Rawls argues that it is a duty of reasonably well-ordered peoples to bring burdened societies (and, at least in principle, outlaw states) into the society of peoples.1 We will leave benevolent absolutist societies aside here, as they constitute a separate case with separate duties. We have a duty to help burdened societies develop to the point where they are no longer burdened, and no further assistance is required. “[T]he aim is to realize and preserve just (or decent) institutions, and not simply to increase, much less to maximize indefinitely, the average level of wealth, or the wealth of any society or any particular class in society.”2 There is no corresponding duty for outlaw states. Rawls is never explicit as to why that is, given that their citizens presumably also have a right to the things described below. Perhaps he considers the task impossible, and outlaw
1 Rawls, LP, 106.
2 Ibid., 107.
states must first graduate to the status of burdened societies before any duty of development kicks in.3 It sounds like a dubious proposition that the two are completely separate categories. Here I will put outlaw states to the side, however. The task of helping burdened societies is a daunting enough challenge already.
There is a duty to assist burdened societies up until the point where they become full members of the society of peoples. But where exactly is the cut-off point? There is no straightforward answer since Rawls makes two different claims about them, the first broadly institutional and the second focusing on the individual. In the first instance, “the aim is to help burdened societies to be able to manage their own affairs reasonably and rationally and eventually to become members of the Society of well-ordered Peoples.”4 In the second, “I do accept Beitz’s and Pogge’s goals of attaining liberal or decent institutions, securing human rights, and meeting basic needs. These I believe are covered by the duty of assistance discussed in the preceding sections.”5 Whether human rights and basic needs for individuals really are guaranteed through managing your own affairs as a reasonable and rational society is a different matter entirely.
The individual-centred duty is later padded out and, seemingly, expanded.
Now, “it seeks to raise the world’s poor until they are either free and equal
3 Rawls, LP. He says of the society of peoples that it is their “long-run aim to bring all societies eventually to honor the Law of Peoples and become full members in good standing of the society of well-ordered peoples” (93). Later he claims of development assistance that “[o]nly burdened societies need help” (106).
4 Ibid., 111.
5 Ibid., 116.
citizens of a reasonably liberal society or members of a decent hierarchical society.”6
Although these two responsibilities are correlated to a large extent, they do not overlap perfectly. Stable or well-functioning societies, at least reasonably so, do not necessarily need to secure the human rights and basic needs for all their citizens, provided that the poverty and rights violations that do occur are not substantial enough to destabilise the country as a whole. The number of people left out could potentially be quite substantial. But on the other hand, if the world’s poorest people must be elevated to the status of free and equal citizens of their respective societies, it follows that it is not enough for those societies to simply be stable or well-functioning.
So which of these two readings is the more plausible one? Here there is some disagreement. Samuel Freeman, on the one hand, stands firmly in the institutional camp, saying that “the domestic justice of all member nations is not a condition of justice in well-ordered societies.”7 If international justice does not presuppose domestic justice, it would follow that international society does not require its members to ensure proper and full membership for all their citizens, and that the law of peoples therefore does not look out for the interests of the individuals. Peoples must still meet basic needs and human rights, and be ruled by a common conception of the good, as per usual. But a people can be a respected member of the society of peoples without “even respecting basic liberties,
6 Ibid., 119.
7 Samuel Freeman, “The Law of Peoples, Social Cooperation, Human Rights, and Distributive Justice,” Social Philosophy & Policy 23, no. 1 (2006): 30.
so long as it respects human rights.”8 Leif Wenar, too, argues that the law of peoples is primarily about the justice of societies. To him, peoples are
“good neighbours”.9 Like good neighbours, you keep an eye out for anything beyond the pale, but other than that you keep to your own affairs.
So when another country intervenes to stop human rights abuses or provide aid it is not for the sake of the persons harmed. The goal, simply, is to bring the society back above the minimal threshold of decency.10
By contrast, in David Reidy’s reading of Rawls the focus is on the individual. He says that “persons have a fundamental interest in and are entitled to membership within a well-ordered people [… which] will all meet in regular and reliable ways the subsistence and security needs of their members, afford their members formal justice and the core elements of the rule of law, [… protect] those human rights set out in Articles 3-18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and organize political life on constitutionalist, consultative and broadly republican terms. Of course, liberal democracies will do more. But all well-ordered peoples will do this much.”11 Thus, Reidy says, contra Rawls’s critics, his theory is far from indifferent to the plight of the global poor. Consequently, “Rawls’s duty of assistance is a substantial duty of justice, more demanding than is generally acknowledged.”12 It is also more demanding than Freeman and Wenar’s reading of the same text.
8 Ibid., 30–31.
9 Wenar, “Not a Cosmopolitan,” 98.
10 Ibid., 101.
11 Reidy, “Just Global Economy,” 219. Reidy gives no specific justification for leaving out Articles 1-2 and 19-30 of the Declaration.
12 Ibid., 201.
But accepting that the goal was to raise all members to the status of free and equal citizens, it is not quite clear what that actually means.
Perfect freedom and equality is a tall order. Even in the wealthiest nations in the world, perhaps not counting rare exceptions like Norway or Iceland, there are individuals who find themselves so far down the socio-economic ladder that their status as free, let alone equal, members of society must be seriously questioned. Yet everyone would surely agree that a country like the UK has no claim to international assistance. But where do we draw the line? This is much more than just a theoretical question. India is a case in point. In 2011 a public debate raged in the UK about its annual aid budget of £295 million to a country in which half of children are malnourished, but which grows at a rate of close to 10% per year and, as aid critics were especially keen to point out, has its own space programme.13 Establishing the cut-off point for development, regardless of how the duties are grounded, will be a difficult task indeed.
To sum up, the Rawlsian duty of development is grounded in two ways. First, it is defined as a responsibility to establish a (minimally) liberal or decent world order. The duty is therefore to lift societies as a whole, not necessarily with reference to individuals. The second is a duty to preserve human rights and basic needs, which is a duty that we owe to individual citizens of burdened societies. It is still unclear just how demanding these duties are, however. That depends on what counts as human rights and basic needs, what the “coverage” of these rights needs to
13 BBC, “Who, What, Why: Why Does the UK Give Aid to India?,” 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12607537.
be in each country and, for the general duty of development, how you define the cut-off point for membership in the society of peoples.