International Ethics

Résumé : Les domaines de la philosophie et de la théorie politique ont connu un certain nombre de changements au cours des quarante dernières années. L'un attire notre attention tout particulièrement ; le basculement d'un point de vue national, cristallisé par le contrat social rawlsien, vers un point de vue non-national. En effet, plusieurs penseurs abordent un ensemble de phénomènes considérés comme nouveaux, tels que les traités de libre commerce et l'économie globale, les entreprises et les institutions supra et transnationales, (...) l'immigration et les contrôles frontaliers etc. Ces changements sont intéressants puisqu'ils obéissent, principalement, à une évolution majeure du terrain politique et social que l'on appelle mondialisation. Les théoriciens travaillant dans le domaine de la justice globale semblent s'adresser à deux questions différentes mais reliées. La première concerne la justice globale : dans quelle mesure et pourquoi l'ordre mondial est-il juste ou injuste ? Qu'est-ce qu'un ordre global juste ? La deuxième est dans un sens corollaire à la première, et concerne la responsabilité : qui devrait être blâmé ou digne d'éloge pour l'ordre mondial ? Est-ce que les citoyens sont responsables de l'ordre mondial ? Qui devrait redresser ses éventuelles conséquences injustes ? Face à l'économie mondialisée et aux institutions politiques et économiques internationales et trans-nationales, cette interrogation devient légitime et nécessaire : suis-je responsable à l'égard des travailleurs des sweat shop lorsque j'achète des habits à Auchan ou bien à l'égard des caféiculteurs très mal payés lorsque je prends un capuccino dans un café Starbucks ? Est-ce que les citoyens sont responsables des traités de libre commerce que leurs gouvernements signent ? Ces questions sur la responsabilité des individus dans le contexte de la mondialisation seront l'enjeu de ce travail de recherche. Nous interrogerons plus exactement la responsabilité d'un agent lorsqu'il fait partie d'un chaîne causale complexe, lorsqu'il participe d'une injustice structurelle. Ainsi, il ne s'agit pas seulement d'une chaîne causale, mais de connexions qui sont l'issue d'un changement des modes de productions, de consommation et de la concurrence dans un marché mondialisé. Plus important encore, il ne s'agit pas simplement de la responsabilité individuelle mais plutôt de la responsabilité individuelle en tant que citoyen, et donc d'une responsabilité politique. Elle peut certes être individuelle, mais nous devons tenir compte du fait qu'elle doit être pensée en tant que responsabilité politique, et pas uniquement morale, puisque l'individu et ses actions sont déterminés par des communautés politiques dans lesquelles il participe, ou dans lesquelles il est représenté. Ainsi, la mondialisation nous invite à repenser la responsabilité individuelle pour pouvoir rendre compte des intuitions morales et politiques qui guident une bonne partie du champ de la justice globale. Pour cela, nous verrons dans un premier temps la manière dont les théories de la justice globale essaient de répondre à ce défit. Grâce à cela nous dégagerons l'hypothèse qui nous guidera, l'idée que dans la mondialisation, un agent peut être responsable, avec d'autres, des raisons pour lesquelles il n'est pas considéré comme responsable. C'est-à-dire qu'il sera méta-responsable. Dans un second temps, nous essaierons de déterminer un model de responsabilité individuelle, et de comprendre comment la responsabilité est attribuée. Ensuite, nous essaierons de formuler une manière de concevoir la responsabilité politique. Grâce à ces deux éléments, la responsabilité individuelle et la responsabilité politique, nous pourrons parvenir à formuler une conception de la méta-responsabilité comme forme de penser l'agentivité traversée par la mondialisation. (shrink)

This article reflects on the 'Framework Agreement' signed between the NSCN (IM) and the Government of India and the present situation of the Nagas.

Dieser Beitrag macht auf die Krise in den globalen Wertschöpfungsketten, die durch die Covid-19 Pandemie verursacht wurde, aufmerksam und gibt dazu einige Denkanstöße aus normativer Perspektive. Es wird gezeigt, dass die Pandemie ein grelles Schlaglicht auf die strukturellen Probleme der Globalisierung wirft. Zu diesen gehört die Gestaltung der globalen Marktwirtschaft über nationale, supranationale und internationale Institutionen, die in der Regel zur Benachteiligung einiger Länder und zum Vorteil für andere führt. Dies wird zunächst am Beispiel der Textilindustrie von Bangladesch erläutert. Danach (...) wird das Problem der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit aus der Perspektive der strukturellen Ungerechtigkeit betrachtet. Der Beitrag befasst sich in diesem Zusammenhang mit den systematischen Problemen entlang der globalen Lieferketten. (shrink)

I revisit themes from Against Borders: Why the World Needs Free Movement of People(2020) in dialogue with Gillian Brock’s Justice of People on the Move(2020) and Sarah Song’sImmigration and Democracy (2019). We share the conviction that current border regimes are deeply unjust but differ in what migration justice requires. Brock and Song continue to give states significant discretion to exclude people from entering and settling in their territories, whereas I contend that migration justice demands open borders. I reject the claim (...) that state self-determination justifies migration restrictions. Central arguments for open borders high-light the role that restrictive border controls and the state category of‘immigrant’ play in upholding racialised hierarchies and exploitative economic relations, as well as in inflicting violence against mobile people. (shrink)

Academics working on military ethics and serving military personnel rarely have opportunities to talk to each other in ways that can inform and illuminate their respective experiences and approaches to the ethics of war. The workshop from which this paper evolved was a rare opportunity to remedy this problem. Our conversations about First Lieutenant (1LT) Portis’s experiences in combat provided a unique chance to explore questions about the relationship between oversight, accountability, and the idea of moral risk in military operations. (...) In this paper, we outline a particular experience of 1LT Portis’s that formed the basis of our discussions, before elucidating the ethical issues this experience raised. In particular, we see 1LT Portis’s experience as, first, illustrative of the problem of moral risk – when military personnel are placed in situations of moral temptation. The problem of moral risk, we propose, is best understood through the framework of the military’s duty of care. Second, we see his experience as highlighting tensions within the dominant moralized warrior model of the military profession. What we call a toxic warrior identity — a distorted form of the moralized warrior identity — can negatively affect the attitudes of military personnel toward rules, policies, procedures, and accountability mechanisms, particularly in relation to non-combat related roles and duties and when leaders must choose between competing bureaucratic demands. We see 1LT Portis’s experience as illustrative of these tensions, yet his experiences also highlight important concerns about the impact of increasing bureaucratic demands on military functioning. In the conclusion, we address the need to balance concerns about toxic warrior identity with legitimate criticisms of overly demanding bureaucracy and suggest avenues for further research on this issue. (shrink)

The ethics of immigration is currently marked by a division between realists and idealists. The idealists generally focus on formulating morally ideal immigration policies. The realists, however, tend to dismiss these ideals as far-fetched and infeasible. In contrast to the idealists, the realists seek to resolve pressing practical issues relating to immigration, principally by advancing what they consider to be actionable policy recommendations. In this article, I take issue with this conception of realism. I begin by surveying the way in (...) which it exemplifies what certain political theorists have recently called ‘problem-solving’ realism – a species of realism which they reject as incoherent. These theorists demonstrate that what counts as a ‘feasible’ solution is far harder to establish than most problem-solving realists would have us believe. Applying this general critique to the specific domain of immigration ethics turns out to radically undermine the notion of realism that prevails in this sphere of applied ethics. I conclude that we should therefore revise our conception of what constitutes a genuinely realist approach to the problem of immigration. (shrink)

Reply to commentators: Symposium on the winner of the 2019 NASSP Book Award Prize: Yvonne Chiu, *Conspiring with the Enemy: The Ethic of Cooperation in Warfare* (Columbia University Press, 2019).

Hannah Arendt’s fierce critique of sovereignty, along with her excavation of Greek agonism, has gained much traction among critical theorists of international politics who revisit the basic assumptions of conventional international theories, such as state sovereignty and power as domination. This paper engages with an increasingly popular stream within such critical international studies that appropriates Arendt’s agonism to envision a form of a global public acting in concert. I argue that Arendt’s thoughts cannot be reduced to a radical vision of (...) agonistic cosmo-politics. Rather, her thinking suggests that political actors appreciate and care for their public worlds while remaining alert to institutional ossification. Her appreciation of the constitutional state confirms that state agency is an important element of her thoughts. By examining the vicissitudes of publicity found in Arendt’s thinking and their reflexive effect on inter-polity relations, the article elucidates the grounds of her international agonism and brings home a form of international politics where states pursuing the domestic goal of greatness coexist and cooperate. Thus, the study suggests that critical scholars of radical agonism miss the important implications of an “institutional” Arendt for international politics. (shrink)

International relations (IR) scholars have increasingly integrated Hannah Arendt into their works. Her fierce critique of the conventional ideas of politics driven by rulership, enforcement, and violence has a particular resonance for theorists seeking to critically revisit the basic assumptions of IR scholarship. Arendt’s thinking, however, contains complexity and nuance that need careful treatment when extended beyond domestic politics. In particular, Arendt’s vision of free politics—characterized by the dualistic emphasis on agonistic action and institutional stability—raises two crucial issues that need (...) further elaboration for IR research that appropriates her thinking. One involves the orientation of her international thoughts. Although Arendt shows “idealistic” aspirations for authentic politics practiced by diverse equals in an institutionally articulated space of freedom, she never loses interest in the extant situation of “non-idealistic” politics. Engaging with Arendt’s theory orientation requires a careful analysis of difficult topics, such as her distinctive conception of the political and her critiques of the nation-state and international law. The other topic that needs clarification when Arendt’s thoughts are applied to IR involves specific ways of associating different sites of power. A close examination of Arendt’s council-based federalism reveals her distinctive idea of international politics, based on her acute awareness of the fundamental complexity that lies in power association and state agency. Bringing IR topics like state agency into conversation with her works generates illuminating questions for Arendt scholarship. Likewise, the ongoing debate on agonistic and institutional features of Arendt’s thoughts can provide crucial insights into critical studies of international politics. (shrink)

El concepto de desarrollo humano del Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD) surge en 1990 como una crítica a la consideración de la economía como el fin último de los esfuerzos del desarrollo. En la visión del PNUD, la economía es considerada un fin relativo, es decir, un fin y un medio para el desarrollo humano. Al considerar, por su parte, el fin del desarrollo humano, este es identificado con el ensanchamiento de las opciones y libertades de (...) que gozan los individuos. En este sentido, este concepto de desarrollo humano hace alusión a una práctica política más que a un entendimiento ético-ontológico del ser humano, evitando referirse a desarrollo humano entendido como un desarrollo del ser humano. Este artículo explora los antecedentes del concepto del desarrollo humano del PNUD y los fines que consideran estos enfoques previos. Se observa que la consideración subjetivista del PNUD proviene de la teoría de Amartya Sen, quien queda sujeto a la crítica objetivista de Martha Nussbaum al no considera un fin objetivo para los asuntos humanos, crítica que puede de igual manera aplicarse al concepto de desarrollo humano del PNUD. (shrink)

Government transparency and accountability during Covid 19: The data underpinning decisions.

Government transparency and accountability during Covid 19: The data underpinning decisions.

Call for Written evidence - Risk Assessment and Risk Planning.

Call for evidence Written evidence - Data Transparency and Accountability: Covid 19 -/- .

AI systems that demonstrate significant bias or lower than claimed accuracy, and resulting in individual and societal harms, continue to be reported. Such reports beg the question as to why such systems continue to be funded, developed and deployed despite the many published ethical AI principles. This paper focusses on the funding processes for AI research grants which we have identified as a gap in the current range of ethical AI solutions such as AI procurement guidelines, AI impact assessments and (...) AI audit frameworks. We highlight the responsibilities of funding bodies to ensure investment is channelled towards trustworthy and safe AI systems and provides case studies as to how other ethical funding principles are managed. We offer a first sight of two proposals for funding bodies to consider regarding procedures they can employ. The first proposal is for the inclusion of a Trustworthy AI Statement’ section in the grant application form and offers an example of the associated guidance. The second proposal outlines the wider management requirements of a funding body for the ethical review and monitoring of funded projects to ensure adherence to the proposed ethical strategies in the applicants Trustworthy AI Statement. The anticipated outcome for such proposals being employed would be to create a ‘stop and think’ section during the project planning and application procedure requiring applicants to implement the methods for the ethically aligned design of AI. In essence it asks funders to send the message “if you want the money, then build trustworthy AI!”. (shrink)

A Critical Notice of Economic Statecraft: Human Rights, Sanctions, and Conditionality, by Cécile Fabre.

In international law and the ethics of war, there are a variety of actions which are seen as particularly problematic and presumed to be always or inherently wrong, or in need of some overwhelmingly strong justification to override the presumption against them. One of these actions is assassination, in particular, assassination of heads of state. In this essay I argue that the presumption against assassination is incorrect. In particular, I argue that if in a given scenario war is justified, then (...) assassination of the enemy state's leader is also justified, and in fact ought to be pursued as a means short of war. I defend this position on both consequential and deontic grounds, arguing that assassination is both more discriminate than war and serves to harm only those most responsible for the situation which justifies war in the first place. I conclude by arguing that a norm of assassination, far from being a destabilizing force, as some have argued, would in fact serve to reinforce international norms of rights and respect for persons by making clear that tyrants and would-be oppressors cannot hide behind military forces or notions of sovereignty to protect themselves from judgment and retribution. (shrink)

This chapter criticizes several methods of responding to the techniques foreign powers are widely acknowledged to be using to subvert U.S. elections. It suggests that countries do this when they have a legitimate stake in each other’s political deliberations, but no formal voice in them. It also suggests that if they accord each other such a voice, they will engage as co-deliberators with arguments, rather than trying to undermine each other’s deliberative processes; and that this will be salutary for all (...) parties. It moots several methods for giving nations such a voice, ranging from inviting representatives of foreign powers to participate in debates in each other’s high-level elections, to having representatives of all nations vote in each other’s key elections or legislative bodies, or in international bodies constituted in recognition of the need for binding global deliberation about shared issues. (shrink)

Governments around the world have faced the challenge of how to respond to the recent outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease. Some have reacted by greatly restricting the freedom of citizens, while others have opted for less drastic policies. In this paper, I draw a parallel with vaccination ethics to conceptualize two distinct approaches to COVID-19 that I call altruistic and lockdown. Given that the individual measures necessary to limit the spread of the virus can in principle be achieved voluntarily (...) as well as through enforcement, the question arises of how much freedom governments ought to give citizens to adopt the required measures. I argue that an altruistic approach is preferable on moral grounds: it preserves important citizen freedoms, avoids a number of potential injustices, and gives people a much-needed sense of meaning in precarious times. (shrink)

The European ideals – as well as the idea of Europe per se – are faced with a serious challenge due to recent migration crisis: it is not just the reflexes, the effectiveness and the policies, but also the consistency, the principles and the justification of the notion of the European Union that is in stake. Kant’s concept of universal hospitality could probably provide a good way out of this conundrum: while hospitality has largely been viewed as a solidarity-related imperfect (...) duty towards others, that is, a less compelling duty that allows moral agents for certain latitude concerning the occasions and the degree of its implementation, Kant’s views allow for a totally different perspective, and, in my view, a much more philosophically nuanced one: hospitality might also be considered as an autonomy-based duty owed to others, and in this respect could count as a perfect, morally compelling duty. To the extent that the concept of Europe consists in humanitarian ideals that are based upon a strong philosophical humanistic tradition, I consider my claim to be in perfect harmony with the true spirit of Europe. (shrink)

It deals with the issue of the CAA and NRC in India.

The credit crises experienced in the US in year 2008 is labeled as perhaps the most significant crises since the great depression. The roots of the crises were found in the default of the sub-prime mortgages and the failure occurred in both the US and the UK. Due to the integrated nature of international financial systems the spillover impacted many countries as the economies in Asia and Europe were purchasers of the sub-prime mortgages that originated in both UK and US. (...) The impact of the credit crises in Canada is of unique importance due to the close proximity to US, and both the US and Canada being of great strategic importance to each other as well as one of the largest trading partners.Even though the international financial credit crises adversely impacted many countries, the evidence that has come across recent years point towards the conclusion that Canada was able to weather the crises much better than many other countries. (shrink)

The categorization of disasters as natural or manmade does little for our understanding of the moral stakes of institutions and collectives involved in the aftermath of disasters. This paper presents a brief account of how disasters can be understood philosophically taking cues from studies in sociology. Having articulated the gap in conceptualizing disasters, the paper argues that an interpretation of disasters as “events of social suffering,” will help foreground the complex moral and phenomenological nature of such events to prompt a (...) more ethical response from institutions and collectives. (shrink)

A recently developed view in political theory holds that only political agents, particularly states, can be primary bearers of human-rights duties. Problematically, this so-called ‘political view’ appears unable to account for the human-rights responsibilities of powerful non-state actors, such as transnational corporations (TNCs). Can a recognizably political view respond to this concern? I show that, once the moral underpinnings of the political view are made explicit, it can. I suggest that, on the political view, what makes states primary bearers of (...) human-rights duties is their possession of both (i) the capacity to fulfill human right and (ii) what I call the ‘authority-plus-sovereignty package’. Building on the existing literature on the moral responsibilities of TNCs, I argue that some TNCs—especially in areas of weak governance—meet these two conditions. I thus conclude that they count as bearers of primary human-rights responsibilities even from within a political perspective on human rights. (shrink)

This paper examines the tensions at play in three important documents involved in the ‘war on terror’: the “Application of Treaties” White House Legal Counsel Memo of 2001, the “National Security Strategy” document of 2002, and the 2004 Supreme Court decision Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. Reading these documents, it becomes clear that there is an overarching misunderstanding and confusion of the traditionally separate concepts of ‘criminal’ and ‘enemy’ in the struggle against globalized terrorism.

Conditional pacifism is the view that war is morally justified if and only if it satisfies the condition of not causing serious harm or death to innocent persons. Modern war cannot satisfy this condition, and is thus always unjustified. The main response to this position is that the moral presumption against harming or killing innocents is overridden in certain cases by the moral presumption against allowing innocents to be harmed or killed. That is, as harmful as modern war is, it (...) can be morally justified as a lesser evil when it alone can prevent great harm to innocents. This paper proposes that extreme cases in which only war can prevent great harm to innocents may be morally tragic. In some cases it may be both wrong to wage war to prevent great harm and wrong to fail to prevent that great harm. (shrink)

This is a review of Serena Parekh's book: Refugees and the Ethics of Forced Displacement.

In contemporary academic, political, and media discourse, terrorism is typically portrayed as an existential threat to lives and states, a threat driven by religious extremists who seek the destruction of Western civilization and who are immune to reason and negotiation. In many countries, including the US, the UK, and Australia, this existential threat narrative of terrorism has been used to justify sweeping counterterrorism legislation, as well as military operations and even the use of tactics such as torture and indefinite detention. (...) In this chapter I outline the components of the existential threat narrative, and explain how critical terrorism scholars have critiqued this narrative on two main grounds: that it is based on false empirical claims about the nature, scale, and motivations of modern non-state terrorism, and that counterterrorism policies and practices based on this narrative have had extremely destructive consequences for individuals, communities, and states—in some cases, causing far more destruction than terrorism itself. In the final section I offer some suggestions for the direction of future terrorism research in light of these critiques of the existential threat narrative. (shrink)

Contemporary proponents of republican political theory often focus on the concept of freedom as non-domination, and how best to promote it within a state. However, there is little attention paid to what the republican conception of freedom demands in the international realm. In this essay I examine what is required for an agent to enjoy freedom as non-domination, and argue that this might only be achieved for individuals if one of two possibilities is pursued internationally: either (1) all nations are (...) made equally powerful, such that none may arbitrarily impose its will on another without penalty, or (2) all nations are joined under a global sovereign which guarantees that the weaker states are not subject to the whims of the stronger. I further argue that the first condition cannot suffice for achieving true non-domination, and as a result, republicanism must prescribe working toward the establishment of a global state. This paper provides an important contribution to the literature by addressing the international implications of the republican conception of freedom. (shrink)

In this article I challenge the positivist view that ethical statements are merely an expression of our emotions or preferences. I consider a moral statement, “Killing innocent civilians is wrong,” and argue that such a statement is a truthful moral norm. I show that what is fundamental to agreement in the realm of both facts and morals is a commonly shared attitude that determines human relatedness to the world. Scientific knowledge is a partial knowledge based on indifference, the state of (...) mind that constitutes scientific attitude. However, knowledge in morals does not presuppose indifference, but love. Once we accept that our thoughts and feelings are not incommunicable, we can arrive at inter-subjective and non-objective moral knowledge which results from our recognition of others as persons and our affective engagement with the world. (shrink)

It was a precious opportunity as a teacher and researcher that I had completed two research method classes with the peers of Laureate Education Inc. Since the generation of creative knowledge and meaningful contribution to the field is charged on the professional researcher, the classes are foundational, but unfortunately with less an attention by the scholars, and, if more problematically, even lack of courses for some graduate or training programs. Within this paper, I can be gladly reminiscent of the course (...) learning, and can present a work of demonstration by employing the issues of global college rankings. In this article, my purpose is gone with three basic aims; (i) present the brief summary of my experience on the two method classes (ii) suggest a new perspective and mindset within the changing technology and post-modern transformation of society (iii) finally show two examples of mixed method involved with the global college rankings and provide a view for the students situated within the temporal boundary I had set forth. (shrink)

This article has been on ways by which developing countries can go back to the basics of project management as a means for developmental goals. Project management has proven to be an effective and flexible management approach, which has the potential of being of great value to developing countries. There is a need for a stronger emphasis on project implementation as a training mechanism for developing indigenous skills. Improved planning, administrative and technical capacity must be defined as project outputs. The (...) need for highly trained development administrators, especially those with project management skills, is a recurring theme of international assistance evaluation reports. Developing countries require two types of trained project administrators: those who can plan and coordinate the entire project cycle as an integrated process and those who can manage the project as an organizational entity once it is selected and approved (Rondinelli, 1976). (shrink)

This note evaluates the claim of Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of Our Nature that the advent of strong states led to a decline in violence. I test this claim in the modern context, measuring the effect of the strength of government in lower-income countries on reductions in homicide rates. The strength of government is measured using Polity IV, Worldwide Governance Indicators, and government consumption as a percentage of GDP. The data do not support Pinker’s hypothesis.

1. How do human organizations, as designed by humans, govern polities? -/- Current web-site analyses indicate that the medical-sites register the heaviest use. Humans are concerned with their health in a variety of iterations. If you will, it is the choice of the marketplace. But, humans must tend to the business of life. The humans live in communities, which necessarily choose definitions for their polities. Polities cannot exist without explicitly appointed and generally known socio-legal laws. In defining those rules, societies (...) decide how they are going to be organized and ruled---either consciously or by default---and how the common functions of the community are going to be financed. (shrink)

In this paper, I present an analysis of the “windows into reality” that are used in theories of global justice with a focus on issues of epistemic injustice and the powerlessness of the global poor. I argue that we should aim for a better understanding of global poverty through acknowledging people living in poverty as epistemic subjects. To achieve this, we need to deepen and broaden the knowledge base of theories of global justice and approach the subject through methodologies of (...) “thinking small” and “thick descriptions”, which are ways to give people living in poverty sufficient room to express themselves and have their voices heard, leading to “small” and “thick” knowledge claims. (shrink)

The world of academic philosophy is now entering a new age, one defined neither by colonial need for recognition nor by postcolonial wish to integrate. The indicators of this new era include heightened appreciation of the value of world philosophies, the internationalization of the student body, the philosophical pluralism which interaction and migration in new global movements make salient, growing concerns about diversity within a still too-white faculty body and curricular canon, and identification of a range of deep structural problems (...) with the contemporary philosophical academy in its discursive, citational, refereeing and ranking practices. We are entering what we might call " the age of " re-emergence, " a new period the key features of which are as follows. First, philosophies from every region of the world, locally grounded in lived experience and reflection upon it, are finding new autonomous and authentic forms of articulation. Second, philosophical industry, leaving behind a center-periphery mode of production, is becoming again polycentric: the philosophical world is returning to a plural and diverse network of productive sites. Third, Europe and other colonial powers have been provincialized, no longer mandatory conversation partners or points of comparison but rather unprivileged participants in global dialogue. Fourth, philosophers within the largely Anglophone international academy are beginning to acknowledge their responsibility to arrange international institutions to enable wide and open participation; that is, acknowledge that their control over the academy is a fallout from colonialism rather than a reflection of intellectual superiority. We may thus look to a future when there will be a vibrant pluralistic realism in departments of academic philosophy around the globe, and a new cartography of philosophy. (shrink)

El artículo explora algunos de los principales rasgos políticos de la época globalizada y defiende la necesidad de entidades políticas representativas que superen el marco del Estado nación. A continuación se pregunta bajo qué presupuestos ético-políticos podría defenderse un modelo político-jurídico global para un mundo axiológicamente diverso y qué concepciones políticas y valores podrían proponerse como referente normativo para una gobernanza global cuya meta habría de ser el ejercicio legítimo del poder. Teniendo en cuenta las dificultades de tal empresa, se (...) presentan posibles estrategias y razones que invitan a considerar que la posibilidad de un acuerdo global no es del todo implausible. (shrink)

Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), which include local food and Fair Trade, work to mitigate some of the many shortcomings of mainstream food systems. If AFNs have the potential to make the world’s food systems more just and sustainable (and otherwise virtuous) then we may have good reasons to scale them up. Unfortunately, it may not be possible to increase the market share of AFNs while preserving their current forms. Among other reasons, this is because there are limits to both the (...) productive capacities of small owner-operated farms and to the distribution capacities of Farmers Markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). These limits tell in favor of AFN partnerships with larger producers and distributors. But some advocates of AFNs have worried that these partnerships would sacrifice too much. (shrink)

Climate change appears to be a classic aggregation problem, in which billions of individuals perform actions none of which seem to be morally wrong taken in isolation, and yet which combine to drive the global concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) ever higher toward environmental (and humanitarian) catastrophe. When an individual can choose between actions that will emit differing amounts of GHGs―such as to choose a vegan rather than carnivorous meal, to ride a bike to work rather than drive a car, (...) or to take a reusable bag to the supermarket rather than send another plastic bag to landfill―does she have any reason to choose the lower-emitting actions? In this chapter I'll reject the claim that individuals don't make a difference when it comes to climate change. I first discuss making a difference with every action, as a way of getting clearer about how individuals' actions impact causally on the harms resulting from climate change, making a distinction so far overlooked in the climate ethics discussion between 'macro' thresholds like ice-cap melt, and 'micro' thresholds like severe weather events. I set aside making a difference with every action as implausible, and then move on to discuss both low probability of major difference, and high probability of minor difference. I argue that both of these are plausible characterizations of individuals' causal contributions to climate change. I conclude by noting some policy implications of having (probabilistic) individual difference-making back in play. (shrink)

Citizens of liberal, affluent societies are regularly encouraged to support reforms meant to improve conditions for badly-off people in the developing world. Our economic and political support is solicited for causes such as: banning child labor, implementing universal primary education, closing down sweatshops and brothels, etc. But what if the relevant populations or individuals in the developing world do not support these particular reforms or aid programs? What if they would strongly prefer other reforms and programs, or would rank the (...) various benefits that might be offered differently than seems reasonable to the Western, liberal supporters of these campaigns and organizations? What is the proper liberal response here? I argue that the proper liberal response is to support those programs and reforms that the global poor most value. The bulk of the paper is devoted to arguing against the popular liberal argument which states that we can safely disregard the preferences of the oppressed when they seem very unreasonable because these individuals suffer from “adaptive preferences.” This typically is taken to mean that their preferences are “not their own” in an important sense. I put forward various different proposals for why adaptive preferences can be safely dismissed, but ultimately argue that they are not persuasive. And if it is no longer legitimate to appeal to adaptive preferences as a basis for disregarding what oppressed people want, then I argue that to do so is straightforward paternalism, and so is unjustifiable in all but the most extreme cases. Finally, I argue for the following concrete recommendations: Given that resources are not infinite, we should (1) Support programs that give oppressed people increased access to information, such as access to technology, (2) support those reforms and aid programs that the oppressed themselves regard as most important, with special emphasis on those opportunities for education that they deem valuable, and (3) refrain from supporting coercive policies intended to thwart adaptive preferences. (shrink)

The key problem for normative (or moral) cultural relativism arises as soon as we try to formulate it. It resists formulations that are (1) clear, precise, and intelligible; (2) plausible enough to warrant serious attention; and (3) faithful to the aims of leading cultural relativists, one such aim being to produce an important alternative to moral universalism. Meeting one or two of these conditions is easy; meeting all three is not. I discuss twenty-four candidates for the label "cultural relativism," showing (...) that not one meets all three conditions. In the end I conclude that cultural relativists have produced nothing that threatens universalism. (shrink)

Disputes over territory are among the most contentious in human affairs. Throughout the world, societies view control over land and resources as necessary to ensure their survival and to further their particular life-style, and the very passion with which claims over a region are asserted and defended suggests that difficult normative issues lurk nearby. Questions about rights to territory vary. It is one thing to ask who owns a particular parcel of land, another who has the right to reside within (...) its boundaries and yet another to determine which individuals or groups have political rights of citizenship, sovereignty, and self-determination within it. It must also be asked how these rights—if ‘rights’ is the correct term—are acquired. When attention turns to the territorial rights of communities, national groups or states, sovereignty is the principal concern. Within international law, de facto power over a territory, say, of occupying forces or trustees, is insufficient to possess or acquire sovereignty (Brownlie, 1990, p. 111). The central conceptions underlying modern democratic thought are that sovereignty over a politically demarcated territory is vested in the resident population, and that governmental authority is derived from the consent of that population. It is simple enough to identify the latter with the citizenry of a state, but demographic and political flux makes this a loose criterion. States come and go, and sometimes a territory is stateless. Also, large-scale demographic shifts during upheavals and peacetime immigrations change the assessments of who belongs where. Does everyone residing in a place at a particular time have a right to share in its governance then? What about illegal immigrants? Presumably, sovereignty rests with the established population or.. (shrink)

Some of the barriers to the realisation of equality reflect the value of respecting prerogatives people have to favour themselves. Even G.A. Cohen, whose egalitarianism is especially pervasive and demanding, says that.

Do we have moral duties to people in distant parts of the world? If so, how demanding are these duties? And how can they be reconciled with our obligations to fellow citizens? -/- Every year, millions of people die from poverty-related causes while countless others are forced to flee their homes to escape from war and oppression. At the same time, many of us live comfortably in safe and prosperous democracies. Yet our lives are bound up with those of the (...) poor and dispossessed in multiple ways: our clothes are manufactured in Asian sweatshops; the oil that fuels our cars is purchased from African and Middle Eastern dictators; and our consumer lifestyles generate environmental changes that threaten Bangladeshi peasants with drought and famine. These facts force us to re-evaluate our conduct and to ask whether we must do more for those who have less. -/- Helping students to grapple with big questions surrounding justice, human rights, and equality, this comprehensive yet accessible textbook features chapters on a variety of pressing issues such as Immigration, International Trade, War, and Climate Change. Suitable for undergraduate and graduate students alike, the book also serves as a philosophical primer for politicians, activists, and anyone else who cares about justice. (shrink)