In this article, we survey some current debates among cosmopolitans and their critics. We begin by surveying some distinctions typically drawn among kinds of cosmopolitanisms, before canvassing some of the diverse varieties of cosmopolitan justice, exploring positions on the content of cosmopolitan duties of justice, and a prominent debate between cosmopolitans and defenders of statist accounts of global justice. We then explore some common concerns about cosmopolitanism – such as whether cosmopolitan commitments are necessarily in tension with other affiliations people (...) typically have and how we should deal with issues concerning a perceived lack of authority in the global domain – and whether these can be addressed. We also look briefly at how the concern with feasibility has led some to take up the challenge of devising public policy that is cosmopolitan in outlook, before offering some concluding remarks on future directions in these debates. (shrink)

This paper elaborates the concept of global public power as the subject of principles of political legitimacy in global politics, and defends it through a critical comparison with other concepts widely employed to depict this regulative subject: states, global basic structure, and global governance. The goal underlying this argument is to bring some greater unity and integration to conceptual understandings of the subject of principles of political legitimacy within analyses of global politics, and in doing so to frame a broader (...) research agenda for locating in practice the concrete political agencies and institutions that are appropriate targets for demands of political legitimation under the prevailing empirical conditions of global pluralism. (shrink)

Which standards should we employ to evaluate the global order? Should they be standards of justice or standards of legitimacy? In this article, I argue that liberal political theorists need not face this dilemma, because liberal justice and legitimacy are not distinct values. Rather, they indicate what the same value, i.e. equal respect for persons, demands of institutions under different sets of circumstances. I suggest that under real-world circumstances – characterized by conflicts and disagreements – equal respect demands basic-rights protection (...) and democratic participation, which I here call ‘political justice’. I conclude the article by considering three possible configurations of the global order – the ‘democratic world-state’, ‘independent democratic states’, and ‘mixed’ models – and argue that a commitment to political justice speaks in favour of the latter. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that self-respect constitutes an important value, and further, serves as an important basis for equality. I also argue that under conditions of inequality-producing segregation, voluntary separation in schooling may be more likely to provide the resources necessary for self respect. Accordingly, I defend a prima facie case of voluntary separation for stigmatized minorities when equality – as equal status and treatment – is not an option under either the terms of integration or involuntary segregation.

With the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, John Rawls not only rejuvenated contemporary political philosophy but also defended a Kantian form of Enlightenment liberalism called “justice as fairness.” Enlightenment liberalism stresses the development and exercise of our capacity for autonomy, while Reformation liberalism emphasizes diversity and the toleration that encourages it. These two strands of liberalism are often mutually supporting, but they conflict in a surprising number of cases, whether over the accommodation of group difference, the design (...) of civic education, or the promotion of liberal values internationally. During the 1980’s, however, Rawls began to jettison key Kantian characteristics of his theory, a process culminating in the 1993 release of Political Liberalism and completing the transformation of justice as fairness into a Reformation liberalism. -/- Reconstructing Rawls argues that this transformation was a tragic mistake because it jeopardized the most important features of his theory, viz. the lexical priorities of right, liberty, and fair equality of opportunity as well as the difference principle. Controversially, this book contends that Rawls’s so-called “political turn,” motivated by a newfound interest in diversity and the accommodation of difference, has been unhealthy for autonomy-based liberalism and has pushed liberalism more broadly towards cultural relativism, be it in the guise of liberal multiculturalism or critiques of cosmopolitan distributive-justice theories. The book then demonstrates that the central elements of justice as fairness can only be defended within the context of a Kantian Enlightenment liberalism and that Rawls’s hope for a more pluralistic grounding for his theory, endorsed by a wide variety of belief systems present in modern democratic societies, is illusory. -/- Reconstructing Rawls is the first book to systematically compare Rawls’s and Kant’s theories and the first to offer an internal critique and reconstruction of justice as fairness, reconceiving it as a comprehensive, universalistic Kantian liberalism. By doing so, it gives us both the vision of a liberal world order—“a republicanism of all states, together and separately,” as Kant put it—and a mode of justification addressed to all men and women, not as members of particular nations, races, and faiths, but as human beings, as citizens of the world. In short, it reclaims Rawls for the Enlightenment. (shrink)

I develop the foundation for cosmopolitan care, an underexplored variety of moral cosmopolitanism. I begin by offering a characterization of contemporary cosmopolitanism from the justice tradition. Rather than discussing the political, economic or cultural aspects of cosmopolitanism, I instead address its moral dimensions. I then employ a feminist philosophical perspective to provide a critical evaluation of the moral foundations of cosmopolitan justice, with an eye toward demonstrating the need for an alternative account of moral cosmopolitanism as cosmopolitan care. After providing (...) an explanation of how care ethics in connection with Kantian ethics generates a duty to care, I consider one main feature of cosmopolitan care, namely the theory of obligation it endorses. In developing this account, I place special emphasis on the practical ramifications of the theory by using it to analyze gender violence in conflict zones. (shrink)

One-third of all human lives end in early death from poverty-related causes. Most of these premature deaths are avoidable through global institutional reforms that would eradicate extreme poverty. Many are also avoidable through global health-system reform that would make medical knowledge freely available as a global public good. The rules should be redesigned so that the development of any new drug is rewarded in proportion to its impact on the global disease burden (not through monopoly rents). This reform would bring (...) drug prices down worldwide close to their marginal cost of production and would powerfully stimulate pharmaceutical research into currently neglected diseases concentrated among the poor. Its feasibility shows that the existing medical-patent regime (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights—TRIPS—as supplemented by bilateral agreements) is severely unjust—and its imposition a human-rights violation on account of the avoidable mortality and morbidity it foreseeably produces. (shrink)

A country's right to levy taxes is a fundamental aspect of its sovereignty. Without the power to tax, a government would be unable to redistribute resources among its citizens and provide public goods. The question of how tax rights should be distributed is therefore one of the oldest and most important problems of tax theory. Increased international economic integration has made this question even more important, as a larger share of economic transactions take place across national borders, giving rise to (...) situations in which more than one country is able to tax the same base.How such conflicts are resolved affects both the ability of countries to redistribute resources domestically and the international distribution of tax revenues. The allocation of tax rights therefore raises important questions of distributive justice, questions that require a normative theory of the right to tax. This essay seeks to evaluate the current distribution of tax rights by examining whether it can in fact be justified within the main approaches to distributive justice. (shrink)

The word ‘cosmopolitan’, which derives from the Greek word kosmopolitês (‘citizen of the world’), has been used to describe a wide variety of important views in moral and socio political philosophy. The nebulous core shared by all cosmopolitan views is the idea that all human beings, regardless of their political affiliation, do (or at least can) belong to a single community, and that this community should be cultivated. Different versions of cosmopolitanism envision this community in different ways, some focusing on (...) political institutions, others on moral norms or relationships, and still others focusing on shared markets or forms of cultural expression. The philosophical interest in cosmopolitanism lies in its challenge to commonly recognized attachments to fellow citizens, the local state, parochially shared cultures, and the like. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge has argued that we have strong negative duties to assist the global poor because we harm them through our contribution to the global economic order. I argue that Pogge’s concept of harm is indeterminate. The resources of any group will typically be affected by at least two economic schemes. Pogge suggests that the responsibility for any affected group’s shortfall from a minimum standard ought to be shared between the contributing schemes. I argue that shared responsibility can be interpreted (...) in two different ways. Unfortunately, both interpretations are problematic. Lastly, I suggest a strategy for amending this problem. (shrink)

Anti-commodification theorists condemn liberal political philosophers for not being able to justify restricting a market transaction on the basis of what is sold, but only on the basis of how it is sold. The anti-commodification theorist is correct that if this were all the liberal had to say in the face of noxious markets, it would be inadequate: even if everyone has equal bargaining power and no one is misled, there are some goods that should not go to the highest (...) bidder. In this paper, I respond to the anti-commodification critique of liberalism by arguing that the political liberal has the wherewithal to account not only for the conditions under which goods should not be sold, but also for what kinds of goods should not be for sale in a market economy. The political liberal can appeal to a principle of equal basic rights, and to one of sufficiency in basic needs and the social bases of self-respect, I argue, to account for what’s problematic about markets in civic goods, necessary goods, and physical goods including body parts and intimate services. (shrink)

In his recent bookThe Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen suggests that political philosophy should move beyond the dominant, Rawls-inspired, methodological paradigm – what Sen calls ‘transcendental institutionalism’ – towards a more practically oriented approach to justice: ‘realization-focused comparison’. In this article, I argue that Sen's call for a paradigm shift in thinking about justice is unwarranted. I show that his criticisms of the Rawlsian approach are either based on misunderstandings, or correct but of little consequence, and conclude that the Rawlsian (...) approach already delivers much of what Sen himself wants from a theory of justice. (shrink)

This paper discusses obligations of international distributive justice-specifically, obligations rich countries have to transfer resources to poor countries. It argues that the major seven OECD countries each have an obligation to transfer at least one percent of their GDP to developing countries. -/- The strategy of the paper is to defend this position without having to resolve the many debates that attend questions of international distributive justice. In this respect, it belongs to the neglected category of nonideal theory. The key (...) to the strategy is to show that a significant amount of good would be accomplished by a one percent transfer, despite the fact that one percent is quite a small amount. -/- To make this showing, the paper takes health as a fundamental measure of individual well-being and examines the improvement in life expectancy that would likely result from devoting the one percent transfer to the major determinants of health. It adduces data indicating that substantial progress towards raising life expectancy in developing countries to the global average of 64.5 years can be expected from expenditures of $125 per capita, divided between health care, education, and basic nutrition and income support. A one percent transfer from the major seven is enough to cover expenditures on that scale for the poorest fifth of the world's population. (shrink)

This article adapts John Rawls’s writings, arguing that past injustice can change what we ought to publicly affirm as the standard of justice today. My approach differs from forward-looking approaches based on alleviating prospective disadvantage and backward-looking historical entitlement approaches. In different contexts, Rawls’s own concern for the ‘social bases of self-respect’ and equal citizenship may require public endorsement of different principles or specifications of the standard of justice. Rawls’s difference principle focuses on the least advantaged socioeconomic group. I argue (...) that a historicized difference principle considers the relative standing of racial, gender, and other historically stigmatized groups; provides their members assurance by weakening incentives to manipulate justice to another group’s advantage; and may result in policies resembling reparations, though justified by forward-looking considerations of self-respect and public assurance. I then examine how disrespectful justifications were historically used to forcibly include indigenous peoples as citizens. While Rawls thinks providing citizens one package of basic liberties signals respect, indigenous self-government could better support self-respect. I invoke Rawlsian international justice, which calls for mutual respect between peoples. Indigenous peoples’ status should reflect their past and persisting peoplehood, providing assurance by weakening incentives to unjustly transform international into domestic contexts. (shrink)

Imagine a two-person distributive case in which Ernest's choices yield X and Bertie's choices yield X + Y, producing an income gap between them of Y. Neither Ernest nor Bertie is responsible for this gap of Y, since neither of them has any control over what the other agent chooses. This is what Susan Hurley calls the “Boring Problem” for luck egalitarianism. Contrary to Hurley's relatively dismissive treatment of it, it is contended that the Boring Problem poses a deep problem (...) for standard luck egalitarianism. To counter it, luck egalitarianism needs to be recast as a baseline-relative theory. This new version of luck egalitarianism is then put to work against some significant problems that have been encountered by luck egalitarianism: Saul Smilansky's “Paradox of the Baseline,” the “Partiality Worry,” and the “Pluralism Worry.” But baseline-relative luck egalitarianism is not without problems of its own. (shrink)

The Law of Peoples and Global Justice: Beyond the Liberal Nationalism of John Rawls The paper deals with the relation of a theory of international justice, specifically John Rawls's philosophy of the law of peoples, and a theory of global justice. In the first part, the paper outlines Rawls's main theses on the international conception of the law of peoples. The second part concerns a problem found in segments of Rawls's theory, specifically his concept of a social contract—contractualism. This problem (...) inadequately approaches the relationship between the individual and the community. The third part deals with the inconsistent points in Rawls's theory contained in part two, i.e. his principles of justice selected with the aid of social contract. In the fourth part, the paper concentrates on the consequences of these limitations for a socially distributive dimension of justice or as an approach for dealing with disproportionate global inequalities. The last part formulates the causes of the limitations of Rawls's theory of international justice and points out the need for a global justice which is socially and inter-culturally considerate. (shrink)

C.B. Macpherson's “Possessive Individualist” reading of Locke is one of the most radical and influential interpretations in the history of exegesis. Despite a substantial critical response over the past five decades, Macpherson's reading remains orthodox in various circles in the humanities generally, particularly in legal studies, and his interpretation of several crucial passages has unwittingly been followed even by his sharpest critics within Lockean scholarship. In order to present the definitive rebuttal to this interpretation, and so finally to lay it (...) to rest, I argue that every one of Macpherson's key pieces of textual evidence can be rejected entirely on its own terms; that is, by reference to no more than its immediate context. In this way I contend that fault of the Possessive Individualist reading lies far deeper than mere cherry-picking of the Lockean corpus, but centrally involves misreading, misplacing and misrepresenting the very parts of Locke's work Macpherson cites as evidence for his reading. (shrink)

What should our theorizing about social justice aim at? Many political philosophers think that a crucial goal is to identify a perfectly just society. Amartya Sen disagrees. In The Idea of Justice, he argues that the proper goal of an inquiry about justice is to undertake comparative assessments of feasible social scenarios in order to identify reforms that involve justice-enhancement, or injustice-reduction, even if the results fall short of perfect justice. Sen calls this the “comparative approach” to the theory of (...) justice. He urges its adoption on the basis of a sustained critique of the former approach, which he calls “transcendental.” In this paper I pursue two tasks, one critical and the other constructive. First, I argue that Sen’s account of the contrast between the transcendental and the comparative approaches is not convincing, and second, I suggest what I take to be a broader and more plausible account of comparative assessments of justice. The core claim is that political philosophers should not shy away from the pursuit of ambitious theories of justice (including, for example, ideal theories of perfect justice), although they should engage in careful consideration of issues of political feasibility bearing on their practical implementation. (shrink)

We live in an era of global migratory potential — a time when a vast number of people have the physical capacity to move relatively quickly and easily between states. In this article, I use this fact to motivate a powerful objection to ‘statism’, the view that the egalitarian principles of justice which apply to citizens have no application outside the boundaries of the state. I argue that, in a world characterized by global migratory potential, the supposed contrast between the (...) normative standing of citizens and non-citizens on which the doctrine of statism depends is much harder to establish than proponents of the doctrine seem to realize. Focusing initially on the well-known justification for statism based on the notion of reciprocity between cooperators in a joint venture for mutual advantage, I argue that non-citizens play just as important a role as citizens in upholding schemes of cooperation, and that non-citizens should therefore be included in the scope of egalitarian justice along with citizens. I then go on to explain why the problem raised by the fact of migratory potential threatens to undermine not only the reciprocity-based conception, but all other conceptions of statism. The challenge for the proponent of statism is to show that the relationship in which each individual citizen stands with the state is not only a justice-grounding relationship, but also one in which no non-citizen stands with the state. The challenge has not been met so far, and I argue that it is unlikely to be met in the future. (shrink)

Dans les premières années qui ont suivi la parution de son monumentalA Theory of Justice, Rawls s'est surtout employé dans quelques articles à répondre à ses critiques, à dissiper les malentendus ainsi qu'à expliciter certains aspects de sa théorie, sans proposer de changements significatifs. À partir de la publication desDewey Lectures, sous la pression des critiques ou suivant le cours naturel de sa réflexion, Rawls a graduellement procéde à d'importantes révisions. Presque essentiellement préoccupé par la signification et la justification de (...) sa théorie, et laissant à peu prés intacts sa structure et son contenu, Rawls a successivement élaboré une conception de la personne et de la société, développé une méthodologie contextualiste et constructiviste, limité considérablement la portée de sa théorie et finalement, pour encadrer le tout, proposé une interprétation politique de la «justice en tant qu'équité». Ces changements, que d'aucuns ont perçus comme un recul ou comme un important virage, n'ont pas toujours été, selon Rawls, bien compris. Dans son dernier ouvrage,Political Liberalism, qui, est-il besoin de le dire? était depuis longtemps attendu, Rawls rassemble et raffine ses nouvelles idées, les présente de façon systématique et, somme toute, convaincante. (shrink)

In his multi-faceted attack on Rawls’s account of justice, G.A. Cohen has argued that the notion of basic structure is necessarily insensitive to the importance of informal social norms to social justice. The paper argues that the most plausible account of the basic structure is not blind to informal social norms in any meaningful sense. Whereas informal, non-legally coercive institutions are not part of the basic structure as such, their careful consideration is necessary for the assessment of whether the basic (...) structure itself is indeed just. This claim is based on an account of what it means for normative principle to apply to institutions, which I expound in detail throughout the paper. Principles apply to institutions, I argue, not in that they restrain their conduct, but in that they indicate which social conditions they should bring about. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore the potential contribution of Axel Honneth's critical theory of recognition to empirical and normative debates on global justice. I first present, very briefly, an overview of recent theories of global distributive justice. I argue that theorists of distributive justice do not pay enough attention to sources of self-respect and conditions for identity formation, and that they are blind toward the danger of harming people's sense of self even by well-intentioned redistributive policies. Honneth's (...) theory suffers from complementary shortcomings; it is anti-technocratic but largely oblivious to the global nature of many contemporary justice claims. Given this situation, I seek to broaden the theory's scope by outlining transnational extensions of the recognition principles of love, rights and solidarity identified by Honneth. In conclusion, I show how utilizing a broadened conceptualization of the struggle for recognition allows us to better understand the changing logic of justice-oriented foreign policies. (shrink)

justice as fairness envisions a society of free citizens holding equal basic rights cooperating within an egalitarian economic system. His account of political liberalism addresses the legitimate use of political power in a democracy, aiming to show how enduring unity may be achieved despite the diversity of worldviews that free institutions allow. His writings on the law of peoples extend these theories to liberal foreign policy, with the goal of imagining how a peaceful and tolerant international order might be possible.

This paper proposes a problem-based approach to theorizing about global justice as opposed to what I call a paradigm-based approach. The latter confronts questions of global justice from an established ideal of justice normally constructed for the domestic context. The problem-based approach engages global justice issues without the presumption that that they must be accessible from an established (domestic) framework of justice. One advantage of the problem-based approach is that it does not foreclose engagement with practical matters (by defining some (...) issues, such as global equality, as non-problems); another is that it has a more reflective and revisionary approach to theorizing about justice (as when new challenges compel re-examination of our established theories of justice). (shrink)

This article examines two potential Rawlsian arguments, namely the moral dualism argument and the educative effect of institutions argument as regards the extension of the primary subject of justice to personal conduct. The article makes two claims. First, while moral dualism is a logical step to make, it suffers from a potential conflict between the principles that apply to institutions and those that govern personal conduct. Second, despite the attractive features of the educative effect of institutions argument, an explanative gap (...) has to be filled in order to account for how and why individuals comply to just institutions. In the end, the article concludes that extending Rawls’s theory of justice to include personal conduct may be difficult to sustain. (shrink)

Alternative allocations of a fixed bundle of healthcare resources often involve significantly different indirect, non-health effects. The question arises whether these effects must figure in accounts of the conditions under which a distribution of healthcare resources is morally justifiable. In this article we defend a Scanlonian, affirmative answer to this question: healthcare resource managers should sometimes select an allocation which has worse direct, health-related effects but better indirect, nonhealth effects; they should do this when the interests served by such a (...) policy are more urgent than the healthcare interests better served by an alternative allocation. We note that there is a prima facie case for the claim that such benefits (and costs) are relevant—i.e. they are real benefits, and in other contexts our decisions can permissibly be guided by them. We then proceed to rebut three lines of argument that might be thought to defeat this prima facie case: they appeal to fairness, the Kantian Formula of Humanity as an End in Itself, and the equal moral worth of persons, respectively. (shrink)

The promotion of ‘Global Citizenship’ (GC) has emerged as a goal of schooling in many countries, symbolising a shift away from national towards more global conceptions of citizenship. It currently incorporates a proliferation of approaches and terminologies, mirroring both the diverse conceptions of its nature and the socio-politico contexts within which it is appropriated. This paper seeks to clarify this ambiguity by constructing a typology to identify and distinguish the diverse conceptions of GC. The typology is based on two general (...) forms of GC: cosmopolitan based and advocacy based. The former incorporates four distinct conceptions of GC – namely, the political, moral, economic and cultural; the latter incorporates four other conceptions – namely, the social, critical, environmental and spiritual. Subsequently, we briefly illustrate how the typology can be used to evaluate the critical features of a curriculum plan designed to promote GC in England. The typology provides a novel and powerful means to analyse the key features of the very diverse range of educational policies and programmes that promote GC. (shrink)

The secession of prosperous regions may negatively affect the redistributive scheme of an established state. As a consequence, the capacity of its welfare system to support the inhabitants of poorer regions may be significantly reduced. Some authors assert that affluent groups who opt for full political independence violate duties of solidarity. This objection to the secession of prosperous regions can be based on different views of distributive justice. Here, following a distinction that has been introduced by Allen Buchanan, ‘subject centred’ (...) and ‘justice as reciprocity’ theories are explored. It is argued that both theories fail to support the case against the secession of wealthy groups. ‘Subject centred’ theories cannot explain special duties toward compatriots, whereas ‘justice as reciprocity’ theories cannot justify restrictions on exit rights. However, this does not mean that separatists have no moral duties vis-à-vis their fellow citizens. They are obliged to dissolve the political union in a fair way, e.g., by accepting responsibility for some share of the public debts. (shrink)

An interdisciplinary theoretical framework is proposed for analysing justice in global working conditions. In addition to gender and race as popular criteria to identify disadvantaged groups in organizations, in multinational corporations (MNCs) local employees (i.e. host country nationals (HCNs) working in foreign subsidiaries) deserve special attention. Their working conditions are often substantially worse than those of expatriates (i.e. parent country nationals temporarily assigned to a foreign subsidiary). Although a number of reasons have been put forward to justify such inequalities—usually with (...) efficiency goals in mind—recent studies have used equity theory to question the extent to which they are perceived as fair by HCNs. However, since perceptual equity theory has limitations, this study develops an alternative and non-perceptual framework for analysing such inequalities. Employment discrimination theory and elements of Rawls’s ‘Theory of Justice’ are the theoretical pillars of this framework. This article discusses the advantages of this approach for MNCs and identifies some expatriation practices that are fair according to our non-perceptual justice standards, whilst also reasonably (if not highly) efficient. (shrink)

Pluralistic theories of global distributive justice aim at justifying a plurality of principles for various subglobal contexts of distributive justice. Helena de Bres has recently proposed the class of disaggregated pluralistic theories, according to which we should refrain from defending principles that apply to the shared background conditions of such subglobal contexts. This article argues that if one does not justify how these background conditions should be regulated by principles of a just global basic structure, then the realization of the (...) principles that are justified for the subglobal contexts of distributive justice can erode and undermine justice over time. For example, the realization of justice in international trade might undermine climate justice, at least if climate justice requires increasing tariffs but justice in international trade calls for reducing tariffs. Principles of a just global basic structure would have to ensure that such justice-eroding spillover effects from one to another context of justice do not occur. Finally, the article responds critically to de Bres’ objections that an account of a just global basic structure is too idealistic, not action guiding, and superfluous. (shrink)

The article begins with a review of the structural differences between act consequentialist theories and human rights theories, as illustrated by Amartya Sen's paradox of the Paretian liberal and Robert Nozick's utilitarianism of rights. It discusses attempts to resolve those structural differences by moving to a second-order or indirect consequentialism, illustrated by J.S. Mill and Derek Parfit. It presents consequentialist (though not utilitarian) interpretations of the contractualist theories of Jürgen Habermas and the early John Rawls (Theory of Justice) and of (...) the capability theories of Sen and Martha Nussbaum. It also discusses two roles that well-being or a surrogate for well-being typically plays in theories of human rights: (a) well-being plays a role in the justification of at least some exceptions to human rights principles; and (b) some human rights seem to be best understood as rights to some level of well-being or expected well-being (or of a surrogate for one of them). It reviews two consequentialist challenges to the moral adequacy of non-consequentialist accounts of human rights, one based on a duty to relieve suffering and the other generated by Parfit's Non-Identity Problem, and concludes with a contrast between two ways of looking at the history of the development and implementation of human rights conventions and laws. Video abstract (click to view). (shrink)

Few people doubt that severe poverty is a pressing moral issue. But what sorts of obligations, if any, do affluent people have toward the severely poor? If one accepts the idea that one has some obligations to the severely poor there still remains disagreement about the magnitude of this obligation and when it obtains. I consider Peter Singer's influential "shallow pond" argument, which holds that affluent people have greater obligations toward the severely poor than ordinary moral judgments suggest. Critics hold (...) that Singer's view is excessively demanding and therefore untenable. I thus turn to the parable of the Good Samaritan and Christian accounts of neighbor-love to help attenuate this criticism. Drawing from Christian conversations on neighbor-love, I attempt to demonstrate that accepting an obligation to assist does not necessarily result in one abandoning one's special relations, abnegating self-regard, or no longer pursuing other non-moral strivings. (shrink)

John Rawls famously claims that ‘justice is the first virtue of social institutions’. On one of its readings, this remark seems to suggest that social institutions are essential for obligations of justice to arise. The spirit of this interpretation has recently sparked a new debate about the grounds of justice. What are the conditions that generate principles of distributive justice? I am interested in a specific version of this question. What conditions generate egalitarian principles of distributive justice and give rise (...) to equality as a demand of justice? My paper focuses on relationalist answers to this question. Advocates of relationalism assume that ‘principles of distributive justice have a relational basis’, in the sense that ‘practice mediated relations in which individuals stand condition the content, scope and justification of those principles’. To say that principles of justice are ‘based’ on and ‘conditioned’ by practice mediated relations is ambiguous. I will here be concerned with advocates of what I call the relationalist requirement , viz. positions which assume that ‘practice mediated relations’ constitute a necessary existence condition for principles of egalitarian distributive justice. Relationalists who endorse this view come in different varieties. My focus is on relationalists that view social and political institutions as the relevant ‘practice mediated relation’. The question at stake, then, is this: Are institutionally mediated relations a necessary condition for equality to arise as a demand of justice? Strong relationalists of the institutionalist cast, call them advocates of the institutionalist requirement , differ in important respects. They argue about what set of institutions is foundationally significant, and they disagree on why only that institutional relation gives rise to egalitarian obligations of justice. My paper engages two ways of arguing for the institutionalist requirement : Julius’s framing argument and Andrea Sangiovanni’s reciprocity argument . The issue at stake are the grounds of egalitarian justice and I will argue that the institutionalist requirement is mistaken. It is not the case that egalitarian obligations of distributive justice arise only between and solely in virtue of individuals sharing a common institution. (shrink)

Climate change can be interpreted as a unique case of historical injustice involving issues of both intergenerational and global justice. We split the issue into two separate questions. First, how should emission rights be distributed? Second, who should come up for the costs of coping with climate change? We regard the first question as being an issue of pure distributive justice and argue on prioritarian grounds that the developing world should receive higher per capita emission rights than the developed world. (...) This is justified by the fact that the latter already owns a larger share of benefits associated with emission generating activities because of its past record of industrialisation. The second question appears to be an issue of compensatory justice. After defining what we mean by compensation, we show that different kinds of compensatory principles run into problems when used to justify payments by historical emitters of the North to people suffering from climate change in the South. As an alternative, we propose to view payments from wealthy countries for adaptation to climate change in vulnerable countries rather as a measure based on concerns of global distributive justice. (shrink)

To whom is egalitarian justice owed? Our fellow citizens, or all of humankind? If the latter, what form might a global brand of egalitarianism take? This paper examines some recent debates about the justification, and content, of global egalitarian justice. It provides an account of some keenly argued controversies about the scope of egalitarian justice, between those who would restrict it to the level of the state and those who would extend it more widely. It also notes the cross-cutting distinction (...) between relationists (whose views on scope are derived from a belief about which relations, practices or institutions give rise to the demands of equality) and non-relationists (who place no such importance on empirical facts about the relations between individuals). Beyond this, it sets out some of the different principles that might flow from a commitment to global egalitarianism. One of the key goals is to highlight the increasing diversity within debates on global justice, so that even those with a shared commitment to global equality may espouse different views about the justifications for equality, as well as the nature of, and proper sites for, egalitarian principles. (shrink)

The ethical debate on whistleblowing concerns centrally the conflict between the right to political free speech and the duty of loyalty to the organization where one works. This is the moral dilemma of whistleblowing. Political free speech is justified because it is a central part of liberal democracy, whereas loyalty can be motivated as a way of showing consideration for one’s associates. The political philosophy of John Rawls is applied to this dilemma, and it is shown that the requirement of (...) loyalty, in the sense that is needed to create the moral dilemma of whistleblowing, is inconsistent with that theory. In this sense, there is no moral dilemma of whistleblowing. This position has been labelled extreme in that it says that whistleblowing is always morally permitted. In a discussion and rejection of Richard De George’s criteria on permissible whistleblowing, it is pointed out that the mere rejection of loyalty will not lead to an extreme position; harms can still be taken into account. Furthermore, it is argued that the best way is, in this as in most other political circumstances, to weigh harms is provided by the free speech argument from democracy. (shrink)

What counts as global ‘harm’? This article explores this question through critical engagement with Thomas Pogge’s conception of negative duties not to harm. My purpose here is to show that while Pogge is right to orient global moral claims around negative duties not to harm, he is mistaken in departing from the standard understanding of these duties. Pogge ties negative duties to global institutions, but I argue that truly negative duties cannot apply to such institutions. In order to retain the (...) global force of negative duties, we need to dissociate these duties from global institutions: each society’s negative duty to stop harming specific other societies ought to be seen as independent of global institutional change. In order to establish this thesis, I criticize both the features and the derivation of Pogge’s variant of negative duties. I conclude that one must see global negative duties as applying to the relations between specific sovereign societies as unitary agents rather than to global institutions. I then show how this view of negative duties can yield significant global reform, based on Pogge’s own accusations concerning democracies’ conferral of trading privileges upon dictators who embezzle state resources. After presenting the normative, empirical, and strategic advantages of such reform, I anticipate Poggean objections. (shrink)

Scholars have extensively debated the family’s place within liberalism, generally, and specific attention and critique has been given to the family in Rawls’ work. What has received less focus are the requirements of parents in a Rawlsian polity and, further, what those requirements might imply for the one case where states explicitly regulate the process of becoming parents: adoption. This paper seeks to discover what might be required of parents, adoptive or otherwise, in a Rawlsian social contract state. Second, it (...) considers adoptive parent selection in light of these requirements as well as Rawls’ arguments regarding merit and fair equality of opportunity. Finally, it considers what such a merit-based selection of adoptive parents implies for the disputed rights of same-sex couples to adopt children. Further, because the question of merit in this case will hinge upon what it means to be a “fit parent,” it also draws upon relevant empirical social science studies regarding gay and lesbian parents. The paper, then, evaluates both the theoretical and empirical validity of generalized claims that same-sex couples are less fit to be parents than are heterosexual couples. (shrink)

This paper reflects on a critique of cosmopolitanism mounted by Tom Campbell, who argues that cosmopolitans place undue stress on the issue of global justice. Campbell argues that aid for the impoverished needy in the third world, for example, should be given on the Principle of Humanity rather than on the Principle of Justice. This line of thought is also pursued by ?Liberal Nationalists? like Yael Tamir and David Miller. Thomas Nagel makes a similar distinction and questions whether the ideal (...) of justice can even be meaningfully applied on a global scale. The paper explores whether the distinction between the Principle of Humanity and the Principle of Justice might be a false dichotomy in that both principles could be involved in humanitarian assistance. It will suggest that both principles might be grounded in an ethics of caring and that the ethics of caring cannot be so sharply distinguished from the discourse of justice and of rights. As a result, the Principle of Humanity and the Principle of Justice cannot be so sharply distinguished either. It is because we care about others as human beings (Principle of Humanity) that we pursue justice for them (Principle of Justice) and the alleviation of their avoidable suffering. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to introduce and defend a revised conception of responsibility - namely, participatory responsibility. It starts from the insight that some pressing problems of global injustice render our common conception of responsibility useless. As an alternative the author mainly discusses Iris Marion Young's social connection model of responsibility. However, Young's approach becomes unconvincing in addressing and weighing specific duties. The author therefore adds a basic rights approach to her conception and argues that mere participation in (...) a basic-rights-violating structure creates superordinated responsibilities for justice. Thus institutions and individual persons hold responsibility not because they have intentionally caused a foreseeable wrong, but because they have participated in, and thereby maintained, a social structure which has morally unacceptable effects. (shrink)

1795 erschien die 1. Auflage von Kants Schrift Zum ewigen Frieden. Zu einer der vordringlichsten, von der Philosophie aber häufig vernachlässigten Aufgaben der Politik stellt sie bis heute den wichtigsten klassischen Text dar. Kant entfaltet in ihm die philosophischen Grundlagen für eine internationale Rechts- und Friedensgemeinschaft. Gleichzeitig stellt er sich aber auch die Frage nach einer Vermittlung von normativer Theorie und politischer Praxis. In 12 Beiträgen wird Kants Text in diesem Band 'entschlüsselt', interpretiert, auf seine systematische Überzeugungskraft und auf seine (...) politische Tragweite hin untersucht und in seinen und unseren sozialgeschichtlichen Kontext gestellt. Der kooperative Kommentar wurde anlässlich des 300. Jubiläums Immanuel Kants überarbeitet und auf den neuesten Forschungsstand gebracht. Mit Beiträgen von Reinhard Brandt, Monique Castillo, Michael W. Doyle, Volker Gerhardt, Otfried Höffe, Wolfgang Kersting, Pierre Laberge, Jean-Christophe Merle, Hans Saner. (shrink)

In this article, the last in the symposium on world poverty and human rights, Pogge replies to his critics Mathias Risse, Alan Patten, Rowan Cruft, Norbert Anwander, and Debra Satz.

Climate change and other global environmental problems constitute a significant challenge to contemporary political philosophy, especially with respect to complacency. This paper assesses Rawls? theory, and argues for three conclusions. First, Rawls does not already solve such problems, and simple extensions of his theory are unlikely to do so. This is so despite the rich structure of Rawls? philosophy, and the appeal of some of its parts. Second, the most promising areas for extension ? the circumstances of justice, the duty (...) to maintain and promote just institutions, and his vision of social development ? are those that have not yet been explored. Third, unfortunately, Rawls? views on these topics are both seriously underdeveloped, and largely stipulative. Hence, in trying to meet climate change, Rawlsians are more likely to add new theories to Rawls, and perhaps even to transform his original account, than to generate an approach ?from the inside out? (shrink)