Gillian Brock

Frankfurt argues that there are two categories of needs that are at least prima facie morally important (relative to other claims). In this paper I examine Frankfurt's suggestion that two categories of needs, namely, nonvolitional and constrained volitional needs, are eligible for (at least prima facie) moral importance. I show both these categories to be defective because they do not necessarily meet Frankfurt's own criteria for what makes a need morally important. I suggest a further category of needs as being a more promising 'moral importance indicator'.

In this paper I raise three challenges for Moellendorf's account of cosmopolitan justice. First, I argue that in a reconstructed cosmopolitan original position we would choose a 'needs-based minimum floor principle' rather than a 'global difference principle', if these are not co-extensive. Second, I argue that Moellendorf's version of the 'equality of opportunity principle' is too vulnerable to criticisms of cultural insensitivity, though I also note that there are problems with versions of the ideal that aim for a more general formulation. I argue that those trying to develop an ideal of global equality of opportunity thus face a dilemma concerning how best to develop that ideal. Third, I review Moellendorf's account of justified intervention and indicate how we could make space for the importance of gaining proper authority under appropriate circumstance, without formally including it as a further necessary condition for justified interventions.

In this article I present four central challenges for Hennie Lötter’s book Poverty, Ethics and Justice. The first criticism takes issue with Lötter’s focus on social rather than global justice. Though he seems to be concerned with poverty everywhere, he takes social rather than global justice as the primary unit of analysis and this leads to a certain blindness to the ways in which discharging duties to the poor is a global not just society or state level project. My alternative perspective also gives us more insights into the nature of our duties to one another and can accommodate a wider range of duties. A second set of concerns revolves around what we must do to discharge our duties to the poor and what we need to know to help effectively. We come to appreciate that helping effectively is no easy matter and supplying more guidance would be helpful. Third, after discussing some relevant empirical research, I also discuss the kinds of initiatives that deserve support, that can act as rough guidelines for would-be assisters. These more simplified guidelines do not place such heavy epistemic demands on those aiming to help. Fourth, I explore whether we can offer some more guidelines for determining which of many plausible policy initiatives we should support, given that there are many good ideas and limited resources. I offer one guideline for choosing among what appear to be plausible policies to support.

What kinds of principles of justice should a cosmopolitan support? In recent years some have argued that a cosmopolitan should endorse a Global Difference Principle. It has also been suggested that a cosmopolitan should support a Principle of Global Equality of Opportunity. In this paper I examine how compelling these two suggestions are. I argue against a Global Difference Principle, but for an alternative Needs-Based Minimum Floor Principle (where these are not co-extensive, as I explain). Though I support a negative version of the Global Equality of Opportunity Principle, I argue that a more positive version of the ideal remains elusive.

The facts of global poverty are staggering. Consider, for instance, how 1.5 billion people subsist below the international poverty line, which means about a quarter of the world's current population lives in poverty. There is much talk about how freer markets will help the situation of these people, in particular how it will help the worst off. So far the evidence for this claim is fairly unclear. ‘At any rate, on several accounts, alleviating the worst aspects of poverty would impose fairly small costs on us in more affluent countries, yet we continue to do very little about alleviating this situation. For instance, a 1 per cent tax on world product would make enormous inroads in lifting people out of poverty. Alternatively, simply a shift in priorities could do this without any added taxes: a 1 per cent decrease in military spending in the developed world and a 10 per cent decrease in military spending in the developing world could have the same effect.