tates (the rational agents), despite observable differences in the way rights are exercised and conceived from state to state, can agree on and abide by the same law of peoples.
Jones's critique of Rawls on the law of peoples begins with an extensive summary of Rawls's argument. Jones turns to criticism of the lecture by citing difficulties that arise from Rawls's insistence that a common law of peoples can be derived from liberal political and hierarchical societies as long as they are each well ordered. What that comes down to, as Jones indicates, is a determination to respect "each society's own values." Meanwhile, Rawls "claims to work from ideas that are the common currency of the international community" (Jones 194). But this creates a fundamental problem:
[I]f he accepts the legitimacy of every practice and institution that a culture might sanction or a people endorse, he risks tolerating too much. If, on the other hand, he limits the forms of society that are tolerable, he can be accused of imposing values upo
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