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Abstract:
This is an encyclopedia entry (for the IVR Encyclopedia of legal and political philosophy) covering John Rawls. It aims to provide a general but not superficial introduction to Rawls's theory of justice, justice as fairness.

justice, fairness, rawls, liberalism, egalitarianism, legitimacy, liberty, law of peoples

Abstract:
This is a revised version of an essay posted a few months back in which I discuss John Rawls's religious commitments as they developed over the course of his life and how attending to those commitments can inform and deepen our understanding of, and ability critically to evaluate, his political philosophy.

Rawls, Religion, Liberalism, Right, Relations, Institutions, Justice

Abstract:
In The Law of Peoples (hereafter LP), John Rawls does not discuss justice and the global economy at great length or in great detail. What he does say has not been well-received. The prevailing view seems to be that what Rawls says in LP regarding global economic justice is both inconsistent with and a betrayal of his own liberal egalitarian commitments, an unexpected and unacceptable defense of the status quo.

This view is, I think, mistaken. Rawls's position on global or international economic justice is richer, more nuanced, and generally more compelling than his critics have been willing to acknowledge. My aim in this essay is to sympathetically set out and then defend against two common families of objection Rawls's position on global or international economic justice. Objections of the first sort reject Rawls's position as inadequately attentive to the material and economic interests of individual persons worldwide. Objections of the second sort reject it as inadequately attentive to the material and economic interests of well-ordered peoples.

Throughout the paper I develop several arguments implicit in LP but not well-developed there as well as offer some additional arguments of my own consistent with the spirit of LP and Rawls's work more generally. I conclude with some brief remarks expressing two worries I have about Rawls's position - one concerning global public goods, the other concerning the formation of a morally adequate and effective political will within the international context under contemporary conditions.

Rawls, Liberalism, International, Global, Economic, Justice, Trade, Egalitarianism, Cosmopolitanism, Human Rights

Abstract:
In this draft of a book chapter, Jim Nickel and I discuss the philosophical foundations of human rights, paying special attention to the views of Alan Gewirth, James Griffin and John Rawls.

human rights, international law, Rawls, liberalism, autonomy

Abstract:
In this paper (revised 8/01/09, revised again 8/07/09)), I respond to Jim Nickel's criticisms of John Rawls's conception of human rights in 'The Law of Peoples.' In the process, and in the context of developing what I take to be a Rawlsian position on human rights, I explore the relationships between human rights and two forms of liberal toleration. I close by noting four fault lines running beneath the surface of a good deal of contemporary theoretical debate over human rights. I suggest that advancing that debate is unlikely absent closer and fuller attention to these fault lines.

human rights, liberalism, international relations, justice, Rawls, toleration, humanitarian intervention

Abstract:
In this conference paper I critically assess Jim Nickel's (in his otherwise excellent second edition of 'Making Sense of Human Rights') characterization of and objections to Rawls's position on human rights as 'ultraminimalist.' I explore also the differences in Nickel's and Rawls's commitments to liberal toleration.

human rights, liberalism, toleration, international justice, global justice, rawls, james nickel

Abstract:
A sympathetic reconstruction and defense of key aspects of Rawls's The Law of Peoples against familiar cosmopolitan criticisms (from Beitz, Buchanan, Pogge, Tan, et al.).

international justice, global justice, Rawls, human rights, toleration

Abstract:
This is the introduction to the Ashgate volume on Rawls in their history of political thought series. It puts Rawls's life and work in context and then discusses the essays included in the volume, essays of high quality likely to shape scholarship on Rawls for the coming decades.

Rawls, liberalism, justice, egalitarianism, rights, liberty, reflective equilibrium

Abstract:
A critical assessment of common arguments for hate crimes laws followed by the articulation and defense of a novel argument from oppression.

hate crimes, punishment, oppression, identity politics, group rights

Abstract:
In this paper, the authors consider the ways in which formal structural differences between historical injustices bear on reparations claims made in the name of those injustices.

reparations, corrective justice, entitlement, desert

Abstract:
An examination of Rawls's liberal principle of legitimacy in light of Waldron and Christiano type objections that it ignores that fact that citizens can and often do reasonably disagree over most anything, including conceptions of justice or constitutional design. I try to defend Rawls's basic intuition by shifting the emphasis from reciprocity in justification to reciprocity of interests. This requires a reformulation of the liberal principle of legitimacy giving what I call a democratic principle of legitimacy.

legitimacy, Rawls, pluralism, reasonable disagreement, democracy

Abstract:
In this paper I distinguish between three conceptions of human rights and thus three human rights agendas. Each is compatible with the others, but distinguishing each from the others has important theoretical and practical advantages. The first conception concerns those human rights tied to natural duties binding all persons to one another independent of and prior to any institutional context and the violation of which would 'shock the conscience' of any morally competent person. The second concerns the institutional conditions necessary and sufficient for particularist legal and political obligations to take on prima facie moral force so that the members of different polities face one another in an asymmetric moral relationship, with each side having a rightful claim to political self-determination. The third concerns those human rights arising exclusively as a matter of positive international law out of the voluntary undertakings of legitimate polities within the international order. Each of these different conceptions is tied to a different human rights agenda. The second is tied to the struggle to realize recognitional norms of legitimacy within the international order. The third is tied to the ongoing effort to incorporate into positive international law through voluntary initiative an ever expanding moral consensus between legitimate polities. The first is tied to the emerging practice of humanitarian intervention and system of international criminal liability. Thus, while all human rights share certain features - they're universal, and so on - human rights differ in important ways. Attending to these differences would likely improve both the theory and practice of human rights.

human rights, individualism, democracy, liberalism, collective self-determination

Abstract:
I develop and defend a conception of human rights as constituting the answer to a fundamental practical question of foreign policy faced by liberal democracies around the world: When is a government the agent of a determinate people capable of committing that people to this or that by way of treaty or other voluntary undertaking within international law? I do not argue that this is the only important conception of human rights; I do argue that it is a conception that ought to have a certain primacy in a normative theory of international relations.

human rights, Rawls, international relations, legitimacy, global justice, treaty, law of peoples

Abstract:
This review essay sets out the key features of the human rights position developed by Bill Talbott in his Which Rights Should be Universal?. It then argues that Talbott's position is not so much an alternative to Rawls's position as it is a plausible and attractive answer to a question other than the one to which Rawls's own position on human rights is an answer.

Talbott, Rawls, human rights, universal, international relations, global justice

Abstract:
This is an essay length critical review of James Griffin's "On Human Rights" (Oxford UP, 2008).

human rights, liberty, autonomy, welfare, international relations, ethics, international law, democracy, justice

Abstract:
In this paper, forthcoming in Public Affairs Quarterly, I develop an essentially Rawlsian conception of basic human rights. I first stake out a methodological orientation to the question of basic human rights. I then provide a theoretical grounding for a minimalist conception of such rights. I conclude by distinguishing between several basic human rights agendas and by noting the institutional implications of each.

human rights, rawls, liberalism, toleration, justice, cosmopolitanism