Lecture 10 Flashcards
- The question of global distributive justice is whether states should …
“transfer some of the wealth which they create to foreigners … We allow distant strangers to live under conditions of
deprivation which we would not tolerate at home … The question, then, is whether we are entitled to do so. Put bluntly, is
the tie that binds us to, say, fellow Britons, Germans, Americans, etc., such as to justify the view that we can do more for
them than we ought to do for people who are starving in Ethiopia?” (Fabre 2007: 96).
General range of positions on global justice
Here is the general range of positions:
- 1) Our obligation of justice towards fellow nationals are the same as our obligations of justice towards foreigners.
- 2) We have obligations of justice towards both foreigners and fellow nationals, but we owe more to the latter than we do to
the former.
- 3) We have obligations towards fellow nationals and foreigners but whereas our obligations to the former are obligations of
justice, our obligations to the latter are more properly called humanitarian (96).
Liberal egalitarianism
This position supports the move from social justice to global justice
* 1) Social Justice
- 2) Global Justice
original position in global justice
- Charles Beitz’ Political Theory and International Relations argues the original position should be global.
- Why? If the parties of the original position don’t know arbitrary facts about themselves, then this should include territory.
- If so, people will seek a distributive framework that minimizes the risk that they end up in a poor country.
Social justice
- This is developed by Rawls’ in A Theory of Justice:
- “I shall be satisfied if it is possible to formulate a reasonable conception of justice for the basic structure of society
conceived for the time being as a closed system isolated from other societies” (Rawls 1971: 7). - Note: he imagines an original position amongst nations …
- … The outcome of this would be fairness between states, but also non-intervention – a strong sovereignty thesis.
Pogge spotlight moral questions
- Central moral questions:
- 1) How can extreme poverty continue in spite of the moral and technological progress of the west?
- 2) Why do citizens in the west not find it troubling that the playing field of world politics is titled in our favor?
Pogge spotlight - the problem
Part of the problem is that proximity matters – we care more about people we know (about) and interact with.
- “We live in extreme isolation from severe poverty. We do not know anyone earning less than $30 for a 72-hour week of
hard, monotonous labor … [This encourages] two common moral prejudices: (1) that the persistence of severe poverty
abroad does not require our moral attention, and (2) that there is nothing seriously wrong, in regard to world poverty, with
our conduct, policies, and the global economic institutions we forge” (Pogge 2008: 4-5).
Should we care more about co nationals than foreigners? - Pogge
- So should we care more about co-nationals than foreigners? Pogge says no.
- Why? Because due to our global economic systems, we are actually causing harm to peoples in other countries.
Thus we have a moral obligation to alleviate poverty: - “I deny that our imposition of the existing global order is not actively causing poverty, not harming the poor … I argue that
[we] can justify prioritizing fellow-members and group interests only if the institutional framework structuring the
competition is minimally fair” (Pogge 2008: 15).
Luck egalitarianism - liberal egalitarianism
What is the morally arbitrary thing they are trying to correct for?
- Primarily it is that residence – i.e. where a person was born and lives – is morally arbitrary in the same way as race or
gender.
- Since borders are morally arbitrary, foreigners are owed the same resources as co-nationals.
- This is a strong variant of cosmopolitanism.
Sufficiency - liberal egalitarianism
- For proponents of sufficiency (Anderson 1999) or capabilities (Nussbaum 2000; Sen 1992), borders are also irrelevant
- If justice requires us to have enough resources, there is no reason to limit this claim to national communities.
- But whereas we should distribute everywhere, we don’t have to distribute the same amount everywhere, because living
standards are higher some places than others – thus while borders are morally irrelevant, they are practically relevant. - This is a weak version of cosmopolitanism, because once the sufficiency threshold has been crossed, it is fine to privilege
co-nationals over foreigners.
non-cosmopolitans (statists) position 1
- Liberal Egalitarianism II: Non-Cosmopolitans (statists)
- Position I: We owe more to nationals than foreigners (although we do owe something to foreigners)
- This is a weak commitment to global justice
- But it follows from our commonsense intuition, which is to think that borders do matter.
non-cosmopolitans (statists) position 2
- Liberal Egalitarianism II: Non-Cosmopolitans (statists)
- Position II: We owe something to foreigners, but not due to the demands of justice.
- Nagel (2005) holds the view that justice only exists at the nation-state level
- Why? Because justice is a property of institutions/organizations that can coerce responsibility from its members
- This is his “political conception of justice”, which is kept within state borders
- Addendum: if international organizations began to operate with real coercive power, and dealt with individuals, rather
than states, then under these conditions, global justice might be possible.
Communitarianism
This position is similar to statism: particularist commitments contra universalist principles.
- Social justice must be based on local decision-making and deliberation.
- Thus no obligations of justice.
- This doesn’t mean that we can’t do more to redistribute globally, only that we don’t have to
Strength and weakness communitarianism
- Weakness: We do hold certain positions to be universally just/unjust and thus not the purview of particular communities (a
claim we hold against communitarians in general). - Strength: It reveals the importance of self-determination – both national and political.
Spotlight = Miller
- Miller believes that the answer lies in human rights – there is an obligation to protect “basic human rights”.
On this understanding of
their purpose, we would expect the list of human rights to be fairly short. Only essential rights, such as rights to life and
physical security, belong on a list whose aim is to set a minimum standard separating the tolerable from the intolerable. - His approach is minimal: to focus on needs. There is an obligation of justice to protect basic needs, but that’s it.
