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Within contemporary legal and political philosophy there is nothing more unpopular than defending a world state. It seems food for thought for writers like Huxley or Wells, but not a topic that deserves serious philosophical reflection. Fortunately, there are exceptions to this general rule. Theorists such as Höffe, Cabrera, Deudney and Yunker defend a version of a multilayered minimal world state – a model based on the dual principles of federalism and subsidiarity. The focus of this article is on the very fragile balance that proponents of this model have to keep between a simultaneous need for centralization and decentralization. On the basis of a critical analysis of the work of these theorists, it is argued in this article that the safeguards these authors defend to prevent a bloating of government themselves contain a tendency to hierarchical centralization. While some form of world state might be necessary to cope with the challenges posed by globalization, it is essential to discuss the shape and competences of the world state much more critically and in more detail than has been the case in the past.

In The Law of Peoples (1999), John Rawls's goal is to develop a theory of international justice that will be acceptable to both liberal & decent hierarchical peoples. His "law of peoples" tries to extend the general idea of the social contract to a reasonably just "society of peoples," & to describe a minimal moral threshold of decency. According to many critics, however, Rawls omits from his law of peoples certain political principles & ideas that are necessary preconditions for a sound theory of international justice. In this paper, we try to show that although all these critics deal either directly or indirectly with Rawls's idea of reason & his conception of the self, they fail to provide a thorough analysis of either. Without such an analysis, this kind of criticism not only is unable to present a convincing argument against Rawls's theory of international justice, but also loses sight of the fact that a valid argument against Rawls's theory has to start with his theory of justice & political liberalism. 18 References. Adapted from the source document.