Reassessing the Rawlsian Concept of "Outlaw States" in Light of the Current International Context: From the Just War Paradigm to the Aronian Maxim "To Survive is to Win"

Abstract

We propose an Aronian-inspired critique of the concept of “outlaw states,” formulated by John Rawls in The Law of Peoples, to refer to states that violate human rights and/or attack other societies. The dialogue between Raymond Aron and Rawls is motivated by the fact that both discussed the foreign policy of a liberal-democratic state, and Rawls explicitly appropriated the Aronian concept of “peace by satisfaction.” By engaging with this dialogue, we aim to contribute to the debate that has been unfolding since the “realist revival” sparked by the works of Bernard Williams and Raymond Geuss, concerning the possible contours of a realist political theory, particularly as applied to the morality of international relations. In the first part, we compare Aron’s and Rawls’s views on the concept of “peace by satisfaction,” to show that the problem of war against “outlaw states” arises directly from Rawls’s adoption of this principle of peace, about which Aron had expressed skepticism. In the second part, we delve into Rawls’s doctrine regarding just war against outlaw states, arguing that his perspective of justifying war in order to force all countries to respect human rights is tied to an outdated context of global hegemony of liberal democracies. In the current international system, in which principles such as human rights are themselves the object of political dispute, the defensive strategy advocated by Aron appears to be a more suitable principle to guide the foreign policy of a liberal-democratic state.