This article investigates the relationship between moral judgments, fallibility, and imaginative insight. It will draw heavily from the canon of classical American philosophy, the members of which (from Ralph Waldo Emerson, to C.S. Peirce, E.L. Cabot, to Jane Addams, to John Dewey) took up this relationship as pivotally important in moral theorizing. It argues that the process of hypothesis formation—characterized as “insight” by Emerson and extended by Peirce in his notion of “abduction”—is a necessary condition of moral progress for it (...) allows individuals to think through the boundaries of social and ethical life. In a world of unexpected occurrences and uncertainty, the ability to generate novel explanatory frameworks and normative ideals is a crucial, if normally underappreciated, moral faculty. This paper attempts to respond to this relative neglect. (shrink)

Der Beitrag entwickelt ein neues, machtbasiertes Verantwortungsmodell für die individuelle Verstrickung in globale strukturelle Ungerechtigkeiten. Er geht von dem Problem aus, dass die meisten Bedingungen für die Zuerkennung moralischer Haftbarkeitsverantwortung in Fällen der individuellen Verstrickung in globale strukturelle Übel nicht erfüllt sind: Wenn eine Person beispielsweise ein unter ausbeuterischen Bedingungen produziertes T-Shirt kauft, so ist diese Handlung für das Eintreten der strukturellen Ungerechtigkeit weder hinreichend noch notwendig, die Person hat die strukturell ungerechten Eff ekte ihrer Handlung häufi g nicht intendiert (...) und kann die Folgen ihrer Handlungen epistemisch nicht ausreichend gut überblicken. Nicht zuletzt ist ihre Partizipation an der kapitalistischen Weltwirtschaftsordnung unfreiwillig. Der Beitrag diskutiert, welche Lösung Iris Marion Young in ihrem Modell kollektiv geteilter Verantwortung für dieses Problem vorgeschlagen hat, und argumentiert, dass hier insbesondere in Hinblick auf das Kriterium der kausalen Relevanz Probleme bestehen bleiben. Davon ausgehend schlägt der Beitrag ein ergänzendes, machttheoretisch begründetes Modell der Zuerkennung moralischer Haftbarkeitsverantwortung vor: Verantwortung wird diesem zufolge nicht nur in Bezug auf einzelne Handlungen konzeptualisiert, sondern auch in Bezug auf die strukturell generierte und generalisierte Handlungsfähigkeit, die Personen aufgrund ihres Status in Regelsystemen gegenüber anderen Personen besitzen. In diesem Sinne wird einzelnen Personen Verantwortung nicht nur für die kausalen Eff ekte ihrer Handlungen, sondern bereits für die kausalen Eff ekte der Annahme ihrer sozialen Macht über andere übertragen. Ich argumentiere, dass Personen für ihre soziale Macht gegenüber anderen verantwortlich gemacht werden können, weil diese Macht die generalisierte Vorbedingung ihrer individuellen Handlungsfähigkeit darstellt und weil sie ihre sozial konstituierte Handlungsfähigkeit durch jegliches Handeln implizit annehmen. Soziale Macht wird Personen durch soziale Regeln übertragen: Auch dominierende Macht besitzt jemand, ohne dafür notwendigerweise etwas tun zu müssen. Sobald eine Person ausgehend von ihrer sozialen Macht handelt, reproduziert sie damit notwendigerweise die sozialen Konstitutionsbedingungen ihrer Macht über andere. Genauer stellt die Annahme ihrer sozialen Macht eine NESS-Bedingung in Hinblick auf die Reproduktion derjenigen strukturell ungerechten sozialen Regeln dar, die ihr Macht erst übertragen haben. Dabei können Personen meistens vorhersehen, dass die Annahme ihrer sozialen Macht, d.h. ihrer sozialen Statusfunktionen globale strukturelle Ungerechtigkeiten auf kausal relevante Art und Weise reproduziert. Obwohl die Annahme sozialer Statusfunktionen normalerweise unfreiwillig ist, kann Personen für diese kompensatorische Verantwortung übertragen werden, insofern sie die ungerechten Effekte dieser Annahme vorhersehen können. Da die Effekte unserer Statusannahme kausal und epistemisch kollektiv geteilt sind, schlage ich vor, diese Form der Verantwortung als eine kollektiv-geteilte zu verstehen. Um strukturellen Ungerechtigkeiten abzuhelfen, müssen Personen entsprechend dazu beitragen, handlungsfähige kollektive Akteure – d.h. gerechte politische Institutionen – zu bilden. (shrink)

This review essay discusses two recent attempts to reform the framework in which issues of international and global justice are discussed: Iris Marion Young's ?social connection' model and the practice-dependent approach, here exemplified by Ayelet Banai, Miriam Ronzoni and Christian Schemmel's edited collection. I argue that while Young's model may fit some issues of international or global justice, it misconceives the problems that many of them pose. Indeed, its difficulties point precisely in the direction of practice dependence as it is (...) presented by Banai et al. I go on to discuss what seem to be the strengths of that method, and particularly Banai et al.'s defence of it against the common claim that it is biased towards the status quo. I also discuss Andrea Sangiovanni and Kate MacDonald's contributions to the collection. (shrink)

In the wake of the Cold War a characteristic style of genocide narratives emerged in the West. For the most part, philosophers did not pay attention to this development even though they are uniquely qualified to address arguments and conceptual issues discussed in this burgeoning genocide genre. While ostensibly a response to a specific recent article belonging to the genre, this essay offers an outline of an ethics of genocide narratives in the form of four lessons on how not to (...) write about genocide. It is argued that to the extent that works on the subject of genocide are dominated by narrativism, genocidalism, activism, or extreme pacifism, they cannot properly be classified as scholarly endeavors and must be met with resistance per the requirements of academic ethics and proper scholarly methodology. (shrink)

This paper is a summary of my book 'Wild Animal Ethics'.

Actions to prepare for and prevent pandemics are a common topic for bioethical analysis. However, little attention has been paid to global catastrophic biological risks more broadly, including pandemics with artificial origins, the creation of agents for biological warfare, and harmful outcomes of human genome editing. What’s more, international policy discussions often focus on economic arguments for state action, ignoring a key potential set of reasons for states to mitigate global catastrophic biological risks: moral reasons. In this paper, I frame (...) the mitigation of such risks as a global public good, and I explore three possible categories of moral reasons that might motivate states to provide this global public good: nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and interstate obligations. Whilst there are strong objections to moral nationalism as a reason for states to act, moral cosmopolitanism may provide a broad reason which is further supplemented for individual states through the elaboration of interstate moral obligations. The obligations I consider are moral leadership, fairness, and reciprocity. Moral reasons for individual states action may more effectively or more appropriately motivate states to mitigate global catastrophic biological risks. (shrink)

In their recently published target article, Bowman-Smart et al. (2023) summarize the ethical issues at play in both the case for and the case against using NIPT to screen for non-medical traits.The...

The All or Nothing Problem is a paradox developed in recent debates about effective altruism. One argues that the paradox can be resolved by rejecting some of its claims in favor of parallel conditional claims. Another contends that the correct solution to the paradox is to reject a wrong bridge principle that is assumed in it. A third draws a distinction between two moral realms, and suggests that the paradox is only of limited relevance to some assertion of effective altruism (...) because it may not exist in certain moral realm. In this article, I argue that those solutions to the All or Nothing Problem is unsatisfactory, and propose an alternative solution. Firstly, I challenge their reasons for a claim in the paradox. Secondly, I propose a holist deontological solution to the All or Nothing Problem. Finally, in order to understand the true nature of the problem, I carry out an analysis of the underlying causes of its more general form. (shrink)

Is there a rational and ethical basis for efforts to rescue individuals in dire straits? When does rescue have ethical support, and when does it reflect an irrational impulse? This paper defines a Rule of Rescue and shows its intuitive appeal. It then proceeds to argue that this rule lacks support from standard principles of justice and from ethical principles more broadly, and should be rejected in many situations. I distinguish between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons, and argue that the Rule (...) of Rescue qualifies only in a narrow range of cases where agent-relative considerations apply. I conclude that it would be wise to set aside the Rule of Rescue in many cases, especially those involving public policies, where it has only weak normative justification. The broader implications of this analysis are noted. (shrink)

Consequentialists insist there is no rational basis for distinguishing between determinate victims and indeterminate victims. Whether it's a child drowning at our feet or needy communities abroad, our reason to help is the same. Experimental data indicate, however, that we regularly make such distinctions. In this article, I show that there are indeed persuasive normative grounds for preserving this distinction. When potential beneficiaries are determinate, they have a special claim on us grounded in fairness. I present several cases that demonstrate (...) that treating determinate beneficiaries the same as indeterminate beneficiaries is unjust. I conclude with an analysis of the relevant social psychology data.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.When Helping the Victim Matters More Than Helping a VictimVolume 25, Issue 1SCOTT M. JAMES DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820812000246Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. When Helping the Victim Matters More Than Helping a VictimVolume 25, Issue 1SCOTT M. JAMES DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820812000246Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. When Helping the Victim Matters More Than Helping a VictimVolume 25, Issue 1SCOTT M. JAMES DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820812000246Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

Although we do not know exactly how many people die each year of malnutrition or related health problems, the number is very high, in the millions. By giving money to support famine relief efforts, each of us could save at least some of them. By not giving, we let them die.

Duties of beneficence are not well understood. Peter Singer has argued that the scope of beneficence should not be restricted to those who are, in some sense, near us. According to Singer, refusing to contribute to humanitarian relief efforts is just as wrong as refusing to rescue a child drowning before you. Most people do not seem convinced by Singer’s arguments, yet no one has offered a plausible justification for restricting the scope of beneficence that doesn’t produce counterintuitive results elsewhere. (...) I offer a defence of this restricted scope by introducing the notion of unique dependence, a notion that is both intuitively attractive and theoretically grounded. It explains why your reason to rescue the drowning child is more stringent than your reason to contribute to humanitarian relief, while blocking the conclusion that we have no reason at all to aid distant sufferers . (shrink)

Is there a moral requirement to assist wild animals suffering due to natural causes? According to the laissez-faire intuition, although we may have special duties to assist wild animals, there are no general requirements to care for them. If this view is right, then our positive duties toward wild animals can be only special, grounded in special circumstances. In this article I present the contribution argument which employs the thought that the receipt of benefits from wild animals is one such (...) kind of special circumstance. If this argument is correct, then the circle of moral agents required to assist some wild animals is significantly widened. (shrink)

Many philosophers endorse the ideal of justice yet disagree radically over what that ideal requires. One persistent problem for thinking about justice is that the unjust social arrangements that originally motivated our questions may also distort our thinking about possible answers. This paper suggests some strategies for improving our thinking about justice in the unjust meantime. As our world becomes more just, we may expect our thinking about justice to improve.

In 2008 the Australian Government introduced a national reform agenda to increase organ and tissue donation. Australia continues to perform poorly by international standards on measures of organ procurement, however. This paper outlines three proposals to improve donation rates and considers the empirical evidence available for each. A number of ethical objections frequently given to resist such proposals are also addressed. Firstly, it is recommended that Australia implement an ‘opt-out’ system of organ donation. Secondly, the existing veto rules should be (...) changed to better protect the wishes of those who wish to donate. Finally, a numer of incentives should be offered to increase donation rates; these could include incentives of financial value, but also non-financial incentives such as prioritisation for the receipt of organs for previous donors. (shrink)

This paper argues for two interrelated claims. The first is that the most innovative contribution of Timothy Williamson, Herman Cappelen, and Max Deutsch in the debate about the epistemology of thought experiments is not the denial of intuition and the claim of the irrelevance of experimental philosophy but the claim of epistemological continuity and the rejection of philosophical exceptionalism. The second is that a better way of implementing the claim of epistemological continuity is not Deutsch and Cappelen’s argument view or (...) Williamson’s folk psychological view. This is so because while the argument view makes the basis of the relevant classificational judgement evidentially too demanding; the folk psychological view makes it too weak and error-prone to count as an adequate explanation. Drawing from a certain reading of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics that flowers in Miranda Fricker and John McDowell, I argue for the reason-responsiveness view. Like the extant views, the reason-responsiveness view vindicates the claim of epistemological continuity. But unlike the extant views, it does not share those problematic features. Further, I show that the reason-responsiveness view offers a way for champions of the claim of epistemological continuity to resist Avner Baz’s objection to the claim of epistemological continuity and his objection to the philosophical use of thought experiments while taking on board some attractive elements of his view. (shrink)

Situationists (e.g., Doris in Lack of character: personality and moral behavior, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002; Harman in Proc Aristot Soc 99:315–331, 1999. 10.2307/4545312), with reference to empirical work in psychology, have called into question the predictive and explanatory power of character traits and on this basis have criticized the empirical adequacy of moral virtue. More recently, Alfano (Philos Q 62(247):223–249, 2012; Character as moral fiction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013) has extended the situationist critique from virtue ethics to virtue (...) epistemology. On the line he advances, virtue responsibilism—the view that intellectual character traits play an important part in traditional and untraditional epistemological inquiries—is criticized as empirically inadequate in light of the extent to which individuals are shown to be susceptible to seemingly trivial and epistemically irrelevant situational influences. Alfano’s attempted redeployment of the situationist challenge to virtue responsibilism is on closer inspection not as straightforward as he claims. It is granted that the empirical adequacy of virtue responsibilism will be eventually threatened if it can be shown that virtuous motivation is, in light of situational factors, causally ineffective. As it turns out, various psychological studies which situationists have overlooked, suggest that virtuous motivation is causally efficacious in a way that favours the position of the virtue responsibilist over the situationist. In the first part of this paper, I outline the hard core of virtue theory: both a rich motivation requirement, and a commitment to the inherent relation between virtue and a good life; then I assess whether these are undermined by situationist criticism. I address the confusion of the existing debate, and the conclusion drawn is that virtue theory ultimately remains unscathed. In the second part of my paper I defend the empirical adequacy of virtue theory based on self-determination theory. When we afford closer attention to studies on the orientation of our motivation, it becomes clear how the dynamics of our motivation have a tremendous influence on desirable behavioural outcomes: a good life. (shrink)

“Reimagining a global ethic” is a project worthy of Andrew Carnegie and of the Carnegie Council's upcoming commemoration of his founding gift in 1914. As a collaborative research project stretching forward over the next three years, it ought to be integrative and reconciliatory: that is, it must try to understand the globalization of ethics that has accompanied the globalization of commerce and communications and to figure out what ethical values human beings share across all our differences of race, religion, ethnicity, (...) national identity, and material wealth. When human beings do disagree morally, the search for a global ethic becomes an attempt to elucidate by analysis what exactly people are disagreeing about, so that, after arguing out our differences, we can either agree to disagree or work together to find common ground. Finding common ground on large ethical matters and understanding more deeply why, in some instances, we remain at odds with each other is worthwhile in itself, but it might also further Andrew Carnegie's original goal in founding the Council, which was to reduce the amount of conflict and violence in the world. (shrink)

In Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-Led Social Movements, Monique Deveaux criticizes and reframes the traditional, moral (and often individualistic) response to poverty in favor of a political and collective one that centers the role of the poor and poor-led groups in the anti-poverty agenda. I have two aims in this review, a supportive one and a more critical one. On the supportive side, I examine the advances Deveaux makes by 1) expanding the category of agents of justice; 2) putting the poor (...) at the center of an effective response to poverty; and 3) changing the emphasis from individual duties to a collective response. On the critical side, I revisit Deveaux’s critique of the traditional approach and argue that she unnecessarily shifts the moral burden away from the affluent whose complicity and capacity remain important grounds of obligation. In conclusion, I consider some remaining challenges that are (helpfully) exposed by Deveaux’s account. (shrink)

How much are we morally required to do to aid others? After articulating some of the main contributions to this debate, I defend the position that we are sometimes morally permitted to spend our time and resources satisfying our own interests and needs rather than using them to aid others who are in desperate need. I argue that the duty to aid the needy should not always take priority over every other end we have. Whatever else we value, we most (...) highly value the ability and opportunity to live our lives on our own terms; this grounds both our obligation to aid others and places limits on how far these obligations ought to extend. Persons ought to respect others and fulfill their moral obligations but they must also be given the moral space to set ends and pursue those ends just because they are theirs. (shrink)

This article defends the use of fanciful examples within the method of wide reflective equilibrium. First, it characterizes the general persuasive role of described cases within that method. Second, it suggests three criteria any example must meet in order to succeed in this persuasive role; fancifulness has little or nothing to do with whether an example is able to meet these criteria. Third, it discusses several general objections to fanciful examples and concludes that they are objections to the abuse of (...) described cases; they identify no special problem with fanciful examples. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical analysis of the work of western humanitarian NGOs operating in the African continent. We argue that in most cases, NGOs and their supporters are deaf to the actual wants, needs, and desires ? or, in other words, the agency ? of those they are trying to aid. We do this by first offering a series of ways of understanding the ideological commitments that inform the work of many humanitarian NGOs and those who donate to them. (...) In this, we expose the reasons leading to the failure of such individuals and organizations to recognize and take account of the agency of those they seek to help. Second, we offer evidence of the problematic outcome of this failure when coupled with a lack of recognition of the wider context of many of the conflicts that lead to the suffering of those that such NGOs intend to aid. In doing this, we expose the ways in which an NGO's own position can reinforce and contribute to the continuance of this suffering. This, we argue results from the simplified, inaccurate, and de-politicized ways in which NGOs tend to portray the problem of suffering both to those they solicit for donations and in their own conception of the problems and the ?moral? role that the organization itself plays in its work. (shrink)

Moral and political philosophers no longer condemn harm inflicted on nonhuman animals as self-evidently as they did when animal welfare and animal rights advocacy was at the forefront in the 1980s, and sentience, suffering, species-typical behavior, and personhood were the basic concepts of the discussion. The article shows this by comparing the determination with which societies seek responsibility for human harm to the relative indifference with which law and morality react to nonhuman harm. When harm is inflicted on humans, policies (...) concerning negligence and duty of care and principles such as the ‘but for’ rule and the doctrine of double effect are easily introduced. When harm is inflicted on nonhumans, this does not happen, at least not any more. As an explanation for the changed situation, the article offers a shift in discussion and its basic terminology. Simple ethical considerations supported the case for nonhuman animals, but many philosophers moved on to debate different views on political justice instead. This allowed the creation of many conflicting views that are justifiable on their own presuppositions. In the absence of a shared foundation, this fragments the discussion, focuses it on humans, and ignores or marginalizes nonhuman animals. (shrink)

The efficiency argument for profit maximization says that corporations and their managers should maximize profits because this is the course of action that will lead to an ‘economically efficient’ or ‘welfare maximizing’ outcome. In this paper, I argue that the fundamental problem with this argument is not that markets in the real world are less than perfect, but rather that the argument does not properly acknowledge the personal sphere. Morality allows each of us a sphere in which we are free (...) to pursue our personal interests, even if these are not optimal from the social point of view. But the efficiency argument does not come to terms with this feature of social life. (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)

Philosophical notions of humanitarianism – duties based in beneficence that apply to humanity generally – are largely focused on personal duty as opposed to official development assistance, or foreign aid, between nations. To rectify this gap in the literature, I argue that, from the point of view of donor nations, their humanitarian obligations are met when they have given enough of their fair share of resources, and from the point of view of recipient nations, they have received enough when they (...) have reached a threshold of capabilities. I conclude that a future theory of humanitarian obligations ought to take into account the disparate, and often conflicting, interests of nations as benefactors or as recipients of aid. (shrink)

Many people believe that the research-based pharmaceutical industry has a ‘special’ moral obligation to provide lifesaving medications to the needy, either free-ofcharge or at a reduced rate relative to the cost of manufacture. In this essay, I argue that we can explain the ubiquitous notion of a special moral obligation as an expression of emotionally charged intuitions involving sacred or protected values and an aversive response to betrayal in an asymmetric trust relationship. I then review the most common arguments used (...) to justify the claim that the pharmaceutical industry has a special moral obligation and show why these justifications fail. Taken together, these conclusions call into question the conventional ideologies that have traditionally animated the debate on whether the pharmaceutical industry has special duties of beneficence and distributive justice with respect to the impoverished in dire need of their products. (shrink)

Many people believe that the research-based pharmaceutical industry has a ‘special’ moral obligation to provide lifesaving medications to the needy, either free-of-charge or at a reduced rate relative to the cost of manufacture. In this essay, I argue that we can explain the ubiquitous notion of a special moral obligation as an expression of emotionally charged intuitions involving sacred or protected values and an aversive response to betrayal in an asymmetric trust relationship. I then review the most common arguments used (...) to justify the claim that the pharmaceutical industry has a special moral obligation and show why these justifications fail. Taken together, these conclusions call into question the conventional ideologies that have traditionally animated the debate on whether the pharmaceutical industry has special duties of beneficence and distributive justice with respect to the impoverished in dire need of their products. (shrink)

John Harris recently argues that the moral bioenhancement proposed by Persson and Savulescu can damage moral agency by depriving the recipients of their freedom to fall (freedom to make wrongful choices) and therefore should not be pursued. The link Harris makes between moral agency and the freedom to fall, however, implies that all forms of moral enhancement, including moral education, that aim to make the enhancement recipients less likely to “fall” are detrimental to moral agency. In this paper, I present (...) a new moral agency-based critique against the moral bioenhancement program envisaged by Persson and Savulescu. I argue that the irresistible influences exerted by the bioenhancement program harms our capabilities for conducting accurate self-reflection and forming decisions that truly express our will, which subsequently undermine our moral agency. (shrink)

This paper examines the extent to which the voluntary adoption of codes of conduct by multinational corporations (MNCs) renders MNCs accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which codes of conduct coordinate the expectations of relevant parties with regard to the provision of assistance by MNCs on grounds of rescue or justice. The paper argues that this coordinative role of codes of conduct renders MNCs more accountable for (...) the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct than they would be without a code of conduct. This interpretation of the significance of codes of conduct is contrasted with the view that codes of conduct render MNCs accountable for performing actions specified in a code of conduct by grounding contractual obligations for the performance of such actions. (shrink)

This paper examines the extent to which the voluntary adoption of codes of conduct by multinational corporations rendersMNCs accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which codes of conduct coordinate the expectations of relevant parties with regard to the provision of assistance by MNCs on grounds of rescue or justice. The paper argues that this coordinative role of codes of conduct renders MNCs more accountable for the performance (...) of actions specified in a code of conduct than they would be without a code of conduct. This interpretation of the significance of codes of conduct is contrasted with the view that codes of conduct render MNCs accountable for performing actions specified in a code of conduct by grounding contractual obligations for the performance of such actions. (shrink)

This paper examines the extent to which the voluntary adoption of codes of conduct by multinational corporations (MNCs) renders MNCs accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which codes of conduct coordinate the expectations of relevant parties with regard to the provision of assistance by MNCs on grounds of rescue or justice. The paper argues that this coordinative role of codes of conduct renders MNCs more accountable for (...) the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct than they would be without a code of conduct. This interpretation of the significance of codes of conduct is contrasted with the view that codes of conduct render MNCs accountable for performing actions specified in a code of conduct by grounding contractual obligations for the performance of such actions. (shrink)

:Building on John Rawls’s account of the Law of Peoples, this paper examines the grounds and scope of the obligations of transnational corporations that are owned by members of developed economies and operate in developing economies. The paper advances two broad claims. First, the paper argues that there are conditions under which TNCs have obligations to fulfill a limited duty of assistance toward those living in developing economies, even though the duty is normally understood to fall on the governments of (...) developed economies. Second, by extending Rawls’s account to include a right to protection against arbitrary interference, the paper argues that TNCs can be said to have negative and positive obligations in the areas of human rights, labor standards, and environmental protection, as outlined in the U.N. Global Compact. More generally, the paper aims to further our understanding of the implications of Rawls’s account of justice. (shrink)

This article proposes that, in line with moral-cosmopolitan theorists, affluent nations have an obligation, founded in justice and not merely altruism or beneficence, to share the responsibility of the burden of public health implementation in low-income contexts. The current Ebola epidemic highlights the fact that countries with under-developed health systems and limited resources cannot cope with a significant and sudden health threat. The link between burden of disease, adverse factors in the social environment and poverty is well established and confirmed (...) by the 2008 World Health Organization (WHO)’s Social Determinants of Health Commission report. Well-resourced nations generally consider that they have some humanitarian obligation to assist where possible, but this obligation is limited. The following questions are considered: Is reliance on the principle of beneficence to address the global disparities in the social determinants of health and life expectancy at birth good enough? Do well-resourced nations have some obligation from justice, which is stronger than from beneficence, and which cannot be as easily cast aside or diminished, to address these issues? In a globalised world, shaped by centuries of historical injustice and where first-world economies are now so intertwined and reliant on third-world labour, beneficence is not a strong enough principle on which to base an obligation to achieve the WHO vision of ‘health equity through action on the social determinants of health’. (shrink)

One relatively straightforward way in which academics could have more impact on global poverty is by doing more to help people make wise decisions about issues relevant to such poverty. Academics could do this by conducting appropriate kinds of research on those issues and sharing what they have learned with the relevant decision makers in accessible ways. But aren’t academics already doing this? In the case of many of those issues, I think the appropriate answer would be that they could (...) do so much better. As an illustration, I examine the academic input into one decision about an issue concerning global poverty in some detail in this paper. I argue that that input has been seriously deficient, and suggest some ways in which it might be improved. Building on this discussion, I then formulate two questions that can be applied to any such decision, answers to which would indicate the quality of the input academics are currently providing. In cases where that input is deficient, and the decision in question an important one, I suggest that academics consider organising themselves in ways that will improve that input. I finish by briefly discussing how Academics Stand Against Poverty might help them do so. (shrink)

For several decades, there has been a debate in the philosophical literature concerning whether those of us who live in developed countries are morally required to give some of our money to aid agencies. Many contributors to this debate have apparently taken it that one may simply assume that the effects of the work such agencies do are overwhelmingly positive. If one turns to the literature on such agencies that has emerged in recent decades, however, one finds a number of (...) concerns about such agencies and the work they do that put that assumption in serious doubt. This situation raises a number of pressing questions, many of which have received little or no attention from philosophers. After articulating a number of those questions, I focus mainly on what I call the ‘Epistemic Question (for potential contributors to aid agencies)’: How can those of us who are not experts in international aid arrive at an estimate concerning the effects of the work aid agencies do that we have at least some good reason to believe accurate? (shrink)

Over the last few decades, psychologists have amassed a great deal of evidence that our thinking is strongly influenced by a number of biases. This research appears to have important implications for moral methodology. It seems likely that these biases affect our thinking about moral issues, and a fuller awareness of them might help us to find ways to counteract their influence, and so to improve our moral thinking. And yet there is little or no reference to such biases in (...) the philosophical literature on many pressing, substantive moral questions. In this paper, I make a start on repairing this omission in relation to one such question, the 'Aid Question', which concerns how much, if anything, we are morally required to give to aid agencies. I begin by sketching a number of biases that seem particularly likely to affect our thinking about that question. I then go on to review the psychological research on 'debiasing' - that is, on attempts to counteract the influence of such biases. And finally I discuss and illustrate certain strategies for counteracting the influence of the biases in question on our thinking about the Aid Question. (shrink)

This paper starts by addressing some objections to the very idea of aggregate social good. The paper goes on to review the case for letting aggregate social good be not only morally relevant but also sometimes morally decisive. Then the paper surveys objections to letting aggregate social good determine personal or political decisions. The paper goes on to argue against the idea that aggregate good is sensitive to desert and the idea that aggregate good should be construed as incorporating agent-relativity.

This paper starts by addressing some objections to the very idea of aggregate social good. The paper goes on to review the case for letting aggregate social good be not only morally relevant but also sometimes morally decisive. Then the paper surveys objections to letting aggregate social good determine personal or political decisions. The paper goes on to argue against the idea that aggregate good is sensitive to desert and the idea that aggregate good should be construed as incorporating agent-relativity.