scholarly journals Thomas Pogge and the Limits of Negative Duty

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 218-234
Author(s):  
Ian Clark Parcon ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Pogge ◽  
Negative Duty

Contributing and Benefiting: Two Grounds for Duties to the Victims of Injustice

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Anwander
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Global Poverty ◽  
Positive Duty ◽  
Thomas Pogge ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Negative Duty ◽  
Harmful Effects ◽  
Do So

Contrasting his own position with that of those who conceive the moral challenge of global poverty in terms of a positive duty to help, Thomas Pogge suggests that “we may be failing to fulfill our stringent negative duty not to uphold injustice, not to contribute to or profit from [emphasis added] the unjust impoverishment of others” (p. 197). We should conceive of our individual donations and of possible institutionalized initiatives to eradicate poverty not as helping the poor but “as protecting them from the effects of global rules whose injustice benefits us and is our responsibility” (p. 23, emphasis added). Pogge also claims that such activities should be understood in terms of compensation: “The word ‘compensate’ is meant to indicate that how much one should be willing to contribute toward reforming unjust institutions and toward mitigating the harms they cause depends on how much one is contributing to, and benefiting from, their maintenance” (p. 50, emphasis added).In characterizing wrongful involvement in an unjust social order and the compensatory duties that arise from it, Pogge refers to the terms contribution/responsibility as well as to benefit/profit (the latter are used interchangeably). The first of these factors is unobjectionable: we can take it for granted that there is a negative duty not to contribute to injustice and that those who are responsible for harmful institutions should compensate their victims. I want to raise doubts, however, about the role that Pogge assigns to benefiting from injustice in the determination of our duties toward the victims of injustice. I shall do so by challenging his claim that there is a negative duty not to benefit from injustice, and that the role that benefiting from injustice plays in determining our duties to work toward reforming unjust practices and mitigating their harmful effects is best understood in terms of compensation.

scholarly journals Pogge, poverty, and war

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 446-469
Author(s):  
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Poor People ◽  
Positive Duty ◽  
Ceteris Paribus ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Thomas Pogge ◽  
Rich People ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Negative Duty ◽  
Economic Injustice ◽  
Do So

According to Thomas Pogge, rich people do not simply violate a positive duty of assistance to help the global poor; rather, they violate a negative duty not to harm them. They do so by imposing an unjust global economic structure on poor people. Assuming that these claims are correct, it follows that, ceteris paribus, wars waged by the poor against the rich to resist this imposition are morally equivalent to wars waged in self-defense against military aggression. Hence, if self-defense against military aggression is just, then, ceteris paribus, so are defensive wars against the imposition of economic injustice. While I do not think Pogge’s analysis of the causes of global poverty is correct, I defend these inferences against various challenges.

scholarly journals On the Universal Power of Socioeconomic Rights: A Comparison Between Thomas Pogge and Rainer Forst

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 45-57
Author(s):  
Fabio Coacci ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Practical Implication ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Socioeconomic Rights ◽  
Thomas Pogge ◽  
Negative Duty ◽  
The One ◽  
Institutional Order ◽  
Theoretical Conceptualization

Introduction. This article investigates the universal power of socioeconomic rights assessing their theoretical conceptualization and practical implication. Methods. Taking theoretical and empirical research into account – at the level of public ethics and political theory – the article carries out a comparative analysis of the elements of global economic justice theory, moral universalism and institutional understanding of human rights of Thomas Pogge and the critical theory of political and social justice and the moral constructivist conception of human rights of Rainer Forst. Analysis. On the one hand, Pogge’s cosmopolitan approach underlines serious noncompliance of socioeconomic rights at the global level because of the unjust distribution of rights and duties enforced by the current global institutional order. In this vein, the protection of socioeconomic rights is conceived as a (moral) negative duty not to deprive people of secure access to a basic human rights object, and socioeconomic rights, by imposing upon them unjust coercive social institutions. On the other hand, Forst’s perspective maintains that each right needs to be constructed on the very basic moral right to reciprocal and general justification which is conceived as the most universal and basic claim of every human being. Results. Drawing on the above-mentioned outlooks on socioeconomic rights, the universal power of socioeconomic rights is assessed in light of the satisfaction of universal basic needs, whose object is also the object of socioeconomic rights – a ‘conditio sine qua non’ for a worthwhile life – and the justification of the assigned duties at the global level.

Thomas Pogge’s Conception of Taking the Global Institutional Order as the Object of Justice Assessments

2020 ◽  
pp. 301-317
Author(s):  
Arthur Chin
Keyword(s):  
Global Justice ◽  
Global Level ◽  
World Government ◽  
Institutional Approach ◽  
Thomas Pogge ◽  
World Poverty ◽  
Negative Duty ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Domestic Level ◽  
Institutional Order

Might our reasoning about social justice at the domestic level—for instance, with regard to the kind of objects that our justice assessments are immediately concerned with and the content of principles employed—properly diverge from its counterpart at the global level? This is the question around which much of the current global justice debate revolves. This chapter is devoted to examining and arguing that the answers provided by Thomas Pogge for the most part retain their plausibility despite the barrage of criticism they have provoked. While Pogge is particularly renowned for his contention that existing world poverty constitutes an injustice that implicates ordinary citizens of affluent societies in negative duty violations, this chapter will not be directly weighing in on this debate. Rather, it seeks to examine a fundamental commitment in Pogge’s justice theorizing: if we are to take the basic institutional scheme of a domestic society as the primary subject of justice in virtue of its profound and pervasive effects, then consistency requires us to subject the global institutional scheme to the same type of justice analysis, and to devise a corresponding set of principles governing its design. Through clarifying the meaning and implications of this proposition, this chapter hopes to bring out a more lucid and unified reading of Pogge’s institutional approach to justice theorizing, one that is both appealing and remains viable in the absence of a world government.

scholarly journals Declaring the Global Economy a Status Confessionis?

2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-219
Author(s):  
Menno R. Kamminga
Keyword(s):  
Global Economy ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Economic Order ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Thomas Pogge ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Foundation ◽  
Negative Duty

This article revisits theologian Ulrich Duchrow’s three-decade-old use of the Protestant notion of status confessionis to denounce the capitalist global economy. Scholars quickly dismissed Duchrow’s argument; however, philosopher Thomas Pogge has developed a remarkable “negative duty”—based critique of the current global economic order that might help revitalize Duchrow’s position. The article argues that sound reasons exist for the churches to declare the contemporary world economy a—provisionally termed—status confessionis minor. After explaining the inadequacy of Duchrow’s original position and summarizing Pogge’s account, the article develops a twofold argument. First, Pogge’s in-depth inquiry into the world economy gives Duchrow’s call for a status confessionis a strong yet narrowing economic foundation. Second, to declare the world economy a status confessionis minor is theological-ethically justifiable if the limited though indispensable “prophetic” significance of doing so is acknowledged. Thus, Duchrow’s approach is justified, but only partially.

scholarly journals Discípulos de Rawls em busca de uma concepção cosmopolita de justiça distributiva internacional

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (37) ◽  
pp. 59-73
Author(s):  
Gabriel Cepaluni ◽  
Feliciano de Sá Guimarães
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Thomas Pogge

Neste artigo, argumentamos que alguns "discípulos" de John Rawls, refletindo sobre princípios de justiça internacional, apresentam uma posição mais consistente com o espírito da obra Uma teoria da Justiça do que seu próprio autor. Autores como Charles Beitz e Thomas Pogge defendem mecanismos de justiça distributiva internacional mais condizentes com o cosmopolitismo do "princípio da diferença" da obra Uma teoria da Justiça do que qualquer outro esforço que Rawls faz nesse sentido em sua obra posterior, mais voltada para as questões internacionais: O Direito dos Povos. Mais especificamente, sustentamos que Pogge e Beitz desenvolveram argumentos (a relativização do princípio da soberania absoluta dos Estados e a transferência internacional de recursos naturais) mais sólidos para transportar o "princípio da diferença" para o cenário internacional do que a proposta rawlsiana de "dever de assistência", encontrada em O Direito dos Povos. Assim, demonstramos que os discípulos são mais fiéis ao espírito cosmopolita para o plano internacional do que Rawls por conta de três razões: a crença desses autores em uma comunidade global de concidadãos dentro de uma estrutura institucional internacional; a idéia segundo a qual a produção global de recursos coletivos deve ser redistribuída a partir de um princípio distributivo denso; e, por fim, uma redistribuição que somente pode ser justa se exigir reformas morais das instituições internacionais (Fundo Monetário Internacional, Organização Mundial do Comércio, Banco Mundial, princípio da soberania etc.) no sentido de melhorar as condições de vida dos indivíduos mais pobres de todos os povos do sistema. Este artigo pretende, portanto, discutir o legado mais progressista de autores que, ao inspirarem-se em Rawls, desenvolveram argumentos mais condizentes com o espírito cosmopolita para o plano internacional.

Justice and the Convention on Biological Diversity

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doris Schroeder ◽  
Thomas Pogge
Keyword(s):  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Sustainable Use ◽  
International Economic Order ◽  
Social Utility ◽  
Benefit Sharing ◽  
Convention On Biological Diversity ◽  
Social Rules ◽  
Biological Resources ◽  
Thomas Pogge

Justice and the Convention on Biological DiversityDoris Schroeder and Thomas PoggeBenefit sharing as envisaged by the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is a relatively new idea in international law. Within the context of non-human biological resources, it aims to guarantee the conservation of biodiversity and its sustainable use by ensuring that its custodians are adequately rewarded for its preservation.Prior to the adoption of the CBD, access to biological resources was frequently regarded as a free-for-all. Bioprospectors were able to take resources out of their natural habitat and develop commercial products without sharing benefits with states or local communities. This paper asks how CBD-style benefit-sharing fits into debates of justice. It is argued that the CBD is an example of a set of social rules designed to increase social utility. It is also argued that a common heritage of humankind principle with inbuilt benefit-sharing mechanisms would be preferable to assigning bureaucratic property rights to non-human biological resources. However, as long as the international economic order is characterized by serious distributive injustices, as reflected in the enormous poverty-related death toll in developing countries, any morally acceptable means toward redressing the balance in favor of the disadvantaged has to be welcomed. By legislating for a system of justice-in-exchange covering nonhuman biological resources in preference to a free-for-all situation, the CBD provides a small step forward in redressing the distributive justice balance. It therefore presents just legislation sensitive to the international relations context in the 21st century.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document