Thomas Pogge claims "that, by shaping and enforcing the social conditions that foreseeably and avoidably cause the monumental suffering of global poverty, we are harming the global poor ... or, to put it more descriptively, we are active participants in the largest, though not the gravest, crime against humanity ever committed." In other words, he claims that by upholding certain international arrangements we are violating our strong negative duties not to harm, and not just some positive duties to help. I (...) shall argue that even if Pogge were correct in claiming that certain rich states or at least the rich states collectively violate certain negative duties towards the poor and harm the poor, he is far too hasty in concluding that "we," the citizens of those states, are thus harming the global poor or violating our negative duties towards them. In fact, his conclusion can be shown to be wrong not least of all in the light of some of his own assumptions about collective responsibility, the enforceability of human rights, and terrorism. In addition, I will also argue that his view that we share responsibility for the acts of our political "representatives," who allegedly act "on our behalf," is unwarranted. (shrink)

Many assert that affluent countries have contributed in the past to poverty in developing countries through wars of aggression and conquest, colonialism and its legacies, the imposition of puppet leaders, and support for brutal dictators and venal elites. Thomas Pogge has recently argued that there is an additional and, arguably, even more consequential way in which the affluent continue to contribute to poverty in the developing world. He argues that when people cooperate in instituting and upholding institutional arrangements that foreseeably (...) result in more severe or more widespread poverty or human rights deficits than would foreseeably result under feasible alternative arrangements, they are contributors to these harms. Because of this, he argues, they have stringent, contribution-based (or negative) duties to address this poverty. We will call this the ‘Feasible Alternatives Thesis' (FAT), and our aim in this article is to examine it critically. (shrink)

In his landmark work World Poverty and Human Rights, Thomas Pogge offers a novel approach to understanding the nature and extent of the obligations that citizens of wealthy states owe to their less fortunate counterparts in poor states. Pogge argues that the wealthy have weighty obligations to aid the global poor because the wealthy coercively impose institutions on the poor that leave their human rights, particularly their subsistence rights avoidably unfulfilled. Thus, Pogge claims that the wealthy states' obligations to the (...) poor are ultimately generated by their negative duties, that is, their duties to refrain from harming. In this essay, I argue that Pogge cannot successfully appeal to negative duties in way that would appease his critics because his notion of a negative duty is seriously indeterminate, so much so as to compromise his ability to plausibly appeal to it. (shrink)

This paper aims to highlight the role played by uncertainties in global justice theories. It will start by identifying four kinds of uncertainties that could potentially have an impact on the nature, content and very existence of global duties: first, uncertainties regarding the causes of global injustices; second, uncertainties regarding the consequences of global justice initiatives; third, uncertainties pertaining to the 'imperfect' character of certain global duties; and fourth, uncertainties regarding the conduct of others. It will discuss each of these (...) uncertainties in turn, with particular attention to their normative implications, their distinctively 'global' source, and the possibility of their being addressed. It will conclude with some reflections on how the normative issues raised by uncertainties related to spatial distance compare to those raised by uncertainties related to temporal distance. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge has argued, famously, that ‘we’ are violating the rights of the global poor insofar as we uphold an unjust international order which provides a legal and economic framework within which individuals and groups can and do deprive such individuals of their lives, liberty and property. I argue here that Pogge’s claim that we are violating a negative duty can only be made good on the basis of a substantive theory of collective action; and that it can only provide (...) substantive ethical guidance when combined with an account of how collective action gives rise to forward-looking responsibility and/or accountability on an individual level. I consider accounts of these two topics given in work by Peter French and Christopher Kutz; and I argue that neither of them give Pogge what he needs. Although there is a sense in which 'we' can be said to be violating the rights of the worst off, the sense in which this is true does not generate any plausible action-guiding claims for individuals. (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)

Este trabajo se propone defender una interpretación moderada de los argumentos de Thomas Pogge sobre justicia y pobreza globales, elaborados en su libro La pobreza en el mundo y los derechos humanos. Para esto, se analizará minuciosamente la reconstrucción que los críticos hacen de los argumentos de Pogge. Con esto, se espera poner de manifiesto que dicha reconstrucción se aleja en muchos casos de una interpretación mínimamente caritativa y malinterpreta los argumentos originales de este autor. Así, en este trabajo, se (...) defenderán una tesis principal y una subtesis. 1. Tesis principal. El deber negativo de no “cooperar en el mantenimiento de instituciones sociales injustas sin hacer una protección que compense y esfuerzos de reforma para sus víctimas” (en adelante, el “deber de no contribuir con la injusticia”) es menos exigente de lo que los críticos de Pogge afirman. Para defender esta tesis, se mostrará la relación entre el deber negativo de no contribuir con la injusticia y las obligaciones positivas de 1) proteger a las víctimas de un orden institucional injusto y de 2) trabajar para reformar los rasgos injustos de ese orden. Asimismo, se tratará de establecer cuáles son las implicancias prácticas de estas dos obligaciones positivas. 2. Subtesis. La violación del deber de no contribuir con la injusticia no convierte a los agentes morales en “violadores” de derechos humanos, tal como los críticos de Pogge sostienen, sino en “contribuyentes”. Para defender esta subtesis, se examinarán las críticas que se le formulan al autor con respecto a la falta de cumplimento del deber de no contribuir con la injusticia y se explicitarán las consecuencias del incumplimiento de este deber y de las dos obligaciones positivas mencionadas. El objetivo general de este trabajo es ofrecer una interpretación consistente de los principales argumentos de Pogge sobre justicia y pobreza globales que esclarezca los puntos incomprendidos o malinterpretados por sus críticos más importantes. Así, este trabajo constituye una contribución valiosa al campo de estudio, ya que, 1) sienta sobre bases más firmes una de las teorías filosóficas contemporáneas más citadas y ampliamente debatidas sobre justicia global y 2) facilita un verdadero intercambio de ideas entre filósofos, filósofas y otros expertos en el tema, mediante un real entendimiento de los argumentos poggeanos. (shrink)

Cosmopolitans hold that our duties of distributive justice to others do not stop at borders. Darrel Moellendorf is among those who defend the view that principles of distributive justice are applicable beyond borders. He suggests as a principle of international justice the global difference principle, which allows inequalities in the distribution of wealth and resources only if they are to the greatest advantage of the least advantaged individuals. In this paper, I try to indicate that Moellendorf’s argument for the global (...) difference principle is far from sustaining it. Instead, I argue for a minimum floor principle of distributive justice on the basis of the idea that each person ought to have an equal standard of living with respect to the fulfillment of their basic interests. I also propose the principle of contribution backed up by the principle of fair equality of opportunity, aiming to equalize background conditions of a competition for socially favored positions, as the basic principles of a complete account of global distributive justice.Kozmopolitanisti drže da se naše dužnosti distributivne pravednosti prema drugima ne zaustavljaju na granicama. Darrel Moellendorf je među onima koji brane gledište da su načela distributivne pravednosti primjenjiva s onu stranu granica. Kao načelo međunarodne pravednosti on predlaže globalno načelo razlike, koje nejednakosti u raspodjeli bogatstva i resursâ dopušta samo ako su one u najveću korist najlošije stojećih individua. U ovome članku pokušavam pokazati da Moellendorfov argument u prilog globalnog načela razlike to načelo nimalo ne potkrepljuje. Umjesto toga argumentiram u prilog načela distributivne pravednosti minimalne razine na osnovi zamisli da bi svaka osoba trebala imati jednaki standard življenja s obzirom na ispunjenje njezinih osnovnih interesa. Ujedno kao osnovna načela potpunog opisa globalne distributivne pravednosti predlažem načelo doprinosa poduprto načelom pravične jednakosti mogućnosti, koje stremi izjednačavanju pozadinskih uvjeta natjecanja za društveno favorizirane pozicije. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge’s "World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan responsibilities and Reforms" is a seminal contribution to the debate on global justice. In this review paper, I undertake a kind of stock-taking exercise in which the main components of Pogge’s position on global justuce and world poverty are outlined. I then critically discuss some important criticisms of Pogge's position.

Thomas Pogge has argued that typical citizens of affluent nations participate in an unjust global order that harms the global poor. This supports his conclusion that there are widespread negative institutional duties to reform the global order. I defend Pogge’s negative duty approach, but argue that his formulation of these duties is ambiguous between two possible readings, only one of which is properly confined to genuinely negative duties. I argue that this ambiguity leads him to shift illicitly between negative and (...) positive duties, and ultimately to overstate the extent of the negative ones. I also argue that recognition of this ambiguity makes it possible to draw a meaningful distinction between the relevant positive and negative duties, and that Pogge’s analysis can therefore be revised in a way that reveals substantial negative institutional duties to the global poor, albeit less extensive ones than Pogge asserts. In order to demonstrate this, I discuss two aspects of the global order that Pogge has criticized: the system of intellectual property rights in pharmaceuticals and the rights of de facto rulers to dispose of a nation’s natural resources. In each case, although I do not specify the relevant negative institutional duties precisely, I try to identify intelligible questions whose answers would reveal genuinely negative duties and show that their likely answers are distinct from the conclusions asserted by Pogge and suggested by his analysis. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of how normative theories on global poverty make assumptions regarding the geography of global poverty and global power constellations. I follow some recent global developments relevant to these assumptions, and ask whether normative theorizing should react to these developments. I argue that while accounts of global justice are not explicitly committed to any particular empirical ideas, the global justice discourse reflects the specific socioeconomic and geopolitical context in which it emerged, and that this context is (...) currently giving way to a somewhat different reality. I suggest some preliminary starting points for a normative theory which would reflect the contemporary conditions more accurately. These starting points include shifting the focus of theorizing from relations between rich and poor countries to inequalities on various levels, and the notion of a complex institutional site of global justice. (shrink)

In Responding to Global Poverty, Christian Barry and Gerhard Øverland argue that, while exploitation is morally problematic, responsibilities not to exploit are characteristically less stringent than responsibilities not to harm. They even suggest that exploiters’ responsibilities to assist the exploited may be weaker than the responsibilities of culpable bystanders who are able to help the poor but fail to do so We think Barry and Øverland underestimate the prospects of the exploitation argument. In our paper, we suggest that exploitation can (...) plausibly be understood as a kind of harm. If exploitation harms, then it requires special justification and can generate stringent responsibilities not to exploit that have a different ground than those generated by morally culpable failures to assist. This suggests an important way to rehabilitate arguments for poverty relief on the basis of a duty not to harm, and that there is more interesting territory to explore than Barry and Øverland’s arguments suggest. (shrink)

The pro tanto duty not to harm is arguably the most widely accepted basis for moral demand. However, in the case of global poverty, even if we accept that individual members of wealthier nations are responsible for harming the global poor (through their constitution of, or participation in or with, global institutions that harm), it remains difficult to claim that individuals violate a negative duty in doing so. For an agent to hold a duty, that duty must be at least (...) (a) recognizable to a reasonably competent observer, and (b) fulfillable, two criteria which do not appear to be met. This paper argues that we have misunderstood the way in which the global community harms the global poor. As a result, there are a range of acts—the provision of financial aid—which the global community largely fails to undertake and which form a part of violating the negative duty not to harm. In relation to these global acts, it is straightforward for individuals both to recognize what they would need to do to avoid participating in the harm of global poverty and to achieve that avoidance: individuals simply need to provide financial aid. As such, assuming that individuals are culpable for the harms committed by intersecting global institutions, then their participation in harm also violates a negative duty not to inflict such harm. This opens up a further remedial duty to provide financial aid for past harms committed. (shrink)

Nicole Hassoun has recently defended the view that the relatively affluent members of the world’s population are, prima facie, obligated to ensure that the global institutional system enables all people to meet their basic needs. This paper is a critical discussion of Hassoun’s argument in favor of this view. Hassoun’s argument is first presented. In sections three and four, I try to bring out a number of formal and informal problems with the argument. Section five discusses a number of possible (...) replies to the worries raised in section four. The conclusion of the paper is that Hassoun’s argument should be rejected. There are two independent and individually sufficient reasons for this conclusion: the argument is invalid and contains at least one false premise. (shrink)

With regard to the problem of world poverty, libertarian theories of corrective justice emphasize negative duties and the idea of responsibility whereas utilitarian theories of help concentrate on positive duties based on the capacity of the helper. Thomas Pogge has developed a revised model of compensation that entails positive obligations that are generated by negative duties. He intends to show that the affluent are violating their negative duties to ensure that their conduct will not harm others: They are contributing to (...) and profiting from an unjust global order. But the claim that negative duty generated positive obligations are more acceptable than positive duties is contestable. I examine whether Henry Shue’s model that is integrating negative duties and positive duties is more convincing concerning the foundation of positive duties to protect others. I defend the idea that there are positive duties of justice. This approach can integrate an allocation of positive duties via responsibility and maintain the advantage of an independent foundation of positive duties. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge argues that affluent people in the developing world have contribution-based duties to help protect the poor. And it follows from Pogge's most general thesis that affluent people are contributing to most, if not all, instances of global poverty. In this article I explore two problems with Pogge's general thesis. First, I investigate a typical way in which affluent people would be contributing to global poverty according to Pogge: that affluent countries use their superior bargaining power to get poor (...) countries to accept trading schemes that are unduly favourable to the affluent. I suggest that this type of relation is best understood as exploitation, and that Pogge's general thesis is better understood as a thesis about how affluent people exploit poor people rather than about how they contribute to poverty. Second, I argue that the exploitation does not have the normative content of doing harm. Although exploiting people is often morally wrong, it is not at all clear how demanding exploitation-based duties are. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that when democratic states act wrongly, they should bear the costs of the harm they cause. However, since states are collective agents, their financial burdens pass on to their individual citizens. This fact raises important questions about the proper distribution of the state’s collective responsibility for its unjust policies. This article identifies two opposing models for sharing this collective responsibility in democracies: first, in proportion to citizens’ personal association with the unjust policy; second, by giving each (...) citizen an equal share of the costs. Proportional distribution is compatible with the principle of fairness. And yet, both in the literature and in political praxis we find many supporters for the equal sharing of the costs of unjust policies in democracies. How can equal distribution be defended on normative grounds? This article develops a defense that is grounded in citizens’ associative obligations. I argue that, at least in some democracies, one of the intrinsic values of the civic bond revolves around the joint formation and execution of worthy political goals. This social good generates the political associative obligation to accept an equal distribution of the costs of unjust policies. (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)

In Responding to Global Poverty, Christian Barry and Gerhard Øverland argue that, while exploitation is morally problematic, responsibilities not to exploit are characteristically less stringent than responsibilities not to harm. They even suggest that exploiters’ responsibilities to assist the exploited may be weaker than the responsibilities of culpable bystanders who are able to help the poor but fail to do so We think Barry and Øverland underestimate the prospects of the exploitation argument. In our paper, we suggest that exploitation can (...) plausibly be understood as a kind of harm. If exploitation harms, then it requires special justification and can generate stringent responsibilities not to exploit that have a different ground than those generated by morally culpable failures to assist. This suggests an important way to rehabilitate arguments for poverty relief on the basis of a duty not to harm, and that there is more interesting territory to explore than Barry and Øverland’s arguments suggest. (shrink)

This article argues that Thomas Pogge's important theory of global justice does not adequately appreciate the relation between interactional and institutional accounts of human rights, along with the important normative role of care and solidarity in the context of globalization. It also suggests that more attention needs to be given critically to the actions of global corporations and positively to introducing democratic accountability into the institutions of global governance. The article goes on to present an alternative approach to global justice (...) based on a more robust conception of human rights grounded in a conception of equal positive freedom, in which these rights are seen to apply beyond the coercive political institutions to which Pogge primarily confines them (e.g. to prohibiting domestic violence), and in which they can guide the development of economic, social and political forms to enable their fulfillment. (shrink)

Millions of people in the developing world lack access to curative drugs. Pogge identifies the cause of this problem as a lack of redistribution across borders. In contrast, this article shows that institutional shortcomings within developing countries are the main issue. These different explanations are the result of diverging analytic approaches to ethics: a cosmopolitan approach versus an ordonomic approach. This article compares both approaches with regard to how they conceptualize and propose to solve the problem of providing life-saving pharmaceuticals (...) to the poor in developing countries. (shrink)

Among the defining characteristics of moral cosmopolitanism are the convictions that personal relations, membership in social or political organizations like local communities or nation-states are insignificant for agents when determining their scope of moral concern. The moral scope is unlimited and the moral duties reach globally. Following up observations made by Onora O’Neill and others, it is argued that Singer’s model needs a complementary tool to allocate duties.That tool can be found by supplementing the agent centered perspective of the model (...) with a regard for the social and institutional circles encompassing right holders. Instead of focusing on the duty holder, I suggest that the cosmopolitan’s “ultimate unit of moral concern” – here, the claimholder is regarded central.Thus, Singer’s cosmological model is kept, but in a rights-based methodological approach for allocating duties. Methodologically, what needs to be investigated is whether the scope of legitimate moral claims expands from the agent for the same reasons that the circle of moral concern expands from Singer’s agent. (shrink)