Rawls’s Decent Peoples and the Democratic Peace Thesis.

Abstract

In The Law of Peoples, Rawls defends the stability of his proposed international order with the democratic peace thesis. But he fails to extend this thesis to decent peoples, which is curious, since they are a non-temporary feature of his law of peoples. This opens Rawls’s proposal to certain objections, which I argue can be met, once we understand fully the nature of the democratic peace. Nevertheless, there is reason to worry about the stability of Rawls’s proposed international order. This worry has little to do with decent peoples, though, and is generated by other features of Rawls’s law of peoples.

Walter Riker

University of Tennessee

Department of Philosophy

801 McClung Tower

Knoxville, TN 37996

wriker@tennessee.edu

865 974 3255 (phil dept office)

865 974 3509 (fax)