Michael Geronimo Festl

The article explicates how the pragmatic account of justice which is called ‘justice as historic experimentalism’ can be applied to the debate on global justice. Thereby the article investigates the role that normative justifications of the nation state ought to play in global theories of justice. It argues that one distinctive element of pragmatic approaches, as opposed to the dominant approaches in the field of global justice, is that arguments on the role of the nation state do not occupy a central position. Rather, it is concrete problems of justice and their experimental and historic examination that guide the pragmatist inquiry. The role of the nation state has to fall in line. The problem of global economic inequalities is invoked to illustrate the merits of the pragmatist approach to justice here presented.