Global Ethics or Global Justice?

Contractualism collapses two questions that should be kept distinct: Who are the basic principles of society designed by? Whom are they designed for? The contracting parties are understood as forming a single group with the citizens who will be living to- gether and whose lives will be governed by agreed principles. No commitment other than moral, however, is conceivable as with non-contracting parties, who are therefore exclu- ded from institutional or “political” justice. Then, as this paper seeks to show, it would not make sense to speak of global or cosmopolitan justice unless we set aside contractualism and the condition of mutual advantage it imposes.