ABSTRACT
Maximalist morality has embedded in it minimalist meanings that become liberated only during periods of crisis.4 It is these minimalist meanings that constitute the thin universalism that enables us vicariously to march in each others’ parades, but which does not enable us to reach substantive conclusions about distributive justice. Walzer, in fact, posits the idea of an international society which he grounds, not on a natural or a hypothetical contract in a Rawlsian original position, but on ideals and principles that have become commonly accepted by leaders of states and their citizens. This is because he at once wants to endorse difference while subscribing to a ‘thin’ universalism. Thin universalism enables us to talk in terms of ‘international society’ as a ‘very weak regime’. There is a society of states tolerant of each others’ behaviour as sovereign states, but it is not based upon the shared meanings associated with a thick morality.5
