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Global justice is an issue in political philosophy arising from the concern about unfairness. It is sometimes understood as a form of internationalism. [1]
Norwegian philosopher Henrik Syse claims that global ethics and international justice in the western tradition form part of the tradition of natural law: the topic has been organised and taught within Western culture since Latin times of Middle Stoa and Cicero, and the early Christian philosophers Ambrose and Augustine. Syse states
This early natural-law theorising teaching centred around the idea of a ius naturale, i.e., a system of right which is natural and as such common to all people, available to humankind as a measuring stick of right and wrong. [2]
Per the American political scientist Iris Marion Young "A widely accepted philosophical view continues to hold that the scope of obligations of justice is defined by membership in a common political community. On this account, people have obligations of justice only to other people with whom they live together under a common constitution, or whom they recognize as belonging to the same nation as themselves." English philosopher David Miller agreed, that obligations only apply to people living together or that are part of the same Nation. [3]
What we owe one another in the global context is one of the questions the global justice concept seeks to answer. [4] There are positive and negative duties which may be in conflict with ones moral rules.[ citation needed ] Cosmopolitans, reportedly including the ancient Greek Diogenes of Sinope, have described themselves as citizens of the world. [5] William Godwin ( Utilitarian thinker and anarchist) argued that everyone has an impartial duty to do the most good he or she can, without preference for any one human being over another. [6]
The broader political context of the debate is the longstanding conflict between local institutions: tribes against states, villages against cities, local communities against empires, or nation-states against the UN. The relative strength of the local versus the global has decreased over recorded history. From the early modern period until the twentieth century, the preeminent political institution was the state, which is sovereign, territorial, claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence in its territory, and exists in an international system of other sovereign states. [7] Over the same period political philosophers' interest in justice focused almost exclusively on domestic issues: how should states treat their subjects, and what do fellow-citizens owe one another? Justice in relations between states, and between individuals across state borders was put aside as a secondary issue or left to international relations theorists. [8]
Since the First World War, however, the state system has been transformed by globalization and by the creation of supranational political and economic institutions such as the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the World Bank. [9] Over the same period, and especially since the 1970s, global justice became a more prominent issue in political philosophy. [10] In the contemporary global justice debate, the general issue of impartiality centres on the moral significance of borders and of shared citizenship.
Three related questions, concerning the scope of justice, justice in the distribution of wealth and other goods, and the institutions responsible for justice, are central to the problem of global justice. When these questions are addressed in non ideal circumstances, they are part of the "ethics of process", a branch of political ethics.
Are there, as the moral universalist argues, objective ethical standards that apply to all humans regardless of culture, race, gender, religion, nationality or other distinguishing features? [11] Or do ethical standards only apply within such limited contexts as cultures, nations, communities, or voluntary associations?
A Moral Conception of Social Justice is only Universalistic if:
Gillian Brock asks "Do we have an obligation to ensure people have their basic needs met and can otherwise lead “decent” lives, or should we be more concerned with global socio-economic equality?". [13] 1.1 billion people — 18% of humanity — live below the World Bank's $2/day. [14] Is this distribution of wealth and other goods just? What is the root cause of poverty, and are there systemic injustices in the world economy? John Rawls has said that international obligations are between states as long as "states meet a minimal condition of decency" where as Thomas Nagel argues that obligations to the others are on an individual level and that moral reasons for restraint do not need to be satisfied for an individual to deserve equal treatment internationally. [15] Peter Singer argues in Famine, Affluence, and Morality that the rich have a moral obligation to give their money away to those who need it. [16] [17]
What institutions—states, communes, federal entities, global financial institutions like the World Bank, international NGOs, multinational corporations, international courts, a world state—would best achieve the ideal of global justice? [18] How might they gain our support, and whose responsibility is it to create and sustain such institutions? How free should movement between the jurisdictions of different territorial entities be?
Thomas Pogge says that States can not achieve global justice by themselves "It has never been plausible that the interests of states—that is, the interests of governments—should furnish the only considerations that are morally relevant in international relations." [17] Organizations like the World Trade Organization have advocated free trade but allow protectionism in affluent developed countries to this point according to Pogge and Moellendorf. [4]
Public polls have shown that there is support for the International Criminal Court. [19] 130 Civil Society groups in Africa have recognized that the ICC operates unevenly but in the interest of reaching global justice remain supportive of it. [20] In Cambodia the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, some observers had said "the court will not truly be effective unless it can properly address the crucial issue of how reparations will be given to victims of the regime" while others supported it, "I think the case is going to be the most important trial in Cambodian history." said Youk Chhang the director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, [21] [22] One worldwide institution, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, responsible for creating agreements on climate change has been criticized for not acting fast enough. by Truthout. Anne Petermann and Orin Langelle of the Global Justice Ecology Project have noted that in 2007 industry insiders were given preferential treatment over "civil society observers and delegates from poorer countries whose visas were delayed." [23]
Thomas Pogge has contended that an "institutional order can not be just if it fails to meet the minimal human rights standard". That standard is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [17] [ dead link ] Mathias Risse has argued that an injustice is not present, "While indeed 1.2 billion people in 1998 lived below the poverty line of $1.08 PPP 1993 per day, it is also true that there is now less misery than ever before," Less Misery is his standard for justice. He wrote in 2005, that "progress made over the last 200 years is miraculous". [24]
Five main positions—realism, particularism, nationalism, the society of states tradition, and cosmopolitanism (in two forms) — have been taken by contributors to the global justice debate.
Realists, such as Charles Yeo, Hashim Tilab argue that there are no global ethical standards, and that to imagine that there are is a dangerous fantasy. [25] States are the main actors in an international anarchy, and they either will or should always attempt to act rationally in their own interests. So, in response to the three central questions above: moral universalism is either false, or merely says that nothing is forbidden to any state in pursuit of its interests. There is no obligation to help the poor, unless doing so helps to further a state's strategic aims. And the state system is taken as the fundamental and unchallengeable global institutional arrangement. [26] The theoretical roots for this realist view are found in the tradition including Machiavelli and extending back to Glaucon's challenge to Socrates. [27] International relations between states in the realist view exist in what Charles Beitz describes as a Hobbesian state of nature, a state of anarchic war where might makes right and which is realist in the sense that it advocates viewing states as they “really are,” rather than portraying them in idealistic circumstances or according to their purported ideals. [28]
Particularists, such as Michael Walzer and James Tully, argue that ethical standards arise out of shared meanings and practices, which are created and sustained by discrete cultures or societies. Moral and social criticism is possible within the boundaries of such groups, but not across them. If a society is egalitarian, for instance, its citizens can be morally wrong, and can meaningfully criticise each other, if they do not live up to their own egalitarian ideals; but they cannot meaningfully criticise another, caste-based society in the name of those ideals. "A given society is just if its substantive life is lived in a certain way—that is, in a way faithful to the shared understandings of [its] members." [29] It is unjust if not. Each society has its own, different standards, and only those inside it are bound by those standards and can properly criticise themselves. So, moral universalism is false, because objective ethical standards vary between cultures or societies. We should not apply the same criteria of distributive justice to strangers as we would to compatriots. Nation-states that express their peoples' shared and distinctive ethical understandings are the proper institutions to enable local and different justices.
For Charles Blattberg, however, there exists a particularist approach to global justice, one based upon what he calls a "global patriotism." [30]
Nationalists, such as David Miller and Yael Tamir, argue that demanding mutual obligations are created by a particular kind of valuable association, the nation. [31] We may have humanitarian duties to aid the particularly badly off worldwide, but these are much less stringent and pressing than our duties to our fellow-citizens. Nationalism has traditionally included this assumption of differing moral obligations to those within and those outside the nation, reflected for example in the fact that the benefits of the welfare state are not available to citizens of other countries. So, moral universalism is too simple, because the ethical standards that apply between compatriots differ from those that apply between strangers (although some nationalists argue for the universal ethical standard that nations should have their own states). Distributive justice is an issue within nations but not necessarily between them. And a world-system of nation-states is the appropriate organiser of justice for all, in their distinct associational groups.
In the society of states tradition, states are seen as individual entities that can mutually agree on common interests and rules of interaction, including moral rules, in much the same way as human individuals can. Often, this idea of agreement between peers is formalised by a social contract argument.
One prominent exemplar of the tradition is John Rawls. In The Law of Peoples , Rawls extends the method of his A Theory of Justice to the question of global justice. His argument is that we can justify a global regime by showing that it would be chosen by representatives of Peoples in an imagined original position, which prevents them knowing which particular People they represent. This decision-in-ignorance models fairness because it excludes selfish bias. When Rawls applied this method in the case of domestic justice, with parties in the original position representing individual members of a single society, he argued that it supported a redistributive, egalitarian liberal politics. In contrast, Rawls argues that when his method is applied to global justice, it supports a quite traditional, Kantian international ethics: duties of states to obey treaties and strict limits on warmaking, but no global repossession of private property. So, different justices apply to the domestic and international cases. Even if justice requires egalitarianism within states, it does not do so between them. And a system of cooperating but independent states is the just global institutional arrangement. Rawls describes this ideal as a 'realistic utopia'. [32] Apart from Rawls, other notable exponents of this position include Hedley Bull.
Cosmopolitans argue that some form of moral universalism is true, and therefore that all humans, and not merely compatriots or fellow-citizens, fall within the scope of justice. Their arguments typically appeal to consistency, as follows:
Cosmopolitans differ, however, over which shared human characteristics are morally significant.
Consequentialist cosmopolitans, amongst whom Peter Singer is prominent, argue that the proper standard of moral judgement for actions, practices or institutions is their consequences, and that the measure of consequences is the welfare of humans (or even of all sentient creatures). The capacity to experience welfare and suffering is therefore the shared basis for moral standing. This means that the fact that some people are suffering terrible deprivations of welfare, caused by poverty, creates a moral demand that anyone who is able to help them do so. Neither the physical distance between the rich and the poor, nor the fact that they are typically citizens of different countries, has any moral relevance. [34]
Human rights defenders of cosmopolitanism, such as Thomas Pogge and Simon Caney, argue that all humans have rights, [35] [36] perhaps those set out in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It may be argued that these rights create a positive duty of the rich to provide what they guarantee (security, a livelihood, etc.); or, alternatively, it may be argued that the rich are currently violating their negative duty not to impose a global order that systematically violates rights of the poor. [37]
Others defend neoconservative interventionist foreign policy from a view of cosmopolitanism for the added benefits to human rights that such intervention could bring. Some defended the 2003 invasion of Iraq from this motive due to the human rights abuses Saddam had inflicted on countless members of the Kurdish and Shiite communities.
Individual cosmopolitans also differ considerably in how they understand the requirements of distributive justice and the legitimacy of global institutions. Some, for instance Kai Nielsen, endorse world government; others, such as Simon Caney, do not. The extent to which cosmopolitans advocate global redistribution of resources also varies. For instance, Charles Beitz would seek to address resource inequalities through extending the Rawlsian difference principle globally to advantage those least well off in the world, although the resources he would redistribute are natural resources rather than the broader category of societal goods (including such matters as talent). [38] All cosmopolitans, however, believe that individuals, and not states, nations, or other groups, are the ultimate focus of universal moral standards.
None of the five main positions described above imply complete satisfaction with the current world order. Realists complain that states that pursue utopian moral visions through intervention and humanitarian aid, instead of minding their own strategic interests, do their subjects harm and destabilise the international system. [39] Particularists object to the destruction of traditional cultures by cultural colonialism, whether under the guise of economic liberalism or defence of human rights. [40] Nationalists deplore the fact that so many people are stateless or live under inefficient and tyrannical regimes. [41] Advocates of the society of states are concerned about rogue states and about the imperial ambitions of the powerful. [42] Cosmopolitans believe that the contemporary world badly fails to live up to their standards, and that doing so would require considerable changes in the actions of wealthy individuals and states. [43]
{{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. The main branches of ethics include normative ethics, applied ethics, and metaethics.
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the concept that individuals are to be treated in a manner that is equitable and fair.
Normative ethics is the study of ethical behaviour and is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates questions regarding how one ought to act, in a moral sense.
Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive their due from society. In the current movements for social justice, the emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets, and economic justice. Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, which enables people to receive the basic benefits and burdens of cooperation. The relevant institutions often include taxation, social insurance, public health, public school, public services, labor law and regulation of markets, to ensure distribution of wealth, and equal opportunity.
John Bordley Rawls was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the modern liberal tradition. Rawls has been described as one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th century.
Cosmopolitanism is the idea that all human beings are members of a single community. Its adherents are known as cosmopolitan or cosmopolite. Cosmopolitanism is both prescriptive and aspirational. The idea encompasses different dimensions and avenues of community, such as promoting universal moral standards or developing a platform for mutual cultural expression and tolerance.
Thomas Winfried Menko Pogge is a German philosopher and is the Director of the Global Justice Program and Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University, United States. In addition to his Yale appointment, he is the Research Director of the Centre for the Study of the Mind in Nature at the University of Oslo, Norway, a Professorial Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University, Australia, and Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Central Lancashire's Centre for Professional Ethics, England. Pogge is also an editor for social and political philosophy for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
The ethics of care is a normative ethical theory that holds that moral action centers on interpersonal relationships and care or benevolence as a virtue. EoC is one of a cluster of normative ethical theories that were developed by some feminists and environmentalists since the 1980s. While consequentialist and deontological ethical theories emphasize generalizable standards and impartiality, ethics of care emphasize the importance of response to the individual. The distinction between the general and the individual is reflected in their different moral questions: "what is just?" versus "how to respond?" Carol Gilligan, who is considered the originator of the ethics of care, criticized the application of generalized standards as "morally problematic, since it breeds moral blindness or indifference".
Luck egalitarianism is a view about egalitarianism espoused by a variety of egalitarian and other political philosophers. According to this view, justice demands that variations in how well-off people are should be wholly determined by the responsible choices people make and not by differences in their unchosen circumstances. This expresses the intuition that it is a bad thing for some people to be worse off than others through no fault of their own.
Kantian ethics refers to a deontological ethical theory developed by German philosopher Immanuel Kant that is based on the notion that "I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.” It is also associated with the idea that “[i]t is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will." The theory was developed in the context of Enlightenment rationalism. It states that an action can only be moral if it is motivated by a sense of duty, and its maxim may be rationally willed a universal, objective law.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ethics.
Charles R. Beitz is an American political theorist. He is Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics at Princeton University, where he has been director of the University Center for Human Values and director of the Program in Political Philosophy. His philosophical and teaching interests focus on global political theory, democratic theory, the theory of human rights and theories of property.
World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms is a 2002 book by Thomas Pogge. In the book, Pogge explains that the poorest 44% of humankind have 1.3% of global income and their purchasing power per person per day is less than that of $2.15 in the US in 1993; 826 million of them do not have enough to eat. One-third of all human deaths are from poverty-related causes: 18 million annually, including 12 million children under five.
The global resources dividend (GRD) is a method of tackling global poverty advanced by the philosopher Thomas Pogge. He presents it as an alternative to the current global economic order. Under the scheme, nations would pay a dividend (tax) on any resources that they use or sell, resulting in a sort of "tax on consumption" Pogge's scheme is motivated by the positive duty to alleviate poverty, but also on the negative responsibility of the rich not to use institutions that perpetuate economic inequality. Pogge estimates that a dividend of just 1% could raise $300 billion each year; this would equal $250 for each individual in the world's poorest quintile.
Political ethics is the practice of making moral judgments about political action and political agents. It covers two areas: the ethics of process, which covers public officials and their methods, and the ethics of policy, which concerns judgments surrounding policies and laws.
Alasdair Cochrane is a British political theorist and ethicist who is currently Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield. He is known for his work on animal rights from the perspective of political theory, which is the subject of his two books: An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory and Animal Rights Without Liberation. His third book, Sentientist Politics, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. He is a founding member of the Centre for Animals and Social Justice, a UK-based think tank focused on furthering the social and political status of nonhuman animals. He joined the Department at Sheffield in 2012, having previously been a faculty member at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, London School of Economics. Cochrane is a Sentientist. Sentientism is a naturalistic worldview that grants moral consideration to all sentient beings.
Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric is a 2010 book by Thomas Pogge. The book is a discussion on issues of global significance and their relationship to poverty. Politics as Usual is based on previously compiled essays. Pogge's book present an alternate view than the one where "Education, health-care, technology, and political participation are becoming ever more universal, empowering human beings everywhere to enjoy security, economic sufficiency, equal citizenship, and a life in dignity." according to Crop. He presents one where Poverty and oppression persist on a massive scale, one where the affluent states and international organizations knowingly contribute and even benefit from these evils.
Carol C. Gould is an American philosopher and feminist theorist. Since 2009, she has taught at City University of New York, where she is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College, and in the Doctoral Programs of Philosophy and Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she is Director of the Center for Global Ethics and Politics at the Ralph Bunche Institute. Gould is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Philosophy. Her 2004 book Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights received the 2009 David Easton Award which is given by the American Political Science Association "for a book that broadens the horizons of contemporary political science." Her 2014 book Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots of Global Justice received the 2015 Joseph B. Gittler Award from the American Philosophical Association for "an outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences."
Sentientist Politics: A Theory of Global Inter-Species Justice is a 2018 book by the English political theorist Alasdair Cochrane, published by Oxford University Press. In the book, Cochrane outlines and defends his political theory of "sentientist cosmopolitan democracy". The approach is sentientist in that it recognises all sentient animals as bearers of rights; cosmopolitan in that it extends cosmopolitan political theory to include animals, rejecting the importance of state borders and endorsing impartiality; and democratic in that it aims to include animals in systems of representative and cosmopolitan democracy. It was the first book to extend cosmopolitan theory to animals, and was a contribution to the "political turn" in animal ethics – animal ethics informed by political philosophy.
Climate change ethics is a field of study that explores the moral aspects of climate change. Climate change is often studied and addressed by scientists, economists, and policymakers in value neutral ways. However, philosophers such as Stephen M. Gardiner and the scientific authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), argue that decisions related to climate change are moral issues and involve value judgment. Climate change involves difficult moral questions relating to global inequality and human development, who bears responsibility for past emissions, as well as the role of future generations, personal responsibility and many more.
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