The Community of States

Book excerpt: This volume is a successor volume to The Reason of States. Part 1 discusses ways in which to understand the nature, possibility and limits of community beyond the state. Specific chapters are devoted to the practical attempts of statesmen, lawyers, strategists and economists to devise morally defensible international policies on the basis of interest. Part 3 challenges the conventional morality of states from alternative standpoints: Kantian morality, a reconsideration of the contemporary relevance of natural law, an examination of the concept of responsibility in international politics and an analysis of the role of language in the development of communities. .