Nagel and Sovereignty

“[T]he nation-state is the primary locus of political legitimacy and the pursuit of justice, and it is one of the advantages of domestic political theory that nation-states actually exist” (PPA 113)

Nagel seems to show his hand with this quote. Especially in its practical aspects, I can’t help but agree with Nagel’s thesis that a global body with centralized powers would allow for a much more expedient implementation of global justice. However there are a few nagging doubts in the back of my head: Nagel’s reliance on Hobbesian theory may not suit his purposes, for while it is Hobbes’ conviction that life before the nation-state was “nasty, brutish and short”, this is not necessarily supported by the archeological/anthropological evidence and it might be argued that the thousands of years of existence of hunter/gatherer tribes before the nation-state arises suggests that humans, while not “benevolent” creatures in the moral sense, might have a capacity for helping one another beyond theories of justice or legality. This would then suggest that a sovereign global political entity might not be an absolute necessity in perpetuating global justice, that we could possibly rely on a slow but steadily improving network of NGO’s, in conjunction with helpful government programs, to help out those in dire need. At least there seems to be a possibility (a possibility that seems to be already in the process of actualization), one that might be more palatable than a centrally sovereign global political body.