Abstract

As a phenomenon, as a concept, as an essential trait of human individual and collective activity, to be “global” has become a familiar commonplace. As is often the case with the familiar, it is not necessarily well understood, and as such a problematic concept, “globalization” evokes contradictory emotions of hope and anxiety. In his extremely penetrating and encompassing philosophical analysis of this notion as a complex political concept and phenomenon affecting every arena of life today, Otfried Höffe offers a vision and analysis of the need for and the constitution of a worldwide system of law and government in which the concepts of law and an order of law, human rights, justice, and peace are pivotal.