Global distributive justice? State boundaries as a normative problem

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREAS FOLLESDAL
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Life Plans ◽  
Global Distributive Justice ◽  
International Obligations ◽  
Normative Problem ◽  
State Boundaries ◽  
Principles Of Justice

AbstractShould state borders matter for claims of distributive justice? The article explores, only to reject, the best reasons for an ‘Anti-Cosmopolitan’ position which grants some minimum international obligations, including social and economic human rights. At the same time this Anti-Cosmopolitanism rejects distinctly distributive principles of justice, familiar from discussions of justice among compatriots: There are no further limits on permissible global inequalities. ‘Anti-Cosmopolitans’ do not deny that the tangled web of domestic and international institutions has a massive impact on individuals, their life plans and opportunities, albeit often indirectly and surreptitiously. What they deny is that claims to equality or limits to inequality should apply across state borders. The article explores what it is about states that can justify such a disjunct in the normative claims individuals have against each other. Several arguments about such alleged salient aspects of states and their constitutions are considered, but are found lacking. The main conclusion is to challenge the reasons Anti-Cosmopolitans offer against bringing distributive principles to the ‘Global Basic Structure’.

scholarly journals THE LIMITS OF BACKGROUND JUSTICE

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 352-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Porter Sinclair
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Principles Of Justice

AbstractThe argument from background justice is that conformity to Lockean principles of justice in agreements and transactions does not preclude the development of inequalities that undermine the freedom and fairness of those very transactions, and that, therefore, special principles are needed to regulate society's “basic structure.” Rawls offers this argument as his “first kind of reason” for taking the basic structure to be the primary subject of justice. Here I explore the background justice argument and its implications for questions about the scope of distributive justice. As it turns out, the background justice argument can offer no independent support for conclusions about the scope of distributive justice. For the special principles that it justifies inherit their scope from conclusions that must be established or assumed in advance. These prior conclusions are precisely what is at issue in debates about global justice.

Toward Another Kind of Development Practice

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Culp
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
International Development ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Global Distributive Justice ◽  
Democratic Practices ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
Domestic Level ◽  
Development Practice

This chapter examines the Discourse-Theoretic Rationale, presenting it as a novel moral rationale for certain forms of international development practice. This discourse-theoretic, internationalist moral rationale agrees with theorists of global distributive justice that participation in certain forms of international development practice can count as a demand of justice instead of solely a demand of humanity. Yet it also rejects their view that the moral rationale for international development practice is to further realize an ideal of global distributive justice. Rather, international development practice can contribute to establishing certain domestic socio-political structures that are required by global discursive justice. This is because, by fostering in various ways of democratic practices at the domestic level, certain forms of international development practice help to satisfy the intranational conditions of a fundamentally just global basic structure.

Global Distributive Justice: An Egalitarian Perspective

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 139-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Fabre
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Basic Needs ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Thomas Pogge ◽  
Global Distributive Justice ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
National Boundaries

A good deal of political theory over the last fifteen years or so has been shaped by the realization that one cannot, and ought not, consider the distribution of resources within a country in isolation from the distribution of resources between countries. Thus, thinkers such as Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge advocate extensive global distributive policies; others, such as Charles Jones and David Miller, explicitly reject the view that egalitarian principles of justice should apply globally and claim that national communities have only duties to help other countries be viable economically and meet the basic needs of their members. In the global justice debate, pretty much all parties acknowledge that we have obligations of distributive justice to for-eigners. The question is how strong those obligations are, and in particular whether national boundaries can make any difference to the distribution of resources between members of different countries.

scholarly journals Normative View of Natural Resources—Global Redistribution or Human Rights–Based Approach?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petra Gümplová
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Law ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Global Distributive Justice ◽  
Human Rights Based Approach

AbstractThis paper contrasts conceptions of global distributive justice focused on natural resources with human rights–based approach. To emphasize the advantages of the latter, the paper analyzes three areas: (1) the methodology of normative theorizing about natural resources, (2) the category of natural resources, and (3) the view of the system of sovereignty over natural resources. Concerning the first, I argue that global justice conceptions misconstrue the claims made to natural resources and offer conceptions which are practically unfeasible. Concerning the second, I show that contemporary philosophy of justice downplays the plurality of meanings resources have for collectives and argue that conflicts over natural resources can best be accounted for using human rights. Finally, the paper looks at sovereignty over natural resources and argues that rather than dismissing it as unjustifiable on moral grounds, it should be reformed in line with valid principles of international law, most importantly with human rights.

Discrimination as Negligence

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 123-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophia Moreau
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
Equal Access ◽  
Philosophical Literature ◽  
Equality Rights ◽  
Social Goods ◽  
Principles Of Justice

There is a rich philosophical literature on the value of equality: on whether and why it matters, what its “currency” ought to be, and whether it should be balanced against other important values, such as freedom, or conceptualized in terms of equal access to them. Most of this literature is a contribution to debates about distributive justice: it is concerned with how we should understand equality when our aim is to arrive at general principles of justice that could guide social or political authorities in distributing goods under their control. But there is also a different context in which we can, and do, ask about equality. Sometimes, when we ask whether someone has been treated equally, our aim is to assess whether they have faced discrimination. This is, of course, what courts and human rights tribunals do when interpreting constitutional or statutory equality rights – for these rights are usually understood not as general rights to equal treatment in the distribution of social goods, but rather as rights not to be discriminated against on the basis of a select number of prohibited grounds.

Closing the Fairness-Practice Gap

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 101-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert O. Keohane
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Global Public Goods ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Practice Gap ◽  
Fairness Principle

“My argument in this essay is that the fairness principle can be justified on the basis of an ethical perspective that stresses the importance of consequences in judging human action, and that it has far-reaching implications not just for evaluating state policy but for the design of international institutions.” Keohane's utilitarian perspective seeks to establish generalizable principles of morality for a framework of normative moral rules by which to construct a foreign policy for international cooperation. The author argues that all governments are morally obliged to support international institutions that advocate crosscultural and global public goods to advance the fairness principle. The international community is bound by Western understandings of distributive justice, universal human rights, and indisputable national sovereignty.

The Basic Structure of Society as the Primary Subject of Justice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Economic System ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Pluralism ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Distribution Of Income

Rawls says that there are two sources for the primacy assigned to the basic structure: the profound effects of basic social institutions on persons and their future prospects, and the need to maintain background justice. This chapter discusses the main reasons behind Rawls’s position that the basic structure of society is the primary subject of justice, and that the political constitution, property, and the economic system are the first subject to which principles of justice apply. First, the primacy of the basic structure is necessary for the freedom, equality, and independence of moral persons. Second, the basic structure’s priority is a condition of economic reciprocity and the just distribution of income and wealth. Third, the primacy of the basic structure is required by moral pluralism and the plurality of values and reasonable conceptions of the good among free and equal persons.

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