In this article, I develop a new account of the liberal view that principles of justice are meant to justify state coercion, and consider its implications for the question of global socioeconomic justice. Although contemporary proponents of this view deny that principles of socioeconomic justice apply globally, on my newly developed account this conclusion is mistaken. I distinguish between two types of coercion, systemic and interactional, and argue that a plausible theory of global justice should contain principles justifying both. The (...) justification of interactional coercion requires principles regulating interstate interference; that of systemic coercion requires principles of global socioeconomic justice. I argue that the proposed view not only helps us make progress in the debate on global justice, but also offers an independently compelling and systematic account of the function and conditions of applicability of justice. -/-. (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum has expanded the capabilities approach to defend positive duties of justice to individuals who fall below Rawls’ standard for fully cooperating members of society, including sentient nonhuman animals. Building on this, David Schlosberg has defended the extension of capabilities justice not only to individual animals but also to entire species and ecosystems. This is an attractive vision: a happy marriage of social, environmental and ecological justice, which also respects the claims of individual animals. This paper asks whether it (...) is one that the capabilities approach can really deliver. Serious obstacles are highlighted. The potential for conflict between the capability-based entitlements of humans and those of nonhuman animals or ‘nature’ is noted, but it is argued that this does not constitute a decisive objection to the expanded capabilities approach. However, intra-nature conflicts are so widespread as to do so: the situation is outside the circumstances of justice as they are standardly understood. Schlosberg attempts to reconcile such conflicts by re-examining what it means to flourish as a sentient nonhuman animal. This fails, because of the distinction between flourishing as a species, which often requires predation, and flourishing as an individual, which is as frequently incompatible with it. Finally, the paper considers how a capabilities theorist might move beyond such conflicts, identifying two possible strategies (which are not themselves unproblematic) for reconciling the demands of humans, animals and ecosystems. (shrink)

The Kyoto Protocol on global warming has provoked great controversy in part because it calls for heavier burdens on wealthy countries than on developing countries in the effort to control climate change. The U.S. Senate voted unanimously to oppose any agreement that does not require emissions reductions in low-income countries. The ethics of this position are examined in this paper which shows that there are good moral reasons for supporting the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol. Such a conclusion follows easily (...) from considerations of distributive justice but can also be supported by more narrowly self-interested arguments. (shrink)

Abstract: Justice is one of the core humanistic values and behavioral model in societal life. In the mythology of the ancient Roman civilization, Veritas refers to an ultimate moral ideal, whereas in Greek tradition fairness and equity essentially define Aequitas. Hence, political theory determining the inner interpretation of Veritas et Aequitas finds justice in truth as truth is just. While people are naturally inclined to justness, different cultures differently understand its internal norm of correctness and power of apprehending justice appears (...) as either human-created or what came into being itself. However, what is potentially ambiguous is whether it belongs to all or only to some. The often conflicting interpretations of justice made the study unfold the notion through the basic features of its transitional, retributive and distributive inner, show what the Original Position evolved into, reveal (in)conformity between fundaments of liberty, individual and general, and point to exaggerating complexity in defining the core of the notion. (shrink)

In this paper I apply a suitably developed version of Joseph Raz’s service conception of authority to the debate over the legitimacy of state action aiming to fulfill cosmopolitan moral obligations. I aim to advance two interrelated theses. First, viewed from the perspective of Raz’s service conception of authority, citizens’ moral duties to non-compatriots are an appropriate ground for authoritative intervention by agents of the state. Second, international law based on these duties can also enjoy moral authority over government decision (...) makers. An important source of the moral force of international law is derived from the power of international law to improve officials’ ability to recognize and conform to the totality of their reasons, which contributes to their states’ legitimacy. (shrink)

Scholars concerned with abuses of the “resource privilege” by the governments of developing states sometimes call for national sovereignty over the natural resources that lie within its borders. While such claims may resist a key driver of the “resource curse” when applied to mineral resources in the ground, and are often recognized as among a people’s territorial rights, their implications differ in the context of climate change, where they are invoked on behalf of a right to extract and combust fossil (...) fuels that is set in opposition to global climate change mitigation imperatives. Moreover, granting full national sovereignty over territorial carbon sinks may conflict with commitments to equity in the sharing of national mitigation burdens, since much of the planet’s carbon sink capacity lies within territorial borders to which peoples have widely disparate access. In this paper, I shall explore this tension between a global justice principle that is often applied to mineral resources and its tension with contrary principles that are often applied to carbon sink access, developing an analysis that seeks to reconcile what would otherwise appear to be fundamentally incompatible aims. (shrink)