Obgleich die Ausdrücke ‚moralische Pflicht’ und ‚moralische Verantwortung’ auf den ersten Blick nahezu austauschbar scheinen, ist in einigen Debatten dennoch fast ausschließlich von moralischer Verantwortung die Rede. Dies gilt insbesondere für die moralische Beurteilung von individuellen Handlungen in kollektiven Kontexten. Hier scheint die Rede von einer ‚kollektiven Verantwortung‘ besonders attraktiv zu sein. In diesem Aufsatz setze ich mich diesem Trend entgegen und argumentiere dafür, dem Pflichtbegriff in kollektiven Kontexten gegenüber dem Begriff der Verantwortung den Vorrang zu geben. Mein Fokus liegt (...) hierbei auf einer bestimmten Art von Handlungen in kollektiven Kontexten, nämlich auf Handlungen in sogenannten Aggregatkollektiven. Von Aggregatkollektiven verursachte Schäden sind häufig kumulative Schäden, bei denen die Handlungen der Mitglieder eines Aggregatkollektivs einzeln betrachtet keinen merklichen Unterschied für das Auftreten des Schadens machen. Die Rede von Verantwortung legt ein Haftbarkeitsmodell moralischer Verantwortung nahe, welches sich in Bezug auf Handlungen in Aggregatkollektiven als problematisch erweist. Ich zeige, dass Kants Konzeption unvollkommener Pflichten eine vielversprechende Alternative zu dem kausal gefärbten Begriff der moralischen Verantwortung darstellt. Durch den Spielraum, den unvollkommene Pflichten Akteuren lassen, bieten sie eine ähnliche Offenheit wie der Begriff der moralischen Verantwortung. Anders als die Zuschreibung von Verantwortung vermeidet die Rede von unvollkommenen Pflichten jedoch die in kollektiven Kontexten oft inadäquate und kontraproduktive Assoziation von Haftung und Schuld. (shrink)

This paper suggests that lessons from the field of environmental ethics and sociological perspectives on knowledge are important tools for rethinking what type of ethical analysis is needed for building up further the field of development ethics and, more generally, for addressing some of the most fundamental ethical problems related to global poverty and development. The paper argues for a methodologically pragmatist approach to development ethics that focuses on the interplay between facts, values, concepts and practices. It views development ethics (...) as a hybrid between a public moral?political philosophy and a public conception of social science. Ethical analyses of poverty and development must lead to fundamental changes in the ways knowledge is produced and justified and must challenge the dominance of global institutions and orthodox economics as the single sources of expert knowledge for development. Two of the main tasks of ethical analysis is to provide tools for the formulation of alternative knowledge for development centred on the equal moral worth of all human beings, and to influence global policy making as well as multilateral institutions' goals and policies. The last section of the paper argues that Amartya Sen's version of the Capability Approach is already methodologically pragmatist and points to some convergence between Sen's work and John Dewey's. Further sociological and methodologically pragmatist analysis of the approach is needed to assess the ways in which it is influencing debates on human development and leading to policy changes, and the possible distortions it suffers when adopted by multilateral agencies and policy makers. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the international conference on Ethics and Development at Michigan State University, East Landing (USA) 8?15 April 2005. The section on methodological pragmatism draws from an unpublished paper written with Andrew Light called ?A Pragmatist Methodology for Development Ethics,? presented at the American Philosophical Association (APA) meeting in New York, December 1999. I have updated, transformed and used some parts and insights developed with Light in a way he may not recognize. (shrink)

Though genuine (voluntary, deliberate) consent of the governed does not occur in modern states, political legitimacy still requires something that does what consent does. Dereification of the state (recognizing that citizens continually create their state), combined with a defensible notion of moral responsibility, entails citizens' moral responsibility for their state. This implies that we may treat citizens morally as if they consented to their state, yielding a moral equivalent of consent of the governed, and a conception of political legitimacy applicable (...) to modern states thought legitimate. It implies that legitimate states have a moral right to rule, and their citizens have a prima facie moral obligation to obey the law. (shrink)

: Reilly offers an account of cosmopolitan feminism as emancipatory political practice in an age of globalization. This entails a critical engagement with international human rights law; a global feminist consciousness that contests patriarchal, capitalist, and racist power dynamics in a context of neoliberal globalization; cross-boundaries dialogue that recognizes the intersectionality of forms of oppression; collaborative transnational strategizing on concrete issues; and the utilization of global forums as sites of cosmopolitan solidarity and citizen action.

“Agent-centered” approaches to global poverty insist that effective arguments for poverty reduction must specify the concrete duties of particular duty-bearers. This article takes up a recent, influential, version of this view, Thomas Pogge’s human rights-based argument for global economic reforms to reduce chronic deprivation. While signaling a welcome shift from the diffuse allocation of responsibilities common to much philosophical writing on poverty, I argue that Pogge’s approach too readily assigns to powerful institutions in the global North the role of devising (...) and directing anti-poverty initiatives. In so doing, he overlooks the agency—actual and potential—of the poor themselves, as evidenced by poor-led political movements and poor-centered, participatory models of poverty reduction in development theory and practice. While agent-oriented approaches are right to focus our attention on structures that cause poverty, they ought not to assume that the powerful agents responsible for these are the only—or most appropriate—agents to lead the way to poverty reduction. Just as development organizations working in the global South have come to recognize that the participation of poor communities is critical to the success of development strategies, so should normative theorists writing about global injustice acknowledge the importance of the poor as active agents in poverty reduction efforts. (shrink)

I argue that a particular epistemological approach, “ecological thinking,” helps to demonstrate that long-term care work is organized transnationally—through health, economic, labor, and immigration policies established primarily by governments, transnational corporations, other for-profit entities, and international lending bodies—to create and sustain injustice against the dependent elderly and those who care for them, and to weaken the care capacities of countries and their health systems, especially those of source countries. An ecological approach also helps to reveal the grounding of global responsibilities (...) and an alternative conception of justice for long-term care and global health equity more generally. (shrink)

Reilly offers an account of cosmopolitan feminism as emancipatory political practice in an age of globalization. This entails a critical engagement with international human rights law; a global feminist consciousness that contests patriarchal, capitalist, and racist power dynamics in a context of neoliberal globalization; cross-boundaries dialogue that recognizes the intersectionality of forms of oppression; collaborative transnational strategizing on concrete issues; and the utilization of global forums as sites of cosmopolitan solidarity and citizen action.

This article revisits theologian Ulrich Duchrow’s three-decade-old use of the Protestant notion of status confessionis to denounce the capitalist global economy. Scholars quickly dismissed Duchrow’s argument; however, philosopher Thomas Pogge has developed a remarkable “negative duty”—based critique of the current global economic order that might help revitalize Duchrow’s position. The article argues that sound reasons exist for the churches to declare the contemporary world economy a—provisionally termed—status confessionis minor. After explaining the inadequacy of Duchrow’s original position and summarizing Pogge’s account, (...) the article develops a twofold argument. First, Pogge’s in-depth inquiry into the world economy gives Duchrow’s call for a status confessionis a strong yet narrowing economic foundation. Second, to declare the world economy a status confessionis minor is theological-ethically justifiable if the limited though indispensable “prophetic” significance of doing so is acknowledged. Thus, Duchrow’s approach is justified, but only partially. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Little theoretical attention has been paid to the question of what obligations corporations and other business enterprises have to the four billion people living at the base of the global economic pyramid. This article makes several theoretical contributions to this topic. First, it is argued that corporations are properly understood as agents of global justice. Second, the legitimacy of global governance institutions and the legitimacy of corporations and other business enterprises are distinguished. Third, it is argued that a deliberative democracy (...) model of corporate legitimacy defended by theorists of political CSR is unsatisfactory. Fourth, it is argued that a Rawlsian theoretical framework fails to provide a satisfactory account of the obligations of corporations regarding global justice. Finally, an ethical conception of CSR grounded in an appropriately modest set of duties tied to corporate relationships is then defended. This position is cosmopolitan in scope and grounded in overlapping arguments for human rights. (shrink)

The notions of “ideal theory” and “nonideal theory” have become widely accepted in political philosophy. Recently, several philosophers’ have urged that ideal theory systematically produces practically irrelevant theories. Such philosophers argue that political philosophy ought move away from ideal theory in order to make the discipline more germane to the unjust real world. Call this tactic of eliminating ideal theory “Strategy.” In this paper, I argue that political philosophy would do well to abandon the ideal/nonideal distinction. Though the use of (...) INID is widespread, philosophers do not have one uniform way of drawing the distinction; of the several common ways of drawing the distinction, none is categorical. As a consequence of this ambiguity, the role that INID plays in our political philosophical theorizing has become pernicious. (shrink)

Modern democracy attempted to solve the dilemmas posed by opposing features from various traditions through two strategies: representation, which allowed it to incorporate citizens’ conflicting interests within a restricted collegiate group that permitted deliberation and agreement, on one side, and universal choice of representatives and governments for limited periods of time, on the other. Since the first decades of the 20th century, this notion of democracy within the framework of a republican constitution was opposed by another one that rejected all (...) forms of parliamentarianism, discussion and public deliberation in the name of a “democracy” based on the identity and homogeneity of a mass of people under the hegemonic leadership of a party, centered around the will and decisions of a managing elite and a charismatic leader, viewed as the sole representative of the people themselves. Both forms of democracy –strict and perverted – are being harassed by the powers unleashed by globalization and transnationalisation that are becoming alien oligarchies, opposed to the notion of citizenship and restrictive of its rights. In liberal parliamentary democracies the functional imperative issued by the financial sector is channeled through a crisis cabinet that assimilates demands and transforms them by managing an ever-changing budget whose aim is to add new sufferings to the bulk of the population that can only counteract through protest. Given the constitutional backdrop of these societies, with their deep democratic network, the gradual transformation of the European Union into a transnational arena fuelled by “a club of chiefs of state” has only made yet more patent the oligarchic turn of its post-crisis evolution. In plebiscite democracies the turn was operated through a sovereign entrenchment of the power of the oligarchy on the pretext of resistance to the pressure set by globalization. Since the onset of the 90s, Latin America as well as countries in Eastern Europe have witnessed a gradual turn toward what O’Donnell has termed “delegative democracies”, or neo-populism, according to other authors. These regimes are characterized by exalting a populist leader, upholding him as a savior who will gauge the needs and wishes of the mass of individuals without intermediaries, focusing mainly on those who feel excluded from the mainstream of institutionalized democracy. This ensures feedback to populist regimes supported by a hegemonic political party that lives on State resources and on the rampant corruption it protects in order to finance ‘clientelism’ among those excluded from the system by the policies of the State itself. (shrink)