The Law of Peoples (Audible Audio Edition) John Rawls David Colacci University Press Audiobooks Books
Download As PDF : The Law of Peoples (Audible Audio Edition) John Rawls David Colacci University Press Audiobooks Books
This book consists of two parts the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" and "The Law of Peoples", a major reworking of a much shorter article by the same name. Taken together, they are the culmination of more than 50 years of reflection on liberalism and on some of the most pressing problems of our times.
"The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" is John Rawls' most detailed account of how a modern constitutional democracy, based on a liberal political conception, could and would be viewed as legitimate by reasonable citizens who, on religious, philosophical, or moral grounds, do not themselves accept a liberal comprehensive doctrine.
The Law of Peoples lays out the general principles that can and should be accepted by both liberal and non-liberal societies as the standard for regulating their behavior toward one another. The print book is published by Harvard University Press.
The Law of Peoples (Audible Audio Edition) John Rawls David Colacci University Press Audiobooks Books
As all writings of Rawls, this book is full with interesting ideas. Especially important is the acceptance of diversity of regimes, subject to meeting some standards, which is unusual for strong proponents of human rights and liberty. But The Law of People suffers from two weaknesses, one conceptual and the second substantive.The term “peoples” makes no sense. The offered explanation and justification (pp. 23-30) leave the ontological nature of “peoples” vague. Are Austrians a people or a part of the German people? What about the Ummah of Islam and the Jewish People? What is the relation between “nation” and “people?” – it all remains vague. My recommendation is to read “states” for “peoples” and then, with some adjustments, all becomes clear.
The much more serious substantive weakness is partial obsolescence. When the book was written, say 1997-1998, it was already clear that humanity is moving into a new epoch in which it can change the world radically, and also remake itself as a species – including terminating the existence of humankind. This poses fateful issues which must be confronted globally. But the book completely ignores them.
To start with climate change, shall limits on greenhouse gases emission be imposed on all countries? Will citizen in liberal democracies rush to support necessary life style changes? Who will accept mass migration caused by rising sea levels? The book ignores such issues and much harder ones:
Thanks to progress in synthetic biology an apocalyptic sect may be able to synthesize a mass-killing virus likely to decimate humanity. Preventing such global catastrophic risks requires an intrusive collective security regime, with all people/states being compelled to hunt down such sects, or/and a powerful global security apparatus doing the job on the basis of worldwide intrusive monitoring.
Should people/states be free to decide on human cloning and production of “super-intelligent machines” – or are global choices on such issues which are enforced worldwide essential?
To cope with such unprecedented future-shaping issues knocking on the door it is not enough to "reformulate the powers of sovereignty in light of a reasonable Law of Peoples and deny to states the traditional rights to war and to unrestricted internal autonomy” (pp. 26-27). The proposed “Law of the Peoples” is clearly inadequate. Much more is needed than “some kind of loose or confederative form” (p. 111) of a Society of well-ordered Peoples, based on Kant’s foedus pacificum. There is also something to learn from Hobbes.
***
Moving briefly to the second part of the book The Idea of Public Reason Revisited, it suffers from wrong assumptions on human beomgs and political processes, which make trust in deliberation as basic to public reason largely utopian. Politics is inherently linked to doctrines hardly open to doubt, combined with competition on who gets what. The supposition that citizens deliberate, exchange views and debate their supporting reasons concerning public political questions contradicts nearly all empiric findings and psychological theories. On “hot issues” most citizen do not suppose that their political opinions may be revised by discussion with other citizens (p. 138), nor is “Knowledge and desire on the part of citizen generally to follow public reason” (p. 139) prevailing. Political leaders cannot explain in public all of their reasoning without demolishing the chances of actually acting as statesmen or stateswomen, which often requires doing what the public would not accept. And so on
Such wrong assumptions do not reduce the intrinsic values of democracy, justice and political liberty, their utility as enabling second-order agreement on reaching decisions (however little based on “public reason”), and their importance for providing much scope for pluralism with some civility. Too much of the “truth” may be dangerous for the very functioning of democracy, however “contaminated.”
Therefore I would regard Rawls discourse on public reason as justified, though in part not in the sense intended by him, were it not for the obsolescence shared with The Laws of Peoples.
Let us assume that we can move into an epoch of transhumanism by enhancing human minds, up to procreating Homo sapiens superior –who is likely tp displace present humankind and move into a future we cannot conceive. Should development of the technologies for doing so be permitted, encouraged, or strictly prohibited and prevented?
Taking a stand on such issues, and also much easier ones such as climate change, is for most citizen a matter for “doctrine,” and/or “gut feelings,” of what they regard as their “interests.” Serious deliberation on complex techno-value dilemmas requires good science and technology literacy combined with advanced philosophical and quasi-theological reasoning. These are far beyond the minds of most humans, even if subjected to compulsory year-long learning.
Therefore, contemporary “public reasoning,” and other conceptions of deliberative democracy, cannot cope with most of the novel fateful issues facing humanity. Ergo, the theory and practice of democracy have to be redesigned in order to preserve as much as possible of its basic values. This is beyond the horizon of both parts of this book, making it in important ways obsolete.
***
Rawls is an outstanding political philosopher. The fact that he ignored the emerging phase-shift of humankind illustrates the lag of much of political philosophy after reality. If Rawls did not sense and comprehend what was happening before his eyes, what can we expect from lesser minds…
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The Law of Peoples (Audible Audio Edition) John Rawls David Colacci University Press Audiobooks Books Reviews
This book is for college purposes only. Very hard to read but was required for a reading material. Plus was way cheaper to buy from than the school book store. =)
Great product. Works perfect!! )
Pretty well written. It doesn't have the impact of Law of Peoples or Political Liberalism though. It was written towards the end of his life, so he may not have been able to flesh out the ideas more thoroughly. It feels sort of like a skeleton of a book, but it's a good skeleton and leaves a lot to think about.
Well, I needed this book for my Theories of Justice college level course, this is the book I need, It was in mint condition, One little crease on the cover page but no matter, the content is and will be amazing, I suggest you read Rawl's original "Theory of Justice" , then "Political Liberalism" before indulging yourself in this book. There are many references to the previous two books that I just mentioned. You will be lost otherwise.
~C.Sanchez
This is a must-read book. This treatise analyses how peoples of diverse cultures and religions can find a path towards living cooperatively together in peace. If the peoples of the world want to find a "government" that can lead them all and be respected, this book will be of enormous assistance in understanding the way it may be done.
The discussion views a variety of disparate forms of societies and describes their pros and cons to underscore his arguments, and as a result Laws could easily be quoted out of context. This however is the strength of his discourse, as he takes the reader along in his line of thought, while at the same time answering his anticipated critics.
My 'phenom' daughter recommended this book to me. She read it as a poli-sci/pre-med undergrad at UC Berkeley, and having noticed my growing cynicism regarding the direction our country has been headed, this was her 'philosophical lifesaver'. What Prof. Rawls offers is nothing less than a roadmap of hope, not only for our country but for the world. And that's a mouthful of praise, coming from a cynical Vietnam-vet.
As all writings of Rawls, this book is full with interesting ideas. Especially important is the acceptance of diversity of regimes, subject to meeting some standards, which is unusual for strong proponents of human rights and liberty. But The Law of People suffers from two weaknesses, one conceptual and the second substantive.
The term “peoples” makes no sense. The offered explanation and justification (pp. 23-30) leave the ontological nature of “peoples” vague. Are Austrians a people or a part of the German people? What about the Ummah of Islam and the Jewish People? What is the relation between “nation” and “people?” – it all remains vague. My recommendation is to read “states” for “peoples” and then, with some adjustments, all becomes clear.
The much more serious substantive weakness is partial obsolescence. When the book was written, say 1997-1998, it was already clear that humanity is moving into a new epoch in which it can change the world radically, and also remake itself as a species – including terminating the existence of humankind. This poses fateful issues which must be confronted globally. But the book completely ignores them.
To start with climate change, shall limits on greenhouse gases emission be imposed on all countries? Will citizen in liberal democracies rush to support necessary life style changes? Who will accept mass migration caused by rising sea levels? The book ignores such issues and much harder ones
Thanks to progress in synthetic biology an apocalyptic sect may be able to synthesize a mass-killing virus likely to decimate humanity. Preventing such global catastrophic risks requires an intrusive collective security regime, with all people/states being compelled to hunt down such sects, or/and a powerful global security apparatus doing the job on the basis of worldwide intrusive monitoring.
Should people/states be free to decide on human cloning and production of “super-intelligent machines” – or are global choices on such issues which are enforced worldwide essential?
To cope with such unprecedented future-shaping issues knocking on the door it is not enough to "reformulate the powers of sovereignty in light of a reasonable Law of Peoples and deny to states the traditional rights to war and to unrestricted internal autonomy” (pp. 26-27). The proposed “Law of the Peoples” is clearly inadequate. Much more is needed than “some kind of loose or confederative form” (p. 111) of a Society of well-ordered Peoples, based on Kant’s foedus pacificum. There is also something to learn from Hobbes.
***
Moving briefly to the second part of the book The Idea of Public Reason Revisited, it suffers from wrong assumptions on human beomgs and political processes, which make trust in deliberation as basic to public reason largely utopian. Politics is inherently linked to doctrines hardly open to doubt, combined with competition on who gets what. The supposition that citizens deliberate, exchange views and debate their supporting reasons concerning public political questions contradicts nearly all empiric findings and psychological theories. On “hot issues” most citizen do not suppose that their political opinions may be revised by discussion with other citizens (p. 138), nor is “Knowledge and desire on the part of citizen generally to follow public reason” (p. 139) prevailing. Political leaders cannot explain in public all of their reasoning without demolishing the chances of actually acting as statesmen or stateswomen, which often requires doing what the public would not accept. And so on
Such wrong assumptions do not reduce the intrinsic values of democracy, justice and political liberty, their utility as enabling second-order agreement on reaching decisions (however little based on “public reason”), and their importance for providing much scope for pluralism with some civility. Too much of the “truth” may be dangerous for the very functioning of democracy, however “contaminated.”
Therefore I would regard Rawls discourse on public reason as justified, though in part not in the sense intended by him, were it not for the obsolescence shared with The Laws of Peoples.
Let us assume that we can move into an epoch of transhumanism by enhancing human minds, up to procreating Homo sapiens superior –who is likely tp displace present humankind and move into a future we cannot conceive. Should development of the technologies for doing so be permitted, encouraged, or strictly prohibited and prevented?
Taking a stand on such issues, and also much easier ones such as climate change, is for most citizen a matter for “doctrine,” and/or “gut feelings,” of what they regard as their “interests.” Serious deliberation on complex techno-value dilemmas requires good science and technology literacy combined with advanced philosophical and quasi-theological reasoning. These are far beyond the minds of most humans, even if subjected to compulsory year-long learning.
Therefore, contemporary “public reasoning,” and other conceptions of deliberative democracy, cannot cope with most of the novel fateful issues facing humanity. Ergo, the theory and practice of democracy have to be redesigned in order to preserve as much as possible of its basic values. This is beyond the horizon of both parts of this book, making it in important ways obsolete.
***
Rawls is an outstanding political philosopher. The fact that he ignored the emerging phase-shift of humankind illustrates the lag of much of political philosophy after reality. If Rawls did not sense and comprehend what was happening before his eyes, what can we expect from lesser minds…
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