The main thesis of the article is that one’s responsibility to render assistance is not affected by having contributed to the situation by causing harm. I examine ways in which contribution to need is morally significant. Although contribution is relevant with regard to certain features, such as questions of blame, compensation, and fair distribution of the cost of assistance, I argue that contribution should carry no weight when assessing our duty to assist people in severe need if we can do (...) so at little cost. If this is true we have reason to suspect that it is redundant to know whether or not we have in fact contributed to the need of the global poor when assessing our duty to address global poverty. (shrink)

The Research Topic “On poverty and its eradication” was inspired by the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, first commemorated in Paris in 1987 and formally designated by the United Nations. This day is dedicated to renewing the commitment to universal human development, enabling all individuals to achieve their highest potential, and reflecting on how poverty hinders this progress. The urgency of addressing poverty has increased after the COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbated existing issues and highlighted (...) the critical need for effective poverty eradication strategies. The studies included in this Research Topic aim to expand knowledge about poverty, its causes, consequences, and connections to crises, inequality, and fairness, and to assess policy measures for poverty reduction. The included contributions use various theoretical, empirical, quantitative, and qualitative approaches to drive sociological and policy-related discussions and initiatives, promoting fair and inclusive societies. (shrink)

Today the world observes the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, first commemorated in Paris in 1987 and subsequently receiving official designation by the United Nations. It is a day for renewing commitment to the human project – to enable universal human development, making it possible for all humans to achieve their highest potential – and to reflect on poverty, how it thwarts human development, and how it might disappear. The challenge is not new, but it achieves (...) new urgency as we start to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and realize that the damage it caused, to well-being and human development, was deeply intensified by poverty. This volume aims for accelerated growth of knowledge about poverty, its causes and consequences, its links to crises and disasters, its connections to inequality and fairness, the direction and speed of its trajectory in different contexts, and strategies for reducing it and their assessment. (shrink)

1 Here’s a way to think about poverty. People who live in poverty do so because they have few opportunities to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. In fact the gap between rich and poor has increased in recent times due to the more wholesale adoption of capitalist practices around the world. The institutions of business and government conspire to give the poor a Hobson’s choice of minimal wage McJobs or unemployment. Neglect of both urban ghettoes and the (...) rural poor has been systematic, if not conscious. The very idea of capitalism reinforces the notion that some are meant to be poor and some are meant to be rich. Such a system must be overridden at times by government to help the poor cope with their lot. The only solution is a massive redistribution of income and a system of capitalism that is severely restrained. All of this is at best highly unlikely. Even if there were such a redistribution policy we could not count on government to execute it fairly. (shrink)

What are the ethical implications of global poverty for immigration policy? This article finds substantial evidence that migration is effective at reducing poverty. There is every indication that the adoption of a fairly open immigration policy by rich countries, coupled with selective use of immigration restrictions in cases of deleterious brain drain, could be of significant assistance to people living in poor countries. Empirically there is nothing wrong with using immigration policy to address poverty. The reason we (...) have to reject such an approach is not empirical but normative. People have human rights to stay in their home country and to migrate elsewhere. Counter poverty measures that require people to move or to stay are likely to violate these rights. Everyone should be free to migrate but no one should be forced to migrate. Using immigration policy to address global poverty, in place of alternatives, fails on both these counts. (shrink)

Section: Lectures Keywords: poverty, welfare, blame, responsibility, choice Disciplines: Philosophy In contemporary Western societies, poverty is often framed as a choice, or as the outcome of poor choices, for which the individual may fairly be held accountable and blamed. People dependent on income support may be depicted as lazy, manipulative, weak or impulsive, and as taking advantage of honest taxpayers. Their every spending decision is considered ripe for scrutiny and criticism. Assumptions about poor choice-making and poor character, implicit (...) and explicit, inform policies directed at people living in poverty, including mutual obligation requirements and forced control of expenditure via cashless debit cards. These measures are experienced as punitive and as undermining the agency and autonomy of the individual to whom they are applied. How can philosophical work on blame, responsibility, and punishment help to analyze and evaluate the moral impacts of poverty and the policies and discourse surrounding it? And how might an understanding of the impact poverty has on the choice-making and capacities of those affected by it force us to re-evaluate those theories? (shrink)

Effective efforts to protect the global environment will require the willing cooperation of the world's poor. Persuading them to join international environmental agreements and to choose environmentally sustainable development requires substantial concessions from the affluent industrialized countries, including additional financial assistance and technology transfers. The affluent countries ought to provide such assistance to the world's poor for ethical reasons. Doing so would promote transnational distributive justice, which is defined here as a fair and equitable distribution among countries of benefits, burdens, (...) and decision-making authority, in this case associated with transnational environmental relations. Conceptions of distributive justice examined include utilitarianism, human rights, causality/responsibility, impartiality, and principles derived from Kantian and Rawlsian ethics. (shrink)

This book addresses a range of relevant theoretical issues, including the possibility of an interpersonally comparable measure of well-being, or “utility” metric; the moral value of equality, and how that bears on the form of the social welfare function; social choice under uncertainty; and the possibility of integrating considerations of individual choice and responsibility into the social-welfare-function framework. This book also deals with issues of implementation, and explores how survey data and other sources of evidence might be used to calibrate (...) both a utility metric and a social welfare function, and whether distributive goals are ever best pursued through regulation rather than the tax system. In working through this range of theoretical and practical issues, the book draws from a wide variety of literatures, including philosophical scholarship on equality, responsibility, the nature of well-being, and personal identity over time; the social choice literature within economics; applied economic literatures concerning the measurement of inequality and poverty; legal and policy-analysis scholarship on cost-benefit analysis, environmental justice, and the choice between regulation and taxation; and the burgeoning field of “happiness studies”. (shrink)

Universal Basic Income (UBI) can serve as a beneficial public policy to reduce poverty and inequality, yet a great challenge is how to fund it. This article offers a roadmap for fully funding UBI in a manner that: eliminates poverty; bolsters the middle-class; eliminates the stigma and government bureaucracy of social welfare programs; reduces ever-expanding inequality; initiates a path to meeting climate change goals; reduces speculation; and increases fairness and opportunity in the tax code. As stand-alone policies, (...) these revenue proposals are valuable correctives in their own right. If the entire package of UBI and funding sources were in effect, society (and American capitalism) would be on a more stable, equitable, and environmentally sustainable footing. (shrink)

1. Here’s a way to think about poverty. People who live in poverty do so because they have few opportunities to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. In fact the gap between rich and poor has increased in recent times due to the more wholesale adoption of capitalist practices around the world. The institutions of business and government conspire to give the poor a Hobson’s choice of minimal wage McJobs or unemployment. Neglect of both urban ghettoes and the (...) rural poor has been systematic, if not conscious. The very idea of capitalism reinforces the notion that some are meant to be poor and some are meant to be rich. Such a system must be overridden at times by government to help the poor cope with their lot. The only solution is a massive redistribution of income and a system of capitalism that is severely restrained. All of this is at best highly unlikely. Even if there were such a redistribution policy we could not count on government to execute it fairly. (shrink)

In this article I consider two consequentialist positions on whether individuals in affluent countries ought to purchase Fair Trade goods. One is a narrow argument, which asserts that individuals should purchase Fair Trade goods because this will have positive direct effects on poverty reduction, by, for example, channelling money into development. I argue that this justification is insufficient to show that individuals should purchase Fair Trade goods because individuals could achieve similar results by donating money to charity and, therefore, (...) without purchasing Fair Trade goods. The second position has a wider focus. It notes both the direct effects of purchasing Fair Trade goods and possible indirect effects, such as the impact this might have on other individuals. I argue that certain actions, of which Fair Trade is one example, will be more likely to encourage individuals who would not otherwise contribute to poverty reduction to contribute and that this may produce additional positive value. Although space prohibits specific conclusions about Fair Trade, I note that considerations of this kind could give us reason to purchase such goods beyond those that issue from the direct effects of doing so and that, as such, they are crucial for determining whether individuals should purchase Fair Trade goods. (shrink)

This essay focuses on determining moral leadership, as theoretically debated from an evolutionary point of view in an attempt to reflect on how this kind of moral leadership can contribute, among others, in dealing with issues such as gender, race, poverty and sexual orientation. Although important, not one of the latter issues will be discussed. It is not the primary focus of the essay. But because we are aware of the extent of the challenges regarding these issues, they were (...) specifically identified as examples for applying the moral guidelines developed and determined in this essay. This essay mainly argues that morality and moral leadership require analytical and critical evolutionary thinking and reflection that could contribute to making the world a more just and fair place in which to live. Moral leaders are created when people are constantly striving in an ongoing process of reasoning to become more humane, thereby allowing every person to flourish and to reach their full potential through biologically determined and justice-based moral reflection and action. (shrink)

The paper begins by locating the issue of trade within the broader literature on international and global justice. It then sets out eight different conceptions of ‘fair trade’, and examines the principles that lie behind them. They fall into three broad categories: procedural fairness accounts, which apply principles of equal treatment to the international rules under which trade takes place; producers’ entitlement accounts, which claim that trade must be structured so that all participants are safeguarded against harms such as (...) exploitation or poverty; and fair exchange accounts, which require trade to be conducted on terms that produce a particular division of resources or benefits between the trading partners. These conceptions are partly complementary, but may on occasion pull in different directions, requiring us to reflect on the relative weights we attach to different aspects of fairness in trade. (shrink)

Fair trade is at a critical juncture as a social movement. In the midst of a sales boom and vastly increased visibility, the tensions and contradictions that exist within the movement are intensifying. In particular, expansion of the fair-trade system to cover new commodities, and the process of 'mainstreaming' fair trade have opened rifts in the movement and called into question the meaning of 'fairness'. This essay reviews three recent books on fair trade, and examines current threats to the (...) system, as well as fair trade's potential for supporting a broad process of social, economic, political, and ecological transformation. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to analyze the social situation of the Roma and poverty more broadly, to highlight the factors underpinning their lack of access to education and hence to jobs from which they derive income insecurity and worsen their living conditions, their poor health and finally, their poor contact with the majority. Theme of Roma poverty and their general social situation is very demanding in terms of finding the solution, since the large rate of Roma (...) population is unable to even minimally participate in social, economic, cultural and political life. I have picked a combined survey interview as a method for the empirical part of the article, by looking at various projects and literature. Scientific objectives of the article is to highlight the fact that in all areas affecting the way of life of Roma, including their discriminiation, the most influental one is the long-term segregation of the learning process, which is essential to their integration into an active lifestyle. I refer to the fact that the condition of education of Roma children depends mainly on the socio-economic enviroment from which they come from and which can be measured by various factors. As on of the factors in the education of the parents alone, other factors could be household equipment, monitoring the overall social, economic and cultural status of Roma pupils. In the conclusion of the article, I want to point out that a large number of research findings demonstrate that the dependence of education outcomes as students from their socio-economic enviroment suggests that the education system is no way meeting the requirements of a fair transfer of learning to all, according to their abilities and is just never obilizing the social equality in education. The Education Act and the related rules do not contain provisions that are aimed directly at Roma pupils. However, the general term "socially disadvantaged" enviroment is being used, that is defined primarly by poverty. However, many disadvantages faced by the Roa in all areas of life, often are not only subject to their financial circumstances. "Given that some portion of barriers stem from the approach of the majority population towards the Roma on the basis of their declared or credited ehtnicity, it is questionable whether the measures are based on the financial circumstances of families enough.". (shrink)

Severe poverty is a major global problem about risk and inequality. What, if any, is the relationship between equality, fairness and responsibility in an unequal world? I argue for four conclusions. The first is the moral urgency of severe poverty. We have too many global neighbours that exist in a state of emergency and whose suffering is intolerable. The second is that severe poverty is a problem concerning global injustice that is relevant, but not restricted, to (...) questions about responsibility. If none were responsible, this does not eliminate all compelling claims to provide assistance. The third is that severe poverty represents an inequality too far; it is a condition of extremity with denial of basic needs. The fourth is that there is a need for an approach that captures all relevant cases – and the capabilities approach and the connection theory of remedial responsibilities are highlighted as having special promise. (shrink)

Is it morally permissible for financially privileged tourists to visit places for the purpose of experiencing where poor people live, work, and play? Tourism associated with this question is commonly referred to as ?poverty tourism?. While some poverty tourism is plausibly ethical, other practices will be more controversial. The purpose of this essay is to address mutually beneficial cases of poverty tourism and advance the following positions. First, even mutually beneficial transactions between tourists and residents in (...) class='Hi'>poverty tourism always run a risk of being exploitative. Second, there is little opportunity to determine whether a given tour is exploitative since tourists lack good access to the residents' perspectives. Third, if a case of poverty tourism is exploitative, it is so in an indulgent way; tourists are not compelled to exploit the residents. In light of these considerations, we conclude that would-be tourists should participate in poverty tours only if there is a well-established collaborative and consensual process in place, akin to a ?fair trade? process. (shrink)

Effective altruism is a movement which aims to maximise good. Effective altruists are concerned with extreme poverty and many of them think that individuals have an obligation to donate to effective charities to alleviate extreme poverty. Their reasoning, which I will scrutinise, is as follows: -/- Premise 1. Extreme poverty is very bad. -/- Premise 2. If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else morally significant, we ought, (...) morally, to do it. -/- Premise 3. Individuals ought to choose the effective option in preventing very bad things. -/- Premise 4. Donating to effective charities is one of the best ways to alleviate extreme poverty. -/- Conclusion. Individuals ought to donate to effective charities working towards extreme poverty alleviation where doing so does not require them to give up anything of moral significance. -/- I will scrutinise each of these premises in turn. -/- For Premise 1, I focus on hedonistic utilitarianism and criticise its outlook on extreme poverty. I claim that hedonistic utilitarianism might be problematic for effective altruism. -/- Premise 2 is Peter Singer's Weaker Principle of Sacrifice. I introduce several possible interpretations of it, and press several objections to it by stressing overpermissiveness, luck, and rights. I defend strengthening the Weaker Principle of Sacrifice without making it overdemanding. -/- I claim that Premise 3 can be attractive to both consequentialists and non-consequentialists. Nevertheless, by showing that effectiveness sometimes violates fairness, I propose a method which avoids always helping the greater number and always giving everyone equal chances of being helped, which is compatible with effective altruism. -/- Against Premise 4, I assess the systemic change objection, which states that effective altruism unjustifiably distracts individuals from systemic change. By considering risk and the moral standing of the future extremely poor, I claim that the systemic change objection is partially successful, but cannot undermine effective altruism. -/- After analysing all of these, I argue that individuals have an obligation to donate to effective charities to alleviate extreme poverty where doing so does not require them to give up anything of moral significance. (shrink)

If the global economy seems unfair, how should we understand what a fair global economy would be? What ideas of fairness, if any, apply, and what significance do they have for policy and law? Working within the social contract tradition, this book argues that fairness is best seen as a kind of equity in practice.

PhD thesis published with Amsterdam University Press. -/- ***Back cover: -/- In this time of mass communication, rich people like us know very well the horrible conditions in which many poor people must live. Therefore, the question of what should we do about poverty, which is the central question of this study, readily arises. This book also asks more specific questions such as: How much money should wealthy individuals like us spend on fighting poverty? and, What restrictions should (...) we place on the extent and orientation of our expenditure in the light of poverty? The question of what rich individuals like us should do morally about poverty, first of all requires clarity about some relatively general issues: Must we always do whatever does the most good, or should we only do the most good possible while avoiding great cost to ourselves? Or, do we only need to do our fair share in a cooperative scheme which would eradicate poverty if everyone else also does their share? A large part of this study focuses on such issues. The book argues that if we can do great good at little cost to ourselves, we ought to do so – and perhaps we ought to do great good even if the cost to ourselves of doing so, is not small. Also, it is argued that rich individuals like us can often, at little cost to ourselves, undertake a number of concrete actions which help to fight poverty, and that we are morally obligated to undertake acs such as giving tithes, living within our ecological footprint, and frequently buying fair trade products. (shrink)

Fair Trade is under fire. Some critics argue, for instance, that there is no obligation to purchase Fair Trade certified products and that doing so may even be counter-productive. Others worry that well-justified conceptions of what makes trade fair can conflict. Yet others suggest that the common arguments for Fair Trade cannot justify purchasing Fair Trade certified goods, in particular. This paper starts by sketching one common argument for Fair Trade and defends it against this last line of criticism. In (...) particular, it argues that we should purchase Fair Trade certified goods because doing so benefits the poor even though there are other ways to alleviate poverty. It then considers how other common arguments for Fair Trade fare in light of similar criticism and concludes that they may well succeed. (shrink)

The development of the certified Fair Trade market was initiated by a group of indigenous communities in Mexico. Over time, their vision of Fair Trade as a different type of market has become increasingly marginalized by an emphasis on poverty reduction. This article presents their understanding of what Fair Trade should and should not be. It presents the key principles of the Fair Trade market as effectiveness, ecological sustainability, social sustainability, and more direct producer-consumer relationships. The key challenges that (...) confront Fair Trade in living up to these principles are the need to democratize the formal structures of Fair Trade so as to give a greater voice to small producers and to link with other social movements to confront the dominant neo-liberal trade regime. (shrink)

Chapter 1 of this book argued that moral philosophy should be based on seven principles of theory selection adapted from the sciences. Chapter 2 argued that these principles support basing normative moral philosophy on a particular problem of diachronic instrumental rationality: the ‘problem of possible future selves.’ Chapter 3 argued that a new moral principle, the Categorical-Instrumental Imperative, is the rational solution to this problem. Chapter 4 argued that the Categorical-Instrumental Imperative has three equivalent formulations akin to but superior to (...) Kant’s formulations of the Categorical Imperative. Chapter 5 argued that my principle’s three formulations make it rational to adopt a Moral Original Position to derive moral principles. The present chapter derives Four Principles of Fairness from the Moral Original Position--principles of coercion minimization, mutual assistance, fair negotiation, and virtue—and unifies them into a single principle of rightness: Rightness as Fairness. Finally, this chapter argues that Rightness as Fairness entails a novel approach to applied ethics called ‘principled fair negotiation’, illustrating how the theory provides a plausible new framework for addressing applied cases including lying, suicide, trolleys, torture, distribution of scarce resources, poverty, and the ethical treatment of animals. (shrink)

God, sex, and economics are all intertwined. The trafficking of people for sex intensifies each year. The sex trade crosses a spectrum from ‘high class’ escorts to sex slaves. The sex industry includes toys, pornography, and the exchange of sex between buyers, sellers, and managers. In this market exists sexual poverty caused by injustice, the imbalance of sexual power between individuals and within structures. Poverty pushes people into the market to sell, to be sold. Theologically there is a (...) harmful, top-down, and irrelevant theology that often ignores our sexuality. Liberation theology’s hermeneutical circle, a circle of action and reflection in community, can address sexual poverty. Its steps include: 1. assessing our situation; 2. analyzing our situation with academic tools; 3. analyzing our faith; and 4. praxis; right action. It can help us to draw the line between sexual exploitation and the celebration of sex as a way to know God. (shrink)

Poverty and inequality are not the sole sources of (global) injustices. And the latter are not only a matter of fair distribution. Identity and cultural asymmetries, often articulated along political and economic lines, relocate and reshape the struggle against subordination to include new areas of contestation, such as gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, culture, religion and nationality.

Arguments for a just transition are integral to debates about climate change and the drive to create a carbon-neutral economy. There are currently two broad approaches rooted in ethics and justice for framing just energy transitions. The first can be described as internal to the transition and emphasizes the anticipation, assessment, and redressing of harms created by the transition itself and the inclusion in transition governance of groups or communities potentially harmed by its disruptions. In this article, we propose a (...) second approach to ethics and justice in an energy transition, which we describe as systemic or societal in scope. This approach complements attention to the proximate dynamics and impacts of the transition process with a focus on the distant societal and economic outcomes the transition brings into being and how they compare to conditions prior to the transition. It poses the question: do the transformative social, economic, and technological changes wrought by energy systems create more just societies and economies, or do they instead reinforce or recreate long-standing injustices and inequalities? We illustrate this approach with an assessment of one of the most significant existing forms of energy injustice: the energy-poverty nexus. We argue that the energy-poverty nexus reflects configurations of socio-energy systems that create complex, extractive feedbacks between energy insecurity and economic insecurity and, over time, reinforce or exacerbate poverty. We further argue that just energy transitions should work to disentangle these configurations and re-design them so as to create generative rather than extractive feedbacks, thus ending the energy-poverty nexus and creating long-term outcomes that are more just, equitable, and fair. (shrink)

Although most studies on the Fair Trade initiative are, to some extent, cognizant of its contribution to environmental sustainability, what the environmental aspect means to Fair Trade has not yet been explored fully. A review of environmental issues in the Fair Trade literature suggests that Fair Trade might influence participant producers’ farming practices even if it does not directly impact natural resources. This paper attempts to interpret Fair Trade certification as an intermediary institution that links two significant objectives of rural (...) development in the global South—environmental conservation and poverty reduction. This theoretical concept is examined in different real settings by observing four cases of Southern small farmer groups involved in the Fair Trade initiative. Findings from these case studies imply that if Fair Trade certification ensures tangible benefits for small farmers, it can not only help such disadvantaged farmers but also work as an approach for natural resource management. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationships among moral education on the one hand, and culture, politics, poverty and religion in Africa on the other. It sets out by examining the theory and practice of moral education, before reflecting on moral education and virtue ethics. Thereafter, the paper examines moral education in African cultures and in religion. Finally, it interrogates the connection between oral education in Africa on the one hand, and politics and poverty on the other. The paper concludes (...) that there is still need for a new world order, in which the earth’s resources are fairly distributed nationally and globally. For us to realize this goal, we have the task of using politics, culture and religion to foster moral education for the good of everyone. (shrink)

President Lincoln's platform included a recommendation of "a vigorous and just system of taxation," because he believed that if you had been blessed by living in America and had benefited from what this country has to offer, then you should do more for your country. One hundred forty years later, we still need a "vigorous and just system of taxation," not because we like taxes, but because, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, taxes are the price we pay for a civilized (...) society. We have been having a tax debate for more than a century, but what is new about today's debate is that tour leaders want to shift the tax burden from unearned income straight on to the backs of working people. This radical notion turns on its head the very values that built America — rewarding hard work. My radical notion is that it is time to abolish the work penalty by abolishing the tax code of special privileges for wealth. In this talk I set forth a set of ideas to do just that, and further I show how we can use our tax code to encourage asset building and reduce poverty. (shrink)

Global supply chains often distribute value inequitably among the Global North and South. This perpetuates poverty and contributes to indecent work in raw material-producing countries, thus creating challenges to sustainable development. For decades, corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, and sustainable business model innovations have aimed to distribute value more equitably across global value chains, for instance via fair trade, alternative trade, and direct trade. This article examines a novel and hitherto understudied innovation for equitable value distribution in global supply (...) chains: “value chain profit sharing.” We draw on interview and archival data from two cases of social entrepreneurs working in the coffee sector to develop a generalized model. One of the model's key features is that the entrepreneur pays suppliers in multiple installments that reflect market conditions (as opposed to a single lump sum based on prediction). We show how this can increase value creation, appropriation, and equitable distribution. Although our research suggests that this model may be highly contingent on leaders' skills, resources, sense of place, and accountability to suppliers, we find no evidence that its applications are limited to specific countries or sectors. Our research further extends extant theory by showing how “value chain profit sharing” may relieve some of the tensions often associated with sustainable business models, including distributing value to suppliers while maintaining financial solvency; creating value while pursuing a social mission; providing benefits to suppliers without curtailing their market opportunities; responding to market conditions while maintaining commitments to suppliers; and scaling without diluting benefits. It thereby contributes to the literatures on sustainable business model innovations, equitable value distribution in global supply chains, novel application of revenue-sharing contracts, and innovative methods of profit sharing. It furthermore provides actionable guidance for social entrepreneurs, corporate social responsibility practitioners, and supplier cooperatives aiming to achieve more equitable value distribution and sustainable supply chains. (shrink)

The study of social, ethical, and political issues from a naturalistic perspective has been pervasive in social sciences and the humanities in the last decades. This articulation of empirical research with philosophical and normative reflection is increasingly getting attention in academic circles and the public spheres, given the prevalence of urgent needs and challenges that society is facing on a global scale. The contemporary world is full of challenges or what some philosophers have called ‘existential risks’ to humanity. Nuclear wars, (...) natural and/or engineered pandemics, climate change, global totalitarianism, and emergent technologies, are some of the challenges mentioned by many authors devoted to the study of long-term potential risks for the survival of the human species. However, while there are many reasons to be a pessimist about the future of humanity, there is also a lot of ink wasted in showing that the world today is far better than we had in the past and also that there have been many instances of social and moral progress in the last centuries. Some authors have even claimed that “we have made more progress over the last 100 years than in the first 100,000”. According to ‘our world in data’, some of the most relevant advances of humanity in the last centuries have to do with the reduction of poverty and/or inequality, better health and security, the decline of violence and war, and the development of democracy and institutional mechanisms to guarantee individual freedom and rights. Yet, there is a more concrete concern that our world faces nowadays, and requires a particularly detailed analysis. In a few words, the advance in information and communication technologies, the huge volume of people migration because of prevalent instances of global inequality, and the reality of an interconnected world that just mirrors an extensive history of massive human intergroup relations open the question about the feasibility of social and moral progress in the contexts of diverse, multicultural, and unequal societies. This makes it crucial to reflect not only on whether human societies may keep advancing on a path of social progress, but how this can be achieved by addressing the challenges of inequality and potential intergroup conflict. This concern closely relates to the further consolidation of democratic values and the achievement of a more generalized consideration of the equal moral value of human individuals far from group, ethnic, or collective distinctions. This vision of progress follows the moral convictions that have been considered right and worthy to be pursued by most ethical theories explored by philosophers and social scientists so far. This work aims to contribute to the study of the mechanisms and feasibility of social and moral progress grounded on the precept of human equality and is guided by the idea that social and moral progress in a plural world requires the accomplishment of a more democratic and tolerant society. These forms of progress have already been defined by philosophers Allen Buchanan and Russel Powell as inclusivist forms of moral progress. According to these authors, inclusivist moral progress is featured by the transformation of moral judgments, motivations, and norms guided by the rejection of “group-based restrictions on moral standing and moral status” (2018). The work of Buchanan and Powell is fundamental for the argumentation developed in this work since they have pioneered a more complex debate in the field of evolutionary social sciences and philosophical anthropology. In brief, these authors have inquired how human nature, conceptualized by the advances in evolutionary thinking and the empirical sciences, is related to our moral convictions and the possibilities that we have to establish certain forms of social and moral progress. The work of Buchanan and Powell contributes to the debate on moral progress by incorporating empirically-informed concepts and arguments. With this objective in mind, they develop their discussion around a generalized tension between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of moral progress. This tension revolves around the question of whether and to what extent human moral concerns, motivations, and norms, are limited or bounded by social identities, group thinking, or collective values. This question is at the center of this work. In other words, I aim to answer whether and to what extent the nature of our social and moral cognition hinders or enables the development of inclusivist forms of morality and moral progress. As I mentioned so far, the distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of morality has a practical implication and facilitates the reflection on the mechanisms and feasibility of concrete forms of progress based on the precept of human equality, which is the road to progress that we should follow according to most ethical theories. The distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist morality is not used here as a form of summarizing highly divergent descriptive approaches to morality, but as a way to address the practical implications of morality research, particularly around the question of the feasibility of social forms of progress based on the precept of equality and tolerance. My objective then has less to do with offering a conceptualization of human morality or with the proposition of a new ethical perspective. Instead, I aim to identify, from an empirically informed perspective, what enables the achievement of egalitarian forms of social progress, to subsequently offer a normative reflection about what we should do if we want to accomplish such inclusivist forms of progress. This task is of great relevance, having in mind that some theoretical proposals on the matter have claimed that human prosocial behavior and morality are constrained by exclusivist fixed tendencies as a product of our evolutionary history. According to these views, human morality is a group-centered cognitive and behavioral expression that has severe limits in its scope and extent, which hinders in the end the emergence of inclusivist forms of moral concerns and behaviors. These claims align with the philosophical intuition about the ‘dissociation of empathy’, or the fact that human individuals tend to express empathy and sympathy preferably for members of their group whereas their empathic and moral concern and recognition for outgroup individuals tend to be reduced or eliminated in real-life social interactions. Multiple theorists have expressed, however, that these assumptions are wrong for empirical and philosophical reasons, which results in a serious challenge to the conception of human morality as exclusivist by nature. Furthermore, simple intuition and practical experience constantly show us that human individuals can develop and endorse a broad spectrum of moral considerations and adopt an arguably inclusivist stance concerning the kind of persons or agents that deserve moral concern. Moreover, and adopting a historical perspective, the expansion of cultural and commercial exchanges, the consolidation of democracy, the development of welfare states, or the emergence of institutions based on the concept of universal human rights, have partially driven human progress based on the impartial concern for the well-being of persons. These historical instances of cultural evolution and institutional design have shown that it is feasible to promote behaviors and attitudes grounded in impersonal prosocial and inclusivist principles. This optimistic perspective, however, still begs the question of the exact relationship between social, cultural, and historical contexts, and the emergence of certain behavioral expressions of inclusivist morality. This is crucial since a great number of human individuals around the world still do not make part of these instances of social progress, and some authors have suggested that such instances of social and moral progress are particularly favored by the contexts of the WEIRD world, that is the world of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. Some of these approaches consider moral inclusivity a ‘luxury good’ and follow the ‘dependency thesis’ according to which the expression of moral inclusivity depends on the presence of very concrete material conditions that trigger inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. This thesis is problematic for various reasons and has led to incomplete explanations about the enabling and causal factors of inclusivist moral progress, as well as unsatisfactory suggestions about what we should do to foster the accomplishment of more generalized instances of progress based on inclusivist concerns. In an attempt to contribute to this debate, the main objective of this thesis is to offer an alternative proposal about the nature of human morality and a more detailed reflection on what we should do if we want to further accomplish such instances of progress. More precisely, this work adopts a particular developmental and constructivist vision of human morality to answer the question of how feasible it is to reach generalized forms of social progress based on the precepts of moral inclusivity. Furthermore, it offers some ideas about what are the most adequate and favorable conditions to foster such progress both at the individual and the collective level. At this point, a preliminary clarification of some starting points is necessary. In the first place, and contrary to what other authors have proposed when debating moral progress from an empirically-based approach, my perspective adopts a radical developmental and constructivist perspective, following particularly the conceptual and empirical ideas of the social-domain theory in moral psychology. From this perspective, morality is a domain of normative and social knowledge that develops and emerges in human interactions. Moral concerns, judgments, and norms are not only the result of the expression of innate adaptive intuitions, nor the product of social conformity and a simple process of mirroring the normativity that communities have established to organize their social life. Human individuals, instead, construct moral concerns and judgments during their situated interactions. More specifically, the constructivist tradition claims that we need to research how moral concerns, judgments, and reasons emerge in social interactions and how human beings construct the content of their moral knowledge in the first place. Based on these ideas, morality is defined here as the result of a constructive process through which human individuals, by the means of constant interactions on a background of mutual respect and recognition, develop evaluative concerns about how we ought to treat others, and how to ‘care’ and ‘respect’ others’ well-being, needs, and vulnerabilities. This developmental-constructivist theory of human psychology contributes to an alternative understanding of the origins of moral variability and informs a very particular normative stance about the most desirable contexts needed for the urgent accomplishment of inclusivist forms of morality in contemporary societies. This is so given that the very same definition of morality adopted presupposes the feature of inclusivity. The main objective of this work is then to argue, based on a developmental perspective, what are the most favorable conditions to foster the development of moral inclusivity and what we should do to accomplish concrete instances of moral progress that truly help us to overcome our most urgent moral challenges. The whole thesis is organized as follows. In part I, I show how received visions about human social evolution have informed conceptions of morality as an adaptive function evolved to solve the challenges of cooperative life. Based on these assumptions, some theories argue that human morality is limited by the boundaries of group thinking, and always obeys the mandates of collective interests and the will of the majority. However, this conception has problematic implications from a normative and ethical perspective. The aim of Chapter 1 is to present this introductory debate in detail. In chapter 2, I consider a relevant amount of scientific evidence that helps to consolidate a more optimistic and inclusivist perspective about the starting conditions of human prosocial behavior. Later, I will summarize some ideas offered to explain the possible evolutionary mechanisms that led to the consolidation of these inclusivist capacities. However, I will also show how evolutionary theories that share the same adaptationist foundations but initially seem relevant to explain the feasibility of moral inclusivity, result incomplete when considering the complexity of moral behavior and its ethical implications. Part II is devoted to presenting a developmental alternative to the adaptationist versions around the starting conditions of morality. In this section, I first summarize the epistemological, conceptual, and empirical basis of a constructivist perspective already proposed by several authors in the last decades. This is the goal of chapter 3. More precisely, I adopt the conceptualization of morality established by the social-domain theory school and clarify its conception of the situated development of moral concerns, motivations, and norms. All these ideas are essential for my argumentation on the feasibility of inclusivist moral progress offered later. Chapter 4 provides a more detailed idea of constructivist thinking about moral development, by analyzing one particular dimension: the development of moral concerns for fairness and the sense of justice in distributive dilemmas. In Part III, I assume a constructivist perspective on morality to contribute to the philosophy of moral progress. In particular, I discuss the implications of such a perspective for the conceptualization of human moral nature and discuss what are the most favorable conditions for moral inclusivity to emerge. Answering that question is of enormous relevance since favoring the transition of human societies towards more inclusivist forms of moral concern and behavior supposes a more generalized accomplishment of our most urgent moral convictions. Previous developmental or culturally-sensible attempts to explore this issue are already on the market. As mentioned before, most authors have approached the topic by situating the cultural evolution and development of (inclusivist) moral progress in the WEIRD world. For instance, some of these authors claim that very concrete material conditions (mostly present in the Western World) have been necessary for triggering inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. Despite their interest in explaining inclusivist morality and the feasibility of inclusivist forms of progress following a naturalistic and culturally situated approach, these theories are problematic for two main reasons. In the first place, most of the authors that explain moral progress tend to focus exclusively on the consolidation of liberal values in the Western world and the underlying adoption of laws, social-epistemic practices, and public narratives about tolerance and inclusivity, as unequivocal signs of inclusivist morality. Nevertheless, there is an enormous distance between the institutional and public support of inclusivist moral values or the construction of public images of tolerance and inclusivity, and the real materialization of impersonal moralities in situated social interactions. Secondly, the variability of human moral behavior is far bigger than most of the theories in moral psychology and moral progress tend to assume. Accordingly, inclusivist and exclusivist forms of morality may develop simultaneously in similar or divergent geographical and socio-ecological environments, including those with harsh conditions such as competition for scarce resources, potential intergroup conflict, and risks of disease transmission. In addition, harsh environmental conditions are usually present in almost all societies around the globe, and the presence of socio-ecological conditions such as physical security and prosperity, predominant in highly resourced populations, do not prevent the existence of exclusivist moral tendencies. My model explores a different perspective on the relationships between cultural, institutional, and historical factors, and the situated development of human morality. This supposes a clear distinction from previous approaches to the matter since it offers a different view on what we should do to pursue further instances of inclusivist social progress. In the fifth chapter, I first analyze the proposals of some defenders of the ‘dependency’ theory. The attention is focused on the ‘Evolutionary Developmental Model’ proposed by Buchanan and Powell (2018). Based on a critique of this approach, I will argue that to explain the evolution and development of human morality in its multiple manifestations, it is essential to put focus on social interactions. This also involves a different perspective on human-environment relations that in line with a constructivist worldview makes an innovative contribution to the philosophy of moral behavior and moral progress. Later, in the sixth chapter, I will define my alternative relational view of inclusivist morality and I will offer my view on how to establish favorable conditions that make inclusivist morality possible. Complementing the constructivist approach, my conception is based on the essential role of equality and individuality and on how moral inclusivity is favored if moral concerns do not develop driven by the accomplishment of group-centered, binding, and communitarian concerns and values. In brief, my relational model suggests that the accomplishment of moral inclusivity not only depends on the overall achievement of certain levels of physical security or economic prosperity. Instead, its development is favored by transforming the interactional contexts in which moral concerns towards autonomy and individuality emerge. In arguing so, I will need to start with a critique of contemporary situated and embodied approaches in ethics. Then, I will show how societies guided by the accomplishment of group-centered values of power, dominance, and relational inequality tend to express exclusivist moral behaviors, while individualistic societies tend to be more inclusivist. Starting from this diagnosis, my final attempt is then to reflect on which are the best conditions for the moral valuation of individuality to emerge and what we should do to promote the accomplishment of moral inclusivity at the societal level. (shrink)

For the past half century, there has been a large controversy within academic business ethics, in legal scholarship, and in the larger public about the role that corporations should have in addressing social injustices. Do corporations have a moral obligation to conduct business in a way that reduces poverty, racial inequality, other unjust economic and social inequalities, and unjust threats to the environment? Or should for-profit corporations focus on making money and leave solutions of these social problems to governments, (...) nonprofit organizations, and private individuals? -/- There are related but distinct controversies about corporations’ moral duties of transactional and relational justice. One important question is whether financial agreements or employment contracts can be wrongfully exploitative despite being fully consensual and beneficial to all parties. This question is distinct from the question whether corporations have a duty to promote distributive justice. Transactional unfairness is arguably possible in society with a just economic system, and fair transactions are presumably possible in a society with an unjust distribution. There are also important questions about the extent of firms’ moral obligation to avoid pollution, to refrain from discrimination, to treat employees fairly, and to respect the democratic process. These moral obligations may require more than obeying the relevant law. (shrink)

In recent decades there has been growing concern about the combined undesired consequences of rapid economic growth, based on the free market movement, and developments in science and technology. This concern has placed the sustainable development concept on the world's agenda. The notion of sustainability, which originally referred mostly to the environmental consequences of human activities, along with their economic and social aspects, has been discussed not only at the national and the global levels but also in relation to particular (...) sectors of the economy. One such sector is agriculture, which to be sustainable must be ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible. Unless current trade and agricultural policies are geared to creating such a structure, sustainability will be no more than a myth in the industrialized and globalized world, while considerable numbers of people will be left struggling with hunger and poverty. Ethical, fair trade and ecologic agricultural practices, such as organic farming, have been suggested as alternatives to existing practices. However, with their current and potential size, these alternatives cannot compete with existing production and trade systems. But these alternatives nevertheless highlight the main problems of current day free trade and industrialized agriculture structures and their related solutions.This paper reviews the concepts of sustainable development and sustainable agriculture: it raises the question whether the world-wide free market economy is really free, and it considers the undesired consequences of this economy by focusing on the relationship between sustainable agriculture and agriculture-related trade policies. (shrink)

This paper reports on a study of ethical decision-making in a fair trade company. This can be seen to be a crucial arena for investigation since fair trade firms not only have a specific ethical mission in terms of helping growers out of poverty, but they tend to be perceived as (and are often marketed on the basis of) having an "ethical" image. Eschewing a straightforward test of extant ethical decision models, we adopt Thompson''s proposal for a more contextualist (...) understanding rooted in ethnographic data. Our findings suggest that the fair trade mission of the firm is experienced as an over-riding ethical claim, which is often invoked to justify potentially ethically questionable decisions. Moreover, decision precedents emerge which can mean that the decision process is bypassed or hurried through. Finally we provide evidence that the significance of these precedents, and indeed, even moral intensity itself, could be actively shaped and constructed by organization members to support different, even shifting, conceptions of what is a morally acceptable decision for a fair trade company to make. (shrink)

Now more than ever it is clear that the global economy needs to be assessed and governed from a moral point of view. Such moral assessment can, however, come in at least two quite different forms. Political philosophers have tended to focus on a range of issues (e.g. poverty, human rights, or general distributive justice) whose basic moral importance is “external” to and wholly independent of how the global economy is socially organized. The result has been relative neglect of (...) a quite different class of “internal” moral issues, which do in various ways depend on the complex legal and social relations that now organize the global economic scene. These include a dizzying array of politically important but poorly understood fairness concerns—concerns such as “non-discrimination,” “special and differential treatment,” “fair trade,” “fair play,” “fair competition,” “level playing fields,” “equitable growth,” “fair wages,” and “exploitation.” My aim in this discussion is to suggest a framework for understanding how several such fairness notions might be systematically connected and have an internal rather than external character. Specifically, I suggest that the content and internal nature of several such fairness notions can be explicated in terms of a more fundamental idea of “structural equity.” From the point of view of political philosophy, the issue turns on the sorts of principles that might ground moral assessment of the global economy. External principles are justified and apply quite independently of what the global economy and its social organization happens to be like. Humanitarian principles are a natural example: in asking whether or not the current global economy is set up so as to bring as many people as possible out of poverty, the assumed goal of poverty reduction can be seen as important and morally necessary quite independently of how the global economy is institutionally organized, and indeed independently of its very existence. Internal principles, by contrast, are not justified, and do not apply, independently of the global economy and its organizing institutions.. (shrink)

This volume is by no means out of place for a reader in the twenty first century as resemblances between the age of the machine and our own digital age are surprisingly numerous, particularly with reference to the patterns of intellectual response to unprecedented stimuli. The worrisome parallelisms and analogues are purposefully kept off stage for the imaginative audience to complement the plot of the real drama of the Industrial Revolution as it was witnessed by such imaginative medievalist 'knights' as (...) Carlyle, Cobbett, Southey, Pugin, Ruskin and Morris, intelligent thinkers who performed the universal 'type' rather than the subjective or egocentric in so far as their intellectual responses to the discrepancy between two dissimilar epochs was concerned. The reader is, therefore, expected to be engaged with the arguments of the 'neo-feudal', the 'moral-aesthetic' and the utopian 'social-aesthetic' arguments at the core of the book both imaginatively and intellectually. On the first level, he is requested to shuttle between two centuries separated by the length of a different century. On the second, however, he is expected not only to appreciate the artistically excellent literary works of prominent belletrists, but also to examine the clever polemics they developed as methods of treatment and persuasion aiming at a solution of the social and psychological problems that arose from the incongruity between the present and the past, with specific references to such significant concepts as those of time, history, progress and authority which are examined against the superheated touchstones of democratization, liberty, laissez-faire ethics, mechanization, poverty and social protest in the industrial city. (shrink)

Relative poverty and absolute poverty are often seen to be very distinct concepts and seldom discussed together. While absolute poverty is seen to be about existential threats, relative poverty is understood to be about economic inequality only. One is an issue of basic rights then and the other a question of justice or fairness. But in this picture it becomes incomprehensible why the same concept is used for so different issues. This article tries to show (...) that relative and absolute poverty do have something very important in common. Both concepts are about not having enough goods in order to be able to life a decent life, i.e. a life in dignity. While absolute poverty indicates that someone does not have enough goods to live a decent life under any circumstances, relative poverty indicates that someone does not have enough goods to live a decent life in a given society. So understood poverty in both cases is a violation of human dignity. (shrink)

In this paper I present two reasons why generalized skill-selection--a policy whereby skill, education, and economic independence are indefinitely prioritized in immigration decisions--is pro tanto unjust. First, such policies feed into existing biases, exacerbating status harms for low-SES citizens. The claim that we prefer the skilled to the unskilled, the educated to the uneducated, and the financially secure to the insecure is also heard by citizens. And there is considerable overlap between this message and the stereotypes and biases that set (...) their social status. Skill-selection can reinforce these biases, offering state support for the claim that they are less desirable as members of the society. -/- Second, the need for skilled immigrants ordinarily depends upon and reinforces failures of fair equality of opportunity (FEO). According to the dependency thesis, the need for skilled migrants stems from a failure to ensure domestic FEO. Many low-SES residents would desire to work, for example, as doctors or nurses. However, unequal education, as well as poverty and debt, have made such opportunities largely inaccessible. According to the reinforcement thesis, skill-selection disincentivizes the pursuit of FEO. A state that can meet domestic labor needs through less costly immigration policies will be disinclined to pursue programs designed to equalize opportunities for low-SES residents. -/- Generalized skill-selection in high-income countries like the US is, therefore, pro tanto unjust. However, this is not an argument for excluding the skilled. Skilled immigrants can be admitted through other policies—open borders, family-reunification, or a lottery—without the state signaling that the skilled are more desirable or perpetuating failures of FEO. And states can, responding to local emergencies, temporarily select for particular professions without contributing to these injustices. These concerns only arise when skill is generally and indefinitely prioritized. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Vulnerabilization and De-pathologizationTwo Philosophical SuggestionsHavi Carel, PhD (bio)Alastair Morgan raises useful and interesting philosophical critiques of the 'power-threat-meaning' framework proposed by Johnstone et al. (2018). In what follows I make two suggestions that may clarify some aspects of the debate. First, to broaden the notion of threat: we can think more broadly about adverse life events as the source of mental suffering by broadening the notion of threat to (...) what I term (in joint work with Ian James Kidd) Vulnerabilization. Second, I offer a distinction between de-pathologizing psychiatric disorders (i.e., removing stigma and negative stereotypes) and de-medicalizing such disorders (i.e., rescinding them from a diagnostic manual), in order to suggest that de-medicalizing on its own does not solve the problem of stigma, but de-pathologizing is a better candidate for achieving that.Threat and VulnerabilizationMorgan argues that the notion of threat is too limited to cover the breadth of psychiatric conditions and presentations. Threat and power may often be present, but how they lead to the appearance of behaviors that meet certain diagnostic criteria, is, as Morgan states, unclear at best and only a partial explanation for psychiatric disorders (it explains some behaviors, not all). I suggest we view threat as one type of a broader category, which I propose to term 'Vulnerabilization' (Carel & Kidd, 2021).Vulnerabilization refers to the effects of interactions and actions that impact on people by harming them and making them more vulnerable to future adversity. For example, removing a struggling child from a classroom causes them to miss the lesson, and if done repeatedly, harms their capacity to continue studying. Leaving a weak patient unsupervised in the wrong kind of bed may cause them to fall and become more vulnerable to disease and infection. Failing to organize accommodation for an inmate about to be released from prison forces them onto the streets and makes them more vulnerable to reoffending. The point of the term is to draw attention to the fact that one is not born vulnerable, to paraphrase de Beauvoir, [End Page 73] but becomes vulnerabilized through acts and omissions of others. Such acts and omissions often take place under the auspices of an institution—health care, social care, education, criminal justice, and so on—and are therefore intimately tied to ethoi and conduct of institutions (for a full analysis see Carel & Kidd, 2021).Vulnerabilization is a common theme in the testimonies of people who have negative experiences of social institutions, including, of course, health care institutions. Ideally, health care systems, schools, courts, and other major institutions scaffold and protect our agency, efficiently support our endeavors, and fairly and reliably disperse social and epistemic resources. But while some people have reliably satisfying experiences of social institutions, others find that many, if not all, of the institutions they encounter abandon, ignore, silence, harm, or even kill them and people like them (this is not an exaggeration: inquiries such as the Francis Report (2013) on the Mid Staffordshire patient neglect case and the Sheldon Review (n.d.) provide plentiful examples of that).1 When vulnerable people encounter institutions, they are often at an epistemic and communicative disadvantage that makes their interactions with institutions a source of suffering and injustice and indeed makes such people even more vulnerabilized. They may be affected by poverty, disability (especially mental ill health and learning disabilities), trauma, domestic violence, ill health, racism, sexism, ageism, or other sources of disadvantage, prejudice and discrimination; and, of course, they can be disadvantaged by a combination of such factors. Seeing power as the source of much suffering, social injustice and poor mental health is, of course, entirely in line with this view and I agree with Morgan that Johnstone et al. (2018) identified an important source of suffering.De-Medicalizing Versus De-PathologizingAnother important issue about psychiatric diagnoses is the stigma and negative stereotypes surrounding mental illness. Calls to de-medicalize a specific or all mental disorders is, in part, a call to remove stigma and negative stereotype from the behaviors and mental states that characterize a mental disorder. However, to de-medicalize... (shrink)

The question whether, in the interim, the "socialist morality" allows adequate restraint on revolutionary action, cannot fairly be answered in abstraction from history, in this case our epoch. We submit that the group of projects called corporate "globalization" - imposing free trade, privatization, and dominance of transnational corporations - shapes that epoch. These projects are associated with polarization of wealth, deepening poverty, and an alarming new global U.S. military domination. Using 9/11 as pretext for a "war on terror," this (...) domination backs corporate globalization. If Nazi occupation of France and French occupation of Algeria made Sartre and Beauvoir assign moral primacy to overcoming oppressive systems, then U.S. global occupation should occasion rebirth of that commitment. Parallels among the three occupations are striking. France's turning of colonial and metropolitan working classes against each other is echoed by globalization's pitting of (e.g.) Chinese against Mexican workers in a race to lower wages to get investment. Seducing first-world workers with racial superiority and cheap imports from near-slavery producers once again conceals their thralldom to their own bosses. Nazi and French use of overwhelming force and even torture are re-cycled by the U.S. and its agents, again to hide the vulnerability of their small forces amidst their enemies. (shrink)

I canvass the major contending normative theories /approaches concerning the world hungerabsolute poverty problem by going through a set of questions— some normative, some empirical, and some a mixture of both—in order to elucidate what the germane issues are in this ongoing debate and in order to provide a decision procedure for progressively weeding out the less plausible theories from the more plausible ones until we arrive at what I believe to be the most plausible and well-supported theory and (...) solution to this momentous problem. Theories are eliminated if they are empirically unsupportable in terms of their analysis of the problem (or their recommendations aimed at solving the problems) and/or they are morally unsupportable in terms of not showing sufficient concern and respect for people in the design of the principles, rights, duties, and/or obligations they propose or, alternatively, not respecting the root values of autonomy and fairness. My main conclusion is that although Amartya Sen's capability ethic has made important contributions to moral theory, a Rawlsian theory (such as mine) that specifically accepts a Basic Rights principle is preferable to it since, for one reason, it is less vague in what policies are to be recommended on such issues as world hunger (given the same set of empirical assumptions). I also conclude that although Sen's empirical (economic and socialtheoretical) work on famines, hunger, and absolute poverty in general is to be much commended, it contains claims that are highly suspect. (shrink)

Debate about the TRC has become necessary in South Africa today, 20 years since the final Report was handed over to government on 29 October 1998. Assessment of its efficacy and longer-term value is being undertaken, unfortunately, within an environment of intense disillusionment about the promise of constitutional democracy. This paper sets out the environment in which the TRC was established in 1996, its legal and constitutional frameworks, its achievements for creating a climate of reconciliation, for granting amnesty to perpetrators (...) of human rights violations, and for setting a reparations framework. South Africans are conscious of grinding poverty and inequality, pervasive racism, and unfulfilled aspirations of the democratic settlement of 1994. What value, then was the TRC? This paper attempts a fair assessment, seeks to be honest about its grandiose claims, and undertakes a philosophical, political and ethical analysis of its achievements. Drawing on many studies on the TRC it seeks to chart a more rational course than some, noting that circumstances in Africa are such that the TRC is being revisited, The Gambia, for example, being the latest country that has introduced the TRC. Others may follow suit: Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, to name a few. (shrink)

The face of the world is changing. The past century has seen the incredible growth of international institutions. How does the fact that the world is becoming more interconnected change institutions' duties to people beyond borders? Does globalization alone engender any ethical obligations? In Globalization and Global Justice, Nicole Hassoun addresses these questions and advances a new argument for the conclusion that there are significant obligations to the global poor. First, she argues that there are many coercive international institutions and (...) that these institutions must provide the means for their subjects to avoid severe poverty. Hassoun then considers the case for aid and trade, and concludes with a new proposal for fair trade in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Globalization and Global Justice will appeal to readers in philosophy, politics, economics and public policy. (shrink)

Globalization, an outgrowth of technology, while informing us about people throughout the world, also raises our awareness of the extreme economic and social disparities that exist among nations. As part of a global discipline, nurses are vitally interested in reducing and eliminating disparities so that better health is achieved for all people. Recent literature in nursing encourages our discipline to engage more actively with social justice issues. Justice in health care is a major commitment of nursing; thus questions in the (...) larger sphere of globalization, justice and ethics, are our discipline's questions also. Global justice, or fairness, is not an issue for some groups or institutions, but a deeper human rights issue that is a responsibility for everyone. What can we do to help reduce or eliminate the social and economic disparities that are so evident? What kind of ethical milieu is needed to address the threat that globalization imposes on justice and fairness? This article enriches the conceptualization of globalization by investigating recent work by Schweiker and Twiss. In addition, I discuss five qualities or characteristics that will facilitate the development of a viable and just global ethic. A global ethic guides all people in their response to human rights and poverty. Technology and business, two major forces in globalization that are generally considered beneficial, are critiqued as barriers to social justice and the common good. To turn human nature into humanity and righteousness is like turning the willow into cups and bowls.The book of Mencius. (shrink)

Access to fruits and vegetables by low-income residents living in selected urban and rural Minnesotan communities was investigated. Communities were selected based on higher than state average poverty rates, limited access to grocery stores, and urban influence codes (USDA ERS codes). Four communities, two urban and two rural, were selected. Data were gathered from focus group discussions (n = 41), responses to a consumer survey (n = 396 in urban neighborhoods and n = 400 in rural communities), and an (...) inventory of foodstuffs available at stores located in all the communities and at large grocery stores in neighborhoods adjacent to the urban communities. In the two urban neighborhoods, a significant number of foods (26% and 52%) were significantly more expensive than the Thrifty Food Plan’s (TFP) market basket price (MBP). Additionally, a significant number of foods in the two rural communities were more expensive (11% and 26%). In focus groups, participants identified major barriers to shopping in their community to be cost, quality of food, and food choice limitations. Results of the food inventory show that foods within the communities were costly, of fair or poor quality, and limited in number and type available, supporting complaints verbalized by focus group participants. Through focus groups and surveys, participants expressed concern that healthy food choices were not affordable within their communities and believed that people in their community suffered from food insecurity. The absence of quality, affordable food for low-income residents in these four Minnesota communities prevents or diminishes their ability to choose foods that help maintain a healthy lifestyle. (shrink)

One of the reasons that prompted Malawi’s Catholic bishops to write a pastoral letter in 1992 that triggered the movement towards democracy was the big gap between the rich and the poor. The pastoral letter, Living Our Faith, emerged as a critical voice in challenging the socio-economic and political state of affairs. The bishops demanded that the government ensures fair distribution of wealth. Since that time, Malawi has experienced different political parties that have assumed state governance after promising to eradicate (...) poverty in their campaign manifestos. Despite political changes, Malawi continues to experience the very same challenges, which prompted the Catholic bishops to write the pastoral letter in 1992. This contribution drew on the notions of dislocation and discontinuity to explore the significance of the pastoral letter towards commemorating the 30th anniversary of this historical event in Malawi. Living Our Faith marked the end of one-party dictatorial regime and the beginning of a multiparty system of governance, something to be celebrated as dislocation. This research interrogated the custodianship of the 1992 Catholic bishops’ pastoral letter and suggested that intellectuals should facilitate socio-political and economic transformation and demonstrated the relevance of the pastoral letter as a blueprint for socio-economic transformation in Malawi.Contribution: This research contributes to the evaluation of progress in the role played by the Church and intellectuals in the development of Malawi. (shrink)

This Article considers the moral and legal status of practices that aim to modify traits in human offspring. As advancements in reproductive biotechnology give parents greater power to shape the genetic constitution of their children, an emerging school of legal scholars has ushered in a privatized paradigm of genetic control. Commentators defend a constitutionally protected right to prenatal engineering by appeal to the significance of procreative liberty and the promise of producing future generations who are more likely to have their (...) lives go well. This 'new eugenics,' however, confronts us with ethical challenges that neither liberal arguments about autonomy, fairness, and consent, nor utilitarian arguments about preferences, happiness, and equality, are able to capture. I begin by analyzing the Supreme Court's modern substantive due process jurisprudence, as it bears on recent advancements and controversies in genetic science. After developing a doctrinal framework that could support an asserted right to genetic engineering, I draw on empirical research in behavioral psychology to examine the influence of eugenic norms on egalitarian attitudes and institutions. I predict that if parents become accustomed to choosing the genes of their children, it would be radically more difficult to give an influential account for why the successful should adopt a charitable posture toward those who are less fortunate. I argue that by shifting control over offspring DNA from chance to choice, enhancement will inflate a sense of individual entitlement for social and economic outcomes. I conclude that increasing willingness to prevent the birth of abnormal children distracts attention from institutions that fail to accommodate the limitations of imperfect people. Some may reply that producing people who better fit the roles society chooses to reward need not deter us from providing for people whose abilities fail to meet the demands of modern society. However, this reply misses the way that changes in reproductive practices can bring about changes in the way that we understand our identities and relationships. Eugenic solutions to social problems such as poverty, crime, and unemployment reshape the challenge of genetic disadvantage so that it is no longer one we address through collective measures such as public education, social services, and income redistribution, and instead becomes one for individual parents to prevent through donor screening, embryo discard, or selective abortion. (shrink)

Empirical evidence clearly shows that child poverty is a growing concern in the industrialized world and that the well-being of children is deeply affected by growing up in poverty in at least two ways. On the one hand, a low socioeconomic status jeopardizes the access to goods and services that are necessary for the current well-being of children. On the other hand, growing up in poverty also, in various ways, negatively affects the well-being in later life. On (...) the basis of the capability approach, we will show that the systematic protection and advancement of the wellbeing of children, and hence the reduction of child poverty, is a key task of social justice, which should therefore guide policy design and implementation. However, we will also discuss the special composition of the well-being of children and point out how it poses difficulties for state action in this regard. In particular, we will argue that the importance of love and affection for a child’s well-being limits considerably the possible political measures to provide fair life chances to all children. This again reflects the insight that poverty should not be reduced to economic inequality. (shrink)