When liberal peoples turn into outlaw states: John Rawls’ Law of Peoples and liberal nuclearism
| Published date | 01 June 2015 |
| Date | 01 June 2015 |
| Author | Thomas E Doyle |
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088215571648 |
| Subject Matter | Symposium: Rethinking states in international politics |
Journal of International Political Theory
2015, Vol. 11(2) 257 –273
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088215571648
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When liberal peoples turn
into outlaw states: John Rawls’
Law of Peoples and liberal
nuclearism
Thomas E Doyle II
Texas State University, USA
Abstract
John Rawls’ account in Law of Peoples of a realist utopia composed of a society of
liberal and decent peoples is a stark contrast to his description of “outlaw states,”
which seek to undermine the legal and moral frameworks that constitute a pacific global
order. Rawls argues that outlaw states cannot conceive of political accommodation
with their external enemies; instead, they opt for the rule of force, terror, and brutality.
Rawls even urges that liberal peoples are justified in maintaining a nuclear deterrent
to prevent outlaw states from obtaining and then using nuclear weapons on liberal
societies if the opportunity arose. This article examines the paradoxical question of
liberal societies that, in the name of opposing outlaw states, undertake security policies
which correspond to “outlaw” statist behavior. It then explores the implications of
liberal roguishness for the legitimacy of liberal international security arrangements, such
as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Regime.
Keywords
John Rawls, liberal nuclearism, nuclear ethics, outlaw states, states
Introduction
The aim of this article is to use John Rawls’ advocacy of nuclear deterrence1 by liberal
peoples against the possibility of outlaw state aggression as found in his Law of Peoples
(LP) as a way of exploring an ethically paradoxical feature of state agency and sover-
eignty. Rawls’ brief, and almost tangential, advocacy of nuclear deterrence is set against
Corresponding author:
Thomas E Doyle II, Department of Political Science, Texas State University, UAC 335, 601 University Drive,
San Marcos, TX 78666, USA.
Email: ted29@txstate.edu
571648IPT0010.1177/1755088215571648Journal of International Political TheoryDoyle
research-article2015
Article
258 Journal of International Political Theory 11(2)
his larger project of theorizing an international application of a liberal domestic society
organized around the egalitarian principles of justice as fairness. On Rawls’ view, the
institutionalization of a Law of Peoples grounded on justice as fairness makes it possible
to imagine a global Society of Peoples in which a durable and just peace is established.
However, in the “real” world of international politics, in which the requisite institution-
alization of pacific norms escapes realization, liberal peoples are threatened by “outlaw
states” defiant of a Law of Peoples and which cannot conceive of political accommoda-
tion with domestic or foreign liberal opponents. In this “real” world, the prospect of
extreme militarized conflict between liberal and illiberal peoples is ever present.
Accordingly, Rawls urges that liberal peoples ought to retain nuclear weapons to deter
outlaw state aggression and the possibility of outlaw state nuclear proliferation.
Rawls’ advocacy of liberal nuclear deterrence raises some crucial questions for his
overall project of theorizing the possibilities of a realistic utopia, and these questions can
be approached in a variety of ways. In this article, I am concerned to frame a particular
critical analysis around the following questions:
1. How does Rawls’ account constitute a notion of ethical universalism and thereby
delineate ethical possibility for a Society of Peoples?
2. What are the implications of Rawls’ view on outlaw states and the need of liberal
peoples to deter them with nuclear weapons for the possibilities of ethical univer-
salism under a Law of Peoples?
In response to these questions, the article will argue that Rawls’ advocacy of liberal
nuclear deterrence produces the very opposite kind of ethical universalism he envisions.
This production is a function of the “grammar” of Rawls’ account, where the term “gram-
mar” is understood in Wittgensteinian terms. Specifically, it argues that the choice of
liberal peoples to retain nuclear deterrence produces a universalization of the rule of
force, terror, and brutality to the exclusion of the rule of international law as an extension
of justice as fairness. It amounts to the tragic subversion of justice as fairness among
societies originally committed to its establishment.
Wittgensteinian “grammar” and international ethics
The preceding invocation of Ludwig Wittgenstein and “grammar” necessitates a few
remarks prior to moving onto the promised critical analysis of Rawls’ advocacy of liberal
nuclear deterrence. The following points are not meant to be comprehensive, but instead
seek to supply a minimal scaffold around which the critical analysis can be
understood.2
Wittgenstein’s later linguistic philosophy is understood by many to have mounted a
critique against the general notion that the task of theory is to depict things in the world
and the relations among them as they “really” are (Biletzki and Matar, 2014; Pin-Fat,
2011: 6–7; Wittgenstein, 1958). This phrase “as they really are” is ambiguous. It might
refer to mind-independent objects and their properties, which for Realist International
Relations (IR) theory refers to objective facts about political geography, state capacities
and interests, and power (Booth and Wheeler, 2008: Chapters 1–3; Buzan and Hansen,
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