Common Justice: Interpolitical Thought in Western, Indian, and Chinese Traditions

Abstract

This dissertation explores the history of normative deliberations and debates over ideas of justice between peoples and polities in Western, Indian, and Chinese traditions. It first cross-examines three sets of relational norms between collective others: what communities owe to each other as ‘hosts’ and ‘guests,’ the nexus of love and justice in interpolitical relations, and alternative arguments for the unity of ethics and expediency in the space between states. It then moves to discuss the possibility of sharing norms within and across cultural and territorial boundaries, often in extraordinary times of conflicts. Peacetime relations, on the other hand, are structured by institutional arrangements based on competing ideas of contracts and treaties in the three thought-worlds of interstate encounters. Finally, the dissertation makes a case for a ‘collaborative hermeneutic’ between distinct traditions of interpolitical thought. It argues that a key step to global justice is to add the dangerous art of interpretation to our work-in-progress of toleration. Interrogating and interpreting our normative commitments in the company of collective others opens new spaces of mutual learning, in quest of justice in both multicultural societies and international politics.