Open AccessJournal Article
Severe Poverty as a Violation of Negative Duties: Reply to the Critics
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this article, the authors focus on the present situation, on the radical inequality between the bottom half of humankind, suffering severe poverty, and those in the top seven, whose per capita share of the global product is 180 times greater than theirs (at market exchange rates).Abstract:
Mathias Risse discusses whether the global system of territorial sovereignty that emerged in the fifteenth century can be said to harm the poorer societies. This question is distinct from the question I raise in my book—namely, whether present citizens of the affluent countries, in collusion with the ruling elites of most poor countries, are harming the global poor. These questions are different, because present citizens of the affluent countries bear responsibility only for the recent design of the global institutional order. The effects of the states system as it was shaped before 1980, say, is thus of little relevance to the question I have raised. A further difference is that whereas Risse's discussion focuses on the well-being of societies, typically assessed by their GNP per capita, my discussion focuses on the well-being of individual human beings. This difference is significant because what enriches a poor country (in terms of GNP per capita) all too often impoverishes the vast majority of its inhabitants, as I discuss with the example of Nigeria's oil revenues (pp. 112–14). My focus is then on the present situation, on the radical inequality between the bottom half of humankind, suffering severe poverty, and those in the top seventh, whose per capita share of the global product is 180 times greater than theirs (at market exchange rates). This radical inequality and the continuous misery and death toll it engenders are foreseeably reproduced under the present global institutional order as we have shaped it. And most of it could be avoided, I hold, if this global order had been, or were to be, designed differently. The feasibility of a more poverty-avoiding alternative design of the global institutional order shows, I argue, that the present design is unjust and that, by imposing it, we are harming the global poor by foreseeably subjecting them to avoidable severe poverty.read more
Citations
More filters
Dissertation
Consuming conflicts: consumer responsibility for armed conflicts in DR Congo and Nigeria
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate whether the globalisation of supply chains gives rise to consumers' moral responsibility to alleviate harms abroad, and they draw on a reading of John Dewey's work to treat actors' capacities as a contingent compass.
Journal Article
Foreign Policy Matters: A Normative View of the G8 and Population health/Politique Etrangere: Point De Vue Normatif Pour L'evaluation Des Resultats Des Interventions Du G8 Sur la Sante Publique: La Politica Exterior Importa: Una Perspectiva Normativa del G8 Y la Salud De la Poblacion
Ronald Labonté,Ted Schrecker +1 more
TL;DR: The G8 and global health: Why care? as mentioned in this paper argues that the G8's economic and political power makes it a logical starting point for applying ethical criteria to the actions of national governments, viewing expectations that they will be driven by considerations other than national self-interest as unrealistic.
The ethical significance of the virtuous organization inspired by Catholic mission for the delivery of health care
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the relationship between the Ethics Hermeneutic and the VIRTUOUS ORGANIZATION and the Church Mission Theme of Sanctity of Human Person.