Between Minimalism and Maximalism in Theories of Global Justice: Is a Middle Ground Approach Possible?

Contemporary in International Relations two main approaches clash among liberal theories of global justice: minimalism (Rawls, Miller, Walzer etc.) on the one hand and maximalism (Pogge, Beitz, Archibugi, etc.) on the other hand. Analysis of the relationship between these approaches in a search of the possible common ground at the level of justification and at the level of outcome reveals third way – which I call conciliarism. Authors belonging to this set ( Valentini, Risse, Linklater) try to go beyond minimalism and maximalism. In my presentation I focus on these mediation proposals and analyze possible strong and weak points of them, examining their argumentative structure as well as their ontological and axiological assumptions. My main aim is to discuss the limits of conciliar approach in global justice. Representatives of the approach like the minimalist, recognize that the principle of distributive justice exist in domestic relations. However, contrary to them, they argue that even in a supranational perspective there are situations or areas where it is necessary to apply egalitarian principle of distributive justice. Nevertheless, this perspective does not support fully legal and institutional project of the maximalists expressed for example in the form of a world state. Such methodological strategy of mediation between models of minimal and maximal global justice in conciliarism is problematic, because apart from the author’s declarations, they lack clear criteria distinguishing them from the proposals they argue with. Thus, I would like to show that these theories are burden of aporeticity, which can be overcome only to a small extend if we stick to the framework of liberal ontological and axiological assumption.