Decent Peace in The Law of Peoples and Beyond

Rawls’s duty of assistance and relative deprivation: Why less is more and more is even more

“…Notwithstanding the fact that in a hierarchical society there must be some marginalized groups that, due to class, race, nationality, religion or gender, are not entitled to claim the same rights as those higher up in the hierarchy (Hayden, 2002: 131–132), there have been some, for Saudi Arabian standards, ambitious reforms under the crown prince and de-facto leader Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, giving women the right to vote, stand in elections, attend sporting events, compete in the Olympics and, most recently, drive a car. One might therefore call Saudi Arabia an ‘aspiring decent society’ (Förster, 2014), even more so when one considers that Rawls treats decent hierarchical societies as an ideal type so that there ‘may not be any given society that exactly embodies all his criteria’ (Doyle, 2006: 120). In fact, ‘[i]f we set the standards very high, neither [a just nor a decent society] exists’ (Rawls, 1999: 75).…”