Giustizia senza diritto

The essay discusses the issue of the relationship between justice and law in Rawls, questioning the reasons of his inadequate theoretical consideration of the ÇjuridicalÈ. Law for Rawls is a substantially practical dimension, in which criteria of justice are applied that belong and are discussed elsewhere, on the basis of pure rationalistic moral philosophy, separated and self-sufficient. From this point derives the misrecognition of the original and conditioning logical-conceptual value of modern legitimate power and formal law. In Diritto dei popoli some quite disputable theoretical assumptions attract the attention: the fact that the domestic analogy is not considered problematic in itself, the fact that the effectivity principle is put on one side, the use of ambiguous notions such as Çdecent peoplesÈ, Çrogue-statesÈ. Rawls does not take into consideration the fact that the issue in international politics in not that of the Just, but the absence of a Third party. Or better: that the definition of what is politically ÇjustÈ and as such deserving to be realized is possible only once the problem of the Third is solved, a solution which can come only through an institutional response. Otherwise, in the name of ÇjusticeÈ, feeding that self contraddiction of universalism which simmetrically produces totalitarian, belligerent and ethnocentric drifts, we run the risk to legitimize an asimmetrical and antijurical globalism.

Geminello Preterossi, Giustizia senza diritto in "TEORIA POLITICA" 2-3/2003, pp , DOI: