Encyclopedia of Global Justice

Encyclopedia of Global Justice

Deen K. Chatterjee (Ed.)

Encyclopedia of Global Justice With 10 Figures and 4 Tables

Editor Deen K. Chatterjee Department of Philosophy University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT USA

ISBN 978-1-4020-9159-9 e-ISBN 978-1-4020-9160-5 Print and electronic bundle under ISBN 978-1-4020-9161-2 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2011932691 © Springer ScienceþBusiness Media B.V. 2011 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer ScienceþBusiness Media (www.springer.com)

Preface The two-volume Encyclopedia of Global Justice is a major publication venture toward a comprehensive coverage of this timely topic. The Encyclopedia is an international, interdisciplinary, and collaborative project, spanning all the relevant areas of scholarship related to issues of global justice, and edited and advised by leading scholars from around the world. The wide-ranging entries present the latest ideas on this complex subject by authors who are at the cutting edge of inquiry. The goal of this timely and comprehensive encyclopedia is to provide a premier reference guide for students, scholars, policy makers, and others interested in assessing the moral consequences of global interdependence and understanding the concepts and arguments that shed light on the myriad aspects of global justice. The Encyclopedia will set the tone and direction of this increasingly important area of scholarship for years to come. The question of justice across national boundaries, recently the focus of intense debate due to the ethical challenges of modern globalization, spans the range from extreme global egalitarianism to various kinds of extended nationalism and limited globalism. The topic covers several disciplines and raises both theoretical and applied issues in such areas as relations among nations, world poverty, human rights, global development, environmental concerns, and the justifiability of military conflicts, among others. The Encyclopedia reflects this reality and provides an interdisciplinary approach that combines empirical research with theoretical arguments, drawing terms and concepts from political philosophy and theory, ethics, international law and legal theory, development economics, public policy, and applied ethics, including legal, business, medical, military, religious, environmental, and feminist ethics as they relate to all aspects of global justice. Because the term “global justice” is itself a matter of contention, prompting questions regarding how it relates to and differs from “international justice,” an important part of the project is to clarify such definitional issues and include entries that seek to address the related methodological concerns. The Encyclopedia will serve as a complete reference for all key terms and concepts of global justice, broadly conceived. It is organized in A-to-Z format with cross-referencing of entries around a series of topics under four broad categories, making it convenient for students, scholars, and general readers to access the relevant entries on a specific theme or topic. The four broad categories are: ● ● ● ●

Concepts/Theories Persons/Thinkers Institutions/Organizations Trends/Movements/Policies/Treaties

All entry topics fall under one or more of these broad categories. The entries number around 500 and consist of essays of 300 to 5,000 words. The inclusion and length of entries are based on their significance to the topic of global justice, regardless of their importance in other areas. The Encyclopedia consists of entries written by scholars drawn from a variety of fields and disciplines. Based on their painstaking preparation of the chapters and their diligence through the process of revisions and editing, they made amply evident their high level of care for and commitment to the project and their dedication to the growth and development of their own fields. It was a delight and a privilege to work with them and see how they brought together their scholarship and their respective style and orientation into a coherent focus to make this ambitious project possible. Naturally, our greatest thanks go to these contributors for their collaboration and good will. Their belief in the importance of the project sustained our efforts. Special thanks are due to the members of the distinguished editorial board for their support and encouragement. Most of them reviewed the drafts and gave their advice whenever needed, and some of them also wrote several key entries. I would especially like to thank Lynette Sieger of New York University, a member of the editorial board and contributor of several key chapters, for her able assistance, advice, and support.

vi

Preface

Special gratitude goes to Christine Hausmann at the Reference Editorial Office of Springer’s Reference and Database Publishing for her patience and unfailing support that made the project possible. Special thanks are also due to Neil Olivier, Publishing Editor of Philosophy of Law and Ethics in the Humanities Department at Springer and to Susanne Friedrichsen, Associate Editor at Springer’s Reference & Database Publishing, for their valuable help and guidance. Finally, my greatest gratitude and appreciation goes to my beloved wife Donna Dinsdale for all her loving support, kindness, and sacrifice during the entire duration of this long project. I cannot thank her enough. Deen K. Chatterjee Editor-in-Chief

Topical Table of Contents Concepts/Theories Absolute Poverty Act-Consequentialism Adaptive Preferences ►Capabilities Approach ►Preference-Satisfaction Advocacy Organizations ►International Organizations Agency, Collective Agency, Individual Agent-Centered Prerogative Aggression Ahimsa Aid to Burdened Societies Altruism Anarchy Armed Conflict: Effect on Women Associative Duties Basic Needs Basic Rights Beneficence, Principle of Biodiversity Bioprospecting and Biopiracy Borders Capabilities Approach Capitalism Care Ethics Charity Chronic Poverty ►Absolute Poverty ►Poverty Citizenship Citizenship Practices Civil Disobedience, International Civil Disobedience, Transnational Civil Rights Class and Status Climate Justice Co-National Partiality ►Compatriot Partiality Thesis Coercion Collective Choice

Collective Decision Problem Collective Identity Collective Responsibility Colonialism Common Good Communitarianism Communities Compatriot Partiality Thesis Complex Emergency Complex Equality Composition, Fallacy of Consensus/Justification Consent Conspiracy Theory Constructivism Consumerism Contractarianism Corporate Social Responsibility Correlative Obligations Corruption Cosmopolitan Democracy Cosmopolitan Justice Cosmopolitan Republicanism Cosmopolitanism Crimes Against Humanity Crimes Against Peace Cultural Relativism Cultural Rights ►Globalization ►Health and Health Care ►Human Rights: African Perspectives ►International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ►Multiculturalism Death Penalty ►Capital Punishment Decent Society Democracy, Constitutional Democracy, Deliberative Democracy, Transnational Democratic Citizenship Democratic Equality

viii

Topical Table of Contents

Democratic Legitimacy Democratic Peace Theory Development Accountability Development as Freedom ►Capabilities Approach ►Sen, Amartya Development Assistance Development Ethics Difference Principle Diffused Responsibility Hypothesis Disabled People Disagreement, Reasonable Dispersed Groups ►Immigration ►Refugees Dispute Resolution Domination Double Effect, Doctrine of Duties of Assistance Duties to Non-Compatriots Duties to the Distant Needy Duties, Determinate and Indeterminate Duties, Perfect and Imperfect Duties, Positive and Negative Duties, Remedial ►Duties, Determinate and Indeterminate ►Duties, Perfect and Imperfect ►Duties, Positive and Negative Earth Democracy ►Brundtland Commission ►Political Ecology ►Rio Declaration ►Stockholm Conference, 1972 Economic Rights Egalitarianism ►Fair Equality of Opportunity ►Global Egalitarianism ►Global Equality of Opportunity End of Life Care Environmental Justice Environmental Racism Environmental Sustainability Equality Essential Medicines, Access to Ethical Foreign Policy ►Foreign Policy Eurocentrism Exploitation Fair Equality of Opportunity

Fairness Feminist Ethics Feminization of Poverty Food Sovereignty Friendship Functioning, Well-Being and ►Capabilities Approach ►Nussbaum, Martha C. ►Quality of Life ►Sen, Amartya Gender-Based Violence ►Violence Gender Justice Genetic Engineering Genocide Georgism Global Basic Structure Global Citizenship Global Civil Society Global Contractarian Justice Global Democracy Global Difference Principle Global Distributive Justice Global Egalitarianism Global Equality of Opportunity Global Ethic Global Federalism Global Governance Global Impartiality Thesis Global Justice Global Justice, Subjects of Global Market ►Capitalism ►Free Trade ►Globalization Global Organizations ►Capitalism ►Global Democracy ►Global Poverty ►Global Public Sphere ►Globalization ►International Monetary Fund (IMF) ►World Bank (WB) Global Poverty Global Public Global Public Goods Global Public Health Global Public Reason Global Resource Distribution

Topical Table of Contents

Global Resources Dividend ►Pogge, Thomas Global Taxation Global Tragedy of the Commons ►Global Public ►Global Warming ►Pareto Optimality Group Rights Harm Principle Health and Health Care Human Development ►Capabilities Approach ►Crocker, David ►Development Ethics ►Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) ►International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) ►Nussbaum, Martha C. ►Sen, Amartya Human Genome Human Right to Democracy Human Rights Human Security Humanitarian Aid Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military Humanitarian Military Intervention Ideal Moral Theory Illegitimate States Immigration Impartiality ►Global Impartiality Thesis Imperialism Indigenous Peoples Indigenous Rights to Land Inequality ►Global Democracy ►Global Egalitarianism ►Global Justice Intergenerational Justice International Due Process ►International Criminal Court (ICC) ►International Criminal Justice ►International Law International Health Partnership ►Development Ethics ►Global Public Health ►Health and Health Care ►Pandemics International Humanitarian Assistance

International Institutional Legitimacy International Justice ►Fairness ►Foreign Policy ►Globalization ►Hague Conventions ►International Law ►Law of Peoples ►Liberal Nationalism ►Moral Equality ►Nagel, Thomas ►Nationalism ►Rawls, John ►Realistic Utopia ►Sen, Amartya ►Tamir, Yael ►Transitional Justice in Africa ►Treaty of Westphalia International Law International Law, Normative Foundations of International Organizations International Political Economy ►Global Justice ►International Monetary Fund (IMF) ►World Bank (WB) Intrastate Autonomy ►Secession Intuitionism Jus ad Bellum Jus ad Pacem Jus Gentium Jus in Bello Just Peace ►Peace Versus Justice ►Perpetual Peace: Abbe´ de Saint-Pierre ►Perpetual Peace: Kant ►Preventive Non-Intervention Just War Theory ►Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ►War, Just and Unjust Justice and Reciprocity: Local and Global Justice and Religion: Buddhism Justice and Religion: Christianity Justice and Religion: Confucianism Justice and Religion: Daoism Justice and Religion: Hinduism Justice and Religion: Islam Justice and Religion: Judaism Killing and Letting Die

ix

x

Topical Table of Contents

Labor Land Ethic Language and Politics Law of Peoples Legal Rights Liberal Democracy Liberal Nationalism Liberal Pluralism Liberalism Libertarianism Liberties Lifeboat Ethics Local Communities ►Communitarianism ►Quality of Life ►Relativity of Well-Being ►Thin Universalism and Thick Localism Luck Egalitarianism Majoritarianism Maldevelopment ►Development Ethics Marxism Medical Justice ►Global Public Health ►Health and Health Care ►Pharmaceutical Justice ►Pogge, Thomas Migration ►Immigration Minority Groups ►Multiculturalism Modus Vivendi Moral Authority Moral Community Moral Cosmopolitanism Moral Distance Moral Equality Moral Innocence and Harm ►Non-Combatant Immunity Moral Legitimacy Moral Luck ►Luck Egalitarianism Moral Reasoning Multiculturalism National Interest Thesis ►Compatriot Partiality Thesis ►Liberal Nationalism ►Nationalism ►Social Contract National Self-Determination

Nationalism Nationalism, Explanatory Nationalism, Extended Natural Rights Needs ►Basic Needs Negative Duties ►Duties, Positive and Negative ►Killing and Letting Die Negative Rights Neoliberalism Non-Combatant Immunity Non-Ideal Moral Theory Obligation to Future Generations Odious Debts Original Position Owning Life Pacifism Pareto Optimality Partiality Paternalism Patriarchy Patriotism Peace Education Perfect Justice ►Rawls, John ►Sen, Amartya Perpetual Peace Perpetual Peace: Abbe´ de Saint-Pierre Perpetual Peace: Kant Persecution ►Amnesty International ►Gay Rights ►Human Rights ►Human Rights Watch ►Torture Pharmaceutical Justice Pluralism Political Allegiance Political Authority Political Autonomy Political Constructivism Political Cosmopolitanism Political Ecology Political Economy Political Forgiveness Political Freedom ►Falk, Richard ►Liberal Pluralism ►Political Autonomy

Topical Table of Contents

►Political Representation ►Politics of Recognition Political Idealism Political Leadership ►Gandhi, Mahatma ►Political Authority Political Legitimacy Political Liberalism Political Obligation Political Realism ►Compatriot Partiality Thesis ►Liberal Nationalism ►Lifeboat Ethics ►Political Liberalism Political Reconciliation ►Political Forgiveness ►Truth Commissions Political Representation Positive Duties ►Duties, Positive and Negative Positive Rights Poverty Preemptive War Preference-Satisfaction Preventive Diplomacy ►Dispute Resolution ►Preventive Non-Intervention ►Soft Power ►War, Just and Unjust Preventive Non-Intervention Preventive War Prima Facie Duties Primary Goods Prisoner’s Dilemma Prisoners of War ►Geneva Conventions ►Punishment ►War Against Terrorism ►War, Just and Unjust Proceduralism Propaganda Property Rights Public Good ►Common Good Public Interest Public Reason Punishment Quality of Life Racism Realistic Utopia

Reciprocity Recognition, the Politics of Recognitional Legitimacy Rectificatory Justice Relative Poverty Relativism Relativity of Well-Being Remedial Rights ►Secession ►Truth Commissions Reparations Reproductive Rights ►Population Politics ►Poverty ►Quality of Life Resource Curse Responsibility, Individual Restorative Justice ►Truth Commissions Retribution Retributive Justice Revolution Rights Rule-Consequentialism Sanctions Second Original Position Self-Determination Separation of Church and State Slavery Social Contract Socialism Solidarity Sovereignty Special Obligations Special Rights Standard of Living ►Development Ethics ►Feminization of Poverty ►Quality of Life ►Relativity of Well-Being State Terrorism Subsidiarity Principle Subsidies Subsistence Resources ►Absolute Poverty ►Basic Needs ►Basic Rights ►Food Sovereignty ►Poverty ►Quality of Life

xi

xii

Topical Table of Contents

Subsistence Rights Surrogacy, Transnational Sustainable Development Territorial Rights Thin Universalism and Thick Localism Toleration/Tolerance, Liberal Principle of Transitional Justice Transitional Justice in Africa Transnational Citizenship ►Citizenship ►World Citizenship ►World Government Tyranny Ubuntu Unequal Exchange Theory ►Exploitation ►Fair Trade ►Imperialism ►Pogge, Thomas Unilateral Rights Universal Hospitality Utilitarianism Violence Virtue Ethics War Crimes War, Just and Unjust Wealth Gap ►Equality ►Global Democracy ►Global Difference Principle ►Global Distributive Justice ►Global Egalitarianism ►Global Poverty ►Moral Cosmopolitanism Wide Reflective Equilibrium Women’s Rights ►Armed Conflict: Effect on Women ►Ecofeminism ►Feminist Ethics ►Gender Justice ►Feminization of Poverty ►Okin, Susan ►Shiva, Vandana Working Poor ►Labor ►Labor Laws ►Poverty World Citizenship World Government

World Ownership ►Global Public Goods ►Global Public Sphere ►World Government

Institutions/Organizations African Development Bank Amnesty International Bretton Woods Institutions Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Democratic Institutions ►Global Democracy Development Institutions ►Development Assistance ►Basic Needs ►United Nations: Right to Development Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ►Land Grab European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) ►Basic Needs ►Development Assistance European Union (EU) Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) ►Refugees Grameen Bank Greenpeace High Road for Human Rights Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) Human Rights Watch Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ►Climate Change ►Global Warming International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) International Court of Justice (ICJ) ►International Criminal Court (ICC) ►International Criminal Justice ►International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ►International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights International Criminal Court (ICC) International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) International Finance Cooperation (IFC) ►Free Trade ►International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Topical Table of Contents

International Forum Against Globalization ►Globalization ►Third World Resistance International Labour Organization (ILO) ►Labor Laws International Law Commission ►International Law International Monetary Fund (IMF) League of Nations Multinational Corporations National Alliance for Tribal Self Rule (NATSR), India ►Indigenous Peoples Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) ►Amnesty International ►Global Governance ►Global Public ►Global Public Reason ►High Road for Human Rights ►Human Rights Watch ►Illegitimate States ►International Organizations ►O’Neill, Onora ►Owning Life ►Pax Natura ►Sen, Amartya ►Shiva, Vandana ►Treaty of Westphalia ►World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) ►World Social Forum North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ►International Organizations Organization for African Unity (OAU) ►African Development Bank ►Health and Health Care ►Human Rights: African Perspectives ►International Organizations Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ►Development Assistance ►Fair Trade ►Global Taxation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) ►European Convention on Human Rights ►Human Trafficking ►International Organizations ►Subsidiarity Principle ►Terrorism

Organization of American States (OAS) ►Development Assistance ►Fair Trade ►International Organizations Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Oxfam International Pax Natura Foundation Regional Human Rights Courts and Commissions ►Human Rights ►International Institutional Legitimacy ►International Law United Nations (UN) ►Global Governance ►Global Human Rights Culture ►Global Public Reason ►International Organizations ►Self-Determination ►United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ►United Nations: Peacekeeping and Peace Building ►United Nations: Reform ►United Nations: Right to Development ►Universal Declaration of Human Rights United Nations Agenda for Democratization ►Global Democracy United Nations Charter on Economic Rights and Duties of States ►Basic Rights ►Human Rights ►Positive Rights United Nations Democracy Fund ►Global Democracy United Nations Development Program (UNDP) ►Capabilities Approach ►Crocker, David ►Development Ethics ►Health and Health Care ►Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) ►Human Security ►International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) ►Poverty ►Sen, Amartya United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ►Capabilities Approach ►Development Ethics ►Peace Education

xiii

xiv

Topical Table of Contents

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) ►Food ►Food Sovereignty ►Land Grab United Nations Human Rights Commission ►Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI) ►Human Rights ►Human Rights: African Perspectives United Nations Security Council ►United Nations: Peacekeeping and Peace Building ►United Nations: Reform United Nations: Peacekeeping and Peace Building United Nations: Reform United Nations: Right to Development Working Women’s Forum (WWF), India ►Post-Colonialism World Bank (WB) World Commission on Environment and Development ►Brundtland Commission World Health Organization (WHO) ►Development Ethics ►Global Public Health ►Health and Health Care ►Pandemics World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) World Social Forum World Trade Organization (WTO) ►Alterglobalization ►Bandung Conference ►Doha Declaration ►General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) ►Global Basic Structure ►International Organizations ►Stiglitz, Joseph Eugene ►Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property

Persons/Thinkers Agarwal, Bina Ake, Claude Appiah, Kwame Anthony Arendt, Hannah Augustine Barber, Benjamin Barry, Brian Bauman, Zygmunt Beitz, Charles Benhabib, Seyla Berger, John Bohman, James

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Boylan, Michael Brock, Gillian Buchanan, Allen Cabrera, Luis Caney, Simon Chodosh, Hiram Chomsky, Noam Chumakov, Alexander N. Chwaszcza, Christine Cicero Condorcet, N. Marquis de Crocker, David Dante Derrida, Jacques Dower, Nigel Dryzek, John Falk, Richard Fanon, Frantz ►Human Rights: African Perspectives ►Imperialism ►Liberation Theology ►Violence Foucault, Michel Gandhi, Mahatma George, Henry ►Georgism Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah Gould, Carol Goulet, Denis Grotius, Hugo Habermas, Ju¨rgen Hardin, Garrett Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Held, David Held, Virginia Herodotus Hobbes, Thomas Honneth, Axel Huntington, Samuel Jefferson, Thomas Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel: Contemporary Kantian Responses to King, Martin Luther, Jr. Kukathas, Chandran Ku¨ng, Hans ►Global Ethic ►World Citizenship Laozi Locke, John

Topical Table of Contents

Luther, Martin Mallat, Chibli Mamdani, Mahmoud ►Human Rights: African Perspectives Mao, Zedong Marx, Karl May, Larry McBride, William McMahan, Jeff Mill, John Stuart Miller, David Miller, Richard Moellendorf, Darrel Nagel, Thomas Narveson, Jan Nickel, James Nozick, Robert Nussbaum, Martha C. O’Neill, Onora Okin, Susan Pogge, Thomas Rawls, John Roosevelt, Eleanor Rosenbaum, Thane Rosenthal, Joel H. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Russell, Bertrand Sellers, Mortimer Sen, Amartya Seneca Shiva, Vandana Shue, Henry Singer, Peter Spinoza, Baruch Stiglitz, Joseph Eugene Tagore, Rabindranath Talbott, William J. Tamir, Yael Tan, Kok-Chor Teso´n, Fernando Thucydides Vitoria, Francisco de Walzer, Michael Wenar, Leif Xunzi Young, Iris Marion

Trends/Movements/Policies/Treaties Advocacy Organizations ►International Organizations

Afghanistan and Iraq Wars al Qaeda ►Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ►Punishment ►Terrorism ►War Against Terrorism Alterglobalization Animal Rights Anti-Globalization Movements ►Alterglobalization ►Ecofeminism ►Shiva, Vandana Arms Race ►Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ►Chomsky, Noam ►Corporate Social Responsibility ►Corruption ►Dispute Resolution ►Foreign Policy ►Peace Education ►Pogge, Thomas ►Preventive Non-Intervention ►Preventive War Asian Values Debate Bandung Conference Beijing Platform on Women ►Falk, Richard ►Gender Justice ►Okin, Susan Bhopal Tragedy Bilateral Aid ►Development Assistance ►Basic Needs Bribery ►Corruption ►Foreign Policy ►Pogge, Thomas ►Poverty Brundtland Commission Cairo Declaration of Human Rights Capital Punishment Carbon Tax Child Labor Child Soldiers Climate Change Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) ►Okin, Susan Cyber Privacy ►Privacy

xv

xvi

Topical Table of Contents

Cyberwar Debt Relief Deforestation ►Pax Natura Foundation ►Sustainable Development Democratic Nation Building ►Doha Declaration ►Global Democracy ►Humanitarian Military Intervention ►Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ►Human Right to Democracy ►Preventive Non-Intervention Doha Declaration Drug Research and Human Experimentation ►Bioprospecting and Biopiracy ►Essential Medicines, Access to ►Organ Trafficking ►Owning Life Duty to Prosecute East Asian Economic Crisis ►International Monetary Fund (IMF) ►World Bank (WB) Ecofeminism Embargoes ►Foreign Policy ►Poverty Empire Enemy Combatant Environmental Protection Environmental Regulations ►Environmental Protection Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI) European Convention on Human Rights Failed States ►Development Assistance ►Development Ethics ►Duties of Assistance Fair Trade Female Genital Mutilation Food Foreign Aid Foreign Policy Free Trade Gay Rights General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) ►Free Trade Geneva Conventions Global Democracy Deficit ►Consensus/Justification ►Global Democracy

Global Human Rights Culture Global Justice Project: Iraq Global Public Sphere Global Trafficking ►Human Trafficking Global Warming Globalization Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) ►Land Grab Guantanamo Bay Prisoners ►Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ►Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ►Punishment ►Terrorism ►War Against Terrorism Hague Conventions Human Rights: African Perspectives Human Trafficking Inept States ►Poverty ►Rawls, John Intellectual Property Rights International Borrowing Privilege ►Debt Relief International Criminal Justice International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) International Environmental Standards ►Climate Change ►Climate Justice ►Global Warming International Labor Standards International Legal Reform ►Chodosh, Hiram ►Global Democracy ►Global Justice International Solidarity ►Global Public Reason ►Solidarity Intervention, Non-Military ►Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq Kyoto Protocol ►Climate Change ►Climate Justice ►Global Warming Labor Laws Land Grab Liberal Internationalism Liberation Theology

Topical Table of Contents

Mediation ►Chodosh, Hiram ►Dispute Resolution Mega-Cities Moral Imperialism Movement for the Emancipation of the Nile Delta (MEND) Nation Building ►Development Ethics ►Human Right to Democracy ►Humanitarian Aid ►Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ►Humanitarian Military Intervention ►United Nations: Peacekeeping and Peace Building New International Economic Order ►Globalization Non-Aligned Movement ►Bandung Conference North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) ►Alterglobalization ►Fair Trade ►Free Trade North-South Division ►Alterglobalization ►Ecofeminism ►Global Egalitarianism ►Global Justice ►Global Poverty ►Globalization ►Shiva, Vandana Nuclear Proliferation ►Falk, Richard ►Russell, Bertrand ►State Terrorism Nuremberg Trials Oil Organ Trafficking Outsourcing ►Corporate Social Responsibility ►Globalization Pandemics Paris Peace Conference Peace Versus Justice Population Politics Post-Colonial Feminism ►Colonialism ►Gender Justice ►Post-Colonialism Post-Colonialism Privacy

Protectionist Policies ►Free Trade ►International Organizations ►Third World Resistance Refugees Rendition, Extraordinary ►War Against Terrorism Rio Declaration Rogue States ►Humanitarian Military Intervention ►Rawls, John ►Tyranny Rome Statute of 1998 Rwanda Secession Singularity Soft Power Stockholm Conference, 1972 Technology Terrorism Third World Resistance Tobin Tax Torture Trade Agreements ►Bandung Conference ►Doha Declaration ►Fair Trade ►Foreign Policy ►Free Trade ►Intellectual Property Rights ►Stiglitz, Joseph Eugene ►Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Transhumanism Treaty of Westphalia Truth Commissions UDHR ►Universal Declaration of Human Rights ►United Nations: Rights and Duties United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ►Development Ethics ►Free Trade United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea United Nations Millennium Development Goals ►Health and Health Care ►Poverty ►Pogge, Thomas United Nations: Rights and Duties Universal Declaration of Human Rights Vegetarianism Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties

xvii

xviii

Topical Table of Contents

Vienna Declaration on Human Rights War Against Terrorism Water Weapons of Mass Destruction ►Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ►Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ►War Against Terrorism

►War, Just and Unjust Women’s Movement ►Ecofeminism ►Feminist Ethics ►Solidarity Zapatistas

Editor-in-Chief

Deen K. Chatterjee Department of Philosophy University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT USA Deen K. Chatterjee teaches philosophy at the University of Utah and is the series editor of Studies in Global Justice (Springer), with nine volumes published in the series. His areas of specialization are political philosophy, applied ethics, and philosophy of religion and culture. Chatterjee’s publications include, most recently, Ethics of Preventive War (Cambridge University Press); Democracy in a Global World: Human Rights and Political Participation in the 21st Century (Rowman and Littlefield); Ethics of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy (Cambridge University Press); and Ethics and Foreign Intervention, with Don E. Scheid (Cambridge University Press). Currently he is completing two monographs, one on the ethics of war and peace and the other on cosmopolitan justice. In addition, he is editing two volumes, one with Martha Nussbaum on Tagore’s philosophy of education and the other on feminism and multiculturalism. Besides contributing chapters in several anthologies and encyclopedias, he has published articles and reviews in The Monist, Metaphilosophy, Ethics and International Affairs, Ethics, The Journal of Moral Philosophy, Social Philosophy Today, and The Good Society. Chatterjee has been a member of the American Philosophical Association’s Advisory Committee on Applied Ethics (Eastern Division) and has been a two-term member of the Association’s Committee on International Cooperation.

Editorial Board Associate Editors NKIRUKA AHIAUZU University of Wales UK ELIZABETH ASHFORD University of St. Andrews UK CHRISTIAN BARRY Australian National University Australia CHANDRA KALA BHADRA Tribhuvan University Nepal MICHAEL BLAKE University of Washington USA GILLIAN BROCK University of Auckland New Zealand CHRISTINE CHWASZCZA Philosophisches Seminar der Uni Koeln Germany SHANNON FRENCH US Naval Academy USA CHRISTOPHER KILBY Villanova University USA RAHUL KUMAR Queen’s University Canada

MONICA MOOKHERJEE Keele University UK JEREMY MOSS University of Melbourne Australia COLLEEN MURPHY Texas A & M University USA REECE NEWMAN Forum for Questioning Minds USA JUHA RAIKKA University of Turku Finland SALLY SCHOLZ Villanova University USA ASUNCION LERA ST. CLAIR University of Bergen Norway HELEN STACY Stanford Law School USA RONALD TINNEVELT Radboud University Nijmegen The Netherlands

xxii

Editorial Board

Editorial Advisors BINA AGARWAL University of Delhi India

MICHAEL DOYLE Columbia University USA

KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH Princeton University USA

MYRTO DRAGONA-MONACHOU University of Athens Greece

CHARLES BEITZ Princeton University USA

RICHARD FALK University of California, Santa Barbara USA

SEYLA BENHABIB Yale University USA

TOM FARER University of Denver USA

ALLEN BUCHANAN Duke University USA

DESMOND GASPER Institute of Social Studies The Netherlands

LUIS CAMACHO University of Costa Rica Costa Rica

SAAD EDDIN IBRAHIM American University of Cairo Egypt

HIRAM CHODOSH University of Utah USA

TAKASHI INOGUCHI Chuo University Japan

ALEXANDER CHUMAKOV Moscow Academy of Law Russia

IOANNA KUC¸URADI Hacetteppe University Turkey

TONY COADY University of Melbourne Australia

CHANDRAN KUKATHAS London School of Economics UK

JOSHUA COHEN Stanford University USA

HANS KU¨NG Global Ethic Foundation Germany

ADELA CORTINA University of Valencia Spain

WILL KYMLICKA Queen’s University Canada

DAVID CROCKER University of Maryland USA

STEPHEN MACEDO Princeton University USA

Editorial Board

LARRY MAY Vanderbilt University USA and Charles Sturt and Australian National Universities Australia

SAMANTHA POWER Harvard University USA

ALISTAIR MACLEOD Queen’s University Canada

JOEL H. ROSENTHAL Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs USA

WILLIAM MCBRIDE Purdue University USA JEFF MCMAHAN Rutgers University USA DAVID MILLER Oxford University UK RICHARD MILLER Cornell University USA ROBERT NEWMAN University of Utah USA MARTHA NUSSBAUM University of Chicago USA ONORA O’NEILL Cambridge University UK

{

Deceased

MARY ROBINSON Ethical Globalization Initiative USA

AMARTYA SEN Harvard University USA ARJUN SENGUPTA{ Centre for Development and Human Rights India HENRY SHUE Oxford University UK PETER SINGER Princeton University USA and University of Melbourne Australia GU SU Nanjing University China JEREMY WALDRON New York University USA MICHAEL WALZER Institute for Advanced Study USA

xxiii

xxiv

Editorial Board

Editorial Assistants KATHY GLASS Redway, CA USA

SUMMER OSBURN Salt Lake City, UT USA

LYNETTE E. SIEGER New York University USA

List of Contributors DAVID A´LVAREZ Yale Global Justice Program Department of Sociology, Political Science and Philosophy University of Vigo Vigo Spain ROBERT P. ABELE Department of Humanities and Philosophy Diablo Valley College Pleasant Hill, CA USA JACOB AFFOLTER Department of Philosophy University of Kentucky Lexington, KY USA NKIRUKA AHIAUZU Department of Law & Criminology University of Wales Aberystwyth Ceredigion UK MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy East Tennessee State University Johnson City, TN USA ANDY AMATO School of Arts & Humanities University of Texas at Dallas Richardson, TX USA SHARON ANDERSON-GOLD Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Troy, NY USA

ROSS C. ANDERSON High Road for Human Rights Salt Lake City, UT USA

CHRIS ARMSTRONG School of Social Sciences University of Southampton Southampton UK

YUBRAJ ARYAL Philosophy and Literature Program Purdue University West Lafayette, IN USA

HARRIET E. BABER Department of Philosophy University of San Diego San Diego, CA USA

GORDON A. BABST Department of Political Science Wilkinson College Chapman University Orange, CA USA

AMRITA BANERJEE Department of Philosophy University of Oregon Eugene, OR USA

ALYSSA R. BERNSTEIN Department of Philosophy Ohio University Athens, OH USA

xxvi

List of Contributors

ERIC BLUMENSON Suffolk University Law School Boston, MA USA DAVID BOERSEMA Department of Philosophy Pacific University Forest Grove, OR USA MICHAEL BOYLAN Department of Philosophy Marymount University Arlington, VA USA AVI BRISMAN Department of Anthropology Emory University Atlanta, GA USA GILLIAN BROCK Department of Philosophy University of Auckland Auckland New Zealand MICHAEL BUCKLEY Department of Philosophy Lehman College City University of New York Bronx, NY USA

HENRY F. CHIP CAREY Department of Political Science Georgia State University Atlanta, GA USA DEEN K. CHATTERJEE Department of Philosophy University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT USA HIRAM CHODOSH S.J. Quinney College of Law University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT USA RYOA CHUNG Department of Philosophy University of Montreal Montreal, QC Canada ROBERT PAUL CHURCHILL Department of Philosophy Columbian College of Arts & Sciences George Washington University Washington, DC USA WILLIAM W. CLOHESY Department of Philosophy and World Religions University of Northern Iowa Cedar Falls, IA USA

LUIS CABRERA Department of Political Science and International Studies University of Birmingham Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

JULIAN CULP Justitia Amplificata–Centre for Advanced Studies Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universita¨t Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main Germany

STEPHEN F. CAPONE, JR. Department of Philosophy University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT USA

RANDALL CURREN Department of Philosophy University of Rochester Rochester, NY USA

List of Contributors

ALEX CURRIT Department of Sociology Brigham Young University Provo, UT USA YOSSI DAHAN The Academic Center of Law and Business Ramat Gan Israel OMAR DAHBOUR Department of Philosophy Hunter College City University of New York New York, NY USA RAMON DAS School of History, Philosophy Political Science and International Relations Victoria University Wellington New Zealand HELDER DE SCHUTTER Centre for Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Leuven Belgium MATT DEATON Department of Philosophy University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN USA JUDITH WAGNER DECEW Department of Philosophy Clark University Worcester, MA USA CRISTIAN DIMITRIU Department of Philosophy University of Toronto Toronto, ON Canada

JOHN J. DONOHUE CEMAM, Centre d’Etudes pour le Monde Arabe Moderne St. Joseph’s University Beirut Lebanon JAY DRYDYK Department of Philosophy Carleton University Ottawa, ON Canada DAVID A. DUQUETTE St. Norbert College De Pere, WI USA TEPPO ESKELINEN Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy University of Jyva¨skyla¨ Jyva¨skyla¨ Finland STEPHEN L. ESQUITH Residential College in Arts and Humanities Michigan State University East Lansing, MI USA JEFF EWING Department of Sociology University of Oregon Eugene, OR USA ARNOLD L. FARR Department of Philosophy University of Kentucky Lexington, KY USA CHRISTOPHER J. FINLAY Department of Political Science and International Studies University of Birmingham Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

xxvii

xxviii

List of Contributors

MILTON FISK Indiana University Bloomington, IN USA FRED E. FOLDVARY Civil Society Institute Santa Clara University Santa Clara, CA USA HELEN FROWE University of Kent School of European Culture and Languages Canterbury UK DES GASPER Public Policy and Management/Staff Group on States, Societies and World Development International Institute of Social Studies (of Erasmus University Rotterdam) The Hague The Netherlands WILLIAM C. GAY Department of Philosophy University of North Carolina at Charlotte Charlotte, NC USA GU¨NTHER GEBHARDT Global Ethic Foundation Tu¨bingen Germany

WENDY C. HAMBLET Department of Liberal Studies North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Greensboro, NC USA WAYNE B. HANEWICZ Department of Humanities/Philosophy Utah Valley University Orem, UT USA JAMIE HARDY Department of Philosophy University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT USA TRISTIN S. HASSELL Department of Philosophy Oakland University Rochester, MI USA NICOLE HASSOUN Department of Philosophy Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA USA HAYE HAZENBERG Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Leuven Belgium

ALEXANDRA E. GEORGE Faculty of Law University of New South Wales Sydney, NSW Australia

SIRKKU K. HELLSTEN Department of Political and Economic Studies/Social and Moral Philosophy University of Helsinki Helsinki Finland

KEVIN M. GRAHAM Department of Philosophy Creighton University Omaha, NE USA

KENNETH HENLEY Department of Philosophy Florida International University Miami, FL USA

List of Contributors

HARRISON HIBBERT Department of Philosophy Purdue University West Lafayette, IN USA

JOSHUA J. KASSNER Division of Legal, Ethical, and Historical Studies University of Baltimore Baltimore, MD USA

ROBERT W. HOAG Department of Philosophy and Religion Berea College Berea, KY USA

FREDERIK KAUFMAN Department of Philosophy and Religion Ithaca College Ithaca, NY USA

CINDY HOLDER Department of Philosophy University of Victoria Victoria, BC Canada

KAI ANA MAKANOE KAIKAULAOKAWEILAHA KAULULAAU Department of Philosophy California State University Los Angeles, CA USA

ZACHARY HOSKINS Department of Philosophy Washington University St. Louis, MO USA

PAULINE M. KAURIN Department of Philosophy Pacific Lutheran University Tacoma, WA USA

PAUL M. HUGHES Department of Literature, Philosophy, and the Arts University of Michigan – Dearborn Dearborn, MI USA

LORI KELEHER Department of Philosophy New Mexico State University Las Cruces, NM USA

DAVID MICHAEL JACKSON Department of Philosophy University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT USA

DAVID R. KELLER Department of Philosophy Utah Valley University Orem, UT USA

ANA JELNIKAR Science and Research Centre of Koper University of Primorska Ljubljana Slovenia

CHRISTOPHER KILBY Department of Economics Villanova University Villanova, PA USA

RYAN JENKINS Department of Philosophy University of Colorado at Boulder Boulder, CO USA

MEGAN KIME Department of Philosophy The University of Sheffield Sheffield UK

xxix

xxx

List of Contributors

ZENIA KISH Department of Social and Cultural Analysis New York University New York, NY USA

HANNA LERNER Department of Political Science Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv Israel

AVERY KOLERS Department of Philosophy University of Louisville Louisville, KY USA

COURTLAND LEWIS Department of Philosophy University of Tennessee Pellissippi State Technical Community College Knoxville, TN USA

KOSTAS KOUKOUZELIS Department of Philosophy & Social Studies University of Crete Rethymno Crete Greece

JOHANNA LUTTRELL Department of Philosophy University of Oregon Eugene, OR USA

HE´LE`NE LANDEMORE Department of Political Science Yale University New Haven, CT USA BRUCE M. LANDESMAN Department of Philosophy University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT USA ANTHONY J. LANGLOIS School of International Studies Flinders University Adelaide Australia

ANNA MALAVISI Department of Philosophy Michigan State University East Lansing, MI USA CHIBLI MALLAT S.J. Quinney College of Law University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT USA RAFFAELE MARCHETTI Department of History and Political Science Luiss University Rome Italy

KENNETH LASSON School of Law University of Baltimore Baltimore, MD USA

JAMES R. MAXEINER School of Law Center for International and Comparative Law University of Baltimore Baltimore, MD USA

WIN-CHIAT LEE Department of Philosophy Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC USA

JAMIE MAYERFELD Department of Political Science University of Washington Seattle, WA USA

List of Contributors

DAVID MCCABE Department of Philosophy Colgate University Hamilton, NY USA

ANASTASIA V. MITROFANOVA Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs Moscow Russia

COREY MCCALL Department of Philosophy and Religion Elmira College Elmira, NY USA

KAREN MIZELL Department of Philosophy and Humanities Utah Valley University Orem, UT USA

PATRICIA L. MCCARNEY Political Science and Global City Indicators Facility John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design University of Toronto Toronto, ON Canada

WILLIAM B. T. MOCK The John Marshall Law School Chicago, IL USA

U. EDWARD MCDOUGALL Department of Philosophy University of Durham Durham UK MARGARET A. MCLAREN Department of Philosophy Rollins College Winter Park, FL USA THADDEUS METZ Department of Philosophy University of Johannesburg Auckland Park Republic of South Africa

DIMITRIOS (JIM) MOLOS Department of Philosophy Faculty of Law Queen’s University Kingston, ON Canada ANNA MOLTCHANOVA Department of Philosophy Carleton College Northfield, MN USA MONICA MOOKHERJEE SPIRE (Politics, International Relations and Philosophy) Keele University Keele, Staffordshire UK

FAINA MILMAN-SIVAN Haifa University Haifa Israel

MARY LEE MORRISON Pax Educare, Inc. Central Connecticut State University Hartford, CT USA

MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities Utah Valley University Orem, UT USA

MATTHEW MOSDELL Department of Philosophy University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT USA

xxxi

xxxii

List of Contributors

GREG MOSES Department of Philosophy St. Edwards University Austin, TX USA

MARK C. NAVIN Department of Philosophy Oakland University Rochester, MI USA

SUSAN P. MURPHY School of Politics and International Relations University College Dublin Dublin Ireland

BLAIN NEUFELD Department of Philosophy College of Letters and Science University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee Milwaukee, WI USA

COLLEEN MURPHY Department of Philosophy Texas A & M University College Station, TX USA PETER MURRAY Department of Philosophy University at Albany, State University of New York Albany, NY USA MALCOLM MURRAY Department of Philosophy University of Prince Edward Island Charlottetown, PEI Canada TODD ERIC MYERS Center for Asian and Pacific Studies San Diego State University San Diego, CA USA

TRACEY NICHOLLS Department of Philosophy Lewis University Romeoville, IL USA DOUGLAS PALETTA Department of Philosophy University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA USA JEFFREY PARIS Department of Philosophy College of Arts and Sciences University of San Francisco San Francisco, CA USA ASHWANI PEETUSH Department of Philosophy Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, ON Canada

ROSLYN MYERS Department of Criminal Justice John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Fordham Law School New York, NY USA

CHRISTOPHER PENFIELD Department of Philosophy Purdue University West Lafayette, IN USA

STEPHEN NATHANSON Department of Philosophy Northeastern University Boston, MA USA

PETER PENZ Centre for Refugee Studies York University Toronto, ON Canada

List of Contributors

CAROLINA PEREIRA-SA´EZ School of Law University of La Corun˜a La Corun˜a Spain

KEISHA RAY Department of Philosophy University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT USA

MONIKA PIOTROWSKA Department of Philosophy Florida International University Miami, FL USA

HENRY S. RICHARDSON Department of Philosophy Georgetown University Washington, DC USA

ARUN KUMAR POKHREL Department of English University of Florida Gainesville, FL USA

WALTER J. RIKER Department of Philosophy University of West Georgia Carrollton, GA USA

MICHAEL K. POTTER Centre for Teaching and Learning University of Windsor Windsor, ON Canada

LISA RIVERA Department of Philosophy University of Massachusetts – Boston Boston, MA USA

RAPHAEL PRAIS Government Legal Service London UK

RODNEY C. ROBERTS Department of Philosophy East Carolina University Greenville, NC USA

ANURADHA PRAKASH Crean School of Health & Life Sciences Chapman University Orange, CA USA

KIRK ROBINSON Western Wildlife Conservancy Salt Lake City, UT USA

GAIL M. PRESBEY College of Liberal Arts and Education University of Detroit Mercy Detroit, MI USA

WADE L. ROBISON Department of Philosophy Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY USA

JUHA RA¨IKKA¨ Department of Behavioural Sciences and Philosophy University of Turku Turku Finland

JORDY ROCHELEAU Department of History and Philosophy Austin Peay State University Clarksville, TN USA

xxxiii

xxxiv

List of Contributors

KENNETH A. RODMAN Department of Government Colby College Waterville, ME USA JAMES E. ROPER Department of Philosophy Michigan State University East Lansing, MI USA CHARLES ROSENBERG Milwaukee, WI USA ALEXANDER SAGER Department of Philosophy Portland State University Portland, OR USA YAZID SAID Centre for Research on Religion McGill University Montreal, QC Canada EDWARD SANKOWSKI Department of Philosophy University of Oklahoma Norman, OK USA DON E. SCHEID Department of Philosophy Winona State University Winona, MN USA SALLY J. SCHOLZ Department of Philosophy Villanova University Villanova, PA USA JUSTIN SCHWARTZ The John Marshall Law School Chicago, IL USA

JANET A. SEIZ Department of Economics Grinnell College Grinnell, IA USA BONGRAE SEOK Department of Humanities/Philosophy Alvernia University Reading, PA USA LYNETTE E. SIEGER Gallatin School New York University New York, NY USA GARY M. SIMPSON Department of Theology Luther Seminary St. Paul, MN USA ERIC SMAW Department of Philosophy and Religion Rollins College Winter Park, FL USA NANCY E. SNOW Department of Philosophy Marquette University Milwaukee, WI USA RICHARD STITH School of Law Valparaiso University Valparaiso, IN USA SOPHIA A. STONE Department of Philosophy Purdue University West Lafayette, IN USA

List of Contributors

CHRISTINE STRAEHLE Graduate School of Public and International Affairs University of Ottawa Ottawa, ON Canada

CASSIE ANN STRIBLEN Department of Philosophy West Chester University West Chester, PA USA

LAWRENCE TORCELLO Department of Philosophy Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY USA LEE TREPANIER Department of Political Science Saginaw Valley State University University Center, MI USA

JEFFREY SWINDLE Department of Sociology Brigham Young University Provo, UT USA

PETER SHIU-HWA TSU Philosophy Program Research School of Social Sciences Australian National University Canberra, ACT Australia

JENNIFER SZENDE Department of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, ON Canada

ERICKA TUCKER Department of Philosophy Cal Poly Pomona Pomona, CA USA

HERVE´ TCHUMKAM Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX USA

NICOLAUS TIDEMAN Department of Economics Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA USA

RONALD TINNEVELT Department of Philosophy of Law Radboud University Nijmegen Nijmegen The Netherlands

RANDALL TOLPINRUD Pax Natura Foundation Salt Lake City, UT USA

DORIS UNGER SoCuM Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Mainz Germany SUSANNE UUSITALO Department of Behavioural Sciences and Philosophy University of Turku Turku Finland CHRISTIEN VAN DEN ANKER Department of Politics, Philosophy and International Relations University of the West of England Bristol UK STEVE VANDERHEIDEN Department of Political Science University of Colorado at Boulder Boulder, CO USA

xxxv

xxxvi

List of Contributors

HELGA VARDEN Department of Philosophy University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana, IL USA SANDRA WACHHOLZ Department of Criminology University of Southern Maine Portland, ME USA PAUL WARREN Department of Philosophy Florida International University Miami, FL USA MELISSA A. WATERS School of Law Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, MO USA TIMOTHY A. WEIDEL Department of Philosophy Loyola University Chicago Chicago, IL USA CHRIS WEIGEL Department of Philosophy Utah Valley University Orem, UT USA ALEX WELLINGTON Department of Philosophy Ryerson University Toronto, ON Canada

CHRISTOPHER HEATH WELLMAN Department of Philosophy Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, MO USA and CAPPE, Charles Sturt University Australia KATHLEEN J. WININGER Department of Philosophy & Women and Gender Studies University of Southern Maine Portland, ME USA MORTON WINSTON Department of Philosophy and Religion The College of New Jersey Ewing, NJ USA RAFAŁ WONICKI Department of Philosophy and Sociology University of Warsaw Warsaw Poland SHAUN PATRICK YOUNG McLaughlin College and York Centre for Practical Ethics York University Toronto, ON Canada NOAM ZION Hartman Institute Jerusalem Israel

A Absolute Poverty TEPPO ESKELINEN Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyva¨skyla¨, Jyva¨skyla¨, Finland

Absolute poverty means poverty defined using a universal baseline with no reference to other people’s income or access to goods. The failure of meeting this baseline thus means that the individual is poor. Absolute poverty is typically discussed in the context of extreme poverty in developing countries, although absolute and extreme poverty are not synonymous concepts. Absolute poverty can be defined as the state in which a subject lacks the means to meet his or her basic needs. Such basic needs are often listed in international poverty reduction programs, and usually include food, water, shelter, basic education, and basic medical care. Extreme poverty is typically defined as a state in which a person lacks access to all, or several, of the goods needed for meeting these basic needs. Definitions of absolute poverty often derive from the idea that the basic needs which need to be satisfied in order not to be poor in the absolute sense are common to all human beings and thus in some sense objective. Yet which needs count as basic needs and what is a sufficient level of meeting these needs are philosophical problems in their own right, as not all of the needs typically listed as basic derive directly from human biology. Education serves as an example. In a narrow sense, basic needs can be defined as only biological needs, but this definition can be criticized for excluding vital needs from the definition. Practically, the attempts to measure the number of people living in absolute poverty have been based on economic measurements. In such cases, a poverty line is defined, and persons falling under this line are classified as poor. There are both domestically used and international poverty lines. Poverty lines can also vary between different social contexts, such as rural and urban areas. The most used poverty lines are $1.08 a day for extreme poverty and $2.16 a day for poverty. These lines

have been defined by the World Bank, which also produces statistics on the number of the people in the world living below these poverty lines. The dollar figures do not refer to actual dollars but purchasing power. Therefore, $1.08 means the amount of money with which one can buy the equivalent of goods $1.08 buys in the USA. Practically, in developing countries, the actual amount of money needed for meeting the poverty line is significantly less than $1.08. The World Bank argues that the $1.08 PPP (purchasing power parity) poverty line corresponds with the amount of money needed to meet one’s most basic needs. Several critics have claimed that the poverty line is set at a too low level or at an arbitrary level. Practically, current international poverty reduction efforts focus on poverty in the absolute sense. Thus the task of poverty reduction is seen as to lift the people living in poverty above a poverty line, rather than making income distribution more equal or increasing the overall living standards in poor countries. This policy is supported by the ethical argument that absolute extreme poverty generates duties for wealthier individuals and countries to act to alleviate poverty, while less severe forms of poverty do not generate the same level of responsibilities. Absolute poverty in its extreme form is thus understood as a state which is dehumanizing to the extent that global justice can be seen to require abolishing such poverty regardless of what else is required.

Related Topics ▶ Basic Needs ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Relative Poverty

References Mack E, Schramm M, Klasen S (eds) (2009) Absolute poverty and global justice. Empirical data – moral theories – initiatives. Ashgate, Aldershot Pogge T, Reddy S (2010) How not to count the poor. In: Anand S, Segal P, Stiglitz J (eds) Debates in the measurement of global poverty. Oxford University Press, Oxford Ravallion M (1998) Poverty lines in theory and practice. Living standards measurement study working papers no 133. World Bank, Washington, DC

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

2

A

Act-Consequentialism

Act-Consequentialism MATTHEW MOSDELL Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

Act-consequentialism is the view that an action is right if and only if it maximizes the good for the greatest number of people. As with any consequentialist theory of morality, act-consequentialism must specify what features of an action’s consequences are morally valuable. Is it happiness, pleasure, welfare, wealth distribution, access to primary goods, or something else? Furthermore, as a consequentialist theory of morality, it must specify the calculative method for determining the overall moral value for a particular state of affairs. Only in this manner will it be possible for a comparison across states of affairs to be obtained. Though these difficulties are not unique to act-consequentialism, they are problems that need to be addressed if the position is to be plausibly maintained. As a distinctive position, act-consequentialism is often mistakenly thought of as a decision procedure for determining what one ought to do: act in an effort to maximize the greatest good for the greatest number. Because of the difficulties associated with such a decision procedure, however, it is unfair to saddle act-consequentialists with such a commitment, and virtually no one endorses the position as a decision procedure in contemporary philosophy. What, then, is peculiar to act-consequentialism as a philosophical position? Minimally, it is the view that moral properties of an action are wholly determined by the action’s consequences. This is in contrast to ruleconsequentialism: the view that moral properties are determined by the consequences of rules. The difference is apparent when considering the moral wrongness of an action. For an act-consequentialist, an action is morally wrong if it results in less good than some possible and available alternative. Rule-consequentialists reject this position in favor of one according to which an action’s moral wrongness is determined by a rule justified in terms of its consequences. In this manner, an action may have consequences that fail to maximize the good on a particular occasion and be morally justified for a ruleconsequentialist (because following the rule will have better effect overall) but not for an act-consequentialist. As with other forms of consequentialism, actconsequentialism has a significant role to play when thinking about questions of global justice. However, since the position does not have a viable role to play as a method for

determining what ought to be done, that is, it cannot be used as a tool for making decisions, it seems that its primary role must be in thinking about judging the moral rightness of actions and, subsequently, thinking about moral culpability in terms of an action’s consequences. For example, on an act-consequentialist rendering of actions during war, the moral rightness of certain actions are determined by their effects. It is frequently the case that innocent civilians are killed during bombing attacks, yet the action is judged morally blameless in virtue of a net increase in perceived good as a result of the action, for example, the value of killing, dismantling, or destroying certain targets may justify the loss of some civilian life. Whether such actions can be justified or not, it is clear that such act-consequentialist thinking plays prominently in our intuitive moral judgments, and, consequently, we should expect the view to have influence in considerations of this kind.

Related Topics

▶ Common Good ▶ Double Effect, Doctrine of ▶ Moral Reasoning ▶ Rule-Consequentialism ▶ Utilitarianism

References Hooker B (2007) Rule-consequentialism and internal consistency: a reply to card. Utilitas 19:514–519 Lyons D (1965) Forms and limits of utilitarianism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Mill JS (1861) Utilitarianism Moore GE (1903) Principia ethica. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1951) Outline for a decision procedure in ethics. Philos Rev 60:177–197 Sen A, Williams B (eds) (1982) Utilitarianism and beyond. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Singer P (1972) Is act-utilitarianism self-defeating? Philos Rev 81:94–104 Smart JJC (1956) Extreme and restricted utilitarianism. Philos Q 6:344–354

Adaptive Preferences ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Preference-Satisfaction

Advocacy Organizations ▶ International Organizations

Afghanistan and Iraq Wars

Afghanistan and Iraq Wars GAIL M. PRESBEY College of Liberal Arts and Education, University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, MI, USA

This chapter focuses on the “war against terrorism” as it has been fought by the United States and its allies in Afghanistan and Iraq. After the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Virginia, USA, widely believed to have been orchestrated by al-Qaeda, whose mastermind was Osama bin Ladin, there became a question of how the United States government should respond to the attacks. On September 12, 2001, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Catholic Archbishop of Washington, presided over a mass during which he asked congregants to seek the guilty but refrain from striking out against the innocent. The USA invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. The rationale was that the Taliban, rulers of Afghanistan, were harboring Osama bin Ladin and other al-Qaeda members and not cooperating with US requests to hand them over. The Taliban, for their part, complained that the US officials had not shown them the evidence linking bin Ladin and the September 11 attacks. While some saw the US-led actions in Afghanistan as a just and measured response to the attacks, other thinkers like Noam Chomsky (2001, 2003) and Tomis Kapitan (2003) pointed out flagrant double-standards in who was called a terrorist, and what response to terrorism was considered legitimate. Usually, the application of standards to judge terrorism, or for that matter, the war on terrorism, lacks evenhandedness. Noam Chomsky pointed out the asymmetry of the United States’ declaration that it could legitimately attack Afghanistan because it harbored terrorists who had attacked the United States. If this attack were justified, then on the same grounds, Nicaragua would have been justified in attacking the United States, because it had mined Nicaragua’s harbors and armed an insurgent group (the “contras”) who had attacked schools, hospitals, and farms in Nicaragua (thus targeting and harming noncombatants), in violation of international law. Haiti would be justified in bombing the United States because it had failed to extradite Emmanuel Constant, a man responsible for thousands of deaths in Haiti. Sudan would be justified in bombing the United States because it had bombed a pharmaceutical plant, shown later to be a nonmilitary target – several thousand had died. Yet Americans would not think that other countries were justified in attacking

A

them for such reasons, even if the other countries had thereby suffered as many civilian deaths as did the United States on September 11, 2001. The asymmetry involved in US decisions to invade other countries militarily in situations where others would not have been allowed to, or would not have been considered legitimate in so doing, points to the degree of power that the USA has in the world. Such power disparities, according to some thinkers, undermine the possibility of global justice. There is also the question of whether engaging in war in Afghanistan was the best or most efficient way to attack America’s al-Qaeda enemies. A recent documentary, Rethink Afghanistan, suggests that going to war with and then occupying all of Afghanistan is like going after a hotelier and trying to occupy a hotel in order to ensure that the bad guest does not decide to stay there again. It is a costly and inefficient procedure. Developing this kind of argument philosophically, Karsten Struhl argues that the US war in Afghanistan goes against just war principles (Struhl 2005). In addition to academics, family members of those who died on September 11 called themselves “September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows,” as they publicly witnessed that they did not want the loss of their loved ones to be construed as a justification for Afghani families to lose their loved ones as well. Members of this group traveled to Afghanistan in 2002, raising and distributing funds to try to rebuild war-torn Afghanistan. On October 26, 2001, US Congress passed the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, popularly known as the USA PATRIOT Act. This gave the US government authorization to hold immigrants in indefinite detention without charges, and gave the Federal Bureau of Investigations power to search phone, email, medical, and financial records without court orders. Set to expire in 2005, it was amended and passed by Congress and signed into law on March 9 and 10, 2006. These surveillance and detention measures have caused controversy and have been the subject of litigation. The US “war on terrorism” expanded to include military action against Iraq in 2003. It is also important to note that US aggression against Iraq preceded September 11, 2001. While Hussein had been an ally of the USA during the Iran–Iraq war of the 1980s, he later fell out of favor. The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Iraq on August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq invaded Kuwait. In January 15, 1991, the US-led air strikes against Iraq. Trade embargoes against Iraq continued, despite statements and official reports from high-ranking U.N. officials that a war-damaged power grid, water

3

A

4

A

Afghanistan and Iraq Wars

supply, and communications network would have to be rebuilt or else high civilian deaths would result. UNICEF reported on high infant mortality rates as well as high rates of death of children under the age of 5 years. This led some people to claim that civilian deaths, particularly those of children, were not unexpected collateral effects of attempts to remove Hussein, but were instead foreseen and predictable results of the sanctions. Joy Gordon highlights how the USA used concepts like “dual use” to claim that items as benign as water pipes and child vaccines could be used to create weapons, thereby denying Iraq necessary items and leading to a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Despite US and UK attempts to the contrary, the sanctions were later modified to allow some oil sales for food and medical supplies. The U.N. was supposed to monitor Iraq’s dismantling of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). This decade of sanctions also included many missile attacks, notably January 17 (42 cruise missiles) and June 26 (23 cruise missiles) during 1993 and September 3–4, 1996, when 44 cruise missiles were used during Operation Desert Strike. In 1998, the US Congress passed H.R. 4655, the Iraq Liberation Act which stated that the USA would support efforts to remove Saddam Hussein from office so as to support a transition to democracy. It designated certain groups to receive funds so as to help oust Hussein. This bill was signed into law by the then US President Bill Clinton on October 31, 1998. This was followed by Operation Desert Fox, on December 16–19, 1998, when hundreds of cruise missiles were used. After September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration tried to link Hussein’s Iraq with the September 11 plotters and al-Qaeda so as to draw it into the war against terrorism, to help to justify a military invasion to oust Hussein. The topic of the evidence allegedly supporting the decision to go to war with Iraq is long and convoluted. The Senate Intelligence Committee Report, released on July 9, 2004, argued that the CIA and other agencies made many misjudgments of evidence due to an “assumption train” which colored how they interpreted the often-sketchy evidence they had gathered. Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney used rhetoric to link Saddam Hussein (ruler of Iraq) and al-Qaeda in the minds of many people. Mentioning “9/11” in the same sentence as “Iraq” encouraged listeners to draw the inference that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the attacks, even if a close analysis of the particular sentence would reveal that there was not a literal claim that Hussein was responsible for September 11 attacks. Cheney also often referred to a presumed meeting between Mohammad Atta and Ahmed al-Ani, an Iraqi Intelligence officer, which occurred five months before

September 11, 2001. The CIA repeatedly attempted to convince Cheney that no evidence of such a collaborative relationship existed. Cheney continued to repeat the story of the meeting. Finally on June 16, 2004, the September 11 Commission claimed to have evidence that the meeting never took place. In the meantime, talk aimed at creating the impression was influential. As early as October 2002, a PEW Research Center poll reported that two thirds of Americans thought that Saddam Hussein had a role in the September 11 attacks on the United States. In October 2002, a large bipartisan majority of Congress passed the “Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq,” which said that the President could use force if necessary in Iraq to “prosecute the war on terrorism.” The bill explained in Section 3.b.2 that the US government was permitted to take military action against countries who aided the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by helping terrorist organizations in some way. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 (November 8, 2002) told Iraq that it must comply with weapons inspections and a program of disarmament or face “serious consequences,” although military force was not mentioned as a possible action. Nevertheless, the USA threatened military force against Hussein. Pope John Paul II and the current Pope Benedict XVI (as Cardinal Ratzinger back then) spoke out before the US-led incursion into Iraq in 2003, saying that such a war would be unjust, and would strain Christian–Muslim relations. Hundreds of thousands of people in the USA and worldwide also protested the announced invasion, but their protests were not heeded. Without obtaining explicit U.N. permission to use military force (since the USA could not overcome opposition from France, Russia, and China on the U.N. Security Council), the USA invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. Due to lack of explicit permission, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called the war illegal. The invasion has led to many debates about the morality of preemptive war. In Bush’s National Security Strategy, released in September 2002, he declared that due to the new nature of terrorist enemies, preemptive war would now be used. In speeches earlier that year and in subsequent government documents, Bush insisted on this right to engage in preemptive action. Other authors have clarified that in fact the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a preventive war (attacking enemies before they have declared hostilities), not a preemptive war (anticipatory self-defense when an attack is already underway), and preventive war cannot have the level of moral justification that preemptive war can sometimes have. The problem with preventive war undertaken by either one country or a coalition, even a UN-backed coalition, according to

Afghanistan and Iraq Wars

Harry van der Linden (2007), is that criteria for preventive war are so vague that they could disguise an aggressive war as a preventive war. For these reasons, the precedent of preventive war would make the world a more dangerous place. On September 23, 2003, Bush had gone to the United Nations to present his speech to the Assembly justifying nations using preemptive force, and Annan spoke afterward, with a moral condemnation of the idea of unilateral preemptive war. While Bush stated that major combat operations ended in Iraq on May 1, 2003, US troops remained there, engaged for many years fighting insurgencies while the US government engaged in active influencing and shaping of the new Iraqi “democratic” government. Facts are the bedrock upon which political action can build. But the basic facts about the Iraq war and the “war on terrorism” are not yet known by the American people. In an insightful argument by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the topic of manipulation of citizens by the media, Kennedy claimed that there is not a split in the USA (along the lines of “red” and “blue” states) regarding values. Rather, there is a split regarding facts. A survey undertaken by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (University of Maryland) right after the 2004 elections said that most Bush supporters were convinced that Iraq played a role in the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11, and therefore they supported the US-led war in Iraq. Most respondents who held this view listened to Fox News. Most Kerry supporters did not think that Iraq played a role in the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11, and so they were against the plan to invade Iraq. Those who thought so got their news from sources other than Fox News. Kennedy therefore argues that the debate in the USA is really over the facts, and not the differing conclusions people may come to over the same set of facts. As proof of his distinction, he says the same pollsters followed up with another poll of the people who say they support the US invasion of Iraq whether their position would change if they were to find out, in the future, that Iraq did not play a role in the 9/11 attacks. Eighty percent of the Bush supporters interviewed agreed that under such circumstances, they would withdraw their support for the war (Democracy in Crisis 2007). Fox News had even played video footage of US troops finding the WMDs in Iraq. They showed some tubes being pulled up out of the ground. They said they were rockets to propel WMDs. The other news stations later reported that the weapons found were not WMDs. But those who watched Fox News continue to believe that they saw the WMDs with their own eyes. Fear of terrorists has made many US citizens, lawmakers, and military personnel willingly complicit in

A

eroding moral prohibitions against the use of torture. Many claimed that an unscrupulous adversary called for drastic measures. Hundreds of Afghanis and others were detained at Guantanamo Bay as “enemy combatants” with few rights. Some were tortured. Known more fully in hindsight, the Senate Armed Services Committee report, “Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody” (November 20, 2008) charts how decisions to use inhumane treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq (Abu Ghraib prison) were made at top levels of administration. Justice department memos (October 23, 2001 and March 14, 2003) authored by John Yoo of their Office of Legal Counsel greatly expanded the President’s powers during wartime and created a legal foundation for aggressive interrogation practices. The Bybee memo of August 1, 2002, set standards for torture so high that only pain that compared to organ failure or death would be considered torture. The Senate report also explains that the Department of Defense agency called Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), whose job was to train US military in skills needed to survive torture and maltreatment they might suffer at the hands of US enemies (based on techniques used by Chinese Communists on US POW’s during the Korean War), a training referred to as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (or SERE) training, was used in a new context. Techniques such as sleep deprivation, nakedness, hooding, sensory deprivation, and even waterboarding, originally used by Chinese Communists to extract false confessions (not real actionable intelligence), during the US War on Terrorism suddenly became methods deployed by SERE trainers (who had not previously been used as interrogators) to supposedly gain information from prisoners. The report charges that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there. While Rumsfeld had rescinded the authority to use aggressive techniques on January 15, 2003, his earlier approval of the techniques continued to influence treatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, since the order to rescind was not widely known. Standard Operating Procedure in Afghanistan included light control, environmental manipulation, sleep deprivation, stress positions, 20 hour long investigations, and controlled fear such as using dogs, hooding prisoners, etc. Despite Jack Goldsmith (the new Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department) having rescinded both the Bybee 2002 and Yoo 2003 memos, JPRA continued its use of the interrogation techniques. The Senate report notes that harsh techniques are counter-productive, in that they

5

A

6

A

Afghanistan and Iraq Wars

reinforce detainees’ beliefs that the USA is out to destroy Islam; such techniques decrease cooperation with US forces and create new enemies. Yet many Americans, influenced by a popular television show, “24,” in which the main character routinely saves the day by torturing a suspect who then reveals life-saving information, have a mistaken impression that harsh techniques are a help to US security. While the new US President Barack Obama had promised, just 2 days after his inaugural address on January 22, 2009, to close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, lingering fears of dangerous “terrorists” held there led the US senate to block funds needed to close the prison in May of 2009. As of one year later, January 2010, there were still 193 prisoners held there, although they are no longer called “enemy combatants.” Part of Obama’s emphasis on closing the prison has to do not only with the issue of detainee treatment, but also the rights of prisoners to challenge their detention in civilian courts – a right upheld by the US Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene vs. Bush (June 12, 2008). A combination of factors has led not only to pessimism about the future of Iraq but a looking backward to search out the beginnings of grave errors. US forces have been unable to improve security in Iraq. The new Iraqi government has been unable to heal divisions of religion and geography that threaten to tear the country apart. Deployment of National Guard troops and redeployment of those who have already served in Iraq, along with neglect of troops returning with signs of posttraumatic stress disorder and physical disabilities, has undermined troops’ confidence in government decision making. This negatively affects the spirit of willing self-sacrifice among the troops. They begin to feel betrayed, and feel that they are being used. Unscrupulous methods of recruitment also make recruits feel like they have been sold a bill of goods. A tremendous price continues to be paid by troops while Americans at home continue to shop (Weaver and McGovern 2007; Rockwell 2007). The current Pope has given sermons denouncing war. In his 2007 Easter message he “denounced the continual slaughter in Iraq and said that nothing positive is happening,” and he voiced his concerns to President Bush when they met in June of 2007. A growing number of people, including military personnel, are questioning the war. A New York Times/CBS news poll in May 2007 showed that less than half of US military and their immediate family believed that the United States did the right thing in invading Iraq. When Obama assumed the presidency, he promised to end combat operations in Iraq. The United Kingdom under Prime Minister Gordon Brown pulled out their troops by May 2009. The United States declared its combat operations

in Iraq over in August 2010 (with many troops redeployed to the growing combat operations in Afghanistan). While Obama found 144,000 US troops in Iraq at the beginning of his presidency, he reduced the number to 50,000, ostensibly remaining behind to help Iraqi security forces in an “advisory capacity” under a military campaign called Operation New Dawn. These lingering forces are supposed to depart by the end of 2011. But observers seeing the huge US investments in Baghdad’s Green Zone predict that substantial US presence and influence will continue. While the US war and occupation of Afghanistan continues, it is no longer described as part of the “war against terrorism,” but is instead found under the umbrella of the new term “Overseas Contingency Operations.”

Related Topics

▶ Preemptive War ▶ Preventive War ▶ War Against Terrorism ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Chomsky N (2001) The new war against terror. Counterpunch 24 Oct 2001 Chomsky N (2003) Terror and just response. In: Sterba JP (ed) Terrorism and international justice. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 69–87 Democracy in Crisis – interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Truthout. Retrieved July 17, 2007, from http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nsct/ 2006/ Gordon J (2010) Invisible war: United States and the Iraq sanctions. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Hunt T (2003) Bush: no proof of Saddam role in 9/11. Associated Press, September 17 Jehl D (2004) Central Intelligence Agency director again disputes hijacker’s Iraqi contact. New York Times, 9 July 2004 Kapitan T (2003) The terrorism of ‘terrorism’. In: Sterba JP (ed) Terrorism and international justice. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 47–66 Presbey GM (2005) Challenges of founding a new government in Iraq. Constellations 12(4):521–541 Presbey GM (2007) Is the United States-Led occupation of Iraq part of the ‘war on terror’? In: Presbey GM (ed) Philosophical perspectives on the ‘war on terrorism’. Rodopi, Amsterdam, pp 161–197 Rockwell P (2007) Truth has consequences for soldier of conscience. The Baltimore Sun 1 Feb 2007 Shanker T (2004) Iraqis, seeking foes of Saudis, contacted bin Laden, file says. New York Times, 25 June 2004 Struhl K (2005) Is war a morally legitimate response to terrorism? Philos Forum 36(1):129–137 Van der Linden H (2007) Would the United States doctrine of preventive war be justified as a United Nations doctrine? In: Presbey GM (ed) Philosophical perspectives on the “war on terrorism.” Value Inquiry Book Series vol. 188. Rodopi Publishers, New York, pp 141–160 Weaver A, McGovern R (2007) Troops return to painful wait for needed help. The Baltimore Sun 4 Feb 2007

African Development Bank

African Development Bank ZENIA KISH Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University, New York, NY, USA

The African Development Bank Group is a regional development bank currently based in Tunis, Tunisia. Established in 1964, the Bank’s objectives are to promote sustainable economic growth and social development in its regional member countries in Africa with the ultimate goal of overall poverty reduction. The Bank provides grants, loans, and technical assistance and is made up of three main lending organizations. The African Development Bank (AfDB) is the Group’s parent organisation, comprising 77 member countries (including 53 independent African countries and 24 non-African countries), and provides non-concessional loans to Regional Member Countries (RMCs) at market rates, as well as grants and debt relief. The African Development Fund (ADF; established 1972), which includes donor and recipient countries, offers concessional interest-free loans (with a service charge of 0.75% per annum and a 50-year repayment period, including a 10-year grace period) and technical assistance to lower-income RMCs. Finally, the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF; established 1976) is a special AfDB fund created through an agreement between the Bank Group and the Nigerian government for the purpose of extending concessional, low-interest assistance to the Bank’s low-income members (in 2003, the Fund’s interest rate on loans was reduced from 4% to a 2–4% range, with a 25-year repayment period, including a 5-year grace period). Over 70% of countries on the continent fall under the low-income category. Other special funds under the Bank Group include the Arab Oil Fund, the Special Emergency Assistance Fund for Drought and Famine in Africa, and the Special Relief Fund. The Bank has grown significantly in capitalization and areas of activity since its inception, and finances projects and studies in infrastructure, agriculture, health, all levels of education, public utilities, environment, gender, telecommunications, industry, and the private sector. Despite administering a small proportion of overall development funds on the continent, the Bank is highly visible and influential in Africa. It continues to face challenges maintaining credibility and effectiveness through periodic crises and restructurings, including the introduction of non-regional members in 1973 and a credit crisis in the mid-1990s.

A

History Following widespread decolonization across Africa in the aftermath of World War II, newly independent states recognized the need for greater unity on the continent as well as for a regional lending institution to fund and facilitate development. Draft charters emerged for the Organisation of African Unity, which was established in 1963 (and later replaced by the African Union in 2002), as well as for a regional development bank. Proposals for the bank first circulated at the All-African People’s Conference in Tunis in January, 1960, and the Bank was officially promulgated on August 4, 1964, in Khartoum, Sudan, initially composed of 23 newly independent African countries. Headquartered in Abidjan, Coˆte d’Ivoire, the bank took shape following the general model of other existing multilateral lending institutions such as the World Bank (1944) and the InterAmerican Bank (1959) – the Asian Development Bank was established in 1966 – but the AfDB was unique in its initial mandate to remain independent of extra-regional influence and financial backing. Whereas the InterAmerican Bank’s largest single shareholder has always been the United States (with 30% of the total number of votes) and decision making at the Asian Development Bank is dominated by both Japan and the United States (its largest shareholders, each with 12.76% of the total vote), the African Development Bank remained an exclusively African institution for the first 9 years of its operation. Founded with great optimism but low capitalization – the Bank’s initial capital fund was US$250 million – the AfDB has remained the smallest, and initially at least, most independent of the three major regional development banks. Because non-regional powers were denied any formal or decision-making power, foreign donors proved unwilling to contribute substantial funds to a Bank where they had minimal input, and the Bank had difficulty securing loans on international markets. Early observers charged that the lack of international confidence in the Bank and its limited financial resources demonstrated the global structural limits reproducing underdevelopment in Africa, and the Third World more broadly. From its initial authorized capital of US$250 million, the Bank’s resources increased to US$2.9 billion by 1982. It remained a small player relative to other states and organizations contributing to the continent’s development. Internal debate about how to strengthen the Bank’s access to resources concluded with the decision to invite a number of non-regional members to join the African Development Fund beginning in 1973, where they could contribute capital but only had representation at the level of the Fund. Internal and external pressure continued to mount and, by 1982, non-regional countries were

7

A

8

A

African Development Bank

permitted to join the Development Bank and were given voting power on the institution’s Board of Governors commensurate with their capital input. These transformations led to a rise in the Bank’s capital inflow and international credibility, and it saw its lending power jump from US$2.9 billion in 1982 to US$6.3 billion in 1983. Five years later, its funds grew to US$22.3 billion, and capital increases from both regional and non-regional shareholders continued. By the mid-1990s, doubts about the Bank Group’s lending policies, lack of transparency and access for donor members, and management practices led to a crisis in confidence in the Bank. Many of the Group’s regional members had been experiencing severe economic and budgetary problems for some time, owing both to ineffective policy and international economic conditions that included high oil prices and low prices on commodity exports. The AfDB continued to extend non-concessional loans to member countries that were deemed uncreditworthy and, by 1994, AfDB arrears had doubled from their 1992 levels to $700 million; in 1994, the Bank was left without sufficient resources to make loans. In 1995, the U.S. General Accounting Office issued a report criticizing the Bank’s governance system for giving borrowers control over decision making, and the United States virtually ceased contributions to the Group between 1993 and 1999, calling for sweeping structural reforms in the Bank. Omar Kabbaj was elected President of the Bank in 1995 and immediately undertook management and fiscal reforms at the Bank. By 1998, the Board of Governors approved his restructuring with a vote confirming the fifth general capital increase of the AfDB, raising the Bank’s resources by 35% and increasing the non-regional (non-African) share in the Bank’s capital from 33% to 40%. In the first decade of the new millennium, the Bank has restructured its operations and begun to rebuild its capital base, which reached close to US$12.2 billion in 2009. The Group has maintained some of its traditional programmatic emphases, such as heavy investment in large infrastructure projects, while also charting new priorities. For example, the Bank has focused attention on the role of women in African society, education and structural reforms, HIV/AIDS programs, and successfully rallied to support debt alleviation for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). The Bank has been designated the main agency to facilitate the infrastructure initiatives of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), an economic development program ratified by the African Union in July 2001. In the last decade, the Bank has also strived to position itself as a central knowledge base and

leader in good governance for Africa. The Bank publishes several academic journals, including the African Development Review and the African Bank Law for Development Review, which aim to increase and disseminate research on development-related issues with the goal of positively impacting policy.

Structure and Governance The Bank seeks to spur economic and social development and reduce poverty by mobilizing and allocating investment resources in its member countries, and by providing policy advice and technical assistance to support development. To achieve these goals, the institution makes loans and equity investments in its member countries, provides technical assistance, promotes the further investment of private and public capital for development programs, and helps coordinate the development policies and regional integration of its members. The AfDB primarily channels its resources through specific projects, although it also assists national economic management through program, sector, and policy-based loans. The Bank Group, comprising three main lending facilities, is owned by its 77 member states, which include regional (African) and non-regional countries. The Bank derives its funds from Regional Member Country (RMC) subscriptions, raised funds from borrowing on the basis of its members’ callable subscriptions, and loan repayments, as well as from periodic capital increases by member countries. While the African Development Bank (AfDB) provides loans at non-concessional rates, grants, and technical assistance to RMCs, the African Development Fund (ADF) was established specifically as a concessional lender to low-income RMCs. The Nigerian Trust Fund provides financing on terms intermediate between those of the AfDB and ADF. In 2009, the AfDB administered US$8.29 billion for its members’ projects, and the ADF approved US$3.6 billion through its concessionary window. The Bank’s funds are maintained through intermittent replenishments, usually every 3 years, primarily by non-regional member countries. Under Kabbaj’s leadership, the AfDB recovered its AAA credit ratings based on its strong support by regional and non-regional members within a context of growing international assistance to Africa, as well as its solid financial structure, capital base, liquidity, and financial management. The Bank’s highest decision-making body is the Board of Governors, where each member state is typically represented by its finance minister. The Board is responsible for loans, grants, policies, programs, capital increases, and electing the President, who sits for a 5-year term, renewable once. The day-to-day operations

African Development Bank

and decision making at the Bank are handled by the Board of Directors, also known as the Executive Board, which is made up of 18 Executive Directors. Twelve of these directors are elected by the Governors of regional countries, and six by the Governors of non-regional member countries; directors sit for 3-year terms. The African Development Fund is run independently by a Board of Directors composed of twelve Executive Directors, six of whom are selected by regional and six by non-regional member countries. Thus, while non-African countries hold a minority – 6 of 18 – votes on the AfDB Board, they hold half of the votes on the ADF Board. In its recent move to increase effectiveness and focus on promoting regional integration, the Bank Group has expanded its regional offices to 25 member countries.

Controversies While the AfDB is widely recognized as the leading financial development institution exclusive to Africa, it still only contributes a relatively small share of total development financing in Africa – in 2004, the Bank’s contributions totaled 6% of all development aid to the continent, the majority of which comes from the World Bank, the United Nations, the European Union, and other multilateral organizations – and its effectiveness, funding priorities, and susceptibility to foreign influence are subjects of debate. Because the Bank’s ability to raise capital hinges on the confidence of the international community, it is situated between the competing development agendas of regional and international interests, and has steadily fought to retain its “African character.” Some members argue that the institution’s development priorities and programs should be decided by Africans and are critical of the voting power retained by non-regional donors. RMCs have majority voting power on the AfDB Board of Directors but share decision-making power equally on the ADF. This is significant because the AfDB’s concessional fund is currently overcapacity relative to the needs of the 15 member countries that qualify for AfDB financing; borrowers at the concessional ADF, however, are underfinanced and most in need, especially in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Development decisions regarding the distribution of funds and programs in lower-income member countries thus have the greatest potential to impact the Bank’s goals of poverty reduction and social and economic development, and it is in these decisions that competing perspectives are negotiated regarding regionalism vs. continental integration; the relative prioritization of infrastructure, health, education, good governance, and so forth; and the rearticulation of African economic unity in the aftermath of the crisis.

A

Some in the Bank and elsewhere argue that the exportfocused development agenda historically promoted by the World Bank, IMF, and other bilateral organizations offer little promise for African countries to escape their longstanding structural marginalization in the world economy. Postcolonial and Cold War legacies of uneven development and decades of declining terms of trade for Africa’s nonpetroleum-based international trade have left African markets underinvested and with low influence on export and import pricing – all factors that have been key in the ongoing exclusion of African economies from the global expansion of trade and finance. Because of a history of competing shareholder interests and the difficulties of coordinating a large and somewhat fragmented region of 53 mostly small economies – as well as its near collapse in the credit crisis of 1995 – the Bank is under increased international scrutiny to become more transparent, accountable, and cohesive in its mandate and programming. AfDB President Donald Kaberuka called a special High-Level Panel to assess the current state of the African Development Bank and its role in Africa’s future growth. The Panel issued a report in 2007 that recommends four main sectors of intervention for the Bank: massive investments in infrastructure; building effective and accountable states, and especially improving institutions in post-conflict states and those deemed fragile; promoting the private sector, which is seen as the driver of growth in Africa; and developing skills in the sectors not already seeing significant investment from other development agencies. How to achieve reform and improve effectiveness while addressing economic circumstances resulting from both chronic underdevelopment and the effects of 2008 world financial crisis remains unclear. The Bank’s dedication to social and environmental justice while pursuing economic improvement is also inconsistent, despite its policies committing it to collaboration with civil society organizations, environmentally sustainable projects, responsibility to populations involuntarily resettled, gender equity, and the improvement of livelihoods of local communities. At the level of national economy building and debt reduction, the AfDB joined the G7-backed Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) in 2005, agreeing jointly to abolish up to $60 billion in heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) debt over time and institute a new debt sustainability framework. However, the Bank, along with other International Financial Institutions (IFIs), continues a high volume of lending to HIPCs and logs overly optimistic growth projections for many of these regions, and as such has come under criticism for setting up conditions to reduplicate massive and unsustainable indebtedness, thus stunting recovery from the financial crisis and

9

A

10

A

Agarwal, Bina

hindering development. Some observers are pressuring the Bank to decrease its loans and increase its grants to low-income countries. Additionally, the Bank’s emphasis on funding large infrastructural projects – in 2007, infrastructure operations accounted for approximately 60% of the bank’s portfolio – is seen as a controversial development strategy, especially as they can have significant and negative environmental and social effects. According to former employees, civil society groups, and watchdogs, the Bank tends to provide little public access to officials and documents. The lack of transparency is coupled with a limited complaint review process whereby the Bank’s Independent Review Mechanism (IRM) only allows individuals or groups to file a complaint in cases where they can demonstrate adverse effects on their well-being due to the Bank’s failure to comply with its own policies – this process, therefore, does not allow the public to question the legitimacy of project decisions or the policies that guide their implementation. Additionally, the Bank’s enforcement of its social responsibility and environmental policies is seen as weak. In a publicized example, the Bank’s pledge to support construction of the Gilgel Gibe III hydroelectric project in Ethiopia was widely criticized for the Bank’s cooperation with the Ethiopian government after it illegally awarded the project to an Italian contractor without any open bidding procedure for which the World Bank, the Italian government, J.P. Morgan Chase, and others withdrew their funding. Organizations in Ethiopia and downstream in Kenya lodged complaints regarding the project’s potentially devastating effects on the ecosystem of Lake Turkana and on the livelihoods of indigenous groups who rely on Lake Turkana in northwestern Kenya. Prompted by the backlash, the Bank chartered an independent review of the potential effects of the project in 2009 and finally withdrew its consideration of funding for the project after multiple studies and negative press testified to the destructive potential of the project on the regional environment, as well as the dam’s potential to intensify existing tribal conflicts. Social and environmental advocates thus call for greater transparency and accountability at the AfDB, as well as for greater opportunities for civil society actors to participate in and influence the institution’s policies and projects.

Related Topics

▶ Development Assistance ▶ United Nations: Right to Development ▶ World Bank (WB)

References Chissano J, Martin P (2007) Investing in Africa’s future: the ADB in the 21st century. Report of the High Level Panel for the African Development Bank English EP, Mule H (eds) (1995) The African Development Bank. The multilateral development banks, vol 1. L. Rienner, Boulder Krasner SD (1981) Power structures and regional development banks. Int Organ 35(2):303–328 Mingst KA (1990) Politics and the African Development Bank. The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington Weiss MA (2009) The African Development Bank Group. Congressional Research Service, report number RS22690

Agarwal, Bina JANET A. SEIZ Department of Economics, Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA, USA

Bina Agarwal is an economist and director of the Institute of Economic Growth at the University of Delhi. She has done pioneering work in many aspects of gender analysis, with a particular focus on gender justice and the lives of the most disadvantaged. She is best known for her seminal work on gender and land rights, but many of her papers on environmental change have also broken new ground and are widely cited. Her most recent book, Gender and Green Governance (2010b), which examines the impact on equity and conservation of women’s inclusion in the management of forests, parallels in scope, scale, and importance of her earlier book A Field of One’s Own (1994b) which focused on the importance of women’s rights in agricultural land. While the context of Agarwal’s research is developing countries, especially South Asia, her conceptual and theoretical contributions are applicable far more widely and have influenced thinking globally. Her writings attract an unusually large audience of researchers, teachers, students, policymakers, and activists. Agarwal grew up in India and was educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Delhi. She has been Professor of Economics at Delhi’s Institute of Economic Growth since 1988 and is now its Director. She has written or edited/co-edited nine books and more than 70 academic articles. Issues of equity and justice are the running thread in her work which addresses, in diverse ways, the processes that underlie the persistence of economic and social deprivation, and the legal, economic, and institutional mechanisms which can help overcome such deprivations. Among the hallmarks of her writings

Agarwal, Bina

are rigor of analysis, clarity of exposition, and a seamless weaving across disciplines and across quantitative and qualitative dimensions. She has frequently challenged mainstream arguments by economists and sometimes even by feminist scholars to chart new directions, both in the questions asked and the answers arrived at. Here we can discuss only a few of her many contributions; readers are encouraged to consult the references provided and her website www.binaagarwal.com for a more complete listing. We turn now to some of the central themes explored in Agarwal’s work.

Gender, Property, and Land Agarwal’s most influential work thus far has been that on women’s command over property, especially land. Her writings on this subject in the late 1980s and early 1990s culminated in the path-breaking and award-winning book A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (1994b). This focused on the central importance of women’s rights in immovable property, especially land, and opened up an entirely new understanding of the pathways to women’s empowerment. This book, recognized widely as a tour de force, is magisterial in scope. It spans five countries in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal). It engages with a wide range of disciplines, including economics, law, history, and anthropology. It makes a strong argument for gender equality in landed property, not only for justice and welfare but also for enhancing food security and productivity, and for empowering women. It maps crossregional patterns in women’s property rights historically, the factors underlying the gaps between law and practice, and between land ownership and its effective control. Most importantly, it engages with policy to indicate how these gaps can be overcome. It is this holistic approach, the traversing of theory and empirical evidence, and serious concern with policy that explains the wide influence of Agarwal’s work globally – beyond academics to grassroots practitioners, international agencies, and policy makers. Even groups without a specific gender focus, but dealing with land, poverty, and livelihood questions have been motivated to take up women’s land rights as a key initiative. Agarwal’s pioneering research united and helped to transform the debates both on land and on gender. Some central arguments of the book are especially worth highlighting. For women, Agarwal argues, land access is key to reducing poverty and enhancing their and their children’s welfare. It is also key to increasing productivity and empowering women. Land is a crucial asset in times of economic stress, and serves as a collateral

A

for loans. Owning land can also enhance women’s bargaining power, winning them better treatment within families, better prospects in the labor market, and higher status and more voice in their communities. Most importantly, Agarwal provides early evidence which shows that gender equality in land access would increase agricultural output, especially given the tendency toward a feminization of agriculture, with more men than women moving to non-farm occupations. Women workers remain much more dependent on agriculture in many countries: in India, three fourths of women workers and only half of men workers are based in agriculture. South Asian women, however, have owned and controlled a very small share of the region’s land, which remains largely in male hands due to male bias in access through the family, the state, and markets. Much of agricultural land in the region is privately owned. Inheritance laws and their implementation have favored men, as have government land reform programs which tend to give titles mainly to male household heads. And few women have finances to individually lease or buy land. Agarwal’s book also examines women’s covert and overt resistance to gender inequality, especially in the context of land struggles. And she outlines actions that could be taken by governments, NGOs, and activists to strengthen women’s land rights, such as making laws gender equal and increasing legal awareness and legal aid; giving land titles to women, or at least to both spouses in government programs for land reform and resettlement schemes; and supporting the formation of women’s agricultural cooperatives and ensuring women farmers’ access to credit, information, and technical assistance. Revisiting the land issue in later articles (2003, 2010a), Agarwal takes her recommendations further. She argues that individual women have few resources to access land on their own or to cultivate it effectively. An answer, she argues, lies in encouraging women to pool their resources in small groups of say 10–15 women, to lease in land or purchase land and cultivate it jointly. Such “agricultural production collectivities,” as she terms them, would help women to better access not only land but also credit, inputs, and markets. She is careful to distinguish this from early socialist collectivization which was typically coercive and enormous in scale. She emphasizes the importance of the groups being small sized, voluntarily formed, and egalitarian and participative in functioning. What makes her argument especially strong is the evidence she provides of hundreds of successful women’s groups undertaking joint farming in South India and Bangladesh. She also gives examples of voluntarily formed family

11

A

12

A

Agarwal, Bina

cooperatives in the transition economies of Eastern Europe after de-collectivization, which are found to be more productive than individual family farms. Agarwal’s research and advocacy have had a powerful influence on policy: in India, she helped to catalyze a momentous reform of Hindu Inheritance law in 2005 that removed gender inequalities in inheritance of agricultural land for Hindu women, who constitute over 80% of women in India. Over the years, she has also provided substantial support to NGOs in India, Bangladesh, and even South Africa, through workshops and written inputs, as well as advice to the Indian government on how to promote women’s rights in land and property. Agarwal’s related and again insightful empirical work with Pradeep Panda, on the security against domestic violence that owning land or a house provides to women, has further strengthened the case for women’s land claims. This can prove to be an important new pathway for global justice groups working on violence against women.

Gender and the Environment Environmental justice constitutes a second major contribution of Agarwal’s work and predates that on land rights. She began writing on environmental issues long before many had woken up to the challenge. Her 1980s monograph and subsequent book Cold Hearths and Barren Slopes: The Woodfuel Crises in the Third World (1986) noted how the effects of environmental degradation differ for women and men. Agarwal drew on evidence from Asia, Africa, and Latin America to highlight the crises of cooking energy which was affecting millions of poor households, and particularly women, who bear the main burden of gathering firewood for cooking and heating. Even today, fuelwood remains the main source of cooking energy in much of the developing world. Using a political economy approach, Agarwal noted that the causes of the crises lay in the exploitation of forests for commercial use with little attention paid to local livelihood needs. She provided a powerful critique of the top-down planning and implementation of social forestry programs launched by governments and international agencies as solutions to the crises. Few programs benefited rural poor women who were the principal sufferers. The book made a strong case for involving the rural poor and especially women in the design and implementation of afforestation schemes. Her work also questioned whether truly effective solutions to the crisis were possible without measures to reduce existing socioeconomic (especially land-based) inequalities; and without economic policies oriented to a more energy-efficient and ecologically sustainable form of development.

Agarwal’s subsequent writings were a significant contribution to the conceptual debate on the relationship between women and the environment. In a much cited 1992 paper “The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India,” she argued that women’s relationship with the natural world should not be seen as an outgrowth of gender ideology or biology, as some ecofeminists had suggested. She propounded an alternative theoretical framework, which she termed “feminist environmentalism,” under which women and men’s relationship with nature depends on the gender division of labor and of resources. The first affects the type of relationship men and women have with the natural environment in their daily lives. Since women usually are the ones who gather firewood and collect water, the growing scarcity and deterioration of forests and water has serious consequences for women’s workloads and health. At the same time, women’s limited access to private property resources- such as land-also increases women’s dependence on forests and the commons. Agarwal presented substantial evidence about the severity of problems women faced with the degradation of these resources. She also discussed emerging environmental activism such as the Chipko movement in India, and suggested future directions for policy. In the late 1990s Agarwal began research on community forestry, leading to a much cited World Development paper on “Participatory Exclusions” and culminating in her book Gender and Green Governance (2010b). This work followed naturally from Cold Hearths and Barren Slopes, wherein she had emphasized the importance of participatory approaches to forest management by communities. In the early 1990s many governments launched programs transferring parts of government forests to local communities to manage them. In 1998–1999 Agarwal traveled across India and parts of Nepal to examine how well this was working on the ground and found that women were seriously underrepresented in community forestry institutions, often making up 10% or less of the active membership. To capture this phenomenon she coined the term “participatory exclusions” to indicate how local institutions with formal democratic structures could effectively exclude significant sections. In Gender and Green Governance, however, Agarwal made a leap by reversing the idea of women’s absence from governance to examine what difference women’s presence would make. She asked: would women’s better representation in community forestry increase their voice in such institutions? Would it lead to different rules of forest use? Most importantly, would it improve conservation and

Agarwal, Bina

reduce women’s problems of domestic energy? Also how large a presence of women would have an impact – for instance, was there an identifiable critical mass? To answer these and other questions, she painstakingly collected her own data with the help of a research team, spending several years interviewing community management groups, male and female villagers, foresters, guards and NGOs in the villages of India and Nepal. She also traced women’s history of exclusion from public institutions, what restricts them from participating, and how they could overcome those barriers. Some of her findings based on rigorous testing of many hypotheses are especially striking: ● In the community forestry institutions which have 25–33% women in their executive committee (EC) – the main decision making body – women are significantly more likely to attend meetings, speak up at them, and be inducted into leadership positions. This constitutes a “critical mass,” a figure which is often lobbied for by groups seeking women’s quotas in local bodies or Parliaments, but seldom empirically verified. Also, women’s participation in forest governance is found to be especially high among groups with a high proportion of landless women. ● Groups with a larger proportion of EC women have a significantly greater likelihood of improving forest condition, in terms of canopy cover and regeneration. All-women groups in Nepal perform especially well in relation to groups with men. This is despite the fact that all-women groups started with a disadvantage, since they received smaller and more degraded forests than other groups. Agarwal argues that including women brings benefits to conservation for several reasons: it substantially improves protection by involving all members of the community and not only men in protection. Women’s involvement in rule making also increases their incentive to comply with the rules themselves and persuade others to do the same. Moreover, women have substantial knowledge (different from men’s) about forest products and how to use and extract them. Taking this knowledge into account by including women improves forest condition notably. It also adds to biodiversity since men and women have knowledge about different forest products: women often know more about firewood, fodder, herbs, and food items which they collect, and men tend to know more about timber species. ● Including women leads to less shortage of firewood and fodder, since women are able to persuade men to allow extraction of these essential items of daily use. At

A

the same time Agarwal emphasizes that effective solutions to domestic energy shortages lie in substituting alternative clean fuels, such as biogas, for firewood. For this women need to have a voice not only in local institutions but also in the upper echelons of government where energy policy is framed. ● Women-inclusive institutions tend to better fulfill the conditions which Elinor Ostrom, 2009 Nobel Laureate in Economics, has emphasized as necessary for building enduring institutions for governing the commons. Agarwal’s work on gender and green governance has lessons not only for local institutions of environmental governance in many parts of the world, but also for other institutions of governance. For instance, is one third the threshold (“critical mass”) that must be achieved to ensure women’s effective voice in all types of institutions? Is Agarwal’s finding that including poor landless women in governance improves outcomes applicable to women in other institutions? Will women legislators differ in the decisions they take depending on their economic backgrounds, race or caste? Agarwal’s work also suggests that it is important not only to examine whether women and men have different policy priorities, but whether women’s presence will improve policy implementation. Two additional questions that Agarwal addresses are also noteworthy. First, how can we enhance women’s effective presence in local governance, and second, how can we elicit government accountability in addressing poor rural women’s needs, such as for clean domestic energy and better access to the commons? On the first count, she emphasizes constituting “a web of strategic alliances” between women in forest management groups and other women’s groups in the villages, to strengthen rural women’s bargaining power with the community and the local government. On the second count, she poses a general challenge on how deliberative democracy can be broadened both locally and nationally. This has implications for political theory. Agarwal’s work on environmental governance breaks new ground in both environmental economics and gender studies. Gender has been rather little studied by environmental economists while feminist analysis in other disciplines has focused more on women’s absence than on the impact of their presence. Agarwal’s agnostic approach to gender questions, and her strong emphasis on evidencebased conclusions, provides a powerful and effective tool of persuasion for policy. Like her work on land rights, her recommendations on gender and green governance are already beginning to influence policy makers in India. In

13

A

14

A

Agarwal, Bina

this, her statistically rigorous analysis, which demonstrates that women’s inclusion matters not only for gender justice, but also for better conservation and biodiversity, is an important persuader. This suggests that global justice arguments could have higher impact if they were complemented with evidence of higher productivity.

Feminist Theory: The “Bargaining” Framework An important theoretical framework that underlies Agarwal’s work on property as well as on environmental governance is that of “bargaining,” which she initially developed in A Field of One’s Own and subsequently elaborated in a widely cited article “Bargaining and Gender Relations” (1997). This made significant theoretical contributions to feminist economics and is the most downloaded article of the journal Feminist Economics. The concept of “bargaining,” Agarwal argued, could be used to analyze gender inequality in a variety of settings: the home, the community, the market, and the state. In common with other feminist economists, Agarwal rejected the “unitary household” model, which assumed that all family members’ interests were in harmony and benevolent household heads could be counted on to ensure fair outcomes. In her view, while cooperation in the household yields gains that make household members better off than they would be on their own, there are also conflicts of interest about the division of tasks and consumption. “Bargaining power” is a person’s ability to shape the outcome, and its determination is complex. One important element is each person’s “fallback position,” which depends on the assets, earning power, and external support that she or he could rely upon if cooperation fails. The person with worse outside options has less bargaining power. Also, Agarwal recognizes the central importance of social norms which define the distribution of tasks and resources within the home and outside, and social perceptions about people’s contributions and needs in determining bargaining power. She provides a major insight by outlining how social norms can themselves be bargained over. Analyzing bargaining power within the household is helpful for understanding how women’s disadvantage is perpetuated and how it can be changed. The bargaining framework is also relevant to other arenas. In labor markets, for example, what factors can enable workers to receive higher wages and better working conditions? In the political arena, what determines the influence a rights based group can exercise in interactions with the state? Most importantly, Agarwal shows how bargaining power

in one arena can influence women’s bargaining power in other arenas. Hence a government that frames womensupportive policies and laws can simultaneously enhance their bargaining power within the home and in the community. Thinking in terms of bargaining power can also help practitioners and researchers identify the key elements that stand in the way of achieving justice and devise effective strategies for promoting change.

Food Security and Human Capabilities A key facet of Agarwal’s intellectual engagement is not only its range but its contemporary relevance in issues of justice. One such issue is food security. Many argue that the right to food is a basic human right. Agarwal’s work on land rights and on the environment impinges in significant ways on food security. But, in addition, she has written on gender and food security during droughts and famines (2000), and provided a gender perspective on the global food crises and potential differential effects of climate change on women and men. A volume coedited with Jane Humphries and Ingrid Robeyns also deserves special mention: Capabilities, Freedom and Equality (2006) brings together several perceptive essays on Amartya Sen’s work and ideas from a gender perspective, and extends the work of Sen, a major writer on the idea of justice.

Concluding Comments The audience for Bina Agarwal’s work is unusually broad. Her research, often based on extensive fieldwork, is deep and very thorough. It addresses vitally important questions related to global justice, and engages with other disciplines. Her writing is outstandingly clear and accessible, and she often incorporates the voices of the women and men she is writing about, giving us the human face behind the statistics. Professor Agarwal has received professional recognition in many forms and across the globe. She was president of the International Association for Feminist Economics and vice-president of the International Economic Association. She is currently president-elect of the International Society for Ecological Economics. Apart from many book prizes, she has received several awards for a body of work, including the Malcolm Adiseshiah Award for distinguished contributions to Development Studies, the Ramesh Chandra Award for outstanding contributions to Agricultural Economics, and the Wassily Leontief Prize for “advancing the frontiers of economic thought.” In 2008 she was awarded the Padma Sri, one of India’s highest civilian honors. She also holds

Agency, Collective

honorary doctorates from the Institute for Social Studies, the Hague, and the University of Antwerp. Typically, Agarwal is the first woman, or the first Indian, or the first South-based economist to receive a particular prize or office. Agarwal has held distinguished visiting positions at many universities, including Harvard, Michigan (Ann Arbor), Minnesota (where she held the Winton Chair), and the New York University School of Law. And she has served on many significant commissions and committees of the United Nations. Given her international and national recognition, hers is a strong and highly respected voice on issues of economic and social justice among academics and policymakers. This is a great asset for movements working for global justice and concerned with poverty, inequality, and the environment.

Related Topics

▶ Ecofeminism ▶ Feminist Ethics ▶ Gender Justice ▶ Indigenous Rights to Land ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Solidarity

References Agarwal B (1986) Cold hearths and barren slopes: the woodfuel crisis in the third world. Zed Books, London Agarwal B (1992) The gender and environment debate: lessons from India. Feminist Stud 18(1):119–158 Agarwal B (1994a) Gender and command over property: a critical gap in economic analysis and policy in South Asia. World Dev 22(10):1455–1476 Agarwal B (1994b) A field of one’s own: gender and land rights in South Asia. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Agarwal B (1997) Bargaining and gender relations: within and beyond the household. Feminist Econ 3(1):1–51 Agarwal B (2000) Conceptualizing environmental collective action: why gender matters. Camb J Econ 24(3):283–310 Agarwal B (2003) Gender and land rights revisited: exploring new prospects via the state, family and market. J Agrarian Change 3(1–2): 184–224 Agarwal B (2010a) Rethinking agricultural production collectivities. Econ Polit Wkly Bombay 55(9):64–78 (27 February) Agarwal B (2010b) Gender and green governance: the political economy of women’s presence within and beyond community forestry. Oxford University Press, Oxford Agarwal B, Panda P (2007) Toward freedom from domestic violence: the neglected obvious. J Hum Dev 8(3):359–388 Agarwal B, Humphries J, Robeyns I (2006) Capabilities, freedom and equality: Amartya Sen’s work from a gender perspective. Oxford University Press, Delhi

A

Agency, Collective ANNA MOLTCHANOVA Department of Philosophy, Carleton College, Northfield, MN, USA

Are groups of individuals agents? We can say that nations go to war, companies implement their plans, teams lose or win games, and so on. But do groups really act? Or is it that only individuals do, and that their aggregate actions are attributed to groups only figuratively? That is, when we say that such and such football team won a game, what we really mean is that certain individuals coordinated their actions to follow a plan each of them agreed upon. A different understanding of group agency points out that individuals perform actions as members of a group only because they stand in a certain relation to one another by virtue of their membership; hence, in some sense, the existence of the group transcends the aggregate existence of its members. To choose between the two views of group agency, one needs to determine whether groups can be said to exist in relative independence from their members. An issue related to this inquiry is whether groups can be moral agents – agents capable of making choices and exercising freedom and thus capable of being held accountable for their actions. Group agency is subject to a lively academic debate with important practical implications crucial for global justice. In order to identify the norms of moral order that underlie global justice and assign rights and duties correctly, we need to know which among various collectives present in the international arena, such as religious, ethnic and national groups, states, militant organizations, parties, NGOs, corporations, and others, can be recognized as moral agents in their own right with rights and responsibilities. For example, states in which governments do not express the will of the people certainly act as group agents, but their political power is not legitimate. Or, the official expression of group interests of an oppressive cultural group may not represent the true interests of all group members. To see what the group may be entitled to, we need to investigate its mode of existence. A theory of group agency provides a much needed background for this inquiry. Thus, the relevance of the notion of group agency to global justice lies in the notion’s potential to provide a substantive basis for correctly identifying subjects for normative treatment, in particular, moral group rights.

15

A

16

A

Agency, Collective

There are different accounts of what sets of individuals constitute collective agents and of what evidence can be given in support of their existence. The presence of an institutional organization and a decision procedure makes a collective capable of purposeful action over time and gives it identity over time independent of particular membership, as Peter French would point out. For example, corporations can be full moral persons with rights and responsibilities; because individuals within the corporation act according to the status within the group’s power structure, the structure incorporates individual intentions by subordinating and synthesizing them into a corporate decision (French 1979). A less formal structure may suffice for a group agent to come into existence. One may say, with Christopher McMachon, that a group of cooperatively disposed people that lacks an institutional structure but has made the choice of a cooperative scheme becomes a group agent (McMachon 2001). The least demanding view of group agency requires neither formal institutional nor procedural organization to say that a group is an agent. Groups that lack explicit decision-making structures but have enough cohesion to engage in collective action can be held responsible as groups. For example, family members are motivated to act for the good of other members of their group (Feinberg 1968). Hence, we may say that a group exists when its members partake in a cooperative relation that extends through time and influences their actions. The presence of some or all the following features creates a group agent: a formal institutional organization; an established decision-making procedure or cooperative scheme; and a certain relation that enables individuals to engage in group actions based on a common interest. Those who admit that groups exist in relative independence from their members take a realist stance with respect to group agency, and can be called “non-reductionists” – that is, what a group is cannot be reduced to the sum of characteristics of its individual members (note that on this account members standing in a certain relation to one another are more than just a sum of individuals, they are individuals plus the relation). Those who object to realism concerning groups can be called “reductionists” – they claim that a group can be reduced to the aggregate of its individual members. Hence, realists need to offer some proof of the existence of group agency. Philip Pettit provides evidence that collective reasoning yields results different from the summation of the results of individual reasoning: when individuals decide as a group, the outcome is often different from the one obtained by majority vote based on the outcomes of individual decisions (Pettit 2001). This proves that collective agents are discontinuous with the individuals

who compose them. David Copp offers a normative argument for the existence of group agents: in certain situations the actions of individuals in their official capacity on behalf of collectives can be rational and morally innocent while the outcome of their actions is morally faulty. Since moral fault has to be assigned and individuals are blameless, the fault resides at the collective level. The collective is at fault and thus must have acted; therefore, it is an agent (Copp 2006). Reductionists can object that groups cannot be agents because they do not have self-awareness as individuals do. One may reply that although individuals have first-person phenomenological access that collectives lack, this access does not need to be required for agency. Carol Rovane argues that persons, individual or collective, endure over time only insofar as they have commitments to unifying projects that give them renewed reasons for action at different moments of their lives (Rovane 1998). A group person is constituted by interpersonal affairs and a single person is constituted by intrapersonal affairs that pertain to a unifying project. Group members cannot control one another’s actions directly, but neither can they do it in their relations to their future selves (Rovane 1998: 146). To act today on an intention one had yesterday, one has to first remember that she had this intention. By recognizing the existence of the intention, she recognizes that she participates in a certain continuous project. A similar action of recognition occurs in interpersonal affairs in which individual interactions contribute to the execution of the unifying project. Hence, that the collectives do not have a self as individuals do doesn’t preclude them from being agents. Consequently, collectives can be held morally responsible based on the kinds of projects they engage in and can have rights. Overall, at present the question of group agency offers more questions than definitive answers, but it is of crucial importance for global justice to continue developing theories of group agency.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Individual ▶ Global Justice, Subjects of ▶ Group Rights ▶ Rights

References Copp D (2006) On the agency of certain collective entities: an argument from “normative autonomy.” Midwest Stud Philos 30:194–221 Erskine T (ed) (2003) Can institutions have responsibilities? Collective moral agency and international relations. Palgrave MacMillan, New York

Agency, Individual Feinberg J (1968) Collective responsibility. J Philos 65(21):674–687 French PA (1979) The corporation as a moral person. Am Philos Quart 16(3):207–215 French PA, Wettstein HK (eds) (2006) Shared intentions and collective responsibility. Midwest Stud Philos vol XXX. Blackwell, Boston/ Oxford McMahon C (2001) Collective rationality and collective reasoning. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Pettit P (2001) A theory of freedom: from the psychology to the politics of agency. Oxford University Press, Oxford Rovane C (1998) The bounds of agency. Princeton University Press, Princeton Sistare C, May L, Francis L (eds) (2001) Groups and group rights. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence

Agency, Individual JUHA RA¨IKKA¨, SUSANNE UUSITALO Department of Behavioural Sciences and Philosophy, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

In global ethics, one important question concerns the responsibilities of different agents. One may ask, for instance, who is responsible for extreme poverty. Some authors argue that the structures of international order are unjust and that they are not produced on purpose. According to those authors, the question about responsible agents is, therefore, misleading. Extreme poverty is comparable to unavoidable natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis. However, if we reject this view and accept that extreme poverty should be distinguished from natural disasters, then the question about responsible agents arises. We should ask which agents have contributed to the extreme poverty or which agents have not contributed to the eradication of extreme poverty even if they could have done so. Many authors have suggested that the responsible agents are multinational corporations and industrial states. This claim, however, has been contested. Some scholars claim that problems of global poverty are primarily due to individual persons in affluent countries. The individuals in question fail to fulfil their duties in such a way that contributes to global poverty. Charitable giving is too rare, and more importantly, people in the affluent countries do not force their politicians to fight against severe poverty in the developing world. This brings us to the problems of individual agency and intentional action. It is customary to distinguish between actions and other events. Human events can be divided into actions and mere happenings, but it is

A

important to notice that, arguably, activities fall short of actions but are more than mere happenings. When my arm goes up it may be a mere happening, but it can also be an action. If I raise my hand in order to say hello, it is an action. However, if I scratch my head while reading a book, we could say that my scratching is an activity, not an action. Breathing is something everyone does, but we do not say that breathing is an action. In ordinary language, “action” often refers to an “act,” but these concepts seem to have different meanings. Acts are things people do and hence they are, in this sense, act-types. One person can do the same thing as another person. For instance, both you and I can vote politicians who promise to fight against severe poverty. However, the action of my voting a politician is not the same action as your voting the same candidate. Obviously, they are separate actions. Acts are usually done by doing some other acts. An individual citizen may fight against severe poverty by voting for politicians who promise to try to break the status quo of unjust international order. However, not every act someone does could be done by doing something else. If this were the case, then, arguably, nothing would ever get done. Therefore, it is customary to think that there are some basic acts, acts that are not done by doing something else. There are many theories that aim to explain what happens when someone acts. Intuitively, it seems that when a person acts, there is something that the person wants and then there is an action that he or she believes is effective in reaching the goal. The person’s desire and belief together make him or her to form an intention to perform an action, and the intention causes corresponding bodily movements. The person’s reasons for action are constituted by his or her desire and belief. This story, however, raises plenty of questions, and philosophy of action is the field of philosophy that aims to answer them. A plausible theory of action has to be able to explain deviant action springing from, say, weakness of the will or addiction, and it also provides an account of notions such as self-control, free will, and agency on the whole. When a person’s culpability is considered, it is not enough to consider those desires and beliefs that constitute the person’s reason for doing what he or she does and connect with what he or she does intentionally. We may also want to know whether some effect that was not intended by the person was foreseen by him or her. In order to be morally accountable, an agent does not necessarily have to know what the moral requirements are. The capacity to find out such things may be enough. For instance, the citizens of affluent countries may think that

17

A

18

A

Agent-Centered Prerogative

they are doing the right thing when they do not require changes to the international order. Suppose, however, that it is wrong not to oppose the status quo and that it is relatively easy for people to see that this is so if they think the things through. In this case, they could plausibly be held responsible for moral negligence. It is not uncommon to blame collective entities such as corporations, states, or nations. Often people say things like “it is the Americans’ fault” or “the Monsanto Company is guilty of exploitation.” When “Americans” are morally blamed, it is not always clear what the target of the criticism is. Sometimes the target of the criticism of the “Americans” is a multifaceted entity, the United States or American people. When a person blames “Americans” in this sense, often the idea is not that the Americans are collectively responsible in such a way that this attribution of responsibility can be expressed exhaustively by speaking merely of individual responsibilities. An extreme view is that “Americans” can be responsible even though every individual American is innocent. Another strong thesis is that when the “Americans” should be blamed, all individual Americans should be blamed. However, relatively often the claim that “Americans are responsible” merely means that a person or persons who happen to be Americans are responsible. When the President of the United States of America is believed to be responsible, one way to express this is to say that the Americans are responsible. Seemingly collective attributions of responsibility are often in fact individual responsibility attributions. Therefore, questions of individual agency are not irrelevant to the ethical issues in global affairs. Questions of different types of agency and responsibility tie in with the concept of global justice. It is important to determine and analyze the kind of entities and collectives that can have duties and play a role in global justice. Furthermore, questions of what kinds of agency and action are called for when we face the challenges of the unjust world are central to the discussion of global justice.

Related Topics ▶ Agency, Collective ▶ Human Rights ▶ Poverty

References Davidson D (1980) Actions and events. Oxford University Press, Oxford Haksar V (1998) Moral agents. In: Craig E (ed) Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy, vol 6. Routledge, London, pp 499–504 Henden E (2008) What is self-control? Philos Psychol 21:69–90 Hornsby J (1998) Action. In: Craig E (ed) Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy, vol 1. Routledge, London, pp 37–41

Koistinen O (2001) Action and agent. Acta Philosophica Fennica, Helsinki Mele RA (ed) (1997) The philosophy of action. Oxford University Press, Oxford Ra¨ikka¨ J (2006) Pogge on global poverty. J Glob Ethics 2:111–118 Velleman JD (2000) The possibility of practical reason. Clarendon, Oxford Watson G (2004) Agency and answerability: selected essays. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Agent-Centered Prerogative PETER SHIU-HWA TSU Philosophy Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

The idea of an agent-centered prerogative is, roughly, the idea that a moral agent can have a prerogative not to do the act that produces the best consequences, all things considered from an impartial perspective. This idea does not come out of the blue. Rather, it was firstly introduced into the ethics literature to moderate the demands of act-consequentialism (Scheffler 2003). It also has deep implications for global justice issues, especially for the issue of fighting world poverty. Before we get to what these implications are, we need to get clear about what the idea of agent-centered prerogatives stands for. This idea can be best illustrated against the backdrop of act-consequentialism. So, we will introduce the idea of agent-centered prerogatives by way of introducing act-consequentialism.

Demands of Act-Consequentialism Act-consequentialism, on a standard construal, requires a moral agent to always perform the act that produces the best overall consequences, as judged from an impartial perspective. Although this might seem intuitively harmless and plausible, it is actually excessively demanding. Imagine for instance the following scenario. Suppose that you have some spare money of 1,000 US dollars. You can spend it on a family travel during holidays. Alternatively, you can donate the money to Oxfam, which will in turn use the money to save the lives of starving children in Africa. Judged from an impartial perspective, the pleasures you and your family can get from the travel are insignificant compared to the lives you can save. So, in this scenario, the act that will produce the best consequences is clearly donating your money. And this is

Agent-Centered Prerogative

exactly what act-consequentialism asks you to do. If you choose to take your family on a travel instead, then, according to act-consequentialism, your action is morally wrong. This is a harsh verdict. Few of us believe it. The demands of act-consequentialism are apparently too high. It is hard to imagine how an act as innocent as spending one’s spare money on family travel can be immoral! Here is what most of us believe instead. Most of us believe that while it is morally meritorious to donate the money, it is okay or morally permitted not to do so. We do not have a general moral obligation to always perform the act that produces the best consequences, as dictated by act-consequentialism. We are morally allowed to indulge ourselves in movies and spend time with our loved ones although arguably the money spent on movies and time spent with our loved ones can always be put to better uses, such as contributing to famine relief or visiting the elderly and the sick. In commonsense morality, we believe that we have agent-centered prerogatives – the prerogatives not to perform the act that will produce the best consequences, all things considered. Agent-centered prerogatives set up a limit to the unlimited requirement of act-consequentialism (Kagan 2002). They give the moral agent some elbow room to devote time, energy, and money to the things they find meaningful from their own personal point of view. By depriving a moral agent such elbow room, act-consequentialism seems excessively demanding.

Agent-Centered Prerogative in Global Justice Context Equipped with a better idea of what “agent-centered prerogatives” means, we can now proceed to explore their implications for issues of global justice, especially for the issue of fighting world poverty. In the context of fighting world poverty, having an agent-centered prerogative would mean, roughly, that people in the affluent countries could choose to donate to charities to fight world poverty if they want to; however, they have prerogatives not to do so. While it is very charitable to donate money, we certainly do not seem to be doing anything immoral if we keep our money to ourselves and spend it on things we find to be deeply meaningful from our own personal perspective – such as travels, arts, or hanging out with friends. Although this line of reasoning might sound reasonable for most of us, some find it unacceptable, given the dire situation of the world we are currently living in. After all, we are now living in a world where approximately 27,000 children die every day of preventable causes, such as malnutrition or diarrhea. These evils generated by

A

poverty can be lessened, if not entirely eradicated, if all of us contribute more. Insisting on agent-centered prerogatives in this sort of context seems to make mockery of the claim that each human life has equal value. Is it not ironic that when we are having a fun ride on a Ferris wheel, those kids in the poorest countries are struggling to survive? Along a similar line of reasoning, Peter Singer (1972, 2009) famously contends that we are not entitled to have agent-centered prerogatives. We could perhaps have a claim to them only if we were living in a world oozing with milk and honey, where no one suffers from hunger. However, we are not living in such a world. The world we live in still has many people who die of hunger. Thus, Singer urges that people in the affluent countries should donate their money until one cent more would do as much good to themselves as to the poor. Anything less than this is a violation of our moral duty. As can be expected, many find this duty overly heavy. Singer’s line of reasoning has been strongly contested by many. John Kekes (2002), for instance, endorses the idea of agent-centered prerogatives. In fact, he contends that there are some areas of life which should be kept free of the interventions of morality. It simply cannot be the case that when I sit back in a cinema, enjoying a movie with my family, I immediately become susceptible to the moral criticism that I could have used the time and the money to fight world poverty. This is way too much! To think otherwise is to start moralizing, taking morality out of its legitimate bounds. There is no space for us to settle the dispute between Singer and Kekes here. However, as we can reasonably expect, as long as there are still people in our world dying of hunger, and as long as we still feel we ought to be left with some personal space to pursue things we find meaningful from our own perspective, the dispute about whether we have agent-centered prerogatives will continue.

Related Topics

▶ Act-Consequentialism ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Foreign Aid ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Partiality ▶ Singer, Peter ▶ Special Obligations

19

A

20

A

Aggression

References Kagan S (2002) The limits of morality. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kekes J (2002) On the supposed obligation to relieve famine. Philos Public Aff 77:503–517 Scheffler S (2003) The rejection of consequentialism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Singer P (1972) Famine, affluence, and morality. Philos Public Aff 1(1):229–243 Singer P (2009) The life you can save: acting now to end world poverty. Text Publishing, Melbourne

Aggression DON E. SCHEID Department of Philosophy, Winona State University, Winona, MN, USA

A great part of global justice must concern itself with the use of force, especially the aggressive use of force. In the quest for global justice and international governance, one strategy is to impose legal constraints on the use of force by outlawing acts and wars of aggression. Unfortunately, a workable definition of “aggression” for this purpose in international law has proven problematic. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was no globally accepted norm prohibiting the resort to war. As the century progressed, there began a process of limiting the conditions under which States could legitimately resort to warfare. Thus, the 1907 Hague Convention (II) completely prohibited resort to war to enforce recovery of contract debts, while Hague Convention (III) required that States give explicit warning before commencing armed hostilities. The Versailles Treaty (1919) recognized the obligation of States to refrain from resort to war, and to pursue open, just, and honorable relations between nations by the commitment to international law as the actual rule of conduct among governments. In the Covenant of the League of Nations (1919), members undertook to respect and preserve the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all members against external aggression. In 1928, a number of States took a more dramatic step with the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War (Kellogg-Briand Pact or Pact of Paris). They condemned recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and they renounced war as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another. Thereafter, the idea that war, other than a defensive one, is prohibited in international law has been continually restated in various international resolutions and agreements.

Defining “Aggression” and the United Nations While a primary purpose of the United Nations (UN) is to prevent acts of aggression, not even Chapter VII of the UN Charter (Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression) defines “aggression” as a significant term in international law. Since World War II, there have been a number of efforts to define “aggression.” The definition most widely (though not universally) agreed upon is the 1974 General Assembly Consensus Resolution on the Definition of Aggression (Resolution 3314) (1974 GA Definition). Authority to determine acts of aggression lies with the UN Security Council under Article 39 of the UN Charter. Although given this authority, the Security Council was not initially given any normative guidance on what constituted aggression. The purpose of the GA Definition was to provide a guide for the Security Council when it was required to determine the existence of aggression. The GA Definition has been heavily relied upon as a reference point in subsequent efforts to draft criminal provisions on “aggression.” The 1974 GA Definition begins with a general, definitional statement and then provides a non-exhaustive list of features. Aggression is the “most serious and dangerous form of the illegal use of force.” According to Article I of the Definition: “Aggression is the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations, . . .” It is to be noted that “use of armed force” is not the same as a “threat of armed force.” The Nuremberg definitional statement of Crimes Against Peace (initial version of the crime of aggression) prohibited the “planning” or “preparation” of a war of aggression. In the 1949 Ministries case, the Nuremberg Tribunal held that the “invasions” of Austria in February 1939 and of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 were wholly aggressive and, accordingly, entailed Crimes Against Peace – even though they were bloodless conquests without a “shooting war,” consisting only in the threat of military might. Under the 1974 GA Definition and later versions, however, the threat of force alone does not constitute “aggression.” Article 2 provides that the first use of armed force by a State shall constitute prima facie evidence of an act of aggression. But it further provides that the Security Council may conclude that a determination of an “act of aggression” is not warranted if the acts involved or their consequences are not of sufficient gravity. Thus, for example, minor border incidents might not count as acts of aggression.

Aggression

The GA Definition goes on (Article 3) to provide a non-exhaustive list of typical acts of aggression: (1) The invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State, or any military occupation, or any annexation; (2) Bombardment by the armed forces of a State against the territory of another State; (3) The blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State; (4) An attack by the armed forces of a State on the land, sea, or air forces, or marine and air fleets of another State. Also included are situations in which one State permits another State to use its own territory to undertake acts of aggression against a third State. The State-sponsored employment of armed irregulars or mercenaries to carry out acts of aggression is also covered. These listed acts of aggression may be suggestive; some might even be regarded as “acts of war” by definition; but they cannot properly be regarded as defining conditions for “aggression” or “act of aggression.” In the present context, “aggression” is both a descriptive and normative term. The normative import of the term implies serious wrongfulness. Hence, the crucial issue in defining “aggression” is not descriptions of the military means involved, but the criteria by which armed aggressions are to be distinguished normatively from justifiable uses of force, including acts of war (e.g., a war of self-defense). This issue is very partially addressed by Article 5 of the GA Definition, which states: “No considerations of whatever nature, whether political, economic, military or otherwise, may serve as a justification.” But then Article 7 introduces a major proviso: that the Definition is not to prejudice “the right of self-determination, freedom, and independence, . . . , of peoples forcibly deprived of that right . . . , particularly people under colonial and racist regimes or other forms of alien domination; nor the right of these peoples to struggle to that end and to seek and receive support, . . .” In the end, the Definition provides some normative considerations, but nothing like a systematic account of justifiable and unjustifiable uses of force. The 1974 GA Definition is only a recommended guide and is not binding on the Security Council, so the Council may apply or disregard this guidance, as it sees fit. Moreover, the GA Definition is entirely open-ended, allowing the Council wide discretion. It says the Security Council can conclude that other actions amount to aggression besides those indicated by the Definition (Article 4). At the same time, even if the conditions in the Definition are met, the Security Council may conclude that there was not an aggression after all. Commentators have suggested that, consequently, the GA Definition has had little effect on deliberations of the Security Council.

A

From 1946 to the present, there have not been any national or international trials for the crime of aggression (formerly, Crimes Against Peace); thus, no greater content or specificity of “aggression” has been achieved through judicial rulings. On the other hand, there have been clear instances of States engaged in acts of aggression. The Security Council has condemned these various military actions and, on a few rare occasions, labeled particular military incursions as “acts of aggression.” For instance, in 1985, the Security Council condemned South Africa for military incursions into Angola, calling them “hostile and unprovoked acts of aggression” (UN Security Council Resolution 577, 6 December 1985). Possibly, a legally binding definition of “act of aggression” could be pieced together from a close study of such individual cases; but, to date, this prospect remains elusive.

UN Prohibition on Use of Force and Indirect Definition The United Nations Charter was the first international treaty in history to decisively prohibit the threat or use of force in international relations. The primary purpose of the United Nations is to maintain international peace and security by taking “effective . . . measures . . . for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, . . .” (Article 1 [1]). To this end, the resort to armed force is strictly forbidden. All member States are to settle their disputes peacefully (Article 2 [3]). The only two exceptions to the prohibition on the use of force are: (1) the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense against an armed attack (Article 51), and (2) collective security measures authorized by the Security Council (Article 42). Given the context of the UN Charter’s prohibition on the use of force, the strategy suggests itself of defining “act of aggression” by stipulating what it is not – a kind of “negative” definition. For instance, one might propose that if a State engages in a use of force that is neither justified as individual or collective self-defense nor authorized by the UN Security Council, then it is, by definition, an act of aggression. An important problem with this approach is that one cannot be sure that all justifiable uses of force will be contained as exceptions in the definition. As international law evolves, other justifications for the use of force besides individual self-defense, collective self-defense, and collective security authorized by the Security Council might become acceptable. What about wars to recover territory illegally seized, or revolutions against a colonial power or a tyrannical government? What about cross-border uses of force to combat terrorism or insurgency? What about

21

A

22

A

Aggression

armed rescue of nationals, or humanitarian military interventions? What about preemptive, or even preventive, use of force? Will all these kinds of military campaigns, and possibly others, always be considered unjustified under all circumstances?

Aggression as First Strike The first use of armed force (“first strike”) has seemed to many to be a clear indication of aggression. Why not simply treat the State that starts the fight as the aggressor? In the domestic analogy of the barroom brawl, the question is: “Who started it? Who threw the first punch?” And whoever threw the first punch is considered the aggressor. Unfortunately, this is too simple. In some cases, it is impossible to determine who “threw the first punch.” It is hopeless to try to determine who started the quarrel and who is most in the wrong when considering long-standing belligerencies between peoples. It is impossible, for example, to sort out who engaged in the first overt military use of force in long-simmering border disputes. Even where there is a clear first use of military force, it does not necessarily constitute aggression. One example is the case of anticipatory self-defense wherein a preemptive attack is justifiable as a defensive measure. For instance, commentators have pointed to the Israeli first strike against Egyptian forces in the Six Day War (1967) as a justified case of a defensive, preemptive attack. On that occasion, Egypt had peremptorily ejected the UN Emergency Force from the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula and closed the Straits of Tiran. It had also undertaken an unprecedented buildup of its forces along Israel’s borders and issued constant belligerent statements about the impending fight. Taken together, these events seemed to clearly indicate that an attack by Egypt was imminent. Hence, with Israeli forces being smaller than Egypt’s, attacking first with the element of surprise seemed Israel’s best defense strategy. Long-range missiles have presented unique problems for assessing acts of aggression. Once operational, longrange missiles can deliver their bombs in a matter of minutes; consequently, the distinction between an imminent attack and an actual attack is also reduced to minutes. In these circumstances, preventing the installation of such missiles in the first place may be the most reasonable defense. For instance, the US naval blockade of Soviet Union ships attempting to deliver nuclear missiles to Cuba, during the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962), was regarded by many as a defensive use of force and not an act of aggression. Nuclear weapons also present particular problems for assessing acts of aggression. In 1981, Israeli aircraft made a surprise attack on Osirak, a nuclear testing reactor in

Iraq. This attack was intended to prevent Iraq from using the reactor to create nuclear weapons. At the time, many foreign governments, including the United States, roundly condemned Israel’s attack on Osirak as an act of aggression. The United Nations Security Council also strongly condemned the attack (Security Council Resolution 487). Yet the argument that the attack was defensive in nature is that once nuclear weapons are operational, there is no effective defense and their use may not be survivable. Much more controversial was the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, beginning with its “Shock and Awe” air attack on Baghdad (March 19–20), which was clearly a “first strike.” The Bush Administration initially justified the military campaign largely as an attempt to secure threatening weapons of mass destruction being developed by the Saddam Hussein regime. The action was justified under a rationale of preventive war. Under the so-called Bush Doctrine, preventive war is sometimes justified as a defensive strategy. The key idea is that if we wait for threats to materialize (especially nuclear threats), we will have waited too long and it will be too late to defend ourselves against them. Much of the preventive-war rationale was set out in a National Security Council text, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, published on September 17, 2002, and updated in March 2006. Further complications for the idea of first strike arise in cases of provocation. Sometimes States purposely provoke their adversary into striking first, so they may then claim that their own use of force is defensive. In such cases, the provoker is better thought of as the aggressor, as the one who “picked the fight.” Aside from provocation, and the possible rationales for anticipatory self-defense and preventive war, there also may be other cases, such as humanitarian military intervention, in which the first use of armed force is sometimes justified. The problem is similar to that noted above, that is, the problem of regarding all cases not specified as exceptions in a negative definition as always being cases of unjustified use of force. Clearly, a first use of military force cannot automatically count as an act of aggression. At best, a first strike may create a rebuttable presumption of aggression, as suggested in Article 2 of the GA Definition (discussed above).

Related Topics

▶ Crimes Against Peace ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ Nuremberg Trials ▶ Preemptive War ▶ Preventive War

Ahimsa

References Documents Charter of the United Nations. http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/ index.shtml. Accessed Aug 2010 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, 17 Sept 2002 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, 16 March 2006 UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 (Definition of Aggression). http:// www.undemocracy.com/A-RES-3314(XXIX)/. Accessed Aug 2010 Books Detter I (2000) The law of war, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Dinstein Y (2005) War, aggression, and self-defence, vol 4. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Gray C (2000) International law and the use of force. Oxford University Press, Oxford May L (2008) Aggression and crimes against peace. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Ahimsa ASHWANI PEETUSH Department of Philosophy, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada

The principle of ahimsa, or nonviolence, has had an enormous impact as a means to confront social and political injustice. Mohandas Gandhi successfully employed nonviolent civil disobedience to free India from British imperialism; Martin Luther King used nonviolent resistance in the civil rights movement against discriminatory laws in the United States. The principle of nonviolence was also crucial in ending Apartheid in South Africa. Globally, nonviolent resistance is regularly employed as a peaceful means of protest to enact social and political change and an alternative to brutal confrontation. This chapter explores the Indian origins and philosophical sources of the principle of ahimsa, tracing its history from an ethical ideal that is thought necessary to attain personal enlightenment or moksha or nirvana to its development as a form of social and political action used in the struggle against oppression and injustice.

Philosophical Origins Ahimsa means non-harm or nonviolence; it originates from within Indian philosophical and religious traditions of Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The philosophical

A

origins of ahimsa are rooted in the idea that all life is precious, and thus, to take life is a serious matter; all creatures, whether human or not, avoid pain and strive toward their well-being. However, these traditions recognize that the act of living is impossible without causing harm of some kind; the simple act of breathing, cooking, farming, all involve destruction of some forms of life. As such, this ethical virtue is articulated in negative terms; ahimsa is the opposite of himsa, which is to harm or injure. Since harm is an unavoidable part of life, the idea is to minimize the amount for which one is responsible or alpadroha. Ultimately, in the Indian context, to harm another is to harm the self at some level. Although the three traditions conceptualize this idea differently, it is agreed that to intentionally cause unnecessary injury results in negative karma or negative consequences which hinder one’s progress toward enlightenment and for which one must atone at a later time. It should be noted that animals too are an explicit part of the focus of ethical consideration, which is not limited to human beings (Tahtinen 1976). As an ideal, ahimsa requires not simply refraining from harmful action, but also refraining from the thought, intention, or desire to injure in the first place; as, it is these from which action takes birth. Moreover, harm is not limited to physical injury; it includes psychological, emotional and other forms of injury, such as humiliation, intimidation, and depriving persons of their livelihood. Ahimsa must thus be practiced in thought, speech, and action. One engages in harm not simply by committing it oneself, but also by aiding in it, or witnessing it without attempting to stop it, or benefiting from it (Parekh 1988). Ahimsa is originally formulated as an individual ethical practice to perfect the self and free it from unending selfcentered desire, which is conceived as the root cause of human suffering in the Indian tradition.

The Sanctity of Life: Jainism Some of the oldest texts extolling the virtue of ahimsa are from the Jain community. Although a small community in India, Jains have had a great influence on both the Hindu and Buddhist traditions in the practice of nonviolence. Jain ontology and metaphysics holds that there are two kinds of substances in the universe, jiva and ajiva, or, consciousness or sentience and matter. The true nature of the jiva is bliss and omniscience, yet it is entangled in matter (as gold in ore). The purpose of existence is to free oneself of this bondage, which is enmeshed in relentless desire and resultant suffering. The greatest hindrance to freeing oneself and experiencing bliss is actions that cause harm either intentionally or out of carelessness and neglect. All forms

23

A

24

A

Ahimsa

of such action need to be avoided, as far as possible. Along with the pursuit of knowledge, moral perfection, of which the practice of ahimsa is the highest form, is the critical ingredient of the good life (Jaini 1979). Jains practice ahimsa in numerous ways. They are strict vegetarians, as animals too are jivas. Most Jains live only on vegetables and milk products, even honey and certain types of figs are prohibited since they may contain many forms of life. The requirements for monks are far stricter than for laity, but these set the ideal. Monks (and some laity) often have small mouth-coverings to avoid ingesting bugs, lightly sweep the road in front before taking a step, and are scrupulous that their movements to not unnecessarily harm other life-forms (Chapple 1993). Interestingly, respect for life and the principle of ahimsa develop into a respect for other views, or the epistemological theory of anekantavada, or theory of manifoldness. The idea is that reality is complex, manifold, and multifaceted. The truth claims that attempt to describe this reality are inherently limited by one’s viewpoint; and, as such, they may be only partially true, as they are dependent on one’s perspective. Thus, differences in doctrine may not necessarily be opposed or wrong, but simply be describing reality from a differing angle or facet. As such, one ought not to immediately condemn other views as wrong, but explore these for what they may have to offer. A similar approach also exists in Hinduism and Buddhism, which gives rise to a particularly Indian form of respect and tolerance for diversity based on the principle of ahimsa as applied to doctrinal differences. This attitude accounts for the degree of tolerance that India has shown various religious groups that came to reside on the subcontinent.

Hinduism and the Unity of Existence Classical Hinduism similarly came to regard ahimsa as “the highest truth,” “the highest dharma [moral duty],” and “the highest self-control” (Mahabharata XIII: 116: 37–41, Chapple 1993: 17). However, this principle is justified from within a different ontology and metaphysics. According to the Upanisads, the concern for the well-being of others is premised on the basis that one’s atman or real self is, at an ontological level, no different than that of another. That is, although one may perceive the world as a multiplicity of selves, this multiplicity is pervaded by an underlying unity or brahman. Individuals, with regard to their real selves or atman, are isolated by a veil of maya or illusion; they become free with the realization of their ultimate identity as brahman. This is the purpose of existence and is attained when one experiences the unity of being or brahman or the self as the other and the other as

the self, which is defined as enlightenment or moksha. As such, one incurs negative karma by inflicting harm on another because to harm the other is to harm the self. This is the reason that ahimsa is an integral moral duty: it helps one to realize the self as the other and to reach one step closer to enlightenment. One must note that the Hindu interpretation of the principle of ahimsa is not absolute; as is often the case with most moral or political values, ahimsa is prioritized and balanced in light of other values. As such, Hinduism does not prohibit all forms of harm, and, indeed, even sanctions killing under certain extreme circumstances. In the Bhagavada Gita for example, Krishna tells Arjuna that in the context of a just war, as a warrior, his dharma or ethical duty is to fight and kill the enemy, as defending one’s country is the ethical obligation of a warrior. Indeed, in the Mahabharata, killing a violent criminal to protect the community is not considered an act of violence and thus does not infringe on the principle of ahimsa (Parekh 1988). Furthermore, in severe circumstances, ahimsa actually may require himsa: in order to uphold the principle of nonviolence, one may actually have to inflict harm to defend the safety of the innocent, as in the case of killing a murderer to protect the community or killing to defend one’s country. Jains and Buddhists, at least in practice, accept that certain forms of harm may be necessary.

Buddhist Interconnectedness Buddhism shares with Hinduism and Jainism the emphasis on ahimsa, yet grounds this importance in the doctrine of pritityasmutapada or interconnectedness and anataman or the doctrine of no-self. Buddhists agree with Jains and Hindus that suffering is a result of insatiable desire and ignorance, but define this differently. On both Hindu and Buddhist accounts, the source of suffering is an overattachment to the self of everyday life as being ultimately real; the reason for unending desire is due to a clinging to one’s bodily identity, wealth, status, and the like, as constituting one’s true, separate, and permanent identity. On the Hindu account, this self is an illusion, one’s real self is the atman. On the Buddhist account, the self of ordinary existence too is unreal, but there is nothing which underlies this everyday self; there is no atman; there is no self. Ultimately, the self of ordinary existence is simply an aggregation of physical, mental, perceptual, and volitional processes and the processes of consciousness. There is nothing over and above these that we can call a self, as there is no river over and above the flowing of water. Indeed, existence is a continual process of change that is the result of the interaction of various such processes; this is the doctrine of pratityasmutpada.

Ahimsa

Whatever exists, or arises, does so because it is causally dependent on various other conditions, which are themselves dependent on other conditions. That is, nothing exists in and of itself, everything is interconnected. The reason for violence and harm is because one thinks of oneself as a separate and permanent individual, clinging to one’s ego in order to gain advantage over the other. Virtues such as ahimsa help one to realize that there is no separate or permanent self; what one does to the other, one does to oneself, as all are interconnected in the web of life. The principle of ahimsa in the Buddhist context is also interpreted as refraining from harm in all its variances, ranging from the practice of not killing animals, to right speech (not engaging in slander), and right livelihood (not making weapons, poisons, slavery, or prostitution, among others).

Ahimsa as a Social and Political Value Ahimsa developed from being a personal and individual practice to a social and political value with the Indian emperor Ashoka (274–232 BCE). After having engaged in many wars and conquests, Ashoka is said to have realized the futility of violence and converted to Buddhism. But far from using the practice of ahimsa as simply a personal means to seek enlightenment, Ashoka enacted government laws to establish a nonviolent social order. For example, many of Ashoka’s edicts, carved on rock pillars throughout various parts of India (which are still standing), decree laws for the protection and kind treatment of animals. These laws restrict meat eating and hunting; Ashoka went as far as to establish hospitals for animals. Interestingly, Akbar (1542–1605), the Muslim ruler of India, was influenced by Jainism and also enacted several laws for the protection of animals on a societal level.

Gandhi and the Politics of Ahimsa The modern interpretation of ahimsa as nonviolent civil disobedience originates from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948). Gandhi’s struggle for swaraj or self-rule for India was grounded in the idea of satyagraha or truth force, which Gandhi equated with nonviolent non-cooperation in the context of oppressive and unjust laws. Indeed, Gandhi successfully used mass nonviolent civil disobedience campaigns to free India from the yoke of British imperialism. Gandhi did not accept the individualistic interpretation of ahimsa sometimes offered in the Indian tradition; to the objection that nonviolence has no place in politics, he argued that he had “no use” for the concept as simply “a means to individual salvation,” but rather, saw it as an active form of protest against social injustice

A

(UNESCO, 1948). As such, Gandhi argued that ahimsa was intimately related to the social, economic, and political domain (Collected Works, XXI, 290). He argued that ahimsa required that each have proper shelter, a balanced diet, and clothing. Furthermore, Gandhi contended that “true economics” could not be separated from ahimsa and stood for social justice and promoted “the good of all equally, including the weakest” (Tahtinen 1976). Moreover, Gandhi criticized practices such as untouchability and the caste system, and the oppression of women, on the basis of ahimsa and the Hindu idea that each has the same atman as any other, thus providing an internal justification to Hinduism for social and political equality. Although Gandhi’s interpretation of ahimsa was rooted in the Indian tradition, his conception was also influenced by Christianity and thinkers such as Tolstoy and Thoreau. Gandhi interpreted ahimsa positively and urged that the essence of ahimsa was “compassion” and “love in action.” Without compassion, there could be no real concern for the other, which is the reason to not harm in the first place. Compassion and love require identification with the other; they require an understanding that the other’s suffering is like one’s own. Rather than seeing the other as a separate and isolated individual whose interests are in potential conflict with one’s own, compassion requires seeing the other as kith and kin. For Gandhi, this teaching was universal and apparent in all great spiritual and religious traditions of the world. He thus argued that it was only in the narrow or passive sense that ahimsa meant to refrain from harming others; in the broad and active sense, it meant a positive duty to help those in need (Collected works, XIII, 295; see also Parekh 1988). Along these lines, Gandhi identified the purpose of nonviolent disobedience with transformation of the self and one’s oppressor. It transforms the self because it requires one to exercise compassion and patience to suffer possible violence at the hands of the oppressor for the justice of one’s cause. It requires courage because the ideal is to actively confront one’s oppressor and never to yield to injustice. Nonviolent non-cooperation attempted to transform both the heart and mind of the oppressor. Although nonviolence was the highest form of dharma for Gandhi, he believed that violent resistance could be used, if necessary, as a last resort. Gandhi directly influenced Martin Luther King and the American civil rights movement. King first used nonviolent disobedience in the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott, and successfully initiated change against discriminatory laws in the United States. It was also employed against the USSR by Poland, and the abolishment of Apartheid in South Africa, in Yugoslavia, and various

25

A

26

A

Aid to Burdened Societies

current ecological movements around the globe. Ahimsa as a political tool employed in solidarity within a country or across the world to fight against injustice and oppression has changed the trajectory of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Animal Rights ▶ Civil Rights ▶ Colonialism ▶ Dispute Resolution ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Gandhi, Mahatma ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Justice and Religion: Buddhism ▶ Justice and Religion: Christianity ▶ Justice and Religion: Hinduism ▶ King, Martin Luther, Jr. ▶ Violence

References Chapple ChK (1993) Nonviolence to animals, earth, and self in Asian traditions. State University of New York Press, New York Ghandi M (1969a) Collected works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol XXXV. Government of India, New Delhi Ghandi M (1969b) Collected works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol XIII. Government of India, New Delhi Gandhi MK (1927) An autobiography or the story of my experiments with the truth (trans: Desai M). Penguin Books, New York Gandhi MK, Kripalani K (1958) All men are brothers: life and thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi as told in his own words. UNESCO, New York Jaini P (1979) The Jaina path of purification. University of California Press, Berkeley Parekh B (1988) Gandhi’s concept of ahimsa. Alternatives XIII 13:95–217 Radhakrishnan S (trans) (1953/2000) The principal Upanisads. Harper Collins, New Delhi Sargeant W (trans) (1994) The Bhagavad Gita. State University of New York Press, New York Tahtinen U (1976) Ahimsa: non-violence in Indian tradition. Rider, London

Aid to Burdened Societies BLAIN NEUFELD Department of Philosophy, College of Letters and Science, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA

The existence of societies that lack regimes capable of meeting the basic needs of their citizens (often called “failed states”) is a tragic feature of the contemporary world. A fundamental question that any account of global

justice must answer is: what duties, if any, do functioning, reasonably affluent political societies have with respect to such societies? This is one of the questions addressed by John Rawls in his theory of global justice, as presented in The Law of Peoples (1999). Rawls proposes that “wellordered societies” have a duty to aid “burdened societies” so that the latter may become capable of meeting their citizens’ basic needs over time.

Burdened Societies In outlining his account of global justice, Rawls identifies five different kinds of societies: liberal peoples, non-liberal but “decent peoples,” “benevolent absolutisms,” “outlaw states,” and “burdened societies” (“societies burdened by unfavorable conditions”). The first two kinds of societies, liberal and decent peoples, are “well-ordered societies.” This means, roughly, that they each possess a domestic “basic structure” (system of political and economic institutions) that (a) protects basic human rights and (b) is organized by a liberal or decent conception of justice. Liberal and decent peoples are also peaceful in their relations with other societies. “Benevolent absolutisms” respect basic human rights and are nonaggressive in their foreign relations; however, because such regimes do not grant their members any meaningful role in their main political decision-making processes, they are not wellordered societies. “Outlaw states” fail to respect the basic human rights of their members and/or are aggressive in their foreign relations. “Burdened societies” are societies that either are incapable of satisfying their members’ basic human rights or otherwise are incapable of becoming well-ordered liberal or decent peoples. The burdens that afflict such societies can include, inter alia, insufficient material and technological resources, a lack of human capital and knowledge, and an absence of a political culture capable of protecting basic human rights and/or supporting liberal or decent political institutions and practices.

Duty of Aid to Burdened Societies The eighth principle of Rawls’s Law of Peoples asserts that liberal and decent peoples have a duty to assist burdened societies to become capable of being well-ordered societies. Once the society in question is no longer burdened, the duty of assistance has been fulfilled. Thus, the duty of assistance – unlike many proposed principles of international distributive justice, including a globalized version of Rawls’s “difference principle” – has a “target” and a “cut-off point.” Formerly burdened societies, once they become liberal or decent peoples, can be considered equal members in the “Society of Peoples.”

Aid to Burdened Societies

The duty of assistance does not require simply the direct provision of funds to burdened societies. Instead, aid typically will involve the provision of advice and technical support – including, importantly, education and training – in order to assist the recipient society in institution building. Members of a burdened society are to be assisted in acquiring the political culture (skills, practices, virtues, and so forth) and institutions (political, legal, and economic) necessary for them to be capable of governing themselves as a well-ordered society. In addition to the duty of assistance, well-ordered societies also have a duty to aid burdened societies in satisfying the human right to subsistence. Satisfying this duty involves, inter alia, helping burdened societies ensure that their members have access to potable water and adequate nutrition.

Debate over Rawls’s Account of Aid to Burdened Societies Thomas Pogge has advanced a number of criticisms of Rawls’s account of burdened societies and associated duty of assistance. One criticism is that the duty of assistance cannot be justified via the two international “original positions” that Rawls employs in The Law of Peoples. In the first international original position, only liberal peoples are represented, and they select the eight principles of the Law of Peoples. Decent peoples are included in a second international original position in order to ensure that the Law of Peoples is acceptable to them, which Rawls thinks is required by liberalism’s principle of toleration. Since the parties in the international original positions are purely “rational” (i.e., concerned exclusively with protecting the interests of the peoples whom they represent; the “veil of ignorance” models the fairness or “reasonableness” of peoples), Pogge argues that they have no reason to select a duty to aid societies that are not represented, including burdened societies. Thus, the duty of assistance lacks justification. This failure reflects a deeper problem with Rawls’s Law of Peoples, Pogge maintains, namely, its use of peoples as the primary subjects of principles of global justice rather than individuals. According to Pogge, a satisfactory account of global justice must take individuals to be its primary subjects. Some defenders of Rawls’s duty of assistance have proposed that the parties in the international original positions would select the duty of assistance for prudential reasons. Burdened societies can impose great costs on other societies: They can became havens for criminal or terrorist organizations, they are prone to becoming “outlaw states,” and their members frequently become refugees

A

that try to enter well-ordered societies. Thus, the duty of assistance can be understood as justified on prudential grounds: It helps protect well-ordered societies against these problems. Other justifications for the duty of assistance have been advanced, including justifications that appeal to moral, as opposed to prudential, considerations. Nonetheless, Rawls’s account of the duty of assistance seems to lack a clear justification. Rawls concedes in The Law of Peoples that its basis is less firm than the other seven principles of his account of global justice. Another criticism of Rawls’s account of burdened societies and the duty of assistance that has been pressed by Pogge is that the duty presupposes what Pogge calls “explanatory nationalism” (also referred to by Pogge as the “Purely Domestic Poverty Thesis”). Explanatory nationalism, roughly, is the view that a society’s level of wealth is to be explained by internal or domestic factors, such as a society’s political culture and/or institutions. Pogge maintains that explanatory nationalism neglects the important role that external factors – including especially features of the international economic order – play in determining whether a society is burdened. Among the features of the existing international order that Pogge claims are especially deleterious in their effects on the economic and political health of developing countries are the various “privileges” that it extends to whatever group exercises effective power in a country, irrespective of how it came to power. One such privilege is what Pogge calls the “international resource privilege.” (Other “international privileges” discussed by Pogge include the borrowing and treaty privileges.) Existing international practice confers upon any group that exercises effective power in a country the right to sell that country’s resources and to dispose of the proceeds of such sales as they see fit. The international resource privilege thus gives rise to what is known as the “resource curse”: Countries blessed with abundant natural resources are more likely to be cursed with a lack of economic and political development. One reason for this is that the international resource privilege enables authoritarian regimes to maintain power (as they can sell their country’s natural resources to pay for arms, mercenaries, and so forth). The international resource privilege also can give rise to political instability by encouraging coup attempts and civil wars (as the prospect of controlling a country’s natural resources serves as an incentive for different groups to attempt to seize power). Many resource-rich countries consequently are plagued by political oppression, corruption, civil conflict, and poor economic performance. Pogge concludes that the international resource privilege, which is a feature of the international economic order, helps show that explanatory

27

A

28

A

Aid to Burdened Societies

nationalism is incorrect – nondomestic factors often significantly influence or determine the political and economic fate of a country. A satisfactory account of global justice, according to Pogge, must take into account such features of the international economic order. Pogge’s argument, however, focuses on the current international system, not Rawls’s “realistic utopia” of a just Society of Peoples. The practices discussed by Pogge clearly seem to violate the Law of Peoples. If existing wealthy societies actually were well-ordered peoples, they would respect the eight principles of the Law of Peoples, including the first principle (the duty to respect the freedom and independence of other peoples) and the eighth principle (the duty of assistance). Insofar as the international resource privilege undermines the freedom and independence of many societies, and in fact prevents some societies from becoming capable of being wellordered societies (by facilitating authoritarianism, civil conflict, and so forth), then the international resource privilege, as it exists today, is incompatible with the Law of Peoples. (Similar arguments can be made, mutatis mutandis, with respect to many, if not all, of the other aspects of the existing international economic order discussed by Pogge.) Moreover, Rawls notes (albeit only briefly) that peoples would agree to implement “fair standards of trade” in their relations with each other. Despite these replies (which Pogge acknowledges, but finds ultimately inadequate or incomplete), Pogge argues that the Law of Peoples, by providing “interactional” instead of “institutional” principles, cannot adequately address issues of injustice that invariably emerge in the larger international institutional context in which societies exist and interact, including inevitable power disparities between societies. In contrast, Pogge emphasizes that Rawls’s domestic theory of justice, by providing “institutional” principles to regulate the domestic basic structure of a society, prevents any member of that society from being vulnerable to the decisions of other particular members of that society. According to Pogge, then, a plausible account of global justice must similarly be institutional, not interactional, in nature. Matthias Risse has defended Rawls’s account of burdened societies and the duty of assistance by defending what he calls the “institutional view” (or “institutional stance”). According to this view, a country’s level of prosperity depends primarily on the quality of its institutions. Other factors, such as a country’s level of integration into the global economy, have an impact on a country’s prosperity primarily through their impact on that country’s institutions. According to the institutional view, the existence of a stable property rights regime, the

rule of law, independent courts, and regulatory structures to minimize corruption is important in facilitating economic growth. Also important are less formal features of a society’s institutional structure, such as the existence of social trust and cooperation, and the health of civil society in general. Risse argues that the institutional view helps justify Rawls’s duty of assistance, and in particular, its focus on helping burdened societies become capable of being well-ordered societies. Moreover, according to Risse, this justification for the duty of assistance is not vulnerable to Pogge’s criticisms of explanatory nationalism. The institutional view asserts that a country’s institutions are the primary determinants of that country’s economic condition; this claim is compatible with acknowledging the role played by the international economic order in affecting or shaping the institutional structure of that country. Thus to the extent that the international economic order helps cause bad institutions (authoritarian regimes, civil war, and so forth), this must be taken into account when determining the content of the duty of assistance in particular cases. Other defenses of the duty of assistance as the appropriate distributive principle of global justice have been advanced. For instance, Rawls and some sympathetic commentators have claimed that more demanding principles of global distributive justice would be incompatible with the ideal of national self-determination. In contrast, the duty of assistance simply ensures that all peoples are capable of being genuinely self-determining. Another line of defense emphasizes that Rawls’s project in The Law of Peoples is to outline principles of global justice for a “realistic utopia.” Any principle of global distributive justice more demanding than the duty of assistance simply is unrealistic. This is especially the case given the existing global public political culture. Because Rawls’s Law of Peoples is a “political” conception of justice, it is constructed in terms of political ideas found within the global public political culture. A political conception of global justice therefore faces a justificatory constraint that precludes a principle of global distributive justice more demanding than the duty of assistance. These defenses of Rawls’s account of burdened societies and the duty of assistance have been challenged. It may be the case, for instance, that not all principles of global distributive justice more demanding than the duty of assistance are incompatible with the ideal of national self-determination. The claim that the duty of assistance is more feasible than all rival principles of global distributive justice also has been disputed. Given that Rawls himself concedes that the basis of the duty of assistance is not

Ake, Claude

especially firm, in light of the global public political culture, it is not clear that all alternative principles fare worse. Other important criticisms and defenses of Rawls’s account of burdened societies and the duty to aid such societies have been advanced in recent years. Many of these debates reflect the broader and more fundamental debate between advocates of “cosmopolitan” theories of global justice and defenders of Rawls’s Law of Peoples.

A

Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Reidy D (2007) A just global economy: in defense of Rawls. J Ethics 11:193–236 Risse M (2005) What we owe to the global poor. J Ethics 9:81–117 Tasioulas J (2005) Global justice without end? In: Barry C, Pogge T (eds) Global institutions and responsibilities. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 3–28 Wenar L (2006) Why Rawls is not a cosmopolitan egalitarian. In: Martin R, Reidy D (eds) Rawls’s law of peoples: a realistic utopia? Blackwell, Oxford, pp 95–113

Conclusion Although among prominent contemporary theories of global justice the duty of assistance is widely judged to be a comparatively “modest” principle, even critics acknowledge that realizing it would require existing wealthy societies to do far more than they presently do in order to aid burdened societies. A world in which wealthy societies fulfilled their duties of aid to burdened societies would be a radically different one from the world in which we live today. Critics and defenders of Rawls’s Law of Peoples disagree, however, over whether the universal realization of the duty of assistance would be sufficient for a distributively just world.

Related Topics

▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Nationalism, Explanatory ▶ Original Position ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Political Liberalism ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Realistic Utopia ▶ Resource Curse ▶ Second Original Position

References Armstrong C (2009) Defending the duty of assistance? Soc Theory Pract 35:461–482 Freeman S (2007) The law of peoples, social cooperation, human rights, and distributive justice. In: Freeman S (ed) Justice and the social contract: essays on Rawlsian political philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 259–295 Heath J (2007) Rawls on global distributive justice: a defence. In: Weinstock D (ed) Global justice, global institutions, vol 31, Canadian Journal of Philosophy. University of Calgary Press, Lethbridge, pp 193–226 Pogge T (2004) “Assisting” the global poor. In: Chatterjee DK (ed) The ethics of assistance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 260–288 Pogge T (2006) Do Rawls’s two theories of justice fit together? In: Martin R, Reidy D (eds) Rawls’s law of peoples: a realistic utopia? Blackwell, Oxford, pp 206–225

Ake, Claude NKIRUKA AHIAUZU Department of Law & Criminology, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, UK

Claude Ake was a leading African political scientist and activist born in Nigeria whose highly significant and influential work on African political economy spanned over twenty years. His views on democracy, development, and rights widely influenced the development of social science in Africa as it is today. Ake critiqued the theory of development arguing that oppressed persons require a social science that fosters self-determination. He saw Western conceptions of social science as bearing capitalist structures which are themselves developmentally restrictive. This ushered several critiques on Eurocentric foundations of Western social science in favor of more African conceptions that, as Ake’s work did, emphasized a focus on the welfare of the average African, interpreting development from this standpoint. He suggested a dialectical materialist method as a more adequate approach for evaluating African political economy, identifying disarticulation and monetization as critical concepts of analysis both of which he saw as vestiges of colonization that should be addressed for any significant development to occur. Ake outlined necessary attributes of an adequate conception of democracy for Africa as being one in which persons possess influential decision-making power, fosters practical sociopolitical and economic rights, one where collective as opposed to individual rights are the basis of policies and programs, and which possesses the feature of incorporation. He also had an active political and activist life, being significantly involved in the formation of a political party (the Peoples Solidarity Party) that along with other parties was abolished by the military regime at the time. This represented much of the nature of his engagement with the regimes, an instance of

29

A

30

A

al Qaeda

which was his highly publicized resignation from a Shell oil-related commission (the Steering Committee of the Niger Delta Environmental Survey) which he had been reluctant to be involved with, but did so on the persuasion of environmental activist and friend Ken Saro-Wiwa whose execution by the Sani Abacha military regime led to his resignation in protest. Ake was part of a second generation of thinkers along with Walter Rodney, Samora Machel, and Amilcar Cabral that emerged in the 1970s, similar to those referred to as the “philosopher-kings” such as Nyerere, Nkrumah, and Senghor whose thinking not only shaped African thought but inspired significant sociopolitical waves. Ake however saw independence leaders such as Kenyatta and Nkrumah as erring in their employment of the western development model of focusing on national wealth and not the welfare of the people. His controversial but widely received views and criticism of the role of the elite class and government in what he referred to as the “democratization of the disempowerment” of lower classes imported a useful radical and critical consciousness in the assessment of issues of African development which, though partly drawing from Marxist thinking, deviated from it to the extent of the existence of inadequate Eurocentric teleological elements of analysis. Ake held several reputable positions in Nigeria, across Africa and internationally and at the time of his death was visiting professor at Yale. He also founded the Centre for Advanced Social Science in Port Harcourt (Nigeria) that continues to be a think tank for African political economy. His death in 1996 in a plane crash in Nigeria sparked off some suspicions of its link with his activism. Ake’s work continues to influence thinking on African development and political economy generally both within Africa and internationally, providing a valuable perspective to the discourse on development ethics and global justice.

Related Topics

▶ African Development Bank ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ Political Economy ▶ Sustainable Development

References Ahiauzu N (2008) Naming struggles: African ideologies and the law. Afr J Leg Theory 1:24 Ake C (1967) A theory of political integration. Dorsey, Homewood Ake C (1978) Revolutionary pressures in Africa. Zed Books, London Ake C (1979) Social science as imperialism: a theory of political development. Ibadan University Press, Ibadan Ake C (1981) A political economy of Africa. Longman, London Ake C (1985) A political economy of Nigeria. Longman, London

Ake C (1989) The political economy of crisis and underdevelopment in Africa: selected works of Claude Ake. Jad, Lagos Ake C (1992) The new world order: a view from the south. Malthouse, Lagos Ake C (1994) Democratization of disempowerment in Africa. Malthouse, Lagos Ake C (1996a) The marginalization of Africa: notes on a productive confusion. Malthouse, Lagos Ake C (1996b) Democracy and development in Africa. Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC Ake C (1996c) The marginalisation of Africa: notes on a productive confusion. Malthouse, Lagos Ake C (1996d) Is Africa democratizing? Malthouse, Lagos Ake C (1996e) The social sciences in Africa: trends, tasks and challenges. Malthouse, Lagos Ake C (2005) The feasibility of democracy in Africa. Codesria, Dakar Kelly H (2005) Still relevant: Claude Ake’s challenge to mainstream discourse on African politics and development. J Third World Stud 22(2):73–88 Mwalilino W (2000) An interview with Claude Ake. West Afr Rev 2(1):3

al Qaeda ▶ Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ▶ Punishment ▶ Terrorism ▶ War Against Terrorism

Alterglobalization ARUN KUMAR POKHREL Department of English, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

Alterglobalization (also known as “alternative globalization,” alter-mundialization – from the French “altermondialisme” – or the global justice movement) refers to various social movements that seek global cooperation and interaction to resist the negative social, political, economic, and environmental impacts of the contemporary neoliberal globalization. Globalization, as a late stage of capitalism, has brought many profound social changes, but at the same time, it is believed to bring many negative impacts to a society, such as a broadening gap between the rich and the poor, environmental destruction, and the escalation of civil and international conflicts. While trying to contest, interrogate, and reverse the destructive aspects of neoliberal globalization, the alterglobalization movement advocates alternative forms of globalization based

Alterglobalization

on values of democracy, global and social justice, environmental protection, and human rights rather than purely economic concerns. Hence, social struggles from different parts of the world forge an alliance to provide a workable global alternative (“Another world is possible”) to the Washington Consensus, urging various governments and peoples to implement a participatory governance system and to promote a global public sphere via social networks. Since alterglobalization is an offshoot of globalization, it is closely interlinked with various aspects of globalization, encompassing social, cultural, political, technological, and economic issues (Jameson 2000). Globalization, in the past few decades, has become a common cultural grammar in Western academia, so there is a huge body of literature written about globalization and antiglobalization processes in general (Hardt and Negri 2000; Held and McGrew 2007; Hirst and Thompson 1996; Robertson 1992; Scholte 2005). In it, the antiglobalization movement is often seen as completely opposed to globalization, rejecting any form of globalization, although most antiglobalists argue that they oppose corporate globalization, imposed by the industrialized countries and large multinational corporations. This is why many within this movement started to call themselves “alterglobalists”. They saw themselves as “reformists” or “transformists,” thus advocating new forms of globalization (Scholte 2005). In spite of the fact that there are some disagreements between them, the major concern of both antiglobalists and alterglobalists is the advocacy of global justice at multiple levels – social, political, environmental, human rights, and economic, to mention only a few. Hence, both of them aim at achieving justice in different ways, but it would be misleading to say that all alterglobalists agree on the same issues, including the issue of global justice. There are subtle differences among themselves as well. Unlike proponents of antiglobalization, alterglobalists have begun to formulate a language to theorize not just negative impacts but also the ways in which neoliberal globalization might be resisted and transformed. Alterglobalization seeks to harness possibilities of globalization, bringing positive changes to a society while acknowledging challenges the process of globalization entails. Such possibilities, according to Jan Aart Scholte, include: technological and organizational developments, critical public awareness of global problems, and global solidarities among people, among other things. While some alterglobalists are in favor of social reforms, others insist on the need for a complete structural change. Most alterglobalists, nonetheless, perceive neoliberalism as a root problem, which, in their view, fosters unbridled corporate capitalism and consolidates the power of the

A

privileged few. Hence, they point out the need of rearticulation of the social, political, and economic dynamics of globalization in more democratic ways, which may lead to new developments, such as “democracy from below” (Dallmayr 1999), “grassroots globalization” or “globalization from below” (Appadurai 2000), “global civil society” (Germain and Kenny 2005; Holton 2005), “cosmopolitanism” (Robbins 1999; Beck and Sznaider 2006), and “global governance” (Held 2007). And it is this rearticulation of various global dynamics which may help empower the poor and powerless. Also described as the “movement of movements,” al[t] erglobalization is a multiplicative form of resistance – social, political, ecological – against neoliberal globalization and is believed to have gained momentum with the first World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre in 2001. The WSF came into being as a reaction to the meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, where business leaders, economists, experts, and political leaders from the developed countries met annually since its establishment in 1971. The dissidents of the annual WEF meeting in Davos started preparing for an antiDavos summit and launched the WSF in June 2000 at the Alternative Social Summit in Geneva, coinciding with the United Nations Assembly on Social Development. Designed to bring together diverse social movements, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and civil societies opposed to neoliberalism, the WSF was conceived as an open international forum with a decentralized power structure in which different organizations would coordinate and network with each other in taking concrete actions toward building another world. However, many alterglobalists today argue that resistances to global capitalism have taken on a radically new form since the 1999 Battle of Seattle. In this Battle, more than 30,000 protestors from around the world, representing numerous NGOs, labor unions, student groups, media, and religious groups, hit the streets in Seattle. Seattle thus became the locus of an informal global nexus of diverse people and groups to protest neoliberal economic policies, such as structural adjustments, of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). On the heels of Seattle came the WSF in 2001 in Porto Alegre in Brazil with the slogan “Another World Is Possible!” Other important institutions of alterglobalization include the Independent Media Center (also known as Indymedia), a collectively run online global news network for grassroots coverage, and the Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens (ATTAC), an international organization and network

31

A

32

A

Alterglobalization

in the global justice movement. Like the WSF, these organizations resist neoliberal globalization and work toward social, environmental, and democratic alternatives in the globalization process. But these organizations of alterglobalization did not appear out of thin air: Many critics see them as an outcome of different social movements that emerged in the 1990s and even before, especially since economic restructuring of the early 1970s. In the 1990s, there was a wave of social struggles against neoliberalism as most countries in the global South opened their national economies to world markets and privatized their public enterprises under neoliberal dictates. Intellectuals on the Left thought those struggles represented a wave of new futures for social and global justice, democracy, and emancipation; however, they were made ineffective by the insuperable forces of global capitalism. Hence, the WSF was born as a new social collective arising from the need to re-imagine those social struggles in new global contexts. On the other hand, some theorists like C. Aguiton and Immanuel Wallerstein compare the alterglobalization movement to the “New Left” of 1968 in terms of its origin, principles, and scope. They argue that it would be impossible to imagine this movement in the absence of “old” forms of trade unions and Left parties, or large scale protests such as those in Seattle, Geneva, and many other places. Notwithstanding the residual structures of the “old” forms, they still consider the alterglobalization movement a new movement that demands a dialectic study examining its objective preconditions, genesis, evolution, and its qualitatively new features in their contradictory nature. Yet some alterglobalists view the emergence of the alterglobalization movement in relation to other social movements and to Raymond Williams’ identification of different modes of historicity such as dominant, residual, and emergent cultural practices. The first period – from the nineteenth century to the 1960s – was marked by the emergence and prominence of the workers’ movement. The second phase was shaped by post-WWII economic transformations, which eventually led to the prominence of new social movements that covered a wide range of issues from civil rights to feminism, human rights, and ecology. Finally, the late 1990s marked the emergence of a new phase of global social movements: alterglobalization (de Jong et al. 2005; McDonald 2006). The new shift in historicity, especially the pervasiveness of neoliberal globalization, has thus given rise to a new form of global social movement. In this sense, alterglobalization is relatively a new cultural phenomenon that tries to counter neoliberal globalization.

But what is neoliberalism, anyway? In his book A Brief History of Neoliberalism, David Harvey defines neoliberalism as a theory of political-economic practices, which has been considered a panacea since the 1970s, promoting the individual entrepreneurial freedoms and corporatism characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. Propounded by economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, neoliberalism defends freemarket capitalism based on the principles of deregulation, privatization, and minimization of the state’s role in areas of public importance. Like Harvey, Pierre Bourdieu, in Acts of Resistance (1989), defines neoliberalism as a kind of conservative revolution that reifies and glorifies the reign of the financial markets, promoting unbridled capitalism with no other law than that of maximum profit and introducing modern forms of domination. The main mantra of neoliberalism is thus to maximize profit and accumulate capital, what Harvey calls “accumulation by dispossession.” This process of “accumulation by dispossession” occurs in a numerous ways, but mainly through privatization and corporatization of public properties and institutions. Public services such as health, education, communications, and transportation are privatized under neoliberal dictates. So much so that common property resources, such as water needed daily for the human livelihood is even privatized and made inaccessible to common people. Thus neoliberalism is seen as a new form of domination that has impacted almost every sphere of human life – cultures, economies, politics, education, the media, and business – in contemporary times and prevents people from living a socially just and dignified life. Critics of neoliberal globalization, or what has been alternatively called the Washington Consensus, hold that the governments of developed countries or corporations from those countries make progress at the expense of less-developed countries’ impoverishment. The phrase “Washington Consensus,” originally coined by John Williamson in 1990, in reference to the economic policy advice given by Washington-based international financial institutions such as the IMF and the WB to Latin American countries as of 1989, is now seen as synonymous with neoliberal globalization. So the big international institutions like the IMF, the WB, and the WTO, that regulate global finance and trade, are thought to function not only as engines of exploitation via structural adjustment programs, but also as agents of Western capitalist imperialism, mainly promoting the interests of the United States and Europe. For instance, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement of the WTO allows multinational corporations to patent life-forms or seeds developed by peasants as their private

Alterglobalization

property through slight modification or genetic engineering. The corporations can also patent indigenous knowledge about the beneficial uses of different plants as their private property, which is dubbed “biopiracy.” Hence, neoliberal globalization has created new forms of enclosures and made common people’s lives difficult. Many scholars think that neoliberal globalization resembles earlier forms of colonialism and empire. Naomi Klein coins the term “disaster capitalism” to describe such colonial and imperial forms of global capitalism. Mike Davis explores the geography and culture of the “planet of slums” generated by the economics of global involution. In a similar vein, Arundhati Roy documents the plight of rural people in India who are dispossessed and exploited by successive neoliberal Indian governments. Other scholars, such as Vandana Shiva, Maria Mies, David Harvey, Arturo Escobar, Henry A. Giroux, Arif Dirlik, and others have written extensively on the current neoliberal practices of expropriation of land, life, or natural resources in the global South, which dispossess local people from their lands and resources. According to these alterglobalists, the processes of expropriation have been intensified over the past few decades, whereas Earth’s resources were used cooperatively and sustainably for the most part of human history. Powerful individuals, groups, or corporations have monopolized and expropriated Earth’s land, life, or resources, declaring themselves to be the sole owners of those common properties. In recent times, neoliberal global capitalism, for example, has found a new territory for exploitation, i.e., the environment of the global South. The construction of dams, the rampant use of natural resources, the sale of common land for commercial purposes, and overfishing of the oceans, among other things, have not only deprived the local people’s control over their traditional lands and resources but also led to a massive environmental destruction. As a consequence, there has been an explosion of local resistances throughout the world in the forms of civil wars, insurrection, ethnic rivalries, and religious fundamentalism against global capitalism despite the neoliberal governments’ developmental narratives of modernization and their imperatives of progress to “catch up” with the Western countries. Through these movements, people reclaim and defend their local culture, history, and identity, as well as their rights for autonomy. Such movements, for example, include a wide variety of movements – both nonviolent and violent rebellions – such as the Zapatista Movement (Mexico), Narmada Bachao Andolan (India), the Chipko Movement (India), the Assembly of the Poor (Thailand), Ekta Parishad (India), the Landless Rural

A

Workers’ Movement (Brazil), Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN, Colombia), the Niger Delta movements (Nigeria), and the Green Belt Movement (Kenya), to mention only a few. Although neoliberalism functions differently in different places, the overall implications of these social movements are for promoting grassroots democracy, sustainable development, cultural identity, dignity, equality, and global social justice. One of the noted examples of social struggles resisting neoliberalism that began in the 1990s and that also had a huge influence in the formation of the WSF, Indymedia, ATTAC, and more importantly, the alterglobalization movement itself, is the Zapatista movement. Launched on January 1, 1994 when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect, the Zapatista movement is a local rebellion against neoliberal globalization that has its locus in Chiapas in Southern Mexico. The local struggle for identity and social justice, originating in the local geography and culture of Chiapas, has now become a global dissent representing the subaltern voice. Strongly resisting the systemic social exclusion and exploitation caused by neoliberal policies of successive Mexican governments, the Zapatistas have launched different social campaigns, as well as organized a series of international meetings and public debates on the neoliberal agendas of globalization. The impact of this movement was starkly visible during the 1999 Seattle protest. Interestingly, the Zapatistas have made an exemplary use of cyberspace to mobilize the grassroots movements for social justice in Mexico and around the world. Alterglobalists like Alain Touraine argue that neoliberal globalization has not “dissolved our capacity for political action.” They believe that it is only through collective political action that social justice can be restored. From Seattle to Davos, people engage in popular resistances – the peace movement, the anticorporate globalization movement, the human rights movement, the environmental justice movement – within and across national boundaries, thereby forging new global collectivities against hegemonic forces of neoliberalism. Mobilizing against the destructive aspects of globalization from the perspectives of what they have been and what they are at present, local people from different parts of the world engage in the defense of their particular localities from the perspective of the economic, ecological, and cultural difference that their landscapes, cultures, and economies embody in relation to those of more dominant sectors of society (Escobar 2008). They are collectively taking up the challenge of neoliberalism and reviving both the meaning of resistance and the places where it comes about (Giroux 2008). This is why local movements, more

33

A

34

A

Alterglobalization

generally linked to local identity, environment, culture, and economy in all of their diversity, are now global and are often linked to the various social movements of global justice in some way. In this respect, it is believed that the WSF has played a significant role in turning different social movements into a truly global movement that gathers a wide spectrum of people – citizens, intellectuals, indigenous peoples, farmers, dalits, and NGOs – against neoliberal policies in street demonstrations all over the world, from Bangalore to Seattle and from Porto Alegre to Nairobi. However, the WSF is not free from criticism, ranging from accusations of vague idealism devoid of real-world application, racism, Eurocentrism, and its ineffective decision-making structure (seen by some as too centralized while, ironically, seen by others as too diffuse) (Curran 2007). Such accusations notwithstanding, the WSF remains one of the few established nonhierarchical entities explicitly committed to resistance against social exclusion and other problems brought out by neoliberal globalization (Grzybowski 2006; de Sousa Santos 2006). To conclude, while the processes of neoliberal globalization (enclosures of the commons, industrialization, development, modernity, and modernization) have denied common people’s access to local resources and their autonomy in decision-making processes, the alterglobalization movement advocates “another world” premised on an alternative social logic: social justice, global peace, economic justice, legal equality, individual freedom, mutual respect, environmental sustainability, and democracy. This alternative social logic is essential not only to respect cultural difference but also to help maintain a sense of unity and solidarity among the peoples of marginalized cultures and societies.

Related Topics

▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Eurocentrism ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Justice ▶ Globalization ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Monetary Fund (IMF) ▶ Neoliberalism ▶ Solidarity ▶ World Bank (WB) ▶ World Social Forum ▶ World Trade Organization (WTO) ▶ Zapatistas

References Alexander MJ (2005) Pedagogies of crossing. Duke University Press, Durham Appadurai A (2000) Grassroots globalization and the research imagination. Public Culture 12(1):1–19 Beck U, Sznaider N (2006) Unpacking cosmopolitanism for the social sciences: A research agenda. The British Journal of Sociology 57(1):1–23 Callinicos A (2003) The anti-capitalist movement after Genoa and New York. In: Aronowitz S, Gautney H (eds) Implicating empire: globalization & resistance in the 21st century world order. Basic Books, New York Curran G (2007) Making another world possible? The politics of the World Social Forum. Social Alternative 26(1):7–12 Dallmayr FR (1999) Globalization from below. International Politics 36:321–334 de Jong W, Shaw M, Stammers N (eds) (2005) Global activism, global media. Pluto, Ann Arbor, MI Dirlik A (2006) Introduction: our ways of knowing – and what to do about them. In: Dirlik A (ed) Pedagogies of the global: knowledge in the human interest. Paradigm, Boulder Escobar A (2008) Territories of difference: place, movements, life, redes. Duke University Press, Durham Gautney H (2009) Alterglobalization: protest and organization in the alternative globalization era: NGOs, social movements, and political parties. Palgrave Macmillan, London Germain RD, Kenny M (eds) (2005) The idea of global civil society. Routledge, London Giroux HA (2008) Against the terror of neoliberalism: politics beyond the age of greed. Paradigm, Boulder Grzybowski C (2006) The World Social Forum: reinventing global politics. Global Governance 12(1):7–13 Hardt M, Negri A (2000) Empire. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Harvey D (2005) A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Held D (2007) Reframing global governance: Apocalypse soon or reform. In: McGrew A, Held D (eds) Globalization theory: approaches and controversies. Polity, Cambridge Held D, McGrew A (2007) Globalization/anti-globalization: beyond the great divide, 2nd ed. Polity, Cambridge Hirst P, Thompson G (1996) Globalization in question: the international economy and the possibilities of governance, 2nd ed. Polity, Cambridge Holton R (2005) Making globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, Basingstoke Jameson F (2000) Globalization and political strategy. New Left Review 11(4):49–68 Lindholm C, Zuquete JP (2010) The struggle for the world: liberation movements for the 21st century. Stanford University Press, Stanford McDonald K (2006) Global movements: action and culture. Blackwell, Malden Pleyers G (2010) Alter-globalization: becoming actors in a global age. Polity, Cambridge Robbins B (1999) Feeling global: internationalism in distress. New York University Press, New York Robertson R (1992) Globalisation: social theory and global culture. Sage, London Scholte JA (2005) Globalization: a critical introduction (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan, New York

Altruism World Economic Forum. http://www.weforum.org/en/index.htm. Accessed May 2010 World Social Forum http://www.forumsocialmundial.org. Accessed June 2010

Altruism ROBERT PAUL CHURCHILL Department of Philosophy, Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

The term “altruism” was coined by Auguste Comte in his Syste`me de Politique in 1851 by combining the Latin alter with ui to mean “to this other.” Altruism continues to be widely used in this general sense to refer to promoting the interests of others. Extensive studies have been made of persons who have behaved altruistically, such as rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. Scientists also have made efforts to study altruism, or pro-social behavior, experimentally and have theorized about the evolutionary adaptation of altruistic traits in group members. The implications and associations of altruism for the morality of individual and group behavior appear to be complex. For this reason, further studies of altruism could have important implications for global justice.

Definitions When investigated by social and behavioral scientists, altruism is generally regarded as synonymous with any type of pro-social or other regarding behavior. However, Auguste Comte and popularizers of his work, such as George H. Lewis who introduced the term into English, intended the term to designate a moral concept. In addition, viewing altruism as synonymous with pro-social behavior renders the concept too elastic to be helpful, as behavior described as “altruistic” can easily become confused with self-interested or egoistically motivated behaviors. For instance, we need a term that designates helping behavior motivated by concern for others in contrast to situations in which one is motivated to help others because of an expectation of a reward or benefit. Thus, the term is most accurately used to refer to helping behavior that usually has two additional characteristics: (1) helping the other supplies the primary motive, rather than self-interest and (2) empathy, sympathy, or compassion is often involved so that the altruist takes the interest of the other as his or her own.

A

Studies of Altruism In addition to ethicists and philosophers, research on altruism has been conducted by anthropologists, economists, evolutionary biologists, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists. Niall Scott and Jonathan Seglow (2007) provide a helpful overview and evaluation of the relative contributions of several fields. Many investigators in the behavioral and social sciences have assumed a selfinterested basis for altruism or have attempted to reduce altruism to adaptive advantages such as kin selection. Many economists have attempted to analyze altruism in terms of the dominant rational choice model of individual behavior, and consequently, focus on exchange and reciprocity as did the early anthropological studies of Malinowski and Mauss rather than altruism itself. Theorists working on the biological evolution of altruistic behavior have developed sophisticated explanatory models. One notable attempt by Sober and Wilson (1998) purports to offer a descriptive ethics including altruism. The authors argue for the adaptive advantage of a certain plasticity of motivational factors they describe as “motivational pluralism.” So far, however, biological explanations have very limited explanatory power. They are most persuasive for simple interactions such as those modeled in game theory, but they fail to illuminate the cognitions and emotions that seem to underlie motivations to help others in emergency situations or in other complex social settings. Descriptive, scientific accounts of the origins of altruism and of its actual presence or absence in social settings, no matter how detailed, cannot instruct us on what we ought to do, or as to what kinds of persons we should aspire to be. These questions remain subjects for rational debate in ethics, philosophy, religion, and the humanities. However, inasmuch as increased beneficence, care, and empathy for the plight of others seem necessary for a genuinely human future, it is encouraging that research on a construct known as the altruistic personality suggests that we have the option of cultivating altruism, even if the role of altruism in social life, at least for the near future, remains relatively modest.

The Altruistic Personality A more promising approach to a descriptive, or scientific, understanding of altruism comes from the efforts of psychologists and sociologists in studying the personalities of persons who have acted altruistically, most notably, rescuers of Jews during the Nazi domination of much of Europe. These studies generally analyze personality in terms of “traits,” and examine those circumstances,

35

A

36

A

Altruism

or “states,” in which these altruists acted. The most notable studies of this kind have been conducted by Kristen Monroe (1996), Samuel Oliner and Pearl Oliner (1988), and Pearl Oliner et al. (1992). Such studies strongly suggest that there is an identifiable altruistic personality. Persons with such personalities have a distinctive view of human life and morality, and often are effective in assisting others because reasoning is highly integrated in their motivational responses with emotional identification with the plight of others. Individuals selected for the study of personality traits must be known to have acted in ways observers can agree to have been altruistic. For this reason, it is very difficult to undertake comparative and developmental studies controlling for factors relevant for facilitating or inhibiting motivation. It is far from clear, therefore, whether the incidence of altruistic behavior is likely to remain relatively constant despite social change from peace to war, for example, or whether altruistic behavior might increase or be inhibited or repressed when there are massive violations of human rights or crimes against humanity.

Titmuss’ Classic Study Is it possible that altruistic motivation to act charitably is inversely related in complex ways with market mechanisms? The recent republication of Richard Titmuss’ classic work The Gift Relationship ([1970] 1997) has revived debate over the significance of altruism for public policy and especially cosmopolitanism. In this work, Titmuss offers a powerful defense of the welfare state in which altruistic “gifts” such as blood donations enhance the quality of life. Given Titmuss’ argument some observers have argued that appeals to supposedly more altruistic, or charitable, motives for assisting the distant needy should replace appeals to duties or obligations. Titmuss examined gift relationships, particularly donations of blood to strangers, and found that monetary incentives for blood resulted in a decrease in giving along with a decline in available blood. Titmuss argues from such studies that gift relationships are being driven out by market incentives with a corresponding decrease in the quality of life. Yet, after a careful examination of Titmuss’ argument, Scott and Seglow (2007) expose the ambiguities in Titmuss’ argument between giving behaviors, which are paradigmatically altruistic, and behaviors more properly described as exchanges. Whatever the situation with blood donations, most relationships characterized by Titmuss as giving are actually exchanges based on different motivational grounds. As exchanges imply the potential realization of the agent’s own interest, they may exacerbate

attempts to take advantage of others while excusing one’s behavior as public spirited.

Altruism and Global Justice Philosophers, cosmopolitans, and others concerned with global justice need to give greater attention to altruism. First, the relationships between altruism and moral sentiments such as benevolence, sympathy, care, and generosity require further study. Second, insofar as studies of the altruistic personality suggest the possibility of cultivating altruistic proclivities, philosophers ought to investigate these moral options. It is important to consider which child-rearing practices and social influences might develop proclivities for altruistic behavior in the young, and whether or not these practices are morally defensible (e.g., Churchill 1999). Third, concerns such as those raised by Titmuss about the possible incompatibility between altruism and economic incentives or between altruism and obligation need further investigation. Some altruistic behavior may raise moral complexities. As Scott and Seglow note, in-group altruism, such as the tendency of Americans to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans while not bestowing similar help on victims of genocide in Darfur might be morally suspect because of its prima facie incompatibility with the impartiality demanded by morality. The relationship between altruism and justice, like that between justice and reconciliation, appears complex and not without some tension. Finally, cross-disciplinary research is needed to determine whether altruistic dispositions and behaviors make various types of violence less likely, as in having a preventative or prophylactic effect, or on the contrary, whether altruistic behavior remains relatively dormant until altruists find themselves in unstable and violent or oppressive situations in which their actions can reduce others’ sufferings. As noted in connection with studies of the altruistic personality, so far we have little data indicating how much psychological mechanisms or so-called situational factors such as obedience to authority (e.g., Milgram 1974) or the bystander effect (e.g., Latane´ and Darley 1970), or the spectrum of dehumanizing effects (e.g., Zimbardo 2008) might inhibit motivation and induce obedience or indifference in persons with more altruistic personalities as in other persons more generally. Research on group processes (e.g., Volkan 1998, 2006) suggests that ethnic collectivities may inhibit proclivities to be altruistic. At the same time, however, available evidence strongly suggests that altruistic persons with the vision of “a common humanity,” as identified by Monroe (1996), are likely to be more resilient than most in resisting malevolent or destructive influences.

Amnesty International

Related Topics

▶ Ahimsa ▶ Aid to Burdened Societies ▶ Beneficence, Principle of ▶ Charity ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Impartiality Thesis ▶ Humanitarian Aid ▶ Reciprocity

References Churchill RP (1999) The obligation of parents to raise their children as altruists. In: Houlgate LD (ed) Morals, marriage, and parenthood: an introduction to family ethics. Wadsworth/International Thomson, Belmont/New York Latane´ B, Darley JM (1970) The unresponsive bystander: why doesn’t he help? Appleton-century Crofts, New York Milgram S (1974) Obedience to authority: an experimental view. Harper & Row, New York Monroe KN (1996) The heart of altruism: perceptions of a common humanity. Princeton University Press, Princeton Oliner SP, Oliner PM (1988) The altruistic personality: rescuers of Jews in Nazi Germany. Free Press, New York Oliner PM et al (eds) (1992) Embracing the other: philosophical, psychological, and historical perspectives on altruism. New York University Press, New York Scott N, Seglow J (2007) Altruism. Open University Press, Maidenhead Seglow J (ed) (2004) Altruism and justice. Frank Cass, London Sober E, Wilson DS (1998) Unto others: the evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Titmuss R, Ashton J, Oakley A (1997) The gift relationship: from human blood to social policy. London School of Economics Books, London, 1970 Volkan VD (1998) Bloodlines: from ethnic pride to ethnic terrorism. Basic Books, New York Volkan VD (2006) Killing in the name of identity: a study of bloody conflicts. Pitchstone, Charlottesville Zimbardo P (2008) The Lucifer effect: understanding how good people turn evil. Random House Books, New York

Amnesty International MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Amnesty International is known throughout the world for its relentless education about, and work to secure, human rights for all persons. Amnesty undertakes research and action focused on preventing and ending grave human rights abuses, and works for freedom

A

of conscience, expression, and from discrimination. Amnesty International (also known as “AI”) has fulfilled this mission, on a global scale, without peer. Amnesty is an independent, global movement, primarily funded by membership dues and private donations, with more than three million supporters, more than 2.2 million members, and activists in more than 150 countries. It conducts research and generates action to prevent grave abuses of human rights, and demands justice for those whose rights have been violated. AI works to end violence against women, abolish the death penalty, stop torture, free prisoners of conscience, and protect the rights of refugees and migrants. Amnesty International was founded by a British Lawyer, Peter Benenson, in 1961, the year its first international meeting was held, and the decision was made to start “a permanent international movement in defence of freedom of opinion and religion.” AI began publishing annual reports of human rights abuses and its work to combat such abuse, in 1962. In 1964, the United Nations gave Amnesty consultative status. By 1967, AI had 550 groups working in 18 countries, was working on behalf of nearly 2,000 prisoners in 63 countries, and had secured the release of 293 prisoners. In 1969, UNESCO granted AI consultative status, and 2,000 prisoners had been released. In 1972, Amnesty launched its first worldwide campaign for the abolition of torture; and in 1974 AI’s Sean McBride, Chair of the International Executive Committee, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1975, the U.N. unanimously adopted a Declaration Against Torture, and brought the International Bill of Rights into being. In 1977, Amnesty International itself was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “having contributed to securing the ground for freedom, for justice, and thereby also for peace in the world.” Just a year later, AI won the United Nations Human Rights prize for “outstanding contributions in the field of human rights.” In 1985, AI published its first educational material and made the decision to work for refugees. In 1987, AI published a report claiming that the death penalty was exercised in the USA in a racially biased way, and that it violated treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In 1996, AI launched the campaign for a Permanent International Criminal Court (which came into effect in 2002). In 2001, Amnesty changed its statute of incorporation to include work for “economic, social and cultural rights.” In short, the history of Amnesty International is one of pursuing justice; pushing the United Nations to adopt positions, conventions, and actions toward justice; and pressuring and shaming governments to end injustice. While much remains to be done, it is clear that

37

A

38

A

Anarchy

Amnesty has been successful time and again. AI has been, perhaps, the world leader in the recognition of human rights. Because Amnesty’s goal is to apply pressure where it accomplishes the most, primarily through mobilizing public opinion; AI does not publish reports of human rights abuses in careful correspondence to the locations where they occur. For this reason, it is of note that AI issues reports disproportionately about governments in comparatively democratic and open countries. Moreover, because “large countries influence small countries,” and greater concern about human rights in the global north creates credibility (the impression of evenhandedness) for reports of abuses in the south, such disproportionality is strategic and warranted. Whereas global justice will always need states and international cooperation among them; insofar as nonstate actors are concerned, Amnesty International has proven to be of inestimable value, has saved thousands of lives; and changed the knowledge, perspective, and expectation of millions around the world – such that it is now a common view that human rights exist, and that the violation of them should end.

Related Topics

▶ Cairo Declaration of Human Rights ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Global Justice, Subjects of ▶ High Road for Human Rights ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Rights Watch ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Rights

References Amnesty International (2009) Freedom: stories celebrating the universal declaration of human rights. Broadway, New York Amnesty International (2010a) Amnesty International report: the state of the world’s human rights. Amnesty International Publications, London Amnesty International (2010b) Free?: stories about human rights. Candlewick Press, Somerville Clarke A (2001) Diplomacy of conscience: Amnesty International and changing human rights norms. Princeton University Press, Princeton Hopgood S (2006) Keepers of the flame: understanding Amnesty International. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Power J (2001) Like water on stone: the story of Amnesty International. Northeastern University Press, Boston Ronand J et al (2005) Transnational information politics: NGO human rights reporting, 1986–2000. Int Stud Q 49:557–587

Anarchy MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Anarchy means without rule, authority, or sovereignty (from the Greek anarwος, anarchos). Some international relations theorists, generally known as “realists,” claim that the world is “anarchic,” meaning it is disorderly. This term is thus used in a technical but not literal sense, because, of course, the world is not literally without (any) order. Philosophically and historically, political anarchy, or anarchism, is a broad umbrella term containing many conceptions, forms, schools, and movements, some of which are compatible with others, some which stand in contradiction to others. The one unifying principle of anarchism is the view that there should be no coercive state, nor other coercive forms of authority. Anarchism can be seen to have a long genealogy, stretching back to antiquity in the east and west (for whenever anyone speaks against collective coercive authority, he or she has spoken the anarchist doctrine). Anarchism began to be theorized and argued, however, in modernity, although its “founder” is a matter of dispute. William Godwin’s An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) is the earliest developed theory of anarchism. He argued that governments keep power through misleading and manipulative means, and as people progress in rationality, governments will diminish and ultimately disappear, as they will be unable to have power over the people. Max Stirner’s The Ego and Its Own (1844) argued for a most radical individualism (sometimes called “ego anarchism”). He argued that society does not exist and that individuals should have no limitations placed upon them. This view was later echoed by Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher’s infamous claim that “There is no such thing as society.” Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) split with Marx, fearing the latter’s plans would lead to authoritarianism. He theorized the idea of spontaneous order and the voluntary association and cooperation of individuals (sometimes known as “mutualism”). Mikail (or Michael) Bakunin (1814–1876) was a follower of Proudhon who argued that all private means of ownership should be abolished and that instead property should be collectivized. He too opposed Marx, whom he saw as desiring the transformation, rather than the elimination, of the state. This view is sometimes called “collectivist anarchism.” Bakunin thought such anarchist society would be brought about, in part, through violence, or “propaganda by the deed” (this is

Anarchy

sometimes called “revolutionary socialism”). In his Mutual Aid (1897), Peter Kropotkin sought to provide a scientific foundation for anarchism based on Darwin’s work. He argued that evolutionary progress entailed the development of societies based on self-managing and cooperative communities, where people helped one another in ways that trumped their own self-interests (this is sometimes called “anarchist communism”). The early twentieth century gave rise to “anarcho-syndicalism,” a movement (beginning in France) that held that trade unions (French, syndicates) should replace the state. Anarchism is, almost by definition, fecund, syncretic, and lends itself to multiple expressions, yet there are two basic types. Some anarchists are individualists, and some, extremely so (e.g., Stirner). This kind of anarchism is sometimes called, and is certainly close to, libertarianism. But most anarchists emphasize collective and cooperative association (“social anarchism” is sometimes used to name this wide and varied view). Whereas some anarchists who emphasize individual autonomy may want to be left alone, and hope that others are generally left alone; most anarchists hold convictions about the need to change society, and international institutions and systems for the better. Most anarchists want more equality, freedom, justice, power, and opportunity for all than the status quo allows; and many anarchists and anarchist organizations have worked courageously for such change. Some anarchists have theorized, and/or participated in, violence for the sake of change, but most eschew violence, especially after World War I and the October Revolution of 1917. The violence espoused by Bakunin and others; the assassinations of some heads of state between 1881 and 1914 by those who were, or mistakenly thought to be, anarchists; the May 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago, where an unknown person threw a bomb near the end of an anarchist rally, and in the ensuing panic, several people were killed; and the conduct of some as brick-throwing protestors (as in the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999) have contributed to an unfair characterization of anarchists as typically violent. Because anarchism is quite diverse, and because the great majority seek radical change away from the power of the state (which is seen as a necessary evil at best), and other forms of collective coercive power (e.g., the power of multilateral organizations and multinational corporations), the means anarchists have chosen to pursue global justice have been varied. One instrument is trade unionism and the building of labor’s political power, as in Spain’s Confederacio´n Nacional del Trabojo (National Federation of Labor), the International Workers Association, the Workers Solidarity Alliance in the United States, and

A

the UK Solidarity Federation. Anarchists generally form partnerships with, and support progressive movements, including civil rights, women’s, indigenous peoples’, environmental, post-colonial, and culture-critical movements. Anarchists are, perhaps increasingly, involved in active protests against institutions and organizations of global capital and globalization, and against war. Anarchists have also been at the forefront of the twentieth century “un-schooling,” “de-schooling,” and “free school” movements in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. Whereas organizations such as the International of Anarchist Federations, the International Worker’s Association, and the International Libertarian Society exist, it seems that anarchists mostly collaborate with one another and with non-anarchists on much smaller and local scales, and in a more ad hoc manner than the existence of such organizations would indicate. Anarchism is diverse and eclectic, containing many “schools” or varieties, including Christian, green, feminist, labor, socialist, collectivist, individualist, violent revolutionary, and pacifist manifestations. Anarchists have been as diverse as Leo Tolstoy, Emma Goldman, Jacque Ellul, Paul Goodman, Murray Bookchin, Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Jarach, and John Zerzan. Whereas one, minor, form of anarchism runs close to libertarianism and the radical individualism this implies (a kind of “anarchism for rich people”), most anarchists are moral and political progressives who undertake various means to make global justice a reality. To oppose the coercive power of the state and other large institutions is to invoke and promote the concomitant project of empowering people.

Related Topics

▶ Alterglobalization ▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Disobedience, International ▶ Civil Disobedience, Transnational ▶ Coercion ▶ Collective Responsibility ▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Globalization ▶ Libertarianism ▶ Responsibility, Individual ▶ Self-Determination

References Amster R et al (eds) (2009) Contemporary anarchist studies: an introductory anthology of anarchy in the academy. Routledge, New York Bakunin M (2002) Statism and anarchy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Berkman A (2003) What is anarchism? Phoenix, London

39

A

40

A

Animal Rights

Graham R (ed) (2005) Anarchism: a documentary history of libertarian ideas. Volume one: from anarchy to anarchism (300 CE to 1939). Black Rose, Montreal Graham R (ed) (2009a) Anarchism: a documentary history of libertarian ideas. Volume two: the emergence of the new anarchism (1939–1977). Black Rose, Montreal Graham R (ed) (2009b) Anarchism: a documentary history of libertarian ideas. Volume three: the new anarchism (1974–2008). Black Rose, Montreal Marshall P (2010) Demanding the impossible: a history of anarchism. PM Press, Oakland Miller D (1984) Anarchism. Dent, London Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state and utopia. Blackwell, Oxford Purkis J, Bowen J (eds) (2005) Changing anarchism: anarchist theory and practice in a global age. Manchester University Press, Manchester Russell B (2009) Proposed roads to freedom: socialism, anarchism and syndicalism. Red and Black, St. Petersburg Wolf R (1998) In defense of anarchism. University of California Press, Berkeley

Animal Rights LAWRENCE TORCELLO Department of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA

Issues of egalitarianism, sustainable agriculture, ecology, and biomedical research all meet at the nexus of animal welfare concerns. Therefore, with regard to global justice, issues of animal rights and animal welfare are of growing magnitude. The fact that animal welfare overlaps broadly with many other issues of consequence for global justice should be of no surprise given human culture’s longstanding ties to, and preoccupation with, nonhuman animals. Traditionally, the human relationship to nonhuman animals has been informed by religious doctrine, and typically, with some exceptions, religious milieus have endorsed a human-oriented hierarchy with regard to nonhuman animals. Philosophy, especially in the West, has tended to enforce such systems. Aristotle argued that animals lack rational souls and therefore are outside of the sphere of justice. Rene Descartes famously likened nonhuman animals on the whole to sophisticated automata. Immanuel Kant believed that human beings ought to avoid cruelty to animals, but only as an indirect duty to other human beings, believing that cruelty to nonhuman animals tended to encourage violence against human beings. A notable exception to this trend is JeanJacques Rousseau, who argued that nonhuman animals are subject to natural law by virtue of sentience. In the nineteenth century, some philosophers began to recognize

the more substantial ethical significance of nonhuman animals. Among them, Arthur Schopenhauer recognized animals as fellow sufferers and acknowledged the duty to treat them compassionately. In nineteenth-century philosophy, the most considered defense of animal welfare begins with the rise of Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism. Bentham held that what was morally relevant among human beings was shared by the wider animal kingdom, and specifically that human beings and nonhuman animals alike are driven by nature to seek pleasure and to flee pain. Bentham denied that one could meaningfully distinguish levels of worth between pleasures, with the consequence that the pleasures of human beings and the pleasures of animals must be considered equally relevant in human moral considerations. Bentham famously argued that it is not whether a being can think that makes it worthy of our moral concern, but whether a being can suffer. In so doing, Bentham began the utilitarian tradition of animal welfare. Several attempts were made in England during the nineteenth century to introduce animal welfare legislation in parliament. Most attempts were unsuccessful, with the notable exception of the “Act to Prevent the Cruel and Improper Treatment of Cattle” initially proposed by Colonel Richard Martin and passed in 1822. The legislation, often referred to as “Martin’s Act,” made it a punishable offense to misuse animals defined as cattle under the act. The act was replaced with more expansive acts against animal cruelty in the later part of the nineteenth century. In 1986, the Animal Scientific Procedures Act was passed in the UK, ushering in an age of regulation of animal experimentation and replacing previous animal cruelty legislation.

The Modern Animal Rights Movement The modern animal rights movement is supported by philosophers, legal scholars, and activists around the globe. In its most general sense, the “animal rights” or “animal liberation” movement advocates for the egalitarian moral recognition of nonhuman animals. Members of the animal rights movement differ philosophically, but tend to agree on the following points: ● Nonhuman animals have an important moral status independent of human beings. ● The common tendency among human beings to view nonhuman animals as mere tools for exploitation is morally untenable and rooted in speciesism. ● A change in human practices regarding the use of nonhuman animals in research, food production, clothing, and entertainment is necessary for the achievement of a just world.

Animal Rights

The animal rights movement is notable for its roots in serious philosophical debate and its component parts of legal scholarship and civil activism.

Modern Intellectual Foundations of the Animal Rights Movement The first rumblings of the modern animal rights movement began in Britain during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1967, the animal welfare organization Compassion in World Farming was founded by English dairy farmer Peter Roberts. The organization was created to counteract the 1960s rise and spread of factory farming practices, which entail the rearing and slaughter of large numbers of animals under cruel and inhumane conditions. In 1971, the book Animals, Men, and Morals was published. The book was edited by Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch and John Harris. The work brought together a number of writers who explored the maltreatment of nonhuman animals. One of the contributors to the text was the psychologist Richard Ryder; Ryder is responsible for coining the term “speciesism.” Speciesism can be understood as the attitude or assumption that human beings are innately superior to other sentient species and thus are owed moral considerations not owed to other species. In 1975, Ryder’s book Victims of Science was published. In that book, Ryder identifies and attacks moral abuses associated with animal experimentation.

Animal Liberation and “Rights-Based” Concerns for Animal Welfare As a preference utilitarian, the philosopher Peter Singer posits that all things being equal, morality demands equal consideration of the preferential interests of others, including nonhuman animals. This view grows out of classical utilitarianism, though as Singer suggests, most approaches to morality allow that suffering is crucially significant. In 1975, Singer’s Animal Liberation was published; the work is often referred to as the “bible” of the animal rights movement. Singer argues that in order to ground an egalitarian morality, moral relevance ought to be associated with a being’s capacity to suffer. The capacity to suffer or “sentience” broadly construed is the minimum characteristic necessary to endow living beings with interests. Insofar as Singer suggests that most ethical views hold the capacity to suffer to be morally significant, Animal Liberation is not argued from an explicitly utilitarian point of view, though it is consistent with utilitarianism. Singer argues that meat eating is unjustifiable, morally speaking. Singer is especially critical of animal husbandry practices that create pain and suffering in animal

A

populations and that end with traumatic forms of slaughter. Thus, Singer is a harsh and vigorous critic of modern factory farming. Singer is also critical of animal research as an institution. In Animal Liberation, Singer suggests that researchers should consider whether or not any particular experiment could be justified if it were performed on human beings with the mental capacity of a typical nonhuman, but sentient, test subject. Singer suggests this thought experiment as a test for speciesism, and therefore the failure to take into account equal consideration of interests among all sentient beings. As a consistent utilitarian, Singer does not make use of “rights” as a moral concept, nor does he categorically rule out the possibility that some forms of experimentation on nonhuman animals may be permissible under specific conditions and given particular consequences. Because of Singer’s utilitarian refusal to categorically condemn all forms of nonhuman animal experimentation, he has been criticized by “rights-based” nonhuman animal advocates. Nevertheless, Singer has been among the most successful of animal rights advocates in his efforts to change attitudes and practices impacting animal welfare. In his book The Case for Animal Rights (1985), Tom Regan argues that nonhuman animals live lives of inherent moral value. Regan argues that human beings ascribe rights to each other, as experiencing subjects of life, regardless of mental capacity. While it is true that nonhuman animals are incapable of abstract intellectual feats of rationality, it is also the case that many human beings are incapable of acts of high cognitive ability. Yet we do not consider the life of human beings who lack high levels of rational functioning to be less worthy of moral rights. So too, Regan argues, we ought to recognize that nonhuman animals have moral rights implicitly as subjects of a lived experience. Thus, according to Regan, human beings and nonhuman animals have an equal claim to moral rights, by virtue of their status as subjects-of-a-life. Based on these arguments, Regan calls for the complete cessation of nonhuman animal experimentation, the total abolition of commercial animal agriculture, and the categorical abolition of hunting and trapping. There have been many other philosophical contributions to animal rights literature. Notable recent works include James Rachels’ Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism (1999) and David DeGrazia’s Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status (1996). Also of interest is the work of Martha Nussbaum regarding animal rights and the capabilities approach, as argued in her Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (2006).

41

A

42

A

Animal Rights

Legal Abolitionism Approach The American legal scholar Gary L. Francione argues that nonhuman animals deserve a singular right based on their sentient status; this is the right not to be made into the property of human beings. In Animals, Property, and the Law (1995), Francione argues that as long as nonhuman animals are considered the property or potential property of human beings, “humane” animal welfare laws will carry no significant protection of nonhuman animals. In his book Rain Without Thunder: the Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement (1996), Francione further argues that a distinction must be recognized between “animal rights,” which he associates with an end to the claim that animals are property, and “animal welfare.” According to Francione, animal welfare entails support of more “humane” treatment for nonhuman animals, but because it is sought within the legal and ideological framework that views nonhuman animals as human property, it fails to achieve meaningful change. Francione argues that veganism is the most important vehicle for change regarding animal rights, and that any true animal rights approach is an extension of the global peace movement.

Modern Activism and Advocacy on Behalf of “Nonhuman Persons” The modern animal rights movement has seen the rise of numerous organizations promoting animal welfare and liberation through activism aimed at legislative change and the reform of abusive commercial practices. Notable in terms of activism is the late Henry Spira, who sought to shame institutions responsible for animal cruelty into changing their practices. In 1974, after attending a course at New York University taught by Peter Singer, Spira founded the animal rights advocacy organization, Animal Rights International. In 1976, Spira and his organization were successful in convincing the Museum of Natural History in New York to end experiments being conducted on cats. Most famously, in 1980, Spira influenced the cosmetic company Revlon to discontinue using the Draize test, which involves dripping cosmetic ingredients into an animal’s eye in order to determine toxicity. Spira’s form of activism has been extremely influential on the practices of other animal rights groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The campaigns of animal rights organizations and advocates have resulted in meaningful reform especially under European Union legislation. Such reforms include the following: in 1999, the European Union passed legislation banning the use of battery cages for hens; in 2007, a European Union law banning the use of veal crates came

into effect; a law banning sow stalls will become effective 2013 across the European Union. In the USA, the state of California passed a ballot proposition (Proposition 2) in 2008, which is officially known as the “Standards for Confining Farm Animals Initiative.” The proposition, effective 2015, requires that veal calves, egg-laying hens, and pregnant sows be confined in a way that allows for an increased range of movement. Such animals, according to the bill, must have space to lie down, stand up, stretch their legs fully, and freely turn around. In 2008, Spain passed a rights resolution to extend certain rights (or personhood) to nonhuman great apes. Specifically, the Spanish resolution named the right of nonhuman great apes not to be killed, used in circuses, or experimented upon; Spain’s resolution stems from the efforts of the Great Ape Project (GAP). The Great Ape Project is an advocacy movement consisting of scientists, legal scholars, and philosophers, which campaigns for a United Nations Declaration of Rights for all Great Apes, consistent with the rights currently recognized for homo sapiens. Prominent thinkers involved in the Great Ape Project include Peter Singer, Jane Goodall, and Richard Dawkins. The movement developed out of an anthology of the same name, edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer. Philosophers have also called for a similar reconsideration of the treatment of dolphins. Notably, Thomas White, in his book In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier (2007) explores the ethical implications of scientific findings regarding a level of intelligence in dolphins exceeding that of nonhuman primates.

Related Topics

▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Climate Change ▶ Ecofeminism ▶ Environmental Protection ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Food ▶ Global Warming ▶ Justice and Religion: Buddhism ▶ Justice and Religion: Hinduism ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Pax Natura Foundation ▶ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques ▶ Singer, Peter ▶ Sustainable Development ▶ Utilitarianism ▶ Vegetarianism

Appiah, Kwame Anthony

References Cavalieri P, Singer P (eds) (1993) The great ape project: equality beyond humanity. Fourth Estate, London DeGrazia D (1996) Taking animals seriously: mental life and moral status. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge DeGrazia D (2002) Animal rights: a very short introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford Francione G (1995) Animals, property and the law. Temple University Press, Philadelphia Nussbaum M (2006) Frontiers of justice: disability, nationality, species membership. The Belknap Press, Cambridge Rachels J (1999) Created from animals: the moral implications of Darwinism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Regan T (1985) The case for animal rights. University of California Press, Berkley Regan T, Singer P (1976) Animal rights and human obligations. Prentice Hall, New Jersey Singer P (1975) Animal liberation. Random House, New York Singer P (1999) Ethics into action: Henry Spira and the animal rights movement. Rowman and Littlefield, Maryland Singer P, Mason J (1993) The way we eat: why are food choices matter. Rodale, New York

Anti-Globalization Movements ▶ Alterglobalization ▶ Ecofeminism ▶ Shiva, Vandana

Appiah, Kwame Anthony COREY MCCALL Department of Philosophy and Religion, Elmira College, Elmira, NY, USA

In his wide-ranging writings, Kwame Anthony Appiah has tackled a variety of philosophical topics in issues such as the philosophy of language and logic, experimental philosophy, and ethics and political philosophy. With respect to ethics and political philosophy, Appiah begins to articulate a view of embedded cosmopolitanism in his 2005 book The Ethics of Identity and proceeds to fully develop this concept in Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2007). In developing this concept of rooted cosmopolitanism, Appiah begins from his own personal experience. In other words, Appiah’s cosmopolitanism begins with ethical concerns rather than political ones. Raised in Ghana by a Ghanaian father and an English mother, his experience

A

could not but be cosmopolitan. He introduces his chapter “Rooted Cosmopolitanism” with an account of his father’s admonition that, no matter where they should choose to live they “should endeavor to leave that place ‘better than you found it.’ ‘Deep inside of me,’ [his father] went on, ‘is a great love for mankind and an abiding desire to see mankind, under God, fulfill its highest destiny’” (Appiah 2005). Appiah’s father does more than voice an admirable sentiment, for the context of his advice to him raises the apparent contradiction inherent in all cosmopolitan claims, i.e., in all claims that one ought to be a citizen of the world. Individuals are not citizens of the world – they are from a particular place and they are rooted in that place. Each individual has certain obligations made by those closest to her, family and dear friends. The universalistic impulse that forms the basis of cosmopolitanism would seem to deny or at least undermine the connections represented by these obligations. Certainly any notion of embedded or rooted cosmopolitanism would seem contradictory. Appiah begins with this apparent contradiction. While individuals may object to cosmopolitanism due to its denial of tribalism and particular group identities, a closely related objection sees the cosmopolitan claim as masking an imperialist agenda that mistakes universalism for Western norms, seen either as an unattainable ideal or as an attainable but objectionable one (Appiah 2005). Appiah hopes that his conception of rooted cosmopolitanism will address both of these concerns. To the first, he would argue that his is manifestly not a political cosmopolitanism, for it is first and foremost an ethical cosmopolitanism. Perhaps the demands of political cosmopolitanism are too stringent, and, even if they are not, we need to begin by cultivating the individual connections we have in common: conversations rather than political institutions and legal strictures – we must begin from where we are. His partial cosmopolitanism seeks a middle way between the Scylla of nationalism (and the xenophobia and rejection of the other this position often entails) and the Charybdis of the sort of political cosmopolitanism that seeks to reject the nation and its particularism in favor of a world state or its equivalent. The rooted cosmopolitan operates under the assumption that every individual matters regardless of his or her relationship to any other, an assumption that certainly does not forsake the obligations we have to those near and dear to us in favor of claims of strangers. But things become difficult when we begin to analyze these obligations to strangers we will never know. Do we have an obligation, as philosophers Peter Singer and Peter Unger argue, to give all our disposable income to insure

43

A

44

A

Arendt, Hannah

adequate food and clothing to needy children? Appiah takes up this question in the concluding chapter of Cosmopolitanism, “Kindness to Strangers.” Rather than advocating Singer’s radical position that urges those of means in the West to help others financially by contributing all their disposable income to reputable charities that will assist those in need, Appiah takes a more moderate position that states that those with the means to help others ought to do so provided it won’t cost one unduly, a position he dubs the “emergency principle” (Appiah 2007). Similar to his attempt to mediate between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, Appiah seeks a moderate position between Singer’s position and one that would deny our obligations to strangers. The emergency principle acknowledges the dignity that ought to be afforded each individual and the basic rights that accrue to her as a result, but then poses a much more difficult question: how are we to best ensure that these basic rights are acknowledged and enforced? More specifically, how are we to ensure that beyond bare needs (for food, shelter, education), people can opt for things that will enhance their lives, such as expressing ideas, exercising imagination and choosing to have children? (Appiah 2007: 163). Singer and Unger focus on meeting basic needs through financial obligations, but the past 30 years have shown us that simply meeting financial obligations often is insufficient: throwing money at the problem does not make it go away (Appiah points out that during this period, per capita income in the poorest nations has in fact decreased). Cosmopolitans need to focus more on creative solutions to the difficult problems we face when it comes to global poverty and inequality, solutions tailored to specific problems and situations. The nation-state will thus remain the locus for these solutions, rather than a global state (cf. Appiah 2007: 163). Each of us has an obligation to do our fair share to help our fellow humans in need, but to simply define fairness in terms of financial obligations neglects other possibilities that will ensure that individuals not only have their basic needs met but have the option to live fulfilling lives of their own. Furthermore, a world in which individuals simply sought to “alleviate diarrhea in the Third World and never on a ticket to the opera (or a donation to a local theater company, gallery, symphony orchestra, library, or what have you)” would likely be a “drab and dreary place” (Appiah 2007: 166). Appiah’s rooted cosmopolitanism does an excellent job of reminding readers of the ethical and cultural dimensions of cosmopolitanism that are equally as difficult as the political questions raised by other theorists of cosmopolitanism such as Ju¨rgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib, and Thomas Pogge.

Related Topics

▶ Communities ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Global Justice ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Singer, Peter

References Appiah KA (2005) The ethics of identity. Princeton University Press, Princeton Appiah KA (2007) Cosmopolitanism: ethics in a world of strangers. W.W. Norton, New York Benhabib S (2006) Another cosmopolitanism (Berkeley Tanner Lectures). Oxford University Press, New York Habermas J (2001) The postnational constellation: political essays. MIT Press, Cambridge Pogge Th (2002) World poverty and human rights: cosmopolitan responsibilities and reforms. Polity, Cambridge Singer P (1972) Famine, affluence and morality. Philos Public Aff 1(spring):229–243

Arendt, Hannah WILLIAM W. CLOHESY Department of Philosophy and World Religions, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, USA

Hannah Arendt describes the plight of refugees displaced by ethnic tensions after World War I in her examination of totalitarianism’s origins. Her discussion of refugees remains a timely problem of global justice today. By definition, refugees have fled from or been expelled by their own governments; so, homeless, they seek protection due to their human rights from whatever states are willing, however reluctantly, to admit them. Refugees’ plight is an international problem of justice, for their home states refuse, and their host states are willing or able to give them only limited justice and protection. This is a global problem as well for it arises repeatedly, painfully throughout the world. The first loss refugees suffer is to have no state to protect them. Their plea for upholding their human rights is only rhetorical. For rights to be realized, there must be a state that accepts the duty to listen to peoples’ pleas and to act upon them. Without a state accepting this duty, refugees lack the standing to plead for their human rights. They lack “the right to have rights.”

Arendt, Hannah

At best, refugees have the potential for human rights should some authoritative entity accept that duty toward them. Beyond this loss, Arendt warns, refugees lose the opportunity to speak and act as citizens addressing their common future. A theme throughout Arendt (1968) is the increase in modern times of “superfluous people,” unwanted, unneeded, and especially reviled ethnic, racial, or religious minorities. Colonies in Africa and Asia offered Europe’s excess population opportunities in mines, plantations, and colonial bureaus that kept order between ambitious colonial intruders and the native peoples they displaced. Moreover, racism proved a useful concept for rationalizing cruelty and exploitation in colonies and discrimination at home. The ultimate achievements of racism were, of course, the massacres and genocide intended to remove whole peoples from the earth. The problem of superfluous people continues and even increases today as many are displaced and forced to seek refuge in reluctant host states. Arendt tells of the nation-states formed from the defeated empires after World War I forming homelands for ethnic majorities with minorities nominally protected by declarations of human rights in the nationstates’ constitutions, echoing the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. These new nation-states, however, succeeded as nations in advancing their ethnic majorities, but failed as states to uphold a rule of law for all their citizens. Europe was awash with refugees fleeing nationstates in which minorities suffered greatly despite avowals of respect for their rights (see Arendt 1968: 267–302). During the Enlightenment, a profound change occurred in Western peoples’ understanding of the grounding of governments and citizens’ voice. Governments’ legitimacy was recognized to rest upon the consent of the governed. No external power, historical tradition, or religious sanction grants a people authority to found a state. Assertions were made about humans’ “inalienable” rights to life and liberty and their common good as the “pursuit of happiness” and the “possession of property.” Rights belonged to all simply because of their humanity and were recognized by all who understood and accepted the regulative idea of humanity as a unifying ideal. Rights are not granted by states, for then they would be revocable privileges. States recognize rights by acknowledging them as belonging to their citizens. When people recognize their authority collectively to found a state, they recognize powers, goods, and practices as theirs due to their humanity. States acknowledge these goods as human rights belonging to their people and, beyond them, to humans generally. States are obligated to protect their

A

citizens’ rights, but whether they have a duty to protect others’ human rights is not clear. Citizens receive the best protection when their human rights are integrated into law and practice as civil rights and liberties rooted in the state’s everyday functioning. Human rights connected to no political entity with the obligation to protect them are an anomaly: A right without a corresponding duty is only a potential right, a plea for assistance made to others recognizing the plight of those denied their rights. As soon as stateless persons make a claim for aid based upon their universal human rights, the rights’ abstract character becomes evident: aggrieved stateless persons can plead to no one, for no juridical body is responsible for protecting their rights. Human rights have been proclaimed by specific governments; so, despite their universality, these rights’ fulfillment requires a state to agree to act on claimants’ behalf. Refugees, of course, have no government of their own. Further, there are no unsettled places left in the world to which refugees could repair to begin their lives anew. The world has become one network of states and their possessions joined together by mutual recognition of boundaries and internal sovereignty. When citizens leave their homes and enter another state, their proper treatment is assured by agreements among the states. If persons leave due to the animosity of their government and fellow citizens, they enter another state as outcasts, former citizens who can only invoke human rights as the moral basis for their request. Refugees can neither escape the worldwide network of states, nor can they use it for their protection. The abstract character of universal human rights renders them useless for those with no state that acknowledges their plea. Without a government to heed their claim, refugees have no “right to have rights;” for only a state can accept the obligation to respond to the pleas of its citizens to protect their human rights (Arendt 1968: 296–298). The refugees Arendt discusses were forced from their homes due to ethnic hostility, economic distress, confiscation of property, and violence. Neighboring states took in the refugees fleeing their former home, but they were accepted on sufferance although the host states might refer to human rights as their reason for giving shelter. The refugees most often remained aliens in the sheltering states, however; naturalization was uncommon due to ethnic strains, the sheer number of aliens, and the limited economic opportunities. As their numbers rose, moreover, refugees were best contained and cared for in internment camps. Suffering the loss of a polity to speak for them, refugees lost a home, a place in the world and its protection. Arendt observes, however, that the greatest loss suffered by

45

A

46

A

Armed Conflict: Effect on Women

refugees touches their human nature more profoundly: They lost a public space where their opinions mattered and their actions could be effective (Arendt 1968: 296). The absence of opinion and action, two components essential to political life, emphasizes that refugees’ plight in the loss of a polity is not merely the loss of protection provided by the state nor of a home for themselves and their families, but, foremost, the loss of participation in their world as citizens. To clarify her meaning, Arendt turns to Aristotle’s twofold definition of humans as “animals with speech” and, thereby, “political animals” who live in ways determined by discourse and persuasion by which agreement for action is reached and, with the power generated by citizens’ agreement, action is taken. Through action a beginning occurs in the world that, as human intervention, redirects the on-flow of events. Modern political thought emphasizes the state’s duty to protect the private lives of its citizens. Arendt recognizes that refugees, in being unable to speak and act publicly as citizens, suffer an even greater loss than the material loss of a home or the security outlined in their human rights. Politically, humans display “plurality” in that each is unlike all others due to their unique perspectives, expressed in opinions, enabling them to comprehend their common world. Citizens also show initiative by proposing novel courses of action that they can undertake together. Arendt introduces Aristotle into her discussion because in the ancients’ politics she sees something crucial to political life that the moderns have forgotten: the exchange of opinions by citizens seeking agreements so that together they generate the power to act effectively. The loss Arendt discovered is not limited to refugees. In her subsequent political thought, Arendt returns to the Greeks, neither from nostalgia nor from the grandeur of their political accomplishments, of which she is skeptical, but because Athens presents a culture in which politics is central to a good life and the elements of politics are clearly displayed. Athens serves as her guide in examining and redeeming political life, for our age is too given to private rather than public life to comprehend easily either political concepts such as participation or conundrums such as the global demands of justice for refugees.

Related Topics

▶ Amnesty International ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Benhabib, Seyla ▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Rights ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties, Perfect and Imperfect

▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Rights Watch ▶ Humanitarian Aid ▶ Immigration ▶ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ▶ International Humanitarian Assistance ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Nationalism ▶ Nationalism, Extended ▶ Natural Rights ▶ O’Neill, Onora ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Refugees ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Shue, Henry ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights ▶ Vienna Declaration on Human Rights

References Arendt H (1958) The human condition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London Arendt H (1968) The origins of totalitarianism, 3rd edn. Harcourt, New York Arendt H (1994) Essays in understanding 1930–1954, ed. Kohn J. Harcourt Brace, New York Bernstein RJ (1996) Hannah Arendt and the Jewish question. MIT Press, Cambridge Birmingham P (2006) Hannah Arendt and human rights: the predicament of common responsibility. Indiana University Press, Bloomington Indianapolis

Armed Conflict: Effect on Women LISA RIVERA Department of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts – Boston, Boston, MA, USA

War affects women and girls by killing, displacing, and impoverishing them, and subjecting them to sexual violence and enslavement. In modern wars, civilians are killed at far higher rates than combatants; women and children are the majority of civilians killed. As war disrupts social, economic, and gender hierarchies, women also take on economic and political responsibility as heads of households and communities, and as leaders in peace and reconciliation projects. Global justice frames concern about women in multinational conflicts as refugees and as targets

Armed Conflict: Effect on Women

of violence that is punishable under international humanitarian law and the laws of war. Although women in conflict and post-conflict situations often lack institutional resources to address their concerns, international treaties have brought some measure of global justice to them. A traditional image is that women stand outside armed conflicts, and men protect them. Rather, women generally provide for their own survival and that of their families. Although women are combatants much less frequently than men, they do participate in wars, willingly or unwillingly, by fighting and/or providing material support. However, even combatant women rarely play significant decision-making roles. And women’s lower social status and caretaking responsibilities make them more vulnerable to harm in conflicts. Women and girls are intentionally targeted for sexual violence during conflict. They may experience rape, sexual torture, abduction for the purposes of sexual slavery, and sexual mutilation, and be forced into prostitution, marriage, pregnancy, maternity, abortion, or sterilization. Widespread sexual violence and coercion are not an incidental or inevitable effect of war but are used as weapons of war, and serve specific political and military objectives. The perception of women as producers of the next generation means that rape and forced pregnancy can be used to symbolically defile a rival ethnic or national group. Sexual terror causes civilians to flee, and facilitates ethnic cleansing. Instances of rape against civilian women can be minimal when it damages military objectives, as during guerilla warfare where fighters depend on the voluntary support of locals. In the aftermath of a conflict, women and girls who experienced sexual violence and coercion, and children born of wartime rape, may be ostracized or punished by their own community. When displaced by war, women must still care for children and elders. This limits their mobility and capacity to support themselves, and can make them long-term refugees. As refugees, dislocation and poverty leave them vulnerable to sexual trafficking and assault. Their plight as refugees is a global justice issue. Yet, an international response does not necessarily guarantee human rights protections to women. For example, UN peacekeepers and members of international organizations overseeing refugee camps were sexual traffickers and assailants in the aftermath of conflicts in Cambodia, Mozambique, and Somalia. Although camps are often not safe places for refugee women and girls, some do benefit through literacy, vocational and political skills acquired in their time there. Violence targeting women violates longstanding international laws that exempt noncombatants from direct attack and guarantee humane treatment to combatants. Because postwar processes have ignored war’s particular impact on

A

women however, full global justice for women during armed conflict and its aftermath requires specific international agreements targeted to their issues. Through extensive political work, international women’s groups have established several of these. In 1998, Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) codified certain types of rape and sexual violence as crimes against humanity. Rapes were prosecuted as crimes against humanity for the first time by the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, passed in October 2000, affirmed the role of women in peace negotiations and post-conflict processes and incorporated gender mainstreaming into UN peace and security efforts. Certain acts of sexual violence were distinguished as crimes of war, crimes against humanity, or constitutive acts of genocide by UNSCR 1820 in 2008.

Related Topics

▶ Feminist Ethics ▶ Feminization of Poverty ▶ Gender Justice ▶ Genocide ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ▶ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ▶ Jus in Bello ▶ Refugees ▶ Rome Statute of 1998 ▶ Rwanda ▶ Torture ▶ Violence

References Cockburn C (1999) The space between us: negotiating gender and national identities in conflict. Zed Books, London Dombrowski N (2004) Women and war in the twentieth century: enlisted with or without consent. Routledge, New York Enloe C (2000) Maneuvers: the international politics of militarizing women’s lives. University of California Press, Berkeley Lindsey-Curtet C (2001) Women facing war: ICRC study of the impact of armed conflict on women. International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva Lorentzen L, Turpin J (eds) (1998) The women and war reader. New York University Press, New York Mazaruna D, Raven-Roberts A, Parpart J (2005) Gender, conflict and peacekeeping. Rowman and Littlefield, Latham Meintjes S, Turshen M, Pillay A (eds) (2002) The aftermath: women in post-conflict transformation. Zed Books, London

47

A

48

A

Arms Race

Arms Race ▶ Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ▶ Chomsky, Noam ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Corruption ▶ Dispute Resolution ▶ Foreign Policy ▶ Peace Education ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Preventive Non-Intervention ▶ Preventive War

Asian Values Debate TODD ERIC MYERS Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA

In 1993, the Bangkok Declaration on Human Rights affirmed the commitment of various Asian states to the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights while calling for greater emphasis to be given to economic, social, and cultural rights in comparison to civil and political rights. The Singaporean political leader, Lee Kuan Yew, became a strong advocate for this position, arguing that Asian societies had different values from Western societies and that these values were in important respects superior. Lee pointed to social pathologies such as high instances of crime, drug abuse, and family breakdown present in modern Western liberal democracies and argued that what he termed Asian values such as respect for authority and consideration of the community’s interests above the individual’s interests could allow for economic growth and promote social harmony while avoiding the social pathologies prevalent in the West. He emphasized the Confucian tradition as a source of these values but also found them present in other Asian traditions including Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. In practice, Lee became a defender of authoritarian politics against liberal democratic values and began the Asian values debate. The Bangkok charter did not challenge the universality of political and civic norms adopted by the international community but brought into question the application of those norms in societies facing different developmental challenges. Lee brought into question the actual value of

civic and political rights by affirming traditions that he understood to curtail certain human rights to bring about flourishing communities. From a global justice perspective, Lee created a divide within the world community challenging liberal conceptions of individual dignity with his own communitarian understanding of the human good. Pragmatically, Lee may have been intending a local solution to creating political order within his ethnically diverse state around a conception of “Asian values,” but his forceful articulation of this position opened the door to a clash of civilizations based upon universalistic claims. In the end, if Lee was correct in his assessment of liberalism and its consequences, Western societies would need to abandon their commitment to the rights that led to decadence and disharmony or alter the values of their societies so that they could enjoy prosperous and harmonious societies like Lee’s Singapore. Lee’s affirmation of Asian values and attacks against liberal values did not go unanswered. His formulation of an authoritarian capitalism incensed those committed to a conception of the human good requiring democratic political participation. Kim Dae Jung, then a democracy activist and later to be president of the Republic of Korea, criticized Lee for confusing pathologies associated with industrialization with democracy. Kim contended that wealth and democracy go hand in hand and argued that the natural course of economic development leads to democracy. He also focused on the hypocrisy of Lee’s reliance on the symbolism of a minimalist state and a culture of family values as the source of political legitimacy when that order was in reality maintained by a virtual police state. He went on to note how democratic values are present in Confucian and other Asian traditions and that commitment to democracy is essential for earning the legitimacy necessary for meeting the political challenges of the future. Kim embraced a vision of global democracy as the foundation for any legitimate attempt to address problems such as poverty and ecological deterioration. His compass for this better world was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize winning economist, tackled Lee’s Asian values hypothesis on both empirical consequentialist grounds as well as on the qualitative nature of Asian thought. Sen observed that though many East Asian states with authoritarian governments have experienced higher rates of economic growth than certain democratic states, it is not clear that authoritarian government is the key variable in promoting that growth. In fact, the statistical studies conducted to determine the relationship between political rights and economic development varied widely and therefore cannot determine whether political

Asian Values Debate

freedom contributes or inhibits growth. It is much clearer that openness to competition, the use of international markets, a high level of literacy and access to education, successful land reforms, and public incentives provided for investment, exporting, and industrialization have been more important variables for economic development than political structure. The strongest defenses for a preference for democratic government over an authoritarian government emerges insofar democratic regimes are better at preventing famine and other disasters. Political and civil rights appear to prevent economic and social disasters and therefore a government that dismisses these rights may be eliminating an important protection against such disasters. Further, Sen disputed the qualitative nature of Asian thought as being essentially authoritarian and respect for liberty and autonomy essentially Western. Sen finds a commitment to liberation and equality in Buddhism, religious tolerance in the thought of Mughal rulers, freedom of speech in India’s tradition of religious disputation, and consideration for liberty at least for the elite in the meditations of Kautilya, India’s own Machiavelli. He also questioned whether Western thinkers such as Plato or Augustine were any more committed to human freedom than Eastern thinkers such as Buddha and Confucius. He instead argued that freedom is an essential human good and that the simplistic interpretation of history embedded in the concept of the dichotomy of Asian and Western values contributes to the divisiveness of the world and adds nothing of consequence to ethical dialogue. The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–1998 and the deterioration of the economies asserting their cultural superiority appeared to bring the Asian values debate to a close. The relationship between family values and crony capitalism that partially caused the crises brought negative attention to Asian values and even Lee Kuan Yew distanced himself from the Asian values framework by emphasizing how Singapore was protected from the crisis by its adherence to the rule of law and recognized how family values, an Asian value, contributed to the crisis through mechanism of crony capitalism. The political scientist and public intellectual Francis Fukuyama observed the passing of the economic basis of Asian values as a confirmation of his thesis of liberal democracy becoming the universal paradigm for political order and global justice. Those who are less sanguine about the values embedded in liberal democracy still search Asian cultures of authority for the communitarian values that give greater weight to consideration of economic, social, and cultural rights that they find down played by the liberal tradition. Peter Hershock and Roger Ames, philosophers

A

associated with the East West Center at the University Hawaii, have been particularly active along this line as they examine the creativity and virtuosity embedded in Asian cultures of authority even as they clearly reject authoritarianism. Finally, it seems that the People’s Republic of China’s rehabilitation of Confucius has set the foundation for a revival of an authoritarian articulation of the Asian value theme as the Chinese regime affirms party authority and rejects political and civic rights as essential to promoting political stability. In this crude form, this affirmation of authority is essentially Hobbesian and has little to do with any conception of justice save the old maxim “might makes right.” The study of culture as a variable determining the relative justness of societies is very dangerous since claims of cultural superiority lend themselves to chauvinism and may encourage the neglect of problem areas of legitimate ethical concern in name of cultural uniqueness. Nevertheless, dismissing culture as an area of ethical inquiry risks dismissing tangible ethical achievements that have been made possible by certain historical and physical environments. It also denies the validity of the lenses through which most individuals view the ethical world. It is likely that an unfolding dialogue on global justice will need to take into careful consideration cultural claims of ethical superiority and/or difference as it attempts to develop global norms of right and wrong.

Related Topics

▶ Communitarianism ▶ Cultural Relativism ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Human Rights Culture ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Justice and Religion: Buddhism ▶ Justice and Religion: Confucianism ▶ Justice and Religion: Daoism ▶ Justice and Religion: Hinduism ▶ Justice and Religion: Islam ▶ Liberal Democracy ▶ Liberalism ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

References Ames R, Hershock P (eds) (2006) Confucian cultures of authority. State University Press of New York, Albany Avonius L, Kingsbury D (2008) Human rights in Asia: a reassessment of the Asian values debate. Palgrave Macmillan, New York Barr M (2000) Lee Kuan Yew: the beliefs behind the man. Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC Barr M (2004) Cultural politics and Asian values. Routledge, New York

49

A

50

A

Associative Duties

Bell D (2006) Beyond liberal democracy: political thinking for an East Asian context. Princeton University Press, Princeton De Bary WT (2000) Asian values and human rights: a Confucian communitarian perspective. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Sen A (2000) Freedom and development. Anchor, New York

Associative Duties MEGAN KIME Department of Philosophy, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

Associative duties refer to the special set of duties that we owe to people with whom we stand in certain types of relationship, or have interacted in certain ways. They are to be distinguished from general duties, which we owe to all persons qua persons. They are strongly supported by common-sense morality, which recognizes a broad range of duties of varying strength associated with diverse kinds of relationship and interaction, including, but not limited to, family, friends, colleagues and team members, neighbors, and fellow members of one’s nation, state, religious or ethnic community. Associative duties vary in terms of content, but they generally involve giving special weight to the interests of one’s associates over the interests of other people. They have been justified either intrinsically – with reference to the special value of the relationship or association in question, or derivatively – with reference to the instrumental value that they help to realize. Associative duties, as identified by Samuel Scheffler, have been subject to two main objections: one from the point of view of participants and the other from the point of view of outsiders. The “voluntarist” objection views associative duties as impositions on the holders who may not have voluntarily entered into the relationship which gives rise to the duty. The “distributive” objection, in contrast, views associative duties as advantageous for participants, and so in conflict with an ideal of equality, since nonparticipants are unfairly excluded. In terms of global justice, it is the distributive objection that is most relevant, since it points to how associative duties may conflict with general global duties. Nationalists such as David Miller have defended associative duties to compatriots in order to block attempts by cosmopolitans to universalize our duties of social justice. These defenses of associative duties to compatriots often appeal to a similarity between one’s family and one’s nation. It remains a matter for debate whether we have such associative duties to our compatriots, and if we do, whether they outweigh our general global duties.

Many moderate cosmopolitans allow that we have associative duties to our compatriots (as well as to family, friends, etc.), but insist that they can only add to our general duties, rather than outweigh them (Pogge). However, critics of cosmopolitanism have argued that it cannot, as a universalist moral theory, make room for our intuitively important associative obligations, and should therefore be rejected. “Associative” or “relational” cosmopolitan theorists, such as Charles Beitz, have attempted to justify global duties by viewing them as a kind of associative duty, arguing that global interdependence places us all in a relevant relationship at the global level. However, statists and nationalists have responded to these claims by arguing that the relevant kinds of interactions that give rise to associative duties only take place within nation-states. Associative duties are alternatively labeled as “associative obligations” (Dworkin), “special responsibilities” (Scheffler), and “special obligations” (Jeske), although they are properly understood as a subset of the broader category of special obligations, which also includes role obligations and contractual obligations.

Related Topics

▶ Compatriot Partiality Thesis ▶ Duties to Non-Compatriots ▶ Partiality ▶ Patriotism ▶ Special Obligations

References Jeske D (1996) Associative obligations, voluntarism, and equality. Pac Philos Q 77:289–309 Kolodny N (2002) Do associative duties matter? J Polit Philos 10:250–266 Oldenquist A (1982) Loyalties. J Philos 79:173–193 Scheffler S (2001) Boundaries and allegiances. Oxford University Press, Oxford Simmons AJ (1996) Associative political obligations. Ethics 106:247–273

Augustine MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

St. Augustine is more than imposing. He is, perhaps, history’s most intimidating figure. From his conversion to Christianity in 386 to his death in 430, he wrote on the

Augustine

order of 117 books. Outside of the New Testament, no writer has had nearly the influence upon Christian thought than has the Bishop of Hippo. There is no doubt that Augustine had much to say about justice, even though he wrote no one text devoted to justice alone. To understand his thought about justice, we shall have to consider his thought about politics, love, and violence. We would also need to consider his thought about God, the church, and so much more, to give Augustinian justice its due, but this entry can be nothing other than a humbling exercise in restraint. For Augustine, human beings are social, or political in the Aristotelian sense, in our essence; for we are, after all, created in the image of the Triune God. Because God is an ontological community of Love (“God is love,” proclaims 1 John 4:16), sharing love between Father, Son, and Spirit (to keep to traditional terms) – we too are social and communal, and made for love, and to love. This is our human ontology, because it is our Creator’s. As creatures made to love, the question becomes one of how our love is ordered. Who, what, why, and how we love gives light to the meaning of justice. Because we are made by Love, individualism, disharmony, violence, and injustice have no necessary or inevitable claim upon us. Politics, then, is not doomed to be nothing more than managing power, conflict, and violence. The City of God and the earthly city compete for our allegiance, and contend with one another, to be sure. But at the same time, for Augustine, the public, or civil order, is a space for natural goods proper to human beings. Justice and peace of a kind can be found in the earthly city, and these are not to be despised. Temporal goods are valuable and reflect our social natures, our being built for relationships. Chief among these goods is peace. Nonetheless, only incomplete justice and peace can be found apart from the City of God. Against Aristotle and others, we do not find our completion in the state, but only in God. For Augustine, the Roman Empire was not completely public or political; it was not a true res publica (“public thing”) because a true republic is based on justice, which is giving each his or her due. This claim implies that God too, would receive that which is owed to God, namely, proper love and worship; and that God as the fountain and foundation of justice would be recognized. But such recognition is not made in earthly political orders (City of God. XIX.21). The Roman Empire (crumbling as Augustine wrote) was based on libido dominandi, this was the highest civic virtue, because it controlled all other lusts (City of God, I.30; V.12). This desire for domination is a considerable distance from love and justice. For Cicero, a republic is an association based on common agreement concerning the right and shared

A

interests. For Augustine, however, this cannot be sufficient because a republic is a people united by a common love of the same things. Only the church is united in this way, only it can be a true republic. The world is filled with goodness, and political goods are among them. In the earthly city, we are called to do no harm and help whomever we can whenever we can. But the public life of this world will never be sufficiently public, only a politics of love is sufficiently political. It is the case that “if we are to discover the character of any people, we have only to examine what it loves” (City of God, 19, 24). Only a just peace is truly peace, and we cannot find true justice in the earthly city. Augustine’s City of God is, among other things, a political theology and a claim of ontological peace rather than ontological conflict (Milbank). He notes that the two cities are created by two loves. The earthly city from love of self, extending even to contempt for God; and the heavenly city by love of God, extending even to contempt for self (City of God, 14, 28). We are called to live truly public and political, just and peaceable lives, promoting the well-being of all, and to do so, we must love God and love others. The properly ordered love that enables this way of being in the world comes only from the One true and triune Love. For Augustine, justice is a species of love. Justice “is love serving alone that which is loved and thus ruling rightly” and “justice is love serving God alone,” and therefore, “ruling well all else” (On the Manichean Heresy, 1.15.25). Love is the ground of our being and the means to true knowledge, so it follows that we cannot know or do justice apart from its grounding and orientation in love. Indeed, for Augustine, love determines all virtue. Rightly ordered love creates a life of virtue, including justice. “True justice,” then, can only be found in “that republic whose founder and ruler is Christ,” who is Love incarnate and the one perfect human being (City of God, 2.21; 11.29; 19.24). The just person is one who has ordered his or her loves properly, knowing what and who to love, and how to love (On Christian Doctrine, 1.59). Yet we are to love all equally, displaying in our love both difference and equality; again as an echo of the Triune God who is Love. Because Augustine addressed the problem of war in the City of God, he has become known as an important contributor to the “just war tradition,” it remains to address the relationship between justice and war in his thought. Over against the Manicheans (among whom he once belonged), who thought of evil as embedded in creation itself, Augustine can see evil only as a distortion of the good that alone emerged from creation. There is an ontological love and peace (harmony and justice) at creation, meant to become the geography of our lives. War can

51

A

52

A

Augustine

never be truly just, only sometimes tragically necessary – when in the defense of the innocent under the shadow of lethal harm. His oft-quoted and repeated remark, first stated by a captured pirate answering Alexander the Great, speaks to his view of politics, war, and justice. Accused of infesting the sea, the pirate replied, “. . .because I do it with a tiny craft, I’m called a pirate: because you have a mighty navy, you’re called a commander” (City of God, IV.4). Augustine notes that even justifiable wars properly give rise to lament and sorrow rather than pride or patriotism, let alone celebration. To fail to grieve about necessary wars is to be pitiable and contemptible. “Peace” achieved even by just war cannot be true peace. Real peace, shared by those in harmony and common love, realizes justice for all. In respect to lethal violence, Augustine must be read against himself, as his willingness to endorse violence against the heretic Donatists, makes clear. Even violence against others, he thought, must be an embodiment of love. Tragically, all too easy recourse to platitudes about love – and justice – have also made our violence all too easy to wage. Violence waged, even when, in motivation from love and for peace, too easily becomes unjust, sundered from love, and contrary to peace. If follows that true salvation must be liberation from political, economic, and psychic sin; for true salvation, justice, and peace come ultimately and only from infinite and ontological Love. As to global justice, Augustine, we will recall, argued that we must love all equally, while “proportionally.” He knows that we have special obligations of love, most clearly to our spouses and children; yet he thinks that the meaning of God as love, and our human purposes in life as agents of love, can only mean that our lives must be lived so that all others will receive no harm, and all good we can do for them, we must do. It is precisely here where his doctrine of sin is, perhaps, most liberating. For Augustine knew deeply of the complexities, sophistications, subtleties, evasions, and sweet justifications of human sin. Our political, social, economic, and cultural traditions, systems, and structures are sinful. Global justice, for him, is taken seriously only as we work for the transformation of human institutions from those that enslave us to those which help liberate us. Of course, institutions in themselves do not liberate or save; but God’s good world, created for love and justice to be

known, allows for the transformation of institutions into agencies of justice, just as it allows for the transformation of persons themselves. We are made to reflect God’s love among one another, act with justice and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).

Related Topics

▶ Charity ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ Justice and Religion: Christianity ▶ Liberation Theology ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Pax Natura Foundation ▶ Violence ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Augustine (1961) The confessions. Penguin, New York Augustine (1972) The city of god (trans: McKenna S). Catholic University Press of America, Washington, DC Elshtian J (1995) Augustine and the limits of politics. Notre Dame University Press, Notre Dame Gregory E (2008) Politics and the order of love: an Augustinian ethic of democratic citizenship. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Heyking J (2001) Augustine and politics as longing in the world. University of Missouri Press, Columbia Markus R (1970) Saeculum: history and society in the theology of St. Augustine. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Milbank J (1990) Theololgy and social theory: beyond secular reason. Blackwell, Oxford Niebuhr R (1986) Augustine’s political realism. In: Brown R (ed) The essential Reinhold Niebuhr. Yale University Press, New Haven, pp 123–141 Paolucci H (ed) (1967) The political writings of St. Augustine. Henry Regnery, Chicago Ruokanen M (1993) Theology of social life in Augustine’s “De civiate Dei”. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Go¨ttingen Santurri E (1997) Rawlsian liberalism, moral truth, and Augustinian politics. J Peace Justice Stud 8(2):1–36 Schlabach G (2001) For the joy set before us: Augustine and self-denying love. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame Tkacz M, Kries D (trans) (1994) Augustine, political writings. Hackett, Indianapolis Weithman P (2001) Augustine’s political philosophy. In: Stump E, Kretzmann N (eds) The Cambridge companion to Augustine. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 234–252 Williams R (1987) Politics and the soul: a reading of the city of god. Milltown Stud 19(20):55–72 Wills G (1999) Saint Augustine. Viking, New York

B Bandung Conference CHARLES ROSENBERG Milwaukee, WI, USA

The Asian-African Conference convened in Bandung, Indonesia, April 17–24, 1955, bringing together representatives from 29 newly independent nations, which had either been formally colonized or subjected to unequal treaties by European nations. This conference laid the foundation for the Movement of Nonaligned Countries, which convened in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1961 – nations declining to take sides between the United States and the Soviet Union. Participants at the conference, and in the Nonaligned Movement, included some nations ruled by communist parties, or experimenting with other forms of socialism, as well as nations with some sort of capitalist economy. The sponsors of the conference were Burma, India, Indonesia, Ceylon, and Pakistan. Indonesia’s President Sukarno, who hosted the conference, viewed his country as a leading antiimperialist force, in a world where former colonial powers still held overwhelming economic power, and substantial ability to intervene militarily. A final communique´ from the conference promoted mutual cooperation for economic development in Asia and Africa, called for economic development funds under United Nations auspices, stabilized commodity trade, developing means to process raw materials locally to diversify exports, and encouraged formation of national and regional financial institutions. At a time when many colonial possessions were not yet independent, the conference firmly denounced colonialism as a denial of the fundamental rights of man, and a means of cultural suppression. The next half century did not deliver the era of cooperation and peaceful development envisioned nor establish a just international order. Participating nations fought wars with each other, or suffered genocidal civil wars and bloody military coups. Economic development remained uneven, although some participants emerged as global economic powers in the early twenty-first century. Adam Clayton Powell, an African American member of the

US congress, pointed out even in 1955 the many forms of racial discrimination practiced within Asia and Africa. Powell, present as an observer, sharply denounced the US state department for deliberately ignoring the landmark importance of the conference, while vigorously defending his country’s record against communist critiques. The conference was a landmark, but did not construct a firm foundation for the future toward building a sustained cooperation among the participating countries for peace and justice.

Related Topics

▶ Alterglobalization ▶ Class and Status ▶ Colonialism ▶ Eurocentrism ▶ National Self-Determination ▶ Nationalism ▶ Post-Colonialism

References Borthwick M (1998) Pacific century: the emergence of modern Pacific Asia. Westview Press, Boulder En-Lai C (1981) China and the Asian-African conference. Foreign Languages Press, Beijing Powell AC (2002) Adam by Adam: the autobiography of Adam Clayton Powell. Dafina, New York Rist G (2004) The history of development from western origins to global faith. Zed Books, London Tan SS, Amitav A (eds) (2008) Bandung revisited: the legacy of the 1955 Asian-African conference for international order. NUS Press, Singapore Wright R (1994) The color curtain: a report on the Bandung conference. Banner Books, Jackson

Barber, Benjamin GORDON A. BABST Department of Political Science, Wilkinson College, Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA

The focus of political theorist Benjamin Barber’s scholarship has been democratic civic engagement both in the USA and globally, and threats to meaningful

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

54

B

Barber, Benjamin

participation by citizens in self-governance. In addition to his scholarship, Barber has been a public voice for democratic ideals and served as an informal consultant to President Bill Clinton, with his experiences and reflections providing the basis for his most recent book The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House (2008). Barber’s interests are both academic and practical, which is reflected in his writings which range from democratic theory at the more conceptual and theoretical level, to issues of implementation at the level of democratic practice. In his earlier published work Barber advocated “strong democracy,” a democratic governance resting on the civic engagement of an active, informed citizenry who realize the good of participatory politics. This conception of a liberal democratic industrialized society provided a counterpoise to a liberalism overly focused on the individual’s rights and the representation of interests. Barber’s first work that tackled issues of globalization, Jihad vs. McWorld, first published in 1995, gained him both fame and notoriety, with the second edition including his reflections on 9/11, which seemed to embody Jihad’s war against McWorld and to suggest that McWorld’s global triumph was premature (2001). Barber uses “jihad” to refer not only to Islamic jihad, but more so to refer to reactionary, militant religious fundamentalism in general, which he views as tribalism’s most potent response to global integration and modernization. “McWorld” refers to the unbridled march of globalization without benefit of an effective political envelope and in the form of an aggressive economic and cultural integration that principally reflects the corporate interests of the industrialized West. Jihad reflects a cultural fundamentalism, of which religion is an important arena and advancing the cause is an all-or-nothing gambit, while McWorld reflects a cultural monism or flattening of the world’s pluralism across all spheres facilitated by the advance of Western-style capitalism and related phenomena such as privatization of a common public sphere, neoliberalism, and consumerism, which are unconcerned with cultural diversity except for the business opportunities it may provide. Both of these opposing forces have significant political consequences on their own and together, Barber argues, they can be resisted only through the resurgence of democracy. More democratic self-governance, especially at the local level, is what is needed even were the threat posed by militant terrorism to fade owing to the global asymmetry already fashioned by McWorld between the global North and South, the latter lacking the economic

might or political stability to resist except through a return to tribalism and jihad. Jihad vs. McWorld ranks with Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations as an early, popular overview of the emerging organization of the world at the global level. Barber’s work, however, was not intended to attribute civilizational significance to the division of the world he elaborated in terms of a normative ranking of the two sides; rather, his animating concern is the fundamentalism at the heart of both sides, a religious vs. market fundamentalism that are both inimical to democratic governance, to control by citizens of the world around them. Barber’s book Consumed (2007) sharpens the focus of attention to the contemporary state of the democratic citizenry, who, in the face of the globalization of what he earlier termed “McWorld,” have become more adept at being consumers than citizens. Barber traces an evolution from earlier production-oriented capitalism to contemporary consumption-oriented capitalism, and is highly critical of the values and habits of mind engendered by consumerism and the harms to democracy and the exercise of freedom that he sees corroding the fabric of civil society. He argues that the contemporary practice of free market capitalism “infantilizes” adults who substitute their wants for their needs, and have been rendered unable to distinguish a public interest from the pursuit of their private preferences. The ultimate victim here is the public-spirited citizen who has been conditioned to realize his or her freedom mostly as a consumer making generally trivial choices in the marketplace, a highly shrunken understanding and practice of freedom that bodes badly for the future of liberal democracy. Barber’s solution to this entrenched, debilitating state of affairs throughout most of the world is a reinvigorated civic life, the democratization of globalization from the ground up to redirect it toward meeting people’s genuine needs including, importantly, a need to participate meaningfully in selfgovernance and together achieve a value that transcends the proximate satisfactions of consumer society.

Related Topics

▶ Capitalism ▶ Citizenship ▶ Consumerism ▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Globalization ▶ Huntington, Samuel

Barry, Brian

▶ War Against Terrorism ▶ World Citizenship

References Barber B (2001) Jihad vs. McWorld: terrorism’s challenge to democracy, 2nd edn. Ballantine Books, New York Barber B (2004) Strong democracy: participatory politics for a new age, Deluxe edition. University of California Press, Berkeley Barber B (2007) Consumed: how markets corrupt children, infantilize adults, and swallow citizens whole. W.W. Norton, New York Barber B (2008) The truth to power: intellectual affairs in the Clinton White House. Columbia University Press, New York Perusek D (ed) (2010) Between Jihad and McWorld: voices of social justice. Papers presented at a conference with Benjamin Barber. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne Ritzer G (ed) (2009) McDonaldization: the reader, 3rd edn. Pine Forge Press, Newbury Park

Barry, Brian GORDON A. BABST Department of Political Science, Wilkinson College Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA

Brian Barry (1936–2009) last taught philosophy and political science at Columbia University from 1998 until 2005, and had taught at and was honored by several notable academic institutions such as the London School of Economics before that. The focus of political theorist Brian Barry’s scholarship was social justice in contemporary liberal-democratic societies, a topic he pursued while simultaneously demonstrating the power of Enlightenment reason. Besides his significant scholarship, he was known for his leadership of the influential journal Ethics, his sharp wit, and his straightforward, formidable criticisms of sloppy or muddled thinking. Nonetheless, he was beloved by many colleagues and students, several of whom dedicated Justice & Democracy to him. Barry made his mark with Political Argument, which helped both to revitalize Anglo-American political philosophy and to establish important terms for subsequent political argument and theorizing, such as the notion of the public interest, which he deployed quite differently than social choice theorists, whom he thought fundamentally misguided in their approach. He was a steadfast social democrat, an egalitarian who found unregulated capitalism to be detrimental of the public good and a chief cause of social injustice.

B

Barry was both a critic of John Rawls and a defender of his vision of liberal egalitarianism, arguing that Rawls’ difference principle provides for a more just distribution of goods, and defending equality of opportunity, not the realization of equality, as a desideratum of a just society. His critical focus of attention was on those who would defend burdens on the poorest in the name of overall prosperity, which for him always meant occluding from view the responsibility of the well-off for situations under which others suffer. Barry was very concerned to defend the pluralism of modern society without conceding ground to relativistic attempts to sanction any and all practices even where they are incompatible with liberal-democratic norms, or to communitarian impulses to guide people by the light of community beliefs, however traditional or wellnested they may be. Culture and Equality offers a sustained critique of multiculturalism to the extent the latter offends the basic equality of all citizens or impedes the realization of universalistic principles of justice, which he held for inviolable even though they need not manifest themselves in the same way in each society. In Why Social Justice Matters Barry focuses attention on the need to address inequalities in wealth and income so that the most vulnerable citizens benefit from the wealth a society produces and justifiably redistributes through a scheme of taxation that provides for the health care and education of everyone. Barry’s own view of justice was elaborated at length in Justice as Impartiality, in which among other things he addressed head-on the challenge religious pluralism poses in contemporary societies; chiefly, how to moderate conflicts among believers and power struggles among religious groups. His suggestion of justice as impartiality appeals to fairness rather than to goodness, and is grounded in reasoned argument’s ability to proffer premises that are open to everyone and will suggest voluntary restraint when pursuing a conception of the good. Barry’s approach to political theory, his views of justice in the contemporary plural setting, and his trenching criticism of any policies that ignore society’s vulnerable in favor of some good generally more important to the better off may together inform a theory of global justice. On Barry’s take, we arrive at just outcomes when we reason together, are impartial with respect to varying views of the good, intend to do right by the worst-off in society, and are committed to using governance mechanisms to counterbalance the tendency of wealth and privilege to crowd out claims to a fair share of goods such as equal opportunity, health care, and education. Barry, then, would aver

55

B

56

B

Basic Needs

that social justice is primary and that its chief impediments are economic inequality and any unreasonable pursuit of goodness over fairness. A globe structured by grave inequalities between North and South owing to a capitalist mentality that puts profit above people’s interests in survival or a modicum of meaningful opportunity would not meet with Barry’s favor, and has veered far from social justice as Barry understood it.

Related Topics

▶ Equality ▶ Fair Equality of Opportunity ▶ Fairness ▶ Liberal Democracy ▶ Liberalism ▶ Multiculturalism ▶ Rawls, John

References Barry B (1965, reissued 1990 and 2010) Political argument. Routledge & Kegan Paul, New York Barry B (1995) Justice as impartiality. Oxford University Press, Oxford Barry B (2002) Culture and equality: an egalitarian critique of multiculturalism. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Barry B (2005) Why social justice matters. Polity Press, Cambridge Dowding K, Goodin R, Pateman C (eds) (2004) Justice & democracy. Essays for Brian Barry. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Basic Needs GILLIAN BROCK Department of Philosophy, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

According to many accounts of global distributive justice, our basic needs are salient in determining what we owe one another. When people are unable to meet their basic needs, global justice has not yet been realized. In this entry, we examine, first, accounts of basic needs available to play this important role in developing our global responsibilities. Discussing such accounts also enables us to address some central questions often raised in connection with needs, namely: Why are needs morally and politically salient? What kinds of responsibilities, if any, can they generate? Are there any needs which are universal, or are they always culturally relative? Are needs importantly distinct from several other neighboring concepts, such as preferences or desires?

Two recent accounts of basic needs are influential, can help us address these questions, and so deserve some detailed discussion, namely the philosophical account offered by David Braybrooke (1987) and that of Len Doyal and Ian Gough (1991), which aims to connect theoretical and more empirical domains. These two accounts focus on different aspects of why meeting needs is important, and the methods they use for arriving at our needs are interestingly different. Yet, there is also convergence between them. David Braybrooke’s account is one of the most developed and influential in the philosophical literature. He develops his account of basic needs in terms of what is necessary for social functioning. Something is a need if, without its satisfaction, one would be unable to carry out four basic social roles, those of citizen, parent, householder, and worker. By examining several lists proposed by the United Nations and others, he extracts their common elements and offers a systematic account of the needs one would have over the course of a life. The list consists of needs for a life-supporting relation to the environment; for whatever is indispensable to preserving the body intact in important respects (including food, water, exercise, and periodic rest); for companionship; for education; for social acceptance and recognition; for sexual activity; for recreation; and for freedom from harassment, including not being continually frightened. Focusing on what humans typically do (through consideration of roles) provides Braybrooke with a good reference point for compiling this list. Someone might claim that not all these needs apply to everyone (e.g., the need for sexual activity for a nun or the need for companionship for a hermit), but recall that Braybrooke is interested in deriving a list of items that are plausibly needed in order to carry out the four roles he identifies. In order to have the genuine choice to perform the role, one typically needs items on the list. Len Doyal and Ian Gough’s view is that needs are universalizable preconditions that enable non-impaired participation in any form of life. Chief among these preconditions will be physical health and the mental competence to deliberate and choose, or autonomy. They recognize a class of “intermediate needs,” which aim to connect the two basic needs with knowledge available about basic needs in the social sciences. These are: nutritional food and clean water, protective housing, a nonhazardous work environment, a non-hazardous physical environment, appropriate health care, security in childhood, significant primary relationships, physical security, economic security, appropriate education, safe birth control, and safe child-bearing. Their account provides

Basic Rights

important connections between the philosophical literature and the social and natural sciences, which could facilitate measuring progress with respect to meeting needs in the world. Braybrooke’s and Doyal and Gough’s accounts highlight important features of recent accounts of basic needs: the importance of social (not just physical) functioning in particular communities; the relevance of information about human needs collected by the natural and social sciences; and the importance of cross-cultural comparison. More generally, there are several common elements to these and other recent accounts of normatively salient needs. The needs that matter morally are those that are necessary, indispensable, or inescapable, at least with respect to human functioning in social groups. Moreover, if such needs are not met, we are unable to do anything much at all, let alone to lead a recognizably human life. Meeting needs is essential to our ability to function as human agents. Another common strategy deployed in arguing for the importance of needs is to highlight just how vulnerable people are to coercion or oppression when their needs are not met. While one dominant approach in the needs literature is to emphasize the link between needs and human agency, other approaches can be discerned, such as linking our basic needs to what is required for human flourishing. This kind of more expansive account is sometimes more vulnerable to skeptical concerns about basic needs, such as that they cannot be adequately distinguished from people’s wants, preferences, or desires. Another common concern about needs is that they are so culturally, societally, or historically relative that they can play no useful role in public policy. However, as both the accounts featured above illustrate, there is some core area of convergence, and importantly, there are some clear criteria by which we can determine which needs are to be granted moral and political importance in matters of public policy. The concern about relativity does not necessarily undermine the important role needs do and should play in matters of distributive justice. Basic needs have played an important role in global public policy matters, for instance, in the so-called basic needs approach, introduced by Paul Streeten in the 1970s. The idea was to identify universal basic needs and then to provide the means to meet these to communities in an attempt to address global poverty. However, the implementation of this program suffered from several avoidable problems, such as excessive paternalism and commodity-focus, with the result that the capabilities approach is often thought to be superior, especially in its ability to avoid these dangers. Whether or not the basic

B

needs and capabilities approaches are necessarily distinct is also subject to debate, as is the matter of whether the dangers often associated with the basic needs approach must always accompany it.

Related Topics

▶ Absolute Poverty ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Poverty ▶ Relative Poverty

References Braybrooke D (1987) Meeting needs. Princeton University Press, Princeton Brock G (ed) (1998) Necessary goods: our responsibilities to meet others’ needs. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Brock G (2009) Global justice: a cosmopolitan account. Oxford University Press, Oxford Doyal L, Gough I (1991) A theory of human need. MacMillan, Houndsmills Frankfurt H (1998) Necessity and desire. In: Brock G (ed) Necessary goods: our responsibilities to meet others’ needs. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, pp 19–23 Miller D (2007) National responsibility and global justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford Reader S (ed) (2005) The philosophy of need. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Streeten P et al (1982) First things first. Oxford University Press, World Bank Research Publication, Oxford Thomson G (1987) Needs. Routledge, London Wiggins D (1987) Claims of need. In: Wiggins D (ed) Needs, values, truth. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 1–57

Basic Rights MICHAEL BOYLAN Department of Philosophy, Marymount University, Arlington, VA, USA

Introduction Basic rights are a category within human rights that cover the strongest rights claims. A list of basic rights might include: food, water, sanitation, clothing, protection from unwarranted bodily harm, basic health care, primary

57

B

58

B

Basic Rights

and secondary education, liberty rights, and the autonomy (and opportunity) to do with one’s life as she likes. This is a large list. Which of these rights are most basic? Which stand out before the others? In order to answer this question, we must examine first the definition of a claim right and then how it is justified.

What Is a Claim Right? Claims rights are legitimate claims that an agent may make to some other agent or community for particular goods. Since rights claims are always against some responding party, it is important to distinguish two different conceptions about who might have the correlative duties that correspond to the legitimate basic rights claims. On the one hand are those supporting a nationalist perspective (such as John Rawls (1971)). In this case, the claim is against fellow citizens of a nation. On the other hand are those supporting a cosmopolitan perspective (such as Pogge (2008)). In this case, the claim is against all those on earth in a position to satisfy the claim (according to the ought implies can standard).

How Are Claim Rights Justified? There are three principal justifications for human rights: legal, interest-based, and agency-based. Let us address these in order. First, there are legal-based justifications for human rights. This approach depends upon either contractarianism (via some international body such as the United Nations) or intuitionism. Under these paradigms, we have documents that are agreed upon by certain representative individuals because of mutual interest or because they are intuited to be valid claims. Two key examples of a contractarian basis are (a) the Universal Declaration of Human rights (agreed to by representatives of the member nations) and (b) the United States Bill of Rights (agreed to by representatives of the first United States Congress). To answer our generating question, the list of human rights would be pared to basic rights by general agreement. However, a downside to this approach is that these legal regulations require a measure of specificity. This means a level of interpretation. When one enters the international sphere, the force of the legalistic approach can be compromised because the various nation states that sign some particular agreement (contractarianism) often represent a particular constituency at a particular moment in history. The time span of the human signers is short. When a new head of state comes into power, he or she does not necessarily feel bound by the personal acts of

a predecessor. Because there is no World Government with executive or judicial power of enforcement, the signatories to international treaties are really subject to an honor system. In practice, this often means that weak countries must comply while rich and powerful countries comply at their pleasure. When there is no one with the power to enforce contracts (including binding penalties), then the only reason any nation would comply would be self-interest on a changeable basis. This reality leaves the legal tact with a significant gap. The second approach to human rights seeks a moral justification via the interest-based approach. Jonathan Mann suggests that the implicit question the modern human rights movement should ask is about the societal, especially the governmental, roles and responsibilities in promoting individual and collective well-being (Mann 1996). If human rights is fundamentally concerned with well-being, then following Raz, one has a right if and only if one can have rights, and, other things being equal, an aspect of one’s well-being (that is, one’s interest) is a sufficient reason for holding some other person(s) to be under a duty (Raz 1986). The key point here is how we are to assess one’s well-being. Turning to our generating question the list provided would be pared in accordance with the conditions of well-being. Much like Sen’s capabilities approach (Sen 2000), the focus is upon some end state. Whatever it takes to achieve well-being (in some minimal way) within a society, then that constitutes a ground for a legitimate rights claim. Advocates for this approach say that over and against the legalistic approach, the interest-based grounding of human rights in well-being gives a more theoretical foundation so that hard cases will be solved by theoretical principles and not by hair-splitting legal decisions. Detractors will say that well-being is too far down the food chain to be effective. They would assert that well-being is the responsibility of the agent. This leads us to the third justification for human rights, agency-based arguments. Those who take the aforementioned objection to the well-being position (including this author) will say that policy is best served by outlining specific goods (the most fundamental for action are biologically based: food, water, clothing, sanitation, protection from unwarranted bodily harm including basic health care). Once one knows what these goods are, then the generating question is answered about what constitutes basic rights – it is the claim to these fundamental goods of human action. The force of the agency basis of human rights rests upon the conditions necessary for humans to commit purposive action. On the agency account, desiring

Basic Rights

to commit purposive action amounts to something close to human nature. Under the agency account, the correlative duty of others is to give her what she needs to be a minimally effective actor in the world. The rest is up to her. There are certainly some overlaps between the interestbased and agency accounts. They each approach the problem with a different foundational aim. The interest-based account looks at an end product of well-being and tries to figure out what is needed to get there. The agency account looks at an end product of committing purposive action and tries to figure out what is necessary to allow voluntary, purposive action to take place. Each theory describes a primitive level that would stand as a justificatory basis of basic rights from the standpoint of that theory: legal, interest-based, or agency-based.

Basic Rights in the World Those goods that allow a person to stay alive are the most important to protect. I parse these as: food, water, sanitation, clothing, protection from unwarranted bodily harm, and basic health care. These goods are woefully lacking around the world. There are 1.02 billion hungry people who live undernourished on less than 500 cal a day (FAO). These are people who cannot act except in the most minimal way. The worst off are in Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. The WHO also reports that over one billion people in 149 countries are stricken with tropical diseases (many of which are fatal). Some of these are due to poor sanitation and dirty water and others due to other vectors such as mosquitoes and unprotected sex. Treatments for these exist among the G-8 nations (the wealthiest eight nations in the world). Much of the rest of the planet fends for itself with some small relief from various organizations (see below). The most common cause for homelessness is to become a refugee (internal or external). Refugees arise from political violence, natural disaster, and epidemic disease. In some countries in the world, such as Iraq and Sudan, there are estimated to be almost half of the population that has been displaced and forced to live in temporary situation. Sometimes temporary situations can extend for decades. One example of protection from unwarranted bodily harm is in female sex trafficking. Sadly, this is a growing problem and not a diminishing one. Young girls are sold by parents, kidnapped, or are the spoils of war and internal conflict. Because of the second-class status of women in most of the world, there is little outcry.

B

Too many in the world lack the basic rights to claim basic goods that might enable them to live even minimally decent lives.

Agents of Change At the writing of this entry, the primary agents to protect basic rights are: (1) wealthy governments around the world, (2) nongovernmental organizations, (3) The United Nations, and (4) private citizens through wealth or personal volunteer action. Each of these agencies operates differently (Boylan 2011).

Related Topics

▶ Basic Needs ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Human Rights ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Primary Goods ▶ Rights

References Boylan M (2004) A just society. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham/Oxford Boylan M (2011a) Morality and global justice. Westview, Boulder Boylan M (2011b) The morality and global justice reader. Westview, Boulder Churchill RP (2006) Human rights and global diversity. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River Gewirth A (1978) Reason and morality. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Griffin J (2008) On human rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford Mann J (1996) Health and human rights. Br Med J 312:924–925 Mann J (1997) Medicine and public health: ethics and human rights. Hastings Center Report 27.3: 6–13 Pogge TW (2008) World poverty and human rights, 2nd edn. Polity, Oxford Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Raz J (1986) The morality of freedom. Clarendon Press, Oxford Scanlon TM (1998) What we owe each other. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Sen A (2000) Development as freedom. Anchor, New York Shue H (1996) Basic rights, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton Singer B (1993) Operative rights. SUNY, Albany Internet Sites www.Fao.org/hunger.org www.who.int/research.en www.refugeesinternational.org www.humantrafficking.org www.globalwater.org www.amnesty.org

59

B

60

B

Bauman, Zygmunt

Bauman, Zygmunt ALEX CURRIT Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

Zygmunt Bauman was born into a non-practicing Jewish family in Poland on November 19, 1925. In 1970, he became a Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds, where, since 1990, he has been a Professor Emeritus. Bauman is a prolific writer, producing approximately a book a year well into his 80s. He has frequently engaged some of the most significant current social and political questions, such as war, mass violence (terrorism, and the Holocaust), consumerism, democracy, ethics, and globalization. His works particularly addressing these issues include: Postmodernity and Its Discontents (1997), Modernity and the Holocaust (2001), and Globalization: The Human Consequences (1998). One of Bauman’s primary themes is that modernity makes universal global justice essentially impossible because modern bureaucracy severs decision makers from the consequences of their decisions (for instance, shareholders of a company in America need never have any direct interaction with their overseas factory workers). Furthermore, a “free” global market destroys peoples’ ability to locally legislate because decision-making centers of global mega-companies are free from the territorial restraints of locality, thus nationstates are functionally rendered into security agencies for global mega-companies. With labor abundantly available and policed by nation-states, labor can be factored out of the economic equations of investors, thereby making investors globally mobile and labor (meaning those dependant on global investors for their livelihood) locally immobile. In this case, true “freedom” becomes restricted to those with physical mobility – a mobility which can only be purchased. In this world environment, competition between individual nation-states is quickly being replaced by competition between groups of states, making the distinction between internal and global markets even more unclear. This, in turn, makes territory and population policing initiatives almost impossible – meaning that essentially local governments are restricted to handling micro affairs, while the global community handles macro ones. Bauman further argues that this leads to companies having a vested interest in states strong enough to protect their production processes but too weak to impose trade or labor restrictions. Thus, the interdependent relationship between political fragmentation and economic

globalization renders the reconstruction of pressing social problems into effectual community-level collective solutions nearly impossible. For Bauman, modernity has been characterized by secularization, with the lives of individuals becoming increasingly fragmented to the degree that no central religious authority is able to produce a dissonance-free ideology applicable in every area of an individual’s life. With this increased fragmentation, Bauman believes the ethical quality of actions should likewise be fragmented into three categories: economics, esthetics, and morality; meaning, for example, that an action could be economically correct, but ethically wrong in regard to morality. Bauman argues however that this does not mean anything goes and every action or belief should be accepted. Instead he believes that to act morally is to assume moral responsibility – responsibility based on the idea that morality is defined as setting aside our own self-interests, and acting purely in the interest of others. This modern morality creates problems for states seeking global justice as the fragmentation of morality leads to human behavior becoming increasingly unpredictable and thereby becoming a source of potential instability. States thus seek to legitimate control over human behavior by constructing and legislating a universal moral dogma. However, Bauman believes that the ambivalence of the postmodern individual renders such pursuits impossible, and therefore endeavors to legislate global justice fundamentally cannot result in a universal code of ethics and thus should be limited to empowering free individuals with the rights that are imperative to securing and perpetuating the conditions of their freedom.

Related Topics

▶ Alterglobalization ▶ Barber, Benjamin ▶ Capitalism ▶ Citizenship ▶ Corruption ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Poverty ▶ Sovereignty ▶ Territorial Rights ▶ World Government

References Bauman Z (1989) Modernity and the holocaust. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Bauman Z (1996) Assimilation into exile: the Jew as a Polish writer. Poetics Today 17(4):569–597. Duke University Press, Durham Bauman Z (1997) Postmodernity and its discontents. New York University Press, New York Bauman Z (1998) Globalization: the human consequences. Columbia University Press, New York

Beitz, Charles Bauman Z (2001) Community: seeking safety in an insecure world. Polity, Cambridge Best S (1998) Review: Zygmunt Bauman: personal reflections within the mainstream of modernity. Br J Sociol 49:331–320. Blackwell, Boston Gardiner M (2006) Review: Bauman before postmodernity: invitation, conversations, and annotated bibliography, 1953–1989. Acta Sociol 49:228–230. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills Isaac J (1996) A new guarantee on Earth: Hannah Arendt on human dignity and the politics of human rights. Am Polit Sci Rev 90:61–73. American Political Science Association Scott JC (1976) The moral economy of the peasant. Yale University Press, New Haven

Beijing Platform on Women ▶ Falk, Richard ▶ Gender Justice ▶ Okin, Susan

Beitz, Charles ROBERT PAUL CHURCHILL Department of Philosophy, Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

Charles Beitz is an American philosopher and political theorist whose classic Political Theory and International Relations (1979, 1999), probably more than any other text, demonstrated the importance of ethics and political theory for twentieth-century international relations and international law. In this work, Beitz also offered what is widely believed to be the first persuasive argument for global principles of justice. Beitz’s Political Theory and International Relations (PTIR) together with Henry Shue’s Basic Rights (1980, 1996) are seen as foundational texts for the field of international political theory. Beitz also has made major contributions to the literatures on cosmopolitanism and human rights. Beitz has joined with James Nickel (1987, 2007) in holding that the human rights tradition is not continuous with the tradition of natural rights developed by philosophers. In The Idea of Human Rights (2009), Beitz argues that human rights ought to be understood and justified as part of a complex practice that has emerged following the settlement of World War II.

B

61

Beitz on Rawls and Global Justice PTIR is divided into three parts. In the first part, Beitz repudiates the realist and neo-realist theories of international relations as a Hobbesian state of nature in which moral judgments cannot be applied. Beitz demonstrates that the realists’ Hobbesian view is empirically false and theoretically untenable. In the second part, Beitz argues against a widely held view he characterizes as the “autonomy of states.” This is a view maintained by Michael Walzer (1977, 1992), among others, to the effect that states have rights of autonomy that insulate them from external moral assessment and political interference from other states. Beitz argues instead that a theory of international relations should include a revised principle of state autonomy based on the justice of states’ domestic institutions. In the third part of the book, Beitz makes a strikingly daring application of the logic of John Rawls’ contractarian arguments in A Theory of Justice (1971). Applying the logic of Rawls’ original position and veil of ignorance to the international sphere, Beitz generates a cosmopolitan transformation of Rawls’ theory. Beitz argues that a correct application of Rawls’ reasoning justifies a resource distribution principle and a global difference principle to establish a fair division of resources and wealth among persons situated in diverse national societies. In PTIR, Beitz criticizes Rawls by arguing that, even if we are to assume with Rawls that states are separate selfcontained societies, their representatives meeting in a second original position would not accept the principles Rawls envisages. In particular, Beitz argues contra Rawls that representatives of states would not agree to a principle confirming that natural resources belong to the states whose territories encompass them. The existing distribution of natural resources is morally arbitrary so that no state deserves its resource endowment. Thus, not knowing whether their own states were resource-rich or not, riskaverse representatives would insist on a principle that distributed resources equally by means of some kind of global wealth tax. However, Beitz goes on to argue in PTIR that, because of interdependence, states cannot be treated as selfcontained societies as Rawls had assumed. There is no need for a second contract between state representatives as Rawls had suggested in A Theory of Justice. Instead, the logic of Rawls’ theory of justice should be applied worldwide. In addition to the equal liberty principle, parties in an international original position would select a global difference principle. No separate principle governing resources would be needed, as the global difference principle makes it superfluous. The global difference principle

B

62

B

Beitz, Charles

would apply in international society as Rawls’ difference principle applies in domestic society. It is the globally least advantaged represented group whose position must be improved if significant inequalities are to be allowed among societies. With the publication of The Laws of Peoples (1999), Rawls continued to insist that societies must be seen for the purposes of theory as self-contained cooperative schemes for mutual advantage. For over a decade, the efforts of Beitz, Rawls, and others (e.g., Pogge 1989, 2002; Caney 2002; Buchanan 2004) to establish foundations for global justice were among the most widely debated topics in political theory and philosophy. Although interdependence throughout the globe has greatly increased since the 1970s when Beitz wrote, it is still argued by some critics of Beitz that relations between affluent and poor countries cannot be seen in terms of the mutual cooperation and reciprocity necessary to think of global society in a way appropriate for application of a contractarian theory of justice. However, in his 1983 paper “Cosmopolitan Ideals and National Sovereignty,” Beitz already had moved away from a contractarian approach and was grounding cosmopolitanism on a Kantian account of the moral equality of persons and following the movement of Rawls’ later thought in Rawls’ Dewey Lectures. (Beitz addresses this change in perspective in the Afterword of the 1999 edition of PTIR.)

Open-Ended Cosmopolitanism In the third part of PTIR, Beitz had been agnostic about what ideally just global institutions might be like. Then, in “Cosmopolitan Liberalism and the States System” (1994), Beitz drew an important distinction between moral cosmopolitanism and institutional cosmopolitanism that he reinforced in the Afterword to the 1999 edition of PTIR as well as an important 2005 paper. Beitz claims that, unlike institutional cosmopolitanism, moral cosmopolitanism does not entail any ambitious claims about the best structure for international affairs. Moral cosmopolitanism, which Beitz endorses, simply insists on the global application of a single moral maxim: questions about policies to select and institutions to establish should be based on an impartial consideration of the claims of each and every person who will be affected. Thus, by 2005, Beitz concluded that the bare idea of moral cosmopolitanism is too protean to settle most issues. Beitz adds that while in PTIR he pictured the responsibilities of affluent states to the less advantaged on the model of foreign development assistance, in 2005 he concedes that this view, if taken on its own, is oversimplified and might lead one to confuse the part with the whole.

Not only are the requirements of justice grounded in interests of different degrees of urgency that exert claims of different weights, it is not unreasonable to expect the requirements of social justice, at the level of institutions, laws, and policies, to vary across societies in ways that respond to differences in the economic, social, and cultural background and that are too diverse to be easily comprehended within a single normative framework. Thus, justice cannot be applied directly to the relations among individuals in a manner not mediated by membership in political and institutional structures including states themselves. Thus, in The Idea of Human Rights (2009), Beitz rejects the view, increasingly popular in the human rights movement, that human rights ought to be regarded as the standards for international social justice. Beitz argues that, whereas human rights are matters of international concern, it is not plausible that the international community can take responsibility for all of the issues of justice arising within its component societies. For Beitz, the diversity of interests and problems in the international arena generates equally diverse reasons for action. We face the continual possibility of conflict between cosmopolitan claims and sectional values as well as a plurality of incompatible ethical responses to global problems such as global poverty. Moreover, as for a theory of global justice per se, Beitz holds that there is as yet no subject for such a theory to be about, nor do we know how to proceed in constructing such a theory. A just scheme needs to be designed so that, as far as possible, distributions accepted as just would result from the normal operations of global institutions. The only models of distributive justice presently available come from domestic contexts and they do not apply globally in any straightforward manner. And as we acquire more specific and accurate knowledge of economic globalization, transnational networks of officials, and global governance functions, as well as regional and local conditions, we may find the integration of practical knowledge with ethics and political theory results in something we had not previously anticipated.

Beitz on Human Rights By the time The Idea of Human Rights (IHR) was published, Beitz had rejected his earlier view (e.g., 1979) that human rights are derivative from social justice. In IHR, Beitz argues that human rights are a distinct normative system constructed in the post–World War II era to play a special role in global political life. International human rights consist of a normative practice that developed more or less sui generis and we need to investigate

Beitz, Charles

how the idea of human rights functions within the practice. Because human rights have a discursive function as triggers of international concern and action, human rights must be open to endorsement from a variety of reasonable points of view in order to be suitable for contemporary international life. Thus, Beitz rejects both the view that human rights are derived from the philosophical logic of natural rights and claims that human rights can be justified on the basis of the natural features of persons such as normative agency or central human capabilities. Human rights are the constitutive norms of an emergent global practice with its own characteristic purposes. The practice itself is constituted by acceptance of a distinctive class of norms as reasons for action rather than agreement over the content of the human rights set forth in declarations, covenants, and treaties. Thus, in IHR Beitz believes he has derived a practical model of human rights that describes an existing discursive practice. It is faithful to a substantial portion of human rights discourse developed by examining the historical origins and purposes of human rights doctrines and analyzing the roles the idea plays within discursive practices in which competent practitioners, lawyers, and experts engage. This model has two levels to represent a division of labor between states as bearers of the primary responsibilities to protect human rights and those who act as agents of the international community and guarantors of these rights. Thus, the model has three elements altogether: (1) the accepted understanding that human rights are requirements whose object is to protect urgent individual interests against standard threats, (2) at a first level, the requirements of human rights apply to the political institutions of states, and (3) human rights are matters of international concern such that a government’s failure to carry out its first-level responsibilities may give rise to reasons for action by appropriately placed and capable second-level agents outside the state. While human rights are constituted within an international discursive practice, that is, in terms of the reasons for action competent participants will find decisive, Beitz concedes that there is considerable controversy over the specific content of many human rights. Beitz also rejects the view that international acceptance implies some agreement on a deeper level of moral justification, such as agreement on a common core, an overlapping consensus, or a progressive convergence. Beitz stresses that the practice is emergent and ongoing, and subject to critical review among members of the practice itself. Thus, it cannot be agreement over the content of specific rights that provides human rights norms with their moral authority as such agreement would deprive human rights of their role in

B

criticizing existing institutions, states, and conventions, including the practice itself. Moreover, because human rights is a problem-solving practice that must come to grips with complex realities of the world, there is continual relativity of human rights on contingent but important and varying circumstances. Beitz presents three major conditions for the justification of human rights norms. First, the interests to be protected by rights, when regarded from the perspective of the vulnerable, must be sufficiently urgent to be reasonably regarded political priorities. Second, it is advantageous to protect the underlying interests by means of legal or policy instruments available to the state. Third, typical or general failures of states to protect these interests are suitable grounds for international concern. This third condition imposes a requirement of feasibility. Unless there is some permissible and constructive form of international action that agents could have reason to carry out, there is no practical point to counting a protection as an international human right. In Beitz’s view, these conditions are jointly necessary and sufficient for the justification of human rights. Among the notable features of Beitz’s justificatory schema, one is its appeal to a plurality of normative considerations, including consequentialism as indicated by the second condition. The schema also allows for normative open-endedness insofar as the urgency of interests, the vulnerability of these interests to likely threats, and their amenability to political and legal protection, while based on public reasons, are nevertheless subject to considerable variation. The justification of human rights, as with institutional rights, depends to some extent on historical and social contingencies. Additionally, when a state fails to respect human rights, agents outside the state have pro tanto, or prima facie, reasons to act that are not necessarily conclusive. In Beitz’s view, whatever its importance from the perspective of potential beneficiaries and however appropriate it would be as a requirement for domestic institutions, an interest needing protection cannot count as a human right if it fails to satisfy a feasibility requirement of this kind. There are a number of significant consequences of Beitz’s schematic justification of human rights. First, Beitz rejects the approach often taken in philosophical discussions about the human rights of distant others. For instance, Henry Shue (1980, 1996) demonstrated that we must be cautious about claiming that a group (e.g., the human rights to security of persons in Darfur) lack human rights simply because it is not immediately apparent who bears the correlative obligations vis-a`-vis rights-holders. However, while Beitz’s tripartite model of human rights

63

B

64

B

Beitz, Charles

distinguishes reasons for protecting urgent interests from the reasons why distinct and diverse agents might be obligated to act, his justificatory schema has the consequence of collapsing the more traditional distinction between questions about the existence of human rights and questions about correlative obligations. It is a consequence of Beitz’s efforts to locate the justification of human rights within ongoing discursive practices which are constitutive of human rights, that the existence of a right depends, in the last analysis on the possibility of its justification. And due to the feasibility condition in Beitz’s justificatory schema, and the absence of any mechanism for assigning second-level obligations to specific agents, Beitz’s account of normativity complicates the number of reasons for action requiring careful consideration. Contrary to philosophers such as O’Neill (2005), Beitz rejects the view that so-called manifesto or aspirational rights are “normatively inert” (2009, 165). IHR is certain to be controversial for other reasons as well. For instance, given Beitz’s justificatory scheme, all human rights can be derogated, many, if not all, very considerably. This view is inconsistent with positions David Luban (2009) and Henry Shue (1978) have taken with respect to torture, for example. Yet, it hardly seems plausible for Beitz to say that a right not to be tortured is a different kind of right, perhaps a natural right, given its central role in what Beitz characterizes as the practice of human rights. Other critics might object to the inferences that if a persuasive case cannot be made for intervention or action on the part of relevant agents, then there is no actionable rights claim and therefore no human right after all. It might be asked whether this analysis eliminates the critical element of moral tragedy that results when a people have a moral right but others cannot effectively provide relief. Will Beitz’s analysis reignite the philosophical tradition he seeks to end? If critics believe greater relative weight should be given to urgent interests human rights are taken to protect than Beitz is willing to grant, then so-called naturalists are likely to continue to tie the urgency of human rights to the central capacities of human beings, or the necessary features of agency. Finally, is Beitz’s description of the practice flawed? Surely, some will claim that the practice itself distinguishes a category of offenses against human rights, including genocide and mass atrocity crimes, in which the responsibility to protect justifies coercive intervention. In such cases, there are two sorts of questions: whether infringement of human rights generates reasons for outside agents to act, and what forms of action by which agents might be likely to succeed. Given this distinction, human rights are not themselves constituted within the practice, or at least not within the same

practice in which issues of humanitarian intervention are raised and settled.

Beitz’s Influence The influence of PTIR on political scientists, philosophers, lawyers, and a wide range of practitioners helps explain why cosmopolitanism and theories of global justice advanced as rapidly and densely since the 1970s. Today, entire university courses and conferences are devoted to global justice, and almost invariably include a study of PTIR or other works by Beitz. In addition, Beitz had farreaching influence as editor for more than a decade of Philosophy & Public Affairs, one of the first and most influential journals to publish articles on global justice and international ethics. Beitz’s renunciation of moral skepticism has, in the view of many, consigned realism – the orthodox view when PTIR was published – to diminishing significance while Beitz’s criticism of the autonomy of states model reinvigorated debate over the moral judgment of states’ behaviors. Today, the general principle accepted by scholars and increasingly among those who make international policy is the principle advocated by Beitz, namely, that a state’s freedom from external criticism and intervention ought to depend on the justice of its institutions and actions. One measure of Beitz’s continuing influence is the 2005 symposium on his work in the journal Review of International Studies (2005).

Related Topics

▶ Buchanan, Allen ▶ Caney, Simon ▶ Contractarianism ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Difference Principle ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Resource Distribution ▶ Human Rights ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Political Liberalism ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Second Original Position

References Beitz CR (1979a) Human rights and social justice. In: Brown PG, MacLean D (eds) Human rights and US foreign policy. Lexington Books, Lexington/Toronto, pp 45–63 Beitz CR (1979b) Political theory and international relations, 1st and 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Beneficence, Principle of Beitz CR (1983) Cosmopolitan ideals and national sovereignty. J Philos 80:591–600 Beitz CR (1994) Cosmopolitan liberalism and the states system. In: Brown C (ed) Political restructuring in Europe: ethical perspectives. Routledge, London/New York, pp 123–136 Beitz CR (2000) Rawls’s law of peoples. Ethics 110:669–696 Beitz CR (2001) Human rights as a common concern. Am Polit Sci Rev 95:269–282 Beitz CR (2003) What human rights mean. Daedalus 132:36–46 Beitz CR (2004) Human rights and the law of peoples. In: Chatterjee DK (ed) The ethics of assistance, morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Beitz CR (2005) Cosmopolitanism and global justice. Ethics 9:11–27 Beitz CR (2009) The idea of human rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford Beitz CR, Goodin RE (eds) (2009) Global human rights. Oxford University Press, New York Buchanan A (2004) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Caney S (2002) Justice beyond borders: a global political theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Luban D (2009) Unthinking the ticking bomb. In: Beitz CR, Goodin RE (eds) Global human rights. Oxford University Press, New York Nickel JW (1987, 2007) Making sense of human rights, 1st and 2nd edn. University of California Press, Los Angeles and Berkeley and Blackwell Publishing, Malden O’Neill O (2005) The dark side of human rights. Int Aff 81:427–439 Pogge T (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Pogge T (2002, 2008) World poverty and human rights, 1st and 2nd edn. Polity, Cambridge Rawls J (1971, 1999) A theory of justice, 1st and 2nd (revised) edn. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1999a) Kantian constructivism in moral theory (The Dewey lectures). In: Freeman S (ed) John Rawls: collected papers. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 303–358 Rawls J (1999b) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rengger N et al (2005) Reading Charles Beitz: twenty-five years of political theory and international affairs. Rev Int Stud 31:361–423 Shue H (1978) Torture. Philos Public Aff 7:124–143 Shue H (1980, 1996) Basic rights: subsistence, affluence and U.S. foreign policy, 1st and 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton Walzer M (1977, 1992) Just and unjust wars, 1st and 2nd edn. Basic Books, New York

Beneficence, Principle of SUSAN P. MURPHY School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

The principle of beneficence forms a part of almost all major moral and ethical theories. The principle gives rise to a normative agent-based claim that one (an agent) should act for the benefit of, or for the good of, another

B

(or others). The term benevolence refers to the character trait of an agent acting for the good of another. The basic concept of beneficence, as an action performed by one person for the benefit of another, is broadly accepted as a rational, cultural, or religious imperative. The source of this moral claim differs across moral, religious, ethical, and cultural traditions. Also, there is little consensus across these traditions on the scope and content of the duties that can be derived from this claim. The following will firstly provide an overview of the nature of the principle of beneficence; secondly, it will outline the source, scope, and content of this principle in the two dominant moral theories of the Western secular philosophical tradition – consequentialism and Kantianism. There has been increasing interest in recent years in the philosophical foundations of the principle of beneficence and the duties this gives rise to. The modern conditions of increasing globalization, transnational economic interaction, and interdependence, the changing role and face of the state, combined with the existence and persistence of radical deprivation have generated much debate among philosophers contributing to the discourse on Global Justice. Much of the discourse focuses on the principle of beneficence as giving rise to an agent-based claim upon individuals, as opposed to a claim upon the actions and behavior of states. More specifically, the discourse on Global Justice is concerned with the source, scope, and content of this principle as it applies to strangers or those beyond state borders and outside our immediate domain of special relationships.

The Source of the Principle The principle of beneficence refers to actions we ought to do for the good of another (others). That is, it can be understood as giving rise to a moral claim on individual agents from which specific duties can be derived. Consequentialist moral theory encompasses a broad family of philosophical perspectives that largely converge on the moral significance and importance of outcomes, goals, or interests in determining the moral value of actions and reasons to act. Within this tradition there is broad consensus on the role of the principle of beneficence. Broadly speaking, this principle gives rise to a normative claim on every agent to promote the good by performing actions that will produce the best outcomes or maximize the interests or utility of the greatest number of people. Utilitarian moral theory is one representative of this family. In the work of David Hume and John S. Mill, the principle of beneficence is the supreme principle of morality and an original feature of human nature. Beneficence arises from the principle of utility from which all duties

65

B

66

B

Beneficence, Principle of

and actions can be derived and judged. The motive of the principle of beneficence is to maximize happiness or wellbeing for the greatest number. For philosophers within the Kantian tradition, the source of this principle is the individual moral agent with the capacity to act rationally and autonomously. Beneficence is not the supreme principle of morality but a principle of duty. Kant’s account of beneficence is grounded on a principle of duty, that is, that agents have duties to perform certain actions because it is right to do your duty. The motive of duty is duty itself rather than securing good outcomes or maximizing happiness. The principle of beneficence and the moral claim this gives rise to – that an agent should act for the good of another – are connected to one specific end for all agents that Kant takes to be obligatory. This is to promote the happiness and interests of others according to one’s means and without demanding anything in return.

The Nature of Duties The constitutive characteristics of the duties derived from the principle of beneficence can be broadly described as follows. Firstly, duties can be either positive or negative in nature. That is, they can require an agent to perform certain actions for specific others. Such positive duties of beneficence are selective in nature. As it is not possible to act for the good of all others all of the time, agents must select the specific actions they can undertake and for whom. Secondly, duties can also be negative in nature, such as a duty not to harm or not to interfere. Negative duties of beneficence can be universally applied. Thirdly, duties of beneficence are imperfect in nature. That is, they are incomplete and indeterminate. There is an indefinite variety of acts that one can undertake to promote the good of another – care, friendship, love, emotional support, financial support, technical support, training, education, knowledge sharing, and so on. Fourthly, selection of the most appropriate action to be performed will depend on a number of factors including: the circumstance of the other person(s); recognition of the other person as a human being with interests, goals, and needs; the skills and capacity of the agent performing the action; the cost of the action; and often a belief on behalf of the agent and the beneficiary in the value of the actions to be performed. Finally, the scope of ethical concern for principles of beneficence can be either universal or special. It is widely accepted that special relationships such as family, employer/employee contracts, community members, and membership of a nation are the context of certain types of duties that can be derived from the principle of

beneficence. The critical question with which philosophers writing on Global Justice are concerned is whether duties of beneficence extend to those outside such special relationships. There is no analytical constraint within the concept of beneficence or the nature of the principle to restrict its reach to special relationships. However, the practice of beneficence does entail the process of selection. If it is impossible to perform acts for the benefit of all others all of the time, it is necessary for an agent to identify to whom they should give consideration and which acts to perform. The question of scope and potential sources of constraint on the principle of beneficence are considered in greater detail below. Beneficent actions can be distinguished from supererogatory actions that it is permissible but not obligatory for an agent to perform. Supererogatory actions are widely understood as beyond the call of duty. Whereas the principle of beneficence governs all every day actions and interactions with others, supererogation refers to acts of kindness, mercy, or charity that are not obligatory. Supererogatory actions can range from small acts of kindness and generosity to those that involve great sacrifices by the agent, entailing a significant reduction of the agent’s wellbeing or involving significant risk to an agent’s life.

The Principle of Beneficence and Consequentialist Moral Theory Within the discourse on Global Justice, the work of Peter Singer has perhaps been most influential and controversial on the subject of beneficence. Singer’s article “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” (1972) acted as the catalyst for the renewed philosophical exploration of the principle of beneficence and the normative claim upon agents that this gives rise to. Under the modern conditions of increased globalization, the changing role and face of the state, unprecedented levels of wealth in affluent or developed states coupled with mass poverty, harm, and extreme levels of human suffering in less affluent states, Singer builds a universalist, consequentialist account of the principle of beneficence that he takes to hold upon all agents, regardless of state boundaries or special ties. Starting from ordinary moral thinking and reasoning, Singer begins with the relatively uncontroversial premise that suffering caused by poverty is bad. He then extrapolates from this that one should prevent this bad from occurring if it is in one’s power to do so without sacrificing anything of comparable value. The physical proximity of the person experiencing harm is not a morally relevant factor. In an effort to move from an abstract principle to the specific practical question of who ought to do what for

Beneficence, Principle of

whom, Singer introduces a third empirical premise: That donations to aid agencies prevent suffering and harm caused by poverty and do not sacrifice anything of comparable value. Therefore it is wrong not to donate to aid agencies (2009). The amount of aid we should donate should be the maximum amount we can give without sacrificing anything of equal moral worth. Thus, those who spend money on luxury items instead of giving to aid agencies are wrong and their actions morally blameworthy. Singer’s account is representative of a radical consequentialist school of thought that holds that there exist equally strong duties toward all persons, regardless of location or special commitments. To this account, there are two dominant objections raised in the literature. Firstly, on the question of scope, many argue that, although consequentialist moral theory can support the universal reach of Singer’s normative claim, the strength of the duties can change depending on other morally relevant factors such as special relationships and proximity. An account of beneficence must support an agent in balancing the demands of special ties with the demand for universal concern. In response to Singer’s claim, Richard Miller, David Miller, and others have argued that proximity and special ties are morally relevant factors and priority ought to be afforded to those closer and those with whom we share special commitments. Richard Miller takes Singer’s first premise to hold true and develops a more moderate account of the principle of general beneficence based on a principle of sympathy as the regulating factor. Miller’s account is based upon an assumption of equal moral worth of all persons. We have beneficent duties of concern for those with whom we share special relationships and those who are nearby, but duties of equal respect for others. For Miller, the normative claim of the principle of beneficence gives priority to special relationships and those nearby. An agent is morally wrong or blameworthy if they fail to display sympathy and demonstrate concern to those with whom they share special ties, and to those close by. Agents should give donations to aid agencies for the good of others when the demands generated by these special ties have been met; however an agent is not morally blameworthy or wrong if they fail to do this. The second and related objection relates to the content of Singer’s claim, which many take to be overdemanding. Richard Miller, for example, argues that Singer’s account is based on an extensive principle of sacrifice that is beyond ordinary moral thinking and demands acts that are supererogatory rather than beneficent in nature. Miller develops an alternative account of the content of the duties of

B

beneficence that provides for a graduated reduction in the strength of duties as the distance between the agent and “the other” in need increases. Liam Murphy takes an alternative approach to the objection of overdemandingness to which Singer’s claim gives rise. Murphy (1993) develops an alternative consequentialist account of the principle of beneficence as a “cooperative” conception. Rather than starting from the claim that every agent should do as much as they possibly can without sacrificing anything of comparable value, Murphy examines the collective duties that the principle of beneficence gives rise to and the most “fair” way to distribute the burdens of these duties across all agents equally. Introducing a “compliance condition,” Murphy argues that each agent should be required to give only the level of donations/perform only the acts that would be adequate to solve the problem of poverty if everyone gave an equal share. Anything beyond this, say for example additional acts or giving to compensate for the failure of others to act or to give would be considered supererogatory, that is morally optional and beyond the call of duty.

The Principle of Beneficence and Kantian Moral Theory In Towards Justice and Virtue (1996), Onora O’Neill has developed a Kantian account of the principle of beneficence as the source of morally required duties of virtue, universal in scope, imperfect, and indeterminate in content. For O’Neill, the modern conditions of deep pluralism, continuous and widening networks of connection, and mutual interdependence demand the reintegration of duties of virtue, including beneficence, into moral theorizing, judgment, and evaluation. For O’Neill, duties of beneficence are derived from a general agent-based duty to reject indifference and neglect. Rather than focusing on the source, O’Neill focuses instead on justification of principles of virtue. For O’Neill, the criteria for justification are relatively meager, yet demanding – duties must be adoptable, followable, and intelligible by those who fall into the domain of ethical consideration. One of the primary objections to O’Neill’s account of beneficence as a duty of virtue relates to the imperfect and indeterminate nature of this duty. A number of philosophers writing on Global Justice, including Simon Caney (2005, 2007) and Elizabeth Ashford (2007) have argued that the conditions of the modern age demand the enforcement of certain duties of beneficence. They argue that certain duties such as the duty of assistance should be specified and enforced through a legal institutional framework. While sharing the concerns of Global Justice, Onora

67

B

68

B

Benhabib, Seyla

O’Neill defends the Kantian position. For O’Neill, duties of beneficence are universal and imperfect, held by all persons equally, but owed to no one specifically unless an institutional framework can be established to link recipient to agent and determine the content of the duty. However, even then only specifiable duties can be prescribed. Beneficence is a broad and context-dependent concept. It is not possible to determine in advance the full content of duties of beneficence. These will depend on the context of the agent and the person who’s good is to be protected or promoted. Also, although institutions can enforce specified duties and promote beneficent actions, it is not possible to force a person to have a benevolent character. The duties of beneficence remain a matter of moral virtue. Although the two traditions examined here may appear to be pulling in opposite directions, the literature on Global Justice includes a large body of work that seeks to reconcile the tensions and conflicts between these traditions. A critical point of consensus between the traditions is that the principle of beneficence and the duties that can be derived from this are broadly accepted as universal imperatives, that is, they are duties to which all are obligated. The key points of conflict surround the source of the principle and the motive for action. Within and between both traditions, there is a rich body of research exploring and debating the nature and extent of this principle and its derivative duties.

Related Topics

▶ Charity ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Decent Society ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties to Non-Compatriots ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy ▶ Duties, Determinate and Indeterminate ▶ Duties, Perfect and Imperfect ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Friendship ▶ International Humanitarian Assistance ▶ Solidarity ▶ Ubuntu ▶ Virtue Ethics

References Arneson R (2004) Moral limits on the demands of beneficence. In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 33–58 Ashford E (2007) The duties imposed by the human right to basic necessities. In: Pogge T (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human

right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 183–218 Beauchamp T (2008) The principle of beneficence in applied ethics. In: Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/principle-beneficence/ Caney S (2005) Justice beyond borders. Oxford University Press, New York Caney S (2007) Global poverty and human rights: the case for positive duties. In: Pogge T (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 275–302 Chatterjee D (ed) (2004) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Metz T (2007) Toward an African moral theory. J Polit Philos 15(3): 321–341 Miller R (2004a) Beneficence, duty, and distance. Philos Public Aff 32(4):357–383 Miller R (2004b) Moral closeness and world community. In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 101–122 Miller D (2007) National responsibility and global justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford Murphy L (1993) The demands of beneficence. Philos Public Aff 22(4): 267–292 O’Neill O (1996) Towards justice and virtue. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge O’Neill O (2004) Global justice: whose obligations? In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Pogge T (ed) (2001) Global justice. Blackwell, Oxford Pogge T (2004) Assisting the global poor. In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Pogge T (2007) Severe poverty as a human rights violation. In: Pogge T (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 11–54 Singer P (1972) Famine, affluence, and morality. Philos Public Aff 1(1):229–243 Singer P (2004) Outsiders: our obligations to those beyond our borders. In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 11–32 Singer P (2009) The life you can save. Picador, London

Benhabib, Seyla DAVID A´LVAREZ Yale Global Justice Program, Department of Sociology, Political Science and Philosophy, University of Vigo, Vigo, Spain

Seyla Benhabib is the Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University. Her work on global justice is mostly concerned with the conditions for just membership in a global order and with the consequent transformations of citizenship in a

Benhabib, Seyla

post-Westphalian conception of sovereignty. Benhabib’s work responds to the challenge of defending an articulate balance between unity and diversity in the political organization of human coexistence, and faces this task through a cosmopolitan approach that intends to go beyond interventionism and indifference. The resulting proposal defends a cosmopolitan federation of self-governing polities with porous borders, articulated through an increasingly dense net of global institutions. This cosmopolitan horizon requires the reconceptualization of some central elements of the international system: It entails a workable conception of human rights, a post-Wesphalian conception of sovereignty, the reformulation of democratic legitimacy, membership and admission policies, and a new role for global civil society in the institutionalization of these reformulations. These aspects will be examined in closer detail in the following sections.

Methodological Presuppositions: Interactive Universalism and Democratic Iterations Benhabib’s work is a path-breaking contribution to a subject that only recently has received the attention it deserves in the global justice debate. Questions of membership, immigration, and admission had been relatively absent in political philosophy. Benhabib’s own conception of the “right to have rights” inherits the Arendtian reflections upon the tragic fate of minorities in twentiethcentury Europe during successive patterns of persecution, denationalization, expulsion, and extermination. These convulsions that accompanied the World Wars and led to the creation of the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the 1948 UDHR reflected the vulnerability of those individuals entitled to universal human rights but deprived of a state that would actually enact these protections. Benhabib’s work takes this rich Arendtian legacy and develops a conception of just membership for a world in which the relations of interdependency and the possibilities of interaction help to configure a more ambitious cosmopolitan horizon. These same historical conditions of inescapable coexistence and enhanced interactions support a reinterpretation of the Kantian cosmopolitan right of hospitality and the obligation to enter into a global juridical community. Benhabib’s conception of the “right to have rights” reconciles the immanent criticism of the Critical Theory tradition with a normative standard for transcending the Westphalian system through the emergence of cosmopolitan norms. Benhabib’s early proposal of an Interactive Universalism addresses some of the main criticisms directed to the Habermasian paradigm of Discourse Ethics by feminist,

B

communitarian, and postmodern thinkers. Her alternative account supplements the idealized conditions of equal respect that take the interlocutor as a “generalized other” with a conception of a “concrete other” that is sensitive to the contingent, embodied, and contextual elements that frame the singular perspective of the other. This reformulation of the deliberative conditions relaxes the pressure to reach a consensus and emphasizes the need to conceive deliberative practices as open processes oriented to enable an enlarged mentality. Such a practice of reason-giving depends on the ability to approach the other’s concrete perspective and on the reflexive reformulation of the subject’s own identity. This conception of Interactive Universalism is further elaborated and politically fleshed out as Democratic Iterations, stressing the ability to adopt and adapt right claims. This practice also enables the legal concretization of abstract universal standards, like core human rights, by self-governing peoples. The aforementioned iterations provide a way to defend the universality of human rights without advocating a unified juridical culture. Following the thread of Interactive Universalism, the practice of claiming rights across borders and boundaries is consistent with a conception of human rights that relies on a deliberative process about what we can accept as valid claims for rights. One can encapsulate the underlying theoretical presuppositions in the following way: Any political justification of human rights (juridical universalism) presupposes strong beliefs about the normative content of human reason (justificatory universalism), and such belief rests on the recognition of the other’s right to accept as valid only those rules that can be expressed with convincing reasons through practices of equal respect and communicative freedom (moral universalism). The account of human agency that is at the base of this communicative justification of rights can be expressed in terms of “generalized” and “concrete” other. It does not depend on any controversial and essentialist description of human nature (no essentialist universalism).

The Right to Have Rights and Global Justice The “right to have rights” is a non-state-centric conception of just membership that affirms that every human being has the right to be a member of a political community in which his or her basic interests are given due respect. This formulation expresses the “principle of right” of a legal cosmopolitan position whose core concept would also include some minimal conditions present in the documents of the human rights regime, such as the rights to life, liberty (including protections against the

69

B

70

B

Benhabib, Seyla

various forms of slavery and serfdom), personal property, equal freedom of thought and religion, expression, association, representation and, crucially, the right of self-government. The “schedule of rights,” that is, the legitimate variation in a core list of rights that is institutionalized in a political community, represents the expression of collective self-government, limited by binding cosmopolitan norms. However, the practice of Democratic Iteration, as an empirical activity of a self-governing demos, represents a delicate balance between the expression of democratic legitimacy and cosmopolitan justification. Nothing in this delicate equilibrium precludes that a demos could reach undesirable exclusionary agreements that are inconsistent with the fair representation of the interests of all affected participants and thus generate norms that fail to express universal moral respect or egalitarian reciprocity. The “right to have rights” differs from other conceptions of human rights in that it does not aim to reduce human rights to a membership right, and in that it conceives the right of self-government as a fundamental determinant of the range of legitimate variation in the content of basic human rights. In this sense, Benhabib distinguishes between “mere membership rights,” which simply take into account one’s interests in nondemocratic societies, and “just membership rights” that give one’s interests proper consideration through adequate participatory channels.

Global Political Structure: A Cosmopolitan Federation Seyla Benhabib advocates a cosmopolitan federation of self-governing polities. This project can be articulated through a global dispersion of sovereignty that does not require the constitution of a global state. However, Benhabib’s emphasis is not on the specific questions of global institutional design but on the paradox of democratic legitimacy implicit in this articulation of cosmopolitan norms and democratic self-government. We can parse two dimensions implicit in this paradox at the core of a republican community, depending on whether we accentuate the “self ” (the limits of the polity) or the “government” (the autonomy of its will) part of the concept. The first question involves who is entitled to decide about who is entitled to decide (full-membership) in a democratic process. Any demos requires a level of closure. Otherwise it is not possible to guarantee that identity of the co-legislators is coextensive with those that are subjected to the law. This identity is key in the promotion of the civic engagement required to develop a common political project over time. Benhabib considers that this

goal is incompatible with an ideal policy of open borders, but it is also incompatible with republican and nationalist conceptions of unrestricted control over admissions. As full membership in a political community implies the access to goods, services, positions, and resources, we could say that a cosmopolitan conception of just admission policies is also a theory of global redistribution. Although there is a link between poverty and migration, and between admission policies and resources, Benhabib states specifically that these are different concerns and that migration flows should not be interpreted as the solution to global poverty. Benhabib explicitly denies that international resource transfers like Rawls’s Duty of Assistance can automatically legitimate border closure by donor peoples and holds that the moral and legal duties toward migrant and asylum seekers must be discussed separately from distributive norms. In the case of just membership in a non-state-centric global order, first admissions to residency should be regulated through selection criteria not based on ascriptive grounds like gender, race, or ethnicity. The transition to full membership should be made according to clear, public, and transparent procedures for which authorities can be held accountable. The second question points to the precommitment to cosmopolitan standards like human rights, whose validity is conceived as independent from the democratic will that they constrain. This familiar tension between constitutional liberalism and democratic politics becomes significant for global justice in that it points to the necessity of justifying the structure of authority responsible for the enforcement of these cosmopolitan standards. Benhabib’s approach to these complex questions consists of admitting that the intrinsically paradoxical nature of these problems defies any a priori analytical solution and, consequently, adopting an “in media res” perspective. This means assuming the existence of “de facto” historical communities as a starting point, and developing, through democratic iterations, imperfect approximations to the regulative ideal. The final result of this vertical dispersion of sovereignty in a cosmopolitan federation is a disaggregated conception of citizenship through multiples spaces of self-government that would approximate conditions of egalitarian respect in a global scope.

The Emergence of Cosmopolitan Norms and Global Civil Society How is the transition from international to cosmopolitan norms of justice possible? One of the key questions of a cosmopolitan theory is an explanation of how states would agree to implement, through voluntary treaties

Benhabib, Seyla

and conventions, self-binding norms that recognize the ultimate moral and legal status of basic individual entitlements when these norms are not backed by a higher, binding legal authority for their enforcement. Benhabib develops a dual-track approach that combines the analysis of the formal policies of legal institutions with the informal and less-structured practices of global civil society. These two poles do not, however, occupy symmetrical positions. Her conception of the emergence of cosmopolitan norms gives a privileged role to the movements within civil society for its key contributions in articulating these new moral facts in an emerging global conscience. Characteristically, Benhabib’s main contribution to the debates about political and legal globalization is to point out the risks of decoupling the institutional process from the political will formation. Benhabib’s position is critical about technocratic approaches backed by systemic theories that heavily rely on the activities of professional and bureaucratic elites, and also skeptical about projects of global constitutionalism that could generate a legal framework that no demos would identify with. The nature of this supra-state dynamics constitutes a challenge for the institutionalization of cosmopolitan norms. Humanity is not a unified political collective, and the individuals that cosmopolitan norms would protect develop their loyalties and identifications through national institutions. In Benhabib’s work, global civil society has a key role in mediating between these two levels. Civil society has the potential to represent a plurality of interests, including the claims of justice of those collectives that do not have an effective institutional channel to voice their arguments. It also has the ability to generate a global conscience about new moral and political facts that transcends the national perspective and that reconciles the democratic will formation with the allegiance to emerging cosmopolitan norms. The most relevant reference for these cosmopolitan norms is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Benhabib emphasizes the moral and legal nature of human rights and their inherent aim toward legal positivization and even constitutionalization through democratic iterations. The most salient areas that Benhabib highlights are: crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes; humanitarian interventions; and transnational migrations. Benhabib’s approach to matters like global poverty and distributive justice also reflects her dual-track perspective. Her focus is the reform of existing institutions of global capitalism (lex mercatoria) that have a great impact in determining the realization of basic human

B

rights. Here her contribution has been to point to the legitimacy of spaces of resistance and contestation where social movements, unions, activists, and NGOs could bring to bear their claims and interpretations of the standards that should be implemented and institutionalized in an emerging global configuration. Consequently, Benhabib privileges the “soft” power of global civil society to bring about these cosmopolitan transformations over more drastic and interventionist measures.

Related Topics

▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Democracy, Deliberative ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Global Federalism ▶ Global Public Reason ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism ▶ Refugees ▶ Transitional Justice

References Benhabib S (2002) The claims of culture. Equality and diversity in the global era. Princeton University Press, Princeton Benhabib S (2004a) The law of peoples, distributive justice and migrations. Fordham Law Rev LXXII(5):1761–1787 Benhabib S (2004b) The rights of others: aliens, residents and citizens: the John Seeley memorial lectures. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Benhabib S (2006) Another cosmopolitanism. The Berkeley Tanner lectures, edited and introduced by Robert Post and with commentaries by Jeremy Waldron, Bonnie Honig and William Kymlicka. Oxford University Press, Oxford Benhabib S (2007a) Twilight of sovereignty or the emergence of cosmopolitan norms? Rethinking citizenship in volatile times. Citiz Stud 11(1):19–36 Benhabib S (2007b) Is there a human right to democracy? Beyond interventionism and indifference: the Lindley lecture. The University of Kansas, Kansas Benhabib S (2009a) Hannah Arendt and Ralph Lemkin: international law in the shadow of totalitarianism. Constellations Int J Crit Democratic Theor 16(2):331–350 Benhabib S (2009b) Claiming rights across borders. International human rights and democratic sovereignty. Am Polit Sci Rev 103:691–704 Carens J (1995) Aliens and citizens: the case for open borders. In: Beiner R (ed) Theorizing citizenship. State University of New York Press, Albany Cohen J (2006) Is there a human right to democracy? In: Sypnowich Ch (ed) The egalitarian conscience. Essays in honor of G. A. Cohen. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 226–248 Habermas J (2008) The constitutionalization of international law and the legitimacy problems of a constitution for a world society. Constellations Int J Crit Democratic Theor 15(4):444–455 Pogge T (2009) World poverty and human rights. Polity Press, Cambridge

71

B

72

B

Berger, John

Berger, John JOHANNA LUTTRELL Department of Philosophy, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

John Berger is a novelist, short-story writer, essayist, poet, painter, filmmaker, philosopher, art critic, and political activist. Coming of age in the 1950s and 1960s in England, he was most widely known for his works in art criticism, his BBC series, and collections of essays, “Ways of Seeing.” Due in part to the reception of these works, he was penned as a Marxist radical and cultural critic. In recent decades, his guiding concerns have widened from the arena of art criticism proper to the lived experiences of the economically and socially marginalized. His method for describing these concerns, though, remains a distinctly artistic one; he portrays the condition of the world’s poor by using visual landmarks and poetic narration. Thus, he is never far from art, in either his subject or his method. About Berger, one would not merely want to say that his politics are artistic. Rather, he urges his readers to see the world in an artistic way, in a manner that is wholly commensurate with, and not divorced from, politics. His contributions to the arena of global justice include his concern with international migration, his diagnostic of history, and his articulation of the shape of resistances in the present era.

Global Migration Berger’s topics are distinctly international, and he writes often of traveling, homesickness, and exile. Perhaps these themes have been prevalent in his writing because he himself relocated from England to rural France halfway through his career. However, few writers are more viscerally aware of the great migrations taking place under the current world’s economic structure, shaped by the forces of neoliberalism and consumerism. Thus, the themes of homelessness and exile are part of Berger’s effort to reconcile his inner life with the realities of this world on the move. In the early 1970s, Berger insisted that the experience of the migrant worker in Europe was not peripheral, but absolutely central, to European history. Now, as ideologies of consumerism and the policies of neoliberalism find global footing, the world sees migration on an unprecedented scale. Berger posits the political and economic exiles of neoliberalism as central to our shared history as well. His writing details the shape of the experiences of people who travel to find work leaving

homelands that have been systematically underdeveloped and can no longer provide basic subsistence. Characteristically interested in place, Berger is also interested in describing places of transit: the refugee camp, the factory, the slums outside of industrial cities. In the tradition of participatory polemic, Berger urges his readers to ask, along with him, why must these people be on the move? He considers the task of answering this question to be one of the crucial endeavors of our time, and one of the central questions of global justice.

Diagnosing History In the tradition of Walter Benjamin, Berger calls on his readers to “take in” the realities of history, which in this era he names as globalization and neoliberalism, from the perspectives of those who are not benefiting from these economic ideologies. Taken together, globalization and neoliberalism constitute the primary obstacles to global justice, because Berger envisions global justice as, in part, economic justice for the very poor. Further, to “take in” reality means to lessen the distance between the consequences of the macrodevelopments on the poor and a person’s inner life. This effort, for Berger, is the life of the mind. He contends that one of the characteristics of the ideologies of globalization and consumerism is that they pretend the world cannot be otherwise, that no other alternative is possible, and that they have no social history, only a natural one. This pretension is the marker, for Berger, of a fanaticism. In reaction to these ideologies, ones that lessen the political voice of the poor by way of absolute economic depravation, everyone must, Berger urges, engage in diagnosing history. To diagnose history means to give a social history to globalization, neoliberalism, and consumerism, to show that the vast inequality of the present era has no natural basis, and to work toward global justice. In his essay, “Meanwhile” which, along with The Seventh Man, are the works by which Berger has said he would most like to be remembered, he holds up the figure of the prison to a visual landmark by which we can understand our present age. Such a landmark, he explains, is not a fully formed systematic critique. A visual landmark offers, instead, a shared reference point for thinking. This age’s reference point is the prison, Berger thinks, because of its overwhelming sense of inevitability. In this era, well-paid workers can hold no other value above absolute profit, while the poor are condemned to suffer in precipitous intensity. It seems inevitable, too, that market forces will and should always be stronger than any nation-state, and so individual governments feel their powers are out of their own hands. The single priority of

Berger, John

this age, for the state and everyone else, is to create favorable conditions for investors. The character of the present era, is marked, as a prison, by an ostensible lack of alternatives to present conditions. Berger’s aim is, in some sense, to undermine this sense of inevitability of failures in imagination.

Articulations of Resistance: A New Political Vocabulary Berger is interested in articulating the shapes of resistance to globalization and its accompanying militancy. A crucial element to global justice, and one method of resistance, is reclaiming and giving new meaning to visionary political vocabularies that have lost their historical and experienced senses. Freedom, for example, needs to mean more than “freedom from your headscarves”; hope must mean more than shallow optimism, and despair more than a lonely person’s a-political alienation. After the era of monadic nation-states, with their accompanying rhetoric of national fraternity, the world has changed. The democratic impulses of nation-states are at the mercy of the new economic world order, and the visionary political vocabulary of three centuries have been reduced to their most banal, consumerist senses. Yet with the disenfranchisement of the state structure, replaced by a globalized economy of multinational corporations beyond any one government’s control, new kinds of resistance arise, along with a new vocabulary. These resistances, Berger asserts, are based in desire. That is, the kinds of resistance that are coming to the fore today in Palestine and Afghanistan are ones founded in the desire of the people. These resistances do not rely on the programmatic structure of the state; they are spontaneous and include the experiences of freedom in action. For Berger, freedom in our age of capitaldriven violence is one in which people’s desires are acknowledged, chosen, and pursued, now and not in some indiscriminate time in the future. Berger’s formulation of political desire is not a wholesale and naı¨ve glorification of all desire. Not all desires evidence our freedom. He admits desires are compulsive and can, at times, limit one’s freedom. But it does not follow from the compulsive character of desires that they are antithetical to freedom, either. That error is the historical mistake of philosophers and economists. Berger gives us the alternative in the form of a remarkably adept definition of freedom: “freedom is the experience of a desire being acknowledged, chosen, and pursued.” One could interpret the statement thusly – freedom is not to be discovered or achieved in the repression of desires, but neither is it in the uncritical, unreflective, or unconscious uptake of desires. If freedom is to come about, desires are

B

chosen and pursued, that is, they are to be taken up by reasonable and thinking people. Freedom does not constitute the satisfaction of desire, but the space and time and resources to take it up. There is both activity and passivity in the discovery and achievement of a freedom is responsive to, and responsible for, desire. Desire is a force acting upon us, and while freedom does not consist in our mere acquiescence to this force, we acknowledge its power while choosing which part of it we are going to act upon. These desires are future-oriented, but they speak to the present. This future which Berger envisions can be said to be the “now future”; he does not speak from certain versions of prophetic traditions which, like in a Beckett play, we are endlessly waiting for an external intervention that supersedes upon human behavior. Since Berger is describing the freedom of human action in a world characterized by a system divorced from such action, we do not push off our desires as according to sometime in the future. We are the actors enacting our own desires. Also, insofar as it is connected to human action and not necessarily some definite end, freedom does not consist in the mere and static possession of something. Often, thinkers lament the fact that desire is a dynamic force, that it cannot be satiated in the possession of something. On this basis, desire is to be repudiated because it is insatiable and eschews “contentment.” But this lamentation is a misunderstanding of the possibilities of desire, a misunderstanding that stems from the specific historical context of late-capitalist globalization. One assumes contentment means something like making peace with what we have accumulated, but the aim of human desire is not, like the capitalist’s, accumulation. Desire’s aim, as a motivator for human action, is change. In enriching the meaning of visionary vocabulary in the service of global justice, Berger also writes on what it means to see the world from the perspective of despair. He notes that it is hard to imagine what the despair of the very poor is because those living in the First World are continually diverted from their inner lives by distractions. The despair of those who have no distractions, of those who cannot escape from, say, a refugee camp, cannot divert their attention away from their present conditions. Despair is also, Berger considers, what makes a terrorist or martyr. To allay or alleviate despair of the people who are forced to be “single-minded” is in part to respect their desires. Respect for desires is one meaning of, or perhaps beginning to, solidarity between people. Despair may mean, then, in some contexts, the sense that your life and the lives of those around you do not count for anything. A robust hope must be the antidote to despair; but

73

B

74

B

Bhopal Tragedy

the meaning of hope, too, must change as well. Hope, Berger writes, is “something to bite on.” One hopes even in the worst of moments, when there is no external confirmation that change is coming. For Berger, hope is very different from a confidence, promise, or, especially, a contract. As a measure of resistance, hope does not accommodate the patterns of present, unjust conditions; hope overturns them. Holding on to hope, even in the face of despair, can be called desiring justice. The desire for justice includes all the things that normally come to mind when we think about desire: romantic desire, impassioned yearning, outward orientation, and, more encompassingly, human flourishing. Berger places desire at the heart of his humanism, and its acknowledgment, choice, and pursuit an essential part of human dignity and global justice, especially in our time and place. Berger’s vision of global justice is, then, one in which visionary political vocabulary regains a sense of potency that corresponds to the lived experiences of those living on the underside of neoliberalism and globalization. Further, a just world would be one in which the “first” world lives in solidarity with the “third” world, by sharing a knowledge of material hardship, and fundamentally altering the causes of global migration.

Related Topics

▶ Capitalism ▶ Class and Status ▶ Free Trade ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Globalization ▶ Immigration ▶ Marxism ▶ Neoliberalism ▶ Poverty ▶ Refugees ▶ Solidarity ▶ Terrorism ▶ Third World Resistance

References Berger J (2001) The shape of a pocket. Vintage, New York Berger, J (2003) Selected essays of John Berger, ed. Dyer G. Vintage, New York Berger J (2007) Hold everything dear: dispatches on survival and resistance. Vintage, New York Berger J (2008) Meanwhile. Drawbridge Books, London Berger J, Mohr J (2010) A seventh man. Verso, New York and London Carlin P (2001) The spectre of hope: with Sebastia˜o Salgado and John Berger. Icarus Films, New York

Bhopal Tragedy TEPPO ESKELINEN Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyva¨skyla¨, Jyva¨skyla¨, Finland

Bhopal tragedy was the world’s deadliest industrial disaster, which took place in Bhopal, state of Maharashtra, India, on December 3, 1984. Estimates of the number of victims vary, but the immediate death toll of the accident was between 8,000 and 30,000 people. Thousands of people have died prematurely at a later point for reasons related to the accident, and even today thousands of survivors continue to suffer from diseases, such as respiratory problems, fatigue, and joint pains. The accident took place in the factory owned by Union Carbide company, producing a pesticide called Sevin, which was sold mainly to the Indian market. The use of this pesticide was thought to be an important part of the green revolution strategy in India, and generally in fighting hunger and malnutrition of small peasants. Indeed the use of the pesticide was very successful in terminating insects which destroy food crops. Yet after the recession in India in the early 1980s, the company, frustrated with its low sales record, decided to close the factory and relocate production. In this process, a fatal mistake was made to store large amounts of a chemical called MIC (Methyl isocyanate), needed in the production of Sevin, at the factory site. As the factory was not practically operational, safety measures related to MIC storaging were inadequate. Thus, an overheating of one of the MIC tanks led to its explosion, spreading lethal hydrocyanide gas to surrounding residential areas. The wind spread the gas especially to nearby slums. Union Carbide paid a lump sum in compensation for victims right after the accident. The sum of $47 million was paid to the Indian government, which used the money only partially to help Bhopal victims. The company has later referred to its negotiations with the government, arguing that it has made an honorable deal with large compensation payments, and any further payments to the disaster victims ought to be paid by the Indian central government or the state government of Maharashtra. While the compensation was at the time largest in history, the stock exchange’s reaction to the compensation deal was a sharp increase in Union Carbide’s stock value. The social movement calling for justice for Bhopal victims has continued to be strong and vocal even today. The campaigners argue that the victims were never

Biodiversity

adequately compensated, and that Union Carbide inc. had foreknowledge about the risks related to the storaging of MIC. They also call for the company to reveal the full composition of the chemical, which it has declared a business secret, along with the cleanup of the factory site, in which the soil is still heavily polluted, affecting, for example, local groundwater. Regular protests related to the tragedy still occur. Bhopal has become a symbol for many global justice advocates, who see the company having paid inadequate compensations since the victims were poor Indians instead of wealthy Americans or Europeans. This is seen as a sign of global inequality. The situation has yet been complicated by the fact that Union Carbide has been sold to Dow Chemicals, which does not see itself responsible for the liabilities of the company it has purchased. Further, it is highly difficult to divide compensational responsibilities between the company, the central government, and the local government, who all contributed in some way to the accident.

Related Topics

▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Reparations

References Eckerman I (2005) The Bhopal saga. Causes and consequences of world’s largest industrial disaster. Universities Press India, Delhi Fortun K (2001) Advocacy after Bhopal. Environmentalism, disaster, new global orders. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Lapierre D, Moro J (2002) Five past midnight in Bhopal. The epic story of the world’s deadliest industrial disaster. Grand Central, New York

Bilateral Aid ▶ Basic Needs ▶ Development Assistance

Biodiversity WILLIAM B. T. MOCK The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, IL, USA

B

biodiversity is often used as an approximation of an ecosystem’s health. Biodiversity varies widely among regions and countries, and is closely tied to issues in international development and global justice. Species diversity is the most common form of measurement of biodiversity, and measures the range of different species within a given ecosystem, including the global ecosystem. Estimates suggest that approximately 5–15% of all species extant have actually been cataloged with the vast majority of these being plant and vertebrates. It is likely that fewer than 5% of all viruses, fungi, bacteria, and nematodes have been identified. Species diversity also suffers from debates over shifting definitions of what constitutes a species. Genetic diversity measures the variation in genetic material within a given ecosystem, which includes genetic variations within species as well as between species. Potentially a more rigorous and useful measure than species diversity, genetic diversity currently suffers from the same issues of weak access to relevant information. Habitat diversity refers to two distinct concepts. One is the biodiversity within a given habitat and, as such, is essentially a geographically delimited use of species or genetic diversity. Alternatively, habitat diversity refers to the range of different habitats that are present within a given country or region, or the world as a whole. Thus, for example, tundra would be distinguished from forest, which itself could be divided into tropical, temperate, and northern forests and classified by rainfall and seasonal temperature variations. Habitat diversity is a particularly useful tool in conservation efforts, since a major cause of loss of species and genetic diversity is loss of habitat. Global biodiversity is very unevenly distributed, with moist tropical regions and islands generally holding the greatest variety of species and numbers of endemic species. Thus, there is often a negative correlation between national biodiversity and national development – effectively a biological version of the resource curse. According to the United Nations’ World Conservation Monitoring Center, 17 megadiverse countries hold roughly 70% of the world’s biological resources. Of these, only Australia and the USA are considered developed countries, with the great majority of megadiverse countries being in tropical Latin America, central Africa, southern Asia, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Biodiversity Loss Biodiversity refers to any of the several measures of the global or local diversity of life, and is important in identifying and addressing environmental change. As such,

It is estimated that species loss due to human involvement is between 1,000 and 10,000 times what it would have been without human involvement. Most of that species loss has occurred since the onset of the industrial revolution, and

75

B

76

B

Biodiversity

the pace of extinction has been accelerating rapidly. Although there have been significant instances of mass extinction, such as when the dinosaurs died out at the end of the Cretaceous Period 65 million years ago, scientists estimate that extinctions in the modern era are proceeding at a pace of at least 100 times the usual extinction rate between cataclysmic events. The ongoing “Holocene extinction” is thus approaching past cataclysmic events, and is the only one known to be associated with human activity. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has generated a widely used “Red List” of threatened and endangered species, which has assessed roughly 2–3% of the world’s estimated 5–30 million species. According to the Red List, species that are recently extinct or threatened with extinction constitute 22% of the world’s mammals, 31% of amphibians, 14% of birds, 27% of corals, and similar numbers for most other forms of life. It is widely recognized that biodiversity concerns must be addressed on an international level. The 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (the Rio “Earth Summit”) proclaimed a set of 27 principles relating to issues of environmentally sustainable development. At that same international conference, the Convention on Biological Diversity was opened for signature, becoming effective in December 1993. At last count, 193 countries were members of this Convention, with only the USA and a handful of microstates not participating. A key element of the Convention is that it establishes biodiversity target goals for 2010, which was designated by the UN as the International Year of Biodiversity. Few, if any, of those targets have been met, though modest progress was made in slowing the rates of some measures of biodiversity decline. There are many causes of biodiversity decline. Poverty and underdevelopment leads to resource pressures when rainforests are cleared for ranching or fuel. Deforestation, in turn, leads to diminished carbon sequestration, with a consequent increase in global warming. Global warming leads to habitat change that can eliminate ecological niches for vulnerable species. Agricultural practices destroy habitats, as fertilizer run-offs can lead to “dead zones” in downstream rivers and deltas, and development of monocultures leads to a narrowing of genetic diversity even in domesticated crops and animals. Ocean acidification and overfishing destroys coral reefs, eliminate marine habitats, and eliminate top-level species from the marine environment. Intentional and accidental human introduction of nonnative species into endemic populations in isolated ecosystems, including many islands, and draining

and development of liminal zones such as swamps and marshes eliminate fertile habitats and destroy necessary resting or breeding grounds for migratory species. Unsustainable levels of consumption of resources, including energy, are a key factor in environmental pressures that lead to loss of ecosystems and biodiversity. A common thread in these causes of decline in biodiversity is human population pressure and the Tragedy of the Commons. Only a small portion of the world’s species have been identified, cataloged, and tracked for population change, and large quantities of biological and genetic resources remain undiscovered. Given the potentially significant losses to future generations that would be involved in continuing major losses in global biodiversity, this argues for widespread application of the Precautionary Principle to human activity.

Significance of Biodiversity Loss Biodiversity losses have deeply significant impacts, both in themselves and in terms of human well-being. Some environmental advocates argue for recognition of the inherent value of Earth’s biosphere, without regard for human interests. Similarly, animal rights advocates point out the injustice of human-originated destruction of entire sentient species. In addition, healthy biomes are key to production of a breathable atmosphere, fertile land, and most of the world’s fresh water. Human beings also lose as biodiversity declines, with the greatest impact falling upon future generations. Culturally, biodiversity, including habitat diversity, is of great import, from the preservation of sacred locations and culturally significant wildlife to preservation of traditional sources of folk medicine and the emotional benefits of familiar, scenic, and historic sites. Economically, it is estimated that more than one-third of the world’s economic activity derives from biological resources. In addition to agriculture and commercial fishing, biological diversity is key to the daily survival of the world’s poorest billions of people who often find themselves caught in cycles of poverty and environmental degradation. Eco-tourism, which forms a vital part of many countries’ development plans, depends upon biodiversity. The development of new pharmaceuticals relies heavily upon identifying new genetic resources, often through bio-prospecting. Efforts to assign economic values to biodiversity’s multiple functions, which fall under the rubric of “green accounting,” are still rudimentary but, with great uniformity, reveal that actions to maintain biodiversity provide far greater economic value to society at large than any alternate utilization of resources. In recognition of the importance of biodiversity and habitat preservation, in

Bioprospecting and Biopiracy

both economic and non-economic terms, roughly one eighth of the world’s land areas and a significantly smaller portion of the world’s marine areas have been set aside as protected conservation areas. This figure has roughly doubled from 1980 to 2010, and represents one of the most positive trends in the effort to maintain the world’s biodiversity.

Related Topics

▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Global Resource Distribution ▶ Global Warming ▶ Obligation to Future Generations ▶ Resource Curse ▶ Rio Declaration

B

Where bioprospecting involves unauthorized access to information, the obtaining of information through deception, otherwise exploitative behaviour by researchers, or the use of a community’s traditional knowledge for reasons different from those for which it was provided, the practice is known as “bio-piracy.” As bio-piracy typically involves scientists from wealthier, developed nations conducting research in communities of indigenous people in poorer, developing nations – many of which are former colonies that were previously “discovered” and conquered by imperial powers wishing to profit from their natural resources – the practice is sometimes dubbed “biocolonialism.” It has drawn criticism from human rights activists, influential academics, nongovernmental organizations, and some governments for being contrary to fundamental principles of global justice.

References Heywood VH, Dowdeswell E (1995) Global biodiversity assessment. UNEP/Cambridge University Press, New York International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (“IUCN”) IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN. http://www.iucnredlist.org/ Magurran AE (2004) Measuring biological diversity. Blackwell, Malden, MA Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2010) Global biodiversity outlook 3. United Nations, Montreal United Nations General Assembly (1992) Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (A/CONF.151/26 vol 1). UN. http://www.un.org/documents/ga/conf151/aconf15126-1 annex1.htm

Bioprospecting and Biopiracy ALEXANDRA E. GEORGE Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

The collection and use of the biological knowledge of a particular community by researchers from outside that community is a contentious issue. The search for such traditional knowledge with a view to developing commercial products is commonly referred to as “bioprospecting.” Subsequent analysis of the information that is gathered through bioprospecting activities is called “bio-discovery,” and the aim of bioprospecting and bio-discovery is to identify natural products that can be used for medicines and to achieve other beneficial outcomes. It has been estimated that, of the top 150 prescription medicines marketed in the United States (US), around 57% were derived from products found in nature.

The Global Injustice of Biopiracy While all people, including those from the communities that have been traditional custodians of the biological knowledge in question, can benefit from the advances in scientific and medical research that can emerge from bioprospecting activities, the reality has often been unjust outcomes. In particular, bio-pirates have been criticized for exploiting traditional communities by taking their knowledge and know-how without rewarding them with a share of the resulting profits. In some circumstances, the traditional custodians of the knowledge have ended up worse off after the effects of patents affected local access to the plants on which the bio-pirated “inventions” were based. Thus, while bioprospecting would ideally improve global distributive justice through profit-sharing arrangements, bio-piracy can undermine global justice. Several well-known examples of bioprospecting that gave rise to foreign patents and were then criticized as examples of bio-piracy involved the Neem Plant and Basmati Rice from India, the Enola Bean from Mexico, and the taking of genetic material from the Hagahai people of Papua New Guinea. In summary: ● Neem plant: The Neem Tree, Azadirachta indica, has been used in India since time immemorial to provide natural medicines, antifungal oil, soaps, cosmetics, dental remedies, contraceptives, and pesticides. In the early 1990s, several Neem tree patents were registered by W.R. Grace and the US Department of Agriculture at the European Patent Office (EPO). These included a method of controlling fungi in crops using Neem oil (EPO Patent No. 436257). In light of the patents, the price of Neem seed soared, with most of it being purchased by W.R. Grace, putting it out of reach

77

B

78

B

Bioprospecting and Biopiracy

of the majority of ordinary Indian villagers. Following condemnation and a campaign involving the Indian government, the Green grouping in the European Parliament, and other organizations, the EPO revoked the fungicide patent in 2000. This was challenged by W.R. Grace, but upheld by the EPO in 2006. ● Basmati Rice: In 1997, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) awarded a patent over “basmati rice lines and grains” (US Patent No. 5,663,484) to a United States company, Ricetec, owned by Prince Hans-Adam of Liechtenstein. The patent application included a claim to property rights over characteristics similar to Indian basmati rice characteristics. Following protests by the Indian government and other activists, in 2000 Ricetec amended its patent by withdrawing the parts specifying the contentious claim. ● Enola Bean: In 1999, John Proctor obtained a US patent over the Enola Bean, also known as the “yellow bean” (US Patent No. 5,894,079). He then sued US importers of Mexican yellow beans, with the result that exports of the beans fell by 90% for Mexican farmers whose livelihood had involved selling yellow beans. This reportedly caused economic harm to over 20,000 Mexican farmers. The farmers sued, and in 2005 they won their initial case, with the USPTO ruling in their favor. Following an appeal, the Enola bean patent was revoked in 2008, and this was confirmed on further appeal in 2009. ● Hagahai Cells: In 1995, a US patent was granted over a human T-cell line known as “pNG-1” and a viral preparation comprising a variant in the cell line (US Patent No. 5,397,696). These inventions were derived from the genetic material of an unidentified 21-yearold man that had been gathered – apparently without informed consent – by researchers treating people from Papua New Guinea’s Hagahai tribe for diseases. Scientists noticed that the blood of many Hagahai people contained the T-cell leukaemia virus, yet the carriers were not afflicted with leukaemia. The T-cell line invention that they patented enabled screening of Melanesian people (such as the indigenous people of Papua New Guinea) for the cell line and, potentially more lucratively, had prospects for use in vaccines to protect humans against infection with diseases such as leukaemia. The patent was awarded to five researchers, and owned by the US Department of Health, with the Hagahai people and the individual donor of the genetic material receiving no direct benefits. Following outcries about the injustice of this situation, the US government filed paperwork with the USPTO

forfeiting its rights in the patent and relinquishing control over the invention. The Hagahai example differs from the plant patent examples given above, in that the knowledge patented was not given directly to researchers by the indigenous people but was instead derived from human biological material gathered from those people. As such, it is sometimes cited as an even more intrusive version of bio-piracy because it involves taking material from the bodies of indigenous people, rather than taking biological knowledge from their communities. A fundamental tenet of patent law worldwide is that patents should be awarded only over inventions, not mere discoveries. Thus, it is arguable that none of the plant examples outlined here should ever have given rise to the patents that were registered, as each involved patented claims (i.e., the novel parts of the invention that become the property of the patent holder for a 20-year term) that were mere discoveries, not inventions. They therefore represented failures of the patent system to operate properly in these cases rather than underlying flaws with patentability criteria. The malfunctions were typically the result of US and European patent examiners being unaware that local communities overseas had traditional knowledge of the plant properties that were being patented. Each of these high-profile examples served to increase global awareness and concern about bio-piracy. Each attracted intense media coverage and helped to focus attention on the need to create laws, treaties, and processes to curtail the harmful effects of bio-piracy, while simultaneously avoiding stifling the potentially beneficial effects of bioprospecting.

Efforts to Regulate Bioprospecting and End Biopiracy Efforts to promote and regulate bioprospecting while ending bio-piracy have occurred at national and international levels.

International Measures At a global level, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People acknowledges that indigenous people have the right to “maintain, control, protect and develop” their cultural heritage and traditional knowledge. This is defined as including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, oral traditions, and knowledge about the properties of plants and animals. In practice, opinions about how this can be achieved are contested.

Bioprospecting and Biopiracy

The World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property 1994 (TRIPS Agreement) is an international treaty that governs and has standardized many aspects of patent law globally. It allows nations to exclude plants and animals per se from patentability, leaving decisions about whether or not to allow such patents to the lawmakers of individual signatory states. Likewise, it is silent on bioprospecting and the patentability of human genetic material. Taking a different approach, the Convention on Biodiversity 1992 (CBD) was signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It came into force in 1994 and addresses issues that are not covered by the TRIPS Agreement. The CBD establishes principles for benefit sharing between researchers and donor communities for inventions arising from bioprospecting activities. Bioprospectors are required to obtain informed consent before accessing traditional knowledge, and they must share the benefits of their research on mutually agreed terms. However, only certain types of research are included (e.g., human genetic resources are not covered by the CBD). Although almost all countries in the world have ratified the CBD, its success is dependent on signatory governments passing domestic legislation to implement its provisions. The voluntary Bonn Guidelines (2002) were intended to assist CBD parties in implementing fair access to biological resources. However, some smaller, poor countries lack the legal infrastructure and resources to establish and enact appropriate laws. The failure of some countries to pass domestic legislation is perceived as a serious weakness in the ability of the CBD to prevent the global injustice that can arise from bio-piracy.

National Measures Many jurisdictions have responded to the problem of biopiracy by introducing legal frameworks for regulating and managing bioprospecting within their territories. For example, Canada, Brazil, South Africa, and several South Pacific island nations have introduced laws or regulations requiring researchers to apply for permission or licenses before conducting bioprospecting activities, and some countries have introduced benefit-sharing requirements. Some groups of countries have joined together to implement common regional approaches to the regulation of bioprospecting and bio-piracy. For example, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Surinam, and Venezuela concluded the Rio Declaration of 2005, laying out a system of common intellectual property laws and

B

information sharing. Several of these countries had previously agreed to common regulations and standards requiring bioprospectors to obtain informed consent before engaging in their research, and to share benefits with both the governments and local communities on whose lands the research is conducted. By contrast, the governments of Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden developed a common Strategy for Conservation of Genetic Resources in the Nordic Region (2001–2004) that did not require benefit sharing with local communities in which bioprospecting was conducted. The Nordic governments concluded that the benefits of unregulated research would be likely to outweigh those brought about by regulation. Taking a different and more practical approach, several governments have also established local databases of indigenous biological material in an attempt to help prevent unjustified patents from being awarded over their nations’ traditional knowledge. For example, the government of India has established the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, containing over 200,000 traditional Indian remedies from local plants and animals, and available in a variety of European and Asian languages. Meanwhile, the State Intellectual Property Office of China has established the Traditional Chinese Medicine Patent Database, containing more than 19,000 bibliographic records and 40,000 formulae known to practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine. These databases may include information about traditional medicines and remedies (e.g., the Indian database includes a catalogue of traditional yoga positions), as well as other customary uses for plants (e.g., pesticidal uses). They have been made available to patent offices in overseas jurisdictions in an attempt to give foreign patent examiners additional published sources in which searches for “prior art” (i.e., existing publications or uses of the alleged invention that could prevent it from being patented) can be conducted. As not all jurisdictions recognize foreign prior art unless it is patented or documented in a publicly accessible publication, the establishment of such databases is a practical and potentially important step toward thwarting patent registrations covering previously undocumented or inaccessibly documented traditional knowledge. The Indian government had supported successful legal challenges against the Neem plant patent in the EPO, and also against a US patent over “use of turmeric in wound healing” (US Patent No. 5,401,504). It reasoned that commissioning the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library could help to preempt other problematic patents over traditional knowledge materials from being granted by foreign patent registries in the future. In practice, the

79

B

80

B

Bioprospecting and Biopiracy

ability of patent offices worldwide to search such databases may also act as a disincentive against potential bio-pirates lodging applications to patent such dubious “inventions.” Practical measures like this may therefore play a key role in improving global justice by forestalling the activities of potential bio-pirates.

The Future The practice of bio-piracy is condemned as unjust and unacceptable by many people and governments around the globe. Yet bioprospecting has the potential to be mutually beneficial to all, helping to distribute wealth more equally and enhance global justice. A major challenge for lawmakers – both nationally and internationally – is therefore to create policies and regulations that successfully end bio-piracy without limiting bioprospecting. An equally difficult challenge may be to overcome the distrust and resentment in indigenous communities and their governments that has resulted from bio-piracy and exploitation of the past. Indigenous people whose communities experienced imperialism could be forgiven for interpreting bio-piracy as a form of neocolonialism, and this is indeed a claim often made by local activists and nongovernmental organizations that represent them in negotiations. These fears may be heightened by attitudes that display ignorance of, or arrogance toward, other cultures and their traditions during negotiations for either local agreements or international treaties. Such conduct is likely also to have provoked the allegations by some that bioprospecting is merely bio-piracy that is legitimated by Western legal systems and concepts (including patent law), which do not align well with the noncommercial customs and ways of regulating access to and use of knowledge that are typical of many traditional societies. The existence of such perceptions complicates the ability of researchers to negotiate access to and use of traditional knowledge, especially as indigenous people within a community may have differing opinions about whether proposed research is likely to involve beneficial bioprospecting or nefarious bio-piracy. Sadly, even the most honest and best-intentioned researchers may now face mistrust and obstruction from members of local communities that suffered “theft” and exploitation at the hands of bio-pirates (and other outsiders) before this issue became the subject of concern, condemnation, and regulation. Overcoming such suspicion and wariness – and ensuring that scope for future bio-piracy is negated – will be a difficult but important step toward finding ways in which people globally can benefit from the research emanating from bioprospecting.

In a world in which cultures are being lost and scientists routinely express concern that global biological diversity is under growing great threat from pressures such as population growth, deforestation, and climate change, recording traditional knowledge (and preserving the plants and animals it relates to) becomes a matter of greater urgency. Unprincipled bio-piracy by some has harmed the ability of conservationists and other scientists to conduct such work. It is to be hoped that the biological resources of our planet can be preserved in the interests of global justice. Ethical bioprospecting may well have a role to play in achieving this goal.

Related Topics

▶ Globalization ▶ Human Genome ▶ Intellectual Property Rights ▶ Owning Life ▶ Shiva, Vandana ▶ Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property ▶ World Trade Organization (WTO)

References Abo´s J (2000) Biopiracy: patenting the developing countries’ resources and knowledge. Copenhagen Business School/Department of English, Copenhagen DeGeer ME (2002) Biopiracy: the appropriation of indigenous peoples’ cultural knowledge. New Eng J Int’ & Comp L 9(1):180–208 Dutfield G (2011) A critical analysis of the debate on traditional knowledge, drug discovery and patent-based biopiracy. Eur Intellect Prop Rev 33(4):238–244 Hamilton C (2006) Biodiversity, biopiracy and benefits: what allegations of biopiracy tell us about intellectual property. Dev World Bioeth 6(3):158–173 Hawthorne S (2006) Land, bodies, and knowledge: biocolonialism of plants, indigenous peoples, women, and people with disabilities. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago Isaac GE, Kerr WA (2004) Bioprospecting or biopiracy? J World Intellect Prop 7(1):35–52 Kam SK (2006) Biopiracy in paradise? Fulfilling the legal duty to regulate bioprospecting in Hawaii. Univ Hawaii Law Rev 28(2):387 Mgbeoji I (2006) Global biopiracy: patents, plants and indigenous knowledge. UBC Press, Vancouver Mushita A, Thompson CB (2007) Biopiracy of biodiversity: global exchange as enclosure. Africa World Press, Trenton Rimmer M (2003) Blame it on Rio: biodiscovery, native title, and traditional knowledge. The Berkeley Electronic Press, Berkeley Robinson DF (2010) Confronting biopiracy: challenges, cases and international debates. Earthscan, London/Washington, DC Shiva V (1997) Biopiracy: the plunder of nature and knowledge. South End Press, Cambridge, MA Shiva V (2006) Bioprospecting as sophisticated biopiracy. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich

Bohman, James MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

James Bohman’s contribution to global justice debates consists in a remarkable reinterpretation of Kant’s idea of a federal republic of humanity. This reinterpretation not only strongly emphasizes the neo-Roman ideal of freedom from domination under the rule of law. It also stresses the capacities of republican citizens to shape their ongoing terms of cooperation, in flexible processes of deliberation. Here Bohman argues for the realignment of the ideal of non-domination with a nearly forgotten form of federal republicanism once endorsed by Enlightenment republican thinkers such as Diderot and Turgot. These thinkers looked to the dispersal of powers in federalism to develop an alternative to the antiquated form of centralized empire. The advantage to this approach is that it dispenses entirely with the idea often associated with the republican ideal of non-domination that it was the common sentiment of a unitary people, along with the size of the polity, which was the decisive consideration in securing the freedom of all. Indeed, in addressing the problem of the domination of the colonies by the imperial center, antiimperialist republicans sought to integrate the normative powers of spatially dispersed participants into multiple political units, each with its own interacting publics. According to Bohman, this anti-imperial federalist approach to securing non-domination lays the basis for a contemporary republican cosmopolitan version of transnational democracy. Such republicanism does not presuppose a maximal conception of national democracy grounded in community identifications and sovereign law. Instead, it presupposes only a minimum set of powers and conditions. This democratic minimum of powers makes it possible for diverse participants in deliberation across borders to avoid domination by more powerful, larger, or more central units in a polyarchical scheme of transnational governance. From Bohman’s point of view, the key claim as adapted from the anti-imperial republicans is that non-domination is a function of cross-border deliberations that are large and dispersed, encompassing interactions across multiple overlapping political units or “demoi.” Translated into the contemporary context of transnational governance, this model of a democratic minimum of creative powers to initiate deliberation at

B

multiple different sites and levels of participation offers a more appropriate model of non-domination. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Bohman’s conception is the strong emphasis he gives the advantages of deliberation attendant upon size and complexity of the republican cosmopolitan polity. Indeed, the dispersal of power is not just a condition of freedom from domination, but also the epistemic improvement of agendasetting and policy-making. Such improvement is a function of rigorous processes of “multiperspectival” testing, which takes full advantage of large and numerous units of public participation. To this extent, Bohman’s program may be said to offer a powerful corrective to more pessimistic Kantian cosmopolitans, like Ju¨rgen Habermas. In his own influential interpretation of Kant, Habermas contends that the epistemic quality of deliberation remains at its most intense only within the confines of the nation state. Contrary to Habermas, Bohman optimistically holds out the prospect of a concomitant growth in the powers of freedom and production of new social knowledge in cross-border deliberations.

Related Topics

▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Dryzek, John ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen

References Bohman J (1996) Public deliberation. MIT Press, Cambridge Bohman J (2001) Cosmopolitan republicanism. Monist 84(1):3–22 Bohman J (2006) Deliberative democracy and the epistemic benefits of diversity. Episteme 3:3 Bohman J (2007) Democracy across borders: from demos to demoi. MIT Press, Cambridge Bohman J (2008) Non-domination and transnational democracy. In: Laborde C, Maynor J (eds) Republicanism and political theory. Blackwell, Malden

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich GARY M. SIMPSON Department of Theology, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN, USA

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and martyr who lived his adult life under the reign of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Hitler ordered his execution just 2 weeks before the Allied Forces

81

B

82

B

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich

entered Berlin. Bonhoeffer’s tie to the theme of justice came primarily through his categorical resistance to Nazi totalitarianism and tyranny. He was raised in an aristocratic and intellectual family and studied theology at the University of Berlin, where his father was a professor of psychiatry. At the age of 21, he finished his first dissertation and, 3 years later, he finished his second dissertation, which was a German requirement for future professors. In 1930, he went to New York City for a year, where he studied with Reinhold Niebuhr, the most famous American-Christian social ethicist of the time. During that year, he regularly attended Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where he gained firsthand knowledge of the systematic discrimination of African Americans, of the spirituality of African Americans, and of the Harlem Renaissance. Bonhoeffer had come to the United States with the common German-Lutheran conviction that Christian faith and theology had little interest in concrete political life. After returning to Germany, he soon became a young leader within the growing Ecumenical Movement of the day making numerous friends in other parts of Europe and especially establishing close ties with influential church leaders in England. He also, quickly, became a young leader within the Confessing Church movement that opposed the Nazi takeover of the Protestant churches. He immediately and openly denounced Hitler’s April 1933 Aryan Civil Service law that banned Jews from being German civil servants. Bonhoeffer’s theological ethics of war, peace, and resistance went through four basic stages of development. First, until 1932, he harbored rather traditional just-war convictions and the German penchant for obedience to political authority. Second, from 1932 at least through 1934, if not later, he developed and voiced a kind of “Christian pacifism,” whereby followers of Christ, the Prince of Peace, could not participate in coercive violence or in any kind of war activity. Neither should the Protestant Church sanction war. The pursuit of peace should be the Church’s default position, so to speak. Because Bonhoeffer considered Christian ethics to be a concrete affair of obeying God’s commands in particular situations, he opposed the notion of timeless principles. His Christian pacifism was, therefore, always of a provisional sort and not a principled or absolute pacifism, as pacifism is often thought to be. In a third period up until 1939, he developed a position that closely resembled selective conscientious objection, whereby a Christian could refuse to participate in a particular war if it was unjust. Finally, from 1939 until his death, he developed a type of “agonized participation” in violence as a necessary last resort to sanction tyrannicide (Rasmussen 1972/2005: 107, 122).

Bonhoeffer’s shifts from Christian pacifism and selective conscientious objection to agonized participation represent a turn in emphasis from passive resistance to active resistance to Nazi totalitarian tyranny. In 1939, he joined one of the numerous loosely organized conspiracy groups that sought to assassinate Hitler. He became a double agent for the Abwehr, the counterintelligence agency of the Nazi armed forces which harbored key conspirators. His conspiracy assignment was to inform his confidants in the British Parliament of the resistance and to seek a conditional surrender for Germany, whereby those who resisted Hitler would be recognized as the legitimate postwar political leadership. The Allied Forces accepted only unconditional surrender, which left the resistance movement with no postwar power. Bonhoeffer’s theological ethic and active life of resistance to injustice under Nazi totalitarian cruelty was based in his Christian understanding of Jesus Christ’s solidarity with those who suffer. His German word for Christ’s solidarity was Stellvertretung, a difficult notion to put into English. The standard translation is “vicarious representative action.” Literally, Stellvertretung means “placing taking or sharing” for and with another, particularly those who suffer. Such solidarity leads to “an experience of incomparable value . . . to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled – in short, from the perspective of those who suffer” (Bonhoeffer 1997: 3). For Bonhoeffer, this view from below then impels to “what is braved in the bold deeds of justice” (Kelly and Nelson 1990: 515).

Related Topics

▶ Civil Disobedience, International ▶ Civil Disobedience, Transnational ▶ Conspiracy Theory ▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ Luther, Martin ▶ Pacifism ▶ Solidarity ▶ Tyranny

References Bethge E (2000) Dietrich Bonhoeffer: a biography, revised edn. Fortress, Minneapolis Bonhoeffer D (1995–2011) Dietrich Bonhoeffer works, 16 volumes. Fortress, Minneapolis Bonhoeffer D (1997) Letters and papers from prison. Simon & Schuster, New York

Borders de Gruchy J (1999) The Cambridge companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Green C (1999) Bonhoeffer: a theology of sociality. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids Haynes S (2004) The Bonhoeffer phenomenon. Fortress, Minneapolis Kelly G, Nelson F (1990) Testament to freedom: the essential writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. HarperCollins, New York Rasmussen L (1972/2005) Dietrich Bonhoeffer: reality and resistance. Westminster JohnKnox, Louisville

Borders MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Human history has long known borders, but in the last two decades of the twentieth century there has been a reappraisal of their moral and political legitimacy. This reassessment can be traced, conceptually, to two sources: first, to moral cosmopolitanism, the idea that all persons have equal dignity and worth, and therefore deserve equal consideration and treatment; second, to political cosmopolitanism, the idea that because we all share equal moral consideration, we have an ethical obligation to build political regimes, institutions, and policies that promote and protect individuals and their basic interests or human rights. If human rights exist, then it follows that borders which, by definition, warrant the treatment of citizens and noncitizens differently are called into question. In addition to the conceptual sources that endorse the interrogation of interstate borders, there is the practical matter of an increasingly “globalized” planet. Institutions and regimes that are evermore interrelated and interdependent also call the value and legitimacy of borders into question. The European Union stands out as an example of the institutionalizing of state cooperation that transcends the idea of state sovereignty that became conventional at, and after, the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. This idea of robust, if not near-absolute, state sovereignty that has held sway for over three centuries is weakened, according to many theorists, by moral and (therefore) political cosmopolitanism, and by the very interdependencies of a “shrinking” world in which various cultural, economic, and political activities simply make borders less important, if not altogether frustrating, to many pursuits. The question of the legitimacy and value of interstate borders touches on several matters of concern among

B

moral philosophers, international relations specialists, and those concerned about democracy, political economy, peace, and global justice. Questions concerning the nature and meaning of citizenship, nationality, membership, democracy, the freedom to migrate, to labor, and to live are among the important issues related to borders. Immanuel Kant provides a touchstone for the interrogation of the justification of borders. In his essay Perpetual Peace (1795), Kant offers three “definitive articles for the perpetual peace among states.” The third article is given this cumbersome title, “The Law of World Citizenship Shall be Limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality.” The heart of Kant’s argument is that all peoples and their governments have the duty to extend “hospitality” to noncitizens as a matter of right. Welcoming persons to one’s country is not necessarily an act of charity. This article can be seen as an extension or manifestation of Kant’s first formulation of the categorical imperative (the “universal law formulation”), whereby he argues for the universality of moral principles, and anchors the idea of moral and political cosmopolitanism. Kant writes: "

Hospitality means the right of a stranger not to be treated as an enemy when he arrives in the land of another. One may refuse to receive him when this can be done without causing his destruction; but, so long as he peacefully occupies his place, one may not treat him with hostility. It is not the right to be a permanent visitor that one may demand.

Kant does not call for a world without borders, but his argument qualifies the Westphalian notion of state sovereignty and its implicit warrant for nonporous borders. Whereas the idea of strong borders correlates to an idea of citizenship that belongs strictly to members of a state, insofar as citizenship is reconceived, borders may be seen to have a qualified purpose. Relatedly, insofar as borders are reconceived, citizenship may be seen to have a broader basis. What is clear is that borders and citizenship bear an important, if not essential, relationship to one another. Again, the European Union is a location where the reconceptualization of both borders and citizenship can be observed. Perhaps there is no reason, in principle, that one may not hold citizenship in any number of states. Just how flexible and polyvalent citizenship may be is of great interest to those who think about borders. In similar fashion, the reconceptualization of borders corresponds to new appraisals of nationality. The modern connection of nation (the constitution of a people) and state (the constitution of sovereignty and territory) need not be fixed. Because, conventionally and theoretically, one’s membership is attached to both people (or peoples)

83

B

84

B

Boylan, Michael

and to a state (or states), it is clear that borders have often been used to demarcate national, as well as political, boundaries. The interrogation of borders has developed alongside the renewal of citizenship theory and democratic theory. Just as national and political membership has been, until recently, conceived in Westphalian terms, so too has democracy. That is, democracy has been understood as something that occurs (when it occurs) inside of states. But the last three decades have seen a vital discussion about democracy across borders. Insofar as democracy’s logic is seen to transcend states, it follows that there are democratic reasons to question the nature of borders. How porous and nonporous borders should be is a democratic question as well as one of citizenship and nationality. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that everyone “has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country” (Article 13). No concomitant right to enter a country not one’s own is given in the Declaration. By 2000, there were 175 million migrants in the world and migrations had increased sixfold over the previous 90 years. There are approximately 20 million refugees, asylum seekers, and “internally displaced persons” in the world (Benhabib, Rights of Others, 5). Borders are transgressed with greater frequency, and more complication, than ever before. Millions cross borders in order to work and/or in order to live. Crossings for both reasons take place legally and illegally. Questions of human rights and justice bring to light the complex legal, economic, political, and ethical dimensions of borders’ proper functions. From the standpoint of global justice, it is clear that the existence of interstate borders presents a significant challenge if moral and political cosmopolitanism are true accounts of what people owe to other people. It is not clear that there can be room for nonporous borders if all people matter equally. Should borders be eliminated? Should some be strong and others weak? The question of how open or closed borders should be will remain with us for quite some time.

Related Topics

▶ Benhabib, Seyla ▶ Citizenship ▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Democratic Peace Theory ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Human Rights ▶ Immigration ▶ Kant, Immanuel

▶ Liberal Nationalism ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Nationalism ▶ Treaty of Westphalia ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

References Benhabib S (2005) Another cosmopolitanism with Jeremy Waldron, Bonnie Honig, and Will Kymlicka. Oxford University Press, Oxford Benhabib S (2007) The rights of others: aliens, residents and citizens. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Bohman J (2007) Democracy across borders: from Demos to Demoi. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, Cambridge, MA Brotherton D, Kretsedemas P (eds) (2008) Keeping out the other: a critical introduction to immigration enforcement today. Columbia University Press, New York Brown W (2010) Walled states waning sovereignty. Zone Books, New York Carens J (1987) Aliens and citizens: the case for open borders. Rev Polit 49(2):251–273 Honig B (1999) Democracy and the foreigner. Princeton University Press, Princeton Jacobson D (1997) Rights across borders: immigration and the decline of citizenship. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore Jean-Marie G (1995) The end of the nation-state (trans: Elliot V). University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis Kant I (2001) Perpetual peace. In: Reiss H (ed) Kant: political writings. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Linklater A (1998) The transformation of political community: ethical foundations of the post-Westphalian era. Polity Press, Cambridge Martens T (1996) Cosmopolitanism and citizenship: Kant Against Habermas. Eur J Philos 4(3):328–347 Ong A (1999) Flexible citizenship: the cultural logic of transnationality. Duke University Press, Durham

Boylan, Michael ROBERT PAUL CHURCHILL Department of Philosophy, Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

Michael Boylan is an American philosopher, poet, and novelist. He has written extensively on ethical theory, social justice, and a range of issues in applied and professional ethics as well as a philosophical novel The Extinction of Desire (2007). The significance of Boylan’s philosophy for global justice stems primarily from his original worldview theories. In his Basic Ethics (2000, 2008), Boylan sought to develop an inclusive and holistic way of thinking about ethics and public problems that offers a way to close the gap, noted by Aristotle, between theory and practice.

Boylan, Michael

Boylan’s insight was to conceive of metaethics as a subject that investigates the ways in which persons come to acquire ethical beliefs and motives as well as the ways beliefs are reshaped or changed. Of special importance are two imperatives that Boylan calls the “personal worldview imperative” and the “shared-community worldview imperative.” The arguments for these imperatives are refined and applied in A Just Society (2004). In Morality and Global Justice (2011), Boylan articulates an “extended-community worldview imperative” in connection with which he examines moral arguments offered for different responses to a number of global issues.

The Personal Worldview Imperative To understand Boylan’s worldview theories, it is helpful to begin with a brief description of Boylan’s project in a philosophy book written for the general public, namely, The Good, the True, and the Beautiful (2008). Beginning with the premise that all individuals seek what they believe to be good, Boylan leads readers – by way of thought experiments and detailed arguments – through many of the main questions of philosophy, addressing what it means to be good, how we struggle to discover truth, and how we decide what is beautiful. While Boylan does provide his own answers to these questions, his primary objective is to demonstrate that our own answers are deeply embedded in the personal and shared-community worldviews that we embrace, whether or not we were initially aware of this. Because we are purposive beings who must act, and who act, when rational, on the basis of judgments about the way that actions advance our values, Boylan believes we each maintain a more or less coherent web of beliefs. Thus, if we do adopt claims about the good, the true, or the beautiful as our own, that is, as principles we are sincerely willing to apply in our lives, then they must be meaningful for us within the context of frames of reference we use in our ongoing activities. And this requires, in turn, that they are already part of or can be coherently added to our operational worldviews. Personal worldviews implicate values concerning the critical concerns of life, including ethics, politics, religion, and aesthetics. Insofar as our search for the good leads us to encounter novel ethical norms we then adopt, we do so through a dialectical interaction Boylan calls “worldview overlap and modification.” In both Basic Ethics and A Just Society, Boylan argues that although worldviews may be fairly fragmentary or inchoate, it is possible not only to critically reflect about one’s worldview and life plan in a holistic manner but also to apply evaluative criteria to worldviews, despite the fact

B

that they are subjective in nature. Boylan argues that we morally ought to apply such criteria to our worldviews and grounds this moral imperative in three of the strongest impulses directing human life: rationality, autonomy, and the search for integrity and wholeness. Thus, the moral force behind applying evaluative criteria to our personal worldviews is the necessity to live with rational consistency, genuine responsibility for our actions, and integrity, or to suffer the psychological (and probable) social consequences of our failure. Boylan prescribes what he calls the Personal Worldview Imperative (PWI). In effect, it requires that we each develop a single comprehensive and internally coherent worldview that satisfies moral criteria and that we strive to act out in our daily lives. It is important to emphasize the procedural, or formal, character of the PWI. Although it refers to morality, the PWI is neutral between conflicting ethical theories. The PWI thus functions as a metaethical principle that allows any ethical content consistent with the conditions of completeness, coherence, and practical applicability. Likewise, particular content – that is, the beliefs, values, and practices to which persons commit themselves – comes from elsewhere. It cannot be complained by persons of any social or cultural group that the PWI imports valueladen content from external sources.

The Shared-Community Worldview Imperative In addition to making our personal worldviews ethically robust, in A Just Society, Boylan emphasizes that our worldviews must be practical; because they must guide us amidst the complexities of the world we inhabit, we must continually refine them. Our worldviews must become more comprehensive as we come to learn more about the realities of the world we share with others. We also must respond to different, often competing worldviews, but potentially containing elements we might seek to integrate into our worldview. As Boylan notes, however, we are already immersed within shared-community worldviews that can be described as some set of shared social and cultural attitudes, values, and beliefs that affect life within the communities to which we belong. The question, “should we develop a shared-community worldview?” is thus not really an open option. The real questions to ask at the community level thus concern the inclusivity of the community and the quality – in terms of completeness, coherence, morality, and practicality of the shared-community worldview. It is incumbent on us to recognize that insofar as sharedcommunity worldviews affect attitudes and behaviors,

85

B

86

B

Boylan, Michael

they have a normative character, and therefore false, misleading, and ethically questionable elements ought to be subjected to scrutiny. Moreover, if one is already sincere and authentic (i.e., one proceeds with both a rational good will and an affective good will) in questioning one’s personal worldview, then as questioning carries over into the community’s web of beliefs, it gives rise to what Boylan characterizes as a shared-community worldview imperative (SCWI). The SCWI differs from the PWI primarily in two respects. First, each agent must contribute to a common body of knowledge that supports the sharedcommunity worldview. In this connection, individuals are responsible for bringing to others’ attention information critical to the truth or falsity of core beliefs and for questioning assumptions that may affect attitudes. Second, the practicality of the SCWI includes the support of social institutions and their policies given the constraints of the community’s “essential core” of commonly held values. In a manner consistent with his imperative to provide knowledge to support a shared-community worldview, in A Just Society Boylan advocates a theory of justice based primarily on deonotological ethical considerations. While not proposing a rights-based theory per se, Boylan grounds justice on the moral agency of persons. On Boylan’s view, types of goods are differently “embedded” depending on how critical they are for the agency of persons. The most deeply embedded of goods are basic for they are absolutely necessary for human action, or, at a second level, necessary for effective action. Secondary goods include those that are life enhancing, those that are useful, and finally, those that are luxurious. Boylan argues that this classification ought to guide distributive decisions such that no persons must sacrifice basic goods so that others gain secondary goods but some secondary goods can be sacrificed justifiably to ensure that no one is deprived of basic goods. Whether or not readers accept Boylan’s own substantive theory in A Just Society or his arguments in Morality and Global Justice, if they take the PWI and SCWI seriously, then they ought to concede the necessity for concern with more than the logical or formal justification of a theory of justice. An acceptable theory must be one that – as John Dewey might have emphasized – can be put into practice. But of course, no theory will be practicable unless it commends itself to moral agents as a sensible and valuable guide to action. Whether or not a general theory such as universal human rights attains this accepted status is a matter not just of its justificatory integrity, as it were, but also of the protocol, or the procedural acuteness with which it is advanced.

The Extended-Community Worldview Imperative In Morality and Global Justice, Boylan recommends an extension of shared-community worldviews to the greatest possible macro level, namely, the globe. What Boylan calls the “extended-community worldview imperative” (ECWl) suggests the possibility that an integration of worldviews can lead the vastly diverse peoples of the globe to someday accept shared norms for a just global order despite preserving a great plurality of beliefs, values, and life plans. In seeing oneself as potentially a global citizen, each citizen must seek to be as educated as possible about the access of differently situated peoples to the basic goods of agency, their essential and commonly held cultural values, and their governmental and institutional structures. Unless such knowledge is acquired, it will not be possible for individuals and collectives to accept duties that ensue from other peoples’ legitimate rights claims and then “act accordingly within what is aspirationally possible” (2007: 3). How do new elements become integrated in worldviews such that the latter can be more comprehensive and potentially global? While we do correct flaws within personal worldviews and may even abandon a worldview we find almost wholly out of harmony with experience, for the most part our worldviews overlap, become layered, and eventually transform through a dialectical process. There are three stages to these responses. (1) Overview and Justification: at this stage we gather further information and assess the justification for the theory or the probable truth of a belief. (2) Dialectical Understanding: one’s reflections move back and forth between the present worldview and the new elements. As a result of the process at this stage a person will have one of three reactions: (a) coincidence and amplification in which the new elements support and strengthen the existing worldview; (b) dissonance and rejection, which will result if the new elements cannot be reconciled with the worldview, at least at present, and are rejected; and (c) overlap and modification, which occurs if the new elements are felt to be intriguing and to warrant further consideration. (3) Dialectical Interaction: this stage of worldview transformation occurs when overlap and modification have been successful. At this third stage, a person is able to “conceptually try out” a newly enlarged or transformed worldview and to implement it in action at least for a “test drive.”

Worldview Theory and Global Justice Boylan’s reliance on the neutrality of ethical content in worldviews is intriguingly similar to reliance in liberal democracies on the principle of neutrality. The principle

Bretton Woods Institutions

of neutrality accords equal respect to different visions of the good life. In both cases, there is a shift from emphases on “the good” to “the right” in which “the right” is understood as procedurally just in democratic theory and metaethically right in worldview theory. Just as individuals cannot be neutral about the pursuit of the good, a liberal democracy cannot be indifferent to the needs of humans as moral agents and to human well-being, despite its commitment to neutrality. Thus, in liberal democracies, the good – the objectives of justice – must be attained as the outcome of fair or right procedures. In both democracy and worldview integration, we must proceed dialectically, through discourse and participation. That is, without shirking real, often strong, differences, all sides ought to adopt the objective of attaining an agreement or synthesis that will be as satisfactory as possible for everyone concerned. Suppose in developing an extendedcommunity worldview, we believe we ought to work for a just global order founded on respect for universal human rights, but that we collide head to head with traditionalists whose worldviews inform them that human rights norms are incompatible with religious duties or cultural values. In such a case, Boylan’s worldview theories might be adapted as a helpful strategy of cross-cultural negotiation (Churchill 2006). Much of the critical interest in Boylan’s work (e.g., Gordon 2009) results from its originality, including the sharp contrast with more traditional approaches. By and large, philosophers concerned with a just society or a just global order proceed in the manner made famous by John Rawls in ATheory of Justice (1971). Rawls’ emphasis was on the justification of the principles that would be chosen for the design of social and political institutions. This pattern has been followed, for example, by Allen Buchanan in his Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination (2004). It is a distinctive feature of such approaches that they focus primarily on the theoretical justification of basic principles. Thus, Buchanan also follows Rawls in distinguishing between “ideal theory” and “nonideal theory” with the expectation that nonideal contingencies require significant qualifications of ideal theory. For Boylan, the “ideal” and “nonideal” distinction is an academic but artificial bifurcation of the more holistic way we experience the world in which we must act. Thus, Boylan requires that “nonideal” issues, that is, applicability, be addressed as part of the evaluation of any theoretical orientation. Moreover, theoretical “topdown” approaches that emphasize the logic of theory often result in detaching justification and motivation. When their own worldviews remain unengaged by a theory, individuals may fully appreciate the logic of an

B

argument for justice, yet remain unmoved even despite a desire to feel enthused. This coming apart, or divorce, of reason and motivation is far less likely to happen in Boylan’s worldview approach. Boylan can accept that while motivation comes into worldviews from the bottom-up, theoretical elements must be worked in to form a coherent whole. In other words, a worldview approach to justice must start with personal worldviews and the PWI. This project will therefore address the reasons, beliefs, affects, and motives of the individuals who must implement and who must live with the changes brought about by the grand designs of academic philosophers.

Related Topics

▶ Buchanan, Allen ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Democracy, Deliberative ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Global Human Rights Culture ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Liberal Democracy ▶ Rawls, John

References Boylan M (2000, 2008) Basic ethics. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River Boylan M (2004) A just society. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham/London Boylan M (2007) The extinction of desire. A tale of enlightenment. Blackwell, Malden Boylan M (2008) The good, the true, and the beautiful. Continuum, London/New York Boylan M (2011a) Morality and global justice. Westview, Boulder Boylan M (ed) (2011b) The morality and justice reader. Westview, Boulder Buchanan A (2004) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Churchill RP (2006) Human rights and global diversity. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River Gordon J-S (2009) Morality and justice: reading Boylan’s a just society. Lexington Books, Plymouth Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Bretton Woods Institutions SHARON ANDERSON-GOLD Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY, USA

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD),

87

B

88

B

Bretton Woods Institutions

commonly known as the World Bank, were created in 1944 at a meeting of 44 nations (the Allies) at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to rebuild devastated economies after the war and to promote economic stability and economic development on a global scale. The founders wished to protect future generations against a repeat of a worldwide economic crisis like the one experienced during the Great Depression which was believed to have partially caused the subsequent rise of fascism and the outbreak of World War II. It was thought that if economic cooperation could be arranged on a permanent institutional basis, the world would be better protected against economic depression, and war and humanity could achieve economic prosperity on a global scale. The mission of the International Monetary Fund was to create the conditions for stability in exchange rates and to protect nations against the disruptions in trade and devaluations of their currency that would occur when balance of payments were out of order. To provide for issuance of credit when balances are out of order, member nations of the IMF created a type of insurance pool where each member contributes funds that are made available on a basis of need. The original mission of the IMF was not development per se but the more narrow objective of providing the type of co-ordination in economic policy that was perceived to be a precondition of development in an economically interdependent world. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, better known as the World Bank, was given the broader mission of financing development projects. Because the IMF was concerned to correct imbalances in balance of payments, the IMF was from the beginning involved in setting “conditions” for the economic policies of its members. The objective was not redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor but a form of integration that would pull the less developed countries up through their participation in a global economy. The new context of development, an international financing system, tied national economies to a global market system. Nations were expected to borrow primarily from the resources that they had contributed to the fund. Loans were expected to be repaid within 3–5 years and no nation was expected to seek successive cycles of grants. However, the oil crises of the 1970s severely impacted economic growth throughout the world and radically transformed the ability of the IMF to continue its previous policies. Energy-dependent nations found themselves involved in extended cycles of debt with severe consequences for the newly industrializing nations who because of the growing percentage of debt service could no longer foresee the

possibility of growing themselves out of debt. In the following decade, the IMF looked to international money markets to insure the supply of available capital and began to broker loans that less developed countries ultimately could not repay. This triggered the international debt crisis of the 1980s. Since debt reduction strategies were essential to future international monetary stability the IMF began offering special terms for nations that agreed to abide by economic policies that the fund believed would increase the flow in international investment. The debt crisis was viewed as an opportunity to further open debtor economies to international investment. International aide increased with far reaching conditions that required the liberalization of macroeconomic policies to encourage the privatization of economies and the influx of foreign investments. These new loan conditions have led developing nations to reduce state investments in social sectors and have led to the adoption of neoliberal models of economic development to facilitate the globalization of capital investment transfers. New capital investments have brought greater social and political dependence on multinational corporations, banks, and foreign institutions, transforming traditional notions of sovereign control over national economies. Because less developed countries have increasingly requested grants from international financial institutions to enable their transition into the global market place, the two objectives of economic development and state control over the economy have not always proven compatible. Because the terms of competing in the global market place have generally required considerable influxes of foreign investment these terms have seriously compromised the ability of debtor nations to retain control of their own economic policies and in some cases have seriously constrained a nation’s ability to provide for social services. The mission of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) has been to reduce poverty in “credit-worthy” countries through the provision of loans and financial services to governments and public enterprises. It is structured like a cooperative, owned and operated for the benefit of its 186 member countries. It raises most of its 12–15 billion dollar a year budget through the issuance of bonds on the global financial market. Because its bonds are backed by the share capital of its member states, IBRD bonds receive the highest triple A rating. Because of its credit rating the IBRD is able to lend to member countries at attractive low rates of interest. Although originally focused on large-scale infrastructure projects for the reconstruction

Brock, Gillian

of post-war Europe and Japan, as these countries became economically capable, the IBRD has shifted its focus to the economic growth of developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. While the IBRD has had a history of interest in poverty reduction, the neoliberal theory of development that caught hold of the IMF in the 1980s also shaped the bank’s attitudes and policies. In the 1980s, the bank began adding its own “structural adjustment” conditions to its loan processes adding a double whammy to the financial situation of underdeveloped countries. Both the IMF and the IBRD have been criticized for their failure to effectively reduce poverty. Throughout the 1980s the gap between the rich and poor both within and between countries grew significantly. Critics maintain that the growth and development they have promoted has been that of markets but not necessarily that of the human potential of poorer nations. This had led to public protests and much criticism of the internal structure of these organizations that are dominated by US and European interests. The Bretton Woods Institutions were the first instance of an attempt to establish international monetary cooperation on a permanent institutional basis. As such they are instances of global governance and thus because of their scope and impact raise questions concerning their accountability to those whose lives they affect through their policies.

Related Topics

▶ Global Governance ▶ International Monetary Fund (IMF) ▶ World Bank (WB)

References Bandow D, Vasquez I (eds) (1994) Perpetuating poverty: the World Bank, the IMF and the developing world. Cato Institute, Washington, DC Goode R (1985) Economic assistance to developing countries through the IMF. The Brookings Institute, Washington, DC Harper R (1998) Inside the IMF: an ethnography of documents, technology and organizational action. Academic, New York Kenen P (1986) Financing, adjustment and the International Monetary Fund. The Brookings Institute, Washington, DC McQuillan L, Montgomery P (eds) (1999) The International Monetary Fund: financial medic to the world? Hoover Institution Press, Stanford Mosley P, Harrigan J, Toye J (eds) (1991) Aid and power: the World Bank and policy-based lending. Routledge, London Vreeland J (2007) International Monetary Fund: politics of conditional lending. Routledge, London Woods N (2007) The globalizers: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and their borrowers. Cornell University Press, Cornell

B

89

Bribery ▶ Corruption ▶ Foreign Policy ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Poverty

Brock, Gillian NICOLE HASSOUN Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Gillian Brock is one of the most important scholars working on global justice today. Her seminal contribution to debates in global justices is, perhaps, her book Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account (2009a). The book carefully lays out an account of global justice that takes individuals’ equal moral worth seriously while leaving room for defensible forms of nationalism and group affiliation. It addresses two kinds of skeptic about the possibility of global justice. The first kind of skeptic believes cosmopolitanism is wildly impracticable. The second kind of skeptic thinks cosmopolitanism does not leave space for important kinds of identification and group affiliation like nationalism. The book has three parts. In the first, Brock sets out her cosmopolitan account of global justice. In the second, Brock suggests some concrete ways of improving public policy and making it more just. Finally, Brock considers how this account of what good practice requires can inform theory. More precisely, Brock starts by making some useful distinctions between different kinds of cosmopolitanism and links between cosmopolitanism, global justice, and globalization. She explains how those who accept nationalist theories like that articulated in Rawls’ Law of Peoples often believe cosmopolitanism does not leave enough room for nationalist and other forms of legitimate group affiliation and identification. She argues that all people must be able to enjoy the prospect of a decent life. According to Brock, everyone should be able to meet their basic needs, secure important liberties, and interact with others on fair terms. She discusses the implications of this view for accounts of sovereignty and good governance. Good governance, for instance, must be accountable and effective and support democratic self-determination for nations.

B

90

B

Brock, Gillian

Next, Brock argues that we might address global poverty (helping people meet their basic needs) with an innovative proposal for reforming international tax and accounting law. She suggests that cosmopolitan forms of democracy that support national self-determination will protect basic liberties. She argues that both national and international institutions can promote democracy by encouraging freedom of the press and supporting organizations like the International Criminal Court and Reporters Without Borders. This section of the book concludes by discussing the conditions under which international intervention can be justified, when immigration reforms are required, and ways of reforming international trade law to achieve global justice. Brock suggests that intervention can sometimes be justified to protect basic needs and freedoms but that this does not have to undermine sovereignty conceived of as a certain kind of responsibility. Here she says there is reason to believe the prospects for effective intervention are good as the United Nations’ General Assembly is embracing the responsibility to protect the vulnerable. Brock does not think several recent proposals for immigration reform are likely to provide an effective way of securing global justice. Though, she believes that immigration with strict term limits that bring net benefits to both host and home countries may be justifiable. Nevertheless, Brock believes that trade is likely to bring greater benefits to the poor than immigration reform. She argues that free trade is justifiable if it promotes global justice, though she thinks that there may be reason to link trade agreements to improvements in labor conditions, for instance. Brock also advocates special and differential treatment for poor countries and reforming the process of trade negotiation. Next, Brock turns her attention to the debate between nationalists and cosmopolitans. She considers different accounts of what we owe to compatriots vs. outsiders, critiquing several proposals by liberal nationalists. Brock argues that her account of global justice leaves room for a legitimate form of nationalism and illustrates her thesis by appeal to some of her conclusions about public policy arrived at in the previous section of her book. She suggests that as long as everyone can interact with others on fair terms and their basic needs and freedoms are protected, there is room within her account for nationalistic policies (as well as to pursue other commitments). She argues that her account adequately protects the basic equality of all, in part, because it supports democratic institutions. Brock does not believe we have to compromise sovereignty or cosmopolitanism, for we can reconceptualize sovereignty as responsibility and rely upon the institutional reforms she advocates.

Brock concludes by reviewing how her book addresses the feasibility skeptic. She argues that her account answers the four questions this skeptic is most likely to ask. “What are the goals of global justice?” “How can we make progress on these?” “How can we track our progress?” And “How will we create the motivation to pursue global justice or otherwise deal with the issue of global authority (or lack thereof)?” (p. 326). She explains how her theoretical and concrete policy suggestions help answer these questions while providing a general strategy for reconciling cosmopolitanism with other commitments like nationalism. Besides Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account, Brock has edited (or coedited) three other books. The first, Necessary Goods: Our Responsibility to Meet Others’ Needs (1998a), contains a collection of important articles on this topic, including contributions by David Wiggins, David Copp, Harry Frankfurt, Martha Nussbaum, James Sterba, David Braybrooke, Robert Goodin, and Onora O’Neill. The authors consider whose and which needs matter, what obligations they generate, and who has responsibility for meeting needs. The anthology includes Kantian, Aristotelian, contractarian, rights-based, liberal, libertarian, and egalitarian perspectives on meeting needs. In the introduction to this book, Brock suggests a new autonomy-based account of needs. Brock’s second edited volume, Current Debates in Global Justice (2005), includes great work on both theoretical and applied topics by many of the big names in global justice, including Charles Beitz, Thomas Pogge, Mathias Risse, Dale Jamieson, and Gopal Sreenivasan. The volume covers everything from cosmopolitanism, patriotism, and environmental issues, to Just War theory and issues in global health. It provides readers with a broad introduction to canonical and emerging topics in global justice. Brock’s final volume, The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism (2005), coedited with Harry Brighouse, is one of the best known anthologies on global justice. It includes articles by David Held, Hillel Steiner, David Copp, Christine Sypnowich, Chris Bertram, Thomas Pogge, Allen Buchanan, Richard Miller, Darrel Moellendorf, Kok-Chor Tan, Kai Nielsen, Martha Nussbaum, Jocelyn Couture, Jon Mandle, and Catriona McKinnon. Together, these authors address the question of whether national boundaries have fundamental moral significance in a world of increasing interdependence, articulating and defending different versions of cosmopolitanism. Finally, Brock has many other important articles on global justice in leading journals. In these articles, she addresses many of the topics that appear in her book, sometimes in (even) more depth. Brock’s contributions

Brundtland Commission

to the debate over cosmopolitanism, for instance, are formidable. In her particularly interesting article “Egalitarianism, Ideals, and Cosmopolitan Justice” (2005c), she defends a principle of global equality of opportunity and a minimum floor principle (as opposed to a global difference principle). In other articles on cosmopolitanism, she considers the case for global democracy, redistribution to help the needy, and the new nationalisms. In her Monist article “The New Nationalisms” (1999), for instance, she offers extended criticism of liberal nationalism. In her Philosophy article, “Needs and Global Justice” (2005a), she argues that, in an appropriately specified original position, people would only agree to principles of justice on which they are well placed to meet their needs. She also has a series of articles critiquing some competing accounts of needs and considering the relationship between needs, justice, desert, and moral theory more generally. One of the noteworthy features about Brock’s recent work is the fact that she engages well with interdisciplinary literature. Her work on taxation, for instance, is notable not only for its quality but for the way that it engages with relevant interdisciplinary literature.

Related Topics

▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Free Trade ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Immigration ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ Liberal Nationalism ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Sovereignty

References Brock G (ed) (1998a) Necessary goods: our responsibilities to meet others’ needs. Rowman & Littlefield, Oxford/Lanham, p. 239 Brock G (1998b) Future generations, natural resources, and property rights. Ethics Environ 3:119–130 Brock G (1999) The new nationalisms. Monist 82:367–386 Brock G (2005a) Needs and global justice. Philosophy 57:51–72 Brock G (2005b) The difference principle, equality of opportunity, and cosmopolitan justice. J Moral Philos 8:333–351 Brock G (2005c) Egalitarianism, ideals, and cosmopolitan justice. Philos Forum XXXVI:1–30 Brock G (2005d) Needs and global justice. In: Reader S (ed) The philosophy of need. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 51–72 Brock G (2008) Taxation and global justice: closing the gap between theory and practice. J Soc Philos 39(2):161–184 Brock G (2009a) Global justice: a cosmopolitan account. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p. 384 Brock G (2009b) Health in developing countries and our global responsibilities. In: Dawson A (ed) The philosophy of public health. Ashgate, Aldershot

B

Brock G (2009c) Reforming our taxation arrangements to promote global gender justice. J Soc Philos 39(2):161–184 Brock G, Brighouse H (eds) (2005) The political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 262 Brock G, Moellendorf D (eds) (2005) Current debates in global justice. Kluwer/Springer/Academic, Dordrecht/Boston/Norwell, p. 312 Brock G, Reader S (2004) Needs, moral demands and moral theory. Utilitas 16:251–266

Brundtland Commission AVI BRISMAN Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

The “Brundtland Commission,” formally the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), is known by the name of its chair, Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. It was established in 1983 by the U.N. General Assembly (1983), and was charged with reexamining environment and development, as well as formulating proposals to address their integration. In the years after World War II, the model of development that was pursued focused primarily on the goal of economic growth. This model was initially pursued by fading European colonial powers and then (through the 1960s and beyond) by newly empowered national and international development agencies (that were frequently operating under Cold War rivalries). It was thought that improving the global standard of living – with growth in the national gross domestic product (GDP) and personal income as indicia of success – would achieve the social goals of development, such as alleviating poverty and reducing inequality. Measured against these criteria – growth in GDP and in personal income – this model of development was quite successful in the 1950–1970s. But by the 1980s, as this model came to be regarded as a “surrogate for neo-colonial Westernization” and as critics pointed out the inadequacy of using GDP as a measure of progress, support for the model began to wane. Against this backdrop – and with growing recognition that post–World War II international development had placed inordinate stresses on the world’s ecosystems – the Brundtland Commission was established and charged with the task of reconceptualizing notions of progress and development. In creating the commission, the U.N.

91

B

92

B

Buchanan, Allen

General Assembly suggested that it should focus on the following terms of reference for its work: (a) To propose long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development to the year 2000 and beyond (b) To recommend ways in which concern for the environment may be translated into greater cooperation among developing countries and between countries at different stages of economic and social development and lead to the achievement of common and mutually supportive objectives which take account of the interrelationships between people, resources, environment, and development (c) To consider ways and means by which the international community can deal more effectively with environmental concerns, in the light of the other recommendations in its report (d) To help to define shared perceptions of long-term environmental issues and of the appropriate efforts needed to deal successfully with the problems of protecting and enhancing the environment, a long-term agenda for action during the coming decades, and aspirational goals for the world community In 1987, the commission issued its report, Our Common Future, which contained what has since become the most widely quoted and definitive statement of “sustainable development”: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The Brundtland Commission’s work also led to the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) or “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. While the concept of “sustainable development” has drawn criticism (e.g., for the vagueness of the term, for its unknown consequences and effects, for its inattention to power structures, for its anthropomorphism, and for its marginalization of the poorest), it has also helped illuminate the interrelatedness of environmental, economic, and social dimensions of global change, and has drawn attention to the responsibilities of the present generation for the well-being of future generations – phenomena important to questions regarding the scope of justice, the institutions responsible for justice, and distributive (in) equality.

Related Topics

▶ Sustainable Development

References Dernbach JC (2002) Sustainable development: now more than ever. In: Dernbach JC (ed) Stumbling toward sustainability. Environmental Law Institute, Washington, DC, pp 45–61 Hulme M (2009) Why we disagree about climate change: understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Hunter D, Salzman J, Zaelke D (2002) International environmental law and policy 2/e. Foundation Press, New York Speth JG (2004) Red sky at morning: America and the crisis of the global environment. Yale University Press, New Haven/London U.N. General Assembly (1983) Process of preparation of the environmental perspective to the year 2000 and beyond. A/RES/38/161, 19 Dec 1983 Victor DG, Raustiala K, Skolnikoff EB (eds) (1998) The implementation and effectiveness of international environmental commitments: theory and practice. MIT Press, Cambridge World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our common future. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Buchanan, Allen CHRISTOPHER HEATH WELLMAN Department of Philosophy, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA CAPPE, Charles Sturt University, Australia

In addition to being among the most important political philosophers working today, Allen Buchanan is a leading bioethicist. Buchanan’s work in bioethics is worth noting here not because his stature in these two separate fields is impressive (though it is), but because Buchanan’s important and distinctive contributions to our understanding of global justice were likely made possible only because his approach to political philosophy has been shaped by his work in bioethics. Let me explain. Bioethics is widely regarded as more successful than analogous sub-fields, like business ethics, because it has been much more interdisciplinary. Although there are clear exceptions, there appears to be precious little meaningful dialogue between those who write on business ethics and actual businesspeople. In bioethics, on the other hand, philosophers and medical practitioners routinely collaborate. As a consequence, bioethicists tend not to concern themselves solely with whatever abstract questions are antecedently deemed to be of greatest philosophical importance; they grapple instead with the ethical quandaries that medical practitioners actually face in their daily routines. Thus, Buchanan’s publications in bioethics have been so influential not just because he is

Buchanan, Allen

such a good philosopher, but because he has for decades collaborated with (and learned from) a diverse range of people who work in and around medicine. As a consequence, his efforts in this area tend to be a model of applied ethics: without sacrificing rigor or avoiding philosophical depth, he has repeatedly shed light on the ethics of existing medical institutions and the moral responsibilities of those who work within them. Against this backdrop, it is easy to see why Buchanan’s work in global justice has been so groundbreaking: The key is not (just) that he offers better answers; it is that he asks different questions. When everyone else was content to offer competing theories as to when and why political states are legitimate, for instance, Buchanan was the first major philosopher to systematically attend to the related but distinct question as to when the international community should recognize a state as legitimate. Buchanan was drawn to this slightly different issue not merely because actual political agents must make these judgments, but because where we place the bar for public recognition will have real effects upon how justly actual states are governed. Thus, whereas most theorists would have (understandably) presumed that we should merely recognize all and only legitimate states as legitimate, Buchanan appreciated that we might have weighty moral reasons to design and implement a policy which recognizes some illegitimate states as legitimate because doing so is likely to make the world a more just place. Buchanan has published a striking number of influential articles and books on a remarkably diverse range of issues, but his most systematic and important contribution to international political philosophy is Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations for International Law (2004). The first thing to notice about this book is what it does not do: it does not attempt to offer a theory of global justice. Rather, as its subtitle indicates, it provides the moral foundations for international law. But why would Buchanan concern himself with this particular question when there is so much controversy about other, arguably more basic, questions concerning international justice? Why not tackle head-on a more fashionable question, such as whether justice demands that the principle of fair equality of opportunity should be applied globally? Part of the reason Buchanan does not offer a theory of global distributive justice is because (1) there is a great deal of uncertainty about what global distributive justice requires (i.e., we are at a primitive stage of theorizing and nobody has the answers) and (2) international institutions are not in a good position to do much by

B

way of implementing principles of global distributive justice head-on, mainly because they are not currently capable of achieving direct, explicit redistribution. (Of course, Buchanan does not deny that there is a lot of room for international institutions to have an impact on distributive justice.) But this is only part of the story. Another reason Buchanan is reluctant to focus principally on constructing a theory of global distributive justice one might speculate (and this is only speculation) is because his work in bioethics has led him to find these types of questions too abstract. He does not deny that many of the popular questions are philosophically challenging, but he worries that even the best answers to these ideal, non-institutional questions are too far removed from what is currently necessary to make the world a better place. Thus, while most who work in international political philosophy are consumed with questions such as whether Rawls’s theory of justice can be applied globally, Buchanan takes a decidedly different tack. Motivated by the general thought that institutions are needed to secure justice and the more particular corollary that (for the time being, at least) an effective system of international law provides us with the best prospects for remedying the most egregious elements of global injustice, Buchanan seeks to answer two related questions: (1) Can a system of international law be justified? And, if so, (2) how should we design such an institution for the world as it actually exists? It is important to recognize that, in setting out to address issues of greater practical urgency, Buchanan does not give himself a free pass on the basic philosophical questions. Indeed, as the three-pronged title of Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination indicates, Buchanan begins by grappling with basic question of justice, the responses to which enable him to answer crucial questions about how international law might be justified, which in turn shed light on what forms international law should take. Consider each of these three steps. Against the traditional view that the exclusive aim of international law is to secure peace, Buchanan invokes Moral Equality along with a Natural Duty of Justice to argue that it must also seek to secure justice. At its core, the argument is that it would be absurd to deny that all humans are equal, and respecting this equality requires more than that one merely refrain from actively violating another’s rights, it demands that one also help ensure that no one is vulnerable to having these rights violated by others. In the real world, this means that we all have a responsibility to ensure that no one is without adequate institutional protections of their most basic human interests. In short, we all have a (robust) natural duty to construct and support institutions that protect everyone’s

93

B

94

B

Buchanan, Allen

basic human rights, where such rights are understood in terms of one’s capacity to live a minimally decent human life. These views on justice have clear implications for the legitimacy of particular states as well as international law. Against the prevailing view that states are merely groups of individuals who voluntarily collaborate for mutual advantage, Buchanan insists that the natural duty of justice reveals that we must abandon both the voluntarist notion that states cannot be legitimate in the absence of consent and the mutual benefit idea that states should aim solely to promote the interests of their constituents. In place of these common (mis)conceptions, Buchanan postulates that a state’s legitimate function is to protect the rights of insiders and outsiders alike. In other words, because states are a central vehicle through which individuals fulfill their natural duties of justice, they are legitimate only to the extent that they do in fact make the world a more just place. Buchanan’s account of the legitimacy of the international legal system as a whole parallels his analysis of individual states; he contends that this larger system is also legitimate insofar as it actually protects basic human rights. Given that we already have states to perform this function, one might worry that an international legal system would be redundant and/or illegitimate unless unanimously accepted by each individual state. As the horrible track record of actual states unfortunately reveals, though, an international legal system is anything but redundant. And given that we need such a system to make the world a more just place, consent by the states is no more required to justify international law than the consent of citizens is necessary for the legitimacy of individual states. With this account of the international legal system in place, Buchanan is now in a position to comment on the ideal content of international law on various matters, including group self-determination. Regarding secession, for instance, he dismisses the notion that the value of political self-determination shows that international law must allow qualified groups to secede whenever their political divorce will render neither the separatists nor the rump state unable to protect the basic human rights of their citizens. Against this, Buchanan suggests that international law’s twin aims of promoting peace and securing basic human rights necessitate that there should be an international ban on unilateral secession in the absence of injustice. At the heart of Buchanan’s argument are concerns about the types of incentives that international laws can create. He argues in favor of remedial rights to secede because of the beneficial incentives that institutionally protecting these rights will

have, and he argues against allowing any so-called primary rights to secede because of the perverse incentives that would be created by international laws designed to protect them. In particular, if international law recognizes rights to secede only in cases of injustice, then political leaders will be motivated to govern justly because they know both that (1) doing so will lead the international community to support this state in any potential secessionist conflict and that (2) substantial injustices could lead the international community to support the secessionists. The incentive structure would be altogether different, however, if the international legal system also respected primary rights to secede. Not only would leaders lose some of their incentive to govern justly (because being a just state would no longer insulate it from the threat of secession), institutionally protecting primary rights to secede would discourage decentralization, open immigration, and freedom of migration, because each of these policies potentially nurtures separatism. In sum, there seems ample reason to think that institutionally protecting only remedial rights to secede would create positive incentives, whereas protecting primary rights would both eliminate those helpful incentives and create additional detrimental ones. Thus, because the justifying aim of international law is to secure peace and promote justice, and because legalizing primary rights to secede threatens to lead to a world in which basic human rights are considerably less secure, the international legal system should adopt a decidedly conservative stance on unilateral statebreaking in the absence of injustice. To emphasize: Buchanan is not alleging that there could be no grounds for positing more permissive rights to secede in an ideal world; his claim more specifically is only that once one understands the legitimating function of international law, one can see why in the current world the international legal system ought not to protect rights to secede in the absence of injustice. As this terribly brief summary of Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination shows, Buchanan’s work is distinctive (and distinctively valuable) insofar as it offers concrete proposals for feasible reforms of our most important existing institutions, and it does so without shying away from the foundational questions. Buchanan begins with the most basic building blocks of justice, on which he constructs a novel (and systematic) defense of those institutions which give us the best chance of actually reducing the horrible levels of existing injustice, and then concludes by providing clear prescriptions that can actually help contemporary actors who seek to reform our international legal system so that it better achieves its vital two-pronged function of securing peace and

Buchanan, Allen

protecting basic human rights. Like so much that Buchanan writes, this book is not merely the product of an insightful and rigorous political philosopher, it is the work of someone who insists on making the fruits of his thinking accessible and maximally useful to those currently charged with designing the institutions which determine how peaceful and just our world will be.

Related Topics

▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Justice

B

95

▶ Human Rights ▶ Sovereignty

References Buchanan A (1982) Marx and justice: the radical critique of liberalism. Rowman & Allanheld, Totowa Buchanan A (1991) Secession: the morality of political divorce from Fort Sumter to Lithuania and Quebec. Westvew Press, Boulder Buchanan A (2004) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Buchanan A (2010) Human rights, legitimacy, and the use of force. Oxford University Press, Oxford

B

C Cabrera, Luis CHRISTOPHER J. FINLAY Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK

Luis Cabrera is one of the firmest advocates of institutional cosmopolitanism among contemporary theorists of global justice. Institutional cosmopolitanism is generally defined in contrast to moral cosmopolitanism, understood as the assessment of the justice of global institutions according to how individuals, rather than states, fare under them. Institutional cosmopolitanism is seen as more prescriptive, advocating the creation of institutions above the state that are able to secure just outcomes. Limited forms of institutional cosmopolitanism prescribe the creation of institutions narrowly focused on international law, distributive justice, or the environment, while stronger versions advocate full global political integration. Cabrera argues in Political Theory of Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Case for the World State (2004) that a specific form of world government would in fact be an appropriate political ideal. He focuses on the obstacles in the way of securing distributive justice in a global system composed of sovereign states. A states system, he argues, naturally reinforces three central biases against trans-state distributions of resources and opportunities. The first is a foundational bias, stemming from the normative structure of the Westphalian system, where states are viewed as the stewards of their own citizens’ interests. To distribute resources across borders consistent with some global application of the Rawlsian difference principle (Beitz 1999; Pogge 2008), or a similar distributive principle, could be to subvert a state’s presumed stewardship role and weaken its claims to noninterference and other prerogatives of sovereignty. A second, electoral, bias stems from the strong interest leaders in democratic states have in giving overwhelming attention to their own constituents’ interests. Something

similar may also be true of some hierarchical states as well where stakeholders could be expected to object strenuously to those overseas transfers necessary for a full realization of cosmopolitan attempts to address the poverty and vulnerability of those in less-affluent states. A final “own-case” bias is Lockean in inspiration. Where Locke argued that conflict over resources would tend to spiral upward in a state of nature because of the lack of a neutral judge, Cabrera argues that individuals within affluent states may simply be permitted to underestimate their own distributive obligations in the absence of any formal adjudication of claims at the suprastate level. Each bias, he argues, points to a likely need for deeper political integration between states, roughly on the model of the European Union. Such integration would involve the creation of suprastate governing bodies with global scope, including ultimately a global parliamentary body, executive, etc. Cabrera does not, however, argue for the straightforward creation of a sovereign state at the global level. That is, he does not argue for global bodies with either a monopoly on the legitimate means of organized violence or an unchallengeable final authority. Nor does he place significant emphasis in the short term on the control of nuclear weapons. Thus, his approach is distinct in emphasis from the many “one world or none” arguments offered in the heyday of world-state debate in the aftermath of World War II (see Einstein 2007[1946]), as well as from some recent world-government accounts that place greater emphasis on interstate security (Wendt 2003; Deudney 2007). Long-standing objections to world government on grounds that it is likely to become tyrannous give good reason to avoid concentration in control of the global coercive apparatus, Cabrera argues. Overall, he advocates an incremental approach to suprastate integration, with emphasis on promoting democratic accountability in the processes of integration already underway at the regional and global levels. Even if some fully integrated, democratic global political system might not be achievable even in the very long term, he argues, lesser forms of accountable integration could lead to significant improvements for those within less-affluent states.

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

98

C

Cabrera, Luis

Cabrera extends the argument in The Practice of Global Citizenship (2010). Here his concern is not primarily with the macro-level case for world government, but with the individual duties that would apply in a frame of institutional cosmopolitanism. He argues that to elaborate comprehensively the duties that correspond to universal human rights, it is necessary to consider ways in which the current global system tends to impede rights fulfillment. Again he argues for a strong variant of institutional cosmopolitanism, and here for individual duties to promote democratically accountable integration between states. Specifically, he identifies three types of duties that are said to be incumbent on all individuals in the current system: duties of contribution, accommodation, and institutional advocacy. Duties in the first two categories are informed by those in the third, to promote the reform and expansion of suprastate institutions, with the ultimate aim being a set of global institutions – again a world government – capable of protecting the core rights of all persons. Thus, where representative individuals within affluent states, for example, are seen as having duties to contribute to poverty alleviation efforts, they are expected to give emphasis to efforts that could build institutional capacity to address poverty in impoverished states. Where they are said to have duties to accommodate the deeper distributive demands that are likely to be made on them in an integrating global system, they would also have duties to accommodate newcomers under more liberalized immigration regimes. The European Union again serves as a partial model for the more integrated system. Cabrera, who began his career as a journalist for The Associated Press in Seattle, draws on his early training in Practice. He illustrates his argument with findings from several years’ worth of interviews and field observations among unauthorized immigrants, immigrant-rights activists, and the restrictionist “Minutemen” civilian border patrollers. Findings are presented from similar fieldwork in Western Europe. Immigrant-rights activists and immigrants themselves are offered as exemplars of some aspects of global citizenship practice. Cabrera argues that unauthorized immigrants are, in fact, practicing a form of global “civil” disobedience by violating entry laws to better secure economic rights for themselves and their family members. Near-term institutional changes that individuals could promote are said to include the expansion of the European Union to Turkey and some other middle- or lower-income states, the deepening of North American integration, and

the deepening of parliamentarian involvement in the governance of the World Trade Organization and like bodies. Cabrera also emphasizes duties that those in less-affluent states could assume, or already have. The latter are illustrated with findings from fieldwork in Veracruz, Mexico, among communities where local parishioners provide food and temporary shelter to Central Americans riding on top of freight trains to the US border. Finally, Cabrera has been centrally involved in the recent resurgence of systematic thought on possibilities for global government. He organized roundtable discussions involving world-government thinkers at major US political science meetings from 2006 to 2009, and solicited contributions by prominent global government advocates and critics in an edited volume, Global Governance, Global Government: Institutional Visions for an Evolving World System (2011).

Related Topics

▶ Associative Duties ▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Duties to Non-Compatriots ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Global Difference Principle ▶ Global Federalism ▶ Global Justice ▶ Immigration ▶ Patriotism ▶ World Citizenship

References Beitz C (1999) Political theory and international relations, revised edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton Cabrera L (2004) Political theory of global justice: a cosmopolitan case for the world state. Routledge, London Cabrera L (2010) The practice of global citizenship. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Cabrera L (2011) Global governance, global government: institutional visions for an evolving world system. State University of New York Press, Albany Deudney DH (2007) Bounding power: republican security theory from the Polis to the global village. Princeton University Press, Princeton Einstein A (2007/1946) The way out. In: Masters D, Way K (eds) One world or none: a report to the public on the full meaning of the atomic bomb. The New Press, New York, pp 209–214 Pogge T (2008) World poverty and human rights: cosmopolitan responsibilities and reforms, 2nd edn. Polity Press, Cambridge Wendt A (2003) Why a world state is inevitable. Eur J Int Relat 9(4):491–542

Cairo Declaration of Human Rights

Cairo Declaration of Human Rights DAVID BOERSEMA Department of Philosophy, Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR, USA

The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) was drafted by the majority of the member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in 1990. It was, in part, a response to previous international rights declarations and accords that were seen by these OIC states as being too secular in tone and content, particularly the landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The CDHRI was also an attempt to acknowledge and codify the importance of human rights as they relate to fundamental principles of Islam. The CDHRI is based on the foundation of Shari’ah Law, that is, divine commandments that are revealed in holy scripture, especially in the Qur’an. Because of its divine nature, Shari’ah Law takes precedence over any civil laws and the latter can have legitimate authority only to the extent that they do not contradict it. Shari’ah Law provides a guide for human conduct, and the CDHRI is intended to spell out rights and freedoms as an integral part of Islam. The CDHRI consists of a preamble and 25 articles, enunciating general and specific rights enjoyed under Shari’ah Law, as well as corresponding duties and responsibilities. Some of the rights that are enunciated are negative rights, that is, rights of immunity against interference by others. Among these rights are the right to life, bodily security, freedom from torture, freedom of religion, selfdetermination, property, privacy (in one’s home), political participation, presumption of innocence, freedom of movement, and free expression. Other rights that are enunciated are positive rights, that is, rights that obligate others (The State) to provide something in order for those rights to be enjoyed. Among these rights are the right to work (including fair wages, holidays, and deserved promotions) and cultural benefits. Familial rights are also explicitly noted, including the right to marriage, parental rights in the rearing of children, and children’s rights to appropriate care and upbringing. Among the enunciated duties and responsibilities are the duty not to kill nonbelligerents (such as old men, women, and children) even in the context of armed conflict, not to take hostages, to

C

exchange prisoners of war and arrange visits and reunions of families separated by the circumstances of war, not to destroy property, and parents’ responsibilities for appropriate care (physical and moral) of their children. Many people have claimed that the CDHRI is complementary to the UDHR, not an alternative to it. Indeed, many OIC countries are signatories of the UDHR. Others, however, claim that some specific language in the CDHRI is inconsistent with the articles in the UDHR. For example, Article 22 of the CDHRI states “Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of Shari’ah.” Likewise, Article 12 states “Every man shall have the right, within the framework of Shari’ah, to free movement.” Such language, say critics, limits and undercuts genuine freedom of expression or movement. Supporters of the CDHRI disagree, claiming that human actions must be understood always and only in the context of divine guidance. In addition, they say, even in secular countries freedom of expression and movement often is limited on grounds of social good. As hinted above, the CDHRI relates to concerns about global justice from at least two perspectives. For the supporters of the CDHRI, the document is a response to the actual or perceived sense of (western) cultural hegemony, especially cultural values that are framed in the language of rights. Global justice, say these supporters, requires that rights be generated, understood, appraised, and justified in local and cultural contexts. Critics of the CDHRI, of course, argue that matters of justice, including the issue of rights, cannot be defined or determined merely on the grounds of cultural traditions or practices, which themselves might very well be unjust. This can play out in specific cases such as how to interpret a prohibition against cruel and degrading punishment in the context of Shari’ah Law. For instance, does the stoning to death of an adulterer (a punishment that many claim has Qur’anic backing) constitute a violation of justice? This forces the question: whose justice? Clearly, as a broad normative document that is intended not only for the interpretation of practices, but also for the instruction of future practices, the CDHRI raises the issue of how to understand the global aspects of global justice, that is, global as universal, as international, as multiethnic, or in yet some other manner.

Related Topics ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Decent Society ▶ Eurocentrism

99

C

100

C

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

▶ Global Human Rights Culture ▶ Globalization ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ▶ International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ▶ Justice and Religion: Islam ▶ Multiculturalism ▶ Rights ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

References Baderin Ma (2005) International human rights and Islamic law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Brownlie I, Goodwin-Gill GS (eds) (2006) Basic documents on human rights, 5th edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford Churchill RP (2005) Human rights and global diversity. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs Mayer A (2006) Islam and human rights: tradition and politics, 4th edn. Westview Press, Boulder Sachedina AA (2009) Islam and the challenge of human rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford

The agency has been the subject of controversy. In 2007, the Canadian Senate released a damning report asserting that CIDA was overly bureaucratic, inefficient, and costly and cited the fact that 80% of CIDA staff are based in Ottawa. It assessed that the $12.4 billion Canada had spent on bilateral assistance to sub-Saharan Africa since 1968 had produced little if any results. CIDA has been embroiled in various scandals involving the disappearance of aid funds through embezzlement and corruption in partner countries, including in Zambia, Afghanistan, and the Tsunami recovery effort. The effectiveness of CIDA’s gender equality programming has been low despite the large allocation of resources. CIDA was also controversially central to rewriting Colombian mining regulations in 2000–2001, significantly lowering extraction royalties foreign firms pay the Colombian government as well as reducing environmental, labor, and indigenous property protections. The agency’s credibility also suffers from a lack of transparency and the disproportionately high allocation of funds to administrative overhead.

Related Topics

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) ZENIA KISH Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University, New York, NY, USA

▶ Basic Needs ▶ Development Accountability ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Foreign Aid ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Humanitarian Aid

References The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is Canada’s bilateral governmental organization charged with planning, funding, and implementing approximately 80% of the federal aid budget. Established in 1968, the agency administers development programs intended to reduce poverty, increase security and equality, and foster independence in over 100 developing countries and countries in transition. CIDA works in partnership with public and private sector partners (both for-profit and nonprofit organizations are eligible) to provide goods, services, financial contributions, humanitarian aid, and the transfer of knowledge and skills. In order to increase the effectiveness of its aid budget, CIDA has recently reorganized its operations to focus efforts on 20 countries and has established three priority themes to guide the organization’s work: increasing food security, improving opportunities for children and youth, and stimulating economic growth. CIDA commits approximately 25% of its resources to supporting basic human needs.

Gillies DW (1987) Commerce over conscience? Aid-trade links in canada’s foreign aid programme. McGill University, Montreal Morrison D (1998) Aid and ebb tide: a history of CIDA and Canadian assistance. North-South Institute, Ottawa Pratt C (1996) Canadian international development assistance policies: an appraisal. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal-Kingston

Caney, Simon ALYSSA R. BERNSTEIN Department of Philosophy, Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA

Simon Caney is Professor in Political Theory and University Lecturer as well as Tutorial Fellow in Politics at Magdalen College, Oxford, UK. He is the author of Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory (2005), and has

Caney, Simon

coedited Climate Ethics: Essential Readings (2010). He is also the author of more than a dozen articles on climate change, a report for the World Bank (“Ethics and Climate Change”), a report for the International Council on Human Rights Policy (“Climate Technology Transfer: A Derivation of Rights- and Duty-Bearers from Fundamental Human Rights”), and numerous articles on topics in contemporary political philosophy including global distributive justice, human rights, sovereignty, global governance, self-determination, humanitarian intervention, and intergenerational justice. Since 2005 he has focused mainly on climate change, human rights, justice, and cosmopolitanism. For discussions of some of his writings on cosmopolitanism, global distributive justice, and human rights, see the entries ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism and ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism in this encyclopedia. Below are summaries of several of his most recently published articles on climate change. Needless to say, normative and policy issues of climate change centrally relate to the pressing issues of global justice. In “Climate Change, Human Rights, and Moral Thresholds” (2010a), Caney distinguishes several different normative frameworks that have been used by theorists about climate change. These include cost–benefit and security-focused analyses, where security is understood in the traditional way, as contrasted with the more recently formulated idea of human security. Caney claims that a human rights–centered analysis of the impacts of climate change yields insights that are not yielded by other approaches, in particular cost–benefit and security-based analyses. Using what he regards as the most modest and least contentious formulations of the fundamental human rights to life, health, and subsistence, which can enjoy ecumenical support from a wide variety of different ethical perspectives, Caney argues that anthropogenic climate change jeopardizes, undermines, or violates these rights. He emphasizes several implications of such a human rights–centered analysis: (1) that policymakers should take into account only the human rights–relevant effects of climate change; (2) that mitigation and adaptation costs should be assessed in light of the impermissibility of violating human rights: such violations must cease, regardless how high the economic costs of cessation; (3) that compensation is due to those whose rights have been violated; (4) that it is unacceptable to violate a human right with a view to paying compensation afterward; and (5) that respect for human rights must guide the design of international and national policies for combatting climate change, including distribution of the burdens of mitigation and adaptation. Caney contends that those whose human rights are most vulnerable should

C

not be required to bear the burden of combatting climate change. In “Human Rights and Global Climate Change” (2010b), Caney argues that climate change jeopardizes a number of fundamental human rights. The current consumption of fossil fuels is, he contends, “unjust because it generates outcomes in which people’s fundamental interests are unprotected,” thus undermining human rights. This is unjust from a “minimal” cosmopolitan perspective, he says, whether the people whose interests are unprotected are fellow citizens or foreigners and whether they are currently alive or will be born in the future. After some methodological preliminaries, Caney considers whether the human rights approach can adequately deal with the inter-temporal character of climate change, and discusses the fact that climate change creates risks and uncertainties (rather than known outcomes). He then addresses the question of the level of protection from climate harms that persons should be able to claim as a matter of right. Caney contends that the human rights jeopardized by climate change should not be subject to “a positive pure time discount rate”: the appropriate pure time discount rate is zero because temporal location in itself has no deep moral significance and the reasoning that grounds human rights accords no moral relevance to time. Caney discusses this topic further in “Climate Change and the Future: Discounting for Time, Wealth, and Risk” (2009). In “Climate Change and the Duties of the Advantaged” (2010c), Caney argues that the burdens of combatting dangerous climate change should be distributed according to a revised form of the Polluter Pays principle, supplemented by a modified version of the Ability to Pay principle. The burdens in question are costly or difficult mitigation and adaptation efforts. The unrevised Polluter Pays principle says that those who caused the problem should pay, and the unmodified Ability to Pay principle says that those who have the greatest ability to pay should pay. Caney rebuts two objections to the Polluter Pays principle, one concerning practicality and the other concerning excusable ignorance. Three more serious objections to this principle shape Caney’s argument to the conclusion that the (backward-looking) Polluter Pays principle must be supplemented by a (forward-looking) Ability to Pay principle in order to address “the Remainder,” i.e., harmful changes stemming from (a) non-anthropogenic climate change, (b) the emissions of (dead) earlier generations, and (c) the emissions needed by the disadvantaged for survival. Caney concludes that persons should bear the burden of climate change that they have caused, so long as doing so does

101

C

102

C

Capabilities Approach

not push them below a decent standard of living, and that the duties associated with the Remainder should be borne by the wealthy, with more responsibility carried by those whose wealth came about in unjust ways. As Caney points out, one significant feature of his “hybrid” view is that these duties fall not only on states but also on substate political authorities, international financial institutions, corporations, and individuals; a second significant feature is that it implies that the least advantaged, too, have climate change–related duties. Further, as Caney emphasizes, although an Ability to Pay principle may seem to justify postponing mitigation efforts and allowing future generations to pay the costs of both mitigation and adaptation (on the basis of the assumption that people in the future will be wealthier), his own view has no such implication. It does, however, have policy implications for systems of emissions quotas and carbon trading, as well as systems of carbon taxes: it rules out some, but not all, forms of such systems. It also has policy implications for the financing of research, development, and international transfer of clean technology, as well as for the funding of adaptation efforts. In “Markets, Morality and Climate Change: What, if Anything, Is Wrong with Emissions Trading?” (2010d), Caney argues that existing emissions trading schemes should be radically redesigned, or new ones introduced, since the current schemes are unjust. A justifiable scheme would both distribute the costs of emissions trading equitably and make an appropriate contribution to climate mitigation, which current schemes fail to do, he contends. Caney sets out five moral criteria for assessing mitigation policies such as emissions trading: a just mitigation policy will (1) make an appropriate contribution to lowering greenhouse gas emissions to a safe level, in order to protect the human rights to life, health, and subsistence; (2) distribute burdens fairly among duty-bearers, and impose no unreasonably demanding burdens; (3) impose no intolerable restrictions on liberty; (4) result from a fair, inclusive decision-making process; and in addition, a fully justifiable mitigation policy will (5) violate no ethical obligations to other persons or in relation to the natural world. Focusing on (1), (2), and (5), Caney argues in this article that although utilizing market instruments to combat climate change is not inherently objectionable, current emissions trading schemes are objectionable, for they fail to meet criteria (1) and (2). These schemes do not clearly succeed in lowering emissions, and they distribute the burdens of mitigation unfairly by “handing out large benefits to energy companies” and failing to meet the needs of the poor. Caney emphasizes that when designing or evaluating public policies, one must assess each policy

in comparison with the others that are possible, and must also consider whether the policy being evaluated might undercut the efficacy of any other policies. The other possible climate change mitigation policies that he highlights (referring to relevant publications by others) are: (a) carbon taxes; (b) regulations; (c) carbon disclosure initiatives; and (d) educational initiatives. Noting that moral values rarely specify any particular policy package, and that political as well as stability and efficiency considerations must be taken into account, Caney explains that moral values can inform public policy by specifying goals that should be pursued as well as parameters, e.g., rights that must be honored.

Related Topics

▶ Climate Change ▶ Climate Justice ▶ Global Warming ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism

References Caney S (2005) Justice beyond borders: a global political theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Caney S (2009) Climate change and the future: discounting for time, wealth, and risk. J Soc Philos 40(2):163–186 Caney S (2010a) Climate change, human rights, and moral thresholds. In: Gardiner S, Caney S, Jamieson D, Shue H (eds) Climate ethics: essential readings. Oxford University Press, Oxford Caney S (2010b) Human rights and global climate change. In: Pierik R, Wouter W (eds) Cosmopolitanism in context: perspectives from international law and political theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Caney S (2010c) Climate change and the duties of the advantaged. Crit Rev Int Soc Polit Philos 13(1):203–228 Caney S (2010d) Markets, morality and climate change: what, if anything, is wrong with emissions trading? New Polit Econ 15(2):197–224 Gardiner S, Caney S, Jamieson D, Shue H (eds) (2010) Climate ethics: essential readings. Oxford University Press, Oxford http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/index.php/profile/simon-caney.html

Capabilities Approach JAY DRYDYK Department of Philosophy, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

The capability approach uses concepts of capability and functioning to address a wide range of issues – theoretical and practical, normative and empirical – concerning wellbeing and inequality. Initially devised to address

Capabilities Approach

theoretical problems in welfare economics, these concepts were found to have an important bearing on theories of justice by giving arguably superior answers to questions about which inequalities should matter. The approach has gained considerable influence in public policy, especially concerning international aid, poverty, and development. Most recently, it has also given rise to vigorous criticism of social contract theory as an approach to social and global justice.

Capability Concepts The terms “capability” and “functioning” can be used specifically in relation to well-being, but they can also be used more generically. In the generic usage, “functioning” refers to anything that a person might be or might do. These “beings and doings” might be quite heterogeneous, for instance: staying healthy, smoking tobacco, playing piano, being a concert pianist, making philosophical arguments, working, fishing, or kayaking. It may be that certain people could manage to achieve some functionings but not others, as I, for instance, can make philosophical arguments but cannot be a concert pianist. Between other functionings, there are trade-offs for a person, for instance, between being a good professional actress and being a good professional philosopher, or between smoking and staying healthy. Given any specified set of functionings, we can, in principle, identify which functionings and combinations of functionings a given person could likely manage to achieve. So, for instance, I could manage to stay healthy, and to smoke tobacco, but not likely both; I am highly unlikely to become a concert pianist or an actress of any kind; I can manage to be a good professional philosopher, but only as long as I give more attention to working at making philosophical arguments than playing the piano, fishing, or kayaking. This can be called my “capability set” with regard to these particular functionings. Using the same set of functionings, we can also determine whether my overall capability expands or contracts over time and whether my overall capability is greater or smaller than that of any other person. Interpersonal comparisons of well-being and advantage are central both to welfare economics and theories of justice. If capabilities are to be relevant to these comparisons, they must be defined in terms of functionings that are relevant to the well-being of the people being compared. The capability approach seeks an analysis of “living better” (or worse) in terms functioning better (or worse) in specific dimensions. For instance, remaining healthy is certainly an important constituent of living well. Acquiring and expanding knowledge is arguably another, as is forming emotionally rewarding personal

C

relationships. For each specific functioning, a given person has a specific capability, which may expand or contract over time, and which may be greater or lesser than another person’s capability of that same kind. Capabilities can be diminished by lack of resources: The capability to remain healthy may be reduced for an entire community that lacks access to health care or clean potable water. But capabilities also differ because of human diversity: people have different capacities for converting resources to functionings, as for instance, some people may need wheelchairs along with accessible buildings and social environments in order to equal others in capability for mobility. Which functionings are to be selected for making interpersonal comparisons of well-being and advantage? Most capability theorists would agree that these should be grounded in rational choice, or, to use Amartya Sen’s phrase, the relevant capabilities and functionings are those that people ‘have reason to value’. Martha Nussbaum agrees that the salient capabilities are those that would emerge from rational reflection and discussion. However, she specifies this more narrowly as political deliberation over the capabilities that must be protected for all persons to at least threshold levels, in view of their equal dignity. She goes farther than Sen in proposing that such deliberation will result in an overlapping consensus supporting ten specific capabilities: life; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses, imagination, and thought; emotions; practical reason; affiliation; concern for other species; play; and control over one’s environment. Sen, Nussbaum, and other capability theorists have developed these basic capability concepts in somewhat different directions. If we can identify a set of capabilities to function in ways that people have reason to value, then, for each person, this set determines the extent of what in Sen’s parlance is that person’s “well-being freedom.” Poverty can be regarded as a shortfall in well-being freedom, and development must include expansion of well-being freedom, requiring some balancing between the value of equality (removing “substantive unfreedoms”) and efficiency (expanding everyone’s well-being freedom, short of merely robbing from that of others). Well-being freedom can be contrasted with agency freedom, the extent of which is determined by the set of valued goals that a person is capable of achieving – goals that may have little or nothing to do with that person’s own well-being. Other capability theorists have preferred a more enriched conception of agency that focuses on the extent to which one’s activities result from one’s own choices and values. While Sen acknowledges that well-being freedoms are “refined” and more valuable if they are produced and

103

C

104

C

Capabilities Approach

enacted through one’s own choice, Nussbaum has abandoned the distinction between well-being and agency freedom in favor of recognizing practical reasoning (which involves choosing what to do for one’s own reasons) as being, in its own right, one of the ten central capabilities. Taking a leaf from the early writings of Karl Marx, she adds that when capabilities are built and functionings achieved by means of practical reasoning (and, she adds, affinity), human life is distinguished as truly human and befitting of human dignity.

Implications Capability concepts were used first in debates over central assumptions of welfare economics. Though these debates, in their technical forms, are beyond the scope of this article, similar but less formal arguments apply to utilitarianism (or any consequentialist moral theory that aggregates over individual well-being) and to “inequality of what?” debates concerning social and global justice. Consider the welfare questions first. If we are to judge the merits of actions and policies by their effects on aggregate well-being, then this must in turn be based on adequate estimations of individual well-being. To simplify, we may think of the latter either as a function of the individual’s preference-satisfaction or as a function of psychological states such as pleasure and pain. In either case, two people can be judged equal in well-being, even though one is functioning much more poorly in some important dimension. Suppose that one is in poor health but has become so inured to sickness that she either ceases to suffer or ceases to care. By the standard of preferencesatisfaction, her well-being equals that of the healthy person because she has ceased to care (the adaptive preference problem), and by hedonic standards we also find equal well-being because she has ceased to suffer from her ill health. But it would be unreasonable to consider the sick and the healthy to be equal in well-being, and this line of reasoning supports the capability approach, which conceives of well-being in terms of capabilities to function in ways that people have reason to value. Though many theories of justice agree superficially that inequalities are unjust, the important question is which inequalities are unjust, and on this they disagree. Capability theorists agree that inequality of capability is central to injustice. They do not consider all inequalities in functioning to be unjust, since, for instance, while unrelieved famines do an injustice to the victims, fasting does not. What matters is not that everyone does eat equally well, but that everyone is equally capable of eating well. This approach opposes theories of justice that focus on inequality of income or other resources. Here again, the

human diversity argument applies. People with the same resources may not be equally able to convert them to wellbeing. Hence, a disabled person with the same income as one who is not disabled might lack sufficient resources to function as well. Inequalities between the able and disabled can therefore be overlooked by resource-based theories of justice. They can also get the direction of inequality wrong. To use one of Sen’s illustrations: African-American males have higher incomes, but lower life expectancies than men from the state of Kerala in southern India. By income standards, the AfricanAmericans would have to be judged better off, though they do not live as long. This, however, places too little value on their lives. By the capability standard, it is the Keralans who are better off, despite having lower incomes. A great deal of empirical research has been devoted to the measurement of capability inequalities, and some of the measures, such as the Human Development Index, now provide benchmarks for policies and programs of governments, aid agencies, development banks, and nongovernmental organizations, not only as indices of inequality but as indices of progress in social and economic development. Capability concepts have also been used as the basis for novel contributions to a variety of policy issues including human security, economic development policy, human rights, gender inequality, cultural freedom and social exclusion, globalization, environment and climate change, disability, democracy, and empowerment. Many of these have been published along with Human Development Index results in the annual Human Development Reports.

Global Justice and the Social Contract Tradition Because the capability approach relies on reasoning and an information base that are not limited by national boundaries, and because it denies that the capabilities of any individual person are less important than the capabilities of any other, the demands of justice are likewise not limited by national boundaries or grounded in social membership. Nevertheless, this universalism is balanced by cultural pluralism and respect for self-determination by and within nation-states. Pluralism is achievable first because the same capabilities can be realized in different ways (some people being nourished by bagels, others by chapatis), and, second, because persons are valued for their dignity, not for their specific conceptions of the good. Though Nussbaum argues that everyone should be constitutionally entitled to social support maintaining their central capabilities above threshold levels, how to implement this is a task for democratic politics and

Capital Punishment

deliberation. At the same time, self-determination is not just for states: capability theorists typically support participatory democracy, expanded agency, and empowerment at grassroots levels, both in governance and in development activities. Several challenges to the social contract tradition have emerged from the capability approach. Sen has criticized the conception of justice as a property of ideal social institutions; what is needed is rather to estimate how justly or unjustly actual institutions are functioning, and for this purpose a comparative idea of justice is more useful than an ideal. Nussbaum identifies four common assumptions of liberal social contract theory that have blocked its progress at the “frontiers of justice,” namely, that just arrangements are those that result from rational agreement (a) based on mutual advantage and (b) excluding altruism or benevolence (c) for free, equal, and independent persons in (d) circumstances of justice that make such cooperation both possible and necessary. With these assumptions, she argues, social contract theory can have little to say about the just treatment of disabled people, of people in other countries, or of other species. Instead of proposing an end-state for global justice, the capability approach identifies types of change that must be harmonized in order to move in the direction of greater justice, both local and global. (a) Removing shortfalls in central capabilities and well-being freedom remains a focal point, balanced against (b) expanding the capabilities of all. Similarly, (c) entitlements must prevent people from falling below basic capability thresholds and thus being excluded from social participation, but at the same time (d) giving priority to the worst-off is often the first step in moving them up to those thresholds. These changes should be brought about in ways that are (e) empowering for the people whose capabilities are to expand, achieved through processes to which these stakeholders can actively contribute, both as individuals and as members of groups, reflecting their own choices and thinking. Finally, they should be brought about (f) in ways that respect other normative values, including accepted conceptions of fair and legitimate process. The capability approach, in short, is less interested in looking at global justice than in leading towards it.

Related Topics

▶ Contractarianism ▶ Crocker, David ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Economic Rights ▶ Equality ▶ Global Poverty

C

▶ Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) ▶ Ideal Moral Theory ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Preference-Satisfaction ▶ Quality of Life ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Utilitarianism

References Alkire S (2002) Valuing freedoms: Sen’s capability approach and poverty reduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford Crocker D (2008) Ethics of global development; agency, capability, and deliberative democracy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Deneulin S, Shahani L (eds) (2009) An introduction to the human development and capability approach. Earthscan/International Development Research Centre, London/Ottawa Nussbaum M (2000) Women and human development: the capabilities approach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Nussbaum M (2006) Frontiers of justice: disability, nationality, species membership. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Nussbaum M, Sen A (eds) (1993) The quality of life. Oxford University Press, Oxford Robeyns I (2005) The capability approach: a theoretical survey. J Hum Dev 6:93–114 Sen A (1992) Inequality reexamined. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Sen A (1999) Development as freedom. Knopf, New York Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge United Nations Development Programme (1990-) Human development reports. Available online at http://hdr.undp.org/en/

Capital Punishment ROBERT P. ABELE Department of Humanities and Philosophy, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA, USA

Capital punishment may be defined as the judicial sentence and carrying-out of the sentence of death as the punishment for a crime committed. As such, it is a penalty performed by a socially recognized agency, usually the state. We will use the term “death penalty” as synonymous with “capital punishment” in the exposition and analysis here. In this reflection, the following aspects of capital punishment will be examined: its current state in the world, its role in the overall notion of legal punishment and its justification, the arguments for and against capital punishment, and the relation of global justice concerns to the practice of capital punishment.

105

C

106

C

Capital Punishment

Statistics on Capital Punishment How do the nations of the world stand on the issue of capital punishment? According to Amnesty International, 139 countries in the world have abolished the death penalty, while less than 50 nations currently engage in it. More telling, on December 21, 2010, a resolution calling for a universal moratorium on the use of the death penalty at the United Nations General Assembly received 109 votes (of nations) in favor of the resolution, 41 votes against, 35 abstentions, and 7 nations were absent. This demonstrates a trend toward international abolition, since an additional three states voted in favor of the 2010 resolution, and five fewer states voted against it, than they did with an almost identical resolution in 2008 (Amnesty International). Furthermore, popular opinion in the world is demonstrably opposed to capital punishment. The practice has little to no support from the populations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, and Europe (Death Penalty Information Center 2010). European Union member states all prohibit capital punishment as a condition of their membership, as exemplified in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 2. However, there are exceptions to this trend against the death penalty in world opinion. For instance, the four most populous countries in the world engage in the death penalty, thus affecting over 60% of the world’s population. These countries are China, India, the United States, and Indonesia. All of these countries voted against the U.N. General Assembly Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, in 2008. In the United States, a 2010 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 62% of Americans support the death penalty in murder cases, and only 30% oppose it (Falsani 2010).

The Notion of Legal Punishment and Its Justification In order to discuss capital punishment effectively, one must take into account the fact that this practice theoretically is an articulation of one understanding of the more general philosophy of legal punishment and its justification. This general topic is defined as the judicial infliction of some kind of suffering on someone who has committed a legal transgression – or, as John Rawls puts it, attaching legal penalties to the violation of legal rules (Rawls 1955). The general theories of punishment are usually divided into three traditions: deterrent/consequentialist, retributivist/deontological, and abolitionist. Utilitarian theory holds that punishment is justifiable only by reference to the probable consequences of maintaining it as one of the devices of the social order

(Rawls 1955). Since it appeals to a social good(s) for justification of the overall practice of punishment, it provides the philosophical grounding of a deterrent approach to punishment, as well as an argument for detaining wrongdoers. There are a few problems inherent in such an approach to punishment, however. Frequently raised objections to this view include the fact that deterrence cannot work when it comes to crimes of passion or where people assess the risk and determine that the action and its outcome is worth the risk. Further, consequentialist justifications of punishment tend to ignore proportional punishment (i.e., making the punishment fit the crime), and making sure that only the guilty are punished for their crimes. The retributive view of punishment is that punishment is justified simply on the grounds that wrongdoing merits punishment, and that a person who does wrong should suffer in proportion to his or her wrongdoing (Rawls 1955). It is a deontological view in that it maintains the priority of normative assessment: The justification of punishment here appeals to rules or principles of the institution that have been violated by a particular act. Thus, punishment is a matter of justice, not a matter of the social benefits that accrue from punishment. This viewpoint is not without its own problems of course. Included in the traditional challenges to it are: the problem of determining the unfair advantage attained by a lawbreaker, the problem that any punishment does not really compensate the victim for the crime, and the fact that it coerces people into obeying the laws instead of treating them as rational agents responsible for acting appropriately toward others. Michel Foucault responds to this debate by denying that punishment can be justified at all, since it is essentially based on the ideology of the sociopolitical power-system in place in a given society. As such, it cannot be rationally justified nor philosophically discussed (Foucault 1977). The abolitionist view takes up Foucault’s challenge and presses it further by arguing that no justification of punishment is possible at all. According to abolitionists such as Christie, the notion of “crime” itself is problematic, and should be replaced with notions of “conflicts” instead (Christie 1977).

The Three Main Positions on Capital Punishment As legal punishment is generally analyzed from three primary philosophical perspectives, so also is the analysis of the death penalty. The problems we noted for each of these justification positions likewise make their appearance when it comes to justifying capital punishment.

Capital Punishment

Continuing with the abolitionist position, perhaps the most well-known and outspoken contemporary opponent of the death penalty in philosophy is Hugo Adam Bedau. Bedau is primarily concerned to dismantle the deterrence justification for capital punishment. He argues that deterrence must be consistently and promptly employed in order to work as its defenders claim. However, when it comes to capital punishment, deterrence does not work in this way. One reason for this is that the numbers of murderers sentenced to death are very small – 1 in 50 – and of this number, even fewer are actually executed. So deterrence is not an issue with capital punishment. Additionally, considerable delays and costs are unavoidable due to procedural safeguards intended to protect the innocent. We can reduce delay and costs only by removing these safeguards, which would then increase the likelihood of the innocent being executed (Bedau 1997). Second, Bedau presents the three main cases in which murders occur, and finds each of them problematic with regard to deterrence. First, premeditated murders will not be reduced by the threat of the death penalty, since the perpetrators have calculated the risks and concluded that they can escape the penalty. Second are so-called crimes of passion. These are not planned, and therefore deterrence is not applicable. Finally, drug trafficking murderers are already betting their lives with their competitors and in their expected battles with the police (Bedau 1997). Bedau also finds the death penalty intrinsically problematic on the grounds of its inherent unfairness. Race, sex, and socioeconomic class are all significant factors in determining who is sentenced to die. Finally, the inevitability of error and the financial costs to prosecute and appeal capital crime cases argue against the death penalty’s effectiveness (more on these issues below). Jeffrey H. Reiman, for his part, finds several problems with the abolitionist view. First, the abolitionist view that it is wrong to kill the offender by doing the same wrong to them must be set aside, since we do allow this to happen in times of self-defense or war. If this is correct, then the wrongfulness of murder cannot be that it is killing per se, but rather that it is the killing of an innocent person. But if this is so, then if the state kills the murderer, it does not do the wrong that the murderer did, since the state is not killing an innocent person (Reiman 1985). Also, the rejection of capital punishment on the grounds of the potential for killing the innocent must be annulled as well, since we do tolerate the deaths of innocents in work and in wars. If the abolitionist view has its problems, does the utilitarian/consequentialist justification for capital punishment fare any better? This perspective (as well as the deontological/retributivist argument) follows the same

C

line of argumentation as we have seen under legal punishment. In this philosophy, the notion of deterrence plays a significant role. One of the most famous utilitarians, John Stuart Mill, was a staunch defender of capital punishment in cases of murder. Mill held that his was a humanity-based deterrence principle, since the punishment of hard labor for life was a less humane punishment than killing a murderer: It is “the least cruel mode in which it is possible adequately to deter from the crime” (Mill 1868). Mill appeals to the (allegedly) countless numbers of cases in which the deterrence factor saved lives, and additionally that the deterrent effect comes from its use only with the crime of murder. He concludes that the killing of innocents that comes with the use of the death penalty is so small in number that its use is justified by the greater good for society. The deterrence argument became more detailed and nuanced in the late twentieth century. Gone now are defenses and rejections of deterrence based on the rational psychology of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Now deterrence is said to depend on the likelihood and on the regularity (not the rationality) of human responses to danger. This response mechanism is seen in human behavior in nonjudicial settings; for example, no one who is not suicidal jumps off of high mountain cliffs. Risks and rewards are now seen as “felt,” not reasoned. Added to this shift is a sociological assumption that people refrain from committing offenses because they feel an obligation to behave lawfully. But this obligation in turn results from the deterrent effect of punishment, and nothing more. This means that, regarding actions whose punishment is light, violating a law will be the result. Given these considerations, the question is not whether or not the death penalty deters, but whether it deters more than the alternatives. For defenders of the deterrence argument, supporting capital punishment requires only that the severity of the penalty may influence some potential criminals, and that the added severity of death adds to the deterrence. Even the irrevocability of the death penalty is not a demand for further proof of deterrence. It is only a demand for a reason to expect more deterrence than revocable penalties might produce (van den Haag 1983). Aside from the Hobbesian overtones in such arguments as van den Haag’s, there are surely some problems within deterrence justifications. First of all, does it logically follow from the fact that one penalty is more feared than another that it thereby deters better? Also, it has been pointed out that violent criminals realize that in the commission of their violence, when they encounter the police, their chances of being killed are quite high.

107

C

108

C

Capital Punishment

Additionally, there is an arbitrariness that seems to occur in the use of the death penalty that the deterrent justification leaves untouched – for example, racial, social, and/or economic factors. Some death penalty advocates, such as van den Haag, dismiss such arbitrariness as present throughout the judicial system, and thus of little merit, since nothing can be done without abolishing all punishment (van den Haag 1983). But surely in cases where the penalty is so severe (death), and where protection of citizens is necessary but the death penalty itself is not necessary for doing so, arbitrariness must remain an important concern. As Reiman argues, what would happen if we abolished all capital punishment? His answer: nothing new. But if all punishments themselves were abolished, there would be a Hobbesian war of all against all. Thus, the argument from arbitrariness retains its special force against capital punishment (Reiman 1985). A deontological/retributivist justification of capital punishment has as its focus one of two concerns. The first justification is lex talionis, which maintains that the offender should be paid back with the same type of suffering he has caused another (i.e., “an eye for an eye”). The second is proportional retributivism, which maintains only that the criminal be punished in degree to his crime, not in kind. The death penalty might be, but is not necessitated as a proportional response to a capital crime, under this justification. These two positions might be called the “strict equivalency” position and the “proportional equivalency” position. As might be expected, each of these positions has its problems as well. Strict equivalency must answer questions concerning how this is conceivable in all cases. For example, cases of torturing someone before murdering them, rape before murder, or multiple murders cannot use strict equivalency as a justification. Proportional equivalency likewise has problems, including the difficulty of preparing a hierarchical listing of proportional punishments and crimes, and the fact that rational distinctions like this are difficult, if not impossible. Further, punishing the perpetrator does not undo the wrong suffered by the victim, nor does it compensate the victim for her suffering (MacKinnon 2004). Two defenders of the lex talionis view are G.W. Hegel and Immanuel Kant. For Hegel, in The Philosophy of Right, crime is an injury willed by the perpetrator that upsets the equality between persons. Hence, to penalize this particular will is to annul the crime and to restore right (i.e., the equality violated). In this way, Hegel argues, the retributive justification is in fact revenge, “which is just in its content insofar as it is retributive” (Hegel 1821).

Kant, in his Metaphysical Elements of Justice, argues that any undeserved evil that one inflicts upon another is one that one does to oneself. So if one kills another, one kills oneself. On this ground, Kant maintains that one who kills also wills to be killed, and thus it is not really the state that punishes him. Rather, through his own judgment, the murderer produces a resolution to take his own life. Even more drastically, Kant states that even if a civil society were to dissolve itself by agreement of all its members, the last murderer remaining in prison must first be executed, so that everyone will duly receive what his actions are worth (Kant 1797). There are questions regarding this Kantian argument as well. First, if the duty to punish is based on what people have done to others because of the respect owed to rational beings, then we would have a duty to do to all other things – good, bad, or indifferent – that they do to others. So this claim must be nuanced to one that states that a rational being, by his actions, authorizes others to do the same things to him. It does not compel them to do so. But this argument leads to a right, not a duty to exact lex talionis. Kant ultimately does not settle the question of the extent to which a victim or a state should exercise the right. Do we torture a torturer, or nearly kill a multiple murderer, revive him, and nearly kill him again? These questions remain unanswered in Kant’s defense of capital punishment (Reiman 1985). Modern versions of proportional retributivism are defended by Jeffrey H. Reiman and Robert Nozick, among many others. Nozick argues that people deserve punishment for their wrongful acts, independently of the deterrent effect of such punishment. That this is not revenge is explained by the fact that retribution is done for a wrong only, and not for a personal injury. In addition, revenge is personal and emotional, whereas retribution is neither of those. After delineating nine conditions for retributive punishment to be justified, he ultimately comes to defend retributive punishment on a nonteleological model, so that it is seen as right or good in itself, apart from its consequences. The point of this is that the wrongdoer has become disconnected from correct values, and the purpose of punishment is to reconnect him, so that the value qua value has as significant an effect on his life as the magnitude of his flouting of those correct values. For the most serious flouting (e.g., murder), capital punishment is the response of equal magnitude. One would think that from there it would be a short step for Nozick to advocate the death penalty. However, he does not. He adds a third connection between punishment and value, and that is the connection between the punisher and the value of the person being punished. The punisher is not simply intending to act on

Capital Punishment

the perpetrator in disregard of his value, but as a person who is capable of acknowledging the correct values. This tension results in Nozick’s being unable to reach a definitive conclusion regarding the justification of capital punishment (Nozick 1981).

Capital Punishment and Global Justice There are numerous questions that need to be addressed regarding capital punishment from a global justice perspective. We will examine five important ones here. First, there are difficulties squaring the practice of capital punishment with any normative justification, whether global or local. One of them is racism. Given the ongoing presence of racism in societies worldwide, and the fact that the race of the victim, the perpetrator, and the jurors all matter in obtaining a conviction that would result in the death penalty, one must question the ethical justifications of the use of the death penalty. Since the United States is one of the few remaining modern countries that still uses the death penalty, a specific study concerning its use and racism is appropriate to note here. According to the US General Accounting Office (GAO), and nonpartisan agency, in 82% of the cases studied, the race of the victim was found to have influenced the likelihood of being charged with a capital murder or receiving the death sentence. This conclusion was consistent across data sets, states, data collection methods, and analytic techniques (The Death Penalty Information Center 2010). A second serious issue that recommends ethical skepticism regarding the practice of capital punishment concerns mistaken convictions. In the United States alone, there have been 267 post-conviction DNA-based exonerations from the death penalty in the last 30 years. The sources of mistakes for death penalty conviction include: DNA inclusions at time of trial, other forensic inclusions, false confessions, false witness testimony, microscopic hair comparison matches, bad lawyering, defective or fraudulent science, prosecutorial misconduct, police misconduct, serology inclusion, and mistaken I.D. (The Innocence Project 2010). While supporters of the death penalty generally argue that such numbers are fairly low, a defender of the notion of inalienable human rights would want a more substantive defense of a practice in which this risk of wrongful conviction is undertaken more freely than one which directly belittled the lives of those wrongfully convicted by defending numbers instead of lives. Third, the incidences of higher death penalty rates due to racism, poverty, bias, power abuse, etc., demonstrate that it affects others disproportionately, and thus raises

C

ethical questions for a proponent. Even on a retributivist view, the fact that punishment is internally related to a crime (i.e., punishment is necessary for justice to be done) does not imply that the death penalty should be one of those punishments. Fourth is the issue of human rights. Thomas Pogge states that “a human right to X entails the demand that, insofar as reasonably possible, any coercive social institutions be so designed that all human beings affected by them have secure access to X.” The right to life is clearly one of those moral claims on any coercive social institution (Pogge 2008: 52–3). For two examples of this, the United States refers to it in the Declaration of Independence as the “unalienable rights . . . [of] life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and Germany has it in its Constitution that “Everyone shall have the right to life and to inviolability of his person.” It is the same with all other developed countries, which have long since abolished the death penalty as being inconsistent with its claims to uphold human rights. The fifth issue concerns the fact that there is an unmistakable and strong trend in the world community banning the use of capital punishment. By way of example, we may highlight the following charters and treaties: ● European Convention on Human Rights, Protocol 6, bans the use of capital punishment in peacetime, but allows states to use it during war. Further, the Thirteenth Protocol, Article 1, states: “The death penalty shall be abolished. No one shall be condemned to such penalty or executed.” ● American Convention on Human Rights, Second Protocol – adopted in 1990 by the General Assembly of the Organization of American States, and signed and ratified by 11 of the (North and South) American nations, it abolishes the death penalty in times of peace, but allows nations to opt for its use during wartime. The United States and Canada did not vote in favor of this and have not ratified it. ● Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 2, Section 2: “No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed.” ● Council of Europe. The Council of Europe’s 47 member states form a death-penalty-free zone. Since 1985, the abolition of the death penalty has been a requirement for membership of the Council of Europe. ● Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, it abolishes

109

C

110

C

Capitalism

the death penalty in times of peace, but allows states to exercise it during times of war. Seventy-three nations signed and ratified this Protocol. The United States did not vote for it and has not ratified it. These examples clearly indicate that the trend of world opinion and law is strongly in the direction of opposing, if not outright banning the use of capital punishment as inherently unjust and a grave violation of human rights. It is also clear that Europe is leading the way in this movement.

Conclusion The concept of global justice that nations are beginning to embrace clearly includes a notion of the fundamental right to life of persons that is not expunged by the commission of a crime. The movement toward abolishing the death penalty worldwide on this global conception of justice is indubitable. As our conception of humanity becomes more universal, our conception of justice becomes more inclusive, and less prone to abusing those who have harmed others in serious and significant ways. We might summarize this by saying that we are starting to affirm the teaching of Mahatma Gandhi: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Related Topics

▶ Basic Rights ▶ Global Human Rights Culture ▶ International Criminal Justice ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Punishment ▶ Retributive Justice

References Amnesty International (2010) USA: death penalty, still part of the ‘American experiment,’ still wrong. September 22, 2010 Bedau HA (1997) The case against the death penalty. ACLU pamphlet, December 31, 1997 Bentham J (1781/1988) An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation (Chapter 13). Prometheus Books, New York (1988; published in 1781) Christie N (1977) Conflicts as property. Br J Criminol 17(1):1–15 Falsani C (2011) Shepherds lead, but flocks diverge on morality of death penalty. Religion News Service, March 17, 2011 Foucault M (1977) Discipline and punish. Pantheon, New York Hegel GW (1821/1962) The philosophy of right (trans: Knox TM). Clarendon Press, Oxford (1962; published in 1821) Kant I (1797/1965) Metaphysical elements of justice (trans: Ladd J). Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis (1965; published in 1797) MacKinnon B (2004) Ethics: theory and contemporary issues. ThomsonWadsworth, New York Mill, JS (1868) Speech in favor of capital punishment. A speech before parliament on April 21, 1868

Nozick R (1981) Philosophical explanations. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Pogge TH (2008) World poverty and human rights. Polity, Cambridge Rawls J (1955) Two concepts of rules. Philos Rev 64:3–13 Reiman JH (1985) Justice, civilization, and the death penalty: answering van den Haag. Philos Public Aff 14(2):115–148 The Innocence Project, quoted from Hinman LM (2010) The death penalty: an overview of the ethical issues. Ethics Matters, November 29, 2010 van den Haag E (1969) On deterrence and the death penalty. J Crim Law Criminol Polit Sci 60(2):141–147 van den Haag E (1982) The collapse of the case against capital punishment. In: Bedau HA (ed) The death penalty in America. Oxford University Press, New York van den Haag E, Conrad J (1983) The death penalty: a debate. Plenum, New York

Capitalism FRED E. FOLDVARY Civil Society Institute, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, USA

The term “capitalism” has been applied to (1) the concept of a free market, (2) actual mixed economies, and (3) the concept of economic class conflicts. The relationship of “capitalism” to global justice depends on how the term is used and defined. Unless explained, it is unclear what kind of “capital” is being applied in “capitalism.” Classical economics categorized the inputs of production into three basic categories or “factors”: land, labor, and capital goods. Capital goods are goods that have been produced but not yet consumed. They are also referred to as the “produced means of production.” Examples of capital goods include machines, buildings, and inventory. The term “capital” is also applied to financial assets such as money and bonds. Funds are not an input into production, but are used to hire or purchase inputs; hence, financial capital is conceptually different from capital goods. The term “real capital” is applied to capital goods, in contrast to financial capital. A third meaning of “capital” is “human capital,” the skills and education that make labor more productive. Human capital is part of the labor factor, and thus is distinct from capital goods. The term “natural capital” refers to natural resources, especially materials in the ground. With respect to capitalism, the relevant “capitals” are capital goods and financial capital.

Capitalism

Historical Usage The term “capital” derives from the Latin word “capitalis,” from “caput,” head. The meaning “head” was then applied to describe what is the first or the chief or bigger item, such as the capital of a country or capital letters. When cattle were a principle form of wealth, the heads of cattle provided a measure of the wealth. From “capitalis” came the Latin term “capitale” meaning “stock” or “property,” which was subsequently also applied to financial capital as well as to capital goods. The term “capitalist” referring to an owner of “capital” came into use during the 1600s. During the French Revolution, the term “capitalist” came into use to label those who owned substantial assets. A.R.J. Turgot used “capitaliste” in his 1769 essay, “Reflection on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth.” The term was similarly used by classical economists such as David Ricardo and then by socialists such as Karl Marx, as in “the capitalist mode of production.” But Marx only used “capitalism” once in Volume I of Das Kapital (1867). The first known use of “capitalism” in English was in 1854 by William Thackeray in his novel The Newcomes, referring to the ownership of financial capital. The term had come into economic discourse in France in the mid1800s to refer to a system that privileges the owners of capital. Jean Charles Leonard Simonde de Sismondi (1819), a socialist critic of market economies in the early 1800s, used the term “capitalist” for the economic system as well as for owners of wealth. The term “capitalism” became widely used in the early 1900s by followers of Karl Marx as a contrast to socialism and for the system that historically followed feudalism. The term was popularized by Werner Sombart’s book Der Moderne Kapitalismus in 1902 and by Max Weber’s book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in 1904.

Meanings of “Capitalism” 1. The first meaning of “capitalism” is the free market and private enterprise. In its purity, the market aspect of an economy consists of voluntary human action. In a pure market, production, exchange, and consumption are free of any arbitrary governmental restriction or imposed cost. Those who favor markets and private property, believing that markets function well and provide global justice, sometimes use “capitalism” to mean not the actual economic system but a hypothetical system in which private enterprise plays the major role, with minimal governmental intervention. But they also, ambiguously, use “capitalism” to refer to the market aspect of the actual economy.

C

2. “Capitalism,” as applied to actual economies, is used as a label for a mixed economy. The economies of almost all countries today are a mixture of markets and governmental intervention and provision. Intervention implies not just inefficiency but also a reduction of global justice, since the purpose of restrictions is often to provide and protect the privileges of a few beneficiaries, at the expense of the public. Governmental intervention alters what people would otherwise voluntarily do. A tax on production of goods reduces the quantity produced and consumed, while a subsidy increases it. Interventions include price and quantity controls. Governments also redistribute wealth and provide much of the output of the economy, including the military, education, infrastructure, and much of the medical services. If most of the production is done by government, then the term “state socialism” is more apt. Thus “capitalism” as a label for an economy presumes that most of the production is done by private enterprise, even though the government is involved by taxation, subsidy, and regulation. When production is nominally in private hands, but government controls it, making the main production decisions, then the term “fascism,” used in its historic sense, is more apt. Thus “capitalism” applies when the decisions of what to produce and what price at which to sell are made by the private entrepreneur and the consumer, with the state interventions altering these decisions but not usually originating them. 3. A third meaning of “capitalism” is the division of society into the class of owners, the capitalists, and the class of workers, or “proletariat,” which has the majority of the population. In this conception, the capitalist class appropriates value that properly belongs to the workers. This meaning uses the theory of surplus value as developed by Sismondi and then Karl Marx, in which the value of goods is greater than the wages paid to workers, and thus the capitalists obtain this surplus, which makes them rich at the expense of the workers. This definition encompasses the labor theory of value and the view that private enterprise exploits labor. Some theorists labeled the economic system of the Soviet Union as “state capitalism.” True socialism, they say, involves the ownership of the means of production, that is, capital goods and land, by the workers. In the USSR, the state acted as the employer, with the workers as employees without control over their tools; hence, they were in a similar situation as the proletariat in private enterprise who own nothing but their labor.

111

C

112

C

Capitalism

Problems with the Term “Capitalism”

What Is the Free Market?

Since an economy has three factors of production, calling the system “capitalism” implies a primacy for the owners of capital goods, relative to land and labor. It also gives primacy to financial capital. Yet most of national income goes to labor, and much of the economic gains go to land rent. “Capitalism” thus implies the global injustice of the owners of capital and land dominating labor. Even when what is meant is a label for the actual economy, the connotation is that the owners of real and financial capital are in charge, masking the influence of landowners as well as of labor unions and other interests. Both critics and defenders of markets often do not clearly define which meaning of “capitalism” they are using, and they often use more than one meaning, switching between meanings without telling the reader that they are doing this. For example, critics of markets typically make the following basic argument.

The meaning of capitalism as free market and private enterprise has two quite different applications. The ethical foundation of freedom was analyzed by the philosopher John Locke (1690), especially in his Second Treatise of Government. One of Locke’s premises is the moral equality of human beings, which endows each person with selfownership. In a pure free market, each person owns his labor, the wages from labor, and the products of labor. The free market, consisting of voluntary human action, leaves each person free to produce, trade, and consume as one wishes so long as one does not coercively harm others. However, self-ownership does not apply to what human beings did not produce, namely, natural resources, or land. There are two different viewpoints regarding the morally proper ownership of land: homesteading versus equal benefits. In the homesteading principle, the first person to occupy and use unclaimed land creates a just claim to own that land from then on. Once a claim is established, the owner need not personally use the land, but may rent it out and still own it. The homesteading rule creates allodial land ownership, meaning that the title holder has complete rights to the land, including all its rent. Indeed, the homesteading principle is often used to claim space. When there is a line to buy something or enter a place, the sequence is according to who got there first, as each person goes to the end of the line and homesteads that position. When one enters a theater, one may occupy any unused seat. One homesteads a parking place by claiming a space not used. But such examples consist of temporary possession of space. After the performance is finished, one’s claim to the seat expires. After one leaves the parking place, it is abandoned, and another person may then claim it. In contrast, the homesteading rule for owning land makes its ownership permanent. Also, the rules for homesteading are arbitrary, since it is unclear how long a time is needed to establish a claim, and how much land one may claim, and what kinds of activities constitute a use of the land. Another problem for the homesteading rule is that, contrary to global justice, the current possession of almost all land derives from conquest rather than the first comers to unclaimed land. Those who espouse homesteading say that if the original occupants cannot be determined, then the current occupant in effect is the first claimer, and has a just claim. But that proposition would justify the status quo for most of the world, and the moral basis for such claims is problematic. John Locke proposed a homesteading rule, but with a qualification or proviso. He wrote that one may claim

1. The economic system of the world today is capitalism. 2. The economy of the world today has social problems and injustice such as poverty. 3. Therefore, capitalism causes these social problems. The problem in such an argument is that it shifts among two meanings of “capitalism.” In the first statement, “capitalism” is used as a label for the actual economy. In the third statement, “capitalism” uses the meaning of private enterprise and the market. The third statement would be meaningless if “capitalism” is being used there to label the mixed economy, since it does not tell us what it is about the economy that is causing the problems. Critics of market economies typically use “capitalism” to mean private enterprise when they accuse the system of being unjust as well as unstable and not even efficient. But they also apply the term to the actual economy, as though the government side were nonexistent or has little effect. An analysis of social problems needs to examine whether it is the market or the government or some perverse synthesis that causes social woes. Because of its ambiguity, the word “capitalism” is well suited for political propaganda, as a negative view of “capitalism” seems stronger than an attack on “free markets,” which would possibly imply an attack on freedom. Because of its frequent use by critics of markets, the defenders of markets tend to also use the term, indeed to rebut its negative connotations. But discourse would, in many cases, be clearer if the object of consideration were not called “capitalism” but more specifically the market, the mixed economy, or the class struggle.

Capitalism

unused land so long as there is land of equal quality freely available for others. Locke did not examine the case of there not being such land. Henry George, in his 1879 book Progress and Poverty and other works, did analyze this case, and his conclusion was that it is sufficient for global justice that the benefit of land be shared equally, while possession could be retained by the current title holders. The benefit of land is manifested by the market rent that it yields. Thus, by the equal benefit rule, global justice can be achieved when the title holders pay the rent to the members of the relevant community, or to government as their agent. This rent can serve to pay for the services of government, instead of taxing labor, enterprise, and produced goods. Thus, when referring to capitalism as the market and private enterprise, it is important to clarify which system one is analyzing, whether the allodial system based on homesteading, or the Georgist equal-benefit system that collects the land rent either for government revenue to distribute in equal shares to the people.

The Efficiency of the Market “Capitalism” meaning the market has been criticized as being inefficient in several ways. Markets are said to create unemployment, poverty, pollution, inadequate public goods, and boom-bust cycles. These problems are called “market failures.” Given the premise that human desires are unlimited, advocates of free markets believe that there is no economic reason for unemployment other than the “frictional” unemployment of those in between jobs or those about to be hired. So long as one can do something useful, one can be hired at a wage based on one’s productivity. During recessions and depressions, there is “cyclical unemployment” as workers get laid off, but during times of prosperity, at some wage, everyone should be able to either become self-employed or be hired. Advocates of markets blame the legal minimum wage for unemployment, since a worker will not be hired if his productivity is less than the required wage. The employer must also pay payroll taxes, including social security, the tax that finances unemployment payments, and accident insurance, along with the employee overhead costs. Like other economic problems, poverty needs to be analyzed to determine whether the cause is the market or government actions. Defenders of markets say that there are government policies that increase poverty by imposing deadweight losses on production and consumption. A sales tax, for example, raises the price paid by the buyer, which reduces the quantity bought, thus also reducing production and employment. By reducing profits and

C

making goods more expensive, taxes on labor, profits, and goods reduce wages and employment, increasing poverty. Taxation then takes wealth from the poor who pay taxes on goods if not on their wages. Government welfare programs to help the poor then can trap the poor in poverty, as moving from welfare to working involves a loss of benefits plus costs of employment such as transportation, child care, and taxes. While some advocates for global justice argue for greater government welfare programs, a deeper justice would be accomplished by eliminating the source of poverty. Moreover, in a market that applies the equal benefit principle for land, the land rent is ideally equally shared by all, removing a major source of inequality that exists in allodial economies, since the ownership of the most valuable lands are usually concentrated in a few hands. Thus, it is not evident that such a rent-sharing economy would have significant poverty, since the absence of taxation plus the equal benefit from land would go a long way to reduce poverty. Global justice for the environment requires the prevention of significant negative externalities such as pollution. Such negative externalities have been labeled a market failure, but that depends on how “market” is being defined. Defined as a voluntary economy, significant negative externalities would not exist, since pollution would be regarded as an invasion and trespass into other’s property, requiring compensation for damages. The compensation internalizes the cost, and there is no externality. The payment also reduces pollution, since the polluter has an incentive to avoid the charge either by reducing production or by installing equipment to reduce the pollution. Markets are also said to fail in the adequate provision of public goods, since, for example, if there is a public park with unrestricted access, it is not feasible to charge people for using it. But this market-failure argument overlooks the possibility of private communities such as residential associations providing the park. Indeed, private communities provide streets, transit, security, and many of the services that local government provides. The market economy includes contractual governance for communities such as condominiums, homeowner associations, and cooperatives. Governments engage in stabilization policies to pull economies out of recessions and depressions, but again, one needs to analyze why boom-bust cycles exist. There is no single consensus on the business cycle, but it is evident that the government’s monetary and fiscal policies have a major impact on economies. An expansion of money provides cheap credit, which can fuel investment and

113

C

114

C

Carbon Tax

speculation in real estate. Fiscal policy also induces a real estate boom, as property owners receive tax reductions while the provision of public goods raises land rent and land values, which then gives rise to unsustainable speculation. Moreover, the secondary market in mortgages in the USA was promoted by the government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Thus the boom-bust cycles have had significant governmental causes.

The Global Justice of “Capitalism” Even if the market economy is substantially efficient, “capitalism” meaning the private sector has been accused of lacking in equity, and of generating an excessive inequality of wealth and income. Inequalities have persisted in mixed economies such as that of the USA in spite of substantial redistribution. One reason for rising inequality is that the wealthy get much of their tax payments back as subsidies. The greatest subsidy is implicit: the generation of land rent and land value by the public goods provided by government, as the tax revenues are mostly on labor and capital. If the land rent is collected and used for public revenue, then that implicit subsidy and a major source of inequality are eliminated. There remains an inequality of wages, but much of that can be justified by the extra productivity that results from investment in human capital. Thus whether “capitalism,” meaning the pure market, is compatible with global justice depends on the initial endowments, particularly of natural resources.

Conclusion The term “capitalism” is ambiguous, as it has been applied to private enterprise, mixed economies, and to class conflict. Discourse on economics is clearer if one either clearly distinguishes among these meanings, or else avoids the term and instead uses terms such as “mixed economy” or “market economy.” An analysis of the global justice of outcomes of mixed economies needs to examine the effects of government policies as well as of the dynamics of markets.

Related Topics ▶ Georgism ▶ Marxism ▶ Political Economy ▶ Socialism

References Braudel F (1979) Civilization and capitalism, 15th–18th century. Harper and Row, New York Friedman M (1962) Capitalism and freedom. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

George H (1879) Progress and poverty. Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, New York. http://schalkenbach.org/library/henry-george/p+p/ ppcont.html Locke J (1690 [1947]) Two treatises of government, ed. Cook ThI. Hafner, New York Marx K (1867 [1990]) Capital (trans: Fowkes B), vol I. Penguin, London Rand A (1966) Capitalism: the unknown ideal. Signet, New York Schumpeter JA (1942 [1976]) Capitalism, socialism, and democracy, 5th edn. Harper and Brothers, New York. George Allen and Unwin, London Simonde de Sismondi JCL (1819 [1991]) New principles of political economy. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ Sombart W (1915) The quintessence of capitalism: a study of the history and psychology of the modern business man, ed. and trans. Epstein M. E.P. Dutton, New York Tormey S (2004) Anti-capitalism: a beginner’s guide. Oneworld, Oxford Weber M (1904 [1958]) The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Scribner, New York

Carbon Tax WILLIAM B. T. MOCK The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, IL, USA

Carbon dioxide (CO2), a major greenhouse gas, is released when people burn fossil fuels, but not when they use alternatives like solar, wind, hydroelectric, and nuclear energies. Such releases are environmental externalities, typically not captured as costs for either the generator or consumer of power. As with most unregulated externalities, cost-free carbon emissions tend to result in artificially low costs for fossil fuels, excessive release of greenhouse gases, and a competitive disadvantage for energy sources that do not release such emissions. Although there are several models, carbon taxes are indirect, or transactionbased, taxes upon the use of fossil fuels, imposed in amounts proportionate to the fuels’ carbon content, and calibrated to offset the negative externalities of CO2 release. By imposing additional costs on the use of fossil fuels, carbon taxes shift market forces away from such fuels and toward alternative energy technologies that do not release carbon during their use. Carbon taxes are distinct from cap-and-trade approaches to greenhouse gas emissions, as promoted by the Kyoto Protocol, in that the latter offer market-based opportunities for users of fossil fuels to purchase the pollution allocations of other users, thereby shifting the burdens of adopting new technologies to those with the lowest marginal costs. Many commentators prefer carbon taxes over cap-and-trade programs because of

Care Ethics

the former’s greater simplicity and transparency, more comprehensive scope, and relative absence of opportunity for regulatory lobbying. Carbon taxes aim to provide pricing certainty, whereas cap-and-trade systems aim to provide certainty in emissions quantities. Environmentally based carbon taxes are also distinct from general revenue fuel taxes, which have been in place in many countries for decades, in that the latter are typically imposed not in proportion to calculated externalities, but to influence public behavior and generate government revenue. Since the 1990s, many jurisdictions, primarily in northern Europe, have implemented carbon taxes of one form or another. The relevance of carbon tax in promoting global justice is obvious. Carbon tax makes carbon emission countries justly accountable for their disproportionate share of global pollution, without placing undue burden on the poor countries whose well-being is adversely affected by global effects of carbon emissions in the developed, industrialized countries.

Related Topics

▶ Climate Justice ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Environmental Protection ▶ Environmental Sustainability

References Andersen MS, Ekins P (eds) (2010) Carbon-energy taxation: lessons from Europe. Oxford University Press, New York Gore A (1992) Earth in the balance: ecology and the human spirit. Plume/ Penguin Books, New York Houser T et al (2008) Leveling the carbon playing field: international competition and US climate policy design. Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington DC

Care Ethics MARGARET A. MCLAREN Department of Philosophy, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL, USA

Care ethics focuses on maintaining relationships, responsibility to others, and avoiding harm; it also takes into account contextual features of the moral situation and acknowledges the impact of identity on moral reasoning.

C

Care ethics emerged in the early 1980s after the publication of psychologist Carol Gilligan’s In A Different Voice (1982). Gilligan’s research challenged the standard paradigm for moral reasoning at the time, the deontological view associated with philosopher Immanuel Kant. In general terms, the deontological view privileges rationality, requires impartiality, and emphasizes justice and rights. In the 1960s, Lawrence Kohlberg adopted this Kantian model for moral reasoning to pursue in his empirical psychological studies. Asking subjects to respond to hypothetical situations, Kohlberg then categorized the answers, creating a scale for moral development. Kohlberg’s scale consists of three levels with two stages at each level – Preconventional: (1) avoid punishment and (2) seek rewards; Conventional: (3) seek approval/avoid disapproval and (4) conformity to society’s rules; Postconventional: (5) follow the rules of the community and (6) follow the dictates of individualized conscience grounded in universal moral principles. Unfortunately, women consistently scored lower on Kohlberg’s scale of moral development, usually reaching only stage 3 or 4. Refusing to believe that the problem was women’s lack of moral maturity, Gilligan set out to test Kohlberg’s scale of moral development. One significant problem with Kohlberg’s research was that his original pool of subjects were not diverse, they were mainly male and European or of European descent. Thus, it is in some ways not surprising that a normative scale derived from a skewed sample continues to reflect this original bias favoring the population from whom the scale was derived. Moreover, Gilligan’s research found that girls and women are more likely to ask questions about the situation to provide a greater degree of context and detail. In Kohlberg’s scale, clear-cut answers were preferred, resulting in a higher score on the scale of moral development. Because she found such a significant difference in the ways that males and females answered questions about how they would respond to various moral situations, Gilligan created an alternative scale that reflected the voice of women and girls. Her scale consists of three levels and two transitions – Level 1. Individual survival; Transition: from selfishness to responsibility; Level 2. Goodness equated with self-sacrifice; Transition: to include self in the circle of care; Level 3. Caring for both self and others. Not surprisingly, women and girls scored significantly higher on this new scale of moral development than on Kohlberg’s. Gilligan discovered significant differences in the ways that men and women think about and discuss moral problems. Women emphasized responsibilities to others, rather than individual rights favored by men, women were more concerned with maintaining

115

C

116

C

Care Ethics

relationships than with executing justice impartially, and women used a language of care that focused on not hurting others, rather than the rights and justice language associated with an impartial moral point of view. Gilligan’s work played a significant role in correcting the male bias of mainstream moral theory and moral development in psychology. Although she found gender differences in moral reasoning, Gilligan and colleagues also found that both women and men engage in both care and justice reasoning. She urges us to acknowledge these different types of moral reasoning and argues that the ideal is to be able to employ both types regardless of gender. Gilligan’s work has had a profound impact on a wide variety of disciplines outside of her own field of psychology. Her work has been influential in philosophy, religious studies, law, political theory, sociology, anthropology, and literature. There are several anthologies that discuss and extend her work, as well as many books that apply care ethics to contemporary issues. Care ethics is viewed as a vital subset of a range of contemporary approaches associated with feminist ethics. However, there is some debate about whether or not care ethics is actually a feminist approach. Gilligan’s work corrected male bias in applied moral theory by highlighting the voices of women and revaluing some of the traits typicallyassociated with women such as emotions, nurturing, and care. Yet, emphasizing these feminine qualities can help to perpetuate stereotypical views of women as emotional rather than rational, as naturally maternal and as too connected to/dependent on others. So, some choose to classify care ethics as a feminine ethics rather than a feminist ethics. Regardless of how one decides to classify care ethics, it provides an important framework for thinking about and discussing moral issues. It recognizes and values the emotional work that many women do; it allows for the context of a moral situation to be taken into account; and it places importance on the identity of the moral agent. The first issue has been discussed above, and here I will elaborate on the second two points. According to a deontological approach, universal principles can be applied to the situation at hand, regardless of the individual situation. For instance, according to Kant (the deontological approach, the mainstay of moral theory), lying is always wrong. While truthfulness is undoubtedly a good moral rule of thumb, there are situations when it may be morally justified to lie, such as when it would save a person’s life. Attention to context allows us to take into account the details of the situation and to adapt our solution to the moral problem at hand. A further aspect of allowing for the significance of context

is the role that a moral agent’s identity may play in her or his decision making. Typically, mainstream moral approaches ask us to “leave our identity at the door,” again the application of universal principles in an impartial manner requires that we apply moral principles in the same way no matter the situation and no matter who we are. Yet, Gilligan’s work and the work of many other theorists show that aspects of our identity, such as gender, class, race, ethnicity, sexual identity, and physical ability often deeply influence our values, perspectives, and choices. Clearly, identity may also play a role in our moral reasoning and ethical choices. Universalizable, abstract principles play an important role in moral theory, providing a moral minimum or a minimal standard of ethical treatment, such as the recognition of civil and political rights. Adhering to a moral minimum may be especially important when addressing issues of global justice because it is often argued that we need transcultural moral standards in order to justify universal concepts, such as human rights. One major criticism of care ethics has been that because of its focus on maintaining relationships, and not harming others, its use is restricted to situations where there is a face-to-face interaction, and is thus not applicable to larger moral or political concerns. However, Joan Tronto develops the political aspect of care in Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for An Ethic of Care (1993). She argues that care and justice frameworks are not only compatible, but are both necessary to confront questions of autonomy, agency, distribution, and democracy. Questions about care highlight the fact of human interdependency and reveal that “care work” is essential labor performed by the underclass, not only women but also racial and ethnic minorities, as well as the working class and working poor. Tronto’s insight that care is not only gendered, but also raced, and classed is borne out in current research on women and globalization; care is a transnational commodity. Women from the Global South migrate to the Global North to take up work as domestics, nannies, and elder care workers, filling the care deficit in the First World at the expense of themselves and their families. Care as both a practice and a moral approach is essential to any complete analysis of what counts as global justice. Just as global justice may be a moral and political ideal to strive for, so, too, is global care.

Related Topics ▶ Feminist Ethics ▶ Gender Justice

Charity

References Cole EB, Coultrap-McQuin S (eds) (1992) Explorations in feminist ethics: theory and practice. Indiana University Press, Bloomington Gilligan C (1982) In a different voice: psychological theory and women’s development. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Held V (1993) Feminist morality: transforming culture, society, and politics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Held V (ed) (1995) Justice and care: essential readings in feminist ethics. Westview Press, Boulder Held V (2006) The ethics of care: personal, political, and global. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kittay EF, Meyers DT (eds) (1987) Women and moral theory. Rowman and Littlefield, Totowa Larrabee MJ (ed) (1993) An ethic of care: feminist and interdisciplinary perspectives. Routledge, New York Noddings N (1984) Caring: a feminine approach to ethics and moral education. University of California Press, Berkeley Tong R (1993) Feminine and feminist ethics. Wadsworth Publishing, Belmont Tronto J (1993) Moral boundaries: a political argument for an ethic of care. Routledge, New York

Charity HELGA VARDEN Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

From the point of view of justice, there are two main questions concerning charity. Is charity an enforceable duty and should all redistribution in response to need and poverty be characterized as “charity”? To better appreciate the contemporary treatment of these philosophical issues with respect to global justice, it is helpful to look back to discussions of justice and charity in John Locke and Immanuel Kant. Locke appears to affirm two opposing views on the enforceability of charity in his different writings. In both the First Treatise on Government and in “Venditio,” Locke appears to affirm an enforceable right and duty to charity in response to extreme need. Here Locke clearly seems to argue that charity gives those in extreme need a title to resourceful persons’ private property insofar as this is necessary for the poor persons’ subsistence. But such a right and duty to charity is not without problems for Locke, since in the Second Treatise on Government also argues that justice gives persons private property claims in the products obtained by means of their labor on a fair share of natural resources. Yet if Locke argues that the charity-right is enforceable, then private property rights appear to be undercut. For an enforceable right to charity

C

implies that some people have nonconsensual access to the values created by other persons’ labor. Locke acknowledges and addresses these consequences in A Letter Concerning Toleration. Here Locke argues that charity belongs to a large group of moral virtues, which the state cannot legally enforce, because doing so is incompatible with the natural right to the values created by one’s own labor. The sticking point with this view is that Locke then cannot allow that charity will do the work of providing for those in extreme need. Hence, unless Locke’s theory includes some special rights protecting the poverty stricken, their preservation is left to the arbitrary choices of others. Kant also argues that charity or beneficence is not an enforceable right or duty of justice, and instead considers it an imperfect duty of virtue. To be charitable or beneficent we must help others because it is the right thing to do, which Kant describes as acting on a maxim of assistance from a moral motivation (from duty). Hence, charity or beneficence is an unenforceable duty of virtue and not an enforceable duty of justice. In addition, Kant argues that we have a certain latitude when it comes to fulfilling duties of beneficence or charity. When and how we should be charitable depends on our current economic situation and other obligations we have. Both Locke’s and Kant’s philosophical arguments inform much of the contemporary discussions of justice and charity both with regard to domestic and global justice. Some affirm the view expressed by Locke in the First Treatise and in “Venditio” that extreme need as such gives rise to enforceable duties. Positions that affirm an enforceable duty to assist those in dire need are often described as adhering to a “positive duties” conception of justice. The most prominent Lockean scholar in this camp is A. John Simmons. Simmons argues that although people cannot be forced to be moral, namely to perform the right actions based on the right motivations, they can be forced to act charitably. Charity is considered enforceable when a lack of charity entails that some are deprived of their fundamental rights to self-preservation (having subsistence means) and self-government (having some means with which to set ends of one’s own). The strictness of any instance of fulfilling the general duty of charity is seen as proportional to the proximity of the people in need as well as to the “risk, cost, or inconvenience” incurred by helping them. Other prominent non-Lockean scholars join Simmons and other left-wing Lockeans in holding a “positive duties” approach to charity. These include, most notably, utilitarians such as Peter Singer, thinkers in the capabilities tradition such as Martha C. Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, Marxist thinkers such as G. A. Cohen, and care theorists such as Virginia Held. All these scholars

117

C

118

C

Charity

are unified in thinking that at least minimal equality with regard to some good, whether the satisfaction of basic needs, material resources, capabilities, or care, can justify coercive redistribution of resources from rich to poor domestically and globally. Other Lockeans, however, are more convinced by the kinds of arguments Locke pursues in A Letter On Toleration, namely arguments according to which an enforceable duty of charity is denied. These Lockeans are often described as affirming a “negative duties” conception of justice. Robert Nozick is probably the most influential of this group. Nozick argues that charity cannot be enforceable, since it would entail the enslavement of property owners. That is, an enforceable right to charity violates individuals’ rights to freedom – to set and pursue ends of their own with their resources. Other, prominent rightwing libertarians such as F. A. Hayek and Jan Narveson affirm this basic conception of economic justice, even if they are more radical than Nozick with regard to the issue of an original fair share. Nozick views his conception also as consistent with the position offered by Kant. Some Kant interpreters, such as John Rawls (1999a) and Thomas Pogge (1988), agree with Nozick that Kant affirms a right-wing conception of economic justice. But in contrast to Nozick, they consider this a drawback of his view and so try to overcome it by finding ways to protect the rights of the poor. Others, most notably Onora O’Neill, agree that it is right to see Kant as having a right-wing libertarian (“negative duties”) conception of economic justice in the Doctrine of Right. Nevertheless, Kant’s account of charity in the “Doctrine of Virtue,” she argues, can yield a supplemental, institutional argument to justify redistribution of resources to the needy and vulnerable. Yet others, such as Sarah Holtman, Arthur Ripstein, and Helga Varden, challenge these readings by arguing that Kant neither held a right-wing libertarian conception of economic justice nor did or can he (for the reasons outlined above) deem duties of virtue as in principle enforceable. Instead, they argue that Kant understands the right to poverty relief as a claim citizens hold against their public institutions. It is for this reason, they conclude, that liberal states’ provisions of poverty relief are a matter of justice and not a matter of charity for Kant. Variations on the above “negative duties” and institutional arguments about justice are found in much liberal thought on global justice. Consequently, much liberal thought on global economic justice distinguishes between humanitarian aid and poverty relief since they require different justifications. Providing humanitarian aid to victims of natural disasters and other uncontrollable environmental factors is often justified by several prudential

and “negative duty” arguments. For example, a prudential argument sometimes given for humanitarian aid points to the likely positive correlation between peace and the absence of starvation, whereas related moral arguments include appeals to the natural disaster victims’ fundamental right to a fair share of natural resources. In contrast to humanitarian aid, poverty relief is seen primarily as a problem related to systemic dependency and inequality. When a set of (coercive) institutions both sets the framework within which people interact and results in poverty, then, it is argued, the resulting problems are seen as problems of systemic justice – and not charity. It seems fair to say that these prominent liberal thinkers on global justice, Charles R. Beitz, Michael Blake, Thomas Nagel, John Rawls (1999b), Mathias Risse, and Thomas Pogge (2008), are concerned to analyze and justify exactly what constitutes a fair share of the globe’s natural resources as well as the role and responsibilities of global institutions. In fact, one of their most important disagreements concerns the question of whether or not there is a basic, possibly coercive, system of global institutions that justifies and requires global, coercive redistributive efforts in the name of justice rather than charity.

Related Topics

▶ Absolute Poverty ▶ Beitz, Charles ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Care Ethics ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Duties, Perfect and Imperfect ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Held, Virginia ▶ Humanitarian Aid ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Kant, Immanuel: Contemporary Kantian Responses to ▶ Killing and Letting Die ▶ Marxism ▶ Nagel, Thomas ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Singer, Peter ▶ Utilitarianism

References Beitz Ch (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Blake M (2001) Distributive justice, state coercion, and autonomy. Philos Public Aff 30(3):257–296

Child Labor Cohen GA (2008) Rescuing justice and equality. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Hayek FA (2007) The road to serfdom. In: Caldwell B (ed) The collected works of F. A. Hayek, vol 2. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Held V (2006) The ethics of care: personal, political, and global. Oxford University Press, New York Holtman SW (2004) Kantian justice and poverty relief. Kant-Stud 95(1):86–106 Kant I (2006) Immanuel Kant: practical philosophy, ed. and trans. Gregor MJ. Cambridge University Press, New York Locke J (1667/1997) An essay on toleration. In: Goldie M (ed) Locke: political essays. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 134–160 Locke J (1695) Venditio. In: Goldie M (ed) Locke: political essays. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 339–343 Locke J, Laslett P (eds) (1690/1998) Two treatises of government. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Nagel Th (2005) The problem of global justice. Philos Public Aff 33(2):113–148 Narveson J (2001) The libertarian idea. Broadview Press, Peterborough Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state, and utopia. Basic Books, New York Nussbaum MC (2007) Frontiers of justice: disability, nationality, species membership. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge O’Neill O (1996) Towards justice and virtue. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Pogge TW (1988) Kant’s theory of justice. Kant-Stud 79(1988):407–433 Pogge TW (2008) World poverty and human rights, 2nd edn. Polity Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1999a) A theory of justice, revised edn. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1999b) The laws of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Ripstein A (2009) Force and freedom: Kant’s legal and political philosophy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Risse M (2005) What we owe to the global poor. J Ethics 9(1–2):81–117 Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge Simmons AJ (1992) The Lockean theory of rights. Princeton University Press, Princeton Singer P (1979) Practical ethics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Varden H (2006) Kant and dependency relations: Kant on the state’s right to redistribute resources to protect the rights of dependents. Dialogue Can Philos Rev XLV:257–285

Child Labor KAREN MIZELL Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Work contributed by children runs along a continuum that ranges from the destructive and exploitive to the beneficial. Many children help with family businesses and farms, sometimes without pay, and in paying

C

part-time jobs when they reach a certain age. Some scholars use the term “child work” to designate work by children that does not detract from other activities of childhood such as play and education and offers a positive contribution to a child’s development. The term “child labor”, on the other hand, implies serious human rights abuses and (a) is conditional upon the age of the child, (b) includes activity that impedes the natural physical, emotional, and mental development of the child, (c) denies educational opportunities, (d) endangers the child, (e) impairs a child’s health, and/ or (f) denies freedom of movement to the child. Exploitive employment of children under 18 in factories, mines, the sex trades, food services, entertainment, domestic labor outside the home, textile manufacturing, farms, and military service is generally characterized as child labor. The International Labour Organization and UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) estimate approximately 250 million children between 2 and 17 qualify as child laborers. Instances of child labor include 4-year-olds who are tied to rug looms for long hours each day, 10-year-olds who work in marble quarries, where it is so hot that film melts in cameras, and 8-year-olds who disappear into offshore fishing operations. Some children, taken from their homes and transported across the world, work in the dangerous sport of camel racing in the Gulf States. Other children are put to work in hazardous workplaces such as explosives factories, coal and diamond mines, pesticide-laced coffee plantations, commercial farms, and brick yards. The domestic and sex trades engage the service of many children worldwide. Social reformers recognized the abuses systemic in the use of child labor at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, when countless children were irrevocably harmed by working conditions in factories and sweatshops. Karl Marx was one of the first to call for the abolition of child labor in the factories of Great Britain. Economist Milton Friedman defends the use of children in the general workforce with his claim that children’s work is a necessary requirement in poor and developing countries. He theorizes that as net wages increase, reliance on working children declines. Other theorists contend that while one might expect a reduction in child labor as developing states become more prosperous, the opposite is happening as child labor is reemerging even in the affluent developed world, where it is largely invisible and unacknowledged. Consumers, unwittingly, may exacerbate the situation as they avoid moral complicity by boycotting the products of child labor. UNICEF has determined that such boycotts often deny gainful

119

C

120

C

Child Labor

employment to working children and drive them to engage in hazardous and illicit activities. For example, when Nepalese carpet exports were banned by the USA because of child labor, UNICEF workers discovered that 5,000–7,000 children entered prostitution subsequent to loss of employment at carpet factories. Similarly, around 50,000 children in Bangladesh turned to occupations such as stone-crushing, begging, and prostitution when the USA adopted the Child Labor Deterrence Act, effectively banning the import of textiles made by children. At the end of the twentieth century, human rights organizations began to focus attention on bonded and forced child labor as the most egregious forms of child exploitation. Worldwide, millions of poor families in dire circumstances accept small loans from employers who take children from the families to work off the debts. Typically, these debts compound as the children are charged for room, board, living expenses, interest, and fined for committing mistakes in the work. In most cases, families are unable to raise sufficient money to pay off the debts and the children never return to their families. Other forms of bonded child labor are the result of family obligations in which children of succeeding generations are promised to an employer, commitments which may have commenced with the child’s greatgrandparents. Evidence from transnational studies indicates child labor is largely the product of poverty. When a society experiences technological and economic development, children tend to go to school instead of the workplace. In 1998, UNICEF workers determined that when a country’s per capita income is below US$1500, about 30% of its children worked outside the home. In countries where per capita income rose above US$7,000, working children become increasingly uncommon. Per capita income and working children appear to be inversely proportional. The impact of twenty-first century globalization on child labor is yet to be determined. Some scholars predict that augmented employment opportunities in developing nations will contribute to increased parental wages, allowing children to attend school instead of work. Others predict that increased foreign competition will depress earnings, forcing more children into the workplace. From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, the issue of child labor figures into any overarching theory of global justice. Child labor contravenes two fundamental normative demands of justice for the world’s youngest citizens: safeguarding basic liberties and providing for their basic needs. Intricately entangled with other

concerns of global justice, such as the configuration of global economic and monetary policies, fair distribution of goods, including education, the challenges of global poverty, the right to individual self-determination, and entitlement to an open future, the continuation of child labor is a serious impediment to the practical realization of universal justice. Efforts to eliminate exploitive child labor are addressed in Article 32 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, and Convention 182 (Convention Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour), adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1999. The World Bank has also deployed economic initiatives to alleviate the persistent poverty which generates the worst forms of child labor with uneven success. UNICEF, The World Bank, and The International Labour Organization codified their joint effort to alleviate child labor through the Oslo Agenda, adopted in 1997. The Children’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch cooperates with representatives of UNICEF, the ILO, the World Bank, and other human rights organizations in order to discover and report abuses in an effort to advocate effective policy change.

Related Topics

▶ Absolute Poverty ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Exploitation ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Human Trafficking ▶ Labor ▶ Labor Laws ▶ Poverty ▶ Slavery

References Fyfe A (1989) Child labour. Cambridge Polity Press, Cambridge International Labour Organization (1998) Child labor: targeting the intolerable. International Labour Organization, Geneva Parker D, Engfer L, Conrow R (1997) Stolen dreams: portraits of working children. Lerner, Minneapolis Schmitz C, Traver E, Larson D (2004) Child labor: a global view. Greenwood Press, Westport Seebrook J (2001) Children of other worlds: exploitation in the global market. Pluto Press, London Upchurch A (2002) Modern child slavery: the coercion and exploitation of youth worldwide. Youth Advocate Program International, Washington, DC Weston B (2005) Child labor and human rights: making children matter. Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder

Child Soldiers

Child Soldiers KAREN MIZELL Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

The state of global childhood in the twenty-first century worsens as children become armed pawns in conflicts around the world. The result of political and socioeconomic instabilities and moral degradation, the greatest price is exacted from those who are most vulnerable to coercion and brutality. The use of child soldiers indicates a profound transformation in attitudes toward warfare and to children. A symptom of violence and insecurity, the issue of child soldiers is a pressing issue in the drive to establish a global justice, yet has only recently been recognized as a violation of international human rights law. The global community recognizes its clear responsibility and legitimate interest in terminating the use of children as armed combatants. As an expression of the global determination to sanction just and adequate protection for children who are drawn into hostilities, the practice is newly criminalized under international law as a war crime. Universally accepted definitions of such terms as “child,” “soldier,” and “armed conflict” figure into the challenge of addressing the militarization of children. Since the concept “child,” for example, is a social construction that reflects the values of various cultures and traditions, it is often difficult to determine who counts as a child, deserving of special social and legal protections. Fourteen-year-old males in some African traditions are recognized as adults after they have successfully undergone established rites of passage. In order to institute a uniform conception of childhood, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) introduced a universal recruitment age for the military of 15 years of age, with most countries adopting the additional protocol that boosts the minimum age for recruitment to eighteen. As a result, a child soldier is generally defined as any person under the age of 18 who is a member of, or attached to, any armed force, whether governmental, opposition, guerilla, or political, and whether or not an armed conflict exists. Most child soldiers are victims of abduction or press gangs, although some children voluntarily enlist in military forces for a variety of motives, including poverty,

C

abuse, psychological factors, political reasons, and, paradoxically, a desire for security and affiliation with a structured organization, a traumatized bonding driven by abuse and privation. In some regions, children are recruited as part of armed youth movements and schools devoted to military training and indoctrination. Child soldiers are commonly targeted with brutal dehumanizing treatment and are often killed for desertion, disobedience, or attempting to escape. Few restraints are imposed on what trainers can do to young soldiers, almost always treating them brutally with expectations that they engage in the most hazardous of activities. Historically, children were often present during combat, but only in minor support roles. So, boys functioned as drummers or musicians in eighteenth and nineteenth century armies and young male pages supported medieval knights. Children, however, were rarely targets or active participants in combat. The few recorded times children engaged in combat were occasions when a state was existentially threatened and facing utter destruction. Virginia Military Institute cadets were ordered to support Confederate positions in the US Civil War Battle of New Market in 1864, Hitlers Jugend (Nazi Youth Organization) confronted Allied armies in 1945, and children fought alongside the Viet Cong at the close of the Vietnam War. With ongoing wars on every continent, except Australia and Antarctica, armed organizations – governmental, guerilla, and opposition – increasingly rely on child conscripts. Experts estimate that 10% of all combatants are children, a number that was close to 0% in the post World War II decade. Ambiguity in numerical estimates rests on the fact that some states and military organizations use children in paramilitary forces and support roles. Worldwide, it is thought that around 80% of children involved in armed forces are under the age of 15. In Asia, the average recruitment age of child soldiers is around 14, with estimates that 34% of those are under the age of 12. Among child soldiers in Africa, estimations are that 60,000 are 14 and under, with the average age of children bearing arms in the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda around 12.9 years. International aid workers have discovered that many child combatants do not know their age because they were so young when separated from their families. Considered as malleable and expendable assets, child soldiers are devalued and dehumanized through psychological manipulation and the use of drugs to heighten their sense of fearlessness and invulnerability. When joined with the proliferation of operationally simple, inexpensive, and easily accessible lightweight automatic weapons, child soldiers have become exceptionally lethal participants in

121

C

122

C

Child Soldiers

combat. Children as young as 5 years old can be taught to use the Russian-designed Kalashnikov AK-47 in 30 min. Militarized children typically exhibit an appalling lack of moral insulation against violence and internalized concepts of moral duties and prohibitions. Moreover, such children demonstrate an impaired capacity for basic and socially essential moral emotions such as empathy. Regional conflicts quickly expand into global confrontations when child soldiers are a factor. So many child soldiers remain in unstable situations after the cessation of one conflict that they are ripe for recruitment into other violent organizations. Young displaced soldiers without homes, education, and marketable skills are often trafficked across borders to serve in militarized forces in more armed conflicts, which destabilizes additional governments and nation-states. In addition, the presence of child soldiers in an armed conflict increases the likelihood of recurrent conflicts. Despite the growing phenomenon of child soldiers on the battlefield, the problem is largely invisible. Recognizing the violation of international laws and the potential for war crimes charges, most governments and opposition groups deny conscripting child soldiers and, in some cases, UN field workers have gone along with the deception. Even when recognized by organizations such as World Vision, UNICEF, and the Office of the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, formal demobilization and rehabilitative programs are grossly underfunded and marked by a lack of expertise, experience, or will in reintegrating former child combatants. Complicating the issue is the lack of resources most nation-states can commit to such a project, even when they express the determination to do so. Prevention, then, is a necessary and critical first step to preventing the horrors faced by weaponized children. A further complication involves legally accountability and prosecution of child combatants for their participation in atrocities against civilians. Some view it as a violation of justice to allow them to go unpunished, although the moral and legal consensus of most authorities is to regard children as a special category, protected from prosecution, and considered instead as coerced victims of adult crimes against them. The UN High Commission for Refugees estimated in 2001 that there were around 25 million child refugees in the world. Poverty, displacement, illiteracy, and living in combat zones constitute a toxic brew for children, any one condition constituting a grim violation of the exigencies of global justice. Orphan and refugee children who come from such conditions are at greatest risk of

becoming militarized. Most child soldiers are male, but recent estimates indicate a significant increase in female soldiers under the age of 18. As one might expect, sexual abuse of girl soldiers is widespread. Besides being required to engage in the same combat and paramilitary activities as boy soldiers, they are often required to become soldiers’ wives. Witnesses recount seeing girls in battles with babies strapped to their backs. Human rights organizations report high levels of STDs and HIV among child soldiers and their victims, with figures as high as 80% among repatriated girl soldiers in several African conflicts. Civilian victims of the conflict in Angola, who had been brutally attacked by child soldiers, registered a 90% HIV infection rate. Recognizing the militarization of children as a fundamental human rights violation, numerous treaties prohibit the use of child soldiers: 1. 2. 3. 4.

1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights Geneva Conventions of 1949 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) May 2000 optional protocol added to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of Child that formally raises recruitment ages to 18 (the original convention age limit was 15), adopted by the UN General Assembly, with over 100 nation signatories

The use of underaged soldiers has been condemned by the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the International Labor Organization, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. As an expression of global outrage over such violations of children’s justice, grassroots organizations, such as the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, are active in over 40 countries. In addition, the Organization of African Unity, the Economic Community of West African States, the Organization of American States, the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the European Parliament have criticized the use of child soldiers. In 2007, the International Criminal Court established a legal precedent by recognizing and prosecuting the exploitation of child soldiers as a war crime. The reality of global politics, however, systematically undermines the human rights of children and implementation of the CRC by tolerating global arms deals, global trade networks, international politics that directs intervention and/or nonintervention in localized conflicts, national crises, and failed policies. The moral upshot is that responsibility for this horror rests squarely on the world community as it tolerates political, moral, social, and legal agendas that imperil the world’s children in armed conflicts.

Chodosh, Hiram

Related Topics

▶ Aggression ▶ Armed Conflict: Effect on Women ▶ Child Labor ▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Enemy Combatant ▶ Failed States ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Security ▶ War Crimes

References Brett R, McCallin M (1996) Children: the invisible soldiers. Radda Barnen, Stockholm Machal, G (1996) Study on the impact of armed conflict on children. UNICEF. Full text of the report can be found at: http://www.unicef. org/graca. Accessed 21 Sept 2010 Otunnu O (1999) Protection of children affected by armed conflict: report of the special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed conflict A/54/30, paragraph 173. United Nations General Assembly, New York Singer P (2001–2002) Caution: children at war. Parameters 31(4):40–56 Singer P (2005) Children at war. Pantheon Books, New York van Boven Th (1982) People matter: view on international human rights policy. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam Wessells M (1997) Child soldiers. Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 53(6): 32–39

Chodosh, Hiram MELISSA A. WATERS School of Law, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

Hiram Chodosh is the Dean at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. One of the world’s foremost experts on global justice reform (and in particular on the role of comparative methodology in reform efforts), Dean Hiram Chodosh’s career has been marked by his profound commitment to furthering global justice in three discrete but overlapping arenas. First, his scholarship on global justice reform has upended long-held assumptions regarding donor-driven reform projects, transforming the way in which both scholars and reformers think about reform methodology and the role of comparative law in justice reform efforts. Second, his on-the-ground justice reform work around the globe has resulted in the creation of unprecedented international legal frameworks for university, nonprofit, and government partnerships. Finally, his pioneering

C

work on global legal education has served as a model for law schools around the country, helping to transform the way in which American legal educators prepare their students to meet the challenges of working in a globalizing legal world.

Scholarship on Justice Reform Dean Chodosh’s groundbreaking scholarship on global justice reform offers two powerful sets of contributions. First, he takes on reform of the reformers themselves, offering both a critical and reconstructive critique of reform methodology. Drawing in particular upon his extensive practical experience with justice reform in India, Indonesia, and Iraq, Dean Chodosh has elucidated the major types of predicaments that face justice reform efforts: questions of design (e.g., independence or accountability), questions of method (incremental or systemic, top-down or bottom-up), and the competing interests of the individual and the collective. He critiques donor-driven reform projects for their common lack of familiarity with local conditions, their imposition of inappropriate models and values, their lack of workable theoretical frameworks for reform, and their absence of accountability. To solve the problem of global justice reform, he argues that reformers need a better theoretical understanding of the enterprise, with an emphasis on improved comparative methodologies, attention to empirical studies, open inquiry frameworks, and local control of decision-making. Second, Dean Chodosh’s scholarship has transformed the way in which scholars view the role of comparative methodology in judicial reform. His seminal book, Global Justice Reform: A Comparative Methodology (2005), builds upon and deepens his earlier work by offering both a critical and reconstructive examination of the discipline of comparative methodology as applied to justice reform efforts. He asserts that most comparative legal scholarship fails to offer a conceptual framework for metacomparison – that is, the “ability to compare comparisons” and to distinguish superior from inferior comparisons. He emphasizes, for example, justice reform’s reliance on shaky comparative theories about which features of a judicial system cause (or alleviate) problems, and where justice reform should accordingly be focused. Illustrating his arguments with examples from his extensive practical experience, Dean Chodosh points out that most reform projects are comparative in two respects: They are inspired by foreign models, and they are informed by a theory that a particular change in the status quo will produce a better system or outcome. He convincingly argues that successful justice reform is in part dependent

123

C

124

C

Chodosh, Hiram

on the quality of our comparative methodologies, and he offers numerous constructive methodological suggestions to help those engaged in justice reform overcome the overwhelming challenges that they face.

Justice Reform In addition to his groundbreaking scholarship, Dean Chodosh has pioneered new approaches to practical, onthe-ground justice reform work. In India, he served as senior reporter on a first-of-its-kind study of the use of mediation in the courts. In his capacity as Fulbright Senior Scholar, he convened multiple workshops and conferences on mediation in India, and continues to serve as a key adviser to the several newly implemented mediation centers (from Ahmedabad to New Delhi) and NGOs dedicated to the dissemination and Indianization of mediation processes. In Indonesia, Dean Chodosh has served as a consultant to the International Monetary Fund on judicial reform. In that capacity, he has worked closely with the Supreme Court, the National Law Commission, the Commercial Court, and other institutions on anti-corruption and judicial independence efforts. Perhaps most significant is Dean Chodosh’s pathbreaking work in Iraq, as founder and director of the Global Justice Project. The Global Justice Project: Iraq (GJPI) is an unprecedented international legal setup resulting from two US State Department grants to the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. Over a period of nearly two years, GJPI’s work ranged from the review of the Iraqi constitution to reform of the criminal code to review of Iraqi election law. Over a hundred experts were involved in the work, with some twenty people deployed in Baghdad, dozens of law professors and legal scholars from twenty different nationalities, and students involved with specific issues or larger undertakings. GJPI experts sat on both the constitutional review committee and the elections committee, and worked closely with the Higher Judicial Council and with senior judges and law professors in Baghdad. Putting his scholarly ideals into practice, throughout the Global Justice Project, Dean Chodosh emphasized the need to keep Iraqis at the forefront of the project’s work. Iraqi legislators, ministers, and judges effectively set the agenda, building partnerships with representatives from the US government and American civil society in both Iraq and the USA, and with the leaders of the UN mission in Baghdad. The project produced a full revamping of the Criminal Procedure Code, as well as revision of the constitution and the electoral law. A website, kept up to date with legal

developments in Iraq, provided a model for portals in other legally underexposed jurisdictions. Finally, a series of some 15 books on Iraqi classical and modern law will be published with Oxford University Press, so that both Arabic and English language scholars can study and learn from the work of the project.

Global Legal Education Dean Chodosh’s numerous projects in global legal education have a common purpose: to prepare today’s students to confront pressing transnational legal problems. As director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Law School, then-Professor Chodosh developed several multi-year symposia to expose students to a host of comparative, transnational, and international law issues. He also created and taught a first-of-its-kind “global perspectives” course for first-year law students, which has since been replicated at several other top law schools. Dean Chodosh is the creator of Law Across Borders, a book series with Aspen Publishers that is designed to globalize the existing law school curriculum by helping professors to incorporate comparative, transnational, and international law into their courses. The series currently has eight books under contract and another dozen in development. At the University of Utah S.J. Quinney School of Law, Dean Chodosh created the Global Justice Project and Global Initiative to engage faculty and students on justice reform projects on global security, democracy and religion, family law, human rights, judicial independence, mediation, philanthropy, water law, climate change, Middle East peace, criminal justice reform, and many other topical issues. He launched the pioneering Global Justice Think Tank, a student-sponsored research organization engaged in service learning research partnerships with governmental and nongovernmental organizations, including the House Committee on Homeland Security, the UN Development Program, and the US Department of State. Under his leadership, the law school was selected as the lead training center by the Public Private Partnership on Afghanistan Justice Reform, and developed an Afghan prosecutor training program under State Department funding. He also developed a two-year global J.D. program for foreign lawyers; created new internships for students in several countries around the world; and developed new clinics in international humanitarian law, global rule of law, and international environmental law (including a New York-based international human rights clinic in partnership with Human Rights Watch).

Chomsky, Noam

Related Topics

▶ Development Accountability ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Justice Project: Iraq ▶ International Law

References Chodosh HE (1999) Comparing comparisons: in search of methodology. Iowa Law Rev 84:1025 Chodosh HE (2004) Globalizing the US legal curriculum: the Saja paradigm. UC Davis Law Rev 37:843 Chodosh HE (2005) Global justice reform: a comparative methodology. New York University Press, New York Chodosh HE (ed) (2009) Law across borders. Aspen Chodosh HE, Mallat Ch (eds) (forthcoming) Global justice project: Iraq. Oxford University Press, Oxford Chodosh HE, Shetreet S (forthcoming) The uniform civil code. Sweet & Maxwell Chodosh HE, Bhatt N, Kassam F (2004) Mediation in India: a toolkit. United States Education Foundation in India, New Delhi

Chomsky, Noam ROBERT P. ABELE Department of Humanities and Philosophy, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA, USA

Although Noam Chomsky (1928–present) is most renowned in academia for his linguistic theory, it is his political writings that have made him most revered with both activist and public readers. This is in part due to the fact that Chomsky does not theorize in the traditional sense of the word. In other words, he does not seek universal, a priori principles or superstructures of thought or action as part of his critical analysis. Rather, his political analyses come directly from empirical observations conjoined with a comparative method contrasting “elementary moral truisms” with government proclamations and both of those with government actions (Chomsky 2004a, b, passim). Part of the reason Chomsky disdains theorizing about issues such as justice comes from his intense opposition to what he calls “the intelligentsia” or “the liberal intelligentsia.” By this term, he refers to academics and even reporters, placing them under the umbrella of “propagandists” “for the state.” Whether or not this charge holds up under critical scrutiny, it deeply influences how Chomsky

C

approaches political analysis: in a word, un-theoretically. In using this approach, Chomsky openly acknowledges the influences of socialist thinkers from Karl Marx to Mikhail Bakunin; from Wilhelm von Humboldt to Daniel Guerin and Rudolf Rocker (Chomsky 2005: 118–132, 101–117, 212–220). Consequently, when it comes to Chomsky’s philosophy of global justice, it is most effectively understood as being innate in his political writings. His overt concern has consistently been quite specific: US government moral hypocrisy regarding its stated values compared with its foreign (and in many cases, domestic) policy. Rather than base his political positions on the classical liberal values of liberty and equality, Chomsky founds his political ideas on his understanding of human nature, the essence of which is free, creative self-expression, and voluntary association with others. This leads him to embrace what he refers to as anarcho-syndicalism (sometimes called “libertariansocialism”). Thus, for Chomsky, the value of freedom, while primary in his understanding of justice, is itself functional: It is the means by which humans are able to fulfill their nature, not an end in itself (Chomsky 2003: 51–54, 119–144, 211–216; 2004a: 253–258, 277–286). Thus, “justice,” although a term Chomsky rarely uses due to his avoidance of abstract theorizing, would be engaged when social structures are in place to allow the “full flowering of human freedom.” This entails dissolving all illegitimate authority in all institutional structures, in particular the existence of the state and the capitalist economic system, in that each of these structures prevents human nature from reaching its full creative potential. In its place, Chomsky advocates an anarcho-syndicalist social structure, whereby the workers control the means of production and directly control their representatives (Chomsky 2004a: 203–220; 2005: 101–117, 118–132, 153–177, 212–220). In historical fact, the state and the capitalist system, particularly in the USA, have combined to concentrate power for the benefit of those who have it – i.e., the wealthy. The method Chomsky uses to demonstrate the abuses of state and capitalist power is to delineate numerous single acts of brutality and oppression that issue from the corporate state. Because he is an American citizen, he focuses on the abuses of power and the oppression of people done by the US government. He compares such acts against the “elementary moral truism” that what one nation does it must condone all others doing. When this maxim is violated and/or undermined, injustice reigns (Chomsky 2003: 51–54; 2005: 118–132, 212–220, 153–177).

125

C

126

C

Chronic Poverty

When it comes to global justice then, Chomsky would maintain that there can be no justice as long as the inherently oppressive state continues to exist, which acts solely in the interest of corporations while denying other nations and peoples the ability to act for their own perceived good. The USA in particular judges states “unstable” when they do not allow US corporations to have open access to their resources and markets (e.g., US position during the Cold War regarding the Soviet Union), and uses terms such as the “national interest” to disguise the interests of the economic elite in dictating foreign policy and the choices of those states against whom they wish to war. With his unrelenting attack on the contradictions of US government policies when compared with their stated values, it is unsurprising that Chomsky has drawn many critics. These critics charge him variously with onesidedness (highlighting only US immoralities), not defining significant terms (in fact, he does not define most of his terms; e.g., he never defines a “state” while attacking its crimes), being too utopian, using assertion as proof, and even falsifying evidence. While some of these charges are themselves one-sided and poorly supported, some of them do carry weight. For example, Chomsky could stand to define his terms and support both his method and his assumptions better, instead of side-stepping the “liberal intelligentsia” when they demand a bit more structure in his political analyses. Part of what draws such attacks is by Chomsky’s own making, in that he engages in stinging vocabulary and cynical remarks to make points that could be made in a less inflammatory manner (The AntiChomsky Reader, various chapters). Furthermore, he does frequently make sweeping statements and engage in somewhat sloppy reasoning. To name but an example or two from many possibilities, in Language and Politics, he casually dismisses those intellectuals who maintain the doctrine of Realpolitik as “a form of idiocy.” Additionally, he makes frequent claims to “overwhelming” evidence for his position without offering it. In conclusion, it is more appropriate to say that one may construct a Chomskian theory of global justice from elements present in his critique of the state, than to discuss his notion of global justice per se. That Chomsky would have it no other way may be easily seen by his position concerning theories: “social and political issues in general seem to me fairly simple; the effort to obfuscate them in esoteric and generally vacuous theory is one of the contributions of the intelligentsia to enhancing their own power and the power of those they serve” (Chomsky 2004a: 345).

Related Topics

▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ International Law ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ Language and Politics ▶ Marx, Karl ▶ Propaganda ▶ State Terrorism ▶ Torture ▶ War Against Terrorism

References Chomsky N, Peck J (eds) (1987) The Chomsky reader. Pantheon Books, New York Chomsky N (2003) Radical priorities. AK Press, Oakland Chomsky N (2004a) Language and politics, ed. Otero CP. AK Press, Oakland Chomsky N (2004b) On terrorism: Noam Chomsky interviewed by John Bolender. Jump Arts Journal Chomsky N (2005) Chomsky on anarchism. AK Press, Oakland Chomsky N (2006) Failed states. Metropolitan Books, New York Collier P, Horowitz D (eds) (2004) The anti-Chomsky reader. Encounter Books, Lanham Edgley A (2000) The social and political thought of Noam Chomsky. Routledge, London

Chronic Poverty ▶ Absolute Poverty ▶ Poverty

Chumakov, Alexander N. WILLIAM C. GAY1, ANASTASIA V. MITROFANOVA2 1 Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA 2 Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Moscow, Russia

The philosophical research of Alexander N. Chumakov is interdisciplinary in nature. His research embraces a broad range of problems related to the formation of Global Studies as a special area of academic research directed toward resolving theoretically and practically the acute issues of modernity. He has developed several new ideas concerning the cultural and civilizational foundations of globalization, emphasizing axiology, environmental

Chumakov, Alexander N.

enlightenment, global justice, human rights, and the formation of global consciousness. Chumakov has put forward a concept that the civilizational connections that emerged as a result of developments and enhancements of culture were engendered by separate domains of civilization. Civilizational development led to globalization that, in turn, gave rise to the global problems of modernity in the second half of the twentieth century. Based on a systemic approach to understanding social processes, Chumakov concludes that a multidimensional world has replaced a linear and flat world. He designates mutual relations between culture, civilization, and globalization as a research problem and tries to find solutions. Chumakov formulates the basic categories (“globalization,” “global problem,” “global equality,” “anti-globalism,” etc.) and fundamental propositions composing the philosophical basis for Global Studies as a specific branch of philosophical knowledge (genesis of globalization, categories of globality, classification of global problems, their influence on human sociopolitical activity, etc.). He ties Global Studies closely to issues of human rights and a global democratic social and political order. Reflecting on how morality and common law can become the main social regulators, Chumakov has concluded that human rights are values of primary importance. However, according to him, in the face of global interdependence, human rights should be defined more precisely and complemented by specification of adequate responsibilities. Chumakov argues that every nation, keeping its own traditions, beliefs and values, should, for the sake of the future, put universal human interests as a top priority. These arguments are the most important contribution by Chumakov to the concept of global democratic governance and global justice. Chumakov’s recent works focus on the development of a general globalization theory. This work is reflected in his Globalization: the Contours of the Holistic Society (2005) and Metaphysics of Globalization: Cultural and Civilizational Context (2006), both in Russian. He tries to restore the holistic picture of the world, understanding globalization as both a natural historical process and a sphere of relations and confrontations of various forces and interests. History is interpreted by Chumakov as a single process, temporally developing and passing through several stages. Transitions between the stages are the main turning points of social development producing metamorphoses of epochal significance. Chumakov demonstrates how the logic of development of objective events engenders globalization at the level of three spheres: geological, biological, and social (united under a term

C

“triosphere”). As a result, his focus is on culture, civilization, and globalization analyzed as tightly connected and related to fundamental characteristics of various sociocultural systems and of the world community as a whole. This approach provides a distinctively new vision of multidimensional globalization, now embracing all cultural and civilizational systems representing the modern humanity. Within this framework, the protection of human rights and the quest for a global democratic order are paramount. In addition to well over 200 research works, Chumakov has published seven books. Beyond his foundational contributions to Global Studies, he has addressed issues of democratization in general and in relation to Russia in particular. He also has shown special concern for issues of “global dependency” and “ecological crisis.” However, his most significant contribution to Global Studies has been the creation of a language for interdisciplinary communication acceptable for different sciences and the development and upgrading of fundamental key concepts and categories. Beyond terms already noted, other new and important ones include “demographic explosion,” “world community,” and “the new humanism.” These much needed concepts and vocabulary have emerged through his pioneering work in the interdisciplinary field of Global Studies which stresses global democratic order and human rights. Currently Alexander N. Chumakov is the Head and Chair of Philosophy at the Financial Academy of the Government of the Russian Federation. He is also the first vice president of the Russian Philosophical Society (since 1991), and the Russian Philosophical Society is an important element of Russian civil society and currently has more than 6,000 members and branches around the world that operate in the spirit of his theory of global civil society. Furthermore, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the journals Vestnik RFO and The Age of Globalization (Russian-English). His most extensive work in English is the seminal Global Studies Encyclopedia, edited by I. Mazour, A. Chumakov, and W. Gay and with numerous articles by Chumakov. Taken together, his works make him the leading figure in Russian and a key figure internationally in the fields of human rights, global studies, global justice, and global democracy.

Related Topics

▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Global Governance ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights

127

C

128

C

Chwaszcza, Christine

References Chumakov A (1994) Filosofiya Globalnykh Problem. Znanie, Moscow Chumakov A (2005) Globalizatziya. Kontury Tzelostnogo Mira. Prospekt, Moscow Chumakov A (2006) Metafizika Globalizatzii. Kulturno-Tzivilizatzionnyi Kontekst. Kanon+, Moscow Chumakov A (2008) On the subject and boundaries of global studies. Age of globalization. Studies in Contemporary Global Processes 1:6–14 Chumakov A (2009) An anthropological dimension of globalization. In: Omelchenko N (ed) The human being in contemporary philosophical conceptions. Cambridge Scholars, Cambridge, pp 237–244 Chumakov A (2010) Philosophy of globalization: selected articles. MAKS Press, Moscow Mazour I, Chumakov A, Gay W (eds) (2003) Global studies encyclopedia. Raduga, Moscow

Chwaszcza, Christine DORIS UNGER SoCuM, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany

Christine Chwaszcza develops in Moral Responsibility and Global Justice (MRGJ) (2007) and Beyond Cosmopolitanism (2008) a normative non-ideal theory of international relations that is based on human rights as standards of legitimacy for institutions.

Human Rights as Standards of Legitimacy Human rights, Chwaszcza argues, are not to be misunderstood as a specific catalog of individual legal rights, but should be regarded as moral standards. The normative core of human rights standards is that the central moral concern should be the respect of individual physical and psychological integrity (“principle of individualism”), the equal – moral and legal – status of individuals (“principle of moral equality”), and the liberty of individuals to live according to freely chosen values and beliefs (“principle of ethical individualism”). The relevant institutions of transnational justice are sociopolitical and legal institutions which comprise states and international organizations as well as “generally rule-guided social practices.” These institutions are morally justifiable to the extent they satisfy human rights standards. Existing institutions should be changed and new institutions established if the status quo violates human rights. Chwaszcza’s theory of transnational justice is a “contextualist account” that argues in favor of judging

domestic and international issues in accordance with empirical facts rather than formulating an ideal theory. By contrast with domestic systems, the international order is not structured hierarchically and, therefore, lacks effective mechanisms of law enforcement and functional differentiation. Domestic political theory cannot merely be applied to the international context because states, and not individuals, are the most significant actors in international relations and international law. It follows that states as “legal actors” have moral rights and must take moral responsibilities toward other states and individuals who are not citizens of their own state. Contrary to the cosmopolitan claim, Chwaszcza argues that these rights and responsibilities of states cannot be solely derived from the rights and responsibilities of individual citizens.

Political Contexts Chwaszcza applies her context-dependent account to a number of specific topics, e.g., peace ethics, humanitarian intervention, secession, global distributive justice, and transnational migration. In MRGJ and Die normative Bedeutung politischer Grenzen (2006), she asserts that distributive justice requires democratic decision-making procedures by which appropriate regulations of (re) distribution can be selected. Since the international sphere lacks those procedures, global distributive justice has to be limited to a “right to subsistence.” States are morally responsible to combat poverty that endangers subsistence across borders and to establish international institutions that promote a fair international trade system. Thus, in accordance with institutional realities, Chwaszcza differentiates between human rights requirements and requirements of political justice. MRGJ and a number of articles, e.g., Secession, Humanitarian Intervention, and the Normative Significance of Political Boundaries (2003), discuss the legitimacy of humanitarian military intervention. Chwaszcza argues that states are not to be treated as black boxes whose internal affairs do not matter internationally. In cases of massive human rights violations, other states do not just have the right, but even an imperfect duty, to intervene. Nevertheless, the probability of improving the circumstances must be weighed carefully against the consequences of intervention.

Related Topics

▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention

Cicero

▶ International Institutional Legitimacy ▶ Moral Legitimacy

References Chwaszcza C (2003) Secession, humanitarian intervention, and the normative significance of political boundaries. In: Chatterjee D, Scheid D (eds) Ethics and foreign intervention. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 168–188 Chwaszcza C (2006) Die normative Bedeutung politischer Grenzen: Zur Abgrenzung politischer und allgemein moralischer Bereiche der Gerechtigkeit. In: Koller P (ed) The normative significance of political boundaries: enclosing political and general moral spheres of justice. Die globale Frage. Passagen, Wien, pp 349–376 Chwaszcza C (2007) Moral responsibility and global justice: a human rights approach. Nomos, Baden-Baden Chwaszcza C (2008) Beyond cosmopolitanism: towards a non-ideal account of transnational justice. Ethics Glob Politics 1(3):115–138 Chwaszcza C (2009) The unity of the people, and immigration in liberal theory. Citizenship Stud 13(5):451–473

Cicero LEE TREPANIER Department of Political Science, Saginaw Valley State University, University Center, MI, USA

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) was the Roman philosopher who erected the basic conceptual framework of the “law of nations” which has influenced subsequent international law, theory, and ethics. During Cicero’s time, the need for a universal code of ethics had become pressing, as Roman conquest had created a polyglot empire with an elite suffused with a wide variety of foreign philosophies and religions. Furthermore, the subjects of this new empire were neither Roman citizens who could partake in civic life nor were they the conquered slaves of despotism. Confronted by this challenge, Cicero revived Roman republican traditions under the guise of a statesman who would be limited to and accountable for his power by following a code of universal ethics embodied in the Stoic notion of natural law. However, Cicero was not a Stoic but a skeptic: he believed that humans cannot be certain about their knowledge of the world and therefore no philosophy can ever claim to be true. Although skeptics did not offer constructive arguments of their own, they were able to see all sides of an issue and accept beliefs until a better argument presents itself. This is the path Cicero took as a lawyer and a philosopher but not as a politician, a role in which he turned to Stoicism and Peripatetic philosophies for

C

guidance. Since as a skeptic he was free to accept any argument that he had found convincing, Cicero put forth Stoic doctrines to be followed provisionally by the Roman elite in order to improve both individual and collective life. Cicero’s Stoicism postulated that the gods existed, loved human beings, and rewarded or punished them according to their conduct in life. But most importantly was the gods’ gift of reason to humans. Since humans have this in common with the gods, the most virtuous and divine life was to live a life according to reason. It was reason that enabled humans to discover and follow the natural law: the source of all properly made laws for both individuals and communities. Because all humans shared reason and therefore could discover natural law, humanity could be conceived as a single community which followed this universal law. Thus, natural law created not only a singular community of humanity but it also provided a singular ethics. Cicero made some of his most important pronouncements on this universal code of ethics in On Duties where he established the principle of war as the last resort to maintain peace. For Cicero, a state must first exhaust all options before choosing war in defense of itself. War should never be considered as a first option or for retributive justice. In fact, when a state was victorious, Cicero recommended that the state be generous in the sparing of lives of the defeated in order to promote peace and friendship among enemies. The promotion of peace without injustice was the underlying principle of Cicero’s thoughts on war and thereby defined not only the just causes of war but also placed limits on the conduct of war itself. In peacetime, Cicero also made significant contributions to global ethics with his ideas of hospitality and friendship, concepts that would be later adopted by thinkers like Derrida and Levinas. According to Cicero in On Duties, strangers were to be treated with hospitality, with nobody being injured for the sake of the betterment of somebody else. Such acts were contrary to nature, for, as members of a universal community, every human required equal respect and dignity. And since all humans demanded the same treatment, friendships that transcended region or race became possible. In On Friendship Cicero described the nature of true friendship as one between good and virtuous people who followed natural law. He offered advice of winning the glory of friendship through good will, honor, and liberality, the last virtue being particularly important as a form of aristocratic largesse to particular groups of the citizenry. Friendship therefore was not only the bond among the most virtuous but it was also the cement between classes in society (albeit

129

C

130

C

Citizenship

this latter form of friendship was inferior to the most virtuous kind). Cicero’s notions of hospitality and friendship therefore could serve as the basis for a universal, cosmopolitan community. However, the pressures of local attachments and the adversities of political life threaten the fabric of this cosmopolitan community. Recognizing that humans were more closely bounded and therefore obliged to their families and local communities rather than nonfamilial members and cosmopolitan citizens, Cicero proposed patriotism to overcome these familial and local attachments. Philosophy itself was an inadequate basis for a universal community because only a few could live the life of reason, whereas many preferred the pursuit of pleasure. Thus, it was the task of the statesman to discover truth and convey this truth to a particular political community through suitable rhetoric in order to persuade people about the authority of the law. But this rhetoric also required philosophy, as Cicero argued in On the Republic and On the Laws; otherwise, the statesman would become tyrannical. It is important to note that the cosmopolitan community did not abolish the attachment to particular communities for Cicero. Humans were attached to what specifically belonged to them as well to the universal good itself. Particular political communities were members of a universal cosmic order in the sense that its dictates – the precepts of practical reason – became law. The fact that a universal political community did not pragmatically exist was not a problem for Cicero, because every community to some extent followed the natural law in their human-made laws. Since individuals were part of a group of humans that shared human laws, each one was part of a political community and therefore had a duty to that community. This obligation was informed by the natural law that called for individuals to partake in politics, so far as it is possible, in order to improve the communities in which they live. That is, politics was informed by a universal code of ethics but was practiced in a particular community. Cicero’s contribution to global justice were not only limited to his understanding of natural law but also included critical concepts like friendship and hospitality, limitations to the causes and conduct of war, and the institutionalization of these ideas into local and universal communities. Although the scope of justice for Cicero was universal, the application of it ultimately was local. Cicero’s Stoic vision of an eternal and immutable law for all nations, the virtues of friendship and hospitality, the principles of warfare, and the duty to serve one’s local community formed the conceptual framework for global

issues that would subsequently affect international theory, politics, and justice.

Related Topics

▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Friendship ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ Political Obligation ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Cicero MT (1913–2010) Works: Loeb Editions. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Dyck R (1997) A commentary on Cicero, De Officiis (On duty). University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MacKendrick P (1989) The philosophical books of Cicero. St. Martin’s Press, New York Nussbaum M (1994) The therapy of desire theory and practice in Hellenistic ethics. Princeton University Press, Princeton Pangle T (1999) Justice among nations. University of Press Kansas, Lawrence Powell J (1999) Cicero the philosopher: twelve papers. Oxford University Press, Oxford Wood N (1988) Cicero’s social and political thought. University of California Press, Berkeley

Citizenship RONALD TINNEVELT Department of Philosophy of Law, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

The nature of citizenship is, as Aristotle already observed, an often disputed question. A citizen in a democracy may not count as one in an oligarchy (Aristotle 1995: 1275a21). Controversy persists regarding the content, scope, and depth of citizenship (Faulks 2000). Should citizenship primarily be determined in terms of rights or also in that of duties? What is the extent of citizenship? Who should be excluded and who included? And how thick should our identity as citizen be? Does it demand a strong form of fellow feeling or specific competences? What does it mean to be a good citizen? Despite disagreement, two “classical” ideals of citizenship can be distinguished that greatly influenced our main traditions of political thought: the ideal of Roman law with its emphasis on equality under law, and the Athenian ideal with its stress on the importance of political activity.

Citizenship

A citizen, according to the second ideal, is one who “both rules and is ruled” (Pocock 1998: 32). A similar distinction can be found regarding theories of liberty. Benjamin Constant is famous for comparing the liberty of the ancients with that of the moderns. Whereas the liberal tradition adheres to the Roman view of citizenship, the republican tradition of political thought revives the Greek view. The liberal model of citizenship as rights and the republican model of political self-rule, however, are not the only approaches to citizenship that can be distinguished within the contemporary debate. Other models are based on the views of communitarians, deliberative democrats, and agonists. The debate between communitarians and deliberative democrats centers, among other things, on the nature of civic integration. From these different approaches at least four dimensions of the idea of citizenship can be inferred. Citizenship is first of all a specific status. A citizen is a member of a political community. The Latin civis – from which the word citizen derives – is closely linked to the word civitas (city or state). A parallel connection can be found between the Greek polites and polis. Because of this status citizens have a certain standing that noncitizens do not have (Weinstock 2002). Aristotle connects this status to a second dimension of citizenship, that of participation or self-rule. Citizenship is a political status. It is neither determined on the basis of residence nor on being subject to the laws of the city. Unlike a subject a citizen “shares in the administration of justice” (Aristotle 1995: 1275a21). Citizens, from a more general perspective, participate either directly or indirectly – through their representatives – in the process of law-making. Within our modern understanding citizenship changed from a political notion to a formal-juridical one. Citizenship is a legal status that establishes rights and duties. Citizens should be protected from unlawful coercion and free to pursue their own conception of the good. T. H. Marshall’s “Citizenship and Social Class” presents the most influential formulation of what these rights are: civil rights to protect individual freedom, political rights to secure access to self-government, and social rights to guarantee a minimum level of economic welfare for all (Marshall 1965: 78). The last component of citizenship is that of political identity (Cohen 1999). Citizens have a special tie to their fellows and identify with the specific culture of their particular political community. By conferring a higher social status on fellow citizens, citizenship functions – both within and between states – as a “powerful instrument of

C

social closure” (Brubaker 1992: x). Political communities are always bounded communities that distinguish between insiders and outsiders. Like theories of justice, modern theories of citizenship have long been constructed almost exclusively against the background of territorial nation-states. In A Theory of Justice (1971) Rawls, for example, famously limits his case to that of a closed society, “a self-contained national community” (p. 457). The meanings, conditions, and practices of citizenship, however, have transformed as a consequence of the impact of growing cultural diversity and globalization. Several important debates have resulted from these challenges. Two will be mentioned here. The first is related to the idea of cultural and social pluralism. Although the enjoyment of a set of common rights is an important aspect of citizenship, critics of the ideal of universal citizenship – with its emphasis on inclusion and abstraction from particularity and difference – argue that greater attention should be paid to the importance of group-differentiated rights. Equal treatment for all can sometimes be better realized on the basis of differentiated citizenship (Young 1989) or multicultural citizenship (Kymlicka 1995). A second debate concerns the relevance of citizenship in an age of globalization. Can citizenship still be a meaningful status outside the territorial borders of sovereign states? Proponents of transnational citizenship – like David Held or Richard Falk – think there can be multiple arenas of citizenship, at the local, transnational, and global levels. Citizenship, then, need not denote the relationship between an individual and a state. Liberal nationalists – like David Miller and Will Kymlicka – argue against the feasibility of transnational forms of citizenship. Global democrats, according to them, ignore the empirical conditions of genuine citizenship: a high level of trust, responsibility, and common understanding. These conditions exist currently only within national communities. Although these debates are mainly related to the idea of citizenship as membership in a political community, citizenship can also be used in a wider sense to indicate a specific kind of cultural or moral attitude. World citizenship – being a citizen of the world – is a case in point. The idea of world citizenship, however, has different meanings. Consonant with the distinction between moral and institutional cosmopolitanism, different forms can be discerned (Heater 2002). They range from an ethical identification with humanity (moral status) and the establishment of a system of cosmopolitan right (legal status) to the need for some form of supranational political authority (political status).

131

C

132

C

Citizenship Practices

From the perspective of moral cosmopolitanism – the idea that human beings are the ultimate units of moral concern – the specific liberties, rights, and opportunities attached to citizenship status pose an interesting problem. Looking at Western liberal democracies the argument can be made that citizenship “is the modern equivalent of feudal privilege – an inherited status that greatly enhances one’s life chances” (Carens 1987: 252) Can these differences in life prospects be justified? If a person’s gender, race, and wealth are considered “arbitrary from a moral point of view” (Rawls 1971: 15), should not the same apply to his or her citizenship or nationality? After all, the country in which one is born seems just a matter of brute luck. On a more general level, these questions can also be posed in terms of the distinction between general duties and special obligations. Do citizens have special obligations toward fellow citizens that outweigh their more general duties? Whereas general duties are owed to everyone, special obligations arise out of special transactions or special relationships (Hart 1955: 183). Citizenship, however, need not only refer to a specific status of persons. More broadly speaking, “citizenship” is sometimes also used to indicate standards of proper conduct – like environmental citizenship or corporate citizenship – or membership in other kinds of human association (Smith 2002).

Related Topics

▶ Civil Rights ▶ Collective Identity ▶ Compatriot Partiality Thesis ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Liberal Nationalism ▶ World Citizenship

References Aristotle (1995) Politics. Oxford University Press, Oxford Brubaker R (1992) Citizenship and nationhood in France and Germany. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Carens J (1987) Aliens and citizens: the case for open borders. Rev Polit 49(2):251–273 Cohen J (1999) Changing paradigms of citizenship and the exclusiveness of the demos. Int Sociol 14(3):245–268 Faulks K (2000) Citizenship. Routledge, London/New York Hart HLA (1955) Are there any natural rights? Philos Rev 64(2):175–191 Heater D (2002) World citizenship: cosmopolitan thinking and its opponents. Continuum, London Kymlicka W (1995) Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford Marshall TH (1965) Class, citizenship, and social development. Anchor Books, Garden City

Pocock JGA (1998) The ideal of citizenship since classical times. In: Shafir G (ed) Citizenship debates: a reader. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp 31–42 Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Smith RM (2002) Modern citizenship. In: Isin EF, Turner BS (eds) Handbook of citizenship studies. Sage, London, pp 105–116 Weinstock D (2002) Citizenship and pluralism. In: Simon RL (ed) The Blackwell guide to social and political philosophy. Blackwell, Malden, pp 239–270 Young IM (1989) Polity and group difference: a critique of the ideal of universal citizenship. Ethics 99(2):250–274

Citizenship Practices SOPHIA A. STONE Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

Citizenship practices fall under two conceptions of citizenship: state and global. A person is a citizen by virtue of the rights and duties through membership of a nation state. Or a person is a citizen of the world in virtue of being a member of the human race. If citizenship is restricted to rights and duties granted by a governing body, then global citizenship is impossible. Yet contemporary scholars such as Nigel Dower (Dower 2000) and Andrew Linklater (Linklater 1999) posit global citizenship as a natural and necessary relation an individual has with the human race. State and Global conceptions differ in whether rights imply duties. State citizenship practices are activities that follow from the rights and duties granted to the citizen by the state. Richard Falk explains that when we vote, we give consent to be governed (Falk 2009). A citizen pays taxes for the services and infrastructure provided by the state. State citizenship practices include obeying laws. Where laws overstep basic rights to other citizens, the citizen should work toward changing the laws. For example, the Montgomery Alabama bus boycotts in 1955 challenged segregation laws. State citizenship practices are often on the local level, directly affecting the community, such as volunteer work. State citizenship practices are a necessary part of the reciprocal relation between the citizen and the nation. Global citizenship practices work toward ending global problems: regional conflicts, hunger, human rights violations, and threats to the environment and natural disasters. While global citizenship practices do not hold an obligatory reciprocal relation between an individual

Civil Disobedience, International

and a global government, global citizenship practices are necessary, given the immediacy of transnational threats to security, economic stability, and food resources. Global citizenship practices work toward equality and justice among all people, regardless of status or statehood. Arguably, then, global citizenship practices are an integral component of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Citizenship ▶ Common Good ▶ Communitarianism ▶ Correlative Obligations ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Dower, Nigel ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Falk, Richard ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Locke, John ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques ▶ World Citizenship

References Dower N (2000) The idea of global citizenship – a sympathetic assessment. Glob Soc 14:4 Falk R (2009) Achieving human rights. Routledge, New York, p 72 Linklater A (1999) Cosmopolitan citizenship. In: Hutchings K, Dannreuther R (eds) Cosmopolitan citizenship. St. Martin’s Press, New York, pp 35–59 Miller D (1999) Bounded citizenship. In: Hutchings K, Dannreuther R (eds) Cosmopolitan citizenship. St. Martin’s Press, New York, pp 60–80 Raz J (1996) Liberty and trust. In: George R (ed) Natural law, liberalism and morality. Clarendon, Oxford, pp 114–129

Civil Disobedience, International MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

Civil disobedience is typically conceived as a nonviolent, symbolic, and illegal form of protest that takes place within the constitutional democratic nation state. This equation of civil disobedience with the state paradigm is,

C

however, challenged by some political philosophers who argue that the model of civilly disobedient protest may be translated into the international domain of politics. Here it is contended that in the case of international civil disobedience, states may play a role in protesting global injustices analogous to that of citizens protesting injustices within the borders of their own state in the case of domestic civil disobedience. In what follows, I shall briefly sketch the core features of civilly disobedient protest in the domestic case of constitutional democratic nation states before considering the analogy between the citizens of such states and states themselves as civilly disobedient actors in the international domain. I then conclude with some remarks on the viability of the concept of international civil disobedience and the extent to which it might be said adequately to challenge the state paradigm in an age of globalization.

The Domestic Case of Civil Disobedience In the domestic case, nonviolent, symbolic, illegal protest is undertaken by civil disobedients as the citizens of constitutional democratic states. When undertaking such protest, citizen civil disobedients appeal, on the one hand, to the formal institutions of the state and, on the other hand, to the sense of justice of their fellow citizens. In doing so, their intention is to publicize some fundamental injustice within the borders of the state and gain popular support and legitimacy for an appropriate legal reform to redress this injustice. Such protest is controversial in that it immediately encounters two objections: that it undermines the stabilizing function of law in democratic societies and that it violates the majority principle. The first objection, however, is typically met by an argument to the effect that an objection to civil disobedience purely on grounds of its illegality is to collapse the vital distinction between the legitimacy of law and its stabilizing function. The second objection can then be met by appealing to this same distinction and arguing to the effect that the majority principle is simply not a definitive test for the legitimacy of law. Instead, the legitimacy of law in a constitutional democracy is conditional upon public deliberation and respect for basic rights. To the extent it may be said to promote public deliberation over basic rights violations such as the denial of civil and political rights to ethnic or religious minorities, civilly disobedient protest should be regarded as justifiable within the context of such a society. Indeed, respect for the constitutional rule of law in general may be demonstrated by the willingness of citizen civil disobedients to accept the legal penalties for their disobedience.

133

C

134

C

Civil Disobedience, International

The Analogy Between Citizens and States Extrapolating from the domestic case, political philosophers, such as Robert Goodin (2005) and Nancy Kokaz (2005), argue that states may be morally justified in breaking international law with a view to reforming it when such law may be shown to be fundamentally unjust. Indeed, reasoning analogically, they claim that just as citizens may be morally justified in breaking the domestic law of their own state when it is fundamentally unjust, states may be morally justified in breaking international law for precisely the same reason. For his part, Goodin contends that in the international arena, the analogue of the domestic principle of the “rule of law, and not men” should be the “rule of law, and not states.” Abiding by the principle of fidelity to international law, states may nonetheless be justified in breaking unjust international laws. But he emphasizes that such international law breaking would be justified only to the extent civilly disobedient states are willing to accept the legal consequences for doing so, in ways analogous to the ordinary standards of civil disobedience. Along the similar lines, Nancy Kokaz argues that the decision of Brazil, for instance, to produce and export generic HIV medications in defiance of intellectual property rights should be viewed appropriately as instance of international civil disobedience. Her rationale for this claim is that Brazil was willing to give publicly justifiable reasons suitable to a plural world; thus satisfying standards of reason-giving broadly analogous to the publicity standards familiar to cases of domestic civil disobedience. Indeed, for both theorists, the state becomes the agent of civilly disobedient protest, and it is officials of the disobedient state who give public reasons to the officials of other states for breaking international law, while holding the state and its national public open to the possibility of suffering legal penalties imposed by the larger international community. Public reasons of civilly disobedient states may be given in international tribunals empowered to hear relevant cases and impose penalties under a treaty to which all parties are signatories. According to this conception of the civilly disobedient state as sketched by Goodin and Kokaz, the role played by the citizens of an internationally disobedient state is thus rendered indirect from the perspective of international law. To be sure, citizens may play a direct role in domestically protesting the state’s compliance with unjust international law, and so prompt the state to engage in acts of international law breaking. This might be the case, for instance, of citizens who illegally protest the fidelity of their own state to intellectual property rights laid down in international

law that restrict the export of generic medications for HIV, contrary to the example set by Brazil. But here the role of civilly disobedient citizens remains decidedly within the state paradigm. Citizens, at most, play an indirect role in protesting unjust international law insofar as their protest is directed only against their own state. In the international context of international relations, it is the state and not its citizens that takes on the role of directly protesting unjust international law.

Implications for Global Justice The concept of international civil disobedience clearly makes an important contribution to global justice debates. Indeed, by extrapolating from citizens to states as the proper agents of civilly disobedient protest, its theorists bring to the international arena a critical resource for testing the legitimacy of international law. Moreover, it does so at a time when the thickening web of international law has become increasingly intrusive into the lives of the citizens of national publics, in addition to being the target of growing public criticism across borders for failing to secure the basic rights of individuals globally. To be sure, international civil disobedience may encounter the objection that it threatens to destabilize the international rule of law, especially given that international law is already generally acknowledged to be less stable than the domestic law of well-established constitutional democratic states. But this objection can surely be answered, in much the same way as in the domestic case, by emphasizing that an appropriate distinction has to be maintained between the legitimacy of international law and its stabilizing function. Again, it may well be argued that stability is in large part itself a function of legitimacy, and that the civilly disobedient protests of states are a vital resource for increasing the legitimacy of international law through publicizing injustices and facilitating legal reform. Nonetheless, it is less than clear that the idea of international civil disobedience is an effective conceptual tool for testing the legitimacy of international law. Indeed, this concept poses a particular challenge to any notion that civilly disobedient protest should be viewed as being applicable only within the borders of constitutional democratic states. But it does not otherwise go very far in challenging the state paradigm itself. Indeed, it sticks resolutely to the model of international, or interstate, relations and the representation by state officials of the reasons and opinions of national publics. That is, it does so at a time when the adequacy of this model of global politics is seen by many other theorists as having been undermined in some significant ways by the emergence

Civil Disobedience, Transnational

with globalization of a variety of new trans-state or suprastate actors. Such actors include not only global financial institutions and global corporations, but also global publics and global civil society movements. The latter are remarkable in that they consist in networks of citizens who organize protests across state borders with the intention of directly contesting injustices brought about by the former, often bypassing those states of which they are members as the medium for representing their reasons and opinions to other states in international tribunals. This distinct phenomenon of transnational civil disobedience is, however, eludes the conceptual framework of international civil disobedience. A more satisfactory account of the possibilities and prospects of civil disobedience beyond the state would need to address both its international and transnational manifestations.

Related Topics

▶ Civil Disobedience, Transnational ▶ Global Human Rights Culture ▶ Globalization

References Buchanan A (2004) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Dworkin R (1985) A matter of principle. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Goodin RE (2005) Towards an international rule of law: distinguishing international law-breakers from would-be law-makers. J Ethics 9:1–2 Kokaz N (2005) Theorizing international fairness. Metaphilosophy 36: 68–92 Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Civil Disobedience, Transnational MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

Transnational civil disobedience is a form of nonviolent, symbolic, and illegal protest that specifically engages the concepts of global citizens and a global public. It is a model of civil disobedience that takes global citizens to be the agents of civilly disobedient protest who address a global public with a global sense of justice. Here the targets of such protest may well include the formal institutions of either national or international law. More often than not, however, the favored targets of protest are

C

powerful and influential actors ranging from global financial institutions to multinational corporations able to shape the pluralism of informal regulatory “regimes” more characteristic of coordination processes under globalization. Such processes are informal in that they amount to little more than fluid and incompletely defined agreements that are responses to the increasing pace of global interactions, and which lack the backing of formal and codified law. In these respects, transnational civil disobedience may be said to mark a fairly radical departure from the more standard models of domestic and international civil disobedience. Indeed, neither of these latter models fully engages the concepts of global citizens and a global public. Instead, they cleave to the state paradigm of national publics and the representation of such publics by the officials of the state. In what follows, I first briefly discuss the domestic and international models of civil disobedience. Here I stress their shared analytical assumptions derived from the state paradigm about law and legal reform, as the primary means of achieving a just social order, whether nationally or internationally. I then turn to the transnational model of civil disobedience, emphasizing instead its contrasting analytical assumptions based on the theory of globalization about the frequency with which discourse and network communication often effectively supplant the formal structures of national and international law. The chapter concludes with a remark concerning the conceptual risks of overstating this equation of transnational civil disobedience with informal discursive ordering without recourse to fundamental legal reform.

Domestic and International Civil Disobedience: Reforming the Formal Institutions of National and International Law While they differ significantly in their conceptions of the appropriate agent of civil disobedience, the domestic and international models are otherwise remarkably similar in their basic assumptions concerning the efficacy of illegal protest in facilitating legal reforms that redress fundamental social injustices. This may be seen first in the domestic model in which the agents of civilly disobedient protest are the citizens of the national public of an imperfectly just constitutional democratic state. Here the definitive case of domestic civil disobedience is surely the nonviolent protests undertaken by the American Civil Rights Movement, contesting segregation laws entrenched in the legal order that discriminated against Black American citizens. The

135

C

136

C

Civil Disobedience, Transnational

purpose of these protests, such as Blacks sitting at “Whites Only” counters in segregated restaurants, was symbolically to publicize the injustice of segregation and appeal to the sense of justice of the entire citizen body in order to motivate a basic reform of the legal order. Clearly underlying such protests was the assumption that the United States was a society ordered by law, and that the law could justifiably be broken on moral grounds when it was demonstrably unjust in terms of the fundamental principle of equality under the law. This same emphasis on the idea of a community ordered by law and the ideal of equality reappears in the international model of civil disobedience, even though the appropriate agent of disobedience in this model is shifted from the citizens of a national public to the state itself. Indeed, the assumption of this model is that the international community consists of a society of societies ordered by law. Here a state may be morally justified in breaking an unjust international law in order to facilitate its reform. A relevant example of such disobedience may be found in the decision of Brazil to produce and export generic HIV medications in defiance of intellectual property rights, as protected under existing international law. In doing so, the officials of the Brazilian state represented to the international community the moral conviction of its own national public that placing intellectual property rights over the right to receive affordable treatment of the victims of a global AIDS pandemic is fundamentally unjust. Again a fundamental injustice pertaining to inequalities in the basic rights and opportunities of persons is to be overcome through reform of the formal legal order, in this case the formal order of international law.

Transnational Civil Disobedience: Illegal Protest as Influencing the Balance of Globally Consequential Discourses By contrast with the emphasis on illegal protest as facilitating formal legal reform in the domestic and international models of civil disobedience, transnational civil disobedience focuses on the prospects for achieving justice through illegal action without directly engaging the formal institutions of law. The origin of the model lies in theorizing about globalization and a novel kind of politics made possible by the increasing pace of global interactions and communication, in addition to growing awareness among the citizens of diverse national publics of global interconnectivity and shared risks. This new form of politics variously called world civic politics and deliberative global politics emphasizes the ability of citizens to employ a network form of organization across national borders to

publicize common risks to all of humanity, such as irreversible ecological damage to the planet. The most sophisticated version of this approach if offered by John Dryzek (2006) who argues that global politics today are best understood in terms of discursive rather than legal ordering. Dryzek contends that global interactions are ordered informally according to the guiding terms and assumptions of a variety of globally consequential discourses, such as the “the free market,” “unlimited growth,” or “sustainable development.” Indeed, global citizens as participants in rival discourses enter into informal contests with one another to influence the balance of such discourses, and so continuously shape fluid and informal agreements concerning legitimate global interactions. Here a much favored example of a transnational civil disobedient is the environmentalist group Greenpeace. Although willing to engage the state or agencies of international law when this promises to yield the outcomes they want, Greenpeace is often more concerned with exerting influence and pressure to achieve these outcomes in ways that bypass the formal structures of legal ordering. This approach may be seen, for instance, in the case of its illegal occupation of the Brent Spar oil storage platform in British territorial waters. The occupation was intended to prevent the deep-water dumping of the platform as obsolete industrial waste by the Shell Corporation. Greenpeace did not, however, attempt to reform British law, or international law, to prevent deep-water dumping, as a fundamental violation of the environmental rights of all humanity to enjoy clean oceans. Instead, it used the illegal protest as a way to pressure Shell into towing the platform to dry land, where it could be dismantled and its parts recycled. The effect of the protest then was to influence the balance of globally consequential discourses so as to favor the terms and assumptions of sustainable development over those of free-market efficiency and industrialism. Acting as global citizens, Greenpeace thus sought to publicize the global risks of environmental dumping to a global public, resolving the issue of dumping not by changing laws but reshaping the common terms and assumptions that may be said to constitute the sense of justice of this public.

Conclusion Transnational civil disobedience has emerged as a distinctive kind of nonviolent, symbolic, illegal protest by contrast with the domestic and international models due to its commitment to an analysis of globalization according to which global interactions are increasingly ordered in discursive as opposed to legal terms.

Civil Rights

Undoubtedly, the informal discursive ordering of global affairs is a genuine phenomenon of globalization that opens up new possibilities for activist politics. But there is also risk involved in such a strong emphasis on informal resolutions to injustices, such as causing irreversible environmental harms, which potentially affect all persons globally for generations to come. In particular, bypassing formal institutions of law is to bypass the opportunity to entrench the ideal of the equal consideration of all persons through fundamental reform of international law that is concerned with securing guarantees of the equal human rights of global citizens. Indeed, it would surely have been inadequate for the American Civil Rights movement to have concerned itself only with reaching informal agreements with particular restaurant owners to desegregate the seating arrangements for their customers. This would have left Black Americans entirely vulnerable to the open possibility of these arrangements being changed for the worse in an ongoing contest between the rival discourses of civil rights and “state rights” to reshape basic assumptions about appropriate norms of interaction. Precisely the same point about the vulnerability of gains due to the fluid character of such a contest could be made regarding the environmental human rights of global citizens. In light of this sort of concern, the case may well be made for global citizens to give equal emphasis to immediate informal gains resulting from illegal protests and the long-term protection of these gains through international legal reforms grounded in human rights.

Related Topics

▶ Ahimsa ▶ Civil Disobedience, International ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Dryzek, John ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Public ▶ Globalization ▶ Greenpeace ▶ Human Rights ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military

References Dryzek JS (2006) Deliberative global politics. Polity, Cambridge Dworkin R (1985) A matter of principle. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Goodin RE (2005) Towards an international rule of law: distinguishing international law-breakers from would-be law-makers. J Ethics 9:1–2 Kokaz N (2005) Theorizing international fairness. Metaphilosophy 36:68–92 Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

C

137

Civil Rights LYNETTE E. SIEGER Gallatin School, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Civil rights belong to a class of rights known as first generation rights. First generation rights are concerned with political and civil claims of citizens within a political community to the rights of freedom of expression, association, access to meaningful political participation, and equal protection of the law. The primary struggle in civil rights movements worldwide has been over whom counts as citizen and who – if anyone – within civil society can legitimately be excluded from civil rights protections and guarantees. Though civil rights battles are usually addressed within the state, liberalism has evolved on the global sphere to recognize that equality of all persons subject to the state should not be denied on the arbitrary basis of characteristics such as sex, skin color, belonging to a minority group, or religion. Equality is recognized as paramount to securing civil rights in the arena of global justice through the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The ICCPR binds signatory states to uphold the principle of equality – as fundamental to securing peace, justice, and freedom – in administering the articles of the covenant. Equality is necessary to the underlying goal of civil rights, which is to protect and secure what Ju¨rgen Habermas refers to as the private and the civil/public autonomy of citizens. In the case of private autonomy, liberalism upholds the right of persons to decide, with minimal interference from the state, their own life plan and how best to pursue it. Civil autonomy is an extension of private autonomy allowing persons to participate in the processes that determine the shape and direction of their social political lives. This collective identity is an extension of the personal identity and is a necessary means to securing the rights of personal autonomy. This entry will first explore the practical and normative dimensions of securing and promoting civil rights within states through international agreements in global society. Second, it will address the rising concerns over global governance institutions in accountability to international civil rights norms. Third and last, it will introduce emerging protections for minority groups and how these third generation rights conflict or compliment liberal civil rights.

C

138

C

Civil Rights

Practical and Normative Dimensions of Securing and Promoting Civil Rights Though International Organizations (IOs) such as the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and the International Monetary Fund directly impact the lives of persons, they are structured so as to be concerned with states via representatives and not persons directly as such. Currently there are no citizens subject to global governance in the traditional sense as citizens are subject to the state. Given this nature of IOs, the question arises over what role global governance agencies have in relation to the satisfaction of civil rights. The proliferation of IOs, International Financial Institutions (IFIs), Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs), Multinational Corporations (MNCs), and International treaties and covenants contribute to the creation of global society where spheres that may have once been more easily relegated to the boundaries of the state now overlap. This newly emerging global society has been constructing rules for cooperation and engagement between states. Though – as will be discussed in section Emerging Protections for Minority Groups – pluralism and self-determination are valued in the global order, there are moral limits to how the state may exercise power over its citizens. Thus the ICCPR was created as an international means to promote civil rights within states. The ICCPR bound signatory states to ensure that all subjects to a state and individuals within the jurisdiction of the state – without bias predicated on distinctions such as sex, color, or national origin – have guaranteed access to civil rights. These include equal recognition before the law, freedom of religious and political beliefs and the exercise of those beliefs, and the equal opportunity to participate in civil society. A primary concern with international treaties such as the ICCPR is that without the enforcement mechanisms of the state, it is questionable as to whether or not they are useful in securing rights – in this case civil rights. Carol Gould rightly suggests that international rights documents gain effect when they are instituted at the state level which is what treaties require – namely, state compliance. Beyond the traditional interpretation of implementation and enforcement through the state, treaties such as the ICCPR can be argued to be an effective normative tool toward practical implementation. Civil rights treaties carry the force of universal or near universal status of an accepted set of standards. This can then be used as a means of persuasion for IOs, NGOs, and the like to affect adoption of civil rights within the state. Eric Neumayer adds that where rights violations occur, treaties can be used as a tool to name and shame aggressors while

stripping them of their stated justification that civil rights are a sovereign matter internal to the state. To conclude this section, though the primary matter of civil rights is to secure the proper rights of the citizen in relation to the state, the global order plays a significant secondary role. For instance, UN peace operations involve practices that promote the introduction and implementation of robust civil rights within states where the UN has a peace building presence. Additionally IOs, IFIs, NGOs, and MNCs can create norms, establish uniform international guidelines for civil law, and promote through incentive of good global standing the adherence of the state to promoting and securing civil rights.

Rising Concerns over Global Governance Institutions Though states are conventionally the primary units of concern at the international level, evolving global justice norms strive for accountability of IOs when their policies have an effect on the civil rights of persons. The difficulty is justifying claims against IOs that have violated civil rights because the ICCPR – the leading international treaty on civil rights – applies to states. It can be argued that states and not organizations can sign onto treaties and thus only states can be bound to the articles of the ICCPR. The relevant question then becomes how, under the statist structure of international relations, to make IOs accountable to civil rights satisfaction. UN Security Council measures to combat terrorism have emerged as a global civil rights concern that addresses precisely this conundrum. Acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter – providing the Security Council with the authority to undertake measures to identify and address threats to the peace – the Security Council has created a series of resolutions imposing sanctions that freeze funds and financial assets of persons and organizations associated with terrorists or terrorist groups. Under the Sanctions Committee – which maintains the sanctions list – Member States and Regional Organizations propose names to include on the list. Though an individual or entity is not informed that they are being considered for the list, a measure that satisfies the element of surprise to thwart potential terrorists from using assets to commit terrorist acts, once on the list targeted persons and entities may apply for delisting through their state. The civil rights concerns for persons and entities included on the sanctions list is that listing results in the violation of fundamental civil rights to property without due process that includes rights to self-defense and effective judicial review. In these cases, states can claim that they are acting in accordance with overriding Security

Civil Rights

Council Resolutions to secure the peace. Further, the claim against states that they are depriving persons of fundamental rights without due process have been countered with the argument that the list is not a criminal indictment and as such states are not subject to the rules of civil procedures. In 2008, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) made a groundbreaking ruling (in the joint case of Yassin Abdullah Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Communities) that it had the jurisdiction to review whether Security Council resolutions were enacted in a lawful manner. In the cases reviewed, the ECJ ruled that the manner in which the sanctions were imposed deprived the listed of their fundamental rights to property and due process for delisting in violation of European law and treaty obligations. This ruling indicates an important transformation in the realm of global justice. By reviewing the legal status of UN Security Council resolutions, the ECJ asserted the authority to limit the powers of the Security Council. It remains to be worked out whether legally valid claims may be made that IOs are subject to the covenants that their Member States are subject to and whether customary international law might be a basis to enforce civil rights obligations on IOs. Though there are many paths to creating more accountability of IOs from interfering with civil rights, it is high on the agenda of global justice issues to work this out in our increasingly interconnected world.

Emerging Protections for Minority Groups As mentioned in the introduction to this entry, civil rights belong to the class of first generation rights. Second generation rights refer to rights to food, shelter, and health and in important ways are connected to the capability of satisfying first generation rights. For instance, it is argued that the satisfaction of access to the goods necessary to subsist – or some would argue, to flourish – is necessary in order for first generation rights to be effectively exercised. Bracketing the debate between first and second generation rights in this final section, we will explore civil rights in relation to third generation rights. Third generation rights promote the protection of groups. In the realm of global justice, the emphasis has been particularly on minority groups and indigenous peoples to maintain traditional language, cultural practices, and the exercise of some group political autonomy. The ICCPR reflects an attempt to balance respect for both individual and group rights. In article 27, ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities are guaranteed

C

protection to continue culturally distinctive practices of religion and language without interference. The challenge to this guarantee is how to promote both group and individual civil rights when they conflict. For example, the claims of a religious group to deny access of girls and women to education or public political participation as an important religious norm would be a violation of the principle of equality that the ICCPR stresses, and yet a plain reading of article 27 would permit this exclusion. Ronald Dworkin argues that in liberal society individual rights ought to trump collective or group rights. This is an important point because if group members are not guaranteed access to the means that make meaningful consent to the perpetuation of the tradition that they find themselves in possible, then the authenticity of the group’s claim to protected status is shallow. The goal then is to strike a balance between the preservation of individual autonomy with civil autonomy. One way toward achieving this goal is to promote the equal protection of minority and majority groups to coexist within the constraints of adherence to fundamental principles such as the principle of equality. In conclusion, the accelerated growth toward global political and economic communities requires the development and extension of civil rights protections beyond the domain of the citizen and the state. Though the state is the primary locus for claims to civil rights guarantees, the global community and new civil actors such as NGOs have the power to directly and indirectly impact respect for and implementation of civil rights. Mechanisms for enhancing the accountability of global governance institutions to adhere to civil rights are and ought to continue evolving. Finally, third generation rights to the protection of groups, if qualified, can coexist with first generation civil rights.

Related Topics

▶ Collective Identity ▶ Equality ▶ Indigenous Peoples ▶ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ▶ International Law ▶ Terrorism ▶ United Nations: Peacekeeping and Peace Building ▶ United Nations: Reform

References C-402/05 P and C-415/05 (Joined Cases) Yassin Abdullah Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Communities, Judgment of the European Court of Justice, Grand Chamber (2008)

139

C

140

C

Class and Status

Crocker D (2008) Development ethics, democracy and globalization. In: Chatterjee D (ed) Democracy in a global world: human rights and political participation in the 21st century. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, pp 27–70 Dworkin R (1977) Taking rights seriously. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Gould C (2008) Negotiating the global and the local: situating transnational democracy and human rights. In: Chatterjee D (ed) Democracy in a global world: human rights and political participation in the 21st century. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, pp 71–87 Habermas J (1995) Address multiculturalism and the liberal state. Stanford Law Rev 47:849–885 Habermas J (1996) Citizenship and national identity. Between facts and norms. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 491–515 Neumayer E (2005) Do international human rights treaties improve respect for human rights? J Confl Resolut 49:925–953 Nickel J, Reidy D (2008) Relativism, self-determination, and human rights. In: Chatterjee D (ed) Democracy in a global world: human rights and political participation in the 21st century. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, pp 91–109 Nussbaum M (2008) Constitutions and capabilities. In: Chatterjee D (ed) Democracy in a global world: human rights and political participation in the 21st century. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, pp 187–199

Class and Status JEFF EWING Department of Sociology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

“Global justice” as a topic of normative analysis has become increasingly prominent in the last decade. While the justness of relations between nations has been a major focus of political philosophy since its beginnings, the shift to discussion in terms of “global justice” marks the realization of a new stage in our world history. The national borders which mark the independence of nations from each other which characterizes “international justice” are far from absent or irrelevant, but they are becoming increasingly porous and weak in significance. It is now possible to talk about global citizens and global issues (e.g., climate change) in meaningful ways. Global communication renders instantaneous conversations possible between nearly any two points on the planet. More importantly, there are two features of the contemporary world order that bear directly on the process of globalization which drives this increasing global awareness and porousness between borders: global political bodies, and global economic bodies and corporations. The central questions of global justice – the relation between international bodies and state sovereignty/national

self-determination or between the more powerful global players and the less powerful (the USA or the WTO in relation to, say, a developing nation), the effects of the globalizing economy on global peoples and local cultures and resources, etc., – have increasing impact on the lives of even the formerly most isolated peoples. Perhaps the most influential, and most controversial, driving forces behind the processes of globalization are the global economic bodies (the World Bank, IMF, and WTO) and free trade agreements, backed by powerful nations (most notably the USA), and the wealthy and increasingly powerful global corporations and banks. With the spread of economic globalization and the cultural influences that trail behind it, traditional economies, class relationships, and status groups are directly impacted. Every known society with greater complexity than immediate return hunter-gatherer societies has some forms of hierarchy, along which individuals are divided into groups, with some having greater wealth, power, and privilege than others (and while some sexual division of labor may have been present in those earliest societies, whether such de facto differences themselves constituted a hierarchy or variations in social power is contestable). Of the structural categories hierarchically dividing more complex societies, one of the historically most important is the category of class. While usage of the term “class” may vary somewhat between theorists, class broadly references one’s position within the hierarchy of the economy – the system of production, and consequentially exchange, distribution, and consumption. Karl Marx (1818–1883), the German philosopher, economist, sociologist, and revolutionary developed a wide-ranging theory of historical structure and change (historical materialism), as well as a complex theory of the processes and tendencies of the capitalist economic system (including the labor theory of value). History, Marx argued, is the process of mankind’s interaction with each other and nature, grounded first and foremost in material needs – the needs to survive, produce the means of survival, and reproduce. Mankind organizes collective resources and labor to meet human needs through the process of production (resulting in the economic system – mode of production in Marxian terms). As modes of production changed over time, mankind’s collective labor began to produce goods beyond what was needed for immediate survival, surplus goods, which over time began to be privately acquired – the origin of inequality and the first-class societies. For Marx, all societies past our collective classless past were often divided into a number of classes, each defined by their ownership relations to various means of

Class and Status

production. Each mode of production has, however, two primary classes, the ruling class and the working class, determined by their relation to the dominant form of production (thus dividing into slaveholders and slaves, feudal lords and serfs, and capitalists and laborers in slavery, feudalism, and capitalism, respectively). While each economic system has two primary classes, however, each society simultaneously produces other, comparably minor, classes (such as the petty bourgeois and the lumpenproletariat under capitalism) and classes from prior modes of production can exist alongside the rising mode of production for some time (such as the maintenance of smallholding peasants in France for quite some time after the emergence of capitalism, or the longstanding power of the European feudal aristocracy). In each class society, with the ruling class living from the labor of the working class, both classes are in a necessarily antagonistic relation to each other, resulting in class conflict. The interests of the ruling and working classes are fundamentally opposed (most simply, the ruling class wants as much labor as possible from the working class, and the working class wants such labor minimized), and this tension (as well as other derivative tensions) develop until the ruling class’s property ownership inhibits the potential of the mature mode of production to meet the needs of the working class. This tension builds over time until no further intersystematic solutions are possible, and society reaches a point where it either transcends the ruling class constraints over social and economic development (in a revolution) or society collapses. Max Weber (1864–1920) developed a theory of social stratification with three primary dimensions of potential inequality – social classes, status groups, and parties. Social classes in the Weberian sense share various “life chances” regarding their potential attainment of income, education, etc., as specifically organized around their relationship to the ownership of property within the context of a commodity or labor market. Classes owning property which gives them greater control over important markets are more dominant and classes owning less important property or no property at all are less dominant classes. Individuals in similar situations under this criteria share common class situations, and commonly share more than class position – attitudes, preferences, etc. Like Marx, Weber holds class membership to be determined by objective ownership, irrespective of one’s conceptions of one’s position or that ownership. Unlike Marx, Weber argued that class situations do not directly impact human ideals – though there are often patterns between social classes and ideals, the relationship is not strictly causal – and thus Weber developed the notion of a status group, a group

C

associated and hierarchically organized based on the prestige attributed to the group by its characteristics. While social class membership has, in the long run, some regularity in affecting status groups, they have a fairly large degree of independence, and can themselves impact social classes through intentional impositions on market mechanisms. Other theorists built upon the framework of Marx and/or Weber in important ways. Weber’s ideas regarding class and status were deconstructed into a set of variables that included education, occupation, and income, and this focused class analysis (especially in America) onto subjective relations between families, communities, etc., rather than the traditional focus on the economic system as a whole – in effect dissolving “class” into “status.” Another development is in the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002), for example, who argues that social institutions together constitute a field, composed of varied hierarchies (among factors such as prestige, wealth, education, etc.), and individuals have varied amounts and types of capital, which determines their hierarchical place within the field. Those at the top of the hierarchy – most notably those of the upper class(es) – determine to a greater degree the social standards of “good taste,” and thus influence the hierarchical evaluations that determine one’s status. The exact definitions, causal relationships, and hierarchical positioning of class and status within social phenomena is still a topic for debate, but all debates aside, their impact on the social world, and thus on our daily lives, is readily visible. One of the most important ways in which class is relevant to questions of global justice is through the increasing social, economic, and consequentially political power gained by the owners of the wealthiest corporations under the context of increasing economic globalization, wherein the ownership of resources, opportunities for labor, and consequentially distribution of income, goods, and services displace traditional means of survival and relations to nature, and the terms of loans create significant debt relations between the underdeveloped nations and the advanced capitalist nations. In this way, the spread of advanced capitalist class relationships to new territories and its effects becomes an important topic for global distributive justice. Moreover, the material distribution of goods, services, and income affect the resources available to traditional status groups, which, combined with the accompanying cultural globalization, serve to replace elements of culture in the underdeveloped nations with elements of culture from developed nations. Whether or not this, too, is a “just” process, i.e., whether regions or nations have a right to self-determination in the absence

141

C

142

C

Climate Change

of the expansion of culture contemporaneously with increased economic globalization, is an important topic. The forces globalizing the world, driven primarily by an expansion of the capitalist mode of production, its markets, and its associated distribution of income, goods, services, compatible cultural artifacts, and relation to resources (with political globalization lagging behind in terms of successes), increasingly constrain the autonomy of underdeveloped nations and their citizens, and these processes have thus far resulted in increasing disparities between rich and poor both within and between countries. As such, an effectual analysis of global distributive justice, i.e., one that responds to the material reality of life and, moreover, is capable of meaningful implementation, involves not only a critique of the distribution of income, goods, and services, but a critique of their determinants, i.e., effectual global distributive justice involves a critique of class relationships. Given the concrete effects that disparities of class power have on an increasingly global scale, questions of global justice substantially involve analyses of class and status.

Related Topics

▶ Bretton Woods Institutions ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Globalization ▶ Marx, Karl

References Bourdieu P (1984) Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Giddens A (1992) Capitalism and modern social theory: an analysis of the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Marx K, Engels F, Tucker RC (1978) The Marx-Engels reader. Norton, New York Weber M, Gerth HH, Mills CW (2007) From Max Weber: essays in sociology. International Library of Sociology. Routledge, New York Wright EO (2005) Approaches to class analysis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Climate Change STEVE VANDERHEIDEN Department of Political Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

Anthropogenic climate change is primarily caused by fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, with the former releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the

latter degrading sinks capable of naturally sequestering that carbon. Along with the increasing atmospheric concentrations of other heat-trapping greenhouse gases, scientists now expect that carbon-intensive patterns of industrialization and consumption will continue to contribute toward a range of adverse environmental consequences, with further impacts on the social, economic, and political systems in which affected societies are embedded. Since the early 1990s, policymakers have attempted to address climate change through the policy process that yielded the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and which now looks toward a post-Kyoto framework to replace that treaty upon its 2012 expiration. Significantly, concerns for international equity and intergenerational justice have been officially declared as key objectives throughout this global process and continue to animate debates about how to achieve climate justice, which is widely viewed as a necessary component of any effective global climate change policy regime. Climate change is an issue for global justice for two main reasons: (1) its predicted harms have been primarily caused by the world’s affluent nations and peoples but are expected to be disproportionately borne by the world’s poor, and (2) policy efforts to mitigate or compensate for these harms involve distributive and restorative justice. Its distributive aspect is seen in the aim of justly allocating the finite resource of atmospheric absorptive capacity among present and future claimants, and its restorative aspect in imperatives to simultaneously ensure that harm suffered by those not responsible for causing climate change is justly remedied, whether through assistance in adapting to a changing climate or through compensation payments to its victims. Scholars and activists alike have explored both of these aspects of climate justice, taking the former as a reason to act now to avoid further injustice and the latter as the normative framework within which a policy acceptable to all the world’s peoples must be developed. Various philosophical problems related to climate justice have been identified and several distinct responses defended, based on the two core policy imperatives of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Since greenhouse gasses accumulate in the atmosphere and continue to cause various climate-related disruptions for over a century after first emitted, the distributive problem of failed mitigation efforts amounts to an intergenerational and an international injustice, as the actions of earlier generations cause avoidable harm to later ones through the former’s excessive de facto claims on the planet’s atmospheric absorptive capacity. Successful mitigation must therefore limit such claims within

Climate Change

each generation for reasons of intergenerational justice, and allocate those fairly among nations and peoples for reasons of international or global justice. One might also view problems of mitigation through the moral lens of a harm principle, enjoining all persons, nations, and generations against causing avoidable climate-related harm to others. Such an approach may yield similar mitigation obligations as those grounded in distributive justice, but the latter approach offers a clearer account of how the burdens of mitigation may be assigned among relevant parties. This is because the moral problem lies not just in the consequence of either allowed or avoided harm, which a harm principle-based account recognizes, but also in the fair allocation of mitigation costs (as through investments in more efficient technology and infrastructure upgrades, decreases in consumption, or the offset of existing emissions with carbon sequestration projects like reforestation), which it does not. An approach based purely in harm avoidance might also be less able to justify strong mitigation efforts, preferring instead to allow avoidable harm and then funding adaptation efforts or paying compensation to victims, particularly if compensation and adaptation are less expensive than mitigation. By asking not only whether or not the good of atmospheric absorptive capacity and the burden of greenhouse gas mitigation are fairly distributed within and across generations, a distributive justice approach captures the injustice of uncompensated harm as well as that of unjustified claims on a common resource and shirked contributions toward the maintenance of a common resource. Likewise, climate change adaptation has a distributive component, but it looks backward at past emissions in assessing burdens rather than forward at what might constitute a justified claim upon atmospheric absorptive capacity. The two problems are linked in that unmitigated environmental disruption must either be rendered benign through the sort of assistance that is described under the rubric of adaptation (including minor remedial measures like technological assistance and food aid or major ones like relocation of groups whose territories are rendered uninhabitable) or compensated when harm is allowed. Ideally, adaptation would avoid causing those living in areas affected by climate change any decline in welfare opportunity, technically avoiding the same sort of harm that is also the subject of mitigation approaches. Where this is not possible, the victims of climate change would be entitled to compensation for their losses, likewise providing a remedy to the harm that they were unjustly caused to suffer by responsible parties, but an inferior

C

remedy to which mitigation and adaptation are clearly preferred. Since adaptation and compensation entail assessment of liability on responsible parties as well as the allocation of resources to victims, theories of moral responsibility offer one promising approach to the fair assignment of such costs. Fault-based liability would hold those most responsible for contributing to the problem most responsible for contributing toward its solution, provided that their causal contributions could also be faulted. Such an approach raises questions about the roles of knowledge and uncertainty in assessing fault for some party’s past and present greenhouse gas emissions, as knowledge about the likely effects of one’s acts is often taken to be an epistemic prerequisite for assessing moral fault and assigning liability. Other controversies within the climate justice literature include debates over whether individuals or states constitute relevant levels of analysis and agency in remedial climate policy, how much historical emissions should count in current assignments of liability, and whether developing countries should be assigned binding emissions caps in current or future rounds of international actions.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Rights ▶ Climate Justice ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Duties to Non-Compatriots ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Warming ▶ Human Rights ▶ Solidarity

References Athanasiou T, Baer P (2002) Dead heat: global justice and global warming. Seven Stories Press, New York Caney S (2005) Cosmopolitan justice, responsibility, and global climate change. Leiden J Int Law 18:747–775 Gardiner S (2005) Ethics and global climate change. Ethics 114:55–600 Garvey J (2008) The ethics of climate change: right and wrong in a warming world. Athlone Press, London Humphreys S (ed) (2009) Climate change and human rights. Cambridge University Press, New York Page E (2007) Climate change, justice, and future generations. Edward Elgar, London Shue H (1999) Global environment and international inequality. Int Aff 75:531–545 Vanderheiden S (2008) Atmospheric justice: a political theory of climate change. Oxford University Press, New York

143

C

144

C

Climate Justice

Climate Justice ALYSSA R. BERNSTEIN Department of Philosophy, Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of 1992 declares that countries should address the climate crisis “on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.” These topics have been addressed in publications by academic researchers in philosophy, political science, public policy, and economics, among other disciplines, as well as in publications by nonacademic researchers or nonuniversity organizations. However, nonphilosophers who have written influential reports on climate change (including Nicholas Stern and Ross Garnaut, both professors of economics) have generally paid little attention to philosophical work on the topics of equity, justice, and responsibility. This entry briefly discusses recent publications by several cosmopolitan and quasi-cosmopolitan philosophers writing about climate justice, summarizes some of their arguments, and provides on this basis a partial critique of certain arguments about equity and justice presented in Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy (2010) and in Climate Change Justice (2010). Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy (PKICP) is a volume edited by Joseph E. Aldy and Robert N. Stavins that presents the main findings of the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements. The editors describe the Project as a global, multiyear, multidisciplinary effort intended to help identify the key design elements of a scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic post-2012 international policy architecture for addressing the threat of climate change. In this nearly 1,000-page volume, the topics of equity, justice, and responsibility are addressed only to a limited extent and only by economists, lawyers, and public policy experts, not moral or political philosophers. The index of PKICP refers to none of the moral or political philosophers or political theorists who have written most extensively, influentially, and/or discerningly about questions of justice raised by climate change, any list of whom must include Simon Caney, Stephen Gardiner, Robert Goodin, Dale Jamieson, Richard W. Miller, Darrel Moellendorf, Edward Page, Henry Shue, Peter Singer, and Steve Vanderheiden. Of the ten articles in PKICP that mention or (rarely) discuss “justice,” “fairness,” or “equity,” only one refers to any of

those ten philosophers or political theorists (Posner and Sunstein refer to Singer). Similarly, the lists of references and the index in Climate Ethics: Essential Readings (2010), a volume edited by Gardiner, Caney, Jamieson, and Shue, like the indexes and lists of references in the books by Vanderheiden (2008), Moellendorf (2009a), and Miller (2010), make no mention of either of the editors of PKICP, and mention almost none of its fifty-plus authors (exceptions are Robert Keohane and David Victor). Paul Baer is cited both in PKICP and by philosophers or political theorists. PKICP chapter author Ramgopal Agarwala offers a proposal to reconcile the significant disagreements between the G8 (the largest industrialized economies) and the G5 (major emerging economies: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa) about how to manage climate change. Noting that developed countries are responsible for more than 50% of the current stock of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, he asserts that they have a “carbon debt” to the people of present and future generations, most of whom will reside in developing countries. He criticizes present discussions of climate change impacts for focusing disproportionately on consequences in terms of global GDP in the very long term, and calls for more research in developing countries on all significant consequences for their economies as well as for publicizing the devastating consequences. He also argues that the middle class in developing countries, which is rapidly growing in size and largely trying to replicate Western lifestyle norms, must reduce its carbon emissions and live more sustainably, which it is unlikely to do unless the West itself is doing so. Agarwala contends that a credible global compact must include all major sources of emissions, and must be effective, efficient, realistic, and equitable. In his view, equity requires equal per capita emission rights. Agarwala thinks it is unrealistic to expect developing countries to reduce their per capita emissions from 2003 levels by 40%, and developed countries to reduce their per capita emissions by 90%, in order to achieve a target of 50% reduction by 2050, as proposed by the G8 in 2008. One of his reasons for thinking it is unrealistic is that if India and China were to replicate the relationship between carbon emissions and per capita incomes that is now typical in developed countries, then by 2050 their per capita emissions could be similar to those of developed countries today. It would be better, he argues, to stabilize CO2 emissions at 2003 levels by 2050. If both developed and developing countries reduce carbon intensity (CO2 emissions per unit of GDP) by 5% per year between 2003 and 2050, then developed countries with economic

Climate Justice

growth rates of 2% per year would have to reduce emissions by about 3% per year, while developing countries with economic growth rates of 6% per year could increase CO2 emissions by about 1% per year, Agarwala explains. If reducing global CO2 emissions by 50% by 2050 is not realistic, then it may be impossible to avoid global warming of more than 2 C, the consequences of which would include greater requirements for adaptation. PKICP chapter authors Eric Posner and Cass Sunstein argue against per capita allocations of emission rights (thus disagreeing with Agarwala and also with Singer, whom they cite). One reason why they oppose an international cap-and-trade system in which emission permits tradable for cash would be allocated to states on a per capita basis is, they say, that it would not be feasible. If emission rights were allocated on a per capita basis, China and India would be “significant net gainers,” while the nations that now have high per capita emissions would be “the principal losers,” and the “biggest loser” of all would be the USA. Given that nations are unlikely to sign an international agreement if they will be significant net losers, and given that powerful nations may well veto a treaty even if it is defensible “in principle” (by which they mean, defensible in terms of a normative ethical theory), insistence on the per capita approach would, say Posner and Sunstein, “endanger and very possibly doom” an international effort to reduce the risks associated with climate change. According to them, it is becoming increasingly likely that some other approach will be used, for example, a cap-and-trade system among countries in the northern hemisphere along with technical and financial assistance and general targets for the south. Henry Shue (1999) argues that three commonsense principles of equity (compensation for harm or imposed costs, contributions according to ability to pay, and the right to an adequate minimum standard of living) all lead to the conclusion that the industrialized countries have the primary responsibility to pay for climate change mitigation. (For a discussion of Shue’s argument that is both sympathetic and critical, see Caney 2009). Peter Singer (2002) similarly argues that four principles of fairness (the imperative to aid the least well off, the utilitarian imperative to maximize happiness, equal claims to shares of a common resource, and responsibility to compensate for harm or imposed costs) all lead to the conclusion that the rich countries should bear most of the burden for mitigation. To Singer, it seems self-evidently fair to recognize the equality of every person’s claim to part of the global atmosphere’s capacity to absorb GHGs without harmful consequences, and he advocates tying emission entitlements to the UN projection of population growth

C

per country in 2050. Like Jamieson (2001), Singer advocates the principle of equal per capita emission rights partly on the practical ground of its suitability as a political compromise. Vanderheiden (2008) argues that if a climate regime is to be effective it must be fair to all, since effectiveness requires universal participation under a system of emissions caps. He advocates that roughly equal per capita emission shares be initially allocated to countries, which would be allowed to engage in trading as well as other means of achieving the emission targets. However, he insists (citing Shue 1993) that permissible trading must not be unlimited: governments of poor nations must not be allowed to sell their “unused” survival emission permits in GHG markets to affluent nations seeking more luxury emissions, regardless of the price offered in return. Vanderheiden supports the widely claimed right to develop, which is implied but not guaranteed by the equal shares approach, but he emphasizes that the right to develop cannot trump the right to survival emissions. Global justice and climate change must, Vanderheiden asserts, be addressed simultaneously and as manifestations of the same set of problems. Darrel Moellendorf (2009a) critically examines a number of candidate principles for assigning emissions reductions so as to reach the goal of 2 (a global average temperature increase at equilibrium of no more than 2 C above the preindustrial level by year 2050). He quickly dismisses principles requiring all countries to reduce their GHG emissions by the same amount or by the same percentage, as making utterly unreasonable demands on the world’s poor. Against the Equal Burdens principle, which requires each state to reduce its emissions by a share of the burden of the overall emissions reductions that is equal to the burden of every other state, Moellendorf raises three objections: (a) It uses as benchmark the present unjust international distribution of holdings. (b) It does not ensure respect for the right to development. (c) Equalizing marginal losses to well-being, no matter how measured, is incompatible with allowing any countries to increase their emissions; but the right to development must be interpreted as allowing the least developed countries to do so. The principle Polluter Pays requires each state to reduce its emissions in proportion to its historic contribution to the global excess in emissions; a modified Polluter Pays principle says that each state that is required to reduce its emissions must reduce them in proportion to its historic contribution to the global excess in emissions, and that the overall reduction required of each of these states must be sufficient to offset emission increases by poorer states. Moellendorf objects to Polluter Pays for the reason

145

C

146

C

Climate Justice

that it does not allow emission increases and cannot be modified to do so satisfactorily. The most defensible candidate principles, Moellendorf argues, are Equal Shares and Greenhouse Development Rights. According to Equal Shares, each state is required to reduce, or permitted to increase, its emissions to the level that is attained by multiplying its year 2050 forecasted population by the average per capita emission permissible given the global reduction required. Moellendorf regards this “contract-and-converge” principle as satisfying the norms of the UNFCCC, and as plausibly interpreting the requirement of equality with respect to the use of a common resource to which no one can claim a natural or preexisting individual entitlement. The same advantages, he thinks, characterize Greenhouse Development Rights, according to which each state is assigned an emission entitlement that is a function of both its responsibility (taken to be its total emissions minus the total of emissions due to productive activity under a development threshold) and its capacity (understood as its aggregate income minus the aggregate income of people below a development threshold). Moellendorf favors this principle partly because, unlike Equal Shares, it can achieve the goal of 2 even if this requires global emissions reductions of more than 50%, by making heavier demands on rich, industrialized states. Moellendorf (2009b) argues in favor of Greenhouse Development Rights on the basis of UNFCCC norms. Three of the norms are equity and the requirements to recognize differentiated responsibilities and capabilities. These three together place heavier burdens on developed countries. A fourth norm is the right to development, which limits the range of acceptable treaties to those that do not prohibit or obstruct macroeconomic policies directed toward rapid economic growth. Moellendorf notes that although both Greenhouse Development Rights and Equal Shares require steep GHG emission reductions by rich industrialized countries, and although Equal Shares is acceptable on the assumption that a 50% reduction in global GHG emissions from 2000 levels by 2050 is sufficient to meet the goal of 2 , it is unlikely that the reductions required by Equal Shares will satisfy the right to development if a 50% reduction is insufficient to meet that goal. Moellendorf asserts that at least some developing countries, especially those with large and fast-growing economies and high CO2 emissions, have bargaining power as long as the developed countries see the value of reaching an effective mitigation agreement. However, members of distant future generations are not present at the negotiations, unlike representatives of the states that

would have to carry heavy mitigation burdens; therefore, Moellendorf cautions, there is a danger that negotiators will pursue the interests of their populations within a time horizon that is too limited, focusing on the present and near future at the expense of people who will live in the further future. Acknowledging that rich, industrialized states would be reluctant to join a treaty satisfying the Greenhouse Development Rights principle, Moellendorf (2009a) argues that accommodating these states by raising the warming limit would pose serious risks of human development setbacks. He hopes that the negotiators will come to regard themselves as obligated also to serve the interests of future generations worldwide. They may do so, he says, if pressured by citizens of countries where the popular will can be given voice. Unlike Moellendorf, Richard Miller (2010) argues that widespread industrial shutdowns in developed countries should be avoided, not only due to the consequences for other countries, but also because serious human costs from significant economic losses or disruption should be taken into account whether the people suffering from them are in developing countries or developed countries. However, like Moellendorf, Miller argues that people in developed countries have political duties to choose climate policies that help needy people in developing countries both by reducing the climatic harms to which the latter are especially liable and by minimizing obstacles to the development they need. Miller argues that impartial acceptability of burdens is the criterion of greenhouse justice, regarding both the adequacy of the emissionsreduction goal and the equity of the allocation of the necessary tasks. An appropriate standard of adequacy is, says Miller, a shared goal to which responsible people throughout the world would hold themselves and others. The goal should be such that the costs of a lower temperature-increase target would not be worth the gains. Like Moellendorf, Miller thinks that the most appropriate goal is 2 . Not only have international groups such as the EU and the UNEP repeatedly affirmed this standard of adequacy, but also, Miller contends, it is equitable, in the sense that impartial concern about human burdens, both climatic and economic, supports climate-harm mitigation policies that would not only avert the direct climate consequences but also avoid imposing economic losses resulting in severe, widespread human costs. Miller argues that fair global teamwork in pursuit of this daunting goal requires that burdens be divided fairly: the decision making about who is to sacrifice what must be impartial, as would be a choice among alternative loss sets

Climate Justice

made by someone behind a veil of ignorance who was seeking to advance her interests but ignorant of which loss would be hers. (Regarding veil of ignorance, see the entry ▶ Original Position in this encyclopedia.) An equitable 2 regime would require developed countries to make a significant economic sacrifice in order to avoid, as far as possible, thwarting efforts by the global poor to escape destitution. Although it would require developing countries to slow the growth of their emissions, it would require developed countries to cut emissions sooner and more steeply. Such a regime would aim for contraction and convergence (C&C), as required, Miller argues, by mutual respect among members of the climate-control team. Baer et al. (2010) observe a “fairly broad” consensus, among both the philosophers who write about climate change and the majority of the climate-policy community, that efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions should not harm the ability of poor countries to grow economically in order to reduce as rapidly as possible the widespread poverty their citizens suffer. They note substantial though not universal support for equal per capita emission rights as a simple, practical, and (sufficiently) fair way to operationalize the consensus that, in view of the moral considerations of need, equality, responsibility, and capacity, the wealthy countries should pay for climate mitigation, at least initially. However, they criticize the assumption that equal per capita emission rights, especially the C&C variant in which equal rights are phased in over time, would adequately protect the interests of poor countries. They doubt that equal per capita allocations can adequately protect the right to development under very steep emission-reduction targets, and argue that even under moderately stringent mitigation targets, poor countries may not have enough permits to avoid incurring significant mitigation costs in addition to adaptation costs. Noting that some policy analysts have attempted to modify the C&C formula to allow per capita emissions in poor countries to grow for a longer time, the authors contend that the fundamental problem is that the allocation of emission permits to countries based on equal emissions today or at some point in the future ignores the fact that there is a much lower per capita budget available going forward than was used by the rich countries during the course of their development, which means, they argue, that developing countries are at a disadvantage as long as low-carbon or no-carbon energy is more expensive than fossil energy. Baer et al. (2010) propose a Greenhouse Development Rights framework that is designed to allocate the costs of extremely rapid reductions in GHG emissions, as well as of

C

adaptation, in a way that protects a right to development, by linking obligations to both responsibility (prior emissions) and capacity (ability to pay). This proposal is new both in its definition of a “development threshold” relative to the income of individuals, not the per capita income of countries, and in its inclusion of the distribution of income within countries. Thus, the authors say, their proposal eliminates the need for an arbitrary dividing line between developed and developing countries, and can straightforwardly identify a continuum along which each country’s obligations are demonstrably proportional to the responsibility and capacity of its population. However, they call for further consideration of the complex relationship between causal responsibility and moral responsibility, and for an examination of the ways in which the allocation of emission rights to countries translates into impacts on individuals, as well as for an inquiry into how to define capacity, which would take the form of an exploration of the moral significance of the sacrifices in consumption that would be required of various parties under different burden-sharing arrangements. The authors of Climate Change Justice, Eric Posner and David Weisbach (2010), argue that, contrary to the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, and the opinions of some scholars, rich nations are not ethically obligated to sign a climate change agreement that is not in their self-interest, in order to help the poor. Like Moellendorf and Miller, they affirm that the moral worth of individuals transcends spatial and temporal boundaries, and that the wealthy have an obligation to help the poor. However, Posner and Weisbach contend that although the rich should help the poor, and although distributive justice requires reducing poverty and giving priority to the poorest and most desperately needy, it is a mistake to tie valid concerns about redistribution to the problem of mitigating climate harm. According to them, the most important obligation with respect to climate change is to develop a “broad, deep, and enforceable treaty that achieves appropriate climate goals.” Posner and Weisbach regard both rich and poor nations as ethically obligated to cooperate, i.e., to join a treaty and not to free-ride; however, they insist, if nations are to agree to a treaty, it must satisfy the International Paretianism condition: all states must believe they are better off with it than without it. This is a pragmatic constraint, not an ethical one, they explain: in the states system, treaties require state consent, and states agree only to treaties that serve their own perceived interests. States that believe they will be harmed relatively less by climate change (richer nations such as the USA, perhaps also China and Brazil) are likely to hold out, either insisting

147

C

148

C

Climate Justice

that only limited abatement requirements apply to themselves, or else agreeing to more demanding requirements only on condition that they receive “side payments.” Thus, argue Posner and Weisbach, there is a conflict between the requirements of distributive justice and what is necessary in order to get a treaty ratified, given how states actually behave. They emphasize that there is a real possibility of tragedy, since those who care about distributive justice could subvert a climate treaty by insisting that the wealth of a state should determine its burdens. Posner and Weisbach claim that a climate treaty that does not significantly redistribute wealth from rich to poor, and that requires poor states to “bear their share” of the costs of abatement, would still be in the interest of the poor states since they will enjoy the benefits of the abatements; thus such a treaty would serve global welfare, and welfarists should support it. An optimal climate treaty would, they say, be based on aggregated benefits and costs across countries. If distributive justice is the goal, it is necessary to recognize that pursuing this goal through a climate treaty may not be the best way of redistributing wealth from rich countries to poor ones; but if climate harm mitigation is the goal, the best way to pursue it, they argue, is by agreeing to a treaty that both stipulates the “globally optimal” abatement and can get ratified and survive pressures to cheat. Given the practical realities of the state system, such a treaty must, they insist, be one that serves the interests of states; it should stipulate the globally optimal abatement “even though that is not what is optimal for poor states.” Both Moellendorf (2009a, GIM) and Miller (2010) hold that respect for human dignity requires that institutions be justifiable in terms of principles that can be reasonably accepted by those who live under them, and their writings provide the elements for the following reply to Posner and Weisbach. If the goal is a climate treaty such that all parties will regard it as meriting not only ratification but also voluntary compliance despite pressures to cheat, then the treaty must be justifiable to all parties as making them all better off, but not in the sense of serving the (narrowly construed) self-interest of the most powerful states and making the less-powerful states merely better off than they would be without it: the treaty must propose terms of cooperation that all parties can willingly accept because these terms are duly based on impartial concern for the fundamental interests of all human beings. If no treaty satisfying those requirements is proposed and ratified, then the harm that results from failure adequately to constrain global warming will generate a moral debt of repair, which will be larger for countries that diverge more

gravely from climate justice and have the capacity to provide compensation. Page (2011) notes that a number of scholars within the cosmopolitan tradition have critiqued emissions trading, but he argues that international emissions trading can be legitimate and consistent with cosmopolitan norms of global and intergenerational justice, if the trading schemes are properly constructed, implemented, and regulated. In particular, he contends, the schemes must help reduce poverty and must distribute equitably the benefits above and beyond climate mitigation that are created by the scheme. There must also be adequate procedural protections, efforts to ensure the continued flourishing of intrinsic environmental values, and public information campaigns as well as other efforts to ensure social responsibility and support for sustainable development. Caney, too, finds no necessary injustice in global emissions trading, but he argues that existing emissions trading schemes are unjust.

Related Topics

▶ Caney, Simon ▶ Carbon Tax ▶ Climate Change ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Global Warming ▶ Human Rights ▶ Intergenerational Justice ▶ Miller, Richard ▶ Moellendorf, Darrel ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism ▶ Pareto Optimality ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism ▶ Shue, Henry ▶ Singer, Peter

References Agarwala R (2010) Towards a global compact for managing climate change. In: Aldy J, Stavins R (eds) Post-Kyoto international climate policy: implementing architectures for agreement. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Aldy J, Stavins R (eds) (2010) Post-Kyoto international climate policy: summary for policymakers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Baer P, Athanasiou T, Kartha S, Kemp-Benedict E (2010) Greenhouse development rights: a framework for climate protection that is more “fair” than equal per capita emissions rights. In: Gardiner S, Caney S, Jamieson D, Shue H (eds) Climate ethics: essential readings. Oxford University Press, Oxford Caney S (2009) Human rights, responsibilities, and climate change. In: Beitz C, Goodin R (eds) Global basic rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Coercion Jamieson D (2001) Climate change and global environmental justice. In: Miller C, Edwards P (eds) Changing the atmosphere: expert knowledge and environmental governance. MIT Press, Cambridge Miller R (2010) Globalizing justice: the ethics of poverty and power. Oxford University Press, Oxford Moellendorf D (2009a) Global inequality matters. Palgrave Macmillan, New York Moellendorf D (2009b) Treaty norms and climate change mitigation. Ethics Int Aff 23(3):247–265 Page E (2011) Cosmopolitanism, climate change, and greenhouse emissions trading. Int Theory 3(1):37–69 Posner E, Sunstein C (2010) Justice and climate change: the unpersuasive case for per capita allocations of emissions rights. In: Aldy J, Stavins R (eds) Post-Kyoto international climate policy: implementing architectures for agreement. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Posner E, Weisbach D (2010) Climate change justice. Princeton University Press, Princeton Shue H (1993) Subsistence emissions and luxury emissions. Law Policy 15(1):39–59 Shue H (1999) Global environment and international inequality. Int Aff 75(3):531–545 Singer P (2002/2004) One world: the ethics of globalization. Yale University Press, New Haven Vanderheiden S (2008) Atmospheric justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Coercion JAMES E. ROPER Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

Common to many uses of “coercion” is the use of threats, intimidation, and/or force to make someone so fearful as to act against his/her will. Historically, states have often been considered justified in applying coercion in the prosecution of their laws in order to make it possible for people to live together peacefully. Beyond this rather vague consensus, however, there has been relatively little specific attention to this concept until the publication of a seminal essay by Robert Nozick in 1969. In order for there to be coercion, there must be a coercer and a coercee. Viewed from the perspective of the coercer, the focus is on the methods that are used to get the coercee to act as the coercer wishes. Looked at through the eyes of the coercee, the focus is on the kinds of reasons the coercee might have for acting as the coercer wants. While most accounts of coercion have stressed the role of the coercer, Nozick reconceived the question as being about the perspective of the coercee. Nozick’s idea is (very

C

roughly) that a person X coerces person Y to refrain from doing something A if and only if Y decides not to do A because X makes a proposal to Y (and Y believes that proposal) that doing A would be worse for Y than not doing A specifically because doing A would lead X to do something Y wants very much to avoid; and Y’s choice not to do A is at least partly the result of Y’s wanting to reduce the probability of that eventuality (Nozick 1969: 41–45; Anderson 2006: 11). Unlike earlier characterizations, Nozick’s analysis excludes any overt use of force. Instead, Nozick’s focus is on the psychology of the coercee – especially his/her determination of how to act in light of the coercer’s conditional threat. Coercion does not occur if the coercee (Y) does A – that is, if the attempt at coercion fails. Nozick’s account changed the discussion about coercion, but it raised a host of new questions. For example, Nozick speaks of proposals that embody “conditional threats.” Theoretically, however, proposals could involve either threats or offers. A conditional offer would focus on the coercer’s making the coercee’s situation better – not on some possible harm the coercer would visit on the individual should s/he fail to act in a certain way. Taking conditional offers into account, Nozick’s account might be modified to allow for the coercer to make an offer the coercee believed. This would lead to the following variant of Nozick’s idea: X coerces Y to refrain from doing something A if and only if Ydecides not to do A because X makes a proposal to Y (and Y believes it) that not doing A would be better for Y than doing A specifically because not doing A would lead X to do something Y wants very much to come about; and Y’s choice not to do A is at least partly the result of Y’s wanting to increase the probability of that happening. Separating conditional threats from conditional offers might be facilitated by a “baseline” relative to which proposals can be evaluated. For example, Nozick speaks of the usual course of things as a standard for separating threats from offers (Nozick 1969: 447). Proposals to elevate Y’s prospects above the baseline are conditional offers; proposals to lower his/her prospects to a point below the baseline are conditional threats. This approach raises the question of whether to focus on what will actually transpire or on what (ethically) should happen. Wertheimer, for example, argues for a moralized baseline that stresses what ought to happen in a given case. While this may be identical with the predicted outcome, it often will not be. In such cases, the moralized baseline must be used (Wertheimer 1987). Why should we be concerned with the notion of coercion? Philosophers and other theorists have pointed to

149

C

150

C

Collective Choice

a number of issues where this concept is central. While these issues are substantially intertwined, several key areas emerge where the theory of coercion is critical. First, coercion is intimately linked to liberty. At the outset of his groundbreaking article, Nozick tells us that his analysis of coercion is a prelude to a much longer work on the concept of liberty. He makes clear that his focus in that longer study will be on how we justify restricting someone’s freedom to act in a particular way. He will also be concerned with the question of why we need to justify such restriction (Nozick 1969: 440). Closely related to this is the issue of consent, for example in sexual relations. Should we question the validity of consent where the individuals in question have significantly different amounts of power and injustice is the basis of this power differential? Wertheimer argues that, in general, we should not. He claims that a legitimate theory of consent should be appropriate to people’s various situations (Wertheimer 2004: 191–192). Others will disagree. Second, coercion is critically linked to a number of different policy issues that regularly arise. Conditional threats in areas such as war, terrorism, domestic relations, and globalization can all turn on how we understand coercion – as can how we assign moral responsibility for dealing with such issues. Finally, third, when and under what circumstances is coercion justified? This is clearly related to questions in social and political philosophy, as well as issues of economic, legal, and interpersonal justice. It is also directly related to questions of global justice, to which we now turn. Nozick reframes the debate about coercion in terms of individuals coercing other individuals. The issue of what counts as an individual in this connection is somewhat fuzzy. If artificial “persons” are counted as individuals, as Nozick seems to intend, this raises the question of “structural coercion” – coercion of individuals or groups by larger entities such as governments, major corporations, or the dispersed “individuals” that make up economic and political systems – in virtue of the power differentials that exist between such entities and natural persons (McGregor 1988–1989: 24). Terrence Ball goes so far as to say that, although both Marxists and liberals use the word “coercion,” the concepts they have in mind are different (Ball 1978: 97). Such approaches are consistent with work suggesting Nozick’s emphasis on the coercee is misplaced: that we should focus, as in earlier discussions, on the coercer and the supposed immorality of using greater power to coerce an individual or group. This is consistent with the approach suggested by Philippe Diaz’ film “The End of Poverty.” Through the

medium of his film, Diaz strongly suggests that the incredible disparities of wealth between former colonial powers and the so-called industrial nations are the direct result of what amounted to the structural coercion of colonialism. He further implies that such structural coercion has continued long after former colonies have gained political independence from the coercing nations who controlled these colonies. In particular, he implicates the policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in this process, which has kept poor countries in a state of constant debt and forced them to “privatize” much of their wealth, which has then been purchased by multinational corporations based in the industrialized northern hemisphere. These issues are, of course, very controversial; but they suggest that Nozick’s reframing of the coercion debate, critical though it has been to work on the topic since 1969, may have framed that debate in a way that is detrimental to addressing issues of global justice.

Related Topics ▶ Consent ▶ Global Justice ▶ Globalization ▶ Nozick, Robert ▶ Terrorism

References Anderson S (February, 2006) Coercion. Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (on line), pp 1–46 Ball Terence (January, 1978) Two concepts of coercion. Theory Soc 5(1):97–112 Diaz P [Director] (2010) The end of poverty. Cinema Libre Studio McGregor J (1988–1989) Bargaining advantages and coercion in the market. Philos Res Arch 14:23–50 Robert N (1969) Coercion. In: Morgenbesser S, Suppes P, White M (eds) Philosophy, science, and method: essays in honor of Ernest Nagel. St. Martin’s Press, New York, pp 440–472 Wertheimer A (1987) Coercion. Princeton University Press, Princeton Wertheimer A (2004) Consent to sexual relations. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Collective Choice JUSTIN SCHWARTZ The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, IL, USA

Collective choice involves the aggregation of individual preferences by some method such as voting to produce a social outcome. Analysis shows that it involves surprisingly intransigent paradoxes that seem to challenge the

Collective Choice

possibility of fair democratic decision-making. Among the most important of these is the Arrow Impossibility Theorem, the inspiration for the now vast field of social choice theory. That the theorem is valid cannot be disputed. The main objective of this informal, nontechnical discussion is to explicate its content and evaluate its significance. The less than happy conclusion is that it states a deep problem for the theory of democratic politics that 60 years of intensive discussion has failed to dissipate. The theorem was discovered by Kenneth J. Arrow, a Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist. He showed that four minimal and obvious constraints seemingly necessary for a fair, democratic, and rational outcome cannot be satisfied by any method for aggregating preferences, such as majority rule, that generates a single ranking of preferences with a highest-ranked preference as the collective or social choice. The constraints can be stated as: (D) Nondictatorship: no individual’s preferences unilaterally determine the outcome; (P) the Weak Pareto Principle: if any outcome is unanimously preferred by all to another outcome, the more preferred outcome must be higher ranked; (I) the Indifference of Irrelevant Alternatives: the social ranking of any set of preferences depends only on the actors’ rankings of those preferences or “preference profiles,” as they are termed in the literature. Finally, there is (U) Unrestricted Domain: the method will give a unique social choice among any logically coherent set of actors’ preference profiles, however large, given that no choices or rankings are excluded from the start. Moreover, the actors’ preferences and aggregate social outcomes are (C) Collectively Rational: they respect transitivity, so that if choice A is preferred to B, and B to C, then A is preferred to C; and the outcomes are also “connected,” so for any pair of alternatives, one is either preferred or the ranking is indifferent between them. In Arrow’s presentation, (C) is part of (U). The Impossibility Theorem states that no social choice method involving at least three choices and a finite number of at least three individuals can satisfy all four constraints. It may produce no clear winner or rational outcome, generating paradox. To make the point vivid, a social choice method that satisfies (P), (I), and (U) [including (C)] can violate (D), that is, be a dictatorship. This startling result has teeth for at least three reasons. First, these are, plausibly, minimum, weak, and uncontroversial requirements for making collective choices in a fair and democratic way, so it is disturbing that they are mutually incompatible. Second, the Theorem is robust. It holds whether the actors are individuals or collective entities such as nations or organizations, and regardless of the specific method of aggregation, for

C

example, simple majority rule, super-majoritarianism, Australian balloting, etc. The result holds regardless of the content of the preferences. Egoism is not required; it infects aggregation of altruistic preferences. The preferences need not be consequentialist, nor based on a common scale of values. They may incorporate incommensurable values as long as they can be ranked. Third, the theorem suggests that there is no such thing as the “common good,” the “will of the people,” or even the judgment of the majority. The paradoxes hold for any aggregation of individual preferences with more than three actors, be it national, subnational, or global. The theorem therefore raises the specter that no method of aggregating preferences can be rational, fair, and democratic. Simple majority rule, for example, can be shown to violate (C) by generating “Condorcet cycling,” named for the eighteenth century French mathematician who anticipated Arrow by discovering this special case of the theorem. Say the UN, dealing with a Failed State, can vote to Negotiate (N), Sanction (S), or Occupy (O). Rationally, the outcome should be transitive: If the UN prefers N to S and S to O, it should prefer N to O. But the outcome might be that each alternative will win against the other by a majority of a different composition, so that there is no clear winner. Furthermore, applying majority rule to the individual orderings here may lead to intransitivity or cycling: N is preferred to S, and S to O, but O wins over N. This is irrational as well as inconclusive. The theorem shows that this result is general given the premises. Responses are of three broad sorts. One is to try to relax at least one of the premises. A second is to urge that the results are of limited import because they do not arise much as a matter of fact in real politics. The third is to argue that the theorem is misleading or irrelevant because Arrow’s framework fails to capture what democratic decision-making is about and how it works. Attempts to evade Arrovian problems by relaxing the requirements have focused on (I), Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives, (U), Unrestricted Domain, as well as (C), Collective Rationality, technically part of (U). The other two conditions face little if any challenge. Nondictatorship, (D), is as constitutive of fairness and democracy as anything could be. The Weak Pareto Principle, (P), insists no more than that unanimity be honored. What choice could count as collective and depart from that is hard to conceive. The least intuitive condition is (I), that social choice among some set of preferences depend only on individuals’ aggregated ranking of those preferences and on nothing else. If the irrelevant alternatives that go into another

151

C

152

C

Collective Choice

social choice are genuinely irrelevant to the one at hand, they should not affect the ranking among preferences under consideration. But (I) also imposes a less obvious condition, the rejection of interpersonal comparisons about how much individuals prefer a given alternative. If p is both of our second choices, it does not matter under (I) that for me p is abhorrent while for you it is merely distasteful. The social ranking depends on the ranking that each individual gives the outcomes and not on the relative intensity of preferences about those outcomes across individuals. The outcome turns wholly on ordinal rather than cardinal factors. This does not seem particularly minimal. Cardinal ranking requiring interpersonal comparison of this sort is necessary for classical utilitarianism. Such comparisons are fundamental to welfare and development economics – life expectancy and GDP per capita, for example, are cardinal (comparative) measures of welfare, and interpersonal comparison underlies the concept of diminishing marginal utility, for example, that a marginal increase of wealth means less to the rich than the poor, crucial to all these theories. Taking a major ethical theory and important collective choice method as well as several fundamental approaches to economics off the table ab initio seems like a strong rather than a weak starting point. Three reasons are widely offered for the ordinal, noncomparative approach. First, there is doubt whether interpersonal comparisons are possible or meaningful in the absence of any generally accepted tests for determining whether, for example, I care twice as much about an additional year of expected life or an extra dollar than you do. Some of this skepticism is based on a discredited empiricist view of scientific method as merely a way of testing factual hypotheses about observations. Much work has been done, notably by economist Amartya Sen, a Harvard Nobel Memorial Laureate, and others, to show that such comparisons or proxies for them are technically possible. Some major American philosophers and decision theorists like Allen Gibbard and Donald Davidson contend that such comparisons might or must be made on the basis of personal experience and selfevaluation of our own preferences. Neither, however, offers a metric or avoids contentious normative hypotheses. Even if the interpersonal information exists and such comparisons could be made in principle, how it could be practicably ascertained in a reliable way among many individuals and alternatives is not known. And social choice situations may create strategic incentives to misrepresent actual preferences and their intensities to obtain preferred outcomes. So Arrow’s (I) may indeed be the

weak, minimal, and best approach that it is claimed to be. John Rawls’ and Robert Nozick’s theories of justice are designed to respect it. More deeply, even if reliable information about comparative intensity were available, it is not clear that it should matter in social choice. If, for instance, I rank more expected income higher than a longer expected life, and you vice versa, it seems worse than irrelevant for social choice if I care a lot about the additional money and you only a bit about the additional time. Counting intensity of preference would allow passionate minorities to dominate decision-making without winning votes or changing minds in the many cases when a majority choice is possible but less intensely favored. Arguably, what should count in a vote is which choice is ranked higher, regardless of how intensely individuals care about lower-ranked choices. Interpersonal comparative information, if available, could certainly be used in ethical or economic analysis, but such considerations can only be persuasive, not decisive, in democratic social choice. The second “relaxation” target is (U), Unrestricted Domain, that no possible set of preferences should be excluded as long as they satisfy (C), Collective Rationality. Much effort has gone into domain restrictions. One, explored by Arrow, is illustrative of the ingenuity and barrenness of this sort of approach. It can be proven that majority decision will always be transitive if the range of allowed preference profiles is restricted to cases that are “single peaked,” that is, if some alternative cannot be anyone’s lowest choice, and the number of individuals is odd rather than even. This might arise in the Failed Nation problem posed above to the UN. Suppose that “hawks” who support occupation (O) and “conciliators” who support negotiation (N) cannot adopt the other’s position as their second choice. If the number of UN members is odd, then, sanctions (S), advocated by “pragmatists,” cannot be at the bottom of anyone’s ranking. The artificiality of this sort of result (and there are many more complicated results of this kind) is twofold. The single-peakedness solution works, mathematically, only with an odd number of individuals, and, politically, where consensus about alternatives is high. Such clever but ad hoc domain restrictions are impracticable, illiberal, and unmotivated. Merely avoiding Arrow Impossibility is no basis for excluding certain sets of preference profiles if people have them. Curiously, the philosopher Alfred MacKay, author of a major study of the theorem, advocates imposing single-peakedness on the grounds that the paradoxes are instances of an independently philosophically objectionable infinite regress and not merely as an

Collective Choice

unmotivated ad hoc way of avoiding paradox. But MacKay does not explain why it is democratically acceptable to impose a limited preference structure to avoid a philosophical problem that matters even less in real life than Arrow’s paradoxes themselves, nor does he explain how to implement such a limitation. A stronger rationale for domain restriction, one that people do care about, is that certain sets of preferences – for genocide or tyranny, say – are morally unworthy of consideration. The answer from a liberal democratic perspective is that there is no non-dictatorial way of saying which preferences are not to count and so should be excluded from any domain of choice. It is important to see that choice under Arrovian conditions does not require preferences be taken as given (“exogenously”) without critique or alteration, pace, for example, despite widespread claims to the contrary, like that of political scientist Jon Elster. Whether and how preferences may be subject to revision is different from whether aggregation should exclude any preferences ex ante because of their objectionable content. As long as we remain in Arrow’s democratic world rather than Clausewitz’s realm of armed conflict or even the world of a benevolent (or otherwise) dictator, the range of acceptable alternatives must be decided ex post and politically. A second sort of response to the Impossibility Theorem is that it is practically irrelevant as an empirical matter because divergence on outcomes is not, in the real world, great enough to generate Arrovian paradoxes. For example, Arrow notes that in a country like the USA with only two viable political parties, there may be only two choices. Or perhaps many of the proliferating profiles are marginal, such as a preference for a socialist party in the USA, or “mainstream” preferences are highly similar and relatively consensual. This says, in effect, that the world conveniently provides domain restrictions without anyone’s having to undemocratically eliminate alternatives in an ad hoc way. Where that is true, Arrow problems do not arise, but the assumption that the world is happily arranged to render them generally irrelevant is Panglossian. If the importance of Arrow’s results turns on the probability of paradox in fact transpiring, that unhappy outcome is greater than empirical optimists suppose. From a merely mathematical perspective, Professor Robert Abrams has shown that the probability of a paradoxical result, which is 6% among 216 possible preference profiles for the three-individual, threealternatives case, does not rise above 10% regardless of the number of individuals involved if there are only three

C

choices, but it fairly slowly approaches 100% as the number of choices approaches infinity. But 6–10% is a nontrivial probability of paradox – even a statistically significant one. Further, even if the world does restrict the domain de facto, one concern is whether it restricts them in a way that provides the requisite limitations. As singlepeakedness illustrates, these can be quite peculiar, and that may be the simplest instance. More deeply, systematic, widespread, and irreconcilable disagreement is a feature of any complex society, and more so in a world of diverse societies. Rich and poor nations differ about bearing the cost of externalities like pollution and the unequal distribution of wealth generated by capitalism. The world community disagrees about how to handle challenges posed by Failed States, and who belongs in that category. Religious, racial, gender, and not least, class divisions are pervasive within and among nations. Points of consensus, even when expressed through democratic politics, often turn on bases of conflict with other groups. (“We can agree that fundamentalists/infidels/extremists are to be defeated.”) These facts suggest that frequency of cycling and paradoxes may be greater than the cold mathematics suggest. The final sort of reply is that the Impossibility Theorem misses the point of democratic politics. Since there is little agreement on what that is, the objection comes in many flavors. Consider three. An austere version is that our expectations about politics are lower than Arrow requires. Perhaps we do not need a complete social ranking of all alternatives. What matters is that we have a method that reliably produces a winner. However, here the bite of the theorem is that, if such a method exists, it would require us to relax one of the four seemingly unavoidable conditions on social choice, which nonetheless remain compelling. It is not that just that the conclusion of the theorem is troublesome, but that its premises are more attractive than any alternative. A richer objection of this kind is Elster’s criticism that Arrow misconceives democracy by treating politics merely as a market like mechanism for aggregating exogenously given preferences. Inspired by the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Ju¨rgen Habermas, Elster, like Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, advocates a deliberative democracy in which decision-making should be directed to making fair policy decisions by means of public debate that improves our preferences. Perhaps so. It might be noted that it is trivially obvious and not in the least paternalistic to suggest that public discussion might change our preferences. Still, the appeal to deliberative democracy in this

153

C

154

C

Collective Choice

context misses the mark in two ways. First, as noted, nothing in Arrow excludes revision of preferences by public critique. Exogeneity of preference is not a premise in the Impossibility Theorem. Second, aggregation of the revised preferences is still required to reach a social choice. Since Elster does not challenge Arrow’s premises, his deliberative democracy will face Arrow’s paradoxes when it comes time for a vote. A more radical critique in a similar spirit, offered by the philosopher Elizabeth Andersen and legal academic Richard Pildes, does challenge the premises, specifically Collective Rationality. They maintain that politics expresses an understanding of vital choices based on incommensurable values. Inconsistencies are not “irrational” as long as the ultimate choice among incommensurable values is “not clearly inferior” to the alternatives. Cycling may serve important democratic ends by affirming the independent worth of incommensurable values that cannot all be realized at once. Inconsistent rankings may rationally reflect conflicting values generated by different norms governing multiple social roles that individuals occupy. The inability to attain a single complete consistent social choice ranking by a method that aggregates individual preferences is a virtue, not a paradoxical vice. This thick description of a messy but vital political world is a refreshing contrast to the arid mathematical simplification of social choice theory. Nonetheless, this strategy seems to have subtly changed the subject in making a virtue of necessity. The “rationality” of inconsistent choices involves a comparative judgment of relative worth (“not clearly inferior”) that presupposes the existence of some common evaluative scale or at least a ranking that undermines a claim of radical incommensurability. The cycling Anderson and Pildes defend as functional derives from the very Arrovian assumptions they purport to reject. Moreover, while cycling may be functional for democracy when conflicting interests and demands preclude a determinate choice that does not mean that it is rational. To explain individual inconsistencies in preference due to competing demands of conflicting social roles is not to demonstrate their rationality, but to show how they arise. In the end, this approach offers a less than fully compelling persuasive redefinition of Arrow’s paradoxes as “rational” because they may be the best that can be attained in the circumstances. Collective choice, then, is still haunted by the specter of the Impossibility Theorem and similar social choice theoretic results, like Sen’s Impossibility of a Paretan Liberal. Decades of attempts to circumvent, minimize, or dismiss these results have failed. The prospects for

overcoming them seem dim. If the viability of democracy depended on showing that it could in principle always produce stable and rational results, it would be in trouble. Fortunately democracy, at least in the developed countries, is less debatable and more firmly rooted than any critique of it. No one is going to give it up because of the Arrow theorem. But the irrefrangibility of Arrovian paradox discourages complacency insofar as we wish to defend and understand it.

Related Topics

▶ Arendt, Hannah ▶ Collective Decision Problem ▶ Common Good ▶ Condorcet, N. Marquis de ▶ Consensus/Justification ▶ Democracy, Deliberative ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Genocide ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ Liberalism ▶ Nozick, Robert ▶ Pareto Optimality ▶ Rawls, John

References Abrams R (1980) Foundations of political analysis: an introduction to the theory of collective choice. Columbia University Press, New York Arrow KJ (1963) Social choice and individual values, 2nd edn. Yale University Press, New Haven (1st ed. 1951. Wiley, New York) Bonner J (1986) Politics, economics, and welfare: an elementary introduction to social choice. Wheatsheaf, Brighton Copp D, Hampton J, Roemer JE (eds) (1993) The idea of democracy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (contains, inter alia, contributions by C. Sunstein) Elster J, Hylland A (eds) (1986) Foundations of social choice theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (contains contributions by J. Elster, D. Davidson, and A. Gibbard) MacKay AF (1980) Arrow’s theorem: the paradox of social choice. A case study in the philosophy of economics. Yale University Press, New Haven Mill JS (1962) On liberty. In: Warnock M (ed) Utilitarianism (On liberty, essay on Bentham, together with selected writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin). Meridian, New York Pildes RH, Anderson ES (1990) Slinging arrows at democracy: social choice theory, value pluralism, and democratic politics. Colum L Rev 90:2121–2214 Sen AK (1970a) Collective choice and individual welfare. North-Holland, Amsterdam Sen AK (1970b) The impossibility of a paretian liberal. J Polit Econ 78:152–157 Sen AK (1977) Social choice theory: a re-examination. Econometrica 45:53–89

Collective Decision Problem

Collective Decision Problem BONGRAE SEOK Department of Humanities/Philosophy, Alvernia University, Reading, PA, USA

A collective decision is the decision made by a group of individuals to regulate their group activities. Usually collective actions are not formed by the simple summation of individual actions. Several psychologists report that people work more effectively when they work together than when they worked alone (social facilitation), but collective interaction does not always generate positive outcomes. In many group activities, participants usually perform poorly if they are not observed or not individually evaluated by others (social loafing). Specifically, when a group of individuals participate in a decision-making process, they tend to exhibit peculiar behavioral patterns that negatively affect the future success of their decisions. For example, the individual members of a group tend to develop more extreme, riskier, bolder, or more conservative views when they make decisions as a group than they decide individually (group polarization). They tend to favor or support the opinions of their close friends and discount the beliefs of strangers (ingroup bias), and to ignore or downgrade the difference of views presented by less known members (outgroup homogeneity or stereotype). They also develop, consciously or unconsciously, a group atmosphere that suppresses rational problem solving processes. Irving Janis (1972/1982) called this degrading tendency “groupthink.” Groupthink occurs when a group of individuals make faulty decisions under various pressures that encourage hasty, limited, and biased thoughts. Typical symptoms of groupthink are: illusion of vulnerability (the excessive optimism about the future success based on the blind trust of their status quo), collective rationalization (the ignorance of reasonable warnings and negative feedbacks), belief in inherent morality (the extreme self-righteousness that disregards negative consequences and alternative viewpoints), stereotyped views of outgroups (the creation of unrealistic or overly negative images of enemy), direct pressure on dissenters (the discouragement of criticisms and dissenting views), self-censorship (the pressure against any argument that challenges the perceived group consensus), self-appointed mindguards (the guard against any possible threat to group’s cohesiveness). Not every group becomes a victim of groupthink. Groups that are highly cohesive, isolated from outside

C

opinions, under considerable pressure to make important decisions, and have more homogeneous membership tend to engage in groupthink. Under these conditions, a group seeks to make unanimous decisions, to maintain the unity and cohesiveness, and to protect the members from possible challenges and, at the same time, to discourage the considerations of alternative viewpoints and negative consequences of their decisions. The result is careless, myopic, and irrational decisions that are less likely to succeed. In the context of corrective justice and legal decision making, groupthink poses a formidable challenge. Even though groupthink is preventable, lawyers and jurors are constantly pressured by various conditions of groupthink. In the context of distributive justice, faulty collective decisions affect the fair and equal distribution and the optimal use of social resources. In their decisions, policy makers and political leaders are influenced by ingroup biases and outgroup stereotypes. To avoid these pitfalls of collective decision making, specifically to prevent the persistent pressure of group think, several recommendations are proposed. For a rational and successful decision, it is very important for a group to avoid any type of isolation from outside opinions, comments, and criticisms. Maintaining open group atmosphere and inviting alternative viewpoints are the essential preventive measures. In addition to these, each member of a group needs to play the roles of critical evaluator and devil’s advocate to develop critical and alternative views to given issues. If possible, outside experts can be invited to comment on group decision process to reconsider the decision from different angles. Some justice theorists claim that the pitfalls of groupthink are more likely visible in the narrow and confined domains of nationalism than in the open impartiality of cosmopolitanism. To rectify the limitations of a theory of distributive justice that may favor compatriot partiality based on nationalistic considerations, one may need to bring in the global perspective and open and reciprocal viewpoints.

Related Topics

▶ Collective Choice ▶ Collective Identity ▶ Collective Responsibility ▶ Composition, Fallacy of ▶ Partiality

References Ahlfinger NR, Esser JK (2001) Testing the groupthink model: effects of promotional leadership and conformity predisposition. Soc Behav Pers Int J 29:31–42 Harkins S (1987) Social loafing and social facilitation. J Exp Psychol 23:1–18

155

C

156

C

Collective Identity

Janis IL (1972/1982) Victims of groupthink: a psychological study of foreign policy decisions and fiascoes. Houghton Mifflin, Boston Judd CM, Park B (1988) Out-group homogeneity. J Pers Soc Psychol 54:778–788 Linville PW, Fisher GW, Salovey P (1989) Perceived distribution of the characteristics of in-group and out-group members. J Pers Soc Psychol 57:165–188 Moorhead G, Neck CP, West MS (1998) The tendency toward defective decision making within self-managing teams: the relevance of groupthink for the 21st century. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 73:327–351 Olson ML Jr (1965/1971) The logic of collective action: public goods and the theory of groups. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA t’Hart P (1994) Groupthink in government: a study of small groups and policy failure. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore Turner ME, Pratkanis AR (1998) Twenty-five years of groupthink theory and research: lessons from the evaluation of a theory. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 73:105–115

Collective Identity MARGARET A. MCLAREN Department of Philosophy, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL, USA

Collective identity refers to an individual identifying with a group in such a way that the group identification is significant for the person’s individual identity. Identity is usually attributed to individuals, either in terms of personal identity, which in Anglo-American philosophical debates has often boiled down to continuity over time, or in terms of particular identity, which in philosophy, and in particular in moral psychology, has usually been discussed as those features that make a person unique, that is, what differentiates one person from another, such as character traits. These two types of individual identity differ from social identity, which refers to one’s membership in a social group. Collective or group identity recognizes an interconnection between individual and social identity. In fact, collective identity often is viewed as in conflict with individualism, and therefore with the ideas of individual autonomy that follow from it. This conflict stems from differing assumptions about the ontological priority of the individual vs. the ontological priority of the group. In the former case, the assumption is that individuals are separate from and prior to the groups and social contexts of which they are a part. In the latter case, individuals are seen to arise from the social context, including the social groups to which they belong. The social groups with which individuals identify are often cultural or

religious, but can also be ethnic, racial, sex, gender, or sexuality based. The idea of collective identity is predicated upon the importance of the group or collective. Collective identity has affinities with multiculturalism, group rights, identity politics, relational identity, and communal identity. It might be helpful to distinguish at least three senses of collective identity: an idea of the self as connected to immediate others in one’s family or community (relational identity); the idea of one’s self as a member of a social group where others in the social group share particular features, histories, and ways of life (group identity); and, finally, the self as a member of a social group that shares particular interests or common goals, such as a labor union (associational/interest group identity). In each case, individuals recognize themselves as part of a larger group and derive their identity, at least in part, from their association with that group. These senses of collective identity are not mutually exclusive; some sense of relational identity is implicit in group identity because group identity requires that one think of one’s relationships to others as significant for their own identity, that is, each person views their membership in a group as constitutive of who they are, and are linked to others in the group because of this. In terms of relational identity, collective identity may mean having an enlarged conception of the self that includes immediate and extended family members. For instance, in Bali, extended family lives together and the rituals of daily life include offerings to ancestors. One is first and foremost a member of a family, not an individual; both physical space (the family compound) and spiritual and social life are organized around the family, rather than the individual. Similarly, communal identity involves a conception of self significantly connected to the larger community. Communities may be neighborhoods, tribes, ethnic groups, religious groups, social membership in oppressed groups, interest groups, or nation-states. In each case, what connects the group may differ – mere locality in the case of neighborhoods; shared language, history, culture, and spiritual beliefs in the case of tribes; shared language, culture, and history in the case of ethnic groups; shared beliefs and or practices in the case of religious groups; a similar relationship to the dominant culture in the case of members of oppressed groups; shared interests in the case of interest groups; and a shared history and political culture in the case of nation-states. Collective identity in most of these cases (with the exception of neighborhoods) is predicated upon the recognition of the importance of group membership to an individual. Group membership plays a role in the ways of life one may find meaningful and acceptable, and provides a sense of shared identity with other group members.

Collective Identity

Political philosopher Iris Marion Young defines a social group as follows: “A social group is a collective of persons differentiated from at least one other group by cultural forms, practices or way of life. Members of a group have a specific affinity with one another because of their similar experience or way of life which prompts them to associate with one another more than with those identified with the group, or in a different way.” (Young 1990) Group membership may also limit one’s access to opportunities, especially if those opportunities are structured in such a way as to privilege majority or dominant groups. Thus, in contemporary political and social theory, discussions of collective identity and group membership often lead to discussions of group rights. Collective identity can be politically neutral, for example, an Australian aboriginal’s connection to the land and to her community. But when the land is threatened those with similar connections to the land may be mobilized to take action, engaging in political solidarity to influence legislative or policy decisions. In general, laws favor an individualist conception of the self, rather than a collective one, and often favor the majority, rather than the minority. Take the case of Francophone Quebec: the issue of preserving Francophone culture and language became so contested that Quebec attempted to secede from Canada in order not to be assimilated into the dominant English-speaking society. When collective identity revolves around language and cultural practices, one’s individual sense of self is intimately tied to the perpetuation of social, cultural, and linguistic practices. For instance, one’s identity as a Navajo depends partly on participating in the cultural practices linked to this identity, including speaking the language. However, maintaining a language is a social, not an individual practice. So, an individual can only realize her/his identity as, e.g., Navajo by participating in social practices; cultural meanings inform individual meanings. However, critics argue that this inextricable link between the collective/group and individual may constrain the freedom of individuals to choose to leave a culture or social group. While others argue that supporting group rights to preserve or maintain culture amounts to supporting the status quo by conserving current social norms and practices, and errs by holding an unrealistically static view of culture. However, acknowledging collective identity can be significant for social justice. Collective identity or group identification coalesces around difference. Group members identify with one another because of their shared language, culture, religion, or oppressive situation, in contrast to the dominant or majority group. The dominant majority group

C

exercises political control either explicitly through laws and policies that disadvantage minorities or implicitly through the expectation of cultural assimilation, or representation of the dominant culture as hegemonic. Members of underrepresented social groups may make claims on the dominant culture for laws, policies, and practices that treat them fairly and recognize and honor them. The mobilization of collective identity for political goals is known as identity politics. Identity politics refers to members of oppressed groups aligning with other members of that group in political solidarity. Oppressed social groups may make various types of claims: groups that have been subject to conquest or colonized (such as Native Americans or Australian Aboriginals) may argue for self- government, land rights, autonomy in public institutions in order to maintain their culture and language; immigrant ethnic groups may promote bilingual education, and celebration of multiculturalism; oppressed groups such as racial minorities, women, and gays and lesbians may advocate for non-discriminatory (non-racist, nonsexist, non-heterosexist) laws and policies. Furthermore, all of these groups may also press for representation in the public domain, both political representation and positive images in media. Identity politics mobilizes group members around their identity as a member of a particular social group in order to receive fair treatment; often fairness requires that group identity be affirmed and recognized, and that past injustices be redressed. In a globalized, multicultural, multiethnic world, collective identity is important for global justice.

Related Topics ▶ Agency, Collective ▶ Group Rights ▶ Multiculturalism

References Kymlicka W (1995) Multicultural citizenship. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kymlicka W (2001) Politics in the vernacular: nationalism, multiculturalism and citizenship. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kymlicka W (2009) Categorizing groups? Categorizing states: theorizing minority rights in a world of deep diversity. Ethics Int Aff 23:371–389 May S (2008) Language and minority rights: ethnicity, nationalism and the politics of language. Routledge, New York McDonough K, Feinberg W (eds) (2003) Citizenship and education in liberal-democratic societies: teaching for cosmopolitan values and collective identities. Oxford University Press, Oxford Shapiro I, Kymlicka W (eds) (1997) Ethnicity and group rights, NOMOS 39. New York University Press, New York Taylor C (1992) The politics of recognition. In: Gutmann A (ed) Multiculturalism and the ‘politics of recognition’. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 25–73

157

C

158

C

Collective Responsibility

Young IM (1990) Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton University Press, Princeton Young IM (2000) Inclusion and democracy. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Collective Responsibility STEPHEN L. ESQUITH Residential College in Arts and Humanities, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

New Problems and New Questions Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, debates over the coherence and usefulness of the concept of collective responsibility for the Nazi Holocaust, slavery, and legalized racial discrimination in the United States, and apartheid in South Africa focused on three closely related issues. Critics argued that holding citizens collectively responsible for the unjust actions of their government, their political parties, their employers, their trading partners, or their ancestors presupposes a dubious conception of group identity and agency. Groups do not act intentionally in the same way that individuals do, and therefore they cannot be held responsible in the same way that individuals can be. Furthermore, from a moral point of view, some critics contended that collective responsibility is incompatible with the basic relationship between responsibility and individual freedom. If responsibility depends upon individual freedom, then it is hard to make sense of a form of responsibility that does not presuppose voluntary action and individual intention. Thirdly, it still may be necessary to distribute moral responsibility among members of responsible collectivities, and the concept of collective responsibility makes it extremely difficult to do this fairly. As globalization has accelerated, as public interest in global justice has grown, and as the idea of human rights has gained greater currency among philosophers and development practitioners, these controversies have shifted and the concept of collective responsibility has become more complex and arguably more defensible. Normative and metaphysical questions remain. However, the questions have become less skeptical, and the arguments for applying the concept of collective responsibility (and its cognates, shared and institutional responsibility) to concrete problems of global injustice such as immigration, child labor and prostitution, genocide, poverty, health care, climate change, and global warming have become more plausible.

Among the new metaphysical questions that have arisen, one is whether a nation or a state is the most appropriate collectivity to which responsibility for global injustice can and ought to be attributed. On its face, a state appears to have a more tangible and discrete identity than a nation. On the other hand, if collective responsibility depends upon collective identity, then national cultural identity may be a stronger bond than legal membership within a state. Alternatively, collective responsibility for global injustice may belong to corporations, multilateral organizations, or other institutions that are neither states nor nations. The issue is not whether collective responsibility is consistent with our assumptions about agency and identity, but rather which collectivity can and ought to be held responsible for problems such as these? Alongside this debate over the nature of the collectivity is the question of how responsibility for global injustice differs from liability and guilt. This question has been explored from various legal, moral, and political perspectives, each one yielding somewhat different results. There are two ways of interpreting this question. If responsibility is interpreted in a backward-looking sense (i.e., Who or what caused or otherwise contributed to global injustice?), then some answers are more plausible than others. If it is interpreted in a forward-looking sense (i.e., Who or what can and should remedy global injustice?), then other answers are more appropriate. From a backward-looking perspective, we are interested in whether there was a collectivity that was implicated in causing the harm and should have foreseen the injustice. From a forward-looking perspective, we are interested in whether there is a collectivity that has the resources and capacity to ameliorate the harm done without creating an equal or greater injustice at the same time.

Which Collectivities? Which collective entities can and should be held responsible for global injustice? Some have argued that nations and states are the prime suspects. They contribute, by omission and commission, to global injustices through the wars they wage at home and abroad, the import duties they impose, and the domestic crop subsidies they provide. They often, although not always, have the capacity to remedy the resulting and foreseeable unjust situations. These arguments appear to be easier to make about states that typically have a monopoly over military force and political power, but a counterargument can be made that nations, whether they control state power or not, are more culturally distinct and persist longer over time than political regimes. National identity is a much stronger form of allegiance than state citizenship, and it is this cultural

Collective Responsibility

identity that enables nations to act and thereby implicate themselves as collectivities from one generation to the next than states. In contrast, others believe that corporations, nongovernmental organizations, and multilateral institutions are the primary causal agents who skew the terms of international cooperation and trade, and who undermine legitimate governments in poorer countries. According to this view, to the extent that richer states and their citizens support these organizations and institutions, they share in the responsibility for the injustices that result. These organizations and institutions may be more collectively responsible because they have often benefited more tangibly than states, although not always. Which of these collective entities is primarily responsible for global injustice? In part, it depends on whether one is using responsibility in a backward-looking or forward-looking sense, and it depends upon the particular case at hand. From a backward-looking perspective, sometimes transnational corporations who have been involved in extracting natural resources from poor countries have damaged the traditional culture of a poor country and made it even more difficult for that country to provide for itself and for its government to operate without corruption. They and those who have profited from their policies ought to be held responsible. Sometimes in the name of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, states and coalitions of states have caused similar harm. They and those who have empowered them ought to be held responsible. In addition to these actions, international rules of trade and regulatory practices, with the complicity of states and non-state institutions, can have similar long-term cumulative effects. On the other hand, from a forward-looking perspective, it may be wiser and more effective to hold responsible those states and non-state institutions who have the capacity to remedy past and continuing wrongs such as these, even if they are not the sole or even the most directly connected parties to the injustice.

What Responsibilities? Collective responsibility for global injustice falls into three overlapping general categories. The first is moral collective responsibility. This is both backward- and forwardlooking, and it can apply to historical injustices as well as contemporary injustices. For example, one local community group has benefited unjustly from the appropriation of land and property from another group. The appropriating community may be morally blameworthy for not compensating the heirs of the original victims of the injustice. As a moral responsibility, the duty to compensate the rightful heirs may be a perfect duty that entails

C

legal obligations or, because of the circumstances, it may be an imperfect moral duty that does not entail any legally binding obligation. It depends on the particular case. There are two types of legal collective responsibilities for global injustice. One is liability, and the case of historical injustice described in the preceding paragraph is an example. Collective liability in this sense presupposes that a collectivity could have foreseen the harm done, acted freely, and failed to avoid harming the other group. This type of legal collective responsibility is modeled on individual tort liability, and cost-effectiveness may be the best test of legal liability. A second type of legal collective responsibility is more like individual guilt or culpability. In this case the harm is closer to intentional wrongdoing than unintentional but still foreseeable harm. The collective responsibility of states for crimes of war and crimes against humanity, even crimes perpetrated by former regimes, falls into this second category. This type of legal culpability also can extend to non-state organizations and institutions who have been accomplices to the original crimes and whose members have continued to benefit by not admitting guilt or rectifying the damage done. The legal responses to these global injustices include capital punishment, imprisonment, lustration, deportation, fines, and community service. The third category of collective responsibility is political. What are the political responsibilities of collectivities and their members for global injustice? That is to say, what obligations do they have to organize and participate in political processes designed to achieve reconciliation and compromise rather than compensation or punishment? Truth and reconciliation commissions are the most familiar alternative methods for meeting this political collective responsibility, and they are typically driven by the state which offers incentives such as amnesty or reduced punishment for participation. Other less common local practices that bring survivors together with perpetrators for extended discussions are facilitated by the state but have a less formal structure.

Which Global Injustices? The meaning of collective responsibility depends upon how we construe global injustice as well as which collectivities we have in mind and what responsibilities are most pertinent to the actions or inactions of these collectivities. What counts as a global injustice as opposed to undeserved tragic suffering depends upon several considerations. One is that global injustices are violations of basic human rights, and basic human rights are the universal claims that individuals have to the fulfillment of basic human needs, where one draws the line between

159

C

160

C

Collective Responsibility

basic needs, other needs, and mere preferences is a matter of some disagreement. Which human rights are global and which ones are rights are more appropriately claimed against domestic authorities, and entities may depend upon the kind of right in question but also the institutions that are capable of responding to claims of justice. Against this complex background of established and contested basic human rights, several particular problems stand out as possible cases of global injustice: the mistreatment of immigrants, the commission of genocide and similar international human rights violations, the desperate plight of impoverished workers, women, and children, and the pollution and degradation of the natural environment. It is in response to these three problems that many of the arguments for collective responsibility for global injustice have been made. The unjust treatment of immigrants can be divided into two parts. The first is injustice in the process of immigration. That is, who is permitted into the immigrant-receiving country and how they are treated in the process of immigration. Given the basic human rights to freedom of movement and freedom of association, an argument can be made for the prima facie right to enter whichever country one chooses. Denials of this right to enter, then, would be forms of global injustice for which the denying state would be responsible. The second part of this global injustice would consist of unjust treatment once inside the immigrant-receiving country. Here, injustice can take the form of the denial of basic political and social rights, including access to public services, education, and health care. It can also take the form of the violation of basic civil rights to a fair trial and legal representation. Genocide and other crimes against humanity are probably the least contested violations of basic human rights in principle. Women and children are particularly vulnerable to these global injustices in the form of genocidal rape and abuse, and the abduction of children as soldiers and prostitutes. In practice, legally convicting those accused of these global injustices through international tribunals, whether injustices are perpetrated against fellow citizens or others, remains a challenging task. Sometimes the sheer number of defendants can be an obstacle, and then alternative political methods of reconciliation and compromise can be created. Poverty in general, like famine in particular, is not purely an act of nature. Both are also functions of social decisions and institutions that leave individuals unable to secure the available resources that are available. Just as famine is not the result of the absence of food but rather the inability of the poor to purchase the available food,

poverty is partly a function of the poor being unable to afford basic goods and services at the existing prices. When impoverished children and adults (mainly women) cannot raise, make, or purchase what they need to live a minimally decent life, others who can provide assistance to them arguably have a collective responsibility to provide it. For some who view freedom from poverty as a basic human right, those who fail to meet the correlative collective responsibility to provide adequate resources to the poor violate a perfect moral duty and also a legal duty under international humanitarian law. Others see this as a moral failing, but not a matter of legal liability or culpability because it is not feasible to hold anyone accountable who fails to meet this collective responsibility. Grave health disparities and environmental problems are closely associated with poverty. For example, obesity and malnutrition disproportionately affect poorer populations within more developed countries who live in “food deserts” as well as poorer countries as a whole. While some arguments have been made for distributing collective responsibilities for conditions such as these to principles of fairness (e.g., auctioning permits to emit greenhouse gases), others prefer a very different ethics of care. This alternative ethic of care views health and a healthy sustainable environment as constitutive parts of human wellbeing, not as means to some other end. Since everyone depends upon others to care for them during some periods of their life and they depend upon the environment as a global commons, the responsibilities for care should not be divided contractually. They define non-reciprocal and future-oriented shared responsibilities.

Other Problems and Questions Not all collective responsibilities for global injustices can be attributed to perpetrators and their willing or unwitting accomplices. There are many who stand outside the causal chain of events, no matter how far back we go or how extensive we take this chain to be. Nonetheless, these bystanders still may benefit from global injustice. For example, they may benefit indirectly from a dam and irrigation system that has flooded the traditional grazing lands of others because of the new access they have to electricity. To what extent are bystanders with limited knowledge of the harm that has been done and limited opportunities to foresee it share responsibility for the hardships and losses of those who have been displaced? Are they innocent bystanders, or should some of the benefits that they receive from development projects such as these go to those who have been displaced? Harm done through displacement may be serious enough to

Colonialism

warrant a collective response from this large class of bystanders, not just from those who knew full well what was going to happen to the displaced poor and benefited handsomely. Another question involves the problem of motivating collectivities, especially bystanders, to meet their responsibilities when there are no mechanisms for enforcement. In cases of legal liability and culpability, the incentives are fairly clear, which is not to say that they are always adequate from a motivational perspective. However, in cases of imperfect moral duties and political collective responsibility, a different strategy is needed to encourage responsible collective action. One possibility is to appeal to the value of impartiality. Just as there is an imperfect logic of collective action, there may also be a logic of collective responsibility. If we do not take collective responsibility for global injustices, others also may not when a similar responsibility falls to them. This uncertainty may prompt us to be more collectively responsible. This logic is more likely where parties know and trust each other. The motivational challenge for a concept of collective responsibility for global injustice is to look beyond those we are most connected to and imagine what outsiders might think. How does one teach this more inclusive impartiality? One approach is to expand on the allegories of rescue such as the passerby and the drowning child that philosophers have used to prompt individual action. Narratives of collective shared responsibility directed at bystanders who have benefited from global injustices that occur beyond their territorial borders may prompt greater recognition of their roles in the displacement and disenfranchisement of the poor.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Collective ▶ Basic Needs ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Genocide ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Miller, David ▶ Miller, Richard ▶ O’Neill, Onora ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Shue, Henry ▶ Truth Commissions ▶ War Crimes

C

161

References Barry C, Pogge TW (eds) (2005) Global institutions and responsibilities. Blackwell, Cambridge Bose P, Drydyk J, Penz P (2010) Displacement and development: ethics and responsibilities. Cambridge University Press, New York Carens JH (2000) Culture, citizenship, and community: a contextual exploration of justice as evenhandedness. Oxford University Press, New York Cobban H (2007) Amnesty after atrocity? Healing nations after genocide and war crimes. Paradigm, Boulder Erskine T (ed) (2003) Can institutions have responsibilities? Palgrave MacMillan, New York Esquith SL (2010) The political responsibilities of everyday bystanders. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park Evans G (2008) The responsibility to protect: ending mass atrocity crimes once and for all. Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC Goodin RE (1992) Motivating political morality. Blackwell, Cambridge Jamieson D (2008) Ethics and the environment: an introduction. Cambridge University Press, New York Kuper A (ed) (2005) Global responsibilities: who must deliver on human rights? Routledge, New York Miller D (2007) National responsibility and global justice. Oxford University Press, New York O’Neill O (2000) The bounds of justice. Cambridge University Press, New York Pogge TW (ed) (2007) Freedom from poverty as a human right. Oxford University Press, New York Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Shue H (1996) Basic rights, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton Smiley M (2005) Collective responsibility. In: Zalta EN (ed) Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/collective-responsibility/

Colonialism TRACEY NICHOLLS Department of Philosophy, Lewis University, Romeoville, IL, USA

Colonialism is a project of territorial expansion by powerful states that typically involves resettlement into the newly claimed lands of the colonizing state’s people and the displacement, if not eradication, of the people who had previously lived there. It is not the only basis of justice claims made by and to states, but colonial displacement and eradication remain a very real source of lingering sentiments of injustice. Colonialism is sometimes distinguished into two types: the settler colonialism defined above, and resource colonialism, in which the dominating nation foregoes settlement in favor of extraction of the colony’s wealth. Alternatively, this control over a subordinated nation’s wealth-accumulation capacities – also referred to as indirect colonialism – may be

C

162

C

Colonialism

presented as the set of relations distinguishing imperialism from colonialism. While colonialism has existed throughout recorded history, it is the particular histories of European colonialism that pose the challenges with which contemporary global justice debates are concerned. Even within the rubric of European colonialism, however, it is important to recognize the different colonizing processes and outcomes each European nation instituted in different parts of the world. Colonial projects proceeded differently depending on such contingencies as the wealth and technological development of the colonizing nation in question (in postcolonial scholarship, “the metropolis”), the political commitments it embraced in the course of its transition out of empire, and the particular geographical realities of the colony in question. Britain, for instance, colonized in quite different ways than did Belgium. And the liberal democratic commitments of the northern European nations – Britain, the Netherlands, and to some extent, France – tended to encourage a more progressive, cooperative set of responses to decolonization demands than those offered by southern European nations like Spain and Portugal. Finally, colonialism’s enduring effects manifest themselves differently in Africa, the socalled Orient, the Caribbean and the Americas, the South Pacific, and the “near colonies” that English conquest transformed into the United Kingdom. From the moment of Norman Conquest of England in the eleventh century, at a time when the borders of European states were still in flux, Britain was already constituting itself through colonization of its nearest neighbors: Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. For the most part, these assertions of control were not accompanied by significant resettlement of the English population into the conquered territories – although the English did manage to complicate subsequent Irish struggles for national sovereignty through a forced settlement of Scots into Northern Ireland – so one might argue that this expansion is better classified as occupation. Colonial expansion as both a settlement of English subjects and a process of resource extraction did not begin in earnest until the early seventeenth century, when Britain gained footholds in North America and the Caribbean. Expansion of the British Empire continued into the South Pacific, India, China, and South Africa, but only in Australia and New Zealand did it result in significant settler populations. British advocates of empire justified its aggressive and repressive exploitation of conquered, colonized territories as a civilizing mission, the duty to instruct and enlighten “barbarians” that is communicated in Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem “The White Man’s Burden.”

Despite its historic failure to maintain control over its American colony and its persistent inability to suppress Irish revolutionary movements, Britain succeeded in keeping most of its disparate elements of empire together until the end of World War I. From that point on, however, various colonial possessions began to use Britain’s stated liberal commitments – equality, human dignity, self-determination – as the basis for their demands for independence. For India and Ireland, these sovereignty movements were bloody conflicts, but in most cases, Britain’s relinquishing of control over its colonial possessions has been marked by peaceful negotiations, conducted with an attitude of paternalistic generosity and in a context of diminishing British influence in the world, as was the case when Hong Kong was finally “handed back” to China. In such cases – imperial occupation without a significant resettlement of Britons and concomitant displacement of indigenous peoples – justice was seen to be done in the act of granting, or conceding, independence (or Chinese sovereignty, in the case of Hong Kong), although residual claims that Britain owes its former colonies a special compensatory obligation of, say, development aid or right of immigration have also been made. The more docile “settler” colonies – Australia, Canada, and New Zealand – benefitted from a slow process of greater legislative autonomy granted in increments to their domestic governing institutions and are now independent nations in most senses, even as they retain the notion of the British Queen as nominal head of state. In these former colonies, the demands for justice articulated by colonized indigenous communities have essentially been transferred to the local, putatively postcolonial, governments. The remaining near colonies, Wales and Scotland, on the other hand, have nurtured sovereignty movements whose justice claims take the form of demands for greater respect of their cultural distinctiveness and greater latitude in legislating for themselves, while still remaining part of Britain. The other great colonizing power of Europe, France, asserted control over territories in many of the same parts of the world and profited from its colonial adventures to a similar extent, but found that confronting its colonies’ demands for justice was much more a matter of revolutionary violence than bureaucratic negotiation. Its earliest settlements in the Americas were a mixed success: the Canadian colony of New France was lost to Britain as spoils of war, thereby cutting off its lucrative trade in animal pelts, but the Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue provided adequate compensation to the revenue-hungry empire in the form of sugar wealth. Unfortunately for France’s imperial ambitions, the ideals of the French

Colonialism

Revolution – liberte´, egalite´, et fraternite´ – were taken far more seriously by the slaves of Saint Domingue than the French had anticipated. The “rights of man” declared to be in force throughout France proved to be a rallying cry during the 13-year long colonial uprising that led to the formation in 1804 of Haiti, the first independent black republic in the Americas. Loss of sugar revenues and the cost of unsuccessful attempts to suppress the Haitian Revolution forced the sale of Louisiana to the United States. While the French retained control over their Caribbean colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe, they never provided the ostentatious wealth that Saint Domingue had poured into French coffers. Turning to Africa and South East Asia after the Napoleonic interruption, France began again to build a colonial presence marked by both settlement and the exploitation of resources. Again, the republican sentiments it articulated for domestic consumption were taken to heart by its colonies, most notably and bloodily in the Algerian War for independence that marked the 1950s. At the same time France was brutally repressing early Algerian demands for autonomy, it was retreating from its colonial role in Indochina (Vietnam) by relinquishing the mediating role between pro-Western and revolutionary communist factions to the United States. Although decolonizing was a bloodier process for France than for Britain, in both cases, demands for justice from the colonized states led to a decline in the ability of both nations to influence world affairs. Today, France has normalized its remaining possessions – among them the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe – as overseas de´partements (provinces) in an arrangement similar to Britain’s continuing inclusion of Wales and Scotland in its union. Additionally, both nations direct associations of their former colonies, the British Commonwealth and la Francophonie, that coordinate matters of trade and diplomacy, and feature sports competitions and other cultural events. Spain and Portugal, the other two nations that played a major role in the colonization of the Americas, shaped the colonial legacy of Central and South America. As the nation that discovered and claimed the “new world” at the end of the fifteenth century, Spain had the wider reach, from what is now the Southwest of the United States to the southern-most point of the continent. Both Spain and Portugal experienced a decline in their status as European powers much earlier than Britain and France, and consequently lost the ability to keep their American colonies under control. Spain’s control began to erode with the liberation of South America, in the name of the indigenous and enslaved people, by Sı´mon Bolı´var and Jose´ de San Martı´n in the 1820s, and the granting of formal

C

independence to Mexico and Central America through peace negotiations that occurred at roughly the same time. However, it held Cuba, Guam, and the Philippines until the end of the nineteenth century when they were ceded to the United States as spoils of the SpanishAmerican War. Although Portugal lost control over Brazil during the 1820s, it held its African colonies until the postWorld War II wave of decolonization that saw Caribbean, African, and Asian nations emancipate themselves from their colonial masters and reconstitute themselves as “nonaligned nations” (now more commonly known as the Third World) who aspired to play the ambitions of the First World off against the Second World (the Soviet Bloc) as a way to consolidate their demands for postcolonial economic justice and political influence. In South Asia and South East Asia Portugal asserted a colonial right to Goa until the territory was annexed by India in 1961, and only relinquished Macau to China in 1976. Other European nations also participated in the project of building wealth through colonialism: most notably Belgium in the Congo; Italy in Ethiopia and Eritrea; and the Netherlands in Indonesia (the Dutch East Indies), the Caribbean (the Dutch West Indies), and South Africa. Of these adventures, only the Dutch engaged in settlement of territory, and then only in South Africa (until Britain took control in 1902 after the Boer War). Typically, the lower profile of these nations as colonizers translates into diminished attention to the economic and cultural injustices that still plague their former colonies. Chief among the injustices that continue to cast long shadows, especially in the Americas, was the widespread practice of African slavery. Colonial wealth-building relied on low-wage (or no-wage) labor so, although European nations sent their own people to their colonial possessions as administrators and landowners, their greatest resettlement programs involved the shipment, sale, and bondage of African people. This has produced syncretic, creole populations in many former colonies, where surviving indigenous beliefs and values have blended with elements of African culture and European traditions imposed by the slaveholders – an outcome most evident in practices like Haitian vodou and Cuban Santerı´a. Another concept closely related to colonialism and imperialism is occupation. This is a set of relations in which one nation claims a right to control another’s territory during or following a war, or for reasons of national security or military advantage. Eliding or disputing the distinction between colonialism and occupation allows some cultural observers to charge that the United States (and previously, the Soviet Union) is engaged in modern

163

C

164

C

Colonialism

colonialism. Such charges are resisted because both America’s rhetoric of respect for liberty and its proclaimed desire to be a force for peace and good in the world are contradicted by the notion of it as a colonizer, just as the Soviet Union’s Marxist-inspired commitment to the proletariat would have been undercut by identification of Soviet territorial control practices as colonial – and just as the British and French empires were frequently discomforted by the juxtaposition of their liberal and republican philosophies with their own colonial practices. The most compelling and forceful opposition to colonialism was offered 50 years ago by Frantz Fanon from his vantage point as a black Martinican whose work as a psychiatrist assisting the French Army in Algeria drove him to change sides and fight with the Algerian revolutionary forces. Witnessing French colonial relations from the inside, Fanon diagnosed colonialism as an inherently violent phenomenon. The imposition of settler culture on native populations dehumanizes the colonized natives. They suffer not only the material deprivation associated with the transfer of wealth back to the colonizing metropolis but also from a psychological deprivation. All of the institutions produced by colonialism are for the settler and are embedded within the cultural context that the settler is trying to transplant. Consequently, the natives cannot see themselves reflected in these institutions and cultural artifacts; they are no longer persons within a functioning society. Fanon devotes The Wretched of the Earth, in particular, to exploring the pathologies produced by colonial societies, especially within the colonized native. Deprived of their sense of personal agency, the natives internalize the violence that colonization imposes on them and deploy it only against themselves, their family members, and other natives, because they fear confronting the source of violence, the settler. For Fanon, decolonization has to be a violent process, a revolution rather than a diplomatic negotiation. If liberation does not involve violence against the colonizers, the circuit of violence that travels through the colonized population can never be broken. And if power is transferred through negotiations, the colonizers will obviously choose to negotiate with that segment of the native population which most resembles the settler culture, the native e´lites. Colonial power will not be ended; it will simply continue with a homegrown (but typically settler-educated) ruling class in the positions of power previously occupied by the colonizers. Inspired by, and in conversation with, Fanon, Paulo Freire offers his own critique of pathological colonial societies, drawn from his experience of the impact of colonization on poor Brazilian communities. He too speaks of the colonized as having internalized the voice

of the colonizer, explaining their lack of agency as due to a psychological division that pits the values of the colonized group against the colonizer values. In essence, both Freire and Fanon see a highly efficient injustice at work in colonial contexts; once the colonizing relations have been put in place, the colonized effectively dominate themselves by internally reproducing the authoritative voice of colonial power. For Freire, however, true liberation does not necessarily require violence. What the colonized need are networks of explicitly antiauthoritarian education and political resistance in which they can learn, through dialogue among themselves and with progressive-minded members of the privileged dominating class, how to reconceive their worlds as liberatory spaces in which their desire to live fully human, self-actualized lives becomes possible. Colonialism is unjust, in Freire’s view, for the reasons that Fanon identifies: Colonies that are controlled by a foreign metropolis lack the power to make decisions that are genuinely responsive to the needs of all of their people, and are therefore experienced by these disenfranchised groups as alienating, disempowering, and ultimately dehumanizing. Critiques of colonialism that depict psychological harms as central are important contributions to the project of constructing theories of global justice. It is easier to see, and understand as harms, the economic effects, but emphasizing the impact colonialism has had on people’s self-esteem, their familial and social relations, and their spiritual lives helps us to see the material well-being with which distributive justice is concerned as inadequate. While economic justice and reparations for colonialism are important concerns, they are, on their own, simply not enough. Examining colonial injustice through the question of psychological legacies can bring to light demands of groups who may be motivated by values unfamiliar to Western-trained and Western-socialized theorists. Andrew Robinson and Simon Tormey, for instance, make this point when they speak of global justice theories as limited by an insistence on the state as the guarantor and provider of justice and society as the beneficiary. This, they argue, betrays a “colonial logic” which reproduces metropolis-indigenous power relations through its inability to conceive of alternatives to its own instrumental rationality. Other anticolonial theorists – Gayatri Spivak, Stuart Hall, bell hooks, and Ngu˜gı˜ wa Thiong’o, among them – stress the need for residual decolonization projects that interrogate ways in which colonialism uses representation to consolidate the domination of the colonized other. Spivak’s work on the “subaltern” (the devalued other) identifies as “epistemic violence” the very project of constructing colonized people as “other”. British transplants to India who sent home narratives condemning

Common Good

the practice of sati – the supposedly traditional Hindu widow’s self-immolation on her husband’s funeral pyre – mystified and misrepresented this practice through, among other things, rendering these women as voiceless, incapable of speaking for themselves, and therefore presumably incapable of thinking for themselves. Both Hall and hooks take up similar themes of marginalization through misrepresentation, arguing that visual images of colonized peoples have been used against them, to convince them that they are indeed something other than the colonizers who are portrayed, in contrast, as the essence of a fully realized humanity. Reclaiming subjecthood, then, requires the colonized to fight for images that represent them and their communities as equally human and capable of agency. Ngu˜gı˜ likewise analyzes the capacity of language to colonize; language is not just a means of communication but also a carrier of culture. Speaking the colonizer’s language reproduces the colonizer’s values, he charges – a point not lost on communities like the Que´be´cois in Canada and the Maori of New Zealand, who have made language rights a hallmark of their sovereignty movements. The power and complexity of how one is represented means that even a sensitive recognition of diversity can be inadequate to the question of anticolonial justice. Diversity that sees some subjects as “other” – marked by race, gender, national origins, or other contingent attributes of identity – and some subjects as unmarked by these same kinds of contingent features is arguably doing nothing more than reproducing the same taxonomy of people that colonialism constructed: the civilized white men at the center and in charge, and the various others arrayed in concentric circles according to their distance from whiteness, maleness, and Western-ness. Anticolonial struggles against domination through representation must, at least in part, insist that we understand difference as an attribute of the relation one subject has to another, rather than seeing that difference as a characteristic inhering in some subjects (and not in others). In revealing to us – or, more to the point, having shaped – the existence of people whose voices, values, and aspirations are alien to the Western centers of power from which we theorize, colonialism poses to global justice theorists the perennial question of how we open up our theories to make them truly as inclusive and universally relevant as they aspire to be.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Individual ▶ Economic Rights ▶ Eurocentrism

C

▶ Exploitation ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ Imperialism ▶ Indigenous Peoples ▶ Liberalism ▶ National Self-Determination ▶ Paternalism ▶ Post-Colonialism ▶ Reparations ▶ Slavery ▶ Violence

References Fanon F (1963) The wretched of the earth (trans: Farrington C). Grove Press, New York Fanon F (1965) A dying colonialism (trans: Chevalier H). Grove Press, New York Fanon F (1967) Toward the African revolution (trans: Chevalier H). Grove Press, New York Farmer P (2003) The uses of Haiti. Common Courage Press, Monroe Freire P (2000) Pedagogy of the oppressed (trans: Bergman Ramos M). Continuum, New York Hall S (1990) Cultural identity and diaspora. In: Rutherford J (ed) Identity: community, culture, difference. Lawrence & Wishart, London hooks b (1995) Art on my mind: visual politics. New Press, New York Ngu˜gı˜ wa Thiong’o (1986) Decolonizing the mind: the politics of language in African literature. James Currey/Heinemann, Oxford, UK Pitts J (2005) A turn to empire: the rise of imperial liberalism in Britain and France. Princeton University Press, Princeton Robinson A, Tormey S (2009) Resisting ‘global justice’: disrupting the colonial ‘emancipatory’ logic of the West. Third World Quarterly 30(8):1395–1409 Said E (1979) Orientalism. Vintage, New York Said E (1993) Culture and imperialism. Vintage, New York Spivak G (1994) Can the subaltern speak? In: Williams P, Chrisman L (eds) Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory: a reader. Columbia University Press, New York Stasiulis D, Yuval-Davis N (eds) (1995) Unsettling settler societies: articulations of gender, race, ethnicity and class. Sage Publications, London

Common Good ANNA MOLTCHANOVA Department of Philosophy, Carleton College, Northfield, MN, USA

The common good includes everything that benefits all members of a community. It is “common” because it is based on the likeness of group members in view of the specific nature of their membership and it is “good” because it defines the conditions of their flourishing.

165

C

166

C

Common Good

These conditions can be very general and universally necessary for a good life, and thus shared by all communities, like clean air and water, or specific, like the freedom to practice a certain culture or religion. In a political context, the common good is the object of justice because it defines the terms of the members’ interactions in a community. The common good changes depending on the context in which we consider it: the common good for the members of a nuclear family is different from that shared by the members of an extended family, or from the common good family members may share with their coworkers, neighbors, or fellow-citizens. The common good is the good of each that includes the good of others; this is why the common good is determined by the bounds of a community and the individual understanding of the conditions of existence of the community. The common good of a community can be based on the notion of individual well-being all of its members share. When individual notions of well-being diverge, but these individuals, nevertheless, consider themselves to form parts of a community, the common good has to do with the common conditions of flourishing that individuals gain by being members of their community while pursuing their own notions of well-being in their personal life. More specifically, members of a political community can agree that their community pursues the common good without achieving consensus on what constitutes individual well-being (Kraut 2002: 398). These citizens can share a notion of what it is to be a good citizen, for example, which would be the basis for their idea of the common good for their community. In the rest of this entry, I will concentrate on the common good of a political community. The idea of the common good is foundational in understanding the conditions for political legitimacy: if the common good is the goal of the government, citizens are ruled on the basis of reasons that apply to them because, in the end, the government promotes their well-being. Political power is presently always exercised over a territory. This is why, in light of the goal of the legitimacy of political power, the common good of a political community cannot be defined in utilitarian terms, as the greatest good for the greatest number of people within a territory; for, if it were, the common good would become the good of the majority within the territory, and could not be said to benefit all. Of course, if the greatest good of the greatest number is the notion of the common good everyone shares and individuals do not mind sacrificing their well-being to promote the well-being of others, the situations in which this occurs are legitimate in light of the

notion of the common good that governs them. Nevertheless, the common good cannot be straightforwardly defined through a summation, by a third party, of the majority’s preferences without trying to discern whether there is, within the territory that the community occupies, a consensus of opinion among members on the idea of the common good. One can also consider, as an alternative, whether all members would reasonably consent to such a summation. This is precisely the point of the notion of the common good when it is applied to the discussion of political legitimacy: that the common good can be reasonably accepted by all and that it benefits all in the territory governed by the political authority. The main challenge to the grounding of politics in the notion of the common good is the diversity of the conceptions of the common good among different group members. The notion of the common good of a society has to reconcile and include all of these views if it is to be a ground for the legitimacy of political power. An important account of the manner in which the common good might be discerned in a political community is articulated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His approach is to examine how individual attitudes to public decisionmaking ground the legitimacy of decisions. When participating in voting, each citizen should determine what is good for all, and they should do so impartially and freely (Rousseau 1987: 156). Rousseau distinguishes between the will of all, which considers private interest and which is the sum of private interests, and the general will, which considers only the general interest. The general will is not merely what is left after opposite wills cancel one another in a one person, one vote process, but what is common to all individual wills. “. . .What makes the will general is not so much the number of votes as the common interest that unites them. . .” (Rousseau 1987: 158). When the general will guides political decision-making, it represents the common good. It is often said that that the common good as defined by Rousseau can be articulated only in small homogenous communities in which the public-minded thinking of all members is facilitated by their knowledge of the community and their shared common interests. This concern suggests an important condition for the articulation of the common good in a political community: associates should not be driven by partial interest and they should sincerely consider what is good for all. The common good links the well-being of a community and the individual well-being of its members, because one’s realization of the preferences for the good life cannot be separated from the proper functioning of one’s society, whether the common good is merely

Common Good

a particular way of life everyone agrees to share or a more general condition of coexistence of multiple ways of life. Some, like Aristotle, would say that it is not even possible to consider individual well-being in isolation from a wellorganized community, from which it follows that promoting the common good is to everyone’s advantage. The notion of common good can be useful for the articulation of norms of global justice in at least three ways. First, given global migrations, it could help shape norms for the inclusion of immigrants, especially those coming from cultures dramatically different from the accepting community; it can help with the articulation of basic norms governing group rights within multicultural states; and it can provide a background to the justification of international norms that govern the diverse members of international community. When a group is perceived by the rest of society to deviate from the norms of membership, the common good excludes the perspective of these outsiders. While immigrants may be asked to assimilate in the name of preserving national values of their new country, the circumstances under which this demand is made and the way in which this immigrant group was included in the formulation of the requirements imposed on its members affect the legitimacy of the demand. If immigrants were not consulted and the requirements were based on what others, influenced by “national values,” believe to be the immigrants’ conception of the good, it is unlikely that conditions for a genuine articulation of the common good will be established. The demands and justifications for assimilation made under these circumstances are partial and cannot be legitimate because the notion of the common good was not generated by all members. The same reasoning applies to cultural, ethnic, and religious minorities that happen to live in the territory of a state. The majority cannot legitimately rule the minority if the rule is based exclusively on the majority’s view of what is good for all. In order to be truly publicly minded, members of the majority ought to avoid a narrow understanding of membership and inform themselves about the interests of others, familiarizing themselves with their views and preferences and engaging them in the political sphere of the state. A government/state can avoid being guided by a notion of the common good shared only by a part of its population by carrying out periodic reassessments of the general good. The common good for a pluralist or multicultural society should be defined so as to include everyone. All citizens have the minimal common interest of maintaining the conditions of individual and group inclusion that give everyone the opportunity to flourish.

C

Publicly minded individuals want everyone to be governed by conditions acceptable to them. As long as citizens agree that their political community should govern itself based on reasons that apply to all, there is a shared conception of the common good; disagreements can be worked out because of their general commitment to public-mindedness. Since there is no world government with the powers equivalent to that of a state government, the voluntary compliance of members with the norms of international law offers the best prospect for the continuous well-being of the international community. In complying, each member implicitly assumes that others will also comply. This coordination game can be played best if participants are governed by rules based on the notion of the common good: in this case, limitations on individual actors’ behavior preserve some of every actor’s freedom. When governed on the basis of the common good, individual actors are governed by rules that apply to them because these rules take into consideration the interests shared by all members. The notion of the common good allows one to be outvoted and still be governed legitimately, but only when all those who are affected by the legislation were public-minded, and thus oriented toward the common good, when voting. One lesson that the notion of the common good teaches the international community is that there ought to be a periodic reassessment of international institutions to evaluate whether they promote the common interest of all participants. Individual actors, if they care about legitimacy, care about the ideal of the common good. The notion of the common good is a suitable background against which we can judge whether there is room for the international participants to responsibly question their views. Can a common good be found for the international community in spite of the fact that its members hold diverse values? The difficulty arises when the notion of the good life shared by the members of a group conflicts with political values that underlie the common good as it is articulated by the rest of the international community. In such situations, what are the grounds upon which the legitimacy of the international community’s interactions with the group can be preserved? Can those who do not comply with the majority view of the common good be coerced to comply? For the coercion to be legitimate, the affected party must have been given a fair chance to participate in the formulation of the notion of the common good. Moreover, the coercion has to be a last resort to be used only when a group’s behaviors threaten international peace, like when a group belligerently affirms its

167

C

168

C

Communitarianism

preferences regardless of the preferences of others. Suchactions of the group undermine not only international peace but also the continuing existence of international institutions. This group cannot ground its claim that the international community’s intervention in its affairs is not legitimate in the fact that the group does not accept the international conception of the common good as reasonable. Because the group’s actions threaten the very existence of the international order, the legitimacy of its disagreement with the international understanding of the common good is undermined.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Needs ▶ Citizenship ▶ Coercion ▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Democratic Legitimacy ▶ Equality ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Multiculturalism ▶ Solidarity

References Finnis J (1998) Aquinas: moral, political and legal theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kraut R (2002) Aristotle: political philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford Murphy M (2006) Natural law in jurisprudence and politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Parekh B (2000) Rethinking multiculturalism: cultural diversity and political theory. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rousseau JJ (1987) The basic political writings. Hackett, Indianapolis Rubio-Marin R (2000) Immigration as a democratic challenge: citizenship and inclusion in Germany and the United States. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Sistaire C (ed) (2004) Civility and its discontents: civic virtue, toleration, and cultural fragmentation. University of Kansas Press, Lawrence

Communitarianism MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Communitarianism names a late-twentieth century movement that understands itself to strike a balance between excessive individualism and collectivism, and between the rights that are associated with the former

and the responsibilities associated with the latter. Communitarians understand themselves to offer a “third way” between extremes that are polarizing in their philosophical, ideological, and policy-oriented forms. Communitarianism has philosophical roots and manifestations, as well as policy concerns and directives. It is at once an intellectual, and a practical and political movement. The contrast between individualism and thicker ties of affiliation draws from Ferdinand To¨nnies (1855–1936) in his 1957 text Community and Society (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, 1887). Communitarianism also draws from Durkheim (1858–1917) and his work on the integrating force of values and the relationship between individuals and society. Other sources include Hegel, T.H. Green, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, aspects of Christian theology, and socialist thought. But the single most important figure behind communitarianism is Amitai Etzioni (b. Werner Falk, 1929–), a sociologist and the primary founder of the movement. As a scholar, Etzioni is the author of 24 books and the primary force behind the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies, at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he is the Institute’s director. As a policy analyst and advocate, he served as Senior Advisor to the White House (1979–1980), and founded the Communitarian Network, a think-tank based in Washington, D.C., which publishes a quarterly journal, The Responsive Community. Just as Etzioni’s career as scholar, analyst, and advocate is one whole, so too communitarianism itself cannot be neatly divided between its theoretical/philosophical and practical/political components. Philosophically, communitarianism echoes republican thought, with its concern for the values, rights, and responsibilities of the relevant group(s) or societies(s) under consideration. Yet, against charges made by some liberals, the response, in the words of the “Communitarian Platform” published by the Communitarian Network, is “Communitarians do not exalt the group as such, nor do they hold that any set of group values is ipso facto good merely because such values originate in a community . . . communal values must be judged by external and overriding criteria, based on shared human experience.” Communitarians hope for “restoration” of “moral voice,” in “responsive communities” where moral standards “reflect the basic needs of all its members.” Communitarianism has been defined by its relationship to liberalism. Some liberals and communitarians have been insufficiently careful in their characterizations of each other’s ideology. Yet much liberal-communitarian tension, at the philosophical level, has been overcome

Communitarianism

due to a more robust dialogue than that which took place in the earlier years of communitarianism’s rise. Nonetheless, distinctions remain. Whereas liberalism focuses on the autonomy of the individual, communitarians see this autonomy as overdetermined, in fact, and overreaching in its universalizing claims. Communitarians claim that one cannot define oneself prior to one’s ends (Sandel 1887), and that our values are socially and culturally embedded. Communitarians claim that the liberal self has too often been presented as “unencumbered” (Sandel 1887) and “atomistic” (Taylor 1997). Another communitarian charge against liberalism is that the focus on rights eclipses what should be an equal emphasis on responsibilities. It is also claimed that there are no objective primary goods, as they are all community based (Walzer 1984; MacIntyre 1981). Those philosophers thought to represent communitarianism most importantly are, Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer, Michael Sandel, and Daniel Bell. As noted above, the dichotomization summarized here is under review and negotiation as liberal and communitarian thinkers seek greater understanding of, and articulation for, their respective views. As a matter of policy and politics, communitarians seek significant, if not radical, adjustments in policies pertaining to the family, public education, public safety and public health, and a host of other areas of concern. They hope to see “seedbeds of public virtue” planted and nurtured that are rooted in small and local contexts, as well as national and international institutions. Indeed, the contemporary communitarian movement was born out of a sense of moral breakdown engendered by, among other factors, excessive individualism. Etzioni, joined by William Galston, began to organize meetings to design communitarian approaches to key public policy issues. They were joined by, among others, Mary Ann Glendon, Jean Bethke Elshtain, as well as political figures and policy analysts. These efforts led to the Network, Platform, and journal cited above. The communitarian goal is to attend to social and political institutions, creating and changing them so as to meet the moral and material needs of all citizens. From the standpoint of global justice, communitarianism seems both a promising movement, and one about which two concerns are legitimately held. As to its promise, the rather considerable literature that has emerged from communitarian philosophers and analysts calls quite strongly for greater justice, equality, freedom, health, opportunity, rights, and power being made available to all persons through structural and institutional means. The Communitarian Platform notes:

"

C

At the heart of the communitarian understanding of social justice is the idea of reciprocity: each member of the community owes something to all the rest, and the community owes something to each of its members. Justice requires responsible individuals in a responsive community . . . individuals have a responsibility for the material and moral well-being of others . . . the community is responsible for ensuring the basic needs of all....

Another aspect of communitarianism’s promise for global justice is its commitment to “strong democracy.” Communitarians are not majoritarians, but seek government that is more representative and citizenship that is more participatory. Communitarians believe that in the “multiplication of strongly democratic communities around the world lies our best hope for the emergence of a global community that can deal concertedly with matters of general concern to our species as a whole. . .” (Platform). Those interested in global justice think of democracy as a necessary means to such justice. The first concern is that communitarian thought remains insufficiently developed as to the needs and content of global justice. One may find inadequate evaluation of global capitalism, for example, in communitarian literature. While communitarian philosophers push against conservatism, many analysts and policy advisors in the communitarian camp may be seen to huddle too close to conservative ideas, institutions, and policies. The second concern is that communitarian thought is far too oriented to culture and politics within the United States and that nearly all of its contributors are US citizens. Yet, because the United States is arguably the world’s most liberal and individual-oriented society, one can understand the development of communitarianism as a perceived corrective to just this aspect of American culture and politics.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Collective ▶ Agency, Individual ▶ Citizenship ▶ Citizenship Practices ▶ Collective Identity ▶ Collective Responsibility ▶ Common Good ▶ Communities ▶ Decent Society ▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Moral Community ▶ Political Liberalism ▶ Responsibility, Individual

169

C

170

C

Communities

▶ Rights ▶ Walzer, Michael

References Amitai E (2003) Communitarianism. In: Karen C, Levison D (eds) Encyclopedia of community: from the village to the virtual world, vol 1. Sage, Thousand Oaks, pp 224–228 Avineri S, De-Shalit A (eds) (1992) Communitarianism and individualism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Bell D (ed) (1993) Communitarianism and its critics. Clarendon, Oxford Bellah R et al (1885) Habits of the heart: individualism and commitment in American life. University of California Press, Berkeley Etzioni A (1994) The spirit of community: the reinvention of American society. Touchstone, New York Etzioni A (ed) (1995) New communitarian thinking: persons, virtues, institutions, and communities. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville Etzioni A (ed) (1998) The essential communitarian reader. Rowman and Littlefield, New York MacIntyre A (1981) After virtue, 2nd edn. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame Mulhall S, Swift A (1994) Liberals and communitarians. Blackwell, Oxford Phillips D (1993) Looking backward: a critical appraisal of communitarian thought. Princeton University Press, Princeton Putnam R (2000) Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of community in America. Simon & Schuster, New York Sandel M (1887) Liberalism and its critics. New York University Press, New York Sandel M (1982) Liberalism and the limits of justice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Selznick P (2002) The communitarian persuasion. Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC Taylor C (1997) Cross-purposes: the liberal-communitarian debate. In: Taylor C (ed) Philosophical arguments. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 181–203 Taylor C (1985) Atomism, and what’s wrong with negative liberty. In: Taylor C (ed) Philosophy and the human sciences: philosophical papers 2. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 211–229, 187–210 Walzer M (1984) Spheres of justice. Basic Books, New York

Communities FRED E. FOLDVARY Civil Society Institute, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, USA

A community is a group of interacting persons with a common associative characteristic. The characteristic of the association can be geographic, pertaining to a particular territory, or it can be an interest such as a profession, hobby, or religion. An adult community can be

regarded as consistent with justice if its membership is voluntary, and if those such as children and prison inmates, who are held involuntarily, are treated by the principles of global justice. A geographic community can be based on a governmental jurisdiction such as a city, or it can be privately organized, with a contractual association. Communities with a common interest are not necessarily organized. For example, the stamp-collecting community includes members of philatelic societies as well as stamp collectors who are not members. Club communities have an organizational structure with members, dues payments, and services. A geographic community organized to implement a theme or particular rules is referred to as an “intentional community,” in contrast to a city in which there was no ideological purpose, or a condominium with no purpose other than to provide dwellings. Many clubs are non-geographic, tied together by publications and communications, and possibly with periodic conventions and conferences. Clubs include professional and hobby associations, religious congregations, schools, businesses, and political parties. A marriage is a community of the two spouses, and is in part a voluntary and contractual, hence a private community, but it is also governmentally established under the marriage and family laws of the state. The controversy over same-sex marriage illustrates how government is involved in establishing the institution of marriage and providing it with legal rights and privileges. The family is a loose community of parents, children, and other relatives, who may or may not live in one residence. Some people even include pets as members of their family community.

Private Communities Private sector communities are voluntary and contractual. Private residential communities include condominiums, residential or homeowner associations, cooperatives, land trusts, communes, residents of apartment buildings, co-owners of a house, and transient communities such as hotels, camp grounds, and ships. There are also commercial communities such as shopping centers, office buildings, factories, farms, and marinas. A condominium is an association of co-owners in which each residential unit has an owner, and each owner also has a fractional interest in the common elements. The condominium association itself owns nothing, as the common elements such as parking places, landscaping, and the roofs and outer walls are owned by the members, similar to a partnership. The fraction or percentage of the common interest held by a member is also

Communities

its share of the association assessment payments, and the member’s share of the vote for the board of directors. A residential association is more like a corporation, since the association owns the common elements in its own name. The election of the board of directors can take various forms, including voting by tenants. The assessments paid by the members can also be based on various methods, including an equal payment and assessment based on the land or property value. In contrast, in a housing cooperative, the members do not individually own the units, but rather as a shareholder, a member owns the right to occupy a unit. In cooperatives, each member has one vote. In housing cooperatives,s new member-residents need to be approved by the board. In a land trust, the residents own leaseholds since the land is owned by the trust. The residents pay rent to the trust, which typically pays the property tax and provides community services such as parks and security. Residents of an apartment building typically form a community based on their common buildings and their tenant relationship with the landlord. The co-ownership of a house can take several forms, including tenants in common, joint tenancy, and community property for married couples. Joint tenants have equal ownership shares, while tenants in common can have whatever ownership shares they wish. In the USA, state legislatures may also enact community property, a form of ownership inherited from Spanish law. In community property jurisdictions, the property obtained during a marriage, other than by inheritance or gift, belong jointly to both spouses. In Spain, the community-property regimen de gananciales is the default if there is no prenuptial agreement. Transient communities have an association similar to that of tenants in apartments, except that the tenancies are for very short durations. The hotel community has functions similar to those of city communities. Hotels provide collective goods such as security, public transit (as elevators and escalators), pathways, parks (the hotel lobby), recreation, and facilities for conferences. Communities include those in transit, such as ships, airplanes, trains, and busses. A proprietary community is a private community with a single owner. The owner can itself be a collective such as a corporation, but the corporation has a single decisionmaking unit. In contrast, a civic association has more than one co-owner. A residential association, for example, elects a board of directors, but they represent all the owners rather than one voice. A single ownership provides for more control over a change in the use of the property, such as the replacement of an apartment house with an

C

171

office building. With a typical homeowner’s association, the master deed requires unanimous consent to terminate the community.

Justice in Community Global justice applies the concept of equality as well as of moral constraints such as the avoidance of harm to others. In a private community, adult membership is voluntary, and the members have an equal legal standing as well as an explicit contract that provides knowledge of what is expected and what is provided. There are two levels of decision making in clubs. The constitutional level of an organization is the highest level of rules, and a constitutional decision of a member is the choice of joining or leaving a community. When one joins, one agrees to abide by the constitution of the club. Private communities enable the members to be more restrictive than the rules of governmental communities, such as abiding by religious laws or residential covenants, or less restrictive, such as in a clothing-optional resort. The operational decisions are those authorized by the constitution. For example, when one gets married, one makes a constitutional choice. The marriage is a voluntary union in which each party ideally and presumably understands that afterward, there will be shared responsibilities as well as constraints on future choices. A spouse may not agree with operational decisions during the marriage, but one agreed to the marriage constitution under which there are operational compromises. The voluntary aspect of a club, and thus its implementation of justice, is at the constitutional level, which should include an exit option. If one may not exit, then one becomes a slave to the club. Thus, justice for the marriage community requires that there be the possibility of exit, for example, divorce. In communities organized under a government, global justice requires equal treatment for similar circumstances as well as the protection of the individual right to one’s peaceful and honest free will. That implies freedom of association, the right to form voluntary communities.

Related Topics

▶ Communitarianism ▶ Contractarianism ▶ Moral Community ▶ Territorial Rights

References Barzilai G (2003) Communities and law: politics and cultures of legal identities. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor Christensen K et al (2003) Encyclopedia of community, vol 4. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA

C

172

C

Compatriot Partiality Thesis

Fellowship for Intentional Community and Communities Publications Cooperative (1990) Intentional communities. Fellowship for Intentional Community, Evansville Communities Publications Cooperative, Stelle. http://www.ic.org/ Foldvary F (1994) Public goods and private communities. Edward Elgar, Aldershot, UK MacCallum S (1970) The art of community. Institute for Humane Studies, Menlo Park

Compatriot Partiality Thesis WALTER J. RIKER Department of Philosophy, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA, USA

The compatriot partiality thesis holds that individuals have special duties to their fellow citizens that they do not have to non-compatriots (see, e.g., Miller 1995, 2005; Tamir 1993). Proponents of this thesis hold, for example, that the interests of needy fellow citizens are morally distinct from, and take precedence over, the similar interests of needy non-compatriots. Thus, the compatriot partiality thesis is often contrasted with the cosmopolitan ideal of impartial egalitarianism, the idea that all individuals are entitled to equal consideration, regardless of nationality (see, e.g., Tan 2004; van Hooft 2009). Of course, proponents of the compatriot partiality thesis do recognize that the interests of non-compatriots have moral significance (Miller 2005: 63–64; Jones 1999: 128). There are some general duties that are owed to everyone simply on the basis of their status as persons. For this reason, proponents of the thesis need to explain how general and special duties are distinct and how they fit together, or, as Miller (2005) puts it, they must explain their “split-level” view of morality (see also Scheffler 2001). They also need to explain what we ought to do when our general and special duties conflict. Though the compatriot partiality thesis is controversial, the idea of special duties is not. For example, it is commonly held that we have special duties to members of our own families that we do not have to people generally. Parents have moral permission, or even a moral obligation, to give priority to the needs of their own children over similar needs of others. In fact, parents may even have moral permission to satisfy relatively insignificant needs of their own children before seeking to satisfy more pressing needs of other children. In a similar way, the sibling we have not spoken to for 3 years may nevertheless ask things

of us that strangers may not. This does not mean that such requests always are or must be granted. The point is that the asking itself, when done by a family member, typically has a certain character that is lacking in the case of strangers. Generally speaking, the partial treatment associated with special duties is justified in terms of the value or meaning that some special projects or relationships give to our lives. For example, for many people, the family gives life much of its meaning. It is the reason why many people do many of the things they do every day. This gives the family a special place in our lives, and justifies partial treatment in favor of our families. Of course, nations are different from families in many respects, so it is not clear that this example tells us much about the compatriot partiality thesis. (For discussion of this analogy, see, e.g., Wellman [2001], and McMahan’s and Hurka’s contributions to McKim and McMahan [1997].) In any case, even if there is an analogy between the family and the nation, considerations like those mentioned above cannot justify just any sort of unequal treatment. Just what special duties require, and where they run out, is still to be settled. Shue (1996) illustrates this point by identifying several ways to construct the compatriot partiality thesis, and pointing out that different variants need different rationales and are open to different objections. For example, does the thesis hold that compatriots have priority over non-compatriots always or only sometimes? Does the thesis morally require that compatriots be given priority or does it only make it morally permissible to act in this way? Is shared nationality necessary, sufficient, or both for invoking the duty, or is it some sort of less definitive but still weighty consideration? Finally, is shared nationality the source of the duty, the limit of the duty (i.e., to conationals), or both? Obviously, different answers to these questions produce different versions of the thesis. There is also a question about the content of the special duty to compatriots. For example, the compatriot partiality thesis is typically taken to include a duty to care for needy conationals. Does it also morally require (at least some of) us to take up arms against others in defense of our nations and fellow citizens in times of war (Shue 1996)? These differences matter, because they generate different versions of the compatriot partiality thesis, each of which may require its own sort of justification, and be open to different sorts of objections. Lazar (2010) argues, for instance, that a special duty to support and improve shared liberal social and political institutions can be defended, but that duties of justice cannot be limited to conationals.

Compatriot Partiality Thesis

There are two general strategies for justifying the compatriot partiality thesis. One strategy grounds the special duty in intrinsic considerations (e.g., Miller 2005), while the other grounds it in extrinsic ones (e.g., Goodin 1988). Miller (2005) argues that shared nationality creates an intrinsically valuable relationship that ought to be given priority over some other relationships for this reason. Generally speaking, special duties arise from relationships that are (a) intrinsically valuable, (b) essentially dutyladen, and (c) not unjust or otherwise immoral. For example, friendship gives rise to special duties. That is, a friendship creates an open-ended special duty – owed only to friends – to support the friend and to keep the relationship alive. Why? First, friendships are intrinsically valuable. There are, of course, instrumental goods associated with friendship, but Miller correctly points out that these goods do not exhaust the value of this relationship. Friendship itself has value, over and above anything else it produces. Second, friendship necessarily involves reciprocal duties. Special duties to friends are integral to the relationship, in the sense that friendships are not possible in the absence of some shared understanding that the relationship brings with it certain special responsibilities for each party involved in the friendship. Third, friendships are not inherently unjust. Friends can, of course, commit unjust acts together, but the friend relationship itself is not morally troubling. According to Miller, shared nationality also meets these three conditions. The relationship between or among conationals is intrinsically valuable, is essentially duty-laden, and is not inherently unjust. Thus, the conational relationship comes with special duties attached. One common objection to this sort of intrinsic justification takes issue with the claim that the conational relationship is valued or valuable. As a matter of empirical fact, it seems that many people simply do not value the conational relationship. Miller (2005) responds that this is beside the point, because people could get value from it, if they wanted to. Further, he says, people who are indifferent to the inherent value of national identity are simply missing something important from their lives. But this is a controversial assertion. While Miller may be able to justify the claim that people could get value from this relationship, the stronger suggestion that those who forgo this source of value will have (somewhat) impoverished lives as a result seems much less compelling. It is just not obvious to many that people need this sort of value to achieve fulfilling lives. And it may be that this is the real source of this complaint. This is a problem for the proponent of compatriot partiality, because if it is true that people do not need the value associated with

C

conationality, then the special duty to compatriots must lose some of its weight against general duties. For it seems somewhat selfish to insist on gaining yet another kind of value in our lives, and to insist that conationals do the same, when the resulting good is not necessary for human fulfillment, and when attaining it prevents us from helping others attain some good they need more. The other general strategy for justifying compatriot partiality grounds the duty in extrinsic considerations. For example, Goodin (1988) argues that general duties to all persons are what matter, but that the most effective way to ensure that these general duties are fulfilled is through the state. When general duties are not assigned to particular agents, they are ineffectively executed at best. Thus, we do best to assign general duties to specific agents, and to hold them responsible for performance of these duties. Compatriot partiality is justified, in these terms, because national boundaries are “useful devices for ‘matching’ one person to one protector” (Goodin 1988, p. 686). Nevertheless, the nation is not inherently valuable. Unfortunately, as Vernon (2007) and others have pointed out, and as Goodin acknowledges, the present world order does not assign such responsibilities very well. As Vernon puts it, this position suffers from a “poorness of fit between argument and reality” (2007: 455). For instance, at present, rich states have responsibility for rich populations, and poor states for poor ones, despite the fact that a rich state’s resources have much higher marginal utility for poor populations than for rich ones. Thus, the present order does not effectively assign general duties. Further, it can make things worse by suggesting that rich states have done all that is morally required of them once they have fulfilled their duties to the rich populations they are assigned to. However, Vernon points out that this sort of extrinsic argument may give cosmopolitans something they ultimately want, i.e., a means for assigning greater responsibility for the poor to wealthier nations that does not require the end of social and political institutions like the state. In the end, though, Vernon does not have much confidence in this argument. According to Tan (2005), it is important for cosmopolitans to make room for compatriot partiality. Some cosmopolitans are uneasy with special duties to compatriots, because these duties seem to run counter to the cosmopolitan commitment to impartial egalitarianism. However, as Tan argues, it would be something of an embarrassment for cosmopolitans if they had to deny the deeply and widely held belief that we are obliged to give priority to the claims of compatriots over non-compatriots. Tan holds that cosmopolitan approaches to global

173

C

174

C

Complex Emergency

justice that reject compatriot partiality “fail to take the complexity and richness of human relations and associations seriously” (2005: 167). For this reason, Tan thinks it is important to find a way to make cosmopolitan impartiality fit together with compatriot partiality. With this in mind, he defends “limited patriotism,” a form of compatriot partiality that is limited by the cosmopolitan commitment to impartiality. Cosmopolitan justice “serves to establish the parameters for the practices of patriotism” (2005: 184). Cosmopolitan impartiality is the ultimate principle of justice when it comes to identifying a just global institutional arrangement. But once this basic demand of justice is met, people are free to pursue any and all patriotic interests that fit within the now just (cosmopolitan) global institutional order. Thus, for Tan, cosmopolitan impartiality is a second-order concern – a concern about fundamental global arrangements and institutions – and not a first-order concern about the day-to-day choices individuals make at home. In this way, cosmopolitan impartiality does not conflict with compatriot partiality. In the end, even if compatriot partiality is defensible, Goodin (1988: 667–668) points out that we must often treat non-compatriots better than compatriots. For example, we may take property from our fellow citizens for public purposes, as long as compensation is provided, but we cannot take property from foreigners in the same way, especially if that property is outside of our borders. We can tax our fellow citizens and force them to serve in the armed forces, but we cannot do the same to foreigners. For these and similar reasons, Goodin says, our situation is often more complex than philosophical consideration of special duties may reveal. It pays to keep this in mind.

Related Topics

▶ Associative Duties ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Duties to Non-Compatriots ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Impartiality Thesis ▶ Patriotism ▶ Special Obligations

References Goodin R (1988) What is so special about our fellow countrymen? Ethics 98:663–686 Jones C (1999) Global justice: defending cosmopolitanism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Lazar S (2010) A liberal defence of (some) duties to compatriots. J Appl Phil 27:246–257 McKim R, McMahan J (1997) The morality of nationalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Miller D (1995) On nationality. Oxford University Press, Oxford Miller D (2005) Reasonable partiality toward compatriots. Ethicl Theory Moral Pract 8:63–81 Scheffler S (2001) Boundaries and allegiances: problems of justice and responsibility in liberal thought. Oxford University Press, Oxford Shue H (1996) Basic rights: subsistence, affluence, and U.S. foreign policy, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton Tamir Y (1993) Liberal nationalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton Tan K-C (2004) Justice without borders: cosmopolitanism, nationalism and patriotism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Tan K-C (2005) Cosmopolitan impartiality and patriotic partiality. In: Weinstock D (ed) Global justice. Global institutions. University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta, pp 165–191 Van Hooft S (2009) Cosmopolitanism: a philosophy for global ethics. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal Vernon R (2007) States of risk: should cosmopolitans favor their compatriots? Ethics Int Affairs 21:451–469 Wellman C (2001) Friends, compatriots, and special political obligations. Polit Theory 29:217–236

Complex Emergency SUSAN P. MURPHY School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

The term “Complex Humanitarian Emergency,” or “Complex Emergency” as it has been abbreviated in recent research, first emerged to characterize crises in a number of African states in the late 1980s (Duffield 1994) and became integrated into mainstream use by the United Nations from the early 1990s, referring to crises in Rwanda and Bosnia (Bok 1994; Klugman and UN/WIDER 1999). However, the idea of an emergency with complex causes and effects was central to Sen’s work on famine as early as 1981. An “emergency,” by definition, refers to a sudden condition of danger that requires an immediate response or reaction (see, e.g., Oxford Dictionary definition). A “complex” event is one that has several parts or dimensions linked together in a manner that cannot be easily or immediately understood or separated. Numerous definitions of the term “Complex Emergency” are in use in the discourse on development, disaster, and Global Justice. Perhaps the broadest conceptualization is the UNU/ WIDER’s account of social disasters or crises as events that place the survival of large numbers of people at risk from war, displacement, disease, and starvation (For a narrower definition see Albala-Bertrand 2000). It has become increasingly recognized that a critical constituent feature of complex emergencies is that they are human-

Complex Emergency

made events in which political, social, and economic dimensions combine to generate significant threats to the security and survival of large numbers of people. As human-made events, they are seen as perhaps more predictable and preventable than purely natural events may be. The subject has received much attention over the last 2 decades for at least four reasons. Firstly, there has been a significant increase in the number of complex emergencies since the end of the cold war. Secondly, this has been marked by a changing pattern in the nature of conflict from war between states to civil war and intrastate conflict. Such conflicts do not directly involve other states but can cause significant risks to neighboring states as refugees, displaced persons, conflict, and disease move across borders. Thirdly, the international institutional framework traditionally gave separate treatment to issues of peacekeeping, human rights, humanitarian affairs, and development. The complex nature of emergencies experienced over the last 2 decades has required interaction and coordination across all of these areas (Donini 2002). Finally, the consensus across both theory and practice that complex emergencies are human-made events that are preventable and predictable gives rise to ethical questions regarding responsibility for prevention and obligations to assist. The existence and persistence of complex emergencies raises two distinct sets of problems: one practical and the other philosophical. There is a growing political economy discourse that uses the most advanced quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine causal links and relationships between the multiple endogenous and exogenous variables within complex emergencies. This discourse addresses the practical question of how to prevent such events from occurring in the first instance as well as examining the causes of specific events and the measures required to address such emergencies (see, e.g., Collier 2007; Nafziger and Wayne 2002). The discourse on Global Justice directly addresses philosophical questions concerning how to respond to widespread and overt human rights violations such as: which principles should guide action in situations where emergencies occur (Ashford 2007; Bok 1994; Campbell 2007); who ought to do what for whom in these situations (Sen 1981, 2000; Wenar 2007); do those outside the event have duties to aid, and if so, how strong are these duties and what is the justification (Rawls 1999; Miller 2007); do those inside a complex emergency have a right to assistance (Ashford 2007; Caney 2007)? Many political philosophers within the literature on Global Justice have sought to address the practical and

C

philosophical problems raised by complex emergencies in recent years (Pogge 2010; Wenar 2008). This research raises critical questions regarding responsibility, accountability, the limits and extent of duties of assistance, the limits of state sovereignty, and considerations surrounding who ought to do what for whom in the face of grave human rights violations. According to the UNDP Annual report for 2008, there are currently 34.9 million human beings including refugees, internally displaced persons, and others directly impacted by complex emergencies that have erupted in more than 40 countries since 2000. Such population movement results in significant economic, social, and political challenges for home states, neighboring states, and host states. This type of emergency has inter- and intrastate affects. The moral urgency of this situation is a central concern for philosophers within the discourse on Global Justice. Normative theorizing and moral deliberation are critical to unpacking the moral and practical problems such situations give rise to. A clear account of the problem is a necessary step in moving toward remedy and resolution.

Related Topics

▶ Absolute Poverty ▶ Genocide ▶ Human Security ▶ International Humanitarian Assistance ▶ Poverty

References Albala-Bertrand J (2000) Responses to complex humanitarian emergencies and natural disasters: an analytical comparison. Third World Quart 21(2):215–227 Ashford E (2007) The duties imposed by the human right to basic necessities. In: Pogge T (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 183–219 Bok S (1994) Complex humanitarian emergencies: moral quandaries. Med Global Survival 1:220–228 Campbell T (2007) Poverty as a violation of human rights: inhumanity or injustice. In: Pogge T (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 55–74 Caney S (2007) Global poverty and human rights: the case for positive duties. In: Pogge T (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 275–302 Collier P (2007) The bottom billion. Oxford University Press, New York Donini A (2002) The geopolitics of mercy: humanitarianism in an age of globalisation. In: Nafziger EW, Va¨yrynen R (eds) The prevention of humanitarian emergencies. Palgrave in association with the United Nations University/World Institute for Development Economics Research, New York, pp 253–268

175

C

176

C

Complex Equality

Duffield M (1994) The political economy of internal war: asset transfer, complex emergencies and international aid. In: Macrae J, Zwi A (eds) War and hunger. Zed Books, London Klugman J (1999) Social and economic policies to prevent complex humanitarian emergencies, policy brief no. 2. UNU/WIDER, Helsinki Middleton N (1998) Disaster and development. Pluto Press, London Miller D (2007) National responsibility and global justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford Nafziger EW, Va¨yrynen R (2002) The prevention of humanitarian emergencies. Palgrave in association with the United Nations University/ World Institute for Development Economics Research, New York Nafziger EW, Auvinen J (2003) Economic development, inequality, and war: humanitarian emergencies in developing countries. Palgrave, Macmillan, New York Pogge T (2010) Politics as usual: what lies behind the pro-poor rhetoric. Polity Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Sen A (1981) Poverty and famines. Oxford University Press, Oxford Sen A (2000) Development as freedom. Anchor Books, New York UNDP Annual Report (2008) Available at: http://www.undp.org/ publications/annualreport2008/pdf/IAR2008_ENG_low.pdf Vayrynen R (1996) Research for action 25: the age of humanitarian emergencies. UNU/WIDER, Helsinki Wenar L (2007) Responsibility and severe poverty. In: Pogge T (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 255–274 Wenar L (2008) Property rights and the resource curse. Philos Public Aff 36(1):2–32

Complex Equality WIN-CHIAT LEE Department of Philosophy, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA

Complex equality is the theory of distributive justice proposed by Michael Walzer in Spheres of Justice (1983). As an account of justice based on social practices and institutions, the theory is communitarian in its approach and poses obstacles for thinking of distributive justice in global terms. Such a communitarian approach, however, would be open to thinking of global distributive justice if, as a matter of fact, the relevant social practices and institutions have themselves become more globalized. The theory begins with an account of goods. The basic idea is that goods do not have an “essential nature.” In Walzer’s view, almost all goods, with very few exceptions, are social goods in the sense that they are goods only due to their social meanings. It is these social goods that concern distributive justice in any case. For a good to have a social meaning means that the reason

why it is valued is based in some ways on a particular set of social practices or institutions embedded in particular cultures. What this amounts to is the claim that without the particular social context from which it derives its social meaning, the good in question would be either not a good at all or, if put under a different social context, a different kind of good. Even health and longevity, for example, would not be the same good in different societies in Walzer’s view. The social meaning of a particular good determines a particular principle of proper distribution of the good inherent in that social meaning, according to Walzer. To have a just distribution of a good g is to have a distribution of g in accordance with the principle inherent in the social meaning of g. If the principle of distributive justice of g can be put in the form, to each according to dimension d, then d varies depending on which g we are talking about or more specifically, what the social meaning of g is. Call this “the Principle of Autonomy.” The Principle of Autonomy implies that in a particular society where there are two goods, F and G, that have different social meanings, it would be wrong for that society to distribute the two goods by the same principle, that is, along the same dimension, say D, because it would involve the misapplication of at least the principle of distribution for one kind of good to another. Not only is this violation of the autonomy of goods itself wrong or unjust, in Walzer’s view, it also promotes dominance in society. Suppose D is the appropriate dimension for distributing F, but not for G. By using the same dimension D to distribute both F and G, that society has made F a more dominant good than G and would give the group favored in the distribution of F an unfair benefit or advantage in the distribution of G as well. This kind of “boundary-crossing,” if wide-spread and consistent, would give one group in a given society dominance over all the others. Suppose D stands for wealth. The society we are discussing would then be a society dominated by the wealthy where they will have more of a great variety of goods such as political power, offices, honor, and health than the others. However, to prevent dominance by one group or a few groups over others in a society, it may not be enough that there be no illegitimate “boundary-crossing” across categories of goods. It would also be important that in that society there be a variety of goods with a variety of social meanings. Call this “the Principle of Plurality.” By having a variety of goods with a variety of social meanings, the goods are to be distributed along a variety of dimensions. In this way, one would be “spreading the

Complex Equality

bets” so that it will not be the same group of people who are consistently advantaged or disadvantaged by the distribution of goods. It is unlikely that it is the same group of people in a society who are diligent, well-born, smart, wealthy, healthy, charming, and skilled if those are the dimensions along which the different goods are to be distributed in that society. This is where pluralism meets egalitarianism in Walzer’s theory and gives rise to the notion of complex equality. By “complex equality,” Walzer means the state of affairs in a society whereby there are a variety of goods and the goods are distributed in accordance with the appropriate principles of distribution inherent in their social meanings. The equality in such a state of affairs is complex because each individual good may be distributed unequally, but it is the resulting multiple inequalities that do not favor any group consistently that act as the equalizer. Complex equality also satisfies both the Principle of Autonomy and the Principle of Plurality and the general concept of justice as giving each person what is due to him or her. It should therefore serve as the criterion for distributive justice. Simple equality, by contrast, is the state of affairs in a society whereby a dominant good, such as political power or wealth, is distributed widely and equally. For Walzer, however, it would require the violation of the Principle of Autonomy to have a dominant good. Furthermore, it is of paramount importance to continue to keep the distribution of the dominant good as equal and as wide as possible within a society because whoever monopolizes the dominant good would then be able to have monopoly over everything else in that society. But it may be difficult to do so without employing coercive means. Distributive justice for Walzer is primarily a local and not a global affair. This is because of his belief that almost all goods and certainly the ones that concern distributive justice are social goods and their value depends on their social meanings. Although goods do get distributed across national boundaries for one reason or another, Walzer believes the political community remains the primary depository of language, history, and culture and therefore the primary site where social meanings come about. Consistent with the Principle of Autonomy, Walzer is also against global “boundary-crossing” applications of distributive principles. As mentioned earlier, the same good, such as health, could have very different social meanings in different societies. (Strictly speaking, it would not really be the same good.) It would therefore need to be distributed according to different principles in different societies. In addition, there is also no reason to think that similar things will appear on the list of every

C

society to be considered to be good, albeit for different social meanings. Taking all this in account, it would seem to be the case in a world where distributive justice, that is, complex equality, is achieved in each and every society, there need not be much similarity among these societies in terms of the pattern of their distribution of goods. This kind of diversity or pluralism, for Walzer, would also be a good thing. This no doubt presents serious obstacles to making moral judgments about distributive justice in global terms – judgments that either involve comparison across national boundaries or concern the global or international distribution of goods. It is what leads to the charge of relativism in Walzer’s theory of distributive justice. It is important to note, however, that it is not the notion of complex equality per se, but rather the conventionalist view of goods that is the source of Walzer’s relativism and the obstacles it poses for thinking about justice in global terms. It remains a viable option to adopt Walzer’s notion of complex equality as an account of distributive justice while rejecting or moderating Walzer’s conventionalist view about goods. Alternatively, while staying within Walzer’s conventionalist framework about goods and their distributive principles, there is no reason to expect that all social meanings will remain local given the increase in human interaction and migration across national boundaries and the emergence of regional and global institutions and practices. In either case, complex equality need not remain only a local concern. What in part motivates Walzer’s theory of complex equality in the first place is the worry that if too many goods are distributed along the same dimension, say wealth, then those who fare well in that dimension, that is, those who are wealthy, will also accrue advantages in the distribution of all the other goods as well and acquire dominance as a result. This could also happen globally if, for one reason or another, either distributive principles are applied globally or the distributive practices of different societies happen to converge. Without the mitigating pluralism of the diverse distributive practices of different societies, given Walzer’s concern about dominance, it would be all the more important that globally there be a plurality of goods that are distributed in accordance with diverse principles.

Related Topics

▶ Global Democracy ▶ Pluralism ▶ Primary Goods ▶ Relativity of Well-Being ▶ Walzer, Michael

177

C

178

C

Composition, Fallacy of

References Dworkin R (1985) A matter of principle. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 214–220 Scanlon TM (1985) Local justice. Lond Rev Books 7(15):17–18 Walzer M (1983) Sphere of justice: a defense of pluralism and equality. Basic Books, New York Walzer M (1994) Thick and thin: moral argument at home and abroad. Notre Dame University Press, Notre Dame

Composition, Fallacy of BONGRAE SEOK Department of Humanities/Philosophy, Alvernia University, Reading, PA, USA

In logic, an argument (generally defined as a group of statements, called premises organized to support another statement, called conclusion) is fallacious if its conclusion is not supported deductively or inductively by its premises. Among these fallacious arguments, there are arguments whose fallacies are not detected by inspecting the formal (i.e., syntactic) structures of the statements. Fallacies committed by these arguments are called informal fallacies. The fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy that is committed when a conclusion about an attribute of the whole is fallaciously drawn from the same attribute of its components. Consider an argument: This football stadium is made of atoms. Atoms are small. Therefore this football stadium is small. This argument is fallacious because the whole (a football stadium) does not necessarily share the same attribute (being small) with its components (atoms). In other words, what is true of the part (atoms) is not necessarily true of the whole (a football stadium). There is, however, another form of composition fallacy. In this form of the fallacy, the relationship between members and their groups, not the relationship between part and whole, is considered. For example, when we infer an attribute of a team based on the same attribute of its members, we often commit this fallacy. For example, good football players do not always make a good football team because teamwork (group interaction and dynamics) is also considered in assessing the quality of a team. That is, an attribute of a group or a collective action does not necessarily derive from the same quality or attribute of its members. In sociology, economics, and social psychology, composition fallacy is regarded not only as a pattern of fallacious reasoning but also as a peculiar feature of human rationality and group behavior. The ordinary understanding of human rationality is that if members of

a group are rational, then the group must be collectively rational. It turned out, however, that this intuitive understanding is not always true. In economics, as demonstrated in the examples such as the tragedy of the commons, the individual pursuit of rational interest does not necessarily result in the increased group interest. In psychology, patterns of group behavior such as social loafing or free riding on group activities demonstrate that people behave differently (often inefficiently and selfishly) when they work together. Furthermore, cultural and social norms influence group interactions and add the complexity to the collective human behavior by modulating the degree of the emergent group attributes. It is observed that members of a certain culture, due to the influence of their cultural norms, tend to exhibit less (or more) degree of social loafing. From the perspective of justice, the fallacy of composition is regarded as a fallacious pattern of reasoning that derives from the misunderstanding of the relation between individual interest and group interest. Since the attributes of individuals are not necessarily the same or parallel to the attributes of their groups, there is always a chance of conflict between the two. If this difference and the conflict are not fully understood, the fallacy of composition is committed and invalid justifications of certain social policies are developed. Particularly, in utilitarian theory of justice, this type of conflict tends to be overlooked or ignored. The assumption that each member of a group works for his or her happiness does not necessarily justify the utilitarian doctrine that maximizing the total sum of group utility is the best way to achieve the happiness of all. If individual and group interests are incompatible, is it justifiable to maximize the utility of a whole group while ignoring or sacrificing the interest of an individual or a group of individuals? Probably, right-based or contract-based theories of justice that emphasize individual rights and their special interests and needs look more realistic and resilient to the conflict and the balance between individual interest and group interest.

Related Topics

▶ Common Good ▶ Majoritarianism ▶ Mill, John Stuart ▶ Prisoner’s Dilemma ▶ Utilitarianism

References Engle SM (1980) Analyzing informal fallacies. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs Gula R (1979/2002) Non-sense: a handbook of logical fallacies. Axios Press, Mount Jackson

Condorcet, N. Marquis de Hardin G (1968) The tragedy of the commons. Science 162:1243–1248 Hardin R (1982) Collective action. RFF Press, Baltimore Mill JS (1957) Utilitarianism. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis Olson ML Jr (1965/1971) The logic of collective action: public goods and the theory of groups. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

Co-National Partiality ▶ Compatriot Partiality Thesis

Condorcet, N. Marquis de ROSLYN MYERS Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Fordham Law School, New York, NY, USA

A descendant of the Caritats, whose title was adopted from their homelands of Condorcet, near Nyons in southeast France, Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat Marquis de Condorcet (b. September 17, 1743; Ribemont-surAisne, France) was a French mathematician and Enlightenment philosopher, whose contribution to social justice in France both before and after the French Revolution was manifold. Although his early academic successes were in mathematics – writing a calculus treatise at age 22 (“Essai sur le calcul integral” 1765) and, at 34, becoming permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences (see “E´loges des Acade´miciens de l’Acade´mie Royale des Sciences morts depuis 1666 jusqu’en 1699” 1773) – he is most notable as a public servant and champion of social causes (“le bien public”), reflected in his polemical political career as an advocate for human rights (“De l’influence de la Re´volution sur l’Europe” 1786); women’s rights (“Sur l’admission des femmes au droits de la cite” 1790); religious freedom; the abolition of slavery (“Reflexions sur l’esclavage des Negres” 1781); secular hospital care (“Memoire sur les hoˆpitaux” 1786); criminal law reform; commerce (“Re´fiexions sur le Commerce des ble´s” 1776); voting procedures (“Essai sur l’Application de l’Analyse aux Probabilite´s des Decisions prises a` la Pluralite´ des Voix” 1785); broad educational access (“Sur l’instruction publique” 1791); jury decision-making (“E´lements du Calcul des Probabilite´s et son Application aux Jeux de Hazard, a` la Loterie, et aux Jugements des Hommes, etc.” 1804); and, at the height of his fervent efforts,

C

constitutional democracy during the French Revolution. In all of these areas, he propounded the application of “social arithmetic” to human crises, hoping to establish a polity based on calculated, rational but liberal, approaches to societal problems that strive for justice, morality, and virtue. Condorcet is perhaps best known for his theorem, which posits that the aggregate judgment of many minds holding dispersed knowledge will represent the most accurate determination, is an early model of information aggregation. More precisely, the theorem states that a majority decision among a group of individuals who are more likely to be right than wrong will achieve greater accuracy as the group’s size increases, as individual accuracy exceeds random, and as the correlation of biases within the group decreases. Although the theorem was applied initially to a choice between two alternatives of which only one is correct, it has been extended to situations in which there are numerous options, such that the option receiving plurality support is most likely to be the correct one, assuming that each individual has better than 0.5 knowledge. The breadth of his work showed a restless multifaceted intellect that was as well suited to equations as the literary thought for which he was appointed to the French Academy in 1777. In 1792, he joined the new French Republic’s first National Convention, serving as chair of the Committee on a Constitution, and in that position, lobbying for “a republican constitution based upon equality. . .in accordance with nature, reason and justice: the only one that can protect the liberty of citizens and the dignity of the human race.” Despite or perhaps because of his outspoken and often impolitic criticisms of the growing Jacobin faction, among others, his version of the constitution was not adopted, and indeed he was eventually silenced by an order of proscription, declaring him and outlaw (“hors la loi”), issued by the National Convention in 1793. Although he is credited as a major voice during the French Revolution, he was also one of its tragic casualties, dying in custody on March 29, 1794, at Bourg-la-Reine, of undetermined causes. He is buried in the Panthe´on, Paris, France. His voice as a social theorist is best expressed in his posthumously published final work “Esquisse d’un tableau historique de l’esprit humain” (1794), in which he enumerated the stages of human progress. He was a man not only reacting to the crises of his era, but also a man who influenced the direction of history. Condorcet’s world was not infused with the kind of technology that permitted immediate global distribution of his ideas and ideals, and his effect on global peace is an indirect one. However, had he not had a “global” reach on

179

C

180

C

Consensus/Justification

matters related to peace, justice, and human dignity, he would have faded into the shadows of history as a merely minor character in this area.

Related Topics

▶ Common Good ▶ Decent Society ▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Equality ▶ Gender Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Legal Rights ▶ Liberties ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Political Representation ▶ Rights ▶ Slavery

References Badinter E (ed) (1988) Correspondance ine´dite de Condorcet et Madame Suard, M. Suard et Garat (1771–1791), ed. E´lisabeth. Fayard, Paris Baker KM (1975) Condorcet: from natural philosophy to social mathematics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Burlingame AE (1930) Condorcet: the torch bearer of the French Revolution. Stratford, Boston Jolibert B (1993) Condorcet (1743–1794) (available online in PDF), in Perspectives: revuew trimestrielle d’e´ducation compare´e. Bureau international d’e´ducation XXIII(1–2):210–213 McLean I, Hewitt F (eds) (1994) Condorcet: foundations of social choice and political theory. Edward Elgar, Aldershot/Brookfield Robinet JFE (1968) Condorcet, sa vie, son oeuvre, 1743–1794. Slatkine Reprints, Geneva, orig. 1893 Rosenfield LC (ed) (1984) Condorcet studies I. Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands Schandeler J-P (2000) Les Interpre´tations de Condorcet. Symboles et concepts (1794–1894), SVEC 2000:03. Voltaire Foundation, Oxford Williams D (ed) (1987) Condorcet studies II. Peter Lang, New York Williams D (2004) Condorcet and modernity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Consensus/Justification LYNETTE E. SIEGER Gallatin School, New York University, New York City, NY, USA

Political philosophers in the liberal tradition regard the coercive nature of political institutions as legitimate on the condition that those subject to such institutions consent to the governing principles and practices by which authority over them is exercised. Motivated to locate the source

of legitimate authority, Jean-Jacques Rousseau posited that the submission of individual freedom to the power of the state should be justified in terms of consent. According to Rousseau, legitimacy is authentic if every generation is able to accept or reject the form of government under which they live, with the end goal of securing the common good with reasonable minimal restriction on individual freedom. From this principle, democratic forms of government have emerged as the ideal form of government in the contemporary world because they facilitate achieving the aim of legitimacy via the principle of consent of the governed. In the global political realm decision makers often decide coercive measures absent of actual or non-coerced consent from affected parties and persons. International Organizations often legislate through state representatives, who often hold diminished or corrupted capacity to negotiate in the best interests of their citizens due to great power differentials between wealthy and poor states. Instances of acts of global governance without consent through democratic participation include global governance of trade, labor standards, lending practices, peacekeeping missions, and wars. Given the scope of affected persons, democracy, in the traditional sense of public discourse and elections, seems implausible for the global political order and is at this time impossible. The questions which then arise are how coercion of persons by global political institutions can be justified and how can global actors justifiably act. Contemporary political theorists have continued the tradition of consensus as a favored normative mechanism on which political principles can be justified and by which legitimate arrangements ought to be made. Ju¨rgen Habermas contends that it is only through the public use of reason that citizens maintain their political autonomy, acting as both author and subject to the laws by which they live. In an effort to reconcile the exercise of coercive demands of justice with respect for a pluralistic society of free and equal citizens, John Rawls developed the idea of overlapping consensus. Rawls argues that political justification ought to rest on a purely political conception of justice. Distinguished from comprehensive religious, moral, or philosophical doctrines, Rawls’s political conception serves as a deliberative guide that can be accepted solely on agreement of political values. Thus, a wide range of reasonable comprehensive views can peacefully coexist, each respecting the overriding power of political values on the terms that they are fundamental to the promotion of fair social cooperation and equal respect. Liberal ideas of pluralism and equal civil and political rights, as well as some degree of economic justice, are political principles

Consensus/Justification

that can be agreed upon from within various competing comprehensive traditions. Where comprehensive systems intersect is the point where we find the possibility for political consensus. Rawls regards democratic constitutional social stability as a necessary condition for overlapping consensus to develop. As such, Rawls argues that overlapping consensus can be particular only to liberal constitutional democracies and considers such societies as closed and self-contained. Global justice theorists, notably Martha Nussbaum, have expanded the boundaries of Rawls’s notion of overlapping consensus to include nonwestern societies – both democratic and nondemocratic – as well as transnational arrangements and agreements. Observing that there is nothing uniquely Western relating to ideas of mutual respect and toleration Nussbaum argues that the emerging human rights culture in the global sphere makes overlapping consensus a reasonable possibility in both the national and the international case. Political arrangements are malleable and apt to change as power and values may shift across a wide spectrum. No society is immune from the threat of change. Thus, it is commitment to the ideas of free and equal consent rather than actual social institutions which make overlapping consensus an open possibility. Though global organizations, such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) among others, are predicated on conceptual norms of fairness, equality, and consensus, the actual structure and practices of such institutions are tainted by asymmetrical power between wealthy and poor countries. Emerging as a result of this condition is the issue of coerced consensus. Economist Joseph Stiglitz alludes to the problem of coerced consensus, identifying that lacking access to and control over the vast economic and intellectual resources that wealthy nations enjoy, poor nations are compelled to accept whatever terms wealthy nations may impose as a condition for membership into the world’s most influential political and economic institutions. Where attempts to insist on fair rules may be made, poor countries lack the bargaining power to bear significant influence. This imbalance results in superficial consensus and structural violence. To remedy the defects of coerced consensus, Thomas Pogge argues that global institutions and their memberstate representatives should act in ways that never violate the principle of “do no harm.” Thus, the interests of one political community cannot be pursued at the expense of the interests of people of other communities regarding their basic rights such as life and life-preserving goods. This principle acts as a self-restraining guide for legislators

C

legislating in the global sphere through a principle of what is morally justifiable. It overcomes the need for actual direct consent, which is not currently structured into systems of international or global governance, or consent via state representatives, which is often coerced and corrupted. Where a political act cannot be justified to all affected parties, it is illegitimate irrespective of consent. Thus, global justice is cosmopolitan. It is attached to individual persons and not states because all state representatives must take the interests of persons inside and outside of the state into equal account. Amartya Sen offers another approach to overcoming the problem of coerced consent, which is to broaden our conception of democracy as a process that goes beyond ballots and elections. Though ballots and elections are important institutional mechanisms to negotiate and legitimize political power, public discourse is a key element in negotiating global social cooperation. Global governance ought to be horizontal rather than hierarchical, integrating the needs and desires of persons that come to light through discursive processes. Certain ideals that enable individuals to participate in the political and social community and carve out a life that they find valuable should be promoted but always through engagement in the wide sense. Thus, consensus is garnered through a process of dialogue, interaction, and integration beyond the narrow engagement with states or their representatives or the narrow construal of interests represented by the state or interstate structure. It also preserves both the idea of consent and justification by extending how the concepts ought to be construed. In conclusion, global political institutions, as they evolve toward greater power and reach into the day to day lives of persons, must negotiate the terms for justified coercive governance. The liberal tradition of political legitimacy through the principle of consent must be conceived of in ways that are applicable to a system that is beyond the electoral process, without undermining the value of practicing coercion within the confines of the engaged interests of affected persons. The complication is that what is justified in the political realm is inextricably linked to what is consented to. In order to overcome the problem of coerced consensus and global inequality, consent will sometimes rely on judgments of what would be morally justifiable. The further development of consensus and justification is necessary in political philosophy to legitimize and guide political interactions in the global terrain.

Related Topics ▶ Civil Rights ▶ Contractarianism

181

C

182

C

Consent

▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Democratic Equality ▶ Global Contractarian Justice ▶ Global Public Reason ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Liberalism ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques ▶ Sen, Amartya

References Habermas J (1995) Reconciliation through the public use of reason: remark’s on John Rawls’s political liberalism. J Philos 92:109–131 Nussbaum M (2006) Frontiers of justice disability, nationality, species membership. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Pogge T (2008) World poverty and human rights, 2nd edn. Polity, Cambridge Rawls J (1972) Theory of justice. Harvard University Press Rawls J (1993) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press Rawls J (2001) Justice as fairness: A restatement. Belknap Rawls J (2005) Political liberalism: expanded edition, 2nd edn. Columbia University Press, New York Rousseau J (1763) The social contract. public domain Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Stiglitz J, Charlton A (2005) Fair trade for all: how trade can promote development. Oxford University Press, New York

Consent PAUL M. HUGHES Department of Literature, Philosophy, and the Arts, University of Michigan – Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “consent” as “voluntary agreement to or acquiescence in what another proposes or desires; compliance, concurrence, permission,” and the verb “consenting” as agreeing with what someone else desires, or granting them permission to do what they desire, or assenting to what they desire. This definition encourages the interpretation that consent is a psychological state roughly characterized as a coming together of two minds, or a concurrence of attitude between two or more persons. But consent may also refer to such objective states as having achieved a certain moral or legal status (e.g., the “age of consent”) or having

actualized a capacity or trait (e.g., the ability to give consent), or the action by which assent is indicated (e.g., the signing of a contract, the utterance of certain words in specific contexts). Consent may sometimes be regarded as a promise which engenders both a legitimate expectation on the part of the recipient of the promise, and a moral obligation on the part of the person making the promise to fulfill it. If I agree that my neighbor may borrow my car a week from Saturday then, other things equal, he or she may take my car at the agreed-upon time. Consent may also serve to authorize or allow others to act in certain ways, as when a court of law allows a physician to withdraw life support from a terminally ill patient. Consent as promising and consent as authorizing are instances of a broader concept of consent which is essentially the power to create, modify, or extinguish specific normative relations among people (Kleinig 2001). In addition to these formal conceptions of consent, the nature of consent is also a function of the specific normative contexts within which it occurs and the experience of consent by people differently situated within those contexts. For example, informed consent in medical contexts, especially with regard to treatment options and decisions about life and death, is regarded as a crucial condition of patient autonomy. In law, the distinction between criminal and legally permissible behavior often hinges on the presence or absence of consent. In rape cases, consent or its lack grounds legal judgments of guilt or innocence. And consent sometimes excuses, partly or entirely, otherwise criminal behavior, as when a person is entrapped by law enforcement agents into violating the law. But consent does not always eliminate or transfer a consenter’s moral or legal responsibility, since there are many ways in which consent may be negligent, reckless, or otherwise inappropriate. The parent who allows his or her inebriated teenage child to operate a motor vehicle does not by doing so escape all responsibility for the harmful consequences of the child’s actions. Though commonly thought to be indicated by such explicit behaviors as speech acts (e.g., “I agree” or “I promise”), the signing of official documents such as treaties or contracts, a handshake, and other overt behaviors, some philosophers (e.g., Rawls, Locke, and Plato) have suggested that consent may be implied or hypothetical. Social contract theories, which argue that legitimate political authority and the obligation of citizens to obey the law may be grounded in tacit consent, are an example. On these views, a person’s residing within and benefitting from the actions of an at least minimally just state is thought to generate the aforementioned

Conspiracy Theory

duties. Although the idea of implied consent is often at the heart of contemporary philosophical discussions of political legitimacy and political obligation within democratic forms of government, for those concerned with issues of global justice, the notion may have no meaningful application to a global order characterized in part by vast and long-standing inequalities and little meaningful reciprocity. The idea of implied consent to bodily organ harvesting is another example. So-called policies of “presumed consent” maintain that unless people explicitly refuse to allow their viable organs to be harvested upon their death, the state may take those organs if there is a need for them. The concept of “dissent” helps delimit the boundaries of consent. Dissent expresses disagreement with another person’s desires, with his or her or others’ proposals, or with a particular state of affairs. Dissenting attitudes or behaviors may generate questions as to the validity of consent in any given case, and, by extension, questions about the autonomy of those who consent. While it would be too strong to insist that all dissent compromises or negates consent, it is perhaps safe to say the presence of dissent gives a prima facie reason to query the validity of the consent at issue. Moreover, since empirical evidence suggests that people experience consent in ways related to gender, ethnicity, and perhaps even social and economic class, what constitutes in specific circumstances continues to be a contested question. (Scheppelle 1991). It is within specific contexts of where issues of local and global justice naturally arise, since obstacles to valid or genuine consent are numerous. The concept of informed consent within medical, legal, and political contexts invites queries about the types of knowledge requisite for legitimate consent in such domains, the conditions under which such knowledge is lacking or unavailable, and the bearing these epistemological concerns have on a person’s competency to consent, which in turn affects the validity of consent. It is, moreover, a commonplace that coercion, duress, and necessity often compromise, if not undermine, voluntary consent. Thus, for example, unjust global poverty fuels illegal markets in the human sex trade, illegal and legal commerce in human transplant organs, menial and dangerous employment, and requests by poor nations for financial aid from wealthy ones; all of which may be contexts of constraint similar in important respects to blackmail and yielding to the gunpoint demand “your money or your life,” which are typically regarded as canonical instances of lack of valid consent. Consent in circumstances of unequal bargaining power may likewise be compelled or “exploited,” generating concerns about

C

whether participation by the economically impoverished in such activities are instances of global injustice. More generally, questions arise about whether and to what extent those governed by fraudulently elected political regimes or imposed military dictatorships validly consent to participate in those regimes, or in what ways international treaties and trade agreements made by governing officials reflect the consent of local populations. Given widespread and trenchant global economic disparities within which agreements between poor and wealthy nations often occur, there is reason to worry that such agreements are unjust, in part because the consent that undergirds them is invalid. In general, questions of consent are central to issues of global justice, since consent is so frequently thought to underwrite morally legitimate or “just” transactions between individuals and groups of people, and its lack is often an indication of injustice.

Related Topics

▶ Coercion ▶ Contractarianism ▶ Social Contract ▶ Toleration/Tolerance, Liberal Principle of

References Faden RR, Beuachamp TL, King NMP (1986) A history and theory of informed consent. Oxford University Press, New York Hughes P (2009) Presumed consent: state organ confiscation or mandated charity? HEC Forum 21(1):1–26 Kleinig J (2001) Consent. In: Becker LC, Becker CB (eds) Encyclopedia of ethics, vol 1. Routledge, New York, pp 299–304 Peter F (2004) Choice, consent, and the legitimacy of market transactions. Econ Philos 20(1):1–18, Cambridge University Press Plamenatz JP (1968) Consent, freedom, and political obligation. Oxford University Press, Oxford Scheppele K (1991) The reasonable woman. Responsive Community 1(4):36–47

Conspiracy Theory ROBERT P. ABELE Department of Humanities and Philosophy, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA, USA

According to political scientist Michael Barkun, conspiracy theory was once a general definition for any conjoint operation of persons, whether it was civil, criminal, or political (Barkun). But particularly after the events in the

183

C

184

C

Conspiracy Theory

United States on September 11, 2001, the term has become a derisive one for those who believe that some secretive group is responsible for a significant and/or tragic event. Thus, for example, University of Florida Law School professor Mark Fenster defines conspiracy theory as “the conviction that a secret, omnipotent individual or group covertly controls the political and social order or some part thereof” (Fenster 2008: 1). Additionally, prominent activist and political writer Michael Albert defines conspiracy theory as “a hypothesis that some events were caused by the intractable secret machinations of undemocratic individuals” (Albert 1995: 1). Regardless of how it is defined, conspiracy theory bears some important implications for global justice. Some academicians reject conspiracy theory on the grounds that it is non-falsifiable (e.g., Barkun), while some reluctantly accept that moniker as a description of their studies (e.g., David Ray Griffin). But while it is certainly true that there are many theories about important events that are non-falsifiable and therefore intellectually dubious, that does not imply that they all are. While Barkun seems to make this mistake, Fenster does not. The latter author seeks to analyze conspiracy theory from what he terms a “culturalist” model, which indicates that the dismissive definitions and wholesale rejections of conspiracy theory miss the important role played by conspiracy theory within popular culture and therefore are misplaced. This entry is intended to demonstrate by example what a conspiracy theory looks like, and then to compare and contrast the main analyses of conspiracy theory, from the analysis that conspiracy theory is “paranoid” and “dangerous” (Hofstadter), to the institutional critique that rejects conspiracy (Chomsky 2006), to the “culturalist” and ultimately dismissive position taken by Fenster. Fenster is at once critical of the conspiracy perspective, but simultaneously maintains its importance in postmodern democracy. Next, the Fenster analysis will be compared with the conspiracy theory of Peter Dale Scott, emeritus professor of English at University of California at Berkeley, whose conspiracy theory seems to avoid the criticisms made by Fenster and others. Finally, the relation of conspiracy theory to global justice will be examined. Central to much of the discussion of conspiracy theory today are the events of 9/11/01 in the United States. Generally speaking, there seem to be two distinct aspects of conspiracy theories about 9/11: the actual attack on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, and the official government version of events contained in the 9/ 11 Commission Report. Those whom Fenster calls “conspiracy theorists” reject the official report on the grounds

that the actual events could not have been perpetrated in the manner the Report describes: That 19 men hijacked planes and flew them into the towers and Pentagon, causing the former to collapse and massive damage to the latter. The “conspiracy” dimension occurs when an analyst maintains that the events of 9/11 were intended to serve as a “precipitating event for some larger, more nefarious project” (Fenster 2008: 241). Although Fenster does not suggest this, one might add that such a belief opens up both a “forward-looking” and a “backward-looking” reconstruction of events around 9/11, both directions of which may or may not show the movement of a number of players, united in purpose, whose machinations are in some way intertwined with the events of 9/11. Perhaps the best example of a conspiracy theorist today – one connected directly with 9/11 analysis – is David Ray Griffin, emeritus professor of philosophy and religion at Claremont School of Theology, in Claremont, California. As a self-proclaimed reluctant conspiracy theorist, Griffin regularly engages in vocabulary that portrays 9/11 as was what he calls “an inside job” (Griffin and Falk 2004: xvii–xviii; Griffin and Scott 2007: Chapter One). From there, he attempts to show how some nefarious agents, likely governmental, had to be involved in the events of 9/11. Additionally, Griffin consistently encourages a wider understanding of the term “conspiracy theorist” as “any time two or more people conspire in secret to do something illegal,” so that everyone in essence becomes a conspiracy theorist (Griffin and Scott 2007). All of this is susceptible to Fenster’s criticisms, as we will see. While this entry will not address the 9/11 issue directly, it is important to underscore the role that this significant event plays both underneath and within the studies being done today on conspiracy theory. It is also important to expose the presuppositions of justice that conspiracy theory holds, with direct implications for a global view of relations between nations and peoples. One of the original academic analyses of conspiracy theory came from historian Richard Hofstadter, who titles his book on conspiracy with the phrase he uses in the book to describe it: The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Conspiracy theories reflect “the non-rational side of politics” (Hofstadter 1966: ix). Thus for Hofstadter, conspiracy theory is a pathology, a psychological illness that can infect mainstream, healthy politics because they do not communicate through cognitive and open styles of communication, but rather rely on the rhetorical style. “Style,” says Hofstadter, is concerned above all with “the way in which ideas are believed and advocated rather than with the truth or falsity of their content” (Hofstadter 1966: 5). Whether or not such theories have small

Conspiracy Theory

elements of truth within them, the fact remains that they are placed within an “apocalyptic and absolutist framework” which he thinks makes such theories either false or too exaggerated to be taken rationally and seriously (p. 17). This is not to say that Hofstadter rejected conspiracy theories on the grounds of their form: This paranoid style also refers to the content of such theories, in which the hysteria of the position twists or even determines the evidence needed to support the position. This is what puts conspiracy theories into the category of the nonrational. This is true for both left-wing and rightwing conspiracies, as Hofstadter takes pains to note in his book. It is the politics of extremism that such views produce that leads Hofstadter to hold them to be threatening to a democratic society. They see political events as a series of plots to undermine “proper” democratic order, and the enemy doing this is in fact a projection of the conspiracy theorists’ own fears and desires (Hofstadter 1966: 4). Contrary to Hofstadter, Fenster maintains that conspiracy theories are neither pathological nor dangerous, but in fact form an integral aspect of postmodern political life. He is critical of Hofstadter for applying a theory of individual pathology to a social phenomenon. Additionally, says Fenster, by broadly labeling as “pathological” any challenge to consensus, the characterization of conspiracy as a “paranoid style” serves as an excuse for neglecting and even repressing political protest and mass political action of all kinds, since it distorts them all by putting them under the same category. Thus, Fenster suggests an analogical use of the term “paranoia” in politics with its clinical definition. Hence, conspiracy theory is an interpretive framework that is in many cases delusional, but structured in an internally consistent and logical fashion. Conspiracy theorists are paranoid – Hofstadter is right – because they draw conclusions that are too strong on the basis of the scant evidence they provide, and their explanations of events are either too simplistic or too complex to explain the phenomena they seek. In essence, they bring totalizing explanations to events that move well beyond the norms of inference. Thus, conspiracy theory as a hermeneutical device is not pathological, just paranoid, by explaining events through a master narrative. Fenster does not deny that conspiracies do in fact occur. It is certainly true that secretive alliances between private individuals with shared interests who use institutions to further their own interests and power do take place. But he does not classify these as “conspiracies.” Nor does he think that structural, institutionally based inequities, or direct manipulation and abuse of state power for personal or interest group gain constitute

C

conspiracies. Rather, these are the political and economic consequences of capitalism (Fenster 2008: 11). Fenster’s specific way of analyzing conspiracy theory as interpretative device is to conceive of it as both “desire” and “production.” Together, these concepts allow us to see conspiracy theory as an active, endless process that continually seeks, but never arrives at, a conclusion. Such a hermeneutic is an ideological, circular, and endless desire for a totalizing method of understanding and mapping social phenomena. Conspiracy theory also produces meaningful and intense effects along with a never-ending chain of interpretation (Fenster 2008: 96). It is from these two ways of defining conspiracy theory that he is able to conclude not only their ubiquitous nature in society, but also their marginal character. In fact, for Fenster, conspiracy theories really function to replace political engagement with a circular narrative of conspiracy, with its insatiable need to find information to justify conspiratorial assertions. To put the matter as Noam Chomsky does, it “draws enormous amounts of energy and effort away from activism directed to real and ongoing crimes of state” (Chomsky 2006). For Chomsky and Michael Albert, conspiracy theory is to be rejected on the grounds that a “proper” leftist critique concerns institutional analysis only. For both authors, there is an exclusive disjunction between conspiracy theory and their own preferred method of scrutiny of structural or institutional phenomena. For them, conspiracy theorists fail to recognize how “the normal operations of some institutions generate the behaviors and motivations” that lead to events such as 9/11. As Albert puts it, the primary assumption of his model (and that of Chomsky) is that “if the particular people hadn’t been there to do it, most likely someone else would have” (Albert 1995). Thus, individual agents and their interests are only facts about the institutions. Policies arise from institutions, not persons, in this perspective. Thus, Chomsky’s position might be called an “institutional conspiracy,” except that conspiracies require human agents, since there can be no “conspiracy” without individual intent. The institutional analysis of Chomsky and Albert, as legitimate as it is, is unwarrantably suspicious about evidence that might indicate the role of human agency within institutional activities. Their commitment to institutional analysis results in their own reduction of human agency to little or no merit in significant events. While Chomsky and Fenster are at times sarcastically dismissive of the conspiracy theory position on 9/11, the actual reasons Fenster presents for his dismissal are illustrative of a deeper point, and that is his ultimate faith in the very institutions that conspiracy theorists undermine.

185

C

186

C

Conspiracy Theory

This would partially explain his sarcasm. Fenster’s presupposition of the legitimacy of the state’s actions and projects concerning the events and subsequent investigation of 9/11 (seen most clearly in his chapter on 9/11) are directly challenged by the conspiracy hypotheses. This brings us to the position of Peter Dale Scott, who argues empirically that the events of 9/11 and after demonstrate the “deep politics” that have been expanding in US government operations since the end of World War II. The institutional movement in this direction was precipitated by individuals who sought to increase their own wealth and power. If Scott is correct in his analysis, then Fenster’s institutional confidence is misplaced, as is his criticism of conspiracy theories. Since Fenster identifies Scott as a “conspiracy theorist” (Fenster 2008: 267, 355, FN 20), this comparative analysis is appropriate. What differentiates the conspiracy analysis of Peter Dale Scott, in comparison to the features of conspiracy theory delineated and rejected by Fenster, is that Scott does not presume a totalizing narrative. Nor does he seek an endless loop of information to support a position that can never be proven definitively anyway. For some, this might remove Scott from consideration as a conspiracy theorist. But what makes him one, according to Fenster’s analysis, is that he aims to trace out historically the movements, events, and “secret” decisions that “small cabals” of persons within our (public) governmental institutions have taken to replace (by intent) the “public” dimension of US foreign (and even domestic) policy with what Scott calls the “deep state”: an elite, authoritarian politics whose concern is with global hegemony. But because Scott’s analysis is at once historical, factual, non-totalizing, and non-paranoid, if his analysis is plausible, his may represent the most cogent place to situate oneself between Fenster’s rejection of conspiracy theories and those who fully embrace them, such as David Ray Griffin. But the key question here is whether or not Scott is vulnerable to Fenster’s analysis. For Peter Dale Scott, 9/11 can and should be analyzed from two different directions. First, it is the culmination of a series of historical actions on the part of the US government that dismantled public politics and led to an authoritarian, top-down approach to government. Second, 9/11 is the cataclysmic event which now threatens to move America beyond public politics into authoritarianism. The prima mobile for this movement is “secret topdown decision making by small cabals, toward the militarization of law enforcement, toward plans for the sequestering of those who dissent, toward government off-the-books operations. . .and toward governance by those who pay for political parties rather than those who

participate in them” (Scott 2007: 2). The major cause of this is “Wall Street’s secret intrusion of its views and personnel into American covert policy.” This is what Scott refers to as an American “overworld”: that realm of wealthy or privileged society that is not formally authorized by the people to run the government, but nevertheless have successfully influenced government operations and policies. It is the “bureaucratic paranoia” that results in the “deep state” that culminated in 9/11 and now seeks its fulfillment in the top-down form of government. This is popularized in former Vice President Cheney’s “one percent doctrine,” which states that even if there is a 1% chance of the unimaginable happening, one must act as if it is a certainty. As Scott sees it, this is “a license for untrammeled expansion of the secret deep state.” Note, though, that Scott does not attribute to the “overworld” a unity or coherence (conspiracy) that it does not possess. Rather, it indicates “a somewhat amorphous realm of sociopolitical change” (Scott 2007: 5). By tracing the secret creation of organizations within the government and by not involving the Congress in their existence or actions, Scott shows how, step by step, both by institutional expansion and individual and group agency intention, the authoritarian state has come to prevail in American politics, now all but erasing the public state of citizen representation and involvement. Although these are Scott’s main theses, he does not begin with them as a totalizing perspective or as givens, and then seek to prove them, thus winding up in the vicious circle that so concerns Fenster. Rather, Scott painstakingly demonstrates the historical events and institutional organizations and actions that have sequentially, through the decades after World War II, the American government slowly and deliberately was shifted toward private-sector control of government. Thus, Scott demonstrates the institutional movements that trended toward the top-down idea of government. However, he also combines the agency analysis so dear to conspiracy theorists. He explicitly states that since the 1970s, there has been “a coordinated campaign by a few wealthy individuals (such as Richard Mellon Scaife), foundations (such as Coors, Allen-Bradley, Olin, Smith Richardson), and their media (such as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation) to shift the political culture of the country radically to the right” (Scott 2007: 4). By this blending of agency and institution, Scott produces a narrative that has historical and factual documentation, and finishes with the kind of conclusion that so repulses Hofstadter, Fenster, and Chomsky. It is a position with which it is difficult to argue, since it does not advocate nor require circular attempts to justify its position, given that it is not a totalizing master narrative.

Conspiracy Theory

As Scott states, he is not opposed to deep state politics, since public politics is fallible, and since some secret machinations are needed in government. But the proper balance must also be struck, and right now it has been lost. Restoring it is urgently imperative. This demonstrates another dimension of Scott’s position that is not normal to conspiracy theory, and that is his attempt to demonstrate what actions are needed on the part of US citizens in order to overcome the movement toward the deep state. These solutions include the United States leading by example of its citizens instead of its authoritarian leaders, the people retaking control of Congress, and the muchneeded people’s effort to reunify civil society (left and right) in a recognition of common values, such as Poland’s Solidarity movement in the 1970s and 1980s. This would replace the current state of things, with populist movements attacking other populist movements with whom they disagree. The focus should be on the unrepresentative government under which we currently live, not fellow citizens (Scott, Chapter 15). By advocating these kinds of solutions and others, Peter Dale Scott capitulates and concludes his analysis. It is at once conspiratorial and institutional, evidence-based and solution-oriented. So, even if Fenster believes Scott to be a conspiracy theorist, Scott combines the best of that interpretative tradition with the institutional critique advocated by Chomsky and the New Left, concluding by advocating solutions to the problems he articulates, having demonstrated that the conclusions he has reached are based on the preponderance of the evidence. If conspiracy theories are engaged by taking into account both agency and structure, they can play a critical role in analyzing political institutions and their machinations. Although contemporary conspiracy theorists do not normally analyze their position from a deliberated viewpoint on justice, this notion certainly plays a pivotal role in the underpinnings of conspiracy analysis. After all, what good would it do to point out “nefarious” deeds of agents and institutions unless some paradigm of justice was assumed? On the global level, such a paradigm of justice may be woven into the fabric of conspiracy theory along two distinct lines: Just War Theory, and larger concerns for justice. Regarding Just War Theory, each of the analytic positions discussed above is concerned with the issues of dominance and power. Thus, any attempt on the part of government agents or institutional actions to enhance either of these desires by attacking another nation or oppressing them economically or militarily would be susceptible to sharp criticism. The only just cause of a war is a defensive one, not a preventive one. There is a long

C

tradition in Western thought that morally condemns such actions regarding other principalities or nations. For example, St. Augustine provides only two justified causes for going to war: a defensive war – that is, one which punishes unjust actions on the part of an aggressor; and an offensive war, justified if a state refuses to make reparations for wrong done, or if it fails to return pilfered property (City of God, I, 21). Thomas Aquinas adds to this that it is justified for a state to respond when being attacked. These two thinkers helped to establish our tradition of justice concerning political or military domination and power over others (Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q. 105, a. 3). In contemporary thinking on this issue, Michael Walzer has continued this tradition by stating that “just cause” means a response to a threat to territorial integrity or sovereignty (Walzer 1977). Threats by one nation to attack in order to control the resources or actions of another nation would give the latter nation a right to war in defense. Thus, such wars for dominance would be inherently unjust, having committed the crime of aggression. As to global justice per se, the function of conspiracy theory in pointing out the use of political institutions and operations for the purpose of increasing wealth and power, and subsequently hegemony in the world by dominating resources and potential threats to dominance would be quite useful for analytical purposes. If, for example, the United States is in fact operating under the Cheney “one percent doctrine,” then notions of universal justice and condemnations of acts which threaten and abuse other peoples and nations must be engaged. The inherent injustice of such paranoid need for domination can be seen in the cosmopolitan viewpoint of philosophers like Thomas Pogge and Charles Beitz, both of whom argue that there is ample evidence of a global pattern of economic and cultural interlinking between persons. National boundaries do not mark off the limits or extent of social obligations. On this view, global justice requires cooperation of all persons regardless of national standing. Or, to put it as Charles Beitz does in adapting Rawls’ Original Position, “the parties to the original position cannot be assumed to know that they are members of a particular national society;” thus, the principles one would choose to see operative in the world would include all the persons in the world, such that the scheme of social cooperation would be to the advantage of the least advantaged in the world (Beitz 1979; see also Pogge 1989). From whatever viewpoint of global justice one takes, the practices of dominance and the self-interested motives of power and wealth are eschewed as incongruent with justice. But if conspiracy theory is after anything, it is after

187

C

188

C

Constructivism

the actions of powerful elite engaging in nefarious activities for their own benefit, and this is an element of political analysis that all parties can begin dialogue by agreeing to.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Collective ▶ Beitz, Charles ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Empire ▶ Foreign Policy ▶ Global Basic Structure ▶ Global Justice ▶ Political Representation

References Albert M (1995) Conspiracy theory. Z Magazine, Aug 1995 Barkun M (2003) A culture of conspiracy: apocalyptic visions in contemporary America. University of California Press, Berkeley Beitz Ch (1979) Bounded morality: justice and the state in world politics. Int Organ 33(3):405–424 Chomsky N (2006) 9–11: institutional analysis vs. conspiracy theory. Z Magazine, Oct 2006 Clark S (2007) Conspiracy theories and the internet: controlled demolition and arrested development. Episteme 4(2):167–180 Coady D (2006) Conspiracy theories: the philosophical debate. Ashgate Publishing, London Fenster M (2008) Conspiracy theories: secrecy and power in American culture. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis Griffin DR, Falk R (2004) The new Pearl Harbor. Interlink Publishing Group, Inc., Northampton Griffin DR, Scott PD (2007) 9/11 and American empire: intellectuals speak out. Interlink Publishing Group, Inc., Northampton Hofstadter R (1966) The paranoid style in American politics. Knopf, New York Keeley BL (1999) Of conspiracy theories. J Philos 96(3):109–126 Parenti M (1996) Dirty truths. City Lights Books, San Francisco Pogge Th (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell, Ithaca Scott PD (2007) The road to 9/11. University of California Press, Berkeley Walzer M (1977) Just and unjust wars: a moral argument with historical illustrations. HarperCollins, New York

Constructivism MICHAEL BUCKLEY Department of Philosophy, Lehman College, City University of New York, Bronx, NY, USA

The metaphor of construction has been used in various ways to name different theoretical approaches across a range of disciplines, including mathematics, education, legal theory, and social epistemology. In political theory,

the metaphor is closely associated with international relations theory and political philosophy, where it names theories emphasizing the role of human thought in creating, or constructing, the principles and concepts that guide political action. Despite this shared feature, international relations (IR) constructivists are interested in different questions than constructivists in political philosophy. Constructivism in IR theory focuses on how social processes of collective meaning help form identities and interests, which in turn define situations as calling for certain actions. Constructivism in political philosophy is a theoretical position concerning the justification and objectivity of political principles and judgments. Since the former does not directly address issues of global justice, this entry will focus on constructivism in political philosophy, which is directly concerned with justice. The metaphor of construction might seem to imply a subjective approach to normative political theory, since human thought plays a critical role in constructing political principles. However, the opposite is the case. Constructivism says that principles are justified as objectively valid whenever they result from deliberations guided by appropriate standards of practical reasoning, and that these principles specify which facts about persons, institutions, and society are morally relevant. In this way, constructivism reverses our ordinary view of “truth” as an accurate judgment about some “fact” existing independently of us by making “true” political judgments, and the “facts” to which they refer depend upon our having first constructed, through practical reason, objectively valid principles. As such, particular moral judgments are “true” when they are consistent with objective principles, and the “facts” serving as the objects of true moral judgments are singled out only after objective principles have been constructed. At the core of this approach is an attempt to balance the following two claims: First, moral and political principles depend on us – especially on our concepts of persons and society together with certain facts about human relations. Second, the proper combination of those concepts and facts generate objectively valid principles. The first claim is familiar to ethics, but is usually associated with a subjective rather than objective view of ethics, as in the case of moral or cultural relativism. However, constructivism in political philosophy says that mind-dependent principles can be objective. As a result, constructivism attempts to navigate a middle path between moral realism and subjectivist ethical theories. The political philosopher John Rawls is most often associated with contemporary versions of constructivism.

Constructivism

On his view, principles are justified as objectively valid in virtue of being chosen within a hypothetical choice procedure called the original position. Rawls argues that the original position reflects appropriate standards of rationality when thinking about issues of social justice, and that anyone reasoning in accordance with these standards will arrive at the correct principles of social justice. The challenge faced by this approach is to explain why certain standards of practical reason, such as those modeled into the original position, appropriately guide deliberations. Rawls provides two responses reflecting two historical sources of constructivism. The first response is that the standards modeled into the original position, along with the principles they support, match our everyday intuitions about justice on due reflection. Rawls calls this reflective equilibrium; it represents a kind of coherentist justification of the original position and the principles chosen within it. The second response emphasizes the manner in which the ideas embedded in the original position – along with the principles chosen – solve particular political problems. On this view, justification is conceived as a practical enterprise. These two responses share certain features and a common history. One historical source is Immanuel Kant, who employed a procedural device called the Categorical Imperative to determine whether subjective maxims were universalizable, and thus objectively valid. According to Kant’s deontological approach, the constructivist aims to identify certain axiomatic rules of practical reason from which to derive normative principles of right that constrain conceptions of the good. A second historical source is social contract theory, which aims to justify principles by showing them to be, in virtue of a freely entered contractual agreement, acceptable to all affected by the principles. On certain interpretations of social contract theory, the aim is to analyze political problems and offer solutions satisfying the interests of all involved. Rawlsian constructivism is significantly influenced by both historical approaches, and each is naturally associated with the more general features of constructivism, given their emphasis on human agency in the creation and justification of principles. Indeed, it is this emphasis that lends constructivism its liberal character. Often, constructivists favor liberal political arrangements stressing individual human rights and equality. However, constructivism does not demand liberalism. For this reason, a constructivist like Rawls can defend a set of domestic principles supporting liberal political arrangements, and without contradiction defend a set of global principles

C

accepting non-liberal states as legitimate members of a just global order. Rawls’s The Law of Peoples represents the first substantial attempt to develop a constructivist theory of global justice. As with the domestic case, Rawls employs a hypothetical procedure incorporating what he believes to be the appropriate standards of practical reasoning for global justice. Unlike his domestic theory, the principles chosen within this hypothetical procedure do not support a robust liberal conception of justice. Instead, they support an international order consisting of both liberal and non-liberal states, or peoples, whereby the legitimacy of each state depends upon its respecting and following standard post–World War II principles of international relations, including the principle of nonintervention, just war principles, and respect for basic human rights. Because Rawls’s theory takes states as the key actors of global justice, it is often labeled “statist.” This contrasts with “cosmopolitan” theories of global justice, which view individual persons as the basic unit of moral analysis from which all political institutions – both domestic and global – are assessed. Interestingly, it was Rawls’s domestic theory of social justice that inspired contemporary cosmopolitan theory. For example, Charles Beitz relied heavily on Rawls’s domestic theory when designing a hypothetical procedure for global distributive principles of justice. Not surprisingly, the Rawlsian-inspired procedure employed by Beitz supports a robust liberal principle of global distributive justice, with strong egalitarian implications. The fact that two constructivist theories of global justice result in two different conceptions of justice returns us to the key challenge of constructivism, namely, to identify why certain standards of practical reason appropriately govern practical deliberations about a particular political subject. Absent an answer to this question, constructivism opens itself up to the charge of circularity, whereby the critic maintains that the procedure is purposely designed to generate the philosopher’s preferred outcome. Much of the current work on constructivism focuses on this issue, with theorists developing both the deontological strand represented by Kantian constructivism, and the pragmatic strand represented by social contract theory.

Related Topics

▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Rawls, John

189

C

190

C

Consumerism

References Beitz C (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Korsgaard C (2003) Realism and constructivism in twentieth-century moral philosophy. J Philos Res (APA Centennial Suppl):99–122 O’Neill O (1996) Towards justice and virtue: a constructive account of practical reasoning. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1999a) Kantian constructivism in moral theory. In: Freeman S (ed) Collected papers. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 303–358 Rawls J (1999b) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Wendt A (1992) Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics. Int Organ 46(2):391–425

Consumerism RYAN JENKINS Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

Consumerism refers fundamentally to the belief that continued and increasing consumption is economically beneficial. Other meanings of the term derive from this core meaning, including: a person’s engaging in overconsumption or “conspicuous consumption,” or governmental policies meant to encourage this kind of behavior. Finally, and most importantly, critics have used the term pejoratively to refer to any of the above. The focus of this chapter will be those criticisms of consumption as, in the light of global justice, the term consumerism is used most commonly in criticisms of these societal practices and policies. Concerns about consumerism are concerns about the way consumers spend money and the way they are encouraged to spend money. There are many reasons why concerns about consumerism would dovetail into considerations of global justice. Utilitarians, to begin, would object that the kinds of spending embodied by consumerism are not the kinds of spending that can be expected to maximize utility. This line of argument is straightforward: buying a Cadillac when I could contribute to UNICEF is not the kind of action that a utilitarian would normally endorse, and they might fault a culture of consumption for making those kinds of decisions more common. There are other reasons why critics charge we should be concerned about how we spend our money as consumers. First, many of the products purchased in the developed world are the result of unjust labor practices. This is perhaps the most notorious cause ce´le`bre of critics

of consumption, as for a long time the anti-sweatshop movement was one of the most visible factions of the anti-consumerist movement. Many items are produced by workers in the developing world under poor conditions for compensation resembling “wage slavery.” Workers are often coerced into working or brutalized in these conditions. Critics of consumerism, then, would argue that we ought not reward this kind of production process with our spending. Second, critics assert we ought to be worried about how our patterns of consumption adversely affect the environment. There are two ways this could happen. First, many countries in the developing world have minimal environmental protections, meaning that their industries can be especially harmful to the ecosystem. This includes practices like slash-and-burn farming for soybean production, mountaintop removal for mining coal, or overfishing of already threatened stocks in international waters. Critics assert that buying products that result from these practices is irresponsible because the practices are unsustainable. Second, besides the production of items in the developing world, our consuming resources in the developed world can also have a serious impact on the environment. Since the debate over anthropogenic climate change has been settled in the scientific community, the moral question of how we consume – and how much we consume – has been brought into higher relief. Rising ocean temperatures threaten to alter global weather patterns, causing unpredictable changes that might disrupt food supplies or flood lowland areas. This is an especially worrisome problem, as the developed world is responsible for the overwhelming majority of climate change emissions, while the developing world is in the worst position to adapt to changing weather patterns or rising sea levels. Many feel this is an injustice because the benefits enjoyed by the global north result in burdens shouldered primarily by the south. Third, many corporations in the United States benefit from partnerships with notoriously undemocratic regimes. Critics accuse these international corporations of turning a blind eye to the kind of violence and repression that is part and parcel of their supply line. Diamonds have become a symbol of the link between conspicuous consumption and atrocious mining methods, perhaps in part because of the irony of such a connection. Diamonds have been mined from Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Angola by rebel groups and sold to international buyers in order to fund violent insurgencies. Worries persist that titanium, tungsten, gold, and other minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are produced by the use of slavery. There is great demand for these minerals in the

Consumerism

developed world, as they are popular in electronics and rechargeable batteries, for example, and the local mining profits are used to finance the Second Congo War, the deadliest conflict since World War II. These have been identified as some of the ways – presumably the most important ways – that our choices as consumers have an impact on people in the developing world. There are two strains in the literature that offer different solutions to this problem: a broadly utilitarian strain and a broadly structuralist one. What follows is a discussion of both traditions.

The Utilitarian Approach In John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism, Mill famously said that morality requires us to be as “strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator.” This would seem to demand that we include all humankind in our moral deliberations, and Mill indeed lauded this generalized benevolence. At the same time, however, he said it was a mistake to think that utilitarianism demanded a globalized concern for others from its adherents. “It is a misapprehension of the utilitarian mode of thought,” Mill says, “to conceive it as implying that people should fix their minds upon so wide a generality as the world.” This, he thought, was because “the occasions on which any person. . . has it in his power to. . . be a public benefactor, are but exceptional,” while the great majority of our decisions will only affect the well-being of those much closer to us. However, by the time Peter Singer published his groundbreaking essay, “Famine, Affluence and Morality” in 1972, the situation had changed. Singer’s article is today regarded as the paradigm of contemporary utilitarian arguments in favor of global redistributive justice. Singer lambastes the developed world for lavishing money on the Concorde Project and on the new Sydney Opera House, comparing the amount spent on those with the amount given so far to ameliorate the then-current Bengali refugee crisis. Differentiating himself from Mill, Singer argues that, since the rise of transnational charity organizations, the great majority of us in the developed world now have the capacity to significantly relieve the suffering of those in the developing world. Every dollar we spend, therefore, whether on a sandwich, a new car, or a movie rental, is a dollar that could have been given to Oxfam International – is a dollar that could have saved a life. Since donating our money to charity would bring about a better effect than spending it on a sandwich or a new car for ourselves would, we are obligated to do the former. Singer has since become a public intellectual, writing books on our ability

C

to alleviate global poverty and urging us to do so rather than, say, buy that new Camaro. Peter Unger is another proponent of the utilitarian approach to global justice. His book Living High and Letting Die is subtitled, “Our Illusion of Innocence.” He makes skilled use of thought experiments to show that the justifications we commonly give for failing to benefit those in the developing world are faulty ones. He falls in line with Singer’s approach, and the broader utilitarian tradition, of arguing that we are required to bring about the best state of affairs we can, which almost certainly means opting to donate money to global charities rather than engaging in the kind of conspicuous consumption that characterizes Western capitalism.

The Structuralist Approach Opposed to the utilitarian tradition is the structuralist approach. The clear virtue of the utilitarian criticism of consumption is its simplicity. But structuralist theorists worry that this simplicity can only take us so far. Structuralists say in response that there is more to eradicating global poverty, environmental degradation, etc., than just “buying this and not that.” Even the most considerate and reflective consumers cannot overturn unfair tariffs or strengthen environmental protections in the developing world. Barack Obama came under fire during the 2008 presidential campaign for suggesting that Americans check the air in their tires as a way to conserve gasoline. The sentiment echoed from his critics on that occasion was likely a structuralist one: making sure my tires have air – though it does improve my car’s fuel efficiency – will not alter OPEC’s practices or decrease demand for coal power plants. (This occurred while Obama privately confided to Newsweek that he was well aware of the collective nature of the problem, saying, “The truth is. . . we can’t solve global warming because I [expletive] changed light bulbs in my house.”) It may do more good to donate my money to charity than it would to spend it on some luxury for myself, as utilitarians say, and it may do some good to decrease my power consumption by installing CFLs in my house. But those actions do not do enough to alter international structures that tend to perpetuate global economic injustice and inequality. We might worry that there is only so much good that we can do by working within the system, and that fundamental changes in the system itself will eventually be required. Schor, for example, argues that the centrality of consumption to American life neuters any moral appeal we might wish to make to consumers. A related problem she highlights is the collective action

191

C

192

C

Contractarianism

problem of keeping up with the Joneses, which always threatens to drive consumption to new heights. The only solution to such a problem is “the intervention of a central authority” – a structural change, not to be effected by individual consumers on the scale of individuals. Many structuralists are concerned about the motives people have for consuming more and more. Theorists float cultural and psychological explanations, like the drive to keep up with the Joneses, which Lichtenberg calls “status-related desires” for equality or superiority. The psychology of the consumer is also implicated in the problem, as Wachtel wonders aloud how people can “have more while enjoying it less” and Lane observes that, despite the increase in purchasing power, depression is also on the rise in advanced economies. The belief is that people turn to consumption to fill a psychological need while being continually disappointed by mere things’ inability to satisfy that need. The result is a cycle of consumption and dissatisfaction resulting in higher demand. Maniates decries what he calls the “individualization of responsibility” that characterizes anti-consumerist movements. He refers to the impact of consumption on climate change when he observes that no matter how diligently we sort our recyclables, ride our bikes to work, or take our canvas bags to the grocery store, a fundamental reconceptualization of the causes of and solutions to environmental degradation is needed. We are told, he says, that the aggregate of individual choices is to blame for the destruction of the environment (though this argument would work as well to criticize the movements to combat labor injustice or autocratic regimes). We then believe that, if individual choices are to blame, then an effective response is to alter our own spending behavior as individual consumers. But even when consumers demonstrate a genuine desire to change their habits, capitalism is there to take them by the hand and guide them to the Energy Star appliances and CFLs. Maniates, on this point, faults capitalism’s unique ability to “commodify dissent” as a way of cashing in on these naı¨ve – though wellmeaning – desires. Sooner or later, no matter how conscious our consumer choices, we will butt up against the “core tenets of liberalism” or the “historical baggage of mainstream environmentalism,” and we will get stuck. Overconsumption and all of its attendant negative effects constitute a problem that consumers will not be able to buy their way out of. Many theorists agree with Maniates that one fundamental requirement of any solution is reducing overall consumption in general. Rather than “buying this

and not that,” we should ask ourselves whether we need to buy at all, and we ought to confront the “underlying forces driving the escalation of needs and desires” that lead to the spiraling production and consumption of unnecessary and wasteful goods.

Related Topics

▶ Poverty ▶ Sustainable Development ▶ Utilitarianism

References General Material on Consumerism Affluenza. PBS documentary Crocker D, Linden T (eds) (1998) Ethics of consumption. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Princen T, Maniates M, Conca K (eds) (2002) Confronting consumption. MIT Press, Cambridge Utilitarian Approaches to Consumerism and Global Justice Singer P (1972) Famine, affluence & morality. Philos Public Aff 1:229–243 Singer P (2002) One world: the ethics of globalization. Yale University Press, New Haven Unger P (1996) Living high and letting die. Oxford University Press, Oxford Structuralist Approaches to Consumerism and Global Justice Young I (2004) Responsibility and global labor justice. J Polit Philos 12:365–388

Contractarianism WIN-CHIAT LEE Department of Philosophy, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA

Contractarianism as a Type “Contractarianism” refers to a type of moral or political theory that employs the idea of contract (or, in less formal terms, agreement) among individuals to account for the content and the normative force of the requirements applicable to them, principally those governing their interaction. The contract involved can be either actual or hypothetical depending on the particular contractarian theory. It is, however, often unclear whether the contract invoked in a given contractarian theory is actual (explicit or tacit) or hypothetical. Even when the contract involved is claimed to be actual, it would still be appropriate in some cases to understand it to

Contractarianism

be hypothetical, as it is unlikely that such a contract or agreement has actually been reached. How the norms governing certain individuals are supposed to be justified by appealing to an actual contract or agreement reached by those individuals is relatively clear. Barring some disqualifying conditions such as deceit or coercion, the fact that a person enters into a contract voluntarily can normally be used to hold her to the terms of the contract. How the appeal to a hypothetical contract among individuals is supposed to justify the norms governing them is, however, less clear. One possibility is to argue that an actual agreement would have existed if not for some contingent, but morally insignificant fact, such as (in some cases) the fact that the person happens to not have been asked. Another possibility is to argue that only agreements reached by individuals under some ideal conditions, such as those ruling out the unfair advantages or distorted communication, can provide the proper grounding for the basic norms governing them. Yet another possibility is that only agreement motivated by certain considerations, such as rational self-interest or the desire to justify oneself to others on mutually acceptable grounds, can count as the proper grounding for the relevant norms. Although a specific contract theory might have other things to be said for it, as a general type, contractarianism has two distinctive features that some consider its strengths. One distinctive feature is that the norms that are justified on the basis of a contract or agreement among those governed by them are thereby self-imposed, directly or indirectly. Those who are governed by the norms either agree to the norms themselves or agree to the authority of the institution, such as the state, which imposes those norms on them. In this way, contractarianism can be seen as not only compatible with, but in fact originating in the autonomy of the individual. The other distinctive feature of contractarianism is its individualism. On the contractarian approach, the justification of the norms governing the interaction between individuals themselves or the authority of the social institutions imposing such norms stems ultimately from some facts about the individual, namely, her consenting to those norms or the authority of those institutions for her own reasons. Social entities, such as nations or cultures, are not to be considered independent sources of moral claims on such approach.

Varieties of Contractarianism In political theory, contractarianism is usually associated with a theory popular in the early modern period known as “social contract theory.” It is advocated by philosophers

C

such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. Contractarianism, in this context, is used to account for the legitimacy of the state’s exercise of political authority, as well as the citizens’ correlative obligation to obey that authority. It does so by appealing to the notion that citizens have a contract among themselves or with the state to enter into civil society, and to abide by the norms imposed by the state, such as its law, or to surrender their natural rights or to delegate their enforcement to the state. In moral theory, contractarianism takes primarily two forms along the two different lines of moral thinking started by Hobbes and Kant, respectively. In the Hobbesian version, morality is a creation by agreement among rational agents for the sake of advancing their mutual benefit. The idea is that mutual forbearance is in the rational self-interest of each of the parties to the agreement. Among contemporary contractarians, David Gauthier stays closest to this approach. The kind of rationality relevant to this kind of account is purely instrumental. The Kantian version (often referred to as “contractualism” in recent literature) begins with the idea that morality is a matter of principles that can be adopted by all rational agents. A morally wrong act, on this account, is one that is based on principles not acceptable to all rational agents. A contemporary version of the Kantian contractualist view is held by T. M. Scanlon who takes morality to be fundamentally a matter of informed and unforced general agreement among persons. A wrong act, on Scanlon’s account, is an act that cannot be justified on any principle that others could not reasonably reject as a basis for such an agreement. It is important to note that on Kantian contractualism, the relevant kind of consideration of rationality or reason (or reasonableness, in Scanlon’s case) is not merely instrumental and cannot be captured by rational choice theory. John Rawls’ theory of justice, perhaps the most influential contemporary contractarian theory, is also the most difficult to classify. Unlike traditional social contract theory, it is not a direct attempt to account for the legitimacy of state authority. But it is not the case that it has nothing to do with that either. Rather, more fundamentally, the Rawlsian contract has to do with arriving at basic moral principles governing the terms of social cooperation, i.e., principles of justice, which would have implications for the design of basic institutions, including political ones. As a moral theory, Rawls’ contractarian theory shares both similarities and differences with Hobbesian contractarianism, on the one hand, and Kantian contractualism, on the other. Like Kantian

193

C

194

C

Contractarianism

contractualism, it appeals to the notion of acceptability by rational agents in deriving these principles of justice. Like Hobbesian contractarianism, and unlike Kantian contractualism, it also appeals to the instrumental rationality of self-interested, but mutually distinterested agents in determining what is acceptable. But with greater affinity with Kant than with Hobbes, the relevant rational selfinterest in Rawls’ theory is one conceived under restricted conditions, i.e., without knowledge of a person’s morally arbitrary characteristics, which practically deletes all knowledge of one’s individual identity, so as to factor out any unfair advantage any of the contracting parties might enjoy over others.

Contractarianism and Global Justice Both of the distinctive features of contractarianism mentioned above – autonomy and individualism – would have key roles to play in how the topic of global justice is to be approached in this type of theory. In contractarianism, since norms are self-imposed by individuals via a contract or agreement, one would expect that principles of global justice would be the result of a global contract among all individual members of humanity (which can be referred to as “the cosmopolitan contract”). However, this need not rule out Rawls’ “two-stage” approach whereby in the first stage individuals in each of the political entities (which Rawls calls “peoples”) would enter into contract with one another to derive principles of justice that govern the basic structure of their political entities. In the second stage, representatives from each of these peoples would then enter into a second contract with one another to derive the principles governing the interaction among these political entities. As long as the representatives at the second stage truly represent the individual members of their community and the interests of these individual members under the principles of justice they have already agreed to in the first stage, this two-stage approach is quite consistent with the contractarian idea that norms are selfimposed by individuals. Which of these two approaches to use on issues concerning global justice or whether they would yield equivalent results are points of contention among contractarians. It is, however, important to note that traditional social contract theory as a political theory is used to account for political obligation, which presents a problem for global justice. It is what the contemporary political philosopher A. John Simmons calls “the particularity requirement” for any adequate theory of political obligation. If one understands political obligation, as Simmons does, as the special obligation to obey political authority which one owes to one’s state as its member but not to any other state, then to

account for political obligation as contractual, social contract theory would have to think of the world as divided up into multiple discrete political communities and that social contracts only exist “locally” among members of each of these political communities, to the exclusion of any other social contract that might exist across community lines or globally. For Hobbes in particular, since sovereignty in a civil society has to be unitary and absolute in order to be functional, once the contract for individuals to enter into civil society is made, there is no room left for the sovereigns themselves to enter into contract with each other to create an overarching sovereignty in order to curtail their power to harm each other. This may have been the reason why Hobbes does not go on to theorize about the international realm in the state of nature, i.e., the state of war of all against all, via an international social contract. The amoralist approach to international relations, often referred to as “realism,” follows from this Hobbesian view. Even for Kant, the social contract is “local” in that although our natural duty of justice may bind us to all human beings, it requires that we enter into contract in the first instance only with those around us to form civil society so as to escape the nasty state of nature. Even though this Kantian approach does not preclude the possibility of a global contract among all human beings or a contract among sovereign states that would curtail state sovereignty in favor of some global principles of justice, Kant also sees the practical difficulties as well as the undesirability of creating out of another social contract an overarching political entity wielding sovereign power of its own over the nations. Nevertheless, Kant thinks that it is our duty, as well as in our advantage, to lift ourselves out of the state of nature internationally. He proposes a different kind of contract for international relations instead. This is his famous proposal for a league of peace, i.e., a federation of free states, which, whatever means it might employ to maintain peace and the freedom of individual states, would not involve the exercise of the kind of political power individual states possess. Finally, as a general moral theory, contractualist theory as put forward by either Kant or Scanlon, precisely because it relies on principles that are either acceptable to or cannot reasonably be rejected by others, is fundamentally cosmopolitan in that everyone has an equal say on whether a person’s act is justifiable regardless whether the person is her compatriots or has any other special relation to her. However, this is not to say that on such a theory, no preferences may be given to oneself, one’s compatriots, or family, or people with certain other special relations to

Corporate Social Responsibility

oneself. That would depend on whether the relevant principles, such as aid or rescue principles, that allow for such partiality would be among the ones that people may reasonably be expected to agree to or may not reasonably reject. Similarly, on this approach, the level of burden one may be morally expected to bear in order to provide international aid or assistance to others whose lives might depend on some personal sacrifices one makes (the kind of problem articulated and discussed by the contemporary philosopher Peter Singer) is also to be settled by testing the relevant principles against the idea of what others may reasonably be expected to agree to or not reasonably reject.

Related Topics

▶ Global Contractarian Justice ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Original Position ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

References Beitz CB (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Gauthier D (1986) Morals by agreement. Oxford University Press, Oxford Hobbes T (1962) Leviathan, with introduction by RS Peters. Simon and Schuster, New York Kant I (1983) Perpetual peace and other essays (trans: Humphrey T). Hackett, Indianapolis Kant I (1993) Grounding for the metaphysics of morals, 3rd edn (trans: Ellington JW). Hackett, Indianapolis Kant I (1999) The metaphysical elements of justice, 2nd edn (trans: Ladd J). Hackett, Indianapolis Nussbaum M (2006) Frontiers of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Scanlon TM (1998) What we owe to each other. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Simmons AJ (1980) Moral principles and political obligations. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Singer P (1972) Famine, affluence and morality. Philosophy and public affairs 1:229–244

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) ▶ Okin, Susan

C

195

Corporate Social Responsibility MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

A conventional view held by advocates of corporate business is that the purpose of the corporation is to make a profit for its shareholders. On this view, as long as laws are not violated, corporate managers are driven by one proper goal: maximizing profit. This perspective comports with the classical capitalist version of market exchange, put memorably in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, where he writes of such markets, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love. . ..” There has arisen a competing view against this position. Here, it is thought that there are various stakeholders, who have or represent important interests, associated, directly or indirectly, with a corporation. In addition to vendors, customers, employees, and others, one stakeholder is society itself, or indeed, in some cases, international communities, and even the planet itself. In short, this view holds that corporations have a responsibility to keep from positively harming others; and further, a responsibility to contribute to the health, safety, and well-being of others, even outside of its market relationships. Those who advocate for corporate social responsibility do not typically disavow capitalism, but seek to “soften,” “humanize,” or otherwise direct some of its energies and consequences to the benefit and welfare of those living in nonmarket relationships to the corporation. The concept of corporate social responsibility is associated with other terms, such as, “corporate responsibility,” “corporate citizenship,” “responsible business,” and “corporate social performance.” Corporations fall along a broad continuum as to how deeply ingrained or ignored corporate responsibility is institutionalized into their respective business structures, models, and practices. Corporations most committed to being socially responsible citizens understand their mission; structure; stakeholder relationships; research and development; commodity production, marketing, sales; management, decision making; and all business dynamics as shaped by concern for the public interest. To the “bottom line” of profit, such corporations also seek to respect, protect, and promote the values, or “bottom line,” of people and the planet.

C

196

C

Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility remains controversial. For its proponents, it is not only moral behavior, but good business. For its critics, this idea of corporate citizenship dilutes or detracts from the essential purpose of business, and may weaken a corporation in respect to its long-term and fundamental purpose, which is making money. Some critics tend to see corporate social responsibility as a kind of pretense, farce, or public relations strategy. They argue that good corporate citizenship is often employed to distract the public from ethical problems perpetrated by the very same corporations. Such charges have been made against, for example, British Petroleum, Shell, MacDonald’s, and tobacco companies. It is interesting and ironic to note that in at least one respect, some advocates and detractors may come close to the same view. Those who think it is “good business” to be socially responsible may simply confirm the view of some critics insofar as it looks as though good corporate citizenship is about profits after all. In this case, it may be a measure of a corporation’s authentic commitment to the public welfare, to see what profit is sacrificed, rather than enhanced, by its conduct (although such measurement would be difficult to make). Corporate social responsibility grew considerably in public and corporate discourse and expectation in the 1970s. Increased knowledge about widespread corporate irresponsibility led to the rise of the corporate responsibility movement. The single most influential organization, at least in the United States, to come into existence to promote corporate responsibility was the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. The ICCR was founded in 1971 when representatives from several Protestant denominations joined together to confront banks and corporations for their support of Apartheid in South Africa. Today, the ICCR is an association of 275 faithbased institutional investors, including denominations, religious communities, pension funds, foundations, economic development funds, asset management companies, unions, and more. The ICCR seeks dialogue with corporate executives about policies and practices ICCR members conclude are irresponsible and damaging to human welfare and/or nature. At times, such dialogue changes corporate behavior, but quite often, shareholder resolutions are filed by investors associated with the ICCR. Shareholder resolutions are proposals submitted by stockholders for a vote at a corporation’s annual meeting. Whereas, they usually pertain to ordinary corporate governance, they have become a means of communicating and protesting corporate policies and practices. Pioneered

as a strategy of this sort by the ICCR, shareholder activism is now used by many other organizations, including the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the largest and most powerful labor coalition in the USA. One value of shareholder activism is manifest when resolutions are reported by the media. Shareholder resolutions were effective in pressuring corporations to divest in South Africa during Apartheid and in ending various other activities widely seen to be unethical. Resolutions against the use of sweatshop labor and the construction of nuclear power plants are examples of shareholder activism (often paired with boycotts of certain commodities). Many corporations now tout their own corporate responsibility quite prominently (including in their advertisements), and organizations closely related to corporate business also emphasize corporate citizenship. The Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire and mallenbaker.net are two examples of business-friendly locations of corporate responsibility news and discussion. Further, corporations are now proactive in their behavior in ways not necessarily tied to the kind of business in which they engage or commodities they produce. Corporations sometimes simply give funds to nonprofit organizations that engage a large number of social problems. Some corporations have also instituted principles of “social accounting,” which describes and communicates a corporation’s economic activity in respect to its social and environmental impacts. A number of reporting guidelines have been developed for this purpose. These standards involve accounting, auditing, and reporting. Examples include AccountAbility’s AA1000 standard, based on John Elkington’s “triple bottom line” (3BL) of profits, people, and planet; the Accounting for Sustainability’s Connected Reporting Framework; the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainable Reporting Guidelines; the Green Global Certification Standard; Social Accountability International’s SA8000 standard; and the standards put forward by the United Nations’ Global Compact and its Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR). One set of standards that has received much attention came in the wake of the 1989 environmental disaster caused when the Exxon-Valdez spilled 10.8 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. These are the Ceres Principles. Six months after the spill, a group of investors launched an organization to tackle the problematic of environmental damage done by corporate

Corporate Social Responsibility

actors. The nonprofit was called Ceres, and its mission is to integrate sustainability into capital markets “for the health of the planet and its people.” The ten principles are meant to guide corporate conduct, become publically endorsed, and used to hold corporations accountable. Fifty corporations have endorsed the Ceres Principles. The Principles are, and elaborate upon: – – – – – – – – – –

Protection of the Biosphere Sustainable Use of Natural Resources Reduction and Disposal of Wastes Energy Conservation Risk Reduction Safe Products and Services Environmental Restoration Informing the Public Management Commitment Audits and Reports (which includes an annual selfevaluation of progress in adhering to the Ceres Principles)

In respect to global justice, at least two issues are important. One is the question of whether, and to what degree, corporations can be free to guide and monitor their own social behavior. Not only is there an important role for independent, nonbusiness related actors to help keep corporations accountable for their activities, there is certainly a crucial role for governments and international institutions and regimes to fill as well. History seems to show that corporations left on their own perpetrate violations against the public welfare with a frequency and consequence that disallows the notion that they can be counted on to act as good public citizens without some kinds of coercion. Numerous times, corporations have engaged in responsible behavior, most often to repair or offset damage they have done, only when forced to do so by one or another governmental actor. In December 2008, the Danish Parliament passed into law a bill making it mandatory for the largest Danish companies to include certain information on their respective social responsibility. Such laws are likely to increase around the world. A second issue is the question of stakeholders. Who are they? Perhaps we can see, in our increasingly interconnected world, that peoples are less and less independent from one another, and that the welfare of any group is closely, if not inherently, tied to the welfare of others. In a world where global capitalism is uniquely powerful in scope and impact in human history, and where approximately 50 of the world’s largest Gross

C

Domestic Products belong not to countries, but to corporations; it is probable that they also have hidden and indirect stakeholders that often number in the hundreds of millions, and perhaps extend to the planet itself. The welfare of the planet and its people are closely connected. Global justice has conventionally been understood to mean justice to the world’s peoples; but we now know that the word global is to be understood more literally. Global justice is achieved just insofar as it is manifest in the lives of people and the planet. Many corporations have global reach and immense power. They have the responsibility to use and control that power for the benefit of all stakeholders, not just shareholders.

Related Topics

▶ Common Good ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Free Trade ▶ Global Justice ▶ Multinational Corporations ▶ Neoliberalism

References Barnet R, Mu¨ller R (1974) Global reach: the power of the multinational corporation. Touchstone, New York Blowfield M, Murray A (2008) Corporate responsibility: a critical introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford Brummer J (1991) Corporate responsibility and legitimacy: an interdisciplinary analysis. Greenwood Press, New York Crane A et al (2008) The Oxford handbook of corporate social responsibility. Oxford University Press, Oxford Friedman M (1970) The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. The New York Times Magazine, vol 13, August 1970 Hanisch A et al (eds) (2005) Corporate social responsibility across Europe. Springer, Heidelberg Hirschland M (2006) Corporate social responsibility and the shaping of global public policy. Palgrave, New York Klein N (2002) No logo: no space, no choice, no jobs. St. Martin’s Press, New York Powers C, Gunnermann S (1972) The ethical investor: universities and corporate responsibility. Yale University Press, New Haven Schreck P (2009) The business case for corporate social responsibility understanding and measuring impacts of corporate social performance. Physica-Verlag, Heidelberg Spence L et al (eds) (2004) Responsibility and social capital: the world of small and medium sized enterprises. Palgrave, New York Visser W et al (eds) (2007) The A to Z of corporate social responsibility. Wiley, New York Werther W, Chandler D (2006) Strategic corporate social responsibility: stakeholders in a global environment. Sage, Thousand Oaks World Business Council for Sustainable Development (1999) Corporate social responsibility: meeting changing expectations. WBCSD, Geneva

197

C

198

C

Correlative Obligations

Correlative Obligations ZACHARY HOSKINS Department of Philosophy, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA

It is a commonly held view that rights imply correlative obligations. That is, if someone has a right to x, then someone else (some person, group of people, institutions, etc.) bears some obligation, or duty, with respect to that right. Sorting out the nature of the obligations implied by rights, however, turns out to be a contentious matter. This is particularly the case in the context of debates about human rights and global justice, where difficult questions emerge about the nature of human rights, the correlative obligations they imply, and the bearers of these obligations. Of central concern in contemporary debates is the issue of whether the global poor have a human right to subsistence, and if so, what correlative obligations this right implies and for whom. Traditionally, theorists have distinguished between negative rights and positive rights. Negative rights are rights to noninterference (e.g., the right not to be robbed, or assaulted, or in general deprived of some good), whereas positive rights are rights to the provision of some good, or the performance of some action (e.g., the right to medical care, or to education). Positive rights are more controversial than are negative rights, in that a positive right implies that others have a correlative obligation to help the right-holders, whereas a negative right appears to imply merely a correlative obligation not to harm them. A fundamental question in debates about global justice is whether all human rights are negative rights, and thus imply only negative correlative obligations, or whether there are positive human rights (and positive correlative obligations) as well. Basic economic rights, or what have been called subsistence rights (minimally, the right to sufficient food and water, clothing, shelter, etc., to ensure a reasonably healthy life), have often been characterized as positive rights. Thus they have been understood as implying positive correlative obligations on others to help ensure the provision of basic necessities to the global poor. Because of this, the notion of a human right to subsistence has met with significant skepticism from libertarians, who typically accept the notion of negative natural rights (and correlative obligations of noninterference) but maintain that positive rights (and positive correlative obligations) can be generated only by contract. From a standard libertarian

perspective, then, appeals to human rights may ground obligations not to deprive individuals of their means of subsistence (i.e., to do no harm), but not additional, positive obligations to help. Scholars sympathetic to the idea that we have genuine obligations to help reduce global poverty have responded to this general libertarian challenge in a number of ways. One option is to contend that there are positive human rights and that subsistence rights are among these. Typically, accounts that defend positive human rights ground them in the fundamental interests human beings have in basic goods such as, among other things, sufficient nourishment and shelter. Understood as positive human rights, subsistence rights straightforwardly imply positive correlative obligations to help ensure the provision of these basic goods. Henry Shue similarly contends that the fundamental moral importance of subsistence can ground positive correlative obligations (1996). Shue’s strategy, however, is explicitly to collapse the traditional distinction between positive and negative rights. Shue believes that basic moral rights represent our “minimum reasonable demands” on humanity. Central to these demands is that the enjoyment of the rights be socially guaranteed against standard threats. Because individuals’ interests in subsistence are no less morally important than their interests in physical security or basic liberties such as freedom of thought and expression, interests in subsistence may ground demands for social guarantees no less than security or liberty interests may ground such demands. Furthermore, as many scholars have pointed out, providing social guarantees to protect against violations of individuals’ security or liberty rights may require positive investments of resources that could rival those required to secure basic economic rights. Thus Shue contends that the distinction of negative and positive rights, and the libertarian notion that human rights imply only negative obligations, is unjustified. Rather, he argues that all basic rights imply positive as well as negative correlative duties: (negative) duties to avoid depriving right-holders of the substance of the right, (positive) duties to protect them from deprivation of the right, and (positive) duties to aid those who have been deprived. Guaranteeing moral rights requires fulfilling all three of these correlative duties. An alternative strategy, employed by Thomas Pogge, is to accept the libertarian claim that all human rights are negative rights, and thus imply solely negative correlative duties not to harm others, but then to contend that the members of affluent nations are in fact responsible for harming the global poor (2002). Pogge claims that we, the members of affluent nations, bear responsibility for

Corruption

the plight of the world’s poor through our nations’ support of the existing global economic order. If this is true, he contends, then even given the libertarian notion that human rights confer only negative correlative duties not to harm, members of affluent nations are implicated for failing to fulfill these negative duties. Rectifying this, Pogge believes, requires that we take positive steps to promote reform of our global institutions. Note, however, that these positive obligations derive from the more fundamental negative duty to do no harm. Related to the issue of what sorts of correlative obligations are implied by human rights is the question of who bears these obligations. It is uncontroversial that insofar as human rights imply negative obligations (not to torture or enslave others, etc.), these obligations are borne by everyone. If we accept the view that human rights also imply positive obligations; however, then disagreement emerges about who properly bears these obligations. One option is that the positive obligations fall on those who are somehow responsible for the rights violations. This is consistent with the libertarian view that human rights are negative rights and thus imply positive obligations only insofar as those who violate the primary, negative correlative duty not to harm are thus obligated to take positive steps to stop harming their victims, and perhaps to make restitution. On this view, a political regime that violated its citizens’ human rights by threatening their security, restricting their basic freedoms, or depriving them of the means of subsistence, would bear obligations to take the positive steps needed to stop harming them in these ways. But the human rights at issue would imply no correlative obligations on members of the global community who were not responsible for the violations to get involved to protect or aid the victims. Note that, because Pogge essentially accepts a responsibility-based view, it is crucial to his project that he demonstrates that those of us in affluent nations really do share responsibility for global poverty, and thus we similarly share an obligation to work to reform the harmful global structure we currently support. An alternative view is that the positive obligations implied by human rights are borne by all those who have the capacity to help put an end to the rights violations, whether or not they are responsible for them. Those who endorse a positive human right to subsistence, grounded in fundamental human interests, will tend to regard this right as implying positive obligations on whomever is in a position to help. On this sort of account, the human right to subsistence implies essentially a universal correlative obligation to help eradicate poverty by working to create institutions (or reform existing institutions) to

C

safeguard people against poverty and aid those who are currently impoverished. Significant disagreement exists, then, both about what correlative obligations are implied by human rights, and also who bears these obligations. Debates about these points will continue to be of central importance in contemporary discussions of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Negative Rights ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Positive Rights ▶ Poverty ▶ Shue, Henry ▶ Subsistence Rights ▶ United Nations: Rights and Duties

References Braybrooke D (1972) The firm but untidy correlativity of rights and obligations. Can J Philos 1:351–363 Holmes S, Sunstein C (1999) The cost of rights: why liberty depends on taxes. Norton, New York Nickel J (2007) Making sense of human rights. Blackwell, Malden O’Neill O (2009) The dark side of human rights. In: Christiano T, Christman JP (eds) Contemporary debates in political philosophy. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights. Polity Press, Cambridge Pogge T (ed) (2007) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? UNESCO/ Oxford University Press, Oxford Shue H (1996) Basic rights: subsistence, affluence, and US foreign policy, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Corruption LYNETTE E. SIEGER Gallatin School, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Corruption, in terms of global justice, is the misuse of public offices for private gain. Public and private parties – such as corporations – play mutually reinforcing roles in perpetuating the problems of corruption. On the one side, interested parties incentivize public office holders toward corrupt behavior by offering high rewards (commonly financial gains) in order to promote their interests. On the other side, public office holders may demand personal benefit prior to executing public duties or incentivize

199

C

200

C

Corruption

interested parties toward offering bribes in exchange for expedited services or favoritism in distribution of grants, rents, or purchases – of public resources such as oil, gas, and mining – and public contracts. Corruption is a transborder problem because it involves global actors, such as heads of state and multinational corporations (MNCs). Theorists, such as Samuel Huntington, argue that corruption in government is not negative. Rather, corruption has had a role in promoting development, and in turn development encourages state stability. This norm on corruption was dominant up until the late 1990s, with states such as France, Switzerland, and Japan allowing bribes to be tax-deductible. Anticorruption movements and legislation took hold in 1977 with the passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in the United States. The FCPA made the bribing of foreign government officials a criminal offense. Recognizing the potential for a competitive disadvantage, US firms pushed for uniform international criminalization of bribery. Alongside corporate interests, value-based ethical development theorists emerged arguing that corruption in the form of bribing government officials has a devastating impact, especially on developing countries. Development ethicists, such as economist Joseph Stiglitz, argue that the balance of interests in corrupt systems is tilted toward private financial gains without due consideration of the impact on local populations or environment. The consequences of environmental degradation, displacement of indigenous persons, and the siphoning off of resources and profits from resources from the public, all contribute to long-term instability. Monies that should be used toward public development programs such as health and education which promote stability are staying in private hands. Furthermore, power maintained through corrupt practices subverts democracy while promoting authoritarian government, which need not be accountable or transparent in its dealings. Michael Walzer argues that corruption is fundamentally at odds with democracy because it interferes with the process of deliberation with the outcomes reflecting partiality and bias. Interest and value-based movements led to efforts, in the international community, to deter corruption, centering on anti-bribery legislation. In 1997, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) passed the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. The OECD Convention – which is legally binding on the OECD’s 34 member states and four non-member states which have adopted the Convention – criminalizes the bribery of foreign public officials in business transactions.

While the Convention signifies an important commitment to the normative shift away from corruption, it is hardly the effective means to ending the debate and development of anticorruption legislation. International Conventions urge states to regulate corruption and impose sanctions internally, with very little international monitoring or compliance mechanisms. During World Trade Organization (WTO) rounds on corruption, leaders of developing states were critical of the push by US and EU leaders towards anticorruption legislation. The emphasis on bribery of public officials was argued to be biased toward dealing with the sort of corruption that is prevalent in developing states while ignoring the sorts of corruption – such as large sum private campaign contributions – that are more prevalent in developed states. The form that anticorruption legislation takes seems to some an exertion of powerful states constraining the self-interest of leaders of weak states without checks to similar excesses of corruption which they – wealthy public figures – themselves profit from. Certainly, the future development of global anticorruption legislation will have to address all forms of corruption in order to be ethically consistent and practically effective. The WTO had not (to date) passed anticorruption legislation. The WTO is one of the most effective wielders of power within the community of international organizations (IOs) because of its effective enforcement mechanism of trade penalties. Stiglitz argues that effective international constraints on corruption should involve the active role of the WTO. Universal acceptance of and adherence to anticorruption is paramount to its success. With MNCs having subsidiaries throughout the world, and the contaminating influence that even only a handful of corporations that actively engage in bribery can have, uniformity in the criminalization of corruption not only between states but also between IOs, is essential. In 2005, the United Nations Convention against Corruption went into effect. The UN’s large member base and universal reach is a step toward greater uniformity. A key aspect of the UN Convention was to recover assets given in exchange for public favors effectively de-incentivizing even short-term gains for would-be corrupt actors. The challenge to overcome is that the UN lacks effective enforcement mechanisms reinforcing the importance of a uniform anticorruption code for all IOs. Though bribery of public officials is the most commonly addressed issue in corruption debates, there may be other influences that contribute to the conditions that allow for corruption to flourish. Political philosopher

Cosmopolitan Democracy

Thomas Pogge argues that beyond what MNCs from wealthy states actively do to bribe foreign public officials, wealthy states themselves play an active role in facilitating corruption. The problem begins with international resource and borrowing privileges. As it is, any leader who holds effective power over a state is internationally recognized as legally entitled to sell the state’s natural resources and to borrow money. This unqualified right, Pogge argues, gives high incentives for authoritarian rule and attempts at coups d’e´tat – perpetuating the destabilizing force of civil wars – in resource-rich countries. The conclusion is that stripping authoritarian leaders of their power to profit from local resources and rights as the power holder would effectively end any incentive toward corruption and at least some factors that encourage civil war. In conclusion, the impact of the behavior of MNCs, how states implement and execute anticorruption laws, and the significance of international legislation and enforcement make corruption a global issue and its resolution a primary concern in the realm of global justice. Political regimes that make public decisions on the basis of personal gain undermine the interests of the people and the environment that they govern. The consequences too cross borders. Persons seeking refuge from civil wars, or oppressive authoritarian regimes, or those in search of greater economic opportunity free from distorting influences of corruption spill into other states. Likewise, the environment is porous and exposure to environmental risks taken in development to enhance profits affects all. International legislation toward eradicating corruption is evolving but in order to be effective it must address corruption at all levels, giving equal consideration to forms of corruption in both poor and wealthy states.

Related Topics

▶ Coercion ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Democratic Legitimacy ▶ Duty to Prosecute ▶ Exploitation ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Moral Legitimacy ▶ Multinational Corporations ▶ Oil ▶ Poverty ▶ Public Interest ▶ Resource Curse ▶ Sustainable Development

C

201

References Abbott K (2001) Rule-making in the WTO: lessons from the case of bribery and corruption. J Int Econ Law 4(2):275–296 Abbott K, Snidal D (2002) Values and interests: international legalization in the fight against corruption. J Leg Stud 31(S1):S141–S177 Cuervo-Cazurra A (2006) Who cares about corruption? J Int Bus Stud 37(6):807–822 Hindess B (2005) Investigating international anti-corruption. Third World Q 26(8):1389–1398 Huntington S (1968) Political order in changing societies. Yale University Press, New Haven/London OECD (1997) Convention on combating bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions. OECD, Paris Pogge T (2008) World poverty and human rights, 2nd edn. Polity, Cambridge Stiglizt J (2007) Making globalization work. W.W. Norton, New York United Nations (2005) Convention Against Corruption Walzer M (2004) Politics and passion: toward a more Egalitarian liberalism. Yale University Press, New Haven

Cosmopolitan Democracy RAFFAELE MARCHETTI Department of History and Political Science, Luiss University, Rome, Italy

Cosmopolitan democracy refers to a model of political organization in which citizens, regardless of their geographical location, have rights to political participation through representation in global affairs in parallel with and independently of their own government. “Global governance cosmopolitans,” in particular, tend to recommend a decentralized governance structure characterized by multiple decision-making centers, in which states still retain a certain degree of national autonomy, and only those agents which are part of a given sociopolitical interaction are entitled to join in the decision-making process. In this vein, the agencies of global governance that these cosmopolitans propose would be characterized according to a mixed model of diffuse authority. Although the term originated in Greek stoic philosophy (cosmos=world, polis=city, demos=people, cratos= power), the modern use of the cosmopolitan ideal was first proposed by Kant with the concept of jus cosmopoliticum deployed in his project for a Perpetual Peace (1795). More recently, David Held and Daniele Archibugi and Held (1995) revived this notion, initiating the contemporary discussion of cosmopolitanism. Underpinning the model of cosmopolitan democracy are two prescriptive assumptions concerning moral

C

202

C

Cosmopolitan Democracy

cosmopolitanism and political democracy and an empirical assumption regarding world interdependence. According to the prescriptive assumptions, the scope of justice should be universal insofar as no discrimination is justified when considering the ultimate entitlement of every citizen to control his/her own destiny (ethical universalism). Conversely, the second presupposition holds that individuals as equals should be entitled to exercise collective self-determination over public issues that affect them, in so far as only by simultaneously retaining the status of legislators and subjects can citizens remain free (congruence/reflexivity between decision takers and decision makers). Finally, when these principles are coupled with the empirical observation of the increasing global interdependence of current international affairs, a fundamental right to autonomy and self-legislation emerges, which requires the creation of an authoritative global institutional framework to permit the implementation of such democratic prerogatives. In presenting a model in between confederation and federation, cosmopolitan democracy aims to avoid both the indirect representation of the first (and consequently the likely exclusive pursuit of national interests) and the risk of despotism of the second (and, consequently, the likely pursuit of technocracy and homogenization). Through cosmopolitan citizenship, individuals are allowed to have a direct political voice on several decisionmaking levels, participating thus in the deliberative process of local, state, and world politics. The global institutional system should thus be reformed toward an issue-oriented structure of cosmopolitan governance, according to which those agents that directly interact on a given issue area are entitled to a political voice, regardless of their territorial or national affiliation. Cosmopolitan democracy fosters democratic reform of both UN institutions and the wide network of global governance organizations. With regard to the UN, the following proposals are supported: the creation of a second advisory Peoples’ Assembly, the abolition of the veto system together with the enlargement of the Security Council, the compulsory jurisdiction before the International Court of Justice, and the establishment of an international humanitarian force. Conversely, regarding global governance, the changes recommended are in the direction of the enhancement of regionalization, the diffusion of authority to different bodies, and the strengthening of democratic procedures within such institutions. Critics point to two principal and opposite deficiencies of cosmopolitan democracy. On the one hand, the model of global institutionalism is seen as inherently dangerous in terms of cultural and political imperialism of the

West as the most powerful international actors, which would sanction their de facto influence by means of a legal endorsement. Given the absence of a global demos able to demand an effective global accountability, global governance institutions would end up in the hands of transnational elites, politics would become governance, and technical negotiation would replace agonistic politics. On the other extreme, such a model world democracy is claimed to be failing in establishing a viable structure through which citizens’ consensus can be expressed, in that it remains based on a system of independent jurisdictions based on the principle of stakeholdership. Only a limited number of self-appointed actors would participate in those jurisdictional decision-making processes. In suggesting a net of delimited institutions, such a proposal would not guarantee representation to citizens outside that structure and would not offer a chance to compare the effects of the uncoordinated decisions taken by different monofunctional agencies, which are considered equal in political authority. In multiplying specialized agencies (supposedly, one for each global issue), this cosmopolitan governance model would consequently fail to establish a central authority, where a legitimate political discussion could take place to determine the allocation of competencies and responsibilities on any determined issue area.

Related Topics

▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Federalism ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ World Citizenship

References Archibugi D (2008) The global commonwealth of citizens. Toward cosmopolitan democracy. Princeton University Press, Princeton Archibugi D, Held D (eds) (1995) Cosmopolitan democracy: an agenda for a new world order. Polity Press, Cambridge Archibugi D, Held D, Ko¨hler M (eds) (1998) Re-imagining political community: studies in cosmopolitan democracy. Polity Press, Cambridge Beck U (2006) Cosmopolitan visions. Polity Press, Cambridge Cabrera L (2004) Political theory of global justice: a cosmopolitan case for the world state. Routledge, London Falk R (1995) On humane governance: toward a new global politics. Polity Press, Cambridge Hayden P (2005) Cosmopolitan global politics. Ashgate, Aldershot Held D (1995) Democracy and the global order: from the modern state to cosmopolitan governance. Polity Press, Cambridge

Cosmopolitan Justice

Cosmopolitan Justice SHARON ANDERSON-GOLD Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY, USA

World Citizen/Civil Right The concept of a “cosmopolis” or world city has its roots in the Stoic idea of a human community based upon the worth of reason in each and every human being. According to the Stoic Marcus Aurelius, reason provides each person with an equal worth and is the ground of an innate natural law common to us all which makes us fellow citizens of a universal moral order. The idea of a natural law accessible to all human beings was rearticulated in Christian theology by Thomas Aquinas as an expression of divine creation. When natural law was transformed into the basis of natural right in the seventeenth century, the state became the locus for the realization of all right. With the institutional apparatus of the state to transform social values into enforceable rights, the idea of a world society based upon universal Christian values receded in favor of an international society of sovereign states founded upon civil rights. The contractual nature of the social pact creating the state entails that the “rights” of citizens pertain only to signatories to the pact. Civil rights stop at the borders of the state and therefore have no implications for noncitizens. With this change in the locus of “rights,” cosmopolitanism was faced with the challenge of either rejecting the system of states outright in favor of a contractual world state (Cloots) or presenting its principles in the form of institutional supplements to or conditions necessary for the proper functioning the society of states. (Kant).

Human Rights The cosmopolitan is one who views herself as a citizen of a world community based upon common human qualities and values. Because cosmopolitanism is based upon the inherent dignity and equality of the human person it is often associated in its modern formulations with universal human rights. Universal human rights however cannot be so easily contained within conventional positivist legal doctrines. Like all forms of universal values, human rights transcend conventional contractual boundaries. Moreover, since rights entail enforcement, human rights require some form of international law that provides the terms of legitimate interaction both between and within political societies. It is generally assumed that the contemporary cosmopolitan rejects an exclusionary politics based on

C

national or ethnic identity and looks forward to a future condition in which citizens of different nation states will enjoy a common set of rights and privileges. Cosmopolitanism then stands opposed to various forms of communitarianism that assert a universal moral priority of obligations to members of local associations over obligations to nonmembers. Cosmopolitanism stands opposed to limitations of duties of justice to such communities.

Justice At the center of cosmopolitanism is the claim that the individual human being is the unit of moral evaluation deserving of equal concern and respect. Justice concerns the proper order of human relationships based upon what is “owed” to each individual person by moral right. Justice covers rewards and punishments, as well as access to material goods. Justice is different than benevolence or charity. With benevolence there is latitude to decide on whom we will bestow our benefits and how much of our goods we will provide to others. There are many things that it would be good to do and that we may even have a moral obligation to do that are not “owed” to another by moral right. It would be good to use our skills to teach others how to do difficult tasks but we do not “owe” everyone access to our talents. What is “owed” to others varies with particular theories of justice and may be based on such concepts as desert or need. It is important to be clear about what constitutes justice as these obligations are thought to have a greater “weight” than the obligations of benevolence and are enforceable by third parties. Justice is said to have “priority” over charity. Cosmopolitanism can take a purely moral form where institutions are merely instrumental to the achievement of universal human values. But when the notions of cosmopolitanism and justice are combined we get the view that global institutions are necessary to secure the background conditions for settling the claims of justice. This is sometimes called political or institutional cosmopolitanism. Institutional cosmopolitans reject the notion that the claims of the poor to a decent standard of living can be secured by charity alone. Rather, economic rights like all other rights are a matter of the rules of the basic institutional structure of the social order. Therefore the global institutions that make up the basic structure of the global social order must be designed so as to achieve fundamental human rights. The enforcement component of justice is reflected in the manner in which justice is said to be the foundation of positive law. Since legal systems tend to be of limited scope, the universal character of human rights raises the question of how cosmopolitan justice can come to be global in scope and how the institutions which are

203

C

204

C

Cosmopolitan Justice

responsible for the achievement of cosmopolitan justice relate to the particular systems of law of nation states.

World State When we combine the global scope of cosmopolitan justice with the issue of the application and enforcement of its principles we get the view that cosmopolitan justice requires a world state. This was the view of Anacharsis Cloots in the eighteenth century. However, for both pragmatic and moral reasons, this identification has been largely rejected by contemporary cosmopolitan theorists in favor of a view of cosmopolitan justice that builds upon the concept of global governance through the development of international institutions with global jurisdiction. In this institutional form, the objective of global governance is the attainment of cosmopolitan justice. Since global governance is the set of institutions, standards, and regulations that are voluntarily accepted by states, states continue to be an important instrument in the achievement of cosmopolitan justice.

Nationalism/Patriotism The continued significance of states in the context of a cosmopolitan community raises the question of the role of sentiments such as patriotism and nationalism that traditionally have been the bonds between particular individuals and particular states. The addition of a cosmopolitan conception to our conception of justice has implications for the underlying conception of citizenship at work in a cosmopolitan community. It broadens our sense of community and connection with others who are citizens of other countries. Most contemporary cosmopolitans argue that this extension of our sense of community need not displace our sense of patriotism or special connection to fellow citizens. They argue that cosmopolitan justice is compatible with limited (liberal) forms of patriotism and nationalism. It is argued that as long as our commitments to our fellow citizens do not detract from the fulfillment of the claims of noncitizens to just treatment, one can be both a patriot, one who has a special connection to a particular state, and a cosmopolitan.

Interdependency/Sovereignty The contemporary concern with the issue of global justice has arisen in the context of globalization wherein interactions between human societies have created increased interdependence. One of the central tenants of contemporary cosmopolitans is that as a consequence of international association, states have in effect extended the “boundaries of justice.” Although the international

community appears to be an organization of independent states, the multidimensional interdependency that has evolved due to economic, technological, cultural, and social interactions between nations has created new forms and sites of power that challenge the traditional notion of states as independent actors. This interdependence means that actions originating in one society or nation have effects on other societies or nations. International interdependence has weakened the ability of any one nation to solve contemporary problems in a unilateral manner making international cooperation necessary to each nation’s long-term well-being.

Legitimacy By shaping and constraining the policy options available to states, the global context has transformed many of the functions of national sovereignty and has thereby challenged the very basis of the legitimacy of the state. Insofar as traditional theories of state accountability presumed a symmetrical relationship between a state’s actions and the subjects of its own jurisdiction, external impacts were not considered a significant moral or legal concern. In a global system of increasingly dense international interaction, the policies of powerful states routinely affect the life chances of persons who are not subject to their jurisdiction. They do this not only by shaping economic, social, and cultural institutions at the international level to their favor but also by titling political power toward elites in developing nations and away from domestic democratic control. This potential for extensive negative impacts on the lives of others is the basis for the cosmopolitan’s claim that justice has become fundamentally a global issue.

Global Standards/Accountability The need for global cooperation entails the development of rules and regulations that curtail the freedom of action of individual nations leading to the issue of limited “sovereignty” or the transfer of some of the powers of individual governments to international institutions. The emergence of international institutions with regulatory power such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Trade Organization has led to conflict over the standards to be used. The developed nations have generally taken the lead in the creation of these institutions and have often designed the regulations to reflect their overall interests and goals. This has led to the questioning of the legitimacy and accountability of the institutions of global governance. To whom should such institutions ultimately be accountable? Whose interests should they serve, the interests of nations or the interests of individual human

Cosmopolitan Republicanism

beings regardless of nationality? From the perspective of cosmopolitan justice the answer has to be that global institutions must serve the interests of individuals equally regardless of nationality. The current institutional structure of global society does not reflect this normative ideal. The very existence of great economic inequality both between and within nations serves as evidence that cosmopolitan justice is not being served. Cosmopolitan theorists therefore call for the reform of global institutions to include greater representation of underdeveloped nations in the standard setting agencies. Some cosmopolitans go further and call for more direct representation of ordinary individuals in the form of a globally elected Parliament.

Practicality Opponents of cosmopolitan justice tend to criticize either its practicality or its desirability. Those who question its practicality claim that states and powerful elites will not willingly forgo their powers to achieve cosmopolitan justice. However, we have seen that the need for cooperation has already led to the transfer of some of the traditional powers of the state to global institutions and that there are segments of society willing to challenge the claims of elites to dominate these institutions. These challenges have led to incremental reforms within these institutions. Those who think that a cosmopolitan community is not desirable argue that human beings are limited in their ability to care about the well-being of others. They argue that attempting to stretch that concern beyond our local communities risks creating individuals who do not really care about much at all. Cosmopolitans are likely to reply that justice is not necessarily based on feelings but upon reasoned judgments that all human beings are in fact capable of. They point to the fact that states are already composed of multitudes and that people successfully stretch their concerns from their family to their local communities to their states. Therefore the idea of membership in a global community is but another extension of this concern.

Related Topics

▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Cosmopolitan Republicanism ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Governance ▶ International Monetary Fund (IMF) ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism

References Anderson-Gold S (2001) Cosmopolitanism and human rights. University of Wales Press, Cardiff

C

Appiah K (2006) Cosmopolitanism: ethics in a world of strangers. Norton, New York Aurelius M (1983) The meditations. Hackett, Indianapolis Benhabib S (2004) The rights of others: aliens, residents and citizens. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Cabrera L (2004) Poltical theory of global justice: a cosmopolitan case for the world state. Routledge, London Cheah P, Robbins B (eds) (1998) Cosmopolitics: thinking and feeling beyond the nation. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis Cloots A (1980) Oeuvres. Kraus Reprint, Mu¨nchen Held D (2003) Cosmopolitanism: a defence. Polity Press, Cambridge Jones C (1999) Global justice: defending cosmopolitanism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kant I (1991) Perpetual peace. In: Reiss H (ed) Kant’s political writings. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge O’Neil O (2000) Bounds of justice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Tan K (2004) Justice without borders. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Cosmopolitan Republicanism MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

Cosmopolitan republicanism has only very recently begun to figure in contemporary global justice debates. Despite this, however, it can be traced back to the republicanism of the Enlightenment. Indeed, Enlightenment republicans, such as Price, Diderot, Turgot, and Kant, broke radically from the earlier commonwealthmen tradition of republicanism, emphasizing civic membership in a bounded political community. Instead, they equated the republican ideal of common liberty under the rule of law with federal and transnational political structures. This shift to federalism and transnationalism was motivated by the insight that membership in a bounded community can simply perpetuate the oldest form of domination: the domination of noncitizens by citizens. For there to be secure nondomination without domination globally, it became necessary to construct a cosmopolitan republic of humanity. The republican ideal of liberty as nondomination under the rule of law came to the forefront of contemporary discussion in the 1990s with the publication of Philip Pettit’s Republicanism. Here Pettit appeals, however, only to the anti-cosmopolitan commonwealthmen tradition. Nonetheless, his republicanism has decisively shaped the present-day context in which the ideal of nondomination has, once more, come to be conceived in federal and

205

C

206

C

Cosmopolitan Republicanism

transnational terms. In what follows, I shall first outline the key features of Pettit’s republicanism, and discuss the difficulty of nondomination with domination in the bounded political community noted by contemporary cosmopolitan republicans. I shall then consider how these difficulties may be addressed by a novel cosmopolitan republicanism that revisits the themes of Enlightenment republicans, while engaging current problems of globalization. In doing so, I appeal mostly to the work of James Bohman. Finally, I shall consider how this latter conception provides an alternative to much more familiar liberal conceptions of cosmopolitan justice.

Pettit’s Republicanism In returning to the commonwealthmen tradition, Pettit was concerned with reviving the notion of liberty as a civil, as opposed to natural, condition of humanity. In contrast with classical republicans, modern liberals stressed that liberty is only ever a natural condition sometimes limited by law, albeit justifiably, in the interest of security. This produced the notion of liberty as noninterference: humanity is most free when law and government interferes the least. Pettit, however, set out to expose the basic conceptual inadequacy in this liberal view by appeal to the republican contrast between citizens and slaves. Indeed, noninterference is insufficient for liberty given the conceptual possibility of a noninterfering slavemaster. This possibility may, however, be countered with another one: that of the nonmastering – or nondominating – interference of the republican rule of law. Here the defining claim of Pettit’s republicanism is that liberty is actually created by the nonarbitrary interference of such rule, under a representative government that tracks the common interests of all citizens. This fully captures the republican idea that libertas is indeed civitas, but it also deemphasizes the role of active citizenship in defining the common terms of participation through which liberty is realized, assigning instead to citizens the more responsive role of contesting the judgments of government officials when tracking fails. Nonetheless, Pettit’s conception of domination as arbitrary interference checked by the republican rule of law as constitutive of liberty has subsequently undergone certain refinements. Pettit has rightly been criticized for placing too much stress on the arbitrariness of interference, thereby failing to identify the normative dimension of domination. Dominators typically act under the color of right, claiming the normative power, or authority, to define the rights and duties of the dominated. Such normative power of the dominator may be exercised arbitrarily, consisting in randomly changing

the rights and duties of those who suffer domination, thus violating settled expectations and creating feelings of civic insecurity. But dominating exercises of normative power need not be arbitrary. A dominator might, for instance, be an entirely rational administrator who decides impartially to impose new rights and duties against an established background of settled expectations and publicly known rules, indeed carefully tracking everyone’s shared interests. Here domination might be said to consist not in arbitrary interference at all, but rather in the absence of redress or remedy among the dominated. Consequently, nondomination requires the exercise of suitable normative powers by citizens as well as government officials, whether through responsively contesting decisions or more actively shaping the contents of the political obligations by which their liberty is created. This recasting of domination and nondomination in the language of normative powers to shape the common terms of cooperation constitutive of liberty deeply influences the subsequent turn to cosmopolitan republicanism, as I discuss shortly. But what are the specific concerns of cosmopolitan republicans in responding to Pettit’s revival of the commonwealthman tradition of republicanism? Here there are two principal concerns, both pointing to the cosmopolitan republican problem of nondomination with domination. On the one hand, securing nondomination at home in a republic of citizens, historically speaking, has proven to be consistent with citizens establishing imperial dominium over noncitizens in colonial outposts. This is the concern that motivated the anticolonial republicans of the Enlightenment. On the other hand, securing nondomination among citizens also frequently led to the problem of citizens dominating noncitizens within their own borders. This is a problem that concerned Enlightenment thinkers, such as Kant, but which remains no less urgent in the present age of globalization.

Nondomination with Domination: The Shift to Cosmopolitan Republicanism In the commonwealthman tradition, common liberty is created as a condition of citizens under the rule of law in a bounded political community. But it is not created as a condition of all humanity, unless the rule of law gains a properly cosmopolitan reach. Here Pettit’s superannuated commonwealthman conception of republican liberty as created through nondominating legal interference itself presents no impassable conceptual barrier to such an extension of reach in a republic of humanity. At any rate, it presents no such barrier as long as interference may be

Cosmopolitan Republicanism

embedded in inappropriately responsive institutions beyond the sovereignty of the representative nation state. But is it also necessary for nondomination that there should be this kind of extension to cosmopolitan institutions? In its strongest form, the cosmopolitan republican answer to this question is affirmative. Indeed, it is not just that nondomination among the citizens of the closed political community may exist alongside the domination of noncitizens outside or even within its borders, but also that nondomination among citizens is undermined absent extension of the benefits of nondomination to all humanity. This, above all, is the insight of anticolonial Enlightenment thinkers who appealed to the idea of a peaceful federation as being the key institutional innovation of modern republicanism. Here the Enlightenment thinkers distinguished themselves from advocates of undifferentiated world empire, such as Dante, who had sought in the late middle ages to concentrate power in the incorruptible rational administration of a world monarch, ruling strictly according to Christian natural law. But this merely produced the normative problem of nonarbitrary domination, as discussed earlier. The Enlightenment solution to the modern resurgence of the Empire in the form of colonialism was to stress the dispersal of normative powers and authority across various subunits of a world federation. Indeed, such world federal dispersal of power was concerned, in part, with overcoming domination of the colonies by the center. But it was also, just as much, concerned with preventing those processes whereby imperial overreach leads inexorably to the corruption of republican liberties at home. Here power exercised by the colonizing nation over its new subjects quickly extends to its own citizens, undermining domestic constitutional provisions designed to guarantee their powers and liberties, as the exclusive members of a sovereign national republic. This concern that no single republic can realize nondomination on its own has recently become the focus of cosmopolitan republican criticism of the United States for resorting increasingly to anti-civil libertarian measures both at home and in Iraq, to which it claimed to be extending the benefits of liberty. But this same concern that nondomination cannot be sustained domestically in the absence of a federated scheme of cosmopolitan institutions beyond the nation state also applies to the phenomenon of migrant populations; or what Kant once called the auxiliaries of the republic to whom citizens should owe the right of hospitality. The present age of globalization has indeed produced the circumstance of politics in which citizens live alongside noncitizens, many of whom lack any secure

C

status as legally recognized persons under the constitution of the national republic. This circumstance exists not only when so-called illegals are viewed by American agribusiness as exempt from labor laws and subject to the constant threat of detention and deportation, but it can also exist among citizens who are themselves economic migrants in their own country, denizens of illegal squatter settlements on public lands, such as the so-called political society of megalopolises like Kolkata in India. Here pervasive illegality even among citizens clearly points beyond sovereign constitutionalism as the paradigm of republican liberty. If the commonwealthmen appealed to the idea that to be free is to be the citizen of a free state, then this model of republican liberty effectively breaks down. Indeed, the issue with respect to freedom from domination created by the rule of law entails an expansion of the scope of political membership beyond the self-enclosed constitutional nation state. This, at any rate, is the key claim made by the leading theorist of cosmopolitan republicanism, James Bohman. According to Bohman, nondomination without domination requires an appeal to humanity as itself constituting a political community. Here he distinguishes between humanity as the empirical aggregate of all humans and humanity as the moral quality of all persons, as providing the basis for the attribution of rights. Membership in this all-encompassing human political community, or republic of humanity, then consists in the “right to have rights.” This indeed amounts to the political human right to legal recognition sufficient for nondomination, regardless of any more particular political memberships of this or that state or regional body; or, for that matter, the absence of any such memberships at all as in the case of persons who are entirely stateless. Here the basis of the universal right to have rights creating the common liberty of all humanity can be found in article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration can be fully realized.” Understood as a specifically normative power, this right to have rights then enables any member of the human political community to make binding claims to justice on all other members of this community who also possess human rights. In Bohman’s estimation, such a cosmopolitan republican model of the normative power to initiate such claims on all other members of the human community of rights holders is presently captured most adequately in the European Convention on Human rights.

207

C

208

C

Cosmopolitan Republicanism

Indeed, it is most adequately captured here in that this Convention entitles foreigners without nationality in any EU member state to initiate appeals to the European Human Rights Court and the EU Court of Justice for the juridical recognition of their basic rights. This extends the normative rights and powers of nondomination to noncitizens by creating transnational adjudicative institutions, building upon the existing constitutional traditions of EU member states. Making each particular constitutional state responsive to cosmopolitan institutions of human rights law thus equalizes the fundamental rights status of citizens and noncitizens alike, resolving the problem of nondomination with domination characteristic of national republics. Bohman contends that the European model of human rights courts may be applied beyond the EU, advocating, for instance, a cosmopolitan human rights court in the United States, whereby “illegals” could initiate claims to justice against the exclusive body of US citizens. Here the larger goal of the republic of humanity would be to create multiple ways and intersecting institutional locations through which all of humanity may come to exercise the minimum power to meet the threshold of transnational nondomination. Such threshold may be conceived as a democratic minimum insofar as it would guarantee all human beings the fundamental democratic capacity to begin deliberation over assignments of rights and duties, across diverse localized contexts of community and membership. Not only does the realization of nondomination without domination in the cosmopolitan republic of humanity entail the active exercise of such power by all humans pointing beyond merely contestatory powers, but it also builds on the reformulation of Pettit’s original problem of domination in explicitly normative terms. One objection to Bohman’s cosmopolitanism is that humanity cannot properly be a community. Here it may be insisted that any political community must be capable of promulgating law. But humanity cannot do this in the absence of a soulless and despotic world state, as opposed to a differentiated set of intersecting human rights institutions. The reply to this objection is, however, that it appeals to an overly narrow definition of community in the capacity to promulgate law; a capacity that may indeed be concentrated as a singular power of domination, as in the case of Dante’s monarch. Consequently, the basis of community is better conceived more broadly in terms of universal rights-based membership, where such membership distributes the power to shape communicatively the normative contents of law across diverse national and regional contexts through transnational adjudicative institutions.

Cosmopolitan Republicanism in Contrast with Liberal Cosmopolitanism Liberalism is much more frequently associated with cosmopolitan thought than republicanism. This is hardly surprising given the old anti-cosmopolitan commonwealthman emphasis on bounded political community, as now controverted by Bohman’s appeal to humanity as unbounded community. By contrast with republicanism, the normative core of liberalism consists not in the idea of membership so much as contract and negative duty. Here the emphasis on contract sorely limits the commitment to cosmopolitanism, as when Rawls argues that under the veil of ignorance states would choose minimalist social contracts binding themselves only to obey treaties and limits on war. This, however, clearly falls short of the democratic minimum of normative powers to shape terms of cooperation in various national and regional contexts, regardless of particular national memberships, advocated by Bohman. Pogge’s liberalism, though, achieves a cosmopolitan reach by stressing instead negative duties of the citizens of rich nation states to refrain from doing harm to noncitizens and distant others. Here Pogge, like Bohman, makes an appeal to human rights as the basis of his cosmopolitanism. But, while Bohman interprets human rights in terms of inclusive membership in the republic of humanity and the dispersal of minimally democratic powers of noncitizens to make binding claims on citizens, Pogge does nothing of the kind. According to Pogge, rights to initiate claims based on such inclusive membership are moot. Noncitizens do not make any democratic claims of justice on citizens by participating in shaping the normative contents of legally binding rights and duties. Instead, it is entirely up to the citizens of presently dominant nation states to desist from causing harm to noncitizens, given some plausible attribution of causal responsibility for their distress. From Bohman’s perspective, however, this approach would ultimately fail the republican test of nondomination, even on Pettit’s conception of domination as arbitrary interference. In Pogge’s liberal cosmopolitanism, arbitrary interference should be checked exclusively by dominators themselves recognizing a negative duty to do no harm. But this need not even entail formally extending to the dominated powers of contestation, as necessary to ensure a nonarbitrary rule of law. Indeed, the authority to determine the rights and duties of the dominated remains entirely within the hands of the dominators. This leaves fully in place the normative problem of domination as arising from the dominator’s monopolistic hold on the normative power, or authority, to determine the binding contents of obligations under law.

Cosmopolitanism

Herein lies the core difference between the liberal and republican approaches to cosmopolitanism. Addressing domination as a normative problem of monopolistic determinations of the contents of rights and duties, cosmopolitan republicanism points in the direction of transnational democracy, extending powers of co-determining the contents of law to citizens and noncitizens alike, as the necessary condition of nondomination without domination. For its part, liberal cosmopolitanism entails no such commitment to transnational democracy, appealing instead to those citizens in a position to be dominators of noncitizens to engage in moral self-regulation according to the standard of negative duty. Absent the commitment to transnational democracy, it thus enables citizens to retain monopolistic control over the determination of the meaning and application of basic human rights norms. To this extent, liberal cosmopolitanism does not address the central insight of the current revival of interest in republicanism: that noninterference and negative duty remain consistent with ongoing relations of domination, as relations both across and within national borders.

Related Topics

▶ Bohman, James ▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Pogge, Thomas

References Allen M (2009) Misrecognition and domination in transnational democracy. Contemp Polit Theory 9:2 Bohman J (2001) Cosmopolitanism republicanism. Monist 84:3–22 Bohman J (2004) Republican cosmopolitanism. J Polit Philos 12(3):336–353 Bohman J (2007) Democracy across borders: from demos to demoi. MIT Press, Cambridge Pettit P (1996) Republicanism: a theory of government and freedom. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Cosmopolitanism LUIS CABRERA Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK

The cosmopolitan moral orientation is one in which individuals, rather than states or other communal groupings,

C

are seen as morally primary. All individuals are seen as possessing equal moral worth, and that worth is to be respected because of their status as human beings, rather than their status as citizens of any particular political community. That is not to say a cosmopolitan orientation dictates some first-order impartialism, where no special attachments are considered in moral questions. Rather, it would presume, especially in recent formulations, that any special status attached to membership in a specific political community should be justifiable to all others, in particular if there are resource or security implications for those outside of the community. The roots of cosmopolitanism penetrate nearly as deeply as those of democracy, and cosmopolitanism has seen similar periods of ascendancy and decline among prominent thinkers. Diogenes the Cynic is credited with first declaring himself to be a “citizen of the world,” defining his moral aspirations in specifically universal terms. While famously dwelling in an upturned tub in the streets of fourth century BCE Athens, Diogenes challenged convention at all levels, including conventional views on love of country and moral belonging (Nussbaum 2002). His Greek and Roman Stoic successors espoused and expanded cosmopolitan ideas. Roman jurist Cicero (106–43 BCE), for example, argued that the laws of any given polity should be measured against a universal natural law. Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180), in his Meditations, emphasized the oneness of all things in the world, and ways in which all humans were linked by their rational capacity, or right reason. The cosmopolitan tradition can be traced through the individualistic universalism of Enlightenment thinkers, in particular Immanuel Kant. His Perpetual Peace (1795) remains highly influential as a comprehensive approach to globally applicable cosmopolitan law and the promotion of stable interstate relations through some political integration. Many later thinkers active during and around the world state “heyday” of the 1940s, when global political integration was advocated by many as the solution to fears of nuclear annihilation, also can be seen as extending aspects of the cosmopolitan tradition. That is not to say that a cosmopolitan view is compatible with any sort of argument for global integration. For example, it would be generally at odds with an approach to securing global peace that permitted or required the large-scale repression of individuals within states. Some rights-based approaches to global integration, such as that offered by H.G. Wells (1941), could be consistent with an emphasis on the equal moral worth of individuals. Most current cosmopolitan thinkers, however, would distance their

209

C

210

C

Cosmopolitanism

accounts from the world state concept, on which more below. Recent decades have seen a flowering of cosmopolitan thought. Amid deepening global economic integration, cosmopolitan theorists have explored the implications of a genuinely universalist moral view in such areas as distributive justice, democratic practice, global trade, just war, and immigration. Unlike in the classical treatments, when cosmopolitan thought was equated with conceptions of world citizenship, most recent accounts distinguish between the two. World citizenship focuses more on individual ethical behavior in a global human community, and cosmopolitan accounts emphasize the application of principles of justice to global institutions. In contemporary thought, the cosmopolitan moral orientation is seen as having three main features: it is individualistic, viewing individuals, rather than any political groupings, as the primary moral unit; it is universal, seeing all of those individuals as possessing equal moral worth; and it is general, meaning that all persons should be viewed as morally primary and of equal worth by all other persons, and not just members of their own group (Pogge 2008: Ch. 7). Charles Beitz adds useful precision in his characterization of a cosmopolitan view as one in which all individuals are seen as having equal standing as addressees of justification. Actions which would deeply affect individuals’ interests must in principle be justifiable to them. Thus, some “morality of states” view which sees states or state leaders as the appropriate ends of moral action would not meet the standard. A cosmopolitan orientation is fundamentally concerned with the scope of moral principles. It does not prescribe some specific scheme of distributive justice within or across states, or dictate specific democratic forms at any level. That is not to say that any set of principles extended to the global level could be included. Some universal principle dictating gender oppression, for example, would not fit the rubric. Further, consequentialist approaches, which often are counted as cosmopolitan since they do not attach intrinsic worth to state boundaries, may not fit. That is primarily because of familiar worries arising in some modes of consequentialism about the possibility of sacrificing individuals in order to achieve a desired outcome. The question is particularly significant for such issues as international emergency or development aid, where choices can arise between devoting a set amount of resources to merely protecting the lives of one set of highly vulnerable persons, or enabling an already less-vulnerable group to achieve greater gains by putting the resources to use, for example, in an economic enterprise. Permitting the sacrifice of the worst-off group would

seem at deep odds with an emphasis on equal moral worth, and of course with offering a justification that all persons could, in principle, accept. Within the cosmopolitan orientation, three prominent current approaches can be identified: cosmopolitan democracy, moral cosmopolitanism, and institutional cosmopolitanism. A cosmopolitan democracy approach seeks to recapture or reinforce individual autonomy against the perceived forces of economic integration, or globalization. Such integration is said to be eroding the capacity of individuals to participate in shared rule that is actually decisive. Democracy must be recaptured through the creation of broader polities and new democratic institutions above the state, up to and including the fully global level. A world parliament, perhaps taking the form of a second, directly elected chamber for the United Nations, is a common proposal (see Held 2004; Archibugi 2008). Moral cosmopolitanism is viewed as a means of assessing the justice of current global institutions. Institutions are understood broadly as systems of rules specifying actions that are permissible within a particular domain. The current global system is seen as a set of myriad interlinked institutions grounded in the norms of Westphalian state sovereignty. Sovereign states are recognized as formally equal under international law, and possessing strong, though not absolute, ability to determine political structures and rules for fair treatment of their own citizens. These two fundamental norms of sovereignty are intrinsic to many injustices that cosmopolitans have identified in the current system. Noninterference and related norms of internal sovereignty, for example, can facilitate the oppression of individuals or minority groups and impede external protections of those individuals. While the creation of the International Criminal Court can be seen as a significant step toward implementing cosmopolitan law – law that attaches to and protects individuals rather than states – it remains the case that states’ leaders choose whether or not their states will fall under the court’s jurisdiction. Related norms recognizing a state’s leaders, no matter how oppressive their regimes, as having the right to sell or use natural resources, as well as to borrow in their own citizens’ name, also are singled out for criticism (Pogge 2008). More broadly, global economic institutions, including the rules and practices of intergovernmental organizations such as the World Trade Organization, are seen as contributing to vast global inequalities. Theorists such as Charles Beitz (1979) and Thomas Pogge have argued that the fact of massive global deprivation, and the fact that interdependence between states has created in effect a cohesive scheme of global institutions, justifies a global

Cosmopolitanism

extension of principles of distributive justice. Beitz, among others, has argued for an extension of John Rawls’s difference principle, according to which any distributive inequalities must be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the worst-off societal groups. Such a principle, he argues, should deeply inform the operation of existing global institutions. Others, notably Simon Caney (2005), but also the more recent Beitz, reject any strong emphasis on interdependence to justify a global extension of distributive justice. They argue that it is most consistent with cosmopolitanism to focus on the moral worth of individuals, rather than whether the states in which individuals happen to reside are deeply embedded in global institutions. Separate applications of moral cosmopolitanism would include assessments of the ways in which life-saving drugs are developed and priced, often leaving them inaccessible to the world’s poorest. In an immigration context, some accounts have challenged the legitimacy of norms of sovereignty that permit states exclusive rights to determine who gets in and who will be excluded (Risse 2008). Others have explored a just war theory informed by moral cosmopolitan principles, including circumstances under which some form of preventive warfare might be justifiable (Buchanan and Keohane 2004). Institutional cosmopolitanism is seen as more fundamentally concerned with institution building in order to achieve global outcomes consistent with an emphasis on individual moral standing. It often is equated with some hierarchical world state, controlling a monopoly on the legitimate global means of coercion and imposing its laws on all states and individuals. Most cosmopolitans take pains to make clear that they are not advocating such institutional transformation. Many have proposed the creation of narrower but still strongly empowered institutions of international and cosmopolitan law, as well as bodies capable of securing state compliance with just requirements on environmental protections, immigration and emigration, the regulation of multinational corporations, and in other areas. Pogge (2008) and Caney (2005) in particular have called for more radical global institutional change, in service of better securing individual rights within states. Both advocate the creation of a multi-level global system, where states would be embedded in regional institutions, which would themselves be embedded in some global institutions, though not in a strictly hierarchical relationship. Both emphasize that they do not envision a system where a single institutional entity would exercise absolute power. Some limited principle of supremacy at the global

C

level would seem to be required, however, if global compliance is to be secured with requirements relating to issues affecting the great majority of individuals, for example, climate change. Finally, we can note that some accounts would attempt to accommodate special relationships within a fully cosmopolitan frame. Kok-Chor Tan (2004), for example, has defended a liberal-nationalist cosmopolitan approach. Associative duties to conationals are seen as permissible, but they are subordinate to global duties, which are expected to be far more pressing given the extent of global deprivation. Gillian Brock (2009) defends a broadly similar approach, arguing that a justifiable accommodation of the local gives reason to reject the kind of global principle of equal opportunity that Caney (2005) would defend. How much accommodation can or should be made for national identity, and whether such shared identity can serve as justification for excluding individuals from higher-level distributions of resources or opportunities, are likely to remain significant questions in a cosmopolitan frame and in the debate on global justice in general.

Related Topics

▶ Associative Duties ▶ Brock, Gillian ▶ Buchanan, Allen ▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Duties to Non-Compatriots ▶ Global Difference Principle ▶ Global Federalism ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Immigration ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Patriotism ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ World Citizenship

References Archibugi D (2008) The global commonwealth of citizens: toward cosmopolitan democracy. Princeton University Press, Princeton Brock G (2009) Global justice: a cosmopolitan account. Oxford University Press, Oxford Buchanan A, Keohane R (2004) The preventive use of force: a cosmopolitan institutional proposal. Ethics Int Aff 18(1):1–22 Caney S (2005) Justice beyond borders: a global political theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Held D (2004) Global covenant: the social democratic alternative to the Washington consensus. Polity, Cambridge

211

C

212

C

Crimes Against Humanity

Kant I ([1795] 2003) To perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch (trans: Humphrey T). Hackett, Indianapolis Nussbaum M (2002) Patriotism and cosmopolitanism. In: Cohen J (ed) For love of country: debating the limits of patriotism. Beacon, Boston, pp 2–17 Pogge T (2008) World poverty and human rights: cosmopolitan responsibilities and reforms. Polity, Cambridge Risse M (2008) On the morality of immigration. Ethics Int Aff 22(1): 25–33

Crimes Against Humanity ROBERT PAUL CHURCHILL Department of Philosophy, Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

The term “crimes against humanity” is generally used to refer to atrocities committed on a large scale. The concept’s more technical, or legal, meaning is restricted to the indiscriminate killing, torture, or other widespread brutality and persecution of civilians, or noncombatants, by government or military officials. Although not part of positive international law until the Nuremberg Charter of 1946, early antecedents of the concept date to at least 1815. Following the trials at Nuremberg in 1945 and at Tokyo in 1946, and adoption of the Charter of the United Nations in 1948, legal prohibitions of crimes against humanity proved largely ineffective during the Cold War era, and there was a long hiatus both in drawing up international covenants and in trying perpetrators until the mid-1990s. The meaning of the term continued to be clarified, however, and the normative standings of prohibitions of crimes against humanity increased throughout this era, despite the absence of effective enforcement. By the mid-1990s, the roles of special, ad hoc international tribunals demonstrated a compelling need for a permanent International Criminal Court that came into existence in 2002 with an expanded list of specific crimes contained within the meaning of the term.

Early History Although the phrase “crimes against humanity” seems not to have been used in international law before the early twentieth century, the Declaration of the Powers on the Abolition of the Slave Trade which formed Act XV of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, included in its first sentence the concept of the “principles of humanity and universal morality” as justification for ending a trade declared to be “odious

in its continuance.” The preamble of the 1907 Hague Convention mentions “the laws of humanity” in association with “the laws and customs” of war. In May 1915, for the first time ever, a particular government was explicitly charged with committing a “crime against humanity” when the Allies of World War I, Britain, France, and Russia, accused the Ottoman Empire of massacres of the Armenians. In 1919, a Commission on Responsibilities set up by the Treaty of Versailles to investigate war crimes committed during World War I, relying on the 1907 Hague Convention as applicable law, condemned Germany and its allies for “barbarous or illegitimate methods” in conducting warfare that violated the “elementary laws of humanity.” The commission likewise found that Turkish officials committed “crimes against the laws of humanity” for the killing of Armenians during the period of the war. The concept was used by the Allies during World War II in reference to atrocities committed by the Axis powers, including in a 1944 a speech by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The Nuremberg Charter and the Definition of Crimes Against Humanity Crimes against humanity received a prominent place in positive international law as a consequence of the Nuremberg trials of major Nazi war criminals in 1945. The Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) was drawn up by the United States and the Allies. Count 4 of the IMT Tribunal charged the 26 Nazi defendants with “crimes against humanity,” and all but six were convicted on this charge. A similar charter for an international military tribunal for the Far East in 1946 provided the legal authority at the Tokyo trials of indicted leaders of the Empire of Japan. Other prosecutions and trials in territories occupied by the Allies followed the IMT, including the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal in China in 1946, and the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials in the Soviet Union in 1949. Article 6 (c) of the IMT Charter contained the following definition of crimes against humanity: "

Crimes against humanity: murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhuman acts committed against civilian populations, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.

The Nuremberg Charter sought to define three categories of crime: crimes against peace (now generally known as crimes of aggression), crimes of war, and crimes against humanity. The definition of crimes against peace makes criminal the planning, preparation, and waging of

Crimes Against Humanity

a war of aggression. Crimes of war pertain to unlawful conduct during war. By contrast, crimes against humanity may occur in the absence of war as well as during war. In addition, in relation to Nazi and Imperial Japanese crimes against both citizens and foreign populations, crimes against humanity were not restricted to atrocities committed by a government against its own civilians. In addition, although, initially, crimes against humanity were envisioned as occurring “before or during” a war, and in connection with crimes against peace and war crimes over which the IMT also had jurisdiction, the link with armed conflict was subsequently dropped. From the outset, the scale of the brutality, inhumanity, or persecution was regarded as critical. “Scale” pertained both to the numbers of persons victimized, as well as to the severity of the brutality inflicted, or the intention that atrocities be both widespread and severe in their effects. Thus persecution as such was counted as a crime against humanity only if it involved widespread atrocities and reflected systematic efforts. The inclusion of “enslavement” and “deportation,” and especially “extermination” in the Nuremberg definition of crimes against humanity overlapped with the newly developed concept of genocide which was conspicuously absent from the IMT charter. Genocide was subsequently recognized as a separate category of crime by the Geneva Convention of 1948. While genocide requires the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part” an identifiable group as defined by the Geneva Convention, persecution crimes against humanity form a broader category of crimes insofar as the persecution against a group of persons is a crime against humanity irrespective of the makeup of the group or the purpose of the persecution, provided that the persecution is “systematic or widespread.”

Cold War Era and the Problem of Enforcement Institutional structures or processes for the effective enforcement of international law did not develop as quickly as the norms, or moral principles, relating to prohibitions of crimes against humanity. It was widely agreed that more was needed for legitimate enforcement than the “victors’ justice” implemented as a consequence of military defeat in the aftermath of World War II. Yet, the Security Council of the UN, the ostensible legal authority for the prosecution of crimes against humanity, remained ineffectively deadlocked as the West and the East were preoccupied with other issues of the Cold War. Thus from the 1950s through the1980s, legal prohibitions of crimes against humanity had little effect on either the formation or execution of states’ policies or on states’

C

reactions, other than verbal condemnations, to crimes committed by other governments. At the same time, media coverage of atrocities, widespread public protests, debates in the UN General Assembly, hearings by special commissions, and especially the activities of the increasingly numerous and influential nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with human rights agendas continued to press for greater and more positive responses to atrocities. The concept was also salient in a number of highly publicized prosecutions in national courts, including that of the ex-Nazi official Adolf Eichmann in 1962, Paul Touvier, Klaus Barbie, and Maurice Papon in France, and Imre Finta in Canada. In 1966, the concept was broadened by a UN General Assembly declaration to include policies of racial discrimination and segregation practiced within Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and then in 1976, the systems of apartheid in South Africa and in Southwest Africa (now Namibia) were also determined by the UN General Assembly to be crimes against humanity. During the 1970s and 1980s, numerous and frequent accusations were made against governments for committing crimes against humanity in all parts of the globe, most notably Afghanistan, Argentina under the junta of the colonels, Cambodia, Chile under Pinochet, East Pakistan, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iraq, Rwanda, South Africa, and the Sudan. With few exceptions (e.g., India in East Pakistan, and Vietnam in Cambodia), governments, either singly, or multilaterally lacked either the will or the capacity to suppress the commission of mass atrocities let alone apprehend and try perpetrators. Apart from issues of political will and the practical difficulties of enforcement, uncertainty continued to center on the authority to indict, apprehend, and try alleged criminals, as well as the concept of individual rather than collective responsibility for criminal conduct. To some extent, a paradigm shift was needed to accept the notion that the elected or otherwise recognized de facto heads of state could be held individually accountable for such crimes, especially when they understood actions in their official capacity as representing, in their judgment, the will of the people or their people’s best interests. The idealistic overreach of international law concerning crimes against humanity seemed evident in 1970 when Western states ignored an international convention and declared void statutes of limitations for trials of charges of crimes against humanity. As of 1992, no Western state had signed or ratified this convention and, in fact, before the Statute of Rome establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998, there was no special international convention on crimes against humanity. Both in 1967 and 1971, a nongovernmental

213

C

214

C

Crimes Against Humanity

international tribunal and a commission of inquiry brought charges against the United States for crimes against humanity in Vietnam and Indochina. While both bodies found the United States to have committed crimes, the US government refused to acknowledge the authority of these bodies to render such judgments.

A Turning Tide and the International Criminal Court A number of major changes in the late 1980s and early 1990s created significant opportunities for greater cooperation in developing further conventions outlawing crimes against humanity, and especially new institutional structures. These well-known changes included the eclipse of authoritarian regimes, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the rapid spread of democratic ideals of transparency and accountability, and the rise of human rights as the lingua franca of international moral discourse. In South Africa especially, but also in El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, and Chile, truth commissions brought to light the criminal conduct of perpetrators, including patterns of atrocity that, in some cases, amounted to crimes against humanity. The truth commissions demonstrated that competent investigative and judicial bodies could successfully administer cases involving atrocities and render judgments without the necessity for forcefully imposed judgments. Throughout the 1980s and early into the 1990s normative advances again outstripped the responses of states, the UN, and multilateral organizations. The reaction to widespread massacre, atrocities, and “ethnic cleansing” in the former Yugoslavia was far too late and too ineffectual. Likewise, the world stood idly by during the genocidal massacres in Rwanda in 1994 and the brutality of the Liberian civil war of 1990–1997, in addition to persistent failures of the United States and other governments to bring Pol Pot and officials of the Khmer Rouge to trial for the killing fields and other atrocities in Cambodia. By 1993 and 1994, however, the UN Security Council, working with the international community, established two ad hoc international criminal tribunals: one for the former Yugoslavia in May 1993 and another in November 1994 for Rwanda. Among those indicted and brought to trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was Prime Minister Slobodan Milosevic, the first sitting head of state indicted for war crimes. These were the most prominent of a number of ad hoc tribunals, including a special court in Sierra Leone where former Liberian president Charles Taylor was on trial and a Cambodian tribunal, finally established jointly by the government of Cambodia and the UN in 2006.

The UN General Assembly convened a conference in Rome in June 1998 with the objective of finalizing a treaty establishing a permanent criminal court and, following adoption of the Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court (ICC) came into being as a permanent tribunal on July 2002. As of March 2010, membership in the ICC included 111 states, while another 38 states have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute. A number of states including China, India, Israel, Russia, the Sudan, and the United States are critical of the ICC and have not become members, however. The first person to be arrested under a warrant issued by the ICC in March 2006 was Thomas Lubanga, former rebel leader in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Persons indicted but at large such as Joseph Kony, leader of Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, reflect the ICC’s dependence on state members’ police or military forces, or on UN blue helmets to arrest those accused. One UN referral to the ICC in 2005 resulted in the indictment of Sudanese President Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in 2008. The Al-Bashir situation continues to reflect the ability of those allegedly guilty of crimes against humanity to evade accountability when the means of arresting them are not present or the consequences of doing so are perceived to result in major disruptions of the international system. Despite its dependence on the cooperation of states as well as institutional limitations, such as the Security Council’s ability to prevent the prosecution of a case, the influence of the ICC is positively affected by growing consensus that crimes against humanity constitute part of jus cogens, or those rules of international law deemed to be peremptory, or of such high standing as not to permit derogation. One increasingly accepted implication of the jus cogens status is that crimes against humanity are subject to universal jurisdiction, meaning that any state can prosecute a perpetrator irrespective of the place where the crime was committed. Universal jurisdiction also means that all states have a duty to assist one another in securing evidence needed to prosecute. Moreover, no accused perpetrator can claim the defense of “obedience to superior orders,” and no statute of limitations contained in the laws of any state nor any amnesty provision can prevent prosecution. The arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in Great Britain was heralded as a watershed event, for it was the first time a former government head had been arrested on the principle of universal jurisdiction. Indicted in October 1998 by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzo´n, Pinochet was placed under house arrest in Britain but released in March 2000 on medical grounds and he died in Chile in December 2006

Crimes Against Humanity

without having been convicted for any of the serious crimes for which he was indicted.

New Definitions and Future Directions Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the ICC significantly expands the list of crimes falling within the definition of crimes against humanity. It adds “deportation or forcible transfer of population,” “torture,” “enforced disappearance of persons,” the “crime of apartheid,” and “imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law.” Most noticeable, subsection (g) of Article 7 adds a category of sexual crimes: “Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity.” Subsection (h) broadens the prohibitions of persecution of “any identifiable group or collectivity” by adding “gender, cultural, or other grounds universally recognized as impermissible under international law.” In addition, subsection (k) adds “other inhumane acts of a similar character causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.” A conference to review the Rome Statute of the ICC is scheduled to take place in 2010. It is almost certain there will be a move to expand the list of crimes in Article 7, especially as the Final Resolution on Adoption of the Rome Statute in 1998 specifically recommended that terrorism and drug trafficking be reconsidered at the 2010 conference. Pursuant to a 2006 UN Security Council resolution, a Special Tribunal for Lebanon was established for the prosecution, under Lebanese law, of criminal acts relating to the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others in February 2005. This marks the first time that a UN sponsored tribunal has tried a “terrorist” crime committed against identifiable persons. Observers believe the inclusion of defined acts of terrorism within the purview of the ICC will provide the world community with a more appropriate and effective response to terrorist atrocities than that pursued by the United States in declaring a “war against terror” after the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. However, the ICC and world community will remain indefinitely dependent on states to apprehend and turn over those indicted as criminals.

Issues of Global Justice Together with crimes of aggression, genocide, and war crimes, crimes against humanity are the severest violations of human rights and gravest of injustices governments can inflict on individuals. International positive law since the Nuremberg Charter has held that heads of state cannot expect to commit such crimes with impunity. One major practical problem continues to involve securing the arrest

C

and physical transfer to the courts of the indictees in question, given that the ICC and UN ad hoc courts do not have marshals services of their own and must rely entirely on the cooperation of relevant states for this purpose. An example of such cooperation was afforded by the arrest by Belgian authorities of former Democratic Republic of the Congo vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo in Brussels in 2008, following his indictment by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in the Central African Republic in 2002–2003. Because such cooperation will be influenced by particular states’ own political calculations, the UN ought to develop a mechanism for the direction of a small special contingent of members’ armed forces to provide a marshal’s function of apprehending and transporting indictees. Such an international UN marshal could present warrants for the arrests of individuals indicted by the ICC and work in tandem with the intelligence services of member states. A second political issue raises ethical issues of broader concern. This is the so-called peace versus justice problem: when, if ever, should the demands of justice yield to the demands of peace, that is, to bringing an end to a conflict that has caused untold destruction and misery? In some ongoing conflicts, leaders of one or both sides have indicated their unwillingness to enter peace negotiations unless granted amnesty against prosecution. It has been charged, for instance, that the ICC indictments issued against Joseph Kony and other leaders of the Lord’s Revolutionary Army (LRA) for atrocities committed in Northern Uganda, and against President Bashir and senior government figures in Sudan for crimes in Darfur, have been a hindrance to achieving peace. The roles of indictments in perpetuating hostilities are difficult to estimate, however, and the evidence suggests a more complex picture. In the case of Kony and the LRA, the indictments seem to have been obstacles to final conclusion of an armistice. But as Gareth Evans (2008) notes, the ICC indictments seem to have helped lesser LRA commanders to concentrate their minds and even persuaded Kony that the net is closing in, as there has been a dramatic increase in overall security in Northern Uganda. Likewise, the indictments of senior Sudan officials, including President Bashir himself, seem to have demonstrated a resolve on the part of the international community necessary to get the regime to recalculate the costs of allowing atrocities to continue. By contrast, Nigeria’s initial grant of asylum to Liberia’s Charles Taylor in 2003 was probably justified given the likelihood of thousands of added casualties in the final battle for Monrovia. Nigeria subsequently did accede to international pressure and turned Taylor over

215

C

216

C

Crimes Against Peace

to be tried in a Sierra Leone Special Court. It is possible but difficult to know whether the rendition of Taylor had an effect on Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe who continues to refuse to accept a compromise exit from office. The claims of peace versus justice must be settled on a case by case basis. However, as Gareth Evans notes, it is reasonable to presume that amnesty should not be given unless two conditions can be fulfilled. First, only in the most exceptional cases where it is clear that major peace benefits depend on offering amnesty, should serious consideration be given to this option. Second, if decisions to give primacy to peace over justice have to be made in certain hard cases, these decisions must be made by the Security Council, using its authority under Article 16 of the Rome Statute, and not by the ICC or its prosecutor. It is not consistent with the judiciary role of the ICC to make such exceptions. Thus in the long-term interests of global peace and justice, the U.N Security Council, as the highest authoritative body, must assume this responsibility.

Related Topics

▶ Geneva Conventions ▶ Genocide ▶ Human Rights ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ International Criminal Justice ▶ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ▶ International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ▶ International Law, Normative Foundations of ▶ Nuremberg Trials ▶ Persecution ▶ War Against Terrorism ▶ War Crimes

References Bass GJ (2001) Stay the hand of vengeance: the politics of war crimes tribunals. Princeton University Press, Princeton Bassiouni MJ (1998) Crimes against humanity in international criminal law. Martins Nihoff, Dordrecht Evans G (2008) The responsibility to protect: ending mass atrocity crimes once and for all. Brookings Institution, Washington May L (2004) Crimes against humanity: a normative account. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Meron T (1991) Human rights and humanitarian norms as customary law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Neier A (1998) War crimes: brutality, genocide, terror, and the struggle for justice. Times Books, New York Ratner SR, Abrams JS (1997) Accountability for human rights atrocities in international law: beyond the Nuremberg legacy. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Robertson G (2006) Crimes against humanity: the struggle for global justice, 3rd edn. New, New York Schiff BN (2008) Building the international criminal court. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Shawcross W (1984) The quality of mercy: Cambodia, the holocaust, and modern conscience. Simon & Shuster, New York Simpson GJ (2007) Law, war and crime: war crimes, trials and the reinvention of international laws. Polity, Cambridge Taylor T (1993) The anatomy of the Nuremberg trials: a personal memoir. Little, Brown, Boston

Crimes Against Peace DON E. SCHEID Department of Philosophy, Winona State University, Winona, MN, USA

An essential element in any concept of global justice must be a delineation of international crimes. Although Crimes Against Peace (the crime of aggression) would seem to rank among the most important, the prospect of successfully implementing this category of international crime is uncertain at best. The category “Crimes Against Peace” was first employed in legal proceedings at the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals (1945 and 1946, respectively) and was defined as: (i) Planning, preparation, initiation, or waging a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i) As can be seen from this definitional statement, waging a war of aggression constitutes the core of Crimes Against Peace. The Nuremberg Trials were conducted pursuant to an agreement by the Allied powers in August 1945: the London Agreement. This agreement created the Charter for the International Military Tribunal, which was the basis for the trials at Nuremberg. Article 6 of the Charter specified three categories of criminal activity: Crimes Against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes Against Humanity. When considering Crimes Against Peace in particular, any number of issues concerning its interpretation and application arise. Only a few of the more significant issues can be noted here.

Individual and State Conduct A revolutionary feature of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal (IMT), in its Charter and Judgment, was

Crimes Against Peace

to hold individuals responsible for the crimes they committed in the name of their State. In its 1946 Judgment, the Tribunal stated that “crimes against international law are committed by men, not abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced . . . individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience imposed by the individual state.” Before Nuremberg, aggressive war was considered an “act of State” that did not entail individual liability. With Nuremberg, both individual criminal liability and State responsibility are involved. Hence, Crimes Against Peace requires both individual conduct on the part of the accused person and State conduct – the “war of aggression.” This has lead to a distinction between a “crime of aggression” and an “act of aggression,” the former being what the individual actor does and the latter being what the State does. There can be no “crime of aggression” without an “act of aggression,” and the combination of these two elements raises conceptual and institutional difficulties. Suppose the International Criminal Court (ICC) is adjudicating a criminal charge of aggression against a person. The first issue is whether the action at the State level constituted an act of aggression under international law. This, in turn, leads to two questions: how is “act of aggression” to be defined, and what institution has authority to apply the definition to the particular facts of a given military incursion.

Defining “Aggression” Those concerned with international governance have long sought to define “aggression” in a way that would serve as an effective tool of international law to sustain peace. Armed aggression by one State against another in breach of a bilateral or multilateral nonaggression pact was, of course, prohibited under international treaty law long before World War II. Moreover, certain military incursions have been universally regarded as acts of aggression. Nazi Germany’s blitzkrieg into Poland in 1939 (and subsequent annexation) is considered a prime example of armed aggression. Another example is the incursion into South Korea by North Korea in June 1950. In spite of nonaggression treaties and such clear examples of armed aggression, no settled definitions of “aggression,” “act of aggression,” or “war of aggression” have been established in international law. A number of definitions have been proposed over many years. The most prominent and influential definition of “aggression” is the 1974 General Assembly Consensus Resolution on the Definition of Aggression

C

(Resolution 3314) (1974 GA Definition). It begins by characterizing “aggression” as “the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations, . . ..” It then notes that the first use of armed force by a State may constitute prima facie evidence of an act of aggression. The Definition goes on to list typical military forms of aggression: invasion, bombardment, blockade, and attacks by land, sea, or air. Also covered are situations in which foreign territory, or mercenaries, or irregular troops are used to carry out such acts. The 1974 GA Definition was originally intended to provide guidance to the Security Council when it was called upon to determine the existence of an act of aggression, under its United Nations (UN) mandate (Article 39). The GA Definition is not binding on the Security Council; however, it has not proven to be particularly helpful. Thus, the definition of “aggression” and application of the term in concrete instances remain problematic. A related issue is whether all acts of aggression should support the crime of aggression (Crimes Against Peace), or whether only especially grave acts of aggression should apply. One suggestion is that only acts of aggression that are on a large scale (i.e., wars of aggression) should count. Thus, only very clear and grave acts of aggression would support an individual’s criminal liability, while a more expansive concept of aggression might be appropriate for questions of State responsibility and the condemnation of State behavior.

Conspiracy In the second part of the Nuremberg definition of Crimes Against Peace, the word “conspiracy” appears in the phrase: “or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing.” This seems to state a second version of a Crime Against Peace. In fact, the Nuremberg Tribunal made allegations of aggression into two counts: Count One charged the common plan or conspiracy, while Count Two charged the planning and waging of war. A number of the Nazi defendants were charged under both counts. The question arises how to link individual actions and intentions (individual actus reus and mens rea elements in the criminal charge) with the State undertaking of aggressive war. Even high-level officials can rarely, if ever, make a decision on their own for a State to undertake war. War is a corporate undertaking. The “planning and preparation” for a war, not to mention its “initiation or waging,” requires the complex coordination of many decisions and actions by many individuals. How are an individual’s

217

C

218

C

Crimes Against Peace

criminal act and intent to be linked to the State plan? Apparently, a version of conspiracy was introduced at the Nuremberg Trials to handle this problem. The conspiracy charge treated leaders of the Nazi regime as members of a criminal gang. Under this conspiracy charge, each high-level person who participated in Nazi Germany’s aggression was held responsible for what every member of the group did. The reference to “conspiracy” has proven to be a stumbling block in the development of individual liability for Crimes Against Peace or the crime of aggression. First, it is far from clear what the intended contours of the concept were for the Nuremberg Tribunal. Second, the relevance of conspiracy to the crime of aggression remains a matter of serious debate. Most civil-law countries do not recognize criminal liability merely for conspiratorial agreements; conspiracy is certainly not accepted as a criminal offense in all countries. Accordingly, reference to “conspiracy” has been dropped in present-day proposals for definitions of the crime of aggression.

Level of Participation Another issue concerns the level of participation in a war of aggression that is necessary for criminal liability. Under the Nuremberg definition, Crimes Against Peace includes not only those who plan, prepare, and initiate a war of aggression, but also those who wage such a war. Does this mean that every soldier in the armed forces of the aggressing State is to be held guilty? Furthermore, civilian leaders, as well as military commanders, were tried at the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials. Does this mean that nearly all civilians living in a State that conducts a war of aggression will be criminally liable? Certainly, when a State goes to war, a great number of individuals “participate” in the war effort. Not only are there civilians who make a direct contribution to the war effort, such as munitions workers, but there are also factory workers who put together first-aid kits; farmers who supply food; miners who supply strategic minerals; those who buy war bonds; and civilians who ration food, gasoline, and other essential products. There are many thousands of civilians who take over jobs vacated by the men and women who have gone into the military, and there are the millions who take part in the economy that pays for the war. Indeed, nearly all civilians are complicit by supporting the war effort in some way simply by living, working, and paying taxes in a State that is at war. On the other hand, as already noted, no one person, not even a person in a top leadership position, can initiate, much less wage, a war of aggression. Moreover, high-level

positions are institutional roles within which individual persons function. Persons in such roles normally act and make decisions from their role perspective; they act with the State in mind. Indeed, individuals may often sacrifice personal goals when acting and making decisions for the State in their official roles. How can it be that those who are authorized to act in the name of the State and operate in their official capacities can be held individually responsible for the State’s act of aggression? On one hand, it appears that everyone, or nearly everyone, in a society is complicit and might be held liable to some degree for a State’s aggressive war. On the other hand, it seems that no one should be held liable as an individual for an act of State. However this conundrum is to be worked out theoretically, it is now well settled in international law that the crime of aggression is a leadership crime. It is not a crime that can be committed by the ordinary “foot soldier,” nor by a common civilian who has had no direct role in planning or prosecuting the war of aggression. Nevertheless, determining who fits into the leadership category can be difficult. Following Nuremberg, it is clear that individuals at the policy-making level – both high-ranking military personnel and high-level government officials – can be held criminally liable. The Nuremberg Trials also included financial and industrial leaders on the civilian side, but it is not clear whether such economic leaders would be liable under present-day versions. A contemporary phrasing intended to capture the leadership concept refers to “persons being in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of State.” The question remains as to how far down the chain of command leadership liability should extend. Unfortunately, there is no bright line. Thus, many questions remain concerning persons falling within the large gray area between senior-level leaders and low-level soldiers and uninvolved civilians. What degree of knowledge of the aggressive character of the war must the accused have possessed? How important a position must he or she have occupied? Is it sufficient that one merely participated in a war of aggression only after it began if the person had no role in its planning or initiation? As a practical matter, only top-level people are likely to be prosecuted simply because international tribunals typically must operate with quite limited resources. Moreover, the educational, condemnatory, and deterrent effects of international criminal trials and convictions are most effective with high-profile defendants. These benefits are not realized to nearly the same extent from trials of lower-level defendants.

Crimes Against Peace

Need for Better Definition: The Nullum Crimen Problem If individuals are to be held criminally liable for Crimes Against Peace for (some) instances of armed aggression, it would appear that a better definition of the crime must be found. The maxim nullum crimen sine lege, nulla poena sine lege (no crime without a law, no punishment without a law) requires that a person may be held criminally liable and punished only if his or her act was recognized as a crime in the relevant legal order at the time of the act. Not only must the crime be recognized, but it also must be defined with reasonable specificity so that people have fair notice of prohibited acts. A further implication is that a newly defined crime cannot be applied retroactively to acts that occurred before the crime was recognized as such. These conditions are considered part of the very concept of the rule of law, and the maxim is often referred to as the “principle of legality.” At the Nuremberg Trials, German defense counsel argued that Crimes Against Peace were, in fact, new crimes and were being applied to Nazi defendants ex post facto. Although a war of aggression may have been illegal for States, under existing international law, there were no conventions or treaties placing a duty on individual persons not to aid in waging an aggressive war. At the time the defendants acted, nearly all jurists would have maintained that individuals who engaged in aggressive war were not criminals in a legal sense. The International Military Tribunal treated nullum crimen, not as a principle of legality, but as a general principle of justice. It took the position that it was not contrary to justice to punish individuals for Crimes Against Peace, even if the conduct was not criminalized at the time of its occurrence. In other words, it was not thought unfair or unjust to hold a person responsible for conduct malum in se (e.g., murder or aggression), even though it would be unjust to convict a person of a newly made up crime for conduct that was morally neutral (malum prohibitum). In his opening address at the Nuremberg Trials, Justice Robert H. Jackson stated: “. . . if it be thought that the Charter [of the Tribunal] . . . does contain new law, I still do not shrink from demanding its strict application by this Tribunal . . .. I cannot subscribe to the perverted reasoning that society may advance and strengthen the rule of law by the expenditure of morally innocent lives but that progress in the law may never be made at the price of morally guilty lives.” Nevertheless, while participating in a war of aggression may have been thought immoral, international law had never before held individuals legally responsible for such State actions. To this point, Justice Jackson remarked: “Of

C

course, it was under the law of all civilized peoples a crime for one man with his bare knuckles to assault another. How did it come that multiplying this crime by a million, and adding fire arms to bare knuckles, made a legally innocent act?” The interpretation of nullum crimen as a principle of justice has been gradually replaced by an interpretation of the maxim as a principle of strict legality. Hence, nullum crimen now expresses a strict requirement of international criminal law. Accordingly, a reasonably well-defined description of “aggression” or “act/war of aggression” must be developed before Crimes Against Peace can legitimately be applied to individuals by the ICC or other international tribunal.

The Institutional Question Assuming a definition of “act of aggression” or “war of aggression” that commands legal authority can be achieved, the next question is what institution should apply the label to particular military incursions. Under the Nuremberg Charter, the Tribunal itself determined whether Nazi Germany committed aggressive acts without a prior determination by any other international institution. Given the development of the United Nations, however, it now seems to most commentators that some part of the UN should be called upon to pronounce on the State action. Some argue that the UN General Assembly or the International Court of Justice (ICJ) should determine when armed aggression has occurred. Others take the view that there can be no aggression unless the UN Security Council says so because the Security Council has the authority to label a State action “aggressive” and to order remedial measures under its Chapter VII powers. Does allowing any of these institutions to pronounce on military incursions as acts of aggression mean that the ICC (or some other international criminal tribunal) must accept those findings without independent review? It may be argued that the UN institutions have greater competence to decide questions of international law (perhaps especially the ICJ), while the ICC or other criminal tribunals have greater competence to judge individual conduct. On the other hand, this would mean that a key element of the criminal charge against the individual is decided in a proceeding entirely beyond the defendant’s due process rights (e.g., right to challenge that element of the charge). The alternative would seem to be to allow the ICC or other criminal tribunal to make its own finding, while giving great deference to the relevant UN institution.

219

C

220

C

Crimes Against Peace

Lack of Present International Jurisdiction Nearly half a century after the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, international criminal justice was revived in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) (1993), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) (1994), and in the International Criminal Court (2002). Yet while the statutes for these tribunals are inspired by the Nuremberg precedent and principles, their jurisdiction is limited to War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and Genocide. The ICTY and ICTR statutes do not mention Crimes Against Peace or the crime of aggression. The crime of aggression is mentioned in the International Criminal Court Statute (1998 Rome Statute), but it is not defined; and the ICC does not have authority to prosecute the crime of aggression until the parties to the Statute agree on a definition of the crime. The Assembly of States Parties of the ICC has set up a Special Working Group to develop a definition of “aggression” and the conditions under which the ICC could exercise its jurisdiction.

States Only In the international context, the understanding of “aggression” tends to be State-centric. This is so because of the example of Nuremberg, the phrasing in the 1974 GA Definition and later versions, and the fact that “war” was traditionally defined in international law as an armed conflict between States. By definition, “act/war of aggression” is limited to the use of armed force by one State against another State. This presents problems. One worry is that some militarily aggressive actions by States may fall outside of a State-on-State definition of aggression. For instance, there is the problem of taking account of indirect aggression, whereby one State secretly supplies military and economic support to mercenaries, rebels, or insurgents against another State. A more serious problem arises because of armed aggressions by non-State entities. Some commentators have suggested that the notion of aggression should be reconsidered in view of the kind of contemporary warfare that involves guerilla groups or international terrorist groups. Armed aggression carried out by non-State groups, whether domestic or transnational, are not covered under the labels “act of aggression” or “war of aggression” and, therefore, the members of such groups are not criminally liable. For example, members of insurgent groups, even those sometimes recognized as combatants (thus, legally as “belligerents”) in civil wars would not be criminally liable. Neither Osama Bin Laden nor other members of al-Qaeda responsible for the attacks on the

World Trade Towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, would be liable for the crime of aggression. Likewise, the leadership of an international organization like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could not be held liable, even if NATO really conducted a war of aggression, since it is a non-State entity.

Conclusion The prohibition against international crimes must inevitably form a crucial part of any fully realized conception of global justice; and, certainly, armed aggression is antithetical to global justice. Whether it can be brought within the ambit of international crimes, however, remains in doubt. As can be seen from the foregoing discussion, the ultimate status of Crimes Against Peace or the crime of aggression remains very much an open question. It may be that other means will have to be found for the restraint of armed aggression.

Related Topics

▶ Aggression ▶ Collective Responsibility ▶ Conspiracy Theory ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ International Criminal Justice ▶ Nuremberg Trials ▶ Responsibility, Individual

References Documents International Criminal Court, Assembly of States Parties (ICC-ASP); Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression (SWGCA), Interim reports. Available at Coalition for the International Criminal Court: http://www.iccnow.org/?mod=aggression Justice Robert HJ. Open statement for the prosecution. In: Trial of the major war criminals before the international military tribunal, Vol. II, Proceedings 11/14/1945—11/30/1945. Available at: http:// www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/trials/nuremberg/jackson.html The Nuremberg Judgment of 1946. Available at: http://avalon.law.yale. edu/imt/judlawco.asp Articles and Books Larry M (2008) Aggression and crimes against peace. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Marrus MR (1997) The Nuremberg war crimes trial 1945–46: a documentary history. Bedford/St. Martin’s, Boston/New York Mettraux G (ed) (2008) Perspectives on the Nuremberg trial. Oxford University Press, Oxford Roger SC (2007) Nuremberg and the crime against peace, symposium– Judgment at Nuremberg, 6 Washington University Global Studies Law Review, p 527 Theodor M (July 2006) Reflections on the prosecution of war crimes by international tribunals. Am J Int Law 100(3):551–579

Crocker, David

Crocker, David JAY DRYDYK Department of Philosophy, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Beginning in the 1980s, David Crocker led the formation of global development ethics as a multidisciplinary field of research and advocacy. He contributed both to determining the nature and scope of development ethics and to addressing some of its central questions. As an advocate of the capability approach within development ethics, his main innovation has been to develop an “agencyoriented” approach to human development and capabilities, emphasizing deliberative democracy and participatory development.

Nature and Scope of Development Ethics One of his long-term preoccupations, starting with doctoral research on Whitehead, has been the proper relation between individual agency and collective agency. His challenge in subsequent years was to work out conceptions of democratic and individual self-determination that could be “scaled up” globally as criteria for justice at all levels. His thinking about democratic self-determination was rooted initially in German critical theory, especially that of Ju¨rgen Habermas, whose theories of normative communication came later to be regarded as starting points for theories of deliberative democracy. His first book gave a critical assessment of an extension of this critical theory by the “Praxis” school of democratic theorists in Yugoslavia, and it focused on their arguments for “self-management” at all levels of society, economic as well as political. He was drawn into studying the ethics of global development by a request that he join two colleagues in teaching a graduate seminar in the ethics of rural development, based on case studies in the USA, South America, and South Asia. At the time – late 1970s – his primary philosophical resources were John Rawls’s Theory of Justice and Peter Singer’s article “Famine, Affluence and Morality.” Confronting theory with the realities of rural development, he found that while Singer’s approach commendably held a spotlight on the (failed) responsibilities of wealthy countries to reduce deprivations in poor countries, it gave too much attention to palliative measures and too little attention and respect to the agency exercised by people in those countries to realize their own visions of development.

C

More positively, Crocker found a source of lasting influence in Denis Goulet, who, from the early 1970s, had advocated development ethics as a project of distinguishing between kinds of development that are worthwhile as social goals from the contrary kinds of development – or “maldevelopment” – that are ethically unworthy. While Goulet did not articulate a full-blown theory of development ethics, he argued persuasively that one necessary feature of worthwhile development is that people must be the agents of their own development, not passive recipients or beneficiaries. Crocker’s thinking about the nature and scope of development ethics was also influenced by a lasting collaboration with Latin American philosophers, starting with Luis Camacho and other philosophers at the University of Costa Rica. This interaction clarified much about what type of collaboration development ethics would have to be, in order to succeed. It had to involve a dialogue that was respectfully intercultural, in which not only the visiting “outsiders” but also the local “insiders” needed to be aware that each could contribute particular strengths to the discussion. Insiders have obvious advantages in understanding their own cultural and social context, but their immersion within them may also blind them to the need for change. Outsiders may be subject to ignorance of local contexts, compounded by the temptations of arrogance, but on the other hand, their reflections on the insiders’ issues and circumstances may be novel and useful precisely because these reflections are not conditioned by local circumstances. The goal of development ethics should, therefore, be an insider–outsider interaction which “may clarify the society’s options, reflect the culture back to itself, synthesize disparate ideas or interject novel ones, and say what should be said but what insiders cannot say” (Crocker 2008: 15). In addition, rather than isolating itself as a philosophical activity, development ethics should embrace researchers in many disciplines and engage development “practitioners” – not only policy-makers in governments and institutions, but also voices of the poor and powerless. In order to succeed, development ethics must provoke interaction between theory and practice. These reflections led to the formation of the International Development Ethics Association (IDEA), of which Crocker was founding President. IDEA has promoted this kind of dialogue on five continents from its formation in 1985 to the present. By the 1990s, Crocker had gathered sufficient perspective on development ethics to write about its central tasks. The task of delineating maldevelopment from worthwhile development remained central, but these questions about

221

C

222

C

Crocker, David

the ethically justifiable ends of development were supplemented by even more questions about the ethically acceptable means of development. Further, development activities are so embedded in social contexts of power and inequality that undesirable consequences and moral dilemmas are to be expected. For instance, the green revolution feeds more people, but it displaces and impoverishes redundant farm laborers; implementing a development scheme that helps poor people may also appear to legitimize a corrupt or repressive government. From these considerations, “development ethics” could be defined in the following ways: ● It is normative reflection on the ends and means of development. ● Reflection on the ends of development attends to the boundaries between that development which is worthwhile and maldevelopment, which is not. ● Its mandate includes all of the ethical dilemmas that may arise from the practice of development. ● Development ethics is not only a theoretical endeavor but must attempt to put its reflections into practice and then learn from these attempts. ● Its methods must be dialogical, enabling theorists and practitioners, insiders and outsiders, Northerners and Southerners, and people of diverse cultural and philosophical orientations to learn from each other.

Toward an Agency-Oriented Capability Approach Understood in this way, development ethics is not a particular theory but is open to contributions from any normative perspective – Kantian or consequentialist, egalitarian or libertarian, secular or religious. However, by the late 1980s, one theoretical approach had begun to show particular relevance and fecundity for development ethics. This was the capability approach initiated by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Crocker was an early and prominent advocate for the capability approach within development ethics circles. Like the broader human development approach, the capability approach seeks to “put people back in development.” It also addresses one of the primary values that distinguishes worthwhile development from maldevelopment, namely equity. As Sen observed, every theory of justice calls for equality of some kind, and so the key question is: equality of what? The capability approach answers: what matters is whether people are capable of functioning in ways that all have reason to value. For instance, we all have reason to want to keep healthy, to be well housed, to learn, to have good personal and community relations. Martha Nussbaum has

argued that there are ten such central capabilities. The capability approach is now a broad and multidisciplinary school of thought that studies and addresses poverty and inequality in a multidimensional way as well as addressing inequality in particular social domains, such as health care, education, and housing. Crocker’s first contribution to the capability approach consisted in clarifying and drawing together the philosophical issues and arguments that support the capability approach over utilitarian and Rawlsian approaches. His primary contribution, however, was to develop an “agency-oriented” approach to capabilities. Sen had already identified agency as a second evaluative space in which inequalities mattered. Initially what he meant by “agency” was achieving (or having the effective freedom to achieve) goals that a person happens to value, regardless of whether they have anything to do with the well-being of that person (or anyone else). This yields a second space in which inequalities matter. The first is well-being freedom, which comprises a person’s capabilities to function in ways that all have reason to value; the second is agency freedom, a person’s effective freedom to achieve goals that are valued by this person. However, “agency” must mean more than simply having one’s goals achieved; these other dimensions of agency were incompletely articulated by Sen, and one of Crocker’s achievements was to articulate them more fully. To put this succinctly, “A person is an agent with respect to action X just in case she (1) decides for herself (rather than someone or something else forcing the decision) to do X; (2) bases her decisions on reasons, such as the pursuit of goals; (3) performs or has a role in performing X; and (4) thereby brings about (or contributes to the bringing about of) change in the world” (Crocker 2008: 157). This fuller conception of agency permitted Crocker to give a fuller answer to the central question of development ethics: Worthwhile development (contrasted with maldevelopment) should not only expand people’s wellbeing freedom, but should do so in ways that engage and expand people’s agency. This, the central principle of Crocker’s agency-oriented capability approach, firmly unites the capability approach with one of the central insights that Denis Goulet had introduced into development ethics decades years earlier: that people should be the subjects or agents of their own development, rather than being coerced or passive recipients of development. Crockers’s agency-oriented approach has implications for several specific issues, including consumerism, hunger, transitional justice and truth commissions, and globalization. But the most important of these is the role of democratic deliberation in development. Crocker endorses

Cultural Relativism

Sen’s wide range of arguments that democratic decisionmaking has both intrinsic and instrumental value, based in part on the underlying value of well-being freedom and agency freedom. It also has a “constructive” value: When people participate in democratic deliberation, they learn of the impacts that various social choices will have for other members and sections of the community, and this will affect the values that they carry forward. While Sen endorsed deliberative conceptions of democracy – which he sometimes characterized as “rule by discussion” – he did not elaborate on the purposes, procedures, and limits of those kinds of deliberation that might best realize the intrinsic, instrumental, and constructive value of democracy. Drawing on the deliberative democracy literature, Crocker argues that these connections are more evident if democratic deliberation is understood as an endeavor to (1) identifying specific problems and overcoming differences as to the solutions, in order to form joint intentions for action; (2) doing so in ways that further the goals of reciprocity, publicity, and accountability; (3) improving background conditions that enhance deliberation in the foregoing ways – such as equal political liberty, equality before the law, economic justice, and procedural fairness. Although “participatory” development is advocated by nearly everyone discussing development policy currently, there is little agreement about what “participation” should mean. Crocker has addressed this problem by categorizing forms of potential participation, ranking them by which are more democratic or less democratic than others. He argues that deliberative deliberation occupies the top rank. This conception of democracy has implications for democratization on a global scale. It proposes that globalization should be judged by two standards, neither of which has priority over the other: (a) whether it enhances well-being freedom, and (b) whether it enhances agency. By this standard, Crocker is able to selectively adopt proposals from different camps: from liberal internationalists that incremental reforms of the international system are both possible and necessary, from radical republicans that global and local inequality can be overcome only through the agency and empowerment of communities engaging in struggles for human development, and from cosmopolitan democrats that democracy must be deepened both nationally and transnationally, helped by global citizens who identify themselves as having complex and intercultural group memberships.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Collective ▶ Agency, Individual

C

▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Democracy, Deliberative ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Goulet, Denis ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Singer, Peter ▶ Transitional Justice ▶ Truth Commissions

References Crocker DA (1983) Praxis and democratic socialism: the critical social theory of Markovic and Stojanovic. Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands Crocker DA (1991a) Towards development ethics. World Dev 19(5):457–483 Crocker DA (1991b) Insiders and outsiders in international development ethics. Ethics Int Aff 5:149–173 Crocker DA (1998a) Development ethics. In: Craig E (ed) Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy. Routledge, London/New York, vol 3, pp 39–44 Crocker DA (1998b) Florecimento humano y desarollo internacional: La nueva e´tica de capacidades humanas. Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, San Juan Crocker DA (1999) Reckoning with past wrongs: a normative framework. Ethics Int Aff 13:43–64 Crocker DA (2008) Ethics of global development; agency, capability, and deliberative democracy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Crocker DA, Linden T (eds) (1998) Ethics of consumption: justice, the good life, and global Stewardship. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Gasper D (2004) The ethics of development: from economism to human development. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh

Cultural Relativism ERIC BLUMENSON Suffolk University Law School, Boston, MA, USA

Are there any universal truths, or does each culture create its own? The question has been deeply explored since antiquity, yet remains a considerable concern among both philosophers and policy makers to this day, particularly in the moral domain. Applied to our subject, global justice, cultural relativism denies that there exist any transculturally objective requirements of justice. On this view, one cannot condemn the caste system, slavery, or the oppression of women as unjust without qualification. They may indeed be unjust, but whether they are or not depends on – is

223

C

224

C

Cultural Relativism

relative to – a particular culture’s standards. Stanley Fish offers a relativist account when he says that such issues are intelligible only “within the precincts of the . . . paradigms or communities that give them their local and changeable shape” (Fish 1989: 344). Of course, virtually all cultures have some concept of justice and morality; indeed, researchers have found that some nonhuman primates do as well (Brosnan and de Waal 2003). It is also true that the values of many different religions and cultures mostly coincide, as a contingent fact. But whether they do or not, the point of cultural relativism is that ideals like justice, equality, and morality do not point to any particular norms or practice norms at all, except as each particular culture comes to define them. By this the cultural relativist does not mean merely that different cultures adhere to different standards; that factual claim takes no position on the whether all, some, or none of these diverse standards are correct. Rather, if we are to reflect the significance of the idea, cultural relativism must be understood as taking a position on the status of these standards – the position that a particular moral code may be true, but only locally so. Cultural relativism is sometimes confused with other theories that deny the universal applicability of particular moral imperatives but on different grounds. It is not a version of nihilism (which denies that there are any moral truths at all), or skepticism (which allows for the possibility of transcultural moral truths but denies that we can ever know what they are), or pluralism (which portrays morality, even if universal, as often requiring a so-called tragic choice among incommensurable and mutually exclusive values). The cultural relativist’s point is not that some questions may be unanswerable, or raise an intractable conflict between plural values, but that there is simply no transcultural normative truth to be found anywhere. If what counts as justice is always culturally defined, any effort to discern cross-cultural principles of justice is doomed, rendering the term “global justice” an oxymoron, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights indefensible insofar as it asserts a moral standard of universal applicability. Just before the United Nations Human Rights Commission promulgated the UDHR in 1948, the American Anthropological Association took that position. It stated that standards and values are relative to their cultures, so one culture’s beliefs and values would be inapplicable to the humanity as a whole, contrary to the expectations of any universal declaration of human rights. Since then, the increased contact and interdependence of states and peoples have given cultural relativism exponentially greater political and practical importance. This was evident at the 1993 Vienna World Conference on

Human Rights, where several Asian delegations argued that some laws and practices allegedly in violation of international human rights treaties were justified as a reflection of different but equally legitimate “Asian values” – purported cultural traditions that valorize individual choice less and responsibility, family, and community more. More recently, such sweeping state pronouncements have receded, but in numerous particular cases, the cultural relativist challenge remains unavoidable. Advocates for cultures that engage in gender-based restrictions, child marriage, female genital mutilation, caning punishments, amnesties for war criminals, and so on are sure to deploy it. More fundamentally, coercive actions by a state or the international community in the name of human rights – whether wielded against cultural practices like caste or state atrocities like genocide – purport to be morally based and not merely a pretext for one group to assert power over another. But they can be no more than that if there are no applicable transcultural moral principles to justify them. The idea of cultural relativism denies the applicability of universal principles of justice, but what principles should take their place in international affairs is by no means clear. Most often, cultural relativists may condemn interference with traditional practices as “cultural imperialism,” and treat relativism as requiring tolerance for cultural diversity, however extreme. Given this widespread connotation, a case can be made for treating “cultural relativism” as effectively synonymous with an ideology of deference to other cultures. But it would be truer to the idea of cultural relativism to say that the idea is equally consistent with two extremely different policy principles: tolerance (call that “deferential relativism”) and interventionism in the affairs of other cultures (call that “ethnocentric relativism”). To see this, consider a hypothetical American policy debate on whether to inflict sanctions on countries that deny women any role outside the home. To determine whether this would be a justified rather than imperialistic policy, one would need to aim for some cross-cultural principles of fairness or justice that can be applied to this kind of cultural conflict. But cultural relativism denies the existence of cross-culturally valid moral principles. The relativist must instead rely on the principle that what constitutes justice is relative to culture, but this tells her nothing about which culture one should refer to in guiding one’s actions. As an American cultural relativist, she might oppose that policy on grounds that justice must be defined relative to the culture in which the discrimination is occurring, but she might equally support the policy on grounds that justice must be defined according to the

Cyberwar

standards of the culture in which she is acting, which in this case includes a norm of gender equality. Neither position, of course, could be truly justified by relativism; whether state policy makers should subordinate their country’s power to that of others countries, or exercise its power over them, is a choice that cultural relativism cannot inform. It forecloses appeals to crosscultural justice, but as a theory lacks the resources to guide international policy in any other direction. One prominent challenge to cultural relativism claims that the idea is self-refuting: either relativism is just “true for you” or “absolutely true for everyone,” a formulation that leaves relativism essentially incoherent. On the other side, challenges to the universality of justice often claim that there is no plausible non-religious account that can explain the existence and motivational power of a universal Moral Law which precedes cultures and is accessible to its members, at least when compared with the causal account that explains the existence of moral standards and their diversity through cultural and family inculcation. But arguments on the issue are numerous, nuanced, and complicated. The bibliography following provides an introduction to a variety of them.

C

Talbott W (2005) Which rights should be universal. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 39–86 Williams B (1985) Ethics and the limits of philosophy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 16–62 Wong D (1984) Moral relativity. University of California Press, Berkeley Zakaria F (1994) Culture is destiny: a conversation with Lee Kuan Yew. Foreign Aff 73:2

Cultural Rights ▶ Globalization ▶ Health and Health Care ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ▶ Multiculturalism

Cyber Privacy ▶ Privacy

Related Topics

▶ Asian Values Debate ▶ Cairo Declaration of Human Rights ▶ Female Genital Mutilation ▶ Relativism ▶ United Nations: Rights and Duties ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights ▶ Violence

References American Anthropological Association (1947) Statement on human rights. Am Anthropologist New Ser 49:539–543 Blumenson E (1996) Mapping the limits of skepticism in law and morals. Tex Law Rev 74:523–576 Brosnan S, de Waal F (2003) Monkeys reject unequal pay. Nature 425:297 Fish S (1989) Doing what comes naturally: change, rhetoric, and the practice of theory in literary and legal studies. Duke University Press, Durham Griffin J (2007) On human rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 111–145 Harman G, Thomson J (1996) Moral relativism and moral objectivity. Blackwell, Oxford Hollis M, Lukes S (1982) Rationality and relativism. MIT Press, Cambridge Kausikan B (1993) Asia’s different standard. Foreign Pol 92:24–41 Nickel J (2007) Making sense of human rights. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 168–184 Rorty R (1993) Human rights, rationality, and sentimentality. In: Shute S, Hurley S (eds) On human rights: the Oxford Amnesty lectures. Basic Books, New York, pp 111–134

Cyberwar DAVID MICHAEL JACKSON Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

The analysis of cyber-warfare – along with online privacy issues and artificial intelligence, to name but two other examples – is a domain of cyber ethics. It is, generally speaking, the Internet-based sabotaging of a nation’s computer networks. While authors such as Richard A. Clarke limit their definition of the term to acts by nation-states, this seems unnecessary, by the same token that acts of non-state terrorism are subject to the moral standards of the Just War tradition. Use of the term “cyberwar” is controversial, since some researchers argue that the analogy of war inappropriately evokes a militaristic response. However, since national security appears to be at issue, and granted that force of law does not by itself suffice as a response to international aggression, the analogy of conflict – as the most extreme expression of Internet-based sabotage – will be used here as a main area of concern in issues of global justice.

225

C

226

C

Cyberwar

Understood as such, cyber-warfare prompts Just War theory as a frame in which to discuss particular acts that fall under its definition. However, while there appear to be some parallels with kinetic warfare, a number of difficulties arise in the application of Just War theory to cyber-warfare. One difficulty facing the application of Just War theory to cyber-warfare is called the attribution problem – attackers are able to elude identification through a variety of technical means, and as such cannot be held to the legal ramifications of their acts. Although not impossible to overcome, the technological difficulties of attribution, given current technology, remain daunting (Moran). Thus, it would appear as though, due to the epistemic constraints of the attribution problem, standards of just conduct can only be self-applied, which fails to meet the standard of universality required by virtually any moral theory. However, since it seems theoretically possible that technological advance will present a solution to the attribution problem, it seems worthwhile to consider further how standards of Just War might apply to attacks over the Internet. For instance, a problem confronts application of the principle of discrimination to cyber attacks. Since, for instance, electrical systems are vulnerable to cyber attack, and since such attacks vary widely in their degree of discrimination, what standards must be set on types of attack, in order to maintain adherence to the principle of discrimination? Chemical weapons, for example, are banned as a corollary of the more basic theoretical elements of Just War doctrine, for the very reason of their indiscriminate nature. Thus, indiscriminate types of attack would be likewise judged. What does the principle of proportionality recommend, in terms of the limits on cyber attacks? Since a nation’s electrical grid (or portions of it) is susceptible to cyber attack, and a number of medical and safety functions upon which a vast number depend for their health and life are thereby vulnerable, the number of lives potentially lost in a cyber attack could be great. So, damage from a cyber attack may have the potential to cause damage on a scale usually caused only through kinetic warfare. This prompts another question: what degree of damage done to a nation’s networks might justify a kinetic

response? Since the damage done by a cyber attack can be great, and self-defense is the most sanctioned cause in Just War, the possibility of such a threshold exists. Cyber attacks have been deployed both offensively – as in the 2007 Russian attack against Estonia (Landler and Markoff) – and preventively, as in the not yet officially attributed (the current international consensus is Israel, see Broad, Markoff, and Sanger) 2010 Stuxnet worm’s disabling of production capacity at Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility (Markoff). However, unauthorized access to a nation’s networks does not seem limited only to brute force, as in these examples. Consider the following applications. Could a government or other institution permissibly hack into a tyrannical nation’s banks to balloon the accounts of peaceful democratic activists? Could either, in the situation of a humanitarian crisis, justifiably bypass a racially prejudicial government, with the aim of helping those in crisis by providing direct access to cash? This range of examples suggests a wider frame under the rubric “cyberwar” than is common in current discussion. The range also appears to offer support to the position that the term is insufficient, absent an account of this wider frame.

Related Topics

▶ Jus ad Bellum ▶ Jus in Bello ▶ Technology ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Broad W, Markoff J, Sanger D (2011) Israeli test on worm called crucial in Iran nuclear delay. New York Times, 15 Jan 2011. Accessed 26th Apr 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/world/middleeast/ 16stuxnet.html?pagewanted=print Landler M, Markoff J (2007) Digital fears emerge after data siege in Estonia. New York Times, 29 May 2007. Accessed 26th Apr 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/technology/29estonia.html Markoff J (2011) Malware aimed at Iran hit five sites, report says. New York Times, 13 Feb 2011, p 15 Moran N (2011) Attribution in cyber attacks is difficult, but not impossible, Secure Nation (online). Accessed 26th Apr 2011. http:// www.securenation.org/attribution-in-cyber-attacks-is-difficult-butnot-impossible/ Walzer M (1977) Just and unjust wars. Basic Books, New York

D Dante MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

While often neglected, Dante’s Monarchy may be seen as an important attempt from the late middle ages to theorize the idea of global justice. Dante progressed to a theory of global justice by adapting the ancient Stoic themes of a functional organization of the universe in which human freedom finds its highest expression in world governance to the prevailing Christian Aristotelianism of his own time. As a matter of Aristotelian first principle, he argued that humanity considered as a whole has its own telos or purpose, which cannot be fulfilled by any individual, or, for that matter, any particular group or race. Here he stressed that this universal telos concerns the realization of human intellectual potential all at once and all the time. The political condition for the realization of such potential both simul and semper, however, is world peace. Indeed, prefiguring later Enlightenment arguments of Kant, Dante contended the production of human culture is a collective effort of all humanity unimpeded by warfare and strife. But, unlike Kant who insisted on a world federation or republic as condition of perpetual peace, Dante argued for absolute rule by a world monarch. His argument is distinctly Aristotelian, even though his conclusion regarding the universal jurisdiction of this monarch is not. Dante follows Aristotle by contending that those engaged in any kind of collective enterprise require the guidance and direction of an elite individual. This argument is indeed developed by Aristotle in his Politics with respect to small collective units such as the household or extended family. The largest such unit considered by Aristotle is the polity or city state, although here Aristotle himself stressed the distribution of governing authority rather than its concentration in any one or other individual. For his part, Dante adhered strictly to Aristotle’s original emphasis on elite individual leadership, but then took this well beyond

the city state to the kingdom which ruled over many different polities, and ultimately to the world monarch who rules absolutely over all smaller political units globally. Dante’s defense of the world monarch, as exercising absolute power globally, defies the familiar nostrum of modern liberalism that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Indeed, Dante argues not only that absolute power is a condition of world peace, but it is also the condition for the world monarch remaining incorruptible. Because his power is absolute, the monarch lacks nothing that could possibly be a source of his corruption through bribery by smaller units within the global structure of empire, seeking to influence his judgment in their own favor at the expense of rivals. Also in contrast with Kant’s insistence that world monarchy or empire would result only in a soulless despotism, Dante contends that such concentrated absolute power is the very condition of human freedom, in the full development of diverse human capabilities. The realization of freedom and culture thus demands absolute power and universal scope of jurisdiction. Dante’s arguments may not be persuasive to the late modern mind, accustomed to equating power with corruption and its concentration in the will and judgment of a single individual with tyranny and despotism. Nonetheless, Monarchy is a serious attempt to theorize global justice, according to the conceptual framework and assumptions prevalent just prior to the advent of modernity. As such, Dante may be said to deserve wide recognition for an important historical contribution to the idea of justice for all of humanity.

Related Topics

▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ World Government

References Allen M (2009) Notre Dame philosophical reviews. In: Rorty A, Schmidt J (eds) Kant’s idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim: a critical guide. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, http://ndpr. nd.edu/review.cfm?id=18125 Dante A, Shaw P (eds) (1996) Monarchy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

228

D

Death Penalty

Kant I (2001) Idea for a universal history with cosmopolitan intent. In: Basic writings of Kant (trans: Friedrich C). Modern Library, New York Kant I (2001) To eternal peace. In: Basic writings of Kant (trans: Friedrich C). Modern Library, New York

Death Penalty ▶ Capital Punishment

Debt Relief CRISTIAN DIMITRIU Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Debt relief is the partial or total forgiveness of debt, owed by individuals, corporations, or nations. Things that can be owed are money in goods and services; but there are also moral obligations and other interactions. A basic loan is the simplest form of debt. It consists of an agreement between two parties to lend a sum of money for a fixed period of time, to be repaid by a certain date. Interests, which are a percentage of the sum of money, will also have to be paid by that time. If the creditor voluntarily decides to forgive the debt, the debtor will no longer have the obligation to repay it. In the recent literature on international economy and global justice, “debt relief” refers to the policies that international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank have adopted to alleviate heavily indebted poor countries from the burden of paying their debts. The decision to adopt these policies was mainly a result of the pressure that international NGOs such as Jubilee, Oxfam, and others have exerted on international financial institutions, and of the fact that debts of many third-world countries were increasingly unsustainable. The IMF and the World Bank have called these policies HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries) initiative and MDRI (Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative). The former was launched in 1996 and the latter in 2005. They both demand conditions in return for debt relief, such as a current track record of satisfactory performance under IMF and International Development Association (IDA)-supported programs, a Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) in place, and debt burden indicators that are above the HIPC Initiative thresholds using the most recent data for the year immediately prior to the decision point. When these conditions are met,

HIPC countries reach the completion point and are qualified for the relief. According to international financial institutions, the main reason why this policy is justified is that it leads to poverty alleviation and economic growth, as in order to reach the completion point countries need to boost their social spending and to implement economic reforms that lead to debt sustainability. The debt relief initiative, however, has been criticized for making wrong moral assumptions. Three main objections have been raised against it. First, instead of justifying debt relief on the ground that it is an effective means for creditors to assist poor countries – a claim that assumes that creditors have the duty to alleviate poverty – what should be discussed is whether HIPC countries really have such debts in the first place. Speaking of debt relief wrongly assumes the validity of the creditor’s claim. The legitimacy or illegitimacy of debts should be discussed under what legal scholars call the odious debt doctrine. The second objection, made from a cosmopolitan perspective (see Caney 2006), is that, instead of benefiting countries that meet certain demands, the debt relief initiative should unconditionally benefit all countries that are poor. This follows from the general moral principle that all persons have a human right not to suffer from deprivation and poverty. The HIPC, as it is, would fall short of realizing this principle. Third, the HIPC has been criticized for being ineffective. The problem on this view is that the reforms proposed in return for debt relief end up being more harmful for the poor than the debt relief itself, for in practice they focus more on economic growth than in poverty reduction. In response to some of these criticisms, the IMF and the World Bank have partially modified some of the conditions under which countries would qualify for debt relief. Whether they have been successful at doing this is yet to be seen.

Related Topics

▶ Development Ethics ▶ International Monetary Fund (IMF) ▶ International Organizations ▶ Odious Debts ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Sustainable Development ▶ World Bank (WB)

References Barry Ch, Barry H, Lydia T (2007) Dealing fairly with developing country debt. Blackwell, Malden Caney S (2006) Global justice: from theory to practice. Globalizations 3(2):121–137

Decent Society International Monetary Fund. Debt-relief initiative fact sheet. http:// www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/hipc.htm Shah A (2001) The heavily in-debt poor countries initiative is not working. Global Issues Updated: 30 Aug 2001. http://www.globalissues. org/article/31/the-heavily-in-debt-poor-countries-initiative-is-notworking. Accessed 28 June 2010 World Bank. Debt-relief initiative report. http://www.worldbank.org/debt

Decent Society PETER MURRAY Department of Philosophy, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA

In the sphere of global justice, societies face the question of the appropriate stance to take toward other societies from within their foreign policy. Which other societies, if any, should be counted as equals? When is it appropriate to use force against another society? One central tension is whether injustices that would be prevented or punished at home should ever be tolerated abroad. The idea of a decent society is introduced by John Rawls (1999a) in the service of addressing these questions of how a liberal society should structure their relations with other societies. The idea of a decent hierarchical society is that of a society that is well-ordered but non-liberal. A society well-ordered by a conception of justice has basic political, economic, and social institutions that conform to that conception of justice, along with citizens who generally accept and willingly act according to that conception of justice, and know that others do as well. This idea of a decent society stands in contrast to that of a liberal society, which is well-ordered by a liberal conception of justice that recognizes citizens as free and equal, and in contrast to the idea of an outlaw state. An outlaw state refuses to comply with a reasonable international standard of right and justice – what Rawls labels a Law of Peoples. Like the idea of a well-ordered liberal society, the idea of non-liberal decent society is an ideal type, and not meant as a description of some actual societies. Rawls claims that in its foreign policy, a liberal society ought to recognize decent societies as full participating members in the Society of Peoples, the group of societies that recognize and consider themselves bound by a reasonable Law of Peoples. This conception of the global sphere sees global justice as the problem of international justice: justice between societies. The idea of a decent society is of a society that fails in substantial ways to be just by the standards of liberal justice. So, Rawls’ claim is

D

that liberal societies have reason to tolerate – i.e., count as equal members in good standing of the Society of Peoples – these unjust societies. Critics question why a society that enforces a liberal political conception of justice domestically, where its own citizens are treated as free and equal, should fail to do so internationally on the basis of the very same liberal political conception of justice. Rawls’ case for tolerance includes his argument that a decent society could accept a reasonable Law of Peoples. This is not the claim that any existing decent hierarchical society (if there were such a society) would in fact accept a reasonable Law of Peoples. Rather, the claim is that a decent society, in virtue of the conditions of its being decent, has reason to accept a reasonable Law of Peoples. For a society to be decent, it must meet two criteria. First, it must be non-aggressive in its foreign policy. One feature of a reasonable Law of Peoples is a principle that prohibits war for any reason other than self-defense (or, by extension, defense of another member of the Society of Peoples). This seems an uncontroversial requirement. No society has any reason of justice to tolerate a militarily aggressive society. The second criterion is broken into three parts. These requirements apply to the society’s political and legal structure, and together set out the conditions for that structure to count as a scheme of social cooperation. First, the system of law of the society must secure for its people the human rights. This is a less stringent requirement than requiring that a full measure of liberal rights be secured for the citizenry. Human rights include rights to life, to liberty (though not equal liberty), and to formal justice. Second, a decent society’s system of law must be set up so as to impose genuine moral duties and obligations on the citizens. A feudal system or a system of slavery, since they each embody an idea of rule by force, fail to meet this condition. The system of law must recognize citizens as capable of moral responsibility, and not as mere tools of the state. Finally, Rawls requires that legal officials such as judges be able to sincerely and not unreasonably believe that the law is guided by a common good conception of justice. Thus, the exercise of political, coercive power must not be arbitrary, but conducted in accord with the society’s public standards of justice. Rawls develops the conception of a decent consultation hierarchy as one way a society may meet the criteria for being a system of social cooperation. This structure allows citizens’ voices to be heard when political decisions are being made, and, to be decent, dissent must be addressed within the framework of the common good idea of justice. In any such hierarchy, the officials and justices are bound to listen to protests, and to reply with reasons from the common good conception of justice of that society. It could, for example, be a theocracy that provides mechanisms for

229

D

230

D

Deforestation

citizens to appeal the law, and that conforms to the idea of the rule of law so the exercise of power is not arbitrary. The general point is that in order for citizens to be bound by the law, it must be the consequence of a procedure that can count as a collective decision. Rawls’ conception of decency elaborates the conditions under which this is possible, and also requires that the law be applied and enforced in a fair manner. Again, if some citizens’ human rights are violated by the law, then the law cannot count as collectively endorsed. This is only possible when dissent is allowed and citizens’ voices are heard. Citizens must be allowed to challenge the received interpretation of the common good. When the law can be seen as the result of the collective will of the citizenry, then it is capable of imposing genuine moral duties and obligations on them. We might think about the conditions of social cooperation another way. A society that satisfies these conditions enjoys widespread support, contains a public process of political decision making that allows dissent and guarantees that this dissent is heard and addressed, and generates genuine moral duties and obligations. It is well-ordered around a conception of justice that contains an idea of the good of each member of society. Though Rawls nowhere says this, we might consider these the conditions of political legitimacy. Decent societies count as legitimate, while outlaw states do not. In a decent society, the political structure is good enough to produce legitimate laws – these are laws that are binding on the citizens. In an outlaw state, there is no general obligation to obey the law, though the citizens may of course do so anyway out of fear of punishment or similar motivation. Such a state can be stable if the government is powerful enough, but it is not a system of social cooperation that is capable of producing legitimate law. Finally, it is important to emphasize that the concept of decency is not the same as justice. A liberal society is more just than a decent hierarchical society, and an outlaw state is less just. But decency is not simply a measure of an adequate level of justice. It describes the conditions under which citizens are morally bound by the coercive rules of their society: bound by the law, and by the rules of their political and economic institutions. When conditions of decency are present, a people is able to move toward justice on its own, without external coercion, because the different groups in society are represented and citizens’ voices are heard. Injustice can be addressed through reasoned argument rather than violent revolution. Decency is a fundamentally important condition, then, because a society with a decent political and legal institutional structure can make decisions collectively as a people. When implementing its foreign policy, liberal societies, in Rawls’ view, should count decent societies as equal

members in good standing in the global Society of Peoples, just as much as fellow liberal societies. This is a strong form of toleration. Outlaw states, by contrast, fail to be legitimate, and are not to be understood as equals. Because these decent societies have a structure of institutions sufficient to enable collective decision making, liberal societies have a responsibility to respect those decisions, even when they fail to implement a system of institutions that is fully just by liberal standards. No such respect is due to an outlaw state. For Rawls, then, global justice requires a strong kind of toleration for some societies that would count as unjust by the standards of a liberal conception of social justice.

Related Topics

▶ Human Rights ▶ Political Legitimacy ▶ Political Liberalism ▶ Primary Goods ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Toleration/Tolerance, Liberal Principle of

References Freeman S (2007) Rawls. Routledge, New York Mandle J (2005) Tolerating injustice. In: Brighouse H, Brock G (eds) The political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 219–233 Mandle J (2006) Global justice. Polity Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples with “the idea of public reason revisited”. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (2005) Political liberalism, expanded edn. Columbia University Press, New York

Deforestation ▶ Pax Natura Foundation ▶ Sustainable Development

Democracy, Constitutional FRED E. FOLDVARY Civil Society Institute, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, USA

A constitutional democracy is a government in which the people vote for representatives or laws, and in which the laws are authorized and constrained by a constitution.

Democracy, Constitutional

Such a system is also referred to as “liberal democracy.” The constitution is usually a written document, although in the case of the UK, it is a set of documents that collectively form constitutional rules. The constitution of a country is its supreme law. In a constitutional democracy, the constitution’s authority comes from the people, who establish the highest level of rules. Indeed, the preamble of the US Constitution begins with these words: “We the People of the United States.” Constitutional democracy relates to global justice in two ways. First, justice requires a uniform rule of law, in contrast to the arbitrary whims of powerful individuals. Secondly, democracy needs constitutional limits in order to prevent the tyranny of the democratic majority. In order for justice to be truly global, there needs to be a global governing constitution that recognizes and protects human rights.

The US Constitution The constitution of the USA has been a model for other constitutions, and so merits some attention. In establishing an elected Congress, the US Constitution ensures a democracy and also guarantees that the state governments be democracies. This is stated in Article IV, on the states, in Section 4 on “republican government.” The Constitution states that the USA shall guarantee to every state a republican form of government. By “republican,” the authors first of all meant that a state would not be a monarchy, and secondly that the states must have representative democracy. Article IV implements a concept in political theory that a higher-level constitution should provide global justice for all levels and areas of governance within its jurisdiction. Since the people establish a constitution, they should be able to change it, so constitutions provide for a process of enacting amendments, which can also repeal or abolish sections of the constitution. However, there can be permanent constitutional provisions for justice that may not be repealed. Implicit in the establishment of a constitution by the people is the ability of the people to hold a new convention, and establish an entirely new constitution, as indeed the founders of the US Constitution did, when the 1787 Constitution replaced the previous Articles of Confederation.

Constitutions and Law A constitutional democracy has three levels of democracy. The first is the democracy of the people establishing and changing the constitution. The second is the democracy of electing representatives and possibly the president, or else

D

in a direct democracy, by the people forming the legislature. The third level is the democratic voting by the members of the legislature. In a direct democracy, the second and third forms are combined. All legislation must be authorized by the constitution; this establishes a “rule of law” in contrast to an arbitrary “rule of men.” As a democracy, the legislature is elected by a vote of the people. The constitution specifies the structure of the government, such as the branches of government and the division of powers among the levels of government. The constitution also authorizes the powers of government and establishes or recognizes the rights and freedoms of the people. In contrast to a constitutional democracy, an unlimited democracy has few constitutional constraints, and the legislature and elected head of state are able to pass any law they wish, possibly violating principles of global justice. It is not possible to have a democracy with no constitution, since there needs to be the following minimal constitutional rules: (1) A rule specifying who may vote. (2) A rule specifying how much of the vote total the candidates or parties must receive to become elected. (3) A rule specifying the length of the term of office. Beyond that, with unlimited democracy, elected officials may levy taxes, borrow funds, wage war, and spend funds, and restrict liberties without any legal limits. With unlimited democracy, there is no real rule of law other than the rules for electing the representatives. In contemporary constitutional democracies, almost all adults have a vote. While the USA and other countries during the 1800s could be called democracies, they were so only to a limited degree, since women and slaves could not vote, and in the late 1700s and early 1800s, there were property requirements to be eligible to vote. Today, it is accepted that the spirit of democracy and global justice requires a universal adult right to vote, with exceptions mainly for prisoners. In many countries, citizens outside the boundaries may also cast ballots. Given unlimited majority rule, minorities have no legal protection from having their freedom, property, and even their lives restricted and destroyed. But even in today’s constitutional democracies, governments to some degree limit liberty, as they censor speech, restrict enterprise, and unevenly impose costs such as taxation. For example, civil libertarians regard the prohibition of victimless acts such as drug use or gambling as a restriction of liberty, while others believe that the majority may rightfully restrict acts that the majority regard as offensive or disagreeable. A constitutional democracy can be a republic or a monarchy. In the UK and other constitutional

231

D

232

D

Democracy, Constitutional

monarchies, the monarch no longer has significant governing authority, even though the monarch may formally refer to the parliament as “my government.” A parliamentary democracy with a symbolic monarch may well be more democratic than a legislature with a strong presidential head of state, as the president might more effectively centralize power. All democratic governments today are formally constitutional, but one can distinguish whether a democracy is constitutional in form versus in substance. The written document is the form. The substance of a constitution is the implementation of the formal constitution as intended by the authors and in accord with global justice. Constitutions have formally stated rights that are not protected in practice. Constitutions also authorize broad and vague powers that are subject to differing interpretations.

Contractarian Thought In political philosophy, the concept of a constitutional democracy originates in contractarian thought. In that philosophy, people agree on a set of rules, thus creating a constitution. Contractarianism was developed in the philosophy of Charles-Louis de Secondat, the Baron de Montesquieu in France, especially in his 1752 (1914) book The Spirit of the Laws, from which came the concept of balancing power among three branches of government. The British philosophers Thomas Hobbes (1651) and John Locke (1690) also made significant contributions to political philosophy, especially Locke regarding constitutional constraints on government. The concept has been carried forward in current times also by economists such as James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock (1962). Indeed, Buchanan founded a branch of economics called “constitutional economics,” which studies the choice of constraints as contrasted with choice within a constraint. Most of economics is the latter, examining choices given some constitutional structure such as the status quo.

Problems of Constitutional Democracy Constitutions can have rules that result in perverse unintended consequences. Some US states, such as California, make it possible for citizens to propose and vote on laws. But such initiatives can create financial obligations and rigid legislative constraints that lead to outcomes such as large budget deficits. Aside from that, the very structure of constitutional democracy can create perverse incentives for politicians as well as voters. Where there is a large mass of voters, the probability of one vote determining the outcome is close to zero. The incentive of a typical voter is therefore to remain ignorant,

since the expenditure of time and resources to study the candidates and issues will have little effect, and the benefits will largely go to others. In mass democracy there is an inherent demand for campaign funds. The candidates have to use the mass media to send messages to the voters. In the US and other mass democracies, much of the supply of campaign funds comes from special interest such as corporations, unions, and trial lawyers. Legislators then trade votes to satisfy the subsidies and privilege sought by the special interests. Economists call such activity “rent seeking.” The term “rent” originally meant “land rent,” and then economists recognized that this source of income was a surplus not due to any productive effort by the landowner, since land is provided by nature. The term “economic rent” was then applied to any return beyond what is needed to put an input factor into its most productive use. This term was later applied to the privileges and subsidies obtained in the “market for legislation.” Rent seeking, voter ignorance, and other such concepts are studied by the branch of economics called “public choice.” The remedy for rent seeking, and thus a better provision of global justice, that is usually proposed in publicchoice theory is stronger constitutional constraints. Another approach is to decentralize governance and replace mass democracy with small-group voting. Mancur Olson (1971), a public-choice economist, concluded that the incentives change with group size, small groups being less conducive to transfer seeking. James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, in their 1962 book The Calculus of Consent, propose that where possible, democracy should be organized within small rather than big political units.

Constitutional Democracy in History Examples of constitutional democracies in ancient times include Greece, the Roman republic, and ancient Israel. The Jewish Bible, the Torah, was Israel’s constitution, setting forth restrictions as well as requirements on both individuals and governments. The Old Testament established the concept of a written legal constitution. After the Renaissance in Europe, some philosophers questioned the absolute powers of monarchs and its inherent doctrine of the unequal status of the rulers and the ruled. The intellectuals of the enlightenment influenced Americans such as Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” The French Revolution overthrew the monarchy, but only later to succumb to terror and the rise of Napoleon. The ideas of the enlightenment took hold as slavery was abolished and democracy developed

Democracy, Deliberative

throughout the world, the latest phase being the collapse of totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe. There have been various attempts to measure the degree of democracy as well as the rule of law among countries. Freedom House publishes a “Freedom in the World” survey, ranking of the degree of freedom and democracy among countries. The “Polity Project,” sponsored by the Political Instability Task Force, funded by the US Central Intelligence Agency tracks the “concomitant qualities of democratic and autocratic authority in governing institutions.” The implementation of constitutional democracy requires that the culture value the rule of law and an elected government, and also that there be a significant degree of social and economic justice. Germany had a constitutional democracy after World War I, but it succumbed to the severe depression as well the sentiment that Germany had been unjustly treated after the war. Democracies throughout the world have been overthrown by the military and dictators. Copying the institutions of voting and legislatures is not sufficient for a sustainable constitutional democracy. The institutions of democracy need to grounded in local elections as well as national voting, and the people need to feel that the system is providing them with justice and prosperity as well as the vote. Global justice can be implemented with a global but not overly centralized constitutional democracy.

Related Topics

▶ Majoritarianism ▶ Moral Legitimacy ▶ Political Autonomy ▶ Political Economy

References Buchanan JM (1989) Explorations into constitutional economics. Texas A&M University Press, College Station Buchanan JM, Tullock G (1962/1965) The calculus of consent. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor Freedom House (2010) Freedom in the world 2010 survey release. www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=505 Hobbes T (1651) The Leviathan. Clarendon, Oxford Livingston W (1979) Prospect of liberal democracy. University of Texas Press, Austin Locke J (1690/1947) Two treatises of government, ed. Cook Th. Hafner, New York Montesquieu Baron de (1752 [1914]) The spirit of the laws (trans: Nugent Th). G. Bell & Sons, London Olson M (1971) The logic of collective action. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Polity Project. http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm Vile MJC (1998) Constitutionalism and the separation of powers, 2nd edn. Liberty Fund, Indianapolis

D

233

Democracy, Deliberative MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

D The last decade of the twenty-first century saw democratic theory take a “deliberative turn.” This renewal of interest in democracy has given birth to a fecund literature, much of it interrogating and explaining “deliberative” or “discursive” democracy. These two designations do not, however, identify different schools of thought. Often, the terms are used interchangeably, although “deliberative democracy” seems the most favored term. The new and robust theorizing sets democracy apart from older and more conventional conceptions. Deliberative theorists understand democracy as more authentic, deep, participatory, inclusive, engaged, empowering, and, in fact, democratic, than most, or all, other conceptions. It may be that “the essence of democracy itself is now widely taken to be deliberation” (Dryzek 2002), and most democratic theorists are deliberative theorists. According to deliberative democracy then, democracy is not mere majoritarianism, aggregation, or constitutionalism. It is not simply located within contexts of voting, parties, or government. Deliberative democracy is consonant with the original meaning of the term demokratia: “power of the people.” In societies that are generally democratic, democracy is always underway (rather than fully achieved), through processes of democratization that employ substantive discourse and deliberation. Of course, democracy can be found, in minimally democratic societies, on the wane as well as on the way. It is difficult to identify a list of the most important contributors to deliberative democracy, but such a list certainly includes Seyla Benhabib, James Bohman, Simone Chambers, Joshua Cohen, Romand Coles, John Dryzek, Jon Elster, James Fishkin, Amy Gutmann, Ju¨rgen Habermas, David Held, John Rawls, and Dennis Thompson. There are essential features of deliberative democracy that emerge pervasively from its literature. These include the view of citizens as free and equal; and the necessary values and political commitments to, and procedures for, respect, impartiality, inclusivity, transparency, publicity, non-coercion, and accountability. Also necessary is commitment to the idea that citizens should be sufficiently informed (and educated) so as to carry forward meaningful deliberation. Some notion of reasonableness and/or rationality is also widely argued. Citizens need to be

234

D

Democracy, Deliberative

given reasons for the processes and outcomes that affect their lives, and this reason-giving criterion must be accessible to all (minimally educated adult) citizens. Citizens would have discursive and deliberative opportunities such that political outcomes would flow from such deliberation. The opportunity to wage political power is particularly important, many deliberative theorists agree, in respect to matters that affect the lives of those deliberating. This can be called the principle of affectedness. If one’s life is to be affected by a decision or course of action that will be taken (or not taken), one has the right to participate in the deliberation that will shape the decision or course of action to come. This right to participation must be substantive and be linked to authentic political power. Democracy can only be said to exist authentically if reflective decisions influence political outcomes. Deliberative democrats embrace constitutionalism. There must be legal institutionalization of democratic principles and procedures, and not everything can be unsettled all the time. Some political matters must be determined, if not once and for all, then with highly difficult obstacles to their overturn. But the democratic process is seen as dynamic, fluid, open, inviting, and inclusive. Further, deliberative theorists do not all conceive of democracy as pushing toward unity. Many emphasize the value of antagonism and conflict as important features of democracy. All theorists committed to deliberative democracy engage liberal theory. The continuum of appreciation for liberal constitutionalism and other liberal institutions run the gamut from comprehensive liberal theories to those highly critical of many features of liberalism. Republican values and theory give shape to much of deliberative democracy as well. Indeed, one often finds an amalgam of liberal and republican concerns woven together in these democratic theories. Exemplary in this respect is the work of Ju¨rgen Habermas’s Faktizita¨t und Geltung. Beitra¨ge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechstaats (Habermas 1992). Habermas has been influential to the work of many deliberative theorists, and this book may be the single most influential in the literature. Deliberative democracy not only works in liberal (and often) republican theory, but many of its advocates work in socialist and/or Marxian theories as well. This is entirely unsurprising, given the absolute importance of justice and “people power” in socialist thought. Deliberative democracy is advocated as having value in two general respects. Some emphasize its intrinsic value, that the moral reasons behind discourse and deliberation are most important and that it is the best political means of recognizing and realizing the free and equal status of

citizens. Others emphasize the instrumental value of such democracy: it works better than other alternatives. Here too, there is a continuum, while theorists tend to focus on one or the other of these values, the other value is never absent. Indeed, the moral component of deliberative democracy is important in all cases. Deliberative theory rests, even when doing so implicitly, on the moral conviction that other conceptions of democracy are insufficiently attuned to both our status as moral beings and to addressing moral problems. Morality, or perhaps, justice itself, seems to demand participatory and discursive democracy. Deliberative democracy, it is argued, best responds to the moral challenges and opportunities embedded in politics. Deliberative democracy will, from time to time, have a comfortable or uncomfortable fit (as any given case may be), with representation, aggregation, majoritarianism, bargaining, and electoral politics; but it is not necessarily in conflict with these components of the political process as long as politics is not reduced to or overdetermined by them. Historically, the most prevalent and damaging criticism against democracy is that ordinary people (the demos) are not qualified to make political decisions. Deliberative democracy puts great weight on this, the weakest part of all democratic theory (and perhaps, democratic practice). Since deliberative democracy emphasizes robust participation that emerges into concrete outcomes, if the demos are insufficiently educated, intelligent, motivated, and moral, concerns and regrets about such democracy may be understandable. Thus, it is an important part of deliberative theory to attend to the necessary access to information, to education in political matters, and to various epistemological problems relating to the challenge of a well-informed and motivated citizenry. Deliberative democrats argue that if people are given adequate resources, including time, and meaningful political power, they tend to make decisions and govern in ways that are more valuable than alternative means. In this light, one finds much argument for the rational capacities of persons and the need for rational procedures in democracy. As Habermas put it, in deliberative democracy, “the force of the better argument” should, and tends, to win (Habermas 1998). In respect to global justice, just insofar as persons deserve the right and the power to guide their own lives toward agreed-upon ends to secure human security – deliberative democracy is important. It is important at least inasmuch as it is necessary for persons to control their own political affairs in order for criteria of justice to be satisfied. Moreover, even if a benevolent sovereign beyond the people somehow managed to “bestow” justice upon its citizens, it seems there would still be a violation of justice since human beings ought to properly have the

Democracy, Transnational

right and power to determine their lives and futures because it is a violation of human dignity and freedom otherwise. In any case, historical examples are rare, if extant, of justice being done apart from the power of people. The growing theorization and work on global and transnational democracy fits hand-in-glove with concerns for global justice. It is not an overstatement to say that movements of global justice are movements of democracy, especially just to the degree that people are empowered to secure their own needs; or to say that movements of global democracy are movements of global justice. These claims are unquestionably true if democracy is understood as deliberative democrats understand it. Last, growing work in environmental justice holds a relationship to democracy in at least two respects. First, the rights and needs of people are often violated through environmental degradation and ecologically unsustainable practices. We are rapidly learning of the inseparable relationship between the well-being of persons and the well-being of the planet. Second, the idea that other biota beyond human beings ought to have a democratic voice, through representation, is also gaining theoretical ground. We may now live in a time when democracy means power shared with more species than the human species alone.

Related Topics

▶ Anarchy ▶ Barber, Benjamin ▶ Benhabib, Seyla ▶ Bohman, James ▶ Citizenship ▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Democratic Peace Theory ▶ Dryzek, John ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Federalism ▶ Gould, Carol ▶ Held, David ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Shiva, Vandana

References Benhabib S (ed) (1996) Democracy and difference: contesting the boundaries of the political. Princeton University Press, Princeton Bohman J (2007) Democracy across borders: from deˆmos to deˆmoi. MIT Press, Cambridge

D

Bohman J, Rehg W (eds) (1997) Deliberative democracy: essays on reason and politics. MIT Press, Cambridge Chatterjee D (ed) (2008) Democracy in a global world: human rights and political participation in the 21st century. Rowman & Littlefield, New York Cohen J (2009) Philosophy politics, democracy: selected essays. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Dryzek J (1999) Discursive democracy: politics, policy, and political science. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Dryzek J (2002) Deliberative democracy and beyond: liberals, critics, contestations. In: Dryzek J (ed) Deliberative global politics. Polity, Cambridge Fishkin J, Ackerman B (2004) Deliberation day. Yale University Press, New Haven Fishkin J, Laslett P (2003) Debating deliberative democracy. Blackwell, Oxford Goodin R (2005) Reflective democracy. Oxford University Press, Oxford Gould C (2006) Globalizing democracy and human rights. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Gutmann A, Thompson D (1997) Democracy and disagreement. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Gutmann A, Thompson D (2004) Why deliberative democracy? Princeton University Press, Princeton Habermas J (1992) Faktizita¨t und Geltung. Beitra¨ge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtsstaats. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, English trans.: (1998) Between facts and norms: contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy (trans: Rehg W). MIT Press, Cambridge Held D (1995) Democracy and the global order: from the modern state to cosmopolitan governance. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto Held D (2004) Global covenant: the social democratic alternative to the Washington consensus. Polity, Cambridge Leib E (2004) Deliberative democracy in America: a proposal for a popular branch of government. The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park Ober J (2008) The original meaning of “democracy”. Constellations 15(1):3–9 Shapiro I (2006) The state of democratic theory. Princeton University Press, Princeton Shiva V (2005) Earth democracy: justice, sustainability, and peace. South End, Cambridge

Democracy, Transnational MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

In its broadest possible sense, transnational democracy may be said to consist in a project of extending the participatory ideal of each having an equal say in determining fundamental public rules across the borders of the nation state. This democratic ideal of equal participation in rulemaking, however, has historically been understood as

235

D

236

D

Democracy, Transnational

capable of being realized only within a singular bounded political community, or demos. The adaptation of democracy from direct face-to-face encounters in the agora or canton to indirect processes of representation in the pluralistic national state was a solution to the problem of the much greater size of modern political community. But it did not call into question the idea that participation should be defined by boundaries, and the shared identifications forged through membership of an exclusive community. Here transnational democracy amounts to a significantly new development in democratic theory, calling into question the strict equation of democracy with national boundaries and identifications. Indeed, the project of democracy across borders may be said to take either weaker or stronger forms. In its weaker forms, it attempts to preserve as much as possible the structure of the singular demos, while adapting the latter to the broad perspective of global justice from which the bounded community may no longer be viewed as a final political authority. Here it remains barely distinguishable from liberal internationalism, stressing crossborder relationships exclusively between states, or autonomous political units below the level of the state. In its stronger forms, it detaches participation in rulemaking from membership of any particular community and identification, equating democracy instead with multiple levels of participation and identifications both below and above the state, in a system of global governance that disaggregates and disperses rule-making authority. Here transnational democracy offers a genuine alternative to the internationalist model of interstate relations, defining the relationship of democracy and global justice independently of the inherited conception of the bounded political community. In what follows, I give a brief sketch of five major philosophical contributions to the transnational democracy debate, considering both weaker and stronger forms of the project.

Buchanan: A Democratic Minimum of Representation While not explicitly presenting himself as a transnational democrat, Allen Buchanan nonetheless offers a weak conception of extending the ideal of equal participation in rule-making across the borders of national democracies. Indeed, he motivates his concern with extending such participation in terms of an argument linking democracy instrumentally to the promotion of human rights. Here he appeals to some well-known empirical evidence linking the satisfaction of basic needs for living a properly human life to the efficacy of representative institutions in averting

not only droughts and famines, but also genocidal civil wars. For Buchanan, having an equal say in rule-making, at least in the minimal sense of being able to hold elected representative to account, provides a fairly reliable means to the end of realizing universal human rights. This instrumental link between democracy and the practical realization of such universal rights binds the citizens of already established democratic states to a natural duty of justice to help create and support a reformed international rule of law. Such a reformed rule of law would aim primarily to ensure access to a global democratic minimum of representative institutions for all those who do not currently enjoy the benefits of being able to hold their leaders to account. This means, however, securing access at the level of the state, where representative institutions are of proven effectiveness, or below this level when conflict over ethnic identities require the creation of an intrastate autonomy agreement. In this respect, Buchanan’s conception of a global minimum of representation presents no fundamental challenge to the framework of democracy in early modern philosophy. Indeed, the bounded community, or singular demos, remains substantially intact, while being put into the much broader perspective of global justice in light of a human rights injunction to promote democratic representation internationally.

Habermas: Postnational Negotiation Given his stress on formal structures of representation, Buchanan might be said to lack the conceptual resources to create any stronger conception of transnational democracy. The same cannot be said, however, of Jurgen Habermas, who provides a novel conception of “decentered democracy” in the modern nation state. Here Habermas emphasizes democratic opinion- and will-formation through many differentiated sites and powers of public deliberation. Indeed, democracy, for Habermas, is not simply about securing a minimum of representative institutions. Instead, it is primarily a concern with the possibility of diverse and dispersed participants in such deliberation reaching consensus on their terms of cooperation, that is, reaching consensus according to the regulatory ideal of uncoerced openended communication. Notwithstanding the originality of this conception of democracy in the state, however, Habermas fails to provide a much stronger conception of democracy across borders than Buchanan. In contrast with Buchanan, Habermas engages the debate over democracy across borders mostly in reaction to the emergence of a postnational constellation of new forms of authority above the level of the state. This

Democracy, Transnational

constellation consists of a wide pluralism of intergovernmental organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF, WTO, and ICC, as well as diverse global publics and civil society actors. Such novel forms of authority potentially limit the authority of the publics of the modern state who may achieve consensus within their own borders, at least insofar as they can interpret their constitution in light of its specific history. Here it might be expected that Habermas would respond to this kind of limitation by attempting some extension of the notion of decentered public communication across the borders of the state. That is, extend the notion of decentering such communication, as guided by the ideal of consensus, to the equally disaggregated and dispersed sites and powers of authority that make up the postnational constellation. But that is not the path he takes. Given the absence of a shared ethos based on constitutional interpretation above the state level, Habermas settles instead for a less demanding basis for reaching agreements on the rules of postnational cooperation in an international system of negotiations and policy networks. Such a network is governed not by the ideal of consensus reached in open public communication, but rather “nondemocratic” standards of fair bargaining and compromise over predetermined ends and interests.

Held: Formal Legal Cosmopolitanism But if Habermas fails to exploit his own notion of decentered public communication in the new postnational constellation, David Held quite explicitly takes the path rejected by Habermas in developing a conception of democratic participation in determining fundamental rules across state borders. In this respect, he may be said to offer a strong version of transnational democracy that, contrary to Habermas, detaches the ideal of participation from the singular bounded demos, along with common identifications founded on the interpretation of a national constitution. Indeed, Held develops this strong form of democracy across borders using not the language of decentering, but rather multileveled participation in cross-border governance, ranging from the local to the global, and corresponding to the multileveled identities of individuals. That is, he focuses on the increasingly complex identities that are acquired by individuals as the result of globalization, equipping them with various self-understandings and commitments extending beyond that of citizen of any single nation state. Here multileveled participation, among individuals who possess such complex identities, need not be democratic in Habermas’s highly exacting sense of communication governed by the ideal of

D

consensus. Rather, it counts as adequately democratic to the extent that the equal standing of each individual can be guaranteed in inclusive processes of participation and debate, encompassing negotiation and compromise. Held’s strong conception of transnational democracy has both a bottom-up and a top-down component, although these two components are by no means to be understood as coequal. On the one hand, the bottom-up component consists to a large degree in the activism of informal transnational social movements which take advantage of the many new opportunities for democratic participation created by globalization, and the pluralism of novel forms of authority above the state discussed by Habermas. Here diverse global publics and civil society actors undertake contestatory actions across the multiple levels of transnational governance, aimed at ensuring that the rules of global interaction are not steered exclusively in the interest of any one or other group of dominant interests. But, on the other hand, the top-down component consists in the demand for an extensive elaboration of the formal cosmopolitan rule of law at all levels of participation, in the interest of guaranteeing the equal standing of participants in such movements. For Held, such an elaboration ought to entail guarantees not only of civil and political rights at all participatory levels of the transnational scheme, but also, and more controversially, guarantees of reproductive rights and even the right to a basic minimum income. Nonetheless, his conception of the dependency of democratic participation across multiple levels on the overarching framework of formal legal cosmopolitanism has become a focus of criticism motivating two subsequent strong conceptions of transnational democracy.

Dryzek: Informal Discursive Democracy The first of these two further strong conceptions is developed by John Dryzek. For this part, Dryzek takes issue not with the bottom-up but rather the top-down component of Held’s conception of transnational democracy. Indeed, Dryzek regards Held’s appeal to formal juridical guarantees of democratic participation as profoundly flawed, as a response to globalization. According to Dryzek, globalization may be characterized best in terms of a shift from the early modern notion of the legal ordering of human affairs to their postmodern discursive ordering. Here the phenomenon of discursive ordering may be seen, for instance, in the rapid expansion with globalization of a multitude of informal regulatory regimes, ordered primarily through the discourses of market liberalism and unlimited growth. Discourse is understood by Dryzek in terms borrowed from Foucault as a way of making sense of

237

D

238

D

Democracy, Transnational

the world through shared judgments, assumptions, and dispositions, which dispense with the need for legal coercion. To be sure, Foucault himself saw discourses as primarily a source of domination, in spite of the absence of such coercion, insofar as their underlying assumptions typically go unquestioned. But, Dryzek contends, they may also have a distinct emancipatory potential as long as these assumptions are openly questioned in a contest among many rival discourses. In the context of global politics, democratic emancipation is then a function of transnational civil society movements contesting the basic assumptions of a dominant discourse like market liberalism. Indeed, the participants in such movements gain communicatively competent control over the “balance” of discourses that contribute to the processes of informal ordering through regulatory regimes. Here the counter discourse of anti-corporate globalization provides an instance of such successful bottom-up democratization to the extent that its proponents were able to change the terms of discourse employed by the G8, WTO, and WEF. In changing the dominant terms of discourse, they succeeded in getting a range of different issues onto their agendas, such as debt forgiveness for developing countries. Contrary to Held, however, Dryzek insists that this kind of success does not depend fundamentally on any further elaboration of the framework of cosmopolitan law. In Dryzek’s estimation, such an elaboration would merely reproduce across borders the problem of “juridification” within borders. This is the problem not of Foucauldian domination by the unquestioned assumptions of discourse, but rather domination by constitutional excess, or the multiplication of formal rules and their interpretations leading only to adjudicative deadlock. Dryzek’s core claim is that global politics are amenable to bottom-up democratization precisely because of the comparative absence of top-down constitutionalization across borders. Elaborating the formal framework of cosmopolitan law would retard the processes of discursive democratic participation in a world now ordered primarily by discourses, as opposed to law.

Bohman: The Human Right to Membership in the Republic of Humanity Like Dryzek, James Bohman is also concerned about the potential for domination arising from Held’s top-down approach to the formal consitutionalization of relations across borders, that is, across the multiple levels of global governance. But he is equally skeptical of Dryzek’s claims about the benefits of informal bottom-up democratization, without any substantial appeal to the cosmopolitan rule of rule. After all, as many commentators point out,

civil society movements do not provide truly democratic guarantees of equal standing in the informal contestations they undertake. Indeed, well-resourced civil society actors typically represent only First World perspectives of dissent from market globalization, while also purporting to represent Third World perspectives that are, in effect, excluded from the so-called informal bottom-up democratization processes. In light of this practical failure of inclusion in such informal processes, it is at best analytically inapposite for Dryzek to abandon the attempt to secure formal guarantees of equal standing for all individuals in shaping global terms of interaction. Even if it is granted that well-established nation states may suffer from too many rules, this still leaves open the question of how to ensure a minimum of inclusive democratic participation for those presently dominated in virtue of their effective exclusion from the deliberative processes of transnational democracy. To this extent, Bohman presents a very different account of transnational democratic participation that focuses specifically on the perspective of the least powerful and most dominated global actors, that is, indigenous populations or displaced immigrant populations who lack any formal membership status or standing in the political community in which they are resident that would permit them to influence the terms of cooperation under which they live. He contends that such paradigmatically dominated actors ought to be conceived as possessing intrinsically political human rights as members of the “republic of humanity.” As members of this all inclusive political community, all those lacking a welldefined status in more particular forms of community are extended the normative power to initiate change in the emerging framework of cosmopolitan law. This might at first appear to be another version of Dryzek’s “bottomup” approach, one that indeed identifies the veritable “rock bottom” of exclusion insofar as the most dominated actors are not even participants in any civil society. But Bohman departs significantly from Dryzek in that he insists such actors should be conceived as reshaping not the informal terms of globally consequential discourses, but rather the overall framework of cosmopolitan public law itself. In being recognized in their claim to the “right to have rights,” in the republic of humanity, the most dominated themselves contribute to the elaboration of just such a framework. They do so insofar as they are empowered to exercise the political human right to initiate deliberation over injustices they may suffer in the particular communities in which they are otherwise “rightless.” Here Bohman engages, while also modifying, Held’s “top-down” approach to the elaboration of cosmopolitan

Democratic Citizenship

law. Indeed, he engages the top-down approach insofar as he reclaims from Held the idea of formal legal ordering and legal coercion to protect fundamental human rights of the least powerful and most dominated. But he modifies it to the extent that the protections offered by cosmopolitan public law do not simply consist in the lists of personal autonomy rights imposed from above by judicial elites. In this respect, Bohman claims to correct the failure on Held’s part appropriately to institutionalize the processes of democratic reflexivity and openness to change and amendment into the “overarching” framework of cosmopolitan law itself. Indeed, so far as Bohman is concerned, Held’s cosmopolitanism thus proves to be insufficiently democratic because it takes off the global deliberative agenda secondorder questions about the very nature of democratic consociation. It is precisely the ability of the dominated to put onto the agenda such questions about the meaning of democracy that is the heart of Bohman’s conception of democratization across borders. As neither an entirely top-down nor bottom-up process, transnational democratization is best understood in terms of gradual processes of transformation from the constitutional arrangement of the nation state. Such transformation is exemplified by recent developments in the European Union, such as the elaboration of EU-level courts that give standing to EU residents who are not citizens of any member state. This kind of institutional elaboration produces a genuine transnational polity in the sense that it recognizes a minimum of democratic participatory powers in shaping the terms of cooperation across borders, and without regard to more particular identifications.

Conclusion This chapter provides a brief sketch of five major philosophical contributions to the transnational democracy project. The differences between these contributions, on the one hand, reflect a perceived need to preserve insofar as possible the structure of rights and authority associated with the nation state and interstate relations, under the changing circumstances of globalization. On the other hand, they reflect a perceived need to more radically reconceive the meaning of democracy under these same circumstances, whether through informal channels of global civil society or the elaboration of formal cosmopolitan law.

Related Topics

▶ Bohman, James ▶ Buchanan, Allen ▶ Civil Disobedience, Transnational ▶ Cosmopolitanism

D

▶ Democratic Legitimacy ▶ Dryzek, John ▶ Foucault, Michel ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Public ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ Held, David ▶ Political Representation

References Bohman J (2007) Democracy across borders: from demos to demoi. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Buchanan A (2004) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Dryzek JS (2006) Deliberative global politics. Polity, London Habermas J (2001) The postnational constellation: political essays (trans: Pensky M). MIT Press, Cambridge Held D (2004) Global covenant: the social democratic alternative to the Washington Consensus. Polity, Cambridge, MA

Democratic Citizenship RONALD TINNEVELT Department of Philosophy of Law, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Within political theory different models of citizenship can be distinguished. Aside from the dominant traditions of liberal and republican citizenship, the theories of communitarianism, deliberative democracy, and agonism have also given rise to distinct models. Characteristic of the liberal view is that citizenship is mainly determined on the basis of the rights that citizens possess against the state and the other members of the political community. The citizen is first and foremost conceived of as a bearer of rights (civil, political, and social). Although the importance of political rights is accentuated, citizenship is primarily a passive status. Political rights are seen as negative liberties – they create a space in which citizens are free from external compulsion (Habermas 2000: 240). The concept of citizenship, however, need not be restricted to the formal-juridical status that citizens have as members of a political community. The liberal model of citizenship as the passive enjoyment of rights has been challenged from different directions (Kymlicka 2002: 327). Citizenship, as republican and participatory democrats point out, is also an active status. Citizens participate in the process of political decision-making. A vibrant and

239

D

240

D

Democratic Equality

healthy democratic community not only depends on the right institutions and laws, but also on certain obligations of democratic citizenship. Whether civic and political engagement only have an instrumental value or also an inherent one (the highest form of the good) is a matter of dispute. Aristotle famously endorses the second view. A second challenge to rights-centered view of citizenship stresses more broadly the need for certain civic virtues and civic competences that are required by those rights (and obligations). How should responsible citizenship be defined within modern democratic societies? Specific civic virtues that are mentioned in addition to law-abidingness and a certain degree of civic engagement are tolerance, moderation, self-criticism, loyalty, and public reasonableness (Macedo 1990). It was especially John Rawls’ Political Liberalism (1993) that sparked off a lively debate among political theorists regarding the proper scope and domain of the demands of public reasonableness. Engaging in public reason, according to Rawls, implies restricting one’s arguments for political action to those that other citizens can reasonably accept. These two challenges to the liberal idea of citizenship also pushed liberal democrats to take the role of education in raising good citizens more seriously (Macedo and Tamir 2002). The importance of civic engagement for healthy democratic societies raises the question whether governments should try to develop good citizenship through education and if so what the proper ends of civic education are (Callan 1997). A more radical challenge is posed by processes of globalization, which gradually undermine the traditional framework of the Westphalian order. A multilevel system of governance has emerged (sometimes with, but often without the explicit approval of existent nation-states) that interacts with and even competes against the statecentric system (Rosenau 2004). Nation-states, as a consequence, are no longer fully able to guarantee their basic principles of justice and democracy. What are the demands of democratic citizenship in such a deteriorating world – both within and beyond the nation-state? Can the practice of democratic citizenship be exported from the domestic to the transnational level? And if so, should the traditional ideal of the territorial nation-state and its accompanying notion of democratic citizenship be used as the evaluation standard for larger political entities (Moravcsik 2004)? These questions inform the debate about democracy beyond and across borders.

Related Topics

▶ Citizenship ▶ Democracy, Deliberative

▶ Globalization ▶ Political Legitimacy ▶ World Citizenship

References Barber B (2003) Strong democracy: participatory politics for a new age. University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles Cabrera L (2010) The practice of global citizenship. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Callan E (1997) Creating citizens: political education and liberal democracy. Oxford University Press, Oxford Galston WA (1991) Liberal purposes: goods, virtues, and diversity in the liberal state. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Gutmann A (1999) Democratic education. Princeton University Press, Princeton Gutmann A, Thompson D (1996) Democracy and disagreement. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Habermas J (2000) The inclusion of the other: studies in political theory. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Kymlicka W (2002) Contemporary political philosophy: an introduction. Oxford University Press, New York Macedo S (1990) Liberal virtues: citizenship, virtue, and community in liberal constitutionalism. Clarendon, Oxford Macedo S, Tamir Y (eds) (2002) Moral and political education. New York University Press, New York Moravcsik A (2004) Is there a “democratic deficit” in world politics? A framework for analysis. Gov Opposition 39(2):336–363 Rawls J (1993) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, New York Rosenau J (2004) Strong demand, huge supply: governance in an emerging epoch. In: Bach I, Flinders M (eds) Multi-level governance. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 31–48

Democratic Equality MARK C. NAVIN Department of Philosophy, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

Democratic equality is the idea that one requirement of treating persons as equals is that all citizens ought to be treated as equal citizens. If social and political inequalities undermine relations of equal citizenship, then such inequalities are unjust according to democratic equality. For example, democratic equality may require that all citizens enjoy equal basic liberties and that inequalities of wealth and income be kept within limits. Some philosophers have argued that international society resembles domestic society and that, for this reason, conceptions of justice appropriate to domestic society – including democratic equality – ought also to apply to international society. We can see in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s work an early advocacy of what has come to be called democratic

Democratic Equality

equality. Rousseau thought that persons have certain capacities – for moral and political freedom – that can be realized only in society. Moreover, he thought that these capacities could be realized only when society was structured democratically, according to the demands of equal citizenship. Rousseau thought that citizens could be moral equals – and could will the common good in legislative deliberation – only when inequalities of wealth were kept within limits. For example, he thought that no one could be a moral equal of those he could dominate with his vastly superior economic power. John Stuart Mill also seemed to be committed to democratic equality, as do contemporary writers like John Rawls and Elizabeth Anderson. Different accounts of democratic equality are marked by different claims about the social and political requirements of equal citizenship. One such debate is about the “currency” of democratic equality. Some advocates of democratic equality argue that we ought to characterize equality between citizens in terms of each citizen’s possession of certain capabilities or functionings. On this view, democratic equality requires the state to provide each citizen with the social and material resources that are needed for them to develop and exercise their capacities to perform the personal, social, and political acts constitutive of equal citizenship. Other advocates of democratic equality claim that equal citizenship requires a fair distribution of resources rather than an equality of capabilities. On this view, citizens are entitled to a set of resources such that inequalities in the distribution of these resources are regulated by principles that all members of society can accept. Democratic equality is one of many accounts of what is required in order for the state to treat all citizens as moral equals. These include luck egalitarianism, libertarianism, desert-based views, and virtue theories. According to luck egalitarianism, treating persons as equals requires the state to mitigate the role that brute luck plays in the distribution of social goods. Luck egalitarianism differs from democratic equality in that it treats luck-based distributions as unjust, regardless of the impact that such distributions have upon political and social relations. According to libertarianism, the state treats persons as equals when it allows distributions to track the results of free contracts between persons. The libertarian will claim that democratic equality fails to treat persons as equals, since democratic equality forces the distribution of social goods to follow particular patterns, rather than persons’ free choices. Merit-based theories claim that we treat persons as equals when we ensure that distributions satisfy an ideal of desert. Virtue theories claim that we treat people as equals when the state cultivates virtues like civility, friendship, and solidarity among society’s members,

D

rather than when the state subjects distributions to regulation by abstract and impartial principles. There are a number of ways in which the idea of democratic equality intersects with questions of global justice. First, some have suggested that democratic equality is internally inconsistent, since it seems to limit egalitarian concern to within domestic societies, yet its account of egalitarian concern is grounded in cosmopolitan commitments to the equal moral worth of all persons. Democratic equality claims that the institutions of the state ought to treat all citizens as equals, since all persons who are members of society are moral equals. However, if all persons are moral equals, we might ask why citizenship is relevant to egalitarian concern, and why the state does not also have to provide egalitarian concern for non-citizens. Second, some philosophers have argued that international society resembles domestic society and that, for this reason, the conception of justice appropriate to domestic society ought also to apply to international society. If we ought to conceive of domestic justice in terms of the social and political relations of equal citizenship, and if global society is analogous to domestic society, then it seems as if we ought also to conceive of global justice in terms of the social and political relations of equal citizens. That is, domestic democratic equality may imply global democratic equality when global institutions are analogous to domestic institutions in those ways that are relevant to the justification of egalitarian concern. There are three main worries about the idea of global democratic equality. First, it is not obvious whether it is best to think of international society as analogous to domestic society. Domestic societies are marked by the presence of powerful institutions whose activity makes social cooperation possible and (mostly) inescapable. In contrast, it may seem as if international society is marked by relations between politically autonomous peoples for whom particular forms of international activity are largely voluntary. Even though some global institutions possess their own political authority (e.g., the WTO), there are few such institutions and the reach of their authority is limited. Second, even if international society is analogous to domestic society in important ways, it may be inappropriate to think of international justice in terms of democratic equality. It may be mere parochialism (on the part of liberals) to insist that international institutions be regulated by liberal democratic principles. Perhaps international justice ought to be grounded in values that can be the subject of broader assent by the member societies of the international community. Third, even if international society ought to be regulated by an ideal of democratic equality, it is not clear whether global democratic equality will

241

D

242

D

Democratic Institutions

place similar demands upon international institutions as domestic democratic equality places upon domestic institutions. Even if global institutions ought to be regulated by principles of democratic equality, such principles may be different from those principles required by domestic democratic equality. Among other things, it may be the case that international inequalities of wealth and income fail to undermine the equality of world citizenship, or at least that such inequalities may not undermine the equality of world citizenship in the same way that domestic inequalities undermine the equality of domestic citizenship.

Related Topics

▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Equality ▶ Fair Equality of Opportunity ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Difference Principle ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

References Anderson E (1999) What is the point of equality? Ethics 109:287–337 Kekes J (2002) Objections to democratic egalitarianism. J Soc Philos 33(2):163–169 Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rousseau JJ, Gourevitch V (eds) (1997) The ‘social contract’ and later political writings. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Scheffler S (2003) What is egalitarianism? Philos Public Aff 31(1):5–39 Tan KC (2008) Global democracy: international, not cosmopolitan. In: Chatterjee D (ed) Democracy in a global world. Rowan & Littlefield, Lanham

Democratic Institutions ▶ Global Democracy

Democratic Legitimacy MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

For most theorists of global justice, democracy has become a fundamental requirement for the legitimacy of

governance across various levels of the global political order. Here the link between democracy and global justice is typically conceived in terms of an appeal to human rights, where such an appeal is developed in either one of two ways. For some theorists, this consists in an appeal to human rights as independent standards of entitlement in natural law for all persons to lead a properly human life. As the indispensible condition of legitimacy, democracy is conceived by these theorists as being instrumentally related to such a universal entitlement. Civil and political rights create basic capabilities for pursuing a life each has reason to value. This is in no small part because they establish relations of accountability with public officials, averting such distinctively political calamities as famine, drought, and civil war. For other theorists, democracy is the indispensible condition of legitimacy insofar as it stands more in an intrinsic relationship to human rights. These theorists do not regard democracy as the more or less fungible instrumental means to the satisfaction of independent standards in natural law. Instead, they regard human rights as nonnegotiable ideals that can only be realized through specifically democratic institutions and processes. To this extent, human rights are properly construed as being coextensive with those very institutions and processes of democratic governance through which they come to be realized. This makes them more fundamentally political ideals of legitimacy, as opposed to natural standards distinct from some appropriately democratic form of institutional arrangements and processes for decision-making. This distinction between instrumental and intrinsic approaches to democratic legitimacy in light of the appeal to human rights corresponds, in turn, to a further distinction between substantive and procedural conceptions of such rights. Theorists who see democracy as legitimate to the extent it is the fungible instrument for the realization of human rights regard the latter primarily in substantialist terms, as antecedently given normative limits. Here the model of legitimacy derives, historically speaking, from John Locke. Indeed, for Locke, those decisions reached by a government are said to be legitimate only if they do not conflict with the substantive normative constraints of natural law. As both substantial and independent, such constraints are said to be binding on persons even in the absence of an established state or legal system. By contrast with this substantialist/independent conception of democratic legitimacy, other theorists who see democracy as more coextensive with human rights regard such rights as being largely inseparable from institutions and procedures for reaching decisions that are presumptively rational. Here the model of legitimacy

Democratic Legitimacy

derives historically not from Locke, but Jean Jacques Rousseau. For Rousseau as opposed to Locke, sovereign legislative decisions are said to be legitimate insofar as they are the outcomes of appropriately open and inclusive deliberation procedures. These procedures are structured in such a way as to enable all participants in the production of a decision-outcome to understand themselves as being constrained only by those laws they have autonomously given to themselves. Democratic legitimacy, on this Rousseauan model, is thus procedural/intrinsic. What exactly is the difference, though, made by these two different conceptions of democratic legitimacy to current global justice debates? This is revealed best by contrasting two notable examples of theorizing about democratic legitimacy in relation to global justice. I first sketch the substantialist/independent conception of democratic legitimacy offered by Allen Buchanan, focusing, in particular, on his notions of internal legitimacy at the level of the territorially bounded nation state and recognitional legitimacy at the level of the international legal system. I then sketch the contrasting proceduralist/intrinsic conception of democratic legitimacy offered by James Bohman. Here, I focus mainly on Bohman’s notions of popular and deliberative legitimacy, not in the context of nation states and international law, but rather transnational publics in the context of the EU, as understood by Bohman to be the world’s first properly transnational polity.

Buchanan: Substantive/Instrumental Democratic Legitimacy In offering a substantive/instrumental conception of democratic legitimacy by appeal to human rights, Buchanan clearly operates within the ambit of political philosophy derived from Locke. But, in spite of this, he adopts a somewhat critical and nuanced attitude toward what might be taken as Locke’s own distinctive contribution to the concept of democratic legitimacy, that is, legitimacy as the consent of the governed. Indeed, legitimacy through popular authorization is embraced by Buchanan where the state already exists with representative institutions for identifying agents to wield political power, and constitutional mechanisms guaranteeing basic civil and political liberties. Here the institutions of the democratic constitutional state may be expected, on the whole, not to contradict the substantive normative constraints of natural law – the constraints to which they are the instrumental means to realizing human rights. To this extent, such already existing states may be said to achieve internal democratic legitimacy. Nonetheless, Buchanan’s primary concern, as theorist of global justice, is with the situation

D

in which the institutional resources for democratic authorization are not already available. This is the situation in which the state and its defining institutions have disintegrated due to civil war and secession, or in which it still exists but only in a way that is undemocratic and resistant to democratization. In order adequately to respond to this situation from the standpoint of global justice, Buchanan appeals to a Natural Duty of Justice binding on the citizens of existent internally legitimate democratic constitutional states to facilitate the reform of current international law. The reform is to be facilitated by helping to create an international legal regime that aims to develop basic democratic institutions for identifying the agents to wield power, and protecting civil and political liberties, within presently failed or undemocratic states. In this respect, Buchanan’s primary reform concerns the adoption of a moral principle of recognitional legitimacy. With this proposed reform, entities making claims to recognition as a legitimate state, typically following cases of civil war and secession, must satisfy more than the traditional descriptive requirements for recognition as a state, such as having a permanent population, a defined territory, a functioning government, and so on. Instead, they must also satisfy the normative requirement of internal democratic legitimacy, as requiring at least a minimum of representation institutions and constitutional protections of basic rights. The import of Buchanan’s substantial/instrumental conception of democratic legitimacy is, then, that the appeal to human rights, mediated by the Natural Duty of Justice, commands the citizens of democratic states to limit recognition of legitimacy to emergent democratic states alone, denying recognition legitimacy to undemocratic states. But, while this may be a profound reform of the normative structure of current international law, it does not question the underlying assumption that the sovereign nation state, or some autonomous subunit of the state, is the proper subject of legitimate democratic governance. Indeed, merely adding the normative requirement for internal legitimacy through representation and basic constitutional protections, as the basis of recognition under international law, does not otherwise challenge the traditional descriptive requirements, such as fixed population and territoriality. But it might well be argued that, if this is the case, then the substantial/instrumental conception proves to be an insufficient conceptual resource for conceiving of reform and democratization from the perspective of global justice. After all, in taking this approach, Buchanan does not explicitly problematize the emergence with globalization of a pluralism of new institutions above the level of the state. That is, he does not critically take into

243

D

244

D

Democratic Legitimacy

account the emergence of specifically transnational institutions of law and politics, which cannot help but challenge the structure of internal legitimacy and popular authorization peculiar to the state, as conceived by Buchanan on the model of Locke.

Bohman: Procedural/Intrinsic Democratic Legitimacy It is in this respect that Bohman offers a contrasting proceduralist/intrinsic approach to democratic legitimacy, expressing some skepticism about the adequacy of substantialist approaches to the conception of democratic legitimacy appealing to criteria independent of the actual procedures of democratic deliberation. For him, the tasks of reform and democratization require a high degree of democratic reflexivity enabling various participants in deliberation to reach new understandings of the basic terms of legitimate democratic association. Here Bohman focuses his own discussion specifically on the case of the EU. Indeed, he sees the EU as being of particular interest from the perspective of global justice insofar as it represents a world-historic movement from its own origins in merely intergovernmental agreements among sovereign states to become now the world’s first genuinely transnational polity. Such a movement from intergovernmentalism to transnationalism is most clearly apparent in the movement to distinctly European citizenship, with its own rights and powers, as established in the Maastricht Treaty of 1993. But, whether despite or because of this movement to transnationalism and European citizenship, the EU is viewed by many theorists as suffering from a deficit of democratic legitimacy. Perhaps the most striking evidence of the failure to achieve such legitimacy for the project of transcending state sovereignty may be found in the “no” votes of the French and Dutch populus to the proposed EU Constitutional Treaty. Here Bohman takes the no votes of the French and the Dutch as the basis for an analysis of the prospect for reconceiving democratic legitimacy in a transnational context. His starting point for this analysis is Rousseau’s contention that popular democratic authority should not be alienated into any particular deliberative body or location, but rather distributed across the entire institutional structure of the polity. In the case of the EU as a transnational polity, however, this principle of distributing popular deliberative authority was not satisfied when developing the proposed EU Constitutional Treaty. On Bohman’s analysis, deliberations at the proposal stage of the Treaty counted as “formally legitimate” in the sense that they were conducted exclusively by the EU Council, as empowered by the 2001 Laeken Declaration to make a proposal. But, to

the extent they excluded any direct engagement of the popular will, the Council’s deliberations failed to gain democratic “popular legitimacy,” as confirmed by the French and Dutch no votes when the proposal was finally presented to the national publics of the various member states. According to Bohman, this failure to win popular legitimacy may be attributed to a deficit of “deliberative legitimacy” in the process of proposing a new constitution for a new transnational order. The problem then is to conceive of a way in which to distribute popular democratic authority within such inclusive constitutional deliberation across the national publics of the EU. Here a key step toward this Rousseuean distribution of the authority to deliberate is to secure a role for the rights and powers of European citizens randomly selected from the national publics of member states in transnational “mini-publics.” Such transnational publics would be granted specially delegated powers to make proposals for potential reforms of the EU’s governing structure. Bohman contends that the inclusion of delegated mini-publics, comprised of representative European citizens, would help to establish the democratic credentials of reform proposals. Having established such credentials through the deliberative participation of transnational publics, reform proposals are much likelier to achieve popular legitimacy among national publics. Democratic legitimacy is thus a function of the participation of European citizens in widely distributed procedures of deliberation, which Bohman takes to be coextensive with the most fundamental of all human rights: the right reflexively to initiate deliberation over the basic political terms of association.

Conclusion By appeal to Buchanan and Bohman respectively, this entry provides a contrast between two notable ways of theorizing about legitimacy in relations to global justice. Both theorists discuss democratic legitimacy as linked to the need for extensive reform and democratization in the interest of achieving global justice. Nonetheless, their commitments to such reform as tied respectively to their substantialist/instrumental and procedural/intrinsic approaches point to radically different prospects for democratic legitimacy in a globalizing world.

Related Topics

▶ Bohman, James ▶ Buchanan, Allen ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Locke, John ▶ Political Representation ▶ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

Democratic Peace Theory

References Bohman J (2007) Democracy across borders: from demos to demoi. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Buchanan A (2004) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Habermas J (1996) Between facts and norms: a discourse theory of law and democracy (trans: Rehg W). MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Locke J (1988) The second treatise of government. In: Laslett P (ed) Two treatises of government. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Rousseau JJ (1997) Of the social contract. In: Gourevitch V (ed) The social contract and other later political writings. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Democratic Nation Building ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ Preventive Non-Intervention

Democratic Peace Theory MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

The democratic peace theory has its strongest foundations in Immanuel Kant’s 1795 essay, Perpetual Peace. Before Kant, however, important texts foreshadowing his argument were written by others. E´meric Cruce´ wrote in Le Nouveau Cyne´e (2010) that peace would require a new structure within countries and the spread of commerce. In 1789, Jeremy Bentham offered his Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace, which called for greater democracy and international cooperation. Locke, Montesquieu, and Thomas Paine all argued that the development of international trade is a force for international peace. After Kant, John Stuart Mill and others made similar arguments. Perhaps the strongest argument that links trade to peace was offered by Richard Cobden. Elected to Parliament in 1841 and a member for 20 years, he advocated for trade, nonintervention, international cooperation, and was also a leader in the London Peace Society. The DPT is, most basically, that liberal democracies never, or rarely, go to war against one another. This idea remains intact. Further, it is a theory that has been

D

interrogated quite rigorously with the use of empirical data. Crucial to the veracity of this idea are the conceptions of democracy, peace, and war being utilized. Advocates and critics of the theory reach differing conclusions about its strength insofar as they define democracy, peace, and war differently. Kant’s argument, sometimes referred to as the liberal peace theory or Kantian peace theory, is as follows. He first offers “preliminary articles” which are essential if peace is to prevail. They consist in the admonition against the creation of treaties that would, however “tacitly,” create the invitation of future war (Article 1). He warns that no state shall “come under the dominion” of another by “inheritance, exchange, purchase, or donation” (Article 2). He calls for the abolition of standing armies (Article 3). He notes that large national debts incurred for the purpose of funding possible war is a danger that must be eliminated (Article 4). He disallows states legitimate interference in the governance of other states (Article 5). Finally, he disclaims what he calls “dishonorable stratagems,” that are of such hostile nature, conducted in war, that they make “mutual confidence in the subsequent peace impossible” (Article 6). More foundational are Kant’s three “definitive articles” necessary for “perpetual peace.” They are, first, that the “civil constitution of every state should be republican”; second, that the “laws of nations shall be founded on a federation of free states”; and third, that the “law of world citizenship shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality.” Kant called for democratic governance within states, and an international democratic federation of such states, whereby mutual respect and independence was balanced by a hospitality that was, under certain conditions, obligatory to citizens of another country. Kant’s political theory generally, and his theory of perpetual peace more specifically, was built upon his moral theory and view of human psychology. He thought that human beings embodied an “asocial sociability,” whereby we are drawn together to meet our needs for safety and welfare. Simply, nature compels us to cooperate. Further, he thought the prevention of war to be a moral duty, and that establishing peace is the very purpose of a theory of right within the limits of pure reason. Given the basic structure of Kant’s thought, one can see why he also thought that commerce is an essential component of peace. It is a means of cooperation and interdependence, making war irrational because in conflict with one’s own interests. There is vigorous debate about the DPT. The empirical evidence indicates credibility, although there is no absolute consensus in this regard. In addition to the definitional

245

D

246

D

Democratic Peace Theory

disagreements, methodological disputes continue as well. Two views exist. The first, already mentioned, is that democracies never, or rarely, go to war against one another (sometimes called dyadic peace). The second is that democracies are more peaceful generally and go to war less often than non-democracies (sometimes called monadic peace). Both views are subject to interrogation; some variables of such investigation are indicated below. Whereas societies and states are sometimes classified as democratic or nondemocratic, this binary approach is not entirely helpful. Societies are probably always more democratic than their states, and democratization is a more-or-less set of phenomena. To investigate the veracity of the DPT, researchers are better served to use more nuanced data than those which binary options allow. An effort in this direction is the Polity Data Set (Gleditsch 1992). Some researchers have also noted the difference between young and mature democracies. Some have concluded that whereas mature democracies have never engaged in war between or among themselves, countries in transition to democracy are particularly likely to go to war (Mansfield and Snyder 2002, 2005). Others have disagreed and found that even young democracies are more peaceful than non-democracies (Hensel et al. 2000; Wayman 2002). Quantitative research on international (as opposed to substate or interstate) wars typically define war as military conflict in which more than 1,000 have been killed in battle. This is the definition used by the Correlates of War Project, yet other death counts are used in some research. Most research concerns the question of whether democracies war against one another. The claim that democracies are more peaceable in general is both a less researched and supported claim. Whereas imprecision about the meaning of democracy and war is the base of one line of criticism of the DPT; another, argued by Joanne Gowa, is that the Cold War created a context for cooperation among democracies, such that democracy and trade were not the reasons for non-belligerence. More generally, criticism against the DPT tends to be “soft,” that is, the arguments consist in claims that the number of democracies are too small a set, that their existence has been too short lived, or that alternative variables must be taken into account (e.g., Gowa, above). Such criticisms amount to the view that insufficient evidence exists for strong claims on behalf of the DPT. Yet, it is widely agreed that in general terms, democracies rarely go to war against one another, and some scholars continue to hold the view that they never do. Many studies support the early modern view of Cobden, Kant, and others that economic interdependence and

international/intergovernmental cooperation reduces the probability of war. As to global justice and the DPT, the relationship is important because the relationship between peace and justice is crucial. If justice is necessary for lasting peace, as is widely recognized, it should not be forgotten that peace provides the context for, and possibility of, justice. Kant’s preliminary and definitive articles can be read as articles of justice. With many others, he thought that democracies tend to value, generate, and protect justice; and that this characteristic leads to peace. If democracy is taken to mean “power of the people,” as it does etymologically, in its earliest historical manifestations, and in the work of most democratic theorists, then it is clear that it is intrinsically related to justice, and the pursuit of justice and of democracy share considerable overlap. Last, it is important to note that economic interdependence is not the same as trade simpliciter. International trade that is tainted with coercion and injustice does not lead to peace, and often leads to violence. If the DPT’s embrace of trade is to have credibility, it will need to be understood as just, fair, and free for all parties. Global justice is served by democratic peace when “democracy,” “war,” and “trade” are understood and practiced with care and a certain precision.

Related Topics

▶ Anarchy ▶ Citizenship ▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Democracy, Deliberative ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Federalism ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Kant, Immanuel

References Brown M et al (1999) Debating the democratic peace. MIT Press, Cambridge Cruce´ E´ (2010) The new cyneas of Emerie Cruce. General Books LLC, New York Doyle M (1983) Kant, liberal legacies, and foreign affairs. Philos Public Aff 205:207–208 Gleditsch N (1992) Democracy and peace. J Peace Res 29(4):369–376 Gowa J (1999) Ballots and bullets: the elusive democratic peace. Princeton University Press, Princeton Henderson H (2002) Democracy and war, the end of an illusion? Lynne Reiner, Boulder

Derrida, Jacques Hensel P et al (2000) The democratic peace and rivalries. J Polit 64:1173–1188 Hook S (ed) (2010) Democratic peace in theory and practice. The Kent State University Press, Kent Huth P et al (2003) The democratic peace and territorial conflict in the twentieth century. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Kant I (2001) Perpetual peace. In: Reiss (ed) Kant: political writings. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Kinsella D (2005) No rest for the democratic peace. Am Polit Sci Rev 99:453–457 Levy J (1988) Domestic politics and war. J Interdiscip Hist 18:653–673 Lipson C (2003) Reliable partners: how democracies have made a separate peace. Princeton University Press, Princeton Mansfield E, Snyder J (2002) Democratic transition, institutional strength, and war. Intl Organization 56(2):297–397 Mansfield E, Snyder J (2005) Electing to fight: why emerging democracies go to war. MIT Press, Cambridge Ray J (1998) Does democracy cause peace? Annu Rev Polit Sci 1:27–46 Ray J (2003) A Lakatosian view of the democratic peace research program. In: Elman C, Elman MF (eds) Progress in international relations theory. MIT Press, Cambridge Rummel R (1997) Power kills: democracy as a method of nonviolence. Transaction, New Brunswick Russett B (1993) Grasping the democratic peace. Princeton University Press, Princeton Wayman F (2002) Incidence of militarized disputes between liberal states 1816–1992. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, New Orleans, La., Mar. 23–27, 2002

Derrida, Jacques HARRISON HIBBERT Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

Derrida’s project of deconstruction began with his critical studies of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, most notably in The Problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Philosophy (1990; originally submitted as his dissertation in 1954), Edmund Husserl’s “Origin of Geometry”: An Introduction (1962), and Voice and Phenomenon (1967). Along with Voice and Phenomenon, 1967 saw the publication of Derrida’s Writing and Difference and Of Grammatology. These latter are representative of Derrida’s engagement with canonical figures in the tradition of Western metaphysics, as well as certain structuralist currents in contemporary French thought. As regards these and other earlier works, the concept of diffe´rance, which, as presented in Derrida’s 1968 essay of the same title, connotes a kind of “spacing/temporalizing” associated with “the movement that structures every dissociation.” Diffe´rance is an important concept in Derrida’s later works, which reflect a more focused

D

position with respect to political and ethical questions. Such works include “Force of Law” (1989), Specters of Marx (1993), The Politics of Friendship (1994), “On Cosmopolitanism” (1997), and Rogues (2003). While Derrida’s later work may deal more directly with these topics, his 1968 essay, “The Ends of Man,” already attests to an essential relation between deconstruction and the political, what Derrida there identifies as “that which has always linked the essence of the philosophical to the essence of the political.”

Deconstruction and Justice In Specters of Marx, Derrida characterizes deconstruction as “the thinking of the gift,” which is itself possible due to a temporal “disjointure” (not unlike the “spacing” connoted by diffe´rance). Because this disjointure precludes closure, it thus preserves an openness diffe´rance. This disjointure, because it precludes closure, thus preserves an openness to the promise of what is to come (arrivant), a “messianism without religion,” or what Derrida elsewhere calls “the coming of the other, the absolute and unpredictable singularity of the arrivant as justice.” Because the space within which deconstruction operates is the same as that of disjointure, and disjointure preserves the possibility of justice, the two bear an undeconstructible relation to one another.

Democracy to Come Derrida’s critique of sovereignty addresses problems concerning the possibility of democracy with respect to its ideals of equality and freedom. Democracy of course aims to establish a balance between these two. In practice, though, democracy presupposes some power (kratos) to have been vested in a sovereign authority recognized by the people (demos) to found and sustain the law. This conceptual inherence of a force at once constitutive of any positive form of democracy and yet antithetical to its express aims, Derrida discusses in terms of “contamination” and “autoimmunity.” The act of establishing law supposes of itself a power to do so. Hence, by virtue of this “power that gives itself its own law” (what Derrida calls “ipseity”), to enforce principles of democracy is at once to contravene those principles. However, this “contamination” is what makes possible a “democracy to come.” In other words, the idea of a more equitable form of democracy is preserved in virtue of its founding principles, such that democracy renders itself “autoimmune” to the contamination it gives rise to. But this is not to suggest that the democracy to come can be deferred; the thinking of undeconstructible justice is an injunction, a call to preserve the possibility of the arrival of the arrivant.

247

D

248

D

Development Accountability

Cosmopolitanism and Hospitality In his essay “On Cosmopolitanism” (1997), Derrida answers to questions concerning immigration, amnesty, and the right to asylum in relation to international juridical structures, state sovereignty, and the traditional concept of the city, evaluating the limits of and the a new “cosmopolitics” may be thought. Proposing the concept of a city based on absolute human rights and a politics that surpasses our working notion of the state, Derrida situates questions of global juridical, Derrida situates questions of global juridical import in terms of a duty of hospitality, which a reformulation of state sovereignty or international law could not provide, but on account of which, however, these latter would, of necessity, be affected. A city of refuge, a city that extends such hospitality, to which “one could retreat in order to escape from the threat of injustice,” Derrida would call “a free city.” The concept of hospitality poses some difficulty, though. For, as a question of knowing how to improve upon the existing law, its realization treads the difference between an absolute Law of unconditional hospitality and conditional laws concerning the right to hospitality. And it is with respect to these latter that “The unconditional Law of hospitality” may be practically applied.

Related Topics

▶ Alterglobalization ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties to Non-Compatriots ▶ Friendship ▶ Global Democracy ▶ International Law ▶ Marxism ▶ Political Authority ▶ Political Autonomy ▶ Refugees ▶ Rogue States ▶ Secession ▶ Singularity ▶ Solidarity ▶ Sovereignty ▶ Universal Hospitality

References Beardsworth R (1996) Derrida and the political. Routledge, London Cheah P, Guerlac S (eds) (2009) Derrida and the time of the political. Duke University Press, Durham Cornell D, Rosenfeld M, Carlson DG (eds) (1992) Deconstruction and the possibility of justice. Routledge, New York Derrida J (1994) Specters of Marx: the state of the debt, the work of mourning and the new international. Routledge, New York

Derrida J (1997) The politics of friendship. Verso, London Derrida J (2001) On cosmopolitanism and forgiveness. Routledge, London Derrida J (2002) Acts of religion, ed. Anidjar G. Routledge, New York Derrida J (2005) Rogues: two essays on reason. Stanford University Press, Stanford McQuillan M (ed) (2007) The politics of deconstruction: Jacques Derrida and the other of philosophy. Pluto, London Mitchell WJT, Davidson AI (eds) (2007) The late Derrida. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Development Accountability JEFFREY SWINDLE Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

Development accountability is the result and process of evaluating development initiatives and projects. Increased demand for development accountability is a reflection of the globalization and competition in international development programs. Global trends toward equity, volunteerism, and transparency, both in public and private global markets, have augmented the emphasis on efficiency and results. Most notably, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals provide a general framework for goals and development accountability for NGOs and other humanitarian and aid programs. As a result of globalization, physical and social borders are being breached and universal polity is increasing, and, in turn, competition in humanitarian aid and international development requires agencies to prove their worth. Development and humanitarian efforts are no longer justified because they make one feel good – they must be effective as well, and one must be able to establish and prove their effectiveness. By monitoring spending and initiatives, organizations can measure, evaluate, and theoretically prove that they are facilitating development. In 1961, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was founded in an effort to coordinate development efforts worldwide. The World Bank followed shortly thereafter, opening its Operations Evaluation Department in 1971. Since then, other agencies have initiated similar departments, and evaluation is now a staple in large development agencies. NGOs, however, historically evaluate their efforts less often and less comprehensively, due to smaller budgets and minimal organizational hierarchy. Nevertheless, increased competition for donations and funding has pressured NGOs to

Development Accountability

measure their efforts and prove their effectiveness via evaluation. In the Paris Declaration, signed on March 2, 2005, government and private sector officials worldwide committed to harmonize their efforts through the use of common measurable actions and indicators. In 2008, they detailed their commitments by signing the Accra Agenda for Action. Part of the Accra meeting focused on creating the International Aid Transparency Initiative. These acts call for a set of common standards by which donors can be judged starting in 2010. Various organizations that specialize in the evaluation of common indicators have emerged as a result. All of these efforts are steps to standardize development accountability and make efforts transparent, increasing efficiency. Evaluators use various methods, which reflect their definitions of development. Some agencies favor quantitative measurements, such as increase in national GDP. Such agencies consider development to be the expansion of a group’s economic markets. The US governmentfunded Millennium Challenge Corporation, for example, focuses on quantitative results, such as national economies. Other organizations, especially small NGOs, prefer qualitative methods such as case studies and participatory development. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used depending on the goals of the organization under evaluation. Recent development evaluation theory mirrors the sustainable development movement. Theories range from third party–independent evaluations to participatory evaluations–led beneficiaries themselves. Evaluation theorist Peter Rossi (2003) claims that different goals and programs require varying evaluation frameworks. Rossi’s theory models Amartya Sen’s “capabilities approach” to poverty. According to Sen (1999), poverty cannot be defined by economic status alone; one’s access to substantive freedoms must be considered and their connections must be explored. Sen expands his argument into “plural affiliation,” where today’s global world recognizes the rights of all men, but also requires individuals to be loyal to multiple social groups (including, though not exclusively, nations). Mark Moore (2000) further broadens the scope of value-based organizations (most development organizations would fit into this category) and argues that such organizations have social purposes, whereas businesses in the private sector do not. Moore proposes that “public value” be considered in evaluating the value of a project or organization. On the other hand, Kenyan thinker Francis Mulwa (2008) argues that the evaluation is a practical endeavor designed to change behavior. Subsequently, all stakeholders, especially project beneficiaries, must be involved

D

in the evaluation process. He emphasizes that participatory evaluation respects local knowledge and intuition as qualities that make beneficiaries uniquely qualified to evaluate projects. Mulwa’s participatory theory models philosopher Paul Feyerabend’s (2002) post-modern philosophy of science as argued in Against Method and Science, where “anything goes.” Feyerabend argues that science can never produce absolute knowledge and proposes “theoretical anarchism,” arguing that it will improve progress faster than any imposed methodology. Historically, large international development organizations have shunned the bottom-up development accountability theories of Rossi, Sen, Moore, Mulwa, and Feyerabend, and prefer a top-down systematic approach. The World Bank, for example, has an Independent Evaluation Group that hires outsiders to perform project evaluations. The Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda for Action efforts to standardize variables and key indicators provide additional evidence that international organizations prefer systematic approaches – they create the project design, goals, and evaluation measurements (Paris). Such methods allow them to develop comparable results of programs, facilitating decisions respecting funding of programs. However, still, theorists’ subjective measurements are beginning to infiltrate policy. In fact, in the Paris Declaration participants agreed that “country ownership is key,” acknowledging the value of involving stakeholders from all social groups affected by the project (Paris 15). Nevertheless, the rest of the document highly favors over-arching quantitative measurements. Small NGOs, however, have begun to implement the participatory qualitative evaluation theories. Some hold focus group meetings with donors and beneficiaries on a regular basis to evaluate programs and assess needs for future projects. Other NGOs let beneficiaries themselves choose their own projects and evaluate them, simply acting as an umbrella organization to teach leadership and help villagers to network. Despite variation in evaluation theory and methodology, development accountability is a growing field worldwide. Accountability in the form of results and transparency will continue to expand with increasing demand for global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Foreign Aid ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Paternalism

249

D

250

D

Development as Freedom

▶ Pluralism ▶ Poverty ▶ Relative Poverty ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Sustainable Development ▶ World Bank (WB)

References Feyerabend P (2002) Against method. New Left Books, London Grasso PG, Wasty SS, Weaving RV (eds) (2003) World Bank operations evaluation department: the first thirty years. World Bank, Washington, DC, Downloadable from: http://www.worldbank.org/oed International Aid Transparency Initiative Accra Statement (2008) Development gateway: Accra. Downloadable from: http://www. developmentgateway.org/dg_uploads/pdfs/accrastatementfin.pdf Moore M (2000) Managing for value: organizational strategy in for-profit, nonprofit, and government organizations. Nonprofit Volunt Sector Quart 29:183–204, http://nvs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/29/ suppl_1/183 Mulwa F (2008) Participatory monitoring and evaluation of community projects: community based project monitoring, qualitative impact assessment, and people-friendly evaluation methods. Paulines Publications Africa, Nairobi Organization for Economic Cooperative and Development (2010). www. oecd.org. Accessed 27 March 2010 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action (2005/2008) OECD, Paris. Downloadable from: http://www.oecd. org/dataoecd/11/41/34428351.pdf. Accessed 27 March 2010 Rossi PH et al (2003) Evaluation: a systematic approach. Sage, London Sen A (1999) Development as freedom. Oxford University Press, Oxford Sen A (2001) Global justice: beyond international equity. Polylog: Forum for Intercultural Philosophy. http://them.polylog.org/3/fsa-en.htm

Development as Freedom ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Sen, Amartya

Development Assistance LYNETTE E. SIEGER Gallatin School, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Development assistance is an aid that is given to poor states to foster human and social development. Development assistance emerged as a global concern in international institutions – such as the United Nations – in light of the gross disparities of well-being between the global affluent and the

global poor. In October of 1970, the United Nations General Assembly (UN GA) adopted Resolution 2626 (XXV), the International Development Strategy, for the Second United Nations Development Decade. Here the UN GA promoted the cooperation of wealthy states in providing assistance that aims at ensuring access to a minimum standard of living for the global poor. Declaring that human development is the way toward securing peace and justice, the resolution emphasizes the importance of projects that elevate literacy rates, provide education, and secure nutrition and housing, with special consideration of development programs for women. This human security–based approach to development assistance is widely regarded as a global good. Civil wars, contagious disease, desperation that may lead to acts of terrorism, and environmentally unsustainable development are associated with poverty. Given the global resources dedicated to peacekeeping in conflict areas, and the porous nature of state borders making the containment of terrorism, disease, environmental degradation, and conflict spillover impossible, the alleviation of poverty is argued to be of benefit to humankind. The resolution further called for wealthy states to act to improve access for poor states to world markets, easing restrictions such as tariffs. The intention was to promote the well-being of the poor even if at an economic cost to the wealthy. Economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that International Financial Institutions (IFIs), which are composed of states that are also Members of the UN, have developed in the direction of promoting the interests of wealthy states at the expense of the poor ones. Stiglitz points to conditional loans of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as an example. IMF loan conditions often include the requirement to privatize public goods, reduce government spending, and open markets to foreign investment. In the field of global justice, the ethical question arises as to what wealthy states and IFIs owe to poor states. Though the UN GA agreed upon international human development of the global poor, political realists argue that states are bound only to act in their own self-interest. Others, such as Thomas Nagel, take the approach that duties of economic distributive justice are contained within the community of co-citizens. Nagel supports a humanitarian duty of assistance from the globally affluent to help the global poor who suffer from absolute poverty but beyond this what is owed to those outside of one’s political community what is owed to others is a matter of beneficence and discretion. On the other side is the argument that our political world is global. The acts of one state influence the conditions in another, and as mentioned earlier, the effects of poverty affect collective

Development Ethics

security. Economist Amartya Sen suggests that poverty alleviation, whether within a state or promoted across borders, leads to positive outcomes for all, so active engagement anywhere is justified. Political philosopher Thomas Pogge goes further and argues that the negative consequences of development in the interest of wealthy states at the expense of the global poor are unjustified because no one is justified in acting in ways that will cause harm to others. As such, development models that work toward satisfying universal human need ought to be selected rather than those that operate at its expense. Though the question of moral responsibility remains open, the pragmatic consideration of whether states have an obligation to satisfy what it has agreed to is largely regarded as settled. If a state promises others within the international community to abide by or promote certain standards and is negligent of fulfilling those promises, it creates ill-will and fosters international instability. UN GA Resolution 2626 (XXV) set the goal for all wealthy states to provide 0.7% of Gross National Product (GNP) – measured in later years and currently as Gross National Income (GNI) – to Official Development Assistance (ODA). The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) measures ODA as aid that is given to the Development Assistance Committee’s (DAC) list of recipients that are selected on the basis of GNI per capita and the United Nations’ identified Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and to multilateral development institutions. ODA is defined by the donor, including only aid given by official agencies, and by the aim, including only aid given with the primary objective of the development of poor states. Since the 0.7 target was set, states such as Sweden and Norway have exceeded it, while others, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, have consistently failed to meet the benchmark. In conclusion, it is important to note that development assistance is often provided to the global poor by individuals, charitable foundations, corporations, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The effectiveness of private aid is often determined by conditions that governments or International Organizations (IOs) are best suited to handle. For example, to avoid dictators or rogue factions of a society from siphoning off humanitarian aid from its intended beneficiaries may require military support that only states or IOs can provide. Access to medicine is impacted by the trade and property laws that govern its production, and distribution. For these structural and pragmatic reasons, states and IOs remain fundamentally important to the future outcomes of development assistance.

D

251

Related Topics

▶ Development Ethics ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy ▶ Poverty ▶ Public Interest ▶ Sustainable Development

References Chatterjee D (ed) (2004) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Crocker D (2008) Development ethics, democracy, and globalization. In: Chatterjee D (ed) Democracy in a global world: human rights and political participation in the 21st century. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, pp 27–70 Pogge T (2008) World poverty and human rights, 2nd edn. Polity, Cambridge Sachs J (2005) The development challenge. Foreign Aff 84(2):78–90 Sen A (1999) Development as freedom. Alfred A Knopf, New York Sengupta A (2002) Official development assistance: the human rights approach. Econ Polit Wkly 37(15):1424–1436 Stiglitz J (2007) Making globalization work. W.W. Norton, New York United Nations General Assembly International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade, Resolution 2626 (XXV) Oct 24, 1970

Development Ethics JAY DRYDYK Department of Philosophy, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

In its broadest meaning, “development ethics” may be defined as ethical reflection on ends, means, and responsibilities for global development. Reflection on its ends is needed to distinguish worthwhile development from harmful and wrongful development. Reflection on appropriate means is needed to address problems such as corruption or undemocratic governance in development projects and institutions, as well as states. Finally, there are questions about global roles and responsibilities for poverty reduction, for environmental sustainability, or for impacts on vulnerable groups such as women and indigenous people. Because these kinds of reflection are not restricted to any particular profession or academic discipline, it is a peculiarity of development ethics in this broadest sense that many people who contribute to it do not identify themselves as development ethicists. In a narrower sense, “development ethics” can be defined as the multidisciplinary field of theory and practice undertaken by development ethicists (who dedicate

D

252

D

Development Ethics

themselves explicitly to conducting and acting upon these kinds of ethical reflection). This narrower field is represented by a researcher–practitioner organization, the International Development Ethics Association.

Worthwhile Development Versus Maldevelopment Development ethics arose partly in response to a tendency in the policy world to conceive of development simply as economic growth. This view was opposed not only by ethicists, but also by some economists and other development scholars. One of the first development ethicists to oppose it was Denis Goulet, who argued for the importance of distinguishing between kinds of development that are worthwhile – which can be advocated as worthy social goals – and the contrary kinds of development that are ethically unacceptable and ought to be avoided – which might be classified as “maldevelopment.” One approach to elucidating this distinction is to base it in a theory with normative and empirical application to the real world of development. Arguably this has been done by Amartya Sen (who, while often cited by development ethicists, has not identified himself as one). His version of the capability approach aims to define the “evaluative space” which captures inequalities that are most significant in the context of development. These are inequalities in people’s capability to function in ways that they have reason to value, such as being adequately nourished, being in good health, learning, and so on. What makes goods and opportunities advantageous is that they expand capabilities such as these. These substantive freedoms, taken together, comprise a person’s freedom to live well, or “well-being freedom,” and it is to this goal that worthwhile development should aim: development as freedom (which also embraces civil and political freedoms). One might also take a more pluralistic and pragmatic approach by identifying the values that have been invoked in debates over what constitutes worthwhile development, as distinct from maldevelopment. These debates have exhibited a repeated dialectical pattern. Initially, it was ideas of economic growth and modernization that guided national and international development policies and projects. Many of these caused unexpected harm to the people who were meant to be helped. Where people were capable of resisting, they did. Challenges to these ideas and practices of development reverberated upward through local organizations, political parties, civil society organizations, transnational social movements, and in some cases, these reverberations created divisions within and between national governments, international development institutions, and donor governments. Academics joined in.

Implicitly, certain values were called upon, as everyone grappled with questions of what went wrong. New ideas of good development emerged as alternatives. Through this process (so far) seven values have become salient. The first four are central pillars of the “human development approach” which, led by Sen and Mahbub ul Haq, opposed economistic approaches that “left people out” from their conceptions of development.

Human Well-Being Worthwhile development must enhance people’s well-being. However, the production of goods and services in a region can expand without rendering the people there better off; in certain circumstance, economic growth and rising poverty can coincide. Moreover, some measures of wealth and poverty are misleading as indicators of well-being or its contrary. While critics of a growth-centered conception of development agree that worthwhile development must enhance people’s well-being, they may still disagree on how to interpret “well-being” and measure it – whether in terms of needs, capabilities, quality of life, or in other ways. Finally, it is not just the expansion of well-being that is critical, but also human security against downside risks.

Equity Development that is worthy of being pursued as a social goal does not merely enrich elites without benefit to the poor. There are once again competing answers, however, to what else equitable development should aim for: equality, raising the capabilities of all, with priority to the worst off; sufficiency, raising all above threshold living standards, meeting basic needs; efficiency, allowing only those inequalities rendering the disadvantaged somewhat better off; or rectification by wealthy countries of inequalities for which they are historically responsible.

Empowerment Goulet captured this value by saying that people should be the subjects of their own development, not passive recipients. “Participatory” development has been advocated in this spirit, and more recently this has been expressed as a value of “agency.” All of these may be encompassed by the value of “empowerment,” meaning metaphorically that people become better able to shape their own lives, or, more literally, that they engage with powerful actors, through their own decision making, to surmount obstacles to well-being.

Environmental Sustainability The broad core value here is that development should not jeopardize future generations. Because of the value it

Development Ethics

places on human well-being and equity, development ethics is not especially amenable to more biocentric approaches, in which other species, ecosystems, or the land are valued intrinsically. However, living with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature has been identified as central to human well-being by Martha Nussbaum (who, like Sen, is cited by development ethicists, but does not identify herself as one).

Human Rights The view that human rights can be suspended for the sake of development is opposed within the framework development ethics, where it is held that worthwhile development promotes human rights – as affirmed by the UN Declaration on the Right to Development.

Cultural Freedom This has been defined usefully in Human Development Report 2004 as freedom to be who we are and who we want to be. Its contrary, in broad terms, is social exclusion. Worthwhile development is held to promote cultural freedom and reduce social exclusion.

Integrity Regarding Corruption Integrity is valued for its own sake, as an aspect of worthwhile development, but it is also valued because corruption is damaging to well-being, because it produces, preserves, or expands inequities, and because it is disempowering. While most development ethicists advocate development that satisfies these values, another approach argues that development is inherently incapable of doing so. Adherents of this antidevelopment school, including Gustavo Esteva, Arturo Escobar, Wolfgang Sachs, and others, have argued that actually existing development is necessarily inequitable, disempowering, and environmentally damaging; hence anyone who values equity, empowerment, and the environment must seek alternatives to development. Though this group might object to being called “development ethicists,” their thinking does address central questions of development ethics. This broad agreement on the values of development resolves many questions about the appropriate means. Within this development ethics framework, then, debate shifts away (for instance) from questions of whether development must be carried out by means that are empowering, sustainable, but not corrupt, and instead toward such questions as what are the best means of empowering sustainable development while overcoming corruption. Nevertheless, there are specific means of development that demand ethical attention all their own. For instance,

D

infrastructure projects, in particular, displace and resettle individuals, families, and sometimes entire communities. Dam projects (Narmada, Three Gorges) are especially well-known examples. Cases like these present specific dilemmas pitting well-being, equity, and empowerment against each other. These remain important cases within development ethics, cases where debate is not reduced but focused by the accepted framework of development ethics values. Other such issues include impacts of development on women and indigenous peoples, the role of science and technology in development, the role of religion in development, and a range of issues involving human security, peace, conflict, post-conflict development, and truth commissions.

Responsibilities Special attention has been given in recent years to questions about the ethical responsibilities of the many actors and stakeholders involved in global development. This discussion merges with the wider discussion of collective and individual responsibilities to relieve hunger and poverty globally. Development ethicists might distinguish between three main approaches. In the first approach, determining responsibilities is a coordination problem imposed by a collective duty to reduce such inequalities as hunger and poverty. This might derive from a Kantian duty to treat others as ends in themselves, from the universality of the recognized human right to social security, from a moral right to be protected against extreme poverty, from more specific capability-derived rights, or from other ethical perspectives. A second might be called the “can implies ought” approach, which allocates responsibilities according to how well situated people, countries, or institutions are to contribute to poverty reduction and other tasks of development. While this approach can be traced back to Peter Singer, it has been renewed more recently by Sen and others who argue that with freedom and capability comes responsibility toward those whose freedom or capability is curtailed or diminished. A third line of argument holds that the countries that created the current international order are culpable for much global poverty because these institutions and practices have encouraged diversion of capital away from poverty-reducing development toward maldevelopment that is corrupt, militaristic, and antidemocratic. So, it is argued, these world powers have duties of reparation for harmful effects of postcolonial development relations and institutions, and in some cases also for previous colonial exploitation.

253

D

254

D

Development Institutions

One further perspective that development ethicists add to this debate stems from their concern for empowerment. Because the other approaches focus initially on who must act for the poor, they can overlook the need and moral right of these people to be the agents of their own development. To start instead with a concern for empowerment brings into focus the responsibilities of the many local agents who, while they may or may not have been part of the problem, are clearly part of the solution, including political parties, civil society organizations and lobby groups, and media organizations. An important question emerging in this context is how to reconcile subsidiarity (devolution of effective decision-making responsibility to the lowest-level stakeholders) with the moral responsibilities of local social actors (civil society, local parties, and media), local states, foreign states, and international institutions.

Bearing on Global Justice Lines of influence between development ethics and theories of global justice run in both directions. Equity is one of the values distinguishing worthwhile development from maldevelopment, so unless it can be maintained that there is no such thing as global justice, development that promotes unjust global inequalities will be included as a form of maldevelopment. Hence development ethicists must concern themselves with the nature of global justice. On the other hand, development ethics contributes to knowing how movements and policies for global justice should be led. Any strategy for reducing global injustice will most likely involve development in the nonnormative sense: expanding perceived public and private goods. In that way, the means for reducing injustice are subject to the other values of development ethics: well-being, empowerment, environmental sustainability, human rights, cultural freedom, and integrity. In this way, development ethics adds considerable detail to our knowledge of acting justly, or good leadership for the cause of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Collective ▶ Agency, Individual ▶ Basic Needs ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Crocker, David ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Dower, Nigel ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Gender Justice ▶ Global Poverty

▶ Goulet, Denis ▶ Human Rights ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Poverty ▶ Responsibility, Individual ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Singer, Peter ▶ Subsidiarity Principle ▶ Sustainable Development

References Crocker D (2009) Ethics of global development; agency, capability, and deliberative democracy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Gasper D (2004) The ethics of development: from economism to human development. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh Gasper D, St Clair AL (2010) Development ethics. Ashgate, Farnham Goulet D (2006) Development ethics at work: explorations – 1960–2002. Routledge, London International Development Ethics Association. www.developmentethics.org Little D (2003) The paradox of wealth and poverty; mapping the dilemmas of global development. Westview Press, Boulder Penz P, Drydyk J, Bose PS (2011) The development ethics framework. Displacement by development: ethics and responsibilities, Chap 6. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Schwenke C (2008) Reclaiming value in international development: the moral dimensions of development policy and practice in poor countries. Greenwood Press, Westport

Development Institutions ▶ Basic Needs ▶ Development Assistance ▶ United Nations: Right to Development

Difference Principle SHAUN PATRICK YOUNG McLaughlin College and York Centre for Practical Ethics, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

In ATheory of Justice (Theory), John Rawls (1971) presents a conception of justice for regulating modern constitutional democracies. The central element of that conception is two principles of justice. The first principle is one of equal liberty, which requires that all individuals be accorded the same scheme of basic liberties, with those

Difference Principle

liberties possessing approximately equal value for everyone, regardless of an individual’s social, economic, or political status. The second principle is comprised of two components (provoking some to suggest that there are actually three principles involved): (1) a “difference principle,” which requires that all inequalities within society benefit its “least-advantaged” members; and (2) a fair equality of opportunity clause, which necessitates that all citizens have an equal opportunity to secure any public office. Rawls adds the adjective “fair” in order to emphasize that it is not merely a “formal” (i.e., legal) equality that is expected – i.e., it is not sufficient only to proclaim in legislation that “all citizens have equal opportunity to secure any public office.” Rather, there must be a genuine, practical equality of opportunity available. The two principles are “lexically ordered,” meaning that the equal liberty principle cannot be compromised in order to secure a greater degree of the benefits provided by the second principle, nor, in turn, can the difference principle be compromised in order to generate a “greater” degree of fair equality of opportunity. Rawls believed that all reasonable and rational individuals could and would voluntarily accept his two principles as an appropriate and desirable foundation for a framework to regulate the basic structure of society – i.e., society’s main political and social institutions understood as a single system. In publications subsequent to Theory, Rawls would modify the manner in which he articulated and presented the two principles (in particular, re-sequencing the components of the second principle so that the fair equality of opportunity clause is presented prior to the difference principle); however, he maintained that their essence and consequence remained consistent across all variations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the difference principle represents one of the most commented upon elements of Rawls’s conception of justice. It has been proclaimed both the most “original” and “innovative” feature of Rawls’s argument, as well as one of the most problematic and, for many, unpalatable. Among the criticisms that have been leveled against it are that it undermines self-ownership and individual autonomy, it unjustifiably assumes that most humans are extremely risk-averse in nature, and it supports a capitalistic focus on wealth. Also noted was a different, but, according to some, equally significant problem: namely, Rawls’s failure to address substantively the question of whether his conception of justice could be applied with equal “success” to the realm of international relations – in other words, could it also be used to secure global justice? The conceptions of justice detailed in both Theory and its successor Political Liberalism are premised upon the notion of a “closed

D

society,” a society that is “self-contained” and has “no relations with other societies.” Obviously, such an approach prevents any noteworthy analysis of the potential global application of Rawls’s conception of justice. Though Rawls accepted that a conception of justice must (eventually) address the issue of just relations with other societies and “between peoples,” he maintained that it is quite appropriate to “leave aside entirely” such matters until one has developed a viable conception of domestic justice. As might be expected, there were those who disagreed with Rawls’s conclusion. Among the first to comment in some detail on the matter were Charles Beitz (1979) and Thomas Pogge (1989, 1994), the latter arguing that the potential (in)ability of Rawls’ difference principle to help secure global justice was an issue of fundamental importance and urgency. In turn, both Beitz and Pogge suggested ways in which Rawls’s argument could be used to develop a viable principle of global distributive justice. According to Beitz, contra Rawls, the conditions required to enact a global difference principle effectively – including the presence of an adequate global regulative structure – already exist, and, that being the case, if there is a valid argument for the adoption of the difference principle at the domestic level, there is an equally valid argument for its enactment at the global level. Pogge argued in favor of establishing a Global Resources Tax (later substituting “Dividend” for “Tax”) that would, essentially, direct to a centralized fund a portion of the value of each state’s natural resources. The resulting fund would then be used to help eliminate the worst instances of global poverty. Hence, the benefits secured from existing inequalities in natural resources and their consumption would also generate benefits for the “least-advantaged” in societies all across the globe. Rawls did eventually address the matter of the potential application of the difference principle to the global community. His initial thoughts were first presented in the form of an Oxford Amnesty Lecture entitled “The Law of Peoples” (1993), which was subsequently lengthened and published as an identically titled book (Rawls 1999). Rawls explicitly rejects the idea of incorporating the difference principle into his proposed conception of global justice (i.e., his Law of Peoples). He emphasizes that it is the political culture of a society, not its share of global resources or material wealth, per se, that will determine its ability to become a member of a global society of peoples and, in so doing, satisfy the requirements of global justice. Rawls also takes issue with the fact that the redistributive measures proposed by both Beitz and Pogge do not include an end date, or “target,” to indicate when the

255

D

256

D

Diffused Responsibility Hypothesis

process of redistribution would cease. In keeping with his earlier arguments about inequalities within a single wellordered society, Rawls insists that it is unrealistic and notably counterproductive to seek to establish an equality of resources or wealth among a global society of peoples. The relevant assistance is best provided not by the adoption of a global difference principle, but rather by the proposed duty of assistance that Rawls suggests wellordered (i.e., liberal and/or decent) societies have to help “burdened” societies establish the political institutions/ culture needed to become members of a global society of peoples. Importantly, the duty of assistance includes an end date/target – i.e., when the “burdened” society in question has been transformed into a well-ordered society. There continues to be widespread debate about the possibility and desirability of applying Rawls’s difference principle on a global scale. Beitz and Pogge remain in favor of a principle of global distributive justice, while others, such as Samuel Freeman (e.g., 2006) and David Reidy (e.g., 2004), seek to further explain and, by extension, defend Rawls’s argument, and still others, such as Chandran Kukathas (e.g., 2006), argue that it is futile and potentially dangerous to attempt to establish (in the Rawlsian sense) either a global or domestic principle of distributive justice for universal application. Given the importance and complexity of the topic, there is likely much left to be said.

Related Topics

▶ Aid to Burdened Societies ▶ Beitz, Charles ▶ Decent Society ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Global Difference Principle ▶ Global Justice ▶ Kukathas, Chandran ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Rawls, John

References Beitz C (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Beitz C (2000) Rawls’s law of peoples. Ethics 110:669–696 Freeman S (2006) Distributive justice and The Law of Peoples. In: Martin R, Reidy D (eds) Rawls’s law of peoples: a realistic Utopia? Blackwell, Oxford, pp 243–259 Kukathas C (2006) The mirage of global justice. Soc Philos Policy 23:1–28 Pogge T (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Pogge T (1994) An egalitarian law of peoples. Philos Public Aff 23:195–224 Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Rawls J (1993/1996/2005) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, New York Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Reidy D (2004) Rawls on international justice: a defense. Polit Theory 32:291–319

Diffused Responsibility Hypothesis ROSLYN MYERS Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Fordham Law School, New York, NY, USA

Diffusion of responsibility is a social phenomenon occurring in groups when, in circumstances requiring moral responsiveness or action, the imperative to do so is dispersed among group members so that, each expecting or assuming the others have acted or will act, no one takes action. Group identity provides each member with anonymity, eliminating individual accountability. It is a psychological mechanism leading to widespread injustice, and, in this sense, it is the opposite of moral agency. As group size grows, the imperative for personal action is increasingly muted. Individuals each shift the obligation to act to unnamed others, viewing their own agency as unnecessary, creating a void of leadership. When everyone is potentially responsible, no one is actually responsible. Diffusion of responsibility is a process of neutralization. It allows harmful, immoral, or illegal objectives to be accomplished by a group or movement. If each member contributes to the objective, but no one member is responsible for the overall harm, individual accountability is moot. Additionally, as the distance between action and consequence increases, responsibility becomes diffused, and moral obligations become increasingly opaque. As group identification is intensified and combined with emotional arousal, individuality is subsumed into the “herd mentality,” and people become more responsive to group norms while losing moderating restraints on their behavior. Deindividuation leads to diffused responsibility by removing individual discretion. Concern for – or the ability to discern – right from wrong evaporates. Diffused responsibility is thus one expression of the disintegration of humanity, because personal accountability and social standards are also moral imperatives. Diffused responsibility can be purposely constructed, even used as a strategy. If a legitimate authority is explicitly

Diffused Responsibility Hypothesis

assigned responsibility for the actions of the group, members can disavow their own volition, diffusing their sense of personal responsibility. When disengaged from accountability, individuals often act in ways they would otherwise repudiate; the exercise of moral agency is attenuated when personal agency is obscured. Many factors contribute to the diffusion of responsibility: the group’s size; whether it operates in daylight or darkness; its physical indirectness to harmful actions; its misperception of the gravity of the harm; its use of language of nonresponsiblity, such as euphemisms, which sanitize and camouflage individual choice; its cultural or geographical distance from the victim; the dehumanization of the victim; the level of blame that can be attributed to the victim; the ease with which members can rationalize their behavior; etc. Diffused responsibility typically manifests in a variety of scenarios: ● In noncohesive groups, the imperative for a single person to act is undercut by the assumption that someone else will do so. Bystander nonintervention is the classic example of this form of diffused responsibility. ● In hierarchies, underlings avoid responsibility by unquestioningly following orders, while supervisors avoid responsibility by not directly engaging in the actions they order and supervise. Military hierarchies, corporate structures, governmental and political organizations are some institutions that promote this dynamic. ● In disorganized crowds, individual action is difficult to link with its actor, reducing judgment or moral censure of actors. Jeering, shouting, and active incitement anonymously, as part of a crowd, are examples of this. ● Division of labor separates the totality of action into small parts, such that everyone contributes a fraction of the outcome or product. In such conditions, individuals can avoid responsibility by claiming to be no more “guilty” than any other member. Also, if no one person has all the information, it might be difficult or impossible for each individual to evaluate the outcome of their activities, and actors will be more likely to focus their attention on the efficiencies of their own fragmented part. Corporate structures and organized crime illustrate this dynamic. ● In “groupthink,” people invest in the group identity, setting aside their personal decision-making authority to accept the group’s collective identity. Everyone becomes a follower, whether or not there is a clear leader. School cliques, sports teams, and religious cults are some examples of groups in which this form of diffused responsibility can occur.

D

In its most extreme form, diffused responsibility drives mass atrocity. Not only is mass violence often carried out on orders from authority figures, individuals who engage in harms not specifically ordered can legitimize their actions and avoid personal responsibility by placing their acts within the framework of group objectives. If the suffering is not visible, a sense of personal responsibility is further diffused. If the harm results from a bystander’s inaction, it is even easier to diffuse a sense of responsibility. Complicit bystanders often remain unaccountable because they were not proactive in the violence. In the aftermath of atrocity, actors and nonactors may attempt to discredit, minimize, ignore, or deny evidence of the harm. Individuals may even claim victim status for themselves and the group, asserting that everyone engaged in the atrocities, so no one should be held responsible.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Individual ▶ Collective Identity ▶ Collective Responsibility ▶ Genocide ▶ Moral Distance ▶ Refugees ▶ Violence ▶ War Crimes

References Andrus BC (1969) The infamous of Nuremberg. Fravin, London Bandura A, Underwood B, Fromson ME (1975) Disinhibition of aggression through diffusion of responsibility and dehumanization of victims. J Res Pers 9:253–269 Bandura A, Barbaranelli C, Caprara GV, Pastorelli C (1996) Mechanisms of moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. J Pers Soc Psychol 71:364–374 Cushman F, Young L, Hauser M (2006) The role of conscious reasoning and intuition in moral judgment: testing three principles of harm. Psychol Sci 17:1082–1089 Darley JM, Latane B (1968) Bystander intervention in emergencies: diffusion of responsibility. J Pers Soc Psychol 8:377–383 Festinger L, Pepitone A, Newcomb T (1952) Some consequences of deindividuation in a group. J Abnorm Soc Psychol 47:382–389 Goldhagen DJ (1997) Hitler’s willing executioners. Vintage Publishing, New York Kelman HC (1973) Violence without moral restraint: reflections on the dehumanization of victims and victimizers. J Soc Issues 29(4):25–61 Latane B, Darley J (1968) Bystander intervention in emergencies: diffusion of responsibility. J Pers Soc Psychol 8(41):377–383 Latane B, Nida S (1981) Ten years of research on group size and helping. Psychol Bull 89:308 Manning R, Levine M, Collins A (2007) The kitty genovese murder and the social psychology of helping: the parable of the 38 witnesses. Am Psychol 62(6):555–562 Milgram S (1997) Obedience to authority: an experimental view. Harpercollins, New York

257

D

258

D

Disabled People

Piliavin I, Rodin J, Piliavin J (1969) Good samaritanism: an underground phenomenon? J Pers Soc Psychol 13(4):289–299. doi:10.1037/ h0028433 Rosenbaum T (2004) The myth of moral justice. HarperCollins, New York Rosenthal AM (1999) Thirty-eight witnesses: the kitty genovese case. University of California Press, Berkeley Royzman E, Baron J (2002) The preference for indirect harm. Soc Justice Res 15:165–184 Sykes GM, Matza D (1957) Techniques of neutralization. Am Sociol Rev 22(6):664–670, Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2089195 Wegner DM, Schaefer D (1978) The concentration of responsibility: an objective self-awareness analysis of group size effects in helping situations. J Pers Soc Psychol 36:147–155

Disabled People KATHLEEN J. WININGER Department of Philosophy & Women and Gender Studies, University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME, USA

Perceptions of disabled people vary from culture to culture, and within cultures and nations. Global views take into account strategies for enabling disabled people full or partial participation in a given culture. While European models of justice for the disabled follow medical and resource management models, local solutions within the global context vary greatly. European models of working with disabled people include those that extend assistance or help to the disabled following a charitable notion. Here there may be nothing owed to the disabled person, but a sense of altruism shapes a person’s character and demands charitable acts whether from a secular or religious notion of virtue. Some of these acts extend from a sense of responsibility to coreligionists, some go further including all people or those who will potentially be members of a religion. More commonly in political policy, we see a notion of social justice favoring a distributive model, sometimes “justice as fairness” following a model of liberal neutrality or equality. These views extend the bounty of the society to its less favored citizens through a notion of equality. Fairness models bring the person with the deficit into some kind of parity with other members of the society or the global world. Thus also within liberalism there is a paternalism or sense of a beneficent society bringing to equality a person who lacks something mentally or physically. These models also assume a finite set of resources and so arguments are sometimes made for the deserving disabled and against those who may use up too many resources.

Medical models look at the disabled person in terms of biological or mental abnormalities. The goal of the medical model is to bring the patient into the norm by curing, modifying the deficit or managing the disability, identifying or diagnosing the disability, understanding it, and learning to control and alter its course. Deafness or blindness might be helped surgically; mental disabilities might be controlled pharmacologically. There is usually an attempt to make the person more normal in appearance and function. Advancements in technology can be looked to normalize the person. The pathological approach has done much to exclude the voice, the agency, and the community membership of disabled people by again focusing on the person’s difference and inadequacy. Disabled people are made into an “other” in each of these three models. Women and gender studies has made many contributions to the discourse around disability especially because the process of being made into an “other” is already a part of feminist theory. The contributions include extending the notion of an ethic of care from mothering to a sense of responsibility for disabled people. Since caregivers are often women, attention is also paid to those caring for the disabled. Considering disabilities in the context of global social justice has two aspects, one employs universalizing theories from European traditions. These end up being global because they are employed by transnational organizations such as the UN, ICC, and World Bank, and because colonialism exported these ideas to much of the world. Another view of justice looks at intellectual resources of cultures where the disabled person is still seen as a member of society, one with something to contribute, admittedly one who is different. The model of disability significantly affects how the individual with disabilities is perceived, accepted, and accorded citizenship rights and responsibilities. If the disabled are looked at as children or a drain upon resources, impediments are put in the way of accommodation.

World Context: Local Resources While European cultures tend to see disabled people as dependents, other cultures may have different models of the disabled person’s place in the society and indeed some cultures do not see the person as disabled at all, but as another member of the culture, perhaps one having different things to offer. One thing common in many of the global models is the sense that group membership is not exclusive to the healthy and interdependence is seen as a norm. Thus the disabled person does not fail to qualify for membership in light of a deficit. In so short

Disabled People

a space a few examples will need to suggest the many possibilities of differing models. Within American culture the Dine (Navajo people) tend not to value independence and autonomy over group membership. People who in the normal course of their life require assistance, children, disabled, and elderly are not seen as pulling resources away from the family, group, or culture. In fact the culture would be less whole if the person were not a part of it. For example, when disabled children were taken away to receive US social services, many Dine experienced a sense of unbalance in the community. The loss of the member of a community throws the culture out of harmony, whoever is lost. Health is also seen in terms of traditional models of healing and keeping the community in harmony with beauty. A blind person who has had a Sing (healing ceremony) is brought back into harmony (hence healed), even though the person is still blind. In many parts of Africa Ubuntu or a similar idea/ practice informs morality and justice. In disability rights movements in Africa, this idea is used to encourage a sense of collective responsibility for disabled people, as well as people living in poverty, or any other challenging situation. Ubuntu refers to the essence of being human; a human being cannot exist in isolation. Disabled people are deserving of dignity, respect, solidarity, compassion, and survival. People are interconnected and one person’s deeds affect the entire community and the world. In South Africa, Ubuntu is a resource to help people to reflect on the many paradoxes of disability encapsulated in the essence of interdependence. Ubuntu has been employed in building emotional resources, helping families become sensitized to disability issues, and renewing spirituality for disabled people. According to Ubuntu when you do well, it spreads out to the whole of humanity. So the concept has been used to bring disabled people into relation to their community and especially to break the feeling of isolation and worthlessness fostered by technological society where cultures value persons as productive workers, but not always as whole human beings. One study is explicit, suggesting the values of Ubuntu need to be brought into the rehabilitation process and disability by all practitioners (Lorenzo 2003). In studies, Ubuntu is invoked to help people develop skills for their social and economic well-being, to help them become active in changing stereotypes and myths about disability. It has been used to empower disabled people who have started to challenge each other, family members, and the larger community. Bringing the disabled people

D

together allows them to experience compassion in solidarity, in challenging attitudes, through a spirit of doing and being, and a renewed sense of spirituality. The intellectual and spiritual resource of Ubuntu was there in society and it needed to be awakened through social practice. Without saying that these two examples are typical of local solutions respecting people with disabilities, we can see that there is room for models of justice for the disabled person which do not conceptualize that person as an outsider in a culture or a drain upon the resources of a nation. Theories of human dignity and the value of community can help disabled people in terms of how they are seen by the culture and in models of rehabilitation. Historical and global attitudes can influence Western biomedical explanations, liberal individualistic assumptions, and models of social intervention.

Related Topics

▶ Altruism ▶ Charity ▶ Essential Medicines, Access to ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Ubuntu

References Connors JL, Donnellan AM (1993) Citizenship and culture: the role of disabled people in Navajo society. Disabil Soc 8(3):265–280 Frankland HC, Turnbull AP, Wehmeyer ML, Blackmountain L (2004) An exploration of the self-determination construct and disability as it relates to the Dine (Navajo) culture education and training. Dev Disabil 39(3):191–205 Lavonna L (2008) Native American worldview and the discourse on disability. Essays Philos A Biannu J 9(1):Article 14 Lorenzo Th (2003) No African renaissance without disabled women: a communal approach to human development in Cape Town South Africa. Disabil Soc 18(6):759–778 Siebers T (2001) Disability in theory: from social constructionism to the new realism of the body. Am Literary Hist 13(4):737–754 Silvers A (2003) On the possibility and desirability of constructing a neutral conception of disability. Theor Med Bioeth 24(6):471–487 Silvers A, Francis LP (eds) (2000) Americans with disabilities: exploring implications of the law for individuals and institutions. New York, Routledge Silvers A, Francis LP (2005) Justice through trust: disability and the “outlier problem” in social contract theory. Ethics 116(1):40–76 Thomson RG (2005) Feminist disability studies signs. J Women Cult Soc 30(2):1557–1587 Tremain Sh (1996) Dworkin on disablement and resources. Can J Law Jurisprudence 9:343–359 Young IM (2000) Disability and the definition of work. In: Francis LP, Silvers A (eds) Americans with disabilities: exploring implications of the law for individuals and institutions. Routledge, New York

259

D

260

D

Disagreement, Reasonable

Disagreement, Reasonable BLAIN NEUFELD Department of Philosophy, College of Letters and Science, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA

Disagreement on fundamental religious, moral, philosophical, and political matters is a ubiquitous feature of the contemporary world, both within and between societies. Consequently, any account of global justice must take into account such disagreement. The existence and persistence of reasonable disagreement is a central concern of John Rawls’s theory of political liberalism. This entry will discuss briefly political liberalism’s attempt to accommodate reasonable disagreement within political societies before considering, at greater length, its attempt to accommodate reasonable disagreement within the global domain.

The Idea of “Reasonable” Disagreement Rawls claims that persons, through the free exercise of their reason, invariably will come to subscribe to a variety of different but nonetheless “reasonable” “comprehensive doctrines” (systems of beliefs and values, as diverse as Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, secular humanism, and utilitarianism). Rawls refers to this as the “fact of reasonable pluralism.” Disagreement among persons and communities over which (if any) comprehensive doctrine is true is “reasonable” insofar as it is not simply the result of such factors as irrationality or biases on the part of the disagreeing parties. Instead, reasonable disagreement can be explained, at least in part, by what Rawls calls the “burdens of judgment.” The burdens of judgment, which include such factors as the indeterminacy of many of our moral and metaphysical concepts, help explain how rational and conscientious persons might arrive at different conclusions as to which comprehensive doctrine (if any) is true. Importantly, Rawls claims that the ideas of the burdens of judgment and the fact of reasonable pluralism do not entail or presuppose either relativism or skepticism, as relativism and skepticism are themselves controversial philosophical views.

Reasonable Disagreement and Domestic Justice In order to realize the ideal of democratic self-government within political societies, while at the same time accommodating the fact of reasonable pluralism, Rawls

maintains that an acceptable liberal conception of (domestic) justice must be political in nature. A “political conception of justice” satisfies what might be called the “basic structure restriction” and the “freestanding condition.” According to the basic structure restriction, a political conception of justice should apply only to the basic structure of society – its main political and economic institutions – and not to social, philosophical, or moral concerns that lie beyond this domain. According to the freestanding condition, a political conception of justice should be formulated in terms of ideas compatible with the various reasonable comprehensive doctrines endorsed by citizens. Finally, the ideas that are used to formulate a political conception of justice, such as the idea of citizens as free and equal, should be drawn from the public political culture of democratic society. This is because such ideas will be acceptable to all reasonable persons, despite the fact of reasonable pluralism.

Reasonable Disagreement and Global Justice The existence of reasonable disagreement is even more pronounced within the international domain than it is within any particular society. This has two main implications for Rawls’s theory of global justice, as presented in The Law of Peoples (1999). The first is that “peoples” are the primary subjects of the principles of global justice. The second is that not all peoples can be expected to be liberal in nature. Both features of Rawls’s theory have been disputed. Rawls takes “peoples” as the subjects to which the principles of global justice apply. Peoples have three features. First, the individuals that comprise a people are subject to the same political authority. Second, the members of a people are united by “common sympathies” (an idea that Rawls takes from J. S. Mill), typically (but not necessarily) fostered by a common culture, history, and so forth. Third, peoples are both “rational” and “reasonable” in nature. A people is rational in that it has a conception of its own good, namely, realizing its domestic conception of justice over time; it is reasonable in that it is willing to interact with other peoples on mutually acceptable terms (principles of global justice), even at some cost to itself. Although peoples correspond, for the most part, to the traditional notion of “nation-states,” the reasonableness of peoples help distinguish them from the (purely self-interested) conception of “states” found in “realist” international relations theory. Rawls’s use of peoples as the primary subjects of his theory of global justice has been criticized as inconsistent with his domestic theory of justice, “justice as fairness,”

Disagreement, Reasonable

according to which individuals are the ultimate units of moral worth. Two responses have been advanced on behalf of Rawls against this line of criticism. The first is that given the reasonable pluralism that characterizes the international domain, the global public political culture is the only source of “freestanding” ideas available for the construction of a political conception of global justice. However, the global public political culture is one in which nation-states are taken to be the primary agents, not individuals. The second response is to point out that only “well-ordered” peoples are “members in good standing” in a “Society of Peoples” (a just international order), and well-ordered peoples both (a) respect a set of basic human rights and (b) are accountable politically to the individuals that comprise them. According to this response, then, individuals remain the ultimate units of moral worth in Rawlsian political liberalism, albeit only indirectly at the international level. Rawls also maintains that societies or peoples might reasonably disagree over the legitimacy of liberalism itself. Some peoples may decide to organize their basic structures in accordance with non-liberal conceptions of justice. Such societies – if they are non-aggressive in their relations with other peoples, and respect a set of basic human rights (which, notably, do not include certain basic liberal rights, such as rights to democratic participation and freedom of expression) – can be considered non-liberal but “decent” peoples. Liberal peoples, because of their commitment to the principle of toleration, should respect decent peoples’ decisions to be non-liberal, and treat such societies as equal members in a just international order, a “Society of Peoples.” This accommodation of non-liberal but decent peoples by Rawls has been criticized for employing different conceptions of reasonable disagreement and toleration in the international domain from those employed in the domestic domain. While citizens may hold a variety of different comprehensive doctrines in a liberal society, citizens may not insist on the political enforcement of their comprehensive doctrines vis-a`-vis other citizens. Yet this is precisely what happens in a decent people: The state coercively enforces a “common good conception of justice” that is justified by, or presupposes the truth of, the dominant comprehensive doctrine of that society, despite the existence of individuals and communities that reasonably disagree with that comprehensive doctrine. Consequently, Rawls’s toleration of non-liberal political views in The Law of Peoples seems inconsistent with his more restricted conception of toleration in Political Liberalism. Defenders of Rawls’s treatment of decent peoples have pointed out that Rawls understands decent peoples to be “less reasonable” than liberal peoples, and that liberal

D

peoples’ respect for the political autonomy of decent peoples is compatible with judging decent peoples to be unjust. Moreover, whatever their defects, the common good conceptions of justice that organize the basic structures of decent peoples are judged to be legitimate by most members of those societies, whereas liberal conceptions of justice would (likely) be judged illegitimate. Consequently, the basic structures of such societies, despite their failure to accommodate the fact of reasonable pluralism domestically, can be understood as genuine systems of social cooperation. Notwithstanding such defenses of decent peoples, many critics continue to maintain that disagreement with basic liberal rights and principles is unreasonable.

Conclusion The existence and persistence of reasonable disagreement concerning fundamental religious, moral, and philosophical matters plays a fundamental role in Rawlsian political liberalism, with respect to both its domestic and global accounts of justice. Within the international domain, accommodating the fact of reasonable disagreement has two main consequences. The first is that “peoples” should be taken to be the primary subjects of principles of global justice. The second is that liberal societies should respect as equals certain non-liberal but “decent” societies. Both claims have been challenged.

Related Topics

▶ Decent Society ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Justice ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Liberal Pluralism ▶ Pluralism ▶ Political Constructivism ▶ Political Liberalism ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Toleration/Tolerance, Liberal Principle of

References Buchanan A (2000) Justice, legitimacy, and human rights. In: Davion V, Wolf C (eds) The idea of a political liberalism: essays on Rawls. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, pp 73–89 Freeman S (2007) The law of peoples, social cooperation, human rights, and distributive justice. In: Freeman S (ed) Justice and the social contract: essays on rawlsian political philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 259–295 James A (2005) Constructing justice for existing practice: Rawls and the status quo. Philos Public Aff 33:281–316 Mandle J (2005) Tolerating injustice. In: Brock G, Brighouse H (eds) The political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 219–233

261

D

262

D

Dispersed Groups

Neufeld B (2005) Civic respect, political liberalism, and non-liberal societies. Polit Philos Econ 4:275–299 Pogge T (2006) Do Rawls’s two theories of justice fit together? In: Martin R, Reidy D (eds) Rawls’s law of peoples: a realistic utopia? Blackwell, Oxford, pp 206–225 Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (2005) Political liberalism: expanded edition. Columbia University Press, New York Tan K-C (2000) Toleration, diversity, and global justice. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA Wenar L (2006) Why Rawls is not a cosmopolitan egalitarian. In: Martin R, Reidy D (eds) Rawls’s law of peoples: a realistic utopia? Blackwell, Oxford, pp 95–113

Dispersed Groups ▶ Immigration ▶ Refugees

Dispute Resolution WADE L. ROBISON Department of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA

To have global justice, disputes between contending nations or groups within nations must be resolved in ways which are themselves fair and which produce results that are just and generally perceived as just. Some disputes, such as securing bird flyways, simply require persistence and a willingness to come to agreement. Others are recalcitrant, and it is these we need to analyze, laying out their salient features, to get a handle on how we may resolve them, peacefully and fairly, with just results. Otherwise we will continue to live with disputes like those between Israel and the Palestinians or those in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants. Such recalcitrant disputes seem endemic to the human condition, driven primarily by competition for scarce resources and by our passions. So understanding what drives them and what may work to resolve them are central to our gaining and sustaining global justice. We have disputes as children, vying for toys or places on teams, and we are all familiar with different ways of resolving them. We toss coins; we draw straws; we play rock, paper, scissors. We carry these modes of dispute resolution into our adult lives and add new variants. We

throw dice; in Nevada, when an election is tied, they draw cards, high card winning. If such procedures are to be fair, and perceived as fair, the parties to the dispute must be subject to the procedure, as a matter of law, say, or agree to the procedure. In agreeing to the procedure, they arguably agree to the result of the procedure – provided, obviously, that the procedure itself is fair. To be fair, the procedure must be free of coercion and cheating. Consider tossing a coin to settle a dispute about who owns a pen, say. If I am so adept at flipping a coin that I can with a great degree of certainty guarantee the result, the fairness of any toss I make is open to question. If I cheat, the procedure is unfair, and the result unjust. The same is true if I somehow coerce the other party to the toss to accept what I want – by grabbing the coin once it lands and informing everyone that it landed as I predicted. Unfair procedures can lead to just results, of course, but an unfair procedure will put into question any result and will itself become a new source of dispute, perhaps escalating rather than diminishing the original conflict, even with a settlement that is just. Unfortunately, the disputes that can paralyze nations and groups within nations, locking them in endless and escalating confrontations, have characteristics that seemingly preclude appeal to a fair procedure for resolving the dispute. Among those characteristics is the status of the claim each party to the dispute makes to what is at issue between them – land or water or fishing or oil rights, for instance. Suppose that I take your pen and then, once you notice, offer to flip for it. You would no doubt think me demented. It is yours, after all; I have taken it; by flipping for it, you give me a fifty-fifty chance of keeping what I stole from you; and by agreeing to flip for it, you apparently give me the right to keep it if the flip is in my favor. Even such a simple mode of dispute resolution as flipping a coin presupposes, among other things, that neither party to the flip has a prior right to the object at issue. Once a party makes a claim that what is at issue between them belongs to that party as a matter of right, our simple modes of dispute resolution cease to work. We can make use of legal processes to settle such disputes when we have a common judicial system to which we can appeal. Though it may be difficult to obtain consent for those in international disputes to agree to the jurisdiction of any court, once that hurtle is passed, the process can continue relatively uneventfully. But when judicial processes are not available in such a situation of competing claims or, if available, are not trusted by one or both parties to be fair, we have a far more recalcitrant dispute.

Dispute Resolution

The ante is upped considerably if what is at issue is claimed to be a moral right. That elevates the rhetoric and transforms the form of the dispute. Finding a fair mode of resolution is more difficult because the parties are understandably reluctant to take part in any procedure. Because each party assumes the high moral ground, insisting that the other party is unreasonable and immoral, what is the point, each might ask, in taking part in such a procedure? Because the other party is thought immoral, each party will distrust the other to abide by the procedure or by its results. If I am evil, then if you win the toss for your pen, I may just steal it again or take something else of yours. We have the additional problem that even if we could get both parties to agree to take part in a procedure to settle the dispute, we have no agreed-upon standard for settling moral disputes. We thus have no obvious way of proceeding to resolve such disputes even given agreement. As if those were not problems enough, we have another common feature that complicates recalcitrant disputes even more. This feature has its parallel on playgrounds all over the world. One child pushes another, perhaps for some perceived wrong. The other child then pushes back, but harder. After all, the first child started it. Pushing back with the same force would mean that the first child is not being punished in any way for instigating the dispute. From the point of view of the second child, the first child deserves to be pushed as hard as the second child was pushed: We call this tit-for-tat. But the first child also deserves to be pushed harder for having started it: We may call this tit-for-tat plus. Things escalate when the first child thinks the first push was justified. Then the second child’s pushing harder is not justified, but an escalation of the situation for no good reason. So, obviously, when the second child pushes back, harder still, that first child is justified, supposedly, in pushing back even harder. So we get tit-for-tat plus, a response to every perceived fault that escalates with each tit and every tat. Tit-for-tat is perceived as a principled response to unprovoked aggression. Justice requires, it is claimed, that those who cause harm to others are punished for what they have done. Tit-for-tat becomes tit-for-tat plus when each party thinks the other party started the dispute, and there is no way to settle that question. Who started the Israeli– Palestinian conflict? The Israelis, for taking over land that was formerly occupied by Palestinians? The Palestinians, for refusing to leave land that long ago was occupied by Jews? We have no way of resolving that dispute, no way of settling what might appear to be an historical question, subject to the normal ways we resolve historical questions. So we could no doubt argue about this for ages. Indeed, just stating the problem is difficult because putting the dispute as a dispute is itself questionable from

D

the point of view of each party. Each party denies, on moral grounds, that the other party has any standing at all to make a claim. The result of such a dispute is that when one party harms the other, the other claims to be justified, on moral grounds, for responding with more harm (since the other side started it), and the other party claims to be justified, on moral grounds, for responding with still more harm. The parties get locked into an escalating confrontation as each responds by visiting more harm upon the other party, justifying the harm by, supposedly, a principle of justice that requires that they respond to harm with greater harm. With distrust on both sides, based on moral judgments about the other party to the dispute, and with escalating confrontations, based, supposedly, on a principle of justice that demands tit-for-tat plus, the possibility for a resolution seems slight in such recalcitrant disputes, and the possibility for a just resolution slighter still. Tit-for-tat plus seems inevitably to lead to violence, and for either party to stop retaliating is for it to accept unprovoked harm without reciprocation – a political nonstarter for most governments and morally unacceptable for many citizens. So how are such recalcitrant disputes to be resolved so as to further global justice? If we can resolve them, we can resolve less problematic disputes. We ought to proceed with a simple conception in mind, one articulated well by George Mitchell on accepting the Liberty Medal: “...there’s no such thing as a conflict that can’t be ended. They’re created and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings. No matter how ancient the conflict, no matter how hurtful, peace can prevail.” A dispute is a contingent matter, not a necessary feature of the world, and the sources of a dispute, however persistent and recurring, are themselves contingent features of the world. What is contingent can be changed. What is required to mute a dispute and stop the escalating conflict that so easily results are a set of conditions that are themselves contingent, but difficult to achieve. Persistence is essential since any accord can unravel at any moment when a single act of violence can restart the tit-for-tat plus cycle. First, both parties to the dispute must agree to stop retaliating in any way. That means, in part, that each party must recognize that escalating violence will never end and serves no useful purpose, and that recognition requires in turn that each party also recognize that both parties to the dispute are trying to take the high moral ground and that neither will recognize the other’s claim to be on the high moral ground. Second, both parties to the dispute must agree to meet and negotiate, with a third neutral party leading the

263

D

264

D

Doha Declaration

negotiations. If each continues to demonize the other, no lasting resolution is possible since the first act of violence by some dissident or dissident group will restart the dispute. Third, both parties to the dispute must recognize that a lasting resolution will no doubt require compromising on some principled claims – to land, for instance – that can be met with other principled claims, equally justifiable. Meeting these conditions is not impossible. The agreement on Northern Ireland is evidence that peaceful and just resolutions to what appear to be never-ending disputes are possible, but that agreement is also evidence of how difficult such resolutions can be – especially when each party is inclined to think it has lost much in the settlement while the other has gained much. The justice of a resolution has to be obvious for the resolution to have a chance of being sustained.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Rights ▶ Common Good ▶ Fairness ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Public Reason ▶ Political Reconciliation ▶ Retributive Justice

References Barry B (1965) Political argument, international library of philosophy and scientific method. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London Barry B (1991) Theories of justice: a treatise on social justice, vol 1. University of California Press, Berkeley Kadish MR, Kadish SH (1973) Discretion to disobey: a study of lawful departures from legal rules. Stanford University Press, Stanford Rawls J (1999) A theory of justice, revised. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J, Kelly E (2001) Justice as fairness: a restatement. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Belknap, Cambridge

Doha Declaration ALEX WELLINGTON Department of Philosophy, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada

The Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health affirms the right of WTO member states to

interpret and implement TRIPS in ways which support public health goals, and especially access to essential medicines. The requirement for all WTO members to grant patents for pharmaceuticals is widely viewed as one of the most problematic aspects of the TRIPS Agreement. Advocates of global justice have campaigned for universal access to affordable essential medicines, as a crucial component of the human right to health. As emphasized by the World Health Organization, intellectual property protection for pharmaceuticals has evident implications for pricing. The Doha Declaration, paragraph 6, focused on the need to find an expeditious solution to challenges facing WTO members with insufficient or no manufacturing capacities for essential medicines. The subsequent implementation authorized countries with inadequate pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity to import essential drugs produced elsewhere under compulsory licensing. The Doha Declaration also extended the date for TRIPS to apply to pharmaceutical patents in Least-Developed Countries to 2016. The TRIPS Agreement (Article 27) requires WTO members to provide 20-year patent protection for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step (nonobviousness), and are capable of industrial application (have utility). In 1994 (just before TRIPS came into effect), 25 WTO member countries provided no patent protection for pharmaceuticals, and many others provided protection for less than the mandatory 20-year term. TRIPS originally provided only limited flexibility for pharmaceuticals. Article 30 permits member countries to provide limited exceptions to exclusive rights conferred by patents to facilitate marketing of generic drugs. Article 31 allows for compulsory licensing in situations where a patent holder has refused to supply or license an invention in reasonable quantities at a reasonable price, or has used a patent in an anticompetitive manner. With compulsory licensing, a government authority grants a nonexclusive license to a third party, without the consent of the patent holder, and with payment of reasonable remuneration at a rate set by the government authority. Article 31(f), however, provided that such licensed production should be predominantly to supply the domestic market of the country. This particular clause posed considerable difficulty for countries with insufficient or no manufacturing capacity for a needed drug. The Doha Declaration, which was adopted in November 2001 at the Fourth International Ministerial Conference in Doha and implemented by General Council decision of August 2003, relaxed the Article 31(f) stricture so as to allow eligible member countries to issue

Domination

compulsory licenses to produce essential medicines for export to eligible member countries which lack sufficient pharmaceutical manufacturing capacities. In December 2005, the General Council decided to make the exception to Article 31(f) permanent (once 2/3 of members formally accept it). Despite the symbolic significance of these developments, the hoped-for benefits may not actually be realized. There are continuing concerns that the proposed and negotiated bilateral and regional trade agreements bringing about “TRIPS Plus” or “WTO Plus” measures for protection of intellectual property are even more restrictive with respect to protection of public health.

Related Topics

▶ Essential Medicines, Access to ▶ Global Public Health ▶ Intellectual Property Rights ▶ Pharmaceutical Justice ▶ Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property ▶ World Trade Organization (WTO)

References Kerry VB, Lee K (2007) TRIPS, the Doha declaration and paragraph 6 decision: what are the remaining steps for protecting access to medicine? Globalization Health 3:3 World Health Organization (2001) Globalization, TRIPS and access to pharmaceuticals. WHO policy perspectives on medicines number 3. World Health Organization, Geneva, 3 Mar 2001. Downloadable from: http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/d/Js2240e/ World Health Organization (2010) Model lists of essential medicines. WHO, Geneva, http://www.who.int/medicines/publications/essentialmedicines/en/ World Trade Organization (2001) Ministerial declaration on the TRIPS agreement on TRIPS and public health. WHO, Geneva, http://www. wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min01_e/mindecl_trips_e.htm World Trade Organization (2003) Implementation of paragraph 6 of the Doha declaration on the TRIPS agreement and public health – decision of the general council of 30 Aug 2003. WHO, Geneva, http://www.wto.int/english/tratop_e/trips_e/implem_para6_e.htm

Domination RYOA CHUNG Department of Philosophy, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

The concept of domination intersects with notions of power, inequality, exploitation, oppression, and hegemony. Because of the complexity of the relationship between these different notions, it is important to clearly

D

define the concept of domination for proper usage in the field of international ethics. Following the two most prominent philosophical conceptions, articulated by Iris Marion Young and Phillip Pettit, domination, when used as an analytical tool, can not only reveal the criteria for structural injustice but can also offer an ideal of social and political justice (Young) or an ideal of freedom as nondomination (Pettit). Interestingly, although Young and Pettit restricted their early reflections on domination to the domestic sphere, both authors have recently sought to expand the scope of their conclusions to include the international domain. The most basic definition common to both authors consists in describing domination as arbitrary power that is exerted by some on the will of others as a means of nonreciprocal and alien control. The use of power, however, no matter how overt, is not by itself sufficient to explain the moral arbitrariness of domination. A monopoly of power exerted by an authority that is considered to be legitimate can be justified according to various theoretical approaches (i.e., contractualism, republicanism, or others). Accordingly, the freedom and fundamental interests of individuals, groups, or populations are not jeopardized if they have consented to the authority exerted over them and maintain their ability to voice dissent. What uniquely characterizes domination is the fact that dominant individual or collective agents exert their power over persons, social groups, or states to whom the possibility to act according to their own reasons and interests is denied. It follows, therefore, that domination implies certain forms of inequality between individuals, groups, or populations. But, while the inequality between agents is both a cause and a consequence of domination, it cannot, by itself, explain the full sense of the concept. For instance, according to certain conceptions of liberalism, some forms of economic inequality are considered to be morally neutral or even desirable consequences of justice. In other words, respect for autonomy and the fundamental liberties of agents does not necessarily require strict egalitarianism in terms of the distribution of material resources. A comprehensive account of domination, then, makes reference to the subjugation of the wills of some by the coercive power deployed by others in a context of inequality where agents are situated within asymmetric power relations. Moreover, we can better understand domination by distinguishing it from the concept of oppression, with which it shares many characteristics. Young devoted much of her work to establish this distinction (1990). Oppression involves social processes within particular institutional contexts that systematically impede certain

265

D

266

D

Domination

agents from developing their capacities according to their own wants and interests, thereby hindering their autonomy and means of emancipation. Domination refers to the institutional conditions that undermine the agent’s capacity for self-determination. But while oppression can lead to relations of domination, the institutional structures of domination themselves are often more diffuse and manifest themselves in less obvious ways. In fact, following Young’s critical analysis of bureaucratic administration in modern societies, we see new forms of social control, more insidious and less violent, that produce relations of domination which are not necessarily experienced as oppression. Considering the extent to which we can observe a social correlation between oppression and domination – in the absence of a systematic causal relation – the five faces of oppression, identified by Young, are useful to highlight. Economic exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence are presented as the objective criteria of oppression. Although Marx’s philosophical legacy is undoubtedly fundamental to the conceptualization of oppression, Young’s work develops a more comprehensive conception of the phenomenon that does not boil down to the analysis of exploitation and alienation from a purely economic perspective. Oppression also includes social and cultural aspects that cannot be reduced to their economic substrate or to the class system, such as cultural imperialism and systemic violence against individuals and social groups who are ostracized in the name of dominant ideological values. Young’s analysis of oppression incorporates feminist theories that have sought to include gender-based differentiation that is unaccounted for within Marx’s class divisions, as well as feminist critiques that have questioned the individualist account of autonomy around which mainstream liberal theorizing is constructed. Her views on domination will therefore include a full-fledged account of models of social connections and structural social processes in the context of inescapable relations of interdependence. Understanding power in terms of social relations and interactions prevents us from reducing issues of justice only to problems of distribution. In this regard, the concept of domination does not reify the notion of power into a quantifiable resource that we should merely redistribute, but instead integrates it into a more dynamic understanding of social processes. Furthermore, the sphere of justice is not limited to the territorial or cultural frontiers of a given society but instead extends outward to include all forms of social connections between people and groups that, in kind, produce the structural background context of interaction that determines the choices and actions that

are available to each agent. In Young’s theoretical framework, domination designates an unequal power relation that emanates from structural injustice in institutional contexts or from particular structural social processes that, as a consequence, violate the capacity for selfdetermination of individuals and populations. At the domestic level, Young suggests that authentic social and political democracy is the antithesis of domination. In her latest work (2007), Young argues that, in light of the structural injustices that occur at the global level in the context of neoliberal globalization (concerning, for instance, unequal labor conditions identified in her notorious case study on “sweetshops”), a social connection model of responsibility needs to ground reciprocal obligations of justice in the absence of a global democratic government. Following her ideal of relational autonomy (that presupposes but also exceeds the mere requirement of non-interference and does not subscribe to an atomistic and autarkic vision of agents), Young’s concept of a state’s self-determination corresponds to an ideal of autonomy in a context of inevitable interdependence between people. At this point, Young’s ideal of self-determination converges with Pettit’s neo-republican understanding of freedom as non-domination. According to Pettit (1997), the classical liberal notion of liberty as non-interference does not exhaust the substantial meaning of freedom. First of all, certain forms of interference, whether they be exercised by individuals or by governments, can be justified precisely because such interference prevents the institution of domination. Secondly, domination does not always imply active interference or coercive intervention. A relation of domination exists when an agent has the capacity to interfere in another’s sphere of action, and when this intervention is arbitrary, which is to say that it is not governed by collectively agreed upon norms and laws but rather by the will of the dominator. The dominant agent does not take into account the authentic interests and reasons of subjects that are subjugated to the dominant party’s own influence and authority. In the most blatant cases, the dominant agent takes advantage of the weakness, needs, or destitution of the other in order to define the parameters of the context of choice. In this regard, the concept of domination invites us to deepen our understanding of global inequalities in order to better understand why and in what circumstances poverty equates with political vulnerability. But in more insidious cases, domination is also exerted by means of invigilation, inhibition, and intimidation. However, in all cases, relations of domination rest fundamentally on the inequality of bargaining power that can stem from the inequality of resources of domination. These resources

Domination

can vary in nature and cover a wide range of means from physical strength, cultural legitimation, access to information and technology, financial clout, diplomatic pressure, and so on. But in today’s globalized world, dominant individual or collective agents will undoubtedly enjoy a monopoly of economic, political, and military control. Following Pettit, the concept of domination can also sharpen our understanding of hegemonic power by distinguishing between dominium (private abuse of power ensuing from unequal possession of resources between agents) and imperium (arbitrary exercise of power by public authorities, including multi-level authorities governing the global sphere). Pettit’s latest work (2010) extends the concept of domination at the international level and defines it more precisely in terms of “alien control” (i.e., foreign power exerted by the will of dominant agents that does not take into account the proper interests and reasons of the subjugated peoples), thus undermining the principle of self-determination. Setting aside the case of non-representative states (within which structures of domination exist at the domestic level between government and constituents), representative states can suffer from domination in relationship with three sorts of entities: other states, non-domestic private bodies (such as corporations or even terrorist movements), and nondomestic public bodies (transnational organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the like). Domination will in many cases involve active and coercive interference such as military interventions, economic sanctions, or diplomatic pressures. More surreptitious forms of domination, however, will not entail overt interference and will employ other methods such as invigilation and intimidation. In these contexts, the range of available options, or in other terms, the rules of the game, are predetermined by the dominant agents in such restricted settings of surveillance and tacit threats that vulnerable agents are denied the possibility of deciding their own course of actions following their own wants and interests. Therefore, according to Pettit, the ideal of freedom as non-domination requires, at the global level, equality in bargaining power between states. Regional coalitions can, in this sense, provide a way for weaker states to pool their resources in an effort to counter the dominant powers. In conclusion, the notion of domination – as it has been developed by two of its most prominent theorists – displays far-reaching theoretical strengths that enhance our understanding of global issues. However, if we are to follow Pettit and Young’s extension of the concept of domination to international ethics, there are questions

D

that merit further attention. For example, should we accept that the ideal of non-domination requires the balance of power, it remains unclear whether the equality of bargaining powers at the economic and political levels will ultimately rest upon equal military powers. In cases where people do not enjoy representative government and where domestic structures of domination lead to violations of individual fundamental rights, Pettit defends humanitarian intervention in the name of the ideal of non-domination. It appears unclear, however, how this justification of humanitarian intervention will contribute in solving the complex issues surrounding this debate. As for Young’s analysis of structural injustice, the social connection model needs to be backed up by substantial empirical evidence if it is to disclose the types of causal responsibility that must be identified and the subsequent duties of justice that must be shared in the international sphere. The task of articulating a conception of global justice based on the ideal of freedom as non-domination remains a daunting challenge. More work needs to be done before we can suggest plausible institutional reforms and remedies. Nevertheless, the concept of domination helps us better understand the ways in which the inequality of various resources and unfair institutional settings and social processes get translated into inequality of bargaining power at the economical, military, and political levels. As such, the concept of domination offers valuable insight, both descriptive and normative, for global justice theory.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Collective ▶ Agency, Individual ▶ Coercion ▶ Exploitation ▶ Feminist Ethics ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Justice ▶ Imperialism ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Young, Iris Marion

References Pettit P (1997) Republicanism. A theory of freedom and government. Oxford University Press, Oxford Pettit P (2010) A republican law of peoples. Eur J Polit Theory 9:70–94 special issue Glob Justice Republicanism Young IM (1990) Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton University Press, Princeton Young IM (2007) Global challenges. War, self-determination and responsibility for justice. Polity Press, Cambridge

267

D

268

D

Double Effect, Doctrine of

Double Effect, Doctrine of DAVID MICHAEL JACKSON Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

The doctrine of double effect is meant to capture the considered moral judgment that producing unintended bad effects as a result of acting toward some good is morally permissible, provided certain standards are met. The idea is that since acts commonly have multiple effects, and effects can be evaluated as morally good or bad, sometimes even the morally best option carries the risk of producing morally bad effects – and that as a result, producing foreseeable yet unintended bad effects as a result of acting toward some good is morally permissible. Some illustrative examples are: ● While killing someone whom you know plans to kill you is immoral (since this killing would be intentional), counter-striking in self-defense – even if the strike is foreseeably fatal to the attacker – is permissible. ● Suicide is distinguishable from mortally sacrificing one’s self to save the lives of others, by appeal to the intention of the agent. A Secret Service agent moves into the path of an oncoming bullet with the intention of preventing the death of the President – not, presumably, because the agent is no longer satisfied with her life. ● However, pushing another into the path of the bullet in order to save the president is impermissible, since the agent intends the death of another in order to rescue the President. While this idea may appear fairly straightforward, its justificatory efficacy is subject to a number of conditions, not to mention some controversy. The first condition is that causing a harm as a means to some good end is impermissible. So the doctrine of double effect does not function as justification for the kinds of examples by which act utilitarianism is demonstrated to be inadequate. Another condition that appeals to double effect must satisfy is proportionality. That is, the positive moral value at which an act aims must be greater than the negative moral value of the accompanying effect(s). So much is relatively uncontroversial. Further refinements differ among various authors. For example, Michael Walzer adds to these conditions his own – that the foreseeable harm not only satisfy the proportionality

condition, but that the harm must be minimized, even if this means that the agent places herself at greater risk or precludes the bringing about of the maximal good sought. Steven Nathanson proposes, as a further refinement of the standard of proportionality (and discrimination – see ▶ Jus in Bello), the “bend over backwards” rule. He couches his standard in a rejection of the overextension of the doctrine of double effect, so it seems possible to add something like his rule to the list of limitations on appeal to double effect. The idea is essentially that military personnel ought to do everything in their power to avoid civilian casualties, even if this means placing soldiers at greater risk.

Controversial Examples The examples given above are meant, through relatively clear-cut cases, to convey the doctrine’s intuitive appeal. However, other examples can bring the validity of the doctrine into question. Here are a few such examples, which are pertinent to global justice: ● Foreign aid: Kinds of foreign aid differ. One possible distinction is between simply sending food aid packages, and enabling the recipients of the aid to produce their own food. In the former case, the unintended effect is the creation of a debilitating dependency among those one purports to aid. If such dependency persists, is there cause for reparations, even though the original intent of the aid giver was to relieve suffering? ● War: Several questions arise in the application of the doctrine in wartime. For instance, what is the moral difference between the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945? Is aerial bombing, in general, discriminate enough to warrant appeal to double effect? Contemporary use of unmanned aerial weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan gives enduring rise to such questions. ● Support of tyrannical regimes: While the good sought is defended in terms of international stability or minimization of military conflict, support of tyrannical regimes causes a great deal of suffering among those subject to their authority. If the suffering could not be caused without the material aid of the supporting nation, is the supporting nation not guilty of causing the suffering of those under tyranny?

Criticism of the Doctrine Whether or not appeal to double effect captures considered moral judgment is controversial. For one thing, it is

Dower, Nigel

possible to question the moral significance of the distinction between foreseen and intended consequences. An outcome’s being foreseeable, the idea goes, can be understood as a risk intentionally undertaken. Thus, if it is upon the distinction between foreseeing and intending that the doctrine of double effect is based, it is invalid as a moral defense of acts. While strict consequentialism (by which one would deny the doctrine on the grounds that only outcomes – not intentions – matter) is now rarely adhered to, few theories assign no role whatsoever to consequences. As a result, what are referred to as “ticking time-bomb” scenarios can yield morally unsettling results. Can a nuclear bomb-planter’s children be permissibly tortured, if the good sought is the procuring of information that will save millions of lives? Since consequences matter morally, acts which are deemed mala en se can – given a sufficient number of lives at stake – appear to be recommended. Since the doctrine prohibits acts mala en se, the doctrine may in this way fail to capture considered moral judgment.

Related Topics

▶ Act-Consequentialism ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Foreign Aid ▶ Jus in Bello ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ Torture ▶ Walzer, Michael ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Aquinas T (1988) Summa theologica II-II, Q. 64, art. 7, “of killing”. In: Baumgarth WP, Regan RJ (eds) On law, morality, and politics. Hackett, Indianapolis/Cambridge, pp 226–227 Augustine SA (1947) De libero arbitrio voluntatis. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, pp 9–10 Cavanaugh TA (2006) Double-effect reasoning: doing good and avoiding evil. Clarendon, Oxford Chatterjee D, Scheid DE (2003) Ethics and foreign intervention. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Connell FJ (1967) Double effect, principle of, vol 4, New catholic encyclopedia. McGraw-Hill, New York, pp 1020–1022, p. 1021 May L, Rovie E, Viner S (2006) The morality of war. Pearson Education, Inc., New Jersey McIntyre A (2001) Doing away with double effect. Ethics 111(2): 219–255 Nathanson S (2005) Is terrorism ever morally permissible? In: Universal human rights: moral order in a divided world. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham

D

269

Scanlon TM (2008) Moral dimensions: permissibility, meaning, blame. Basic Books, Cambridge Walzer M (1977) Just and unjust wars. Basic Books, New York

Dower, Nigel ANNA MALAVISI Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

Nigel Dower has spent most of his professional life as a philosopher writing about global ethics/world ethics. The impetus for his writings derives from an individual concern for poverty in the “south” in contrast to his position in the “north.” His first book published in 1983, World Poverty: Challenge and Response, reflects this. Through his teachings in ethics and international relations, he also begins to think about broader issues of international relations, but also the environment and war and peace. He produces a textbook in 1998 (2nd edition 2007), World Ethics – The New Agenda, in which he surveys three main approaches – Realism, Internationalism, and Cosmopolitanism – and applies these approaches to key areas such as war and peace, development, the environment, and global governance. A distinctive feature of Dower’s writings is the promotion of three linked themes: Firstly, an account of cosmopolitanism which incorporates insights in communitarianism; secondly, a version of cosmopolitanism called solidarist pluralism which, in contrast to both dogmatism and libertarianism, accepts the diversity of cultures but combines this with global responsibility to promote the conditions in which human well-being could occur. Lastly, he provides a version of a global ethic in which there is acceptance for shared core values coming from distinct and diverse worldviews. The Earth Charter on which he has written several articles is an instance of such an ethic. One consequence of such an approach is that rather than argue for a particular ethical theory, he shows that whether one is for instance a Kantian, a utilitarian, an advocate of human rights, or global social justice, all converge on an ethical critique of the dominant assumptions about development and international relations. His writings in effect have been concentrated in the areas of global/world affairs; however, in considering a broad definition of global justice, they also include normative issues at the global level.

D

270

D

Drug Research and Human Experimentation

In his book, Introduction to Global Citizenship (2003), he focuses on the significance of embedding the idea of a global or cosmopolitan ethic which emphasizes global responsibility in an account of global citizenship. The idea of a global ethic does not require the discourse of global citizenship, but the latter helps to make it more likely that people accept and act on a global ethic. He claims that this illustrates how much of his thinking actually occurs in an interdisciplinary space. His background in philosophical ethics allows him to do that. He has been described as a factual pessimist and a moral optimist. Though the trends in the world are generally dismal, if we believe that it is possible for a transformation of attitudes, then we ought to do our moral best. This optimism and the belief that we can (collectively) make a difference lies at the heart of accepting that one is a global citizen, and indeed is the premise of any global ethics worth taking seriously.

Related Topics

▶ Citizenship ▶ Citizenship Practices ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism ▶ Poverty ▶ Preventive War

References Dower N (1983) World poverty challenge and response. Ebor, York Dower N (1998) World ethics – the new agenda. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh (2nd edn, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, October 2007) Dower N (2003) Introduction to global citizenship. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh Dower N (2009) The ethics of peace and war. Polity Press, Cambridge

Drug Research and Human Experimentation ▶ Bioprospecting and Biopiracy ▶ Essential Medicines, Access to ▶ Organ Trafficking ▶ Owning Life

Dryzek, John MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

Unlike most leading theorists whose approaches to global justice are shaped by Kant’s notions of a republic of humanity and cosmopolitan public law, John Dryzek takes a radically different approach. According to Dryzek, global justice does not depend fundamentally on the creation of formal institutions of cosmopolitan law. A Kantian emphasis on the elaboration of such institutions inevitably generates the problem of juridification through constitutional and administrative excess, as formal rules and their interpretations are multiplied resulting in adjudicative deadlock. Here Dryzek turns instead to the possibilities of realizing justice through the discursive as opposed to legal ordering of human affairs. Indeed, he contends that globalization has occasioned a shift from the early modern model of legal ordering through rational public law that continues to define Kantian approaches to global justice. This is a paradigm shift that may be seen in the rapid expansion with globalization of a multitude of informal regulatory regimes, ordered primarily through globally consequential discourses, ranging from market liberalism and counterterrorism to various discourses of civilizational identity. Here Dryzek’s philosophical model is not Kant and rational universal law but rather Foucault and postmodernism. Indeed, he understands discourse in terms borrowed directly from Foucault as a way of making sense of the world through shared judgments, assumptions, and dispositions, which dispense with the need for legal coercion. Foucault himself saw discourses as primarily a source of domination, in spite of the absence of such coercion, insofar as their underlying assumptions typically go unnamed and unquestioned. But, contrary to Foucault, Dryzek insists that they may also have a distinct emancipatory potential as long as they are clearly identified and named, and their assumptions are openly questioned in a contest among a pluralism of rival discourses. In the context of a new deliberative global politics, emancipation from domination then is a function of transnational social movements informally contesting

Duties of Assistance

the basic assumptions of dominant discourse, like market liberalism and counterterrorism. Indeed, the diverse participants in such movements gain communicatively competent control over the balance of discourses that contribute to the processes of reaching the flexible and incompletely defined agreements characteristic of informal regulatory regimes. Here the counter-discourse of anticorporate globalization provides an instance of such successful bottom-up democratization to the extent that its proponents were able to change the terms of discourse employed by the G8, WTO, and WEF. In changing the dominant terms of discourse, they successfully exercised a form of discursive counterpower by getting a range of different issues onto the global public agenda, such as debt forgiveness for developing countries. Such agreements reached between civil society actors and international organizations, however, are not to be seen as the result of strategic manipulation and compromise. Instead, they are conceived by Dryzek in constitutive as opposed to instrumental terms. That is, the successful contest of a dominant discourse enables diverse global actors to see and understand the world in a significantly different way. It may thus be said to constitute an alternative vision of a more desirable world.

Related Topics

▶ Bohman, James ▶ Civil Disobedience, Transnational ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

References Dryzek JS (1990) Discursive democracy: politics, policy, and political science. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Dryzek JS (2001) Deliberative democracy and beyond: liberals, critics, contestations. Oxford University Press, Oxford Dryzek JS (2004) Constitutionalism and its alternatives. In: List C, Luetge C (eds) Deliberation and decision: economics, constitutional theory, and deliberative democracy. Ashgate, Aldershot Dryzek JS (2005) The politics of the earth: environmental discourses. Oxford University Press, Oxford Dryzek JS (2006) Deliberative global politics. Polity, Cambridge

D

271

Duties of Assistance ANNA MOLTCHANOVA Department of Philosophy, Carleton College, Northfield, MN, USA

D Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person (Article 3) as well as the right to a standard of living adequate for their health and well-being, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services (Article 25), millions of individuals in the world do not enjoy these rights. Their lives and well-being are threatened by various deprivations due to poverty, war, discrimination, or natural disasters. Numerous international agencies discharge the duty of assistance to the world’s needy, but we should be able to assess the obligations that states and individuals have to support their functioning. Does the suffering of individuals in one part of the world generate moral demands of assistance on those foreigners who live far away from them? And are these demands as great as they would be if they came from co-nationals in need of assistance? Some would answer that our duty to distant strangers is as great as to those close to us. Peter Singer famously argues that the latter are no more entitled to our assistance than the former (Singer 1972). Incidentally, there are also some justifications of human rights as special rights – by virtue of globalization we are connected to the rest of the world population and thus we do have moral duties to the rest of the world. Cosmopolitan arguments for the duty of assistance are confronted by objections that it is not practically possible to offer the same level of assistance through one’s own government to foreigners as that one is capable of offering to co-nationals. Moreover, the effectiveness of direct redistribution of wealth to the world’s poor countries is greatly diminished in the present system by the inefficiency of many local political establishments. The well-being of the populations of the poor countries is affected by their governments. Hence, the main duty the affluent countries and their citizens bear is to help establish effective and just governments in countries afflicted by poverty or war. Finally, the understanding of justice cannot be universally shared across the borders so as to generate duties of assistance toward distant strangers equal to those one has in relation to fellow citizens.

272

D

Duties of Assistance

In such large-scale endeavors as humanitarian assistance, individuals cannot act alone. Even if we rely on a cosmopolitan justification for humanitarian intervention, we need to make sense of the inclusion of individuals in their respective political units and of how their membership in these communities affects their relationships with human beings across borders. What undertakings of their communities are they morally obligated to support/ resist? Since the world is organized into politically sovereign units with powerful international privileges, influencing one’s government in aiding the world’s needy is one of the most important ways of discharging the duty of assistance. The individual obligation in this respect is fulfilled when one helps to organize one’s community to channel some of the public efforts toward humanitarian relief, which can assume the form of aid, military or nonmilitary intervention. Insofar as a government can be constrained by public opinion so that its actions express the will of the people, and insofar as its decision procedures exhibit consistency, members of the people have the duty to support the government’s humanitarian engagements. They can contribute based on their circumstances, by paying taxes, by directly participating in the humanitarian force, and so on. This duty does not apply to civilly disobedient members who publicly distanced themselves from their government’s engagements and thus the treaties that the government signed on their behalf and that had been aimed at discharging the duty of assistance. In addition, it is possible for individuals to organize nongovernmental groups or participate in the endeavors of such supra-governmental organizations as the UN. An important question is whether the responsibility for discharging the duty of assistance belongs to the group as a whole or whether it is distributive, and lies with each group member. In a democratic society, every citizen is equally responsible for organizing an effective and just government, but individuals may have different responsibilities, depending on the status they have in the political and social life of their society (it is everyone’s duty to oversee that unjust laws are contested, but the formulation and implementation of just laws falls more heavily on legislators and political executives). Governments can be held morally responsible for failing to help the international community to respond to rights violations or deprivations resulting from poverty, war, or natural disasters. However, in an unjust and oppressive society, individuals cannot easily change what is happening, and if their society doesn’t discharge the duty of assistance, the individuals are not morally responsible for the government’s action or inaction. While individual members may bear the duty to assist others as

members of the human community, they are prevented from properly discharging this duty. Moreover, in an unjust society, the government cannot be said to represent its members and it is not authorized to order its citizens to participate in any humanitarian intervention. There are two types of obligation associated with the duty to other human beings: not to directly violate their rights and to assist them (to interfere) when their rights are being violated whether by circumstances or other humans. The duty of assistance is commonly associated with the latter. However, some argue that what is presently perceived as noninterference with the rights of the world’s needy by the affluent countries can be construed as harm (Pogge 2004). The world economic order harms the poor and thus there is more of a duty that lies with affluent societies that benefit from this order than is normally thought. They ought to go farther than merely to deliver relief and protection in such obvious circumstances as famine or war. The duty of assistance requires affluent international actors to redress the present injustices of global economy, which would mean the introduction of structural changes to international institutions and much stricter regulation of international economic activities. Thomas W. Pogge disagrees that poverty around the world is due to purely domestic conditions in poor countries. The affluent countries either contribute causally to the persistence of severe poverty abroad or passively benefit from economic injustices perpetrated by others which they could have played role in preventing. For example, since the poor are largely excluded from proper access to the world’s resources, the WTO often does not consider the needs of smaller, less affluent nations simply due to the lack of representation. Even resource-rich countries often end up with impoverished general populations because their governments suffer from corruption and inefficiency. The world financial institutions in such cases can do little to alleviate poverty because the money lent to such countries does not reach the ordinary citizens. Pogge’s charge is that perpetuating the present world order harms the poor. Mathias Risse disagrees with Pogge’s diagnosis and explains that those who use world resources do not owe compensation to those who do not use them if ownership over resources is understood in terms of collective ownership and not joint ownership (Risse 2005). That is, a country is entitled to use world resources within reasonable constraints and its entitlement does not need to be determined in a collective decision process that satisfies all other countries. Moreover, Risse argues that it is not clear that harm can be conclusively attributed to the international institutional structure.

Duties of Assistance

Since alleviating poverty is about making economies grow by introducing political stability and an appropriate economic framework and by spreading a culture of economic achievement, the duty of assistance is not just about transferring the resources to the world’s poor but, first and foremost, about the assistance in institution building in the poor countries. What outsiders can do to help the poor is limited by what they can do to help build properly functioning institutions in their country and there are no duties beyond this, including redistributive duties (Risse 2005). A normative debate concerning the meaning of moral duties of assistance, globally understood, between cosmopolitans and their opponents often hinges on the apparent inability of cosmopolitans to justify special obligations, like those to one’s own family, because they are not universal. However, a cosmopolitan may reply that impartiality has to do not with universal equality but with the even-handed application of rules, which may require us to treat different categories of people differently. The question, nevertheless, remains concerning what it means to weigh the claim of each affected party equally. Given that various perspectives on justice exist across borders, a universal standard can hide the fact that certain worldviews are prioritized. Numerous examples can be found of both theoreticians and practitioners preaching equality but in fact implicitly favoring the already advantaged and powerful. For example, Alexis de Tocqueville privileges the entitlements of Europeans over those of the native Africans (former slaves) while acknowledging equal “human rights” of both. Moreover, while the initial cosmopolitan premise is that everyone’s reasonable claims are to be weighed equally, some cultural views, such as those based on the idea of hierarchy as natural, can support principles of justice that are not in line with the basic egalitarian premises of cosmopolitanism. For example, in some cultures, individuals may not find it unreasonable to reject equality of men and women in a variety of social and political situations. David Miller argues that the cosmopolitan standpoint ignores too many factors important for the practice of justice globally, such as the vast differences in both capacities and needs (including moral demands) among different national communities (Miller 2007). Citizens of some societies may end up disagreeing with the view of justice promoted by cosmopolitans. This is a serious concern that needs to be taken into consideration for a proper discharge of the duty of assistance. Real-world justice and the corresponding assistance need to be culturally sensitive. The duty of assistance in certain cases requires military humanitarian intervention. If we consider

D

a cosmopolitan justification for humanitarian intervention, we need to align the cost of discharging the duty of assistance with the rights of individuals – both those to be aided and those who participate in the intervention. Those who would discharge the duty must consider whether the price of possible civilian deaths and the deaths of soldiers in the invasion force outweigh the benefits of intervention. Whether a military intervention has just goals and is responsibly conducted is an important international issue. To make sure that interventions are not guided by partial interests of participants, we can expand the proposal Allen Buchanan and Robert Keohane put forward with respect to preventive wars to apply it to the discussion of military intervention. They suggest to hold both the proponents of an-intervention and those opposing it responsible. The outcome of the intervention would be judged by an impartial body and if it decides that military force was used appropriately to fulfill the obligation of assistance, those who opposed it would incur sanctions, such as bearing the brunt of financial responsibility for the postwar restoration of economy or for various reparations required as the result of military actions. If the intervention is judged to be a wrong means to fulfill the duty, those who voted for it would bear the cost of the sanctions (Buchanan and Keohane 2004). This proposal may be applicable to a coalition of liberal democratic states, but it is harder to apply it to the whole international community. It is difficult to assign responsibility at the state level if a state is not democratic. Since we are concerned with the rights of all human beings, compelling a population that did not support its government to pay for the government’s actions is not just. When a state intervenes militarily to fulfill its obligation of assistance, it puts its own citizens in the line of duty in the harm’s way. The harm that individual citizens incur when their state acts to protect the rights of nonmembers is justifiable only if their government is legitimate and the aid effort is organized efficiently. Furthermore, military intervention must be the last resort, with all other means of discharging the duty of assistance having been exhausted.

Related Topics

▶ Decent Society ▶ Global Justice, Subjects of ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Human Rights ▶ Humanitarian Aid ▶ Non-Ideal Moral Theory ▶ War, Just and Unjust

273

D

274

D

Duties to Non-Compatriots

References Barry B (1991) Liberty and justice. Clarendon Press, Oxford Brock G (2009) Global justice: a cosmopolitan account. Oxford University Press, Oxford Buchanan A, Keohane OR (2004) The preventive use of force: a cosmopolitan institutional proposal. Ethics & International Affairs 18(1):1–22 Chatterjee D (ed) (2004) The ethics of assistance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge de Tocqueville A (2003) Writings on empire and slavery. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltomore Miller D (2007) National responsibility and global justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights. Polity Press, Cambridge Pogge T (2004) Assisting the global poor. In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 260–288 Risse M (2005) How does the global order harm the poor? Philos Public Aff 33(4):349–376 Singer P (1972) Famine, affluence and morality. Philos Public Aff 1:2 Singer P (2002) One world: the ethics of globalization. Yale University Press, New Haven

Duties to Non-Compatriots MEGAN KIME Department of Philosophy, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

Duties to non-compatriots are duties that we owe to people who live outside of our borders, and are separate from the duties that we owe to compatriots. There is some ambiguity about the meaning of the term “compatriot” – it refers to fellow countrymen, but “country” is ambiguous between nation and state. “Non-compatriot” is therefore generally taken to refer to people with whom we share neither nationality nor citizenship. Duties to non-compatriots are mainly general duties that we owe to persons qua persons, but can also include special duties arising through contract, interaction, or association. They can be positive duties to aid or negative duties to refrain from interference. Questions about the strength, extent, and content of duties to non-compatriots are the subject of much debate within the global justice literature. Traditionally, political philosophy has tended to focus on issues of justice within nation-states, and so has not considered the question of whether we have duties to noncompatriots or not (except in the special case of just war theory). It was assumed that our duties to citizens of other states were restricted by the norm of sovereignty and self-determination to include only a general duty of noninterference, and specific duties which apply in

wartime (e.g., to enemy noncombatants). In the latter half of the twentieth century cosmopolitans began to question this assumption, arguing that we also have positive duties to assist non-compatriots who are falling below a certain level of well-being, or having their human rights violated. Their arguments were given moral urgency by the growing awareness in the West of the dismal plight of a large number of people in the developing world. Previously, the general assumption was that if we had any duties to aid such people then these were duties of charity – providing aid was a morally praiseworthy, but supererogatory action. Peter Singer was arguably the first modern philosopher to argue that we should recognize that we have duties of assistance to people qua persons. His utilitarian argument for duties to non-compatriots appeals to the moral badness of suffering, and posits a general duty that we have to relieve suffering wherever possible. This duty arises, he argues, irrespective of nationality or citizenship or distance. Singer’s argument has been the subject of much criticism since its original publication, mainly attacking the utilitarian principle that he endorses which seems to entail that we do everything we possibly can to reduce suffering wherever it occurs, to the point where we are reduced to a minimal level of well-being ourselves. Alternative deontological arguments for duties of assistance to noncompatriots have been made which avoid this problem. Such arguments refer to a set of inviolable human rights which give rise to associated duties of assistance. Henry Shue argues for a universal human right to subsistence, which gives rise to associated duties to ensure that this right is not violated. Both the utilitarian and deontological arguments for duties of assistance to non-compatriots appeal to universal features of human beings to ground general duties which hold regardless of national boundaries. Since the origins of the debate surrounding duties to non-compatriots, which mainly concerned duties of assistance in times of famine or other natural disaster, philosophers have moved on to talk about the question of whether we have duties of distributive justice to noncompatriots, in the same way as we are generally thought to do to compatriots. The question here is in effect whether liberal and egalitarian principles of social justice should be applied at the global level – whether we should, in fact, have global justice. Cosmopolitans such as Simon Caney, Kok-Chor Tan, and Brian Barry have argued extensively in favor of the application of egalitarian principles of justice to the global sphere, which would entail that we have the same set of basic duties to non-compatriots as we do to compatriots. Cosmopolitans who claim that our

Duties to Non-Compatriots

basic duties to non-compatriots are just as strong and extensive as our duties to compatriots often point to the supposedly morally arbitrary nature of nationality and citizenship. They argue that nationality and citizenship are ethically insignificant identities like race or gender, and that therefore it should make no difference to our duties where somebody comes from. Nationalists and statists have responded to these claims by pointing out the morally salient features of nationality and citizenship which they believe ground duties of justice. David Miller has defended the ethical significance of nationality as an identity, and the nation as the primary ethical community. He argues that the solidarity and shared values which exist inside nations ground duties of justice between co-nationals, so that co-nationals take priority over foreigners. Michael Blake has argued that the coercive nature of state institutions explains our duties of justice, and, therefore, why our duties to fellow citizens are stronger than our duties to outsiders. Cosmopolitans who have argued for duties to noncompatriots have varied in terms of the specific content and location of the duties that they defend. Some have argued for duties to non-compatriots, which correlate with a set of basic human rights, and require us to uphold a minimal standard of well-being for all persons. The exact content of this minimal standard has itself been a matter of much debate. In an important contribution, Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum have advanced a more nuanced development approach which talks in terms of capabilities instead of rights. Global egalitarians have also disagreed about which specific duties we have to non-compatriots. Some want to achieve full equality of opportunity on a global scale (Barry), whilst others are happy with inequalities as long as the worst-off are in the best position possible (Beitz). Finally, some cosmopolitans have argued for negative duties which entail largescale changes to the global institutional structure. A prominent example here is Thomas Pogge’s argument for a general negative duty not to impose an unfair coercive institutional structure upon non-compatriots. As well as debate about the specific content of our duties to non-compatriots, there is also disagreement about the location of such duties – that is, to whom do they belong. Individualist accounts, such as Singer’s, posit duties owed between individuals, considered apart from their particular nations or states. Institutional accounts in contrast talk in terms of duties owed by states to other states. States can be said to possess duties to other states (or citizens of other states) either as direct duty-bearers, or as the means by which groups of individuals discharge their individual duties to non-compatriots.

D

There are several different arguments that can be made against duties to non-compatriots. Firstly it can be argued that extensive duties to non-compatriots would be too demanding. The worry here is that if we recognized duties to non-compatriots then we would be required to change our behavior to an unreasonable degree, giving up most of what makes our lives worthwhile. This is especially problematic if we recognize that full-compliance is unlikely. Defenders of duties to noncompatriots have replied to this objection by pointing out that it relies on two assumptions, which may be mistaken. First of all, it assumes that the task of meeting our duties to non-compatriots would be extremely onerous, and would require large-scale redistribution. This is not necessarily the case, especially given the huge inequality that characterizes the world today. If the very richest people in the world, who make up a tiny minority, gave away a small proportion of their wealth, then it would make a massive difference to the huge majority of people who have very little. Secondly, the demandingness objection assumes that the wealth that “we” would be required to give away is ours to give away. In other words, it paints the steps needed to fulfil duties to non-compatriots as sacrifices, whereas it is arguable that they should properly be thought of as giving back what is rightfully owed to someone else. The thought here is that if justice demands that I give 10% of my wealth to you, then that 10% is rightfully yours, and the fact that it is in my possession currently is an injustice that needs correction. As second objection that has been made against duties to non-compatriots is that there is not the requisite institutional structure in place to support them. One could make this objection in two ways. It might simply be that institutional structures are needed to ensure that duties can be met. Or, it might be that we don’t have such duties at all unless we live under a shared institutional scheme. The first way of making the objection is simply a specific version of the demandingness objection outlined above. The second way, which grounds duties in shared membership of an institutional scheme, denies the claim that we have duties to persons qua persons. This approach has been taken recently by Thomas Nagel and Michael Blake, amongst others. Both Nagel and Blake point to the coercive nature of political institutions in order to justify duties of justice, and argue that such institutions do not exist outside of nation-states. According to their view we do not have duties to people in virtue of universal features of human beings, but rather because of features of our relationships with others. It is possible to agree with their claim about the grounds of duties but to argue that we do have such duties to non-compatriots by disputing their

275

D

276

D

Duties to the Distant Needy

premise that political institutions only exist at the nationstate level. The final major objection to duties to noncompatriots is that they conflict with other values and duties that we have. First of all we generally think that we have special duties to family, friends, and others with whom we stand in certain kinds of relationship (see the entries on Associative Duties and Special Obligations in this encyclopedia). Extensive duties to non-compatriots would potentially conflict with these special duties. Secondly, the measures needed to fulfil our duties to non-compatriots are likely to conflict with norms of sovereignty and self-determination which govern international law. States are usually thought to have a duty to not intervene in the internal affairs of other sovereign states. Taking action to fulfil duties of assistance or redistribution would likely require intervention of some kind or another which would conflict with this duty. This raises a further general issue for defenders of duties to non-compatriots, concerning the actual practical measures which are to be taken. Duties to non-compatriots are often discussed in terms of transfers of resources, but it is not always clear how this is to be achieved in practice. For any particular set of duties that we might endorse (to uphold human rights, to provide aid to ensure a basic level of subsistence, to equalize life chances, and so on) we can ask how we should go about fulfilling them. Does my hypothetical duty to rescue children from starvation require merely that I give money to a third party who will do the rescuing on my behalf, or does it require that I personally do the rescuing? If it is the former, should that third party be the national government responsible for the starving child, my national government, or a nongovernmental organization in either country (or international)? This leads to a question about the means which we are allowed to employ in order to fulfil our duties to non-compatriots. If human rights are being violated by a foreign government then does our duty to protect human rights allow us to intervene in that country by economic or military means? In order to answer these questions we need to weigh up both the moral and practical considerations. This requires coordinated interdisciplinary investigation.

Related Topics

▶ Barry, Brian ▶ Caney, Simon ▶ Compatriot Partiality Thesis ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Global Justice

▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ International Humanitarian Assistance ▶ Moral Distance ▶ Nationalism ▶ Patriotism ▶ Poverty ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Tan, Kok-Chor

References Arneson RJ (2005) Do patriotic ties limit global justice Duties? J Ethics 9:127–150 Caney S (2005) Justice beyond borders. Oxford University Press, Oxford Chatterjee DK (2004) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Jamieson D (2005) Duties to the distant: aid, assistance, and intervention in the developing world. J Ethics 9:151–170 Nussbaum M (2006) Frontiers of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA O’Neill O (2000) Bounds of justice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights. Polity Press, Cambridge Shue H (1996) Basic rights: subsistence, affluence, and U.S. foreign policy. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Singer P (1972) Famine, affluence, and morality. Philos Public Aff 1:229–243 Wenar L (2003) What we owe to distant others. Polit Philos Econ 2:283–304

Duties to the Distant Needy LYNETTE E. SIEGER Gallatin School, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Common political and social convention holds that stringent duties to assist those in need ought to be guided according to relational ties. By this tradition, responsibilities to those outside of oneself begin with one’s family, then friends, and from there expand to various communal relationships, ultimately ending with one’s fellow citizens. Beyond these bounded relationships, assistance is often regarded as a matter of beneficence rather than obligation. The global interdependencies of environment, economic exchanges and regulations, and social interactions, coupled with the introduction of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) which set specified human rights as universally applicable to and by all, stand to challenge the convention. Confronted with gross absolute deprivation amidst great affluence and the widening gap between the

Duties to the Distant Needy

global haves and have-nots, the question of what is owed to whom by who has provoked much debate. Though those outside of one’s political community are referred to as distant strangers, when one considers that the physical distance between one and one’s conationals may be greater than to that of one to those outside of one’s national borders, it is recognized that what is meant when we speak of duties to the distant needy is not a matter of physical but rather relational distance. In this entry, we address issues of need as relating to the means necessary for a decent standard of living and leave the issue of humanitarian military intervention to the side. In political philosophy, duties are viewed as belonging to either negative or positive categories. Negative duties are stringent requirements to never cause harm. The restrictive principle of negative duties holds equally for all without priority or discrimination. There are widely recognized exceptions to the negative principle to never cause harm in extraordinary circumstances such as in cases of self-defense, though pacifists reject any such exception. Positive duties on the other hand are duties to protect and aid. Positive duties are regarded as fungible and thus trade-offs between competing claims of positive duties are morally permissible. Though negative duties are accepted across the theoretical spectrum, libertarian doctrine holds that no basic (or nonderivative) positive duties exist either within or outside of states but rather that any positive action by one toward the benefit of others ought to be a matter of charity by individual choice. One justification for failing to intervene into the affairs of people outside of one’s own state, for purposes of aid, rests on the argument from Thomas Malthus, that in order to maintain human population control, a certain degree of famine, war, and poverty must be allowed its natural course. Here it is necessary to accept a moral distinction between killing, which is morally impermissible unless under extraordinary circumstances, and letting die, which, by the lights of the Malthusian tradition, may be regrettable but morally blameless. Political realists also ascribe to this distinction and hold that aid to foreigners is required only at the point where such aid is relevant to the interests or security of the state. Modern views that tend against a stringent duty to aid the distant needy are predicated on the argument that the failure or success of a state is determined by actors and causes internal to the state. As such, where the state fails to secure the basic needs of its people, no other state should be held responsible to remedy such failure except as a discriminatory matter of supererogation. John Rawls viewed peoples as ultimately responsible for the conditions under which they live and yet argued in

D

favor of a limited duty of assistance from well-ordered peoples to societies burdened by unfavorable conditions. Once burdened societies become well ordered, for example, through assistance of resources and establishing political institutions, they are capable of joining in the society of well-ordered peoples. Once this end is achieved, the duty of assistance ceases. In this vein, the argument for conational partiality is rooted in the contractarian idea that because citizens are both author of and subject to shared coercive laws, positive assistance from the state ought to be duty based only within the state. By this view, though all ought to be viewed as moral equals, where tax-based aid is concerned, internal distribution of resources ought to be favored above aid to the outside needy. This position does not theoretically exclude the possibility that where one state has contributed to or caused deprivation in another state that aid to the distant needy may take precedence over some types of internal distribution. Contrary to claims of realism, statism, or conational partiality, the position of the duty to assist the distant needy as positive and globally impartial has been defended, most notably, by utilitarian theorist Peter Singer. Singer introduced the positive utilitarian principle that irrespective of one’s citizenship or physical distance to another subject, if one is in a position to aid someone in dire need without risk of forfeiting anything of comparable moral worth, then one ought to. In order to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, the global wealthy ought to give the global poor all they have beyond what they themselves need to live a decent life. Pragmatic approaches to positive duties of assistance to the distant needy invoke an appeal to action based on developing international social and political practices, norms, and policies. Due to the inclusion of article 25.1 of the UNDHR – which establishes access to the goods necessary for one’s health and well-being as a human right – it is argued that the duty of assistance ought to be undertaken as a matter of respect for agreements of conduct reached between states. If the satisfaction of the right to an adequate standard of living is absent and the state under which the deprived live is either incapable or unwilling to offer remedy, then actors or agencies with the resources and capacity to assist ought to intervene because human rights are, by agreement, a global concern. Negative duties morally prohibit the conduct of states by which wealth, power, or benefit may be gotten at the expense of the exploitation or abuse of others. Our shared global history of imperialism, colonialism, and slavery makes a pointed case for states which enjoy great wealth,

277

D

278

D

Duties, Determinate and Indeterminate

established through exploitative practices, to rectify past wrongs through redistributive justice. Arguing from respect for negative duties, theorists such as Thomas Pogge claim that though past practices do matter, we need to look no further than our current global economic practices in order to make a case for global redistributive justice. Institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, as economist Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, often tilt rules in favor of wealthy member states to the disadvantage of the poor. The asymmetrical power of information, expertise, representation, and wealth continue to work toward the alienation of poor states from processes informally if not formally. As a result, existing inequities between the wealthy and the poor become grossly more pronounced and institutionalized through international networks. Political identities narrowly construed as exclusively contained within the borders of the state neglects the recognition of the porous nature of borders as new technologies in communications spread and connect people from diverse backgrounds with common causes, and as our global networks of multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations, international organizations, and international financial institutions grow. Indeed, in a world where the internal policies and practices of one state often directly and indirectly impacts those outside of the state, critical normative and practical questions arise about the global order, such as: Are there subjects without authorship? If so, is there a need or even an obligation to develop more democratic global practices with a higher degree of accountability? As death and disease tolls consistently hit millions each year due to the preventable persistence of poverty, answering the questions surrounding the duties of assistance to the distant needy are crucial to alleviating injustice and furthering the project of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Absolute Poverty ▶ Aid to Burdened Societies ▶ Associative Duties ▶ Basic Needs ▶ Compatriot Partiality Thesis ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Economic Rights ▶ Global Public Reason ▶ Global Resource Distribution ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ International Humanitarian Assistance ▶ Killing and Letting Die ▶ Pogge, Thomas

▶ Poverty ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Singer, Peter

References Chatterjee D (ed) (2004) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Malthus T (1798) An essay on the principle of population. Oxford University Press, Oxford Pogge T (2008) World poverty and human rights, 2nd edn. Polity, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Singer P (1972) Famine, affluence, and morality. Philosophy and Public Affairs 1:229–243 Stiglitz J, Charlton A (2005) Fair trade for all: how trade can promote development. Oxford University Press, New York

Duties, Determinate and Indeterminate JOSHUA J. KASSNER Division of Legal, Ethical, and Historical Studies, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, USA

Determinateness (or indeterminateness) is tied to the constitutive elements of duties, namely, their content and scope. In addition to exploring determinateness as a matter of content and scope, it is important to understand how determinateness differs from conclusivity, as well as the importance of the role the determinateness of duties plays in our understanding of the nature and content of global justice.

Content and Scope The content of a duty is the substance of the obligation the duty bearer owes to the duty’s beneficiary. For example, in a promissory duty, the content of the duty is the fulfillment of the promise. The scope of a duty is comprised of the agents whose normative relationship is defined by the duty – the duty bearer and the agent to whom the duty is owed. Under a promise, the scope of the promissory duty includes the promissor and the promisee. A determinate duty is one in which the content and scope of the duty is known with enough specificity that one is able to determine who owes what to whom. For a duty to be indeterminate, it need not be lacking in every respect. Indeterminateness is rather a matter of degree, and any duty for which one is unable to determine with sufficient specificity, the content and scope of the duty is

Duties, Determinate and Indeterminate

indeterminate to the degree to which the constitutive elements cannot be identified. The difference between determinate and indeterminate duties is not categorical. Indeterminate duties can become determinate. In fact, most duties that we believe are determinate in specific instances are indeterminate in their general form. For example, take the duty not to harm to be a paradigm example of a source of determinate duties. However, in its general form, the duty not to harm requires that each moral agent refrain from harming every other moral agent. In this form, the duty is indeterminate because at any given moment, we may not know exactly to whom we owe the duty or how to carry it out. However, in specific instances in which our actions affect another, the duty becomes determinate. As a moral agent who bears the duty, we know to whom the duty is owed (the person affected by our actions) and how to fulfill the duty (act so as to not harm this particular individual). It is also possible for institutional arrangements to be created so as to make indeterminate duties determinate. In short, in relation to any particular moral problem being faced by a group living under the auspices of institutional rule, the institution can identify those who are able to act and those who are in need, and determine how those who are able should help those who are in need. The institutions of the community act as mediating agents establishing as a matter of institutional arrangement who owes what to whom. For example, if we assume that everyone has a basic right to subsistence, the institutions that govern a community can identify those who have excess means and those who lack the ability to provide for themselves, and create an institutionalized obligation for the haves to satisfy the moral entitlements of the have-nots.

Determinate Versus Conclusive Another important distinction to be aware of is the difference between determinate duties and conclusive reasons for action. Both are important to our understanding of the practical deliberations of moral agents; however, they play fundamentally different roles. Whether a duty is determinate or indeterminate affects the nature of the reason implied by the duty as an input into an agent’s practical deliberations. Determinate duties are nondiscretionary, whereas indeterminate duties admit of a range of discretion dependent on the degree to which they are indeterminate. Discretion in this case is not about whether an individual ought to act on a duty, rather it is about whether an individual even needs to consider the duty in his/her practical deliberations. If determinateness is about the reasons one considers when determining what s/he ought to do

D

all-things-considered, the inputs of practical deliberation; conclusivity is about the output of practical deliberation. Conclusive reasons for action are what one ought to do all-things-considered. To illustrate, imagine that you have made two promises that come into conflict. You are only able to fulfill one promise, and will necessarily violate the other. Both promises present you with determinate/ nondiscretionary reasons for action that you must consider; however, what you ought to do, since you cannot do both is a matter of weighing these (and other) reasons to determine what you ought to do all-things-considered. It is this latter judgment that counts as a conclusive reason for action.

Determinateness and Global Justice The difference between determinate and indeterminate duties plays a central role in a longstanding debate regarding the nature and content of global justice. Specifically, there has been much discussion focused on the conceptual and normative differences between justice and charity. Duties of justice are, as a matter of practical deliberation, nondiscretionary; on the other hand, duties of charity are discretionary. As a consequence, if an obligation we owe to distant others is a matter of justice, it is nondiscretionary, but if it is a matter of charity, we have greater moral discretion as to whether and when we act on the obligation. In addition, it is often thought that duties of justice are exhausted by negative obligations (e.g., the duty not to harm), and special relationships, whereas, obligations to aid are matters of charity or beneficence. Some have argued that the grounding for this distinction can be found in the difference between determinate and indeterminate duties. Duties of justice simply are determinate and thus nondiscretionary, whereas duties of charity are by their very nature indeterminate and thus discretionary. The implications for global justice are important. This would mean that humanitarian obligations to aid distant others, provided those obligations are not based on special relationships or past harms, since they are indeterminate would be discretionary matters of charity and not demands of justice. For reasons sketched out above, this view has come under some criticism. If indeterminate duties can be made determinate, then the divide between justice and charity is dependent on whether or not a particular duty can be made determinate.

Related Topics

▶ Beneficence, Principle of ▶ Charity

279

D

280

D

Duties, Perfect and Imperfect

▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties, Perfect and Imperfect ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Justice

References Buchanan A (1996) Perfecting imperfect duties: collective action to create moral obligations. Bus Ethics Q 6(1):27–42 Buchanan A (1987) Justice and charity. Ethics 97:558–575 Fishkin J (1982) The limits of moral obligation. Yale University Press, New Haven Kamm F (2004) The new problem of distance in morality. In: Chatterjee DK (ed) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 59–74 Nagel T (2005) The problem of global justice. Philos Public Aff 33(2):113–147 O’Neill O (1989) The great maxims of justice and charity. Constructions of reasons: explorations of Kant’s political philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 219–234 Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights. Polity Press, Cambridge

Duties, Perfect and Imperfect HELGA VARDEN Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

The distinction drawn between perfect and imperfect duties is important to the history of political philosophy, since the distinction is typically taken to say something crucial about which obligations are enforceable and which are not. Before illustrating this point in contemporary literature on global justice, let us outline how the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties was treated in early modern and modern philosophy. Generally, the thought is that perfect duties are enforceable, whereas imperfect duties are not enforceable. In some of Locke’s writings (1690), imperfect duties are considered not enforceable, because their enforcement is inconsistent with freedom (see the entry on Charity in this encyclopedia). If one is under an enforceable obligation to act on imperfect duties, such as the duty to beneficence or generosity, then one cannot be seen as having the right to be free to set ends of one’s own with one’s means. Rather, one is under an enforceable obligation to set others’ ends as one’s own and to use one’s means to accomplish those ends. In other writings (1667), though, Locke affirms imperfect duties as enforceable insofar as necessary to ensure that everyone can subsist. Unless a person’s

extreme need as such is seen as giving rise to in principle enforceable claims on other affluent persons’ property, there is no right to subsist. But there must be a right to subsistence, Locke argues, for the fundamental principle of morality is the right to self-preservation. Thus, there is a tension in Locke’s position, which we will see is exploited in contemporary theories. Kant adds some complexity to modern liberal efforts to understand the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties. Kant argues that the enforcement of imperfect duties is inconsistent with each person’s innate right to freedom, namely the right to set ends of one’s own with one’s means as subject to laws of freedom. Therefore, imperfect duties – whether duties to assist others in their pursuit of happiness or duties to perfect one’s own talents and abilities – are not rightfully enforceable. Even if it is imprudent or immoral not to perfect oneself or assist others, not doing so is not wrong from the point of view of justice. Another reason why, for Kant, imperfect duties are not enforceable is that they require persons to act on maxims of assistance or self-perfection from a motive of duty, both of which (maxims and moral motivations) cannot in principle be enforced. Hence, whatever one is doing when one, for example, forces a rich person to give money to a poor person it is not to force the rich person into acting charitably or beneficently. A final nuance Kant brings to discussions surrounding perfect and imperfect duties concerns his argument that not all perfect duties are enforceable. In the Doctrine of Right, Kant argues that most cases of speech – the main exceptions being defamation and libel – do not involve wrongdoing from the point of view of justice, since speech as such cannot deprive others of what is theirs. Therefore, despite the immorality of lying, it is not wrongful from the point of view of justice, even though one is responsible for the bad consequences of lies. In Utilitarianism, Mill (2001) famously takes Kant to task for his stand on the unenforceability of morally required actions. Mill argues that morally good actions, say performing charitable actions if one can, do not require persons to act on a moral motivation but only to do the right thing. Yet in this work, Mill also defends the view that the class of enforceable duties – or duties of justice proper – is coextensive with the class of perfect duties, even though we may for prudential or practical reasons decide to enforce only a subset of them. For Mill, the distinction drawn between perfect and imperfect duties such that the former is enforceable but the latter is not issues from the fact that a person’s perfect duties directly correspond to other particular persons’ rights, whereas a person’s imperfect duties do not match up

Duties, Positive and Negative

with another particular person’s rights in this way. Consequently, it is a matter of “our choice” when and in relation to whom to perform an imperfect duty. Contemporary responses to these historical discussions focus mostly on whether or not the imperfect duties of charity are enforceable. Some Kantians, for example Onora O’Neill (1996), argue that imperfect duties are enforceable, because the existence of institutions, states, and transnational institutions can match up the needs of some and the resources of others in the right ways. Other Kantians argue against O’Neill on this point and also that Kant’s views on poverty and redistribution are found not in his discussion of duties of virtue, but in his discussion of public right in the Doctrine of Right. For example, Helga Varden argues that Kant in this work maintains that the state’s obligation to provide unconditional poverty relief for its citizens issues from its need to reconcile its monopoly on coercion with each citizen’s innate right to freedom. Other Kantians who utilize Kant’s account of public right, albeit in different ways, to justify the state’s obligation to provide poverty relief include Sarah W. Holtman (2004) and Arthur Ripstein (2009). Only recently have issues concerning global economic justice and related redistribution begun to garner attention by Kantians. Contemporary utilitarians such as Peter Singer do not follow Mill by arguing that the performance of imperfect duties is left to our choice. Instead, they tend to agree with other, so-called positive duties accounts in maintaining that our duties to assist others are constitutive of justice. Indeed, much of the current discussion concerning issues related to the traditional distinction between perfect and imperfect duties is undertaken in terms of the distinction between negative and positive duties.

Related Topics

▶ Charity ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Kant, Immanuel: Contemporary Kantian Responses to ▶ O’Neill, Onora ▶ Singer, Peter ▶ Utilitarianism

References Holtman SW (2004) Kantian justice and poverty relief. Kant-Studien, Jahrg., Heft 95(1):86–106 Kant I (2006) Immanuel Kant: practical philosophy, ed. and trans. Gregor MJ. Cambridge University Press, New York Locke J (1667/1997) An essay on toleration. In: Goldie M (ed) Locke: political essays. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 134–160

D

Locke J (1690/1998) Two treatises of government, ed. Laslett P, 3rd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Mill JS (2001) Utilitarianism, ed. Sher G. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis O’Neill O (1996) Towards justice and virtue. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Ripstein A (2009) Force and freedom: Kant’s legal and political philosophy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Singer P (1979) Practical ethics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Varden H (2006) Kant and dependency relations: Kant on the state’s right to redistribute resources to protect the rights of dependents. Dialogue Can Philos Rev XLV:257–285

Duties, Positive and Negative HELGA VARDEN Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

The distinction between negative and positive duties captures some of the important controversies in recent discussions on economic justice. Somewhat simplified, theories that affirm the so-called negative duties conception of justice are committed to the fundamental assumption that justice primarily requires that we not harm or wrong others. Positions affirming this view also typically defend the assumption that the best liberal theory of justice justifies rights and duties insofar as they are fundamentally compatible with individuals’ rights to “selfownership” or “freedom.” Specific rights are seen as grounded in an individual’s right to set and pursue ends of one’s own, including with one’s own person, and with one’s means insofar as one respects others’ rights to do the same. The kinds of rights and duties that are particularly important from the point of view of economic justice include rights of private property appropriation and of the sick, the poor, the disabled, and children to access or be provided with material resources. Among liberal thinkers, right-wing libertarians always affirm a negative duties conception of justice. According to right-wing libertarian accounts, such as the ones often attributed to Kant and Locke and also explicitly defended by F. A. Hayek, Jan Narveson, and Robert Nozick, enforceable rights of justice cannot include rights beyond individuals’ rights to appropriate private property through some, suitably specified actions. Justice merely requires that everyone respect everyone else’s private property rights, including everyone’s right to appropriate a fair share of the natural

281

D

282

D

Duties, Positive and Negative

resources in the world (whatever that is determined to be). No persons can be under enforceable obligation to share their private property with others or to labor so as to create values to be enjoyed by others. Therefore, beyond an original claim to a fair share of the natural resources or to the product of one’s labor on a fair share, there is no right to property, regardless of poverty, disability, sickness, or age. According to these right-wing libertarians, persons who refuse to help the sick, the poor, the disabled, and children may be immoral and possibly imprudent, but they are committing no wrongdoing from the point of view of justice. The right-wing libertarian view of economic justice has received sharp criticism from many places. To start, Henry Shue (1980) famously questioned the sustainability of the exclusive disjunction between enforceable negative duties and non-enforceable positive duties that such rightwing libertarian accounts rely on. Instead of explicitly challenging this dichotomy, left-wing libertarians have tried to find a way to build in theoretical conditions that provide for greater economic justice. For example, A. John Simmons (1992) has taken issue with the claim that charity is not enforceable on a Lockean account, whereas Michael Otsuka (2003) has argued that disabled persons are entitled to more (rather than less) and better natural resources since they, due to no fault of their own, start with less as they cannot labor. Onora O’Neill (1996) has argued that at least on Kant’s considered account, duties of virtue, such as charity, are enforceable once there are proper institutions in place to match up the needs of the vulnerable and needy with the resources of those who enjoy plenty. By arguing that justice requires more than merely not wronging one another, these thinkers have taken decisive steps toward including so-called positive duties in their accounts of economic justice. Other thinkers and traditions have simply taken the inability of right-wing libertarians to deal with human vulnerability and need as fairly conclusive evidence that the foundation of individuals’ rights to self-ownership or freedom should be abandoned as the fundamental principle of justice. A host of alternative theories have emerged to cope with the need for a redistribution of resources in light of the contingencies of human being and living that justice seems to demand. Although considerations of freedom and negative duties are often seen as playing an important role also in these alternative theories, positive duties are seen as at least as important. On these positions, justice requires us not only to abstain from harming or actively wronging others, but it also requires us to help others obtain a certain level of, for example, material

resources, welfare, capability, primary goods, or wellbeing. According to these theories, the just world is the world in which at least everyone enjoys a minimum of some such good (primary goods, capabilities, welfare, etc.), and the more just world is typically viewed as one in which there is more rather than less equality with regard to one of these goods. Rather than seeing self-ownership and freedom as the foundation of justice, these theories typically see (minimal) equality with regard to one of these goods as the real foundation – and then argue that selfownership or freedom obtains its proper role within the framework set by equality with regard to this particular good. Utilitarian theories, such as that of Peter Singer (1979), capability theories, such as those developed by Amartya Sen (2009) and Martha Nussbaum (2007), Marxist accounts like that of G. A. Cohen (2008), and care theory accounts like Virginia Held’s (2006), may reasonably be seen as affirming a basic commitment to a positive duties approach to justice so understood. For example, although Marxists like Cohen want to maintain space for individual freedom in an account of justice, it is no longer seen as a paramount principle of justice capable of overriding others’ extreme need and poverty. In addition to these discussions between “negative” and “positive” accounts of justice, Kantians have added complexity to liberal discussions surrounding poverty by focusing on the importance of public institutions to our analyses of poverty. Setting aside their various differences, Kantians such as Katrin Flikschuh (2000), Ju¨rgen Habermas (1997), Sarah W. Holtman (2004), Pauline Kleingeld (2004), Arthur Ripstein (2009), Helga Varden (2008), and Howard L. Williams (2006) have argued with Kant and against many of the above accounts that public authorities, including states, are ideal and not merely prudential requirements for justice. Moreover, Varden has argued that by incorporating Kant’s distinction between private and public right, the resulting position can remain faithful to the right-wing libertarian commitment to self-ownership and freedom without having to remain blind to the rights of the sick, the poor, the disabled, and children. She argues that private right captures individuals’ claims against one another whereas public right captures citizens’ claims on their public institutions – and these two categories of right are not reducible to each other. Once these distinctions are brought into play, the considerations of the rights of children, the sick, the disabled, the poor as well as other so-called welfare rights can be brought into focus without also giving up the foundational commitment to freedom and self-ownership. Ripstein (2006) and Varden (2010) have also proposed

Duties, Positive and Negative

that Rawls’s account of justice (1996, 1999) should be seen as an account of public right, and to fully overcome the objections that have been raised by many of the above authors, his institutional account also requires Kant’s distinction between private and public right. Other Kantians, such as Kleingeld and Holtman, have been arguing less directly against libertarians, but have reached many of the same conclusions regarding poverty relief by means of Kant’s public right arguments. Some of the above-mentioned Kantians, such as Flikschuh, Habermas, Kleingeld, Varden, and Williams, have started to explore the implications of these arguments concerning the importance of public institutions within the context of global justice, including economic justice. Just as the Kantian accounts of domestic economic justice are becoming more complex in that they identify several different types of private and public relations as constitutive of the just state, the Kantian approaches to global justice are currently developing in the same direction. Trying to figure out how the domestic authority of states is complemented by Kant’s “right of nations” and “cosmopolitan right” in some public, institutional whole lies at the core of these discussions. Naturally, these controversies surrounding negative and positive duties, including questions of whether or not individuals and institutions have the same rights and obligations, have their global counterparts in nonKantian and “Kantian inspired” theories. Although rightwing libertarians have written less on global justice, the cosmopolitan structure of their arguments, that individual rights and freedom come first in any account of justice, easily lends itself to global application. The most influential of which is Thomas Pogge’s employment of aspects of Nozick’s theory of justice (see the entry on Nozick, Robert in this encyclopedia). Those mentioned above who argue in favor of positive duties have all been very active in global justice discussions. They tend to be joined by thinkers focusing somewhat more exclusively on developing cosmopolitan accounts of global justice, as we find with Kok-Chor Tan (2004). Finally, engaging the institutional issues – whether of a Kantian/Rawlsian type or not – is central in the work on global justice by Michael Blake (2001), Charles R. Beitz (1979), Allan Buchanan, Thomas Nagel (2005), Mathias Risse (2005), Thomas Pogge (2008), and Simon Caney (2006). For example, these thinkers consider issues of global economic justice in light of institutional questions such as the following: Do states have the right and duty to intervene in other states affairs under any or some conditions, such as genocides? Is there any important difference between states or a global

D

public authority like the UN authorizing such interventions? Are states merely prudentially necessary for global justice and could/should we have a world state instead? Is a world state the only possible global authority, or can a future, more just world involve several, overlapping vertical layers of sovereign authority? Does the level of current global interaction entail that states are causing poverty beyond its own borders, and, if so, are states responsible for relieving poverty beyond their own territories? In which sense do states own the natural resources located within their territories? Important to all of these discussions is the questions whether or not there exist or should exist global public (coercive) institutions and whether or not the existence of such global institutions changes the analysis in important ways.

Related Topics

▶ Absolute Poverty ▶ Beitz, Charles ▶ Caney, Simon ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Duties, Perfect and Imperfect ▶ Held, Virginia ▶ Humanitarian Aid ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Kant, Immanuel: Contemporary Kantian Responses to ▶ Killing and Letting Die ▶ Marxism ▶ Nagel, Thomas ▶ Narveson, Jan ▶ Nozick, Robert ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Singer, Peter ▶ Utilitarianism

References Allen B (2004) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, New York Beitz Ch (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Blake M (2001) Distributive justice, state coercion, and autonomy. Philos Public Aff 30(3):257–296 Caney S (2006) Justice beyond borders: a global political theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Cohen GA (2008) Rescuing justice and equality. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Flikschuh K (2000) Kant and modern political philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

283

D

284

D

Duties, Remedial

Habermas J (1997) Kant’s idea of perpetual peace, with the benefit of two hundred years’ hindsight. In: Bohman J, Lutz-Bachmann M (eds) Perpetual peace: essays on Kant’s cosmopolitan ideal. The MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 113–153 Hayek FA (2007) The road to serfdom. In: The collected works of F. A. Hayek, vol 2. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Held V (2006) The ethics of care: personal, political, and global. Oxford University Press, New York Holtman SW (2004) Kantian justice and poverty relief. Kant-Stud 95 (1):86–106 Kant I (2006) Immanuel Kant: practical philosophy, ed. and trans. Gregor MJ. Cambridge University Press, New York Kleingeld P (2004) Approaching perpetual peace: Kant’s defence of a league of states and his ideal of a world federation. Eur J Philos 12(3):304–325 Locke J (1667/1997) An essay on toleration. In: Goldie M (ed) Locke: political essays. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 134–160 Locke J (1690/1998) Two treatises of government, ed. Laslett P, 3rd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Locke J (1695) Venditio. In: Goldie M (ed) Locke: political essays. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 339–343 Nagel Th (2005) The problem of global justice. Philos Public Aff 33(2):113–148 Narveson J (2001) The libertarian idea. Broadview Press, Peterborough Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state and utopia. Basic Books, New York Nussbaum MC (2007) Frontiers of justice: disability, nationality, species membership. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge O’Neill O (1996) Towards justice and virtue. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Otsuka M (2003) Libertarianism without inequality. Oxford University Press, Oxford Pogge ThW (2008) World poverty and human rights, 2nd edn. Polity Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1996) Political liberalism, paperback edn. Columbia University Press, New York Rawls J (1999) A theory of justice, revised edn. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Ripstein A (2006) Private order and public justice: Kant and Rawls. Va Law Rev 92:1391–1438 Ripstein A (2009) Force and freedom. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Risse M (2005) What we owe to the global poor. J Ethics 9(1–2):81–117 Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Shue H (1980) Basic rights: subsistence, affluence, and U.S. foreign policy. Princeton University Press, Princeton Simmons AJ (1992) The Lockean theory of rights. Princeton University Press, Princeton Singer P (1979) Practical ethics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Tan K-Ch (2004) Justice without borders: cosmopolitanism, nationalism and patriotism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Varden H (2008) Kant’s non-voluntarist conception of political obligations: why justice is impossible in the state of nature. Kantian Rev 13–2(2008):1–45 Varden H (2010) Kant’s non-absolutist conception of political legitimacy: how public right ‛concludes’ private right in the “doctrine of right.” Kant-Stud 3:331–351 Varden H (forthcoming) A Kantian conception of global justice, Review of International Studies Williams HL (2006) Back from the USSR: Kant, Kalingrad and world peace. Int Relat 20(1):27–48

Duties, Remedial ▶ Duties, Determinate and Indeterminate ▶ Duties, Perfect and Imperfect ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative

Duty to Prosecute KENNETH A. RODMAN Department of Government, Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA

The “duty to prosecute” refers to the claim by proponents of international criminal justice that the international community has a moral and legal obligation to investigate and punish the most serious abuses of human rights in the aftermath of war or repressive rule. Conversely, it challenges the legitimacy of amnesties and non-retributive forms of transitional justice for perpetrators of such crimes. The duty has its origins in (a) international treaties that have codified a universal recognition of core crimes for which prosecution is mandated, and (b) the international human rights law which creates for victims a nonnegotiable right of redress for the wrongs done to them. The argument has been challenged primarily on consequentialist grounds – that is, that strictly demanding prosecution might prolong a war, dissuade a dictator from stepping down, or generate a violent backlash against transitions to democracy or peace. The phrase “duty to prosecute” was originally used by the legal scholar Diane Orentlicher in a 1990 article, written shortly after democratic transitions from military rule in Latin America and from communism in Eastern Europe. In most of these cases, there were few prosecutions. The transitions were facilitated by formal or de facto amnesties, often accompanied by non-retributive forms of accountability, such as truth commissions or lustration. In some cases, such as Argentina, prosecutions took place but the process was aborted because of fears of military backlash. Orentlicher argued that the failure to prosecute the crimes of the old regime is a violation of the state’s duty under international law to hold individuals accountable for universally reprehended crimes, such as torture or disappearances. While she acknowledged that it may not be practical to bring every perpetrator to trial, that duty requires at least “exemplary prosecutions” of those who bear the greatest responsibility for systematic atrocities or

Duty to Prosecute

those implicated in the most heinous crimes. If states default on those duties by granting an amnesty or otherwise failing to prosecute such crimes, the duty to prosecute falls to the international community either through an international tribunal or national courts exercising universal jurisdiction. The logic underlying this ethical framework informed the Spanish case against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whose prosecution in Chile was blocked by the amnesty he granted himself before leaving office and the inhibitions of the domestic political system in challenging that amnesty because of the residual power of the military after the democratic transition. It is also the reason why the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is complementary to national systems of justice. The preamble to its founding Rome Statute asserts the “duty of every state to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes” and a case is only admissible before the ICC if a state is unwilling or unable to fulfill that duty. The legal sources of the “duty to prosecute” lie in international criminal and human rights law and the normative premises that underlie them. International criminal law emerged after the Second World War to spell out the gravest crimes of concern and specify penalties for their conduct so as to deter or suppress them, as in a domestic criminal law system. The 1948 Genocide Convention, for example, defines genocide as an international crime that the parties undertake to prevent and punish. The 1949 Geneva Conventions define the worst violations of the laws of war as “grave breaches,” which involve an obligation to prosecute, regardless of nationality, or to extradite to a state party willing to do so. The same “prosecute or extradite” language (aut dedere, aut judicare) is also part of the 1984 Convention on Torture and was key to the decision of the British Law Lords in upholding the legality of Spain’s extradition request for Pinochet. The Rome Statute (1998) also laid out the ICC’s mandate to put an end to impunity for international crimes through prosecution and asserted an international duty of all state parties to exercise criminal jurisdiction over such crimes. These legal developments have also provided the basis for the delegitimation of amnesties for the most serious violations of international law. For example, the UN’s Special Representative to the 1999 Lome´ Accords, which were designed to end the civil war in Sierra Leone, withheld international recognition of the blanket amnesty granted to all of the parties. In 2002, the Special Court for Sierra Leone – a mixed tribunal of national and international judges created in negotiations between the government and the UN – declared the amnesty provision to be invalid since there was an

D

international duty to prosecute the most serious international crimes. The moral basis for the duty to prosecute lies in the rights of victims, which are protected by international human rights law. Article 2(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights asserts that victims of human rights violations have a right to a remedy, even if the violator is acting in an official capacity. While this right to redress might sometimes involve civil penalties, nothing less than prosecution and imprisonment are appropriate remedies for the gravest abuses. Extending amnesties for such crimes would sacrifice what should be a victim’s nonnegotiable right to redress to the political agenda of the state. It would also violate the principle of equality before the law because perpetrators would be able to leverage their positions of power into immunity from prosecution. Some proponents of the duty to prosecute also claim that consistently acting on this obligation will have superior consequences for promoting human rights in transitional societies. First, it will serve as a deterrent to the recurrence of human rights abuses in those countries in which it is applied and to the world at large by demonstrating to would-be perpetrators that certain means are outside the realm of normal politics and their employment would brand them as international criminals. Second, it will help consolidate peace and democracy in transitional societies by (a) serving as a substitute for vengeance on the part of victims, thereby reducing the risk of vigilante violence, (b) incapacitating criminal actors whose continued participation in post-conflict politics could undermine the transition, and (c) setting an example of how democratic institutions deal with former enemies through the rule of law. Critics of the duty to prosecute challenge its consequentialist assumptions and warn of its potential to destabilize vulnerable democratic transitions. This was the response to Orentlicher by Carlos Nino, an Argentine human rights lawyer who advised President Rau´l Alfonsin on the prosecution of military leaders for torture and disappearances during the dictatorship (1977–1983) – a process that was scaled back and later aborted as a result of military unrest. Based on his experience, Nino objected to the view that prosecution was an internationally mandated duty since the ability to try perpetrators is often constrained by the political environment confronting the new government. In some circumstances, the consequences of ignoring that environment could result in violent backlash, putting the new democratic order at risk. To ignore these risks, Nino argues, would violate the state’s primary duty to safeguard human rights and

285

D

286

D

Duty to Prosecute

prevent future violations, a duty that is more fundamental than an international legal obligation to bring perpetrators to trial. Orentlicher and other proponents of the duty to prosecute acknowledge that there are circumstances when the power of the old regime makes trials impossible – that is, the duty to prosecute does not require newly established democracies to risk political suicide. In those cases, she argues, the duty falls to the international community, as in the Pinochet case. While Nino wrote before the Pinochet case, he warned of the potentially destabilizing consequences of foreign judicial intervention, which could put at risk the complex compromises involved in making a transition possible, inviting a political backlash without actually increasing the power of the new regime to confront it. Defenders of the duty to prosecute note that in the aftermath of the 16-month controversy in Great Britain over Pinochet’s extradition to Spain, Chile actually became bolder in legal proceedings against crimes committed under the military dictatorship. Critics argue that decisions about prosecution should ultimately be made not by outsiders, but by those most likely to bear the risks to the democratic order should prosecution trigger a violent backlash. Critics also challenge the assumption that prosecution is mandated by the needs of victims. Victims’ interests are more varied than proponents of criminal justice assume and there are circumstances in which they place a higher priority on truth, restitution, reparations, or peace and security. In some circumstances, conflicts between retributive justice and these other goals may necessitate compromising the duty to prosecute or prioritizing the non-retributive aspects of post-conflict justice. For example, a fuller version of the truth is likely to emerge from non-retributive mechanisms like South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission – which offered amnesty in exchange for the confession of political crimes – than would be the case from adversarial trials in which the perpetrators have an incentive to conceal crimes. In addition, some victims might value reparations or some form of socioeconomic justice more than they do prosecution, particularly if trials take place in a foreign country according to procedures that are unfamiliar to them. In Rwanda, to illustrate, the international community spent over $1 billion for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and those convicted were imprisoned in facilities that met international standards, in contrast to many survivors who were dislocated from their communities and made indigent. Moreover, no provisions were made to provide anti-retroviral drugs to rape survivors who contracted AIDS as a result of the mass sexual violence

associated with the genocide, whereas those incarcerated were provided medical care as required by international human rights law. Finally, victims might prioritize peace and security over prosecution, particularly in the context of an ongoing war. This was the view of Acholi religious and traditional leaders in northern Uganda, who called on the ICC to rescind its arrest warrants for the leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group that has abducted over 25,000 children as soldiers in a campaign of terror against the Acholi people whom they claim to represent. As an alternative to prosecution, community organizations have advocated amnesty combined with traditional reconciliation rituals to persuade the rebels to lay down their arms. That is because they saw the continuation of the war as the most serious threat to their rights, since at the time of the ICC’s involvement, 90% of the population of the three most war-ravaged districts had been internally displaced. Whereas proponents of an international duty to prosecute assert that the legal retribution for the gravest crimes is both in the interests of victims and essential for peace, critics argue that in cases like Northern Uganda, this is an externally imposed approach to justice that limits the agency of local communities to find their own solutions. These debates over the “duty to prosecute” have played an important role in controversies surrounding the permanent International Criminal Court. Article 53 of the ICC’s founding Rome Statute allows the Prosecutor to defer an investigation or prosecution if he deems it is not to be in the “interests of justice” or in the “interests of victims.” Some critics of a mandatory duty to prosecute argue that the Prosecutor should construe those terms broadly in exercising his discretion. That is, the interests of justice should include the interests of peace and the Prosecutor should hold back from criminal proceedings likely to complicate peace negotiations. This should serve the interests of victims as well because the breakdown of a peace process is likely to undercut the security of victims and risk creating new ones. Proponents of a strong duty to prosecute argue that such an interpretation of the “interests of justice” test would violate the object and purpose of the Rome Statute, which is to prosecute those most responsible for the gravest crimes of concern to the international community. As a result, the “interests of justice” and the interests of victims should be construed as criminal justice. While the Office of the Prosecutor has officially adopted the latter position, the question of how he should apply that interpretation to the conflicts under his purview – all of which involve ongoing political violence – remains a matter of significant controversy.

Duty to Prosecute

Related Topics

▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ International Criminal Justice ▶ Peace Versus Justice

References Allen T (2006) Trial justice: the international criminal court and the Lord’s resistance army. Zed Books, London Branch A (2007) Uganda’s civil war and the politics of ICC intervention. Ethics Int Aff 21:179–198

D

Nino C (1990) Duty to punish past abuses of human rights put into context. Yale Law Rev 100:2619–2640 Nino C (1998) Radical evil on trial. Yale University Press, New Haven Orentlicher D (1990) Settling accounts: the duty to prosecute human rights violations of a prior regime. Yale Law Rev 100:2538–2618 Orentlicher D (2007) Settling accounts revisited: reconciling global norms with local agency. Int J Transitional Justice 1(1):115–137 Roht-Arriaza N (2005) The Pinochet effect: transitional justice in the age of human rights. University of Pennsylvania Press, Pennsylvania

287

D

E Earth Democracy ▶ Brundtland Commission ▶ Political Ecology ▶ Rio Declaration ▶ Stockholm Conference, 1972

East Asian Economic Crisis ▶ International Monetary Fund (IMF) ▶ World Bank (WB)

Ecofeminism SANDRA WACHHOLZ Department of Criminology, University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME, USA

Ecofeminism emerged in the mid-1970s and is an outgrowth of the activism tied to the feminist, peace, and ecology movements. Central to ecofeminism is the belief that the oppression of women and nature are interconnected and are driven by patriarchal power relations that intersect with other inequalities, such as global power imbalances between nations and classism, racism, heterosexism, and ageism. For ecofeminists, the normative masculine attitudes and activities that shape women’s oppression – aggression, conquest, possession, and control – also contribute to the destruction of the environment. Increasingly, ecofeminists have focused their attention on global environmental harm, and in doing so, have begun to map the massive movement of environmentally harmful products and waste from North to South nations. At the heart of this process is the continuing legacy of imperialism and colonialism. Addressing global environmental harm, as ecofeminists underscore, entails turning one’s gaze to a broad matrix of global justice concerns.

Varieties of Ecofeminist Theory Reflecting the diversity of feminist thought, there are many different strands of ecofeminist theory. There are, however, three discernable perspectives: essentialist ecofeminism, ecological feminism, and feminist political ecology. Each offers divergent ways to consider the interrelationship between women and the environment, but all share the belief that the liberation of women cannot be achieved in isolation: it must be part of a larger struggle to end the exploitation and denigration of the planet. For essentialist ecofeminists, a natural or essential connection exists between women and the environment. Men, in sharp contrast, are seen as more closely associated with culture and thus do not have as much of an innate understanding of ecosystems and environmental protection as women. Their masculine traits of competition and rationale thought – as opposed to nurturing qualities – are seen as factors that drive the patriarchal domination of women and nature. Within this body of thought, gender relations serve to support other problematic relations, such as racism, classism, heterosexism, and global injustice. One of the leading scholars and activists writing from within this theoretical position is Vandana Shiva. In one of her early and most well-known books she advances the idea that the work of women in northern India to protect the forests from loggers – known as the Chipko movement – emerged from women’s understanding of their inherent relationship to the environment. Shiva has inspired women around the world to join together collectively to engage in environmental advocacy and to address global environmental justice problems. Ecological feminists, however, have challenged the essentialist feminists’ position, arguing that the conceptualization of an “essential female nature” ignores the real differences that exist between women. Instead, they argue that the material realities of women’s lives shape their relationship to, and understanding of, the environment. In many parts of the world, women are responsible for the subsistence of their families. This culturally prescribed gender role fosters a unique form of environmental knowledge and, in turn, a gender-environment nexus. Ecological feminism brings a political-economic analysis to the study of women and the environment.

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

290

E

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

Finally, political ecological feminists discuss how gender, which is shaped by culturally prescribed male–female sex roles, structures differential access to environmental and scientific knowledge, environmental rights and responsibilities, and policies and political activism. Their work builds on the foundation laid by essentialist ecofeminism and political ecological feminism, but they expand their analyses to include a much broader range of political-economic, cultural, and symbolic processes. Central to their work is a concern for global justice. For these theorists, many environmental problems are viewed as having a symbiotic relationship with global inequalities.

Future Challenges Although a broad, innovative body of ecofeminist theory has emerged over the last three decades, studies indicate it has been largely marginalized within environmental literature, environmental organizations and institutions, the environmental justice movement, and the larger intellectual academy. Feminists writing in the area of gender and the environment argue that those who desire to achieve greater levels of environmental protection and environmental, global justice should embrace the concerns and perspectives of women.

Summary Ecofeminists recognize that we are rapidly surpassing ecological thresholds around the world, which serves to reinforce women’s oppression and other forms of inequalities, including global injustices. As such, they are increasingly choosing to engage in cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural global conversations about our shared ecological plight. The transborder nature of much environmental harm, like issues such as climate change, will require ecofeminists to reach across national boundaries and work collectively on shared solutions.

Related Topics

▶ Animal Rights ▶ Deforestation ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Environmental Protection ▶ Environmental Racism ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Food ▶ Gender Justice ▶ Genetic Engineering ▶ Global Warming ▶ Subsistence Resources

▶ Sustainable Development ▶ Vegetarianism ▶ Water

References Griffin S (1978) Women and nature: the roaring insider her. Harper and Row, New York Meis M, Shiva V (1993) Ecofeminism. Fernwood Publications, Halifax Nightengale A (2006) The nature of gender: work, gender and the environment. Environ Plann D Soc Space 24:165–185 Shiva V (1988) Staying alive: women, ecology, and development. Zed Books, London Shiva V (2008) Soil not oil: environmental justice in a time of climate change. South End Press, New York Warren K (1997) Ecofeminism: women, culture, and nature. Indiana University Press, Bloomington

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ▶ Land Grab

Economic Rights JAMES E. ROPER Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

Rights are entitlements that individuals or groups have, and they are usually understood to imply duties that others have to those individuals or groups. Sometimes the rights are “negative,” implying that the holders of the rights are not to be interfered with in certain specified ways. A right to freedom of assembly, for example, entails that the state has a duty not to interfere with those who wish to gather as long as their doing so is compatible with the rights of others. On the other hand, rights are sometimes “positive,” requiring that the rights holder(s) be provided with various things – health care, education, and so on. It is a mistake, however, to think that negative rights have no positive aspects. Continuing the previous example, the moral right to freedom of assembly entails that the state should provide suitable venues for such assemblies and prevent others from interfering with those wishing to assemble. This fact is brought out powerfully by Holmes

Economic Rights

and Sunstein, who go so far as to argue that there are no negative rights (Holmes and Sunstein 1999). While Holmes and Sunstein think all rights with “teeth” are legal, deriving their force from a system of laws, our concern is with moral rights, whose typical justification rests on the fact that they constitute basic requirements for human dignity (Holmes and Sunstein 1999). Some moral rights are considered “political rights,” while others are called “economic rights,” which are the focus of this essay. Hertel and Minkler argue that economic rights are extremely important in virtue of the terrible toll global poverty takes – pointing out that there were twenty-two million preventable deaths in 2001 alone that were directly attributable to poverty (Hertel and Minkler 2007: Ch. 1). They go on to distinguish three broad classes of economic rights. First, every individual has a right to earn a living sufficient to support his/her family (Hertel and Minkler 2007: 4). This includes essential education, basic health care, and the support of various social services. Second, each person has a right to a job that provides compensation consistent with living as a human being. Such employment must not be compromised by any form of discrimination. Finally, third, individuals have the right to security in the form of a social safety net in the event they are unable to work, are very ill, and so on (Hertel and Minkler 2007: 4). The distinction between political and economic rights raises challenging questions. For example, are some political rights presupposed by some economic rights? Consider basic education, for example. Is it political or economic? Arguments might support either classification. It is well known that Thomas Jefferson said that democracy was impossible without a well-educated populace. To this extent, education appears to be a political right. On the other hand, without a fundamental education, most gainful employment is unavailable, which suggests that education is an economic right. At the very least, it appears that education is presupposed by economic rights. Is this true for other ostensibly political rights? Some countries seem to have stressed economic rights while attempting to suppress political ones. For example, while China has made exceptional economic gains as a country, many individual Chinese live in poverty – arguably not achieving the three economic rights mentioned above. This raises the question whether basic political rights are a necessary condition for the full realization of economic rights. This question is especially crucial for theories of “development.” Some such theories stress the need to provide basic social goods to people; while others, usually called “capability” models, emphasize the need to improve

E

people’s capacities. Such approaches argue that this may require careful analysis of the circumstances of those who are the targets of development. Giving someone a sophisticated piece of electronics gear, for example, is useless if the individual has no ready supply of electricity. Similarly, providing educational materials designed to bring people to the point where they can perform tasks that will be well rewarded will not be successful if the people in question are illiterate. Henry Shue has argued that some moral rights are basic, in the sense that they represent the minimum that human beings must require of their fellows. Allowing less is inconsistent with full human status. Shue argues for two fundamental kinds of basic rights: those relating to security and those pertaining to subsistence, which are arguably economic rights. Shue maintains that not having sufficient resources can lead to death, pain, or incapacity just as surely as lack of physical security can; indeed, such insufficiency can keep one from benefiting from moral rights just as surely as breaches in one’s security can (Shue 1996: 24). In fact, a large 2002 Yale study confirms that low unemployment is associated with lower death rates and increased self-esteem in the broader community, while higher unemployment leads in the opposite directions. The study argues that an individual’s social status as a productive person is a direct result of being employed (Yale Study 2002). This provides striking empirical confirmation of the importance of the second of the three economic rights delineated by Hertel and Minkler and referred to above. In October 2009, Paul Krugman, 2008’s Nobel Prize winner in economics, said that employment projections for the USA suggest that unemployment is likely to average 9.8% in 2010 and to remain at 7.7% in 2012. Krugman said this outlook entails an unacceptable level of pain and suffering during the next several years (Krugman 2009). These are the figures for the USA, but they foreshadow similar, and in many cases far worse, problems for much of the world’s population. Since this encyclopedia is focused on the issue of global justice, it is appropriate to cite the devastating implications of the recent economic implosion for the world as a whole. Krugman has consistently recommended that the USA spend more to alleviate this situation. Doing so will not only decrease the pain of such high unemployment; it will also lead to improved prospects for the US economy in the future (which will lead to lower government deficits) (Krugman 2009). Such improvement will be reflected worldwide and will likely enhance access to economic rights globally.

291

E

292

E

Egalitarianism

Krugman’s suggestions are helpful, but they don’t begin to scratch the surface of what is arguably one of the worst violations of human rights in the history of the planet. Wealthy nations and the various institutions that are associated with them have created a system that foreseeably keeps millions of people in impoverished conditions in order to benefit these rich nations, as well as the national and supranational institutions associated with them. Both economic and political rights are violated to such an extent that it threatens what Shue refers to as the full human status of many severely impoverished individuals around the world (Shue 1996: 24; see above). Among the many areas where this deprivation of rights leads to injustice on a truly global scale are the forced opening of the capital markets in poor countries, the use of these nations as receptacles for the pollution of powerful and wealthy countries and regions, and an unjust regime of intellectual property rights (Pogge 2010). The USA and other wealthy nations often criticize other wealthy countries for violating human rights. These violated rights are typically political rights; but if economic rights are recognized (as they surely should be), then the USA and those other wealthy nations who criticize countries that violate political rights are also guilty of very serious rights violations – namely, violations of economic rights. This is not to say that countries that violate political rights are blameless; rather, it is to suggest that all wealthy nations are to blame for the horrendous violation of economic and, by implication, political rights taking place in poorer countries – violations to which these rich nations are party. To the extent that wealthy nations are intent on contributing to the “development” of poor nations by enhancing the “capabilities” of the poor, it may mean that these rich countries and their institutions will have to accept diminished capabilities for themselves and their institutions.

References Hertel S, Minkler L (eds) (2007) Economic rights: conceptual, measurement, and policy issues, chap 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Holmes S, Sunstein CR (1999) The cost of rights. W.W. Norton, New York Krugman P (2009) Mission not accomplished. The New York Times (on-line), 2 Oct 2009. Op-Ed Pogge T (2010) Flier for the 2010 Martin Benjamin lecture at Michigan State University, 7 Oct 2010 Shue H (1996) Basic rights, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton Velasquez MG (2006) Business ethics: concepts and cases, 6th edn. Pearson Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River Yale Researcher Shows (2002) Rising unemployment causes higher death rates, new study by Yale Researcher Shows. Yale University Office of Public Affairs, 22 May 2002

Egalitarianism ▶ Fair Equality of Opportunity ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Equality of Opportunity

Embargoes ▶ Foreign Policy ▶ Poverty

Empire ARUN KUMAR POKHREL Department of English, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

Related Topics

▶ Basic Rights ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ▶ Negative Rights ▶ Positive Rights ▶ Rights ▶ Shue, Henry ▶ Special Rights

An empire is an imperial form of domination of one nation, tribe, or society over one or more nations, tribes, or societies. Such domination is maintained through the control of social, political, cultural, and economic domains of the dominated societies. Built up over a long period of time, an empire is a political sovereignty that occupies and controls strategic external territories militarily. Those territories are acquired for different reasons, but one of the chief reasons for such control is to gain profit by expropriating important resources there. Generally speaking, empire might signify political domination,

Empire

economic exploitation, and military subjugation, but the influences of interactions between imperial and native cultures are much more complex, deeper, and subtler than we might imagine. Through empire, the imperialists or colonialists try to impose their institutions, culture, and language on the “hapless” natives as ostensible blessings, but the natives often resist such imposition because they have their own history, culture, religion, and language. Thus the colonizer and the colonized influence, and are influenced by, each other. Etymologically, empire is derived from the Latin word imperium, meaning legal power of command. Its meaning, however, is extended to include the territories and populations subject to a dominant power (Koebner 1961). Although scholars have not clearly ascertained when the first empires came into being, they still believe that empires might have come into existence alongside the establishment of the earliest civilizations. Empires have thus existed since the dawn of human civilization, and they continue to exist even today, albeit in different forms. Different types of empires – different in shapes and sizes – have existed in different historical time periods, such as the Roman Empire, the Chinese Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, the French Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Russian Empire, the American Empire, inter alia. Today the modern concept of empire immediately evokes images of the Roman Empires of the past: the Imperium populi Romani of the Republic, the Imperium Romanum governed by Emperor Augustus and his successors, the Holy Roman Empire which was vested in Charlemagne and later on in the kings elected by German princes (Koebner 1961). Such historical analogy also invokes the imperial greatness of the Roman Empire, but each empire has its own distinct characteristics. In that sense, empire is not a monolithic entity; it is rather a more complex phenomenon than we often tend to think (Johnson 2003). Historians believe that the process of formation of early empires might have taken thousands of years before what we know about the Roman and Chinese (Han) empires. Of these earlier empires, the Chinese and Roman empires are considered the most advanced and complex ones, and are also identified with the peasant or slave empire. Slavery allowed for the creation of a small privileged class of rulers, who, through the surplus production of slaves, could spend their time freed from menial labor. In those ancient regimes, when one tribe, group, or society achieved victory over another, the victors subdued and exploited the members of defeated groups. The victors became rulers, warriors, or priests, while the vanquished ones became an alien underclass condemned

E

to slave labor. So the vertical power hierarchy was one of the major forms of domination in early empires, and this rigid hierarchical system barred the vanquished populations or slave laborers from any kind of social justice. Since the times of the Roman and Chinese empires, three different forms of empire have evolved over the millennia in different parts of the world: mercantile empire, capitalist empire, and global empire. First was the mercantilist empire, whose earliest example was the Venetian Empire, reaching its zenith from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. Spain, which was initially considered a backward mercantilist empire, became the world’s greatest imperial power from the late fifteenth century to the late seventeenth century. Similarly, the emergent British and French empires in the eighteenth century followed in the footsteps of the Spanish Empire. To bring profit and wealth to their people, these empires used various strategies of expropriation, such as brutal conquests, plundering, and the exploitation of peasants and slaves. Thus the very formation process of empire shows that empire only serves to consolidate the power of powerful over powerless. The mercantilist empire then gave birth to the capitalist empire, which is also known as the age of imperialism or European colonialism. Extending from the nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, this period was the heyday of the British Empire. Other European Empires include those of France, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands. A handful of European powers thus began to exercise sovereignty over vast territories covering roughly 80% of the world. But by middle of the nineteenth century, when the other European empires were in decline, the British Empire emerged as the biggest empire ever – extending over a large part of North America, much of the Caribbean, Africa, the whole Indian subcontinent, South East Asia and the Pacific, and even for a time much of the Middle East (Marshall 1996). The power of the British Empire declined after the Second World War because of the growing anticolonial struggles in the colonies. Interestingly, the fall of the British Empire gave way to the new empires – the USA and the Soviet Union. In the era of the Cold War, both empires, with different ideological orientations, emerged as the two polarizing superpowers in the world and busied themselves with creating their own empires. The Soviet Empire, however, lasted only until 1989, when then-President Mikhail Gorbachev decided no longer to use force to uphold Soviet power in Eastern Europe. With the breakdown of the Soviet Empire, the USA has become the only global empire today. Very different from

293

E

294

E

Empire

any of its predecessors, which were mostly formal empires, the American Empire, by contrast, is considered an informal empire. This is why America’s ways of administering empire are vastly different from the British Empire or any other European empires. Contextually, it is useful to distinguish formal empires from informal empires as has been done by many scholars. Formal empires were the empires that conquered and occupied the lands of external communities by the might of their armies and ruled them directly from their imperial capitals. The Roman or British form of empire is the case in point here. Either of these empires could not have existed in the absence of imperial Roman army or British navy. Neither could the emperors rule over the vast expanse of territories without the imposition of centralized laws made in imperial centers such as in London or Rome. For instance, the Union Jack was hoisted across the vast array of territories in the British Empire, where “the sun never set.” In 1900, the British Empire, united by the British Crown and governed from London, covered one fifth of the globe and governed 400 million subjects of many faiths and ethnic groups (Johnson 2003). Informal empires are different from formal empires in the sense that they do not annex the territories they rule. Instead, the imperial power forms a local government to run that territory or country. Alternatively, informal empire could use corporate businesses or free trade to exercise domination over the less-developed countries. In some respects, much of the British Empire was informal, for British control over some places was a “benign despotism” (Johnson 2003). It also exercised its imperial power through the voluntary association of local rulers with the Crown to cut down costs of administrating those colonies. As a leading player in a global trade, Britain also used free trade as a means to dominate the colonized nations. Salient among them are the transAtlantic slave trade and the commercial activities of the East India Company. What is notable here is that both formal and informal empires use their own mechanisms to rule over less powerful societies, peoples, and cultures. Although an informal empire does not make any direct political, military, cultural, or economic interventions, it still uses various forms of indirect control mechanisms to maintain its hegemony over other weaker countries. However, in recent decades, many poor countries and the disadvantaged groups of people from those countries have not only started resisting such hegemonic domination, but also started asking for a fair share in the use of their national resources. To a larger extent, their local collectivities have helped ensure both individual and social rights.

One of the most striking examples of informal empire, in this respect, is the American Empire. Intellectuals on the left dub America – the only superpower in the world today – a “New Empire.” Unlike for Europeans, who in the cases of British, French, or German empires embraced the word “empire” positively, for Americans, that word has negative meanings. The American leaders, especially the founding fathers of the USA, have always claimed to believe in the ideals expressed in the texts that underwrote the American Revolution, such as freedom, happiness, and individual rights, not only for Americans but also for the whole of humanity. The founding fathers claimed to fight against all forms of imperialism, especially British imperialism, for the independence of their country. Despite such claims, left-leaning intellectuals have argued that America is a “New Empire.” Historian Niall Ferguson, in his book Empire (2002), argues that America is the heir to the British Empire in two senses: a product of the British Empire and a successor. This is why the most burning contemporary question of American politics, according to Ferguson, is, “Should the United States seek to shed or to shoulder the imperial load it has inherited?” In today’s neoliberal world of global capitalism, especially in the aftermath of 9/11 and the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the label of “New Empire” does not sound illogical at all. In their famed but controversial book Empire, the Marxist critics Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri discuss the emergence of a new kind of Empire in an age of globalization. Unlike older forms of imperialism based on the sovereignty of the nation-state extended over foreign territories, Empire has no territorial boundaries; nor has it a territorial center of power. For them, “Empire” is completely different from “imperialism.” Although the genealogy of Empire, they argue, is Eurocentric, its present powers are not limited to any region. Globalization, as a new form of Empire, offers new possibilities for establishing new circuits of collaboration and cooperation among the multitude – a collective of diverse working class people. In their view, the creative forces of the multitude not only sustain this new Empire but also are capable of creating counter-Empire, an alternative political organization based on the productive synergies of the multitude. Thus this new Empire or imperial terrain itself becomes a terrain for new struggles to contest and subvert Empire. Seen in this light, the global project of Empire brings minorities to a mainstream global culture rather than excluding them. This subversive power of the multitude is laudable from the perspective of global justice. However, many scholars question the very possibility of such a

End of Life Care

power reversal, allowing a spontaneous construction of an alternative political organization or counter-Empire of multitude, and refute their view to see America as a benign democratic global Empire. Responding to Hardt and Negri’s Empire, another Marxist critic and geographer, David Harvey, in his book The New Imperialism (2005), states that their book brought the questions of empire and imperialism into open debates across the political spectrum, but he quickly points out the logical fallacies of the book. Harvey argues that their book lacks a proper analysis of the causes and consequences of postcolonial empires, what he calls “New Imperialism,” brought into existence by neoliberal globalization. In sum, Empire is not a monolithic entity, for it develops in an uneven way. While some colonies could achieve a measure of self-government as a means to retain their cooperation with the empire, others could not, as seen in the case of the British Empire. In addition to economic and military hegemony, empire has deeper social and cultural impacts. For example, the British Empire impacted its colonies in a variety of ways, such as through the propagation of their national myth of Englishness, the exaltation of British constitutional practices, British culture, education, and the concepts of law and order (Judd 1996). Racial superiority thus functions as one of the important logics of imperialism. So the categorization, even dehumanizing or othering, of the “black” or “yellow” races in the colonies, for example, provided the British colonizers with a facile justification for their rule (Johnson 2003). In the light of global justice, Empire– whether formal or informal – thus sustains itself on socially unjustifiable systems and uneven power relations, where one nation, group, or society dominates one or more nations, groups, cultures, or societies and reaps undue social, cultural, and economic advantages, preventing native societies from exercising their autonomous power. As Empire usually thrives on the logic of “divide and rule,” the issue of global justice remains elusive unless the dominated societies strongly resist all kinds of discrimination and injustices meted out against them.

Related Topics

▶ Colonialism ▶ Eurocentrism ▶ Globalization ▶ Imperialism ▶ Neoliberalism ▶ Racism ▶ Slavery ▶ Third World Resistance

E

295

References Ferguson N (2002) Empire: the rise and the demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power. Basic Books, New York Hardt M, Negri A (2000) Empire. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Harvey D (2005) The new imperialism. Oxford University Press, New York Johnson R (2003) British imperialism. Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire Judd D (1996) Empire, the British imperial experience from 1765 to the present. HarperCollins, London Kia M (2008) The Ottoman empire. Greenwood, Westport Koebner R (1961) Empire. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Maier CS (2006) Among empires, American ascendancy and its predecessors. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Marshall PJ (ed) (1996) The Cambridge illustrated history on the British empire. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Passavant PA, Dean J (eds) (2004) Empire’s new clothes. Routledge, New York Pieterse JPN (1989) Empire and emancipation, power and liberation on a world scale. Praeger, New York Roy A (2004) An ordinary guide to empire. South End Press, Cambridge, MA Salmon Edward T (1944) A history of the Roman world, from 30 B.C. to A.D. 138. Routledge, London and New York Samir A (1992) Empire of Chaos (trans: Anderson WHL). Monthly Review Press, New York Schwartz RN (1998) The Roman empire, a concise history of the first two centuries. University Press of America, Lanham Wells C (1984) The Roman empire, 2nd ed. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

End of Life Care RICHARD STITH1, CAROLINA PEREIRA-SA´EZ2 1 School of Law, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN, USA 2 School of Law, University of La Corun˜a, La Corun˜a, Spain

End of Life Care (ELC) is medical care and assistance to those with a terminal illness or condition. Its first aim is to relieve suffering, treating the pain and other discomforts of the disease rather than curing it. Although ELC is not new, it has had increasing significance since the middle of the twentieth century. The beginning of contemporary concern for ELC dates back at least to 1967, when Dame Cicely Saunders founded in London St. Christopher’s Hospice, a medical center for terminally ill persons. Its philosophy of care was that the terminal ill person matters until the last moment of his or her life, and it aimed to help the patient not only to die peacefully but also to live as well as possible until death. This ELC spirit and aim, to relieve from pain as an act of

E

296

E

End of Life Care

respect to the ill person, has long been characteristic of Hippocratic medicine. Nevertheless, there are two factors that give it growing importance: (1) medical advances that make possible substantially greater extension of the life of a terminally ill person, and (2) ethical changes replacing a sense of the inherent and equal dignity (or sanctity) of every human life with a weighing of each life’s value according to its quality and autonomy. In addition to all this, modern globalization has brought in an entirely new challenge, raising questions of values when cultures clash and also contributing to the dissipation of traditional family values of caring for the elderly, thus adding to the plight of a growing number of old and ailing people in the poor countries who are left on their own but for whom the ELC facilities are out of reach due to poverty. Access to basic medicine and health facilities is a contentious issue in the realm of global justice, and ELC simply adds to the complexity of the debate. The most discussed questions in the ethical debate about ELC are the propriety of (1) assisted suicide, that is, supplying a patient, by request, with the necessary means to take his or her life, intending the death of the patient as a means to ending his or her suffering; (2) euthanasia, an action or omission which of itself and by intention causes death with the purpose of eliminating all suffering; and (3) dysthanasia, that is, administering to a person whose death is clearly imminent and inevitable an extraordinary or disproportionate treatment that only secures a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life. Of course, in the global context, the propriety of the third issue listed above is often moot because the medical access needed to facilitate dysthanasia is not universally present, raising questions of justice. Also, human rights issues related to all three concerns vary in the global context due to divides in cultures, affluence, and values. Some would see a golden mean between euthanasia and dysthanasia in orthothanasia, caring for a terminally ill person without employing disproportionate means to maintain life but using palliative care to avoid suffering and never intending deliberately to advance the patient’s death. In practice, however, this middle ground may be difficult to discern. The simple distinction between action and omission, for example, does not track that between euthanasia and orthothanasia: Ethics generally focuses on intentions rather than on physical events. Thus an intended death by omission would seem morally equivalent to an intended death by an action, while a death that were wholly unintentional (i.e., intended neither as an end nor as a means) could entail less culpability, whether caused by action or caused by omission. In the global context, policies may vary depending on whether

a deontic concern is given priority or whether welfare consequentialism is favored due to the dire challenges of poverty and overpopulation. A widely influential solution to these problems is that proposed by the American school of “Principlism.” Principlism makes ethical judgment turn upon the two above-mentioned factors: the priority of personal autonomy or self-determination, and the assessment of life in terms of quality. Personal-autonomy priority requires that, to avoid paternalism, the patient’s decisions override those of the physician. To inform the medical provider in advance of his or her choices, the patient can write a “living will,” or otherwise reliably express his or her preferences, in case he or she becomes incompetent. The assessment of life in terms of quality may also be determinative, especially in the absence of any advance directive, even to the point of judging someone better off dead. Autonomy and quality of life have become salient as a result of a crisis of Western culture that generates skepticism in relation to the foundations of ethics, making it difficult to grasp any meaning in human life and any respect that it necessarily deserves. Human goods no longer appear objective; on the contrary, each person must decide what seems good to him or her. Medical beneficence becomes an imposition of the physician’s concept of good on the patient. Furthermore, since the very existence of a human being is not now an objective and overriding good in itself, human beings are not equally inviolable. The respect and protection their lives deserve may depend upon choice or quality, which in turn may depend upon capacity or health, or even wealth, upbringing, personality, and the presence or absence of friends. The global challenges to all these concerns add to the variation. Principlist bioethicists like Tom Beauchamp and James Childress (2009) assert that autonomy and quality of life are shared standards of a universal common morality, but they do not prove this assertion. A number of voices around the world accuse Principlism of a kind of ideological imperialism, imposing its principles on different cultures and ethical traditions, while pretending they are universal. Meanwhile, these principles are said to endanger the most vulnerable groups: the very ill, the elderly, the handicapped, and those whose lives could be valued as of little quality or who could be induced to make (or be falsely averred to have made) an advance directive. Principlism allegedly denies solidarity by encouraging dependent persons to see themselves as unnecessary burdens. Not only personal, family, and group relationships but also relationships between peoples and countries could be distorted. Furthermore, the hollow personal

Enemy Combatant

autonomy of Principlism may not fit well with ELC purposes. Understanding life and death in terms of selfinterest or self-satisfaction is a kind of reductionism, and balancing them against any other interest seems to some a kind of injustice. In short, ELC issues lead to complex moral dilemmas and are difficult to resolve, especially when the global dimension is added to them.

Related Topics

▶ Disabled People ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Human Rights ▶ Killing and Letting Die ▶ Quality of Life

References Andorno R (1997) La bioethique´ et la dignite´ de la personne. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris Beauchamp C, Childress T (2009) Principles of biomedical ethics. Oxford University Press, Oxford DuBose E, Hamel R, O’Connell L (1994) A matter of principles? Ferment in U.S. bioethics. Trinity Press International, Valley Forge Keown J (ed) (1995) Euthanasia examined. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Pope John Paul II (1995) Evangelium vitae. USCCB Publishing, Washington, DC Wesley JS (2006) Forced exit. Euthanasia, assisted suicide and the new duty to die. Encounter Books, New York

Enemy Combatant PAULINE M. KAURIN Department of Philosophy, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA, USA

Under the Laws of War, an enemy combatant is usually one directly engaged in hostilities against another power in a conflict between or amongst states. According to the Geneva Convention III (1949), the following categories are entitled to be treated according to the laws and conventions governing prisoners of war (POW): (1) members of armed forces (including militias and volunteer forces); (2) members of other military and paramilitary forces (including resistance fighters) that are: (a) under a command structure, (b) wear a fixed sign recognizable at a distance, (c) carry arms openly, and (d) observe the laws and customs of war; (3) persons connected with the armed forces who are otherwise considered civilians but have authorization from the armed forces they

E

accompany; and (4) those who spontaneously take up arms to resist invaders in a non-occupied territory. These persons are entitled to a variety of protections regarding their treatment (including protection from any form of coercive interrogation), legal status, and proceedings; they must be released at the termination of the hostilities. It is understood that they are held, not to be punished or to be a source of information, but merely to prevent their return to the battlefield and engaging in hostile action. Any person not categorized as a POW is considered a civilian and, as such is accorded protection under Geneva Convention IV (1949). In the event of a dispute over the person’s status, there is a requirement to have a hearing by competent tribunal to ascertain their status and until their status is decided, they are entitled to be treated under the POW convention. In the 1977 Geneva Protocol I the definition of “lawful belligerent” was expanded to take account of new varieties of conflict (including civil conflicts, guerilla conflict, and insurgencies), and mercenaries were explicitly excluded from POW status. Despite these changes, there is not a third category in the Laws of War, despite claims of categories like “illegal enemy combatant,” “unprivileged belligerent,” or “unlawful enemy combatant.” The Ex parte Quirin case (1942) is one of the first places where the term “unlawful enemy combatant” seems to appear. In this case, the Supreme Court of the United States claimed that “unlawful combatants” were subject, like lawful combatants, to capture and detention, but could be tried and punished by military tribunal for their unlawful belligerent acts. This upheld Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Proclamation 2561 which claimed these rights in the case of Nazi saboteurs, who were captured, tried, and (six out of eight) were executed for their crimes. In the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001 and the subsequent “War on Terrorism,” the Bush Administration relied on the Quirin and other precedents to claim that, consistent with his war powers as Command in Chief, the President had the right to detain “unlawful enemy combatants” (such as Taliban and Al-Qaeda members) without according them POW status and the legal protections that would normally be accorded POWs. The Administration claimed that the Executive Branch had authority to declare someone an “unlawful enemy combatant” and that their purpose in doing this was in part to prevent them from returning to the battlefield, but primarily was to subject them to interrogation and gain information. This action was viewed as problematic by many in the human rights and legal communities, not just as a violation of the rule of law, but also as a breach of

297

E

298

E

Environmental Justice

shared conceptions of global justice, in particular of human rights relative to arbitrary detention, coercive interrogation, and torture. Due to legal challenges and Supreme Court decisions like Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), the Administration developed the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) policy and with this policy its first clear definition of “unlawful enemy combatant” as someone who was a part of or supporting Taliban or Al-Qaeda forces (or associated forces) and who committed a belligerent act or directly supported hostilities against the United States. This process provided for a panel of three military officers and the detainee was accorded a personal representative as an advocate, but not legal counsel; once the determination was made, there is no legal appeal process. In 2005 Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act, which authorized the President to detain enemy combatants who were citizens, residents who were members of Al-Qaeda or who “knowingly cooperated” with Al-Qaeda, but this act also provided access to counsel for the detainee and the ability to have access to judicial review to challenge the basis for their detention. This was followed in 2006 by the passage of the Military Commissions Act where the definition of “unlawful enemy combatant” was further broadened to include anyone who had engaged in hostilities or who purposely and materially supported hostilities against the United States, as well as anyone who has been found to be an “unlawful enemy combatant” under the prior CSRT processes or other determinations made by the Department of Defense. This broadening of the definition is important because it departs from the standard usage and practice of categorizing combatants in the laws of war, combining elements of the laws of war (detaining combatants so they cannot return to the battlefield) with aspects of criminal law (where conspiracy and aiding/abetting are crimes and where interrogation is a primary consideration in detention). Under the Laws of War, a combatant is one who takes direct part in hostilities against another nation or military group, but the definitions of “unlawful enemy combatant” were designed to include various kinds of indirect support and to target persons who may be far from any battlefield; there continues to be a great deal of controversy about how loose or tight the definition should be. In October 2008 a US District Court ruling endorsed the 2004 Pentagon and 2006 Military Commissions Act definition of “unlawful enemy combatants” in the case of six Algerians arrested in Bosnia in 2001 and had been held at Guantanamo Bay for 7 years. In March 2009 the Obama Administration officially dropped the term “unlawful enemy combatant” but maintained the right to detain

any person who “substantially” supports Al-Qaeda and their associates. Despite these changes, many opponents are still concerned about the broad power that the United States is claiming to detain any one they deem to be supporting terrorism; to many this power seems more about arbitrary control and less about the injustice visited by the threat and actions of terrorism.

Related Topics

▶ Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ▶ Geneva Conventions ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ Prisoners of War ▶ Punishment ▶ War Against Terrorism

References Bush GW (2001) Presidential military order: detention, treatment and trial of certain non-citizens in the war vs. terrorism. 13 November 2001 Convention III Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949 Convention IV Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949 Danner A (2007) Defining unlawful enemy combatants. Tex Int Law J 53(1):1–14 Hafetz J (2008) Stretching precedent beyond recognition: the misplaced reliance on World War II cases on the ‘war on terror’. Rev Litigation 28(2):365–379 Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims on International Armed Conflict. 8 June 1977 Roosevelt FD, Proclamation 2561 US Congress, Detainee Treatment Act (2005) US Congress, Military Commissions Act (2006)

Environmental Justice DAVID R. KELLER Department of Philosophy, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Industrial civilization yields costs and benefits. Costs include environmental degradation and hazards to health; benefits include technology and material comfort. Environmental justice is the equitable, or ethical, distribution across the population of the costs and benefits of industrialization. Environmental injustice is the unethical distribution of the costs and benefits of industrialization based on some morally arbitrary attribute such as race, nationality, gender, or socioeconomic status. Distribution

Environmental Justice

can be analyzed both domestically and globally. Defining “ethical” in the context of environmental justice is the purview of political philosophy.

Demography Social, political, and economic dynamics result in the collocation of industrial operations and low-income residential areas (see Fig. 1) at disproportionately higher rates than middle-class and affluent communities. Evidence is abundant. Altgeld Gardens, a low-income, predominantly black community of Chicago, is ringed by toxic waste incinerators, steel mills, landfills, sewage treatment plants, and chemical and manufacturing plants. The toxins released from these facilities are deleterious to residents’ health. The collocation of industry and habitation dates to racist zoning policies of the 1920s. Houston placed all of its landfills constructed between the 1920s and the 1980s and six of its eight incinerators in African-American neighborhoods. Zip code 90058, one of the most polluted in the USA, is centered in Los Angeles’ largest Latino and African-American neighborhoods. The one-square-mile community is home to gigantic toxic waste incinerators and waste dumps. Noxious factories expose employees and residents to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos, lead, and pesticides. Social scientists attribute the differential distribution of industrial sites to corruption, corporations’ deliberate targeting of low-income communities, municipalities’

E

299

decisions to zone areas near low-income communities for industrial development, and poor communities’ inability to match the legal and political power of large corporations. In the 1980s, a private consulting firm recommended to the California Waste Management Board that major industrial facilities be sited in lower-income neighborhoods, because middle- and upper-income communities resist noxious facility siting with greater effectiveness.

Environmental Racism Since the publication of a seminal report by the US General Accounting Office in 1983, industrial siting has been associated with race. The United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice identified race as the most significant variable associated with the location of hazardous waste sites in 1987. Five years later, two investigative reporters named race as the common denominator in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcement of federal environmental law: penalties levied against industries for violating environmental laws were 46% higher in white communities than minority communities, and vacated toxic waste sites in minority areas took 20% longer to be placed on the Superfund clean-up priority list than sites in white communities. In this context, civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis used the phrase “environmental racism” in hearings before the US Congress in 1993. Additional demographic data, however, suggest that the common denominator of environmental injustice is

Environmental Justice. Fig. 1 The collocation of heavy industry and residence, Bytom, Poland (Photograph by Christopher Pillitz. Reprinted with permission of Getty Images)

E

300

E

Environmental Justice

socioeconomic status, not race: some poor communities that shoulder a disproportionate share of the costs of industrialization are white. For example, when a leak of methyl isocyanate at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killed 4,000 people, attention quickly shifted to a similar Union Carbide plant in Kanawha Valley, West Virginia, which is predominantly Caucasian and low income. After the disaster in India, Kanawha Valley residents accused Union Carbide and EPA officials of obstructing investigation of community health hazards. For these reasons, the term “environmental injustice” is more inclusive than “environmental racism.”

History The environmental justice movement has drawn inspiration from different sources. In Europe, the movement arose from Marxian critiques of class hierarchies; in non-Western nations, from critiques of colonialism; and in the USA, from the civil rights movement with precursors in the urban environmentalism of the 1920s. In the tradition of grassroots activism, the mostly African-American community of Warren County – the poorest in North Carolina – mobilized in 1982 to fight a proposed PCB disposal site. In contrast, mainstream North American environmentalism, with its emphasis on natural resource conservation and wilderness preservation, was slow to acknowledge environmental justice as a serious ethical issue. The legal foundation of environmental justice in the USA is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VI, which forbids discrimination in any program receiving funding from the federal government. During the 1990s, the EPA investigated allegations of environmental discrimination under the Civil Rights Act, and in 1993 Congress passed the Environmental Equal Rights Act, the Environmental Health Equity Information Act, and the Environmental Justice Act. In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed an executive order on environmental justice.

Causality Between Low-Income Settlement and Industrialization Research on the causal linkages between industrial siting and the intentional exploitation of the poor is inconclusive. Although studies have found that low income, high minority demographics, and preponderance of rental property are common characteristics of heavily industrialized areas, not all researchers pinpoint poverty as antecedent to industrialization. These researchers have found no definite temporal ordering of low-income settlement with industrialization or industrialization with lowincome settlement. These researchers instead relate the co-occurrence of the two with a third factor – the area

itself. A piece of land suitable for industrial activity may simply be less attractive for housing: a boggy area with railroad and barge infrastructure would be unattractive to middle-class and affluent families as a place of residence. Other researchers, however, discern a direct causal connection between low-income settlement and industrialization. There is a higher incidence of industrial siting in traditionally low-income areas than the relocation of persons of low socioeconomic status to areas with preexisting industrial development. More simply put, low-income communities attract industrial development to a greater degree than industrialized areas attract low-income tenants.

Epidemiology Epidemiological data on the connection between industrialization and hazards to health are also inconclusive, although research has linked cancer to anthropogenic pollution. The Industrial Corridor of the Mississippi River, a heavily industrialized 85-mi. stretch of petrochemical plants and oil refineries between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, is a notable case. The EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory has reported that known carcinogens are released into the environment along the Industrial Corridor. A study of 20 parishes (counties) along the Industrial Corridor found a statistically significant correlation between rectal cancer and drinking river water. Another study established that people who were not employed by the petrochemical industry but who lived within 1 mi. of a petrochemical facility were four times more likely to die of lung cancer than people not employed by the petrochemical industry living 2–4 mi. away. St. Bernard Parish in metropolitan New Orleans has an abnormally high incidence of cancer, especially lung cancer. In 1997, the cancer death rate was 18% above the average in Louisiana and 22% above the national average. Other research casts doubts on causal connections between industrialization and ill health. A study funded by the State of Louisiana under the auspices of the Louisiana Tumor Registry concluded that the prevalence of cancer along the Industrial Corridor is normal. Public health officials have suggested that the higher incidence of cancer around New Orleans might be caused by lifestyle rather than environmental contamination: many residents of the Industrial Corridor smoke tobacco and savor a Cajun diet laden with fat. Health habits are important enough for some public health officials to be reluctant to draw definitive correlations between cancer and pollution, and enough for other officials to disregard environmental factors altogether.

Environmental Justice

Ethical Theory and Environmental Justice Environmental justice is a problem for practical ethics. Practical ethics is reasoning aimed at action, namely, improving the human condition. The primary elucidations of theories of environmental justice and injustice are based in standard Utilitarian and Deontological moral theory. (Utilitarianism and Deontology are both anthropocentric. The elaboration of nonanthropocentric environmental justice is beyond the scope of this entry.) Utilitarian environmental policy combines a freemarket political economy with an ontology of private property. Adherents of Utilitarian environmental policy believe that the public good is maximized when market mechanisms work in concert with private property rights. Thwarting the logic of market mechanisms exacerbates socioeconomic inequity. Regulations induce corporations to move operations, which depresses, rather than stimulates, local economies. An economist familiar with the Industrial Corridor has said bluntly: “Poverty kills a lot more people than [a polluted] environment does.” The failure of Utilitarian environmental policy to address environmental injustice is apparent when its fundamental assumptions are viewed seriatim. First, the ontology of private property is suspect in the light of regulatory reality. Two proponents of free-market environmental policy reject the notion that environmental injustice poses a problem for the ontology of private property. Using the example of a landfill, they point out that third parties (neither the landfill owner nor those paying to dispose of their trash) have legal resources should they be negatively affected by waste seepage. This conclusion is logically weak because many landfills do not succeed in sequestering their contents securely, and third parties suffer harm as a result. Private property owners routinely escape accountability for violations of environmental law. For example, near Charleston, West Virginia, drinking water contains arsenic, barium, lead, and manganese at levels – sometimes exceeding federal regulations by 1,000% – that cause organ failure. A local professor of biology has observed that the chemicals flowing out of water taps are the same as the chemicals that coal companies are pumping into the ground, yet no mining corporation has been cited or fined. The ontology of private property is itself ecologically unsound. Private property and political boundary lines are artificial human constructions which pose no barrier to pollution. Take, for example, the metropolitan area that encompasses El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. Trucks registered in the USA emit 15 ppm of sulfur, whereas Mexican trucks emit up to 500 ppm of sulfur.

E

Because El Paso and Ciudad Juarez share the same atmospheric conditions, lax Mexican environmental regulations negatively affect US citizens. Noxious pollutants disperse by the law of osmosis and do not recognize legal boundaries; noxious pollutants do not stop spreading at a chain-link fence. Utilitarian environmental policy also suffers from the problem of classical Utilitarianism: the interests of a majority may easily trump the interests of a minority, even to the point of “legally” violating fundamental human rights. Consider ExxonMobil in Indonesia. ExxonMobil’s development of natural gas resources in the Aceh province of Sumatra has displaced Acehnese from ancestral homelands. Although ExxonMobil makes hundreds of millions of dollars in profit annually from its Aceh operations, most Acehnese have seen no noticeable improvement in their standards of living. Aceh villagers have complained about the growing disparity between the rich and the poor. In 2001 ExxonMobil hired elements of the Indonesian military to serve as a private security detail to suppress discontent, expressed by locals through vandalism of ExxonMobil property. In June, the International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit in the USA against ExxonMobil on behalf of Acehnese villagers, alleging that ExxonMobil aided and abetted Indonesian soldiers in kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder by providing a garrison where the abuses purportedly took place and by providing construction equipment for digging mass graves. An environmental policy that is complicit in violations of human rights in the name of profit maximization fails to secure environmental justice. An alternative ethical theory for articulating guiding principles of environmental justice is based on the moral philosophy of Deontology. Deontological environmental policy is rooted in a moral philosophy of intrinsic human value that respects autonomy and the right to self-determination. Fundamental human rights cannot be transgressed for other ends. These inviolable human rights are codified internationally in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. American philosopher John Rawls sketches a Deontological political philosophy that recognizes the intrinsic value and inviolable rights of humankind’s most disadvantaged. Rawls posits two fundamental principles of justice. The first is that persons have equal rights to basic liberties. The second is that social and economic inequalities are justified only if (a) those inequalities result from a political process open to all, including those most negatively affected, and (b) those inequalities are to the benefit of everyone, including those most negatively affected.

301

E

302

E

Environmental Justice

Inequalities between the advantaged and disadvantaged are justified if and only if the most disadvantaged benefit, because those people would be worse off without the inequity. For example, it might benefit the most disadvantaged to live in a society that pays medical doctors much more than an average wage for the common good of quality health care. In terms of environmental justice, if the distribution of the costs and benefits of industrialization diminishes the liberty of a certain group of persons – the poor in a developed nation or an indigenous group in a developing nation – then the first principle has been violated. If the benefits of industrialization are not shared by all, then the first part of the second principle has been violated. If those affected by industrialization are excluded from participation in the political process that determines the distribution of the costs and benefits of that industrialization, then the second part of the second principle has been violated. On the Rawlsian model, environmental injustice occurs when a social group bears a disproportionate burden of the costs of industrialization in comparison to a wider population, and that group would be better off without industrialization. Environmental justice is the situation where a social group bears a disproportionate burden of the costs of industrialization, yet that group benefits more from an industrial economy than an agrarian one and is thus materially better off. Deontological environmental justice asserts that the ethical distribution of the costs and benefits of industrialization should never violate basic human rights, which include, but are not limited to, access to nutritious food, clean water, shelter, education, health care, and intrahuman relationships. In summary, because Deontology is a nonconsequentialistic ethical theory that enjoins the duty to respect the intrinsic value of individuals, Deontological environmental policy succeeds where Utilitarian environmental policy fails.

Environmental Justice and Global Climate Destabilization Given the latest surge of globalization, driven by the rise of multinational corporations, it is essential to consider environmental justice in the global context. A robust conception of environmental justice rooted in Deontology includes the right to participate in the political process regarding the distribution of the costs and benefits of industrialization. These two dimensions of environmental justice – participation and distribution – are no better illustrated than by the issue of global climate destabilization.

Within the scientific community there is general consensus that the atmosphere of the Earth is warming due to anthropogenic causes related to the combustion of fossil fuels – the engine of industry – and that climatic vicissitudes will amplify in the future as a result. The predicted globally destabilized climate will produce searing droughts and catastrophic floods and a sea-level rise of 20 ft or more. The ideal of justice involves not only the distribution of the economic costs and benefits of industrialization but also access to participation in the political process of determining the distribution of those costs and benefits. The prospect of global climate destabilization brings to the fore environmental justice in both its distributive and its participatory dimensions. First, the world’s impoverished stand to bear the brunt of global climate destabilization though they have not benefited from the technology and wealth generated by industrial activity. Second, the people most likely to suffer from global climate destabilization have had the least participation in public policy decisions concerning the global political economy – a violation of the second part of Rawls’ second principle of justice. Island nations are particularly vulnerable. A study by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration identifies the Marshall Islands as one such “innocent victim” of global warming. The Maldive Islands, whose highest point is only 8 ft, could be entirely obliterated. The rich industrialized nations most responsible for global climate destabilization sit at middle latitudes where effects are predicted to be less severe. Moreover, industrialized nations have already spent billions of dollars mitigating anticipated negative consequences for themselves. If an indigenous people’s homeland is rendered uninhabitable by global climate destabilization, then that people’s right to a traditional lifestyle has been crippled – a violation of Rawls’ first principle of justice. Further, those people would have been better off without industrialization – a violation of the first part of Rawls’ second principle of justice. Following this logic the Inuit have rightly cast the issue of global climate destabilization as a human rights issue. Some inequality in the distribution of the costs and benefits of industrialization is ethical. Within a global context, inequalities are justified if constitutive social groups of nations that shoulder a disproportionate share of the costs of industrialization (in the form of local environmental degradation and health threats) are nonetheless better off with industrialization than without.

Related Topics ▶ Basic Needs ▶ Basic Rights

Environmental Protection

▶ Borders ▶ Climate Justice ▶ Colonialism ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Environmental Racism ▶ Global Justice ▶ Marxism ▶ Quality of Life ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights ▶ Violence

References Been V (1994) Locally undesirable land uses in minority neighborhoods: disproportionate siting or market dynamics? Yale Law Rev 103(6):1383–1422 Bullard RD (1990) Dumping in Dixie: race, class, and environmental quality. Westview Press, Boulder Lavelle M, Coyle MA (1992) Unequal protection: the racial divide in environmental law, a special investigation. Natl Law J 1–16 Pastor Manuel Jr, Sadd J, Hipp J (2001) Which came first? Toxic facilities, minority move-in, and environmental justice. J Urban Aff 23(1): 1–21 Pellow DN (2004) The politics of illegal dumping: an environmental justice framework. Qual Sociol 27(4):511–525 Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge United States General Accounting Office (1983) Siting of hazardous waste landfills and their correlation with racial and economic status surrounding communities (GAO/RCED-83-168), June 1, US General Accounting Office, Washington, DC

Environmental Protection RANDALL CURREN Department of Philosophy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

Environmental protection is coordinated through environmental governance, and it is transacted through government authority to tax, spend, and regulate, and through nongovernmental persuasion, education, and investment. Environmental problems are matters of international concern if they originate in one national jurisdiction and cause harm in another, if they damage global commons, if they threaten local environmental assets of wide international concern, or if they are purely selfinflicted but so widely shared as to be fitting objects of collective action. Cross-border pollution belongs in the first category, ozone depletion and collapse of ocean fish

E

populations belong in the second, loss of rainforest biodiversity belongs in the third, and local problems that can be better addressed through globally coordinated exchange of information and technology belong in the fourth. Problems of these kinds warrant and often inspire coordinated international response in the form of conferences, treaties, creation of institutional platforms for environmental protection within the United Nations system, and the work of NGOs. Ongoing and foreseeable harms to persons in remote jurisdictions qualify these as problems of international or global justice.

Global Environmental Problems Global environmental governance emerged in the 1980s, toward the end of a century in which human impact on the conditions of life grew to globally transformative proportions. World population quadrupled in the course of the twentieth century from 1.5 to 6 billion, per capita water use increased by a factor of nine, per capita energy use increased by a factor of 16, the global economy grew by a factor of 14, and industrial production increased by a factor of 40. The material demands and waste burdens of this global economy grew exponentially, giving rise to unsustainable demands on renewable resources and pollution that reaches every corner of the globe. The result of these trends is a variety of interacting environmental problems of global concern, the most important of which are: climate disruption (owing to greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation), declining freshwater quality and availability, accelerating extinctions and loss of ecosystem services, marine ecosystem degradation (due to overfishing, habitat destruction, excessive nitrogen loading, warming, acidification owing to rising concentrations of atmospheric carbon, and other pollution), regional air pollution and the acid rain it causes, ozone depletion (caused by chlorofluorocarbons and other chemicals), land degradation, deforestation, and health threats from toxic pollutants. Problems of freshwater quality and availability provide a vivid illustration of the complexly international character of environmental problems and protection in the current era. Forty percent of the world’s 6.9 billion people presently live in water-stressed regions, one billion people lack clean drinking water, and declining freshwater availability is expected to be the most acute near-term consequence of human induced climate disruption. Over 200 river basins are shared by at least two countries, and all of Asia’s ten major rivers are substantially and critically fed by melt water from the retreating glaciers of the Greater Himalayas. Water disputes have long been an important focus of international law, and they will surely continue to

303

E

304

E

Environmental Protection

be as global warming progresses and local control of water sources collides with commodification and international trade in water. There are complex matters of global justice at stake in these disputes, arising from the geographical character of the resource, the diverse contributions to its overuse and declining availability, and its irreplaceable contributions to human survival and well-being.

Global Environmental Governance Nongovernmental actors play significant roles in environmental protection and the development of international environmental law. Scientific groups and environmental NGOs, such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), gather and disseminate findings that inform public opinion and shape policy. Informed citizens and consumers create political will and markets for more environmentally responsible products and practices, and corporate leadership responds to market pressures and opportunities with innovation and voluntary environmental standards and labeling. Initial reductions in the use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) came about in this way, as did forestry and fishery environmental sustainability certification standards. It is doubtful whether environmentally protective actions of these kinds would ever suffice to solve an environmental problem of international concern, but they lay essential foundations for enactment of, and compliance with, the multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) that may prove more effective. Multilateral or intergovernmental cooperation to protect the environment began in earnest in Stockholm at the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which established some basic principles of international environmental law and created the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). A series of environmental treaties followed, and the UNEP went on to play a pivotal role in facilitating the collection and exchange of environmental information, defining the agenda for environmental action that emerged in the 1980s, and defining the terms of international environmental law and governance. There were only two heads of state at the 1972 Stockholm conference, but 20 years later at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) there were 118, along with 8,000 delegates from 178 nations, and 3,000 observers representing 1,400 NGOs. By the mid-1990s, most environmental problems of international significance had been addressed to some extent by some form of international agreement, but at Stockholm and Rio alike there were global North–South divisions over the relative priority of issues of long-term concern (such as biodiversity

and climate disruption) and issues of near-term livelihood (such as land degradation, water, and food security). Rio yielded a declaration of 27 principles (nonbinding affirmations) of environmental decision making, linking environmental protection and poverty alleviation through the idea of sustainable development, and it approved a blueprint for action to promote sustainable development, known as Agenda 21. It also produced treaties on climate and biodiversity, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Agenda 21 and these treaties were frameworks that required further action and funding, which did not materialize. Further treaties, including the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC, followed, but the years since the Rio Earth Summit have been characterized by lack of follow-through, failures of leadership, the ascendency of market-based globalization, and the geopolitical distractions of the post-Cold War period. It would be fair to say that although impressive steps have been taken toward global environmental protection since the 1970s, those steps have fallen far short of what is needed to protect humanity’s long-term interests. There are far-reaching matters of global and intergenerational justice at stake, matters that can only be meaningfully addressed through binding international agreements, but asymmetries of national interest, powerful private interests, and other factors have stymied progress. Enforceable international environmental law consists primarily of treaties, or legally binding agreements among nations. It is in the nature of such agreements to require ratification by domestic law-making bodies of the signatory nations, to acquire the force of law within those nations. What domestic law-making bodies can do, they can undo; to say that environmental treaties are legally binding agreements is not to imply that signatory nations are not free to leave them. A treaty enters into force when a designated number of countries ratify it, but the jurisdictional scope of each treaty is hostage to the domestic politics of each potential party to the treaty. The strength and scope of international environmental law is limited by the willingness of heads of state to sign them, which is in turn limited by the obstacles to ratification posed by weak public understanding of environmental problems, weak domestic constituencies for strong action on global environmental problems, and the political and social influence of corporate interests. What may be ratified may not be enforced, moreover. Governments may make a good show of international cooperation without committing the necessary resources to enforcement or may find that the resources they have are inadequate to the task.

Environmental Protection

The regulatory provisions of environmental law may fall into one of three broad classes. One strategy is to define best practices, or a threshold of acceptable practice, in light of available technology. Emissions limits for specified pollutants may be defined for automobiles or power plants, in light of some calculation of acceptable public risk and what is achievable or should be achievable with foreseeable new technology. Polluting enterprises may simply be banned from areas in which the risk would be unacceptable, and some hazardous substances may be banned altogether. Industries are typically fined for exceeding allowable limits, at levels often perceived as having no ethically meaningful relationship to the harm they cause, and no incentive is created for industries to make further progress beyond the threshold of compliance. By merely limiting the environmental destructiveness of each polluting unit, this approach also does little to address problems arising from an accelerating increase in the number of automobiles, power plants, and other polluting units. A second strategy is to internalize a calculation of the full environmental costs of a problematic substance, product, or activity in its price by eliminating environmentally perverse subsidies (such as subsidies for the fossil fuel industries) and through taxes (such as a tax on carbon emissions). An advantage of this strategy is that it provides a financial incentive to systematically reduce whatever is taxed. By doing this, it can produce rapid results through the activities of markets and limit aggregate environmental impact. There is also ethical sense or justice in internalizing environmental externalities (environmental costs that would otherwise be borne by third parties), embodied in the “polluter pays” principle. A third strategy is to fully protect human health and ecosystem integrity by starting from allowable limits on what individuals can be exposed to, what would constitute sustainable levels of resource extraction, and what volume of wastes can be assimilated by natural systems. An example of such a strategy is to define a safe maximum of atmospheric carbon dioxide, define an acceptable emissions “budget” based on that maximum, and allocate that budget as tradable emissions allowances. A carbon tax could approximate the effect of such a “cap and trade” scheme, but the uncertainties of the two approaches are different. With a tax, what is known is the price of carbon, and the environmental effect of that price is uncertain. With a cap and trade system, what is known is the total amount of carbon emissions that will be allowed, and the price of carbon allowances is subject to market fluctuation. In addition to “getting the environment right,” a cap and trade system can be more politically acceptable than a new tax if emissions

E

305

allowances are distributed without cost to industry instead of auctioned. Either approach could be effective in mediating a globally just solution to the problem of climate change.

Limitations Only one of the global environmental problems noted above is on course to be solved in the coming decades, that being ozone depletion or the damage to the ozone layer of the Earth’s atmosphere caused principally by CFCs. Several features of the problem distinguish it from others, including the far more serious problem of climate change or disruption caused by greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation. The role of CFCs in the economies of the world is small, divisions within the industrial sector made room for agreement when a profitable substitute was envisioned, photographs of a hole opening in the ozone layer gave graphic evidence of the immediacy and magnitude of the problem, and the universality of human vulnerability to infrared radiation (which would no longer be blocked by the Earth’s protective ozone layer) created a perception of shared fate and common interest in swift and effective regulation. By contrast, the greenhouse gas producing fossil fuels that are primarily to blame for climate disruption are pervasively fundamental to the present world economy, environmentally acceptable substitutes are far harder to scale up without politically unacceptable investments, major industries remain opposed to meaningful action and spend lavishly on creating the appearance of scientific controversy, public opinion has not yet been catalyzed by undisputed indications of imminent harm, and the perception of common interest is undermined by significant asymmetries of affluence and vulnerability to the most imminent risks. Other problems of global environmental hazard and injustice will be similarly difficult to remediate without a concerted effort to strengthen public understanding, reduce global inequality, and address the underlying drivers of an exponentially expanding human ecological footprint.

Related Topics

▶ Bhopal Tragedy ▶ Biodiversity ▶ Carbon Tax ▶ Climate Change ▶ Deforestation ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Global Warming ▶ Greenpeace ▶ International Law ▶ Rio Declaration

E

306

E

Environmental Racism

▶ Stockholm Conference, 1972 ▶ Sustainable Development ▶ Water

References Bernie P, Boyle A (2002) International law and the environment. Oxford University Press, Oxford Chambers WB, Green JF (2005) Reforming international environmental governance. United Nations University Press, Tokyo Esty D, Ivanova M (2002) Global environmental governance: options and opportunities. Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, New Haven Gardner SM, Caney S, Jamieson D, Shue H (eds) (2010) Climate ethics: essential readings. Oxford University Press, New York National Research Council (2002) New tools for environmental protection. National Academies, Washington Roberts JT, Parks BC (2007) A climate of injustice: global inequality, north-south politics, and climate policy. MIT Press, Cambridge Speth JG, Haas PM (2006) Global environmental governance. Island Press, Washington

Environmental Racism STEVE VANDERHEIDEN Department of Political Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

The term environmental racism refers to actions or policies by public or private actors that disproportionately harm persons of color or disadvantaged racial groups. The term was coined with the 1987 United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice report “Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States,” which documented that hazardous waste facilities were far more likely to be sited in African American or Latino communities than in those primarily populated by whites, controlling for economic class. This and other empirical studies of the disparate impact of environmental policies and practices are credited with inspiring the environmental justice movement in the United States. While originally concerned only with domestic polluting facility siting decisions, it now refers to a wide variety of environmental harms that disproportionately impact persons and peoples on the basis of race or color, both domestically and internationally. Describing various phenomena as examples of environmental racism entails the controversial claim that racial bias is a contributing factor in what are well-documented and widespread cases of inequitably allocated environmental risk. Importantly, this

concentration of environmental hazards within communities of color need not be intentional in order to be seen as racist, since structural and institutional forms of racism can guide decisions in the absence of any conscious racist attitudes or beliefs on the part of relevant decision makers. For example, potential polluters often encounter less organized resistance to proposals for locating hazardous facilities in poor minority communities than they find in similarly poor white neighborhoods, as the result of lower levels of political efficacy associated with historical obstacles to political participation for members of such communities. Scholars also note cultural associations between historically disadvantaged racial groups and waste that further reinforce systemic tendencies to concentrate hazards within such communities. This allegation of racism implies an insidious link between a person’s racial identity and likelihood of exposure to environmental harm, where insulation from such hazards is viewed as an aspect of white privilege. For such reasons, the term is tendentious, but its implicit analysis of systemic as well as attitudinal racism is consistent with contemporary understandings of the manifold causes of ongoing racial inequality. More recently, the term has been applied to the international traffic in environmental hazards and the global allocation of environmental risk, as social scientists have documented similar patterns of disparate exposure to such hazards on the part of disadvantaged racial groups outside of the United States, as well. Along with nationstate levels of analysis, which show the world’s poorest countries as the recipients of disproportionate risk from resource depletion, pollution, and their associated hazards, evidence suggests that advantage and disadvantage compounded by race and color within both developed and developing countries. For example, scientists predict that poor communities of color in affluent countries like the United States are more vulnerable to climate change than are their white counterparts – a disparate vulnerability on vivid display in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans – and that members of disadvantaged racial groups are also more vulnerable to climate-related harm in developing countries like Brazil. For these reasons, the environmental justice movement has become more active around international and global environmental issues, calling for more equitable allocations of environmental risk among and between the world’s industrialized and developing nations. The conceptual link between manifestations of environmental racism and claims of injustice is straightforward. Persons should not be made more or less vulnerable to environmental risk as the result

Environmental Sustainability

of morally arbitrary attributes such as racial identity, it is argued, and such unequal exposure to risk is therefore unjust regardless of whether the result of intentional acts motivated by racial hatred or the unintended consequences of structures or systems that produce the same results without the deplorable motives. While it may be morally wrong to expose anyone to the sort of environmental risks that the environmental justice movement has called attention to as instances of environmental racism, it is also seen as unjust that such exposure would cluster within disadvantaged racial groups in the way that it has been shown to in empirical studies. According to this view, environmental risk that was equitably distributed across all social groups would lack this essential element of identity-based injustice around which the environmental justice movement has organized. This sort of group-based analysis reveals some tension that a normative program centered around allegations of environmental racism faces in contrast with ontologically individualistic forms of analysis. Some critics suggest that the goals of environmental justice are misguided in that they are essentially manifestations of NIMBY (for “not in my back yard”) efforts to displace the harm associated with pollution and resource depletion rather than comprehensive efforts to address the root causes of such environmental problems. Examples of successful environmental justice campaigns to relocate polluting facilities away from minority communities in the United States and into the “back yards” of even less powerful communities in Mexico have been invoked on behalf of such a critique. The real problem of environmental risk, such critics allege, is not in its distribution across racial groups but in its very existence, insofar as terms like environmental racism imply that mere dispersal of a fixed amount of harm more equitably among persons might be a requirement of justice. In fairness to those scholars and activists associated with the environmental justice movement and that write or speak of environmental racism, however, the NIMBY politics that were associated with early efforts to relocate hazardous waste facilities away from poor minority neighborhoods have largely been replaced with at least the rhetoric of pollution prevention and environmental sustainability. Nonetheless, the diagnosis of environmental racism depends upon a group-based analysis that purely individualistic theories of justice eschew, with the difference between the two views largely turning on the controversy over whether harm is experienced by individuals alone or also through membership in certain kinds of identity-based groups, whether based in race, color, gender, or some other characteristic.

E

307

Related Topics

▶ Democratic Equality ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Indigenous Peoples ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Multiculturalism ▶ Reparations ▶ Rights

References Agyeman J (2005) Sustainable communities and the challenge of environmental justice. NYU Press, New York Bullard R (ed) (1999) Confronting environmental racism: voices from the grassroots. South End Press, Boston Bullard R (2000) Dumping in Dixie: race, class, and environmental quality. Westview Press, Boulder Chavis B Jr, Lee C (1987) Toxic wastes and race in the United States. United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, New York Cole L, Foster S (2000) From the ground up: environmental racism and the rise of the environmental justice movement. NYU Press, New York Pellow DN (2004) Garbage wars: the struggle for environmental justice in Chicago. MIT Press, Cambridge Pulido L (1996) Environmentalism and economic justice: two Chicano struggles in the Southwest. University of Arizona Press, Tucson Schlosberg D (2002) Environmental justice and the new pluralism: the challenge of difference for environmentalism. Oxford University Press, New York

Environmental Regulations ▶ Environmental Protection

Environmental Sustainability RANDALL CURREN Department of Philosophy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

Environmental sustainability has largely overtaken the more traditional language of environmental conservation, which dates to the early decades of the twentieth century and the Progressive Era reform movement in the United States. “Conservation” has signified a responsible and efficient use of natural resources for human benefit, subject to public regulatory control and guided by a scientific understanding of resource development and environmental protection. Environmental conservation is conventionally

E

308

E

Environmental Sustainability

contrasted with environmental preservation, or the designation of wilderness areas, habitats, or species as protected from human exploitation. The linguistic and conceptual shift from environmental conservation to environmental sustainability has occurred in the context of a global sustainable development movement, and is evident in the World Conservation Union’s adoption of the language of sustainability between 1980 and 1991. The qualifier “sustainable” is often used to signify consistency with “preserving the productive capacities of natural ecosystems for future generations,” as it is in the phrase “sustainable development.” To say that something is sustainable in this sense is to say that it is environmentally sustainable, but references to environmental sustainability as such are less common than unqualified references to sustainability and references to one thing or another being sustainable. Environmental sustainability is best understood as a quality not of ecosystems (any more than environmental conservation is) but of human activities or practices, the aggregate of human activities or practices being environmentally sustainable if and only if it is compatible with the long-term stability and integrity of the ecosystems on which those human activities or practices fundamentally depend.

Measures of Environmental Sustainability The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI), developed by Daniel Esty (Esty et al. 2006), is compatible with some such definition, inasmuch as it incorporates 21 “indicators” of “resource management” and pollution control, such as forestry management and air quality. Sustainable resource management is understood to require withdrawals of “resources” from natural systems at or below the regenerative capacity of the systems and preservation of that capacity indefinitely into the future. Pollution control is similarly understood in connection with the limited capacity of ecosystems to absorb and clear wastes, and the damage to such capacity resulting from buildup of wastes that exceed its limits. On the basis of its component indicators, the ESI provides a comparative measure of national environmental performance and environmental best practices. Ecological Footprint Analysis is the best known of the measures designed to gauge whether the aggregate of human activities are in fact compatible with the long-term stability and integrity of the ecosystems on which the activities must depend over the long-term. It does this by comparing the global throughput or flow of natural resources from the environment, through human uses, and back to the environment as waste, with the aggregate

of biologically productive land and marine areas that would be required to produce that flow of resources and absorb those wastes. Dividing the former by the latter produces an estimate of the environmental sustainability of the global “human footprint.” The World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report 2008 placed human demands on living systems in its year of publication at about 130% of what is sustainable and projected those demands would reach 200% of what is sustainable by the mid-2030s. Other studies make similar projections.

Dimensions and Drivers of Environmental Unsustainability The human ecological footprint may be regarded as a measure of systemic social and economic risk, manifested in the depletion of accumulated products of past ecosystem activity – such as soil, groundwater aquifers, and fossil fuels – and impairment of the natural systems that provide ecosystem services. The term “ecosystem services” refers to such supporting, provisioning, and regulating “services” as nutrient cycling and clearing of wastes; soil formation; production of food, fresh water, materials and fuels; climate and flood regulation. The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a comprehensive set of reports sponsored by the UN Foundation, documented the threats to these “services” and found that 60% of the world’s ecosystems are being “degraded or used unsustainably.” The leading threats to these ecosystems include climate disruption, which is already responsible for an estimated 150,000 deaths per year, the decline of forests in the Western US and glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas that are critical to water availability, rising ocean levels, stronger storms, shifting rain patterns, ocean acidification that threatens marine life, and temporal and geographic fragmentation of ecosystems resulting from species-specific responses to earlier springs and other manifestations of generally higher temperatures. These rapidly unfolding consequences of rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gasses interact in generally detrimental ways with other dimensions of ecosystem decline: deforestation, desertification or the loss of 50 million acres of farmland each year, declining freshwater availability that contributes to about one billion people being without clean drinking water, a 90% decline in ocean fish populations since the advent of industrial-scale deep water fishing in the 1950s, the global reach of toxic pollution, run-off of nitrogen yielding ocean “dead zones,” and biodiversity loss that may entail the extinction of half of all species in a matter of decades.

Equality

The mediating causes of ecosystem decline may be distinguished from the fundamental drivers of such decline. The fundamental drivers are widely acknowledged to be human population growth and growing per capita resource use. This is expressed, though to some extent masked, by the so-called IPAT equation: Environmental Impact = Population  Affluence  Technology. Representing per capita resource use as a function of affluence and technology, or the resource intensity of affluence, is helpful in drawing attention to the urgency of “dematerializing” the global economy as much as possible, while raising the living standards and life prospects of the worst off. It is misleading, however, to the extent that it suggests the possibility of achieving a rate of conversion to more efficient technologies that would allow global economic growth to continue along a semblance of the current path. The significance of environmental sustainability for human well-being is increasingly acknowledged, but attempts at coordinated global action to address the underlying problems have so far failed and the problems have grown increasingly urgent. Any legitimate attempt at such coordination must come to terms with fundamental matters of global justice, and it is not implausible to believe it must rethink the terms of global economic relations if it is to have a reasonable prospect of averting calamity.

Related Topics

▶ Biodiversity ▶ Climate Change ▶ Deforestation ▶ Environmental Protection ▶ Global Warming ▶ Land Ethic ▶ Sustainable Development ▶ Water

References Dodds W (2008) Humanity’s footprint: momentum, impact, and our global environment. Columbia University Press, New York Esty DC et al (2006) Pilot 2006 environmental performance index. Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, New Haven, http://www. yale.edu/epi Norton B (2005) Sustainability: a philosophy of adaptive ecosystem management. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Speth JG (2008) The bridge at the edge of the world: capitalism, the environment, and crossing from crisis to sustainability. Yale University Press, New Haven UN Foundation (2005) The millennium ecosystem assessment (summary with links). UN Foundation, Geneva, http://www.unfoundation.org/ features/millenium_ecosystem_assessment.asp

E

309

Wackernagel M, Rees W (1996) Our ecological footprint. New Society, Gabriola Island World Wildlife Fund (2008) Living planet report 2008. WWF International, Gland, http://www.worldwildlife.org

Equality ALEXANDER SAGER Department of Philosophy, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

People mean different things when they refer to equality. Especially in the global context, the question raises a host of complex and competing claims. This entry briefly examines moral and political equality. It then turns to questions of equality of condition.

Moral and Political Equality Moral equality entitles every human being to equal consideration. Equal treatment is the norm unless there is a morally relevant reason to depart from it. In particular, moral equality forbids most discrimination due to a person’s gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability. Theorists dispute the respects in which every person deserves equal consideration and what this entails, but few people today defend elitist or hierarchical views of moral worth. Political equality is closely tied to democracy and typically guarantees citizens an equal right to vote and run for office, as well as rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and habeas corpus. Majoritarians support the “one-voter, one-vote” principle and maintain that the demands of political equality are met by majority rule. Advocates of proportional voting contend that political equality requires the representation of the whole population so that minorities also have a fair say. Representative democrats argue that the election of officials is all that is needed for political equality; participatory democrats protest that political equality falls short unless ordinary citizens play a direct role in the formation of policy and decision making. Other controversies involve the extent to which material equality (e.g., equality of wealth) is necessary to guarantee political equality. Of particular interest with regard to global justice are questions about the scope of political equality. Political equality is currently realized in the context of the state. In the international sphere, states are the principal actors and

E

310

E

Equality

(in theory) represent their population in international bodies such as the UN. Recent work on democracy questions the adequacy of this arrangement as political and economic globalization weakens aspects of state sovereignty. If processes beyond people’s control affect their lives, serious questions arise concerning the legitimacy and accountability of international and transnational organizations and institutions. Some academics and activists contend that indirect representation through one’s state is insufficient and have called for a form of cosmopolitan democracy in which people around the world directly elect representatives in international bodies.

Equality of Condition Equality of condition is a form of distributive equality: Who ought to receive what? Egalitarians hold that in some circumstances, it is morally significant that some people have more or less than others. This distinguishes egalitarianism from accounts that give priority to the worst off. Prioritarianism gives added value to goods given to the worst-off members of society. It is not comparative in the sense that egalitarianism is; once we identify the worst off person or persons, then we should give added weight to redistributions favoring these people. Egalitarianism also differs from accounts that focus on sufficiency. Sufficientarianism holds that comparisons between people do not matter; rather, it is important that everybody’s share of goods exceeds a certain threshold. Priority and sufficiency demand the redistribution of goods under some circumstances, but deny that comparative judgments are necessary to know when and how much to redistribute. Equality can be an intrinsic good or it can derive from some other good. Some egalitarians believe that the brute fact that some people have less than others through no fault of their own is unfair. Equality is the default position, and distributions that depart from equality without a morally relevant reason are bad. This usually includes “natural inequalities,” inequalities that occur independently of people’s choices or institutional arrangements. Those who can alleviate undeserved inequalities ought to do so. Other egalitarian accounts derive equality from what they consider more basic values such as respect, autonomy, or welfare. It is not equality itself that is important, but rather the effect of inequalities on a more basic value. For example, utilitarians have argued that the principle of diminishing marginal utility (i.e., the utility gained from each additional good decreases as the quantity of goods increases) usually leads us to favor equal divisions of

goods. Other theorists have pointed to the connection between liberty and equality. Inequality can lead to unequal power relations and domination. If the poorer segments of the population cannot access the best universities or effectively participate in the political process, then they have fewer real options. Accounts that deny equality is an intrinsic good are committed to holding that under some circumstances, non-egalitarian distributions are superior. Another question concerns the metric of egalitarianism. What ought we to distribute? Economists have carried out much of the work on equality and generally assume that the relevant metric is income or wealth. (A notable exception is the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index; it takes into account life expectancy and literacy as well as GDP per capita.) The problem with using income or wealth as the metric is they are merely indicators of something more fundamental. For example, people with higher incomes are normally better able to meet their needs. Leading alternative candidates include welfare, utility, resources, opportunity, John Rawls’ primary goods, and capabilities, as well as combinations of these goods (e.g., equal opportunity for welfare). There is no widespread agreement on which of these candidates best serves as the egalitarian metric. It may be that more than one metric is needed to fully allow people to flourish. It is also possible that most of these alternatives in practice support similar policies and that what is needed is more attention to how less lofty goods and services (e.g., money, health care, education, etc.) tend to make people’s lives better.

Objections to Equality People have challenged egalitarianism on many grounds. First, some theorists reject the redistribution of goods altogether. Libertarians who support strong private property rights hold that as long as people acquire their holdings through a fair procedure (e.g., labor and trade), morality does not require redistribution. The coercive redistribution of property on egalitarian grounds violates people’s rights. Egalitarians can counter that since libertarians support some redistribution of wealth to uphold the judiciary and police necessary to enforce property rights, property rights are not absolute. This provides a foothold for justifying more sweeping redistributions. For example, they can query the effect of an economic system in which goods only change hands through individual, voluntary transactions. Given that real markets involve imperfect and asymmetrical information and that human beings fall

Equality

short of the ideal of economic rationality, it is unlikely that this will lead to a distribution that best promotes liberty. Some people will acquire far more property and limit the opportunities of others, curtailing their liberty. Arguably, what people care about is not simply freedom from external interference with their choices (negative liberty), but also want to be able to realize their plans (positive liberty). If this is the case, people who care about liberty should support at least some degree of equality. Second, most egalitarians primarily object to undeserved inequalities. If someone has less because she has acted irresponsibly or unwisely, it is unfair that others have to compensate her for her poor choices. The emphasis on responsibility has led some theorists to argue that we can better explain our egalitarian intuitions with a principle of desert: People should receive what they deserve; if they are equally deserving, they should receive equal rewards. Egalitarians can respond that basing distributions entirely on desert assumes a rather harsh view of personal responsibility. People may have less than others because as young adults, they forwent an opportunity to attend university, turned down a stable job to become unsuccessful entrepreneurs, or neglected to purchase health insurance. Egalitarians argue that in all of these cases, there is some reason for redistribution, though this is not the only relevant consideration. Equality is one of many ideals, including liberty, utility, and desert, but it should play a role in how we judge distributions. Third, though sufficiency theorists agree with egalitarians that redistribution is necessary, they deny that equality itself is important. Rather, what matters is that everyone has enough. For example, imagine two neighbors, a billionaire and a multimillionaire. Surely, sufficiency theorists conclude, there is no moral case for redistribution here if they came by their fortunes honestly. The comparative judgment that the billionaire has more does not affect the goodness of the situation. Priority theorists make a similar point: What motivates us is compassion for the worst off people’s situation, not a comparative judgment that they are worse off than others. Egalitarians respond first by pointing out that this ignores the possibility of positional goods whose value is sensitive to how much other people possess. For example, increasing the number of people with access to higher education can make people with a high school diploma worse off than they would be if these opportunities didn’t exist. Second, egalitarians appeal to a deep intuition of fairness: Though the lives of people with less may go well, it is unfair that their lives go less well than the lives of

E

311

others who are similarly situated. For example, if two equally productive lawyers with similar experience and responsibilities receive a different salary, this is unfair even if they are both well-off.

The Scope of Equality of Condition How far does equality extend? A chasm separates the North and South with regard to wealth, health, life expectancy, opportunity, and well-being. Hundreds of millions of people live in absolute poverty, unable to secure what they need for a minimally decent life. They lack sufficient food, shelter, clean drinking water, vaccines, primary education, and other essential goods. Many more people around the globe do not suffer absolute poverty, but are still significantly poorer than most members of the poorest quintile in the developed world. Do these inequalities matter morally? Perhaps the simplest egalitarian view is a form of consequentialism with global scope that considers equality an intrinsic good. Under this view, if we were to discover a civilization of moral agents on another planet where people have less than we do through no fault of their own, we would be compelled to hold that this is a bad thing. Intuitions about this scenario differ, but critics have objected that it is hard to see why this inequality is morally bad if no one caused it. This raises a question of theoretical and practical import: Who is responsible for addressing inequalities? If we respond that anyone who is better off is able to redistribute goods to those who have less, then we need to explain why these people have a duty to redress inequalities that they did not cause. A practical problem also arises: Unless we know who owes whom what, it is hard to imagine how we can achieve a fair distribution; there is not enough information to allocate goods where needed. The existence of a state which institutionalizes rules for redistribution helps resolve this problem. This creates a problem for egalitarianism at a global level. Indeed, some theorists argue that egalitarianism applies only within the confines of the state. Some hold that the demand for equality only occurs under a fair system of social cooperation which they believe occurs within the state, but not globally. Others have appealed to the existence of shared institutions or interdependent social relations. Still other theorists have drawn attention to the importance of justifying state coercion: Egalitarianism is necessary to justify to citizens the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Advocates of global egalitarian principles respond that globalization has led to the creation of institutions and levels of social cooperation, interdependence, and coercion

E

312

E

Essential Medicines, Access to

sufficient to ground egalitarian principles. Others theorists have argued that the structure of global institutions actually harms the global poor: They are poorer than they would be under alternative global institutions. This harm is sufficient to ground egalitarianism on a global level.

Related Topics

▶ Absolute Poverty ▶ Basic Needs ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Citizenship ▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Libertarianism

References Arneson R (1993) Equality. In: Goodin R, Pettit P (eds) A companion to contemporary political philosophy. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 489–507 Clayton C, Williams A (eds) (2000) The ideal of equality. Macmillan Press Ltd. and St. Martin’s Press, Inc, London Crisp R (2003) Equality, priority, and compassion. Ethics 133:745–763 Held D (1995) Democracy and the global order: from the modern state to cosmopolitan governance. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto McKerlie D (1996) Equality. Ethics 106:274–296 Nagel T (1991) Equality and partiality. Oxford University Press, Oxford Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state, and utopia. Basic Books, New York Pogge T (2008) World poverty and human rights, 2nd edn. Polity Press, Malden Rawls J (1999) A theory of justice, Revised Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Sen A (1992) Inequality reexamined. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Temkin L (1993) Inequality. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Essential Medicines, Access to ALEXANDRA E. GEORGE Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Essential medicines are critical pharmaceutical preparations that prevent, treat, or cure diseases that potentially affect the majority of the world’s population. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines “essential medicines” as those that “satisfy the priority health care

needs of the population.” In practical terms, these are pharmaceuticals – including vaccines, oral medications, and topical preparations – that treat or cure preventable diseases, or that extend or improve the lives of patients afflicted with illnesses such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/ AIDS, cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Increasing access to essential medicines is a major goal of many organizations working to promote global justice. It is estimated that around one third of the people on earth lack access to essential medicines, with over half of people in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia falling into this group. Each year, an estimated ten million people around the world die from diseases that could be treated by existing medicines. The movement for access to essential medicines is concerned with closing the “access gap,” alleviating social inequality, and improving global justice by making these medicines available to all those who need them. Organizations that are working toward this end include charities such as Me´dicins Sans Frontie`res, Oxfam and Save the Children, universities and university-based organizations such as Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, international organizations such as the WHO and the European Union, governments, and pharmaceutical companies. These parties have differing attitudes as to the best solution to the problem of providing access to essential medicines. Charities and developing country governments tend to argue that a strong generic pharmaceutical industry is the best method of promoting access to essential medicines, while the largest pharmaceutical companies and their industry representative organizations prefer a strong patent system offset by price discount programs. These measures are outlined below. Since 1977, the WHO has published a Model List of Essential Medicines. This catalogs pharmaceuticals that the WHO recommends should always be available to all people in adequate quantities and in the correct dosages. It includes treatment options for priority diseases, which the WHO selects according to criteria including the prevalence of the disease, the safety and efficacy of the medicine, and its cost-effectiveness compared to alternative treatments. The list is updated every 2 years, and it currently names over 350 preparations as essential medicines. Around 5% of the drugs on the WHO’s Model List of Essential Medicines are covered by patents. Various factors affect access to essential medicines, with poverty often lying at the heart of the problem. The ability to distribute medicines throughout a population or for patients to travel to places where medicines are available may be limited by logistical factors such as poor roads and transport. Inadequate medical infrastructure such as poorly resourced clinics and hospitals and/or insufficient

Essential Medicines, Access to

trained medical personnel and pharmacists can exacerbate problems of making essential medicines accessible to a population, as can political factors such as civil unrest and war. Natural disasters like floods and droughts can likewise limit the ability of people to obtain essential medicines. Lack of access to essential medicines is therefore a problem that is often heightened by other social problems that produce and/or result from poverty and inequity. Compounding the effects of these problems, a key determinant of whether or not people are likely to have access to essential medicines is the cost of those products. The more expensive a pharmaceutical, the less likely it is that widespread access to that medicine will occur. Patents are widely criticized as a factor that artificially increases the prices of medicines, while generic medicines are hailed as a method of softening the harsher effects of patents and increasing access to global justice.

Patents and Generic Medicines Patents provide time-limited monopolies to use novel inventions that are registered by a state-run patent office, and one of the factors that influences the cost of medicines is the “royalty” payment that is built into the price of medicines containing patented ingredients. Monopoly conditions and the royalty payments that patent holders usually demand in return for licensing use of their rights to other manufacturers tend to push the cost of medicines above their cost of production. This premium cost is justified on the grounds that the monopoly provided by patents compensates those who invest in the uncertain research and development that lead to the discovery of the medicine, in expensive pre-clinical and clinical trials, and in obtaining approvals from national regulatory authorities to sell the medicine. In practice, the cost of the medicine also includes recovery of the investment in marketing the pharmaceutical and educating medical personnel about its use. These factors can greatly increase the price of a pharmaceutical, and they are costs that need not be borne by competitors (such as generic manufacturers) who subsequently enter the market selling identical copies of an existing medicine. Thus, a fundamental justification for patents is that there would be a general lack of investment in new medicines if not for the limited-term monopoly provided by the patent system. Proponents argue that nondevelopment of new pharmaceuticals in the first place would more adversely affect the goal of achieving global justice than having the drugs distributed, albeit at higher prices than are affordable to everyone. The patent system allows investors to recoup their costs and perhaps profit from their investment, thus

E

providing a greater incentive to invest in pharmaceutical research than would occur under free market conditions. With only a relatively small percentage of potential medicines ever passing beyond the trial phases and obtaining regulatory approval for sale, it is also argued that the patent system allows successful medicines to subsidize investment in those that never reach the market. Again, proponents argue that this serves the ends of global justice. Thus, while it is generally accepted that royalty payments increase the cost of patented pharmaceuticals and play a role in limiting access to essential medicines, it is also argued that, but for the patent system and the potential it provides for returns on investments during timelimited monopoly periods, fewer new medicines would be developed and placed on the market. From this perspective, it is argued that the nondevelopment or delayed development of medicines would have an even greater negative impact on access to essential medicines than does the patent framework. In this sense, the patenting of pharmaceuticals is said to help create conditions in which global justice is eventually more likely to be achieved. An additional criticism of the patent system is that the largest amounts of investment in pharmaceutical research and development go toward finding remedies for the diseases of the wealthy, who can pay more for their medicines, leaving remedies for diseases that are more prevalent in poorer communities being less researched. This is known as the “research gap,” and it is also criticized for its negative impact on the pursuit of global justice. The WHO, for example, expresses concern about neglected tropical diseases. Although these diseases afflict over one billion people (one in six people on earth), they are concentrated among the poorest of the world’s population, raising serious concerns of global justice. The WHO reports that these people often live in isolated rural communities, urban slums, or in areas afflicted by conflict. These people typically have little political voice, and their diseases tend to attract less attention in public health priorities. Inequality would thus seem to compound inequality, often on a global scale. The illnesses of the marginalized are often neglected tropical diseases that represent another aspect of the wider problem of lack of access to essential medicines. Paradoxically, the fact that these tropical diseases predominantly afflict the world’s poor may be evidence that the potential profits underpinned by the patent system do in fact increase access to medicines, despite the higher prices that they generally lead to during the patent term. The patent system therefore presents a conundrum. Without patents, fewer new pharmaceuticals may be

313

E

314

E

Essential Medicines, Access to

produced, and they may take longer to be developed. However, with patents, many medicines are too expensive to be obtained by those who need them. Finding ways of ameliorating the costs of essential medicines through measures additional to the patent system may be the most politically achievable method of adjusting the system to help improve access to essential medicines and promote global justice. Generic medicines offer a partial solution. Generic medicines are those that are not covered by patent law in a particular jurisdiction (in contrast to those covered by patents, which are often referred to as “proprietary medicines” or “brand-name medicines”), and “generics” are typically far less expensive than proprietary medicines. Pharmaceuticals may be generic either because they did not meet the criteria for patentability, their inventors chose not to apply for a patent in a jurisdiction, a jurisdiction did not offer a patent system, or their patent has expired. While only a patent-holder or its licensee may manufacture and sell patented products, generic medicines may be made by anyone without the inventor or original patent holder’s permission. In jurisdictions in which the patent is registered, the period between a new medicine being released and becoming affordable may be two decades or more. Without the monopolies provided by patents, competition underpinned by market forces drives down the cost of medicines. However, patents only apply in jurisdictions in which they have been registered. Generic manufacturers have traditionally marketed their products in jurisdictions in which a pharmaceutical was not patented or in which the patent has expired. If they were to market them in jurisdictions in which the patent was registered, they could be sued for patent infringement.

The TRIPS Agreement 1994 Until the 1990s, some countries opted to remain outside the patent system or did not offer patents over pharmaceuticals, meaning medicines that were patented in some jurisdictions were generic in others. However, the implementation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in 1994 increased the national obligations of World Trade Organization (WTO) member states – currently numbering 153 – to implement and enforce medical patents. With around 85% of the world’s population living in WTO member states, the freedom of governments to opt to provide little or no patent protection for medicines has been constrained. Developing countries initially had 10 years from TRIPS’ implementation in 1995 in which to comply with

its requirements and, to alleviate concerns about injustice, this period was subsequently extended until 1 January 2016 for the least developed states. Critics argue that TRIPS has nonetheless limited access to essential medicines for some of the world’s poorest populations and thus compromised global justice. In addition to TRIPS, the conclusion of bilateral agreements such as “Free Trade Agreements” (often referred to as FTAs) can lead to increased levels of patent protection – known as “TRIPS-plus” requirements – giving individual nations even less flexibility to refuse to register or enforce pharmaceutical patents. An example of a TRIPS-plus provision is patent term extension, whereby pharmaceutical companies can be compensated for lengthy delays in obtaining marketing approval by extensions beyond the usual 20-year TRIPS mandated minimum patent term.

Compulsory Licensing One approach taken in various jurisdictions to minimize the negative impact that patent law may have on access to essential medicines and global justice is “compulsory licensing.” Compulsory licensing occurs when a nation – either by direct governmental action (such as a presidential decree or the passing of legislation by parliament) or as a result of the judicial application of rules established under existing patent law – grants licenses to a party or parties other than the patent holder to produce, import and/or distribute patented inventions. Licensees typically have to pay royalties determined by the government or court, which are usually a fraction of the royalties that would otherwise be charged by the patent holder. Compulsory licensing provisions are found in the patent laws of many countries, developed and developing alike. They are provided for in TRIPS, although Article 31(f) requires that the production of medicines under compulsory licenses must be to serve predominantly the domestic market in the manufacturing country. A 1998 dispute between the pharmaceutical industry and the South African government was arguably the first high-profile case concerning access to essential medicines in a post-TRIPS environment. The country’s postapartheid government sought to improve access to essential medicines for poorer South Africans by passing legislation allowing for the compulsory licensing of HIV-AIDS medicines. The goal was to allow for the import or local manufacture of low-cost generic copies of antiretroviral drugs to treat the 4.7 million (one in nine) South Africans who were HIV-positive or already had AIDS. However, this law was challenged in the High Court of South Africa by a group of plaintiffs comprising 39 pharmaceutical

Essential Medicines, Access to

companies and the South African Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. This group argued that the law was unconstitutional and violated the TRIPS Agreement. The first defendant was the South African president Nelson Mandela, and other government officials were also sued. The European Commission and the United States (US) government supported the plaintiffs’ action, with some members of the US Congress seeking to restrict foreign aid to South Africa, withhold trade benefits and threaten sanctions. The case attracted a strong backlash against the plaintiffs. For example, in February 2001, activists protesting against the case occupied the New York offices of plaintiff pharmaceutical company Glaxo Smith Kline. The plaintiff companies were portrayed as being motivated by greed at the expense of an impoverished population’s ability to access to essential medicines. Mandela appealed to principles of global justice and condemned pharmaceutical companies for exploiting the poverty of developing countries by charging exorbitant prices that an ordinary HIV/AIDS sufferer could not afford. The plaintiffs withdrew their case in April 2001. The importance of compulsory licensing for the provision of essential medicines in developing nations has since been reaffirmed by the “Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health,” adopted by the WTO Ministerial Conference on 14 November 2001. This Declaration reiterates the flexibility of WTO member states under the TRIPS Agreement to improve access to essential medicines by circumventing patents through the issuance of compulsory licenses or other measures to promote public health, particularly in cases of national emergency (which it defines as including public health crises such as HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other epidemics). Paragraph 4 of the Declaration declares that member states should not be prevented from taking measures to protect public health because of the TRIPS Agreement, and confirms that member states should implement TRIPS in a manner that protects public health and promotes access to medicines for everyone. Paragraph 5(b) then clarifies that member states have the right to grant compulsory licenses over essential medicines, and that they may themselves determine the conditions in which such licenses will be granted. These terms were reaffirmed in 2005 by a further WTO Ministerial Declaration, which expanded flexibility under Article 31(f) of TRIPS through a waiver allowing medicines produced under compulsory licenses to be imported by countries lacking their own domestic capacity to manufacture pharmaceuticals. The 2005 Declaration also proposed that these terms be adopted as a permanent

E

amendment to TRIPS. Such amendment requires ratification by two thirds of WTO members. Until this number is achieved, the existing waiver remains in force. Compulsory licenses have been employed by several countries seeking to increase access to essential medicines. In November 2006, Thailand’s Ministry of Health issued a compulsory license for the antiretroviral efavirenz, used to treat HIV-AIDS patients. The following year, the Thai Ministry issued two additional compulsory licenses covering the antiretroviral lopinavir/ritonavir and a medicine for treating cardiovascular conditions, clopidogrel bisulfate. These licenses authorized Thailand’s national pharmaceutical organization to import generic versions of the drugs from Indian manufacturers to allow greater access to these essential medicines via the country’s National Health Security scheme. In doing so, the government effectively circumvented the higher prices charged by the local patent holders. In May 2007, Brazil also issued a compulsory license to allow government use of the antiretroviral drug, efavirenz. Although the compulsory licenses issued by Thai and Brazilian authorities complied with TRIPS requirements, they attracted condemnation and threats of trade retaliation by some governments and pharmaceutical companies. This promoted vocal concern about the injustice of the World Trade Organization instigating a game whose rules seem to shift when the weakest global players seek to rely on them.

Narrow Patentability Criteria Another measure taken by some countries to try to ensure greater access to essential medicines for their populations is the implementation of restrictive patentability criteria within the parameters established by TRIPS. India provides a high-profile example. India traditionally did not award patents for medicines, thus providing the conditions for a thriving local pharmaceutical industry. In this context, many of the world’s generic medicines were manufactured in India, which produced generic pharmaceuticals for domestic consumption as well as export. Following the implementation of TRIPS in 1995, India had a 10 year transitional period during which it was required to introduce TRIPS compliant laws. The transitional period expired on 1 January 2005, following which India’s TRIPS obligations have required it to provide recognition for pharmaceutical patents. The country introduced new patent legislation in 2006, however it has utilized the discretion permitted under TRIPS to recognize as patentable a more restricted category of pharmaceutical inventions than are registrable in many other jurisdictions.

315

E

316

E

Essential Medicines, Access to

For example, under the new Indian law, only completely novel pharmaceutical preparations can be patented, thus excluding the practice of “evergreening” pharmaceuticals (i.e., the effective extension of a patent monopoly that is close to expiry by filing for a patent over a slightly altered pharmaceutical that does not offer improved clinical effectiveness). Moreover, pre-grant oppositions permit anyone to challenge a proposed patent prior to it being awarded, and the new law contains a “grandfather clause” that allows Indian manufacturers of generic medicines to continue to produce pharmaceuticals that they had been marketing prior to its implementation. In May 2006, India’s narrow approach to the patentability of medicines was challenged by pharmaceutical company Novartis, attracting outrage from proponents of global justice. Under the anti-evergreening provisions, the Indian patent office rejected a patent application for a cancer drug marketed as Gleevec on the basis that it was a new form of an existing medicine. Novartis sued the Indian government in the Chennai High Court, arguing that India’s new patent law conflicted with the country’s TRIPS obligations. The case provoked condemnation of Novartis by European Union and US parliamentarians, with nearly half a million signatures collected on a petition and statements in support of the Indian approach from high-profile individuals such as South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and authors Naomi Klein and John Le Carre´. Novartis nonetheless persisted with its legal action, which it lost in August 2007. The case thus upheld India’s narrow approach toward pharmaceutical patentability, arguably setting a global precedent and offering reassurance to developing countries that rely on India to obtain generic medicines for their people. The strong backlash against Novartis also indicated the strength of feeling amongst diverse interests that believe that global justice can be promoted by allowing developing countries to adopt narrow patent systems that strike a compromise between monopoly-rewards for pharmaceutical companies and greater access to essential medicines for their populations.

Price Discount Programs Large pharmaceutical companies tend to argue that price discount schemes offer a more effective method of providing access to essential medicines and promoting global justice than do measures such as compulsory licensing and/or narrow patentability criteria. Price discount programs are operated voluntarily by pharmaceutical companies, which engage in price discrimination determined by the capacity of a population in a particular market to afford medicines. These

programs – also referred to as tiered, differential or preferential pricing – involve pharmaceutical companies setting different prices for different markets. They charge higher prices in wealthier countries, and these effectively subsidize lower prices for medicines in developing countries. Like donations of medicines from wealthier governments in the form of foreign aid, price discount schemes may be seen as a form of charity. The main criticism of price discount schemes is that they are operated at the discretion of pharmaceutical companies, which can withdraw or limit aid programs regardless of the needs of patients who could not afford to buy the medicines at standard market prices. The schemes can be relied upon by patients and governments but, if they are withdrawn or prices are raised, patients can be left unable to afford to continue using the medicines. Aid organizations have therefore criticized price discount schemes as being unreliable, short-term solutions. Where the schemes operate at a loss in a particular market, they are also criticized for being unsustainable and anti-competitive as competitors may be unable to afford to enter a market in such an environment. The other main criticisms of price discount schemes relate to business decisions on the part of pharmaceutical companies: sometimes the schemes are offered in jurisdictions in which a pharmaceutical has not been approved for sale, meaning it is not actually available to patients there; sometimes they are not offered in the countries where they are most acutely needed; and sometimes medicines have been offered at lower prices to aid agencies than to developing country governments trying to supply the pharmaceuticals to the same populations. Thus, while price discount schemes may be better than nothing, and may be very effective for temporary crisis management, aid agencies have criticized them as being a less satisfactory method of offering access to essential medicines than a strong generic pharmaceutical industry. When the stakes are so high, and the prize for implementing ways of making essential medicines available to those who need them is potentially the longevity and health of millions of people, price discount programs are arguably a welcome but insufficient measure.

Parallel Importation Parallel importation occurs when goods that are sold cheaply in one jurisdiction are imported into another jurisdiction, where they undercut equivalent branded (trademarked) products from local manufacturers. This is a risk that pharmaceutical companies face when operating price discount schemes – the fear is that they will sell their products cheaply in a developing country only to

Essential Medicines, Access to

find them imported into wealthier markets where the discounted medicines undercut more expensive pharmaceuticals. An equivalent problem can occur when cheap generic medicines are produced under compulsory licenses for developing country markets, only to find their way into other markets where they compete with more expensive patented products. Parallel importation is legal in some jurisdictions, but not in others, and it remains a controversial practice. Even focusing on arguments about whether parallel importation operates to maximize global justice, there are competing views. One the one hand, parallel importation undermines the market segregation measures that enable pharmaceutical companies to provide discounted medicines to the world’s poorest people, sell relatively cheap, basic products in other developing countries, and market more expensive products – sometimes with better quality ingredients or additional beneficial properties – in wealthier markets. This acts as a disincentive for pharmaceutical companies to provide price discount programs. On the other hand, not all the world’s poor live in developing countries and even middle-class people may be unable to afford pharmaceuticals that are not subsidized by governments or insurance companies in wealthier countries. Making price discounted medicines available to needy people in one jurisdiction but not in another may seem arbitrary and unjust to patients seeking treatment. Particularly in jurisdictions that do not provide their populations with access to government-subsidized medicines, parallel importation may be the only legal way for people to gain access to pharmaceuticals to treat their illnesses. The issue of parallel importation has been addressed by governments in several jurisdictions that have subsequently introduced import restrictions to prevent such practices from undermining price discount programs and the generic production of medicines for developing countries. For example, in 2003 the European Union introduced law to prevent discounted medicines intended for developing markets from being sold within the European Union, and similar rules prevent generic medicines produced under compulsory licenses in developing countries from being imported into the European Union. Where the governments of the countries introducing such laws provide comprehensive schemes by which their own populations can access essential medicines (and are therefore not denied access themselves by the prohibition of parallel importation), such measures may contribute to global justice by minimizing the impact of parallel importation that detracts from price discount schemes intended to enhance access to essential medicines for the world’s poorest people.

E

317

Health Impact Fund A model for improving access to essential medicines that is increasingly gaining support among commentators and nongovernmental organizations is the proposal to establish an internationally supported fund that would compensate pharmaceutical companies for making available cheap medicines that have a positive impact on health worldwide. The Health Impact Fund (HIF) proposed by Yale University philosophy professor Thomas Pogge and University of Calgary economist Aidan Hollis would be funded mainly by contributions from governments around the world and would provide a new source of funding for essential medicines. Pharmaceutical companies would be able to register particular drugs with HIF and, in return for selling these products at cost price, would receive payment from HIF commensurate with the health impact of their product. When the proposal was launched in 2008, it was suggested that US$6 billion per annum would need to be raised from international contributions, which would then be distributed proportionally to pharmaceutical companies in accordance with the health impacts of the medicines they registered under the scheme. The HIF would therefore work alongside existing methods of addressing the problem of access to essential medicines, supplementing the patent system by providing a new way in which pharmaceutical companies could be compensated for providing their drugs in markets that it would not otherwise be profitable for them to enter. HIF’s long-term goal would be to provide a new incentive for pharmaceutical companies to engage in research leading to useful medicines by offering a new source of funding for medicines and, in doing so, help bring about greater global justice.

The Future Solving the problem of lack of access to essential medicines will be neither fast nor easy. The issues are complicated by vested interests and the politics of international trade. Resolving them may require goodwill from those wealthier parties who stand to lose from the compromises that are often involved in programs aimed at improving distributive justice globally. One measure that may assist is the WHO’s “Global Strategy and Plan of Action for Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property.” Established in 2008, this seeks new financing mechanisms for medical treatments of the future, meanwhile supporting countries that use trade flexibilities to provide essential medicines to their populations. The launch of the Health Impact Fund (or a similar funding model) would also be likely to alleviate the problem of access to essential

E

318

E

Ethical Foreign Policy

medicines in relation to the most widely needed pharmaceuticals and, in time, encourage further investment in therapeutic drugs to treat illnesses suffered primarily by the world’s poor. It is to be hoped that these initiatives, combined with fair exploitation of the various measures outlined above, will help to promote a more just outcome in which essential medicines are increasingly accessible to all those who need them globally.

Related Topics

▶ Bioprospecting and Biopiracy ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Doha Declaration ▶ European Union (EU) ▶ Foreign Aid ▶ Free Trade ▶ General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) ▶ Globalization ▶ Health and Health Care ▶ Intellectual Property Rights ▶ Organ Trafficking ▶ Owning Life ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Poverty ▶ Property Rights ▶ Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property ▶ World Trade Organization (WTO)

References Barry C, Pogge T (eds) (2005) Global institutions and responsibilities: achieving global justice. Blackwell, Oxford Banerjee A, Hollis A, Pogge T (2010) The health impact fund: incentives for improving access to medicines. Lancet 375:166–169 Fayerman JJ (2004) The spirit of TRIPS and the importation of medicines made under compulsory license after the August 2003 TRIPS council Agreement, 25 NW. J Int Law Bus 257:264 Gupta V (2005) A mathematical approach to benefit-detriment analysis as a solution to compulsory licensing of pharmaceuticals under the TRIPS agreement, 13 Cardozo. J Int Comp Law 631:659 Hollis A, Ibbott P (2006) How parallel trade affects drug policies and prices in Canada and the United States. Am J Law Med 32:193–217 Mack E, Schramm M, Klasen S, Pogge T (eds) (2009) Absolute poverty and global justice: empirical data – moral theories – realizations. Ashgate, London Outterson K (2006) Patent buy-outs for global disease innovations for law- and middle-income countries. Am J Law Med 32:159 Outterson K (2005) Pharmaceutical arbitrage: balancing access and innovation in international prescription drug markets. Yale J Health Policy Law Ethics 5:193–291 Pogge T, Rimmer M, Rubenstein K (eds) (2010) Incentives for global public health: patent law and access to essential medicines. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Ragavan S (2006) The first ten years of the TRIPS agreement: of the inequals of the Uruguay round. 10 Marq Intell Prop Law Rev 273:278 Selgelid M, Pogge T (2010) Health rights. Ashgate, Farnham/Burlington Singer P (2008) Tuberculosis or hair loss? The Guardian [Internet]. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/ sep/16/health.pharmaceuticals Stiglitz J (2006) Scrooge and intellectual property rights. BMJ 333(7582):1279–1280 World Health Organization (2009) State of the world’s vaccines and immunization. WHO, Geneva

Ethical Foreign Policy ▶ Foreign Policy

Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI) WAYNE B. HANEWICZ Department of Humanities/Philosophy, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Background and Context How long can we continue to settle differences of ethics and values among nations and cultures by contention, conflict, and violence, whose adverse consequences to all of us cannot be sustained? The contrasts of rich and poor, powerless and powerful, literate and illiterate, those with one skin color or another, present a world of “stark contrasts.” In an interconnected world conflict and turmoil in one or a few regions inevitably spreads to surrounding regions; environmental destruction and disease know no political boundaries. “We are all connected” is no longer a polite metaphor; it is simply an observation of our human situation. In such a world even apathy will not be sustainable.

Meeting the Needs of Strangers When Michael Ignatieff ’s book, The Needs of Strangers, was published in the mid-1980s, it was already abundantly clear that the world’s inhabitants must find a better way to alter the nature of their relationships. In the midst of these circumstances, Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland (1990–1997) and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997–2002) founded Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative (RREGI). With a group of internationally recognized leaders, including Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, and Musimbi Kanyoro, and in collaboration with The Aspen

Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI)

Institute, Columbia University, and the International Council on Human Rights, RREGI committed “to put human rights standards at the heart of global governance and policy-making and to ensure that the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable are addressed on the global stage,” and bases its work on the following principles: ● Acknowledge shared responsibilities for addressing global challenges and affirm our common humanity. ● Recognize all individuals as equal in dignity and possessing the right to certain entitlements. ● Embrace the importance of gender and eliminate gender inequality. ● Affirm that a world connected by technology and trade must also be connected by shared values, norms of behavior and systems of accountability. The Elders are a distinct and independent group of eminent global leaders with connections to RREGI who use their collective influence and experience for peace building, reducing human suffering, and promoting a shared humanity. The International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR) was launched in Chiang Mai, Thailand at a meeting of over 250 representatives of social movements, human rights groups, and other civil society organizations from around the world. In 2000, leading ESCR activists from key human rights organizations in the Americas, Africa, and Asia came together to develop and form an international network for the promotion of economic, social, and cultural rights, with the specific intention to ● Link social justice advocates to a common framework of values and rights; ● Strengthen, support, and link communities in defending their common rights; ● Demand accountability for economic injustice from state and non-state decision-makers. The Institute for Global Ethics (IGE) was founded by Rushworth Kidder as a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting ethical action in a global context and promoting ethical behavior in individuals, institutions, and nations through research, public discourse, and practical action. The IGE’s approach is to “explore the global common ground of values, elevate awareness of ethics, provide practical tools for making ethical decisions, and encourage moral actions based on those decisions.” (http://www. globalethics.org)

Major Issues for Global Ethics Equitable trade, decent work, and health are often linked to global trade and work policies, and it can be difficult to

E

separate them. Sometimes the impact of trade liberalization is direct and obvious, as when a disease crosses a border with a traded good. Other times the effects are more indirect. Reducing trade tariffs leads to lower prices for medical equipment, drugs, and tobacco, changing international rules concerning patent protection affects access to essential medicines, diagnostic devices, and transfer of technology, all of which can affect demand for services and products sufficient to overtax the ability of a nation’s health-care system, leading to dissatisfaction and turmoil. Ill-conceived trade policies can lead to enormous inequities in wealth and power which are enabling conditions for both obvious and unanticipated consequences, including discrimination (racial, age, and gender), substandard working and living conditions, substandard or inadequate health care, and epidemics. Consider, for example, how cultural expectations sustain lower wages and poverty while a company might create increasing demands on the natural resources, how versions of a drug or a food item (e.g., a particular version of standard “baby food”) not acceptable in one country find their way to another country with less stringent regulations, or how worker mobility increases the chances of an epidemic morphing into a pandemic! What responsibility does private enterprise and corporate leadership bear for the life of communities and workers on which they depend for their financial success? What role does political and economic structure play in creating and sustaining conditions of poverty and inequality? Humane Migration Policies are designed to ameliorate the consequences of global conflict, famine, or government threats to citizens who criticize policies, and to make it easier for people to search for a better life for them and their families. Some people may have been denied opportunity and freedom, and see no future for them and their families in their home countries. Cultural distance, xenophobia, and fear of strangers, combined with scarcity of economic and material resources, exacerbate an already difficult problem. On the other hand, some immigrants choose to enter another country not because of famine or conflict, and not because they are in danger of incarceration or worse, but because their ethical framework requires them to forgo political obligations to their own society for more opportunity in another. A country that is too receptive to this motivation may worsen the overall immigration issue. Beneficence, as a guide to foreign policy, combined with inappropriate aid and generous immigration policies may suggest that some regions have wealth which they are willing to share; this could foster the belief that it is

319

E

320

E

Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI)

unnecessary for potential immigrants to adjust to the limited resources and family-size incentives (Harrison 1997). What are the limits, if any, to our personal, collective, and political moral responsibility for providing a safe haven for those who can find a better life than they can in their own countries? A morality requiring people to sacrifice what they regard as their basic interests courts failure, and there is a limit to which most people can be expected to act against their interests. On the other hand, if the limits are too restrictive, we inhibit ourselves from challenging unjust institutions and policies. Gender discrimination as a political and ethical issue recognizes the burdens and barriers that have kept women from realizing their full potential to the same degree enjoyed by men throughout history. The inability to realize their full potential is both an individual human loss and a global loss in terms of both ethics and productivity. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the US Declaration of Independence, US Declaration of Independence (1776), and other national documents around the world, base their political principles on the assumption that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights without regard to gender, or any number of other such human variables such as religious beliefs or race. Government officials from China, South Africa, Germany, Malaysia and other countries from around the world met at the 2008 Global Summit of Women to discuss the importance of corporate social responsibility. Title VII of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires US multinational organizations to follow the policies embodied in that legislation, including in their overseas operations, at least with respect to US expatriate employees. Many countries have taken the same political and social position on this matter, and more countries continue to follow suit. There are practical issues to address. The ethical demand for gender equality on moral principle alone raises little controversy, but like political theories, it is not easily or simply exported. Other cultures may view such attempts as ethnocentric or even imperialistic. Yet adapting to a host country’s norms that endorse gender inequality implies a moral relativism that does little to improve the lives of women who live and work in such cultures. One can argue exemptions from this principle for religious or other cultural circumstances, thereby setting the ethical conflict between gender equality and religious freedom or cultural autonomy; but any consistent defense of religious exemption or cultural autonomy seems to entail at least one individual right, viz., the right to choose one’s religion or cultural group, in full recognition, of

course, that “freedom to choose” has psychological and social constraints that can be very powerful. Such constraints, however, may need to be addressed if “freedom of choice” is to be genuine. Global corporate responsibility for acting ethically, though too often unrealized, is unambiguous. “No business is in business to go out of business” is a seemingly banal axiom whose bite is supplied by its truth. Experienced organizations can testify to the complexities of providing services or products in a multicultural world, and their experiences reveal the dilemma and consequences of ethical or unethical behavior in such a world. Finding the right ethical principles that will enable global corporations to respect local cultures, abide by recognized ethical operating standards, protect scarce environmental resources, commit to sustainability, and achieve business success is a difficult balance, and the world is witness to both success and failure in achieving this balance. Accordingly, organizations and governments have dedicated resources to address the complexities of conducting business in an ethical manner. One approach is to optimize this balance through operating standards, legislation, public opinion, and compliance assurance. The Ethics and Policy Integration Centre (Epic) tracks emerging global standards in corporate responsibility for use by busy ethics compliance professionals. Recognizing that graft had become a serious bureaucratic and public image issue, the Chinese communist recently issued a new ethics code to fight corruption by prohibiting officials from establishing for-profit enterprises, profiting from shady property transfers, registering companies outside of the Chinese mainland, and other unethical practices. By what ethical principles would we assess corporate action in a multicultural world? Adapting a business decision to the cultural or national circumstances of a particular business decision is an easy slide into relativism. Idealism raises the vexing question of whose ideal should be adopted. Utilitarianism as a social ethic is particularly complex in a multicultural world where the greatest good for the greatest number may vary with political theories defining who should count in the calculation. Vitell and Patwardhan conducted a crosscultural study of marketing practitioners from two European Union (EU) nations (the UK and Spain) and China examining the relationships between moral intensity, personal moral philosophies, intentions, and ethical decision-making. Results indicated that subjects tended to use the perceived harm construct to determine intentions in situations involving ethical issues. Idealism was only used by the EU sample, but the use of relativism was situational.

Eurocentrism

Conclusions and Future The World Health Organization (WHO), the World Health Assembly (WHA) and Resolution on International Trade and Health (WHA59.26), the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the Doha Declaration, the World Bank, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and a host of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), all seek to make a better world through their particular competencies. What are their guiding ethical principles? Weber observed that it is the tendency of all bureaucracies to transform value issues into administrative ones. Greater “coherence between trade and health policy,” “shared understanding,” or “policy, legislative and technical support,” are all administrative standards. Where are the ethical questions that breathe life into the administrative standards? How does one “share an understanding” between political paternalism and liberty, or collective good and individual freedom? How should these questions be answered, and who should answer them for whom? Global circumstances seem destined to highlight the complexity of these ethical dilemmas. Moral leadership matters, and political, corporate, and community leaders must engage in serious dialogue among cultures. If supported by research demonstrating the value, both short- and long-term, of mutually defined moral principles, it may nourish an environment where we can find the balance necessary for our world to produce a desirable future for our children.

Related Topics

▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Global Public ▶ Health and Health Care ▶ Immigration ▶ Luck Egalitarianism ▶ Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property

References Buller PF, Kohls JJ, Anderson KS (1991) The challenge of global ethics. J Bus Ethics 10(10):767–775 China issues new code of ethics for officials. http://www.globalethics.org/ newsline/2010/03/01/china-ethics/. Accessed 1 March 2010 ESCR-Net Economic, social and cultural rights. http://www.escr-net.org/ about/about_list.htm?cat_id=1313 Harrison L (1997) Ethics, migration and global stewardship. Intl Migration Rev 8(1) Ignatieff M (1985) The needs of strangers. Viking Adult, New York. ISBN -10: 0670505777

E

321

Institute for Global Ethics. http://www.globalethics.org/ Mayer D, Cava A (1993) Ethics and the gender equality dilemma for U.S. multinationals. J Bus Ethics 12(9):701–708 Realizing rights: the ethical globalization initiative. http://www. realizingrights.org/ Vitell SJ, Patwardhan A (2008) The role of moral intensity and moral philosophy in ethical decision-making: a cross-cultural comparison of China and the European Union. Bus Ethics Euro Rev 17(2):196–209

E Eurocentrism ARUN KUMAR POKHREL Department of English, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

Eurocentrism is generally defined as a cultural phenomenon that views the histories and cultures of non-Western societies from a European or Western perspective. Europe, more specifically Western Europe or “the West,” functions as a universal signifier in that it assumes the superiority of European cultural values over those of non-European societies. Although Eurocentrism is anti-universalist in nature, it presents itself as a universalist phenomenon and advocates for the imitation of a Western model based on “Western values” – individuality, human rights, equality, democracy, free markets, secularism, and social justice – as a cure to all kinds of problems, no matter how different various societies are socially, culturally, and historically. Eurocentrism, however, is not a social theory providing an interpretation of or a solution to pressing social issues, nor can it be simply used interchangeably with popular big words such as nationalism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, chauvinism, and Westernization. Rather, Eurocentrism is a systematic distortion of existing realities, with which most Western social theories and ideologies seem to have been contaminated. Having no coherent meaning within itself, Eurocentrism can manifest in a variety of ways, ranging from commonsensical views of obvious facts and the mainstream media to Western scholars’ erudite researches in different fields of study. Notwithstanding the ambiguities and contradictions germane to the word, several scholars have attempted to define Eurocentrism, its origin, evolution, common features, and its pervasive presence in modern discourses as diverse as sociology, anthropology, political science, literature, history, philosophy, art, religion, and so forth. Most contemporary scholars (both Western and non-Western)

322

E

Eurocentrism

concede that Western culture or civilization has exerted its dominance over non-European cultures and civilizations for centuries, especially from the Renaissance, when the seeds of capitalism germinated. Since then, Europe has become a locus of power and wealth that is predicated on uneven capitalistic developments and unequal power relations. As a result, Western supremacist ideologies have given rise to some countervailing tendencies, such as the pressing issue of global justice, over different worldhistorical periods, especially after the mid-twentieth century revolutionary liberation struggles of the colonies. Today, not only have writers and scholars from the previously marginalized societies reclaimed the power of their cultures but, they have also vigorously contested the false Western representations of local cultures, societies, and knowledges. They believe that the Western representation is premised mainly on the rationale of a Manichean worldview: We/us vs. they/them, rational West vs. irrational East, developed vs. undeveloped, modern vs. primitive, material vs. spiritual, and superior vs. inferior, and so on. Political economist Samir Amin (b. 1931–), for example, has done a very impressive study of Eurocentrism in his book of the same title, which appeared in 1989. Defining Eurocentrism as a modern culturalist phenomenon, he traces its roots, which go back only to the Renaissance and which did not flourish until the nineteenth century. Europe, until the Renaissance, belonged to a regional tributary system that included Europeans and Arabs, Christians and Muslims alike. The greater part of Europe, according to Amin, was located at the periphery of this regional system, whose center was situated at the eastern end of the Mediterranean basin. From the Renaissance onward, the capitalist world system has shifted its center toward the Atlantic region, while the Mediterranean region, in turn, has become the periphery. The Renaissance thus marks a major turning point for Eurocentric thinking. With the discovery of the New World in 1492 and the rediscovery of Graeco-Roman antiquity in defining European art, culture, literature, and history, the Renaissance is a radical break in human history that gives rise to a new consciousness in the European mind. This new consciousness, supplemented by Christian faith and a rediscovered Greek ancestry, became the basis for European superiority. Europe broke with its past tributary ideology and embraced the ideology of capitalism, which has universal values or aspirations. Modeled on the capitalist mode of organization, Europeans begin to feel the superiority of their civilization. It is from this moment on, and not before, adduces Amin, that Eurocentrism crystallizes. Hence, Eurocentrism is closely related to the culture and the ideology of the

modern capitalist world, thus characterizing the common dominant attitudes of the developed capitalist societies. These developed societies tend to ignore a rich cultural heritage of peripheral societies and still view them as the primary sites of colonial plundering. Given the centurieslong economic unevenness and the West’s economic upper-handedness, peripheral societies today have begun voicing their concerns for fair economic treatment and global justice via regional economic cooperation, local economic forums and struggles, and pressure groups. Historically speaking, the dominant European culture or ideology – constructed in different stages from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment up until the nineteenth century by the invention of eternal myths of a progressive, modern, and secular West – legitimates the existence of capitalism as a modern social system, while worldwide inequality or unevenness is posited as a natural outcome of it. For this purpose, as Amin notes, the dominant culture invents an image of the “eternal West,” unique since the moment of its origin. He argues that this mythic construct had as its counterpart an equally artificial conception of the “Other” (the “Orients” or “the Orient”), likewise constructed on mythic foundations. Amin draws upon the famed book, Orientalism (1978), by Edward Said, one of the most influential literary theorists of the twentieth century, to discuss the ideological construction of a mythical “Orient,” whose characteristics are treated as if they were immutable traits defined in simple opposition to the characteristics of the “Occidental” world. According to Amin, Said’s Orientalism is an excellent analysis of the Eurocentric distortion caused by Orientalism. He argues that Said clearly demonstrates the influence and dominance of the mythic construct of the “Orient.” For Said, Orientalism mainly refers to the multiple disciplines, ways of thought, and processes of investigation through which the West came to know and view the Orient over many centuries. Such modes of “knowing” reached their apogee during the nineteenth century imperialism and have continued to the present time. Said’s study of Orientalism shows the way in which the representation of the “Other” has been not only standardized but also institutionalized in Europe since the eighteenth century. Those modes of representation, he affirms, are manifestations of imperial and cultural dominance. Stimulated by this characterization, Said’s interest in Orientalism mainly lies in explicating the relationship between knowledge and power (popularly known as “a discourse analysis” that he derives from the influential French philosopher and theorist Michel Foucault), for this relationship exemplifies the way Orientals and the Orient are

Eurocentrism

constructed and hegemonized. Such distorted modes of Western representation in turn incite “the return of the repressed,” inverting the existing unequal power relations. This reversal of power is deemed necessary to balance power and give voice to the subaltern cultures and peoples who have been marginalized and oppressed for ages. It is therefore no wonder that scholars like Said say that true humanity, global peace, prosperity, and social justice can be ensured only through a fair representation of those marginalized cultures and peoples, not as inferior “Others,” but as “significant others,” whereby all peoples and cultures are treated with mutual respect and dignity. For instance, the Orient is usually conceived of as a primitive and backward region where one can travel back in time to a pre-historical era, which the cultural anthropologist Johannes Fabian (b. 1937–) calls time– space distances, whereas Europe is the location of scientific knowledge, progress, and technological development. Evidently, Eurocentrism relies on this kind of premeditated knowledge about the Orient based on the construction of binary oppositions or hierarchies that define all nonEuropeans as inferior (“savage,” “primitive,” “backward,” “underdeveloped”), where the category of race plays a central role in classifying the different peoples of the world – superior and inferior, rational subjects and irrational subjects. Similarly, European regional or local history is fetishized as universal History, in which Europe serves as the model or reference for every other history on the planet and represents with the acme of humanity’s progress from the “primitive” to the “modern.” As Amin has observed, the product of this teleological, Eurocentric vision, is the well-known version of “Western” history – a progression from ancient Greece to Rome to feudal Christian Europe to capitalist Europe – that is one of the most popular of received ideas. Hence, capitalism is not only viewed as a European, modern, rationalist, and secular ideology but also seen as a universal ideology that has a worldwide relevance. Although the dominant ideology and culture of the capitalist system cannot be simply reduced to Eurocentrism, it is still one of the important dimensions of the capitalist ideology that pervades Western knowledge production and Western epistemology. The West is not only viewed as the world of material wealth and power, including military might, but also considered the best of the worlds, characterized by the triumph of its scientific spirit, rationality, and practical efficiency. By contrast, other societies – the East and the Third World – are perceived as backward and primitive, and hence, the European West has little or nothing to learn from these societies. Consequently, the progress of these

E

backward societies in the East is possible only if they imitate the West. In this way, the Eurocentric vision presumes that the Western model of developed capitalism is the only model that can be prescribed for the development and progress of the rest of the world. The dominant ideology not only posits a Western vision of the world, but it also functions as a political project on a global scale – a project of homogenization through imitation and “catching up” with the West. In this capitalistic world system, cultural differences are erased and the relationship between countries is primarily defined in economic terms. Historical sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein (b. 1930–) nicely shows the “unequal exchange” between the developed capitalistic countries and the underdeveloped Third World in the modern capitalist world-system, although the new globalization theorists have contested his theory as an outdated one. In his world-system theory, Wallerstein divides the countries in the world into three different groups: the core, the periphery, and the semi-periphery, where the core areas (developed capitalist countries) always try to dominate and appropriate the peripheral or semi-peripheral areas through their political, cultural, and economic agendas. Here, the periphery is considered a raw material production area feeding the core. In such a categorization, while Western Europe, North America, Japan, and a few other states (Australia, New Zealand, and Israel) remain at the center, Latin America and the Antilles, Africa, and Asia (except Japan) constitute the periphery. Japan, interestingly, is neither Western, nor Christian but is still considered part of the West because of its strong economic position and advanced capitalistic development. One of the important issues germane to the world capitalist system, which is directly linked to Eurocentrism, is the notion of capitalistic modernity. From this vantage point of modernity, the West or Europe is modern, developed, rich, rational, and secular, whereas non-Western societies are primitive, backward, underdeveloped, poor, irrational, and jingoistic. Undoing such a dichotomy, the philosopher Enrique Dussel (b. 1934–), in his essay “Beyond Eurocentrism: The World-System and the Limits of Modernity,” argues that modernity is not a European phenomenon as an independent system, but of Europe as a center. Modernity, he posits, is the fruit of colonial domination and integration of political, economic, technological, and cultural relations of the interregional system that was hegemonized by Europe. Most notably, he argues that Europe had never been the “center,” and during its best times became only “a periphery.” His concept of transmodernity that goes beyond Europe has, in fact,

323

E

324

E

Eurocentrism

changed the very notion of modernity, its origin, and development, revealing the biases of Eurocentrism. Eurocentrism, in this sense, is a result of European colonialism and global domination by Western powers. The different events that shaped Western supremacy are the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and Modernity, which, however, did not necessarily develop in linear ways in one particular place. They were originated in different locations within Europe in different time periods. Similarly, not only in scholarly works, people use the terms such as the “West,” the “Occident,” the “center,” the “first world,” the “East,” the “periphery,” and the “third world” even in daily speech to describe different areas of the world. Despite the apparent fixity of their geographic referents, it is not always clear to what these terms refer. These categories, as the cultural anthropologist Fernando Coronil suggests, are fluid. Truly there can be third world in the first world and vice versa. Nevertheless, the process of Europeanization intensified once Europe became capitalistic and developed the power to conquer the other parts of the world. Since colonial times, especially in the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, when Europeans started perceiving most of the World as open to conquest, control, and domination, Europe granted itself the right to represent others – notably “the Orient” – and even to judge them. They attempted to justify their colonization process via the logic of “civilizing” mission, i.e., the Third World people are “primitive” or “backward” and are, therefore, in the need of being “civilized.” But, as history has it, a long time before European colonization took place, the Chinese of the Confucian Empire and the Arabs of the Abbassid Caliphate, like Europeans of the Middle Ages, could analyze their own society only with the conceptual tools at their disposal, tools defined and limited by their own development. In the past few decades, especially since the 1980s, modern/postmodern scholarship – including postcolonial theories, subaltern studies, African studies, area studies, among others – from different parts of the world has provided new perspectives to explore and examine multiple epistemologies that emanate from the previously ignored marginalized societies of the periphery. The explosion of marginal epistemologies goes beyond Eurocentric interpretations of the other histories and subjects that had no room in the universalizing Western project. Europe, like any other region of the world, is provincialized. Countering Eurocentric knowledge, postcolonial theorists have sought to produce an antiEurocentric scholarship. But the production of a coherent anti-Eurocentric theory, as the Marxist literary

theorist Neil Lazarus (b. 1967–) rightly points out, has historically been fraught with many difficulties. The problem in postcolonial studies, in his opinion, is that it does not view Eurocentrism as an ideology or a mode of representation but sees it as the very basis of domination in the colonial and modern imperial contexts. Instead of focusing on the structurality of modern colonial world-system and situating Eurocentrism as an historical problematic, postcolonial studies, he posits, is obsessed with the fetishization of “Europe” or “the West.” On the other hand, postcolonial theorists like Dipesh Chakrabarty, who first coined the phrase, “provincializing Europe,” argue that the way in which Eurocentrism was founded on the premises of capitalism and modernity, for example, are not always “transparent” or “universal” or self-evidently “true.” Rather, these premises are situated and contingent. They are the products of specific projects and contexts. Additionally, postcolonial theorists contend that modernity is a constitutively Eurocentric concept, so it is necessary to break with all the traditions of modern thought in order to break with Eurocentrism. The postcolonial Marxist theorist Lazarus, however, finds this argument problematic. He argues that the pervasiveness of Eurocentrism is chiefly conjoined to power of capital and its uneven distribution. This is more so in today’s neoliberal world of globalization. Hence, most Marxists contest a predatory model of Western civilization, which is lately manifested in the guise of globalization. Globalization threatens to destroy the conditions that make life possible on Earth and increases the polarization between a privileged minority and the world’s excluded, oppressed majorities. This is why they claim to advocate for alternative knowledge perspectives that are more viable, inclusive, democratic, and ensure global or planetary justice. Far from being a coherent concept, Eurocentrism thus is a modern cultural phenomenon that shows the discrepancies between the lived historical experience of different peoples, cultures, and societies, and the systematic Eurocentric distortion of those ground realities. We can sum up the more important elements of Eurocentrism as below by using the sociologist Anibal Quijano’s (b. 1928–) brief schema from his essay “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America”: (a) a peculiar articulation between dualism (capital–precapital, Europe–non-Europe, primitive–civilized, traditional–modern, etc.) and a linear, one-directional evolutionism from some state of nature to modern European society; (b) the naturalization of the cultural differences between human groups by means of their codification with the idea of race; and (c) the distorted-temporal relocation of all those differences by relocating non-Europeans in the past.

European Convention on Human Rights

Above all, not unlike the systemic pervasiveness of modern Eurocentric discourses from everyday life to specialized fields of study, the counter-discourses of Eurocentrism have become equally powerful and pervasive. In an attempt to represent subaltern cultures and peoples from around the world that have been systematically put under erasure for centuries, writers and scholars from various marginalized non-Western societies have been continually writing back to the metropoles and creating a countervailing balance to the hegemonic Western discourse, thereby opposing the homogenization of their rich and diverse cultures and histories. They are all speaking up for the fair treatment of the so-called Other people and cultures on par with Western people and cultures so that global justice is ensured.

Related Topics ▶ Colonialism ▶ Globalization ▶ Imperialism ▶ Neoliberalism ▶ Racism

References Amin S (1989) Eurocentrism (trans: Russel M). Monthly Review, New York Chakrabarty D (2000) Provincializing Europe: postcolonial thought and historical difference. Princeton University Press, Princeton Coronil F (1996) Beyond occidentalism: toward nonimperial geohistorical categories. Cultural Anthropology 11(1):51–87 Dussel E (1998) Beyond eurocentrism: the world-system and the limits of modernity. In: Jameson F, Miyoshi M (eds) The cultures of globalization. Duke University Press, Durham Lander E (2000) Eurocentrism and colonialism in Latin American social thought. Nepantla Views South 1(3):519–532 Lazarus N (2002) The fetish of “the West” in postcolonial theory. In: Bartolovich C, Lazarus N (eds) Marxism, modernity, and postcolonial studies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Quijano A (2000) Coloniality of power, eurocentrism, and Latin America. Nepantla Views South 1(3):533–580 Said EW (1993) Culture and imperialism. Chatto and Winds, London Said EW (2003) Orientalism. Vintage, New York Wallerstein I (1980) Capitalist world-economy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Wallerstein I (2000) The essential Wallerstein. The New Press, New York

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) ▶ Basic Needs ▶ Development Assistance

E

325

European Convention on Human Rights WILLIAM B. T. MOCK The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, IL, USA

In 1950, the recently founded Council of Europe promulgated the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“European Convention”), which entered into force in 1953. Not affiliated with the European Union and its similarly named European Council, the Council of Europe is an organization of European nations created by the 1949 Treaty of London with the express purpose of addressing political and human rights issues surrounding World War II. From ten member states, the Council of Europe has grown to 47 members (as of 2010). In addition to EU countries, membership includes Russia, Turkey, several countries in the Caucasus, most of eastern and northern Europe, and some European microstates. In Europe, only Belarus has not joined the Council. The European Convention established three bodies: a Commission responsible for initial review of human rights claims, a European Court of Human Rights (“Court”) responsible for hearing human rights disputes arising under the Convention referred by the Commission or member states, and a Committee of Ministers responsible for reaching political resolutions in cases not brought before the Court. In 1998, the Commission was abolished, and the Court was replaced by a unitary and strengthened Court located in Strasbourg, France, operating under a simpler and more transparent set of procedures. Under article 34, which was added by Protocol 11 to the Convention, and which became effective in 1998, the Court became empowered to accept petitions directly from individuals. Although widely recognized as a positive step in the protection of individual human rights, it also contributed to a backlog in excess of 100,000 pending cases, with more than half of these lodged against Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and Romania. Procedures introduced in 2010 to streamline the dismissal of relatively inconsequential claims that have previously been adjudicated in national courts are expected to alleviate this burden somewhat. In its 59 articles and several optional protocols, the European Convention describes selected human rights, requiring member states to “secure [those rights] to everyone in their jurisdiction.” Only a small number of the

E

326

E

European Union (EU)

articles set forth substantive rights, the rest being dedicated to procedures and institutions. The rights protected by the Convention are life (art. 2); freedom from torture (art. 3); freedom from slavery and forced labor (art. 4); liberty and security of person (art. 5); a fair trial (art. 6); freedom from punishment without law (“nulla poena sine lege”) (art. 7); respect for private and family life (art. 8); thought, conscience, and religion (art. 9); expression (art. 10); assembly and association (art. 11); marriage (art. 12); effective remedies (art. 13); and freedom from discrimination (art. 14). Absent from the Convention are several rights familiar in other instruments, including such items from the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights as rights to education, an adequate standard of living, just pay and vacations, social security, and participation in national politics. These rights and many more are also guaranteed by the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, which became effective in 2009. The European Convention thus achieves its importance not as much for the scope of protected rights as it does for providing an effective rights tribunal – the European Court of Human Rights. The Court has taken on several highly contentious issues. Among these are reproductive rights, same-gender marriage, parental rights, the use of official torture, and asylum. In doing so, the Court has interpreted the Convention not as setting forth a set of European human rights, but rather as providing a European procedure and venue for enforcing certain universal human rights. From this perspective, the Convention and the judgments of the Court have provided both hard human rights law within Europe and soft-law support for the development of human rights worldwide.

Related Topics

▶ European Union (EU) ▶ Global Human Rights Culture ▶ Human Rights ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

References Beddard R (1993) Human rights and Europe. Grotius, Cambridge Harris D (2010) The evolution of the European convention on human rights. Oxford University Press, New York Keller H, Stone-Sweet A (2008) A Europe of rights: the impact of the ECHR on national legal systems. Oxford University Press, New York Letsas G (2009) A theory of interpretation of the European convention on human rights. Oxford University Press, New York White R, Ovey C (2010) Jacobs, White & Ovey: the European convention on human rights. Oxford University Press, New York

European Union (EU) WILLIAM B. T. MOCK The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, IL, USA

The European Union (EU) is a political, social, and economic organization of 27 European countries, comprising over 500,000,000 people and representing roughly onequarter of the world’s economic activity. Among the key achievements, the EU has created a single economic market, harmonized members states’ domestic legislation, created a common agricultural policy, coordinated defense and military efforts, and guaranteed a broad spectrum of human rights among member states’ citizens. Though formed by treaties, the EU is more than a treaty organization, and though possessing a degree of sovereignty, it is not a federal government.

History What is now the EU began when France, Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries signed the 1951 Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (“ECSC”), limiting the access of each nation to the coal and steel resources needed for remilitarization. The 1957 Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (“Euratom”) similarly placed international restraints on the development of national atomic power. European economic integration began in earnest with the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which established a preferential trade and economic zone among the six countries. This was followed by the 1965 Merger Treaty, establishing political and bureaucratic infrastructures that integrated the existing agreements; the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht, creating the European Community (EC), and extending cooperation to social policies; and the 1997 Amsterdam, 2001 Nice, and 2007 Lisbon treaties, which established the EU, extended the scope of economic and social integration, established political bodies with law-making powers, and created an extensive Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Charter has 54 articles setting forth human rights of dignity, freedom, equality, solidarity, citizenship, and justice. The treaties’ geographic reach grew, too. The original six countries were joined by Denmark, Ireland, and the UK in 1973; Greece in 1981; Portugal and Spain in 1986; and an additional 15 members between 1995 and 2007. By 2009, negotiations were under way with three additional applicant countries, including Turkey, which if admitted would be both the first largely non-European member and the first Islamic country in the EU.

European Union (EU)

Structures and Operating Principles The primary institutions of the EU are the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers, the European Council, and the European Court of Justice. The European Commission holds the executive power of the EU. It is composed of representatives from each member nation, who are assigned portfolios similar to those in a national cabinet. The Commission directs policy and initiates legislative actions in the Council and Parliament. The European Parliament is a legislative body formed by direct, proportional representation from each of the member countries of the EU, elected every 5 years. Members of Parliament sit by political affiliation rather than national origin, allowing for the formation of EU-wide political positions. With the Council, the Parliament enacts EU legislation, but does not have the authority to initiate legislation. The Council of Ministers has no fixed membership, but is composed of the national ministers under whose purview a particular issue falls. Thus, the Council may sit as 27 foreign ministers one day, then 27 agricultural ministers the next. It has the power to act unanimously, or to act in combination with the Parliament on the basis of a qualified majority. Both the Council and the Parliament have budgetary responsibility. Not to be confused with the Council of Ministers, the European Council is composed of the chief executives of the member states, as well as the EU-based President of the European Council. Meeting four times a year, this group holds no legislative power, but sets major political directions for the EU. The European Court of Justice is the supreme judicial body of the EU. The ECJ should not to be confused with the European Court of Human Rights, which is not affiliated with the EU. As the EU’s judicial branch, the ECJ and subsidiary courts hear all cases involving individual rights under EU law, cases of conflict among EU institutions, and cases involving conflict between municipal law and EU law. Several key principles guide the actions of the EU. According to subsidiarity, all governmental authority over a particular issue resides in the most local governmental unit that is competent to address the issue, thereby leaving EU action as a last resort. Proportionality requires that any EU action be only as extensive as necessary to address the issue under consideration. Conferral signifies that the EU has limited powers, all of which have been granted to it by member states. Supremacy means that member state law must yield to EU law in areas of EU competence. Direct effect confers EU rights and obligations directly upon individuals without the need for national action.

E

The “Four Freedoms,” whereby all the factors of economic activity are free to move at will within the EU, define fundamental EU law. Thus, EU law prohibits internal barriers to the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people. The Schengen Agreement, whereby most of Europe has eliminated all barriers to internal movements of people, and the adoption of the Euro as a common currency are significant implementations of these Freedoms. Several types of legislation originate in the EU. Directives obligate member states to achieve a specific end, but leave them free to determine how. Regulations are immediately and directly enforceable within member states. Decisions address and are directly effective upon particular entities or individuals. Finally, recommendations are nonbinding but influential political statements.

Significance The EU has a significant impact on social justice. In the broadest sense, the rise of the EU offers a unique model of supranational governance that seeks harmony through respect for national cultures, economic growth, and individual rights. The EU thus represents a move away from the Westphalian system of placing the nation-state at the center of all international activity. As with the Council of Europe’s 1950 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the 2009 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union should prove highly influential in the advancement of human rights worldwide. Membership applications to the EU are judged according to the “Copenhagen criteria,” which require applicant countries to have significant democratic institutions, respect the rule of law, protect fundamental human rights, protect minority rights, and have a functioning market economy. As Turkey’s application for membership is considered, how these factors are interpreted will be very significant for global human rights, as well as for the relationship between Eurocentric and Islamic world views.

Related Topics

▶ Eurocentrism ▶ European Convention on Human Rights ▶ Human Rights ▶ Treaty of Westphalia

References Hix S (2005) The political system of the European Union, 2nd edn Mock W, Demuro G (2010) Human rights in Europe: commentary on the charter of fundamental rights of the European Union Staab A (2008) The European Union explained: institutions, actors, global impact

327

E

328

E

Exploitation

Exploitation PAUL WARREN Department of Philosophy, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

“Exploitation” is a widely used, though controversial term of moral criticism and societal analysis. Perhaps the bestknown theoretical account of exploitation is the Marxist analysis of the capital–labor relation. But exploitation is also used in evaluative descriptions of a variety of practices, relationships, and institutions. Given this prominence in public discussion and saliency within the Marxist tradition, it has deservedly attracted the attention of philosophers. It is implicated in a number of ways in global justice concerns. The English verb “to exploit” and its cognates are often simply equivalent in meaning with “use” or “take advantage of.” For example, it is common to speak of exploiting resources or opportunities; or in the context of games and competitions, of one team or player exploiting the weaknesses of an opponent. These are ethically innocent attributions of exploitation. But exploitation more often refers to uses or advantages taken that are in some way wrong, bad, or improper. Thus, exploitation is related to ethical notions such as harm, unfairness, injustice, mistreatment, and lack of reciprocity. Philosophical discussions of exploitation explore these connections and normative theories of exploitation seek to explain how the wrongfulness of exploitation is best understood. Discussions of exploitation are further complicated by the fact that it involves a specific kind of interaction. In exploitation, one party (exploiter) benefits from interaction with another (exploited) in virtue of the vulnerability or disadvantaged position of the latter. Exploiters take advantage in order to gain advantage. These conditions of interaction distinguish exploitation from closely related kinds of injustice such as unequal life chances, oppression, exclusion, and dispossession. But one consequence of the interactional complexity of exploitation is that normative attention can be directed at different aspects of exploitative interactions. It can focus on: (1) the nature of the interaction between the parties (is it dehumanizing, does it involve a failure of mutual respect, or does it involve coercion?); (2) the nature of the exploiter’s gains, especially in relation to the exploited party (are they unjustly disproportional or undeserved?); or (3) the processes that either initially create or continue in the present to sustain the vulnerabilities that make

exploitation possible (do such processes involve force, coercion, or the unequal exercise of power?). Because its specific descriptive conditions are tied to its evaluative content exploitation qualifies as a “thick moral concept.” Moreover, recognition of the interactional and normative complexities of exploitation helps illuminate why in debates over exploitation the different sides often fail to engage. There are different theories of the interactional structure of exploitation, different theories of the normative significance of exploitation, and different ways that normative theories and explanatory theories can be integrated. Karl Marx (1813–1883) developed an explanatory theory of exploitation, one closely connected both to his general theory of history and his more specific theory of capitalism. While Marx never elaborated what could rightly be called a normative theory of exploitation, he plainly supposed exploitation to be both normatively charged and of great practical significance. In recent years, a number of philosophers have concerned themselves with answering the question of what is wrong with exploitation as understood by Marx. These efforts have involved both trying to get the Marxian explanatory theory of the interactional structures of exploitation right and also providing an accompanying normative theory. By contrast, liberal approaches to exploitation largely have avoided theorizing its interactional structures and instead have sought to develop normative accounts that treat exploitation as a kind of unfairness or a form of degradation arising in a variety of situations. For Marx, exploitation is a phenomenon of historical generality. Central to Marx’s transhistorical concept of exploitation is that the groups that control society’s principal means of production are able to extract surplus labor from those who lack such control, compelling them to be subordinate producers. Surplus labor is defined as labor beyond that which is required to reproduce and sustain the continued existence of the direct producers. Marx thought this definition applied in different ways, in different societies. In feudal societies, serfs are directly coerced to work for lords; so too where slavery exists. In each of these cases, the exploitative extraction of surplus labor from subordinate producers is readily observable. In capitalism, the mechanism of exploitation is hidden because the direct coercion endemic to feudalism and slavery is largely eliminated: workers freely enter into wage agreements with capitalists. Yet, Marx emphasizes that this freedom to contract is accompanied by an equally important freedom from the means of production. Near the conclusion Capital Volume I (1977) he provides an account of the “bloody” and “violent” historical process

Exploitation

that took place in England leading to this separation of producers from the means of production. Although this account is important for undermining capitalist apologetics that suppose pristine origins for capitalism, it is not to be confused with Marx’s account of capitalist exploitation proper. In developing that account Marx creatively reworks the labor theory of value of classical political economy. He introduces a distinction between labor and labor power: what workers sell to the owners of the means of production is their labor power, for which they are paid market rates. Exploitation arises because in putting that labor power to use more value is created than is needed to cover workers’ wages. Simply put, in this difference rests the source of the capitalist’s profits and the worker’s exploitation. Marx’s Capital is an extended development and exploration of the explanatory fruitfulness of this account as applied to a variety of phenomena: technological change, struggles over the length of the working day, the processes of capital accumulation, economic crisis, and political conflict. A distinctive feature of Marx’s account of exploitation is his emphasis on the antagonistic linking of interests endemic to the interactional structure of class relations. This emphasis serves to distinguish his approach from liberal social scientific accounts of class and inequality, which focus on unequal life chances, differential access to education, and family structures. Marx’s theory of exploitation has been subject to criticism, interpretation and reinterpretation, and critical reconstruction. Analytical Marxists such as G.A. Cohen and John Roemer have argued that his theory of capitalist exploitation is not dependent on the labor theory of value and thus can be defended without reliance on it. In addition, Roemer uses the tools of rational choice theory and neoclassical economic analysis to reconstruct, clarify, and extend Marx’s conception of exploitation more generally. Other critics have claimed that Marx’s theory of exploitation goes wrong in its exclusive focus on workers’ exploitation to the exclusion of other important forms of injustice and oppression, of both normative and explanatory significance, such as those based on gender and race. Yet acknowledging these difficulties and others, Marx’s theory of exploitation has not exhausted its significance for either sociological theory or normative political philosophy. It continues to inform contemporary work. Exploitation is significant for global justice in a number of different ways. Child labor, modern slavery, trafficking, sweatshops, immigration, climate change, resource use, and appropriation of cultural property are some of the contemporary global issues that involve exploitation. These issues are contentious for a number of reasons. In some cases there are skeptics who deny that

E

exploitation exists. In other cases there will be differences in normative analysis, in the normative weight accorded to exploitation, and in balancing exploitation concerns against other values. Further, there will be disagreements about what is to be done to address these injustices. But clear thinking about exploitation can help advance public discussion of these important matters of global concern. Conceptions of exploitation are also at play in debates over globalization and global justice, usually as part of broader political and philosophical orientations. Globalization is understood here in its neoliberal (i.e., libertarian) version, advocated and pursued by economic elites in Western capitalist democracies since the 1980s. This version of globalization stresses the privatization of public assets, extension of the market to more areas of life, capital mobility, labor market flexibility, and scaling back state provision of health, education, welfare, and public goods. The idea of exploitation is largely absent from the vocabulary of libertarian advocates of neoliberalism. Libertarians readily acknowledge the existence of exploitation in cases of slavery and other forms of direct coercion. But they resist any limits on private property rights or the extension of markets. Indeed, they see such limits as “blocked exchanges” from which third parties might wrongly benefit; hence as forms of exploitation in their own right. Exploitation also has not drawn much attention from global justice theorists, whether Rawlsian or cosmopolitan. However, arguably, there is something like a notion of exploitation in Thomas Pogge’s argument that because the shared global economic order imposes systematic inequalities, forms of repression, and poverty on the global poor, those who benefit from this global economic order have an obligation to address the injustices it imposes. Human rights theorists and activists criticize exploitation in the form of forced or coerced labor. They also criticize sweatshops that violate local labor laws and governments and employers that do not acknowledge rights of workers to organize. Moreover, basic subsistence and related economic rights establish a minimum floor of human welfare, implying that the most egregious forms of exploitation should count as human rights violations. A fairness approach to global forms of exploitation would go further than the human rights approach. Advocates of fair trade, for example, do not challenge capitalism as such, but insist on improved working conditions, better pay, and better social wages in the form of public goods. They also stress responsibilities that affluent consumers have in relation to their purchases of goods produced via global supply chains. Socialist and Marxist approaches go even further in arguing that the deeper causes of exploitation in the unequal control of productive resources needs to be

329

E

330

E

Exploitation

confronted in order to fully engage global justice. Marxist theories of imperialism build on Marx’s account of capitalist exploitation, elaborating it within an international and global political setting. Those theories stress the importance of both economic and political forms of power and inequality and attempt to link political domination to the requirements of the capitalist system’s need for reproduction and expansion. They are concerned especially with forms of exploitation that arise in the interaction of developed and less developed countries. However, what has generally been missing from these Marxist accounts is a direct exploration of the normative idea of exploitation and the unique issues that arise in normative theorizing about exploitation in a global setting. There seems to be space here for some fruitful cross-fertilization with liberal and cosmopolitan writers on global justice.

Related Topics ▶ Capitalism ▶ Child Labor ▶ Coercion ▶ Domination ▶ Equality

▶ Fairness ▶ Global Basic Structure ▶ Globalization ▶ Imperialism ▶ Labor Laws ▶ Marx, Karl ▶ Neoliberalism ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Slavery

References Cohen GA (1988) History, labour, and freedom. Clarendon, Oxford Geras N (1985) The controversy about Marx and justice. New left review 150:47–85 Harvey D (2003) Imperialism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Harvey D (2005) Neo-liberalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Marx K (1977) Capital: volume one. Penguin, London Nielsen K, Ware R (eds) (1997) Exploitation. Humanities Press, New Jersey Reeve A (ed) (1987) Modern theories of exploitation. Sage, London Roemer J (1988) Free to lose. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Sample R (2003) Exploitation: what it is and why it is wrong. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham Wertheimer A (1996) Exploitation. Princeton University Press, Princeton Wright EO (2009) Understanding class. New left review 60:101–116

F Failed States ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Duties of Assistance

Fair Equality of Opportunity MARK C. NAVIN Department of Philosophy, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

The main idea of fair equality of opportunity (FEO) is that equality of opportunity requires more than meritocratic competition and the absence of arbitrary discrimination (e.g., on the basis of race, gender). FEO requires also that persons have equal access to the resources necessary to develop their talents, so that meritocratic competition will be fair. Some accounts of FEO emphasize the importance of equal outcomes between different social groups. Other accounts of FEO aim at eliminating the social relations of a class state, whether or not this achieves equality of outcomes between social groups. Furthermore, many recent discussions of global justice have focused on the idea of global fair equality of opportunity. Fair equality of opportunity is a modified version of equality of opportunity. Following writers like Adam Smith, equality of opportunity exists under social and economic conditions where careers are open to talents. A society with equality of opportunity reaps the benefits of economic efficiency that follow from the absence of arbitrary forms of discrimination in determining access to social positions. However, even when the conditions of equality of opportunity are met, arbitrary facts may influence one’s access to the resources that are necessary to compete on fair terms with others. For example, under a system of mere equality of opportunity, persons from communities with poor quality public schools may not have a fair chance to develop their talents. Even if hiring

decisions in such a society were made on the basis of ability, members of socially disadvantaged social groups would be less likely to win in meritocratic competitions. In contrast, under a system of FEO, all persons have an equal chance to develop and exercise their talents. They compete with each other for social positions of power and prestige against the background of equal access to the resources needed to compete for such positions. Fair equality of opportunity is a minimally egalitarian principle of justice from the point of view of individuals. It is minimally egalitarian because it focuses on the access persons have to positions that are attached to social goods, but it does not directly regulate inequalities that result from the fact that persons hold different positions. For example, FEO ensures that persons from different backgrounds have equal access to the educational and social goods they need to compete for entry to medical school. However, FEO does not address the question of how high physician salaries should be relative to the salaries of non-physicians. FEO is minimally egalitarian between persons because it focuses merely upon the conditions required for fair competition for positions. Fair equality of opportunity is a maximally egalitarian principle of justice from the point of view of social groups. In a society whose institutions are governed by FEO, there will likely be little or no difference between the average holdings of members of different social groups. For example, if all Americans had access to similar educational and social resources, it is likely that inequalities of outcome would diminish between America’s different social groups (e.g., between women and men or between African Americans and Caucasian Americans). We can distinguish between two fundamentally different conceptions of FEO. First, some think of FEO as a response to the fact that our social identities (e.g., of race and gender) are matters of brute luck. On this view, since it is unfair for people to experience disadvantages due to circumstances of brute luck, justice requires that persons not experience disadvantages due to their social identities. This version of FEO aims at equal outcomes across social groups as a consequence of luck egalitarian commitments to mitigate the impact of brute luck

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

332

F

Fair Equality of Opportunity

upon distributive shares. Second, some think of FEO as an expression of the idea that a central component of the human good is the free development and exercise of one’s talents. This idea, found in the work of Marx and Mill (among others), asserts that individuals’ lives go better when individuals engage in activities that challenge them to develop and exercise their distinctively human capacities. FEO, on this view, resists the tendency of unregulated market economies to create and enforce the social relations of a class state. It prevents people from being tracked into menial labor, based merely on the circumstances of their birth. Many have discussed the role of fair equality of opportunity in global justice. These discussions focus on two main questions about the international role of FEO. First, there is a question about the relevant moral agents of global FEO: Should societies or individuals experience global FEO? Second, there is a question about what global FEO requires. This second question is especially pressing when the relevant moral agents of global FEO are all of the individuals in the world, and it invites further discussion of the relative merits of the two main conceptions of FEO (introduced above). On the first question, some have suggested that the societies of the world ought to have an equal chance to hold positions in international society and, thereby, an equal chance to benefit from international cooperation. Others have suggested that individual persons, throughout the world, ought to have equal opportunities to hold positions of power and privilege. On the second question, some have suggested that global FEO requires that one’s access to privileged positions not be affected by the brute luck of being born into one society rather than another. On this view, the daughter of a Swiss banker and the daughter of a Zimbabwean farmer ought to have equal opportunities to become executives at a Swiss bank. However, this account of global FEO has seemed untenable – even to its advocates – and they have come to endorse a less demanding requirement: Global FEO requires that all of the individuals of the world have an equal opportunity to hold equivalent positions, where equivalent positions are attached to comparable amounts of social goods. So, the child born in Zimbabwe need not have an equal opportunity to be a Swiss banker. However, she must have an equal opportunity to hold positions (perhaps only within her own society) that are attached to comparable amounts of goods (like wealth and income) as those that a Swiss banker receives. One interesting thing about this modified form of global FEO is that, like domestic FEO, it is minimally egalitarian between persons. It is consistent with the existence of very large interpersonal

inequalities (both within and between societies), as long as such inequalities arise from differences in natural talents. However, this account of global FEO is maximally egalitarian between societies. This is because it requires each society to provide persons with equal opportunities to hold equivalent positions. And, by definition, equivalent positions are attached to comparable amounts of resources. So, if global FEO requires that a child in Zimbabwe and a child in Switzerland have an equal opportunity to hold positions attached to comparable goods, then Zimbabwe and Switzerland need to have comparable amounts of goods (per capita). Meeting this demand would require massive and ongoing international transfers of wealth and income. It treats large international inequalities of wealth and income (among other goods) as evidence of injustice. According to another response to the second question – about what global FEO demands – global FEO, like domestic FEO, requires that all individuals have equal access to the resources necessary for developing and exercising their uniquely human capacities. That is, all people have the right to live in societies in which they have access to educational and social resources that are necessary for the development and exercise of their distinctively human capacities. For example, children in both Zimbabwe and Switzerland should be able to attend high quality schools. Meeting the demands of this principle will decrease international inequalities of wealth and income. However, this form of global FEO does not treat international inequalities of wealth and income, as such, as evidence of injustice. Rather, this form of global FEO aims at the creation of well-ordered institutions within all of the societies of the world (where this includes the educational and social institutions necessary for the development and exercise of persons’ talents).

Related Topics

▶ Democratic Equality ▶ Equality ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Responsibility, Individual

References Buchanan A (2000) Rawls’s law of peoples: rules for a vanished Westphalian world. Ethics 110(4):697–721 Caney S (2001) Cosmopolitan justice and equalizing opportunities. Metaphilosophy 32(1):113–134 Miller D (2008) National responsibility and global justice. Oxford University Press, Cambridge Moellendorf D (2006) Equality of opportunity globalized. Can J Law Jurisprud 19(2):301–318 Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Williams B (1962) The idea of equality. In: Laslett P, Runciman WG (eds) Philosophy, politics, and society. Barnes & Noble, New York

Fair Trade

Fair Trade NICOLE HASSOUN Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Recently, philosophers working on global justice have started to consider what makes trade fair (James 2009; Kurjanska and Risse 2008; Hassoun 2008a). The potential definitions of fair trade are as broad as the potential definitions of fairness – from free-market libertarian accounts to Rawlsian maximin proposals. Most of those considering the issue at least agree, however, that for trade to be fair it must promote social justice by improving the terms of trade for the poor and promoting investment in ways that benefit the poor in present and future generations. This, in any case, is one of the core ideas underlying the Fair Trade movement (International Fair Trade Association 2008). So, after considering the definitional issues, this article discusses the Fair Trade movement and whether or not purchasing Fair Trade Certified goods is morally permissible or required. Traditionally, those interested in promoting fair trade have focused on improving the lives of poor producers or workers by giving organizations “Fair Trade” certification. Very roughly, to qualify as Fair Trade certified, laborers must be paid a living wage (FLO 2009b). If products are produced by poor farmers, the focus is on product prices, and if products are produced by poor laborers, the focus is on wages (FLO 2009b). Finally, Fair Trade goods may have to be made in decent working conditions in an environmentally sustainable way. Fair Trade products should not be made with child or slave labor, and workers should have a safe work place and the right to organize. Other ways that Fair Trade organizations try to improve people’s lives include investing in infrastructure like schools and hospitals, reducing the length of supply chains, providing more stable incomes via credit programs, providing technical assistance, and doing community development projects. Some Fair Trade principles include increasing market access for poor producers, creating equitable, sustainable trading relationships, improving the capacity of producer organizations to compete in the global market, and raising consumer awareness (International Fair Trade Association 2008). While most Fair Trade proposals focus on improving the lives of poor producers and workers, some other Fair Trade certification schemas try to prevent companies from employing certain kinds of workers. “Rugmark”

F

and “Respect: Fair Trade Sports,” for example, focus on eliminating child labor (Strengthen your business: aelopt Rugmark; Respect Fair Trade Sports 2008). There may even be reason to extend the definition of “Fair Trade” further. If the idea of Fair Trade is extended beyond production processes, it might address how producers impact even those poor people they do not employ. This allows us to apply Fair Trade standards to any producers we would like; even large transnational corporations that employ no poor people at all. One idea is to rate pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies based on how their policies impact poor peoples’ access to essential drugs and technologies. The best companies, in a given year, will then be Fair Trade certified and allowed to use a Fair Trade label on their products. Another is to rate competing energy or extractive resource firms. Energy companies that develop and help poor people secure access to renewable energy sources might, for instance, be Fair Trade certified (Hassoun 2007). One reason for counting the above proposals as “Fair Trade” is that that would allow Fair Trade to provide an alternative to the neoliberal economic policies central to globalization that “anti-globalization” protestors and those in “the global justice movement” reject (GJM 2009; Hassoun 2007). But, whatever one thinks of the definitional issues, at least the traditional Fair Trade movement is growing. Markets for Fair Trade certified goods are increasing. In 2000, European countries sold 27 million pounds of coffee worth more than $300 million dollars (Transfair 2002; MaxHavelaar Belgium, 2002 cited in Raynolds 2002). Fair Trade coffee was sold in more than 35,000 super markets, as well as in many universities and government offices. Fair Trade coffee sales amounted to about 1.2% of the European market (EFTA 2001, cited in Raynolds 2002). In the US, Fair Trade coffee grew by 79% in 2000–2001 and experts predict it will be the largest Fair Trade coffee market (McMahon 2001, cited in Raynolds 2002). About 97% of roasters including Starbucks, Peets, and Green Mountain coffee sell Fair Trade certified coffee (Conroy 2001; TransFair USA 2002 – cited in Raynolds 2002). And it is not just coffee. Many goods are Fair Trade certified including coffee, tea, spices, sugar, cocoa, bananas, honey, cotton, handicrafts, fruit, wine, and flowers. By 2007, Fair Trade certified sales were approximately €2.3 billion (FLO, 2009a). In 2007, there was a 47% increase in sales of Fair Trade goods compared to sales in 2006 (FLO 2009a). By 2008, The Fairtrade Labeling Organization estimated that 7.5 million poor people were benefitting from Fair Trade projects (FLO 2009a). Some are skeptical, however, of the desirability of even the traditional Fair Trade movement. In their paper,

333

F

334

F

Fair Trade

“Fairness in Trade II: Export Subsidies and the Fair Trade Movement” Malgorzata Kurjanska and Mathias Risse adopt a roughly Rawlsian account of fairness. They suggest that, on this account, the case for Fair Trade certified goods hinges, primarily, on whether or not Fair Trade is part of the best development strategy for poor countries. They do not think Fair Trade is part of the best development strategy and, so, they believe purchasing Fair Trade certified goods is only acceptable but not required because it does not constitute a large share of the market in traded goods (Kurjanska and Risse 2008). Sales of Fair Trade coffee, for instance, total only 87 million dollars a year, which is a fraction of the world trade in coffee (The Economist 2006). Even adopting this account of fairness, however, the case against Fair Trade Kurjanska and Risse present is much weaker than they make out (Hassoun 2011a). Using a Rawlsian account of justice to consider the impact of free trade on the poor makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to figure out what development strategy is best. (A policy that seems to maximize the position of the least well off, for instance, may not do so if background policies are changed.) Kurjanska and Risse suggest that Fair Trade is not part of the best development strategy because people may be induced to specialize in ways that do not support their long-term interests. To arrive at this conclusion, however, Kurjanska and Risse do not cite rigorous empirical evidence. Instead they posit a counterfactual hypothesis about how Fair Trade would have impacted Costa Rica. Even if Costa Rica is better off than it would have been had it embraced Fair Trade, that cannot show that Fair Trade is generally worse than free trade for the poor. Costa Rica may be an exception, but most other countries that increase their Fair Trade markets may benefit. So, perhaps we should support Fair Trade in light of the fact that there is a lot of evidence that suggests Fair Trade programs often help the poor in developing countries (Raynolds 2002; Bacon 2004). Impact assessments of Fair Trade projects suggest that they benefit the poor by raising prices for Fair Trade goods (McMahon 2001). In “Assessing the Potential of Fair Trade for Poverty Reduction and Conflict Prevention: A Case Study of Bolivian Coffee Producers” Sandra Imhof and Andrew Lee use quantitative and qualitative data to argue, for instance, that Fair Trade coffee producers make more than their competitors (Imhof and Lee 2007). Others also suggest that those who participate in Fair Trade projects receive higher, less variable prices, credit, and training (Bacon 2005). In “One Cup At A Time: Poverty Alleviation and Fair Trade Coffee in Latin America,” Douglas Murray et. al. claim that participation in Fair Trade

networks helps farmers throughout Latin America secure all of these things (Murray et al. 2003). The higher prices they can secure with Fair Trade can help the poor in many ways. Often they simply help farmers make ends meet. In “Confronting the Coffee Crisis: Can Fair Trade, Organic, and Specialty Coffees Reduce Small-Scale Farmer Vulnerability in Northern Nicaragua?” Christopher Bacon argues that participating in a Fair Trade network helps coffee farmers in Nicaragua reduce their vulnerability to the coffee crisis (Bacon 2005). He finds that Fair Trade farmers say they are four times less likely to lose their land than traditional farmers (Bacon 2005: 506). In “Revaluing Peasant Coffee Production: Organic and Fair Trade Markets in Mexico,” Muriel Calo and Timothy Wise use theoretical models along with survey data to argue that the Fair Trade farmers they studied end up better off than those who turn to organic production alone (Calo and Wise 2005; Milford 2004; Ronchi 2000; Bacon 2005; Taylor 2002; Imhof and Lee 2007). Other researchers argue that Fair Trade farmers do better in part because they have more access to credit, training, and support programs (Murray et al. 2003). There is even evidence that farmers participating in Fair Trade programs are better able to educate their children and meet their basic needs for things like food, water, and housing (Murray et al. 2003; Bacon 2005). Yet, other researchers assert that participating in Fair Trade programs can help farmers develop their organizational capacities within cooperatives (Raynolds 2002; Bacon 2004). Their studies suggest that Fair Trade organizations enhance the capacity of participating cooperatives to market their goods and have other positive effects on producers because it helps them organize (Calo and Wise 2005; Milford 2004: 76; Ronchi 2000; Bacon 2005; Taylor 2002; Imhof and Lee 2007). In “Coffee, Co-operatives and Competition: The Impact of Fair Trade,” for instance, Anna Milford uses a theoretical model and case study evidence to argue that the Fair Trade premium helps cooperatives maintain cohesion and use collective bargaining power to destabilize cartels and secure higher prices for farmers’ products. Milford suggests that these cooperatives not only improve welfare by providing education and credit services but by giving farmers essential information and lobbying power (Milford 2004). The studies of Fair Trade’s impact discussed above are, of course, open to criticism. In “Introduction: Impact Evaluation in Official Development Agencies,” Howard White and Michael Bamberger argue, for instance, that such evaluations may fail to isolate the cause of Fair Trade farmers’ success (White and Bamberger 2008).

Fair Trade

Some use only survey data and many do not try to control for other factors that may explain their data. Studies of Fair Trade’s efficacy certainly vary in quality and breadth of coverage. Nevertheless, Fair Trade impact evaluations are becoming more sophisticated all of the time. Some of the best are quasi-experimental. (For discussion of different kinds of empirical evidence, see: Hassoun 2010, 2011a). A recent study commissioned by the Center for International Development Issues in the Netherlands is particularly comprehensive containing eight case studies looking at Fair Trade in different commodities in different places (Ruben 2008). It is a quasi-experimental study that tries to establish causation by comparing participants in Fair Trade programs to similar nonparticipants (using a sophisticated form of propensity score matching). The authors argue that the Fair Trade programs they study generally increase participants’ food consumption and access to credit. Many participants also make more housing, land, and educational investments than those in the non-Fair Trade comparison group. Some of the studies tested for regional effects of Fair Trade, finding general increases in market prices and wages once Fair Trade standards made up a significant portion of the market. Please note that some even argue that, on all of the major moral theories, there is a moral obligation for consumers to purchase Fair Trade certified goods (Philips 2008). In any case, there is a lot of room for further research.

Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Julian Culp for helpful comments. The material regarding Fair Trade’s impact was adapted from Hassoun (2011b).

Related Topics

▶ Development Ethics ▶ Free Trade ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Labor Laws ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Sustainable Development ▶ World Trade Organization (WTO)

References Bacon C (2004) Confronting the coffee crisis: can fair trade, organic, and specialty coffees reduce small-scale farmer vulnerability in northern Nicaragua? World Dev 33(3):497–511 Brock G (1998) Necessary goods: our responsibilities to meet others’ needs. Rowman & Littlefield, New York Buchanan A (1990) Justice as reciprocity vs subject-centered justice. Philos Public Aff 19:227–252

F

Calo M, Wise T (2005) Revaluing peasant coffee production: organic and fair trade markets in mexico. Global Development and Environment Institute Tufts University, Medford Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO) (2009a) Facts and figures. http:// www.fairtrade.net/facts_and_figures.html?&L=&scale=0 Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO) (2009b) About fair trade. http:// www.fairtrade.net/about_fairtrade.html FLO-CERT (2009) Scope of certification. http://www.flo-cert.net/flo-cert/ main.php?id=14 Global Justice Movement (GJM) (2009) Global justice movement: it’s, possible! http://www.globaljusticemovement.org/ Hassoun N (2007) Fair trade bio. Carnegie Mellon University Working Paper. http://www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy/hassoun/facultyhassoun.php Hassoun N (2008a) Free trade, poverty, and the environment. Public Aff Quart 22(4):353–380 Hassoun N (2008b) World poverty and individual freedom. Am Philos Quart 45(2):191–198 Hassoun N (2009a) Free trade and the environment. Environ Ethics 3(1):51–66 Hassoun N (2009b) Meeting need. Utilitas 21(3):250–275 Hassoun N (2010) Empirical evidence and the case for foreign aid. Public Aff Quart 24(1):1–21 Hassoun N (2011a) Free trade, poverty, and inequality. J Moral Philos 8(1):5–44 Hassoun N (2011b) Making free trade fair. In: Brooks T (ed) New waves in ethics. http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=361733 Imhof S, Lee A (2007) Assessing the potential of fair trade for poverty reduction and conflict prevention: a case study of Bolivian coffee producers. (short version). Swisspeace and Europainstitut. University of Basel Working Paper, Basel International Fair Trade Association (2008) What is fair trade? http:// www.ifat.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory& id=11&Itemid=12. Accessed Jan 2008 James A (2009) A theory of fairness in trade. Working Paper, University of California, Irvine Kurjanska M, Risse M (2008) Fairness in trade II: export subsidies and the fair trade movement. Philos Polit Econ 7:29–56 McMahon P (2001) “Cause coffees” produce a cup with an agenda. USA Today, pp A1–A2. Accessed Jan 2008 Milford A (2004) Coffee, co-operatives and competition: the impact of fair trade. Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen Moellendorf D (2005) World Trade Organization and egalitarian justice. Metaphilosophy 36(1/2):0026–1068 Murray D, Raynolds L, Taylor P (2003) One cup at a time: poverty alleviation and fair trade coffee in Latin America. Fair Trade Research Group Colorado State University. http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/ Sociology/FairTradeResearchGroup. Accessed May 2011 Philips J (2008) Is there a moral case for fair trade products? On the moral duty for consumers to buy and for governments to support fair trade products. In: Ruben R (ed) The impact of fair trade. Waginingen Academic, Waginingen Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights: cosmopolitan responsibilities and reforms. Polity, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) Law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Raynolds L (2002) Poverty alleviation through participation in fair trade coffee networks: existing research and critical issues. Background paper prepared for project funded by the community and resource development program. The Ford Foundation, New York Respect Fair Trade Sports (2008). RESPECT the children: Ethiopia http:// www.fairtradesports.com/gearshop/

335

F

336

F

Fairness

Ronchi L (2000) Fair trade in Costa Rica: an impact report. Economics Subject Group, University of Sussex, Sussex Ruben R (2008) The impact of fair trade. Waginingen Academic, Waginingen Strengthen your business: aelopt Rugmark. http://www.rugmark.india.org/ Taylor P (2002) Poverty alleviation through participation in fair trade coffee networks: synthesis of case study research question findings. Colorado State University. Report prepared for project funded by the community and resource development program, The Ford Foundation, New York The Economist (2006) Fair enough. The Economist, vol 378, no 8471, p 33 White H, Bamberger M (2008) Introduction: impact evaluation in official development agencies. IDS Bulletin 39:1–11 World Fair Trade Organization (2009) About WFTO. http://www.wfto. com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=889&Item id=290

Fairness SUSAN P. MURPHY School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

The idea of fairness is broad and complex, and can mean different things in different contexts. The ideas of fairness and unfairness are basic ethical predicates within almost all moral and ethical theoretical frameworks. Fairness is a pervasive idea that is appealed to in discussions on all aspects of life – in the workplace (e.g., that the right person was employed or promoted), in sports (that is, that all participants play by the rules of the particular game), in the family (e.g., that each family member does their share of the household tasks, or that each child receives their share of attention/love/care according to their needs and stage of life). Broadly speaking, the idea of fairness implies some level of impartiality in actions, relationships, or structures. In everyday use, when a person speaks of an act or a situation being fair or unfair this is often taken as a strong reason in favor of or against a certain course of action. While appeals to fairness do not prescribe or determine a fixed outcome, and do not necessarily demand equal treatment, they do involve some criteria of impartiality within the frame of a specific context. Appeals to unfairness can suggest that an act or situation is biased in favor of some particular vested interest, rather than being based on unbiased and impartial reasoning; appeals to fairness can suggest the legitimacy of certain actions or situations, as consistent with an agreed set of rules (e.g., in sports). Appeals to fairness invoke what are widely known as agent neutral reasons in support of or against a particular course of action and/or outcome

(see Thomas Nagel [1986] for wider discussion of agent neutral reasons and agent relative reasons – reasons based on the particular reasons or interests relative to the individual agent). The idea of fairness is central to reflections on justice, and plays a particularly significant role in considerations on global justice. It is widely argued within the literature on global justice that it is deeply unfair that a person’s life prospects should be shaped by arbitrary factors such as their place of birth, race, gender, religious affiliation, and so on. Although the terms fairness and justice are closely linked and are sometimes used interchangeably, it is important to note that there is a distinction between these two core ideas. Justice, very broadly speaking, refers to each person getting what he or she needs, deserves, or is entitled to. Fairness, again broadly speaking, refers to judgments and evaluations based on some criteria of impartiality. The following provides an overview of the basic concept of fairness and the grounds and scope of this broad concept. It will examine the central role of fairness in some of the key debates within the literature of Global Justice. Drawing on Amartya Sen’s most recent contribution to the literature on Global Justice, this section explains how it is the idea of fairness that exposes the inadequacies of the framework of international justice; and how demands of fairness explain why an account of global justice based on a wider understanding and application of fairness is necessary to adjudicate between the interests of human beings across borders (see Sen 2009). This contribution will then provide an overview of some of the most critical debates within this literature that give central consideration to the concept of fairness.

What Is Fairness? Fairness is a basic ethical predicate that is broad and complex in application, structure, and content (see Barry and Tomitova 2007; Hooker 2005). It entails some level of impartiality, and freedom from personal bias and prejudice. Within a legal framework, it implies equity and equal treatment – treating like cases alike – though not necessarily equality. Fairness implies abstraction and disinterest – that is, that one considers particular cases (acts and situations) independently of one’s own self-interest and the promotion of personal or agent relative reasons. Fair action implies legitimate action, which is action that is correct and proper under a particular set of rules. Fairness is broad in application in that it is used to evaluate the conduct of agents (see Barry and Tomitova 2007) and public behavioral patterns, as well as assessing the realizations, or outcomes and social consequences to which such conduct and behavior gives rise (see Sen 2009). Reasons of fairness carry strong

Fairness

normative force – if actions or outcomes are deemed to be unfair, this is a strong reason for avoiding, prohibiting, or changing the course of action and associated outcome, and also for compensating victims of unfair outcomes.

The Grounds of Fairness As many philosophers comment, fairness is often used with a very broad meaning (see Hooker 2005). The idea of fairness comes before and is prior to any substantive principles of justice. Indeed, fairness is a critical means for evaluating principles of justice. If proposed principles are deemed unfair, then they are unjust. In this sense, fairness entails justice, and principles of justice can be derived from a foundational principle of fairness (see Rawls 1971; Sen 2009). The identification of a single definitive ground for this concept is contested. Egalitarians, Utilitarians, and Libertarians appeal to different criteria for its grounding. Sen’s analogy of three children and a flute describes how we can think about fairness and yet have very different ideas of what this entails and indeed, what this demands (although Sen is referring to justice in this analogy, fairness comes before justice for Sen. This is one of the lessons from Rawls that Sen argues is most helpful, 2009:53–55). If there is only one flute available, is it fair that it goes to the child who can play this instrument best and so will secure greatest pleasure (utilitarian grounds); or that this flute be given to the child who lacks any other toys or instruments and therefore has the greatest need (egalitarian grounds); or that the child who has worked with great care and diligence to make the flute deserves to enjoy the fruits of her labor (libertarian grounds)? To these three options it is possible to add a fourth, that of sharing the flute between the three children, assuming of course that this is feasible. This indicates that fairness, like justice, can be based on plural and possibly irreconcilable and incompatible grounds. Lack of agreement, at this foundational level, results in disagreement on the substantive demands of fairness and the duties and obligations to which this can give rise.

The Scope of Fairness Bounded Fairness and the Ideal of Reciprocity The term bounded fairness simply refers to the role of fairness within a specified and closed context. This idea of fairness plays a central role in the work of John Rawls. Rawls’s account of both the principle of fairness as this applies to individuals, and justice as fairness as this applies to the basic institutions of society and social cooperation continue to inspire, influence, and challenge philosophers

F

within the discourse on global justice (see Rawls 1971). It must be noted that Rawls’s account of justice as fairness is a solution to a very specific problem. The problem for Rawls relates to the absence of consensus on the concepts of freedom and equality within democratic societies under modern conditions (see Rawls 1980: 518). This lack of consensus results in disagreement over the principles of justice and the proper form of basic institutions within such societies. For Rawls, the solution is justice as fairness. There are two parts to Rawls’s use of fairness – the first relates to the background conditions within which deliberation takes place, which must be fair and reasonable. The second part relates to the institutions that arise from this deliberation. These must be fair if they are to give rise to obligations. The circumstances of fair background conditions are achieved through a process of abstraction. Rawls employs a mediating conception called the Original Position to facilitate this process of abstraction. The framework of the original position is understood to be fair or reasonable due to the imposition of a number of constraints. These constraints are firstly, the condition of publicity; secondly, the thick veil of ignorance; thirdly the symmetry and equality of party’s situation with respect to one another; and finally, the stipulation that the basic structure is the first subject of justice (Rawls 1971, 1980). These structural conditions are necessary constraints to secure rational deliberation and broad consensus on the basic principles of justice as these apply to the basic institutions of a liberal democratic society. For Rawls, the background circumstances must be fair to enable rational deliberation and the identification of reasonable or fair principles of justice. Rawls argues that in circumstances of fairness, moral persons (understood as free and equal, possessing two moral powers – capacity for an effective sense of justice and the capacity to form, revise, and to rationally pursue a conception of the good) would select two principles of justice that would apply to the basic social, economic, and political institutions of a society. The application of justice as fairness to the basic structure of a society is intended to secure fairness for all participants. For Rawls, a just society can be understood as a fair scheme of cooperation among participants. The benefits and burdens of this cooperative venture are shared fairly among participants and the basic institutions are designed to secure fairness and avoid free-loading, that is, where others gain from the cooperative efforts without doing their fair share. The idea of giving a foundational role to fairness through the construction of a fair or reasonable framework to enable rational deliberation, the output of which would be principles of justice that participants in

337

F

338

F

Fairness

a cooperative system would adopt, continues to influence the discourse on fairness in international relations and international justice (see Beitz [1999] and Pogge [1989] for examples of how the procedure employed by Rawls can be extended to the international context; see also Kokaz’s discussion of international fairness 2005).

Unbounded Fairness and the Comparative Approach The term unbounded fairness refers to considerations of fairness in an open context, that is, a context that is not constrained by any arbitrary boundary such as state or jurisdictional boundaries. Amartya Sen’s most recent contribution to the literature on global justice is concerned with the scope and demands of fairness. Firstly, in relation to the scope of fairness, Sen critically examines the closed account of impartiality within Rawls’s theory and in social contract accounts of justice as fairness more broadly. Although the idea of fairness is broad and complex and can be applied in many different ways, a central characteristic is its demand for impartiality and reasoning free from personal bias and vested interest (see Sen 2009: 53–55). Sen argues that Rawls’s account secures impartiality among a selective group of participants (members of the cooperative venture) and so cannot allow consideration of the interests of those outside this group who may be affected by the actions and decisions of this group – both directly and indirectly. Such an account ultimately results in an expression of bias and partiality that is inconsistent with the foundational idea of fairness, and indeed is unsustainable in a world as interconnected as ours (see Sen 2009: Chap. 5; Tan 2004). Sen identifies three dominant reasons for rejecting the Rawlsian account of closed impartial reasoning – firstly, that such an account excludes the voices of those who may be affected by the actions and policies of a group, though beyond the borders of the particular group; secondly, determining the membership of that group, or the voices of who ought to count, can result in inconsistencies: the size and composition of the group results from a deliberative exercise that can result in excluding some voices that, under alternative conditions, ought to be afforded membership of the group; thirdly, that closed impartiality ultimately results in procedural parochialism. Rather than removing bias, prejudice, and vested interests among a select group of people, such an approach may result in giving full expression to the shared biases, prejudices, and interests of this group. It lacks any means of critical assessment of these shared values and beliefs. Sen develops an alternative account of impartiality, using the procedure of the fair and impartial spectator

that allows for open and inclusive impartiality. Drawing on the work of Adam Smith, Sen argues that such a reflective device gives a voice to others beyond a particular focal group who may be affected by the institutions and policies of that group. Sen is also deeply critical of any account of fairness that limits it to an institutional feature. For Sen, and many others within the discourse on global justice (see, e.g., O’Neill 1989, 1996), Rawls’s focus on basic institutions and the exclusion of consideration of actual behavioral patterns, social conduct, and the outcomes of the interaction between institutions and actual behavior is deeply problematic. Do fair institutions mean that those operating under these institutions will also act fairly? Sen forcefully argues that fairness demands some mechanism for critical and comparative assessment of the actual realizations of the interaction between actual behavioral patterns and social institutions. Sen develops an alternative comparative account of justice, employing the tools of social choice theory, which give consideration not only to basic institutions but also to the lives and freedoms of the people involved (see Sen 2009).

Why Global Justice Rather Than International Justice? Reflecting on the idea of fairness also helps us understand the distinction between accounts of global justice and accounts of international justice. Accounts of international justice take the nation, state, or group as the primary unit of concern, and examine which principles should guide the behavior and cooperative institutions between these groups. However, relations between people go considerably beyond such a framework. Again, Sen’s work is helpful in explaining why accounts of international justice cannot sufficiently guide relations between human beings in the modern context (see Sen 2002, 2009: Chap. 5). Thinking of fairness in terms of bounded groups or nation-states completely overlooks the fairness or unfairness of actions, situations, structures, and relationships that cut across group lines. There are many different types of interaction between human beings that are not bound or constrained by national identity or state borders, which directly impact upon the lives and freedoms of human beings and are not subject to any form or assessment and evaluation in the international account. Human beings are connected to other human beings in a multitude of ways that are not constrained to a particular jurisdictional boundary. For example, connections based on religion, gender, employment involve actions, circumstances, and structures that should surely be subject to considerations of fairness. A conception of

Fairness

international justice cannot test the fairness or reasonableness of non-state transnational actors such as transnational corporations, and the way in which their actions and behavior affect the lives and freedoms of those impacted. The plural nature of affiliations between human beings and entities that operate across borders does not fit into a model that restricts fairness to political boundaries. Accounts of global justice take the individual human being as the basic unit of concern and examine how institutions (including political institutions and economic entities) rather than only particular nations or states, can affect the lives and freedoms of human beings, and can be examined under criteria of fairness (see Caney [2005], Tan [2004], Pogge [2010], Sen [2009] for accounts of global justice; see David Miller [2007] and John Rawls [1999] of accounts of international justice).

Fairness and Global Justice: Key Debates A common feature in the work of a number of philosophers contributing to the literature on global justice is a concern with the background conditions of the existing international institutional framework and how these conditions result in unfair outcomes for the most vulnerable human beings. Thomas Pogge’s influential work is primarily concerned with the unfairness of the outcomes of the international institutional framework. Pogge employs the idea of fairness, fair competition, and fair institutional rules to evaluate these background conditions of the international system. He devotes considerable attention to the basic rules of the international game and the way in which these background rules can be considered fair only if they ensure a level playing field for all participants. Pogge finds that the playing field is far from level or fairness. His account of global justice includes a number of policy measures and recommendations aimed at establishing fair competition and fair background conditions (see Pogge 2010). The idea of fairness is also central to debates on global climate change (see Caney 2005; Page 2006), the demands of fair trade over free trade (Kokaz 2005), sovereign debt of developing nations (Barry and Tomitova 2007), and the limits of special obligations in general, and obligations to compatriots in particular (Tan 2005). Fairness, its grounds, scope, and demands will continue to be of concern as the connections and interconnections between human beings continue to deepen and expand. Our knowledge of our connection and interconnection with others outside cooperative practices, special relationships and arbitrarily established ties and the nature and scope of outcomes, both intended and unintended, of collective decisions and actions that stretch beyond the boundaries

F

339

of those ties, result in a morally and normatively pressing demand to reassess the scope and demands of the idea of fairness.

Related Topics

▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Climate Change ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Fair Equality of Opportunity ▶ Fair Trade ▶ Global Equality of Opportunity ▶ Global Impartiality Thesis ▶ Global Public Goods ▶ Original Position ▶ Partiality ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Sen, Amartya

References Barry C, Tomitova L (2007) Fairness in sovereign debt. In: Dealing fairly with developing country debt. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 41–80 Barry C, Herman B, Tomitova L (2007) Dealing fairly with developing country debt. Blackwell, Oxford Beitz C (1999) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Caney S (2005) Cosmopolitan justice, responsibility and global climate change. Leiden J Int Law 18:747–775 De Greiff P, Cronin C (2002) Global justice and transnational politics. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA/London, UK Hooker B (2005) Fairness. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 8:320–352 Kokaz N (2005) Theorizing international fairness. Metaphilosophy 36(1):68–83 Miller D (2007) National responsibility and global justice. Oxford University Press, UK and USA Murphy L (1993) The demands of beneficence. Philos Public Aff 22(4):267–292 Nagel T (1986) The view from nowhere. Oxford University Press, New York O’Neill O (1989) Constructions of reason: Explorations of Kant’s practical philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge O’Neill O (1996) Towards justice and virtue. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Page E (2006) Climate change, justice and future generations. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham Pogge T (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell University Press, USA Pogge T (2010) Politics as usual. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK Rawls J (1971) Theory of justice. Oxford University Press, New York Rawls J (1980) Kantian constructivism in moral theory. The Journal of Philosophy 99(9):515–572 Rawls J (1999) Law of peoples. Harvard University Press, USA Sen A (2002) Justice across borders. In: Global justice and transnational politics. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA/London, UK, pp 37–53 Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Allen Lane Published by the Penguin Group, London

F

340

F

Falk, Richard

Tan KT (2004) Justice without borders. Cambridge University Press, UK and USA Tan KC (2005) Cosmopolitan impartiality and patriotic partiality. In: Weinstock (ed) Global Justice, Global Institutions. Canadian University Press, Canada, pp 165–192 Tasioulas J (2002) International law and the limits of fairness. Eur J Int Law 13(4):993–1023 Wenar L (2002) The legitimacy of peoples. In: Global justice and transnational politics. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA/London, UK, pp 53–76

Falk, Richard HENRY F. CHIP CAREY Department of Political Science, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

International Law/International Relations Richard Falk’s views are not those of the two dominant paradigms of international politics, realism and liberalism. I have once called him a “Groatian eclectic.” Michael Reisman has suggested that Falk follows the “New Haven School” of policy oriented, legal approaches while Joseph Nye characterized Falk’s thought as cosmopolitan, where individuals and peoples control world order, rather than states. Clearly, this complicated theorist and policy activist does pick and choose between the norms of the Westphalian system that is supposed to protect all states equally but fails in actual practice. Falk does follow the New Haven School to the extent that he believes states can combine both domestic and international legal principles, but is skeptical that the preferred policies will not predictably be made to coincide with those of powerful states. Falk also does support cosmopolitan ideals, but remains chary that international laws will not become co-opted by the powerful instead of helping those whom they are supposed to help. Still, Falk has, with colleagues worldwide, advanced notions of world order models, reflecting cosmopolitan policy preferences on the footing that someday global civil society will convince and transform states to see their own interests more coincident with those of the world’s peoples. This project will require states to move toward adopting human rights cultures, where counter-narratives change from past national narratives to ideals and goals from social movements that rely on grassroots thinking to serve as substitutes for bureaucratic security goals and discourse. Falk departs from both realists and liberals in accepting the contemporary legal order as somehow natural or based on experience. Where a statist world

order cannot address human wrongs, to use Ken Booth’s term, new dialectical challenges require revolutionary thinking and grassroots action to counter contemporary injustices. Unlike realists, Falk rejects the notion of states pursuing benign, enlightened self-interests. Falk feels that security and interests often have conflicting logics with human rights protections because they are based on hierarchies of power. Unlike for liberals, he does not feel that human rights are just one of many values worth pursuing, but rather argues that global cooperation is supposed to primarily protect people(s), not states. Achieving peace among states for their own sake might stop the killing but risks increasing human wrongs in the long run as state prerogatives remain intact to commit more violent human rights violations at the next moment state interests are threatened. To focus on protecting human rights and the international commons is to put human beings and the planet appropriately ahead of the interests of states. A post-Westphalian order needs to be created where states govern with the consent of global civil society. As with peace, Falk argues that the rule of law is necessary for justice, but not sufficient because it currently reflects the power and interests of the powerful states. The rule of law too can and should be restructured to put human rights first. Law should be a means to protect rights, instead of contradicting those rights. To change the structure of international society, a right to a just international order where rights are possible, citizens must organize as citizens’ organizations around the world. Norms of nonintervention, for example, are important to protect weak states from attack, but also should not be taken literally to mean one cannot monitor human rights in one’s own country and abroad generally, but even to permit humanitarian interventions in situations where states are slaughtering their own people. One of his own selfdepictions as a post-Westphalian suggests that he does not believe that the rules of international law should take exception to the legal equality of all states, when they sacrifice the rights of peoples and individuals, not only for current but future, and perhaps even past generations. Falk would say that the international legal order is unfair, which allows powerful states to dominate weak states. Law is used instrumentally by powerful states to discredit their enemies. Trade law, for example permits powerful states and their corporations to exploit cheap labor, while facilitating globalization, which exports jobs while threatening states that seek justice for their workers. Falk posits a horizontal dimension of international law, which holds promise for a more just international politics, and a vertical dimension, which maintains hierarchies of power, keeping weak states and their peoples in

Falk, Richard

subordinate positions. Even where there has been some progress, such as the establishment in 2002 of the International Criminal Court, all the latter’s indictments and prosecutions to date have been of Africans. No one from the West has been prosecuted for ICC core crimes in such international courts, or by Western states of their leaders in their courts. Only weak, defeated, and “rogue states” that disobey what powerful states want are singled out for criticism or prosecution. The development of multilateral approaches is necessary, but an insufficient first step toward Falk’s ultimate goal of global democracy because many international institutions are still controlled by powerful states. The United Nations Security Council, for example, confers veto power on its permanent five members. The International Criminal Court offers primary jurisdiction to states parties under the principle of complimentarity. Yet, Falk remains optimistic that the creation of these international courts, as well as the universal jurisdiction providing national courts of states with jurisdiction over international crimes, are post-Cold War developments that represent progress and further potential for empowering global civil society as zones for advocacy and justice. Otherwise, victims of human rights violations have little recourse to remedial procedures. The USA is exceptional in two senses, that it says it supports human rights, but does not in practice, and US culture leads it to be blind to its own crimes and violations. The first sense is not unique to the USA, but creates dilemmas as a trait of all states. The second interpretation, however, is troublesome for Falk and liberals like David Forsythe, as Americans, to note that the USA is congenitally blind to its own crimes and hypocrisy. Since the two World Wars, Falk has concluded that the Westphalian system is too dangerous, particularly in an era of nuclear weaponry. The nuclear nonproliferation regime, where the great powers retain such weapons, is untenable to provide security to the rest of the world, given their lack of commitment to disarmament. Falk is skeptical that liberal global governance will suffice to induce states to eschew their geopolitical interest in favor of human security. Great powers hypocritically condemn human rights violations in developing countries but ignore those violations in their own countries.

Social and Political Justice Falk is unhappy with the modern state, because it monopolizes and abuses power and coercion. However, it is difficult to facilitate the emergence of global civil society. The latter is not always benign. States can and do manipulate masses for their own purposes.

F

Unlike liberals who see no alternative to the Westphalian system and the claim that pragmatism will work better than global democracy, Falk advocates a “necessary utopianism” based on the capacity of global civil society to restructure global order where human rights violations are identified and corrected and where a global parliament includes mobilized civil society with sectoral representation, whether or not there are traditional forms of elections. Global and civil society have manifested in the Stockholm and Rio Summits’ peoples’ assemblies on the environment and the Beijing women’s congress, and the peoples’ tribunals for the US wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Falk’s concept of global democracy would counteract the privileged status of great powers in formal international institutions by empowering peoples movements that would build global civil society. He advocates such peoples’ assemblies, where civil society organizations might meet at the same time as or even at UN-state based conferences and are joined with worldwide initiatives in human rights education. The protection of human dignity and the ethos of peace must be prior to states’ interests reflecting a pedagogy of human security that is taught as the foundation of a human rights culture. To build peace, structures of human security must be developed through the teaching of tolerance and an educational component that opposes the supposed “lessons of history,” which are based on cultures of revenge, war, and militarism that are so common in the world. As Falk wrote in Human Rights Horizons, “Hope begins when we have the moral courage and the intellectual energy to transcend what seems possible by considering carefully what seems necessary and desirable and then having the daring to plan for ‘the impossible’. I think the changing parameters of the debate on climate change, facing the inconvenient truth on the environment, is an encouraging sign of emerging receptivity to an acceptance of constraints on all forms of political behavior for the sake of a humane future.” Education is needed to help inspire such civil society actions that are needed to protect the world from environmental or military Armageddon. Still, Falk sees international law and human rights as a work in progress. Whereas a liberal would seek improvements given the “realities,” Falk the cosmopolitan wants a democratic system to operate internationally to overcome these realities. Given the danger of trying to achieve a democratic legal order internationally, the process, even for Falk, is incremental, zigzagging with progress and regress, where global civil society should seize opportunities when they are presented. From the viewpoint of centuries, the progress can be impressive, as with the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of women and the rise of

341

F

342

F

Falk, Richard

developing counties out of the wake of colonialism, the rise of human rights, the emergence of international social movements, the end of apartheid, the development of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights, all show the possibility of transcending Westphalian sovereignty to create a new internationalism. A future World Court of Human Rights could evolve out of the latter example. Analytically pessimistic, he still sees signs of moving from global governance toward global democracy.

The Scholar as Citizen and Activist Falk has always been a scholar as activist, and vice versa. During the Vietnam War, Falk edited a four volume series, The Vietnam War and International Law (1976), and coedited, Crimes of War: Indochina. His policy arguments have appeared in The Nation, where he has been a longtime member of the editorial board, and in books such as International Law in a Violent World (1968), The Great Terror War (2003), and Crimes of War: Iraq (2006). Falk was one of several important contributors of affidavits in the landmark 1980 case, Fila´rtiga v. Pena-Irala, (630 F.2d 878, 2d Cir. 1980) that established civil claims for damages by victims of torture against their torturers in US courts, regardless of where the torture occurs. Falk has been an exponent of universal jurisdiction, occasional humanitarian intervention, and ecological accountability of justice despite the risks involved, in directing attention toward the wrongdoing of powerful states. Falk and a half-dozen legal scholars also made up the Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute, Inc., that produced a series of books in the 1970s under the leadership of the late Professor Richard B. Lillich. Before and after the PAIL project, Falk and his colleagues from different world regions and academic generations produced several studies in the “World Order Models Project,” which framed a new basis for sustainable world order, quite different from that articulated by President George H.W. Bush as the Cold War ended, which did advocate multilateralism, but for the benefit of the United States. Falk’s collaborators on these and other policy projects intended to have public impacts have produced dozens of policy collaborations with Saul Mendlowitz, R.B.J. Walker, Gabriel Kolko, Robert Jay Lifton, Samuel S. Kim, Wolfram F. Hanrieder, Christopher Weeramantry, and many others seeking exposing first-world bias in the utilization of international law as an instrument of foreign policy, instead of following international law on the basis of worldwide equality and solidarity. Aside from organizing popular tribunals to evaluate US war crimes in various Third World countries and Iraq, Falk also has represented clients, either in courts or in the

court of public opinion. He defended those who resisted the Vietnam War on the basis of conscientious objection. He argued a Nuremberg Defense argument, given the duty not to obey illegal orders established by those principles, of the necessity to absolve those who break laws that are not just immoral, but illegal to obey. Among his many important efforts in public service, a few are worth mentioning: He worked on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples for the Government of Canada (1993–1995), which provided insights into the Declaration on Indigenous Rights at the United Nations; the Independent International Commission on Kosovo (1999–2001), which investigated the claims to self-determination of Kosovars and humanitarian intervention of NATO; and the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001), which developed important principles on the Responsibility to Protect. He defended those who resisted the military draft during the Vietnam War, such as in United States v. Sisson, Fed. Dist. Court, Massachusetts, 1968 (294 F. Supp. 511, 1968); protested a military court martial in Priest v. United States, 1970, fought for Kissinger’s liability in the “Kidnapping” Case (United States v. Eqbal Ahmad and others, Fed. Dist. Court, Harrisburg, PA, 1972); the defense of whistleblowers in the Pentagon Papers Case (US v. Anthony Russo, Daniel Ellsberg, 1973); the Ground Zero cases (Federal and State Court Seattle, Port Orchard, Washington, 1981, 1984, 1987. . .); the “Plowshares 8” Case (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Daniel Berrigan and others, Montgomery County Court, Norristown, PA, 1981, 1990); the claims of torture victims against Marcos in The Estates of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes v. Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and others (Fed. Dist. Court, Seattle, Washington, 1989); in numerous Congressional testimonies on the separation of powers to ensure that Congressional authorization of war powers is respected; advocating protection of the rights of the Algonquin Nation to self-determination; arguing before Peoples tribunals on issues such as the Armenian Genocide in Paris in 1984, Reagan’s war against Nicaragua in 1985 in Brussels, Puerto Rico’s claim to self-determination in Barcelona in 1989, Amazonia’s in 1991 in Paris, and Hawaii’s in 1993; and to the G-7’s crimes of Globalization in Tokyo in 1993. Probably nothing represents Falk’s commitments in contradistinction to those of powerful states is his views on the Israeli–Palestinian crisis. He has used a dramatic term, a “slow genocide,” to characterize the blockade of Gaza and the withholding of humanitarian relief. He notes that the Genocide Convention does not restrict genocide to murder. While Richard Goldstone did withdraw his charge in his original report to the UN Human Rights Council that

Falk, Richard

Israel intentionally targeted Palestinians in Gaza during the 2008–2009 war, Falk feels that the blockade of Gaza is deliberate, illegal, and harmful. Critics of Falk, as with Goldstone, argue that he underemphasizes the prior actions of Gazans firing rockets against the Palestinians. Falk has responded that the Palestinians have in recent years tried to establish a ceasefire with Israel, and have been consistently rebuffed by provocative Israeli military violence. Falk argues that the US Government does not appreciate the extent of its own complicity in Israeli human rights violations and rejects the notion that his views represent an anti-Israeli bias when the Israeli Defense Forces are responsible for their evident war crimes. As a UN special rapporteur on this issue, Falk also noted that he may have lacked information on Israel because it prevented his mission as Special Rapporteur from entering Israel. He did ask the Human Rights Council to expand his scope of work to include violations of international humanitarian law by the Palestinians, a request that was not granted, and his critics would suggest that he should not have accepted the assignment for that reason. His UN reports did note that Hamas’ firing of rockets against civilians of the occupying power were criminal security threats. However, the Israeli responses were excessive and often indiscriminate. He concludes that the Israeli blockade has been a massive form of collective punishment, violating the Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention. Operation Cast Lead (Dec. 2008–Jan. 2009) was an Israeli military campaign of 2008–2009 against an essentially defenseless society, already gravely weakened by the blockade, which accentuated reliance on modern weaponry and where military dominance was largely uncontested. The one-sidedness of casualty figures was one measure of disproportion. Another was the scale of devastation and the magnitude of attacks. Falk wrote, “There had also been a variety of allegations made by qualified observers of Israeli reliance on legally unacceptable targets and on legally dubious weaponry that violated the customary international law prohibition on weapons and tactics that were ‘cruel’ or caused ‘unnecessary suffering’.” Richard Falk is a public intellectual whose contributions to both scholarly and policy debates have been considerable. This Grotian eclectic was an early adopter of what has evolved into the International Law/International Relations methodological subfield, starting with the World Order Models project. His analytical and normative concepts have identified both the obstacles to humane governance and human security and the opportunities for developing their chief antidote, strengthening, mobilizing, and democratizing global civil society. The effort has been a slow, often

F

painful evolution, but still show progress. Despite his caution at embracing the emergence of new global structures, particularly in the wake of 9/11’s displacement of a postWestphalian order, he retains optimism and continues to offer concrete solutions. In public service, he has never been gratuitously controversial, stating his beliefs and conclusions calmly but clearly. He has mentored generations of scholars and participated in joint projects that have both established new academic approaches and moved public debates closer to ways that north and south, east and west together in university and public settings can forge cooperation for a more just world.

Related Topics

▶ Civil Disobedience, International ▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Genocide ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ Indigenous Peoples ▶ International Law ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism ▶ National Self-Determination ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism ▶ Self-Determination ▶ Sovereignty ▶ Terrorism

References Falk R (1963) Law, war and morality in the contemporary world. Praeger, New York, 120 pp Falk R (1964) The role of domestic courts in the international legal order. Syracuse University Press, New York, 184 pp Falk R (1968a) Legal order in a violent world. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 610 pp Falk R (1968b) The new states and international legal order. A. W. Sijthoff, Leyden, 102 pp Falk R (1970) The status of law in international society. Princeton University Press, Princeton Falk R (1971) This endangered planet. Random House, New York Falk R (1975a) A study of future worlds. Free Press, New York, 506 pp Falk R (1975b) A global approach to national policy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Falk R (ed) (1976) The vietnam war and international law, vol IV. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Vol. I, 1968; Vol. II, 1969; Vol. III, 1972 Falk R (1981) Human rights and state sovereignty. Holmes and Meier, New York, 261 pp Falk R (1983) The end of world order. Holmes and Meier, New York, 368 pp Falk R (1986) Reviving the world court. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 215 pp

343

F

344

F

Fanon, Frantz

Falk R (1987) The promise of world order: essays in normative international relations. Wheatsheaf Books Ltd/Temple University Press, Brighton/Philadelphia, 342 pp Falk R (1988) Revolutionaries and functionaries: the dual face of terrorism. E. P. Dutton, New York, 235 pp Falk R (1989) Revitalizing international law. Iowa State University Press, Ames, 261 pp Falk R (1992) Explorations at the edge of time: the prospects for world order. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 267 pp Falk R (1995) On humane governance: toward a new global politics. The world order models project report of the global civilization initiative. Cambridge, England: Polity Press and University park, PA: Penn State University Press, 304 pp. (trans (1999) Per Un Governo Umano: Verso Una Nuova Politica Globale. Trieste, Asterios Editore, 335 pp) Falk R (1998) Law in an emerging global village: a post-westphalian perspective. Transnational Publishers, Inc, Ardsley, 260 pp Falk R (1999) Predatory globalization: a critique. Polity, Cambridge, 227 pp Falk R (2000) Human rights horizons: the pursuit of justice in a globalizing world. Routledge, New York/London, 280 pp Falk R (2001) Religion and humane global governance. Palgrave, New York, 202 pp Falk R (2002) Reframing the international: law, culture, politcs. Routledge, New York/London, 258 pp Falk R (ed) (2003) The great terror war. Olive Branch Press, Northampton, 198 pp Falk R (2004) The declining world order: America’s imperial geopolitics. Routledge, New York/London, 260 pp Falk R (2008) Costs of war: international law, the UN, and world order after Iraq. Routledge, New York, 203 pp Falk R (2009) Achieving human rights. Routledge, New York Falk R, Alain J (eds) (2003) Unlocking the middle east: the writings of Richard Falk. Olive Branch Press, Northampton, 305 pp Falk R, Black CE (eds) (1972)The future of the international legal order, vol IV. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Vol. I, 1969; Vol. II, 1970; Vol. III, 1971 Falk R, Friel H (2004) The record of the paper: how the New York Times misreports US foreign policy. Verso, New York/London, 304 pp Falk R, Friel H (2007) Israel-Palestine on the record: how the New York Time misreports conflict in the Middle East. Verso, New York/London, 309 pp Falk R, Griffin DR (eds) (1993) Postmodern politics for a planet in crisis: policy, process, and presidential vision. State University of New York Press, Albany, 246 pp Falk R, Kaldor M (eds) (1987) Dealignment: a new foreign policy perspective. Basil Blackwell Ltd, England, 272 pp Falk R, Krieger D (eds) (2008) At the nuclear precipice: catastrophe or transormation? Palgrave, New York, 293 pp Falk R, Lifton RJ (1982) Indefensible weapons: the political and psychological case against nuclearism. Basic Books, New York, 314 pp.; 2nd ed., 1991, 346 pp Falk R, Mendlovitz S (eds) (1966) The strategy of world order. 4 Vols. World Law Fund, New York Falk R, Mendlovitz SH (1973) Regional politics and world order. Freeman, San Francisco Falk R, Szentes T (eds) (1997) A new Europe in the changing global system. United Nations University Press, Tokyo/New York, 261 pp Falk R, Lifton RJ, Kolko G (eds) (1971) Crimes of war. Random House, New York Falk R, Weston BH, D’Amato AA (eds) (1980) Basic documents in international law and world order. West Publishing Co, St. Paul, 2nd Rev. Ed., 1990, 975 pp

Falk R, MacBride S et al (1983) Israel in Lebanon: the report of the international commission to enquire into reported violations of international law by Israel during its invasion of the Lebanon. Ithaca Press, London, 294 pp Falk R, Kothari R et al (1988) Towards a liberating peace. New Horizons Press/United Nations University/Lokvani, New York/Tokyo/ New Delhi, 177 pp Falk R, Johansen RC, Kim SS (eds) (1993) The constitutional foundations of world peace. State University of New York Press, Albany, 402 pp Falk R, Weston BH, Charlesworth H (eds) (1997a) International law and world order: a problem-oriented coursebook, 3rd edn. West Group, St. Paul, 1514+ pp Falk R, Weston BH, Charlesworth H (eds) (1997b) Supplement of basic documents to international law and world order, 3rd edn. West Group, St. Paul, 1362+ pp Falk R, Martin FM et al (eds) (1997c) International human rights law and practice: cases, treaties and materials and documentary supplement. Kluwer Law International, The Hague Falk R, Ruiz LEJ, Walker RBJ (eds) (2002) Reframing the international: law, culture, and politics. Routledge, New York/London, 258 pp Falk R, Gendzier I, Lifton RJ (eds) (2006a) Crimes of war: Iraq. Nation Books, New York, 478 pp Falk R, Griffin DR, Cobb J, Keller C (2006b) The American empire and the commonwealth of god. Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, 175 pp Falk R, Rajagopal B, Stevens J (eds) (2008a) International law and the third world. Routledge-Cavendish, Oxford, 275 pp Falk R, Elver H, Hajjar L (eds) (2008b) Human rights: critical concepts in political science, 5 vols. Routledge, Oxford, 434, 447, 424, 387, 226 pp Falk R, Juergensmeyer M, Pospovski V (eds) (2010) Legality and legitimacy. Oxford University Press, New York

Fanon, Frantz ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ Imperialism ▶ Liberation Theology ▶ Violence

Female Genital Mutilation KEISHA RAY Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), often known as female circumcision, female cutting, and excision, involves the cutting of some part or all of a female’s genitals. FGM is predominately practiced in Africa, in some parts of the Middle East, and in immigrant neighborhoods in the United States that are predominately comprised of these nationalities.

Feminist Ethics

The World Health Organization (WHO) places FGM into four types. Type I, cliteridectomy, is when the prepuce is removed. Type II, excision, is when the prepuce and the clitoris are removed. Type III, infibulation, is when part or all of the external genitalia is removed and the vaginal opening is stitched, making the vaginal opening very narrow. Type IV, unclassified, is any other practice that is not listed in the first three types of FGM, including burning of the clitoris, adding foreign herbs to the vagina to induce bleeding or to cause the vagina to tighten and narrow, and piercing or incising the labia. Traditional reasons given to support FGM are (1) it is a cultural and/or religious practice that protects women by keeping them sexually inactive until marriage; (2) a girl will not mature unless she undergoes the procedure; (3) it will make the female spiritually pure and beautiful; and (4) population control. Those who oppose FGM usually focus on three aspects of FGM. The first is the belief that FGM is really performed as a method of controlling women, specifically their sexuality, and keeping them subordinate to men. Those who oppose FGM also take issue with the fact that FGM is most commonly performed on female babies and young girls who are unable to choose or deny the procedure. Although FGM is most commonly performed on girls between the ages of 4 and 12, it can also be performed on women during marriage or during a woman’s first pregnancy. Another concern with FGM is that those who perform the procedure are usually midwives, circumcisers, and other personnel who do not have any medical training. Untrained personnel perform FGM because those who desire the procedure usually do not have the money to pay for a trained medical practitioner or they use untrained personnel based on tradition or religious beliefs. Wealthy families are usually the only people who have medically trained practitioners perform FGM because they are financially able to do so. Although instruments used to perform the procedure vary by region, razors, knives, glass, scissors, and sometimes a human fingernail are the most common instruments used to perform FGM. Another common concern of those who oppose FGM is that when FGM is performed by untrained personnel, the procedure can be prolonged and anesthetics are typically not used, causing the female to be in extreme pain. Whether performed by a skilled or unskilled person, FGM may result in scarring, vulval adhesions, stenosis, sterility, and even death. In 1979 Khartoum, Sudan organized a seminar on women’s health and recommended the abolition of FGM. In 1982 the WHO made a formal statement against

F

345

FGM. Also in the 1980s many European countries enacted laws against FGM. In 1996 the US Federal Criminalization of Female Genital Mutilation Act criminalized FGM for girls under 18.

Related Topics

▶ Cairo Declaration of Human Rights ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Feminist Ethics ▶ Gender Justice ▶ Global Human Rights Culture ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ International Organizations

References Abu-Sahlieh S (2008) Male circumcision/female circumcision: is there any difference? In: Zabus C (ed) Fearful symmetries: essays and testimonies around excision and circumcision. Matatu: J Afr Cult Soc 37:3–49 Levin T, Asaah AH (eds) (2009) Empathy and rage: female genital mutilation in African literature. Ayebia Clarke, Accra Rahman A, Toubia N (2000) Female genital mutilation: a guide to laws and policies worldwide. Zed Books, New York Skaine R (2005) Female genital mutilation: legal, cultural, and medical issues. Mcfarland & Company, Jefferson Walker A, Parmar P (1944) Warrior marks: female genital mutilation and the sexual blinding of women. Harcourt Brace, New York

Feminist Ethics MARGARET A. MCLAREN Department of Philosophy, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL, USA

Feminist ethics refers to a wide variety of approaches with respect to moral theory and ethical issues. Emerging out of feminist philosophy and feminist thinking in general, feminist ethics was widely recognized as a subfield of philosophy by the 1970s (Card 1991). Since then, it has grown rapidly as a field of philosophy and, currently, there are professional organizations and regular conferences devoted to exploring and promoting feminist ethics (e.g., the organization FEAST – Feminist Ethics and Social Theory, which has a biennial conference, and the organization FEEMS – Feminist Ethics and Epistemology). The field of feminist ethics has grown so large and diverse it is difficult to characterize it; however, feminist approaches to ethics often fall into one of three areas: historical, applied, and metaethical. Historical feminist approaches to ethics identify and critique androcentric

F

346

F

Feminist Ethics

bias in mainstream moral theory; applied approaches address issues pertaining to women or gender, e.g., abortion, rape, domestic violence, sex and gender discrimination; and metaethical approaches question the division between ethics and politics, public and private, and break down the boundaries between the personal and the political. Moreover, all feminist ethics begins with the reality of women’s subordination and is committed not only to examining the injustices of women’s differential treatment, but to changing it. Thus, feminist ethics also includes the creation of new categories and concepts that focus on women’s resistance to oppression and the elimination of the subordination of women. Historically, philosophers either ignored women entirely or denigrated women by arguing that women were less rational and less morally developed. For example, Aristotle believed that women were “half-baked” men, that is, women spent less time in the womb, and were correspondingly less developed. Other philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, a nineteenth-century philosopher, thought that men and women had different but complementary virtues, although women’s were less valued. The field of applied ethics continues to grow, especially with the rapid growth of scientific, medical, and technological advances. Along with the mainstays of sex and gender discrimination, and violence against women, feminists have been particularly concerned with new reproductive technologies and allowing women the right to maintain (or gain!) control over their own bodies. Ecofeminism also falls into the area of applied feminist ethics as it draws the concerns of environmental ethics, feminism, and animal rights together. Following the feminist adage, “The personal is political,” feminists have questioned the divisions between personal/political, private/public, and ethics/politics, arguing that a sharp distinction between these realms is untenable. One of the major insights of feminism in general, that women’s personal choices and lifestyles have political implications and their personal lives are thoroughly saturated with power relations (gendered and other), runs through feminist ethics by arguing against the traditional philosophical distinction between ethics and politics, thus redefining the field of ethics as concerned not only with individual choices and questions of moral agency but as centrally concerned with women’s place in the world, and the situated, specific cultural and historical context that they find themselves in. One final note on what distinguishes feminist ethics from traditional ethics: many feminists argue that feminist ethics must be grounded in the real, empirical world, whether dealing with issues such as pornography, or

addressing systemic injustices of ethnic, race, class, gender, sexual, and religious oppression. Ethical and moral theories grounded in the real world are referred to as nonideal as contrasted with ideal ethical theories, such as Kant’s deontological theory or John Rawls’ theory of justice. So, to summarize the salient differences between traditional and feminist ethics, feminist ethics is grounded in the real world and is thus nonideal as opposed to traditional ideal ethical moral theory, e.g., Kant, Mill, and Rawls; relatedly, proponents of feminist ethics question the distinction between ethics and politics. Feminist ethics deals with a range of issues, including but not limited to issues directly concerning women, sex, and gender, and so overlaps with the field of applied ethics. And some feminist ethicists take up the task of identifying and critiquing male bias and neglect of gender in the history of moral and ethical theory. Several themes run through feminist ethics; here I identify three major themes.

Self/Moral Agency/Autonomy Issues of the self and moral agency are central to most ethical theories, and, in mainstream moral theory, the self or moral agent is often conceptualized as an individual, rational agent choosing freely among his options for action, and acting with respect to abstract principles. Most feminist ethicists critique this conception of the self as misguided on several counts: it privileges rationality and does not account for emotions, even emotions that may be central to ethical behavior such as compassion; it abstracts out the particularities of a person’s social and personal identity, i.e., membership in social groups, and individual character traits; along with this, the traditional conception of the self is viewed as isolated from others, which accounts neither for the development of the moral agent from childhood to adulthood, nor for the relationships and friendships that enrich life and make life meaningful. In fact, independence and autonomy are the hallmarks of moral agency leaving little room for the dependence that characterizes our earliest and often our later years, or for the interdependence that characterizes human existence. This idea of the isolated, rationalistic, independent, autonomous self runs counter also to a more collective notion of self found in many non-Western cultures. Thus, the “genderbias” in Western conceptions of the moral agent may carry over into a “Western culture bias” in a global ethics.

Virtue Theory/Moral Character/ Particularity While the traditional theories of deontology and utilitarianism rely upon abstract principles to justify the

Feminization of Poverty

morally correct course of action, Aristotle’s virtue theory relies on good judgment or practical wisdom. Because of Aristotle’s focus on the concrete particularity of specific situations, some feminists have rehabilitated virtue theory. Feminist virtue ethicists expand the repertoire of virtues to include traits, such as self-respect (Robin Dillon), and use an Aristotlean conception of virtue to explore new terrain, such as developing appropriate virtues under conditions of oppression (Lisa Tessman). Because the Aristotlean approach to ethics focuses on persons and practices rather than principles, it allows feminist ethicists to explore issues in moral psychology as well.

Justice Versus Care Frameworks: Care/ Mothering/Peace Traditional ethical theories rely upon abstract principles of justice, individual rights, and the rule of law, while some feminists propose an ethic of care, which by contrast privileges care, compassion, responsibility, and relationships. While care ethics has been criticized by some feminists as reinforcing stereotypical views of women, nonetheless it represents a significant alternative to the justice framework for approaching ethics. Proponents of care ethics often argue that care and relationships are an important human trait essential to ethics, yet overlooked by traditional approaches. Traditional approaches to ethics emphasize rationality and autonomy, and assume that relationships among humans are voluntary and equal. While this may be true of adults, it overlooks adult–child relationships as well as other dependent relationships, such as the sick, elderly, or disabled. Although care is often associated with the private sphere, with the mother–child relationship, the paradigmatic example among feminists, many feminists argue that it can and should be extended into the public, political sphere as well (see Tronto 1993, Held 1995). Feminist ethicist Virginia Held states, “Cultivating more caring, sensitivity, and trust in political life, in legal approaches, and in international affairs should be among our goals” (Held 1995: 3). Three significant areas of concern arise at the intersection of feminist ethics and global justice: Gender equality as a cross-cultural, transnational value; environmental and ecological issues; and adequate moral frameworks for realizing social justice for all.

Related Topics

▶ Gender Justice ▶ Reproductive Rights ▶ Solidarity

F

347

References Bar On A, Ferguson A (1998) Daring to be good: essays in feminist ethico-politics. Routledge, New York Calhoun C (ed) (2004) Setting the moral compass: essays by women philosophers. Oxford University Press, Oxford Card C (1991) Feminist ethics. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence DesAutels P, Waugh J (eds) (2001) Feminists doing ethics. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Frazer E, Hornsby J, Lovibond S (eds) (1992) Ethics: a feminist reader. Blackwell, Oxford Held V (1995) Justice and care. Westview Press, Boulder Jaggar A (1991) Feminist ethics: projects, problems, prospects. In: Card C (ed) Feminist ethics. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, pp 78–104 Jaggar A (1998) Globalizing feminist ethics. Hypatia J Feminist Philos 13(2):7–31 Tessman L (ed) (2009) Feminist ethics and social and political theory: theorizing the non-ideal. Springer, Dordrecht Tong R (1993) Feminine and feminist ethics. Wadsworth Publishing, Belmont Tronto J (1993) Moral Boundaries: A Political Arguement for an Ethic of Care. Routledge, New York

Feminization of Poverty JEFFREY SWINDLE Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

Feminization of Poverty refers to the increased disparity of poverty between males and females worldwide. Gender discrimination is a cultural trait across the world, and most notably in developing nations. Women have less access to “substantive freedoms,” according to economist Amartya Sen, such as education, employment, health care, and democratic freedoms. According to Sen’s “capabilities approach” to poverty, then, women are in greater poverty in all possible indicators. Additionally, as countries continue to develop, women are developing at a slower rate, thus increasing gender disparity and resulting in the feminization of poverty. The root of the feminization of poverty is cultural stigmas. Across the world, women face challenges due to cultural perception of gender roles. Women face cultural challenges in various forms. Forced prostitution, genital mutilation, infanticide, and honor killings are examples of violence enacted against women that are culturally acceptable in many communities. Additional cultural barriers include discrimination at work, in school, and in voting rights. In sum, women have a lack of access to resources because of cultural boundaries that limit women’s social and financial mobility.

F

348

F

Food

Though gender discrimination is exacerbated in developing countries, it is still present among developed nations. Women’s work wages and leadership positions are significantly lower than men’s. Increasing percentages of divorce are leaving many women to raise families on their own. Women are more likely to live below the poverty line than men, even in developed countries. Mohanty et al. (1991) argue that “Third World Women” is a separate social category that cannot be defined by objective measurements such as fertility rates, race, etc., but rather by their “common context of struggle.” Therefore, according to Mohanty et al., women in poverty come from a variety of what are considering classic social indicators, but are united in their “political commonality” in defense of female rights. Theoretical methods to decrease gender discrimination and poverty vary widely. Many argue that gender equality advances, and the “empowering” of women can be made through a grassroots bottom-up approach. Others, such as theorist Jane Parpart (2002), disagree, claiming that policy is essential in a globalizing world in order to establish standards of gender equality. In terms of grassroots movements and policy there is a plethora of initiatives and organizations fighting for the rights of women. Notably, women are consistently making valuable strides in terms of international policy. In 2000, The UN listed “Promote gender equality and empower women” as the third of its eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) to end poverty by 2015. Specifically, the goal calls for an increase in efforts to help women get education, to become involved in government, and to receive equal treatment in the workplace. Since then, Rwanda boasts that women occupy 48% of parliamentary seats in the national government. Furthermore, the nation has passed legislation requiring 30% of parliamentary seats to be occupied by women at all times. The UN has taken further action to raise women out of poverty. The United Nations Girls Education Initiative, for example, founded in 2000, seeks to narrow the gender disparity in primary and secondary education. Moreover, The United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality oversees the gender perspective in all departments of the UN. Both of these programs stemmed from the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action conference, where partners from nations worldwide agreed to combat gender discrimination together. Similar departments and goals to eliminate gender discrimination are present in international organizations worldwide. The third UN MDG to promote gender equality has been the catalyst for global gender equality movements and initiatives.

Related Topics

▶ Egalitarianism ▶ Female Genital Mutilation ▶ Feminist Ethics ▶ Gender Justice ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Trafficking ▶ Population Politics ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Solidarity ▶ Violence

References Kristof N, WuDunn S (2009) Half the sky: turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide. Knopf, New York Mohanty C et al (1991) Third world women and the politics of feminism. Indiana University Press, Bloomington Parpart J (2002) Rethinking empowerment: gender and development in a global/local world. Routledge, New York Parpart J et al (eds) (2000) Theoretical perspectives on gender and development. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Downloadable from: http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/272-4/ Sen A (1999) Development as freedom. Oxford University Press, Oxford United Nations Millennium Declaration (2000) 55th Summit. Downloadable from: http://www.un.org/millennium/summit.htm

Food ANURADHA PRAKASH Crean School of Health & Life Sciences, Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA

Food is a necessity for life and is also an important component in a culture’s or people’s identity; it is also regarded by the United Nations as a human right. Hence, apart from few and rare contexts of natural scarcity, inadequate food supply raises immediate concerns that an injustice is taking place. That food is essential for life needs no elaboration. Food provides the nutrients necessary to live, and its indispensability is what gives it significance in culture, religion, and politics. In addition, three out of four people in the developing world depend upon agriculture (food, fisheries, forestry) for their livelihoods. Because food ranks among the most basic of human needs, food has been recognized as a fundamental human right and is recognized as such by all countries in some way or another. In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations. The World Food Programme was established in

Food

1961, and in 1966 states that were party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights committed to a legally binding obligation to take steps to respect, protect, facilitate, and fulfill the right to food.

Food Insecurity Despite this and numerous other affirmations, commitments, conventions, and resolutions, food and nutrition security remains elusive to one sixth of the world’s population. Food insecurity exists when people do not have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to lead healthy and productive lives. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 1.02 billion people or one in every six people was hungry and malnourished in 2009. We produce enough food to feed every person on this earth, so lack of food is not the problem. Rather, inequities in production, distribution, and access have led to regions where food is plentiful and others where there is chronic food shortage. Thus, the key social justice issue here is, how can hunger exist when there is enough food to feed every living person on this earth? Issues of food and hunger often appear counterintuitive. For example, Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winning philosopher and social theorist, famously and persuasively argued that famines are not naturally occurring events, but, rather, are an effect of a lack of political accountability in non-democracies already stressed by other factors such as poverty, disempowerment, and environmental adversity. The causes of hunger are multiple and complex but probably the root cause of hunger is poverty. More than 1 billion people live on less than $2/day. Thus, the United Nations in its Millennium Development Goals couples reducing poverty and hunger as a single effort. While droughts, famines, natural disasters, war, and civil unrest can lead to starvation, the recent global food, fuel, and economic crises have lead to a sharp increase in malnourished people worldwide to 1.02 billion in 2009, the highest it has been since 1970. The world’s population has doubled in the last 50 years, from 3 billion in 1959 to 6.4 billion in 2009, and is projected to increase by another 50% to 9.1 billion by 2050. While food production increased dramatically between 1950 and 1990, agricultural production has since reached a plateau and even declined in some cases. Reduced investment in agriculture, depletion of soil and fresh water, lack of financial and technological resources for farmers are all contributing factors. In addition, due to increased energy needs, more grain is being diverted toward biofuel production decreasing the availability of grain for human and animal food and contributing to an increase in food prices.

F

Climate change has already started to affect food production in certain tropical, subtropical, and particularly arid regions of the world. In all of these cases, the poorest are disproportionately impacted due to higher food prices, reduced purchasing power, loss of employment, greater vulnerability to natural disasters and economic crises, and lack of economic buffers. They survive by choosing cheaper but less nutritious foods, selling any and all belongings, withdrawing children from school and sending them to work or worse, to beg, foregoing healthcare, taking loans, and working as indentured laborers and servants. In Haiti people resort to eating mud cakes, a concoction of dirt, salt, and oil, to keep hunger pangs at bay. Children are affected the most; poor nutrition at an early age leads to stunted growth, reduced cognitive skills, and lower productivity as adults. Thus, the negative effects are carried through in subsequent generations. Wage laborers, indigenous people, and those with HIV/AIDS are also highly vulnerable to food insecurity and malnutrition. While injustices related to food production, distribution, and consumption patterns are significant, war and civil unrest also result in preventable food inequities. Food has been used as a weapon by dictators against a population, such as appears to be the case in North Korea. History shows that food has been provided, withheld, destroyed, or controlled as part of military strategies through the ages. Imposed famines continue even today in countries such as Somalia and Sudan. In some cases, controlling food resources and starving residents has been responsible for deciding conflicts where use of weapons did not, such as in the 500-day siege of Leningrad during World War II and the capture of Athens by the Spartans. While not common in recent times, contaminating or destroying food supplies has been used as a tool of conquest or terror. After the Romans defeated Hannibal they salted the soil rendering it infertile. In the United States Civil War, Confederate forces were known to have dumped dead animals into water wells used by Union soldiers. In recent times, countries have used embargoes to control the flow of food and other supplies. Many nations employ economic sanctions as part of their international policy and while overt sanctions on food are not employed, trade restrictions, such as the 50 year economic sanctions against Cuba by the Unites States, do affect food provisions available to the sanctioned nation.

The Green Revolution Starting in the early 1940s and lasting until the late 1970s, the Green Revolution was responsible for transforming agricultural production in a number of developing countries particularly Mexico, India, and the Philippines.

349

F

350

F

Food

The Green Revolution was characterized by development of high yielding varieties of cereal crops such as wheat, corn, and rice, which increased food production multifold averting famines in many parts of the world and enabled feeding a population that roughly doubled since the start of the Green Revolution. Increased food yield led to lower food prices and increased farm and non-farm employment contributing to higher incomes and a steady decline in poverty. However, these varieties of crops were resource intensive requiring large-scale irrigation and increased use of fertilizers and pesticides resulting in an increased reliance on fossil fuels, depletion of fresh water sources, loss of biodiversity, and a host of environmental problems related to the use of fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Due to higher resource needs, smaller and poorer farmers, particularly in Africa, were not able to participate in the Green Revolution. Socioeconomic impacts included reduced employment on farms (due to mechanization), a decrease in the number of small farms leading to increased migration from rural to urban areas, and greater polarization between rich and poor farmers. Many parts of the world now practice industrial agriculture, typified by the use of new crop and animal production technologies, selective breeding, large-scale farms and feedlots, and patent protection. Among the more controversial technologies is genetically engineered food, also known as genetically modified or GM food. In genetically modified organisms, the DNA is precisely modified by inserting a gene for a particular trait or traits into the host DNA. This process circumvents the tedious trial and error process of cross breeding and allows transfer of specific genes across specie lines. The rapidly increasing adoption of GM foods by farmers in developed and developing countries suggests that this might be economically beneficial, even to small farmers in developing countries. Genetically modified food offers the possibilities for increased nutrient value and food yield, leading some to suggest that this technology represents an important tool that can be used to improve food and nutrition security. Justice concerns arise, however, when critical food decisions affecting populations turn on dubious premises such as profit concerns alone or assertions unsupported by the best science. For example, biotechnology companies hold patent rights to seeds and may require that seeds be purchased each planting season in stark contrast to the common practice of saving a few seeds from each harvest for next year’s planting. This can be a daunting cost for a small farmer. In 2002, the countries of Zambia and Zimbabwe, facing acute shortage of food, refused shipments of grain provided by the United Nations World Food Programme because it included genetically

modified grain from the United States and other countries. At the time, 30% of Zambia’s population was food insecure, yet the government was not willing to risk the health of their population by feeding them GM crops despite the fact that there is no evidence of negative health consequences. These countries were following the “precautionary principle” that most certainly resulted in increased deaths due to hunger over the speculative health risks of GM foods.

Agribusiness The last two decades have witnessed an enormous growth in global agribusinesses, with direct and major impacts on how food is produced, traded, and consumed in developing countries and subsequent global effects on food security, health, and food culture. Agribusiness is a broad term for the modern food industry involved in every process of the food supply chain, including growers and other local laborers, seed supply companies, equipment manufacturers, and food distributors and retailers. Over the last few decades, implementation of neoliberal trade policies, such as structural adjustment policies of the World Bank and IMF that mandated removal of price supports in developing countries and bilateral free trade agreements has led to worldwide exchanges of commodities and capital that have allowed food businesses to become global in scope and to dominate local markets. Increasing competition, and mergers and acquisitions have led to the development of few, very large, highly industrialized multinational corporations. Industrialization of food has led to greater economies of scale resulting in cheaper, convenient, and plentiful food. However, the inability of small farmers and food producers to compete against larger corporations and a greater separation between producers and consumers have also led to a disappearance of small farms, exploitation of farm workers, and disintegration of social and economic conditions in rural communities. The last two decades have also seen a decrease in ability of unions and working class movements in farms and factories to organize and represent the needs of workers. Exploitation of workers in the food industry is not a recent phenomenon. The mistreatment of workers in the meatpacking industry in Chicago at the turn of the last century was well described by Upton Sinclair in The Jungle. In the 1950s Cesar Chavez was highly effective in galvanizing Latino farm workers in California in a movement that helped increase their wages, working conditions, and job security. Migrant farm workers face particular hardships. Generally coming from a backdrop of poverty, they are willing to work for low wages and poor living conditions

Food

in the knowledge that they are expendable. The United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families has not been ratified by many of the countries that use migrant laborers such as the United States, Germany, and Japan. Between 1970 and 2000, market reform policies caused the prices of many commodities such as sugar, cotton, coffee, tea, and cocoa to fall by more than 30%. Small farmers in developing countries were among the hardest hit by this drop in the commodity market. To remain viable, they needed to produce more crop to reduce their per-unit cost, in turn contributing to a larger production and further drop in prices. Structural adjustment policies of the World Bank and IMF that mandated removal of price supports in developing countries and bilateral free trade agreements have also forced small subsistence farmers to produce export or monoculture cash crops that cannot feed the farmer and his family, forcing them to buy food in the market. When markets fail, they cannot afford to eat. A system of agricultural subsidies and tariffs in wealthy countries provide a competitive advantage for their farmers making it difficult for farmers from lesswealthy nations to compete in a global marketplace and often resulting in imports of certain foods which they produce themselves, but at a lower price. Thus, rather than serving domestic markets, farms are now used to produce specialty food and non-food crops such as fresh-cut flowers for export, and countries once selfsufficient in food are now forced to import staples and to rely on market prices, which have soared in recent years. Within this framework there has emerged a new consumption pattern among the world’s affluent people that emphasizes naturalness, wholesomeness, localness, environmental stewardship, and a shift away from technology and fast food. This type of consumption reflects the principles of fair trade and is viewed as a form of empowerment and agency, where consumers shy away from any notion of exploited workers in sweatshop-type factories, environmental destruction and more toward products that are socially and culturally sensitive, and use green, healthier practices. Considered a form of consumer counter-hegemony, western consumers have been relatively quick to embrace alternatives to the capitalist agrifood complex and the ideas seem to be spreading among upperand middle-class consumers in developing countries. The Fair Trade movement was initiated in the 1960s as a response to neo-imperialism and corporate injustices. The movement provides access to customers in international markets to marginalized small-scale producers in underdeveloped countries. Fair trade in food products, primarily coffee and cocoa, has grown impressively but

F

351

critics continue to question the significance of fair trade on improving the lives of people who rely on it. While the emphasis is placed on small producers and social justice concerns, larger companies have been quick to seize the opportunities this sector offers.

Food and the Environment Many crops grown today are resource intensive, requiring large amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, and energy. Many of these chemicals have found their way into fresh water sources resulting in pollution, contamination, and depletion of fish. Use of fossil fuel to produce and transport foods releases greenhouse gases. Moreover, the increase in standards of living among high population countries such as China and India has led to an increase in consumption of animal-based foods such as meat and dairy products. Raising cattle for food requires even more water, grain, and vast amounts of land. Overgrazing leads to desertification and conversion of forest into pastureland or farms leads to loss of carbon and temperature sinks. It is estimated that cattle contribute 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, the food sector contributes significantly to climate change problems. Climate change is projected to have a significant impact on food production and disproportionately in those countries which have the least economic, technical, and infrastructural capability of dealing with the impact. Countries in Africa, small islands, Asian and African megadelta regions and the Arctic are likely to be impacted the most. The FAO estimates that African countries will experience a decrease in agricultural production by 15–30% up to the period of 2080–2100. Increased variability in temperatures and rainfall, flooding in low-lying regions, soil erosion, prolonged droughts, and increased intensity of storms can all contribute to greater food insecurity and spread of disease among people, animals, and crops. Thus, mitigation and adaptation to climate change is an immediate concern for people in the least developed countries that are most exposed to natural hazards and at the same time are also dependent on rain and natural resources for their livelihoods. Unless safeguards are put into place, farmers and consumers in the most vulnerable countries face unprecedented risk of food scarcity. Many regions are promoting sustainable agriculture which has at its core the values of environmental health, socioeconomic justice, and economic profitability, emphasizing stewardship of natural and human resources. Protection of natural resources rests upon the notion of meeting present needs without compromising the needs of future generations and includes guidelines for protecting water and land resources and proper use of

F

352

F

Food Sovereignty

energy and other inputs. Precision agriculture, which integrates the use of information technology into farming practices, is an effort towards conservation of resources and improving efficiencies. However, the cost associated with this technology has limited its implementation thus far to North American and European farmers. Protection of human resources includes ensuring worker safety, providing training, adequate wages, and living conditions, as well as ensuring consumer health and safety. Thus, sustainable agriculture seeks to implement reforms in government and financial policies related to commodity and price support programs, trade and tax barriers, support for rural communities and migrant worker populations. Reducing hunger has proved to be an enormous challenge. While some countries have made progress in reducing food insecurity, the situation is expected to continue to deteriorate in certain countries, such as those in Sub-Saharan Africa. Given the multiple causes of hunger, the solutions also need to be multifaceted but region specific. Policy solutions need to address the profit-only motives of large agri- and food businesses, market speculation, and the trade policies of agencies such as the World Bank and IMF. Increased support for farmers to buy land and supplies, land reform, microlending, and increased agricultural investment by governments is necessary to boost food production to feed an increasing population. Science and technology will play an important role in improving food production and ensuring environmental preservation, and provided they are deployed with the interests of the least well-off in mind, boosting agricultural production can help reduce incidence of debilitating hunger and help raise a nation out of poverty. Investment in infrastructure such as improved roads, ports, storage silos, and communication technologies is also critical to increasing efficiency and reliable food availability. Safety net systems and social need to be in place to ensure that the poor have access to food in times of economic and natural crises. Food insecurity is an inherently global problem of socioeconomic justice. Millions of people across the globe are being denied the right to food and the right to live with dignity. In the past, given political will, even poor countries could manage to feed their poor. In today’s global, interdependent economy with looming food scarcity, political will may not be sufficient especially for countries facing climate change catastrophes. It will require a global commitment.

Related Topics ▶ Basic Needs ▶ Basic Rights

▶ Climate Change ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Fair Trade ▶ Food Sovereignty ▶ Free Trade ▶ Genetic Engineering ▶ Global Warming ▶ International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ▶ Land Grab ▶ Poverty ▶ Quality of Life

References Bonanno A, Busch L, Friedland W, Gouveia L, Mingione E (eds) (1994) From columbus to conAgra: the globalization of agriculture and food. University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS Food and Agriculture Organization (2009a) Climate change and bioenergy challenges for food and agriculture. FAO Electronic Publishing Policy and Support Branch, Communication Division, Rome Food and Agriculture Organization (2009b) The state of food insecurity in the world. FAO Electronic Publishing Policy and Support Branch, Communication Division, Rome Nu¨tzenadel A, Frank T (eds) (2008) Food and globalization: consumption, markets and politics in the modern world. Berg Press, Oxford, UK Shaw DJ (2009) Global food and agricultural institutions. Routledge, New York Sumner J (2005) Sustainability and the civil commons: rural communities in the age of globalization. University of Toronto Press, Toronto Thurow R, Kilman S (2009) Enough: why the world’s poorest starve in an age of plenty. Public Affairs/Perseus Books, New York Wright W, Middendorf G (eds) (2008) The fight over food: producers, consumers, and activists challenge the global food system. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA

Food Sovereignty ZENIA KISH Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Food Sovereignty encompasses a set of values, rights, policy proposals and social movement organizations that critique global industrial food production and offer alternative approaches from a social and global justice perspective. Food sovereignty is most frequently expressed through emerging political and activist discourses focused on recognizing and advancing a state or peoples’ right to define their own food and agricultural policy across the full chain of food production, from agricultural research and land ownership to the right of consumers to decide

Food Sovereignty

what they consume and how and by whom it was produced. As a political concept and framework for action, food sovereignty has undergone successive reinterpretation and expansion since it was first articulated in the mid1990s. It continues to be defined and applied differently across various state, NGO, and social movement contexts. Food sovereignty addresses a range of interconnected issues, including land ownership and reform; regulation of agricultural prices and exporting; national and international food security policies; access of peasants and landless peoples to land, water, seeds, and credit; biodiversity and the introduction of genetically modified organisms; the commodification of food products; the rights and protections of women and indigenous farmers; health and nutrition; and ecological sustainability. Articulated as a critique of the inequalities exacerbated by globalization, the food sovereignty framework situates current resource scarcity and environmental degradation within the context of neoliberal trade and production, which are linked to the erosion of peoples’ access to nutritious, culturally appropriate, safe, and sustainable food. Food sovereignty advocates address not only the proximate causes of hunger such as the abolition of national agricultural protections and the diversion of crops to biofuel production. It also locates contemporary food crises within longer histories and broader geographies of the industrialization of agriculture (e.g., the Green Revolution), imperial and postcolonial strategies of underdevelopment, the unregulated commodification of food, and the limited protections of human rights, especially those of women and indigenous peoples. Actions and reforms supported by the movement thus range from the local to the systemic. School lunch programs aimed at changing taste and consumption practices invoke sovereignty over food as much as comprehensive changes in land ownership regulations and campaigning for a living wage for all workers. Food sovereignty, then, is advanced as a multi-scalar and dynamic frame for thinking about current political economies and cultures of food, as well as for positing alternative modes of producing and consuming food. Food sovereignty first arose as a discourse voicing opposition to the inclusion of agriculture in the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations: the GATT Agreement on Agriculture entered into force with the establishment of the WTO in 1995. Across the Global South, the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) was perceived as a threat to the interests of developing countries insofar as it undermines the political autonomy of nations in the South, as well as reducing income, growth, and food security for developing

F

countries. Its multiple categories of domestic support in practice cut tariff protections and subsidies for small farmers, and, in collusion with the structural adjustment clauses attached to IMF and World Bank development loans, the AoA accelerated the liberalization of the farming sector in the South while continuing to protect agribusinesses in many Northern countries. At the same time, and in spite of calls for OECD countries to reduce their tariffs, the United States and European countries in particular continued to benefit from high subsidies and protective barriers for their agri-products. The United States, for example, which was to reduce its trade distorting farm subsidies by 20%, in fact more than doubled its agricultural subsidies in the decade following 1995 to $22.6 billion. These subsidized agricultural goods were widely unloaded in developing countries at submarket prices, further undermining the stability and viability of food markets in many countries. Unlike most developed countries, where agriculture accounts for a relatively small percentage of national employment, gross domestic product (GDP) and exports, in many developing countries, agriculture comprises not only a large share of GDP, but also provides the primary source of employment and subsistence for a majority of the population. The global intensification of structural causes of poverty and hunger spurred a movement that strove for a new language to articulate opposition to neoliberal restructuring of agriculture and trade. This new movement sought to avoid the limitations associated with discourses of food security, deeply embedded as they were in Cold War power politics whose primary referents were the nation-state, managed national markets, subsidized and protected production, and large-scale food aid as a strategy to dispose of grain surpluses. Ascendant paradigms of food security, whether taking the nation or the household as its basic unit, were concerned foremost with ensuring physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet nutritional needs at all times. A food secure unit is classically defined as one in which its members do not live in hunger or fear of hunger. Such framing, however, overlooks the social relations propagating hunger and reduce it to an issue of production: it prioritizes whether there is enough food to eat over how food is distributed and who profits from food markets. Under food security models, food is secured and hunger managed through technological solutions as well as greater global integration of ownership, production, and commodity flows. As transnational agribusinesses overcame the determining power of the nation-state in international agricultural markets during the 1970s and 1980s, the management of food security became increasingly privatized. In response,

353

F

354

F

Food Sovereignty

agriculturalists from both the Global North and South sought a new framework for analyzing the changing global food regime and reconceptualizing the distribution of power within the food system. In 1996, a definition of food sovereignty was first drafted at the Second International Conference of Via Campesina, a global peasant coalition that represents small and medium scale farmers, landless workers, fisher-folk, rural women, youth and indigenous peoples, coordinating a vast membership of organizations from Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Caribbean, and Europe. Bringing together those who are directly involved in producing food, the coalition was concerned to reject prevailing models of development and the institutions, such as NGOs and transnational corporations, that are rapidly changing the livelihoods and sphere of engagement for peasants and agriculturalists. Rather than isolating food security as a priority in itself, these agrarian activists identified control over food production and rural development as central to participating in their communities as political subjects. In this way, they made a claim to the political principle of sovereignty to anchor their stake in deciding how to produce, trade, and consume food. Food sovereignty thus distinguishes itself from food security insofar as it is a political project that founds the right to food and eradication of poverty in the democratization of the entire social and economic process of producing, valuing, and consuming food. Asserting the interdependence of rights, security, and sovereignty in the food system, the Via Campesina 1996 Declaration of Food Sovereignty states: "

Food is a basic human right. This right can only be realized in a system where food sovereignty is guaranteed. Food sovereignty is the right of each nation to maintain and develop its own capacity to produce its basic foods respecting cultural and productive diversity. We have the right to produce our own food in our own territory. Food sovereignty is a precondition to genuine food security.

Sovereignty, here representing decision power over the capacity to produce food and sustain the social and cultural life of peoples, is understood to have been critically weakened or appropriated by foreign and corporate stakeholders. “The liberalization of trade and its economic politics of structural adjustment have globalized poverty and hunger in the world and are destroying local productive capacities and rural societies,” the Declaration continues, attributing the commodification of food to a system that “treats both nature and people as a means to an end” in order to generate profits for a powerful minority. Food security is incomplete in itself; as Raj Patel points

out, people can be food secure in prison or under a dictatorship. The original principles of food sovereignty advanced by Via Campesina in 1996 included, foremost: the realization of the basic human right to food, guaranteed by each nation; direct democratic participation; comprehensive agrarian reform to give control of land to those who work it; freedom from food-dumping policies and other uses of food as a political weapon; the sustainable use and care of natural resources, especially land, water, and seeds; the reorganization of the food trade; and social peace. Responsive to its polyglot membership, the movement has been engaged in the ongoing redefinition of food sovereignty since its inception, actively encouraging North-South alliances and identification with its core program by disparate interests. Negotiating these diverse interests has opened up space for a wide range of enunciations and actions that scale between the micro and macro and manifest in sometimes divergent initiatives in different sites. It has also, perhaps unavoidably for an organization with such a heterogeneous constituency, led to internal inconsistencies. This essay will turn to some of the movement’s key interventions and will then briefly take up some of the tensions and contradictions that remain unresolved by the food sovereignty framework. Several core issues and principles have emerged over the movement’s young history: of particular relevance from the global justice perspective are critiques of neoliberal corporatism overtaking the world food supply; the proliferation of bottom-up participatory initiatives to regain control of the food system and refound rights and citizenship; the promotion of women’s rights and prioritizing women’s access to the means of production and decision-making roles; the democratization of knowledge in the domain of food production; and anti-land-grabbing activism. This is a small selection of food sovereignty’s important interventions, and they keep company with the movement’s evolving values, goals, and strategies. Because the movement arose in direct reaction to the global liberalization of food commodities and exchange, the very definition of food sovereignty critiques the concentration of power in food and agriculture in the hands of a small elite. Thus, a more recent and widely cited definition of food sovereignty – drafted in 2007, at the global Forum on Food Sovereignty in Se´lingue´, Mali, where over 500 delegates converged for one of the largest and most diverse gatherings of food sovereignty activists – directly engages the structural conditions causing hunger. In this definition, the neoliberal conditions of food production and trade are explicitly connected to the exclusion of the

Food Sovereignty

people from the social processes of food production and consumption: "

Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers. Food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just income to all peoples and the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage our lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food. Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social classes and generations.

The model of sovereignty actively promoted here and by other advocates associated with the movement is potentially radical in that it identifies multiple overlapping rights-bearing jurisdictions as critical sites for intervention – from villages, regions, and peoples to state laws and multinational corporate practices. These unique geographies, as Raj Patel suggests (2009), are shaped by historical circumstances and territorially variable configurations of control and resistance. Destabilizing the nation-state as the privileged locus of sovereign authority, the movement attempts to open up other spaces of sovereignty to claim self-determination in a global food system that largely excludes the input of a majority of food producers as well as consumers in favor of a free market organized by private interests. Activists respond to this transformation by incorporating into the definition of food sovereignty the central principle that access to food and water must be a right for all people, a right that trumps the commoditization of food and privatization of water where these processes inhibit public access to these necessities. Trade in agricultural goods is not entirely condemned: it is seen as important, where it advances the interests of the public, but threatens food sovereignty where it is driven by profit.

F

Insofar as sovereignty is claimed by communities that take responsibility for their own food sustainability, they challenge liberal definitions of citizenship that found rights and responsibilities in the state. The chain of food production, and food security itself, are politicized by the movement as sites for direct democratic deliberation; a people are not free, they contend, unless they have the right to determine what they eat and the provenance and conditions of production of their food. Because of the complexity of the global food system, the right to food and freedom from poverty must be recognized and activated within food systems at multiple and intersecting levels. In this way, it is not contradictory under a food sovereignty model to endow municipal bodies with decision-making power in local markets, while national land rights, regional watersheds, and global pollution would call for appropriately scaled territories of public participation and responsibility. Claiming these rights consists in reorganizing entire food and political systems that proscribe the participation of those with the largest stakes in food growing, processing, and consuming. Food sovereignty can only function where people have political sovereignty. The duties and obligations that accompany this emergent citizenship include not only the labor of producing food, but also the work of public deliberation, assessing and counteracting environmental harm, determining what forms trade should take for equitable distribution of food inputs and commodities, restructuring the resource-intensive international transportation system that undergirds the food industry, building transnational collaboration, and so forth. Central to food sovereignty’s critique of the neoliberal polarization of classes is a focus on the growing burden of subsistence on women, who are estimated to produce 60–80% of food in developing countries while only owning 1–2% of agro-productive land. Rising food commodity prices hit the rural poor hardest, with threequarters of the world’s hungry living in rural areas, and a high majority of those being women and girls. With the coupled responsibilities of economic production and domestic labor most often falling to them, women at the same time systematically face discrimination in access to resources, education, land, capital, and political voice. Their ongoing marginalization within structures of governance functions as both cause and effect of the disproportionate impact of food insecurity they experience. For right to food activists, democratizing decision-making power in food systems means that women and indigenous populations are necessary and well represented in defining and building the movement. Food sovereignty organizations, whether targeting the specific challenges and

355

F

356

F

Food Sovereignty

opportunities facing women or not, thus tend to emphasize that women’s rights are a precondition for the right to food, and also that the economic injustices of the global food system often translate into particular forms of violence against women. Unifying around women’s rights highlights the need for the food sovereignty movement to more clearly define how a defense of traditional methods and family farming can be maintained without reproducing the patriarchal hierarchies that sometimes characterize these social relations. This remains an important challenge as the movement develops and continues to negotiate the multiple constituencies and interests staking their claims through food sovereignty agendas. Another potentially radical ambition driving various food sovereignty advocates is the democratization of knowledge in the food production and supply chain. In order to reorganize knowledge production in the current food system – especially corporate strangleholds on research, the patenting of life forms, the centralized and expert-driven institutionalization of scientific knowledge, and so forth – ascendant ways of knowing and access to knowledge must be profoundly reformulated. The food sovereignty movement operates across scholarly, scientific, activist, consumer, and policy discourses and seeks to increase the overlap between them while also rethinking the basic principles of economics in ways compatible with social justice, sustainability, reciprocity, and other nonprofit driven logics. The movement organizes itself nonhierarchically, without any central sovereign body authorizing policy or organizational regulations, and while members of Via Campesina, the leading umbrella organization promoting food sovereignty, subscribe to a set of shared principles, there is no proscription on any form or process of knowledge production. Thus, market knowledge, modern technologies, and scientific innovation, as well as traditional seeds and farming techniques are all valued insofar as they are responsible to increasing, rather than limiting, public participation in the knowledge process and its outcomes. The democratization of knowledge in this context means activating diverse forms of multiparty research and education drawing together specialist and nonspecialist knowledge. This entails a significant increase in the participation of indigenous peoples, women, farm owners, food workers, consumers, and citizens in knowledge networks typically monopolized by private and state researchers. Food sovereignty seeks to make agricultural research responsible to the public good over narrow economic interests: it does this by horizontally integrating these different stakeholders into decision making over research priorities, funding allocation, validating ecological and cultural knowledge,

and assessing technological, environmental, and social risks. Participatory knowledge production has recently taken the form of citizens’ juries and referendums, collaborative seed banks, and farmer-led interventions in the agricultural research system. Finally, food sovereignty activism has recently focused on what is being called a global land grab, in which fears of impending overpopulation and food insecurity are driving governments, investors and speculators to buy vast amounts of agricultural land, most notably in the Global South. Land access and ownership are crucial in the food chain, and because most farmers in developing countries do not own the land they farm, they are especially vulnerable to displacement from their livelihoods by foreign buyers. Under advisory of the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank, land leases and purchases by foreign developers and profiteers have been encouraged in the name of rapid industrialization to expand food production for the near future. Food sovereignty activists counter that expanded production in the Global South is primarily for export and will further threaten the food security of local populations. They call for states to enact greater protections against such land acquisitions and the industrialization of farming carried out without consulting with local populations. Food sovereignty is an intersectional and dynamic movement with radical potential to address the economic and political conditions that limit the livelihoods and futures of food insecure populations. Nonetheless, because of its short history and coalitional composition, there continue to be unresolved contradictions and shortcomings within the movement, and it is clear that much work remains to develop food sovereignty into a viable grounds for real political transformation. If the movement claims, as the 2007 Declaration from the Nye´le´ni Forum for Food Sovereignty states, that we need to reinvent our food system to put “those who produce, distribute, and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations,” how are we to define producers, distributors, and consumers completely external to the markets and corporations through which they function? In other words, considering that “those who produce, distribute, and consume food” includes everybody, food sovereignty will need to do more work to effectively distinguish between small-scale producers, environmentally and socially responsible agribusinesses (if such were to exist), and transnational businesses. The movement also needs to increase international communication networks and forums between activist groups in order to share knowledge and strategies on a much greater scale. Through

Food Sovereignty

denser international traffic in ideas and information, this broadly decentralized movement can build solidarity in common causes. Knowledge sharing is also critical for indigenous and other groups that have no access to or have lost traditional knowledge and agricultural methods due to histories of colonization, corporate reengineering of diets and lifestyles, social and legal discrimination, and state-led restriction of peoples’ cultural expression. A further important critique leveled at the food sovereignty movement is its need to identify a legitimate new foundation for sovereignty. The movement’s attempt to exercise food sovereignty is riddled with contradictions, most fundamentally in the widespread call for selfdetermination by peoples and nations, at the same time as it seeks to undermine conventional citizenship and the nation-state. Thus numerous countries have been celebrated for advancing the cause of food sovereignty by recently enshrining its core principles into their constitutions, including Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Mali, Senegal, and Nepal, and advocates widely call on governments to protect national markets through tariffs and subsidies. Constitutional recognition and national protections, however, have not necessarily led to significant changes for the poor of those nations, and it seems doubtful that the right to food can truly be secured without real redistributions of power. Whether such strategic nationalisms can prove constructive is widely debated, particularly by the landless, indigenous peoples, women and others who often do not benefit from the patriarchal protections of the state. Invoking a people’s direct sovereign power to determine their own social system thus takes different forms. In principle, food sovereignty is flexible enough to find nationalist expression when that advances the right to food, while also providing the opening to undermine the sovereign premise anchoring the traditional nation-state, considered either in terms of the monopoly of force over a territory or the monopoly of the power to decide the exception to the law. Some critics argue that in order to reinvent sovereignty as a de- or reterritorialized framework for social change and a transgressive redeployment of human rights, a power other than the nation-state must be identified to authorize and protect rights. Others contend that the move by food sovereigntists to claim rights where none are guaranteed by a state is the only political option in a global system, where transnational capital, corporations, and international financial institutions are themselves already actively dismantling the inviolable authority of the nation-state, and where even functioning democratic states are not primarily invested in fulfilling the will of their peoples. When it subverts nationalist politics, food sovereignty is

F

able to decentralize and redistribute sovereign power at supra- and subnational scales, but leaves open and undefined the new political spaces in which food and agriculture can be re-politicized. This interpretation understands the claim to food sovereignty as being itself a critique and reconstitution from within of the principle of sovereignty itself, necessary for promoting social justice in a global political economy of privatized interests and compliant states. The promise of food sovereignty lies in its broad-based coalitional alliances; its foundation in a critique of the current world order that avoids the limitations of reifying economy and state as independently coherent categories; its non-prescriptive and adaptive politics that arise out of the specific needs and histories of different constituencies, making it a collective movement not predicated on consensus; its insistence on radically democratizing food knowledge, production, and consumption in order to establish the conditions for self-determination of all peoples; its centralization of women and indigenous peoples in the movement for social justice; and its attempt to reappropriate universal human rights and sovereignty to make the right to food the site for a new politics. Some of the terms deployed in food sovereignty discourses remain contested and potentially problematic – should the state be utilized or overcome to achieve self-determination? What is a “people,” and how are conflicting claims to self-determination to be negotiated? Can sovereignty retain any meaning outside of the nation-state? What does it mean to claim rights outside of existing frameworks that substantiate them? Despite opening up more challenges and questions than it can resolve during its nascency, food sovereignty is significant for drawing attention to how control over food scarcity is critical to the operation of global capital and its supporting structures of governance. In challenging these hierarchies of access, food sovereignty stokes a political will to imagine and collectively actualize alternatives.

Related Topics

▶ Capitalism ▶ Democracy, Deliberative ▶ Economic Rights ▶ Food ▶ Gender Justice ▶ General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) ▶ Human Rights ▶ Neoliberalism ▶ Population Politics ▶ Self-Determination ▶ Sovereignty

357

F

358

F

Foreign Aid

References Desmarais A (2007) La Vı´a Campesina: globalization and the power of peasants. Fernwood Publishing and Pluto Press, Halifax and London Nye´le´ni Forum for Food Sovereignty (2007). Declaration of the Forum for Food Sovereignty, Nye´le´ni 2007. Nye´le´ni Village, Se´lingue´, Mali Patel R et al (2009) Grassroots voices: food sovereignty issue. J Peasant Stud 36(3):663–706 Pimbert M (2006) Transforming knowledge and ways of knowing for food sovereignty. IIED, London Pimbert M (2009) Towards food sovereignty: reclaiming autonomous food systems. IIED, London Via Campesina (1996) Declaration of the International Conference of the Via Campesina Tlaxcala, Mexico, April 1996

Foreign Aid CHRISTOPHER KILBY Department of Economics, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA

Foreign aid is the transfer of money, goods, or services from a donor to a recipient in another country (excluding remittances between family members). To qualify as aid, the transfer must be a donation or grant or be on terms more favorable than commercial transactions. The transaction may be direct between individuals or involve intermediaries such as private charities, foundations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), governments or intergovernmental organizations. Private aid includes voluntary donations from individuals, corporations, and foundations, usually to religious organizations, charities, or NGOs that either work directly in developing countries or fund counterpart organizations. In contrast, official aid is government tax revenue used to fund bilateral or multilateral aid programs. Bilateral aid is typically government to government while with multilateral aid many donors contribute to an intergovernmental organization that distributes aid. Functionally, aid can be divided into humanitarian relief, development assistance, and military support. Humanitarian relief aid provides for basic needs in the event of natural or man-made crises and, as such, has relatively short-term goals. Development assistance – often motivated by a desire to address the underlying causes of recurrent humanitarian crises – focuses on long-term goals that should help a country escape a poverty trap to get on the path to sustainable development or accelerate a country’s progress down that path. While arguments can be made that military aid promotes development by providing security and allowing the

recipient government to redirect its other resources to economic and social development, it is sufficiently different from other forms of foreign aid that it will not be discussed here. Development assistance can take the form of project aid or program aid. Project aid funds a specific investment project such as an irrigation system, construction of primary schools, or training of government employees; foreign donors typically cover the imported component of such activities. Program aid is general budgetary support not linked to a specific investment project. Typically, such aid comes to support reforms in government policy, such as structural adjustment programs that condition the disbursement of funds on the adoption and implementation of macroeconomic and institutional reforms. Private aid supports humanitarian relief and development projects, while bilateral and particularly multilateral aid also take the form of program aid. While much of private and bilateral aid is given as grants, the bulk of multilateral aid traditionally has been loans with long grace periods, long repayment periods, and below-market interest rates. The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tracks aid flows and, in the process, has developed a precise set of definitions. The figures most commonly cited are for Official Development Assistance (ODA) that originates from donor governments, goes to low income countries to fund developmental undertakings, and is concessional (grants or below-market rate loans). In part, the DAC uses this data to encourage donor countries to improve the quantity and quality of aid. A long-standing goal of donors giving 0.7% of their GDP as ODA has been met only by a handful of smaller countries, with major donors like the USA and Japan contributing much less relative to their incomes. The DAC has also pushed for higher “quality” aid, for example, more grants, a greater proportion of aid to the neediest countries, and less tying of aid to purchases from donor countries.

History The modern era of foreign aid began at the end of World War II. The origins of bilateral aid lie in the US Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe and “Point Four” of President Truman’s inaugural speech promising humanitarian technical assistance to promote development in less developed countries. As other developed countries recovered from the war, the US encouraged them to give aid, either as a form of “burden sharing” in the confrontation

Foreign Aid

with communism or as war reparations. Even before this, the 1944 Bretton Woods conference designed the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, later expanded into the World Bank) to lend to governments in situations where private capital markets failed to fill the need. Although the IBRD’s original focus was on European reconstruction, that function was largely taken over by the Marshall Plan and subsequent US bilateral aid; the IBRD eventually turned to the developing world in search of clients. The period also saw the emergence of many private aid organizations, often founded to address short-term humanitarian crises and subsequently expanded to promote long term development. A clear example of this pattern is Oxfam, originally the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. Over time, the foreign aid “system” has expanded dramatically with ODA from DAC member countries for 2005 topping $106 billion when including funds for Iraq and Afghanistan. All major developed countries now have their own bilateral aid programs with the USA, Japan, the UK, Germany, and France typically providing the largest amounts. There has been a proliferation of multilateral agencies, including specialized global organizations (for example, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria) as well as regional and subregional agencies. The largest multilateral agency is the World Bank Group which, through the IBRD and the International Development Association (IDA), provides $20–$25 billion dollars annually. The IDA makes longterm, zero interest loans (that qualify as ODA) to the poorest countries, while the IBRD offers medium-term, near-market interest rate loans (that do not qualify as ODA) to other developing countries. Regional development banks include the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Inter-American Development Bank, all largely modeled on the World Bank. Perhaps most remarkable, private aid has evolved into a system of NGOs with substantial policy influence and significant resources, often working in partnership with donor governments.

Why Give Foreign Aid? Why should donors give aid and why do donors give aid? Taking a global justice perspective, the first question can be reframed as what are the obligations of the rich to the distant poor. While most moral philosophers agree that the rich should aid the poor, there is considerable debate about the strength of this obligation. Some argue that the obligation is reduced by distance as the rich lack the bonds

F

of community and state with the distant poor. In contrast, a cosmopolitan position argues for impartiality with respect to the boundaries of community and state. A strong version of this argument put forward by Peter Singer claims that the rich have a positive duty to aid the poor (irrespective of location) so long as doing so does not require the rich to give up something of comparable moral worth. Taken literally and considering the vast gulf between rich and poor, this would require huge amounts of aid and a substantial reduction in the standard of living of the rich. Others (notably Thomas Pogge) argue that the rich have a negative duty not to maintain institutions that result in life-threatening poverty for others. Assuming that past or present actions benefit the rich at the expense of the poor in less developed countries, this calls for changes in the current system of international trade and finance or for compensatory aid. However, since the threshold is life-threatening poverty and since the gap between rich and poor is likely to have other sources as well, these demands are somewhat less stringent. Prominent libertarians (such as the late Robert Nozick) put more weight on individual property rights and less weight on obligations to the distant poor. From this perspective, voluntary donations may be virtuous, but involuntary donations via tax-financed official aid unduly trample individual property rights, even if official aid is more effective at combating global poverty. All arguments in favor of aid, be it private or public aid, are based on the premise that aid is to some degree effective at improving the welfare of the poor in the recipient country without unduly reducing the welfare of the donors. While the effectiveness of aid at promoting development is still a matter of debate, early claims of disastrous unintended consequences of aid (such as the neo-Malthusian scenario painted by the late Garrett Hardin in “Lifeboat Ethics”, Hardin 1974) largely have been discredited as development, in fact, has slowed population growth and at least some forms of environmental destruction. The reasons donors do give aid are more complex, at least when considering donor states and ODA. While humanitarian considerations enter these decisions, overwhelming evidence ranging from statistical analysis of the geographic allocation of aid to the donors’ own statements indicates that geopolitical and commercial motives also play a large role. During the Cold War, foreign aid was openly viewed as a tool to support favorable regimes and to garner support in international fora. The end of the Cold War underscored this point; while aid optimists hoped for a “peace dividend” in terms of increased aid budgets, actual expenditures shrank dramatically. Only with the advent of the “War on Terror” have aid levels

359

F

360

F

Foreign Aid

revived, with substantial sums going to key front line states, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Although bilateral aid is more blatantly self-interested, there is clear evidence of donor influence over multilateral agencies. For example, statistical analysis links US commercial and geopolitical interests to the geographic distribution of World Bank and Asian Development Bank loans in ways inconsistent with the organizations’ charters. Likewise, for temporary members on the UN Security Council (UNSC), membership is linked with higher US bilateral aid and better access to IMF programs during the country’s tenure on the UNSC. The humanitarian motive for providing development assistance rests on aid’s effectiveness at promoting development. While case studies of individual aid projects often find impressive economic rates of return and other indicators of success, such results can be misleading. If aid funds go to an investment project that the recipient government would have undertaken even without aid, aid is fungible. The actual effect of aid is the new activity the government undertakes with the freed resources. While this new activity may have a high rate of return, the freed funds could equally go to the military or to political patronage. Because of this, recent research on the effectiveness of aid has focused on economy-wide measures, e.g., the total amount of aid received by a country and the growth rate of the overall economy. At this aggregate level, the effects of aid are less clear. Some countries have received generous amounts of aid and have done well, for example, South Korea and Taiwan. Others have received a lot of aid over a long period of time but have little to show for it, for example, many countries in Africa. As yet, statistical analysis does not provide a clear answer either. In the late 1990s, an influential World Bank study reached the intuitively appealing conclusion that aid is effective only in countries with good economic policy environments. However, subsequent research demonstrated this association is “fragile” and disappears if the time period, country sample, or model specification are altered. The literature today contains a variety of competing and contradictory results based on different methods and data samples. Depending on the study, aid either does or does not promote development, is more effective or less effective in a good policy environment, or is independent of the policy environment. Some studies find that the type of aid or the type of donor matters; others do not. Thus, while macroeconomic analysis of aid circumvents the fungibility issue, the development process may be so different between countries as to invalidate the usual cross-country statistical analysis.

One area of agreement is that current donor behavior greatly reduces the development effectiveness of aid. Geopolitical objectives alter the allocation of aid so that funds often are not directed at the neediest countries or at the governments most likely to use the funds wisely. They also weaken the donor’s interest in overseeing the use of funds. Commercial objectives likewise alter the allocation between recipients and also distort the use of funds within a country away from the most cost-effective methods of promoting development. Two recent initiatives attempt to combat these problems. The first is the UN’s Millennium Development Goals which set clear outcome targets against which to judge aid’s performance. A second is a shift toward more country selectivity in the allocation of aid. The selectivity argument follows from the World Bank research finding that aid only promotes growth in a good policy environment, and other Bank research providing evidence that program lending fails to change the policy environment. Together, these point to improving the development effectiveness of aid by selectively funding countries with good policy environments while providing relief aid but little development aid to those with poor policy environments. This approach has been incorporated into World Bank procedures and is the guiding principle behind the US Millennium Challenge Corporation, a new bilateral aid organization with the potential to distribute a sizable share of the US aid budget. While the premise of selectivity remains in doubt because of weak statistical evidence, if these initiatives insulate aid allocation decisions from donor politics, that change alone would likely improve the development effectiveness of aid. These arguments are unlikely to sway adamant critics of aid. Some critiques are rights-based. Official aid may infringe on the private property rights of donor country taxpayers, the libertarian argument outlined above. Focusing on the opposite end of the chain, official assistance, especially policy-based lending, may trample on recipient state sovereignty and the recipient country’s citizens’ right to self-determination. Other critiques are grounded in effectiveness. Aid may distort incentives and promote dependency, allowing recipient governments to ignore existing problems and creating new ones. Finally, the “trade not aid” critique offers a way to sidestep these problems. If donors unilaterally opened their markets to developing country products, the economic benefits to developing countries would greatly exceed the current benefits of aid. For advocates of aid, these critiques do not justify abolishing aid. Trade and aid need not be mutually exclusive; lowering trade barriers is perfectly consistent with continued or even increased aid. Furthermore, the

Foreign Policy

likely distributional impacts of the two are very different as those most in most need are not well positioned to reap substantial benefits from freer trade in the short run.

Related Topics

▶ International Humanitarian Assistance ▶ International Monetary Fund (IMF) ▶ International Organizations ▶ Lifeboat Ethics ▶ Odious Debts ▶ Sustainable Development ▶ World Bank (WB)

References Chatterjee D (ed) (2004) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Hardin G (1974) Lifeboat ethics: the case against helping the poor. Psychology Today 8(4):38–43, 123–126. Downloadable from: http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_ethics_case_against_helping_poor.html Lancaster C (2007) Foreign aid: diplomacy, development, domestic politics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Minoiu C, Reddy S (2007) Aid does matter, after all: revisiting the relationship between aid and growth. Challenge 50(2):39–58 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Development co-operation report. OECD, Paris. Downloadable from: http://www. oecd.org/dac Radelet S (2006) A primer on foreign aid. Center for Global Development working paper 92. Downloadable from: http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/8846

Foreign Policy EDWARD SANKOWSKI Department of Philosophy, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

“Foreign policy” is a concept that presupposes for interpretive/explanatory or normative purposes that we can understand and evaluate the perspective of a nationstate or its representatives making decisions based on reasons or other motivations. These decisions are about how to interact, particularly with foreign governments, but also with other foreign collective entities beyond the borders of the decision-making nation-state. Most obviously, foreign policy is concerned with matters of war and peace, security threats, trade, immigration, and other matters of major international import. To “understand and evaluate the perspective of a nation-state” does not necessarily imply that this perspective is regarded as a true

F

view, nor that we approve by some normative standard (e.g., global justice) what is decided or on what basis. In an age of globalization, the facts and normative standards by which foreign policy should be judged are particularly liable to increasing contestation because the perspective of any single nation-state is likely to be lacking. In what follows, we take a perspective especially focused on contemporary US foreign policy. This is not because we assume the USA is central to all the important issues, but rather, partially, because the study of foreign policy is so complex that we could not hope to address issues here from all possible national standpoints. So we need to be as selective and cohesive as possible in our comments. Also, partially, we focus on the USA because a self-examined approach from the standpoint of a familiarity with US culture(s) seems necessary (though not sufficient) to get on with future, we hope less limited study of the foreign policy of both the USA and other nation-states. There is a question how we are to interpret what is the content and scope of the foreign policy of a country, and what is the evidence for this interpretation. There is also a question how (or even whether) various normative concepts do or should apply to a foreign policy, for example, “self-interest” or “morality,” among other notions. One set of issues here arises because of the collective action feature of foreign policy. There is the overlapping matter of a multiplicity of agents (e.g., the US President, the Secretary of State, ambassadors, numerous other political functionaries, and indeed many nongovernmental figures) who may be said to be defining foreign policy. Another set of issues arises because the foreign policy of a powerful nationstate is likely to deal with a wide range of foreign actors and subject matter and may differ significantly context to context depending on what is identified as the topic. Thus the foreign policy may defy easy summary or subsumption under consistent principles. So, some tyrants are subject to hostile action by the US government while many others are left alone: this has been one objection to the US 2003 military intervention against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The set of questions most central to this essay is a subset of the normative questions that appear to apply to a foreign policy. What are some of the normative (here, moral) concepts that might apply to deciding on or evaluating a foreign policy, and how should this be done? For this essay, democracy and global justice are the key moral notions considered, and to a lesser degree here such frequently invoked notions as human rights (an aspect of global justice). Some academics study foreign policy as a disciplinary specialty, but here as elsewhere in academe, it is

361

F

362

F

Foreign Policy

epistemologically preferable to be open to multidisciplinary as well as extra-academic approaches, so that the study of foreign policy does not get mired in established uncritical categories. This essay takes the viewpoint of a philosophical approach hopefully open to various sources of ideas in the humanities (e.g., history) and social sciences, as well as nonacademic inputs from political figures and journalists. This essay is as one aspect of its approach more focused on normative questions, and in distinctively philosophical ways, than are some other approaches to the study of foreign policy. What evidence may we rely on in studying foreign policy? There are official writings and declarations by political and military authorities, attempts to infer goals from specific individual and collective actions, evidence from powerful nongovernmental organizations and individuals, social science generalizations about individual and group psychology and sociology, and so on. Given the ambiguous nature of the evidence for what the foreign policy is, including the gaps between declarations and actions, it is far from clear that coherent foreign policy exists about many matters. Normative global justice considerations (including but not limited to human rights issues) may sometimes be but probably rather seldom are the main basis of the foreign policy of a government (whether this should be the case or not). As one consideration subordinate to others, however, a conception of global justice may make a real difference. Some would say that global justice ethically ought not to be the main basis for decisions about foreign policy by a government. That may be said because it is sometimes thought that moral judgments may be irrelevant to the actual course of events, or because it is thought that ethics requires that foreign policy should advance the interests of the nation-state. The interests of the nationstate are generally not uncontroversial, however, and may include moral characteristics. This essay asks chiefly about some aspects of the question to what extent, if any, and why, global justice considerations ought to be the basis for decisions by a government (e.g., US government) about its foreign policy. More specifically, the essay asks whether a government’s foreign policy ought to have among its primary principles that an idea of global justice should regulate its own acts, and still more specifically the idea that global justice requires the presumption that democracy should be fostered as a worldwide mode of political organization (though not necessarily in the form of a oneworld, global political entity). Should the USA aim to promote democracy around the world as one element of promoting global justice

around the world? In using this formulation, I am influenced by Michael Walzer’s view (about domestic justice) that democracy as a form of political organization is one aspect of justice. Democracy within a nation-state is about the just distribution of political power within that state. While it is a very tentative inference, let us infer that in a similar way democratic organization in a more global context is an aspect of global justice. The option to participate in a democratic system, some democratic system or other (not necessarily a unitary democratic system applicable to the entire world), can be viewed as a good, about which we may be concerned as a matter of distributive justice, in principle to be made available to all individuals anywhere in the world. If a country such as the USA says it values democracy in its domestic arrangements in some form, then that commitment does seem logically to imply some further commitment to realizing democracy outside its borders. The nature of this extra-national commitment, however, is obscure. It certainly does not obviously commit the USA to a policy of democracy promotion wherever questions arise about normative politics outside US borders. Indeed, for any one country, including the US, or a few countries, such as the US and its allies, to decide political arrangements for the entire world even in the supposed interests of worldwide democracy seems to be very questionable. It is actually even more questionable when the professed objective is to promote democracy. Democracy seems at its best when the immediate circumstances of a polity motivate the active citizens on the scene to invent or improve democratic institutions. Better still, if most of the citizens will be to some extent active. Democracy seems best conceived as taking a great variety of institutional and practical forms, some still to be invented. Certainly it is conceded that examples can be given in which constraining external influence brought to bear on a country by a foreign country or countries can bring about changes leading to democratization. After World War II, for example, arguably that is what happened in Japan and parts of Germany. Such a historical context of reasonable control and tutelege, however, does not extend to the contemporary situation for the USA with respect to many other parts of the world in which issues are likely to arise about whether the USA ought to aim to promote democracy outside its borders. There is much empirical evidence and ethical judgment that can be brought to bear, which suggests that powerful countries often pursue their own narrow “self-interest” (that is to say, the narrow selfinterest of powerful factions within the country, not their enlightened self-interest as countries with defensible ethical ideals such as some particular conceptions of

Foreign Policy

democratic government) in their foreign-policy-driven relationships. This is even more likely when a would-be democratic society has never transcended, or has further descended into near-oligarchic domestic rule in some respects. It is common for the moral rhetoric of democracy, global justice, or human rights to be used while the practice of foreign policy is motivated by narrow self-interest. This not only fosters the abuses of spuriously humanitarian, insufficiently justified interventions by hegemonic powers, but also discredits the ideal of democracy in domestic circulation as cynical propaganda, which it too often is. A point suggested by these reflections is that to the largest extent possible, it is better for a foreign policy to be as transparent as possible, as difficult a goal as transparency is. Even conceding that some secrecy and some covert international operations may be necessary even in wellmotivated governments, it has a corrupting effect on democracy for foreign policy to be driven by goals not publically admitted. This was the case, arguably, when Henry Kissinger supported the overthrow of the Allende regime in Chile, which led to the long-term repressive dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, or more recently when fabrications about weapons of mass destruction were used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Only if various parts of a foreign policy and its practical manifestations are comparatively transparent can they be publically critically examined and improved. The moral basis of foreign policy in a would-be democracy must include a publically articulated and debated conception of what a foreign policy is, and what moral criteria should be applied to it. Rather than being politically irrelevant moralizing, this is a necessary condition for a functioning domestic democracy anywhere, in the USA or elsewhere. It is in the nature of democracy, apparently, to vary in its institutional expression. This is a crucial normative point about the value of democracy. The USA does not have a parliamentary political system, but even the reigning wisdom in the USA would count as democracies many other countries with parliamentary governments. It is reasonable to discount as non-democracies many countries that would use the term “democracy” about themselves, but it seems indefensible to maintain that any one country, including the USA, has a unique capacity to define what are, and what are not, democratic institutions, what global justice is, what human rights count morally, and whether they are properly looked after. Amartya Sen (e.g., 2006 and 2009) has addressed related questions admirably. There are ethically legitimate grounds for controversy about this, independent of the types of nihilistic relativism about democracy and human rights sometimes

F

put out by oppressive governments or other institutions. This makes it seem all the more overweening to embark on an attempt to define unilaterally for the world of the present and future what democracy consists in, as a part of US foreign policy, as the recent Bush administration arguably attempted. More plausibly, the USA may sometimes circulate for global consideration and discussion, and even sometimes defend by force, proposals about what are democratic institutions. This is very different from posing dogmatically and unilaterally as the ultimate arbitrator about what are democratic institutions. To the extent that the USA becomes less confident about the current success of its own democratic experiment, the more tempting it is to embark on attempts to spread simulacra of its own falteringly democratic institutional arrangements around the world. And the need to use military force, even when justifiable, is a symptom of the failure of human institutions. There is a useful distinction in Amartya Sen’s recent book about justice, between operating with the ideas of less just and more just, rather than trying to define what ideally just institutions would be. It seems more sensible to focus on what would improve justice as a departure from what is the case, typically about particular topics, rather than to try to define what would be perfectly just institutions. Similarly, it seems better to focus on what is less and more democratic, and what change would improve democracy here or there, rather than trying to define what worldwide democratic institutions might ideally be. The foreign policy of the USA might usefully adopt some offshoot of this way of thinking. Even Sen’s way of thinking is vulnerable to abuse, but it is more likely to encourage the sensible incorporation of politically modest democracy-advancing moral motivations (as well as legitimate and honestly acknowledged national “self-interest”) into US foreign policy. There are also serious questions about the application of ethical ideals such as democracy building not only to other countries but as well within the USA. There should be by rights a reciprocal normative relationship between practical reasoning about democracy beyond US borders and within US borders. This requires some openness by US government, as well as ordinary US citizens to debates and literature about foreign policy from dissident US residents, citizens or not, as well as foreigners. Only such openness makes it possible to hope for an epistemologically well-justified conception of what democracy, and a democratic foreign policy, ought to be. Such openness, unfortunately, is certain to be derided, with considerable popular support, in the current (2010) and foreseeable climate, by politicians who will characterize it as an abandonment of the US government’s

363

F

364

F

Foreign Policy

obligation in its foreign policy above all to look after the interests and to take seriously the patriotic views of its own citizens, often with ready recourse to military force, and only in a very subordinate way if at all to take into account the interests and views of others beyond US borders. The upshot of this distorted view is that the USA in its foreign policy is allegedly morally bound to act internally and externally on a supposedly self-justifying domestic conception of constitutional democracy, which should either be protected at home and its key rights flouted if need be abroad, or replicated as nearly as possible elsewhere in the world. There is a serious question whether there is currently any such thing as a well-supported normative account, either by academics, governmental officials, journalists, etc., of what foreign policy ought to be (including a rational position about the relevance of the ethics of democracy, global justice, and human rights). Rather, there are continuing conflict-laden claims from many sources about what issues about foreign policy should command much of our attention, and from what point of view, and by what standards (force usually acknowledged as preeminent), we should evaluate proposals about how to address these issues. Whether foreign policy should be based on a moral philosophy, or on “self-interest,” or something else, or more plausibly perhaps a combination of morality and self-interest (whatever this means in application to very complex collective agents such as nations acting in a globalizing context), and what exactly any of these categories should amount to in international relations, is rationally unresolved at the present time, and perhaps doomed to remain so indefinitely. That helps explain the proliferation of inconclusive academic theories about normative foreign policy. There are what we might call “non-cognitive” ways of resolving such issues for practical purposes. Some persuasive or charismatic official (or group) comes into political power, proceeds to define or redirect goals in foreign policy, and articulates (without rationally supporting) standards of argumentation about what goals are salient, how they should be prioritized, and how to realize them. The mass media are used to win over a sufficient portion of the public to put a damper on effective dissent. There is a pseudo-objectivity assumed (with or without conscious deceptiveness) by powerholders and auxiliary academic or journalistic commentators, about what foreign policy should be. This essay obviously does not endorse this sorry state of affairs, but rather notes that it obtains, and that it leads to the mistaken idea that there is an obviously genuine prospect at hand of some objective, rational, or knowledge-based approach to normative foreign policy, even one that favors ideals of democracy and global justice. This illusion trades

on both the imputed but questionable or completely illegitimate authority of those who hold or have held political power, and the connected illusion that there are academics who have a deep understanding of the true normative and factual foundations of foreign policy. This is a profoundly unsatisfactory state of affairs, which tends to undermine democracy, because the false objectivity of many normative foreign policy claims requires the perpetuation of a myth that the questions of normative foreign policy are well defined enough to admit of rationally justifiable, interpersonally binding, and even morally objective answers. A politics that requires mythology does not have a proper place for self-governing citizenship of the sort basic to democracy, whether in the USA or elsewhere. Absent patient analysis and widespread morally reflective discussion of a type not usually undertaken or encouraged by those in political power, and unlikely to be compatible with demands of decision-making in the modern state, there is not, and probably will not be, any rational normative foreign policy. We can and should try for better reasoned and morally progressive positions about foreign policy, but it is unclear how successful we can be. In conclusion, one of this essay’s main claims, then, is that seeking to establish democracy (consistent with due respect for global justice and human rights) in other countries is liable to raise questions about democracy and global justice within the country seeking to export democracy, which need to be considered with a depth that is rare given current political arrangements. Without submitting to a searching (and broadly publically debated) examination of the normative ethics of democracy and justice, both in a global context and in the domestic arena, attempts to define and pursue a foreign policy based significantly on democracy promotion are likely at best to encounter considerable frustrations even if there are also some genuine successes.

Related Topics

▶ Chomsky, Noam ▶ Colonialism ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ Huntington, Samuel ▶ International Law ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ Sen, Amartya

Foucault, Michel

▶ Territorial Rights ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs website http://www. cceia.org/index.html. Accessed 28 Mar 2010 Chomsky N (1994) World orders old and new. Columbia University Press, New York Huntington S (1996) The clash of civilizations and the remaking of the world order. Simon & Schuster, New York Sanger D (2009) The inheritance. Random House, New York Sen A (2006) Identity and violence: the illusion of destiny. W.W. Norton, New York Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Walzer M (1983) Spheres of justice. Basic Books, New York

Foucault, Michel CHRISTOPHER PENFIELD Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

One of the most prolific intellectuals of the twentieth century, Michel Foucault was a French philosopher whose work spans social and political theory, aesthetics, ethics, philosophy of science, existential psychology, and philosophy of history. Though his theoretical works were motivated by the actual political struggles in which he was engaged, Foucault remains a challenging thinker to situate with respect to global justice. Not only did he decline to posit a general theory of justice or rights, but he rejects the analytical framework that such endeavors presuppose. To understand the complicated relationship between Foucault’s work and global justice, then, it is important to see how both his critique and reformulation of the concepts of justice and rights follow from his analysis of power. According to Foucault, normative theories of justice conceive of power juridically: that is, in terms of both a legal model, which evaluates power in terms of its legitimacy, and an institutional model, which locates power in the functioning of the state. Within this framework, political subjects are conceived principally as legal subjects entitled to the exercise of certain rights which the state has the duty to protect and uphold. The form proper to political action against injustice is thus understood in terms of litigating claims. For Foucault, however, this juridical conception of power is flatly insufficient, both for illuminating the actual

F

exercise of power throughout the social field and for grasping the possibilities of resistance to it. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault analyzes the historical emergence and development in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of “disciplinary power,” which operates through a variety of social institutions (prisons, schools, factories, hospitals, the military) to organize, normalize, regulate, and control the activities and relations of the individuals and groups that compose a population. More generally, Foucault defines the exercise of power in terms of the techniques and strategies by which those who govern act upon the actions of those who are governed: one exerts power over another by shaping their conduct and delimiting the possible range of their activity. The political rationality that guides and integrates these techniques and strategies of power in a given society is termed “governmentality.” Three implications follow from this conception of power. First, “government” refers not only to the apparatus of the state, but to all the social institutions, relations, and practices through which the conduct of individuals and groups is managed. When Foucault speaks of “governors,” this includes parents and educators as much as it does politicians and judges, and when he speaks of “the governed,” he understands thereby any individual or group whose actual or possible actions are guided or restricted by another. Power is thus exercised in all areas of social life, not just through the channels of legal and political institutions. Second, power is intrinsically relational, which, for Foucault, entails the primacy of freedom. To act upon the actions of another requires the recognition, even if tacit, of the agency of the other who acts: Only insofar as there is a range of possible activity open to the other can a technique of power aim to modify or control their actions. Freedom, understood as the availability, to an individual or group, of various possible forms of conduct, is a necessary condition for the operation of power relations. Third, it follows that resistance, too, is a condition of possibility for relations of power. Indeed, resistance is the concrete form that practices of freedom take when the field of possible action is delimited by an oppressive mode of governance. Insofar as the objective of government is to shape the field of possible and actual actions of the governed, power is exercised strategically in response to possible and actual forms of contestation. For this reason, Foucault gives primacy to practices of resistance in his analyses: Only when seen from the perspective of social struggles can the exercise of power become intelligible, the structure of power relations visible, and the specific mode of governance contestable.

365

F

366

F

Foucault, Michel

Foucault’s strategic conception of power sheds light on his rejection of any universal concept of justice that would be used either to legitimate political governance or justify forms of resistance to this governance. Such a concept is an empty abstraction that locates political agency centrally within state institutions and reduces political activity to litigation, thereby missing the concrete singularity of particular struggles in which the governed aim to transform the relations of power by which they are governed. On Foucault’s view, the juridical framework that underlies normative conceptions of justice therefore obscures the myriad operations of power that traverse the intricate network of social relations and shape the conduct of individuals and groups. If injustice is to be understood in terms of oppressive relations of power, then universal concepts of justice will remain unhelpful and misleading insofar as they fail to grasp the exercise of power in its actuality and the conditions of injustice in their specificity. Though litigating justice on the basis of preestablished rights can give expression to certain claims of the governed within a social system, as a model of political action, it cannot call into question the governmentality of the social system itself. At best, then, a normative theory of justice will be ineffective; at worst, it will mask the operations of power the effects of which, in principle, it seeks to prevent. Rather than situating and justifying social struggles in relation to a normative ideal of justice, Foucault suggests that justice itself be understood strategically in terms of social struggles. Given a specific non-egalitarian arrangement of power relations that produces deleterious effects upon the governed, the aim of political activity is to transform this operation of power. Foucault cites as examples of this kind of resistance struggles against the power exercised by men over women, by parents over children, by the penal system over prisoners, by psychiatry over the mad, and by the medical profession over the population. These forms of resistance are all struggles against injustice insofar as they contest a mode of governance that has produced intolerable conditions of social life. The concept of injustice thus refers to a relation between governors and the governed in which the exercise of power produces effects of human suffering on the latter. Accordingly, just as freedom is located in the practices through which the governed resist and alter the mode of power by which they are governed, so too justice is understood as the reversal or modification of a power relation by which an oppressive form of government is transformed. That is, justice is conceived as the strategic achievement of particular forms of resistance to injustice rather than as a universal

set of norms that would orient and legitimate those forms of resistance. It follows that rights, too, must be reconceived in strategic terms. For Foucault, rights do not exist prior to or independently of the social and political struggles that give them concrete form and reality. Rather, the nature of a right is such that it only comes to be in and through the activity by which it is exercised. Rights therefore are neither universal nor ideal but historically contingent effects of the collective practices of resistance that make them possible. Foucault offers as an example the Solidarity movement of Polish workers who established a right to strike precisely by staging strikes against and effectively impelling the reversal of an antistrike law that was deemed unjust. To speak of a right generally, then, is to speak of a sphere of possible activities carved out, claimed, and made actual by the governed through their efforts to transform their relations to those who govern them. Foucault thus reverses the traditional conception of the relation between rights and freedom: It is not principally the right that secures or enlarges one’s freedom, but the exercise of one’s freedom through the activity of contestation that constitutes the right. Foucault insists that the content proper to the concepts of injustice, justice, and rights cannot be formalized or determined in advance, for these concepts express the actual state of relations of power. That is, their meaning is particularized with respect to, and from the perspective of, the conditions of specific social struggles. The role of political theory is thus not to formalize criteria for the normative evaluation of these struggles: When those who are governed revolt, one does not ask whether or not they are justified in doing so. For Foucault, the intellectual task is to grasp in its concrete singularity what is at issue in a revolt. Minimally, this means understanding the modes of government that are operative, the forms of human suffering for which they are responsible, the exercise of power that is challenged, and the possibilities of contestation that are thereby established. Such an understanding, in turn, requires that one listen to the voices of the governed in their resistance as they confront those who govern with the injustice of their governance. For Foucault, however, something even more fundamental is at stake when the governed revolt. The very ability to revolt – at base, the ineliminable possibility of risking death rather than continuing to be governed by an intolerable form of authority – is something irreducible to the exercise of power. Revolt is the “degree zero” of power, which is to say, the form of conduct that no mode of governance can finally render

Free Trade

impossible, save by destroying the governed and thereby ending the power relation itself. Whether considered as a possible or actual activity, revolt as such is an intrinsically unassailable practice of freedom that thereby constitutes the ultimate point of anchorage for any particular rights that are successfully asserted. In other words, not only is it an historical and empirical fact that rights come into being through the activity of social struggle, but the freedom to revolt itself – as the absolute limit of governmental authority and control – provides the condition of possibility for the creation of rights and the achievement of justice. For this reason, Foucault conceives the intellectual task concerning global justice in terms of an ethical, methodological, and strategic imperative to help make visible what is expressed in the intransigent refusal by which the governed revolt against an unjust regime of power. The imperative is ethical insofar as intellectuals are themselves members of the “international community of the governed” who thereby have both a right and duty to speak out in response to government-induced forms of human suffering wherever they occur. The imperative is methodological insofar as one must analyze struggles against injustice in view of both their specificity and the “transversal” or transnational connections that link them with other forms of struggle contesting the same systems of power. And the imperative is strategic insofar as one denounces and discloses the oppressive exercise of power in order to help give voice to the governed in their resistance to modes of governance they can no longer suffer. On Foucault’s view of global justice, then, the intellectual task is to map out and develop the possible and actual transversal lines of solidarity that connect geographically disparate social struggles against common modes of power, thereby giving concrete form to the international community of the governed. Public intellectuals thus belong as international citizens to a transnational community that they have the right and duty to help shape and inform. Through their activity of collective critique as “private individuals” speaking out together in response to power’s abuse, intellectuals exercise critical thought strategically to transform global conditions of injustice. Indeed, Foucault emphasizes that these collective actions of private individuals, unauthorized by the state and aligned with the governed, are precisely what have created the right of unofficial individuals and groups to intervene in the international field of power relations. In this way, the activity of the intellectual who confronts global injustice can itself constitute a practice of freedom by which one struggles to help realize the achievement of justice.

F

367

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Collective ▶ Amnesty International ▶ Chomsky, Noam ▶ Civil Disobedience, Transnational ▶ Empire ▶ Gay Rights ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Group Rights ▶ Political Freedom ▶ Revolution

References Chomsky N, Foucault M (2006) The Foucault-Chomsky debate: on human nature. The New Press, New York Foucault M, Deleuze G (1977) Intellectuals and power. In: Bouchard D (ed) Language, counter-memory, practice. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, pp 205–217 Foucault M (1977) Discipline and punish. Random House, New York Foucault M (1980) On popular justice: a discussion with Maoists. In: Gordon C (ed) Power/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings. Random House, New York, pp 1–36 Foucault M (2000a) Confronting governments: human rights. In: Faubion J (ed) The essential works of Foucault, vol 3: Power. The New Press, New York, pp 474–475 Foucault M (2000b) The moral and social experience of the poles can no longer be obliterated. In: Faubion J (ed) The essential works of Foucault, vol 3: Power. The New Press, New York, pp 465–473 Foucault M (2000c) The subject and power. In: Faubion J (ed) The essential works of Foucault, vol 3: Power. The New Press, New York, pp 326–348 Foucault M (2000d) Useless to revolt? In: Faubion J (ed) The essential works of Foucault, vol 3: Power. The New Press, New York, pp 449–453 Patton P (2005) Foucault, critique, and rights. Critical Horizons 6(1):267–287 Veyne P (1997) The final Foucault and his ethics. In: Davidson A (ed) Foucault and his interlocutors. Chicago University Press, Chicago, pp 225–233

Free Trade NICOLE HASSOUN Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Introduction Trade is more or less free depending on the degree to which it is subject to constraints like tariffs, quotas, rules, or regulations. The World Trade Organization (WTO) and other (e.g., bilateral and multilateral) trade agreements encourage freer trade amongst countries.

F

368

F

Free Trade

Other international financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund also encourage countries to (amongst other things) liberalize trade in hard goods, services, and money. Free trade is perhaps the center piece of economic globalization. There is very little work in the global justice literature on free trade. The public debate and interdisciplinary literature on the topic is, however, enormous. So, this entry will canvas just a few of the main arguments for and against free trade in the interdisciplinary literature. It will suggest that one reason why few of those working on global justice have considered the general case for or against free trade is that it is very difficult (even for those with significant empirical expertise) to do so. Rather, much of the literature on global justice and free trade considers the justifiability of particular trade agreements.

Arguments for Free Trade There are many arguments for free trade. Some suggest, for instance, that the specialization free trade allows will lead to greater production because there are economies of scale (larger companies may, for instance, be more efficient than smaller ones, see Quah and Rauch 1996: 17). Others argue that the competition and cooperation it allows will increase efficiency and innovation. The most famous argument for free trade is the Argument from Comparative Advantage (originally advanced by David Ricardo). It suggests that countries can gain from trade if they specialize in those commodities in which they have a comparative advantage. A country has a comparative advantage in a commodity if the opportunity costs of producing that commodity are lower in that country than in another country. The opportunity costs of producing a commodity in a country is just the amount of commodity that could be gotten from production if the country specialized in producing their next best commodity instead. A country can have a comparative advantage in a commodity even if it is less efficient than other countries at producing everything (even, that is, if other countries have absolute advantages in that commodity). So, the Argument from Comparative Advantage is different from Adam Smith’s argument against mercantilism for the conclusion that countries can gain from trade by specializing in producing those things in which they have an absolute advantage. Consider a simple two-country, two-good model where Rich and Poor produce mannequins and sporks. Suppose that each country has 24 hours in which to produce goods and that it takes Rich 1 hour to produce a spork and 3 hours to produce a mannequin, while it takes Poor 2 hours to produce a spork and 4 hours to

produce a mannequin. Rich has a comparative advantage in sporks. The opportunity cost of producing a spork in Rich is one-third a mannequin. It is half a mannequin in Poor. Poor has a comparative advantage in mannequins. Poor has to give up two sporks, while Rich has to give up three sporks to produce a mannequin. Suppose that consumers in Rich demand nine sporks and five mannequins, while consumers in Poor demand six sporks and three mannequins. This is the situation before trade (Fig. 1). If each country specializes in the commodity in which it has a comparative advantage, this is the result (Fig. 2). There are four extra mannequins and nine extra sporks. So, there is room to gain from trade (but since consumers demand some mannequins and some sporks in both countries, the gains are only possible through trade). If the going price is two sporks for a mannequin, this may be the result (Fig. 3). What is surprising is that the Argument from Comparative Advantage shows that countries can gain from trade even if they do not have an absolute advantage in producing anything at all. How much countries will gain depends on the terms of trade. If it costs three sporks for a Mannequin, Poor would do better in the example above, for instance. Furthermore, many question the assumptions underlying even this simple version of the Argument from Comparative Advantage. (There are many endogenous growth models that predict that openness will be correlated with growth that start with different assumptions from the model we have discussed, see McCulloch et al. 2001.) The simple version of this argument assumes that there is full employment, no transactions costs, and homogenous labor markets within each country. It assumes that it costs nothing for laborers to switch industries but that they cannot switch countries. It also assumes that the goods each country produces are identical and that consumers and firms strive to maximize utility and profit, respectively (Hassoun 2008).

Production without Specialization Mannequins

Sporks

Rich

5

9

Poor

3

6

World Total

8

15

Free Trade. Fig. 1 Production without specialization

Free Trade

Production with Specialization Mannequins

Sporks

Rich

0

24

Poor

12

0

World Total

12

24

Free Trade. Fig. 2 Production with specialization

Production with Specialization Mannequins

Sporks

Rich

6

12

Poor

6

12

World Total

12

24

Free Trade. Fig. 3 Production with specialization

Arguments Against Free Trade The preconditions for the Argument from Comparative Advantage to work have even given rise to some objections to free trade. If there is not full employment, for instance, some people within countries that gain from trade may lose. Alternately, countries that specialize may be left extremely vulnerable to shifts in the terms of trade. If a quarter of a country’s economy depends on sporks (or, more realistically, cocao), and prices for that commodity fall, that could be devastating for the country (McConnell and Brue 2004: 459–460). Similarly, some worry that countries will be left vulnerable in times of war or disaster if they do not produce essential commodities themselves (McConnell and Brue 2004: 459–460). There are also many other objections to free trade. Some argue that some protection is necessary for infant industries or to ensure that regulations to protect human health remain in place (see Harrison 1994 and Caldwell 1997. An early formulation of this argument is provided by Friedrich Liszt in the eighteenth century. A version of this argument is also central to the dependency theorists, such as F.H. Cardoso, and Rau´l Pre´bisch). Others argue that free trade will lead to domestic job loss and a global

F

race to the bottom in labor or environmental standards (Low and Yeats 1992). Some worry about trade’s impact on the global environment or the poor for other reasons (Goldsmith 1996; Daly 1996; Hassoun 2009; Hassoun 2008). Still others worry that free trade undermines cultural diversity (Wong and Hassoun 2009). Consider just one of these objections – the race to the bottom argument – as it has a nice theoretical backing. The basic idea is simple. With free trade, industries are more likely to move across borders. Countries have different labor and environmental standards. So, industries have an incentive to move to countries with lower standards. Countries thus have an incentive to lower standards to retain or attract industry. Ceteris paribus, these incentives will lead industries to move to those countries with the lowest standards and lead countries to lower standards. So, labor and environmental conditions will get worse (Barry and Reddy 2007; Jenkins 1998). There are some problems with the Race to the Bottom Argument, however. It does not show that free trade will lead to falling labor and environmental conditions. As free trade increases average income levels, demand for better labor and environmental conditions might rise if, for instance, there are economies of scale in pollution abatement. This could reduce or eliminate the impact of a regulatory race to the bottom. It is even possible that free trade may eventually lead to rising rather than falling regulatory standards (Barbier 1997; Krugman et al. 2003).

Moral Frameworks Whether or not any of the arguments for or against free trade go through, however, a great deal of moral reflection is necessary to evaluate these arguments. Is it necessarily a good thing if inefficient countries can gain economically from trade? Is it always bad if labor standards fall? How we evaluate such changes will depend on our moral framework. There are, of course, many different moral frameworks available in the global justice literature by which one might evaluate the case for free trade. While some have considered whether theories of justice even apply to trade, most proceed immediately to considering the case for trade in light of such theories (James 2006; Kurjanska and Risse 2008; Lomasky 2007). Some adopt a roughly Rawlsian account of justice on which free trade is justifiable if it is part of a package of policies that maximizes the position of the least well off (Kurjanska and Risse 2008). These authors often argue that the case for free trade hinges on whether or not it is part of the best development strategy for poor countries (Kurjanska and Risse 2008). Others extend this kind of Rawlsian account globally,

369

F

370

F

Free Trade

considering how trade impacts the global poor (Brock 2009; Moellendorf 2005). Some just start from the presumption that some things matter – poverty and the environment, for instance (Hassoun 2009). It might even be possible to argue that free trade is inherently good because it is part of the basic package of essential freedoms all individuals should have. Most will probably agree, however, that the moral permissibility of free trade cannot be determined without taking into consideration the consequences of embracing it (Lomasky 2007). So, once we settle on a moral framework, many arguments for and against free trade will hinge, essentially, on empirical matters (Mandel 2006). What moral framework one adopts determines what, if any, kind of empirical evidence is necessary to make the case for free trade and whether or not it is available. On some frameworks, simply establishing that there is a race to the bottom in labor or environmental standards would provide a reason to object to free trade (Hassoun 2008). On others, much more is necessary (Kurjanska and Risse 2008). It would be hard to make a compelling case that free trade is part of a package of policies that maximizes the position of the least well off (Hassoun 2010). One would have to consider all possible combinations of policies. It is easier (but still incredibly difficult) to make the case that free trade is generally good or bad for some things that matter – like poverty or the environment (Hassoun 2008, 2009). Much of the literature on free trade and some of the global justice literature on the topic considers empirical evidence with different degrees of theoretical sophistication (Wade 2004; Mandel 2006; Hassoun 2011).

The State of Debate When the empirical evidence regarding free trade’s moral permissibility, all things considered, is too difficult to acquire or one does not have a complete moral theory with which to evaluate this permissibility, what is it possible to say? It is relatively easy to say that free trade will have differential impacts on many things that matter, so we should take these impacts into account. Consider an example that just starts from the minimal assumption that free trade’s impact on the environment matters (though other things may matter as well). Energy use is the main contributor to climate change. Burning coal alone contributes about two-fifth of the world’s carbon emissions (Anderson and McKibbin 1997). Many countries, such as Germany, subsidize use of such traditional energy resources (thus constraining free trade). Estimates suggest that, in 1992, fossil fuel consumption subsidies alone amounted to more than $200 billion dollars (Organisation for Economic

Cooperation and Development 1997). Such subsidies often reduce prices for traditional energy sources encouraging consumption and, so, increasing pollution. So, reducing these subsidies may help reduce climate change and other environmental problems. Still, some energy subsidies have beneficial implications for the environment. There are, for instance, many subsidies for renewable and sustainable energy sources (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 1997). In the absence of further empirical evidence, these observations are enough to give us reason to consider whether there are ways of capturing trade’s positive impacts and avoiding its negative impacts. Furthermore, even if we could say that free trade was generally good (or bad) for the environment (or whatever else matters), we might have reason to disaggregate free trade’s impacts. For, in light of the above observations, it may be a good idea to look for constructive and creative ways of capturing the benefits of free trade for those things that matter (e.g., the environment) while avoiding associated costs. This kind of inquiry has led several authors to argue that it might be good to change the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) so that they compensate for damage to, or promote, things that matter. Some suggest altering the WTO so that it allows countries to use trade policy to unilaterally protect the environment or the poor (Brock 2000). While others, such as Christian Barry and Sanjay Reddy, suggest that free trade agreements and agreements to improve labor standards and wages in developing countries should be linked (Barry and Reddy 2007). Yet others argue that even individuals should promote free trade that mitigates poverty and environmental problems by, for example, buying Fair Trade certified goods (Philips 2008). There is also reason to consider whether it might be necessary or desirable to modify (further) some particular free trade agreements. Philosophers have considered, for instance, how the TRIPS agreement is impacting poor people’s access to essential drugs and medications and how it might be modified. Aidan Hollis and Thomas Pogge argue, for instance, that this agreement is unjustifiable in light of its probable impact on poor people’s access to essential drugs and technologies (Pogge 2007; Hollis and Pogge 2008). They provide a way of working around these rules (an alternative patent system) that might better enable the poor to meet their basic health needs. Others suggest alternate proposals. Gopal Sreenivasan considers the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), arguing that it unduly restricts national democratic choice. For, he believes the GATS restricts the freedom of future generations to

Free Trade

structure their domestic health sector as they would like (if their predecessors decide to liberalize trade in health services under the agreement). Future generations have no say in accepting these restrictions. Sreenivasan argues that this agreement might be legitimate if approved by a supermajority of a state’s citizens but that the standards for legitimacy here are quite high. Other WTO agreements like the sanitary and phytosanitary and technical barriers to trade agreements also merit consideration as do regional and bilateral agreements like NAFTA and the U.S.–South Korea Trade Agreement (Sreenivasan 2005). The literature on the legitimacy of particular free trade agreements also connects with the literature on global migration (discussions are underway on the GATS Mode 4 regulating the movement of employed individuals). Those who argue for open borders might suggest, for instance, modifying or interpreting WTO rules so that they support this movement (Carens 1987). Others worry that these kinds of changes will harm the poor because it will lead to brain drain in poor countries (Brock 2009). Of course, considering how to bring the rules of trade into general agreement with a complete theory of justice is an important and pressing project. But it is a difficult one. In part, this is because most theories of global justice are Rawlsian and the implication of Rawls’ view for individual public policies is far from clear. This project is also difficult because changing a single rule of trade may have quite widespread impacts. Some have argued from a cosmopolitan Rawlsian position, for instance, that it would be a good idea to let the poor protect their markets even if the rich must liberalize (Brock 2009). But, consider that trade policy, even in a poor country, can impact not only that country’s poor but the poor in other countries. When, for instance, poor countries like Egypt imposed export bans on rice during the 2008 food crisis, that probably increased prices for some even poorer countries like Bangladesh, which import rice (UNCTAD 2009; Navhind Times 2008; The Guardian Observer 2008). The restrictions’ negative impact on the poor in countries like Bangladesh might easily have been greater than the positive impact on the poor in Egypt. And trying to come up with better general rules for trade is not the only project of value. There is a lot of room for fruitful work on free trade in the literature on global justice.

Acknowledgments Some of the examples in this article are drawn (with permission and minor revision) from Hassoun (2008). I would like to thank the editors of Public Affairs Quarterly for these permissions. I would also like to thank Julian Culp for very detailed and helpful comments.

F

371

Related Topics

▶ Development Ethics ▶ Fair Trade ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Global Warming ▶ Immigration ▶ Labor Laws ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Sustainable Development ▶ Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property ▶ World Trade Organization (WTO)

References Anderson K, McKibbin W (1997) Reducing coal subsidies and trade barriers: their contributions to greenhouse gas abatement. Brookings discussion papers in international economics, vol 135, pp 1–32 Barbier EB (1997) Introduction to the special issue on environmental Kuznets curves. Environ Dev Econ 2(4):369–381 Barry C, Reddy S (2007) Just linkage: international trade and labor standards. Columbia University Press, Columbia. 25 Aug 2005 draft Brock G (2009) Global justice: a cosmopolitan account. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p 384 Caldwell D (1997) Responsible trade: don’t trade away our food safety! Memorandum regarding the WTO panel decision on EU-US beef hormone dispute – preliminary analysis. Sierra Club. http://www. sierraclub.org/trade/environment/hormone.asp. Accessed 1 Jan, 2009 Carens J (1987) Aliens and citizens: the case for open borders. Rev Polit 45(2):251–273 Daly H (1996) Sustainable growth? No thank you. In: Mander J, Goldsmith E (eds) The case against the global economy and for a turn toward the local. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco Goldsmith E (1996) Global trade and the environment. In: Mander J, Goldsmith E (eds) The case against the global economy and for a turn toward the local. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco Harrison A (1994) An empirical test of the infant industry argument: comment. Am Econ Rev 84(4):1090–1095 Hassoun N (2008) Free trade, poverty, and the environment. Public Aff Q 22(4):353–380 Hassoun N (2009) Free trade and the environment. Environ Ethics 31:51–66 Hassoun N (2011) Free trade, poverty, and inequality. J Moral Philos 8(1):5–44 Hollis A, Pogge T (2008) The health impact fund, making new medicines accessible for all: a report of incentives for global health. http://www. yale.edu/macmillan/igh/hif_book.pdf. Accessed 6 Aug 2011 James A (2006) Skepticism about fair trade. Presented at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division meeting, San Francisco Jenkins R (1998) Environmental regulation and international competitiveness: a review of literature and some European evidence. The United Nations University Institute for New Technologies discussion paper series. January Draft. The United Nations University, Maastricht Krugman P, Obstfeld M et al (2003) International economics, theory and policy, 6th edn. Wesley, Boston Kurjanska M, Risse M (2008) Fairness in trade II: export subsidies and the fair trade movement. Philos Polit Econ 7:29–56

F

372

F

Friendship

Lomasky L (2007) Liberalism beyond borders. Peace Res Abstr J 44(3):206–233 Low P, Yeats A (1992) Do “dirty” industries migrate? International trade and the environment. In: Low P (ed) World Bank working paper, vol 159. World Bank, Washington, DC Mandel J (2006) Saving globalization. Presented at the Pacific Division American Philosophical Association, San Francisco McConnell C, Brue S (2004) Principles of microeconomics, 16th edn. McGraw Hill, New York McCulloch N, Winters A, Cirera X (2001) Trade liberalization and poverty: a handbook. Department for International Development, London Moellendorf D (2005) World Trade Organization and egalitarian justice. Metaphilosophy 36(1–2):1026–1068 Navhind Times (2008) The global food crisis and the Indian situation. Monday, 14 Apr 2008. http://khmernz.blogspot.com/2008/04/ global-food-crisis-and-indian-situation.html. Accessed 6 Aug 2011 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (1997) Reforming coal and electricity subsidies. Annex I expert group on the United Nations framework convention on climate change. Working Paper No. 2. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris http://sd-cite.iisd.org/cgi-bin/koha/ opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=7847. Accessed 6 Aug 2011 Philips J (2008) Is there a moral case for fair trade products? On the moral duty for consumers to buy and for governments to support fair trade products. In: Ruben R (ed) The impact of fair trade. Waginingen Academic, Waginingen Pogge T (2007) Intellectual property rights and access to essential medicines. Global policy innovations. Carnegie council for international affairs, New York. http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/ policy_library/data/FP4. Accessed 6 Aug 2011 Quah D, Rauch J (1996) Empirics for economic growth and convergence. Center for Economic Discussion paper. http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/ download/dp0253.pdf. Accessed 6 Aug 2011. Subsequently published in: Euro Econ Rev 40(6) Sreenivasan G (2005) Does GATS undermine democratic control over health? J Ethics 9:269–281 The Guardian Observer (2008) Food riots fear after rice price hits a high. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/06/food. foodanddrink. Accessed 6 Aug 2011 UNCTAD (2009) Rice: economic policies. Info Comm. http://r0.unctad. org/infocomm/anglais/rice/ecopolicies.htm. Accessed 6 Aug 2011 Wade R (2004) Is globalization reducing poverty and inequality? World Dev 32:567–589 Wong D, Hassoun N (2009) Globalization and culture. Duke University working paper. Available upon request

Friendship ANDY AMATO School of Arts & Humanities, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA

Friendship is perhaps best described as a state of mutual benevolence between two or more people. Many tend to

understand this state strictly through feelings of care or affection, though it is perhaps better understood as the result of a decision or commitment. When taken as a decision, friendships more clearly represent a deep commitment to each party’s benefit. And while finding pleasure or utility in friendships is also quite common, the possibilities of committed reciprocity seem to far outweigh the ethical limitations of such aims. Only relationships dedicated to mutual cultivation and welfare – contradistinguished here from associations pursued principally for exclusively subjective purposes – can provide the basis for long-term concord and peace between two or more people. Those who engage in talk and behavior benefiting their friends, and do so regardless if such talk and behavior is beneficial to themselves, represent this ideal of friendship. Whereas those who only engage in such activities for the rewards it brings them represent those other less ideal forms of friendship. Assuming that such mutual relationships and their respective features are desirous, we are pressed to wonder what sort of conditions best allow for them. Within the optic of global justice – which, largely, examines the problem of global injustice – we can correlate the possibility of having such friendships with the presence of social equity and legal equality. We find this in as much as the presence of fairness and impartiality allow for various kinds of people from various backgrounds to freely and openly associate with one another if they so choose. When free and open associations between people are restricted, however – whether due to religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, economic status, or any number of prevalent reasons given for bias and disassociation – the prospect of true friendships within such communities is drastically reduced. Certainly friendships and friendly associations between people with similar backgrounds are common in even the most oppressive and tyrannical societies, but here, with an eye toward justice, it is the possibility of friendships between people of differing backgrounds and orientations that best indicates a society’s commitment to justice. Thinking through friendships on a larger scale, the degree to which countries develop friendships with their neighbors in order to resolve conflicts, pursue joint endeavors, or simply to assist them in times of need, can testify to their commitment to justice as well. Politically organized states that are unwilling to view their neighbors as friends (or at least potential friends) might internally have strong commitments to equity and equality regarding their own citizens, yet, lacking such pursuits externally toward others, their capacity to work toward lasting accord and peace with their neighbors is significantly

Functioning, Well-Being and

handicapped, if not improbable. We might note here that commitments to notions of internal welfare made at the expense of noncitizen residents and interstate relations, is, after authoritarian states, perhaps the greatest hindrance to global justice. That is, it is difficult to work toward just relationships and lasting concord when the rights and welfare of noncitizen residents, foreign neighbors, and interlocutors is seen as ancillary or less important than one’s own. Of course, at times when concerns about safety and security are paramount, prospects for interstate friendships after the manner we have described seem unlikely. Still, an ideal and measure ought to be put forward. We can, as we have said, use this working definition of friendship – relationships dedicated to mutual cultivation and welfare – to gauge a state’s commitment to justice both within and without its borders. Further, were groupdefying and interstate friendships enthusiastically pursued, we would necessarily see a dramatic reduction in aggression, violence, and misunderstanding, as the traditional boundaries strictly separating one from another would become relaxed: good friends often take on something of one another’s gestures and expressions, they tend to develop, if they did not already share, similar tastes and attitudes, and they do so without losing their own respective personalities, ambitions, and ideas. Instead of losing one’s own unique characteristics within a friendship, one is in fact enabled to more fully be one’s own self because of the support of one’s friends.

F

373

Related Topics

▶ Altruism ▶ Class and Status ▶ Egalitarianism ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Human Rights Watch ▶ Liberal Pluralism ▶ Political Autonomy ▶ Political Liberalism ▶ Public Good

F References Aristotle (2002) Nicomachean ethics (eds and trans: Rowe C, Broadie S). Oxford University Press, Oxford Derrida J (1997) Politics of friendship (trans: Collis G). Verso, London Foucault M (1994) Friendship as a way of life. In: Rabinow P (ed) Michel Foucault: ethics, subjectivity and truth, vol 1. The New Press, New York, pp 135–140 Nichols MP (2009) Socrates on friendship and community: reflections on Plato’s Symposium, Phaedrus, and Lysis. Cambridge University Press, New York Rawls J (1993) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, New York

Functioning, Well-Being and ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Quality of Life ▶ Sen, Amartya

G Gandhi, Mahatma NANCY E. SNOW Department of Philosophy, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948), also known as “Mahatma,” or “great soul,” originated satyagraha, the famous movement of nonviolent resistance that won India independence from the British raj. Born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, a town in what is now the Indian state of Gujarat, he was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist in New Delhi on January 30, 1948. The assassination was a reaction to Gandhi’s efforts to end Hindu–Muslim religious violence during the 1947 partition of British India into what are now India and Pakistan. Gandhi’s thought and social activism were momentous not only for the liberation of India, but have had profound effects on nonviolent movements worldwide. His views continue to influence global peace-making activities in the twentyfirst century.

Early Life and Experiences Gandhi’s Autobiography (1993) is full of reflections on his childhood in India and early life in England and South Africa. Gandhi was a shy child, not good in school, aloof from sports, and with little taste for reading. He writes of his cowardice in being afraid of ghosts and thieves in the night. He recalls his mother’s saintliness and deep devotion to religion, as well as the love and forgiveness he received from his father upon confessing to the theft of part of his brother’s gold armband. Finally, he recounts his experience of being married, when still a child, to Kasturbai. He later credits her with being a model of the satyagrahi, the practitioner of satyagraha. He saw Kasturbai as a dutiful wife, enduring with equanimity and steadfastness his failings as a husband – his orders, tantrums, and unreasonableness. With his mother’s blessing, Gandhi left India, without Kasturbai, to study law in England. To fit in, he sought to adopt the dress, manners, and customs of the British. After

receiving his law degree and returning to India for an unsuccessful stint as a lawyer, he and Kasturbai went to South Africa. He encountered racial discrimination despite his affectation of British manners and dress. A watershed incident occurred when he was put off the train at Maritzburg after refusing to leave the first class compartment. He spent a cold and uncomfortable night on the platform of the train station, wondering whether he should simply accept the insult or dedicate himself to fighting racial oppression. After this experience, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the struggle against racial injustice in South Africa. He would later extend his social justice activism to the cause of independence for India, and forego the imitation of British manners and dress, adopting instead the traditional Indian dhoti.

The Shape of Gandhi’s Thought Gandhi was an eclectic thinker who drew upon many sources to forge his worldview. He did not develop a rigorous, systematic philosophy. Nevertheless, his worldview is coherent, and is expressed in an extensive corpus that includes his Autobiography, political writings such as Hind Swaraj (Hindi for “Indian Self-Rule”), ethical writings such as his commentary on the Bhagavad-Gı´ta´, numerous pieces he wrote as the editor of several newspapers, and correspondence. Three distinct, yet interwoven layers of his thought can be identified: a spiritual and metaphysical foundation in Hinduism that is informed by values from other Asian traditions, such as Buddhism and Jainism, and from western thinkers, such as Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Ruskin; a moral psychology of nonviolence, and a political philosophy. Satyagraha, the name for the method of nonviolence for which Gandhi is famous, is best understood as a form of moral psychology, with roots in Hindu spirituality and metaphysics, which prescribes a moral discipline and a guide for life. This moral psychology has ramifications for political life and society. Two fundamental concepts, satyagraha and ahimsa¯, are central to Gandhi’s moral psychology, and provide conceptual and practical links to other virtues of the satyagrahi. The term “satyagraha” means “grasping for truth” or “truth-force.” Throughout his life as an activist,

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

376

G

Gandhi, Mahatma

Gandhi was very concerned with the search for truth, proclaiming at one point that he reverses the familiar maxim “God is Truth,” saying instead, “Truth is God.” For Gandhi, the search for truth was experimental. He experimented with diet, celibacy, and exposure to temptations in order to form and refine the moral discipline that would allow him to purify his motives and strengthen his character. The experimental search for truth is thus central to the moral discipline of satyagraha. The best way, Gandhi thought, to attain truth in one’s life and to achieve the discipline of satyagraha is through ahimsa¯, or nonviolence. The western understanding of “nonviolence” as simply refraining from causing physical harm is too narrow to capture the meaning of ahimsa¯ for Gandhi. In addition to not causing physical harm, ahimsa¯ means not harming others in thought or speech, and actively loving others by helping them and seeking their good. Consequently, the practice of ahimsa¯ forbids slander or gossip, as well as having negative thoughts about others. Ahimsa¯, like the Christian notion of agape, requires an active love for fellow humans, even for oppressors. The requirement to love one’s oppressors influences the choice of tactics of nonviolent resistance. Such tactics are aimed at the conversion of the oppressor to the cause of the oppressed, and are not meant as a form of coercion (Lal 1978: 115). They are chosen to make a point through communicative action. Not just anyone can practice satyagraha. To truly practice nonviolence, one must engage in the moral discipline of self-purification, that is, one must engage in experiments with living that bring one nearer to truth. To this end, the moral discipline of the satyagrahi includes developing a range of yamas, or virtues (Lal 1978: 135–138). Gandhi adopts five traditional Indian virtues: ahimsa¯ (nonviolence), satya (truthfulness), asteya (non-stealing), aparigraha (nonacceptance), and brahmacharya (celibacy), and adds two of his own: abhaya (fearlessness), and faith in God. Each virtue, though related to the others, applies to a distinct sphere of life, and helps the satyagrahi to keep unruly emotions and desires under control. The moral discipline of practicing the virtues enables the satyagrahi to achieve self-control or personal self-rule, without which Gandhi thought true political self-rule of India was impossible. The moral discipline of satyagraha was needed to form strong, independent people of good character who would create and sustain the independent Indian nation. The moral psychology just described has deep roots in the Hindu philosophical and religious tradition of Vedanta monism (Verma 1970). The word “vedanta” means “after the Vedas.” The Vedas are ancient Hindu

scriptures that were followed by The Upanishads, a collection of spiritual and metaphysical writings, and The Bhagavad-Gı´ta´, which is part of the longer epic, The Mahabharata. Gandhi was influenced by the Isha Upanishad and especially by the ethical message of the Gı´ta´. The central message of The Upanishads is that Atman is Brahman, Self is God. Atman, or Self, is not the embodied, spatio-temporal self, but the inner Self that lies at the very core of our being. This Self is divine; it is God. All living beings have divinity within them; thus, at the deepest level of reality, all are one in God. This view has radical implications for ethics and politics. Because God is in all of us, we must treat everyone, even our oppressors, with loving-kindness and respect. The Gı´ta´ develops the ethical implications of Vedanta monism. In particular, the Gı´ta´ provides advice for purifying the embodied self and reaching the innermost Self. The discipline of the yamas, enables one to control the desires that prevent one from reaching the Self. Central to this discipline is the renunciation of the fruits of action. This is a deontological element that finds expression in Gandhi’s thought: we must patiently perform our duties, even when the goal we seek eludes our grasp. Renunciation of the fruits of action provides a middle way between two competing ideals in Hindu philosophy: pravritti, or the life of passionate action in the world, and nivritti, or renunciation of worldly action (Verma 1970: 91). Gandhi takes the middle way, believing that we cannot achieve moksha, salvation, unless we act in the world, but always with appropriate motivation. Personal moksha cannot be attained unless that of the world is also achieved. Thus, we must work for others’ good as well as for our own.

Objections to Ahimsa¯ Some objections to ahimsa¯ have become common in the massive literature on Gandhi’s thought. One such objection has it that Gandhi is an absolutist about ahimsa¯ who allows no exceptions to the practice of nonviolence. This is a misunderstanding. Gandhi admits that violence may be used in certain circumstances, though never with hatred or ill will (Verma 1970: 59; Ta¨htinen 1976: 122). A second objection is that ahimsa¯ is an ineffective political tool. The claim here is that ahimsa¯ was effective against the British only because they were fundamentally decent. Ahimsa¯ would be impotent against truly evil regimes, such as Nazism. Consider, however, that in February 1943, the Nazis arrested all remaining Jews in Berlin. About 2,000 had non-Jewish spouses. The spouses, mostly women, publicly protested. The Nazis did not want the German public to see full-blooded “Aryans” protesting their regime on behalf of Jews, and freed the prisoners

Gandhi, Mahatma

(Hardiman 2003: 60–61). Finally, it is often objected that the Gı´ta´ is the story of a warrior, Arjuna, who loses heart on the eve of a great battle in which he is called upon to go to war with his uncles and cousins. The god Krishna, who is Arjuna’s charioteer, urges him to do his duty and go to war. How can the message of nonviolence be extracted from this? One response is that this is a superficial reading of the Gı´ta´, which is a complex, multi-layered text. Arguably, Gandhi interpreted the physical battle as a metaphor for the conflict in Arjuna’s soul, with his family members representing the warring desires that pulled him from his duty. With Krishna’s help, Arjuna was able to overcome these desires. However one interprets the Gı´ta´, it is clear that a single reading fails to do justice to its depth and complexity.

Gandhi’s Political Vision Gandhi’s activism is informed by a political vision. He thought a central ingredient in attaining political selfrule in India was swadeshi, or self-reliance. He urged Indians not to use machinery, but instead, to become self-sufficient by hand laboring, making clothing, for example, by using spinning wheels. His aversion to machinery is accompanied by less controversial initiatives, such as education, hygiene, village sanitation, the removal of untouchability, and the equal partnership of men and women in nonviolent resistance. He envisioned a society “based on truth and nonviolence . . .” in a structure composed of “innumerable villages” arrayed in “ever-widening, never ascending circles.” “Life will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom”. . . but “an oceanic circle” (Gandhi 1997: 189). The metaphor of egalitarian circles remains powerful today as we seek to craft a vision of cosmopolitanism in the age of globalization. Gandhi’s legacy for global justice is thoughtfully explored by Hardiman (2003), who discusses his influence on the general development of pacifism (pp 245–253), on resistance to apartheid in South Africa (pp 277–284), and on the German Green movement (pp 284–293). Nonviolent protests have been used against dictatorships in Iran, the Philippines, Chile, Romania, and the former Yugoslavia (Hardiman 2003: 61), and continue to be used in a variety of settings. Numerous issues of global justice affect us today, for example, ongoing violent conflicts in various parts of the world, inequalities in distributions of goods and resources, continuing hatred and discrimination on racial, religious, ethnic, and gender grounds, and abuse and exploitation of animals and the environment. Gandhi’s approach to nonviolence is most apparently applicable as a means of avoiding or resolving violent conflict. Yet his moral

G

psychology remains valuable as an acknowledgement of the deeper fears and insecurities that foster the misunderstandings, greed, and hatred that give rise to social and political divisions and maldistributions of goods and resources, erupt into violence, and lead to abuses of animals and the environment. Gandhi’s true legacy for global justice is his deep and profound insight that all people, animals, and nature are manifestations of the divine. In more secular terms, we are enjoined by the Gandhian approach to seek the good in everyone and everything, and to value them in their own right. This injunction places an important ethical constraint on how we may view and treat others. Foundational to this perspective is the idea of interconnectedness: we are all parts of each other in the sense that we are parts of a greater cosmos. Gandhi urges us to stress our sameness over our differences, to recognize and value our connections and interdependencies, our common needs and shared humanity, and our occupancy with each other and with nonhuman animals of the same earth. Thus, the Gandhian approach is not simply a stopgap or palliative for the global problems that beset us, but offers an alternative way of life that promises to ameliorate the all too human sources of conflict, injustice, hatred, intolerance, and exploitation. Gandhi’s prescriptions for peaceful and respectful living, though not easy, are a serious solution for equally grave problems. His voice remains vibrant, vital, and morally authoritative in the twenty-first century. His life, thoughts, and deeds continue to fascinate. His ideas and example offer hope, wisdom, and insight for the challenges of the global age.

Related Topics

▶ Civil Disobedience, International ▶ Civil Disobedience, Transnational ▶ Justice and Religion: Hinduism ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism

References Erikson E (1969) Gandhi’s truth: on the origins of militant nonviolence. W. W. Norton, New York Gandhi M (1993) An autobiography: the story of my experiments with truth (trans Desai M). Beacon, Boston Gandhi M (1997) Hind Swaraj and other writings, ed. Parel A. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Gandhi M (2001) Non-violent resistance (Satyagraha), ed. Kumarappa B. Dover, Minneola Gandhi M (commentator) (2002) Bhagavad-Gı´ta´: the song of God. Axiom, Hoo Hardiman D (2003) Gandhi in his time and ours: the global legacy of his ideas. Columbia University Press, New York

377

G

378

G

Gay Rights

Iyer R (2000) The moral and political thought of Mahatma Gandhi. Oxford University Press, New Delhi Lal B (1978) Contemporary Indian philosophy. Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi Ta¨htinen U (1976) Ahimsa¯: non-violence in Indian tradition. Rider, London Verma S (1970) Metaphysical foundations of Mahatma Gandhi’s thought. Orient Longmans, New Delhi

Gay Rights GORDON A. BABST Department of Political Science, Wilkinson College, Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA

Gay rights refers to the application of human rights as ordinarily understood to gay persons, generally referring to persons who are not heterosexual. There is nothing special about these rights as regards their substance or application to a minority group; rather, the insistence that gay persons too have these rights and that they as bearers of rights are owed respect the same as everyone else is the novelty. The notion of gay rights, then, has an audacious quality, given that many people in many societies in the Western tradition historically have held a deep antipathy to gay persons, an antipathy that is less prominent in some non-Western societies such as among some native peoples, and more impactful elsewhere, such as in many traditional religious societies. Unfortunately, because homosexuality, a modern term the French philosopher Michel Foucault found to have been invented in the nineteenth century to ascribe an essence to a person who commits same-sex behavior, has been widely condemned in the strongest of terms as anathema unto God, for example, or blasphemy against the natural order, the antipathy toward gay persons has been manifest in the most crude way possible, as it continues to be in some Islamic societies where gay persons are condemned to death. Throughout history, there have, of course, been persons who engage in same-sex behavior, persons who in the last few decades have organized themselves into social movements activating for changes in the law and politics, such as removal of laws that criminalize same-sex behavior and on behalf of equality in state-sanctioned benefits and civil rights, such as the right to marry, which has been granted in Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden. Equality, whether strict equality or equivalence (e.g., civil unions instead of marriage), is widely regarded as a key

principle of justice and so is the expected rule, and its violation indicates the subordination of some persons to the views of others. Accordingly, pervasive negative attitude and widespread discrimination toward gay people in much of the world that denies them equal recognition and rights is a big barrier to global justice. Owing to the often entrenched religious aspect, the primary lens through which much of the world views homosexuality, a key goal of the gay rights movement generally has been to cast discrimination and violence as political issues worthy of the attention of others who may have yet to understand the kinship of gay rights to their own already established and protected rights and liberties. Both liberalism, for reason of its political ideals such as equality, toleration, and concern to implement human rights, and libertarianism, for reason of its strict demarcation of the private realm separate from state authority, have much to offer on behalf of gay rights. While the right to marry is regarded by many as the gold standard of social and legal recognition, for many gay persons around the world, their legal and political status continues to reflect their society’s condemnation. Gay rights advocates in many countries operate underground and in fear of the local authorities, whose protections they cannot take for granted. Lesbians are particularly vulnerable to acts of brutality by their fellow citizens or law enforcement, in societies where antipathy toward gay persons is palpable and gay rights, the recognition of their human rights, may seem a distant dream. Here gay rights are not a frivolous notion, but an issue of justice on which not only the happiness, but the very lives of many depend. Even in those countries and jurisdictions where discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation has been outlawed at least to some extent, the capacity of gay persons to form families, and for gay youth to grow up free from social discrimination or violence remains uncertain, and any guaranty of gay rights is often subject to majoritarian electoral outcomes in the next election.

Related Topics

▶ Civil Rights ▶ Equality ▶ Foucault, Michel ▶ Gender Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Liberalism ▶ Libertarianism ▶ Liberties ▶ Multiculturalism ▶ Pluralism ▶ Toleration/Tolerance, Liberal Principle of

Gender Justice

References Adam B et al (eds) (1999) The global emergence of gay and lesbian politics: national imprints of a worldwide movement. Temple University Press, Philadelphia Babst G et al (eds) (2009) Moral argument, religion, and same-sex marriage: advancing the public good. Lexington, Lanham Blasius M (ed) (2001) Sexual identities, queer politics. Princeton University Press, Princeton Estlund M, Nussbaum M (eds) (1997) Sex preference and family: essays on law and nature. Oxford University Press, New York International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission at http:// www.iglhrc.org/cgi-bin/iowa/home/index.html Richards A (2005) The case for gay rights. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence Tielman R et al (eds) (1993) The third pink book: a global view of gay and lesbian oppression. Prometheus, Buffalo Wintemute R (1995) Sexual orientation and human rights. Clarendon, Oxford

Gender-Based Violence ▶ Violence

Gender Justice MONICA MOOKHERJEE SPIRE (Politics, International Relations and Philosophy), Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, UK

While advances have been made toward sex equality around the world today, significant issues of gender justice remain to be addressed. One of the key ways in which progress has been made globally has been in terms of international covenants that protect women’s human rights. However, some feminists contend that the focus on rights involves a problematic and incomplete approach to gender injustice, particularly in the private or domestic sphere. Here persistent and often hidden problems include intimate partner violence, unequal access to food and other important resources, and the perpetuation of unequal gendered roles in work and the division of labor. Such issues might require a more communitarian response than a rights-based approach might offer. Feminists have usually focused on the historical exclusion of women from right-holding and citizenship through masculine constructions of politics. The broad implication that they draw is that, as women have often historically been subjected to patriarchal forms of authority, the

G

379

nation-state as the primary locus of political identity may need to be questioned (see Steans 2004: Chapter Three). However, despite common agreement on the sources of gender injustice, proposed solutions to the relevant problems have varied considerably.

Issues for Women Globally and the “Women’s Human Rights” Paradigm As Jill Steans (2004:16–19) has observed, liberal feminists generally view the individual right-holding woman as the fundamental unit of gender justice. In their account, gender justice may be achieved by ensuring women’s equal rights to life and liberty and their equal access to resources necessary for a decent human life. A number of international covenants support this approach. For instance, Article 1.3 of the UN Charter pledges states to promote human rights without respect to race, ethnicity or sex; and, more recently, attempts have been made to codify the human rights of women, as in the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, which explicitly recognizes public and private gender-based violence. The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has also had wide-ranging implications for the recognition of women’s human rights in international law (Ashworth 1993: 45–56; Steans 2004: 123). Liberal feminists have welcomed these advances, even while conceding that states often refuse to ratify such treaties, and in spite of the concern that women’s rights are often not addressed fully in the monitoring processes of international law (see Ashworth 1993). The rights-based approach is understandably influential, even though radical scholar Catharine MacKinnon asks provocatively whether the world’s women are really regarded as human beings. “If women were human, would we be a cash crop shipped from Thailand into New York’s brothels?” she asks. “When will women be human? When?” (2006: 7). In spite of MacKinnon’s troubling questions, the liberal feminist view of gender justice usefully contends that the “people” of the nation are often male; and, in relation to this, that the long tradition of denying women legal personality must be challenged. Liberal feminists have also sought to contest the priority often given in international discourse to civil and political rights (for instance, to free speech, movement and assembly). They claim that states and the international community should not be reluctant to intervene in the domestic sphere, in order to emphasize reproductive and other gender-specific needs. In these respects, the approach ensures the relevance of rights discourse to the lives of all human beings, and attempts to render the discourse genuinely inclusive and

G

380

G

Gender Justice

universal. Moreover, a key strand in the liberal feminist defense of human rights, which has been highlighted by Susan Moller Okin (1998, 1999), is that there may be an unavoidable conflict between women’s human rights and the protection of cultural diversity. Okin insists that women’s rights to autonomy should be recognized as a high-priority international issue, and not a purely “private” or cultural matter. While it is possible to question the conflict between gender justice and cultural diversity as Okin conceives it (e.g., Shachar 2001), this further strand of liberal feminist thought suggests that, by rethinking long accepted canons of human rights, gender justice may be achieved and the quality of women’s lives globally may be protected and enhanced.

Questioning Liberal Feminist Approaches to Gender Justice: Beyond Individual Human Rights In spite of the positive interventions of liberal feminists, there seem to be objections to addressing issues of gender injustice in terms of human rights (Steans 2004: 124). These include the concern that rights discourse in its totality is persistently “androcentric” or male-centered, to such a point that it is difficult to reform it to respond to the specific disadvantages experienced by women. This may be so owing to international law’s assumption of the nation-state as “purposive individual,” which arguably denies complexity and conflicts of power-relations and gendered interests within the state. Also, the problem may arise on account of the impersonal account of human nature that rights seem to assume. Following early modern thinkers such as Hobbes, rights might be thought to conceive human beings as, essentially, individualistic, egocentric, and instrumentally rational (Peterson 1990). This conceptual problem has led some feminists to approach gender justice in the international arena as “communitarian” or “people-centered,” and to emphasize the need for a more thorough revision of the communities in which human beings are embedded. These theories of gender justice often challenge the macrostructures of global capitalism and the global market, on the assumption that it is only by doing so that all women – which is to say, those of the “First” and “Third” World – can achieve liberation (e.g., Mies 1986; Kerr et al. 2004). The key assumption of these more radical approaches to gender justice is that there are numerous “contradictions” between the forms of oppression experienced by women in different nations of the world (see Ramazanoglu 1989). One axis along which such contradictions arise may be religion: for instance, while Muslim women undoubtedly suffer oppression as women, this is

not necessarily the same form of disadvantage as that experienced by, say, Hindu or Christian women. Moreover, the salience of these religious differences is often mediated and supported by market mechanisms which appear to uphold cleavages between “First” and “Third” world women, while maintaining the force of global capital. For instance, while reproductive freedom, in the form of access to clinically safe abortion and contraception, may be thought to be a common feminist goal globally, in many developing countries the demand for abortion can vary with changes in attitudes toward education, differential costs of marrying off sons and daughters, and the economic value of children. Feminist development scholar Maria Mies has thus famously argued in reaction to these problems that “a feminist perspective has to start with some basic principles [. . .] such as the rejection and abolition of the principle of colonizing dualistic divisions (between men and women, different peoples and classes, man and nature, spirit and matter) based on exploitation for the sake of ever-expanding commodity production and capital accumulation” (1986: 211). Her communitarian reaction to the global devaluation of women and global gender injustice – which she believes to imply a form of ecofeminism – has affinities with the black feminism of, say, Patricia Hill Collins (2000). Collins’ theory encourages white women to criticize not only patriarchy but racism as diminishing the autonomy and agency of all. In Mies’ encompassing criticism of global capitalist patriarchy, however, globalization movements must take into account the ever-increasing physical and mental mobility of individuals and large groups around the world. Yet, in response to such theories of global gender justice, the key question remains as to whether the enemy of feminist justice is in fact capitalist patriarchy; or whether the difficulty lies in all systems of thought that organize the human beings of the world in terms of hierarchical divisions, casting their differences in terms of “higher” and “lower” or “rational” and “irrational” traits.

Related Topics

▶ Capitalism ▶ Ecofeminism ▶ Egalitarianism ▶ Feminist Ethics ▶ Free Trade ▶ Globalization ▶ Human Rights ▶ Patriarchy ▶ Population Politics ▶ Post-Colonialism

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)

References Ashworth G (1993) Changing the discourse: a guide to women and human rights. Change, London Hill Collins P (2000) Black feminist thought: knowledge, consciousness and the politics of empowerment. Routledge, London Kerr J, Sprenger E, Symington A (eds) (2004) The future of women’s rights: global visions and strategies. Zed Books, London MacKinnon C (2006) Are women human? And other international dialogues. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mies M (1986) Patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale: women in the international division of labour. Zed Press, London Okin SM (1998) Feminism, women’s human rights and cultural differences. Hypatia 13(2):32–52 Okin SM (1999) Is multiculturalism bad for women? Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Peterson VS (1990) Whose rights? A critique of the ‘givens’ of human rights discourse. Alternatives 15(3):303–344 Ramazanoglu C (1989) Feminism and the contradictions of oppression. Routledge, London Shachar A (2001) Multicultural jurisdictions: cultural differences and women’s rights. CUP, Cambridge Steans J (2004) Gender and international relations: an introduction. Polity, London

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) WENDY C. HAMBLET Department of Liberal Studies, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, NC, USA

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was negotiated during the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment in the wake of World War II (1947). Efforts to negotiate an international trade agreement had begun in 1927 through the League of Nations, and an International Trade Organization (ITO) was proposed in February 1945 by the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The Bretton Woods Conference had introduced the idea of creating an organization to regulate trade, as part of a larger economic recovery plan in the wake of World War II. As governments negotiated the ITO, 15 negotiating states began to carve out the GATT as a means to assure early tariff reductions. The ITO failed in 1950, leaving only the GATT to carry on the objective of reducing barriers to international trade. GATT 1947 represents the first successful set of general trade regulations; then modifications were made (GATT 1994), until GATT was ultimately subsumed

G

within the framework of the World Trade Organization, formed in 1995. On January 1, 1948, the GATT was signed by 23 countries, truly linking the four corners of the globe: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Burma, Canada, Ceylon, Chile, China, Cuba, the Czech Republic, France, India, Lebanon, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Southern Rhodesia, Syria, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. According to GATT’s estimates, the negotiations included 123 agreements regarding 45,000 tariff items, about half of current world trade ($10 billion). Overseen by a small secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, GATT agreements attempt to erase barriers to free trade, such as tariffs (taxes on imports), import restrictions, and subsidies on trade. GATT signatories regularly negotiate new trade agreements that all countries then join, each new round of agreements coming to be called a “Round.” GATT’s history can be divided into three phases: the First Round (1947), the Annecy (France) Round of 1949 and the Torquay Round (1951), determined the commodities to be targeted by the agreement and froze existing tariff levels. A second phase, encompassing three rounds (Geneva Round 1959; Dillon Round 1960; and Kennedy Round 1964, and the Tokyo Round 1973–1979), concentrated on further reducing tariffs. The third phase, from the Uruguay Round (1986–1994) through the Doha Round (2001–), extended the agreement to new arenas of trade, such as intellectual properties, services, capital, and agriculture. Out of the final round, the WTO was born. Whereas GATTwas a set of trade regulations agreed upon by all member nations, the WTO is an institutional body. GATT is important to the theme of global justice because it helped to frame current international trade policies in the service of the powers that emerged as global leaders after World War II. It has remained exceedingly difficult for developing countries to compete with the global giants who originally framed the rules for global trade.

Related Topics

▶ Fair Trade ▶ Free Trade ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Globalization

References Barton JH, Goldstein JL, Josling TE, Steinberg RH (2008) The evolution of the trade regime: politics, law, and economics of the GATT and the WTO. Princeton University Press, Princeton Hudson M (2003) Super imperialism: the origin and fundamentals of U.S. world dominance. Pluto, London

381

G

382

G

General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS)

Irwin DA, Mavroidis PC, Sykes AO (2008) The genesis of the GATT. Cambridge University Press, New York Nader R, Brown J (1993) The case against free trade: GATT, NAFTA, and the globalization of corporate power. Earth Island, San Francisco Narlikar A (2003) International trade and developing countries: bargaining coalitions in GATT and WTO. Routledge, New York Zeiler TW (1999) Free trade, free world: the advent of GATT, The Luther Hartwell Hodges Series on Business, Society, and the State. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill

General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) ▶ Free Trade

Genetic Engineering MONIKA PIOTROWSKA Department of Philosophy, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

Understanding how genetic engineering works is critical to understanding its relevance to global justice. Humans have been genetically modifying organisms since the first domestication of plants and animals. For thousands of years farmers have relied on selective breeding to increase the size of livestock and yields of grains, or produce more flavorful varieties of vegetables. As a result, modern plants and animals barely resemble their ancestors. Corn, for example, looks almost nothing like the wild grass it originated from. Compact ears with large kernels adhering tightly to the cob – useful in a grain to be stored for long periods of time – is a trait that was coaxed out through repetitive crossbreeding. Today, scientists do not need to cross varieties to get the desired traits; they can simply add them. Unlike the process of selective breeding, which involves the mixing of entire genomes, modern genetic engineering consists of extracting a gene (or genes) known to give rise to some desired trait from one organism and inserting it into the cells of another. There are various ways of carrying out the insertion, one of which involves putting the DNA into a microorganism and having the microorganism infect the recipient. For example, Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a bacterium capable of inserting diverse DNA splices into plants. There are other organisms and methods used to similar effect. Let us turn to some examples. First, in order to make plants bug resistant, scientists have added a gene from a bacterium called Bacillus

thuringiensis. The gene produces a toxin harmful only to the Lepidoptera family of insects. If mammals or birds eat B. thuringiensis crops, the toxins get digested like any other protein. The process of building pesticide resistance into plants has clear advantages over traditional methods: only insects that eat the plants will be exposed to the pesticides and implanting the gene into the plant genome causes the toxin to be produced by every cell in the plant. Consequently, bugs that feed on the roots of the plant, formerly immune to externally applied pesticides, can be exterminated. Next, vitamin A deficiency, which is common in rice-producing regions, can lead to childhood blindness. The Food and Agricultural Organizations and the United Nations have developed dietary diversification, food fortification and vitamin supplementation initiatives to overcome the problem. Despite their efforts, which require continuous public education and financial support, approximately 250,000–500,000 children become blind each year due to vitamin A deficiency. To address this problem researchers have developed Golden Rice, a genetically engineered variety of rice with increased levels of b-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A. The absorption of b-carotene in the gut, however, works best in the presence of fat, which presents a problem for malnourished children low on fat content. Thus, improvements are still needed. As the above examples demonstrate, genetically engineered (GE) crops allow us to improve yield as well as alleviate malnutrition, yet the European Union (EU) has a zero-tolerance policy for non-EU approved GE products. Those opposed to GE crops question their potential benefits and worry about their adverse effects on the environment and on those who consume them. Concerns about the adverse effects of GE crops generally fall into three categories: (1) evolved resistance; (2) allergens; (3) cross-pollination. Some of these concerns are more warranted than others, but none are unique to GE crops. Let us quickly look at each in turn. First, just as insects have evolved resistance to synthetic insecticides, they are evolving resistance to Bt toxins in GE crops. One strategy for delaying insect resistance is to plant refuges of non-B. thuringiensis crops near B. thuringiensis crops, where non-resistant pests can live and mate with resistant pests. If insect resistance to B. thuringiensis toxins is recessive, the heterozygous offspring will still be susceptible. Second, GE crops may contain allergens, although allergens are present in many conventional foods as well, for example, milk, eggs, fish, etc. In fact, genetic engineering has the potential to reduce allergens, including those

Geneva Conventions

in conventional foods, as organisms can be engineered to make lower levels of the allergenic protein. Third, genes can spread into related wild plants by cross-pollination. If related plants exist in the same environment, the potential of Bt crops interbreeding with conventional ones is real. Risks to the environment might exist if the inserted gene provides a growth advantage and gives rise to an invasive species. For example, plants engineered to grow without applications of fertilizers, such as nitrate and phosphate, would have a significant advantage in the wild. These adverse effects of GE crops are indirectly tied to global justice but there are also more direct relations between GE crops and global justice. The companies involved in the production of GE crops highlight their potential benefits for the third-world, but it is unclear who will benefit: the poor or the powerful corporations. There are a few issues here. First, with the advent of genetic engineering, specialty commodities like palm oils used in soaps, once only found in tropical species, can now be produced anywhere. While much of the agricultural economy of developing countries depends on growing such commodities, one may not want to buy palm oils from politically unstable regions if they can be grown elsewhere. This fact may have adverse effects on the populations who depend on such exports. Second, the costs of developing a GE plant – with the hope of putting it on an international market – are enormous. They include the cost of research and development, intellectual property, technology transfer, and compliance with varying biosafety regulations. Due to the magnitude of expenses involved, about 80% of all genetically engineered traits are owned or co-owned by four companies and their subsidiaries: Bayer Cropscience (Germany), Dupont (USA), Monsanto (USA), and Syngenta (Switzerland). These companies have patented most of the techniques used to make genetically engineered plants; hence, they have a right to collect royalties on the products. The techniques used to make Golden Rice, for instance, were covered by more than 20 patents. Third, even if the costs were lowered to make GE crops more affordable, becoming dependent on technology controlled by a more powerful nation puts developing countries in a vulnerable position; for example, trading partners might refuse to supply seeds during political unrest.

Related Topics

▶ Biodiversity ▶ Environmental Sustainability

G

383

▶ Food Sovereignty ▶ Global Justice ▶ Poverty ▶ World Trade Organization (WTO)

References Cottier T, Wϋger D (eds) (2008) Genetic engineering and the world trade system – world trade forum. Cambridge University Press, New York Lemaux PG (2008) Genetically engineered plants and foods: a scientist’s analysis of the issues (Part I). Annu Rev Plant Biol 59:771–812 Lemaux PG (2009) Genetically engineered plants and foods: a scientist’s analysis of the issues (Part II). Annu Rev Plant Biol 60:511–559 Ruse M, Castle D (eds) (2002) Genetically modified foods: debating biotechnology. Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York Sanderson CJ (2007) Understanding genes and GMOs. World Scientific Publishing Company, Singapore, Hackensack, NJ

Geneva Conventions ROBERT P. ABELE Department of Humanities and Philosophy, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA, USA

The Geneva Conventions are a series of four international treaties which originated in 1949 from negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland. The Conventions are in part substantial revisions of and additions to the Hague Conventions. The very title of the agreements signed in Geneva raises several issues: What is a “Convention,” and what is the purpose of this specific Convention? The answers to these questions introduce the issue of the assumed principles and purposes of the Conventions themselves. In general, we may presume that the definition of a “convention” given by David Hume is the most operative one for the purposes of this article: “a sense of common interest, which each [person] feels. . .which carries him, in concurrence with others, into a general plan or system of actions, which tend to public utility” (1957, Appendix III). In the case of the Geneva Conventions, each Convention is a mutual promise for the benefit of all concerning the conduct of war. In particular, the Conventions at issue maintain the primacy of proper conduct toward “protected persons,” in particular, civilians and noncombatants (the latter encompassing military personnel who are wounded, sick, shipwrecked, and/or prisoners of war). The motivating principle that underscores such concern is that of human rights, itself undergirded by the principle of respect, characteristic of seventeenth and

G

384

G

Geneva Conventions

eighteenth century philosophy to the present day. The underlying concern of each of these normative issues is the dignity of the human person. The concepts of human dignity and subsequent calls for respecting that dignity that led to the Western understanding of human rights is a complex one, not easily defined and not well demarcated historically. It is perhaps least controversial to submit that the period from Grotius to Locke to Kant solidified the notion of human rights that we take for granted today. Grotius, for example, distinguished between state and personal rights, attributing “real rights” to the states, and personal rights as “merely” “a moral quality annexed to the person, justly entitling him to possess some particular privilege, or to perform some particular act” (2003, Book I, Chapter 1, n. IV). Locke, by contrast, does not define a right, but nevertheless seems to have general notions of rights to liberty, equality, and property, both in and beyond the State of Nature (1988, Chapters II and IX, respectively). But it is not until Kant that the notions of respect and human dignity are seen to undergird the rights acknowledged by Grotius and elaborated by Locke. Like Locke, Kant used the hypothetical social contract as the foundation for his conceptions of human rights (1983, n. 290–305). However, Kant went much further than Locke by placing equal weight on the metaphysical notion of the person as worthy of respect due to her intrinsic dignity qua human. Human nature being rational, choice was to be protected. As Kant states it, a “person” is one whose nature as a rational being “already marks them out as ends in themselves. . .and an object of respect. . . Rational nature exists as an end in itself ” (1958, n. 428 & 429); and again, “humanity so far as it is capable of morality, is the only thing which has dignity,” and is “exalted above all price . . . as an end in himself he possesses a dignity by which he exacts respect for himself from all other beings in the world” (n. 435). Thus, Kant has both an “internal” and an “external” understanding of the human dignity that merits respect: The “internal” dimension is the source of understanding moral laws; the “external” dimension is the end or limit of actions from others on the basis of that dignity of being a moral being. The rational (human) person is “the supreme limiting condition of the freedom of every [person’s] freedom of action” (n. 431). This is what Kant refers to as “the principle of humanity.” These philosophical issues eventually were developed into positive international law, beginning with the original Geneva Convention of 1864. That Convention calls upon the Generals of the belligerent powers to “make it their duty to notify” those citizens of an enemy country who help the wounded “of the appeal made to their humanity,

and of the neutrality which humane conduct will confer” (Article 5). In other words, on the basis of human dignity, those who assist the wounded are not only immune from attack, but they are to be notified by the enemy that the latter recognizes their human dignity in so refraining. After the experience of two devastating world wars in which millions of innocents were brutalized, the issues of respect, dignity, and human rights became even more urgent, as demonstrated in the creation of Geneva Conventions subsequent to these wars. Interestingly, all four Conventions directly proscribe what they each call “outrages” to human “dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” (I, 1, 3). The “outrages” are named specifically as torture, mutilation, cruel treatment, taking hostages, murder, biological experimentation, and passing sentences on prisoners without benefit of “a regularly constituted court.” The Kantian principle of respect for the dignity of humans thus seems to have found its voice in international law in the Geneva Conventions. Convention I, “for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field,” and Convention II, “for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded, Sick, and Shipwrecked Members of the Armed Forces at Sea,” are fairly self-explanatory. The intent of these two Conventions (with a total of 127 Articles nearly evenly divided between them) is largely to update and revise the Geneva Convention of 1929 and the Hague Conventions concerning treatment of the sick, wounded, POWs, medical personnel, and clergy, and to apply the Conventions to maritime warfare. Beyond that, the specific measures called for in each of these 1949 Conventions concern the conduct of the belligerent militaries toward these groups of persons. Even organized resistance groups are given coverage under Conventions I and II. These first two Conventions mandate, under the umbrella category of humane treatment, burial or cremation of enemy dead, respecting religious rituals in such processes, recording POW information such as name, date and place of capture, etc., and communication of such information to the Information Bureau of the Geneva Convention. They also stipulate that medical buildings, tents, and transport vehicles remain free from enemy attack, provided they carry in plain view the Red Cross or Red Crescent insignia on them. Geneva Convention III, “relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War,” deals at length with treatment to be accorded to POW’s. Beginning with requirements concerning their general protection, the Convention moves on from there to detail the required conditions of POW captivity, including living conditions, religious,

Geneva Conventions

intellectual and physical activities required, and camp discipline, among other topics. Again, torture, cruel treatment, etc. are expressly forbidden, and regular food, water, clothing, sanitation, hygiene, medical treatment, regular physicals, religious expression, mail services for contact with the world outside the camp, stores, and cigarettes are to be provided. In addition, division of labor by age and ability, and “suitable working conditions” are mandated, including regular breaks from labor as well as payment. These stipulations were no doubt in large measure a response to the horrifying conditions of the Nazi labor camps, but it is also fair to say, once again, that the principle of humanity, nonexistent during the war, has received its fair hearing in the Geneva Conventions. But it is in Convention IV, “relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War,” and the three subsequent Protocols that one begins to see the principle of humanity making a significant entrance into international laws of war. One of the primary intentions in this Convention is to extend to civilians the protections already listed for other parties, above, in addition to protecting refugees and applying special rights to children under age 15. Of special note, given the situation today in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, among other places, is Section III of the Convention, which puts into place special rules of occupation for invading forces, with particular reference to the “protected persons” referred to throughout these Conventions – i.e., noncombatants. The protections to be guaranteed by the occupying powers include requirements of the occupation force to respect the private property of citizens, to facilitate the proper working of institutions and educational systems, to ensure that food and medical supplies and institutions remain operative, that religious needs be met, that relief supplies have access to the occupied territories, and a ban on forced labor and forced transfers of persons. In addition, the basic requirements for POW’s stipulated in the third Convention are said to apply to nationals arrested after occupation, and that detainees arrested be treated humanely and have regular food, hygienic, and medical needs met, etc. The first two of the three Protocols additional to the Geneva Conventions add more detail to the issues already discussed. Protocol I, “relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts,” specifies protections already enumerated for the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked, as well as related personnel (Section II), while Section III concerns missing and dead persons. Part III specifies already stated proper conduct regarding “Methods and Means of Warfare: Combatants and Prisoner-of-War Status,” and Section IV concerns the

G

same with civilian populations. Most importantly, Protocol I, Part IV explicitly states that “the presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character” (Chapter II, Article 50, Section 3). Article 51, Section 2 explicitly makes illegal those “acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population.” This same Article goes on to specify what is meant by such “indiscriminate attacks:” those not directed at specifically military targets; those attacks or weapons that cannot be limited to military objectives and strike civilians or civilian objects as well as military ones; and attacking military targets that the belligerent has reason to believe in advance will cause excessive and disproportionate damage to civilians or civilian objects, the latter defined simply as non-military objects. Article 54 bans attacks on objects indispensible to civilians, such as food, agriculture, drinking water installations, and irrigation works. Significantly, dual use facilities (i.e., those which the army uses as well as civilians) are said in this Article to also be immune from attack. Even “extremely dangerous forces” – i.e., those objects when, if attacked, could cause severe losses among the civilian populations (e.g., dams, nuclear electrical generating stations, etc.) – are off-limits to military targeting, as are civil defense systems and non-defended localities. These are again particularly important proscriptions, given the types of warfare underway today. Protocol II, “relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts,” specifically calls upon all nations, with regard to noncombatants, to have “respect for their person.” This principle is specified as it has been throughout the Conventions as refraining from all “violence to the life, health, and physical and mental well-being of [noncombatant] persons,” in particular concerning murder, torture, hostage-taking, terrorism, pillage, and threats to do any of these acts. Protocol III, “relating to the Adoption on an Additional Distinctive Emblem,” allows use of another emblem besides the Red Cross. The final chapter of each of the four Geneva Conventions as well as the Protocols mandate that nations provide penal sanctions for what is termed “grave breaches” of the Conventions by their officials. These are defined as “willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity.” Further, “no High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself ” from any of these grave breaches.

385

G

386

G

Geneva Conventions

Recent international agreements have served to intensify the importance of the Geneva Conventions. In 1998, for example, an International Criminal Court was established to prosecute violations of humanitarian law, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression (notably, the United States has refused to ratify this agreement, though by the end of 2002, 120 other nations had ratified it). Starting with the Hague Conventions, highlighted by the Geneva Conventions, and now with the establishment of this Court, the principles of human respect, dignity, and rights that have for so long been the province of philosophers have become the province of the world community. The question remains whether the world community is committed enough to the values contained in these documents, and to the rule of law between nations, to enforce the prescriptions and proscriptions contained within them. Post–World War II Declarations (such as the U.N. Universal Declaration on Human Rights) and Conventions (such as Hague and Geneva) concerning the protection of peoples and their rights are direct forays into the issue of global justice. This is due to the fact that such Conventions maintain that human rights are universal, equal, and inalienable. In the current international arrangement – and the arrangement presupposed in the Conventions – it is only states that are held accountable for maintaining them. This imposes a special obligation on states when it comes to human rights. That is the purpose of the Conventions. Universal human rights imply the need for global mechanisms for their protection, a question which is currently being debated in global justice. Exactly what is the extent and reach of human rights, especially in relation to state sovereignty? John Rawls places human rights as a limiting condition on state sovereignty, when states refuse to reverse egregious human rights abuses through the pressure of sanctions (Rawls 1999). Although Thomas Pogge does not directly deal with the Conventions in his argument in favor of a wide vertical distribution of sovereignty (to replace the current concentration of sovereignty at the top level of states and only states), he might well appreciate the Conventions as a means for such distribution. This wider distribution of sovereignty would enhance the traditional liberal concerns that each individual be accounted for. Thus, widening sovereignty to, say, international human rights regimes would help to eclipse the model which protects the privileged position of Western states and societies, and would bring into relief the reasons for a global human rights regime to begin with (i.e., our moral interdependence, recognized after World War II) (Donnelly 2003). Concomitantly, it would

(potentially) result in a higher threshold for destructive wars (Pogge 2008). Or not. Donnelly, for instance, admits that the state-centric conception of human rights has deep historical roots in the social contract tradition, and has thus become deeply embedded in our political language. Nor would this solution sit well with the nationalist position of Michael Walzer, whose statist presumptions carry his legalist paradigm of war forward (Walzer 1983, 1977). The Geneva Conventions represent a significant limitation to state sovereignty by engaging human rights as a limiting condition for state conduct toward persons qua persons during war. This focus sets the stage for future discussions concerning the best international structural arrangement of peoples. As a result of the Conventions, such discussions must emphasize the enforcement and enhancement of human rights. The Conventions present us a clue as to potential future directions concerning the agreement with and enforcement of human rights in the world community.

Related Topics

▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Crimes Against Peace ▶ Enemy Combatant ▶ Grotius, Hugo ▶ Hague Conventions ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Law ▶ International Law, Normative Foundations of ▶ Jus ad Bellum ▶ Jus in Bello ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Locke, John ▶ Vitoria, Francisco de ▶ War, Just and Unjust ▶ War Crimes

References Donnelly J (2003) Universal human rights in theory and practice. Cornell University Press, New York Grotius H (2003) The rights of war and peace (trans: Campbell AC). Elibron Classics, Washington Hume D, Hendel CW (eds) (1957) An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis Kant I (1958) Groundwork of the metaphysic of morals (trans: Paton HJ). Harper Torchbooks, New York Kant I (1983) On the proverb: that may be true in theory, but is of no practical use. Kant I Perpetual peace and other essays (trans: Humphrey T). Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis Locke J, Laslett P (eds) (1988) Two treatises of government. Cambridge University Press, New York Pogge T (2008) World poverty and human rights. Polity, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

Genocide Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Downloadable from: www.un.org/icc The Geneva Conventions. Downloadable from: www.icrc.org Walzer M (1977) Just and unjust wars. Basic Books, New York Walzer M (1983) Spheres of justice. Basic Books, New York

Genocide SALLY J. SCHOLZ Department of Philosophy, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA

In his 1944 work Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, Rapheal Lemkin coined the word “genocide” in order to designate the scale of atrocities that he had spent much of his adult life fighting. Lemkin combined the Greek word for people, race, or tribe with a word derived from Latin meaning “to kill.” His aim was to identify the mass scale atrocity that targets a people. He recognized that planned and coordinated destruction of a people or a nation aims not solely or even primarily at outright killing but also at the destruction of culture, language, traditions, and social and political infrastructures. The international community, through the documents of the United Nations, adopted a standard legal definition of genocide in 1948. The U.N. General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on December 9, 1948. Accordingly, “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” (Article 2). Furthermore, Article 3 specifies: “The following acts shall be punishable: (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit genocide; (e) Complicity in genocide.” Moral and political theorists offer some varying conceptions of genocide and also continue a debate that the United Nations started when trying to determine whether genocide was a “crime against humanity” or ought to be considered its own class of crimes. Genocide

G

is the “crime of crimes” because it is the most systematic, planned, and widespread destruction of a people possible. In that sense, it is morally the worst crime against humanity. But, by separating the crime of genocide from crimes against humanity, the United Nations opened the possibility for a different set of standards to prosecute and punish perpetrators. Moreover, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide specified that nations may call upon the UN to assist in preventing or suppressing genocide (Article 8). Although often used interchangeably, “genocide” differs from “ethnic cleansing.” Ethnic cleansing is the attempt to forcibly remove an ethnic or religious group from a certain area through deportation or removal, imprisonment, or genocide. The aim of ethnic cleansing is to create or ensure the purity of the dominant ethnic group. Hence, genocide may be one of the tools of ethnic cleansing, but the two are not technically equivalent. Establishing a legal definition for genocide was especially important in the wake of World War II, but it was not until the late 1990s that someone was charged with the crime of genocide and successfully prosecuted. Critics of the U.N. definition point out that some groups lack protection under the statute, and aspects of the legal definition are too ambiguous. Political groups, for instance, are not listed among the groups potentially subject to genocide, nor are women and sexual minorities. Activists attempting to augment or change the U.N. Convention on Genocide employ linguistic alterations of the concept, citing instances of policide, femicide, or gendercide, for instance. Critics also point to the ambiguity of phrases such as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part,” noting the lack of specification regarding what constitutes a sufficient “part.” Finally, the statute makes no explicit mention of rape, forced pregnancy, and sexual violence as a means of genocide, and yet all of the genocidal campaigns in modern times have made these practices central to executing their genocidal intents. International attention to the reality of genocide heightened during World War II; the Holocaust is the most studied genocide in history. Adolf Hitler led the Germans in a massive campaign to kill Jews, Poles, Gypsies, disabled people, homosexuals, and Soviet prisoners of war. It is estimated that over six million Jews and a similar number of other people were killed during the Holocaust. Hitler’s tactics were extensive and highly planned. His goal was to create an Aryan nation and he set out to systematically exterminate Jews based on racism, imperialism, and some argue, his own hallucinations. The United Nations itself officially came into existence in October of 1945, though similar bodies had been in

387

G

388

G

Genocide

place much earlier during the war. World War II determined the course of the U.N.’s work for many years to come. The Genocide Convention is one of many Conventions and Declarations to emerge in the first decade after the war. In recent years, the term “genocide” has been used to describe the United States’ actions against the Native Americans during the four centuries after Columbus landed. Conservative estimates suggest that nearly 12 million Native Americans were exterminated, often in mass killings or forced death marches during which they were starved, beaten, and killed. Some scholars also include the systematic removal of Native Americans from their homeland, the subsequent destruction of that land, various practices of enslavement, and forcible removal of children from their families as further tools used in the genocide on American soil. It is worth noting that this raises the question of whether genocide is modern phenomenon or one that has been with humankind for centuries. Scholars do not always agree on this point, but all agree that atrocity resulting in the near or total extermination of a people, perpetrated on a mass scale, has been part of human history from the very beginning. The genocide that inspired Lemkin to fight for international laws barring acts that intend to destroy a nation or people, is the Armenian genocide during World War I. On April 24, 1915, the Turks of the Ottoman Empire began rounding up thousands of Armenians and forcibly exiling them in a campaign that has come to be recognized as the first major genocide of the modern era. It is estimated that one and a half million Armenians were systematically killed by the military or starved while on the forced marches out of the Ottoman Empire. The first genocide to pique the interest of the mass media occurred in March 1971. For the first time, images could be published around the world and news about the ongoing struggle reached far beyond South Asia. Just after Bangladesh declared independence, Pakistan began a 9-month campaign of murder and mass rape. It is estimated that three million Bangladeshis were killed and from 200,000 to 400,000 women were raped, 25,000 of whom became pregnant. Two genocidal campaigns in the early 1990s again awakened the global community. In the former Yugoslavia, beginning in the early 1990s, Serbs killed an estimated 200,000, targeting primarily Muslims in Bosnia. The international community was well aware that Serbs were engaging in “ethnic cleansing,” but largely sat on its hands until 1993 when the genocide escalated. From April to July 1994, Rwanda experienced one of the most dramatic and horrific genocides on modern

record. Estimates range from half a million to one million Tutsi and moderate Hutu killed by the dominant Hutu regime. Because of its severity and intensity – spanning approximately 100 days – the Rwandan genocide shocked the conscience of humanity and set in motion revisions to international war crimes statutes and standards for crimes against humanity. In spite of increased international efforts employing legal as well as military means to stop genocide, many humanitarian workers and political activists argue that the twenty-first century is not free of genocidal campaigns. Beginning in 2003 in the Darfur region of Sudan, over 400,000 people have been killed and millions have been forced into exile. And in the Congo, approximately three million people have been killed in an ongoing civil war, and perhaps another two million have died of related disease due to displacement. Many of the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide fled to the Congo in 1994. In 1996, the Rwandan government invaded and caused the first war in the Congo overthrowing the corrupt government. The second war began in 1998 and involved multiple countries. The Democratic Republic of the Congo held elections in 2006 after a brief 3 year era of power sharing. Nevertheless, in eastern Congo, the war never clearly ended and national government structures are unable to secure civilian safety. The Congo has seen some of the worst violence against civilian populations ever on record. Women and children are particularly vulnerable as sexual violence is near epidemic. Genocide challenges global justice in a number of ways. Most fundamentally, perhaps, the presence of ongoing acts of genocide run counter to the assumptions of global social cooperation at root in many theoretical accounts of global justice. Genocide demonstrates the extent to which at least some humans are capable of thwarting any notion of human fellowship, solidarity, or global cooperation. Moreover, the genocides of the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries forced a reexamination of the moral strictures surrounding military and humanitarian intervention. Two of the most prominent genocidal campaigns of the twentieth century, in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, were civil conflicts. International law has traditionally maintained the primacy of state sovereignty which prescribes avoiding interference from other nations or world governing bodies. The tension between upholding universal human rights and respecting state sovereignty works against efforts to forestall or intervene militarily in genocidal civil conflicts. But genocidal campaigns have also been instrumental in raising the awareness of the global community for

Georgism

some sort of international criminal court or international governing body. After the genocides in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the United Nations created international tribunals for the prosecution of war criminals: the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). These tribunals led to discussions of a standing body to serve the same purposes, and in 1998 the Rome Treaty created the International Criminal Court (ICC). The aim of the ICC was particularly focused on prosecuting the crime of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression. In 2002, the ICC finally received the support of 60 nations, the minimum number needed to establish the court. The ICC is limited to prosecuting crimes committed after the first of July 2002, and it acts only when the nation that has jurisdiction fails to act. Global justice theorists uniformly call for the strengthening of the powers of the ICC and for more states to ratify the Rome Treaty. Many states are reluctant to sign on precisely because in doing so they thereby subject themselves to the scrutiny and possible prosecution of the ICC for war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of aggression, or genocide. Another aspect of the challenge of genocide for global justice is that the norms of human rights and universal justice may conflict with some ideological systems. The language of rights is not wholeheartedly embraced in every global context. There is also the practical problem that a global civil society’s commitment to human rights may conflict with sovereign self-determination or even some democratic ideals. For cosmopolitan global justice theorists, this is less of a problem than for internationalist theorists. The latter appeal to the dictates of international law to navigate the conflict. Cosmopolitan theorists turn toward global or regional governing bodies to enact and enforce the universal norms of justice. One of the greatest challenges for the international community and for global justice theories is how to prevent genocide. Many of the genocides of recent history have clear starting points or contributing factors. But these are not necessarily universal to all genocides. Learning why genocide happens is an urgent, complicated, and ongoing endeavor.

Related Topics

▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ War Crimes ▶ War, Just and Unjust

G

389

References Brownmiller S (1975) Against our will. Simone & Schuster, New York Card C (2005) The atrocity paradigm: a theory of evil. Oxford University Press, New York Chatterjee D, Scheid D (2003) Ethics and foreign intervention. Cambridge University Press, New York January B (2006) Genocide: modern crimes against humanity. TwentyFirst Century Books, New York Jones A (2006) Genocide: a comprehensive introduction. Routledge, New York Neuffer E (2001) The key to my neighbor’s house: seeking justice in Bosnia and Rwanda. Picador, New York Power S (2002) A problem from hell: America and the age of genocide. Basic Books, New York

G George, Henry ▶ Georgism

Georgism FRED E. FOLDVARY Civil Society Institute, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, USA

Georgism consists of the ideas derived from the thought and works of the American economist and social philosopher, Henry George. The central issue is land, and the basic economic and ethical idea is that there should be a single levy on land rent or land value that replaces all other taxes. Georgist thought argues that prosperity for all members of a community requires the individual ownership of wages combined with an equal sharing of the land rent. Georgism posits that global justice requires that the benefits of nature be equally and globally shared. Henry George was born in Philadelphia in 1837. He settled in San Francisco, where he became a printer. His first book was Our Land and Land Policy (1871), in which he told the history of land ownership in the USA, showing how much of the land was obtained at little or no price by land speculators, often dishonestly. George’s major work was Progress and Poverty (1879), which became a widely read and influential book. The theme, as implied by the title, is the question of why poverty persists despite great progress in technology and the increase in overall wealth. Henry George’s analysis is that the origin of poverty is in the unjust land tenure system.

390

G

Georgism

Georgist Theory Throughout the world, the ownership of land value is highly concentrated, especially for nonresidential land. Much of the gains from economic progress is captured in higher rent and land value, since land is fixed in supply and a greater productivity of land and demand to use land raises its rent and value. But tax systems in George’s day and today tap very little of that land value, as all but a small fraction of tax revenues come from production, wages, trade, and goods. Such taxes not only reduce the wage kept by the worker, but also reduce production and investment, lowering wages. Much of this economic analysis was similar to that done by earlier classical economists such as David Ricardo. George’s key contribution to economic theory was the role of land speculation. Ricardo had theorized about the “margin of production,” the least productive land in use. In George’s “law of wages,” the wage level for the economy is set by the wage at the margin, as all the extra output in the more productive lands goes to land rent. George’s “law of rent” says that the rent of a plot of land is the difference between its output and the output at the margin of production, the concept of differential rent also developed by Ricardo. In Georgist theory, land speculators claim more land than they productively use, expecting rent and land value to rise. This hoarding of land pushes the margin out toward less productive land. By the law of wages, this less productive margin reduces the wage level for the whole economy. As the margin moves to ever less productive land, wages fall and rent rises. The owners of land have done nothing to merit getting that rent. They did not produce the land, nor did they produce the investments and innovations that create economic progress. The land rent is a pure economic surplus that is not needed to be kept by the landowners. Economists call the surplus that equals the price of goods minus the costs of production a “producer surplus,” but in a competitive industry, this surplus is actually land rent, since competition removes profits beyond normal returns. Marxists believe this is a surplus that derives from labor, which capitalists expropriate, but in the analysis of Henry George, employed labor competes with self-employed labor, hence workers are paid according to their productivity, and the surplus is due to the differing locational productivity. The remedy proposed by Henry George is to tax most of the land value or economic land rent, replacing all other taxes. This tax shift would raise wages and fully reward entrepreneurship while also equalizing income and wealth. A single tax on land value would promote both

efficiency and equity. By Georgist philosophy, land value taxation implements global justice by fully respecting each person’s self-ownership while providing each person an equal share of the benefits of land. Henry George also had a theory of the business cycle which is consistent with the boom-bust cycles of the past 200 years. As an economy expands, land rent land and land value rise, and speculators notice this profit opportunity. The speculative demand adds to the demand for the actual use of land, and this raises land values beyond that warranted by current use. This is related to the winner’s curse in economics, in which the winner of an auction is the most optimistic bidder, and later regrets the bid as it was too high. Real estate costs rise so high that investors expect less profit, and the fall in investment then brings down the whole economy. Land value taxation would prevent the real estate boom-bust cycle by removing the gains from land speculation.

Georgism and Justice Georgist thought integrates economics and ethics in a philosophy of social harmony. Economists recognize that a tax on land value has no “deadweight loss” or “excess burden,” as taxing land does not raise costs or reduce economic activity. A tax on land reduces the price of land and does not raise the market rent, since it does not shift the supply or demand for land. In Georgist thought, land value taxation is also equitable, for two reasons. First, each person is properly a self-owner, and so should fully own his labor and wages. Secondly, much of the public works and services generate land value, and so a tax on that value returns the value generated by these public goods. Indeed, if land is not taxed, the owner receives a subsidy, while worker-tenants get double billed, paying tax on their wage to finance the public goods, and also paying the higher rent generated by these goods.

George’s Works As noted above, some of George’s concepts came from classical economics, and also, the concept of a single tax on land had been developed and proposed a century earlier by the French economists who developed a theory they called Physiocracy, meaning the rule of natural law. The Physiocrats theorized that production has a “net product,” which is land rent, which can be taxed without hampering production. Adam Smith met and was influenced by the Physiocrats, and stated in the Wealth of Nations that ground rent is the type of revenue that can best bear a tax. After Progress and Poverty, Henry George wrote several other books. In Social Problems (1883), George

Georgism

emphasized how poverty and other social ills are caused by the land tenure and tax systems. In Protection or Free Trade? (1886), Henry George provided a strong argument against tariffs, quotas, and other trade limitations. George argued that if protectionism is beneficial, it should be equally beneficial to have trade barriers among the states, and indeed among cities. Yet nobody advocates it. George points out that since there is no good economic reason for local boundaries to have trade barriers, there is equally no good reason for national trade barriers. He also wrote that trade barriers violate justice, the freedom to trade with others. Thus the book remains a classic treatise in defense of free trade, on both economic and moral grounds. What distinguishes George’s analysis of free trade is that he went beyond the usual defense of mutual exchange. Henry George concluded that internal trade barriers are also harmful, and that includes taxes since, for example, a sales tax is just as much a trade barrier as a tariff on foreign goods. Thus George advocated “true free trade,” the abolition of all taxes other than on land value. Also, related to justice, George argued that if there were free trade for foreign trade but no land value tax, then the benefits of trade would raise land rent and benefit the few owners of large land holdings rather than the typical worker. George’s last book was The Science of Political Economy (1898), a large work that he left unfinished when he died. Besides his book, George wrote many articles, and was invited to speak in Great Britain, Ireland, and Australia. His speeches were published as pamphlets.

The Impact of Georgism Henry George was also active as a social reformer, and became involved in political campaigns to advocate land value taxation as well as free trade. He twice ran for mayor of New York City. This political activism was criticized by one of his followers, Albert Jay Nock, who wrote that Henry George’s economic thought would have obtained greater recognition among economists if he had not also gotten involved in political campaigns. The field of economics has, however, recognized the influence of Henry George, indeed with a theorem named after him, the Henry George Theorem. It is a simple model in which there are two goods, private and public, and two resources, land and labor. The income that does not go to wages is rent. The spending for private goods equals the wage, since it costs a wage to produce the good, and the rest of the spending is for the public good, therefore the rent equals the spending for the public goods, and thus land rent is adequate to finance public goods.

G

Nevertheless, some economists have argued against Georgist concepts. These arguments were rebutted in the book, Critics of Henry George. Of such negative critics, Tolstoy said that people do not truly disagree with the teaching of George; they simply do not understand it. The followers of Henry George took several paths. One was to found communities based on the principle of financing public revenue only from land rent. The best known such community is the Village of Arden, Delaware, with a population of about 500, founded in 1900. A land trust owns the land, while the residents own the buildings and pay rent for a leasehold. The trust also pays the property tax, so that the leaseholders are not personally burdened by taxes on buildings. The purest case applying Georgism was in the German colony of Kiaochow in China, founded in 1898. Its capital, Tsing Tao, is now known as Jingdao. The governor was a land reformer influenced by Henry George, and the colony levied a single tax of 6% of land value. The fishing village of 1898 developed into a modern city by 1914, when the Japanese took it. Many cities and countries have adopted land value taxation in part, or revenue from leasing land, and Georgists point to Hong Kong and Taiwan as examples where public revenue from land rent contributed to the success of these economies. Another path taken by George’s followers has been the education of the public. There are several Henry George Schools throughout the world, the main one being in New York City, and classes are provided on the Internet by the Henry George Institute. Georgists are also active on the Internet, with web sites such as The Progress Report. Georgist organizations such as Common Ground, Forum on Geonomics, and the Earth Rights Institute are also active in advocating policy reforms. Publications include The Georgist Journal and Land and Liberty. Fred Harrison in the UK has made a series of videos on YouTube under the rubric The Renegade Economist. The Henry George Foundation of America has sponsored studies of split-rate property taxation in Pennsylvania, where cities may enact a lower tax rate on buildings and a higher tax rate on land value. The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation in New York City publishes books on land value taxation, and has kept Henry George’s books in print. It also sponsors research and projects such as the movie “The End of Poverty.” “The School of Cooperative Individualism” has a web site with a great deal of information on Georgism. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy sponsors research and publication on land topics.

391

G

392

G

Global Basic Structure

In Australia, Georgist organizations include the Association for Good Government, the Henry George Foundation of Australia, the Land Values Research Group, and Prosper Australia, which publishes the magazine, Prosper. In Canada, there is Canadian Research Committee on Taxation, Henry George Foundation of Canada, and others. The U.K. has had active Georgist organizations for over a century, including the Labour Land Campaign, Land Research Trust, and Land Value Taxation Campaign. There are also Georgist organizations in Denmark, Korea, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Nicaragua, and others. Georgism remains a vibrant movement, which has had some policy influence, but Georgists remain puzzled as to why the world has not more eagerly embraced the tax and free-trade policies that they believe would provide both prosperity and global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Capitalism ▶ Free Trade ▶ Global Public Goods ▶ Global Taxation ▶ Land Ethic ▶ Positive Rights

References Andelson RV (ed) (1979) Critics of Henry George. Associated University Press, London Andelson RV (ed) (2000) Land-value taxation around the world, 3rd edn. Blackwell, Malden, MA Blaug M (ed) (1992) Henry George (1839–1897). Edward Elgar, Aldershot, UK Foldvary FE (2006) The ultimate tax reform: public revenue from land rent. Civil Society Institute, Santa Clara. http://www.foldvary.net/ works/policystudy.pdf Geiger G (1933) The philosophy of Henry George. Macmillan, New York George H (1871) Our land and land policy. White & Hauer, San Francisco. http://www.grundskyld.dk/pdf/George/pe-Our-Land-and-Land-Policy. pdf George H (1879) Progress and poverty. Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, New York. http://schalkenbach.org/library/henry-george/p+p/ ppcont.html George H (1983) Social problems. Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, New York George H (1886) Protection or free trade? Robert Schalkanbach Foundation, New York George H (1898) Science of political economy. Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, New York George H Jr. (1904) The life of Henry George. http://www.henrygeorge. org/LIFEofHG/ The Progress Report http://www.progress.org The School of Cooperative Individualism http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org Youtube. http://www.youtube.com

Global Basic Structure CHRIS ARMSTRONG School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

Justice and the Basic Structure In his hugely influential A Theory of Justice (1971), John Rawls suggested that the subject of theories of justice ought to be the basic structure of individual societies. By basic structure, Rawls intended the major institutions of a society – including economic, political, and social ones – which taken together can have a huge impact on the individuals of that society. The reason the basic structure matters is because of this profound and immediate impact on citizens’ lives, and it is for that reason that the basic structure should be considered the subject or target of principles such as the Difference Principle. Though Rawls was pursued on questions such as whether the family was part of the basic structure, he held dear to the claim that such a structure provides the subject-matter for theories of distributive justice. This emphasis on the centrality of the basic structure to theories of justice has been the subject of much debate. It has been suggested, for instance, that Rawls unduly neglects processes or decisions which are not captured by the basic structure – such as individual decisions or the nature of the ethos of a society – but which are nevertheless significant from a distributive and normative point of view. Nevertheless, his emphasis has also been immensely influential. Rawls, though, turned out to be considering the basic structure in a purely domestic setting, and did not extend the argument globally as some later Rawlsian theorists did. But what if there were a global basic structure? Should it not be the subject of its own theory of distributive justice?

A Global Basic Structure? Might we not say that a global basic structure exists, comprising, perhaps, international organizations such as the World Trade Organisation, World Bank, or International Monetary Fund, along with other formal or informal components of the international order? These institutions certainly have direct or indirect impact on our life-chances, and are accordingly important objects of negotiation between individual nation-states, concerned for the economic prospects of their own citizens. And might not the existence of such a global basic structure make some principles of global distributive

Global Citizenship

justice relevant? For some – though by no means all – cosmopolitan theorists it was the development of a global basic structure through globalization that gave principles of global distributive justice their raison d’eˆtre. Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge, for instance, certainly appeared to argue that the interconnectedness of the contemporary world – and the emergence of something like a global economic “system” – made the evaluation of the distributive effects of that system an intelligible and important exercise. Kok-Chor Tan has also argued that global economic cooperation between societies is sufficiently dense to trigger principles of global distributive justice such as a Global Difference Principle. According to Tan, the global basic structure, like its domestic cousin, determines both people’s social positions and their prospects in life. Indeed, such an approach may not limit itself to calling for the evaluation of existing institutions (such as the IMF) according to such principles, but may also call for the creation of new distributive schemes and agencies. Such arguments have been keenly disputed. Some supporters of Rawls have claimed that the global institutional framework is not sufficiently developed, or does not have a sufficiently direct impact on individuals’ life-chances, to warrant the introduction of the language of global distributive justice. Samuel Freeman, for example, has suggested that one important thing which the domestic basic structure does do which relatively weak global institutions do not, is to regulate property. Given the lack of a powerful global authority capable of enforcing law on property and property relations, principles such as a Global Difference Principle lack an object to be applied to.

Beyond a Global Basic Structure? One of the surprises of Rawls’s Law of Peoples is that while Rawls turned out to be much more skeptical toward principles of global distributive justice than commentators such as Beitz and Pogge had hoped, he did not base his rejection strongly on the absence of a global basic structure. Though supporters such as Freeman have made the case about a lack of a global basic structure for him, Rawls turned out to place much more emphasis on the need for legitimacy, or on the way in which principles of global distributive justice might clash with a respect for the responsibility of Peoples for their own economic fates. But a broadly Rawlsian emphasis on the disjuncture between the domestic and global settings – and an emphasis on what is special about state institutions – is much in evidence in the contemporary literature. As Abizadeh shows, Rawls was not as clear as we might have hoped about just why the basic structure mattered. Was it important because basic institutions produce or embody

G

coercion? Because they embody relations of reciprocity? Or because they have such a pervasive impact on our lifechances? Or some combination of all three reasons? The debate about the appropriateness – or inappropriateness – of global distributive justice has tended to progressively separate out these reasons and to focus on each in turn for an explanation of what Risse has called “the normative peculiarity of the state.” We might also say that within the developing literature an originally narrow focus on whether a single global basic structure existed or not has been replaced with a more complex concern with the different kinds of global institution, each with its own distributive effects.

Related Topics

▶ Beitz, Charles ▶ Coercion ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Difference Principle ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ International Organizations ▶ Justice and Reciprocity: Local and Global ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Reciprocity

References Abizadeh A (2007) Cooperation, pervasive impact and coercion. Philos Public Aff 35:318–358 Beitz C (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Freeman S (2007) Rawls. Routledge, London Moellendorf D (2002) Cosmopolitan justice. Westview, Boulder Pogge T (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Risse M (2006) What to say about the state. Soc Theory Pract 32:671–698 Tan K-C (2004) Justice without borders. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Global Citizenship MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

Current global justice debates typically employ a conception of global citizenship as a form of “multilevel” citizenship. Here the multilevel conception of global citizenship establishes a contrast not only with citizenship

393

G

394

G

Global Citizenship

based on exclusive membership of a territorial community, but also inclusive membership in a “universal state.” On the one hand, citizenship based on exclusive membership of a territorial community is widely viewed by theorists of global justice as democratically inadequate. It is inadequate in that citizens can no longer exercise reliable democratic control over their life prospects based on such exclusive membership, given the expansion of formal and informal decision-making processes affecting these prospects above the level of the state. On the other hand, fully inclusive membership of a universal state raises the specter of recourse to the persecution of the pluralism of regional and cultural differences, in order to maintain a uniform identity among the citizens of just such a singular, territorially unbounded world community. Here the concept of multilevel citizenships may be understood best as offering a way to mediate the difficulties of territorial exclusivity and undifferentiated inclusivity. Historically speaking, the basic idea of citizenship is that of legal security in the possession of rights as either immunities from unwanted interference or capabilities of participation in self-governance. Indeed, in the age of the nation state, the defining rights of citizenship were the civil and political rights of national citizens protected by the state to the exclusion of noncitizens. The more recent shift with globalization in the conception of citizenship toward multilevel or global citizenship, however, entails a shift from the civil and political rights, guaranteed in exclusivistic fashion by the nation state, to human rights. Here human rights come to acquire a distinctly political meaning analogous to the civil and political rights of the nation state, as guaranteeing equal private freedom and equal participative opportunities, in an array of democratic fora ranging from the city to global associations. To this extent, human rights may be said to become the conceptual foundation of a global political order, in which all persons enjoy equality of legal status in political processes and institutions governing their life chances at multiple sites and levels of governance. For example, a resident of Edinburgh can participate not only in city elections, but also Scottish, United Kingdom (UK), and European elections. Although not formally a citizen of Edinburgh, Scotland, the UK, or even Europe, she can still make judiciable claims to the recognition of her standing as the possessor of human rights in European Union (EU)–level courts, such as the European Human Rights Court and the EU Court of Justice. Moreover, she might also participate in a wide variety of informal transnational social movements and organizations, which aim to influence decision-making across the various levels of global governance.

Consequently, multilevel or global citizenship is conceived as reclaiming democratic control and the accountability of power, in a multilevel global political order transcending the state, through the ability of citizens whose legal status is defined in terms of human rights to gain access to a diversity of political communities. At the same time, access to a diversity of communities ensured by such rights obviates the risk of persecution and uniformity associated with a singular universal or world state. Here it should, however, be stressed that “global citizenship” is not at present a legally recognized status. Indeed, the closest to the recognition of anything like such a legal status is the recognition of the category of European citizens within the EU. But this is not necessarily an impediment to the appropriate use of the language of global citizenship, given the extent to which the larger international community has already legally entrenched a body of common rules and standards based on democracy and human rights. In this respect, global citizenship is not mere rhetoric, but rather a development that may be seen as continuous with earlier and more exclusive understandings of the rights and duties of national citizenship. This is a point often defended by stressing that the core of citizenship lies not in any historically contingent ethno-national identification based on “blood and soil,” so much as abstract civic and political principles that may be interpreted as having broader application across national borders. Here global citizenship necessarily calls into question the well-established connection between patriotism and nationalism. Indeed, independent of exclusive ethnonational identifications, the patriotism of global citizens is manifest as their commitment to the ongoing reinterpretation of the basic civil and political principles of citizenship, such as legal equality, in changing circumstances of globalization. To be sure, this rejection of ethno-nationalism as the basis of patriotism and social solidarity is treated with considerable skepticism by some commentators. Here skeptics frequently appeal to the phenomenon of a global rise in ethnic conflicts and the reflexive retreat into traditional ways of life entailing exclusive identities, in response to globalization. Nonetheless, openness to diverse solidarities motivated by the reinterpretation of the defining principles of citizenship is energetically defended by its advocates. Indeed, the advocates of extending these principles beyond the state will stress that the possibility of maintaining an exclusivistic basis of national solidarity has, in many instances, already been undermined by global migration patterns. To this extent, the commitment to reinterpreting citizenship without reference to ethno-national identity

Global Civil Society

may well be seen prerequisite for long-term stability, even within the borders of most contemporary nation states. All in all, the reinterpretation of citizenship as multilevel participation and membership proves essential not only to the long-term stability of diverse political communities, but also the prospect of achieving global justice through democratic control over multiple cross-cutting spheres of decision-making across national borders.

Related Topics

▶ Citizenship ▶ Citizenship Practices ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Global Public ▶ Globalization

References Bohman JF (2001) Cosmopolitan republicanism: citizenship, freedom, and global political authority. Monist 84:1 Bohman JF (2007) Democracy across borders: from demos to demoi. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Dryzek JS (2006) Deliberative global politics. Polity, Cambridge Habermas J (2001) The postnational constellation: political essays. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Held D (2006) Global covenant: the social democratic alternative to the washington consensus. Polity, Oxford

Global Civil Society MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Between the family and the state exists an expansive space populated with organizations large and small, highly developed and spontaneously forming, existing for limitless purposes. These organizations constitute civil society. The concept of civil society enjoys a history that goes back to antiquity and has been chameleon-like in its development. For some, it excludes the market, while for others, it does not. Increasingly, attention is being paid to civil society as it is constituted, and as it functions, globally. As with democratic theory, and undoubtedly related to it, with the collapse of Soviet totalitarianism, there burst forth widespread interest in civil society. The term has now become a commonplace, used by scholars, politicians, activists, humanitarians, and others. In an ever-increasing globalized, interconnected world filled simultaneously

G

with injustice, violence, and hope, the concept of global civil society holds interest and promise. Setting premodern conceptions of civil society aside, we can note that modern thinkers worried about the relationship persons have and should have with one another, both through the state and aside from it. Early modern, Enlightenment, and liberal figures theorized, for the most part, a limited state with much room for private and non-coerced human conduct. Adam Ferguson saw civil society in a way that pushed against individual interest and market values on one hand, and against the state, on the other. He saw civil society as a moral force against both private interest and arbitrary political power. Hegel thought of the state as having an ordered, authoritative, and dominating relationship to civil society (bu¨rgerliche Gelsellschaft). Tocqueville, pushing back against Hegel, and in comparing his aristocratic France with the new country he traveled, distinguished between civil society and political society altogether, praising the vibrant civil society (and its relationship to democracy) he observed in America. Whereas Marx thought that civil society was, like the state, a domain of power for the bourgeoisie; Gramsci, with early moderns and liberals, saw civil society as a location of social capital, of protecting people from the encroaching power of the state and market, and of democratic influence on the state itself. Today, those who work in global civil society tend to echo Tocqueville and Gramsci. Attention to thought about civil society per se is valuable as a precursor and component of thought about global civil society because the themes and questions interrogated in respect to the first are also explored in respect to the latter. As stated above, civil society is increasingly considered in respect to its global manifestations and global challenges. Development of theory and practice did not only take place in response to the collapse of the Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe, but also in response to two other phenomena. One, the very domination of Soviet-controlled states over their societies; and two, the rise of global capitalism, its hegemony, and the power of the Washington Consensus, that is, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and New Social Movements (NSMs) have exploded in growth in response to the power of states and capital. The United Nations has recently deepened its attention to and partnership with institutions of civil society. One can read the UN General Assembly document of 11 June 2004, “We the Peoples: Civil Society, the United Nations and Global Governance” to see the summary of 30 proposals offered by a panel commissioned by the

395

G

396

G

Global Civil Society

Secretary-General. While politics is increasingly globalized through phenomena such as climate change, trade and labor, HIV/AIDS, and terrorism, the tools with which we “do” politics remains conventional, e.g., elections, parties, and parliaments. The UN has recognized the gap between political demands and political institutions, and in that gap, increases its work. Increasingly, civil society is a crucial part of global governance, working with, apart from, or against governments. Other UN organizations that work in civil society include the United Nations Global Compact, which encourages businesses worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies and practices; the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the principal forum for discussing international economic and social issues, and for creating policy recommendations; the World Summit on the Information Society, two UN-sponsored conferences which undertook the task of determining how to bridge the so-called global digital divide separating rich and poor countries in respect to communications technology, especially Internet access; and the UN Environmental Programme’s Global Civil Society Forum. Other institutions of global civil society include the World Social Forum and the World Economic Forum, and so many of the numerous organizations that participate in these annual events. Any number of religious organizations, e.g., the World Council of Churches, plays an important role in global civil society. Science, sports, arts, business, religion, education, politics, and nearly all other domains of human interest and activity are represented by organizations that interact with peoples and organizations beyond state borders. Nongovernmental organizations have grown in numbers and influence with such force that this growth has caused new conceptualization and theorization of, for example, democracy, citizenship, sovereignty, political authority, economics, and governance. There are well over 40,000 NGOs that work across borders (one can go to wiserearth.org to visit “the world’s largest free and editable international directory of nongovernmental organizations and socially responsible organizations”). Academically, global civil society has become an important subject of research. The Center for Civil Society Studies at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies, the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics, and the People-Centered Development Forum are examples of locations where global civil society is interrogated and promoted. Research sites and organizations not already mentioned include

Civicus – Worldwide Alliance for Citizen Participation, the European Union Relations with Civil Society, the One World Trust Database of Civil Society Self-regulatory Initiatives, the Open Society Institutue, and the International Society for Third-Sector Research. Leading researchers of global civil society include Helmut Anheier, Benjamin Barber, Walden Bello, Jean L. Cohen, Michael Edwards, Ann Florini, Francis Fukuyama, Ernest Gellner, David Held, Mary Kaldor, John Keane, David Korten, and Lester Salamon. As to global justice, it is immediately clear that the space between state and family is a location for limitless instances and opportunities of global justice. And indeed, countless organizations are working to achieve and promote global justice in and through global civil society. It is unrealistic and dangerous to expect the state and multinational governmental cooperation to define, bear, promote, and insure justice, and for this reason, the work done by NGOs is crucial. However, at least two dangers are present in the rise of global civil society’s importance. The first is that just as NGOs are successful, states and international governmental institutions may feel lax in their responsibilities to meet the demands of justice which are properly their own. Further, however successful associations within civil society may be, some global problems can only be sufficiently addressed through state and international governmental power. Certainly, partnerships among state and nonstate actors have become important and will remain so, but states working in cooperation with other states will remain an essential part of meeting the demands of global justice. Second, it is important to note that global civil society has given rise to unjust and violent cooperation. Whereas focus on cooperation to just ends is warranted and rewarding, it cannot be forgotten that dangerous and destructive activities also occur when nonstate actors work with one another. Some aspects of nuclear proliferation, global capitalism, and the spread of terrorism are examples of this dangerous side of global civil society. As the planet interconnects and globalizes, and as the power of governments are supplemented, new locations and forces for global justice are being born and developed. But global civil society is not a panacea for all our ills, it brings problems of its own.

Related Topics

▶ Barber, Benjamin ▶ Citizenship ▶ Common Good ▶ Communitarianism

Global Contractarian Justice

▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI) ▶ Global Basic Structure ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Governance ▶ Global Public Sphere ▶ Globalization ▶ Held, David ▶ International Organizations

G

Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) ▶ Refugees

Global Contractarian Justice LYNETTE E. SIEGER Gallatin School, New York University, New York, NY, USA

References Baker G, Chandler D (eds) (2005) Global civil society: contested futures. Routledge, London Chambers S, Kymlicka W (eds) (2002) Alternative conceptions of civil society. Princeton University Press, Princeton Chandler D (2004) Constructing global civil society: morality and power in international relations. Palgrave, New York Clark J (2004) The UN and civil society. IJNL 7(1) Cohn J, Arato A (1994) Civil society and political theory. MIT Press, Cambridge Edwards M (2004) Future positive: international co-operation in the 21st century. Earthscan, London Ehrenberg J (1999) Civil society: the critical history of an idea. New York University Press, New York Friedman E (2005) Sovereignty, democracy, and global civil society: statesociety relations at UN world conferences. State University of New York Press, Albany Held D, McGrew A (eds) (2003) The global transformations reader: an introduction to the globalization debate. Polity, Cambridge James H (ed) (2007) Civil society, religion and global governance: paradigms of power and persuasion. Routledge, London Juergensmeyer M (2005) Religion in global civil society. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kaldor M (2003) Global civil society: an answer to war. Polity, Cambridge Keane J (1998) Civil society and the state: new European perspectives. Verso, London Keane J (2003) Global civil society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Keck M, Sikkink K (1998) Activists beyond borders: advocacy networks in international politics. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Kenny M, Germain R (eds) (2005) The idea of global civil society: ethics and politics in a globalizing era. Routledge, London Korten D (1998) Globalizing civil society: reclaiming our right to power. Seven Stories, New York Lipschutz R, Mayer J (1996) Global civil society and environmental governance: the politics of nature from place to planet. State University of New York Press, Albany Salamon L (2004) Dimensions of the nonprofit sector, vol 2. Kumarian, Bloomfield Walker J, Thompson A (eds) (2008) Critical mass: the emergence of global civil society. Wilfred Laurier University Press, Waterloo Walzer M (ed) (2005) Toward a global civil society. Berghahn Books, Providence

397

Global contractarian justice is derived from social contract theory. Social contract theory is concerned with justifying institutional arrangements that exercise power over people who hold obligations to one another by virtue of a system of social cooperation. Contemporary social contract theory is used in purely hypothetical terms, regarding the contract not as historical but rather as a thought mechanism for normative justification of the state. It asks us to consider what rights and duties of citizens would rational, self-interested individuals hypothetically consent to in an initial coming together out of the state of nature to form social arrangements. Global contractarian justice broadens traditional social contract theory beyond persons within and in relation to the state by thinking of contracting parties as humanity writ large. The primary justification for this theoretical expansion is submitted on the basis that under hyper-globalization, the locus of social cooperation is not exclusively or exhaustively state centric. Rather, social cooperation is a combination of the global and the local. This is seen in global economic and trade systems and organizations, multinational nongovernmental organizations, multinational corporations, international treaties and institutions, and regional associations. Charles Beitz goes further and argues that participation in these systems as they are is largely nonvoluntary from the perspective of the worst off. Often participation in global systems results in or requires a loss of political autonomy. This creates levels of social cooperation that overlap and occur on both the state and the global level. Systems of global social cooperation as such stand in need of special justification to individuals as do state systems of social cooperation. The global contract is a relatively new concept. It emerged as a challenge to the more commonly used and

G

398

G

Global Contractarian Justice

accepted notion of international justice as occurring between contracting states or peoples rather than persons. It might be said that both the international and the global contract in their contemporary forms emerged from the ideas of eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In Toward a Perpetual Peace Kant envisaged three stages of the social contract. The first, ius civitatis, was to organize and govern relations between persons within states. The second, ius gentium was to create and maintain world peace through a law of states after they had been justly formed in the first stage. Finally, ius cosmopoliticum was a narrow set of standards relating to freedom of movement and the right to civility guaranteed to persons as citizens of the world. It is in the Kantian vein of ius gentium built upon ius civitatis that John Rawls developed the second-stage social contract in his seminal work The Law of Peoples (1999). Here Rawls argues in favor of a dual system of contracting. In the first stage, persons come together in the original position behind a veil of ignorance to organize as peoples. In this stage, two principles of justice are agreed upon. First, equal liberty and second, economic inequalities are to be arranged so that benefit or advantage can only be justified if they, at the same time, improve the situation of the least advantaged and are attached to equal opportunity. In the second stage – the second original position – representatives of well-ordered peoples or states convene. Ignorant to the strengths or weaknesses of their particular state in relation to other states, these representatives create an international contract. Rawls speculates that because the conditions of economic and social inequity in the global sphere are the results of planning and cultural values internal to the state, from the second original position a narrow set of rules for cooperation will emerge. Among these will be the qualified right to noninterference, the right to self-defense, and obligations to abide by treaties and respect basic human rights. Global economic justice will be a minimal requirement of a duty of assistance to raise impoverished and outlaw states to a threshold level so that the conditions for justice can be developed. The foremost authors on global contractarian justice, Beitz and Pogge frame the development of their theories of the global contract around Rawls’s conception of the first original position. The modification is to think of global justice as attached to individuals rather than to states. This line of reasoning is one approach to overcoming the challenge that political philosopher Deen Chatterjee has called the liberal conundrum. Chatterjee argues that liberal theories of justice must overcome how to reconcile,

in a nonarbitrary way, state partialist and global impartialist approaches to justice while espousing the liberal principle of the moral parity of persons. The global contractarian response is that the nature of being born into one state rather than another is similar to other arbitrary features at the birth of an individual such as class, color, economic status, and sex. These are contingent facts and exclusion from political consideration cannot be normatively justified with reference to them. By taking the individual as the primary unit of concern, contingent facts of state membership are overcome. This normative cosmopolitan claim in conjunction with the earlier stated practical claims of a global system of cooperation are what give the idea of global contractarian justice its force. On Rawls’ theory, treaties and obligations must be satisfied but this could in fact reinforce power of corrupt and illegitimate states allowing international resource and borrowing privileges. The concept of global justice breaks down the traditional separation of intra-national and international relations and extends institutional moral analysis to the whole field, thereby drawing attention to the causal role the design of international orders play in creating poor conditions for a vast number of people in the world and pondering whether there are feasible alternatives that are more just and equitable. Beitz and Pogge stand in agreement that a global contract would result in a thick conception of global redistributive justice aimed at elevating the position of the globally worst off. More stringent than the duty of assistance, life sustaining and cultivating resources would be treated not as belonging exclusively or without qualification to the nation in which they reside. Rather they are open to claims of equitable global redistribution. As a precursor to his later works on global justice, Pogge concludes that in the global contract a broad conception of human rights would emanate. These would include both first- and second-generation rights. First-generation rights are associated with negative laws aimed against interference with liberty. Second-generation rights are associated with positive entitlements to economic, physical, and social well-being, and Pogge argues that they would be favored as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Global contractarian justice is criticized both from theorists within and outside of the social contract tradition. Critiquing global justice from within the tradition, Thomas Nagel aligns with the Hobbesian concept that sovereignty is an enabling condition of justice. It follows from this that without a global sovereign, global justice cannot be attained. Nagel’s argument takes root in

Global Democracy

considering the unique nature of the relationship between citizen and state as a matter not only of cooperation but of coercion. Without the coercive mechanisms of enforceable law, conduct cannot be legislated in the way that the social contract attempts to justify. Other theorists critique the whole of the social contract, whether national, international, or global. Martha Nussbaum is one such theorist. Nussbaum argues that the view of human beings as free, equal, and independent in the initial coming together to form society is fundamentally flawed. This notion is descriptively inaccurate because it does not account for the relevant facts that human beings are needy, and depend upon care. As such, caregivers are also a normal part of social cooperation that the contract cannot account for. The conclusion that Nussbaum draws is that global justice cannot be thought of in terms of a contract for mutual advantage but should rather be looked at in terms of human flourishing through the capabilities approach. For economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, the social contract falls short of securing the justice that it seeks to attain by concentrating on ideal institutional arrangements. Sen argues that no one ideal theory predicated on nonarbitrary reasoning will emerge in the original position as Rawls and his contemporaries presume. This is the case because a plurality of such theories exist – utilitarian, libertarian, and contractarian among others – all of which are plausibly acceptable ideals. Even if agreement could be reached relating to ideal institutional arrangements, this ideal would not be useful in assessing options that are actually open and available. As such, Sen suggests a comparative social choice approach to global justice over all contractarian approaches. In conclusion, though global contractarian justice faces serious theoretical challenges, it serves as a thought mechanism that extends the sphere of justice beyond the tenuous borders of the state and into the global realm. We live in a world of inextricably complex global influences and interdependencies. Often these relationships lead to avoidable consequences of severe poverty and the depletion of global public goods such as our shared environment. A framework for evaluating and ascribing the moral and practical worth of political institutions in terms of their global effects – as global contractarian justice does – is invaluable to the process of justice.

Related Topics

▶ Beitz, Charles ▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Rights ▶ Consensus/Justification

G

▶ Contractarianism ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Equality ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Governance ▶ Justice and Reciprocity: Local and Global ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism ▶ Political Legitimacy ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Social Contract ▶ World Citizenship

References Beitz C (1975) Justice and international relations. Philos Public Aff 4: 360–389 Chatterjee D (2009) The conflicting loyalties of statism and globalism: can global democracy resolve the liberal conundrum? Metaphilosophy 40:65–76 Nagel T (2005) The problem of global justice. Philos Public Aff 2:113–147 Nussbaum M (2008) Constitutions and capabilities. In: Chatterjee D (ed) Democracy in a global world: human rights and political participation in the 21st century. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, pp 187–199 Pogge T (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

Global Democracy RAFFAELE MARCHETTI Department of History and Political Science, Luiss University, Rome, Italy

To the extent that decisions are produced at the global level, democracy too has to be global: this is the fundamental message of the project of global democracy. It also entails that democracy needs to be ultimately global because the jurisdictional boundaries cannot be legitimately delineated without an all-inclusive, thus global, political system. The ideal of democracy requires in fact the creation of a system in which all citizens have a voice in the formulation of norms and decisions that have a public scope. In particular, in the current context of global interdependence, such an ideal requires a system to be

399

G

400

G

Global Democracy

framed on different layers, each of them allowing for the maximum participation of all citizens. By contrast, a system that allows for public actions that do not undergo citizens’ political scrutiny and yet have a public impact does not qualify as democratic. The global democracy stance reads the current situation at the international and transnational level as undemocratic. Vast sections of the world’s population have, according to this position, no say in transborder decisions that (often severely) affect their lives. From a global democratic perspective, this lack of voice is not acceptable, and it is just this kind of institutional discrimination that the project of global democracy challenges. The discussion of global democracy is thus focused on the crucial pathology of political exclusion. Transnational exclusion occurs when an actor is deprived of his or her entitlements to influence public decisions at the international and global level. As a response to the current international political fragmentation, which generates political exclusion, the alternative political project formulated by the project of global democracy envisages a cosmopolitan system in which all world citizens are included within a participatory scheme under an overarching authority that governs the democratization of world affairs. The pursuit of the democratic ideal in terms of scope is thus implemented in this proposal through a reworked notion of citizenship as global and multilayered. In essence, this entails an expansion of the domestic model of democracy to the transnational level, structured on several layers that take into account different jurisdictional boundaries as coordinated through a global system. Only through the radical project of stretching the paradigm of democratic inclusion to encompass the whole of humankind, together with recognizing the legitimacy of multiple political allegiances, can the inhuman mechanism of partial inclusion as exclusion generator be avoided. If the phenomenon of illegitimate political exclusion is to be avoided, global democrats argue, the authority to define jurisdictional boundaries needs to be reallocated from groups with a circumscribed scope to a public democratic mechanism which is global in kind. Ultimately, the quest for global democracy refers to the original meaning of democracy interpreted in a cosmopolitan way. The ideal model of cosmopolitanism is centered on the primacy of the political bond. The model makes primary reference to individuals as key actors in the political system. Public institutions are foreseen as universal tools to allow for a fair political life beyond the limitations of a state-based system. Within the political and economic context of globalization characterized by a high degree of political exclusion, the proposal

for global democracy offers a reformist vision based on cosmopolitan, social-democratic, and liberal values that aims to democratize the system of globalization without altering its fundamentals. Cosmopolitanism is a theory of justice according to which the scope (not only the form) of justice is taken to be universal as no discrimination is justified when considering the ultimate entitlement of every citizen to control his or her destiny. Individuals are entitled to rights (and allocated duties) that have an ultimately universalistic nature, that is, they are transcultural and valid in any political and social context because individuals are considered to be ultimately world citizens. Humanity is thus considered as a single and pluralistic ethical community – cosmopolis (cosmos: universe; polis: city) – or as belonging to a single polity. This means that the coexistence of global and national/local principles of political justice is possible, provided a global top-down ordering is established, that is, national jurisdictions are drawn by an overarching authority, and national boundaries remain secondary when issues of global justice arise. In particular, cosmopolitanism is an ideal model of global politics based on a number of distinct principles, including globalism, universalism, participation, and procedural fairness. Globalism affirms the necessity of having an all-inclusive view that encompasses the entire humanity. Universalism states that fundamental characteristics of human beings do not vary according to country of birth, and thus universal values apply to each individual worldwide. Participation maintains that individuals have a political right to take part in public life in all spheres that affect them; they are thus entitled to transnational citizenship. Procedural fairness holds that political life has to be shaped according to a formal rather than substantial principle of justice. Two major positions on the normative principles underpinning different models of global democracy can be identified: stakeholder democracy and all-inclusive democracy. The model of stakeholder democracy affirms that all agents holding a relevant stake as members of a specific social interaction are entitled to participate in the political decision making. This would envisage a number of interlinked and possibly overlapping communities that would stretch across borders and be organized democratically. Underpinning this model is the all-affected principle for drawing jurisdictional boundaries, which is upheld most in the current debate on global democracy. This principle is based on a notion of interaction-dependent justice according to which only those who are affected by a decision (the impactees) should be entitled to have a say in it. Regardless of territorial boundaries, this principle

Global Democracy

entails the application of the rule of political participation on different constituencies, be they local, national, or transnational. Contrary to the stakeholder democracy model, the model of inclusive democracy grants political power within the decision-making and frame-setting processes of public rules to all citizens of the world, regardless of whether or not they are directly affected by a determined set of actions or are part of specific political associations. In contrast to stakeholdership, the all-inclusive principle holds that it is the collectivity in its entirety that has to decide and to draw jurisdictional boundaries and subunits, for this is an exercise that cannot but be public if exclusion is to be escaped. In response to the global democratic deficit characterized by transnational exclusion, this proposal insists on a concentration on legal entitlements to enfranchisement and political participation, embedded in an appropriately framed system of multilayered political accountability in which individuals are empowered to realize their freedom of choice. Finally, with regard to the problem of jurisdictions, this position envisages an all-inclusive political authority entitled to draw the jurisdictional boundaries from the top of the would-be jurisdictional scale. A main option for institutional design for global democracy consists in nongovernmental solutions according to which new representative forms are developed which transcend the traditional statist/governmental boundaries. The overall challenge is here to give voice to the relevant stakeholders or to global public opinion, independently from the single national perspectives shaped by national interests. First, an institutional design consistent with this stakeholders’ perspective consists in envisaging different political fora or bodies in which relevant interests can be transnationally and directly represented by the actors at stake. Solutions along this line include the creation of global deliberative exercises, multinational civil and criminal juries, or public opinion mechanisms for transnational accountability. Second, a different option is presented by the idea of random citizens’ participation according to which new bodies should be envisaged in which randomly selected citizens would have a voice to express their consent or dissent. A third popular option is the alternative most incisively expressed by social movements and grassroots organizations in terms of transnational networking from below. According to this, democracy should first and foremost be enacted locally through a participatory process. Only subsequently can thin structures of transnational, people-to-people coordination be foreseen beyond the traditional intergovernmental organizations.

G

The system deriving from the nongovernmental perspective tends to be a decentralized governance structure characterized by multiple decision-making centers and diffuse authority, in which only those agents who are part of a given sociopolitical interaction are entitled to join in the decision-making process. Being issue oriented, such governance arrangements would entitle to political voice only those agents who directly interact on a given issue area. This characteristic is evident in the project of cosmopolitan global governance. These nongovernmental proposals deserve attention because they provide possibly the most feasible short-term reform of international decision making in terms of global democratization. Experiments in this direction are already carried out in several international organizations with public hearings and consultations, so much so that civil society actors are already considered as political actors able to influence decisions at the global level. World integration constitutes the second key institutional option of the project of global democracy and is the most clear-cut alternative to both intergovernmental and nongovernmental modes of decision making. In this case, states would renounce part of their sovereignty by delegating power to a superior institution in charge of both addressing global issues and allocating competences on the sublevels. A first option is constituted by the creation of a world state composed of a world government, a world parliament, a world supreme court, and a global constitution. This would have the form of a unitary state justified alternatively on the universality of human rights or on the universality of certain threats to world peace and welfare. A second more complex alternative consists in the idea of world federalism, or “cosmo-federalism,” in which all the institutional elements of the previous world state would be kept but significantly associated with a number of other institutional sublayers with relative autonomy. This institutional design would give voice to different actors, including significantly all individuals, independently from their national membership, thus effectively realizing the ideal of inclusive democracy. According to this latter perspective, if reformed, a key international organization such as the United Nations would be a global federal organization in which individuals and states would share power for specific global purposes under a system of strengthened international law. Consequently, states would renounce a portion of their sovereignty and agree to a compulsory jurisdiction intended solely for a determined list of competences on global issues (typically, nonterritorial or territorially intermingled issues), while retaining those powers and specific institutional forms directed at domestic concerns.

401

G

402

G

Global Democracy Deficit

As a guarantee of lower (i.e., local, national, or regional) prerogatives, the “subsidiarity check” would be envisaged, according to this, lower parliaments would be allowed to ask for reconsideration of any decision taken by an upper institutional level if they could reasonably claim the issue at stake could more effectively be ruled by them. Individuals would acquire a full cosmopolitan citizenship while remaining national citizens within a consistent scheme of multiple democratic allegiances. They would be enfranchised as voting constituents for an elected legislative world assembly with an authoritative mandate representing general as well as special interests restricted to global issues. National minorities could at last acquire their legitimate political weight in that their nationally marginal votes would be aggregated at the global level. Finally, since global agents would be recognized as vulnerable and responsible, they would also be protected from and punished for global crimes, according to an appropriate multilayered and multiagents scheme of sanctions.

Related Topics

▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Global Federalism ▶ Global Public ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Ubuntu ▶ World Citizenship ▶ World Government

References Anderson J (ed) (2002) Transnational democracy: political spaces and border crossing. Routledge, London Archibugi D, Koenig-Archibugi M, Marchetti R (eds) (2011) Global democracy: normative and empirical perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Chatterjee D (ed) (2007) Democracy in a global world: human rights and political participation in the 21st Century. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Holden B (ed) (2000) Global democracy: key debates. Routledge, London Jacobs D (2007) Global democracy: the 21st century’s civil rights struggle. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville Kuper A (2004) Democracy beyond borders. Oxford University Press, Oxford Langlois AJ, Soltan KE (eds) (2008) Global democracy and its difficulties. Routledge, London Macdonald T (2008) Global stakeholder democracy: power and representation beyond liberal states. Oxford University Press, Oxford Marchetti R (2008) Global democracy: for and against. ethical theory, institutional design, and social struggles. Routledge, London/ New York

Global Democracy Deficit ▶ Consensus/Justification ▶ Global Democracy

Global Difference Principle MARK C. NAVIN Department of Philosophy, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

The difference principle is part of one of John Rawls’s principles of justice for domestic society. It requires that inequalities (e.g., of wealth or income) that arise from social cooperation be to the advantage of the worst off members of society. A global difference principle is an application of the difference principle to the institutions and practices of international society. Various political philosophers have advocated a global difference principle. Their proposals have received significant critical attention only very recently. The difference principle states that inequalities in the distribution of social goods like wealth and income are morally permissible as long as they are to the advantage of the worst off. The main idea is that relative disadvantages are just when they provide absolute advantages to those who are relatively disadvantaged. Importantly, Rawls limits the scope of the difference principle by two other principles of justice: (1) Equality of the basic liberties and (2) Fair equality of opportunity. Even if we could increase the holdings of the worst off by implementing inequalities of the basic liberties or by undermining fair equality of opportunity, it would be unjust to do so. Advocates of a global difference principle make at least one of two main arguments. First, they argue that the institutions of international society are analogous to the institutions of domestic society in those respects that are relevant to the justification of the difference principle. According to this argument, the set of international political and social institutions (or the global basic structure) has effects that are as pervasive and powerful as the effects of domestic political and social institutions. Therefore, a global difference principle is needed in order to ensure that the global basic structure operates fairly, just as a domestic difference principle is needed in order to ensure that the domestic basic structure operates fairly. Second, some advocates of a global difference principle

Global Difference Principle

make a more direct appeal to the cosmopolitan spirit of liberal justice. They argue that the difference principle is a requirement of liberal justice, that liberal justice necessarily has global scope (given its cosmopolitan commitments to individuals rather than to social groups), and that, therefore, the global difference principle is a requirement of liberal justice. Importantly, this defense of a global difference principle need not appeal to analogies between domestic and international society. There are at least four ways to interpret the requirements of a global difference principle. First, a global difference principle may require international wealth transfers aimed at improving the holdings of poorer societies. On this view, the global difference principle requires an expansion of international development assistance. Second, a global difference principle may require international institutions – like the World Trade Organization or the World Bank – to prioritize the interests of poorer societies. Such efforts may be contiguous with broader efforts to democratize global institutions. Third, the implementation of a global difference principle may require taxation upon international trade or upon the extraction of natural resources. Finally, a global difference principle may require societies to prioritize the interests of the world’s worst off when making decisions about domestic policy (e.g., subsidization of domestic agricultural industries). Proponents of a global difference principle has met with substantial criticism. One body of criticism has focused on feasibility issues, including worries about the compatibility of the global difference principle with the domestic difference principle. It may not be possible to maximize the holdings of the world’s worst off while also maximizing the holdings of the worst off within each society. For example, a society may be able to increase the holdings of the world’s worst off only by redirecting funds from domestic assistance programs to foreign aid. One potential solution to the (supposed) conflict between domestic and global difference principles is to separate the domains of the two principles. According to such a view, domestic institutions ought to be regulated by a domestic difference principle, while international institutions ought to be regulated by a global difference principle. Delimiting the domain of the global difference principle may motivate a response to another objection. Some have worried that the global difference principle cannot be a part of background procedural justice – as is the domestic difference principle – but that it must guide the everyday decisions of moral agents (e.g., societies). For example, the global difference principle may seem to require individual societies to give priority to the world’s

G

worst off when negotiating trade agreements. If this were the case, the global difference principle would be radically dissimilar from the domestic difference principle, since it would not focus on background institutions, but on the foreground choices of individual moral agents. However, if the domain of the global difference principle is limited to international institutions, individual societies need not prioritize the interests of the world’s worst off in their everyday decisions. In this way, the global difference principle could remain a principle of background institutional justice. Some philosophers have suggested that a version of the global difference principle that was limited to international institutions would fail to alleviate much international inequality. This is because most international inequality is a result of domestic political and economic activity, activity which occurs outside the domain of the (limited) authority of international institutions. Advocates of a global difference principle have responded to this worry in two ways. Some accept that a global difference principle may not effectively regulate much current international inequality, but they claim that, in the future, the reach of the global difference principle will expand in tandem with the expanding authority of global institutions. Others have argued that societies have a duty of justice to create powerful and centrally coordinated international institutions. On their view, we ought to build the institutions of a global basic structure, in order to provide a suitable subject for the global difference principle. Another body of criticism of the global difference principle focuses on the justification for that principle. Rawls conceived of the difference principle as part of his commitment to relations of equal citizenship among members of liberal democratic societies. The difference principle responds to the worry that economic inequalities may undermine citizens’ self-respect as equal members of society. However, it is not obvious that we ought to conceive of international society as a liberal democratic society. Furthermore, even if international institutional arrangements were analogous to the institutional relations of domestic society, it is not clear whether international economic inequalities would undermine the fairness of international political processes, nor is it clear whether such inequalities would undermine the self-respect of those persons and societies that are relatively disadvantaged from an international point of view.

Related Topics

▶ Fair Equality of Opportunity ▶ Global Basic Structure

403

G

404

G

Global Distributive Justice

▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Taxation ▶ Rawls, John

References Beitz C (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Brock G (2005) The difference principle, equality of opportunity, and cosmopolitan justice. J Moral Philos 2(3):333–351 Freeman S (2007) Justice and the social contract. Oxford University Press, Cambridge Pogge T (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Tan KC (2004) Justice without borders. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Global Distributive Justice MICHAEL BOYLAN Department of Philosophy, Marymount University, Arlington, VA, USA

In order to get a handle on global distributive justice, one first has to separate off just what distributive justice is and then how this is acted out and justified on a global stage. To begin, let us separate out other senses of justice that this entry will not address. First is global retributive justice. This sort of justice is a paying back for some previous real or perceived wrong committed against some state or the peoples living within that state. Second is some sense of political correctness sometimes connected with spreading an ideology or political system. Instead of these legitimate senses of justice, this entry will address methods of distributing goods and services among the peoples of the world.

Theories of Distributive Justice There are five principal theories of distributive justice that answer the question of how to distribute goods and services to people living around the world: (a) kraterism, (b) capitalism, (c) socialism, (d) egalitarianism, and (e) aristocratic distributions. These may be further defined according to their distribution formulae. Kraterism prescribes “to each according to his ability to snatch it for himself,” capitalism advocates “to each according to his valued work,” socialism, “to each according to her need,” egalitarianism “to each with equal regard,” and aristocracy “to each according to her inherited station.” Around the world, kraterism is by far the most practiced

theory of global distributive justice. It is also known as “might makes right.” By itself, kraterism is the enemy of ethics and social/political philosophy. Kraterism often piggybacks onto capitalism because both of these theories advocate a competitive distribution scheme whereby the preferred goods in a given society or region of the world go to those who can win them over or bend/break the rules without getting caught by someone with enough power to punish. The competitive theories are not as good at providing basic goods to everyone, but they can promote high productivity and a rising GDP (though the distribution of this wealth is highly concentrated among the powerful). Socialism and egalitarianism are cooperative theories. They provide more basic goods to a greater number of people, but because they do not reward the powerful, these theories are not generally adopted in poorer countries or those ruled by dictators or oligarchs. This is because the cooperative theories generally do not produce as robust GNP numbers as the competitive theories do. Aristocracy is a swing theory. It can reinforce competitive models (by referring to the skills that build the fortune in the first place) or it can beckon to a certain noblesse oblige and a cooperative giving. Also, aristocratic models can provide a cultural and historical bridge to the past that is often nurturing to social institutions.

Terminal Objective for Global Distributive Justice One common goal in global distributive justice is to provide for the rights claims for basic goods of life. These are the goods that allow a person to live. Living means being able to act in the world. Acting requires a few prerequisites. First, if we do not have the biological necessities of life, then we die. If we die, then we cannot act. So at the very minimum, we need the biological necessities of life. These can be debated, but this author puts them at: food (and clean water/sanitation), clothing, shelter, and protection from unwarranted bodily harm (physical harm from human and animal onslaughts and physical harm from microbes in the form of disease and basic healthcare). These are the very minimum. These keep you alive – and yet, in the world today, they are elusive to millions.

Solutions for Fulfilling the Terminal Objectives 1. Intuitionism. Most texts on international justice and ethics create scenarios that appeal to the reader’s intuitive response. Thought experiments are presented that are meant to appeal to these intuitions. For example, take the famous Shallow Pond thought experiment of Peter Singer. In the thought experiment,

Global Distributive Justice

Singer says that if one is walking by a shallow pond and sees a toddler drowning in it, one ought to jump in and rescue the child, even if it means getting one’s clothes wet. This is because getting one’s clothes wet is insignificant compared to the death of the child, which would be a very bad thing (Singer 1972). The example is one that virtually all readers would agree with. Then Singer applies this to our relation to those in need – especially (in this case) to the people dying in East Bengal in 1971. Just as we all should save the child, we should also contribute money to save these people and others in a similar situation. However, some have quarreled about how close this analogy really is to helping people in a distant land. Is the application exact to the dynamics that exist when we think about helping others in distant lands? Building on Singer’s Shallow Pond, Peter Unger (1996) constructs various other thought experiments that capture more specifics that Singer’s analogy does not, e.g., the remoteness of other peoples, the extent of the obligation, etc. The advantage of intuitionism to base one’s obligation is that this is the easiest moral theory to grasp and apply. The disadvantage is that the methods of stirring public awareness – thought experiments, television and Internet advertisements, etc. – are susceptible to various interpretations and possibly place the audience in the position of being convinced by emotional scenes and situations, not unlike the tools of advertising. For detractors of intuitionism, this is a substantial drawback since the tools of advertising can be employed to sell anything. Perhaps it is important to have logical arguments that are not so conveniently pliable. Other detractors (such as Garrett Hardin (1974)) believe that, in the tradition of Malthus (1798), the problem is too vast and to attempt real aid to targeted groups will bring everyone down. 2. Contractarianism. This form of justification for social/ political theory seems to be strongest within a nation rather than in the international sphere. There have been many political theorists who have postulated a social contract between citizens and the state to which they belong. One modern practitioner of this, John Rawls (1999), tried to extend his contract situation (the original position) to the international sphere. Rawls claims that national law making requires an original position imposing five essential features: (a) the original position models the parties as representing citizens fairly; (b) it models them as rational; (c) it models them as selecting from among available principles of justice those to apply to the appropriate subject, in this case the basic structure;

G

(d) the parties are modeled as making these selections for appropriate reasons; and (e) the parties select reasons related to the fundamental interests of citizens as reasonable and rational (Rawls, 30–31). International law making requires an original position imposing three additional points: (a) parties are situated symmetrically and thus fairly; (b) parties are rational and guided by fundamental interests of democratic society; and (c) subject to a veil of ignorance properly adjusted for international terms (Rawls, 32). The process that liberal peoples engage in when making international law should contain the two original positions. Certainly, the results that Rawls claims from his second original position are fine principles. Proponents will point to these progressive points for future progress on the planet. Detractors will point to the great reliance upon institutional structures in justifying and administrating Rawls’s account. Since institutional structures in the world today are weak, at best, this may be a drawback to his account. Rawls seems to require a robust United Nations with sovereign authority to overcome such objections. 3. Utilitarianism. Another key contender for justifying principles that would support progressive policies for international social and political justice comes from utilitarianism. The most ardent proponents of this approach are those who view the problem economically. Utilitarianism is easily adaptable to free market and socialist based capitalism. Thus, the proponents of economic globalization as the mechanism to lift the many out of poverty and link the nations of the world in self-interested interdependence point to utilitarianism as their model of choice. The arguments for and against globalization are many and various. Proponents point to metaphors that extend Mandeville’s Beehive into the world, itself! If every nation works toward its own economic self-interest and the result (like the bees) is a thriving hive, then what could be better? The idea has captured the imagination of many (e.g., Thomas Friedman’s best selling trade book, The world is flat). In the book, Friedman develops a sense of connectedness that goes beyond economic globalization as it incorporates the new media for communication and connection. All of these features make many hopeful about a justification of global justice. Detractors will point to the global recession that began in 2008 and is still gaining momentum at the writing of this volume. In good times, people might be friends, but bad times often bring out the worst in us all.

405

G

406

G

Global Egalitarianism

Then there are the detractors who point to those who are not sharing in the economic good times as potential terrorists who will disrupt the world. Finally, there are detractors who believe that governments rather than businesses should be leading the way in global justice since businesses have profit as their raison d’eˆtre. 4. Capability. Amartya Sen (1992) and Martha Nussbaum have been advocating another sort of justification for global justice. It is one based upon the Aristotelian idea of actualizing one’s potentiality as a human. Proponents of this approach point to its re-definition of the processes’ goal: from providing a market basket of goods to enabling a state of being (along the lines of Aristotle’s eudaimonia or contentedness). Detractors say that it really begs the question. They say that everyone wants the same end product, but the question is how do you get there? The answer that Sen gives (education, food, clothing, equal rights for women, etc.) hearkens back to the market basket approach. 5. Moral Agency and the Table of Embeddedness. This transitions to the final justification in this general presentation. It is the justification that this writer endorses. It begins with the individual wherever she may live in the world. What can she justifiably claim for herself such that everyone else incurs an obligation to provide it to her? What do humans want to do most qua humans? Answer: to commit purposive action. This would amount to something akin to identifying human nature. Thus, the project for global distributive action is to first give everyone in the world those biologically necessary goods of agency that allow action (food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter, protection from unwarranted bodily harm, and basic healthcare). The listing of these goods in a hierarchical ordering I call the table of embeddedness. Because we can all legitimately claim those goods necessary for minimal action (because that is our nature), everyone on earth has a legitimate rights claim to these goods and others individually and collectively have a duty to provide them. In cases of conflict between claims for different goods, the agent’s (or group’s) claim to the more embedded trumps the claim to the less embedded. This would cause a realignment of income in most societies and between societies when applied to the whole world. Advocates of this position are those who think that there should not be such a large gap between the “haves” and “have nots.” Detractors would be those who think that whatever one acquires according to rules of his society are his to use as he wants to regardless of what others have.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Needs ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Economic Rights ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Human Rights ▶ Moral Reasoning ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Primary Goods ▶ Rights

References Boylan M (2004) A just society. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD/Oxford Boylan M (2011a) Morality and global justice. Westview, Boulder Boylan M (ed) (2011b) The morality and global justice reader. Westview, Boulder Friedman T (2007) The world is flat. Picador, New York Hardin G (1974) Lifeboat ethics: the case against helping the poor. Psychol Today 38: 40–43, 123–124, 126 Malthus T (1798) An essay on the principles of population. J Johnson, London Mandeville B (1924) [1714; report]. The fable of the bees, ed. Kaye FB. The Liberty Fund, London Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Sen A (1992) Inequality reexamined. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Singer P (1972) Famine, affluence, and morality. Philos Public Aff 1(3):229–243 Unger P (1996) Living high and letting die. Oxford University Press, New York

Global Egalitarianism BRUCE M. LANDESMAN Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

The core claim of Global Egalitarianism is that social justice demands equality of well-being for all human beings on the planet. This claim, as stated, is literally too strong and too simple to capture accurately the more complex claims of the global egalitarian. But it provides the right intuitive starting point for further discussion and clarification.

Global Egalitarianism

Global Egalitarianism is often called Cosmopolitanism. It needs to be distinguished from two other main views. In supporting equality worldwide, Cosmopolitanism diminishes the importance of the nation-state as the prime arena to which social justice applies. Justice applies to relations among nations and people across the whole world. A second view holds that justice demands equality within the bounds of a society or nation-state, but denies that equality is a demand of justice among societies or nations or among people generally. We can call this Social Egalitarianism. It supports equality “domestically,” but not globally. It thus gives special importance to the nation-state as a context for justice, an importance that Global Egalitarianism or Cosmopolitanism rejects. Opposed to both of these ideas is the view that rejects equality either domestically or globally. We can call this, for short, Non-Egalitarianism. It is much more representative of “conventional” thinking than either egalitarian view. The aim of this entry will be to explain these three views and make clear the arguments that differentiate them. To do this it will be helpful to explain three fundamental matters: 1. The difference between internal (domestic) and global justice 2. The difference in general between egalitarian and non-egalitarian views of justice 3. Finally, the dispute between cosmopolitanism and social egalitarianism Being clear on these differences will put us in a good position to understand and evaluate the arguments both for and against global egalitarianism.

Domestic and Global Justice Social justice is concerned with the distribution of important goods among human beings, such things as wealth, rights, opportunities, status, and power. It is natural to think first about the distribution of such goods among the members of the same society, citizens of the same nationstate. To do this is to engage in reflection on what call internal or “domestic” justice. But we can also consider the distribution of important goods more widely, between nations and human beings in general. In going beyond a single society, we have then advanced beyond domestic justice to global justice. Modern discussions of social justice among philosophers and political theorists owe much of their motivation to two books published in the 1970s: A Theory of Justice (1971), by John Rawls, and Anarchy, State and Utopia

G

407

(1974), by Robert Nozick. Both of these dealt with justice within a state, domestic justice. Rawls defends a form of welfare liberalism, Nozick a type of Libertarianism that emphasizes the free market and a minimal state. In the last 20 years, the intense development of globalization and a dramatic rise in global violence have moved philosophers to extend their concern about justice, from justice within a society to justice on a global scale.

Egalitarianism and Non-Egalitarianism The word “equality” can be used in different ways and can be applied to many different things. We can talk about equality of material resources, possessions, and wealth; of happiness and satisfaction; of rights of all sorts; of opportunities, of status, and power; and more. What sort of equality does an egalitarian endorse? What sort of equality does an opponent of egalitarianism reject? There is much agreement in a liberal society among egalitarians and non-egalitarians that the state should treat people with equal concern and respect. It should avoid discrimination on the basis of race, sex, ethnic status, etc. It should uphold the rule of law so that some are not exempt from the law because they are rich or famous. There is also agreement that people should have equal rights and equal opportunity to develop their talents, although there is disagreement about just what rights people should have and how best to understand equal opportunity. These ideas are best understood as resting on the deeper idea that as Martha Nussbaum put it recently, all human beings are equal bearers of human dignity. Put in a slightly different way, while people may differ in their abilities and talents, they are equal in their inherent worth or intrinsic value. This underlies assertions like the following: "

You may be richer than me, smarter than me, more talented and famous than me, etc. but I am just as good as you are as a human being. My life has just the same value and importance as yours.

We can call this moral equality. How then do egalitarians disagree with non-egalitarians? The most important disagreement is about the distribution of economic goods – money, wealth, income. Egalitarians do not demand strict economic equality, but they are eager to limit inequality and allow it only for certain sorts of reasons. To understand this, it is best to understand the different ways inequality is held to be justified. The most radical rejection of equality comes from Libertarians. Libertarians believe that the most important, perhaps the only, social value is liberty. They thus endorse

G

408

G

Global Egalitarianism

a minimal government which protects people from injury, force, theft, and fraud, but otherwise stays out of the way as people interact with one another. They emphasize the liberty that is expressed in market transactions – the voluntary exchange of goods, services, and labor. Being able to do what you want with what you have earned through voluntary exchange is a fundamental value for libertarians. This ability is violated when income is taxed away to help others. Libertarianism’s view of equality is best described by a famous analogy of a poker game given by Robert Nozick. At the beginning of an evening, a group of people all have the same amount of money. They play a fair game over several hours. What is the right distribution of money at the end of the evening? The answer is clear – the right distribution is whatever distribution happens to result from the play, no matter how equal or unequal it is. Libertarians see society similarly. Assure people liberty, let them use it as they will, including exchanging products and labor in a free market, and so long as they do not injure, defraud, or steal, the distribution is just even if it is highly unequal. To think that such inequality needs remedy by transfers of aid from the rich to the poor is not justice, but, according to libertarians like Nozick, the paradigm of injustice. It violates liberty. It takes away people’s right to use the goods that they have come to have through their voluntary effort and uses those goods for the benefit of others. While there are libertarians who endorse this view with great zealousness, more typical justifications of inequality appeal to other considerations. One is the idea that people should get what they deserve. In particular, those who work harder or contribute more deserve more than those who work less hard or contribute less. Many desert theorists tend to hold that a minimally regulated free market tends to give people what they deserve. A second consideration is the idea that inequality can be very inefficient. Inequality provides incentives that move people to work hard to develop important skills. Inequality thus increases the social pie and makes everyone better-off. Equality would be equality of misery. A related view is based on utilitarianism which holds that the most just distribution is the one that maximizes total human happiness. The incentive effects of inequality are justified in that they maximize overall welfare. For these reasons, many utilitarians too reject equality. The most important response to these arguments is found in the work of John Rawls. He points out that people’s lot in life is deeply influenced by their starting points. They are born in social circumstances which may be highly favorable or unfavorable to developing rewarded

talents. They are also born with different innate abilities that make success much easier for some than others. Rawls argues that people cannot be said to deserve or be responsible for the contingencies of social circumstance or the accidents of natural endowment. He finds a distribution in proportion to these contingencies morally arbitrary. He thus rejects “desert” accounts of justice since our developed talents are largely a matter of good or bad fortune. Though considered an egalitarian, Rawls, however, does not embrace complete equality. He concedes that inequalities provide incentives. He ends up therefore with a view that allows inequalities, so long as they improve everyone’s prospects, especially the prospects of those in the worst off positions. Inequality is thus allowed, but as a matter of mutual benefit, not desert. And it should be limited to prevent widespread inequalities from diminishing the self-respect of those who are poor, and giving the well off excessive political influence. Another point, also inherent in Rawls’s theory, is the idea that a society is a scheme of social cooperation which produces benefits and requires burdens. Those who do well do so only because of the cooperation of those less well off. Thus the well off owe help to those less fortunate. We are under obligations of reciprocity towards fellow citizens to make sure that all are treated fairly by the operations of the economy. Rawls’s famous conclusion (the difference principle) is that inequalities are justified only so far as they can be used to ensure that those in the worst-off positions do as well as possible. Through arguments like these, egalitarians reject desert, libertarian, and utilitarian accounts of justice. Their “default” position is economic equality. They concede, however, that inequality can make everyone better off and thus some inequality is accepted so long as its benefits reach down to the least well off persons. Another, and more recent, version of egalitarianism, often called Luck Egalitarianism, starts out from the idea that inequalities based on matters over which a person has no control are unjust. It thus requires help for those born in deprived circumstances or with few rewardable talents. It holds, however, that responsibility also matters. When people have the same opportunities and potential talents and some make use of them do well while others choose not to do so, the equality that results is acceptable. In sum, inequalities based on luck are unjust, but those based on responsible choice are justified. To sum up, egalitarians allow some economic inequality on the basis of economic efficiency or responsibility, but reject inequalities justified by desert, economic liberty or utility. An egalitarian need not demand complete

Global Egalitarianism

equality. But she must reject certain justifications for it, make it work for the worst off, and limit it.

Social Egalitarianism and Cosmopolitanism If one rejects egalitarianism on domestic matters, one will reject it globally as well. If one think that the rich in one’s society own little to one’s own poor, one is likely to hold the same for the poor in foreign places. A global egalitarian, or Cosmopolitan, on the other hand, believes that what holds domestically also holds globally. All humans are equal, and all therefore should have a secure set of liberal human rights plus equal access to the material means needed to lead a good life. As noted at the beginning, not all Domestic Egalitarians are Cosmopolitans. Some egalitarians hold that equality is demanded only within a society but does not extend to members of other societies. Many such egalitarians believe that morality demands that all be able to escape dire poverty and lead minimally decent life. They see this, however, as a demand of Humanity, not a demand of Justice. Such Social Egalitarians aim for a minimally decent life for all, but are unbothered by equality among nations once that has been achieved. Social egalitarianism of this sort has been defended on a number of grounds. One appeals to reciprocity. Citizens of a nation-state are members of a cooperative scheme in which benefits are produced and burdens borne. Those who benefit have duties to fellow citizens to bring about a fair distribution of the benefits of their cooperation. They do not have such duties to those outside with whom they are not linked in a cooperative scheme. The appeal to reciprocity is often a corollary of the more general idea that we have obligations of justice only to those with whom we are connected in some kind of association. Social Egalitarians are thus drawn to what we can call an “Associationist” view of justice. We have duties of justice to others only to whom we are linked, but no such duties to others merely on grounds of their humanity. Another – and related – defense of the Social Egalitarian rests upon the idea that human beings have “special” obligations to family members, friends, colleagues, and those to whom they have made promises and contracts. Special obligations to particular people justify favoring their interests over the interests of others. Citizenship is held to be a special obligation like family or friendship. Another defense of Social Egalitarianism appeals to the sense of identity one feels to fellow nationals. As citizens of a state, we take responsibility for the harm and injustice it produces. We are shamed by our own state’s wrongdoing,

G

while the actions of other states have no similar affect on us. This, too, gives us special duties of justice to fellow citizens. Finally, it is often argued that the state has special normative significance since it has the power and authority to correct injustices in its own realm. It has a kind of “management” power within the national context. There are, however, no international institutions which such power or authority. Thus, states have special duties to their own citizens that they do not have to others. Cosmopolitans reject these arguments. Perhaps their strongest underlying premise is the moral arbitrariness of “geography.” One can claim no credit for being born into a rich country or one rich in resources; and one cannot be blamed for being born into a poor country or one without resources. It is simply a matter of good fortune to be born in the USA or France instead of Haiti or the Congo. To fare unequally because of such “undeserved” differences is to be the victim of a moral arbitrary distribution. Cosmopolitans tend to emphasize common humanity and endorse equality simply because we are humans. As such, they are Universalists, not associations. But many cosmopolitans also reject the idea that there are no obligations of reciprocity to noncitizens. We live in a deeply connected world in which what goes on in one country can deeply affect the citizens of others. There is a global economic structure that affects all of us and gives us obligations of reciprocity to noncitizens as well as citizens. Such cosmopolitans are also Associationists and differ with Social Egalitarians on the extent of international connectedness. Finally, cosmopolitans understand that there are no institutions similar to a government on the international scene. But many such institutions are developing and beginning to have the authority and power to affect economic development. Cosmopolitans do not tend to believe in a world government, but they believe that we are developing institutions that can have the sort of management power needed to bring about greater justice. Such institutions may not yet exist yet but they represent an aspiration. Justice demands that we promote the development of such institutions.

Conclusion Global Egalitarians or Cosmopolitans seek rough equality of well-being among all human beings. They do not find national boundary lines of significance in drawing the demands of justice. Social Egalitarians embrace equality domestically, but believe that the demands of justice (though not humanity) end at one’s borders. Nonegalitarians, of course, reject equality in either domains.

409

G

410

G

Global Equality of Opportunity

Related Topics

▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Impartiality Thesis ▶ Human Rights ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Nationalism ▶ Sovereignty ▶ Utilitarianism

References Beitz C (1999) Political theory and international relations, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton Brooks T (ed) (2008) The global justice reader. Blackwell, Oxford Caney S (2005) Justice beyond borders: a global political theory. Oxford University Press, New York Hart HLA (1955) Are there any natural rights? Philos Rev 64:175–191 Hume D (1751) An enquiry concerning the principles of morals. Section III, 1983. Hackett, Indianapolis Miller D (2005) Against global egalitarianism. J Ethics 9(1/2):55–79 Nagel T (2005) The problem of global justice. Philos Public Aff 33(2): 113–147 Nozick R (1974) Anarchy state and utopia. Basic Books, New York Nussbaum M (2000) Women and human development: the capabilities approach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Clarendon, Oxford Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge Shue H (1996) Basic rights, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton Tamir Y (1993) Liberal nationalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton Tan K-C (2004) Justice without borders: cosmopolitanism, nationalism and patriotism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Tan K-C (2008) A defense of luck egalitarianism. J Philos CV/11:665–690

opportunity, for instance, merely demands that competitions for favored social positions such as jobs should be open to all applicants. But this is compatible with members of one class or ethnicity being debarred, one way or another, from obtaining the necessary credentials. Fair equality of opportunity, Rawls’s own preferred version, holds that we should arrange “background conditions” so that each citizen, given the same talents and willingness to use them, should have the same chance of attaining any particular social position. This is much more demanding, and probably does demand a strongly egalitarian distribution of educational resources, for instance. Given its hold on us, it is not surprising that some advocates of global distributive justice – including Simon Caney and Darrel Moellendorf – have endorsed a global form of equality of opportunity. The argument appears rather straightforward: If it would be arbitrary and unfair for our ethnicity to influence our life-chances, then why should our nationality? After all, no one chooses to be born in Canada or Cameroon any more than anyone chooses to be born into one ethnic group or another. In an argument by extension, various cosmopolitans have therefore suggested that the argument for global equality of opportunity is just as strong as the argument for the domestic version. The argument is held to have profound implications: after all, if we are prepared to say that a child born in Mozambique should have the same chances of becoming a merchant banker as one born in Monaco, a great deal will have to change by way of educational provision as well as access to more basic resources such as nutrition.

Objections to the Principle

Global Equality of Opportunity CHRIS ARMSTRONG School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

The principle of equality of opportunity is a dearly held one, at least within liberal political thought. It suggests a world in which individuals’ efforts and ambitions are not thwarted by unfair disadvantages of class, gender, or ethnicity. Indeed to oppose equality of opportunity would, on the face of it, appear unpalatable. But just what does equality of opportunity mean, and what would it entail? Once we scratch beneath the surface, as John Rawls showed, we find a variety of different conceptions, each with their own implications. Formal equality of

Despite its apparent appeal, the principle of global equality of opportunity has been subjected to a number of criticisms. One subjects the argument by extension to scrutiny and suggests that it would not necessarily be just as arbitrary for our nationality to influence our lifechances as it would be for our ethnicity to influence them. For many, it seems plausible that our ethnicity or gender should not influence our life-chances because we did not choose them. But it might be that choice and responsibility are implicated in some of the decisions that nations make. For instance, if adult members of a democratic nation freely choose to follow one developmental path, would it be an unjust restriction on their future opportunities if they were obliged to meet the costs of that decision? Perhaps, then, national membership is not – or not always – an arbitrary feature in quite the way that ethnicity is, which we would always seek to insulate from the effects of distributions. Note that this criticism is

Global Ethic

not necessarily intended to reject the principle of global equality of opportunity, defenders of which may well have ready responses; rather the point is that the argument for the principle is somewhat incomplete. A second criticism revolves around the metric we should use for assessing global equality of opportunity. Strictly speaking this criticism does not count against the principle as an ideal, but does suggest that it would not be clear whether we had achieved it, or which global inequalities of opportunity were the most egregious. The criticism suggests that the value of equality of opportunity is readily comprehensible at the domestic level because citizens have at least a rough-and-ready sense of what the valuable opportunities are in life; as Rawls said, we have a sense of what the “valued social positions” are that we would like to have some kind of equal access to. But is this the case at the global level? What would be the most valued social positions in a cross-cultural context? Here we run into the problem that some communities may place great store by material reward, others by spiritual advancement, or that some communities might esteem holders of a given job whereas members of other communities might eschew them. But in fact defenders of the principle – and especially Moellendorf – did argue precisely for equal access to the very same positions. Defenders of global equality of opportunity have responded to the second criticism. Caney has reaffirmed that the criticisms leveled at global equality of opportunity relate to the difficulties of its implementation and not to the principle itself. He has also suggested that we should abandon the idea that the principle should stipulate equal access to the same social positions, and instead aim for equal opportunity to fill social positions of equal value in terms of the rewards attached to them. Critics of the principle will no doubt suggest that formidable difficulties of measurement would still apply to this new version, whereas its defenders will claim that such objections do not count against the ideal itself: They merely tell us that such a valuable principle requires careful work of us if we are to make progress toward its realization.

Related Topics

▶ Caney, Simon ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Moellendorf, Darrel ▶ Rawls, John

References Armstrong C (2010) National self-determination, global equality and moral arbitrariness. J Polit Philos 18:313–334

G

411

Boxill B (1987) Global equality of opportunity and national integrity. Soc Philos Policy 5:143–168 Caney S (2001) Cosmopolitan justice and equalizing opportunities. Metaphilosophy 32:113–134 Caney S (2007) Justice, borders and the cosmopolitan ideal: a response to two critics. J Glob Ethics 3:269–276 Miller D (2008) National responsibility and global justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford Moellendorf D (2002) Cosmopolitan justice. Westview, Boulder

Global Ethic GU¨NTHER GEBHARDT Global Ethic Foundation, Tu¨bingen, Germany

Origin The concept of a “Global Ethic” attempts to respond to the search for an ethical consensus for society, while at the same time offering a basis for understanding and cooperation among religions. This approach assumes that a set of shared ethical values and standards is indispensable for the cohesion of society and for global peace and justice in general and that such a universally shared (“global”) ethic can be rediscovered in the age-old ethical teachings of the world’s religions and also in traditions of humanistic philosophy and ethics. The Global Ethic Project attempts to translate this insight into the various fields of society by practice-oriented activities. The origins of the Global Ethic idea date back to the 1980s when the Swiss catholic theologian Hans Ku¨ng (born 1928) discovered that the world’s religions, while differing from each other in many aspects, such as doctrines and ritual, hold some human values, ethical standards, and guidelines for behavior in common. He became convinced that especially the religions, far too often sources and perpetrators of violence and injustice, have the common responsibility to contribute to peace and justice everywhere in the world and that they can do so by reassessing their common ethical basis and putting it into practice, in coalition with all people of good will. Furthermore, the awareness of their ethical commonalities would provide the religions themselves with a basis for dialogue and cooperation among each other and for the common good. In his book, Projekt Weltethos (1990; Global Responsibility, 1991), Hans Ku¨ng argued for the need of a Global Ethic on the basis of four affirmations: "

“No peace among the nations without peace among the religions”

G

412

G

Global Ethic

"

“No peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions”

"

“No dialogue among the religions without a consensus on shared ethical values, a Global Ethic”

"

“No new world order without a Global Ethic”

The Global Ethic Declaration Ku¨ng responded to the invitation by the Chicago based Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions to draft an interreligious consensus document, a Declaration Toward a Global Ethic in view of the Second Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1993. Scholars of different religions were consulted in the drafting process. At the “Parliament,” on September 4, 1993, more than 200 representatives of a broad variety of religions from all continents signed and thus adopted the Declaration, the first signatory being the Dalai Lama. The Declaration has become the charter of the Global Ethic Project. The “Declaration Toward a Global Ethic” (1993) (available in many languages on www.global-ethic.org) is the first document in history in which representatives of practically all religions publicly agree on a set of shared ethical values, norms, and attitudes. This ethic is based on two principles: First, humanity: “Every human being should be treated humanely,” according to his or her inalienable human dignity. Second, the “Golden Rule” of reciprocity and empathy: “What you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others.” The Chicago Declaration goes on by translating these two principles into four central areas of human life and puts forward four “irrevocable directives,” formulated as commitments that should guide and sustain a truly humane culture: 1. Commitment to a culture of nonviolence and respect for life 2. Commitment to a culture of solidarity and a just economic order 3. Commitment to a culture of tolerance and a life of truthfulness 4. Commitment to a culture of equal rights and partnership between men and women While first adopted by a congress of religious representatives, the “Declaration Toward a Global Ethic” is however not a strictly religious document but rather an ethical one. The ethical consensus the Declaration offers can be shared by both religious believers and “nonbelievers” and this broad horizon is a distinctive feature of the Global Ethic Project as a whole in the service of peace and justice. The Chicago Declaration is not a legal

document but rather a moral appeal. It affirms the indispensable role of Human Rights for achieving global justice and understands itself as a support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from the angle of ethics. There is no global peace without global justice, is a core conviction expressed in the Chicago Declaration, related to its “commitment to a culture of solidarity and a just economic order.” On the basis of a Global Ethic lies an outcry about a world marked by mass poverty, unemployment, exploitation, hunger, corruption, and need. The increasing gap between the poor and the rich, the powerful and the powerless is seen as a symptom of global injustice. The Declaration states clearly, “Not only individuals but especially unjust institutions and structures are responsible for these tragedies.” Consequently, the Global Ethic approach understands just behavior (and moral behavior in general) not only as a quality of the individual person but also of collective actors such as communities, business companies, religious communities, and nations. From the beginning, the Global Ethic Project, in its struggle for global justice, has put emphasis on the search for a just economic order. Many years before the global economic crises of 1997 and 2008/2009, the Chicago Declaration formulated unambiguously the link between global injustice and global economy. Only if globalization of the economy leads to more global justice it will be genuinely human: “If the plight of the poorest billions of humans on this planet is to be improved, the world economy must be structured more justly. Individual good deeds, and assistance projects, indispensable though they are, are insufficient. The participation of all states and the authority of international organizations are needed to build just economic institutions.” Based on the insight that all religions and cultures have developed ethical concern for solidarity and justice, the Global Ethic Declaration appeals to believers of all religions and nonbelievers alike, “We must utilize economic and political power for service to humanity instead of misusing it in ruthless battles for domination. We must develop a spirit of compassion with those who suffer, with special care for the children, the aged, the poor, the disabled, the refugees, and the lonely.” In his book, A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics (1997), Hans Ku¨ng proposes a middle path between an (often moralizing) ethic of conviction based on idealistic views about economics and a mere ethic of success of “real” economists for whom profit tends to sanctify all means. In Ku¨ng’s view, the only ethic that is of use for a just global economic order is an ethic of responsibility of realist economists with idealist horizons: “This new paradigm of a business ethic becomes concrete

Global Ethic

by testing business dealings . . . to see whether they violate higher goods or values, whether they are compatible with society, the environment and the future.” Assuming that the globalization of the economy requires also a globalization of ethics, the Global Ethic Project aims especially at increasing intercultural sensitivity and competency for all stakeholders in the globalized economy.

The Global Ethic Foundation The decisive step toward translating the Global Ethic Project into practice was done by the setting up of the Global Ethic Foundation in Tu¨bingen, Germany in 1995 by Count Karl Konrad von der Groeben, a retired German businessman (1918–2005). The foundation provides the project with an infrastructure and acts as its “executive body.” Its goals are intercultural and interreligious research, education, and encounter. Through its manifold activities it attempts to raise awareness for a Global Ethic. Sister foundations have been set up in Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Columbia, Mexico, and Brazil, but the network of contacts and the activities have in fact worldwide outreach. The Global Ethic Foundation (www.global-ethic.org) is however not a membership organization nor an advocacy body for single issues. Main areas of activities are politics, economics, education, and religions. More recently, natural sciences, sport, philosophy, and law have also become relevant for the Global Ethic Foundation. In the activities of the foundation, emphasis is laid on the search for a moral framework for the economy as a necessary element toward achieving global justice. At a symposium convened by the foundation in BadenBaden, Germany, in 2001, top leaders of transnational corporations discussed together with ethicists about global corporations and a global ethic. The most prominent contribution of the Global Ethic Project toward a just economic order so far has been the elaboration of the manifesto Global Economic Ethic – Consequences for Global Businesses (see full text and comments on www.globaleconomicethic.org). This document was written in 2009 by an expert group of economists, businesspeople, and ethicists convened by the Global Ethic Foundation. It has been signed by eminent personalities. Based on the principles of the Chicago Declaration Toward a Global Ethic, the manifesto aims at providing a guide to responsible corporate conduct and business activities by suggesting ethical principles for each individual that can be implemented universally. This appeal is directed not only to economic leaders, businesspeople, and investors, but offers a multistakeholder approach including all partners in economy worldwide. Thus it addresses itself also to the political

G

organizations and institutions which together bear an essential responsibility for the formation and application of such a global economic ethic. The manifesto explicitly calls for global justice: “A major goal of every social and economic system that aims at equal opportunity, distributive justice, and solidarity is to overcome hunger and ignorance, poverty and inequality, throughout the world. Self-help and outside help, subsidiarity and solidarity, private and public engagement – all these are two sides of the same coin. . . The basic goal of all such efforts is a true human development directed at the promotion of all those capabilities and resources that enable men and women to lead a life of self-determination in full human dignity.” The manifesto is understood as a support, from the ethical point of view, for all the current efforts to establish global ethical standards, in particular for the UN Global Compact (UNGC). It is aimed at practical implementation in business companies. The Global Ethic Project is largely also an educational project as it attempts to raise awareness in view of the principles and commitments of the Chicago Declaration. Education, for both youth and adults, forms therefore a main pillar of the Global Ethic Foundation. The commitment to global justice is also present in the educational material produced by the foundation. Especially on the interactive online learning program, A Global Ethic now! (accessible in English, French, and German on www. global-ethic.org), “Global Ethic and Economy” is one of the four main learning paths. These practical applications underline the strong concern of the Global Ethic Project to increase the intercultural sensitivity for the ethical dimension of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Asian Values Debate ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Ethical Foreign Policy ▶ Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI) ▶ Globalization ▶ Human Rights ▶ Justice and Religion: Buddhism ▶ Justice and Religion: Christianity ▶ Justice and Religion: Confucianism ▶ Justice and Religion: Daoism ▶ Justice and Religion: Hinduism ▶ Justice and Religion: Islam ▶ Justice and Religion: Judaism ▶ Peace Education ▶ Pluralism ▶ Ubuntu ▶ Virtue Ethics

413

G

414

G

Global Federalism

References Gebhardt G (2001) From Chicago to the 1999 Cape Town call. Concilium 2001/4: 38–54 Ku¨ng H (1991) Global responsibility. In search of a new world ethic. SCM Press, London; Crossroad, New York; reprint 2004 Wipf and Stock, Eugene, Oregon Ku¨ng H (1997) A global ethic for global politics and economics. SCM Press/Oxford University Press, London/New York Ku¨ng H (ed) (2001) Globale Unternehmen – globales Ethos. Der globale Markt erfordert neue Standards und eine globale Rahmenordnung. FAZ-Buchverlag, Frankfurt/Main Ku¨ng H (ed) (2002) Dokumentation zum Weltethos. Piper, Munich Ku¨ng H (2003) An ethical framework for the global market economy. In: Dunning JH (ed) Making globalisation good. The moral challenge of global capitalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 145–158 ¨ konomie Moral Ku¨ng H (2010) Ansta¨ndig wirtschaften. Warum O braucht. Piper, Munich Ku¨ng H, Kuschel KJ (eds) (1998) Wissenschaft und Weltethos. Piper, Munich Ku¨ng H, Leisinger KM, Wieland J (2010) Manifest globales Wirtschaftsethos. Konsequenzen und Herausforderungen fu¨r die Weltwirtschaft/Manifesto global economic ethic. Consequences and challenges for global businesses. With a foreword by Jeffrey Sachs. dtv, Munich Picco G et al (2001) Crossing the divide. Dialogue among civilizations. Seton Hall University Press, South Orange

Global Federalism RAFFAELE MARCHETTI Department of History and Political Science, Luiss University, Rome, Italy

Global federalism is a political theory affirming the division of powers between two or more institutional levels of government: the central global power and the powers of federate communities. In organizing political power on several levels, global federalism benefits from the advantages of both universalism and localism, in that it permits applying the principle of self-government (thus preserving the identity of the units) to a plurality of centers of independent power, consistently and democratically coordinated. Every citizen is subsequently subject to two powers (dual loyalty) without this implying the renunciation of the principle of “uniqueness of decision” thanks to the mechanism of subsidiarity. Rejecting the traditional model of double indirect representation through states’ representatives, federalism proposes a democratic rather than diplomatic union of states, according to which all political representatives are directly elected to a lawmaking assembly by the people, and political decisions

taken by the federal government apply directly to citizens rather than states. Finally, central to the federal ideal is the transformation of interstate relations from unruled and violent to having complete juridical status. Since peace is not interpreted negatively as the lack of war, but rather positively as state and law, a central government is envisaged as a vehicle for the peaceful and lawful solution of political, economical, or social international conflicts. Contrary to those confederations that have no check on the power of single states, the law of the federal system provides the political means to eliminate the appeal to arbitrary violence. In this way, federalism leads to the corrosion of a portion of statehood, such as military capability. For instance, since foreign policy would no longer exist, the army would be replaced by international or federal policing. Global federalism (or cosmofederalism) allows for direct representation of citizens (rather than states) at several levels of political decision making. In this way, it offers a viable answer to the currently untamed invasiveness of international policies; it promises to establish permanent peace because of the presence of a superordinate law that, importantly, does not permit withdrawal from the federation; and it envisages an attitude more convenient to solving global problems, in that it reduces biased decisions based on national interests. Additionally, the federal form of government offers the best political device to avoid despotism, in that the federal level of decision making provides a second chance to protect against abuse by local majorities. Finally, such a political system claims to secure both efficiency, in that it has an inbuilt responsiveness to local circumstances, and institutional innovation, in that it allows for more experimentation at different political levels. Global federalism aims principally at reforming the United Nations in a federal way. This perspective is based on the observation that any reform of the UN would invariably fail on the side of political inclusion were it not grounded on a direct and democratic model of participation. That the current institutional structure has to be changed is proved first and foremost by the straightforwardly undemocratic rules of the Security Council’s power of veto. But even if this norm were modified and the effective decision power were granted uniquely to the General Assembly, as it is currently organized the entire procedure would still be utterly undemocratic. On the one hand, a large number of states do not have democratic voting systems and, therefore, vast sectors (perhaps the majority) of their population would be excluded from representation; and, on the other hand, even the currently “democratic” states would structurally deprive their

Global Governance

minorities, be they national or transnational, of representation. With regard to democratic states, furthermore, a serious problem of accountability remains insofar as the multiple steps of delegation loosen the effectiveness of concrete control from their constituency. Finally, even assuming a (hypothetical) complete democratization of all countries, the situation would still be one of “equality” between, for instance, the representative of San Marino with a constituency of 20,000 voters and the representative of India with constituency of over a one billion. A critical point concerning a federal reform of the UN lies in the allocation of the diverse functions and powers between the central world government and the federal states. As with current forms of federalism, even in the case of the reformed UN, a stable equilibrium would not be possible without a constitution to the authority of which is accorded primacy over all other powers. In the case of conflict between the different institutional layers, the supranational authority must trump the lower ones. A global constitution (and an ad hoc constituent assembly) is thus required to delineate the distribution of legislative and executive authority regarding a number of functions between the different levels of political action. A clear demarcation of the issue of competence is crucial not only to allocate ab initio authority (and its limits), but also to solve conflicts that may arise about the power to judge. The authority to decide on who has to decide resides neither with the central power (as in the unitary state) nor with single states (as in the confederation), but only with the constitutional court. As a complement to the constitution, a global constitutional court should also be envisaged with the authority to settle any ultimate dispute concerning the so-called “competence catalogue.” A number of objections have traditionally been raised against the idea of a global federation. Two sets of arguments, one against the feasibility and the other against the desirability of the federal proposal, are the most frequent with regards to the general thesis of world federalism. They are the following: ● Objection on the political unfeasibility due the lack of external enemies ● Objection on the technical unfeasibility due to high quantity and high complexity of global actors ● Objection on the undesirability given the threats of homogeneity, despotism, and tyranny ● Objection on the undesirability given the increase in conflicts that would characterize it ● Objection on the undesirability given the higher value attached by ordinary citizens to national autonomy rather than to humanity as such

G

415

● Objection on the undesirability given the reduced freedom of choice due to the lack of exit opportunities ● Objection on the undesirability given the reduced democratic value of a world federation due to its size ● Objection on the undesirability given the lack of a global demos

Related Topics

▶ Citizenship ▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Democracy ▶ World Citizenship ▶ World Government

References Baratta JP (2004) The politics of world federation. United Nations, UN reform, and atomic control (vol. 1). From world federalism to global control (vol. 2). Praeger, Westport Elazar DJ (1998) Constitutionalizing globalization. The postmodern revival of confederal arrangement. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Frankman MJ (2004) World democratic federalism. Palgrave, New York Ho¨ffe O (1999) Democracy in an age of globalization. Springer, Heidelberg (Reprinted 2007) Marchetti R (2008) Global democracy: for and against. ethical theory, institutional design, and social struggles. Routledge, London/ New York Yunker JA (2007) Political globalization: a new vision of federal world government. University Press of America, Lanham

Global Governance SHARON ANDERSON-GOLD Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY, USA

Definition and Relation to Globalization Global governance is the view that certain problems facing humanity require regulation through institutional structures of global scope. The contemporary concern with the issue of global governance has arisen in the context of economic and cultural globalization. Globalization is the process where interactions between human societies and between human societies and the biosphere have resulted in increased interdependence. Human societies have of course always interacted in limited ways through trade and cultural exchanges. Globalization is the term used to describe a process of interaction that is increasing in depth and intensity such

G

416

G

Global Governance

that actions originating in one society have almost immediate effects on other societies. This interdependence can be seen in the development of global markets and in the environmental impacts of energy production and consumption that are creating worldwide climate change.

Impact on Sovereignty International interdependence has weakened the ability of any one nation to solve contemporary problems in a unilateral manner, making international cooperation necessary to each nation’s long term well being. The need for cooperation entails the development of rules and regulations that curtail the freedom of action of individual nations by transferring some of the powers of individual governments to international institutions. Some see this as a negative development because it infringes on the sovereignty or independence of states. Others welcome this new concept of governance as an enhancement of our collective power to solve difficult problems. Traditionally governance has been associated with the power to coercively enforce decisions, but in a global context where there is no centralized enforcement agency, governance increasingly refers to the self-imposed regulatory structure built into international institutions and to the coordinated behaviors that result.

The United Nations and Its Affiliates Although the idea of international cooperation to resolve disputes between nations has a long history, the experience of two devastating world wars in the twentieth century led modern states to create an international organization, the United Nations, specifically dedicated to outlaw aggressive war and foster peace. The United Nations is perhaps the best known example of a global institution with the expressed intention to secure cooperation in the achievement of economic and social progress and to resolve disputes toward the attainment of peace and security. The Charter of the UN commits its members to several potentially conflicting objectives: enforcement of the peace, promotion of human rights, and non-interference in the domestic affairs of member states. The United Nations has 192 voting members and provides observer status to other de facto governing entities whose legitimacy is in dispute (who are recognized by some but not all other voting members). Through its General Assembly it permits every member to participate equally in the development of covenants and resolutions to guide international behavior. However, the UN is often criticized for being undemocratic in its creation of a Security Council that gives veto power to a few powerful permanent members, China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and

the United States drawn from the victorious powers of WWII. Issues of mutual security are handled by a Security Council consisting of five permanent members and ten rotating nonpermanent members elected by the General Assembly. Because the United Nations does not have its own enforcement agency it depends upon the voluntary cooperation of its most powerful members such as the United States, China, and Russia to enact its resolutions. The UN has numerous affiliate organizations that regulate specific areas of interstate relations such as health, trade, and finance and it is through these affiliate organizations that much of the work of economic and social development occurs.

Standards The emergence of international institutions, outside of the UN, with regulatory power such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Trade Organization has led to conflict over the issue of the standards to be used and the policies and objectives to be pursued. The developed nations have generally taken the lead in the creation of these institutions and have often designed the regulations to reflect their overall interests and goals. This has led to the questioning of the legitimacy and accountability of these institutions of global governance. To whom should such institutions ultimately be accountable? Whose interests should they serve? Should they serve the interests of nations or the interests of individual human beings regardless of nationality? This conflict was most notably expressed in the anti-globalization protests that surrounded the WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999. Representatives from a large number of nongovernmental organizations, including labor, consumer advocates, environmentalists, and others, demanded greater accountability from the leaders of the WTO. Although proponents of global institutions like the WTO argue that these organizations are established by states and therefore derive their legitimacy from these foundations, anti-globalists argue that the leaders of these institutions deliberate in private and have no popular mandate to formulate the policies that they enact.

Problem of Public Goods It can be argued that financial organizations are not designed to deliver public goods and that global governance requires more than what free markets can deliver. Governments benefit from financial transactions so they will abide by the rules of the IMF and the WTO. But they do not all desire global public goods. A global society requires the development of international organizations

Global Human Rights Culture

that are specifically designed to deliver public goods. This is what a government does for a particular domestic society. It taxes private transactions so as to be able to deliver public goods. In this spirit, various global tax schemes, such as the Tobin tax on monetary exchanges, have been proposed. It has been suggested that the proceeds from such taxes could be used to support underdeveloped societies to procure more of the infrastructure in public goods, such as roads, schools, and health care, that they currently lack.

Accountability Global governance through international institutions raises questions concerning the meaning of democracy and principles of citizenship in a global context. In response to these issues nongovernmental organizations have arisen to express the desires, interests, and needs of ordinary people in areas such as health, education, women’s rights, the environment, etc. This intensification of concern for the environment was given wide governmental endorsement at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

Nongovernmental Organizations The current global institutional structure consists of a complex combination of organizations some of which are based upon governments and others, commonly referred to as non-governmental organizations, which are founded upon specific issues of concern to ordinary people and do not have government representation or funding such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Doctors without Borders, etc. Nongovernmental organizations have an ancient history but became of particular significance in the antislavery movement, the movement for women’s rights, disarmament, and the environment. They play an important consultative role both in United Nations debates and in the development of public policy in many states.

Related Topics

▶ Bretton Woods Institutions ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice

References Archibugi D (2009) The global commonwealth of citizens: toward cosmopolitan democracy. Princeton University Press, Princeton Falk R (1995) On humane governance: toward a new global politics – the world order models project report of the global civilization initiative. Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania Farer T, Sisk T (eds) (2010) Global governance: a review of multilateralism and international organizations. Lynne Rienner, Dulles Held D (1995) Democracy and the global order: from the modern state to cosmopolitan governance. Stanford University Press, Stanford Pogge TH (2008) World poverty and human rights: cosmopolitan responsibilities and reforms. Polity Press, Cambridge

G

417

Global Human Rights Culture MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

The notion of a global human rights culture is best understood by way of contrast with theorizations of human rights aligned with the traditions of natural law and natural rights. In these latter traditions, human rights are not understood as cultural constructions, but rather as commandments of universal human reason. Such commandments indeed derive from the order of nature and the structure of human reason itself. As pre-social and pre-political, they are binding on all human beings, regardless of particular social memberships, political regimes, and, more particularly, cultural identifications. In this respect, human rights amount to independent normative standards that function as the basis for criticizing societies, states, and cultures worldwide, should any of the latter fail to live up to the universally binding commandments of common human reason. Consequently, current international human rights law is to be understood, in turn, as entrenching these entirely independent standards. Crucially, such law should not itself to be seen as the expression of norms exclusive to any particular society, state, or culture. By contrast, the advocates of a global human rights culture reject this kind of theorization of human rights. For them, such rights are not to be understood as independent, natural standards at all, but rather standards that are to be viewed as in the process of evolving from the diverse histories and experiences of the wide pluralism of different societies and cultures. This entails a theoretical commitment to at least some form of historicism, as opposed to natural law and natural right. Here, the commitment to historicism may take either a stronger or a weaker form, according to whether human rights standards are presented as necessary or contingent emergent properties of the slow accretion of particular historical experiences, in shaping the will and consciousness of humanity. On the one hand, the stronger form of historicism may be seen in attempts by various Hegelian theorists to cast the emergence of human rights law in terms of the historically necessary development of a new global Sittlichkeit, or ethical life, crossing disparate societies and cultures. This new, shared ethical life of humanity is concerned with satisfying the desire for recognition by others through processes of mutual recognition facilitated by international human rights law, along with the

G

418

G

Global Human Rights Culture

participation of global citizens in multiple levels of transnational governance of common human affairs. According to the strong historicist view, the emergence of such a global human rights culture is historically necessary either because the desire for recognition is regarded as innate to humanity, or because it is seen more simply as an inevitable byproduct of social expectations associated with economic modernization. On the other hand, the weaker form of historicism is motivated by theorists whose concerns derive more from the perspective of postcolonialism and the experience among non-Western cultures of Western cultural hegemony. From this perspective, the claims of natural rights and natural law theorists to the effect that human rights standards are independent of any particular culture and history are treated with skepticism. Indeed, such claims regarding their independent standing are viewed as little more than ideological cover for the imposition of Western cultural values on non-Western cultures, in the altogether questionable language of a false universalism. As for the strong historicist notion of a global Sittlichkeit, this still risks the hegemonic imposition of Western values onto non-Western cultures according to the premise that these values are ultimately the end of history on which all other societies and cultures will eventually converge. This critique of human rights universalism, in both its natural rights and strong historicist forms, thus leads to a weak historicism that is based on the claim that human rights norms are historically contingent responses to atrocities. That is, visceral reactions to specific violations of human dignity whereby human rights norms are to be seen as wholly improvised products of political negotiations among different states, as lobbied by diverse kinds of global civil society actors or global publics. Here, such norms are neither pre-given by nature nor historically inevitable outcomes. They are not to be understood as grounded theoretically, so much as empirically and pragmatically. Indeed, the various participants in constructing common human rights standards do not rely on any specific theoretical foundation. Instead, agreed upon standards are seen as having been constructed from diverse elements of a complex theoretical heritage that together contribute, in largely unspecified ways, to a politically negotiated consensus. In this respect, the very openness of the process of constructing norms through formal and informal political negotiations among multiple governmental and nongovernmental actors ensures that outcomes are not hegemonic impositions of a single dominant culture. Indeed, the processes of constructing shared norms across the different theoretical commitments and cultural assumptions of participants are themselves processes of

constructing norms for a global human rights culture. Here, the creation of such a novel possibility of human culture is clearly not to be understood in an essentialist sense, according to which the identities of the different participants may be said to be fixed prior to discourse. Instead, it is a possibility of culture to be understood more in terms of variable “webs of significance,” including diverse sets of learned ideas and behaviors, which may be dynamically reinterpreted and modified by crossing and joining many different theoretical and cultural assumptions in ongoing deliberation. To this extent, the notion of a global human rights culture may be said to rely heavily on recent discourse theories of political legitimation, along with advocacy for reform of existing intergovernmental bodies. It would rely not only on the informal deliberative contestations of multiple global civil society actors characterized by Dryzek as global deliberative politics, but also the reform of formal intergovernmental organizations, such as the UN, advocated by Held to ensure more extensive participation by states. This would include, for instance, greater participation by Third World countries in negotiating human rights norms in reaction to the “silent atrocity” of global poverty and hunger in a new Social and Economic Security Counsel. It would further rely on Bohman’s conception of the right to have rights of disenfranchised migrant populations whose only guarantee against domination resides in their capacity to shape global norms though making judiciable human rights claims in an expanded system of regional human rights courts. Indeed, deliberative theories do not depend on any deep comprehensive theoretical foundations in nature insofar as they are concerned primarily with the pragmatic conditions of inclusive participation and the kinds of institutional reforms necessary for the inclusion of multiple deliberative inputs to shaping new norms. Consequently, they are consistent with the weak historicist basis for constructing a global culture of human rights through ongoing reactive improvisations and consensus formation.

Related Topics

▶ Bohman, James ▶ Dryzek, John ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Public ▶ Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich ▶ Held, David ▶ High Road for Human Rights ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives

Global Impartiality Thesis

References Arat ZF (2005) Human rights and globalization: is the shrinking world expanding rights? Hum Rights Hum Welf 5(2005):137–146 Arat ZF (2006) Forging a global culture of human rights: origins and prospects of the international bill of rights. Hum Rights Q 28(2): 416–437 Bell L (2001) Negotiating culture and human rights. Columbia University Press, New York Follesdal A (2009) Universal human rights as a shared political identity: Necessary? Sufficient? Impossible? Metaphilosophy 40:77–91 O’Hagan J (2002) Conflict, convergence, or coexistence? The relevance of culture in reframing world order. In: Richard F (ed) Reframing the international: law, culture, politics. Routledge, New York, p 187

Global Impartiality Thesis BRUCE M. LANDESMAN Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

There are two things often assumed to be obvious about impartiality. One is that impartiality is roughly equivalent to equality. People are treated impartially when they are treated equally. The other is that impartiality is demanded by justice – impartiality is always just, partiality is always unjust. There is some truth to these claims, but much that is false. They radically oversimplify both the complexity of the notion of impartiality and its normative force. Suppose impartiality meant treating people equally. If impartiality is morally required, that would mean that we should give equal importance in our actions to everyone’s interests. This is highly implausible. A parent does no wrong to favor the interests of his children over the interests of other children. A person should give preference to the needs of her friends and relatives. One also has obligations to those to whom one has made promises, and these typically take precedence over the needs of strangers. Further, we have obligations to colleagues cooperating to achieve some goal such that we reasonably favor their needs over the needs of non-colleagues. In sum, we have special obligations to particular people based on our relationships with them. These obligations give us reason to favor their interests over those with whom we have no such relationships. Impartiality, if taken to mean equal concern for everyone’s interests, is not only not morally required, but would often be wrong. What, then, should we mean by impartiality and how is it connected to equality and other moral notions? Let’s

G

begin with the most obvious case, the judge in a legal proceeding. A judge is obviously expected to be impartial between the parties to a case. The judge, however, must rule for one side or the other and thus cannot, in the final analysis, treat the parties equally. To be impartial, the judge must decide the case on its merits alone, giving the victory to the side with the stronger case, the case best supported by reason and evidence. He or she must be swayed only by considerations legally relevant to the case. A judge fails to be impartial if she rules in favor of one party because that party has bribed her, or if she is swayed by a campaign contribution, or if she allows her political sympathies for one side to override her conscientious weighing of reasons. In sum, an impartial judge makes decisions on relevant considerations and avoids biases and favoritism based on irrelevant considerations. To take another example: an impartial teacher is not one who gives all students the same grade. He gives students the grade they merit on the basis of a conscientious and unbiased assessment of their work. And this will be so for many professions and occupations, where some form of evaluation is required. It is an important aspect of liberal political theory that government be impartial with respect to its citizens. What does this mean? It clearly brings in the idea of equality. An impartial government will treat each citizen with respect. It will not favor some over others because of their wealth, power, status, race, sex, or ethnic status. In policy making, it will give consideration to the legitimate interests of all the citizens affected. It will, in sum, respect the rule of law and not allow wealth, power, status, etc., to influence a decision. Impartiality is thus connected to the rule of law and to the idea that “justice is blind,” blind to power and wealth, but not to the reasons relevant to a policy decision. Impartiality thus has important connections to equality with regard to government action. A government (at least a liberal government) must treat each citizen with equal respect and give all interests a hearing. We should ask: must an impartial decision be a correct one? Is an impartial arbiter never mistaken? The answer is “no.” An impartial agent who attends only to relevant considerations may get them wrong. (Consider a soccer or baseball referee, who, impartially, blows a call!) He will be impartial but mistaken. Impartiality is a process of deciding, and this is not the same as the outcome. An impartial process can produce a mistaken result. This leads to an important question about the both fairness and the perception of impartiality. When a decision is made by an agent such as the government, those who disagree with it will have a tendency to see it as both unfair and partial. It will be seen as unfair because it

419

G

420

G

Global Impartiality Thesis

will be taken as having weighted the reasons wrongly and favored some person or group who should not be favored. There will be a suspicion that the decision maker was not impartial, but was swayed in some inappropriate way by irrelevant considerations. This will be so even if the decision was really impartial and correct. It is human nature to see hidden wrong when things do not go the way we think they ought. This is a fairly standard phenomenon in democratic politics (think of the influence of lobbying by powerful corporations on members of congress). For this reason, it is important in a liberal society, that policy decisions not only be impartial also, but be perceived to be impartial. At a minimum, it must be believed that impartiality is respected over a long string of cases. For this to be, there must be minimal government corruption, decision-making transparency, and efforts to prevent excessive power and wealth from unduly influencing decisions. It is not sufficient for a liberal government to be judged good and have the confidence of its citizens if it is in fact impartial. It must also be perceived to be so. This raises many issues about the sorts of institutions liberal democracies need to achieve both impartiality and its appearance. Noting this, however, we are in a better position to discuss impartiality in a global context.

Global Impartiality In recent literature in political philosophy, the question of impartiality has come to be understood as the question of the scope of social justice. A society is just when it treats its citizens in certain ways and has a fair allocation of the goods needed for human well-being. Does social justice require that this concern be extended to the whole of the human community? Or is it sufficient for a state that it be just “internally” with no obligations to bring about justice more generally? The issue might best be put this way: As noted above, there is nothing wrong with being partial to those with whom one has special relationships, such as family, friends, colleagues, and those to whom one has made promises. Favoritism is acceptable in such conditions. But what about the sovereign nation-state? Do people have special obligations to fellow citizens that they do not have to noncitizens? Many will find this obvious, but it is not. To see this, imagine an American living in California and consider his or her relationships to people living in distant Maine as opposed to those close at hand in Northern Mexico. The citizens of California and Maine live under the same central government and each are affected by its policies. In both cases, however, there are cooperative relationships. There are many agreements and treatments, some with means of enforcement. There is trade

regulated by all kind of rules. There are well-known border problems. Why should a US citizen feel greater commitments to fellow citizens in distant states than to foreigners whose activities may have far greater impact on their lives? There is no easy answer to these questions, but they have given rise to two broad theories about relations both to fellow citizens and to humans in general. Both are based on an underlying commitment to the moral equality of all human beings. One view, Cosmopolitanism, holds that no special preference is justifiable for fellow citizens. Social justice entails distributive fairness among all human beings. Citizens of rich nations owe significant aid to those of poor nations so that a fair and just distribution among all of humanity will be achieved. The other view, let us call it Social Nationalism, holds that citizens have duties of distributive justice only to their fellow citizens. They may have humanitarian duties to help bring it about that citizens of very poor countries have basic subsistence and basic human rights. But there is no claim that there must be a fair or just distribution of the resources needed for human well-being and human flourishing between people in different societies or states. Importantly, this difference has come to be seen as a conflict between impartiality (endorsed by the Cosmopolitan) and partiality (endorsed by the Nationalist). Nationalists justify partiality to fellow citizens, while Cosmopolitans demand the inclusion of all people in the concern of justice. While this is not incorrect, it oversimplifies matters. Impartiality is, as we have noted, a wide notion, and both sides can claim to be committed to impartiality. They differ in their interpretation of it. The cosmopolitan, stressing human equality and the good or bad fortune that determines people’s birth place, argues that impartiality must cover all people and that wealthy governments should be moved to bring about a world that is more fair, as a matter of distributive justice. Nationalists, on the other hand, believe that there are special reasons (reciprocity, identity, liability to the same coercion) that requires government to consider the reasons and needs of foreigners much less relevant than the their own citizens. They see partiality to fellow citizens as similar to partiality to family, friends, and colleagues. Such partiality does not reject impartiality. It only limits its scope. Thus both theories can be seen as providing interpretations of impartiality. The “concept” of impartiality cannot, itself, settle the issue, since it can be appealed to in different ways. Ultimately, there is no substitute for the normative discussion of the scope and limits of distributive justice.

Global Justice

Related Topics

▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Moral Equality

References Blake M (2002) Distributive justice, state coercion and autonomy. Philos Public Aff 30:259–296 Blum L (1994) Moral perception and particularity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Cottingham J (2010) Partiality and impartiality: morality, special relationships and the wider world. Oxford University Press, Oxford Jollimore T (2002/2006) Impartiality. In: Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Stanford, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/impartiality/ Miller D (2005) Against global egalitarianism. J Ethics 9(1/2):55–79 Tamir Y (1993) Liberal nationalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton Tan K-C (2004) Justice without borders: cosmopolitanism, nationalism and patriotism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Vlastos V (1962) Justice and equality. In: Brandt R (ed) Social justice. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, pp 31–72

Global Justice BRUCE M. LANDESMAN Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

The planet we inhabit has been divided into a large number of independent and sovereign states. Some are very rich and many of their inhabitants live well. They have copious material possessions, security, access to jobs, fundamental rights to life and liberty, effective government, relatively clean air and clean water, access to schooling, health care, transportation, and more. Other nations are so poor that for all but a small minority of their citizens, daily life is simply a struggle to survive, often a losing struggle. People live in dire poverty, cannot find decent housing, cannot put enough food on the table, dress their children adequately, send them to school, get adequate health care, etc. They often suffer from corrupt governments that fail to provide security from crime and violate their fundamental rights. They tend to be helpless in the face of disasters such as the South Asia tsunami and large earthquakes. There are also countries in the middle, not as rich as the rich or as poor as the poor. Is this situation just? Is it fair? Should we have a more equal world? Should we have a world in which everyone can provide for their basic needs and have their basic

G

rights protected? Should we have a world in which people are roughly equally well off regardless of where they live? Or is the global inequality that now exists, or some ameliorated version of it, morally acceptable and just? The subject of Global Justice addresses these questions. The words “just” and “unjust” tend to be used to evaluate relations among people with regard to their wealth, rights, security, power, status, and more. At the most abstract level “justice” is easy to define. Justice exists when everyone has their due. People, however, disagree on when this is the case. As John Rawls puts it, people can agree, at the most abstract level, that justice is giving each their due, but disagree dramatically over what is their due. They agree on the concept of justice, but have very different particular conceptions of justice.

Domestic Versus Global Justice In considering justice, we tend first to look at a single society and examine the relations of individuals in that society. Even in rich societies like the USA and the countries of the European Union, there will be inequalities and there will be groups of people unable to attain basic and needed goods. Rights will be violated in such countries and not all receive the same protection from violence, access to good schooling, health care, etc. Corruption can be found in governmental activity and the richest people and corporations may exercise excessive power. It is thus natural to begin by asking what makes a particular society just, what level and kind of inequality is acceptable and for what reasons? Contemporary political philosophy since the 1960s has tended to focus on the question of justice within a society, what we might call internal or domestic justice. It is only in the last 20 years, with the intense development of globalization and a dramatic rise in global violence, that philosophers have turned their attention to question about justice on a global scale.

Moral Equality Before turning to global justice, it is worth saying a few things about the role of equality in making judgments about justice within a society. Views that endorse the innate superiority of certain races, sexes, ethnic groups, etc., have died out over time in much of the West and have been replaced by the idea that people are equal in their basic value. That human beings are inherently equal has become hard to deny. We can call this “Moral Equality.” Moral equality is compatible with people being unequal in their talents, abilities, social circumstances, temperament, etc. This “intrinsic” equality of human beings is compatible with differences in their “extrinsic” or instrumental

421

G

422

G

Global Justice

usefulness as a plumber, lawyer, accountant, etc. Those who live in an “egalitarian” society will be inclined to think about the rich and powerful something like this: "

You may be richer than me, smarter than me, more talented and famous than me, etc. but I am just as good as you are as a human being. My life has just the same value and importance as yours.

This egalitarian “ethos” pervades liberal societies in the form of a commitment to moral equality. This makes them egalitarian at the most abstract level.

Inequality But what does that intrinsic equality imply about particular inequalities? Does it mean that all should be equal with regard to other things such as wealth, rights, opportunities, etc.? Or is it compatible with certain types of inequalities? And if so, which ones and to what extent? These are difficult questions. I just note that intrinsic moral equality has been held to be compatible with inequalities on a number of different grounds.

Efficiency/Utility When there are highly rewarded positions, people strive to develop the talents needed to achieve them, are more productive, and everyone benefits. Straight equality would be equality of misery and some degree of inequality can make everyone better off.

Desert Those who have put in greater effort or make greater social contributions deserve to have more than those who have put in less effort or make lesser contributions.

Responsibility Inequalities for which people are not responsible, for example, inequalities resulting from their initial social position, are unfair and need to be compensated for, but inequalities are acceptable when they result from fully voluntary and responsible choice. All of these justify some degree of inequality. The most radical antiegalitarian view, often called Libertarianism goes even further. In its purest version it holds that justice exists when all have equal liberty. This means that all have freedom from legal constraint to do as they please so long as they do not use violence, coercion, theft, or fraud. Any inequalities that result from everyone’s exercising their liberty are justifiable, even fairly extreme inequality of wealth. Injustice is trying to undo such inequalities. Many who find inequality justified in one or more of these ways also tend to argue that a weakly regulated “free

market” system tends to produce justified inequalities. They therefore tend to support free enterprise and look askance at government regulation and any attempt to tax the wealthy to help promote the situation of the poor (redistributive taxation). But such views face a variety of problems, two of which I will briefly note. One is that it seems to many that inequality based on any of the features mentioned above can be fair only if people, being moral equals, have an equal opportunity to end up in the most advantaged positions. Inequality is fair only if people begin life with an equal chance to rise as far as their inborn talents will take them. But this does not exist when many are raised in deprived circumstances or lack the innate capacity to develop highly rewarded talents. The equal intrinsic moral worth of persons seems to imply that equal opportunity (unlike equal outcomes) is a necessary condition for justified inequalities. But achieving equal opportunity would require significant government activity, regulation, and redistributive taxation to provide better chances for the poor, and this is just what supporters of inequality oppose. The other has to do with the effects of inequality. If some do very well and others do very poorly, it is hard to maintain a society in which all are treated as equals. Those for whom life is easy tend to develop feelings of superiority, making those at the bottom feel as if they count for less. Further, those who are well off are able to use their wealth to have greater influence such that their interests take precedence in political decision making over the equally important and often more urgent interests of the poor. Finally, it is not obvious that a free market economy automatically allocates wealth in accord with any of the above criteria – such economies can often be inefficient, reward the undeserving and the irresponsible. Further, the liberty cherished by the libertarian is a legal right. One can be legally free from constraints to do all sorts of urgent things that one in fact cannot do because one lacks the means to do it. Such “formal” liberty means little to the person who can barely feed and house himself and his family. As Anatole France said, the rich and the poor are equally free to sleep under the bridges of Paris. For these and other reasons, an egalitarian may accept justified inequalities in his or her own society, but think they must be severely limited both for the well-being of those less well off and to maintain the sense of moral equality that underlies a liberal society.

Global Justice Turning to global justice, the crucial question has often been taken to be whether the same views of justice that

Global Justice

apply within a society should apply among societies and among all the people on the earth. There is also a dispute between those whose accounts of domestic justice are basically egalitarian and those who reject an egalitarian account. I start with the latter disagreement. One who has an egalitarian account of domestic justice will almost certainly support taxation of the well off to provide a fund which can be used by the government to improve the prospects of the worse off. They would find redistributive or transfer taxation fully justified to provide the poor with better education, better access to food, shelter and transportation, a cleaner environment, access to health care, etc. Great inequality throughout the globe would also seem to require the transfer of resources from rich to poor nations to help them improve the prospects of their people. If a person does not support some form of egalitarianism, redistribution, and active government for one’s own society, he or she is unlikely to support greater equality on a global scale. He or she is likely to find the current system acceptable. Those with libertarian-type views of justice who oppose redistribution in their own society, will certain oppose redistribution worldwide. There is an exception to this, however. Many who reject global equality as an ideal of justice still believe that there is a certain minimum of well-being that all should have the opportunity of achieving. We might call this view Humanitarianism. The humanitarian will support taxation and active government to make sure all in his own society have the ability to achieve a basic minimum. But he will not find anything wrong with great inequality once that minimum is met. One might, similarly, be a humanitarian about Global Justice and believe that there is a basic minimum with regard to both material needs and human rights that all people should be able to attain. Such a person would support some transfer of wealth from rich to poor countries insofar as it can help produce a basic minimum for all. But he will not care about inequality among nations once that basic minimum is reached. The dispute about global justice that has been most discussed by philosophers and political theorists is a dispute among those who have strongly egalitarian views about domestic justice. In other words, it is a dispute, among those who believe that inequalities must be severely limited to help the less well off, to combat unfair inequalities of power and to maintain the sense of moral equality that underlies a liberal society. Among such egalitarians, some hold that since people are morally equal, people across the planet should be roughly equal. Equality should be the norm except for

G

the limited inequalities that an egalitarian can accept. Such a view is often called Cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism is best put as the idea that sovereign states are not the primary arena for promoting social justice. A human being born into a very poor country is just as important of a human being born into a rich country. They are moral equals, of equal moral worth. Moral equality demands rough equality among people in general and not just among the members of a particular state. It is undeniable that states have an important role to play. They should bring sufficient equality to their own citizens, but also to promote an appropriate level of equality worldwide. But states are not morally fundamental to justice – producing justice only internally is not sufficient. The most fundamental principles of Distributive Justice apply to all human beings wherever they are. The alternative view has no clear agreed upon name and has been called different things by different thinkers. I am going to call it Social Egalitarianism. It embraces an egalitarian view within a society (domestic egalitarianism) and holds that states have the duty to bring sufficient equality to their own citizens. But it denies the other half of the cosmopolitan view that states must promote an appropriate level of equality worldwide. Justice is primarily an internal matter. Each state has the duty to bring about justice in its own sphere. The rest of the world may have a duty to help, especially with regard to minimal humanitarian needs, but it has no duty to produce greater equality among humankind. A very important feature of this view is that different states may be just even when they have different levels of wealth. Suppose, for instance, that two societies have achieved rough equality among their citizens. In each society, everyone has access to a decent minimum and the inequalities that exist in each society are justified and limited. But one of the societies is much richer than the other. In that society, the most well-off persons are much better off than the most well-off persons of the poorer society; conversely, the worse-off persons of the richer society are much better off than the worse off persons of the poorer society. There is thus inequality among societies. The cosmopolitan would see grounds for redistribution here. The Social Egalitarian rejects that. A just world exists when each society is just, regardless of its general level of welfare. It is important to note that Societal Egalitarians tend also to be humanitarians. They hold that all should have their basic rights respected and have the material goods to live at least a minimally decent life. They would support redistribution from the rich to the poor to achieve

423

G

424

G

Global Justice

humanitarian aims. In effect, they accept a cosmopolitan view with regard to subsistence and basic rights. But they reject stronger egalitarian aims. Cosmopolitans tend to argue for greater global equality on the ground that where one is born is morally arbitrary. One does not choose to be born into a rich or poor country, and citizens of rich countries cannot claim to deserve their good fortune in what John Rawls calls the natural lottery. For those in rich countries, the ability to do well is largely a result of good luck, and the desperate conditions of those in poor countries is largely the result of bad luck. Moral equality cannot countenance inequalities based on such morally arbitrary factors. The only fair outcome is that all have a fair chance at a good life, regardless of where they were born. Cosmopolitans also tend to argue that much of the poverty of poor nations is due to the way they have been manipulated and exploited by the rich. The long history of colonialism includes the theft of resources for the benefit of the rich, and a failure to promote just and democratic government among those colonized. Rich nations thus have obligations to compensate for a long history of injustice they have perpetuated. Cosmopolitans realize the difficulty of achieving the aims they have in mind. Ending global poverty, for example, is an enormously difficult task where many attempts to help have been tried and failed. Cosmopolitans nevertheless think that their view of justice is the appropriate aspiration for all concerned about justice. Social Egalitarians, on the other hand, tend to argue that there is something special about joint membership in a society that gives one special obligations to one’s fellow citizens that one does not have towards citizens of foreign countries. Perhaps the most important rationale for this depends on the notion of reciprocity. Citizens of the same state are members of a single cooperative scheme in which benefits are produced which depend on various burdens being borne. Those who benefit from such social cooperation have a duty to make sure that a fair distribution of benefits and burdens exist among their fellow citizens. Since the benefits they receive depend upon the cooperation of others, they have duties of reciprocity to fellow citizens that they do not have to members of other societies. Others argue for the relevance of the sense of personal identification one feels with one’s own country. One identifies with one’s own nation in such a way that its injustices and mistakes are personally troubling in a way that the injustices and mistakes of other countries are not. For many US citizens, slavery, and the consequent denial of civil rights to black citizens after slavery was abolished is

a source of enduring shame. One’s country becomes a reflection of oneself, and this gives one a greater duty to fellow citizens than to people in general. Another argument for Social Egalitarianism rests on the idea that only a state has the power and management capacity to promote justice and only with its own sphere of power – its own society. A global principle of justice could only be achieved by something close to a world government. But as Kant argued long ago, a world government would either be weak, susceptible to revolts in many places where people disagree with its dictates. Or to avoid this, it would have to become extremely powerful, in effect a tyranny. Only the state can produce justice and only among its citizens. The argument between cosmopolitans and social egalitarians is complex and very much alive in contemporary literature. It is worth noting, however, that it is fundamentally a dispute among those who are already egalitarian-minded. Perhaps the largest obstacle to ending poverty worldwide is the indifference of the citizens of rich countries, and the practical libertarianism that is embraced by many, especially in the USA. To some degree, the current arguments about global justice fail to make contact with the real condition and ideologies whose existence results in the failure of wealthy nations to develop the motivations necessary to bring about a more just planet.

Related Topics

▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Impartiality Thesis ▶ Human Rights ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Sovereignty

References Beitz C (1999) Political theory and international relations, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton Brooks T (ed) (2008) The global justice reader. Blackwell, Oxford Caney S (2001) Cosmopolitan justice and equalizing opportunity. Metaphilosophy 32(1/2):113–134 Caney S (2005) Justice beyond borders: a global political theory. Oxford University Press, New York Hume D (1751) An enquiry concerning the principles of morals. Section III, 1983. Hackett, Indianapolis Miller D (2005) Against global egalitarianism. J Ethics 9(1/2):55–79 Nagel T (2005) The problem of global justice. Philos Public Aff 33(2): 113–147 Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state and utopia. Basic Books, New York Nussbaum M (2000) Women and human development: the capabilities approach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Clarendon, Oxford

Global Justice Project: Iraq Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge Shue H (1996) Basic rights, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton Tan K-C (2004) Justice without borders: cosmopolitanism, nationalism and patriotism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Global Justice Project: Iraq HIRAM CHODOSH, CHIBLI MALLAT S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

The Global Justice Project: Iraq is an unprecedented international legal setup resulting from two grants from the US Department of State to the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, starting in summer 2008 through to a comprehensive program on justice in Iraq over nearly 2 years. GJPI’s work ranged from the review of the constitution to specific bills under discussion at various stages of their development. Over a 100 experts were involved in the work, addressing specific issues or larger undertakings, with some 20 people deployed in Baghdad – with the risk of bombs and shelling that is the hallmark of daily life – dozens of law professors and legal scholars from 20 different nationalities, and some 50 students. The first of the two grants came from the State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) under its rule of law program, initially focusing on helping the judiciary with various reform initiatives. As the program progressed the goals were narrowed down to an intensive work on the reform of the criminal procedure code. Working with the Iraqi Higher Judicial Council and American rule of law advisors in Baghdad, GJPI held regular meetings with senior judges and law professors in Baghdad, Basra, and Irbil through 2009–2010. Several international and comparative experts were consulted in the process, and a full, reasoned revamping of the Criminal Procedure Code was completed in March 2010. The other grant advised widely on a number of legal issues raised by the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs section at the US Embassy in Baghdad, including constitutional review, elections, anticorruption, and the legislative process. Over a hundred bills and related texts were proposed or commented upon, in addition to intensive work carried out with the relevant parliamentary

G

committees on the constitution and on elections. GJPI experts sat on both the constitutional review committee and the elections committee, providing background reports as well as daily advice. The revision of the constitution was completed in October 2009, the electoral law in November 2009. Media expression was limited because of the sensitive nature of the work; yet, members of GJPI were keen to offer to the Iraqi and US public contributions to the debate in the forms of op-eds in Arabic and English. Members participated in various Iraqi fora, including in Kurdistan and in the holy city of Najaf, moderated major legal workshops engaging Iraqis, and met and engaged with Iraqi leaders at all levels, including the President, the Prime Minister, the Speaker and a large number of ministers, MPs and judges. GJPI was throughout the program keen to see Iraqis at the forefront of the legal project, with the long term in mind. Iraqi legislators, ministers, civil servants, and judges effectively set the agenda and rhythm of the major decisions, while involving other actors, from the US Government and American civil society in both Iraq and the USA, to the leaders of the UN mission in Baghdad. A website in English and Arabic kept legal developments in Iraq up to date, with a wealth of documents and resources. The website, www.gjpi.org, provided a model for portals in other legally underexposed jurisdictions. A series of some 7 books on classical and modern Iraqi law was also established with Oxford University Press, with many works published or to be published in Arabic and in English with a wide dissemination. The project wound up in early 2010. A lasting legacy of GJPI is qualitative: GJPI built a world-class model that involved the Iraqi legal and political leadership in a sustained, informed endeavor that was both national and comparative. For USA and international collaborative experience in nation building, GJPI stands as a model for scholarly legal interaction in transitioning societies amidst a controversial intervention that exacted immense sacrifices in blood and property mainly shouldered by Iraqis and Americans. GJPI deployed a richly diverse group of global experts – a combination of scholars in germane topical fields with others bringing decades of experience in Iraqi and Middle Eastern law – who became deeply engaged with leaders of Iraqi legal institutions on the issues most immediately confronting the country. Fresh thinking on legal design, from federalism to the sequence of the legislative process, coupled with seasoned experience in Iraqi politics produced an unusual combination of intellectual engagements. The particular

425

G

426

G

Global Justice, Subjects of

Iraqi setup of three religious-ethnic sociopolitical communities offered a challenging model for world federalism, while the keenness of Iraqi legislators and judges to profit from the most up-to-date legislation and practices in specialized fields (e.g., antiterrorism bills, oil and gas legislation, water distribution) made the challenge immediate as well as intellectually exciting for GJPI’s unparalleled legal specialists deployed across the world. For the Iraqis, GJPI proved that a country devastated by 40 years of dictatorships and wars could bring together the specific Iraqi tradition and the highest legal standards available in the world in pursuit of justice and the rule of law. From electoral law to constitutional revisions, throughout the project, and currently, Iraqis seek to embrace the positive continuities and reject the negative weights of that tradition. GJPI helped Iraqis on pressing issues, and completed with the Constitutional Review Committee, a process that had stalled for the previous 2 years. GJPI offered more: it enlisted intellectual leaders from the Holy City of Najaf on an unprecedented treatise on Islam and Federalism. The model and trust built by GJPI has since its formal end continued with a series of books in English and Arabic, as well as ongoing requests from Iraqi leaders to GJPI participants across the board of Iraq’s pressing legal needs. Hiram Chodosh directed the Project. Chibli Mallat served as its senior legal advisor.

Related Topics

▶ Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ▶ Chodosh, Hiram ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Democracy, Constitutional ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Democratic Nation Building ▶ Dispute Resolution ▶ Ethical Foreign Policy ▶ Foreign Aid ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ Mallat, Chibli ▶ Transitional Justice ▶ Tyranny ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Bahr al-‘Ulum H (2010) Al-islam wal-fidiraliyya (Islam and federalism). GJPI, Baghdad Chodosh H (2005) Global justice: a comparative methodology. New York University Press, New York Mallat C (2009) Iraq: guide to law and policy. Aspen, Boston www.gjpi.org

Global Justice, Subjects of ANNA MOLTCHANOVA Department of Philosophy, Carleton College, Northfield, MN, USA

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international documents acknowledge the respect for human rights as one of the highest international moral values. Though humans are among basic subjects of global justice in the present international system, international actors are, most of the time, not individual but various group agents. Among these, states are the basic units of recognition in international relations. Other collectives that operate internationally are ethnic and national groups, NGOs, corporations, religious groups, militant organizations, and so on. Hence, the principles of global justice ought to define which groups qualify as legitimate international agents and what moral entitlements they have, in relation to individual members and nonmembers as well as in relation to other group agents. In particular, if the pursuit of a state interest interferes with human rights of its members, what are the guidelines for adjudication between individual and state claims, who is in charge of judging and who discharges the duty of justice? In certain cases of severe violations of human rights by a state, the value of human rights can trump the state’s right to sovereignty. International law and practice permit the international community to interfere in the affairs of a state when the aim is to enforce human rights standards, as has happened in many humanitarian interventions. Not all actions that are morally desirable are codified in international law and the question of subjects of global justice offers, in the normative realm, more questions than answers. For example, the UN charter acknowledges states as major international actors, and so does the International court of justice. The idea of a nation-state is fundamental to political thought. We take it for granted that the world is divided into geographical units governed by sovereign states, and that states express the self-determination

Global Poverty

of corresponding nations. However, despite their prevalence as basic actors on the international scene, states do not match national communities, which are often unequally represented in existing governments. International law understands the right to self-determination of national groups only as the right to be free from former colonial powers and the right to be free from external occupation. This understanding fails to reflect the nature of the self-determination claims of most national groups. Thus, states and national groups should both be subjects of global justice and finding a reasonable correspondence between the system of states and the system of national groups is necessary to promote universal peace and justice. The rights of linguistic, religious, and cultural groups are another important issue of global justice. Making these groups subjects of global justice is warranted because the protection of well-being of their individual members depends on the protection of these groups’ existence. For example, a linguistic minority can be accommodated by the larger political unit of which it is a part only if its language is protected, which can be done through a wide variety of means, from control of education to self-government.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Collective ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Group Rights ▶ National Self-Determination ▶ World Government

References Buchanan A (2004) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Hunt L (2008) Inventing human rights: a history. W.W. Norton, New York Kymlicka W (1995) Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights. Clarendon, Oxford Kymlicka W, Patten A (eds) (2003) Language rights and political theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Parekh B (2000) Rethinking multiculturalism: cultural diversity and political theory. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Rubio-Marin R (2000) Immigration as a democratic challenge: citizenship and inclusion in Germany and the United States. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK Weiss TG, Daws S (eds) (2007) The Oxford handbook on the United Nations. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Global Market ▶ Capitalism ▶ Free Trade ▶ Globalization

G

427

Global Organizations ▶ Capitalism ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Public Sphere ▶ Globalization ▶ International Monetary Fund (IMF) ▶ World Bank (WB)

Global Poverty NICOLE HASSOUN Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Consider a common but, perhaps, simplistic picture of global poverty. According to the World Bank, 47.27% of the world’s population, in 2004, was below the US$2 a day poverty line (World Bank 2007). As much as 17.72% of the world’s population was below US$1 a day poverty line. The World Bank reports that between 1981 and 2004, the number of people below the US$2 a day poverty had fallen by about 20%, while, it says, the number of people below the US$1 a day poverty had fallen by about 40.36% (World Bank 2007). Zooming in below this later poverty line and disaggregating the data by region, we see that, in 2005, 35% of the world’s poverty was in Africa, 32% in East Asia, and 28% in South Asia (Gapminder 2008). In 1970, 56% of the world’s poverty was in East Asia, 30% in South Asia, and only 11% in Africa. Looking at how this income poverty is related to individuals’ ability to meet their basic (e.g., health) needs provides a more detailed picture. Some countries with very low incomes have good health outcomes, for instance, while other countries with high incomes have poor health outcomes. There is great inequality in the distribution of both health and income within countries and regions. The richest 20% of Namibia’s population’s average income is about the average income in the world’s richest countries, the poorest 20% of Namibia’s population’s average income is about the average income in the world’s poorest countries. In East Asia, Cambodia’s average child mortality rates are more like the average sub-Saharan African country’s (average), while Singapore’s average child mortality rates are better than most OECD countries’. Looking at the picture a different way, world poverty might be mapped using the

G

428

G

Global Poverty

Human Poverty Indexes (HPIs) Both HPIs look at literacy and survival rates (although the HPI-1 looks at survival to age 40 and the HPI-2 looks at survival to age 60). The HPI-1, however, also considers measures of access to safe water and adequate nutrition while the HPI-2 looks at the percentage of a population falling below an income poverty line and unemployment rates. Literacy and survival rates make up two-thirds of the HPI-1 and one-half of the HPI-2. In the picture below, each country’s size indicates the proportion of the population living below one or another of the HPIs (the colors indicate the Human Development Index scores) (Fig. 1). The problem with pictures like this is that they do not clearly tell us what we need to know about world poverty. The rest of this article will make this case. It will do so by considering some of the methodological issues we must resolve to really get a handle on the nature and composition of world poverty. Finally, it will suggest that philosophers working on global justice have a lot to contribute to resolving these issues and that doing so could not be more important. In order to get an accurate picture of global poverty, we need a way to measure poverty. There are two options. First, we might use an assortment of indicators such as education and caloric intake. Alternately, we might use a unitary measure of poverty. Unitary measures either specify a single

formula for combining many disparate indicators of poverty or specify a single indicator (like income). There are advantages to using a unitary measure. A unitary measure allows us to get a sense of how well people are doing overall. If different indicators (like average health and education levels) are used, they can exhibit opposite trajectories. Without a unitary measure, we may not even be able to get a sense of whether things are getting better or worse. It may also be impossible to tell how much things are getting better or worse if these indicators change by different amounts (though an assortment of indicators may provide a much richer picture of what is going on). Two possible unitary measures are the (above mentioned) Human Poverty Indexes (HPIs) and the World Bank’s income-based poverty lines. Which is better? The HPIs include more than just income. One might count this as a mark in their favor. Unfortunately, the HPIs have all of the problems of an income measure of poverty and many more besides. One problem is that it is not clear that the HPIs provide a measure of poverty. A philosophical account of poverty might make this contention plausible. The HPIs like their predecessor the Human Development Index were probably created to embody the human capability approach (UNDP 2008). So perhaps the relevant conception of poverty is one on which people lack a set of basic capabilities. This

Global Poverty. Fig. 1 World map of human development. Country size here is intended to illustrate the proportion in poverty (but is calculated by multiplying population by scaled Human Development and Poverty Indexes). The colors (only in the online version of this encyclopedia) indicate different regions of the world. Map from: http://www.worldmapper.org/posters/ worldmapper_map174_ver5.pdf. © Copyright SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan)

Global Poverty

conception of poverty is also independently plausible. But neither the United Nations Development Program, nor Amaryta Sen (Sen 1999) who helped develop the measure, has specified what set of basic functionings people need to be able to avoid poverty (Sen refuses to do so on principle, which is obviously something to consider). Perhaps, one might suggest, the relevant account of functionings can be found in the work of the other great capability theorist – Martha Nussbaum. Nussbaum’s list of what people need to live a minimally good human life is, roughly, this: People must be able to live and avoid premature death; secure adequate health (care?), nourishment, shelter, and bodily integrity; and have the opportunity for sexual satisfaction and reproductive choice. People must be able to use their senses, imagination, and reason, which requires adequate education and freedom of expression. They must have the ability to experience pleasure and avoid non-beneficial pain. People must be able to form attachments, and experience emotions, to form a conception of the good life, affiliate with others, and have the social bases of self-respect. People must be able to care for and live in relation to other parts of the natural world, play, participate effectively in politics, and have equal rights to employment and property (Nussbaum 2007: 23–24). There are at least two problems with the thought that this could form the basis for the HPIs. First, it is not plausible that the HPIs can empirically capture a country’s ability to provide all of these things for its citizens. Second, people do not need everything on Nussbaum’s list to avoid poverty. Not everyone who is unable to play, exercise their imagination, or have sexual satisfaction is poor, though these people may all be deprived of important capabilities. This makes sense since Nussbaum was trying to articulate a conception of good human functioning, not the ability to avoid poverty.

G

Moreover, a country can contain a great deal of poverty even if it has high HPIs. People might still lack adequate shelter and clothing or other things necessary for avoiding poverty. To ground the HPIs we need a philosophical account of what basic capabilities people must be able to secure to avoid poverty (this does not imply that a single set of capabilities is necessary to avoid poverty. The point is that some philosophical account is necessary to show that the HPI captures its subject). Perhaps one could respond to the above critique by claiming that the HPIs are only a proxy for poverty. Countries with low HPI scores may (on average) have a greater number of poor people in them than countries with high HPI scores. After all, one could not reasonably claim that income indices capture more than this. And, we do not need a philosophical account of poverty to see that poverty may be correlated with things the HPIs measure. Unfortunately, this suggestion raises a different problem. The amount of weight the HPIs give to their components may not be justifiable. A country’s survival rate, for instance, may be correlated in a different way with its poverty rate than with its education rate. Consider the following graph (note: since poverty rates, presumably, decline with increases in life expectance and literacy, it is the inverse of the poverty rate that is positively correlated with increases in these things) (Fig. 2). It is not clear that the HPIs’ method of creating a composite proxy is better than a different way of doing so. It may even be better to use one of its components as a proxy (e.g., survival rate in the graph above) or a different proxy altogether. So, it is not at all obvious that the HPIs method of combining its components is justified. Finally, one might worry about some of the particular measures making up the HPIs. Consider, for instance, the measures of income poverty used in the HPI-2. The HPI-2

Percentage

Literacy Rate Life Expectancy Inverse of Poverty Rate

Time

Global Poverty. Fig. 2 Possible relationship between different proxies for poverty and poverty rate. Adapted from Hassoun (2011) with permission

429

G

430

G

Global Poverty

measures the percentage of a population falling below a threshold of 50% of median household disposable income. Different countries have very different thresholds, however the measure of poverty here is relative rather than absolute and more plausibly captures inequality than poverty (for further discussion of the HPIs see: Raworth and Stewart 2003). The World Bank’s poverty lines provide an entirely absolute measure of poverty, so they do not suffer from this problem. Unfortunately, the common methods of calculating these poverty lines share some other problems. One problem stems from the fact that the Bank relies on purchasing power parity (PPP) measures to convert country estimates of income poverty into a common currency (though using foreign exchange rates may be worse). The main sources of PPP measures are the Penn World Tables (PWT) and the International Comparison Project (ICP). These measures are based on surveys with inadequate coverage. China was included for the first time in 2005 and India for the first time since 1985 (ICP 2008). So, the surveys may not provide good estimates of poor countries’ incomes or the incomes of the poor within those countries. Another problem is that the most common PPP measures make it seem like the poor are doing better than they actually are. So, using these measures to estimate poverty rates makes it seem like there are fewer poor people in the world than there are. To see how the problem arises, consider how PPP is calculated on the most common (Geary-Khamis) method. The Geary-Khamis method essentially averages the international price differentials across all commodities. This method weights “each commodity in proportion to its share in international consumption expenditure,” essentially estimating purchasing power over an international “basket” of goods and services (Pogge and Reddy 2003: 1). Unfortunately, this “basket” does not represent the “basket” of goods and services the poor purchase. It contains services and other things that

the poor usually do not buy. Because services are relatively cheaper in developing countries, this implicitly inflates the assessed purchasing power of the poor in developing country currencies. Consider the following illustrative graph (Fig. 3). Suppose the first graph represents the “basket” of commodities on the basis of which the PPP estimates are made. The second graph represents the “basket” of commodities actually purchased by the poor. Services make up more of the “basket” on the basis of which PPP estimates are made. Since services are relatively cheaper in poor countries, this makes it seem like the poor’s currency will go further than it does for purchasing the things the poor purchase. On the other hand, food makes up less of the world’s consumption “basket” than it does of the poor’s consumption “basket.” Food is probably cheaper in developing countries but it is not as cheap as PPP suggest. Looking at some of the poorest countries included in the 1985 ICP survey, for instance, we find that prices for basic food stuffs “Breads and Cereals” averaged 111% higher than consumer prices generally (Reddy and Pogge 2006). So, PPP measures make it seem that the poor are doing better than they are. A related problem stems from the fact that the rich have started to consume more services in recent years. This changes the international “basket” of goods underlying the most common PPP comparisons. The “basket” now contains more services which are relatively cheaper in poor countries. Over time, it, thus, seems that the poor have gotten richer simply as a result of a change in the consumption patterns of the rich. Compare these illustrative graphs (Fig. 4). The poor’s consumption has not changed much since 1960 (they still primarily purchase food). So let us suppose that the following graph represents the “basket” of goods the poor purchased in both 1960 and 2008 (Fig. 5). Over time, the mismatch between the consumption patterns of the poor and the consumption patterns of the rest of the world has grown because rich people are buying

Services and Other Non-tradables Food

Food

Services and Other Non-tradables Other Tradables

Other Tradables

World Consumption Patterns 1960

Consumption Patterns of the Poor 1960

Global Poverty. Fig. 3 Potential mismatch between world consumption patterns and consumption of the poor. Adapted from Hassoun (2011) with permission

Global Poverty

Services and Other Non-tradables

G

431

Services and Other Non-tradables

Food Food

Other Tradables

Other Tradables

World Consumption Patterns 1960

World Consumption Patterns 2009

Global Poverty. Fig. 4 Illustration of changing world consumption over time. Adapted from Hassoun (2011) with permission

Food

Services and Other Non-tradables Other Tradables Consumption Patterns of the Poor 1960–2008

Global Poverty. Fig. 5 Illustration of the poor’s unchanging consumption patterns. Adapted from Hassoun (2011) with permission

more services. Again, services are relatively cheaper in poor countries. This makes it seem like the poor’s currency will go even further in 2008 than it did in 1960 for purchasing the things the poor purchase. So, when poverty estimates rely on these PPP measures, they suggest that there are fewer poor people in the world now than there used to be. They say that poverty is declining just because poor peoples’ currencies could purchase a lot of services relatively cheaply. Poor people, on the other hand, cannot spend much of their money on services. To survive, they have to spend most of their money on food. These problems make it hard to get accurate estimates of the number of people who are poor in the real world because many people have incomes close to the poverty lines. “Recent research on China suggests that a 10% increase in the line brings a roughly 20% increase in the poverty headcount” (Wade 2004: 572). And when China’s prices were reevaluated last year, the number of Chinese below the World Bank’s poverty line increased by two-thirds (Porter 2007).

To improve measures of income poverty, researchers must, for instance, resolve the problems with the PPP measures underlying the metrics. Thomas Pogge and Sanjay Reddy have considered ways of avoiding some of these problems (Pogge and Reddy 2003). They suggest a definition of income poverty focused on “what people generally need to achieve a set of elementary capabilities, rather than on arbitrary dollar amounts” (Pogge and Reddy 2003). They suggest specifying these elementary capabilities and the characteristics of the commodities people usually need to achieve them via a transparent and widely consultative global process. Those involved in the process might specify, for instance, that people need adequate nutrition which requires sufficient calories and essential nutrients. Then, contextual factors such as cultural and environmental constraints can be taken into account in specifying the amount of income people need to avoid poverty in particular countries. The standards can be adjusted over time so that they continue to capture the ability of people to achieve basic capabilities as prices change (Pogge and Reddy 2003). Another possibility is to maintain the PPP estimates but to compare incomes between countries using a “basket” of basic commodities purchased by the poor around the world. Although neither proposal would solve all of the problems with the PPP measure even for measuring poverty (there is no single basket bought by all poor people), they should at least improve the poverty estimates. To improve poverty indexes, we need a philosophically justified account of basic capabilities necessary for avoiding poverty. Furthermore, we need an account of how we should weigh and balance fulfilling different capabilities. (If one denies that this is appropriate, one must give up on the attempt to create a unitary measure of poverty.) Finally, we must make sure that the measures making up the account do not suffer from their own problems. If, for instance, we want an absolute measure of income poverty, we will have to avoid the problems with the PPP measures noted above.

G

432

G

Global Public

Although it is easy to take statistics on world poverty at face value, some of the most interesting work in the global justice literature has been on how best to measure poverty (Pogge 2004). This is truly philosophical work. For, as Thomas Pogge has recently argued, many indexes are understood as more than just aggregate statistics or predictive tools – they are standards of evaluation. These indexes provide standards that are at least used in ways that require normative evaluation (Pogge 2008; Hassoun 2009b). So, the poverty indexes deserve sustained philosophical attention (Pogge 2008; Hassoun 2009b). And, to measure a phenomenon, we have to understand it. Hence, philosophers’ accounts of the nature of poverty and deprivation might inform (and raise some problems for) some of the most recent measures. The fact that, so far, most of the work on such indexes has been done by non-philosophers is, as Pogge suggests, often “unfortunate for those who suffer the effects of deeply flawed indices and unfortunate also for academic philosophy, which is marginalizing itself and does not love wisdom well enough to understand what matters” (Pogge 2008). For, the desirability of eliminating poverty on different measures probably varies greatly (Hassoun 2009a). If poverty is defined relative to the average income, for instance, the only way to eliminate it would be to eliminate inequality, not just absolute deprivation. Furthermore, policy debates about poverty relief and foreign aid often hinge on claims about how many poor people there are in the world and what constitutes poverty (Hassoun 2010). So, completing this work could not be more pressing or important.

Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Julian Culp for very helpful comments on this article. The material on PPP draws on material in Hassoun (2011).

Hassoun N (2009b) Measuring poverty. WIDER working paper Hassoun N (2010) Making the case for foreign aid. Public Aff Q 24(1):1–20 Hassoun N (2011) Free trade, poverty and inequality. J Moral Philos 8(1):5–44. Available at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ brill/jmp/2011/00000008/00000001/art00003 International Comparison Project (2008) Global purchasing power parities and real expenditures: 2005 international comparison program. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, Washington, DC. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ICPINT/ Resources/icp-final.pdf. Accessed 6 June 2011 Nussbaum M (2007) Human rights and human capabilities. Harv Hum Rights J 20:21–14 Pogge T (2004) The first United Nations millennium development goal: a cause for celebration? J Hum Dev 5:377–397 Pogge T (2008) Developing morally plausible indices of poverty and gender equity: a research program. Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, Dec, 2008 Pogge T, Reddy S (2003) Unknown: the extent, distribution, and trend of global income poverty. Working paper Version 3.4. http://www. etikk.no/globaljustice/papers/GJ2003_Thomas_Pogge_with%20Sanjay_ Reddy._Unknown_-_The_Extent,_Distribution_and_Trend_of_Global_ Income_Poverty.pdf. Accessed 6 June 2011 Porter E (2007) ‘China Shrinks’, Editorial note, December 9, 2007. New York Times, New York Raworth K, Stewart D (2003) Critiques of the human development index. In: Parr S, Kumar A (eds) Readings in human development: concepts, measures and policies for a development paradigm. Oxford University Press, New Delhi Reddy S, Pogge T (2006) How not to count the poor. In: Anand S, Stiglitz J (eds) Measuring global poverty. Oxford University Press, Oxford. www.socialanalysis.org. Accessed 1 Jan 2009 Sen A (1999) Development as freedom. Anchor Books, New York United Nations Development Program (2008) How is the HDI used? Human development reports. UNDP, New York. http://hdr.undp. org/en/statistics/indices/hdi/question,69,en.html. Accessed 1 Jan 2009 Wade R (2004) Is globalization reducing poverty and inequality? World Dev 32:567–589 World Bank (2007) Povcalnet. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/ EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTPROGRAMS/EXTPOVRES/ EXTPOVCALNET/0,,contentMDK:21867101pagePK:64168427 piPK:64168435theSitePK:5280443,00.html. Accessed 1 Jan 2009

Related Topics

▶ Development Ethics ▶ Food ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ World Bank (WB)

References Gapminder (2008) Human development trends, 2005. 6 Nov 2008. http://www.gapminder.org/downloads/flash-presentations/humandevelopment-trends-2005/ Hassoun N (2008) World poverty and individual freedom. Am Philos Q 45:191–198 Hassoun N (2009a) Meeting need. Utilitas 21(3):250–275

Global Public MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

The formation of a global public is now widely seen as a possibility opened up by innovations in electronic communications technology, particularly the Internet. Indeed, the World Wide Web potentially deterritorializes the public sphere as tied to the centralized authority of the nation state over a delimited territory. It does so inasmuch

Global Public

as it facilitates a worldwide network of communication among diverse transnational social movements and NonGovernmental Organizations (NGO). These diverse social movements and civil society organizations are comprised of specifically world citizens who aim to publicize injustices ranging from the local to the global, and contest the power of private and public authorities below, at, and above the level of the state. Through multiple cross-cutting levels of pubic contestation, such deterritorialized, transnational movements and civic organizations hold diverse expressions of power accountable to a global public opinion. Capable of exerting an influence over global affairs through mobilized global public opinion, a global public is clearly one of the central features of transnational democracy. Nonetheless, the actual democratic potential of a global public, as based on electronic network communication, is treated with some not unwarranted skepticism by at least some commentators. Without doubt, there are conceptual difficulties associated with the concept of a global public that stand in need of resolution. One such difficulty posed by skeptics concerns the supposed infeasibility of ever effectively detaching the notion of a public from that of territoriality. Here a typical objection is that commonalities of language and culture that create patterns of exclusive identity and memberships necessarily define the boundaries of political communities. Such commonalities are then taken strongly to suggest that national communities remain the primary forum of effective democratic communication and accountability. Indeed, they remain the primary forum insofar as they are based overtly on the exclusivity of identity and membership as tied to language and culture. Consequently, any attempt to form a global public would lack the linguistic and cultural preconditions of mass-democratic participation, making it the preserve of narrow cosmopolitan elites, with questionable democratic credentials. Another typical objection to the feasibility of a global public as an effective medium of transnational democracy concerns the familiar distinction between strong and weak publics. This distinction is commonly made at the national level of governance. Here strong publics are said to be those connected to the core complex of parliamentary institutions concerned with the production of legislation. By contrast, weak publics are not directly connected to the production of legislation, but rather the more informal medium through which public opinion is formed. With this distinction in view, the problem of democracy may then be said to be that of transforming weak publics concerned with the formation of public opinion into strong publics able directly to affect legislative processes that give expression to the popular collective

G

will. But then it would appear to be the case that a global public, based on informal deterritorialized network communication among transnational social movements, could never be anything more than a weak public, in the terms of this distinction. Indeed, in the absence of a complex of global parliamentary institutions analogous to those of the state, the issue of transforming a global public from the weak to the strong variety simply does not arise. Moreover, in reference to the previous objection, any movement toward creating such a global complex would be normatively undesirable given that it would, again, lack the linguistic and cultural prerequisites of mass-democratic participation. Consequently, from this point of view, a global public would necessarily remain chronically weak, limiting its democratic potential as an instrument of global justice. These rather negative assessments are, however, questioned by other theorists who argue that a global public should be conceived as different in kind from the public of a nation state. Here the contention is that the distinction between weak and strong publics does not apply to the case of properly transnational democratic participation. Indeed, a global public is not concerned with the production of a global popular legislative collective will at all. Instead, its role is to facilitate a variety of different possible forms of communication within the decision-making processes of a directly deliberative polycentric, or multilevel, form of governance. In this respect, much current discussion of the democratic potential of the global public concerns the evolving institutions and practices of the European Union (EU), as the world’s first genuinely transnational polity lacking the unitary and linguistic features of earlier territorial publics. One example of such polycentric publicity may be found in the use within the EU of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) to facilitate wide deliberation concerning the specification and comparison of standards for policies ranging from unemployment to poverty reduction. The OMC incorporates European citizens from the national publics of different member states who participate in these formal deliberative processes as transnational publics simultaneously at different locations within the EU. This model of incorporating deterritorialized and distributed publics into official deliberation, and decision-making processes may be built upon by proposals to convene and empower mini-publics comprised of randomly selected citizens from different EU member states to form opinions, make proposals, set goals or agendas, or even make certain kinds of binding policy decisions. To this extent, such varied and dispersed public participation adapted to a polycentric form of transnational

433

G

434

G

Global Public Goods

governance may be said to point beyond a merely weak public comprised only of elite self-selecting members of contestatory social movements and NGOs, but without engaging the idea of a strong mass-democratic collective will. Indeed, as neither properly weak nor strong in the accepted sense of that distinction, this conception of distributed public participation in transnational deliberative governance provides the most adequate model to date of a distinctively global public. An open question remains, however, as to the possibility of extending the models of the OMC, mini-publics, or any similar mechanism of deterritorialized public participation in official channels of power, beyond the confines of EU regionalism.

Related Topics

▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Human Rights Culture ▶ Globalization

References Bohman JF (2007) Democracy across borders: from demos to demoi. MIT Press, Cambridge David H (1995) Democracy and the global order: from the modern state to cosmopolitan governance. Polity, Cambridge Dryzek JS (2006) Deliberative global politics. Polity, Cambridge Habermas J (2001) The postnational constellation: political essays. MIT Press, Cambridge Held D (2006) Global covenant: the social democratic alternative to the washington consensus. Polity, Cambridge

Global Public Goods FRED E. FOLDVARY Civil Society Institute, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, USA

The public goods that affect the whole world are “global public goods.” They are global not only across space but also through time, as they affect future generations. Global justice concerns the ethics of the selection, financing, distribution of global public goods, and the ethics requires an understanding of the economic costs and benefits of providing public goods. The increasingly global economy has transformed previously local services such as finance into goods with a global impact. The value of the US dollar, for example, is a global public good. With modern communications and

the Internet, ideas are increasingly global public goods as they spread quickly worldwide. The Internet itself is a global public good. A public good is a thing that people can use at the same time without diminishing its use by others. These are also called “collective goods,” including services and resources. Rivalry occurs when one person’s use of a good reduces that of another; hence a public good is non-rivalrous. For example, if nobody is blocking the view, then viewing a movie does not detract from the viewing of others, as each person is viewing the whole screen. Goods are also categorized as to whether they are excludable or non-excludable. Goods are non-excludable if it is physically impossible to exclude a person from using the good. Most of the goods provided by government are excludable; for example, one can stop a reckless driver and expel him from the highway. Some economists define public goods as both non-rival and non-excludable, while others define public goods only as non-rival. Goods that are both non-rival and excludable are called “club goods,” since clubs typically exist to serve their members. The term “public” has two meanings. First, “public” means a group of people. The phrase “open to the public” means that people in general may enter. The second meaning of “public” is the government sector of the economy. The “public” in “public goods” means people, not necessarily government. The term “private” also has two meanings. The private sector of the economy is the part of the economy that is not in the government sector. The second meaning of “private” applies to goods that are not public goods. Thus, the private sector can provide collective goods, and the public sector can provide private, individually used, goods. For example, when one obtains a passport from the government, that is a private good obtained from the public sector. International organizations that promote human rights and social justice throughout the world provide global public goods. Knowledge that is freely available to everyone is another example. The earth’s atmosphere and climate are global public goods, as is the world’s wildlife as a whole, since people worldwide value wildlife even when it is located elsewhere. Another global public good is the genetic heritage, the totality of the species of plants and animals, and their characteristics. In economics, “goods” is a general term for stuff, and some goods can be bads. Global pollution and environmental destruction such as the depletion of the ozone can be considered negative public goods. International movements to minimize public bads and promote peace,

Global Public Health

justice, and sustainability are themselves beneficial global public goods. Global justice requires the provision and protection of beneficial global public goods and minimization of collective bads, in accord with ethical principles such as liberty, equality, and sustainability. The methods of the provision need to also be in accord with global justice, in addition to the goods themselves.

Related Topics

▶ Common Good ▶ Communities ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Public Health ▶ Global Public Sphere ▶ International Law ▶ World Government

References Global Policy Forum. Global public goods. Downloadable from http:// globalpolicy.org/social-and-economic-policy/global-public-goods1-101.html Kaul I, Grunberg I, Stern M (eds) (1999) Global public goods: international cooperation in the 21st century. Oxford University Press, New York Kaul I, Conceicao P, Le Goulven K, Mendoza R (eds) (2003) Providing global public goods: managing globalization. Oxford University Press. Parts downloadable from http://www.globalpublicgoods.org/

Global Public Health MICHAEL BOYLAN Department of Philosophy, Marymount University, Arlington, VA, USA

There are at least two sorts of imperatives to maintain public health: (a) prudential, and (b) moral. In the former case, an agent advocates policies supporting public health because it makes the environment in which the agent lives more desirable for the agent, himself. In this case, for example, one would like to rid his area of cholera because if cholera is allowed to spread, then the agent, himself, might catch cholera. In such situations the agent is thinking only of his own advantage. This has two discernable effects: (1) public health is merely an extension of particular agents’ own personal needs, and (2) (as a result of (1)) public health policies

G

435

will only be supported when there is a political mandate to do so based upon coalitions of people advocating their shared self-interest.

Prudential Grounds for Public Health The prudential model is based upon a principle of selfish egoism and extended egoism (the political expression of selfish egoism). Continuing with the cholera example, agents are only after their own self-interest. Thus, these agents will support a policy if and only if they believe that policy will directly benefit them. In the cholera example, someone living outside a city might only support a public health effort for sanitation if he believed the danger of contracting cholera was getting dangerously close to infecting him or his family. The risk must be immanent. There must be a clear and present danger of his being harmed. This sort of agent is willing to support only those projects that directly benefit him. From the agent’s point of view, this is the most efficient allocation of resources. (“Efficient” here means not spending public money on other people apart from the agent. Thus the adage, if the program doesn’t help me, it’s a wasteful program.) Others will support policies that they see it in their “enlightened self-interest.” These might include preventative measures that may (indirectly) help others whether or not there is an immanent threat or a clear and present danger. These individuals are acting from self-interest but have a longer view of things. They see prevention as the most efficient allocation of resources because reacting in the midst of a crisis is notoriously expensive. These individuals would point to the adage, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this way the “enlightened selfinterest” version of egoism sees public health measures as some sort of insurance policy that will efficiently address potential problems. (“Efficiency” here means using fewer public dollars to address an issue that may have an impact upon the agent, himself. Though there is some waste involved – because (1) the problem might not arise and (2) the solution may help many others apart from the agent – the cost savings from acting early offsets this other sense of waste.) It is the opinion of this author that in the present world, for the most part, that public health policy is ruled by the prudential concerns of those who control government policy: the rich and well connected. But is this how it should be? What is the alternative?

Moral Grounds for Public Health The moral grounds for public health will refer back to the generating moral theory that one wishes to employ. For

G

436

G

Global Public Health

purposes of brevity let us confine ourselves to four theories: intuitionism, contractarianism, utilitarianism, and a rights-based action model. Intuitionism. Ethical intuitionism might come to play here as it relates to an “interest-based” theory of basic goods. One might intuit just what goods might count as contributing to a minimal sense of well-being and select those as passing the test for those in one’s own country and in other countries. This theory depends upon others with a like intuition banding together for action. Contractarianism. This theory would leave it to international treaties (on the practical realm) to enforce the humane treatment of the citizens of various countries. How much people are willing to press individual countries to provide basic public health services to those without it remains to be seen. The past track record of postColonialism is not too promising. On the idealistic realm some contractarians (such as Rawls) provide consistent progressive criteria for protecting the poor, but whether his second original position could every realistically occur is unclear. Utilitarianism. This theory would weigh in the moral realm by counting every person as “one.” This equal accounting would give moral justification behind improving the public health lot of the least advantaged in the world (since they are the most populous). Again, it is one thing to argue for an ought and another to create public policy. But since utilitarianism is also the language of global capitalism, there is some hope using this theory. Rights-Based Deontology. There are various versions of this approach. This author advocates understanding legitimate rights claims based upon the goods necessary to execute purposive action. Thus, those goods that are most proximate to action would be held the highest in an hierarchical ordering. The advantage of this approach is that most people intuitively accept that access to food, clean water, proper sanitation, clothing and shelter, and protection from unwarranted bodily harm are minimally necessary for action and that they should be possessed by all people on earth. But the question here (as in all the theories) is who will pay for it?

Narrow or Wide Lens on Public Health? In the 150+ years that public health has been a separate field, there has been a debate on what should constitute its domain. Those advocating for a narrow lens will concentrate upon proximate causes for preventing infectious disease: (a) environmental concerns (such as clean water and sanitation), (b) scientific research and vaccinations, and (c) strategic public interventions when outbreaks

occur (including quarantines and targeting disease carriers). Some claim that this narrow lens completely defines the field. A more robust definition widens the lens to a broader conception of public health as interfering with well-being or being denied the basic goods of purposive agency. In this more robust definition, political and social goods are included. These might include fundamental freedoms (such as those in the United States Bill of Rights or the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights) and basic human respect and equal opportunity to compete for higher education and jobs. This more robust definition will also take into account social goods such as racism, profiling, gender discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, etc. This author supports the broader definition, but the goals for satisfying this more ambitious agenda make satisfaction of total public health harder to achieve.

How Should Morality Affect Public Health Policy? The input of morality into public health policy is twofold: (a) an outgrowth of global distributive justice and (b) whether the wide or narrow approach is adopted. In the first instance one might measure nationally whether all parties are being given equal access to the goods of public health such as an equally effective sanitation system. In many countries the public sanitation is deplorable and the wealthy elite enjoy a different standard (Boylan 2008b). The same is true of drinking water especially since the international availability of bottled water. Some country could say that all people have the same public drinking water system, but if the wealthy subvert the system by buying all their drinking water separately, then equal access is a false illusion. Also in this same category is the issue of access to vaccination and basic medical care. In much of the world in which fee for service is the rule, the poor are subject to the ravages of tuberculosis, malaria, diphtheria, measles, HIV, various water-related diseases, and other diseases for which there is either treatment or vaccinations available. Regardless of the moral system selected above, there would be some level of concern for everyone receiving certain basic public health goods were morality included as a component in national or international public health policy. In the second category of the narrow or broader understanding of public health, morality might seek the broader. In this case, the well-being of people or their access to certain basic goods of agency might drive other aspects of social and political policy to support those who have legitimate claims for freedom and dignity within

Global Public Health

their country without regard for their race, gender, or sexual orientation. This twofold effect of morality upon public health policy should be viewed both from the lens of many nations’ individual national policies and from a cosmopolitan perspective. Cosmopolitanism requires a global perspective. For example, the cosmopolitan perspective of global public health might upon reflection consider that the globe as a whole displays a north-south disparity as far as access to even the narrow definition of the goods of public health. What should the world do about this? If we assume that public health is rather different than other sorts of disparities – such as the number of swimming pools or tennis courts – because it is somehow more essential to living one’s life, then the moral standpoint regarding public health would require that the nations of the world through the United Nations or through multilateral treaties, NGOs, etc., should try to address disparities with realistic milestones and a determination to bring them about. Sadly, these sorts of treaties (however they are negotiated) have generally lost enthusiasm shortly after adoption. This is probably due to the fact that most of the donor nations are democracies and that, as such, their ruling coalitions change on a regular basis.

Rationing Rationing is an uncomfortable term in public health ethics. This is because it requires some recognition that there are more demands upon the global public health system than the system can accommodate. Even providing free malaria screens in West Africa can create a bit of a brouhaha. At this writing the nets treated with insecticide cost $10 to make and deliver to a targeted location. But the question became if we have one billion dollars to give to the project, then this would mean either: (a) giving 100 million persons free nets or (b) giving 125,000,000 million persons nets at a $2 cost. In each case there is a rationing strategy involved. Who is to bear the burden of the rationing? What should the formula be? When morality enters the picture in the guise of global distributive justice there are some distribution schemes that suggest giving to the rich and powerful first (at whatever level this might be relatively measured – such as a tribal chief and his clan–before others). This would be a prudential scheme of distribution. Other distribution schemes may emphasize a more cooperative formula. In this case only some sort of lottery would do. Since all have an equal claim, and there is not enough for all, chance should decide the day. This would be a moral scheme of distribution. Rationing is an unpleasant reality that all advocates of global public health must come to recognize. When

G

437

morality intervenes, it moves away from the default scheme of disenfranchising the poor toward a policy of treating all people as having equal claims on the goods of public health.

Conclusion International public health policy has always had a complicated relationship with morality. This is because many supporting the narrow lens are scientifically and practically minded with an attitude of just getting the job done. However, in order to raise funds to carry out their mission, they make moral appeals. As an emerging field some of these tensions will surely develop in directions we cannot imagine today.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Needs ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Human Rights ▶ Moral Reasoning ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Primary Goods ▶ Rights ▶ Utilitarianism

References Anand S, Fabienne P, Sen A (2006) Public health ethics and equity. Oxford University Press, Oxford Battin MP, Francis LP, Jacobson JA, Smith CB (2009) The patient as victim and vector: ethics and infectious disease. Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford Bayer R, Gostin LO, Jennings B, Steinback B (2006) Public health ethics: theory, policy and practice. Oxford University Press, New York Boylan M (2004a) A just society. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD and Oxford Boylan M (2004b) The moral imperative to maintain public health. In: Boylan M (ed) Public health policy and ethics. Springer, Dordrecht Boylan M (ed) (2004c) Public health policy and ethics. Springer, Dordrecht Boylan, M (2008a) Clean water. In: Boylan M (ed) International public health policy and ethics. Springer, Dordrecht Boylan M (2008b) International public health policy and ethics. Springer, Dordrecht Boylan M (2011a) Morality and global justice. Westview, Boulder Boylan M (ed) (2011b) The morality and global justice reader. Westview, Boulder Daniels N (2008) International health inequalities and global justice. In: Boylan M (ed) International public health policy and ethics. Springer, Dordrecht

G

438

G

Global Public Reason

Dawson A, Verweij M (2009) Ethics, prevention and public health. Oxford University Press, Oxford Holland S (2007) Public health ethics. Polity, Oxford Powers M, Faden R (2008) Social justice: the moral foundations of public health and health policy. Oxford University Press, Oxford Selgelid M, Battin M, Smith CP (eds) (2006) Ethics and infectious disease. Blackwell, Oxford

Global Public Reason LYNETTE E. SIEGER Gallatin School, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Immanuel Kant conceived of public reason as the freedom of individuals, being members of society and citizens of the world, to publically offer their opinions and reasoned critiques in all matters. Though Kant stressed the importance of obedience of the citizen to its sovereign, he argued that civil freedom of the use of public reason was necessary to securing the social recognition of the dignity of the individual (Kant 1784/2001). Most famously political philosopher John Rawls refined and integrated the principle of public reason in his ideas of political liberalism and justice. Rawls’s conception of public reason permits the defense of belief or opinion in public forums, such as in judicial and political decisions as well as in political campaigns, exclusively on the basis of political reasons which all, from their disparate comprehensive moral or religious views, could reasonably accept as free and equal citizens. The use of public reason is to serve as a constraint on competing religious and nonreligious comprehensive views. In order to secure the liberal project of reasonable value pluralism, public reason must exclude those views that challenge liberal constitutional democracy (Rawls 1999). Though originally formulated as a principle for citizens within liberal constitutional democracies, Rawls extended the idea of public reason to the sphere of international justice with modification. He argued that the Society of Peoples, composed of representatives of liberal and decent non-liberal societies, ought to be construed as operating under a second order social contract among representatives of peoples rather than persons. In relations among societies, or states, representatives should set aside comprehensive views, even if fundamental to their internal ordering, and limit international political discourse to political reasons that all could reasonably accept. On the global plane Rawls restricts the use of public reason to institutional structures, such as the state and its representatives (Rawls 1999).

One critique of the Rawlsian idea of public reason in the global realm as sufficiently mediated through representatives is that such a conception fails to adequately capture the principles of egalitarian justice through equal consideration of each person. International treaties, rules, and obligations, negotiated by representatives from authoritarian, non-democratic, or partially democratic societies exclude the authentic participation, consent, and consideration of affected persons, thus falling short of democratic legitimacy that a robust liberal political theory demands. (Chatterjee 2011). In his work The Idea of Justice (2009), Amartya Sen challenges the Rawlsian view of the idea of international public reason, between representatives of peoples, and offers a defense of global public reason that attaches to persons. Sen argues that within the state as well as within the realm of global relations, public reason should be exercised with cosmopolitan consideration of persons, rather than states or peoples. In our globally interconnected world, internal state policies are likely to have wide consequences that cannot be contained by state borders. As a matter of justice, the interests of all affected persons should be given consideration and expression. Additionally, the impartial perspective of cosmopolitanism serves as a useful mechanism to step outside of narrow interests, and biases to forge more just outcomes. Sen defends a conception of democracy that is not unduly constrained by the limits of its institutional elements. The success of procedures, such as ballots, elections, and their outcomes, are contingent on the actual behavior of persons. Public reason protects democratic processes from authoritarianism, or tyranny of the majority, by promoting discourse that is inclusive and informative of the plight, interests, needs, and desires of minority or disadvantaged persons which otherwise might go unnoticed. Global democracy as a matter of engagement and discourse is practical in a way that institutional global democracy by ballot is not. One can see the intimate link between democracy and justice via public reason. Information through public reason empowers the public and decision makers to be concerned with the actual lives and capabilities of persons through inclusive discourse. Political and social processes should be geared to be responsive to the people rather than people being responsive to institutions. Sen acknowledges that procedures and institutions play important roles in democracy and justice, but his theory is distinguished from Rawls’ in that these roles are complimentary and open in the global sphere rather than central and closed to non-representative actors. In fact, Sen argues that global institutions – including media, the United Nations, and Non-Governmental

Global Public Sphere

Organizations – can and do play an invaluable role in the collection and distribution of information, as well as in the creation and enforcement of human rights standards that are necessary to promote engagement in global public reason. Sen concludes that public reason should be wide, open, local, and global. The proliferation of global communications such as the Internet and cell phone technology, decreased travel time at relatively low cost, and the introduction of global communities represented through religion, multinational corporations, cooperatives, non-governmental organizations, ethnicity, and emerging global governance push the urgency to answer the normative question of who should have voice in the project of global justice. Public reason as a long identified component of justice in liberal political theory must actively be cultivated. The question that remains is whether public reason should be international through political representatives or cosmopolitan in character. Communitarian or statist positions urge public reason through representation. This position assumes that the interests of persons can be accurately identified with and adequately represented through their political community. The idea of cosmopolitan or global public reason on the other hand engages the intersection of multiple commitments, identities, and interests that are communal, cross-communal, and varied at the individual level.

Related Topics

▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Contractarianism ▶ Equality ▶ Fairness ▶ International Organizations ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Sen, Amartya

References Chatterjee D (2009) The conflicting loyalties of statism and globalism: can global democracy resolve the liberal conundrum? Metaphilosophy 40:65–76 Chatterjee D (2011) Reciprocity, closed-impartiality, and national borders: framing (and extending) the debate on global justice. Social Philos Today (forthcoming) Kant I (1784/2001) Answer to the question: what is enlightenment? In: Wood A (ed) Basic writings of Kant. Random House Publishing, New York Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples with the idea of public reason revisited. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Rawls J (2001) Justice as fairness: a restatement, ed. Kelly E, 2nd edn. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

G

439

Global Public Sphere MILTON FISK Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

The Public Sphere How can we characterize the public sphere? It is an arena for debates and decisions open to everyone, either in person or through a chosen delegate, who would be significantly affected by the outcome of those debates and decisions. A community that debates and votes on a school levy has a public sphere. In contrast, an arena that excludes some who would be affected by its debates and decisions is part of the private sphere. Thus a family and a for-profit company belong to the private sphere. But precisely what is it that is open to debate and decision in the public sphere? It is ultimately the design and execution of ideas affecting the society in which there is this arena for open discussion and decision. This leads to our asking whether there is any standard at work in these discussions and decisions about society? Without some standard there is no reason to have such an arena. We have a reason for the public sphere if the standard it uses is that its ideas and decisions promote the continued viability of society. Within this general view of the public sphere, one can develop the concept of a global public sphere. A real global public sphere is a relatively recent development. It emerged along with extensions of the influence of states beyond their borders, but paradoxically these extensions threaten a global public sphere with their narrow goal of domination. Despite these origins, a global public sphere has led to a global society and the global public goods associated with it.

The Rise of the Global Sphere When a small body of people in a society makes its decisions, there is a shrinking of its public sphere and a step toward its replacement by the private sphere. A society has a public sphere when a sizeable body of people in it engages in the discussion and execution of matters pertaining to it. Historically, a public sphere emerged where democratic practices took hold. Discussions and decision in the public sphere led to the establishment of public goods. These are goods desired by each for all, whereas people in a society’s private sphere desire goods merely for some. It is still another step to reach a global public sphere. At the instrumental level, this step called for an opening

G

440

G

Global Public Sphere

up of the world through facilitating travel and communication. Beyond that, it required at the political level the formation of multinational forums of a variety of kinds to address issues of global social concern. The various commissions of the United Nations provide such forums, but often the private interests of nations or wealth limit what these commissions can accomplish. There are though other forums, at a less official level, that help create either a strand of a global public sphere through work in a specific area, like the area addressed by Doctors Without Borders, or a more multifaceted component of a global public sphere primarily through educational work, like that of the World Social Forum.

Society’s Needs and Public Goods A major task of the public sphere of a society is to consider how to satisfy the society’s needs. Could one not rely entirely on the private sphere for that task? Then it would not be necessary to introduce public goods since privately owned goods sold for private profit at market values would do the job. One could satisfy the need for justice by judges for hire; the need for defense by the low bidders among a group of Blackwater-like companies; and the need for health care by private insurers’ purchasing health care from private clinics and hospitals. This view of the potential of the private sphere to satisfy all of society’s needs overlooks the risk the private sphere would pose of undermining society in the basic sense of something that provides a social bond. The source of this risk is that in the economic private sphere the commitment is not to society but to corporate officers and shareholders. In this sphere, satisfying private interest takes precedence over avoiding risks to society’s viability. How could one convince those in the private sphere to honor commitments made in the public sphere? Some try to convince them by showing them that it is in their self-interest. They argue from so-called externalities. This involves claiming that there will be ample rewards for those who sacrifice for a public good, since in addition to what they gain directly from a public good, they also benefit indirectly from what others external to them gain from it. Despite all this, those who operate in the private sphere may still reject the call to support public goods, saying that the gains they get from externalities are limited, while those they can make directly from their own efforts are potentially without limit.

Global Public Goods Global society goes beyond what we might call a league of societies. Within a league, each society develops relations

with the others that are supposed to advance its interests. A global society has a different relation to local societies since they enter it only for the interest of all in it. A global society at an early stage can try to fashion local societies to make them compatible with it, but in some cases it may lack the authority to do so. It can encourage these chauvinist local societies to become part of it by working toward agreements with them on specific issues. It can work toward agreement to adopt the interest of all with more willing societies. Certain of these agreements will be for forming global public goods, which help undercut conflicts over resources spread unevenly around the globe, such as water, or undercut conflicts over responsibility for harming the planet, by, for example, increasing carbon dioxide emissions. This leaves us with daunting questions for global public goods. How do we draw the line between the issues properly dealt with in the global public sphere and those properly dealt with in some private sphere? (Should knowledge be public or private?) At what rate can we reasonably use resources available for global public goods? (Are we polluting clean water supplies too rapidly?) How should we distribute the wealth we produce in a global society among the different global public goods? (Should we allow health care to consume 10% of global product?) These are some of the most challenging questions for global public goods that also challenge the concept and implementation of global justice. We need to preface these questions by saying that answering them is a task of the global public, not the global private, sphere. In answering them, the best guide is following the effects on the viability of global society, and hence on local societies which make it up. This differs from saying the best guide is the effects on the kind of global society we want. Yet the kind of society, whether global or local, we want may be what we need to change, however devoted we are to it. Pursuing it may lead to a collapse of society itself. In the public sphere, it is possible to be sufficiently critical to uncover such a danger.

Related Topics

▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Public Good ▶ Public Interest ▶ Solidarity

References Fisk M (2000) Surviving with dignity in a global economy: the battle for public goods. In: Anatol A, Fisk M, Holmstrom N (eds) Not for sale: in defense of public goods. Westview Press, Boulder, pp 41–63

Global Resource Distribution Fisk M (2004) Bienes Pu´blicos y Justicia Radical. Programa & Editorial Universidad del Valle, Cali, Chap. 6. Available in English at www. miltonfisk.org as “Global public goods and self-interest” Habermas J (1996) Between facts and norms (trans: Rehg W). MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, Chap.8, Sec. 3.1 (Habermas includes discussion but not decision in his more detached view of the public sphere) de Sousa Santos B (2006) The rise of the global left: the World Social Forum and beyond. Zed Books, New York, Chap.3 (De Sousa speaks here about a counter-hegemonic globalization) Stiglitz JE (1999) Knowledge as a public good. In: Kaul I, Grunberg I, Stern MA (eds) Global public goods. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 308–325

Global Resource Distribution CHRIS ARMSTRONG School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

Natural resources are distributed unevenly throughout the world. The territories of some nation-states, for instance, possess abundant mineral resources which are capable of commanding high prices on world markets, while others possess reserves of coal and iron capable of driving industrialization. Others possess meager levels of resources, however, and indeed have scarce and sometimes insecure access even to essentials of life such as clean water. This unevenness has often been thought to have implications for global justice. After all, the processes by which national borders have come to be drawn on maps, and defended by military force – and as a result of which coalfields or seams of gold may end up inside one national jurisdiction or another – are often scarcely defensible from a normative point of view, involving as they sometimes do violent usurpation, dispossession, or even genocide. Can nationstates be thought to deserve, or to have a just claim to, the resources that happen to exist within their borders? Should such nation-states be seen as the custodians of such resources? Or should resources be seen as some kind of collective asset? From the point of view of principles of distributive justice, should we try to correct or compensate for the current unevenness of resource distribution? How would we do that? On what basis should national communities be entitled to use “their” natural resources, and should principles of global justice circumscribe this entitlement?

Principles of Resource Redistribution? The theorist Charles Beitz, seeking to develop the implications of John Rawls’s theory of justice in a cosmopolitan

G

direction, once suggested a “resource distribution principle” according to which each nation-state should possess the resources sufficient to allow it to develop just institutions and meet the basic needs of its own members. Such a principle might require major transfers of resources between nation-states. (In fact, for Beitz, the presence of something like a Global Basic Structure might make it appropriate that we prefer an even stronger principle, such as a Global Difference Principle, to regulate international inequalities. But even if we were unpersuaded by such a move, the argument for a resource distribution principle would still hold.) To put it simply, the distribution of natural resources might be seen as a morally arbitrary fact that should not impact quite as readily as it tends to do on individuals’ life-chances across different communities. The appropriation of natural resources by some, on the global scale, might otherwise leave the lives of others seriously disadvantaged through no fault of their own. A similar argument – to the effect that some form of international taxation might be necessary to transfer resources from rich countries to poorer ones – was also suggested by Brian Barry. In the event, though, the approach which John Rawls took to global justice in The Law of Peoples eschewed such a principle. The relative wealth and poverty of Peoples, he suggested, had a good deal to do with their relative industriousness, their cooperative virtues, and their different political cultures (in short, Rawls leaned toward Explanatory Nationalism: the view that the characteristics of individual nation-states were – primarily, if not wholly – responsible for their differing economic fortunes, and not some external features such as the form of the global economic system, or the distribution of resources). Apart from a few exceptional cases, the lack of natural resources in abundance would not serve as a brake on economic advancement for individual Peoples (as evidence for this counterargument, Rawls asked us to compare resource-poor but wealthy Japan with resourcerich but relatively poor Argentina). Principles of resource redistribution are therefore designed to resolve a problem that does not really exist. Since individual communities are able to prevent resource scarcity translating into poverty, such principles are not necessary.

Resource Ownership and Expropriation We seem to be directed, therefore, in the direction of a discussion about empirical evidence on the causes of wealth and poverty, and the role of natural resource distribution within that causal chain. Here a noteworthy contribution has been made by Thomas Pogge. Pogge would reject Rawls’s picture, according to which poverty

441

G

442

G

Global Resource Distribution

has essentially “internal” causes, and focus instead on the many ways in which powerful external actors have been complicit in the reproduction of poverty over time on the part of poorer nation-states. Pogge has described what he calls a “resource privilege,” according to which global markets appear prepared to accept as legitimate owners of a nation-state’s resources just anyone able to command overwhelming military force within a given territory, and hence able to physically deliver up those resources. Even an undemocratic regime, abusive of its people’s human rights, will regularly be able to sell the resources of the domestic society on global markets, therefore. This privilege, in fact, has pernicious consequences, insofar as it actually incentivizes the emergence of coups and dictatorships: for it is common knowledge that any armed group able to successfully capture control within a territory will be able to sell its resources and pocket the proceeds. But it is not only the agents of such coups, or the dictators in question, who are ethically responsible here. In fact both transnational corporations, and indeed individual citizens and consumers in wealthy countries, might be said to be complicit in the impoverishment of people across the world, for they (often) agree to buy resources from undemocratic and tyrannical regimes. And when they do so, they are responsible, in a certain sense, for the ensuing poverty: While they may not be the only agent responsible, they are responsible in the specific sense that they could, by refusing to buy goods from such regimes, disincentivize coups and the emergence of dictatorial regimes. Pogge proposes, as a corrective to the uncompensated loss of such resources by disenfranchised domestic citizens, a “Global Resources Dividend,” which would levy a 1% tax on the extraction of natural resources, with the (considerable) proceeds being disbursed in such a way as to alleviate global poverty. Through such relatively straightforward mechanisms, Pogge tells us, we can make a significant dent in what the World Bank defines as serious global poverty. A similar theme has been developed recently by Leif Wenar, albeit with quite different political implications. For Wenar, the willingness of citizens of wealthy states to buy goods obtained without the consent of the citizens of the nation-states from which they come is rather like the conscious receipt of stolen goods. In fact numerous instruments of international law – including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, or the UN Declaration on the Right to Development – stipulate that the resources of a given nation-state are the property of the national community as a whole. This relatively uncontroversial principle of common national ownership, though, is implemented very imperfectly. According to

Wenar, a legitimate sale of such resources would have to proceed with at least the general agreement of citizens. But what would count as evidence of agreement? We would expect, for instance, the owners (citizens) to be informed about the sale, to be able to safely express their dissent, and to be able to stop the sale without fearing violence or intimidation. In fact, this would disqualify many sales of natural resources in the real world, which proceed in ways that violate the principle of common national ownership recognized by the governments of wealthy states. But if a principle of international law is so clearly being violated it should be possible, Wenar suggests, for consumers and other interested parties to seek redress. Particularly, it should be possible for them to sue in the domestic courts of wealthy countries in order to prevent this trade in stolen property. The ultimate result would be a regime which truly respected the convention that the resources of a given nation-state belonged exclusively to its people. Though they both focus on the effective dispossession of citizens that occurs when ruling elites are able to sell resources without citizens’ consent, the implications of Pogge’s and Wenar’s accounts are quite different. Pogge’s goal is, in effect, to tax the dispossession in order to ameliorate poverty, whereas Wenar’s is to outlaw the dispossession directly, with less clear implications for global poverty. Wenar is not suggesting, that is, the introduction of a tax on resources, or a serious direct onslaught on global poverty; but nevertheless the consequences, over the longer term, should be the incentivization of good governance and in that sense the empirical outcome of serious attention to the just sale of natural resources might well be a reduction of some grievous human rights violations. But what the shorter-term implications would be for the poor of the world is not clear.

Common or Equal Access to the Earth’s Resources? Whereas both of the latter critics of resource expropriation begin from the apparently straightforward assumption that the resources of a given nation are the birthright of its people, others have taken issue with this basic starting point. Hillel Steiner, for example, has suggested that all inhabitants of the earth have an entitlement to an equal share in the value of all land (conceived broadly). Given that we do, in fact, use quite unequal portions of land or resources, and in so doing deprive others of resources which they might otherwise use, we may be obliged to compensate them (note that whereas Pogge envisages compensation for dispossession, Steiner’s position is potentially more radical insofar as it suggests full, not partial compensation and does so without regard to

Global Taxation

national borders). We could achieve such compensation by contributing to a global fund, to be paid out, perhaps, in the form of a global basic income. The principle that we might have an equal right to access the earth’s resources also resonates with some recent discussions within the theory of environmental justice. Here, one suggestion has been that we can treat, for instance, the ability of the earth’s atmosphere to absorb carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” as a limited resource, with principles of justice regulating its distribution. Once this move has been made, the immediate question is whether to advocate a present- or future-oriented principle such as equality of access (or equality of ability to pollute), or whether to pay serious attention to historical approaches. We might even suggest, as Tim Hayward has done, an equal right to “ecological space,” which would suggest an equal right to consume the earth’s resources. One problem which troubles all accounts of equal access to resources, however, is how to define that equality, and how to measure the value of different resources against one another. For the thing about resources – as the above discussion of ownership and expropriation implied – is that resources are differently valuable within different socio-legal contexts (oil has much greater value if one is permitted to use it in internal combustion engines, for instance, and different forms of ownership will also have implications for the value of resources). These contexts help determine their value. As such, getting a principle such as equality of resources off the ground remains a formidably difficult undertaking.

Related Topics

▶ Beitz, Charles ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Global Basic Structure ▶ Global Difference Principle ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Nationalism, Explanatory ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Wenar, Leif

References Barry B (1982) Humanity and justice in global perspective. In: Pennock JR, Chapman JW (eds) Ethics, economics and the law. Nomos, vol 24. New York University Press, New York, pp 219–252 Beitz C (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights. Polity, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

G

443

Steiner H (2005) Territorial justice and global redistribution. In: Brighouse H, Brock G (eds) The political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 28–38 Wenar L (2008) Property rights and the resource curse. Philos Public Aff 36:2–32

Global Resources Dividend ▶ Pogge, Thomas

Global Taxation GILLIAN BROCK Department of Philosophy, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

A number of proposals have been made for global taxes and reforms to our international taxation arrangements, and some implementation progress has already been achieved. The first section covers some of these measures. The second section outlines considerations in favor of some further reforms to global taxation arrangements.

Global Taxes: Some Possibilities The same kinds of arguments that are used at the domestic level to fund various public goods or redistribution to address chronic poverty can be deployed at the global level. For instance, because we all need to have an environment that is reasonably life-sustaining, we must be prepared to pay our share of the costs associated with ensuring this. Carbon taxes are one way of averting the kind of environmental damage that could lead to catastrophic climate change.

The Carbon Tax A Carbon Tax would tax energy sources that emit carbon dioxide. Current fossil fuel use patterns and the release of greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide from fossil fuels) exacerbate global warming and climate change, thereby undermining the environment’s ability to continue to be life-sustaining. Climate change can greatly affect agriculture and thereby the world’s ability to produce adequate food. Other irreversible damage is predicted, such as dramatic rises in sea levels, which would increase demand for habitable land. Depending on how high the tax rate is set, a Carbon Tax could provide incentives to move to more sustainable energy forms. Such

G

444

G

Global Taxation

a tax might raise the costs of cooking food or transportation quite significantly for poor people. In order to ensure they were not disproportionately burdened by this tax, consideration is often given to ways to mitigate these potentially regressive consequences, such as through applying differential tax rates for different countries, or rebates that are made to low-income households (or others who would have severe difficulties transitioning to the new arrangements). It is commonly proposed that carbon taxes be applied directly at the point of sale of carbon fuels, just as value-added taxes or sales taxes currently are levied. Several countries have enacted a Carbon Tax including: Sweden, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway. There is some notable support for this in other countries.

Currency Transaction Tax or Tobin Tax It is estimated that well over half (on some estimates 95%) of the $1.8 trillion in currency transactions that occur every day are speculative and as such are potentially destabilizing to local economies. Local currencies can devalue rapidly, causing major financial crises such as occurred in East Asia in 1997/1998 or Brazil in 1999. When the local economy is in the grip of such crises, millions of people can be significantly harmed. In the 1970s, James Tobin suggested a small tax on currency trades to ward off such eventualities, to decrease speculation, and promote more long-term investing. The purpose of such a tax would be to reduce destabilizing trades, and the order of magnitude proposed is considerably less than 1% on each trade. The tax would promote more stability and better conditions for development. The USA, Japan, the European Union, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Singapore account for 90% of currency exchange transactions, and so we could collect the tax reasonably effectively from such countries if just a few countries agreed to do this. The tax could easily be imposed at the point of settlement and could be levied through computer programs installed in banks and financial institutions. Currency deals already carry an administrative charge in most countries, especially in the main currency exchange countries, so the administrative feasibility of such a tax is already plain. A tax of just 0.2% could raise about $300 billion annually. The tax has had considerable support not just from NGOs but also gained mass backing from politicians. Indeed, several countries (such as Canada, Belgium, and France) have committed to enact the tax if there is additional support from the international community. Despite a fairly long history of discussion over the Carbon and Tobin Taxes, one tax that was only proposed

more recently has, arguably, been more successful in terms of widespread implementation than these other two, namely the Air-Ticket Tax, discussed next.

Air-Ticket Tax President Jacques Chirac first officially proposed this tax. The idea with this tax is that it is a “solidarity contribution” levied on airplane tickets to finance global health programs. An international conference took place in Paris to mobilize support and 13 governments agreed to introduce the tax at it, though others have subsequently agreed as well. In addition, 38 countries have established a group to investigate “solidarity contributions” to promote development. On the current arrangements, in France, the tax amounts to 1 euro per domestic ticket and 4 euros for an international, economy class flight, with slightly more charged for business and first class flights. Other ticket taxes involve similar or smaller amounts. The proceeds are being spent on assisting poor countries struggling with malaria, AIDS, and tuberculosis. The WHO operates the fund and (among other things) uses bulk ordering to purchase necessary drugs at low cost. There are many other proposals that pre-date this victory that deserve some discussion, including the following three.

E-Mail Taxes This tax would raise revenue that could be used to bridge the “digital divide” between rich and poor by improving computer, e-mail, and web-access to those in low-income communities and countries. Consumers in the developed world only would be charged. A problem with this tax is that the global communication possibilities presented by e-mail are one of the most positive aspects of the current period of globalization, so this tax is unlikely to garner widespread approval.

Tax on World Trade This tax would not explicitly seek to discourage the activity on which it is imposed. The idea, instead, is that the tax would be a fee or contribution for protecting the underlying conditions necessary to sustain international trade, such as peace and well-being.

Tax on International Arms Trade Arms imports can constitute a significant obstacle to development. Proposals to implement a tax on the international arms trade have been circulated from several sources over a number of years. The idea is to reduce the level of arms trading, but also to raise money for development, to compensate victims of wars, and to promote

Global Taxation

disarmament. In January 2004, Brazil and France re-launched the idea of an international tax on arms sales and financial transactions, the so-called Lula Fund (after Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva), to give it some much-needed momentum. About 70% of world arms exports come from the USA, France, and the UK. Because of this concentration in the weapons production industry, and the fact that all these countries are in favor of controlling arms exports, some initiatives are already underway which could facilitate collection of this tax, such as the UN register for conventional arms and the European Code of Conduct on Arms Exports.

Tax Escape in the Global Context: Some Problems with Tax Havens, Transfer Pricing Schemes, and Tax Evasion The use of tax havens is an important channel for tax evasion and constitutes a significant reason why many corporations pay very little or even no, income tax. Economic activity is often declared as occurring in places where taxes are low, rather than accurately recorded where it actually took place. “Transfer pricing” is a recognized accounting term for sales and purchases that occur within the same company or group of companies. Because these transactions occur within the company, there is wide scope to trade at arbitrary prices instead of market-attuned ones. Many of these schemes are both perfectly legal and widespread: On some accounts, about half of all world trade passes through tax haven jurisdictions, as profits are shifted to places where tax can be avoided. It is estimated that through such schemes, developing countries lose revenue greater than the annual flow of aid. Tax avoidance can threaten both development and democracy, especially in developing countries. Because large corporations and wealthy individuals are effectively avoiding taxation, the tax burden is frequently shifted onto ordinary citizens and smaller businesses. Governments often thereby collect much-reduced sums insufficient to achieve minimal goals of social justice, such as providing decent public goods and services. Cuts in social spending are inevitable, and these cuts can have a dramatic effect on other goals such as developing or maintaining robust democracies. Reforms to our global taxation and accounting regime that are worth considering include: systems of unitary taxation for multinationals to put a stop to the gratuitous shifting of profits to countries with low or no taxes, and reflecting on ways to reduce the destructive effects of tax competition. It is worth noting that there are already several international bodies that have taken up this

G

445

kind of work: namely the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Global Forum on Taxation and the UN Committee on Taxation. The OECD body in particular provides a good forum for the exchange of ideas about tax policy with some tangible results, such as the development of proposals for unitary taxation formulae, which could be used in devising better arrangements to replace current transfer pricing practices.

Related Topics

▶ Carbon Tax ▶ Global Basic Structure ▶ Global Resources Dividend ▶ Tobin Tax

References Baumert K (1998) Global taxes and fees: recent developments and overcoming obstacles. Available from the Global Policy Forum web-site at http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/glotax/baumert.htm Brock G (2008) Taxation and global justice. J Soc Philos 39:433–448 Carbon-Tax Center web-site available at: http://www.carbontax.org/ issues/softening-the-impact-of-carbon-taxes/ Christensen J, Hampton MP (1999) All good things come to an end. World Today, R Inst Int Aff 55(8/9):14–17 Cooper R (1998) Toward a real global warming treaty: the case for a carbon tax. Foreign Affairs (March/April): 66–79 Cooper R (2002) The double-dividend of emissions taxes: greenhouse gas reduction and revenue. Background paper, Dinner meeting on financing global public goods, Office of Development Studies, UNDP, January 15, 2002 ENDS (1999) Aviation climate effect could grow four fold. Environmental Daily, June 3rd European Commission (2002) Responses to the challenges of globalization. Available from the Global Policy web-site Evans W (1997) To help the UN, A tax on trade. New York Times Horner F (2001) Do we need an international tax organisation? 24 Tax Notes International 179 (October 8): 1–16 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2001) Aviation and the global atmosphere. Available at: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/ aviation/index.htm, especially Chapter 10 James P, Wahlberg K (2002) Global taxes for global priorities, Global Policy Forum, March, 2002, Available at http://www.globalpolicy. org/socecon/glotax/general/glotaxpaper.htm Oxfam GB (2000) Tax havens: releasing the hidden billions for poverty eradication Schroeder F (2006) Innovative sources of finance after the Paris conference, Briefing Paper. Friedrich Ebert Foundation/Stiftung (FES) Tanzi V (1999) Is there a need for a world tax organization? In: Razin A, Efraim S (eds) The economics of globalization: policy perspectives from public economics. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 173–186 Tobin J (1974) The new economics, one decade older. The Eliot Janeway lectures on historical economics in honor of Joseph Schumpeter, 1972. Princeton University Press, Princeton Tobin Tax web-sites: http://www.tobintax.org.uk/ and http://www. ceedweb.org/iirp/ Vigueras JH (2005) Tax havens: how offshore centres undermine democracy. Akal, Spain

G

446

G

Global Trafficking

Wahl P, Waldow P (2001) Currency transaction tax – a concept with a future – chances and limits of stabilising financial markets through the Tobin tax, Bonn, WEED, February Wahlberg K (2005) Progress on global taxes? Available at the Global Policy Forum website at: http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/ glotax/general/2005/12progress.htm Walker J (2005) Alternative financing for the United Nations. Available at: http://www.globalpolicy.org/finance/alternat/currtax/walker.htm

Global Trafficking ▶ Human Trafficking

Global Tragedy of the Commons ▶ Global Public ▶ Global Warming ▶ Pareto Optimality

Global Warming CHARLES ROSENBERG Milwaukee, WI, USA

One component of the broader science of climate change – an observed pattern of increased average global temperature – which, if accurately extrapolated into the next few centuries, suggests potentially catastrophic impact on agriculture, inhabitable land area, distribution of fresh and salt water, weather patterns, epidemic diseases, extinction of plant and animal species, and perhaps even human survival. Politically, global warming is the subject of heated debate, but the basic science is accepted by a broad consensus across all relevant disciplines. Due to the sheer complexity of climate and weather patterns, assessing likely long-term impacts remains quite uncertain. What is more certain is that the impact of unrestrained global warming will not fall equitably “on the just and the unjust,” but will in many of its manifestations will fall on populations who had little or no role in creating the hazard. Even a herd of cattle may contribute in a modest way to raising the concentration of gases that retain more heat in the atmosphere, but the observed shifts in temperature are primarily generated by industrial technology.

The wealthiest nations therefore generate most of the problem, while the poorest suffer the most deadly consequences. Increasing desertification in the Sahel of Africa is a likely example. The earth has gone through complex cycles of rising and falling average temperature since long before humans built cities and industries. Several ice ages are one result. Within human history, a period from the tenth to the fourteenth century known as the Great Warming nurtured prosperity in some areas, notably Europe, the North Atlantic, and Polynesia. Drought and famine caused the collapse of entire civilizations in central and southwestern North America, on South America’s Pacific coast, and in northern China and central Asia. This was followed by the “Little Ice Age,” ending Norse settlement of Greenland and North America, limiting agricultural production in Europe, while restoring badly needed rainfall in eastern Africa and central Asia. These events may or may not have been influenced by human activity. Whatever the causes, human populations experienced them, quite separately from each other, as natural events beyond human control. God, or the gods, might have been angry or indifferent, or blind fate might have inflicted fortune or misfortune. Europe or Polynesia’s gain, or loss, was not experienced as the consequence of Africa’s loss, or gain. Human-induced global warming can now be more precisely understood in terms of justice or injustice to inhabitants of different continents and ecosystems. The overall balance is definably global in scope and effects. Since the 1890s, winter temperatures and snowfall have moderated compared to the last century of the Little Ice Age. This trend was noted and discussed in newspapers as early as the 1930s. The Swedish physicist, Svante August Arrhenius, had noted in 1895 that human industry was releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which could result in long-term increased global temperature. He saw this as beneficial, perhaps moderating the severe winters of the northern hemisphere, but expected that it would take 2,000 years to double atmospheric carbon dioxide. World population was around one billion, mostly rural peasants, many still living in some form of serfdom. The essential role of greenhouse gases in keeping the surface of the earth warm enough to support current plant and animal life had been established by John Tyndall in 1859. His experiments confirmed that oxygen and nitrogen, the gases making up most of the atmosphere, readily allow heat to radiate. However, he found that methane, carbon dioxide, and water vapor, which allow most solar radiation to reach the surface of the planet, are all opaque to the long-wave infrared radiation reflected from the

Global Warming

surface. Without the presence of these gases, the entire surface of the earth would have a temperature (estimated at minus 18 C) well below the freezing point of water. The question arose during the twentieth century, whether human industry could be, or already was, introducing such large quantities of these “greenhouse gases” into the atmosphere as to make the planet’s surface too warm to sustain the human population, and the biospheres on which humans rely. That question necessarily raises questions of justice, rather than mere utility. Like any form of air or water pollution, or even garbage disposal, the inherent costs of some human activity are being inflicted upon other humans, nearby or halfway around the world. Every proprietor of a factory beside a river knows that financial costs can be kept much lower if real costs are dumped on those downstream whose water is poisoned. Similarly, there are immediate monetary costs in time and materials to avoid passing real costs of production onto innocent third parties in the form of drought, disease, and heat stroke.

Data and Mechanisms Well-established measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1875 show an increase from around 290 parts per million (ppm) to over 360 ppm. This has been matched by rising average global temperatures – but data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States, and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, show that temperature readings have fluctuated over periods of a few years by half a degree or so, while the long-term mean since 1875 increased by roughly eight-tenths of a degree. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased much faster than Arrhenius expected, but earth has not warmed as fast as he expected. He had calculated that with carbon dioxide multiplying by 2.5–3 times, the temperature of the Arctic regions would rise 8.0–9.0 C. Current estimates suggest that doubling the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would increase average global temperature between 1.5 C and 4.5 C. (One degree Celsius is equivalent to 1.8 on the Fahrenheit scale. Thinking in terms of the Fahrenheit scale, as millions of people still do, particularly in North America, the temperature increase could be as much as 8.1 .) In the absence of human industry, carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions and exhaled by all animal life. It is absorbed by the chemical reactions of rocks and by plant life in photosynthesis. The beds of coal and oil lying under the surface of the earth contain a large quantity of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by ancient plant life, and sequestered for

G

447

millions of years. Returning this carbon to the atmosphere, in the form of carbon dioxide, provides a short-term benefit to the immediate users and potential long-term devastation to all of humanity. With massive deforestation in the past 50 years, particularly in the Amazon river basin, central Africa, and China, animals may be exhaling more carbon dioxide than plants are absorbing. This would mean that due to human activity, life itself has become a net source of increased carbon dioxide.

Culpability, Cost, and Sacrifice The chemical qualities of carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor are not in themselves an issue of justice for anyone. Global warming poses harsh implications for global justice in two key respects. The first concerns the sources introducing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, together with the costs of curbing such emissions. Every person, economy, nation, or continent is not contributing equally to the problem, nor benefiting equally from the activity generating emissions. The second concerns uneven distribution of the impacts that sustained increases in global temperature may impose: Populations in different parts of the planet inhabit different terrain, subject to different climates, each with different technological capacity to respond. The pains and hazards are not suffered equitably. In fact the benefits may accrue to a population, or a specific economic enterprise, on one side of the globe, while the losses are suffered by people in the opposite hemisphere. Until the dawn of the twenty-first century, industry was heavily concentrated in Europe and areas where the predominant population was descended from European immigrants – North America, Australia, some parts of South America – as well as in Japan. The developing economies of China, India, and Brazil began in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries to significantly increase the rate at which carbon dioxide is introduced into the atmosphere by human industry. Every international meeting on global warming has been subject to tension between the long-developed industrial nations and new industrial powers as to which should make what contributions to reduce carbon dioxide output. Even the subjective sense of what would be a just outcome points in multiple directions. Developing nations assert that the very recent steps they have taken toward prosperity should not be jeopardized by shouldering major costs of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, nor should their own entry into industrial self-sufficiency be curtailed. Nations which have been wealthy and industrialized since the nineteenth century hesitate to undertake costs, and disadvantages in economic

G

448

G

Global Warming

competition, of sharply reducing their own carbon output, when developing nations are increasing their emission of greenhouse gases into a commonly shared planetary atmosphere. It is physically impossible to measure exact quantities of carbon dioxide being added to the atmosphere from any given land area. Estimates based on known chemical properties, and the volume of industrial and agricultural activity, produce reliable approximations. In 2004, total carbon dioxide emissions from activity by the world’s 6.352 billion people were around 26.93 billion tons. In 2004, The United States emitted the largest volume of carbon dioxide, 5.815 billion tons; followed by China with 4.762 billion tons; the European Union, 3.317 billion tons (of which Germany accounted for 839 million tons, United Kingdom 542 million tons, and France 386 million tons); Russia, 1.553 billion tons; Japan, 1.271 billion tons; and India, 1.103 billion tons. Bangladesh emitted only 35–40 million tons, Kenya 10 million, and Nicaragua 4 million. In 2006, however, China’s 6.018 billion tons surpassed total emissions from the United States, 5.9 billion tons (Oliver, Guardian, December 9, 2008), largely due to increased consumption of coal. Further, while most nations have slightly reduced their carbon emissions per dollar of gross domestic product (GDP), and China’s ratio declined by almost 50% from 1990 to 2000, China’s carbon emissions as a function of GDP began to sharply increase in 2002. Emissions per person present a different picture: the United States emitted 19.8 t per person in 2008, Russia 10.8 t, and Japan 10.0 t. The European Union as a whole emits 8.6 t per person, but rates for different nations vary: in Germany the rate is 10.2 t and in France, 6.2 t. China’s emissions per person remain at a relatively low 3.7 t. India, the fifth largest source of total carbon dioxide emissions, accounts for only a single ton per person and neighboring Bangladesh for 0.3 t (Worldwatch Institute 2008, p. 47). Further complicating the tense political debate about who should accept what limitations on their economic development, or pay which costs of the technology to reduce carbon emissions, is the fact that North America, Europe, and Japan have built up their comfortable standards of living by introducing the largest portion of the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere by human activity – thus driving most of the global warming observed to date and accounting for the stark urgency of reducing global emissions in the early twenty-first century. The United States is estimated to have emitted 212 billion tons of carbon dioxide between 1950 and 2000, while India emitted about one tenth as much. With current technology, bringing the entire world population to the standard of living enjoyed on average by the United

States would raise annual global carbon dioxide emissions to 125 billion tons, over four times the present level, while the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the world needs to reduce overall global emissions to about 20% of 1990 levels (21.7 billion tons) by 2050. Only small nations such as Costa Rica have made serious commitments to reduce net carbon emissions to zero within the foreseeable future. Costa Rica already relies on hydroelectric power for 78% of its energy, and derives another 18% from wind and geothermal sources, putting it within reach of the stated goal of zero net carbon emissions by 2030. Norway announced, in 2007, its intention to become carbon neutral by 2050.

Hazard and Impact Global warming may, in the short run, have beneficial effects for some parts of the earth. In higher northern latitudes, a lengthened growing season may expand crop production. Greater atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations could improve the efficiency of photosynthesis, allowing crops to thrive on less water. But these potential benefits are even more speculative than the likely hazards. Populations living on islands, along sea coasts, and in low-lying river estuaries face one of the starkest potential catastrophes. Throughout human history, communities have located close to sources of water. In the absence of complex and expensive systems for delivering water through pipes directly to homes, farms, and factories, people have always tried to live within easy walking distance of a water source. During the twentieth century, sea level rose between 10 and 20 cm; during the twenty-first century levels could rise another 9–88 cm. Rising levels of ocean water could inundate many inhabited islands in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, and large parts of Bangladesh. Other river estuaries, many in nonindustrialized areas, face similar hazards. Detailed scientific analysis of the impact of global warming on rainfall patterns has not yet been completed, peer-reviewed, and published. Mechanisms that determine rainfall are far from fully understood; computer models are better at reproducing observed rainfall levels in the first half of the twentieth century, which were relatively high, than observed levels in the second half, which were much lower. Studies of the history of past climate changes, and examination of recent events, suggest some plausible areas of concern. The general decline in average rainfall in the African Sahel since 1950 is a commonly cited example of drought that may be an early effect of global warming. However, changes in land cover and atmospheric dust are only two identified factors which may require more study (Hulme, in Servat 1998: 432). The Sahel is also referred to because it starkly

Global Warming

illustrates how people in a largely nonindustrialized area can face severe consequences from carbon emissions sustaining a much higher standard of living for people thousands of miles away. Overall, higher temperatures will increase evaporation from the oceans, as well as freshwater bodies on land, resulting in higher rates of precipitation. This rainfall will not be evenly distributed. Rainfall is likely to decrease in Mediterranean Africa, the northern Sahara, most of western Africa, northern Europe, central Asia, central North America, the southwestern United States, northern Mexico, most of Central America, and western South America. Rainfall is likely to increase in southeastern Africa, southern Europe, northern Asia, Tibet, eastern and southeast Asia, Canada, and the northeastern United States. Some regions, such as central Europe, will experience increased winter rainfall but decreased summer rains. Increased rainfall is likely to come in the form of intense deluges, including the extreme rainfall and winds of tropical cyclones, which may do more damage than good. Intense rainfall from violent storms, punctuated by dry periods, would disrupt agriculture and generate increased floods. This is likely in the African tropical rainforests, and the river deltas of southeast Asia, as well as much of India. Arid tropical areas, north and south of the equator, are likely to see further decrease in already scarce rainfall. Dependence of large human populations on river systems fed by melting snow pack or glaciers presents another area of considerable, though uncertain, direct risk to sources of drinking water, as well as agriculture.

Tragedy of the Commons Global warming is the tragedy of the commons writ in large; no nation or industry, which succeeds in reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions, can expect significant benefit, unless its neighbors – including nations on the other side of the planet – do the same. So far, a good deal of political gridlock has been generated by finger-pointing and waiting for others to make the first move. One of the most simple and common definitions of justice is a state of affairs in which conduct or action is both fair and right, given the circumstances. St. Augustine wrote in City of God, Book IV, Chapter 4, “Set aside justice, and what are kingdoms but enterprises of robbery.” If human activity is raising the global temperature to levels that cause significant harm, then those harmed would naturally seek compensation for the losses incurred from those who inflict the harm. The harm may be inflicted on immediate neighbors or distant strangers. Atmosphere and climate are more truly global in scope than even

G

a major river system or a series of lakes. There are no disinterested judges. Those most culpable are in many instances also those with the greatest capacity to enforce their will, as well as a great deal to gain in the short run. In the long run, every person may be at risk. However, if there is any truth to V.I. Lenin’s claim that when it is time to hang all the capitalists, they will compete to sell the rope for that purpose, there can be little doubt that present annual dividends are calculated by investors to be worth the probability of certain death in 30 or 40 years. Some critics have pointed to natural fluctuations in global temperature, suggesting that whatever may be happening now is natural and unavoidable. However, if warming due to human activity, emitting greenhouse gases, results in an increase of 3 C in average global temperature, it would be the warmest period in about 100,000 years. Four degrees would result in the warmest temperatures since the Eocene epoch, 40 million years ago. These changes, even if they take one or two centuries, would be occurring 15–40 times faster than natural fluctuations in the past (Peters and Lovejoy 1994: 16).

Related Topics

▶ Altruism ▶ Biodiversity ▶ Carbon Tax ▶ Climate Change ▶ Climate Justice ▶ Collective Responsibility ▶ Common Good ▶ Consumerism ▶ Deforestation ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Lifeboat Ethics ▶ Oil ▶ Population Politics ▶ Sustainable Development

References Broecker WS, Kunzig R (2009) Fixing climate: what past climate changes reveal about the current threat – and how to counter it. Hill and Wang, New York Fagan B (2007) The great warming: climate change and the rise and fall of civilizations. Bloomsbury, New York Geyer RA (ed) (1992) A global warming forum: scientific, economic and legal overview. CRC, Boca Raton Houghton JT (ed) (1984) The global climate. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Paepe R, Fairbridge RW, Jelgersma S (1990) Greenhouse effect, sea level, and drought. Kluwer Academic, Boston Peters RL, Lovejoy TE (1994) Global warming and biological diversity. Yale University Press, New Haven

449

G

450

G

Globalization

Servat E (ed) (1998) Water resources variability in Africa during the XXth century: proceedings of the international conference held in Abidjan, 16–19 November 1998. International Association of Hydrological Sciences, Wallingford Solomon S, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) Climate change 2007 – the physical science basis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Worldwatch Institute (2008) State of the world 2008: innovations for a sustainable economy. W.W. Norton, New York

Globalization EDWARD SANKOWSKI Department of Philosophy, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

“Globalization” is here taken to mean primarily a process of increasingly worldwide interactions among individual persons, groups, and institutions across nation-state boundaries. To this is here added, though not as much emphasized, the idea that globalization tends to be characterized by the creation of institutions that are not entirely understandable as decomposable into functions of purely international, i.e., multi-nation-state phenomena. Such global and not only international institutions might include the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, multinational corporations, Al-Qaeda, Doctors without Borders, and other distinctively global (or global-tending) organizations. There are normative questions not addressed in this essay whether and when such global institutions have some authority of their own independently of permissions by nation-states, authority in the sense of a right to decide (or more modestly to contribute to decisions about) some social and political issues. This two-part conception is not an attempt to capture or even to be consistent with every possible intended definition of globalization in circulation. But this conception is meant to allow for numerous plausible but notably varying ideas and narratives about globalization. Whereas mostly persons heretofore have focused their intentions and actions to a greater degree on much more local, regional, national, maybe even “international” (if contrasted with “global”) groups, globalization vastly complicates the types of domains of other persons and collective entities that matter, e.g., for global justice purposes, and may greatly expand the size or geographic dispersion of groups who could matter practically to one individual person, or to groups. Globalization includes but is not limited to such overlapping phenomena as

trade agreements and economic transactions (through growing scale and complexity of financial markets and worldwide economic crises such as multinational market failures), communications (through the internet and other major media), education (university research relationships, say, as studied by Arjun Appadurai; university personnel and student exchanges; curricular adjustments in light of more broad-based aspirations to sophistication about languages, cultures, customs, and the like), “international law,” transnational terrorism, and the formation and revision of normative standards of many types (including ideas about justice). The last category is especially important here. While this essay takes account of what globalization might factually involve, it is especially concerned with what the globalization of normative ethics might or rather should be, and more specifically, the globalization of judgments about justice, going from a situation in which judgments about justice are more about matters within domestic nation-states, to a situation in which they also include judgments about more cross-national human interactions, and global issues. Globalization could be studied from a more factual or from a more normative point of view. Without wanting to dichotomize facts and values, or the domain of domestic nation-state justice and that of global justice, this essay aims primarily to further understanding of some features of how normative judgments, particularly about justice, need to be changed in response to globalization. There are various possible strategies, and this essay only represents one approach. The strategy this essay advocates and illustrates (though only partially, due to limitations of space) aims at using an interpretation of what globalization is to facilitate connecting Western-centered reflection about justice (which many readers of this essay will begin from) with improved less Eurocentric ideas about global justice. The strategy can be outlined as follows, phrased as advice to other scholars. Develop and modify as needed a working definition of globalization, and study the problems and opportunities globalization presents about improving the understanding of global justice, as one major example of the globalization of ethics. Do not assume that you already adequately understand in conditions of globalization what topics and examples should be included under the category of global justice, what concepts should matter most, nor assume that you assuredly know what rational support for judgments about global justice issues should look like. However, gradually assemble generally agreed-upon topics of interest and examples such as issues about what human rights there are, and why. Nonetheless, do not take it as a dogma that human rights, important as they are, or

Globalization

a particular set of human rights, should bear so much of the weight as is often claimed in a concept of global justice. Do not hope to complete the picture of the entire domain of global justice in your work (this essay is not written with that ambition), or perhaps to see the entire domain mapped, ever. Realize that globalization tends to undermine a sharp distinction between domestic nation-state affairs and globalized affairs. Nonetheless, as one source of ideas about global justice, take categories suggested by the normative ethics and politics of situations within nationstates, when domestic justice is said to be at issue. Take some major philosophical representatives of the Western tradition with accounts of domestic justice and consider how their ideas might be extended from less to more incorporation of normative reasoning about what is global justice and about how to address the topic of global justice more adequately in part by developing some consensus across national borders in our globalizing society. Include in your strategy attempts to identify major philosophical and social obstacles to such extension from domestic to global justice. Try to develop modes of ethics education through global theory and practice, to exchange ideas about global justice and build consensus that is more than parochial. Some further comments about the strategy here follow. Realize that there may be other sources of ideas about global justice than those that emerge through a process of reflection about globalization and extension of moral reasoning from domestic justice topics to global justice topics. The strategy of this essay is to adopt a modest goal, and to illustrate one way to pursue it. The goal is modest in that we do not attempt to reach a fully objective viewpoint (if that is possible) about what is included in global justice, and what correct normative judgments hold about global justice. By “objective” here is meant, objective in light of challenges posed by this or that type or aspect of globalization. Rather, this essay comments on some ideas about justice that are initially familiar in what is called the Western tradition, and notes that various features of these ideas need examination and adjustment in light of the demands prompted by globalization that impel us to develop a more adequate idea of global justice. In the sense of this essay, globalization is not always a result of capitalism, though as a matter of contingent fact it currently very often happens to be extensively influenced by capitalism or requires being accounted for in terms of capitalism. Thus distinguished social scientists such as Robert Gilpin may write about the topics of globalization and capitalism in close conjunction with one another, but he distinguishes them. Gilpin may mention worries about global capitalism possibly worsening

G

global justice by widening economic inequality across borders, but he also mentions proponents of the view that free markets may create opportunity and lessen inequality. Problems about global justice are often but not always problems shaped decisively by capitalism. Particularly interesting for the study of the globalization of ethics, the ideas often associated with “neoliberalism” sometimes suggest we could normatively understand global justice primarily or exclusively in terms of the perfected worldwide workings of capitalistic “free markets.” This is implausible given widespread intuitions about normative justice, whether intuitions within the nation-state or taking a more global perspective, that require at the least considerable regulation of markets, and most likely major redistributive measures (e.g., from rich to poor countries) beyond “free market” processes and outcomes, if we are to achieve greater global distributive justice. Globalization is not best understood from the singular perspective of any particular nation or in terms of the impact of one nation on the rest of the world, and thus, globalization is not equivalent to Americanization, though Americanization of many parts of the planet is a manifestation of globalization. Nor could globalization be understood adequately in the categories supplied by broader traditions, such as “Western civilization,” by which a nation-state may primarily prefer to interpret itself. One would expect many narratives about globalization to have a claim on our attention. Hopefully, no plausible globalization narrative will logically imply, nor cause, complete skepticism about ethics or particularly about judgments and agendas about justice within a nation-state, or about global justice. However, it is possible that some plausible globalization stories will contribute to supporting a more judiciously cautious and adequate outlook about justice, more adequate in having a better grasp of the domain of global justice, in being less dogmatic, less selfishly nationalistic or culturally narcissistic, more willing to learn from a wide variety of moral viewpoints, more willing to treat relevantly similar persons around the world (such as impoverished women in underdeveloped countries) as counting morally who were formerly underestimated in dignity in planning and decision making. Globalization can be used as a theme as one reads the great but culturally contextually limited writings (writings sometimes bereft of emphasis on globalization) of Western ethics and political philosophy. This theme can help suggest how to get clearer about the meaning and importance of global justice, by using materials from at least one tradition that might be imagined as part of

451

G

452

G

Globalization

a global dialogue about global justice. Granted that explicit discourse about globalization is a relatively recent historical phenomenon, even ancient sources can suggest ideas useful for generating a more detailed picture about the topics included in global justice. But we will start with a nineteenth century British utilitarian. John Stuart Mill has a magnificent discussion of justice in Utilitarianism in which he is implicitly answering critics of utilitarianism. Mill as is well known here and in On Liberty and elsewhere notoriously defends control of backward societies by benevolent despots. In general, Mill is to some extent a philosopher who takes account of globalization. On a practical level, he served for years as an employee of an organization dedicated to furthering the dominance of Britain over India. Mill vigorously affirms the superiority of European countries over others. The British East India Company, his employer, profited from shameful operations in India, China, and elsewhere, and Mill worked for this organization for a very long time. On a purely theoretical level, Mill’s analysis of justice, his linkage of justice to law, his discussion of retributive as well as distributive justice and rights are formidable, if unsuccessful, in defending the idea that justice is compatible with utilitarianism. Also, an inflexible insistence on extending one or another ingredient in Mill’s account (such as the idea of law or rights) might lead to an illfounded rejection of the very notion of global justice. It might seem that there is no international or global analogue to the supposedly genuine law of a nation-state, no international or global analogue to the rights affirmed by domestic morality or law. Doubts about whether there is international law, as well as whether there is more specifically international criminal law, are relevant to any critical account of global justice, that central ethical concept in a globalizing world. But Mill, like others, errs in making the idea of nation-state law too crucial in relevant ways to the applicability of the concept of justice. That would surely create some potential problems about the concept of global justice. Arguments can be mounted for the actual and potential existence (and the desirability) of international (or somewhat distinctly, global) law, and this can provide some traction for the idea of global justice in circumstances of globalization. But even without a world government, or international law, there can be global justice, and sufficient attitudinal coherence and consensus across national boundaries and moral traditions to make an ethical difference in circumstances of globalization. Mill’s approach to justice may yield some insights if deployed within a general strategy of reflective extension about justice from the domestic to the global arena. However, his explicit philosophical judgments about

what some of us might regard as global justice issues (such as the non-applicability of the main views in On Liberty to social relations outside his domestic nation-state context) as well as his ethically erratic practical commitments about treatment by the British of other, especially non-Western societies, support the view that the facts of globalization even in Mill’s time undermined his views about justice in domestic British matters as well as about global justice. John Rawls in A Theory of Justice (1971) is not at all sufficiently attuned to the globalization of ethics. Rawls apparently thinks of his task as one of giving a satisfactory basis for ethical judgments internal to US history and its present condition as a supposedly analytically isolable part of the world order, a political culture in which the normative intuitions of agents are readily describable. The intuitions and theories he takes most seriously about justice are derived from US and more broadly European ideas. Of course, Rawls thinks of himself as a Kantian reacting against utilitarianism and against deontological varieties of “intuitionism” in building a theory of justice. Such an approach has its attractions, but is quite incapable of coping with the moral situation of a reflective contemporary aware of phenomena of globalization, including the vivid awareness of a diversity of cultures and countries as well as ethical traditions around the world. An adequate philosophy of justice applicable to the US social system (the “basic structure” if you will, to use Rawls’ phrase) will need to take account of relations between the USA or its parts with the rest of the world. In particular, this includes economic, political, and military interactions with the rest of the world. Global justice will be a prominent normative concept to be used in critically examining this aspect of globalization. If, for example, US institutions in some cases derive their resources, their goods to be distributed domestically, from violations of critically examined global justice, then no internal US distribution consistent with Rawls’ account of principles of domestic justice could be adequate in telling us what is fully just (including reference to global justice) in distributing the goods. Note that this criticism is distinct from various criticisms (valuable in their own right, and not repeated here) formulated by many philosophers (including Amartya Sen) of Rawls’ attempts in later works than TJ (see The Law of Peoples (1999)) to develop an approach to international and global justice. Those criticisms can be taken to imply that Rawls’ own attempt fails to carry out successfully a strategy of extension from domestic justice to global justice. This present criticism, recounted here, says that Rawls’ signature work about domestic justice, TJ, is seriously undermined by the absence of a grasp of the

Globalization

implications of globalization and global justice. (Something similar applies to his views in Political Liberalism.) An adequate grasp of the facts about globalization undermines Rawls’ normative account of domestic justice. Next, let us briefly consider a more recent account of the ethics of globalization by a philosopher who is primarily utilitarian, but who is nominally open to other than utilitarian perspectives in some of his work. Peter Singer’s book, One World- The Ethics of Globalization (2002), is a thoughtful, carefully reasoned effort to come to terms with many issues about its topic. Its approach is different from that of this essay, not least in that Singer’s stance, while pluralistic as to ethical reasoning, is so much influenced by the British utilitarian perspective he has usually emphasized in much of his work. Thus one of the limitations of One World is basic. Singer makes little if any attempt to engage the moral points of view of those in “other” countries and cultures (unless they could be reconstructed as arguments attempting to engage with utilitarian reasoning in ways it finds simpatico as to methodology, if not necessarily as to normative content of what is advocated to do). In this respect, Singer’s approach to the ethics of globalization is undermined by the facts of globalization and the challenge it presents to normative judgments about global justice. One problem about the globalization of ethics, including the examination of normative global justice in a world shaped by manifold globalization processes, is this. How do we construct an ethics appropriate for circumstances of globalization that is coherent and avoids nihilistic skepticism about one’s ethics, but that also takes adequate account of the “inside” of the very varied, sometimes very “alien-seeming” moral views around the world? In practice, the most visible confrontations of conflicting ideas about domestic or global justice, conflicts symptomatic of globalization troubles, are played out as political power conflicts, violent or not, such as some Western military campaigns in the developing world, or attempts at conversion or episodes of denunciation (as in some Western rhetoric about human rights in noncapitalist or non-Western societies, condemnation of a supposedly root-and-branch corrupt West by some Islamic fundamentalist extremists, or dismissive radical relativist rejections by Third-World power elites of all objections to human rights violations, the sorts of views that Amartya Sen often critiques). Such conflicts do not encourage mutually educative individual or group moral reflection across political boundaries about global justice. Yet surely we need both individualized moral reflection about how to deal

G

adequately with the ethics of globalization as well as more organized interpersonal collectively constructed intercultural globalized deliberative and educational encounters. Moral education in circumstances of globalization needs to be reconstructed in its global dimensions with this in mind. To go beyond a self-enclosed Western history and sociology of ideas approach that would otherwise be rather negative instead of positively constructive, this essay concludes by advocating working at inventing institutionalized cross-nationally mutually educative global contacts, engagements in which we learn more about the internal dynamics of non-Western conceptions of domestic justice and global justice, and seek global consensus. These might be university programs or nonprofit collective projects aimed at solving major social problems such as the upshot of disaster situations such as post-tsunami conditions, post-earthquake suffering, or chronic deficits of public health resources or other aspects of “underdevelopment” in Central America, India, or subSaharan Africa. These dialogues or other mutually educative contacts such as shared work would be designed to lead to desirable normative globalization by yielding advances toward a critically examined and widely shared account of how global justice should be conceived in conditions of globalization.

Related Topics

▶ Aid to Burdened Societies ▶ Alterglobalization ▶ Capitalism ▶ Colonialism ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Mill, John Stuart ▶ Neoliberalism ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Singer, Peter

References Appadurai A (2001) Grassroots globalization and the research imagination. In: Appadurai A (ed.) Globalization. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, pp 1–21 Gilpin R (2000) The challenge of global capitalism: the world economy in the 21st century. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Gilpin R (2001) Global political economy: understanding the international economic order. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ

453

G

454

G

Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah

Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Sen A (1999) Development as freedom. Random House, New York Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Singer P (2002) One world: the ethics of globalization, 2nd edn. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT

Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah ROSLYN MYERS Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Fordham Law School, New York, NY, USA

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (b. 1959), an internationally acclaimed author, public commentator, and academic, has devoted his scholarly endeavors to deepening public knowledge about genocide, specifically the Holocaust. He coined the term “eliminationism” to describe the political impulse that drives genocide, which served as a reciprocal influence with anti-Semitism during the Holocaust in the extermination of Jews. Goldhagen is credited as the first scholar to attempt to tackle genocide as both a violation of humanity that cannot be ignored and a political problem that can be solved. Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity (PublicAffairs 2009) – the title of a book and a feature-length documentary (PBS.org) – is Goldhagen’s gauntlet, meant to challenge the public’s assumptions about causes of genocide and inspire the political will to end eliminationism. Worse Than War, equally as ambitious as his earlier works on related subjects, calls attention to recent ethnically motivated mass murder around the world. Goldhagen describes eliminationism as a tool central to political agendas designed to exterminate populations that are considered undesirable or subversive, and he outlines five principal methods used by eliminationists to achieve their goals: repression; forced transformation; reproductive control; expulsion; and extermination. In asserting that it is worse than war, Goldhagen reminds the public that “genocide” is distinct from war. He takes this relatively new term – attributed to the Polish-born jurist of Jewish descent, Raphael Lemkin, in 1943–1944 – and refines its meaning, reconceptualizes its application, and outlines international strategies for deterring genocide in the future.

He is a polarizing figure in international debates about genocide and moral culpability; indeed, he is the namesake of the “Goldhagen Debate,” which began after the publication of his 1996 international bestseller, Hitler’s Willing Executioners (Knopf 1996), a dense historical inquiry that details research supporting his controversial conclusion that Jewish extermination was carried out by ordinary Germans whose anti-Semitic beliefs fueled their eliminationist activities. Despite initial vociferous resistance to its ideas, the book is now generally accepted as expressing the consensus view. His follow-up book, A Moral Reckoning (Knopf 2002), is best summarized in its subtitle: “The role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its unfulfilled duty of repair.” Mapping out the Church’s contradictory portrayal of itself as a moral institution while endorsing anti-Semitic policies and practices before, during, and after the Holocaust, Goldhagen’s call for moral restitution is couched in the Church’s own doctrinal imperatives. Although his positions have been subject to criticism, Goldhagen is regarded as an objective interpreter of what he uncovers in his research and one who has not retreated from revealing unpopular historical facts. He continues to write and speak publicly about the globalization of anti-Semitism as a new historical wave that differs radically from previous modes of bigotry against Jews from which it has derived. Goldhagen serves at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University, where he earned his B.A. (summa cum laude), M.A., and Ph.D. in political science and taught in the Government and Social Studies departments. His doctoral dissertation, on which Hitler’s Willing Executioners was based, was awarded the 1994 American Political Science Association’s Gabriel A. Almond Award for the best dissertation in comparative politics. The book was a 1996 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, and a year after the book was published, Goldhagen was awarded the 1997 Democracy Prize by the German Journal for German and International Politics. His work in the study of genocide continues to stir controversy worldwide, challenging his audience to take concrete steps toward global peace.

Related Topics

▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Genocide ▶ Global Human Rights Culture ▶ Global Justice ▶ International Criminal Justice

Gould, Carol

▶ Nuremberg Trials ▶ Persecution ▶ War Crimes

References German Historical Museum (October 15, 2010 to February 6, 2011) Hitler and the Germans: nation and crime, an exhibition of the German historical museum. http://www.dhm.de/ausstellungen/ hitler-und-die-deutschen/en/index.html. Accessed 6 May 2011 Goldhagen DJ (1997) Hitler’s willing executioners: ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. Vintage, New York Goldhagen DJ (2003) A moral reckoning: the role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its unfulfilled duty of repair. Vintage, New York Goldhagen DJ (2009a) Worse than war. PublicAffairs, New York Goldhagen DJ (2009b, October 6) Goldhagen speaking about Worse than War at the Carnegie Council. http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/ resources/video/data/000264#. Accessed 6 May 2011 Goldhagen DJ (2009c, October 10) Ending our age of suffering: a plan to stop genocide. The New Republic. http://www.tnr.com/article/ world/ending-our-age-suffering. Accessed 6 May 2011 Goldhagen DJ (2009d, October 13) Facing history and ourselves: Goldhagen speaks at the University of Toronto about worse than war. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/214120. Accessed 6 May 2011 Goldhagen DJ http://goldhagen.com/. Accessed 6 May 2011 Rose C (Interviewer), Goldhagen DJ (Interviewee) (1996, April 5) An interview with Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. http://www.charlierose. com/view/interview/6274. Accessed 6 May 2011 Sanderson J, Goldhagen DJ, Segaller S (2010, April 14) Worse than war [television broadcast documentary]. JTN productions and thirteen in association with NDR and WNET.org. Streaming at http://www. pbs.org/worsethanwar. Accessed 6 May 2011

Gould, Carol DAVID MICHAEL JACKSON Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

Carol Gould’s innovative work on global justice advances novel views about democracy and human rights. Her work regarding these concepts draws from her original scholarship in feminist and Marxist philosophy, as well as in political theory, international ethics, and philosophy as it relates to public policy. Her views are cosmopolitan, though she diverges in important ways from other cosmopolitan philosophers. As with other such theorists, Gould advances the notion of some form of community among all human beings, irrespective of nationality, cultural heritage, or other group affiliation. From her standpoint of moral cosmopolitanism based upon individual freedom as self-development, she argues for an extension of

G

democracy beyond its customary political domain, into the social and economic spheres. Her work, as she notes, is not primarily critical, but constructive: Her aim is to redefine these fundamental concepts of justice in a way that yields a unique approach to questions regarding participatory (or at least representative) access to global institutions, such that individual attainment of adequate living standards might better be secured. Central to Gould’s reconceptualization of democracy and human rights is her argument that individual freedom involves not only the capacity for free choice (primarily an issue of negative rights), but also the activity of selfdevelopment (which involves, as she argues, positive rights as well). This conception of freedom entails the equality of individuals, insofar as they are all equally moral agents, who must also be free from oppression. The notion of equality Gould defends is thus political, which in turn indicates – as a function of her positive formulation of liberty – the level of material equality requisite to satisfy the condition of political equality. Since self-development requires access to the material conditions for well-being, the positive formulation of liberty dissolves the apparent conflict between liberty and equality. Gould additionally argues for equal positive freedom, from which follows an equal right in decisions regarding the common activities that constitute, in part, the conditions for self-development. Bridging the relationship Gould formulates between liberty and equality, on the one hand, and human rights and democracy, on the other, is her social ontology. This frame of reference treats “individuals-in-relations” (individuals socially, rather than atomistically, defined) as its basic entities. From this ontology, Gould formulates a universality (inherent in human rights) that is concrete rather than abstract. This notion is concrete in that it is constituted by intersociative norms – those constructed through the networked interactions among particular caring and choosing individuals. This notion of intersociative norms provides a way of accounting for universal norms through contextualization in what Gould calls “individuals-in-relations ontology,” which characterizes particular humans not only as discrete individuals but also as social beings. Establishing universal claims in this way, Gould argues, avoids both cultural relativism and cultural imperialism, because it neither affirms the lack of any universal moral standards, nor does it impose a putative universal standard that is alien to whichever society is under discussion. Since such a standard is built from the concrete interactions among individuals and does not posit some fixed set of human attributes in virtue of which individuals can claim human

455

G

456

G

Gould, Carol

rights, it is nonessentialist. In place of such fixity, this approach proposes that the self-transformation of individuals and cultures constitutes a form of agency that supports reciprocal recognition and that gives rise to mutual claims to the fulfillment of a set of human rights, which specify fundamental conditions for this activity. Some of these rights involve basic needs and protections for agency, while others remain open to a certain variability in cultural interpretations. Responses to the tension between the universality of human rights, on the one hand, and the normative variance of cultural diversity, on the other, differ among cosmopolitans. Gould focuses on the crucial question of cultural representation. In asking “who speaks for a culture?,” she argues persuasively that representation of a given culture by privileged individuals often prioritizes those individuals’ own narrow interests at the expense of those within that culture who are less privileged. Gould appeals to her formulations of transnational and transcultural solidarities to point out that one culture does not speak univocally with others. Thus by showing the considerable degree of normative variance within cultures, Gould capably argues that the challenge to universality inherent in the variance between cultures is diminished. Another prominent aspect of Gould’s overall project is a redefinition of democracy, one that can serve as a viable model at the national, international, and global levels. The machinery she employs in the pursuit of this goal begins with her particular notions of freedom and equality, along with her social ontology, to an account of human rights which serves as the foundation for her argument that democracy ought to be extended – beyond not only the political to the social and economic, but also beyond the national to the international and global domains. Gould argues that the notions of liberty and equality can be further developed through democracy, with democracy also serving as a mediating ground for the resolution of conflict. Democracy, for Gould, is justified by appeal to human rights. That is, rather than asking the question “is democracy a human right?” she centers her conception of democracy on her formulation of human rights. The values of individual liberty, equality, and social cooperation not only require one another, but can only be realized, Gould argues, through the extension of democracy, from its customary political domain to the social and economic spheres. The equal right to self-development requires the right to democratic participation in the political, social, and economic contexts. Gould argues that this more general right – she classifies it as a human right – serves as a basis for a number of other human rights she defends.

Thus her justification for her particular formulation of democracy rests on her justification of human rights, which in turn depends upon her foundational accounts of freedom and equality. In such ways does Gould diverge from her fellow cosmopolitans. The specific ways in which democracy ought to be extended beyond the political sphere, on Gould’s account, are illustrated by, for example, movements for sexual and racial equality, equal opportunity, patient and consumer rights (in the social domain), and worker cooperatives (in the economic domain). Intersociative democracy is intended by Gould to serve as a basis for transborder and global participation in institutions of like reach. The conflict-resolving aspect of intersociative democracy, particularly when coupled with new forms of intercultural dialogue, Gould argues, has potential to reduce the likelihood of aggrieved groups’ resorting to violence. Thus acts such as violent secession conflicts and terrorism might more effectively be averted. Finally, Gould and Marx Wartofsky are properly credited with early popularization of feminism within academic philosophy, by at least one reliable measure. Prior to 1973, the Philosopher’s Index listed only three articles on feminism. In that year, articles on the topic proliferated, due largely to the appearance of an edition of The Philosophical Forum edited by Gould and Wartofsky that became the basis for Women and Philosophy: Toward a Theory of Liberation (1976), an anthology on feminist philosophy.

Related Topics

▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Feminist Ethics ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Law, Normative Foundations of ▶ Sovereignty

References Gould C (1978) Marx’s social ontology: individuality and community in Marx’s theory of social reality. MIT Press, Cambridge Gould C (ed) (1984) Beyond domination: new perspectives on women and philosophy. Rowman & Littlefield, Totowa Gould C (1988/1990) Rethinking democracy: freedom and social cooperation in politics, economy, and society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Gould C (ed) (1989) The information web: ethical and social implications of computer networking. Westview Press, Boulder Gould C (1996) Diversity and democracy: representing differences. In: Benhabib S (ed) Democracy and difference: contesting the boundaries of the political. Princeton University, Princeton, pp 171–186

Goulet, Denis Gould C (2004) Globalizing democracy and human rights. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Gould C (2007) Transnational solidarities. J Soc Philos 38(1):146–162 Gould C (2009) Structuring global democracy: political communities, universal human rights, and transnational representation. Metaphilosophy 40(1):24–46 Gould C (2011) Approaching global justice through human rights: elements of theory and practice. In: Carmody Ch, Garcia F, Linarelli J (eds) Distributive justice and international economic law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Gould C, Wartofsky M (eds) (1976) Women and philosophy: toward a theory of liberation. G. P. Putnam’s, New York

Goulet, Denis DES GASPER Public Policy and Management/Staff Group on States, Societies and World Development, International Institute of Social Studies (of Erasmus University Rotterdam), The Hague, The Netherlands

Overview Denis Goulet (1931–2006) was an American philosopher and international development analyst, who became the leading English language proponent of “development ethics.” His particular quality was to synthesize insights from anthropological observation, policy practice, and philosophy – humanist, religious, and existentialist – and to bridge between Anglophone, Francophone, Lusophone, and Hispanic literatures. He articulated themes of human development and human security well before and in some respects more deeply than Amartya Sen, Mahbub ul Haq, and Martha Nussbaum (see e.g., Goulet 1960, 1971). While viewing “development ethics” within a global context, he insisted on the necessity of a combination of global-level and local-level focus and loyalties. His work offers suggestions for the study of global justice, including its identity and ambitions as a field that aspires to combine theory and policy significance.

Outline of Goulet’s Work After an education in philosophy in the USA, and periods living with a diversity of communities in Europe and North Africa, Goulet trained in the French tradition of humanistic socio-economics. His mentor was the social economist and theologian Louis Joseph Lebret (1897–1966), who had in 1941 founded the movement E´conomie et Humanisme, to contribute toward constructing more humane economic systems. Lebret’s school of thought moved beyond pure academic

G

philosophy and created a forerunner of the present day idea and practice of “human development,” to be interpreted and elaborated in dialogue between philosophy, economics, social sciences, and theology. Goulet (1960) presented in this spirit a manifesto for “a practical ethics of development” that would transcend the rupture between explanatory theory that had no interest in ethics and utopian normative political theory that was not grounded in real life. He pursued this goal throughout his career, from his first book on development ethics, published in Spanish and Portuguese in 1965–6, to his final collection of papers in 2006. Goulet prefigured much of later development thinking, notably on sustainability and human security. His most influential book, The Cruel Choice (1971), propounded and drew out the implications of two core concepts. First is “existence rationality”: ethics must start from study of how people in a given setting think and seek to make sense of the world and their lives and the forces and choices that face them. Each person and every society wants to be treated by others for their own sake and on their own terms, as having intrinsic worth regardless of their usefulness to others (Goulet 1975). Grasp of people’s “existence rationality” is essential if one is to offer relevant advice and not merely declare grand sounding ideals. Goulet’s model of value systems and value change posited an existential core that must be respected and built from, and an outer zone of flexibility where adaptation is possible, finding and using people’s “latent potential for change” (Goulet 1971). The second core concept is “Vulnerability: the key to understanding and promoting development,” as stated in the title of The Cruel Choice’s second chapter. Correspondingly, Goulet expounded and exemplified an anthropological style for development ethics: It must look at real cultural and historical settings, not some supposedly timeless “everywhere,” and must be grounded in intense observation of varied experience. He applied the approach in studies of a variety of issues, including technology transfer, incentives and indicators, and various countries, notably Brazil, Guinea-Bissau, Mexico, Spain, and Sri Lanka (Goulet 1977, 1989, 1995, 2006).

Constitution of a Field of Development Ethics Goulet took a broad view of development ethics: ethics for social change oriented to a core audience of those who see themselves as working in development policy. Development ethics considers, in his words, the “ethical and value questions posed by development theory, planning and practice” (Goulet 1977). This includes

457

G

458

G

Goulet, Denis

debates about what is the human good (and bad), the contents of worthwhile development, the acceptable distribution of development’s benefits, costs and risks, and the ethical quality of methods of development analysis and practice, including the questions of who should decide and who should act. The mission of development ethics, he proposed, is practical as well as theoretical: “to diagnose value conflicts, to assess policies (actual and possible), and to validate or refute valuations placed on development performance” (Goulet 1997). Further, it must seek not merely to specify goals but to affect the processes and instruments through which goals are re-specified and either marginalized or given real weight. Available, entrenched, or habitual means often determine the ends that are actually pursued. Development ethics must present ideas that can pervade the world of means – of social movements and organizations, legislatures and courts, policy methods and procedures, education and training – and thereby influence events. The field of study and practice must combine an awareness of global interconnections – linkages and costs that have been treated as “externalities” in narrowly national, disciplinary, or commercial calculations – with a locally based understanding of existence rationalities and vulnerabilities. Identification of the “externalities,” the real impacts, costs, and benefits – ecological, medical, psychological, cultural – requires an openness to “local” knowledge and values, which in turn requires routine “local” participation and involvement.

The Uncertain Promise – Value Conflicts in Technology Transfer Goulet’s 1977 book on international transfers of technology illustrates his approach: a combination of philosophical discussion, extensive multidisciplinary exploration, and interviews and case studies in a range of countries and organizations. Technology in the modern world is shown as a mighty “two-edged sword,” a creator and destroyer. It brings new freedoms and imposes new determinisms. It creates a human-made nature which individuals experience as externally given and overwhelming. It generates vested interests determined to market each of its possible products. Its instrumental approach, whereby everything is seen as a means toward ends that are themselves beyond reason, strips societies of their sources of meaning. Goulet held that while technology need not have been used in this way, historically it was so used, and that new meanings must be created to counter alienation. Instrumental norms of what should be done need to be inspired by an adequate unifying vision, an overall meaning system of one sort or another. Premodern

societies evolved such visions that gave “meaning to birth, to daily routine, to change, to suffering, and even to death itself ”; but these visions were “provincial, static, and naı¨ve” (Goulet 1977). A relevant wisdom for modern times requires diverse ongoing creative dialogues and experiments, in which “old” and “new” mentalities listen to each other, in order to build a well-rooted commitment to a sustainable meaningful future. The alternative is, he believed: chaos. Goulet spoke of a “vital nexus” for the guidance of technology, such as formulated in China: “Values command politics, politics commands economics, and economics commands technique.” Markets are indispensable societal mechanisms but insufficient, in Karl Mannheim’s terms, as a societal organizing principle. The required governance nexus must involve a global compact or social contract around priority values of “survival, justice, equity, sufficiency for all, ecological integrity, and the elimination of large-scale systematic violence from human life” (Goulet 1977). In actuality, the guidance system for technological choice in the international market is dominated by consultancy firms and similar “gatekeepers” who link scientific, technical, financial, and political networks but who lack an adequate conception of relevant values, externalities and wider costs and benefits, and function instead as proselytizers of commercially attractive deals that serve the interests of the groups with greater purchasing power – including themselves (Goulet 1977). In contrast to conceptions of freedom that consider freedom to increase whenever the possibilities for commodity consumption increase, Goulet endorsed different priorities. Freedom, including the freedom to live in a relatively equal and mutually respectful society with space for other concerns than production and consumption, requires an element of “austerity, or the willingness to be content with a decent sufficiency of goods” (Goulet 1977). Otherwise people become prisoners of technology-driven consumption and the corresponding forms of social organization, perpetually chasing more consumption. The imprisonment by technology is more than an expression of vital “animal spirits” – the compulsion to consume everything simply because we can, just as we climb Everest because it is there – but is driven by market competition and competition between nations.

Visions of Global Order Drawing on the work of Richard Falk (1975), Goulet contrasted market-driven and big-power nation-driven models of world order with a vision of a “global populism”

Goulet, Denis

that in diverse ways directly engages and supports the knowledge, needs, and priorities of ordinary people worldwide. He argued that “global populism” relies on having strong local involvements, commitments and experiential roots, to counterbalance the abstract universalism of managers of the existing world system, guided by their earnings targets, “results-orientation,” utopian models, and disciplinary or professional habits and visions. Local links and loyalties keep one accountable within “a living community of human need,” and keep “experts” in horizontal relationships with others, making them learn how to apply their expertise in a horizontal, democratic fashion. Without local accountabilities and with only elite peers as one’s priority audience, the roles as expert and guide evolve “into postures of rulership,” as happened in really existing socialism (Goulet 1977). So, promotion of “global populism” must rely in part on mobilizing the residual local loyalties of those who, working in global corporations or in other ways, presently de facto serve global elites. The essential partners for analyses informed by development ethics concerns thus include social movements that represent or support the claims of the weakest groups in national and global society. Goulet’s last major paper (2005) brought together longstanding themes of the distribution of the costs and benefits from major development activities such as dam construction, and the distribution of rights to be informed and be heard, with newer themes of the roles of global development organizations and globally linked social movements. He argued that Brazilian experiences in popular participation in decision making around dam construction and in participatory municipal budgeting show the possibility of fulfilling some old ideals, in part through the involvement of global social movements which had their largest launching pad in Brazil. Fora of globalized resistance such as the World Social Forum have given new practical dimensions and theoretical clarification to the slogan that “another globalization is possible.”

Practice-Based Methodology Goulet called for ethical investigation and debate that are driven by experience, not secluded in academic philosophy and pre-set academic frameworks; and for field-based identification and reflection on values and value conflicts and societal, corporate, and global responsibilities. He espoused a process-oriented, practice-centered, localityspecific approach, not an elaborate generalized theoretical model. He thus advocated what others call “practical ethics,” rather than a theoretical ethics that will supposedly then be “applied.” Only a practice-based development

G

ethics could have adequate “regard for constraints, for human desires and limitations, and for the unpredictable vagaries of local conditions” (2006) and avoid becoming entrapped in overly simple conceptual schemata. Goulet’s idea of field ethics is deeply illuminating. Its limits arise from the time and skill it requires and if it remains disconnected from communicable theory. Practice-oriented movements require systematically elaborated theoretical structures too, to sustain them and help them cohere and communicate. What we see in the most interesting development ethics work after Goulet are steps to combine case investigation and ethnographic insight with more structured philosophical thinking. At the same time, practical ethics that seek serious influence in systems of decision making must, as he insisted, move beyond specialist spaces in academic philosophy. The required analyses lie at the interfaces of various branches of philosophy, social sciences, management and humanities, and of academic work and practical action.

Related Topics

▶ Alterglobalization ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Falk, Richard ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Globalization ▶ Liberation Theology ▶ Sustainable Development ▶ Thin Universalism and Thick Localism

References Falk RA (1975) A study of future worlds. Free Press, New York Goulet D (1960) Pour une e´thique moderne du de´veloppement. De´veloppement et Civilisations 3(September):10–23 [Translated into English in Goulet (2006).] Goulet D (1965) Etica Del Desarrollo. Editora Estela/IEPAL, Barcelona/ Montevideo Goulet D (1971) The cruel choice. Atheneum, New York Goulet D (1975) The high price of social change – on Peter Berger’s Pyramids of Sacrifice. Christianity and Crisis 35(16):231–237 Goulet D (1977) The uncertain promise: value conflicts in technology transfer. IDOC, New York, New edition, 1989: New Horizons Press, New York Goulet D (1989) Incentives for development: the key to equity. New Horizons Press, New York Goulet D (1995) Development ethics: a guide to theory and practice. The Apex Press, New York, and Zed Books, London Goulet D (1997) Development ethics: a new discipline. Int J Soc Econ 24(11):1160–1171 Goulet D (2005) Global governance, dam conflicts, and participation. Hum Rights Quart 27:881–907 Goulet D (2006) Development ethics at work: explorations 1960–2002. Routledge, New York and London

459

G

460

G

Grameen Bank

Grameen Bank MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

Grameen Bank is a microfinance organization and community bank founded by Mohammad Yunus, recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work pioneering micro-financing as a response to the depredations of global poverty. Micro-finance may be viewed as a bottom-up response to problems of poverty, regarding micro-loans to the poor as a means to utilize skills already possessed by the poorest of the poor, unleashing their creative, entrepreneurial potentials. To this extent, microfinancing represents an alternative to top-down, state-level welfare programs, which are often viewed by advocates of micro-financing as responsible for creating dependency and taking away individuals’ initiative to break out of the cycle of poverty. Although certainly a goal of Grameen’s micro-financing programs is to help individuals’ escape poverty, the Bank has focused on the practice of so-called solidarity lending. Here each borrower must belong to a five-member group. The group, however, is not required to give any guarantee for a loan to its members. Instead, responsibility for repayment rests solely on the individual borrower. In other words, the solidarity group has no group liability. Its purpose is to oversee the behavior of group members, ensuring that each member acts responsibly such that none encounter repayment problems. Solidarity groups are thus, above all, peer pressure mechanisms. Peer pressure within the solidarity group, however, is not concerned exclusively with ensuring loan repayments. It is also tied to encouraging positive social habits, encapsulated in a list of 16 Decisions, which borrowers are supposed to recite and vow to follow. The Decisions include commitments to educate children by sending them to school, build community pit latrines, and renounce the dowry system for marriages. In this regard, micro-finance loans are seen explicitly as mechanisms for facilitating cultural transformations among borrowers, targeting culture as one of the causes of poverty. Grameen Bank has become the focus of some considerable criticism from diverse quarters. Libertarians, for instance, have objected to the practice of group lending for undermining the ethical individualism they take to be the heart of economic justice. Feminists have criticized

this practice, despite its focus on loans to women, arguing that it potentially increases the vulnerability of women in solidarity groups to exploitation and enmity from male relatives in highly patriarchal cultural environments. It has also been criticized by some local cultural and religious leaders, such as Imams, for devaluing indigenous cultural values. Criticisms have also been leveled on grounds of inefficiency. Despite Grameen’s claims of high success rates in lifting the poorest out of poverty, solidarity groups regularly fail to attain permanent self-employment among their members insofar as loans are frequently used to satisfy immediate economic needs rather than start new businesses. In this regard, Grameen has been widely criticized for indulging in a certain “romance of the entrepreneur,” failing to acknowledge that many of the poorest of the poor would actually prefer regular waged employment to the many risks and uncertainties of entrepreneurship. Indeed, some critics assert that it is not really the poorest of the poor who are helped by micro-financing. The practice is instead more beneficial to those already living above the poverty line, possessing enough wealth to make it economically rational for them to undertake entrepreneurial risks, especially when interest rates on Grameen’s loans are comparatively higher than those offered by traditional banks. From the perspective of global justice debates, Grameen might well be viewed as a particular instance of non-military non-coercive humanitarian intervention, undertaken by informal nongovernmental bodies. That is, informal interventions at the level of particular civil society actors – finance institutions – rather than the state or the international community of law. Here such interventions are concerned not with addressing crimes against humanity, but the depredations and dehumanizing effects of avoidable poverty. The informality of Grameen’s micro-finance interventions is evident in the absence of any legal instrument, such as a binding contract, between the Bank and its various groups of borrowers. Indeed, Grameen’s interventions are grounded informally in relations of trust, along with the assumption that borrowers fit the description of them as would-be entrepreneurs, lacking only the start-up loans necessary to release their potential as small-scale venture capitalists. Such informality, though, might be seen to be as much a weakness as strength of Grameen’s approach addressing the depredations and injustices of global poverty. It potentially leaves borrowers vulnerable to coercive pressure from peer groups and exploitation from other more powerful members of their local communities, while failing to address their self-descriptions as concerned more with non-entrepreneurial job security best provided by formal

Greenpeace

state agencies and employment policies. If the informality of its approach has proven it to be an imperfect instrument to address the injustice of poverty, Grameen’s microfinancing interventions have nonetheless made a significant contribution to current practices aimed at promoting global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ Poverty

References Karnani A (2007) Micro-finance misses the mark. Stanford social innovation review. http://www.ssireview.org/images/articles/2007SU_ feature_karnani.pdf. Accessed 23 Mar 2011 Karnani A (2009) Romanticizing the poor. Stanford social innovation review. http://www.ssireview.org/pdf/RomaticizingthePoor.pdf. Accessed 23 Mar 2011 Rahman A (2001) Women and microcredit in rural Bangladesh: anthropological study of Grameen Bank lending. Westview Press, Boulder Yunus M (2003) Banker to the poor: micro-lending and the battle against poverty. Perseus Book Group, New York Yunus M (2008) Creating a world without poverty: social business and the future of capitalism. Perseus Book Group, New York

Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) ▶ Land Grab

Greenpeace MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Greenpeace is a leading nongovernmental organization, known for its provocative and often confrontational, yet nonviolent, actions designed to draw attention to various environmental problems of ongoing and global, and immediate and local, concern. Greenpeace works to expose threats to the natural environment, and find solutions to the problems identified. A group of persons gathered in Vancouver, Canada, in 1971 to protest U.S. nuclear testing off the coast of Alaska by putting themselves in harm’s way of the blast. Although intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard, the group (several of whom were members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers) remained

G

undaunted and formed the organization to which they eventually gave the name, Greenpeace. Working in 45 countries, with 28 regional offices, an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, an international staff of 2,400, and 15,000 volunteers globally, Greenpeace has as its fundamental goal to “ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity.” In 1979, Greenpeace International came into existence (officially, Stichting Greenpeace Council), and following this restructuring, local Greenpeace affiliates have demonstrated various degrees of independence from the international office. Greenpeace states its mission as follows. It “acts to change attitudes and behavior, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace by”: ● Catalyzing an energy revolution to address the number one threat facing our planet: climate change ● Defending our oceans ● Protecting the world’s remaining ancient forests ● Working for disarmament and peace by reducing dependence on finite resources and calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons ● Creating a toxic-free future ● Campaigning for sustainable agriculture Greenpeace thus holds one of the most comprehensive of missions among NGOs concerned to protect the environment, and is one the most visible and largest of such organizations. Greenpeace does not accept donations from governments, intergovernmental organizations, political parties, or corporations so as to remain independent. It relies on contributions from individuals and (carefully scrutinized) foundation grants. It claims to have 2.8 million supporters. Since its first action, Greenpeace has continued to be identified with its ships, which are used to go to the source of “environmental destruction,” whether it be the killing of whales, oil spills, nuclear tests, or dumping of hazardous wastes. The comprehensive nature of its mission, and the highly visible and sometimes confrontational actions it uses, has made Greenpeace a target of criticism and attack. In 2003, Public Interest Watch (PIW) complained to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that Greenpeace, USA was using donations for advocacy in a way that violated US law. The IRS conducted an investigation and found in favor of Greenpeace, holding that the group remained taxexempt. In 2006, The Wall Street Journal reported that PIW was funded by ExxonMobil prior to the charge against Greenpeace. In 2004, it was reported that the Australian government was willing to subsidize Southern Pacific Petroleum on the condition that this oil company

461

G

462

G

Grotius, Hugo

would pursue legal action against Greenpeace. Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, and E´lectricitie´ de France, have reportedly spied on, and infiltrated, Greenpeace activities. Most infamously, the French intelligence agency bombed the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland’s Waitemata Harbor (killing one person). From the standpoint of global justice, Greenpeace works on many fronts to protect people, especially the most vulnerable, and the planet. It was one of the earliest organizations, for example, to develop a plan for climate change mitigation, in 1993. It continues to draw attention to environmental problems, and how those problems adversely affect people as well as nature; and it works toward solutions in an independent spirit that can be found throughout the organization.

Related Topics

▶ Brundtland Commission ▶ Climate Change ▶ Deforestation ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Environmental Protection ▶ Environmental Regulations ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Global Warming ▶ Political Ecology

References Bohlen J (2001) Making waves: the origin and future of greenpeace. Black Rose Books, Montreal Brown M, May J (1991) The greenpeace story. Dorling Kindersley, New York Connolly S (2009) Greenpeace. Franklin Watts books, London Deal C (2002) The greenpeace guide to anti-environmental organizations. Odonian Press, Tucson Foreman M, Morpurgo M (1997) Beyond the rainbow warrior: a collection of stories to celebrate 25 Years of greenpeace. Pavilion Books, London Hunter R (1979) Warriors of the rainbow: a chronicle of the greenpeace movement. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York Hunter R (1980) The greenpeace chronicle. Picador Books, New York Hunter R (2004) The greenpeace to amchitka: an environmental odyssey. Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver Jordan A (2001) Shell, greenpeace and brent spar. Palgrave, New York King M (1986) Death of the rainbow warrior. Penguin, New York Kozak M (1997) Greenpeace (taking action!). Heinemann, Chicago May J (1990) The greenpeace book of the nuclear age: the hidden history, the human cost. Pantheon Books, New York McCormick J (1995) The global environmental movement. Wiley, Oxford Mormont A, Dasnoy C (1995) Source strategies and the mediatization of climate change. Media Cult Soc 17(1):49–64 Ostopowich M (2002) Greenpeace. Weigel, New York Sheehan S (2003) Greenpeace. World Watch Institute, Washington, DC Warford M, Lama D (1997) Greenpeace witness: twenty-five years on the environmental front line. Andre Deutsch, London Weyler R (2004) Greenpeace: how a group of ecologists, journalists, and visionaries changed the world. Raincoast Books, Vancouver

Grotius, Hugo WILLIAM B. T. MOCK The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, IL, USA

Often called “the father of international law,” Hugo Grotius (known in the vernacular as Hugo de Groot) (1583–1645) was a highly prominent and influential European lawyer and diplomat active in the first half of the seventeenth century. In his major works, Grotius sought to identify and advocate for principles that, if adopted, would promote tolerance and peace. Grotius utilized a natural law approach, leading him to espouse the centrality of states and the use of fundamental principles in resolving international conflict. This was a period of considerable political and religious strife in Europe, including the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence, and the highly destructive Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) between Catholic and Protestant regions of Europe. In addition to religious conflict, nations competed fiercely for trade opportunities and colonial expansion. Not surprisingly in such a context, Grotius is best known for his theological works, including De veritate religionis Christianae (On the truth of the Christian religion, 1627), and his works analyzing international conflicts, including Mare Liberum (The Free Seas, 1609), and De jure belli ac pacis (On the law of war and peace, 1625). Dejure praedae commentarius (Commentary on the law of prize and booty), of which Mare Liberum forms a portion, was commissioned by the Dutch East India Company early in Grotius’ career, but not published until the late nineteenth century. He was also an accomplished poet and playwright. Born in Holland on Easter Sunday, 1583, and recognized as an intellectual prodigy early in life, Grotius was attending the University of Leiden by the time he was 11. In 1598, at age 15, he was a member of a diplomatic mission to King Henry IV of France, who declared himself impressed with the youth. While in France, Grotius obtained a law degree from the University of Orleans, and, by 18, he was practicing law and held an official position with the Dutch government. In 1607, at age 24, Grotius was appointed Attorney General of Holland, Zeeland, and West Friesland, at which time he ended his early career as a practicing lawyer. Six years later, he was appointed Pensionary (similar to a governor) of Rotterdam, where Grotius had the misfortune to become involved as an advocate of religious tolerance in a significant theological debate of the era.

Grotius, Hugo

A few years later, this landed him in prison upon orders of the Calvinist Prince Maurice, his erstwhile political patron. Hiding in a large trunk which his wife had ostensibly sent to facilitate a shipment of books from the prison, Grotius escaped 2 years later, fleeing with his family to Paris in 1621. Over the next 4 years, he composed his most important work, De jure belli ac pacis (On the law of war and peace), published in Paris in 1625. Six years later, he and his family briefly returned to Holland, only to return to Paris a short time later. At this point, Sweden named Grotius as its ambassador to France, a position he filled with distinction for a decade. Called to Stockholm following a political shift in Sweden, Grotius was shipwrecked en route, resulting in health problems that led to his death in 1645 shortly after completing his return trip.

Significance Several concepts now considered central to international law trace their origins to Grotius’ writings, including the freedom of the seas, the idea of just and limited warfare, the centrality of states, and even the very idea that international conflict is amenable to rational analysis. In De jure belli ac pacis, Grotius analyzed the concept of “just war,” attempting to define under what circumstances and in what manner a nation may carry out armed hostilities against its neighbors. Grotius was highly influential in placing nations into the central place they have occupied in international law for the past 350 years. As a practicing diplomat for the Dutch and Swedish governments for much of his life, Grotius was a natural advocate for the role of national players on the world stage. He was no democrat, nor an advocate of the legitimacy of popular uprisings, instead arguing that people had the power to alienate any or their own sovereignty to monarchs and other political leaders on a permanent basis, even to the point of alienating their right to object to how they are governed, and that this was the foundation of legitimacy of the European rulers of his era. Grotius flourished and died in the decades just prior to the Treaty of Westphalia and, as one of the most influential political writers of the first half of the seventeenth century, he can be considered a significant influence on the Westphalian system of nationhood that has informed international law and international relations since 1648. In analyzing international issues, Grotius relied heavily upon first principles that he derived from moral philosophy. In doing so, he drew support from a wide range of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance political philosophers and literati. This approach was to have great significance for the development of international law.

G

Grotius utilized and lent his considerable reputation to the natural law tradition, whereby fundamental concepts provide a basis for law, including international law. In this, he offered a counterweight to those, like Machiavelli, for whom a Renaissance realpolitik was central, as well as to those proto-positivists of the era who argued that only affirmative acts of consent could bind governments. For this, Grotius is recognized today as one of the key figures in the history of natural law and the enhancement of its role in international law. By drawing upon centuries of moral philosophy in formulating his international law arguments, Grotius added greatly to the legitimacy of international law as a learned field which civilized people needed to study, respect, and observe. Through his efforts, international law became more than just a convenient tool for rulers to use when they wanted to. In its place, Grotius imbued international law with a moral or ethical dimension that made its norms much harder to ignore on purely expedient grounds. In addition, Grotius’ primary reliance upon the works of scholars to support his arguments helped to establish learned scholars and publicists as accepted sources of international law, recognized today in article 38(1)(d) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. Ironically, by doing so, Grotius ensured his own historical place as a source of international legal norms. None of this is to say that Grotius was an intellect disengaged from the practical issues of his era. For example, Grotius’ high-minded views in Mare Liberum on freedom of the high seas and maritime trade were perfectly in keeping with the practical interests of his employer, the Dutch East India Company, in legitimating their competition with Portuguese trade monopolies. It is in this final sense that Grotius’ impact extends far beyond international law. Through the commercial and political successes brought about by his legal writings, Grotius played a key legal and philosophical role in promoting the era of European exploration, expansion, and exploitation of non-European lands and resources. In this sense, he could be considered not only “the father of international law,” but also a major figure in the expansion of the Westphalian European nation-state system and its related legal norms throughout the world. All this has proved to be vitally important for the subsequent discourse on global justice.

Related Topics

▶ International Justice ▶ International Law ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Treaty of Westphalia ▶ War, Just and Unjust

463

G

464

G

Group Rights

References Bull H (1992) Hugo Grotius and international relations. Clarendon, Oxford Butler SG (1928) The development of international law. Longmans, Green & Co, London Keene E (2002) Beyond the anarchical society: Grotius, colonialism and order in world politics (LSE monographs in international studies). Cambridge University Press, New York Lauterpacht H (1946) The Grotian tradition in international law. Br Yearb Int Law 23:1 Tuck R (2001) The rights of war and peace: Political thought and the international order from Grotius to Kant. Oxford University Press, New York Wight M (2005) Four seminal thinkers in international theory: Machiavelli, Grotius, Kant, and Mazzini. Oxford University Press, New York Yasuaki O (1993) A normative approach to war: Peace, war, and justice in Hugo Grotius. Oxford University Press, New York

Group Rights ANNA MOLTCHANOVA Department of Philosophy, Carleton College, Northfield, MN, USA

We cannot discuss global justice without coming upon the notion of group rights. Throughout their lives, individuals function as members of various groups – nations, linguistic and cultural communities, religious, political and volunteer organizations, and so on. Groups can have legal rights, and it is a widely shared intuition that groups are often morally entitled to the unimpeded enjoyment of their group activities. But groups do not exist in isolation, and their entitlements may conflict with the rights of their members or the rights of other groups or individuals. The moral underpinnings of global justice require that we have a clear idea of how to define and classify group entitlements and that we work on a set of clear criteria for ranking and prioritizing group and individual rights, should the conflicts among them arise. The good of sharing a culture, communicating in a language, or playing a team sport cannot be enjoyed except in a community with others. Thus, goods like culture or language are collective goods, and rights to collective goods, or group rights, are normally claimed by group members against nonmembers. For example, a linguistic minority may demand funding for schools in its language from the larger political community in which it finds itself; a nation-state is entitled to sovereignty and can claim the right to be free from undue interference from the outsiders.

Even though the existence of collective goods is not controversial and collective legal rights, like the right to self-determination, are commonly acknowledged, the notion that collectives have moral rights is often contested. On one side of the debate is the claim that moral rights can inhere only in individuals and that, at most, collectives can acquire moral rights in a derivative fashion: the rights belong to individuals but can be exercised by individuals only through their participation in a group. Using this reasoning, the right to be educated in French in Manitoba belongs to individual Francophone Manitobans, but it cannot be exercised unless there are a sufficient number of Francophone children present in a given area who warrant the right of the Francophone minority to receive instruction in French schools (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 23). The other side of the debate concerning holders of group rights asserts that moral rights can belong to collectives as such (Parekh 2000). The right to be educated in French belongs to the Francophone citizens of Manitoba as a group precisely because the good of language can only be enjoyed within the corresponding linguistic community. To take another Canadian example, Nunavut, an autonomous Inuit territory in Canada, was created in recognition of the moral right of the Inuit people to self-government. On this account, it is not correct to say that Nunavut’s autonomy derives from its individual members’ right to democratic self-governance; it is the group as a whole that has the right to self-determination and not the group’s members who have the right individually. These two accounts ground rights claims in different circumstances. Identifying the presence of a collective good does not on its own allow us to pick out the relevant features that describe the holder of the right to that good. Consider sports, Denise Re´aume’s example. Playing soccer or hockey is a collective good (Re´aume 1991). However, we can look at playing soccer and its corresponding rights in different ways. My right to join others in playing soccer is as great as your right to play hockey with your team, because as members of our society we ought to be equally allowed to freely pursue a legitimate recreational activity, and if one of us is aided in this pursuit by our society, the other has a right to be aided, too. The duty to provide necessary facilities is borne by all citizens; the facilities are sponsored based on an estimate of the average aggregate need of individuals interested in each collective good, and the collective right to these facilities derives from the interest of players of each game. However, if there are 15 soccer teams and only five fields to play on, there emerges, within the local soccer association, a right of a different kind: the right of each group, as a group, claimed against

Group Rights

other similar groups to have a fair amount of playtime. The duty is upon all teams to share the facility equally. Hence, with the same set of individuals and the same collective good, there can be different kinds of entitlements. Moral group rights should be distinguished from the moral rights individuals possess due to characteristics they share with a set of other individuals (such as the moral right to assistance based on disability or a privilege enjoyed by senior citizens). Sets of individuals who possess a moral right tied to shared characteristics acquire the right regardless of the actions of the other members of the group. An individual moral right based on a shared characteristic is asserted by the individuals with the characteristic only on the basis of their equal citizenship in the larger society and not due to their joint membership in the group with the characteristic. The shared characteristics of group that qualifies for a group right not only belong to each individual member but also are consistent with the members’ beliefs about their collective goals and with their self-understanding. For example, all students who have taken a 100-level course at a particular college can take a 200-level course, but these students do not have the group identity required for having a group right. Each student shares the characteristic of having taken a 100-level course, but these students do not share collective goals and do not self-identify as members of a collective of 100-level-course veterans. Nor do they consider their eligibility for 200-level courses to be a collective good or possess a corresponding collective interest in this eligibility, as each of them can take upper-level courses independent of the others, and none of them has the characteristic because the others have it. The use of language in the public sphere is a useful subject for exploring the types of rights resulting from the interactions of individuals with their societies. A state typically has an official language, which hampers the participation of linguistic minorities in public and political domains. This raises the question of linguistic minorities’ proper relationship to institutions of authority. To qualify for a group right to language, a group must have an organizational structure that reflects the identity of individual members who believe that the community exists with the shared goals of practicing and preserving the group’s linguistic identity. That the group members all differ from speakers of the official language in sharing a mother tongue is insufficient to qualify them for a group right to language. In other words, the group needs not only to share a language but also to mobilize in some ways in order to qualify in principle for the possession of the right to language as a group right.

G

Correspondingly, the Supreme Court of Canada considers providing a courtroom translator to an immigrant who is not capable of understanding English or French to be a formal due process guarantee in order to practice universal justice. The Court does not consider courtroom translation to be based on the need to respect linguistic minorities (Kymlicka 1995, 56n). A different type of right related to linguistic identity is served by those language rights that are aimed at protecting the official language minorities across the country – Anglophone and Francophone – are group rights, because the protection afforded by the rights maintains the equality of the two majority linguistic cultures in Canada. The right of Francophone Manitobans to be educated in French where numbers warrant falls under the group right to the preservation of the French language for all Francophones in Canada. The Canadian legal framework therefore acknowledges individual and group rights as different in their origin and function. It is also important to note that the interests of groups, and correspondingly their boundaries, cannot be defined by outsiders alone without being confirmed by the constitution and culture of the group. Suppose that Minnesota’s legislature decides to consider Russian-speaking immigrants living in Minnesota as a group defined by its desire for access to Russian-speaking schools, even though the immigrants themselves have not expressed a desire for this access. The action of Minnesota’s legislature has not correctly identified the Russian immigrants as a group organized around the interest in Russian-language education: it may be that the immigrants in question are not a group of the kind that requires group rights or are a group organized around a different interest. In deciding what characterizes a group, we need to pay attention to what motivates group members to identify and to act as members of the group, and we must also attend to what they strive to realize through their actions. In other words, we need to base our judgment about the internal constitution and the boundaries of the group upon the insider perspective. Rights either provide normative protection for the exercise of certain choices of agents or assign benefits based on important interests of individuals, regardless of whether they are agents capable of a full-blown action or choice. To qualify for a moral right to a collective good, a group needs to have the capacity for forming and exercising group choices concerning the collective good or to have a properly formed group interest in the good. Considering the perspective of members on the characteristic features of membership allows us to determine the group’s entitlements.

465

G

466

G

Group Rights

The most influential contemporary argument for the differentiation of various types of group rights is Will Kymlicka’s. Kymlicka distinguishes between selfgovernment rights for national minorities, polyethnic rights for immigrant groups, and special representation rights for women, sexual and racial minorities, religious groups, and the like (Kymlicka 1995). Although he aims to provide justifications of these rights based on individual autonomy, he pays close attention to the constitution of groups to establish their entitlements. In explaining why national minorities, unlike other types of minorities, are entitled to self-government, Kymlicka considers the shared attitudes of individuals from minority groups toward political authority, as represented by the institutional structures of the host society. National minority rights to self-government are the rights of differentiated citizenship, whereas the rights of ethnic immigrant groups exist to ensure that immigrants can exercise their citizenship in common with the rest of the society. Activities connected to the native cultures of immigrants, for example, are funded by the state in order to promote the integration of these immigrants into the larger society. Unlike immigrant minorities, national minorities have institutions of self-government as well as territory. They are what Kymlicka calls “societal cultures,” with a set of common economic, political, and educational institutions. Mohawks in Canada, for example, are a national minority with a right to self-government, while the Greek community in Quebec is an immigrant group without such a right. One may argue that on certain cost-benefit analyses of what constitutes a good, a collective can fail to possess even a legitimate interest in a certain collective good (Van Parijs 2002). Thus, if the cost of Welsh children learning Welsh is greater than the benefits they derive from the result, none of the members of the group have an objective interest in the good in question, regardless of what they think is in their interest and thus no right to language. However, the value of the interest changes depending on how we set the parameters for the cost-benefit analysis. For example, the process of learning Russian by citizens of non-Russian speaking republics of the former USSR was fully subsidized by the state and, “objectively speaking,” beneficial for minorities’ education, employment, social mobility, and access to the structures of power. Disregarding the moral nature of the regime, the cost of learning Russian was well worth the benefit to the minorities given the number of Russian native speakers in the country with whom they would communicate. From many minority groups’ perspective, because the language was imposed on them by an oppressive state, the cost of

learning was prohibitively high. The cost-benefit analysis changes when the values individuals subscribe to and the group’s perspective on its interest are taken into account. Moreover, what is “in the objective interest” of an individual or group depends on how collectives, especially those shaping the standards of international law and the geopolitical landscape of the world, mobilize and act. If the territorial principle of language use becomes the standard, for example, it will affect the measurement of the costs and benefits by weighing in the acquisition of control over a territory. The idea of group rights is often criticized by those who are skeptical that satisfactory criteria can be developed for locating entities entitled to such rights. Nevertheless, looking at the self-definition and goals of a set of individuals in relation to outsiders allows us to determine whether this group of individuals qualifies for a group right and what kind of right it would be. Quebecers consider themselves a national group with the corresponding moral right to self-determination. Francophone citizens of Manitoba want to receive education in French and do not aspire to be self-determining. The former group qualifies for a prima facie moral right to self-determination, while the latter group qualifies only for the right of a linguistic minority group enjoyed within the larger community.

Acknowledgments Parts of this entry were first published in Anna Moltchanova, “Collective agents and group moral rights,” The Journal of Political Philosophy: 17(1), (2009), 23–46, reprinted by permission of the publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Collective ▶ Collective Identity ▶ Global Justice, Subjects of ▶ Immigration ▶ Multiculturalism ▶ National Self-Determination ▶ Rights

References Baker J (ed) (1991) Group rights. University of Toronto Press, Toronto Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ charter/ Green L (1991) Two views of collective rights. Can J Law Juris 4(2):315–327 Kymlicka W (1995) Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights. Clarendon, Oxford

Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Parekh B (2000) Rethinking multiculturalism: cultural diversity and political theory. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Re´aume D (1991) The group right to linguistic security: whose right, what duties? In: Baker J (ed) Group rights. University of Toronto Press, Toronto Shapiro I, Kymlicka W (eds) (1997) Ethnicity and group rights, NOMOS 39. New York University Press, New York Sistare C, May L (eds) (2001) Groups and group rights. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence Van Parijs P (2002) Linguistic justice. Polit Philos Econ 1(1):59–74

G

467

Guantanamo Bay Prisoners ▶ Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ Punishment ▶ Terrorism ▶ War Against Terrorism

G

H Habermas, Ju¨rgen MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

In his most recent work, Ju¨rgen Habermas’s most distinctive contribution to the idea of global justice lies in his conception of how economic and political globalization has come to meet halfway Kant’s notion of the cosmopolitan juridification of the international order. In saying that the growing economic and political interdependencies of nation states have met this project halfway, Habermas rejects as unrealistic Kant’s ideal of a cosmopolitan condition of peace made permanent based on practical reason and rational universal law. Indeed, globalization is at best an ambivalent force for the juridification of international relations and the establishment of a perpetual peace insofar as it has led to many new forms of political violence involving criminal states and global terrorism. But inescapable interdependencies across national boundaries also open up the possibility of a new postnational constellation of power based on law and voluntary cooperation. This novel constellation amounts to a transformation of the older political constellation that underlies classical international law, dating from the Peace of Westphalia. Here, international law exercises a merely stabilizing effect on relations between states insofar as it is backed by a de facto balance of power. From the Kantian point of view, the Westphalian constellation is inherently unjust not only in that it entails the permanent possibility of warfare, but also in respect of its unyielding emphasis on the formal equality of sovereign states, as precluding a cosmopolitan public law based on the civil and political rights of individuals, without regard to national boundaries. Such cosmopolitan public law is, for Kant and Habermas alike, the practical prerequisite of global justice. Nonetheless, Habermas’s project departs from Kant’s notion of a “state of states,” analogous to a state of nature, from which voluntary commitments are made by nations

to a world republic, or “republic of republics.” According to Habermas, this analogy misleads Kant into an overly hasty concretization of cosmopolitan law, which he believes can be interpreted independently of the idea of a federal world republic. Indeed, for Habermas, the cosmopolitan ideal may be interpreted instead in terms of a politically constituted global society that makes possible a global domestic politics without a world government. Here, the political constitution of a global society entails a decentered and multilevel system of governance. Habermas contends that this may be brought about through a relatively noncontroversial program of reform for the UN. These reforms would include bringing the Security Council into harmony with present geopolitical realities and augmenting the International Court of Justice with the International Criminal Court. At the supranational level of governance, such reforms would enable the UN to respond more effectively to the new forms of violence that are the consequences of globalization and promote individual civil and political human rights in a more credibly nonselective fashion. At the transnational level, the major powers would then deliberate toward consensual agreements regarding the many economic and ecological issues defining global domestic politics through a permanent framework of conferences and negotiation fora.

Related Topics

▶ Bohman, James ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Dryzek, John ▶ Treaty of Westphalia

References Habermas J (1984) Theory of communicative action, vol. 1 (trans: McCarthy T). Beacon, Boston Habermas J (1987) Theory of communicative action, vol 2 (trans: McCarthy T). Beacon, Boston Habermas J (1996) Between facts and norms: contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy (trans: Rehg W). MIT Press, Cambridge Habermas J (2001) The postnational constellation: political essays. (Trans: Pensky M). MIT Press, Cambridge Habermas J (2006) The divided west (trans: Cronin C). Polity, Cambridge

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

470

H

Hague Conventions

Hague Conventions ROBERT P. ABELE Department of Humanities and Philosophy, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA, USA

The Hague Conventions are a series of international treaties intended to limit the ravages of warfare. The two main treaties, of 1899 and 1907, along with the Geneva Protocol of 1925, were the first agreements which both recognized states to be the primary international political actors (instead of monarchies or individual sovereignties), and which engaged in the first significant attempts to codify laws for the conduct of war between such state actors. The theoretical presuppositions of these Conventions represent a development of the traditional Just War Theory, coupled with the distinctly international concerns of Vitoria, Suarez, and Grotius, and also an instantiation of what Michael Walzer refers to as “the legalist paradigm” (Walzer, pp 61–62). For instance, where Cicero refers to a “natural justice” which is endemic to humanity (On Duties, Book I, 18–21), the Conventions refer to “the principles of international law, as they result from the usages established between civilized nations, from the laws of humanity, and the requirements of the public conscience” (Hague II, 1899. This is known as the Martens Clause, named after the Russian jurist who proposed it). Further, where Francisco de Vitoria focused on jus in bello concerns with arguments such as “the basis of a just war is a wrong done. . . But wrong is not done by an innocent person. Therefore war may not be employed against him” (De Jure Belli, n. 35), and where Hugo Grotius argued for limited war on the basis of the (principle of) humanity of the people involved (e.g., “temper [war] with humanity. . .lest we forget how to be human,” The Rights of War and Peace, III, 25, 2), the Hague Conventions of 1899 seek to protect the innocent by outlawing collective punishment, pillage, forced labor of citizens conquered, confiscating of private property, and requires of conquering armies that “Family honors and rights, individual lives and private property, as well as religious convictions and liberty, must be respected” (Hague II, Section III and Annex, art. 46). Finally, where Vitoria and Grotius are concerned with state actions toward other states, as encapsulated in their mutual phrase (along with Suarez) ius gentium (“law of nations”), the Hague Conventions similarly base their prescriptions and proscriptions on “extending the empire

of law,” “international justice,” and “the principles of equity and right which are based on the security of states and the welfare of peoples” (Hague I, 1899). The Hague Conventions thus represent an advance of the natural law ideals of Just War Theory by codifying their concerns into positive law concerning international duties. Although the Hague Convention did not provide sanctions for violation of its precepts, according to William Schabas, by 1913, the Conventions were presented as the source of the law of war crimes. Thus, in addition to seeing the Hague Conventions as a continuation of the Just War Tradition, one must also stipulate that the legal obligations of states mandated in the Conventions transcend the tradition by adding detailed laws both limiting treatment of civilians, and limiting the conduct of wars between states, the officials of which were later to be subject to prosecution for violation of the precepts contained in the Conventions (the Nuremberg Trials, for example, appealed to the Hague Conventions). With respect to the issue of limiting war between states, The Hague Conventions of 1899 created positive international laws along the same lines as the traditional jus ad bellum and jus in bello of Just War Theory. Concerning the development into law of the principles of jus ad bellum, the Conventions state forthrightly that their purpose was to obviate “the recourse to force by states” (Hague I, Title I, Article 1) and to “revise the laws and customs of war. . . [to lay] down certain limits for the purpose of modifying [war’s] severity as far as possible” (Hague II, Prologue). This “obviating” the use of state force includes a requirement to use mediation of other signatory states prior to engaging in war (Hague I, Title II, Article 2). The Hague Conventions of 1907 reiterates these concerns and adds more detailed procedural methods to be followed by states contemplating war. Jus in bello principles are given in even more detail than the ad bellum considerations. The Hague Conventions of 1899 ban the use of poison gases or arms, destroying or seizing enemy private property, attacking towns and cities that are undefended, pillaging, collective punishment, servility of enemy citizens, and bullets made to wreak havoc once inside the human body. Prescriptions to limit the conduct of war include the requirements to warn towns of impending attacks, to protect cultural, religious, and health institutions, and to insure public order and safety. The Hague Conventions of 1907 both underscore the 1899 Conventions and expand the traditional in bello concerns to rights and duties of neutral states, proscribing attacks on enemy merchant ships at the start of war, banning the conversion of merchant ships into warships, banning the laying of automatic

Hardin, Garrett

submarine mines, limitations on bombardment by naval forces of undefended ports, towns, etc., protection of hospital ships, and POW’s in naval war (Hague V-XIII). In sum, where once the limitation on both the engagement and the conduct of war was based on ethical principles, with the Hague Conventions, ethical prescriptions become law. To what degree this shift has been helpful in curtailing the bellicose actions of some states has been a matter of some debate, particularly lately regarding US military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nonetheless, there remains a broad consensus that the laws of war, begun in The Hague Conventions of 1899, furthered in Hague 1907, and the Geneva Conventions, have contributed significantly to limiting the horrors and ravages of war. Post–World War II Declarations (such as the U.N. Universal Declaration on Human Rights) and Conventions (such as Hague and Geneva) all maintain that human rights are universal, equal, and inalienable. Universal human rights imply the need for global mechanisms for their protection, and the extent and reach of human rights becomes a crucial question, especially in relation to current presumptions concerning state sovereignty. John Rawls places egregious human rights as a limiting condition on state sovereignty (Rawls 1999). Further, the cosmopolitan concern with a wider distribution of political sovereignty beyond the level of the state would enhance the traditional liberal concerns that each individual be accounted for. This would open the way to international human rights regimes, thus bringing into relief the reasons for a global human rights regime to begin with (i.e., our moral interdependence, recognized after World War II) (Donnelly 2003). It could also result in a higher threshold for destructive wars (Pogge 2008). Objections to this viewpoint are raised by Michael Walzer, whose defense of nationalism and statist presumptions carry his legalist paradigm of war forward (Walzer 1983, 1977). The Hague Conventions represent a significant limitation to state sovereignty by engaging human rights as a limiting condition for state conduct toward persons qua persons during war. As a result of the Conventions, there was a new emphasis on the enforcement and enhancement of human rights. The Conventions present us a clue as to potential future directions concerning the agreement with and enforcement of human rights in the world community.

Related Topics

▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Crimes Against Peace ▶ Enemy Combatant

H

471

▶ Geneva Conventions ▶ Grotius, Hugo ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Law ▶ International Law, Normative Foundations of ▶ Jus ad Bellum ▶ Jus in Bello ▶ Vitoria, Francisco de ▶ War Crimes ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Cicero MT (1991) On duties (trans: Griffin MT, Atkins EM). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge de Vitoria F, Anthony Pagden, Jeremy Lawrance (eds) (1991) Political writings. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Grotius H (2003) The rights of war and peace (trans: Campbell AC). Elibron Classics, Washington Pogge T (2008) World poverty and human rights. Polity, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Schabas WA (2007) An introduction to the international criminal court. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Downloadable from: www. yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague03.htm Walzer M (1977) Just and unjust wars. Basic Books, New York Walzer M (1983) Spheres of justice. Basic Books, New York

Hardin, Garrett WENDY C. HAMBLET Department of Liberal Studies, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, NC, USA

Garrett James Hardin (1915–2003) was a leading and controversial ecologist from Dallas, Texas, best known for his paper “The Tragedy of the Commons” in Science (Vol. 162, 1968). Hardin often employed the popular phrase “Nice guys finish last” to sum up the “selfish gene” concept of natural selection. With a B.S. in zoology (University of Chicago, 1936) and a Ph.D. in microbiology (Stanford University, 1941), Hardin served as Professor of Human Ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, from 1963 until his retirement in 1978. He was among the founding members of the Society for General Systems Research, predecessor of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), one the first international societies for interdisciplinary research in the field of systems theory and systems science.

H

472

H

Harm Principle

A major focus of Hardin’s career was the issue of human overpopulation. His strong stance on overpopulation and the senselessness of food aid to the impoverished masses is articulated in his 1974 article “Living on a Lifeboat” published in BioScience magazine. Here Hardin argues that contributing food aid during times of famine only exacerbates overpopulation, the root problem of world hunger. Lifeboat ethics is a metaphor for resource distribution, which pictures global resource allocation as a lifeboat (wealthy nations) bearing 50 people, which has room for another 10 passengers, in an ocean surrounded by a 100 swimmers (populations of poor nations). Picking and choosing whom to help is an unethical response in the lifeboat situation, because it would force a distinction between one needy person’s life as worth saving and another’s as not worth saving. Hardin’s amoral (critics say “callous”) approach to global resource maldistribution led him to challenge policies such as foreign aid, immigration, and food banks. It also involved him in related debates on such controversial topics as abortion and sociobiology. In 1994, he was 1 of 52 prominent signatories of “Mainstream Science on Intelligence” an editorial by Linda Gottfredson, published in the Wall Street Journal, which defended the findings linking race and intelligence in The Bell Curve, a controversial best-selling 1994 book by Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and American Enterprise Institute political scientist Charles Murray, perhaps one of the most controversial books in the history of psychology. Hardin’s last book The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia (1999) links overpopulation to economic sustainability, advocates coercive checks on reproductive rights, and challenges affirmative action as a form of racism. Hardin and his wife Jane were members of the Hemlock Society (now Compassion & Choices), which promoted the right of individuals to choose their own time to die. In September 2003, just after their 62nd wedding anniversary, they committed double-suicide in their Santa Barbara home. Hardin is important to the theme of global justice because his ideas, which blame the poor for their poverty, helped to frame and justify callous conservative attitudes toward the growing misery and poverty that increasingly characterizes the developing world. Instead of understanding that newly independent countries struggle to overcome their colonial legacies, their histories of resource extraction and imperial brutalization, their inherited corrupt and oppressive political forms, their lengthy wars for independence, and, more recently, their debt burdens, Hardin short-circuited these compassionate explanations for third-world poverty, and

provided a rationalist justification for letting the poor suffer and die, as though nature necessitated this hard response to preserve the overall health and equilibrium of the planet.

Related Topics

▶ Absolute Poverty ▶ Charity ▶ Collective Responsibility ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy ▶ Economic Rights ▶ Food ▶ Global Poverty

References Fuller B (1963) Operating manual for spaceship earth. E.P. Dutton, New York George R Jr, Ogletree TW (1976) Lifeboat ethics: moral dilemmas of world hunger. Harper, New York Hardin G (1959) Nature and man’s fate. New American Library, Rinehart, New York Hardin G (1968) The tragedy of the commons. Science 162:1243–1248 Hardin G (1972) Exploring new ethics for survival: the voyage of the spaceship Beagle. Viking, New York Hardin G (1974) Lifeboat ethics: the case against helping the poor. Psychol Today 8:38–43 Hardin G (1977) The limits of altruism: an ecologist’s view of survival. Indiana University Press, Bloomington Hardin G (1980) Promethean ethics: living with death, competition, and triage. University of Washington Press, Seattle Hardin G (1993) Living within limits: ecology, economics, and population taboos. Oxford University Press, New York Hardin G (1999) The ostrich factor: our population myopia. Oxford University Press, New York Henderson H (1996) Building a win-win world. Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco Korten D (2001) When corporations rule the world. Kumarian, Bloomfield

Harm Principle SOPHIA A. STONE Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

The harm principle is a liberty-limiting principle in the sense that it justifies interference or coercion from the state in order to prevent individuals from harming others. The principle is predicated on the value of autonomy, the idea that individuals who are mentally competent and of legal age are best suited to decide for themselves how to

Harm Principle

live. By respecting autonomy in its fullest sense, the harm principle protects the individual from unjust interference from the ruling majority, who may have different ideas about the best way to live. This is in contrast to legal moralism and paternalism. Legal moralism holds that if an activity is immoral then it should be illegal. The problem with legal moralism is that it does not respect a person’s autonomy in lifestyle decisions, especially if the majority thinks that way of life is immoral. For example, some people consider homosexuality immoral and for that very reason think it should be outlawed. They think that those who engage in a homosexual lifestyle should not enjoy the same privileges as those who engage in a heterosexual lifestyle. Legal moralism justifies outlawing gay marriage because it is deemed immoral. The moral majority might think that not observing the Sabbath was immoral, and create laws forcing individuals to refrain from certain activities, such as purchasing alcohol on Sundays. Similarly, paternalism denies that a person is best able to decide for himself or herself how to live; lawmakers, judges, and people in high office know what is better for the individual. For example, prohibiting the purchase of alcohol on Election Day until the voting booths are closed is based on the paternalist idea that individuals cannot regulate their drinking behavior to participate in the democratic process. The harm principle would not justify laws prohibiting gay marriage, enforcing Sabbath observances, or regulating activities on voting day since these activities and practices do not harm other individuals. How one defines harm determines the scope and applicability of the harm principle. Some say that allowing homosexual marriage “harms” the institution of marriage. They might even argue that they are harmed knowing that two individuals of the same sex are in a loving, committed relationship. Proponents who use the harm principle define harms in a narrow sense so that autonomy is valued in its highest sense and is not usurped by a wide sense of harm that includes personal revulsion and moral outrage. The idea that harm must be prevented has been around since the earliest law codes. John Locke in his Second Treatise (2003) wrote that reparation and restraint were the only two reasons a state could harm an individual. It was John Stuart Mill in his book On Liberty (1975) who articulated the harm principle in its fullest sense to combat the tyranny of the majority and their imposing rules on individuals who dissent from them. Mill held that an individual’s autonomy, the right to decide for oneself how one ought to live, must be protected from unjust interference from the state and unjust interference from other individuals. He held that

H

the only legitimate interference in an individual’s life by the state is to prevent the individual from harming others. In respecting autonomy to its fullest degree, he made only two concessions to an otherwise outright rejection of paternalism: self-slavery and unknowingly crossing a dangerous bridge. Otherwise, Mill held that in no way was the state justified in interfering with a man’s life in how he wanted to live and what he wanted to do, so long as he did not harm others. In 1963, the well-respected philosopher of law, H.L.A. Hart gave a series of lectures at Stanford defending Mill’s ideas On Liberty in response to the 1957 debate in England on whether to decriminalize homosexuality and prostitution. The main question that concerned Hart was whether immorality was sufficient to be a crime. Using Mill’s harm principle, the answer was obviously “no.” The fact that society deems certain actions immoral does not in itself justify legal coercion by the state. In Law, Morality, and Society, a collection of essays in honor of H.L.A. Hart (1977), Joel Feinberg published an article he titled “Harm and Self-Interest.” There he laid out different notions of harm and defined harm narrowly as impeding one’s interest. It was the beginning of what was to be a four-volume tome, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. The first two volumes begin with the harm principle, narrowly defining the principle in application to criminal law only, but with the same limitation on state interference with an individual’s liberty in order to prevent harm to others. Harm, in this context, Feinberg defines as wrongfully impeding another’s interest. An interest is what an individual has a stake in and among the various interests available. The interest that is unjustly harmed and which justifies state action is a person’s welfare interest. A welfare interest is something you could not have a good life without: health, family, and mental acuity. Welfare interests are basic and provide for other interests such as focal interests, those interests that make life worth living: writing a bestselling novel, completing a doctoral degree, and so on. Critics point out that the distinction between welfare and other interests is not all that apparent. Others criticize Feinberg for requiring one to have a stake in an interest in order for them to be harmed. This latter criticism does not take into account the full respect of autonomy built into Feinberg’s harm principle. Is the harm principle limited to states and their citizens or is it applicable to other institutions? The harm principle was meant to ensure that the state respected the autonomy of individuals to the highest degree, justifying interference with individual liberty only to prevent harm to others. Would the same logic work between nation states? Would the harm principle work transnationally?

473

H

474

H

Health and Health Care

It is difficult to figure out how the harm principle could be applied on a global scale. One way is to create agreements among nations not to interfere with another’s activities unless it is to prevent them from harming their own or another’s citizens. Yet then another question arises. Once nation states commit to this global harm principle, are the nation states then obligated to end the harm being done? The harm principle respects individual autonomy by limiting the power a state could rightfully impose on the individual. What Mill, Hart, and Feinberg all have in common is the use of the harm principle to prevent wrongful interference in individuals’ lives by moral indignation from the majority. What Hart and Feinberg have in common is their focus on criminal law with respect to the harm principle while Mill’s account is not restricted to criminal law, but applies to tort law and society at large. While it is not implausible to apply the harm principle globally there are still questions that need to be answered: How would harm be defined? Does the principle limit coercive and interfering actions or would it also include benevolent deeds, such as the obligation to provide aid in order to prevent further harm in nations undergoing natural disasters? Some version of the harm principle may be necessary for global justice, but by itself is not sufficient. There are other considerations that may justify state intervention on other nation states: environmental crises, farming and fishing practices, and resource exploitation.

Related Topics

▶ Coercion ▶ Gay Rights ▶ Liberalism ▶ Mill, John Stuart ▶ Moral Authority ▶ Paternalism ▶ Self-Determination

References Feinberg J (1977) Harm and self-interest. In: Hacker PMS, Raz J (eds) Law, morality, and society, essays in honour of H.L.A. Hart. Clarendon, Oxford Feinberg J (1984) Harm to others: the moral limits of the criminal law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Feinberg J (1985) Offense to others: the moral limits of the criminal law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Hart HLA (1963) Law, liberty, and morality, The Harry Camp lectures at Stanford University. Stanford University Press, Stanford Locke J (2003) Two treatises of government, ed. Goldie M. Everyman Press, London

Mill JS (1975) On liberty, ed. Spitz. Norton, New York Ten CL (1980) Mill on liberty. Clarendon, Oxford

Health and Health Care SIRKKU K. HELLSTEN Department of Political and Economic Studies/Social and Moral Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Introduction Health and health care in the context of global justice is a complicated theme as it is also related to various other issues such as those of distributive justice, human rights, cultural interpretations and traditions, poverty and famines, human security, paternalism and autonomy, environment, climate change, wider concepts of human well-being and development, and so on. Despite the fact that our world has become more and more interconnected particularly when it comes to sharing information, more technologically advanced, and full of new opportunities for working on the common causes, billions of people still cannot get their basic needs satisfied, and a great number are dying of famine and easily preventable and curable diseases every day. In developing countries, child mortality continues to be high and life expectancy still low, while in the affluent societies, “aging” has become a serious issue for health care. Simultaneously, not only climate change and various natural disasters, but also global economic crisis (at least indirectly) have brought new challenges for global and local health-care resources. These, with various other factors, have also contributed to outbreaks of unexpected diseases and epidemics that do not respect any national borders, and can threaten the human security in a global scale. Thus, besides being central issue in development cooperation, like in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), “global health” is also “hot topic” in international politics. For example, recently also G8 Summits have taken “world health” with the climate change issues on their regular agenda. Because of the central importance of “health” and “health care” in national and global affairs, it is essential that we understand the basic ethical dilemmas and controversies related to the debates on these issues. Thus, this entry starts by clarifying the ambiguities related to the very concept of health. Then it focuses on the role of rights and responsibilities in health care, and finally, it takes a look at the cultural and natural circumstances and challenges that

Health and Health Care

affect our thinking and action in providing health care across the globe. All in all this entry maps out some of the core complexities related to “health care” within the global justice framework.

What Is Health? Before we can talk about health care in relation to global justice, we need to work on the definition of health, so we know what we are to take care of. World Health Organization (WHO) uses holistic definition of “health” according to which health does not merely consist of the absence of disease or handicaps, but it refers to the highest attainable standard of physical, mental, and social well-being. While this definition is more inclusive and allows various aspects of life to be taken into account in the health issues, this wide understanding of “health” can also be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it appears to avoid restricted, paternalistic, or imperialistic interpretations of the concept. On the other hand, it might leave too much room for relativist interpretations of what is to be included in “health” and what does it mean to be “healthy,” and how we should care for this “health.” After all, even if we thought about health merely in terms of lack of disease or handicap, its meaning may still change across cultural, national, and generational borders. What is considered a disease in one place or at one time may not be seen as such somewhere else or any longer. As French philosopher Michael Foucault (1973) has noted: Social power relations also have an impact on what we consider to be “normal” or “healthy.” This is important from the point of view of global justice because when we set variety of normative standards for “health” against which we judge some people as “abnormal” or “sick” at any given time, there is a danger that we may insist, that for their own good, they should get treatment to be cured – whether we talk about mental, physical, or genetic conditions or even sexual orientation. This can lead into inequality in form of discrimination and stigmatization and violation of individual rights.

Human Rights and Health Care In the context of global justice, health care has been taken into account in several international agreements, and particularly those on universal human rights. For instance, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in Article 25 (1) states: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being for himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.” The inclusion of “health” and “medical care” to the UDHR has led to an

H

Article each in the ESCR Covenant (Article 12), the European Social Charter (Article 11), and the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights and Duties (Article 16). All these covenants recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the “highest” or “best” attainable standard of physical and mental health. Among the aspects singled out for special mention are also infant mortality (which also could be an aspect of the right to life); environmental and industrial hygiene; epidemic, and occupational diseases; the development of medical services, and the encouragement of individual responsibility in matters of health. The relevant provisions in the European Social Charter have been considered by the Strasbourg Committee of Experts, which has laid down the minimum standards, which the state parties to that treaty must observe in the health field if they are to be regarded as fulfilling their obligations. Related human rights are Right to Life, Article 7 of International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights which states that “No one shall be subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” In addition, rights to equality and nondiscrimination are also central in this context, particularly when we discuss the treatment of terminally ill patients (either due to incurable diseases such as fatal cancer, HIV/AIDS, or various genetic conditions). These rights are also relevant when we consider individuals’ wishes in relation to their health-care services or end of life decisions such as refusing a treatment or to be resuscitated, or when asking for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide. In addition, rights to equality and nondiscrimination are essential in relation to the rights of anyone who is physically or mentally disabled and thus, easily disadvantaged or marginalized in a society. In addition, the third-generation rights including the so-called solidarity rights – in terms of individuals and groups (collective rights) – have added to the human rights agenda new rights that are relevant to individual and public health and health care in multidimensional ways. Such rights are: right to development, right to clean environment, right to peace, and right to selfdetermination (of peoples/groups of people).

Positive and Negative Rights to Health Versus Social Responsibility Much of the contents of our actual legal rights to health and medical care depend, first, on the conditions of the individual and, second, on health services available, as the claims for “highest or best attainable standard of health” imply. If I have an incurable disease, I no longer can claim my right to be “fully healthy,” but at least I have a chance to claim certain medical services and health care, which may

475

H

476

H

Health and Health Care

not be able to cure me but provide me nevertheless with “highest attainable quality of (my) life.” These services, for their part, often depend not only on the resources available but also on the chosen policies. Thus, the realization of our rights to health – or more precisely to health care – is often within the framework of distributive justice. We tend to refer to different type of rights within different politico-economic systems. If we defend negative rights, that is, our civil and political rights of noninterference and participation, our rights to life and health would mean that others have responsibility not to harm us. However, negative rights leave us vulnerable if we have lost our health (or were born disabled one way or another) without any particular person’s fault, since they also promote state noninterference. Positive rights, for their part, assume that either the state or the society as a whole has responsibility to help us to create such social conditions that support individuals’ health and wellbeing. Positive rights are substantive rights that provide us with social entitlements and set a state or a society a duty to assist us to realize our health by also supporting the availability of justly distributed health care and medical services. The promotion of positive rights in relation to health and well-being brings up often the question of social responsibility. How much responsibility do we have for our own health? In order to enforce such social responsibility, a state might set legal requirements (such as the law to use seat belts or helmets in the traffic, smoking ban, restrictions on selling alcohol and drugs). The state can also enforce policies for routine vaccinations, screening for various genetic conditions (with the latest diagnostic technology), etc., in order to promote the public health. The request for social responsibility becomes easily also a human rights question if an individual’s concept of well-being conflicts with the national public health goals that might lead into paternalistic interference that limits one’s autonomy and freedom, and in the worst case might lead into various types of discrimination. It is therefore central to consider what distributive considerations are relevant in establishing some universal minimum health and health-care standards.

Cultural Interpretations of Health and Appropriate Health Care In the context of global justice, the question whether it is morally justified to try to force people to live healthier lives in order to provide best attainable health and to rationalize the resources to be used for health-care services is a complex one. People from affluent societies – whether

medical practitioners or not – may reprimand people living in poor conditions about such health-threatening traditions like Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), but at the same time, they themselves may engage in life styles that danger their own health (by smoking, eating unhealthy food, participating in extreme sports, etc.). Similarly, rights issues may also become relevant when we have to prioritize between the needs and rights of people who are not infected with HIV/AIDS (measures of prevention) and people living with HIV/AIDS (access to treatment). While the issues of distribution of resources are central in realizing both local and global justice in relation to providing health care, it is also essential to contemplate how we can best combine different cultural interpretations of the concepts of health and well-being. This is particularly relevant when we consider health-care practitioners working across the geographical and cultural borders. The rather vague international guideline to promote “the highest attainable standards of health” per se does not help medical practitioners to decide when to treat and how to treat in difficult situations and different cultural contexts. Sometimes even when we have the best intentions in sharing our skills and resources, what the Western doctors and experts think is right might not be agreed with by the individual patients of other cultures; or it may not be acceptable to their communities, and vice versa. The discussion on universality of the codes of professional medical ethics, and plausibility of their global application, is therefore important for global justice debates on healthcare issues. The questions of paternalism, privacy, and selfdetermination arise also when we ponder the national and international health-care goals. Different countries, regions, and environments may have different health concerns but how can we fit them within the global justice framework of universal rights? This is not only about particular diseases or resources needed to deal with them – whether in forms of prevention, care, or cure – but it is also about the sharing of information across the borders. What kind of information and knowledge about health is relevant for assessing international and national policies and institutions that are designed to decrease child mortality and increase life expectancy, provide opportunities for good health and access to health-care resources? Also the questions of national security are central in this context. Not only is the information about the outbreak of life-threatening epidemics essential, but also many of the modern weapons have chemical or biotechnology-related elements that may not only kill instantly, but also create long-term health hazards.

Health and Health Care

Health, Nondiscrimination, and Distributive Justice in the Global Context Most of us feel that it is somehow morally unacceptable that millions of people in poor countries not only lack access to basic health services and minimum health care, but actually die from hunger and easily preventable and curable diseases (such as diarrhea, cholera, tuberculosis, malaria). This is particularly striking when we consider that at the same time, many in rich countries suffer from health conditions that could be related to “too affluent living standards” (such as obesity, eating disorders, heart diseases, depression). Attempts to guarantee everyone the highest possible health and well-being are clearly related to the resources available and accessible. In the poor, developing countries, the focus might be on combating diseases that are preventable by better general standards of living. Meanwhile rich, technologically and scientifically advanced societies struggle with aging population, even when they can offer such complicated and expensive treatments as organ transplantation, gene therapy, and various other forms of expensive, high-technology health care. Even treating the same diseases in different parts of the world may vary. The global resources used to deal with HIV/AIDS epidemic in poor countries are still focused on prevention, while in rich countries, more resources are used for care and medical treatment. While there might be relevant justifications for this, these justifications and differences need to be acknowledged and paid attention to. Globally, social and ethical aspects of women’s health issues should get more emphasis. In many poor countries, women’s health issues and general well-being receive the least attention. Women are socially most disadvantaged and vulnerable (due to lack of education, lack of nutrition and satisfaction of basic needs, mistreatment of girl children, domestic violence including rape, which, for its part, leads to the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases). In rich countries, on the other hand, women may try to reach unrealistic norms of “ideal health” or “normality” (e.g., by trying to fit the set norms of “physical perfection”). Medical procedures can then be used for plastic surgeries, including breast enlargements, liposuction, and antiaging treatments. Some of these treatments may lead to further health problems. In many rich countries where people live longer, they also want to use the medical resources to stay young forever as the general concept of well-being may be very different than in poorer societies. In order to improve women’s position and to promote women’s health, the human rights agenda now

H

477

places a special emphasis on women’s rights and particularly on women’s reproductive needs. Even here, the use of language in relation to health has to be carefully scrutinized. Reproductive health in poor countries tends to refer to a right not to have children, and right to family planning and contraception, while in rich countries, it refers to a right to have children by any means available and, for example, to fertility treatments. Gender justice needs more attention in global and local approaches to health care, but so does justice among women across the world. All in all, unequal distribution of resources is a global and local problem at the same time. The challenge is to find right health priorities for offering equal services to all.

H Conclusion The relationship between health, health care, and global justice is a complex one. It relates to the wider human rights framework and often appears to involve questions on conflicting rights. The right to equality, for instance, is related to the rights to privacy and confidentiality, which, however, may conflict with the requirement for social responsibility. Conflict between individual rights occurs when we discuss whether an individual has right not to reveal or even not to know his or her health status (for instance, in relation to various genetic diseases or HIV/AIDS) if and when other individuals might directly be affected by his or her condition. These again have relevance in setting up health insurances, thus, to access to health-care services. Nevertheless, the main problem is still the unequal global and local distribution of resources, such as the lack of access to basic standards of living (poverty, malnutrition, etc.) as well as the lack of education (ignorance, illiteracy), causing suffering and promoting spread of various disease. The lack of access to the most basic health care in turn creates difficulties in prevention and cure of not only serious illnesses but also other more minor health problems.

Related Topics

▶ Climate Change ▶ Disabled People ▶ Foucault, Michel ▶ Gender Justice ▶ Global Public Health ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Security ▶ Negative Rights ▶ Pharmaceutical Justice

478

H

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich

▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Positive Rights

References Cook R et al (2003) Reproductive health and human rights: integrating medicine, ethics and law (issues in biomedical ethics). Oxford University Press, Oxford Foucault M (1973) The birth of the clinic: an archaeology of medical perception. Random House, New York Hellsten SK (2006) Beyond Europe: rhetoric of reproductive rights in global population policies. In: Widdows H, Idiakez IA, and Cirion AE (eds) Women’s rights in Europe, vol 1: women’s reproductive rights. NEWR Book Series on women’s rights in Europe, Palgrave, pp 199–213 Mann J (ed) (1999) Health and human rights. Routledge, London Price-Smith A (2002) The health of nations: infectious disease, environmental change and their effects on national security and development. MIT Press, Cambridge/London Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/en/ documents/udhr/index.shtml. Accessed 7 Mar 2011 WHO (2002) 25 Questions and answers on health and human rights. http://www.who.int/en/. Accessed 7 Mar 2011

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

Hegel might well appear to be an unlikely historical source for theorizing about global justice. Unlike Kant who argues explicitly for cosmopolitan justice in a federated republic of humanity, Hegel argues explicitly against cosmopolitanism, even going so far as to deny the intelligibility of any global order of cosmopolitan justice. According to Hegel, it is a priori impossible for a people to express a coherent desire to give up its own national sovereignty, or work toward the Kantian condition of Perpetual Peace. Here, the impossibility or incoherence of such a desire follows from the nation-state being the most developed form of self-subsistent individuality, such that consciousness of its independence constitutes its freedom and dignity. This might suggest that Hegel’s concern is that renouncing sovereignty will lead only to the soulless despotism of a world government. But that is not the case. Indeed, the loss of freedom and dignity consequent upon loss of sovereignty is not a concern over despotism so much as the enervating effect that a Perpetual Peace among a world federation of commercial republics

will have on a people, or Volk, resulting instead in a condition of national stagnation. In this respect, Hegel rejects Kant’s optimistic Danteque notion that civilization and commerce may become effective substitutes for war. In the domain of international politics, Hegel’s viewpoint is in some ways quite remarkably similar to that of Hobbes. That is, international politics amounts to an international state of nature, in which treaty obligations between states are mere obligations, binding in foro interno only. From a Hobbesian standpoint, this leaves the possibility of global justice – justice across state borders – entirely contingent upon credible treaty enforcement by a global Leviathan. But no such global analogue for the state exists for enforcement purposes. Here, states may well recognize one another in the manner of independent moral persons. Nonetheless, their relations remain necessarily adversarial in that their primary objective is to advance the welfare of their own citizens. But, that said, this condition of endemic warfare between states is not seen in the tragic realist terms of contemporary Hobbesians. Indeed, contrary to international relations realists, Hegel stresses the redeeming features of war, as something less than an absolute evil. For Hegel, war is actually conducive to the spiritual health of a nation, bringing to consciousness the state’s sense of its own integrity. The threat from without provides relief from the nullity of domestic and civil concerns, imposing on citizens duties to endanger and potentially sacrifice their lives to preserve the substantial individuality, independence, and sovereignty of the state through which they realize their own freedom and dignity. Perhaps, the most striking of all is Hegel’s assertion that war enables citizens to display the formal virtue of valor, expressing a consciousness of freedom in its most abstract form, fully detached from all particular ends, possessions, and pleasures. Indeed, his rejection of the possibility of a cosmopolitan peace, along with his conception of war as conducive to the nation’s spiritual health through fulfilling an entirely abstract, formal freedom as self-sacrifice, might well occasion skepticism about Hegel’s contribution to global justice debates. But, in spite of all this, Hegel has contributed to recent debates in at least two distinct ways. These might be viewed as contemporary “right wing” and “left wing” appropriations of Hegel. The right wing appropriation of Hegel consists in Francis Fukuyama’s appeal to Hegel’s notion that the modern state is the culmination or end of history. Fukuyama takes as the modern state not the early

Held, David

nineteenth-century Prussian constitutional monarchy, discussed by Hegel himself, but rather contemporary liberal democratic states, for which the USA and the countries of Western Europe provide the model. Here, his appropriation of Hegel consists in the claim that liberal democracies are the culmination of humanity’s historical evolution, insofar as their twin principles of liberty and equality satisfy the desire of all human beings for recognition by others; providing the key institutional structures for mutual or co-recognition. Co-recognition mediated by liberal democratic principles of liberty and equality is presented by him as correcting the Marxist conception of a communist post-history, debunked by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Indeed, Fukuyama’s Hegel became a vital influence in the subsequent development of neoconservative thought, along with the so-called Washington consensus and security agenda. Nonetheless, Fukuyama came to repudiate these latter developments on the grounds that they led to militaristic policies of American hegemony, accelerating existing global conflicts for recognition rather than satisfying that fundamental desire of humanity. In this respect, Fukuyama himself shifted from a “right” to a more “left” wing Hegelian perspective, arguing that Hegel’s conception of an end of history satisfying humanity’s deepest desire for recognition is much better expressed through the ideals of postsovereign governance and a transnational rule of law as developed in the European Union. This might appear to be rather a startling claim, given Hegel’s disavowal of cosmopolitanism, and his assertion that any attempt to reach beyond sovereignty undermines the freedom and dignity of a people constituted within the self-subsistent nation state. But Hegel’s political philosophy nonetheless contains resources to support the notion that just such an extension beyond the institutions of the nation state is necessary to more fully realize the twin principles of liberty and equality. In his key discussions of the modern state, for instance, Hegel develops a highly nuanced conception of the freedom and dignity of citizens as realized through multiple levels of identity, ethical commitments, and participation throughout various spheres of society. This conception has been taken by some notable theorists of transnational, or cosmopolitan, democracy to be broadly consistent with ideas of multi-leveled citizenship and participation within the EU, according to which citizens of member states regard themselves as both citizens of those states and the much larger transnational polity. For these theorists, post-sovereign governance need not necessarily signal the enervation of national

H

identities but rather the re-energization of the ideals of freedom and dignity in more extensive relations of mutual recognition across borders. Indeed, other left-Hegelian theorists have argued that Hegel’s influence also extends even more broadly to the development of a global human rights culture. Here, the stress falls on Hegel’s conception of the gradual evolution of norms and institutions as giving ever more complete expression to the will and consciousness of humanity, as progressive consciousness of freedom. In this connection, human rights are not to be understood simply in terms of abstract principles of universal right as promulgated in international human rights law, but rather the progressive objectification of the will and consciousness of humanity. Consequently, they are the expression of an emergent universal culture, or rather ethical life (Sittlichkeit) of humanity, coming to understand its freedom and dignity through processes of co-recognition mediated by human rights law.

Related Topics

▶ Dante ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Global Human Rights Culture

References Bohman J (2001) Hegel’s political cosmopolitanism: on the limits of political communities. South J Philos 39:65–92 Buchwalter A (ed) (2011a) Hegel and global justice. Springer, Dordrecht Buchwalter A (2011b) Dialectics, politics, and the contemporary value of Hegel’s practical philosophy. Routledge, London Fukuyama F (1992) The end of history and the last man. Free Press, New York Fukuyama F (2006) America at the crossroads. Yale University Press, New Haven

Held, David MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

David Held has been one of the leading contributors to contemporary global justice debates, and particularly to the theory of cosmopolitan social democracy as

479

H

480

H

Held, Virginia

a response to the Washington consensus on neoliberal policies of economic globalization, along with the so-called Washington security agenda. Indeed, his most recent work may be understood best as a defense of globalization, concerned with offering an alternative to the latter kind of consensus and agenda. Held objects to the Washington consensus on the ground that neoliberal policies of financial and trade liberalization have signally failed to realize projected gains in human development and global poverty reduction. He objects to the Washington security agenda on the ground that US inspired strategies of order through dominance facilitated by preemptive uses of military force aimed at regime change are both hegemonic and counterproductive. His alternative consists in an attempt instead to realize a very different kind of consensus – or global convent – that effectively globalizes the solidaristic values of national social democracies. That is, the consensus to be reached within such national democracies is on balancing market imperatives with investment in human and social capital and the creation of extensive social safety nets. The new global covenant on these solidaristic values would range from cancellation of unsustainable debts (resulting from neoliberal structural adjustment policies) to increasing the negotiation capacities and participation of developing countries in international financial institutions, such as the World Bank. It would also extend to reform of the UN system to enhance broad-based accountability and increase the effectiveness of poverty reduction, welfare, and environmental programs. The solidaristic values of social democracy are then also applied as the basis for a new global covenant on security, where Held’s emphasis falls specifically on human security, as broadly construed in terms of a human rights agenda. Instead of order through dominance as characteristic of the Washington security agenda, Held stresses order through international law and international social justice. In addition to last resort use of internationally sanctioned force to uphold humanitarian law as opposed to Washington based preemption and coercive regime change, Held argues for a more thorough relinking of security and human rights. This is elaborated by him in terms of the responsibility of the international community to protect all those facing threats to life and the integrity of their personhood, politically, socially, economically, and environmentally. Indeed, the human security agenda entails strengthening global structures of social democratic governance through reform of the UN Security Council and the creation of a new UN Economic and Social Security Council.

In all of these respects, Held’s program for a new global covenant may well be seen as more progressive and reformist than, for instance, Ju¨rgen Habermas’ conception of a new post-national constellation, in which the solidaristic values of national social democracies are not elaborated in terms of such extensive reforms of international governance structures. It also stands in strong contrast with, say, the strong emphasis on the informal discursive ordering of global politics by multiple civil society actors operating below the level of the state and international law advanced by John Dryzek. For his part, Held is certainly aware of the role to be played by informal actors in advancing social democratic values and human security, but also recognizes the dependence of these values on international legal reforms and the further elaboration of more widely accountable international institutions of global finance and politics.

Related Topics

▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Dryzek, John ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen

References Held D (1995) Democracy and the global order: from the modern state to cosmopolitan governance. Stanford University Press, Stanford Held D (2004) Global covenant: the social democratic alternative to the Washington consensus. Polity, Cambridge Held D (2006) Models of democracy. Polity, Cambridge Held D (2010) Cosmopolitanism: ideals and realities. Polity, Cambridge Held D, Hale T (2011) Handbook of transnational governance. Polity, Cambridge

Held, Virginia CASSIE ANN STRIBLEN Department of Philosophy, West Chester University, West Chester, PA, USA

Virginia Held is a feminist philosopher whose work has demonstrated that a fully developed “ethics of care” is applicable to global issues. The ethics of care is an alternative ethical perspective which prioritizes particular relationships and their attendant responsibilities. It is often contrasted with traditional ethical theories which emphasize general rules and individual rights. Early formulations of the ethics of care, such as those offered by Carol Gilligan (1982) and Nel Noddings (1986), were criticized for

Held, Virginia

reinforcing damaging stereotypes of women and for limiting the scope of moral concern to those with whom we have a personal relationship. Especially in the book The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global (2006), Held addresses such criticisms and argues that the ethics of care may be better equipped than traditional theories for guiding ethical thinking in many contexts, including global contexts. Held has employed the “care perspective” to address global issues such as war and political violence, military intervention, and limits on markets. Held’s work defends the ethics of care by arguing that it is distinct from and more basic than traditional theories. The ethics of care is distinct from Kantian moral theory and utilitarianism in its view of persons. From the care perspective, individual persons are conceived as interdependent and relational. In contrast, from the “justice perspective,” individual persons are conceived as independent and egoistic. Held contends that the care perspective assumes a more realistic picture of persons, making it useful in both private and public contexts. The care perspective is a feminist approach sharing the goal of women’s equality and is based on the universal experience of caring and being cared for. Although the ethics of care has been linked to virtue ethics, Held argues that care ethics is distinct because it focuses on promoting caring relationships and caring practices, not the virtues of individuals. For Held, good caring relationships exhibit the values of sensitivity, empathy, trust, and responsiveness to legitimate needs. Held indicates that the traditional theories tend to neglect these values and unfairly relegate them to the private sphere only; however, because the ethics of care is more basic than the traditional theories, these values ought to be widely recognized. The ethics of care is more basic than the traditional theories, Held maintains, because for human beings interdependence and unchosen relationships are temporally and normatively prior to adult independence and contractual relationships. Care and education of children must occur for a society to exist, before the question of justice arises, or they must be assumed before questions of contractual fairness are relevant. Additionally, care is more basic than justice because rights depend upon care. According to Held, people are only motivated to recognize and respect the rights of others about whom they care in at least a minimal sense. Despite the fact that Held presents the ethics of care as distinct from and more basic than traditional theories, she argues that there are domains or contexts where traditional theories should guide us. For example, Kantian moral theory may be most appropriate for

H

the legal system and utilitarianism may be most appropriate for addressing political issues. However, these should be seen as limited domains embedded within wider networks of caring relations and they should gradually be transformed by incorporating the care perspective. To incorporate the perspective of care ethics into any arena, one needs to prioritize the creation and maintenance of good caring relationships. We have relationships of varying depth with many individuals and groups, both locally and globally. We may evaluate any of these relationships using Held’s ethics of care as a guide; the relationships need not be intimate. We can ask, do these relationships reflect sensitivity, empathy, trust, and the meeting of legitimate needs? If not, what can be done to improve these relationships? One way that distant individuals have relationships is through the activities of their respective nation states. What Held and others have noted is that in thinking about international affairs, nations are modeled after the independent, egoistic, and largely “masculine” individual of traditional ethical theories. Nations are envisioned as equal individuals entering freely into contracts, even when the facts of history clearly prove otherwise. Moreover, the rights and interests of individual nations are prioritized over relationships and shared interests. Independence and dominance are seen as the path to security. On this framework, competition may easily override cooperation, often leading to violence. For Held, the ethics of care offers a positive, alternative framework. The care perspective recognizes the power inequalities between nations and their origins. It encourages us to envision nations as necessarily interdependent and as having shared interests. It prioritizes cooperation and creating good caring relationships, which can lead to trust and a diminution of violence. As military preparations and responses recede, nations that prioritize cooperation have more resources for meeting other legitimate needs such as for health care, child care, education, and environmental protection within and beyond their borders. Thus, for Held, the care perspective transforms our conception of nations in a manner that could help resolve many troubling global issues. In relation to specific global issues such as political violence and increasing marketization, Held argues that we must judge and limit these activities with an eye toward their impact on human relationships. Activity that calls for the destruction, demonization or exploitation of another group or person should be avoided because it negates the values of care and makes caring relations impossible.

481

H

482

H

Herodotus

Related Topics ▶ Feminist Ethics ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Terrorism ▶ Utilitarianism ▶ Virtue Ethics

References Gilligan C (1982) In a different voice: psychological theory and women’s development. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Held V (1989) Rights and goods: justifying social action. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Held V (1993) Feminist morality: transforming culture, society, and politics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Held V (2002) Care and the extension of markets. Hypatia 17:19–33 Held V (2006) The ethics of care: personal, political, and global. Oxford University Press, Oxford Held V (2008) How terrorism is wrong: morality and political violence. Oxford University Press, Oxford Noddings N (1986) Caring: a feminine approach to ethics and moral education. University of California Press, Berkeley Ruddick S (1989) Maternal thinking: toward a politics of peace. Beacon, Boston

Herodotus STEPHEN L. ESQUITH Residential College in Arts and Humanities, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

A native of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, Herodotus lived approximately from 484 BCE to 425 BCE. He traveled widely throughout the Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions to compile his “inquiries” into the wars between Greece and Persia in 490 BC and 480–479 BCE. Subsequently referred to as The Histories, this record of what he saw and heard has become a touchstone in global ethics, much the way that Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian Wars served as a classic statement of global realpolitik in the second half of the twentieth century. Like Thucydides, Herodotus believed that the study of past wars could provide a cautionary tale for relatively just and democratic societies facing external threats and internal pressures. However, he was less of a partisan than Thucydides and less concerned with the personalities of leaders. For Thucydides, Athens’ growth as an imperial power and its decline could be traced to the statesmanlike leadership of Pericles and the subsequent unprincipled virtuosity of Alcibiades. In The Histories, great leaders on both sides are emblematic of deeper cultural

tendencies. Moreover, not only was Herodotus interested in what in their cultures caused the Greeks and Persians to go to war, but also what the actual accomplishments of the many people he encountered on his journeys were, not just his fellow Greeks. Herodotus’ analysis of the causes of war is built upon an analogy between the personal and the political. Many of the political conflicts he describes are the product of personal conflicts and animosities. What begins as a grisly quarrel or misunderstanding between individuals soon becomes a cycle of retribution and revenge at the political level. However, Herodotus does not believe that this cycle provides a complete explanation. Several other factors play important roles. What we would call culture and geography are important elements of Herodotus’ narrative, but here he is interested in what he describes as great achievements as well as military campaigns. The hubris that often clouds the vision of the Greeks is partially a product of their misunderstanding of the culture of their foes. Had they realized that their opponents were as advanced as they were, sometimes more so, they might have shown greater restraint. Had they understood the regional differences in climate and terrain, they also might have better understood the challenges they faced and their own limitations. Because of his praise for other cultures and his criticism of Greek attitudes toward these other cultures, Herodotus is sometimes erroneously characterized as a moral relativist. On the contrary, his endorsement of the poet Pindar’s phrase “culture is king” when referring to the different ways in which the dead are honored in different cultures is not a sign of moral relativism. Herodotus is calling his audience’s attention to the fact that whether a people honors its dead through burial, burning, or even eating their remains, they do it for the same reason. He is quite willing to criticize those customs he believes are irrational or immoral, but he is careful to distinguish between particular customs and the common moral values that they embody. Geography and climate also play important roles in his analysis of what has led to war and what enables a culture to achieve greatness. His argument is not deterministic, but he stresses the importance of understanding how borders are formed and how natural resources, for example, precious metals, acquire their exchange value. He claims that a harsh climate and infertile soil can harden a people and make them more successful in battle. This is part of the cautionary tale he hopes to convey to his fellow Greeks. The Histories is written as a warning to Athenians in particular that expansion can be a dangerous path.

High Road for Human Rights

Herodotus wrote during the Peloponnesian Wars in which a relatively democratic Athens conquered and ruled other territories as a way of fending off the perceived threat from oligarchic Sparta and its allies. After Herodotus died the Athenian strategy failed. Commentators have speculated that Herodotus’ account of the Greco-Persian wars was motivated by his fear that Athens would end up the way that the Persian Empire under Xerxes did – over-extended and defeated. A similar rhetorical strategy was used by the Greek tragedians writing in Athens at the same time. Twentieth-century writers have been inspired by Herodotus to examine the interplay between war, culture, and geography. Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient about the outbreak of World War II in North Africa and the ominous use of nuclear weapons and Ryszard Kapus´cin´ski’s memoir Travels with Herodotus about his years as a Polish newspaper foreign correspondent both weave these threads together, albeit with very different dramatic effects. Unlike these contemporary Herodotean observers, Herodotus himself appears to believe that divine intervention also plays a role in the fortunes of nations, especially those at war. Some commentators recommend that rather than use these passages to discredit The Histories as a mixture of ethnographic research and superstition, one should treat the occasional presence of the gods in The Histories as indicators of the role of chance and the indeterminacy of causal analysis. In the end, Herodotus’ major contribution to global justice is a recognition that by traveling within, not just to, other cultures, we may learn how to reform our own institutions and practices. This is not just a matter of multicultural understanding but transcultural practice. In Kapus´cin´ski’s words, Herodotus believes that through their encounters with other cultures in The Histories, his audience will gain a clearer understanding of the limits of their own achievements and also the valuable achievements of others.

Related Topics

▶ Cultural Relativism ▶ Empire ▶ Thucydides

References Dewald C, Marincola J (eds) (2006) The Cambridge companion to Herodotus. Cambridge University Press, New York Gould J (2000) Herodotus. Bristol Classical Press, London Hartog F (1988) The mirror of Herodotus: the representation of the other in the writing of history (trans: Lloyd J). University of California Press, Berkeley Kapus´cin´ski R (2008) Travels with Herodotus. Vintage, New York

H

483

Mendelsohn D (2008) Arms and the man. The New Yorker 28 Apr 2008 Ondaatje M (1993) The English patient. Vintage, New York Strassler RB (ed) (2007) The landmark Herodotus: the histories (trans: Purvis A). Pantheon, New York Thomas R (2000) Herodotus in context: ethnography, science, and the art of persuasion. Cambridge University Press, New York

High Road for Human Rights ROSS C. ANDERSON High Road for Human Rights, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

Founded in January 2008 by former Salt Lake City Mayor and longtime litigator and civil rights advocate Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson, High Road for Human Rights (High Road) strives to enhance global justice by promoting the rights and dignity of people throughout the world who face the threatening prospects of climate disruption, the impacts of which are already being felt by vulnerable populations; genocide; global sex and labor slavery; statesponsored killing by means of the death penalty; and the undermining of the rule of law that has aided in the commission of torture and other serious civil and human rights abuses. These are the major global justice issues on which High Road currently focuses. (High Road for Human Rights comprises High Road for Human Rights Education Project and High Road for Human Rights Advocacy Project, which were separately formed for purposes of compliance with US tax laws.) During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the United States has frequently engaged in an outrageously unjust policy of nonintervention in major human rights crises, or even of support for the perpetrators. For instance, the USA remained an ally of Saddam Hussein during and after the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds, doubling Iraq’s agricultural credits following the Anfal campaign. Despite detailed knowledge of Nazi genocide, President Franklin Roosevelt took no steps to rescue victims of the Holocaust. President Bill Clinton failed to take action to halt the systematic killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and 800,000 Rwandans. The words of Clinton Administration National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, addressed to human rights advocates who sought to pressure the administration to intervene in Rwanda, have been a touchstone for High Road’s mission: “If you want to make this move, you will have to change public opinion. You must make more noise.” History makes it abundantly clear that global justice will never be achieved if people leave it for elected or other

H

484

H

Hobbes, Thomas

government officials to initiate action. For the attainment of global justice, the responsibility is that of people of all walks of life to stand up and push for change. The history of social justice movements in the USA provides inspiration, as well as a vital lesson. The antislavery, women’s suffrage, labor, and civil rights movements were not initiated and pushed toward success by government officials. Those social justice movements began and were successfully driven by passionate, committed, tenacious people at the grassroots level. Global justice in areas such as genocide, torture, the undermining of the rule of law, capital punishment, and the tremendous human rights implications of climate change likewise will only be achieved through aggressive, coordinated, sustained grassroots advocacy. To attain global justice, each of us must lead and take action, organizing and mobilizing together. High Road complements the important fieldwork and high-level lobbying activities of other human rights and environmental organizations by providing a large, multifaceted grassroots force that previously has been absent. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, with teams of local grassroots activists in local communities being formed throughout the United States, High Road utilizes longestablished grassroots techniques and innovative messaging to educate the public about urgent human rights problems and effective remedies, create a widespread base of informed and motivated members, organize members to pressure the media to responsibly report on the issues, and empower members to push government officials to take effective action to change federal policies and practices, all with the aim of enhancing global justice. Among numerous past and ongoing efforts since its inception, High Road led a coalition of major human rights advocates and organizations in meetings with House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers and other members of Congress to stop torture and other illegal conduct carried out by the Bush Administration and to restore the rule of law. These meetings led to a hearing before the Judiciary Committee on July 25, 2008, regarding abuses of executive power by the Bush Administration, at which Executive Director Anderson testified. High Road also had a leading role in Power Shift 2009, a demonstration of over 12,000 young people in Washington, DC for climate reform, and in Capitol Climate Action, the largest climate change-related civil disobedience action in US history.

▶ Collective Responsibility ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Genocide ▶ Global Public Health ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Trafficking ▶ International Law ▶ Legal Rights ▶ Torture ▶ War Crimes

References Batstone D (2007) Not for sale. HarperOne, New York Brown LR (2008) Plan B 3.0 – mobilizing to save civilization. W. W. Norton & Company, New York/London Dallaire R (2003) Shake hands with the devil – the failure of humanity in Rwanda. Random House Canada, Toronto Flannery T (2005) The weather makers – the history and future impact of climate change. Text Publishing, Melbourne Holmes S (2007) The matador’s cape – America’s reckless response to terror. Cambridge University Press, New York Margulies J (2006) Guantanamo and the abuse of presidential power. Simon & Schuster, New York Mayer J (2008) The dark side – the inside story of how the war on terror turned into a war on American values. Doubleday, New York Melvern L (2000) A people betrayed – the role of the west in Rwanda’s genocide. Zed Books, London/New York Mills N, Brunner K (eds) (2002) The new killing fields – massacre and the politics of intervention. Basic Books, New York Paglen T, Thompson AC (2006) Torture taxi – on the trail of the CIA’s rendition flights. Melville House Publishing, Hoboken Power S (2002) “A problem from hell” – America and the age of genocide. Basic Books, New York Roth K, Worden M, Bernstein AD (2005) Torture – does it make us safer? Is it ever OK? The New Press, New York Savage C (2007) The return of the imperial presidency and the subversion of American democracy. Little, Brown and Company, New York Schwarz FAO Jr, Huq AZ (2007) Unchecked and unbalanced – presidential power in a time of terror. The New Press, New York Wyman DS (2002) A race against death – Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust. The New Press, New York

Hobbes, Thomas MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Related Topics

▶ Basic Rights ▶ Capital Punishment ▶ Civil Rights ▶ Climate Change

Although used as a touchstone for theories of “political realism,” which assume anarchy, scarcity, and conflict among nations, and selfishness and violent inclinations among persons, Hobbes’s thought is far more subtle and

Hobbes, Thomas

useful than this caricature allows. Thomas Hobbes (1588– 1679) lived during a time of violence in his native England, a country divided by political ideologies, religious differences, contending authorities, and attendant passions. He was moved to find a solution to the violence of his time, and thought his answer to it provided a way out of lives which are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”(Lev. 13. 62). The solution was politics, and what makes politics possible – human will and relationships that made contract possible. “The state of nature” devised by Hobbes (also theorized by Locke, Rousseau, and Kant after, and in debt to, him) presents a tragic irony. We possess natural rights, derived from natural law, that are in themselves good; yet, outside of political contract and society, those rights pit us against one another just often enough to create a kind of “war of all against all” (Lev. 13. 63). The “precepts” of natural law bear at least an indirect relationship to justice. Natural law is the dictate of reason, and as such, some of the rational and moral precepts Hobbes discusses are as follows. The fundamental law of nature is to seek peace (and if peace cannot be had, to defend oneself). The right to all things should not always be held on to. One should stand by his or her agreements and keep faith with others. Indeed, a “wrong” can only be done to someone with whom one has an agreement, or relationship. No one should accept a benefit without intending to fulfill the obligations incurred by receiving it. Everyone should be considerate of others and refuse contempt or hatred, and we ought to forgive those who sincerely seek it. Forgiveness looks to the future, while revenge looks only to the past. We must recognize equality among us, and when it is not present, we should, nonetheless, regard others as equal. We should, when awarding rights to others, practice fairness. That which cannot be divided should be used in common, and when divided, each should have as much as he or she likes, if possible. If this cannot be done, the division of goods ought to follow “proportionality” for the purpose of “equality.” When division of goods becomes problematic still, fair, objective, and disinvested arbiters are to be used. Finally, Hobbes finds recourse in the common notion of universality and mutuality: “Do not do unto another what you would not have done to you.” Such features of natural law are at the same time features of moral law. He encourages the citizen to modesty, fairness, good faith, kindness, and mercy – so as to sustain peace (On the Citizen, III). This basic moral framework allows for a backdrop against which justice may come into focus. Justice is a virtue in relation to law. Whereas one can do a wrong

H

to another only when in an agreement with him or her, one can act unjustly toward all. Thus, Hobbes is concerned about the systemic and structural aspects of justice and injustice. He is therefore, also concerned with contractual (“commutative”) justice and “distributive” justice; and he notes that justice holds a positive relationship to equality (On the Citizen, III.4–6; Lev. 15. 75; 30. 180). Injustice, as a violation of reason, is also an “absurdity” (Lev. 14. 65; 15. 72). Injustice is a violation of the fabric of our relationships in political association, and thus a harm to political society itself; a violation of agreement and contract, whether we have a direct relationship to one harmed by it or not. Leviathan was written, Hobbes tells us on the title page of his great work, to address “the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth.” He notes in the Epistle Dedicatory that he is responding to those who contend for too much liberty, and those who call for too much authority. At the end of his Review and Conclusion, he writes that he composed Leviathan to address the “mutual Relation between Protection and Obedience.” His conception of justice cannot be separated from this basic architecture of his moral and political thought. Injustice is a violation of commonwealth that is in turn, just, insofar as it strikes the right balance between security, authority, consent, and freedom. Because Hobbes is concerned to give a political solution to violence, he realizes that justice must be a part of the commonwealth formed to escape the violence found in the state of nature. He notes that war is not only “actual fighting,” but “in the known disposition thereto.” This kind of war that worries Hobbes seems close to what peace scholars call “structural violence” – the cultural, social, political, and economic injustice that leads to overt violence. Further, we are threats to one another because we are potential threats to one another (thus invoking fear and preemptive measures). The state is created to keep the peace. It does so not only through military and police functions, but also by using its authority (given through our consent) and law to provide enough justice to keep violence at bay. For many global citizens, life is indeed, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” An overlooked part of Hobbes’s solution to violence was his call for what we now call the welfare state. He argued that the “Common-wealth” ought to provide for the sick, elderly, infirm, and the unemployed. He argued that, in the state of nature, we are not entitled to amass more than what is necessary for our own preservation, if by doing so we deny others the necessities for their lives. He argued that the distribution of land should also conduce to justice, and therefore, peace (Lev. 15. 30; 24; On the Citizen, III.9). Because Hobbes

485

H

486

H

Honneth, Axel

wants to find a political and lasting means to peace, he calls for justice, anticipating the dictum of Pope Paul VI, “If you want peace, work for justice.” Hobbes did not extend his theorization of justice, peace, and political society beyond the state. It remained for Kant, indebted to Hobbes, to think about how consent, contract, and just legislation make peace possible on a global scale.

Related Topics ▶ Citizenship ▶ Contractarianism ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Social Contract

References Ewin R (1991) Virtues and rights: the moral philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. Westview Press, Boulder Flathman R (2002) Thomas Hobbes: skepticism, individuality, and chastened politics. Routledge, London Gert B (2010) Hobbes: Prince of peace. Polity Press, Cambridge Hampton J (1986) Hobbes and the social contract tradition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Hobbes T (1992) Leviathan, ed. Tuck R. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Hobbes T (2000) On the citizen, ed. Tuck R, Silverthorne M. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Johnston D (1986) The rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the politics of cultural transformation. Princeton University Press, Princeton Kavka G (1986) Hobbesian moral and political theory. Princeton University Press, Princeton Lloyd S (1992) Ideals as interests in Hobbes’s Leviathan: the power of mind over matter. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Oakeshott M (1975) Hobbes on civil association. Oxford University Press, Oxford Pettit P (2008) Made with words: Hobbes on language, mind, and politics. Princeton University Press, Princeton Skinner Q (2008) Hobbes and republican liberty. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Honneth, Axel ARNOLD L. FARR Department of Philosophy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

Axel Honneth, a third-generation critical theorist, is Professor of Social Philosophy at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University and Director of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main. Recent decades have seen the ascension of Honneth to a central place in social/political

philosophy. His importance is beginning to rival that of John Rawls and Ju¨rgen Habermas, his former teacher. Honneth’s work is also at the center of recent debates about recognition and misrecognition, and has important implications for issues such as multiculturalism, democratization, and global justice.

Social Action and Human Struggle: The Critique of First- and Second-Generation Critical Theory While Honneth is best known for his work on recognition, his focus on recognition is best understood by taking a look at his development toward this theory. His theory of recognition grows out of his earlier goal of reconstructing historical materialism and establishing a normative foundation for critical theory via a theory of social action. In his first book, coauthored with Hans Joas, Honneth and Joas seek to develop a philosophical anthropology that expands and deepens Karl Marx’s claim in German Ideology that “circumstances make men as much as men make circumstances.” Honneth and Joas will focus on the latter part of this statement and examine the way in which human beings make (move and shape) history. Drawing on the philosophical anthropology of Ludwig Feuerbach, they develop a theory of the sensuous (bodily) and intersubjective nature of sociality and the social constitution of human beings. Honneth’s entire project has been an attempt to rescue and broaden the Marxian notion of self and worldforming praxis as well as developing a normative foundation for critical theory. Following and even going beyond Habermas, Honneth is able to accomplish these two tasks in one move. Honneth and Habermas both recognize that while Marx’s philosophy in places points toward a possible theory of human communication and interaction, such a possibility is not brought to fruition. Instead, Marx seems to reduce all human action to the labor process. According to Honneth, this mistake is repeated by the early Frankfurt School. Honneth’s critique of the early Frankfurt School entails a continued reflection on what he finds problematic in Marx. He claims that the early Frankfurt School (especially Horkheimer and Adorno) following Marx limited their critique to the labor/economic framework as well as a comprehensive philosophy of history which interprets human history and activity as an expanding, nature-transforming productive activity. Hence, scientific knowledge develops in the human quest to dominate and control nature. This diagnosis of modern life is developed in Horkheimer’s programmatic essay “Traditional Theory

Honneth, Axel

and Critical Theory.” It takes a rather pessimistic turn in Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. The central theme in this book is that the domination of nature eventually leads to the domination of human beings by other human beings. Building on Max Weber’s notion of the iron cage of rationality, human beings find themselves trapped in a totally administered society. However, this view undermines the emancipatory goal of critical theory. The problem with Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s form of critical theory is that they fail to give any account of social action and struggle by individuals and social groups. The result seems to be a form of political paralysis with no hope of emancipation. In The Critique of Power, Honneth criticizes Michel Foucault for the same failure. Foucault’s theory of power represents a systems-theoretic model that fails to recognize power as a product of struggles between social groups and strategic actors. It is Habermas who will provide a more promising account of intersubjective selfformative socializing processes that will open the door for Honneth’s reconstruction of critical theory. However, Habermas too will have limitations. For Honneth, Habermas at one level avoids the political and theoretical paralysis that Adorno and Horkheimer’s form of critical theory leads us into with its notion of the totally administered society. Habermas’ distinction between the three types of human interests allows him to divide society into two distinct spheres of rationality and social action that reflect these three types of interests. In The Critique of Power (1997), Honneth argues that this separation between the norm-free organization of action in the system (economic and administrative) and the power-free but norm-based sphere of communication (the lifeworld) derails the emancipatory impulse of critical theory. Honneth argues that the system can’t be purged of norms while the lifeworld is also constituted by relations of power and domination.

The Struggle for Recognition Honneth’s originality and his importance as a social and political theorist lies first in his attempt to rescue that emancipatory impulse of critical theory by developing a theory of social action and struggle. In doing so, he also develops a critical theory of human moral agency. Secondly, Honneth’s theory establishes the struggle for recognition as a foundation of all social struggle and social conflict. Honneth’s theory of recognition is a development and reconstruction of the insights of Hegel’s Jena philosophy

H

1801–1806 and especially the 1802–1803 System of Ethical Life, rather than the theory of recognition that Hegel developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit and beyond. Honneth rejects Hegel’s later presentations of his system because they fall into type of speculative idealism or metaphysical thinking that ignores the real concrete moral grammar of social conflict. Following the young Hegel, Honneth parts company with the tradition of social/political philosophy that follows Hobbes and Machiavelli in locating the origin of political institutions in the struggle between individuals for the resources for self-preservation. Such a struggle is only one side of the coin. For Hegel and Honneth, the establishment of political institutions that are to guarantee freedom is also generated by struggles for recognition. This turn to Hegel allows Honneth to resolve the problems that he had with Marx, the early Frankfurt School, and Habermas in his early writings. Against Marx and the early Frankfurt School, he overcomes the reduction of human action and interaction to the framework of labor and self-preservation. Against Habermas, he overcomes the problematic hard distinction between a normoriented lifeworld and a non norm-oriented system. Honneth shows that there is a unity of these two domains as struggles for recognition in the lifeworld give birth to social and political institutions that are supposed to protect freedom. Honneth’s theory of recognition is focused on human needs that may intersect with physical (material) needs but are not reducible to such. These are needs that must be met if human beings are to develop any sense of well-being and flourish as autonomous moral agents. In good Hegelian fashion, there are three needs that are correlated to three spheres of human life.

Three Forms of Recognition Autonomy (freedom) is not a given. It requires an intersubjective process and context of development. Following Hegel and G.H. Mead, Honneth claims that there are three types of normative relations and interactions between human beings that aid in the development of autonomy. These three forms of relation depict three spheres of recognition. These three forms of recognition are more specifically three types of relation-to-self that make autonomy, self-development, and self-determination possible. Self-development and self-determination require certainty that one can freely articulate one’s needs and have those needs taken seriously. This form of relation-to-self Honneth calls self-confidence and the form of recognition to which it corresponds is love or care.

487

H

488

H

Honneth, Axel

Self-respect is the second relation-to-self. Love is not intentional and is restricted to a group of particular others. It contains the structural core of ethical life to the extent that it produces that confidence in individuals which is required for autonomous participation in public life. However, love and self-confidence are necessary but not sufficient conditions for autonomous participation in public life. One must also be able to view oneself as a morally accountable agent whose judgments are valued by others in society. That is, autonomous participation in public life requires rights that are universally recognized. This sphere of recognition is Kantian in terms of its focus on universality and respect for all rational beings. It is also referred to by Honneth as the sphere of legal recognition insofar as rights must be recognized and protected by legal institutions. The third form of relation-to-self is self-worth. Here, one must be certain of the value of his or her capabilities. The emphasis here is on differences rather than sameness, particularity or individuality rather than universality. It is this form of relation-to-self that is at the heart of recent diversity and multicultural struggles. Social groups struggle for recognition of their unique group identities. They seek to be in solidarity with others without being assimilated.

Three Forms of Disrespect Corresponding to the three forms of recognition are three forms of disrespect or degradation. In fact, struggles for recognition have their origin in the feeling of disrespect experienced by certain individuals or social groups. For Honneth, these struggles against disrespect provide the normative foundation for critical theory. With this claim, Honneth takes himself to be returning to one of Horkheimer’s key insights or motifs in his early development of the critical theory program of research, an insight that was eventually lost in the historical development of critical theory by the early Frankfurt School and Habermas. That is, critical theory as theory is the intellectual side of a historical process of emancipation. In other words, the normative claims made by critical theory have their origin in concrete, historical struggles for liberation. Therefore, unlike with other forms of moral philosophy and social/political theory, praxis comes before theory and is the source of theory. Hence, critical theory is empirical and radically historical. Therefore, there are no legitimate normative claims apart from the kind of claims that arise from attempts to overcome the experience of disrespect. Three forms of disrespect are ways in which a person, group, or a society denies another person or group the

necessary degree of self-confidence, self-respect, and selfworth necessary for self-development and self-determination. The first form of disrespect pertains to a person’s physical integrity. Here, a person is refused the opportunity to dispose freely over his or her own body. One’s basic physical needs are also not met nor respected. A clear example of this would be slavery or rape, a situation where another person has assumed ownership or control of one’s body. This form of disrespect damages one’s positive self-image at a corporeal level. The second form of disrespect damages one’s normative self-understanding. The perpetrator of this form of disrespect denies certain rights to individuals or groups. Past examples would include the refusal to allow women and people of African descent to vote in the US. A contemporary example is the ban on gay marriage in most states in the US. Hence, the subject is denied the status of full-fledged partner in social and political interaction. He or she is not recognized as being capable of making moral judgments. The third kind of disrespect takes the form of a social devaluing of individuals or groups. That is, persons find themselves in a society constituted by a hierarchy of societal values wherein their own values and forms of life are degraded. One example is the Eurocentric nature of American education where very little attention is given to the accomplishments, values, and struggles of Native and African Americans.

Global Struggles and Recognition In our age of multiculturalism and diversity initiatives, we often forget that the very ideas of diversity and multiculturalism have their origin in struggles for recognition or justice. Honneth has attempted to understand and critique social conflict, civil wars, and various forms of social and global violence as struggles for recognition. Unfolding in these struggles is a worldwide struggle for democratic freedom as persons all over the world are becoming better educated via the media and travel, about people from other places. Further, as more people come into contact with different people and different ways of life, there are more value conflicts and collisions of interests. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to see in Honneth’s work a solution to these struggles. However, there can be no solution without a proper diagnosis. Honneth understands his version of critical theory as the most appropriate diagnosis of modern times. Further, Honneth has clearly indicated that it is not the job of the critical theorist to provide solutions. Those who are involved in struggles for recognition must find their own solutions,

Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA)

but, the work of the critical theorist might be of some assistance.

Recent Work For some years now, there have been various challenges to Honneth’s theory of recognition. His theory is still under development as he has committed himself to responding to these challenges. He also continues to engage Marx and the Western Marxist tradition. In one of his most recent books, Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea (2008), Honneth attempts to reinterpret Luka´cs’ concept of reification within the theoretical framework of recognition.

Related Topics

▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich ▶ Marx, Karl ▶ Multiculturalism ▶ Recognition, the Politics of ▶ Solidarity

References Deranty J-P (2009) Beyond communication: a critical study of Axel Honneth’s social philosophy. Brill, Leiden/Boston Fraser N, Honneth A (2003) Redistribution or recognition? A political philosophical exchange. Verso, London/New York Honneth A, Joas H (1988) Social action and human nature (trans: Meyer R). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Honneth A (1997) The critique of power: reflective stages in a critical social theory (trans: Baynes K). The MIT Press, Cambridge/London Honneth A (1990) The fragmented world of the social: essays in social and political philosophy, ed. Wright CW. State University of New York Press, Albany Honneth A (1996) The struggle for recognition: the moral grammar of social conflicts (trans: Anderson J). MIT Press, Cambridge Honneth A (2007) Disrespect: the normative foundations of critical theory. Polity, Cambridge Honneth A (2008) Reification: a new look at an old idea, ed. Jay M. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York

Human Development ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Crocker, David ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) ▶ International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Sen, Amartya

H

489

Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) LORI KELEHER Department of Philosophy, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA

The Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) is an international and interdisciplinary association of more than 330 individuals and institutions from over 70 countries. The association seeks to promote research and reflection on human development and the capability approach for enhancing the understanding of the issues of global justice.

Mission Statement The Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) shall promote high quality research in the interconnected areas of human development and capability. It shall be concerned with research in these areas across a broad range of topics where the human development and capability approaches have made and can make significant contributions, including the quality of life, poverty, justice, gender, development, and environment inter alia. It shall further work in all disciplines – such as economics, philosophy, political theory, sociology, and development studies – where such research is, or may be, pursued. While primarily an academic body, the Association shall bring together those primarily involved in academic work with practitioners who are involved in, or interested in, the application of research from the fields of human development and capability to the problems they face.

Activities The HDCA organizes large annual conferences that bring together students, academics, and practitioners from more than 70 different countries working in various disciplines relevant to human development (see history below). Conferences feature several talks by internationally accomplished development scholars and practitioners. In addition to keynote and plenary addresses, the Annual Amartya Sen Lecture focuses on themes from Sen’s wideranging contributions to human development and the capability approach. A leading academic or practitioner who has made important contributions to the field of Human Development gives the Biennial Haq Memorial Lecture in honor of Mahbub-ul-Haq. HDCA conferences also include poster presentations, which facilitate the presentation of research projects, case

H

490

H

Human Genome

studies, and fieldwork, academic paper sessions, in which the papers of individual scholars are presented and discussed, thematic panel session in which a panel of papers organized around a common theme are presented and discussed, and young scholar meets senior sessions, in which graduate students present their research plan or work in progress and receive feedback from senior researchers. There is also a meeting of the HDCA Graduate Student Network. The Wiebke Kukly prize is awarded annually for the best paper submission from a graduate student. The HDCA offers several educational resources. The association regularly collaborates with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) in offering a 10 day Summer School Program on Capability and Multidimensional Poverty; and with both OPHI and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on offering a 2 week course on Concepts, Measurement and Policy Implications. HDCA education officer Se´verine Deneulin and Lili Shahani coedited the textbook An Introduction to the Human Development and Capability Approach: Freedom and Agency. The HDCA website also offers educational resources for its members. The website’s educational resources include videos of lectures and mini-courses, research materials, an extensive bibliography, access to unpublished manuscripts, a list of educational programs that focus on the Human Development Capability Approach, and links to additional relevant educational resources. Thematic Groups within the Human Development and Capability Association attempt to represent the many distinct areas of research that are brought together by a common interest in Human Development. Members of the association may elect to join one or more of the groups that are most relevant to their interests and expertise. Group themes include Children, Education, Empowerment and Collective Capabilities, Ethics and Development, Foundational Issues, Health and Disability, Horizontal Inequality, Human Rights, Indigenous People, Participatory Methods, Quantitative Research Methods, Religion and Culture, Sustainable Human Development, and Technology and Design. The activities of each thematic group vary. Many groups seek to facilitate collaboration and an exchange of information and ideas among their group members by establishing a listserv, hosting a blog, posting group-specific bibliographies, hosting workshops, and/or other events. All groups host meetings during the HDCA annual conference. All groups are represented on the HDCA website. Routledge’s Taylor and Francis Group publishes the Human Development and Capability Association’s peer reviewed journal: The Journal of Human Development and Capability: A Multi-Disciplinary Journal for People-Centered

Development four times a year. Membership dues to HDCA include a subscription to the journal. In addition, the HDCA’s news bulletin Maitreyee is distributed electronically to associates twice a year.

Leadership The Human Development and Capability Association invites senior researchers whose “accomplishments taken together represent the mission of the Association” to become Fellows on an ongoing basis. The HDCA fellows elect the association’s Executive Council. Amartya Sen was the founding president of HDCA from 2004 to 2006, Martha Nussbaum was president from 2006 to 2008, Francis Stewart was president from 2008 to 2009, and Kaushik Basu is the current president.

History The Human Development Capability Association was launched in 2004 at a conference in Pavia, Italy. The HDCA has hosted international conferences on a variety of themes relevant to human development each year since the launch. In 2005, the conference was in Paris, France; in 2006 it was in Gro¨ningen, the Netherlands; in 2007 in New York, USA; in 2008 in New Delhi, India; in 2009 in Lima, Peru; in 2010 in Ammand, Jordan; and in 2011 in The Huage, the Netherlands.

Related Topics

▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Human Development ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Sen, Amartya

References Deneulin S, Shahani L (eds) (2010) An introduction to the human development and capability approach: freedom and agency. Routledge/Taylor & Francis, London www.capabilityapproach.com

Human Genome ALEXANDRA E. GEORGE Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Genes have been described as the “building blocks of life.” They are tiny pieces of information that, when combined as a genome, describe an organism’s biological makeup.

Human Genome

Only 1% of the human genome can be readily recognized as genes (about 30,000 of them) that encode the information to make human proteins or other biochemical components of living cells. Scientists have found that other portions of the genome may also affect an organism’s makeup by influencing the timing and rate of production of the structural genes’ products. These control processes are not yet understood and nor is the extent of the genome that is involved. Explaining these complexities has become a major area of scientific endeavor. Ensuring that this new information is not used to benefit some people at the expense of others has become an important concern for those interested in promoting global justice.

The Science The term “genome” was first adopted in 1920 by Hans Winkler, Professor of Botany at the University of Hamburg, Germany, to describe a living organism’s genetic information. It has since been discovered that this information is encoded in deoxyribonucleic acid (“DNA”) molecules, which each comprise a pair of twisted strands made up of different combinations of four chemical units known as “nucleotide bases.” These four bases occur in two specific pairs, and three such pairs specify a particular amino acid in the protein encoded by a structural gene. The DNA strands make up the different genes that reside in the 23 pairs of chromosomes found in human cells. They establish how proteins are prepared, with every human gene making around three proteins. Thus, genes contain the chemical blueprints that determine how organisms are constructed and their life is maintained. Whereas genetic research investigates single genes, genomics research investigates an organism’s total genomic makeup. Every organism has an individual genome, which is its distinctive genetic structure. It is unique but not fixed, and individuals differ in what parts of the DNA sequence are actually present. Small sections of the genome are duplicated or absent in every human. Some of these differences include entire structural genes. The publicly funded Human Genome Project was one of the largest international collaborations ever formed between research organizations, led by the United States and involving a consortium of scientists from six countries. Launched in 1990, its goal was to map and sequence the three billion base pairs that comprise the complete DNA of the human body. This involved first identifying the DNA fragments that comprise the genome, identifying their locations, and then mapping them. The accumulated database of genome sequences was placed in the public domain, being made freely available on the Internet. It was

H

reasoned that this would allow researchers worldwide to use it in their research toward the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases, thus promoting the ends of global justice by potentially improving the welfare of all people. A draft was released in 2000. Competing with the Human Genome Project was the privately funded research project of US biotech firm Celera Genomics, under the leadership of scientist Craig Venter. Launched in 1998 and drawing on resources generated by the Human Genome Project, Celera used faster research techniques and also completed a draft in 2000. The Human Genome Project adopted some of Celera’s methods. The working draft of around 83% of the human genome sequence was jointly published by the competing research teams in the journals Nature (2001), detailing the sequence generated by the Human Genome Project, and Science (2001), detailing the sequence generated by Celera Genomics. A full genome sequence was completed in April 2003. Other projects have been organized to map and sequence the genomes of organisms as diverse as mice, fruit flies, rice, and thousands of bacteria. Understanding some of these genomes enhances understanding of the human genome. The US National Institutes of Health has said that the complete sequence of the human genome is akin to a howto manual for building the human body. However, not all of that manual yet makes sense. It is not yet clear how all the parts listed in the manual fit together and operate to produce health or disease. A great deal of research is being undertaken to achieve this understanding.

Medical Implications Having identified the individual genes that comprise the human genome, researchers are using this information to try to determine which genes carry predispositions to particular human traits and diseases. Once these are discovered, researchers can develop genetic tests to enable clinicians to diagnose diseases more easily, and that will allow individuals to undergo investigations to learn whether they are genetically predisposed to certain conditions. Genetically based treatments are also being developed from the information documented in the Human Genome Project. As many pharmaceuticals operate by stimulating or immobilizing certain proteins, identifying which gene is responsible for specific proteins may allow scientists to develop new treatments. Once approved for use on humans, those therapies may help to treat or cure diseases in patients whose genetic tests identify problems. They

491

H

492

H

Human Genome

could help to compensate for flaws and mutations, and they may help to prevent the onset of genetically based diseases. Scientists have said that understanding the human genome will allow doctors to better target the source of a disease. Identifying a patient’s individual genetic makeup could also allow researchers to devise pharmaceuticals designed to treat that particular person’s body. Personalized medicine resulting from this research could preempt and prevent illnesses from arising, and reduce the risk of unwanted side effects occurring when diseases develop and are treated. With victims of illness and disease often suffering discrimination at work or in the community more generally, the potential advantages – direct and indirect – brought about by being able to understand the genome may bring long-term improvements in levels of justice globally.

Ethical Implications The clinical implications and potential benefits of understanding the human genome are therefore immense. However, the ability to chart an individual’s genome does carry risks. Individuals may find it psychologically difficult to live with the “time bomb” of knowing that they have a genetic predisposition toward becoming ill with a particular disease. From the perspective of social justice, there are also concerns that insurers and employers may discriminate against persons who are found to carry a genetic predisposition to particular diseases, even if those people are currently healthy and do not display any symptoms of those diseases. Insurers may charge more or refuse to insure such people. Employers may choose candidates without genetic predispositions to diseases over those who are found to carry the relevant genetic information, and may prefer to employ candidates whose genome indicates particular traits in nonmedical areas such as personality and intelligence. In response to such concerns, the United States passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (known as “GINA”) to protect individuals against discrimination by health insurers and employers on the basis of their genetic information. Governments in other jurisdictions are considering or implementing similar laws. It is to be hoped that such measures are followed widely throughout the world so that information generated by genomic research does not become a double-edged sword that can be used to improve lives on the one hand but that can also become a basis for greater discrimination on the other. Particularly in a world characterized by geographical mobility, an

international treaty requiring signatories to protect the human rights of their people and promote equality in the face of newly available personalized genomic information may go some way toward promoting global justice in this respect.

Human Gene Patents The other widespread concern discussed with respect to the human genome involves the patentability of genetic material. Patents are state-awarded property rights that give inventors a legal monopoly lasting 20 years or more in which to use inventions that are novel, nonobvious/inventive, and useful. After Craig Venter controversially sought to underpin the commercialization of genomic research by patenting over 6,800 partial human DNA sequences (known as “expressed sequence tags” or “ESTs”) – applications that were subsequently rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office – the White House issued a joint Press Release from US President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair on March 14, 2000. The leaders declared that the information provided by genomic research, including the human DNA sequence and its variations, should be freely available to all scientists for use in developing new methods of treating, preventing, and curing disease. Referring to the potential for human genomic research to improve global justice, they noted that allowing unfettered access to human genomic information would promote scientific discoveries that would “reduce the burden of disease, improve health around the world, and enhance the quality of life for all humankind.” This statement reflected the spirit of the 1996 “Bermuda Principles,” which had been agreed at the First International Strategy Meeting on Human Genome Sequencing and stated that all human genomic information should be freely available in the public domain for the good of society and to encourage research and development. Following the White House Press Release, the Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics announced that a human genome sequence should only be patentable if its role and utility could be shown. Even though some jurisdictions reject gene patents on the basis that genetic information is a mere discovery of something found in nature rather than an invention, or exclude them because genes are such an intrinsic part of every human that they should not be permitted to be owned by any individual or corporation, thousands of gene patents have been registered around the world. Most of these patent not the gene sequence information itself, but related knowledge such as the role of the gene, tests for the gene, or methods of treating the gene.

Human Genome

The registration of gene patents has given rise to complaints that they limit others’ ability to use the genetic information that has been discovered about humanity generally and people individually. In addition to emotive arguments about owning human life, the negative consequences of gene patents are claimed to be that information about humanity and individuals can be monopolized by patent-holders to the exclusion of others (either through direct prohibitions on competing research or diagnostic tests, or by demanding unaffordable royalty payments for use). The potential for this to undermine global justice is clear. It can limit the ability of researchers to extend their investigations and limit the ability of individuals to obtain diagnoses and second-opinions. High prices supported by such monopolies raise equity issues, particularly if costs make genetic testing and treatments inaccessible to the world’s poor. Critics argue that gene patents can result in developments being unavailable for widespread use throughout society, and that researchers have to repeat or duplicate investigations to try to find ways to work around existing patents, adding unnecessarily to research costs funded by government, universities, and other investors. By contrast, proponents of gene patents argue that the diagnostic technology and medical treatments covered by these monopolies can be both expensive to develop and of uncertain potential. They argue that investors would not be attracted to finance such research if it were not for the lure of royalty profits if the research is successful, and that the information does end up in the public domain after the patent expires. The broad assertions of both sides are arguably valid, thus making it difficult to find a widely acceptable solution to the paradox. In many jurisdictions, patents over around 20% of the human genome remain valid while debate continues. In 2010, a watershed court decision in the United States of America perhaps heralded a shift against the patentability of human genes. In Association of Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, No. 09 Civ. 4515 (S.D.N.Y., Mar. 29, 2010), a New York district court was asked to consider whether isolated human genes and the comparison of their sequences were patentable subject matter under US patent legislation or whether they were unpatentable products of nature. The Court held that several parts of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene patents – indicating a predisposition for breast cancer – were invalid. Various medical associations applauded this decision, but it has been appealed by molecular diagnostic corporation, Myriad Genetics Inc. In an interesting development in the months after Myriad Genetics Inc. lodged its appeal, the United States’

H

Department of Justice filed an amicus curiae brief (i.e., a “friend of the court” submission made by someone who is not a party to the case to assist the court) for consideration by the appellate court. The Department of Justice’s brief supported the District Court’s finding against the patentability of human DNA that is simply isolated and not altered, a view that conflicts with the arguments put forward in the same case by the US Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”), another department of the government of the United States of America. The differing views within the United States’ government with respect to isolated genes reflect the wider conflict within society with respect to patenting of the human genome. In turn, these arguments tend to coincide with differing approaches to the promotion of global justice more generally. The Department of Justice’s view reflects arguments (often characterized as those of “the left”) that positive social outcomes will best be achieved by leaving information concerning the composition of the human genome in “the commons”, free for all to access, use, and build upon. By contrast, the USPTO’s view reflects arguments (often characterized as those of “the right”) that the greatest good for all people is best promoted by encouraging investment in discovery and the development of genomic secrets by offering shortterm patent monopolies as a reward, and releasing the information into the commons around 20 years after its discovery. Proponents of this view suggest that such measures will lead to more scientific discoveries and a larger number of consequential medical developments overall, thus promoting greater cumulative improvements in human lives in the long-term. The division of opinion over this case provides a vivid illustration of how differing political perspectives can influence the legal treatment of scientific developments and can, in turn, affect the advancement of global justice more generally. The United States of America was a pioneer in gene patenting, and principles established there have been adopted abroad. Lawmakers around the world are therefore watching the progress of the BRCA1/BRCA2 case with great interest as they too grapple with the legal and ethical dilemmas associated with gene patenting. If the District Court’s decision is eventually upheld in the United States, and gene patents are invalid to the extent that they are simply discovered products of nature, this case might signal the beginning of a global trend against the patenting of human genes. Whatever the outcome, the implications of genomic developments on the advancement of global justice are likely to be significant.

493

H

494

H

Human Right to Democracy

Related Topics

▶ Genetic Engineering ▶ Globalization ▶ Intellectual Property Rights ▶ Owning Life ▶ Property Rights ▶ Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property

References Australian Law Reform Commission (2003) Essentially yours: the protection of human genetic information in Australia. Report No. 96. Canberra Australian Law Reform Commission (2004) Genes and ingenuity: gene patenting and human health. Report No. 99. Canberra Cook-Deegan R (1994) The gene wars: science, politics, and the human genome. W.W. Norton, New York Goozner M (2010) Ruling on BRCA gene patents could have limited impact. J Natl Cancer Inst 102:754–757 Heller M, Eisenberg R (1998) Can patents deter innovation? The anticommons in biomedical research. Science 280:698–701 International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium (2001) Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome. Nature 409:745–964 Kimbrell A (1993) The human body shop: the engineering and marketing of life. HarperCollins, San Francisco Kirby M (1997) Challenges of the genome. UNSW Law J 20:537–549 Kitcher P (1997) The lives to come: the genetic revolution and human possibilities. Simon & Schuster, New York Koepsell D (2009) Who owns you? The corporate gold rush to patent your genes. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester Lawson C (1999) Patenting genetic materials: old rules may be restricting exploitation of a new technology. J Law Med 6:373–390 Loeppky R (2004) Encoding capital: the political economy of the human genome project. Routledge, New York National Institutes of Health (USA) website, particularly: http://www.nih. gov/about/researchresultsforthepublic/HumanGenomeProject.pdf Shreeve J (2005) The genome war: how Craig Venter tried to capture the code of life and save the world. Ballantine Books, New York Sulston J, Ferry G (2009) The common thread: science politics ethics and the human genome. Transworld, London Venter JC et al (2001) The sequence of the human genome. Science 291:1304–1351 Yu PK (2007) Intellectual property and information wealth: patents and trade secrets. Greenwood, Westport

Human Right to Democracy ANNA MOLTCHANOVA Department of Philosophy, Carleton College, Northfield, MN, USA

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, everyone has the right to take part in the

government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives; everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. The rights of political participation are bolstered by the demands that the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government and that this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections. The elections are required to be by universal and equal suffrage and to be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures (UDHR, Article 21). The notion of the human right to democracy lies at the heart of a number of pressing issues in global justice. Clarity concerning the duties that correspond to the human right to democracy and the means by which these duties should be discharged is paramount to the moral and legal evaluation of the actions of international actors across the globe. Agreement on the meaning of the term would help to gauge consistently, based on a state’s political organization and the treatment it offers to its citizens, whether the state is a member of the international community in good standing. This is very important for global justice because the evaluation of a state’s standing has implications for the state’s entitlement to the sovereignty of its borders and thus for the range of actions by the international community that can be considered as legitimate involvement in the state’s internal affairs. Clarity about the meaning of the right to democracy would help us to judge how much international involvement is both required and acceptable in order to enforce the right. Hence, the notion of the human right to democracy is tied to the assessment of the justified use of military force and economic sanctions in international politics. If we interpret the rights of political participation as amounting to one’s right to democratic participation in politics, or to one’s equal right to political participation, this would mean that democratic institutions in one’s home country are a prerequisite for the exercise of the rights listed in Article 21. This interpretation considers democracy as a universal value required to enforce the rights to political participation and sets a standard that cannot be easily met. Those members of the United Nations that do not secure the equal right to political participation to all of their citizens would then be considered in violation of the human right to democracy. The international community would be faced with a number of countries violating human rights without being in a position to do much about it. Moreover, the societal norms that do not conform to the ideal of democratic participation may be willingly (or at least it may appear to be the case) accepted by those members whose rights are allegedly violated. Imagine a community that rejects

Human Right to Democracy

liberal democracy in favor of theocracy. Does the right to democracy its members ought to enjoy compel international organizations to take action on the members’ behalf without their consent? If we do read the right to political participation as the right to equal democratic participation in politics, the very reading imposes pragmatic restrictions on when the right is to be enforced. The human right to democracy cannot be enforced from the outside of the society safe by a request of what is deemed a legitimate representation of the people. The human right to democracy bases the choice of government on the will of the country’s citizens. The “general will” can sometimes oppose the establishment of a democracy, but to respect this general will is also to respect democratic principles. Another question to consider is what means are acceptable in discharging the duty that befalls on the international society in providing a state’s population with the enjoyment of the right to democracy (should it be established that the constitutive documents of international society do put forward this human right). Can democracy be introduced by using force? It should be noted that one can believe in the superiority of democracy but still think that the ways in which democracy can be introduced are limited. John Rawls (2001) suggests that the vitality of nondemocratic societies can be frustrated if we coercively insist that they become democratic, so we need to encourage democracy by example. Moreover, given that the locus of democratic legitimacy falls largely within the boundaries of a state, why should democratic states risk lives of their own citizens to bolster democracies in other parts of the world? Would their obligation to their own citizens outweigh their obligation to individuals in faraway countries, especially if their human rights other than the right to democracy are not violated? Overall, the question concerning the existence of the human right to democracy is very much relevant to issues in foreign policy, including military, of the developed industrial nations. Does enforcing the right to democracy count as a good justification for waging a war if negotiations or economic sanctions do not achieve their goal? In the context of global justice, it is imperative to specify what conditions should apply before we consider war as a moral option. Given the importance of human rights, including the right to life, the high degree of likelihood that the military conflict will involve killing innocent civilians ought to be weighed seriously against the good that might be accomplished by the intervention. The two human rights – to democracy and to life – need to be reconciled. The present international practice of breaching state

H

sovereignty and interfering militarily only in cases of severe violations of human rights, those that present threat to individual life and well-being on a magnitude far exceeding the violation of the right to democratic participation, is reflective either of a cautious reading of the right to political participation or of the recognition of practical impossibility of the enforcement of the right if it is read as the right to democracy. We may interpret the right to political participation in a less stringent way and say that individuals are entitled to having a say concerning political decisions that affect them without necessarily being governed on the basis of a democratic notion of equality. In this case, the right to political participation can be enjoyed in political societies that are not fully democratic. In general, it is important to consider the question of historical perspective that grounds the right to democracy when attempting to mediate between the most powerful international agents and those they intend to influence. A related broader question is what normative framework should be used for evaluating the international standing of a community the practices of which go against the Western understanding of citizenship and rights, and thus the right to democracy. If we are to reinterpret the right to political participation as less than equal democratic participation, we need to clarify to which extent the view should be inclusive of non-Western perspectives.

Related Topics

▶ Decent Society ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Global Democracy ▶ National Self-Determination ▶ War, Just and Unjust ▶ World Government

References Bell DA (2000) East meets West: human rights and democracy in East Asia. Princeton University Press, Princeton Buchanan A (2004) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Chatterjee D (ed) (2008) Democracy in a global world: human rights and political participation in the 21st century. Rowman & Littlefield, Plymouth Cohen J (2006) Is there a human right to democracy? In: Sypnowich C (ed) The egalitarian conscience: essays in honour of G.A. Cohen. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 226–246 Rawls J (2001) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Weiss TG, Daws S (eds) (2007) The Oxford handbook on the United Nations. Oxford University Press, Oxford

495

H

496

H

Human Rights

Human Rights JENNIFER SZENDE Department of Philosophy, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

A common approach to human rights defines human rights as the rights one has simply by virtue of being human. This is sometimes implied to mean that human rights are either prelegal or in some sense “natural,” although neither type of foundational claim is essential to the concept of a human right. Many twentieth century human rights documents legalize and formalize human rights in domestic or international law, so human rights can be examined within both the positive law and natural law traditions. The modern concept of a human right, as disseminated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Bill of Rights, defines them as universal, inalienable, absolute, and equal. Human rights are universal in the sense that they are the rights one claims as a human being, irrespective of particulars such as gender, citizenship, cultural identity, institutional circumstances, or race. They are inalienable, meaning that they cannot be forfeited or voluntarily sacrificed. Human rights are absolute in that they are presented as particularly strong moral claims that take precedence over other types of moral claims. And human rights are equal rights: every human being, given their equal membership in humanity, is argued to share equally in the entitlement to human rights.

History The language of human rights first emerged in the West, specifically in the founding documents of the French and American Revolutions under the guise of the “rights of man.” These historic documents posited that the state had a set of basic obligations to its citizens, and these were expressed as minimum entitlements. Many of the values expressed in these early liberal human rights documents emerged out of the natural law tradition, but the language of rights added the new implication that these values could be claimed by the right-holder against the sovereign or governing structure. The modern form of human rights still maintains this strong political dimension, and is sometimes interpreted as having a fundamental social contract implication or derivation. In the wake of the atrocities of the Second World War, a new model of human rights emerged. The modern ideal

of human rights treats these entitlements as possessed by all human beings and as claimed against all human beings. Hence, modern human rights are not claimed solely by citizens but by all persons, although they also continue to be claimed against governing structures. Modern human rights documents, such as the UDHR, specify minimum conditions a state must accept in order to be recognized by the international community, but they are also interpreted as specifying constraints on interpersonal relationships. The modern ideal of human rights serve as limitations on the way one human can justifiably treat another human being, and thereby continue to specify minimal conditions an institutional structure ought to meet. Institutions such as courts, police services, and state constitutions are supposed to strive to meet these standards, on pain of illegitimacy or expulsion from the international community of states. But institutions are furthermore tasked with structuring interpersonal relations that comply with human rights by means of a criminal and judicial system, again on pain of illegitimacy. A diverse set of countries and cultures have accepted and adopted the modern ideal of human rights, even if the implementation of human rights varies from state to state. The UN General Assembly adopted the UDHR on December 10, 1948 at a time when there were 58 diverse members of the UN. The constitutive acts of the African Union and of the Organization of American States affirm a commitment to human rights. The Council of Europe established the European Court of Human Rights in 1950, at the same time as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was adopted. So, despite the Western, Christian, and liberal origins of the idea of human rights, the modern conception of human rights has been taken up by a diverse set of states. In 1966, the UN added the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. These documents, along with a series of more recent human rights documents such as the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, make up the International Bill of Rights. The content of the International Bill of Rights ranges over diverse values including civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights. The proliferation of international human rights treaties, especially since the 1960s, has led to a significant expansion in the content considered under the auspices of human rights. Interestingly, along with the expansion of content for the concept of human rights has come an

Human Rights

expansion in the number of mechanisms available for their monitoring, if not their enforcement. Each new UN treaty or convention has led to the creation of a committee to monitor the status of the convention. So, although human rights violations persist, and although the UN committees do not have the power to sanction human rights violators, they nonetheless serve to make visible human rights violations.

Content There is broad diversity in the values that have been expressed as human rights, yet the content of a doctrine of human rights remains controversial. One controversy is over who can claim human rights: individuals or groups? Human rights most often express individual rights, although on some accounts individual rights can be used to capture some of the content of an ideal of collective rights, and on other accounts group rights can count as human rights. For example, an individual human right to freedom of association is sometimes thought to be adequate to protect minority cultures and religions. Yet on other accounts, collective rights, such as cultural rights, might be expressed directly and more successfully as human rights. Other types of group rights, such as a right against genocide, cannot adequately be captured in the language of individual rights, because the crime of genocide is essentially a crime against a group, rather than a crime against a group of individuals. Furthermore, the language of human rights has been used to express social, political, and economic rights, each of which might be thought of as controversial. Political rights might include free speech, freedom of association, or democratic rights, but these remain controversial because they protect a nonuniversal form of political association. Economic or welfare rights might include rights to adequate health care, shelter, or an education, but again, these are sometimes thought to undermine certain economic policies, and hence to undermine the selfdetermination of a state. Social rights might include such rights as cultural rights, freedom of association, or a right to a choice of marriage partner. Any portion of this range of content for human rights can be objected to on the basis that it does not properly constitute a human right, especially if it can be argued that it is not fully universal, or inalienable, or absolute.

Justification What is sometimes called the “foundational” or “orthodox” approach to human rights examines the concept of the human in an attempt to reveal a nature or an essence of the human, whose value defines the content of the

H

doctrine of human rights. This was historically the dominant way of understanding human rights. On this model, it is claimed that whatever is essential or universal about human nature defines the value of the human being. Whatever is not essential, or is not universally shared, cannot amount to a human right, although it might be some other form of value. Human rights are taken, on this model, to be a modern form of natural rights and natural law. This type of foundational approach explains the content of the doctrine of human rights in terms of an account of human nature. Some theorists have suggested that universal human rights can be justified by adopting a survey approach to the question of foundation. John Rawls (1999) uses the idea of an overlapping consensus regarding political norms, even though he suggests that answers to metaphysical foundations cannot be agreed upon. Charles Taylor (1996) adopts the Rawlsian language of “overlapping consensus.” Taylor suggests that a diverse set of Asian religions share an understanding of human life as valuable, despite their disagreements on the metaphysical grounding for the normative ideal of human rights. He argues that many of the norms embodied in the language of human rights could be analytically separated from their background justification, and thereby gain wider acceptance. His point is that universal human rights might not need to share normative foundations in order to nonetheless achieve a robust claim to be broadly shareable. Although Taylor denies that human rights have a unique foundation, his argument nonetheless seeks foundations for human rights within local cultures, and so remains a broadly foundational approach. Beitz (2009) suggests a “practical” and “functional” approach to human rights, which defines human rights in terms of their use in international relations. Human rights have become the language in which moral claims are made in the international realm. Human rights claims are made against states, corporations, and other organizations, and they are made on behalf of both individuals and groups. Human rights now serve as prerequisites for membership in international organizations such as the WTO and NATO, define the permissibility of humanitarian intervention, and constrain trade practices. In these senses, human rights are thought to serve practical purposes in modern international life, so that the question of function can now be prioritized over the issue of foundation. Human rights provide a language in which to discuss certain wrongs, and to claim them to be weighty. On some accounts, human rights are merely rhetorical devices that explain wrongs as particularly grave. On this deflationary

497

H

498

H

Human Rights

account of human rights, human rights are merely one language amongst many in which to discuss moral issues. However, in a modern context, simply naming something as a human rights violation also serves as a call to action, so even on this deflationary account of human rights they might nonetheless have practical implications. Neither the legal enshrinement of human rights nor their acceptance at a theoretical level guarantees their practice. The fact that human rights are sometimes violated, or that genocide has occurred on multiple occasions in the last century, does not undermine the theoretical and legal claim that human rights are universal, although there are many other objections that deny even the theoretical existence of human rights.

Objections and Replies The central attack on the foundational approach denies that any essential human nature exists, and hence denies that any foundation to human rights can be found. Explaining the “human” in a way that both merits and garners universal approval has proven a challenge throughout the short history of the modern conception of human rights. It has often been objected that the foundational approach is misguided because the “human” in human rights cannot be explained in a sufficiently neutral way, or even that neutrality is a misguided aim. Several related objections deny that human rights adequately formulate the “human.” Feminists have objected that the implicit way of conceiving of the “human” is inherently male, and hence excludes women; cultural rights advocates have argued that human rights are essentially Western, or liberal, or Christian; given either objection, human rights turn out not to apply to all human beings. These critics often point to the history of rights theories, and they often point out that rights were historically envisaged as entitlements of the male propertied class in Western liberal societies. Women and cultural minorities were explicitly excluded from early guarantees of human rights on the basis that they were not considered to be “human.” Modern theories of human rights do not intend a restrictive understanding of the “human,” but the objection remains that their aspirations to universality fail. If human rights are forced to idealize the human, they will almost inevitably run up against problems that follow from the fact of diversity. In its most general form, this objection targets the very idea of universal human rights. If foundational objections are accepted, they have implications for the scope of human rights. This scope objection claims that to the extent that all human beings

share an essence or a nature, it can serve only as a foundation for a minimal account of human rights. The particularities of human lives, and the cultures and attachments that matter to real people exhibit wide variation, and if shared characteristics serve as a unique foundation for human rights, it can only be a minimal foundation. The objection is that no robust normative foundation for human rights can be found by surveying value systems in search of common factors, and hence that a wide scope of content for human rights cannot be supported. This second foundational objection to human rights suggests that the UDHR and International Bill of Rights overreach, and that the content of human rights documents ought only to be minimal. The upshot is a denial that “human” can be cached out in a simultaneously robust and universal way. When examined more closely, feminist and cultural relativist objections to human rights push the content of a doctrine of human rights in opposing directions, and moreover pave the way for a more pragmatic approach to the question of human rights. Feminists have been concerned that rape, and in particular rape as a war crime, has not been prohibited under the central tenets of international human rights law. Hence, the feminist objection might be thought to require more content and a longer list of rights to be included in the international doctrine of human rights. The explanation here is that since rape is a crime that primarily targets women, it has been interpreted as a nonuniversal human right. This objection can be formulated as a demand for the broadening of the content of human rights in order to include all wrongs of a particular weight, rather than restricting human rights to “universal” wrongs understood as wrongs that could be committed against any human being. Opposing pressure to limit the scope of human rights has been articulated under the headings of “Asian values” and “Islamic values” objections. Both of these sets of objections have attempted to reduce the content of human rights by denying the universality of particular rights articulated in the UDHR. In the 1990s, several prominent Asian leaders denied the applicability of political rights such as free speech, freedom of the press, and open elections in the Asian context, suggesting that Asian cultures and values prioritized economic development and social stability over political freedoms. In support of the Asian values objection, theorists appealed to communitarian values that prioritized the group over individual rights. The economic successes of the “Asian Tigers” have been interpreted as vindicating these positions. African leaders have made similar arguments, although in many

Human Rights

such cases neither stability nor economic development has materialized. Whether or not the empirical data demonstrates such restrictions on political freedoms to have economic or social benefits, the central point of these objections remains the suggestion that communities and individual rights have divergent interests, and that some cultures and histories prioritize the community over the individual. This remains a difficult objection to an individualist model of human rights. The Islamic objection to human rights has focused on equal rights of women and religious freedom. On certain interpretations of Islamic Shari’a: women are explicitly subordinate to men, apostasy is prohibited, and marriage partnerships are not individual decisions. Hence, an objection is made to the relevance of human rights provisions for equality between the sexes and for religious liberty in Islamic countries. Given that religion is protected under human rights law, the objection suggests that a problem arises wherever religious practice and individual liberty conflict. This objection relies on a conservative outlook, but one that has garnered serious attention. The objection to sexual equality and freedom in marriage are directly in conflict with women’s rights, although when combined with Asian values objections to political rights such as free speech and other political freedoms, the Islamic objection also hinders the prospects for reform. Both Asian and Islamic objections to human rights ultimately attempt to deny particular content for a doctrine of human rights, and do so on the basis of disputes about fundamental values. These objections deny the universality of particular values that have been enshrined in the International Bill of Rights, but do so by prioritizing other values. One reply points out that the feminist expansionist project along with the Asian and Islamic objections to specified human rights accept the underlying idea of a human right even while the content of certain human rights documents remains under dispute. To the extent that the International Bill of Rights exhibits cultural, religious, or gender bias, particular rights enumerated, or even the documents as a whole may be in dispute. However, the idea of human rights is distinct from the content of any particular human rights agenda, and the doctrine of human rights can withstand the objections of bias when they target specific human rights. That is, these types of Asian values, Islamic values, and feminist objections to particular rights do not invalidate human rights claims as a whole. Another objection to the idea of human rights directly targets the idea of human rights. Abstract individualism is

H

implicit in human rights, it is claimed, and on this basis both feminists and communitarians criticize human rights. Their concern is that the language and doctrine of rights attribute value to the generic characteristics of human beings, and in the process abstract away from the particular attachments and characteristics that are truly valuable in human lives. This objection targets the language of rights generally, and the content of any international human rights doctrine in particular. Perhaps abstract individualism is a fair characterization of some (liberal) societies, but this does not entail a denial of human rights values as a whole. In many cases, some of the rights in question such as free speech and freedom of association might be thought to facilitate the attachments in question. Despite the variety of objection to human rights, they nonetheless remain central conceptual resources in discussions of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Asian Values Debate ▶ Group Rights ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ International Law, Normative Foundations of ▶ Natural Rights

References Bauer J, Bell D (eds) (1999) The East Asian challenge for human rights. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Beitz C (2009) The idea of human rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford Bell D (1996) The East Asian challenge to human rights: reflections on an East West dialogue. Hum Rights Quart 18:641–667 Bielefeldt H (2000) “Western” versus “Islamic” human rights conceptions? Polit Theory 28(1):90–121 Brems E (1997) Enemies or allies? Feminism and cultural relativism as dissident voices in human rights discourse. Hum Rights Quart 19:136–164 Brown C (1999) Universal human rights: a critique. In: Dunne T, Wheeler N (eds) Human rights in global politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Donnelly J (1985) The concept of human rights. St. Martin’s Press, New York Donnelly J (2003) Universal human rights in theory and practice. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Ignatieff M (2001) Human rights as politics and idolatry. Princeton University Press, Princeton MacKinnon C (1993) Crimes of war, crimes of peace. In: Shute S, Hurley S (eds) On human rights: the Oxford Amnesty lectures. Basic Books, New York Pollis A, Schwab P (1980) Human rights: a western construct with limited applicability. In: Pollis A, Schwab P (eds) Human rights: cultural and ideological perspectives. Praeger, New York Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Taylor C (1996) A world consensus on human rights? Dissent 43:15–21

499

H

500

H

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Human Rights Watch (HRW) is, along with Amnesty International, one of the two largest and most influential human rights organizations in the west, and perhaps, in the world. Founded in 1978 as Helsinki Watch, to monitor the Soviet Union’s compliance with the Helsinki Accords, it investigated human rights abuses in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states under the USSR’s domination. In 1981, America’s Watch was founded to monitor human rights abuses in the Western Hemisphere. Investigations and expositions of war crimes by government and rebel groups, and the roles played by governments outside of Latin America, especially by the United States, were conducted. “Watch Committees” were added to the work being done under the auspices of Helsinki Watch and America’s Watch. These included Asia Watch (1985), Africa Watch (1988), and Middle East Watch (1989). In 1988, all of these committees were combined into Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch protects human rights through investigation, authoring reports containing wellresearched and influential analysis, “naming and shaming” governments, addressing government officials as well as the wider public, and working to create the political and legal groundwork for long-term, structural change. As to its reports, HRW is known for publishing material of considerable depth and sophistication on a host of issues, including weapons uses, terrorism, counterterrorism, torture, refugees, migrants, disability rights, international justice, women’s rights, children’s rights, lesbian/gay/ transgendered rights, health issues, press freedom, and the United Nations. HRW was a cofounder of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (1998); the cochair of the International Campaign to Ban Land mines (1992); and is a founding member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (1992); and the Cluster Munition Coalition (2003) which brought about an international convention banning these weapons. With its headquarters in New York City, HRWemploys more than 280 full-time staff, and hires experts as consultants for specific projects. Offices are located around the world, and researchers are based in these offices, or even nearer to the country in which they work. HRW is funded by individuals and does not accept contributions from governments [although this policy was, according to the

NGO Monitor (30 November 2010) violated by support from the Dutch government and Saudi Arabia]. Researchers investigate and monitor human rights conditions in some 80 countries around the world. International media, scholars, governments, and the United Nations often reference the research published by HRW. Human Rights Watch makes frequent detailed recommendations to governments, rebel groups, international institutions, corporations, policymakers, and to the media. They also outline a plan of action each year. Through this work, they pressure abusers to stop violating human rights, holding them accountable to their own populations, the international community, and international law. Human Rights Watch reports that it “tries to strike a balance” between working in countries where human rights abuses are at their worst, and those where they can bring about the most change. Additionally, by creating thematic reports, HRW also reports on the status of rights violations in various countries at once, according to category, for example, in investigating women’s, children’s, refugees’, migrants’, or religious minorities’ rights. Human Rights Watch reports that while its focus has been devoted, historically, to civil and political rights, it has increasingly given attention to social, cultural, and economic rights; in particular, to matters of health, education, and housing. HRW sees its strength in its ability to get lawmakers to change their practices, and therefore, it targets arbitrary or discriminatory governmental policies that result in the violation of these rights. HRW also, then, addresses some of the underlying causes of poverty, such as discrimination, armed conflict, and displacement. HRW created the traveling Human Rights Watch International Film Festival as a part of its educational mission. A package of films and supporting material can be obtained through the HRW Web site. Human Rights Watch differs from Amnesty International in its focus on systemic rights abuses and is more policy oriented; publishing many reports, including an annual “World Report” that addresses the state of human rights worldwide. Amnesty has a very large membership and mobilizes its members to advocate for human rights in a case-by-case manner, through, for example, letter-writing campaigns. In contrast, HRW calls for government actions against other governments, and other policy directives.

Related Topics

▶ Amnesty International ▶ Cairo Declaration of Human Rights ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Global Justice, Subjects of

Human Rights: African Perspectives

▶ High Road for Human Rights ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Rights

References Alson P et al (2007) International human rights in context: law, politics, morals. Oxford University Press, Oxford Beitz C (2009) The idea of human rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford Compa L (2004) Unfair advantage: worker’s freedom of association in the United States under international human rights standards. Human Rights Watch, New York Donnelly J (2003) Universal human rights in theory and practice, 2nd edn. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Freeman M (2002) Human rights: an interdisciplinary approach. Polity Press, Cambridge Human Rights Watch (2008) Shielded from justice: police brutality and accountability in the United States. Human Rights Watch, New York Human Rights Watch (2011) World report 2011. Human Rights Watch, New York Ishay M (2004) The history of human rights: from ancient times to the globalization era. University of California Press, Berkeley Lauren P (2003) The evolution of international human rights: visions seen. The Pennsylvania University Press, Philadelphia Moyn A (2010) The last utopia: human rights in history. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Human Rights: African Perspectives THADDEUS METZ Department of Philosophy, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, Republic of South Africa

The phrase “global justice” can mean at least one of two things. On the one hand, it could mean the idea of giving people their due in a way that transcends national borders, while, on the other hand, it might be construed to indicate ideas of what people are owed as they are understood in different parts of the world. This entry, addressing African perspectives on human rights, primarily concerns the latter, as it discusses the thought and practice of human rights in countries below the Sahara desert. A human right, as understood here, is a natural duty owed to other individuals, a duty that may not be overridden for the sake of marginal gains in ostensibly good consequences and that is grounded on some feature shared with (nearly all) human beings. To have a human right to

H

life, for example, implies that others are ethically forbidden from killing an innocent person for the sake of, say, promoting ethnic purity in a territory or making others feel happier, and that they are forbidden from doing so because of some respect in which this individual is human. Most friends of human rights believe that individuals are morally entitled to, and should be legally entitled to, certain civil liberties (for instance, freedoms of expression, association, bodily integrity), socioeconomic goods (e.g., healthcare, food and water, education), political opportunities (abilities to form political parties, to vote, to hold public office), and criminal procedures (claims to be presumed innocent and to obtain pretrial release, etc.). This entry focuses on African perspectives on human rights, where “African” in the first instance connotes features salient below the Sahara and, more specifically, common among the black peoples who live there. It hence does not focus on the standpoints of, say, those of Arab descent in northern Africa or those of Dutch, English, Portuguese, and other European lineage in southern Africa. It is standard to say of African societies that they are diverse, with nearly four dozen countries, several hundred ethnic groups, and many more languages. But it is also common to remark of sub-Saharan peoples that there are certain features of them that are typical, even if not exhaustive of them all. In particular, it is characteristic of (again, not essential to) them to highlight community in some respect when thinking about morality. At least the three major academic debates one encounters about human rights in an African context are usefully framed in terms how they relate to community in various ways. Specifically, this entry first discusses disputes among moral anthropologists and political scientists about the extent to which human rights were present in precolonial, communal sub-Saharan societies; then it takes up ways in which group-based claims have significantly influenced human rights discourse and observance in post-war Africa; and finally it discusses how professional philosophers in and from Africa have tended to view human rights through communitarian lenses.

Human Rights in Traditional African Societies Indigenous sub-Saharan cultures were typically communal in a way that has led to debate about in which respects, if any, human rights were upheld in them. They were communal in the senses of often exhibiting these kinds of features: consisting of small-scale, preliterate, largely nonindustrial societies with a low, but gendered, division of labor; thinking of obligations largely in terms of kinship relations; holding land ultimately in common and

501

H

502

H

Human Rights: African Perspectives

apportioning it to lineages; considering marriage and procreation to be obligations; seeking to impart a sense of togetherness with others in society; requiring respect for, and even deference to, elders; believing in a spiritual realm that is continuous with the natural, e.g., in the existence of ancestors who have departed their bodies but continue to interact with us (the “living-dead”); responding to breaches of norms primarily so as to repair broken ties, to compensate victims, and to protect the community. To what extent did precolonial societies below the Sahara that exhibited many of these features accord people human rights? A careful enquirer into the debate about how to answer this question should distinguish between the phrase “human rights,” the concept of human rights, and action that is consistent with the concept of human rights but may not be done consequent to an awareness of it. A failure to differentiate systematically between words, ideas, and behaviors has led theorists sometimes to speak past one another in answer to what can now be seen to be the vague question of whether traditional African cultures “believed in” human rights, or of whether human rights “existed” in them. There are a variety of answers to this question in the literature. On the one hand, there is the extreme view that traditional sub-Saharan cultures lacked all of the following: the words (synonymous with) “human rights,” the concept of human rights, and action that is what the concept would prescribe. Those supporting this view tend to claim that these cultures prized the community over the individual, that they deemed their own communities to be of more importance than other communities (viz., thought of themselves as a “chosen” people), and that they accorded individuals within their communities an unequal status (based on, among other things, differential degrees of “personhood,” roughly, moral merit). From this perspective, human rights are a Western invention or discovery, and are not properly described as “African.” On the other hand, there is the opposite extreme, the view that traditional sub-Saharan cultures often exhibited the words (synonymous with) “human rights,” the concept of human rights, and action that was not merely consistent with the concept, but also done in light of it. To buttress this perspective, scholars note that many of these cultures: adopted a kind of democratic decisionmaking, often seeking consensus among elders who were freely chosen by the general populace; welcomed visitors from other villages, readily offering them food and shelter; invariably distributed socioeconomic goods so that everyone’s basic needs were met (subject to favorable environmental conditions); and, most importantly, included

a conception of human dignity among their worldviews. From this standpoint, even if traditional African societies did not do the best job of living up to modern standards of human rights, they have had the concept and acted in accordance with it often enough. Chances are that the truth is somewhere in the middle. It hardly appears as though people outside a given traditional community were considered to be “fair game,” to be used merely as a means to its ends; so there likely has been some widespread idea of universal moral status among human beings. Furthermore, it seems reasonable to say that indigenous sub-Saharan societies often engaged in practices that fit with what a human rights outlook would prescribe, for oppressive dictatorships run for the sake of an elite were relatively infrequent, as was class inequality of a sort that would see some individuals suffer gross deprivation amidst great wealth. However, one encounters talk of “respect” more frequently than “human rights” among traditional sub-Saharans, which suggests that a portion of African moral thought is premised on a conception of human dignity, which, while close to the concept of human rights, is probably not equivalent. And it is, furthermore, plausible to say that Western societies were the first to systematize thinking about human rights and to seek to base social relationships thoroughly on such a basis.

Human Rights in Contemporary African Societies After World War II, sub-Saharan thought and practice with regard to human rights progressed in roughly three major stages. The first stage ranges over the 1950s–1970s, during which a majority of African countries struggled for, and eventually obtained, independence from European colonial powers. During this time, a concern for national self-determination was in many ways primary, with human, viz., individual, rights not taking the forefront of African activism. For example, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was established in 1963, with the purposes of the OAU’s Charter focusing solely on the communion of “African States” and on the legitimate claims of “peoples.” Upon acquiring independence, most African countries soon became led by authoritarian and corrupt governments. Not infrequently, either military regimes obtained power by means of a coup d’etat, or there were single party states in which competing political parties were forbidden, constitutionally or otherwise. In order to retain authoritarian control of the state, civil liberties received scant protection, and, notoriously, economic development by and large failed to flourish as much as ethnic conflict did.

Human Rights: African Perspectives

The second major stage was an era of democratization and liberalization (though not really pacification, with horrific fighting in the Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Sudan). Largely during the 1980s and early 1990s, many African countries adopted multi-party democracies and accorded residents civil liberties such as freedom of the press, freedom of association, and the like which are required for a fair politics. In 1981, the OAU adopted the African (or “Banjul”) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, a document that, as the title suggests, recognizes two kinds of rights, those of individuals and those of groups. The first major section of the Banjul Charter explicitly affirms the dignity of the individual, and lays out several human rights that African states are deemed obligated to protect, including those to be free from actions such as torture, cruel punishment, and arbitrary detainment, and to be free to enjoy a fair trial, to express one’s opinions and associate with others, to participate in the government, and to receive education and healthcare. The second major section adumbrates several rights ascribed to “peoples,” including the rights to exist, to resist oppression, to dispose of natural resources, and to be compensated for dispossession. The document does not define the way to construe “people,” with some in the literature suggesting that it stands for a state, and others contending that it rather refers to a nation, in the sense of a collectivity bound together in various ways beyond territoriality, including linguistically, culturally, psychologically, economically, and historically. Given the way a “human right” has been defined in this entry, peoples’ rights do not count, and they are therefore properly given a different title, as per the Banjul Charter. However, friends of human rights should be interested in them, either because, as some in the literature maintain, group rights are ultimately reducible to rights of individuals, or because, even if they are irreducible, the principles underlying human rights often provide comparable support for peoples’ rights. The two reasons often cited to explain the presence of peoples’ rights in the Banjul Charter are, first, the experience of nearly complete colonial control over the African continent, and, second, the communal worldview of traditional sub-Saharan societies. Although the African experience is no doubt one source of concern for peoples’ rights, it is not the only one; the background motivation for the United Nations’ Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998), which prosecutes genocide and crimes against humanity, was an interest in the rights of peoples. Atrocities such as the Holocaust have similarly prompted theorists in the West to postulate the reality of a group’s claim to be free from certain kinds of treatment. However, the Banjul

H

Charter is unique for not only explicitly speaking of the rights of peoples, but also placing human and peoples’ rights side by side in the same document. For many African theorists, these constitute noteworthy contributions to global thinking about rights, transcending the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The third major stage of post-war African approaches to human rights has been one of accountability, beginning in the late 1990s and continuing into the twenty-first century. Whereas the OAU Charter (1963) includes a principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of other African states without any qualification about humanitarian crimes, and whereas the Banjul Charter (1981) focuses on the ability of a supervisory body (the African Commission) merely to report on contraventions of its provisions, recent formal policy tends to include more stringent mechanisms for preventing and responding to violations of human rights. Examples of fresh tools by which to foster states’ respect for human rights include: the supersession of the OAU by the African Union (AU), which has, among other things, included the protection of human rights among its purposes, approved an African Court of Justice (2000), and sent peacekeeping soldiers to a number of African countries; the creation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) (2001), which formulated a treaty, the African Peer Review Mechanism, whereby AU members agree to be publicly evaluated by one another with regard to good governance (2003); the establishment of a court to enforce the Banjul Charter, the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights, which over two dozen states have now officially recognized as having jurisdiction (2004); and the adoption of the Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, which includes a commission to develop benchmarks for party states, to help fund electoral processes in them, and to assist civil society organizations in serving as partner “watchdogs” (2007).

Human Rights in African Philosophy Do human rights truly exist? Supposing they do, what might fundamentally unify and ground them all? What are the objects of human rights, and which types are more important than others? These are the questions that a philosophy of human rights is designed to answer. There are a variety of philosophies that sub-Saharan academics and intellectuals have developed, with most having done so on the basis of one of two distinguishable values, vitality or community. First, life, and particularly human life, is a value that African thinkers often take as fundamental. This perspective has largely grown out of a traditional, thickly

503

H

504

H

Human Rights: African Perspectives

metaphysical understanding of the universe, according to which everything in the world is permeated by an invisible energy, often translated as “life-force,” that has its source from God, with beings ranked in importance according to how much they have or are capable of having. Of physical beings, human beings (can) have the greatest degree of life-force, with animals having less than them, plants less than animals, rocks less than plants, and so on. Some sub-Saharan theorists believe that it is our vitality, or capacity for it, in virtue of which we have a dignity that demands respect. One need not buy into the spiritual source of this perspective in order to find its basic idea attractive; one might plausibly think that human beings are special in virtue of being capable of exhibiting a superlative degree of: health, strength, growth, reproduction, generation, vibrancy, activity, creativity, selfmotion, courage, and confidence. Human rights, then, do exist, and they just are ways of respecting this capacity for vitality. Put differently, human rights violations roughly consist of ways of stunting or otherwise degrading this capacity, by making people dead, weak, passive, submissive, fearful, insecure, etc. A second philosophical foundation for human rights that is influential among sub-Saharans is an appeal to some kind of communitarian ethic. The phrase widely taken among African societies to capture morality is most often translated (overly) literally as “A person is a person through other persons.” That is a prescription to develop one’s moral personhood, i.e., to become a real human being or to live a genuinely human way of life (famously, to have “ubuntu,” in the Nguni languages of southern Africa), and to do so by entering into community with others. So, one major strand of sub-Saharan thought about morality is concerned with self-realization, but it is far from a Hobbesian or other egoistic ethic, for the only possible way to realize one’s true nature, from this perspective, is to value community. What counts as “community” and how to “value” it appropriately are matters of dispute, with competing interpretations leading to different views of human rights. For example, there are some “corporatists” who believe that there are no human rights, only rights of groups such as a community or people, or, somewhat more weakly, that group rights always or usually trump human rights in cases of conflict. At the other extreme, one will find a handful of African philosophers who believe that properly valuing community is more or less exhausted simply by respecting others’ human rights. Most sub-Saharan thinkers, however, are in between these two poles, tending to believe not only in human rights, but also in peoples’ rights and other

communitarian moral categories that inform or limit human rights in certain ways. For example, some say that an ideal society would not prize individual rights, but would rather seek out the kind of harmony that should characterize familial relationships; these theorists maintain that rights are second-best moral values, to be invoked only when one party fails to live harmoniously. Others say that what gives human beings a dignity is their capacity for sociality with others, where according human rights is one important, but not the only, way of treating this capacity with respect, something that could and should also be done by participating in the community’s way of life. Most African philosophers have argued that these kinds of communitarian views entail a content of human rights that differs in significant ways from traditional Western understandings. For instance, many sub-Saharan political theorists argue that the competitive, multi-party form of democracy ubiquitous in the West, and now fairly prominent in Africa, is unjust. According to this perspective, people’s nature as communal beings would be properly developed or respected only if elected representatives both sought out major policy that would be expected to benefit society as a whole, not merely a constituency, and deemed a law to be valid only if all Parliamentarians consented to it, not merely a majority. A lack of consensus is thought to violate a human right of citizens to representation in the formulation of every major decision by government. Another example of how Afro-communitarian philosophical underpinnings might entail a conception of human rights that differs from standard Anglo-American and European perspectives concerns confidentiality in a medical context. If one has weighty duties to aid family members, including “extended” family members such as aunts, cousins, nephews, and such, then others might plausibly be deemed to have a right to be consulted when one is deciding how to deal with one’s illness, or at least to be informed of one’s decision. A person’s life is not merely his own property to dispose of as he pleases; instead, his obligation to help others might entail that they have a rightful stake in knowing about the state of his health. So, a body of requirements fairly called “human rights” might not include a patient’s right that medical professionals keep his healthrelated information confidential. Finally, some African theorists have contended that the sub-Saharan context of underdevelopment means that welfare rights to food, education, and healthcare should have a weight greater than, or at least equal to, civil liberties of noninterference and political opportunities to participate in government. If one is starving to death and has the choice

Human Security

of free speech and a vote, on the one hand, and food and water, on the other, it would be unreasonable not to prioritize the latter. However, circumstances are rarely that stark. For one, malnourishment is nowadays usually more of a problem on the African continent than is full-blown starvation, and it might be reasonable for those with some, albeit inadequate, nutrition to want a political voice. For another, some researchers point to recent empirical studies suggesting that conditions such as famines occur less frequently under liberal democracies.

Related Topics

▶ Ake, Claude ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Communitarianism ▶ Genocide ▶ Group Rights ▶ Human Rights ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ Indigenous Peoples ▶ National Self-Determination ▶ Political Representation ▶ Post-Colonialism ▶ Rights ▶ Subsidiarity Principle ▶ Ubuntu ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

References Ake C (1987) The African context of human rights. Afr Today 34:5–12 An-Na’im AA, Deng FM (eds) (1990) Human rights in Africa: crosscultural perspectives. The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC Cobbah J (1987) African values and the human rights debate: an African perspective. Hum Rights Quart 9:309–331 Cohen R et al (eds) (1993) Human rights and governance in Africa. University of Florida Press, Gainesville El-Obaid EA, Appiagyei-Atua K (1996) Human rights in Africa: a new perspective on linking the past to the present. McGill Law J 41:819–854 Eze OC (1984) Human rights in Africa: some selected problems. Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and Macmillan Nigeria, Lagos Ilesanmi S (2001) Human rights discourse in modern Africa: a comparative religious ethical perspective. J Religious Ethics 23:293–322 Metz T (2010) Human dignity, capital punishment, and an African moral theory: toward a new philosophy of human rights. J Hum Rights 9:81–99 Murove FM (ed) (2009) African ethics: an anthology for comparative and applied ethics. University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg Shepherd GW, Anikpo M (eds) (1990) Emerging human rights: the African political economy context. Greenwood Press, New York Taiwo O (1996) Legal naturalism: a marxist theory of law. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Welch C, Meltzer R (eds) (1984) Human rights and development in Africa. State University of New York Press, Albany

H

505

Human Security ROBERT W. HOAG Department of Philosophy and Religion, Berea College, Berea, KY, USA

Human security is a recently emergent, multifaceted, multidisciplinary, and controversial framework for understanding and addressing various vulnerabilities and threats to people around the globe. Whether seen as analogue, complement, challenge, or replacement for traditional notions of national security, the human security framework signifies: that individuals, and not (only) states, are a referent for considering security issues in the world; that such a people-centered approach involves addressing multiple kinds and sources of threats or vulnerabilities which are much beyond traditional, narrower emphases on military, macroeconomic, or strategic matters; and that effective means of promoting human security often require different uses of military, economic, developmental, or legal levers than those deployed when using a national security framework for thinking and acting with respect to global issues. Human security first emerged as a prominent concept in the post-Cold War climate of the 1990s from multidisciplinary research in a number of areas (e.g., development studies, international relations, human rights) and from leaders’ recognition of the diverse breadth of global challenges for people around the world: ● Over half the world’s nations practice political repression, torture, or ill treatment, ● Ethnic strife has affected about half the world’s nations, ● Most the world’s people lack sufficient economic assets or resources to meet basic needs, not excluding developed countries, ● Deaths from infectious and parasitic diseases plague developing nations, diseases of the circulatory system claim millions in developed nations, poor rural people (particularly children) suffer disproportionately, and malnutrition, unclean water, insufficient medicine or care are largely responsible, ● Water and air pollution pervasively affect adversely people’s health, and environmental deterioration and global warming also threaten the world’s people. The United Nation’s Development Program’s 1994 Human Development Report (UNDP Report) brought more attention to these issues and the relevance of addressing them in terms of human security, providing an initial, multifaceted characterization of this new, alternative

H

506

H

Human Security

way of thinking about an array of interdependent global issues. Conceptions of human security have subsequently been adopted and adapted by various global development institutions, such as the World Bank; they have affected international approaches to development issues, such as the UN’s 1995 World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen; and they have been incorporated prominently in other significant initiatives, such as the The Responsibility to Protect, the 2001 Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty defense of states’ duties to address myriad threats to persons’ “economic and social well-being” as well as their “physical safety” and fundamental human rights. The initial 1994 articulation of the human security framework by the UNDP Report takes security to be the absence or mitigation of threats or vulnerabilities for individual people, broadly identifying seven categories of threats or vulnerabilities, seven dimensions or facets of human security: ● Economic security, as an assured basic income for individuals, ● Food security, as assured physical and economic access to basic foods needed, ● Health security, as minimum protection from diseases and unhealthy lifestyles, ● Environmental security, as protection from effects of nature itself, man-made threats in nature, and deterioration of the environment, ● Personal security, as protection from physical violence by states and other agents in public and private settings (e.g., domestic abuse, predatory adults), ● Community security, as protection from loss of traditional relationships and values, especially by means of sectarian and ethnic violence aimed at minority ethnic groups or indigenous people, ● Political security, as effective legal and social protection of individuals’ basic human rights. Alluding to U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous 1941 “four freedoms” speech, the Report’s multifaceted characterization of human security explicitly aims to capture both “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want.” Furthermore, the Report maintains, the notion of human security is universal, its dimensions are interdependent, its establishment is better achieved through prevention than intervention, and it is not to be identified with the broader notion of human social development. Though there is no consensus and controversy continues about the very scope of human security as a concept, essential features of this emergent framework are apparent amidst differing descriptions, definitions, or

characterizations. In contrast to traditional state-centered views of security, human security’s breadth and peoplecentered approach brings to the fore threats for and vulnerabilities of most people’s everyday lives – food, health, basic needs, and assets. As a consequence, concrete issues of poverty and gender, for example, are more directly involved in this approach to security when compared to thinking in terms of national security. Second, the categories of threats to human security include not only those tied to states, but also includes non-state sources of threats from other people or from natural disasters and environmental deterioration, whatever the causes; this range of internal, external, natural, and man-made threats or vulnerabilities is far broader than the external military or economic assaults on a state by other states or organizations which are the focus of national security concerns. Third, the breadth, kind, and interdependence of threats to people make the human security framework deemphasize intervention in favor of prevention as a way to address global issues. Even with respect to issues of genocide, ethnic cleansing, or intrastate violence, for example, the emergent framework is invoked by The Responsibility to Protect Report to argue that “more resources, more energy, more competence and more commitment be put into prevention,” that “the international community . . .change its basic mindset from a ‘culture of reaction’ to . . . a ‘culture of prevention’” (}}3.40, 3.42). Finally, effective promotion of human security often requires alternative institutions and implementation mechanisms than those long linked to seeing security issues as state-centered. At the institutional level, the human security framework encourages multiple agents acting to improve people’s lives: not only states or intergovernmental organizations, but also independent nongovernmental organizations, as well as regional, local, or community structures. At levels of policy or action, thinking about issues in terms of human security involves thinking differently about military, economic, developmental, or legal levers in addressing security issues. Thus, The Responsibility to Protect Report argues for a limited right to use military force to address large scale violations of people’s basic human rights; and forms or aims of development programs must think in terms of multiple vulnerabilities and threats to people – food, health, environment, domestic violence, for example – not only about needs or interests of nation-states for weapons or economic growth, for example. Controversy continues to surround the very notion of human security as well as its use as a framework for understanding or addressing global issues. There are concerns about the concept’s vagueness, breadth or scope, the

Human Security

links among its multiple, varied facets, and the lack of neutrality or presence of concomitant values; about priorities within the broad framework when addressing various, complex threats to peoples; about the framework’s usefulness or effectiveness for sound policy decisions and action; about human security’s links to development, human rights, international law, and state sovereignty; about the place of human security, if any, with respect to global order, stability, international society, or traditional notions of national security, for example. One way to see the controversies even among proponents of a broad notion of human security is in terms of the twin freedom foundations for human security, “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want.” Emphasizing the former focuses on issues of violence and basic civil and political human rights; policies, actions, and implementations, then, may acknowledge other root causes of conflict, such as poverty, but address human security primarily in terms of short-term emergency assistance, conflict resolution, peace-building, even armed intervention in the face of genocides, ethnic cleansings, or the anarchy accompanying failed states. Emphasizing the “fear of want,” on the other hand, focuses on issues of food, health and disease, poverty, and natural or environmental disasters; policies and actions, then, lean toward long-term development programs and goals, oft with the additional premise that addressing the “freedom from want” most effectively reduces violence and conflict around the globe. Though surely these two approaches can be and are seen as complementary, a multifaceted, multidimensional notion of human security creates controversy and disagreement about priorities, both for theory or research and for a practical world of deciding how to allocate limited resources to address myriad global issues and threats to people. Indeed, some regard the notion of human security to be so broad, vague, illdefined, as to be impractical, or as too value-laden to be universally useful for establishing policies or programs. There are now also alternative proposals to narrow or unify broad, multifaceted characterizations of human security: for example, to define it as “expectations of years of life without generalized poverty,” or, as a condition of existence with basic material needs met, dignity, and meaningful participation in a community, or as enabling human fulfillment by mitigating critical, pervasive threats to what is at the vital core of all human lives. Continuing controversies about human security often manifest also in how the emergent conception relates to other frameworks for addressing global issues. Perhaps the most contested area of human security is its relationship with development and traditionally accompanying ideas

H

of economic growth, globalization, and free markets. Proponents typically deny that economic growth, for example, promotes human security, while affirming a causal connection between poverty and violence or conflict. Connections between human security and human rights are also a source of disagreement, despite the influence of the latter on the former in their focus on persons and overlapping areas where protection should be accorded. For example, a human rights approach to global issues typically emphasizes law and associated judicial institutions, processes, procedures, a narrower set of concerns and responses than favored by human security proponents. Furthermore, within the human rights framework and international law is controversy about priorities paralleling those about “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want”: as human security advocates disagree about priorities among kinds of threats to persons, so human rights advocates disagree about the relative importance of among the various civil, political, social, economic, and rights. Human security is also controversial because of its implications for state sovereignty, international relations, and global order, as least with respect to traditional emphases on national security and states’ interests. Proponents disagree about whether national security is to be challenged, replaced, subordinated, or complemented by the human security framework. At the very least, though, by introducing transnational standards of security for people, by introducing a people-centered way of thinking about issues long classified as internal or domestic responsibilities of states, by according a prominent role to non-state actors and sources of threats, and by supporting novel programs and policies to address myriad threats to people, the human security framework requires reconfiguring the bounds of all states’ sovereign powers, rights, responsibilities, and reasoning about its domestic and international relations. For example, the 2001 Report, The Responsibility to Protect, invokes human security as ground for recasting each state’s sovereignty as responsibility: to citizens of the state, to the international community, and to people elsewhere if a state fails to discharge its responsibility to protect the lives and safety of its own people. In sum, the human security framework leads to altering states’ and other behavior; it implies altering understandings of international order. About such global change, controversy continues on many grounds, including any effects of change not only on state sovereignty and international relations, but also for order, stability, and peace around the world. Even if the human security framework oft supports ideas, policies, or actions justified also by a national security framework, by focusing on people and diverse kinds of threats vulnerabilities, securities, recently emergent conceptions of

507

H

508

H

Human Trafficking

human security are novel, distinctive ways of thinking about what matters in people’s lives around the world and about many global issues, including those of security.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Needs ▶ Climate Justice ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Dispute Resolution ▶ Essential Medicines, Access to ▶ Food ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Global Public Health ▶ Globalization ▶ Human Rights ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) ▶ International Organizations ▶ Nation Building ▶ National Interest Thesis ▶ Political Realism ▶ Subsistence Rights ▶ World Bank (WB)

References International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001) The responsibility to protect: the report. The International Development Research Centre, Ottawa MacFarlane S, Khong Y (2006) Human security and the UN: a critical history. Indiana University Press, Bloomington McGew A, Poku N (2007) Globalization, development, and human security. Polity, Cambridge Tadjbakhsh S, Chenoy A (eds) (2006) Human security: concepts and implications. Routledge, London Thomas C (2001) Global governance, development, and human security: exploring the links. Third World Q 22:159–175 United Nations Development Program (1994) New dimensions of human security. http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr1994/ Weiss T, Hubert D et al (2001) The responsibility to protect: research, bibliography, and background. The International Development Research Centre, Ottawa

Human Trafficking LYNETTE E. SIEGER Gallatin School, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Human trafficking, also known as modern slavery, is the crime of soliciting, transporting, harboring, and or

receiving of persons for purposes of exploitation. Due to the illicit nature of human trafficking, exact numbers of trafficked persons are unknown and estimates range from hundreds of thousands to millions of people per year. Persons are trafficked for the purposes of sex, marriage, the harvesting of organs, forced conscription as soldiers – including child soldiers – unregulated labor, begging, and adoptions. The perpetration of human trafficking involves a wide range of actors beyond its primary organizers. The success of human trafficking depends upon the corruption of official state actors at various levels from border guards, to police officials, to ambassadors, who are willing to accept or solicit bribes in exchange for facilitation. It further depends upon the continued demand from persons in search of cheap or free labor and other services. International human rights standards and conventions prohibit human trafficking (UN Convention on Transnational Organized Crime (2003) UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children (2000), and Protocol Against Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea, and Air (2002)). In addition to human trafficking being a violation of international law and human rights norms, it often involves transporting of persons from one state into another without proper or legal documentation. The success of charging, prosecuting, and punishing offenders involved in human trafficking depends upon intrastate cooperation and mechanisms such as extraterritorial jurisdiction. Currently 32 countries will prosecute their nationals for engaging in sex tourism crimes committed abroad. The transnational aspects of this crime make it a unique concern in the field of global justice. In her work Human Trafficking: Global Perspectives (2010), Louise Shelley traces how globalization has enabled human trafficking, making it easier now than at any other point in history. Accessible transportation and the low costs of travel have not only made the smuggling of persons viable but it has also had the effect of making them easily replaceable and as such disposable. If a portion of persons are lost en route or early in captivity due to death by disease, dehydration, poor ventilation, or violent force, it is of little concern to traffickers who can cheaply replace one body for another. Furthermore, uneven economic growth, rapidly increasing the gap between the wealthy and the poor, is leaving a large portion of people desperate for work and vulnerable to exploitation without recourse. While the demand for low level or cheap labor in wealthy countries is increasing, barriers of entry for the global poor into affluent economies are also on the rise. These conflicting drives increase the incentives for human traffickers.

Humanitarian Aid

Trafficking occurs in men, women, and children, though women and children are disproportionately represented as its victims. Their low social status, especially of girl children, manifested in unequal distribution of economic and social goods such as education and health care and the lack of property or inheritance rights, make them prime targets for traffickers. Much of exploited labor takes place in what is traditionally viewed as the private sphere. Domestic laborers and sex workers fall victim to entrenched social distinctions between the public and private domain. What is public can be regulated with certain standards of working conditions and treatment; there are established procedures for recourse when things turn unfavorable or unfair for the public worker. Private work on the other hand taking place in the home is a sphere free from regulation, standards, or procedure for recourse (Cheah 2007). Sex equality and women’s rights are intimately connected to human trafficking. The level of violence, torture, sometimes resulting in death, and the contraction of deadly sexually transmitted diseases – particularly AIDS – are cause for alarm because they are human rights and women’s rights violations. Especially morally problematic is the proliferation in sex trafficking in conflict areas with an international peacekeeping or building presence. The introduction of thousands of United Nations, regional organizations, or other international organizations, staff, and peacekeepers; non-governmental aid workers; and private contractors creates a sudden concentration of demand for sexual services. Weak and often corrupt police, judicial, and governmental structures within conflict zones, coupled with the possibility of making large profits off of the disposable incomes of international workers, strongly incentivize the trafficking of girls and women into sex slavery to meet the demand. Peter Andreas, in Blue Helmets and Black Markets, notes that during the reconstruction of Bosnia after the Dayton Peace Agreement, human sex trafficking patterns followed peacekeeper deployment patterns. Andreas includes evidence of peacekeepers from various states, including the United States, purchasing girls or women for domestic and sex slavery for the duration of their stay (Andreas 2008). Sex slavery perpetrated by actors who enter conflict areas as part of a humanitarian effort is especially perverse. If the problem of human trafficking is to be overcome, it must involve a shift in will and resolve of actors at all levels. States must commit resources, and enforcement mechanisms, as well as international cooperation to assert the force of rule of law behind bringing trafficking to an end. Consumer conscientiousness must also rise to the challenge and reject cheap goods, made available at low cost to wealthy

H

509

consumers at the expense of exploitative labor. Reform toward better human rights training and greater transparency and accountability of the conduct of international workers in conflict zones must also be a priority. Perhaps most significantly, a shift in the social status of women and children is necessary to prevent escalation, perpetuation, or future recurrence of modern slavery.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Rights ▶ Equality ▶ Fairness ▶ Poverty ▶ Slavery ▶ United Nations: Peacekeeping and Peace Building

References Andreas P (2008) Blue helmets and black markets: the business of survival in the siege of Sarajevo. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Aronowitz AA (2009) Human trafficking, human misery: the global trade in human beings. Praeger, Westport Bales K, Soodalter R (2010) The slave next door: human trafficking and slavery in America today, with a new preface. California University Press, Berkeley Cheah Ph (2007) Inhuman conditions: on cosmopolitanism and human rights. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Shelley L (2010) Human trafficking: a global perspective. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge United Nations (2000) Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children supplementing the United Nations convention against transnational organized crime United Nations (2002) Protocol against the smuggling of migrants by land, sea and air, supplementing the United Nations convention against transnational organized crime United Nations (2003) Convention on transnational organized crime

Humanitarian Aid JENNIFER SZENDE Department of Philosophy, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

In a just world, humanitarian aid would not be necessary. Yet, there is broad international consensus that humanitarian need exists, and that humanitarian aid ought to be part of the response. Human beings have basic needs in order for life itself to be possible, including the need for clean water, food, shelter, and basic health. These basic needs are not controversial. But when human beings are deprived of basic needs, whether as a result of poverty,

H

510

H

Humanitarian Aid

natural disaster, or state and government failure, there is less agreement about the appropriate global response. Humanitarian aid, in its many forms, is offered as a solution to the tragedy and urgency of basic human need, especially when these have external causes. Humanitarian aid might be distinguished from development aid by the immediacy of the need that it aims to remedy, and by the lack of long-term development goals. Humanitarian aid differs from humanitarian intervention by the means chosen to alleviate human suffering. Yet, humanitarian aid, development aid, and humanitarian intervention nonetheless sit along a continuum of assistance to the neediest populations in the world. The central debates surrounding humanitarian aid focus on the question of who ought to provide the aid, and what form the aid should take. Whether the source of aid is a multilateral organization, in particular the UN, a state government, or state-run development organization, a nongovernmental organization such as a charity, or individual person-to-person assistance, humanitarian aid provides relief in order to alleviate human need and suffering. Humanitarian aid and provision of basic human needs may take many forms including provision of money, food, seed, clean water, irrigation, training of medical professionals, medical services and equipment, building materials and expertise, other forms of professional expertise, and security. These and other forms of aid can be provided on a humanitarian basis by different types of agencies or agents, and each combination of agent and means has its pros and cons.

Charity On some accounts, the question of humanitarian aid is essentially equivalent to the question of charity, a moral duty that is well established in the history of political philosophy. Individual donations to nongovernmental organizations are clearly permissible ways of alleviating basic human suffering, and a network of NGOs and religious organizations throughout the world attempt to provide for the full spectrum of human needs. However, the concern remains that this may be an inefficient way of providing humanitarian aid. First, individual donations are typically too small to provide for a great many human needs. Second, NGOs vary as to the percentage of their budget that goes directly toward aid as opposed to administrative costs. Hence, a network of donations is typically needed in order to make an impact, but the management of such a network has administrative cost that in turn detracts from the efficiency of individual donations. Finally, on many accounts, charity is purely optional and to the extent that it can be construed as a duty, the

imperfect duty of charity may be discharged in ways that have minimal impact on global suffering or poverty, perhaps because they have a local focus.

Government Aid As an alternative, government aid and multilateral aid provide one way of avoiding the efficiency objections to the charity model of humanitarian aid. Moreover, government aid agencies and international aid agencies are typically much larger than individual charities, and hence have the capacity to take on much larger projects. However, humanitarian aid advanced as an instrument of foreign policy faces many of the same objections as humanitarian intervention, given the shared theoretical background in theories of international relations and foreign policy. Government aid, in particular, faces objections from both the donor perspective and the recipient perspective. At the recipient end, there is a concern that state sovereignty is violated by any form of intervention by one state in the internal affairs of another. If one state provides funding or aid to another state, but without specifying how it is to be used, there is a perceived danger of the misuse of funds – as when a tyrannical government uses foreign aid to bolster the position of individuals favorable to the regime. In order to avoid such misuse of funds, aid is often conditional or tied, but this gives rise to a potential violation of sovereignty. Conditional aid may require the recipient state to meet certain conditions prior to receiving any aid, or may require the recipient state to use the aid in specified ways. Tied aid explicitly requires the recipient state to use companies or materials from the donor country. Many such forms of conditional and tied aid are clearly coercive, and so are accused of violating the sovereignty of the recipient state. Even when aid is simply provided in a non-fungible format such as in the form of expertise or food, the donor state can be accused of coercing the recipient and violating its sovereignty. Yet, the coerciveness of aid has not been taken as a conclusive objection to aid, because the possibility exists that even in conditional and tied forms, humanitarian aid may still achieve its stated purpose of alleviating human need and suffering. These violations of state sovereignty are a reason to object to humanitarian aid, but might still be justifiable where the relief of suffering is judged to outweigh the violation of sovereignty. At the donor end, there is a concern about the legitimacy of a state using its own resources to help noncitizens or people in another country. On a social contract theory of the state, the state is justified by reference to the collective interests of the citizens. The concern voiced is that a state gathers its resources either explicitly or implicitly for the benefit of its own citizens. The state’s assets

Humanitarian Aid

include natural resources and taxation, which are typically either claimed in common or for the collective good of the state. In either case, the state’s putative ownership or stewardship over state assets is justified by reference to the state’s relationship with its citizens. On many theories of state legitimacy, resources that are provided to another state or to other outsiders violate the legitimate use of state resources by benefiting non-citizens. It may be argued that citizens have an interest in the well-being of others including non-citizens, but such interests are difficult to explain as falling within the purview of the state or government’s legitimate use of coercion, and moreover as fitting among the state’s legitimate uses of resources.

Disaster Relief The acute need that motivates humanitarian aid is usually caused by a combination of factors, yet humanitarian aid from any source can be easier to motivate when the cause is perceived to be a natural disaster. There is a great deal of debate over the extent to which “disasters” are ever the ultimate cause of famine and suffering. Disasters that lead to humanitarian need may be more likely to occur in underdeveloped countries because natural disasters are more likely to cause human suffering when in combination with inequality, civil war, lack of infrastructure, failed governments, and systematic violations of human rights. Yet, when humanitarian aid is couched in terms of famine relief or disaster relief, it is less likely to be accused of coercion or violation of sovereignty. Natural disasters, including droughts, earthquakes, tropical storms, and floods, are nobody’s fault; hence the choice to donate, and the choice to accept donations, can be portrayed as nonpolitical and effectively neutral. Whether or not the effects of natural disasters on suffering can be similarly divorced from the political is less clear. However, given the combination of perceived neutrality and urgent human suffering, disaster relief campaigns are most likely to generate sufficient funds to be effective in relieving short-term suffering and the immediate effects of a natural disaster. Unfortunately, in the same instances, aid is also least likely to be effective in making a long-term impact on development and the underlying causes of suffering, precisely because disaster is most likely to cause suffering as a proximate but not ultimate cause. So, the concern remains that humanitarian aid in cases of natural disaster may ultimately fail to have any effect on the ultimate causes of human suffering.

A Duty to Assist If aid is deemed permissible for a government or an individual, a question arises as to the strength of the

H

duty or obligation to provide aid in the face of extreme need. Peter Singer (1972) develops a strong argument for an individual duty to provide aid by suggesting that every individual ought to prevent harm whenever preventing harm is possible without major sacrifice. Singer’s utilitarian principle of harm prevention suggests a universal duty to prevent harm, in addition to our obvious duties not to directly cause harm. For Singer, the duty to provide aid is not a matter of charity but of obligation given the reality that a lack of aid entails inevitable suffering. As individuals, if we fail to prevent harm, yet we do not directly cause harm in our daily lives, we nonetheless do something morally wrong. John Rawls (1999) posits a duty to assist other peoples living under unfavorable conditions, although the duty only applies if those unfavorable conditions prevent a just or decent regime. According to Rawls, the duty bearer is a “people” or national group. Rawls emphasizes that the focus of this duty to assist is institutional: The aim of the duty to assist is the realization of just institutions, and this must be pursued in noncoercive ways. For both Rawls and Singer, humanitarian aid falls under the moral category of a duty to assist, but the two differ as to the type of agent that is required to give aid. Immanuel Kant’s (1785) analysis of a duty of charity remains apt, given the form of the duty suggested by these accounts. Even if we can construe a universal duty of charity, the duty remains imperfect in two senses. We can discharge a duty of charity when we wish; hence we may not discharge the duty at a time of greatest need. And secondly, we can discharge a duty of charity to whomever we choose; hence we may not discharge our duty to the person or group in greatest need. On both counts, the duty to assist can be discharged without assisting the person in greatest need, and so suffering can persist even when the duty to assist has been discharged. In the unjust world we live in, it is clear that humanitarian aid will continue to be required. Global justice therefore requires both that we provide humanitarian aid as needed, and continue to work toward a world where humanitarian aid would not be needed. To that end, humanitarian aid must work in conjunction with development aid to ensure that both the short-term goal of alleviating suffering and the long-term goal of preventing further suffering can be achieved.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Needs ▶ Charity ▶ Coercion ▶ Duties of Assistance

511

H

512

H

Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military

▶ Duties, Perfect and Imperfect ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ Poverty ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Singer, Peter ▶ Sovereignty

References Chatterjee D (ed) (2004) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Jamieson D (2005) Duties to the distant: aid, assistance, and intervention in the developing world. J Ethics 9(1/2):151–170 Kant I (1785) Groundwok for the metaphysics of morals Kilby C (1999) Aid and sovereignty. Soc Theory Pract 25(1):79–92 Morgenthau H (1962) A political theory of foreign aid. Am Polit Sci Rev 56(2):301–309 O’Neill O (2000) Bounds of justice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights. Blackwell, London Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Singer P (1972) Famine, affluence and morality. In: Philosophy and public affairs, pp 229–243 Wenar L (2003) What we owe to distant others. Polit Philos Econ 2:283–304

Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

The concept of humanitarian intervention to prevent abuses of human rights has an expanding range of nonmilitary instances and applications. But, in spite of this, the definition of such intervention continues to be heavily biased toward its military variant. Indeed, humanitarian intervention is usually defined as forcible or coercive infringement of a state’s sovereignty by some external agency for the sake of preventing abuses of human rights. Here the external agency is usually understood as an intergovernmental body, such as the United Nations, or a coalition of states, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or a regional body, such as the African Union. As the target of external coercion, the state is understood as the source of inhumanity against some section of its own population, where the inhumanity is a matter of official state policy. The aim of external coercion is to effect a change in official state policy and, in so

doing, end the human rights abuses that are the direct result of that policy. This aim applies not just to the case of military coercion through air raids or armed interdictions of heads of state. It applies also in the case of nonmilitary coercion ranging from economic boycotts, or sanctions, to the withholding of developmental aid by other states, the United Nations, or regional bodies. Such coercion may even apply to making aid, in the form of loans, conditional upon policy change within an offending state by external agencies without any military capacity or mandate, such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. In all of these cases, nonmilitary coercive humanitarian intervention remains strictly within the familiar paradigm of state sovereignty. Remaining within this paradigm, nonmilitary interventions adhere to the justificatory framework of jus ad bellum, which are typically employed to determine the legitimacy of military interventions. By contrast with this state-based conception of intervention, however, nonmilitary interventions may also be said to assume a distinctly post-sovereign character. This emerges initially in the notion of nonmilitary noncoercive humanitarian intervention, as consisting neither in bombs nor boycotts, but rather education through global mass media, or cross-cultural dialogue. Here the sovereignty paradigm is abandoned at least to the extent that the state is no longer taken as the source of inhumanity. Instead, this is taken to be culture, or, more specifically, social practices, such as female genital cutting, conducted within the borders of a sovereign state, while not actively supported by any policy of the state. Such interventions may just as well be undertaken by nongovernmental or governmental organizations or agencies. Indeed, this shift in focus from the state to culture points away from just war criteria as basis for justifying intervention to the more dialogical framework of deliberative global politics. Once it is allowed that intervention may address different sources of inhumanity aside from the state, the concept of intervention may be said to take on a peculiarly recursive and even democratically selfcorrecting character. Nongovernmental and global civil society actors may direct their interventions not only toward questionable cultural practices, but also the interventionist policies of governmental and intergovernmental agencies when these prove questionable from a humanitarian standpoint. This democratically recursive feature of such intervention becomes highly relevant in cases in which the more standard kinds of intervention actually make the humanitarian situation worse. This entry is divided into two sections. The first discusses nonmilitary humanitarian intervention within the sovereignty paradigm, stressing its relationship to jus ad

Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military

bellum, while the second discusses such intervention from the standpoint of emerging post-sovereign global politics.

Nonmilitary Humanitarian Intervention Within the Sovereignty Paradigm A strong symmetry exists between the justificatory criteria of military and nonmilitary coercive humanitarian intervention. Indeed, in both cases, interventions infringing upon state sovereignty are typically conceived as having to satisfy the jus ad bellum criteria of just cause, right intention, proportionality, and reasonable hope of success. That is, whether undertaken through bombs or boycotts, any legitimate external coercion of sovereignty is expected to satisfy the just cause criterion, such that the intervention is clearly an expression of the international community’s “responsibility to protect” the innocent from extreme or “gross” human rights violations. It must also satisfy the right intention criterion in that the motivation for the intervention is the creation of a just peace, and not merely political and economic power and profit. In addition, it must satisfy the proportionality criterion requiring that the intervention must consequentially do more good than harm. As closely related to proportionality, the intervention must satisfy the reasonable hope criterion requiring a feasibility assessment of its potential for success in achieving the goal of protecting the human rights of innocents endangered by the sovereignty claim of the state targeted for intervention. Here a relatively noncontroversial example of a nonmilitary coercive humanitarian intervention is to be found in the various campaigns of sanctions and boycotts against South Africa during the Apartheid era. Indeed, not only do these diverse campaigns undertaken by leading nation states, the United Nations, and global publics provide a model of justification according to jus ad bellum criteria, but they are widely regarded as a notable success for this type of intervention. While not rising to the level of the grossest of human rights violations, that is, genocide, the overtly racist policies of South Africa, including the denial of basic civil rights to the country’s Black majority and their forcible confinement in Bantustans, clearly provided just cause for external coercive intervention. Moreover, the various interventions, ranging from corporate disinvestment, oil and arms embargoes, to consumer boycotts, were widely understood as adhering to the right intention of ending Apartheid policies in South Africa, as opposed to seeking power and profit. To be sure, proportionality proved to be more controversial, with concerns often being voiced about the effects of sanctions on the Black population, although these concerns were answered by support for sanctions by the

H

Black opposition African National Congress. Finally, reasonable hope was satisfied insofar as the feasibility assessment of the campaigns was indeed borne out by the end of Apartheid in 1990 and the creation of a just peace in the transition of South Africa to democracy. Indeed, this may well give the impression that jus ad bellum criteria provide an adequate justificatory basis for nonmilitary coercion for humanitarian ends. However, such a judgment of adequacy may also be powerfully contested by looking at another example. Here it is salutary to contrast the “success story” of the sanctions campaigns against Apartheid South Africa with the UN sanctions against Iraq, following the latter’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Whereas the anti-Apartheid campaigns evolved slowly, gaining in many separate stages multiple levels and kinds of support over a 30-year struggle, the sanctions regime against Iraq come into being immediately by two resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. Imposing the toughest and most comprehensive sanctions regime in history, these resolutions soon became highly controversial from the perspective of jus ad bellum criteria. While the first resolution appealed to an unambiguous just cause in promoting the self-defense right of the Kuwaiti people suffering Iraqi occupation, the second elaborated the sanctions regime by stressing disclosure and elimination of Weapons of Mass Destruction by Iraq, after it had been driven from Kuwait by a US-led military coalition. This elaboration of the sanctions regime led to growing skepticism so far as right intention was concerned, and to increasingly trenchant accusations that leading voices in the Security Council sought political and economic profit through its continuation. Subsequent arguments made primarily in the United States to the effect that the purpose of the sanctions regime should be seen as going beyond anything actually stated in the second resolution to the removal from power of the Iraqi government, as a source of inhumanity to the Iraqi people, did little more than raise further suspicions. Indeed, the most pointed criticism of the sanctions regime came to focus on the idea that the language of humanitarianism was simply being co-opted in the service of a “new imperialism.” Such criticism appeared to gain plausibility from growing evidence of a gross violation of the proportionality criterion with an astonishing increase in mortality rates among Iraqi infants and children. Here fuel was added to the fire by the seemingly callous defense of Iraqi infant mortality as an acceptable cost of sanctions by the US secretary of defense, Madeline Albright. As for reasonable hope, the cost to the Iraqi people in the lives of their children was not even mitigated by the success of sanctions in achieving either their non-express or express

513

H

514

H

Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military

goals. After 13 years, the sanctions regime concluded only with the US-led military overthrow of the Iraqi government in an operation that revealed an absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Here it could well be argued, of course, that the example of sanctions against Iraq does not demonstrate the inadequacy of jus ad bellum criteria as the justificatory basis of nonmilitary coercive humanitarian interventions. At most, it might be said to demonstrate that sanctions against Iraq failed to satisfy these criteria. Indeed, the only relevant difference between the cases of sanctions against South Africa and against Iraq is that the criteria were satisfied in one case but not the other, such that they amounted respectively to cases of justifiable and unjustifiable resort to nonmilitary coercion, infringing upon state sovereignty. This, however, surely understates to the extent to which the criteria are vulnerable to manipulation insofar as they fail to state the conditions for testing their legitimate application. A relevant difference, easily overlooked by an exclusive focus on jus ad bellum criteria, is the extent to which the application of these criteria was legitimated through broad deliberative processes of testing across various levels of participation in the diverse sanctions campaigns against Apartheid South Africa. Indeed, such deliberative global testing was less clearly a feature of the sanctions regime against Iraq, as issued from an intergovernmental resolution, which gradually generated more global public opposition than support. I shall elaborate on the idea of deliberative global testing as a condition of justification and legitimacy independent of jus ad bellum in the next section. I conclude this section, however, by turning to a perhaps less familiar instance of nonmilitary coercion, that is, the use of such coercion by intergovernmental agencies lacking military capacities but claiming epistemic expertise in reconstructing the economies of impoverished states. Beginning in the late 1970s, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank adopted programs of coercive “conditionalities” and “structural adjustments,” linking aid and development loans to the market liberalization of the economies of many Southern hemisphere and Third World countries. Here the purpose of resort to coercion was not to sanction sovereign governments in order to end policies that explicitly abused human rights, but rather to compel governments to adopt the economic prescriptions of the intervening intergovernmentals. Indeed, resort to coercion satisfied just cause insofar as it aimed at ending world poverty, as a specific mandate of the World Bank, where such poverty was viewed primarily as a function of the errant policies, and administrative incompetencies, of those states targeted for

intervention. Interventions were motivated by right intention in that they aimed at the economic interests of the targeted state, as opposed to the intervening agencies, and sought proportionality in the anticipated increase in the health and prosperity of its population. Feasibility assessments for success were grounded in the historical success of free markets in generating wealth in the developed, industrialized world. Nonetheless, coercion of sovereign states by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank with the humanitarian goal of ending world poverty suffered a similar fate to the United Nations sanctions regime against Iraq. Indeed, coercive structural adjustments imposed by the former agencies became the focus of growing suspicion and global opposition, as proportionality and reasonable hope were violated by the balance sheet of intervention. This included extensive capital flight, collapse of manufactures, marginal or negative increase in exports, along with loss of public services, and declining real wages among many of the world’s poorest inhabitants. Such reactions and outcomes could, again, be dismissed as the result of a misapplication of the justificatory criteria for external infringements of sovereignty. But a growing consensus among leading political theorists is that the failure of such interventions is a symptom of the larger problematic of global justice and, in particular, the general lack of accountability among elite post-sovereign decision-makers. The legitimacy of justifications for intervention thus depends on creating more, and more varied, opportunities for accountability and testing with respect to decisions that infringe upon sovereignty and transcend state borders.

Nonmilitary Intervention Beyond the Sovereignty Paradigm A conceptual clue as to how more extensive accountability and testing may be built into open processes of legitimizing humanitarian intervention can be provided by considering noncoercive intervention. Here intervention is directed not toward the state, but rather culture, as the source of inhumanity. As such a source, culture, unlike a state, lacks the defining features of a “target” of intervention suitable for assessment by jus ad bellum, that is, singular, well-defined, clearly distinguishable from the victims of the humanitarian abuse. Instead, culture is plural, less well-defined, and much less clearly distinguishable from the “victims,” who are themselves in one way or another to be counted among the participants in its long-standing social practices. Such practices cannot plausibly be ended swiftly by a change of government policy; neither can they plausibly be ended simply by issuing an intergovernmental resolution. Indeed,

Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military

as manifestations of disparate habits, dispositions, and particular understandings of what makes sense of the world, social practices are resistant to legalistic control through governmental policy-decisions. They are also often resistant to noncoercive strategies for intervention by Nongovernmental Organizations with educational humanitarian mandates, concerned with teaching the participants that the practice fails to meet globally recognized standards of respect for the person of all individual human beings. This is especially true in the case of noncoercive educational interventions concerned with ending the practice of female genital cutting in certain parts of subSaharan Africa, as a culturally based violation of the universal human rights of women to security of bodily integrity. Contrary to assumptions and expectations among the usually Western representatives of the intervening agencies, genital cutting has been defended by some female participants in the practice. Indeed, it has been defended as necessary to the flourishing of young women, as culturally situated human beings, who would not otherwise be eligible for marriage and complete integration into those communities in which their lives acquire meaning. Here educational approaches emphasizing the ways in which a practice violates global humanitarian standards can all too easily be dismissed as misrecognition or failure to appreciate the particular situation of the women involved, and their perceptions of their own needs. Noncoercive intervention regarding genital cutting have, however, encountered some considerable success on the alternative deliberative model of cross-cultural dialogue, concerned with changing the terms and assumptions of a given practice by engaging precisely the situation and needs of the participants. In Senegal, for instance, the practice of genital cutting was ended by noncoercive deliberative interventions that facilitated contractual agreements among families to regard young women who have not been cut as nonetheless eligible for marriage. Such contracts removing the underlying assumption that genital cutting was a requirement of marriage eligibility were organized by the women themselves, and validated through ceremonies abandoning the practice. Here the success of this dialogical approach depends on the intervening agent adopting a certain participatory stance, not in the culture itself but a meta-practice of crossing and joining the terms of humanitarian discourse regarding the integrity of individual persons with local problems and concerns. This emphasis on intervention as participation in an open critical meta-practice of deliberative engagement across divergent “worldviews” points well beyond the case of deliberative intervention in culture as a source of

H

inhumanity in addition to the state. Indeed, specifically deliberative interventions contesting the assumptions of practices through which people make sense of the world can just as well be extended to those assumptions guiding the interventionist practices of elite post-sovereign decision-makers. As discussed in the previous section, such coercive practices may themselves sometimes become sources of inhumanity, in spite of their best intentions, generating questionable humanitarian outcomes, and failing to win global legitimacy. Here nonmilitary noncoercive deliberative interventions that challenge the terms and assumptions of elite decision-makers establish a strong connection to the possibility of more extensive accountability in the process of legitimizing humanitarian interventions generally. This, at any rate, is surely the case with respect to the emerging phenomena of global publics, consisting of diverse nongovernmental and civil society actors, which organize transnationally to contest the guiding terms and assumptions of draconian sanctions regimes or loan-conditionalities. Indeed, the contestatory interventions of global publics effectively tie the concept of intervention for humanitarian ends into the dialogical framework of deliberative global politics. In this post-sovereign mode of political engagement, global publics seek to engage elite global decision-makers in a meta-practice of crossing and joining the assumptions of many different kinds of concerned or affected participants in the project of global justice. The engagement consists in crossing and joining assumptions in order to test that humanitarian intentions remain accountable to the particular situation and concerns of those on whose behalf an intervention is undertaken. The result is a peculiarly recursive meta-practice of intervening in interventions that have gone sour, appealing not to infringement of sovereignty and jus ad bellum but rather the justificatory ideal of transnational democratic deliberation and communicative action in the global public sphere.

Conclusion In sum, the concept of nonmilitary humanitarian intervention may be said to acquire a range of novel instances and applications in the emerging post-sovereign global politics. Reaching beyond the sovereignty paradigm and jus ad bellum to democratic deliberation in the global public sphere, such intervention provides a way to address the larger problematic of global justice, as the deficit of democratic self-correction through wide-ranging testing and accountability in the decision-making of elite intergovernmental agencies with powers of coercive intervention. Here the noncoercive form of humanitarian intervention, emphasizing critical and dialogical

515

H

516

H

Humanitarian Military Intervention

contestations of the terms and assumptions of divergent worldviews and concerns, emerges as the most relevant form of such nonmilitary efforts to protect human rights.

Related Topics

▶ Civil Disobedience, Transnational ▶ Democracy, Transnational ▶ Global Public ▶ Human Rights ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ Jus ad Bellum

References Blizek WL, Conces RJ (1996) Ethics and sovereignty. Int Third World Stud J Rev 8:1–11 Caney S (2005) Justice beyond borders: a global political theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Conces RJ (2001) Justifying Coercive and Non-Coercive Intervention: Strategic and Humanitarian Arguments. Act Anal 16(27):133–152 Dryzek JS (2006) Deliberative global politics. Polity, Cambridge Smith MJ (1998) Humanitarian intervention: an overview of the issues. Ethics Int Aff 12(1):63–79

Humanitarian Military Intervention JENNIFER SZENDE Department of Philosophy, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

Humanitarian military intervention is a violation of the strict sovereignty of a state, defined as humanitarian by its aim of remedying or preventing human rights violations. The humanitarian aim is necessary for distinguishing the intervention from various acts of military aggression that are strictly prohibited by international law and convention. Humanitarian military intervention is often understood to constitute a noteworthy application of just war theory, and, on many accounts, represents an exception to the prohibition on the use of military force in international relations. Within the just war tradition, humanitarian intervention is distinguished from wars of conquest by its humanitarian aim, and from humanitarian assistance by virtue of forcefully violating state sovereignty.

History The modern debate over humanitarian intervention has its origins in the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. The Treaty of Westphalia crystallized and codified what has remained

the dominant understanding of state sovereignty, positing a prohibition on interventions in the affairs of any other state. Under the Westphalian tradition, states are understood as equal independent entities, entitled to self-determination and to territorial sovereignty. Violation of any of these principles is thought to jeopardize international peace and to destabilize the international system, and the principle of the nonintervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state is consequently held to be absolute. However, even theorists operating under a Westphalian understanding of sovereignty have debated the permissibility of intervention for humanitarian purposes. John Stuart Mill argues that intervention is generally not permissible precisely because it violates the self-determination of a people. However, revolution is permissible to the extent that it seeks to affirm selfdetermination, and intervention to restore the balance of power in a civil war may be permissible when a conflict has already been complicated by foreign interference. The Second World War brought about the introduction of the modern concepts of “human rights” and “crimes against humanity,” both of which have ramifications for the justification of humanitarian military intervention. The introduction of these moral principles into international law alongside the persistence of the Westphalian system has generated a tension. Under the Westphalian system, sovereignty is absolute and whosoever controls power within a territory can do with that power as they will. However, the concepts of human rights and crimes against humanity suggest that sovereignty has limitations and that certain uses of power will not be tolerated by the international community. The question of the permissibility of humanitarian intervention has been generated by this tension: State sovereignty is understood to be absolute, and yet taken to be limited by human rights. Along with the language and norms of human rights, a new question has emerged about the justice of humanitarian intervention. Michael Walzer (1977) argues that humanitarian intervention is justifiable when it is a response to morally deplorable situations such as enslavement or massacre. In such cases, community self-determination is impossible and the justification for the principle of nonintervention is therefore undermined. Sovereignty, understood in terms of self-determination, is simply not at stake in such cases. Hence, Walzer argues that intervention to stop genocide or massacre is not a violation of sovereignty. Fernando Teso´n (2005) goes further, arguing that humanitarian intervention may sometimes be a duty on the part of the international community. Teso´n claims that

Humanitarian Military Intervention

H

there is a general duty to assist the victims of injustice and that, where intervention is needed to remedy injustice and where in addition intervention is feasible and is proportional to the injustice, the general duty to assist the victims of injustice may yield a duty to intervene. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the use of human rights in international relations discourse has exhibited a shift. Human rights are increasingly interpreted as generating obligations on the part of the international community, and these obligations are increasingly interpreted as being limited by other human rights rather than by any absolute rights of the sovereign state. The modern questions about the permissibility of humanitarian intervention, and about a possible duty to intervene, represent a problem for contemporary theories of international relations in general and for just war theory in particular. For Realists in international relations, who deny that moral considerations are ever relevant to questions of international relations, the answer is clear: Humanitarian intervention violates the principle of state sovereignty and is therefore always impermissible. Even when moral considerations are taken into account as they are by non-Realists, there are good reasons to support the principle of nonintervention and a general prohibition on the use of military force in international relations because of the harms that accompany foreign military interference in the domestic affairs of a state. Military intervention carries with it the possibility of deaths of both combatants and noncombatants on both sides. Furthermore, war inevitably causes harms beyond mere physical injury to participants and bystanders on all sides of a conflict. Intervention comes at a substantial financial cost to all parties. Moreover, foreign intervention is likely to damage the ability of a state to view itself as sovereign, and hence compromise its capacity for self-determination. And military intervention has a destabilizing effect on any region in which it occurs. All of these considerations underpin the general prohibition on the use of military force in international relations, as well as the relative strength of the principles of state sovereignty and nonintervention.

Teso´n – the pressing moral wrongs of state-sponsored genocide and other serious human rights violations demand redress, and hence constitute just cause for going to war. Their suggestion is that humanitarian intervention may be permissible when there is a strong enough humanitarian case, when the harms of nonintervention are worse than the foreseeable harms of intervention, and when all nonmilitary solutions have been exhausted. Genocide and other serious violations of human rights thus open a debate about what constitutes just cause for going to war. In deciding whether humanitarian intervention is permissible, the case for intervention will rest primarily on the type and degree of human rights violation that is perceived to be either imminent or actually occurring, and secondarily on other general features of the context. Given that the aim of intervention is essential to defining it as humanitarian, the humanitarian case has to be made first and foremost. To this end, humanitarian intervention can only be justified by pointing to the harm that would be stopped or avoided by intervention. But the bar justifying humanitarian intervention is set extremely high, since the harms of intervention are significant enough that full-scale military intervention cannot be justified as a solution to sporadic or minor human rights violations. Teso´n focuses on the doctrine of proportionality to suggest a threshold level of human rights violations below which humanitarian military intervention is impermissible and above which the question of intervention must be further investigated. Rawls and Walzer define a narrow set of human rights as “basic” or core rights, on the ground that states that violate these rights are undermining their own sovereignty. For all of these theorists, intervention must be decided on a case-by-case basis since no fixed threshold alone can determine the permissibility of humanitarian military intervention prior to holistic analysis of circumstances surrounding human rights violations. For any of these approaches, the underlying structure of the argument is the same: The human interests at stake must be substantial enough to outweigh the harms of humanitarian intervention.

Jus ad Bellum

Jus in Bello

If humanitarian military intervention is ever justifiable, it must have a just cause, known in just war theory as jus ad bellum. A large set of consequentialist and pragmatic considerations may counsel against humanitarian intervention, but the human rights at stake might nonetheless be seen to provide weighty moral reasons for intervention and jus ad bellum. For an increasing variety of theorists – including Walzer, Rawls (1999), and

Any intervention undertaken must obey rules of just means in war, or jus in bello, in order to satisfy the requirements for justifiable humanitarian military intervention. First, the intervention must use means proportional to the humanitarian justification. The doctrine of proportionality requires that any humanitarian response be tailored to both the circumstances and the humanitarian need that justifies it. Some deaths might be

517

H

518

H

Humanitarian Military Intervention

justifiable in order to save lives, but large-scale loss of civilian life would be more difficult to justify in a context of less severe violations of human rights. Hence, Walzer has argued that only genocide and massacres can justify full-scale military intervention, and that lesser human rights violations can only justify nonmilitary forms of intervention. Of course, this conclusion is hotly debated. Secondly, jus in bello requires that humanitarian intervention have a reasonable likelihood of success. Too many simultaneous military engagements would over-extend any particular army, and would make humanitarian military engagement unlikely to be effective in attaining its humanitarian goals. Hence, an already over-extended army ought to refrain from further military interventions, humanitarian or otherwise. But even setting aside the conditions that affect the likelihood of success on the part of the intervening forces, specific conditions within the offending state may make humanitarian intervention unfeasible regardless of the strength or condition of the intervening force. Geography or climate can make intervention less likely to succeed, while military intervention in the affairs of a nuclear power would be fraught with danger, and extremely unlikely to be successful. For these reasons, many agree that intervention should have a reasonable prospect of achieving its goals in order to be justifiable. Finally, humanitarian intervention must be undertaken in a way that is consistent with the doctrine of double effect. Although the harmful consequences of intervention are foreseeable, they ought not to be part of the intention with which the intervention is undertaken. Instead, the targets of legitimate acts of humanitarian military intervention must be carefully considered, and must be justifiable as targets of a humanitarian intervention. Civilian targets are never justifiable targets of humanitarian intervention, even if they would make success more likely.

Problems One objection to humanitarian intervention follows from the possibility of mixed motives. Although humanitarian motivation is essential to justify an intervention, the concern is that additional selfish interests may be at work even when a humanitarian motivation is present. In some cases, it is plausible to suspect that humanitarian motivation provides a convenient excuse for intervention, while masking a state’s pursuit of its own interests. Most advocates of humanitarian intervention concede that mixed motives are unavoidable in international relations, but that in some cases, intervention is still ultimately a response to humanitarian need. These theorists reply

that a humanitarian motive is not nullified by additional motives that operate alongside it. Another problem with the doctrine of humanitarian intervention is that it represents, at best, an imperfect duty. Whether intervention is understood to be a duty or to be merely permissible, it remains underdetermined whose duty it might be. Unfortunately, this means that even if humanitarian military intervention is understood to be morally required, the obligation might nonetheless go unfulfilled because no particular agent takes on the obligation. Advocates of humanitarian military intervention do not view these problems as insurmountable. The obligation to protect, or the duty to rescue victims of injustice would override other objections whenever nonintervention would represent sufficiently serious harm. Although humanitarian military intervention clearly carries with it the possibility of harm, ultimately this ought to be weighed against the serious harm of nonintervention in cases of genocide or massacre. Humanitarian military intervention represents a difficult set of questions for a theory of global justice. On the one hand, a just world would not allow genocide or mass murder to proceed unchecked. On the other, it can be difficult to see how military engagement and war can ever be truly just. In a completely just world, the dilemma would not arise. The question of humanitarian military intervention therefore becomes a question of how best to remedy the injustices of our imperfect world.

Related Topics

▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Genocide ▶ Human Rights ▶ Jus ad Bellum ▶ Jus in Bello ▶ Teso´n, Fernando ▶ Treaty of Westphalia ▶ Walzer, Michael ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Buchanan A (1999) The internal legitimacy of humanitarian intervention. J Polit Philos 7(1):71–87 Chatterjee D, Scheid D (eds) (2003) Ethics and foreign intervention. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Holzgrefe JL, Keohane R (eds) (2003) Humanitarian intervention: ethical, legal, and political dilemmas. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Lang A (ed) (2003) Just intervention. Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC Mill JS (1859) A few words on non-intervention Parekh B (1997) Rethinking humanitarian intervention. Int Polit Sci Rev 18(1):49–69

Huntington, Samuel Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Teso´n F (2005) Humanitarian intervention: an inquiry into law and morality. Transnational Publishers, Dobbs Ferry Walzer M (1977) Just and unjust wars: a moral argument with historical illustrations. Basic Books, New York Welsh J (ed) (2004) Humanitarian intervention and international relations. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Huntington, Samuel WENDY C. HAMBLET Department of Liberal Studies, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, NC, USA

Samuel P. Huntington (April 18, 1927, to December 24, 2008) was an American political scientist, who was an associate professor of government and Deputy Director of The Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University until 1963, when he returned to his alma mater Harvard University, assuming the Albert J. Weatherhead III Chair until his death in 2008. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (1957), The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996a), and Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity (2004). Huntington was highly influential in US politics, challenging the conventional view that recently decolonized nations would evolve with economic and social development into stable democracies. Huntington is best known for his “Clash of Civilizations” theory, first launched as an article in Foreign Affairs magazine (1993) and then later expanded into his 1996 book. The theory describes the geopolitical organization of the post–Cold War era in terms of geological metaphors (“fault lines”) separating the world’s “civilizations” which he names Western, Latin American, Islamic, Chinese, Hindu, Orthodox, Japanese, and “possibly” African. “It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between

H

civilizations will be the battle lines of the future” (Foreign Affairs Vol. 72, No. 3, Summer 1993). The geological metaphors of Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” theory implies the inevitability of conflict between world civilizations whose grounding beliefs are fundamentally opposed. The theory remains highly controversial, but gained greater cachet after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Today the “Clash of Civilizations” theory is regarded by many as the theoretical legitimization of American aggression against China and Islamic cultures and the playbook of American civil-military relations. Critics of the theory note that it legitimizes and promotes the use of violence in foreign affairs and ignores inconvenient historical realities: “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do” (Huntington 1996: 51). During 1977 and 1978, Huntington served the White House Coordinator of Security Planning for the National Security Council, under President Jimmy Carter. Huntington’s last book (2004) applied the culture clash theory to his homeland, warning that largescale Latino immigration was splitting the nation. Huntington is important to the theme of global justice because his starkly “realpolitik” predictions regarding cultural clashes was generally accepted by United States conservatives as accurately foretelling the challenges that would characterize world affairs in coming decades. His dark predictions regarding the threat of Islamic culture and his recommendations of the necessity for the United States to arm itself against such eventualities helped frame the worldview of the industrial-military complex of the United States and to justify such extreme reactionary responses as George W. Bush’s “preemptive” war on Iraq.

Related Topics

▶ Citizenship ▶ World Citizenship ▶ World Government

References Bottici C, Challand B (2010) The myth of the clash of civilizations. Routledge, New York Heck GW (2007) When worlds collide: exploring the ideological and political foundations of the clash of civilizations. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Huntington SP (1996a) The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. Touchstone, New York Huntington SP (ed) (1996b) The clash of civilizations: the debate. Foreign Affairs, New York Rubenstein RE, Crocker J (1994) Challenging Huntington. Foreign Policy 96(Autumn 1994):113–128 Said EW (2001) The clash of ignorance. The Nation 22 October 2001

519

H

I Ideal Moral Theory JULIAN CULP1, NICOLE HASSOUN2 1 Justitia Amplificata–Centre for Advanced Studies, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universita¨t Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany 2 Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

In political philosophy, ideal moral theories (henceforth, simply ideal theories) have traditionally specified the conditions that have to be fulfilled for a state of affairs to be fully just (Rawls 1971: 8, 245, 351; Philips 1985: 551). As such, many suggest that ideal theories provide a long-term moral target at which the agents of justice should aim (Rawls 1971: 245–246, 1999: 89–90; Buchanan 2004: 65). By contrast, many nonideal theories analyze states of affairs that are less than fully just and tell us how to achieve a society that is more, even if not fully, just (Robeyns 2008: 346–349; Stemplowska 2008: 324). Thus, many claim that nonideal theories function as moralities of transition that tell us how to advance justice (Rawls 1971: 244–246, 1999: 89–90; Philips 1985: 551; Buchanan 2004: 67–678). Ideal theories are often criticized for failing to guide political action in the real world as many believe this is a central purpose of a normative theory (Philips 1985; Brennan/ Pettit 2006; Farrelly 2007). This entry first sets out Rawls’s original distinction between ideal and nonideal theory. Second, it discusses the criticism that ideal theory fails to be action-guiding. It then illustrates why this debate may be important for some ideal cosmopolitan theories of justice in particular. There are further methodological questions concerning the use of idealizations in ideal theory that cannot be addressed in this entry (O’Neill 1987, 1996; Goodin 1995; Mills 2005; Schwartzman 2006; Valentini 2009); further, the entry considers only ideal theories of justice although the ideal/nonideal theory distinction might be applied to other kinds of moral and political theories. John Rawls made the ideal/nonideal moral theory distinction famous (Rawls 1971: 7–11, 243–251,

350–355, 541–544). In A Theory of Justice, Rawls suggested that the purpose of ideal theory is to defend principles of justice that characterize a perfectly just society. His ideal theory assumed that everyone will comply fully with the demands of justice and that there are favorable social, natural, and historical circumstances that make the achievement of ideal justice feasible. Rawls’ nonideal theory, on the other hand, considered justice’s demands under conditions that are characterized by partial compliance and unfavorable social, natural, and historical conditions that prevent the realization of ideal justice. Ideal theory is subject to the criticism that it fails to provide guidance for political action in the real world (Philips 1985: 551; Brennan/Pettit 2006: 259–261). On one version of this criticism, the charge is that ideal theory is practically irrelevant. There is a gap between the formulation of a fully just ideal and rules that could guide practical action in our present circumstances (Sen 2006). On Rawls’ theory, for example, it is only if all people were to comply with justice’s demands that ideal principles of justice would be capable of guiding political action. In the absence of these ideal conditions, however, the charge is that Rawls’ ideal theory is of no practical use (Philips 1985: 551, Brennan/Pettit 2006: 259–261). In response, some point out that the aim of political philosophy should be epistemic and not merely practical: principles of justice should formulate fundamental moral truths regardless of whether these can be achieved under present conditions (Cohen 2003: 243; 2008: 267–277, 307–308; Mason 2004: 253–255; Swift 2008: 366–368). Another possible defense of ideal theory points to the fact that ideal theory prevents theorists from endorsing illegitimately conservative accounts of justice. Focusing too narrowly on presently existent political alternatives that fall short of full justice may even be immoral (Hassoun 2009). By drawing upon a conception of ideal justice it may be possible to demand the removal of constraints that inhibit the achievement of ideal justice under given circumstances. To illustrate, suppose that in an ideal world there would be no child labor or prostitution. Rather, all children would go to school. In the real world, however, some argue against ending child labor because the children we forbid to work may suffer more than if

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

522

I

Ideal Moral Theory

they were allowed to work. Without work children might, for example, be forced into prostitution. But that this would be so, holding everything else fixed, does not mean we should not try to end child labor. What it may show is that we should try to end child labor and help educate the children we liberate. If someone says that we do not have the resources to do this, then perhaps we should try to find the resources – that may be what justice requires. There are times when we should not do what is best in nonideal circumstances because doing that conditionalizes on facts that we can and should change. Ideal theory has some practical significance because it reminds us to keep searching for ways of removing barriers to the implementation of ideal justice (Hassoun 2009). Some suggest that ideal principles lead to undesirable results when they are applied in nonideal conditions, but this is not the fault of ideal theories themselves. Rather, the problem is that ideal theories are often applied in the wrong circumstances. Ideal principles are only applicable when the presupposed ideal circumstances are in place (Robeyns 2008: 355–360). Moreover, proponents of ideal theory might reply to the practical irrelevance charge that an ideal theory is only one part of a theory of justice that has to be complemented by a nonideal theory (Rawls 1971: 7–11, 243–251, 350–355, 541–544; 1999: 89–90). To illustrate, let us draw on some recent discussions in the global justice debate: The complementary relation between ideal and nonideal theory is particularly salient in Rawls’s The Law of Peoples. Rawls is explicit that ideal theory grounds the normative political principles of a realistic utopia that moves beyond what is commonly thought politically feasible (Rawls 1999: 5–6, 11–12). Nonideal theory, on the other hand, grounds the principles for the changeover from at least two kinds of nonideal conditions: first, noncompliance by outlaw states with the Law of Peoples, and, second, the unfavorable social, historical, and economic conditions of burdened societies. Ideal theory thus justifies a conception of an ideal Society of Peoples as a long-term moral target, and nonideal theory engages in grounding political principles for the transition to ideal conditions (Rawls 1999: 89–90). It is a virtue of Rawls’ approach to international justice that it contains both an ideal and nonideal theory, and that it is explicit about their particular roles and limitations (see also Rawls 1999: 8–9 on the limits of his inquiry). Recently, many working on global justice have defended what are best interpreted as ideal theories. Many cosmopolitan theories, for instance, are plausibly interpreted as suggesting principles for an ideally just global order (Held 1995). So, along with other ideal

theories, such cosmopolitan theories are criticized for being unable to direct political change toward a world that is more just (Kamminga 2003: 30–33; Sen 2006: 226–228; Miller 1988: 661). There are at least two lines of criticisms that contend that ideal theories offer no practical guidance. One critique refers to the institutional prerequisites of ideal global justice. To the extent that an ideally just global order requires a wide array of supra- and international institutions for the realization of its principles, ideal principles are currently inapplicable. For the current system is one of nation-states. Ideal cosmopolitan theories thus fail to provide principles that would lead to a more just world (Kamminga 2003: 30–33; Sen 2006: 226–228). Another criticism of such cosmopolitan theories is that they wrongly presuppose that individuals are motivated to act on cosmopolitan grounds. There exists no cosmopolitan ethos among the majority of the worlds’ inhabitants and thus cosmopolitan principles that ideal theories ground do not get off the ground (Miller 1988: 661). Cosmopolitans might respond by adapting the replies to the criticism of nonideal theories suggested above. First, some cosmopolitans might grant that ideal theories of global justice are primarily directed at defending an ideal of justice and not at steering political change. This does not undermine their theories. It is legitimate to ask what an ideally just global order would be like. Second, some might argue that ideal theories of global justice are necessary in order to avoid a conservative bias. Nonideal theorists are prone to limiting justice’s demands to the politically feasible in the here and now (for, as noted above, most people take nonideal theories to be action-guiding). If states are major sources of global injustice, we should not say that state sovereignty should not be curtailed because we lack the necessary supra- and international institutions to curtail it right now. It may be possible and desirable to construct the necessary institutions. Similarly, to argue that the motivational dispositions constrain what global justice can demand may wrongly presuppose that these motivational dispositions cannot be changed. It may be possible to motivate people to pursue an ideal of global justice. After all, people’s attitudes about moral issues have changed in the past – most people in the USA no longer think it is acceptable to own slaves, for instance. Finally, if a theory of justice contains both an ideal and a nonideal part, it may be acceptable that its ideal part does not provide any concrete policy recommendations. For that may be the role of its nonideal part. The literature on ideal (and nonideal) theory is not only interesting for its own sake but may help illuminate, if not resolve, some recent debates in the literature on global justice.

Illegitimate States

Related Topics

▶ Buchanan, Allen ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Justice ▶ Non-Ideal Moral Theory ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Sen, Amartya

References Brennan G, Pettit P (2005) The feasibility issue. In: Jackson F, Smith M (eds) The Oxford handbook of contemporary philosophy. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 258–279 Buchanan A (2004) Justice legitimacy and self-determination. Moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, New York Caney S (2005) Justice beyond borders. A global political theory. Oxford University Press, New York Cohen G (2003) Facts and principles. Philos Public Aff 31:211–245 Cohen G (2008) Rescuing justice and equality. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Farrelly C (2007) Justice in ideal theory: a refutation. Polit Stud 55:844–864 Goodin R (1995) Political ideals and political practice. Br J Polit Sci 25:37–56 Hassoun N (2009) Ideal theory and practice. Carnegie Mellon University working paper. http://www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy/hassoun/facultyhassoun.php Held D (1995) Democracy and the global order. From the modern state to cosmopolitan governance. Stanford University Press, Stanford Kamminga M (2003) On global justice. Center of Development Studies at University Gronigen, Research report 17. www.rug.nl/cds/_shared/ pdf/resrep17.pdf?as=pdf Mason A (2004) Just constraints. Br J Polit Sci 34:251–268 Miller D (1988) The ethical significance of nationality. Ethics 98:647–652 Mills C (2005) Ideal theory as ideology. Hypatia 20:165–184 O’Neill O (1987) Abstraction, idealization and ideology in ethics. In: Evans JDG (ed) Moral philosophy and contemporary problems. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 55–69 O’Neill O (1996) Towards justice and virtue. A constructive account of practical reasoning. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Philips M (1985) Reflections on the transition from ideal to non-ideal theory. Nouˆs 19:551–570 Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (2002) Justice as fairness – a restatement, ed. Kelly E. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Robeyns I (2008) Ideal theory in theory and practice. Soc Theor Pract 34:341–362 Schwartzman L (2006) Abstraction, idealization, and oppression. Metaphilosophy 37:565–588 Sen A (2006) What do we want from a theory of justice. J Philos 103:218–238 Stemplowska Z (2008) What’s ideal about ideal theory? Soc Theor Pract 34:319–340 Swift A (2008) The value of philosophy in nonideal circumstances. Soc Theor Pract 34:363–387 Valentini L (2009) The apparent paradox of ideal theory. J Polit Philos 17:332–355

I

523

Illegitimate States ERIC SMAW Department of Philosophy and Religion, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL, USA

There are many different actors on the world stage: states, multinational corporations (MNC’s), nongovernmental humanitarian organizations (NGO’s), nonprofit “watchdog” groups, and various other entities. Each entity has international “personality” because it has met the legal criteria for international standing, which, of course, allows it to perform functions specific to its kind, such as entering into diplomatic agreements, providing goods and services to people in foreign countries, providing humanitarian relief to people in countries devastated by natural disasters, monitoring multi-national corporations to ensure that they are acting in accordance with the rules of MNC’s, monitoring the elections in foreign countries to ensure that they are free and democratic, and so on. Likewise, entities wishing to be recognized as states have to meet the international criteria for statehood. To be sure, according to the 1933 Montevideo Inter-American Convention of the Rights and Duties of States, a state is a legal entity with international “personality” consisting of a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into international relations with other states. Of course, in theory, once an entity meets the criteria for being recognized as a state, it incurs all of the rights and obligations specific to states, gains immunity from lawsuits in the courts of other countries when it is engaged in functions specific to states, and it enjoys recognition as a state from other states and entities with standing in the international community. But, unfortunately, as is often the case, theory and practice are rarely consonant. Indeed, this can be seen in light of the fractioning of many Eurasian nations. In recent years there have been many philosophical and political discussions regarding the status of state-like entities, or what some might call illegitimate states. To put it in another way, many in the international community are wondering about the status of entities that do not meet all of the criteria for statehood but nevertheless have de facto statehood and thereby act on the world stage as states act. For example, strictly speaking, South Ossetia is legally a part of the state of Georgia. In fact, the region of land that South Ossetia occupies is legally Georgian territory. However, since the 2008 South Ossetian/Georgian War which resulted in the ousting of

I

524

I

Immigration

the Georgian government from the South Ossetian region of the country, the de facto government of South Ossetia claims to be sovereign over the region of land that it occupies. Moreover, although most of the states in the international community do not recognize South Ossetia as a state, a small number of them do, including Russia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Even more, the de facto government of South Ossetia has entered into international agreements with other nations, most notably Russia. In which case, South Ossetia has met three of the four criteria for statehood. It only lacks an undisputed territory. This, of course, puts many members of the international community in a quandary. On one hand, they recognize as states other entities in positions similar to that of South Ossetia, such as Palestine. Therefore, there is no reason why they should not also recognize South Ossetia as a state. However, on the other hand, they are bound to respect the legal boundaries of the state of Georgia. In which case, they are legally required to reject South Ossetia’s claims of sovereignty. Nevertheless, there is hope for South Ossetia and other entities in similar situations. After all, for a long time, Palestine had a permanent population, a government, and it entered into agreements with other states. Like South Ossetia, Palestine only lacked an undisputed territory. As a result, Palestinian statehood was either straightforwardly rejected or ignored by the majority of states in the international community. Today, however, Palestine occupies a seat in the general assembly of the United Nations and it is recognized as a state by the majority of states in the international community, even though it still lacks an undisputed territory. In light of Palestine’s triumph to statehood, it seems that the international community will do well to prepare itself for a proliferation of new members. After all, many small and insular minorities are willing to break away from states in which they are underrepresented, or, in some cases, altogether un-represented. The real test will be whether they can govern, sustain, and defend themselves without constant intervention from the international community. Either way, it seems certain that a growing number of them are willing to try.

Related Topics

▶ Communities ▶ International Law ▶ Multinational Corporations ▶ Sovereignty

References Carter B (2009–2010) Charter for the United Nations, in international law: selected documents. Wolters Kluwer, New York

Khalidi R (2006) The iron cage: the story of the Palestinian struggle for statehood. Beacon, Boston Slomanson WR (2010) Fundamental perspectives on international law. Wadsworth, Belmont

Immigration CHRISTINE STRAEHLE Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

The concept of immigration describes the movement of people across borders whose intention is to settle for a set amount of time in a different country than their country of origin. A normative theory of immigration that situates immigration in the context of global justice has yet to be agreed upon. The debate ranges between two extreme and distinct positions about what immigration can enable in a world characterized by deep inequalities. Some authors argue that immigration regimes should be abandoned in favor of open borders to allow for the free movement of people across borders. This argument can be based on three different premises: the liberal egalitarian argument; the humanitarian argument; and the freedom of movement argument. Others argue that immigration can reasonably be restricted without harming the interests of those aiming to immigrate. The defense of limits to immigration can also be divided into three sets of arguments: the argument against maximization of opportunities; the value of national identity and its ties to social solidarity; and arguments for national responsibility and good governance. In between are many who try to theorize immigration in an unjust world. Immigration regimes define who can enter which country, under what conditions, and for how long. Most states allow visits to their territory by noncitizens under the condition that the prospective immigrant apply for a visa to enter the country. Such visas are given for different lengths of time, and for different reasons such as visits, study, or work. Underlying such immigration regimes is the assumption that nation-states have the right to determine who resides on their territory. Some authors have questioned this assumption on the grounds of global justice considerations. The liberal egalitarian argument for open borders was originally proposed as a global application of the principles of justice developed in Rawls’ Theory of Justice. Rawls had proposed two principles of justice that would be adopted if those

Immigration

deliberating about them were kept behind a “veil of ignorance” about justice-relevant facts of their lives. If we were to deliberate about principles of global justice under the same conditions, the liberal egalitarian argument holds, open border would be adopted. Open borders are furthermore supported by the argument that morally arbitrary injustices should be addressed in a liberal egalitarian framework, and that the disadvantages accompanying the citizenship of some countries are just one instance of such injustice. Since modern liberal democracies subscribe to the principle of the equal moral worth of all individuals, such moral arbitrariness in the treatment of individuals is problematic. One problem is posed by the vastly unequal opportunities that individuals have access to simply because of their place of birth or the country of their citizenship. A second problem is the different treatment of individuals who simply because they are a citizen of one country rather than another may have easy access to the opportunities in other countries. Many countries have bilateral agreements that allow easy movement across borders. In the EU, for instance, citizens of member states can cross borders from their home country into a host country without the need for a visa. In fact, European citizens can take up residence in any of the member states, and they may live and work there without the prior need to obtain a visa. Their citizenship qualifies them for easy access to the opportunities another country may offer whereas many citizens from outside the EU – many citizens from African countries, for example – will only rarely have access to these same opportunities even though they may be most in need of them. The humanitarian argument for open borders focuses on the disadvantages that ensue for individuals who are citizens of countries where access to the necessities of life, including access to clean water, sufficient foods, and shelter, is lacking. Open borders are then meant to allow the free movement of individuals across borders in pursuit of a better life that they cannot find in their countries of origin. Some authors have chosen to promote open borders by focusing directly on the principle of freedom of movement. Most liberals accept that freedom of movement is a very basic human right, which is to say that it promotes and protects vital human interests and is cherished because it is an important part of human life that also enables individuals to enjoy other liberties. A defense of the right to freedom of movement, then, supports the argument for open borders since to exercise the freedom to move depends on a corresponding right to migrate into another country. In our world where the surface of the

I

earth is entirely divided among countries, the right to freedom of movement could only be guaranteed if borders were open. Arguments for open borders have been challenged from different directions. Some authors have questioned the freedom of movement argument since it seems to subscribe to a specific conception of global justice that has yet to be ascertained. One central question is whether the objective is to secure an adequate range of options for individuals or whether it is a question of maximizing options. If the latter, then this concept of global justice might indeed require that individuals are able to pursue opportunities everywhere in the world, rather than simply explore the adequate ones which might be provided in the country of origin. However, if the former, and if it is the case that most countries provide for adequate options to move within, then the need to protect the right to freedom of movement can be satisfied within the boundaries of a country and need not call for open borders. The liberal egalitarian argument for open borders has received a challenging reply from those who defend the moral status of the national community that regulates immigration. The national community may confer morally arbitrary privileges and may in fact have come about in a morally arbitrary way, but this does not imply that it may not create something morally valuable, such as a liberal democratic community that implements principles of social justice. If this is plausible, then open borders might actually be unjust, in so far as they threaten the ability of the liberal democratic nation state to provide the goods that sustain and enrich the lives of its citizens – such as health care and other goods provided by the welfare state – in exchange for compliance with regimes of redistribution like taxation. If borders were opened, then, it would not be a case of justice being served by treating all equally, but instead, members of the state – who have contributed to the welfare system, say – would be disadvantaged compared to new immigrants who would benefit from the welfare state, without actually having been coerced by the laws of the state in the same way. Some critics even go so far as to speculate that the effects of open borders would in fact jeopardize the goods that open borders aim to distribute more fairly. Access to opportunities depends on a functioning welfare state, which, on this view, requires a strong sense of social solidarity in the community. Only if individuals feel ties to their fellow members will they happily comply with redistributive taxation that makes the provision of social goods possible – but open border immigration might challenge such feelings of social solidarity. Moreover, such immigration might jeopardize concepts of national

525

I

526

I

Immigration

identity that may derive from a shared heritage and language, and which ought to be considered as a social good that plays an important role in peoples’ lives. Finally, those defending limits to immigration also note the responsibility national governments have for their citizens. In this vein, some authors argue against open borders since immigration might then be used by unsatisfied citizens to leave their country of origin, thus absolving national governments who govern irresponsibly from facing the consequences of bad governance. Note, though, that even those who argue against open borders accept certain duties toward all of humanity – this means that duties of humanitarian assistance to provide food, water, and shelter are unquestioned. And most accept that refugees – individuals fleeing their homes for fear of persecution – ought to be allowed to freely immigrate – even though this raises the question of who ought to be considered a refugee, or who is instead simply searching for a better life. Acceptance of humanitarian duties across national boundaries also puts into question the idea that solidarity and principles of social justice are confined by such boundaries. Instead, it seems that in some important sense, solidarity is based on the tangible vulnerability of people, whatever their citizenship, rather than simply on the fact that they are our compatriots. A second reply to the argument that social justice is built on national solidarity, and hence that limits to immigration may not only be defended but may even be necessary for the realization of just principles, is one from consistency: it is not clear how we can divorce social justice from global justice considerations. Put differently, conceptions of social justice rely on universal principles like the equal moral status of all human beings. Instead of conceiving of social justice as isolated from considerations of global justice, it may well be that social justice is a stepping stone to global justice. To argue, then, that open border immigration would jeopardize social justice mounts an implausible dichotomy between social justice and global justice. This debate raises the question how we ought to construe global justice and how immigration fits into it. If we accept the claim that global justice ought to equalize opportunities among all human beings, then open borders may seem to provide at least those migrating with better opportunities. However, it is uncertain if those left behind would equally benefit. One argument in favor of open borders might be that those leaving will send remittances to families left behind, thus promoting an increase in opportunities for those in the home country. In fact, some argue that free movement of labor would have a far greater impact on development of home countries than

aid provided by rich countries ever could. However, it is clear that open borders will not equalize opportunities for all people, or even provide all with an adequate range of options. In many cases, the brain drain ensuing from emigration from poor to rich countries will in fact challenge or jeopardize opportunities in the source countries. Many have argued that if borders were open, mostly the elites in source countries would benefit, leaving behind hospitals, schools, and universities depleted of necessary staff. This is an important concern when talking about global justice since the welfare of some will not make up for the deteriorating conditions of others and further thinking will be required to see how such nefarious effects could be addressed. One proposal might be that emigrants ought to pay an exit tax to compensate for their departure. If instead global justice is construed as providing adequate opportunities for all human beings, then it may seem that immigration theory should focus on the case of refugees as those most obviously lacking an adequate range of opportunities. However, the challenge posed by the liberal egalitarian argument for open borders remains in so far as some will nevertheless have access to more than adequate opportunities due to bilateral agreements their governments have entered into, without such privileges being based on any normative justification. All this highlights the need for a just immigration theory as part of an encompassing concept of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Needs ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Borders ▶ Citizenship ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy ▶ Equality ▶ Fairness ▶ Global Equality of Opportunity ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Solidarity

References Blake M (2001) Distributive justice, state coercion, and autonomy. Philos Public Aff 30(3):257–296 Carens J (1987) Aliens and citizens: the case for open borders. Rev Polit 49:251–273 Kukathas C (2005) The case for open immigration. In: Cohen AI, Wellmann CH (eds) Contemporary debates in applied ethics. Blackwell, Malden, pp 395–408 Miller D (2005) The case for limits. In: Wellmann A (ed) Contemporary debates in applied ethics. Blackwell, Malden, pp 381–394 Seglow J (2005) The ethics of immigration. Polit Stud Rev 3:317–334

Imperialism

Impartiality ▶ Global Impartiality Thesis

Imperialism OMAR DAHBOUR Department of Philosophy, Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

Imperialism has a long history, including the history of attempts to theorize, justify, and criticize it. Its relation to more recent conceptions of global justice is the subject here. Some preliminary understanding of definitions and variations is important. Then, a periodization will enable us to examine some of these variations. Contemporary discussions of imperialism have concerned the justice or injustice of colonial empires, imperialism in the Cold War era, globalization as a form of imperialism, and the hegemony of dominant states as a form of, or alternative to, classical imperialism. Definitional work on imperialism often starts with the ancient empires, Afro-Asiatic (Assyrian or Egyptian), or European (Athenian or Roman). These are then compared to the early and late modern European colonial empires for similarities and differences. But of course there are differences between empires and imperialism(s), as well. Empires are states organized hierarchically across divergent territories. Different territories within empires have different political statuses, usually either dominant or subordinate. The geographical dimension is important, with the dominant territory regarded as central (or metropolitan) and the subordinate ones as peripheral. Such empires can be land-based (from the Roman to the Soviet and Nazi) or seaborne (from the Athenian to the British and French). However, expanding our purview to imperialism leads to consideration of forms of hierarchy that are not, strictly speaking, territorial. These are usually referred to as instances either of neocolonialism (or imperialism) or of hegemony. Neocolonialism is a relation of dominance-subordination designed to achieve a specific goal – the exploitation of economic resources in other countries. Hegemony is a relation between states in which the hegemonic state dictates the external policies of subordinate states, while allowing autonomous internal policies to be pursued. Each of these forms of imperialism has manifested themselves in the last 100 years.

I

The European colonial empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been most explicitly criticized for their injustice. There have been two themes in these criticisms: the political oppression and disenfranchisement of the vast populations in the European colonies of Africa and Asia; and the economic exploitation and (resultant) immiseration of these same peoples. In the first case, the argument seems a simple one: Political self-determination is denied to those peoples ruled by others who are geographically, as well as racially, separate. Yet, there are some complications: For one thing, it was not always clear that the despotism of the European colonizers replaced anything other than a local or native despotism. Was this a loss for the peoples denied self-rule in both cases? Here thought needed to be devoted to whether the racialized difference between Europeans and others contributed to a greater despotism than that already the result of rule by elites, whether local or not. Frantz Fanon was, among other things, the great exponent of the view that racial differences magnified the political powerlessness of the already downtrodden. While known more generally for his advocacy of the liberating effects of violence, Fanon was an insightful thinker about the different aspects of political oppression, especially in terms of its psychologically effective disempowerment of “native” peoples. He also argued that political self-determination did not mean a return to “tribalism,” or what we would call ethnic nationalism – an ideology invariably espoused by local and traditional elites in order to recover their former privileged status. Self-determination was a kind of modernization, but one that took the form of the creation of new state institutions that would govern the former colonies for the benefit of all their citizens. Fanon was less successful in dealing with the second major aspect of colonialism – the supposed economic benefits that accrued from imperial domination of the colonies. He was typical of anticolonial critics in the decolonization era, however, in arguing for reparations payments from the former imperial powers to the newly independent colonies. This was to lead to systematic demands of this sort – though virtually without practical effect – by the states founding the Non-Aligned Movement and the New International Economic Order in the 1960s and 1970s. The nature of economic exploitation of the colonies has been controversial; but the reparations argument relied on the general idea that the wealth accumulated by the imperial powers was, in some way, extracted from the colonies – and ought, in some form, to be returned to them. Much work has been done, largely of a neo-Marxian orientation, to explain the exact nature of the exploitation

527

I

528

I

Imperialism

of the colonies by the colonizers. Three aspects have been crucial: the actions taken by companies and firms in the imperialist countries, the effects on the colonized countries, and the balance of benefits against costs, especially to the colonial powers. Two types of accounts of the nature of exploitation have usually been given: a superexploitation theory and an underconsumption theory. In the first, the imperial powers were thought to be extracting resources from the colonies at minimal cost. In the second, markets in the colonies were thought to have been exploited by imperialist companies to compensate for declining consumption in the central imperial economies. In both cases, an accumulation of capital has occurred that would not otherwise have been possible. While controversy continues over the relative and absolute merits of these theories, recent work on global justice has accorded canonical status to the general idea of colonial economic exploitation. For instance, Allen Buchanan has developed a concept of “discriminatory redistribution” that takes imperial exploitation as paradigmatic for any attempt to redistribute to the advantage of one region or country resources from another region or country. Debate about the short- or long-term effects of the colonial era on the former colonies continues as well. “Underdevelopment theory” has posited the continuing effects of the extraction of resources, as well as the destruction of native economic institutions that would have facilitated development in the absence of ongoing exploitation by the imperial powers. Others, however, have argued that the withdrawal of investment from the periphery of a world capitalist system has marginalized economies that would otherwise have been integrated, albeit unequally. On this view, the result is a further impoverishment of already noncompetitive countries within the world market. Even when such countries can obtain market share, it is usually on the basis of monocultures, frequently agricultural, that are overly dependent on the fluctuations of world commodity prices. Nevertheless, critics of Marxian and other dependency theories have pointed out that the costs of empire in the colonial era were considerable and that it is unlikely that the supposed benefits outweighed this cost to the imperial states in the long run. Of course, this does not mean that, while the imperial state was incurring the costs of seaborne (or, in the case of the former East European empires, land-based) military expenditures, that private firms did not profit considerably from this effort. It may be that the ultimate bankruptcy of colonial empires went hand in hand with the enrichment of capitalist enterprises

that could rely on the protection of imperial states for a time. Did imperialism survive into the postcolonial (i.e., post-1960) era? This depends on an assessment of whether imperialism can exist in a nonterritorial form. The Cold War era witnessed various accusations of imperialism made against both the USA and the Soviet Union. There was some justification for both, as long as it was understood that, if these states had empires, they were of a very different character. The USA had rid itself of a colonial empire at the beginning of the twentieth century. This did not, however, mean that it did not take on an increasingly hegemonic role in world affairs, especially after the end of the World Wars. Whether or not this role was a neocolonial one depends on an assessment of the role of the US state in securing advantages for US corporations overseas. Historical research has shown that the USA, at first in Latin America, and later elsewhere to a degree, employed innovative strategies for influencing other governments’ economic and financial policies, to the advantage of US industries. In addition, the extensive presence of US military bases overseas, especially after 1945, meant that the USA exercised indirect and at times direct control over a large number of states and economies globally. The number of US military interventions in this period indicates that this sway was not only indirect and implicit, but resulted in the fall of governments and the defeat of insurgencies in many locales. At the same time, setbacks – most spectacularly in Vietnam – indicated the potential vulnerability of an empire of this type. The Soviet Union in this period, despite its efforts at global reach, largely exercised its own rule in a vast array of territories from eastern Germany to the Pacific Ocean. In this sense, it was, after the fall of Nazi Germany, and along with the Communist Chinese regime, one of the last land-based empires. But there were also a number of innovations – first and foremost, the multinational structure of the Soviet Union itself. Nationalities were recognized and subsidized to a degree that marked it off sharply from the former Russian Empire. The Soviet state acted to create a multinational, state-oriented elite that would be able to govern this transcontinental domain without overmuch identification with any one group or ethnicity, least of all Russians. If these empires engaged in political oppression and economic exploitation on a scale comparable to the former colonial empires – and they did – it was therefore through a very different set of institutions and policies. The international order instituted at the end of the World Wars was one that managed to enforce recognition of both

Imperialism

of these states as hegemonic, while giving them a measure of legitimacy as guarantors of world peace through the United Nations (UN). But the creation of the UN, and a set of global institutions associated with it, was both a way of enshrining the victors of the World Wars – including the older colonial powers (England, France) – as globally hegemonic and of maintaining a status quo in which these empires would continue for the foreseeable future. The rhetoric of world peace and human rights that was adopted by UN organizations was not meant to imply, at least initially, any criticism of either colonialism as such or the new imperial powers. That the UN was eventually to become a forum for anticolonial initiatives meant that the survival of the Franco-British empires was not essential to its functioning, as was the continuing presence and support of the most powerful victors of the World Wars, the USA and the USSR. With the end of the Cold War after 1990, a new period in the history of imperialism began. For some, this change meant the end of imperialism – if the Soviet Union was viewed as the last of the empires. Yet, even putting the USA aside, the Communist Chinese state not only remained in power, ruling over a vast territory in East Asia, but increasingly exercised global reach on the basis of its economic growth. The USA itself was widely regarded, at least in the 1990s, as the “sole superpower.” At the same time, a discussion about “globalization” became the standard rubric for understanding the postcommunist world. At the end of the 1990s, a discussion began as to whether globalization had generated a new form of super-imperialism, “Empire.” Globalization denotes a global expansion in the circuits of capital investment and accumulation, as well as increasing cultural interconnections that accompany such economic integration. Its connection to imperialism involves the extent to which globalization is regarded as an autonomous economic and/or cultural process of relating and influencing different regions and peoples. Increasing evidence indicates that cross-border connections of these sorts were, to a substantial degree, the result of state and business initiatives to open markets to foreign investments, obtain ownership of, or profit from, material resources, and utilize cheaper labor pools for industrial production. US administrations in the 1990s turned from politico-military competition with the USSR for global dominance to coercion of weaker and smaller governments to allow such investment, ownership, and employment by US firms. In addition, several transnational institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,

I

played an increasingly active role in this period in furthering a global economic agenda that invariably favored the biggest and wealthiest states – especially the USA, but also increasingly, the European Union and China. In this sense, globalization was greatly facilitated by neocolonial strategies adopted by these powers. These initiatives were referred to by David Harvey as “accumulation by dispossession,” in order to point to the ways in which they continued and furthered the process of “original accumulation” (i.e., before intensive labor exploitation within industrial enterprises) that Karl Marx had described over a century ago. That such a regime of accumulation constituted a new “Empire” was the view of Antonio Negri, who argued that globalization had proceeded to a new level of global integration, within which specific states were no longer the major agents of imperial power. Problems with this view were manifest. But above all, as John Agnew has pointed out, such a regime is neither independent of the state nor imperialist in any clear sense. It is, however, a form of hegemony, though one in which powerful, hegemonic states such as the USA continue to play a central role. The difference with past forms of imperialism is in the degree to which hegemonic states allow local autonomy in social policy within subordinate states. While not allowing such autonomy would involve a degree of interference which is probably beyond the capacity of any one state, even the USA, the globalization of capital investment often has a deleterious effect on social and welfare policies in poorer countries. In order to “play” on the global scale, states, even wealthy ones, must often adopt a “neoliberal” policy that mandates reducing expenditures on local needs, while servicing debts from international lending institutions. A normative debate about the worth of these international institutions has occupied discussions about imperialism in the 2000s. Some jurists and philosophers, such as Lea Brilmayer and Thomas Nagel, have maintained that the pursuit of globalization by hegemonic states and their international agents is not nefarious, but increasingly serves as the basis for global standards of justice. The argument is that, for global justice to progress, what is first needed is an institutional framework for global relations – one that is provided by the USA, as a superpower. Once institutions are in place, they may be used to uphold the ethical responsibilities of global power. The critique of globalization as a “new imperialism,” particularly by such figures as Danilo Zolo, rejects this view. On the one hand, the use of international institutions to further capital accumulation by wealthy

529

I

530

I

Indigenous Peoples

corporations is thought to rely upon the initiatives of hegemonic states to establish these institutions and enforce compliance with their actions by other states. The history of such institutions, from the League of Nations onward, has always been partial to the powerful states that established them. On the other hand, hegemonic states have also acted unilaterally, sometimes while espousing Universalist doctrines of human rights and democratic government. In the notorious idea of “armed humanitarian intervention,” hegemonic states have accorded themselves the right to override international strictures against aggressive force and to intervene in states with divergent policies – for instance, the former Yugoslavia. As Zolo has emphasized, this means that hegemonic states continue to view adherence to international law as optional when it conflicts with their own interests. Put another way, neo-imperialism, at least, is alive and well in the twenty-first century; and has even gained new adherents, who see “empire” as potentially instrumental to the pursuit of a liberal socioeconomic agenda. While the existence of colonial, especially seaborne, empires may be a thing of the past, hegemonic states continue to seek dominance over other peoples and countries, though sometimes in new ways.

Related Topics

▶ Colonialism ▶ Empire ▶ Exploitation ▶ Globalization ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ Marxism ▶ World Government

References Agnew J (2005) Hegemony: the new shape of global power. Temple University Press, Philadelphia Brilmayer L (1994) American hegemony: political morality in a onesuperpower world. Yale University Press, New Haven Chilcote RH (ed) (2000) Imperialism: theoretical directions. Humanity Books, Amherst Fanon F (1968) The wretched of the earth (trans: Farrington C). Grove Press, New York Gowan P (1999) The global gamble: Washington’s Faustian bid for global dominance. Verso, London Harvey D (2003) The new imperialism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Mazower M (2009) No enchanted palace: the end of empire and the ideological origins of the United Nations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Nagel T (2005) The problem of global justice. Philos Public Aff 35:113–147 Negri A, Hardt M (2000) Empire. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Zolo D (1997) Cosmopolis: prospects for world government (trans: McKie D). Polity Press, Cambridge

Indigenous Peoples ROBERT PAUL CHURCHILL Department of Philosophy, Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

Historically, indigenous peoples have been victims of severe degradations including discrimination, oppression, domination, slavery, massacre, and genocide. Political threats to the survival of indigenous peoples continue in some parts of the world. Almost everywhere they exist indigenous peoples are threatened by the expansion of global economies and infrastructures into territories that have been traditional habitats, as well as by cultural, social, and political interpenetrations that disrupt indigenous communities that subsist, at best, in difficult circumstances. Given the history of the severe degradation of persons with the status of “indigenous” as well as the continuing vulnerability of these peoples, widespread global concern has grown in recent decades about protecting the human rights of indigenous peoples. The most significant manifestation of this concern is the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Persons adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007. The following questions pose the major issues that have emerged: – Who are indigenous peoples, that is, what is the definition of “indigenous peoples”? – What are the major threats faced by indigenous persons and how have they responded? – How has the international community responded to the plight of indigenous peoples?

Defining Indigenous Peoples At present, there is no agreed definition of indigenous peoples in international law or social science. Efforts to define the term reflect the notion’s relativity to the histories, cultures, and self-consciousnesses of peoples occupying or competing to occupy or control the same or contiguous regions. From the outset, use of “indigenous” was, like use of “self” and “others” or “us” and “them,” largely a matter of self-identification and the perceptions of others. The term has had varying political and ideological uses. Some groups advocating self-determination and protection of their rights regard themselves as indigenous, although their status as indigenous may be contested by competing groups or by national governments possessing de facto control over the territories occupied by these peoples.

Indigenous Peoples

Some peoples resist a generic designation as “indigenous,” despite widespread acceptance of the term within the culture of the UN and international organizations and NGO advocacy groups. In general, while “indigenous” is regarded as largely synonymous with “first-nations” and “aboriginals,” the use of “tribes” and “tribal peoples” has been more controversial. Further definitional difficulties arise with efforts to distinguish indigenous peoples from ethnic groups or religious, linguistic, and cultural minorities, as well as from nationalist groups seeking political separation from a dominant state. Some groups who share many of the social characteristics of indigenous peoples are not otherwise indigenous while, apart from sharing certain features, indigenous peoples have a great diversity of cultures. Finally, because efforts to define a people as indigenous seem inevitably to require reference to the difference, or “otherness,” of the people in question, such efforts are inherently paradoxical. Is it possible with a single definition to inscribe differences without simultaneously undermining the equality of moral worth of persons? After years of criticism of its decades’ long efforts, the UN Subcommittee Working Group on Indigenous Populations declined to define “indigenous peoples,” declaring that such efforts detracted from the more important goal of articulating the rights of indigenous peoples. Likewise, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007 (DRIP) does not define the term. Only one international convention, or treaty, has defined the concept: Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) adopted in 1989. The ILO definition emphasizes descent from the population that inhabited the country at the time of later conquest or colonization, and retention of a group’s own traditional social, cultural, and political institutions. The 2000 report of the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights largely follows the ILO definition but adds self-identification as a fundamental criterion. While the connection between territories and peoples is rarely mentioned in texts or proposed definitions, this link is critical for indigenous peoples. Indeed, the tragic history of some groups such as the Tasmanians and ongoing effects on some groups displaced from traditional territories strongly suggests that identity is not always a product of social construction, or at least that for some peoples identity requires physical existence within a designated and traditional territory. By combining these features it is possible to propose the following conditions for proper application of the term: – Indigenous peoples identify themselves as indigenous, first-nations, aboriginals, tribes, or as tribal peoples, or are so identified by a predominate population.

I

531

– They are relatively self-contained groups. – They have historical continuity with preinvasion or precolonial societies. – They continue to live primarily in a traditional manner distinct from the dominant society that surrounds them. – They are physically, or socially or culturally dependent on a specific territory or bioregion. Because of controversies over defining groups as indigenous, as well as the politics of domination and identity in many regions of the world, estimates of the number of indigenous peoples varies widely from a low of about 3–4% of the global population to a high of about 20%. The UN estimates that there are more than 370 million indigenous peoples in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Pacific islands, or about 6.7% of global population.

Threats and Indigenous Responses In many parts of the world, indigenous peoples continue to experience extreme discrimination, poverty, and exploitation, as well as the loss of control over land and resources traditionally related to their cultures, livelihoods, and self-identity. They have been subjected to internal colonialism or the exploitation of economic relationships within states, as well as to domination from abroad. Many indigenous peoples have been victims of environmental racism, a process by which politically dominant groups freely impose ecological risks and health hazards on indigenous groups that they would never willingly bear themselves. In recent decades, many local peoples have been subjected to bio-piracy, a practice by which biological reserves used openly by communities for generations have been patented, leaving local people unable to use plant seeds and other resources. In addition, due to marginalization and vulnerability, indigenous persons often have been powerless to defend themselves. Some difficulties arise from cultural differences such as the absence of legally recognized titles to land. Other difficulties arise from political disadvantages and victimization due to violence even in states such as Guatemala where indigenous peoples form a significant proportion of the population or even in states with relatively democratic governments. Because of great diversity among indigenous peoples, the specific realities of global threats also differ considerably from place to place. However, the following generalizations may be made. The most general concern of indigenous persons is self-determination. They all seek to maintain their cultural and social integrity through

I

532

I

Indigenous Peoples

the preservation of an independent culture and social structure or control over processes of cultural and social adaptation and change. They seek freedom from outside and destructive interference, as well as autonomous selfgovernance. In addition, they seek extensive control over lands traditionally inhabited and opportunities to direct and benefit from development in these territories. Most indigenous peoples do not seek secession from present states; on the contrary, they wish to participate in decision making in the state, especially in matters respecting their interests, as citizens with equal civil and political rights. As they are presently among the least advantaged of states’ demographics, indigenous peoples also expect assistance through a range of obligations borne by states and entities within the international community. For instance, states must protect these groups from discrimination and exploitation, provide title to traditional lands, uphold treaties, and make restitution for violations. Multinational corporations must cease exploitative practices, and international organizations must implement the intellectual property rights of indigenous peoples. The rise to prominence in the international community of indigenous interests coincided with the decline of colonialism in the post–World War II era, the development of the international human rights regime, and the proliferation of NGO advocacy organizations. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that human rights became the major normative resource for the protection of indigenous peoples’ interests. As indicated by passage of DRIP in 2007, human rights probably will continue to offer the most promising conceptual and normative means for protecting the interests of indigenous persons and responding to their needs. At the same time, however, this use of human rights theory requires recognition that there are some collective, or group, rights that rise to the level of fundamental importance, at least insofar as the expression of these rights is a matter of group, rather than individual decision, or enjoyment by individual members of the objects of the rights are to be determined collectively. In addition, while many problems relating to indigenous peoples require normative responses based on recognition of indigenous peoples as a particular group of peoples, other problems reveal the interdependency of all persons of the globe. These problems can be addressed only temporarily and provisionally as a separate set of issues. In the long run, they must be addressed in terms of global justice and universal human rights and in connection with the problems, including poverty, underdevelopment, migration, climate change, and environmental quality, that put special pressure on indigenous peoples and threaten their continued oppression.

International Responses Traditionally, states’ recognition of peoples as “indigenous” was initially restricted to populations subjected to colonialism and to whom the so-called salt water rule applied; that is, peoples within the homelands of colonial powers were not regarded as indigenous, only those inhabiting territories separated by salt water were thought of as having this status. This pattern remained historically dominant even for such states as Australia, Canada, and the USA that are themselves dominated by settlers of European descent but include numerous indigenous groups. With widespread decolonization of Africa and Asia following World War II, the so-called salt water principle was increasingly criticized as arbitrary, and it is commonly agreed that it is no bar to the criticism of a government’s treatments of native groups within their own borders. However, for most of the twentieth century, national governments and much of the international community remained reluctant to respond to the demands of indigenous persons, especially because of indigenous interests in control over traditional territories and over natural resources in these territories. Initially, very little attention was given to a right to selfdetermination of indigenous peoples; when seriously considered at all, self-determination was thought to apply only to colonial populations. Until the mid-twentieth century, most states pursued policies that combined neglect and repression with assimilation such as the advocacy of the “melting pot” in Brazil during the 1950s and 1960s. The dominant view of states was that the problems of indigenous peoples would cease when their distinctness or differences were overcome, or best solved by extending the citizenship rights, culture, and institutions of the dominant population. A major change in statist policies, increasing in the 1980s and 1990s, was the replacement of such top-down approaches with greater respect for diversity and difference, and greater measures of local autonomy. A commission of the OAS was among the first international organizations to recognize that indigenous institutions and traditional ways of life strengthen national democracies. Within the second half of the twentieth century, the scope of the international human rights regime continued to expand. The language of human rights was increasingly chosen by knowledgeable spokespersons for indigenous peoples as a way to raise and address their concerns. UN organizations and forums offered the sites necessary for debate, while NGO advocacy agencies widely disseminated information about abuses of human rights. Some groups also demonstrated considerable ability in employing modern communication technologies to rapidly disseminate information about oppression and

Indigenous Peoples

their grievances as demonstrated by the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, for example, and the Chipko tree-hugging movement in India. Representatives of indigenous peoples increasingly attended and participated in international organizations and at conventions. By the 1980s and with the help of a report for UNESCO by Jose´ Martinez Cobo (1978), the plight of indigenous peoples had been linked successfully with the problems of discrimination against which the UN had sponsored significant instruments in international law. At the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, however, many representatives argued that existing provisions in international law prohibiting discrimination and protecting minorities were inadequate to protect the rights of indigenous peoples. Thus, in 1993, the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations adopted a draft declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples based on almost a decade of studies and discussions with hundreds of representatives of indigenous groups. The draft was destined to languish in the UN Commission on Human Rights primarily because it was regarded by some state members as too direct on issues relating to land rights, development, and provisions for distinctive citizenship and juridical customs. In the interim, some advances took place in regional human rights regimes. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in a 1984 report concerning Nicaragua’s violations of the rights of the Miskito Indians linked the group’s right to self-determination to international law. While the 2000 OAS draft for an American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples does not explicitly mention self-determination, Article XV states that indigenous peoples have the right “to freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social spiritual and cultural development.” In addition, in 2001, the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of the Awas Tingni Community of Nicaragua declaring that the close ties between indigenous peoples and their territories was the basis for their spiritual life, their integrity, and their economic survival. Based on research presented at the 1993 Vienna Convention, the UN Human Rights Commission (now Council) created the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The body of five independent experts met for the first time in October 2000 to provide thematic expertise for the Human Rights Council. In May 2002, the first meeting of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues met in Geneva. Recommended by the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Program of Action, the mandate of the 16 member Permanent Forum is to serve as an expert advisory body to the Economic and Social Council and

I

through it to the UN generally. The Permanent Forum works closely with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples, also established by the Human Rights Commission in 2001. Then on September 13, 2007, following more than 20 years of debate within the UN system, the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP) with a vote of 143 in favor, four negative votes (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the USA), and 11 abstentions. Since passage, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand have reversed their votes, and Colombia and Samoa have moved from abstentions to votes in favor. The DRIP in its 46 articles is comprehensive and a strong document as it recognizes, among other rights, a right to self-determination of indigenous peoples to “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development”; autonomy in internal and local affairs; a “collective right to live in freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples”; a right to the “lands, territories, and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied, or otherwise used or acquired”; rights to the conservation and protection of the environment; rights to “human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines” and “knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora”; and rights to participate in political and policy decisions of the state affecting their interests. DRIP imposes extensive obligations on states and the UN system, requiring of states “effective mechanisms” for fulfilling certain provisions. DRIP provides no grounds for state reservations or so-called claw back provisions, and does not affirm until Article 46 (1) the standard UN requirement of consistency with its own Charter adding that nothing in the Declaration can be construed “as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent states.” Adoption of the DRIP was hailed by UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon as an “historical moment,” and it was greeted with jubilation in parts of Africa although it received far less attention in the capitals of the dissenting states. The Declaration is not binding international law, as critics are quick to point out. However, passage of the Declaration was based on consensus achieved at the Durban Review Conference in April 2007 attended by representatives from 182 states. DRIP was thus accepted and adopted by the General Assembly as an “outcome document,” that is, a document reflecting parties’ consensus. Thus, DRIP is widely recognized as constitutive of global norms and an important step toward global justice. It is a reasonable expectation, therefore, that DRIP will be followed by a major treaty, or covenant, on the rights of indigenous peoples.

533

I

534

I

Indigenous Rights to Land

Related Topics

▶ Collective Identity ▶ Colonialism ▶ Empire ▶ Environmental Racism ▶ Globalization ▶ Group Rights ▶ Human Rights ▶ Multiculturalism ▶ Persecution ▶ Post-Colonialism ▶ Self-Determination ▶ Sovereignty

References Anaya SJ (2004) Indigenous peoples in international law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Anya SJ (2009) International human rights and indigenous peoples. Aspen, Gaithersburg Coates K (2004) A global history of indigenous peoples: struggle and survival. Palgrave Macmillan, New York Cobo JM (1978) Study of the problem of discrimination against indigenous populations, vol 5. UNESCO, New York Dean B, Levi J (eds) (2003) At the risk of being heard: indigenous rights, identity and post-colonial states. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor Hall TD, Fenelon JV (2009) Indigenous peoples and globalization: resistance and revitalization. Paradigm, Boulder Hannum H (1996) Autonomy, sovereignty, and self-determination: the accommodation of conflicting rights. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia Hannum H (2003) Indigenous rights. In: Lyons GM, Mayall J (eds) International human rights in the 21st century: protecting the rights of groups. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham/Oxford Ivison D, Patton P, Sanders W (eds) (2000) Political theory and the rights of indigenous peoples. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Nizen R (2003) The origins of indigenism: human rights and the politics of identity. University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles United Nations (2007) Declaration on the rights of indigenous persons (A/RES/61/295). UNPFIT, New York. http://www.un.org Wilson WA, Yellow Bird M (eds) (2005) For indigenous eyes only: a decolonization handbook. School of American Research, Santa Fe

Indigenous Rights to Land CINDY HOLDER Department of Philosophy, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

Indigenous peoples’ struggles for justice are global both in scope and in significance. Indigenous communities often span more than one state, they are subject to similar forms

of human rights violations around the world, and these human rights violations are often shaped and exacerbated by global political and economic structures. Indigenous rights to land are central to understanding how and why this is so. Indigenous rights to land are collective human rights, the recognition and realization of which are inextricably bound up with the rights of indigenous peoples to selfdetermination. To say that these rights are collective is to say that they are rights held and exercised collectively by indigenous peoples. To say that they are human rights is to say that indigenous peoples have these rights in virtue of basic and universal interests and capacities of human beings. As human rights, indigenous rights to land are inalienable and have moral, political, and legal priority over the interests of states. Some have objected to characterizing indigenous rights to land as human rights of peoples on the grounds that human rights cannot be collective. However, it is an established norm of international human rights law that groups as well as individuals may be subjects of human rights violations; and most political and legal theorists agree that even though human rights are ultimately justified by interests and capacities of individual persons, any plausible list of human rights will include collective ones. From both a legal and theoretical point of view, then, the salient question is not whether there can be collective human rights, but how collective human rights should be understood and adjudicated in relation to individualistic ones. In the context of indigenous peoples’ rights to land, the most pressing issues that arise from their being collectively held are: which interests and capacities of the persons who constitute an indigenous people establish that people’s rights; how do a people’s human rights relate to those of the persons who constitute it; and how do a people’s human rights relate to the human rights of other persons and peoples, both indigenous and nonindigenous. Insofar as indigenous peoples’ rights to land are human rights, they have the same weight and normative force as other human rights. This means that they have moral, political, and legal priority over other interests, and that they form part of an interdependent set of rights, each of which must be interpreted in a way that is coherent with the others. The fact that indigenous rights to land are collective does not impact their priority over other interests and is not relevant to determining the extent to which their content limits and is limited by other human rights. Indigenous peoples’ human rights to land are ultimately justified by reference to the centrality of specific tracts of land or features of a territory in protecting or

Indigenous Rights to Land

realizing basic human interests and capacities of indigenous persons. In international human rights law, the fact that indigenous persons’ basic human rights cannot adequately be protected or realized in the absence of protections for the capacities of their peoples to maintain and develop specific relationships to territory is captured by the idea that indigenous peoples have a special relationship to land. Indigenous peoples are recognized as having human rights to their traditional territories because it has been concluded that it is not possible for a state to respect the dignity of indigenous peoples, as persons or in communities, without extending these peoples decisionmaking authority over their traditional lands. This is why indigenous peoples’ rights to land are properly described as universal: the interests and capacities that generate these rights are ones that must be protected and promoted for all human beings, everywhere. In the case of indigenous persons, this entails protecting and promoting their peoples’ rights to land. So described, the rights of indigenous peoples to have decisive say over what happens within and with regard to specific territories is not contingent on their proving that they are especially good stewards, or that any especially good consequence for the world community or for the population of the state they inhabit will follow from recognizing these rights. This is an important point to remember, as the fact that indigenous peoples around the world have often made common cause with advocates of environmental justice has sometimes been a source of confusion. Indigenous peoples’ rights to land are grounded in duties to protect and promote the human rights of indigenous persons specifically; they are not – or at least, not primarily – grounded in general duties to protect the environment or to protect the interests of all people everywhere in a healthy environment. Indigenous persons have the same rights to a healthy environment as all other persons; however, these are distinct from indigenous peoples’ rights to land. The relationships to land that ground indigenous peoples’ rights are ongoing, and they are neither ambiguous nor especially difficult to establish. When a people’s livelihood is bound up with fishing a river, or herding through a territory, or hunting a tract of land, or employing a specific form of cultivation, then their members’ rights to practice a livelihood are at stake in decisions about land. When a people has developed medical practices specific to the resources, risks and illness typical of their landscape, then their members’ rights to health are at stake in decisions about land. When family members are buried in a place, when family relationships are defined, expressed and preserved in decisions about who is properly

I

empowered to access, use, and manage land, or when a crucial element of raising and caring for children is establishing them in a relationship to the land, then members’ rights to family are at stake in decisions about land. When specific sites and features in a landscape play a central role in religious practice, a people’s right to practice religion is at stake in decisions about land. When specific sites and features in a landscape serve as a source and repository of a people’s history and are used by a people to explain and develop their connections to one another and to other peoples, members’ rights to culture, to freedom of expression, and to political participation are at stake in decisions about land. Insofar as all these connections to the land run through a people’s way of organizing themselves and their relationships to one another, the rights they establish with respect to the land are properly held and exercised as a people. When land figures in the life of a people in any of the ways described above, it becomes an element of members’ social or communal selves: the selves who exist in and as part of community. All persons have social selves; for many indigenous persons, these selves are partially constituted by specific tracts of land or features of a territory. In many cases, specific territories are so extensive and inextricable an element of indigenous persons’ social selves that undermining their people’s relationship to land is in effect an assault on these social selves. This effect of undermining an indigenous people’s relationship to the land has not been lost on states and explains why policies aimed at eradicating indigenous cultures have so often included forcible removal from land, and policies aimed at appropriating indigenous lands have so often included the destruction of indigenous cultures. One influential account of genocide argues that what distinguishes it from other harms, and what makes it an atrocity, is the aim of extinguishing social selves. If this account is correct, then there are circumstances under which attacks on the integrity of an indigenous people’s land base may appropriately be described as genocidal. So indigenous peoples’ relationships to land are not difficult to identify or verify, and they establish interests in access, use, and disposition of land that are of obvious importance from both a moral point of view and for the smooth functioning of social relations. On the face of it, then, there is no practical, moral, or social reason to think that the interests at stake for an indigenous people are any less adjudicable or significant than the interests at stake for other parties in disputes over land. However, indigenous peoples’ interests in their lands have been and continue to be treated as though they are ambiguous and difficult to adjudicate in Anglo-European legal and philosophical

535

I

536

I

Indigenous Rights to Land

discourses. Typical among these are Lockean theories of property. On John Locke’s interpretation of natural law, it was reasonable for European colonists to treat land used and occupied by indigenous peoples as open for appropriation, and it was unreasonable and an act of aggression for indigenous peoples to resist these appropriations because indigenous peoples did not change the landscapes within which they lived in a way that any person could recognize as beneficial, and so they could not reasonably expect people new to the territory to treat the land as in use. Moreover, indigenous communities were characterized as claiming authority over too great an expanse of territory given the needs and capacity of their communities so that to accept their claims would amount to a waste of humanity’s (commonly held) natural wealth. According to this argument, even if indigenous people in fact are using and occupying land, they do not count as users or occupiers for purposes of moral reasoning. Consequently, they have no right to exclude others from their traditional territories and a duty to accept and support use of that territory by others, even to the point of foregoing access and use themselves. Moreover, others who might be inclined out of sympathy or goodwill to accept an indigenous people’s use as morally compelling must set that aside in the face of a claim by someone who does count as a user or occupier for purposes of moral reasoning. Although Locke’s argument is very problematic, it continues to be influential. For example, according to the legal doctrine of discovery, modern states’ authority to determine what happens to and within lands traditionally occupied and used by indigenous peoples flows legally from the fact that these lands were terra nullius (literally “empty land”) when the political entities from which these states descend first claimed sovereignty with respect to them. The claim in describing these areas as terra nullius is not that the lands in question were literally void of habitation at the time sovereignty was asserted by the modern state’s forebears, but that prior occupation and use of these lands by indigenous peoples is irrelevant for purposes of determining whether that initial assertion was felicitous. At issue is whether an indigenous people’s legal and political rights regarding land should be regarded as prior to and independent of the constitutional and judicial structures of the state within whose international jurisdiction it now appears to fall, or whether these rights should be understood as subsequent to and dependent upon that state’s constitutional and judicial structures. If the former, then the indigenous people’s legal and political rights operate as a constraint on the state’s authority and the powers it may claim within its internationally recognized borders. If the latter, then the precedents and priorities of

the state’s constitutional and judicial order may properly be treated as constraints on the form and content of the indigenous people’s rights. Ironically, the international legal basis for the doctrine of discovery is the recognition of occupation as a valid mechanism for establishing sovereignty over territory. Governments seeking to establish that their territory was terra nullius at the time of the state’s formation despite the presence of indigenous peoples have offered two lines of argument: that indigenous peoples within the territory over which the state now claims absolute sovereignty were not sufficiently regular or settled in their use of specific tracts of land to count as occupants; and that indigenous peoples did not have the requisite authority or control over the lands they inhabited to count as in possession of it. The plausibility of these arguments is undermined by the existence of numerous treaties between predecessors of these states’ governments and the indigenous peoples whose standing as occupants in now denied. The existence of treaties is clear evidence that the new arrivals believed the people already there to have reliable and extensive governance regimes among themselves and with respect to the land; otherwise, there could have been no expectation that those with whom the agreements were undertaken would be able to deliver their part of the bargain. Even if we accept that these terra nullius arguments are offered in good faith, they presuppose a view of when territory may be considered unoccupied under international law which has been definitively rejected by modern international courts. Despite this, legal precedents presupposing the international legitimacy of terra nullius are still treated as authoritative in many national jurisdictions. Among national jurisdictions whose legal systems have rejected terra nullius many continue to consider arguments that the indigenous rights that are acknowledged to have existed at the time of a state’s formation need not be taken into account because they have since been “extinguished.” In arguments that indigenous rights have been extinguished, it is allowed that an indigenous people had rights at the time of the state’s founding. However, it is claimed that at some point between then and now, these rights have disappeared or been superseded. It is not clear how this is supposed to have happened. Insofar as indigenous rights to land are human rights, they are inalienable, and so it is not within a state’s power to make them go away. At most, then, extinguishment arguments may purport to establish that the state ought to be accepted as the primary authority for interpreting and adjudicating claims arising from the indigenous people’s rights. Even this much more limited claim is implausible. Insofar as

Indigenous Rights to Land

the relationships to a specific territory that establish an indigenous people’s rights with respect to it are acknowledged to predate the establishment of a state’s constitution as a political entity, it is acknowledged that these rights are justified independently of the particular structures, priorities, or citizenship regime of that state. Consequently, there is not a plausible argument from the way indigenous rights fit into the state’s larger political and legal structures to deferring to the state’s judgment. Ultimately, arguments for extinguishment are confused both about the grounding of indigenous rights to land and about the circumstances under which a state could plausibly claim jurisdictional authority regarding the interpretation and adjudication of indigenous rights. The priority that the governments of states like Canada continue to place on extracting acquiescence in extinguishment in contemporary negotiations with indigenous peoples is similarly confused. In light of this intellectual and legal history, arguments for universal duties of distributive justice that depart from the assumption that no one has any greater claim to benefit from the land and resources of a particular territory are very troubling. These arguments take as axiomatic an instrumentalist approach to the value of land and a people’s living environment that, although widely accepted within a particular strand of Western liberalism, is deeply contested both within the Western intellectual tradition and outside of it. For example, it is far from obvious that none of us has any better claim to benefit from the land and resources of a particular territory than others; or that even if this were true, the benefits from land and resources that matter most from a moral point of view can be distributed in the way these theorists envision. Such casual dismissal of the moral significance of historical, cultural, and spiritual connections as not, ultimately, of the requisite consequence or substance to compel restraint or reorientation of action should give us pause, not just for its resonance with Lockean and terra nullius arguments, but for the implicit contrast between (concrete, material) economic interests on the one hand and (ethereal, emotional) historical, cultural, and spiritual interests on the other. This contrast is false (historical, cultural, and spiritual interests in land can be highly concrete and physical, and economic interests can be highly abstract and symbolic) and misleading. In fact, for the instrumentalist approach to makes sense, we must assume that land is primarily valuable not just for how it may be used, but for how it may be used in relation to global economic markets. This tacit assumption about how land should be valued occludes the crucially important

I

question of not just what but whose valuation ought to be determinative of how land is used. The heart of most indigenous peoples’ claims with respect to land is a claim to authority over a specific territory or resource. At the minimum, this is a claim to absolute title, including reversionary rights and rights of expropriation. However, a key element of almost all indigenous land claims is also a claim to jurisdiction over the use and disposition of land, water, minerals, wildlife, and other resources within a specified territory, including the right to refuse access and use if and as the indigenous people sees fit. The language of title does not adequately capture this feature as it focuses attention on ownership and registration with the explicit goal of facilitating transfer and alienation. In fact, one of the primary purposes of the legal concept of aboriginal title in Australia and Canada has been to facilitate third-party access to land and resources over which indigenous peoples have plausible legal claims. Yet, even if the language of title does not fully capture the nature of most indigenous land claims, securing explicit documentation of their rights with respect to specific tracts of land is a practical priority for many peoples. In the absence of such documentation, especially with regard to the boundaries of their land and the formal relationship between their rights and other possible legal bases for rights of use and disposition, an indigenous people may have difficulty making their rights effective, especially if the state proves unwilling or incapable of acting in good faith to support them. A common concern about indigenous rights to land is how recognizing these rights may impact nonindigenous persons who reside or work in an indigenous people’s territory, or who have other important interests at stake with respect to that territory. Insofar as we acknowledge that indigenous peoples have human rights, we must allow that there will be cases in which the rights of an indigenous people will take precedence over or otherwise constrain the projects, plans, or interests of others. The concern, then, cannot be the mere possibility of nonindigenous persons’ plans or interests having to give way in the face of indigenous persons’ or peoples’ rights. Nor can the concern be that nonindigenous persons may find themselves subject to governance by an indigenous people’s institutions or by legislatures who have been selected and authorized by a predominantly indigenous population. After all, the argument against state governance of indigenous lands is not that the states in question are nonindigenous, but that they are not properly constituted as political authorities within the lands in question due to prior rights of indigenous peoples to exercise authority

537

I

538

I

Inept States

over land and resources within a specific territory. Insofar as it is well motivated, then, concern about how recognizing indigenous rights to land will impact nonindigenous persons must be about how nonindigenous persons may justly be represented by and participate in indigenous peoples’ governance structures. This is the difficult but familiar question of how to ensure just governance for minority groups. Perhaps the best framework for thinking about the nature of indigenous peoples’ rights to land is the framework of “permanent sovereignty over natural resources.” This phrase emerged from the decolonization movement of the 1950s and 1960s. It targets one of the core assumptions of colonial administrative structures: that it is acceptable and right that the land and resources of some peoples be administered for the sake and in accordance with the priorities of others. To say that indigenous peoples’ rights to land are rights to permanent sovereignty over their natural resources is to say that it is wrong and unacceptable that their land and resources be administered for the sake of and in accordance with the priorities of someone else. This captures both the insistence of many indigenous peoples that they be recognized as the ultimate source and adjudicator of rights with respect to their land, and the reality that the governance structures to which many of these peoples are subject are colonizing. We cannot properly appreciate or engage with the injustices indigenous peoples experience without appreciating and engaging with indigenous rights to land. This requires us to reflect on the extent to which colonizing and racist assumptions may continue to inform our thinking about human rights and global distributive justice, and about the moral value of states.

Related Topics

▶ Group Rights ▶ Human Rights ▶ Imperialism ▶ Indigenous Peoples ▶ Self-Determination ▶ Sovereignty ▶ Zapatistas

References Anaya SJ (2004) Indigenous peoples in international law, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford Arneil B (1996) John Locke and America: the defence of English colonialism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Borrows J (1997) Living between water and rocks: first nations, environmental planning and democracy. U Toronto L J 47:417–468 Daes E-I (2001) Indigenous peoples and their relationship to land. Final report of the special rapporteur to the U.N. sub-commission on the

protection and promotion of human rights on the prevention of discrimination and protection of indigenous peoples and minorities U.N. Doc E/CN.4/Sub.2/2001/21 11 June 2001 Daes E-I (2004) Indigenous peoples’ permanent sovereignty over natural resources. Final report of the special rapporteur to the U.N. subcommission on the protection and promotion of human rights on the prevention of discrimination and protection of indigenous peoples and minorities U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub. 2/2004/30 13 July 2004 Falk R (1988) The rights of peoples (in particular indigenous rights). In: Crawford J (ed) The rights of peoples. Clarendon, New York, pp 17–38 Holder C (2004) Self-determination as a basic human right: the draft UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. In: Eisenberg A, Spinner-Halev J (eds) Minorities within minorities: equality, rights and diversity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 294–316 Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2001) Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tigni Community v. Nicaragua. IACHR (Ser. C) No. 79, 31 Aug 2001 Kingsbury B (2001) Reconciling five competing conceptual structures of indigenous peoples’ claims in international and comparative law. In: Alston P (ed) Peoples’ rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 69–110 Thornberry P (2002) Indigenous peoples and human rights. Manchester University Press, Manchester United Nations (2007) Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples U.N. Doc. A/RES/61/295 13 Sep 2007

Inept States ▶ Poverty ▶ Rawls, John

Inequality ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Justice

Intellectual Property Rights ALEX WELLINGTON Department of Philosophy, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada

Familiar rationales for intellectual property emphasize the benefits of providing creators and inventors with exclusive monopoly rights of limited duration for promotion of longer-term public interest. Balancing interests of

Intellectual Property Rights

creators/inventors and users/consumers, is articulated as the ultimate objective. With the rise of the information society, and knowledge-based industries heavily dependent upon intellectual property, the proper scope and limitation of those rights have become significant sites of contestation. The application of international trade law to intellectual property, through the auspices of the TradeRelated Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), has been especially controversial among advocates of global justice and human rights. Copyright protects original expressions of ideas as fixated in works of authorship, including books, films, and computer programs. Related or neighboring rights protect works of performers, phonogram producers, and broadcasters. Patents protect inventions, whether products or processes, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step (nonobviousness) and are capable of industrial application (have utility). Patents are granted on mechanisms and gadgets such as mousetraps, as well as (more controversially) drugs, genetically engineered organisms, and human cell lines. Trademarks are commercial symbols, images, brand logos, and the like, which are given legal protection in order to protect consumers from confusion about the source of goods, and to ensure fair competition among traders. Intellectual property laws also provide protection for undisclosed information of commercial value (including trade secrets), such as recipes, formulas, and proprietary data. Other categories of intellectual property include protection of plant varieties (plant breeders’ rights), semiconductor chips, industrial designs, and geographical indications (wines and spirits). With traditional property, one person’s exclusive possession prevents others from making use of the item of property, and consumption by one person typically prevents simultaneous consumption by others. Yet, the property that comprises “intellectual property” is nonrival, meaning that consumption by one person can occur without preventing simultaneous consumption by others. Without protection of law, intellectual property would not naturally be excludable. Legal protection, in effect, creates artificial scarcity by building legal fences, and providing creators and inventors with time-limited monopoly control over how, by whom and when, their creations and inventions can be used. Arguments put forth to justify fence-building around ideas and information are multifaceted and multidimensional. Some accounts focus on desert, and the natural rights of creators (authors and inventors) to receive the fruits of their labours. Many highlight the social function of intellectual property rights as means to generate overall net social and economic welfare. Taking the example of patents, the desire to incent

I

inventors to devote time, effort, and energy, and investors to provide capital to cover expenses of research and development, calls for the reward of economic gains accruing from patent protection. The bargain theory of patent law posits a deal between society and inventors, mediated by government. Inventors disclose their inventions, rather than keeping them secret, in exchange for limited-term monopoly protection, and society gets access to the inventions, for a fee at first and then for free when they eventually enter the public domain upon expiration of the patent. Critics of economic benefit rationales point to difficulties of using economic models to accurately convey the proper contours of legal protection, to define in advance how much protection, of what subject matter, and for how long, could ensure optimal levels of social benefit. Protection of intellectual property constrains current consumption of knowledge by enhancing market power of property holders, and potentially inhibits future research if multiple layers of innovation and research tools are protected by intellectual property rights. There is no consensus, ultimately, that continually increasing standards of protection will necessarily be welfare enhancing. Scholars interested in development policy have been divided over the question of whether strengthened intellectual property protection could ultimately benefit developing countries. Some scholars believe weak intellectual property protection could be a factor in non-realization of sustained economic development. They suggest that strengthening intellectual property protection worldwide, accompanied by other incentives of market liberalization and appropriate collateral institutions, could ultimately benefit developing countries. Technology transfer is a particular focus. When countries with weak IP laws (or inadequate enforcement) are seen to pose high degrees of risk of infringement, then technology owners are presumed to be less willing to transfer proprietary knowledge. Intellectual property may pose short-term costs, but it serves longer-term goals of optimal inventive competence, diffusion of technology, and R&D capacity. Other scholars have insisted that resort to trade discipline for intellectual property infringement will have disproportionately negative impacts on the poorest, or least developed, countries. Such countries may produce little domestic intellectual property, have few export interests and little capacity for industrial research and development, relying upon foreign suppliers of technology. For those countries, stronger global IP could result in displacement of local producers (those making infringing products), increased prices, and substantial rent transfer to foreign titleholders. Even developing countries will face difficulties in providing adequate staffing of IP

539

I

540

I

Intergenerational Justice

institutions, or court systems, to properly administer IPR laws according to expected standards. Nongovernmental organizations advocating for global justice have criticized the TRIPS regime on numerous grounds. One issue is the impact of pharmaceutical patents on access to essential medicines, a crucial aspect of the human right to health. Another is the implications for farmers’ rights to save seeds in the face of increasing encroachment of patented seed varieties in agriculture. The conventional patent system does not provide satisfactory protection for traditional knowledge, yet many developing countries have considerable assets in such knowledge. Products produced from genetic resources and based upon knowledge from communities in developing countries do garner intellectual property protection. Yet, those communities typically do not receive fees or other compensation; there is not sufficient recognition of the need for benefit sharing. Critics of the existing unjust trade regime point to economic data demonstrating a transfer of resources from developing countries to IP producing and exporting countries due to adherence to TRIPs. Human rights advocates call for intellectual property agreements to be subjected to human rights impact assessment, and insist that potential benefits of intellectual property are much more likely to be shared by developing countries if greater global commitment to distributive justice is achieved.

Related Topics

▶ Doha Declaration ▶ Essential Medicines, Access to ▶ Legal Rights ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Owning Life ▶ Property Rights ▶ Rights ▶ Technology ▶ Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property ▶ World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) ▶ World Trade Organization (WTO)

References Fisher W (2001) Theories of intellectual property. In: Munzer S (ed) New essays in the legal and political theory of property. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Maskus K (2000) Lessons from studying the international economics of intellectual property rights. Vanderbilt Law Rev 53:2219 Maskus K (2001) Intellectual property challenges for developing countries: an economic perspective. Univ Ill Law Rev 1:457–474 Primo Braga CA (1990) The developing country case for and against intellectual property protection. In: Siebeck W, Evenson R, Lesser W, Primo Braga C (eds) Strengthening protection of intellectual property

in developing countries (World Bank discussion paper). The World Bank, Washington, DC United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2001) The impact of the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights on human rights: report of the high commissioner, commission on human rights, economic and social council. E/CN.4/ Sub.2/2001/13, 27 June 2001. Downloadable from: http://ap.ohchr. org/documents/alldocs.aspx?doc_id=7260 United Nations Secretary-General (2001) Intellectual property and human rights: report of the secretary general, commission on human rights, economic and social council. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2001/12, 14 Jun 2001. Plus Addendum, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2001/12/Add.1, 3 July 2001. Downloadable from: http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/alldocs. aspx?doc_id=7260

Intergenerational Justice JOSHUA J. KASSNER Division of Legal, Ethical, and Historical Studies, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, USA

Intergenerational justice is about the moral obligations presently existing moral agents owe to remote (temporally nonoverlapping) past and future generations. At first glance, one might be skeptical about the relationship between intergenerational and global justice. However, both the existence and understanding of the obligations that constitute intergenerational justice have an impact on how we understand the scope and content of global justice. For example, if those in the present have an obligation to rectify injustices suffered by those from the remote past, this may impact how we apportion burdens for dealing with contemporary problems of global justice. The connection between global justice and obligations those in the present owe to those in the future is more readily understood. For example, if there is an obligation to protect the environment for future generations, the moral demands will be global in nature as will the intended beneficiaries. Any theory of justice – including a theory of intergenerational justice – must be able to explain with sufficient specificity who owes what to whom and why. The temporal remoteness of the agents involved presents unique problems for accounts seeking to offer a complete (who, what, whom, and why) account of intergenerational justice. When discussing the challenge of remoteness, it is important to distinguish between obligations owed to those in the remote past from obligations owed to those in the remote future. Focusing on the obligations those in the

Intergenerational Justice

present have to future generations, the most pressing theoretical challenges are related to our inability to know who will exist in the future and what effect our present actions will have on the future and those who will inhabit it. As to the issues remoteness raises for our understanding of the obligations present individuals owe to those from the past, there is no theoretical problem with identifying those who have already existed, but it is unclear how the actions of present individuals can serve the interests of those who no longer exist.

Intergenerational Justice: Grounding and Challenges There are an array of accounts of intergenerational justice that seek to ground the moral obligations presently existing moral agents owe to those from remote generations in a variety of moral principles and values; two of the most prominent being consequentialism and rights-based accounts.

Consequentialism Consequentialist reasoning has proven unsatisfactory as a guiding principle for intergenerational justice for a number of reasons. With regards to moral obligations those in the present owe to those from the remote past, consequentialism demands that moral agents act so as to maximize the production of good consequences – whatever those happen to be, e.g., utility, preference satisfaction, etc. It is a forward-looking moral theory. All moral obligations are grounded in their ability to produce good future consequences. The forward-looking nature of consequentialism should not be taken to imply that consequentialist reasoning is well suited to explain the moral obligations existing moral agents owe to those in the remote future. Two problems with such an account are the “repugnant” implications identified by Derek Parfit, and the problems with making the interpersonal/intergenerational comparisons necessary to determine what present actions will produce the best consequences for all who are affected by the action, including those in the remote future. As to the repugnant implications identified by Parfit, he points out that one can maximize utility/preference satisfaction by simply creating more people, and that the more people you create, provided their lives are even barely worth living, the more utility created/preferences are satisfied. Most find this implication repugnant and unacceptable. As to the other critique regarding the necessary interpersonal/intergenerational comparisons, consequentialist reasoning is instrumental in nature where an action is evaluated based on its tendency to produce good

I

541

consequences and/or lessen bad ones. If an action affects more than a single person, this requires interpersonal comparisons of harm and benefit. Making such comparisons, even among contemporaries, can be problematic, but making such comparisons (the sacrifice those in the present would have to make for those in the future) is impossible since those in the future do not yet exist.

Rights-Based Accounts Alternatively, some argue that intergenerational justice can be grounded in a rights-based account. Under such an account, remote generations have rights with correlative duties borne by existing moral agents. The underlying argument would begin with the proposition that individuals from remote generations have interests that warrant protection by rights. However, for a rights-based account of intergenerational justice to succeed, there must be an explanation for how those in the present can be the bearers of the duties correlative to the rights ascribed. It is this latter necessary normative relationship between existing moral agents and those from remote generations that has proven problematic for rights-based accounts. First, the fact that those in the present are temporally remote from those to whom they ostensively owe a correlative duty makes the normative relationship between the right holders and duty-bearers asymmetrical in an arguably problematic way. Simply put, for many, justice can only exist among those who are engaged in a community built around rules that govern the cooperation of the members of the community. An essential element of justice is a matter of reciprocity between these members. It can be argued that intergenerational justice is problematic because there is nothing that those from the remote past or future can do for those in the present. It has been argued that one way to avoid this problem is to expand the notion of community to include the human community. An implication of this expansion is a restriction on the possible content of the obligations existing moral agents can owe to temporally remote individuals. This provides conceptual room for obligations of intergenerational justice from existing moral agents to those in the future, but it does not resolve the issue for claimed obligations owed to those in the remote past. Additional issues arise because it is not possible at the present time to identify with any specificity the identity of those who will exist in the future. This has been referred to as the “nonidentity” problem. The problem is tied to the fact that under a rights-based account, the correlative duties borne by the duty-bearers are based on the rights

I

542

I

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

of right holders. If one is unable to identify the right holder, it is unclear to whom a duty is owed. In addition, as rights are tied to interests, the inability to identify the right holders makes it impossible to identify the specific interests to be served by the fulfillment of the duties owed. One response to this problem is to focus on each individual’s right not to be harmed and the duty borne by all others to refrain from harming. The right not to be harmed is a universal right and the duty owed is general. Each individual moral agent is a bearer of the duty, and each individual moral agent owes a correlative duty to refrain from harming others. Under such an account, it is not necessary for a duty-bearer to know with specificity to whom the duty is owed because it is owed to every other moral agent. However, Parfit has pointed out that there is a difficulty with claiming that actions by existing moral agents can help or harm those who exist in the remote future, and there is a clear difficulty with connecting present actions with harms to those from the remote past. With regards to the ability of those in the present to harm those in the remote future, Parfit argues that the choices made in the present determine which specific individuals will, in fact, exist in the future. Consequently, the existence of any specific individual is predicated on the actions of those in the present. Therefore, since the existence of those in the remote future depends on the actions taken by those in the present, it is hard to understand how one could harm anyone in the remote future since the latter’s existence depends on the actions of those in the present. Efforts to meet Parfit’s challenge have focused on alternative definitions of harm. Parfit’s critique depends on the proposition that one can harm another only if the former’s action(s) would cause the latter to be worse off than s/he would have been had the action never occurred. An alternative understanding of harm begins with the proposition that every human agent – whether presently existing or temporally remote – is entitled to, at least, a minimal respect for his/her human rights. Consequently, any individual, including those who are temporally remote, who lives below the threshold is harmed by the actions that caused his/her deprivation, in which case an individual can be harmed by the same actions that led to his/her existence. This may explain how those in the present can harm those in the remote future and, therefore, how those in the present can bear duties of justice to those in the remote future; however, it does not explain how those in the present can have duties of justice owed to those in the remote past, as the actions of those in the present cannot affect those from the remote past.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Rights ▶ Climate Change ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Obligation to Future Generations

References English J (1977) Justice between generations. Philos Stud 31:91–104 Fotion N, Heller JC (eds) (1997) Contingent future persons. On the ethics of deciding who will live, or not, in the future. Kluwer, London Laslett P, Fishkin JS (eds) (1992) Justice between age groups and generations. Yale University Press, New Haven Parfit D (1982) Future generations: further problems. Philos Public Aff 11:113–172 Parfit D (1984) Reasons and persons. Clarendon Press, Oxford Sikora RI, Barry B (eds) (1978) Obligations to future generations. Temple University Press, Philadelphia

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ▶ Climate Change ▶ Global Warming

International Borrowing Privilege ▶ Debt Relief

International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) GILLIAN BROCK Department of Philosophy, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) was convened in order to address the question of when, if ever, it may be appropriate for states to protect people who are at risk in another state. It was convened by the Canadian Government in association with major foundations, in response to pleas made by the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, for the international community to find a way to respond

International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS)

to pressing humanitarian crises that had presented themselves in the 1990s, notably in Rwanda and Srebrenica. The Commission grappled with a range of legal, moral, political, and operational issues, and was asked to produce a report to help the international community find new common ground in dealing with humanitarian crises. The report articulates core principles on which the commission reached consensus, and more importantly, that it believes to be politically achievable in our current world. The basic principles the commission endorsed are that state sovereignty involves responsibility and the primary responsibility for protecting its people lies with that state. However, where people suffer serious harm as a consequence of civil war, repression, state failure (and the like), and where the state in question is unable or unwilling to address the suffering, in those cases the principle of non-intervention may yield to the responsibility to protect, and that responsibility devolves to the international community in such cases. The basis for the responsibility to protect is argued to lie in at least four sources. First, the responsibility to protect is inherent in the concept of sovereignty itself. The report emphasizes that sovereignty is very important, but we must properly understand what sovereignty entails. Sovereignty is not best thought of in terms of control but rather in terms of responsibility. State authorities are responsible for protecting the safety of citizens and for promoting their welfare. They are responsible to the citizens, so they are internally responsible. But they are also externally responsible – state authorities are accountable for their acts to the international community. The three other sources discussed for this responsibility to protect are: Article 24 of the United Nations Charter; specific legal obligations articulated in, for instance, human rights declarations or treatises; and finally, in the emerging practices of states, regional organizations, and the Security Council. The general responsibility to protect involves three more specific responsibilities. First, it entails a responsibility to prevent, that is, to tackle underlying causes of conflict that put people at risk of needing humanitarian intervention (which might involve grappling with poverty or political repression.) Second, it entails a responsibility to react, that is, to respond appropriately when there is compelling human need. Appropriate responses may include sanctions, international prosecutions, or military interventions. Third, the responsibility to protect also entails a responsibility to rebuild, that is, to offer appropriate help with recovery, reconstruction, and reconciliation. The principles that are developed for military intervention are strongly colored by the long tradition of just

I

war theory, but are modified to deal with the specific case of humanitarian intervention. Before military intervention is appropriate, just cause must exist. Just cause obtains when there is actual or imminent occurrence of serious and irreparable harm to human beings, such as in cases of large-scale loss of life, genocide, or ethnic cleansing. The report specifically does not endorse military intervention in cases involving other kinds of massive human rights abuse, such as when rights to freedom of speech are systematically violated. Just cause constitutes a necessary but not a sufficient condition for intervention. In addition, a number of other factors are relevant including other familiar components of the just war framework. These include that proper intentions must be in place; the intervention’s primary purpose must be to avert human suffering. They note that the right intentions are more likely to be assured with multilateral operations, which are also supported by regional opinion and the victims concerned. Second, military intervention may only be justified after all non-military options for peaceful resolution of conflicts have been explored. Third, proportional means should be used, so that what is envisaged with the military intervention is the minimum necessary to secure the defined protection objectives. Fourth, the planned intervention must have reasonable prospects of stopping the suffering, and it must not be the case that anticipated consequences of the intervention would be worse than the consequences of not intervening. Proper authorization for the intervention must also be accorded. Ideally this proper authorization is granted by the United Nations Security Council. The Security Council has an obligation to deal promptly with any requests for such authorizations, especially when they involve urgent, large-scale crises. They also encourage the Permanent Five members of the Security Council not to apply their veto power in cases where their own vital state interests are not at issue, when there is otherwise majority support. However, if the Security Council fails to deal with the request promptly or rejects the request, a number of other options are available. Under the Uniting for Peace procedure, the proposed intervention may be considered by the General Assembly in an Emergency Special Session. Alternatively, under Chapter VIII of the Charter, regional or subregional organizations may authorize interventions. A number of operational principles are also articulated, such as that clear objectives should be set (and resources to match their achievement be allocated), and that a common military approach should exist among intervening partners.

543

I

544

I

International Court of Justice (ICJ)

The idea of the responsibility to protect was endorsed by the General Assembly at the 2005 United Nations World Summit, and this constitutes a significant achievement in states’ acknowledging that more can be required of them in humanitarian crises.

Related Topics

▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention

References International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001) The responsibility to protect. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa

International Court of Justice (ICJ) ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ International Criminal Justice ▶ International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ▶ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ROBERT W. HOAG Department of Philosophy and Religion, Berea College, Berea, KY, USA

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral human rights treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1966, now with about 170 state parties, and, since 1976, in force as foundational source of international human rights law and regimes. With respect to both the process of development and the treaty’s substantive content, the ICCPR is rooted in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), as is the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and which together are the three human rights documents constituting the International Bill of Rights (IBR).

The two Covenants can be seen as substantive amplifications of the UDHR that, as treaties, create bona fide international law for human rights enumerated in the 1948 resolution that is the Declaration. The Covenant on Civil and Political Rights parallels the structure of the other components of the IBR, with a Preamble linking the treaty to basic principles promulgated in the United Nations Charter, followed by articles stating both some general provisions and enumerating specific human rights. As the name suggests, the ICCPR commits its parties to respect individuals’ rights as members of civil society, such as rights to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, electoral rights, and rights to due process. The state parties to the Covenant are to “adopt such laws or other measures . . . to give effect to the rights enumerated,” including ensuring and enforcing remedies (Article 2). The treaty also establishes ratification and amendment procedures, as well as the United Nations Human Rights Committee to monitor state parties’ human rights activities and to specify other reporting procedures for compliance with the terms of the Covenant. The human rights to be respected by parties to the ICCPR are enumerated in 27 articles. Article 1 of the ICCPR appears verbatim also in the companion human rights treaty, the ICESCR: “all peoples have the right of self-determination” regarding “their political status,” development, natural resources (cf. Articles 46–47), and their own means of subsistence. Most of the other rights enumerated in the ICCPR are not also in the ICESCR, but do appear in the UDHR. Articles 2 and 26 stipulate nondiscrimination or equality for individuals’ enjoyment of the rights enumerated in the ICCPR. The Covenant also specifically stipulates that not all the enumerated rights are of equal importance: Article 4 prohibits derogation of certain rights even when state parties face a “public emergency which threatens the life of the nation.” Those nonderogable rights of individuals are explicitly identified: the right to life (Article 6), rights not to be tortured, or subjected to “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” (Article 7), rights not to be enslaved (Article 8), the right not to be imprisoned for breach of contract (Article 11), rights against ex post facto criminal liability (Article 15), “the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law” (Article 16), and “freedom of thought, conscience, and religion” (Article 18). In addition to non-derogable human rights, the Covenant lists other provisions to be enforced by state parties: due process rights, including the presumption of innocence, freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention (Articles 10–16), and habeas corpus rights

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

(Article 9); rights of privacy and family and nationality (Articles 12, 13, 17–24); political participation rights, including voting (Article 25); and the rule of law (e.g., Articles 7, 12, 29). The ICCPR continues to be controversial in its content and scope. A general allegation is that the enumerated rights reflect the substance and sometimes language of Western liberal values, thereby ignoring rights of collectives and imposing as universal, transnational standards that states protect individuals’ freedom of religion (Article 18), of assembly and association (Articles 22–23), of liberal due process. Second, among the enumerated rights in the ICCPR are the right “to marry and found a family” since “the family is the . . . fundamental unit of society” (Articles 23); and another provision prohibits “any propaganda for war” (Article 20). Such provisions of the Covenant raise concerns about “rights inflation,” about the inclusion of ideals, aspirations, or other norms as if they are genuine, transnational human rights of all individuals, with correlative obligations for all states to enforce and protect. Furthermore, the ICCPR presupposes a distinction and perhaps priority for civil and political rights, cherished more by western liberal democracies, over economic, social, and cultural rights, more valued by developing and socialist nations. Ever since initial attempts to draft a human rights treaty began in the 1940s, United Nations member states have disagreed significantly about the relative importance of these two kinds of rights. Since the former were considered negative rights and the latter positive rights, the political and ideological disagreement also had a philosophic side based on whether respecting the human rights obligated states’ positive action or only states’ forbearance, only states not doing things. Emerging from these political, ideological, and philosophic controversies are two human rights treaties, the ICCPR and ICESCR. Finally, there are concerns about the weak enforcement and accountability provisions of the ICCPR, ones that, in practice, at least, allow too many state parties too often to violate even basic human rights enumerated in the Covenant. Despite controversies and the very uneven records of state parties in respecting civil and political rights, the ICCPR does establish transnational standards for how states are to treat individuals in important facets of civil and political life. The ICCPR has been the basis for United Nations action, even the use of armed force to protect basic human rights. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, monitor states’ human rights records as measured against the Covenant’s statement of

I

545

transnational, global standards of governmental behavior toward individuals. As one component of the International Bill of Rights, ICCPR functions as a foundation for an international and global regime whereby not only states, but individuals, too, have universal rights.

Related Topics

▶ Amnesty International ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Capital Punishment ▶ Civil Rights ▶ Correlative Obligations ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Gay Rights ▶ Group Rights ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Rights Watch ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ Human Security ▶ International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ▶ Legal Rights ▶ Moral Imperialism ▶ Negative Rights ▶ Political Freedom ▶ Positive Rights ▶ Slavery ▶ Torture ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights ▶ Violence

References Alston P, Steiner H (eds) (2000) International human rights in context: law, politics, morals, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford Buergenthal T (2002) International human rights, 3rd edn. West, St. Paul Donnelly J (2002) Universal human rights in theory and practice, 2nd edn. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Henkin L (ed) (1981) The international bill of rights: the covenant on civil and political rights. Columbia University Press, New York Ignatieff M (2001) Human rights as politics and idolatry. Princeton University Press, Princeton Nickels J (2007) Making sense of human rights, 2nd edn. Blackwell, Oxford Novack M (2003) Introduction to international human rights regimes. Nijoff, Leiden Shue H (1980) Basic rights: subsistence, affluence, and US foreign policy. Princeton University Press, Princeton United Nations (1948) Universal declaration of human rights. Retrieved 2 June 2010 from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Introduction.aspx United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (1966) International covenant on civil and political rights. Retrieved 2 June 2010 from http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm

I

546

I

International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ROBERT W. HOAG Department of Philosophy and Religion, Berea College, Berea, KY, USA

The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is a multilateral human rights treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1966, now with about 160 state parties, and, since 1976, in force as a foundational source of international human rights law and regimes. As the name suggests, the ICESCR deals with areas such as work, living standards, family, education, health care, and culture. With respect to both the process of its development and the treaty’s substantive content, the ICESCR is rooted in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Along with its companion treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the UDHR, the ICESCR is one of three fundamental human rights documents, constituting what is known as the International Bill of Rights (IBR). The ICESCR parallels the structure of the other components of the IBR, with a Preamble linking the treaty to basic principles promulgated in the United Nations Charter, followed by articles stating some general provisions and enumerating individuals’ social, economic, and cultural human rights. State parties to the Covenant are to “take steps, individually and through international assistance and cooperation,” toward realizing fully the rights enumerated in the ICESCR (Article 2.1). The treaty also specifies ratification and amendment procedures (Articles 26–31) and establishes the United Nations Economic and Social Council, with monitoring responsibilities and reporting procedures for state parties to the Covenant (Articles 16–25). The human rights to be realized fully by state parties to the ICESCR are specified in about ten articles. Article 1 of the ICESCR is verbatim as in the companion human rights treaty, the ICCPR: “all peoples have the right of selfdetermination,” which includes “economic, social, and cultural development,” disposition of “their natural wealth and resources,” and a right of “a people not to be deprived of its own means of subsistence.” Most other rights enumerated in the ICESCR are not also included in the ICCPR, but do appear in the UDHR. The Covenant specifies individuals have “the right to work,” including a right to “just and favorable conditions of work,” to “form

trade unions,” and “to strike” (Articles 6–8). Article 9 specifies “the right of everyone to social security including social insurance”; Article 10 commits state parties to “the widest possible protection and assistance” for the family, mothers, and children, stipulating that marriage is only “with the free consent of the intending parties” and that the family is “the natural and fundamental group unit of society” (Article 10). Several articles address individuals’ standards of living: “the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living” (Article 11), to “physical and mental health” (Article 12), to education (Article 13), and to “take part in cultural life” and benefit from “scientific progress” and works of which one is the author (Article 15). Many of these core provisions of the ICESCR specify in some detail what actions state parties are to undertake in order to realize these human rights. For example, regarding health, Article 12 lists four “steps to be taken by the States Parties to the Covenant”; Article 7 lists six parameters for “just and favorable conditions of work”; Article 13 lists six or more directives regarding “the right of everyone to education.” The ICESCR also includes a number of significant, general provisions. Articles 2 and 3 stipulate gender equality and prohibit many bases of discrimination regarding the exercise and enjoyment of “all economic, social and cultural rights set forth” in the Covenant. The Covenant prohibits any “derogation of any of the fundamental human rights” not recognized in the ICESCR (Article 5), likely a reference to the non-derogable rights specified in the companion treaty, the ICCPR. Third, the ICESCR limits states’ duties to realize the enumerated economic, social, and cultural rights. Thus, developing countries may choose to exclude nonnationals from full guarantees of economic rights (Article 2.3); and states may limit by law the enjoyments of rights “for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society” (Article 4). Finally, the Covenant obligates state parties only “to take steps . . . to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights . . .” (Article 2.1). The ICESCR continues to be controversial. In the areas of enforcement and compliance, several ineffective monitoring structures and procedures have been replaced. Also, the Covenant’s progressive realization requirement for state parties is seen as not only weak and ineffective, but inherently difficult to monitor or enforce. Another challenge lies in the charge of cultural imperialism since the Covenant promulgates positions on marriage, the family, and gender equality, for example, sometimes in conflict with local, cultural norms about education or work. As in other elements of the IBR, controversy focuses

International Criminal Court (ICC)

on the danger of “rights inflation,” about the inclusion of ideals, aspirations, or other norms (e.g., about marriage or family) as if they are genuine, transnational human rights. Finally, one controversy continues from the time of its development. The ICESCR presupposes a distinction between economic, social, and cultural rights, and civil and political rights. Ever since initial attempts to draft a human rights treaty began in the 1940s, United Nations member states have disagreed significantly about the relative importance of these two kinds of rights, socialist and developing nations oft more concerned about the former, liberal or Western democracies more focused on civil and political rights. Since recognizing economic, social, and cultural rights requires positive action by a state, whereas it is said states can respect civil and political rights by forbearing, there is a philosophic as well as political and ideological facets to this disagreement. The result is two human rights treaties, the ICCPR and ICESCR, with controversy continuing about the relative importance of the two treaties and the rights they enumerate. Despite controversies and challenges, the ICESCR does establish transnational legal standards for how states are to treat individuals in areas that directly impact everyday lives of many families, children, and women. As one component of the IBR, the ICESCR functions as foundation for a world where not just states, but individuals, too, have rights.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Rights ▶ Correlative Obligations ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Economic Rights ▶ Group Rights ▶ Health and Health Care ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Rights Watch ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ Human Security ▶ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ▶ International Labor Standards ▶ Legal Rights ▶ Moral Imperialism ▶ Negative Rights ▶ Positive Rights ▶ Subsistence Rights ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

References Alston P, Steiner H (eds) (2000) International human rights in context: law, politics, morals, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford

I

Buergenthal T (2002) International human rights, 3rd edn. West, St. Paul Craven M (1998) The international covenant on economic, social, and cultural rights: a perspective on its development. Clarendon, Oxford Donnelly J (2002) Universal human rights in theory and practice, 2nd edn. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Ignatieff M (2001) Human rights as politics and idolatry. Princeton University Press, Princeton Nickels J (2007) Making sense of human rights, 2nd edn. Blackwell, Oxford Novack M (2003) Introduction to international human rights regimes. Nijoff, Leiden Shue H (1980) Basic rights: subsistence, affluence, and US foreign policy. Princeton University Press, Princeton United Nations (1948) Universal declaration of human rights. Retrieved 2 June 2010 from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Introduction.aspx United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (1966) International covenant on economic, social, and cultural rights. Retrieved 2 June 2010 from http://www2.ohchr.org/english/ law/cescr.htm

International Criminal Court (ICC) MICHAEL BUCKLEY Department of Philosophy, Lehman College, City University of New York, Bronx, NY, USA

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an independent, permanent international criminal court with the powers to investigate, prosecute, and try individuals accused of the most serious human rights violations whenever national judicial systems are unable or unwilling to prosecute such cases themselves. The ICC was established on July 1, 2002, when 60 countries ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, an international treaty establishing the Court and determining its procedures, jurisdiction, and mechanisms of cooperation with member states. Countries ratifying the Statute thereby accept the Court’s jurisdiction with respect to the crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. As of October 12, 2010, 114 countries ratified the Statute, with the majority of those countries coming from Africa. The ICC was established to end the long history of impunity for perpetrators of the most egregious crimes. Unlike its cousin, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the ICC is a criminal court that prosecutes individual persons, whereas the ICJ is a civil court designed to settle legal disputes between states. The origins of the ICC lie in international human rights law beginning with the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials of World War II, and the

547

I

548

I

International Criminal Court (ICC)

signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Right in 1948. Since the end of the Cold War, human rights law has further developed through ad hoc criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. These tribunals helped shape international legal precedent and inform the drafting of the Rome Statute. Despite the universality of human rights discourse and the international effort to codify these rights into international law, the jurisdiction and powers of the ICC are limited in several important ways. Among the most significant is the Court’s territorial jurisdiction, which is restricted to countries having ratified the Rome Statute. The citizens of states that have not ratified the Statute are outside the ICC’s jurisdiction, and free from possible investigation and prosecution by the Court, unless the United Nations Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter refers a case to the Court. Additionally, the ICC can only investigate crimes committed after the Statute entered into force on July 1, 2002, and only the crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, each of which is defined clearly by the Statute. The crime of aggression is also listed on the Statute as a punishable crime, and an amendment defining it was adopted at the 13 plenary meeting, on 11 June 2010, by consensus. But the Court cannot exercise jurisdiction over this crime until it is ratified by member states. In addition to limits on jurisdiction, the Court is limited in the exercise of its jurisdiction. It can take up cases referred to it by member states, or cases referred to it by the United Nations Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations. Additionally, the ICC Prosecutor can initiate investigations proprio motu, but only subject to the Court’s territorial and temporal jurisdiction, as well as certain admissibility constraints. The admissibility of cases is constrained by the “complementarity” principle and the “gravity” of the case. The complementarity principle says that the ICC is a court of last resort; it can take prosecutorial jurisdiction only in cases where the member state is unwilling or unable to carry out the investigation or prosecution. This principle preserves the juridical authority of the state, and coordinates the powers of domestic courts with that of the ICC. Admissibility of only “grave” cases ensures that the ICC pursues the worst atrocities. However, the Statute does not define “gravity,” freeing the Court to determine the threshold. The Court has since explained the concept in terms of two characteristics. First, grave crimes are systemic or part of a pattern of incidences, rather than isolated cases. Second, grave crimes create social alarm within the broader international community.

Limits on the Court’s jurisdiction, its exercise of jurisdiction, and the admissibility of cases confine the ICC in ways consistent with the principle of sovereignty. This might suggest, and in some cases certainly does imply, a relatively weak international Court. However, the ICC has been quite active in its first 7 years, investigating referrals from Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, as well as the situation in Darfur, Sudan, which was referred to it by the UN Security Council. On November 5, 2009, the Prosecutor initiated proceedings to the investigation of post-election violence in the Republic of Kenya during 2007–2008. Before this investigation can begin, the Prosecutor must receive permission from the Pre-Trial Chamber, where three judges decide whether or not to allow the investigation to begin. The ICC began its first trial against Congolese militia leader, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, on January 26, 2009. On March 4, 2009, the Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s President, Omar al-Bashir, the first head of state to be indicted by the Court. However, absent member state cooperation in exercising the arrest warrant, the ICC has no means of bringing those indicted to justice. Consequently, the pursuit of criminal justice sometimes stalls in the face of hard realities. Moreover, some argue that the threat of arrest has inhibited the peace process in some cases, since those facing arrest resist negotiating a peace agreement that would inevitable lead to their apprehension. This has sparked a heated debate between justice seekers and peacemakers. While the ICC represents a global authority aspiring toward an ideal whereby all persons guilty of a crime are to be held accountable, no matter their position in society, it operates within the confines of a Statute that recognizes and reaffirms the principle of sovereignty as an overarching principle of international relations. As a result, the future viability and effectiveness of the ICC will be written by how well it pursues its ideal within the context of an international political order based on the principle of sovereignty.

Related Topics

▶ International Court of Justice (ICJ) ▶ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ▶ International Law ▶ Rome Statute of 1998 ▶ Sovereignty ▶ Transitional Justice ▶ Truth Commissions ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

International Criminal Justice

References Lutz E, Reiger C (eds) (2009) Prosecuting heads of state. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. http://www.un.org/ law/icc/index.html Schabas W (2001) An introduction to the International Criminal Court. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

International Criminal Justice KENNETH A. RODMAN Department of Government, Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA

International criminal justice is a branch of international law that assigns criminal responsibility to individuals complicit in the gravest violations of the laws of war or international human rights law. It has its origins in the post–World War II trials of Axis leaders and, since the 1990s, has played an increasingly prominent role in national courts and in the establishment of international tribunals. To its strongest proponents, this development reflects a growing global consensus on a duty to prosecute international crimes, whose long-term consequence will be to end the culture of impunity in which governments and rebels believe they can use any means necessary to achieve their aims without legal consequence. To its critics, a rigid demand for retributive justice could undermine a sovereign state’s ethical duty to promote the national interest, particularly the delicate compromises that are necessary for societies in transition from war or repressive rule. International criminal justice seeks to place the individual at the center of international law – both in subjecting perpetrators to retributive justice and in providing legal redress for victims. This ambition challenges the sovereignty-centered international laws established at the birth of the modern state system in mid-seventeenthcentury Europe after the Peace of Westphalia. Westphalian or classical international law was about the rights and responsibility of states. Individuals had no standing in international law and were subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the states in which they lived. Moreover, classical international law was not about principles of justice, such as human rights or nonaggression, but rather, about defining the prerogatives of sovereign states. Among its central rules were: (1) noninterference in the internal affairs of sovereign states, (2) absolute immunity for heads of state and diplomats from foreign courts, (3) immunity

I

from foreign courts for public officials when they act on behalf of the state, and (4) the requirement of some connection to a state’s territory or its nationals for the assertion of jurisdiction. To proponents of international criminal justice, these rules encourage impunity. Nonetheless, to defenders of the system, there was a moral and prudential logic behind them. First, the Westphalian system followed the Thirty Years War – a war of religion that had devastated Central Europe – and noninterference with other nations’ ways of life and worship was viewed as necessary to moderate international conflict and encourage a tolerable coexistence between states. Second, one of the central reasons for the immunities granted by classical international law was to facilitate diplomacy between sovereign states. This involves the accommodation of divergent interests, a process that would likely be complicated if governments could criminalize the behavior of their rivals. The watershed events in introducing criminal justice into international law were the international military tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo that prosecuted, respectively, German and Japanese political leaders, military commanders, and civilians for aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. These tribunals established a number of important precedents challenging Westphalian law. First, the Nuremberg judgment affirmed the need to move beyond state to individual criminal responsibility: “Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced.” Second, the charters for both tribunals held that individuals could be prosecuted and punished regardless of their official position, thereby rejecting the immunities provided by classical international law. Finally, they established a new crime in international law – crimes against humanity – to prosecute systematic atrocities against any civilian population, even if it occurs within a country’s borders and is consistent with its domestic laws. This was the first time international law had pierced the hard shell of sovereignty and established international accountability over the most egregious crimes committed by a state against its own citizens. Questions, however, were raised about the precedential value of Nuremberg and Tokyo since neither was a pure exercise in legal justice. Both were established by the winners of the World War II under occupation law, and hence, were subjected to charges of “victor’s justice.” First, while the vanquished were put on trial, the victors remained immune from prosecution for actions that violated the laws of war, most notably for the allied firebombing of German and Japanese cities. In addition,

549

I

550

I

International Criminal Justice

German officials were prosecuted for aggression against Poland while their ally in that crime, the Soviet Union, was allowed to sit in judgment. Second, some of the charges filed against Axis leaders – that is, aggression and crimes against humanity – had not been defined as crimes in international law prior to their commission, thereby violating the principle of nullum crimen sine lege or “no crime without law.” Finally, the primary motivation of the United States as the strongest advocate of the tribunals was political – that is, to cleanse Germany and Japan of their militaristic pasts and transform them into pacific and liberal democracies. While this political agenda often coincided with legal justice, it also led to derogations from it, such as the decision to exempt the Japanese Emperor Hirohito from prosecution in order to stabilize the postwar occupation of Japan. The international community nonetheless built on the precedents established at Nuremberg and Tokyo to create a new legal architecture. This included the 1948 Genocide Convention which defined any effort to destroy, in whole or in part, a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group, as an international crime which state parties were obliged to prevent, suppress, and prosecute. The 1949 Geneva Conventions contained, for the first time, provisions that defined the most serious violations – “grave breaches” – as international crimes for which there was a duty, regardless of nationality, either to prosecute or extradite to another state party willing to do so. The UN General Assembly also endorsed the Nuremberg principles and commissioned a study to consider drafting a permanent tribunal. Despite these legal developments, the Cold War made substantive negotiations impossible. As a result, the new legal architecture challenged classical international law in theory more than in practice. The end of the Cold War in the 1990s, however, saw four developments that built on the Nuremberg precedent. First, the United Nations UN Security Council established ad hoc tribunals to prosecute atrocity crimes in two specific conflicts. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), based in The Hague, was established in 1993 to prosecute ethnic violence in the former Yugoslav republics after 1991. The next year, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was set up in Arusha, Tanzania, to prosecute crimes associated with the Rwandan genocide committed in 1994. Second, the United Nations established hybrid courts in Sierra Leone, East Timor, Cambodia, and Kosovo. These tribunals – which were negotiated with individual governments, rather than mandated by the Security Council – are composed of both national and foreign judges and prosecutors trying cases under a mix of domestic and

international criminal law. In theory, they seek to maximize the values promoted by national trials while minimizing their problems. Administering justice in the countries where the crimes occurred – as opposed to the distant justice meted out in The Hague and Arusha – makes the proceedings more accessible to victims and increases their impact on the domestic rule of law. International involvement ensures that trials will take place according to universal human rights standards and the requirement that at least some international judges must agree with a decision guards against the kind of politicized justice that national courts often produce in post-conflict societies. Third, several states – mostly in Europe – passed universal jurisdiction laws that empowered investigating magistrates to build cases against those accused of international crimes, even if there was no connection to that country’s territory or nationals. The most significant exercise of universal jurisdiction was the issuance of a Spanish arrest warrant for former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, and the subsequent extradition controversy that followed his arrest in Great Britain in 1998. That case produced the most significant legal precedent upholding universal jurisdiction when the British Law Lords ruled that Pinochet could be extradited to Spain. That decision did acknowledge that Pinochet, as a former head of state, had absolute immunity for anything done in his official capacity, but not for those acts, such as torture, that were defined by international treaties as crimes for which there was an obligation to prosecute or extradite. While Pinochet was subsequently returned to Chile for health reasons, the ruling established the precedent that immunities did not bar national courts from prosecuting public officials for treaty-based crimes. The final development was the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose founding Rome Statute was negotiated in July 1998. The ICC currently has jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, committed after the treaty came into force on July 1, 2002, and state parties have taken steps toward adding aggression to its list of core crimes. The ICC can exercise universal jurisdiction if the Security Council refers a case; otherwise, its jurisdiction applies only to the nationals or territory of a state party or to a nonparty state that voluntarily consents to its jurisdiction on an ad hoc basis. The ICC’s jurisdiction is also complementary to national systems of justice and there is a presumption in favor of deference to local courts, unlike the ICTY and ICTR, which exercise primary jurisdiction. This means that a case is admissible only if the Prosecutor determines and the judges confirm that states are unwilling or unable to launch a genuine investigation or prosecution. In theory, the

International Criminal Justice

goal is to encourage national justice systems to honor their obligations under international law. To the strongest proponents of international criminal justice, these institutions provide the nucleus of an international legal system that could end impunity. Their viewpoint is informed by what the political philosopher Judith Shklar refers to as Legalism, which envisions a just world order based on the rule of law and views politics as a defect to be remedied if this vision is to be realized. As a result, they have advocated institutions of international justice that are as insulated as possible from state influence so courts can apolitically and impartially enforce the law. In the negotiations at Rome, their major achievement was the creation of an independent Prosecutor, which could take cases on its own initiative rather than being dependent upon referrals from the Security Council, thereby insulating justice from realpolitik. Other features of the Rome Statute, however, fell short of legalist ideals. For example, the Security Council – a political body whose decisions are heavily shaped by major power consensus – can both refer a case to the court and suspend criminal proceedings for renewable 12-month periods. Without a Security Council referral, the ICC has no jurisdiction over nonparties – presumably the worst human rights abusers – within their own territories. Nonetheless, legalists see the ICC as part of an evolving global legal order and look to national courts exercising universal jurisdiction as a means of filling some of the gaps within the Rome Statute. The case for international criminal justice uncompromised but by politics is based on the argument that there is a duty to prosecute the worst human rights abuses. For the ICC and its state parties, that duty is based on the Rome Statute, whose object and purpose is to end impunity for the gravest international crimes through prosecution. For the entire international community, it is based on international treaties and custom that create a universal obligation to prosecute core crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, torture, war crimes), as well as international human rights law, which grants victims of abuse a nonnegotiable right to redress. Moreover, acting on this duty will have superior consequences in ending anti-civilian violence. First, it will maximize the law’s deterrent impact, both within the country in which it is applied and to the world at large by demonstrating that governments and insurgents that employ criminal methods will become international pariahs. Second, it will have superior consequences to non-retributive alternatives in terms of consolidating peace and stability following transitions from war or dictatorship by (a) individualizing guilt in criminal leaders rather than allowing the victims to collectivize it against entire communities,

I

thereby breaking the cycle of violence that prevents reconciliation among divided communities; (b) delegitimizing and thereby reducing the influence of criminal spoilers whose continued political influence could impede reconciliation and disrupt the transition; and (c) its demonstration effect on establishing the rule of law in post-conflict societies. Conversely, peace without justice sets the stage for renewed violence. As a result, antiimpunity advocates oppose amnesties or even informal deferrals of prosecution as violations of international obligations that will encourage impunity, thereby jeopardizing the consolidation of democracy and peace. One school of thought skeptical of legalist claims is Realism. Realist arguments are premised on the durability of the Westphalian sovereignty-based system. They assume that in a system in which there is no sovereign that can enforce the law, international justice has a limited role. As a result, the moral duty of national leaders is to protect the integrity of their political community from internal or external threats, not to promote universal standards of justice. From this perspective, prosecutions tethered to political goals – for example, the role of Nuremberg and Tokyo in democratizing Germany and Japan – are politically legitimate, in contrast to legalists, who define legitimacy as the separation of law from politics. Moreover, some realists contend that international justice institutions independent of politics could limit the ability of states to promote key national interests. The United States, for example, has stayed out of the Rome Statute to maintain its prerogative to use force for counter-terrorism, nonproliferation, or humanitarian purposes without any independent external judgment as to the legality of those ends or the means chosen to pursue them. Other states have cited national interest as a basis for staying outside the Rome Statute because of its jurisdiction over violations of the laws of war in internal armed conflicts. These had previously been addressed by Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which prescribed minimum standards of conduct in civil wars, but did not define their violation as grave breaches or international crimes. As a result, states that confront separatist movements or other forms of internal political violence, such as Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Turkey, and Indonesia, have tried to limit the scope of international criminal law because they do not want any kind of external judgment of their sovereign duty to maintain their territorial integrity – as was the case in the Sri Lankan campaign that ended a 25-year civil war by defeating the separatist Tamil Tigers in May 2009. It has been for this reason that Sri Lanka did not sign the Rome Statute and was joined by Russia and China in opposing an

551

I

552

I

International Criminal Justice

independent international war crimes inquiry. Proponents of international criminal justice would counter these national interest arguments by citing the civilian casualties and displacement caused by Sri Lankan military actions and the rights-abusive detention and interrogation practices used by the United States in its war on terrorism. This indicates the need to expand, not limit the scope of international accountability. A second line of realist argument is that legalist justice is impossible given the dependence of international criminal law on state support. Unlike its domestic counterpart, international criminal law is not enforced by apolitical agents of the court like the police; rather, it is dependent upon the voluntary cooperation of self-interested states for the arrest and surrender of suspects, the protection of witnesses and investigators in war zones, access to confidential evidence, and the financing of its operations. Moreover, when the tribunals target leaders of entrenched regimes or rebel movements that have not been defeated, impunity is a function of power realities on the ground. In such situations, meaningful third-party cooperation involves more than complying with the formal requirements of the Rome Statute. Powerful members of the international community must be willing to threaten or use sanctions or force to change those power realities; otherwise, international criminal justice is unlikely to play a role in ending impunity. For example, the ICTY had little impact on ethnic violence in Bosnia as long as the international community was unwilling to take enforcement actions against perpetrators. In fact, the massacre of over 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica – the worst single atrocity of the war – took place more than 2 years after the tribunal had been created. It was only after NATO used force in Bosnia in 1995, and in Kosovo in 1999, that impunity on the ground ended. And it was only after Western governments linked reconstruction aid and the prospect of EU membership to compliance with the tribunal that former Yugoslav republics were willing to transfer those indicted by the tribunal to The Hague. Conversely, the absence of comparable pressures against Sudan explains the limited influence of the ICC after the referral of the Darfur case to the court in 2005. From this perspective, the dependence of international criminal justice on powerful states renders the legalist vision of apolitical justice a utopian illusion. Given the relationship between politics and law, pragmatists call for an accommodation of international criminal justice to power realities, particularly in transitions from armed conflict or repressive rule when those accused of criminal violence still retain significant power. Since their cooperation is necessary to make a peace process or

democratic transition work, demanding trials would likely prolong a conflict or dissuade a dictator from stepping down. It could also destabilize fragile peace agreements since post-conflict societies often lack the political and legal structures that can effectively enforce the law without risking violent backlash. As a result, pragmatists contend that prosecution should be undertaken only after domestic political institutions have been consolidated. Until then, the duty to prosecute should give way to expedient bargaining. This could involve granting formal amnesties to the leaders of abusive governments or insurgencies, as was the case with the Good Friday Agreement, which formally ended the conflict in Northern Ireland. It could also simply sidestep the issue of prosecution, as was the case with the negotiations at Dayton with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, which ended the Bosnian war (1992–1995). Sometimes, these negotiations are accompanied by non-retributive forms of justice, such as truth commissions, restitution, reparations, or lustration. The best-known example is South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), in which amnesty was conditioned on the public confession of political crimes as a means of facilitating the transition from apartheid to majority rule. Legalists are critical of these derogations from a duty to prosecute as violating the principle of equality under the law – that is, some perpetrators are able to avoid justice on the basis of their power to block political progress. Pragmatists defend these compromises as necessary to make negotiated transitions work and avoid situations likely to lead to further victimization. The universalist aspirations of international criminal law have also been challenged by cultural relativists, who contend that notions of human dignity cannot be divorced from the cultural and historical context of the societies in which they have emerged. This argument has been taken up by defenders of traditional non-retributive reconciliation mechanisms that forego prosecution, particularly in Africa. It characterizes the duty to prosecute as a kind of legal fundamentalism that has its origins in Western individualism. Traditional societies, by contrast, are more community-oriented and adopt accountability practices geared toward the promotion of social harmony through the reintegration of those defined by international law as criminals. For example, Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s defense of the TRC’s amnesty program focused both on Christian notions of forgiveness and the African concept of ubuntu, which aims at building new allegiances and relationships after apartheid. In Northern Uganda, Acholi civil society leaders encouraged the demobilization of LRA fighters through a nonpunitive reconciliation ritual called the mato oput, in which a perpetrator drinks a potion

International Criminal Justice

made from a bitter root, acknowledges responsibility to his victims, and makes amends. In Mozambique, a blanket amnesty was complemented with the use of traditional healers to exorcise the “evil spirits” that led former combatants to behave badly in war in order to prepare them for reintegration into peacetime society. It should also be noted that some traditional justice mechanisms have retributive elements. In Rwanda, for example, the impossibility of trying over 100,000 people accused of participating in the genocide led to application of a community justice system called gacaca, in which village elders have supervised a process where perpetrators and collaborators are required to acknowledge their participation in front of surviving victims within their communities. While gacaca has non-retributive features, those responsible for murder or other serious crimes are subject to penal sanctions. Human rights organizations have been critical of many of these alternative justice mechanisms, which have traditionally been used for local property crimes and neighborhood disputes. Employing them for international crimes is viewed as a derogation from universal values that ought to apply regardless of the cultural context – that is, from the “duty to prosecute” in nonpunitive processes and from the basic due process protections for the accused in retributive ones. They also challenge the argument that these traditional mechanisms are more culturally authentic – first, by citing surveys of victims of apartheid in South Africa or LRA violence in Northern Uganda which found a preference for legal retribution over traditional reconciliation rituals, and second, by noting that these alternative justice mechanisms did not emerge spontaneously, but rather were promoted by political elites to serve their own political interests. A final critique put forward by some developing countries, as well as scholars who adopt a neo-imperial interpretation of international institutions, is that international criminal justice is an enterprise in which the strong judge the weak. Universal jurisdiction, for example, has been exercised predominantly by European courts against accused perpetrators in the Third World, sometimes in circumstances that raise questions about double standards. For example, Spanish magistrates indicted perpetrators in former Latin American colonies even though Spain chose a different path in its transition from fascism to democracy in the mid-1970s. A Belgian court issued an arrest warrant for a Congolese foreign minister despite Belgium’s brutal colonial history in the Congo. A French magistrate has built a criminal case against high-level Rwandan officials, including President Paul Kagame, even though France had a close relationship with the Hutu-led regime responsible for the genocide. Similarly, all of the ICC’s formal investigations are

I

in Africa, in cases unlikely to threaten the interests of Western governments on whose support the Court depends. This neocolonial interpretation of the court sharpened after the Prosecutor applied for an arrest warrant for the Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, for atrocity crimes committed in Darfur. Critics noted that the ICC was only able to assert jurisdiction over Sudan, a nonparty to the Rome Statute, through the Security Council. By contrast, three of the five permanent members of the Security Council are nonparties to the Rome Statute and could simply veto an ICC investigation of themselves (e.g., the United States in Iraq or Afghanistan, Russia in Chechnya, and China in Tibet) or their nonparty allies (e.g., Israel in Gaza). From this perspective, international criminal justice is part of a “new humanitarian order” that violates some of the principal tenets of the UN Charter – that is, the principle of the sovereign equality of states and of noninterference in their internal affairs. In other words, the Westphalian prerogatives of sovereignty – which were denied to the non-Western world for most of the history of the modern state system – are embraced as vital elements of citizenship in the international legal order and as a bulwark against powerful states violating the independence of the weak. Proponents of international criminal justice are also critical of the reluctance of international judicial institutions to target powerful states, and their activism and advocacy are designed to bring about the normative changes that free courts from such inhibitions. Nonetheless, they view the defense of sovereignty put forward by some developing countries as a step backward, privileging the rights of states and their abusive leaders over a commitment to protect the rights of individuals. In sum, institutions of international criminal justice have become a more prominent feature of international law and have increasingly entered the discourse of international relations. Yet given the dependence of law enforcement on politics and the potential trade-offs between prosecution and other values, ethical debates regarding its appropriateness in different situations are likely to continue well into the future.

Related Topics

▶ Duty to Prosecute ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ Peace Versus Justice

References Cobban H (2007) Amnesty after atrocity? Healing nations after genocide and war crimes. Paradigm, Boulder Mamdani M (2009) Saviors and survivors: darfur, politics and the war on terror. Pantheon Books, New York

553

I

554

I

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

Robertson G (2006) Crimes against humanity: the struggle for global justice. W.W. Norton, New York Snyder J, Vinjamuri L (2003–2004) Trials and errors: principle and pragmatism in strategies of international justice. Int Secur 28(3):5–44

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) KENNETH A. RODMAN Department of Government, Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was established by UN Security Council Resolution 955 (November 8, 1994) to prosecute individuals responsible for the Rwandan genocide – in which Hutu extremists killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus – and for other serious violations of the laws of war in Rwanda from January 1 to December 31, 1994. The premise underlying the tribunal was that prosecution of the perpetrators of the most serious crimes was necessary for the reconciliation between Hutu and Tutsi in post-genocide Rwanda. The ICTR was the second ad hoc international court – following the Yugoslav tribunal – established by the Security Council to prosecute atrocity crimes. It was created after the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) ousted the Hutu regime responsible for the genocide and at the request of the new Rwandan government. Despite that request, Rwanda was the only country on the Security Council to vote against the court, principally because the trials were to take place not in its capital, Kigali, but in Arusha, Tanzania, and because of the unwillingness of the UN to consider the death penalty. While the ICTR has been mired in controversy, it has made a number of contributions to global justice. First, it resulted in a number of landmark decisions in international criminal law. For example, the Akayesu case was the first prosecution for genocide and the first of a series of precedents that defined rape and sexual violence as crimes in international law and established conditions under which they could be considered acts of genocide. The Kambanda case set the precedent for convicting a head of government in an international tribunal, confirming the principle that there is no immunity for the gravest international crimes. Finally, the prosecution of radio and newspaper executives responsible for anti-Tutsi hate speech represented the first time since Nuremberg that media figures were held accountable for the crimes they incited.

Second, all but 10 of the 106 suspects indicted by the ICTR have been extradited to Arusha to stand trial. In addition to supporting the goals of retribution, redress for victims, and laying out a historical record of the genocide, these trials have also incapacitated the leaders of the old regime, who would otherwise use their exile to plot to retake the country. Without the ICTR, many would still be at large because (a) the Security Council created a binding obligation on states to surrender those indicted by the ICTR rather than grant them political asylum and (b) many European and African governments would not have extradited suspects to Rwanda – the former, because of Rwanda’s use of the death penalty; the latter, because several African countries of exile had a close relationship with the prior regime. Nonetheless, the ICTR has generated contentious ethical debates. First, the UN’s controversial decision to conduct the trial in Arusha rather than Kigali was based on the difficulty of achieving a fair trial in the latter venue. This was opposed not only by the Rwandan government but also by many of the victims as well, who felt that this created a distance between their experiences and the work of the tribunal. Second, the ICTR established a division of labor in which it would prosecute those who bore the greatest responsibility for the genocide while leaving the remainder of the cases to national courts in Kigali. This meant that the chief architects of the genocide were put on trial with the full panoply of due process protections and, if convicted, the worst possible outcome was incarceration for life in prisons that met international standards. By contrast, those lower-level perpetrators who were tried in Kigali were kept in custody in appalling conditions, tried in a justice system decimated by the violence and without any semblance of due process, and subjected to the death penalty if found guilty. Third, the ICTR has been subjected to charges of victor’s justice since it has only prosecuted Hutus responsible for the genocide despite documented evidence of RPF revenge killings of at least 20,000 Hutu civilians. The first chief prosecutor of the ICTR, Richard Goldstone – who also had the Yugoslav portfolio – believed that his mandate was to prosecute the genocide and left the investigation of RPF crimes to the Rwandan government. Carla Del Ponte, who became chief prosecutor of both tribunals in 1999, concluded that Rwanda had not conducted its own investigations and took steps toward building war crimes cases against RPF commanders. The Rwandan government responded by obstructing cooperation with the ICTR and then aligning itself with the United States and other countries who were pushing for a completion strategy designed to wind down the tribunal’s work rather than take on new cases. As

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

a result, the Security Council stripped Del Ponte of the Rwandan portfolio and appointed separate prosecutors for the two ad hoc tribunals. The episode illustrates the difficulties international justice institutions confront when they are dependent upon the voluntary cooperation of sovereign states – which control entry to and exit from the crime scenes and witnesses – and when powerful states are not willing to back them up. The final controversy involves the political context of establishing the tribunal. The ICTR was justified as part of the international community’s commitment to ending impunity through the globalization of law. In many ways, however, it was more an act of contrition than a commitment to ending impunity since it followed the UN’s decision to withdraw the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) as soon as the violence began, even as there was mounting evidence of genocidal intent. That decision was heavily influenced by lessons of Somalia – i.e., enforcement missions in complex civil conflicts are likely to increase the risks to peacekeepers and domestic public opinion will not tolerate casualties for purely humanitarian missions. As a result, impunity was a function of power realities on the ground, not the absence of judicial mechanisms. What Rwanda demonstrates is that as long as the international community is unwilling or unable to assume the costs and risks of changing those power realities in comparable circumstances, a purely legal commitment to ending impunity is radically incomplete.

Related Topics

▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ International Criminal Justice ▶ Rwanda

References Moghalu K (2005) Rwanda’s genocide: the politics of global justice. Palgrave Macmillan, New York

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) KENNETH A. RODMAN Department of Government, Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was authorized by the UN Security

I

Council on February 22, 1993, to investigate and prosecute criminal violence associated with the ethnic cleansing campaigns on the territory of the former Yugoslavia after 1991. It was the first ad hoc tribunal established by the UN and the first international tribunal since the international military tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II. Unlike prior tribunals, which were established at the end of armed conflicts, the ICTY was created in the middle of an ongoing war in Bosnia. The Security Council’s official rationale for this innovation was that international criminal justice could contribute to peace by (a) deterring further attacks on civilians in Bosnia, and (b) encouraging ethnic reconciliation by focusing legal retribution on individual leaders responsible for criminal violence rather than on communities as a whole. The ICTY has made a number of important contributions to international criminal justice. First, it has charged over 160 persons, including high-level political and military officials, most notably Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic. This reinforced the principle that individuals are accountable for atrocity crimes regardless of their official positions. Second, the trials provided a detailed historical record of some of the worst atrocities, most notably, the Srebrenica massacre in which over 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically killed by Bosnian Serb forces. Third, the tribunal established some important precedents in international humanitarian law regarding the use of sexual violence as a crime against humanity and the status of war crimes in non-international armed conflicts. Finally, while most of the prosecutions involved Serbs, who were the principal perpetrators of ethnic cleansing, the ICTYalso charged Croats, Bosnian Muslims, and Kosovar Albanians, demonstrating a degree of evenhandedness in contrast to post-conflict tribunals set up by the victors. Nonetheless, the history of the ICTY demonstrates the dependence of international criminal justice on international politics. The ICTY was created by the Security Council, a political body whose decision-making reflects major power consensus. When it authorized a criminal justice approach in 1993, the Security Council was unwilling to undertake enforcement actions against the Serb ethnic cleansing campaign in the Krajina region of Croatia or Serb and Croat campaigns in Bosnia. The ICTY, consequently, was a substitute for meaningful action rather than a complement to it. This meant that the tribunal had little deterrent impact during the war – the Srebrenica massacre took place more than 2 years after its creation – and until 1997, there were no high-level perpetrators in

555

I

556

I

International Development Ethics Association (IDEA)

the dock. It was only after NATO used force – both directly through air power against the Bosnian Serbs and indirectly by supporting Croat and Bosnian Muslim counteroffensives – that impunity on the ground ended. While the ICTY was formally part of the Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the Bosnian war, the mandate of the NATO peacekeeping force deployed to Bosnia did not include arresting those indicted by the tribunal. From the perspective of Western governments, this was seen as intervening in an internal civil conflict, thereby increasing the risk of casualties and domestic political pressures to pull the peacekeepers out, as had occurred in Somalia a few years earlier. Over time, more indictees were handed over to the tribunal, principally because Western governments linked reconstruction aid and eligibility for membership in the European Union to the compliance of former Yugoslav republics with ICTY arrest warrants. This dependence of the ICTYon Western governments contributed to the view of many Serbs that the tribunal was a form of political justice. This view was sharpened when the ICTY Prosecutor declined to investigate NATO for allegations of war crimes in the bombing of Belgrade during the Kosovo War. An argument could be made that the accusations against NATO, which involved the claims of disproportionate civilian harm in its targeting strategies, were less grave than those against the Yugoslav army, which was implicated in directly targeting civilians. Nonetheless, the dependence of the tribunal on NATO and its member states made a serious investigation unlikely regardless of the charges. As a result, when President Milosevic used the trial as a platform to argue that the ICTY was an instrument of Western governments, it resonated with much of Serb public opinion. This has contributed to a debate among analysts of the ICTY as to whether the nationalist backlash against the tribunal encouraged by some Serb politicians will outweigh its agenda of using criminal justice to promote intercommunal reconciliation. That debate also touches on a broader question of whether the relationship between politics and legal justice is one in which the former inevitably shapes the scope of the latter and whether the International Criminal Court – which is less dependent on a great power consensus within the Security Council – will be more successful than the ICTY in promoting a form of justice less dependent on great power realpolitik.

Related Topics

▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ International Criminal Justice

References Kerr R (2004) The international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: an exercise in law, politics and diplomacy. Oxford University Press, Oxford Subotic J (2009) Hijacked justice: dealing with the past in the Balkans. Cornell University Press, Cornell

International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) LORI KELEHER Department of Philosophy, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA

The International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) is an international and interdisciplinary association of more than 220 scholars and practitioners from more than 25 countries working in the field of international development ethics. Unlike most other development organizations, IDEA is not committed to any particular development paradigm. Instead, IDEA seeks to promote, represent, and defend the intellectual space of development ethics as an interdisciplinary field. IDEA has three related aims. The first aim is to apply ethical reflection to the theories, methods, and goals of development practices at the local, national, and global levels. The second is to cultivate the ethical improvement of development policies, institutions, and practices. The third is to promote solidarity, collaboration, and the exchange of useful ideas and information among those who seek to understand, design, and implement ethical development paradigms and strategies. The International Development Ethics Association has organized several conferences on themes relevant to development ethics and global justice. (See below for a list of conferences, themes, and locations.) Students, academics, researchers, policymakers, and development workers from both government and nongovernmental organizations from several countries participate in these conferences. The association has a relationship with Routledge’s the Journal of Global Ethics, which regularly publishes selected papers from IDEA conferences.

History The International Development Association began in 1984 in Costa Rica. The American philosopher David A. Crocker organized a seminar on “Ethics and Third

International Due Process

World Development” as part of a World Federation of Future Studies Conference held at the University of Costa Rica in San Jose, Costa Rica. Under the leadership of David Crocker the 14 people who attended the seminar formed the Development Ethics Working Group, which came to be called the International Development Ethics Association in 1987. In 1987, the International Development Ethics Association held its first international conference on Ethics and Development at the University of Costa Rica. Thirty people from four nations attended. Denis Goulet of the University of Notre Dame gave the keynote address. David Crocker was officially elected as the first president of IDEA, a position he held for 15 years. Principal papers from the conference were published in Revista de Filosofia de la Universidad de Costa Rica. Subsequent conferences, workshops, and meetings organize or co-organized by IDEA include a 1989 conference on “Economic Crisis, Ethics, and Development Alternatives” in Merida, Mexico at the “Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan”; a 1991 workshop on “Ethical Principles for Development Needs, Capacities, or Rights?” in North America; several sessions at the 1991World Conference of Philosophy, in Nairobi, Kenya; a 1992 conference on “The Ethics of Eco-development: Culture, the Environment, and Dependency” in Tegucigalpa, Honduras; a 1995 conference on “The New Economic Order and Development: Ethical Challenges for the 21st Century” in Santiago, Chile; a 1996 conference on “Ethics, Development, and Global Values” in Aberdeen, Scotland; a 1997 conference on “Globalization, Self-determination, and Justice in Development,” in Madras, Tamil Nadu, India; a 2002 conference on “Poverty, Corruption, and Human Rights: Ethics of Citizenship and Public Service” in Zamorano, Honduras; a 2006 conference on “Accountability, Responsibility, and Integrity in Development” in Kampala Uganda, a 2009 conference on “Ethics in Human Development and Global Justice” in Valencia, Spain; and a 2011 conference on “Gender Justice and Development” in Bryn Mawr, PA, USA.

Me´rida Declaration During the International Development Ethics Association’s Second International Conference on July 7, 1989, in Me´rida, Yucatan, Mexico, conference participants signed the following declaration known as the Me´rida Declaration. We, the undersigned participants in the Second International Conference on Ethics and Development, make the following declaration upon finishing our deliberations. In the face of the profound inadequacies of modernization development strategies, WE PROPOSE:

I

1. To transform the search for and study of an alternative for social transformation, supported by at least the following ethical principles: ● The absolute respect for the dignity of the human person, regardless of gender, ethnic group, social class, religion, age or nationality. ● The necessity of peace based on a practice of justice that gives to the great majorities access to goods and eliminates the conditions of their misery. ● The affirmation of freedom, understood as selfdetermination, self-management, and participation of peoples in local, national, and international decision processes. ● The recognition of a new relation of human beings with nature, facilitating responsible use, respectful of biological cycles and the equilibrium of ecosystems – especially those of tropical forests – and in solidarity with future generations. ● The stimulus to construct a rationality suited to exploit peoples, one that accords with their cultural traditions, their thought, their interests, and their needs and that involves a new valuing of self-esteem based on their being subjects rather than objects of development. 2. To strengthen IDEA’s efforts to maintain an international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary dialogue that brings together intellectuals, grassroots organizations, and decision-making groups with the purpose of constructing an ethic applicable to different “development” alternatives.

Related Topics

▶ Crocker, David ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Dower, Nigel ▶ Goulet, Denis ▶ Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA)

References The IDEA Pavia Document www.development-ethics.org

International Due Process ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ International Criminal Justice ▶ International Law

557

I

558

I

International Environmental Standards

International Environmental Standards ▶ Climate Change ▶ Climate Justice ▶ Global Warming

International Finance Cooperation (IFC) ▶ Free Trade ▶ International Monetary Fund (IMF)

International Forum Against Globalization ▶ Globalization ▶ Third World Resistance

International Health Partnership ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Global Public Health ▶ Health and Health Care ▶ Pandemics ▶ Pharmaceutical Justice ▶ Pogge, Thomas

International Humanitarian Assistance SUSAN P. MURPHY School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Introduction Within the international humanitarian framework, the term “humanitarian assistance” refers to the operating principles

for guiding the actions of states and individuals in the event of a humanitarian emergency, that is, any suddenly occurring condition of danger requiring an immediate response to the needs of large numbers of people for basic survival necessities – safe water, shelter, basic medical support, and the like. This term is used to describe the aid and action required to reduce the risk to life, suffering, harm, and preserve and protect the dignity of those directly affected by an emergency. Such situations may arise as a result of natural shocks such as floods, earthquakes, cyclones, or human-made events such as intentional mass displacement of people, acts of genocide, and internal conflicts. The practice of humanitarian assistance is governed by internationally recognized operating norms of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and voluntariness (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46. 182: 1.2, 1991). These norms are intended to govern the behavior of both donors and beneficiaries. As the State is the primary actor charged with the duty to protect its citizens and all others within its territory in the event of an emergency, the affected State has the principal role in the initiation, organization, and coordination of humanitarian assistance within its territory (UN General Assembly Resolution 46/182 1.4.). Where a State lacks the response capacity necessary, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) can assist an affected State by assessing the scale of damage and appealing for humanitarian assistance to the UN membership body. The State, with assistance from this body is then responsible for coordinating the relief effort through a multiplicity of agencies – governmental and nongovernmental, domestic and global. The scope of humanitarian assistance is understood to be universal. It is widely accepted by governments and citizens that people beyond national borders who are in dire need have claims on our assistance. The accepted minimum basis of such claims is our common humanity. The principle of humanitarian assistance gives rise to a general humanitarian duty we owe to all other persons, simply qua personhood. Depending upon the specific circumstances of those in need, the form of assistance can include soft forms of support such as financial aid, technical support, administrative assistance, or hard forms requiring coercive mechanisms such as military assistance or intervention. The operating principles and practice of humanitarian assistance does not extend to longer-term considerations of preventing or reducing the risk of exposure to future harm or the remedial analysis of the reasons why the harm occurred in the first instance. That is the focus of development assistance. The distinction between humanitarian assistance and

International Humanitarian Assistance

development assistance is sharply defined in empirical research on this topic (Albala-Bertrand 2000; Vayrynen 1996). In the discourse on Global Justice and the ethics of assistance, however, the distinction is less significant (Chatterjee 2004; Pogge 2007). Although not explicitly stated in many of the philosophical works, it is accepted that development assistance and humanitarian assistance are distinguished on the basis of the urgency of the situation (Wenar 2003). Humanitarian assistance requires immediate resources to remove extreme and sudden imminent threat to life, whereas development assistance refers to the distribution of resources intended to promote sustainable and long term growth (see Jamieson 2005 and Rubenstein 2007 for consistent use of this distinction). The ethical and moral significance of mass harm and extreme levels of human suffering and death have come to dominate the research of political theorists and philosophers in discussions on global and international justice in recent years. The image of the drowning child presented in Peter Singer’s momentous article, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” (1972), and the simple question he asks – should you act to save this child? – generated considerable debate over the following decades regarding the principle of humanitarian assistance and the duties to which this gives rise. This hypothetical scenario, and the story of the Good Samaritan, are widely referred to in discussions on humanitarian assistance and the moral claims to which this gives rise – if we (all individuals) find ourselves in a situation where we come across a (any) person in dire need, and we are in a position to assist them, all things being equal, we ought to do so. Within this discourse, a rich body of research has explored a wide number of normative questions including: what are the moral foundations of assistance? Is there a right to assistance? Is the insider/outsider distinction morally relevant in considerations on assistance? Is proximity a morally relevant factor? How do we specify what is due to persons experiencing severe harm? Who are the suitable agents with the capacity and responsibility to remediate and minimize these harms, and how do we prevent such harms from (re)occurring? There is widespread agreement with the general normative claim that one should act to alleviate the suffering of another in the event of an emergency. Most people accept a duty of assistance. Most moral theories also accept a duty of assistance as a general duty we owe to others qua moral agents. The critical points of dispute then turn on the grounds for these duties (justice or charity) and their limits. Accounts offered of the moral claims that can be derived from the principle of humanitarian assistance

I

can be broadly bracketed into two categories – agentbased accounts of duties to others in situations of urgent need; and recipient-based accounts (i.e., human-rights accounts) of what one is entitled to claim of another in situations of urgent need. Urgency is widely accepted as a morally relevant factor in distributing resources to those in need. However, other distributive principles are also considered and weighed in much of the literature, including need, desert, and overall benefit (Rubenstein 2007). Perhaps the most widely known and vigorously discussed agent-based account of the duty of assistance can be found in the work of Peter Singer, John Rawls, and Onora O’Neill. This type of account can be applied to situations of emergency and nonemergency. Broadly speaking, the agent-based account of duties of assistance share a number of common assumptions. Firstly, what can be termed the moral cosmopolitan assumption – all human beings share equal moral status. Secondly, emergency situations that threaten to harm the moral status of human beings are bad. Thirdly, there is a positive obligation on all agents to assist those in need when harm occurs. This is an imperfect obligation in the sense that the agent must decide who to help (e.g., which charitable organization to support) and what to do (e.g., what skills or resources to give) in response to specific situations of need. The person in dire need cannot demand specific acts from specific agents. Rather the agent must select who to aid and what they ought to do. There is significant divergence between these accounts regarding the strength of this obligation, the actions required of agents, and the grounds of justification. However, at a minimal level, it is possible to generalize by stating that the agent-based account demands a temporary transfer of resources to meet immediate and most urgent needs. Singer and Rawls provide for a systematic transfer to groups through mediating institutions (charitable organizations and nongovernmental organizations in the case of Singer, states or organized representative bodies of peoples for Rawls). The discourse on Global Justice contains numerous objections to the agent-based account. The following will focus on three core objections – partiality, limits, and ineffectiveness. Firstly, a number of philosophers have referred to the uncomfortable consequences such an account of assistance as charity gives rise to (see Ashford 2007). The agent-based account of humanitarian assistance gives priority to the deliberations and circumstances of agents over the voices of those in need. The agent must decide who to help, the means of assistance, and when to aid. This gives the agent great latitude or power over

559

I

560

I

International Humanitarian Assistance

destitute individuals in selecting who to help and how to help. Although this account of assistance is universal in scope, it is necessarily partial in application. Secondly, the limits objection or how to determine the limits of this agent-based duty has been raised in many forms in the discussions on Global Justice. If it is not possible for an agent to help all people all of the time, how should they select who to help, how, and when. The accounts offered do not explicitly provide conceptual tools for negotiating such constraints. The absence of such tools can imply a level of sacrifice from the individual agent that would move far beyond ordinary moral thinking (for an example on how to navigate these questions and constraints see Richard Arneson 2004). Finally, the findings of empirical work suggest that the mediating institutions central to these accounts (Singer’s and Rawls’s in particular) may not actually be effective in delivering the much needed assistance, raising the normative question of whether one should support institutions that one knows to be ineffective (Wenar 2003). In recent years, rights-based accounts of assistance have been developed. Again, there is significant divergence among these accounts. However, the following will provide a general overview of the basic assumptions of these accounts. Firstly, rights-based accounts of the right to humanitarian assistance share the two basic moral cosmopolitan assumptions with agent-based account: all human beings share equal moral status and emergency situations that threaten to harm the moral status of human beings are bad. From these assumptions, they then move to the claim that human beings in dire need may invoke moral claims (or rights) on other agents that they should act to protect them from harm. Situations that threaten to violate or do violate basic human rights, such as the basic liberty right to survive, generate correlative duties on others to act. In its general form, the right to humanitarian assistance is necessarily a matter of justice (Caney 2005, 2007; Ashford 2007). Such a right generates correlative duties on others to act to provide necessary assistance to protect the moral status of the individual in need. Within these accounts, moving from basic moral cosmopolitan assumptions, the right to humanitarian assistance would require institutional expression through an institutional cosmopolitan framework. As with the generalized agent-based account above, there is significant divergence within these accounts regarding the actions required of agents. A number of rights-based accounts of humanitarian assistance argue that this right gives rise to permanent principles of resource distribution and redistribution across national boundaries. Consequently, the distinction between

humanitarian assistance and development assistance becomes difficult to sustain within this account. There are two dominant objections to this account of humanitarian assistance – unenforceability and indeterminacy. In relation to the charge of unenforceability, there are two separate strands of critique. Firstly, there is the challenge, perhaps best articulated by Thomas Nagel (2005), drawing on the work of Rawls and Hobbes, that principles of justice require a sovereign institutional framework for their enactment. The right to humanitarian assistance is a problematic concept in the modern circumstances of assistance which are based around a framework of sovereign states. There have been many responses to this criticism, perhaps the most consistent being that institutions are an enabling condition of rights in general, not an existence condition (Tasioulas 2007; Ashford 2007). As such, acceptance of this right would generate a duty to establish an appropriate institutional framework to give the right full expression. The second strand of this critique is perhaps more challenging to the rights-based account of humanitarian assistance and can be derived from Kant’s account of the duty of assistance as a duty of virtue rather than a duty of justice. For Kant, duties of virtue are related to the individual character of each person. They can only be enforced by the individuals themselves. According to Kant, the duty of assistance is a duty of beneficence that demands that all persons ought to do acts of assistance and charity for others, but it is not possible to force a person to have a charitable character. This objection is intrinsically linked to the second objection of indeterminacy which is perhaps best developed in the work of Onora O’Neill. For O’Neill, the duty of humanitarian assistance is necessarily imperfect. This basically means it is incomplete, indeterminate, and wide. Outside of the context of an emergency, it is not possible to determine who ought to do what for whom. Anyone may require the assistance of another depending on the slings and arrows of their fortune. However, there is no predetermined duty bearer with the responsibility to come to their aid in all circumstances. Humanitarian assistance is not correlative with any specific right and as such depends on the good character of individuals and other agents to act in the interest of others when the situation arises, rather than legal sanction. Rather than attempting to construct a universal right, philosophers should focus on the development of principles of virtue to guide the actions of individuals and communities. In the modern world where over one billion people are at risk of severe harm or death from poverty-related conditions, and 200 million (UN Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015 and UNISDR Global Assessment

International Humanitarian Assistance

Report on Disaster and Disaster risk 2009) people are at risk of emergency as a consequence of environmental change, the topic of humanitarian assistance takes on a fresh urgency. Ordinary moral thinking is easily overwhelmed by the scale and urgency of these circumstances. The accounts of humanitarian assistance explored in the writings on Global Justice move some way toward the development of conceptual tools to navigate these circumstances. There is a broad consensus shared across many philosophical, cultural, and religious traditions that there is a universal duty, based on our shared humanity, to come to the aid of those in dire need. The Global Justice debate moves beyond this consensus to the more difficult questions surrounding the limits and extent of this duty.

Related Topics

▶ Absolute Poverty ▶ Aid to Burdened Societies ▶ Altruism ▶ Basic Needs ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Bilateral Aid ▶ Charity ▶ Chronic Poverty ▶ Complex Emergency ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Debt Relief ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties to Non-Compatriots ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy ▶ Failed States ▶ Foreign Aid ▶ Foreign Policy ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Global Human Rights Culture ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Humanitarian Aid ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ International Organizations ▶ Killing and Letting Die ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Positive Duties ▶ Poverty ▶ Refugees ▶ Rights ▶ Soft Power ▶ Solidarity ▶ Subsistence Rights

I

561

References Albala-Bertrand J (2000) Responses to complex humanitarian emergencies and natural disasters: an analytical comparison. Third World Q 21(2):215–227 Arneson R (2004) Moral limits on the demands of beneficence. In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 33–58 Ashford E (2007) The duties imposed by the human right to basic necessities. In: Pogge T (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 183–218 Caney S (2005) Justice beyond borders. Oxford University Press, New York Caney S (2007) Global poverty and human rights: the case for positive duties. In: Pogge T (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 275–302 Chatterjee D (2004) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Jamieson D (2005) Duties to the distant: aid, assistance, and intervention in the developing world. J Ethics 9(1.2):151–170 Nagel T (2005) The problem of global justice. Philos Public Aff 33(2):113–147 O’Neill O (1996) Towards justice and virtue. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge O’Neill O (2004) Global justice: whose obligations? In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Pogge T (2004) “Assisting” the global poor. In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Pogge T (2007) Severe poverty as a human rights violation. In: Pogge T (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 11–54 Rawls J (1999) Law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Harvard Rubenstein J (2007) Distribution and emergency. J Polit Philos 15(3):296–320 Singer P (1972) Famine, affluence, and morality. Philos Public Aff 1(1):229–243 Singer P (2004) Outsiders: our obligations to those beyond our borders. In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 11–32 Singer P (2009) The life you can save. Picador, London Tasioulas J (2007) The moral reality of human rights. In: Pogge T (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 75–102 UNDP Annual Report 2008. http://www.undp.org/publications/ annualreport2008/pdf/IAR2008_ENG_low.pdf UN Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015: Building resilience of nations and communities to disasters. www.unisdr.org/wcdr UNISDR 2009 Global assessment report on disaster risk reduction: risk and poverty in a changing climate. http://www.un-ngls.org/spip. php?page=article_s&id_article=996 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46. 182: 1.2 (1991). http:// www.reliefweb.int/OCHA_ol/about/resol/resol_e.html Vayrynen R (1996) Research for action 25: the age of humanitarian emergencies. UN/WIDER, Helsinki Wenar L (2003) What we owe to distant others. Polit Philos Econ 2(3):283–304 Wenar L (2007) Responsibility and severe poverty. In: Pogge T (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 255–274

I

562

I

International Institutional Legitimacy

International Institutional Legitimacy JORDY ROCHELEAU Department of History and Philosophy, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN, USA

Concept and Issues “Legitimacy” refers to an entity’s right to exercise power. Although the legitimacy of states is most commonly discussed, international institutions – the United Nations (UN), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Criminal Court (ICC), the World Bank, etc. – which establish and enforce rules and policies can also be evaluated as more or less justified in doing so. “Legitimacy” is usually contrasted with “justice.” While a just institution makes fair, morally right decisions, “legitimacy” refers to the appropriateness of the decisionmaking process. It is possible, at least in principle, for an institution to have legitimate authority to implement unjust policies. This is not to say that justice and legitimacy are completely unrelated; on many accounts institutions are legitimate insofar as they generally promote justice. Nonetheless, the concepts are not identical.

International Social Contract Conception of Legitimacy The central question regarding international institutional legitimacy is its basis. What confers the authority to make and enforce rules? This question is particularly difficult in the global arena, where many doubt the legitimacy of international institutions. At the national or state level, the most influential theory of legitimacy is social contract theory, wherein governments are legitimated by the consent of the governed. In some respects, this theory works even better at the international level. International institutions are generally established by treaties of consenting states, and thus can be understood as the products of a literal contract. Unlike citizens in a state, the members of the international community can withdraw from their treaties at will, making their support of international institutions voluntary. For example, UN and ICC member states have agreed to follow these institutions’ rules, conferring legitimacy on their enforcement. This social contract conception of international legitimacy runs into several interrelated challenges. By conditioning legitimacy on consent, it leaves institutions like the ICJ and ICC without legitimate authority over

those who refuse to join. In discussions of state legitimacy, tacit consent is invoked to argue that those who benefit from a government and use its services thereby consent to be governed. International law adopts a variation of this in which a rule can become customary law even if it is not directly agreed upon if it is generally observed and viewed as normative by most states. Although this explains the force of particular norms, it does less well to explain the legitimacy of institutions, which cannot plausibly claim the recognition of those who have not joined. A second challenge to the social contract conception of legitimacy comes from those who question whether an agreement by states could make law legitimate. Alternative conceptions hold that institutions must be accountable to substate groups or individual persons in order to be legitimate. For much modern political theory, and the dominant liberal paradigm in particular, the individual is the central unit of moral worth. If individual consent legitimates states, then should not individual consent legitimate international institutions as well? Insofar as states themselves are legitimated by popular consent, and subsequently delegate authority to international institutions, the latter arguably are transferred legitimacy. However, this process and argument works only for international agreements between states which are themselves legitimate. Though it is beyond the scope of this entry to discuss state legitimacy, on most accounts, some states in the international system lack legitimacy. Agreement by states that are themselves illegitimate may not confer legitimacy on an international institution or its decisions. This could leave us with a conception of legitimate international institutions agreed upon by a coalition of liberal democratic or at least decent states. However, this would still raise a question about the legitimacy of such institutions to enact policies with regard to the rest of the world, including intervention, law enforcement, and economic assistance, incentives, and sanctions. “International” means “between states” and international institutions are generally institutions established by and making rules for states. For example, the UN reaches agreements about the duties of states and the ICJ hears cases in which states sue each other. A notable exception is the ICC, which evaluates individual responsibility for egregious crimes which are not adjudicated at the state level. Some propose conceiving of the contracting units legitimating law and institutions as “peoples” (Rawls) or “nations,” cultural and political communities. A state might include more than one people, such that a legitimate system must be acceptable to each (Cavallero).

International Institutional Legitimacy

Procedural Conceptions of International Legitimacy Many models of international legitimacy are procedural rather than substantive. Procedural legitimacy parallels a positivist conception of law. For positivists, law exists when there are explicit rules, a set of secondary rules for adjudicating these, and a general view among the community that the rules are obligatory (Hart). While this is meant to define law, its reference to the subjective acceptance of the law’s authority provides a potential test for legitimacy as well. Legitimate institutions involve a clearly expressed, consistently enforced, and generally accepted rule of law (Hart, Franck). Yet, for procedural accounts, the question arises: What about a particular procedure confers legitimacy? The legitimacy of procedures must derive from their embodiment of or conduciveness to some overriding, essential value or set of values. Four such values are candidates for undergirding international legitimacy: self-determination, fairness, epistemic reliability, or stability. The right of self-determination is protected by consent. State self-determination might itself ultimately be derived from the value of individual autonomy, as states would seem to have little moral worth separate from that of their citizens. International Law is founded on this social contract model and the UN Charter is explicitly founded on the “sovereign equality” of its members. The latter term suggests the importance of equity in addition to state autonomy. Equal participation rights instantiate a fair process, which can be argued to confer legitimacy on the results. Although self-determination and state equality are generally recognized values, it can be argued that equal rights to participation in the process does not guarantee that the results will be good or just. On the domestic level, epistemic theories of legitimacy have flourished, with authors such as Estlund arguing that the legitimate authority of democratically produced laws lies in the general reliability of a democratic process as opposed to alternatives. In international society, inclusive legislation in which all states are represented should include a variety of interests, values, and perspectives, thus controlling for bias and introducing healthy debate. While a given state may have reasons to question an international vote, the collective decision is generally more likely to be valid than any particular state’s position. In international institutions in particular, a final value is frequently relied upon to explain the authority of the procedures: stability. To the extent that procedures are generally accepted as means for providing peaceful and efficient relations between states, this provides reason for

I

563

upholding the institution. On the realist tradition of international relations, it is the stability of international law and its institutions, not any moral ideals, which provides the reason for supporting and obeying them. In this vein, Henry Kissinger writes that “an order whose structure is accepted by all major powers is legitimate,” (1977: 5) stability being achieved when these powers support the rules. The strongest case for procedural legitimacy might combine stability and fairness conferred by rules with their epistemic force and respect for self-determination.

Substantive Conceptions of International Legitimacy Substantive conceptions, by contrast, hold that institutions gain legitimacy by virtue of generally being just or promoting justice. Among liberal theorists of international relations the dominant view is that institutional legitimacy depends on the upholding of human rights or, some would qualify, “basic” human rights. This view typically starts with the cosmopolitan view that there are certain basic rights that every person ought to be accorded, and concludes that international institutional power is only legitimate if it protects these rights. If institutions directly violate or fail to recognize and protect rights according to their mission, they cannot claim a right of state or individual obedience (Buchanan, Talbott, Rawls). Cosmopolitan lists of rights can be relatively thick, with protection of a full slate of liberal rights as a standard for legitimacy, or relatively thin, only requiring that a shorter list of core rights be protected (Rawls). Despite their differences, both liberal views embrace share a substantive, justice-based conception of legitimacy. From a proceduralist perspective, substantivists confuse legitimacy with justice, failing to recognize that imperfect institutions still have a right to exercise authority. Pragmatically, the international community might be worse off without imperfect exercises of authority. The substantial view can also be criticized as embodying a too thick, controversial conception of morality as a condition for governance, a view biased in favor of liberal, democratic, Western societies. Cosmopolitan liberals counter that without a substantive conception of legitimacy, procedures lack moral foundation, simply endorsing the de facto exercise of power. In addition to the nature of legitimacy and its relation to justice, a major issue surrounding legitimacy is its implications for obedience. Since only legitimate institutions have the right to rule, it follows that there is no obligation to obey illegitimate institutions. If an institution is legitimate, rightfully making policies, this at

I

564

I

International Justice

least prima facie provides grounds for obedience to its authority. However, disobedience of a legitimate institution might sometimes be justified, insofar as particular decisions made by the institution are unjust or reasonably believed to be unjust. If we could establish the legitimacy of the UN and ICC, it requires further argument to establish that their decisions should be obeyed, particularly in controversial cases. Views of international institutional legitimacy affect the terms of international cooperation, including the structure of international institutions and the resulting content of international norms. Conceptions of global justice will generally influence one’s conception of international institutional legitimacy and vice versa, with varying priorities and intersections. Thus, despite their different meanings, the conception and realization of legitimacy will impact the conception and effective pursuit of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Buchanan, Allen ▶ Civil Disobedience, International ▶ Consent ▶ Global Contractarian Justice ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ International Criminal Justice ▶ International Law ▶ International Law, Normative Foundations of ▶ International Organizations ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ National Self-Determination ▶ Political Authority ▶ Political Autonomy ▶ Political Legitimacy ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Self-Determination ▶ Social Contract ▶ Sovereignty ▶ Talbott, William J.

Estlund D (2008) Democratic authority: a philosophical framework. Princeton University Press, Princeton Franck T (1990) The power of legitimacy among nations. Oxford University Press, New York Hart HLA (1961) The concept of law. Clarendon, Oxford Hoag R (2007) Violent civil disobedience: defending human rights, rethinking just war. In: Brough MW, Lango JW, Linden H (eds) Rethinking the just war tradition. State University of New York Press, Albany, pp 223–242 Kissinger H (1999) A world restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the problems of peace, 1812–1822. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London Pogge T (2006) Moralizing humanitarian intervention: why jurying fails and how law canwork. In: Nardin T, Williams MS (eds) Humanitarian intervention. New York University Press, New York, pp 158–187 Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Rocheleau J (2008) State consent vs human rights as foundations for international law: a critique of allen buchanan’s cosmopolitanism. Soc Philos Today 23:117–132

International Justice ▶ Fairness ▶ Foreign Policy ▶ Globalization ▶ Hague Conventions ▶ International Law ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Liberal Nationalism ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Nagel, Thomas ▶ Nationalism ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Realistic Utopia ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Tamir, Yael ▶ Transitional Justice in Africa ▶ Treaty of Westphalia

International Labor Standards YOSSI DAHAN1, HANNA LERNER2, FAINA MILMAN-SIVAN3 The Academic Center of Law and Business, Ramat Gan, Israel 2 Department of Political Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel 3 Haifa University, Haifa, Israel

1

References Buchanan A (2005) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination. Oxford University Press, Oxford Cassese A (2005) International law, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford Cavallero E (2003) Popular sovereignty and the law of peoples. Leg Theory 9:181–200 Clark I (2005) Legitimacy in international society. Oxford University Press, Oxford Enoch D (2009) On Estlund’s democratic authority. Iyyun The Jerusalem Philos Quart 58:35–48

International Labor Standards (ILS) are a set of substantive legal norms which were established at the international level, encompassing a broad array of policies

International Labor Standards

promoting economic, political, and social justice goals relating to labor. These standards and rights generally include standards regarding minimum wage, maximum number of work hours, equality at work, the abolition of slavery and child labor, safety and health at the workplace, and freedom of association. The idea of extending substantive national labor standards to the international level originated in Western Europe and dates back to the beginning of the nineteenth century (e.g., in the writings of Robert Owen, an English businessman and social reformer), when it emerged almost simultaneously with the national labor standards. After World War I, the nascent international community, which consisted of the Allied Powers and other emerging nations, considered the dire work conditions of laborers in the period preceding the war a significant factor that contributed to its outbreak. Workers’ low pay and lack of significant protection at that time were partly due to the attempts made by states and businesses to gain an economic comparative advantage in an increasingly universal economic market. The creation of cross-border unified labor standards was suggested as an appropriate response, which would prevent states from lowering labor standards in order to attract capital and investment. The international community also recognized the role that ILS could play in promoting social justice and thereby maintaining world peace. In 1919, these developments resulted in the establishment of the International Labor Organization (ILO) as part of the League of Nations in the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty that ended the war. It was at this point that the ILO, which would become an agency of the United Nations in 1946, was entrusted with the task of promoting social justice and peace, a task which was addressed by, among other means, the creation and enforcement of international labor standards. The phrase Si vis pacem, cole justitiam (if you desire peace, cultivate justice) was engraved on the foundation stone of the ILO building in 1923. As the preamble to the ILO constitution demonstrates, a combination of moral and economic motives underlie the need for international labor standards. A key justification is the contribution of these standards to the advancement of social justice. Social justice is perceived not only in terms of removal of injustice but also in terms of promotion of welfare for mankind. The economic justification for ILS is based on their role in preventing states from pursuing a comparative advantage by lowering national labor standards. It was argued that by virtue of international coordination, countries could afford to raise labor standards and yet maintain their competitive position in trade, thus preventing a “race to the bottom” or

I

a “regulatory chill” of labor standards. Arguably, some of these international standards serve to enhance economic growth and are instrumental for development. Child labor, for example, is a barrier to development, since it hinders education and reduces the skills of future citizens. Over the years, however, the creation and enforcement of ILS have encountered significant resistance. From a moral point of view, opponents portrayed ILS as an expression of cultural imperialism, claiming that these standards enforce Western values upon cultures that have a different value system. What one society may describe as forbidden child labor, for example, may be perceived by another as a legitimate opportunity for apprenticeship and trade learning. From the economic perspective, resistance to ILS is mainly rooted in the argument that enforcing ILS and thus raising labor standards in developing countries is motivated by “protectionism,” that is, the desire of advanced economies to protect their industries and prevent developing countries from utilizing their comparative advantage: cheap labor costs. This argument asserts that the economic and developmental needs of developing states demand that labor standards remain low in the short run, in order to attract foreign capital and thus bring greater economic prosperity to all of the citizens in the long run. The debate over the desirability and scope of universal ILS led the ILO to identify four core labor rights for workers worldwide, which were stated in the innovative yet controversial ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work in 1998. Some argued that only a minimal set of standards could serve as a reasonable basis for worldwide consensus, while others criticized this minimalist approach for neglecting the ILO’s commitment to make continuous improvements toward the ultimate goal of global social justice. While the ILO has become a key international organization for promoting international labor norms, it has been heavily criticized, mostly for being “toothless” and inefficient. There have been various attempts to supplement ILS through transnational as well as regional institutional arrangements, such as the OHADA project in Africa. The most salient and successful of these are the EU social and employment schemes. The EU aims at partially harmonizing national labor standards and employment policies through several strategies, including Directives, the innovative EU level Social Dialogue, and the Open Method of Coordination approach (OMC). Another approach for the promotion of labor standards across borders focuses on creating linkages between labor and trade, that is, utilizing trade sanctions or incentives to encourage states to raise their labor standards. While the World Trade Organization still strongly opposes

565

I

566

I

International Labour Organization (ILO)

such a linkage, other trade-related institutions increasingly employ such strategies. These include bilateral, multilateral, and unilateral arrangements, such as the North American Agreement of Labor Cooperation, (NAALC), attached to the North American Free trade Agreement (NAFTA), the DR-CAFTA, and the US Generalized System of Preference (GSP). Lastly, a third approach, which can be broadly termed Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), encourages Transnational Corporations (TNCs) to assume responsibility for workers’ conditions throughout the complex and cross-border production and distribution chains. A related strategy is the European inspired approach of Framework Agreements, whereby TNCs negotiate the employment terms of their workers on an international or regional level, with international or regional union trade associations. Despite these continuing attempts to promote ILS, only a minority of working people today hold jobs that are well paid, where their fundamental rights are respected and which ensure them some security in case of job loss, personal or family illnesses, or other difficulties (ILO 2009: 14). In 2008, 39% of world workforce, 1.183 million workers, earned less than US$2 a day, defined as the poverty line. Twenty-one percent of these workers earned less than US$1.25 defined as the extreme poverty line. These dire conditions of workers are considered unjust, since they are the result of exploitation by employers, some of them transnational corporations, and by a global economic order dominated by developed countries. The question is who is responsible for ameliorating this reality. The three approaches to international labor standards mentioned above offer distinct institutional arrangements for establishing what they consider a threshold of international labor standards. However, in order to evaluate these different approaches, there is a need to answer the question what would constitute global justice in the realm of labor, what principles of justice should govern the global labor economy? Should such principles be limited to establish a threshold of labor rights, or should they be egalitarian in nature, namely distributing the fruits of labor equally among all those who participate in the global labor chain of production? The burgeoning literature on global justice has yet to pay attention to important role of labor in the global economy and its empirical and normative relevance to questions of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Child Labor ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Global Distributive Justice

▶ Global Market ▶ Labor Laws ▶ Working Poor

References Barry C, Reddy S (2008) International trade and labor standards: a proposal for linkage. Columbia University Press, New York Bob H (2005) Labour law and global trade. Hart, Oxford Conagahn J, Fischl RM, Klare KE (eds) (2002) Labour law in an era of globalization. Oxford University Press, Oxford Craig JDR, Lynk M (eds) (2006) Globalization and the future of law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Dahan Y, Lerner H, Milman F (2011) Global Justice, Labor standards and Responsibility. Theoretical Inquiries in Law 11(3) (forthcoming) Elliott KA, Freeman RB (2003) Can labor standards improve under globalization? Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC Heymann J, Earle A (2010) Raising the global floor. Stanford University Press, Stanford ILO (2009) Global employment trends: January 2009. ILO, Geneva Servais J-M (2009) International labour law. Walter Kluwer Law & Business, Austin Young I (2006) Marion, responsibility and global justice: a social connection model. Soc Philos Policy 23(1):102–130

International Labour Organization (ILO) ▶ Labor Laws

International Law ERIC SMAW Department of Philosophy and Religion, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL, USA

International law consists in bilateral and multilateral treaties, customary practices, general principles, and judicial decisions and the writings of highly qualified scholars for governing the behavior of nations, multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations, and other entities with standing in the international community. For the most part, it is easy to see how treaties result in international law, and, moreover, how they can be used to govern the behavior of entities with standing in the international community and thereby achieve international justice. After all, bilateral and multilateral treaties are created by nations that come together for the purpose of developing and codifying rules and regulations for governing their behavior and the behavior of their

International Law

constituents. Since bilateral and multilateral treaties unite various entities with standing in the international community under one body of supranational rules and regulations, they ipso facto result in international law, which, in turn, is used to adjudicate disputes between signatories and thereby achieve international justice. However, it is not so obvious how customary practices, general principles, and judicial decisions and the writings of scholars result in international law, or how they can be used to govern the behavior of entities with standing in the international community. This is because most people think of international law in the same way that they think of domestic law, i.e., as being created by some legislative body or process and then applied equally to everyone or, in the case of international law, to every state, multinational corporation, nongovernmental organization, and other entities with standing in the international community. However, most people are not familiar with the principle of opinio jus sive necessitatis. In other words, most people do not know that entities with standing in the international community often act in accordance with standard international practices and that by acting in such ways they incur international legal obligations. Indeed, prior to the middle of the twentieth century, most international laws originated in this way. Nevertheless, customary practices consist in what states generally do in particular situations. These practices “ripen” into international law when there is a long and well-established history of the practices and when nations come to expect that others will act in a way that is consonant with the practices. The dispute between the United States and Spain over captured fishing vessels during the Spanish/American war presents an excellent example of how general practices result in customary international law. In 1898, the United States and Spain went to war over disagreements concerning Spanish territories in the Caribbean. In the course of the war US naval ships captured two Cuban fishing vessels, the Paquette Habana and the Lola, (Cuba was a Spanish territory in 1898) and sold them as prizes of war. In response, the owners of the fishing vessels initiated a lawsuit against the United States, claiming that the capture and sale of their property resulted in a violation of customary international law. At the time of the lawsuit, the United States had no laws, acts, statutes, Executive Orders, or Congressional Decrees concerning the capture and sale of fishing vessels in times of war. So, on a prima facie level, it looked as though the navy’s actions were legally permissible. Nevertheless, the US Supreme Court searched the archives of international law and found that there had developed a history of well-established practices of exempting

I

commercial fishing vessels from capture and sale in times of war. From this, the Court determined that the practices of exempting fishing vessels created a general expectation that such vessels would be exempt from capture and sale in times of war. Therefore, the Court, arguing that customary international law is US law, ruled that the US naval ships had in fact violated international law and therefore it required the United States compensate the owners of the fishing vessels for the loss of their property and cargo (see the Paquette Habana 175 US 677, 20 S. Ct. 290, 44 L. Ed. 320). By contrast, general principles result in international law when they “ripen” into peremptory norms or when they are used in context as legally obligatory norms. In short, peremptory norms are “accepted and recognized by the international community. . . [as universal principles] from which no derogation is permitted” (see the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Articles 52). Principles prohibiting crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, and aggression are our best examples of peremptory norms of international law. More importantly, international courts sometimes appeal to peremptory norms in order to adjudicate difficult cases and thereby direct the actions of entities with standing in the international community for the purpose of achieving international justice. The dispute between Nicaragua and the United States regarding mining in Nicaragua’s harbor and providing economic and military support to the Contras provides us with an example of this. In 1986, Nicaragua initiated a lawsuit against the United States in the International Court of Justice, claiming that the United States violated general principles of international law that prohibit the crime of aggression. The United States responded by arguing that its actions were not aggressive but rather supportive of El Salvador which was under siege by Nicaragua. After an exhaustive investigation, the International Court of Justice determined that the United States was, in fact, guilty of violating peremptory norms that prohibit the crime of aggression for placing mines in the harbors of Nicaragua and for providing economic and military support to the Contras (an antigovernment military group in Nicaragua). For a while, the United States attempted to resist the ruling, but, in the end, it stopped mining in Nicaragua’s harbors and providing support to the Contras (see Nicaragua v. US ICJ Rep 392). Alternatively, judges sometimes use shared principles of international law as a way of adjudicating difficult legal cases and thereby directing the actions of entities with standing in the international community for the purpose of achieving international justice. This way of using general principles is justified if the international court engages

567

I

568

I

International Law Commission

in an investigation of the domestic legal systems of the countries involved in the dispute and finds that they share general principles which the court can use to adjudicate their international dispute. For example, in the 1982 case of Australian Mining & Smelting Europe Ltd. (AM&S) v. the Europe Community Commission, the commission for the European Community initiated a lawsuit against AM&S claiming that it violated Articles 85 and 86 of the European Economic Community Treaty by engaging in collusion and exploitation. In order to prove their case, the Commission requested documents that were prepared by the lawyers for AM&S. In response, the lawyers for AM&S argued that the documents in question were protected by attorney/client privilege, and therefore, it was not required to give them to the Commission. AM&S therefore moved to have the case dismissed. Although there were no explicit attorney/client privilege rules articulated in the articles of the Treaty for the European Economic Community, the court found that each of the member nations has laws protecting attorney/client privilege. It therefore determined that attorney/client privilege was a general principle of international law existing among the member states of the European Community. On this ground, the Court ruled in favor of AM&S, arguing that the documents in question were protected by the general principle of attorney/client privilege and that AM&S was not required to turn them over to the E.C. Commission. Hence, the Court dismissed the case (see Australian Mining & Smelting Europe Ltd. v. Europe Community Commission 1982, 2 Common Market Law Report 264). Lastly, in cases where there are no bilateral or multilateral treaties, customary practices, or general principles that can be used to adjudicate international legal disputes, international courts turn to the judicial decisions of domestic courts and the writings of highly qualified scholars. In these cases, the international court’s goal is to determine how various domestic courts have decided disputes similar to the one at hand. If domestic courts have decided similar disputes in a uniform way, then the international court will seek to determine if their decisions are consonant with the writings of the most qualified scholars of jurisprudence. If their rulings are consonant with the writings of the most qualified scholars of jurisprudence, then the international court will use them (the domestic decisions along with the writings of scholars) as the basis for its decision. While it is rare to have an international legal dispute decided solely on the basis of domestic legal decisions and the writings of scholars of jurisprudence, domestic legal

decisions and scholarly writings have become a valuable tool for adjudicating difficult international legal disputes. This is because they often weigh in favor of one way of adjudicating a case as opposed to another. In this respect, they play an integral part in international judicial decision making. For example, when a judge is uncertain about how to rule, he/she may be persuaded to rule in one way as opposed to the other by the cumulative weight of domestic legal decisions and the writings of scholars. This occurred in two of the cases mentioned above: the Paquette Habana and Australian Mining & Smelting Europe LTD. Nevertheless, like bilateral and multilateral treaties, customary practices, and general principles, domestic legal decisions and the writings of scholars of jurisprudence can be used to govern the actions of entities with standing in the international community and thereby achieve international justice.

Related Topics

▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Crimes Against Peace ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ International Justice ▶ International Law ▶ International Organizations ▶ Natural Rights

References Australian Mining & Smelting Europe Ltd. v. Europe Community Commission (1982) 2 Common Market Law Report 264 Carter B (2009a) Charter for the United Nations, in international law: selected documents. Wolters Kluwer, New York Carter B (2009b) Rome statute of the international criminal court, in international law: selected documents. Wolters Kluwer, New York Carter B Vienna convention on the law of treaties. In: Statute of the international criminal court, in international law: selected documents. Wolters Kluwer, New York Nicaragua v. US ICJ Rep 392 Paquette Habana 175 US 677, 20 S.Ct. 290, 44 L. Ed. 320 Slomanson WR (2010) Fundamental perspectives on international law. Wadsworth, Belmont Van Schaack B, Slye RC (eds) (2007) International law and its enforcement. Foundation Press, New York

International Law Commission ▶ International Law

International Law, Normative Foundations of

International Law, Normative Foundations of JOSHUA J. KASSNER Division of Legal, Ethical, and Historical Studies, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, USA

A complete account of the normative foundations of international law is not possible here; as such, this entry does not include discussion of a number of interesting topics. For example, there is no discussion of the historical development of the normative principles upon which international law is based, nor is there more than a cursory discussion of the normative foundations of particular international laws. Rather, the entry is focused on identifying and explicating the normative principles and underlying values that ground the normativity of international law. Reference to “the normative foundations of international law” could refer either to the principles which constitute the normative framework for international law, or to the underlying values that ground the normative principles that govern international law. With that distinction in mind, the entry that follows includes a discussion of the principles that are taken to constitute the normative framework for international law, and a survey of the values and arguments offered in support of the international legal system.

The Principles International law is the law between sovereign states. Both the creation and content of international law are dependent on the principle that the sovereignty of states be respected. As to the creation of international law, the recognized sources of international law – custom and practice, treaty and convention, and jus cogens – each represent different ways in which such respect is manifested, either explicitly or implicitly. The content of international law is both defined and constrained by state sovereignty. For example, Article 2 of the United Nations Charter demands respect for and protection of state sovereignty. Sovereignty is a complex notion; it has both normative and descriptive connotations, internal and external aspects, and plays fundamentally different roles in different theoretical contexts. With respect to the normative framework for international law, the possession of sovereignty denotes the normative status of states as both right

I

569

holders and duty bearers. It is these particular rights and duties that explain the role of sovereignty as the fundamental principle of the normative framework for international law. The rights constitutive of sovereignty are political independence, territorial integrity, and sovereign equality. Taken together, these rights imply one of the most significant normative principles of international law – the principle of nonintervention. Correlative to these rights are duties held by other states individually and the international community understood as a collection of dutybearing states to refrain from interfering in the internal political affairs of a sovereign state, a duty to refrain from violating the territorial integrity of a sovereign state, and a duty to respect other sovereign states as political equals.

The Normative Grounding As noted, in addition to the principles that form the normative framework for international law the normative foundation of international law also includes the values upon which the international legal system is based. First, many argue that respect for state sovereignty is essential to achieving peace between and the security of states. International peace and security is a good shared in common and pursued by all states. Respect for the rights of sovereign states (political independence, territorial integrity, and sovereign equality) by other states and the international community is a means to achieving and maintaining international peace and security. This argument can be understood as making either the strong claim that respect for state sovereignty is necessary for achieving international peace and security, or the argument might be defending the weaker claim that respect for state sovereignty makes achieving international peace and security more likely but that it is not necessary. A second form of argument relies on the domestic analogy – states in the international arena are like individuals in the domestic society. By analogy, just as we are obligated to respect the autonomy of individuals in domestic society, states are obligated to respect each other’s sovereignty in the international arena. There are numerous accounts that rely on the domestic analogy ranging from a Hobbesian version in which the normative principles underlying international law are based on states acting in their own enlightened self-interest to Michael Walzer’s use of the domestic analogy to explain “the legalist paradigm.” The main drawback of such arguments is the analogy itself. The argument only works if states in international arena are similar to individuals in domestic society in the right way. At least with regard to the

I

570

I

International Legal Reform

Hobbesian form of the argument, Charles Beitz (1999) has offered a thorough rejection of the claimed analogy. Third, in The Law of Peoples (LP) John Rawls offers what was one of the most anticipated and what has turned out to be one of the most controversial accounts. In LP, Rawls argues that the representatives of free and equal peoples operating from behind a veil of ignorance – ignorance of the particular society each represents – would agree to a set of principles to govern their interaction. The principles Rawls contends these representatives would agree upon are those that would regulate the interaction of liberal and decent peoples. Nearly every principle identified (LP: 37) has an analog in international law. The controversial aspects of Rawls’s account relate to the methodology and the principles identified. For example, with regards to his methodology, Rawls has been criticized for making peoples rather than individual persons the parties to the agreement. As to the principles themselves there is a concern that Rawls’s principles do not go far enough in promoting distributive justice in an ever-globalizing world. Lastly, there is an emerging literature in which it is argued that the normative foundations of international law are grounded in a commitment to human rights. This view is not uncontroversial, but it serves as the basis for the ICISS report “the Responsibility to Protect.” The commission argues that sovereignty carries with it a responsibility to protect individual human rights. And, if the home state fails in its responsibility, the international community – as a collection of responsible states – bears the burden of providing the necessary protection. The commission argues that this is not merely an aspiration of international law, but that it is a normative principle that has been applied in recent times, if only on an ad hoc basis.

Related Topics

▶ Global Basic Structure ▶ Global Governance ▶ Group Rights ▶ International Law ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Sovereignty ▶ Teso´n, Fernando ▶ Treaty of Westphalia

References Beitz CR (1999) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Buchanan A (2004) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Grotius H (1979) The rights of war and peace: including the law of nature and of nations (1625). Hyperion Press, Westport Hall WE (1924) International law, 8th edn. Clarendon Press, Oxford Hobbes T (1996) Leviathan (1651). Oxford University Press, Oxford Kant I (1996) Perpetual peace. In: Gregor M (ed) Practical philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Teson F (1998) A philosophy of international law. Westview Press, Boulder Vattel E (1811) The law of nations. W. Clarke & Sons, London

International Legal Reform ▶ Chodosh, Hiram ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Justice

International Monetary Fund (IMF) RAMON DAS School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization consisting of 186 member countries, with the stated purpose of maintaining the stability of the international financial system. It focuses primarily on stabilizing international exchange rates and providing emergency finance to member countries with “balance of payment” problems, that is, cases where a country is unable to meet its daily operating costs and cannot secure loans at acceptable rates from other lenders. Along with the World Bank Group, the IMF forms part of the Bretton Woods institutions, created in 1944 (originally with 45 member countries) with the stated purpose of fostering economic cooperation. Unlike the World Bank, however, the IMF is not a development bank and does not finance projects. For much of the twentieth century, the IMF increased its membership and extended its economic influence, particularly in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Over the last decade, the IMF suffered a marked decline in revenue and influence, as countries such as Argentina repaid existing loans and elected not to take out new ones. However, with the recent financial crisis, the IMF has seen its financial resources, along with

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

its influence in the global financial system, once again significantly increase. At the meeting of G-20 countries in London in 2009, it was decided that the financial reserves of the IMF would be set at $500 billion, a tenfold increase. In a sign of its renewed clout, the IMF has been mentioned recently in connection with a financial bailout of Greece, despite that country’s status as a member of the European Union. Nevertheless, given present uncertainties in the global economic order, in particular the apparent gradual shift in economic and financial power from the West to Asia, the continued role of the IMF in managing the global financial system remains unclear.

Organization and Governance The IMF is funded by its member countries, roughly in proportion to their (highly unequal) economic size relative to the global economy. Nearly half of its funding comes from a combination of the USA (17%); the largest European powers (Germany, France, UK: 16% combined); and Japan and China (10% combined). Its governance structure and voting power reflect this highly unequal funding system. Although all member countries are nominally represented on its Governing Board, technically its highest decision-making body, the IMF is effectively controlled by its 24 member Executive Board. This board, in turn, is dominated by representatives from the USA, the European powers, and Japan. Each of these countries has its own representative on the Executive Board, whereas almost all other countries are pooled into groups of up to 24 members, which are then collectively assigned a single representative. By tradition, the Managing Director of the Executive Board is a European; the current Director is Dominique Strauss-Kahn of France.

Role of the United States The USA is uniquely powerful at the IMF. Given that major decisions require an 85% supermajority, the USA (with nearly 17% of the votes) is the only country with effective veto power. Although the USA rarely has had occasion to exercise this power overtly, it has enabled the country to consistently shape the policies of the IMF in its own interests. One of the most important examples of this occurred at the original Bretton Woods conference in 1944, where the US representative successfully insisted (over the objections of Keynes, the British representative) that the US dollar would be the world’s “reserve currency,” the currency that other countries would generally be expected to hold in reserve (effectively, as savings), and in which most international lending and trade would be conducted. Having the sole power to print the world’s

I

571

reserve currency conferred upon the US obvious and enormous advantages. Today, the dollar’s continuing status as the major reserve currency – notably including being the currency in which IMF loans are disbursed and must be repaid – has enabled that country to continue to exercise immense financial power and to live well beyond its means (spending some 2.5 billion dollars in excess of what it earns each day). It is widely agreed that this state of affairs (which has seen China and other Asian countries build up correspondingly enormous US-dollardenominated reserves) is unsustainable in the long term.

Economic Surveillance In addition to providing emergency finance and technical assistance to countries in need, an important function of the IMF is to monitor the overall state of the international monetary system. It does this, in large part, by monitoring the financial and economic policies of its individual members. Upon joining the IMF, a country agrees to open its financial and economic policies to scrutiny, or what the IMF calls “economic surveillance.” This surveillance focuses on determining whether a country’s policies are in line with its statutory commitments to the IMF (agreed upon as a condition of membership), including pursuing steady economic growth, keeping prices stable, and not manipulating exchange rates to obtain unfair trade advantages. The IMF also conducts surveillance at the regional levels and globally; the latter is complied annually in its World Economic Outlook reports. Recent reports have been rather grim. A persistent theme has been the large and growing imbalances between the West and Asia, in particular, between the USA and China. An ongoing controversy between those two countries – the USA has repeatedly accused China of manipulating its currency for unfair advantage – brings out an important difference between the IMF and the World Trade Organization. Whereas the WTO specifies penalties for countries that are found to be not conforming to its rules and regulations (i.e., engaged in unfair trade practices), the IMF does not specify such penalties. This issue is likely to become increasingly important in the future.

Structural Adjustment Programs The IMF is probably best known for its provision of emergency finance to member countries and the “structural adjustment” programs that typically accompany such provision. It is this aspect of the IMF that has attracted the most controversy, and consideration of the issue leads directly into the most important questions about the IMF from the perspective of global justice. However, few critics believe that fulfilling the “lender of

I

572

I

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

last resort” role is morally objectionable in itself. Rather, most criticisms of the IMF have stemmed from the structural adjustment conditions that it has typically attached to such emergency loans. These conditions, sometimes characterized as “neo-liberal” or “Washington consensus” policies, are aimed at improving the country’s financial position vis-a`-vis its external creditors. Internal studies conducted by the IMF suggest that they are fairly successful at this, at least in the short term. Critics charge, however, that they succeed only at the expense of the country’s people, especially its poorest people. Structural adjustment programs typically involve the IMF requiring as a condition on emergency lending the implementation of some or all of the following policies in the target country: raising interest rates; cutting social spending; privatizing state assets; reducing or eliminating tariffs and subsidies (particularly in the agricultural sector); currency devaluation; and, less commonly, raising taxes. In combination, such policy changes have tended to have a recessionary impact on the target economy, which some commentators have claimed is basically the point. However, cuts in social spending and subsidies have been criticized as being especially and immediately harmful to a country’s poorest members. Many such persons depend on subsidies for food and cooking fuel, and in countries such as Indonesia, cuts to these basic services have resulted in riots. The IMF has tried to respond to such criticism. In 1999, it established the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGP), aimed at increasing the percentage of its loan expenditures that are directed toward reducing poverty in target countries. Under this program, the interest rate for loans is 0.5%, with repayments beginning 5 years after loan disbursement. As of August 2008, 78 of the world’s poorest countries were eligible for the program. A key component of the PRGP is that it is supposed to be implemented in accordance with Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), the latter of which are to be drawn up by the target country in question. The basic idea is that poverty reduction is to be tailored to the specific needs of the country in question, particularly, as these needs are understood by local government officials and other members of civil society. The IMF claims that under the program, the structural adjustment conditions attached to its loans have been lessened in stringency and scope. It plans to continue this trend under the concessionary Extended Credit Facility that is soon to replace the PRGP.

Other Controversies Most outside commentators remain unconvinced that the PRGP has succeeded in reducing poverty, and even the

IMF concedes that poverty rates have remained unacceptably high in countries where it has been implemented. More generally, critics continue to see the IMF as favoring the interests of international (mainly Western) creditors over the interests of the citizens of poor countries. One important reason for this (other than the implementation of structural adjustment programs themselves) is that the IMF has for decades provided, and continues today to provide, support for profoundly undemocratic leaders. In some cases, such as Indonesia under Suharto and Somalia under Siad Barre, IMF support has probably enabled dictators to remain in power much longer than they would have otherwise, and (not unrelated) exponentially increased the country’s overall debt. IMF policies during the recent financial crisis have raised new questions about its priorities, and revived concerns about its even-handedness. In particular, critics have long held that the IMF treats wealthy, developed countries very differently from poor, developing ones. Its recommendations and policies during the recent crisis may seem to support this charge. For instance, in 2009, the IMF created about $283 billion of its own reserve currency, called Special Drawing Rights. For the first time, this money was made available to member countries for borrowing without any conditions whatsoever. However, it was distributed not according to need, but according to IMF quota. This meant that the wealthiest countries received most of the money; the poorest countries received almost none of it. More generally, the IMF’s recent recommendations to wealthy countries have been supportive of their attempts to fight the global recession by stimulating their economies through lower interest rates, increased social spending, and so forth. At the same time, the IMF continues to recommend harsh austerity measures to poorer countries such as Ukraine and Latvia. From a global justice perspective, the most important questions about the IMF concern its alleged role in helping to perpetuate severe global poverty. On the surface, this concern may seem puzzling. The IMF is an international organization with the apparently benign aim of maintaining the stability of the international financial system. Its defenders can and do claim, not implausibly, that the IMF (or some similar institution) is necessary in an interconnected yet multicurrency economic system, particularly one in which there are persistent trade and investment imbalances. Critics claim, however, that the international financial system that the IMF is tasked with maintaining is itself embedded within a larger global economic system that is deeply unjust, marked as it is by avoidable severe poverty and gross inequality. The financial system is not, of course, the whole of the global

International Organizations

economy; but neither is it peripheral to it. Indeed, a good case can be made that it plays a quite central role in that larger system. Looked at this way, it may be easier to appreciate the criticism that the IMF, as it is currently structured, plays an important role in the perpetuation of severe global poverty. If this criticism is on the mark, then from the perspective of global justice the IMF is an institution ripe for fundamental reform. Of the many suggested reforms in the literature, two deserve brief mention. One would democratize decisionmaking procedures at the IMF, giving much more say to poor countries about how and to whom loans were disbursed. The second would significantly reduce, if not eliminate altogether, structural adjustment conditions on loans to poor countries. Whether either of these reforms is likely to be implemented in the near future remains an open question.

Related Topics

▶ African Development Bank ▶ International Organizations ▶ Odious Debts ▶ World Bank (WB)

References Chwieroth JM (2009) Capital ideas: the IMF and the rise of financial liberalization. Princeton University Press, Princeton Helleiner E (1994) States and the re-emergence of global finance. Cornell University Press, Ithaca International Monetary Fund (2010) World economic outlook: rebalancing growth. International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC Peet R (2003) Unholy trinity: the IMF, World Bank, and WTO. Zed, London Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights. Polity Press, Cambridge Stiglitz J (2006) Making globalization work. Penguin/Allen Lane, London Truman EM (ed) (2005) Reforming the IMF for the 21st century. Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC Woods N (2006) The globalizers: the IMF, the World Bank, and their borrowers. Cornell University Press, Ithaca

International Organizations LYNETTE E. SIEGER Gallatin School, New York University, New York, NY, USA

International Organizations refer to collectivities of states coming together to cooperate as states, under a constitutive international agreement, to manage common problems and achieve common goals. International organizations engage

I

in rule-making, set international standards, and foster international norms. These functions can emerge in a direct way, through international treaties that are then written into national laws, for instance, and also in indirect ways, such as through customary practices. Some international organizations, such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), aspire toward and act universally in reach, participation, and membership. Others develop as cooperative schemas for a particular region, such as the European Union (EU), the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), or the Organization of American States (OAS). International organizations can also be distinguished by their primary agendas. They function across a broad spectrum of the political, economic, financial, regulatory, technical, and judicial spheres. Given the interrelated nature of these various specializations, there is often overlap; thus the purposes and reach of an international organization are fluid and dynamic rather than narrow or exclusive. Though international organizations are created by states, they are also influenced by individual and group actors outside of states. International organizations encompass agendas beyond state interests, including interests of persons (specifically economic and human rights), and transnational interests such as health, air travel, communications, terrorism, and environment. The normative trend toward states as instruments for promoting human interest rather than as prima facie valuable entities by themselves may progressively further transform the interests of international organizations away from state-centric norms. Though international organizations encompass a broad range of interests, their effectiveness is dependent upon the cooperation of its member states. At the most basic operational level, international organizations are dependent on the financial contributions of states. This can pose an immense challenge to international organizations, especially when attempting to enforce the full payment of dues from unwilling wealthy and powerful member states. Complex dependence of international organizations on states is seen at the level of implementation and progress of agreed upon rules and standards. Though an international organization may outlaw human trafficking, it is up to states to implement, enforce, finance, and cooperate with each other in anti-trafficking. The legitimacy of international organizations in legislating, and in some cases enforcing coercive rules, is argued to be derived from the consent of the state acting as representatives of people circumventing liberal political theory norms requiring the direct consent of persons through democratic processes. This formulation is questioned

573

I

574

I

International Organizations

primarily on the grounds that, first, international organizations put few constraints on which state representatives they will negotiate with. By recognizing whomever controls the state as entitled to act in the name of the people of the state, irrespective of whether a dictator or democratically elected leader, international organizations override the liberal political values of political participation and fair representation. A second critique is that given the concentration of power within some international organizations, the question arises as to whether consent to membership and international organization rules is too coercive to be considered legitimate. In order for poor and weak states to become members of an international organization, they must accept the conditions of rules typically constructed by and in the interests of wealthy and powerful member states. In response, it may be argued that a state need not seek out membership in an organization such as the WTO. However, given the pervasive role that the WTO plays in international commerce relations, states may have little practical choice in whether or not it is in their interest, disadvantaged though it may be, to join. Both critiques of the legitimacy of international organizations fall under the overarching problem of democratic deficit. Beyond the problems of initial consent, international organizations have been seen as a threat to democracy or state sovereignty, or both, predicated on their internal decision-making procedures. International organizations that conclude decisions based on majority voting impose binding arrangements on all member states, including states in opposition to the measure and even if those states are in opposition based on the demands of their democratic constituency. Perhaps even more popularly problematic are weighted voting schemas such as that of the United Nations Security Council. The UN Security Council exercises power not only over member states, but under the UN Charter also over non-member states where it is determined as necessary to secure the peace (Article 2 (6)). The Security Council’s five permanent members, France, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States have the power to exercise a veto over the opinions and positions of the near 200 other member states as well as other nonmember states that may suffer the direct or indirect consequences. Finally, decisions made by consensus within international organizations face the charge of the polluted influence of decisions being made by the overwhelming influences of wealth and power and under the distorting influence of language barriers rather than through true consensus. A potential remedy to greater transparency and more democratic accountability in international organization

decision-making processes has been noted in the proliferation of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Trans-border NGOs take on a wide range of special interests, including the interests of marginalized groups of people within states, or environmental issues, and advocate for them by serving as commentators in the drafting stages of policy proposals, standard setting, or rulemaking and assisting in treaty negotiations. NGOs also serve the functions of information sharing of research and development with the public and international organizations; working on the ground including in coordination with international organizations – such as with the UN in peace building missions; exposing corruption; conducting studies and reports to track the progress of states in implementing international rules and standards; and organizing public rallies in support of or in opposition to the acts of international organizations. While NGOs bring in a broader range of interests and voices beyond state powers to the decision-making processes of international organizations, they have also been charged as being elitist, special interest groups that promote their own agendas without strict accountability. The recognition of global interdependence in trade, environmental well-being, peace and security, and health as well as globally shared interests in promoting respect for human rights norms will require the perpetuation of international organizations such as the UN, the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and the International Criminal Court (ICC), among many others. The challenges of legitimacy and inclusion of a wide variety of needs and interests will require concerted efforts from individuals, states, NGOs, and international organizations themselves to sort our desirable norms and structure institutions toward the best possible effects, never mistaking the goodness of the structure of an international organization for the goodness of its outcomes.

Related Topics

▶ Advocacy Organizations ▶ African Development Bank ▶ Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) ▶ Coercion ▶ Consensus/Justification ▶ Consent ▶ Democratic Legitimacy ▶ Fair Trade ▶ Food ▶ Free Trade ▶ General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC)

Intuitionism

▶ International Labour Organization (ILO) ▶ International Law Commission ▶ International Monetary Fund (IMF) ▶ League of Nations ▶ Rome Statute of 1998 ▶ Sovereignty ▶ United Nations: Reform ▶ United Nations: Peacekeeping and Peace Building ▶ Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties ▶ World Bank (WB) ▶ World Trade Organization (WTO)

References Alvarez J (2005) International organizations as law-makers. Oxford University Press, Oxford Haftel Y, Thompson A (2006) The independence of international organizations: concept and applications. J Confl Resolution 50(2):253–275 Karns M, Mingst K (2009) International organizations: the politics and processes of global governance, 2nd edn. Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder Slaughter AM (1997) The real new world order. Foreign Aff 76(5):183–197 Stein E (2001) International integration and democracy: no love at first sight. Am J Int Law 95:489–534

International Political Economy ▶ Global Justice ▶ International Monetary Fund (IMF) ▶ World Bank (WB)

International Solidarity ▶ Global Public Reason ▶ Solidarity

Intervention, Non-Military ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military

Intrastate Autonomy ▶ Secession

I

575

Intuitionism MICHAEL K. POTTER Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada

As a position on moral perception, intuitionism holds that objective moral truths are perceived through a nonrational sense called “intuition.” Like the classical five senses, intuition enables us to grasp truths of the world immediately and directly, to some intuitionists even infallibly. Whereas our eyes enable us to immediately perceive and understand an object’s natural properties – such as shape and color – intuition enables us to perceive and understand the moral properties of actions and situations. Intuitionism as we know it today owes its legacy to Anthony Ashley Cooper, or Lord Shaftesbury (1671–1713) and Scottish philosopher Frances Hutcheson (1694–1746). Shaftesbury, a student of the great empiricist philosopher John Locke, believed that human beings are inherently virtuous, drawn by their inner moral sense to that which is morally good. This ran counter to the views of political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), who famously argued, in Leviathan (1651), that people tend toward selfishness. Shaftesbury found Hobbes’ egoism and pessimism intolerable. Though he recognized that egoistic impulses were part of human nature, and advocated the inherent goodness of human beings, he believed human perfection lay in a harmony of selfinterested and other-interested behavior. Shaftesbury’s ideas were developed in greater detail by Hutcheson, to whom intuition, or “moral sense” is our ability to understand moral phenomena and make moral judgments, both necessary aspects of human life. As a necessary prerequisite for empathy, moral sense is an indispensible part of social as well as moral life, for empathy creates the communal bonds that hold the social fabric together. Hutcheson set out to create a moral theory that would be consistent with the empiricism of his day, while defending Shaftesbury’s ideas from attacks made by Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733) in his Fable of the Bees (1723), a declaration of humanity’s egoistic nature that made Hobbes look measured. Like Shaftesbury, Hutcheson believed that benevolence is an indispensible part of a balanced human nature. Mostly through anonymously published essays, he argued that moral approval and disapproval are really judgments of actions as agreeable or disagreeable. The moral sense is

I

576

I

Intuitionism

thus very much like the esthetic sense with which we judge, and take pleasure in, beauty. Actions judged by the moral sense as agreeable are those which tend to give rise to pleasure. Actions judged as disagreeable are those which tend to give rise to pain or displeasure. The lure of selfishness haunts us, but the moral sense we are all born with leads us to take pleasure in performing and observing actions that benefit others, so we also judge beneficent behavior as agreeable. Ultimately, Hutcheson proposed a standard for moral judgment which he believed is recognized by the moral sense: That which is good promotes the general human welfare. In Hutcheson’s time, this was radical enough for his theory to be declared dangerous by the Glasgow Presbytery. By formulating an ancestor of the greatest happiness principle, Hutcheson also contributed to the rise of utilitarianism. Yet not all utilitarians approved of Hutcheson’s reliance on a mysterious power of intuition, among them eminent philosopher, economist, and politician John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). Responding to Mill’s popular attacks, Cambridge philosopher and cofounder of analytic philosophy G.E. Moore (1873–1958) defended a rearticulated form of intuitionism in Principia Ethica (1903). Moore claimed that Mill and other utilitarians had committed what he called “the naturalistic fallacy,” that is, deriving nonnatural conclusions (that promoting general human welfare is good) from natural premises (that human beings derive pleasure from helping one another). According to Moore, all of morality can ultimately be analyzed down to goodness; every moral concept relates to goodness in some way. The property of goodness is nonnatural (not something that can be grasped empirically) and properly basic (immune to further analysis, irreducible). In fact, Moore argued, goodness cannot even be defined. The best we can do is point to things that are good and intuitively grasp their commonality. Intuition, which is our only means of understanding the property of goodness, enables us to see that good things share in the generation of certain higher pleasures, such as love, beauty, and friendship. The common property of goodness unites the various duties we recognize. Moral propositions are unique in that their content – moral truths – cannot be apprehended by any human faculty other than intuition. We cannot reason our way to them or justify them. Later intuitionists – such as H.A. Prichard (1871–1947), W.D. Ross (1877–1971), C.D. Broad (1887–1971), A.C. Ewing (1899–1973), Thomas Scanlon (1940 – ), Derek Parfit (1942 – ), and John McDowell

(1942 – ) – moved toward a notion of intuition that was less mystical. “Intuition,” in their sense of the word, denoted pre-reflective beliefs unconsciously dependant on our values and moral theoretical commitments. Unlike Hutcheson, these later intuitionists also tend to accept the plurality of values or goods, rather than reducing all to one. As pertaining to matters of global justice, intuitionism faces several serious criticisms, most significantly that it may reinforce prejudice, bigotry, and injustice. If intuition is able to directly understand and judge the morality of behaviors, there is little point in reflecting on our judgments. Yet we know that when we do reflect, when we examine the reasons behind what we do, say, and believe, we often find that our judgments change. We note things that were not noted before. We find evidence of bias at work in our appraisals that went unnoticed when those moral properties were “intuited” directly. If the claims of intuitionists were correct, the notion of moral education would be absurd. Yet we find it necessary. Unless moral judgments are subject to reason, they easily serve the interests of power, lend authority to atrocity, and privilege uncritical, unreflective, and uninformed ways of living. Therefore, intuitionism is often held to be incompatible with the transformational, moral, and political aims of global justice. That said, intuitionism can be used to justify moral activism just as readily as atrocity. Prominent intuitionists have worked for a number of social causes. Hutcheson, for instance, forcefully championed the sovereignty of the populace against the political class, and argued for the right of the populace to overthrow governments that do not enhance the happiness of the governed. Henry Sidgwick – an intuitionist and utilitarian who had a significant influence on Moore – worked to promote the acceptance of women as university students. In influencing Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, Hutcheson’s ideas have even been credited with a role in the American Revolution. If it is true that all persons have access to a sense the permits perception of goodness, then it is possible to settle ethical disagreements – between cultures as well as persons – by appealing to it. That this has not happened may be a testament to the error of intuitionism. It may also be the result of a lack of effort, an indolent prioritization of bias and tradition over the good.

Related Topics

▶ Common Good ▶ Consensus/Justification

Intuitionism

▶ Global Ethic ▶ Global Justice ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Ideal Moral Theory ▶ Jefferson, Thomas ▶ Locke, John ▶ Mill, John Stuart ▶ Moral Authority ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Moral Legitimacy ▶ Moral Reasoning ▶ Peace Education

I

577

▶ Pluralism ▶ Prima Facie Duties ▶ Utilitarianism

References Cooper AA, Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1699) An inquiry concerning virtue, in two discourses Hobbes T (1651) Leviathan Hutcheson F (1725) Inquiry into the original of our ideas of beauty and virtue Moore GE (1903) Principia Ethica Prichard HA (1949) Moral obligation. Oxford University Press, Oxford Ross WD (1930) The right and the good. Oxford University Press, Oxford

I

J Jefferson, Thomas CHARLES ROSENBERG Milwaukee, WI, USA

A man of deeply conflicted character, a visionary rooted in the customs of his own time and place, Jefferson is best known as the author of the Declaration of Independence adopted by 13 British North American colonies in 1776. He was an architect, with his friend James Madison, of the principle of religious liberty. One of the United States’ great apostles of freedom, Jefferson owned slaves all his life. A wealthy man, although capable of burdening his estate with ruinous debt playing the gracious host, Jefferson philosophically distrusted men of wealth, and appealed to the common man and the free laborer. Born on April 13, 1743 (April 2 by the Julian calendar then in use), Jefferson inherited 2,750 acres of his father’s estate in 1764, and 26 slaves, his father having died in 1757 when Jefferson was 14. Peter Jefferson set an example by not following the rules of primogeniture: He gave his widow lifetime use of one third of the 7,500 acre estate and made provision for each of his six daughters, leaving the residue to his son (Randall, 18). Abhorrence of slavery was manifest in Jefferson’s youth. In 1769, newly elected to the legislature, he introduced a bill to authorize any master to free any slave, rather than reserving emancipation as a reward for “meritorious services.” But in the same year, he advertised in the Virginia Gazette for the return of a slave who had stolen one of his horses and run off – and sold the slave 3 years after he was caught and returned. In 1770, he represented a mulatto slave seeking freedom on the ground that his grandmother, a woman deemed “white” by the laws of the state, had not been a slave. Exceeding the legal argument that status was inherited from the mother, not by color, Jefferson orated “under the law of nature, all men are born free, and every person comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will.” The horrified judge terminated the oration and ruled against Jefferson’s client.

Jefferson proposed in 1784, in Notes on the State of Virginia, that all slaves born after adoption of a new constitution be emancipated – but as chairman of a committee to revise the state’s laws, he did not allow such a proposal to even reach the floor of the legislature. In the same Notes, he speculated at length on the supposed inherent inferiority of darker-skinned persons to lighter skinned, while insisting that “Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained” made political equality and coexistence impossible in his mind and vision.

Certain Inalienable Rights Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence – formally entrusted to a committee of five – by which the Continental Congress proclaimed American separation from Great Britain in 1776. This document offered the first concrete political manifestation of the ideals of Enlightenment philosophers, particularly the political theories of John Locke, enunciated with the “peculiar felicity of expression” that John Adams ascribed to Jefferson. Locke’s “life, liberty and property” became in Jefferson’s hands “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” while the subsequent declarations of the French Republic proclaimed “liberty, equality, fraternity.” Never before had a political entity, however ad hoc, claiming territory and fielding an army, offered anything like these principles as the foundation for ordering a human society. Jefferson’s writing, and subsequent political roles, shows a marked sympathy for Descartes’s assumption that rational people would automatically reach consensus as the result of knowledge based on reason – an assumption which later history has not affirmed. Perhaps Jefferson’s most enduring legacy to the world is the acknowledgement in a political document of natural rights – not derived as the gift of a benevolent sovereign, but simply because a man is a man (neither philosophers nor practitioners conceived of an equal status for women), or directly from a divine Creator. It is difficult to draw precise conclusions from Jefferson’s 38-year liaison with Sally Hemings, his wife

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

580

J

Jefferson, Thomas

Martha’s half-sister, and by law Jefferson’s property, inherited from the estate of Martha’s father. There is little reason to doubt a genuine affection between the two. Hemings’s continued status as a slave, and Jefferson’s studious denial of an obvious liaison, highlights the man’s conflict over the theory and practice of liberty, for his nation and the world, and in his personal life. The cultural norms of his time would have made any other course political suicide. Jefferson’s most notable stand against slavery was his introduction of legislation in 1784 that after 1800 “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude” should exist in any newly created state. Each state had one vote in the confederation congress of that time, predating the Constitution of 1787; the measure lost on a 6–6 vote, with New Jersey’s sole delegate absent due to illness. Jefferson, and Williamson of North Carolina, were the only southern representatives who voted in favor – neither carried a majority of their state’s delegations. Jefferson later wrote “The voice of a single individual . . . would have prevented this abominable crime from spreading itself over the new country. Thus we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, and Heaven was silent in that awful moment” (Brodie, 230–231).

Freedom of Religion Jefferson and Madison were not the first to advocate, or legislate, freedom of worship, but they moved far beyond mere “toleration” of religious minorities to complete separation of civil rights and duties from religious observance. Religious freedom was not inherent in the 13 colonies’ declaration of independence from Great Britain. In fact, even after ratification of the First Amendment to the new nation’s constitution, each state remained free to establish and support a preferred church, until ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. Securing disestablishment of the Anglican Church of Virginia set the most pristine example of complete separation of religious establishments from the civil power of the state. This also set a profoundly influential cultural standard for the new nation, up to and beyond the Civil War of 1861– 1865. New states formed in trans-Appalachian territories consistently banned the establishment of any church in their own constitutions. Many states barred ordained ministers from holding political office. Jefferson’s first efforts, 1776–1779, were all defeated. Not until 1786, while Jefferson was serving as ambassador to France, did Virginia enact the language of his Act for Establishing Religious Freedom. Up to that time, Baptist ministers were still whipped for preaching without a license, Jews were barred from public office, as they

were in every state but New York, and Roman Catholics were barred in more than half the states. The provision of Article II, that “all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities,” remains a matter of some controversy in the United States, although deeply embedded in legal precedent, and by no means universally accepted around the world. It is even argued in some nations and cultures that religious freedom is a peculiarly western innovation, that to impose it upon people who find it foreign and repulsive is a species of neocolonialism. Jefferson, however, rooted religious freedom in the natural rights of each individual person: “Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free” freedom of religion is “of the natural rights of mankind.”

Colonial Liberation: From Haiti to the Twentieth Century Perhaps no single person is more responsible than Jefferson for the endemic poverty of Haiti as an independent nation – in contrast to the tremendous wealth that it had generated for the French empire as the colony of St. Domingue. Ironically, his Federalist predecessor, John Adams, had cultivated diplomatic ties at the consular level with Toussaint Louverture, who, as commander-inchief of all forces of the French Republic, governed the colony virtually as an independent state. The infant United States was the colony’s largest trading partner, more important even than France. Adams, hostile to revolutionary France, was motivated by a desire to encourage Louverture to declare complete independence. Adams also was hostile to slavery, although not to all forms of white supremacy. Jefferson, friendly to France, even after Napoleon’s coup d’etat, betrayed abysmal ignorance of recent history and Louverture’s policies. Having previously expressed fear of “black crews and supercargoes and missionaries thence in to the southern states,” he informed French charge d’affaires Andre´ Pichon “nothing would be more simple than to furnish your army and your fleet with everything and to starve out Toussaint.” After Napoleon’s invading army was decimated by guerilla warfare, yellow fever, and the armies reconstituted by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Jefferson’s administration cut off all trade with the newly independent island nation. It is open to question whether Dessalines and his successors could have revived the commodity export economy, which Louverture had carefully sustained while abolishing slavery. Haiti never recovered from the economic shock of an embargo by its two largest markets.

Jus ad Bellum

For more than a century thereafter, the nation Jefferson did so much to endow with personal liberty declined to recognize colored “races” as fit to exercise such freedom. Still, during the great anticolonial revolutions of the mid-twentieth century, many inspirational leaders quoted extensively from Jefferson, including Ho Chi Minh, in the language of the Declaration of Independence of Vietnam in 1946, Mahatma Gandhi in a declaration offered by the Indian National Congress in 1930, as well as Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Jefferson’s words are also echoed in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Related Topics

▶ Class and Status ▶ Eurocentrism ▶ Locke, John ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Revolution ▶ Rights ▶ Separation of Church and State ▶ Slavery

References Armitage D (2007) The declaration of independence: a global history. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Bedini SA (1990) Thomas Jefferson: statesman of science. Macmillan, New York Brodie F (1974) Thomas Jefferson: an intimate history. W.W. Norton, New York Ellis JJ (1998) American sphinx: the character of Thomas Jefferson. Vintage Books, New York Gordon-Reed A (2008) The Hemingses of Monticello: an American family. W.W. Norton, New York Kranish M (2010) Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at war. Oxford University Press, USA McCullough D (2001) John Adams. Simon & Schuster, New York Randall WS (1994) Thomas Jefferson: a life. HarperPerennial, New York

Jus ad Bellum DAVID MICHAEL JACKSON Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

The term jus ad bellum (Latin for “right to (wage) war”) refers to a set of moral constraints on the justifiability of resorting to particular military campaigns (e.g., Israel’s preemptive military action in the 6-day war of 1967, or

J

581

NATO’s 2011 imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya). Jus ad bellum considerations embody the “why” of military action, in contrast with the “how” addressed by jus in bello. There are six standards which must be met in order for the resort to war to be just. Political leaders who initiate military campaigns without adhering to every one of these moral constraints are thereby guilty of war crimes. The first three constraints are deontological: 1. Just Cause: This principle requires a morally justifiable argument for the resort to coercive military action. Thus far, only the defense of nations or groups has qualified; however, this is an empirical matter. Given the horror of military-scale lethality, and the high standard thereby indicated for its justification, this standard is of paramount importance and sets the terms for the remaining jus ad bellum requirements. The standard of imminence inveighs on considerations of just cause since the inauguration of military action against perceived incipient military threats might represent unprovoked aggression, thus violating the heart of the principle. 2. Right Intention: Only the aims justified by the Just Cause argument may be pursued. Additional advantage beyond the scope of the Just Cause rationale cannot morally be sought. 3. Proper Authority and Pubic Declaration: Only national leaders may inaugurate coercive military action by public declaration. This standard implicitly references some theory of legitimate government. The next three requirements are consequentialist: 4. Last Resort : Only once all nonmilitary options to resolve conflict are exhausted, may the resort to coercive military action be justified. 5. Probability of Success: Only if the particular resort to coercive military action is likely to bring about the conditions sought under the Just Cause argument, is the military action justifiable. 6. Proportionality: Only if the universal good predicted to result outweighs the universal ill projected, is the military action justifiable. Strict scrutiny is a general theme of the just-war tradition since deliberation over the resort to coercive military action addresses among the most pressing of moral questions: when is it permissible to kill? In considerations of global justice, it is paramount to apply this scrutiny in all cases since some nations are better equipped than others to set the terms of the debate. If the standards are strictly applied only to those nations who are unable the steer the debate in their favor, a duality of standards exists, by which nations that are able to inflict the largest-scale

J

582

J

Jus ad Pacem

destruction are not subject to the level of scrutiny appropriate to the gravity of the question.

Related Topics

▶ Double Effect, Doctrine of ▶ Jus Gentium ▶ Jus in Bello ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Chatterjee D, Scheid DE (2003) Ethics and foreign intervention. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge von Clausewitz C (1995) On war (trans: Rapoport A). Penguin, Harmondsworth Johnson JT (1973) Towards reconstructing the Jus ad Bellum. Monist 57:461–488 (1973) Ignatieff M (2004) The lesser evil. Princeton University Press, Princeton May L (2005) Crimes against humanity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge May L, Rovie E, Viner S (2006) The morality of war. Pearson Education, New Jersey Walzer M (1977) Just and unjust wars. Basic Books, New York

Jus ad Pacem JORDY ROCHELEAU Department of History and Philosophy, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN, USA

Jus ad pacem has recently gained currency in just war theory as a blanket term for ethical responsibilities at the end of war and in peacekeeping operations. Literally “justice in achieving peace,” jus ad pacem is also commonly referred to as “jus post bellum,” justice after war. The latter term is somewhat misleading, as the concept incorporates not only postwar reconstruction but also justly concluding a war, after the end of “major operations” against a standing army. The recent naming and explosion of literature in this field follow from a sense that traditional just war conceptions of jus ad bellum and jus in bello have failed to address justice at the end of conflicts, and that this theoretical gap has been paralleled at the policy level by a failure to plan for and execute a just and stable peace. The ongoing interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq have served as motivation for and central illustrations in recent literature. A host of subtopics fall under jus ad pacem. Many surround the justice of the terms of peace

agreements, including occupation, governance, territorial boundaries, and reparations. Since much of the practical thrust of jus ad pacem involves the question when a war should be concluded and how long and in what form a postwar occupation should continue, much jus ad pacem follows from an application of jus ad bellum (justice in going to war or just recourse) principles to the end phase of a war (McCready, Lucas, Rocheleau). That is, one can assess the cause, intention, proportionality, probability of success, alternatives (to war as a last resort), and appropriateness of authorization to determine whether an intervention should continue and in what form. Regarding jus in bello (justice in war or just means), several commentators argue that the police-like work of peacekeeping and counterinsurgency requires a particularly strict observance of discrimination and proportionality in the use of force, for both principled and pragmatic reasons (Lucas, McCready). Though to a large extent jus ad pacem principles are derived from an application of general just war principles to a specific context, a separate category of jus ad pacem may be useful to plan for and guide the end of armed interventions. Moreover, several issues outside traditional just war concepts are also discussed under the rubric of jus ad pacem and jus post bellum. One is retribution for war crimes, including challenges of finding and punishing those responsible, consistency in enforcement, and dubious collective responsibility. An important consideration in responding to war crimes is the peace versus justice debate, the tension between securing peace and holding those culpable responsible. Other jus ad pacem literature deals with reconciliation: its nature, how to achieve it, and its relation to peace and justice (Patterson). Finally, effective peacemaking may require state-building and reconstruction, such that jus ad pacem overlaps with general issues of global justice, development ethics, political legitimacy, human rights, and national self-determination. So long as there is conflict in the world, warring parties’ ability to plan for and execute a just peace will continue to profoundly impact global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Development Ethics ▶ Duty to Prosecute ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ Jus ad Bellum ▶ Jus in Bello ▶ Just Peace ▶ National Self-Determination

Jus Gentium

▶ Peace Versus Justice ▶ Punishment ▶ Reparations ▶ Retributive Justice ▶ Transitional Justice ▶ United Nations: Peacekeeping and Peace Building ▶ War Crimes ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Bass G (2004) Jus post bellum. Philos Public Aff 32:384–412 Johnson R (2008) Jus post bellum and counterinsurgency. J Mil Ethics 7:215–230 Lucas GR (2003) From jus ad bellum to jus ad pacem: re-thinking just war criteria for the use of military force for humanitarian ends. In: Chatterjee D, Scheid D (eds) Ethics and foreign intervention. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 72–96 May L (ed) (2008) War: essays in political philosophy. Cambridge University Press, New York McCready D (2009) Ending the war right: jus post bellum and the just war tradition. J Mil Ethics 8:66–78 Orend B (2000) Jus post bellum. J Soc Philos 31:117–137 Orend B (2006) The morality of war. Broadview Press, Petersborough Patterson E (2007) Jus post bellum and international conflict: order, justice, and reconciliation. In: Brough MW et al (eds) Rethinking the just war tradition. State University of New York Press, Albany, pp 35–52 Rocheleau J (2008) Ethical principles for state-building. In: Kaufman G (ed) Stability operations and state-building: continuities and contingencies. Strategic Studies Institute, Carlisle, pp 18–31 Rocheleau J (2010) From aggression to just occupation? The temporal application of jus ad bellum principles and the case of Iraq. J Mil Ethics 9:123–138 Walzer M (1977) Just and unjust wars. Basic Books, New York, pp 109–124

Jus Gentium DAVID MICHAEL JACKSON Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

The primary meaning of the term jus gentium (Latin for “the law of peoples”) refers to the idea that the basic justificatory principle of law is its treatment of the human individuals within its scope. That is, rather than being viewed as objects of law, human individuals are rightly viewed as subjects of law. This is because individuals are treated unjustly when they are treated as mere means, rather than as ends-in-themselves.

J

The term has come to mean “the law of nations,” which refers to the idea that there are universal moral standards that obtain within any civilized society. Thus any law – whether national or international – enacted that does not meet these standards thereby lacks the requisite legitimacy. The universality of the relevant moral standards is substantiated by the argument that they are required in order for human individuals, construed as social entities, to coexist sufficiently well, for life in a particular society to be tolerable. Construed internationally, the standards refer to the international laws which govern relations between nations, but the appeal to moral standards is nevertheless grounded in the proper treatment of individuals. Although in law the term is used to limit types of military action, in philosophy the term is more widely applied, as indicated. The phrase “law of peoples” is now commonly associated with John Rawls’ theory of international justice. However, Rawls’ use of the term is given a specific technical meaning, which the author distinguishes from the traditional, more general meaning. The phenomenon of globalization has pressed the need for further development of the concept of jus gentium. As worldwide social interaction and interdependency among individuals increases, laws once putatively sufficient to the task of justice regulate an ever-diminishing scope in human affairs. For example, transnational corporations are now able to blackmail nations economically, by threatening to expatriate in the event that they are unsatisfied with tax rates, protections of workers and unions, and environmental and health regulations, regardless of whether these conditions to which they object are required by the standards of jus gentium. As a result, the discussion of global justice has yielded a number of promising theories, which have nevertheless unfortunately failed to encourage the development of legal frameworks at a pace sufficient to the scale and urgency of the problems of global injustice.

Related Topics

▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Crimes Against Peace ▶ Enemy Combatant ▶ Ethical Foreign Policy ▶ Globalization ▶ Hague Conventions ▶ Human Rights ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ Illegitimate States ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ International Criminal Justice

583

J

584

J

Jus in Bello

▶ International Law ▶ International Law, Normative Foundations of ▶ Perpetual Peace ▶ Political Legitimacy ▶ Rawls, John ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Chatterjee D, Scheid DE (2003) Ethics and foreign intervention. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Finnis J (2000) The priority of persons. In: Horder J (ed) Oxford essays in jurisprudence, Fourth Series. Clarendon, Oxford, pp 1–15 Finnis J (2003) Aquinas’ moral, political, and legal philosophy. In: Zalta EN (ed) The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2006 Edition). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2006/entries/ aquinas-moral-political/ Hart HLA (1961) The concept of law. Clarendon, Oxford International Court of Justice: Statute of the international court of justice. http://www.icj-cij.org/documents/index.php?p1=4&p2=2&p3=0. Accessed 20 Apr 2011 Kant I (1785/1993) Grounding for the metaphysics of morals, 3rd edn. (trans: Ellington JW). Hackett/Cambridge University Press, Indianapolis/Cambridge

Jus in Bello DAVID MICHAEL JACKSON Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

The term jus in bello (Latin for “right (conduct) in war”) refers to a set of moral constraints on the justifiability of conduct in war. Jus in bello considerations focus on the “how” of military action, in contrast with the “why” addressed by jus ad bellum. The organizing principle of jus in bello is discrimination between combatants and others. Combatants are those authorized – legitimately or not – to use lethal force in exchange for which they forfeit immunity from same. Killing is taken to be the ultimate wrong unto another, so by the principle of reciprocity, accepting the right to kill enemy combatants entails tacit consent to the possibility of being justifiably killed. Therefore, only combatants are justifiable military targets. The standards which follow from the principle of discrimination apply to conationals and others equally. The remaining standards of jus in bello are justified by reference primarily to the principle of discrimination.

There are six standards which must be met in order for conduct in war to be just. Political leaders who conduct military campaigns without adhering to every one of these moral constraints are thereby guilty of war crimes. The constraints are: 1. Discrimination and noncombatant immunity: Even if some unintended noncombatant casualties are justifiable by appeal to proportionality or the doctrine of double effect, it is morally impermissible to target anyone but combatants. 2. Obey all international laws on weapons prohibition: Such prohibitions are most often based on the indiscriminate nature of the weapon. The very use of chemical or biological weapons, for example, violates the principle of discrimination by removing targeting from the military action, simply killing all within the weapon’s area of effect. 3. Proportionality: Military force must be restrained, such that no more force than is necessary to meet the objectives justified by appeal to jus ad bellum is permissible. 4. Non-malevolent quarantine for prisoners of war: Prisoners of war are no longer subject to the authority which permitted their use of lethal force, and as such they are no longer subject to the arrangement by which their immunity from lethal force is forfeit. Thus, according to the principle of discrimination, immunity is restored to prisoners. They are no longer involved in coercive military action. Sadism and privation are ruled out by extrapolation from this immunity, along with considerations that apply to humans generally. 5. No Means Mala in Se: Certain acts cannot, by their nature (hence “evil in itself ”), meet the standard of furthering the ends justified by appeal to jus ad bellum. Ethnic cleansing, for example, aims not only at the elimination or expatriation of groups – which may be justifiable, if the group were composed entirely of combatants – but of ethnically defined groups. The aim of ethnic cleansing thus fails to meet the standard of discrimination since the coercion aims at all members of the ethnic group, and not only at combatants. 6. Prohibition on reprisals: Transgression of standards 1–5 by one country does not justify response in kind by another. Much of the behavior in war reveals humanity at its very worst. If morality is to mean anything at all, the most significant cases, such as war, must be subject to the gravity of analysis brought about only through strict

Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq

scrutiny. Otherwise, the principle of discrimination is insufficient to the undertaking of an evaluation appropriate to the gravity of the question. In terms of global justice, however, an epistemic double standard seems to apply among different nations. For example, individuals in more technologically advanced nations watch the wars their countries wage at a sterilized remove, while the figures represented on their screen experience something entirely different. If jus in bello is to guide conduct, the epistemic situation must change. Absent knowledge of what happens in war, strict scrutiny is precluded. As a result, the standards of jus in bello will continue to be unmet by the very nations that promulgate them.

Related Topics

▶ Double Effect, Doctrine of ▶ Jus ad Bellum ▶ Jus ad Pacem ▶ Jus Gentium ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Chatterjee D, Scheid DE (2003) Ethics and foreign intervention. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge von Clausewitz C (1995) On war (trans: Rapoport A) Penguin, Harmondsworth Johnson JT (1973) Towards reconstructing the Jus ad Bellum. Monist 1973:461–488 Ignatieff M (2004) The lesser evil. Princeton University Press, Princeton May L (2005) Crimes against humanity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge May L, Rovie E, Viner S (2006) The morality of war. Pearson Education, New Jersey Walzer M (1977) Just and unjust wars. Basic Books, New York

Just Peace ▶ Peace Versus Justice ▶ Perpetual Peace: Abbe´ de Saint-Pierre ▶ Perpetual Peace: Kant ▶ Preventive Non-Intervention

Just War Theory ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ War, Just and Unjust

J

585

Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ROBERT P. ABELE Department of Humanities and Philosophy, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA, USA

The Official US Government Case for Going to War with Iraq In a speech at the United Nations on September 12, 2002, President Bush made his first public pitch for going to war with Iraq. The details of his accusations against Iraq in both speeches were sketchy, but from this point on, the Bush administration would add numerous layers during the next 6 months, in making its case against Iraq, such as that Iraq “has not complied with Resolution 1441 and 687, and that Iraq has “mobile units producing biological weapons” (US Department of State web site, February 27, 2003). This process culminated with the appearance of Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, before the UN Security Council on February 6, 2003, detailing US evidence that Iraq was not complying with UN resolutions 687 and 1441. On the basis of these claims, and without a vote from the UN Security Council, the USA invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003.

The United Nations on Iraq UN resolutions concerning Iraq began in August of 1990, with UNSCR 660 and 661. These resolutions condemned the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq and imposed economic sanctions on the latter country. Since then, there have been at least 11 further resolutions concerning Iraq (687, 688, 706, 707, 949, 986, 1051, 1137, 1284, 1409, and 1441). For our purposes, it is important only to examine resolutions 687 and 1441, both of which were written by the USA. Resolution 687, dated April 3, 1991, called for the destruction, removal or neutralizing of all chemical and biological weapons, and cessation of all research and development for ballistic missiles which had a range over 150 km. Resolution 1441, adopted November 8, 2002, “decides that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions. . .decides to set up an enhanced inspection regime. . .” The contrary case to US claims was made by Hans Blix, leader of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). Blix said UNMOVIC saw “no evidence” of mobile biological weapons labs, and “no persuasive indications” of Iraq-al

J

586

J

Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq

Qaeda connections” (Bennis). Further, UNMOVIC had no evidence of Iraq hiding and moving WMD materials. Again, CIA and FBI officials reported that there was no evidence for the Iraq-al Qaeda connection (McKay). Furthermore, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Mohammed El Baradei stated the opposite of what the US case said: “There are no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance” (Washington Times, September 27, 2002).

Just War Theory and the Invasion of Iraq Just Cause This criterion requires an imminent or actual attack of one country by another, or a significant violation of the rights of innocent persons as a casus belli. Pro Argument – President Bush and the members of his administration equivocated on the cause of the invasion. It was sometimes said to have been for the alleged possession and development by Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, forbidden by UNSCR 687 and 1441 (State of the Union Address on January 28, 2003). At other times, it was for the purpose of “regime change”; at still other times, it was for the connections alleged between Saddam Hussein and the events of 9/11/01 in the USA (President Bush, letter to Congress on March 19, 2003); still again, it was for the alleged Iraq-al Qaeda connection (Vice President Cheney, speech of September 14, 2003); and finally for “spreading democracy in the Middle East” (Vice President Cheney, speech of January 22, 2004; President Bush, speech on September 25, 2002, and to the United Nations on September 23, 2003). A contrary case was made by a University of Notre Dame study. Released on February 6, 2003 (6 weeks before the invasion), it stated that there was overwhelming evidence presented to by UNSCOM that Iraq had in fact destroyed most of its chemical and biological agents in the 1990s (Cortright). Additionally, the US State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and the Pakistani intelligence agency all reported that there was no evidence of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. On May 2, 2002, “FBI Director Robert Mueller said that, after an exhaustive FBI and CIA investigation, no direct link has been found between Iraq and any of the September 11 hijackers” (Cortright).

was self-defense, based on UN Charter Article 51, which guarantees the right of every country to self-defense. It rightly applied this to the notion of imminent threat, and then added that Saddam Hussein is such an imminent threat because “he sought to develop” weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The term “imminent threat” has been carefully examined by Michael Walzer in his classic text Just and Unjust Wars: “I mean it to cover three things: a manifest intent to injure, a degree of active preparation that makes that intent a positive danger, and a general situation in which waiting, or doing anything other than fighting, greatly magnifies the risk” (p. 81). Thus, even if possession of WMD does constitute a threat, it does not mean that an attack is sufficient or imminent. Imminence contains within it a notion of immediacy. Furthermore, a threat requires an objective act or statement of intention to cause immediate injury to another. Again, Michael Walzer says that a “sufficient threat” requires, among other things, “actual preparation for [a] war [with another nation]” (p. 81). Again, the danger must be immediate for the threat to be imminent or sufficient.

Discrimination Traditionally, the principle of discrimination has been defined in terms of the intention of the agents conducting the war. The operative method used has been the principle of double effect: That is, the intention of the agent must be for the good end (i.e., destruction of the enemy weapons or soldiers at which aim is taken), while the likelihood of the bad end (i.e., killing of civilians) is known but not intended. Michael Walzer has expanded the traditional concept of double effect to that of “double intention”: “first, the ‘good’ be achieved; second, that the foreseeable evil be reduced as far as possible. . .aware of the evil involved, he seeks to minimize it, accepting costs to himself ” (p. 155). By adding this second dimension, it allows him to conclude that in the judgment of intention, what “we look for in such cases is some sign of a positive commitment to save civilian lives. . .And if saving civilian lives means risking soldier’s lives, the risk must be accepted” (p. 156). In response to inquiries concerning civilians, the US military stated that it no longer counts the civilian dead in Iraq (Price).

Proper Authority The Bush administration held that it did not need UN authorization to pursue preventive war. The main argument they presented for this right to unilaterally attack

Proportionality The means used to win the war cannot overshadow the end of victory. Proportionality requires that the good that

Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq

results must outweigh the evils of the war. Members of the Bush administration described the forthcoming attack on Iraq in terms of “a cakewalk,” and that the result would be that the USA was greeted as liberators by newly freed Iraqis (Washington Post, February 13, 2002). Opposing those rosy scenarios, the Academy of Arts & Sciences Committee on International Security Studies and also the Oxford Research Group released separate studies on proportionality prior to the start of hostilities, both concluding that the negative consequences might end up outweighing the good ones. These included concerns such as the costs of US involvement in Iraq mounting, the war becoming bloody and prolonged, the war could damaging America’s reputation in the world and undermining America’s position as a moral leader in the world, and inflaming antiAmerican sentiment in Pakistan and elsewhere.

J

“plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.” “Crimes Against Humanity” are murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population.

The Geneva Conventions

The UN Charter stipulates in two different articles what the legal understanding of just cause is to be: Article 2(4), which requires restraint in going to war in “a manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations,” and Article 51, which guarantees the right to self-defense “if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations.” Articles 39, 41, and 42 of the Charter both define the international crime of aggression and also mandate the UN Security Council as the proper authority to determine a just resort to force. Thus, to meet the criterion of proper authority, international law requires a nation considering going to war to obtain the approval of the UN Security Council before proceeding, unless it is being attacked or under threat of imminent attack.

Geneva Convention IV (1949) concerns the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Article 3 states that “Persons taking no active part in the hostilities. . .shall in all circumstances be treated humanely...” Part II, Article 18 states that “Civilian hospitals. . .may in no circumstances be the object of attack.” Second, with regard to the treatment of protected persons under the Convention, Part III, Article 31 states that “No physical or moral coercion shall be exercised against protected persons, in particular to obtain information from them or from third parties.” Article 32 is even stronger in its wording regarding this issue. Part III, Section III, Article 76, and Section IV of the Convention specifically regulates the treatment of detainees by requiring occupying powers to “be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted. . .serve their sentences therein,” along with the right to receive medical attention, spiritual assistance (Article 76), live in cells protected against the rigors of climate, dampness, and heat, as well as adequate ventilation and lighting, and with sanitary facilities “for their use, day and night” (Article 85). Significantly, the Convention specifies in detail, in a separate section covering numerous Articles (105–116), the rights of the detainees to communicate with the outside world. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the Red Cross has been given access to only a few of the US-controlled sites where detainees are being held, according to the HRW report.

The Jus in Bello in International Law

Geneva Convention Protocols

International Law and the Invasion of Iraq The Jus Ad Bellum in International Law

The Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg The Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Section II, Article 6, presents the definition of international crimes “coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal” as “Crimes Against Peace,” “War Crimes,” and “Crimes Against Humanity.” “Crimes Against Peace” is defined as planning, preparing, initiating or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties.” “War Crimes” are “violations of the laws or customs of war,” such as murder or ill-treatment of civilian population of or in occupied territory, and/or

587

Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, Part III, Article 35, limits the use of types of weaponry: “It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.” Article 35 continues with a ban on weapons “which are intended, or may be intended, to cause widespread, longterm and severe damage to the natural environment.” In relation to this Article, the USA uses depleted uranium in its bombs and shell casings, which in turn spreads radiation into the soil, water, and buildings around them. This was first done in the 1991 Gulf War and is continuing today in Iraq (excerpted from Moret).

J

588

J

Justice and Reciprocity: Local and Global

The Pentagon report on how it deals with civilians in Iraq totaled just two pages.

Conclusion In this analysis, no distinction has been made between the war on terrorism and wars between states. This is an important distinction for future analysis of national wars, since the criminal actions of small groups such as Al Qaeda are not the same as state violations of international law. Accordingly, little attention has been paid here to differentiating the desires of powerful states for regional or world dominance from the need of all states to follow the rule of international law. However, arguments can be made that this is the central issue to be addressed in future analyses of state conduct, including the conduct of warfare. For example, Jurgen Habermas states forthrightly that due to the “constitutionalization of international law,” there have been, since, “no more just and unjust wars, only legal or illegal ones” (Mendieta). Without addressing such larger issues in the future, ethical-political analysts will resolve themselves simply to advocating legitimate normative behavior in nearly ad hoc fashion, as governments makes their decisions to go to war or to take action against international criminal groups, instead of locating such analyses of state actions within the framework of morally and legally legitimate international relations.

Related Topics

▶ Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ▶ Chomsky, Noam ▶ Geneva Conventions ▶ Hague Conventions ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ International Law ▶ Jus ad Bellum ▶ Jus in Bello ▶ Oil ▶ Torture ▶ Walzer, Michael ▶ War Against Terrorism ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Bennis P (2003) Powell’s U.N. presentation. The Nation, 17 February 2003 Cortright D, Millar A, Lopez GA, Gerber L (2003) Contested case: do the facts justify the case for war in Iraq? A report of the Sanctions and Security Project of the Fourth Freedom Forum and the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, 6 February 2003 Mackay N (2002) Why the CIA thinks Bush is wrong. The Sunday Herald [Scotland], 13 October 2002

Mendieta E (2004) America and the world: a conversation with Ju¨rgen Habermas. Logos 3.3 (Summer, 2004) Moret L (2004) Depleted uranium: dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets. San Francisco Bay View, 22 August 2004 Price N (2003) Iraq to stop counting civilian dead. Associated Press, 10 December 2003 Walzer M (1977) Just and unjust wars. Basic Books, New York

Justice and Reciprocity: Local and Global CHRIS ARMSTRONG School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

In its general usage, reciprocity refers to the mutual or cooperative exchange of advantages. A relationship characterized by reciprocity is one in which all parties can expect to benefit at some stage, and in which all parties are also expected to do their bit to deliver advantages for others. As such the idea of reciprocity stands opposed to, for example, exploitation or free-riding, where one party to a relationship may cooperate with the intention of deriving advantages for themselves, but without helping anyone else to secure theirs. Within political philosophy, the idea of reciprocity plays an important role in John Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness. Justice as fairness suggests precisely that people engaged in cooperation with each other should not simply seek each to benefit individually, but should also seek to benefit on terms that are fair and show due regard for the claims of others. Within Rawlsian theory, more specifically, the desire to safeguard reciprocity dictates that social cooperation should be organized so that it turns to the benefit of all, and especially the worst-off. Social cooperation which benefited some parties but not others, or which did not offer the worst-off a plausible reason to continue cooperating, would not qualify as fair. The need to defend reciprocity underpins Rawls’s argument for the difference principle. That principle dictates that the products of cooperation should be distributed in ways that do not merely benefit the better-off in society, insofar as it requires any inequality in distribution to be to the advantage of the worst-off. From the point of view of global justice, the important point is that some authors have taken the existence of some scheme of reciprocity to be a necessary condition for ideals of justice to become relevant. If principles

Justice and Reciprocity: Local and Global

of justice – such as Rawls’s difference principle – are supposed to underpin and protect the ideal of reciprocity, then they do not appear to be quite as relevant to relationships which are not, or not intended to be, characterized by reciprocity in the first place. If the kinds of relationships – of trade, of mutual toleration, or of cooperation to secure national security, for instance – do not quite rise to the level of reciprocity, but are instead essentially driven by motivations of self-interest, then principles of justice would not appear to be necessary to judge them. If genuine relations of reciprocity do not exist at the global level, then neither is there any requirement to apply principles of global justice – such as a global difference principle – to make sure that cooperation is sufficiently fair to do justice to the idea of reciprocity. The suggestion, then, is that at least some principles of justice should apply uniquely to relationships already embodying reciprocity. Perhaps what makes states distinctive is that under their remit, citizens cooperate together to produce key collective or public goods. When citizens cooperate in this way, they are engaging in a form of reciprocity: They agree to refrain from free-riding, that is, and to do their share of the work in producing valuable goods which will be accessible to all of them. That makes the application of some principles of justice relevant at the national level, but not at the global level. Brian Barry once criticized Charles Beitz’s argument for a global difference principle along just such lines. Beitz’s argument suggested, broadly speaking, that since there is a scheme of international economic cooperation, there ought to be a global difference principle to make sure that the benefits and burdens arising from that cooperation are distributed fairly. Though Barry believed there were good arguments for global justice, in his view, this was not one of them. International economic “cooperation” barely yet deserved the title, and did not display reciprocity in the production of key public goods. As such, principles supposed to underpin and secure such reciprocity – such as the difference principle – were put out of place. A version of this argument has been advanced more recently by Andrea Sangiovanni. According to Sangiovanni, citizens engage in relations of reciprocity when they provide, together, the basic collective goods necessary for acting on a plan of life. In particular, they cooperate together to provide the key collective goods of a system of property relations, and order and security. The fact that they engage in these relations of reciprocity means that it is appropriate to apply egalitarian principles of justice to their efforts – to judge whether each is contributing as he or she ought, for instance. But specifically egalitarian principles of justice ought only to apply to such

J

relations. Given that key collective goods are, according to Sangiovanni, produced exclusively at the level of individual states, this has the implication that global justice, if it is required at all, need not be global egalitarian justice. Though an influential idea, there have been two principal objections to the claim that the restriction of reciprocity to individual states means that global principles of justice – or egalitarian ones, anyway – are not required. The first objection suggests that the conclusion does not quite follow from the preceding argument. It might be said, for instance, that it is not only citizens who contribute toward the production of key collective goods, and that order and security for instance is increasingly secured by way of bilateral or multilateral international agreements. This would seem to be a case of reciprocity at the international level, which might accordingly trigger egalitarian principles of justice. Alternatively, it might be said that Sangiovanni’s list of the key collective goods which are normatively important is unduly short. By contrast, if we adopted a longer and more plausible list of the collective goods which are necessary for us to act on a plan of life, we would be more easily able to identify significant transnational cooperation in their provision. Once more the trigger for global egalitarianism would then be in place. A second objection is more fundamental. It suggests that reciprocity is not a necessary condition for principles of justice to apply in the first place. Some forms of cooperation already embody a norm of reciprocity, and that is commendable. But the fact that a relationship does not embody a norm of cooperation does not mean that it should not, or that it is unintelligible to, use principles of justice to appraise the products of that relationship. It might be said that the idea that reciprocity is a necessary condition for principles of justice to be applicable has repugnant consequences. We would then have to say that a relationship characterized by one-sided exploitation, in which one party was always able to forward his own interests without any regard for the person he was cooperating with, would not be unjust, precisely because reciprocity did not exist. Some theorists of global justice would therefore prefer to see reciprocity as an aspiration, rather than a necessary condition for the language of justice to become appropriate in the first place.

Related Topics

▶ Barry, Brian ▶ Beitz, Charles ▶ Difference Principle ▶ Global Difference Principle ▶ Global Egalitarianism

589

J

590

J

Justice and Religion: Buddhism

▶ Global Justice ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Reciprocity

References Abizadeh A (2007) Cooperation, pervasive impact, and coercion. Philos Public Aff 35(4):318–358 Armstrong A (2009) Coercion, reciprocity and equality beyond the state. J Soc Philos 40(3):297–316 Barry B (1982) Humanity and justice in global perspective. In: Pennock JR, Chapman JW (eds) Ethics, economics and the law, Nomos, vol 24. New York University Press, New York, pp 219–252 Beitz C (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Sangiovanni A (2007) Global justice, reciprocity and the state. Philos Public Aff 35(1):3–39

Justice and Religion: Buddhism TODD ERIC MYERS Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA

Buddhism is a tradition rooted in the discovery by Siddhartha Gautama (513–433 BCE), the historical Buddha, that through effort and diligent practice human beings can liberate themselves from the unsatisfactory conditions associated with the consciousness of an individual self. This drama of liberation unfolded against a metaphysical background of a cosmos defined by interconnectedness (pratitya-samutpada), cause and effect with moral consequence (karma), and impermanence (anatman). Liberation consisted of abandoning the constant wandering and suffering (duhkha) associated with this cosmos (samsara) to a state of consciousness identified as beyond concepts (nirvana). Failure to achieve liberation would result in rebirth into the realm of hell, ghosts, animals, humans, titans, or gods, depending on the balance of one’s good and bad deeds. Whether these realms of rebirth are literal or metaphorical realities is a matter of contention among contemporary Buddhists. The metaphysical complex outlined above poses substantial though not insurmountable problems for those attempting to approach global justice from a Buddhist perspective. First, the natural law (dharma) governing the cosmos and liberation from it works with a flawless justice. The suffering individuals endure in the world is the consequence of past actions and therefore the possibility

of injustice does not exist within a Buddhist framework. Individuals reap what they sow. Second, the recognition of the impermanence of reality and the lack of a self can potentially undermine the responsibility to act compassionately toward individuals especially since liberation, the penultimate goal of Buddhism, transcends the realities of the suffering world. These metaphysical dangers to a commitment to global justice are minimized when the moral conditions for liberation are given proper consideration. The roots of suffering that keep people in the realms of rebirth are in greed, hate, and ignorance. The roots of goodness are in the opposite attitudes of non-attachment, lovingkindness, and understanding. The Buddhist is prohibited to harm others or to harm the self, as succinctly captured in the five precepts of morality including: (1) not to kill, (2) not to steal, (3) not to commit sexual misconduct, (4) not to lie, and (5) not to partake of intoxicating drinks or drugs. Combined with the injunction to be concerned with the welfare of all sentient beings and an emphasis on right action and an understanding of the interconnectedness of all, Buddhism has the theoretical grounding to articulate a vision of global justice attentive to consequences, duties, virtues, and equity. The growing popularity of Buddhism in the West reflects the belief that Buddhist practice contains key psychological insights that can contribute to personal wellbeing and has the potential to contribute to a more just world order. The historical example of the spiritual transformation of King Ashoka Maurya (304–232 BCE) by Buddhist principles and his rejection of war and his decision to spread the teachings of the Buddha throughout his lands and abroad exemplifies the potential for Buddhism to bring about such a world. Nevertheless, certain historical features of Buddhism have limited the Buddhist community’s commitment to achieving social justice. The development of the early Buddhist community along monastic lines has focused efforts on liberation from suffering and has led Buddhists to confront the injustices and difficulties of ordinary society much as they would confront any other force of nature. The broadening of the path to liberation through the mechanism of saviors (Bodhisattvas) who are committed to working for the liberation of all sentient beings has a similar potential to dampen efforts for undoing social injustices in the here and now. When these models of thought are pushed by some to extremes, Buddhist philosophy can sanction unjust rulers as the results of the accumulation of bad karma and can allow for immoral activity to be used skillfully by spiritually advanced individuals to bring about liberation for those less

Justice and Religion: Christianity

enlightened. In the worst cases, Buddhism has been hijacked to justify holy wars of aggression or used to reinforce attitudes of social indifference toward the condition of the poor that are justified as the moral consequences of cause and effect. Despite these potential and actual abuses, a wide range of activists has realized Buddhism’s contributions to a dialog concerning social justice. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956), a Hindu leader of the untouchable caste, converted to Buddhism in search of a social philosophy capable of overcoming the structural violence of the Indian caste system. He downplayed the four noble truths, karma, rebirth, and the monastic life as useless or potentially harmful to the poor in favor of the moral teachings embedded in the eightfold path as a cure for roots of social inequality and class struggle that engender so much suffering. Thich Nhat Hahn of Vietnam used Buddhist teachings to reinforce a call for a political rather than a military resolution of the Vietnam War and went on to found a new Buddhist order to generate the peace in the hearts and minds of individuals essential to ending the violence of war. Samdech Preah Maha Gosananda, the Supreme Patriarch of Buddhism in Cambodia, has applied Buddhist philosophy to undoing the tremendous damage his country has suffered from years of war and social devastation. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama has similarly applied the teaching of nonviolence (ahimsa) in his efforts to reconcile the people of Tibet with the People’s Republic of China. Others such as A.T. Ariyarante of Sri Lanka and Sulak Sivaraksa of Thailand have focused on the structural violence of global capitalism and have emphasized developmental strategies that empower the marginalized by affirming Buddhist moral truths. The state of Bhutan has operationalized this strategy by replacing the traditional measure of economic well-being, gross domestic product, with the concept of Gross National Happiness, making room for including Buddhist spiritual values in measuring the well-being of a given society. These values not only include the interests of human beings but the interests of all sentient beings, giving the Buddhist quest for a just society a concern with environmental justice. Similarly, Buddhist organizations in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan have embraced progressive social agendas as a means of realizing Buddhist moral principles in the public square. The enormity of the problems tackled by socially engaged Buddhists is testament to the potential of Buddhist philosophy to provide a foundation for the quest for social justice. Unlike the imagined world of modern liberal philosopher John Rawls where humans

J

591

are placed in the situation of trying to construct the rules for a world where they could be anyone in that world, Buddhism states we are in a world where we are everyone. The Buddhist is compelled by the structure of reality to seek justice. The unweaving of the karma holding all in the suffering of desiring existence calls for the virtuosity of those seeking enlightenment.

Related Topics

▶ Act-Consequentialism ▶ Ahimsa ▶ Biodiversity ▶ Capitalism ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Global Justice ▶ Justice and Religion: Hinduism ▶ Rawls, John

References Hahn TN (1998) Interbeing: fourteen guidelines for engaged Buddhism. Paralax Press, Berkeley Hershock P (2006) Buddhism in the public sphere: reorienting global interdependence. Routledge, New York Jerryson M, Juergenmeyer M (eds) (2010) Buddhist warfare. Oxford University Press, New York Jones K (2003) The new social face of Buddhism: a call to action. Wisdom Publications, Boston Keown D (2000) Buddhism: a very short introduction. Oxford University Press, New York Loy D (2008) Money, sex, war, karma: notes for a Buddhist revolution. Wisdom Publications, Boston Mitchell DW (2008) Buddhism: introducing the Buddhist experience. Oxford University Press, New York Queen Ch, King S (eds) (1996) Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist liberation movements in Asia. State University of New York Press, Albany Sivaraksa S (2005) Conflict, culture, change: engaged Buddhism in a globalizing world. Wisdom Publications, Boston

Justice and Religion: Christianity TRISTIN S. HASSELL Department of Philosophy, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

In the Christian tradition, the classical conception of justice as suum cique (to each what is due) is redefined by the Christ-event, God’s activity in and for the world.

J

592

J

Justice and Religion: Christianity

For Christians, all moral, political, and philosophical concepts are revealed and sustained in their fullness by Jesus Christ. Through his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus is literally God’s revealing of Godself – God’s will, God’s love, God’s justice – to the cosmos. While Aristotelian and Jewish conceptions precede the Christian account, Christians believe that justice is only intelligible as justice because of who Jesus is – God’s justice for the world. Justice for Christians has a double operation: It exposes the character of God and requires humanity to be like God. Through its development and embodiment, the peculiar concept of Christian justice has had a transformative impact on both the religion and globe. Aristotle divided the classical conception of justice as suum cique into two parts: general justice and particular justice. General justice is the virtue that helps a community to describe a shared account of the good (human flourishing), and to organize themselves in the kinds of ways that will help them reach that good. Particular justice focuses on the good due to each individual who participates in that community and on the relationships and exchanges between the members of it. Aristotle further divides particular justice into distributive justice (the allocation of goods and services between individuals) and corrective justice (restitution, retribution, and restoration to individuals when injustice occurs). Prior to the retrieval and modification of the Aristotelian conception of justice in the high middle ages by Thomas Aquinas, first Saint Paul, then Anselm of Canterbury and Augustine of Hippo, did the majority of thinking about justice in the Christian tradition. According to Anselm, God’s justice is constituted by the liberation of humanity from sin, which occurs in Christ’s work of atonement. Anselm’s theory of atonement states that sin creates an infinite gulf between humanity and God, and as finite creatures, humans cannot bridge this gap. Yet, God cannot bridge the divide by simply forgiving and forgetting the offensiveness of human sin, because God is infinitely just. Sin has incurred a debt that must be satisfied. Through the grace of God, payment of this debt is made in the form of Jesus Christ’s (the GodMan) death, which stands as a corrective substitute for the failure of humanity. Thomas Aquinas, argues that this notion of justice must always be understood to have as its goal the union between God and humanity; a union that gives humans the ability to participate in the will, love, and justice of God. For Aquinas, the goal of justice is not to reconcile God’s mercy and God’s justice (as it was for Anselm), but to make possible human flourishing by reconciling

humanity with God. By becoming friends with God and with each other, humanity reinvents the notion of suum cique by rejecting contractual procedures that coercively ensure just desert in favor of a justice predicated on unity and the peaceable reconciliation of difference. For Aquinas, this peaceable reconciliation of difference is possible because the God with which humans are united is Trinity – both three and one – a God who is, by definition, infinite difference peaceably reconciled to itself. This theological peculiarization of Aristotle’s suum cique is a response to the Christian practice of justice as described (and to which the early church is exhorted) by Saint Paul in the New Testament. Paul uses the word dikiaosyne to refer to both justice and righteousness as ways (or modes) of existing. According to Paul, not only does Christ make humanity just, but such justification requires a very specific response: the continued re-performance of God’s justice in the world. For Paul, the community that is justified, the ecclesia (gathering), must also justify the world through acts of mercy, care for the poor, for prisoners, and the weakest. This community, which Christ’s justice inaugurates in the world, is the kingdom of God. For Augustine, this kingdom is a city – the city of God – which stands as God’s response to the injustice, violence, and selfishness of communities not sustained by communion with God. Christianity is a global phenomenon, and as such it has effected, and been affected by, a plethora of different cultures, governments, philosophies, economic systems, etc. Yet, the modern conceptions of justice within the Christian tradition continually emerge from and return to their theological roots in diverse, and often contrary, ways. In Europe, in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, Christian conceptions of justice influenced secular philosophies of (God-given and inalienable) human rights, and paved the way for contemporary democracy. In the 1950s and 1960s in the USA, the same theological commitment to justice and liberation gave birth to, and sustained, the civil rights movement for Black Americans. Christian justice has responded to Apartheid, Communism, and the systematic oppression of women. Christians in Latin America in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, demanded an end to the extreme poverty and suffering that constituted their shared life together – a state of affairs made possible by the oppressive conservative regimes who governed them. Today the Christian theological tradition is a continued resource for those denied unity with humanity and with God regardless of sex, gender, creed, sexual orientation, nationality, or race.

Justice and Religion: Confucianism

Finally, Christian justice is the claim that God is justice, and union with God means union with justice. Where injustice exists, either in Christianity or in the wider world, the Christian commitment to justice demands “a judgment on it and the justification of it.”

Related Topics

▶ Collective Responsibility ▶ Global Contractarian Justice ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Justice and Religion: Judaism ▶ Pacifism ▶ Punishment ▶ Retributive Justice ▶ Truth Commissions ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Aquinas T (1964) Summa theologiae, vol 1, 2, and 3 (trans: McCabe H). Blackfriars, London Aristotle (2003) The Nicomachean ethics (Penguin Classics) (trans: Thompson JAK, Tredennick H (eds)). Penguin Classics, London Augustine (2009) The city of God against the pagans (Cambridge texts in the history of political thought) (trans: Dyson RW (ed)). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Coogan MD, Brettler MZ, Newsom CA, Perkins P (eds) (2001) The new Oxford annotated bible. New revised standard version (NRSV) with the Apocrypha, 3rd edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford Davies B, Evans GR (eds) (2008) Anselm of Canterbury: the major works (Oxford World Classics). Oxford University Press, Oxford, ANSELM

Justice and Religion: Confucianism BONGRAE SEOK Department of Humanities/Philosophy, Alvernia University, Reading, PA, USA

Confucianism is a Chinese intellectual tradition that emphasizes well rounded human character and virtuous life. It started with the teachings of an ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius (551–479 BCE) and was developed by his followers as the philosophy of humanity and virtue. Confucianism is also regarded as a civic religion that promotes the cultivation of virtue and harmonious human relations and provides fully developed views on the human nature and the ultimate meaning of life. Unlike monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam,

J

it does not recognize any divine beings or their supernatural powers, but it had developed the highly refined practices and rituals of ancestor worship. The civic engagement of Confucianism is unique among other world religions. Confucianism does not draw the boundary between the sacred and the secular. The whole society is the place where the individuals practice Confucianism as the foundation of their value system and the recommended life style. In an ideal Confucian state, the values of Confucianism are consistently applied not only to the personal and family life but also to the public and social life of individuals in order to accomplish the goals of virtue and humanity in education, politics, social policies, and leadership. The highest Confucian virtue is ren, translated as human heartedness, humane love, or benevolence. The Confucian love has several peculiar features. First it originates from loving and caring human relations. The relationship between parent and child is an ideal human relationship where two human beings love, care for, and respect each other with the human heart. This basic relationship, according to Confucianism, is regarded as the foundation of the further development of ren toward others. That is, ren extends to other human relationships (teacher–student, ruler–subject, friend–friend, elder sibling–younger sibling) with the same foundation of love and respect found in the relationship between parent and child. Second, Confucian love is not the universal duty of love toward all humans. Rather, it takes the viewpoint of particularism that recognizes the duties and obligations of particular human relations and circumstances of human life, and, for that reason, the blind or mechanical application of universal moral principles or rules is not considered virtuous in Confucianism. For instance, it is natural and in some way obligatory to love one’s parents more than strangers because one owes more to one’s parents than to strangers. Third, Confucian love is not so much an intellectual or intentional state of the mind as an emotional state of the human heart toward others. Ren does not always require the full deliberation and the justification for its successful practice in human relations. Instead, it emphasizes the human heart, the caring and empathetic emotion with the motivating power to drive actions for the interest of others. That is, ren starts with our natural feeling toward others, such as caring for their well-being and not bearing their pain and suffering. When asked about the most important life lesson, Confucius said that “do not do to others what you yourself do not desire.” The virtue of shu represents this Confucian ideal of being considerate of others’ needs and situations, i.e., taking the sympathetic stance toward

593

J

594

J

Justice and Religion: Confucianism

others and developing altruistic considerations. Fourth, Confucian love is developmental. It should be cultivated and refined to support virtuous character and caring human relations. The whole process of the development is characterized as learning and transformation. Learning, in Confucian tradition, is the process of building the solid foundation for the ideal human person through the embodiment of good examples and ideal models (often drawn from the ancient Chinese rulers and scholars) in one’s mind and behavior. It does not mean the simple transfer of information from various sources (such as books) to the learner’s mind. Instead, it requires the full understanding and embodiment of moral and intellectual lessons in one’s mind and heart for the cultivation of virtue. Confucian transformation is the process of becoming a better person by controlling one’s lower desires. This is the lifelong process of character building and self-mastery, neither the development of habitual behavior nor the blind compliance to the mechanical rules of conduct. Simply, Confucian learning is the process of developing the better self. To complete these processes, Confucian philosophers recommend li (ritual propriety, i.e., fully developed and refined behavior) and cultural activities along with the study of ancient history to learn the ideal examples of the ancient sage rulers. Confucian philosophy does not seem to offer the general principles or guidelines of justice (the principles regarding the fair distribution of social resources, i.e., distributive justice and the procedures of rebalancing wrongdoings and compensating harms and damages, i.e., corrective/restorative justice) due primarily to its preoccupation with the development of the ideal human character. Sometimes, Confucian virtue of yi is translated as justice in English, but it means the personal virtue of being righteous, unbiased, or unselfish. There are, however, several ideas that can be interpreted as Confucian principles of social justice. The ultimate goal of a government is to create an environment where individuals live morally virtuous life. To achieve this goal, the government itself should be morally straight, and it has to provide good examples for the citizens to follow. Confucius said that to govern is to rectify (to create and to maintain a morally straight society). That is, the ideal Confucian government is an educational institution that has the paternalistic interest in the moral development of its citizens. In this context, distributive justice takes the following form. First, at least minimum resources should be provided to all citizens for their decent living conditions. Particularly, the government should support the economically challenged and socially marginalized people (such as seniors, widower, and orphans). To secure the material well-being

of citizens, moderate taxation and proper land distribution should be implemented. Second, education should be provided to everyone. Confucius himself was a teacher who did not discriminate students for their social statuses and financial resources. He emphasized the equal opportunity of education and promoted the value of lifelong learning for character development and social improvement. Third, the government should hire qualified people for its leadership positions. Ideally, the leadership positions are open to all not just for their technical skills but also for their virtuous character and moral integrity. The general orientation of Confucian distributive justice is to create a society, where necessary material conditions are provided to its members for their moral excellence, but the actual pattern of distribution, specifically its fair and equal distribution of wealth, is not clearly discussed. As far as individuals are provided with the basic necessities and resources for their decent life (i.e., the economic, educational, and the developmental necessities and resources) and the equal and fair chance to compete for better positions and statuses, the results should be just and fair. As a consequence, different statuses can exist in a society not because people are different by nature but because they become different through their effort to develop their virtue, knowledge, and skills. In this sense, a Confucian state does not seem to move toward an egalitarian state but a virtue based meritocratic state led by a virtuous leader and driven by the moral interest to support and encourage the moral and intellectual maturity of its members. The main goal of Confucian corrective justice is to support and restore harmony and peace in human relations, not to maintain the legal order, to punish violators, and to protect individual rights by upholding a basic social contract or positive laws (laws explicitly stated and promulgated by a political authority). Confucius said that legal litigation should not be used to resolve conflicts among individuals. Instead, individuals restore their relations through li (ritual propriety) by practicing appropriate, sensible, and responsible behavior prescribed to their statuses and roles and by regaining the trust among them. He also emphasizes the sense of shame (the moral sense) over punishment in shaping people’s behavior. In short, Confucian corrective justice is not the system of confrontation, the process of complaints, prosecution, and the defense following the standard of laws, but the system that supports reconciliation and restoring trust among individuals and encourages the sympathetic understanding and altruistic consideration of others’ situations. Overall, Confucian justice is not based on the moral or legal rights of autonomous individuals, but on the

Justice and Religion: Daoism

communal life of human beings; we live with others and constantly form social and political relations with them. Considering the intrinsically social and relational nature of human existence, the essence of Confucian justice lies in its emphasis on the well-balanced interest for one’s wellbeing and that of others and, ultimately, on the harmonious human relations. These ideas, properly extended and applied to the global front, could make today’s conflicted world safe, united, and peaceful.

Related Topics ▶ Virtue Ethics ▶ Xunzi

References Ames R, Rosemont H Jr (1998) The analects of Confucius: a philosophical translation. Ballantine Books, New York Chan W-T (1963) A sourcebook in Chinese philosophy. Princeton University Press, Princeton Creel HG (1960) Confucius and the Chinese way. Harper and Row, New York De Bary WT, Tu W (1998) Confucianism and human rights. Columbia University Press, New York Gardner D (2007) The four books: the basic teachings of the later Confucian tradition. Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis Hall DL, Ames RT (1987) Thinking through Confucius. SUNY Press, Albany Ivanhoe PJ (2000) Confucian moral self cultivation. Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis Nivison DS (1996) The ways of Confucianism: investigations in Chinese philosophy. Open Court Press, Chicago Taylor R (1998) The religious character of the Confucian tradition. Philosophy East and West 48–1:80–107 Van Norden B (ed) (2002) Confucius and the analects: new essay. Oxford University Press, New York

Justice and Religion: Daoism U. EDWARD MCDOUGALL Department of Philosophy, University of Durham, Durham, UK

Daoism represents a rich and varied tradition of Chinese thought, with an ancient origin. Strictly speaking there is a distinction between philosophical Daoism, Dao jia, and religious Daoism, Dao jiao. The traditions differ, in particular on attitudes toward issues such as personal immortality. The two traditions are, however, interlinked. Here the main focus will be on the Daoist ethic; hence,

J

595

the main concentration will be on the philosophical basis of Daoism. On one level considerations of global justice may appear alien from a religion or philosophical belief such as Daoism. Hence, for example, Chapter Five of Richard Wilhelm’s translation of the Dao De Jing by Laozi, with whom the idea of the Dao originated, asserts the following: "

Heaven and earth are not benevolent. To them men are like straw dogs destined for sacrifice. The Man of Calling is not benevolent.

This may appear to suggest an attitude of crude moral indifference on the part of the Daoists. Such a reading, however, is an over simplification and misses the central point. Daoists and in particular Zhuangzi, frequently criticize benevolence, by which they mean adherence to the Confucian “rites” and social norms because they are associated with a tool of social control, used by hypocritical kings and emperors to hold their subjects. This may appear to suggest an anarchic rejection of all authority, even benevolent authority, while at the same time the apparent “quietism,” advocated by Zhuangzi, may appear to preclude engagement from issues such as justice. However, while it is true that there is an anarchic element, particularly in the writings of Zhuangzi, it is not true to say that the Daoists are simply seeking to achieve arbitrary chaos. Daoism can be understood as offering a particular “ideal” of a just society in the sense that it puts forward a pattern of a society where its members are allowed to be themselves. Furthermore, Daoism teaches people to be true to themselves. Zhuangzi for example condemns both the “noble person” for desiring fame and the mean person for “desiring wealth,” because they are both not true to their “innate natures.” For Zhuangzi, pursuit of such desires is harmful because it means that people are always aspiring to be something that they are not so that they can never achieve balance within themselves. Daoism can therefore be read as presenting a critique of modern capitalist, consumerist society, where individuals are in effect always encouraged to aspire to images that they are not. This ideal of the Daoist just society can be seen in Liehzi’s account of the dream of the Yellow Emperor, where the Yellow Emperor dreams of traveling far to the west, to a country where there are “no teachers and leaders; all things follow their natural course. The people have no cravings and lusts.” A society without the distinctions of hierarchy would appear radically different from the essentially feudal society of the Warring States period of China in which Daoist philosophers lived. Such a passage may appear to suggest merely a kind of utopianism,

J

596

J

Justice and Religion: Hinduism

a society that is completely beyond all endeavors. Daoism rejects any kind of tyrannical imposition over people or nature, regardless of its character or who it is perpetrated by, whether it is theocratic, bureaucratic, or plutocratic. Therefore, imposing Daoism as a set of ideals on society runs counter to the spirit of Daoism. There always appears to be a danger with Daoism, that Daoist notions such as wu wei, literally meaning without doing, may be interpreted as simply “not doing anything” and as such may lead to an attitude of resigned acceptance of unjust rule. However, this is an over simplification and unfair reading of Daoism. Zhuangzi and Laozi in a sense both set out ways of dealing with what in Daoist terms are “un-just” societies in the Warring States period in China. It is along these lines that Laozi sets up the model of the leader as “guide,” the “sage king,” whereas Zhuangzi advocates a more radical rejection of authority. These can be understood as alternate Daoist responses to living in a society that is fundamentally unjust in the Daoist sense: one is essentially “reformist” (Laozi), the other revolutionary (Zhuangzi). The sage king in Laozi may appear a little closer to the Confucian ideal. However, the role of the sage king is still not to implement a particular set of virtues, rather, “stilling minds and opening hearts.” This passage in the Dao de Jing may appear in itself ambiguous. However, it can read as suggesting an ideal of a leader who takes care of his people’s basic needs and guides his people toward the “Dao,” without imposing upon them. Zhuangzi, however, still appears to see little possibility of there being such a leader. There is a famous story that Zhuangzi, when offered the position of prime minister by King Wei of Chu, pointed to the king’s ornamental turtle shell, asking whether the turtle had been happier in the mud, to which the king’s advisor had to admit that the turtle probably would have been happier in the mud. Zhuangzi asked to be left in the mud too, thereby rejecting the position. While this story may in itself be apocryphal, it is revealing of Zhuangzi’s attitude. It should not be thought of simply as a quietist refusal to be involved in politics, but rather Zhuangzi can be read as advocating a radical rejection. For Zhuangzi, people should not allow themselves to get caught up in corrupt government, the processes of which he sees as being debasing to all involved. It is therefore possible to see an underlying sense of justice in the Daoist classics, as an ideal where people are allowed to be true to themselves, while they may differ on how best to implement this. This ideal, for the Daoists, holds true of all people in the world regardless of their differences, but leaves room for diverse implementations in accordance with people’s abilities and orientations.

Related Topics

▶ Anarchy ▶ Consumerism ▶ Ecofeminism ▶ Equality ▶ Justice and Religion: Buddhism ▶ Justice and Religion: Confucianism ▶ Laozi ▶ Libertarianism ▶ Social Contract

References Leihzi (1990) The book of Lieh-Tzu: a classic of the Tao (trans: Graham AC). Columbia University Press, p 34 Tzu L (1985) The Tao Ti Ching (trans: Wilhelm R). Routledge and Keegan Paul, p 28 Tzu L (2001) The Tao Ti Ching (trans: Jonathan Star Penguin Group), p 16 Zhuangzi (1996) The book of Chuang Tzu (trans: Palmer M, Breuilly E). Arkana (Penguin), London, p 269

Justice and Religion: Hinduism ASHWANI PEETUSH Department of Philosophy, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada

The significance of Hinduism to global justice is its emphasis on respect for other perspectives, its potential as a source for justifying and defending universal values, and its insistence on the intimate metaphysical connection between self and other. Hinduism, by its very nature, is the most diverse of religions and philosophies and contains almost every range of possible philosophical ideas concerning the concepts of self, world, and God. As such, this article focuses primarily on a constellation of an overarching set of ideas that continues to dominate text and tradition, and continues to motivate the lives of countless Hindus today. Such ideas form the conceptual background of a uniquely Hindu ethic and approach to the justification of basic rights, non-violence, animals and the environment, and tolerance for other perspectives.

Dharma and Universal Values Hinduism has long defended universal values and virtues such as daya or compassion for all beings, ahimsa or non-harm to other living beings, satya or truthfulness, danam or charity, damana or self-control, among others

Justice and Religion: Hinduism

(see e.g., Bhagavad Gita XVI: 1–3). These values constitute one’s sadharana dharma or universal duties and are binding regardless of one’s class, vocation, or position in life. They are in contrast to the much discussed varnashrama dharma or class or age-related duties, such as the particular duties of a warrior or farmer. Indeed, the concept of dharma is one of the most central ideas in the history of Indian philosophy and religion, with a myriad of interrelated meanings. In the ontological sense, dharma refers to the order and rhythm of the universe and applies to the moral, social, and political spheres of the world. The normative sense of dharma, as primarily an ethical concept, refers to one’s duty or moral obligation to act in a manner that resonates with this rhythm of reality; it means to regulate and order one’s life so that one’s actions are in harmony with the nature of being. One’s duty to act in accordance with one’s sadharana dharma or universal values is often explained with regard to the purusarthas or four human goals, which are: being established in dharma or having a virtuous character; artha or acquiring the means of subsistence; kama or enjoying the sensual pleasures of life; and moksha or pursuing enlightenment. The commitment to universal values is coupled with the idea of the law of karma or universal justice, or the idea that those who infringe on dharma will eventually have to pay the price (be it in this life or another). This explanation, although common to accounts of Hindu ethics, is incomplete. Hinduism has far more profound historical and philosophical resources for the justification of universal values.

Metaphysics of Self and Other A deeper account requires an exploration of a prevalent view of the self in Hindu philosophy, one that has established a firm grip in tradition and practice. On the one hand, the self of everyday life, that which a person encounters each morning, is unique. This is the self as jiva; one is an individual in this regard, with one’s own specific capacities, abilities, and needs. The ethic of salvation that goes along with this view is staunchly individualistic, where one is ultimately responsible for one’s own salvation; it is not something that can be granted or gifted to one as an act of grace, but is based on one’s personal karmic merit; that is, merit one has earned, or will earn, on the basis of one’s individual choices. On the other hand, however, according to the most common reading of texts such as the Upanisads, although the self of ordinary experience (jiva) is unique, the atman or self at an ontological level is the same in all. On this advaita or “non-dual” perspective, although the self, persons, and world are experienced as multiplicity and

J

diversity, they are ultimately grounded in brahman or the unity of an undifferentiated reality. This is the wholeness from which the world of multiplicity and change arise. Brahman is the substratum and animating force of reality; the manifest world is only a partial glimpse of this enduring wholeness of existence, upon which it is founded and for which it has its source. Brahman both transcends the world and is immanent in the world (as the spider to the web). Furthermore, at the deepest level, atman is identical to brahman; the self is in fact this wholeness of being. As such, at this ontological level, there is no distinction among self, persons, plants, animals, world, and brahman. Such differences are only perceived and apparent; they are mistaken impositions of the unreal on the real. The aim of existence is the realization of this ultimate identity of the self and brahman; moksha or enlightenment is attained when one experiences the oneness and wholeness of infinite being, or the self as the other and the other as self. The journey of the individual is as that of the trajectory of a drop of water in a vast river which seeks to merge with its ultimate source, the infinite ocean. The drop is the same yet different from the ocean. Moksha is the journey inward of the self to none other than its very own source, as is asserted in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad: aham brahmasmi or I am Brahman (The Principal Upanisads: 168). God is not separate from the self; indeed, God is one’s deepest self.

Justification of Basic Rights Now, one may see how the justification for various universal values such as compassion and non-violence may conceptually proceed on such a model. It is not simply that by acting out of compassion one fulfills one’s duty because of a fear of karmic repercussions, but, that on a deeper level, the self is connected to the other in an intimate manner. Indeed, to harm the other is to harm oneself. As the Isa Upanisad states: “He who sees all beings in his own self and his own self in all beings does not feel hatred because of this” (The Principal Upanisads: 572). This is the precise reason why there are negative karmic associations with harm. It is the practice of ideals such as compassion, non-violence, and self-restraint, that, while stemming from the wholeness and unity of being, lead to its ultimate realization. For, in practicing compassion, one is pulled closer to the other, not only does one empathize with another’s suffering, but one experiences that suffering as one’s own. One thus comes closer to the experience of the identity of the self with the other, or brahman. Dharma values of compassion and non-violence have served, and continue to serve, as ideals in the realm of

597

J

598

J

Justice and Religion: Hinduism

political justice for Hindus. Gandhi’s struggle for swa-raj or self-rule, as well as his struggle against the caste system and the oppression of women and lower castes, was premised on the ideals of ahimsa, grounded in the prevalent advaita mode of reasoning. The dharma based struggle against inequality, oppression, and injustice is motivated from an entirely different grounding than that of various Western perspectives. For example, a liberal contractual model is based on the separation between individuals. On the contractual model, it is precisely because others’ freedom may infringe on one’s own that one seeks to establish societal norms, values, and human rights. These exist to protect the self from the other; one agrees to such rights on the basis of mutual self-interest; one gives up one’s freedom to use force, as long as others do the same. On the dharma model, however, basic human rights and the social conditions required to live a good life are rooted not on separateness and the potential threat that others represent, but on identity. They flow from one’s interconnectedness to others, and indeed, unity; that one cannot deny others their basic human rights is because, ultimately, their suffering is one’s own suffering. As Rabindranath Tagore argued, such an ethic has much to offer to the West: seeing the other as entirely separate brings with it indifference and callousness, or a “dark world, where passions of greed and hatred are allowed to go unchecked” (Tagore: 944).

Animals and the Environment There is another key insight that the Upanisad model offers. This age of factory farming and environmental degradation of unfathomable magnitude cannot continue without a severe cost to future generations. At the root of such practices lies a view of the moral self as exclusively encompassing human beings, where they are seen as the ultimate source of moral worth, as ends in themselves, having no one to answer to except either self-interested reason or a sense of the divine which has provided them with dominion over all of the natural world. Unfortunately, on such perspectives, animals and the whole of nature exist to serve human needs only, and one can see to what this may lead. On the predominant Hindu approach, and indeed most of classical Indian philosophy, the self is not co-terminus with the human agent, and the unit of moral political consideration, that which deserves ethical and political attention, encompasses a wider realm, including animals and the environment.

Tolerance, Freedom, and Diversity Another key area of significance of Hinduism to global justice is its emphasis on tolerance and respect for other

individuals and religions. Tolerance lies at the center of Hindu philosophy: it follows from the view of the jiva, the self of ordinary experience, as being unique with a set of distinct capacities and needs that distinguishes one from others, and the freedom and responsibility that comes along with this uniqueness. To explain freedom and diversity, Hindus often remind one of the truism that the treatment depends on the disease, and two people may require widely different medications. The seeker’s make-up and spiritual needs determine the path that is best suited for the seeker. One’s gunas or individual qualities, have an integral influence on one’s approach to the divine, or real, brahman, and this is as it should be. Indeed, it is thought that the divine or brahman or God will actually manifest in the form that is most pleasing to the seeker, or that which the seeker most requires at the time; this applies to nonHindus as well. The implication of this is that, for Hindus, it is morally wrong to force one’s preferred approach to the divine on other people. One cannot be threatened with sanctions, in this world, or the next, to follow another’s chosen path. Attempting to coerce others with spiritual threats or bribery is not only to violate their integrity, but it is necessarily bound to fail. People have different needs and, therefore, they must be free to work out their own salvation, in their own way, and at their own speed. This is the reason that Hindus do not attempt to convert others and why their conversions are often difficult at best. Religious pluralism and freedom play a vital role in the way that Hinduism is practiced. It is thought not only to be perfectly sound to be a devotee of either Krishna, or Mother Kali, or Shiva, but in many Hindu homes one may often find pictures of Jesus, Zarathustra, Guru Nanak, and spiritual figures from other religions. Hindus will pray in a Christian church or a mosque without the least bit of hesitation. There are parts of India in which the community describes itself as Hindu-Muslims or Muslim-Hindus; most members of the Salam Girasia Rajputs traditionally have both a Hindu and a Muslim name for every person (Parekh 2008). Sai Baba of Shirdi, a renowned saint of India, would admonish those who asked him if he was a Hindu or Muslim and would partake in both Hindu and Muslim ceremonies; both communities worship him to this day. When questioned about the reason for such a diversity, most Hindus respond by asserting that these other paths are also paths to the divine and lead to the same place. Indeed, Krishna identifies various different paths to the divine as also belonging to him (Bhagavad Gita, 4:11). The multiplicity of forms of God and paths to the divine arise as a result of the differences between various seekers, and not from divine nature.

Justice and Religion: Hinduism

An ancient Indian metaphor used to describe various searches for the divine is that of blind men trying to describe what an elephant is from their particular positions. Their descriptions are necessarily incomplete, as they take their partial understanding and attempt to describe the whole, which they cannot fathom. The same can be said of various religions and also of individuals grappling to understand the divine; these are only partial visions, and may contain both truth and falsehood. Indeed, the manifest world is only a partial glimpse of the unmanifest wholeness and unity of being. One’s appreciation of God is inherently dependent and colored by one’s (incomplete) vision. It is brahman as perceived from a limited view, or saguna brahman, as opposed to nirguna brahman or the formless divine itself. In fact, Hindus believe that God incarnates from age to age, and the divine reveals itself in manifest form to various peoples and individuals differently, being sensitive to their particular capacities and needs. Moreover, divine self-revelation is an ongoing process and, as such, no one religion can claim finality or truth about God. Thus, on this view, the idea that there is “one true religion” that applies to all universally is intrinsically flawed. And, as such, differences need to be respected or, in the least, tolerated. On the advaita mode of reasoning, respect is further grounded in that people share their essential self with that of others. Historically, Hindus have generally shown a great amount of respect and tolerance toward other religions. Prior to colonialism, for example, India had one of the best records with regard to its openness to other religions. At a time when Jews were being persecuted in Europe by Christians, or treated unjustly in Muslim countries, they were welcomed in India. They were given official patronage and financial support; in the Hindu kingdom of Cochin, they were provided their own self-governing district. Indeed, Christians arriving in the fifth century, Muslims in the ninth, and the Zoroastrians in the tenth were all embraced with freedom of religious belief (Parekh 2008). We should note that it is not that all differences are tolerated by Hindus. Often, one hears the slogan “unity in diversity,” as a common contemporary theme in India, both in religion and politics. That is, perspectives that unconfusedly infringe on sadharana dharma, or universal ethical values, around which there must be unity, are not regarded as legitimate, and constitute the limits of toleration.

Hindu Fundamentalism In this philosophical and historical context, current forms of Hindu fundamentalism make little sense. Most of these

J

599

movements developed during and after the colonial period, where “Hinduism” became a marker of political identity, strategically pitted against Muslims, for example, by the British Raj in an attempt to divide and conquer. More recently, as has been argued by a number of Indian political theorists, the fundamentalist “Hindutva” campaign is just this: a modern political means to gain power by politicians, which has little to do with the historical or spiritual aspirations of Hinduism (Nandy 1998).

The Caste System While Hinduism has contributions to make in terms of global justice, it has weaknesses that need to be addressed. Specifically, the caste system is discussed here. The relationship between Hinduism and caste is controversial. Some argue that this hierarchical system is central to Hinduism while others argue it is merely an ideology constructed by those at the top of the social ladder to maintain power and privilege, but that it does not have anything to do with the underlying spirit of Hinduism. The earliest mention of this social classification is in the Rig Veda (10:90), where the fourfold classification of society, the varna system, is said to spring from the body of the “universal man”: from the head are born the scholars; from his arms, the warriors; from his stomach, the business class; and from his feet, the laborers. The purpose of the system was to establish a form of efficient social order, which requires a division of labor. The original classification contains no mention of hierarchy. It is the opposite: classes are formed from an organic unity; each as important as the other; society could not function without each class. How so ever this may be, this classification came to be regarded as hereditary and developed into a socially entrenched oppressive, unjust, and rigid system of jatis or castes with little hope of social mobility. This social order was maintained by the brahmins or the highest caste, as it was in their self-interest to remain in power. However, Hinduism does not hold a monolithic view on this matter. For example, Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita relates caste to guna or the qualities of a person and one’s capacity for work or karma, not to birth (4:13). The Vajrasucika Upanisad too argues against the concept that a brahmin can be determined by birth; on the contrary, what makes one of a higher class is determined by one’s noble actions and the realization of oneself as Self, which allows any individual to be a brahmin (The Principal Upanisads: 935–938). Many contemporary critics argue that the caste system (or the oppression of women) is inconsistent with the spirit of Hinduism. Gandhi, for example, cites “the rock-bottom doctrine of Advaita,” which declares the same self in all, as a justification for

J

600

J

Justice and Religion: Islam

the principle of moral, social, and political equality (Collected Works 1969, XXXV: 107). In contemporary India, the caste system has much the same status as race in America; while there are stringent constitutional laws against discrimination, it still exists socially. Yet, with various challenges, however slowly, the situation continues to improve.

Related Topics

▶ Ahimsa ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Justice and Religion: Buddhism ▶ Multiculturalism ▶ Toleration/Tolerance, Liberal Principle of

References Government of India (1969) The collected works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. XXXV. Government of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Publications Division, Delhi, pp 1–3, 103–107 Doniger O’Flaherty W (trans) (1981) The Rig Veda. Penguin Books, New York Koller J (1972) Dharma: an expression of universal order. Philos East West 22:131–144 Nandy A (1998) The politics of secularism and the recovery of religious toleration. In: Bhargava R (ed) Secularism and its critics. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp 321–344 Parekh B (2008) Hindu theory of tolerance. In: Bilimoria P, Prabhu J, Sharma R (eds) Indian ethics. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp 337–350 Radhakrishnan S (trans) (1953/2000) The principal Upanisads. Harper Collins Publishers, New Delhi Ranganathan S (2007) Ethics and the history of Indian philosophy. Motilal Banarasidass, New Delhi Sankara A (n.d.) Upadesasahari (trans: Mayeda S, 1992). SUNY Press, Albany Sargeant W (trans) (1994) The Bhagavad Gita. State University of New York Press, New York Tagore R (1953) The philosophy of the Upanisads. In: Radhakrishnan S (trans) The principal Upanisads. (1953, 2000 edn). Harper Collins Publishers, New Delhi, pp 939–944

Justice and Religion: Islam YAZID SAID Centre for Research on Religion, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

“Justice” formed an important foundation for moral and political debate in the history of Islamic thought.

The discussion among Muslim scholars draws on two main sources: first, the Koran as the main source of Revelation in Islam together with the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad known as Sunna; second, the philosophical tradition of ancient antiquity. These sources have interacted with one another in different ways, showing how Islam developed, like Christianity, in the same Greek intellectual framework. The Greek philosophers’ conviction that justice is the basis of a decent society and one of the cardinal virtues of the human soul was not limited to those who became known as Islamic philosophers only. While it is well recorded that Plato’s Republic formed much of al-Fara¯bı¯’s (d. 950) thought on politics, law, and justice (Mahdi 2001) and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics features in Averroes’ (d. 1198) texts (Hourani 1961), the emphasis on justice was part of Islam’s concern for ethics, akhla¯q, and its social and political application (Walzer 1962). Abu¯ cAlı¯ Miskawayh (d. 1030) wrote Tahdhı¯b alAkhla¯q (The Refinement of Character), presenting a system of morals on a Platonic basis, which probably was used by Abu¯ Ha¯mid al-Ghaza¯lı¯ (d. 1111) the most celebrated Muslim thinker of medieval Islam. He also incorporates what Avicenna had previously naturalized using the same facultative method. The discussion includes Plato’s four virtues of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. Maintaining the just middle of all four virtues is important for good character to have access to a higher reality – something only the Prophet was able to maintain fully according to Ghaza¯lı¯. One should, however, be careful not to attribute too close an affinity between the Islamic sources and Greek thought. Aristotle on justice, as on other topics, favored certain elites for philosophical identities. Ghaza¯lı¯ turns Aristotle upside down in this regard. Pride, the crown of virtues for Aristotle, is a sign of imbalance of virtues for Ghaza¯lı¯. While Ghaza¯lı¯ shares Aristotle’s concern for good living, he views that the just middle of good living, where justice is to be found, can only be based on the knowledge of God, which begins with the confession that we can never have fully known him; hence, humility. Ghaza¯lı¯’s understanding of the virtue of justice is more equivalent to that of Thomas Aquinas’ application of Aristotle. It has been common to think of justice in Islam in terms of punishment and rules stemming out of what the sharı¯ca, revealed law, understood justice to be. In the Koran, however, cadl and from it cada¯la, normally rendered “justice” in English, have different meanings. When associated with human beings, it could mean to correct, to be fair, or to associate other gods with God. cadala birabbihi means he worships other gods apart from God

Justice and Religion: Islam

(Koran, Surah al-Anca¯m: 1). Injustice, zulm is the mark of
idolatry (Surah Luqma¯n: 13). When associated with God, c adl appears as an essential component of God’s mercy and goodness in creation. In Surah al-Infita
¯ r: 7, God is described as the “One who created you and has equitably composed you,” sawwa¯ka wa cadalaka. God commands 90). justice and kindness: cadl wa ihsa
¯ n (Surah al-Nahl:
I
hsa¯n signifies taking the extra mile beyond reparatory justice with those who do good or even hurt others. The Prophet is commanded to judge justly in the community (Surah al-Shu¯ra¯: 16) just like David (Surah Sa
¯ d: 26). Justice is to be maintained even with those who are hostile to you (Surah al-Mumtahanah: 8). If justice, that is giving each their due, is a virtue which humans knew before revelation, the Koran compliments it and fulfills its meaning with Ihsa
¯ n, reflecting God’s mercy and grace. Therefore, justice in the Koran is expressed more clearly in the effect of the covenant of alastu (Am I not your Lord?) that is the covenant between God and the whole human race at creation found in Surah al-Acra¯f. 172. God makes the descendants of Adam testify to his Lordship. They say: “Yes, we do testify.” Being aware of God’s sovereignty is the source of acting justly and kindly. To act unjustly is the fruit of turning away from God when the true balance of human character is broken. Thus, justice and Islam’s understanding of tawhı
¯d, God’s unity, go hand in hand. Similarly, in reference to the covenant with the people of Israel, the Koran makes it clear that those who established justice among them were those who were guided by the Truth (Surah al-Acra¯f. 160). This remains the basis of the example of the Prophet, which is mostly celebrated first in the Prophet’s manner of dealing with his Meccan enemies. The Prophet was willing to forgo a just retribution for the sake of peace. This was not seen simply as good diplomacy, but more reflective of the Prophet’s character traits maintaining the balance of the just middle. Second, in the establishment of the new polity in Medina, and the gathering of the different religious communities under the Prophet’s authority, the main principle of the social and political formation of the new polity was “equality” of all with principles of social justice (Hamidullah 1968). As Islamic scholastic theology (kala¯m) developed, Islam’s organic growth and spontaneous development necessitated the introduction of Greek thought. There were mixed feelings about the reception of Greek thought, however. It is generally thought that groups like the Hanbalites purported to recognize no sources other than ˙ the Koran and the Sunna. The Muctazilites, on the other hand, made thorough use of Greek reasoning; while alAshcarı¯ (d. 324/935) developed a “middle way,” using

J

Greek reasoning, but remaining faithful to Koranic teaching on eschatology (Watt 1985; Fakhry 1983). The nature of the dialogue expressive of the debate of the time is clearly disputed among scholars of today, who argue against a simplistic division between these different schools of theology. Kala¯m was sophisticated enough without Greek thought, albeit clear Greek perceptions are found therein (Frank 1978; Wisnovsky 2003; Reinhart 1995; Sabra 1994). It remains safe to say that kala¯m arose in conversation with an increasingly Hellenized environment. Following the Koranic reading of justice, among the early jurists, al-Sha¯fic¯ı (d. 820) suggests that “justice is to act in obedience to God; thus, one has the means to knowledge of justice and what is contrary to it.” This was the question behind the moral basis of legal decisions. However, there were those who trusted their own moral intuitions, which for them were congruent with the dictates of Revelation. There were others who mistrusted the world and resorted to revealed sources as the only source of justice. The middle way of al-Ashcarı¯ argued instead that morality is not equal with reality. It is not nature that leads to the valuation of an act, but God’s command. The rationalists saw the moral status of an act and its nature to be of one substance. For the Ashcarı¯tes, the idea that the deepest and most serious significance of the person is to be found in one’s own nature, or self, does not account for the beginning or the end of moral discourse. Reason in this debate is not a collection of abstract knowledge, but an instrument for discrimination and recognition of responlike the Koran. sibility. It cannot be a source, an asl,
Thus, the Koran, while not a political book, is the source for more sustained reflections on justice in constant dialogue with philosophies and with an eye to the guidance to be given to rulers and judges. Muslim jurisprudence becomes the law of politics, and the source that bestows benediction upon the Ruler (Azmeh 2001). On this basis, “mirrors of princes” were developed. Ghaza¯lı¯ and his royal patron, Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092) and the ˙ Abbasid Sha¯fic¯ı jurist al-Ma¯wardı¯ (d. 1058) are among the many who produced such literature at a time of sharp religious and political divisions. Ghaza¯lı¯’s teacher, Imam Juwaynı¯ (d. 1085), was interested in the real holders of power in the society, the Sultanate, to bestow order. Niza¯m ˙ al-Mulk was the vizier himself who held the power of the Sultanate intact for a good deal of time. Ghaza¯lı¯, however, was much wiser than both and came to realize that political power could not provide the solution of the religious divisions. Good government, instead, requires wisdom based on knowledge articulated by scholars advising a wise king “whose heart is an abode of justice.” Ethics,

601

J

602

J

Justice and Religion: Islam

therefore, is the basis of just government. In good Aristotelian fashion, Ghaza¯lı¯ suggests that a just king will not need courage. But, justice needs balancing of virtues. The main pillar of good government is cadl, justice. Conversely, injustice and lack of development go hand in hand (Bagley 1964: 55–97). Despite the clear Platonic and Aristotelian themes, one should beware of too close an affinity with Greek political thought, as was the case with the doctrine of the soul above. On the one hand, justice here is not the application of an abstract idea of equality among all members of society. Justice in this context is “the normative equity not of equality, or equivalence, but of optimal proportionality among the unequal and uneven of a composite” (Azmeh 2001). Islamic sources were happy to acknowledge inequalities in the character of human beings. But, on the other hand, Ghaza¯lı¯ is clear that the king is not free from accountability. The king first is accountable to God and is to be advised by the learned scholars, the culama¯ (Bagley 1964: 56). If justice is about “giving each their due,” it is not simply a static picture of society, but an acknowledgment on the necessity of finding the good of one part of the community with the good of other parts of society. This is the foundation of the administration of justice and of just kingship. The administration of justice for Ashcarı¯ scholars becomes harder the more jurists cease to take it for granted that God is to be honored. Human law, therefore, rests on the interconnection of patterns in creation resting in God’s unity as the basis of justice. This is not very different from a Christian perspective if compared with the thought of Augustine of Hippo, the great Christian theorist of justice, who taught that one cannot do justice without doing justice to God first. But, Augustine would see that interconnection of patterns in the universe and the mind of God, the organic nature of relationships in the society, as itself resting upon and reflecting a movement and a relation that is God the Holy Trinity. Human relationships are in the image of God’s own life of relationship that is self-sufficient and totally free from the world, but made manifest in God’s relationship with the world in the history and justice of Jesus Christ. In Islam, Ghaza¯lı¯’s legacy is visible in the writing of Ibn Khaldu¯n (d. 1406), the last of medieval Islam’s main scholars, and the way his thought and that of the Ottoman establishment converged closely in articulating a view of political power maintained through justice, which cannot be understood without the roots found in the Caliphal period articulated by Ghaza¯lı¯ and later Averroes (Fleischer 1984). Today, there has been an endless list of Muslim

writings and theories of justice in relation to economic life for which Muslims generally find Islam to be well tailored to provide social justice. However, many of these theories of Islamic social justice are heirs of Western-educated Muslims who in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries felt that the Muslim world was in decline and sought reform based on Western ideas. Therefore, power classes in some Islamic countries aimed to emulate the West. Islamist revolutionary movements were reformists too who believed just as much in the power of technology. None of these assumptions are in fact faithful to the history and tradition of Islam as manifested by some great medieval thinkers like Ghaza¯lı¯. Ghaza¯lı¯’s assumption was that the right balance of justice in the history of Islam was only fully established when the Prophet was ruling the community at Medina; from then on, it was downhill. The political fortunes may have risen for Muslims after the Prophet’s death, but the moral integrity of the community was in decline with the death of the Prophet, not with the rise of modernity. If reform was needed to establish justice, it was only to be done with the reform of the individual and the soul’s struggle to obtain the just middle, not in emulating the West. In the modern world reform has meant the remaking of human nature based on abstract timeless ideas that do not take their root in revelation but in human whims and preferences. There has been an indecisive debate about the meaning of human nature especially in the light of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971). The context for Rawls’ theory is not dissimilar to that out of which the great work of Ghaza¯lı¯ and Plato on justice emerged many centuries before: a reality of a pluralist society with concerns for justice. The medieval Muslim society was not a monolithic gathering of those who agree. The difference is that while Ghaza¯lı¯ and his theological fellow scholars related to justice as an objective reality to be discovered and to which one should be obedient, liberal modern theorists argued that there is no place for metaphysical or religious assumptions for the discussion of justice. There are few dissenting voices in the West such as that of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, who take religion and theology seriously in their philosophical expositions of justice. More importantly, there are a number of Western scholars of Islam who have shown how Islam’s history of a shared faith generated and refined common understanding of social ordering and justice. Lawrence Rosen’s The Justice of Islam (2000) reflects clearly that there is no way to rise above socially conditioned understandings to a timeless, objective view, which Rawls seems to advocate.

Justice and Religion: Judaism

Rosen instead suggests that “justice lies not in the simple invocation of rights and duties but in their contextual assessment and the mode of analysis.” Sherman Jackson’s analysis of al-Qara¯fı¯’s (d. 1285) Constitutional Jurisprudence shows that it was not the law but only the legal process that was ceded to the government, and even this functional requirement is limited to what was absolutely necessary for the preservation of order and security. This means that while there is a concern for the disciplining of the soul to produce a balanced personality, which ran together with a vision of a political and social reality functioning organically in mutual harmony based on Revealed sources, authorities from early on did not assume that human beings carry similar capacities and realities. Revelation here is not that which blocks the functioning of human rational powers, but that which limits human claims for global principles of justice and focus the attempt on local social coherence and functioning of society. The global effect of this understanding of justice is in its emphasis on context without claiming a set of global abstract propositions that apply to all (Kamali 1989).

Related Topics

▶ Charity ▶ Equality ▶ Justice and Religion: Christianity ▶ Justice and Religion: Judaism ▶ Rawls, John

References Azmeh A (2001) Muslim kingship: power and the sacred in Muslim, Christian, and Pagan polities. I.B. Tauris, London Bagley F (trans) (1964) Ghaza¯lı¯’s book of counsel for kings. Oxford University Press, London Fakhry M (1983) A history of Islamic philosophy, 2nd edn. Columbia University Press, New York Fleischer C (1984) Royal authority, dynastic cyclism and ‘Ibn Khaldunism’. In: Lawrence B (ed) Ibn Khaldun and Islamic ideology. Brill, Leiden Frank R (1978) Beings and their attributes: the teaching of the Bas:rian school of the Muctazila in the classical period. State University of New York Press, Albany Hamidullah M (trans) (1968) The first written constitution in the world: an important document of the time of the Holy Prophet. Sh. Muhammad Ashrai, Lahore Hourani G (1961) Averroes on the harmony of religion and philosophy: a translation, with introduction and notes, of Ibn Rushd’s Kita¯b Fas:l al-maqa¯l, with its appendix (Damı¯ma) and an extract from Kita¯b al kashf can mana¯hij al-adilla. Luzac, London Jackson S (1996) Islamic law and the state: the constitutional jurisprudence of Shiha¯b alDı¯n al-Qara¯fı¯. Brill, Leiden/New York/Ko¨ln Kamali M (1989) The limits of power in an Islamic state. Islamic Studies 28:4

J

603

MacIntyre A (1984) After virtue, 2nd edn. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame Mahdi M (2001) Alfarabi, and the foundation of Islamic political philosophy. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago Reinhart K (1995) Before revelation: the boundaries of Muslim moral thought. State University of New York Press, New York Rosen L (1989) The anthropology of justice: law as culture in Islamic society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Rosen L (2000) The justice of Islam. Oxford University Press, Oxford Sabra AI (1994) Optics, astronomy and logic: studies in Arabic science and philosophy. Variorum, Aldershot Taylor C (2007) A secular age. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass Walzer R (1962) Greek into Arabic: essays on Islamic philosophy, vol I, Oriental studies. Bruno Cassirer, Oxford Watt M (1985) Islamic philosophy and theology. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh Wisnovsky R (2003) Avicenna’s metaphysics in context. Duckworth, London

J Justice and Religion: Judaism NOAM ZION Hartman Institute, Jerusalem, Israel

Biblical and Rabbinic Judaism places universal justice at the heart of their vision of the God of nature and the God of history. The Torah and the Rabbis then seek to translate God’s will to justice into a practical legislative system of redistributive social welfare rights and judicial and commercial equity within Jewish society, though in the Biblical prophecies and Rabbinic prayers, they yearn for a global extension of that vision of peace and justice symbolized by Jerusalem and the messianic era.

Biblical Justice Justice is the crowning virtue of the Biblical God as Creator, as universal ruler, and as protector and savior of those treated unjustly. Therefore, God’s chosen Jewish monarchs (literally, messiahs) represent God in the world doing justice, especially for the widow and orphan, and saving their people from oppression by empires. This characteristic task of god and king is a common ancient near eastern (ANE) tradition. But Biblical justice is inflected uniquely in several ways: First, the task of doing and teaching justice is the vocation not just of the officeholder but of Abraham as founder of the chosen people who was selected “to teach his family and his household the ways of God, the ways of tzedakah umishpat – justice” (Gen. 18:19). Thus, not only must

604

J

Justice and Religion: Judaism

the monarch write and read daily from the Torah, but so too must every Jew. Justice is not only remedial but preemptive, such that not only governors but individual citizens are expected to rescue their endangered fellows, not as Good Samaritans, but as matter of law requiring active intervention, such that bystanders can never be innocent (Lev. 19:16). Second, the monarch is a constitutional ruler subject to the law in being chosen by God. Biblical Divine right kings, unlike the British ones, are subject to impeachment, as was the first Jewish King Saul and the second one, King David. The prophet Nathan who performed David’s coronation later accused him of corrupting his office and desecrating God, whom he represents, by taking his loyal general’s wife, and then covering up his crime by arranging for the general’s death. If David had not confessed and been forgiven, he would have been deposed. In fact, God is subject, if not to impeachment, then to frank and “hutzpa”-inflected accusations against his gross malfeasance as a judge. Abraham challenges God for planning to wipe out the whole city of Sodom, killing the innocent with the guilty: “Will the judge of the whole earth not do justly?” (Gen. 18:25). Third, not only is royalty valued for embodying the image of God, but every human being bears the dignity of the Divine likeness. Therefore, life is sacred; capital punishment may not be attenuated by financial payments. The same punishment applies equally to murderers without regard to their victims’ class, even if the slain are slaves killed by their masters (Ex. 21:20). No one may spill the blood of a human (Gen. 9:6). For that reason, even a criminal who has defamed God may not be dishonored in the execution process (Dt. 21:23). Later, the Rabbis made conviction for a capital crime impossible to prove in order to avoid judicial desecration of God’s image. This idea serves as a prototype for the modern notion of the unconditional dignity of the human being manifest in the prohibition of torture and cruel and unusual punishment. Another unique Biblical concern for the just treatment of the other, the noncitizen, is derived not from the image of God as creator-cum-world-judge, but from the degrading experience of Israel in Egyptian slavery and near genocide. Unlike the ANE, Biblical justice includes the resident alien along with the widow and orphan as prime clients for judicial and monarchial care, because you, Israel, now that you are citizens and masters, must recall your past as foreign slaves bitterly persecuted by Pharaoh (Dt. 5:14–15). Therefore Biblical legislation to enforce commercial, welfare, and judicial justice is peppered (36 times) with the rationale – remember you were

a slave and you know the heart of the stranger, therefore you are commanded to love the stranger residing with you as yourself for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Lev. 19:33–36). While love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18) in the Bible refers only to fellow Jews in the holy community, in the same chapter, each Jew is commanded to love the stranger by exercising their ability to empathize and see in the excluded other their own likeness – not the Divine image. The historically particular memory of national suffering generates universal empathy and an exhortation to institutionalize an inclusive justice and an equality under the law even with citizens (Lev. 19:34). The concern for the ethnic other derives, then, not from the justice of the rulercum-creator concerned with balanced and law-abiding order, natural and political, but from the historical experience of Israel as exploited and their indignation at injustice. The global vision of justice and peace is implicit in the creation motif and the role of God as judge of the whole earth. But they become earthly political visions in the hands of the prophets who both criticize the malfeasance of the Jewish king and envision God’s direct rule or his appointment of a royal messiah’s just rule. Since Israel suffers as a small kingdom among superpowers, only a universal world order can simultaneously redeem Israel from its national enemies and also establish a stable peace. Israel’s idolatry that is its attraction to the religious ideology of its imperial conquerors must be corrected and its exclusive loyalty to the just and universal king, God, reaffirmed. Peace and justice are united in the Biblical puns on the name Jeru-salem interpreted as city of shalom, and its traditional pre-Israelite monarch is always called Malki-tzedek, my king is just. From this city Zion, seat of God’s international court, Torah shall be taught, where Torah means God’s universal justice, not God’s singular ritual practices and beliefs. Isaiah’s prophecy adorns the UN building in NYC: God will judge among nations. . .and their swords will be beaten into plowshares. . .and nation will not raise sword against nation nor learn war anymore (Isaiah 2:1–4). Therefore, the prophets never tire of pointing out the hypocrisy of the city of peace and justice whose actual human rulers undermine those ideals in practice. In particular, the classic prophets protested ceaselessly that the governing classes were guilty of oppressing the poor. Poverty is not the fault of the poor’s sloth nor the dysfunctions of the economic system, but a direct outcome of political exploitation. It is exploitation of its own poor by Israel that bring on the prophetic punishment of international violence that sends Israel

Justice and Religion: Judaism

into exile. Justice with one’s neighbors, internally and externally, is a sine qua non for world peace. In Biblical legislation, economic justice takes three forms: First, there is the prohibition of commercial and judicial exploitation of the poor, widow, orphans, and resident alien who have no powerful relatives to protect them (Ex. 23:6–9). Second, there is the right to agricultural produce – the corners of the field, the gleanings, and tithes, as well as free access to what grows on the land during the fallow Sabbatical year (Lev. 19:9–10; Ex. 23:11). The Rabbis treat these fringe benefits as the rights of the poor – not as charity at the discretion of the owner. Any attempt of the owner of land even to choose which poor person shall receive them is robbery of the poor, even though the produce grows on land owned by and cultivated by the ancestral owner. Third, the sabbatical annulment of debts offers not only a moratorium but a forgiveness of all cumulative indebtedness, functioning somewhat like bankruptcy laws (Dt. 15:1–3). The jubilee system redistributes the ancestral wealth equally among brothers and frees all slaves to return to their capital. Thus, no land or human freedom is alienable, though it may be “rented” for years until the jubilee. The verse “Proclaim liberty to all the inhabitants thereof ” (Lev. 25:10) inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia was ordered to express the (relative) religious freedom in the Quaker colony, then used to symbolize political freedom and later abolition of slavery. But, originally it meant not only liberation of economic slaves but also the economic redistribution of capital – agricultural land – in order to guarantee ongoing freedom and brotherly equality. However, that was equality only for citizens – not accessible to the resident aliens as were other agricultural benefits. The land of Israel and all the citizens are “owned” by God, so human “sellers” of their bodies and their land are merely stewards who may not alienate their labor or their land permanently beyond the jubilee (Lev. 25:54–55). God’s ownership of land and human labor in the land of Israel, the sabbatical erasure of debts and the jubilee recycling of capital prevent permanent class hierarchies from congealing. While this is a landspecific and people-specific system of economic justice for citizens and ethnic brothers, it might be reimagined for a global world of stewardship. The term of the liberation of debt salves and land is called geulah, redemption, and one’s nearest relative is one’s redeemer who is expected to buy one of slavery and redeem one’s land and to take on one’s needy brother without waiting for the jubilee year which constitutes a Divine redemption of last resort (Lev. 25:48–49, 54–55).

J

605

Rabbinic Justice: Tzedakah The Rabbinic period (from 70 CE after the destruction of Jerusalem and the eclipse of the priestly elite) shifts the governmental focus to the municipality, the GrecoRoman polis, and afterward the medieval feudal city within which the Jews had semiautonomous guild-like communities founded on social welfare taxation. The Rabbis transformed the agricultural welfare system of tithe, sabbatical, and jubilee to the first welfare state, where obligatory taxes were levied on residents to support the needy according the financial capability of the donor and distributed by quasi-judges according to the needs of the poor as matter of their rights. All Jews, whether residents or itinerant, were entitled to support, and Jews supported their brethren in other locals when crises emerged. This form of maintenance was called tzedakah from the Biblical term for justice. Thus, while Jews also made voluntary donations to beggars much like charity, provided interest-free loans, and performed acts of loving kindness (hesed) for the needy, it is the centralized municipal community chest which embodies a system of economic justice. Non-Jews, as non-“citizens” of the Jewish people, were not excluded from municipal welfare and communal acts of loving kindness, like burial societies, but that was understood not as an obligation of justice but as a policy of promoting social peace between communities. Tzedakah, unlike the Biblical jubilee system of redistribution of land capital called geulah, redemption, provided maintenance but not rehabilitation of the needy, but on the individual level, the highest form of aid was to provide a job or a loan or best to invest in a joint business venture. Universal compulsory male education for Torah study often included job training and for the children of the poor it was free. Most unique to the tzedakah system was the concern for the dignity of the needy. Free maintenance of the poor, even when considered a welfare right provided by the community, generated universal shame whatever the social class of the recipient. Therefore, paradoxically, tzedakah was best disguised as a loan, a gift, or a job. Even when provided to the needy as monetary allocations, it was distributed secretly usually through volunteer welfare bureaucrats of great integrity and sensitivity to individualized needs. Maimonides (twelfth-century philosopher, law-codifier, doctor, head of the Jewish community of Egypt, and fundraiser for ransoming captives) arranged the modes of tzedakah in eight levels with ever-decreasing levels of shaming the recipient. Unlike many verses in the New Testament that praise giving away one’s wealth to the poor and distributing charity and hospitality first to the

J

606

J

Justice and Religion: Judaism

needy most distant from one’s family who are least likely to reciprocate: “Invite the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” (Luke 14:12–14). But Rabbinic priorities obligate the donor to favor those closest. “A poor person who is one’s relative comes before all others” (Maimonides, Mishne Torah, Gifts to the Poor 7:13). Even this tzedakah to relatives is obligatory only after the donor has taken care of their own needs. This order of preference is a matter of our greater obligations to ourselves and to those neighbors closer geographically and ethnically. It is still matter of justice, particular obligations, not private self-interest or preferential affection. Thus, even though Greek giving, philanthropia, and Christian agape or charity and Rabbinic acts of hesed share the root meaning of voluntary love, rabbinic municipal tzedakah means justice, not love, duty, not grace, morality, not the virtue of generosity or even freely given mercy. Thus, tzedakah may be exacted by judicial coercion. Extensive social legislation controlled prices, profits, competition and prohibited interest bearing loans as well as limiting conspicuous consumption. Municipalities required home hospitality for the itinerant poor and set a fixed percentage of needy guests to be invited to each family lifecycle celebration. Ecological legislation derived from the notion of human stewardship of God’s creation. “See to it that you do not spoil and destroy My world; for if you do, there will be no one to repair it (l’takein).”(Ecclesiates Rabbah on verse 7:13). At the level of city planning, trees especially fruit-bearing trees were protected, air-polluting industries like tanning hides were zoned for the side of the city, where prevailing winds would disperse the smells away from population centers. Neighbors were to be protected from noise and violations of privacy through building codes. On the individual level, moral strictures disapproved of the consumption of more resources when less could be used. So it would be a violation of the law against wasting natural resources to drink wine when one could just as well do with beer. The idea of tikkun olam, repairing the whole world, which best captures the idea of global justice and balance, has become popular in liberal Judaism in the last decades of the twentieth century. It is defined as “Tikkun to heal, repair, and transform the world” by the editor of left-leaning Jewish magazine called Tikkun by Rabbi Michael Lerner. But its roots are deep beginning with the ancient rabbinic/mystical coronation prayer (Alenu) for the Jewish new year when God is imagined as the future monarch of the whole world who will repair the world by

establishing the kingdom of God. The image of God as judge holding all individuals accountable for their actions, both ethical and ritual, is manifest in particular in the rabbinic adaptation of the New Year and Yom Kippur holiday. Here, justice is combined with the uniquely Jewish notion of repentance as well as the more lenient possibility of general amnesty. Divine justice is understood to motivate moral rehabilitation and preserve life of the sinners, not to execute the letter of the law for the sake of blind justice. Maimonides gave tikkun olam its greatest socioeconomic-political significance in the laws of the king, including the messianic world king, in an era when Jews had no such leaders. He ranks individual spiritual tikkun, above physical tikkun, in value, but the monarch should prepare the ground for such personal self-perfection by establishing justice, peace, and economic prosperity. Medieval mystical use of the term tikkun olam has cosmic implications such that human beings by their ritual actions and mystical contemplations may fix and balance the broken world and redeem the damaged godhead, but that has no connection to global justice until its reinterpretation in the late twentieth-century liberal circles. Jews in the modern era, inspired by their own traditions and impelled by their socio-historical marginality, have often been at the forefront of movements of social justice such as socialism, constitutionalism, democratization, and the struggle for human rights. The State of Israel was established as a highly progressive social welfare democracy (1948) and its parliament legislated a basic law of human dignity and freedom (1992), explicitly founded on the biblical notion of the image of God, which has been defended in practice by an activist judiciary in a particularly challenging security situation. But so much remains to be done to close the gap between the ideals of social justice and realities, as well as between competing emphases in Judaism between ritual and intellectual forms of sacred piety and the prophetic call to give religious priority to the rights of the needy and the vulnerable worldwide. Let us maintain our hope in the future as did Anna Frank in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam: “How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment before making the world better. We can start now slowly changing the world. You can always, always, always give something, even if it is only kindness” (March 1944).

Related Topics

▶ Charity ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy

Justice and Religion: Judaism

▶ Economic Rights ▶ Environmental Protection ▶ Human Rights

References Davis E (2009) Scripture, culture and agriculture: an agrarian reading of the bible. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Dorff E (2002) To do the right and the good: a Jewish approach to modern social ethics. Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia Greenberg I (1993) The Jewish way. Simon and Schuster, New York Heschel AJ (1962) The prophets. Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia Houston W (2006) Contending for justice: ideologies and theologies of social justice in the old testament. T&T Clark, New York

J

607

Jacobs J (2009) There shall be no needy: pursuing social justice through Jewish law and tradition. Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock Maimonides M (2010) Mishne Torah. Laws of gifts to the poor; of kings; of jubilee. Yale University Press, New Haven Shatz D (ed) (1997) Tikkun Olam: social responsibility in Jewish thought and law. Jason Aronson, Northvale Telushkin J (2009) A code of Jewish ethics, vol 1–3. Random House, New York Walzer M (1985) Exodus and revolution. Basic Books, New York Walzer M, Lorberbaum M, Zohar N (eds) (2000) The Jewish political tradition, vol 1–3. Yale University Press, New Haven Waskow E, Elon A, Hyman NM (eds) (2000) Trees, earth and Torah. Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia Weinfeld M (1995) Justice and righteousness in Israel and the nations. Fortress Press, Minneapolis

J

K Kant, Immanuel HELGA VARDEN Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

Kant’s main writings on issues of global justice are found in three different works: “On the common saying: ‘That may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice’” (hereafter “Theory and Practice”), “Toward Perpetual Peace” (hereafter “Perpetual Peace”), and the Doctrine of Right in The Metaphysics of Morals (hereafter “Doctrine of Right”). In each of these texts, there are certain core passages that writers on Kant’s conception of global justice want to address. Because the passages are puzzling in their own right and do not immediately appear to yield an internally consistent position, together they provide wonderfully engaging textual and philosophical challenges for Kant scholars. To begin, in each of the three texts we find some passages in which Kant appears to be arguing that global justice is in principle impossible without a global public authority. In these passages, Kant appears to affirm the need for some sort of a global public authority in order to ensure a “lawful settlement” of disputes arising between states, such as disputes concerning borders and trade. Consequently, Kant seems to be arguing that not having a global authority is equivalent to staying in the state of nature. And since remaining there is “to do wrong in the highest degree,” states can be forced to accept a “cosmopolitan constitution” (“Theory and Practice”) or a “universal state” (“Perpetual Peace”). These three passages, therefore, have often led to interpretations that Kant condoned or ought to condone a world state with a global monopoly on coercion. Enigmatically, however, despite these statements seemingly advocating a world state, in all three texts Kant also clearly appears to argue the contrary, namely that global justice cannot require a world state, but only requires a voluntary world republic (or “league of nations”). In these same texts, Kant appears to give several

reasons why global justice cannot require a world state. Some of these reasons clearly appear principled or ideal in nature, whereas others seem to be merely pragmatic. Consider four principled or ideal reasons Kant appears to give to substantiate the conclusion that global justice cannot require a world state. First, puzzlingly, and without much explanation, in the “Doctrine of Right” Kant seems to go straight from the claim that staying in the state of nature is to do wrong in the highest degree – meaning that it is something you can be forced not to do – to the claim that the global public authority cannot involve establishing in perpetuity a world state with a monopoly on coercion. Rather, the global authority should consist in a voluntary world federation. Also in the “Doctrine of Right,” we find a second, possibly related, principled reason. Because only the citizens themselves can decide whether or not to go to war, global justice cannot involve the establishment of a world state with a global monopoly on coercion. That is to say, since the decision to maintain the global public authority’s monopoly on coercion remains with the citizens of the world, the global public authority cannot establish a monopoly on coercion in perpetuity. The global public authority cannot command the citizens of the world to take part in wars around the globe, and hence it cannot establish a permanent monopoly on coercion. In “Perpetual Peace,” we find a third ideal reason why the world state should not be coercively established. Here Kant argues that global justice cannot require a world state, since the very concept is incoherent. The reason is that the concept of a world state (a “state of nations”) involves the idea of several nations, each with its own sovereign, as well as the idea of one sovereign and one people only. No single entity can instantiate the appropriate relation between states and at the same time instantiate the appropriate relation between a sovereign and its people. “Perpetual Peace” also provides the fourth reason why global justice cannot in principle involve the coercive establishment of a world state. Since a just state enables rightful domestic interaction for its people, the people and its public representatives cannot be under an enforceable obligation to abandon the condition in which they have

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

610

K

Kant, Immanuel: Contemporary Kantian Responses to

rightful relations in order to establish a world state. Because states enable domestic justice, Kant seems to be saying in this text, the principles of the right of nations cannot require states to demolish themselves and create a world state with a global monopoly on coercion. To add to these interpretive puzzles regarding Kant’s ideal arguments, there are some passages, in which Kant seems to say that a world state is in theory necessary, but in practice it is impossible and, consequently, in reality, all we can establish is a voluntary world federation. We find such “in theory necessary, but practically impossible” passages in all of the three aforementioned major works by Kant. For example, both in the “Doctrine of Right” and in “Perpetual Peace” Kant appears to be saying that the difficulty of maintaining rule over “vast regions” of the globe entails the likelihood of either dissolution of the global authority into anarchy and ultimate war or the deterioration of effectiveness and a “soulless despotism.” In “Theory and Practice,” we find similar pragmatic considerations against the establishment of the world state. After Kant has said that in theory the only way to end expansionist wars is to establish a “cosmopolitan constitution,” he seems to argue that in practice pursuing the theoretically correct option may sometimes be too dangerous. So, instead, we must seek only to establish a voluntary federation of states. Finally, in “Perpetual Peace,” Kant seems to be saying that pragmatic considerations can explain, but not justify, states’ actual rejections of a global public authority. Here, Kant famously argues that states, due to their mistaken understanding of the right of nations, will in practice (“in hypothesi”), albeit wrongly, reject what is true in theory (“in thesi”). That is, states will oppose the establishment of a world state (“state of nations”). As a result, what is likely to happen is merely the establishment of its “negative” surrogate, namely a “league” of nations, which operates mostly to avoid the outbreak of wars. To sum up, it is hard to establish conclusively exactly what Kant’s conception of global justice is since his texts are not in any obvious way internally consistent. The three major philosophical writings of Kant’s on the issue of global justice appear to present both ideal arguments or segments of ideal arguments, according to which it is wrong to stay in the international state of nature and we can be forced to leave it by becoming subjected to a global public authority, as well as ideal arguments, according to which membership in the global public authority must be voluntary. The question naturally arising is how can Kant or the Kantian position simultaneously argue that states, in principle, can be forced to accept a global public authority as this is necessary for justice and, at the same

time, argue that they should only pursue a voluntary association of states or a so-called world federation? Alternatively, if the arguments for and against the establishment of a global authority cannot be reconciled, which view should the considered or best Kantian position adopt? What is more, the analysis is complicated by the fact that many of the ideal arguments as found in the texts are not complete. For example, exactly why is it necessary to establish a global public authority, that is, exactly which problems, in principle, cannot states solve themselves through appropriately constructed foreign policies? Finally, in addition to the above ideal considerations, there is the puzzle added by the pragmatic considerations. In which sense should we see them as undermining the ideal arguments – in principle or only in practice? For some of the current takes on these puzzles – both philosophical and textual – see the entry ▶ Kant, Immanuel: Contemporary Kantian Responses to in this encyclopedia.

Related Topics

▶ Charity ▶ Duties, Perfect and Imperfect ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Kant, Immanuel: Contemporary Kantian Responses to

References Kant I (1991) Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan purpose. In: Reiss H (ed) Kant: political writings. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 41–53 Kant I (2006) That may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice. In: Gregor MJ (trans and ed) Immanuel Kant: practical philosophy. Cambridge University Press, New York Kant I (2006) Toward perpetual peace. In: Gregor MJ (trans and ed) Immanuel Kant: practical philosophy. Cambridge University Press, New York Kant I (2006) The metaphysics of morals. In: Gregor MJ (trans and ed) Immanuel Kant: practical philosophy. Cambridge University Press, New York

Kant, Immanuel: Contemporary Kantian Responses to HELGA VARDEN Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

For a relatively long time, most scholars turning to Kant for input on issues concerning global justice focused primarily on his earlier and shorter works, “On the common

Kant, Immanuel: Contemporary Kantian Responses to

saying: That may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice” (1793, hereafter “Theory and Practice”) and “Toward Perpetual Peace” (1795, hereafter “Perpetual Peace”). Over the last 20 years or so, however, increased attention has been paid also to Kant’s most mature and comprehensive statement of his legal and political philosophy, namely, his Doctrine of Right as we find it in The Metaphysics of Morals (1797, hereafter “Doctrine of Right”). The increased attention to Kant’s “Doctrine of Right,” in turn, led to both a revitalization of Kantian research on global justice and an increased emphasis on situating Kant’s approach to issues of global justice within his overall theory of justice. The increased attention to Kant’s conception of justice as found in the Doctrine of Right has also resulted in a specific challenge, well worth emphasizing, to the earlier scholarship. Much of the early interpretation assumed that Kant conceives of justice and the state as primarily responses to vice. In contrast, increasingly prominent in recent interpretations is the view that Kant does not see the need for justice and public authorities – whether domestic or global – as primarily arising from our “crooked timber.” Rather, there are ideal problems, whose solution is possible only through the establishment of a state or, in the global case, a global authority. Despite the increased attention, Kant’s conception of justice as found in the Doctrine of Right is a relatively new area of research. The relative early stage of development that characterizes exegetical and philosophical investigations of Kant’s political and legal philosophy in particular has at least two implications. First, from a scholarly point of view, the present time is an exciting one to be thinking about global justice and to look to Kant for some guidance. Second, the available interpretations of Kant’s approach to global justice as well as the current proposals concerning the considered Kantian view on global justice are most diverse. What is more, the fact that Kant’s writings are neither easily accessible nor always in an obvious way internally consistent only adds fuel to this fire. For an outline of core pieces of text crucial to any comprehensive interpretation of Kant’s views on global justice, see the entry “Immanuel Kant.” After a brief summary of the puzzles that Kant’s own texts leave us with, the focus below will be on the various philosophical positions that have been proposed as compatible either with Kant’s texts or as capturing the best or considered Kantian position. Since Kant’s texts on global justice are not in any obvious way internally consistent, it is hard to establish conclusively exactly what Kant’s conception of global justice is. The challenges Kant’s texts leave contemporary Kantians with are at least three. First, Kant appears to present both ideal arguments for the conclusion that

K

staying in the international state of nature is to “do wrong in the highest degree” and that we can be forced to leave it by becoming subjected to a global public authority, as well as ideal arguments that yield the conclusion that membership in the global public authority must be voluntary. The puzzle is that it appears contradictory to claim that membership is both enforceable and voluntary. Is there any textually coherent way out of this conundrum for contemporary Kantians or, if not, what is the best or considered Kantian position on the issue of the need for a global public authority? Second, Kant’s arguments appear somewhat incomplete in that it is not clear exactly why he considers the establishment of the global public authority an ideal necessity. Finally, because in several places Kant emphasizes the importance of nonideal reasons against establishing a global public authority, current Kantians are left with the challenge of figuring out the correct relationship between ideal and nonideal reasons for and against the establishment of the global public authority. Before recent engagements with the “Doctrine of Right,” Kant interpreters and Kantians typically did not explicitly address the question of why we need the global public authority at all. It was quite common among Kantians to presuppose that according to Kant and the Kantian position, the need for a public authority was simply that it constitutes the more efficient means of ensuring peace. From this assumption, it follows that the above distinction between ideal and nonideal reasons is insignificant, since all reasons for or against the establishment of a public authority (domestic or global) are fundamentally prudential in nature. Moreover, now it becomes an empirical question whether or not we should aim for a world state with a monopoly on coercion or simply stay with a statist framework when pursuing global justice. The question reduces to figuring out which is more likely to bring about peace? And indeed, Kant’s own answer to this prudential question clearly seems to be that the statist framework is less likely to deteriorate into global despotism or anarchism – at least in the current state of affairs. Michael W. Doyle and John Rawls famously pursue this statist line of argument. According to Doyle, liberal states have proven themselves less likely to go war against one another, and for both Doyle and Rawls, at least according to standard interpretations, the aim is to identify which foreign policies liberal states should adopt in order to secure world peace. If, however, empirical data determines which types of public authorities we should aim for, then these kinds of positions can be challenged on empirical grounds. For example, we can argue with Thomas Carson (1988) and

611

K

612

K

Kant, Immanuel: Contemporary Kantian Responses to

Sidney Axinn (1998) that in our nuclear times, a carefully construed world state with a monopoly on military power would be more likely to secure world peace than a series of states. Alternatively, we can, like Pauline Kleingeld (2004), pursue a less extensive world state solution in combination with a developmental thesis. The voluntary federation, on this line of interpretation, is a first step towards the realization of a world state – it is a means by which we can move from the statist to the world state condition with some coercive powers. Regardless of how one treats Kant’s references to pragmatic considerations, it appears central for the Kantian also to address Kant’s ideal arguments regarding both the need for a global public authority and for not creating a world state, but merely a world republic. Starting with the latter, Georg Cavallar (1999), Pauline Kleingeld, Ingeborg Maus (2006), Helga Varden (2006), and Howard L. Williams (2006) utilize the arguments provided in Kant’s conception of domestic right to fill in some of the explanatory gaps regarding Kant’s ideal claim that states cannot be abolished in order to establish one, all-inclusive world state or any world state with a monopoly on coercion. Cavallar, Kleingeld, Maus, Varden, and Williams argue that because states enable rightful domestic relations, they cannot be required to dissolve their states when seeking to establish global justice. Maus and Williams argue that this entails that global justice must be pursued by voluntary, statist means. Cavallar and Kleingeld, in contrast, argue that this only entails that the establishment of a world republic (with limited coercive powers) must be pursued by voluntary means, whereas Varden argues that this argument alone simply entails that the global authority will (in all likelihood) be a project that involves both a global authority and domestic authorities. Also with regard to filling some of the explanatory gaps regarding Kant’s claim that global justice ideally does require a global public authority, it is increasingly common to use the general structure of Kant’s account of domestic right. A charitable reading of Georg Cavallar, Kevin E. Dodson (1993), Ju¨rgen Habermas (1997), Otfried Ho¨ffe (2006), Pauline Kleingeld, Ingeborg Maus, Thomas Pogge (2009), and Helga Varden sees them as unified in holding that rightful solutions to conflicts in interstate relations and in relations between states and aliens require the institution of a global public authority. For example, due to a problem of indeterminacy with respect to any state’s borders, rightful adjudication is achieved only by a global authority such as the International Court of Justice. The reason is that only a public global authority can at the same time represent both the interacting parties

(states or states and aliens) and yet no one in particular. In the same sense that a national public authority is required to rightfully legislate and settle disputes amongst its citizens, a global public authority is required to develop and apply general principles to settle disputes between states and at least some of the disputes between states and aliens. As the result of arguing that Kant’s considered view must stay consistent with this fundamental insight, Dodson and Ho¨ffe conclude that Kant’s ideal reasons for not establishing a global authority with a monopoly on coercion should be rejected and instead our aim for the global authority should be what Ho¨ffe (with Nozick) calls a “minimal state.” Habermas and Pogge, in contrast, conclude that the considered Kantian position defends an overlap between domestic, regional, and global spheres of sovereignty. Maus and Williams, yet again, use this as further support for their statist conceptions of global justice. They argue that global justice requires that just states, as is the case at the moment, always remain independent of one another, even though they ought to use global institutions like the Court of Justice to settle their disputes. Cavallar and Kleingeld use these ideal arguments for the necessity of the global authority to provide further support for their developmental conceptions of a world federation with some coercive powers. Finally, Varden takes a somewhat different route. She argues there is no inconsistency between Kant’s ideal arguments for a global authority and those ideal arguments against the global authority’s establishment of a monopoly on coercion in perpetuity. In her view, these two conclusions are not only consistent, but also jointly necessary given Kant’s relational conception of right and the likely historical fact of states as preceding the establishment of a global authority. In addition to the question whether or not Kant should be seen as embracing the establishment of a global public authority or as pursuing global justice according to statist principles, most Kantians are in concert in attempting to understand what Kant or the Kantian theory of justice has to say about issues of global poverty. One line of thought defended by the majority of Kantian interpretations, including prominent Kantians such as Pogge and Rawls, assumes that Kant’s conception of domestic economic justice is of a right-libertarian sort. Therefore, they see it as ill equipped to address problems of global economic justice. Instead, like Rawls, they attempt to develop theoretical solutions along fundamentally statist lines or, like Pogge, along institutional cosmopolitan lines. That a libertarian reading of domestic economic justice should be attributed to Kant has been challenged recently by Kantians such as Sarah W. Holtman (2004), Arthur Ripstein (2009), and Helga

Killing and Letting Die

Varden (2006). They agree that Kant’s conception of domestic economic justice requires public provision of poverty relief. Varden has also suggested ways in which Kant’s understanding of economic justice on the domestic level can be used to develop a Kantian conception of global economic justice. Nevertheless, the work on this issue, as well as others, is nascent, and there is ample room for increased attention to how Kant’s theory of justice can help. For example, there is little consideration of how Kant’s theory of justice would treat issues concerning terrorism, punishment of international criminals, global environmental concerns, regulation of transnational companies operating in developing countries, and so on. And, as Thomas Nagel reminds us, philosophical research on issues of global justice, generally, is in a relatively early stage. Consequently, Kantians, too, are working hard to establish everything they need to address in order to arrive at sufficiently comprehensive conceptions of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Charity ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Duties, Perfect and Imperfect ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Nagel, Thomas ▶ O’Neill, Onora ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Rawls, John

References Axinn S (1998) World community and its government. In: Kneller J, Axinn S (eds) Autonomy and community. State University of New York Press, Albany, pp 119–129 Carson T (1988) Perpetual peace: what Kant should have said. Soc Theory Pract 14(2):173–214 Cavallar G (1999) Kant and the theory and practice of international right. University of Wales Press, Cardiff Dodson KE (1993) Kant’s perpetual peace: universal civil society or league of states. Southwest Philos Stud 15:1–9 Doyle MW (1983) Kant, liberal legacies, and foreign affairs (Part 1 and 2). Philos Public Aff 11/12(3/4):205–235, 326–353 Habermas J (1997) Kant’s idea of perpetual peace, with the benefit of two hundred years’ hindsight. In: Bohman J, Lutz-Bachmann M (eds) Perpetual peace: essays on Kant’s cosmopolitan ideal. MIT, Cambridge, pp 113–153 Ho¨ffe O (2006) Kant’s cosmopolitan theory of law and peace (trans: Newton A). Cambridge University Press, New York Holtman SW (2004) Kantian justice and poverty relief. Kant Stud 1:86–106 Kant I (2006) Immanuel Kant: practical philosophy (ed and trans: Gregor MJ). Cambridge University Press, New York

K

613

Kleingeld P (2004) Approaching perpetual peace: Kant’s defence of a league of states and his ideal of a world federation. Eur J Philos 12(3):304–325 Maus I (2006) From nation-state to global state, or the decline of democracy. Constellations 13(4):465–484 Nagel Th (2005) The problem of global justice. Philos Public Aff 33(2):113–148 Pogge T (2009) Kant’s vision of a just world order. In: Hill TE (ed) The Blackwell guide to Kant’s ethics. Blackwell, Chichester, pp 196–208 Rawls J (1999) The laws of peoples. Harvard University Press, London Ripstein A (2009) Force and freedom: Kant’s legal and political philosophy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Varden H (2006) Kant and dependency relations: Kant on the state’s right to redistribute resources to protect the rights of dependents. Dialogue Can Philos Rev XLV:257–285 Varden H (forthcoming) A Kantian conception of global justice. Rev Int Stud Williams HL (2006) Back from the USSR: Kant, Kalingrad and world peace. Int Relat 20(1):27–48

Killing and Letting Die LYNETTE E. SIEGER Gallatin School, New York University, New York, NY, USA

The distinction between killing and letting die is an instance between doing or commissioning harm and allowing harm through the failure to act. Related to acts and omissions, the moral differentiation simply states that performing an act with the foreseeable negative consequence of death is morally worse than withholding aid in a situation where one could intervene to prevent the identical consequence from occurring. The distinction, as such, is anti-consequentialist, rejecting moral considerations of outcomes or ends in favor of focusing on processes or means. The doctrine of killing and letting die falls under the deontological – duty-based morality – and virtue ethic traditions. Circumstances of war, poverty, natural disaster, and the porous borders of environmental degradation push the question of the degree to which the distinction between killing and letting die is morally relevant in the arena of global justice. Discourse on killing and letting die begins with the theory of, or belief in, the right to life. Often recognized through formal domestic and international laws, such as Article 3 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR), the right to life is necessary to satisfy or generate all other human rights. Prior to or independent of actual laws or formal recognition, the right to life is primarily taken to be prima facie a moral right. Though

K

614

K

Killing and Letting Die

widely recognized, the right is not, by convention, absolute. By reference to the right to life, the presumption against killing is strong; however, exceptions are commonly made in instances of war – for which the tradition of just war theory developed – and self-defense. Further instances include the practice in some states of exacting the ultimate and irrevocable punishment of death against those who have violated laws of the state. Theoretical models on how and when exceptions on the right to life may be made vary from absolute pacifists, to utilitarians, to virtue ethicists, and to deontologists. It is against this background that the distinction between killing and letting die is both promoted and challenged as a moral doctrine. The doctrine of killing and letting die presumes that instances of killing are those in which an agent (1) intends and (2) directly acts toward the end of taking life. If one achieves the intended end of the action, that is one succeeds in taking a life, it is an instance of killing. The purchase, loading, aiming at a person, and firing of a gun, with the intention to and result of killing is a clear instance of killing. The principle of intent in the act of killing extends to theoretical models in which the prohibition against killing is desired to be less stringent, and morally permissible. Killing in war or performing abortions necessary to save the life of the mother (where abortion is considered killing, though the claim is contested) are such instances. The doctrine of double effect stems from this conception, allowing that where foreseeable negative and positive consequences will arise from an action, if the good is intended and the harm unintended, then the act is morally justified, so long as the foreseeable good is proportionate to the harm that is likely to occur. With exception to the doctrine of double effect and selfdefense, violating the prohibition against killing is morally indefensible. Acts of letting die, or omitting to act, are limited to instances in which the minimal conditions of (1) the agent possessing the means and talents necessary to act and (2) the agent having the opportunity to act are present. If an adult fails to provide medicines necessary to sustain the life of a parent due to her financial inability to purchase the medicines, then it is not an instance of letting die. Without the means to act, action is not an option; therefore, the failure to act is not a choice. Similarly, if a patient in Denmark requires immediate life-saving heart surgery, a cardiovascular surgeon in Canada has not allowed the patient to die by failing to perform the surgery. Though she is able or capable of performing the necessary assistance, the physical distance does not provide the Canadian surgeon with the opportunity to act and hence she is without choice or culpability in the situation.

Proponents of the distinction between killing and letting die view acts of letting die as morally neutral or as morally wrong but to a lesser degree than acts of killing. When comparing cases of killing and letting die, intuition may lead to the belief that the morally salient feature between the two is the difference between act and omission. It seems obvious that an agent who passes a stabbed victim, bleeding to death, on a walkway, and fails to offer aid or assistance does not carry the same moral culpability in the victim’s death as she who delivered the fatal blows. Likewise, it may be morally reprehensible to fail to provide medicines to people in poor countries, permitting hundreds of thousands of deaths; however, knowingly administering tainted medicines to the same people, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, is decidedly morally worse. Ethicists who oppose the doctrine of killing and letting die provide counter examples, pointing out that where intentions remain constant, the distinction between killing and letting die becomes morally irrelevant. The popular example is of a guardian intending to kill a dependent child, who then walks into witnessing the child’s accidental drowning. Having the ability and opportunity to save the child, with neither risk nor moral cost to the guardian, and yet withholding rescue with immoral intentions seems to render the guardian as morally culpable as if he had himself held the child down in water to drown. In the absence of malicious intent, if for example, the guardian without prior plan or desire to kill the child walked in on the child’s imminent death, and through indifference did not intervene, moral guilt would still seem to apply, even though the established conditions of intent and act are absent. Here the force of the utilitarian argument that the ends are what matter is asserted. Though hypothetical and real cases are alluded to in order to provide support to each side of the debate, normative issues must be included in order to understand the moral foundations of intuitive reactions to such cases and to gain conceptual clarity of the task at hand. Of paramount significance to the debate is the role of agents as potential actors. When weighing the morality of agents who let die, adding to the conditions of ability and opportunity to act, the element of moral or legal expectation and obligation might also provide valuable evaluative insight. On an individual level, agents often enter into roles, such as the role of parent, that assume the obligation of fulfilling primary duties to satisfy the rights of their child. As such, moral culpability may be reduced, if an agent fails to give discretionary money to a needy stranger where the money could have saved the stranger’s child’s life, from

Killing and Letting Die

starving to death. If, however, the same agent has entered into the role of parent, she cannot be morally abdicated for intentionally (meaning that the ability and opportunity for so doing are present) failing to feed her own child, resulting in death by starvation. If adopted roles are morally relevant, then the question arises over whether or not omissions can be causal. During the 1943 Bengal famine, Winston Churchill– Prime Minister of the United Kingdom which at the time included India as a colonial state failed to redistribute food resources, which could have been directed to starving Bengalis, resulting in millions of avoidable deaths. Later, when defending this failure, Churchill invoked the moral distinction between killing and letting die. In the normative realm of global justice, where roles are adopted by individual and institutional agents, to fulfill the rights of people over whom they govern, and with whom they enter into contractual arrangements with, the question arises over whether and to what degree the distinction ought to be allowed. In instances where letting die is the result of a dereliction of duty, the omission may be argued to be a causal omission. Because people reasonably rely on the expectation that the roles of political agents and institutions will be fulfilled where possible, when political agents and institutions fail to prevent foreseeable and avoidable death, their omission is directly linked as a cause of the negative consequences. This hardly settles the question of causal omission. It may be argued that without the occurrence of natural disaster, the shortcomings of governments or international institutions would not, on their own, have led to millions of famine-induced deaths. Likewise, if a doctor is negligent and fails to administer life-preserving medicines necessary to a patient, it may be argued that ultimately it is the disease and not the lack of treatment that has killed the patient. Given the possibility of multiple causes of any given harm, the task that remains is to systematize the moral ranking of primary, secondary, and so on, causes. In instances where conditions of poverty or illness are not the result of uncontrollable natural disaster, a set of unique moral principles outside of the distinction between killing and letting die may be applied to determine the moral worth of actors and actions. Such circumstances lead to what are here referred to as causal culpability. The focus of causal culpability or responsibility is centered on the claim that though there may be a relevant distinction between killing and letting die, where an agent has imposed or contributed to the occurrence of harm to another or others, the failure to rectify

K

harm that leads to death is an instance of killing, though direct action and intention do not factor in. Human rights discourse often invokes a distinction between positive and negative rights. Positive rights refer to aiding the individual in constructing a flourishing life and negative rights to the condition of non-interference with the security of one’s person against harm. Positive rights are a complex moral concept as questions of who is obligated to fulfill rights and entitlement claims is widely contested. Though confronted by emerging challenges that without securing positive rights, negative rights may prove hollow, it is widely accepted that negative duties to not harm are morally more stringent than positive duties to aid. Where harm is brought into existence, those who impose the harm hold a moral obligation to compensate for or reverse the harm. Such rectifications fall under the traditions of retributive and redistributive justice. Under this tradition, an agent of intentional or negligent harm becomes the primary holder of the duty to assist by their causal culpability. If causing harm is indeed morally relevant, then it could be argued that a corporation that knowingly dumps toxic waste in a region where political choice and voice of the people, who are impacted are limited or irrelevant to some national or international procedures, will be morally guilty of any ensuing deaths due to the toxic waste. The harms of toxic waste are foreseeable and avoidable, and though the act of dumping the waste is not done with the intention to kill, stringent negative duties to not harm have clearly been violated. Crucial human rights concerns are on the rise as human rights deprivations, up to and including death, are correlated to inequity within the global order where the interests of wealthy states win at the expense of poor states. Global economic transactions have historically allowed, and still continue to allow, the sacrifice of human lives in the interest of economic growth. Perpetuated practices of slavery and slave labor are obvious examples of this. Under such circumstances the question remains as to whether the distinction between killing and letting die is morally relevant. If it is a relevant distinction, can other factors such as the role of agents or causal culpability weigh into our moral judgments on killing and letting die?

Related Topics

▶ Double Effect, Doctrine of ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy ▶ Human Rights ▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq ▶ Retributive Justice

615

K

616

K

King, Martin Luther, Jr.

References Glover J (1979) Causing death and saving lives. Penguin Books, New York McMahan J (1993) Killing, letting die, and withdrawing aid. Ethics 103:250–279 Persson I (2004) Two act-omission paradoxes. New Series. Proc Aristotelian Soc 104:149–164 Steinbock B, Norcross A (eds) (1994) Killing and letting die. Fordham University Press, New York

King, Martin Luther, Jr. GREG MOSES Department of Philosophy, St. Edwards University, Austin, TX, USA

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in the family home on Auburn Ave. in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929, as the second child of Alberta and Rev. M.L. King. Alberta’s husband had taken up the duties of her father as pastor of the nearby Ebenezer Baptist Church, and her second son was destined to assume leadership of the congregation and community that had nurtured the family life. Along with his older sister, Christine, and his younger brother A.D., the young Martin King enjoyed the kind of security and prestige that would come with life in one of the leading families of Atlanta. He wrote and spoke of a childhood that was experienced with love and fullness. Biographers have followed up with portraits of a young man who was sociable and enjoyed friendly company. Of course, abrupt experiences of racism would occasionally break into the world that nurtured young Martin, as when a young white playmate reached an age when it was considered inappropriate for him to continue playing with Black friends, or when a policeman would utter rude indignities to the distinguished father in obvious earshot of the embarrassed son. In school, Martin advanced quickly through the famed Morehouse College of Atlanta University and traveled North for advanced study during the waning years of Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he formulated liberal beliefs about the meaning of Christian traditions in the modern world. Especially noteworthy for later developments would be the young seminarian’s unfootnoted interest in the lectures of Howard Thurman as they pertained to the significance of the life and work of Jesus. At Boston University, King was drawn to the wellknown Personalist movement, which held that ultimate reality was irreducibly personal in its metaphysical essence.

Apparently but for the death of that movement’s most prominent figure, Edgar Brightman, King would have taken Brightman as his dissertation director. The dissertation that King completed in 1955 was a standard liberal treatment of the compatibility between faith and science. Students of King’s worldview might also be reminded that he was also socializing with Thurman, who had recently been appointed Dean of the Boston University chapel. As King was completing dissertation work, he applied for and received appointment as pastor to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in the capitol district of Montgomery, Alabama. He settled at the pastor’s house with his newlywed partner in life, Coretta Scott, and they soon started a family that would grow to four children, Yolanda, Martin Luther III, Dexter Scott, and Bernice. The young pastor’s ambitions for social uplift could be seen in his congregational plans for youth development and social outreach as well as in his inquiries about the advisability of running for leadership of the local branch of the NAACP. Those ambitions were fulfilled upon the world-historical stage when King was elected to the presidency of the Montgomery Improvement Association at the time that the organization was quickly assembled in early December 1955 to coordinate a bus boycott called in the aftermath of the arrest of Rosa Parks. When King stepped to the podium on Monday evening, December 5, 1955, to deliver his first speech as a Civil Rights leader, an enthusiastic crowd of 10,000 found themselves cheered and inspired. The moment is important to consider because it established King as more of an organic spokesman and philosopher of the movement rather than its motive force. The fruitful relationship between King and the Civil Rights Movement would develop in profound and contradictory ways over the next 12 years until he would become on April 4, 1968 the movement’s most famous martyr. King’s public life may be briefly categorized into four periods, with the first period dedicated to leadership of the boycott in Montgomery. Journalist Lerone Bennett Jr. famously reported that King’s briefcase at the time carried a copy of Thurman’s 1948 lectures, Jesus and the Disinherited, which King had quoted in his 1949 seminary papers and had very likely discussed with Thurman during their acquaintance in Boston. In this crucial first year of public activism, King established a clear philosophy of nonviolent resistance guided by virtues of courage, forthrightness, and love. While the influence of Gandhi upon this worldview cannot be denied, neither should history neglect the profound work that had been undertaken by Black scholars of the American South to revivify the liberationist potentials of the Gospels.

King, Martin Luther, Jr.

After Montgomery, King entered into a second period of public life as he reorganized his work around his newfound power as a global celebrity and moral leader. In 1957 he released Stride Toward Freedom, the first of three movement books to address the significance and challenge of the Civil Rights Movement. He was constantly on tour as a speaker. In the South, he organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to advance the emerging form of activism and social uplift that had been manifest in Montgomery. In 1960, he was notoriously imprisoned on the basis of legal charges stemming from a traffic ticket; but swift intervention from the Kennedy brothers, John and Robert, cut the time served to little more than a day and is often cited by historians as the tipping point for the 1960 presidential election, which John Kennedy won by a slim margin. As this second period of King’s public life began with a “movement book” about Montgomery, so it is also marked by significant publications of his sermons: The Measure of Man (1959) and Strength to Love (1963). As the decade of the 1960s was ushered in by a social movement of sit-in demonstrations organized by Black college students across the country, King went to work on the development of more powerful expressions of nonviolent resistance. Thus, in the third period of his public life, King moved more actively to the forefront as a strategic leader of movements in Albany, Birmingham, and Selma. In each case, it will be important to remember that movement was already underway by local people; but this third period of King’s activism becomes interesting for the ways that King actively wields his independent influence. In the classic “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” of 1963, King sets forth a philosophy of nonviolent social change in the context of strategies and tactics that are being fully deployed to break the back of business district segregation. In Birmingham, children would help the movement achieve its Gandhian aim to “fill the jails” and thereby incapacitate the status quo from taking any more prisoners. In the Birmingham campaign also the full power of live television was deployed to thoroughly undermine public support for law and order as practiced by segregationist means. The case is more fully developed in King’s second movement book, Why We Can’t Wait (1964) which incorporates the jail letter as a chapter. After the Birmingham campaign is settled in 1963, King delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at a March on Washington for jobs and justice organized with the help of the legendary labor activist A. Philip Randolph, who introduces King as “the moral leader

K

of our nation.” In the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, President Lyndon Johnson helps to pass the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 which has since served as a legal foundation for many initiatives in American life, including the equal rights movement for women and the abolition of longstanding Chinese Exclusion Acts. King’s third period of public life comes to conclusion with the Selma campaign of 1965, which challenged the exclusion of Black voters in the American South. Once again, King asserted independent influence in the context of ongoing local resistance. On Bloody Sunday, television film crews captured ghastly images of policemen assaulting marchers who were attempting to cross the Edmund-Pettis Bridge out of Selma in order to lay their grievances at the steps of the state capitol at Montgomery. Perhaps the most famous victim that day was one of the young leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) John Lewis, who would recover and live out the legacy of federal Voting Rights legislation as a Congressman from Atlanta. In the fourth period of King’s public life, he sought to extend the success of nonviolent methods and philosophies in environments that were increasingly hostile. In 1966, King tried the methods of nonviolent resistance against issues involved with housing segregation in Chicago. But in the marches through white neighborhoods, the virulence of reaction against the fair housing movement was unnerving even by movement standards. In April 1967, King spoke out against the Vietnam War in a speech that analyzed American violence as a global system of materialism and exploitation. In 1967, King released the third and last of his movement books, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Unlike the first two movement books, this was not intended as a retrospective of a movement completed but as a call to a movement to come. King made plans to mount a Poor People’s Campaign in the heart of the capital of the United States and vowed to bring Washington D.C. to a standstill until the people were delivered a program of full employment and livable wages. Against the advice of several associates, King briefly gave his attention to the plight of garbage workers in Memphis during the spring of 1968. There, on the first anniversary of his Viet Nam speech, King was assassinated. A careful assessment of King’s contribution faces contradictory challenges organic to the history and issues that he confronted. For example, is global justice to be organized primarily as racial liberation or class struggle? In the actual struggles of Black workers in the American

617

K

618

K

Kukathas, Chandran

South, we may be tempted to analyze the struggle for “racial integration” as something separate and distinct from “economic democracy,” and therefore view the Civil Rights struggle as something apart from class contradictions, but the campaigns for “racial equality” were usually embedded in images and aspirations of labor. King’s own approach to analysis tended to be dialectical in the sense that many apparently separable moments of truth are eventually synthesized into the kinds of systematic complexities that do not precisely lend themselves to “race or class” dichotomies. In “A World House,” the final chapter of his last movement book, King spoke characteristically of three interconnected evils: racism, poverty, and war. Finally, King’s family heritage as pastor continues to pose challenges to perceptions of his status as an intellectual, activist, or philosopher. While there may be lasting objections to the role that faith played in King’s thinking, it will be difficult to mount informed objections based on the perceived religiosity of King until scholarship has more thoroughly evaluated the materials that are distinctive to the lived struggles of Black congregations in the South and the ways that their organic intellectuals were reworking the texts and traditions of the Gospels to meet the conceptual challenges of human aspiration along many dimensions of experience, including social, psychological, aesthetic, cultural, political, economic, and spiritual health. Setting aside the objections and contradictions that are reasonably expected to follow upon such a life of action and analysis, we may conclude by fairly observing that as a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, King never relinquished the duty to produce ever new experiments in the methods and philosophy of nonviolent resistance as means to global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Civil Disobedience, International ▶ Civil Rights ▶ Democratic Equality ▶ Economic Rights ▶ Equality ▶ Gandhi, Mahatma ▶ Group Rights ▶ Human Rights ▶ Justice and Religion: Christianity ▶ Legal Rights ▶ Liberation Theology ▶ Racism ▶ Rights ▶ Violence

References Ansbro JJ (1984) Martin Luther King, Jr.: the making of a mind. Orbis Books, Maryknoll Branch T (1989) Parting the waters: America in the King years 1954–63. Simon & Schuster, New York Carson C Sr (ed) (1992) The papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. University of California Press, Berkeley Carson C Sr (ed) (1998) The autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Warner Books, New York Dyson ME (2000) I may not get there with you: the true Martin Luther King, Jr. Touchstone, New York Friedly M, Gallen D (eds) (1993) Martin Luther King, Jr.: the FBI file. Carroll and Graf Publishers, New York Garrow D (2004) Bearing the cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Harper Perennial, New York, 1986 Moses G (1997) Revolution of conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the philosophy of nonviolence. Guilford Press, New York Walton H Jr (1971) The political philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Greenwood Press, Westport Washington JM (ed) (1990) A testament of hope: the essential writings and speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. HarperOne, New York

Kukathas, Chandran ANTHONY J. LANGLOIS School of International Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

Chandran Kukathas holds the chair in Political Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Before moving to this appointment he held the Neal Maxwell Chair in Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at the University of Utah, which in turn was preceded by positions at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, the Australian National University, and the Royal Military College, Canberra. Kukathas’ views on global justice are built upon his general political philosophy, a distinctive form of classical liberalism or libertarianism, which he articulates through the metaphor of “the liberal archipelago” – also the title of his recent major work on this topic (Kukathas 2003). Diversity and freedom are the key animating ideas within this approach, and they apply equally to Kukathas’ views on the concerns which are raised by our contemporary global political environment as they do to the question of political association within states. Kukathas’ application of his political theory leads him to the claim that global justice is a mirage (a claim which echoes his libertarian

Kukathas, Chandran

predecessor Friedrich Hayek’s views about social justice generally) (Kukathas 2006a). Justice is not, he says, a “worthy goal” to pursue in our efforts to establish international institutions – much preferring that our efforts with such institutions focus on the goal of limiting power, guided by the norm of mutual toleration. In what follows I will briefly sketch the broad lines of this position.

The Mirage of Global Justice In saying that justice should not be pursued globally – or within the nation state – Kukathas is discussing justice understood as the distribution of burdens and benefits: the question of distributive justice. A key part of the problem, from Kukathas’ viewpoint, is that the number of different theories of distributive justice is multiple – even within a society, let alone globally. No one theory is going to be accepted by all; any desire to be accommodating of diversity is going to rule out the ability to promote any given standard of social or distributive justice. In accord with his broader philosophical stance, Kukathas concludes that we should pursue freedom and diversity, rather than attempt the impossible task of pursing a single standard of justice, either at home or abroad. The global political order should be conceptualized in the same way as political order within a domestic state: as a network of jurisdictions, independent in nature, bound only by a commitment to mutual toleration. The major moral imperative in this picture is not the prosecution of global justice, but the avoidance of war – for which purpose international political institutions (such as the United Nations) may have some role to play. Kukathas commends the Westphalian model of international relations as the appropriate model for facilitating such a position – although not uncritically. He acknowledges that the Westphalian model empowers states to act with impunity within their boundaries; but this, he suggests, is much better than enabling the creation of greater authorities which have more power to abuse – many petty tyrants are preferred to a global Leviathan; decentralization on this view is more likely to serve the interests of diversity and freedom. The Westphalian model’s singular virtue was its capacity to establish and maintain peace in a context of deep religious disagreement; Kukathas argues that this model continues to be relevant to the kinds of deep disagreement which characterize our global political order. The description he offers of the resulting global order is of “. . .an archipelago of interdependent jurisdictions not subject to any common power, existing under norms of mutual toleration.” (Kukathas 2006a: 7). For Kukathas, there is no significant place for justice in this picture.

K

619

Why Justice Does Not Apply Globally The primary reason, then, that justice does not apply globally, is that people hold many and varied conceptions of justice – there simply is no one account of justice that can be applied globally. Kukathas identifies several important disputes. First, there is disagreement over the fundamental requirements of justice: what principles should one use to determine justice? At the populist level too, voters have a wide variety of ideas about justice, however consistently principled these may or may not be. Second, people differ over justice because they differ over questions of value – which they may do while agreeing on basic principles. Questions of value are further complicated by the contexts in which people make their judgments about questions of value. Third, different communities have different ideas about property: that which is being distributed is subject to different conceptions of ownership, use, possession, transfer, and so on. Fourth, more general ethical disagreements may affect questions of distributive justice. Kukathas provides a wide range of illustrations of these disputes, each of which drives home the futility of striving for global agreement on a single standard of social justice, whether nationally or globally. Kukathas’ secondary reason as to why justice does not apply globally is that its pursuit enhances the influence of dominant states and takes individuals and communities further away from the goal of self-rule. This argument also contains different strands. Establishing global institutions which are tasked to serve justice, in a context where there is wide disagreement regarding the nature of justice, will cause one of two consequences. Either “justice” will have to be largely evacuated of its content in order to secure agreement; or, the powerful will impose their own preferred version of justice. Kukathas thinks the likely outcome is some combination of these, with the end result that what emerges from the pursuit of global justice is instead the consolidation of rule by global elites. Kukathas drives home his point with a series of well-curated observations regarding the development of the International Criminal Court. A key observation about global institutions like the International Criminal Court is that they operate at a great distance from the people. This distance, combined with the point just discussed, undermines the capacity of communities to be truly self-governing – the hallmark of Lord Acton’s “True republicanism,” to which Kukathas appeals. All these considerations taken together lead Kukathas to the view that determining what justice requires and how to pursue this, as and when we create international institutions (to the extent we need to), is a mistaken goal; it is the wrong priority. Rather, our priority should be

K

620

K

Ku¨ng, Hans

determining how to limit the extent of the power which might be exerted through or by such global institutions as we deem it necessary to establish. For Kukathas, correct political action is about keeping power in check, not about trying to do good. Kukathas is then quick to show how it is that this position is in sharp contrast to much of the general literature on global justice. In particular, Kukathas argues, toleration must take precedence over justice; this view means that injustice must be tolerated. While this is hard for many to accept, for Kukathas it has the added benefit of forestalling the need to engage in – and perhaps be mired in – the complex philosophical maneuvers designed to navigate the fraught waters of international intervention in the service of justice that are the bread and butter of many international political theorists today. Indeed, much of the balance of the main work in which Kukathas engages with questions of global justice (understood as distributive justice) constitutes a critique of two prominent theorists of global justice, Allen Buchanan and Thomas Pogge. Neither of these authors would accept Kukathas’ characterization of the pursuit of global justice as an undesirable and counterproductive activity (see Langlois 2011).

Related Topics

▶ Buchanan, Allen ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ International Justice

▶ Liberalism ▶ Libertarianism ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Sovereignty

References Buchanan A (2004) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kukathas C (1989) Hayek and modern liberalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kukathas C (2003) The liberal archipelago. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kukathas C (2006) The mirage of global justice. Soc Philos Policy 23(1):1–28 Kukathas C (2006) The mirage of global justice. In: Ellen Frankel P (ed) Justice and global politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Kukathas C, Pettit P (1990) Rawls: a theory of justice and its critics. Polity Press/Stanford University Press, Stanford Langlois AJ (2011) Is global justice a mirage? Eur J Int Relat 17(1):145–157 Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights. Polity Press, Cambridge

Ku¨ng, Hans ▶ Global Ethic ▶ World Citizenship

Kyoto Protocol ▶ Climate Change ▶ Climate Justice ▶ Global Warming

L Labor TIMOTHY A. WEIDEL Department of Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

In its most basic sense, labor is the activity(s) in which human beings engage (either physically or mentally) in order to produce material objects or services which satisfy their needs. In order to survive, humans must labor to produce things such as food and shelter. Human beings can either: (1) labor directly to produce whatever satisfies their needs (such as a farmer producing beans), (2) produce commodities that can be exchanged for what they need, or (3) enter into relations of employment, whereby they exchange their labor for a wage, which they in turn use to purchase objects to satisfy their needs. Given the central importance of labor to human life, the issue of labor has come to be seen in recent years as a key aspect in issues of global justice, especially given the workings of the now-globalized economy. Throughout history, humans have viewed productive labor in a variety of ways. Looking back to Ancient Greek society, a great proportion of the physical labor was performed by slaves; the job of the upper class and aristocracy was not to produce the foodstuffs or goods for daily consumption, but rather to engage in political and social concerns. Thus labor was a task to be generally avoided or at least not sought out, depending upon one’s social status. Moving forward into the period of the Enlightenment, labor became the measure by which property could be accrued and value added to objects. As a basis for this view, John Locke provided what has come to be known as the “labor-mixing argument,” whereby the ownership of any produced commodity was a direct result of the labor that a person put into it. If a person tilled, sewed, and cultivated a plot of land (not already owned by someone else) to grow carrots, for example, the carrots produced would belong to them because their labor was “mixed” with the raw materials to produce the object.

With this shift (through Locke and the historical and technological developments of the Enlightenment), labor became immensely important to individuals, as it generated the justification for individual property rights. Locke’s argument led to the “labor theory of value” asserted by political economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, who were attempting to explain the new economic order of free-market capitalism, which exploded in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. On this view, the price of a commodity is determined (within the context of a free and competitive market) by the amount of labor that went into its production; this includes the labor that went into producing the raw materials, necessary tools, etc. Thus labor was emphasized as the key component (in terms of value) within the economic marketplace. But this labor theory of value had a subversive core, a critique of which was brought out forcefully by Karl Marx: if labor is the source of all value, why do the laborers get so little of the product, while the capitalist gets so much? In other words, why does the capitalist, who merely “supplies capital” (which is the embodied labor of other working people), earn anything at all? The labor theory of value was soon replaced by a “neoclassical” theory, altering the productive equation into one whereby the value of a commodity is determined by three factors of production, rather than just one: land, labor, and capital. Thus labor, while still central to both humans and the productive process, was recast in a different economic light. Contemporary society seems to view labor in a somewhat ambivalent sense. On the one hand, people often complain about having to spend a significant portion of their time engaged in labor activities. In the interest of trying to spend less time laboring (and thus more time in leisure activities), humans are constantly trying to invent and utilize labor-saving technology. Such innovations allow goods to be able to be produced faster and with less direct human labor. For instance, if a machine can produce ten shirts per hour with one laborer manning the controls, this increases the rate of production (leading eventually to greater profits) and/or reduces the amount of labor necessary to produce an individual commodity (leading to more time that can be spent on other pursuits).

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

622

L

Labor

At the same time, labor can be seen to have great value for human beings, in and of itself. Rather than being merely a necessary evil that should be avoided as much as possible, labor allows humans to give their life meaning through the utilization of their productive faculties. People for instance often construct their identities around the type of labor in which they are engaged. In addition, when individuals are instead forced to endure prolonged periods of unemployment they report feelings of listlessness and a lack of importance or meaning in their life. It is clear that not everyone can labor; children, the elderly, and the mentally and physically handicapped are oftentimes unable to engage in labor to meet their own needs. While this is true, other able-bodied individuals who can find no work and thus are forced to rely solely upon the labor of others to survive are being robbed of the humanizing feelings of being productive. In other words, some theorists argue that human identity requires a productive outlet through which one can relate to the world and other people in it. In terms of global justice, and more specifically within the context of global poverty and global development, many political and economic theorists argue that the issue of labor provides not only an explanation as to why rampant poverty exists, but also a means by which those in the poorest areas of the world can overcome their squalor. Some arguments focus on the problem of unemployment, where poor individuals are unable to find suitable employment that will allow them to meet their needs and help provide for their families. One example of this approach is the work of Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. Yunus argues that the key to eradicating poverty is putting poor people to work in productive industrial projects at small, local levels. In his personal life and travels, he found that many people in poverty were seeking avenues to labor and meet their needs, but traditional subsistence farming was becoming increasingly impractical, while cities were becoming overcrowded and offered only sweatshop employment. In addition, the prospects of these people setting up small businesses were drastically reduced as banks were particularly hesitant to provide them small start-up loans (as the loans offered little profit through interest, and the high risk of default). Believing that the poor would repay their loans given the chance, he worked to set up the Grameen Bank through which the poor could receive “micro-credit” loans which provided small loans for smaller-scale productive projects. Thus by focusing on micro-finance, Yunus and the Grameen Bank have put the concept of labor at the center of their attempt to combat poverty, and aided people (a large majority of which are women) in starting

endeavors which provide them with appropriate avenues to labor, obtain income, and provide for their families. Other arguments that engage the issue of labor focus upon the poor of the world, who in fact spend almost all of their lives toiling without rest, and yet have little to show for it. Poor subsistence farmers all over the world work their land to produce crops that do not fetch enough at market to feed their families. In urban areas, workers are crowded into sweatshops under vile working conditions which offer them mere pennies in wages. From an economic standpoint, some theorists argue that these realities are often a result of the economic policies of large non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Joseph Stiglitz, for instance, attacks the economic policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank and what he sees as their zeal for economic liberalization at the expense of concern for the citizens of developing countries. These organizations extend large loans to developing nations around the world, but require “structural adjustments” on the part of the recipients. These loans are to be used for infrastructure projects within the country, but they come with qualifiers: the country must open its economy to foreign competition and liberalize its trade markets. In Stiglitz’ view this rapid influx of foreign competition (and goods) destroys agricultural jobs for farmers before the developing country’s economy has grown to be able to provide other avenues of labor for displaced farmers. Viewing these concerns from a philosophical standpoint, Thomas Pogge agrees with Stiglitz’ claim that the actions of such large NGOs are playing an extremely detrimental role by actively impoverishing individuals in the developing world. In addition, he claims that western nations (such as the United States) have put in place economic policies that inappropriately prop up the labor of western producers while at the same time not allowing those in developing nations to reap the appropriate fruits of their labor. In the case of the United States, Pogge claims that by paying subsidies to farmers, large US producers are able to continue to operate regardless of market fluctuations; they are thus protected against low prices or higher costs of raw materials. On the other hand, small farmers in developing nations are totally unprotected; they work their land but cannot get enough at market for their goods because larger western producers are able to flood the market with cheap, subsidized foodstuffs and grains. Such conditions often force such farmers into a situation where they are enticed to grow crops for export, rather than crops that will feed their families. Other farmers end up forced out of business entirely, eradicating their source of employment and income. Thus their labor becomes

Labor

undervalued or their means to labor evaporates, and they are unable to make a living within the confines of the marketplace. Pogge recasts Stiglitz’ economic concerns within the framework of human rights: given these policies, individuals in western nations are part of a structure that is violating the rights of people in developing nations. In response, he invokes a negative human rights argument: rather than prescribing philanthropic actions, he argues that western citizens must cease acting/refrain from acting by stopping the protectionist measures in question. Because individuals in rich countries are beneficiaries of global trade policies that cause poverty through the undercutting or devaluing of others’ labor, Pogge claims that they have a negative duty (moral obligation) to help stop these actions. By stopping these protectionist policies, producers in developing nations are able to compete on equal footing within the global marketplace. In this way, they are no longer encumbered by western interests in their attempts to labor. Many critics of this approach argue that since the average western individual has little to no control over the economic policies that their country adopts, it is unrealistic to ascribe to them a moral duty to stop such policies. Others adopt a stance of “explanatory nationalism,” claiming that a country’s economic problems and any correlative human rights violations are a result of that country’s government, rather than external entities like the United States or policies of NGOs. Both critiques hold generally that any roadblocks to labor for people in developing countries are in no way the responsibility of individual western citizens (or western nations in some cases). Some views on global poverty and development that focus on labor (such as Yunus, Stiglitz, Pogge) function within the confines of a liberal or capitalist economic approach, insofar as they are working to increase the ability for poor individuals to participate in the marketplace and find ways to labor and provide for themselves. Other arguments take a more socialist tack, arguing that since labor is of fundamental importance to human beings, the character of labor under capitalism must necessarily be altered. Influenced by the early writings of Karl Marx as well as his seminal work Capital, such approaches argue that capitalism necessarily commodifies labor. On this view, the vast utilization of technology in production since the Industrial Revolution has relegated laborers to mere bits of machinery, exploited and alienated by being forced to sell their labor time to the capitalist in return for a wage. Hence, a fundamental structural economic change is necessary in order for labor to be appropriately valued.

L

One example of this type of alternative approach (although it is not overtly socialist in a political sense) comes from the work of E.F. Schumacher, who proposes a conceptual shift in society’s view of labor and technology. Much like Marx and his claim that labor is a need for human beings in and of itself, Schumacher argues that human beings need to feel productive; whatever it is that they spend their time doing must provide them with a sense of accomplishment and worth, rather than be viewed as an evil that must be endured to actually live their lives. He notes that humans have utilized technology to reduce the amount of direct human labor involved in production. Instead of this making great amount of leisure time available to all people, it has: (1) created large amounts of unemployment, since less necessary human labor means less humans must labor on a given task, and (2) turned much of the remaining human labor to meaningless drudgery, where humans simply push buttons and pull levers. Given the extreme importance of actual productive labor for humans, he argues that society should instead have as its goal increasing the current levels of human labor involved in production. Technology should be employed to make labor more meaningful and less onerous, not used to replace people by machines. Schumacher proposes what he calls Intermediate Technology, utilizing a level of technology that is in the best possible proportion to the labor needs of human beings in a given area. This isn’t an anti-technology attitude, but rather a claim that labor-saving technology actually robs the humans involved of appropriate labor. Instead, by using technology on smaller scales than is currently done, a greater number of humans will have an avenue for productive labor while not being forcing to engage in drudgery. Thus Schumacher’s proposal makes a significant distinction between “meaningful labor” and labor per se: the former involves using the creative faculties of the human intellect, while the latter can turn humans into mere parts of the machine in production. This distinction can be seen as a current running through other global justice approaches that focus on labor. The object is not to simply provide human beings with mere employment on the level of low-productive subsistence farming, sweatshops, or mindless machine manipulation, but rather to create avenues through which individuals can labor meaningfully and provide for the needs of themselves and their families. It is clear that labor is an important concern for human beings, and the promotion of any conception of global justice must address how policies and interventions affect the ability of individuals to be able to labor meaningfully to meet their needs.

623

L

624

L

Labor Laws

Related Topics

▶ Development Assistance ▶ Fair Trade ▶ Foreign Policy ▶ Free Trade ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Grameen Bank ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Organizations ▶ Locke, John ▶ Marx, Karl ▶ Negative Rights ▶ Pogge, Thomas

References Locke J (1690) Second treatise of government, with introduction by CB Macpherson. Hackett, Indianapolis, IN [1980, originally published in 1690] Marx K (1867) Capital, vol 1. International Publishers, New York [1967, originally published in 1867] Marx K (1932) Economic and philosophical manuscripts. In: Simon L (ed) Selected writings. Hackett, Indianapolis, IN, pp 54–97 [1994, originally published in 1932] Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights. Polity Press, Maldon, MA Schumacher EF (1973) Small is beautiful: economics as if people mattered. Harper & Row, New York Schumacher EF (1979) Good work. Harper & Row, New York Stiglitz J (2002) Globalization and its discontents. W.W. Norton, New York Yunus M (2003) Banker to the poor. PublicAffairs Press, New York

Labor Laws RAPHAEL PRAIS Government Legal Service, London, UK

Labor law regulates the conditions under which people work, and varies over time and place depending on the political and economic climate. It has a contractual aspect, but also aims to improve the position of workers beyond that which they can negotiate individually. The underlying question is why this is necessary. The classic answer is that there is an inherent inequality of bargaining power that prevents workers from negotiating fair terms and conditions. With globalization, the question of international labor law arises, both because of the plight of workers abroad, and because of the indirect effect of other countries’ labor law on one’s own country. Worker protections combine collective agreements and substantive individual employment rights. In the USA, the term “labor law” generally refers only to

collective bargaining; elsewhere the term refers to both aspects. Principal examples of substantive rights include: laws against unfair dismissal, minimum wage, and antidiscrimination laws. Collective action is the older form of protection, trade unions arising in much of Europe in the 1800s. Recent decades have seen a global decrease in unions’ power but there has been a corresponding expansion in substantive employment rights. The UK is an extreme example: until the 1970s the system was characterized as “collective laissez-faire”; law rarely interfered except to grant immunities to trade unions to strengthen their role in collective bargaining. France is notable for developing its regulatory system earlier, but Mexico’s was the first constitution, in 1917, to recognize labor rights. Neoliberal economists argue against these labor protections and contest the meaningfulness of the term “inequality of bargaining power,” arguing that the labor market, like any other, depends on supply and demand and thereby allocates resources efficiently. Fairness and inequality are irrelevant to this discourse. Broadly, there are two responses: (1) ethical – “free market” policies may, or may not, be efficient, but they ignore social justice; (2) economic – there are market failures and the labor market is not “perfectly competitive” as constraints on workers limit the sense to which the worker’s agreement can be said to be free. Other problems include: a belief shared by many economists that labor law harms the economy, and thus the welfare of workers, notably by increasing inflation and unemployment; collective rights can conflict with individual rights, such as of nonmembers’ or members’ who disagree with the union’s policies; the sharp distinction between the employed and the self-employed. Many of the issues behind labor law extend naturally to the global context. However, there are additional concerns. Forced labor, for example, remains an issue. Also, with globalization many goods and services can be outsourced to countries with lower standards, therefore domestic labor protections may be irrelevant without international norms. The most frequently cited reason for international labor law, evoked in the International Labour Organization’s constitution, is that one country’s failure to adopt humane labor standards is an obstacle for other countries, for countries might gain unfair advantage by not protecting workers. Collective bargaining has also come into conflict with international treaties. Recent European Union (EU) case law (Viking (C-438/05) and Laval (C-341/05)) has highlighted the need for a balancing of social rights, such

Land Ethic

as collective action, and economic freedoms, such as freedom of movement. Freedom of movement prevailed in these instances. This is controversial; arguably, it enables employers to benefit from weaker employment protections across the EU. The issues underlying labor law are intrinsically linked to complex practical and ideological global issues: “free trade” versus “fair trade,” contractual rights versus workers’ rights, and efficiency versus justice. Global justice remains a central yet debated issue in this context. The views expressed in this entry are the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Treasury Solicitor’s Department (part of the Government Legal Service).

Related Topics

▶ Economic Rights ▶ Equality ▶ European Union (EU) ▶ Fairness ▶ Fair Trade ▶ Free Trade ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Labor Standards ▶ International Law ▶ Labor ▶ Neoliberalism ▶ Rights

References Blanpain R et al (2007) The global workplace, international and comparative employment law: cases and materials. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Davidov G, Langille B (2006) Boundaries and frontiers of labour law. Hart, Oxford Davies ACL (2009) Perspectives on labour law, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Kahn-Freund O (1977) Labour and the law, 2nd edn. Stevens & Sons, London Langille B (2009) What is international labor law for? Law & Ethics of Human Rights 3(1):46 (Article 3)

Land Ethic KIRK ROBINSON Western Wildlife Conservancy, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

Global human justice cannot be achieved at the expense of the health of the natural environment on which humanity

L

625

depends. The demands of global human justice therefore require an ethic that recognizes our inescapable dependence upon Nature. One such ethic is Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic. Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) is widely known as the father of modern wildlife management and of the American wilderness system. An equally important but less widely appreciated part of his legacy is his concept of the Land Ethic, presented in A Sand County Almanac (SCA), published in 1949. The fundamental principle of the Land Ethic is that morally right actions are ones that tend to preserve the “integrity,” “stability,” and beauty of the biotic community, while morally wrong actions are ones having the opposite tendency (Leopold 1949). The concepts of integrity and stability as applied to ecosystems are specialized, scientific concepts, but essentially the idea is that an ecosystem possessing these properties will be resilient in the sense of being able to recover from a wide range of natural disturbances. The same will be a healthy ecosystem (Leopold 1949).

The Ethical Sequence In SCA, Leopold introduced the Land Ethic in a sequence of short essays. In the first of these essays, he chronicled the history of ethics to that time as dealing originally with relations between individuals, and later also with the relation between the individual and society. He then observed that as yet there had been no ethic dealing with the relation of human beings to the land, where “land” is construed broadly to include other species of life and ecosystems, or what he alternately refers to as the land organism. Such an ethic will require that the relation of people to land transcend mere economic considerations to entail obligations toward it (Leopold 1949). Leopold speculated that this extension of ethics is both an evolutionary possibility and an ecological necessity. By ecological necessity, he did not mean that this development is inevitable. He meant that it is a necessary development if ecosystems are to remain healthy and therefore resilient enough to withstand a range of disturbances and to support a vibrant biodiversity, including Homo sapiens. His view is that unless the land remains healthy, our own species, along with many others, will be imperiled. According to Leopold, the three phases of the ethical sequence can be described in both ecological and philosophical terms. He does not attempt to reduce one type of account to the other; nor does he even suggest that this is possible or desirable. Instead, he appears to believe that the ecological and the philosophical perspectives are two equally legitimate, reciprocal, and complementary ways of viewing ethics.

L

626

L

Land Ethic

For some philosophers this is apt to raise the “isought” problem of the apparently logically unbridgeable gap from “is” (sentences stating empirical facts) to “ought” (sentences stating what ought, or ought not, be done). No doubt some ecologists, on the other hand, and some philosophers too, would want to try to reduce all talk of quality (beauty, health, goodness) and of ethical imperatives (ought, ought not) to a strictly descriptive naturalistic account that eschews all such language. Leopold avoids both of these hang-ups. For him, healthy and beautiful land is land that has the properties of stability and integrity, and conversely; and he has no compunction about saying that we have an ethical obligation not to destroy land health.

Significance for Global Justice The Land Ethic is a paradigm of holistic thinking in which fact and value are viewed as inseparable ontological correlates. While there is no indication in his writings that Leopold thought about the implications of the Land Ethic for issues of global justice, it clearly has such implications because: (1) it concerns the land as such (including the waters, the air, and the biota), not just this or that specific place; (2) all land areas construed from an ecological and evolutionary perspective are interconnected to form one seamless biosphere; and (3) we live in an age of global commerce and tremendous technological power in which all land resources are subject to abusive exploitation on a vast scale. The interconnectedness of the biosphere is dramatically illustrated by the worldwide anthropogenic climate change currently underway, which threatens to irreparably damage the life support system of the planet on which humans and other extant species depend. Overfishing and pollution of oceans provide two more illustrations of this, massive deforestation through commercial harvesting and “slash-and-burn” agriculture two more. The global impact of human activity, and its tendency to produce injustice, is amply demonstrated by the fact that rich nations, as compared with poorer nations, consume disproportionately large quantities of land resources, producing equally disproportionate quantities of wealth for their citizens, at the cost of creating a commensurate amount of pollution and environmental destruction, which is in turn borne disproportionately by those who are neither the primary causes of it nor equal beneficiaries of the wealth that is generated. If humanity is to eventually rectify land abuse and global injustice, human beings will have to adopt the Land Ethic or something very much like it.

The Community Concept Central to the Land Ethic is the “community concept.” Leopold observed that the earlier two phases of the ethical sequence have in common the idea of membership in a community of interdependent parts, and that the Land Ethic is merely an extension of this idea in which the boundary of the community is enlarged to include soil, water, atmosphere, plants, and animals: collectively the land (Leopold 1949). Furthermore, Leopold thought it inconceivable that an ethical relation to land should exist without love, respect, and admiration for land, and a high regard for its value in the philosophic sense of value (Leopold 1949). He meant that land must not be conceived as possessing economic value only, but as something valuable in itself and therefore capable of generating ethical obligations for us in our relation to it. The idea is reminiscent of Immanuel Kant’s idea in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, published in 1785, that human beings, as beings capable of rational thought, ought therefore to treat one another with the dignity that rational beings merit. A salient difference is that Leopold broadens the range of philosophic values to include land. In order to understand Leopold, it is necessary first of all to see that taking an ethical stance toward land is not (or not only) to appreciate that our own individual interests, or even our species’ interests, will be best served thereby. The bare bones idea of an interdependence of parts can be taken to imply this much. More than this, to embrace the Land Ethic is to see land as possessing value in virtue of which it and its components are objects worthy of our love, respect, and admiration, such that we will be moved to protect and conserve it. We can call this value intrinsic value in contrast to instrumental value, or the kind of value that things have for us as means for acquiring what we want: animals and plants for food, metal for tools, gems for decoration, etc. What distinguishes intrinsic value from instrumental value is that it is good without being good for anything. For this very reason, it can generate ethical obligations.

The Land Organism and Ecological Conscience Leopold believed that people cannot feel ethically obligated to an abstraction, but only to something concrete – and better yet, to something that they are personally connected with (Leopold 1949). Consider water. We recognize the importance of not contaminating our drinking water with pollutants, but it would be odd, perhaps even nonsensical, to speak of water in general, or of the water

Land Ethic

molecule, as having intrinsic value or as being worthy of respect and love. Nor do we feel an ethical obligation toward water in general. Indeed, we hardly know what that would be. Now contrast water, considered abstractly, with a particular lake, river, or watershed that you are familiar with. These feelings and attitudes might now seem quite appropriate. Certainly one can love a lake that one lives near, recreates on, and fishes in, and that supplies culinary water to local residents and irrigation for crops. One might also love, admire, and respect a lake strictly for its natural properties and qualities: its physical beauty, biological richness, and ecological integrity. However, it is not clear that this is sufficient to take us beyond the realm of esthetic appreciation into the realm of ethical obligation. Something more is needed. Leopold believed that an ethic capable of supplementing and guiding our economic relation to land presupposes that we have a mental image or conception of land as a kind of organism or “biotic mechanism.” He believed that love, respect, and admiration for land naturally attach to a conception of land as an “organism,” thereby (hopefully) to generate an ecological conscience, a sense of obligation toward it, which he further believed to be necessary (and hopefully sufficient) for constraining behavior that would harm the land. Only given such a conception of land can obligations to it have meaning. Fulfillment of these obligations is conservation, which he views as a state of harmony between people and land analogous to harmony between friends. One cannot cherish a friendship by abusing a friend’s trust. Similarly, one cannot view land as an organism and at the same time love game species and hate predator species, or protect watersheds and waste rangelands (Leopold 1949).

Ecological and Ethical Knowledge A physician must have knowledge of the workings of a human being’s organs and systems, including their functions and interconnections, in order to skillfully practice the art and science of medicine. Similarly, in order for human beings to conceive of and respect the land as a kind of organism, and in order to tend to its health, a basic knowledge of the workings of its organs and systems is requisite. Thus, Leopold thinks it is a truism that as the ethical sphere expands to include the land community, its intellectual content must also expand. Implicit in this is the idea that empirical facts are not necessarily value neutral: They can have implications for what is ethically right and what is ethically wrong. Thus, ethical knowledge, including an appreciation of natural values, along with ecological understanding, will be requisite for realizing the Land Ethic.

L

627

Land Ethic Imperatives Leopold’s exposition of the Land Ethic grants even nonrational and non-sentient entities, such as the land organism, its soils, waters, ecosystems, and species, a kind of natural value that can generate ethical obligations toward them. Accordingly, the Land Ethic can be cast as a moral prescription in the idiom of Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative, namely: Act in such a way that you treat the land always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end (Kant 1785). Leopold does not attempt to derive any specific moral prescriptions from the Land Ethic. Nevertheless, certainly he would regard the purpose of the Endangered Species Act of the United States as such, since that purpose, stated within the Act itself, is to protect species and the ecosystems upon which they depend. He would also regard it as ethically imperative that nations work together to curtail carbon emissions and various kinds of pollution that the best science of the day predicts will injure the land, and that we seek humane and equitable ways of limiting and perhaps reducing the human population of Earth. The Land Ethic may not by itself prescribe that we strive for global human justice, but it, or something very much like it, will surely be a necessary adjunct to any ethic that does. Leopold was himself a hunter and a fisher, and nothing in the Land Ethic prescribes that people not hunt animals, catch fish, or gather wild fruit, etc. Indeed, such activities, done for the right reasons and in the right ways, are one means of establishing an intimate connection with land that can nourish love, respect, and admiration for it. What is important is that the land organism not be injured or damaged. Nevertheless, it is clear that love, respect, and admiration for the land organism are incompatible with wanton killing of animals. Killing an animal might not damage the land organism, but to kill it wantonly or for a trivial reason would nonetheless be a pointless destruction of something good, which Leopold would no doubt see as symptomatic of moral underdevelopment.

The Precautionary Principle As elsewhere in life, when it comes to applying the Land Ethic, foresight is poorer than hindsight. This is especially true given the complexity of the land organism, which Leopold viewed as the outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century. He also thought it a sign of ignorance for someone to ask concerning a plant or animal “What good is it?” In his view, if the land mechanism as a whole is good, it follows that all its components are also good, at least derivatively if not intrinsically, even if we do not understand their roles in the mechanism

L

628

L

Land Grab

(Leopold 1949). Accordingly, the Land Ethic prescription of paramount importance is a version of what is known as the precautionary principle, which can be stated as the imperative to conserve species and their habitats whatever else we do. It may not be immediately obvious to us what good a particular species is, but the destruction of species and their habitats can only damage the land organism and impoverish the human world.

Related Topics

▶ Biodiversity ▶ Climate Change ▶ Climate Justice ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Ecofeminism ▶ Environmental Protection ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Political Ecology ▶ Population Politics

References Kant E (1785) Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK Leopold A (1949) A sand county Almanac. Oxford University Press, New York Leopold A (1953) Round river. Oxford University Press, New York Light R, Rolston H (eds) (2003) Environmental ethics: an anthology. Blackwell, Malden Meine C (1991) Aldo Leopold: his life and work. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison

Land Grab ZENIA KISH Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University, New York, USA

The combined impact of the 2007–2008 world food crisis and the 2008 financial crisis have resulted in shifts worldwide in private investment, commodity markets, food production, and food security initiatives. One of the most significant aftereffects of these overlapping crises is a rapidly expanding agricultural land grab in which different parties are buying and leasing cultivable land across the Global South. Land acquisitions are made by nationstates fearful about future food insecurity, private investors and speculators seeking profit in a booming market,

and development institutions with various stakes in modernizing production and opening up agricultural markets. Since the rapid acceleration of land acquisitions in 2008, what is widely being called a new land grab may represent the largest shift in land ownership since the colonial era: this global development has seen the sale of many tens of millions of hectares at an estimated value of $20–30 billion, with land deals in countries from Brazil to Pakistan, Kenya to New Zealand. The World Bank estimates that in 2009 alone, 45 million hectares of agricultural land were leased or sold around the world – a tenfold increase over the previous year. The five largest investing countries are China, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, and at least two thirds of land deals have been in Africa. Land is acquired and developed by individual investors, private equity funds, investment banks, state companies and sovereign wealth funds, as well as development agencies such as the US government-funded Millennium Challenge Corporation and regional economic organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The land acquisitions are promoted by many governments, investors, and developers as mutually beneficial to both investing and leasing parties. Although the specific terms of agreement are generally not made public in such transactions, where they are publicly announced, they tend to be presented as shared-benefits models: leasers are able to acquire land and sometimes labor cheaply to mass produce crops for export, while leasees gain economic and infrastructural development as well as new sources of employment. In some land deals, leasers claim that they will increase local food production, in addition to farming for export. Critics, however, allege that the land acquisitions represent a new form of agro-imperialism in which foreign buyers are taking advantage of developing economies or vulnerable governance structures to acquire land cheaply, displace small farmers, and exploit local resources without, in most cases, any guaranteed direct gains for local populations. Investigations by media, UN organizations, and the World Bank reveal that the majority of land deals involve few if any actual land fees. In a majority of cases, selling states settle for expected gains in employment, infrastructure, and investment instead of land lease payments; these presumed derivative benefits, however, have in reality appeared unevenly or not at all. In some land proffering sites, local populations have protested what they consider to be a loss of sovereignty over their land and means of subsistence. International attention was first drawn to the rush on land in 2008 when popular protest erupted in Madagascar after thenpresident Marc Ravalomanana signed a 99-year lease

Land Grab

with South Korean conglomerate Daewoo for 1.3 million hectares of land, roughly half of the country’s arable land area, to grow corn for export to South Korea. The deal caused social discontent and contributed to widespread unrest that culminated in a coup in March, 2009, and the newly installed president immediately canceled the deal. Protests against farmland acquisitions have continued to take place in sites across the Global South, and the land grab is a central issue for food sovereignty activists. Land grabbing, along with fears of future food and water scarcity, has made food security an issue of international political urgency at the level of multilateral trade and protections as well as policy. At the same time, as some welcome the promise of job-generating infrastructural and agricultural projects, there is widespread concern that public unrest will grow where foreign land acquisitions adversely affect the livelihoods and food economies of local populations. A worldwide food price crisis generated by brisk inflation in 2007–2008 led to destabilizing riots in over 30 countries, and public anger at the rapid rise of staple commodity prices has been a tributary factor in fomenting the 2011 uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. Alongside largely urban residents protesting the effects of commodity inflation, farmers and pastoralists displaced by land acquisitions – without compensation in most documented cases – are demonstrating against land grabbing and the diversion of food crops to biofuel cultivation in many countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. There has been mounting pressure on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Bank to establish enforceable international regulation against land grabbing to protect and promote the right to food and self-determination of all peoples. There is currently no international regulation of foreign land acquisitions, and controversy surrounds the lack of reach and binding power of voluntary codes of conduct proposed by the World Bank and other organizations for investors buying and leasing agricultural land abroad. In response, some countries have begun instituting domestic restrictions on foreign land ownership. Argentina, where over 7% of the country is already under foreign ownership, has passed legislation limiting the amount of acreage that can be held by foreigners; Brazil, Uruguay, New Zealand, and Australia are also actively setting barriers to large-scale land buy-ups by foreign investors and developers. Some countries, by contrast, see foreign investment as an effective route to rapid development. Pakistan, for example, seeks an agricultural revolution and economic growth by courting extensive investment by water-scarce Gulf States, which spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year on farm imports. Pakistan is

L

attempting to build a trading bloc based on cooperation among Muslim countries that prioritizes sustainable food and water security for its members, and the Pakistani government is offering a state-funded special security force to protect investors’ land along with local labor pools and resources. Africa is attracting a significant majority of global agro-investments due to its relatively low cost of operations, flexible labor population, and investor expectations of a high return. In addition, Africa’s generally low land prices and national protections, the continent’s ample arable land and water – the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that half of the world’s land that will be made arable before 2030 is in Africa – are perceived to be severely underdeveloped and therefore offer a greater profit margin. Through the introduction of industrial, large-scale farming inputs and methods, crop yields and profits are expected to rapidly increase returns on investments. The market is already hot: agricultural land investments and food commodities have continued to chart attractive returns of up to 20–30% since the 2008 food inflation crisis, and optimistic observers predict that they could treble or quadruple in Africa with the introduction of industrial technologies and farming techniques. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the US Congress-funded Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and other development agencies and foundations are actively involved in facilitating the introduction of higher yield and genetically modified seeds, farming equipment, agrochemical inputs, and trade regulation reform across Africa with the goal of boosting the yield and international integration of agricultural markets. These conditions have led some commentators on the land grab to suggest that food is becoming “the new oil” as the effects of climate change, population growth, diversion of crops to biofuels, and other factors promise a new age of high food prices. These factors have contributed to the construction of Africa in much investment literature and media as a relatively unexploited new frontier for investment “alpha” – an investment for which the return is greater than the risk. Due to a lack of transparency concerning the terms of most land deals, many fear the land acquisitions represent a form of neoimperialism with potentially dire consequences for African populations, who are already the largest recipients of food aid in the world. This concern is amplified by the admission by some private investors that the continent’s purported under-productivity and “weak states” have made it a target for quick, low

629

L

630

L

Language and Politics

commitment returns as well as predatory speculation. Early reports suggest that a high percentage of land purchased in African countries lies fallow as investors sit on land to resell at a higher price in 3–5 years. In Senegal, for example, Oxfam found in 2011 that 88% of recently acquired farmland lies unutilized, leaving only 12% of investment properties agriculturally productive. Of those lands that are developed for crop production, most new agricultural projects are intended for export or biofuel crops, rather than local sale and consumption, increasing fears of local food insecurity and loss of sovereignty over land and food production. Critics and activists also emphasize that while this “new frontier of unexploited land” is represented by investors and even African governments as empty, much of it is already occupied and supports small-scale local farmers, fisherfolk, and pastoralists. In many countries, including Mali, Kenya, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Malawi, and others, protests and direct resistance have arisen in response to land acquisitions and the sometimes violent displacement of populations from their customary lands. Food sovereignty activists see the expansion of foreign land titles in Africa, especially Sub-Saharan, as threatening its people with exploitation, lack of local economic development, environmental degradation, food insecurity, and political destabilization. The social justice concerns raised by the global agricultural land grab are multiple and significant. The emergence of green capitalism – the late capitalist phase of expanding capital accumulation through the colonization of new spaces of profit to develop “green” market-driven solutions to the present conjuncture of finance, energy, and climate change crises – seeks to address food scarcity through land acquisition and intensified agricultural production across the Global South. In the majority of documented cases, the terms of these land deals are shrouded in secrecy, the speed and scale of changing land ownership confront little if any regulation, and the food security of local populations is rarely addressed. As part of a new bioeconomy taking shape under the direction of agribusiness, neoliberal development organizations, biotech, energy and chemical companies, and competing national food security initiatives, the right to food of peoples across the Global South and their access to the means of subsistence are increasingly subject to enclosure, commodification, and ecological degradation. These developments must be understood genealogically in relation to histories of imperial domination, racial capitalism, and primitive accumulation. They must also be seen for the novel forms of neoliberal governmentality, and the insinuation of market relations and practices of

finance into new spaces of bioreproduction that herald structural changes to the global food production chain. Because hunger and access to food is central to global movements for gender and sexual equality; land, water, and resource struggles; the transformation of natural forms into intellectual property; land rights; peoples’ right to self-determination, and other key issues of social and global justice, the land grab erupts within the reorganization of power, territory, and rights with potentially devastating effects on populations dependent on the land.

Related Topics

▶ Capitalism ▶ Food Sovereignty ▶ Imperialism ▶ Indigenous Rights to Land ▶ Population Politics ▶ Territorial Rights

References Magdoff F, Tokar B (eds) (2010) Agriculture and food in crisis: conflict, resistance, and renewal. Monthly Review Press, New York World Bank (2010) Rising global interest in farmland: can it yield sustainable and equitable benefits? The World Bank, Washington, DC www.Farmlandgrab.org

Language and Politics ROBERT P. ABELE Department of Humanities and Philosophy, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA, USA

Two contemporary philosophers stand out as having spent significant time on the subjects of language and politics: Noam Chomsky and Ju¨rgen Habermas. Both thinkers focus their social analyses on the structure of language and its place in normative theory, and on the issues of freedom, capitalism, state power, and Marxism. While both focus considerable attention on these same few topics, their understanding of each differs, at some points significantly. Chomsky views linguistic structure as biologically innate in humans (2004a: 128), and this in large measure not only is presupposed in linguistic performance, but actually makes such performance possible (1965: 8–9). Chomsky makes this claim even more radical by adding to it that morality is innate in humans in the same manner

Language and Politics

as is language (2004a: 210). This includes the “instinct for freedom” humans possess (2005: 155). Chomsky moves from here to assert a near-total rejection of an intrinsic connection between language and politics, calling such connections “accidental” and “tenuous” (2004a: 112–113). The reason for such weak connection between them is that he sees them as “logically distinct” subjects: it is human nature and human needs which result in our social systems, not the way we express those needs in language (2004a: 116). Because human nature is reduced to the instinct for freedom (2005: 104), Chomsky seeks a political structure that will enhance that singular basic human character trait. He finds it in Marxist anarchism (“voluntary socialism”), which is the only political position that frees people from exploitation and domination by putting all political power and ownership of production into the hands of the people through the formation of “organic communities. . .[i.e.] the workplace and the neighborhood” (2005: 181–29; 2003: 211–225). In that way, what Marx calls the “species character” of humans as “free, productive activity” can be fulfilled (2004a: 215). Anarchism is thus necessarily anticapitalist in that it “opposes the exploitation of man by man” (2005: 123). For Chomsky, the capitalist system has resulted in a dominance and control that has gone global, and is now in control of the worldwide economy. He sees the vast inequalities of wealth and power in the third world and now in the United States as a direct result of Western (and in particular, US) one-sided application of the ostensive rules of capitalism. This amounted to compulsory liberalization of the Southern hemisphere, while US capitalists themselves radically violate neoliberal principles by imposing market discipline on poorer countries while hiding under the skirt of what he calls “the nanny state” for their own protection by means of tariffs, etc. (2003: 272–4). Simultaneously they take incredibly large amounts of taxpayer subsidies for their alreadyprofitable operations and work to shrink the size of the state in terms of regulations on them, so that they may make their decisions about their own profit-pursuits with impunity. As Chomsky sees it, “that amounts to a very sharp attack on democracy,” since there is no accountability, and since the public arena in which such practices are scrutinized, and which is central to democracy, shrinks (2003: 279; 2005: 157–164). The only solution Chomsky sees to this is the complete dissolution of the system: only when all such systems are “placed under complete democratic control through direct participation by the workers” (2004a: 110) can justice be achieved (2005: 118, 212).

L

This conclusion directly implies that the state itself will have to be dissolved, since the state is not only complicit in economic injustices, but since its power is unparalleled in the world today (2004a: 253). Chomsky describes the state as “an illegitimate institution” which must ultimately be abolished for the good of the people (2005: 212). In its place, the anarchist Chomsky advocates “workers councils and federations” comprised of informed citizens participating directly in their governmental decisions (2004a: 222–2). Thus, for Chomsky, global justice becomes real in inverse proportion to the reach of government complexes: not global, but local. Ju¨rgen Habermas has the very same interests as does Chomsky, but his analysis is less radical and less activist than is Chomsky’s. First, concerning the structure of language, Habermas and Chomsky begin with full agreement concerning the Chomskian assumption that “linguistic grammar is represented on the part of the speaker by a corresponding mental grammar” (1976: 16–17). However, departing from Chomsky, Habermas argues that a rational reconstruction of the conceptual structure used in language need only assume that “grammatical theory represents the linguistic competence of the adult speaker.” Further, Habermas suggests expanding the notion of competence beyond language, to speech as well. In other words, instead of focusing on sentences, focus analysis on utterances (1976: 26). The importance of this move is difficult to overstate, since the political-social goal Habermas seeks is emancipation from domination, a goal embedded in the notion of truth, which is itself embedded in discourse. Second, where Chomsky believes that the normative structures of language are biologically innate in humans, Habermas maintains that normative structures are innate to language itself, and represent the conditions of communication. Even in normal communication (i.e., “communicative action”), we presume what Habermas calls “validity claims”; that is, claims that what is asserted in speech is cognitively testable. Thus, built into the claims we make is “an element of unconditionality,” the pretheoretical knowledge of the rule systems that underlie all symbolic expressions (1990a: 19, 32). Among these semi-transcendental arguments are the normative concerns implied in communicative action: truth (i.e., regarding the external world), rightness, and truthfulness (i.e., subjective world). When assumed validity claims are challenged, communication shifts from communicative action (universal pragmatics) to the level of discourse (argumentation theory). This is the level at which the better argument is determined, on the presupposition that participants to the discourse seek a rational consensus.

631

L

632

L

Language and Politics

This concern of Habermas for the normative structures of speech acts and of discourse is foundational for understanding his theory of morality (“practical discourse”), which follows along the same lines. First, for Habermas morality is inextricably tied to social structure. This means that there is no privileged observer capable of an “objectifying attitude” (1987, vol. 2; 1990: 297–298). Rather, all observations are linguistically and socially mediated. The impact this has on morality is significant, for it requires a reformulation of the Kantian categorical imperative in intersubjective terms: “All affected can accept the consequences and the side effects its general observance can be anticipated to have for the satisfaction of everyone’s interests. . .” (1990: 65). This examination of morality as socio-linguistic leads naturally enough to the connections between language, morality, and politics. Although in morality discourse ethics seeks universalization of norms, this is obviously not possible in a distinctly political scenario, where there are nongeneralizable interests involved. This requires a compromise between interests, which itself requires rational discourse to sort out competing particular interests. Thus, democracy is not to be defined by the type of structural organization that systems have, but by the “democratic formation of the will” (1975: 89). This means that the legitimation of democracy is consensual instead of organizational. He calls it “reconstructive legitimation,” and it is a matter of (rationally) legitimating a proposition that “Recommendation X is in the general (or public) interest” by reconstructing it in a justificatory system that allows an evaluation of the validity or invalidity of X in that system. Thus, where Chomsky holds the relationship between language and politics to be accidental and tenuous, for Habermas they are intricately intertwined with morality and consensual democracy. Whereas Chomsky’s relationship with Marx is tenuous (Chomsky approves of the “early Marx,” but never develops his position), Habermas embraces key aspects of Marx’s thought in order to reconstruct them for today. For example, in reformulating Marx’s historical materialism, Habermas will characterize it as a theory of social evolution instead of economic evolution, and then add to this the insights of Freud, Piaget, Kohlberg, and other social psychologists. This means that historical materialism, reconstructed, goes beyond an analysis of the contradictions of capitalist economy, and permits us to “capture the specifically human reproduction of life” (i.e., development of language; organization of social structures along kinship lines) that Marx’s historical materialism cannot (1976: 127–128, 134–135).

Regarding capitalism, Chomsky and Habermas begin once again from the same position: that there is a difference between economic development and human development. Habermas is concerned in particular that advanced capitalism is “crisis ridden” in the sense that economic crisis can only be averted by state intervention, and that science and military have paired up to shift the notion of surplus value from labor theory to what we today refer to as the military-industrial complex (1971: 100–104; 1975: 57). Habermas would agree with what Chomsky calls the protectionist aspect of capitalism; however, Habermas goes well beyond such assessment by maintaining that such state intervention resulted in the need for a new form of legitimation. This new form must maintain leeway for state intervention while working to secure and maintain the loyalty of the population (1971: 102–105). It is Habermas’s view that, because of its tendencies to crisis, late capitalism cannot continue in its present form. To overcome its underlying class contradictions, according to David Held, “would mean the adoption of a new principle of organization. Such a principle would involve a universalistic morality embedded in a system of participatory democracy” (1980: 295). Regarding the issue of state power, whereas Chomsky maintains that state power is “illegitimate” and that the only just response to it is anarchism (conjoined with “syndicalism”), Habermas presumes the legitimacy of the state as an institution and believes anarchism to be “utopian” and unworkable today, “given the regulatory and organizational needs of modern societies” (1998: 480). Justice in this context would mean re-legitimizing the state and reformulating capitalism, not abolishing them, as Chomsky advocates. We may conclude from this reflection that although Chomsky and Habermas begin from the same ideas about language and the need for justice in society, and while they have the same categorical interests, in each case Chomsky poses the more radical conclusion while Habermas is more analytical and reserved in his analysis. On the issue of justice, Chomsky is an activist and therefore wishes to avoid discussing justice in the abstract, while Habermas tends to be abstract in his analysis and not activistorientated. This is brought into sharp relief by recognition that, outside of his linguistic analysis, Chomsky denies he has any kind of “theory” at all. As a result, his analysis is decidedly empirical, in the sense of being fact oriented. These facts are consistently matched up with his “moral truism” requiring us to universalize our principles, and together these compose his complete methodology. Contrast this to Habermas, whose interest is in comprehensive

Language and Politics

analysis, with little interest in activism since his departure from the student movement in the late 1960s. Finally, Chomsky has little concern for global justice per se, while Habermas’s later writings are clearly directed toward it (e.g., The Postnational Constellation). But if capitalism, corporate control, and centralized power are to have their corrupting influences on democracy negated, as Chomsky and Habermas both advocate, their respective notions of justice will have to incorporate a more global view, not the least reason for which that capital is now global, as evidenced by such worldwide capital organizations as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the G-17, and other globalizing movements such as the North American Free Trade agreement (NAFTA) and the European Union, to name but a few movements in this direction. The problem for Chomsky is that he staunchly defends strictly localized governance while advocating a non-aggressive American foreign policy, but rejects working these notions out by universalizing his “moral truisms” into a multinational theory of justice, while Habermas takes the opposite approach and lends his intellectual acuity to developing a postnational order “in which the abstract principles of mutual recognition, collective will-formation, and popular sovereignty” could find a broader basis in the attitudes of the citizens of the world (2001: xii). Once again, we can see how Chomsky and Habermas begin on common ground – the evolutionary demise of the nation-state – and end up going in opposition directions. This might be the point at which other global justice theorists might engage both Habermas and Chomsky in order to offer other possibilities for a putatively postnational global configuration. After all, it is not a fait accompli that the traditional arrangement of nation-states will no longer be the primary institutional arrangements by and through which persons engage. Alistair MacIntyre and Michael Walzer, for instance, each maintain the nation as a primary group with a shared cultural membership and self-understanding, and each refers to global justice issues in and through the lens of group partiality. Consequently, for them, our primary duties will be to our fellow citizens first and foremost. Further, such duties are of a distinctive and primary kind, since our moral duties arise from our cultural group interrelationships (Walzer, 1983). Further disagreements with such viewpoints as Habermas and Chomsky defend would come from the Realpolitik camp, which would not only accuse these philosophers of being utopian in their embrace of a postnational world situation, but also as having ignored the critical importance of the role and nature of conflicts

L

between groups and states. Additionally, because democratic institutional structures presuppose common beliefs and shared histories, when these structures are absent, the postnational constellation cannot be sustained (Archibugi et al. 1998). John Rawls himself maintained the existence of the nation-state in his global justice perspective. In contrast to both Habermas and Chomsky, Rawls privileges independent states, going so far as to assert that a system of cooperating (but independent) states is the “realistic utopia” of just global arrangements (1999). Although he refers to just states in cooperation as “liberal peoples,” the liberal peoples still operate within the state model, something that both Habermas and Chomsky would reject as a viable and just future global institutional arrangement. On the other hand, if Chomsky and Habermas are correct that we are facing the end of the nation-state, combined with a globalized economy, it would seem that one must engage in globalizing philosophy, particularly as it concerns inequities that arise in this newly globalized sphere. However it is worked out, it would seem that such a global concern would be the logical completion of any philosophy of justice, itself necessitated by contemporary world movements and events in a postnational, postindustrial capitalist, post-9/11 world.

Related Topics

▶ Capitalism ▶ Chomsky, Noam ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Failed States ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ Marx, Karl ▶ Political Legitimacy ▶ Socialism

References Archibugi D (1998) Principles of cosmopolitan democracy. In: Archibugi D, Held D, Koehler M (eds) Re-imagining political community: studies in cosmopolitan democracy. Stanford University Press, Stanford, pp 198–228 Chomsky N (1965) Aspects of a theory of syntax. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Chomsky N (1967) The legitimacy of violence as a political act? Noam Chomsky debates with Hannah Arendt, Susan Sontag, et al. Downloadable from: www.chomky.info. Accessed 15 Dec 1967 Chomsky N (2003) Radical priorities. AK Press, Oakland Chomsky N (2004) Language and politics, Otero CP (ed). AK Press, Oakland Chomsky N (2004) On terrorism: Noam Chomsky interviewed by John Bolender. Jump Arts J, January 2004 Chomsky N (2005) Chomsky on anarchism. AK Press, Oakland

633

L

634

L

Laozi

Chomsky N (2006) Failed states. Metropolitan Books, New York Habermas J (1971a) Knowledge and human interests. Beacon, Boston Habermas J (1971b) Towards a rational society. Beacon, Boston Habermas J (1975) Legitimation crisis. Beacon, Boston Habermas J (1976) Communication and the evolution of society. Beacon, Boston Habermas J (1987) Theory of communicative action, vols 1 & 2. Beacon, Boston Habermas J (1990a) Moral consciousness and communicative action. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Habermas J (1990b) The philosophical discourse of modernity. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Habermas J (1998) Between facts and norms. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Habermas J (2001) The postnational constellation. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Held D (1980) Introduction to critical theory. University of California Press, Berkeley McCarthy T (1978) The critical theory of Ju¨rgen Habermas. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Peck J (ed) (1987) The Chomsky reader. Pantheon Books, New York Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Walzer M (1983) Spheres of justice. Basic Books, New York

Laozi BONGRAE SEOK Department of Humanities/Philosophy, Alvernia University, Reading, PA, USA

Laozi is known as the founder of Daoism (as a philosophical tradition) and the author of the DaoDeJing (the sacred book of the Way and the Virtue) written in the sixth century BCE, but his life is not well known. According to Shiji (the Book of History by Sima Quian), Laozi’s name is Li Er but he is also called Lao Dan. Several scholars today suspect that Laozi, Li Er, and Lao Dan are all different figures. In this article, Laozi is regarded as the author of the DaoDeJing and his thought, as reflected in the DaoDeJing, is discussed. The DaoDeJing is the book of the Way (Dao) and the virtue (De, the power and expression of the Way in the universe). Literally, Dao is a way or a path but it has a rich set of metaphorical meanings, both descriptive and prescriptive. On the descriptive side, it refers to the natural, constant (often cyclic), and even seemingly chaotic flow of change pervading in the universe. Everything is changing, not just at the surface but at the core of its existence. Dao is the natural path of this constant change. On the prescriptive side, Dao means the path we should take to achieve our goals without overdoing or overshooting, i.e., without interrupting the natural flow of the universe.

Like Heraclitus’s logos behind the constant flux, Dao is the governing principle behind the constant change of the universe. Dao, however, resists any rational definition or articulation; it is not captured and defined by limited resources of human language and thought. It is the all encompassing path and the foundation of the universe, something that is too vast to be pinned down or completely specified. Furthermore, Dao is too dynamic and too interactive to be defined and captured by logical thinking. For this reason, Dao cannot be named, defined, or specified. Rather, Dao is the dynamic, spontaneous, supportive, and accommodating foundation for everything in this universe. Due to this indefinite and infinite nature, Dao generates apparent paradoxes and contradictions but we should not try to correct or rectify them. Instead, we should follow Dao and harmonize its principles within us. Laozi’s political philosophy derives naturally from the open and accommodating nature of Dao. Like Dao, a good leader does not impose rules and regulations to take charge of the followers. She practices wuwei (nonaction, effortless action, or nonintentional action) and always places herself below others. Laozi compares good leadership with emptiness (the noninvasive and accommodating stance to invite even opposite positions) such as the emptiness in the hub of a wheel. The empty space at the center of a wheel exerts its influence on other parts of the wheel not because it has the power to subdue and control them but because it serves and invites them by emptying (lowering) itself. Therefore, a good leader is a shadowy figure and leaves no tracks, but draws people and accommodates them by emptying and lowering herself. In the same context, Laozi’s political philosophy takes a minimalist stance. Since the small and gentle are stronger than the big and strong, Laozi recommends minimum taxation, regulation, and control, along with the frugal and humble way of accomplishing leadership goals. Any type of excessive or extravagant campaigns and policies move a state away from its natural path. The best Daoist government is, therefore, small and noninvasive. The small government, however, is not a laissez-faire government that Adam Smith optimistically sketched. It does not adopt the system of individual freedom and innovation where free individuals’ self-interested innovations contribute to the overall well-being of the society. Instead, the overall picture of Daoist society is very similar to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s state of nature where humans (sometimes referred to as noble savages) live natural, free, and peaceful life. Even the notion of justice (the principles regarding the distribution of social resources and the rules of restorative measures) is foreign to the people in this

Law of Peoples

original state of nature. As complex social systems are developed, however, these natural humans abandon the simplicity and self sufficiency of the natural life to live in the artificial and conventional relations that require ever complicated regulation and control. From the perspective of Daoist natural state, the social contract or the governmental structure is a necessary evil, and the discussion of social justice is the sign of moral failure. However, the general characteristics of Daoist justice can be sketched. In a state with a minimalist government, basic material well-being is provided to its citizens. Probably, the need based distribution of social resources is the ideal form of Daoist distributive justice. Since people in a Daoist state do not work for more but for contentment, they work as much as they can but receive as much as they need for their simple, frugal, and natural life. In the restorative or corrective side, Daoist justice is regarded as the process of restoring natural human relations. Crime is the violation of the natural order, the trespassing of the natural boundary of human relations. As a way to regain the balance, damaged relations and properties should be restored to their original and natural states. That is, distorted and twisted ways of human living should be restored to the original way (Dao). But the restoration process itself should be natural (i.e., should not violate the original way), because strict legal intervention and heavy punishment create more conflicts and distortions than they promote genuine peace and justice. In part, the origin of injustice lies not in the mind and the behavior of people but in the poorly designed system of justice that does not follow the natural flow of human behavior. For this reason, Daoist justice does not recommend extreme forms of retributivism, such as the negative reciprocity, i.e., repaying evil with evil. Because more laws and criminal charges make more criminals, any introduction and enforcement of laws should be carefully considered. Once the law and order are broken and the respect of human life disappears, even the capital punishment is not effective: people are no longer afraid of death. It is, therefore, wrong to believe that punishment can change the way people behave and restore the rightness. For a just and peaceful society, guiding people to the right path, not to violate the natural flow of interpersonal transaction and not to trespass the boundary of the natural human relations is essential. Ultimately, human relations and social order should follow the natural progression of the universe such as the cyclic movement and the natural balance of yin and yang. Whether distributive or restorative, Daoist justice reflects the cosmic balance and harmony, not the conventional social justice maintained by laws and contracts.

L

635

In an ideal Daoist state, peace is naturally achieved, serious punishment is absent, life is worry free, and the people rarely interested in politics; they don’t even know who their rulers are. The society achieves self sufficiency without using excessive technology and extravagant cultural and intellectual activities. Daoists believe that knowing too much and doing too much make life difficult. The main objectives of Daoist justice, therefore, are to secure the basic material well-being of people, to maintain peace, and to support the worry free, plain, simple, natural, and spontaneous life that follows the natural path of the universe. All this seems to be the ideal recipe for sustainability and harmony. In today’s world marked by excess, waste, greed, and confrontation, these serene and sublime Daoist ideas contain a great potential for restoring the health of the planet.

Related Topics

▶ Reciprocity ▶ Retribution ▶ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

References Alan CKL (1991) Two visions of the way: a study of the Wang Pi and the Ho-shang Kung commentaries on the Lao-Tzu. SUNY Press, Albany Ames R, Hall D (2003) Daodejing – making this life significant – a philosophical translation. Ballantine Books, New York Bokenkamp SR (1997) Early Daoist scriptures. University of California Press, Berkeley Csikszentmihalyi M, Ivanhoe PJ (eds) (1999) Religious and philosophical aspects of the Laozi. SUNY Press, Albany Hansen C (1992) A Daoist theory of Chinese thought. Oxford University Press, New York Ivanhoe PJ (2002) The Daodejing of Laozi. Seven Bridges Press, New York Kohn L, LaFargue M (eds) (1998) Lao-Tzu and the Tao-Te-Ching. SUNY Press, Albany Kohn L, Roth HD (2002) Daoist identity: history, lineage, and ritual. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu Moeller H-G (2006) The philosophy of the DaoDeJing. Columbia University Press, New York Slingerland E (2003) Effortless action: Wu-wei as conceptual metaphor and spiritual ideal in early China. Oxford University Press, New York

Law of Peoples ALYSSA R. BERNSTEIN Department of Philosophy, Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA

In The Law of Peoples, John Rawls (1999) establishes a theoretical framework for developing the content of the

L

636

L

Law of Peoples

basic principles and norms of a reasonably just international order, and uses it to argue for limited state sovereignty, universal basic human rights, and an international duty of assistance. Noting that international law has tended, since World War II, both to limit a state’s right to wage war and to restrict a state’s right of internal sovereignty, Rawls says that one of his aims is to give these two basic changes in international law a suitable rationale. Holding that it is in some cases permissible for states to exert international pressure or force to defend human rights, Rawls aims also to determine a meaning for the term “human rights” that is clear and appropriate for international law. Further, Rawls aims to establish the principle that well-ordered societies have a duty to assist “burdened” societies, which are unable to secure the basic human rights of their populations, by showing that this duty is grounded in the social-contract idea of justice that grounds both justice as fairness (JF), the conception of social justice Rawls presents in ATheory of Justice (TJ), and the Law of Peoples, the conception of international justice he presents in an article (Rawls 1993) and a book (Rawls 1999), both titled by the name of the conception. Rawls’s overarching goal is, in his own words, a world in which ethnic hatreds leading to nationalistic wars will have ceased. Such a world is compatible with cultural diversity and the self-determination of peoples, he believes, if divisive hostilities can be tamed by a Society of well-ordered Peoples adhering to the Law of Peoples. Rawls undertakes, he says, to follow Immanuel Kant’s lead, as sketched in his Toward Perpetual Peace (1795). By addressing three questions that are of pressing interest in our own historical period, which reveal respects in which Kant’s view is unclear or otherwise unsatisfactory, Rawls brings up to date in certain important respects Kant’s plan for bringing the world closer to a condition of perpetual peace. The three questions are: (1) Is humanitarian military intervention always morally impermissible, and if not, what kind of moral justification for it could be acceptable to all states pursuing a peaceful and just global order? (2) What are the basic human rights that may permissibly be secured by international uses of force or pressure by state governments and should be recognized as such rights in international law? (3) Given the diversity of the world’s religions and cultures, on what principles can a peaceful and just global order reasonably be based? According to Rawls, international peace can be justly attained if his Law of Peoples, a reasonable conception of justice applicable to international law and practice, can be endorsed and adopted by all (or nearly all) nonexpansionist societies that meet certain criteria of minimal domestic social justice, which he calls “the criteria of

decency,” and if these societies, which he calls “peoples,” follow the Law of Peoples, thus forming the Society of well-ordered Peoples. (For explanations of these terms, see the entry on ▶ Second Original Position in this encyclopedia). Formulating a reasonable law of peoples is a necessary step toward the creation of such a society of peoples. It is also a necessary step toward settling certain controversies about state sovereignty and the international enforceability of human rights. Rawls argues that, for purposes of formulating, interpreting, and implementing a reasonable law of peoples, the idea of a state that has traditionally figured in the principles of international law should be replaced by the idea of a people. Rawls uses the term “a state” in the same way as do many political scientists, especially international-relations theorists: As a descriptive term referring to a rational, self-interested collective agent that mainly aims to acquire and retain military, economic, and diplomatic power over other states. He uses the term “a people” as a technical term, assigning it a meaning that is not merely descriptive but also morally normative: A people is a politically organized society satisfying certain moral criteria, the criteria of decency, which include respecting certain basic human rights. Rawls argues both that states’ long-standing legal rights regarding war and internal sovereignty ought to be modified, and that only peoples are entitled to all the rights of states. (For the argument, see the entry on ▶ Second Original Position in this encyclopedia). Rawls proposes eight principles as specifying the fundamental rights and duties of peoples. (The principles are listed in the entry Rawls, John in this encyclopedia). This list of principles is incomplete and requires interpretation, he emphasizes. He contends that the eight principles, if interpreted in a certain way, are fair to all peoples and that parties representing them behind a veil of ignorance in an original position would have no reason to reject them (see the entry on ▶ Second Original Position in this encyclopedia). He further argues that these principles, together with his criteria for a decent society and his list of basic human rights, provide appropriate content for the foundation charter of a reasonably just system of international law. (For arguments supporting the criteria and the list, see Bernstein 2006, 2007). Rawls focuses mainly on the question of the basis of legal equality among peoples (his answer to which involves the criteria of decency), as well as on the limits of peoples’ rights and the grounds of universal basic human rights and the duty of assistance; he does not go on to develop the principles specifically applicable to the particular forms of international political and/or economic cooperation that peoples or their

Law of Peoples

members might undertake within the international legal framework established by the Law of Peoples. Rawls says that a just international order requires principles for forming and regulating federations or associations of peoples, and also standards of fairness for trade and other cooperative practices, but he leaves to others the tasks of developing such principles and standards, having provided a theoretical framework for doing so. His focus is on human rights and the fundamental principles of international justice. Rawls argues for including among the basic norms and principles of international law certain basic human rights: a proper subset of the basic rights of citizens of liberal democracies. The idea of human rights is used by political leaders and policymakers in their practical reasoning about using diplomatic, economic, or military pressure or force internationally. Therefore, in Rawls’s view, the requirements of what he calls “public justification” apply to the specification of human rights for purposes of international lawmaking as well as the foreign policy of liberal peoples. Rawls argues that the international legal order should recognize the basic moral equality of every individual human person by securing for everyone all of the basic human rights that can be adequately justified as such rights by “public reason.” (For explanation of the terms “public reason” and “public justification,” see the entries on ▶ Public Reason and on ▶ Political Liberalism in this encyclopedia as well as Rawls 2001 and Bernstein 2007). Rawls formulates a short list of human rights that meet this condition by avoiding reliance on the distinctively liberal political conception of the person as free and equal citizen (see the entry on ▶ Second Original Position in this encyclopedia). He notes that the list is incomplete and requires interpretation. It includes rights to life, liberty, property, and formal equality. Life includes security and the means of subsistence, which Rawls interprets as including minimal economic security. Liberty includes not only freedom from slavery, serfdom, and forced occupation, but also a measure of liberty of conscience sufficient to ensure freedom of religion and thought. Property includes personal property, but not the right to private property in natural resources and means of production (Rawls 2001). Formal equality includes the requirement that similar cases be treated similarly by the legal system. The function of this preliminary list is mainly to indicate that, although the list of human rights appropriate for a reasonable law of peoples would largely agree with classic bills of rights, not all of the rights listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) may permissibly be enforced internationally for moral reasons (reasons of justice) that are independent of

L

official commitments to secure the rights, since not all of the UDHR’s rights can be included in a political conception of human rights justifiable by public reason (Bernstein 2006, 2007, 2008). The duty of assistance is an implication of the ideal conception of the Society of Peoples based on the Law of Peoples: The realization of this ideal requires that basic human needs be met and that human rights be recognized and secured everywhere, as Rawls says in The Law of Peoples (Rawls 1993). In this article, he proposes only seven principles; in The Law of Peoples (Rawls 1999), he adds the eighth principle, which states the duty of assistance, noting that it is more controversial than the other seven. He also clarifies “basic needs,” saying that he means roughly the needs that must be met if persons are to be in a position to take advantage of their rights, liberties, and opportunities; he emphasizes that these needs include economic means. The aim of the duty of assistance is to help burdened societies to become able to manage their own affairs, to become well ordered according to their own common-good conception of justice, and to become members of the Society of Peoples. Charles Beitz, writing in 1979 (before Rawls had published anything about the duty of assistance), criticized Rawls’s brief remarks about international justice in TJ and argued that famine, environmental deterioration, and increasingly large international economic inequalities made the question of global distributive justice urgently important. Beitz contended that, in view of economic globalization and the increasing similarities between domestic and international institutions and practices, the two principles of JF, for which Rawls argued in TJ, should not be limited to domestic societal institutions and practices but instead should apply globally. (The two principles of JF are stated in the entry on Original Position in this encyclopedia.) Thomas Pogge, writing in 1989 and subsequently, as well as other cosmopolitan theorists, have similarly argued that Rawls should have developed principles of justice for the world as a whole, using a global original position: The parties in the original position should represent all of the individual persons in the world, instead of representing only persons who are citizens of the same society (see the entry on ▶ Original Position in this encyclopedia). Such an original position would, they argue, yield analogs of the two principles of JF, which would apply globally. The first global principle would require either a liberal-democratic world state or a worldwide international order of liberal-democratic states, or else some other political order compatible with universal human rights construed as including all of the basic rights of citizens of liberal democracies. The second

637

L

638

L

Law of Peoples

global principle would require worldwide equality of opportunity for everyone, and would also require that the global economy satisfy the difference principle. (For discussion of how to construe universal human rights, see the entry on ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism as well as Bernstein 2006, 2008; for discussion of global equality of opportunity, see the entry on ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism in this encyclopedia). Most cosmopolitan advocates of a global original position have argued mainly for a global difference principle. In order to assess their arguments, it is necessary first to study Rawls’s argument for the two principles of JF (see the entry on ▶ Original Position in this encyclopedia; Rawls 2001; Freeman 2007). Rawls’s ideas of social cooperation and pure procedural justice play particularly important and relevant roles in his argument. Rawls proposes the two principles of JF for the role of moral standards for assessing a democratic society’s basic structure of institutions, including the economic system’s ways of distributing rights to income and wealth through the laws concerning property, contracts, and commerce, and the institutions governing production, consumption, and exchange. The economic system is structured and regulated by the political and legal system (the political constitution and the legal system it structures and regulates). Thus, economic cooperation among the citizens of a democratic society involves political cooperation. Rawls says that his first principle, which applies to the constitution, establishes a secure common status of equal citizenship and realizes political justice. He says that his second principle, which applies to the design of the institutions that can generate social and economic inequalities, requires that social and economic policies be aimed at maximizing the long-term expectations of the least advantaged under conditions of fair equality of opportunity, subject to the equal liberties being maintained. Within a justly designed basic structure, the distribution of goods to particular individuals is a matter of “pure procedural justice”; it is not a matter of allocative justice, which applies when a given set of goods is to be divided among particular persons who have no prior claims on the things to be distributed. Within a system of pure procedural justice, the public system of rules governs what is produced, in what quantities, and by what means, as well as who has legitimate claims to what goods. Since the distribution of goods results from the honoring of legitimate claims, the system of rules determines the distribution. According to Rawls, in a democratic society with a basic structure designed to meet the requirements of the two principles, all citizens would be in a position to manage their own affairs on a footing of a suitable degree

of social and economic equality. The society would be a fair system of social cooperation in which persons who are both reasonable and rational can willingly take part. (For explanation of Rawls’s use of “reasonable” and “rational,” see the entries on ▶ Original Position and ▶ Second Original Position in this encyclopedia as well as Rawls 2001 and Freeman 2007). Rawls’s cosmopolitan critics have argued not only that global economic interdependence and international inequalities require a global principle of distributive justice (either a globalized difference principle or some other principle), but also that Rawls’s own views about the moral arbitrariness of natural talents and inherited social class, his moral individualism, and his egalitarianism should have led him to see both that the original position should be set up with parties representing all of the world’s individual persons, and that the parties should not know the nationality or citizenship status (or lack thereof) of the persons they represent (see the entry on ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism in this encyclopedia). Many rebuttals to such arguments have been published, including the following. There is no world state, and therefore at the global level there is no basic structure of the kind to which Rawls’s difference principle applies and no political agent with authority to apply a global difference principle; therefore, there is little practical point to advocating a global difference principle (Freeman 2006; Reidy 2007). Rawls’s arguments for the domestic difference principle are structured by the question he undertakes to answer in JF, which is a question about political justice in a democratic society. Given the absence of a democratic world state, Rawls’s arguments for his difference principle cannot be used to argue for a global difference principle. (Freeman 2006; Reidy 2007, and the entry on Original Position in this encyclopedia). To advocate a global difference principle despite the absence (and, some argue, the impossibility) of a global basic structure of the relevant kind is to misconstrue his difference principle: It is not a principle of allocative justice applicable to the global or domestic economic product; instead, its role is to guide assessment and (re-) design of basic economic institutions within a framework of democratic government (Freeman 2006). Moreover, although redress is one of the elements in Rawls’s conception of justice, his difference principle is not the principle of redress, as he says explicitly (Rawls 1971). Further, to argue that Rawls’s own egalitarianism requires a global difference principle is either to misconstrue his egalitarianism, or to embrace an egalitarianism that he explicitly rejects, or both. (On egalitarianism in general, see the entry on ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism in this encyclopedia;

League of Nations

on luck egalitarianism, see the entry on ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism in this encyclopedia). The rebuttals summarized above supplement Rawls’s own. In The Law of Peoples (Rawls 1993) Rawls replies to Beitz’s argument for a resource redistribution principle, saying that although he shares Beitz’s goals (meeting basic needs, securing human rights, and just institutions), a globalized liberal principle of distributive justice is neither necessary nor likely to be effective for achieving these goals; on the other hand, the duty of assistance is more likely to be an effective means for achieving the same goals, and it is more appropriate for a reasonable law of peoples since it can be justified in a way that meets the requirements of public reason. In The Law of Peoples (Rawls 1999), Rawls distinguishes two principles of distributive justice proposed by Beitz – a resource redistribution principle for the case of production by autarkic (economically self-sufficient) states, and a global distribution principle for the case of non-autarkic production – and discusses the latter; he also discusses Pogge’s proposed egalitarian principle with its Global Resources Dividend, which Rawls regards as similar to, and perhaps a particular form of, Beitz’s principle for the case of non-autarkic production. Replying to both Beitz and Pogge, Rawls argues that while he shares their goals of meeting basic needs, securing human rights, and establishing the conditions necessary for achieving just institutions, he believes the duty of assistance is a better means of attaining these goals. The duty of assistance would be fully satisfied, and no further international assistance would be required, once all burdened societies had become able to determine for themselves the path of their own future and to be full members of the Society of Peoples. Rawls reasons that if a global principle of distributive justice would operate differently from the duty of assistance, and would not cease to apply once those goals were achieved, then its rationale must not derive solely from the requirements of justice (securing basic human needs, human rights, the conditions necessary for just domestic institutions, and the political autonomy of all decent peoples). Its rationale must derive at least partly from some other view, such as, that equality is a good in itself and inequalities are always unjust, which Rawls denies; or the view that some goal other than justice, e.g., raising the standard of living or increasing the wealth or well-being of individuals beyond what justice requires, should guide international lawmaking and liberal foreign policy, which Rawls also denies (Rawls 1999). What Rawls considers of ultimate importance is justice. His concern in the Law of Peoples is, in his own words, the justice and stability (for the right

L

639

reasons) of liberal and decent societies, living as members of a Society of well-ordered Peoples.

Related Topics

▶ Contractarianism ▶ Global Difference Principle ▶ Global Justice ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism ▶ Original Position ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism ▶ Political Liberalism ▶ Public Reason ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Second Original Position ▶ Social Contract

References Beitz C (1979/1999) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Bernstein A (2006) A human right to democracy? Legitimacy and intervention. In: Martin R, Reidy D (eds) Rawls’s law of peoples: a realistic utopia? Basic Books, New York, pp 278–298 Bernstein A (2007) Justifying universal human rights via Rawlsian public reason. Archiv fu¨r Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie/Arch Legal Soc Philos (Suppl 108):90–103 Bernstein A (2008) Nussbaum versus Rawls: should feminist human rights advocates reject the law of peoples and endorse the capabilities approach? In: Whisnant R, DesAutels P (eds) Global feminist ethics. Rowman & Littlefield, New York, pp 117–138 Freeman S (2006) Distributive justice and the law of peoples. In: Martin R, Reidy D (eds) Rawls’s law of peoples: a realistic utopia? Blackwell, Oxford, pp 243–260 Freeman S (2007) Rawls. Routledge, New York Pogge T (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Rawls J (1971/1999) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1993) The law of peoples. In: Shute S, Hurley S (eds) On human rights: the Oxford Amnesty Lectures. Basic Books, New York Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (2001) Justice as fairness: a restatement. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Reidy D (2007) A just global economy: in defense of Rawls. J Ethics 11:193–236

League of Nations COURTLAND LEWIS Department of Philosophy, University of Tennessee, Pellissippi State Technical Community College, Knoxville, TN, USA

The League of Nations formed in 1919 as a response to the devastation of the First World War and was an

L

640

L

Legal Rights

international governing body designed to promote world peace by organizing member-states under a single system of international cooperation and mutual support based on justice, honor, and sincerity. Its origin can be traced back to pre–World War II pacifist movements in both America and Britain, which gained support from politicians like United States President Woodrow Wilson as a result of the long-drawn-out devastation of the First World War. The foundation of the League appeared in Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” and the resulting peace treaties. The League was designed to foster humane conditions of labor, the suppression of human trafficking, the suppression of dangerous drugs, the maintenance of freedom of communication and transportation, the creation of equitable means of commerce among members, and promotion of health. The League’s constitutional Covenant consisted of 26 articles that bound a free association of member-states to respect the independence and territorial integrity of other members. The League arbitrated disputes between member-states by formulating plans and recommending peaceful solutions. Nations could resort to force, only if a settlement was not reached in 9 months, and if a nation used force before the League reached a settlement, the League had the power to enforce sanctions. The League achieved several successes, namely, its program of Mandates that created support mechanisms for member-nations to settle their own disputes, but failed to achieve is main goal of peaceful resolutions to disputes. The League suffered from a lack of power to enforce sanctions and recommendations and, as a result, several skirmishes, most notably Japan’s aggression against China (1931) and the Soviet Union’s aggression against Finland (1939), resulted in several member-nations withdrawing from the League. The League dissolved in 1946 when it transferred power to the United Nations. The League of Nations failed to preserve international peace through the settlement of disputes, but it has had several positive effects on contemporary global justice. First, it serves as an educational tool for contemporary attempts to foster peaceful alternatives to war. The League worked to establish an international governing body based on universal principles of rights and justice, which not only placed constraints on member-nations, but asked them to be responsible for both their own aggressive actions and the general well-being of all people. The League’s goals became a key component of the United Nation’s Charter. Second, the League’s Commission of Enquiry for European Union (1929–1930), designed to address political unrest in Europe and set up a unified European political mechanism that would help create worldwide stability, provides a framework for the current

European Union. Finally, the League’s establishment of a Permanent Court of International Justice, designed to hear disputes, prevent war, and promote world stability, is a forerunner to contemporary international tribunals, like The Hague. So, even though the League did not achieve its aims to instill global peace and security, its ideals are still prevalent in contemporary attempts to achieve global justice.

Related Topics

▶ European Union (EU) ▶ Transitional Justice ▶ United Nations: Peacekeeping and Peace Building

References Knock TJ (1992) To end all wars: Woodrow Wilson and the quest for a new world order. Princeton University Press, Princeton Marks S (1976) The illusion of peace: international relations in Europe 1918–1933. St. Martians Press, New York Pollock F (1920) The league of nations. Stevens and Sons, London Secretariat of the League of Nations (1935) Aims, methods, and activity of the League of Nations. League of Nations, Geneva Steiner Z (2007) The lights that failed: European international history 1919–1933. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Legal Rights DAVID BOERSEMA Department of Philosophy, Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR, USA

Legal rights are empowerments or immunities that are recognized within a given legal system. Rights, broadly speaking, are a means of protecting and enhancing the well-being of moral agents and, possibly, moral patients (that is, entities, such as animals, that cannot act in moral ways but can be acted upon in moral ways by moral agents). Although some people argue that rights are inherent properties pertaining to moral agents, most rights theorists identify rights as a social relation and as a means of regulating the behavior of social agents. In the early 1900s, the legal theorist, Wesley Hohfeld, enunciated four elements of rights, or, four types of ways that we use the notion of rights. The first way is what he called a liberty. Liberties, for Hohfeld, were statements of how one may behave, in the sense of some action that one has no duty to do or not to do; such action is permitted, but not required. A second way, said Hohfeld, that we use

Legal Rights

the notion of rights is about how others must behave toward me and other moral agents. This sense he called a claim. For example, if X owes Y money, then X has a claim on Y with respect to that money and Y must behave in certain ways because of that claim, namely, to pay X. A third way that Hohfeld said we use the notion of rights is what he called a power. A power refers to ways that one can bring about change. This is a way of speaking of rights in the sense that, if one has a certain right, then one is empowered to do certain things and one has that power over others. Finally, Hohfeld said that a fourth way we use the notion of rights is as what he called an immunity. An immunity refers to ways that one can resist change or another’s power over one. So, X’s right to worship as he pleases makes X immune to Y’s attempts to force X behave in certain ways. These four Hohfeldian notions of rights reflect two broad ways that we understand and use rights: (1) as empowerments or signs of what I get to do and (2) as protective securities against what you (meaning any agent) might want to do to me. In an even broader sense, these two ways are meant to emphasize rights as a means of securing and preserving the well-being of whoever has those rights. It is important to state that Hohfeld noted that he was describing how legal rights functioned. Legal rights are often distinguished from two other broad notions of rights. One of these notions is moral rights. Legal rights are rights that have their legitimacy because they are acknowledged within a legal system. They are sometimes also referred to as citizen rights or civil rights, because they pertain to citizens within a given legal, civil system. The legal system not only acknowledges those rights, but also – according to many people – grants those rights. If it were not for the legal system, they say, these rights would not exist, at least for citizens governed by that legal system. They might be desires or laudable goals, but they are not rights. Moral rights, on the other hand, are said to pertain to moral agents, regardless of their status as citizens within any legal, civil system. The second separate, although related, broad notion of rights that is distinguished from legal rights is the notion of natural rights. Natural rights are said to pertain to rights holders for reasons other than having been granted by a legal system. Legal systems can codify and secure these rights, but they cannot grant these rights, nor take them away; legal systems are not the source or justification of such rights. The concept of human rights as distinct from citizenship rights captures both of these nonlegal notions. That is, human rights are said to pertain to humans, not as citizens of some State, but as human moral agents. Furthermore, human rights are said to be held by humans

L

against the legal systems in which they live; the legal systems not only do not grant those rights, but also can (and sometimes do) violate those rights. The relationship between legal rights and moral or natural or human rights is one of addressing the issues of the source and justification of the empowerments and protections enjoyed by relevant rights holders. Some people have argued that the only rights that exist, or even that make sense, are legal rights. As a social relation among moral agents and as a means of regulating behavior, they say, rights are feasible only in the context of social rules (i.e., legal, civil systems). Just as it would be meaningless outside of the game of basketball to say that a person has the right to shoot free throws, so, too, they say, it would be meaningless outside of a system of legal rules to say that a person has the right to vote. In addition, others argue that the enjoyment of rights, that is, their actual realization and hence their true functioning, can only occur within the context of a legal system because it is only within a legal system that they are enforceable. “Paper rights,” that is, rights outside of a system that enforces them, are mere rhetoric, say legal rights advocates. Still others have argued that the notion of nonlegal rights is “mischievous”; they incite people to behave outside of the legal system and, so, to undermine it. Finally, supporters of legal rights argue that if there are wrongs that people suffer or powers that they lack, these concerns can be met on the basis of other values (such as duties or benefits) and relevant legal rights can be enacted, and hence enforced. For example, if people believe that there is a “moral right to same-sex marriage,” then they can make the case to others to create a legal right for same-sex marriage on the basis of some other moral and social value (such as fairness or social benefit). Critics of this view – that is, advocates of moral/natural/human rights – argue that the legal system cannot itself be the justification of rights, since it is the very legal system itself that often is the addressee of rights and has its own authority because of the nonlegal rights of moral agents. The very basis for criticizing a given legal system, they say, is that the legal system has its legitimacy upon the consensus of the governed, that is, of its citizens. The legal system is the means of regulating social behavior, not the grounds of such regulation. To complain that a legal system allows, say, torture or prevents freedom of expression, say these critics, is to say that the legal system itself is violating basic rights that pertain to moral agents. The moral basis for objecting to torture is not simply that the legal system is failing to maximize social utility or being inefficient, rather it is to say that the legal system is violating basic rights of moral agents.

641

L

642

L

Liberal Democracy

Clearly, the issue of legal rights pertains directly, yet complexly, with matters of global justice. Legal rights, by definition, are ones that are generated, recognized, and enforced within given legal systems. However, those very legal systems might conflict with standards or criteria of global justice. A given legal system that denied individuals certain rights to individuals or groups within that system, on the basis of, say, ethnicity or religious identity or gender, would run afoul with many conceptions of global justice. For example, the very notion of “crimes against humanity” is one that lies outside the sphere of legal rights, at least for a great many particular legal systems, since humanity lies outside of any single legal system. The identification of a legal system that conflicts with perceived notions of global justice leads to the both normative and practical question: what should be done about it? International condemnation? Economic sanctions? Military intervention in the name of liberation? What sort of mechanism(s) could themselves justly address these questions (that is, for example, how might military intervention in the name of liberation itself be considered a just action as opposed to being simply an unjust use of force)? Justice across and between global units (whether, say, States or cultures or ethnicities, or some other category) must recognize the functions and status of legal rights as both a tool for concerns of justice and, all too often, a constraint on justice.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Rights ▶ Civil Rights ▶ Contractarianism ▶ Democracy, Constitutional ▶ Human Rights ▶ Majoritarianism ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Negative Rights ▶ Positive Rights ▶ Rights

References Brettschneider C (2007) Democratic rights: the substance of selfgovernment. Princeton University Press, Princeton Dershowitz A (2004) Rights from wrongs. Basic Books, New York Domino JC (1994) Civil rights and liberties: toward the 21st century. Harper Books, New York Freeden M (1991) Rights. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis Golding M (2007) Legal reasoning, legal theory and rights. Ashgate, Farnham Nino C (1992) Rights. New York University Press, New York Pohlman HL (1995) Constitutional debates in action: civil rights and liberties. Harper Collins, New York West R (ed) (2001) Rights. Ashgate, Farnham

Liberal Democracy DAVID MCCABE Department of Philosophy, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, USA

To most people liberal democracy denotes a particular regime type, exemplified by the countries of Europe, Canada, and the United States and marked by certain features: free elections, universal suffrage, the rule of law, separation of powers, wide political and civil liberties, and juridical equality, to name a few. Since many regard this regime type as both coherent and broadly appealing, few regard the idea of liberal democracy as problematic. But however stable such regimes may be in fact, liberal democracy brings together two disparate ideals reflecting different normative concerns. The idea of democracy specifies that those affected by decisions should have an equal say in determining them. In representative democracies this concern gets worked out differently than in ancient direct models, but in both cases democracy is a thesis about the source and control of common laws and governing institutions. To call a regime liberal, in contrast, is in the main to assert that citizens within that regime possess robust and equal freedom (though liberals disagree about both the nature of freedom and the major threats to it). Democracy speaks to the process of generating common rules, liberalism to their content. Since as axes of normative assessment these two ideals can come apart – one regime might be more democratic but less liberal than another, and vice versa – the question arises which has normative priority. Within existing liberal democracies this tension rarely becomes publicly divisive, in large part because measures to protect one element so frequently protect the other as well (ensuring freedom of speech and association, e.g., or universal public education). In the context of global justice, however, that built-in tension, along with the essentially contested nature of democracy and liberalism as ideals in their own right, gives rise to a range of important and difficult questions. One set of questions revolves around the idea of democracy. To begin with, we should distinguish democracy from communal self-determination. Democracy denotes a specific model of political rule in which citizens have equal say over fundamental political questions. Self-determination refers to a community’s governing itself as it chooses. So while democracy requires a substantive political form, self-determination is a

Liberal Democracy

formal notion that can be concretized in various ways depending on a community’s choices. If there exist communities whose members believe that certain persons should have a special say over their laws and public institutions, the idea of self-determination might vindicate nondemocratic rule. Another challenge relating to democracy involves the so-called boundary problem, i.e., the fact that any claim for democratic rule faces the prior questions of identifying the relevant persons entitled to participate in the democratic process. While this is chiefly a conceptual puzzle for citizens within clearly bounded communities, it looms as an urgent challenge in the global context, where boundaries are less clearly fixed (because of ongoing border disputes, the collapse of multinational states, new movements for political autonomy, etc.). Finally, questions can be raised about the appropriateness, in an increasingly interconnected and globalized world, of an ideal of democratically accountable sovereign individual states. Where the challenges of coexistence cross borders so consistently (e.g., resource conservation, pollution, and monetary policy), the locus of self-governance may have to be rethought as well. A second set of questions targets the liberal axis. Perhaps the most urgent concern is how robustly to construe the individual rights central to liberal theory. Growing appreciation for the legitimate diversity in values, along with charges that theorists have improperly universalized a parochial conception of the human subject that largely reflects conditions in modern Europe, has generated doubts that any highly articulated set of substantive rights can be rationally vindicated before all persons. In the global context the challenge is thus to identify an account of human rights that accommodates moral diversity but remains sufficiently robust to have real critical purchase. The concern with human rights is part of the deep interest in justice that marks liberalism, and on this larger issue as well the global context raises deep challenges. Along with the ongoing debates that get played out in domestic liberal theory, at the global level the notion of justice is further complicated by liberal tolerance and respect for communal autonomy, which seem to entail that communities themselves should have some say over how to distribute the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. In a highly influential account, Michael Walzer (1984) has argued that since justice requires that goods be distributed according to principles reflecting the nature of the goods themselves (itself a matter communally determined), there is little hope of defending thick universalist principles of justice of the sort many

L

liberals favor. And even if such principles could be defended, it might still be the case that the independent value of democratic rule overrides whatever shortfall there is on the axis of justice. (Democracy, after all, is not to be respected only when it yields a verdict independently established as correct.) A final set of questions concern the relation between liberal democracy and other goods. To begin with, it is always appropriate to ask whether conditions within a community are such that liberal democracy can take hold and be effective. Social theorists have increasingly stressed the importance to liberal democracies of such factors as civic virtues, social capital, and patterns of trust among citizens, arguing that no liberal democracy can flourish without them and that creating such institutions in their absence might do more harm than good. Such considerations caution against any simpleminded claim that the transition to liberal democracy always constitutes moral progress. One especially important good often thought to be orthogonal to the value of liberal democracy is economic growth and development. Despite a raft of research into this question, it is fair to say that the connection between economic development and liberal democracy remains uncertain. Though some theorists note that various authoritarian regimes in East Asia have in recent decades outperformed neighboring democracies in both per capita income growth and indices of human development, others stress that the emphasis in liberal democracies on private property and markets, civil society, a highly mobile workforce, and independent entrepreneurialism make it in the long run the best engine for sustained economic growth. This debate will no doubt continue for some time. What does seem clear is that (1) significant economic growth and prosperity are possible in regimes that are not liberal democracies and (2) liberal democracies are not proof against significant and alarming widespread poverty. Such considerations just further complicate the assessment of liberal democracy in the global context.

Related Topics

▶ Asian Values Debate ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Complex Equality ▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Global Federalism ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Human Rights ▶ Liberalism ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism

643

L

644

L

Liberal Internationalism

▶ Self-Determination ▶ Toleration/Tolerance, Liberal Principle of

References Axtmann R (1996) Liberal democracy into the twenty-first century. Manchester University Press, Manchester Held D (ed) (1993) Prospects for democracy: north, south, east, west. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA Parekh B (1993) The cultural particularity of liberal democracy, in Held (1993), 156–175 Rawls J (2001) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Walzer M (1984) Spheres of justice. Basic Books, New York, NY

Liberal Internationalism HARRISON HIBBERT Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

Liberal internationalism is a doctrine of foreign policy that has as its principal objectives to bring about peace, political liberty, and economic prosperity through the spread of constitutional democracy and the principles on which it is based. These principles can be understood in terms of two basic emphases, though the division between them is not to be taken as definitive. There are indeed many different perspectives held by liberal internationalists regarding what ends ought to be pursued and by what means. In any event, the first basic emphasis is commercial, and accordingly it seeks to promote free trade both internally, or at an intrastate level, and externally, at an interstate level. The second emphasis is institutional, and seeks to establish sovereign states which uphold the rule of law, protecting the liberty of their citizens by ensuring that they have the right to consent to the formation of any given political institutions and the policies advanced by those institutions. Common to both these emphases, though, is a commitment to individual freedom as well as self-determination of the state. On this account of liberal internationalism, the commercial and institutional emphases are to complement each other. For instance, individual freedom is to be protected by the state through civil and political institutions that afford every individual alike the means to prosperity and personal well-being. Accordingly, based on the supposition of accord in the collective interests of the citizens of a state, that state should prosper in a peaceful fashion internally. Extending this principle externally, the prosperity of each state should

likewise facilitate peaceful relations between states. For in matters of trade each state presumably stands to benefit from the prosperity of other states. This arrangement, then, should give rise to intra- and interstate cooperation, granted some recognition on the part of state actors, that the costs of war would undermine the prosperity of all parties involved. This principle of the extension of collective intrastate interests to interstate relations is called the domestic analogy, and it stands as theoretical commitment for liberal internationalists. Now while this portrayal of liberal internationalism provides a conceptually coherent response to certain tensions between state sovereignty and individual freedom, many proponents of liberal internationalism have reconsidered its tenets in light of today’s rapidly developing global market and transnational political structure. As one influential scholar in international relations has observed, “The traditional liberal resolutions of the sovereignty/freedom dilemma have over the past century become increasingly problematic and hence, at least in principle, subject to debate” (Franceschet 1999). For instance, realists contend that the domestic analogy fails to account for an essential difference between intraand interstate relations. Political and economic progress may be possible internally, but externally the situation is predominantly anarchic. The liberal internationalist may respond by pointing up the potential for multilateral cooperation and the economic incentives of order and communication among states. Further, liberal internationalists stress the role of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), such as the United Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO), as well as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as Amnesty International and the Red Cross. The present increase in number and influence of NGOs is especially notable in this regard, as NGOs, on account of their political neutrality, can work in regions often restricted to governmental organizations. This underscores the significance of individual responsibility for the liberal internationalist – NGOs represent non-state actors, often networks of individuals around the world – and also reflects the liberal internationalist’s commitment to intrastate sovereignty. Regarding commercial liberalism, some question the extent to which it can realistically propose to cultivate a transnational economy without encroaching on individual freedom and state sovereignty. For instance, one may consider cases where a state has a market economy but lacks the political infrastructure to ensure a minimum standard of human well-being, leading to an inequitable

Liberal Nationalism

distribution of wealth and resources, and thus to poverty and oppression. For if these circumstances should oblige other political communities to intervene – an obligation which may be justified with regard to the commitment to individual freedom – this would imply some compromise as to the recognition of that state’s sovereignty. But to decide otherwise would imply some compromise as to the protection of certain individuals’ liberty, namely, those whose liberty has been compromised by that state. One response to this difficulty maintains that such a state is not by definition sovereign because it does not represent the interests of its citizens, and so the portrayal of these alternatives as mutually exclusive is misleading. But while this response may sustain the theoretical consistency of liberal internationalism, the question remains as to how this situation should be approached in concrete terms. Another difficulty concerns the way in which constitutional democracy is to be promoted in other states. According to some, whose views are more or less aligned with Kant’s in Perpetual Peace, the propagation of sovereign liberal states is inevitable due to historical forces which are leading to a political order of just this sort. According to others, liberal states should take a more active role against oppressive regimes, for instance in situations calling for humanitarian intervention. In either case, however, considerable ethical questions remain to be taken into account.

Related Topics

▶ Democracy, Constitutional ▶ Democratic Nation Building ▶ Democratic Peace Theory ▶ Foreign Policy ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ Political Autonomy ▶ Sovereignty

References Deudney D, Ikenberry J (1999) The nature and sources of liberal international order. Rev Int Stud 25:179–196 Franceschet A (1999) The ethical foundations of liberal internationalism. Int J 54:463–481 Hoffmann S (1995) The crisis of liberal internationalism. Foreign Policy 98:159–177 Matthew R, Zacher M (1995) Liberal international theory: common threads, divergent strands. In: Kegley C (ed) Controversies in international politics: realism and the neoliberal challenge. St. Martin’s, New York, pp 107–150

L

645

Liberal Nationalism WALTER J. RIKER Department of Philosophy, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA, USA

Nationalism is often associated with an unthinking devotion to one’s country and traditions that is dangerous to outsiders. It is often associated with the sort of deeply emotional commitment to one’s nation – over and against all others – that leads to atrocities like those committed by the National Socialists in Germany in the 1930s. This has led figures like John Dunn to call nationalism “the starkest political shame of the twentieth century, the deepest, most intractable and yet most unanticipated blot on the political history of the world since the year 1900” (1979: 57). That nationalism is inherently dangerous seems obvious to many, for in the words of Michael Ignatieff, “if a nation gives people a reason to sacrifice themselves, it also gives them a reason to kill” (1993: 247). To many, then, the idea of a “liberal nationalism” seems an oxymoron (Levinson 1995). Nationalism is necessarily conservative and violent; there is nothing “liberal” about it. But liberal nationalists argue that nationalism’s bad reputation is not entirely deserved. They acknowledge, of course, that nationalism is a constitutive element of some very dangerous regimes, in the past and even today. The surprising recent success of the far-right Jobbik Party in Hungary’s national elections has been attributed in part to Jobbik’s nationalist, anti-Roma rhetoric. But liberal nationalists deny that nationalism is inherently dangerous. Moderate nationalisms are possible (e.g., Tamir 1993; Miller 1995; Rawls 1999). In fact, liberal nationalists argue, the values associated with liberalism itself – freedom, rationality, autonomy, individuality – are not only not threatened by nationalism’s nonrational commitments, but are in fact reliant upon those nonrational commitments for their full realization or expression. How we ought to think of the “nation” in nationalism is an open question. Liberal nationalists tend to view the nation as a mix of subjective and objective characteristics (see, e.g., Tamir 1993: 65–67). For example, Miller (1995) defines a “nation” as a community of people who aspire to be politically self-directing. He distinguishes the nation from the “state,” which is the set of political institutions a nation seeks to possess. What holds a nation together is the common belief among members that certain commitments are shared and constitute them as a nation distinct

L

646

L

Liberal Nationalism

from others. For example, members of a nation share a sense of historical continuity. They see a past as “theirs.” They see a set of historical achievements and failures as defining, in part, who they are as a people. Some object that these national self-understandings are false or fictitious and, thus, that nations do not exist, but liberal nationalists claim that the truth or falsity of such selfunderstandings is irrelevant. What matters is that the community thinks of itself as a nation. Objective characteristics which tend to buttress this shared selfunderstanding include a shared culture and language, a connection to a geographical area, and the ability of the community to act as a whole to achieve common goals, especially at the national and global levels. One argument for liberal nationalism holds that national identity is an indispensable source of self-esteem or self-worth (Margalit and Raz 1990; Taylor 1994). For instance, Tamir (1993) argues that national identity is a central component of personal identity. People need to see themselves as active members of worthy communities in order to gain full satisfaction from their lives. Human flourishing depends in part on significant shared projects, such as the development and maintenance of a nation that is itself worthy of respect. Critics argue that the sort of identity or sense of belonging necessary for the development of self-worth does not require a nation but, instead, can be achieved in other “cosmopolitan” ways (e.g. Waldron 1995). Tamir (1993) argues further that a person’s nation provides an important context for the full or complete exercise of autonomy or individual self-determination. For Tamir, freedom refers to more than simple change. A choice only has meaning against some background set of beliefs and interests. When someone chooses to become a nurse, or to get married, or to stay in school, or makes a decision about who to vote for, this choice gets its meaning from a context provided by other available choices, and a set of beliefs about the value of alternative courses of action. Without such a background context, a choice has little meaning. One important aspect of nations and national identity, then, is just the coherent and comprehensive background it provides for such choices. This sort of background is thus necessary for the full expression of autonomy or individual self-determination. Again, critics contend that the background and context provided by the nation could be provided in other ways. Another argument offered in defense of nationalism claims that it plays an indispensable role in promoting social justice. Barry (1991) argues that just redistribution of resources requires “fellow feeling” and “sympathetic attachment to the interests” of others. Further, it requires

the belief that others will reciprocate. Strong national identity makes it possible for these feelings and beliefs to emerge. Miller (1995) argues that a strong national identity makes social justice easier to achieve because it creates sympathy for conationals and a sense of trust which allows individuals to act on that sympathy. On his view, this is especially important where social justice requires redistribution of resources to the poor. In a similar way, Johnston et al. argue that “national identity contributes to a sense of belonging and solidarity that transcends economic interest and cultural difference” (2010: 350). These defenses of liberal nationalism have two important implications for global justice. First, they suggest that immigration ought to be curtailed, or at least seriously restricted, for the sake of the nation (Scheffler 2007). Immigration threatens national identity, by drawing into a community people who do not share the very selfunderstanding that holds the community together as a nation. To the extent that immigration undermines national identity, it also seems to undermine individual self-respect, the possibility of the full realization of autonomy, and the conditions necessary for social justice. Thus, liberal nationalism is, or at least ought to be, hostile to generous or open immigration policies. Second, if liberal nationalists are correct in holding that shared national identity is necessary for the fellow feeling, sympathy, and trust necessary for the full realization of important aspects of social justice, then it seems as if global social justice may be out of reach. The liberal nationalist is in a bit of a bind here. If global solidarity or identity is possible, then the nation seems to lose the significance liberal nationalists attach to it. If, on the other hand, liberal nationalists insist that global solidarity or identity is impossible, then it seems that the liberal commitment to global social justice must be abandoned. One sort of response open to the liberal nationalist is to insist that at least part of what makes individual selfidentification with a liberal society a meaningful source of self-esteem is just that this liberal society does care for global social justice. This will not satisfy some, though, because it seems an open question whether this claim is true as an empirical matter. Further, it suggests that social justice is possible independent of fellow feeling, trust, and reciprocity in a way that seems to undermine the liberal nationalist argument for a significant connection between social justice and these feelings. Finally, some hope that the liberal nationalist is wrong about the relationship between national identity and selfworth and social justice, because there is a lingering suspicion that nationalist attitudes, whatever else they may be, are dangerous. For instance, Mayerfeld (1998) argues

Liberal Pluralism

that nationalist attitudes are not dangerous in themselves, but that they nevertheless encourage violence between nations. Individuals are naturally partial to their own interests, and in ways that color or bias their interpretations of justice. Individuals moderate their own biases and tolerate the biases of conationals because they learn that social life is better if they try to correct or at least control these biases. But at the national level, there is no such restraint. Further, many individual biases, especially against other societies, are reinforced at the national level by conationals who share these biases. In this way, individual biases become national biases. These national biases are dangerous because they may encourage conflicts between nations, in part because each nation believes it is acting in the name of justice. Mayerfeld argues, then, that we ought to discourage the development of national identity, and foster instead “civic consciousness,” a commitment to a universal constitutional order committed to the freedom and equality of all people.

Related Topics

▶ Collective Identity ▶ Communities ▶ Immigration ▶ Miller, David ▶ Nationalism ▶ Tamir, Yael

References Barry B (1991) Democracy and power: essays in political theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Dunn J (1979) Western political theory in the face of the future. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Ignatieff M (1993) Blood and belonging: journeys into the new nationalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Johnston R, Banting K, Kymlicka W, Soroka S (2010) National identity and support for the welfare state. Can J Pol Sci 43:349–377 Levinson S (1995) Is liberal nationalism an oxymoron? An essay for Judith Shklar. Ethics 105:626–645 Margalit A, Raz J (1990) National self-determination. J Philos 87:439–461 Mayerfeld J (1998) The myth of benign group identity: a critique of liberal nationalism. Polity 30:555–578 Miller D (1995) On nationality. Oxford University Press, Oxford Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Scheffler S (2007) Immigration and the significance of culture. Philos Public Aff 35:93–125 Tamir Y (1993) Liberal nationalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Taylor C (1994) The politics of recognition. In: Gutmann A (ed) Multiculturalism: examining the politics of recognition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, pp 25–74 Waldron J (1995) Minority cultures and the cosmopolitan alternative. In: Kymlicka W (ed) The rights of minority cultures. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 93–122

L

647

Liberal Pluralism LAWRENCE TORCELLO Department of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA

In modern political philosophy, the term “liberal pluralism” refers to theoretical efforts to reconcile liberalism, in its broad philosophical sense, with value pluralism. With regard to global justice, such considerations are of great concern, because of the ascendency of diverse religious and cultural value systems in modern societies. As a political system, liberalism endorses the primacy of human autonomy and the need to defend such autonomy from any authoritative orthodoxy. This includes defending the choice to peacefully affiliate with groups that may, in some regards, advocate illiberal values in their prevailing attitudes. Such values are tolerated in liberal societies so long as they are peacefully expressed, because traditionally liberalism has sought comprehensive philosophical foundations broadly supporting freedom of conscience.

Traditional Comprehensive Foundations of Liberalism Philosophically speaking, enlightenment-style liberalism champions a conception of autonomy which is thought to be essential to human flourishing. As such, liberalism affirms the primacy of individual rights against any single authoritative orthodoxy. Politically, liberalism transcends narrow party affiliations and is linked essentially with democratic forms of government. Traditional efforts to produce philosophical foundations for liberalism result in what can be referred to, following John Rawls (1993), as comprehensive forms of liberalism. Some representative examples of comprehensive liberalism include the liberalism of John Locke, as put forward in his Two Treatise of Government (1689), which argues in favor of a liberal civil government based on natural rights that are themselves divinely bestowed. In contrast to Locke, in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1790), Immanuel Kant maintains that liberalism is grounded upon the rational autonomy of each citizen. As well, in On Liberty (1859), John Stuart Mill uses utilitarian principles to argue that the greatest happiness of society overall is promoted by the greatest freedom of conscience, which is most compatible with a liberal state. A more modern example of comprehensive liberalism may be found in the early work of John Rawls, especially A Theory of Justice (1971),

L

648

L

Liberal Pluralism

in which Rawls endorses liberalism by means of an abstract fair choice approach to the social contract. Liberalism accepts that, given the freedom of private moral and religious spheres of conscience, individuals are unlikely to agree on any one uniform way of life at the level of society; thus, private diversity leads to a plurality of moral communities existing side by side. As a result, the freedom to pursue individual preferences regarding one’s preferred way of life is typically guarded in the liberal state.

The Problem of Pluralism Yet the very effort to seek a foundational consensus for liberalism raises the following problem: insofar as it endorses certain values (such as the primacy of individual autonomy and the freedom of conscience), does not liberalism itself authoritatively maintain a particular conception of the good? In other words, is liberalism a comprehensive endorsement of a way of life, which affirms liberal values? If so, this would mean that liberalism aspires to protect citizens against compulsory ways of life, while authoritatively enforcing a compulsory liberal way of life. Illiberal values are tolerated, only insofar as they remain void of any force. Yet in the absence of any identifiably noncircular justification for moral values, which is the very condition of pluralism, how can liberal values be endorsed in anything other than an arbitrarily authoritative and ultimately relativistic fashion? Given the absence of any one universally justifiable notion of the good, moral pluralism threatens both the stability and the foundational warrant of liberalism. Recognition of this problem is the animating influence behind modern attempts to reconcile traditional liberal values with the fact of value pluralism. Value pluralism, or moral pluralism, entails the notion that disagreement over comprehensive, value-laden systems of morality is possible even when all parties involved are fully rational and are thinking coherently. As suggested above, value pluralism acknowledges that rational people can and do disagree on what constitutes the good life, and furthermore, that such disagreements are enduring. Isaiah Berlin was instrumental in elevating the issue of value pluralism to modern philosophical significance with the 1969 essay “Two Concepts of Liberty” (which was originally Berlin’s inaugural Oxford lecture). Berlin believed that human beings could not escape the fact of value pluralism, and thus we must choose between incompatible and incommensurable goods. Indeed, the necessity of such choice, Berlin argues, is essential to what it means to be a human being. Berlin is among the first political theorists to offer a theory of liberal pluralism.

Some Attempts at Liberal Pluralism Theories of liberal pluralism attempt to abate the tension between value pluralism and the authoritative endorsement of liberal values. The goal of such theories is to provide sound reasons why a diverse population of citizens with different moral and religious affiliations ought to come together in their embrace of liberal values, even as they maintain commitments to their otherwise entrenched ethical and metaphysical disagreements.

Isaiah Berlin In bringing the concept of value pluralism to importance in modern political philosophy, Isaiah Berlin made one of the earliest attempts to defend a version of liberal pluralism. Berlin (1969) argues that choice between incommensurable and incompatible values is a permanent and important feature of human life. The fact that such choice is a permanent feature of human life, according to Berlin, suggests that liberal government is the essential political form compatible with the human necessity and desire to choose freely. Liberal states are those which protect a citizen’s freedom to choose among a diversity of values, without coercion. This freedom from coercion, or “negative liberty,” is liberalism’s most indispensable feature. Negative liberty undergirds positive liberty, which is the liberty to choose among competing options, such as how best to participate in government, who to elect as a representative, and other valued types of choices among goods. In short, positive liberty involves the affirmative expression of one’s values. Yet this positive liberty, which Berlin maintains is crucially important, is ever at risk of authoritarian influence; Berlin therefore argues that the protective qualities of negative liberty are all the more politically vital.

John Rawls In John Rawls’ later work, especially Political Liberalism (1993), pluralism is an issue of prominent concern. Rawls argues that in the course of reasoning, human beings must contend with inescapable epistemological barriers to knowledge, or what Rawls refers to as the “burdens of judgment.” These burdens include, but are not limited to, incomplete or ill-understood information and conflicting sources of understanding, as well as internal and unknown biases, which may be accumulated across a lifetime. Rawls argues that given such intellectual barriers, moral pluralism is the inevitable outcome of the free application of human reason. All of which is to say that value pluralism is a permanent feature of free societies and cannot be limited unless through violent oppression. Accordingly,

Liberal Pluralism

Rawls argues that in a given free society there will be innumerable comprehensive doctrines. Comprehensive doctrines might best be understood as ways of life purporting to answer a variety of questions, metaphysical and moral. Some comprehensive doctrines will be reasonable. Reasonable doctrines are those doctrines that acknowledge the existence of pluralism. An individual can accept, from within a reasonable doctrine, that other members of society need not subscribe to the same doctrine, and yet that all have the same rights and protections afforded by society. In contrast to reasonable comprehensive doctrines, unreasonable doctrines are those that reject the necessity of pluralism, and as a consequence aggressively seek homogeneity at the expense of other members of society. For Rawls, society is a system of fair cooperation over time, between supporters of various reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Thus, while unreasonable doctrines must be contained, reasonable doctrines are those which reach an “overlapping consensus” on foundational liberal principles. For Rawls, these are the very principles of justice for which he argues in A Theory of Justice (1971), though in that text, Rawls admits to offering a comprehensive doctrine of liberalism, without sufficient consideration of pluralism. In Political Liberalism (1993), Rawls argues that an overlapping consensus is reached when reasonable doctrines obtain their own comprehensive reasons for endorsing liberal principles. In this way liberalism, as a political framework, is independent of any one particular comprehensive doctrine. For Rawls, this means that liberalism is freestanding, in a political and not a comprehensive, metaphysical way. Because reasonable doctrines do not need to go outside of their own sphere for liberal justification, there is no compromise needed to form a basis for liberal society. And this, Rawls argues, ensures stability over time. In such a society, public discourse on legislative items of basic justice and constitutional essentials, must be undertaken in a neutral way that all citizens can understand, if not agree with, regardless of their comprehensive doctrines. This would commit public discourse to the standards of public reason, or arguments understandable from a neutral perspective. Thus, Rawls’ Political Liberalism is a theory of liberal pluralism insofar as it provides an argument for liberalism that allows for a plurality of comprehensive doctrines, without endorsing any particular one.

John Gray As opposed to Rawls’ method, John Gray, in Two Faces of Liberalism (2000), offers an account that is reminiscent of Hobbesian social contract theory. Gray argues that the

L

649

failed enlightenment project of establishing a comprehensive, value-laden form of liberalism is indeed one facet of liberalism. The failure of this project stems from the circular and therefore pluralistic tendency of rationality, as discussed above. The other face of liberalism, which Gray endorses, is compromise. Gray refers to his liberal compromise by using the term “modus vivendi.” Unlike the overlapping consensus of Rawls’ political liberalism, Gray sees compromise as the necessary bridge between pluralism and liberalism. According to Gray, citizens that disagree on comprehensive ways of life, but agree to accept common institutions under a liberal framework, do so as a compromise in the interest of peaceful coexistence.

William Galston In a work which bears the name Liberal Pluralism (2002), William Galston attempts to offer a theory of pluralism inspired by Isaiah Berlin’s approach. Galston argues that given the intractable nature of rational moral pluralism, the state cannot justifiably endorse any restrictive comprehensive value or enforce it upon its citizens. Indeed, the very existence of value pluralism results from the fact that no comprehensive moral doctrine can be categorically endorsed. Therefore, the state endorsement of any illiberal doctrine remains rooted in rationally unjustifiable coercion, and liberalism itself, Galston argues, follows by default from the fact of value pluralism. Such liberal pluralist approaches to political theory, and others, including Ju¨rgen Habermas’ approach to discourse politics in Between Facts and Norms (1996), share a common concern with the tension between liberalism and value pluralism.

Related Topics

▶ Appiah, Kwame Anthony ▶ Barry, Brian ▶ Buchanan, Allen ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Coercion ▶ Communitarianism ▶ Contractarianism ▶ Cosmopolitan Democracy ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Cultural Relativism ▶ Decent Society ▶ Democracy, Constitutional ▶ Democracy, Deliberative ▶ Democracy, Transnational

L

650

L

Liberalism

▶ Democratic Citizenship ▶ Democratic Equality ▶ Democratic Legitimacy ▶ Democratic Peace Theory ▶ Difference Principle ▶ Disagreement, Reasonable ▶ Domination ▶ Fair Equality of Opportunity ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Difference Principle ▶ Habermas, Ju¨rgen ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Liberal Democracy ▶ Liberal Internationalism ▶ Liberal Nationalism ▶ Liberalism ▶ Libertarianism ▶ Local Communities ▶ Locke, John ▶ Mill, John Stuart ▶ Modus Vivendi ▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism ▶ Multiculturalism ▶ Nozick, Robert ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Original Position ▶ Pluralism ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism ▶ Political Freedom ▶ Political Legitimacy ▶ Political Liberalism ▶ Public Reason ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Relativism ▶ Separation of Church and State ▶ Social Contract ▶ Toleration/Tolerance, Liberal Principle of ▶ Walzer, Michael ▶ Wenar, Leif

References Berlin I, Hardy H (eds) (2002) Liberty. Oxford University Press, Oxford Galston W (2002) Liberal pluralism: the implications of value pluralism for political theory and practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Gaus G (2003) Contemporary theories of liberalism. Sage, London Gray J (2002) Two faces of liberalism. New Press, New York

Habermas J, Rehg W (trans) (1998) Between facts and norms: contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy. MIT Press, Cambridge Kant I, Kingsmill AT (eds) (2009) Fundamental principles of the metaphysics of morals. Echo Library, Teddington Locke J, Goldie M (eds) (1997) Political essays. Cambridge University Press, New York Mill JS, Collini S (1989) ‘On liberty’ and other political writings. Cambridge University Press, New York Rawls J (1993) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, New York Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Rawls J, Kelly A (eds) (2001) Justice as fairness: a restatement. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Talisse R (2004) Democracy after liberalism: pragmatism and deliberative politics. Routledge, New York Walzer M (1984) Spheres of justice: a defense of pluralism and equality. Basic Books, New York

Liberalism PAUL WARREN Department of Philosophy, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

Liberalism begins to take shape in the wake of the Protestant Reformation and religious wars of the early modern period. It emerges as a distinctive political orientation with the growth of the territorial state and rapid economic, social, scientific, and cultural transformations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It continues to be a dominant school of thought in political philosophy and a potent political force in the world. Liberalism can take different forms and be approached from various perspectives. There is debate about what constitutes its definitional core and some have argued that it is best understood as a cluster of connected and evolving positions, value commitments, and arguments. Keeping these points in mind, a distinction can be made between liberalism’s constitutive positions and the more abstract philosophical theories used to justify those positions. Liberal positions are derivable from a variety of philosophical stances: natural rights, social contract, utilitarian, perfectionist, and pragmatist. Liberals generally affirm the priority and importance of individual liberty, equality under the law, toleration, and value pluralism. A main focus of liberal political philosophy is to formulate and defend principles embodying these priorities that would define an area within which

Liberalism

individuals would be able to pursue their aims and interests free from the arbitrary and absolute exercise of power. This focus is pivotal in the thought of historically significant liberals such as John Locke and J.S. Mill respectively, and continues in the twentieth-century liberals such as Isaiah Berlin and John Rawls. Locke is particularly concerned with the arbitrary interference of monarchical power in the lives and properties of individuals, arguing that such intrusions should be viewed as violations of a commonly recognized law of nature. Mill uses the principle of harm to others to carve out an area in which individuals would be free to explore a diversity of life options, engage in political and other cooperative activities with their fellows, and have full liberty of thought and discussion. Rawls’ first principle of justice refers to a list of basic liberties, including freedom of thought and liberty of conscience, political liberties and freedom of association, liberty and integrity of the person, and the rights and liberties covered by the rule of law. Such liberties would be agreed to from a prior “original position” representing individuals’ higher-order interests as free and equal citizens with a sense of justice and conception of the good. Liberal thought in the twentieth century largely settled on the idea that substantive economic and social equality are central to liberalism’s political morality. This democratic and egalitarian form of liberalism received practical expression in American society in the reform movement of progressivism and achievements of the New Deal and Great Society. L. T. Hobhouse and John Dewey are early twentieth-century representatives of this form of liberalism, but Rawls has been its most significant defender in his widely influential A Theory of Justice. Rawls’ focus is on a theory of justice for the basic structure of society – defined as comprising fundamental rights and duties and political, social, and economic institutions that deeply affect individuals’ life prospects. In addition to the earlier referenced basic liberties, Rawls argues that institutions of the basic structure should be arranged so that they achieve equality of opportunity and work to the advantage of the least advantaged members of society (i.e., the difference principle). Similar to Rawls, most contemporary liberals are egalitarian, though there are differences over matters of philosophical justification, the form the equality should ideally take, and the precise set of economic and social policies concerning market regulation, equal opportunity, property rights, and taxation that would be instrumental for achieving egalitarian liberal goals (Kymlicka). Egalitarian liberalism came under severe criticism from the political Right in the 1980s, inspired in part by a libertarian or “neoliberal”

L

philosophy that largely rejected substantive social and economic rights and called for deregulation of the economy and retrenchment of liberal social and economic programs. Liberals affirm the sovereignty of each individual as against the importance of upholding the one true religion or the interests of state, nation, class, or status group. Because of its universalism and individualism, liberalism historically has been in the forefront of progressive causes for liberation and equality such as the elimination of feudal privileges, abolition of slavery, demand for equality between the sexes, and ending racial and other forms of discrimination. These features of liberalism – its individualism and universalism – also have been among its most controversial aspects, attacked by some as false, distorting, and antithetical to values of community, culture, history, and tradition. Many contemporary liberals are cognizant that race, class, gender, and cultural difference can undermine equality and liberty, and have sought to incorporate that awareness in their formulation of the liberal project. In a different vein, Rawls’ later work on political liberalism tries to address the problem of how a liberal regime can stably and legitimately exercise power, given the inevitable pluralism of views in modern liberal societies. Liberal internationalist theory can be distinguished from its realist rival in its affirmation of human rights and commitment to an international order that satisfies those rights and provides a secure framework for peace. However, within a broadly liberal perspective on global affairs there are important disagreements over the content and role of human rights, the structure of the global political order, and the cogency of principles of international distributive justice. Charles Beitz describes the contrasting positions on these topics as illustrating a difference between cosmopolitan liberalism and social liberalism, associating the latter with positions Rawls develops in The Law of Peoples. The contemporary doctrine of human rights is a descendent of the eighteenth century’s rights of man and citizen and more proximately of the devastating experiences of World War II. In the words of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), human rights are rights that belong to “all” and “everyone” and to which “no one” can be denied. The UDHR is a declaration and not a bill of rights; it therefore sets a standard for common aspiration, not a group of entitlements enforced by some notional world police. Nevertheless, the UDHR, in connection with other interests of international law and international political practice, has vitally contributed to the current

651

L

652

L

Liberalism

international human rights regime. This regime includes: (1) conventions between state parties, (2) agreements of regional bodies such as the Organization of American States and European Union, (3) UN agencies and commissions, monitoring groups such as the International Labor Organization, and courts such as the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, and (4) various nongovernmental organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The list of human rights declared in the UDHR is extensive and substantial, and includes security rights, liberty rights, rights associated with the rule of law, political rights, economic rights, and cultural rights. Liberal thinkers disagree about the underlying philosophical justifications for human rights, their content and role, relative priorities to be given to certain rights over others, and corresponding duties of implementation of such rights. Rawls argues that the role of human rights is to set limits to sovereignty and legitimate authority in the international sphere. Their violation provides grounds for justified international intervention, while their satisfaction means that a government has legitimate authority and should not be subject to external interference. Accordingly, Rawls distinguishes between outlaw states, who are violators of human rights not to be included with the society of peoples, and liberal and decent (but non-liberal) peoples, both of whom are entitled to membership in the society of peoples. Despite the fact that decent peoples are not fully liberal in their domestic arrangements in allowing social hierarchies of various sorts, because they respect basic human rights Rawls maintains that they are entitled to membership in the society of peoples. Given the role of human rights within his theory of international justice, Rawls’ list of basic human rights is more limited than the list of the UDHR or that required by liberal justice. He includes the rights to life, personal liberty, personal property, and equality under the law: not included are rights to freedom of expression, equal liberty of conscience, or rights of democratic participation. Cosmopolitan liberals endorse a more robust conception of the role and content of human rights in keeping with the aims of the UDHR and requirements of liberal theories of justice. Beitz defends what he calls a full liberal position with respect to human rights, arguing that the role of human rights is not simply to establish criteria for when intervention is or is not permitted, but to provide critical guidance for those seeking institutional reform or change, whether members of a society or members of outside groups. With an expanded conception of the role of human rights comes an expanded conception of their content.

In addition to its commitment to human rights, liberal internationalism offers an alternative to realism in its supposition of the possibility of an international community of states united by common principles, forms of cooperation, and interstate political institutions. The moral imperative to seek such an international order was powerfully articulated by Immanuel Kant who envisaged a federation of states, each with a republican form of constitution (i.e., non-despotic with representative government, separation of powers, and the rule of law) that would grow in extent due to increased trade and travel – leading to an increase in cosmopolitan awareness and permanent peace. Some have found support for the feasibility of Kant’s idea in the apparent empirical confirmation of the democratic peace hypothesis: democracies do not go to war with other democracies. Rawls’ aforementioned notion of a just society of peoples united under a law of peoples parallels Kant’s idea of federation of states. Rawls’ law of peoples is an outgrowth of his theory of justice for domestic institutions, comprising a foreign policy for liberal peoples in ideal conditions. It serves to highlight a unifying theme of Rawls’ liberalism, namely, the importance of including non-liberal perspectives (of individuals and peoples) in working out principles for a just political order, whether domestic or international. Such principles are not simply to supply a possible modus vivendi, but to provide what Rawls refers to as stability for the right reasons: each party, both liberal and non-liberal, should be able to reasonably affirm such principles from its own normative perspective. In working out this view in the international case, Rawls specifies a second “original position,” this one occupied by representatives of peoples, not individuals. He argues that these representatives would agree on eight principles of international political justice, including that peoples are to observe a duty of nonintervention, respect human rights, have a right to war only in self-defense, and have a duty to assist those living in burdened societies. Rawls’ duty of assistance is likely to have robust practical consequences. However, it is not a global principle of justice and should not be confused with his difference principle in either its content or its role. Rawls rejects the appropriateness of a global difference principle because his focus on a society of peoples leads him to reject the notion of a global basic structure analogous to the basic structure of domestic society. Cosmopolitan liberals argue that there is an international or global political order comprised of interlocking global economic and political institutions and formed through a history of violence, war, and colonial dependency. If not exactly analogous to the basic structure in

Liberation Theology

Rawls’ domestic theory of justice, this global order is sufficiently consequential to generate the background conditions necessary for principles of distributive justice to be applicable. Thomas Pogge has been a particularly forceful advocate of cosmopolitan liberalism’s causal thesis regarding the international order, asserting that affluent countries impose an international order that harms the global poor. The global rich and poor live in a worldwide state system based on internationally recognized territorial domains and are interconnected through a network of trade, diplomacy, and common history. Those in developed countries have vastly superior military and economic strength and are able to effect the situation of the poor via loans, investment, military aid, sex tourism, and cultural imports. The crucial point for cosmopolitan liberals is that the global situation is not one of autonomous peoples freely determining their fates, but rather one of deep causal and moral entanglement of individuals, both within and across territorial borders. Contra Rawls, there is a global basic structure because there is a set of interconnected global economic and political arrangements that are fateful for individuals’ life chances and that are feasibly subject to reform. Pogge’s “global resource dividend” (essentially a fund generated from a tax on the use of vital resources) is a concrete reform proposal that would enable the affluent to meet their obligations of justice to the global poor, thus leading to the fulfillment of the socioeconomic rights identified in the UDHR and needed progress toward global justice. Liberalism offers a distinctive approach to international problems, but also defines a terrain of disagreement, as evident in the disputes about human rights and international distributive justice. For the foreseeable future it is guaranteed to remain an important point of reference for those interested in global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Decent Society ▶ Democratic Peace Theory ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Global Difference Principle ▶ Harm Principle ▶ Human Rights ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Locke, John ▶ Mill, John Stuart ▶ Modus Vivendi ▶ Perpetual Peace ▶ Pogge, Thomas

L

653

▶ Political Liberalism ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Second Original Position ▶ Sovereignty ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

References Beitz C (2000) Rawls’ law of peoples. Ethics 110:669–696 Berlin I (2002) Two concepts of liberty. In: Hardy H (ed) Liberty. Oxford University Press, Oxford Dewey J (1935) Liberalism and social action. Capricorn Books, New York Dworkin R (1978) Liberalism. In: Hampshire S (ed) Public and private morality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Hobhouse LT (1964) Liberalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kant I (1970) Perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch. In: Hans R (ed) Political writings. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Kymlicka W (2002) Contemporary political philosophy, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford Locke J (1960) Two treatises of government, ed. Laslett P. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Mill JS (1989) On liberty and other writings, ed. Collini S. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights. Polity Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1993) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, New York Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Liberation Theology MICHAEL MINCH Department of Philosophy/Humanities, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Christian theology and worship confess that the church is sinful. The church, then, stands in need of reminder. Christians need to be reminded of what they have known again and again, but forget time and again as well. This is one condition of our sinfulness. We fail to grasp the good news of God’s justice, liberation, grace, peace, and love. The theology of liberation emerged as a reminder of the church’s sinful failure, and of what it is called to be. It has reminded the church of its complicity with injustice, domination, oppression, and violence. It has also reminded the church of its vocation as a liberating agent of God the Liberator. Marx famously observed religion as “the opium of the people,” but advocates of liberation theology proclaim that however true this is as a description, it is also the case that Christian faith cannot be authentic if it is nothing more than an opiate. This is a claim always central to Christianity, but in the 1960s

L

654

L

Liberation Theology

a new emerging school of theology and Christian praxis developed in Latin America that has now become a globally transformative energy within the church’s theology and life. In the 1950s, the idea of liberation from colonial regimes spread throughout Africa. In the 1960s, the idea of liberation from oppressive capitalist regimes spread throughout Latin America. The idea of freedom from dependence upon rich political economies, or economic colonialism, grew. In the crucible of the “conscientization” (Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks and Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed) of the poor in the midst of their dire poverty, Christian life and theology changed. The “father” of liberation theology, the Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutie´rrez, was influenced by the energy and urgency of social movements in Latin America, and the call for the development of Latin American socialism. He was also influenced by his work as a priest, living with the poor and experiencing their lives. He set the direction of this Christian renewal in his seminal text, Teologı´a de la libercio´n, 1971 (A Theology of Liberation, 1973). According to Gutie´rrez, he offers “not so much a new theme for reflection as a new way to do theology” (1973: 15). This is the distinctive contribution of liberation theology, and has come to affect all of Christian theology, the theological method Gutie´rrez explicates systematically in this influential text. The foundation of his methodology, and that of liberation theology itself, consists in three claims. First, that God loves all persons equally and gratuitously. Second, that God loves the poor preferentially, or that God demonstrates a “preferential option for the poor.” Third, that theology should be a “critical reflection on Christian praxis in the light of the word” (1973: 13). Praxis and theological reflection upon it form a “hermeneutical circle,” whereby Christian life shapes theology and theology shapes life – in light of the context in which it is found, e.g., poverty, oppression, injustice, and violence. By the time Teoloiı´a de la liberacio´n was published, Catholic Latin American theologians and bishops had been influenced by not only the growing social movements, but by the Second Vatican Council, and had been carrying on discussions about how to articulate the faith more profoundly in connection to the struggle for justice. What became known as liberation theology gained endorsement at the 1968 Second General Conference of the Latin American Bishops in Medellı´n, Columbia. Here the Bishops determined to implement the vision of Vatican II and of liberation from injustice. Gutie´rrez was the official theological consultant at Medellı´n and his thought is imbedded in the Conference’s final document. The concept of God’s “preferential option for the poor”

(if not this precise phrase) emerged from Medellı´n. Its official and hierarchical endorsements aside, liberation theology has never been an academic program given to the poor, but it has in fact emerged from the poor, and the laity have always been essential to its authenticity and vitality, no less than pastors and theologians. God’s preferential option for the poor means that if God loves all equally and gratuitously, God must love the poor preferentially. God’s love cannot be neutral among the oppressed and the oppressors. Universality cannot mean neutrality, otherwise God’s love would condone injustice. If God is “on the side” of the poor and disenfranchised, so we must be as well. This theological theme pervades the Bible, but does so paradigmatically in Jesus the Christ, who as God made man, is God made poor and vulnerable. In Jesus, God dies on a cross among the victimized in identification and solidarity with them. There are three basic categories of poverty, the (1) material, (2) spiritual, and (3) voluntary poverty as protest (1973: 287–306). Jesus is the explicit model of poverty as protest and solidarity with the poor, as God “emptied” himself in Jesus, and took the status of a “slave” and even “accepted” death on the cross (Philippians 2:1–13). God-in-Jesus did not only become poor and victimized, but we meet God in the poor and victimized. The Son of Man exclaims, “I was hungry . . . naked . . . in prison. . .” in the lives of others (Matthew 25.31–46). If poverty is multidimensional, so is liberation. We are called to work for (1) political liberation, (2) psychological liberation, and (3) accept liberation from sin. Liberation, or redemption, from sin can only be accepted because it is entirely God’s gift. All three kinds of liberation, while analytically distinct, are in practice, intrinsically connected and part of one liberative process (73: 21–42). Liberation theology explicates the multidimensional and holistic nature of poverty, victimization, structural violence and sin, and of liberation. Just as sin is personal, institutional, structural, and concrete, so too is God’s love and liberation. The “true form of faith is ‘political love’ or ‘macrocharity’ . . . [but] faith cannot be reduced to action” (Boff and Boff: 39). The concrete fact of sin and liberation, and the reflection upon praxis and the hermeneutical circle that are at the foundation of liberation theology means that spirituality itself is foundational to theology. Spirituality is “a true meeting with God in history” (Boff and Boff: 3). So sociohistorical and structural analysis cannot stand alone, and prayer, worship, and contemplation are essential to Christian praxis. Orthopraxis (right practice) is essential to orthodoxy (right worship), and our worship is inseparable from our thinking and our doing.

Libertarianism

Liberation theology has made an irrevocable imprint on the church’s theology. Its foundational premises are engaged and articulated globally, especially in a time when the church is increasingly poor and located in the less developed world, as its demographics shift from North to South. Latin American liberation theology gave rise to Black, feminist, Asian, African, and other liberation theologies. Beginning in the Catholic Church, it quickly moved beyond Catholicism. Some of its most important contributors include Marı´a Pilar Aquino, Clodovis and Leonardo Boff, Jose´ Mı´quez Bonino, James Cone, Deane William Ferm, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Juan Luis Segundo, and Jon Sobrino. The task of liberation theology is as old as the church: to find a way to speak about God, love, grace, and salvation in a world of injustice, poverty, oppression, and violence. Liberation theology has made vital contributions to the church’s theology, life, and its communal contexts in this task. It has given articulate confession and manifestation of God the Liberator as a force for global justice and much more.

Related Topics

▶ Charity ▶ Fanon, Frantz ▶ Feminist Ethics ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Imperialism ▶ Indigenous Peoples ▶ Justice and Religion: Christianity ▶ Marxism ▶ Poverty ▶ Socialism ▶ Solidarity

References Aquino M (2002) Our cry for life: feminist theology from Latin America. Wipf and Stock, Eugene Araya V (1987) The God of the poor: the mystery of God in Latin American liberation theology. Orbis, Maryknoll Bell D Jr (2001) Liberation theology after the end of history: The refusal to cease suffering. Routledge, New York Boff L (1979) Jesus Christ liberator: a critical Christology for our times. Orbis, Maryknoll Boff C (1987) Theology and praxis: epistemological foundations. Orbis, Maryknoll Boff C (1989) Salvation and liberation. Orbis, Maryknoll Boff L (2006) Cry of the earth, cry of the poor. Orbis, Maryknoll Boff L, Boff C (2003) Introducing liberation theology. Orbis, Maryknoll Bonino J (1975) Doing theology in a revolutionary situation. Fortress, Philadelphia Brown R (1993) Liberation theology: an introductory guide. Westminster/ John Knox, Louisville

L

Cone J (1990) A black theology of liberation. Lippincott, Philadelphia Ferm D (2004) Third world liberation theologies: an introductory survey. Wipf and Stock, Eugene Goizueta R (1995) Caminemos con Jesu´s: toward a Hispanic/Latino theology of accompaniment. Orbis, Maryknoll Gutie´rrez G (1988) A theology of liberation: history, politics, and salvation. Orbis, Maryknoll, Originally 1973 Gutie´rrez G (1996) Gustavo Gutie´rrez: essential writings, ed. Nickoloff J. Orbis, Maryknoll Gutie´rrez G (2003) We drink from our own wells: the spiritual journey of a people. Orbis, Maryknoll Gutie´rrez G (2004) The power of the poor in history. Wipf and Stock, Eugene Hennelly A (1995) Liberation theologies: the global pursuit of justice. Twenty Third Publications, Mystic Isasi Diaz A (1996) Mujerista theology: a theology for the twenty-first century. Orbis, Marykknoll Miranda J (1982) Marx and the bible: a critique of the philosophy of oppression (trans: Eagleson J). Wipf and Stock, Eugene Pablo R (1987) Death of Christendoms and birth of the church: historical analysis and theological interpretation of the church in Latin America. Orbis, Maryknoll Ruether R (1993) Sexism and God-talk: toward a feminist theology. Beacon, Boston Russell L (1995) Human liberation in a feminist perspective- a theology. Westminster, Philadelphia Segundo J (2002) The liberation of theology. Wipf and Stock, Eugene Sobrino J (1978) Christology at the crossroads: a Latin American approach. Orbis, Maryknoll Sobrino J (2008) No salvation outside the poor: prophetic-utopian essays. Orbis, Maryknoll Tamez E, O’Connell M (2006) Bible of the oppressed (trans: O’Connell M). Wipf and Stock, Eugene

Libertarianism NICOLE HASSOUN Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

There is no single libertarian platform. Most libertarians are united in endorsing a right to self-ownership while “right” and “left” libertarians disagree about the proper conception of property rights. Authors like Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Richard Epstein do not start from a right to self-ownership. Though, these authors are perhaps better classified as classical liberals than libertarians and this article will just examine libertarian doctrines. At least, this article will consider versions of libertarianism that are committed to different conceptions of self-ownership and private property rights. First, it will consider how these versions of libertarianism might be justified. Next, it will explain how different

655

L

656

L

Libertarianism

versions of libertarianism entail different commitments regarding global distributive justice. Finally, it will examine several of the main arguments in the global justice literature against the most familiar version of (right) libertarianism. Many libertarians are right libertarians and follow John Locke and Robert Nozick in holding that we can gain property rights in external things by just initial acquisition and just transfer. On Locke’s account, initial acquisition is justified as long as one leaves enough and as good for others (Locke and Laslett 1690). Libertarians who follow Nozick believe it is just to transfer property if the person transferring it has a right to it and violates no one’s rights in the transfer (Nozick 1974). Left libertarians usually do not think we can gain property rights in external things by just initial acquisition and just transfer. Often, they believe natural resources are jointly or collectively owned. Some hold that the consent of others is necessary for use or appropriation. Some believe that use or appropriation must not yield unjustified inequalities (Otsuka 2003). These left libertarians hold that the justification of property rights requires some kind of egalitarian distribution. Some cash this out in terms of equal opportunities, others in terms of equal shares (Otsuka 2003; Steiner 1994). The former compensates for brute luck (e.g., due to genetics), the latter does not. There are, however, important disagreements amongst libertarians even about the nature of self-ownership. Some believe, for instance, that self-ownership requires permitting consent to slavery. Others object that this undermines the ground for self-ownership, which is autonomy (Locke and Laslett 1690; Grunebaum 1987; Steiner 1994). The fact that left and right libertarians have very different conceptions of what self-ownership implies is important because, on its own, self-ownership does not guarantee liberty (even to be free from imprisonment). Just to move about one requires space and land upon which to tread. So, what liberty rights one will have depends on what property rights are justifiable (Vallentyne 2010). Different ways of understanding libertarian rights have important implications for global justice. Some (left) libertarians believe, for instance, that even rights to self-ownership should be limited by an obligation to aid others. Other (right) libertarians reply that such limitations amount to involuntary slavery (Vallentyne 2010). So, much of the literature on global justice that engages with libertarians argues for or against one or another account of these rights (Sterba 2005; Wenar 2008).

There are different ways of grounding libertarian principles. Many libertarians are natural rights theorists who take self-ownership and property rights as basic. We have seen, for instance, how Locke holds that initial acquisition is justified as long as one leaves enough and as good for others (Locke and Laslett 1690). While, Nozick (accepting Locke’s proviso) believes it is just to transfer property if the person transferring it has a right to it and violates no one’s rights in the transfer (Nozick 1974). Other libertarians justify the basic libertarian rights on contractualist or consequentialist grounds (Narveson 1988). David Schmidtz argues, for instance, that property rights are justified in virtue of the benefits they bring – they allow people to carry out their life plans, invest in resource creation, and help us avoid tragedies of the commons (Schmidtz 2002). Property rights, such libertarians argue, benefit everyone and rational people would agree to these rights. Some libertarians also suggest that states lack the information and incentives they would need to do more than protect basic rights (Mack and Gaus 2004). These libertarians do not believe governments are good at doing more than protecting libertarian rights (Hayek 1960). Many of the debates amongst libertarians and between libertarians, anarchists, and liberals of other sorts focus on whether libertarianism can be established in any of these ways. Rather than considering further the arguments in favor of libertarianism, the rest of this entry will consider some of the main criticisms of libertarianism in the literature on global justice. Most of these arguments address right libertarianism in particular (henceforth simply “libertarianism”), which should be carefully distinguished from anarchism (Long and Machan 2008). For, unlike anarchists, these libertarians believe that some state can be legitimate (usually specifying that it must be a minimal state that only has a monopoly on protective force) and they believe that there should be such a state. Furthermore, these libertarians are not classical welfare liberals. They do not believe legitimate states must ensure that any of their subjects can secure even minimal food, water, health care, and shelter. They do not even believe there is a duty of justice to enable people to meet their basic needs within a state. Libertarians’ rejection of liberalism flies in the face of the majority of work on global justice. Statists and cosmopolitans disagree about the proper limits of obligations of justice. Statists often believe that these obligations stop or at least diminish in urgency at borders, while cosmopolitans disagree. Nevertheless, statists and cosmopolitans generally agree that states have significant (positive)

Libertarianism

obligations of justice to their citizens (Blake 2001; Miller 1998; Brock 2008; Pogge 2002; Hassoun 2008; Moellendorf 2002). Since, many (right) libertarians deny this, they provide an independent voice in the global justice literature (Kukathas 2006; Nozick 1974; Narveson 1988). Some libertarians even hold that it is completely acceptable for communities to do whatever they would like to their members (starve, torture, enslave them, etc.) as long as their members have a formal (negative) right to exit from these communities (Kukathas 2003). There are two main arguments in the global justice literature critiquing libertarians. The first is by James Sterba (Sterba 2005). He suggests that a minimal state, by enforcing property rights, prevents people from meeting their basic needs. Since individuals have a right to liberty, he says, there is a conflict of rights. The rich have a right to their property, the poor a right to take what they need from the rich. People must be able to do what morality requires (as the ought-implies-can principle directs). And the rich can, but the poor cannot, refrain from exercising their rights (the strains of commitment upon the poor are too much to bear). So, Sterba concludes, states must provide the poor with what they need if they are to be justified in protecting the property rights of the rich (Sterba 2005). Many libertarians follow Tibor Machan, however, and reject Sterba’s empirical claim. They do not think that a minimal state, by enforcing property rights, prevents people from meeting their basic needs (Machan 2002). Others libertarians, following Douglas Rosmussen, seem to accept this point but reject Sterba’s conclusion for a different reason. They do not believe that a conflict of rights generates a duty on the part of the rich to aid the poor (Sterba 1997). Thomas Pogge argues that libertarians should embrace welfarism (Pogge 2002). He suggests that those in the developed world are indirectly harming the poor (partly through their influence on international organizations like the WTO and IMF). He argues, for instance, that by lending money and buying resources from any individual or group that manages to gain control of a country, these institutions create incentives for coups and poor governance in developing countries (Also see: Pogge 2002; Hassoun 2008). Like Sterba’s argument, Pogge’s is controversial. Authors like Mathias Risse argue, for instance, that libertarians are likely to reject Pogge’s human rights baseline for harm. Risse suggests that libertarian would probably only consider historical and state-of-nature construals of this baseline. He argues that it is not at all clear that those

L

657

of us in the developed world are harming the global poor by making them worse off than they would have been on these baselines (Risse 2005; Patten 2005). Here is a new argument against right libertarians. This argument starts from a line run by John Simmons for the conclusion that libertarians should be actual consent theorists (Simmons 2005). It then advances the following line: 1. To be legitimate, states must do what they can to enable their citizens to secure sufficient autonomy to autonomously consent to their rules (henceforth “sufficient autonomy”). 2. To secure sufficient autonomy, most of the citizens in a state must be able to secure some minimal amount of health care, food, water, and shelter. 3. So, states must do what they can to enable these people to secure these things (Hassoun 2009a, b). If libertarians accept actual consent theory, the first premise might follow from these libertarians’ commitments and a plausible view about the obligations owed to those states that continue to illegitimately coerce. At least, it should follow as long as these libertarians do not think it is any more acceptable to coerce rights respecting potential autonomous people than the fully autonomous (Hassoun 2009b). One can argue (roughly) that states continue to illegitimately coerce those who have not autonomously consented to being so coerced because they lack autonomy. As long as no one else is helping these potentially autonomous people secure autonomy, the only way such states can be legitimate is if they enable these people to secure sufficient autonomy to consent to their state’s rule. So, states have a remedial duty to enable these people to secure sufficient autonomy. The second premise follows from some facts about human nature. People who cannot secure some minimal amount of health care, food, water, and shelter are likely to suffer from autonomy-undermining disabilities. Those who cannot secure decent medical care are likely to fall ill frequently or develop chronic illnesses. Those who cannot secure adequate food and water will probably suffer from malnutrition. Those who lack decent shelter are likely to suffer from overexposure to dangerous environmental conditions and so forth. Illness, malnutrition, overexposure, and so forth can all lead to autonomyundermining disabilities. Most people must be able to secure some minimal amount of health care, food, water, and shelter to secure sufficient autonomy (Hassoun 2008). So, if this argument goes through, libertarians must agree that states have to do what they can to enable these people

L

658

L

Liberties

to secure these things. Libertarians must accept some kind of welfare state. This is a significant conclusion as most right libertarians reject welfare states and many people cannot secure even the most minimal health care, food, water, and shelter (Hassoun 2008, 2009a, 2009b).

Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Matt Zwolinski, Brad Mondon, Julian Culp, and Kevin Vallier for helpful comments and discussion.

Related Topics

▶ Anarchy ▶ Coercion ▶ Consent ▶ Contractarianism ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Negative Duties ▶ Negative Rights ▶ Utilitarianism

Narveson J (1988) The libertarian idea. Temple University Press, Philadelphia Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state, and utopia. Basic Books, New York Otsuka M (2003) Libertarianism without inequality. Clarendon, Oxford Patten A (2005) Should we stop thinking about poverty in terms of helping the poor? Ethics Int Aff 19(1):9–18 Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights: cosmopolitan responsibilities and reforms. Polity, Cambridge Risse M (2005) Do we owe the poor assistance or rectification? Ethics Int Aff 19(1):9–18 Schmidtz D (2002) The institution of property. In: Schmidtz D, Willott E (eds) Environmental ethics: what really matters, what really works. Oxford University Press, New York Simmons J (2005) Consent theory for libertarians. Soc Philos Policy 22(1):331 Steiner H (1994) An essay on rights. Blackwell, Cambridge Sterba J (1997) Progress in reconciliation: evidence from right and left. J Soc Philos 28(2):101–116 Sterba J (2005) The triumph of practice over theory in ethics. Oxford University Press, Oxford Vallentyne P (2010) Libertarianism. Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/. Acessed May, 2001 Vallentyne P, Steiner H (eds) (2000) Left libertarianism and its critics: the contemporary debate. Palgrave, New York Wenar L (2008) Property rights and the resource curse. Philos Public Aff 36(1):2–32

References Blake M (2001) Distributive justice, state coercion, and autonomy. Philos Public Aff 30(3):257–296 Brock G (2008) Global justice: a cosmopolitan account. Oxford University Press, Oxford Hassoun N (2008) World poverty and individual freedom. Am Philos Q 45(2):191–198 Hassoun N (2009a) Libertarian welfare rights? Presented at the University of Washington’s conference: Global justice in the 21st century, University of Washington, Seattle. http://depts.washington.edu/ uwch/projects_conferences_global0809.htm. Accessed May, 2011 Hassoun N (2009b) Review of Roderick T. Long and Tibor R. Machan, Anarchism/minarchism: is a government part of a free country?, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 21.04.2009 Hayek FA (1960) The constitution of liberty. Gateway Editions, Chicago Kekes J (1984) Ought implies can’ and two kinds of morality. Philos Q 34(137):459–467 Kukathas C (2003) The liberal archipelago: a theory of diversity and freedom. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kukathas C (2006) The mirage of global justice. Soc Philos Policy 23(1):1–28 Locke J, Laslett P (eds) (1690) Two treatises of government. Cambridge University Press, New York Long R, Machan T (2008) Anarchism/minarchism: is a government part of a free country? Ashgate, London Machan T (2002) Sterba on Machan’s ‘concession’. J Soc Philos 32(2):241–243 Mack E, Gaus G (2004) Classical liberalism and libertarianism: the liberty tradition. In: Gaus G, Kukathas C (eds) Handbook of political theory. Sage, London Miller D (1998) The limits of cosmopolitan justice. In: Mapel D, Nardin T (eds) International society. Princeton University Press, Princeton Moellendorf D (2002) Cosmopolitan justice. Westview, Cambridge

Liberties KENNETH LASSON School of Law, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, USA

Liberty is a concept of political philosophy which describes an individual’s right to act according to his or her own will, free from outside compulsion or coercion. One of the earliest usages of the word freedom can be found in the legal code of Lagash, a Sumerian city-state whose king Urukagina established laws that forbade compelling the sale of property and required that charges be stated before any man accused of a crime could be tried or punished. The Code of Hammurabi also prohibited compulsion in economic matters, and regarded murder, whether done by rich or poor, as a criminal offense. In the Persian Empire, equal rights were afforded to citizens of all religions and ethnic groups, as well as to women. The notion of civil liberties can fairly be dated back to Socrates, the first notable proponent of free speech. Socrates roamed the marketplace and other centers of debate in Athens, mocking the Greek gods as silly and immoral and seeking to lay bare the ignorance of political leaders who sought to flaunt their superior knowledge.

Liberties

His “Socratic Method” of questioning, dramatically reconstructed in Plato’s dialogs, became a form of democratic argument by which he could advocate his position that, in the best interests of all, the wise rule and the ignorant obey. It was inevitable that “the stinging gadfly of Athens” would be indicted to stand trial. A jury of 500, selected by lot in the Athenian judicial system, voted to convict Socrates for rejecting the gods of the city and corrupting the young. Both of these charges involved solely things he said, not any physical actions. His final speech, in which he declared that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” enshrined Socrates as a martyr to the cause of intellectual honesty and freedom of speech. This was the beginning of the end of free speech in Athens – and worldwide – for 2,000 years. Although Roman law also embraced certain limited forms of liberty (even under the rule of the Emperors) – such as the right to a trial and appeal, enforcement of contracts, and a guarantee against torture – these liberties were accorded only to citizens. The idea of unalienable and universal liberties had to wait until the Age of Enlightenment. The concept of liberty was reborn with the Magna Carta (1215), which offered an embryonic renewal of freedom from absolute royal tyranny. The document was a charter that a group of barons extracted from King John in 1215 at Runnymede, declaring certain rights for Englishmen beyond those granted by the monarchy. Only later, however, did the common man gain even a partial voice in a legislative Parliament. In 1644, John Milton wrote his Areopagitica, which some consider to be the noblest defense of free speech ever composed. Political philosophers of the Enlightenment, particularly Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), John Locke (1632–1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1788), promulgated the social contract theory, a political classification of sovereignty and natural rights. They reasoned that law governed both heavenly and human affairs, and gave the king his power. The Enlightenment brought with it the idea of individual liberty – that is, that the individual is most free within the context of a state which provides legal and political stability. This phase in the struggle for freedom of speech culminated in the British Bill of Rights of 1689, which established the right to speak freely in Parliament and protected the speaker from kings’ retaliation. Locke’s works on democracy and freedom, written in exile, became a major source of the American Constitution. The colonies’ Declaration of Independence (1776) combined recognition of universal rights and international law. Although the US Constitution (1789) did

L

659

not mention the word “equality,” the concept was explicit in the French Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789). In 1791, a full century after the British Bill of Rights, the First Amendment to the Constitution confirmed and expanded the principle of free speech. That same year Thomas Paine published his “Rights of Man,” which articulated the idea of “natural rights” (at birth). American notions of civil liberties are often traced to John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). His famous essay On Liberty rests on two principles: (1) that all restraint is an evil and that leaving people to themselves is always better than controlling them, and (2) that the sole end for which mankind may interfere with the liberty of others is for self-protection or to prevent harm to others. Mill deemed the first principle to be a self-evident truth. The second, though, has caused the greatest amount of debate and criticism. Is it possible to categorize laws into those which prevent harm to others and those which don’t? Many libertarians agree that if an act is neither imposed nor has a deleterious effect, it must be permitted.

Civil Liberties and International Human Rights Before World War II, international civil liberties law had historical antecedents in several legal doctrines and institutions. There were the concepts of humanitarian intervention, the responsibility of a state for injuries to aliens, the protection of minorities, and the relatively new idea of international humanitarian law. It used to be that individuals had no international legal rights, but were subject only to the states where they were citizens: the manner in which a state treated its own nationals was not regulated by international law. But there were a few exceptions to this idea of nonintervention. One was the doctrine of humanitarian intervention – the lawful use of force by one or more states to stop the mistreatment of individuals in another state which was so brutal as to “shock the conscience.” Traditional international law recognized early on that states had an obligation to treat foreign nationals humanely. Human-rights treaties began to develop in the nineteenth century with laws that banned the slave trade, and international agreements to protect Christian minorities in the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire. The Treaty of Berlin (1878) accorded special legal status to some religious groups. The Covenant of the League of Nations was a treaty promulgated in 1920, establishing the League of Nations. But it contained no general provisions dealing with civil liberties. Article 23 of the Covenant did concern civil liberties vis-a-vis the “fair and humane conditions of

L

660

L

Lifeboat Ethics

labor for men, women, and children.” The League of Nations also played an important role in developing an international system for the protection of minorities. A distinction should be drawn between what’s known as “humanitarian law” and what we now call “international civil liberties law.” For example, the establishment of the international Red Cross would come under the rubric of humanitarian law, as would the Geneva Convention of 1864, which provided that “wounded or sick combatants, to whatever nation they may belong, shall be collected and cared for.” The Hague Convention of 1899 established similar rules for naval warfare. Much of that law is codified today in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the two 1977 Protocols related to those conventions.

Related Topics

▶ Equality ▶ Hague Conventions ▶ Human Rights ▶ Liberal Pluralism ▶ Political Autonomy

References Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 479 (1965) Westbrooks LH (2008) Personal freedom. In: Owens W (eds) Freedom: keys to freedom from twenty-one national leaders. Main Street Publications, Memphis, pp 133–138 Mill JS (1859) On liberty. Clarendon, Oxford Owens J (1998) Socrates, freedom of speech and hate crime Robertson AH, Merrills JG (1996) Human rights in the world. Manchester University Press, Manchester Stephen JF (1874) Liberty, equality, fraternity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Lifeboat Ethics MICHAEL K. POTTER Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada

Although the idea dates back at least as far as the eighteenth century, the term “lifeboat ethics” denotes a position first proposed by influential Texan ecologist Garrett Hardin (1915–2003), whose ethical perspective traces back to the tragedy of the commons. A paradox of rationality and virtue, the tragedy of the commons is what happens when a plethora of people, all acting out of shortterm rational self-interest, degrade, destroy, or deplete a common resource – resulting in a consequence that is not in anyone’s long-term self-interest.

In two substantially identical essays published in 1974, Hardin used a lifeboat metaphor as an alternative to the then-popular metaphor of “spaceship earth.” The spaceship earth metaphor, he argued, makes sense only if all on the spaceship are under the control of one captain, for the notion of a spaceship that runs by committee, or through democratic elections, is senseless. The metaphor ignores salient features of the actual world in order to lend dubious legitimacy to the idea of rights to common resources without attendant responsibilities. Rights, Hardin emphasized, must be accompanied by responsibilities, the rights of the less fortunate no less than the rights of the most fortunate. While it is tempting to allow our thinking to be clouded by consideration of the rights of the desperate to food, shelter – even life – we cannot allow them to influence our thinking without accounting for the responsibilities of the less fortunate to themselves, their children, their neighbors. In matters of human survival, he urged, responsibilities must be accepted concurrently with rights, if not earlier. Thinking of nations as lifeboats, Hardin believed, would better illuminate pressing ethical issues, not least among them those of population control, aid to povertystricken or disaster-stricken nations, and ecological responsibility. The upshot of his argument is simple, and to many quite appealing: We in first-world nations are under no obligation to help those in third-world nations. In fact, those who help such nations with humanitarian aid or lax immigration policies are contributing to greater destruction in the long run. Wealthy nations are lifeboats with ample room to move, ample resources to keep boaters alive. Poorer nations are horrifically overcrowded lifeboats, always in danger of sinking, from which people continuously fall out, swimming in desperation toward those in the wealthy lifeboats, hoping to be either pulled in (immigration) or provided with “goodies” (humanitarian aid) to keep them alive a little longer. Yet the wealthy lifeboats, of course, are limited in space and resources. Those in the wealthy lifeboats are thus faced with a choice: Allow the poor into their boats, which will compromise and eventually fill the available space; offer them aid, which will deplete available resources; or do nothing and allow them to drown. Hardin proposed, for the sake of argument, that our lifeboat contains 50 people, with capacity for 10 more, for a total possible capacity of 60. We see 100 people drowning in the water (Hardin actually says “swimming,” but one can swim for only so long). These people beg us to haul them into the boat or provide them with handouts to keep them alive. Hardin recognized two alternatives to his favored choice, the Christian and the Marxist. Were we

Lifeboat Ethics

to take the Christian response and act as our brother’s keepers, or the Marxist approach and take from each as according to his abilities and give to each as according to his needs, we would allow all 100 people into our boat, for a total of 150, which would sink the boat, killing everyone. “Complete justice,” Hardin concludes. “Complete catastrophe.” But what if we were to allow just 10 people into the boat? Now, Hardin argued, we would lose our “safety factor,” the principle that one should always have slightly more than one needs, in case of disaster. If disaster strikes, we are out of luck; there will be catastrophe. Perhaps that is a risk we are willing to take. But how do we choose which 10 people to save? However we make that decision, we will be forced to discriminate in some way. Thus we arrive at the option Hardin favored, which is to let all 100 drown in order to keep the boat afloat and preserve our “safety factor.” Recognizing that most people find this choice repellent, Hardin proposed that those who feel guilty about their good fortune give up their space in the lifeboat to one of the drowning unfortunates. Surely, this might placate the guilty person’s conscience. But the problem still remains – there are 100 people drowning. Hardin, unaware of the phenomenon of survivor’s guilt, claimed that the formerly drowning person will not feel guilty about taking the place of a conscience-stricken firstworlder. Indeed, “The net result of conscience-stricken people relinquishing their unjustly held positions is the elimination of their kind of conscience from the lifeboat.” Hardin believed his lifeboat metaphor highlighted reasonable solutions. Regarding reproductive matters, Hardin argues, the metaphor indicates the need to recognize that the drowning population is reproducing at a much faster rate than the wealthy population. Marxist and Christian ethics are incapable of handling the problems that such a population explosion creates. Living by their principles would swamp the wealthy lifeboats in a matter of decades, reducing everyone to a state of desperation. Aside from that complication, Hardin claimed, any ethic of indiscriminate sharing leads inevitably to the tragedy of the commons. The private property system leads property owners to recognize a responsibility to care for what is theirs, because it is in their interest. But with a commons, there is no built-in reinforcement of responsibility; in fact, those who do not abuse the commons suffer more than those who do. Thus, Christian and Marxist ethics are counterproductive. They work only if they are shared by everyone; the first violator destroys the system. Thus, we have widespread pollution of air and water because they are seen as commons.

L

When it comes to world food banks, Hardin saw an unconscious collusion between selfish special interests and “humanitarian apologists” to create a lobby that bleeds taxpayers dry. By providing humanitarian aid to nations that complain of famine, we prevent them from being forced to learn from their mistakes and budget accordingly for the next emergency – and emergency of some sort is inevitable, a matter of time. The lifeboat metaphor, he claimed, demonstrates that nations must be held responsible for coping with their own emergencies. Immigration, too, discourages improvement of those nations people desire to leave, overwhelms the carrying capacity of the wealthier nations, and contributes to a situation in which “wretched” jobs in the wealthier nations persist just because there are desperate people willing to do them for low wages. There may be some situations in which immigration is permissible, however, such as for political refugees and for those who have unusual talents. All of these issue-specific responses share an underlying conclusion: We must allow people to die during emergencies, so that populations drop back to the carrying capacities of their particular environments. Yes, there will be suffering, but that is “normal to any independent country with inadequate population control.” This is a fact that would be recognized by any wise sovereigns but, Hardin mused, these do not seem to exist in poor nations. The concept of pure justice, Hardin concluded, is a trap. It leads to an infinite regress that, paradoxically, guarantees no justice at all. “Are good intentions ever a sufficient excuse for bad consequences?” "

The implications of lifeboat ethics for global justice are profound, and in some circles Hardin’s metaphor has found enthusiastic acceptance. If we follow the logic of Hardin’s argument, we are led to believe we are justified in ignoring the suffering of the less fortunate, adopting a stern “tough love” approach to poor and starving populations. Aside from the paternalistic condescension involved in such an approach to issues of global justice, there are less value-dependent reason for rejecting lifeboat ethics as well.

The lifeboat metaphor has been criticized for being overly simplistic, ignoring salient details in order to support a predetermined conclusion. For instance, at present we produce more than enough food to feed the population of the world, if it were equitably distributed. Hardin ignores, also, the exploitive effect of international markets and business practices on the poor who do not partake in them, the contribution governments of wealthy nations have made to political and economic situations in poorer

661

L

662

L

Local Communities

nations through foreign policies and military interventions, the effects of war and colonization, the effects of epidemic and endemic diseases like malaria, and the basic and fairly obvious fact that in nearly all cases the poor and starving are not responsible for, nor could they affect, the actions of their nation’s leaders. Responsibility without agency is certainly no less senseless a notion than rights without responsibilities. This is a consideration that lifeboat ethics does not take into account. Without it, Hardin’s metaphor, no matter how seductive some may find it, is inadequate to address pressing issues of global justice.

▶ Quality of Life ▶ Relative Poverty

References Hardin G (1974a) Lifeboat ethics: the case against helping the poor. Psychology Today 8:38–43 Hardin G (1974b) Living on a lifeboat. BioScience 24(10):561–568, Widely reprinted Hardin G (1968) The tragedy of the commons. Science 162(3859): 1243–1248 Singer P (1979) Practical ethics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 158–181, Widely reprinted as a rejoinder to Hardin Van Wyk RN (1988) Perspectives on world hunger and the extent of our positive duties. Public Affairs Quarterly 2(2):75–90

Related Topics

▶ Absolute Poverty ▶ Agency, Collective ▶ Agency, Individual ▶ Aid to Burdened Societies ▶ Altruism ▶ Basic Needs ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Capitalism ▶ Charity ▶ Chronic Poverty ▶ Class and Status ▶ Collective Responsibility ▶ Debt Relief ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties to Non-Compatriots ▶ Duties to the Distant Needy ▶ Economic Rights ▶ Ethical Foreign Policy ▶ Food ▶ Foreign Aid ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Global Public Health ▶ Global Resource Distribution ▶ Human Rights ▶ Humanitarian Aid ▶ Immigration ▶ Killing and Letting Die ▶ Libertarianism ▶ Moral Reasoning ▶ Negative Rights ▶ Obligation to Future Generations ▶ Population Politics ▶ Positive Rights ▶ Poverty ▶ Public Good

Local Communities ▶ Communitarianism ▶ Quality of Life ▶ Relativity of Well-Being ▶ Thin Universalism and Thick Localism

Locke, John GORDON A. BABST Department of Political Science, Wilkinson College Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA

The English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) is known for his political philosophy as well as his epistemological theory. Locke bridged his epistemology and political philosophy in his A Letter Concerning Toleration, the first version of which was written in 1685, in which the liberal virtue of toleration was asserted for reason of it being imprudent not to tolerate unorthodox or dissenting views because coercion cannot result in a change in heartfelt conviction as genuine assent can be given only under conditions of liberty. Intolerance backed by threat of force is illegitimate in the realm of belief, and so too is it illegitimate to attempt to rule over a society or people without their willing consent, the political idea for which Locke is most famous. Locke defended English revolutionaries against the monarchy, and denounced the divine right of kings, arguing that there’s no hereditary, patriarchal right to rule descended from Adam and bestowing dominion of the world on his descendants; rather, public political power is different in kind than private dominion.

Locke, John

For Locke, the basic relationship between government and the people is a trust, a covenant consented to by the majority to institute a State, depositing there its powers to enforce the law of nature, rather than creating a new authority with interests of its own. Locke argued that human beings have a natural, Godgiven right to liberty, and that governments can and ought to be overthrown when they do not secure, but threaten the people’s unalienable rights that preexisted both civil society and government – chiefly, life, liberty, estate, and the pursuit of happiness. The Lockean state has been likened to an umpire, an impartial arbiter who provides binding judgments based on the rules or laws, or to a night watchman, who patrols the streets at night to see to everyone’s security but in all hopes has very little to do, needs rarely and then only minimally act on his due authority or powers. Although Locke’s ideas that to be legitimate a government must rest on the freely given consent of the governed, and it must preserve the people’s natural rights, have straightforward implications for justice within a society, it is easily extended to the evaluation of societies from the outside. A Lockean just global arrangement of sovereign nation-states would be one wherein each country’s government rests on the consent of the people, who elect persons to occupy political positions of power wherein the political authority entrusted to the government always remains answerable to the people and ultimately can be recalled back to the society should its political leaders revolt from their duties to uphold that social contract. Locke can inform a concept of global justice in at least two other fundamental ways, in his concept of property and in his views on equality, radical in his own day. Locke argued that originally man had been placed by God in a state of nature, one of natural equality and goodwill among people, and governed by the fundamental “Law of Nature,” that all such as it is ought to be preserved, and there is “plenty” to sustain human well-being. The best use of one’s talents is not only to preserve one’s own property, which Locke extends to include the property one has in one’s rights, but also to mix one’s work with the resources available in such a way as to augment nature in a positive way and thereby enhance human dignity, increase the social welfare of the community at large, and help to secure the blessings of liberty for the next generation. Locke’s understanding of the state of nature and property in its extended sense responds to his predecessor Thomas Hobbes’ far more dismal assessment of the human condition and unaided potential. On Locke’s view, people engage in productive activity that increases the amount of resources available and their efficient use, and

L

thus is not predicated on scarcity or anticipation of struggle over scarce goods. Locke’s notion that people thrive as well as actualize their moral agency through their labor is reflected in his concern that there always be a sufficient amount of resources such as land unowned, not yet appropriated, so that others in the community and the next generation can also experience personal independence and engage in meaningful productive activity. The waste of resources or squandering of one’s talents or labor are abusive of the natural order, and so a violation of the law of nature to preserve what is. Locke had difficulty incorporating the new “inconveniences” a coinage-based economy brings into his scheme, because money, unlike apples, for example, can be hoarded without spoiling and can be converted into anything else. Nonetheless, Locke’s insights into the moral significance of property and the appropriate use of one’s talents and energies may lend some important components in an environmental ethic. And, Locke clearly articulated that we need civil determination to control any disputes, such as the controversies that money may generate, to determine what counts as lawful possession of property, and what constitutes the unlawful pursuit of private gain contravening the public good. Locke was also an advocate of equality, and profoundly opposed to any form of slavery, whether physical or moral, the latter meaning someone whose situation is so desperate that he or she cannot be regarded as autonomous and so could conceivably come to be regarded as the unearned property of another person, whose charity sustains the person in desperation. The plight of such persons, Locke argued, ought not depend on the charity of the wealthy so long as there is a sufficient surplus of goods available to meet their legitimate needs. Hence, no one in a Lockean scheme need involuntarily go destitute, so long as there are sufficient resources available to prevent this, regardless of a person’s indigence or blameworthiness, because of the equal moral status of all persons, which it is in the interest of the moral community at large to uphold. While Locke’s vision did not favor native peoples who could not share his understanding of property and so could rightly be escheated of their lands, his political philosophy with its emphasis on consent of the governed, equality, and the moral significance of property understood in its extended sense, can provide vital components in a global vision of justice, especially in the context of glaring disparities between the very well-off peoples of the world, and those worst off, whether due to tyranny, poverty, or lack of opportunity, because, Locke would argue, all these are effects of human, not providential design.

663

L

664

L

Luck Egalitarianism

Related Topics

▶ Charity ▶ Consent ▶ Equality ▶ Exploitation ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Liberalism ▶ Liberties ▶ Natural Rights ▶ Political Legitimacy ▶ Property Rights ▶ Revolution ▶ Rights ▶ Separation of Church and State ▶ Slavery ▶ Social Contract ▶ Toleration/Tolerance, Liberal Principle of ▶ Tyranny

References Chappell V (ed) (1994) The Cambridge companion to Locke. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Dworetz S (1990) The unvarnished doctrine: Locke, liberalism, and the American revolution. Duke University Press, Durham Locke J (1990 [orig.: 1689]) A letter concerning toleration. Prometheus, Amherst Locke J (1996 [orig.: 1689]) Two treatises of government. Everyman’s Library, London McClure K (1996) Judging rights: Lockean politics and the limits of consent. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Mehta U (1992) The anxiety of freedom: imagination and individuality in Locke’s political thought. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Thomas D (1995) Locke on government. Routledge, London Wootton D (1993) John Locke political writings. Hackett, Indianapolis

Luck Egalitarianism SUSAN P. MURPHY School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Does it matter, morally speaking, whether a person (agent) is born male or female; into a wealthy or underprivileged family; into a Christian, Muslim, or nondenominational family; in a particular country or even in a particular part of a country or city? Most political philosophers argue that such arbitrary matters are irrelevant from a moral perspective. All persons have equal moral status. Such factors are a matter of luck. Luck, good and bad, is a fact

of human life. However, if any of these factors, or any factors grounded in luck, affect a person’s life prospects and interests then, so the luck egalitarian argument goes, they do matter from the perspective of justice and it is a function of justice to neutralize or nullify the affects of such bad luck. This entry explores the idea of luck egalitarianism, its origins, and its role in the literature on global justice. The first section briefly addresses the question: What is luck egalitarianism? The second section examines debates within the literature on global justice concerning the reach of egalitarian principles of distributive justice. These debates are relatively new, spanning the last 3 decades, however, there is a rich diversity of positions as philosophers grapple with the ethical and moral implications of a world deeply scarred by inequality in all its forms – well-being, opportunities, capabilities, welfare, and resources. The final section then considers a global egalitarian critique of luck egalitarianism as an appropriate normative ground for global principles of distributive justice. The original luck egalitarian debate is concerned with inequalities within a domestic context, that is, within the boundaries of a state. However, the state of inequality between states/peoples/nations is the primary concern for those contributing to the debates on global justice. In a world where life expectancy, infant mortality rates, access to adequate health care, access to education, death from preventable disease, risk of exposure to disaster (either through an arbitrary act of nature or an intentional human-made event), and so on are all linked with matters of luck, such as where a person is born, debates concerning luck, equality, and the proper reach and ends of justice are a matter of grave urgency and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

What Is Luck Egalitarianism? The noun “luck” refers to a causal force that leads to states of affairs, advantageous or disadvantageous, that occurs by chance and without the intentional actions of the agent. Luck refers to a circumstance or situation that is not within an agent’s control and to which his or her choices and actions did not contribute (see Sher 2010). Luck that does not affect an agent’s life or interests is irrelevant from a moral perspective. However, luck that directly impacts an agent’s life and opportunities for well-being is morally relevant. Egalitarians are concerned, at a very basic level, with agent’s interests and entitlements. What is the correct distribution of benefits and burdens across peoples to support them in maximizing their interests and

Luck Egalitarianism

providing for their basic entitlements? Within the literature on liberal egalitarianism, interests have been described in terms of resources, opportunities, capabilities, and/or welfare. The term Luck Egalitarian was first coined in an article by Elizabeth Anderson in 1999 describing a family or loosely connected collective of philosophical ideas concerning equality and the proper ends of justice within a domestic context. The ethical and moral implications of luck have been closely examined in the work of a number of leading philosophers in the liberal egalitarian tradition including Ronald Dworkin (2000, 2003), Richard Arneson (1989), and G.A. Cohen (1989). For most of those categorized under the term luck egalitarian, one of the proper ends of justice is to neutralize the affects of luck, and in particular, bad luck that an agent has not had any hand, act, or part in creating. Anderson’s term luck egalitarian was coined from a highly critical perspective. Anderson rejects the notion that luck should be the direct concern of justice rather that this matters only indirectly in so far as it affects the equal standing of citizens within a community. Many of those grouped under this category reject the generalized version of egalitarianism outlined by Anderson (see Dworkin 2003; Arneson 2004). The family of philosophers categorized under the name of luck egalitarian is very broad and contains many different conceptions of equality and what equality demands. However, broadly speaking, and for the sake of parsimony, the following five points are intended to provide a sketch of some shared assumptions within this school of thought: First, luck egalitarians are not concerned with inequality in its totality, rather inequality that derives from involuntary bad luck leading to disadvantage (see Cohen 1989). Second, the distinction between involuntary bad luck and bad luck that results from calculated (or indeed imprudent) risks or gambles is morally relevant. Ronald Dworkin is attributed with the distinction between brute luck and option luck where option luck is the outcome of a deliberate course of action, but brute luck involves no deliberation or intentional action on the side of the agent affected by the resulting state of affairs (see Dworkin 1981, 2000). Brute luck is of primary concern from the perspective of justice and it is inequalities arising from this that ought to be neutralized or compensated for. According to Arneson (1989), compensation should come from other’s brute good luck, or that part of their good luck that is underserved. Third, and connected to this distinction, conceptualizations of choice, responsibility, and voluntary action are central to these debates (see Arneson 1989; Lang 2006; Vallentyne 2008). If choice and voluntariness cannot be attributed to

L

the agent, the agent cannot be deemed responsible for the resulting state of affairs and so should be compensated in some way. Thus, much turns on how one conceptualizes the basic concepts of choice, voluntariness, and responsibility. Fourth, the currency or metric, that is, the good that is to be distributed equally, varies considerably. Within these debates, equality that is of concern to justice is characterized in terms of welfare, capabilities, resources, or opportunities. In conclusion, these debates are concerned with justice within a domestic context between citizens of a closed state. A number of objections are raised against this position from a variety of perspectives. Jonathon Wolff, for example, argues that justice is primarily concerned with equal respect and concern, and matters of distribution should be limited in their application by these core principles (Wolff 1998). Anderson is more critical in her objection to the luck egalitarian account arguing that it is exposed to objections of paternalism, justification for the excessive use of state power, and supports the coercion of some for the private ends of others (Anderson 1999). This plethora of rich, sophisticated, and diverse positions concerning luck, equality, and justice – which types of luck ought to be neutralized, to what extent, which types of good ought to be distributed and so on – in relation to the domestic context are ongoing.

Luck Egalitarianism and the Global Justice Debate John Rawls’s discussion of luck and the social and natural lottery, that is, the political and economic circumstances into which a person is born, the natural talents and abilities a person is born with, and the fact that outcomes of these factors are a matter of good or bad luck rather than desert or merit brought considerations of luck and involuntary circumstances to the fore in reflections on social justice within a domestic context (see Rawls 1971, p. 74). The aforementioned debates explored various aspects of this reflection within the confines of liberal states. However, a number of philosophers also considered this reflection in the context of relations between states, and indeed between individuals across states. It is with these debates that the literature on global justice is predominantly concerned. One of the earliest and perhaps well-known contributions to the discussion on luck, global inequality, and the development of principles of global distributive justice was developed by Charles Beitz (1979). Beitz identified at least four reasons why considerations on egalitarian justice ought to extend beyond the borders of a state. These are, the depth and breadth of global inequality and poverty;

665

L

666

L

Luck Egalitarianism

globalizing economic interdependence and interaction; the growth and reach of international institutions (economic, political, environmental); and the growth and development of global civil society (see Beitz 1979, 1999; Pogge 1989). These reasons and the underlying social cooperation that existed then, and that is considerably deeper today, provided the justification for developing a theory of global justice built upon the framework of Rawls’s principles of justice for a closed liberal society. Although not explicitly a luck egalitarian project, one of the underlying premises in Beitz’s account, and one shared by many contributing to the debate on global justice during the subsequent 30 years, is that inequalities arising from a person’s place of birth (the social, political, and economic circumstances into which a person is born) are not acceptable from a moral perspective, and that principles of justice are required to neutralize or compensate for such inequalities (see, e.g., Simon Caney’s discussion of the postcode lottery in the UK, 2005: 122). Building on Rawls’s constructivist methodology, Beitz develops an argument justifying the extension of Rawls’s principles of justice, including the second principle of justice, concerned with the distribution of benefits and burdens, to the global context (widely referred to as the Difference Principle. This states that social and economic inequalities are acceptable under two conditions: First, where these are attached to offices and positions that open to all individuals under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, that they afford the greatest benefit of the socially least advantaged persons (Rawls 1971: 302)). According to Beitz, such principles of justice govern relations between individuals cooperating together in a scheme for mutual advantage. Global economic interaction and interdependence, combined with a growing global civil society (see Beitz 1999) constitute such a scheme of social cooperation and it follows that principles of justice, in particular egalitarian principles of distributive justice (in the form of the Difference Principle), ought to apply to all individual participants in such a scheme. The boundaries of a nation-state are not a morally relevant constraint on the reach of principles of justice grounded in such a scheme of social cooperation. Beitz’s account of global distributive justice has been the source of much debate, including a rejection by John Rawls that his account of justice could be extended in the manner in which Beitz suggests. There are two dominant objections to the extension of principles of distributive justice to the global domain from those of an egalitarian persuasion – the conditions of reciprocity objection and the responsibility objection.

First, one of the dominant reasons for rejecting this account is that the present levels of economic interaction and interdependence do not constitute a scheme of social cooperation in a morally relevant sense and so cannot ground principles of distributive justice (see Rawls 1999; Barry 1995; Miller 2007). Both Rawls and Barry, for example, argue that justice is not only concerned with mutual advantage and so mutual advantage cannot sufficiently ground principles of just distribution. For Rawls, the conditions of reciprocity, that is, that all stand to benefit from participation in a scheme of mutual cooperation, do not exist at the global level. For Rawls, reciprocity is a necessary condition for justice to exist. Reciprocity entails a shared cooperative scheme; however, a shared cooperative scheme does not necessarily entail principles of reciprocity. Second, the responsibility objection: This is perhaps most comprehensively developed by Rawls in his later work on international justice (see Rawls 1999) and David Miller’s account of global justice and national responsibility (see Miller 2007: Chaps. 3–5). Both Miller and Rawls locate the causes of inequality within the social, economic, and political conditions of domestic states. The causes of inequality lie in the inadequate, unfair, and/or unjust institutional structures of each nation-state. Therefore, global distributive principles, including systems of global taxation could reward irresponsible action and decisionmaking. It would, according to Rawls and Miller, be unfair to expect others who have been prudent in their actions and choices to compensate those who have chosen not to be. As Kok-Chor Tan notes, there is an implicit distinction in these accounts between inequalities that are the result of choice and inequalities that are a result of circumstances (Tan 2004: 71). This distinction mirrors the brute/option luck distinction within the debate on grounds, limits, and extension of egalitarian principles at the domestic level.

The Grounds of Global Distributive Principles of Justice In recent years, those developing arguments in defense of global egalitarian principles have moved from reflections on luck, in particular brute bad luck, to an assessment of structural causes of inequality. Global egalitarians share the conviction that morally arbitrary factors such as race, place of birth, gender, should not influence a person’s life prospects (see Valentini and Barry 2009; Caney 2005; Tan 2004). However, in our world, these factors do influence a person’s life chances – not necessarily because of any brute bad luck, but because we live in a world where institutional structures are organized to benefit certain groups at the expense of or through the exploitation of

Luther, Martin

other groups. Inequalities between states, or between individuals across states, are not the result of a natural lottery (natural talents, greater natural resources, and so on), but are a consequence of human-made decisions, choices, and actions. The work of Thomas Pogge has perhaps been most influential in moving the discussion away from considerations of brute luck and bad fortune to reflections on structural inequality and the causal effects of background global institutional arrangements. Pogge examines the effects of international institutional structures and agreements, including international trade agreements and international leadership privileges, that directly influence how states operate at the domestic level and how these are a causal factor cause in generating inequalities between states. Thus, if we accept that many acts we undertake and institutions we support directly contribute to the levels of inequality between individuals across state borders then we have duties of justice to reduce, mitigate, and/or compensate for these inequalities. For Pogge (2010) and Tan (2004), the source of inequality is located in the background global institutional arrangements that affect all individuals globally, not brute bad luck. It is these background institutional conditions that ought to be the subject of principles of justice, including just distributive principles.

Conclusion Much of the attention within the literature on global justice focuses on the scope of justice, and in particular, the scope of principles of distributive justice. Addressing disadvantages and inequalities based on morally arbitrary factors feature strongly in these debates. However, exposing the connections, interconnections, and interdependencies between individuals across state borders, and examining the complex causal links and structural, human-made causes of inequality is also a dominant concern. Justice is indeed about neutralizing or compensating for the outcomes of bad brute luck. However, this is only one small part of the picture. Assessing the justness or unjustness of the background institutional structures that affect the life prospects of individuals globally is perhaps the most urgent and pressing task for philosophers contributing to the literature on global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Barry, Brian ▶ Caney, Simon ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Global Resources Dividend

L

667

▶ Luck Egalitarianism ▶ Sen, Amartya

References Anderson E (1999) What is the point of equality. Ethics 109(1):287–337 Arneson R (1989) Equality and equal opportunity for welfare. Philos Stud 56:77–93 Arneson R (2004) Luck egalitarianism interpreted and defended. Philos Top 32(1):1–20 Barry B (1995) Justice as impartiality. Oxford University Press, Oxford Beitz C (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Beitz C (1999) Social and cosmopolitan liberalism. Int Aff 75(3):515–529 Bertram C (2006) Cosmopolitanism and inequality. Res Publica 12:327–336 Caney S (2005) Justice beyond borders. Oxford University Press, Oxford Cohen GA (1989) The currency of egalitarian justice. Ethics 99:906–944 Dworkin R (1981) What is equality? II. Equality of resources. Philos Public Aff 10:283–345 Dworkin R (2000) Sovereign virtue. Harvard University Press, London Dworkin R (2003) Equality, luck and hierarchy. Philos Public Aff 31:190–198 Lang G (2006) Luck egalitarianism and the see-saw objection. Am Philos Quart 47(1):43–56 Lippert-Rasmussen K (2005) Justice and bad luck. In: Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy Miller D (2007) National responsibility and global justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford Pogge T (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell, Ithaca Pogge T (2004) Assisting the global poor. In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Pogge T (2010) Politics as usual. Polity Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1971) Theory of justice. Oxford University Press, New York Rawls J (1999) Law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Sher G (2010) Real-world luck egalitarianism. Soc Philos Policy 27:218–232 Tan KC (2004) Justice without borders. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Valentini L, Barry C (2009) Egalitarian challenges to global egalitarianism: a critique. Rev Int Stud 35:485–512 Vallentyne P (2008) Brute luck and responsibility. Polit Philos Econ 7(1):57–80 Wolff J (1998) Fairness respect, and the egalitarian ethos. Philos Public Aff 27:97–122

Luther, Martin GARY M. SIMPSON Department of Theology, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN, USA

Martin Luther (1483–1546 C.E.) initiated the sixteenthcentury Protestant Reformation in Europe and often

L

668

L

Luther, Martin

wrote on both retributive and distributive justice. In 2010 nearly 74 million people in 150+ church bodies in 79 countries around the world claimed to be Lutheran and study Luther’s writings. In addition to being a keen student of the Bible, Luther also studied Aristotle and Cicero on the subject of justice. His first assignment at the University of Wittenberg (1508–09) was to lecture on Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. He was especially impressed with Book 5 dealing with justice. Still, Luther addressed the issue of justice in a Ciceronian manner by emphasizing the intrinsic connection between practical ethics and rhetorical communication in order to persuade and gain the people’s consent. Luther has also become infamous in two notorious cases when social justice was at stake. Luther most often took up the matter of justice when someone called upon him to give his counsel regarding a particular social situation. In 1523 soon-to-be Prince John the Steadfast asked about the warrants for political authority to carry out retributive justice through the power of the sword. Some theologians admonished John that he could not simultaneously be a good Christian follower of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, and carry out the office of prince with its power of the sword. Luther responded with “Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed,” his most well-known treatise on political authority, retributive justice, and the sword (LW 45: 75–129). Luther often commented on issues of distributive justice especially when addressing a prince or other civil authority in cases when the poor were being neglected or oppressed. He raised up the plight of the poor in his famous “Ninety-five Theses” of 1517 (LW 31: 25–33). In the well-known “Eight Sermons at Wittenberg, 1522” (LW 51: 69–100) he severely criticized the citizens and leaders of his own city for neglecting the poor. On numerous occasions Luther addressed distributive justice through the conventional medieval genre of “mirror for princes” – speculum principum. In this genre a wise and respected person, like a theologian, would write a treatise addressed to a prince or other political official. Upon rising each morning the prince was to recall the treatise, that is, to gaze on this “mirror” and see what a righteous prince was to look like, and then go and do likewise. As was conventional in the genre, Luther employed a particular biblical text as the vehicle for his counsel. Following Cicero, he stressed that the person who does not prevent or oppose wrong, if that person can, is just as guilty of wrongdoing as the one who inflicts it. He based his most famous “mirror” on Psalm 82 lingering on “Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the

right of the lowly and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (LW 13: 39–72). Following both Aristotle and Cicero Luther endorsed the need for written law rooted in justice. However, written law always has at least three limitations. First, it will generally proceed from the do-no-harm principle of nonmalevolence. Second, the do-good principle of beneficence is more difficult to put into the enforceable form of positive law and when it is, it will be minimalist. Third, written law can never be comprehensive enough to cover all of the contingencies and messiness of concrete everyday life. Therefore, both retributive and distributive justice will require what Aristotle called epieikeia and what Cicero called aequitas, that is, practical wisdom to discern and administer justice according to its spirit within the contingencies and ambiguities of everyday social life. Luther encouraged those in authority to cultivate practices of epieikeia. For Plato, the idealist, while epieikeia is necessary, it signals a deficiency in the purity of law and justice. Luther, however, understood epieikeia in the tradition of Aristotle and Cicero, that is, not as a matter of deficiency in justice, but rather as a matter of justice’s abundance that cannot be contained merely within the realm of written law alone. Luther seriously failed in his own practice of epieikeia in two instances. In the mid-1520s the peasants of Germany were suffering under various oppressive political policies. He initially presented the peasants’ grievances to the princes. However, when the peasants turned to violence in the name of Christian freedom, he was appalled and also feared all-out social chaos. He advised the princes to squash the revolt with overwhelming force. Generally, Luther, like the natural law tradition in which he stood, was a gradualist and reformist, rather than a revolutionary, when it came to matters of injustice (LW 46: 3–86). On a second occasion, in the early 1540s toward the end of his life, Luther advised the princes to use force to “rid” the Jews from Germany because they had violated the second of the Ten Commandments against blasphemy by publicly rejecting Jesus’ divinity (Luther, LW 47:121–306). While earlier in his life he had rejected any legitimate use of force against blasphemy or heresy, here he atrociously violated his own earlier and better practice of epieikeia. Luther embarked on a systematic social welfare reform of the cities of the Reformation on behalf of the poor. For him welfare reform was rooted in worship reform because “there is no greater worship of God than Christian love which helps and serves the needy” (LW 45: 172). His 1523 counsel to the city of Leipzig to establish the “Ordinance of a Common Chest” (LW 45: 159–194) became the model

Luther, Martin

for cities throughout the Reformation territories and cultivated a Lutheran ethos of organized social welfare that has endured for centuries wherever Lutheran peoples have resided. In “Trade and Usury” he severely criticized certain macroeconomic policies that led to monopolies and widespread usurious banking practices associated with early capitalistic-like tendencies (LW 45: 231–310). Finally, he was a strong proponent of universal education for both boys and girls (LW 46: 207–58). Since the sixteenth century, Luther’s thinking on universal education, distributive justice, and social welfare reform has influenced the ethos of German and Scandinavian nations, which have vigorously promoted and developed social welfare forms of regional and national government, universal systems of education, and faith-based institutions that care for people who are impoverished, disabled, diseased, orphaned, indigent, displaced, and migratory. In the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, this ethos accompanied German and Scandinavian immigrants to the United States and took root regionally where they settled. In the United States in 2010 300+ Lutheran faith-based civil society organizations provide social welfare services to 1 in every 50 residents in the United States and when calculated in dollars this exceeds the expenditures by either the American Red Cross or the YMCA. In 2010 Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service resettled one in every eight refugees that the United States processed. Increasingly

L

669

these Lutheran civil society organizations are engaging in state and national public policy formation. In the twentyfirst century, Lutheran churches are growing especially rapidly in numerous sub-Sahara African countries with over 19 million members, and they are creating faith-based civil society organizations to match their numbers, which are infused with Luther’s concern for distributive justice, social welfare, and universal education. In 2010 nearly nine million Lutherans live in certain concentrated areas of Asia and exhibit in their contexts this same ethos of justice bestowed by Luther.

Related Topics

▶ Beneficence, Principle of ▶ Cicero ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Justice and Religion: Christianity ▶ Retributive Justice

References Althaus P (1972) The ethics of Martin Luther. Fortress, Philadelphia Cicero M (1967) On moral obligation. University of California Press, Berkeley Lindberg C (1993) Beyond charity. Fortress, Minneapolis Luther M (1955–1986) Luther’s works (LW), vol 55. Concordia and Fortress, St. Louis and Philadelphia Torbend S (2008) Luther and the hungry poor. Fortress, Minneapolis

L

M Majoritarianism NICOLAUS TIDEMAN Department of Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA

Majoritarianism is the idea that collective decisions are made rightly when they reflect the views of the majority. When there are more than two options, it can happen that no option reflects the views of the majority. It is not clear whether majoritarianism has implications for such cases. One possible interpretation of majoritarianism for such cases involves the “Condorcet criterion.” This is the criterion that if there is an option that secures a majority when paired head-to-head against every other option, then that option is the one that should be chosen. Most but not all voting theorists agree that voting rules for selecting among more than two options should satisfy the Condorcet criterion. Even if majoritarianism is accepted and the Condorcet criterion is accepted as an expression of majoritarianism, that does not resolve all issues with respect to which option should be chosen when there are more than two, because of the possibility of majority-rule cycles. A majority-rule cycle occurs if there is a sequence of options, x1, x2, x3, . . . xn, such that xi, beats xi+1 for all i from 1 to n – 1, and xn, beats x1. The simplest cycle occurs when there are three voters and three options, and the rankings of the voters are (x1, x2, x3), (x2, x3, x1) and (x3, x1, x2). For this example, x1 beats x2 by 2 votes to 1, x2 beats x3 by 2 votes to 1, and x3 beats x1 by 2 votes to 1. It is particularly unclear what, if anything, majoritarianism implies for instances of majority-rule cycles. Because of the possibility of majority-rule cycles, majoritarianism becomes incoherent if stated in absolutist form, that every pair of alternatives should be ranked collectively as majority rule ranks the pair. Thus, majoritarianism must be interpreted as meaning “consistent with paired comparisons by majority rule when this is possible.”

While there is considerable disagreement among voting theorists who accept the Condorcet criterion as to what voting rule is best for dealing with cycles, this lack of agreement does not make majoritarianism irrelevant. It just means that a group that wishes to apply the principle of majoritarianism among themselves must reach an agreement among themselves as to how they will interpret majoritarianism in the difficult cases of majority-rule cycles. In actual rankings of candidates by voters, few majority-rule cycles are found, especially when there are relatively few candidates and relatively many voters. Thus, while some agreed procedure for cutting through any cycles that arise is needed, cycles are not much more problematic for majoritarianism than ties, at least for votes over candidates. On the other hand, for votes over actions, if there are no agenda restrictions and any proposal to redistribute assets from a minority can be voted upon, then majority-rule cycles become pervasive and majoritarianism becomes unworkable. There are several arguments in favor of majoritarianism. The first is a statistical argument, due to Condorcet. If all of the participants in a collective decision process have the same probability of ascertaining which of two options is better, and if the probability that one voter will make the right choice is independent of the probabilities that others will, then the option preferred by the majority is more likely to be the better option. Another argument for majoritarianism is a combination of utilitarianism and the principle of insufficient reason. If a choice must be made between two options, A and B, and there is no way of knowing how the average gain in utility that those who favor A would receive from the choice of A compares to the average gain in utility that those who favor B would receive from the choice of B, then it makes sense to assume that these average gains in utility are equal, in which case greater utility is achieved with the choice favored by the majority. There is also a logical argument for majority rule due to K. O. May: If a choice between two options must be made on the bases of a collection of votes, if the decision should not depend on who cast which vote, if the opposite decision

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

672

M

Maldevelopment

should be made in the event that all voters voted the opposite, and if switching one vote in the direction of an option should resolve a tie in favor of that option and should leave that option the winner if it was already the winner, then majority rule must be the rule by which the decision is made. Majoritarianism is also anti-elitist. It gives expression to the conviction that the views of all people are of equal worth in determining a course of collective action. These four arguments in favor of majoritarianism are all reasons why groups may find it attractive to employ majoritarian decision-making procedures. But they do not provide a reason why a majority is always justified in imposing its will on a minority. Unfettered application of majority rule would represent a denial of individual rights. There is a fifth, less respectable but nevertheless practical argument for majoritarianism: In a conflict over what collective decision will be made, the more numerous group is more likely to prevail. Thus, those who wish to behave honorably will be cautious about insisting that they have their way on the ground that their supporters constitute a majority. Still, the first four arguments for majoritarianism should not necessarily be discarded. If the violation of individual rights is not an issue and if majority-rule cycles do not obscure the meaning of majoritarianism, then those who have the power to impose majoritarian decisions have a respectable claim to have justice on their side. The question of the justice of imposing majoritarian decisions on unhappy minorities is likely to arise with respect to such issues of global justice as global pollution, species preservation, and rights to natural resources. When majoritarian resolutions of these issues are proposed, it will be important for the advocates of majoritarianism to be aware of both the powerful arguments for majoritarianism and the limits to those arguments.

Related Topics

▶ Collective Decision Problem ▶ Common Good ▶ Condorcet, N. Marquis de ▶ Democratic Equality ▶ Democratic Legitimacy ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Political Authority

References Arrow K (1963) Social choice and individual values, 2nd edn. Yale University Press, New Haven Black D (1958) The theory of committees and elections. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Bordes G, Tideman N (1991) Independence of irrelevant alternatives in the theory of voting. Theory Decis 30:163–186 Bowen HR (1943) The interpretation of voting in the allocation of economic resources. Q J Econ 58:27–48 Buchanan J, Tullock G (1962) The calculus of consent. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor de Condorcet, MJANC (1785) Essai sur l’Application de l’Analyse a` la Probabilite´ des De´cisions Rendues a` la Pluralite´ des Voix. Paris Heinberg JG (1932) Theories of majority rule. Am Polit Sci Rev 26:452–469 Larsen JAO (1949) The origin and significance of the counting of votes. Classical Philol 44:164–181 May KO (1952) A set of independent necessary and sufficient conditions for simple majority decision. Econometrica 20:680–684 Plott Ch (1967) A notion of equilibrium and its possibility under majority rule. Am Econ Rev 57:787–806 Polinsky AM (1972) Probabilistic compensation criteria. Q J Econ 86:407–425 Tideman N (2006) Collective decisions and voting: the potential for public choice. Ashgate, Burlington

Maldevelopment ▶ Development Ethics

Mallat, Chibli JOHN J. DONOHUE CEMAM, Centre d’Etudes pour le Monde Arabe Moderne, St. Joseph’s University, Beirut, Lebanon

Chibli Mallat is a law professor who was tenured on three continents, in the USA, as presidential professor at the University of Utah; in England at the University of London where he directed the Center of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law; and in Lebanon at Saint Joseph’s University, his alma mater, where he was granted a Jean Monnet Chair of European Law by the European Union in 2001. The Chair was recognized as a “Center of Excellence” by the European Commission in 2004, and Mallat as a “Success Story” in 2007. In 2006, Mallat moved to Princeton after pressure mounted in the wake of his opposition to the Hizballahinitiated war with Israel. At the University of Utah, he established, with the dean of the law school, the Global Justice Program for Iraq, a legal think tank in Baghdad which worked closely with the Iraqi government, parliament, and the judiciary on legal reform. In Baghdad,

Mallat, Chibli

Mallat was invited by the Constitutional Review Committee to sit in and advise on constitutional reform in 2008–2009. Mallat was invited in 2010 by Harvard Law School to be the Custodian of the Two Holy Places, Visiting Professor of Islamic Studies, to teach Middle Eastern Law and a course on “law and war,” which helped him develop his thinking in the field on the basis of Kant’s Treaty on Perpetual Peace. Mallat has made a mark on global justice in both practice and theory. As a practitioner, he is best known for standing up to victims of mass murders in the Middle East, and he won landmark cases indicting some of the most brutal political leaders in the region. He represented victims in cases against Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Ariel Sharon of Israel, Mu‘ammar al-Qaddafi of Libya, and was active in supporting judicial accountability for Omar Bashir of Sudan, and for the establishment by the United Nations Security Council of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Mallat’s best known case was against former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Brussels, under the Belgian law of universal jurisdiction, where he represented 28 families of people killed or disappeared in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre. Sharon was indicted, and the case was won by the survivors before the Belgian Supreme Court in February 2003. Under intense political pressure from the US state secretary and secretary of defense at the time, the Belgian law was changed retroactively to stop the proceedings against Sharon, but the case, which journalists reported to have “made Sharon tremble,” became a landmark example of global justice, discussed in several books and scholarly articles. Another landmark case was fought before the Lebanese courts on behalf of the family of Imam Musa Sadr, who was invited by Qaddafi to Libya in August 1978, and disappeared in Tripoli. A decision of the Lebanese investigative judge indicted Qaddafi and top aides in 2008, and an international arrest warrant was issued against them. Mallat was also behind the establishment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon to arrest and try the killers of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri and over 100 persons assassinated or maimed in a spate of murders starting in October 2004. In Iraq, Mallat founded an international nongovernmental organization called Indict, advocating the trial of Saddam Hussein and his aides for crimes against humanity. Indict was formed in London in 1996 by Iraqi leaders of the opposition, and received the support of the Kuwaiti government and of leaders in the US Congress and in the UK House of Commons. Saddam Hussein was eventually tried in Iraq and executed in 2005, but Mallat stood against the

M

shortcomings of the judicial process in Baghdad, and defended until the end the need to reject the death penalty. In Sudan, together with a group of Arab opinion leaders, Mallat issued in 2006 a request for judicial accountability for the killings and ethnic cleansing carried out in Darfur, a request eventually taken up by the International Criminal Court. In his search for global justice, judicial accountability is an important part of Mallat’s advocacy. Two other imperatives of global justice were articulated by a group of some 40 civil society groups from across the Middle East, who met in Beirut and in Rabat in 2003 and 2004 to advocate a change in the domestic and international policy toward the Middle East with an emphasis on judicial accountability. The other two imperatives developed in the document drafted by Mallat included the “democratic imperative,” which underlined the need for regular, constitutional alternation of power at the top, and the “freedom imperative,” which insisted on the respect for human rights generally, and the advocacy of free speech as key to ending the fear that prevailed in the region until the 2011 Revolution, which started in Tunisia and quickly spread to the whole region. As part of the “democratic imperative,” and in the wake of the Lebanese Cedar Revolution in which Mallat took a leading part, he ran for the presidency of Lebanon in 2005, introducing the style of a “proximity campaign” involving the citizens as key agents of any presidential choice. In February 2006, the campaign culminated with a massive popular demonstration requesting the removal of the Lebanese president from power. While the action to dislodge him failed then, it isolated him domestically and internationally, and forced him to quit a year later. More importantly, it represented a direct inspiration for a similar movement in the streets of Cairo in 2005 and 2006, culminating in the removal of Mubarak in the 2011 Nile Revolution. Mallat sought also to develop a nonviolent theory of radical change for the Middle East. This he continued to do as a lawyer for human rights victims as well as an organizer of democratic activism across the region. His law office in Beirut helped establish the regional bureau of Amnesty International in the Middle East in 1999, which he continues to represent to date. In 2010, he founded an international NGO in Lebanon, Right to Nonviolence (RN), in anticipation of the need to stand up for the three imperatives developed in the Rabat program. RN was formed in response to a growing demand in the region for nonviolence as an effective policy of change at the top, following the mass popular movement in Beirut in 2005 and in Tehran in 2009, both nonviolent. Mallat actively supported the Green Revolution in Iran

673

M

674

M

Mallat, Chibli

in 2009, denouncing fake elections and the trial of prisoners of opinion. He also advocated the need to remove dictators Musharraf from power in Pakistan, and Karzai in Afghanistan. Mallat accompanied the rise of global justice in dozens of columns published across the world, including a law page which he ran weekly in Lebanon in the Lebanese Daily Star, often writing on international criminal law, as well as in numerous columns in the pan-Arab Hayat of London when he taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies and in the Beirut daily al-Nahar, in addition to contributions to the New York Times, the Financial Times, Le Monde, and other leading Arab and international media outlets across the world. Mallat’s practical involvement represents the more public part of his intellectual reflection on global justice. His theoretical work in the field of nonviolence might better stand the test of time. Mallat’s writings on law and justice were fundamental for global justice and the search for “the efficacy of nonviolence.” Constitutional life as it embodies democratic principles represents in Mallat’s writings an institutionalization of nonviolence in daily life. This puts law at the center of Mallat’s philosophy on nonviolence, and he has published over 35 books and directs several law series in various languages on Islamic, Middle Eastern, and European law. In Introduction to Middle Eastern Law (Mallat 2007), he argues that a set of long legal periods, from Hammurabi to the present time, culminates in Middle Eastern law as a fusion of local traditions, especially that of Islamic law, with international influences, especially in the universal legal realm – Mallat prefers the word cosmopolitan, after Kant and Rousseau’s early attempts at “perpetual peace”. Mallat also sees “Middle Eastern law” as a confluence of a religious vision for which the central religious message is that of nonviolence, with Christ’s death as the epitome of history, and the Islam etymologically “surrender into peace” as another manifestation of that philosophy. His work on Islamic law belongs in that vein of seeking a modern, universal agenda, in its renewal, the title of a book he wrote on Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr, a leading Iraqi cleric from Najaf who was executed by Saddam Hussein in 1980 (Mallat 1993). In more recent years, Mallat has sought to reconcile global justice with the domestic dimension of law in advanced democracies, including the violent dimension of domestic law as underlined in Max Weber’s state monopoly over it and Robert Cover’s reflections on violence as intrinsic part of the judicial system. Mallat is a visionary of sorts as illustrated in his Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution, 2007, which attributes

major significance to the peaceful, popular demonstrations which led to the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005. The subtitle captures his global vision: “an essay on justice and non-violence”. Support for the rule of law and global justice does not easily allow the diplomatic flexibility which has reigned in international relations since time immemorial. Still advocates like Chibli Mallat continue to nourish hopes for nonviolent political change in the Middle East, and the great challenge which started in the region in 2011 saw Mallat at the heart of a practical philosophy advocating a two-pronged strategy articulated through Right to Nonviolence: a nonviolent, popular change to end the dictatorships prevailing “from Nouakchott to Beijing,” and “a constitutional moment” that captures the spirit of the Middle East Revolution. As in his work in and about Lebanon, he sees nonviolence as the exclusive tool for ending dictatorship, and seeks to institutionalize it beyond the political transformations at the top of the government into working constitutions. “Revising Egypt’s Constitution” was published in February 2011 as a contribution in the Harvard Journal of International Law to the Egyptian constitutional moment after the removal of Mubarak by Mallat and his students. The work on global justice continues, at the time of writing, across the upheaval in the Middle East region and beyond.

Related Topics

▶ Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ▶ Amnesty International ▶ Chodosh, Hiram ▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Democracy, Constitutional ▶ Democratic Nation Building ▶ Dispute Resolution ▶ Ethical Foreign Policy ▶ Gandhi, Mahatma ▶ Global Justice Project: Iraq ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ International Legal Reform ▶ Transitional Justice ▶ Tyranny ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Mallat C (1993) The renewal of Islamic law, Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr, Najaf and the Shi’i International. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Mallat C (1996) The Middle East into the 21st century. Garnet, London

Mao, Zedong Mallat C (2006) 2221: Lebanon’s cedar revolution- an essay on non-violence and justice. [Lir], Beirut Mallat C (2007) Introduction to Middle Eastern law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Mallat C (2009) Iraq: guide to law and policy. Aspen, Boston On International Criminal Cases Borneman J (2004) The case of Ariel Sharon and the fate of universal jurisdiction. Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Princeton Hurwitz D (2009) Universal jurisdiction and the dilemmas of international criminal justice: the Sabra and Shatila case in Belgium. In: Hurwitz, Satterthwaite, Ford (eds.) Human Rights Advocacy Stories 267. Foundation Press. SSRN www.gjpi.org www.imamsadr.net www.mallat.com www.righttononviolence.org On Democratic Activism Mallat Presidential Campaign (2006) A compelling presidency. The Mallat campaign in world news, Beirut Mallat Presidential Campaign (2006) Presidential papers, 2nd ed Mallat C (2008) Presidential talk. Dar al-Jadid, Beirut

Mamdani, Mahmoud ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives

Mao, Zedong CHARLES ROSENBERG Milwaukee, WI, USA

One of the most influential revolutionaries of the midtwentieth century, Mao has been revered as a liberator and reviled as a ruthless oppressor by millions of people and thousands of academics and politicians around the world. There is ample empirical evidence for almost every characterization. A fierce Chinese nationalist, he was for a time a beacon of international socialism, who laid the foundations for what became the world’s fastest-growing, and most ruthless, capitalist economy, under state supervision, controlled by the world’s largest remaining Communist Party. There is little doubt that the success, in 1949, of the revolutionary movement, party, and armies Mao led, vindicated the wounded national pride of China, burdened by unequal treaties imposed by European nations, Japan, and the United States. He brought a rapid leveling process to the sharply unequal distribution of property and wealth within

M

675

China, mobilizing vast popular participation in the process. Mao chased out of China the government of Chiang KaiShek, derisively known in America as “Cash my check,” which was structurally incapable and entirely unmotivated to either equalize opportunity or mobilize popular support. A degree of civil peace was established by ending the era of petty warlords who indulged mutual strife, while treating the rest of the population as pawns and objects of graft.

Early Life and Political Development Mao was born in 1893, to a modestly prosperous peasant family in Shaoshan (Music Mountain) village, Hunan (South of the Lake) province, with a four-room clay-brick home on a 3-acre farm. The following year, Japan destroyed the newly modernizing Chinese navy, taking control of southern Manchuria. By the time he was 7, Germany had seized parts of north China, Britain expanded its concession along the Yangtze River, and France pushed into new parts of the southwest. In 1900, eight foreign nations invaded Beijing, in response to the “Righteous Fists” uprising against foreign influence. Sent to school from the age of 8 to 13, Mao learned, and developed a marked hostility to, ancient Confucian classics. He was influenced by the failure of a revolt in nearby Changsha in 1906, a smaller abortive revolt by local peasants against their landlord, and the appropriation of wealthier farmers’ crops by starving local people during famine years. His own father lost a shipment of rice, and Mao in later years said that he approved. He left in 1910 to attend the East Mountain Higher Primary School in Xiang Xiang, borrowing money from relatives, mostly on his mother’s side, including enough to pay his father for his absence; he paid the cost of hiring a laborer to handle the work he had previously done on the farm. A voracious reader, he borrowed an anthology with articles on Napoleon, Washington, Peter the Great, Gladstone, Lincoln, Catherine the Great, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and concluded that China needed people in this mold “so as not to follow in the footsteps of Indochina, Korea and India” (Terrill 1999: 48). He also got into a debate with teachers who told him the traditional Romance of the Three Kingdoms was a story, not history. The young student was certain that the literature which had captivated him must be a complete and inerrant historical record. In 1911 he moved on to a middle school in Changsha, where he learned that the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty was underway, and encountered Strength of the People, a newspaper of Sun Yat-Sen’s nationalist movement. He briefly joined the revolutionary New Army, but left because it seemed to have no more battles to fight,

M

676

M

Mao, Zedong

working in several teaching positions. In 1919 he joined the May 4 Movement, becoming acquainted with New Culture and anti-imperialism, then helped found the United Students Association of Hunan. Mao came to view the Russian Bolshevik revolution as the example for China to follow. Before his death, so did nationalist leader Sun Yat-Sen, disappointed by the obstruction of western powers. In 1920, Mao organized a Socialist Youth Corps. Over the next year, rejecting anarchism, parliamentary social-democracy, and “social policy,” Mao adopted the pragmatic conclusion, “The radical type of communism, or the ideology of the workers and peasants, which employs the methods of class dictatorship, can be expected to achieve results. Hence, it is the best method to use.” (Clements, 39). In the summer of 1921, Mao was one of two delegates representing Hunan at the meeting in Shanghai, which is said to have founded the Communist Party of China (although unofficial sources point to a founding 1 year earlier). Two Russian delegates from the Communist International were almost immediately challenged by the handful of members attending, who insisted that China’s huge rural peasantry, not its minuscule industrial working class, would be key to revolution in China. This would be the path Mao brought to fruition, but he did agitate a successful miners’ strike in Anyuan in 1922, and formation of a Changsha “Masons’ and Carpenters’ Union.”

Agrarian Revolution, Egalitarianism, and Party Politics Land redistribution, or “land to the tiller” has been a historic program or at least political slogan of countless movements demanding justice for the impoverished of the earth for many centuries. There is probably no political leader who put such a program into practice on such a large scale as Mao Zedong. To do so, he had to emerge from a number of inner-party conflicts with leadership decidedly unsympathetic to his sense of the strategic priority this measure should have. In 1923 he became one of nine members of the central committee, but was expelled in 1927. He retained a precarious practical independence of action, particularly after the Communists were nearly wiped out in 1927. Sun Yat-sen’s successor, nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek, turned on his communist allies in a massacre memorialized by Andre´ Malraux’s La Condition Humaine, leaving perhaps 10,000 survivors out of 60,000 party members. Organizing in Hunan province, Mao implicitly challenged, or ignored, Communist Party orders that seemed increasingly at odds with the reality of Chinese demographics and economic relations. In May 1930, Report

from Xunwu established that he had a clear eye for the details of Chinese life, and studied facts carefully before drawing conclusions. Arguably, as unchallenged leader of the nation 30 years later, he had lost that capacity. A communist party is not, by nature, an egalitarian institution, nor is an army, even a people’s liberation army. Whatever degree of justice the internal processes of either provide, there is little opportunity for appeal. Even the collective leadership of a central committee came (after 1935) to be largely directed by Mao as party chair, a common result of the internal politics of any communist structure. But, it was the army he had largely organized and led that survived the Long March 1934–1935, from southern China to the northwestern provinces where a new base could be established in Ya’nan. Mao did not become de facto chairman of the party’s political bureau until 1935, at the Tsun-yi Conference, and was not recognized as such by the Communist International until 1938. The party under Mao’s leadership did deliver a rough egalitarianism. In the early years of the revolutionary war, this was exemplified by Mao’s account of what “democracy” meant in practice: “The officers do not beat the soldiers; officers and men have the same food and clothing, and receive equal treatment; soldiers enjoy freedom of assembly and speech; over-elaborate formalities have been abolished; all financial transactions are completely open; and the soldiers’ representatives inspect the accounts” (Meisner: 58). Certain inequalities appeared as early as 1942, when communist writer Wang Shiwei was arrested in the liberated area of Yan’an for his satirical articles about “the three classes of clothing and five grades of food” (Meisner: 95) available to different ranks. A general equality was at the time a practical necessity, but one repeatedly taught as an essential virtue. Mao observed that it was “the reason why the Red Army can hold out despite such miserable material conditions and continuous fierce battles” (Meisner: 58). A darker side to Mao’s leadership emerged even as early as the Futian incident of 1930, when a battalion revolted against a party purge, denouncing Mao as a “Party emperor.” Seven hundred officers were arrested and executed, and the remaining soldiers dispersed to other units – part of a larger pattern of purges that Mao admitted in 1956 were a mistake.

Global Significance of Mao’s Strategy By focusing on the rural peasantry, directly contrary to repeated strategic direction from the Communist International in Moscow (by then thoroughly dominated by Joseph Stalin), Mao had prepared the most effective

Mao, Zedong

framework for resistance to the Japanese invasion of China after 1937. The Kuomintang government, which had been trying to exterminate the communists, lost its urban economic and political bases to Japanese occupation. The invading army was unable to control the countryside, where peasant Communist cadres effectively filled the political vacuum. The triumph of the People’s Liberation Army was not a rapid putsch, like the initial act of the Russian Revolution 32 years before. A literal protracted people’s war had left the party with responsibility to govern, from 1933 onward, the ebb and flow of substantial liberated territory, sometimes lost to Kuomintang or Japanese armies, often regained. To the extent that World War II can be considered a fight for global justice – a notion that certainly inspired many of the foot soldiers and some of the national leaders of the United Nations opposing Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo – Mao’s strategic contribution to the ultimate result was profound. In 1941, 27 of the Japanese army’s 51 divisions were tied up occupying China. While the Japanese army expanded in 1941–1942 from 2.1 million soldiers to over 5.5 million, 67% of the empire’s military forces were tied up in China during the critical period when Japan might have overrun India and Australia, and deployed greater manpower to fortify the Pacific islands.

Leading a National Government William Hinton’s classic, Fanshen, provides a particularly detailed account of how a sort of rough democracy played out in everyday lives, in social and property relationships, on the eve of revolutionary victory. For a time in local villages, the result was unprecedented popular participation, albeit under Communist Party guidance. But 1945 also marked the formal proclamation at the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party of China that Mao Zedong’s writings and speeches were the sole guide for the Party, and the basis of all its successes. A party that had grown to over 1.2 million members, transforming the lives of 400 million, also became devoted to a single personality. To some extent, hero worship began spontaneously, in accordance with deeply rooted Chinese traditions and habits, but was also officially sponsored and mandated. On September 21, 1949, Mao opened the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference with an address entitled “The Chinese People have stood up.” He exhorted the delegates “Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation.” On October 1, he proclaimed the Peoples’ Republic of China at the gates of the Forbidden City in Beijing that had been the home of China’s imperial dynasties. The new government would be a “people’s

M

democratic dictatorship,” led by a Communist Party of China now grown to 4.5 million members. Absent any system of competitive elections, all competition of ideas, programs, factions, and personalities were fought out within the Communist Party apparatus, fostering a number of policy choices that had brutal consequences for millions. Mao’s call for a Great Leap Forward in 1958 was, by any economic measurement, a huge step backward for either the standard of living of the population in China, or the economic prowess of China internationally. The initial utopian vision of communal agriculture and decentralized industrial production, in which rural areas could produce for themselves items in short supply for everyday consumer needs, failed to raise the rural standard of living. Mass participation in expanded steel production, via backyard furnaces, wasted considerable labor and generated low-quality useless ingots. Local industrialization retarded the development of a national market, generating gluts of each commodity in some places, shortages in others. By mobilizing an emotional mass movement devoted to his own personal thoughts and utterances, Mao sidelined any application of technical or economic expertise, socialist or bourgeois. The account offered by Mao’s personal physician, Lu Zhisui, suggests that after 1958 Mao’s lucidity and ability to make coherent decisions went into decline (Terrill 1999: 17, 395–395). The Great Cultural Revolution, viewed in hindsight, was a response to the readiness of party leadership to remove Mao, more than it was a trailblazing effort toward human liberation. In theory, as Mao presented it, and perhaps it was his intention, “serve the people” would become a way of life, altruism supplanting crass concerns with economic prosperity. Economic development was of greater concern to the party leaders Mao contended against. Twenty years later, Deng Xiaoping would reintroduce a high degree of economic inequality, as an accepted price for economic development. Mao ruled through the Communist Party’s monopoly on state power, but he still asserted “you don’t know where the bourgeoisie is. It is right in the Communist Party – those in power taking the capitalist road.” (Terrill 1999: 442). Like the republican experiment by the founders of the United States, who assumed a cultured and virtuous citizenry, Mao’s China veered off in directions he would not have anticipated, but with him still at the helm for a full quarter century, continually insisting on his personal vision of socialist virtue.

A Flawed International Icon The aspects of justice that the revolution did deliver, before and after 1949, were offered to the world by Mao

677

M

678

M

Mao, Zedong

and by the Peking Foreign Language Press as a beacon of hope for “oppressed peoples” and later to “oppressed nations.” Many popular movements accepted China from afar as an example worth emulating. Governments in power, even those generated by anticolonial movements, were more reticent. Communist-led peasant revolutionary movements, in Malaya, rural India, occasionally in parts of Africa, pored over Mao’s collected and selected works for guidance, but none succeeded. The later Shining Path movement in Peru, a rarity on a continent more inspired by the 1959 revolution in Cuba, exemplified much of the brutality attributed to Mao, but showed little sign of inspiring enthusiastic popular participation. The chronological coincidence that the Cultural Revolution inspired youth movements to challenge their elders gave the early stages a veneer of attractiveness to burgeoning student revolts in other parts of the world. Mao became an icon for would-be revolutionaries in western countries, particularly as he developed a critique of “Soviet social-imperialism.” Ironically, this appealed to a newly awakened interest in socialism, even communism, within a generation raised in the midst of cold war propaganda denouncing both. The somewhat inchoate movements of the 1960s, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the prime military enemy of the United States and western Europe, embraced Mao’s vision of communism while still denouncing the Soviet Union. Widespread reference to European language translations of the “Little Red Book” of quotations from Chairman Mao did not contribute to significant advances in the cause of justice, nationally or globally. It served, at best, as a radical veneer to flaunt in the face of established governments and more established political parties. The methods and mechanisms of building a viable revolutionary movement among a preindustrial peasantry, burdened by generations of usury, offered little guidance to bewildered western intellectuals. Western Maoists pondered how to connect to an industrial working class from which left-wing politics had been largely purged in the late 1940s. Nor did Mao’s writings inspire a coherent political response, when the relatively prosperous economic position of western industrial workers was destroyed, by massive plant closings, and export of bluecollar jobs to cheaper labor markets. Successful revolutionary movements developed their own methods, just as Mao had developed a strategy suitable for conditions he observed with such meticulous care among the people of China. Just before and after Mao’s death in 1976, China found itself incongruously lined up with the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States

and the South African Defense Forces, fighting last-ditch efforts against liberation movements in the Portuguese colony of Angola. In the early 1960s, Mao wrote to his daughter Li Min “Mao Zedong is a human being and like all human beings he will die some day. They call me farsighted, but that’s rubbish. After I die, I expect to be attacked for what I have done. Some things I’ve done may turn out to be wrong. I’m a human being, just like you, and to err is human. But I have my convictions. I will always remain faithful to the revolution, no matter what names they may call me” (Terrill 1999: 7). By all contemporary western news accounts, when Mao died, he was genuinely mourned. Workers bicycling home in the evening were observed to have tears in their eyes, a spontaneous response beyond the ability of any police agency or party cell structure to call forth. Gradually, in the subsequent years, criticism of his many errors and failures were brought forth. Modern China was indelibly shaped by Mao’s years of leadership, but he has increasingly been set in perspective as a mortal man who, wielding considerable power, transforming and empowering an entire nation, also inflicted a good deal of suffering on the people he led, when he judged wrongly.

Related Topics

▶ Altruism ▶ Capitalism ▶ Class and Status ▶ Imperialism ▶ Justice and Religion: Confucianism ▶ Marxism ▶ Nationalism ▶ Patriotism ▶ Revolution ▶ Socialism

References Clements J (2006) Mao Zedong. Haus, London Hinton W (1966) Fanshen: a documentary of revolution in a Chinese village. Knopf, New York Karl R (2010) Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world: a concise history. Duke University Press, Durham Meisner M (2007) Mao Zedong: a political and intellectual portrait. Polity, Cambridge Rue J (1966) Mao Tse-tung in opposition, 1927–1935. Stanford University Press, Stanford Snow E (1938) Red star over China. Random House, New York Spence J (1999) Mao Zedong. Viking, New York Terrill R (1999) Mao: a biography. Stanford University Press, Stanford Thompson R (trans and intro) (1990) Report from Xunwu, by Mao Zedong. Stanford University Press, Stanford

Marx, Karl

Marx, Karl DAVID A. DUQUETTE St. Norbert College, De Pere, WI, USA

Without doubt, the writings of Karl Marx have had great impact in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, not only because of Marx’s powerful radical critiques of society, the state, and political economy but also because of his philosophy of revolutionary praxis and his influence on the development of labor movements internationally. His theory of capitalism and of the revolutionary transformation of capitalist society is truly a global conception. While it is evident that with the failure of communism, or at least of the major state socialist regimes that called themselves “communist,” Marxism is no longer fashionable and the study of Marx and the relevance of his ideas for contemporary society has languished, nevertheless, exploitation, social disruption, and economic crises in an increasingly globalized capitalistic world continue to be problems for humanity. Marx’s thought remains relevant, if not in its complete form with regard to theoretical assumptions, for example, about the nature of exchange value and the technical analysis of the capitalist system of production and exchange, at least in the main thrust of its understanding that there are global economic forces created by humans but escaping their control and which, when left to unfettered markets, lead to global miseries and injustices. The focus of this entry is Marx’s contribution to an understanding of the nature of these injustices, how they must be overcome, and what it would mean to live in an emancipated society and a just world.

Marx, Rights and Justice A problem with talking about justice in Marx’s thought is that in some of his writings Marx appears to abjure any appeal to rights and justice and instead suggests that the meaning of such normative categories is determined by dominant social and political regimes and thus that all such talk only serves to legitimate, and mystify, the actual relationships in a system of production. Moreover, Marx’s conception of historical materialism can be understood as relativizing all moral conceptions and leaving no place for moral responsibility or obligation. Hence, along with Marx’s radical historicism there seems to follow a moral relativism, reinforced by Marx’s claim to be pursuing a strict science of political economy, one that is methodically critical and that understands normative terms like “exploitation” in a purely functionalist way.

M

However, this oversimplifies Marx’s position. From his early writings to his later ones Marx never gave up his concept of human emancipation with all of its normative implications. It is not morality per se that Marx relativizes historically but rather the expression of moral and ethical conceptions within the framework of political systems geared toward the use and abuse of power. In his essay “On the Jewish Question” (1843), Marx finds political emancipation to be deficient by nature, which means that attempting to get particular civil laws to conform to the “true form” of law is unsatisfactory. He notices, for example, that the state abolishes private property politically when it abolishes the property qualifications for electors and representatives. But this so-called victory of the masses over the owners of property and financial wealth is illusory because private property not really abolished but still presupposed. That is to say, while distinctions in property ownership, as well as birth, social rank, education, occupation, etc., are abolished qua political distinctions, they are nonetheless preserved as nonpolitical distinctions in civil society. Moreover, the political state actually requires these distinctions insofar as providing universality of law and equality of citizenship is constituted in contradiction to the distinctions and inequalities preserved below the political state. Thus, in modern society the political domain serves as a kind of mystification of our profane social life, similar to the way that religion projects a solution to the evils and sufferings in the finite world by casting the individual in an “imaginary” heavenly community permeated with an unreal, illusory universality. When Marx criticizes the granting of political rights in the state he is not denying the principle of human freedom to which they should give expression but only pointing to the actual meaning of these rights under the reign of civil society. The rights to equality, liberty, security, and property are rights granted to “man” as a withdrawn “isolated monad,” and hence are rights premised upon our existing asociality, and thus in contradiction with our speciesbeing (Gattungswesen). According to Marx, the right to liberty, the right to do anything we wish as long as it does not harm others, is in effect the right to the separation from each other. The practical application of liberty rights in the right to property is effectively the right to pursue one’s self-interest without regard for other people or society. The right to equality is merely the right to be regarded equally as separated and self-sufficient, while the right to security is simply the right to be assured of being left to ourselves in our egoistic pursuits. The upshot is that the political domain is reduced to a mere means or instrument of civil society, where the ethical citizen is reduced and degraded into the egoistic bourgeois individual.

679

M

680

M

Marx, Karl

Marx’s Ethical Ideal in His Early Political and Economic Writings In Marx’s thought, the basis for a conception of true human emancipation can be found in his theory of human nature, his theory of alienation, and his vision of communist society, all of which are complementary to each other and are found together in the Paris Manuscripts (1844), with scattered comments occurring in some of his other works. The human being is viewed by Marx as fundamentally a social being, so any concept of an ethical ideal in Marx necessarily focuses on the quality of the social relations that must obtain in a fully just society. In Marx, however, the fundamental activity of humans is labor and the social good depends on the manner in which labor is performed. Labor is the core concept of Marx’s analyses because it is the most concrete and universalizable human activity: concrete in that it is the sensuous expression of the human being in the physical world; universalizable in that it is the precondition of all human existence. Moreover, central to the notion of the human’s species-life or species-being is the idea of human reciprocity whereby each individual attains his or her other ends in life through recognition of the mutual dependence of each on the other, the only way to achieve the fulfillment of universal and fundamental human needs.

Marx’s Early Critique of Capitalism Humans are inherently dependent upon one another for the satisfaction of their needs and they will succeed in this endeavor only if each is fully actualized in reproducing their life’s activity. But this implies that one’s very sociality must be the aim of his or her life activity. In ignoring this and placing exclusive importance on the possession and manipulation of natural objects of need, humans become dominated by their own products in the form of hostile social forces, in particular those causing alienation. Emancipation from these forces requires that we come to an understanding of the nature of social production as well as recognizing the intrinsic sociality of productive activity. The concepts of alienation (Entfremdung), exploitation, and domination are central to Marx’s critique of capitalist society and they indicate normative judgments aimed at the heart of the productive process. In the Paris Manuscripts, Marx presents us with four basic aspects of the estranging of our essential human activity, our human labor. 1. The relation of the worker to the product of labor as an alien object exercising power over one. 2. The labor process as an alien activity of suffering and under the control of another.

3. The relation of external nature to one’s own body as something alien and a mere means to existence or survival. 4. The alienation of humans from each other and from each one’s labor and products. Marx goes on to say that it is humans who create and sustain these forms of alienation, whether by owning and controlling the means of production or by submitting oneself to capitalist production. In any case, capitalist private property is the result of alienated labor in that the accumulation of such property could not occur without a labor process with the above alienating characteristics. Thus, there is clear congruity between Marx’s concept of species-being and his theory of alienation in capitalist society. In both cases the concept of labor appears as the root idea, determining both the content of the concept of species-being as well as the structure of alienation. In addition, the concept of species-being provides a model or norm for what constitutes the type of social relations that ought to obtain in society, for example, relations of reciprocity, and the theory of alienation can be seen as an application of that model to a society that is criticized to the degree that it fails to conform to the model – a model that articulates a conception of just social relations. Marx’s early solution to the problem of alienation in capitalist society lies in part in his sketch of communist society as one of free associated producers. In this future society, emancipation is achieved through the abolishing of the contradictions that exist in present society between wealth and poverty, between the political state and civil society, between capital and labor, and at its most esoteric level between the forces and relations of production. Even though Marx emphasizes the abolition of private property, capitalist private property is essentially the result, not the cause, of alienated labor. Thus, the causal factor is the manner in which production takes place under capitalism, that is, the system of wage labor, and so it is not the mere abolishing of private property alone that brings emancipation but rather the socializing and humanizing of productive activity. Marx’s later critique of political economy and articulation of the communist struggle for emancipation builds upon his early criticism of political and social alienation by addressing solutions to economic alienation. His focus shifts from the alienating division between politics and social life to the alienation found in the economic and social division of labor. The key idea of communism for transcending these divisions is establishing cooperation rather than competition as the basis of social activity, and this begins with the socialization of the means of production through

Marx, Karl

common ownership of the instruments and resources of production – in short, cooperative factories and businesses that do away with wage labor.

The Injustice of Capitalism for Marx In the preface to the 1883 German Edition of the Communist Manifesto (1848), Friedrich Engels summarizes the basic thrust of this entry: that all history is the history of class struggles, and that various stages in the development of these struggles are based upon the manner of economic production. The Manifesto also prophesizes an end to this struggle, when the proletarian class of exploited workers emancipates itself from the exploiting class, the capitalist bourgeoisie, thereby emancipating all of society from exploitation, oppression, and class struggle. The Manifesto, however, is not only a brief historical survey of economic exploitation with a general presentation of the theoretical structure of this process (explained technically in Das Capital (1867)): it is a biting invective against the class domination of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie and it presents the communist movement as an organized attempt to end this domination through the dissolution of capitalist private property. The terms “domination,” “exploitation,” “antagonism,” and “oppression” occur frequently through the text of the Manifesto and they function both as descriptive of relations that have obtained historically, as well as indicating a situation that is to be ethically condemned and socially and politically rectified. The features of the exploitation that results from capitalist domination are basically the following: 1. The laborer becomes a commodity thrown into the precarious arena of competition 2. Through technological advance and division of labor the work of the laborer becomes demeaning and more burdensome 3. The proletariat is oppressed politically by the bourgeoisie The antagonistic relation between capital and wage labor is the source of the proletariat’s unfavorable condition and of modern class struggles. Marx in his essay Wage Labour and Capital (1849) explicates the concepts of wages and capital and how the worker’s labor power, which gets sold to the capitalist, is the mediating factor. In this exchange, the capitalist reproduces capital whereas the worker receives only the means of subsistence in the form of wages. Even though the worker’s living labor adds to the exchange value of accumulated labor (capital), this added value remains in the hands of the capitalist, not the worker. Moreover, the more capital that is needed the

M

more labor power is needed, so the increase and growth of capital requires an increase in the size of the proletariat. Although Marx does not talk explicitly of the injustice of capitalist production and exchange, perhaps because talk of justice and injustice tends to reflect bourgeois political conceptions and assumptions, it is clear that he finds something morally wrong in this system of relations. In the growth of accumulated labor over living labor, the latter increases the former but only to be further subjected to the demands of increasing capital. This process involves a degradation of the life activity of the worker not only in the sense that in exchange for his or her labor the worker only receives the means of subsistence, but also in the sense that in this exchange the labor of the worker is further commanded by capital for the purpose of increasing the latter. The bare minimum of return to living labor forces the worker to sell more of his or her labor so that it can be accumulated (as capital) in maximum amounts by the capitalist. In effect, the creative power of the worker’s productive life activity becomes appropriated by the capitalist who utilizes this power in order to extract more labor and more productivity from the worker. The injustices of the capitalist economy are manifest in a variety of ways. Competition between capitalists in their attempt to produce and sell commodities more cheaply results in a greater division of labor and increased use and improvement of machinery. This development intensifies in the competition among workers for jobs. In proportion to the increase of capital in the form of mechanized technology that replaces workers, there is a decrease in means of employment, and therefore of subsistence for workers. One result of continual revolutionizing of production, that is, creating new industries, new machinery, more division of labor, and the expanding of its markets, along with intensified economic competition, is that the means of production (tools, raw materials, plant and land, machinery, etc.) becomes centralized into fewer and fewer hands, creating a tendency toward monopoly that drives many of the smaller capitalists out of the market. Another effect is that workers, through intensified division of labor, have to suffer long hours of monotonous work, inhumane work conditions, lower wages, and poverty. However, at the same time that more poverty is created among the masses of workers, production continues to increase until it leads to overproduction – more goods are produced than the populace can afford to purchase. This in turn leads to a cutting back of labor and results in the creation of an industrial reserve army of laborers. The continuation of this trend leads, in a bitter irony, to dramatic decreases in the accumulation of wealth for the

681

M

682

M

Marxism

capitalists and eventually to severe economic crises, which in turn results in social and political upheaval.

The Struggle for Emancipation According to Marx, once the proletariat becomes a revolutionary class, nationally and internationally, it will strive though collective action, guided by dedicated and knowledgeable leadership, to change the material conditions of society and undermine class distinctions and, eventually, perform the task of liberating all of humankind in a worldwide revolution. Communists are those who represent the interests of the working classes internationally and who form a spearhead that leads the working class forward, based upon an understanding of the material conditions of present society, including its contradictions and the further development that these must take. They understand that moral critique alone, uninformed by a scientific understanding of material conditions, is rather useless or even counter-effective. Nonetheless, there is little doubt that Marx’s critique of capitalism involved reference to an implied standard of social justice. There is a congruence in Marx between the economic and social necessity of the demise of the system of capitalism and the ethical/historical necessity of its overthrow (particularly pronounced in his work the German Ideology, 1848). For Marx, the end result of the communist revolutionary movement is classless society in which through common ownership of the means of production no one has his or her labor subjugated by another, and everyone benefits from the productivity of society. Such a society is just because it is one of free associated producers, a society where individuals selfdetermine their lives and their mode of labor collaboratively and without the power relations that exist in modern nation states. Marx expected that revolution in the major industrialized nations, set off by economic crisis and widespread discontent with the prevailing regimes, would have a domino effect on other nations and would spread globally. Moreover, there was also a revolutionary role for a global proletariat organized under international leadership, such as The International Workingmen’s Association (The First International) founded in September 1864 and in which Marx had a pivotal role as a member of its provisional committee, as well as the working subcommittee. It is likely that Marx viewed this project as a form of revolutionary praxis that would eventually contribute to a radical reconceptualization of the national systems of production, including the political state. While a worldwide revolution did not happen, the trade union movements of the twentieth century and their

successes in the organization of labor and collective bargaining had significant effect in diminishing some of the exploitive features of wage labor under capitalism. These movements, which still bear their mark in many of the democratic socialist nations of Europe, are legacies of Marx’s socialist thought. However, Marx’s vision of global human emancipation and justice remains an ideal, one that – as has been said of Plato’s utopian Republic – may be too great to be realized, but still worth aspiring to if the effort moves us closer to universal justice.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Rights ▶ Capitalism ▶ Domination ▶ Economic Rights ▶ Equality ▶ Globalization ▶ Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Justice ▶ Marxism ▶ Poverty ▶ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

References Buchanan A (1982) Marx and justice. Rowman & Littlefield, Totowa Kain PJ (1988) Marx and ethics. Clarendon, Oxford Marx K, Engels F (1975) Collected works. Lawrence & Wishart, London McLellan D (1995) The thought of Karl Marx. 3rd ed., Trans-Atlantic Publications, Philadelphia, PA Megill A (2001) Karl Marx: the burden of reason. Why Marx rejected politics and the market. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Peffer RG (1988) Marxism, morality and social justice. Princeton University Press, Princeton Pruzan ER (1989) The concept of justice in Marx. Peter Lang, New York Singer P (2000) Marx: a very short introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford Teeple G (1984) Marx’s critique of politics 1842–1847. University of Toronto Press, Toronto West C (1991) The ethical dimensions of Marxist thought. Monthly Review Press, New York

Marxism PAUL WARREN Department of Philosophy, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

Marxism refers to the body of thought and form of political practice based on the work of Karl Marx

Marxism

(1818–1883), philosopher, social theorist, revolutionary socialist, and leader of the First International Working Men’s Association. Marx’s writings, some of which were coauthored with longtime friend and financial supporter Friedrich Engels, are varied in character, scope, and purpose. They include scholarly treatises, philosophical criticism, dense theoretical investigations, polemical interventions, programmatic pamphlets, journalistic dispatches, unpublished notebooks and drafts, and a considerable volume of correspondence. Marx’s thought is broad and interdisciplinary, builds constructively on the philosophy and social science of his day, and is animated by a desire to organically link theory and practice. Almost from the beginning there have been interpretive controversies over the meaning of Marx’s work: whether it presents a comprehensive system; whether it relies on a distinctive dialectical methodology; whether it offers an explanatory theory only or also a normative perspective; whether it has a unique theoretical structure that combines explanatory and normative perspectives; its relation to other philosophical and theoretical currents; and the nature of its core concepts, arguments, and positions. Whatever answers might be given to these questions, it is uncontroversial that soon after his death Marx’s thought achieved influence never attained while he was alive and eventually became one of the most significant intellectual and political forces of the twentieth century. It influenced the emerging labor movement; socialist and communist political parties; Bolshevik and Chinese Revolutions; popular movements of resistance to colonialism and imperialism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America; academic disciplines; and trends in literature, theater, art, and aesthetics. Most immediately, Marxist theory was important force in shaping the outlook of the Second International Workingmen’s Association (1889–1914). Key figures contributing to the development of Marxism in this period were Eduard Bernstein (1850–1932), Karl Kautsky (1854–1938), George Plekhanov (1856–1918), V.I. Lenin (1870–1924), Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919), and Nikolai Bukharin (1888– 1938) all of whom were actively involved in socialist politics, and for whom theory and practical action were closely tied. Debates ranged over issues of party organization and structure, participation in electoral politics, the nature of advanced capitalism, and the causes and consequences of imperialism. The successful Bolshevik Revolution led to socialism in one country – a result in apparent conflict with standard interpretations of the Marxist view of history – and ultimately eventuated in the emergence of an official version of Marxism with consequences for the subsequent development of

M

Marxist thought. Marxists and socialists of all persuasions made common cause with liberals and democrats in a “popular front” against fascism during the period just prior to and during World War II. However, tensions later emerged between the official Marxism of the Soviet Union, which had hardened into a form of authoritarianism under Stalin’s dictatorship, and social democratic political parties in the West, other left tendencies (e.g., Trotskyism), and popular resistance and democratic movements favoring socialism from below. During the Cold War, such tensions came to the forefront during Soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The 1960s saw the emergence of the New Left, unconnected to the labor movement or traditional socialist or communist parties, generally anti-Soviet, and motivated mainly by interests in cultural change, peace, and racial justice. In addition to these various political and geographical inflections of twentieth-century Marxism, there emerged a diffuse set of tendencies outside the orbit of Soviet thought and with a more philosophical bent, commonly grouped under the rubric of “Western Marxism,” that sought to combine Marx’s thought with non-Marxist theoretical currents such as Freudianism, existentialism, humanism, structuralism, liberation theology, feminism, cultural theory, and analytical philosophy. Prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union much of the world lived under officially Marxist regimes. Many view the events of 1989 and 1991, China’s turn toward market reform, and the victories of neoliberal policy reforms in Western democracies during the Thatcher and Reagan years as evidence of the waning of Marxist thought and the forms of politics based on it. Yet even if Marxist political parties and explicit Marxist politics are marginal in today’s world, Marx’s thought remains influential in the academy and an invaluable source for those seeking to challenge the existing social and political order both within capitalist societies and more globally. In these respects, it remains important for those interested in global justice. At the center of Marx’s project and indeed of much of subsequent Marxism is the analysis and critique of capitalism or, as Marx more usually refers to it, the “bourgeois mode of production.” Marx sought to provide an account of capitalism’s origins, class structure, developmental trajectory, social and political consequences, and conditions of ultimate demise, including an account of the formation of the industrial proletariat – the collective agent he identified as having both the interest and capacity to bring about revolutionary transformation to socialism. Engels later described this theoretical project as “scientific socialism.” It is grounded in a wider theory of history, according to which

683

M

684

M

Marxism

capitalism is one in a succession of modes of production and accompanying social formations through which humanity passes on the way to a future society in which material abundance and the disappearance of class structures make genuine human emancipation a reality. A society in which the “free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” (Communist Manifesto) is not a standard of moral criticism or an ideal of utopian aspiration, but an historical alternative whose material possibility develops within capitalist society, as does the proletariat, the class whose protracted political struggles would eventually bring it into being. Marx thought that the key to understanding different societies lay in their distinctive social relations of production or modes of production. He defined capitalism as a society in which the bulk of society’s nonhuman means of production were privately owned and where direct producers were the proprietors of their own labor power, but owned no other means of production. As a consequence of this double freedom (i.e., freedom to sell one’s labor power and freedom from the means of production), individuals would be compelled to sell their labor power to those controlling the means of production. In feudalism and slavery, by contrast, serfs and slaves were not free proprietors of their own labor, but bound in different ways and by varying degrees to work for the benefit of their feudal masters or slave owners. By the same token, a society of independent peasants each of whom owns their own land would not be capitalist by Marx’s definition because wage labor would not be compelled in such social relations. In feudalism and slavery, the exploitation of the direct producers is evident in the forced and coerced labor of the serfs and slaves. In capitalism, this direct coercion is eliminated since individuals are the rightful proprietors of their own labor power and can freely enter into contractual agreements whereby they exchange the right to use that labor power for a wage. Marx argues that although this contractual exchange has the formal appearance of being free and equal, it masks substantive unfreedom and inequality: through it, the fruit of the worker’s labor is exploitatively appropriated. Marx draws on the labor theory of value of classical political economy in a novel way to work out his own theory of capitalist exploitation, crucially through the introduction of a distinction between labor and labor power and elaboration of the concept of surplus value (i.e., the difference between the value of the worker’s labor power and the value that the laborer produces). He uses that theory of exploitation to explain historical transformations of the workplace, technological change, the source and rate

of capitalist profit, the process of capital accumulation, and crises of overaccumulation, where an excess of capital prevents its profitable investment. Apart from a few provocative statements, Marx never offered an extended theoretical discussion of socialism, communism, or the politics of the postrevolutionary period. In part, this absence can be explained by Marx’s insistence on the scientific character of his socialism, reluctance to concoct “recipes for the cook-shops of the future” (Capital, vol. I), belief in the power of technological advance, and confidence in future democratic assemblies of associated producers. Today, however, as a consequence of the failure of socialism in the former Soviet Union, many are skeptical about the viability of a desirable form of socialism, one that can combine economic efficiency, democratic rights, and socialist values. One vigorous contemporary debate among those sympathetic to Marx’s project concerns the possibility and desirability of a form of market socialism that could harness the efficiencies and informational advantages of markets to a socialist ethos – either as a form of socialism to be sought for its own sake or as a transitional stage to a nonmarket and truly egalitarian form of socialism. Marx’s views on ethics and morality are complex and not free from paradox. On the one hand, because Marx’s conception of socialism was grounded in a theory of history and not on the basis of reason alone, he was largely uninterested in offering up freestanding philosophical justifications of normative principles. More specifically, in light of that theory of history, conceptions of morality and justice were judged ideological in character, reflecting underlying class interests and historically specific social relations of production. Furthermore, Marx believed that in virtue of technological advances the advent of socialism would signal the diminishing of scarcity and hence recession of the conditions requiring principles of justice. Some critics have argued that the bad record of Marxist regimes with respect to human rights is traceable to Marx’s critique of justice and morality, his reticence to foreground the importance of ethical principles, and to a kind of consequentialism implicit in his theory of history. On the other hand, Marx’s critique of capitalism and vision of socialism are undoubtedly informed by an ethical perspective. One of his most philosophically influential works in the twentieth century was the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, unpublished during his own lifetime and written as a consequence of his early critical engagement with the writings of the British political economists and Hegel’s philosophical system. Marx’s focus in these manuscripts is on the alienation – a suggestive philosophical term with multiple meanings of separation, estrangement, and

Marxism

disorientation – that besets individual laborers within a social system based on capital, private property, and wage labor. Individuals are alienated from the fruits of the labor, their laboring activities, their fellow human beings, and even their own selves. They live in a world that is inverted from a humanistic perspective: true and genuine relations of human beings to their products, labor, and fellow humans, only arrive with a reappropriation of the conditions of labor in an anticipated communist society, where human productive activity will be free, cooperative, and meaningful. Further aspects of Marx’s ethical perspective can be found in his critique of capitalist exploitation – in particular, in the fact that workers are compelled to sell their labor power in exchange for wages not equivalent in value to what they produce. Moreover, Marx’s comments on communism, albeit brief and unelaborated, suggest a commitment to an ideal of egalitarian community that fits within broad philosophical debates over the good society, principles of distributive justice, and the nature of the human good. Writing at a time when capitalism was barely developed outside of England and Western Europe, Marx presciently envisaged it as a new and dynamic system of production, progressive in comparison to previous modes of production, and possessing inherent tendencies toward expansion. Many have commented that Marx is one of the first theorists of what has come to be called globalization. While no doubt this statement contains some truth, analytically and normatively a Marxist account of global capitalism is radically different from those of contemporary advocates of globalization who view it largely through the prism of the beneficial effects of the market expansion, capital mobility, deregulation, privatization, and increased trade and who fail to recognize that more egalitarian forms of globalization are possible. In Capital, Marx used an abstract model of a single, self-contained capitalist economy to explain capitalism’s inherent drive to seek profit through exploitation and technological innovation. However, Marx understood that any existing capitalist economy would be historically, geographically, and politically located. There are no pure economic systems, capitalist or otherwise, but rather particular forms of capitalism existing at specific times and places, and combined with different social and political structures. Any capitalist mode of production exists with an attendant political form or state, each state exists within a world of states, some of which have developed capitalist economies, some of which are precapitalist, and some of which combine capitalist and precapitalist relations of production. This theoretical picture of things is rich, complex, suggestive, and opens possible lines of inquiry that subsequent

M

Marxist theories have pursued. It is a hallmark of Marxist theories of imperialism to insist that both economic and political forms of power and inequality should be theorized – that is, focus should be directed at both exploitation and domination, and their interconnection. More specifically, Marxist theories of imperialism seek to link political domination or rule of one state over another state or people, whether formal or informal, to the requirements of capitalism as a system of production in need of reproduction and expansion. Such economic requirements are important both as source of imperialist aims and as a constraint on the pursuit of those aims. One important Marxist perspective on imperialism is Lenin’s, who – building on the work of the liberal J. A. Hobson (1858–1940), Austrian Marxist Rudolf Hilferding (1877–1941), and fellow Bolshevik Nikolai Bukharin – sought to theorize the inter-capitalist rivalries of the pre–World War I period as resulting from the need for expanding the conditions of capital accumulation in capitalism’s monopoly stage. This need leads to export of capital and commodities by different state powers and to a consequent political division of the world into different geographical spheres of influence. The main focus of Lenin’s analysis is on the military and political conflict between imperial rivals over territories, and to a much lesser extent on the subordinate countries over which the conflict is waged. Lenin was intent on establishing the connection between imperialism and war, and in arguing for socialism as the only alternative to war. The connection between capitalist imperialism and war also figured prominently in Rosa Luxemburg’s account of imperialism, though her underlying economic analysis focused on the need for capitalists to seek out noncapitalist areas to dominate as possible outlets for surplus value, rather than on the special configuration of monopoly capitalism as in Lenin. Other Marxist perspectives on imperialism focus on the relations between capitalist states as a group and on the impact of the penetration of imperial powers on undeveloped societies. Kautsky used the term “ultraimperialism” to describe a situation in which the imperialist powers cooperate to avoid war, which he believed was a genuine possibility. His approach resonated in the post–World War II period and some contemporary Marxist theorists of imperialism have sought to explain the form such a global capitalist order might take, offering up different models of global hegemony and capitalist development. A focus on undeveloped societies, the conditions of underdevelopment, and global inequality is a central concern of dependency theory. It supposes that features of global capitalism create structural dependencies and permanent inequalities between developed and underdevelopment societies. For dependency theorists

685

M

686

M

May, Larry

such as Frank and Wallerstein, capitalist development in the “core” comes at the expense of underdevelopment in the “peripheries.” Marx himself seemed to be of two minds on the issue of capitalist penetration and development, arguing in two famous articles on British rule in India that British colonial rule, while tragically destructive of traditional social forms, would ultimately have a regenerative effect on the development of India. However, in some of his later writings Marx seems to reject the optimistic notion of any positive impact of British rule in India. In addition to laying out a theoretical framework for understanding global capitalism, Marx was an advocate and strategist of working class internationalism. He insisted on the importance of recognizing what workers of all countries have in common as workers and independent of nationality. However, Marx recognized that the political struggles of the workers in the first instance would be national and would take place within the parameters of the national state. Marx saw no contradiction between this recognition and internationalism, but thought them complementary. Moreover, he saw no contradiction between workers’ internationalism and the support of the national struggles of a people seeking to cast off an oppressor, as in the case of Polish nationalism. He similarly advocated for Irish independence and saw it as a precondition for social revolution in England. He praised the “heroic” stance taken by British workers who opposed efforts by the British government to make alliance with the Southern states during the American Civil War. Marx’s internationalism has affinity with certain cosmopolitan modes of thought, though it is distinctive in its emphasis on the centrality of class structure, in its recognition of the complex interconnections of national and international struggles for political autonomy, democracy, and better working conditions, and in its placement of socialism as an ultimate goal of struggle. Contemporary liberal cosmopolitan theories of global distributive justice, such as those offered respectively by Charles Beitz, Thomas Pogge, and Martha Nussbaum, are concerned with explaining and justifying principles of distributive justice that have global application, outside the confines of the nation-state. While the theories of Beitz and Pogge eschew any explicit use of Marxist categories, their respective normative accounts of global justice crucially rest on structural and causal relations of dependency and inequality that they argue exist between developed and underdeveloped nations and people. This suggests possible conceptual similarities to aforementioned Marxist theories of imperialism, dependency, and exploitation worthy of exploring. Nussbaum’s theory of global distributive justice is critical of narrow economic measures of welfare and

development and employs a capability ethic that in certain respects echoes the ethical ideal found in Marx’s critique of capitalism. Here too there are prospects for fruitful crossfertilization between Marxist and liberal cosmopolitan perspectives on global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Alterglobalization ▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Capitalism ▶ Class and Status ▶ Colonialism ▶ Exploitation ▶ Free Trade ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Public Reason ▶ Globalization ▶ Imperialism ▶ Neoliberalism ▶ Revolution ▶ Socialism

References Anderson P (1976) Considerations on Western Marxism. Verso, London Brewer A (1990) Marxist theories of imperialism: a critical survey, 2nd edn. Routledge, London/New York Cohen GA (1978) Karl Marx’s theory of history: a defense. Princeton University Press, Princeton Cohen M, Nagel T, Scanlon T (eds) (1980) Marx, justice, and history. Princeton University Press, Princeton Foster JB (2000) Marx and internationalism. Mon Rev 52:11–22 Harvey D (2003) The new imperialism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Lukes S (1985) Marxism and morality. Oxford University Press, Oxford Mohri K (1979) Marx and “underdevelopment”. Mon Rev 30:32–42 Mollendorf D (2002) Cosmopolitan justice. Westview Press, Boulder Renton D (ed) (2001) Marx on globalisation. Lawrence and Wishart, London Roemer J (1994) A future for socialism. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Tucker R (ed) (1978) The Marx-Engels reader, 2nd edn. W.W. Norton, New York

May, Larry COLLEEN MURPHY Department of Philosophy, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX, USA

Larry May is the first philosopher to systematically articulate the conceptual and normative foundations of

May, Larry

international criminal law. In Crimes Against Humanity: A Normative Account (2005), May develops criteria for determining the conditions under which individuals should be held criminally liable for crimes with a collective dimension, such as crimes against humanity, by international criminal tribunals. The “international harm principle” restricts crimes against humanity, and liability for such crimes to cases of widespread or systematic harm where groups are either the victims or perpetrators of harm; in the case of perpetrators, the groups in question are either states or state-like groups. Harms that are not group based, May argues, fall under the jurisdiction of domestic courts only. According to May, international tribunals in such cases are justified because the obligation to respect state sovereignty (and so a state’s jurisdiction over responding to crimes committed within its borders) exists so long as a state is willing and able to protect its subjects. When a state either attacks or fails to protect its subjects from attack, infringements of sovereignty, which the often nonconsensual prosecution of crimes against humanity involve, are justified. In War Crimes and Just Wars (2007) May argues that war crimes should be understood as violations of the duty to be humane, and so crimes against humaneness. This duty is grounded in the idea that citizens are collectively responsible for the training of soldiers who fight on their behalf and that training must cultivate a sense of honor, including a sense of mercy and compassion. May also demonstrates that the duty to be humane provides the theoretical foundation for conceptualizing the specific just war requirements of jus in bello, including the principle of distinction. In May’s view, the difference between combatants and noncombatants should be determined based on the vulnerability of individuals, where vulnerability is a function of an individual’s ability to defend herself at a given time. Aggression and Crimes against Peace (2008) outlines prima facie conditions for actions by a state or state-like groups to constitute aggression, that is, aggression occurs when a state commits a first wrong using unprovoked violent force that endangers human rights against another state, when such violence is neither in aid of another state fighting in self-defense nor authorized by the UN. May’s forthcoming book Genocide: A Normative Account analyzes genocide, and thus completes May’s analysis of each of the crimes under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. In developing the normative foundations of international law, May draws on the theoretical resources provided by seventeenth-century philosophers, including Thomas Hobbes and Hugo Grotius. Underpinning

M

his account is the presumption in favor of state sovereignty, which in turns makes it necessary to rebut this presumption when justifying international criminal prosecutions. His analysis is informed by extensive knowledge and discussion of international law; at the same time, it challenges definitions articulated in international law and traditional just war theory. For example, his definition of aggression does not restrict aggression to actions by states but includes nonstate actors, and emphasizes the commission of a first wrong, not simply the first use of force. May’s work on international criminal law reflects themes taken up in earlier work, including collective responsibility and safeguarding the rights of defendants. May’s work has attracted considerable attention. Critics have challenged May’s presumption in favor of sovereignty, arguing in favor of a principle of universal jurisdiction, and May’s emphasis on the rights of defendants, claiming it will lead to an unjustified failure to punish individuals for egregious crimes. Others question whether his analysis explains why some group-based harms are harms to humanity. According to critics, focusing on group-based harms makes it clear how members of the same group can be harmed by acts that are directed against an individual because of her group affiliation, but not how individuals who are not members of the targeted group are harmed. May has made a number of contributions to global justice. First, his systematic analysis of the conceptual and normative foundations of international criminal law provides the justificatory underpinning of one of the central instrument used to codify and enforce norms of global justice, international law. Moreover, by arguing for the conditions under which sovereignty should be respected, May articulates the principles that should regulate which actors, domestic or international, have the standing to prosecute violations of international law. Finally, May’s specific focus, crimes against humanity and war crimes, enhances our theoretical understanding of the morality of warfare, a central topic of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Crimes Against Humanity ▶ Genocide ▶ Grotius, Hugo ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ International Law ▶ Jus ad Bellum ▶ Jus in Bello ▶ Punishment

687

M

688

M

McBride, William

References Altman A (2006) The persistent fiction of harm to humanity. Ethics Int Aff 20(3):367–372 Luban D (2006) Beyond moral minimalism. Ethics Int Aff 20(3):353–360 May L (2005) Crimes against humanity: a normative account. Cambridge University Press, New York May L (2006) Humanity and international crime: reply to critics. Ethics Int Aff 20(3):373–382 May L (2007) War crimes and just wars. Cambridge University Press, New York May L (2008a) Aggression and crimes against peace. Cambridge University Press, New York May L (2008b) International criminal justice: a reply to my critics. Soc Philos Today 23:243–258 May L (2009) Genocide: a normative account. Cambridge University Press, New York

McBride, William JEFFREY PARIS Department of Philosophy, College of Arts and Sciences, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

William L. McBride (b. 1938) is a philosopher and social theorist with a record of impeccable scholarship on the French existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and an innovative analysis of the crossroads of postmodern thought and radical politics. He has spent the bulk of his career as a Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University, a leading PhD program in both European continental philosophy and radical political thought. A model of international cooperation, McBride’s engagement with scholars in not only France and Eastern Europe, but also India, China, Russia, and elsewhere, has led him to serve first as Secretary General (2003–2008) and then as the President (2008–) of FISP (Fe´de´ration Internationale des Socie´te´s de Philosophie), having previously held founding and executive positions in other US and international organizations including the American Philosophical Association, the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, the North American Sartre Society, the Radical Philosophy Association, and the North American Society for Social Philosophy.

Scholarship in Existentialism and Political Philosophy Author of hundreds of articles and reviews along with over a dozen books, McBride’s most influential work is Sartre’s Political Theory (1991), the first thoroughgoing analysis of Sartre’s political philosophy as conveyed in the Critique

of Dialectical Reason and the Notebooks for an Ethics. McBride identified the Critique as the central core of Sartre’s political philosophy, illuminating and revising classic themes including sovereignty, rights, political association, and freedom. Sartre sought to show the world to his readers through a new set of categories, and as McBride demonstrates, this includes political categories. (He also compiled an eight-volume collection on Sartre and Existentialism [1997], including some of his own contributions.) On the face of it, neither Sartre nor any other existentialist philosopher has appeared to be a source for a conception of “global justice.” Existentialism stands accused, if wrongly, of focusing on the individual, at the expense of the community. And Marxism, in which Sartre found a propitious companion, is well known for its resistance to any appeals to formal conceptions of rights, justice, or national or cosmopolitan citizenship to develop its hopes for a truly human future. Nevertheless, McBride recovers from Sartre’s notoriously difficult ontology and vocabulary a coherent “totalization” of history and politics, both in the context of a post-World War II bipolar world and then later in the post-1989 unipolar one. The notion of totalization – a technical term from Sartre – is a powerful counter to the self-limiting theories that have emerged from postmodern social critics; it refers not to support for “totalitarian” regimes of thought and practice, but rather to the intelligibility of large social projects with a historical self-reflexivity and openness. A totalization is therefore an analysis of and a judgment on sweeping changes in history and society; it is a theorization and praxis consistent with social theories of the past (such as those of Max Weber or Karl Marx) but with a vigorous attention to the contemporary situation out of which it emerges. So, even with the existentialist lesson of the loss of stable, a priori meanings to human practice and hopes, a Sartrean political theory can still generate a critical and normative approach to, for instance, the logic of global capitalism or the failures of liberal democracy and to pose significant historical alternatives as well. Sartre’s contrasting term to totalizations is “totalities,” which are fixed, positivistic approaches to social thought and action, whether in projects of societal organization or in the philosophies and ideologies that sustain them. It is thus also from Sartre that McBride develops his critique of facile and transparent claims to a “global” justice. One consistent target throughout his oeuvre has been liberal contractarian John Rawls. While Rawls’s “new” postmetaphysical social contract theory was taking the philosophical world by storm following the 1971 publication of A Theory of Justice, McBride immediately and presciently

McBride, William

viewed that work as yet another failed attempt to provide a normative justification for Western hegemony, and a view of “justice” that puts procedural equality ahead of important substantive issues about the nature of society. In one of the very first published reviews of A Theory of Justice, McBride called this Political Theory Sub Specie Aeternitatis, an appropriate catchall for any political theory that fails to be effectively self-reflexive.

Korc´ula Summer School and the Yugoslav Praxis Group McBride’s early studies (he received his PhD from Yale University in 1964 and taught there, eventually as Associate Professor, until 1973) were in legal theory and Marxism – his first published book was entitled Fundamental Change in Law and Society: Hart and Sartre on Revolution (1970), followed by an exquisite commentary, The Philosophy of Marx (1977), and then an introductory survey entitled Social Theory at a Crossroads (1980). These works were all influenced to some extent by his earlier participation in the Korc´ula Summer School, a series of seminars organized by Belgrade and Zagreb philosophers of the “Praxis” school in the 1960s and 1970s, designed to foster an imminent critique of Euro-socialism in a context of no little political desperation. To prevent its confiscation by an increasingly attentive Yugoslav postal service, McBride was responsible for “smuggling” out of Yugoslavia a corrected galley of Mihailo Markovic´’s From Affluence to Praxis (1974), a tale McBride recounts in his Philosophical Reflections on the Changes in Eastern Europe (1999). As a philosopher-activist with a long and rich history of interaction with Yugoslav philosophers Markovic´, Gajo Petrovic´, Svetozar Stojanovic´, and others, McBride’s “coming to account” of these thinkers (of whom some, like Markovic´, became fervent apologists for post-communist nationalism) is fascinating and nuanced. Philosophical Reflections as a whole is a cautionary tale regarding existential alignments in a post-communist age, as McBride analyzes the failures of communism, anticommunism, and perhaps above all, post-communist triumphalism. By examining the post-communist “conversions” (another term adapted from Sartre) of intellectuals in the wake of the breakup of Yugoslavia, McBride is able to pose the central question in all of his work: What really “matters” in a significant and permanent way?

Post-Post-Marxism This question is taken up in the late 1990s in a collection of essays published as From Yugoslav Praxis to Global Pathos: Anti-Hegemonic Post-Post-Marxist Essays (2001), the title indicating McBride’s increasingly ironic critique

M

of the “New World Order” of postmodern capitalism and the evocation of a certain “spirit” of Marx – in this case, the negation of Marxism, without which no fundamental comprehension of the “One World” of CocaCola culture can be gained. The critical philosophical task of clarifying values, interrogating rights, and investigating the meaning of culture, nature, and civil society becomes especially visible in this work, which stands as perhaps McBride’s most important contribution to social philosophy. Against the pervasive complacency of the philosophical establishment, McBride argues that an all-consuming “One World” behemoth of American capitalism has undermined opportunities for a genuinely global culture, one that would be pluralist in values and prize the kind of freedom for a better possible future envisioned by Marxist and socialist philosophers for more than a century. In this way, he seeks to redeem the originality of Marx, while purging a refreshed Marxism of its history of failed totalities; this is a “post-post-Marxism,” he admits, since postMarxism (represented by thinkers as widely varied as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Ju¨rgen Habermas, or even to some extent Richard Rorty) is little more than a refusal to engage with the key premises of Marx’s economic and historical analyses. “Global justice” may be one way of characterizing this “better possible future,” but only if one who claims to be its proponent remains continually aware of the dangers of supporting hegemony that have plagued even the most principled of philosophers and social theorists over the past few decades. McBride’s oeuvre contains a rich dialogue with these theorists, and serves to redeem, at least for the present, the capacity of philosophical thought to concretely address global ills such as increasing impoverishment, resurgent nationalism, corporate plundering, and our growing ecological toxicity. It would, finally, be remiss to ignore the tremendous role McBride has played as a dedicated teacher of philosophy, directing roughly 100 doctoral dissertations and influencing the course of that many or more professional philosophers actively teaching and writing in philosophy and social theory. His participation in the rich political and liberatory histories of existentialism, Marxism, and post-Marxism is recounted not only throughout his analytical writings, but also in an oral tradition of storytelling that is today perhaps less valued by academic evaluators, but is by no means less significant.

Related Topics

▶ Globalization ▶ Ideal Moral Theory

689

M

690

M

McMahan, Jeff

▶ Marx, Karl ▶ Marxism ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Socialism

References Markovic´ M (1974) From affluence to praxis: philosophy and social criticism. The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor McBride WL (1970) Fundamental change in law and society: Hart and Sartre on revolution. Mouton, The Hague McBride WL (1977) The philosophy of Marx. Hutchinson/St. Martin’s, New York McBride WL (1980) Social theory at a crossroads. Duquesne, Pittsburgh McBride WL (1991) Sartre’s political theory. Indiana University Press, Bloomington McBride WL (ed) (1997) Sartre and existentialism (8 volumes). Garland, Hamden McBride WL (1999) Philosophical reflections on the changes in Eastern Europe. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham McBride WL (2001) From Yugoslav praxis to global pathos: antihegemonic post-post-Marxist Essays. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham

McMahan, Jeff HELEN FROWE University of Kent, School of European Culture and Languages, Canterbury, UK

Jeff McMahan’s political philosophy is primarily developed within the context of just war theory. Over the past 20 years, McMahan has challenged many of the assumptions of orthodox just war theory, most notably the claim that even an unjust war can be justly fought. Underpinning his account of the ethics of war is a wider conception of global justice that makes claims about human rights, the nature of states, international law, and our obligations to people in other countries. McMahan defends an individualist perspective of collective action that leads him to draw novel, and often controversial, conclusions about what justice requires.

Individualism and War Those who defend a collectivist view of war argue that war is to be understood as a relationship not between persons, but between political collectives (usually states). We must thus treat the actions of combatants as undertaken on behalf of this collective, which means that we cannot judge their actions by the standards we

apply to individuals. Collectivists tend to think that political groups have special rights that allow them to engage in what would be impermissible violence if it were carried out by individuals or nonpolitical groups. Collectivism has been the historically dominant view among just war theorists, who have generally approached war as an exception to the moral prohibitions that govern ordinary life. Individualists, in contrast, argue that the moral rules governing the behavior of states in war are the same moral rules that govern interactions between individuals in ordinary life. McMahan defends an individualist account of the ethics of war that draws on his account of self-defense to develop a radical account of just war. McMahan denies that killings carried out by political groups acquire a privileged moral status simply because they are perpetrated by those groups (or rather, by individuals acting on behalf of those groups). What may be done in the name of a group is nothing more or less than may be done by the individuals who compose that group. So, in order to establish what a nation may do to defend itself during war, we must establish what it is permissible for individuals to do in self-defense. McMahan understands permissible defense as a question of justice. A theory of self-defense should tell us who ought to bear harm, given that someone has to bear it. To this end, McMahan develops an account of moral liability to defensive harm. A person is liable to the infliction of harm if she would not be wronged by that harm, and could not justifiably complain about its infliction. A person becomes so liable if harming her will avert a proportionate unjust threat for which she is morally responsible. So, a culpable murderous attacker is liable to lethal defensive harm if this is the only way to avert the unjust threat that he poses to his victim. Because the attacker is so liable, McMahan’s view holds that he may not defend himself against the defensive harm. McMahan’s account thus defends a strong asymmetry between those who are morally responsible for unjust threats, and those who are morally responsible for just threats. A person who acts in justified self-defense does not threaten unjustly, and is not herself a legitimate target of defensive force. The attacker’s moral responsibility for the fact that his victim can avoid a lethal harm only by lethally harming him means that, as a matter of distributive justice, he ought to suffer the harm rather than his victim.

The Moral Equality of Combatants It is this asymmetry of McMahan’s account of self-defense that generates the most important claim of his account of

McMahan, Jeff

killing in war. Orthodox just war theory holds that there is a strong independence between the ad bellum justice of a war (whether the war has a just cause), and the in bello justice of a war (whether combatants fight in accordance with the rules of war). The rationale behind this putative independence is that it would be unfair to morally condemn combatants on the basis of their leaders’ wrongful decision to wage an unjust war. Combatants are not responsible for the justness of wars they are ordered to fight, but only for the manner in which they conduct themselves on the battlefield. Because of this alleged unfairness, most just war theorists have defended the principle of the moral equality of combatants. Endorsed by international law, this principle holds that combatants do no wrong in fighting wars even if they fight on the unjust side. Combatants on the unjust side of a war (unjust combatants) are thus said to be the moral and legal equals of those on the just side (just combatants). But as McMahan points out, an unjust war is simply an unjust attack on a grand scale. And thinking about individual defense shows that those who perpetrate unjust attacks are not the moral equals of those who justly defend themselves against such attacks. In McMahan’s terminology, unjust combatants render themselves liable to be killed, such that killing them will no longer wrong them as it usually would. Just combatants, in contrast, remain morally innocent as long as they adhere to the in bello rules. They therefore retain their usual rights against attack. Killing them does wrong them. Thus, the doctrine of the moral equality of combatants is false. McMahan argues that the importance of not killing innocent people means that combatants must refuse to fight in unjust wars. Many people have therefore objected to McMahan’s account on the grounds that it would produce widespread instability in military institutions, which crucially depend upon on the obedience of their troops. Once we start telling combatants to question the justness of what their superiors are telling them to do, we threaten to unravel the military’s ability to fight wars at all. But McMahan is skeptical that even an overall just military institution – that is, one that usually fights just wars – can demand the unfailing obedience of its troops in the pursuit of unjust goals. Even if protecting just institutions can generate some obligations, it cannot generate an obligation (and hence a right) to kill innocent people. The fact that things might be worse for us if our military is weakened cannot justify fighting in an unjust war, since this unfairly shifts the cost of our state’s malfunction onto other people. And thus, even those who are confident in their military’s overall justness cannot invoke this as a justification for partaking in an unjust war.

M

691

Humanitarian Intervention The central insight of McMahan’s account of war is that it matters a great deal whether or not one’s war is just. The paradigm just cause for war is self-defense; indeed, many just war theorists think that this is the only just cause for war. But McMahan argues that there can be others, such as the need to prevent or halt humanitarian crises in other countries. If a persecuted group is suffering rights violations sufficiently severe to justify its engaging in armed resistance, third parties may be permitted to wage a war of humanitarian intervention, provided that the persecuted group would welcome such assistance (McMahan argues that one reason against regarding the 2003 invasion of Iraq as an act of intervention is that there was insufficient evidence that ordinary Iraqis wanted American help). Wars of intervention are controversial, not least because they seem to conflict with the sovereign rights of the state in which the abuses are being perpetrated. When so much of international law is geared toward protecting sovereignty, the onus is on those who favor intervention to explain why we can ignore sovereignty in some circumstances. Critics of intervention allege that undermining a state’s sovereignty violates its right to self-determination. Even when states undergo violent power struggles, it is important that these struggles are settled internally, and not by outsiders. McMahan agrees that this is sometimes the case. But he also claims that the sorts of states in which intervention is necessary are often those in which several different ethnic or national groups live side-by-side, sometimes as a result of failed “nation-building” that artificially grouped them together as a single state (he cites the former Yugoslavia as an example). These kinds of multinational states are often too fractured for us to make sense of the citizens as a single collective with a single right of selfdetermination. If so, the government cannot plausibly claim a right of self-determination that gives it authority over all the substate groups. Rather, the government usually represents only one of a number of groups making what are often mutually incompatible attempts at self-determination. And when one group’s attempt involves genocide or other atrocities, it goes beyond what can be permitted by a right of self-determination. Intervening to prevent these atrocities, therefore, does not violate anyone’s right of self-determination, since the perpetrators render themselves liable to intervention. Moreover, the individualist perspective that McMahan defends holds that states’ rights to sovereignty are derived from their citizens’ individual rights to noninterference. So, if the persecuted group waives its rights against noninterference by consenting to

M

692

M

McMahan, Jeff

intervention, and if the persecuting group forfeits its rights against noninterference by perpetrating abuses, the right to sovereignty simply ceases to exist. Justified intervention does not conflict with sovereignty, as the critics allege, because when the intervention is justified, there is no right of sovereignty. Are wars of humanitarian intervention not only permissible, but also obligatory? On McMahan’s view, this depends on the nature of the intervention. Sometimes, the costs of an intervention might be so high as to render it an act of supererogation on the part of an intervening nation. He thus denies that whenever a cause is sufficiently important to warrant intervention, it follows that states have a duty to intervene. But it is possible, on McMahan’s view, that the cause is so important that intervention is required. Indeed, he thinks that interventions are obligatory much more often than is generally assumed. McMahan suggests that we arrive at a distorted view of our obligations to prevent humanitarian abuses abroad because we begin with a mistaken baseline, namely our thoughts about what we are obliged to do to relieve poverty resulting from “natural” causes in poor countries. Most of us think (or act as if we think) that our duties to provide such aid are fairly weak. And so, even if we think that our duties to prevent humanitarian abuses are much more stringent, we think that they must still be only mild or moderate. McMahan argues that this view is mistaken in several ways. It is false that our duties to prevent “manmade” evils are much more stringent than our duties to alleviate natural misfortunes – these duties are pretty much on a par. But it is also false that we have only very weak obligations to alleviate natural misfortunes. On the contrary, we have very stringent duties to relieve suffering in poor countries. Thus, we also have very stringent duties of humanitarian intervention. Wars of humanitarian intervention have also thrown up new questions about the appropriate distribution of risk between combatants and noncombatants. In the 1993 Kosovo intervention, NATO used a campaign of aerial bombing that inflicted considerable damage on the civilian population, but minimized the risks to NATO forces. Such a distribution of risk flies the face of the orthodox view that combatants ought to shoulder greater risks in order to protect noncombatants from harm, known as the doctrine of the priority of noncombatants. But McMahan argues that we ought to distinguish between noncombatants who are neutral in a conflict – that is, those who are mere bystanders – and noncombatants who are the beneficiaries of a conflict. NATO’s tactics may have inflicted losses upon Albanian Kosovars. But it is

the Albanian Kosovars (and not NATO troops) who stood to benefit from success in Kosovo. It was therefore permissible to make them bear at least some of the risks involved in the intervention. Again, McMahan argues that this view is supported by our thoughts about obligations that arise in individual defense. If rescuing you from mortal peril requires that I either break your arm, or break my own arm, it is not unjust that I break your arm. After all, you are the beneficiary of my rescue attempt, and you will be better off with a broken arm than if I do nothing. With respect to humanitarian intervention, then, it seems permissible for intervening forces – who do not themselves stand to gain from the intervention – to impose costs upon the beneficiary noncombatants rather than bear those costs themselves. But McMahan does not argue that this means that combatants may impose all the costs of war upon noncombatants. The importance of their beneficiary status is tempered by the professional obligations that combatants incur in virtue of their office, and by the morally significant distinction between killing and letting die. That a combatant may fail to save a noncombatant because to do so would risk his own life does not show that he may kill noncombatants rather than risk being killed himself. Thus, while the distribution of risk during wars of intervention may be different from the distribution in a war of defense, it is impermissible for combatants to force even beneficiary noncombatants to bear all the costs of their rescue.

The Ethics of Occupation Some of the most difficult questions in the field of global justice are those concerning what we ought to do in the aftermath of an injustice for which we are (partly) responsible. These questions arise in relation to our obligations to countries where imperialism and unfair business practices have contributed to ongoing poverty, and in relation to our obligations to those suffering the adverse effects of climate change. They also arise in the context of the recent war in Iraq. McMahan argues that the invasion of Iraq by US forces in 2003 was unjust. But, he says, it does not follow from this that, once they toppled Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath regime, the USA should have immediately withdrawn. McMahan argues that even when an initial invasion is unjust, subsequent occupation can be morally justified if it is the lesser of two evils. Having unjustly removed the Iraqi government from power, the USA owed it to the Iraqi people to establish some kind of alternative government and thereby prevent a descent into further chaos and bloodshed (although McMahan is

Mega-Cities

arguing here for a short, purposeful occupation, and not the protracted counter-insurgency that followed the war). But, while justified as a lesser evil, such an occupation is still fundamentally unjust, because it imposes burdens upon people who are not liable to bear such burdens. Given this, the USA should shoulder all of the costs of the occupation, making all possible sacrifices to try to ensure a quality of life akin to that before the unjust invasion.

Related Topics

▶ Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ▶ Enemy Combatant ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ International Justice ▶ Peace Versus Justice ▶ Self-Determination ▶ Sovereignty ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Hurka T (2007) Liability and just cause. Ethics Int Aff 21(2):199–218 Lazar S (2010) The responsibility dilemma for Killing in War: a review essay. Philos Public Aff 38(2):180–213 McMahan J (2009a) The morality of military occupation. Loyola Int Comp Law Rev 31:101–123 McMahan J (2009b) Killing in war. Oxford University Press, New York McMahan J (2010a) Humanitarian intervention, consent, and proportionality. In: Davis AN, Keshen R, McMahan J (eds) Ethics and humanity: themes from the philosophy of Jonathan Glover. Oxford University Press, New York McMahan J (2010b) The just distribution of harm between combatants and noncombatants. Philos Public Aff 38(4):342–379 McMahan J (2011) The conditions of liability to preventive attack. In: Chatterjee D (ed) Gathering threat: the ethics of preventive war. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Mediation ▶ Chodosh, Hiram ▶ Dispute Resolution

Medical Justice ▶ Global Public Health ▶ Health and Health Care ▶ Pharmaceutical Justice ▶ Pogge, Thomas

M

693

Mega-Cities PATRICIA L. MCCARNEY Political Science and Global City Indicators Facility, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Global challenges are increasingly finding expression in the world’s cities. Whether considering poverty alleviation, health risks, climate change, the global financial crisis, or social, political, and economic exclusion, or global risk stemming from natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis or risk from conflict including warfare and international terrorism, cities are sites where these global challenges are most symptomatic, where the greatest concentrations of individual citizens and communities are affected, and where informed responses can be most strategic. The world is passing through a dramatic demographic transition whereby urbanization is a defining phenomenon of the twenty-first century. While 10% of the world’s population lived in cities in 1900, 50%, or 3.3 billion people, live in cities today. The world is said to have crossed the so-called ruralurban divide in 2007. We are living at the center of what we might now recognize as a “Demographic Reversal” – the world population in 1950 was 30% urban and 70% rural, and over the one hundred years to 2050, the world will transition to 70% urban and 30% rural. As a planet, we are about midway through this transition. Countries like Canada have already seen dramatic reversals in rural-urban demographic balance. In the mid-1870s, Canada was 20% urban and 80% rural, whereas by 2005, this balance had reversed to 80% urban and 20% rural. Other countries have moved through similar, and rapid, transitions, including Brazil (now 86% urban), the United States (82%), Australia (89%), United Kingdom (90%), and Jordan (78%). Cities worldwide are taking center stage in the prosperity of nations and are becoming major nodes of economic power in proportion to overall national GDP (OECD 2006). With cities now accounting for some 70% of global GDP, and being positioned at the core of prosperous world economies, recent economic thinking is reshaping how policy-makers and development practitioners view cities. In the not so recent past, the global discourse focused

M

694

M

Mega-Cities

on how to contain urbanization, divert it, and control its ills. Although a minority of voices over the past 3 decades did tend to celebrate cities as “engines of growth,” it is just in the past few years that such observations have entered the dialogue at a global scale whereby urbanization is touted as a game changer. In her classic work, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (1991), Saskia Sassen chronicles how New York, London, and Tokyo became command centers for the global economy and in the process underwent a series of massive and parallel changes. What distinguished Sassen’s theoretical framework is the emphasis on the formation of cross-border dynamics through which these cities and the growing number of other global cities begin to form strategic transnational networks. Now the focus is on how we are to harness the economic gains of urbanization and how we can best foster innovation and entrepreneurship. Urbanization is reshaping the development dialogue at a global scale. This is most evident in Edward Glaeser’s book, Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier (2011). Glaeser makes the case that cities are “humanity’s greatest invention and our best hope for the future” and in reference to both Bangalore and Silicon Valley, discusses how essential education is to urban success and how new technology actually encourages people to gather together physically. While the global policy debate is moving from a focus on the ills of urbanization to an attention on how best to harness the potential gains from the urban transformation, a core set of challenges facing megacities globally are equally daunting and pose serious issues in a framework of global justice. In global terms it is the developing world nations that are emerging as pivotal actors in this demographic transition. Virtually all (in excess of 95%) of the world’s future urban population growth is predicted to occur in the less developed countries. Cities of the developing world will absorb 95% of population growth and will be home to 80% of the world’s urban population. The world’s urban population is likely to reach 4.2 billion by 2020, and the urban slum population is expected to increase to 1.4 billion by 2020, meaning one out of every three people living in cities will live in impoverished, over-crowded, and insecure living conditions. UN-Habitat has tracked this unprecedented growth of slums: In 1990 there were nearly 715 million slum dwellers in the world; by 2000 the slum population had increased to 912 million; in 2006– 2007 there were approximately 998 million slum dwellers; and, it is estimated that the slum population will reach 1.4 billion by 2020 (UN-Habitat 2007).

The urban populations of the developing world are growing considerably faster than in the developed world. Whereas the average annual growth rate of the urban population in the developed world is currently 0.68%, this same rate of urban growth in Latin America is 2.3%, in Asia 3.23%, and in Africa 4.29% (UN-Habitat 2007). This global demographic transition is marked by a growing number of exceptionally large cities. In a UN ranking of city agglomeration by population, it was found that by 2005, the number of megacities (defined by the UN as greater than 10 million) had increased to 20 and it is projected that there will be 22 megacities in 2015. With 35 million residents in 2005, the metropolitan area of Tokyo was by far the most populous urban agglomeration in the world. Tokyo was followed by Mexico City and New York-Newark, each with 19 million residents, and Sa˜o Paulo, with 18 million people. In 2005, megacities accounted for about 9.3% of the world’s urban population (United Nations 2006). Of particular concern, it is predicted that 17 of these 22 megacities will be in the developing countries by 2015 (United Nations 2006). As a result, a number of core issues and challenges facing megacities globally are recognized: ● The challenge of poverty: housing, basic services, and infrastructure investment ● The challenge of inclusive cities – overcoming urban divides: economic, political, and social ● The challenge of sustainability: climate risk, natural disasters, and energy challenges ● The challenge of planning, design, and management ● The challenge of immigration and social polarization ● The challenge of safety and security ● The challenge of governance: finance and multilevel government cooperation Sound urban governance capable of setting policy priorities and highlighting tradeoffs is essential, particularly as the urbanization process and the urban economy are influenced by external or global macro trends and investment decisions across multiple sectors. Multiple layers of actors and cross-sectoral influences make this task particularly challenging. One of the overwhelming challenges facing society and policy-makers in the twenty-first century will be how to reconcile the economic and social needs of urban populations in ways which are sustainable. Ensuring cities that are environmentally responsible socially integrated and just, require city leaders to think long term and to plan with fundamental change in mind. Environmentally sustainable cities present an array of challenges. Already

Mega-Cities

cities account for some 70% of GHG emissions. In studying urbanization patterns, it has been found that when city populations double, urban land area triples, since urban dwellers are demanding more land per person as incomes rise (Angel et al. 2005). At root, this is because urban land and transport are currently not priced to reflect the environmental costs of low-density cities. Cities subdivide land and households consume land without considering the extent to which those choices push out the urban boundary and therefore lengthen trips taken, thereby contributing to higher energy use and higher emissions. Moreover, risks associated with climate change are increasingly finding expression in cities. Issues of greenhouse gas emissions, sea temperature change, sea level change, land and air temperature adjustments, air quality deterioration, shifting rain, wind, and snow patterns, and other unstable climate shifts, while global in nature, find particular expression in the world’s cities. These phenomena serve to introduce new layers in our interpretation of urban risk, new complexities in governing cities, and new research challenges to measure and monitor these risks in order to inform policy, planning, and management. Sustainability agendas for cities are deeply interconnected with poverty agendas and social justice. With one out of every three people living in cities worldwide predicted to live in impoverished, over-crowded, and insecure living conditions, social cohesion, safety, security, and stability are being tested by social exclusion, inequities, and shortfalls in basic services. Natural disasters, including earthquakes and tsunamis, are increasingly having direct consequences for cities, notably most recently in Haiti and in the cities of Japan. As witnessed in Port au Prince, poorer urban households are usually at higher risk due to weaker structures, less safe city locations and building sites, and weaker resilience of infrastructure to withstand damage. Similarly, the relation between urban health and climate change risks is particularly heightened under conditions of urban poverty in cities. When basic infrastructure is inadequate, existing conditions of poor sanitation and drainage and impure drinking water are further stressed under conditions of extreme weather events and flooding, leading to the transmission of infectious diseases, which puts poor urban households at high risk. Cities in developing countries are disproportionately affected for similar reasons of vulnerability and weak institutional support and infrastructure systems. For example, many developing countries lack the health facilities to deal with large numbers of injured patients, resulting in higher death tolls than in countries better equipped for disaster.

M

Disasters associated with climate change can paralyze entire cities and regions and permanently destroy their social and economic assets. Creating measures and indicators across this spectrum of vulnerabilities is required for informed decision-making, improved policy on climate resiliency in cities, improved resilience of cities, more effective urban management of risks, and a more empowered governance at the city level. Land-use planning and design in cities, their peri-urban areas and broader hinterlands are core requirements in addressing sustainability and prosperity. Managing transportation and infrastructure investments in large metropolitan areas is essential for the advancement of the climate change agenda and addressing GHG emission targets. Territorial and spatial strategies are key to addressing climate change risks and building effective mitigation and adaptation strategies. These investments and services however are often implemented, financed, managed, and regulated by different governing institutions and levels of government. Coordination of these processes relies on complex intergovernmental policy networks and organizational management. The current urban trajectory, marked by rapidly growing suburban fringes and new suburban centers emerging outside of traditional “downtown” city cores, is raising new debates on density. If low-density cities are assumed to hardwire environmental costs for future generations, then the question arises whether higher and higher density is the solution. As urban residents are attributed to “voting with their feet” in moving outward to access larger lots and open space, how do we assess quality of life in cities, and more specifically, in neighborhoods? Developing better connections between the core cities and new suburban hubs is now an important part of the urban challenge. Yet as Peter Hall (2002) has shown, the history of urban planning and design in the twentieth century is deeply ingrained and hence persistent in governing our current models. In Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century, Hall helps to understand how this history of the past century informs our current work and the reforms needed in the core approaches we have inherited. Access to jobs and amenities depends on location and the availability of transport services. But the urban poor often spend 15–25% of their income on transport – almost as much as they spend on housing – and time costs of urban transport can be formidable. In Buenos Aires, for example, 87% of jobs are accessible in 45 min of travel by car, but only 23% are accessible in 45 min by public transport (World Bank 2011).

695

M

696

M

Mega-Cities

Strategic planning and urban design can mean the difference between equitable economic development and a concentration of urban poverty. Urbanization embodies structural inequalities that affect urban form and that can be altered by planning and urban design strategies that target social inclusion. How can national and local governments improve the equity and inclusiveness of increasingly divided urban economies and integrate the urban poor in a city’s social and economic fabric? How do we avoid the development of slums as cities grow? The emergence of structural urban poverty in the world’s cities informs challenges in land use, urban transport, and slum integration. Ultimately, the economics, equity, and sustainability impacts of urbanization depend critically on the nature and effectiveness of the governance of urban centers. The rapid growth of cities and the transformation of nations to urban predominance raise a core set of challenges in the governance of cities. Governing frameworks and constitutions, created under historic circumstances of largely rural societies, are increasingly contested with the rise of cities. Key questions arise in cities worldwide and in almost all nations: What are the relative roles of national and local governments in managing cities? In particular, how should responsibilities and fiscal powers be distributed between different tiers of government, as an increasing proportion of a country’s population is concentrated in cities? The devolution of powers to the municipal level is often argued as a means with which to achieve good urban governance. Granting municipal governments with control over revenues and expenditures, raised and spent locally for local benefit, aids in the improvement of a city’s “livability” through improved performance and effective delivery of city services. This boosts the same city’s ability to attract skilled individuals and firms which furthers economic prosperity. Neil Brenner (2004) has made an important contribution to this field in his book New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood, where he discusses this recalibration of the distribution of powers among levels of government. Empowering municipal governance is made more complex by the growth of urban population and their geographic spread across existing municipal boundaries. The actual economic functional areas of cities and their competitive geographic concentrations have rendered existing municipal boundaries and structures of governance outdated and ill-equipped to confront the challenges for cities in the twenty-first century. In UN-Habitat’s State of the World’s Cities Report 2008/2009, McCarney and Stren argue that governing

across vast and multiple jurisdictional boundaries is plagued with fragmentation in policy, decision-making, management, and implementation. Poorly governed cities cannot deliver services, nor support the sustainability, poverty alleviating, and prosperity agendas. A core challenge arising is in determining appropriate governance structures for managing urban areas and the interjurisdictional issues that megacities engender. New systems of urban governance are required for inclusive cities that can deliver on the economic, social, and environmental promise of urbanization.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Needs ▶ Climate Change ▶ Communities ▶ Global Governance ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Poverty ▶ Quality of Life ▶ Relativity of Well-Being ▶ Sustainable Development

References Angel S, Sheppard SC, Civco DL (2005) The dynamics of global urban expansion. World Bank, Washington, DC Brenner N (2004) New state spaces: urban governance and the rescaling of statehood. Oxford University Press, Oxford Glaeser E (2011) Triumph of the city: how our greatest invention makes us richer, smarter, greener, healthier, and happier. Penguin Press, New York Hall P (2002) Cities of tomorrow: an intellectual history of urban planning and design in the twentieth century. Blackwell, Oxford McCarney P (2011) Cities and climate change: the challenges for governance. In: First UCCRN assessment report on climate change in cities. Cambridge University Press, Leiden McCarney P, Stren R (2008) Metropolitan governance: governing in a city of cities. In: N-HABITAT, state of the world’s cities 2008/200. Earthscan, London Mumford L (1956) The natural history of urbanization. In: Thomas WL (ed) Man’s role in changing the face of the earth. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 382–398 OECD (2006) Competitive cities in the global economy. OECD, Paris Sassen S (1991) The global city: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton University Press, Princeton UN-Habitat (2007) State of the world’s cities report 2006/2007. Earthscan, London United Nations (2006) World population prospects: the 2006 revision. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, New York United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (2001) Cities in a globalizing world – global report on human settlements. Earthscan, London World Bank (2011) Knowledge platform on urbanization. The World Bank, Washington

Mill, John Stuart

Migration ▶ Immigration

Mill, John Stuart JUDITH WAGNER DECEW Department of Philosophy, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA

British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was raised and educated by his father James Mill, and his father’s close friend, Jeremy Bentham, who is often called the “Father of Utilitarianism.” Two of John Stuart Mill’s most important works are his books Utilitarianism (1863) and On Liberty (1859). The major themes in Utilitarianism include Mill’s defense of Bentham’s utilitarian theory that both individuals and governments should act to provide the “greatest happiness for the greatest number,” with an amendment that is sometimes called the quality/quantity distinction – that in determining the greatest happiness or utility one should take into account both the quantity and the quality of the happiness or pleasure attained. In On Liberty, Mill defends the importance of individual liberty and why it should be defended staunchly, even in a democracy, to protect individuals from the power and tyranny of governments over them. In addition to defending the importance of individuality and individual liberty, Mill gives a spirited defense of freedom of expression. Consider each text in turn. In Utilitarianism Mill clarifies that he is using the term “utility” as a synonym for pleasure or happiness, and thus casts himself as a hedonist, as one who believes that all and only pleasure is intrinsically good. He is commonly interpreted as an act utilitarian, defending the view that acts are morally right just in case they maximize utility for all affected. Nevertheless, there are some places in latter parts of the book where he writes about classes of acts and thus hints that he might be interpreted to be a rule utilitarian who believes that the morally right acts are those which follow rules or patterns of behavior that maximize utility when everyone or most everyone follows them. These two utilitarian accounts may be formulated so that they are distinct and not extensionally equivalent theories, and while commentators have disagreed, most view Mill as being an act utilitarian.

M

In this book Mill addresses quite a few criticisms of utilitarianism, most likely those that were commonly raised against Bentham’s earlier defense of utilitarianism as a moral and political theory. One of the most prominent of these critiques is that the theory is a doctrine worthy only of swine, and that if the only thing that matters in judging an act to be right is the amount of happiness or pleasure produced, then it is a doctrine that seems to advocate doing what will maximize pleasure, even if that means base satisfaction such as rolling in the mud like swine. Mill responds to this objection by insisting that one need not focus merely on the amount or quantity of pleasure produced by an act, but also the quality of pleasure produced. He does not give a full explanation of what differentiates qualities of pleasure, although he alludes to the higher quality pleasures as being those that satisfy intellectual virtues. He has often been criticized for suggesting that the test for determining higher quality pleasures should be asking those who have experience of both for their preferences, which he seems to suggest will always be the higher quality pleasures rather than sensual desires. More importantly, he is also criticized by philosophers for introducing this distinction at all, because it leads him to an inconsistency. Although the quality/quantity distinction has intuitive appeal, critics have urged that there must be some standard or value according to which one ranks the higher and lower quality pleasure, such as intellectual stimulation, and if so, then Mill must admit that something other than pleasure is intrinsically good, contradicting his hedonism. Mill could, of course, reject hedonism and use a more expansive definition of utility to avoid this charge. Two other major criticisms of utilitarianism that Mill addresses in his text include first, that there is a lack of time, prior to acting, to calculate and determine which of several actions will produce maximal utility. Mill’s response is that there has been ample time through the history of humankind to give guidance on which acts will maximize utility, and thus one need not stop to calculate using a hedonic calculus Bentham apparently defended to determine the moral course of action. Second, Mill describes critics who say the utilitarian theory fails because its standard is too high for humanity. On this view, the maximization of happiness is unattainable and thus the theory fails to give adequate moral guidance. Mill replies that these objectors have confounded and confused the goal of an action with the motive of the agent. He insists that epicureans have always held that the outcome or end of one’s actions should be to maximize happiness, but

697

M

698

M

Mill, John Stuart

none expect individuals to be motivated by a desire to maximize happiness. If Mill has understood the objection, then his reply may satisfy some who agree that assessment of the morality of an act clearly differs from assessment of the agent’s motives. Nevertheless, several philosophers have urged that these objectors are making a different point, namely that maximizing utility or happiness is almost never possible, and therefore that those of us making choices throughout our lives are almost always acting wrongly. For example, by reading this philosophical essay one is not doing what maximizes utility because one could instead be sending aid to those struggling with poverty, and thus it is morally wrong to be reading this essay – which is not what we normally expect as a conclusion of a useful moral theory. One reply on Mill’s behalf is that his defense of utilitarianism is an ideal to strive for rather than an explicit direction to constantly be performing the most saintly and heroic acts. While these objections addressed by Mill in his text are important, it is interesting that Mill does not discuss further objections to utilitarianism that more recent philosophers have argued are far more damaging to the theory. One of these is that the theory is a consequentialist one, directing moral agents to assess the consequences of actions and choose those acts with outcomes or goals that will maximize utility, and thus focusing on the ends of individual or governmental actions rather than the means used to attain them. On this view, terrible means or processes, even killing innocents, can be used to attain a goal, as long as the outcome ultimately maximizes utility. Yet, according to these critics killing innocents can never be morally justified. A second very serious objection not addressed by Mill in a major way is the role of individual rights in moral theory. It seems that Mill’s theory of maximizing utility for all involved places an emphasis on the best for society over the individual. While in the balance, social needs and public safely may sometimes or often outweigh individual claims, critics have worried that there are also times when individual rights should outweigh or “trump” social utility, and this is apparently unacceptable and even impossible according to utilitarianism. Some philosophers have argued that individual rights such as free speech can be defended on utilitarian grounds thus resolving this apparent conflict between social utility and rights, but most still see this as a major flaw in utilitarian theory. Despite these criticisms and others, it is difficult to deny that Mill’s utilitarianism establishes a major moral insight – namely that one should always do the very best one can for as many as possible.

Viewing Mill’s utilitarian theory from a global perspective, it seems that in international relations there are multiple examples of various countries trying to help others, and to assist as many as possible, as for example, the bounty of contributions and aid from a wide range of nations has flowed into Haiti in the wake of the devastating earthquakes there. Benevolence on an international level is not rare, and it is something to be applauded. Support to combat famine, to combat HIV/AIDS and other world disasters is clearly supported on utilitarian grounds and is encouraged globally. However, to the extent utilitarianism allows the ends to justify the means, it seems to support heinous acts such as torture or heavy punishments without due process in foreign countries where this is allowed, as long as the ultimate outcome is judged to maximize social utility overall. This major objection to utilitarian theory applies globally as well as on the individual level. Moreover, if critics are right that utilitarianism fails to give an adequate account of the importance and value of individual rights, then it is in this way inadequate to analyze and account for other global initiatives. Perhaps the major glaring example of this is the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. It is particularly difficult to see how utilitarian theory can adequately explain the importance of this internationally supported initiative, as well as other international treaties protecting human rights, even if that protection does not maximize utility. Mill’s book On Liberty provides a powerful and eloquent defense of the importance of individual liberty in the face of governmental attempts to garner power and authority over individuals. Mill sees this as a most serious threat, even in a democracy, and his book gives an articulate defense of the value of individuality. Mill stresses that eccentricity is far preferable to conformity, and he defends freedom of expression as one of the most valuable ways of preserving individuality in the face of increasing governmental power. Mill’s main principle in defense of this view is called his harm principle, namely that the only legitimate reason for a government to exert power or control over an individual or citizen is to prevent harm to others. Prevention of harm to oneself or prevention of offense to others, for example, are not legitimate reasons for a government to restrict individual liberty or impose punishment on a citizen. This harm principle is notoriously vague. Did Mill mean public harm as well as private harm to others? Many commentators have thought he did, as they doubt he would have erased British laws against tax evasion and treason. Did Mill intend to include psychological and

Mill, John Stuart

emotional harm as well as physical harm, financial harm, etc.? Can harm to others actually be differentiated clearly from harm to self, or are self-regarding acts always intertwined with other-regarding actions? In many cases, suicide for example, it seems that the major harm is to oneself but surely there is also usually harm to others – friends and family. The answers to these latter questions are far from clear. Nevertheless, Mill’s harm principle, despite its ambiguities, has been widely endorsed. Mill does state in On Liberty that he will forego any advantage of appealing to individual rights to defend his views and is using only utilitarian arguments for the significance of individual liberty when it is threatened by governmental power. Many have doubted he is successful in this regard. But his defenses of freedom of expression are both consequentialist and persuasive, and widely cited and supported. Mill argues that if an opinion is true, then it needs to be aired to preserve the truth. Noting that most opinions are partly true and partly false, he argues that those must also be protected to preserve the partial truths they contain. Finally, he urges that even if opinions are false, that they need to be aired to be strenuously compared and contested with other opinions in order to best gain the truth. Advancing the goal of searching for the truth will maximize utility by curbing government’s ability to repress individual opinions and thus limiting governmental power, by allowing citizens to be better informed, and by enhancing democracy by means of having a bettereducated group of voters. Perhaps Mill’s strongest argument in defense of individual liberty over government is his claim that when government does intrude on individual liberty, most often it does so mistakenly. Government does not always know best. Assessing Mill’s arguments from On Liberty from a global perspective is extremely interesting. There are hugely diverse opinions within the USA about whether government is becoming too powerful over individuals with the expansion of social programs such as social security, welfare, medical care, and so on. It seems that such programs do allow greater and greater governmental control over individuals, but many would argue that they also provide the greatest good to the greatest number. Does Mill’s utilitarianism therefore conflict with his defense of individual liberty? Beyond politics within the USA, it seems clear that the USA wants governmental power over individuals to be protected throughout the world in ways Mill endorsed, but it is also clear that other nations cannot control governmental abuses in China, Russia, Bosnia,

M

699

and so on. The freedom of expression that Mill defended so staunchly cannot be enforced internationally, as is painfully clear in China and elsewhere. Thus, Mill’s views on liberty, while highly influential and ideally compelling, are not endorsed globally and cannot be enforced internationally. Ultimately Mill’s utilitarianism and his defense of individual liberty are highly relevant to international relations, and utilitarianism helps defend global humanitarian aid and intervention. Nevertheless, his utilitarianism allows the ends to justify the means, seems inadequate for defending the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and other related international treaties, and his arguments in favor of individual liberty, enlightened as they may be, are not enforceable in the global political arena.

Related Topics

▶ Altruism ▶ Beneficence, Principle of ▶ Common Good ▶ European Convention on Human Rights ▶ Foreign Aid ▶ Geneva Conventions ▶ Global Human Rights Culture ▶ Hague Conventions ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ▶ International Humanitarian Assistance ▶ Lifeboat Ethics ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights ▶ Utilitarianism

References Bok S (1995/2002) Common values (esp. p. 30ff on the Declaration of Human Rights). University of Missouri Press, Columbia Brandt RB (1967) Some merits of one form of rule utilitarianism. University of Colorado Studies in Philosophy, Colorado, pp 39–65. Reprinted in Brandt 1992, pp 111–136 Brandt RB (1992) Morality, utilitarianism, and rights. Cambridge University Press, New York Dworkin R (1977) Taking rights seriously. Cambridge University Press, Harvard Feinberg J (1970) The nature and value of rights. J Value Inq 4:243–260 Feldman F (1986) Doing the best we can: an informal study in deontic logic. Reidel, Dordrecht Feldman F (1997) Utilitarianism, hedonism and desert: essays in moral philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Harman G (1977) The nature of morality: an introduction to ethics. Oxford University Press, Oxford Lyons D (1994) Rights, welfare, and Mill’s moral theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Pogge T (2005) World poverty and human rights. Ethics Int Aff 19:1

M

700

M

Miller, David

Miller, David HELDER DE SCHUTTER1, HAYE HAZENBERG2 1 Centre for Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium 2 Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

The originality of David Miller’s work has been fueled by a concern with both justice and the importance of communal ties. His work continually manages to balance universal claims of justice with contextual demands. Because of this combination, his account of global justice turns out to be both philosophically innovative and empirically realistic. The result of this endeavor is a theory which posits only limited duties of global justice: Miller crucially argues that global justice should not be social justice writ large. Miller thereby distances himself from those who defend more generous accounts of global (distributive) justice (Beitz 1979; Pogge 1989; Caney 2005), and his work has become one of the central reference points for the recent more “skeptical turn” in global justice theory (see also Rawls 1999; Nagel 2005; Dworkin 2006; Scheffler 2002). However, Miller also distances himself from those who conclude that there are no duties of global justice, as for example Thomas Nagel (2005) has done. Unlike Nagel, Miller does not confine duties of justice to sovereign states. His contextualism stipulates that different forms of human association require different principles of justice. While our duties of justice toward conationals are far less limited than the duties we have toward others outside our nation, we do also have duties of global justice. Already in his early work, Miller stressed the importance of human motivations for making just politics work. Government is no “benign perpetual motion machine” (Miller 1989: 228) which spews out appropriate policies, but it is run by human agents. An account of who these agents are, how they are related, and what motivates them is essential for understanding politics. The motivating force, Miller argues, can be found in communal ties. Community enables people to regard themselves as “active subjects shaping the world according to their will” (1989: 237–238). In the modern world, nations are the most important form of political community because they provide four important goods. On the basis of these four goods, Miller argues in favor of national selfdetermination and a one-to-one relationship between

national and political boundaries: ideally, nations are states, and states are nations. The first good nation-states provide is the importance of social justice. On Miller’s view, nations are “ethical communities.” They are “contour lines” in the ethical landscape, and sharing a national identity entails duties to one’s conationals. Miller argues that it is because we have such obligations of nationality that the practice of citizenship includes the redistributive social justice elements that we find in contemporary (liberal democratic) states. Ideals of social justice occur mainly within national communities. In order, however, for these duties to be effectively discharged, they must be assigned, given a determinate content, and enforced. Nations should thus coincide with states so that they can develop a set of institutions which “allocate rights and responsibilities to people in the way that their national conception of social justice demands” (1995: 83). The second is the good of national identity. In Miller’s view, a common national culture gives its members a sense of where they belong and a background against which choices about how to live can be made. In contrast to the “radical chooser view” of personal identity, Miller’s argument is that our personal identity does not start from a blank sheet. Rather, we begin from values inculcated in us, and these values are at least partly national in scope. So national cultures are important sources of individual identity. The good of national identity generates an argument for national self-determination because states are most effectively capable of protecting national cultures. Certain dimensions of national culture, for example, tend to decay without state power used to protect it. The third good is collective autonomy. People have an interest in shaping the world in association with others with whom they identify. Given that the national community is a community of identification, there is a widely (but not universally) shared interest in participating in a collective national “enterprise which sets its stamp on the world” (1995: 89). The last reason for national self-determination is based on the importance of trust. State activities in liberal democratic states involve the furthering of certain goals – such as the realization of social justice or of deliberative democracy – which cannot be achieved without citizens’ voluntary cooperation. “For [these] activit[ies] to be successful, the citizens must trust the state, and they must trust one another to comply with what the state demands of them” (1995: 91). And since a shared national identity carries with it mutual loyalty, it will augment these forms of trust.

Miller, David

The nature and importance of nation-states justifies, within certain limits, inequalities between nation-states. National preferences determine wealth to a large extent. Differences in national culture also make it difficult to construct and rank goods cross-nationally, as there is no cross-nationally shared set of cultural understandings. It is thus not surprising that Miller is no fan of global egalitarian duties. The duties of global justice he does discern should combat poverty, redress past injustices, and preserve basic human rights, and not reduce inequality per se. The responsibility to fulfill these duties primarily falls on nation-states. But for nations to be responsible, Miller needs to show that collectives can exercise responsibility – responsibility individuals have by virtue of their membership of groups. Miller indicates two sources of collective responsibility in the case of nations: group likemindedness and collective cooperative practices. Members of like-minded groups “share aims and outlooks in common and recognize their like-mindedness” (2007: 119). Members of groups which engage in cooperative practices are the beneficiaries of common practices. In both cases, Miller argues, we can say that the group as a whole is responsible for the potential damage it brings about or the benefits it reaps. The responsibility of a collective descends to its individual members, including to members who disapproved of the practice. Collective responsibility also extends through time. Each generation enjoys benefits that would not have existed but for the activities of previous generations. These benefits can be socioeconomic in nature, but also include a national language, a way of life, and territorial autonomy. Nations, Miller argues, cannot be said to inherit assets without at the same time inheriting responsibilities to redress past injustices. So what duties of global justice do nations have? Here, Miller makes a distinction between outcome and remedial responsibility. Outcome responsibility is straightforward; it identifies the responsibilities which are incurred because of one’s actions. Remedial responsibility then assigns responsibilities to those who should make it right. The distinction is important because to realize global justice we can, and often should, assign responsibility to remedy the problem to those who are not identified as responsible for bringing it about. Miller argues that, in some cases, we want remedial responsibility to track outcome responsibility, in the sense that A can be held remedially responsible for P’s condition when A is outcome responsible for it. He also indicates, however, that A can be remedially responsible for P’s condition when A is linked to P in other ways as well – on grounds of

M

moral responsibility, causal responsibility, benefit, capacity, or community. Miller calls this a “connection theory of remedial responsibility”: it connects remedial responsibility to the six mentioned sources of responsibility to which we can appeal when we assign remedial responsibility. He continually stresses the importance of determining who is to be remedially responsible. For Miller, it is one thing to say that someone needs help, but it is quite another to establish who is to provide the relief: without assigned remedial responsibility, there is no guarantee that aid will be given to those who need it. It is the purpose of his connection theory to give possible bases for the assignment of remedial responsibility. For Miller, it is important that nations can be remedially responsible without being outcome responsible because of the strong caveat he adds to his communitybased picture of justice. Miller thinks there are basic rights which trump citizenship rights or national duties of social justice. Basic rights delineate a threshold below which other agents may be asked to assume responsibility to provide help to the needy. They even provide a reason to invade nations and thus trump the value of communal ties. Miller’s list of basic rights is justified by a common foundation which holds universally. The foundation of these rights is needs, based on core human activities such as working, learning, or playing. A fulfillment of these needs is required for a decent life given the environmental conditions in which people find themselves. Needs do not depend on personal choices but refer to universal requirements such as food, water, healthcare, and shelter. Who is to hold the (remedial) responsibility for providing help to the needy? When some or all in a nation are responsible for bringing about the problem, other nations do not have an enforceable duty of justice to provide basic needs, even though strong incentives for change may still need to be provided (as a humanitarian duty). But when specific nations are outcome responsible for the bad situation of the needy, for example, through past injustice, they also are remedially responsible for tackling the problem. When no one can be held outcome responsible for the poverty, remedial responsibility has to be shared between the agents who have the capacity to provide the relief. It is important that the remedial responsibility is shared: each agent has, as a matter of justice, to provide his share of the help, and no agent can be asked to provide it singlehandedly. As a result of this, cases will remain where there is a mismatch between the help poor countries can require as a matter of justice, and the help rich countries can be held remedially responsible to provide as a matter

701

M

702

M

Miller, David

of justice. Here, Miller speaks of the tragic existence of a “justice gap.” There are two further duties of global justice: a duty to redress past injustices and a duty to implement fair terms of international cooperation. At present, many nations are exploited, and some still suffer from unjust past interactions with other nations. Recently, Miller has also applied himself to issues of global democracy. He is generally critical of visions of global democracy, stressing the difference between the robust and republican forms of democracy and citizenship to which we aspire within nation-states, and the very thin and limited form that citizenship could take if pursued transnationally or globally. Because of the four goods that nations provide, Miller does not think social justice or citizenship beyond the nation-state can be of much import. Given the lack of shared national ties, citizens will not be very motivated to engage in transnational democracy, and, even when they are transnationally active, they have no reason to exercise responsible behavior such as moderating their claims in view of reaching a reasonable consensus. As a result, transnational citizenship is also less capable of sustaining duties of justice. Strong transnational or global democracy is undermined by cultural diversity and the lack of shared ties of nationality, while a weak global democracy can only apply to issues on which there is already a consensus between the nation-states. The nation-state is therefore still the preferred domain of democracy for Miller. Strengthening both national citizenship and democratic control in all nations is enough of a challenge. To those who nevertheless profess that power relations have shifted to places beyond the nation-state, Miller replies that a distinction between prevention and coercion needs to be made. According to him “coercion means that there is some course of action that [an] agent is forced to take; [while] prevention means that some course of action that might otherwise have been available is now blocked” (2009: 220). Many international relations involve merely prevention, not coercion. And only coercion of one group on another generates claims for an expansion of democracy so as to include the other group. If one group is wholly dependent on another, there is a legitimate claim for inclusion, but this claim has to be weighed against the protections that the new minority would enjoy and the possible decline in trust required for effective democratic deliberation. Many alternative avenues however exist to avoid transnational coercion and resolve international collective action problems such as global warming. Miller suggests that the system of international law is in place exactly to prevent coercion. And when groups dispute about the nature of their relations, he prefers

giving voice to groups outside the nation-state in national forums. Furthermore, international standards, interstate treaties, the possibility to sanction and reward and pressure by non-state bodies ensure that international coercion is significantly constrained. Critics of Miller generally focus on three points (De Schutter and Tinnevelt 2011). First, the distinction between basic and citizenship rights raises difficult questions about the weight that should be attached to each. Focusing too much on the former easily slides back to global egalitarianism, but focusing on the latter will only increase the justice gap. Second, the emphasis on community and nationalism as opposed to individuals and institutions is often attacked. Critics thirdly argue that Miller’s focus on the contexts of justice could be extended to sub- and supranational ties instead of enshrining national ties.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Needs ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Civil Rights ▶ Collective Responsibility ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Liberal Nationalism ▶ Nationalism ▶ Transnational Citizenship

References Beitz C (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Caney S (2005) Justice beyond borders: a global political theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford De Schutter H, Tinnevelt R (2011) Nationalism and global justice; David Miller and his critics. Routledge, New York Dworkin R (2006) Taxes and legitimacy. In: Dworkin R (ed) Is democracy possible here? Principles for a new political Debate. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 90–126 Miller D (1989) Market, state and community: theoretical foundations of market socialism. Clarendon, Oxford Miller D (1995) On nationality. Oxford University Press, Oxford, NY Miller D (2007) National responsibility and global justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford, NY Miller D (2009) Democracy’s domain. Philos Public Aff 37:203–228 Miller D (2010) Against global democracy. In: O’Neill S, Breen K (eds) After the nation: critical reflections on post-nationalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke Nagel T (2005) The problem of global justice. Philos Public Aff 33:113–147 Pogge T (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Pogge T (2002) World poverty and human rights. Polity Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Scheffler S (2002) Boundaries and allegiances: problems of justice and responsibility in liberal thought. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Miller, Richard

Miller, Richard MARK C. NAVIN Department of Philosophy, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

Richard Miller’s positions in contemporary debates about global justice are marked by two main themes. First, Miller is critical of many attempts to defend claims about global justice by appeal to a general moral principle of global concern. On his view, impartiality does not require similar concern for foreigners as for compatriots, schemes of distributive justice appropriate to domestic society should not be globalized, and global economic justice does not consist of the realization of any one ideal. Second, and relatedly, Miller claims that most transnational responsibilities arise from the existence of particular international relationships. For example, we may have obligations to return the benefits of exploitation, to compensate for imposed courses of development, and to repair the effects of imperial destruction. In addition, we have duties to promote justice in regimes of trade and greenhouse gas emission.

Beneficence and Foreign Aid Peter Singer has famously argued that a commitment to the moral equality of persons requires members of the world’s developed societies to undertake great sacrifices in order to help the global poor. On his view, our commitment to impartiality demands that we be willing to give as much to save the lives of foreigners as we would be willing to give to save the lives of our compatriots. Since we are willing to make significant sacrifices to save the lives of compatriots (perhaps up to the point of becoming as badly off as the objects of our rescue), impartiality demands that we make similar sacrifices to save foreigners. One implication of this view is that it is generally wrong to purchase luxuries when the money that we spend on luxuries could have been used to save people’s lives. Since, in our world, money that we spend on luxuries can almost always be used, instead, to provide food or medical care to the global poor, it is almost always wrong to purchase luxuries. Miller does not think that our response to neediness as such must be as demanding as Singer claims. On Miller’s view, we have an obligation to prioritize beneficence, but we need not make the alleviation of others’ suffering a major part of our lives. His Principle of Sympathy states that our commitment to respond to neediness as such must be so great that any greater commitment would

M

703

run a serious risk of making our lives worse, but it need not be any greater than that. Specifically, beneficence does not require us to surrender life goals to which we are securely attached. Certainly, many of the world’s nonpoor may be able to increase their contributions to foreign assistance without thereby abandoning their valued projects. For example, a scuba enthusiast may be able to provide more assistance to the world’s poor if she goes on fewer dives. However, she need not discard her cherished hobby in order to make additional contributions. Importantly, Miller argues that a policy of nearby rescue is consistent with the Principle of Sympathy. Members of developed societies can be committed to saving the lives of those who are near to them, even at risk to themselves, because it is highly unlikely that they will be in a position to act upon this commitment. Therefore, such a commitment does not impose a significant risk of worsening their lives. In this way, Miller argues that impartiality is consistent with greater concern for the neediness of compatriots than for the neediness of foreigners.

International Inequality One prominent position in debates about global justice is that schemes of egalitarian distributive justice that have been worked out for domestic society ought also to apply to international society. The most popular form of this position attempts to “globalize” Rawls’s principles of justice. For example, some philosophers (including Charles Beitz, early Thomas Pogge, Darrel Moellendorf, and Kok-Chor Tan) have advocated a global version of Rawls’s difference principle, according to which international inequalities are justified only when they improve the condition of the world’s worst off. The main argument for “globalizing” domestic principles of distributive justice is based on a claim about impartiality. It observes that we are tied to foreigners by forms of economic interdependence that are similar to those that tie us to compatriots. Since economic interdependence is (according to this argument) a sufficient precondition for egalitarian distributive justice, impartiality requires that we realize egalitarian distributive justice in international society. This is a very demanding conclusion since it requires that, in addition to addressing the basic needs of the global poor, we must also mitigate the massive inequalities that divide the world’s societies. Miller replies to this sort of argument by noting that our obligation to mitigate inequalities among compatriots does not arise from the fact of mere economic interdependence. Instead, egalitarian distributive justice is a response to the unique way in which the functionings of the modern state create and distribute opportunities among society’s

M

704

M

Miller, Richard

members. These functionings include schemes of property rights, contract law, and the legal regulation of labor and capital. They include public facilities for violent enforcement, infrastructure, communication, transportation, and education. In addition, they include the underpinnings of the financial system. All of these (and other) functionings create special relationships among those who are subject to them, and these relationships generate responsibilities of egalitarian concern. Furthermore, these functionings are largely absent in international relations. Our obligations to our compatriots are an expression of our special responsibilities to them. We have an obligation of civic friendship, which is a duty of loyalty to those who loyally support our shared institutions. The strength of this duty depends upon the nature of our shared political arrangements. Even though international economic activity creates opportunities, domestic political arrangements determine individuals’ access to these opportunities. Therefore, the most demanding obligations of civic friendship remain with our compatriots. We also have an obligation to make fair provision of the goods that are created by the state’s functionings. Miller argues that fair provision of the goods created by social cooperation requires special concern for the worst off. Finally, we have an obligation to mitigate the disadvantages that are created by the institutions of social cooperation. This requires special concern for those who are subject to the social disadvantages that such institutions create and distribute.

Transnational Responsibilities For Miller, international political and economic responsibilities are generated by the existence of particular international institutional relationships. Therefore, a theory of global justice must begin with an account of existing international institutional relationships. Specifically, Miller argues that we ought to pay attention to the way in which power disparities affect international relationships and, thereby, create transnational responsibilities. In particular, Miller focuses on the “domineering influence” of the American empire, which consists of its economic and political prerogatives, the influence of its threat power, and the exercise of its destructive power. Among America’s economic prerogatives are those created by the use of the American dollar as a global reserve currency, the effects of American financial policies upon foreign economies, and the preeminence of the English language and American culture among the world’s political and business elite. America’s threat power includes its ability to dominate international institutions, like the IMF and WTO, based on threats to withhold support or restrict access to US markets. America’s destructive power includes its

ability to install and overthrow foreign governments in accordance with its interests. Miller argues that America uses its power to create and shape international relationships in ways that give rise to demanding transnational responsibilities. For example, America’s domineering influence has allowed it to maintain exploitative international trade regimes. As a result, America has an obligation to provide compensation to the victims of this exploitation. Also, America has imposed self-serving courses of development on poorer societies. In particular, the neoliberal “Washington Consensus” has realized less growth for developing societies than alternative courses of development would have achieved. As a result, America has a special obligation to meet the basic needs of persons in societies who are poorer than they otherwise would be. Furthermore, America has used its military and economic power to install or remove governments in Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Iran, Iraq, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and Somalia (among other places). As a result, America has duties of repair to such societies. Miller describes his account of global justice as form of “quasi-cosmopolitanism.” Transnational responsibilities arise from diverse relationships and apply to diverse societies. However, when they are taken together, they apply to most of the developing world. So, while Miller’s view is not cosmopolitan in its justification (since it contains no a priori commitments to particular principles of global justice), his view is roughly cosmopolitan in its consequences (since, given the facts of our world, most developed societies owe assistance to most developing societies, beyond what mere beneficence would require). For example, while developing societies may be more or less subject to exploitation, external direction of their development, imperial destruction, etc., almost all are deeply affected by America’s economic and political power. Furthermore, while developing societies have different levels of international economic integration, and while they may face different costs from climate change and greenhouse gas regulations, all participate in international trade and in the production of greenhouse gases. For these reasons, the fairness norms that are appropriate for regimes of international trade and greenhouse gas regulation will be cosmopolitan in their scope.

Realism and Hope Miller does not have much hope that the political and economic leaders of developed societies will be moved by commitments to global justice. This is because the interests of the powerful will often conflict with the political autonomy of developing societies. In a world in which power is so

Modus Vivendi

unequally shared, there will be little incentive for moral leadership on the part of established authorities. Foreign assistance will most likely continue to be directed in ways that benefit developed societies. Coercive interventions – including the invasions and occupations of the War on Terrorism – will cause more injustices than they prevent. Furthermore, developed societies will continue to dehumanize peoples and their legitimate representatives in order to ignore the carnage that they have caused. Miller sees hope in the power of social movements, especially in social movements that are organized around causes relevant to global justice. Social movements can create new strategic considerations and can generate moral revulsion about global injustices. Protest movements and focused campaigns can raise awareness about the unjust practices of global institutions (e.g., the WTO) and can generate support for international agreements that move in the direction of justice (e.g., the Ottawa Treaty banning the use of landmines). Miller hopes that people will increasingly come to identify with communities of outlook that aim at global change, and that they will come to reject forms of patriotism that serve to excuse imperial excess.

Related Topics

▶ Beneficence, Principle of ▶ Climate Change ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Foreign Aid ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Impartiality Thesis ▶ International Monetary Fund (IMF) ▶ Restorative Justice ▶ Singer, Peter ▶ World Trade Organization (WTO)

References Miller R (1998) Cosmopolitan respect and patriotic concern. Philos Public Aff 27:202–224 Miller R (2003a) Terrorism, war and empire. In: Sterba J (ed) Terrorism and international justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 186–205 Miller R (2003b) Moral closeness and world community. In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 101–122 Miller R (2004) Beneficence, duty and distance. Philos Public Aff 32:357–383 Miller R (2005) Terrorism and legitimacy. J Soc Philos 36:194–201 Miller R (2006a) Global institutional reform and global social movements: from false promise to realistic hope. Cornell Int Law J 39:501–514 Miller R (2006b) The critique of globalization. In: Fritsch M, Seymour M (eds) Reason and emancipation: essays on the philosophy of Kai Nielsen. Prometheus Books, Amherst, pp 330–339

M

705

Miller R (2007) Unlearning American patriotism. Theory Res Soc Educ 5:7–21 Miller R (2009) Global power and economic justice. In: Beitz C, Goodin R (eds) Global basic rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford Miller R (2010) Globalizing justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Minority Groups ▶ Multiculturalism

Modus Vivendi DON E. SCHEID Department of Philosophy, Winona State University, Winona, MN, USA

Used mainly in international law and diplomacy, the Latin phrase modus vivendi signifies a temporary or provisional accommodation between disputing parties to allow life to go on. Modus means “mode” or “manner,” and vivendi means “of living.” Hence, the literal meaning of the phrase is “mode or manner of living.” Modus vivendi usually denotes an informal and temporary political arrangement. For instance, antagonists may reach a modus vivendi concerning a specific territory in spite of their conflicting claims to the territory. They might, for example, “agree to disagree” and come to a temporary arrangement for control of the border and administration of the disputed territory until a more permanent and more substantial agreement can be worked out between the parties, or an authoritative judgment can be rendered by an appropriate international court. An agreement that is, in fact, a modus vivendi may not always be designated as such and, instead, be referred to as a “temporary agreement,” a “memorandum of understanding,” or an “interim agreement.” A modus vivendi is to be strictly distinguished from a treaty, which is considered a much more permanent agreement between parties on the international scene. Armistices and instruments of surrender, for instance, are modus vivendi intended to be replaced subsequently by substantial peace treaties. The resolution of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis may be thought of as a modus vivendi, which was arrived at through an informal exchange of letters and secret oral promises between

M

706

M

Modus Vivendi

President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev. No formal treaty was ever involved. One example of a modus vivendi, although not designated as such, is the Exchange of Notes of November 13, 1973 during the Fisheries Dispute (the “Cod War”) between the UK and Iceland. This agreement stated that it was “an interim agreement relating to fisheries in the disputed area, pending a settlement of the substantive dispute and without prejudice to the legal position or rights of either Government in relation thereto, . . ..” The agreement was to run for 2 years from the date of the Exchange of Notes and specifically provided that “its termination will not affect the legal position of either Government with respect to the substantive dispute.” In its judgment on the merits of the case (United Kingdom v. Iceland), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stated: “The interim agreement of 1973 . . . does not describe itself as a “settlement” of the dispute, and, apart from being of limited duration, clearly possesses the character of a provisional arrangement . . . .” Fisheries Jurisdiction (United Kingdom v. Iceland), Merits, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1974, at pp. 18–19. Along with other methods of dispute management, modi vevendi are generally to be encouraged. In the Fisheries Dispute, the ICJ noted that the interim agreement between the UK and Iceland could not be construed to prevent the Court from rendering a judgment on the underlying dispute or compelling it to dismiss a party’s legal claims, for otherwise this “would be to discourage the making of interim arrangements in future disputes with the object of reducing friction and avoiding risk to peace and security.” As the Court further noted, this would run contrary to the purpose of the provisions of the United Nations Charter relating to the pacific settlement of disputes. Fisheries Jurisdiction (United Kingdom v. Iceland), Merits, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1974, at p. 21. In recent years, relations between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan have been conducted informally by so-called modus vivendi diplomacy (also called “flexible diplomacy” or “pragmatic diplomacy”). Both parties can profit from commercial exchange, but neither wants to prejudice its legal claim as the sole legitimate government of Taiwan. A formal treaty would require a document that named the two parties. Would Taiwan be referred to as a sovereign state or as a province of China? Either designation would concede diplomatic recognition, but this can be avoided by using interim agreements instead. Instead, although China refuses to recognize Taiwan as an independent state, a financial memorandum of understanding signed by Taiwan and

China allows the development and cooperation between the financial sectors of the two countries. Thus, one advantage of such informal agreements is that they can facilitate cooperation on specific issues without carrying wider legal implications concerning other issues. Taiwan has also successfully used its modus vivendi diplomacy to develop relations with other countries, regardless of whether those countries have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Modus vivendi diplomacy offers certain advantages over more formal relations between states. First, being created informally, modi vivendi afford states greater flexibility, as they can be terminated, revised, or suspended with greater ease. Treaties normally have provisions that permit renegotiation, but the process is slow and often impractical. Informal agreements, by contrast, can be more readily revised; and negotiators do not need to predict all future circumstances and then try to comprehensively contract for them. Second, such informal agreements do not require highly structured ratification; they do not require formal congressional ratification in the USA. This also means that interim agreements can avoid the prolonged and widespread public debate that accompanies ratification hearings. The possibility of informal agreements achieving modi vevendi arises in a wide variety of contexts. Spain is against recognizing Kosovo as an independent state but is willing to enter into a modus vevendi that removes obstacles to Kosovo’s economic development. One country achieves a modus vivendi with an intractable insurgency guerilla group. Another, through tacit understandings, reaches a modus vivendi with its indigenous drug cartel, which its police force is unwilling to fight. Two other countries reach a modus vivendi to share a water resource to which each claims exclusive rights. North and South Korea achieve a modus vevendi for the exchange of their respective citizens to visit relatives in the other country. Some suggest that Israel seek a modus vivendi with Hamas in Gaza. In the search for peace and global justice among states, modi vevendi are extremely important tools for diffusing, if not settling, disputes. A primary advantage of a modus vivendi, when it can be achieved, is that it avoids a hardening of positions by the adversaries involved. An interim agreement can usefully create a “breathing space” or “cooling-off period,” facilitate further negotiations, or simply gain time while other events take place. Moreover, such temporary or short-term agreements can build trust between parties and create confidence-building arrangements, which can then ultimately lead to more permanent treaty arrangements and a more stable world of global governance.

Moellendorf, Darrel

Related Topics

▶ Dispute Resolution ▶ Global Governance ▶ Political Forgiveness ▶ Preventive Non-Intervention ▶ Transitional Justice

References Lipson C (1991) Why are some international agreements informal? Int Organ 45(4):495–538 von Glahn G (1986) Law of nations: an introduction to public international law, 5th edn. Macmillan, New York, pp 399–402 (The codfish war)

Moellendorf, Darrel GILLIAN BROCK Department of Philosophy, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Darrel Moellendorf is currently Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs at San Diego State University. At the time of writing, it may be the case that Darrel Moellendorf is best known for his influential and ground-breaking book, Cosmopolitan Justice (2002) (though some of his current work, especially on climate change and justice in and exiting war, may require a revision of this assessment at a later date). In Cosmopolitan Justice, Moellendorf carries on the work begun by theorists such as Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge, further developing a cosmopolitan model of justice. Like Beitz and Pogge, he too modifies the Rawlsian approach to support a model of global justice that is more focused on individuals rather than states and proposes much bolder principles that are to define just interaction at the international level. Moellendorf also goes further than either of these theorists has hitherto gone in showing how a cosmopolitan model of justice could actually be applied to a range of pressing problems of global justice including: immigration, protectionism, justified intervention, debt cancellation, and dealing with the costs of global warming. Moellendorf takes as his point of departure Rawls’ early views on justice and, using Rawlsian considerations, argues that the later views on international justice must largely be rejected. Rawls’ views on global justice, as outlined in The Law of Peoples, differ markedly from his earlier views on justice, as expressed in A Theory of Justice. In that earlier work, Rawls sets out to derive the principles

M

of justice that should govern liberal societies and, by employing all the apparatus attached to the original position – the hypothetical choosing situation, he famously endorses two principles, namely, one protecting equal basic liberties, and the second permitting social and economic inequalities when (and only when) they are both to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged (the Difference Principle) and attached to positions which are open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity (the Fair Equality of Opportunity principle). These principles should apply within liberal societies but not across them. Rather, in the international arena, Rawls thinks different principles would be chosen (in a second original position occupied by representatives of different peoples) and these would include principles acknowledging peoples’ independence, their equality, that they have a right to self-defense, duties of non-intervention, to observe treaties, to honor human rights, conduct themselves appropriately in war, and to assist other peoples living in unfavorable conditions. Moellendorf argues that Rawls’ reasoning in The Law of Peoples is faulty on a number of grounds, such as that the focus on peoples rather than persons means that Rawls has difficulty adequately capturing respect for persons, that his focus on getting agreement means he sacrifices full justice for the sake of trying to get wider support, and that Rawls’ reasons for excluding principles of socioeconomic equality and democracy are unconvincing. Moellendorf offers an alternative view which extends Rawls’ picture of justice as defended in A Theory of Justice to the global context and notably includes: a fuller list of human rights that must be respected, requirements of constitutional democracy, global equality of opportunity, and a Global Difference Principle. Like other cosmopolitans before him, Moellendorf ’s alternative construction is a single construction (rather than one involving two original positions) in which representatives are ignorant of various details concerning the state the represented citizens inhabit, such as the state’s natural resources, character, territory, or population size. These representatives are more concerned with individuals’ freedom and ability to pursue their own conceptions of the good life within a fair system of cooperation than they are concerned with the interests of peoples. Such representatives would thus be more concerned than Rawls is to protect democratic and egalitarian social orders, because the absence of these can importantly prevent people from pursuing their own conceptions of the good life. Why would representatives in a cosmopolitan original position choose a Global Difference Principle? Because the representatives have no

707

M

708

M

Moellendorf, Darrel

knowledge of the distribution of talents, they would select principles in which inequalities of distribution that derive from differential talents and abilities are to the maximum benefit of the least advantaged over the course of their life, and so they would choose the Difference Principle. Tight arguments follow for a range of other bold conclusions. Moellendorf has also contributed greatly to issues of justice in and after war, notably with his exploration of the idea of “Jus Ex Bello,” reconciliation post-conflict, and providing a cosmopolitan framework for determining when intervention in the affairs of other states may be justified, and when interventions would constitute a violation of the principle of sovereignty, according to his cosmopolitan conception of justice. Four main conditions must be met for interventions to be justified: First, just cause must exist, and this is satisfied if the state has an unjust basic structure or the international effects of its domestic policies are unjust. Second, because of the prima facie evil of war, it must be reasonable to believe that the intervention is likely to succeed. Third, the intervention must be of last resort. Since there are often significant costs associated with delaying action, Moellendorf believes we must interpret last resort somewhat loosely to mean after diplomatic efforts have failed. Fourth, interventions must be proportional to the injustice they aim to eliminate. Moellendorf also considers two other criteria as well, but does not eventually include these, namely, that the intervention must proceed under proper authority and must be motivated by right intent. For one thing, proper authority sometimes promotes the cause of stability rather than justice and in such cases justice should trump considerations of stability. If an intervention is just, it should not be held up by any requirement that proper authority be forthcoming. In recent work, Moellendorf has argued that just war theory is importantly incomplete. Just war theory has traditionally been concerned with jus ad bellum, moral considerations that govern when the use of military force is justified in entering war, and jus in bello, how to conduct war in a morally justified manner. However, the moral questions surrounding whether war should be stopped are different from jus ad bellum or jus in bello. Jus ex bello, the set of considerations governing whether war should be concluded and if so how, is a much needed addition to just war theory. In current work, Moellendorf is exploring ethical and justice issues associated with climate change. In 2008– 2009, he spent a sabbatical at the Institute for Advanced Study working on these topics and several articles are forthcoming from that period. As this goes to press, he

has also just published another book, Global Inequality Matters, which explores issues of global inequality and why they matter. Global Inequality Matters takes seriously the presumption stated in international human rights documents that all persons possess inherent dignity. The book argues on that basis, and an account of justice as comprising associative duties, that the requirements of global distributive justice condemn existing global inequality. Although recognizing the importance of political equality within the state, the book rejects accounts of egalitarian distributive justice that limit its application to the state. It applies this perspective to several issues, including immigration controls, second language instruction, international labor codes, protectionism, climate change mitigation, and institutions of global taxation. Like his other work, this book is bound to prove an influential and important contribution to current debates on whether and how global inequality should be of concern to us.

Related Topics

▶ Beitz, Charles ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Sovereignty ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Beitz C (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Moellendorf D (1996) Constructing the law of peoples. Pac Philos Quart 77:132–154 Moellendorf D (2002) Cosmopolitan justice. Westview Press, Boulder Moellendorf D (2005a) The World Trade Organization and egalitarian justice. Metaphilosophy 36:145–162 Moellendorf D (2005b) Persons’ interests, states’ duties, and global governance. In: Brock G, Brighouse H (eds) The political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 148–163 Moellendorf D (2006a) Equal respect and global egalitarianism. Soc Theory Pract 32:601–616 Moellendorf D (2006b) Equality of opportunity globalized. Can J Law Jurisprud 19:301–318 Moellendorf D (2007) Reconciliation as a political virtue. J Soc Philos 38:205–221 Moellendorf D (2008) Jus ex bello. J Polit Philos 16:123–136 Moellendorf D (2009a) Global inequality matters. Palgrave, MacMillan, Hampshire Moellendorf D (2009b) Justice and intergenerational assignment of the costs of climate change. J Soc Philos 40:204–224

Moral Authority Moellendorf D (2009c) Treaty norms and climate change mitigation. Ethics Int Aff 23:1125–1136 Pogge T (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Moral Authority MICHAEL K. POTTER Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada

Sometimes mistaken for the right to judge others, moral authority is the relative credibility and weight of a source’s moral judgments, beliefs, principles, rules, intuitions, and value-commitments. For millennia, moral authority was thought to belong to religious texts and leaders. In theocratic nations, and in some social circles elsewhere, this is still assumed. From such a perspective, for example, a judgment has moral authority only if found in the Bible as interpreted by the Vatican. In mystical traditions, moral authority may be given to those who claim to possess supernatural insight into the universe or who, as with prophets, are believed to commune directly with gods. In the Western world, belief in the special moral authority of religious leaders faded away due to two powerful social and intellectual movements. First, the leaders of the Protestant Reformation (1517–1648) asserted that all people were qualified to read and interpret the Bible for themselves, which meant that moral authority no longer rested with religious leaders. Then came the Enlightenment (roughly 1637–1804) which, in its emphasis on individual rationality and autonomy, led to the belief that all rational human beings possess equal moral authority. The relative weight of moral judgments was now argued to be a function of the arguments advanced in their favor. Secular systems of ethics flourished in this time, most notably and influentially those of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), both of which emphasized the equality of rational human beings as agents judging and being judged, though most other details of their moral philosophies were quite different. However, many other thinkers believed that moral authority was a function more of emotional sensitivity and empathy than reason. In this belief, they were supported by some prominent philosophers whose work on ethics has only recently become fully appreciated – for instance,

M

David Hume (1711–1776), Adam Smith (1723–1790), and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1850). However, since philosophers of the time tended to believe that women were emotionally and empathically superior to men, this led to claims that women had greater moral authority in at least some matters. The presumption of equality – and the equal moral authority of all rational beings – has been besieged on a variety of fronts in the West since the early twentieth century. Some have questioned the centrality of reason to moral authority and to morality in general, emphasizing emotion, character, or some other feature of human life. Based on the work of some postcolonial thinkers, some have assumed that the oppressed, disadvantaged, and victimized have greater moral authority than others on the basis of their suffering, which is presumed to provide them with unique moral insight. The spread of relativism has led many to reject the legitimacy of moral authority beyond the bounds of a group identity (often a culture), which means moral judgments can have authority only in the group within which they are issued. On philosophical grounds, most of these attempts to elevate one group above another in moral authority – for instance, racialized persons over non-racialized persons, or women over men – fall flat due to the absurdity inherent in granting moral authority to individuals on the basis of statistical experiences associated with a group to which they are assigned. More serious are claims questioning the assignation of moral authority on the basis of rational capacity alone. Any serious attempt to move from imperialism and illegitimate hegemony to a more diversified, truly global, ethic must account for moral authority. If any moral argument or insight is to have credibility beyond the boundaries of a culture or religion, it must ultimately appeal to something that transcends such differences. Reason may be a necessary condition of such authority, but it does not appear to be sufficient. The most promising partner for reason is another characteristic of moral insight that appears to have cross-cultural acceptability and, indeed, a sociobiological basis: empathy.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Individual ▶ Altruism ▶ Common Good ▶ Consensus/Justification ▶ Cultural Relativism ▶ Equality ▶ Feminist Ethics

709

M

710

M

Moral Community

▶ Global Ethic ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Public Reason ▶ Imperialism ▶ Intuitionism ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Liberal Pluralism ▶ Mill, John Stuart ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Moral Imperialism ▶ Moral Legitimacy ▶ Moral Reasoning ▶ Peace Education ▶ Political Autonomy ▶ Post-Colonialism ▶ Public Good ▶ Public Reason ▶ Relativism ▶ Responsibility, Individual

References Hume D (1739–40) A treatise of human nature: being an attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects Hume D (1751) An enquiry concerning the principles of morals Kant I (1785) Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals Mill JS (1863) Utilitarianism Schopenhauer A (1840) On the basis of morality Smith A (1759) The theory of moral sentiments

Moral Community GORDON A. BABST Department of Political Science, Wilkinson College, Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA

The notion of a moral community is notoriously resistant to determination due to the many-sidedness of human pluralism and to differing systems of value with long, historical roots in many cultures around the world. The idea that the community of which one is a member is a moral community is appealing, though most likely relative to one’s standards of reference, unpersuasive to others, or even hopelessly vague, such as notions of the moral community of all living creatures or all God’s children. Hence, there are multiple notions of moral community reflecting local understandings, as well as different theoretical approaches rising to the highest levels of generality. The term “moral community” can be used

descriptively to indicate a community believed actually to exist, or deployed as an aspiration, pointing to a type of community believed by some to be morally good, to have a quality of moral goodness to which we ought to aim. In both cases, there is a defining normative component. Used descriptively, the term may refer to a community of religious adherents who, in attempting to live up to their highest ideals, believe themselves to constitute a moral community linked together by their moral convictions, or may be regarded by others as such. A moral community may be a particular group of people who are integrated owing to a recognized moral philosophy that governs their common pursuits, chief among them being living according to the dictates of their moral convictions. Here the term refers to people who recognize each other as sharing an ethical connection, or who aspire for this recognition to be made more manifest. Such a moral community may also aspire that its vision become a universal vision and provide the grounds for global justice, or is looked to as an inspiring example for others. The term can also be used descriptively to refer to the community of people or states who, for example, avow and seek to live by and up to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as opposed to people or states who either fail to do so, or profess a rival conception of the human condition that in practice works an injustice on the pursuit of human rights, thereby not constituting a moral community, at least not from the perspective of adherents to human rights and a rule of law that reflects this. At its essence, the notion of a moral community betokens a good held in common by many people, and at the global level this betokens a good held by the community of humanity at large. This notion, then, combines the conventional sense of moral, where people share a common moral outlook they believe is good or correct, with community, where though a variety of characteristics might serve to unite any given people, their shared moral outlook provides them with a crucial, maybe even their most important commonality. The notion of a moral community, to be realized in practice, necessarily entails discerning the moral basis for the community, who is included in it, and an idea of how it is to be maintained. Liberals, following John Stuart Mill, believe that society is best maintained by being as open as possible to all voices, and that this becomes possible the more people relish diversity and seek out contrary points of view that challenge their own. While any given liberal society might well be a decent society, it resists the label “moral community” because its people need not affirm or even share a common moral vision. Social contract

Moral Cosmopolitanism

theorists such as Thomas Hobbes would argue that the society that offers the best guarantee against the worst consequences human beings visit upon themselves is the most good one can reasonably hope for in this life, though again the label “moral community” does not quite fit because the unifying agent need not be a morality as conventionally understood. In both of these examples – a liberal society as per Mill, or the social contract tradition as per Hobbes – there is no priority given to any recognizable system of morality, ethics, or religion. Indeed, the need for separation of church and state is the rule here, raising an important and enduring concern regarding the basis for a global ethics. If religion or morality as conventionally understood provides, as it has on far too frequent occasion in the past, a basis for nontrivial disagreement, enmity, or war, then it is a dubious basis for a global ethics or a global moral community, as this basis would risk alienating any nonadherents to the religion or system of morality, especially those peoples who identify themselves centrally by their distinctive moral code. One way out of this dilemma would be to start with the likely most noncontroversial propositions, such as all people are of equal moral worth, or all people are equally the source of moral worth, or no people are of superior moral worth that they may determine the moral community for everyone else. While this course of action explicitly seeks to avoid controversial moral claims, it does so by remaining at such a high level of generality, of being so nonspecific that it risks not speaking to many of the world’s peoples, or risks that many people will not see themselves as members of this vague moral community which is supposed to unite them and be regarded by them as morally good. Nonetheless, it may not be unreasonable to expect communities to uphold and adhere to the most widely agreed-upon notion of moral community available at any given time, such as reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as a provisional best global moral community. This demarcation of a moral community has the advantage of being both partly actualized while remaining aspirational.

Related Topics ▶ Animal Rights ▶ Communities ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Decent Society ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Human Rights ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Law of Peoples

M

711

▶ Moral Cosmopolitanism ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Toleration/Tolerance, Liberal Principle of ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

References Dunning J (ed) (2005) Making globalization good: the moral challenges of global capitalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Nussbaum M (1998) Cultivating humanity: a classical defense of reform in liberal education. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Pogge T (2007) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owes what to the very poor? Oxford University Press, Oxford Rawls J (2001) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Scanlon T (2000) What we owe to each other. Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA Singer P (2004) One world: the ethics of globalization, 2nd edn. Yale University Press, New Haven Steiner G (2008) Animals and the moral community. Columbia University Press, New York

Moral Cosmopolitanism ALYSSA R. BERNSTEIN Department of Philosophy, Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA

Cosmopolitan political theorists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, who write about the injustice of current international or global economic, environmental, political, legal, and/or social conditions, commonly base their arguments on one or another form of moral cosmopolitanism, or more precisely, on some conception(s) of morality belonging to that category. All cosmopolitan conceptions of morality hold that all human beings are morally important and must be properly taken into account in practical deliberations about any actions (especially lawmaking and policymaking) that may significantly affect anyone’s vital, fundamental, or otherwise important interests. Theorists who use the term “moral cosmopolitanism” may contrast it to “cosmopolitanism about institutions” (Beitz 1979/1999), or to “political,” “cultural,” and “economic” cosmopolitanism (Kleingeld and Brown 2006), or to “legal” and “social justice” cosmopolitanism (Pogge 2007). Other theorists may contrast “cosmopolitanism about justice” to “cosmopolitanism about culture” (Scheffler 2001), or may contrast “justicebased” and “political” cosmopolitanism to “cosmopolitanism about the good life” (Caney 2010). Seldom have moral philosophers of past centuries used the term “moral

M

712

M

Moral Cosmopolitanism

cosmopolitanism” when distinguishing or classifying conceptions of morality or ethics. However, since the end of the twentieth century a number of authors characterizing moral cosmopolitanism have implied or asserted that many conceptions of morality or ethics not described by their authors as falling into that category nevertheless do fall into it: these conceptions include Immanuel Kant’s and John Stuart Mill’s moral philosophies as well as more recent Kantian, utilitarian, and contractualist conceptions. All cosmopolitan conceptions of morality oppose views according to which some human beings lack moral status, as well as views according to which some human beings’ needs or interests do not count or do not have equal moral importance. Such views include racism and some forms of nationalism (e.g., Benito Mussolini’s fascism), as well as some forms of moral perfectionism (e.g., that of Friedrich Nietzsche). Arguably other forms of moral perfectionism and of nationalism are compatible with moral cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitan political theorists and scholars of cosmopolitanism have offered related yet diverse articulations of this perspective. The account offered by Thomas Pogge (1992) is widely quoted: for example, after Charles Beitz (1979/1999) applies the label “moral cosmopolitanism” to his own view that the basic structure of international relations is subject to a requirement of distributive justice in virtue of its resemblance to the basic structure of domestic society, he explains moral cosmopolitanism by saying that it is, in Pogge’s phrase, the notion that every human being has a global stature as the ultimate unit of moral concern. According to Beitz, moral cosmopolitanism applies to the whole world the maxim that choices about what policies we should prefer, or what institutions we should establish, should be based on an impartial consideration of the claims of each person who would be affected. Beitz further explains that his own moral cosmopolitanism is a view about the basis on which institutions and practices should be justified or criticized, and that it is a challenge to theories that regard the state or the national or other community as an enclave of special responsibilities that are distinct and justified separately from general or global responsibilities. Charles Jones (1999) describes the cosmopolitan moral perspective as impartial, universal, individualist, and egalitarian, and as “closely akin to liberalism.” However, liberal political values are variously interpreted by theorists who regard themselves as moral cosmopolitans. On the one hand, there are “egalitarian liberals” (such as Beitz and Pogge) who endorse the essentials of John Rawls’s conception of a just liberal-democratic society as presented in A Theory of Justice (1971), but reject Rawls’s

later modifications of it and also reject the conception of international justice he presents in The Law of Peoples (as they interpret it). On the other hand, there are “political liberals” who endorse not only Rawls’s conception of a just liberal-democratic society as he later modified it in Political Liberalism (1993) and Justice as Fairness (2001), but also the essentials of his conception of international justice understood as based (or centered or focused) on human rights. According to Pauline Kleingeld and Eric Brown (2006), although every cosmopolitan argues for community among all human beings regardless of social and political affiliation, some argue for global political institutions or for global economic markets open to all, while others hold only that living a good human life requires serving the universal community by helping human beings (for example, by promoting human rights and justice), and some cosmopolitans argue for multiculturalism. Jeremy Waldron (1992) argues that the “hybrid lifestyle” of the true cosmopolitan is the only appropriate response to the modern world in which we live. Caney (2009) criticizes Waldron’s challenges to the ideas that some people need the preservation of their own culture and that cultural minorities should have language rights. Kwame Anthony Appiah (2006) notes that all cosmopolitans agree that no local loyalty can ever justify forgetting that each human being has responsibilities to every other, but emphasizes the importance of the fact that people can disagree about values not only due to giving the same values different weights, or failing to share a vocabulary of evaluation, but also due to giving the same vocabulary different interpretations. Such disagreements can arise among people in the same society, but they are more likely to arise among people from different societies whose evaluative vocabularies are embedded in different ways of life. Appiah points out that in order to apply the Golden Rule, whether the negative version (“What you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others”) or the positive version (“What you wish done to yourself, do to others”), you need to know how your acts will seem to others; it is not enough to have your own true descriptions of your own acts. As he explains, there are many true actdescriptions, and the person to whom you did what you did may be glad you did it if she/he describes or perceives your act in one of these ways, but not if she/he describes or perceives your act in one of the other ways. Appiah suggests, in light of this as well as many other considerations, that the position worth defending might be called “a partial cosmopolitanism,” in both senses of “partial.” Caney (2010) distinguishes “cosmopolitanism about the good life” from “justice-based cosmopolitanism” and “political cosmopolitanism.” He explains that the first

Moral Cosmopolitanism

includes views denying that a person can have a good life only if he or she follows the established practices or traditions of his or her local community and culture, and asserting that in order to flourish persons can, may, or must appreciate, draw upon, and/or adopt other communities’ and cultures’ ideas, practices, values, and ideals. Acknowledging that Scheffler (2001) uses the term “cosmopolitanism about culture” to refer to a thesis about the nature and requirements of individuals’ well-being or identity or capacity for effective agency, Caney (2010) says he chooses to use instead the term “cosmopolitanism about the good life” for two reasons: (1) the thesis in question is about the good life, and (2) a cosmopolitan culture is an ambiguous idea that can mean either a culture that encompasses diverse values and ideals or a culture that supports cosmopolitan principles of justice and the institutions needed to realize them. Pogge (2007) writes that the central cosmopolitan idea is that of including all human beings as equals, and that since this central idea can be understood and employed in diverse ways, it can generate a variety of cosmopolitan positions. Pogge classifies a “conception of ethics” as cosmopolitan if its assessments and prescriptions are based on taking equal account of the interests of all human beings. This category encompasses interpersonal and international forms of ethical cosmopolitanism, he says: the former is a conception of ethics specific to individual human beings and their conduct, while the latter is a conception of ethics specific to states and their conduct. Pogge classifies as a form of “legal cosmopolitanism” any cosmopolitan moral conception that demands that social institutions be designed so that they include all human beings as equals and that prescribes a unified legal organization of the whole human world. He regards a conception of justice as a form of “social justice cosmopolitanism” if and only if its assessments and prescriptions are based on taking equal account of the interests of all human beings, as are those of a cosmopolitan conception of ethics. Darrel Moellendorf (2002) argues for the cosmopolitan view that there exist duties of global justice based upon equal respect for persons regardless of their national membership or citizenship. He points out that the view that the claims of individual persons constitute the basis of international legal obligations, a view that blossomed after the Second World War with the issuing of a variety of statements affirming a commitment to international human rights, is sometimes called “cosmopolitanism,” and says that the UN Charter expresses at several points “the cosmopolitan perspective.” However, in his more recently published book (2009) Moellendorf avoids using the term

M

“cosmopolitan” except when referring to the views of other theorists or to his own previously held views (at which point he merely mentions the title of his earlier book, Cosmopolitan Justice), and the term does not appear in the book’s title, nor its chapter headings, nor its index. Gillian Brock (2009) writes that some members of the anti-globalization movement fear cosmopolitanism due to misconstruing it as merely a way to justify the spread of capitalism. She contends that widely diverse positions are rightly seen as cosmopolitan, for there are diverse reasons why one might regard oneself as a member of a global community of persons; these include various religious (e.g., Christian) commitments and disparate political (e.g., Marxist) views. Currently theorists are debating the question of what cosmopolitan justice entails, and they defend a full spectrum of views, including forms of egalitarianism antithetical to the “neo-liberal agenda”; therefore, Brock argues, one should not assume that anyone who espouses cosmopolitanism holds capitalist or neoliberal views about economic justice. Some theorists classify as forms of cosmopolitanism moral philosophies that are consequentialist, such as that of John Stuart Mill (a form of rule-utilitarianism), that of Jeremy Bentham (a form of act-utilitarianism), and that of Peter Singer (arguably a form of act-utilitarianism), in addition to moral philosophies that are anticonsequentialist, such as that of Immanuel Kant as well as more recent Kantian and contractualist conceptions. Among these cosmopolitan theorists is Kok-Chor Tan (2004, 2010), whose discussion of consequentialist and “deontological” conceptions of morality I will briefly summarize here. (Note that the term “deontological,” although often applied to Kant’s anti-consequentialist moral philosophy, does not in fact apply to it, according to the eminent Kant scholar Allen Wood (1999). As Wood explains, if a deontological moral theory is one that precludes grounding a moral principle on substantive values or ends, then what Kant argues is that no deontological moral theory is possible since a categorical imperative can be binding on a rational will only if there is an objective end or end in itself.) Tan (2004, 2010) characterizes utilitarianism as a consequentialist moral theory that judges an act or a rule as right or wrong depending on its consequences; as he explains, act-utilitarianism holds that the right act is that which brings about the greatest utility or good for people, understanding the good to be maximized as happiness (which some theorists construe as net balance of pleasure over pain) or interest-satisfaction or preference-satisfaction. Citing Rawls (1971), Tan (2004) says that deontological theories, although not entirely

713

M

714

M

Moral Cosmopolitanism

dismissive of consequences, do not define the right solely in terms of the good. Tan (2004, 2010) explains that deontological theories judge acts as right or wrong by reference to agents’ rights and obligations, or by reference to “some defined set of actions or duties,” the conformity with which need not necessarily maximize utility or the good. Tan (2004) takes the article, “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” by Singer (1972), as his point of departure for a critical discussion of utilitarianism. Singer argues on actutilitarian grounds for humanitarian assistance in general and famine relief in particular, on the basis of the principle that if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought morally to do it. Given the great disparity in wealth and well-being in the world’s population, Singer concludes that well-off citizens in affluent countries ought to assist the poor and needy of the world up to the point of marginal utility, that is, up to the point where the agent has been reduced to very near the material circumstances of the recipients of assistance. Recognizing that a citizen in an affluent country would probably regard such a moral requirement as too demanding, Singer then proposes a more modest version of the principle (despite regarding the more demanding version as correct); this modest version says that one ought to contribute to humanitarian relief only up to the point where one would have to sacrifice something “morally significant.” Singer notes that even this modest principle provides reason for the rich to give much more than they typically do. Tan objects to utilitarianism for the reason that it can permit, and even require, the sacrifice of the human rights of some people in order to bring about an increase of aggregate utility. In his view, this conflicts with any plausible theory of justice. Utilitarianism’s most serious flaw in the eyes of those who take human rights seriously is that it fails to recognize the distinction between persons and hence can in principle require the violation of the liberty of the few for the greater good shared by many, says Tan, citing Rawls (1971). Utilitarianism is unacceptable, Tan contends, unless it can endorse individual rights as constraining good-maximizing actions. Tan acknowledges that utilitarians have tried to refine their theory in response to such criticisms. Some try to incorporate what Samuel Scheffler (1982, 1988) has called “agent-centered restrictions” that prohibit the performance of good-maximizing actions if these involve violations of individual rights, and accommodate what Scheffler has called “agent-centered prerogatives” that would allow individuals to act in ways that do not

necessarily maximize overall good. Other utilitarians adopt an institutional approach, according to which utilitarian principles do not apply directly to personal interactions and conduct, but instead to institutional rules, requiring that these rules be such as to maximize overall good in the long run. Acknowledging the importance of agent-centered prerogatives, some contemporary utilitarians require institutional rules to allow or enable people to exercise these prerogatives. According to Tan, such utilitarians can argue that people ought to establish and support global institutional schemes that can coordinate and apportion duties in a way that appropriately balances good-maximization and agent-centered prerogatives. Utilitarians can also secure appropriate agent-centered restrictions by incorporating a notion of human rights, Tan contends; they can argue that respecting the “side constraints” of individual rights provides the best “indirect” strategy for maximizing the good (Tan credits these terms to Nozick and Sumner, respectively). Once utilitarianism becomes a theory of justice that includes such agent-centered restrictions and agent-centered prerogatives, utilitarians can accept a “rights-focused” theory of global justice despite the fact that, according to utilitarianism, rights are not foundational to moral reasoning but instead derivative. Theorists such as Jones (1999) who have rejected utilitarianism as a basis for global justice due to doubting that it can provide an adequate justification for human rights have rejected it too hastily, Tan thinks. He acknowledges that contemporary moral philosophers do not agree about this, nor about whether such attempts at institutionalizing utilitarianism are, in the end, consistent with the core of utilitarian reasoning; however, he says, he follows Rawls (1993) in seeking an “overlapping consensus” with respect to justice, and therefore avoids rejecting out of hand diverse ethical perspectives that could, despite their differences and disagreements, converge on a rights-based or rights-focused model of justice. For similar reasons one may point out the arguably extensive compatibility between Rawls’s human-rights-focused Law of Peoples (1999) and the moral positions taken by Singer (2002/ 2004) on political, policy-related, and institutional issues such as humanitarian intervention, democracy, world peace, and what is wrong with the imposed, unelected global dominance of any single powerful nation that declares itself to be the world’s policeman. Singer (2006) says that he is a preference utilitarian and does not assert that the ultimate end is pleasure or happiness. On his view, what people morally ought to do is to try to increase the extent to which people’s preferences are satisfied and reduce the extent to which they are

Moral Cosmopolitanism

thwarted. Furthermore, he contends, we should give equal consideration to all preferences, irrespective of whose preferences they are. Singer regards this principle of equal consideration as a fundamental principle, and points out that it is compatible with a great deal of economic inequality. Pogge (1992) says that, like most variants of moral cosmopolitanism, his own variant is formulated in terms of human rights. He offers an explication of the concept of human rights in terms of needs, saying that human persons with a past or potential future ability to engage in moral conversation and practice have certain basic needs, that these needs give rise to weighty moral demands, and that the object of each of these basic human needs is the object of a human right. A criterion of justice must, Pogge contends, employ a thin conception of human flourishing that would express some respect for the autonomy of diverse cultures, favoring social institutions acceptable to persons from different (religious, social, ethnic, etc.) backgrounds representing a wide range of diverse, more specific conceptions of human flourishing; thus the criterion of justice can be compatible with diverse national institutional schemes and ways of life, and can gain broad international acceptance. As stated above, Pogge classifies a “conception of ethics” as cosmopolitan if its assessments and prescriptions are based on taking equal account of the interests of all human beings. Note that whether Singer’s utilitarianism counts as a cosmopolitan conception of ethics, so understood, seems to depend on whether preferences, as Singer understands them, are conceptually distinct from interests, as Pogge understands them. Pogge classifies a conception of justice as a form of “social justice cosmopolitanism” if and only if its assessments and prescriptions are based on taking equal account of the interests of all human beings; therefore, whether Singer’s utilitarian positions on institutional, political, and policy-related issues express a cosmopolitan conception of social justice, so understood, also seems to depend on whether preferences are conceptually distinct from interests. In order to understand Pogge’s contention that every human being has a global stature as the ultimate unit of moral concern, one must examine how he construes the meanings and logical interrelations of the ideas of an interest, a preference, a need, and a human right. Beitz (1979/1999) says little about human rights; however, in his later book (2009) Beitz develops a “practical” conception of human rights, based on what he sees as an insight implicit in Rawls’s way of conceiving them. Human rights, according to Beitz, are the articulation in the public morality of world politics of the idea that each

M

person is a subject of global concern. He describes the global human rights practice as consisting of (1) a set of norms for the regulation of states, which are expressed in the main international human rights instruments, and (2) a set of modes or strategies of action, for which violations of the norms may count as reasons. Beitz criticizes Rawls’s view of the practical functions of human rights as much narrower than what is found in present international practice. Tan (2004) develops a “Rawlsian” global egalitarianism that requires distributive equality for the reason that the basic rights of the poor cannot be fully met as long as there are great inequalities between people. He points out that from this perspective, concern with equality derives from the more basic moral concern with ensuring that people are able to meet their basic needs. A different approach might, he suggests, take distributive justice to be a fundamental or direct concern, for example, by showing that the basic rights of individuals must include the right to equal consideration, and that this right to equal consideration entails among other things a direct concern with distributive equality between persons. Both Moellendorf (2002, 2009) and Brock (2009) decline to formulate their conceptions of justice in terms of human rights. Brock offers two reasons for not doing so: (1) an account of needs is more fundamental than an account of human rights, and (2) the language of needs is much more widely used in a greater range of cultures than is the language of human rights. Brock contends that all of the human rights in the UDHR can be grounded in her account of basic needs together with a commitment to equality between persons. Moellendorf (2009) bases his conception of global justice on respect for inherent human dignity and equal respect for all persons, and contends that these moral values entail egalitarian duties of distributive justice both domestically, among compatriots, and globally, among non-compatriots. Moellendorf contrasts his own egalitarian conception of global justice with Pogge’s, describing the latter as a human rights based account that is “sufficientarian,” i.e., mainly concerned with remedying absolute deprivation. This description is disputable: see Jaggar (2010). Caney (2005, 2010) formulates his own conception of justice in terms of rights (affirming Joseph Raz’s “interest theory” of rights), and asserts that all cosmopolitan conceptions of justice are fundamentally committed to the interests and rights of individuals and deny that membership in a nation or state is morally relevant to “a person’s entitlements” or to “the distribution of burdens and benefits.” (Note that since this denial is so strong, as Caney formulates it, arguably not all

715

M

716

M

Moral Cosmopolitanism

cosmopolitans do or must agree with him on this point.) Caney points out the variety of different kinds of arguments given for cosmopolitan conceptions of justice, noting that Onora O’Neill develops a Kantian argument, Robert Goodin and Martha Nussbaum take broadly consequentialist approaches, Henry Shue and Charles Jones argue that all persons should have a certain set of basic rights, and other theorists have employed a more or less Rawlsian contractarian method. Tan’s claim that utilitarians can argue that people ought to establish and support global institutional schemes that can coordinate and apportion duties so as to balance good-maximization, agent-centered restrictions, and agent-centered prerogatives, amounts to a set of specifications for, or an incomplete formulation of, a utilitarian conception of justice applying to political, economic, or social institutions. Note here the distinction between a utilitarian conception of moral reasoning in general and a utilitarian conception of justice, which is a conception of moral reasoning about political, economic, or social institutions. This corresponds to the distinction between moral cosmopolitanism and political cosmopolitanism as I construe it for present purposes: I use “moral cosmopolitanism” as explained in the first paragraph of this chapter, and I use “political cosmopolitanism” to refer to a family of conceptions of justice, each based on some form of moral cosmopolitanism, that apply to political, legal, and/or economic institutions and specify morally required or (im) permissible uses of political or, more broadly, institutionalized power. Caney (2010) construes the term “justice-based cosmopolitanism” as encompassing not only what Scheffler (2001) calls “cosmopolitanism about justice” (which Caney interprets as referring solely to cosmopolitan conceptions of distributive justice, and which Caney (2009) termed “juridical cosmopolitanism”) but also cosmopolitan approaches to civil and political justice. Thus justice-based cosmopolitanism holds, Caney says, that there are global principles of justice (civil, political, or economic) that apply to everyone in the world, ascribe entitlements to them all, and may also ascribe responsibilities to them. Caney (2010) uses the term “political cosmopolitanism” to refer to the view that there must be global political and legal institutions, whether a world state (which few cosmopolitans have favored) or a system that disperses power and authority among local, statelevel, international, and global institutions. What Caney terms “political cosmopolitanism” is, he says, termed “institutional” cosmopolitanism by Beitz and “legal” cosmopolitanism by Pogge.

Related Topics

▶ Brock, Gillian ▶ Caney, Simon ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Cosmopolitan Republicanism ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Original Position ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Tan, Kok-Chor

References Appiah KA (2006) Cosmopolitanism: ethics in a world of strangers. Norton, New York Beitz C (1979/1999) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Beitz C (2009) The idea of human rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford Brock G (2009) Global justice: a cosmopolitan account. Oxford University Press, Oxford Caney S (2005) Justice beyond borders: a global political theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Caney S (2009) Cosmopolitanism and justice. In: Christiano T, Christman J (eds) Contemporary debates in political philosophy. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford Caney S (2010) Cosmopolitanism. In: Bell D (ed) Ethics and world politics. Oxford University Press, Oxford Jaggar A (ed) (2010) Thomas Pogge and his critics. Polity Press, Cambridge Jones C (1999) Global justice: defending cosmopolitanism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kleingeld P, Brown E (2006) Cosmopolitanism. In: Zalta EN (ed) Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Stanford University Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford, CA, USA. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmopolitanism/. Accessed 1 Apr 2011 Moellendorf D (2002) Cosmopolitan justice. Westview Press, Boulder Moellendorf D (2009) Global inequality matters. Palgrave Macmillan, New York Pogge T (1992) Cosmopolitanism and sovereignty. Ethics 103(1):48–75 Pogge T (2007) Cosmopolitanism. In: Goodin R, Pettit P (eds) A companion to contemporary political philosophy. Blackwell, Oxford Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1993) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, New York Scheffler S (1982) The rejection of consequentialism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Scheffler S (ed) (1988) Consequentialism and its critics. Oxford University Press, Oxford Scheffler S (2001) Boundaries and allegiances: problems of justice and responsibility in liberal thought. Oxford University Press, Oxford Singer P (1972) Famine, affluence, and morality. Philos Public Aff 1:229–243 Singer P (2002/2004) One world: the ethics of globalization. Yale University Press, New Haven Singer P (2006) Why care about equality? Cato-unbound.org. http:// www.cato-unbound.org/2006/03/07/peter-singer/why-care-aboutequality/. Accessed 1 Apr 2011 Tan K (2004) Justice without borders: cosmopolitanism, nationalism and patriotism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Moral Distance Tan K (2010) Poverty and global distributive justice. In: Bell D (ed) Ethics and world politics. Oxford University Press, Oxford Waldron J (1992) Minority cultures and the cosmopolitan alternative. Univ Mich J Law Reform 25(3–4):751–793 Wood A (1999) Kant’s ethical thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Moral Distance WENDY C. HAMBLET Department of Liberal Studies, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, NC, USA

A compelling issue that has captivated philosophers for millennia is the question of the connection between justice and the distance of the moral agent, who enjoys the means to relieve suffering, from the victims of suffering, who are without means. The question of moral distance is crucial to the theme of global justice because those with the means to help the most miserable people on the planet dwell far from the places where the impoverished and disenfranchised huddle. If the needs of unfortunate others can lay claim to the consciences of those well off only in close proximity, then the hopes for a more just world are dashed from the outset. The question of moral distance has taken on special global implications in the wake of World War II, as post-Holocaust philosophers attempt to understand how the civilized countries of the world stood by and observed, from their various safe distances, but for long years failed to intervene, as European Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, mental patients, and the many other victims were systematically annihilated by the German Third Reich. The philosophico-moral question is whether compassion for a suffering being is awakened in detached rational reflection upon the good and an objective evaluation of the significance of mutual support to the preservation of earthly life and species’ well-being, or whether the sufferer must overcome rational objectivity and geographical distance and find her way into the direct perceptual range of the moral agent in order to awaken the moral sensibility that will elicit a compassionate response to her suffering. Primo Levi writes: “To all of us there remains in the best of cases only the sporadic pity addressed to the single individual, the Mitmensch, the co-man: the human being standing before us, within the reach of our providentially myopic senses” (The Drowned and the Saved).

M

The postmodern thinker most famed for founding his rethinking of ethics in terms of moral distance is French Lithuanian Jewish thinker, Emmanuel Levinas, who posits “proximity” as the conditio sine qua non of concrete acts of goodness in the world. In the essay “The Ego and the Totality,” Levinas explains how moral possibility arises from out of a state of moral myopia, or “living being” (Levinas 1993: 25–46). Resonating the phenomenological experience of Western subjects, throwing themselves as autonomous, free subjects into their various life projects, living beings, explains Levinas, mistake themselves as totalities, worlds unto themselves. As islands, they believe themselves to enter and depart, at will, the web of human relations, much less the web of earthly life. The solipsistic self-understanding that results in moral myopia rests not on a deliberate rejection of moral responsibility, according to Levinas, but simply on a lack of thinking; a living being innocently fails to address what lies outside its world as lying outside its world. People must find themselves in direct proximity to suffering – “face to face” with the widow, the orphan, and the alien – if their solipsism is to be ruptured by the harsh reality of deprivation that exists beyond the self-enclosed world. Only in proximity does the face challenge the innocent freedom of self-enclosure, throwing the subject from active heroic freedom into passive undergoing, where no refuge exists, the inverse of a retreat, utter homelessness. A truly external thing, the sufferer awakens the ethical dimension of being in the subject, who suddenly discovers itself to be guilty and appreciates the violences that mere living-for-self effects. Levinas frames ethics as a problem of distance; the moral challenge is a challenge of geography. The family of living things, the infinitely complex interrelatedness of the world’s myriad beings, is not a self-evident fact for subjects caught up in their individual worlds. The needy must storm the safe house, rupture the self-enclosure. She must be spatially in the agent’s face to deliver her demand for care. Levinas seems to trust that if the sufferer can arrive in proximity, my moral response can be assured. However, Fyodor Dostoevsky, another thinker of profound insight into the connection between distance and moral response, insists that proximity brings no guarantee of compassionate response to the needy. Dostoevsky argues that les miserables arouse little more than disgust when they are in proximity. In The Brothers Karamazov, he has Ivan Karamazov (his philosophical alter ego) explore the connection between moral response and distance. Ivan declares that he has never been able to understand the idea of neighborly love. While it is easy to love those farther away, outside the critical gaze that stimulates repugnance, Ivan does not believe the legend of the saint, John the

717

M

718

M

Moral Distance

Merciful, who is reputed, out of love, to have gathered up the “hungry, frozen beggar” in his arms and breathed into his festering, reeking mouth. Such acts could only be understood as “self-imposed penance” and not true love of neighbor (Dostoevsky 1995: 218). Ivan’s monkbrother, Alyosha, concurs with this observation. He notes that even the good Father Zossima had repeatedly spoken of this difficulty, saying “the face of a man often hinders many people not practiced in love, from loving him.” Ivan assures his brother: “One can love one’s neighbors in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters it is almost impossible” (Dostoevsky 1995: 219). Ivan’s response resonates with empirical experience. Most people, meeting needy strangers on the streets of their cities, shy away from them in fear or loathing. The unknown other is terrifying, horrifying. Elizabeth Spelman locates loathing as an implicit element within the noble reaction of pity. She argues that the most generous philanthropist clings to the conviction that “certain kinds of experiences are had by certain kinds of people and, by gum, I’m not that kind of person” (Spelman 1997: 120). Spelman highlights the impossibility of establishing the common ground with the needy that permits compassion (com or “with” plus passus or “feeling”). Those who live in decent conditions have “irreconcilable differences” with those who live as miserable indigents, which differences assure the impossibility of true compassion or empathy. Scientists concur, claiming the lack of a ground of commonality is the foundational problem for ethics. Psychiatrist Bernard L. Diamond explains “To have a sense of compassion and ethicomoral feeling toward another, one must be able to identify with the other, to have a libidinal investment in the other person as a love object, or at least as a narcissistic projection” (Henry and Sanford 1971: 128). Dostoevsky agrees that human beings are incapable of the “Christ-like love” that might connect us with our abject fellows. The aversion is not attributable to “an evil heart” but is more of an esthetic aversion. If only beggars would show up in “silken rags and tattered lace and beg for alms dancing gleefully,” as they do on the stage and in the ballet, they might be capable of appealing to our consciences (Dostoevsky 1995: 219). Nearness frustrates compassion, subverts good intentions, and undermines the common ground upon which the moral agent might connect to the needy other. For Levinas geographical immediacy is the only factor that has a claim upon conscience. Many scholars disagree and argue that distance is needed to overcome our loathing inspired by contact with the abject miserables. Even if

we grant Levinas the generous claim that if we could see the problem directly, we would be more inclined to act to relieve suffering, the moral problem remains. The prosperous of the world reside largely in the powerful nations which are able to compete and flourish in the context of a changing industrial world. On the other hand, the needy of the world reside far from the prosperous; their faces, so distant from our myopic gaze, cannot awaken their neighbors’ consciences. Even the hungry and homeless, tucked neatly away in their cardboard homes under the bridges and in the alleys of the rich nations, cannot seem to impose a claim upon the consciences of the wealthy. Near and far, sufferers are rarely seen or heard, and when they do occasionally riot or steal, rules of civility require that observers turn away and not draw attention to their neighbors’ abjection. Most people are content to keep a healthy distance from the poor and to leave to church and state the matters of welfare and karitas. Thus, the problem remains: how to motivate among the well-fed, the ones who have hands full enough to give, projects of global justice that serve the desperate needs of those who dwell in the distant hollows of the moral universe, oceans away from the proximate site of responsibility? Dostoevsky offers a resolution to the dilemma of distance and ethical response. Perhaps we cannot feel anything but disgust when we peer at the wasting skeletons from distant lands, as they accuse us through our television screens. But we can always love the children. “Children can be loved even at close quarters, even when they are dirty, even when they are ugly,” states Ivan Karamazov. However, the flaw in Ivan’s reasoning is revealed in the catalog of child abuse with which his discourse began. Children – beautiful lovable, innocent children – are daily tortured and murdered, herded from their homes, sold into slavery, and prostituted, in Dostoevsky’s time no more frequently than in our own. A full fourth of the homeless in the United States are children under the age of 10. Children every day are abandoned by their fathers and left to the care of struggling mothers to raise as best they can, while fellow-citizens grumble that their tax dollars must support the “lazy” mothers. If those with the means cannot hear, with compassion and conscience, the cries of the children in their own nations, there is little hope that the cries of the distant needy will break through the morally insular life worlds of the wealthy and rupture their disgust for the miserable.

Related Topics ▶ Altruism ▶ Common Good

Moral Equality

References Diamond B (1971) Failures of identification and sociopathic behavior. In: Henry WE, Sanford N (eds) Sanctions for evil. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, pp 125–135 Dostoevsky F (1933) The brothers Karamazov (trans: Garnett C). Heritage, New York Levinas E (1969) Totality and infinity (trans: Lingis A). Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh Levinas E (1991) Otherwise than being or beyond essence (trans: Lingis A). Kluwer, Dordrecht Levinas E (1993) Collected philosophical papers (trans: Lingis A). Kluwer, Dordrecht Spelman E (1997) Fruits of sorrow: framing our attention to suffering. Beacon, Boston

Moral Equality BRUCE M. LANDESMAN Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

The United States Declaration of Independence asserts that “all men are created equal,” and “endowed. . .with certain unalienable rights,” including rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There are two important things here: first, equality; second, its implication – basic rights. Not all societies have believed that people are born equal. Caste, slave, religious, and aristocratic societies have found some superior and others inferior by birth. Human equality, as a political idea, is a product of the Western liberal political tradition, starting, roughly, in the seventeenth century. Thomas Hobbes, one of the founders of this tradition, said, in Leviathan (1651), that the question of who is “better” has no place in the condition of nature, where all men are equal. John Locke, a generation later (1689), also asserted that all are equal, born with the same faculties and capacities. For this reason, no one is superior by nature and no one has rightful authority over anyone else. The declaration and the thinkers mentioned say that people are “born equal” but they surely meant that people remain equal throughout their lives. It might be suggested that, while people are born equal, they become unequal as they grow and develop their abilities. Some, for example, have greater talents than others. If I need an electrician to fix a problem in my house, people are not equal for me. I want somehow who is superior in their ability to fix electrical problems.

M

Could it be, then, that the founders thought that people were born equal but this was only a momentary fact about their origin, soon to be undone by their unequal development? This would be a strange interpretation. It would leave ungrounded the idea that people are equal in their rights throughout their lives. That implication would not follow from equality possessed only at the moment of birth. It is clear that the founders and others promoting the idea of equality at the time intended that to mean that people are and remain equals, not only at birth, but throughout their lives. Hobbes, for example, followed up his view that people are equal by nature by laying down as one of the Laws of Nature conformity to which is required for peace that everyone acknowledge others and their equals by nature. But how can this be? People differ enormously in their abilities, their temperament, their reliability, and more. In countless ways they are not equal as a matter of fact and as a matter of evaluative judgment. In response to this, we can make a distinction between equality and inequality as an instrumental value, and equal worth as a value inherent in people simply because of their humanity. Due to their different competences and excellences, people are surely unequal with respect to their usefulness to others. They are unequal instrumentally. This is compatible, however, with holding that people have the same value as human beings. They have the same “intrinsic” moral worth, despite their different abilities and achievements. The difference in talents (and certainly in wealth or power) does not make any person superior to another as a human being. Imagine a pompous aristocrat or a wealthy business entrepreneur, quite proud of their wealth, power, or ability, who looks down on others as lesser beings. In a liberal society, no one would have the slightest trouble in saying to that person. "

You may be richer than me, smarter than me, more talented and famous than me, but I am just as good as you are as a human being. My life has just the same value and importance as yours.

This is an expression of the equality of intrinsic moral value, which we can call “moral equality” for short. Every person’s life counts and counts equally independent of his or her achievements. This idea is deeply entrenched in a liberal society, a society of people perceived fundamentally as free and equal. How does one defend the idea that people are equal in their moral worth? It is easy to understand what it is for people to be unequal at baseball or plumbing. But the idea that they are equal in themselves sounds vague, “metaphysical.” There is no feature that all persons share (except their common humanity) that grounds moral equality.

719

M

720

M

Moral Equality

It is therefore difficult to defend moral equality by any premises that go deeper than it does. The best defense is therefore a negative one. Consider those who claim that people are unequal. Why do they believe that? They tend to appeal to factual claims that cannot withstand scrutiny, such as the superior intelligence of one “race” or gender over another. There are two problems with such arguments. First, they tend to be factually baseless. Whatever members of the preferred group can do, members of other group can do as well. The belief that they cannot is often based on stereotypes and discrimination – on the denial of opportunity to victims groups that prevents them from developing their abilities. Time after time, “inferior” groups, when given the chance, have shown themselves just as capable as the allegedly superior groups. Secondly, even if there is a difference between members of groups, that difference does not justify inequalities. That one group routinely scores higher on IQ scores, for example, does not show they should have fewer rights with regard to health care or education. The denial of inequality is often based on a gigantic non sequitur. Opponents of moral equality may also rely on religious views – God has placed persons in different “ranks,” has made some superior, others inferior. Such a religious claim can neither be proved nor disproved. It goes beyond any evidence accessible to all. Liberal views cannot thus depend on religious premises, as they must appeal to premises reasonable to all. Moral equality thus wins by default. Attempts to deny it must rest on false empirical ideas or religious ideas that can have no place in a liberal democratic politics. One issue about moral equality is whether a person might lose it by actions that are morally atrocious. Consider Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, and Mohammed Atta. There are some tendencies to think that such people, through the great evil their actions represent, lose their standing as an equal. This is a difficult question that will not be pursued here. The idea that people can forfeit their equal standing has much plausibility. At the same time we should realize that when such people are caught, we believe they are entitled to due process just like anyone else. If they are to be punished, they have the right to a fair trial. We do not treat them as a dangerous wild animal to be killed, but still insist on treating them as an equal before the law. Whatever we conclude on this, we should note that most people do not do the sorts of wrong that seems so evil as to make it arguable that they have forfeited their equal moral standing as a human being.

Moral equality, we have noted, has implications. The US founders saw it as implying certain rights. It is also usually taken to underlie other important values, including the rule of law, the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of race, gender or ethnic status, equal opportunity, and the right to participate in the politics that affects one’s life. None of these values, inherent in a liberal society, makes sense except against the background of moral equality. What does moral equality entail with regard to the material goods that are either necessary or useful for a person to lead a good human life, to attain well-being? Let’s call these goods socioeconomic goods. Here matters are much more controversial and complicated. We note first that there are disagreements about just how to determine human well-being for the purposes of socioeconomic distribution. Secondly, there are many competing accounts of social and distributive justice. Moral equality, in itself, is thought by many to suggest the desirability of equality with regard to human well-being. But other factors and values play a role that makes equality less compelling. One is the free market which has proved, under the right circumstances, to be a system that can improve the well-being of all. It, however, inevitably produces inequalities because of the different abilities people bring to the market and the unequal way they are rewarded. Also relevant are considerations of liberty (including economic liberty), choice, desert, and efficiency, all of which can be appealed to suggest that significant inequality is justified. On the other side, appeals to reciprocity and community tend to promote equality. Also important is the fact that great inequality of economic and political power tends to skew the democratic process in favor of those already welloff and tends both to diminish the sense of equal standing (and self-respect) for those on the bottom and reinforce a sense of superiority for those on the top. This is not the place to go into a lengthy discussion of theories of justice. We note, in conclusion, that almost any theory, whether leaning toward equality or inequality, can be seen as providing an interpretation of what it means to treat people as moral equals. John Rawls’s famous theory (1971), which leans toward equality, is based on the idea that treating people as equals means living under principles all could agree to if all are rational. On the other hand, Robert Nozick’s famous libertarian theory (1974) holds that treating people as moral equals means respecting their liberty and choice, including their economic liberty, that is their right to earn a wage, accrue capital, and use it as they choose, and not in accord with governmental dictates. For such a libertarian, interfering with an unequal market

Moral Imperialism

distribution to produce greater equality fails to respect people as equals. In sum, treating people as moral equals is fundamental to liberal theories of distributive justice, despite their extreme differences. It is not, however, sufficient to settle the issue. That question involves the importance of other values besides moral equality, such values as liberty, desert, opportunity, efficiency, reciprocity, and community. A society that does not recognize moral equality cannot be just. But the recognition of moral equality is not enough to answer the question as to what account of distributive justice is most justified. In particular it leaves open the question of the appropriate extent of equality versus inequality in the distribution of socioeconomic goods. Finally, one last issue that needs to be mentioned is the scope and extent of considerations of distributive justice. Some hold that persons owe a fair distribution of socioeconomic goods only to members of their own society. Distributive justice is something for each society to achieve among its members. Outsiders are not to be neglected; they are owed noninterference and humanitarian aid in achieving minimal subsistence and rights. There is, however, no justifiable demand for equality among societies. We can call this view Liberal Nationalism. Others hold that justice must be global and demands a more equal distribution of goods among all the people on this planet, regardless of nationality. Where people are born is a matter of fortune and there is no good reason why citizens of affluent states should do so much better than citizens of poor and failing societies just because of their good luck. On this more “cosmopolitan” view, justice demands greater equality among nations. In this issue, as in others, moral equality plays a role. It demands that outsiders not be overlooked and at the very least be offered assistance when they are in dire straits. But the question of how much equality there should be among nations and people depends on additional considerations, just as it does with regard to considerations of justice within a society.

Related Topics

▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Impartiality Thesis ▶ Global Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Liberal Nationalism

References Hobbes T (1651, 1991) Leviathan, part I. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (Chaps 13 and 15)

M

721

Locke J (1689, 1980) The second treatise of civil government. Hackett, Indianapolis (Chap 2) Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state and utopia. Basic Books, New York Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Clarendon Press, Oxford Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Vlastos V (1962) Justice and equality. In: Brandt R (ed) Social justice. Prentice Hall, Prentice Hall, pp 31–72 Williams B (1962) The idea of equality. In: Laslett P, Runciman WG (eds) Philosophy, politics and society. Blackwell, Oxford

Moral Imperialism RYAN JENKINS Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

Broadly, moral imperialism is the imposition of a set of moral values onto a culture that does not share those values, either through force or through cultural criticism. The charge of moral imperialism is leveled against theorists and commentators who feel entitled to force a system of morality onto another culture or to criticize moral codes different from their own. There are a number of reasons that the charge of moral imperialism should concern scholars of global justice. First, we might worry that by criticizing other cultures, we are apt to unwittingly caricature their views. Second, we might also insult their culture by treating it as static and homologous, which would fail to appreciate the organic complexity and richness of other moral systems, even those with which we disagree stridently. Third, any criticism, if we are not careful, can slip from wellintentioned to demeaning and damaging. If that were to happen, it might appear that cultural critics were purposefully perpetuating patterns of subjugation or moral elitism that treat other systems of belief as less than their own. It is obvious that moral codes differ around the world. It is just as natural to want to criticize other cultures to which we feel superior. Moral imperialism presents a problem for theorists because it can often seem selfevident that other systems of morality are inferior to our own. This entry will explore why we might feel tempted to criticize other cultures and the difficulties involved with such a critique. Last, it will discuss ways we might hope to overcome those difficulties in order to make meaningful yet sensitive cross-cultural criticism possible. First, why might we want to criticize other cultures? We are often shocked by the moral beliefs of others: by

M

722

M

Moral Imperialism

moral systems that confine women, for example, or formally oppress a racial minority. This seems wrong to us, and we say so. In order to criticize, we might grasp at moral notions that we think retain their force when crossing cultural borders: for example, to say that a practice is wrong because it violates human rights, inhibits the autonomy of individuals, or perpetuates unequal power relationships. Certainly it would be unreasonable to let all practices alone just because they belong to a different culture. In fact, it would be downright irresponsible to turn a blind eye to the worst offenders – for example, genocidal regimes or the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) – and the suffering they cause. Criticizing other cultures, when done properly, is done out of a concern for ameliorating this suffering or ending these injustices.

The Charge of Moral Imperialism The charge of moral imperialism is leveled against criticisms like these, and there are several routes that respondents can take. First, some philosophers attack cultural critics on the ground that their views are inevitably influenced by their position in society, and therefore their standpoint colors their views of their own and other cultures. There are two related worries here. The first is that we might caricature other cultures as homogenous and monolithic. Chandra Mohanty points this out in her essay “Under Western Eyes,” where she faults Western feminists for too often characterizing women in other cultures primarily by their common dependence or subjugation, rather than as individual agents. Other cultures are composed of the mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive categories of oppressive men and oppressed women. Painting with such a broad brush is factually inaccurate and demeaning to the variety of roles and relationships within such a culture. As well, using such superficial shorthand for the practices of other cultures could overlook some of the positive contributions of cultural practices that we find abhorrent. Cudd relays that some allegedly oppressed inhabitants of the developing world could in fact “see the constraints on freedom and rights that Western political philosophers object to as positively constitutive of their lives.” In an extreme case, some theorists have countered criticisms of FGM by saying that women who have undergone the practice find that it contributes positively to their self-image. Second, we might respond along relativist lines that cross-cultural criticism is incoherent. We might take up the position that says that the moral values of

a community extend only as far as membership in that community. Charles Taylor, for example, argues that the value attached to experiences or relationships within a community depends analytically on the prior existence of a community that values them. If it were true that morality were relative to cultures, then we would face the potential problem of having no common ground on which to criticize others. Any project of universalizing values would therefore be doomed to failure on metaethical grounds. To say that some moral practice is wrong because it limits the autonomy of individuals, for example, would be to make a mistake because, outside a culture that values it, the lack of autonomy would simply not be a bad thing. Third, there are pseudo-ethical reasons that should give us pause. It is common enough to worry that we are being hypocritical when we criticize moral codes that require women to wear a hijab. These critics would argue that Western culture is “no better” in its preferred image of feminine beauty. Western standards objectify women, they might say, just as much as some Middle Eastern cultures subjugate women and repress their free expression by requiring them to cover their faces. As long as that situation persists, it is simply “not our place” to criticize, presumably because it demonstrates gross hypocrisy, and therefore a disregard for propriety. A related worry is that even the most well-meaning cultural critiques could carry an attitude of condescension in the same way that nineteenth-century colonialism did when carried out under the standard of the White Man’s Burden, which was a thinly veiled attempt to treat other belief systems as less than Western. By claiming to have their best interests at heart, we risk a demeaning paternalism. Fourth, some communitarians like Walzer argue that either culture itself or cultural continuity is something to be valued. To that end, it does violence to an intrinsic good when we impose our values on other cultures. In the very least, we ought to be mindful of disrupting the organic continuity of a culture and understand that such continuity provides a reason against interference. Finally, the use of force to impose our values on others or the threat of punishment immediately makes any crosscultural criticism more problematic. For example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) often offers financial assistance to countries on the condition that they alter their economic structures, creating “Free Trade Zones” or removing barriers to foreign investment. In 1984, the United States federal government raised the national drinking age to 21. The federal government then threatened to withhold 10% of the annual funding for highway construction from each state unless that state adopted the

Moral Innocence and Harm

new law. Both of these practices might be seen as the infliction of punishment on a subordinate for not conforming to the moral views of those in positions of power. As a third example, one rationalization of the United States’ 2003 invasion of Iraq is that Iraqi citizens are at least “better off ” now that they live under a democratic regime. Critics might argue that such a question is best left for Iraqis themselves to decide, and complain that such reasoning smacks of paternalism.

Drawing a Principled Line Now we seem to be in a conundrum. The problems outlined above, though we might think some are more serious than others, still constitute a formidable challenge to crosscultural critique. But few of us are prepared to completely abandon the critique of other cultures’ most egregious practices. That would require ignoring the presence of the horrendous moral transgressions that have characterized, and still too often do characterize, the international stage. So, if we are committed to cross-cultural criticism, how might we proceed in a sensitive and principled manner? In order to sidestep all of the above worries, our criticisms would have to: (1) adopt a sensitivity toward other cultures, listening to their narratives, while expressing a willingness to criticize our own moral practices on similar grounds; (2) be mindful of the value of cultural continuity itself and thereby seek the least-intrusive methods of intervention available; and (3) avoid physical force or economic sanctions as much as possible. (Even so, there are some worries above that we cannot answer except to deny them altogether. We cannot proceed with any kind of criticism if the moral relativist is correct, and we might therefore be content to simply conclude that relativism is wrong.) Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen have developed one conception of human flourishing that revolves around the freedom to develop and exercise capabilities that exist naturally in all people. In Young’s celebrated essay, “Five Faces of Oppression,” she takes a similar route to criticizing oppression. What is bad about oppression, including cultural imperialism, is that it inhibits peoples’ abilities to “develop and exercise their capacities to express their needs, thoughts and feelings.” For Cudd, the proper approach to cross-cultural critique is an approach she calls “humanism,” which entails “nonviolent and respectful attempts to help the oppressed find a path out of their oppression.” On Nussbaum’s theory, valuable human capabilities include political participation, bodily health, and practical reason. Cultural practices that impinge on the development of these capabilities, then, are legitimate targets

M

723

for criticism. Importantly, this is as long as we are willing to criticize our own culture on similar grounds. We might criticize FGM on the grounds that it causes serious bodily harm. We cannot at the same time turn a blind eye to the harmful effects of crash dieting that many women in America are pressured to bear as a result of our cultural ideal of beauty. However, and Nussbaum agrees, these two practices clearly vary to the degree they cause harm and the degree to which they are coerced, and therefore to the degree we ought to be concerned about them. Critiquing foreign cultures requires us to walk a fine line. From the standpoint of global justice, the worry is that by criticizing others we perpetuate a moral elitism that subjugates or demeans other traditions. Some theorists charge that moral critique of foreign practices is impossible or inappropriate; others feel it is invaluable. It seems clear, though, that there are viable ways of criticizing the harmful or oppressive practices of others as long as our critique is mindful of the concerns laid out here.

Related Topics

▶ Cultural Relativism ▶ Female Genital Mutilation ▶ Feminist Ethics ▶ Human Rights ▶ Liberal Pluralism ▶ Liberalism ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Young, Iris Marion

References Cudd A (2005) Missionary positions. Hypatia 20:164–182 Mohanty CT, Russo A, Torres L (eds) (1991) Third world women and the politics of feminism. Indiana University Press, Indianapolis Narayan U (1997) Dislocating culture: identities, traditions, and third world feminism. Routledge, New York Nussbaum M (1999) Sex and social justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford Okin SM (1999) Is multiculturalism bad for women? In: Cohen J, Howard M, Nussbaum M (eds) Is multiculturalism bad for women? Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 9–24 Walzer M (2006) Thick and thin: moral argument at home and abroad. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame Young I (1990) Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Moral Innocence and Harm ▶ Non-Combatant Immunity

M

724

M

Moral Legitimacy

Moral Legitimacy FRED E. FOLDVARY Civil Society Institute, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, USA

Something is legitimate when it conforms to rules. The rules can be logical, moral, customary, institutional, or legal. Global justice requires the global implementation of moral legitimacy, based on universal moral principles. The term “legitimacy” derives from the Latin word “legitimare,” meaning “to make lawful,” stemming in turn from “legi,” the law. Legal legitimacy means in accordance with the law, such as the law prescribing heredity for legitimate heirs. Customary legitimacy means in accord with traditions and the rules of religions and customs. For example, a legitimate complaint is made against an action that is not within the customary rules, such as, for example, a neighbor making more noise than is customary. Institutional legitimacy means moral legitimacy applied to an institution, as people pass judgment on whether an institution such as the land tenure system fulfils moral criteria. Moral legitimacy means in accord with the rules of an ethic. For example, a government may claim legal legitimacy, its laws and rulers being established under its constitution, but it can be accused of not having moral legitimacy if its actions are not in accord with moral criteria. Moral legitimacy is relative to a moral standard. If moral legitimacy has a universal meaning, as implied by global justice, this implies that the moral rules by which to judge legitimacy are also universal, applying to all persons. A universal ethic would have to transcend culture and not be dependent on the beliefs, values, and biases of particular individuals. Moral philosophers such as John Locke (1690) have converged on the basic universal moral rule that coercive harm to others is morally wrong. Harm is an invasion into another’s domain, such as a physical assault or theft of property. People who disagree with this moral rule have other criteria based on their beliefs. Most people’s ethics come from tradition, including religion, and so they would deem some acts that are merely offensive, but not invasions, to be morally improper and lacking in moral legitimacy. A legal or moral right is a correlative of a moral wrong. For example, the right to own property means that it is morally evil for others to steal that property. The moral

right to speak freely means that it is morally wrong for others to negate that speech, to stop someone from speaking or to limit the speech. The philosophy of natural rights generally endows persons with the moral right to do whatever does not coercively harm others. Justice is the application of an ethic, and global justice implies the existence of a universal ethic that is enacted into legislation. By this standard, laws that are in accord with the universal ethic are morally legitimate, and those that violate universal human rights are illegitimate. To the extent that a government’s laws are morally illegitimate, so too is the government itself. Complete moral legitimacy means that the laws and policies of a government are in total harmony with a universal ethic. In the Lockean ethic, moral legitimacy occurs when the laws prohibit coercive harm to others, and do not restrict or impose costs on peaceful and honest human action. Peaceful action does not coercively harm others, and honest action avoids fraud, which is a type of theft. By these criteria, no government on earth is currently completely morally legitimate. But global justice is a matter of degree, and so countries can be ranked as to having greater and lesser moral legitimacy. In the philosophy of John Locke, when a government severely violates liberty and justice, the people may rightly overthrow that illegitimate government, and establish a new, morally legitimate government. The American Declaration of Independence drew from the thought of Locke to justify the revolution and independence from British rule. But if it justifies itself by rebelling against moral illegitimacy, to be morally consistent, the revolt itself must also be morally legitimate. A righteous revolution must therefore focus any use of force on the government it is opposing, and take care to minimize undue harm to civilians and innocent parties. Civil disobedience has been used to protest and seek to change laws that the participants believe are morally illegitimate. Peaceful civil disobedience draws from the 1849 essay by Henry David Thoreau, “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”. Leaders who practiced civil disobedience include Martin Luther King and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. However, civil disobedience is not successful if the chief of state is so ruthless that he is willing to murder all opponents. The strategy was successful under moderately oppressive states such as the UK and the southern states of the USA during the civil rights struggle, as these governments claimed to respect justice under the rule of law, and civil disobedience could then point out the contradictions and hypocrisy of the governments.

Moral Reasoning

The liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet rule is another example where civil disobedience against morally illegitimate power succeeded, whereas it probably would not have achieved liberation under the rule of Stalin. The complete moral legitimacy of any state is questioned by anarchists, who believe that no state can be morally legitimate, since states claim what they believe is an illegitimate monopoly on the use of force. Also, aside from having some laws that violate justice, judging from natural rights as described above, almost all states have acquired their territory from conquest, which was not legitimate. However, the past cannot be undone. Governments can move closer to fuller moral legitimacy by compensating for past injustice where feasible, and by moving toward and achieving the global social justice of respecting the moral rights of both citizens and foreign persons. Some claim that a government’s legitimacy derives from democracy, from its being elected by the majority of the people. But a majority can oppress a minority. Moral legitimacy mainly derives from the justice of the laws and policies of a government. A dictator who perfectly implements moral rights could claim moral legitimacy stemming from establishing justice, although this could not be a pure dictatorship, since the dictator would have to shape policies such as the provision of public goods based on the desires of the people. Since a dictator could be malevolent, and few would achieve perfect justice, a decentralized constitutional democracy is in practice the best safeguard for a morally legitimate government in accord with global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Democracy, Constitutional ▶ Democratic Legitimacy ▶ Global Ethic ▶ Political Autonomy ▶ Secession

References Foldvary F (1980) The soul of liberty: the universal ethic of freedom and human rights. Gutenberg, Berkeley Forster B (2007) Moral legitimacy and the social entrepreneur. http:// www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/focusareas/business/conference/2007/ presentations/BillForster.pdf Locke J (1690 [1947]) Two treatises of government, ed. Cook ThI. Hafner, New York Monson CH (1949) A comparative study of Locke and Spinoza on the moral legitimacy of government. University of Utah, Salt Lake City Thoreau HD (1849 [2008]) On the duty of civil disobedience [resistance to civil government]. Manor, Rockville, MD Yankelovich D (1974) A crisis of moral legitimacy. Dissent (Fall). http:// www.danyankelovich.com/acrisis.pdf

M

725

Moral Luck ▶ Luck Egalitarianism

Moral Reasoning BONGRAE SEOK Department of Humanities/Philosophy, Alvernia University, Reading, PA, USA

Reasoning is a cognitive process where one piece of information (usually expressed in a sentence, statement, or proposition) is drawn from another piece or pieces of information, following the rules that preserve the truth in the newly derived information. That is, in a non-fallacious reasoning, if the original information is true then, with a right reasoning process, the newly generated information should be true too. In a broad sense of the term, moral reasoning refers to the reasoning on moral issues, the issues related to moral values and normative standards. It is used in the construction, explanation, justification, and application of moral principles, rules, regulations, and decisions. There are three different views on the nature of moral reasoning. The first view regards moral reasoning as a special application of the general reasoning ability to the issues of morality (the issues regarding values, norms, and good life). According to this view, moral reasoning does not refer to a special form of reasoning; it refers to how the general faculty of reasoning works on moral issues or dilemmas. In this view, reasoning is regarded as a domain general process of cognition that is not affected by the content of (the topics and issues conveyed in) reasoning. The domain generality of reasoning is a major guiding principle of formal logic. In formal logic, when an argument is evaluated for its validity, only the formal (syntactic) structure of the constituting propositions, not their semantic content (what the argument discusses), is considered. Several psychologists argue for this domain general nature of moral reasoning and human intelligence. Inspired by Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, Kohlberg explains moral development as a gradual but dialectic process of enriching and generalizing the reasoning capacity that can deal with diverse moral issues and dilemmas. As a person goes through different stages of moral development, he or she can deal with moral dilemmas by constructing and justifying unbiased and universal moral principles. In this process of moral

M

726

M

Moral Reasoning

development, moral reasoning shares the same reflective and deliberative ability that one uses to solve nonmoral problems. Thus, in this domain general view, the uniqueness of moral reasoning lies in its application, not in the specialized content of reasoning. From the perspective of justice, this general ability of reasoning characterizes the rational ability of a moral agent. A moral agent is a person who is able to think rationally to balance his or her interest and the interest of others. According to Kohlberg, morally matured individuals can balance their interest and that of others, not by promoting their own rules and feelings, but by appealing to universal principles that any rational human beings can agree and follow. In this context, moral reasoning is regarded as the ability to find universal rules of balancing point where the fair distribution of social resources (distributive justice) and the compensation of previous wrongdoings (corrective justice) are achieved. The second view focuses on the uniqueness of moral reasoning in its domain specificity. According to this view, moral reasoning, unlike other types of reasoning, has specific content areas with the emphasis on a set of peculiar features of human conduct. For example, the performance patterns of modified Wason Selection Task (the reasoning task concerning the understanding of the logical structure of conditional statements like “if p then q”) demonstrate the domain specificity of moral reasoning. It is observed that the subjects performed poorly in their Wason Selection Task. The understanding and manipulation of the logical relations between the antecedent and the consequent of a conditional statement, specifically the recognition and the manipulation of modus tollens (one of the valid reasoning forms that allows the derivation of “not p” from “if p then q” and “not q”), is challenging to most people. When the conditional statements involve the rules of social exchange, i.e., the rules of exchanging cost and benefit, however, their reasoning improves significantly. Cosmides and Tooby analyze this content specific effect in terms of a specialized reasoning ability that detects cheaters who take the benefit from a social exchange without paying the cost. Our moral reasoning (specifically the reasoning about moral violations), according to their view, is highly domain specific. It is triggered by certain features of actions, social arrangements, and relations, but is not active in other non-moral or nonsocial contexts. This type of moral reasoning contributes to our sense of fairness and justice. In the context of distributive justice, the moral reasoning serves as a tool to recognize and enforce the balanced or fair exchange among individuals in their various forms of social contract that specifies

social relations and transactions by keeping track of their costs and benefits. As a result, it facilitates the fair distribution of social resources and the cooperative promotion of public goods by detecting cheating and free riding activities. In the context of corrective justice, this sense of fairness motivates retribution (or revenge) to punish cheaters and free riders, as observed in public goods game where individual players take turns to contribute to their group investment. Third, moral reasoning is not only domain specific but also form specific. Several philosophers and psychologists have observed that specific forms of reasoning exist in the human mind to deal with moral issues. Often, these specialized reasoning patterns are found in our intuitive responses to harms and injuries. As is evident in our reactions to passive euthanasia (i.e., pulling the plug of a life supporting device) and PAS (physician assisted suicide), people usually take harm caused by direct actions more seriously than the harm caused by inaction or negligence, even if the damage created by the latter is similar or equivalent to the damage created by the former. In other situations, harm can be justified conditionally. The use of formal principles such as the double effect in moral reasoning demonstrates that people’s intuitive reasoning on justifiable harm is based on a set of conditions (the absence of the evil intention and the direct action of harm, and the expectation of greater good resulting from the foreseeable but unintentional harm). From these examples, it can be inferred that human moral reasoning follows unique formal rules only applicable to the limited domains of moral issues. From the perspective of corrective or restorative justice, the third type of moral reasoning provides the formal criteria of justifiable actions of harm. In many theories of justice, specifically in the context of the liability of action and the justification of the use of violence, the discussion of justifiable harm and the principle of double effect is essential. For example, the moral and legal analysis of wars and other types of international conflicts often takes the form of moral reasoning, where the justifiability of a military or political action is explained in terms of the satisfaction of several conditions that combine different aspects of action, including its intention, consequence, and acceptable means.

Related Topics

▶ Double Effect, Doctrine of ▶ Harm Principle ▶ Killing and Letting Die ▶ Punishment ▶ War, Just and Unjust

Multiculturalism

References Cosmides L, Tooby J (1992) Cognitive adaptations for social exchange. In: Barkow J, Cosmides L, Tooby J (eds) The adapted mind. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 163–228 Hauser M (2006) Moral minds. Ecco, New York Kohlberg L (1981) Essays on moral development I: the philosophy of moral development. Harper & Row, New York Mikhail J (2007) Universal moral grammar: theory, evidence, and the future. Trends Cogn Sci 11(4):143–152 Nunez M, Harris P (1998) Psychological and deontic concepts: separate domains or intimate connection? Mind Lang 13:153–170 O’Neil P, Petrinovich L (1998) A preliminary cross cultural study of moral intuitions. Evol Hum Behav 19:349–367 Piaget J (1932/1965) The moral judgment of the child. Free Press, New York

M

727

governance, exploiting the thick webs of interdependency and interconnectivity produced by globalization. MEND also exemplifies the phenomenon of “scaling up” protests of grievances from nonviolent to increasingly coercive and violent action. In resorting to hostage taking and kidnappings, MEND’s strategies may be seen as an outgrowth of the perceived failure of nonviolence strategies, following the execution by the Nigerian state of the Ogoni nonviolence activist and leader, Ken Saro Wiwa. To this extent, MEND poses a challenge to the commitment of many theorists of global justice to the regulative ideal of deliberative governance.

Related Topics

Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) MICHAEL ALLEN Department of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

An umbrella composed of several different militant groups operating within the Niger Delta, MEND may be seen as paradigmatic of certain core features of contemporary struggles for global justice and, in particular, the emergence of global publics and transnational, or multileveled, democratic activism. Indeed, along with other groups such as the Zapatistas in Chiapas, MEND exemplifies the ability of groups engaged in local justice struggles to initiate contestatory deliberation and normative change across multiple levels of governance, below and above the level of the nation state. In this respect, the justice struggles undertaken by MEND are firmly grounded in the recognition that local governance issues are often already transnational in character. Indeed, the local environmental justice concerns of the Ogoni people regarding the impacts of “open top” oil drilling in the Niger Delta extend well beyond engagement with governance mechanisms within the Delta alone. Their concerns engage also the Nigerian state with its judiciary and military, the ethics codes of transnational corporations, in particular Royal Dutch Shell, international law, as well as the diverse interacting publics of many different nations with whom the Ogoni establish ties of solidarity. Here the justice struggle depends fundamentally on the creation of a loose network of actors who exert pressure for change across levels of transnational

▶ Civil Disobedience, Transnational ▶ Oil ▶ Zapatistas

References Dryzek JS (2006) Deliberative global politics. Polity, Cambridge http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/02/nigerian-oil/oneill-text/2 http://rethinkingsecurity.typepad.com/rethinkingsecurity/2009/07/mendhalves-nigerian-q1-oil-revenue.html http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/guest-articles/niger-deltaterrorism-and-militant-group-finan.html

Multiculturalism ALEXANDER SAGER Department of Philosophy, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

Multiculturalism comprises a set of policies that address cultural and ethnic diversity. Today, over 200 million people live outside of their country of birth. Most states have diverse populations of immigrants and their descendants. Ethnic groups often campaign for exemptions or privileges to protect them from discrimination or to help them better integrate. Furthermore, many states contain national minorities or aboriginal groups that occupy significant parts of the territory. National minorities and aboriginal groups often demand self-government or even the right to secede to preserve their way of life. Multiculturalism may lead us to re-evaluate basic issues of equality, rights, and democracy. Especially in the global context, these issues add to the debate on the nature and scope of justice. Does equality require differential treatment to recognize and respect minority groups?

M

728

M

Multiculturalism

Are group rights – understood as something over and above the rights of a collection of individuals – necessary to ensure access to important cultural goods? Should democracies enact measures to ensure that minorities are adequately represented? To answer these questions requires re-evaluating what justice demands.

What Is Culture? Culture provides people with a framework for understanding the world. It embodies assumptions about the nature of reality, identity, society, and value. Who are we? What is our place in the world? What should we care about? Without a culture to ground and orient us, we could not begin to answer these questions. Despite its importance, culture is surprisingly hard to define. A group’s culture includes its history, language, values, dress, food, religion, symbols, social rules, roles, and collective knowledge. In fact, there are few aspects of human life that do not fall under the rubric of culture. As a result, it is often challenging to distinguish important aspects of culture from its trivial characteristics. Every living culture changes and its members may put forward different interpretations of its meanings. Contemporary cultures change rapidly through economic and cultural globalization, the spread of technology, and the rise in immigration. As a result, today’s cultures are porous, malleable, and pluralist. Culture, then, is something that evolves as people live in and around it and construct its meaning. People identify cultures not only in terms of how they differ from other cultures, but by what each group considers the most important and unique elements. Furthermore, outsiders often impose meanings on cultures that are often distorted by stereotypes and prejudice. What distinguishes cultures is thus in many respects a normative question. The value of a group’s history, language, values, symbols, and the like is determined by its culture. However, it is not a straightforward task to determine which aspects of a group’s culture should be valued and receive political support. Most groups are diverse. Migration and trade produced today’s cultures and even relatively homogenous states are multicultural in some sense. This is sometimes obscured by dominant groups that minimize significant internal differences and project a unified image that does not reflect the selfunderstanding of significant parts of the population. Furthermore, cultures also have morally problematic elements. For instance, throughout history most cultures have institutionalized sexism. All this raises questions about what we should value in any given culture.

This is not to deny that there may be some aspects of culture that are central to people’s well-being. Language and religion, for instance, play crucial roles in people’s lives. Many people find rapid cultural change disorienting. When the change is accompanied by social marginalization or oppression, as has been the case with many aboriginal cultures over the last few centuries, it can be devastating.

Culture and Justice Despite the existence of multiculturalism throughout the ages, the conviction that multiculturalism raises questions of justice is relatively recent. From ancient times diverse groups have lived side by side and enjoyed or suffered varying degrees of tolerance or persecution. For instance, the Constitution of Medina (c. 622 C.E.) protected the Jewish people living in the region and provided them with religious freedom and the Millet system in the Ottoman Empire from the fifteenth century to the end of the First World War allowed Jewish and Christian communities significant powers of self-government. Arguably, these measures foretell contemporary multicultural policies. Culture arguably did not become a central political issue, however, until the nineteenth century. Throughout the medieval and early modern period in Europe, monarchs ruled over diverse ethnic and linguistic groups and relatively few people traveled far from their place of birth. The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires broke apart as national groups (groups that share common ancestors, culture, language, and often religion) demanded sovereign states. The rise of nationalism and constitutional democracy transformed subjects into citizens and joined state and culture – with political participation come the need for a lingua franca and for a common understanding. While national cultures are sometimes represented as having ancient origins, they are very much a creation of nation-building practices such as compulsory education and, at times, forced assimilation and ethnic cleansing. Citizens are not born, but made. For example, at the time of the French Revolution, nearly half of the population did not speak French; instead, they spoke languages such as Provenc¸al, Breton, Catalan, Dutch, Basque, and a large number of dialects. Nation-building is still very much in practice. States explicitly or implicitly adopt a national language, universal curricula, and citizenship law. Leaders and media invoke national symbols and compulsory military service reinforces patriotism. In the recent past, immigration policies in countries such as Canada, Australia, and the United States reflected an understanding of these

Multiculturalism

territories as areas of white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant descent. Historically, the nation-state has been committed to an assimilationist model of the state. Nation-building policies helped absorb new residents and minority groups into the dominant culture. Why might multicultural policies be a matter of justice? Article 1 of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1992) declares that “States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity.” Why would minorities’ national or ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic identity give rise to a right? First, culture is vitally important to people. Indeed, many hold that without a strong cultural base, people are unable to make autonomous, meaningful choices. Distorted perceptions of the group and lack of recognition may harm people. Groups may also require a right to selfdetermination to retain their distinct character. Second, a group can be disadvantaged by policies or dominant cultural assumptions that fail to take its differences into account. Traditionally leftist theorists held that cultural disadvantage is merely a by-product of economic disadvantage. The assumption was that economic equality would lead to social inequality. Advocates of multiculturalism have challenged this assumption. A right to culture is listed as one of the controversial third-generation of human solidarity rights which include the right to selfdetermination. The reduction of cultural disadvantage to economic disadvantage failed to recognize that it is possible to be financially well-off but nonetheless marginalized and disadvantaged. Culture affects recognition and social status in ways that are in part independent of economic status. What are the political implications of cultural rights? It depends in large part on the group and its current and historical experience. Also, it is useful to make a rough distinction between national minorities, which include aboriginal groups, and ethnic groups composed of recent immigrants.

National Minorities Many expected the fall of the Berlin wall and collapse of the Soviet Union to inaugurate an era of peaceful liberal democracies. The ethnic violence in ex-Yugoslavia and the Rwandan genocide drew attention to conflict between ethnic nations. The initial response was to decry “ethnic nationalism” and seek to transcend it. Stability and the guarantee of basic human rights are necessary and the

M

international community can play a role in easing ethnic tensions – in extreme cases, this involves peace keeping or humanitarian intervention. The dangers of nationalism should not be downplayed, but it is equally important to recognize that many national groups have legitimate claims to increased autonomy. If majority groups can engage in nation-building, why not minority nations who are adversely affected by these policies? Indeed, the refusal to address the claims of national minorities may lead to violence. National minorities occupy a territory and typically share a distinct language and history which they wish to maintain. Often, their culture has been suppressed and marginalized. In many cases, these groups seek substantial powers of self-government to safeguard their cultural identity, language, and heritage. Prominent examples include the Flemish, Catalans, and Que´be´cois. This can sometimes be accomplished through federal institutions and special representation rights, though secession is sometimes sought and warranted. The literature on nationalism and justice has tended to focus on established liberal, democratic states that contain national minorities that subscribe to similar principles of freedom, equality, and democracy. Recent research has raised questions about the efficacy of multicultural measures required in emerging democracies fraught with ethnic tensions.

Indigenous Peoples The treatment of indigenous peoples by settlers and their European ancestors has been and continues to be particularly atrocious. Like other national minorities, indigenous people often claim self-government rights to preserve their heritage and increase their autonomy over their own affairs. Article 3 of the recent UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) states: “Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” Though the declaration received wide support around the world, Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, all countries with large aboriginal populations, opposed the adoption of the declaration. Restitution for past injustice is another issue that is particularly urgent for aboriginal groups. For example, in 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper also publicly apologized for the notorious Christian boarding schools that aimed at cultural assimilation and, in many cases, inflicted physical and sexual abuse. The Canadian apology was accompanied with a large financial settlement.

729

M

730

M

Multinational Corporations

Aboriginal groups have faced exclusion in which they were shuffled off onto reserves and forced assimilation which included removing tens of thousands of children from their families. In many parts of the world, aboriginal communities still suffer the debilitating consequences of these practices. Recognition of past injustice and self-government rights are part of the solution.

Immigrant Groups Most states include significant numbers of immigrants and their descendents. Unlike national minorities, most immigrant groups seek to integrate with the larger society. Still, the just treatment of immigrant groups raises many difficult questions. Do nation-building policies such as compulsory education in the official language violate the rights of immigrant children or their parents? Is there an obligation to publicly fund schools taught in minority languages? Should Muslims be permitted to use Shariabased tribunals for family law? Members of some immigrant groups endorse illiberal practices and raise difficult questions about liberal toleration. Historically, governments expected immigrants to assimilate. Some level of nation-building is unavoidable and in some respects beneficial. The guest worker programs in Europe have amply demonstrated the folly of preventing large segments of the society from joining common institutions. However, few today accept an obligation on the part of immigrants to abandon their heritage. Instead, fair terms of integration are needed. Nation-building can conflict with widely held liberal principles such as freedom of religion, conscience, and the right to choose one’s lifestyle as long as it does not conflict with the rights of other people. Many multicultural policies fit closely within a liberal democratic framework: they increase people’s autonomy and protect them from discrimination, as well as allow them to more fully participate with the rest of society while retaining their customs, religion, and values. Antidiscrimination measures typically help integration as do special accommodation such as the availability of translators to help provide public services. A backlash against immigrants has occurred in many parts of the world. Immigrants have always been an easy scapegoat, but the rise of extreme right-wing movements in Europe, murderous riots in South Africa against immigrants from neighboring states, and violent religious extremism in India have revealed the urgency of effective multicultural policies. The world is multicultural. What is essential is to figure out how to address this fact to ensure justice and stability in the world.

Related Topics

▶ Human Rights ▶ Immigration ▶ Indigenous Peoples ▶ National Self-Determination ▶ Nationalism ▶ Secession ▶ Toleration/Tolerance, Liberal Principle of

References Appiah A (2004) The ethics of identity. Princeton University Press, Princeton Couture J, Nielsen K, Seymour M (eds) (1998) Rethinking nationalism. University of Calgary Press, Calgary Gutmann A (ed) (1992) Multiculturalism and the politics of recognition. Princeton University Press, Princeton Ignatieff M (1993) Blood and belonging: journeys into the new nationalism. BBC Books, London Ivison D, Sanders W, Patton P (eds) (2000) Political theory and the rights of indigenous peoples. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Kymlicka W (1995) Multicultural citizenship. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kymlicka W (2007) Multicultural odysseys. Oxford University Press, Oxford Parekh Bhiku (2000) Rethinking multiculturalism. Harvard University Press, Boston

Multinational Corporations MORTON WINSTON Department of Philosophy and Religion, The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ, USA

A multinational (or sometimes transnational) corporation (MNC) can be defined as a business enterprise comprising entities in two or more countries linked by ownership or significant control which enables decisionmaking permitting coherent policies and a common strategy across national boundaries. According to recent estimates, there are over 77,000 MNCs, along with an estimated 800,000 subsidiaries, and untold millions of national suppliers and vendors. Together MNCs now directly control roughly 25% of all global commerce, and are indirectly involved in nearly every aspect of the global economy. In 2008, the three largest MNCs, Wal-Mart Stores, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch Shell, each had revenues in excess of $350 billion. By comparison, in 2007 South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) was $278 billion, Malaysia’s GDP was $181 billion, and Peru’s was $109 billion. In addition to their economic power, MNCs are increasingly recognized as important political

Multinational Corporations

actors, which working through their armies of lawyers and lobbyists, often act as a “hidden hand” in global governance, forging policies on trade, investment, and other economic matters favorable to their interests. During the past several decades, MNCs have dramatically increased their economic power and their influence over domestic and international affairs. A convergence of technological factors including global communications networks, the rise of container shipping and air freight, computerized inventory control, and the Internet have made it economically feasible and cost-effective for MNCs to create and manage global supply chains. The globalization of production and finance has given capital a significant advantage over labor in industrial relations. More and more companies have seen the economic advantages of sourcing production from low-wage countries with poor labor and environmental standards and enforcement, while marketing the products in more affluent societies. This process of global outsourcing has taken jobs away from workers in the developed countries, weakened the trade union movement and, according to some, has launched a global “race to the bottom.” Critics of MNCs argue that they are undermining the quest for global justice, while their defenders see them as the engines of global economic growth that are lifting millions out of poverty. As MNCs have grown larger and more powerful their activities have exposed a “governance gap” between the legal obligations of these global business enterprises and emerging social expectations about their ethical responsibilities to society. Many social justice activists believe that current national and international laws do not effectively regulate MNC activities, particularly as concerns their impacts on social issues such as human rights and environmental sustainability, and are using various strategies and tactics to close the governance gap and make MNCs more accountable for their social and environmental performance. These strategies for closing the governance gap range from reliance on voluntary corporate ethics codes, to specific legislative proposals for corporate regulation and stricter corporate law, to “soft-law” initiatives at the international level designed to clarify the specific responsibilities of MNCs under international human rights law, to various of multi-stakeholder initiatives designed to address problems of social justice and environmental sustainability. These various strategies for improving corporate social and environmental accountability have come to be understood through the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR). While there is no commonly accepted definition of corporate social responsibility, this term is widely understood, particularly within the business community, to

M

refer to voluntary moral responsibilities, as distinct from any legal obligations that a corporation may have. However, others argue that CSR should include both the legal obligations of MNCs as well as their moral responsibilities to society. Standard accounts of CSR portray corporate responsibilities as a pyramid in which legal obligations, such as the fiduciary duties of corporate directors and regulatory requirements imposed by either an MNC’s home or host country are the base; additional moral responsibilities that fulfill emerging social expectations, for instance, concerning human rights and environmental protection, are the middle; and corporate philanthropy, such as gifts to causes that are unrelated to the core activities of the business enterprise are at the top, these last being optional and non-obligatory, but praiseworthy. In the current global debate there is a spectrum of opinion as to whether mandatory legal regulation or voluntary self-regulation is the better strategy for closing the governance gap and making MNCs accountable to society. A broad definition of CSR that includes both legal and moral obligations avoids this debate by assuming that in the foreseeable future there will be a mixture of normative regimes, including national and international laws, emerging social expectations, “soft-law” approaches, contractual obligations, as well as voluntary self-regulation through enlightened self interest, which in combination, will influence the ways in which MNCs operate globally in the twenty-first century. The list of issues that is currently on the CSR agenda is large and includes: company policies that are consistent with internationally recognized human rights and labor rights standards, such as avoiding forced labor and child labor, protecting the health and safety of employees, respecting the rights of freedom of association and right to collective bargaining, banning discrimination, limiting working hours, and providing remuneration in keeping with “living wage” standards. In addition, CSR also encompasses, stakeholder recognition and engagement, respect for civil rights and for social, cultural, and economic rights, special care for vulnerable groups, avoidance of complicity in state-sponsored human rights abuses, taking an active role in preventing conflict and in peacebuilding in countries where there have been recent conflicts, sustainable production practices, environmental stewardship, sustainable resource use, valuing ecosystem services, avoidance of environmental pollution and degradation, reducing carbon emissions, avoidance of threats to public health, provision of low cost medications for HIV/AIDS, care for fragile ecosystems, appropriate waste disposal, anti-bribery policies, avoidance of corruption, responsible political involvement, fair competition,

731

M

732

M

Multinational Corporations

honest dealing, responsible supply chain management, fair marketing policies, protection of consumer health and safety, consumer data protection and privacy, fair access to goods and services, consumer education and awareness, contribution to social and economic development, community involvement in decision-making, transparent communications and social reporting, pro bono work, and charitable contributions not directly related to a company’s core business activities. There have been a number of important initiatives designed to establish international standards for corporate social responsibility particularly as regards respect for human rights. One of the earliest CSR initiatives addressing human rights concerns was the Sullivan Principles. Launched by Reverend Leon Sullivan of Philadelphia in 1977, this voluntary code of conduct required that companies operating in apartheid South Africa observe internationally accepted human rights norms against racial discrimination or face economic boycotts and divestment campaigns in their home countries. In a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 1999, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan launched the UN Global Compact, a global voluntary standard inspired by the Sullivan Principles, which was intended to gain the commitment of large corporations to nine basic CSR principles. In June 2004 a tenth principle, dealing with the avoidance of corruption was added. The ten principles that now comprise the UN Global Compact direct company signatories to: support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; ensure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses; respect freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining; eliminate the all forms of forced and compulsory labor; abolish the use of child labor; eliminate discrimination in employment and occupation; support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges; undertake initiatives to promote environmental responsibility; encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies; and work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery (UN Global Compact 2010). The Global Compact is a purely voluntary standard, and has been criticized by some NGOs for its lacking effective accountability mechanisms. On August 13, 2003, the UN Sub-Commission on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights endorsed the Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and other Business Entities Regarding Human Rights (UN Norms), which was widely viewed as an attempt to draft an international treaty governing

MNC activities. However, the reaction to the UN Norms, particularly within the business community was quite negative. The critical reception of the UN Norms at the (now defunct) UN Human Rights Commission led to their rejection, but, in doing so, it decided to defer any final decision on the matter, and asked the Secretary General of the UN to appoint a special representative to prepare reports that “identify and clarify” current international standards and practices regarding business and human rights, and to submit his “views and recommendations” for consideration by its successor body, the Human Rights Council. On July 25, 2005, Harvard Professor John Ruggie was appointed as the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) for business and human rights and given a mandate to identify and clarify standards of corporate responsibility and accountability with regard to human rights. In his recommendations to the Human Rights Council, Professor Ruggie proposed a common conceptual and policy framework for closing the governance gap that relies on a set of differentiated but complementary governance responsibilities for the government sector, the business sector, and civil society (SRSG Report 2008). The Ruggie framework, as it has come to be called, contains three elements: the state duty to protect against human rights abuses by non-State actors, including businesses, affecting persons within their own territories or jurisdictions; the corporate responsibility to respect all human rights, and in particular, to exercise due diligence in preventing harm to human rights and avoiding complicity in human rights abuses; and lastly, the creation of mechanisms at the national, regional, and enterprise levels that allow individuals who believe their human rights have been violated by corporations to seek redress and remediation. His report recommends that the current lack of access to remedy can be corrected by establishing better judicial mechanisms, nonjudicial grievance mechanisms, and company-level grievance procedures that provide legitimate, accessible, fair, and transparent means for complaints to be reviewed and settled. The Ruggie approach rejects, at least for the time being, attempts to draft an international convention that would impose globally binding legal obligations on MNCs concerning worker rights, human rights, environmental sustainability, and other global justice issues. Instead he proposes that as increasing numbers of MNCs voluntarily adopt CSR policies and practices, and more and more states impose domestic legal obligations on MNC activities, there will come a “tipping point” at which the political will to enact global standards on multinational corporations will become feasible. While a plausible

Multinational Corporations

scenario, it remains to be seen whether Ruggie’s CSR framework will be adopted and implemented on the scale necessary to close the governance gap and advance the cause of global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Rights ▶ Capitalism ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI) ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Labor Standards ▶ Sustainable Development ▶ World Trade Organization (WTO)

References Alston P (2005) Non-state actors and human rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford

M

733

Bhagwati J (2004) In defense of globalization. Oxford University Press, Oxford Clapham A (2006) Human rights obligations of non-state actors. Oxford University Press, Oxford Dunning JH, Lundan SM (2008) Multinational enterprises and the global economy. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham Kinley D (2009) Civilising globalisation: human rights and the global economy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Leisinger KM (2006) On corporate responsibility for human rights. Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development, Basel SRSG Report (7 April 2008) Protect, respect and remedy: a framework for business and human rights. Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, UN DOC. A/HRC/8/5 UN Global Compact (2010) The ten principles. http://www.unglobal compact.org/AboutTheGC/TheTenPrinciples/index.html. Accessed 29 Sept 2010 Wettstein F (2009) Multinational corporations and global justice: human rights obligations of a quasi-governmental institution. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto Zerk JA (2006) Multinationals and corporate social responsibilities: limitations and opportunities in international law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

M

N Nagel, Thomas LYNETTE E. SIEGER Gallatin School, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Thomas Nagel’s widely recognized writings span from metaphysics and epistemology to the philosophy of mind, normative ethics, and political philosophy. Though Nagel has promoted the idea of the duty of assistance to the world’s worst off, he rejects the idea of global justice in favor of sustaining the locus of justice within states. The realization of justice for Nagel is contingent upon political solidarity, enforceable laws, and coercive institutions. As such, global justice could only be realized through a world state. In his major work on political philosophy, Equality & Partiality (1991), Nagel argues that there are two conditions which prevent global governance in the necessary form of a coercive world state from emerging. The first is extreme diversity of values around which political communities are organized. Given that conceptions of the good, toward which political systems aim, are radically divergent throughout the world, it would be untenable to organize a world government because diverse values conflict and a coercive world state, failing in the ability to capture the core of each conception, would lack legitimacy. Furthermore, given that religious and cultural xenophobia are endemic in our world, convincing all to engage with all as equal members of a political community, irrespective of differences, would be difficult, if not impossible. The second condition Nagel points to is radical global economic inequality. Given that the gap between the global affluent and the global poor is so extreme, leaving many billions of people in conditions of absolute deprivation, Nagel argues that the economic demands of a coercive state system would be in too strong a discord to be overcome. For the global poor, it would be reasonable to reject anything less than a revolutionary change in their economic circumstance. For the global wealthy, it would be equally reasonable, Nagel argues, to reject revolutionary

change because it could cause a dramatic and immediate shift in their circumstances, and so they may rather opt to promote economic justice through gradual change. Nagel outlines three types of reasons: egalitarian impartiality, personal interests and commitments, and consideration for what can reasonably be asked of others. From each of these perspectives, both the wealthy and the poor might hold agonistic positions that one side could not legitimately override and coerce the other. Nagel’s thesis on global justice, presented in his Storrs Lectures and published as “The Problem of Global Justice,” is a reformulation of Rawls’s own version of liberal internationalism. Rawls argues that there is discontinuity between political principles at the domestic and the international levels. In The Law of Peoples (1999), Rawls explicitly contrasts his position with moral cosmopolitanism, which takes national boundaries to have no mitigating effect on the demands of distributive justice. Famously, Rawls praises value pluralism, and argues that not all societies can reasonably be expected to accept the liberal principle of distributive justice. Instead, he concludes, the task in the global context should be to fulfill our only duty, the duty of assistance, rather than to engineer cosmopolitan global equality. The duty of humanitarian assistance aims to facilitate raising the capacity of states to participate as an equal member in the international community. Nagel’s theory of global justice focuses on the question of whether it is possible to justify stringent duties of justice beyond the traditional bounds of sovereign states. Equality being a demand of justice, the question of the tenability of justice on the global level is especially relevant as a deciding factor in determining whether socioeconomic justice is owed at the global level. Nagel begins with the claim that the state is and ought to be the primary guarantor of justice. Pragmatically, justice requires established and reliable institutions that can create and enforce social rules and be held accountable to the people over whom coercion is exercised. Legitimacy of coercive government is justified in liberal political theory when citizens are not only subject to the laws and authority of the state, but also the authors of it. Institutions are subject to the rule of law and the rule of law is subject to the consent of the

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

736

N

Nagel, Thomas

governed. The duty of justice between citizens of the same political system is associative. Claims to positive rights – rights to social goods as opposed to negative rights which are rights to be free from harm – develop within a political community because of the unique position of citizens as subjects to an authority that exercises power in their names. It is necessary to the life of a political society that its people exercise and engage their will in ways that, Nagel argues, do not apply globally. As such, the right to justice is contained within the political community of the state. Absent a global state, Nagel argues, we cannot form an intelligible idea of global justice. Nevertheless, given the devastating facts surrounding global inequality, he offers an argument in favor of humanitarian duties of assistance toward people who suffer from extreme deprivation. Here the distinction between relative and absolute deprivation matters. Those who live in conditions of absolute deprivation, without access to the goods necessary for survival such as food, clean water, shelter, physical security, and access to basic health care are owed assistance as a requirement of the basic humanitarian duty of the well-off to help those in dire need, because they (the well-off) are in a position to do so, with little cost to themselves. On the other hand, when a member of a political community is deprived of social goods relative to others in her community – such that she may have health care but it is subpar or well below the standard that others in her community have access to – then rectifying the relative deprivation is a matter of justice and not virtue, as it is in the humanitarian case. To be clear, duties of humanity are distinct from duties of justice. Though Nagel supports basic humanitarian duties, he argues that they are difficult to execute without a global sovereign and in light of working with or through states that may be failed or corrupt. Even so, Nagel rejects a cosmopolitan conception of social justice – under which duties are owed to each person by virtue of their membership in the human family rather than by virtue of political membership – with the following three counterclaims. First, as mentioned, Nagel insists that institutions are necessary to create and enforce binding relationships of citizens to the state and citizens to one another. In the absence of a global sovereign – globally shared coercive institutions that relate directly to persons rather than states – the most that can be encouraged at the global level are the virtues of humanitarianism and not duties of justice. Furthermore, Nagel adopts the Rousseauian conception that citizens form the general will of society in a way that is not the case and perhaps may not be possible or desirable due to considerations of the large

scale of subjects at the global level. Socioeconomic justice within the state is required to promote the equality of its citizens and necessary to sustain cohesive bonds and cooperation. Second, Nagel addresses the counter claim to conational partiality that state membership is an arbitrary matter of luck. Those in favor of global impartiality argue that just as in cases of one’s gender, skin color, or the economic well-being of one’s family, state membership is a contingent matter without any special normative force. As such, being born into a poor state rather than a wealthy state should not play a morally significant role in the distribution of social goods. Nagel agrees that the accident of being born in a poor rather than a rich state is indeed arbitrary but that this alone does not justify global justice. Negative duties toward persons exist prior to associative obligations and hold equally stringent for all, irrespective of political membership. Nagel holds these duties to be global and hence favors duties of assistance. Positive duties, on the other hand, should hold only for those with strong ties to each other via coercive political institutions. That some people are victims of bad luck is regrettable but, Nagel argues in Equality and Partiality, there is no immediate solution to the bad luck of extreme poverty which would be unreasonable for all affected parties to reject from the perspectives of partial and impartial considerations. So any coercive solution would be illegitimate. Coupled with concerns over the birth lottery is the question of how to sustain the principle of equality globally. If the state brackets our duties of justice as applied to a select some over others, it seems there is a violation of the principle of equality. Nagel tackles this issue by arguing that equal respect for all is maintained under his conception of justice because no one is excluded from the outset. Once a person is granted membership within a political community, equal status with all other members follows. Since the possibility of belonging to a political community is theoretically open to all, duties of justice hold equally for each member whoever he or she happens to be. Finally, Nagel addresses the normative meaning of emerging global interdependence and global cooperative institutions. Though these communities may eventually evolve to be global, in the sense that their rules and norms will apply to all persons equally, their current state is international. That is to say that they are created and enforced by states to regulate interstate relations. Nagel believes that the political conception through states is the best normative formulation for socioeconomic justice, and at this time this is the best formulation because it fits the world as it is and as people perceive it to be. He

Narveson, Jan

does not exclude the possibility that a global state may potentially emerge. If and when it does, then duties of justice would hold globally, though the solidarity necessary for successful political communities would be difficult to construct in our culturally and religiously divisive world. Though Nagel favors co-national partiality, he does allow for more global cooperation than the account of international justice offered by John Rawls in The Law of Peoples. Counter to Rawls, Nagel believes that local/state forces are not the only determining factors in how well a state organizes or satisfies the rights of its people. International factors such as trade, international lending, and recognition of illegitimate leaders all contribute to the internal functions of the state. Even so, Nagel insists that these factors are of secondary nature whereas the primary order is to be created and reworked within the state. A second distinction between Rawls’s and Nagel’s positions is that Nagel supports the claim that liberal societies are morally justified in promoting the development of liberal programs or agendas within illiberal societies, constrained only by practical considerations. Offering a rather bleak prediction, Nagel argues that before justice there is usually injustice. Coercive institutions acting on their own interests must become powerful and pervasive enough in the daily lives of people in order for affected persons to claim and demand legitimacy, justice, and democracy from power structures. In order to function, coercive political institutions must adopt one set of fundamental principles around which to organize. Necessarily the adoption of one political system will exclude all incompatible competing systems. Thus, if global justice is to emerge, it will likely come out of unjust structures. Nagel’s projects in political philosophy provide illuminating depth on the relationship between equality, justice, and political systems. Though committed to the idea of justice via political relations that are realized through the institutions of the state, Nagel is a champion of global engagement that seeks to promote the well-being of the world’s worst off. Nagel’s contribution in the debate of global justice is to draw the distinction between justice – which cannot be realized without a state – and obligations of beneficence, which humanitarianism demands, in order to satisfy people’s most basic needs.

Related Topics

▶ Associative Duties ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Coercion ▶ Compatriot Partiality Thesis

N

737

▶ Consent ▶ Contractarianism ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Democratic Legitimacy ▶ Equality ▶ Liberal Nationalism ▶ Partiality ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Rights

References Cohen J, Sabel Ch (2006) Extra Rempublicam Nulla Justitia? Philos Public Aff 34(2):147–175 Julius A (2006) Nagel’s atlas. Philos Public Aff 34:176–192 Nagel Th (1991) Equality and partiality. Oxford University Press, Oxford Nagel Th (2005) The problem of global justice. Philos Public Aff 33(2):113–147 Pendlebury M (2007) Global justice and the specter of Leviathan. Philos Forum 38:43–56 Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

Narveson, Jan MALCOLM MURRAY Department of Philosophy, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada

Jan Narveson, distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Waterloo, received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1961. For his scholarly achievements, he is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, and largely for his contributions to chamber music, he is an Officer of the Order of Canada. Narveson began as a utilitarian, writing Morality and Utility in 1968, but he soon gravitated toward contractarianism, principally due to the influence of David Gauthier. Unlike Gauthier, however, Narveson believed that contractarianism leads to libertarianism. It is this notion, clearly explicated in his 1988 book, The Libertarian Idea, that gained Narveson international renown.

Libertarianism Everyone favors global justice. Not everyone agrees on what that entails. Libertarians, such as Jan Narveson and Robert Nozick, believe justice entails the preservation of

N

738

N

Narveson, Jan

individual liberty. This precludes assault and coercion, and, among other things, general interference in people’s pursuits (when such pursuits do not interfere in others’ pursuits). Since global welfare schemes demand that individuals contribute to the aid of others, such demands – no matter their good intentions – count as constraints on one’s liberty: thus, we should forbid welfare schemes. Many disapprove of such a self-interested line. People complain that libertarians prefer the “mere” liberty to wallow away our time watching TV and drinking beer, as opposed to helping children avoid leprosy or starvation. Such rhetoric is unfair. Liberty is not trivial. It represents the basic right to do with one’s body as one deems fit. When people complain about rape, or assault, or murder, no one would dare say that the culprits interfered only with the victim’s trivial right to perform some moronic activity. Of course, most critics of libertarianism are not complaining about the importance of liberty. They merely suggest that liberty is not the only important value. Since welfare is also key, finding a happy middle ground between the preservation of liberty and the enhancement of welfare strikes many as sensible (see, for example, John Rawls). Libertarians, on the other hand, insist that no happy mean is possible. Many libertarians appeal to consequentialist outcomes. For example, they note how welfare programs distort production incentives, thus reducing the available resources we can give to others, not to mention the added bane of administrative costs. Many global aid programs also forget the meddling of corrupt regimes, or how artificial dependence on continued relief merely spells disaster down the road. Such consequentialist analyses, however, focus on practical, not theoretical, difficulties, and many objectors believe we can solve these practical worries by being more creative – the teach-a-person-to-fish approach, rather than the give-a-person-a-fish approach.

Contractarian Origins In contrast to consequentialist arguments, or to Robert Nozick’s appeal to Lockean natural rights, Jan Narveson grounds libertarian politics in Hobbesian contractarian moral theory. While Narveson does appeal to arguments of efficiency (in fact, he rejects the deontologyconsequentialist distinction), his insight is to appeal to the contractarian conception of the purpose of morality. Following Hobbes and Gauthier, Narveson wonders to what moral constraints rational, self-interested agents would agree. Critics typically suppose that self-interest can never ground morality, since morality often tells people to put aside their self-interest in favor of others’ interests. Such objections miss the game theoretic results

revealing the mutual benefits of moral constraint. As Narveson puts it, whatever one’s interest is, one is more likely to achieve it without a knife in one’s back. For this reason, agreeing to rules restricting interference of individual activities (so long as such activities are not themselves interferences) would be rational for self-interested agents to make. Carving out a moral space based on mutual noninterference yields, so far, only negative rights. A negative right entails the ability to do what one wants unmolested. A positive right, on the other hand, is the right to have something one currently lacks, or the right to do something one currently cannot do. Liberty is a negative right, whereas welfare is a positive right. Meanwhile, rights entail duties. That is, if anyone has a right, whether negative or positive, someone else, or society, has a duty to uphold that right. In that sense, rights are not free. One’s negative duties are easier to satisfy than one’s positive duties. As Narveson remarks, going to sleep satisfies all my negative duties, but would not satisfy any of my positive duties. That is why rational self-interested agents from an amoral position could easily accept negative duties, but would be reluctant to accept positive duties. Saying this, however, does not say they would not accept positive duties. It says only that positive duties do not necessarily follow from negative duties. Once people are making agreements concerning what their moral landscape should look like, however, why not go further and advocate some positive duties as well? To answer this question, we must avoid appealing to moral presuppositions. Contractarians, recall, are trying to find the reason to be moral. Any non-question-begging reason to be moral cannot appeal to any prior moral consideration. According to Narveson, no nonmoral considerations could lead us to endorse anything beyond negative duties. While I would benefit from others helping me when I need it, the amount of helping I would have to do when others need it would outweigh the net gain. Whatever the number of times I would need help on average should be the same as everyone else. Since close to seven billion people exist, excluding future generations, I would not be able to pursue my own interests at all: I would be too busy having to satisfy everyone else’s positive rights. Even if only a tenth of the world’s population is needy, and even if I need help only one hundredth of that subset, that still leaves me responsible for seven million people. Since the point of agreeing to a morality was to carve out a space in which I could pursue my own interests unmolested, I would not agree to any positive restrictions.

Narveson, Jan

That said, nothing stops me from helping others. Hobbesian self-interested agents need not be narrow egoists. If Hume and communitarians are right, society and biology so constitute our nature that we desire to help. Perhaps such agents may even voluntarily bind themselves to associations that would obligate their future contributions to welfare. All Narveson needs to say is that such voluntary associations cannot commit those who do not volunteer. Narveson has no complaint with helping people. In person, he is remarkably generous. His complaint is with state coercion. The benefit of morality is to curtail coercion, not justify coercion, and all positive obligations, save those entered voluntarily (like having to pay one’s debts), are coercive.

Three Objections and Replies Three objections are as follows: (1) Some critics agree that liberty is an important value to preserve, but point out that the rich have more liberty than the poor do. Since we want to preserve the same degree of liberty for all, we need to offer the poor the basic subsistence requirements in order for them to be able to use their liberty. (2) Other critics complain that the distinction between positive and negative is not in kind, as Narveson portrays the two, but in degree. They like to insist that we have already constrained liberty. After all, you cannot put a knife in my back. Once we accept some constraints on liberty, why not a few more? Pointing out that the difference between positive and negative restrictions is only a matter of degree, rather than of kind, ends the principled objection of Narveson’s contract-based libertarianism. (3) Yet other critics believe that we can decouple property and liberty. They complain that libertarians assume taxation on property counts as a violation of liberty. Such critics argue that one is still at liberty to do what one wants while the government takes a proportion of one’s bank account to help the needy. The very wealthy, for example, would not even notice the loss. It is difficult to assume the state curtails our liberty if we are still free to do what we want. Narveson believes each objection is misconceived. (1) In the first case, thinking that the poor have less liberty than the rich is to think we increase liberty by increasing the number of available options. Liberty is not increased with more options, however. Compare two muggers. Mugger 1 demands your money lest he shoots you. Mugger 2 demands your money lest he shoots you, or strangles you, or knifes you: your pick. Despite Mugger 2’s offering you more choice, we say both muggers have equally deprived your liberty. That is because we define liberty by reference to one’s status quo, the state of affairs

N

one was in prior to the interaction. In this case, your status quo is having your money and your life. Precisely because neither mugger allowed your status quo is why we can accuse them equally of violating your liberty, no matter the other options available. In the same way, so long as I do not worsen your status quo, I am upholding your liberty rights. This is so whether you are poor or not, or whether you are starving or not. As long as I refrain from interfering with your pursuits, whether you have access to many pursuit options or not, I am satisfying your negative liberty rights. This does not prove that we have no obligations to help others; it proves that we cannot base a putative duty to help on the preservation of negative liberty. (2) The second objection misconstrues morality more generally. Having no restrictions at all is not a case of pure liberty. It is the antithesis of liberty. If you are free to put a knife in my back, I have no liberty. Rights entail duties, and duties entail restrictions. That is why negative restrictions on individual behaviors do not curtail liberty; they define liberty. Since the goal of morality (from the contractarian perspective) is to carve out a free space for you to pursue your own interests without interference, and the only way you can achieve that is by offering the same restrictions on yourself vis a vis others, you will naturally support the concept of negative rights and negative duties. Negative duties make sense for you to adopt – so long as others do likewise – because the gain to you of others honoring your liberty offsets the cost to you of your honoring their liberty. This ratio is not met for positive duties, however. That is why positive and negative duties are distinct in kind, not merely in degree. (3) Narveson spends three chapters in The Libertarian Idea to address the third objection. I will be briefer. The liberty to do with your body as you deem fit presupposes you have property rights to your body. To extend property rights in your body to property rights in the things you make (or trade for, or are given, etc.) follows deductively. Let us say that I am at liberty to do what I want. That entails my making something. Now that I have made this thing, I should also be at liberty to use it, assuming my use does not interfere with your liberty. Therefore, my liberty includes the exclusive use of certain objects: those objects that have come to me via exercise of my liberty. That is why, on Narveson’s view, the right to liberty entails the right to property, and we cannot sever the two. While we could say that removing a proportion of my body still leaves me at liberty to use what is left of my body, we could not say that removing that portion of my body does not violate my liberty to use that excised bit. The same holds for appropriating even a tiny bit of my bank

739

N

740

N

Nation Building

account. While it can be true that I might be at liberty to use what is left of my bank account, you violated my liberty by seizing that bit in the first place. For Narveson, if preserving liberty is important, there is no conceptual space for enforced welfare.

Related Topics

▶ Communitarianism ▶ Contractarianism ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Libertarianism ▶ Negative Rights ▶ Nozick, Robert ▶ Positive Rights ▶ Property Rights

References Murray M (ed) (2007) Liberty, games, and contracts: Jan Narveson and the defence of libertarianism. Ashgate, Aldershot Narveson J (1967) Morality and utility. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore Narveson J (ed) (1983) Moral issues. Oxford University Press, Toronto Narveson J (1988) The libertarian idea. Temple University Press, Philadelphia (re-published by Broadview Press, 2001) Narveson J (1993) Moral matters. Broadview Press, Peterborough (2nd edition, 1999) Narveson J (2002) Respecting persons in theory and practice. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Narveson J (2008) You and the state. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Narveson J (2010) This is ethical theory. Open Court, Chicago Narveson J, Sanders JT (eds) (1996) For and against the state. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Narveson J, Sterba JP (2010) Are liberty and equality compatible? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Nation Building ▶ Development Ethics ▶ Human Right to Democracy ▶ Humanitarian Aid ▶ Humanitarian Intervention, Non-Military ▶ Humanitarian Military Intervention ▶ United Nations: Peacekeeping and Peace Building

National Alliance for Tribal Self Rule (NATSR), India ▶ Indigenous Peoples

National Interest Thesis ▶ Compatriot Partiality Thesis ▶ Liberal Nationalism ▶ Nationalism ▶ Social Contract

National Self-Determination ANNA MOLTCHANOVA Department of Philosophy, Carleton College, Northfield, MN, USA

Self-determination is the capacity of a collective to control its political future. Self-determination is different from self-government, which is the capacity of a group to make and apply rules within the parameters of its existing political status rather than to determine its future political status. The idea of self-determination is of utmost importance to the discussion of global justice. Being one of the constitutive notions of international relations that grounds some of the most prominent legal and moral entitlements of the members of the international community, the idea of self-determination has an important role to play in the transformation of this community along lines consistent with the demands of global justice. Membership in the leading international organizations such as the UN has been largely based on the possession of a state, and there are more groups aspiring to exercise the right to self-determination than there are states. We need to clarify, therefore, the relation between self-determination, on the one hand, and statehood, sovereignty, and nationhood on the other, to provide a proper basis for the fair treatment of all peoples in the international arena. Moreover, the exercise of the right to self-determination by a group has deep implications for the rights of individuals within and without the group’s boundaries. In the issues of immigration, for example, the right to self-determination pertains to the question of whether a group has the moral right to protect its cultural norms and the bounds of membership by assimilating immigrant cultures or restricting immigration. Hence, the notion of self-determination and the corresponding entitlements play an important role in the issues of global citizenship. The Charter of the United Nations affirms the moral right of all peoples to self-determination. One of the goals

National Self-Determination

of the United Nations is to promote friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples (UN Charter, I-1,2). UN resolution 1514, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights reiterate that all peoples have the right to self-determination, which includes the ability of a people to freely determine its political status, develop its economy, and pursue its cultural and social development. Although these formulations do not specify what kinds of national groups qualify for the right to selfdetermination, only a limited number of national groups are acknowledged to have this right in the current international system. International law associates the exercise of the right to self-determination with some form of independent statehood and understands the right to selfdetermination as the right to be free from external occupation and colonization. This understanding excludes the self-determination claims of many substate national groups. For example, the self-determination claims of national groups on the territory of the Russian Federation, such as Dagestan, Mordovia, or Tatarstan, are excluded from consideration under the present interpretation of the right to self-determination, whereas the Baltic republics were considered to have this right due to their unjust occupation by the Soviet regime. National groups currently qualify for the right to self-determination not according to a principle or a norm but as a result of the vagaries of history. The peoples of Tatarstan and Estonia each have institutions of political self-government and a sense of national identity, but the Estonians’ prior possession of an independent state makes them the holders of the right to self-determination. This is a contingent historical factor that does not morally justify the allocation of the right to self-determination to Estonia and not to Tatarstan. State-endowed nations exercise the full scope of political control over their future, but most substate national groups are prohibited from exercising their selfdetermination. Since substate groups are not proper members of the international community – they are not, for example, members of the UN or parties to the International Court of Justice – they cannot use the same means to pursue and defend their interests as stateendowed national groups can. For example, stateless national groups cannot legitimately wage a war of selfdefense when their political community is in danger, though legally self-determining political entities can. There is no law that specifies the duties of states even to provide autonomy to minorities beyond the limited rights

N

to practice their religions and cultures and to use their languages. With the exception of violations of internationally recognized individual rights (human rights and some rights guaranteed by treaties, such as the European Framework Convention), rules governing the treatment of national minorities remain within the domestic jurisdiction of their host states. The charter of the United Nations states that “nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter”(UN Charter I-2). The international community’s reluctance to establish universal duties regarding the autonomy of national minorities leaves the self-determination claims of national groups largely unaddressed. The concluding document of the Copenhagen meeting of the Helsinki Commission’s Conference on the Human Dimension, for example, concerns the rights of persons belonging to minorities to establish and maintain their own educational, cultural, and religious institutions, organizations, or associations. It does not deal with political rights, such as self-determination, which often constitute the chief concern of national minorities. The very couching of disputes between states and stateless national groups as “minority disputes” is not helpful to the development of international legal norms for their resolution. In the absence of a moral and legal framework that justifies actions taken by the international community to resolve such disputes, this community is often helpless to stop states from taking aggressive action against national minority groups within their territory or to prevent the belligerent actions taken by national minorities. Before the international community can attempt to regulate the behavior of national groups, it needs to determine the entitlements of substate groups with respect to self-determination. Thus, while the present world system is centered on sustaining peaceful relations among states, which is certainly necessary to maintain universal peace, it is deficient with respect to the preservation of peace within states. The prospects for implementing the normative ideal of the equality of self-determination of all peoples contained in the UN Charter depend on how the terms of this important clause are defined. The current state system has a limited capacity to accommodate self-determination claims if the exercise of self-determination is equated with the acquisition of independent statehood (while all national groups are considered to be “peoples”). In this case, the normative ideal of equality faces insurmountable practical limitations, and the present international system

741

N

742

N

Nationalism

lacks the ability to accommodate the majority of selfdetermination claims. The restrictive formulation of the legal right to self-determination, which defines its subjects with an eye only to a very selective set of historical circumstances, simply ignores relations between substate and state-endowed national groups with respect to self-determination claims. This formulation puts the limited legal right in tension with the normative moral ideal of equality of the UN Charter. If we do not associate self-determination with independent statehood, equality of status for self-determining groups can be provided in the current international system. That the satisfaction of self-determination claims does not require the acquisition of independent statehood has been commonly accepted (Buchanan 2004; Miller 1995). The equal right to self-determination can be a right to equal political status with other self-determining groups within a host multinational state, which would be an improvement over the present status of many a multinational state as belonging to the majority national group while the rest of the national groups are considered minorities, at most self-governing, but not self-determining.

Related Topics

▶ Global Justice, Subjects of ▶ Group Rights ▶ Multiculturalism ▶ Nationalism ▶ Patriotism ▶ Transitional Justice ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Buchanan A (2004) Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Cassese A (1995) Self-determination of peoples: a legal reappraisal. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Charter of the United Nations (1945) UN conference on international organization, San Francisco. http://www.un.org/en/documents/ charter/ Danspeckgruber W (ed) (2002) The self-determination of peoples: community, nation, and state in an interdependent world. Lynne Rienner, London Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and People (1960) General Assembly UN, New York. Downloadable from: http://www.un.org/Depts/dpi/decolonization/declaration.htm International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) General Assembly UN, New York. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr. htm International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) General Assembly UN, New York. http://www2.ohhr.org/ english/law/cescr.htm

Hannum H (1996) Autonomy, sovereignty, and self-determination: the accommodation of conflicting rights. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia Miller D (1995) On nationality. Oxford University Press, Oxford Statute of the International Court of Justice. http://www.icj-cij.org/documents/index.php?p1=4&p2=2&p3=0

Nationalism OMAR DAHBOUR Department of Philosophy, Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

The relation of nationalism to global justice has been a contested one since at least the early twentieth century. On the one hand, advocates of nationalism have claimed that the realization of their goals is a matter of justice on the global scale. On the other hand, critics of nationalism have regarded nationalist movements and states as an obstacle to the achievement of justice internationally. In this entry, nationalism will be examined (1) in terms of its definition and essential concepts, (2) in terms of its central claim to self-determination, (3) as connected to concepts of democratic and minority rights, and (4) in relation to cosmopolitan ideas of global distributive justice. 1. Nationalism is equivalent to the idea that a certain sort of (collective, and perhaps personal) identity can be the basis for legitimate political claims by those who share this identity. Putting aside for the moment what these political claims are, the nature of this (national) identity has been much debated. At a minimum, national identity needs to be distinguished from patriotic allegiances to peoples or states. National identities are pre-political and composed of affinities that are cultural, for instance, common customs, speech, and folklore. What these markers of identity supposedly indicate is a collectivity of persons (a nation) that shares a common kinship which is the basis for these cultural practices. Whether there is in fact such a common kinship is sometimes regarded as incidental: The important point is that a nation is an “imagined community.” It has been thought by some as inevitable that, under conditions of modern life, people will come to regard themselves as having one or another national identity. The belief that there is a common nationality can result in a sense of special, moral obligation to members of the same nation. It can also generate a distinctive political program, one now referred to as “identity politics.”

Nationalism

This view can be challenged, however, by the observation that other, later forms of political assertion by identity groups rely on visible markers of identity (race, gender), while national identity is, at least to some extent, an elective one. Regardless of the nature of national identity, it is clear that the distinctive political claim of national groups is that of self-determination. This idea is so important for the politics of nationalism that it has been claimed that a nation is just that entity that does make a claim of self-determination. But this misses the fact that the idea of self-determination, however important for nationalists, did not originate with them, nor is it exclusively claimed by them. It is even in doubt whether the idea of national self-determination is consistent with the more general concept of political self-determination. But what is not in doubt is that nationalism is one version of a political theory that espouses the importance of membership in communities as a fundamental feature of political life. Nationalism is a way of establishing and enforcing limits on the extent of political communities. But what kind of communities will they be? The ideal of a nation-state informs nationalisms of all kinds. But what is a nation-state? There are two common answers. Exponents of an “ethnic” conception of nation-states regard them as states containing (at least in theory) a homogeneous citizenry with a common national identity. Advocates of a “civic” conception of the nation-state, by contrast, argue that nations are malleable and can contain, at least over time, more than one ethnicity (or result from the combination of more than one). But it is clear that nations cannot be purely political – completely derived from a set of constitutional principles, for instance. If nations determine who is included and who is excluded from a community, then to what extent can such nation-states maintain adherence to principles of justice that might be thought of as universal? Liberal nationalists, at least, argue that there is no contradiction between these two things. This is because the claims of nationalists to self-determination need not exclude the possibility of others making similar claims. The necessity of belonging to a national culture for all persons mandates the legitimate division of the earth into states, each of which will contain a distinctive (national) culture. While, on this view, there is no reason to think this will lead to injustices, it does depend on a particular interpretation of self-determination. 2. The most obvious justification for a principle of selfdetermination is one that argues from the necessity of geographically limited communities to the political

N

independence and territorial integrity of those communities. This is the sense of self-determination widely recognized in international law. But such a communitarian justification can be given without reference to national groups as such. While some nationalists have attempted to justify national self-determination in this way, they are forced to define nations so broadly as to make them more or less synonymous with communities in general. But are they? It turns out that national claims to states may involve the denial of self-determination to other, nonnational groups (or even to other national groups claiming the same territories). Something more is required to legitimate self-determination claims for nations when this problem is recognized. A common approach, found in the writings of liberal nationalists, is that which uses the notion of a “right to culture” as an important reason that national groups, presumably with their own distinctive cultures, require states. On this view, culture is not a feature of individual persons’ choices of beliefs and affinities, but a function of collective groups’ ability to maintain institutions that embody their distinctive cultural practices. Without the power of state institutions to do this, a group’s culture may not survive. So nation-states (e.g., Israel) are justified in mandating cultural practices and nationalist movements (e.g., in French Canada) legitimately seek to establish such states by seceding from existing, multicultural ones. There are a number of problems with this view. Some have challenged the very idea of group cultures, or more broadly, the notion of states as autonomous communities, either as desirable or as feasible. Others have questioned whether such a right to culture actually entails the nationalist claim of a right to a state, since states do not embody cultures (as clubs or associations do), so much as they control and regulate peoples and territories. Beyond this, it may be doubted whether there is a justifiable claim to a state when it is invoked at will (by a national group), rather than because of some manifest injustice. It is clear on this view that the right of national self-determination is not a remedy for injustice (because, absent an injustice, there would be no legitimate claim), it is an entitlement, as of right. Such self-determination claims invariably entail the breakup of existing states and the secession of groups or regions. In considering secession by national groups, the primary question is whether such groups have a prima facie right to secede, or only one when certain conditions obtain. The weight of scholarly opinion on this issue is that some particular (and therefore, ultimately contingent) reason must obtain for the right to be invoked. Three especially compelling reasons for secession are: to

743

N

744

N

Nationalism

end ongoing violations of persons’ rights, to rectify some historical injustice, or to remedy a pattern of discriminatory redistribution of wealth or resources from one group to another. While there are problems with each of these reasons, they suggest how self-determination claims depend on considerations of justice and injustice. 3. Yet, for nationalists, this misses the point of making self-determination claims. It is the assertion of rights for national groups that is at issue, not unjust conditions per se. Put somewhat differently, from a nationalist perspective, the matter of self-rule for national groups is in itself a problem of justice. National groups can be seen as asserting either a democratic right (to self-determination) or a right of minority groups in majority-dominated states. The idea that national rights is a subset of the democratic rights of groups generally is based on the idea that democratic consent theory can provide a rationale for allowing groups to secede from states, when they want to “opt out.” However, there are problems with such a view. For one thing, it seems to ignore considerations of justice between groups. Other theorists have argued for weighing both consent and justice in the adjudication of nationalist and secessionist claims, though this does not solve the problem of which considerations to take more seriously. But there are problems with the consent theory itself. Since this idea relies on the express consent of persons given (or withheld) at any time, it would seem to allow a continual dissolution of states that could create a chaotic and conflictual international environment. Also, the matter of territorial claims is not one that can necessarily be resolved by consensual procedures, since conflicting claims will often pit a majority community against a minority one, both claiming the same territory. The view of nationality claims as minority rights works somewhat differently. Ostensibly, minority cultures in multicultural states have legitimate claims to be able to practice their cultures in appropriate communal, educational, and religious institutions. This would include “language rights” – the ability to use particular languages in everyday, as well as educational, settings – as well. A number of states (e.g., India, Canada) have extensive legislation mandating such rights. However, when the problem of “cultural survival” is at stake, some philosophers have argued for more extensive rights for minorities. These include the right to institute discriminatory practices designed to ensure the continued use of minority languages and, in some cases, secession from multicultural states. While these rights can be properly regarded as special rather than general rights, obtaining only in cases of disadvantage or discrimination, they nevertheless are

controversial. Do such rights apply to cases in which existing multicultural states have already instituted policies recognizing minority rights, but where minority cultures still seem endangered? 4. This question raises one of the two primary issues about the relationship between nationalism and (global) justice: What constitutes justice for national groups? The second issue concerns whether a commitment to national rights allows for an expansive conception of global redistributive justice. Both issues can be seen as aspects of a single question: Is nationalism compatible with a cosmopolitan moral or political perspective on global justice? In the first case, it is the realization of the principle of self-determination that constitutes justice for nations. But it remains the case that the principle is poorly justified, especially in comparison with the idea of popular or political self-determination. There are too many potential instances in which advocating the establishment of nation-states will wreck havoc on peoples and countries internally, and international affairs externally. What could justify such costs and consequences? Only if national groups suffer egregious discrimination or marginalization might there be a warrant to invoke the principle. But in that case, there is a condition of injustice that can be better stated in the discourse of political oppression, rather than that of national rights. This is because, absent such oppression, a compelling reason justifying the dissolution of states would no longer exist. This is the conclusion, anyway, that has been reached in international law in the last generation, and there seems little reason to modify it. But what of minorities and their rights, including those of national minorities? While in states that give little or no recognition to minority cultures, such rights have a clear warrant, this is not the case for states that have adopted multicultural policies. Minority rights would therefore seem to obtain only in cases where minorities have not been recognized by states. Where policies are in place to recognize and protect minority nationalities, no compelling reason remains for asserting selfdetermination claims and seceding from existing states. Second, what of nationalism as a limit on cosmopolitan aspirations for global distributive justice? Certainly, it is the case that some limits on such aspirations can be regarded as ethical, so that there would remain only a basic responsibility of aid to the global poor. A greater degree of substantive equality between peoples or persons is, on this account, unwarranted as a general matter, since, among other things, it would imply the existence of a global standard of just distribution. Such a standard, even if it could be formulated beyond a subsistence minimum,

Nationalism, Explanatory

would privilege one or another conception of material well-being, while such conceptions are fundamentally local and particularistic. In addition, there is the problem of political cosmopolitanism – namely, that the realization of such a vision of global redistributive justice would require institutions of “global governance” with extraordinary coercive powers. But the manifest unrealizability of such institutions precludes this as an immediate concern, in any case. In the end, the problem with viewing such lucid criticisms of a certain conception of global justice as aspects of nationalism is that the same points have been made by others who can hardly be considered to be exponents of that perspective. For instance, some have argued that the only global norm is one of subsistence. Similarly, the idea that local needs and standards must be weighed against global ones has been justified by reference to patriotic, rather than nationalistic, commitments. It may be that in the twenty-first century, nationalism, despite its attempt to formulate a conception of “national” justice that incorporates legitimate aspirations for political independence and cultural rights, will wane along with other twentiethcentury ideologies. This will not mean that national groups no longer have claims to consideration, but that these claims have been incorporated into new conceptions of political self-determination and social justice more suited to the current era.

Related Topics

▶ Borders ▶ Citizenship ▶ Collective Identity ▶ Communities ▶ Liberal Nationalism ▶ National Self-Determination ▶ Secession ▶ Sovereignty ▶ Territorial Rights

References Beran H (1987) The consent theory of political obligation. Croom Helm, London Brilmayer L (1991) Secession and self-determination: a territorial interpretation. Yale J Int Law 16:177–201 Buchanan A (1991) Secession: the morality of political divorce from Fort Sumter to Lithuania and Quebec. Westview Press, Boulder, CO Dahbour O (2003) Illusion of the peoples: a critique of national self-determination. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD Kymlicka W (1995) Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford Miller D (2008) National responsibility and global justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford

N

745

Miller R (1998) Cosmopolitan respect and patriotic concern. Philos Public Affairs 27:202–224 Raz J, Margalit A (1990) National self-determination. J Philos 87:439–461 Tamir Y (1993) Liberal nationalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Taylor Charles (1997) Nationalism and modernity. In: Robert McKim, Jeff McMahan (eds) The morality of nationalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Nationalism, Explanatory WALTER J. RIKER Department of Philosophy, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA, USA

According to recent World Bank data, approximately 27% of the world’s population currently lives in extreme poverty. This represents an improvement over past years, but it still means that hundreds of millions of human beings are chronically undernourished and lack clean water, adequate shelter, electricity, and access to basic sanitation. Those living under these conditions typically lack access to basic health care too, so many human beings presently suffer from treatable illness and disease. Many believe this poverty is caused primarily by local factors, such as corruption and incompetence in the governments of the poor nations in question, and not by the global economic order as such. Thomas Pogge calls this account of extreme poverty “explanatory nationalism” (2005, 2008), and in World Poverty and Human Rights (2008), he argues that we ought to reject it. Explanatory nationalism assigns primary responsibility for extreme poverty to the poor nations themselves. This poverty is caused by flawed social and political institutions and corrupt government officials, which are a result of particular and local historical, cultural, and environmental factors. John Rawls defends a view like this in The Law of Peoples (1999), where he says that the ultimate causes of a country’s wealth are the religious, philosophical, and moral traditions that support its basic social and political institutions, the industriousness of its members, and its population policy. Such local factors explain why resource-poor countries like Japan nevertheless do very well, and why resource-rich countries like Argentina can often do very poorly. Other examples of explanatory nationalism can be found in David Landes’ The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (1998), Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel (1999), and in many

N

746

N

Nationalism, Explanatory

essays in Culture Matters (2001), edited by Lawrence Harrison and Samuel Huntington. According to explanatory nationalism, poor nations can make progress against extreme poverty only by developing and sustaining more effective social and political institutions. In particular, citizens in poor nations need to develop political institutions that allow them to hold their political officials responsible for social policies and other government activities that create extreme poverty. They also need to develop or more effectively manage their own markets and resource bases. Until citizens of poor nations take greater control of and responsibility for their domestic situations, extreme poverty will persist. Of course, affluent nations are deeply troubled by this extreme poverty. Unfortunately, according to proponents of explanatory nationalism, there is little that affluent nations can do to help. First, it is morally wrong for affluent nations to impose (Western) social and political institutions on other societies. Second, while ad hoc efforts to provide emergency and development aid may help alleviate some effects of extreme poverty, such aid is unlikely to be effective in the long term, because poverty is caused by the very same corrupt and incompetent governments that receive this aid from affluent nations. Such aid typically does little good, then, because much of it is wasted or stolen by the governments of poor nations. Finally, each poor country has its own socioeconomic trajectory, caused by its own unique history, culture, geography, and so on. This means that each poor country has its own unique set of problems, each of which requires a uniquely local response or solution. Thomas Pogge argues that we ought to reject explanatory nationalism. To be clear, he does not deny the account of extreme poverty outlined above. Debra Satz (2005) and Alan Patten (2005) have accused Pogge of “explanatory globalism” – of focusing exclusively on global factors, and ignoring local ones. But while Pogge (2005) admits that he highlights global factors, he denies that he ignores local ones. Thus, he admits that local corruption and incompetence play significant roles in what is happening in many poor countries, and that poor countries need effective social and political institutions if they are going to successfully fight extreme poverty. What Pogge denies is the claim that the global economic order, including the affluent nations that shape and sustain it, has not played a significant role in the historical development of the corrupt and ineffective social and political institutions of many poor nations. Thus, Pogge rejects explanatory nationalism because it tells only part of the story.

According to Pogge, global institutions and practices have played a significant causal role in extreme global poverty. One particularly harmful aspect of the global order is the practice of recognizing any group controlling coercive power in a country as the legitimate government of that country, regardless of how that group attained control. This recognition allows affluent nations to negotiate with such groups, and confers on these groups the international resource privilege (the freedom to dispose of a country’s natural resources) and the international borrowing privilege (the freedom to freely borrow in the country’s name). Unfortunately, these practices and privileges provide powerful incentives for coup attempts and civil wars, and have led to a great deal of human rights abuses and corruption and other mismanagement of resources in poor countries. Pogge argues that abuses of the resource and borrowing privileges in particular have played a very strong role in the development of extreme poverty in many parts of the world. Thus, Pogge argues, explanatory nationalism is false. It is true that extreme poverty is largely caused by corrupt and incompetent governments in poor countries, but it is wrong to think that this corruption and incompetence itself has local causes. Global institutions and practices have played a strong causal role in the development of this corruption and incompetence. Since affluent nations are largely responsible for these global institutions and practices, they are also largely responsible for the resulting corruption, incompetence, and extreme poverty. What is perhaps most insidious about explanatory nationalism is the way it turns the duty to aid those suffering from extreme poverty into a positive duty to benefit and not a negative duty not to cause harm. Most agree that the negative duty not to cause harm to others without good reason is fairly strict. It does not admit of many exceptions. On the other hand, the positive duty to help those in need is somewhat weaker, and seems to have many exceptions. If explanatory nationalism is correct, then the duty to help those suffering from extreme poverty is a weak positive duty, and not a strict negative one. If explanatory nationalism is correct, then affluent nations are not causing extreme poverty through the current global economic order, and they have no negative duty to stop supporting the institutions and practices that constitute it. One of Pogge’s main goals in attacking explanatory nationalism is to show that the duty to aid those suffering from extreme poverty is not, or is not only, a positive duty to assist, but is also, in fact, a negative duty not to cause harm.

Nationalism, Extended

Related Topics

▶ Development Assistance ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Pogge, Thomas ▶ Poverty ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Sen, Amartya

References Diamond J (1999) Guns, germs and steel: the fates of human societies. W.W. Norton, New York Harrison L, Huntington S (eds) (2001) Culture matters: how values shape human progress. Basic Books, New York Landes D (1998) The wealth and poverty of nations: why some are so rich and some so poor. W.W. Norton, New York Patten A (2005) Should we stop thinking about poverty in terms of helping the poor? Ethics Int Aff 19:19–27 Pogge T (2005) Real world justice. J Ethics 9:29–53 Pogge T (2008) World poverty and human rights, 2nd edn. Polity Press, Malden Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Satz D (2005) What do we owe the global poor? Ethics Int Aff 19:47–54

Nationalism, Extended YUBRAJ ARYAL Philosophy and Literature Program, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

This term refers to the extension of the notion of a nation beyond the traditional one, limited to people within a certain geographical area. The concept of extended nationalism first emerged after World War II, when the European countries united to form a collective institution, which evolved into the European Union, to improve their war-ridden economies. These countries which had been divided by ideologies and cultural patterns, now united in the pursuit of their mutual economic interests, thus reconfiguring old notions of economic self-sufficiency and promoting interdependence. At the same time, another movement occurred in the aftermath of the world war within the former colonized countries, a movement that has also been called “extended nationalism.” After the collapse of the imperial power of the West in its former colonies, a new wave of nationalistic feelings surged across the newly independent countries. This wave of nationalism was strong enough to unite peoples of the former colonies irrespective of their class and ideological backgrounds, with a view to forging their economic and

N

political destinies out of the debris of colonialism. Common loyalties emerged between countries of different geographical areas and ideological backgrounds but with similar shared ethnic and cultural patterns. It is evident that the term “extended nationalism” is a recently invented one, and the different users of it – it is not one of the most commonly employed expressions in this field – can and do employ it in different ways. For instance, Dudley Seers (1983) offers a definition based on loyalty between peoples of different nations and ideologies but similar ethnic and cultural patterns. But Sechin Y. S. Chien and John Fitgerald (2006) apply the term “extended nationalism” in a way quite different from Seers. They use it to refer to a common nationalist feeling among different ethnic clans within the same nation – for instance, among Muslims, and Tibetan and other ethnic groups in China. This kind of nationalism cohesively unites peoples from different racial, religious, and linguistic backgrounds under the overarching nation-state. For example, China’s attempt to combine Mongols, Miaos, Hans, Manchus, Muslims, and Tibetans within the orbit of such nationalism makes it possible, to the extent to which it is successful, to unite peoples of different backgrounds within a single nation-state, China. This helps to strengthen the broader group against any other countries, if that should be necessary. Consistently with Chien and Fitgerald’s view, we can also call loyalty between peoples of the same cultural orientation but living in different nations, e.g., between Pakistani Taliban and Afghanistani Taliban, “extended nationalism.” Extended nationalism tries to support “global egalitarianism” and “limited globalism” by reconfiguring past conceptions of international relations, involving the “unbounded” sovereignty of the nation-state, in the direction of a cosmopolitan vision of global justice. Under global governance, nationalistic feelings are extended across different geographical areas by agencies that bring together local, regional, and global communities. Traditional nationalism, confined to a single state, is no longer enough because of the accelerating rise of migration, heterogeneous identities, and the mobile nature of labor forces in today’s new globalist world. So, nationalism is extended to encompass the dynamics of this paradigm shift in the human population. Since nationalism is extended beyond the traditional boundaries of nationality, religion, race, language, culture, and ethnicity, extended nationalism can provide a legitimate ground for our ethical identity because such nationalism allows us to explore our freedom, justice, and creativity across cultures and nation-states. Such nationalism helps us to build a foundation for a cosmopolitan view of identity based

747

N

748

N

Natural Rights

on some universal human values in order to bind people together irrespective of ethnicity and cultures; to reduce violence caused by narrow nationalism and ethnicity; and to secure justice and peace for all.

Related Topics

▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Liberal Nationalism ▶ Nationalism ▶ Nationalism, Explanatory

References Chien SYS, Fitgerald J (eds) (2006) The dignity of nations: equality, competition, and honor in east Asian nationalism. Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong Seers D (1983) The political economy of nationalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Natural Rights ANNA MOLTCHANOVA Department of Philosophy, Carleton College, Northfield, MN, USA

The ideal of natural rights has not only a historical but also a conceptual significance for the discussion of contemporary issues in global justice. The notion of natural rights provided a model of a morally universal entitlement belonging to all humans across the globe, without distinction to their political, social, and historical circumstances. The effort to emphasize certain inalienable entitlements as universal across humanity is a conceptual predecessor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Natural rights describe the entitlements their holders have prior to their inclusion in a society. Natural rights are often viewed as rights in the state of nature, an imaginary state of humanity prior to the formation of human societies with their limitation of freedom by means of political power. The natural law tradition has a long history, but the notion of natural rights was most fully articulated in the seventeenth century. The notion of natural rights served for political philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke as a norm by reference to which one could judge the laws of political societies. They both based the legitimacy of political power on a social contract of individuals and evaluated the validity of the contract and the social entitlements it provided for the associates in relation to the pre-civil standards of natural law, of which the most

important are the natural rights. They deemed a society successful inasmuch as it protected the natural rights of its members. The limitations of this approach to rights are that it depends on how the state of nature is conceived and that it merely postulates natural rights without justifying them. Hobbes views the state of nature as the state of war of all against all, in which everyone has the Right of Nature to everything. The First Law of nature is that of selfpreservation, given to humans by God, and in order to abide by this law, humans, who have the right to everything, need to cooperate. Hence, a free agent that aims to preserve his rights must “be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himselfe” (Hobbes 1986: 189–190). From this Hobbes derives the need for common power that would regulate the agents’ interactions in order to preserve what belongs to the agents naturally: their freedom. Locke offers a classic “natural rights” account of universal equal entitlement to a set of basic rights for all humans. He considers the state of nature as a much better environment than that of Hobbes. Unlike Hobbes, Locke views the state of nature as one of perfect freedom and equality. Humans are not merely self-interested individuals driven by their passions, they are also rational. Their natural rights are quite extensive: they have the right to property (life, liberty, and estate) and the right to preserve it (to punish or seek reparation in case their right to property is violated). To pursue their Natural Rights men need an impartial authority that assures fairness in punishment. The establishment of such authority signifies the formation of Civil Society. Locke merely postulates natural rights and largely relies on his contemporaries’ religious beliefs to accept his account (he thinks that moral norms exist objectively). Even if natural rights are considered as universal entitlements, the perspective of those who conceive of what is just heavily influences their understanding of what social form this universal entitlement should assume. Locke’s proposal for the employment of the poor, for example, violated the right to property in labor of the poor. Alexis De Tocqueville privileges the entitlements of Europeans over those of the native Africans (former slaves) while acknowledging equal “human rights” of both. One of the main objections to the notion of natural rights is that it is merely a social construct, defined by human societies and cannot provide an independent standard of validity. For example, Bernard Mandeville thought that social norms are just a useful tool that the leaders of human societies employ to provide a framework for “flattery.” An answer to such an account may be that there

Negative Rights

must be some general moral norms at least within each society (for where else will the evaluation of some actions as fit for flattery come from?). A famous positivist account of natural rights is that of H. L. A. Hart who argues that for there to be any moral rights at all, there ought to be a natural right of all men to be free – this right grounds any notion of moral rights. It is a natural right, because it is grounded in the nature of how humans conceive of their moral entitlements: their claims to moral rights presuppose the equal natural right to freedom.

Related Topics

▶ Agency, Individual ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Charity ▶ Duties of Assistance ▶ Equality ▶ Global Citizenship ▶ Human Rights ▶ Rights

References de Tocqueville A (2003) Writings on empire and slavery. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltomore Finnis J (1980) Natural law and natural rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York Hart HLA (1955) Are there any natural rights? Philos Rev 64:175–191 Hobbes T (1986) Leviathan. Penguin Books, New York Locke J (1988) Two treatises of government. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK Locke J (1993) Draft of a representation containing a scheme of methods for the employment of the poor. Proposed by Mr Locke, the 26 October 1697 (published 1789). In: Wootton D (ed) Political writings. Penguin Books, London, pp 446–461 Mandeville B (1989) The fable of the bees: or private vices, public benefits. Penguin Classics, London Tuck R (1982) Natural rights theories: their origin and development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

Needs ▶ Basic Needs

Negative Duties ▶ Duties, Positive and Negative ▶ Killing and Letting Die

N

749

Negative Rights STEPHEN F. CAPONE, JR. Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

For those political thinkers who classify distinct categories of rights, negative rights are those rights that entitle a person to be let alone in one manner or another. They are rights that are instantiated in the form of rights to noninterference. If a person has a negative right, that person has the right to be free to do some action or to do no action. They are to be free from the interference of another person or group of persons. Usually, negative rights views focus on rights of a citizen to noninterference on the part of their government. Negative rights can include, but certainly are not limited to, freedoms such as the right to choose what to do for a living, whether to buy one brand of cereal or another, the right to buy and sell property, the right not to be killed or maimed, the right to keep what one earns, the right not to be enslaved, the right to pursue what one thinks is best for oneself, the right to speak freely, and the right to make one’s own moral decisions. A person’s negative rights find their limit only where an action on a part of that person will interfere with or otherwise violate the negative rights of another person. By this manner, one can describe a range of duties generated by the existence of negative rights. The kinds of duties associated with negative rights can be put in terms of refraining from actions of a sort that will interfere with another person’s right to their own liberties of person or property. A person has a duty not to steal from other people, for instance. Such actions deprive those from whom the property is taken of their rights to their own property. In negative rights language, person P’s stealing from person N is a violation of person N’s negative right not to have their property taken.

Negative Rights and Libertarian Theories Negative rights are of foundational importance for libertarian theories. Theorists who take this track have normative views about what is the appropriate scope of government. The scope is determined with regard to negative rights. According to a negative rights view, the role of the state is limited to protecting the negative rights of citizens. This usually means that the state does not involve itself in the affairs of individuals, except to promote individual liberties. The state should exist only minimally,

N

750

N

Negative Rights

granted authority only to prevent one’s liberty or property from being violated. By this view, any redistribution of resources is a violation of individual rights; any such redistribution is not morally justifiable.

Negative Rights and Positive Enforcement While negative rights generate negative duties on the part of one person toward another, the role of government in protecting the negative rights of citizens will turn out to be a role of positive enforcement. There is a manner in which the protection of negative rights by a state requires action on the part of the state institutions, even if minimally constructed. For instance, though a right to free speech does not require that a state provide a group of marchers with a megaphone, it does require that the state stop opposing groups from hindering that group from speaking. If the group anticipates the resistance of another group, perhaps, they might request that the state provide them with protection from that other group. The authority of the state, in such a case, is limited to whatever positive actions its institutions must take to prevent the interference on the part of the opposing group with the right to speak freely of the demonstrating group.

Lockean Foundations and SelfOwnership Some libertarian philosophers have pointed to Locke’s theory of freedom in the state of nature to ground theories that find their focus in negative rights. By the Lockean view, human beings are endowed naturally with complete freedom to do whatever they want in their actions and with their possessions. Usually included under the umbrella of freedom with regard to possessions is a freedom to do what one wants with one’s own body. In other words, we own ourselves. Understood with regard to self-ownership, negative rights are often described as protecting individuals’ rights to self-ownership.

Negative Rights in Rights Discourse It is important to place the notion of negative rights within the broader conversation of rights in general. Two related notions are (1) positive rights and (2) basic rights. Negative rights are often placed in contrast with positive rights. While negative rights represent rights to freedom from something, positive rights are rights to something. From the potential negative rights listed above, one can distinguish them from positive rights by pointing to their incongruence with this other category of rights. A right for P to choose what to do for a living does not entail that N provide P with a job of their choice;

rather, such a right entails only that P not be forced to work for N at a task P does not wish to perform. A right for P to choose what cereal P prefers does not require that N provide P with a particular array of options, only that P not be forced to choose one cereal over another. This pattern applies similarly with the other potential rights. Negative rights generally require noninterference on the part of one person toward another and not the provision of the means to live a life different than one can live on one’s own. In recent years, the emergence of a consideration for what are called basic rights has broadened the scope of rights discourse. Both what are termed negative and positive rights are subsumed under the category of basic rights, which denies the negative rights/positive rights distinction in favor of a view rights discourse must focus on – the view that demands more attention to subsistence and human flourishing. This recent direction has significantly enriched the debate on global justice by not only broadening the scope of discourse but also by taking more seriously issues such as inequality, deprivation of the means of human flourishing, and moral luck. For instance, challenges to libertarian accounts of rights often include concerns about material inequalities or inequalities in quality of life by other standards. These inequalities are seen often as resulting from people in unequal circumstances acting free from interference.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Rights ▶ Equality ▶ Libertarianism ▶ Liberties ▶ Locke, John ▶ Narveson, Jan ▶ Nozick, Robert ▶ Nussbaum, Martha C. ▶ Positive Rights ▶ Sen, Amartya

References Dworkin R (2001) Taking rights seriously, 18th edn. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Locke J (2008) Two treatises of government, ed. Laslett P, 18th edn. Cambridge University Press, New York Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state, and utopia. Basic Books, Jackson Nussbaum M (2008) “Constitutions and capabilities” in democracy in a global world: human rights and political participation in the 21st century. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, pp 111–144 Sandel M (2009) Justice: what’s the right thing to do? Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York Shue H (1996) Basic rights: subsistence, affluence, and US foreign policy, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism TEPPO ESKELINEN Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyva¨skyla¨, Jyva¨skyla¨, Finland

Neoliberalism is a political ideology in support of minimal state intervention in the economy. As the concept itself suggests, neoliberalism is seen as a modern-day version of classical liberalism, prominent in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The concept “neoliberalism” is used in reference to several political ideologies with some differences, and indeed it has often been questioned whether political philosophy of neoliberalism is one coherent ideology or not. The concept has been almost exclusively used by groups and individuals opposed to neoliberalism, while its proponents prefer such concepts as “free trade,” “libertarianism,” and “economic globalization.” Yet common denominators of ideologies classified as neoliberalism can be found. These are minimal state, unrestricted market exchange including the financial sector, free trade between countries, and general opposition to government welfare programs. From the viewpoint of philosophy and social justice, at least two different strands of political thought typically classified under “neoliberalism” can be distinguished. These are rights-based theory and economic utilitarianism. Rights-based theory can be seen as a modern version of John Locke’s liberalism, in which personal rights of property are seen as inviolable. Typically these rights are seen as being grounded in one’s right to one’s body and therefore the outcomes of one’s labor. According to rights-based theory, any state intervention to personal property is illegitimate and cannot be justified by desirable outcomes. Furthermore, even desirable outcomes are argued to lead to a “slippery slope,” in which further restrictions to rights to one’s property will follow. Sometimes rights-based theory of neoliberalism is called libertarianism. The most prominent modern-day philosopher who has defended this philosophy has been Robert Nozick. According to Nozick, the only legitimate function for a state is to ensure the rights to personal property. Thus, for example, taxation is seen as a moral equivalent of robbery. Property can be legitimately generated only by original acquisition or a legitimate economic transaction. Thus the problem of justice in Nozick’s thought is reduced to the question of when economic transactions can be

N

legitimate. The outcomes of these transactions are thus not seen as a matter of justice. Utilitarian neoliberalism, on the other hand, argues that minimal state can be justified by its outcomes. This line of argument has been used by neoliberal economists such as Milton Friedman, although not all of them make the distinction between rights and utilitarianism or make a philosophical argument in support of utilitarian/ consequentialist theory. The utilitarian argument has its historical origins in the thought of early economic liberals such as Adam Smith. In modern times, the theory has been mostly developed by the so-called Chicago school economists. According to the utilitarian argument, market exchange with no or minimal state intervention leads to optimal price mechanism reacting to individuals’ real preferences along with increased economic growth. Also free interstate trade is argued to lead to economic benefits by allowing countries and regions to specialize and benefit from their comparative advantages in production. In macroeconomic terms, neoliberal economists often stress the importance of inflation control and “floating” currencies. While these economists often acknowledge that these policies result in increased inequalities in income distribution, they argue that the overall welfare gains are great enough to justify these inequalities. Politically, neoliberalism had very limited political influence until the mid-1970s. At that time, the ideas of the Chicago school were seen in several countries as a way out of the crisis of productivity in several Western countries. Most systematically, neoliberal economic policies were utilized in Great Britain under Margaret Thatcher, in the USA under Ronald Reagan, and in Chile under the Pinochet junta. Especially, the latter gave the Chicago economists a ground to test their economic ideas in practice. In the former two, part of neoliberal policy was also to decrease the power of labor unions and privatize state property. Later, neoliberalism became politically very influential throughout the globe. This was on the one hand due to the deregulation of financial markets, which has led almost all Western countries to reduce their public spending, and on the other due to the collapse of the Soviet block. Also debt in poor countries has been seen as having enabled the strengthening of neoliberal policies, as the international financial institutions have increased their influence in these countries, pursuing policies which can be classified as neoliberal. This has led some critics to argue that global policies have been dictated by the so-called Washington consensus, meaning that the US treasury, the World Bank, and the IMF sharing the

751

N

752

N

New International Economic Order

allegiance to neoliberal ideology while having a large influence on economic affairs throughout the globe. Also several WTO agreements have become symbols of neoliberalism. Opponents of neoliberalism have argued that neoliberal policies have resulted in increase of poverty worldwide, environmental degradation, and the increasing power of multinational corporations at the expense of local populations, especially in the poor countries. Others argue that neoliberalism has been detrimental to democracy, referring to the power exercised by the Washington consensus. While there is little disagreement about the fact that income distribution has become globally highly more unequal, the debate has been over the question as to whether the poor have nevertheless benefited from neoliberal reforms. Also, the actual effects of the increased activities of the multinational corporations have been debated in view of the impacts these effects have had on global justice. The large antiglobalization movement which got its first big media attention in the blockades of the Seattle WTO ministerial in 1999 is often seen as the major opposing force to neoliberalism. While the movement has been more heterogeneous, opposition to free-market policies has been in the core of the agenda of the movement. Later, the World Social Forum has been the most important arena for the opposition to neoliberalism. After the financial crisis which began in 2008, a topic of discussion has been whether neoliberalism has failed, as loosely controlled financial markets are seen to lead to undesirable consequences. It seems that the political willingness to use anti-neoliberal political strategies, such as Keynesian economic policies and finance market regulation, has been increased globally as a result of the crisis, which many scholars view as indications of an increased global effort to promote justice.

Related Topics

▶ Free Trade ▶ Libertarianism ▶ Nozick, Robert ▶ Political Liberalism

References Friedman M (1964) Capitalism and freedom. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Klein N (2007) The shock doctrine. The rise of disaster capitalism. Knopf Canada, Toronto Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state and utopia. Basic Books, New York Smith A (2008 [1776]) An enquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. Oxford University Press, Oxford

New International Economic Order ▶ Globalization

Nickel, James ROBERT PAUL CHURCHILL Department of Philosophy, Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

James Nickel is an American philosopher and professor of law who has published extensively in human rights theory, political philosophy, ethics and international relations, and the philosophy of law. Nickel has been a tireless champion for human rights and his works are of seminal importance for global justice. Making Sense of Human Rights (1987, 2007) and Nickel’s article “Human Rights” for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (fall 2010 edition) are certainly among the most influential and frequently cited works on human rights. Through his influence on the conception, logic, and justification of human rights, Nickel greatly advanced efforts to legitimize and apply international human rights. In addition, by effectively addressing global problems such as hunger, poverty, and environmental safety, Nickel has demonstrated the versatility and reach of human rights discourse for the solution of common problems.

What Human Rights Are A central and longstanding controversy over human rights concerns how to understand what human rights are. When we speak of persons possessing human rights, what exactly do we have in mind? It is notorious that philosophers and political theorists have had difficulty saying what that something is. Thus it is to Nickel’s credit that in his works, most notably, Making Sense of Human Rights (MSHR), he seeks to present a clear and definitive answer. Human rights are not be mistaken for mysterious “natural rights” under a new guise. Human rights exist in the ways norms and reasons are brought together to determine, or at least, influence action. Human rights can thus be seen most clearly in legislative enactments, in covenants or treaties, or in judicial decisions that become part of national and international law. Thus, although they also

Nickel, James

exist as norms, international human rights are most highly visible in such major covenants as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the international Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), both of which entered into force in 1976. Nickel’s approach to human rights enables us to conceive of human rights existing in different ways. He emphasizes the importance of establishing human rights in international and national law because he believes, with John Locke, that legalization offers us norms that are better “known and settled” than the ones moral and philosophical arguments can establish on their own. Human rights thus can exist simultaneously at multiple levels (civil, political, constitutional, international), or as civil or constitutional, but not, or not completely at the international level. It is not necessary that human rights have a recognized stature as moral in order for enlightened individuals to endorse and struggle for them. To emphasize this point, Nickel asserts in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that “They are the rights of the lawyers rather than the abstract rights of the philosophers” (SEP). The primary function of human rights is to serve as tangible guides for actions by politicians, policy makers, officials, judges, and lawyers. At the same time, however, human rights exist most fully as legal and moral. As Nickel says, “The best form of existence for human rights would combine robust legal existence with the sort of moral existence that comes from being supported by strong moral and practical reasons” (SEP). In MSHR (2007: 34) Nickel defines human rights as having eight characteristics which he explains and qualifies: ● Mandatory norms with rights holders, addressees, and scopes ● Universal in the sense of protecting all people ● High priority norms with strong justifications ● Not dependent for their existence on recognition by particular governments or on legal enactment at the national level ● International standards of evaluation and criticism that are not restricted by national boundaries ● Political norms whose primary addressees are governments rather than interpersonal standards ● Numerous and specific norms dealing with matters such as security, due process, liberty, equal citizenship, and basic welfare ● Minimal standards that constrain rather than replace legislation and policy-making at the national level

N

753

By offering clear, balanced, and qualified reasons for each of these characteristics, Nickel succeeds in making sense of human rights. Moreover, the reasons Nickel offers for each of the eight characteristics together serve in their own way as a justification for accepting these characteristics as definitive. After MSHR, anyone who believes we ought to conceive of human rights in a fundamentally different way ought to bear the burden of offering superior reasons. Even more daunting, perhaps, will be trying to best Nickel’s arguments in the subject areas that concern him most in MSHR, namely, the justification of human rights, and especially what, using an analogy from chess, Nickel refers to as the “middle game” (MSHR 2007: 3). This consists of showing how specific human rights norms can be derived from abstract norms, and how specific norms are justified as human rights.

Justifications for Human Rights As noted above, Nickel holds that human right can exist as both moral and legal. There is no difficulty, therefore, in thinking of urgent moral interests, such as the right not to be held in slavery, as existing as a moral right even before protections against enslavement were enacted as the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, for example, or Article 4 in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Article 8 of the ICCPR. Many philosophers would add, however, that moral rights as compelling as protection against enslavement are human rights whether or not they receive legal recognition. The longest-standing historical and theoretical tradition maintains that human rights serve as the moral foundations for the declared, legal rights in documents such as the ICCPR and ICESCR, but are not the same as these legal rights. Philosophers in this tradition either argue that human rights are God-given and derived from natural rights and natural law (e.g., Finnis 1980) or that they can be derived from characteristics shared by human beings and that require our respect. Thus, according to more secular ways of making sense of human rights, the urgency of human rights, or their “priority,” as Nickel puts it, is justified by tying the interests human rights protect to inherent features or characteristics of human beings, whether this is moral agency (e.g., Gewirth 1982, Churchill 2006), personhood, or autonomy (e.g., Griffin 2008), or capacities for leading a decent human life (Nussbaum 2001). By contrast, Nickel rejects the view that there is one “best” justification of human rights based on enduring features of human beings or the human condition. Nickel

N

754

N

Nickel, James

chides philosophers who insist on one type of argument (usually deontological or non-consequentialist) as pushing other “good ways of justifying human rights off the stage” and putting their “own single favored way in the limelight” making one’s justification “thin and vulnerable” (MSHR: 53). While Nickel believes the most complete justifications of human rights combine robust moral, legal, and practical reasons, he prefers a pluralistic approach to justification by focusing on frameworks, or systems, for justifying human rights. Although these frameworks are presented in greatest detail in MSHR, the more economical account in “Poverty and Rights” (2004) is followed here. The first move is to invoke a framework that involves securing consensus that people have secure, but abstract, moral claims in four areas. Nickel consistently refers to these moral claims as “four secure claims.” They are as follows: ● A secure claim to have a life ● A secure claim to lead one’s life ● A secure claim against severely cruel or degrading treatment ● A secure claim against severely unfair treatment These four claims are said to be “secure” in two senses: first “in the sense that they do not have to be earned through membership or good behavior. . .” and second, “in the sense that their availability to a person does not depend on that person’s ability to generate utility or other good consequences” (MSHR: 62). Moreover, Nickel offers no explicit justification for these secure claims, assuming instead that they are “widely accepted as part of people’s moralities so that one does not have to make a case for them before moving on to use them in defending human rights” (MSHR: 61). Although this looks rather like an appeal to the idea of an “overlapping consensus” (which Nickel would accept as one possible ground for the secure claims), Nickel‘s justificatory scheme does not require achieving such a consensus. Instead, Nickel’s next move is to appeal to a second framework, namely, a “pluralistic justificatory framework” for human rights (MSHR: 53). The justificatory framework is pluralistic for the purpose of providing human rights with the broadest possible bases for acceptance. Thus in place of efforts to find one unifying foundation for human rights, Nickel endorses (and also scrutinizes) prudential arguments, utilitarian and pragmatic justifications, “arguments from plausible moral norms and values” such as fairness, dignity, minimal well-being, security, and liberty, and so-called linkage arguments, such as Henry Shue’s

arguments in Basic Rights (1996) that show that a particular right may be necessary for the effective implementation of another right. In addition, while this second framework can be employed in support of the most general and abstract of human rights implied by the four secure claims, it applies as well to more specific rights entailed by abstract rights. The secure claims are rights-claims concerning very abstract rights but they also entail more specific rights. In “Poverty and Rights” Nickel seeks to defend economic and social rights as a feasible approach to world poverty. In this paper Nickel demonstrates how a secure claim, or right, to lead one’s life entails the ability to be able to develop and exercise one’s agency. This latter right, in turn, entails that one have a functioning mind and body as well as options and opportunities of certain kinds. But, of course, this next right requires the availability of at least minimal food and basic health care. Thus, whatever else it might also justify, a secure right to lead one’s life entails, and thus justifies, that one have access to minimal food and basic health care. In yet another move in his overall justificatory scheme, Nickel presents six tests for a systematic justification of a specific right such as a right to a specific ration of food or a vaccination. First, it must be shown that people today regularly experience abuses or deprivations within the scope of the proposed right. Second, the norm must have the high priority assigned to human rights. Third, the proposed norm must fit the general idea of a human right (with human beings the beneficiaries, governments the primary addressees, non-triviality of concerns, and potential to apply globally). Fourth, there must be reason for concluding that a norm as stringent as a right is required for the needed protection or relief. Fifth, correlative duties imposed by the right must not be overly onerous as either severely excessive or unfair. And finally, sixth, for an ample majority of countries, the right must be feasible to implement both in terms of the resources available and the presence or absence of competing demands. While Nickel asserts that each test is “necessary for a successful outcome” (MSHR: 70) whether or not a specific norm amounts to a human right is determined pragmatically, by a balance of considerations and by careful reflection about relevant evidence.

Controversial Issues in Human Rights For more than a quarter of a century, Nickel has made critically important contributions to many of the major controversies over human rights. As noted above, Nickel has done much to justify economic and social rights as

Nickel, James

bona fide human rights. He has written on the human right to a safe environment (e.g., 1993b) and due process rights and terrorism (2007), as well as on many other problems for human rights. At the same time, however, Nickel has introduced improved ways of thinking that systematically cut across whole categories of rights or that bear on the logical features of rights. For example, in the influential essay “Are Human Rights Utopian?” (1982) Nickel defends the logic of human rights from critics such as Maurice Cranston (1973) and Charles Frankel (1978) who charged that the rights of the UDHR are utopian given the realities of life for most of the world’s population. To blunt these criticisms, Nickel offers a revised conception of human rights that eliminates many of the questionable claims of the UDHR. In addition, Nickel defends key features of human rights to which he would subsequently return. For instance, Nickel argues that the notion of correlative duties is not rendered nonsensical by the fact that in some cases people with the duty will not be able to comply. This is an issue taken up again in a 1993 essay on duties “to protect and to provide” and in a 1995 paper on world hunger. Nickel proposes a complex view of the relationships between rights holders and addressees of these rights. This scheme responds effectively to the so-called correlative duties objection; moreover, as Nickel notes, if duties were conceived in the way he proposes, then a more effective response could be made to the alleviation of severe poverty. Also in his (1982) paper, Nickel defends the intelligibility of recognizing human rights even in circumstances where they cannot be fully implemented immediately. This view is augmented in MSHR and in an important 2008 paper Nickel returns to this issue in the context of the debates over “indivisibility” and so-called trade-offs among human rights. These terms identify major subjects of contention reignited by the Bangkok and Vienna declarations in 1993 and the onset of the subsequent Asian Values debate. Nickel’s response is typically even-handed and conciliatory. He distinguishes between an implausibly strong version of the indivisibility thesis and a plausible claim. In addition, by arguing that the strength of supporting relations between rights – their indivisibility, in effect – varies with the quality of implementation, Nickel is able to show that rights with low qualities of implementation provide very little support for other rights. The upshot of this argument is that some tradeoffs may be permissible, that is, developing countries do not run afoul of a reasonable principle of indivisibility if they implement some rights before others.

N

Certainly one issue not likely to soon end is the very controversy Nickel sought to side-step by distancing himself from metaphysical arguments over the moral foundations for human rights. It is perhaps symptomatic of that divide that James Griffin’s On Human Rights (2008), arguably the most significant recent contribution in the more philosophical tradition, barely acknowledges Nickel’s work. While philosophizing about the “true” foundations for human rights will not go away, both sides of the divide ought to recognize the fundamental difference between their respective projects. “Justification” and its cognates are not univocal terms and in this debate there are at least two senses of “justification” in play. Nickel often uses “justification” in a political (and publicist) sense. On this usage, human rights are justified, when, all things considered and at the end of the day, we accept that it is very good to have legal codes enumerating rights, and practices or institutional processes for protecting these rights and for testing additional rights-claims. Given the plurality of moralities and value systems within the global population, it is also important to advocate the adoption of pluralistic justifications for such codes, practices, and tests. We ought not to confuse this use of “justification” with the use, more familiar among many philosophers, in which the term refers to an argument, often foundational, and sufficiently persuasive to come close to a proof. Suppose, for example, that someone points to a particular human right enumerated on a list or code, such as freedom of movement and residence, and asks why that qualifies as a human right. In this case, the query is not about the justification of having human rights as a regime, practice, set of institutions, or a system. Rather, the questioner wants to know what is it about this type of freedom that should elevate it to the level of priority or urgency appropriate for “enshrinement” in a covenant in a first place. Adverting to a sort of pluralistic justification, Nickel’s recommendations seems all wrong, as prudential and consequentialist considerations will seem, at most, to offer only prima facie reasons for human rights if they do not conflict with more basic non-consequentialist principles. What must be done to meet the requirements for this second kind of justification is to show how the human right in question falls within the meaning of one or more of Nickel’s four “secure claims” or can be derived from these abstract claims. After all, these secure claims do anchor at least some human rights in the worth of human personality or human dignity, and Nickel adds that the secure claims signify a substantial commitment to equality, as well. And this is precisely

755

N

756

N

Non-Aligned Movement

the project that philosophers such as Griffin propose to complete. Both efforts are to be commended – the philosophical no less than the more legalistic, political, and practical program initiated by Nickel. Without Nickel’s approach human rights are in danger of being culture or theorybound, and may fail to attain the broad acceptance necessary for worldwide implementation. Yet, without continued inquiry into the moral underpinnings for human rights, and renewed commitment to their deep roots in the value of human existence, human rights may come to be seen as unfeasible, too onerous to implement, and too easily set aside or traded off for unequal gains.

Nickel’s Influence When James Nickel began to write, confusion over human rights was the rule rather than the exception. It was suspected by many that rights talk was overblown rhetoric being used as a subterfuge for political agendas. Others doubted that enough commonality could be found among diverse peoples to support the universality claimed on behalf of human rights. Still others who foresaw in the human rights movement a rational and justifiable core nevertheless had difficulty articulating that vision. It is to Nickel’s credit that he, far more than any other individual, has given human rights the clarity, organization, and reasonableness it formerly lacked. Nickel has succeeded in turning the generation of human rights norms, their justification, and implementation into a rational program. He has shown how and where human rights have the requisite solidity and determinateness to do the work expected of them and when and why it would be wiser not to invoke the language of rights.

Related Topics

▶ Asian Values Debate ▶ Basic Rights ▶ Correlative Obligations ▶ Economic Rights ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ European Convention on Human Rights ▶ Global Human Rights Culture ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Group Rights ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ▶ International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ▶ International Law ▶ Legal Rights

▶ Natural Rights ▶ Negative Rights ▶ Positive Rights ▶ Poverty ▶ Rights ▶ Shue, Henry ▶ Subsistence Rights ▶ Terrorism ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights ▶ Vienna Declaration on Human Rights

References Churchill RP (2006) Human rights and global diversity. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River Cranston M (1973) What are human rights? 2nd edn. Bodley Head, London Finnis J (1980) Natural law and natural rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford Frankel C (1978) Human rights and foreign policy. Foreign Policy Association, New York Gewirth A (1982) Human rights: essays on justification and applications. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Griffin J (2008) On human rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford Nickel J (1982) Are human rights utopian? Philos Public Aff 11:246–264 Nickel J (1987, 2007) Making sense of human rights, 1st edn. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2nd rev. edn. Blackwell Publishing, Malden Nickel J (1993a) How human rights generate duties to protect and provide. Hum Rights Q 14:77–86 Nickel J (1993b) The human right to a safe environment: philosophic perspectives on tts scope and justification. Yale J Int law 18:281–295 Nickel J (1995) A human rights approach to world hunger. In: Aiken W, LaFollette H (eds) World hunger and morality. Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall, pp 171–185 Nickel J (2002) Is today’s international human rights system a global governance regime? J Ethics 6:353–371 Nickel J (2004) Poverty and rights. Philos Q 55:385–402 Nickel J (2006) Are human rights mainly implemented by intervention? In: Martin R, Reidy D (eds) Rawls’s law of peoples: a realistic utopia? Blackwell Publishing, Oxford Nickel J (2008) Rethinking indivisibility: towards a theory of supporting relations between human rights. Hum Rights Q 30:984–1001 Nickel J (2010) Human rights. In: Zalta EN (ed) The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall 2010 edn.). http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/fall2010/entries/rights-human/ Nussbaum M (2001) Women and human development: the capabilities approach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Shue H (1996) Basic rights: famine, affluence and United States foreign policy, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Non-Aligned Movement ▶ Bandung Conference

Non-Combatant Immunity

Non-Combatant Immunity ZACHARY HOSKINS Department of Philosophy, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA

A fundamental principle of just war theory is that participants in war must distinguish combatants from noncombatants, and that whereas combatants are the justifiable targets of attacks, noncombatants are not. The basic rationale for the principle is that noncombatants are innocent and that killing or otherwise harming innocent people is morally wrong. The notion of noncombatant immunity is discussed at least as far back as the writings of Francisco de Vitoria and Hugo Grotius, and it is commonly accepted today as at least a prima facie constraint on how wars may be waged. A number of conceptual and normative questions emerge, however, with respect to how the principle should be implemented. From the perspective of global justice, a particular concern is whether the constraint works to the comparative advantage of wealthy, technologically advanced states over combatant groups with fewer technological capabilities and thus fewer options for achieving military objectives without harming noncombatants. On first blush, a constraint on killing or injuring noncombatants might appear to rule out war altogether. It seems unavoidable in war, after all, that some noncombatants will be harmed in such ways. Indeed, pacifists often point to the substantial loss of civilian lives in wartime to support their claim that all wars are impermissible. For those who believe that war can be justified, however, a common strategy is to appeal to the doctrine of double effect, and to contend that noncombatant immunity prohibits the intentional targeting, but not the unintended but foreseeable killing, of noncombatants. It is an open question, however, whether merely not intending to target and harm noncombatants is sufficient to satisfy the requirement of noncombatant immunity. Michael Walzer, whose book Just and Unjust Wars (2000) has set much of the debate about just war in recent decades, suggests a stronger requirement, which he refers to as double intention rather than double effect. Essentially, on Walzer’s view two intentions are relevant: the intention to harm only combatants, but also the intention to reduce the risk of (unintended) foreseeable harms to noncombatants. In other words, it is not sufficient that combatants not intend to target noncombatants; in addition, they must intend to reduce the foreseeable harm that

N

befalls noncombatants. The notion of double intention has itself been subject to criticism, in part because it is unclear how much the risk of foreseeable noncombatant harms would need to be reduced, and whether doing so could require choosing tactics that create unjustified risks to one’s own troops or undermine the chances of attaining the military objective. This last worry may be of particular concern, as discussed below, for those combatant groups with comparatively less advanced technological capabilities. Perhaps the central conceptual question raised by the principle of noncombatant immunity is who should be considered a noncombatant, and thus not a proper target in war. The distinction between noncombatants and combatants is often regarded as essentially a distinction between civilians and soldiers. But if the justification for prohibiting targeting of noncombatants is that they are innocent, it becomes unclear in what sense all civilians are innocent and all soldiers are not innocent. First, soldiers are often conscripted and thus may participate in war reluctantly. By contrast, civilians may enthusiastically support their state’s war and even voluntarily participate in the war effort (such as by working to help supply the soldiers, etc.). If noncombatant immunity is based on the idea that it is wrong to attack innocent people, then it is at least not clear that the principle will prohibit attacks against all and only civilians. A related issue is whether it is permissible to kill soldiers when they are not taking part in combat, when they are not threats. Walzer considers a case in which a sniper must decide whether to kill an enemy soldier taking a bath several hundred yards away. He contends that shooting the soldier in such cases is justified; in fact, insofar as not shooting the soldier undermines, even minutely, the chance of not winning the war, he believes failing to shoot is morally unjust. By contrast, Larry May (2007) contends, following Grotius, that considerations of justice should be tempered by considerations of humanity in such cases, and that the soldier in the bathtub should not be killed. Beyond these questions of how the requirement of noncombatant immunity is best conceptualized, the principle raises questions of global justice in terms of whether it will in practice favor wealthier, more technologically advanced combatant groups, typically states, over poorer, less technologically advanced combatant groups. A large state, with the wealth to develop or obtain advanced technology such as precision-guided weaponry, may be able to reduce the risk of noncombatant harm from its attacks without significantly increasing the risks to its own soldiers or sacrificing its ability to wage an effective

757

N

758

N

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

military campaign. By contrast, a combatant group without the technological or financial resources to obtain precision weaponry may be comparatively less able to reduce the risk of noncombatant harm without either significantly increasing the risks to its own combatants or significantly reducing its ability to achieve its military objective (or both of these). This is especially so given that many states now have the technology to engage in what is called “riskless” warfare, in which they use tactics such as high-altitude bombing rather than the employment of ground troops, with the aim of keeping their own soldiers out of harm’s way. Combatant groups (for instance, terrorist groups) that do not have the capacity for riskless warfare, but who are fighting an enemy that does have such capabilities, may find that they have fewer and fewer combatant targets available. For such groups, achieving their military objectives while adhering to the principle of noncombatant immunity may become much more difficult than for the more technologically advanced combatant groups they are fighting. Such asymmetries have prompted some scholars, such as Virginia Held (2004), to caution against viewing all terrorism as necessarily morally worse than state-prosecuted warfare merely based on considerations of noncombatant immunity. Thus, despite the widely shared intuition that it is morally wrong to kill or injure innocent people, significant disagreement exists about how the principle of noncombatant immunity should apply in practice. These questions will continue to be of central importance in contemporary debates about just war and global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Double Effect, Doctrine of ▶ Grotius, Hugo ▶ Jus in Bello ▶ May, Larry ▶ Vitoria, Francisco de ▶ Walzer, Michael ▶ War Crimes ▶ War, Just and Unjust

References Anscombe E (1970) War and murder. In: Wasserstrom R (ed) War and morality. Wadsworth, Belmont Fullinwider RK (1975) War and innocence. Philos Public Aff 5:90–97 Grotius H (1925) De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the law of war and peace) (trans: Kelsey FW). Clarendon Press, Oxford Held V (2004) Terrorism and war. J Ethics 8:59–75 Mavrodes GI (1975) Conventions and the morality of war. Philos Public Aff 4:117–131 May L (2007) War crimes and just war. Cambridge University Press, New York

Orend B (2001) Just and lawful conduct in war: reflections on Michael Walzer. Law Philos 2:1–30 Vitoria F (1991) On the law of war. In: Padgen A, Lawrance J (eds) Political writings. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Walzer M (2000) Just and unjust wars. Basic Books, New York

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) ▶ Amnesty International ▶ Global Governance ▶ Global Public ▶ Global Public Reason ▶ High Road for Human Rights ▶ Human Rights Watch ▶ Illegitimate States ▶ O’Neill, Onora ▶ Owning Life ▶ Pax Natura Foundation ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Shiva, Vandana ▶ Treaty of Westphalia ▶ World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) ▶ World Social Forum

Non-Ideal Moral Theory KEVIN M. GRAHAM Department of Philosophy, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA

A nonideal moral theory begins from the assumption that some moral ideal is not fully realized in a certain social setting and tries to explain how the ideal in question could be more fully realized. An ideal moral theory, by contrast, tries to explain what a social setting would look like if a certain moral ideal were, in fact, fully realized in the setting. For example, given a social setting that is not fully just, a nonideal theory of justice would try to explain how the setting could be made more just than it currently is, whereas an ideal theory of justice would try to explain what the setting would look like if it were completely just. Philosophical discussions of nonideal moral theory have focused particularly on the moral ideal of social justice in part because of the key role that the distinction between nonideal and ideal moral theories plays in the work of John Rawls on the nature of social justice. Rawls

Non-Ideal Moral Theory

focused on developing an ideal theory of social justice that would apply to any well-ordered society in which all the society’s members know what justice is, fulfill the demands of justice, and are known to do so, and in which all the social institutions are and are known to be just. More controversially, Rawls argued that ideal global justice could be obtained not only between well-ordered societies such as those described above but also among well-ordered societies and decent hierarchical societies, which are neither democratic nor just, but in which the rule of law applies and basic human rights are respected. Rawls maintained that the development of an ideal theory of justice should take priority over that of a nonideal theory of justice because it is not possible to know how to go about eliminating injustice without first knowing what a just society would look like. Idealization needs to be distinguished from abstraction, since abstraction is a necessary feature of any theory, but idealization is not. Every moral theory is abstract to the extent that it ignores some things that are true of human nature or social institutions in order to focus on others. Abstraction could become a problem for a moral theory if it left some important feature of humanity or society out of the picture, but no theory can bring everything into focus at once. A moral theory is idealized to the extent that it falsely attributes to human beings or social institutions some features that they are known not to have. Some idealizing assumptions are benign in principle, but possibly misleading in practice. For instance, the assumption that racism will be absent from a just global order is true insofar as a global order could not be just if it involved racism, but possibly misleading insofar as it suggests that we can assume racism out of existence. Other idealizing assumptions are more deeply problematic because they are false not only in our current, unjust world, but also in any future, just global order. For instance, the assumption that human beings do not depend on one another for care at various times of their lives is and always will be false as a result of our basic biological and psychological makeup. Advocates of nonideal theories of justice have highlighted several problems with ideal theories of justice. First, an ideal theory of justice may not be sufficient to determine which of two possible global orders is more just than the other if the two global orders in question deviate from ideal justice in different respects, say, by violating two different fundamental human rights. Second, an ideal theory of justice may not even be necessary to determine which of two possible global orders is more just than the other, since it is not obvious that we need to know what

N

global order would be maximally just in order to determine which of two possible global orders is more just. Third, some advocates of nonideal theories of justice argue that ideal theories of justice play an ideological role in permitting existing forms of oppression such as racial domination, patriarchy, and economic exploitation to continue unchecked by virtue of their silence about the existence of these forms of oppression and their failure to recommend how to combat them. Finally, the social contractarian methodology preferred by many advocates of ideal theories of social justice is difficult to apply at a global level. For one thing, social contractarian methodology seeks to ground the nature of justice in a hypothetical contract between all the members of a single society, excluding nonmembers of the society from both the formation of the contract and the application of the conception of justice that results from it. For another, social contractarian methodology views justice as a feature of the state and other social institutions that is secured through the enforcement of the social contract by the state. There is, of course, no global state at present, so it is difficult for social contract theorists to explain what global justice would look like and how it would be enforced. All of this is not to say that nonideal theories of justice are without their problems. First, by refraining from adopting an idealized point of view from which to understand global justice, advocates of nonideal theories of justice risk losing any critical vantage point from which to view the injustice that exists in the world. Second, by accepting the claim that a theory of justice should only make recommendations that are feasible to achieve, advocates of nonideal theories of justice risk accepting the unwillingness of people to do what justice requires as a necessary limitation on what justice could require of persons or societies. For these reasons, some philosophers advocate the development of an ideal theory of justice as a complement to a nonideal theory of justice.

Related Topics

▶ Human Rights ▶ Ideal Moral Theory ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Social Contract

References Mills C (2005) “Ideal theory” as ideology. Hypatia 20:165–184 O’Neill O (1987) Abstraction, idealization, and ideology in ethics. In: Evans J (ed) Moral philosophy and contemporary problems. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 55–69

759

N

760

N

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Rawls J (1999a) The law of peoples with “The idea of public reason revisited.” Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Rawls J (1999b) A theory of justice. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Robeyns I (2008) Ideal theory in theory and practice. Soc Theory Pract 34:341–362 Sen A (2006) What do we want from a theory of justice? J Philos 103:215–238 Stemplowska Z (2008) What’s ideal about ideal theory? Soc Theory Pract 34:319–340

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) ▶ Alterglobalization ▶ Fair Trade ▶ Free Trade

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ▶ International Organizations

North-South Division ▶ Alterglobalization ▶ Ecofeminism ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Poverty ▶ Globalization ▶ Shiva, Vandana

Nozick, Robert HELGA VARDEN Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

Robert Nozick defends a right-wing libertarian conception of justice aimed at capturing core tenets of Locke’s and Kant’s conceptions of justice and freedom.

From Locke, Nozick borrows two ideas: the “enoughand-as-good” proviso as determining the rightful limits on private property appropriation and the idea that individuals’ natural executive right entails strong voluntarism as the liberal ideal of political obligations. Nozick carefully revises both of Locke’s principles in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. First, Nozick revises the “enough-and-as-good proviso” by arguing that scarcity undermines the rightfulness of already appropriated private property since under conditions of scarcity, newcomers cannot appropriate a fair share of the natural resources. This is Nozick’s infamous “zipping-back” argument. As private property appropriation is consistent with the “enough-and-as-good proviso” under these conditions, Nozick argues that original property owners must at least provide newcomers with access to their already appropriated private property. This access can be given by means of employment or through some other type of usage of the property. Second, according to Locke, a natural executive right entails strong voluntarism as the ideal of political obligations. Strong voluntarism is the idea that actual consent is necessary for the establishment of a legitimate political authority. Locke famously argues that because justice is in principle possible in the state of nature, individuals have a natural executive right or a natural right to enforce the laws of nature. In contrast, states have an acquired right to enforce the laws of nature – and the only rightful means of acquiring this right is through its subjects’ actual consent to the establishment of the political authority. Nozick aims to sever the link Locke sees between a natural executive right and strong voluntarism by showing that a minimal state with a monopoly on coercion can be rightfully established in a territory even though not everyone actually consents to it and even though everyone has a natural executive right. He seeks to demonstrate this by means of a hypothetical story of the choices individuals will make in response to the “inconveniences of the state of nature,” namely the challenges making just interaction in a stateless condition difficult. Nozick proposes that given these challenges, it is likely that in a territory, there will be a development from a so-called private protection agency to the establishment of a minimal state. Moreover and importantly, Nozick claims to show that this can happen without anyone being deprived of their individual, natural rights in the process, including their natural executive right. Thus, he claims to have shown that the natural executive right is consistent with having only hypothetical consent (“weak voluntarism”) determine the legitimacy of the state’s use of coercion for at least some of the people subject to it.

Nozick, Robert

From both Locke and Kant, Nozick borrows a particular conception of freedom. Individual freedom requires that no one has a right to use another as a mere means to her own ends by eliciting their persons or property in projects they do not consent to. For Nozick, this means that no matter how irrational or immoral it may be to withhold consent to participate in another’s projects, no one has a right to force anyone to partake in another person’s projects. Individuals’ natural rights, Nozick maintains, function as “side constraints” on others’ actions in relation to them. That is, they function as the boundaries delimiting the sphere within which each individual has sole authority to set and pursue ends without any coercive interference. Nozick is therefore typically seen as one of the main champions of a “negative duty” conception of justice, namely the idea that as long as people do not wrong or harm others by depriving them of their rights, they do nothing wrong from the point of view of justice. Nozick does not himself apply this basic framework to issues of global justice. Nevertheless, his position provides a powerful basis upon which to develop cosmopolitan critiques of global justice, for cosmopolitanism, like Nozick’s right-wing libertarianism, views individuals and their rights as the primary standard against which the justice of interactions and institutions are judged. If successful, Nozick’s argument concluding in the coercive monopoly of the minimal state can justify both the rights of private individuals and of private and public institutions to enforce basic human rights. On this position, as far as justice is concerned, what ultimately matters is simply that no persons are deprived of their basic human rights. States are viewed as at best prudential responses to the inconveniences of the state of nature. Like any other coercive agency, states are justified and ought to be respected only insofar as they actually secure human rights for everyone living in their territory or with whom they interact. The most influential application of Nozick’s arguments to issues of global justice is found in Thomas Pogge’s theory of “institutional cosmopolitanism.” Pogge uses Nozick’s argument regarding the “enough-and-asgood” proviso to defend his proposal for a “Global Resource Dividend” (GRD), which is envisioned as a future usage-taxation on the consumption of scarce, natural resources such as oil. The money generated by the GRD is to be distributed to poor persons throughout world either directly, through something like the United Nations, or through an appropriate nongovernmental or domestic state agency. Pogge argues that because there is global interaction, because the rich have and are causing

N

global poverty, and because the poorest in the world clearly do not obtain their fair share of the world’s natural resources, a GRD is necessary to make global relations between individuals rightful. The redistribution of resources as the result of the GRD reconciles the natural resource wealth of some states with the global poor persons’ rights to a fair share of the globe’s limited natural resources. Therefore, the imposition of such a usage-tax on the consumption of scarce natural resources protects the property rights of the global poor. The aspect of Pogge’s position receiving the most persistent criticism concerns its reliance on actual interaction and causality as premises in the argument for global redistributive measures. For a useful starting point to current discussions engaging these issues, see the related work of Joshua Cohen, Mathias Risse, and Debra Satz. Three other aspects of Nozick’s theory that have received some, even if more limited, discussion in the literature surrounding global justice are his accounts of intellectual property rights, the use of force against innocent threats and shields of threats, and the responsibility born by individual soldiers for acts committed in the prosecution of a war. Regarding intellectual property rights, Nozick argues that an inventor has a right to patent her innovations since innovations are not limited by the “enough-and-as-good” proviso. Rather, innovations are the result of people’s labor on their fair share of natural resources. Since these products would not exist if it had not been for the labor of the inventor, others have no right to them under the proviso. Consequently, offering innovations to others only on the condition that reproduction is not permitted is seen as fully consistent with the proviso. Nozick does, however, propose two conditions on patents. First, if persons can prove that they have independently invented a product already under patent, but without prior knowledge of the patented invention, they should have full ownership rights, including the right to patent and sell the product. Second, because it is likely that the ideas would have been discovered at some point, Nozick proposes that patents should have a time limit determined by how long, approximately, it would have taken for the invention to have been discovered independently by another. Pogge, again, has employed this argument of Nozick’s in his work on global justice. But this time rather than taking on Nozick’s view to support a case for cosmopolitan rights, Pogge uses what he sees as in inconsistency between such right-wing libertarian accounts of intellectual property rights and individual rights as a springboard to criticize the currently enforced international treaty known as the TRIPS Agreement (the Trade-Related

761

N

762

N

Nuclear Proliferation

Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). More specifically, Pogge charges Nozick with an internal inconsistency that also serves to undermine a commonplace justification underwriting TRIPS. Pogge argues that on a coherent libertarian account, no one can be seen as having a unilateral right to restrict how another uses her means. But this is precisely what Nozick’s account allows when it permits someone to offer ideas on the condition that others do not replicate them. Therefore, Nozick’s account of intellectual property rights is inconsistent with his own libertarianism. Pogge concludes that Nozick’s theory can, indeed, justify a right to a “token” (the particular, material objects that a person has invented), but not to the “type” (the ideas enabling the invention of particular, material objects). And since TRIPS requires the justification of a right to a type, advocates of TRIPS cannot use Nozick or similar libertarian accounts to justify it. The second aspect of Nozick’s brand of libertarianism that has received a fair bit of attention in global justice literature concerns innocent threats and innocent shields of threat. These types of threats result from persons who, due to no fault of their own, pose a threat to you. Here are Nozick’s examples. An innocent threat occurs if while standing at the bottom of a well, someone hurls another innocent person at you. An example of an innocent shield of threat is when an innocent person is strapped to the front of a tank in order to prevent firing on the tank. Although Nozick makes some suggestive remarks in the direction that people do have a right to kill such innocent threats and innocent shields of threat, he concludes this section of Anarchy, State, and Utopia by emphasizing that he is only highlighting these important, difficult issues and encouraging others to solve them. Four highly regarded and influential texts that have taken up this challenge are Onora O’Neill’s “Lifeboat Earth,” Michael Otsuka’s “Killing the Innocent in Self-Defense,” Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “Self-Defense,” and Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars. Finally, Nozick’s own comments on the duties of soldiers during war have also received attention in global justice discussions. Nozick is well known for arguing that all soldiers are responsible for establishing whether or not they are fighting for a just cause. Although taken up by many, this argument by Nozick receives the most thorough treatment in Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars.

Related Topics

▶ Anarchy ▶ Consent ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Cosmopolitanism

▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Libertarianism ▶ Lifeboat Ethics ▶ O’Neill, Onora ▶ Pogge, Thomas

References Cohen J (2010) Philosophy, social science, global poverty. In: Jaggar A (ed) Thomas Pogge and his critics. Polity Press, London Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state, and utopia. Basic Books, New York O’Neill O (1975) Lifeboat earth. Philos Public Aff 4(3):273–292 Otsuka M (1994) Killing the innocent in self-defense. Philos Public Aff 23:74–94 Pogge T (2008) World poverty and human rights, 2nd edn. Polity Press, Cambridge Risse M (2005) What we owe to the global poor. J Ethics 9:81–117 Satz D (2005) What do we owe the global poor? Ethics Int Aff 19(1):47–54 Thomson JJ (1991) Self-defense. Philos Public Aff 20(4):283–310 Walzer M (1977) Just and unjust wars. Basic Books, New York

Nuclear Proliferation ▶ Falk, Richard ▶ Russell, Bertrand ▶ State Terrorism

Nuremberg Trials COURTLAND LEWIS Department of Philosophy, University of Tennessee, Pellissippi State Technical Community College, Knoxville, TN, USA

The Nuremberg Trials were a series of criminal trials after the Second World War conducted by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremburg, Germany, in order to prosecute major war criminals. The Nuremberg Trials also served an important role of establishing a public record of the atrocities committed by Nazi bureaucrats, doctors, ministers, military officials, and soldiers. Between November 20, 1945, and April 13, 1949, a series of five Military Tribunals met to prosecute and sentence Nazi war criminals – many to death, including high-ranking Nazis like Hermann Goering, Albert Speer, Rudolf Hoess, and Joachim von Ribbentrop. By January 1951, all sentences and appeals were completed, and the Nuremberg Trials ended.

Nussbaum, Martha C.

The Trials were a concerted effort by the four major Allied powers (America, Britain, France, and Soviet Union) to prosecute war crimes committed during the war and to eliminate Nazism, militarism, and economic imperialism, which were seen as direct causes of the war and of war crimes. As early as 1943, in the Moscow Declaration, Allied powers decided to prosecute major war criminals and, by 1945, the U.S. Army had begun creating evidence and collecting entities. Finally, on August 8, 1945, the four Allied powers agreed on the Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which legitimized the Nuremberg Trials and began the litigation process. The IMT’s recognition of four categories of crimes – war crimes, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and membership in criminal organizations – gave the Tribunal prosecutorial power that transcended all national borders. These categories gave the IMT extended power to prosecute as many war criminals as they saw fit without being hindered by where a crime took place or where a criminal was holed up. This expansion of power continues to be the basis on which international law and war crimes are prosecuted today. The greatest effect of the Nuremberg Trials on global justice is seen in contemporary debates of transitional justice, and the attempts of nations and international bodies to prosecute war criminals. Critics of the Trials claim that the Trials negatively shifted focus away from the victims of the Holocaust. Instead of allowing “victims’ voices” to be heard, the Trials focused exclusively on the perpetrators of the Nazi genocide. One benefit of the Trials’ exclusive focus on the perpetrators of Nazi war crimes is that the Trials are directly responsible for collecting and cataloguing a large amount of evidence and documentation of Nazi actions and crimes. Contemporary responses to mass atrocities and genocide have learned from the Nuremberg Trials and have tried to strike a balance between prosecuting war criminals and allowing victims’ voices to be heard. The best example of such an attempt is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As the need for global justice and international tribunals in response to mass atrocities and genocide continues to rise, the Nuremberg Trials serve as an important educational tool for what does and does not promote justice.

Related Topics

▶ Genocide ▶ International Criminal Court (ICC) ▶ International Criminal Justice ▶ International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ▶ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

N

763

▶ Retributive Justice ▶ Transitional Justice ▶ War Crimes

References Bessel R (1945) Germany 1945: from war to peace. Harper Collins, New York Bloxham D (2001) Genocide on trial: war crimes trials and the formation of the Holocaust history and memory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Marrus MR (1998) The holocaust at Nuremberg. Yad Vashem Stud 26:5–41 Smith B (1982) The road to Nuremberg. Andre Deutsch, London Tusa A, Tusa J (1983) The Nuremberg trial. Atheneum, London United Nations War Crimes Commission (1948) History of the United Nations war crimes commission and the development of the laws of war. HMSO, London Washington E (2008) The Nuremberg trials: last tragedy of the holocaust. University Press of America, Lanham Weindling PJ (2004) Nazi medicine and the Nuremberg trials. Palgrave Macmillan, London

Nussbaum, Martha C. HENRY S. RICHARDSON Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

Martha Nussbaum’s distinctive and powerful approach to issues of global justice includes, but pushes beyond, the institutional level, asking not only what entitlements we must recognize all human beings as having and how these may be constitutionally secured, but also how we may justify these entitlements and how we can foster appropriate emotional bonds supporting their provision. The central entitlements she defends can be put in terms of her “capabilities approach”: justice requires that a decent minimum threshold on each of ten central capabilities be secured for each person. Abstractly, both the list of capabilities and the requirement of securing a decent minimum for each are to be justified by means of building on, and interpreting and filling out in an Aristotelian way, the idea of human dignity bequeathed to us by the Stoics and by Hugo Grotius. This way of proceeding grounds a strongly universalist conception of justice. Nussbaum insists, however, that the assignment of the duties corresponding to these entitlements rests on further considerations – ones that, she argues, places the primary responsibility for securing these entitlements firmly in the hands of the various nation states. Nations also serve, in her view, as important arenas for the reform of human

N

764

N

Nussbaum, Martha C.

sentiments, each providing a “fulcrum” that can help broaden individuals’ emotional attachments beyond their near and dear (Nussbaum forthcoming).

Nussbaum’s Embrace of Political Liberalism Nussbaum follows John Rawls in holding that the only hope for uncoerced agreement on fundamental principles of justice, given the tremendous diversity of people’s moral and religious conceptions, depends upon locating an “overlapping consensus” among reasonable persons. An overlapping consensus on a view exists only when parties with quite different comprehensive views each accept it for different reasons, incorporating it as a part or “module” of their overall views. For this to be possible, the view that is thus accepted must apply to some limited domain. Like Rawls, Nussbaum characterizes the domain of her account as being that of political justice, rather than ethics as a whole. For there to be a plausible hope that any such view might be accepted in a global overlapping consensus, it should also be possible to justify that view by reference to intuitively appealing ideals that stand free of any specific comprehensive view. Although Nussbaum agrees with Rawls that this justification will be holistic, in the sense of not giving fundamental priority to any one principle, it is nonetheless true that her approach, like his, is organized around a core idea. Rawls’ exposition begins with an appeal to the ideal of fair cooperation of free and equal citizens. In a related way, Nussbaum begins with an appeal to the Grotian ideal of equal human dignity. Grotius, drawing on the Stoics, had developed this idea in a metaphysically rich way that would presumably block its acceptance in overlapping consensus. Seeking a shallower presentation, one more likely to serve as a freestanding focus for an overlapping consensus, Nussbaum, like Cicero among the ancient Stoics, lets the idea of equal human dignity carry its own appeal. Further, as she has argued at length in various works, being “a needy enmattered being” is not, as the Stoics tended to think, a strike against our dignity, but, to the contrary, is definitive of human dignity (Nussbaum 2006). On her more Aristotelian interpretation, then, respecting human dignity requires recognizing that there is a range of central human capabilities that are not merely instrumental to human dignity, but expressive or interpretive of our shared conception of a life lived with human dignity. To be able so to live requires that the world be arranged in a way favorable to allowing our central capabilities to unfold and be actualized. Even when confined to the “domain of the political” (in Rawls’ phrase) and purged of controversial

metaphysical and other presuppositions that would block its freestanding appeal and its acceptability from the point of view of other doctrines, a candidate for overlapping consensus cannot hope to convince everyone. Pick any plausible such candidate, and one can always find some actual persons for whom that candidate view is anathema. As Rawls and Nussbaum recognize, it is neither realistic nor attractive to seek overlapping consensus among everyone; rather, the reasonable aim is to seek overlapping consensus among those with reasonable comprehensive doctrines or among reasonable persons. In Rawls’ treatment, the characterization of “reasonable comprehensive doctrines” is quite complex and the relation of this notion to that of “reasonable persons” or “reasonable citizens” is not entirely clear. Samuel Freeman has recently laid out in considerable detail the various elements of moral substance that are involved in Rawls’ understandings of these ideas (Freeman 2007). In a recent essay that is in part devoted to interpreting Rawls’ (and Charles Larmore’s) understanding of political liberalism and in part to defending it, Nussbaum has suggested that these complications might fruitfully be boiled down to the ideal of respecting other citizens as equals (Nussbaum 2011). We will return, below, to the idea of citizenship. In the present context, the point is that this provides a clear and workable qualification on the sort of overlapping consensus sought. To attain a stable and reasonably well justified arrangement, it suffices to attain an overlapping consensus among reasonable people, so characterized. One need not hope to generate an overlapping consensus with those whose comprehensive doctrines or ingrained psychological attitudes preclude their respecting all others as equal citizens. The Grotian idea of equal human dignity is not identical to the idea of equal respect for all humans but is rather a potential ground for it. It is also a crucial aspect of Nussbaum’s candidate for overlapping consensus, her capabilities approach.

Universal Minimum Justice: The Capabilities Approach Nussbaum develops her capabilities approach as an account of minimal global justice. Her version of the capabilities approach has roots in Aristotle’s conception of human flourishing (or eudaimonia) and in modern ideas of freedom. On a plausible reading and one that Nussbaum has defended (she began as a scholar of the classics before turning to literature, the law, and global justice), Aristotle held that a good human life requires acting upon a range of virtues. The capability for acting virtuously needs, he held, to be properly inculcated in each

Nussbaum, Martha C.

of us while young. Our vulnerability shows up, on his understanding, not only in our susceptibility to defective training but also in our dependence on adequate access to material goods – which are what the ancients called “goods of fortune.” Adequately to be able to develop and exercise one’s intellectual capacities, for instance, requires that one has some leisure time left over after one has seen to one’s needs for food and shelter. In adapting these ideas for her political, not metaphysical approach, Nussbaum shifted away from virtues to a more inclusive set of capabilities. In addition, while agreeing with Aristotle that a good human life would have to be one in which the relevant capabilities were activated, she has concentrated on characterizing what justice requires of political actors (initially unspecified, but they turn out crucially to include the governments of each nation). A due respect for the dignity of each – especially as this is partially specified via the capabilities of practical reasoning – calls for leaving most decisions about whether to activate a given capability up to each individual. Accordingly, justice requires that each individual be brought to a decent minimum threshold of capability in each of the ten central dimensions, not to a decent minimum level of achievement or functioning. This rationale for focusing on capabilities rather than functionings Nussbaum shares with Amartya Sen, who developed his own version of the capability approach in dialogue with her. Sen had initially put forward the idea of capabilities as an alternative to resources in answering the question, “Equality of What?” If we assume that justice importantly requires some form of distributive equality, are resources (such as wealth or income) what we should seek to equalize? One reason to doubt this is that there are some unfortunates for whom lots of income and wealth will hardly bring a good life. A more positive case for taking the capabilities to be a good basis for characterizing the central goals of distributive justice is that, in being defined around what a person is able to do or to be, they better capture what we really care about. Nussbaum has adopted this critique of the focus on income and wealth, which characterizes not only some philosophers but also mainstream development economics. In contrast to Nussbaum, however, Sen has resolutely refrained from specifying a set of central capabilities. Nussbaum has not only provided a list but has provided defining glosses of each of its entries. Here, there is space only for the labels of each of the capabilities on her list: life; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses, imagination, and thought; emotions; practical reason; affiliation; living with concern for and in relation to other species; play; and political and material control over one’s environment.

N

Although Sen had influentially introduced the idea of capabilities into debates about the proper way to conceive of the distributive equality that justice requires, his development of the capability approach tends to stress the usefulness of capability information as the most appropriate basis for “social assessment and policy” (Sen 2009). That is the role, for instance, in which the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations casts the capability approach. Naturally, in order to do any actual assessing they have had to pick certain specific capabilities to measure, an effort in which, for policy purposes, Sen was willing to cooperate. In contrast to this broad policyassessment use of a capability approach, Nussbaum concentrates on the requirements of minimum justice. Nussbaum’s view is that “we all have entitlements based in justice to a minimum of each of the central goods on the capabilities list” (Nussbaum 2009). The idea of human dignity helps generate the idea of a threshold. (Nussbaum holds that there is a dignity distinctive to each animal and argues that a fully global justice would include consideration of other species.) Although any life exhibiting any of these capabilities to a significant degree is worthy of respect, the idea of dignity in effect factors through all of the various capabilities, helping us think about what would be an appropriate threshold for a decent human life. As we have seen, Nussbaum takes the list of central capabilities and the idea of human dignity to be defined in tandem: neither is criterial of the other and the justification of the view must be expected to be holistic. Once both notions are up and running, however, we may lean further on the idea of human dignity to help explain a focus on a decent minimum. Beyond that, Nussbaum suggests, we may look to the idea of human dignity to help specify the minimum thresholds for each of the capabilities. Having the social bases of self-respect and protection from humiliation – capabilities that Nussbaum ranges under the heading of affiliation – are especially tightly tied to the idea of dignity, as we commonly understand it. This connection can help add definiteness to any setting of the thresholds. In particular, it helps explain why, in some cases – as with the political freedoms that she ranges under the heading of political control over one’s environment – a decent minimum requires an equal provision of the freedoms, whereas in other cases, all that is required is an adequate level of the capability in question.

Moral Universalism, Not Cosmopolitanism Nussbaum’s capabilities approach is a political view that is universalistic in its content: its central ideal of equal

765

N

766

N

Nussbaum, Martha C.

human dignity applies to all human beings (and its more abstract ideal of dignity to all living beings). Because her capabilities approach builds on this idea, which is shared in some form by the world’s major moral and religious traditions, she puts it forward with some confidence as a good candidate for a universal overlapping consensus. Moreover, in modeling how that overlapping consensus might arise, Nussbaum is explicitly transnational. Unlike Rawls, who for purposes of simplicity has us imagine, in his principal discussions of overlapping consensus, that there is only one nation, Nussbaum repeatedly refers to the diverse actual nations of the world – especially the United States and India – in developing and defending her claim that her neo-Grotian capabilities approach could be the focus of an overlapping consensus. Given this universalistic content, reach, and appeal of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, the question naturally arises as to whether it is rightly classed as a form of cosmopolitanism. This question is a complicated one, for two principal reasons. The first is that – unlike Rawls, who was singularly self-abnegating in his writings once he had developed the idea of political liberalism and tried to avoid making any needless assertions about controversial matters of broader ethical or philosophical doctrine – Nussbaum has continued to be free in speaking her mind about deeper issues of philosophy, including as they bear on cosmopolitanism. Thus, she has written several pieces that seem to endorse cosmopolitanism in some form, leading many to class her as a cosmopolitan theorist. One possibility would be to classify Nussbaum’s own comprehensive views as cosmopolitan but to refrain from classifying her capabilities approach as such; but before we can reach that question, we need to confront the second complication, which is the considerable ambiguity in the term “cosmopolitanism.” For present purposes, drawing on some of the distinctions central to Nussbaum’s overall views, we may distinguish three different ways that the term “cosmopolitanism” is used in contemporary moral and political theory. Cosmopolitanism can be seen as an ethical doctrine, as an institutional doctrine, and as a doctrine about the education of sentiments. As an ethical doctrine, cosmopolitanism is the view that all (human) persons, everywhere, have equal moral standing. As we have seen, Nussbaum is strongly committed to this view, although – for purposes of developing her version of political liberalism – she insists on giving it a sufficiently pared-down presentation that it avoids controversial metaphysics and can be understood as a political ideal. Already, this mode of presentation pushes us toward an institutional reading, for it requires that we think of her cosmopolitanism – at

least in this core development of it – as directed toward politics. We must then begin to think about the nature of politics, on her view. Even waiving this point about the fact that her moral universalism is importantly presented as a view about political justice, however, there are grounds for refraining from labeling her as a cosmopolitan merely on this account. There is no need for this additional label, since “moral universalism” adequately captures this aspect of her view – although, as we will see in a moment, Nussbaum’s insistence on an individualistic form of moral universalism does mean that her view of global justice counts as a “cosmopolitan” one in a sense that is defined rather narrowly by contrast to Rawls’ approach to global justice. A broad institutional cosmopolitanism would hold that individuals’ fundamental moral duties and claims should be toward some global government or entity and that it is such an entity that, ideally, should be responsible for seeing to it that their claims are met. On this score, Nussbaum’s view is emphatically non-cosmopolitan. As mentioned above, while her capabilities approach centrally asserts universal entitlements, she argues that the assignment of duties for fulfilling those entitlements is a further question to be answered on independent grounds. Her view is that these responsibilities fall primarily to nations, not to any global entity. Neither, she argues, do they simply fall on individuals and the voluntary associations through which they informally operate. Some modern cosmopolitans are utilitarians who see institutions as being of merely instrumental importance and see everyone has having duties that run toward all other individuals, without any institutional mediation. Nussbaum has waged a sustained campaign of philosophical criticism against utilitarianism, faulting it for its simplistic understanding of the good, its narrowly calculative understanding of practical deliberation, and its narrow moral psychology. In discussing global justice, she has also offered some more general reasons for taking it that it is institutions, and not individuals, that hold the primary duties correlative to people’s fundamental entitlements. Leaving the entire responsibility in the lap of individuals would generate a view that was “selfdefeating” at least in the sense of being unlikely to be accepted in an overlapping consensus of the reasonable. The reason is that this way of assigning the duties is potentially so demanding of those in a position to help the needy that they might reasonably reject the assignment on the grounds that it interfered deeply with their abilities to pursue their personal projects, and hence with their integrity. Conversely, relying on individuals to address these responsibilities as they saw fit, whether by themselves

Nussbaum, Martha C.

or via voluntary associations, threatens great unfairness in the result, as some will emerge as the darlings of voluntary aid and some will be neglected. It is imperative that there be large-scale coordination of efforts to address the vast needs backed by individuals’ fundamental entitlements; only an entity such as a state (with some accountability to its people) is capable of engaging legitimately in such efforts. And finally, only such a large-scale entity will be able to mobilize the knowledge and the resources needed to fulfill people’s fundamental entitlements. That the responsibilities for global justice should thus be taken to fall to institutions still leaves open the question of whether they should fall to nation states or to some global institution or institutions, perhaps yet to be created. It is in arguing against the latter possibility that Nussbaum makes most clear that she is not a cosmopolitan at the institutional level. There is, first of all, an important reason – presaged by Grotius – for respecting national sovereignty. It is at the national, and not the global, level where we find the ideal of democracy approximately realized. Existing international institutions so far lack the modes of representation and accountability needed for us to think of them as means by which we exercise our fundamental freedom to shape and control the laws under which we live. Insofar as nations do enjoy, even in a rudimentary way, these devices of accountability and representation, national sovereignty is to be respected. About the hope that we might build a global democracy, Nussbaum sounds a note of caution. Having argued in general for the value of diversity, she notes that a move toward a global state would surely be a move toward homogeneity. In addition, since all human institutions are prone to tyranny and corruption, there is great danger in resting too many of our hopes in a single institution. Accordingly, she argues for a flexible assignment of the duties of global justice, but one that, at least for now, assigns the primary responsibilities to the various nations. She is not an institutional cosmopolitan. The final level at which a cosmopolitan view might be broadly defined is that of human sentiments. It is at this level that Nussbaum’s writings saying favorable things about cosmopolitanism are mainly found. She is certainly against a narrow form of patriotism that would exclude a universalistic concern with the fundamental entitlements of all and with the needs of the distant. Yet even here, there remain two important qualifications to her commitment to cosmopolitanism. First, as the following section will explain in more detail, she consistently casts her own position as a kind of synthesis or middle way between a rigorous Stoic universalism that calls upon us to rid ourselves of our particular attachments in the name of

N

an equal respect for all rational beings and a particularistic patriotism that accepts our particular attachments just as they are. The revolution in our psychology that the Stoics called for would, she argues, shut us off from too many true goods – the fragile goods of fortune – and would leave us with too thin and “watery” a set of motivations for pursuing global justice (Nussbaum 2003). Second, complementing this general philosophical stance is Nussbaum’s somewhat more pragmatic judgment, alluded to above, that the various nations serve as important “fulcrums” for the reform of our sentiments. They can build from the strong ties we have to them and invite us to cast our gaze, and extend our care, farther afield. Although Nussbaum’s view about global justice is centrally committed to moral universalism, it does not clearly count as a cosmopolitanism in either of the other two broad ways that would call on us to use that term. Nonetheless, there remains a narrow sense in which Nussbaum is allied with cosmopolitanism. Much recent discussion of global justice responds, in one way or another, to the partial approach that Rawls made to that topic in The Law of Peoples. In that work, while primarily concerned with the appropriate foreign policy for a decent liberal society, Rawls also developed some general principles pertaining to global justice. He did so via what Nussbaum has called a “two-stage” application of his hypothetical social-contract device. At the first stage, it is applied, in an idealized way that abstracts from international relations, to domestic societies, thus generating principles of justice whereby they may be judged. At the second stage, it is liberal peoples – collectives that are roughly correlated with but not identical to reasonably just (or “decent”) liberal states – that are represented in the social contract that is to produce principles governing how peoples are to interact. Nussbaum, who objects strongly to the adequacy of social-contract devices in general, finds additional reason to object to the soundness of this two-stage approach to generating principles of global justice. She suggests that Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge, who each at one point applied the social-contract device directly to the entire world, better reflected the fact that a person’s national origin is as morally arbitrary as are the other contingent facts for which the Rawlsian social-contract device attempts to correct. Within this dispute among socialcontract theorists, this more direct appeal to a moral basis in the fundamental interests and moral status of individuals came to be known as a “cosmopolitan” one. This use of the term makes perfect sense as a way of differentiating different strands of Rawlsian theory; but views that are cosmopolitan in this sense, while they are indeed committed to moral universalism, need not be

767

N

768

N

Nussbaum, Martha C.

committed either to institutional or sentimental cosmopolitanism. And in any case Nussbaum, while preferring Beitz’s and Pogge’s versions of global social-contract theory to Rawls’, is no fan of social-contract theory as such. She argues that the core idea of a social contract – even in the hands of a theorist as heavily influenced by Kant as is Rawls – carry connotations of the individualistic pursuit of advantage that mask the ways in which the theory may more subtly model ideas of community (“a social union of social unions,” as Rawls puts it) and of the moral (“principle-dependent”) motivations of citizens.

Beyond Respect and Compassion: A Loving Dialogue of Equals If nationalists and patriots who ignore the issues of global justice ask too little of us, succumbing to the narrownesses of our passions, and Stoics and other rationalists misguidedly ask us to set aside those passions in the service of universally rational principles, what understanding of our sentiments and motivations can support an approach to global justice such as Nussbaum’s? To her great credit, far from shying away from this deep challenge, she has undertaken to develop a realistic, original, and powerful way of characterizing human emotions in general and human moral motivation more particularly. While this account owes to the Stoics an understanding of most emotions as having cognitive content, it of course departs from the Stoics’ view that the emotions are generally based on false presuppositions about what is of value. They can be; but insofar as the emotions arise from rightly valuing the goods of fortune, they are not. Nussbaum’s identification of the principal pathologies of emotion are far more sharply focused than was the Stoics’. She particularly targets the disgust that we wrongly attach to members of despised groups, the shame that we wrongly feel about our embodied vulnerabilities, and the rage that we (men, especially) express when our narcissistic conceptions of self-worth are abruptly cut down to size. It is difficult to do justice to Nussbaum’s complex views about the emotions in brief compass. Her book on political emotion itself draws on two prior books, one on the emotions in general and one on shame and disgust. These works provide many detailed lessons about how to combat the pathologies of sentiment. As throughout her career, Nussbaum draws vividly on literature and other arts in order to teach us lessons that we will not glean from the philosophers. The poets, playwrights, musicians, and novelists capture our particular attachments in ways that philosophers cannot. In beginning to explicate the ways in which nationalist sentiment can serve as an initial fulcrum for widening our

attachments, Nussbaum admiringly explicates the poetry of Walt Whitman and Rabindranath Tagore. They adumbrate how well-mobilized invocation of our most distinctive, particular ties nonetheless can point us toward a broader humanity. For a more positive account of the sentiment that can link us together and can sustain a commitment to global justice, however, we do best to turn to her illuminating reading of Mozart’s opera, “The Marriage of Figaro.” Da Ponte’s libretto, which adapted the play by Beaumarchais, is largely compatible with the conventional reading of the opera as light-hearted and frivolous. Insofar as it has political overtones at all, it is typically seen in fairly narrow terms as presaging the fall of aristocratic regimes, which were replaced by an alternative, not-so-different hierarchy. Nussbaum’s reading, however, focuses above all on Mozart’s music. She notes that the music presents the Count – the emblem of the ancien re´gime – as essentially indistinguishable from Figaro, the purported representative of the nouveau. Each is presented, in musically parallel ways, as being wrapped up in their rivalry over the Countess. Although each professes to love her, each is obsessed by a contest for domination in which she figures merely as a pawn. The revolutionary new viewpoint in the opera – as highlighted by the music – is, Nussbaum suggests, that of Cherubino, the Count’s page. The role of Cherubino, a teen-aged boy, is assigned to the voice of an adult woman. It is Cherubino, Nussbaum argues, who, alone among the male characters in the opera, truly knows how to love. More particularly, he is the only male character who seems able to participate in the kind of loving dialogue that Mozart movingly presents as occurring between the Countess and her servant – a dialogue between those so intimate with each other that each is easily able harmoniously to complete the other’s phrases. Whereas earlier generations of philosophers might have dismissed this kind of interchange as the pleasing but insignificant cooing of women in their boudoir, Nussbaum powerfully suggests that it represents, instead, the revolutionary possibilities that arise once the perspective of women is introduced. We come to see how our sentiments of attachment – indeed of love – can, without being shorn of their particular attachments, both provide a model for interpersonal interchange that sets aside the stereotypically male concern with contest and domination, and provide a basis on which, we might reasonably hope, concern for the needy and vulnerable everywhere might be built.

Related Topics

▶ Capabilities Approach ▶ Cicero

Nussbaum, Martha C.

▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Equality ▶ Grotius, Hugo ▶ Liberalism ▶ Rawls, John

References Beitz C (1979) Political theory and international relations. Princeton University Press, Princeton Freeman S (2007) Rawls. Routledge, New York Grotius H (1625/1646/1925) De jure belli ac pacis/On the law of war and peace. Oxford University Press, Oxford Larmore C (1987) Patterns of moral complexity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Nussbaum M (1996) Patriotism and cosmopolitanism. In: Cohen J (ed) For love of country: debating the limits of patriotism. Beacon Press, Boston, pp 3–17 Nussbaum M (2000) Women and human development: the capabilities approach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

N

769

Nussbaum M (2003) Compassion and terror. Daedalus 132:10–26 Nussbaum M (2006) Frontiers of justice: disability, nationality, species membership. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Nussbaum M (2007) The capabilities approach and ethical cosmopolitanism: a response to Noah Feldman. Yale Law J 117 (Pocket Pt 123) (online) Nussbaum M (2008) Human dignity and political entitlements. In: Human dignity and bioethics: essays commissioned by the president’s council on bioethics. The President’s Council on Bioethics, Washington, DC, pp 351–380 Nussbaum M (2011) Perfectionist liberalism and political liberalism. Philos Public Aff 39:3–45 Nussbaum M (forthcoming) Political emotions Pogge T (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Rawls J (1996) Political liberalism, revised edn. Columbia University Press, New York Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Sen A (1980) Equality of what? In: McMurrin SM (ed) Tanner lectures on human values. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp 353–69 Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

N

O O’Neill, Onora GILLIAN BROCK Department of Philosophy, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Philosophical theorizing about global justice has evolved into a flourishing, sophisticated, and respectable field. This was not always the case and Onora O’Neill’s pioneering work on these topics has been highly influential in these welcome developments. In this entry we review some of her most influential work on global justice. Some dominant themes in her work include her emphasis on the importance of centering theorizing about justice on obligations rather than individual rights, her extension of the scope of justice from the state to a more transnational perspective, and her analysis of the agents of justice. A pervasive theme in O’Neill’s work is the importance of starting with obligations rather than rights in theorizing about justice, especially when addressing global poverty and hunger. As Onora O’Neill observed in 1985, most commonly discussed moral theories pay little attention to needs. She argues that the language of rights is inadequate to the task of accommodating needs; we should rather look to the more basic language of obligations. One of her complaints against a rights-based account of justice is that unless obligations are specified and allocated, rights, such as the right to food and other rights important to the needy, will simply remain as manifesto rights or worse, still: unallocated obligations to assist may not only be downgraded but denied completely. On the rights-based approach, a powerful wedge is drawn between questions of justice and matters of beneficence. Justice is regarded as involving rights that are assignable and potentially enforceable, which only the claimant can waive, whereas on this model since beneficence is regarded as unassignable it is also thought to be unclaimable and unenforceable. She believes an approach based on obligations fares better, especially in including needs into ethical thinking. She argues that the Kantian construction can take full account of needs and she sketches how that can

be done. O’Neill sees vulnerabilities as central to the arguments for our having responsibilities to meet needs. According to Kant, we should refrain from acting in ways that are not universalizable (in relevant ways) and so we can identify several principles of justice. Importantly, one of these is a principle that prohibits coercion. According to O’Neill, Kant emphasizes that his principles of obligation are principles for actual, finite, rational beings. In order to see whether actual, finite, rational beings are being coerced, we will have to take account of their circumstances, for what counts as coercion will sometimes depend significantly on relative power and vulnerability. Of course, a very basic form of vulnerability is that of those who are needy to those who are powerful. It is widely thought that when people are in great need others do not have to threaten much before there is compliance. So if they are not to be coerced, we will have to ensure that they are not acutely vulnerable to the actions of the powerful, and this means, at the very least, that we must ensure that institutional arrangements are in place to take care of their basic needs. O’Neill briefly suggests there are implications for aid, trade, and development policies that can be derived from this analysis. Indeed, Kantian justice requires that we reform institutions that render others so vulnerable that their agency is impaired. The single most important change needed will be abolition of material need. In reviewing our obligations to construct institutions, we must take account of our mutual vulnerability. O’Neill has numerous other objections to rights-based theorizing, such as the following two: we may have obligations that do not correlate with rights, and so a rights-oriented picture may lead us to overlook important duties. Rights-based theories may also encourage a more passive, recipient-oriented approach in which our own agency gets ignored. Another important contribution O’Neill has made to theorizing about global justice concerns her extension of the scope of justice beyond the borders of states. She develops a practical approach to moral standing. On one of her important lines of argument, she maintains that we have duties of justice toward anyone whose agency is presupposed in our actions. An example might be when

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

772

O

O’Neill, Onora

we purchase products, such as consumer goods, made in different countries. Some produced the goods, others have transported these, and yet others still sell them to me. These chains of actions involve agents and I cannot coherently deny their agency or that they are connected to me through this series of transactions. My actions not only presuppose their agency but also give rise to duties of justice toward them. Importers, exporters, bankers, broadcasters, and so forth make intricate assumptions about customers, audiences, savers, borrowers, and the like. It would be absurd to question whether they are agents when they simultaneously make detailed assumptions about other complex abilities that they have. They clearly have moral standing and should be in the domain of moral concern. A more globally integrated world characterized by multiple chains of interactions means the scope of justice extends beyond the borders of states. In one of her classic articles, “Distant strangers, moral standing and porous boundaries,” O’Neill observes that we now have the means to act effectively over distance and meet needs through collective action. She inquires there whether we have obligations to try to implement a set of global institutions that can meet distant strangers’ needs. She notices that although we have considerable institutional capacity to act at a distance (for instance, through trade or capital transfers), other institutions obstruct action at a distance, such as state boundaries. She notes that cosmopolitans argue about these boundaries, and whether (and if so, how) they should matter. The changes that matter to cosmopolitans do not concern their location but rather their character. O’Neill encourages us to think how porous a particular boundary should be relative to a particular activity, person, good (and so on). Outsiders certainly count and not all boundaries are unjust. Porosity is quite variable: different activities can require different adjustments. When we think of justice toward distant strangers we can think in terms of making the borders more porous or offering compensation for harms caused by unjustifiable exclusions. She acknowledges that moral cosmopolitanism does not require a stateless world, but rather forms of institutional cosmopolitanism in which boundaries become more porous. Who has duties of global justice – who are the agents of global justice? O’Neill distinguishes between primary and secondary agents of justice. Primary agents, paradigmatically states, can assign powers and build institutions to ensure competence in delivering justice. They typically have coercive powers. Secondary agents of justice, by contrast, contribute to justice mostly by meeting primary

agents’ demands, such as in conforming to their legal requirements. O’Neill criticizes the idea that states should always be the primary agents of justice on several grounds. Some states are too weak to perform the necessary tasks required to secure justice and some states are themselves quite unjust. O’Neill suggests that we should include others as agents of justice; particularly transnational corporations and nongovernmental organizations can pick up some of this slack. When states are weak, failed, or unjust, other actors can play an important role in securing justice by, for instance, establishing improved labor practices or safe working conditions. In working toward a global conception of justice, O’Neill rejects the assumption that the sole context and guarantors of justice are states. Rather we should include a wide range of institutions that exercise substantial power, such as “networking institutions” which link dispersed persons and institutions. Familiar examples of such institutions would be the international banking system, transnational corporations, transnational communications organizations, international nongovernmental organizations such as Amnesty International, and Me´decins Sans Frontie`res. Networking institutions can aim at both justice and accountability. For O’Neill, this idea is no more absurd than the idea of constructing states with just constitutions appeared when in its infancy.

Related Topics

▶ Basic Needs ▶ Beneficence, Principle of ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Development Ethics ▶ International Justice ▶ Kant, Immanuel ▶ Poverty ▶ Rights ▶ Sen, Amartya

References O’Neill O (1975) Lifeboat earth. Philos Public Aff 4:271–292 O’Neill O (1985) Rights, obligation, and needs. Logos 6:29–47. Reprinted in Brock G (ed) Necessary goods: our responsibilities to meet others’ needs. Rowman & Littlefield, Oxford, 1998, pp 95–112 O’Neill O (1986) Faces of hunger: an essay on poverty, justice and development. Allen & Unwin, London O’Neill O (1996) Towards justice and virtue: a constructive account of practical reasoning. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge O’Neill O (2000a) Distant strangers, moral standing and porous boundaries. In: O’Neill O (ed) Bounds of justice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 186–202

Obligation to Future Generations O’Neill O (2000b) Bounded and cosmopolitan justice. Rev Int Stud 26:45–60 O’Neill O (2001) Agents of justice. Metaphilosophy 32:180–195 O’Neill O (2004) Global justice: whose obligations? In: Chatterjee D (ed) The ethics of assistance: morality and the distant needy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge O’Neill O (2005) The dark side of human rights. Int Aff 81:427–439

Obligation to Future Generations STEVE VANDERHEIDEN Department of Political Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

Do existing persons have moral obligations toward those persons that have yet to be born, but who may come to exist in the future? Although such obligations to future persons or generations are intuitively plausible, whether based in ethical imperatives to avoid causing harm to future others through present actions or in justice principles that require a fair distribution of resources over time, several objections cast doubt on the applicability of leading ethical or justice theories to currently nonexistent others. These objections have provoked various attempts within ethical theory and environmental philosophy to address the challenges they pose. Two of the leading objections to futurity obligations concern uncertainty and identity, and are sketched below. The intuitive plausibility of having obligations to future generations owes to the arbitrary nature of the exclusion of persons from moral consideration based solely upon their time of birth, over which they have no control. If it is wrong to harm someone or unjust to deprive them of goods that are instrumental to their welfare, then differential treatment of those persons that are or will be affected by present action appears to contradict standard commitments to impartiality in justice and ethics. Insofar as some action undertaken in the present but with durable consequences could harm one living person and one person that will be born next week, recognizing obligations to avoid harm in the former but not the latter case would appear to arbitrarily discriminate between two moral subjects. The consequences for those affected may be identical in both cases, and the same harm may be visited upon each at the same future time and be equally predictable for both future victims, but it is nonetheless more complicated to connect the harmful act in question to moral offense against future persons than with existing ones.

O

Likewise with distributive justice obligations, which are readily applied to existing claimants to common resources but become more complicated in the context of intergenerational distribution. One objection concerns uncertainty about the circumstances, needs, and preferences of future people, which is presumed to be qualitatively different than the uncertainty surrounding the future circumstances, needs and preferences of existing people. With moral obligations to refrain from harming, for example, we might not now be able to make reliable predictions about the harmful consequences on persons in the further future of present actions, since circumstances might change in such a way that render what is now a harmful condition into a benign one in the future. For example, we might suspect but cannot be certain that stored uranium will harm future people when existing storage facilities reach the ends of their projected life spans, since future technologies might yield better storage abilities that could extend those life spans, or might yield effective means of insulating future persons from nuclear contamination. Likewise with future needs and preferences, which might change in ways that render presently harmful acts benign in the future. For example, people might not be harmed by the depletion of topsoil if some future technology obviates its need in food production. Similarly, the disappearance of wilderness may impair the welfare of those with existing preferences for experiences in wild nature that admit of no technological substitutes, but we cannot be certain that future people will share such preferences, in which case present acts that destroy wilderness would not harm them. Here, the objection grants the wrongfulness of causing avoidable harm but disputes the link between present actions and experienced future harm. As in ethical injunctions against causing harm, obligations to fairly allocate shared resources among present and future claimants are called into question by this uncertainty objection. Since those resources that are generally understood to be subject to distributive justice principles are those viewed as instrumental to human welfare, changes such as those noted above might over time undermine the status of any good now seen as subject to such principles. Note that cases as those sketched above involve future circumstances, needs, and preferences, including those of existing people in the future, so the uncertainty objections apply with less force in the near future, when a strict distinction between currently existing and near future persons is untenable. But insofar as obligation to future generations is premised on avoiding bad consequences or fairly distributing instrumental resources over time, such

773

O

774

O

Odious Debts

uncertainty does complicate the causal links between those imperatives and the present actions that might otherwise be constrained by such obligation. A second objection, termed the nonidentity problem by Derek Parfit, concerns the claim that actions and policies undertaken now affect the identities of persons to be born in the future. Particularly with large-scale present actions, the parental pairings that yield future offspring may in the future be altered by what is done in the present, and the timing of conception might likewise affect the genetic identity of future persons. As above, this is more likely to be the case in the further future than in the near term, but unlike above, this objection clearly applies only to persons yet to be conceived. Since we cannot compare alternate futures based on the welfare of identical sets of persons, Parfit argues, we cannot say that any present actions harm any particular future persons, who may owe their very existence to such actions. Suppose, for example, that this generation was to embark upon a reckless program of environmental despoliation that would impair the planet’s life-supporting capacities in the future. As Parfit argues, we cannot say that this program harms any particular future persons, since these persons might never have been born under an alternative present program of strong environmental conservation. If we cannot causally link future harm suffered by particular persons to some allegedly wrong present action, this objection maintains, then we cannot say that the action harmed anyone. Note that this objection applies particularly to individualist and consequentialist moral theories, but may also impugn distributive justice obligations that causally link resource deprivation and welfare losses among particular individuals.

Related Topics

▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Environmental Sustainability ▶ Global Justice, Subjects of ▶ Harm Principle ▶ Intergenerational Justice ▶ Moral Equality ▶ Population Politics ▶ Preference-Satisfaction ▶ Utilitarianism

References De-Shalit A (1995) Why posterity matters. Routledge, New York Dobson A (ed) (1998) Fairness and futurity: essays on environmental sustainability and social justice. Oxford University Press, New York Gosseries A, Meyer L (eds) (2009) Intergenerational justice. Oxford University Press, New York

Mulgan T (1999) Future people: a moderate consequentialist account of our obligations to future generations. Oxford University Press, New York Parfit D (1985) Reasons and persons. Oxford University Press, New York Vanderheiden S (2006) Conservation, foresight, and the future generations problem. Inquiry 49:337–352

Odious Debts TEPPO ESKELINEN Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyva¨skyla¨, Jyva¨skyla¨, Finland

Odious debts are debts that have incurred so that the lent money has not served the needs of the local population, or so that the money has been used for purposes harmful to the population. The concept refers to a precedent in international law, according to which loans accumulated in such conditions are “null and void.” Thus the debtor government is under no obligation to repay such debts, given that the current government is democratic and legitimate. As several poor countries suffer from debts accumulated under suspect conditions and pay up to a third of their public revenues in loan service, the issue of odious debts is highly important in current discussions of global justice. According to a study by McGill University, legal scholars relying on precedents, general principles of law, and judicial decisions, there are three necessary conditions for a loan to be declared odious. These are: (1) The debt must not have received the consent of the nation, (2) The funds borrowed must have been contracted and spent in a manner that is contrary to the interests of the nation, and (3) The creditor must have been aware of these facts. Often quoted examples of debts which ought to be declared odious, but are being demanded from the current governments, include debts acquired by: Mobutu Sese Seko (of Zaire, presently Democratic Republic of the Congo), Suharto (Indonesia), and Marcos (Philippines). Along with these cases, there are a large number of developing countries with debts with similar but less clear inconsistencies. The legal precedent of odious debts is the case of Cuba in 1907, when the country’s debts to the former colonial ruler Spain were declared by a US court to be of such nature that they need not be repaid. Later, in 1923, the US Supreme Court decided on a case of Costa Rican debts to the Royal Bank of Canada, a commercial bank. The court

Odious Debts

ruled that as the loan was granted to the outgoing dictator Tinoco and had clearly only benefited the Tinoco family, the country was under no obligation to repay. The fact that the financial liabilities of countries related typically to international debt are passed on to succeeding governments has been seen a disincentive for achieving democracy. In recent political philosophy, Thomas Pogge has called for attention to what he calls the borrowing privilege, meaning the fact that the international system acknowledges any despotic government as the legitimate party to lend in the country’s name. According to Pogge, this leads to increased possibilities for despotic leaders to retain power, along with incentives to attempt a coup d’e´tat in poor but resourceful countries. Accordingly, if such debts would be routinely declared odious, this would deter lenders from funding despotic leaders. Pogge has suggested mechanisms such as an international democracy panel for making the distinction between democratic and undemocratic regimes. The implementation of the doctrine of odious debts is not only a political and moral problem but a problem for the study of social ontology. Thus the problem regards the continuation of the country as an entity. In other words, applications of the doctrine rest on the assumption that the country with its succeeding democratic government is an ontologically different entity from the borrower. Thus the borrower can be seen as a different national entity (albeit with same location), or the loan can be seen as taken by an illegitimate representative of the country, or a person merely claiming to represent the country. Most often, the concept of odious debts has been used by activists campaigning for some foreign debt(s) to be declared odious. For example, postapartheid South Africa saw a strong campaign for declaring debts accumulated in the apartheid era odious. The campaigners went as far as calling for compensation from rather than repayment to the parties that loaned to the apartheid government. Governments in poor countries, in general, have been hesitant of using the concept, and have rather chosen to call for partial cancellation of their foreign debts, along with increased official development assistance (ODA). In the South African case, the campaigners lost their court case both in Pretoria and New York, due mainly to the position of the ANC government in South Africa. Typically, creditors have avoided using the concept of odious debts, even in cases in which the argumentation for debt cancellation has resembled the logic of odious debts. A recent example of such a case is the US-backed cancellation of Iraqi national debt which had accumulated under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Earlier examples of such debt cancellations include the cancellation of the

O

Polish national debt under new Solidarity government and the national debt of the post-World War II Germany. The CSO Jubilee research estimates the level of odious debts to be internationally $500 million out of a total developing country (low-income and lower middleincome) international debt stock of $2,200 million. This number is significantly larger than, for instance, the debt cancellations granted via the World Bank HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries) scheme, which stand at $200 million, although applying only to some of the countries with arguably odious debts. Currently, there is no international body for solving the disputes over whether a particular debt is odious. This lack of international mechanism has been argued to lead to arbitrariness in deciding whether a loan ought to be seen as legally binding or not. For this reason, scholars such as Kunibert Raffer have proposed setting up an international body to take over the impartial assessment of the possible odiousness of debts. In Raffer’s model, this body would be modeled on the US Chapter 11, which stipulates the conditions of the bankruptcy of a public entity such as a municipality. The arbitration would function as an independent international body, or within a UN institution such as ECOSOC. According to Raffer, only such an independent body would guarantee impartiality, as trusting arbitration on debts on the International Financial Institutions would lead to conflict of interest, as they are also major creditors of the governments in poor countries. Nevertheless, for example, the IMF has suggested models for somewhat similar arbitration procedures. Disregarding the mechanism making such decisions, applying the doctrine of odious debts in individual cases remains necessarily complicated. While the existence of dictatorship remains easy to show, the level of democracy in a country, the definition of “national interest” and showing creditor’s awareness of spending of the loan funds continue to be judicial and philosophical problems in their own right.

Related Topics

▶ Debt Relief ▶ Economic Rights ▶ Political Legitimacy

References Barry C, Herman B, Tomitova L (eds) (2008) Dealing fairly with developing country debt. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford Khalfan A, King J, Thomas B (2003) Advancing the odious debt doctrine, CISDL Working paper. Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, Montreal

775

O

776

O

Oil

Raffer K (2005) Debt workout mechanisms: debt arbitration. In: Helsinki Process Secretariat (ed) Helsinki papers on global economic agenda. Helsinki Process Publication Series 3/2005. Foreign Ministry Publications, Helsinki Rudin J (1997) Challenging apartheid’s foreign debt. Alternative Development and Information Centre, Woodstock

Oil ROBERT P. ABELE Department of Humanities and Philosophy, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA, USA

Recent world events have reawakened the world to the critical importance of oil in the domestic economies, the environment, and, more importantly, for world geopolitical decisions. The cost of gasoline at the pumps, talk of “peak oil,” the fire, and subsequent blowout of the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, with its resulting heavy environmental damage, and most importantly, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 pointed to the primacy of oil in discussions of world politics and global justice. The focus of this chapter will be to highlight the actions and the strategies of oil corporations and US military policy in the world geological and political scene, to examine the impact of the strategies on the environment and on education, and to suggest angles of analyses of such actions and strategies from the viewpoint of global justice. The reigning corporate model today worldwide, but particularly in the USA, has been essentially crafted by economist Milton Friedman, who maintains that the essential function of the corporation is to make money for their executives and shareholders. This philosophy was enshrined in the US court case, Dodge v. Ford (1919). In the ruling, the judge stated that the primary purpose of any corporation was “for the profit of its stockholders.” This ruling, called “the best interests of the corporation” principle, legally forbids executives of corporations from acting in any other manner than profit, whether it is to assist workers, improve the environment, or help consumers save money (Bakan 2004). When this corporate model is coupled with current energy demands, along with peak oil and climate change, there is a perfect storm brewing. The current world oil situation is best presented by the International Energy Agency. The IEA is a Paris-based

organization that provides energy analysis to 28 nations. According to their 2010 report, the conventional production of crude oil peaked in 2006, and crude production from current world oil fields will drop sharply in the coming decades (Rudolf 2010). “Peak oil” is defined as the point at which the maximum rate of oil extraction from the earth has been reached, and the rate of production reaches terminal decline. Due to peak oil now being a reality, the report predicts that oil prices will continue to rise sharply, a fact that has been noted by economists as contributing to the worldwide economic collapse of 2008. The 2010 report also noted that China’s energy demand is projected to soar 75% by 2035; in other words, from 17% of the current world demand for energy to more than a third of the demand (Krauss 2010). Additionally, India’s oil imports are projected to triple by the year 2020 (Business Week 2005). As well, the journal Energy Policy recently published a study which concluded that world oil demand would pass supply by the year 2015 (Owen et al. 2010). Beyond the supply issue, Western governments have made control of oil resources their goal for most of the twentieth century. For example, the UK and USA began to plan for control of Middle East oil since at least 1918, when Sir Maurice Hankey, Britain’s first Secretary of the War Cabinet, predicted that the next major war would concern oil, and advocated that the UK attempt to control Iraq’s and Iran’s oil as “a first class British war aim” (Mutitt et al. 2005). The results of these facts, studies, and predictions have been borne out by the history of the geopolitical policy of Western powers. In only recent American history, for example, in 1945, President Roosevelt brokered an agreement with Saudi Arabia that the USA would protect the kingdom with its military might in exchange for “privileged access” to Saudi oil. Thirty-five years later, President Carter made the most famous linkage of oil to foreign and military policy when he asserted that the USA would employ any means necessary, including military force to guarantee its free access to Persian Gulf oil. President Reagan went even further, “reflagging” Kuwaiti oil tankers with the American flag and escorting them with American warships. President George W. Bush continued this policy (Klare 2007). This culminated with President George H.W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in March, 2003. In the new, peak oil world, there are new players, new sources, and new strategies for obtaining energy needs that will result. These new dynamics will undoubtedly affect people, nations, and the environment, as thirst for “liquid” (the new government term for oil, natural gas, and other petroleum resources) grows and supply declines.

Oil

First, from whence comes the oil of the future? Experts generally agree upon the following list: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Angola, Libya, Nigeria, Sudan, the Caspian Sea area (consisting of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan), and Latin America (consisting of Venezuela, Mexico, Columbia, and Ecuador) (Klare 2004, 2009). Second, given these locations of oil, what are the global strategies, especially by the world’s largest military power, the USA, for securing its own and its ally’s oil needs for the twenty-first century? Under President Clinton, the USA secured the Caspian Sea basin oil supplies by exchanging arms and military training, along with conducting joint military maneuvers for an oil pipeline. Because of US distrust of Russia, Clinton negotiated a route from Azerbaijan through Turkey and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. President Bush increased the military presence in the Caspian Sea basin after 9/11 and deployed military trainers to Georgia (Klare 2004). The trip by President Obama to Turkey – his first foreign trip as President – was an attempt to break a deadlock in building the pipeline through Turkey (Engdahl 2009). Similar US machinations were undertaken with West Africa and even Latin America. For example, the USA has established smaller-type military bases – what the Defense Department refers to as “lily pads” – in an arc running from the Andes in South America through North Africa and across the Middle East, to the Philippines and Indonesia. These locations are consummate with the fact that the bases are located in or near the oil-producing states of the world. In Latin America, the US military uses bases in Paraguay to monitor and to be in position to move against the Bolivian and Venezuelan governments since both countries nationalized their oil companies (Johnson 2006). If US policy heretofore has been centered on controlling Middle East oil, it should come as no surprise that when US forces entered Afghanistan in October of 2001, their first mission was to secure and set up bases along the western oil pipeline that ran from north to south on the western Afghan border (Rashid 2010). Furthermore, according to The London Guardian, the April 2002 military coup in Venezuela was clandestinely supported and organized by the USA in response to President Hugo Chavez’s nationalizing Venezuela’s oil company, PDVSA (Campbell 2002). According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Iraq oil reserves total “a proven” 112 billion barrels, the second largest in the world, behind Saudi Arabia. Additionally, Iraq possesses approximately 220 billion barrels probable

O

reserves (Holland 2007). That made Iraq a juicy first target for energy wars. Former Vice President Dick Cheney maintained for 10 years that control of Middle East oil was where the prize ultimately lies, and that is the way he summarized the conclusions of his Energy Task Force of 2000 (Mutitt et al. 2005). Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the second target of US invasion forces would be Iraq. The two main players on the oily world stage today, besides the USA, are Iran and China. The role of Iran is dual: geographic and geologic. Geographically, Iran sits between three important sea shipping lanes: the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Sea of Oman, and is the geographical point of intersection for the Middle East, Asia, and the steppes of Russia. Geologically, next to Saudi Arabia (264.3 billion barrels), Iran has the largest oil reserves in the world (132.5 billion barrels). That the USA wants control of Iran is beyond doubt. Aside from continuing threats to Iran made by former President Bush and now President Obama, Iran is completely surrounded by US military bases, in the Persian Gulf, in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, in Turkey, in Iraq, in Cyprus, in Israel, in Oman, and in Diego Garcia (Escobar 2006). Iran itself has become an “Observer State” (along with India and Pakistan) to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Created by China in 2001, and with members including Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, these members and have pledged mutual economic and military aid. As for China, in the summer of 2010, it replaced the USA as the world’s largest energy consumer (Klare 2010b). This means that China’s decisions on how and where it gets its future energy needs met will play a significant role in whether or not China and the USA become locked in an international competition or even war over energy resources in the twenty-first century. China will overtake the USA as the world’s leading oil importer by the year 2030. Currently, China imports oil from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Angola, Oman, Sudan, Kuwait, Russia, Kazakhstan, Libya, and Venezuela. In exchange, China has provided some of these countries with both economic and also military assistance, just as the USA has done in these same countries. With growing numbers of military advisors in these countries and insatiable demands for their oil, the stage is set for significant conflict between the USA and China, the two primary contenders for oil for the next decade (Klare 2010b). Whether one’s theory of international justice be cosmopolitanism or communitarian, there would be little support for the principle of “the best interest of the corporation.” Since the contrast between the corporate and

777

O

778

O

Oil

justice principles is that of the value of profit as opposed to moral value, and since the two are seen by the corporation as being mutually exclusive unless morality can be profitable in some way, these two types of value system are often in conflict. Further, the respective conclusions concerning resource wars will inevitably be in conflict much of the time. Presumably, even a devoted communitarian like MacIntyre could not consistently argue that national survival is defined exclusively by national self-interest (MacIntyre 1984), since it is certainly possible that someone within her rich nation might perceive that her own claims to resources are not as critical as another, poor person’s claims from another nation. This distinction would seemingly extend to global resource control by force. The cosmopolitan position would be more direct, given its attempts to extend a Rawlsian theory of justice to the global level. This position would focus on inequalities of oil distribution and consumption, and attempt to articulate a more equitable and democratic set of institutional structures for resource management, thus also avoiding the assumed mandate to dominate the oil marketplace, as we currently see in US military and corporate oil policies. For example, Habermas grounds all legitimate claims to international action on a Kantian “kingdom of ends” model, thus making human rights the entire normative framework for a cosmopolitan community (Habermas 2001). Such rights would have to be taken into account in resource management, in opposition to corporate selfinterested profit. Further, in terms of potential resource wars, the Just War Theory category of “just cause” would prohibit the notion. “Just cause” means a response to a threat to territorial integrity or sovereignty (Walzer 1977). Threat by one nation to attack in order to control the oil resources of another nation would give the latter nation a right to war in defense. Thus, the wars for oil control would be inherently unjust, having committed the crime of aggression. It is the same for international law. Wars for oil would violate the U.N. Charter, Articles 2(4) and 51, which explicitly proscribe one nation attacking another for any reason than self-defense. Short of that, a military attack on another nation would be what the Nuremberg Military Tribunal referred to as aggression, “the supreme international crime” (Abele 2008). There is also an issue of justice in the relationship of oil and the environment, including the widely held view that the burning of fossil fuels contributes to climate change. As scientists have virtually unanimously maintained for nearly a decade, the phenomenon called “global warming” occurs because certain gasses in the atmosphere act like

a greenhouse, permitting sunlight to enter into the atmosphere but trapping heat within it as it attempts to radiate back into space. One of the main such gasses is carbon dioxide (CO2), and the main causes of the release of such gasses in large amounts into the atmosphere are human activities, particularly deforestation, CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants, and oil-burning activities, including heavy use of automobiles. If such emissions continue unchecked, the earth’s temperature could rise 1.5–4.5 C by the year 2030. If this happens, extreme weather will be the direct consequence. Floods, droughts, and storms will be more severe when they occur, and will have a direct impact on human well-being and survival. Already there have been well-documented reports of glaciers melting and droughts in once-prosperous regions, forcing the people there to emigrate in search of water and arable land (Feldman 2011). Also concerning environmental justice, two important and closely watched cases of environmental and human rights abuses are the cases in Ecuador and in Nigeria. In Ecuador, Chevron Oil Company is being sued by 30,000 natives of Ecuador, who are seeking $12 billion in damages for Chevron’s allegedly dumping billions of gallons of toxic oil waste directly onto the ground. All totaled, Chevron in Ecuador alone could face up to $113 billion in fines and damages for years of such pollution practices in Ecuador. In Nigeria, the Shell Oil Company is being sued by four farmers, who have maintained that Shell’s pipeline leaks have polluted their farm lands. Additionally, Nigerian prosecutors have filed a suit against former Vice President and CEO of oil giant Halliburton, for $180 million, on charges of bribing Nigerian officials in order to win a lucrative oil contract from the government. Further issues include Shell’s and Chevron’s involvement in the killings of numerous environmental and human rights activists, for example, Ken Saro-Wiwa; and Shell’s infiltration of the Nigerian government, clandestinely inserting its own staff into the staff of Nigerian politicians in order to monitor their decision-making processes concerning their oil and also to pass information on to the US diplomats stationed there. Perhaps as a final testament to the critical importance of oil for twenty-first-century concerns, one might examine the intrusion of oil companies into the Academy. Five of the world’s top ten oil companies (ExxonMobile, Chevron, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and ConocoPhillips) have provided millions of dollars per year to universities to do oil research. In one of the largest deals, British Petroleum gave $500 million to form a consortium with three universities in the USA: University of California at Berkeley,

Oil

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. There are ten university-oil industry agreements that exceed $800 million. Nine of the ten agreements allow the oil industry to control the governance of the research, including control of the evaluation and selection process of research proposals and what may be publicly stated about the research conducted by the participants. None of the agreements require peer review of research. Importantly, the Berkeley–Illinois–BP agreement permits BP to set up laboratories on the campus in the same building that the academic laboratory research is conducted by faculty and students (Washburn 2010a). Also significantly, oil companies are substantially funding university research designed to downplay the threat of global warming. Such oil industry intrusion into academics has resulted in corporate intimidation and harassment of researchers (Washburn 2010b). What this analysis ultimately underscores is that, when it comes to oil, we have returned to the age-old arguments between ethics and Realpolitik. For those interested in global justice, there are clear limits to be placed upon geopolitical strategies to control oil, currently being ignored by corporate-military machines such as the USA and its oil industries, and by other countries such as China and India, in search of control of crude resources. The future of the world oil situation need not be bleak, however. Through a combination of energy conservation, fuel substitution, unconventional oil, alternative fuels, expanding public transit, electric cars, and reducing speed limits, there are signs that we might put off the dire consequences of peak oil and rising world energy demand. Most of all, however, continued oil use, resulting as it does in climate change and in contributing to crashed economies, combined with the growing proliferation of both conventional and nuclear weapons, if unchecked, will likely result in a perpetual resource war, even now being propagandized as by the US Pentagon as “The Long War” (once called the “war on terrorism”), and could quite possibly be suicidal for humanity. As humanity is now poised to make a mad dash to find, extract, and control petroleum and gas from the earth, the concerns of global justice provide an important corrective and set of limitations for the conceivably drastic actions nations will be tempted to take in the race for resources. Global values of equity, human rights, territorial integrity, and national sovereignty will provide important points of discussion for the future as nations and peoples begin to dialogue about procuring energy needs for the future.

O

779

Related Topics

▶ Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ▶ Biodiversity ▶ Borders ▶ Climate Change ▶ Coercion ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Environmental Justice ▶ Global Resource Distribution ▶ Global Warming ▶ International Environmental Standards ▶ Jus ad Bellum ▶ Multinational Corporations ▶ Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ▶ Sovereignty ▶ Territorial Rights

References Abele R (2008) The anatomy of a deception. University Press of America, Maryland Bakan J (2004) The corporation: the pathological pursuit of profit and power. Free Press, New York Business Week (2005) China and India: a rage for oil. Business Week, News Analysis, 25 August 2005 Campbell D (2002) The coup. The London Guardian, 22 April 2002 Engdahl FW (2009) U.S. strategy of total energy control over European Union and Eurasia. Global Research, 16 July 2009 Escobar P (2006) Globalistan: how the globalized world is dissolving into liquid war. Nimble Books, Michigan Feldman S (2011) On the frontlines of a warming world, 925 million undernourished people. Reuters, 18 January 2011 Habermas J (2001) The postnational constellation (Cambridge). MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Holland J (2007) Bush’s petro-cartel almost has Iraq’s oil. Alternet.org. 16 October 2006 and 12 January 2007 Johnson C (2006) Nemesis: the last days of the American republic. Metropolitan Books, New York Klare M (2004) Bush-Cheney energy strategy: procuring the rest of the world’s oil. Foreign Policy in Focus, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC Klare M (2007) Beyond the age of petroleum. The Nation, 25 October 2007 Klare M (2009) Rising powers, shrinking planet. Macmillan/Henry Holt Paperbacks, New York Klare M (2010a) BP-style extreme energy nightmares to come. www. tomdispatch.com. Accessed 14 Jan 2010 Klare M (2010b) Twenty-first century energy superpower: China, energy, and global power. www.tomdispatch.com. Accessed 19 Sept 2010 Krauss C (2010) In global forecast, China looms large as energy user and maker of green power. The New York Times, 9 November 2010 MacIntyre A (1984) After virtue. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN Miller RG (2011) Future oil supply: the changing stance of the international energy agency. Energy Policy Mutitt G (2005) Crude designs: the rip-off of Iraq’s oil wealth. Platform and Global Policy Forum, New York

O

780

O

Okin, Susan

Owen NA, Inderwildi OR, King DA (2010) The status of conventional world oil reserves – hype or cause for concern? Energy Policy Palast G, Pallister D (2001) FBI and U.S. spy agents say Bush spiked bin Laden probes before 11 September. The Guardian, 7 November 2001 Rashid A (2010) Taliban: militant Islam, oil and fundamentalism in central Asia. Yale University Press, New Haven Rudolf JC (2010) Is ‘peak oil’ behind us? The New York Times, 14 November 2010 Termotto T (2010) The gulf of Mexico is dying. Global Research, 26 December 2010 Walzer M (1977) Just and unjust wars: a moral argument with historical illustrations. HarperCollins, New York Washburn J (2010a) Big oil goes to college. Center for American Progress, New York Washburn J (2010b) University Inc.: the corporate corruption of higher education. Center for American Progress, New York

Okin, Susan BLAIN NEUFELD Department of Philosophy, College of Letters and Science, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA

Susan Moller Okin (1946–2004) was a leading liberal feminist political philosopher. Okin’s writings explore the ways in which liberal political philosophy needs to be revised in order to realize the equal status of women. Much of Okin’s later work addresses issues of global justice, especially those concerning the condition of women. This entry outlines Okin’s main contributions to liberal political philosophy before turning to her work on issues concerning global justice.

Gender Inequality and the “Public–Private” Distinction A central theme of Okin’s writings is that achieving the freedom and equality of women requires rethinking the traditional distinction between the “private” (or “domestic”) and “public” spheres of social life. In Women in Western Political Thought (1979), Okin explains that historically most political philosophers have employed the “public–private” distinction in order to exclude women from public life and relegate them to the private sphere. Even most liberal political philosophers have assumed that the family properly belongs to the private sphere and that women “naturally” have primary responsibility for the labor within it (housekeeping and childrearing). In contrast, men “naturally” represent the interests of their families within the public sphere, both as wage earners and

as citizens (i.e., participants within the political system). As a liberal, Okin thinks that the distinction between the private and public spheres of social life needs to be maintained in some form. Persons need privacy for their intimate relations, in order to pursue freely their conceptions of the good, and so forth. As a feminist, though, Okin argues that the line between the private and public domains of social life needs to be redrawn so as to ensure the equality of women in both domains. In Justice, Gender, and the Family (1989), Okin explains that the unequal division of domestic labor presupposed by the traditional public–private distinction means that women are less able than men to participate either in the workforce or in political life. Women become increasingly dependent upon (and vulnerable to the decisions and actions of) their husbands as a consequence of marriage and parenting. Existing divorce laws typically exacerbate the effects of this “cycle of vulnerability,” as women normally find their standard of living greatly reduced post-divorce. Thus, society’s understanding of gender roles structures both the private and public spheres, with social views and practices in one sphere reinforcing those in the other.

Rawls’s “Justice as Fairness” and Gender Okin argues that John Rawls’s approach to thinking about justice, as outlined in A Theory of Justice (1971), possesses considerable feminist potential. However, Okin also explains that this potential is not realized by Rawls himself, as he assumes in Theory that the traditional family structure is just. According to Rawls’s conception of justice, “justice as fairness,” the “basic structure of society” (roughly, society’s main social institutions, understood as an overall system of social cooperation) should be organized so as to satisfy two principles. The first principle asserts, roughly, that a set of basic liberties (including liberty of conscience, freedom of association, and so forth) should be secured equally for all citizens. The second principle consists of two parts: first, a principle of fair equality of opportunity (which requires, roughly, that all persons have a “fair chance” to obtain offices and positions of authority) and second, a principle of distributive justice, the “difference principle” (according to which, roughly, any inequality in the distribution of property and wealth is justified only if it benefits the least advantaged in society over time). Okin argues that realizing the principles of justice as fairness in society requires that the basic structure include families. The dominant family structure assigns roles to persons according to their sex; consequently, it significantly limits women’s freedom with respect to their choice

Okin, Susan

of occupation (one of the basic liberties, and thus part of the first principle of justice as fairness) and the ability of women to compete fairly for offices and positions outside of the home (fair equality of opportunity). In addition, because existing divorce laws typically exacerbate the plight of poor women, such laws violate the difference principle. A further argument advanced by Okin for including families as part of the basic structure is the role of families in cultivating within future citizens a “sense of justice.” According to Rawls, a society organized in accordance with the principles of justice as fairness would be stable over time because its citizens would possess a “sense of justice” and thus freely support the institutions of their society. Okin argues that children brought up within gendered families – families in which spousal relations are ones of “dependence and domination” – are not likely to develop adequately the sense of justice emphasized by Rawls. At the very least, such children are far less likely to develop the requisite sense of justice than children raised in families characterized by “equality and reciprocity.” Okin maintains that applying the principles of justice as fairness to families would require three types of public policies. The first type of public policies would encourage – but not require (as any such legal requirements would violate core liberal freedoms, such as liberty of conscience and freedom of association) – men and women to share equally the public and domestic roles and responsibilities of family life, so that neither is disadvantaged in their ability to participate in the various domains of social life (family life, civil society, employment, and the political system). Policies that would encourage equality of domestic burden sharing would include, for instance, subsidized childcare, flexible working hours for parents, genderneutral parental leave, and vigorously enforced antidiscrimination employment laws. The second type of policies would protect those persons, typically women, who choose to undertake the majority of unpaid family work from the various kinds of vulnerabilities and dependencies to which they presently are subject. Such policies would include, inter alia, reforming divorce law so that following a divorce both households would have the same standard of living and dividing the wage earner’s paycheck between the earning, and the nonearning spouse. The third policy area concerns the education of future citizens. The education system of a just society would ensure that all students acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for them to become free and equal citizens as adults, including a gender-neutral set of occupational options. Such an education would, inter alia, ensure that all students

O

781

know how to exercise their rights and liberties effectively as citizens. In his article “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” (1997), Rawls affirms that a just society would include many of the laws and policies that Okin recommends for achieving gender equality. Nonetheless, Okin contends that by refusing to apply the principles of justice as fairness directly to relations within families and by refusing to condemn as “unreasonable” the gendered views of many religious doctrines, Rawls still does not go far enough in revising his account of justice as fairness.

Women’s Rights as Human Rights Okin’s proposed revisions to liberal political philosophy apply in important ways to the global domain. Indeed, much of Okin’s later writings focus on issues of global justice. Among these issues is that of human rights. According to Okin, universal human rights need to be reconceived in order to protect better the fundamental interests of women. The original conception of international human rights, as promulgated in various documents and treaties in the mid-twentieth century (the most famous of which is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights), formulated such rights from the perspective of male “household heads.” This perspective understands the rights of individuals as protections against possible government actions; it presupposes that households belong to the “private” domain, to be protected by a right of privacy against outside intrusion, but not necessarily governed internally in accordance with the rights of its members. The problem with such a perspective, Okin maintains, is that it fails to address the extent to which women suffer violence and abuse in the private sphere from non-state actors, such as husbands and fathers (and sometimes other women as well). The movement for women’s rights as human rights (WRHR), Okin explains, critically revised human rights by considering the experiences of the members of grassroots women’s organizations across the globe. Drawing on the conclusions of this movement (as summarized in the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995), as well as other sources, Okin argues that in order for human rights to protect women adequately, they must apply to the treatment of women in areas of life traditionally considered private. Recognizing abuses of women as human rights violations is important not only because doing so is necessary in order to respect the equal moral status of women, but also for its practical consequence, namely, such recognition would enable the international community to pressure governments to protect women’s rights more effectively. According to Okin, then, recognizing

O

782

O

Okin, Susan

women’s rights as human rights is essential for promoting global justice. Okin notes that denials or restrictions of women’s rights often rely upon cultural and/or religious justifications. Examples of such culturally and/or religiously justified practices that violate or restrict women’s rights include dress codes for girls and women, forced marriages of daughters, clitoridectomies performed on young girls, treating female adultery as a capital crime, and prohibitions on certain (or all) professions for women. Okin argues that such restrictions or violations of women’s human rights can never be justified, even on cultural or religious grounds. She emphasizes that the WRHR – which reflects the views of women from throughout the world, including non-liberal and non-Western societies – also rejects “cultural” justifications for violations of women’s human rights. Cultural and religious practices must be revised to accommodate women’s human rights, not vice versa. (Okin also criticizes “multicultural” arguments in favor of granting group rights to minority nonliberal communities within liberal societies.)

Women and Development Another issue of global justice that Okin’s later work addresses is that of global poverty. According to Okin, the failure of development policy to reduce substantially global poverty over the past several decades can be explained, at least in part, by the widespread acceptance among economists and policy makers (including those responsible for the policies implemented by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) of three core beliefs. The first belief is that the basic economic unit is the household or family, headed by “economic man,” who acts altruistically with respect to his family, but with pure rational self-interest in the market. The second belief is that only goods and services bought and sold in the marketplace are of economic value; unpaid domestic labor – such as childcare, subsistence farming, and so forth – consequently is not “productive” and has no economic value. The third belief is that a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) is the only important measure of its development. These three beliefs, according to Okin, have generated development policies that have failed to improve the condition of much of the world’s poor in recent decades, and in particular, the condition of women. Drawing on the insights of the WRHR movement, Okin emphasizes the special vulnerabilities of impoverished women and the need for measures to address those vulnerabilities. Female-headed households (which make up one fourth of all households worldwide) comprise a substantial

proportion of the poorest families in the world. Women perform important, but typically unpaid, labor. Moreover, poor girls and women receive considerably less nutrition, health care, and other limited resources than their male counterparts; girls and women also are more likely to suffer physical abuse and have fewer educational and job opportunities. These problems typically are ignored by the approaches to development premised on the three beliefs summarized above. Okin advocates replacing the traditional approach to development with a broader approach, one that abandons the three beliefs noted above. Drawing on Amartya Sen’s “capabilities” approach for evaluating the overall condition of persons, Okin recommends that measurements of development focus on what individuals in a country are able to do – specifically, what freedoms they possess, whether they have access to basic education and healthcare, whether they can participate in their society’s political decision-making processes effectively, and so forth. Such an approach would take into consideration the condition of women (such as whether they have adequate physical security, access to the resources and skills necessary to support themselves and their children, and so forth), as well as their labor (with respect to childrearing, subsistence farming, and so forth), when formulating development policies, something that the traditional approach fails to do.

Conclusion Okin’s work challenges traditional liberal political philosophy, and especially the “private–public” distinction, within both the national and international domains. With respect to global justice, Okin agrees with other liberal political philosophers that human rights are of fundamental importance. However, she argues that human rights need to be reconceived in order to take into account gender and specifically the interests and vulnerabilities of women. Okin argues that women’s rights are human rights, and consequently cultural or religious traditions cannot justify violating such rights. With respect to development policy, Okin likewise maintains that the perspectives and experiences of women need to be taken into account, and that the traditional assumption of “economic man” needs to be abandoned. In short, Okin’s writings help illuminate the extent to which gender needs to play a central role in our thinking about global justice.

Related Topics

▶ Development Assistance ▶ Ecofeminism ▶ Feminist Ethics

Organ Trafficking

▶ Gender Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Sen, Amartya ▶ Solidarity ▶ Violence

References Okin S (1979) Women in western political thought. Princeton University Press, Princeton Okin S (1989a) Justice, gender and the family. Basic Books, New York Okin S (1989b) Reason and feeling in thinking about justice. Ethics 99:229–249 Okin S (1994) Political liberalism, justice, and gender. Ethics 105:23–43 Okin S (1998) Feminism, women’s human rights, and cultural differences. Hypatia 13:32–52 Okin S (1999) Is multiculturalism bad for women? Princeton University Press, Princeton Okin S (2005) ‘Forty acres and a mule’ for women: Rawls and feminism. Polit Philos Econ 4:233–248 Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1997) The idea of public reason revisited. Univ Chic Law Rev 64:765–807 Satz D, Reich R (eds) (2009) Toward a humanist justice: the political philosophy of Susan Moller Okin. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Organ Trafficking ALEXANDRA E. GEORGE Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

The ability to take human organs from one person and transplant them into or onto another has given hope of improved and extended lives to thousands of patients, and it has created demand that far outstrips supply. This has given rise to a black market in human organs, and the trafficking of living donors to provide those organs, raising issues of global justice as the trend has been for patients from the world’s wealthier nations to buy organs from the world’s poor. Organs harvested from both living and deceased human bodies are traded illegally. Medical breakthroughs since the mid-late twentieth century, including the development of effective immunosuppressant medications that minimize the risk of rejection, led to the ability to transplant human organs such as corneas, livers, kidneys, bone marrow, pancreata, and hearts. Developments continued into the twenty-first century, with new techniques allowing for the transplantation

O

of human jaws, hands, arms, ovaries, and faces. There is enormous demand for such procedures, with several million people on waiting lists for human organ transplants around the world. Some organs (such as blood, bone marrow, and kidneys) can be harvested from live donors, while others (including hearts, lungs, and faces) are retrieved only from cadavers. Overall, insufficient organs are being harvested to meet the demand. While many governments encourage people to bequeath their organs after death, and people are often permitted to donate nonessential organs during their lives, most jurisdictions – Iran is the exception – have outlawed the sale of non-regenerable human body parts such as kidneys. However, insufficient supply through legitimate channels has led to an illegal and international market in human body parts in which, typically, impoverished people from poorer nations sell organs (particularly kidneys) to ailing people from wealthier nations. This raises obvious issues of global justice. In 2007, it was estimated at a World Health Organization conference that around 5–10% of kidney transplants worldwide used trafficked organs. In conditions in which organ sales are illegal, those who nonetheless sell their body parts do so without legal protection from exploitation. Impoverished people living in desperate conditions may perceive that selling a kidney is one of few ways of making money, and compulsion from debtors may taint apparent consent. Those who sell an organ risk medical complications and ongoing illness, particularly if they are not given good postoperative care. They also face legal penalties if caught by authorities. Compounding these problems, vendors may be at the mercy of organ traffickers who prey on the powerlessness of their victims, often exploiting their poverty, desperation, and lack of education, and leaving postoperative vendors in a worse situation than before. The injustice of such conditions has drawn condemnation and action from human rights activists, aid agencies, and governments alike, yet the practice has not been eradicated. India, Brazil, and South Africa are some jurisdictions that have been most commonly identified as having organ black markets, but the trade has also been reported throughout Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, and Israel. The purchasers are often foreigners engaging in what has been dubbed “transplant tourism.” China has been subject to international condemnation for selling body parts of executed criminals, including to foreigners, although the Chinese authorities defend this practice on grounds that the condemned prisoners have consented to the transplantation of their

783

O

784

O

Organ Trafficking

organs. Meanwhile, stories abound of travelling businesspeople whose drinks were spiked and who then awakened, close to death, to discover that one of their kidneys had been stolen, and of kidnapped street-children whose dumped bodies are discovered to be missing organs. While some such tales are probably no more than urban legend, investigators have examined cases in several parts of the world (including Eastern Europe, Africa, and South America) in which human traffickers apparently kidnapped victims for the purpose of harvesting their body parts. In 2005, a scandal broke in the United States of America after it was discovered that several funeral home directors had permitted employees of the firm Biomedical Tissue Services to illegally remove body parts such as bones, skin, veins, and ligament from cadavers. This was done without the prior consent of the deceased (one of whom was international media personality Alistair Cooke) or the knowledge or permission of their surviving relatives. The body parts were then sold to unsuspecting tissue processing firms where they were transformed into therapeutic products that were sold for transplantation into patients as far afield as Canada, Australia, and Korea. The perpetrators were convicted by a New York court of criminal offences, including opening graves, body stealing, and unlawful dissection of a human body, and received fines and sentences of up to 21 years in prison. The scandal demonstrated the potential for people in wealthier countries to become unwitting victims of organ trafficking and gave new visibility to the global trade in human body parts. It led to further calls for governments to safeguard human rights and dignity by working harder to prevent such practices, which pose such an affront to notions of justice worldwide. However, it is arguably only when the demand for transplant organs disappears that the illegal practice of organ trafficking will dissipate. It is therefore to be hoped that advances in areas such as stem cell research, genomics, cloning, and/or xenotransplantation will soon allow for the generation of body parts grown in laboratories for specific patients, thus negating the need for interhuman organ transplants. It is also to be hoped that the benefits of such medical advances will be available globally, and not only to those in the world’s wealthier countries. Doctors will then be able to treat their patients with organ implants, without worrying about the issues of organ trafficking and exploitation that sometimes accompany transplantation. Moreover, such advances should eventually help to improve medical treatments available throughout the world. At present, transplants for wealthier patients

sometimes come at the direct expense of the health and well-being of identifiable members of the world’s poor, an injustice compounded by the knowledge that, were the poor patients in developing countries to suffer from the same illness, they would be unlikely to have access to equivalent lifesaving transplant surgery. With the development of organ implants (rather than dependence on transplants), the costs of such treatments are likely to fall, increasingly the likelihood that doctors will be able to treat patients from the world’s rich and poor countries more equally, giving everyone better access to such lifesaving medical procedures. This will mark a great advance from the current situation, in which doctors are left worrying about and grappling with broader issues of global justice as they try to help individual patients by offering them the best – sometimes morally dubious – treatments available.

Related Topics

▶ Coercion ▶ Consent ▶ Exploitation ▶ Globalization ▶ Human Genome ▶ Human Trafficking ▶ Intellectual Property Rights ▶ Owning Life ▶ Poverty ▶ Property Rights ▶ Rights ▶ Slavery

References Caplan AL, Coelho DH (eds) (1999) The ethics of organ transplants: the current debate. Prometheus Books, New York Cheney A (2007) Body brokers: inside America’s underground trade in human remains. Broadway, New York Cherry MJ (2005) Kidney for sale by owner: human organs, transplantation, and the market. Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC George A (2006) Marketing humanity: should we allow the sale of human body parts? UTS Law Review 7:11–61; Santa Clara J Int Law 4:11–61. Special joint issue on “The mind, the body and the law” Goodwin M (2006) Black markets: the supply and demand of body parts. Cambridge University Press, New York Scheper-Hughes N (2003) Rotten trade, millenial capitalism, human values and global justice in organs trafficking. J Human Rights 2:198 Scheper-Hughes N, Wacquant L (eds) (2003) Commodifying bodies. Sage, London Sharp LAA (2006) Strange harvest: organ transplants, denatured bodies, and the transformed self. University of California Press, Berkeley Stacey Taylor J (2005) Stakes and kidneys: why markets in human body parts are morally imperative. Ashgate, Aldershot Veatch R (2000) Transplantation ethics. Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC Waldby C (2006) Tissue economies: blood, organs, and cell lines in late capitalism. Duke University Press, Durham

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

Organization for African Unity (OAU) ▶ African Development Bank ▶ Health and Health Care ▶ Human Rights: African Perspectives ▶ International Organizations

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Fair Trade ▶ Global Taxation

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) ▶ European Convention on Human Rights ▶ Human Trafficking ▶ International Organizations ▶ Subsidiarity Principle ▶ Terrorism

Organization of American States (OAS) ▶ Development Assistance ▶ Fair Trade ▶ International Organizations

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) DAVID BOERSEMA Department of Philosophy, Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR, USA

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was formed in 1960. It is an intergovernmental

O

organization, as opposed to a nongovernmental organization (NGO), such as Oxfam or Amnesty International. There were five founding member states in 1960: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. By 2010 there were 12 member states: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. In addition, Indonesia and Gabon were member states for a limited time. OPEC states that its objective is to coordinate and unify petroleum policies (including production and distribution) of its member states in order to secure fair and stable prices for petroleum producers, as well as to provide an efficient, economic, and regular supply of petroleum to consuming states, and ensuring a fair return on capital to those investing in the petroleum industry. Critics claim that OPEC’s objective is to monopolize and control the petroleum market by setting production quotas and influencing world petroleum prices as much as possible. OPEC formed in 1960 in order to assert their “independence” from what were called “The Seven Sisters,” seven multinational petroleum companies that dominated the petroleum world market at the time. These companies were: Texaco, Gulf Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later, British Petroleum, then BP), Standard Oil Company of California (later, Chevron), Standard Oil Company of New York (later, Mobil, then ExxonMobil), and Esso (later, Exxon, then ExxonMobil). The founding member states of OPEC argued that these companies were a remnant of western economic colonialism, siphoning away profits and resources that could be used for the economic development of these states. OPEC became a household name during the 1970s when its Arab member states instituted an oil embargo in 1973, as a result of the events of Arab–Israeli military conflicts. In opposition to what they saw as European and American support of Israel in these conflicts, these member states used petroleum as an economic weapon and placed a severe oil embargo on exports to the West. While many people, especially in the West, claim that OPEC functions almost as a monopoly and essentially controls the world oil market, OPEC denies this is the case. For one thing, at the end of 2006, of the top ten oilproducing countries in the world, only four were OPEC members. Non-OPEC members among the top producing countries included the United States, Russia, Mexico, China, Canada, and Norway. (The United States at this time was the third top oil-producing country, the top oil-consuming country, but not among the top ten oilexporting countries.) In fact, OPEC states produced slightly less than half of the world’s oil at the end of 2006, although those states possessed more than half of

785

O

786

O

Original Position

the world’s known oil reserves. In addition, since the 1970s, the price of oil has fluctuated dramatically, often to the detriment of revenues of OPEC members. Given the fact that OPEC is comprised of Third World states, its members claim that the criticisms leveled against it are thinly disguised efforts of developed western states to maintain economic colonialism. Critics of OPEC deny this charge and argue that the concerns they express about OPEC’s practices are focused on its domination of the oil market. With respect to concerns of global justice, OPEC has been and continues to be enwrapped with controversy. On the one hand, it has been portrayed by critics as a powerful player in international markets, focused on its own interests at the expense of any globally recognized sense of a fair distribution of an important natural resource. On the other hand, it has been portrayed by its supporters as an important barrier to even greater domination by developed western economies. After all, they say, OPEC is constituted by Third World countries and economies that now control a crucial natural resource, one which was once controlled by the exploitation of colonial powers, powers that used that resource for their own interests. The just distribution, in terms of who does benefit and who should benefit from the availability of oil, remains a crucial issue both in itself as well as in its role in international and global actions (such as political or military policies and decisions).

Related Topics

▶ Capitalism ▶ Colonialism ▶ Free Trade ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Justice ▶ Global Resource Distribution ▶ Globalization ▶ International Organizations ▶ Multinational Corporations ▶ Post-Colonialism ▶ Third World Resistance

References Amuzegar J (2001) Managing the oil wealth: OPEC’s windfalls and pitfalls. IB Tauris, London Campbell KM, Price J (eds) (2008) The global politics of energy. The Aspen Institute, Queenstown Falola T, Genova A (2008) The politics of the global oil industry: an introduction. Praeger, New York Parra FR (2004) Oil politics: a modern history of petroleum. IB Tauris, London Skeet I (1991) OPEC: twenty-five years of prices and politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Original Position ALYSSA R. BERNSTEIN Department of Philosophy, Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA

Much of the writing about global justice that has been published since the 1970s has either used or criticized the central ideas of John Rawls’s conceptions of domestic and international social justice, including in particular the “original position.” Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge initially developed their own cosmopolitan positions partly by criticizing Rawls’s use of the original position in justice as fairness (JF), the conception of a just society Rawls presented in A Theory of Justice (1971; henceforth “TJ”), and arguing for a globalized original position instead (see the entries on ▶ Law of Peoples and ▶ Political Cosmopolitanism in this encyclopedia). Michael Blake (2005) devotes more than one-quarter of his long Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on international justice to discussing the Law of Peoples (LP), Rawls’s conception of a just international order, and most of this discussion involves Blake’s interpretation of Rawls’s contractarian methodology, to which the original position is central. Many criticisms of LP fail due to misinterpretations of the original position and its use in Rawls’s conceptions of domestic and international justice. The original position is a structure of ideas that John Rawls uses as a theoretical device for testing the fairness (and thus, in his view, the justice) of principles for organizing political, social, and economic cooperation. To test principles, one carries out a kind of thought experiment. If participants in cooperation use the original position and refer to it in their discussions, it may lead them to agreement about justice, international as well as domestic, or so Rawls hopes. The original position develops the familiar idea that terms of cooperation are unfair if some of the participants in the cooperation have good reasons, deriving from their fundamental interests, not to agree to them. Since people often do agree to unfair terms despite having good reasons not to agree, actual agreement is not an adequate criterion of fairness. Fear and ignorance, among other factors, can lead people to accept unfair terms; prejudice-based hostile attitudes and possession of power over others, among other factors, can lead people to propose or support unfair terms. Therefore, a more adequate criterion of fairness refers not to actual but to hypothetical agreement: the terms to which people would agree if they all were well

Original Position

informed and rational, and if they all were on an equal footing. Clarifying such a criterion requires listing all of the relevant if-clauses, or the conditions they state. In JF Rawls draws up a list of such conditions and uses it, together with other considerations, to devise a way of testing proposed principles of domestic social justice. The test involves imagining rational people in a hypothetical, non-historical situation who must choose among alternative proposed principles. Actual people who care about fairness can use the test to clarify their own judgment, when trying to determine whether anyone would (if well-informed and rational, if on an equal footing, etc.) have good reasons not to agree to a proposed principle. In LP Rawls uses a different version of the original position in order to test proposed principles of international justice (See below, and see the entries on ▶ Second Original Position and ▶ Law of Peoples in this encyclopedia). In JF Rawls analyzes social justice in terms of an agreement on the basic terms of social cooperation made by those engaged in it, as do the social contract theories of Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. (See Rawls (2007) for the differences among his own, Locke’s, and Rousseau’s views. For the similarities and differences between Rawls’s and Kant’s views, see Bernstein 2009.) According to Rawls, an agreement on the terms of social cooperation that is entered into under conditions that situate free and equal persons fairly is valid: the conditions must exclude coercion and deception, and must disallow unequal bargaining advantages. In everyday life, agreements are made within the context of society’s basic structure and may be distorted by it. In any society, cumulative historical developments of the basic structure inevitably give rise to contingent bargaining advantages. These must not be allowed to affect the agreement on the principles for regulating these institutions, Rawls argues. Therefore he conceives a hypothetical agreement. In JF Rawls stipulates that each of the parties in the imagined original position is a rational agent responsible for the fundamental interests of a free and equal citizen. He situates all of the parties symmetrically: all have equal rights in the procedure for reaching agreement on principles, and all have (and lack) the same knowledge. They have relevant general knowledge, but a “veil of ignorance” prevents them from knowing specifics, including the social status or class position of the particular citizens they each represent, and also the citizens’ other individual characteristics, including race, ethnicity, sex, gender, native endowments (strength, intelligence, etc.), and religious or secular “comprehensive doctrine” (moral outlook and value system). This restriction models one of Rawls’s considered convictions, which he (explicitly) assumes is

O

shared by himself and his readers: the fact that we occupy a particular social position (or have a certain skin color, etc.) is not a good reason for us to propose, or to expect others to accept, a conception of justice that favors the people who are in this position (or who have the particular characteristic). The veil of ignorance prevents the parties from specially tailoring proposed principles and from bargaining in the usual sense: in Rawls’s words, it nullifies the effects of the contingent natural and social advantages that might otherwise tempt citizens to exploit them to their own advantage (Rawls 1971). Rawls distinguishes between three points of view: that of the parties in the original position, that of citizens in a well-ordered society, and (in his words) that of ourselves – of you and me who are elaborating justice as fairness and examining it as a political conception of justice (Rawls 1993). When Rawls speaks of “you and me,” he is addressing any reader who shares his concern that, as he says, there is no public agreement on how basic institutions are to be arranged so as to be most appropriate to the freedom and equality of democratic citizenship. An especially important root of this disagreement is citizens’ conflicting conceptions of freedom and equality. Rawls aims to provide, he says, an acceptable philosophical and moral basis for the basic structure of a democratic society, understood as excluding a caste, slave, racist, confessional, or aristocratic state, by interpreting freedom and equality (Rawls 2001). The original position in JF models the freedom and equality of citizens of a democratic society, which Rawls views not as a fixed natural order but as structured by values and principles, rules and procedures. A just democratic society is, in Rawls’s view, a fair system of social cooperation guided by publicly recognized rules and procedures which those cooperating accept as appropriate to regulate their conduct. Each citizen rationally seeks to advance his or her own good, but all do so on terms each can accept as fair according to an agreed-upon public standard. According to Rawls, reasonable, as distinct from merely rational, persons are ready to propose, or to acknowledge when proposed by others, the principles needed to specify what can be seen by all as fair terms of cooperation (Rawls 2001). Such citizens have the requisite mental and psychological capacities, namely, (1) the capacity to have, revise, and rationally pursue a conception of the good, and (2) the capacity to understand, apply, and act from (not merely in accordance with) the principles of justice that specify the fair terms of social cooperation. According to Rawls, having these “two moral powers” (of rationality and reasonableness) to the requisite threshold degree is both necessary and sufficient for

787

O

788

O

Original Position

the status of equal citizen (Rawls 2001). Rawls regards each citizen as a free person in two respects: (a) a citizen’s public or legal identity as a free person is not affected by changes over time in his or her determinate conception of the good, and (b) citizens are self-authenticating sources of valid claims, that is, they are entitled to make claims on their institutions so as to advance their own conceptions of the good (Rawls 2001). According to nondemocratic views, only claims derived from members’ ascribed roles in a social hierarchy justified by religious or aristocratic values, or from their duties and obligations to society, have weight. In developing JF, Rawls uses a political conception of the person that is based, he says, on the way citizens are regarded in the public political culture of a liberaldemocratic society, in its basic political texts (constitutions and declarations of human rights), and in the historical tradition of interpretation of those texts (Rawls 2001). In developing LP, however, Rawls avoids using this liberal political conception of the person (See the entries on ▶ Second Original Position and ▶ Law of Peoples in this encyclopedia). Recall the three points of view Rawls distinguishes: (1) that of “ourselves, you and me” in the present, (2) that of citizens in a just society (perhaps a future, reformed version of one’s own society), and (3) that of the parties in the original position. In describing the parties, we are not describing persons as we find them, Rawls says, but instead according to how we want to model rational representatives of free and equal citizens (Rawls 2001). As Rawls models the parties in the original position in JF, each is rational, all are symmetrically situated behind the veil of ignorance, each is responsible for the fundamental interests of a free and equal citizen, each evaluates alternative principles by estimating how well they secure the “primary goods” essential to realize the “higher-order interests” of the citizen for whom each acts as a trustee, and all have equal rights in the procedure for reaching agreement and choosing a conception of justice from the available alternatives (Rawls 1993). Thus Rawls sets up the original position in JF to model citizens’ freedom and equality. In LP, since he is developing basic principles for a just international order, Rawls stipulates that each of the parties in the original position is responsible for the fundamental interests of a society that respects human rights (see the entries on ▶ Law of Peoples and ▶ Second Original Position in this encyclopedia). Using the original position, Rawls argues in JF for the following principles: (1) Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all; and (2) social and economic

inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: (a) they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and (b) they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society. Principle (2b) is the “difference principle” (Rawls 2001). Rawls says he characterizes the original position of JF by various stipulations, each with its own reasoned backing, so that the agreement that would be reached can be worked out deductively by reasoning from how the parties are situated and described, the information available to them, the alternatives open to them, and what they count as reasons. The parties are only rational, not reasonable (in the sense given above), but (due to the stipulations, including the veil of ignorance and the parties’ task of securing the primary goods) they are subject to reasonable restrictions (imposed by Rawls) on the reasons they can give each other for favoring one principle or rejecting another. The principles that would be chosen unanimously by the parties in the original position (namely, Rawls argues, the pair he proposes) are the ones that can best secure the fundamental interests of every citizen, if their society’s basic structure is reformed according to these principles (Rawls 2001). Therefore, reasonable citizens of such a society would support these principles, and people in nondemocratic or non-well-ordered democratic societies, who are reasonable and want their society to be a just democratic society of free and equal citizens, will want to know which principles would be chosen by the (rational, not reasonable) parties in the original position, and will be ready to propose and abide by these principles. Similarly, when developing the principles and norms of a just international order in LP, Rawls characterizes the original position by various stipulations. The parties are only rational, not reasonable, but due to the veil of ignorance and the parties’ task, they are subject to reasonable restrictions (imposed by Rawls) on the reasons they can offer each other when advocating or opposing principles. The principles that would be chosen unanimously by the parties are the ones that can best secure the fundamental interests of every people and best secure basic human rights globally, if peoples establish a Society of Peoples based on these principles. (See the entries on ▶ Second Original Position and ▶ Law of Peoples in this encyclopedia). In JF Rawls assumes that a democratic society of free and equal citizens will be pluralistic. If all citizens are to endorse the conception of justice freely, it must, he says, be able to gain the support of citizens who affirm different and opposing though reasonable comprehensive doctrines, in which case there would be an overlapping

Original Position

consensus (see Rawls (1993, 1999), as well as the entries on ▶ Political Liberalism and ▶ Public Reason in this encyclopedia). Rawls structures the original position and formulates his principles and his argument so as to show that the content of a defensible conception of justice can be derived from certain ideas drawn from the public political culture of a democratic society. He does not, he emphasizes, look to the comprehensive doctrines that in fact exist and then frame a political conception that strikes a balance between them expressly designed to gain their allegiance (Rawls 2001). Instead, he puts citizens’ comprehensive doctrines behind the veil of ignorance. This makes it possible, he says, to find a political conception of justice that can be the focus of an overlapping consensus and thereby serve as a public basis of justification in a society marked by the fact of reasonable pluralism (Rawls 1993). Similarly, in LP, Rawls does not survey the globe’s comprehensive doctrines and then frame a political conception that strikes a compromise among them. However, he does develop a political conception of international justice that can be the focus of an overlapping consensus among reasonable peoples. (See the entry on ▶ Law of Peoples in this encyclopedia). Rawls stipulates in JF that the parties in the original position are “mutually disinterested” (Rawls 1971). This is another way he both models citizens as free and equal and avoids building in assumptions about their conceptions of the good. If each party focuses only on securing the fundamental interests of one citizen, then no citizen will be either double-counted or discounted, and every citizen’s fundamental interests will get secured. The stipulation of mutual disinterest does not, he emphasizes, mean that the parties or the citizens they represent are egoists, that is, individuals with only certain kinds of interests, for example, in wealth, prestige, and domination. Instead, he explains, it avoids ruling out the possibility that their spiritual aims may be opposed, in the way that the aims of those of different religions may be opposed (Rawls 1971). Even though Rawls recognizes that citizens in society will of course have ties of sentiment and affection, and want to advance the interests of others and to see their ends attained, he stipulates that the parties in the original position are not moved by affection or esteem to confer benefits on any others, nor moved by envy or rancor to deny benefits to any others; he stipulates mutual disinterest in order to ensure that the principles of justice do not depend upon what he calls “strong assumptions” (Rawls 1971). The veil of ignorance ensures that the mutually disinterested parties, each aiming to secure the fundamental interests of one citizen, do not know the specific values or aims of the citizen they each represent. It forces each

O

party to consider how each principle might affect everyone, especially the people who would end up in the least advantaged positions. Each party’s best option is the principle(s) that will best enable the (represented) citizen to pursue his or her goals, whatever these goals turn out to be and whatever position the citizen turns out to occupy. Similarly, in LP an analogous stipulation that the parties in the original position are mutually disinterested ensures that every people’s fundamental interests will get secured in the Society of Peoples. The question Rawls tries to answer in JF is the following, he says: Which principles are most appropriate for a democratic society that not only professes but wants to take seriously the idea that citizens are free and equal, and tries to realize that idea in its main institutions? He rephrases this question as follows: Once we view a democratic society as a fair system of social cooperation between citizens regarded as free and equal, what principles are most appropriate to it? (Rawls 2001). The principles are to specify basic rights and liberties and to regulate fundamental social and economic inequalities, namely, Rawls says, the differences in citizens’ prospects over a complete life, as these are affected by such things as their social class of origin, their native endowments, their opportunities for education, and their good or ill fortune over the course of life. These inequalities are, he says, his primary concern in JF (Rawls 2001). After arguing for the first principle (which ascribes equal basic liberties), Rawls considers whether any differences in citizens’ life prospects can be consistent with the idea of free and equal citizenship in a society that is seen as a fair system of cooperation, and if so, what principles establish the legitimacy of those differences. This question about legitimate inequalities requires an answer that appeals only to principles and values that each citizen can endorse, because as participants in a constitutional democracy, they will use the coercive power of their state to conform their society’s institutions to these principles and values, thus wielding political power over one another. No answer is immediately evident to Rawls; he says that his convictions about principles regulating social and economic inequalities are much less firm and assured than his firmest considered convictions about equal basic rights and liberties, the fair value of the political liberties and fair equality of opportunity (Rawls 2001). Therefore, Rawls considers the appropriate method for finding the guidance that is needed. He proposes taking guidance from his firmest considered convictions about the nature of a democratic society. In order to see whether the combined assertion of those convictions by means of the original position will help to identify an appropriate

789

O

790

O

Original Position

distributive principle, he stipulates that the parties assume that the equal basic liberties and fair opportunities are already secured, and that they then decide how to regulate inequalities. Thus Rawls looks outside the sphere of distributive justice more narrowly construed, he says, to see whether an appropriate distributive principle is singled out by his firmest convictions once their essential elements are represented in the original position (Rawls 2001). In LP, when developing the principles of international justice, Rawls takes guidance from his firmest convictions about basic human rights. Rawls does not hold that the original position is in all cases the device most appropriate to use for answering questions about justice; indeed, he suggests otherwise, by showing how his specific question about principles for a democratic society guides him in specifying and using the original position in JF. Similarly, in LP Rawls shows how his specific question about the fundamental principles and norms of a reasonably just international order guides him in setting up and using the original position at the second level, that is, the level of relations among politically organized groups, which are more complex and thus logically higher level than relations among individuals. One can use the original position to guide judgment when applying the principles of JF to constitutional arrangements, laws, and policies, Rawls says; each question is to be considered from the point of view of the original position, with its knowledge conditions appropriately modified for each case (Rawls 1971). Further, one can use the original position to determine principles for addressing injustice. The parties in the original position of JF assume “strict compliance,” that is, that citizens can and will generally comply with the chosen principles; they assume that a just society can in due course be achieved, and they choose principles of justice suitable for favorable conditions (Rawls 1971). The conception of justice developed on the assumption of strict compliance belongs to ideal theory and sets up the goal to guide social reform. Nonideal theory, including principles for addressing injustice, can be worked out from the point of view of the original position, but only after the ideal is specified (Rawls 1971). The same holds for the Law of Peoples (Rawls 1999). Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge criticize JF’s original position, arguing that international interdependence has become so extensive, and international inequalities so extreme, that principles of social justice should apply globally; and that therefore the parties in the original position must not represent a single society’s citizens but the population of the entire globe, all matters of national citizenship being concealed by the veil of ignorance.

A global original position would, they contend, yield globally applicable analogues of the two principles of JF (See the entry on ▶ Law of Peoples in this encyclopedia). Amartya Sen (2009) criticizes Rawls’s ideal theory as “transcendental” and of little practical use for addressing real-world injustices. In reply, Samuel Freeman (2010) notes that although consequentialists (including Sen) regard ideal theories as unnecessary, Rawls opposed consequentialism by arguing that justice restricts permissible means for promoting good consequences. Moreover, Freeman argues, idealizations designed to systematize our moral convictions can clarify ideas about justice, guide thinking about long-term or extensive reforms, and inspire action. If Freeman and Rawls are right, the original position can be of significant help in the effort to secure justice both domestically and globally.

Related Topics

▶ Contractarianism ▶ Law of Peoples ▶ Political Liberalism ▶ Public Reason ▶ Rawls, John ▶ Second Original Position ▶ Social Contract

References Bernstein AR (2009) Kant, Rawls, and cosmopolitanism: toward perpetual peace and the law of peoples. Jb Recht Ethik Annu Rev Law Ethics 17:3–52 Blake M (2005) International justice. Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/international-justice/ Cohen J (2003) For a democratic society. In: Freeman S (ed) The Cambridge companion to Rawls. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Dworkin R (1973) The original position. Univ Chic Law Rev 40(3):500–533 Freeman S (2010) A new theory of justice. New York Review of Books, New York, pp 58–60 Freeman S (2007) The burdens of public justification: constructivism, contractualism, and publicity. Polit Philos Econ 4:5–43 Mandle J (2009) Rawls’s A theory of justice: an introduction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Nagel T (1973) Rawls on justice. Philos Rev 82(2):220–234 Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (1993) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, New York Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (2001) Justice as fairness: a restatement. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Rawls J (2007) Lectures on the history of political philosophy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Scanlon TM (2003) Rawls on justification. In: Freeman S (ed) The Cambridge companion to Rawls. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Owning Life

Outsourcing ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Globalization

O

791

If distributive justice is in part a product of property distribution, the state of global justice is in part a product of the nature and distribution of property interests across the world. This includes property interests in living things.

Ownership of Plants and Animals

Owning Life ALEXANDRA E. GEORGE Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

“Owning” life depends on laws that allow for the propertization of living things such as plants and animals, which may then be traded as the objects of contracts for sale and other dealings. As such, the concept of owning life raises issues about global justice, as wealth and prosperity often follow the trail of property ownership. This is a particular concern when a human body is owned by someone other than the inhabitant of that body. Historically, the international slave trade relied on laws allowing for the propertization of human beings. Nowadays, concerns are increasingly raised about implications of allowing private ownership over not only the physical bodies, but also the genetic makeup, of plants and animals, including humans. The concept of ownership refers to the relationship between a person (either an individual human or a legal person such as a corporation) and an object over which that person has the legal authority to exercise property rights. In effect, this legal relationship results in a person owning his or her property. “Owning life” thus implies a situation in which a person may legally exercise property rights over a living thing. Ownership of life can be divided into several categories: ownership of plants and ownership of animals (which are often treated similarly by law), and ownership of human beings. Related to each of these is an additional type of ownership that is dependent on intellectual property laws that propertize genetic information relating to plants, animals, and humans. Drawing primarily from common and civil law traditions (which are found in Western Europe and many jurisdictions that were former colonies of European countries, and which tend to be replicated in international treaties), these principles are examined below as follows: ● Ownership of plants and animals ● Ownership of humans ● Ownership of invented plants and animals, and of genetic information

Legally, plants and animals are often both treated as “property” over which a person may exercise ownership rights. For example, wild animals are not owned by anyone if they are found on public land. However, wild animals on private land that are deprived of their liberty by being tamed, confined, or killed are considered to be the property of the land’s owners. In this respect, they are treated in much the same way as plants, which can be bought or sold with the land. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea declares that coastal states have sovereignty over their territorial waters, including the sea-life within. Article 56(1)(a) declares that the state has sovereign rights to explore and exploit, conserve and manage the living and nonliving natural resources found in waters superjacent to the seabed, as well as on the seabed and in its subsoil. This allows for the propertization and ownership of plants and animals living in territorial waters. However, with the ecosystems of the seas and oceans not cognizant of territorial boundaries, such law can have arbitrary effects that raise questions of global justice. For example, overfishing in the waters of one jurisdiction can have devastating implications for people living in other legal jurisdictions, whose subsistence and livelihoods may be dependent on hunting and fishing migratory wildlife within the same maritime ecosystem. This issue is increasingly the subject of activism, and of attention by governments that are becoming ever more aware of and sensitive to the need to address such problems. While the laws relating to the ownership of plants and animals vary between different jurisdictions and legal systems, the following observations may be made with respect to the laws of most states that adhere to Western legal traditions:

Plants Ownership of the plants growing on a particular piece of real property is a common incident of land ownership in most legal systems. Thus, justice concerns regarding plant ownership have traditionally been tied to questions of land ownership.

Animals Throughout much of the world, it is common for animals to hold the legal status of “personal property.” While the

O

792

O

Owning Life

property rights that an animal’s owner might be able to exercise over it may be qualified by animal welfare laws, criminal laws, and local regulations, it is typical for the law to allow animals to be able to be used, controlled, bought, sold, given away, abandoned, and destroyed. As such, animals tend to be categorized with other objects of personal property, such as cars, pens, vacuum cleaners, and other chattels, with just a small number of jurisdictions distinguishing property in animals from that in other “things.” The fact that an animal is a living, sentient being, and might even be a much-loved family member, does not alter its status as an object of property. An animal can usually be owned by a “legal person” (e.g., a human or a corporation), and damage to the animal is treated as property damage suffered by its owner. For example, intentionally killing an owned dog (whether a pet dog, a seeing-eye dog, or a cattle dog) would in most places be considered to be damage to the owner’s property – and thus, by extension, compensable damage to the owner’s interests – rather than murder. In effect, by classifying animals as property, the law therefore recognizes the harm caused to an animal’s owner when that animal is stolen, injured, or killed, rather than the harm suffered by the animal itself. For example, the law may award a farmer compensation for the economic loss caused by the destruction of a herd of cattle as the result of another’s negligence. Unless tempered by other laws, such as animal rights laws and/or similar laws based on religious tenets, this can produce treatment of animals that animal activists condemn as unjust. Such inequality of treatment between humans and animals is more marked in some parts of the globe than others, reflecting differences in legal systems, religious beliefs, and cultural perceptions of the role of animals in society. Ownership of animals has traditionally been denoted in several ways. Perhaps the most ancient and well-known way of indicating ownership rights over an animal is by branding it with a hot iron. Providing a simple method of identifying livestock that stray, are stolen, or mingle with other farmers’ herds, people have been branding animals to indicate ownership for at least 5,000 years. Modern branding systems often involve the cataloging of the brands used by different owners at a central registry maintained by the government of a jurisdiction, and include the maintenance of records showing transactions and the transportation of livestock. Domestic pets may be required to be registered with local authorities. Collars and tags are a conventional way of recording ownership of pet dogs, but implanted computer chips are increasingly common in many jurisdictions.

Wild animals are typically treated as unowned until they are captured and confined, or slaughtered. At that point, the general principle is that the live animal becomes the property of the person who captured it, and the carcass of a dead animal becomes the property of the hunter who killed it. Animal rights activists argue that concerns about global justice should include justice for animals as well as humans, and that this can require limitations being placed on the rights that human owners are legally allowed to exert over animals that are their property. For example, it can be argued that laws allowing hunters to obtain property rights over the bodies of mink, baby seals, whales, and other animals that they have slaughtered perpetuate industries that exploit animals for unnecessary human gratification. Likewise, it can be argued that allowing the owners of battery hens and laboratory rats to treat these animals as objects of property for human use and profit rather than as living, sentient creatures worthy of concern and respect, perpetuates cruel and unnecessary injustice from humans toward animals. Animal rights activists maintain that animals should be treated fairly and with respect, should not be treated cruelly, and that animals in the care of humans (such as domestic pets and farm animals) should well looked after by their owners. Organizations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty against Animals (RSPCA) in the United Kingdom, the Green Party in Germany, and the American Society for the Protection of Cruelty against Animals (ASPCA) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in the United States have lobbied and worked with governments to introduce laws to recognize animals as “beings” rather than “things,” and to grant them rights. These laws aim to protect animals against unacceptable treatment by their human owners and recognize that property rights are not absolute, and that property rights are tempered by duties that humans owe to the animals they own. For example, the European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals (signed in 1987, and effective from 1992) recognizes that humans have a moral responsibility toward animals. It declares that a person who keeps a pet assumes responsibility for its health and welfare, including the provision of accommodation, food and water, and adequate opportunities for exercise. Furthermore, it declares that a pet animal should not suffer unnecessary pain or distress, and no pet should be abandoned. With globalization encouraging a lucrative international trade in livestock, domestic laws have also been introduced in some countries to protect farm animals that are being transported between jurisdictions. For

Owning Life

example, Australia is a major exporter of livestock, and ships travel across the globe to deliver Australian livestock to markets as far afield as Japan, the United States, China, and many Middle Eastern countries. The Australian government has thus introduced legal standards for the export of livestock. These place the health and welfare of live animals as the primary consideration, and exporters are required to be licensed, maintain the health of the animals, and provide onboard veterinary care. In a world in which conceptions about justice and rights for animals are not universally shared, the likelihood of captive animals being well treated arguably increases when legal contracts for their sale and transport contain terms and conditions requiring prescribed standards of quality treatment of livestock and/or are governed by laws requiring the same. This is an indirect way in which the conceptions of justice for animals that have become increasingly popular in certain Western societies can be spread throughout the globe. Meanwhile, there remain many other settings in which activists lobby and protest against perceived injustice in the treatment of animals by humans around the world. Some of the more high-profile examples of protests against perceived unjust human treatment of animals around the globe include objections to the use of animals in scientific and cosmetic testing, the use of animal skins as fashion objects, and the use of battery animals in food production. The following examples illustrate the sorts of campaigns that have been, and continue to be, undertaken in the quest to improve global justice for animals: ● Accurate statistics are not available and estimates vary, but activist organization PETA calculates that around 110 million animals annually are used in scientific testing around the world, sometimes enduring painful procedures before being euthanatized. They are used in tests for new pharmaceuticals, medical procedures and treatment methods, cosmetics, detergents, and other products used by humans. While statistics provided by pharmaceutical companies suggest that the number of animals used for testing has fallen substantially, emotions continue to run high and it is common for research facilities to conduct animal testing secretly so as to avoid attention from activist groups and protect their workers against retaliation. One of the most notorious illustrations of the pressure facing those connected with the animal testing industry involved intimidation and violence against people with links to David Hall and Partners, a business that bred guinea pigs for research in Staffordshire, England. Following a lengthy campaign of intimidation and

O

abuse by animal rights activists, the pressure peaked when extremist activists desecrated a grave and stole the body of Gladys Hammond, a grandmother whose son-in-law helped run the business. Her body was later recovered and reburied, and several of the activists were sentenced to 12-year prison terms in 2006. While the activists’ actions disgusted many observers, the case drew attention to the issue to vivisection and animal testing around the world, and it highlighted the anger that some people feel toward injustices that animals suffer at human hands. ● Major demonstrations have been staged against the culling of baby seals for the use of their pelts in fur coats. For example, in the 1980s Greenpeace activists in Canada stained baby seals’ soft white coats with green dye, thus making their skins worthless for the fashion industry. Celebrities wearing fur garments have had paint thrown over them, or flour bombs hurled at them, by activists keen to make such clothes unfashionable and socially unacceptable. Meanwhile, PETA activists have lobbied fashion designers to shun fur in their runway shows and designer collections and have staged headline-grabbing nude protests – sometimes including high-profile actresses and models – to draw public attention to the issue. Challenging the concept of animals as property, PETA uses the slogan “animals are not ours to wear.” Although fur has become a less acceptable garment throughout Western Europe and North America than it had been previously, the international activist coalition Fur Free Alliance estimates that around 50 million animals are still killed around the world each year for the use of their fur in fashion items. Pointing to the injustice of humans killing animals for their fur when alternative warm clothes are available, activist organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States seek to educate people that “animals need their fur more than we do.” ● Governments worldwide sought to limit whaling activities through the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (1946) and a ban on commercial whaling, yet anti-whaling activists have nonetheless found reason to stage ongoing protests against the killing of whales for their meat and research. Whalers from Japan (where whale meat is considered a delicacy), Norway and Iceland have repeatedly been targeted by activists from nongovernmental organizations such as Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Japan has traditionally been a whaling country, and emotions run high between those who are pro-whaling and those who consider it

793

O

794

O

Owning Life

an affront to animal rights. In 2008, Japanese Greenpeace protesters Toru Suzuki and Junichi Sato were arrested and charged with trespass and theft (an offense that implies that the slaughtered whale had taken on the legal status of “property”) after confiscating and handing to government authorities whale meat that had been harvested from whales killed for scientific purposes but that was being illegally distributed as food. In a case that attracted criticism from human rights organization Amnesty International as well as the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the activists were ultimately convicted by a Japanese court in 2010. Some activists have been accused of anti-Japanese racism for their operations against Japanese whaling. In response, the Sea Shepherd organization retorts that it operates without prejudice beyond the “cultural chauvinism of the human species” and works “in the interests of all life on Earth.” In effect, such activists claim to pursue justice for animals, regardless of which part of the globe or legal jurisdiction those creatures inhabit. ● “Free range” produce is harvested from animals that have been allowed to roam freely in fields or pens before they have been slaughtered or their eggs have been collected. The term can be applied to produce from animals raised for their meat, eggs, or dairy products. Free-range eggs, for example, contrast with “battery” produced eggs. The latter are laid by hens living indoors in small, stacked cages, producing eggs as though part of an industrial machine. While freerange produce tends to be more expensive because it has required more space or land for its production, and free-range animals are more labor intensive to rear, free-range goods are popular among consumers in many Western countries. Surveys indicate that high proportions of such populations believe battery production to be cruel, and the sale of battery produced eggs has been banned in several European countries, including Switzerland, Sweden, and Austria. While free-range goods are often higher quality products than their battery-produced counterparts (due to typically better health and lower stress levels), the purchasers of free-range produce tend to be concerned about justice for the animals. To the extent that consumers who choose to purchase freerange produce usually accept higher prices than they would pay for battery-reared produce, free range has tended to be presented as somewhat of a luxury good. However, as more people worldwide gain disposable income and sympathy for animal rights, it

seems likely that the popularity of free-range produce will continue to grow. In each of these cases, the legal recognition of animals as property underpins the treatment that activists are fighting against. Animal welfare advocates argue that justice for animals requires a shift in the law so that animal rights come to trump the property rights of people. Historically, justice seems hardest to obtain for those who have no voice and little power. Animals fit this category, traditionally being subject to whatever treatment was meted out at the whim of their human owners, and having no way to complain about poor conditions. Throughout the twentieth century, and continuing into the twenty-first century, animals have increasingly found a voice in the rights activists who speak and protest on their behalf. There remains plenty of room for improvement, but global justice for animals has undoubtedly increased markedly in recent decades.

Ownership of Humans Owning human life is generally illegal in contemporary Western societies, which have increasingly incorporated human rights tenets into their laws. However, ownership of humans remains an impediment to justice around much of the globe. Discussion about the ownership of humans encompasses issues about the treatment of people as living property for the purposes of slavery and human trafficking, as corpses (the treatment of dead bodies), and as body parts for use in organ transplantation. Increasingly, the issue is also invoked in discussions about the patentability of human genomic material. While some jurisdictions address control of human bodies from a property perspective, the rules they apply typically depend on the nature of the body in question. Thus, live human bodies, dead human bodies, and excised human body parts, are each treated differently by property law.

Ownership of Living Persons It was historically the case in many societies that a husband owned his wife and children. While laws underpinning such ownership have been abolished throughout much of the world, ownership of humans by other people has not been completely relegated to the history books. The archetypal form of owning humans is “slavery,” which involves the trade in and control of humans as objects of property. Slavery was common in ancient societies. Although it has been outlawed in most jurisdictions and the League of Nations passed the Slavery Convention in 1926, the International Labour Organization (ILO) passed the Forced Labour Convention in 1930, and the

Owning Life

United Nations’ General Assembly passed the United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others in 1949, each condemning slavery, a black market slave trade continues in many contemporary societies. Modern slavery is commonly associated with “human trafficking.” Such activities are generally illegal, so a contract to sell oneself into slavery or to trade other persons as slaves would not be upheld by civil courts in most jurisdictions. Nonetheless, the ILO estimates that at least 12.3 million people work as forced laborers, while nongovernmental organization Free the Slaves estimates that 27 million people are effectively enslaved around the world. The victims of slavery include people who are forced to work as prostitutes, domestic helpers, sweatshop workers, bonded laborers (those required to repay debts by providing direct labor rather than money), and children forced to work as beggars, farm laborers, soldiers, quarry workers, miners, or other involuntary laborers. Trafficked persons may also be required to engage in illegal activities, such as pickpocketing or drug dealing, with the proceeds going to those who control them. While they may not be property de jure, an argument can be made that victims of modern slavery are de facto owned. Most Western jurisdictions do not recognize property rights in living human bodies and slavery is perceived as the epitome of injustice. In the many jurisdictions in which slavery and human trafficking are illegal, it is technically incorrect to refer to victims as being “owned” as the law would not recognize their status as “property.” Nonetheless, people who are powerless to escape those who control and perhaps traffic and commodify their bodies could be regarded as modern victims of slavery. This is because they are not, in fact, protected due to inadequate laws, or impotent or corrupt legal systems. People – usually women – who are sold into marriage against their will may be included in this category, as may those who are coerced to engage in exploitative labor (including those who “consent” under coercive conditions, such as when confronted with threats of reprisals against their families). These people are effectively enslaved by the inadequacy and/or nonenforcement of laws prohibiting propertization of human beings, raising serious and urgent concerns about legal, social, and political conditions in parts of the world in which such injustice persists.

Ownership of Corpses Corpses lack life, yet as remnants of human life they are worthy of attention when exploring issues of global justice. Most Western jurisdictions do not recognize property rights over dead human bodies. Historically, no property

O

795

existed in a dead body in common law countries, though the dignity of the deceased was protected by sanctions against mistreating a corpse. Some jurisdictions recognized a “quasi-property right” to possess a corpse for the purposes of burial, though this arguably conveyed no rights that interfered with broader justice concerns implicated by the notion of “owning life.” An important exception to the rule against ownership of a corpse seems to be that property rights can arise if a person has applied labor, skill, and effort to a corpse, with the result that the dead body is sufficiently altered that it effectively becomes something else. For example, in the famous case of Doodeward v Spence (1908) 6 CLR 406, the High Court of Australia found that property rights arose after a doctor preserved the bodies of still-born conjoined twins, thus giving the bodies new attributes that differed from those of “a mere corpse awaiting burial.” Whether this is a just result is a question that has received much scholarly attention. In any event, it seems clear that this line of reasoning has become common in jurisprudence that has allowed for the ownership of human body parts and gene patents. This has serious implications for global justice.

Ownership of Human Body Parts The exception to ownership of corpses noted above is perhaps the most commonly employed in relation to body parts that have been excised from the human body. This allows patents – which grant property rights – over inventions derived from human bodies. The principle is well illustrated by the high profile case of Moore v Regents of the University of California (1990) 51 Cal. 3d 120; 271 Cal. Rptr. 146; 793 P.2d 479, in which the Supreme Court of California allowed ownership of a patent to rest with researchers who had applied effort and skill to a patient’s excised spleen to isolate a useful and lucrative cell line. Although this had been done without the patient’s knowledge or consent, and although the patient had provided the raw materials without which the patent could not have eventuated, the patient was found not to hold relevant property rights. He was found to have abandoned his spleen, so he was unable to claim property rights in the cell line that resulted from the researchers’ subsequent work. Much debate has focused on whether such an outcome is just, yet this line of reasoning pervades patent principles that are common throughout much of the world. Laws concerning unaltered excised body parts vary greatly around the globe. Some jurisdictions treat body parts as property and allow people to sell their blood or sperm, while others do not. The prevailing rule throughout much of the world is that it is illegal to sell an essential

O

796

O

Owning Life

body part – such as a kidney, spleen, heart, cornea, or hand – for transplant, though donations of body parts may be permitted where this would be likely to have no serious impact on the ongoing life of the donor. Various courts, parliaments, and scholars have considered the justice implications of allowing the sale of human body parts. On the one hand, it has been argued that allowing such sales reduces humans to commodities and thus interferes with a person’s dignity. On the other hand, it has been argued that allowing people to be paid for their body parts recognizes a higher value in them than allowing only uncompensated donations. Taking this argument a step further, it has been argued that allowing people to own themselves and sell their body parts if they want to recognizes human liberty and serves the interests of distributive justice as it increases the person’s options. A retort to this argument is that legalizing such options could – in an extreme situation – leave the poorest and most vulnerable members of the global community susceptible to personally invasive and exploitative injustice, where they could be expected to sell their body parts to pay debts or as an alternative to receiving social security payments, charity, or internationally donated aid. If property in human body parts is to be recognized, it is clear that strong regulation of any market in these goods – probably by an international oversight agency – is needed in order to prevent those selling body parts from being left in worse positions than they would have been in were such trade illegal. The fear is that recognizing property in one’s own body and its parts could otherwise underpin a market whose very nature undermines global justice.

Ownership of Invented Plants and Animals, and of Genetic Information It is commonplace around the world for people who invent new plant varieties and animals (generally by crossbreeding living things to create hybrids with new attributes) to be able to obtain patents that give them ownership rights over their inventions. Likewise, the ownership of genetic information is largely dependent on the existence and operation of patent laws. Intellectual property laws that create and grant such property rights must be designed and administered cautiously to prevent the generation of inequality and global injustice. Patents create time-limited property rights in inventions, generally lasting around 20 years. Government authorities award patents, conferring property rights in specific jurisdictions. While the requirements for patentability vary between jurisdictions, they are generally granted only over inventions that are “novel” (i.e., are

considered to be new because they have not been previously documented or used) and involve an “inventive step” or degree of “non-obviousness” (i.e., are an advance on existing knowledge in the relevant field of study). Plants, animals, and genetic information can only be patented if they fall within these criteria. Some animals – notably those that display human characteristics – are excluded on policy grounds from the scope of patentability in many jurisdictions. Plant, animal, and gene patents raise special global justice difficulties because they effectively allow for the ownership of the building blocks of life in a particular species. The person who owns a patent (whether this is an individual person or an organization such as a corporation, university, or government) gains the exclusive right to exclude others from using the patented invention. This right lasts for the term of the patent, and it can affect the ability of people to grow crops and access medical treatment. It also raises questions about the justice of breeding plants and animals that are designed to meet human needs.

Patents over Invented Animals and Animal Genes For those concerned with animal rights, many of the concerns raised with respect to the treatment of animals generally can be revisited with respect to the patentability of animals. Activists demand that patented animals bred for use by humans must be treated with concern and respect, not only in their treatment, but also in their creation. These include transgenic (i.e., cross species) animals and animals that have been genetically modified so that they will be more valuable for food production or useful for things like the testing of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Well-known examples include OncoMouse®, which was genetically modified at Harvard University to have a high susceptibility to cancer and over which a now-expired US patent was held by DuPont Corporation, and “EarMouse,” which looked as if it had a human ear growing on its back. Animal rights campaigners have also raised concerns about the ethics of breeding genetically modified animals solely so that their organs can be harvested for xenotransplantation into humans. Note, however, the contrary arguments that this is no less ethical than killing animals so that humans can eat their meat, and that it is better that an animal die to save a human’s life than the human die due to lack of treatment options. Which argument is perceived to serve the interests of justice depends somewhat on personal beliefs about the comparative value of animal and human lives.

Owning Life

Patents over Plant Varieties and Plant Genes Horticulturalists and farmers have long been breeding new plants known as “hybrids,” which are created by cross-pollinating different varieties of existing plants. The new plants may have special characteristics or qualities that make them attractive to growers, such as being more frost resistant, drought resistant, or insect resistant. These can be valuable developments. The new plants are traditionally patentable and/or registrable under sui generis systems of intellectual property protection, many of which are internationally standardized under the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants 1961 (the UPOV Convention). Plant variety registration schemes typically reward plant breeders with 20- or 25-year property rights to grow, produce, harvest, use, sell, and otherwise trade in the new plant. However, to the extent that such a monopoly might prevent other farmers from independently inventing and growing the same new strain of plant, this might raise issues of fairness and justice. This is particularly the case where the farmers are primarily subsistence producers, as is the situation in many poorer parts of the world, or where researchers wish to respond to a particular event, such as a plague of insects. Hence, the UPOV system provides exceptions for noncommercial, private uses of plants, such as subsistence farming. There is also a research exception. Well-known examples of controversial plant registrations giving protection under national patent systems and/or UPOV include turmeric, the neem plant, basmati rice, and the enola bean. In each of these cases – which are often cited as examples of biopiracy of traditional knowledge by Western interests – commentators observed that the patents should not have been granted because the properties of the plants had been known for many generations, meaning that they were arguably neither “novel” nor “inventions.” However, apparently because those properties had not been recorded in documents that were available to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) or European Patent Office (EPO) examiners assessing the patent applications, they had slipped through the net. In an effort to prevent similar cases from arising in the future, the Indian government has commissioned a database of traditional medicines and practices that is accessible in several European languages by the EPO, the USPTO, and the Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom. Other countries, such as China, have also opened their traditional knowledge databases to patent examiners in developed countries in an attempt to improve global justice by preventing unjustified patents – and thus ownership – from being granted

O

over plants due to international ignorance of traditional medicines. Gene patents over plants raise similar issues, but the scope of their implications may be far greater. The Canadian case of Monsanto v Schmeiser (2004) 1 SCR 902, 2004 SCC 34, illustrates the potential for injustice to arise, potentially on a global scale. In 1997, Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser was accused by US agribusiness company Monsanto of infringing their patent rights in a genetically modified strain of canola called Roundup Ready (so named because of its resistance to the Monanto pesticide Roundup). Monsanto held a patent over the DNA of Roundup Ready, and it sold Roundup Ready seeds to farmers. Although Schmeiser did not purchase or use Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seeds, Roundup Ready canola was discovered in Schmeiser’s crops and Monsanto sued him for patent infringement. Schmeiser defended the claim on the basis that Monsanto’s product had contaminated his crop through no fault of his own (i.e., it must have occurred as a result of seed being transferred naturally from nearby crops of Roundup Ready canola, perhaps by being carried by the wind or animals). Monsanto argued that, even when it had informed Schmeiser that his crop contained patented canola, he continued to collect and replant the seeds the following year, thus knowingly breaching Monsanto’s patent. Schmeiser responded that it was an age-old practice of farmers to collect and replant their seeds, and that in doing so he was simply exercising his rights as owner of the physical seeds and land. Monsanto prevailed in a determination of the patent question by the Supreme Court of Canada, in which the Court expressly declined to discuss “moral concerns about whether it is right to manipulate genes.” The Court found that Schmeiser’s use of the seeds infringed Monsanto’s property rights under the patent. Although, Schmeiser was spared from having to pay Monsanto damages, he complained that the outcome resulted in him being unable to continue to grow the strain of canola that it had taken 50 years to develop as this had become contaminated with the Roundup Ready gene. Activist groups have complained that injustice arises when farmers are prevented from saving and replanting their seeds – and are thus forced to purchase new seed annually – for fear that their crops have become contaminated with genetically modified, patented strains whose owners may then sue them, or because they agreed to this as a condition of purchasing seed. This can create situations of global injustice when the patents are held by multinational or foreign-owned corporations, who may also be the organizations from whom the farmers purchase seed. While many Western crops are now produced from

797

O

798

O

Owning Life

annually purchased hybrid seeds, the impact is likely to be felt most severely in developing countries where the standard practice of generations of mainly subsistence farmers has been to save and replant seeds, and where they continue to do so.

Human Gene Patents While human beings and the biological processes for their generation cannot be patented in most jurisdictions, there is a widespread concern that human gene patents effectively give the patent proprietor an ability to control certain uses and applications of information about other peoples’ bodies. In practice, a gene patent allows the patent proprietor to prevent a person from using his or her body in a way that would infringe the patent, or to sue that person for past infringing uses of his or her body during the patent term. Such infringing uses may occur if, for example, the proprietor of a patent over a gene refuses to allow researchers to test particular patients for a genetic propensity toward contracting cancer, but the researchers do so regardless. While this is a more distant level of control over a person than would usually be envisaged by notions of slavery, such a patent nonetheless transfers a degree of personal power from the individual to a private entity. It is a negative sort of control (i.e., a power to stop someone doing something) that could be likened to the power of landowners to prevent strangers from entering their land, rather than a positive power to force a person to do something with his or her body. It nonetheless leaves a degree of power over an individual’s body in the hands of another person. The use of gene patents in this way has thus been presented by some commentators as a form of neo-slavery. While such contentions have been dismissed as emotive, exaggerated, inflammatory, and unjustified by defenders of gene patents, perhaps it is the emotional sense of independence, integrity, and personal freedom that people (particularly in Western societies founded on liberal philosophy) have with respect to their own bodies that they feel is threatened by gene patents. With the majority of gene patents held by a relatively small number of entities, mainly corporations registered in the United States, Japan, and Western Europe, the ownership of genetic material raises not only issues of justice, but also issues of global justice. One of the greatest concerns is that people from all around the world will be forced to pay royalties (often to foreign patent holders) for the privilege of accessing or utilizing their own personal genetic information, or will be denied access altogether.

An example of a gene patent that raised issues of this type occurred with respect to genes of the Hagahai people of Papua New Guinea. The Hagahai people’s first contact with outsiders occurred in 1984, and many died of diseases that this interaction introduced into their community. A researcher treating their illnesses took DNA samples from the patients (without their informed consent) and it was discovered that the Hagahai people carried immunity to leukemia and other degenerative neurological diseases. A patent was obtained in the United States over a Hagahai cell line developed from the DNA samples (US Patent No. 5,397,696). Hence, genetic material of the Hagahai people came to be owned by the patent holder, the National Institutes of Health (an agency of the US government). The Hagahai people could have been limited in uses of their own bodies that would have infringed the patent. In 1996, following international condemnation of this situation as an affront to global justice, and a campaign involving activists for indigenous peoples, foreign governments, and nongovernmental organizations such as Canada’s Rural Advancement International Foundation, the National Institutes of Health voluntarily forfeited its patent. The implications become more striking when commercially available medical tests are at stake. For example, a person in a developing country may need to pay royalties to a patent holder in Switzerland or the United States before being able to access a genetic test that would aid doctors in treating the medical condition the patient is suffering from. While this might be less problematic in a wealthier country, or in a country that provides universal access to a well-funded health-care system, it could easily prevent a poorer person from gaining access to medical treatment that the person needs. As such, gene patents appear to compound the problem of existing inequalities of access to essential medicines and treatments. Gene patents also allow proprietors to deny certain individuals access to patented material, which potentially creates scope for discrimination. For example, it is illegal for someone to obtain a genetic test or related medical procedure without the permission of a private entity that holds a patent over relevant human genetic material. Were a proprietor to exercise its patent monopoly in a discriminatory way, it could possibly exclude people from a particular gender, race, ethnic background, sexual orientation, religion, or other group from obtaining genomic tests as part of their medical treatment. Such a development would clearly create inequalities that, if applied internationally, could have negative implications for the pursuit of global justice.

Oxfam International

O

While these concerns are not unique to gene patents (e.g., they can also apply to patents over other medical treatments), they have received much attention in this area. This is perhaps due to the sense that the proprietor of a patent over a human gene that can be found in your body owns “part of you,” and this may be why issues concerning human gene patents have generated so much discussion and debate among those concerned about advancing global justice.

▶ Labor Laws ▶ League of Nations ▶ Organ Trafficking ▶ Property Rights ▶ Public Good ▶ Slavery ▶ Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property ▶ United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ▶ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Conclusion

References

A common theme that runs through discussions about the ownership of life is concerned with the injustice that can result when one person or corporation is given property rights in another person or another’s body parts, or when people treat the animals they own as objects rather than beings. When individual people or corporations are given ownership over the genetic matter of plants, animals, or humans, and can thereby control the human food chain and access to medicines, the potential for global injustice increases. Even if property is an appropriate legal concept with which to organize such rights, other laws should arguably be introduced to limit the power that owners can wield with respect to their patented property. For example, activists seek to preserve the dignity and liberty of living objects of property by using human rights and animal rights to define and limit the scope of the power that a property owner can legally exert. Through such techniques, a balance can be struck between the rights of the owners bestowed by property law, and the needs and rights of others who are affected by those property interests. The ever-present difficulty lies in how to create and maintain the balance in the face of changing technologies and social conditions and attitudes, so that personal and global justice can be both attained and maintained.

Related Topics

▶ Absolute Poverty ▶ Bioprospecting and Biopiracy ▶ Cairo Declaration of Human Rights ▶ Capitalism ▶ Child Labor ▶ Child Soldiers ▶ Coercion ▶ Essential Medicines, Access to ▶ Exploitation ▶ Globalization ▶ Human Genome ▶ Human Trafficking ▶ Intellectual Property Rights ▶ Labor

Andrees B, Belser P (eds) (2009) Forced labor: coercion and exploitation in the private economy. Lynne Rienner, Boulder Bales K (2004) Disposable people: new slavery in the global economy. University of California Press, Berkeley Bowring F (2003) Science, seeds and cyborgs: biotechnology and the appropriation of life. Verso, London/New York de Beer JF (2005) Reconciling property rights in plants. J World Intellect Prop 8(1):5 Dickenson D (2007) Property in the body: feminist perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York Doodeward v. Spence (1908) 6 CLR 406 George A (2004) Is ‘property’ necessary? On owning the human body and its parts. Res Publica 10:15–42 Koepsell D (2009) Who owns you? The corporate gold rush to patent your genes. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester Laczko F, Gozdziak E (eds) (2005) Data and research on human trafficking: a global survey, vol 43. International Organization for Migration, Geneva Monsanto v. Schmeiser (2004) 1 SCR 902, 2004 SCC 34 Moore v. Regents of the University of California (1990) 51 Cal. 3d 120: 271 Cal. Rptr. 146; 793 P.2d 479 O’Connell Davidson J (2005) Children in the global sex trade. Polity, Cambridge Rifkin J (1999) The biotech century. Tarcher, New York Singer P (2009) Animal liberation: the definitive classic of the animal movement. Harper Perennial, New York Skinner EB (2009) A crime so monstrous: face-to-face with modern-day slavery. Free, New York Thacker E (2006) The global genome: biotechnology, politics, and culture. MIT, Cambridge

Oxfam International RYAN JENKINS Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

Oxfam International is a self-described “international group of independent nongovernmental organizations dedicated to fighting poverty and related injustice around the world.” The organization works to enable cooperation

799

O

800

O

Oxfam International

and collaboration between 14 state-based organizations around the world, such as Oxfam America, Oxfam Hong Kong, and Oxfam Germany. The general goals of Oxfam organizations are to reduce poverty, suffering, and injustice around the world. They pursue these goals through a variety of programs, from sustainability education in the developing world to efforts to reduce arms and protect the environment in the developed world. Oxfam seeks ultimately to “enable people to exercise their rights and manage their own lives.” Oxfam International was formed in 1995 by several independent organizations. The name Oxfam is short for Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, formed in Britain in 1942. That group “campaigned for food supplies to be sent through an allied naval blockade to starving women and children in enemy-occupied Greece during the Second World War.” Oxfam perhaps owes its notoriety in the philosophical sphere to writers like Peter Singer and Peter Unger. Those authors and others, arguing our great duty to alleviate suffering in the developing world, have come to identify a donation to Oxfam with the discharging of such a duty. If we are concerned about suffering and rights violations in the developing world, the most immediate suggestion from ethicists – and especially utilitarians – is often, “Donate to Oxfam.”

Oxfam’s Projects The following is a complete list of Oxfam’s projects: ● Active citizenship, encouraging citizens to organize to eradicate poverty and demand accountability from their governments. ● Agriculture, lobbying for fair distribution of farmland, sustainable farming techniques, and water usage. ● Aid effectiveness, lobbying in the developed world to increase foreign aid and forgive the debts of developing countries. ● Climate change, campaigning for stricter limits on emissions as well as preparing impoverished communities for natural disasters, which are expected to worsen. ● Education, asking for aid to build new schools and train more teachers in the developing world. ● Emergency response, securing access to food and clean water, fund-raising for relief efforts and disaster preparation. ● Gender justice, educating women in literacy and human rights. ● HIV and AIDS, lobbying governments to provide treatment and care for people with HIV and AIDS.

● Health, urging developed nations and drug companies to support the public health initiatives of developing countries. ● Indigenous and minority rights, educating and organizing indigenous populations to help them campaign for human rights. ● Natural resources, fighting for stronger environmental protections and the responsible, sustainable use of resources. ● Peace and security, working against weapons trafficking and educating people in conflict resolution. ● Private sector, urging private companies to embrace higher wages and better conditions for workers, as well as promoting fair trade agreements with the developing world. ● Trade, lobbying for trade policies that benefit developing countries. ● Youth outreach, educating youth in organizing and leading their local communities.

Oxfam’s Philosophical Assumptions Oxfam’s mission statement contains two assumptions about the nature of poverty: 1. Poverty is a state of powerlessness in which people are unable to exercise their basic human rights or control virtually any aspect of their lives. Poverty manifests itself in the inadequacy of material goods and lack of access to basic services and opportunities leading to a condition of insecurity. 2. All poverty is almost always rooted in human action or inaction. It can be made worse by natural calamities, and human violence, oppression, and environmental destruction. It is maintained by entrenched inequalities and institutional and economic mechanisms. The first is a definition of poverty, including what might be called material poverty, or a simple lack of goods, and a poverty of capabilities and opportunities. The second assumption is an empirical claim about the causes of poverty. A discussion of Oxfam’s assumptions about the definition and nature of poverty is outside the scope of this entry. However, it should be noted that it is an open question whether theirs is the best definition and whether they are correct in their assessment of the causes of poverty.

Criticisms of Oxfam Oxfam has failed to meet the criteria of GiveWell, a nonprofit organization dedicated to measuring the effectiveness of charity organizations in order to educate donors. Among the criteria, Oxfam failed to demonstrate

Oxfam International

the efficacy of its programs, meaning it was unable to provide substantial evidence of how the impacts of projects or programs were evaluated and that it failed to discuss in adequate detail the actual impact of the evaluated projects. GiveWell explains that they “seek enough evidence to be confident that a charity changed lives for the better – not simply that it carried out its activities as intended.” However, Oxfam does make available both annual reports that detail its ongoing assistance and lobbying programs, as well as supplementary reports about individual initiatives. Oftentimes, specific numbers are forthcoming, as when Oxfam reports that it received $ 294 million in donations to assist with the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and used the money to provide clean water and build new permanent housing for the displaced. They tally “2.5 million cumulative beneficiaries” of that program. Ultimately, Oxfam seems forthcoming with

O

801

information, and it might be the case that GiveWell’s transparency requirements have unjustly excluded Oxfam. Still, Oxfam remains high on philosophers’ lists of charities doing good to reduce suffering and rights violations around the world.

Related Topics

▶ Development Assistance ▶ Human Rights ▶ International Organizations ▶ Poverty

References Givewell. Givewell: real change for your dollar. http://www.givewell.org/ international/charities/Oxfam. Accessed 5 Jan 2011 Oxfam International. http://www.oxfam.org. Accessed 5 Jan 2011 Oxfam International Annual Report (2008–2009) Oxfam International. http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/oxfam-internationalannual-report-2008-09.pdf. Accessed 5 Jan 2011

O

P Pacifism TRISTIN S. HASSELL Department of Philosophy, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

Pacifism, as broadly conceived, is a commitment to the making of peace. Pacifism is rooted in the Latin word pacificus, which is a synthesis of pax (peace) and facere (to make). Therefore, pacifism ought not to be confused with passivism. Passivism is defined by inactivity. Pacifism, on the other hand, requires an activity – the pursuit of, labor toward, or institution of, peace. Yet, pacifism is not a homogeneous concept. There are as many kinds of pacifism as there are definitions of peace, strategies for making it, and adherents to it. The moral worth of peacemaking as an activity has historical roots in religion. In the West, pacifism originates in Christianity with Jesus’ claim in his Sermon on the Mount: blessed are the peacemakers (pacifists). The word used by Jesus in the gospel of Matthew is the Greek word eirenopoios, which is a synthesis of eirene (peace) and poiesis (to make). In the East, pacifism is rooted in the Indian notion of ahisma, which translates as avoid violence. From its advent in the Vedas (a body of ancient Indian sacred texts), the notion of ahisma (nonviolence) has had a lasting impact on Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism and the cultural locations of each. Yet, Jesus’ exhortation to peacemaking and the Vedic virtue of nonviolence raise similar problems of definition. In the first case, one needs to define the peace that must be made; in the second case, one needs to define the violence that must be avoided. The problem with these terms (and indeed all words) is that they only make sense within a specific cultural and linguistic context. A moral commitment to nonviolence requires a standard by which to judge what is moral, and a reason that violence contravenes that standard. Furthermore, it is not at all clear what constitutes violence. How can a person avoid violence if one does not know what it is? Indeed, the philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Zˇizˇek

has argued that everything is violence (i.e., something which causes injury or harm). According to Zˇizˇek, there are three types of violence: objective, subjective, and symbolic. Symbolic violence is the coercive and dominating power of language – its internal bias. Subjective violence is the murder, rape, war, or revolution – the obvious and visible violence. Objective violence is the invisible violence of the normal. It is the violence of the status quo – the ordinary violence that sustains division, inequality, and weakness. While subjective violence is a response to and an eruption out of objective violence, it is a violence nonetheless. If Zˇizˇek is correct and everything is violence, then there are two questions that must be asked: (1) how can a person begin to avoid it? and (2) is all violence equal? If everything is violence then violence is unavoidable; yet, for most people the prohibition against violence is the prohibition against unjust violence. The commitment to nonviolence does not exist in a vacuum. Not only does nonviolence require a prior definition of violence, but also a standard of moral judgment; indeed, the exhortation to nonviolence is both affirmed and qualified by a prior conceptuality of justice. It is precisely for this reason that not all violence is equal. There is a difference between a fistfight, a war, and a genocide. A distinction that is both quantitative and qualitative. While a fistfight, a war, and a genocide differ in degree (i.e., how much violence is occurring), they also differ in kind (i.e., the nature of the activity which is causing harm). In a fistfight, one might talk about intentions and desert; in the case of war, whether it is just or unjust; yet, there is no viable account of a just or deserved genocide. Similarly, there is linguistic and conceptual confusion over what constitutes the peace that pacifists are trying to make. There are four different notions of peace that provide varying accounts of what the possibilities and limitations of peacemaking are: peace as enslavement, peace as exhaustion, peace as satisfaction, and peace as being. Peace as enslavement is the peace that results from subjugation. This kind of peace is the result of nonresistance to tyranny, that is, pacification. Historical examples of this are the Pax Romana (the period of peace that followed military domination by the Roman empire) and the idea of the “good slave” in the antebellum United States. Similarly, peace as

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

804

P

Pacifism

exhaustion requires prior violent conflict. In this definition of peace, enemies have either: inflicted sufficient harm on one another, making conflict no longer sustainable, or they have been forced to reject conflict because its continuation would result in mutual annihilation. In both cases, violence is abandoned but the desire (or intention) to harm the other party remains. The tentative nature of this peace has been described as a “cold war,” which is the designation given to the pseudo-peaceable conflict that occurred between the United States and the Soviet Union, beginning in the 1940s and lasting until the early 1990s. Conversely, peace as satisfaction describes a situation in which the desires of society (and the individuals in it) have been realized. Yet, violence, and indeed war, can be justified on this approach as a means of securing that satisfaction – a position known as just policing. If the desires of all the members of society have been satisfied, then society is assumed to be just. A person who infringes upon the desires of others in such a society is unjust and in need of correction (i.e., justification). Finally, peace as being is rooted in religious accounts of the transcendent, claiming that peace is something more than the absence of violence – it claims that peace has a positive ground in reality. In Judaism peace is rest, a participation in God’s Sabbath; in Buddhism peace is the habitual process by which a person transforms their being from struggle to tranquility; in Christianity it is participation in the very being of a God who is infinite peace. In each of these religions, peace is conceptualized as the result of getting beyond the violence and limitations of the material in order to transform the possibilities of existence. The variety of pacifisms mirrors the diversity of normative theories about moral judgment making: consequentialist, deontological, and virtue-based; moreover, the varieties of pacifism and nonviolence each adopts a peculiar definition of justice, violence, and peace, and all are forced in to answering questions about who it is that pacifism applies to and under what circumstances. Is the commitment to make peace (or avoid violence) a universal obligation, or is it something which individuals have a choice about? Religious persons and conscientious objectors sometimes take vows to renounce violence, yet such promises are individually elected. Critics of vocational pacifism ask: if pacifism is correct for one should it not be considered correct for all? Another set of questions that the pacifisms must answer has to do with applying the general concept “peacemaker” to concrete places and times. Are there times when violence as a last resort is allowable (for instance, in the preservation of one’s own

life)? Who gets to decide this, and what is the standard for making such a judgment? Are certain kinds (or degrees) of violence off limits? Just war theorists and pacifists usually disagree on how to answer these questions; however, one common exception to this has to do with the use of nuclear weapons. For many just warriors and pacifists, nuclear weapons are too uncontrollable and indiscriminate to use, even as a last resort. Similarly, some pacifists make exceptions when it comes to protecting the weak, themselves, or their families. For such pacifists, defending the weak does not create violence; it ends violence. Consequential pacifism begins with an objective study of individual cases. In this approach, one is concerned with making judgments based on necessity and efficiency rather than justice or an absolute commitment to peace. Whether some violence is just, or whether peace is ontologically better than violence never enters the moral calculus. This kind of pacifism is not the starting place of moral decision making, but the result of such decisions. When one calculates the consequences of violence versus peace in situation X, the consequential pacifist will argue that pacifism effectively generates better outcomes than does violence. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. are often cited as examples of effective peacemakers who were able to organize their followers around a commitment to nonviolence, thereby creating positive social change. Furthermore, the consequential pacifist argues that any short-term benefits of violence are usually overshadowed by long-term harms. Often pacifism is adopted as a rule for sustainable social change. Yet, it is always conceivable to the consequential pacifist that situations will occur in which violent exceptions need to be made in order to expedite preferred outcomes. An example of this will be the pacifist who believes that fighting fascism in WWII was necessary, albeit distasteful. Critics of this position ask what the criteria for judging best outcomes is, and whether objectivity in such decision making is ever possible. Conversely, absolute pacifism grounds itself in a commitment to the sanctity of life and the moral status of persons. This view, following Kant, argues that all persons have a duty, obligation, or universal imperative to treat all persons as ends and never simply as the means to an end. Whereas consequential pacifism began with a prior conception of what constituted a good outcome, absolute pacifism begins with a prior conception of what constitutes a person. The absolute pacifist believes that violence has at least the potential to destroy personhood, and so must be absolutely rejected. Absolute pacifism is often couched in the language of natural human rights, or

Pacifism

divine command. Sometimes, distinctions are made between kinds of violence. A maximum version of absolute pacifism would reject all coercion and violence, often including the killing or mistreatment of animals, and harm done to the environment. Minimal versions of absolute pacifism reject in every case only violences that irrevocably destroy human persons: murder, war, genocide, etc. There are two kinds of virtue-based pacifism: those that identify nonviolence as a virtue, and those that see peacemaking as the telos (the purpose or end) toward which all other activities are directed. Both virtue theories are primarily concerned with the character of the persons who act, and only secondarily, with what actions those persons do. In the former approach, pacifism is a virtue, an attribute that helps persons attain the goal of their life. The telos of a knife is to cut and a good knife cuts well; the virtue that helps the knife make this possible is sharpness. For Buddhists, nonviolence (ahisma) is a virtue that makes Enlightenment possible. In the latter approach, peacemaking is not a virtue it is the telos – the positive goal toward which human life is directed. On this approach, much time is spent uncovering what virtues are necessary if persons are to be good peacemakers. Once the character of a good peacemaker is uncovered, the means for training individuals to be that kind of person needs to be developed. Alasdair MacIntyre (following Aristotle) argues that this process is only possible within specifically defined communities, and occurs through the telling of stories, the sharing of practices, and the location of oneself within the historical tradition from which one’s telos arises. For MacIntyre, people do what they do out of habit, rather than by choice, and so a person needs to be educated in which habits are the right kind of habits to have. A practical example of the kind of education that MacIntyre describes is the catechism, apprenticeship, or boot camp that seeks to make possible new kinds of persons – the Christian, bricklayer, and soldier, respectively. Examples of the kind of virtue pacifism that asserts peacemaking as telos are the historical (and sometimes contemporary) Anabaptists (Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, Bruderhof, etc.) and Quakers. The variety of pacifisms corresponds not only to normative theories of ethics, but to normative theories of social and global justice: retributive, restorative, and distributive. In the case of retributive justice, the pacifist understands penalization as a strategy for peacemaking by its inverse, deterrence. Rather than focus on justice as measure-for-measure (lex talionis) redress, the pacifist hopes that appropriate retribution will secure a future social peace by deterring violence in the first place.

P

Of particular interest to pacifists are nonviolent forms of retribution such as the use of economic sanctions on the global stage, the most famous case of which is the US embargo of Cuba as punishment for its failure to pursue free-market capitalism and democratization. In the case of restorative justice, the pacifist hopes to heal the wound of a prior violence. This therapeutic approach focuses on mediating the harms of injustice (between offenders and victims) rather than policing an impersonal social contract. An example of restorative justice at work is South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up by Nelson Mandela as a response to injustices of apartheid, the purpose of which was to expose the scope and variety of racial injustice in order to avoid historical revision, and thereby ensure that such violences never recur. Another area in which pacifists have contributed to conversations about global restorative justice is in the condemning of discrimination based upon gender, sex, sexual orientation, and disability, as unacceptable social violences that must be exposed and rejected in the interest of justice and peacemaking. Distributive justice deals primarily with the allocations of goods within society and between societies. Here the pacifist is concerned primarily with the problems and possibilities of economic violence. The pacifist often focuses not simply on the equality of distribution, but the reason and method by which inequality exists. As in other theories of global justice, the pacifist’s interest in just distribution is not simply intranational but international; for instance, growing skepticism over the viability of for-profit health care in the USA (in lieu of vast disparities in wealth) mirrors global skepticism over whether free-market capitalism can reconcile disparities in the quality, and availability, of health care between rich countries and poor countries. Finally, it should be noted that pacifists understand peacemaking not simply in moral and personal terms, but as a crucial component to any constitution of global justice, which rejects violence as the ground of social relation.

Related Topics

▶ Collective Responsibility ▶ Gandhi, Mahatma ▶ Global Contractarian Justice ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Human Rights ▶ King, Martin Luther, Jr. ▶ Punishment ▶ Retributive Justice ▶ Truth Commissions ▶ War, Just and Unjust

805

P

806

P

Pandemics

References Kant I (2009) Fundamental principles of the metaphysics of morals (trans: Abbott TK). Merchant Books, New York Macintyre A (1984) After virtue, 2nd edn. University of Notre Dame, Southbend Yoder JH (1992) Nevertheless: the varieties of religious pacifism (revised and expanded edition). Herald, Waterloo Zˇizˇek S (2008) Violence. Picador, New York

Pandemics WAYNE B. HANEWICZ Department of Humanities/Philosophy, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Overview: What Is a Pandemic and What Are the Issues Pandemics are, and will continue to be, global! Communication, transportation, multinational research, technology development, and multinational or multicultural conflict assure that we will all suffer together if we do not understand the inherent global nature of pandemics in the twenty-first century. The very idea of a pandemic seriously challenges our notions of sovereignty and nationalism, the conditions for human freedom, and the responsibilities and liberties necessary for human growth and happiness. It is by no means assured that democratic ideals and democratic governance itself will survive the ordeal of a pandemic. A pandemic (from Greek pan “all” + demos “people”) refers to an infectious or contagious, not necessarily communicable, disease that spreads across extensive and national geography, and whose growth curve over time exceeds normal expectations. The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies three conditions necessary for the existence of a pandemic: ● Emergence of a disease new to a population ● Agents infect humans, causing serious illness ● Agents spread easily and sustainably among humans The Black Plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, the Spanish Flu of 1918–1919, and more recently HIV and the 2009 flu pandemic are representative examples; there remains some disagreement over the pandemic nature of cancer or heart disease.

The Major Issues In addition to the obvious administrative, technological, economic, and social problems presented by pandemics,

there is a wide range of ethical issues endemic to pandemics, including: ● Prevention, paternalism, and collective safety ● Quarantine policy, individual freedom, and collective protection ● Information privacy, transparency, and an informed collective ● Proportionality and equity ● Protecting communities from unjustified stigmatization The allocation of limited resources is virtually unavoidable in pandemic circumstances, and it is the foundation for most of the moral issues related to pandemics. It is inevitable that society in general, and individual healthservice providers in particular, will have to make hard moral decisions regarding the allocation and use of limited resources. An influenza pandemic, which would last from weeks to months, will most certainly demand decisions regarding personnel and material resource allocation well beyond the point of triage; health-service providers will be affected in ways for which they may not have prepared. Many of them may know the general principles of mass casualty triage but have insufficient training or experience in applying ethical reasoning or value assumptions to clinical situations with individual people (pandemicethics.org). Most people are of the opinion that society has a duty to plan for such disasters by assuring that there is sufficient equipment, supplies, and trained personnel to address the enormous demands that a pandemic will present and to provide the range of services necessary to minimize the collateral damage from a pandemic. The demands on the all public service systems will be enormous and, for the most part, outside the experience of many providers. Medical first-responders and emergency room personnel are typically practiced in the operational and ethical judgments involved in mass casualty plans, but many who work in healthcare policy and planning lack such familiarity and experience. While there may be disagreement over the classification of the recent Swine Flu as a full-blown pandemic, the world nevertheless experienced the same shortage of vaccine, availability of adequate health facilities and services, disruption in distribution, worker illness, and travel restrictions that a more “classical” pandemic would present. Such circumstances fuel public panic and civil disorder that will exacerbate a service system already laden with unexamined moral assumptions.

Pandemics

Balancing provider loyalties to family versus provider duties to citizens and communities is unavoidable. The two groups that typically are assigned highest priority to receive drugs and similar support are patients with the greatest clinical need and providers with the greatest risk of exposure. At the onset of an influenza pandemic, providers would face a very personal ethical decision about their duty to serve contagious patients versus their concerns for personal safety and duties to their own families and others for whom they have responsibility. The distinction between “us” and “them” is a boundary that can lead to vulnerability and abandonment of those most in need (Ameisen). How do we avoid the morphing of this distinction into a strategy of exception that justifies arbitrariness? In a social context where individualism, suspicion, and defiance prevail, nothing allows us to be assured of a unanimously shared concern for the common good (Hirsh). If care providers do not understand or are unclear about the ethics behind mass casualty plans, the service provision process may either slowdown or even breakdown. Ultimately, if a mass casualty response plan gets caught up in ethical conflicts at the bedside, it risks losing the very efficiency for saving lives that is the reason for altering triage and care practices in the first place. How do we decide who should get what, and for how long, under conditions of limited resources? The most glaring ethical decisions would surface when considering how to treat overwhelming numbers of patients with scarce and diminishing medical resources. With insufficient resources, potentially life-saving treatments such as highly specialized drugs (e.g., antiviral) or ventilators would have to be allocated to fewer than the number of patients who would need them. The shortage of mechanical ventilators can be a particularly troublesome issue. The withholding or withdrawing of a ventilator usually indicates a decision with immediate life-and-death consequences. Should older patients be deprived of this technology in favor of younger patients? How do we choose which critically ill patients would be given a chance for survival on a ventilator and which would be consigned to a high likelihood of dying in a very short time? Even that decision, however, does not meet the prospect of removing a patient from a ventilator – perhaps against the patient’s or the family’s wishes – merely because he or she is not improving rapidly or benefiting enough to justify continued use of a scarce resource. Do we treat patients as ends in themselves or do we maximize the odds of another’s survival whose prognosis is already more optimistic? Which is “the greater good”?

P

The problem can be conceived broadly in terms of distributive justice: What is the just – or the most just – way to distribute scarce resources? It can also be conceived more narrowly in terms of utilitarianism: How can I serve the most with the fewest resources? The “common good” is often perceived as a relatively weak abstraction compared to the “real” life and death struggles of a specific individual. The driving goal of mass casualty response plans is to save the largest number of lives with the resources available. These plans are based upon utilitarian ethics and focus on the “big picture,” on serving a “greater good,” which may not be in the best interests of any one person. On the other hand, in the heat of the moment one or another form of moral absolutism, including variations of religious absolutism, may provide the motivation for a particular decision regarding a particular person at a particular moment. For example, a utilitarian ethic foundation for mass casualty plans characteristically allows for patients who either demand an excess of precious resources, or who will likely die regardless of the resources devoted to their care, to be given low priority for treatment or even set aside to die. Yet, this course of action would be morally reprehensible to any clinician (or patient or family) in the mindset of normal standardof-care circumstances. How to prepare providers for such a judgment? Where, if any, can we find room for any kind of Kantian, or deontological, ethics? What would the Kantian moral imperative specifically require? Loyalty? Integrity? Equity? Transparency? Citizen Empowerment? How do we account for global variations in cultural values when such values are founded on different, even competing, moral theories? What can we expect in the short- mid-term future? Even as I write this entry we are witnessing yet another very powerful earthquake in Chile (just a few months after a similar event in Haiti), and the world is still recovering from the enormous tsunami off the coast of Japan. These incidents will be instructive to us as we work to provide adequate social services and health care. Currently, another “Bird Flu” virus (H5N1) shows potential for pandemic lethality. It has moved from Southeast Asia to Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe (including Great Britain). Humans in close contact with birds have contracted the virus, and human-to-human transmission appears already to be possible. Future pandemic threats may come from either unfamiliar or ill-considered sources, including:

807

P

808

P

Pareto Optimality

● Environmental disasters from accidental or illconsidered actions; ● Biological (e.g., genetic engineering) research activities; ● Biological and chemical terrorism; ● Natural disasters or evolutionary changes. Specific biological threats, all of which carry their own moral challenges, can come in the form of Swine flu, Avian Flu, Pandemic Flu, Anthrax, Botulism, Plague, Smallpox, Tularemia, Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), West Nile Virus, and Monkeypox Virus. It will be interesting to see how our actions do justice to our morals. Pandemics are a stark challenge to the ethics in a global world!

Related Topics

▶ Act-Consequentialism ▶ Care Ethics ▶ Essential Medicines, Access to ▶ Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI) ▶ Global Distributive Justice ▶ Global Public Health ▶ Health and Health Care ▶ Killing and Letting Die ▶ Paternalism ▶ Pharmaceutical Justice ▶ Rule-Consequentialism ▶ Utilitarianism ▶ Virtue Ethics

References Ameisen JC (2006) A pandemic influenza preparedness plan promoting the values of mutual aid, responsibility and solidarity. Pandemic, Ethics and Society No. 1, October 2006 Hirsch E (2006) Engaging ethics in view of a pandemic influenza. Pandemics, Ethics and Society vol 1, October 2006 http://www.pandemicethics.org Mann J (2006) Taking a stand. Pandemics, Ethics and Society No. 1, October 2006 (Editorial) Pandemic Influenza Ethics Initiative. US Department of Veterans Affairs, Emergency Management Strategic Health Care Group. http://www. ethics.va.gov/ The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) http:// www.cidrap.umn.edu/ World Health Organization (2005, Revised) WHO pandemic phase descriptions and main actions by phase: staff discussion forums on ethics issues in pandemic influenza preparedness. US Department of Vet Affairs, Emergency Management Strategic Health Care Group WHO Pre-decisional draft guidance: meeting the challenge of pandemic influenza: ethical guidance for VHA leaders and clinicians

Pareto Optimality WILLIAM B. T. MOCK The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, IL, USA

Meaning and History “Pareto optimality” is an analytic tool for assessing social welfare and resource allocation developed by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), a pioneer in the study of distributional efficiency. An allocation is considered Pareto optimal if no alternative allocation could make someone better off without making someone else worse off. More technically, two varieties of Pareto optimality are recognized: strong Pareto optimality (SPO) and weak Pareto optimality (WPO). With SPO, any change will make at least one party worse off. With WPO, any change will make at least one party no better off, but may not make any party worse off. Thus, any SPO situation is also WPO, but not every WPO situation is also SPO. In other words, a SPO situation is “optimal” in the strong sense that any change would make matters worse, at least for someone, whereas a WPO situation is “optimal” in the weaker sense that a change may fail to make the situation better for everyone. Free market and laissez faire advocates posit that Pareto optimality can best be achieved by using the “invisible hand,” a metaphor for self-interested economic efficiency introduced by Scottish enlightenment economist Adam Smith (1723–1790). According to this theory, Pareto optimal outcomes should be achieved within a marketplace marked by perfect competition, informational transparency, elimination of unallocated externalities, and governmental non-intervention.

Relevance to Social Justice In a Pareto optimal allocation, particularly one that is SPO, there are no further benefits that can be wrung out of the system painlessly, that is, without inflicting a cost upon someone. However, if the benefits of a proposed reallocation exceed the concomitant costs, a Pareto superior allocation can be achieved through the use of transfer payments (such as by taxing the reallocation winners in order to compensate the losers), so long as net benefits remain larger than transaction costs. Thus, the search for Pareto optimal distributions may provide an economic rationale for government intervention. The opportunity for efficient redistribution applies to issues ranging from

Paris Peace Conference

placement of a landfill (where garbage providers may need to compensate landfill neighbors) to international allocation of the benefits of trade liberalization (where nations benefitting from lower trade barriers may need to compensate nations hurt by lower barriers). Similarly, the search for Pareto optimal allocations requires systems to account for market-distorting externalities, such as environmental pollution of the global commons. For example, pollution taxes and fisheries regulation may improve market efficiency and help achieve Pareto optimality. Finally, there is an important distinction to be drawn between Pareto optimality as a tool and as a value judgment. Used properly, Pareto optimality is excellent at identifying situations in which all available value has been captured. However, the fact that a given allocation is Pareto optimal does not mean that it satisfies normative conditions of fairness or justice. Thus, highly unbalanced wealth distributions may be Pareto optimal, if there is no way to make the poor better off without diminishing the wealth of the rich, but this provides the starting point for a normative debate on maximizing social and global welfare, rather than the end point.

Related Topics ▶ Free Trade ▶ Global Justice ▶ Sen, Amartya

References Chapman B (1982) Individual rights and collective rationality: some implications for economic analysis of law. 10 Hofstra Law Review 455. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1156881 Olson M (2000) Power and prosperity: outgrowing communist and capitalist dictatorships Parsons T (1937) The structure of social action, Vol. 1. Marshall, Pareto, Durkheim

Paris Peace Conference HARRISON HIBBERT Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

Following the armistice of World War I, the Paris Peace Conference comprised a number of meetings held among

P

the Allied and Associated Powers, beginning in January 1919 and leading up to the Treaty of Versailles in June. The negotiations were not only to determine what measures should be taken against the Central Powers but also to establish an international political structure with a view toward peaceable global relations such that future wars might be prevented. While many have since criticized certain ideological and political aspects of the proceedings, particularly in hindsight of the failure to prevent or adequately respond to circumstances leading up to World War II, scholars also recognize the Peace Conference as a decisive moment in world politics and likewise in the discourse of global justice. Two points in particular bear this out. The first of these concerns the creation of the League of Nations. The situation in postwar Europe presented the leaders of the Allied and Associated Powers an opportunity to actualize the idea of an international community whose unifying doctrine would be one of mutual recognition with respect to the self-determination of peoples and nations. Accordingly, the foremost principles of the League were collective security for member nations and the protection of state sovereignty, both of which depended equally on multilateral cooperation and communication. By emphasizing the authority of peoples more so than that of governments, as regards the political determination of their respective territories and affairs, the League of Nations advanced legal and moral principles of an unprecedented transnational order. The second point has to do with the role afforded to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the proceedings of the Conference. Among the rules of the conference, which were drawn up at the plenary meeting on January 18, 1919, there was included for private groups and individuals to present petitions which, after being compiled by the Secretariat General, were then to be distributed among government delegates. The influence of NGOs at the Peace Conference was of greater account in some domains than it was in others – the International Labour Organization (ILO), for instance, provided full participation rights for NGO delegates – but what stands out as most noteworthy here is that international cooperation among sovereign states undertook to represent interests of non-state actors. M. Clemenceau, honoring the words of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, said of the Peace Conference in his plenary address, “this is the first occasion on which a delegation of all civilized peoples of the world has been seen assembled.”

809

P

810

P

Partiality

Related Topics

▶ Democratic Nation Building ▶ Democratic Peace Theory ▶ Foreign Policy ▶ Global Democracy ▶ Global Governance ▶ League of Nations ▶ Liberal Internationalism ▶ Political Autonomy

References Charnovitz S (2003) The emergence of democratic participation in global governance (Paris, 1919). Ind J Glob Leg Stud 10:45–77 Macmillan M (2003) Paris 1919. Random House, New York

Partiality STEPHEN NATHANSON Department of Philosophy, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

Partiality appears to be the primary obstacle to global justice. Advocates of global justice appeal to an impartial perspective that emphasizes the moral equality of all human beings. They see this equality as the basis for a moral duty to give equal consideration to the needs and interests of all people. This impartialist perspective, however, flies in the face of the immense psychological power of partiality, which is evident in the widespread tendency to care more about some people rather than others and the normally greater motivation to act on behalf of people and groups we care most about rather than people and groups who are distant strangers. This partiality is not only psychological; it is also supported by common moral beliefs, according to which people have both a special right and a special duty to act on behalf of those whom they love and care about. Because there are many different objects of partialist feelings, there are many different forms of partiality. Egoists are partial to themselves, while parents may be partial to their children, racists partial to members of their own

race, and patriots and nationalists to their own country. All forms of partiality, however, stand together in rejecting the extreme impartiality that globalism seems to require. Globalism, however, is not the only perspective that is in tension with partiality. Each of the many partialist attitudes can clash with the rest. Some of these competing forms of partialism appear in Table 1. Apart from the extreme poles of egoism and globalism, all of the other partialities face criticism from two sides, those who say they are too narrowly partialistic and those who say they are not partialistic enough. The importance of the contrast between partiality and impartiality is highlighted in the title of Thomas Nagel’s book Equality and Partiality. According to Nagel, we lack morally acceptable political ideals because we do not know how to reconcile two separate, competing perspectives within ourselves. The first perspective is impersonal and leads to an impartial view of all people as having equal moral status. The second is personal and gives rise to strongly partialist motivations to favor ourselves and people with whom we have special relationships. According to Nagel, we cannot reject either of these perspectives, but we do not know how to do justice to both of them. Nagel’s powerful formulation of the partiality/impartiality problem is misleading in two respects. First, it understates the great psychological power of partiality. Nagel sees partialist and impartialist motivations as roughly equal, competing human tendencies. Typically, however, partiality is a stronger motivator of human behavior. Second, Nagel overlooks the fact that partiality can vary in both scope and intensity. The partiality of the egoist differs from that of the patriot because the egoist’s concerns are narrower in scope, focusing only on the interests of the self. Patriots, by contrast, care for the members of a national group, but their concern for these people varies in intensity. Patriots are not equally partial to all of their fellow citizens; they generally care more about their friends and family than about fellow citizens who are not “near and dear.” These variations among types of partiality provide a clue to resolving the problem of doing justice to the competing visions that arise from the impersonal and the personal perspective. What is needed is a view that allows us to retain our personal, partialist concerns while

Partiality. Table 1 Egoism

Near-and-dear-ism

Racism and/or religionism

Patriotism/nationalism

Globalism

Partiality to self

Partiality to loved ones, family, and friends

Partiality toward groups based on membership and emotional ties

Partiality toward one’s state Impartial concern or national group for all people

Partiality

also acting in accord with the impartial recognition of the equal worth of all. Globalists often aim not for reconciliation but for the rejection of partiality. This can be seen in the criticisms of patriotism made by the Russian writer and thinker Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy strongly denounced patriotism, charging that patriotism cannot be a virtue because it is contrary to the central values of religion and morality. Patriotism, he says, denies the equality of all people and promotes the goal of one nation (one’s own) dominating all others. Patriotic partiality is a vice and should give way to impartial concern for all people. This view is echoed in Peter Singer’s call for a global, antinationalist ethic. Singer argues that our current, twenty-first century problems are so intertwined that they cannot be resolved by a system of nation-states, in which citizens give near-exclusive loyalty to their own nation-state and ignore the needs, interests, and claims of people in the larger global community. Most people, however, see themselves as having special duties to their own country and will reject globalism if it requires forsaking patriotic loyalty. The only thing that patriots and globalists seem to agree on is that patriotic loyalty and concern for global justice are incompatible with one another. This either/or view rests on the assumption that patriotic partiality and globalist impartiality cannot be reconciled. As a result, we have no choice but to opt for one of the two attitudes displayed in Table 2. While global universalism seeks to promote the good of all people, patriotism, as described in Table 2, requires exclusive concern for one country and its people. An implication of this exclusive concern is that “anything goes” in the pursuit of the nation’s well-being. Whether it is in the context of war or economic competition, this form of patriotism aims to make the nation as well off as possible while showing no regard for other nations or people. While this attitude is not uncommon, especially in times of crisis, it is not the attitude of most patriotic people. Most people recognize the humanity of people in other countries. When there are natural disasters, both individuals and nations often respond in a humane way, providing assistance for others in dire need. In addition, Partiality. Table 2 Patriotism

Global universalism

Exclusive concern for one’s own country and its citizens

Equal concern for all people

Unconstrained promotion of the national good

Promotion of the good of all people, not countries

P

many people are horrified by acts of war, such as massive killing and raping of innocent civilians, and they do not want their own countries to engage in these actions. These facts show that any adequate description of patriotism must recognize that there are different forms of patriotism. Table 3 distinguishes between two forms of patriotism. What Table 2 labeled “patriotism” is now called “extreme patriotism,” and an additional form of patriotism that incorporates some degree of impartiality is labeled “moderate patriotism.” According to the moderate patriotic view, there is nothing wrong with partiality toward one’s own country, but how one acts on this felt partiality is morally constrained by a recognition of the equal humanity of others. The upshot is that patriots can be specially concerned to promote their country’s good while acknowledging that promoting the nation’s interests must be done in morally acceptable ways. They reject the extreme patriot’s view that the national interest can be pursued in a completely unconstrained manner. Moderate patriotism seeks to solve the reconciliation problem by rejecting both global universalism’s pure impartialism as well as the excessive partiality of extreme patriotism. What it accepts is a form of limited or constrained partiality that gives special status to pursuing the good of one’s own nation while showing respect and concern for non-compatriots. It does this, for example, by recognizing moral limits on how wars are fought and by helping people in other countries who face natural disasters or other forms of extreme deprivation. Moderate patriotism’s reconciliation effort faces criticism from both sides. Extreme patriots, communitarians, and others with intense commitments to particular groups criticize its effort to balance partiality with universality. These critics argue that moderate views dangerously weaken the strong commitment that people should have to their own country. Global universalists are equally Partiality. Table 3 Extreme patriotism

Moderate patriotism

Global universalism

Exclusive concern for one’s own country and its citizens

Special (but not exclusive) concern for one’s own country and its citizens

Equal concern for all people

Unconstrained promotion of the national good

Promotion of the national good by morally acceptable means

Promotion of the good of all people, not countries

811

P

812

P

Partiality

critical. They claim that once moderate patriots acknowledge the equal value of all persons, they no longer have any basis for partiality and cannot justify any special commitment to promoting the good of their own country rather than the good of all people. Moderate patriots respond to critics by arguing that all of these various views must be evaluated so as to see which is most reasonable, and they stress that there is no reason to be limited to a choice between the most extreme positions. This overall strategy is strengthened by noting that global universalism can also take extreme and moderate forms. Table 4 shows a broader range of choice by adding a moderate globalist option. It illuminates several points. First, it shows that both extreme globalism (as described here) and extreme patriotism share common flaws. While extreme patriotism fails to recognize any moral obligations to anything but the nation and its citizens, extreme globalism fails to recognize any legitimacy to patriotic partiality and rejects any constraints on the pursuit of its impartialist goals. As a result, its stated commitment to the rights of all people could coexist with the use of brutal, unconstrained means against people who oppose globalism’s goals. Second, the table highlights the features that moderate patriotism and moderate globalism share. Just as moderate patriots recognize constraints on the pursuit of national goals, moderate globalists recognize that people who value their own communities can have a legitimate interest in preserving them. For this reason, as they pursue their globalist vision, moderate globalists will not ruthlessly destroy these communities or their shared forms of life and will accept moral constraints on the means by which they promote their goals. The strategy of moderating and constraining both partialist and impartialist perspectives opens up the possibility of reconciling partiality and impartiality. In doing so, it raises new challenges that require specifying more concretely the implications of these moderate positions. Responding to these challenges reveals that moderate

patriotism itself can be divided into different forms, thus giving rise to subspecies of moderate patriotism. All forms of moderate patriotism recognize some obligations to people who are not compatriots. By accepting moral constraints on how their country pursues the national interest, they recognize at least some negative duties toward non-compatriots. These negative duties forbid the killing, injuring, enslaving, or plundering of other peoples as means of promoting the national interest. Thus, they rule out wars of aggression and conquest as legitimate. Moderate patriots may differ among themselves, however, on the subject of whether they have positive moral duties to non-compatriots. Some moderate patriots will recognize positive duties to people who are victims of natural or social disasters or who suffer severe deprivation because of weak economic development. Other moderate patriots will accept only negative duties to other countries and their people. In their view, they have a negative duty not to harm non-compatriots, but they have no positive duty to provide aid or assistance to them. Moderate patriots may also disagree about the strength of these duties. Some moderate patriots might believe that these duties apply only when compliance requires little or no sacrifice. Others may think that duties to non-compatriots continue to apply even when compliance requires a high degree of sacrifice. The differences between these views can be seen by applying them to environmental issues, global poverty, and war. Moderate patriots who hold the “little or no sacrifice” view will not accept environmental policies that do any harm to their country economically, even if rejecting these policies will cause serious harm to people in other countries. They will also favor global economic assistance only if it is at a very low cost for their country, and they will reject compliance with humanitarian laws of war if compliance makes it more difficult for their country to achieve victory in a war. Moderate patriots who accept that acting morally toward non-compatriots may come at a high price will

Partiality. Table 4 Extreme patriotism

Moderate patriotism

Priorities

Exclusive concern for one’s Higher priority for one’s own country; own country and its genuine but lesser people concern for others

Constraints on pursuit of goals

No moral constraints on the pursuit of national goals

Morally constrained pursuit of national goals

Moderate globalism

Extreme globalism

Equal concern for all people but recognition of legitimate partiality for one’s own country and its citizens

Equal concern for all people and hostility to any type of partiality toward one’s own nation and its citizens

Morally constrained pursuit of globalist goals

No moral constraints on the pursuit of globalist goals

Partiality

favor compliance with global duties even if requires significant economic sacrifices or increases the chances of being defeated in a war. They might even believe that their country should lose a war if the only way to win requires large-scale attacks against enemy civilians or other serious violations of human rights. These examples make clear that distinguishing between extreme and moderate views is only the first step toward developing a full ethic of limited partiality. Different people will want to balance the demands of partiality and impartiality in different ways, even if they agree that the extreme partialist and impartialist views are defective. This gives rise to a question about the method that might be used to determine the strength of the duties that moderate patriots have to non-compatriots. Is there a way to tell which of these different “moderate” views is correct? How can progress be made toward greater specificity in understanding of the ethic of moderate patriotism and other forms of partiality that aim to operate in morally legitimate ways? One strategy for determining the limits of moderate patriotic partiality is to step backward and to ask why patriotic partiality is justified at all. One answer starts by accepting an impartialist moral perspective that recognizes the equal worth of all people. It then claims that it is in the interests of all people to have various forms of partiality recognized and permitted. For example, virtually everyone would agree that human life would be much less good if partiality toward friends and family were forbidden. These forms of partiality are morally permitted because of their widespread benefits to all people. Can a similar claim be made about countries? Are people generally better off if partiality toward national groups is permissible? This question could be approached from a variety of philosophical perspectives. Social contract theorists might ask whether rational people selecting rules of behavior would support the permissibility of acting partially toward one’s own country. Kantians might ask what type of patriotism is consistent with viewing all people as members of a kingdom of ends. Rights theorists might ask what rights people have to act on behalf of groups they care about, and rule utilitarians could ask whether recognizing a moral code that allows people to be specially concerned about their own countries would lead to greater overall good for everyone. Each of these approaches would begin with impartial moral standards in order to determine whether rules that justify partiality are justified. A description of a rule utilitarian approach will illustrate how such methods might be pursued. Utilitarians begin with an impartial commitment to giving equal weight to the interests of all people and to achieving the

P

greatest overall good for people, whatever nation they might belong to. They then argue that accepting moderate patriotic principles is a reasonable way to implement this globalist ideal because these principles create an efficient “division of labor” approach. This strategy rests on the idea that more good can be done overall if people focus on smaller units rather than trying to benefit all of humanity. One reason to follow the slogan “think globally, act locally” is that people’s knowledge of societies in distant places with different customs and values is limited. By contrast, people can deal more effectively with problems that are closer to home because they understand them better. Second, even if everyone were purely benevolent, multiple attempts to benefit everyone are likely to conflict with one another. As a result, benevolent, would-be helpers will get in each other’s way. Robert Goodin calls this approach the “assigned responsibility” model for justifying patriotic duties. Patriotic duties are justified not because one’s own “countrymen” are more important or superior to others but rather because global goals can best be achieved by dividing the task. Partiality, according to this view, is justified because the division of labor is an effective means of achieving a general goal. This rule utilitarian argument provides both a justification for patriotism as well as a criterion for setting limits on the extent of permissible partiality. It rules out, for example, the partiality of extreme patriotism because that form pursues the national interest at the expense of others. More concretely, this approach rules out the extreme partialist view that “all’s fair in love and war.” Instead, it will support rules of war that permit countries to defend themselves while prohibiting wars for unjust causes and the use of excessively destructive means of fighting. The same point seems to follow about global economic concerns. While countries may promote their own economic well-being, they may not be indifferent to the impact of their economic policies on others. A form of patriotism that is justified by a rule utilitarian argument will not permit wealthy nations to be indifferent to the plight of poor ones because the goal of the division of labor is to achieve overall well-being. That goal will not be achieved by unconstrained pursuit of the national interest, whether in the conduct of war or the pursuit of economic prosperity. Nor will it be achieved by a morality that frees countries from moral duties whenever compliance results in costs to a country’s well-being. As with personal morality, the morality of nations sometimes will require that sacrifices be made. This argument sketch illustrates how one could begin with a global, impartial goal of maximizing the well-being

813

P

814

P

Paternalism

of all people, move then to a justification for partialist attitudes and institutions as the most effective way of achieving this goal, and then derive the positive and negative duties to other peoples and nations that individual countries and their citizens have. If this strategy succeeds, it would solve the problem of determining the limits of patriotic partiality and would reconcile partialist duties with the globalist’s impartial concern for all. Finally, this reconciling approach clarifies the politics of partiality and impartiality. The simplest translation of globalist attitudes into reality would be some type of world government. Yet, the prospect of such a government is deeply threatening to many people. It raises the specter of a distant, all-powerful government over which individuals and current political groups have little control. Reasonable globalists who support the idea of a world government will see the path toward this goal as a gradual process, one that involves the creation of some global institutions that existing states will join or recognize. An institution like the International Criminal Court, for example, fits with global ideals because it makes it possible to enforce restrictions on the powers of national officials to violate universal human rights. Since moderate patriots recognize moral limits on the means by which countries may promote their interests, they too can support international laws that prohibit human rights violations and international courts that can enforce these laws fairly. In fact, there are many policy initiatives that globalists favor (e.g., efforts to combat global poverty, limit the dire effects of war, or prevent damage to the environment) that can be supported by moderate patriots. In this way, the reconciliation project can succeed both in theory and in practice. If globalists seek to abolish states or prohibit giving any priority to one’s own nation, then moderate patriots will oppose them. But many of the policies and institutional reforms that globalist promote do not require the abolition of states or the prohibition of national loyalties. This makes it possible for globalists and moderate patriots to be political allies who are reconciled in practice even if they differ in theory.

Related Topics

▶ Compatriot Partiality Thesis ▶ Cosmopolitan Justice ▶ Duties to Non-Compatriots ▶ Global Egalitarianism ▶ Global Impartiality Thesis ▶ Global Justice ▶ Liberal Nationalism ▶ Nationalism

▶ Patriotism ▶ Rule-Consequentialism ▶ Singer, Peter

References Brock G, Brighouse H (eds) (2005) The political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Goodin R (1988) What is so special about our countrymen? Ethics 98:663–686 MacIntyre A (1984) Is patriotism a virtue? In: Primoratz I (ed) Patriotism. Humanity Books, Buffalo Nagel T (1991) Equality and partiality. Oxford University Press, New York Nathanson S (1993) Patriotism, morality and peace. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Nussbaum M (1996) For the love of country. Beacon, Boston Primoratz I (ed) (2002) Patriotism. Humanity Books, Buffalo Scheffler S (2001) Boundaries and allegiances. Oxford University Press, New York Singer P (2002) One world. Yale University Press, New Haven Tamir Y (1993) Liberal nationalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton Tolstoy L (1968) On patriotism. In: Tolstoy’s writings on nonviolence and civil disobedience. New American Library, New York

Paternalism JUDITH WAGNER DECEW Department of Philosophy, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA

Paternalism is generally defined as a person or group, or most commonly a government, restricting