Gillian Brock

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 his recent review essay, Stan van Hooft raises some interesting potential challenges for cosmopolitan global justice projects, of which my version is one example.1 I am grateful to van Hooft for doing so. I hope by responding to these challenges here, others concerned with developing frameworks for analyzing issues of global justice will also learn something of value. I start by giving a very brief synopsis of key themes of my book, Global Justice,2 so I can address van Hooft’s concerns about the structure of the book. I then outline the normative thought experiment that yields the global justice framework I endorse, in order to address five main concerns van Hooft has with it. These center around problems he foresees about what it would be reasonable to agree to in the face of quite different worldviews. There are five specific concerns he identifies related to reasonableness and I address these in the third and fourth sections of this paper. (Published: 26 May 2010) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2010, pp. 155-170. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v3i2.5175

In this critical discussion of Simon Caney's global political theory, I focus on two broad areas. In the first area, I consider Caney's suggestions concerning global equality of opportunity and note several problems with how we might develop these ideas. Some of the problems concern aggregation, while others point to difficulties with what equality of opportunity means in a culturally plural world, where different societies might value, construct, and rank goods in different ways. In the second broad area of criticism I argue that Caney has been unfair to contractarians and I rally to their defense.

Philosophical theorizing about global justice has evolved into a flourishing, sophisticated, and respectable field. This was not the case about two decades ago and O’Neill’s pioneering work on these topics has been highly influential in these welcome developments. In this paper I aim to review the important role agency, need, and vulnerability play in O’Neill’s normative theorizing, as well as the importance she places on being able to allocate responsibilities, in evaluating how porous borders should be to persons who want to cross them permanently. Some of the most important questions needing resolution in political philosophy today include how to distribute responsibilities for moving towards global justice. Just how difficult this is will soon become obvious. I discuss a case study which helpfully illustrates some of the complexity. It also provides an interesting challenge for O’Neill’s work. As I show, focusing on vulnerabilities gives us a richer understanding of the nature of our ethical and political obligations in a world characterized by multiple injustices. But it also adds more challenges in our quest to assign responsibility fairly.

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.

Disturbing international inequalities in health abound. Life expectancy in Swaziland is half that in Japan. A child unfortunate enough to be born in Angola has 73 times as great a chance of dying before age 5 as a child born in Norway. A mother giving birth in southern sub-Saharan Africa has 100 times as great a chance of dying from her labor as one birthing in an industrialized country. For every mile one travels outward toward the Maryland suburbs from downtown Washington, DC on its underground rail system, life expectancy rises by a year – reflecting the race and class inequities in American health. Are the glaring, even larger, international health inequalities also unjust? All of us no doubt think they are grossly unfortunate. Many of us think they are unfair or unjust. Why should some people be at such a health disadvantage through no fault of their own, losers in a natural and social lottery assigning them birth in an unhealthy place? Others of us are troubled by the absence of the kinds of human relationships that ordinarily give rise to the claims of egalitarian justice that we make on each other – for example, being fellow citizens or even interacting in a cooperative scheme. Who has obligations of justice to reduce these international inequalities? And do those obligations hold regardless of how the inequalities came about? What institutions are accountable for addressing them?

In this article I examine how reforming our international tax regime could be an important vehicle for realizing key aspects of global gender justice. Ensuring all,including and especially multinationals, pay their fair share of taxes is crucial to ensuring that all countries, especially developing countries, are able to fund education, job training, infrastructural development, programs which promote gender equity, and so forth, thereby enabling all countries to help themselves better. I discuss various positive proposals for levying global taxes. I review why overtly gender-neutral taxes can sometimes have unintended gendered consequences, disproportionately burdening or benefiting individuals, according to their gender. Any endorsement of global taxes must take this concern into account. Fortunately there is good fit between the rationale for the Tobin tax and the way in which it can be harnessed to promote gender equity, so of the taxes discussed here, it emerges as one of the most promising. However, as I also argue, eliminating tax havens and blocking avenues that currently facilitate tax escape must also be part of the agenda to promote gender equity, given the vast amounts of revenue that currently escape taxation. In a context of globalization, fiscal policies cannot achieve equity (including gender equity) at national levels alone. Many concerns, such as clamping down on tax evasion and harmonizing corporate tax rates, can only effectively be tackled at a global level. As I also discuss, feasible arrangements for tackling such issues are available, as are mechanisms for collecting and disbursing funds in ways that promote accountability and compliance. Failing to reform our tax arrangements means that the basic institutional structure of the global economy is unjust and also involves gender injustice. Gender consciousness is indispensable for developing an adequate account of taxation justice and therefore a global institutional structure that is gender just.

The fields of global ethics and global justice have expanded considerably over the last two decades and they now cover a wide variety of topics. Given this huge range there are many areas that are ripe for important developments. In this commentary I identify some useful directions for promising exploration in the field of global justice. I argue that expanded dialogue networks would considerably enhance work in philosophy and be beneficial to other disciplines as well. I indicate also how we could develop work on allocating responsibilities for reducing global injustices in useful ways, by considering a wider range of considerations that give rise to responsibilities and expanding the scope of, and audience for, these discussions. I catalog some under-theorized topics that should get more philosophical attention . In addition, I draw attention to the ways in which a journal such as this one could facilitate a number of important dialogue ..

Cindy Holder and Bruce Landesman pose several interesting challenges for my account of Global Justice. In this article I address their concerns by discussing the content of what we owe one another. When we appreciate all the components of what it is to have a decent life, this will commit us to a much richer picture of what we owe one another than is commonly assumed when talking of decent lives. There is also considerable scope for concern with inequality when that fuller picture is presented. I discuss and clarify the importance of a shared state in securing global justice and also how, in the absence of shared state structures, we are to see our options for ensuring that our institutions treat all human beings as having equal moral worth. There is scope for compatriot partiality and appropriate attention to non-compatriots. I explain how these can readily be combined.

Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitans maintain that no national categories of people deserve special weight and that, instead, all people everywhere should be objects of moral concern. Arguably, the most developed of these accounts is the cosmopolitan democracy model articulated by David Held, so it is not surprising that it has received the most attention and criticism. In this paper, I outline Held’s model of cosmopolitan democracy and consider the objections Will Kymlicka raises to this account. I argue that Kymlicka’s objections do not undermine Held’s central claims and that Held’s cosmopolitanismremains a very promising model that deserves further attention.

Hidalgo1 argues that, contrary to widespread belief, active recruitment of health workers ‘generally refrains from enabling harm or facilitating wrongdoing’. In this commentary, I argue that the case is not yet convincing. There are a number of problems with the argument, only some of which I can sketch here. These include: Hidalgo gives an insufficient account of the relevant harms that are inflicted when healthcare workers emigrate. Relatedly, he does not take account of the underlying causes of migration and what might assist in remedying the situation. He thus fails to catalogue a wide range of losses that are born when health workers emigrate from developing countries and fails to appreciate how his recommendations undermine some of the constructive initiatives that might assist poor, developing countries. Hidalgo misrepresents the situation in developing countries, incorrectly describing government funding of tertiary education as some kind of gift, rather than an investment in creating important human capital to provide for citizens’ needs, which can mean that fair returns on investment are quite justified. With the correct descriptions in place, the grounding for various duties to reciprocate is rendered secure. There are some important problems with the empirical studies cited such that they do not provide support for Hidalgo's argument.I begin with the case for . There are large disparities in life prospects between developing and developed countries. Indeed, this wide disparity is one of the main reasons healthcare workers want to leave in the first place. If that is the main reason healthcare workers seek to exit, it is not insignificant what would address the causal, underlying problems. How do we promote prosperity in developing countries? A lively debate on this topic flourishes. However, one factor that has widespread support from all sides of the debate is that the quality of …

In Globalization and Global Justice , Nicole Hassoun offers advice on practical ways to fulfill obligations to the poor. Our recommendations must be well informed by empirical evidence, and so important research on poverty that suggests we sometimes focus inadvertently on the wrong objects in our attempted assistance efforts, deserves consideration here. We also need guidelines on how to choose from among plausible policy options on how to help the poor. I offer one and explain why some of Hassoun s policy recommendations do not meet these criteria

Justice and Needs Is it somehow a requirement of justice that we meet people's needs? So, for instance, do people in need of certain goods necessary to sustain life deserve help from those not (similarly) in need because this is a requirement of justice? According to two recent arguments (one offered by Wiggins and the other offered by Braybrooke), justice requires that needs be met. Wiggins uses a rights-based argument and Braybrooke deploys an argument which relies pivotally on the concept of respect. In this article I examine these two strategies for arguing for a connection between justice and meeting needs and show that both strategies not only fail to establish that needs should be met, but, moreover, both strategies face substantial challenges if they are ever to be successful.

Are consumers in high-income countries complicit in labor exploitation when they buy good produced in sweatshops? To focus attention we consider cases of labor exploitation such as those of exposing workers to very high risks of irreversible diseases, for instance, by failing to provide adequate safety equipment. If I purchase a product made under such conditions, what is my part in this exploitation? Is my contribution one of complicity that is blameworthy? If so, what ought I to do about such participation? I address these questions at fi rst by applying a comprehensive account recently offered by Chiara Lepora and Robert Goodin, and analyzing the results in light of some important empirical issues.

What weight should we place on self-determination, democracy, human rights and equality in an account of migration justice? Anna Stilz and Andrea Sangiovanni offer insightful comments that prompt us to consider such questions. In addressing their welcome critiques I aim to show how my account can help reduce migration injustice in our contemporary world. As I argue, there is no right to free movement across state borders. However, migrants do have rights to a fair process for determining their rights. Democratic communities should have scope to make many migration decisions, although there are constraints on that self-determination. The migration governance oversight arrangements I favor are compatible with core requirements of agency and responsiveness that are operative in mature democracies. In responding to concerns about objectionable power inequalities that often characterize temporary worker programs, I show why addressing these issues requires various institutional protections that are well enforced. Robust migration governance arrangements can assist in formulating defensible migration policies that we can implement here and now as we aim to reduce migration injustices in our current world.

In this paper I argue that if we are to have any defensible property rights at all, we must recognize a fundamental commitment to helping those in need. The argument has significant implications for all who claim defensible property rights. In this paper I concentrate on some of the implications this argument has for redefining business obligations. In particular, I show why those who typically would be quite resistant to the idea that businesses have any obligations to assist others in need must acknowledge this fundamental obligation. I also suggest how this argument contributes to our understanding of the normative basis of Stakeholder Theory.

Migration often involves leaving one home and trying to build another. Normative issues abound with both aspects, however as we reflect on issues of home and migration, it is hard to go past the thought that the plight of refugees is one of the most pressing. Being a refugee might be the equivalent of being homeless in the international context. And so considering our responsibilities in relation to the homeless in our state system seems especially worthwhile, given the conference theme and the vulnerability associated with being forcibly displaced. Here I focus particularly on the plight of large-scale refugee populations fleeing violent conflict. And I am especially focused on the Syrian case, given that it currently involves the largest displaced population, though other cases will be discussed as well. I explore how we should help refugees in ways that are likely to promote the well-being of many agents that surround refugee crises. Many of these solutions may be described as development oriented. They focus on meeting a wide range of current needs of the displaced populations (such as for autonomy, work, opportunity, and community) while also preparing that population for life after conflict.

Are corporations morally defensible sorts of entities? How might we go about showing that they are? Thomas Donaldson offers us the most detailed contractarian justification for the moral defensibility of corporations. In this paper I show how we can significantly develop this sort of justification to yield a more compelling contractarian justification, though one that is importantly conditional. The primary points I take up in this paper are these:1. The question Donaldson poses to generate his contract is not quite as simple as may appear. The sort of transformation we need to consider is more complex than the sort Donaldson describes.2. Partly because of considerations that arise in discussing the first point, the contract we are considering is a more conditionalagreement. The terms of the agreement will vary depending on the kind of state we are assuming prevails. The sort of contract we wantto draw up is at least a three-way contract: between society, productive organizations and the state. The sort of agreement we reach will have the following form: society a agrees to allow productive organizations of type b to exist if we assume state c will do various things (d1 to dn), productive organizations will do various things (e1 to en) and members of society will do various things (f1 to fn). Importantly, if state c is not doing d1 to dn, productive organizations may not be morally defensible.3. The terms of the contract that can be derived would benefit from the introduction of some of Rawls’s apparatus.4. When we consider the right questions, with more of the background institutions filled in, and when we include some more social contract apparatus, we get a better contract which fills in for us not only the obligations of business but, importantly, many obligationsfor government as well.