Justice and Foreign Policy

Abstract

What principles of justice ought to restrain a liberal state in its dealings with other state? This book defends the idea that a liberal state can act justly abroad, without abandoning either the idea that it has some specific duties to only its own citizens, or the idea that liberal democracy is superior to illiberal forms of political organization. In the area of distributive justice, the book defends the idea that the liberal state is obliged to ensure certain forms of material equality amongst its own citizens, because of the coercive powers the state presumes the right to deploy. This is compatible, though, with a duty to organize its foreign policy so as to guarantee that foreign citizens are able to have sufficient material resources to pursue a life properly regarded as autonomous. It is also compatible with a duty to reorganize international relations, so that powerful states and corporations are not able to effectively coerce marginal states into doing what most benefits the global elite. In the area of toleration, the book defends the idea that liberal democracies are not commanded to give principled respect to illiberal forms of governance. Instead, democracies are able to insist that democracy is uniquely justifiable, and may work for democracy abroad. This permission, though, is buttressed with a notion of principled modesty in the interpretation of what counts as democracy – and a notion of prudence, in which we are commanded to be aware of the limited and blunt tools at our disposal in foreign affairs. Throughout the book, an emphasis is placed upon the idea that philosophy can only take us so far in understanding the moral foundations of foreign policy; the task of guiding policy requires contributions from social science and from political practitioners, and philosophy can at most set a framework within which these contributions can be understood.