Duties Of Distributive Justice Research Articles

A Problem for Global Egalitarianism

Do the demands of egalitarian justice extend to the international realm? Some believe that a positive answer follows from a simple line of reasoning: where a child happens to be born is a morally arbitrary fact; accordingly, it shouldn’t unduly influence her life prospects, as will inevitably be the case unless economic inequalities between countries are ironed out. I argue that this style of argument overlooks an important problem concerning the extent to which a person can unilaterally impose enforceable obligations on others by choosing to have a child. I maintain that properly egalitarian duties of distributive justice only arise when this problem of unilateral imposition has been solved. I further argue that solving the problem requires robust political institutions that do not exist in the international context—institutions instantiating a version of what John Rawls calls pure procedural justice, to ensure that the aggregate result of individual reproductive choices is acceptable to all.

What's Special about the State?

Many of us think that we have duties of distributive justice towards our fellow citizens that we do not have towards foreigners. Is that thought justified? This article considers the nature of the state's relationship to distributive justice from the perspective of utilitarianism, a theory that is barely represented in contemporary philosophical debates on this question. My strategy is to mount a utilitarian case for state-specific duties of distributive justice that is similar in its basic structure to the one that is standardly mounted for special duties towards the near and dear. I begin with a discussion of whether or not the co-citizen relationship can be justified in terms of its welfare consequences. I then consider what the answer to that first question implies concerning the duties of distributive justice that arise within that relationship.

Republicanism and Global Justice

The republican tradition seems to have a blind spot about global justice. It has had little to say about pressing international issues such as world poverty or global inequalities. According to the old, if apocryphal, adage: extra rempublicam nulla justitia. Some may doubt that distributive justice (as opposed to freedom or citizenship) is the primary virtue of republican institutions; and at any rate most would agree that republican values have traditionally been realized in the polis not in the (oxymoronic) cosmopolis. The article sketches a republican account of global non-domination which suggests that duties of distributive justice are not bounded to the institutions of a single society. In particular, it argues that republicans have good reasons to seek to curb those global inequalities which underpin what I call capability-denying domination.

Liberal internationalism and global social justice

Theories of global justice have moved from issues relating to crimes against humanity and war crimes or, furthermore, ‘negative duties’ with respect to non-citizens, towards problems of distributive justice and global inequality. Thomas Nagel's Storrs Lectures from 2005, exemplifying Rawlsian internationalism, argue that liberal requirements concerning duties of distributive justice apply exclusively within a single nation-state, and do not extend to duties of this nature between rich and poor countries. Nagel even argues that the demand for global equality is not a demand of justice at all. In the present article I will try to offer a normative basis for the criticism of such a view. Following Kant and more recently Philip Pettit, I locate this normative basis on political freedom conceived as non-domination. Such a conception opens up the possibility of a political cosmopolitanism, which is based not on an empirical interdependence among people at a global level, but on a normative interdependence. Subsequent cosmopolitan duties extend both to the elimination of domination everywhere in the world and to the equal enjoyment of non-dominated choice. Thus, it will be argued that modern republicanism is falsely identified with a particular, bounded community, but supports a political, not simply a moral, cosmopolitanism. This kind of cosmopolitanism conceives of sovereign states neither as useless constructions, nor as mere instruments for realizing the pre-institutional value of justice among human beings. Instead, their existence is what gives the value of justice its application. Cosmopolitanism is not after all about the abolishment of all boundaries, but about the essential capacity to draw and redraw them infinitely under conditions of global justice.

Runaway Climate Change: A Justice‐Based Case for Precautions

Runaway Climate Change: A Justice‐Based Case for Precautions

Obligations beyond national borders: international institutions and distributive justice

Recent scholarship has tied duties of distributive justice to the existence of coercive institutions. This body of work argues that, because the international system lacks institutions that can coerce individuals in the same manner as domestic institutions, there are no international obligations to address relative poverty and inequality. Proponents of this view use it to support the existence of a compatriot preference that requires us to meet the needs of compatriots before meeting those of the global poor. Even supposing distributive justice to be linked to coercion, coercive institutions do exist at the international level. These institutions coerce states rather than individuals, but their ability to coerce gives rise to duties of economic redistribution between states.

Beneficence and distributive justice in a globalising world

This paper argues that distributive justice requires a higher degree of enforceability and responsibility than beneficence and that therefore the current world order gives us strong reasons to recognise a global duty of justice to help the poor satisfy their basic needs. It proceeds in three steps. The first part considers the conceptual distinction between duties of justice and duties of beneficence. The second part examines the role that international institutions might play in activating duties of justice, by focusing on two dichotomies that are often used in order to distinguish between beneficence and justice, namely the imperfection/perfection dichotomy and the non-enforceability/enforceability dichotomy. In this respect, it is argued that perfection and enforceability of duties are necessary but not sufficient conditions for distributive duties to be conceived as duties of distributive justice. Therefore, the third part proposes an additional dichotomy focusing on the distinct moral reasons that underlie duties of beneficence and duties of distributive justice, namely the corrective/causal responsibility dichotomy.

Revenge of the Philosophical Mole: Another Response to David Miller on Nationality

ABSTRACT David Miller has written extensively on the ethical value of the nation. A satisfactory response to Miller's ideas on nationalism requires an assessment of the whole range of his writings on the subject. After stating the outlines of Miller's conception of ‘nationality’, I evaluate the most important arguments for and against any attribution of ethical importance to the nation. Finally, I assess Miller's commitment to conational ethical priority in the context of duties of justributive justice. My main conclusions are as follows. (i) Miller's conservative strategy of justification is unacceptable, and a critical strategy suggests several plausible arguments for valuing national attachments. These arguments are not conclusive, however, (ii) In so far as Miller's position depends on real historical connections between persons, it is susceptible to the objection from historical myth. (iii) Miller offers an unexpected and ultimately unsuccessful response to the claim that national sentiments are partial and hence biased, (iv) Miller provides no good reason to believe that the duties of distributive justice are owed in the first instance to conationals.