In the literature on global justice, there has been a lengthy debate about what the world’s rich owe to the world’s poor. Some have argued that rich individuals have positive duties of beneficence to help the poor, while others have argued that rich individuals only have negative duties not to harm them. A common objection to the former view is that once it is accepted that positive duties exist, fulfilling these duties will be overdemanding since rich individuals can almost always (...) help a little more. Some have tried to overcome this overdemandingness objection by setting cut-off points for how demanding morality is. In this article, we aim to show that it is problematic to be committed to the following propositions: (1) Positive duties to aid exist; (2) The overdemandingness objection is a serious challenge for anyone who accepts that positive duties to aid exist; and (3) Setting cut-off points for how demanding morality is constitutes a plausible way to overcome the overdemandingness objection. Showing that a commitment to (1), (2) and (3) is problematic is of interest given that several influential theorists are committed to this set of views. This set of views is simply a bad theoretical cocktail. (shrink)

This article critically examines common criticisms of Saudi Arabia’s sports strategy, particularly its impact on professional football. Central to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 is a significant investment in sports, demonstrated by hosting major international events and acquiring both domestic and foreign sports teams. Critics argue that this approach risks undermining football as a sport, and some claim that foreign players who join Saudi clubs engage in morally questionable behavior. This article challenges these critiques. While acknowledging the moral shortcomings of Saudi (...) Arabia’s political system, it contends that the prevailing criticisms about state-owned clubs ‘ruining’ football and the moral culpability of foreign players are flawed. A key conclusion is that the commercial interactions of foreign football players (e.g. Ronaldo) and multinational corporations (e.g. IKEA) with the Saudi regime must be assessed consistently. These interactions are either all morally permissible or all morally impermissible; there is no defensible middle ground for differing moral evaluations. (shrink)

This article defends the conclusion that the soccer World Cup in Qatar should not be boycotted by rich countries from the Global North. This conclusion is underpinned by considerations about the economic background conditions in guest workers’ home countries. Three arguments are considered for the view that the World Cup should be boycotted. It is argued that each of these arguments is unsound. Section 7 contains a discussion of an argument for a boycott that centers on the process through which (...) Qatar was awarded the World Cup. This argument is rejected. The article lists several ways in which guest workers in Qatar are wronged, but this fact about how guest workers are treated does not justify a boycott by rich countries from the Global North. (shrink)

Many professional football clubs in Europe have youth academies. The business model of such academies is that a club invests resources in training a player and then, when the player is old enough to sign an adult contract, either sells the player or offers him an adult contract. According to Fédération Internationale De Football Association (FIFA), international transfers of players are only permitted if the player is over the age of 18. There are five exceptions to this rule. One of (...) them is that if the player is between 16 and 18 and the transfer takes place within the territory of the European Economic Area (EEA), then an international transfer is allowed. This article is a discussion of the FIFA rules that mandate non-uniform age limits for when players can first transfer to clubs within the EEA area. The conclusion of the article is that FIFA is morally unjustified in setting a higher minimum age for transfer to EEA clubs for non-EEA players than for EEA players. The article first develops an argument for its conclusion. It then discusses, and rejects, the five best objections to this argument. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that the widespread practice in the United States of busing voters to the polling station on Election Day is an instance of paying people to vote. We defend a definition of what it means to pay people to vote, and on this definition, busing voters to the polling station is an instance of paying people to vote. Paying people to vote is illegal according to United States federal election law. However, the United States courts have (...) historically considered the practice of busing voters to the polling station legally permissible. The United States legal system, therefore, faces a dilemma: either the courts must change their interpretation of current federal election law such that busing voters to the polling station is a violation of federal election law, or federal election law must be changed so that at least some instances of paying people to vote are legally permissible. We argue that choosing either horn of the dilemma has a controversial implication for the United States legal system. (shrink)