice does not provide for any principle of redistributive justice that would be morally obligatory at the international level and, as such, fails to adequately address the question of justice at that level. This study, therefore, proposed a theoretical model that would have an ethical basis for transnational redistributive justice and, thus, facilitate the evolution of a just and harmonious global order.

The model of deliberative cosmopolitan democracy, which combines the strengths of two transnational democratic theories: Deliberative Democracy and Cosmopolitan Democracy, constituted the framework for this study. The work adopted the conceptual, analytical and reconstructive methods of philosophy. The conceptual approach was employed to clarify the concepts of global order, justice, democracy and other key terms related to the question of transnational justice. The study critically examined the theory of political liberalism to show its inadequacies and argue for its reconstruction to ensure the institution and promotion of transnational justice. The sources of data were mainly library and archival based. Rawls‟ A Theory of Justice, Political Liberalism, The Law of Peoples and other relevant texts constituted our data for this study. These are the core texts that have dealt with the question of democracy and justice at the transnational level.

Rawls‟ liberal internationalism extends to the transnational level his earlier development of the theory of justice but it does not adequately address the question of justice at the international level: it does not extend the difference principle-the distributive principle that stipulates that the distribution of social wealth and income should be done in a way that favours the socially worst offs-to the transnational level. The duty of assistance it introduced, instead, is morally supererogatory and has not addressed the question of distributive justice at the international level in a morally obligatory manner. Furthermore, his proposal is silent on the present international economic order that favours the developed economies more than the developing ones. The model of deliberative cosmopolitan democracy, which combines the strengths of Deliberative Democracy and Cosmopolitan Democracy, provides a better philosophy because it promotes the distributive, deliberative and institutional ideals of global justice. It proposes the principle of extensive democratic autonomy at the national level and a deliberative cosmopolitan democratic law at the transnational level. The  principle and the law extensively protect the right to self-determination of peoples and also guarantee justice among nation-states and peoples.

Transnational justice is attainable through the ideals of deliberative cosmopolitan democracy. This model has a better prospect of realising the goal of transnational justice than Rawls‟ liberal internationalism on account of its distributive, deliberative and institutional features that are fundamental to the entrenchment of global justice. This would constitute a good foundation upon which to establish an enduring stability and peace in the global arena.

 

INTRODUCTION

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Traditionally, the issue of justice among political philosophers is discursively reduced to what obtains only within the micro level of a state.  Within this framework, justice is taken to be a moral good, which could not be instituted at the transnational level, viewing this macro level, from the Hobbesian perspective, as ontologically anarchic.  However, in the contemporary world, the focus of discussion has been expanded. The institution of the principles of justice in the relations among nation-states and peoples is now entering the centre- stage in the discussions of political philosophers. And, this new thinking is mainly being done within the fold of liberal ideology, a very popular ideology in the contemporary world. In other words, liberal political philosophers are now making the claim that transnational justice is only feasible if the basic principles of political liberalism are internationalised and, therefore, ultimately serve as the normative basis of a new global order. One could reasonably argue that Rawls‟ The Law of Peoples is a leading light in this direction, considering the volumes of literature it has generated in the scholarly tension between those who argue for and against the Rawlsian project

After a critical examination of the project of political liberalism in general and Rawls‟ The Law of Peoples in particular,  the study submits  that political liberalism as is may not be systemically and normatively sufficient to address  the issue of inequalities in the political and socio-economic relations among nationstates and peoples, generate a genuine system of norms of transnational relations nation-states and peoples, and formulate theoretically an institutional framework to implement the new system of norms, etc.

This philosophy, we can argue, is constituted of three cores: the political, the economic, and the moral. However, the problem is that the inherent inconsistencies and contradictions in political liberalism may not serve the course of true justice at the domestic level on one hand, and at the transnational level of relations among states and peoples, on the other hand.  At the heart of the problem are the conceptions of liberty and equality within the political core, which are antipodal to their understandings within the economic core of liberal philosophy. The political core essentially defines liberty as absence of undue interference with life of the individual. However, a commitment to this conception invariably makes it unjustifiable to redistribute social wealth from the rich to the poor. Therefore, the poor are greatly deprived of the economic wherewithal to affirm their equality or social parity with the rich. Since various physical needs, which are economically determined, must be met if people are to be able to equally engage in political participation, and the possibility of meeting these physical needs has been foreclosed by the inability to justify redistribution from the rich to the poor, within the fold of political liberalism, we cannot but see how political liberalism has substantively, in an implicit way, foreclosed equal participation; though, it theoretically supports it.

The foregoing brings about a disjuncture between the political core and the economic core of political liberalism, on the one hand, and between the two and the moral core, on the other hand. The moral core of political liberalism is based on the conviction that man has inherent worth and that everything should be subordinated to the protection of the inherent worth. But, as we could see in the brief analysis above, it is the inherent worth of the advantaged self that is invariably protected not necessarily that of the disadvantaged other. It is this disjuncture that works against the course of instituting social justice at the domestic level and justice at the transnational level To do a further analysis of the latter, one must note that there is much talk about how freer markets, a substantive part of the economic core of political liberalism, would help address the problem of poverty of millions of people in the developing world. However, according to Thomas Pogge, the extant evidence shows that freer markets would worsen the situation of the poor people. ¹

The research work has been divided into five broad chapters In Chapter One, we examined the idea of global order and also established a link between world orders and the discourse of philosophy

In Chapter Two, we discussed the origins of liberalism and also examined various justificatory arguments for it. In Chapter Three, we extensively focused on a critique of political liberalism at the national level.

In Chapter Four, we examined the concept of global justice on the one hand, and liberal internationalism as represented by Rawls‟s The Law of Peoples, on the other. In the final analysis, we submitted in the chapter that unreformed liberal internationalism may not promote justice at the transnational level.

In Chapter Five, we proposed a model of „deliberative cosmopolitan democracy‟ as a foundation to the entrenchment of social justice at the domestic level, and justice at the transnational level. The institutional basis for this theoretical construct is what has been termed in this study as the Global Institution for Democracy and Justice.

 

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The research has both general and specific objectives.

The following are the general objectives of the study:

1. To contribute to scholarly research in the area of philosophy of

international relations or, ethics of international relations

2. To argue for the plausibility of the claims for transnational justice and the feasibility of the implementation of the dictates of the principles involved.
3. To submit that the idea of transnational democracy is essential to the development of a political structure for the implementation of a coherent system of principles for transnational justice.

To achieve the general objectives given above, there are some specific objectives:

1. To expose the inconsistencies and contradictions within the political core of liberal philosophy as well as those between the political core and the economic core of same.
2. To submit that the hybrid model of „deliberative cosmopolitan democracy‟ addresses the inconsistencies and contradictions in political liberalism and transcends these weaknesses to provide more reliable theoretical framework for instituting social justice at the domestic level and justice at the transnational level.
3. Following from the above, the hybrid model of „deliberative cosmopolitan democracy‟ is an improvement upon an unreformed philosophy of political liberalism.

 

STATEMENT OF THE THESIS

As an alternative to what one could presently regard as an unreformed philosophy of political liberalism in the global order, the study has proposed a hybrid theoretical model of „deliberative cosmopolitan democracy,‟ after a critical study of some theories of transnational democracy.  With its distinctive principle of „extensive democratic autonomy‟ and a „deliberative cosmopolitan democratic law,‟ the hybrid model has attempted areconciliation and, thus, a reconstruction of the political core and the economic core of the philosophy of liberalism. On this new reading, it transcends the inherent weaknesses in order to institute social justice at the domestic level and justice at the transnational level.

 

JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY

 Numerous liberal political philosophers have made attempts to theorise on the subject of global justice. However, they always seem to encounter fundamental problems: first, how to formulate a coherent concept of sovereign institutional implementer of justice at the transnational level; second, how the institutional implementer is to be legitimately transnational in representation and operation; and third, how to arrive at an internally coherent system of norms to serve as the normative basis of transnational relations among nation-states and peoples. Even, Rawls‟ The Law of Peoples, the seemingly most popular form of liberal internationalism in the contemporary era, has not fully succeeded in positively addressing the problems. Therefore, the present research is justified to the extent that it is a systematic attempt to fully address these fundamental problems.

 

METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY

 The study adopted the conceptual, analytical/argumentative and reconstructive methods. The first instrument of research lay bare as well as analysed the meanings of the fundamental concepts and other terms employed in the study. This invariably involved the argumentative method, since argumentation was needed to show that certain understandings of the concepts were better than others.  The last instrument of research re-interpreted the ontology of man as given by classical philosophers of political liberalism, in the process of constructing an adequate model to guarantee true justice, both at the domestic and global levels. The sources of the data in the study were mainly library and archival.

 

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This study critically examined some theories of transnational democracy, which have been postulated to address the issue of global justice. These were the theories that formed the basis from which the model of the research eventually emerged. The study discovered that though each of the theories examined had individual strengths, it equally had serious weaknesses, which rendered each of the theories individually impracticable. After a thorough consideration, the study arrived at a hybrid model of transnational democracy, a composite of the transnational theories of deliberative democracy and cosmopolitan democracy. The hybrid model was deliberative cosmopolitan democracy. This model blended the strengths of the two theories of transnational democracy, while it dispensed with their weaknesses.

 

CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE

A lot of political and moral theories have been postulated in the area of philosophy of international relations.  In the contemporary world, perhaps the best known is TheLaw of Peoples. This is a work by John Rawls that draws on the political metaphysics of social contractarianism. The study focuses on this work as a paradigmatic work on liberal internationalism. However, the position of Rawlsian internationalism normatively separates peoples, rather than unite them. The Law of Peoples is generally silent on the proposal for a system of norms to deal with the general economic inequalities at the transnational level. Even those theoretical attempts that are examined in the study, which attempt to justify redistribution of economic benefits from the North to the South do not also provide for this system of norms. The contribution to knowledge of the present study, therefore, is that it provides for this system of norms to morally guide the economic, political and cultural relations of states and peoples at the transnational level. Furthermore, through the proposed system of norms, there is a protection for the institution of domestic justice from the transnational level. The study also fully addresses the problem of sovereign-implementer of the principles of transnational justice through its proposed Global Institution for Democracy and Justice as well as legitimately justifies it. This is the institution that sees to the implementation of the principles of transnational justice among nation-states and peoples. Another merit of the proposal of the study is that the Global Institution for Democracy and Justice avoids the suggestion for a world government. Some philosophers have roundly criticised this suggestion because such a structure could easily bring about global tyranny.

Endnotes

^1.See Thomas Pogge. 2001. Priorities of Global Justice. Metaphilosophy. 32: 6-24,  at 11-12.

 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF POLITICAL LIBERALISM, THE GLOBAL ORDER AND THE QUESTION OF JUSTICE

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