There is an abiding scepticism in normative theory that individual responsibility for global injustice lies outside commonsense moral thought because it is not grounded in an intuitive conception of human agency. Despite the grim realities of injustice in an interconnected world, this scepticism holds that human beings cannot properly internalise a nonrestrictive view of responsibility because it cuts against their experience of agency in the world. Against this view, this article argues that individual responsibility for the (...) realisation of global justice is supported by a pervasive, and socio-politically influenced, feature of the phenomenology of agency: moral imagination. Moral imagination connects actions which are within the domain of an ordinary life to larger projects of social and political change. Since there is no compelling reason for the scope of those projects to be restricted, there is an accessible understanding and experience of the phenomenology of agency which grounds individual global responsibility in the real world. I call this a dynamic phenomenology of agency. (shrink)

Challenges to the exercise of the basic socio-economic rights of half the global population give rise to some of the most pressing issues today. This timely book focuses on world poverty, providing a systematic exposition of the evolving legal responsibility of the international community of states to cooperate in addressing the structural obstacles that contribute to this injustice. This book analyzes the approach, contribution, and current limitations of the international law of human rights to the manifestations of world (...) poverty, inviting the reader to rethink human rights, and, in particular, the framing of responsibilities that are essential to their contemporary protection. (shrink)

Globalization has made the protection of human rights and the prevention of violations of these rights more complex in recent years. This article reviews a book that challenges the current ‘wisdom’ of human rights obligations that almost uniquely focus on the behaviour of states in relation to their own populations. The focus of this review is the concept of ‘shared responsibility’ for human rights protection that is an essential topic of the book. It assesses the call for responsibility (...) for those states with the power to influence structures in the international community that perpetrate poverty and human rights violations on a large scale. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Concern with global responsibility for survival as such invites the creation of a specific international organization. The new body should adjudicate as to which disputes are open (such as, for example, concerning the advisability of building nuclear plants) and which are not (for example, white supremacy); most significantly, the new body should carefully guard its credibility by sticking to veracity, by avoiding deceit even in extreme situations. In particular it behoves us all to confess that we have (...) no solution to our most urgent problems. (shrink)

This book examines alternative philosophical conceptions of legal interpretation as a way of making sense of international human rights as they bear on government and multinational business activities. Today the dominant philosophies of law pertaining to rights interpretation are positivism, realism, and law-as-integrity.

v. 1. Global justice : seminal essays -- v. 2. Global ethics : seminal essays.

The purpose of the article is to show the great potential of human ability in social development and to reveal the personality conditions for the development of mankind. The categorical arrangement of global responsibility is given relating to the individual personality and to civilization. The creation of social conditions addresses the vital importance for the individual development of global responsibility. The theoretical base of the research includes numerous works on fundamental problems in the field of social (...) philosophy, philosophy of law, individual and social psychology, theory of personality, culture research, and worksabout civilization. The historical and socio-philosophical approaches are used to reveal the regulation of development of global responsibility on the individual level and the level of civilization. Phenomenological and axiological methods are used to study the activity aspect of global responsibility. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 117-131 [Access article in PDF] Conscience, Citizenship, and Global Responsibilities Richard Reilly St. Bonaventure University A version of this paper was presented at the Sixth International Conference of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies held at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, in August 2000.Upon discovering that Antigone had buried her brother, Polyneices, King Creon ascertains that she indeed had known of his decree forbidding (...) any honor to be shown to the dead traitor, and asks, "You still dared break this law?" Antigone responds: Yes, because I did not believe that Zeus was the one who had proclaimed it; neither did Justice, or the gods of the dead whom Justice lives among. The laws they have made for men are well marked out. I didn't suppose your decree had strength enough, or you, who are human, to violate the lawful traditions the Gods have not written merely, but made infallible. These laws are not for now or for yesterday, they are alive forever; and no one knows when they were shown to us first. 1Thus arises the dynamic confrontation between conscience and the state in the guise of two very solitary individuals: Antigone, committed to her brother out of love and religious duty, and Creon, striving to reestablish political order so necessary to the welfare of the community. We might say, in the idiom of Saint Augustine and Martin Luther King Jr., for Antigone, "an unjust law is no law at all," or at least not one that should bind one's conscience. In his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," King agonized over the lack of support, much less solidarity, of the Christian community in the effort to achieve racial justice in America. Antigone is provided no comrade (although her sister, Ismene, is sympathetic); no one of religious authority pleads Antigone's case or provides her with moral support. In this respect, Antigone's situation is mirrored in that of Franz Jagerstatter, the Austrian Catholic beheaded for his refusal to be conscripted into the army in support of the Nazi's cause. [End Page 117]Surely, one owes much to one's state, especially if it is justly ordered, safeguards individuals' rights, and promotes the common good. Both out of gratitude and a sense of fair play, one should do one's "public duty"—including upholding the law, paying taxes, voting, and otherwise participating in the political life of the community, and so on. We might say, as Jesus said, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's." 2 What does not belong to Caesar is the nature, meaning, and destiny of one's life; or to put it otherwise, what does not belong to Caesar is the allegiance or fidelity of one's conscience. This paper has three aims: (1) to show that to be respectful of life entails "global responsibilities"; (2) to articulate a rational ground for the view that "life" and "conscience" do not belong to the state; and (3) to argue that religious communities should encourage and honor individuals of conscience and that the state should recognize as a fundamental human right a citizen's noncooperation with policies or behaviors that are life-destroying. That Buddhism and Christianity are "world religions" provides each with the opportunity and the responsibility to do whatever is possible to promote peace, prosperity, and well-being of all human beings. Buddhists and Christians would do well to join together to articulate "ethical responsibilities" in a culture-neutral way to underscore their independence from political structures and ideologies on the one hand and to emphasize their global applicability on the other. Respecting Life—a Global Precept Encountering spiritual traditions nourished in other cultures allows one to rethink one's cultural assumptions. The spread of Buddhism in the West is especially potent in this regard. One of the most fundamental of all moral laws is: "One ought not to kill." But what does this really mean? What does it require of each of us? Buddhism offers important insights in this regard. In what follows, I shall offer... (shrink)

A response-dependent concept is a concept defined via reference to the psychological responses of suitably situated subjects. For example, something is red, according to the response-dependent account of that concept, if and only if it would look red to suitable subjects under suitable conditions; something is uncomfortable, according to the response-dependent account of that concept, if and only if it causes the discomfort of suitable subjects in suitable conditions; and so we might go on.

Contemporary philosophical discourse on global responsibility has sustained a nearly unwavering focus on justice. In response, I investigate an underrepresented element in global justice discussions: insights from feminist philosophy, and more specifically, from the ethics of care. I assess current theories of cosmopolitanism, criticizing the shortcomings of cosmopolitan justice from the perspective of cosmopolitan care. Through the concepts of dependence, vulnerability, and need, I develop a feminist global obligation--the global duty to care--and explore the distinctive (...) vision it offers as the ground and content of a feminist theory of global responsibility. (shrink)

Challenges to the exercise of the basic socio-economic rights of half the global population give rise to some of the most pressing issues today. This timely book focuses on world poverty, providing a systematic exposition of the evolving legal responsibility of the international community of states to cooperate in addressing the structural obstacles that contribute to this injustice. This book analyzes the approach, contribution, and current limitations of the international law of human rights to the manifestations of world (...) poverty, inviting the reader to rethink human rights, and, in particular, the framing of responsibilities that are essential to their contemporary protection. (shrink)

This essay addresses the questions of whether and how much responsibility for extreme poverty should be assigned to global and domestic institutional orders. The main focus is on whether the global order brings about the existing levels of extreme poverty or merely allows them. By examining Thomas Pogge's recent contribution on this topic, I argue that although he builds a plausible case for the claim that the global order brings about, and not merely fails to prevent, (...) extreme poverty, the moral and empirical complexity of the situation leaves room for doubting his conclusions. I conclude, however, that it is enough that there be a reasonable chance—though not conclusive evidence—that the global order brings about the existing extreme poverty to reduce considerably the moral weight of its privileged participants' appeal to cost when justifying their not taking steps to alleviate extreme poverty. (shrink)

Background The migration of health care professionals from developing to developed countries is a trend. This migration benefits the destination countries but is quite often devastating to healthca...

Highly intelligent... It is understandable while being scholarly and should be read by anyone seeking an overview of ethical history as it relates to the present. -- Church and Synagogue Library Association.

This article explores the ethics of state borrowing to fulfil global responsibilities. Although borrowing may appear attractive in the face of budgetary pressures and an increased number of crises in a changing global order, the article argues that borrowing to fulfil global responsibilities is generally morally problematic. It presents two main objections to borrowing. First, borrowing is often likely to be unfair intergenerationally, violating the ‘Just Borrowing Principle’. Second, borrowing demonstrates a lack of sufficient commitment, violating the (...) ‘Taking a Stand Principle’, and therefore weakens the expressivist justification of measures to fulfil global responsibilities. (shrink)

The article deals with the newly discussed set of principles that focus on various issues concerning the end of a war and the establishment of peaceful conditions for the society after a war ends. It also reveals some drawbacks of the jus post bellum principles and searches for its possible modifications into a more complex and applicable set of rules that should govern any post-war activities on both sides of the conflict. The aim is to reach its plausibility in a (...) dynamic global society and thus argue that global peace is an attainable goal only when it becomes the goal of the global community. (shrink)

This book contains the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities, an account of the hi storical background to it, a discussion of its significance, and responses from around the world '.

Traditionally, acts of civil disobedience are understood as a mechanism by which citizens may express dissatisfaction with a law of their country. That expression will typically be morally motivated, non-violent and aimed at changing their government’s policy, practice or law. Building on existing work, in this paper we explore the limits of one well-received definition of civil disobedience by considering the challenging case of the actions of animal activists at sea. Drawing on original interviews with advocates associated with Sea Shepherd, (...) Greenpeace and Humane Society International we find that even if animal activists are morally motivated and civil, the transnational nature of their activity makes it difficult to assess their intention to bring about a change in law or public policy. This means that a civil disobedience defence may not be available to activists operating across international borders. This raises important questions about the usefulness of the civil disobedience concept within the context of a globalised world. We conclude that while the actions of some anti-whaling activists may not meet definitions of civil disobedience as conventionally understood, this says more about the narrow way in which that concept has been traditionally defined, than it does about the type of activity some anti-whaling activists have undertaken in the Southern Ocean. Finally, we argue that activists wishing to make a stand against whaling may have no choice but to act as global citizens because policy change within a single nation-state is unlikely to lead to the cessation of this inherently transnational activity. (shrink)

In coming decades, enhanced global health governance will be crucial to achieving international health and development objectives in the face of a number of challenges; this article focuses on one of them. Climate change, which is now widely recognized as the defining challenge of the 21st century, will make the work of ensuring the conditions in which people can be healthy more difficult in a myriad of ways. Scientists from both the health and climate communities have been highlighting the (...) significant interaction between climate and health for decades and have made significant strides in integrating health and environmental research. Those of us in the law and policy community have been a bit slow to catch up, and have only just begun to call for better integration of our responses to health and environmental concerns. Environmental health specialists at the World Health Organization have recently pointed to a mandate for better integration of health and environmental concerns within the United Nations system. The Millennium Development Goals interweave health, environmental, and development concerns. (shrink)

According to David Miller, duties of domestic national and global justice are of equal importance, given that nationhood is both intrinsically valuable and not inherently an unjust way of excluding outsiders. The consequence of this?split?level? view is that it may be reasonable to prioritize domestic justice in some cases, while letting demands of global justice take precedence in others, depending on a weighting model which seeks to account for the relative urgency of domestic and global claims and (...) the extent to which agents are more closely attached to compatriots than to outsiders. In this chapter, I argue against this weighting model on grounds of internal coherence with the theory set out in National responsibility and global justice. I first inquire into the conditions under which justice at home conflicts with justice in the world at large, according to Miller?s main principle of global justice? respect for basic human rights. I then show that on Miller?s own understanding of the various duties of global and domestic justice, cases of conflict rarely arise, and that when they do, there is a powerful argument for prioritizing global duties on grounds of urgency, which contradicts the reasoning of the weighting model. Finally, I address a problem arising from Miller?s basic assumption that under?fulfillment of basic human rights in poor countries only generates claims of global justice to which rich nations are under a duty to respond, following the acceptance of a scheme of remedial responsibilities to provide aid by each of these nations. The normative structure of the split?level view set out in NRGJ needs to be clarified with respect to the key question of whether nations can be held to be under a duty of justice to bring such a scheme into existence in the first place. (shrink)

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and resulting health and economic crisis has caused major disruptions in the functioning of food systems and revived the discussion on what forms balanced, effective and responsible crisis management. As part of its thought leadership and its social responsibility in times of crisis, WUR is uniquely placed to contribute to the scientific knowledge base and data collection mechanisms required for early recognition and rapid response. In addition, WUR takes on the challenge to generate timely insights (...) into the possible scenarios for the prevention of a crisis and during and after emergencies to enable our clients and stakeholders to make informed decisions. Lastly, WUR can provide a better understanding of the mechanisms of spillover, and tangible and practical tools to help reduce the risk of spillover events from occurring, prevent pathogen spread, or mitigate the impacts of a future pandemic. In its research institutes and university, WUR brings together expertise in human, animal, plant and environmental health, the global agri-food system, economics, social sciences, food safety and security, ethics, and policy. Here, in the knowledge that COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic, we present WUR’s ambition and capabilities towards an integrated global multi-stakeholder approach to the prevention and management of potentially pandemic diseases, across the four phases of crisis management; prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery and learning. (shrink)

This chapter outlines the main ideas of my book National responsibility and global justice. It begins with two widely held but conflicting intuitions about what global justice might mean on the one hand, and what it means to be a member of a national community on the other. The first intuition tells us that global inequalities of the magnitude that currently exist are radically unjust, while the second intuition tells us that inequalities are both unavoidable and (...) fair once national responsibility is allowed to operate. This conflict might be resolved either by adopting a cosmopolitan theory of justice (which leaves no room for national responsibility) or by adopting a ‘political’ theory of justice (which denies that questions of distributive justice can arise beyond the walls of the sovereign state). Since neither resolution is satisfactory, the chapter defends the idea of national responsibility and proposes a new theory of global justice, whose main elements are the protection of basic human rights worldwide, and fair terms of interaction between independent political communities. (shrink)

This chapter outlines the main ideas of my book National responsibility and global justice. It begins with two widely held but conflicting intuitions about what global justice might mean on the one hand, and what it means to be a member of a national community on the other. The first intuition tells us that global inequalities of the magnitude that currently exist are radically unjust, while the second intuition tells us that inequalities are both unavoidable and (...) fair once national responsibility is allowed to operate. This conflict might be resolved either by adopting a cosmopolitan theory of justice (which leaves no room for national responsibility) or by adopting a ?political? theory of justice (which denies that questions of distributive justice can arise beyond the walls of the sovereign state). Since neither resolution is satisfactory, the chapter defends the idea of national responsibility and proposes a new theory of global justice, whose main elements are the protection of basic human rights worldwide, and fair terms of interaction between independent political communities. (shrink)

Literature expects that an attitude toward nuclear power is in direct proportion to the perceived risk of accidents at an operational nuclear power plant; that is, the oppositional attitude is based on the view that nuclear technology is risky and support for nuclear power is related to a perceived low risk and/or potential benefit. However, it is misleading to assume that individuals’ risk perception alone can linearly explain their position after such an accident. The association between risk perception and attitude (...) toward nuclear power varies significantly according to country but, until now, has been largely unexamined. This article takes into consideration the effects of structural factors on that relationship by examining public attitudes toward nuclear energy after the Fukushima nuclear accident in March 2011 and reveals that the need for the efficient production of electricity (i.e., nuclear energy) outweighs concern for the potential danger of a nuclear incident. Although a country's dependence on nuclear power for the production of electricity engenders anti-nuclear attitudes, it is evident that a level of economic development largely alleviates any negativity relative to that energy source. (shrink)

The complex structure of the tragic aspects of globalization has been accounted for in extant literature. What remains unclear is how deglobalization, isolationism and all the radically disruptive movements and politics in-between will shape transnational corporations’ organizational practices. The purpose of this study is to interrogate and problematize the implications of anarchic ‘globalisolationism’ vis-à-vis the atlas of insurrection and the TNCs’ global responsibility towards human-centric management practices. We situate our analysis in the heavily politicized and contested discursive space (...) of emergent global geopolitical and environmental tensions and the global quest to reclaim dignity, freedoms, right to resources and decisions—stakeownership. ‘Globalisolationism’ is conceptualized as a radically non-compromising coexistence of globalization and isolationism by design, aided by new information technologies, reactivated mass consciousness and slack political resources. It is characterized by the radical pursuit of new deals within the global geopolitical and economic order; renegotiation of existing deals for resource appropriation and democratic space for the marginalized; the collapse of the old political order via auto-implosion as a beneficial constraint; and the defence of the status quo in global resource and environmental governance due to ‘translocal’ insurrection. Therefore, the paper suggests how TNCs’ current modus operandi could be transformed into responsible human/environment-centric organisational practices to accommodate emerging sociopolitical and environmental challenges. It further highlights the implications for novel game-changing policies and political action by ‘subaltern’ societies and their metamorphosis from victims of planetary vandalism to stakeowners with sovereignty over their resources. (shrink)

Violence, poverty, and illness are all too prevalent in our world. In order to alleviate their hold systematically, we need normative schemes with a global reach and with definite responsibilities. Martha Nussbaum’s human capabilities theory (Martha Nussbaum 2006) provides us with an insightful example. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (The United Nations 1948), however, already includes most of the human capabilities central to Nussbaum’s theory, and violence, poverty, and illness usually appear as objectionable enough without any additional reference (...) to capabilities. In the current article, the author argues that the primary global responsibilities can mainly be established without Nussbaum’s account of capabilities. The human rights-based approach is more promising for this purpose (Jack Donnelly 2007; Abigail Gosselin, Human Rights Review 8:35–52, 2006; Ivar Kolstad, Human Rights Review, doi:10.1007/s12142-008-0103-1, 2008). However, the author also contends that Nussbaum’s theory may be very instructive as a relatively comprehensive moral approach that supplements the human rights view and inspires its adherents to assume secondary responsibilities in addition to the primary ones. Once we learn to see Nussbaum’s agenda in this way, not as the global program, but as one of the many reasonable and relatively comprehensive views in the global background culture, we can also learn to cultivate the responsibilities it implies in a duly dialogical way. (shrink)

Can we respond to injustices in the world in ways that do more than just address their consequences? In this book, Brooke A. Ackerly argues that what to do about injustice is not just an ethical or moral question, but a political question about assuming responsibility for injustice. Ultimately, Just Responsibility offers a theory of global injustice and political responsibility that can guide action.

Securing equitable antibiotic access as an essential component for health system resilience and pandemic preparedness requires a systems perspective. This article discusses key components that need to be coordinated and paired with adequate financing and resources to ensure antibiotic effectiveness as a global public good, which should be central while discussing a new global agreement.

In the past decade, a growing number of authors, notably Thomas Pogge, have maintained that citizens in economically advanced societies are responsible for extreme and extensive poverty in the developing world. Iris Marion Young proposed the social connection model of responsibility, which asserts that these citizens participate in networks that give rise to global structural injustices. While Pogge’s argument for the existence of citizens’ responsibility has been the subject of widespread debate, few efforts have been made to (...) scrutinise the solidity of Young’s perspective. To plug this gap in the literature, this paper assesses the pertinence of Young’s view. A more traditional view than those of Pogge and Young considers poverty as indicating a lack of respect for the human rights of those living in less-developed countries. Rights theorists of global justice, however, have paid scant attention to philosophical observations concerning redistribution within the borders of a society. To remedy this shortcoming, this paper endeavours to develop the theory that citizens in affluent societies bear a duty correlative to the subsistence right of the global needy, by exploring sufficientarianism, which is one of the primary views on domestic redistribution. To begin with, I make a distinction between the responsibility-based theory and the right-based theory of global justice. This is followed by a close examination of Young’s social connection model as a significant version of the former position. I then offer a right-based argument that invokes the sufficientarian idea of the human right to live above the threshold of safe and healthy subsistence. (shrink)

Neil Levy presents a new theory of freedom and responsibility. He defends a particular account of consciousness--the global workspace view--and argues that consciousness plays an especially important role in action. There are good reasons to think that the naïve assumption, that consciousness is needed for moral responsibility, is in fact true.