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The European Legacy
Toward New Paradigms
Volume 7, 2002 - Issue 2
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Original Articles

World Justice, Global Politics and Nation States: Three Ethico-Political Problems

Pages 167-194 | Published online: 01 Jul 2010

  • Margalit , A. and Raz , J. 1990 . "National Self-Determination," . The Journal of Philosophy , 87 : 439 – 461 .
  • Beitz , C. "Cosmopolitan Liberalism and the States System," ” . In Political Reconstructing of Europe Edited by: Drown . 123 – 136 . op. cit.
  • Baxter , B. 1986 . "The Self Morality and the Nation State," ” . In Ethics and International Relations Edited by: Ellis , A. 112 – 26 .
  • Funke , G. 1975 . "Concerning Eternal Peace-Ethics and Politics," ” . In Reflection on Kant's Philosophy , Edited by: Werkmeister , W. H. 91 – 108 . University Presses of Florida .
  • Carson , T. 1988 . "Perpetual Peace: What Kant Should Have Said," . Social Theory and Practice , 14 (2) : 173 – 214 . For a correction on the issue of an intemational arms force see
  • For reasons of space I cannot go into the details of whether states can logically be considered as equivalent to moral persons or as fictional moral persons. Cf also the recent "Neo-Hegelian" International Political Ethics.
  • King , P. , ed. 1996 . "Transnational Justice: Permeable boundaries and Multiple Identities," ” . In Socialism and the Common Good 291 – 302 . London As in O. O'Neill's treatment in; That is, the issue must not be limited to whether foreigners should be entitled to the economic and political fruits of the host country.
  • That there is such a difference between these types of relativism is simply asserted by K. Baier, The Rational and the Moral Order (Open Court, 1995), Ch. 6, esp. 212.
  • Cf. Kant's attempt to solve this problem and restore universality to otherwise genuinely subjective judgements of taste in his Critique of Judgement.
  • Wallace , J. D. 1988 . Moral Relevancer and Moral Conflict 32 Ithaca Here we encounter a problem parallel to that discussed above on pp 173-174: there I proposed a possible solution, but here the problem assumes a different form and requires a different treatment.In. See
  • Williams , B. 1973 . "Ethical Consistency," ” . In Problems of the Self 173 Cambridge In a "tragic" dilemma of this sort, I resolve it by acting on what I believe is best but, justifiably, I still feel regret for the other "ought" 1 did not enact: in this sense the latter "ought," even if not actualized, is not obliterated. Williams uses the example of Agamemnon and his sacrificing of his own daughter; hence the name used to refer to such cases
  • Cavallar , G. 1994 . "Kant's Society of Nations: Free Federation or World Republic?," . Journal of the History of Philosophy , 32 ( 3 ) July : 461 – 82 . For a discussion of how to interpret Kant see
  • Höffe , O. 2001 . "Königliche Völker" ” . 203 – 207 . 213 – 216 . Suhrkamp . along similar lines to mine
  • Mapel , D. and Nardin , T. , eds. 1998 . International Society Princeton For a different but related perspective see articles in
  • Pogge , T. , ed. 2001 . Global Justice Blackwell
  • Jones , C. 1999 . Global Justice Oxford
  • Shtromas , A. 1990 . "The Future World Order and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination and Sovereignty," . International Journal on World Peace , 7 Though Shtromas himself acknowledges the Kantian heritage, I would say that in his approach the "political," transposed to the international level, acquires a new dimension without acquiring also a new meaning or function or kinds of responsibilities. Strictly speaking this is not the case, however, in a pure Kantian scheme of a world order without a super government, whereby states must acquire the new kind of responsibility of transforming themselves internally and improving their citizens morally. It is for this reason that if we decide to work with the strictly Kantian scheme we need to be clear about the three ethico-political problems discussed in this paper.; A modem instance of these "Kantian" types of theories of world justice and peace is, e.g. that of
  • Scott , G. L. and Carr , C. L. 1986 . "Are States Moral Agents?," . Social Theory mid Practice , 12 (1) Spring : 75 – 102 . An ambivalent attitude towards the relationship between the function of ethics and that of politics leads some critics of "moralism" or anti-realism in international relations studies to a confusion of practical pragmatism (which makes them insist on the reality of, and special role that must be attributed to, states as actualities-a thoroughly correct position) with the denial of any ethical "extension" from individual morality to the obligations of governments: see, e.g. Despite their problems, the Kantian schemes possess (or must explicitly be made to possess) an in-built objective to trace a double-ended path that takes account of the reality of states without minimizing their role or the actuality and legitimacy of their divisions on the one hand, while keeping the demand of a final moral cosmopolitan aim always in view, on the other. But it is my overall suggestion in this paper that to be successful in doing so, these schemes must come to a firm understanding of the relation of ethics to politics (see also end of Conclusion).
  • van der Linden , H. 1988 . Kantian Ethics and Socialism Hackett For a further critical treatment of similar problems in a more comprehensive context see
  • Williams , H. 1983 . Kant's Political Philosophy 253 – 71 . Blackwell
  • Riley , P. 1983 . Kant's· Political Philosophy , 114 – 34 . Rowman and Littlefield . l cannot go into their views here (some of which coincide with mine) but I believe that the triadic relationship between ethics and politics, and of both of them to international peace is considerably complicated by an ambiguity in Kant's use of the (sometimes synonymous) tenus "morality" and "culture."
  • Brown , C. , ed. 1994 . Political Reconstructing of Europe 89 – 122 . Routledge T. Pogge's contribution to
  • 1992 . As J. Thomson in Justice and World Order 85 Routledge reporting Rawls' view. As some define it, a just state is made to look very much like a just individual person of the sort defined in Bk. 1 of the Republic, or in Aristotle's similar treatment of having-more-than one's-due as injustice in the Nichomachean Ethics, Bk. V.H. We shall encounter this issue again in Section IV
  • Knippenberg , J. 1989 . "Moving Beyond Fear: Rousseau and Kant on Cosmopolitan Education," . Journal of Politics , 51 (4) : 809 – 27 . In Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason Kant made the goal of the moral unity of humankind most explicit. This has also to do with Kant's question of "who shall educate the educators?" which is a more general issue in the Enlightenment's philosophy of education. For a discussion linking this to issues of world politics see

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